The attitude of McDowell and other opponents of the wind farm is: We're for renewable energy, just not here, just not now, not too fast, and certainly not too much.
Not here means not in Delaware. Not now means not anytime soon. Not too fast means that legislators should feel free to scrap the process underway for more than a year and start over. Not too much means that trying to buy smaller quantities of onshore wind power is preferable to building 450 megawatts of offshore wind in Delaware.
Members of the public are invited to speak at tomorrow's hearing. I will be there to point out the shaky assumptions behind the assertion that we can't afford wind power. On that subject, the New York Times yesterday ran a story on how resistance to building new coal power plants is leading to greater demand for higher natural gas, which leads to higher prices:
With opposition to coal plants rising across the country - including a statement by three investment banks Monday saying they are wary of financing new ones - the executives see plants fired by natural gas as the only kind that can be constructed quickly and can supply reliable power day and night.
But North American supplies of natural gas will be flat or declining in coming years, according to the Energy Information Administration. The United States already has high natural gas prices, a problem for homeowners and many industries, like chemical and fertilizer producers. Some experts fear a boom in gas demand for electricity generation will send prices even higher.
It has happened before: The price of natural gas tripled in the late 1990s and early in this decade, partly because so many companies built generators to use the fuel. Remarkably, the argument that we can't afford wind power is based on the assumption that natural gas prices will go down over the next four years. And yet some insist on calling wind power advocates unrealistic.
Source: energy-technologies.blogspot.com
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