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written by Ken , April 22, 2008

Outstanding. This is exactly what is needed.

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written by Alex , April 23, 2008

More power to them... Literally!

Just running the numbers a little, with the help of a previous press release: http://www.deere.com/en_US/jdc..._city.html

5MW is the peak output of this farm (It consists of four 1.25MW turbines), so it does not generate 5MW each day. Indeed, 16 million kWh/year is just under 2MW average output, which if true is a pretty good capacity factor (40%) for a wind farm.

This puts the $90 million project at $45 per average watt, which comes to about 25 cents/kWh (assuming 5% discount rate)... huh? What happened to the 6-8 cents/kWh they always tell us wind costs? Is this why "Small projects like Loess Hills often are not feasible"

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written by Grant , April 23, 2008

Maybe I'm just not thinking straight today, but how are you getting 25 cents/kWh from 45$/W?

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written by varek , April 23, 2008

Alex,

I think it's important to apply a critical eye to projects like this to make sure they make as much sense as we'd all like them to. So, while I appreciate that you're looking at the numbers, I'm having trouble following your calculations.

I am so not a financial guy but -- how are you dividing a capital cost by an average daily output? Shouldn't we figure out what the daily ammortized rate of that $90M is first?

Can someone who can explain the numbers weigh in here?

Hope
written by Audrey , April 23, 2008

I love the rainbow. Definitely furthers the greatness.

Precision, people
written by BBM , April 23, 2008

Maybe I'm being compulsive, but I work in a job where precision is important.

This town is NOT energy independent. It is electricity independent. This is important because electricity only accounts for about 30-40% of total energy use, on average. Its transportation energy (usually about 1/3 of the total energy use) will come from fossil fuels. Its heating (again about 1/3 of total energy use) will likely come mainly from fossil fuels (natural gas, fuel oil, etc).

Also, the town is probably not food self sufficient, or industrially self sufficient. The energy to grow, fertilize, transport food and other goods and services are most likely not included in the analysis, I bet.

Not that electrical independence is unimportant... just you guys (by you guys I mean the people that write the headlines on this site) have to be careful about conflating concepts and think critically about situations. Otherwise, you are underselling the magnitude of the energy problem.

Feasibility?
written by Tyler W. Cox , April 23, 2008

16,000,000 kWh/year @ $0.12 (my local rate) = $1,920,000/year.

So, assuming no maintenance is ever needed - I still come up with over 46 years for this project to reach a break even point.

The question I have is: Are these turbines expected to last long enough to make them feasible?

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written by tr , April 23, 2008

90 million bucks for 4 turbines? that's not a typo? 9 million maybe?

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written by curt , April 24, 2008

My congratulations to successfully accomplished wind project! Anyway, I think that's a great job and I also think we simply haven't got the right numbers to crunch at lunch (time).

Bigger energy generation projects are always presented in a very complicated way, without all important numbers. I believe, that there is a lot of spin involved(hiding/presenting).
Just an example: Britain's clearing of old nuclear waste from old nuclear power plants is going to cost taxpayers much more than $150 billion in following years, even though government published just $10b, changed to $20b, increased to $30b, increased to $40b....up to $150billion, which I am sure, is going to reach $300 billion at the end, if ever finished. That's a spin/con/lying to the public to hide the reality. They can cover all this under secrecy act.
In such a manner any serious predictions, calculations, research is simply not possible.

Denmark is a wind 'superpower' and here is one link, which shows a graphic scale about the price of generated energy. It is, however updated many years ago...so it's not fresh. There is also economic interactive calculator.

http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/econ/economic.htm
and US link about wind power
http://www.seco.cpa.state.tx.us/re_wind_links.htm

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written by Virgil , April 24, 2008

The #s also don't add up in terms of # of homes and peak capacity. 5MW / 1300 homes = 3.8KW each. Couple of electric heaters and some heavy-duty computing and lighting and TV watching, and the thing will croak.

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written by Jim , April 24, 2008

I think what's being ignored, particularly by the second poster (Alex), is that electrical generation is expensive - period. The construction of a coal fired power plant, hydro dam, or nuclear facility is astronomical and can only happen with massive subsidies and tax breaks. And with these three latter types of power generation, there are immense costs that externalized that everyone has to pay - from ruined water supplies, health impacts, air quality, destroyed and forests and mountains, and on and on.

Wind Farms and I agree yea
written by J-Lo , April 28, 2008

it juss so funny when dey got dat thing on da news about dem winmills blowing wind all in there and nuttin more. But yea, i bought one uh dem yeastedday. It didn't taste as good as they said it might. and old people, jeez dont get me started, htey so old they cant chase me when I steal theyr prune juice but they always get me when i run to da bathroom with hte runnies if ya catch my drift
peace out, yo momma!

RIGHT ON ALEX
written by mark , May 19, 2008

Alex, your numbers look right on. The media clip i saw failed to mention the 90 million price tag to build the wind turbines. Thats a little too much truth for their agenda. It seems that many readers dont get the numbers well let me simplify. u dont spend 90 million dollars to produce 2,3,or even 4 million dollars worth of power. Those who said your not good wit numbers get your calculator. The EVENTUALLY EXPECT to produce 16,000,000 kwh the average cost is 12 cents. u multiply.dont forget the point .12x16,000,000=1,920,000. 90million to make 2 million. about a 2% return. Look at it another way.It was 1300 people not 1300 households. if on average there's 5 people in a house thats about 260 households.90 million divided by 260 is nearly 35,000 dollars is each households share in dollars of the project. Certainly we need to find solutions to the problems we face, if not for ourselves then for children, but these numbers dont lie and they dont work.I thank you all for reading and for your insight. Alex keep trying to expose the truth.