SPECIAL FEATURES:
 present two very different directions for America's future. Which would you choose? "Pin It")
Email
How would you spend $7 billion?
Two proposed energy projects (each with a $7 billion price tag) present two very different directions for America's future. Which would you choose?
Mon, Sep 05 2011 at 4:48 AM
Related Topics:
I attended the National Clean Energy Summit 4.0 in Las Vegas and had the chance to talk with the developers of one of the most ambitious renewable energy projects in the United States — the TransWest Express (TWE) Transmission & Sierra Madre Wind Energy Project led by Anschutz Corporation.
The proposed roughly $7-8 billion project would deliver wind power generated by 1,000 2-3 megawatt (MW) turbines located in the gusty and ironically named Carbon Country, Wyoming, via a new super DC (direct current) transmission line to a hub in southern Nevada. If successful, it would produce 9 million MWh's (megawatt-hours)* of zero-carbon, zero-pollution electricity per year — roughly enough to power the entire city of Los Angeles ... forever. No mining. No drilling. No pollution. Just clean energy from a free resource.
The cost per MWh (about $80) would be significantly lower than existing coal power (about $90) and that is without any federal or state renewable subsidies. So for those of your skeptical about my last post in which I posited that wind power would soon be cheaper than coal, this project makes it a reality.
DWE + Sierra Madre would also create as many as 18,000 jobs (12,688 in the wind farm and 5,000+ in the transmission project) helping the U.S. to regain its lost foothold in two important growth industries (wind power and next generation energy transmission) while capitalizing on what some are calling a renewable "Kuwait" for America — a pocket of Class 7-10 winds that are unrivaled in the world. The new transmission line would also help to bolster the stability of the entire western electric grid.
What a contrast with the Keystone XL pipeline! This proposed $7-8 billion project, expected to hit President Obama's desk soon for approval, would largely benefit one foreign company (TransCanada), forcing the U.S. to pay a premium for oil that no one else wants because it is so expensive and so "heavy," requiring much more refinement than typical oil.
It would criss-cross some of the most important waterways in North America, including the Missouri River and the Ogallala Aquifer (which supplies 30 percent of the nation's agricultural freshwater) putting millions of people in harm's way. Astonishingly, the State Department recently found no evidence of risk for the proposed project despite the fact that the first Keystone pipeline has had a record 12 spills since it began operation in 2010.
The two often cited benefits of Keystone XL is that it is a job creator and would help us get off foreign oil. TransCanada's job projections (500,000 ... really??) have been debunked by many people. The State Dept. puts it at something closer to 4,000-5,000. Regarding foreign oil, Kestone XL will indeed supply about 510,000 extra barrels of crude per day which sounds like a lot until you realize that this would only meet about 2.5 percent of our daily needs ... and at what cost?
A barrel of tar sands oil costs about $30 to produce (versus about $5 for a barrel of Saudi oil). And beyond the nearly incomprehensible environmental devastation it causes — 65 square miles of toxic tailings posts, cleared boreal forests, and polluted rivers — it is incredibly resource-intensive. Tar sands production uses three barrels of freshwater for every one barrel of oil produced and requires enough natural gas to heat 3 million Canadian homes, making it four times more carbon polluting than regular oil (PDF).
And for those of you who say I'm comparing apples and oranges — oil barrels and kilowatt-hours — I have this to say. Energy is energy, and wind power right now has become a viable alternative for powering our vehicles. In the lobby of NCES sat the brand new Coda sedan (I saw the prototype in China and blogged about it last year). It looks just like a Camry but goes up to 150 miles on a single 34 kWh charge. A typical U.S. driver would charge her Coda 100 times in a year (3.4 MWh's total), which means that the DWE + Sierra wind project could theoretically power about 2.9 million cars* — roughly the same as could be fueled by the Keystone XL pipeline.**
It really does feel like a line has been drawn in the tarry sand. Our nation faces a choice. Which way do we want to go? Nearly 600 people have been arrested protesting the proposed Keystone XL (and many more have signed up). They're clear about what they want for the future of our country. How do you feel about it?
Also on MNN:
- Remember when VCRs were a novelty? Watch these videos of then-new technology
- Here's a car that runs on wine and cheese
*9.8 million MWh's: 2.5 MW per turbine x 365 days x 24 hrs x 45% = 9,855 MWh's x 1000 = 9.8 million MWh's. There would be transmission losses but those would be greatly reduced by the new DWE line, so I do not factor those losses in here. A Coda sedan requires 3.4 MWh's per year so 2.9 million cars.
** 3 million cars: 510,000 barrels x 365 days x 19.5 gallons gasoline per barrel = 3.6 billion gallons gas. The crude coming from Alberta Tar sands has far lower productivity so I assume here about 50% normal production or roughly 10 gallons per barrel, yielding 1.8 billion gallons of refined gas per year. A typical car at 20 MPG averaging cars and light trucks (PDF) going 12,000 miles per year = 600 gallons per year for the average driver. 1.8 billion/600 = 3 million cars. Jet and diesel fuel production are not included in these calculations.
The opinions expressed by MNN Bloggers and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of MNN.com. While we have reviewed their content to make sure it complies with our Terms and Conditions, MNN is not responsible for the accuracy of any of their information.
