What was the central argument and point of the Bryce paper?

For your reflection I want you to read my Brief (attached the bottom) Summary of wind. Second, skim the paper(http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/ib_11.htm) by Robert Bryce (Manhattan Institute) suggesting what a bad idea wind is. (FYI: This is a dense paper – it has a lot of numbers relating to the cost of wind energy. Do your best on understanding the general arguments and take away as much as possible from his analysis. There are many facts presented, but they are presented in such a way to support his argument.)

For your reflection:

•What was the central argument and point of the Bryce paper? (We need more details than “Wind is expensive”). You need to provide enough details here to ensure that we know you read and understood the basic arguments of the paper.

•What arguments struck you as most convincing from his perspective (wind is bad)?
•What are some possible responses or rebuttal to a few of these arguments?
•Did you find anything that was obviously misleading – if so what?
•List one or two groups or organizations that fund the Manhattan Institute – the organization that Robert Bryce works for? (You will need to do a quick web search.)

NOTE: This is a very real life debate that is going on across the country! Learning about this information will be very useful to you in your life as you consider these energy sources.

Target 250 words.

*Brief Summary

While wind energy is often touted as a renewable and clean source of energy, it may come with some problems of its own. Those who are opposed to wind power cite high costs, the need for government subsidies or policies, environmental considerations, and unreliability. See The High Cost of Wind by Robert Bryce (Manhatten Institute, 2011).

Here is my quick summary of these main arguments.

High Costs: As you saw in the lecture and as shown in this EIA report “Levelized Cost . . .”, the cost of new wind is cheaper than coal (Table 1). Note that this price is without any subsidies. Wind is therefore a reasonable option if we are needing new generation capacity. It is true that it is very expensive to take existing coal plants off line and replace them with Wind Generation just to clean the air but if we are adding new electricity to meet demand it is only a little more expensive to add wind (vs something else). Also, some reports compare capital costs of these installations (MW installed) not levelized costs or costs over the life of the system ($ per MWh). Wind uses no fuel and this should be part of the equation. Of course, you also have to note that wind is not dispatchable like conventional sources. There is a value in those consistent and reliable sources of energy that can follow the load demand. This value is not part of the levelized cost analysis. Also not included in the levelized cost is the value of clean energy (carbon emissions, land use, etc.). These values would likely favor renewable sources.

Subsidies: The government (state and federal) does invest money in energy of all kinds as we saw in the previous lecture. These include direct subsidies, tax enhancements, and research investments as documented in this EIA report (Tax Subsidies). Both renewable and non-renewable energy sources are beneficiaries of this government spending. In 2010, about 11.8 billion dollars of government spending went into the electric industry with about 55% of this spent on renewables (Table ES4). However, the share of government spending on a per kWh generated basis for wind seems really high (about $0.052 per kWh) compared to non-renewables (coal) because the amount of electricity generated by wind is much less than that of coal. (Similar total dollars were spent on coal and wind but when you divide by the amount of electricity generated for coal and wind to get the statistic of $ per kwh generated, you get a very high subsidy on wind and very low on coal.)

Unreliability of Wind makes it less valuable: The wind does not always blow when we need electricity. While this is true, the problem can be solved with an improved grid system with the ability to move the wind generated electricity out to larger areas (e.g. the wind is always blowing somewhere – we just need to get it transmitted to where the demand is). Also, there is lots of research going on in electricity storage which will also help solve the problem.

Last modified: Tuesday, February 3, 2015, 9:28 AM