New DOE wind report under attack

March 13, 2015 | By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has released a new report looking at the future of wind power and its economic benefits. The report, Wind Vision: A New Era for Wind Power in the United States, contends that with technological advancements driving projected cost reductions, combined with continued siting and transmission development, wind power can be economically deployed to provide renewable power in all 50 states.

But not everyone is buying into it.

The report highlights the importance of wind in the nation's energy portfolio and how critical it is to advance wind's position in the energy marketplace to maintain the nation's existing wind manufacturing infrastructure and economic benefits. Through continued cost reductions and further investments in wind energy systems, the report projects that wind power will be directly competitive with conventional energy technologies within the next decade.

"Every year, wind becomes cost competitive in more states, and this wind vision report shows that all 50 states could have utility-scale energy by 2050," said White House Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change Dan Utech. "The United States is uniquely poised to accelerate development of this important resource and technology, and the report will help us continue to build on the strong progress we've already made."

Not surprisingly, other sources of energy in the U.S. will be threatened by the potential of wind.

"Our country uses about 25 percent of the electricity in the world. Relying on windmills to produce that electricity when nuclear power is available is the energy equivalent of going to war in sailboats when nuclear ships are available," said U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who is also chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development and a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, addressing the report's claim that wind power could product 20 percent of U.S. electricity by 2030 and 35 percent by 2050.

"After 22 years of billions of dollars in subsidies, wind still produces only 4 percent of our electricity and the windmills work only about 30 percent of the time. Nuclear power produces 20 percent of our electricity and 60 percent of our clean electricity. For more jobs and cheap, reliable power, our country needs more nuclear reactors -- not more windmills," Alexander added.

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) agrees that the expectations set out in the DOE report are unrealistic.

"We're all shaking our heads in disbelief that DOE is creating a Fantasyland where wind power -- an expensive, intermittent energy source -- can ever provide a third of the nation's base-load electricity. Even under the administration's rosiest scenario, wind power will still not be able to supplant coal use for decades," said Laura Sheehan, senior vice president for communications at ACCCE. "The U.S. government should join its citizens in the real world and craft policies that support plausible outcomes, consumers' pocketbooks and our economic needs."

But the DOE is holding firm to its research results and its claims that continued technology development will be essential to reducing costs in the near term and maximizing savings in the long term for the advancement of domestic wind energy.

"…today, wind energy is at the cusp of cost-parity with other forms of energy that we use widely in our economy," said Under Secretary for Science and Energy Lynn Orr. "The Department of Energy is prepared to take it all the way to the finish line."

For more:
- see the report

http://www.fierceenergy.com/story/new-doe-wind-report-under-attack/2015-03-13