Wind energy company folds

[westwall]

The Polar Vortex can now claim a green company. Sad that they couldn't make a go of it, but it is not surprising. Wind energy isn't efficient enough.

"Clean Currents, a Silver Spring-based provider of renewable energy for residents and businesses, said Friday it has stopped serving customers after rising wholesale electricity prices in the recent cold snap caused the company to default on payments to its supplier, electricity grid operator PJM Interconnection.

Customers, including 6,000 residential and 2,000 commercial, will not see interruptions in service, said Gary Skulnik, co-founder and president. Customers will be returned to their utility service effective immediately and will see the change reflected on one of the next two bills."


Read more: Renewable energy provider Clean Currents discontinues service - baltimoresun.com

 

[House]

Wow, that blows.

 

[Mr. H.]

Maybe they can sell their 30 year eagle kill permit to someone else?

 

[Spiderman]

Wind is a supplemental power source at best.

If we want abundant clean energy we need to start mass producing modular molten salt reactors.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Unless and until we actually support green energy, companies just can't survive. Its a shame but very typical of the US.

 

[Mr. H.]

Support it? It's being forced upon us.

 

[freedombecki]

Unless and until we actually support green energy, companies just can't survive. Its a shame but very typical of the US.

Luddly, I know from first-hand experience in the past a friend of my husband's who bought one of the first experimental windmills ever installed by the government in conjunction with a major power company. They spent years trying to see a return on the government's huge project, but the statistics were disappointing: 5% return of energy into the grid of the machine's capacity. After so many years, they sold it to our friend, who bet his electrical engineering experience could help him beat them. So in the sight of the Virginian Hotel in Medicine Bow, Wyoming, that darn windmill earned him an average of $5.00 a month off his electricity bill in one of the windiest places in the world. I got to hear the sad story of his investment one evening at a Mathcounts party the engineers threw every year after their investment in time treating 8th grade math whiz kids in the state to a tournament which would send 4 of them to Washington, D. C. math competition each year. The way he told it, though, was with wit, hilarity, and enchanting western humility, as probably the best-liked engineer in the state, if not the nation, since he was on the engineering end of the green industry on account of his investment, and he always shared the warning that the method was a profound loser, that nature was unpredictable, and that the wind turbine worried him about safety, although it was put in a remote section of the town's edge, near nothing, if it fell.

Wind energy hasn't improved, and the format barks like a dog, kills many avians and attracts unwanted predators to the vicinity that you don't want around your kids if you have them.

Just sayin'.

 

[freedombecki]

Unless and until we actually support green energy, companies just can't survive. Its a shame but very typical of the US.

The trouble with supporting the same technology over and over with bankruptcy the outcome, new ideas are needed. Instead, people get all excited when Green advocates blow out of all proportion how it's all free, how it's futuristic, etc., when actually it is none of the above. It's a dangerous, unsightly blight on the space it occupies, and to transport them to what were thought to be nowhere land were actually wildlife sanctuary for what few wild animals America had left. The osprey population has taken a dramatic dive, and it is known that when they die from blade hits, which they are attracted to, their bodies cannot be found 24 hours later due to the efficiency of predators who fatten on the carrion around the windmills. The loss of bird fertilizer in what few forests America has left could eventually decimate the Redwood forest, 5,000-year-old juniper type trees that dot the desert western ranges, and lodgepole pine stands that once were used by native Americans as the spine work for teepees, their fortresses against the cruel northwestern winters.

Well, past my bedtime again. Good evening fellow travelers. Have a great evening.

Osprey with supper:​

​

 

[flacaltenn]

I'm still confused as to what business this company was in. They were not neccessarily buying any "green" energy that was served to their clients. (There was some local wind but no where near enough). So instead they bought Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) which are a 2ndary investment in renewable projects across the nation. So the customers were investing in Nebraska and Texas and other projects.

This is akin to derivative trading. And the company had to not only buy RECs, but they had to buy the cheapest power they could find to keep the costs down to their customers. My feeling is that this actually encouraged the buying of coal and other cheap dirty power.

The RECs are only lightly regulated and the price fluctuates greatly. It's a hidden subsidy for renewables, that tradeable. And when prices went up -- this company couldn't afford BOTH the RECs and the real power sources..

If anyone understands the biz model better than that -- please post the economics of providing "phantom green" energy to folks that think they are buying clean power..

 

[westwall]

I'm still confused as to what business this company was in. They were not neccessarily buying any "green" energy that was served to their clients. (There was some local wind but no where near enough). So instead they bought Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) which are a 2ndary investment in renewable projects across the nation. So the customers were investing in Nebraska and Texas and other projects.

This is akin to derivative trading. And the company had to not only buy RECs, but they had to buy the cheapest power they could find to keep the costs down to their customers. My feeling is that this actually encouraged the buying of coal and other cheap dirty power.

The RECs are only lightly regulated and the price fluctuates greatly. It's a hidden subsidy for renewables, that tradeable. And when prices went up -- this company couldn't afford BOTH the RECs and the real power sources..

If anyone understands the biz model better than that -- please post the economics of providing "phantom green" energy to folks that think they are buying clean power..

Yep, that's the way I read it as well, they were trying to set themselves up as the ENRON of green energy.

 

[whitehall]

Wind energy was a joke. The enviro-radicals danced in the streets on the rare days when everything worked and wind energy managed to make a tiny impact on the grid but the wind production never made the grade. When you count the maintenance on each windmill it doesn't take a doctorate in economics to know that without government intervention the theory of windmills as source of energy can't possibly be cost effective.

 

[jedi1412]

I have seen wind energy and i think it is good one.. Please guide me if i am wrong to say..

 

[Pennywise]

Unless and until we actually support green energy, companies just can't survive. Its a shame but very typical of the US.

The silly simple-minded view of a child. There is no hope for society so long as many of your type exist.

 

[JiggsCasey]

The silly simple-minded view of a child. There is no hope for society so long as many of your type exist.

Holy ironies.

 

[RGR]

Holy ironies.

And Holy Ignominious Return Batman!

Jiggsy where ya been! Hiding in a cave waiting for peak oil to get everyone? Haven't you heard..it happened so many years ago now, people have forgotten how badly you defended the idea! Probably forgotten the entire thing, what with road trips, cheap natural gas, visits to Disneyland, watching NASCAR and flying around the country and whatnot.....boy is everyone glad it was as big a joke as your knowledge on the topic was!

 

[Mr. H.]

He's not Batman. I'M BATMAN.

 

[flacaltenn]

I heard some analyst say recently that the folks pushing these sketchy generation schemes are accusing critics of being backwards thinking.. And then went on to observe that they doing this with a straight face while selling 15th Century technology..

 

[Moonglow]

Support it? It's being forced upon us.

Now you know how the old timers felt about a horseless carriage....

 

[flacaltenn]

Support it? It's being forced upon us.

Now you know how the old timers felt about a horseless carriage....

Really?? We threatened to close down horse breeders? Tax them out of existence??
Regulate their emissions?? You must be really old to remember all that...

 

[percysunshine]

Breaking News!

Obama signs an Executive Order repealing the second law of thermodynamics, and commutes the death sentence of Schrödinger's cat.