Billions of Dollars Later, Minnesota Shows Us How Wind Power Can Fail Colossally

Minnesota is the top state for wind energy! Yay! What a good little state it is, marching to the tune of the alternative energy drums. Oh, but, wait, they are raising their carbon footprint even as they dramatically increase their wind power!

The Center of the American Experiment, a Minnesota think tank, released a new study, “Energy Policy in Minnesota: The High Cost of Failure,” which exemplifies the failure of alternative energy in Minnesota, which in their case is wind power.

Minnesota has an ambitious renewable energy policy that reduces to a pro-wind power policy. It’s a failure despite increasing wind power by 92%.

The first failure was the state installed it when electricity demand was fairly flat. This new generation capacity wasn’t needed.

Minnesota’s electricity prices for the last 20 years have been 18.2% lower than the national average but in the last five years, they’ve lost that advantage and in the last few months, it has risen above. The Minnesota electricity prices are now above the national average which comes at a cost of $4 billion and climbing.

There is no price too high for the wind power minions however.

That’s not the real failure however. The real failure is although their greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) have fallen by 6.6%, the national average has fallen by 10%.

You want to know why no doubt.

The first chart from the report shows CO2 emissions from the electric power sector have risen slightly as new power has soared.

So, why isn’t all this wind power reducing emissions? We have the answer: because wind power falls when the wind doesn’t blow, especially in the summer when electricity demand increases sharply. Therefore, the wind power needs a backup from a fossil fuel. In Minnesota, that backup is COAL!

via Powerlineblog.com

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