Wind turbines are a poor way to harness energy – but a very good way to generate public subsidies, says Andrew Gilligan.
By Andrew Gilligan from The UK Telegraph
Published: 7:00AM BST 13 Jun 2010
From the summit of Plynlimon, in the deep country of the Cambrian Mountains, there is a 70-mile panorama of the Cader range, hill after green-blue hill stretching into the distance, from the peaks around Bala to the shores of Cardigan Bay.
It was a view that caught the breath. It still does, in a different way. The view from Plynlimon now is of more than 200 wind turbines, nearly a tenth of Britain’s onshore total, stretching across ridge-lines, dominating near and far horizons. The author George Borrow wrote a whole chapter on Plynlimon in his classic 19th-century travelogue, Wild Wales. It’s not so wild these days.
Last week’s decision by Miriam González Durántez, wife of the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, to join a leading wind-farm company has thrown the spotlight on one of Britain’s most controversial industries.
Mrs Durántez’s firm, Acciona, is seeking planning permission to add another 23 wind turbines to the view from Plynlimon, filling up some of the remaining skyline not yet occupied by them.
To opponents, land-based wind-turbines – there are currently 2,560 – are, in the words of the chairman of the National Trust, Simon Jenkins, “creatures from the War of the Worlds”, industrialising the countryside, invading precious landscapes.
Supporters are no less high-pitched. At the annual conference of the wind farm trade body, the BWEA, John Prescott, Mr Clegg’s predecessor, stormed: “We cannot let the squires and the gentry stop us meeting our moral obligation to pass this world on in a better state to our children. So let me tell them loud and clear: it’s not your backyard any more – it’s ours!”
The then energy and climate change secretary, now Labour leadership contender, Ed Miliband, said that it “should be socially unacceptable to be against wind turbines in your area – like not wearing your seatbelt”.
Yet like so much else in the climate change debate, the emotions – on both sides – get in the way. Presenting wind farms as either an alien scourge or a moral crusade obscures what is surely the real question: are they effective at reducing CO2 emissions? Do the benefits they bring outweigh the costs they impose?
Read the rest of the story here:
h/t Neil Jones
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I read somewhere, possibly on WUWT about companies that make electricity at night from solar cells by shining lights on them.
Because of the magic of subsidies they could suffer the huge inefficiencies of producing electricity in this manner and still make money. [If not sense.]
“Germany – which has the largest number of wind turbines in Europe – “is building five new coal power stations,—- which it does not otherwise need,—- purely to provide covering power for the fluctuations from their wind farms.”
real question: are they effective at reducing CO2 emissions?
Are they effective at producing electricity at a reasonable cost is the real Querstion.
The answer is NO!
Let me put in my plea that when specifiying the generating capacity of WF, the units should be megawatthours per year, not meagwatts. The same Dimensions, but different Units.
Nice to see this in the paper edition also.
Talking of corruption:
“Just weeks after party leader Nick Clegg became Deputy Prime Minister, his lawyer wife Miriam accepted a lucrative job with Acciona – the world’s largest provider of wind farms….”
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1285898/Chris-Huhne-pushes-tougher-action-climate-change-mean-wind-farms.html
Fellow lemmings – to the sea!
.
Of course building wind turbines is only for the benefice of the capitalists. Given the subsidies and the long-lasting contracts (25 years), the wind electricity is currently bought 5 times the nominal (read nuclear, I am from France) price here.
Who care if wind energy is produced mainly at night when nobody needs it, when the ROI is so interesting. I had requested a permit to build 10 1MW turbines on my own fields with a German firm as primary investor: it was refused last year because of the local watermelons: they don’t like others making money. I appealed the administrative decision on January 2010. Result in September or October.
The electric power from wind turbines generally replaces (backs out) equivalent power from natural gas-fired power plants, therefore the economic attractiveness of wind turbines increases as the price of natural gas increases. There was a brief period in 2008 when natural gas prices exceeded $12 per million Btu (US dollar), and wind turbines enjoyed some success. Lately the price of natural gas has tumbled to the $4 range, and is expected to remain there for a very long time. see this link for natural gas prices : http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/NG/W
The improvement in technology for extracting natural gas from shale and tight sandstone formations has greatly increased the supply of natural gas, thus driving down the price. Another source of natural gas that pushes prices downward is the development of previously stranded gas via LNG plants with shipping to consumers in large LNG tankers. This abundance is expected to exist for many decades – even if no further technology improvements are made. Stranded gas is the term for a natural gas field without a local demand, that is too far from such demand for a pipeline to be economically attractive.
