Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Renewables Are Cheaper?

So while the weirdos at the Independence Institute and the rest of the Republican Party insult our intelligence with bizarre and unsubstantiated claims of higher prices from renewable energy,


Seeing this one threw me back for a moment. I haven't ran across renewable supporters before that would actually claim renewables are less expensive. Nor have I seen someone straight up claim that claims of higher prices from renewables are unsubstantiated.


Alright, maybe I had missed something. I went to do Rocky Mountain News and did a quick search on "wind power cost coal colorado". The first article I open from my search has this :

The utility says fully subscribed customers of WindSource will have to pay higher premiums - about $13 more per month compared with regular customers - because they aren't benefiting from declining natural gas prices enjoyed by regular customers.


So is Xcel simply charging more for wind power because they're greedy? If so, why is the PUC allowing them to claim that wind power is more expensive? More so, why is the PUC allow Excel to charge more for wind power?


The PUC allows Xcel Energy to charge it's customers about 25% more for wind power over regular power because wind power, a renewable, is still more expensive than generating it from other sources.


I found that with just a couple minutes of research. Why would someone claim that groups like the Independence Institute aren't even spending 5 minutes to back up their claims? To be blunt, because they don't understand the world they're talking about. Why else would someone make a claim, that there is no proof that renewable energy methods cost more than traditional means, which anyone with a couple minutes and access to Google can easily see to be false?

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