I was in Newcastle, NSW AU on Wednesday night to give another lecture as part of the Australian speaking tour I’m doing. I had the pleasure of following David Stockwell in a presentation, and David Archibald followed me.
We were a bit late getting there due to airplane scheduling snafus, and as we rushed from the airport at 6:15 pm we passed the coal loading terminal at Newcastle. There, as if there was some madcap attempt at sustainability, was one of those huge wind turbines like I’ve seen on the US plains. I attempted to get a photo, but my camera misfired with bad focus due to the car window, and I missed the shot.
The next morning, on the way to the airport again at 6AM, the windmill was still there, just like it was before. My driver (Anthony#2 of Team Anthony) gladly pulled over to allow me to get this shot as dawn crept in. I was incredulous that the shot hadn’t changed.
Ummm. I thought windmills were all about generating electricity, not using it. So why put torches on it that run all night? Want to bet the lighting power is coming from coal? While the turbine probably generates more power than it uses most nights, it sure seems odd.
Of course, maybe the people that run it really didn’t want a wind turbine in their coal town, and this torch lighting is their form of silent protest. Or, maybe they are proud of it and felt it needed to be illuminated all hours of the night. Maybe the lights are to warn off birds and small planes. Nobody seemed to know. Whatever the reason, I couldn’t help but be amused.
I don’t wish to demean the proud hard working people in Newcastle in any way, I just thought this was very odd and worth noting. Thanks to everyone who attended our talk. A special thank you to the two protesters handing out flyers at the city hall telling everyone how wrong we are.
Too bad you didn’t stick around to see what you were protesting about, you might have found it interesting. The flyers handed out were obviously written without the benefit of knowing what was being presented that night. Kids, do your homework.
Here is what the Newcastle wind turbine looks like during the day, note the coal terminal in the background.
From the Newcastle City Photos Blog:
Newcastle’s only big wind turbine seems to be reaching up to the sky for the breezes to keep the city running during the approaching night! Is this the future of energy, ‘free’ renewable and non polluting. For a city which has been based on technology we are slow to move on from the old coal based power structure. People want their power but what is the cost? Later generations will have to put up with the results of our excessive use and pollution it causes.
Background on Newcastle from Hunter Valley Eguide:
Newcastle lies approximately 160 kilometres north of Sydney. Newcastle is the seventh largest city in Australia and is the largest city which is not a state or federal capital. It has a population of approximately 300,000. Newcastle was founded on 30th March 1804 as a penal settlement, so has a selection of buildings old by Australian standards, as well as beaches, surf, impressive coastal scenery, bushland and a well-known lake. It is also an important port, especially for the export of coal, of which resource some 70 million tonnes passes through the city annually.
Thanks to Anthony, Sue and many others who helped out in Newcastle. On behalf of David Stockwell, David Archibald, and myself, I thank you for your hospitality and efforts.
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A post script to my previous message.
Three Chinese dynasties – the Xing, Han and Ming – built Great Walls. They each collapsed because they were bankrupted by the costs of maintaing the Walls.
History has lessons that can be learned.
Richard
Our provincial government is pulling a fast one yet the media never reports any of this garbage???
Paying 2 and 3 times the going rate for wind power and solar power and every 3 months our price of electricity keeps rising on our bills. Have to pay for this subsity somehow.
Windmills consume a lot of electricity when the wind is blowing below the cut-in wind speed, which is typically 4m/s.
Maybe it’s their version of the old Indiana Flambeau.
From the WSJ, May 7th:
So we in Massachusetts will pay more than double our current electricity cost for the privilege of using ‘free’, ‘green’ wind power. And we’re already being taxed for using ‘greenhouse’ electricity. Where’s that money going—to buy carbon credits from the Goracle?
And don’t tell me to write my congressman; his name is Ed Markey.
/Mr Lynn
One windmill in a coal town may be just loony. A forest of the useless monstrosities is criminal insanity.
“Dr A Burns says:
June 18, 2010 at 2:05 am
Electricity prices are to rise down under by up to 64% because of power companies subsidising “free” energy from the sun. This is in the form of domestic solar collectors that can feed back into the grid and earn the consumer income at a much higher rate than the cost of power from the grid.”
The up to 64% uplift in prices over 3 years was on the basis of the establishment of the CPRS. As that is not happening, rises won’t be as much, but prices will still rise. Excuse? Infrastructure upgrade costs. I guess that’s what happens when a state utility, all paid for by the taxpayer, get’s privatised. Look to Thames Water in the UK as a recent example of privatising a public utility allowing the comany to “asset strip” to pay debt in favour of it’s shareholders. No investment in repairs, no investment in infrastructure leading to consumer paying ever higher prices.
As for the solar thing here in Australia, well, if you own your roof you can install such systems however, as more and more Australians rent, and rent an apartment, that option is unavailable. So, how benefits? The businesses who make the panels and Govn’t, all at taxpayers expense.
Still in NZ, they pay GST (12.5) on their power. They pay some of the most expensive power too even considering much of their power is renewable (Geothermal and hydro). Their GST has just gone up to 15%, so even before any ETS, they already have had a 2.5% GST increase in power costs. And, going on commenst here i this thread, NZ is 2 weeks away from destrying it’s economy.
