Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Wiser, Ryan, and Galen Barbose. 2008. Renewables Portfolio Standards in the United States: A
StatusReport with Data Through 2007. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Environmental Energy
Technologies Division. Berkeley. http://emp.lbl.gov/sites/all/files/PRESENTATION%20lbnl-154e-pptrevised.pdf
Figure: Annual Installation of Wind Capacity in the U.S. (through the first quarter of 2014)
Wind energy has high fixed costs. A 1 MWh wind turbine costs about $1 million to build and
install, but has marginal costs close to zero. Because fuel costs are zero, the maintenance
costs are the largest marginal costs.5 According to the Department of Energy, wind energy
Wiser, Ryan, and Galen Barbose. 2008. Renewables Portfolio Standards in the United States: A
StatusReport with Data Through 2007. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Environmental Energy
Technologies Division. Berkeley. http://emp.lbl.gov/sites/all/files/PRESENTATION%20lbnl-154e-pptrevised.pdf
has decreased in cost by more than 90% since the 1980s due to technological
advancements.6
Joseph Cullens research questions ask: do the environmental benefits of using windpowered electric generators outweigh the costs of subsidizing them? Is the cost of
subsidizing wind power less than the cost of the emissions from traditional fossil-fuel electric
generators in Texas?7
6 Department of Energy, Revolution Now: The Future Arrives for Four Clean Energy
Technologies. September 17, 2013.
http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/09/f2/200130917-revolution-now.pdf