Would generating more electricity from wind really help poor families or the environment?
By Pastor Jay Dennis From CanadaFreePress.com
We Americans are often told we must end our “addiction” to oil and coal, because they harm the environment and Earth’s climate. “Ecologically friendly” wind energy, some say, will generate 20% of America’s energy in another decade, greatly reducing carbon dioxide emissions and land use impacts from mining and drilling.
These claims are a driving force behind the cap-tax-and-trade and renewable energy bills that Congress may try to ram through during a “lame duck” session – as well as the Environmental Protection Agency’s economy-threatening regulations under its ruling that carbon dioxide “endangers human health and welfare.”
It is true that we are commanded to be good stewards of the Earth and resources God gave us. We should conserve energy, use it wisely, and minimize harmful impacts on lands and wildlife. But we also need to safeguard our health and that of our neighbors, preserve jobs, and help poor families build wealth and improve their standard of living. I want all children, not just mine, to have a better future.
Heaven knows I’m not an engineer. But Robert Bryce’s readable book, “Power Hungry,” has opened my eyes and helped me appreciate what it really means to be good stewards – and why we depend on hydrocarbons for 85% of the energy that keeps our homes, businesses and communities running smoothly.
Bryce points out that we are no more “addicted” to fossil fuels than we are to food, housing and clothing. It’s simply that fossil fuels give us more abundant, reliable and affordable energy, from less land, than any alternatives we have today. They enable us to have jobs, hospitals, cars, schools, factories, offices, stores – and living standards better than royalty enjoyed a mere century ago. As fossil fuel consumption increases, so does agriculture, commerce, mobility, comfort, convenience, health and prosperity.
Oil, natural gas, coal and gasoline also give us huge amounts of energy from small tracts of land. One oil well producing just ten barrels a day provides the energy equivalent of electricity from wind turbines on half of Delaware, according to Bryce.
Wind-based electricity is unreliable. It’s available only when the wind is blowing enough but not too hard. It can add to our electrical grid, but can’t be depended on to power a business or operating room. And no factory or city can get by just on wind power – not in my lifetime, anyway. Wind as a primary or dominant energy source is simply a mirage.
Wind turbines actually generate electricity only seven hours a day on average – and 2 hours a day on sweltering Texas summer days and frigid Minnesota winter nights. That means every watt of wind power must be backed up by gas-fired generators that kick in every time the turbine blades stop turning.
And that’s just the beginning.
Wind turbine farms need ten times more steel and concrete than a nuclear, coal or gas power plant for the same amount of electricity. You also need thousands of tons of raw materials for the backup generators and the thousands of miles of new transmission lines to get the electricity to cities hundreds of miles from the wind farms. All these materials have to be dug out of the ground someplace.
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The guy makes sense as I read it.
Bottom Link “read the rest of the story here” doesn’t seem to be working.
“Wind as a primary or dominant energy source is simply a mirage” Says it all. Given this, why the hell are we bothering with it? Anyone with an ounce of conmmonsense knows that wind as a means of generating reliable energy is useless.
Despite so many windfarms being put up over the last decade or so, they haven’t reduced CO2 emissions one iota. Simply because of the unrealiable nature of wind; they need to be backed up by 90% capacity by conventional power stations. With all the environmental issues surrounding their construction (and I include eyesaw, noise, destroying great swathes of natural beauty, killing birds as well as the amount of steel and concrete used and the fact that you still have to build conventional power stations as back up) please will someone remind me again what is their purpose? What are we trying to gain/achieve?
Well said pastor. Now get that message to your flock, your fellow pastors, your church papers, the local news and the politicians.
That’s what I call preaching the good word, Pastor!
It gets even better, so now that we’re wasting vast amounts of resources on the manufacture of solar and wind to fix a non-problem, we’ve declared related commodities rare-earth minerals and increased their cost. 90% are mined and produced in China.
Why are we installing inefficient systems to solve an energy problem?
California Voters: Vote Yes to Prop 23.
But first we need to cut down the trees for the windmills to work better
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19602-green-machine-trees-may-spell-trouble-for-wind-power.html
John from CA says on October 20, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Yes, I agree.
John from CA says:
October 20, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Why are we installing inefficient systems to solve an energy problem?,/i>
It reminds me of the Donner Party who took a ‘cut off’ (short cut) thinking it was going to be quicker and easier than the trail already made.