To compensate for the inability of wind turbines to compete economically, governments offer subsidies. As government spending has spiraled out of control recently (see e.g. Greece, southern Europe, California and other US states, now Japan), cutbacks are inevitable. One can only wonder how long subsidies for such things as wind turbines will continue, that is, what other spending will be cut ahead of wind turbine subsidies.
Yet there are some areas where wind turbines work fairly well, as for example California. The mild climate (yes, climate) in California allows wind turbines to run year-round without issues due to icing or snow build-up. See this link for details on California’s entire renewable power production, with wind as the light blue section.
http://www.caiso.com/green/renewrpt/DailyRenewablesWatch.pdf
Well, what you need is giant gravel batteries.
Not kidding:
http://www.favstocks.com/gravel-batteries-offer-a-solution-for-renewable-energy-storage/2014342/
German article:
http://www.freitag.de/wissen/1020-leuchtender-schotter
They say 80% efficiency and dirt-cheap per kWh. My BS meter says scamsters, but who knows…
Even those in favor of windmills do not like the monsters and think them inefficient: http://nov55.com/wdm.html
This guy lists all the problems of wind power (as well as a plug for his book) http://www.windpowerfraud.com/
The only use I can see for windmills is the traditional one of using them for moving water up hill. Two lakes with a generator between is the only reasonable possibility for making the blasted things anywhere near viable for a country’s energy needs. That system would at least allow the energy to be stored so it could be used as needed.
These useless garden ornaments are not just a waste of taxpayers money, they are harmful; to the countryside, the wildlife and the humans unfortunate enough to live too near them.
The same head-in-the-sand denial of their true nature that characterises proponents of AGW is coupled with the cynicism and greed of the wind industry to create an unholy alliance.
The sooner governments emerge from their collective insanity and start building nuclear power plants the better.
“John Prescott, Mr Clegg’s predecessor, stormed: “We cannot let the squires and the gentry stop us meeting our moral obligation to pass this world on in a better state to our children. So let me tell them loud and clear: it’s not your backyard any more – it’s ours!””
This is the general attitude of the Warmist/Alarmist Climate Bedwetters, characterized by moral superiority, and ends- justify- the -means, anti-democratic principles, grounded in their anti-scientific C02 hobgoblin claptrap. It’s enough to make one sick.
Wind power is a scam operating within a scam.
We should all be singing, “Bye, Bye, Blackbirds”.
According to this article http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20006361-54.html , wind is the worst offender, in terms of land use, compared to all other electrical generation; except biomass burning which is really ridiculous.
latitude says:
June 13, 2010 at 8:45 am
“Germany – which has the largest number of wind turbines in Europe – “is building five new coal power stations,—- which it does not otherwise need,—- purely to provide covering power for the fluctuations from their wind farms.”
Might even become 10. The greens are fuming, the BUND (german environmentalists) protests because we can’t have CO2 emitting plants, can we? They just ignore the fact that the plants are needed as spinning reserve. And there is absolute silence in the German media about the connection between increasing wind and solar capacity and the need for conventional reserve capacity. German journalists don’t seem to have any knowledge about this connection. It makes you shake your head in disbelief. How can a modern industrialized nation have such a complete lack of intelligence in the media and in the political class. German greens are either dishonest or share the same lack of knowledge about energy creation. Don’t know which, not that i care about them. It’s like a supertanker heading for a cliff with the captain in a koma.
Roger Sowell,
Interesting that “small hydro” is included as a “renewable,” but regular hydro is not. Do you happen to know the basis for the distinction they are making?
One amusing fact about wind energy in Germany: Further increase in capacity hits an obstacle – the necessary power lines are lacking. How come? The energy companies that own and build the grid are forced by law to provide this transport capacity and buy every kWh from every windmill so how can they evade it?
