Oregon is replacing coal power with wind. Let’s see what happens

[Valin]

Hot Air:

Jazz Shaw

August 25, 2016

 

If you live in Oregon and rely on certain fancy, high tech features of the industrial revolution such as having lights in your home and refrigerated food, you might want to start stocking up on candles and non-perishable goods. The green energy warriors have pretty much taken over the state legislature in the Beaver State for more than the past decade and they’ve managed to pass all sorts of interesting laws. One of them was a rule which says that all coal fired power will be eliminated by 2020… a deadline which is pretty much right around the corner. The Boardman Coal Plant is scheduled to shut down completely in the next few years and at that point there will be little besides wind turbines in terms of in-state power generation. What could possibly go wrong? (Fox News)

 

The massive coal-fired plant in Boardman, Ore., is just four years away from being shut down for good – at that point, Oregon coal production will be no more, after the state became the first in the nation to completely ban coal power.

 

The mandate, signed into law earlier this year, was the result of an environmentalist-fueled push by the Democrat-controlled legislature. Under the plan, coal production will end once the Boardman plant shutters in 2020 – utilities would still be able to buy coal power from out of state for another 10 years, until a 2030 deadline to end coal use entirely.

 

But the phase-out already has groups warning that residents are headed for big rate increases and brownouts.

(Snip)

 

But what will be more interesting to observe is not the bottom line people are paying, but if the lights will stay on at all. Coal currently provides more than a third of Oregon’s energy needs. The total energy provided by wind turbines accounts for… eight percent. And it’s a highly unreliable eight percent because that production drops to nearly zero every time the wind stops blowing. There are nowhere near the number of new wind turbine projects under construction right now to make up that gap even if you could ensure steady breezes blowing all year long.

 

(Snip)

[nickydog]

Along with the lights at night (and also during the day during the long, rainy winter), refrigeration, etc. they also need to factor in the electric cars that Portland drivers are so fond of. Brownouts could shut that city down.

 

Which could be a good thing because traffic in that city has become unbearable.

Edited August 25, 2016 by nickydog