What the Politicians Aren't Telling Us About Wind Power

Below is an excerpt from My View: What Politicians Aren't Telling us About Wind Power, by Richard Allison, Santa Fe New Mexican 07/13/08 (Thanks for passing this along, bluebird!)


"...None of our politicians want to talk about the cost of wind-power generation. Wind-power generation is one of the most expensive forms of electric-power generation. I am in favor of varied sources of power generation, but only after everyone realizes what it is going to cost. The fact is that wind power is between 20 percent and 30 percent more costly than conventional power production. PNM is right in the middle at a 25 percent premium. If you don’t believe me, just look at the much-touted PNM Sky Blue program on its Web site. The additional cost for signing up for this program is $.0169 per kilowatt hour, or $1.69 per hundred kilowatt hours. This is 25 percent more than their base rate. I am really not up to paying 25 percent more on my electric bill because my ’97 Honda still needs to be fed gasoline to get to work. My energy dollar only goes so far. The politicians are not telling us that wind power can never be used to base load a power generation system. What happens when the wind does not blow, which frequently happens for days at a time even in our windy New Mexico? The base load generation must pick up the slack and this happens a lot. So, unless we are willing, which I am not, to turn off the lights when the wind does not blow, the base load generation must keep expanding. This is where the cost gets exorbitant. For every dollar invested in a megawatt of wind power generation, PNM must also have in reserve or under construction a megawatt of base load capacity. In other words, PNM must spend the money to build two power stations rather than one: the wind farm and coal/nuclear base load plant. Both the wind power farms and base load generation must be maintained, which again doubles the maintenance cost. PNM is also entitled to a return on its investment, as it is a publicly held company that must return a profit to the investors. If it were not for the tax incentives both the state and federal governments give to wind generation, power companies including PNM simply could not afford to build wind farms..."