Fourteen wind energy myths debunked

By Mike Barnard on 19 June 2012

Mr Rheese’s role is to provide negative information about wind energy. He exceeds his mandate, heading straight into massive and consistent disinformation. Virtually every word out of his mouth about wind energy is provably wrong.How many ways can you misinform, distort and spin in a single radio interview? On 9 May, 2011, Max Rheese, executive director of the organisation with the grossly misleading nameAustralian Environment Foundation, attempted to set a new record on Radio National’s conservative Counterpoint program in Australia. He managed 14 whoppers about wind energy in Australia in 17 short minutes.

This article takes each point and provides the wind reality, Mr Rheese’s counter-factual claim and the data that debunks him. At the end, there are brief outlines of both the misleadingly named Australian Environment Foundation and Mr Rheese.

Wind Reality 1: Wind power is cheap and saving Australian consumers money

The claim:every megawatt of wind power costs between $120 and $130 to produce. If we compare that to the likes of natural gas, and again, he states $54 per megawatt hour, or coal which is around about $38…

The data: According to the Australian Energy Market Operator, coal generation cost is up to double the amount of 3.8 cents per kWh Mr. Rheese selected and applies only for the dirtiest brown coal generation with extremely low fuel costs. He didn’t even pick the average price, he picked the lowest price and the one with by far the worst negative externalities.

Given that the average negative externalities of coal are 17.8 cents USD per kWh, cheap coal power is extremely expensive. The range of prices then, is from absolutely filthy 3.8 cents per kWh generation to extremely filthy 7.6 cents per kWh generation. (http://www.aemo.com.au)
(http://groundtruthtrekking.org/Reports/Coal-Electricity-Prices-Externalities-Analysis/1/
Coal-Electricity-Prices-Externalities-Levelized-Cost/)

What about wind? Well, according to the most recent study available, new wind generation is coming in at 5-7 cents per kWh full lifecycle cost of generation without subsidies according to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the US for 2012- 2013 new generation. As Australia’s wind resources are on average better than North America’s, Australia new wind farms and repowered wind farms will tend to be at the higher end of the capacity factors and lower end of the cost range, all else being equal. Australia doesn’t have quite the critical mass of domestic manufacturing and construction that the USA has built with its PTC, but is trending in that direction. (http://eetd.lbl.gov/ea/ems/reports/wind-energy-costs-2-2012.pdf)

And in Australia, wind energy is actually saving consumers money as the way energy is bought, wind energies extremely low marginal costs actually suppress prices at peaks. The Renewable Power Percentage for 2012 is 9.15%. This means that 9.15 LGCs must be retired for every 100 MWh delivered by retailers. At an average of $40 / LGC, consumers are seeing $366 added to every 100 MWh = $3.66 / MWh = $0.366 cents/kWh. i.e. the Renewable Energy Target is costing consumers around a third of a cent
/ kWh. This is massively offset by the way the market operates. Currently, they are saving consumers about $7 a year with relatively little wind penetration, but it’s adding up.