Very simple: When you plan your new overhead power line, make sure you plan it through a corner of a nature reserve or close to a new settlement (we can expect the inhabitants to be rich officials and green engineers with young families who love nature so they moved out of the city. They will *hate* the view on a new power line in their backyard.).
You’ll have two protest initiatives in no time fighting your project in court – and as long as that’s going on – no power line to the shiny new wind turbines, no way you can pick up the valuable green kWh’s from the subsidy mills, sorry kids, you’ll have to wait…
(Heard this on german state radio, NDR info, so it’s official. Unfortunately i find no transcript on the web.)
Hansen and the rest of the cabel oppose mountain top removal for coal mining. Mountain top removal has no underground cave ins and fires.
Now they want mountain top removal for wind turbines. A wind farm has many times the foot print of a single mine.
Watch your bill double in a year for wind turbine power.
Don’t forget much of the price of electricity from wind turbines is hidden in personal income taxes.
Using the figures provided in the article who wouldn’t want to build a few turbines? They provide a government guaranteed 7% return on investment, and they don’t even have to really generate any electricity to gain it — they only need to be built.
It recalls Douglas Adams’ brilliant economic theory known as the “Shoe Event Horizon”, wherein an economy converges on producing nothing but cheaply made shoes and eventually collapses. With subsidies like these, Great Britain is on a path where nothing is made but windmills that produce no power since it matters not where they are built, only that they exist.
Obama will of course, use the Gulf oil spill to push for enormous subsidies for wind and solar. Part of the plan is to use lots of pictures of oil soaked pelicans as another reason to stop drilling and cut back on oil usage. In fairness, I wish the MSM would show a picture of birds maimed, decapitated and killed by windfarms. Are we really so stupid as to go along with this “sustainable” energy crap?
Wind does not work.At the attached link scroll down to see the real-time delivery of power to the UK grid. The UK has c4500Mw of wind capacity installed.Just now wind is delivering 0.4% of the power needed. In real terms wind is working at 3.15% of its CLAIMED efficiency.I can assure you that this has been the case for over 6 months now with very little improvement on some days and a lot worse on many.last weekend at one stage wind was generating 11Mw. Don’t be fooled by the wind industry,look for yourself. I bet that this site will be taken off line soon as the truth hurts the scammers http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm
PS about that neat site “This BMRS website provides near real time and historic data about the Balancing Mechanism which is used by the National Grid (System Operator) as a means of balancing power flows on to and off the electricity Transmission System in Great Britain.”
Actually, you don’t have to manufacture windmills to make a profit. Last I checked, a majority of new installed windmills in the US are foreign made. But, those good ole government subsidies provide a profit to those who install them. Anyone know who will pay to have old windmills removed from our land and farmers’ lands?
@Eric Anderson, re small hydro is renewable but large hydro is not.
California is unique in some ways – and this is certainly one of them. Whether large or small, hydroelectric is equally renewable from a practical standpoint. But, the goal of the greenies is behind this distinction.
This link discusses this pretty well:
http://www.energy.ca.gov/portfolio/documents/2004-05-19_meeting/comments/TURN_CALWEA_04-05-17.PDF
It appears from this 2004 document that small hydro has favored status as counting toward the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) – which seeks to have 20 percent of all power sold in California be from renewable sources by 12/31/2010, and 33 percent by 2020. The RPS’ intent is to encourage installation of new renewables. The near-impossibility of installing any new large hydroelectric projects in California means that only small hydro has a chance of development. Greenies throw a fit when a large dam is proposed – hollering something about drowning a shrub, or a couple of gophers. They turn a deaf ear to the fact that more habitat for fish and ducks will be created. Amazing how they have selective hearing. Never mind that California has mountains and valleys out the wazoo, just perfect for hydroelectric projects. Never mind that California has woefully inadequate fresh water storage that creates water shortages, periodic low-rain years, and a growing population. Oh, no. Can’t have any new water reservoirs with dams that could provide hydroelectric power. That would be simply far too logical in California.
From the link just above, the key quote is:
“The objective of the RPS program is to protect California’s existing base of renewable resources and promote the development of new renewable generation within or outside of the state in order to promote environmental objectives, lessen the use of fossil fuels, and reduce energy price volatility.”