$120 Billion In Wind Power Development Stalled By Turbine Shortages, Rising Costs - Bloomberg

[hatrack]

EDIT

Equipment shortages and rising costs are stalling as much as $120 billion of offshore projects the European Union and other governments are counting on to reduce the use of fossil fuels and combat global warming. Royal Dutch Shell Plc on May 1 said it planned to sell its 33 percent stake in the London Array, the world's biggest sea-based wind park. ``It's been more difficult to build offshore projects than everyone thought,'' said Goeran Lundgren, head of Nordic power generation at Stockholm-based Vattenfall AB, which has put a 640- megawatt wind farm in the Baltic Sea on hold. ``I don't think we'll see any large-scale offshore parks until we've taken a few big development steps.''

London Array, proposed by Shell, E.ON and Dong Energy A/S in 2001, would be a collection of as many as 341 turbines 12 miles off the southeast coast of Britain. It would generate 1,000 megawatts of power, enough to supply a quarter of London's homes. Because they use wind -- not coal, oil or natural gas -- to generate electricity, such projects produce no carbon dioxide, the gas blamed for global warming. Building offshore provides access to more consistent winds and reduces objections from neighbors. The EU has set a goal of producing 4 percent of the region's electricity from sea-based installations by 2020.

``Offshore wind is going to be a hugely important part of our renewable energy policy,'' U.K. Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks said in an interview.


Shell's decision to sell its stake in London Array shows how difficult it will be to meet those goals. After the announcement on May 1, Skaerbaek, Denmark-based Dong Energy and Dusseldorf- based E.ON, Germany's biggest utility, said they may reduce the size of the project. ``Rising costs of materials,'' including steel and turbines ``are the reasons for reassessment of our position,'' said Shell spokeswoman Eurwen Thomas.

EDIT

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aqCMg0SbCbIU&refer=home

[Jacobin]

1. Ass hole oil companies

Is Shell trying to say that erecting a few dozen blades in the air offshore is more difficult than building a $1.5 billion offshore drilling platform, anchoring it in 3,000 feet of water and then spudding a well at the bottom of the fucking ocean and then drilling four miles through the sea bed?

Not to mention, putting in casing and then a production string and producing from those depths?

They just want ZERO competition from alternative fuels which is why they stuck their toes in the wind turbine market, said "oh geeze, this is just tooooooo hard", ran off laughing and tried to convince the rest of the world to go back to fossil fuels.

[phantom power]

2. It's not the oil companies.

Expensive energy means expensive everything. Including obtaining more energy. This problem even has a name: Receding Horizons.

Note, the oil companies are affected by receding horizons, just like any other candidate energy source:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=148280&mesg_id=148280

[kristopher]

4. That is one part of it.

But I believe the larger part is simply supply and demand. The demand is huge and the manufacturing capacity simply doesn't exist. I think that is a much larger component of the price run up than is material demand. I haven't done it, but compare the percentage of price increase for a given product like an automobile and the percentage price increase for a turbine and I suspect the turbine will far outstrip the other product.

[phantom power]

5. Yes, demand is elevating the price of wind and solar.

For that matter, demand is elevating the price of raw materials like steel. Automobiles might be a tricky comparison, since fuel prices and the economy have actually reduced demand for them, so their prices will have depressed. Lots of moving parts. Hard to put it all into a unified framework for comparison.

[jpak]

6. PV module and cell prices are on there way down again

the polySi bottleneck has been resolved...

[phantom power]

7. Well, solar-grade Si availability is supposedly about to go up 10x, yes?

By the end of the year, or next year?

[Dead_Parrot]

3. Dong Energy.

Uh. Huh huh huh.