[greasegum]

Part of the subtext seems to be that constructing these turbines was a greenwashing campaign on Chevron's part. This kind of project helps to bolster the naive impression that these are "energy companies", as one commenter alluded, not just "oil companies". So in a sense these turbines have fulfilled their purpose.

Even more insidiously, the fact that the wind farm is now sitting idle achieves oil companies' secondary goal of making green energy look bad and unreliable. Thus keeping people divided on whether to support other green power initiatives and allowing our reliance on oil to continue. Profits protected.

I don't think I'm giving them too much credit.

[JamesBarney]

The idea that Chevron is purposefully building wind farms not to operate them sounds dubious to me at best. My guess is they bungled something up because wind energy isn't their core competency.

Much more likely there is a room at Chevron where someone said "Wait who the fuck was responsible for negotiating that contract?" than "We're going to spend a bunch of money building a windfarm in Casper in order to get some small amount of good publicity, and the purposefully not operate it ?to make wind energy look bad?"

[readthenotes1]

Giving them too much credit?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Chevron

[briandear]

Nuclear energy is green and it’s very reliable. The problem is that people seem to think wind is a good idea, when it’s really a highly visible form of greenwashing.

[emn13]

Let's not downplay the simple fact that wind energy has the lowest levelized cost of electricty and has for over a decade now (in the US and AFAIK on average worldwide, not universally). As an intermittent source it's never going to be a silver bullet, but it's hardly surprising that a power source that's not just cheap but also has a long track record of being _consistently_ cheap gets a lot of usage. And the only other real competition is solar, which would likely have the same issues as wind in the specific case of the original article.

Much as nuclear energy is both green, reliable and safe - it's also hard to imagine it becoming cost-competitive at the scale that wind and solar are. Better regulation might help a bit, but even in places like South Korea where nuclear costs are unusually low and solar/wind costs unusually high they're basically competitive - and I wouldn't be surprised for solar+wind to fall in price there too, once they've slightly more mass in the market.

The focus on wind+solar over nuclear is less due to greenwashing that due to penny-pinching.

[stronglikedan]

Unfortunately, the best time to build a nuclear plant was 20 years ago. Shame.

[Jach]

The next best time is today. Fortunately for Wyoming, a new nuclear plant started construction just this year. Kemmerer isn't that far from Casper. https://energycommunities.gov/terrapower-nuclear-plant/

[itishappy]

$4 billion for 500MW, or $8 per watt. That's 2-4x the cost per watt of solar.

That's not as bad as I expected, and probably looks even better when you factor in the difference in uptime (e.g. including storage into the cost of solar).

[Izkata]

With or without subsidies?

I have no numbers but I've heard lots of times that "green" energy like wind and solar get a lot, and nuclear not so much.

[itishappy]

My numbers are price before subsidies.

The government is paying for 50% of the nuclear plant, and there's a 30% write-off on solar.

[fumeux_fume]

By "green" are you referring to the radioactive sludge it produces? ;) I'm not anti-nuclear energy, but it comes with a host of problems and costs that many nuclear energy supporters tend to gloss right over. Chief among them is that no one wants these facilities in their backyard or anywhere near their backyard. Part of this is just NIMBY-ism, but the other part is a well-warranted fear of an accident or negligence leading to contamination. It's all great until the private equity firms take over.

[olddustytrail]

How's the nuclear power production in Spain?

[SECProto]

From a quick Google, seems fine? Other than Public perception messing with the market

[olddustytrail]

Seems fine? I actually wanted some level of detail from someone living in Spain.

But thank you for your valuable contribution.

[SECProto]

Sorry, it felt like some kind of a leading "gotcha" question. Why are you wondering about nuclear power in Spain, specifically? And why only from someone living there? Both seem entirely out of context with the discussion thread, which didn't mention Spain before your comment.

If you want details from someone who can do a quick Google search, instead, I offer: It seems like there was a politically led moratorium for several decades, then allowed but regulated into impracticality. Meanwhile the reactors they built have operated well for about 40 years and provide a large portion of the country's annual electrical generation.

[olddustytrail]

Because that's where Brian is posting from. I was asking him.

Anyway, don't worry about it. It's not the most important thing happening in the world :)

[GJim]

Wind has been producing 29% of our electricity over the last year in Blighty.

Source: https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/historical

It's currently 16:31 GMT, and the 'live' feed says 17.8 % of the UK grid is currently running on wind as I'm typing this.

Source: https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/live

You must be delusional if you think wind power is greenwashing.