Re: [Marxism] Cuba's energy prices, random thoughts.

[dwalters@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

The price: what the consumer pays
The cost: what society pays, it cost of production.

Rod, in the US, the price you and I pay of between $110 and $140 a megawatt hour
with the cost of fuel *paid* by the energy company at less than $30, then what
you state is correct.

I think the total cost of wind power hasn't yet been born out. To wit:

1. Cost of initial capital investment (wind turbine/generator, installation)
2. Wiring lots of small turbines together
3. Cost of maintaining turbines (much higher per MW than larger
tubine/generators)
3.1...cost relative to placement, land vs sea (the latter being the fastest
growing areas of windpower)
4. Life expectancey and replacement costs of wind power.

Probably I'd say it's a lot cheaper than conventional coal or NG thermal units
and/or combustion gas turbines because of those zero fuel costs for wind
turbines...but there is the issue of reliability.

The promise of wind power has nothing to do with *replacing* fossil or nuclear
power, it's promise is that we can reduce a *large percentage* of our reliance
on these forms of fuel with wind power. But by it's very nature, windpower can
never replace on demand power like combustion gas turbine which can go from
zero to 175 MWs in 20 minutes. We can run those power plants at a lower rate
with wind power, and that's what we should be looking at.

David



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