Comments on the US EIA’s recently released report, Renewable Energy Consumption and Electricity Preliminary 2006 Statistics, August 2007 which you can find at www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/prelim_trends/rea_prereport.html [1]:
1. “BTU from Wind.” For those not “steeped” in EIA data and calculations, please don’t be misled by the first table that shows up on the web site which shows “BTU consumption” for each renewable energy source. As EIA explains (e.g., See page 4, at www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mer/pdf/pages/sec12_a_doc.pdf [2]) “There is no generally accepted practice for measuring the thermal conversion rates for power plants that generate electricity from hydro, wind photovoltaic, or solar thermal energy sources. Therefore EIA calculates a rate factor that is equal to the annual average heat rate factor for fossil fueled power plants in the United States.”
2. Net electricity generation is a better measure of the contribution of renewables. Data on net generation (in thousand kWh) for 2002-2006 are shown in Table 3 of the full report (which can be downloaded from the above site.) The following table shows the 2006 numbers – along with their respective share of total US electricity net generation.
2006 Renewable Sources | ||
---|---|---|
MWh | % of All | |
Biomass | 55,574,081 | 1.37% |
Waste | 16,165,384 | 0.40% |
Landfill Gas | 5,509,189 | 0.14% |
MSW Biogenic | 8,652,039 | 0.21% |
Other Biomass | 2,004,157 | 0.05% |
Wood and Derived Fuels | 39,408,697 | 0.97% |
Geothermal | 14,842,067 | 0.37% |
Hydroelectric (conv.) | 288,306,061 | 7.11% |
Solar/PV | 505,415 | 0.01% |
Wind | 25,781,754 | 0.64% |
Total | 385,009,378 | 9.50% |
All Generation | 4,052,968,000 | 100% |
3. Incomplete discussion of subsidies for wind energy. EIA’s new report has a section on wind energy that lists factors driving growth in electricity from wind. The report lists (i) Production Tax credit, (ii) RPS and state mandates, (iii) High natural gas prices, and (iv). concerns about potential “global warming.” EIA has an unfortunate habit of ignoring all the other tax breaks and subsidies that are encouraging the construction of “wind farms” such as:
(The EIA report does mention the web site, www.dsireusa.org, which has information on many but certainly not all federal and state tax breaks and subsidies for renewables.)
When evaluated on the basis of either existing or potential contribution in supplying energy for US requirements, wind energy is almost certainly THE most heavily subsidized of all energy sources – a FACT that is directly contrary to persistent claims by the wind industry that wind doesn’t get it’s “fair share.”
[Note: This is the complete article, i.e., there is no separate document to download.]
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/documents/new-eia-report-on-renewable-energy-useful-data-lacks-objectivity/
URLs in this post:
[1] www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/prelim_trends/rea_prereport.html: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/prelim_trends/rea_prereport.html
[2] www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mer/pdf/pages/sec12_a_doc.pdf: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mer/pdf/pages/sec12_a_doc.pdf