Friends:
Several here have commented that wind and solar energies are said to be “free”. And they are “free” because all sources of energy – coal, oil, gas, nuclear, etc. – are “free”.
But collecting the energy so it can be used has costs.
The costs of collecting wind and solar energies are exhorbitantly high when compared to the costs of collecting energy from coal, oil and natural gas.
Richard
The wind turbine operator in Newcastle can easily afford to light up the tower. He gets three times the rate for power produced by the turbine over the rate he pays for the lights. Like the turbine in my local town, the operator can probably afford to motor the turbine during periods of no wind and still make a profit.
Maybe they could mount a solar panel on the wind turbine facing towards the light source ?
Richard Courtney, pretty much yes, to all you have said. It may or may not be true that “the rich are not like you and me” but it is for certain true that the politicial class is not like us. We poor beknighted souls look to pragmatism for basing our decisions, but to those whose lives are dedicated to seeking and maintaining political power every decision is based on political considerations. EVERY decision. Should we promulgate support for wind generators? For belief in AGW? For war? Or peace? Human lives and human labor do not enter into the equation. The only consideration is “does this action allow us to retain power?”
typo: telling everyone who wrong we are.
the windmill is perhaps lighted at night for safety reasons.
During thunderstorms windmills can be lighten up (or rather down)….suddenly.
Mr.Watts “TEAR DOWN THAT”……. WINDMILL!
“Richard S Courtney says:
June 18, 2010 at 5:07 am
Friends:
Several here have commented that wind and solar energies are said to be “free”. And they are “free” because all sources of energy – coal, oil, gas, nuclear, etc. – are “free”.
But collecting the energy so it can be used has costs.
The costs of collecting wind and solar energies are exhorbitantly high when compared to the costs of collecting energy from coal, oil and natural gas.
Richard”
One reason why the steam engine is more “efficient” than the IC engine, it costs more to extract fuels suitable (Oil) and then refine them (So that once burnt, emit “cleaner” emissions). Mind you, the term “fossil fuel” always has bugged me. I mean, wood, peat, oil and coal are THE original bio-fuels, right?
That windmill is for carrying wind to Newcastle
Just a guess – the single large wind turbine in Newcastle is run by the CSIRO. It’s tokenism at its worst and will undoubtedly be left in place as a work of art, when global cooling takes hold.
There is an old phrase to describe sending resources to a place where they are manifestly unneeded: “…coals to Newcastle.”
From the exposure of 1/30 of a second and the amount of blurring of the blade I have calculated that a blade was taking just over two seconds to go right around. That’s fast enough to generate more than enough power to run the lights.
They look like at least 33,000 volt insulators on the poles:
http://i46.tinypic.com/2v85z49.jpg
How high is that windmill? If it works at all I’d expect it to be above all surrounding objects. That would make it an air navigation hazard which should require some lighting for avoidance. A spot light seems a bit much though.
Bottled wind could be as constant as coal (I’m just quoting wired here!)
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/compressed-air-plants/
(my remark: if they manage to solve the technical probs: collapsing structures causing earthquakes, temperature differences during compression and decompression, efficiency, absence of suitable underground structures.)
I’ll preface my comment by saying that I am neither a scientist nr an engineer, although I do have a fondness for tinkering with mechanical devices, and I spent almost a quarter century on active flying status with the Air Force, and have many of the rudimentary principles of aerodynamics ingrained in the noggin quite deeply, as my life directly depended upon their application. . .
It has always struck me about the design that seems most favored for ‘wind turbines’ – that just as I can look at the basic design of various aircraft and ascertain poor designs from rather good ones simply by nothing more than the aesthetics – these things just look “wrong” to me. True, the conclusion that they are butt ugly is by no means supportable with facts and figures rendered on a mountain of paper or gigabytes of electronic spreadsheet – but these damned things just LOOK horribly inefficient and poorly designed to my eyes, only partially engaging or exploiting the total of the wind energy passing by their spindly constructs. As I said, I’m not a professionally trained engineer, but if I were to use the analogy of automobiles, it’s like looking at a Ford Fiesta when you instinctively know that a Porsche is quite possible. Not because you’ve ever actually seen a Porsche, but that you perceive the inherent limitations of the Fiesta, even if you can’t articulate them.
My sense is that they’re doing it wrong. And making a boatload of money (as well as killing quite a lot of birds) in the process.
What sort of design ‘looks’ right to me? Tesla had some good ideas, I think. Efficient enough to make the economic equation work out? No idea. But probably better than the crap their tossing up all over the place, would be my sense of it.
Energy-wise, one could say that wind turbine is like carrying coal to Newcastle.
Anthony:
I’d like to write a guest post about my new “green” flashlight. It’s solar powered!
Just wait until some genius decides the aircraft warning lights need to be at the highest point of the windmill. The three lights whirling at the tips of the blades should make everybody dizzy. Small planes will be falling out of the sky like flies as the pilots succumb to vertigo. Now add that to a massive wind farm where there always seems to be one windmill rotating in the the opposite direction……