REALISTIC OR NOT?
by David Wojick, Ph.D., ©2018, CFACT
(Dec. 10, 2018) — Awhile back I did an article about how the radical Colorado Energy Plan, which substitutes wind for coal, was really part of a corporate strategy by the giant utility Xcel. That is, the Plan is designed to serve Xcel, not Colorado, by beefing up Xcel’s asset base with $2.5 billion worth of new generating capacity.
Xcel’s plan was to get past 50% renewables, but now they have doubled down on that. They just announced that they plan to become 100% “emissions free” by 2050. Xcel serves eight states from Colorado to Michigan, so a lot of people should be grabbing their wallets at this point.
Of course this is all based on the bogus climate change scare, but Xcel stands to make huge profits from it. Being a regulated utility, the more they spend the more they make (and the more customers pay).
Ben Fowke, chairman, president and CEO, Xcel Energy puts it this way: “We’re accelerating our carbon reduction goals because we’re encouraged by advances in technology, motivated by customers who are asking for it and committed to working with partners to make it happen.”
I doubt the customers asking for it have any idea what it will cost them.
The Greens love it of course. Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense Fund, says it is all about “carbon dioxide pollution,” which is a hoax. Here is Krupp’s claim:
“Ambitious efforts to slash carbon dioxide pollution are urgently needed. Xcel Energy’s vision will help speed the day when the United States eliminates all such pollution from its power sector, which is necessary to seize the environmental and economic opportunity of powering cars, trucks, homes and businesses with cost-effective, zero-emitting electricity.”
Colorado’s radical green Governor-elect Jared Polis is politically ecstatic, saying “When I launched my campaign back in 2017 we had a bold agenda for our state to get to 100 percent renewable by 2040. Xcel Energy’s exciting announcement today, along with the strong climate goals communities like Pueblo, Summit County, Ft. Collins, Denver and others across the state have embraced, shows we are leading the way forward right here in Colorado — by committing to a renewable and clean energy future.”
Polis and the others are deeply mistaken in thinking Xcel means 100% renewables. That is actually impossible, because wind and solar generation are highly intermittent, as I explain here. Xcel knows this too but hides it with the following vague statements:
“Achieving the long-term vision of zero-carbon electricity requires technologies that are not cost effective or commercially available today. That is why Xcel Energy is committed to ongoing work to develop advanced technologies while putting the necessary policies in place to achieve this transition.” (Emphasis added)
Read the rest here.
All I have to say is that anyone who is a wind-farm fan NEEDS to go the the Island of Hawaii where, on the windward side, there is a HUGE old wind farm. As far as the eye can see, there are gigantic wind turbines. Each and every wind turbine is rusted, falling apart, decaying, derelict. Not a one is functioning, and it appears that they have stood there for many years, nobody having the responsibility to take them down. They were probably impossible to maintain in any version of a financially-doable organization, so they were put up (probably with tax-payer funding), ran for awhile, and when the normal salt-water-associated deterioration occurred they were abandoned. The MASSIVE expenses that would have been needed to take down these outrageous eye-sores and environmental threats and bring that land back to some use were never provided for. It is a great example of wishful thinking joined to rapacious environmental film-flammery.
You want sustainability and green? If you aren’t advocating for nuclear energy, you are lying.