You might also like:
Sign in with one of these accounts to add your comment.
EDITORS' PICKS
Advertisement
TODAY'S MOST POPULAR ON
- 13 natural remedies for the ant invasion
- 10 false facts most people think are true
- 7 surprising things Pope Francis has done in his first 100 days
- What a grocery store without bees looks like
- Yurts: Everything you ever wanted to know but were afraid to ask
- Facepalm of the week: Non-GMO salt!?
- Student science experiment finds plants won't grow near Wi-Fi router
- Too beautiful to be real? 16 surreal landscapes found on Earth
- Henry Cavill's 'Man of Steel' workout and diet
- 11 ways to open a stuck jar lid
From our sponsor
NEWSLETTER
Advertisement
I'm disabled and on a fixed income I want wind power and solar power because the utility bills keep going up. what can a disabled person do.
These projects are not mutually exclusive.
Hey, cool. Wind is coming down into the range of the politically inflated cost of nuclear ($7B for 9TWh/yr = $6.82/W, where the Vogtle project - 18.4TWh/yr - is going up at $14B, cost of $6.67/W). Further efficiency gains in wind, reductions in the legal fighting around nuclear, and some way to make coal producers pay for their externalities would bring energy costs into the realm of sanity and help eliminate our carbon footprint from electricity.
What would LA do when the wind stops blowing? It is not a 24/7 resource. Lots of stalled CODA's on the freeways :)
LOL....LOL...... 50 meters up the air doesn't stop moving. It would go forever, he must be a GOP, no brains only dollar signs
If measured only for benefit to the U.S., I vote for the wind farm, so long as all the components are made in the U.S., that Americans build the farm and run all the copper.
BTW, what is the carbon impact of making the wind mills and all associated infrastructure. It can't be zero.
All I can say is I would rather have an 100% Renewable energy grid rather than the current one we have. I can only see positives from increased investment in renewals. Putting money into our "old selves" would only make it take that much longer before we become self dependent from energy.
We should do both.
Tax payers should pay for neither. If its economically feasible major corporations will put up capitol. Let the corporations invest then make a profit on their investment.
Lets look forward and not backward. Do the wind power option! That is where the Asians and Europeans are focused right now. The tar sand oil is the last gasp of big oil. Why waste precious dollars prolonging the inevitable; we are way past peak oil.
Why not geothermal energy, cheaper (in the long run) and renewable via reinjection. Look at Finland and Iceland as an example. Geothermal is plentiful as long as there's surface water and heat from within mother earth - all of the west coast could be powered by it.
It seems like most of your facts are wrong. Heavy oil costs $8 to produce not $30, not to mention all the other errors which readers have pointed out. Canada is a foreign country, but the oil companies in Alberta are mostly American (Chevron, Exxon, Sun Oil), most of the pipeline goes through the US creating high paying construction jobs, to US refineries creating more good jobs.
Actually, it is you who needs to do the info. check, Teach. According to wiki, it costs $27 to produce tar sand oil; Yahoo answers quotes $30-$35 per barrel, versus $7 per barrel in conventional, easily reached wells. What is your source?
I would vote for clean energy. But like RVMan says, the wind project would feed California, and the oil pipeline feeds the East coast. So we should get both. There are plenty of pipelines in the USA, the refineries are getting their oil from somewhere.
Ok, the first project is enough to power LA, a city of 3 million, and that's a good thing, and meeting 2.5% of our oil needs is not nearly enough for the second project. Seems to me that the US has some 300 million people, which means only 1% live in LA. You have 2.5% vs. 1%, and he asks if the second option is worth the cost? Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of renewable energy and it sounds like a good start; I'm just against such heavily one-sided "reporting".
Moreover, the debate on wind versus oil is just another ploy to push you into party affiliation and creates no purpose other than for the fat cats of Washington, both Democrat and Republican, to make millions off your bickering. You are a drone as planned. Congrats.
These figures are terribly off. The oil also feeds diesel fuel and plastics and nylons. Not to mention fuel oil for heating. And to top it off, you compare a 45,000+ new sedan with old cars/trucks. Even a ford explorer now gets 28 mpg highway. Let's use a Prius V for comparison and factor in a Jetta Diesel for the remainder of that barrel. Suddenly we have enough fuel for 30 million cars. And now we're right back at why nobody significant is investing in wind. ITS TOO EXPENSIVE!
I wouldn't spend a dime - so that I could say I'm worth 7 Billion y'all.
Let the Canadians keep their owl, as this article says, energy is energy. California, the nations largest consumer of energy, gets 85% of its electricity right now from fossil fuels, anything that can dent that helps reduce the demand for oil and reduces our carbon footprint.
The capstone doesn't want 10-15% growth. If they did they would have stayed with the jason nuclear development plan. We would have 240 nuclear power plants by now. With another 160 in the plans before reaching its peak in 2050. Then the older facilities would be decommissioned as a resonance/legacy economy is put into place. This premature flirt with sustainability may infact cause a neoserfdom age and cost many members of the capstone their immortality.
we need free energy for everyone why do we pay per kilowat hour when they use solar energy to give to us... thats wrong . if i had 7 billion dollars the gov would have to assaniate me casue i would make everything free for the world and stop hunger world wide.
Pages