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Hidden Costs of Renewable Fuels
I received an email from my alma mater, Brown University, which linked to this story:
A new Brown initiative with Constellation and Energy Development Partners will transform a former gravel pit in North Kingstown into Rhode Island’s highest-capacity contiguous solar generation project.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — As a major part of a campus-wide effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions, Brown University has finalized agreements for two renewable energy projects that are expected to produce enough combined solar and wind power to offset all on-campus electricity use.
The first project — a collaboration with Constellation, a national competitive energy provider, and Providence-based Energy Development Partners (EDP) — will create Rhode Island’s highest-capacity contiguous solar generation project across a 240-acre field on a former gravel pit in North Kingstown.
The 50-megawatt (DC) solar facility is expected to deliver 40 megawatts of converted AC power to the electrical grid. And use of the former gravel pit will avoid any encroachment on neighborhoods or large-scale tree-clearing, two quality-of-life and environmental concerns commonly associated with new renewable projects.
The North Kingstown project is expected to produce enough electricity to offset about 70 percent of Brown’s annual electricity consumption generated through fossil fuels. A second renewable energy project, an 8-megawatt wind power project being developed in Texas with another energy services provider, is expected to produce enough electricity to offset the rest of Brown’s annual use.
Cost is not mentioned in the article. When you’re charging $70K a year for tuition, room, and board, you probably don’t need to worry about no stinking costs. Also not mentioned are the energy costs to make and ship the solar facility to North Kingston (and the wind power).
When all these costs are figured in, how does it compare to buying power from an electric company? It could actually increase the use of fossil fuels. And, of course, solar panels wear out, need to be replaced, and the old ones are disposed of or recycled.
But it feels good to virtue signal.
Published in Environment
We can estimate the present value of the total cost, but not the present value of the opportunity cost. If the quantity and timing of inputs to the productive structure (labor, land, resources, and intermediate products) had been allocated according to market prices and interest rates, the value of the outputs would have been higher.
The less effect the project had on prices, the more nearly we can estimate how great the waste of resources was.
And more importantly, gasoline and other petroleum products are portable. They can be transported to places where the grid doesn’t go. If I lived in the middle of nowhere, I’d want:
A wind generator,
A solar panel,
A propane tank,
A diesel generator, and last but not least:
A treadmill hooked up to an electric generator.