MidAmerican investments in Solar & Wind

[Guest longinvestor]

As promised in last year's AR, the "many times more" investment trend in renewable energy, Solar and Wind, continues. Surely, (I hope) this will be a question to be asked at the 2013 meeting. Would love to understand the first principles (as WEB/Munger/Abel think about it) behind this. There's got to be a long term advantage, with or without any tax subsidies. Something along the lines of the lower cost per ton-mile in the railroads.

[Guest longinvestor]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/midamerican-build-1-050-mw-195102217.html

 

More wind power in Iowa; With this, 39% of MidAmerican's energy production is from wind.

[Guest longinvestor]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-16/buffett-s-midamerican-gives-siemens-biggest-turbine-order.html?cmpid=yhoo

 

Interesting tidbit from this article,

 

“The U.S. is leading the way toward grid parity,” Tacke said, the point when the price for power from renewable sources becomes competitive with conventional sources of energy such as natural gas and coal. “The industry needs volume and these large orders help drive down the costs of wind power.”

 

Power from coal costs about $78.30 a megawatt-hour, compared with $82.61 for onshore wind farms, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

 

"US leading the way" should actually read "MidAmerican helping the US lead the way...". Volume they need, volume they get with MidAmerican in the driver's seat. Looking forward to Warren/Charlie speak about alt energy economics at Omaha in 2014.