Dear Pastor,
I’m not much of a “church goer” but if I lived in Florida I’d be in
your church every Sunday! Thank you for your post.
pRadio
They’ll be even better when painted purple:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9067000/9067721.stm
Then again, if the insects can’t see them what about the birds?
I agree that wind power is not the road to Shangri-La.
I disagree that fossil fuel power is all that great, however. Nuclear Power is the most environmentally friendly, and ultimately the most economic, source of power we have. The sooner a majority of people realize this the sooner we will be able to become good stewards and good samaritans.
It seems to be me, and I’m just spit balling here….but wouldn’t one, perhaps the only, way of solving the inherent problems of wind and solar power, is to develop an efficient storage device?
So, why aren’t we having a “Manhattan” type project to develop batteries? (If there is a simple answer for this, I’m sorry for asking)
I know absolutely nothing about power generation, transmission and use, but isn’t the problem, the real problem, storage?
You would think that this a scientific/engineering/mass production problem worth solving. It isn’t what they are talking about that deserves notice….what they are not talking about is also worth notice.
Why isn’t the industrial storage of electrical energy a national priority?
You’re missing the point.
The move away from fossil fuels is not intended to reduce pollution and even if nuclear was totally pollution free “they” would still oppose it.
The real problem they have (greenies and the government agencies) is people and freedom.
The greenies want less people, the government want less freedom (and more money)
That’s why you will never prove that wind is not free of pollution and CO2 is not poison: You cannot prove something is wrong to someone when they already know it but chose (for their own ends) to ignore it.
re: JohnM says:
October 20, 2010 at 5:16 pm
That’s not me.
“Would generating more electricity from wind really help poor families or the environment?”.
Neither. In the UK electricity bills are slyly inflated to pay for wind power and this hits the poor hardest. As well as being an eyesore and damaging wildlife, it’s questionable if they even have any effect on limiting CO2 emissions when the costs of maintenance, spinning backup and installation are taken into account. It appears to be a scam strong armed by the government and enriching already rich people and companies.
The government could argue it was a Christian development:
Matthew 13:12
For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
Coming from Los Angeles where sun is plenty, we have a huge cost problem that isn’t really mentioned here. No homeowner wants to pay a huge upfront cost to eventually get paid back 8 years. In fact, 8 years is an underestimate. Wind is the same. One has to have giant windfarms to have a faster payback period. However, you then spend more.
Coevworld.wordpress.com
Split atoms, not birds!
Fight back, we are
http://www.palmerston-north.info
Fossil fuels Are Great. So, why don’t we leave a few of them for the kids, and grandkids? And, even if that argument doesn’t sway you, you’ve got to admit that FFs won’t last Forever.
Why not do a little wind, and a little solar, and “see” what happens?
I noticed the wording “Hot” Texas “Days,” and “Cold” Minnesota nights. What about “warm” Texas “Nights,” and Cool Minnesota Evenings. A little too slick by twice if you ask me. The Germans installed an offshore wind farm “Last Year” that has already produced more energy than was required to build it.
Cost? Wind is already cheaper than Nuclear, and about the same price that Coal was when it Spiked in 2008. A little bit less heat, and a bit more “light,” please.
Loss of Wind Causes Texas Power Grid Emergency (Reuters)
Wind energy supply dips during cold snap (The Daily Telegraph, UK)
Safe?
The Dangers of Wind Power (The New York Times)
Danish Wind Turbine Rips Itself Apart (Video)
Vulture Gets Hit By Wind Turbine (Video)
JohnM: You are being paranoid. The “greenie” in the White House is pushing nuclear power. The fringe eco groups aren’t going to have much say in what is done. The advantage of C&T is that it uses market forces to direct investments to low carbon energy. This is better than government subsidies which depend on who has the best lobbyists rather they who has the best technology. (You see this all the time in the defence industry with companies lobbying for weapons systems the military does not want. Yet no one advocates privatizing the Pentagon.) Without C&T we will have to go the big government route like we do for national defence. The consequences of continued in action are likely to be severe.
See: http://climateprogress.org/2010/10/20/ncar-daidrought-under-global-warming-a-review/
I just laugh my a$s off that Climategate put an end to the global elites plans. HaHa.
Kum Dollison says on October 20, 2010 at 5:44 pm
Not when you cost in the backup capacity you must have to deal with days when the wind does not provide enough energy.
If you like it so much why don’t you go off grid and only use wind energy?