The June 6 Gazette carried a letter by John R. Toedtman, representing the Caesar Rodney Institute. It is titled "UD's offshore wind plan is flawed." I would like to show how Toedtman's letter is itself flawed.
Toedtman makes reference to "our calculations," but does not make available any details about how they were made. Nor could I find any relevant details or documentation on the CRI website.
His statement that offshore wind is three to four times more expensive is not credible unless he gives details, references and what assumptions were used. The internet article titled "Analysis: record-low price for UK offshore wind is nine times cheaper than gas" at www.carbonbrief.org shows some results prove at least parts of Toedtman's claims to be in question. At meic.org, wind electricity was estimated to cost $32 per megawatt hour. Toedtman said everything but offshore wind is cheaper at $40 per megawatt hour.
His claim that CRI has "consistently warned" of "unresearched issues," etc., is at odds with my own internet research. On the contrary, readers are invited to go to emp.lbl.gov, and also do an internet search on the keyword string "power grid transmission wire overload" to find many links to massive studies of all kinds that are underway. The website offshorewind.biz is devoted to global news on offshore wind electricity. Another website full of credible information is www.nrdc.org. For soap opera politics and gossip, do a search for the article titled "How dueling PDFs explain a fight over the future of the grid" (insideclimatenews.org). This one example shows just a small sample of different studies that can give wildly different results. Toedtman's idea that nobody else is working on these problems – or that CRI is giving the one and only true result – is uninformed and misleading.
Toedtman's idea that on-land wind generation is better has the problem of ignoring local opposition from local people complaining about noise, vibration, "EM fields," bird deaths and visual damage. Remember all those anti-offshore wind complaints about wind turbines 15 miles from the beach spoiling the viewshed, etc.? It will be worse if the turbines are closer and on land.
Regarding his recommendation to use advanced nuclear, it reminds me of one article about NuScale that said we will not even see the first advanced – and unproven – nuclear electricity till at least 2030, and electricity from nukes is estimated to be $90 per megawatt hour. That is for today. Future cost overruns are more likely than not. Wikipedia has many entries on nuclear power, but the one titled "Small modular reactor" gives a good explanation. The story is not so simple and there is no performance track record yet.
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