Sauce for the goose, sauce for ...

["Dukelow, James S Jr" <jim.dukelow@PNL.GOV>]

As usual, a number of RADSAFErs are speaking ex cathedra on subjects outside

their expertise that they don't appear to have done much research on.



If, everytime the topic of wind power comes up, we hark back to a 60 year

ago loss of blade accident and 20 year old economics, it doesn't appear that

we have much basis for complaining when Norm, Dave, and their ilk lift 20-,

30-, and 50-year old results from reactor safety/risk studies out of context

and emphasize the parts they like.



I am a long-time wind-power skeptic.  Our local IEEE chapter had an

interesting speaker a few months ago, Tom Osborn, one of the project

engineers on the Bonneville Power Administration's wind energy program.  His

striking bottom line was that BPA is buying or proposing to buy wind power

on 20-25 year contracts at a price of 4 to 4.5 cents per kilowatt hour

generated.  This compares with a similar offer to buy natural gas generated

power at 5-6 cents per kilowatt hour.  They asked for proposals earlier this

year and got 25 responses from private investors totaling 2600 megawatts

peak capacity.  BPA downselected seven projects totaling 830 peak megawatts

for further negociation, environmental studies, and permitting.  One of

their selection criteria was that the average power output of the project

had to be less than 50 megawatts, because larger projects require, by law, a

more elaborate public review.  All of this is part of a BPA program to have

3000 megawatts of new generation on line in 3-4 years.



BPA currently has 34 megawatts peak of wind power on line, 425 megawatts

peak in development, and the most recent 830 megawatts peak just entering

the pipeline.



BPA assumes a capacity factor of about 29% for wind farms located along the

Columbia Gorge wind corridor (from about 30 miles to 220 miles east of

Portland).  Columbia Gorge winds have turned Cascade Locks and Hood River,

Oregon into a world-wide Mecca for wind surfers.  Here in the Tri-Cities,

the March and April "termination winds" are an icon of the history of the

Hanford Site.



If you drive from the Tri-Cities to Walla Walla now, along the ridge that

tails off the east end of the Gorge, becoming part of the foothills of the

Blue Mountains, are about one to two hundred new wind machines in the

Stateline Project, being built by Florida Power & Light and  PGE (if memory

serves).



Wind farm developers don't purchase land, they "rent" wind easements at

prices negociated with individual land owners.  Farmers continue to farm

their land, which for most of the Columbia Gorge projects is planted in dry

land wheat.



Information about BPA's wind program can be found at

<www.bpa.gov/Power/PCG/Wind/>.  Particularly interesting is the transcript

of the 7 March 2001 Bidder's Conference for the insights it provides on the

commercial, environmental, and technical aspects of integrating wind power

into a large, diverse, electrical network.



Best regards.



Jim Dukelow

jim.dukelow@pnl.gov



These comments are mine and have not been reviewed and/or approved by my

management or by the U.S. Department of Energy.

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