Do you think wind power is viable if the government decides to suspend the subsidies?
. Energy from wind power is becoming an increasingly important source of energy, considering that the price of oil is increasingly expensive. This is especially true for oil deficiency in developing nations like India to meet their energy needs by importing oil. Provide the facts and figures, analyze opportunities and challenges facing wind energy companies in building wind farms in India.
Hi, I work for a world leading renewable energy consultants. Although my background is more technical in nature (I am an engineer), I'll have a chance to answer your question. Wind power is certainly viable in many parts of the world without subsidies. We came dangerously close to discovering exactly what it would viable in the U.S. this year, when it extended the length of the Production Tax Credit (PTC) in 2009 at the last moment as one of the "sweeteners" that managed to rescue 700 billion U.S. dollars on Wall St last. http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/nicholas/insider/thegreengrok/the-700-billion-bailout-bill-goes-green-no, but all current subsidy for wind power in the U.S. PTC is that a tax credit is currently equal to 2 cents per kWh. The price of electricity varies considerably by region, so that some regions are more closely linked to PTC than others to make the economy of a wind project work. For example, the price of electricity is only 4.5 cents per kWh in the Midwest (eg, Oklahoma, Kansas, North Dakota), so additional 2 cents per kWh makes a big difference. In other parts of the country (California, Hawaii, New England), the price of electricity is over 10 cents per kWh, for that the 2 percent tax credit there is relatively less valuable. The conclusion is that there are several sites under development now in the U.S. that are good enough to justify being built without the 2 cents per kWh tax credit – select these places are very windy, near a transmission line, and / or areas with high electricity prices. Without the subsidy, the growth of wind power in the U.S. (the same goes for the rest of the world, to my knowledge) would be seriously affected. Thousands of people would be fired, an important part of the projects were canceled, and we all go back to burning a lot of cheap and dirty coal, nuclear, hydropower and natural gas to eventually occupy the balance of our energy needs. As to your question on imported oil in countries like India, I think it might be a little wrong. Wind energy does not provide transportation fuel, electricity only. Until we have a way of developing the economy hydrogen (http://auto.howstuffworks.com/hydrogen-economy.htm, convert electricity from hydrogen fuel distributed through a national infrastructure we do not have, and put it in cars that are currently cost prohibitive), we're still addicted to oil. The alternative to oil (for now) is ethanol. Especially in places like Brazil, which has plenty of land and a great climate for growing sugar cane ethanol in place of subsidized corn ethanol we produce here in U.S. wind power is the cheapest form of renewable energy available today, and will be cheaper in the coming years as the crisis Credit corrects what is a sellers' market has massive wind turbines in recent years. Competition in the manufacture of wind turbines is up, and the cost steel (the towers of 80 m) and cement (mass basis) is below. These factors lead to wind energy becoming cheaper in the coming years. Energy wind can be cost-competitive with natural gas, the compensation of our need for this finite resource and (hopefully) lower prices for consumers. That is the long-term benefit of the subsidy – Get the construction industry so far, so it will be well established for a future of increasingly scarce oil and natural gas, which is being imported from unstable parts of the world.
Duquesne Incline, The Machines Inside
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