Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
The Duke of Edinburgh, the husband of Queen Elizabeth, has spoken out about windmills, and he’s not happy at all. Chris Huhne, the UK Energy Secretary, has said that people who oppose windmills are “curmudgeons and fault-finders”. He finds windmills “elegant” and “beautiful”.
Figure 1. A photo of elegant windmills beautifying the otherwise inelegant, ugly UK countryside. PHOTO SOURCE
The Duke, on the other hand, thinks that windmills are an absolute disgrace. Of course that’s my translation, because being royalty, the Duke would never say something as direct and crude as that. The man who tried to sell His Dukeness the windmills reports on the conversation as follows:
“He said they were absolutely useless, completely reliant on subsidies and an absolute disgrace,” said Mr Wilmar. “I was surprised by his very frank views.”
Hmmm … well, I guess royalty may not be that much different after all. The article continues:
Mr Wilmar said his attempts to argue that onshore wind farms were one of the most cost-effective forms of renewable energy received a fierce response from the Duke.
“He said, ‘You don’t believe in fairy tales do you?’” said Mr Wilmar. “He said that they would never work as they need back-up capacity.”
The Duke won’t abide windmills on his estate. I don’t blame him one bit, I commend his understanding of the situation, and I admire his frankness. The Duke’s eldest son, the Artist Currently Known As Prince, has agreed with the Duke’s position. He won’t allow windmills on his estate either, despite The Artist’s well-known alarmism about CO2. Funny how that works, even royalty believes in NIMBY.
Actually, though, none of that was what caught my eye about the Telegraph article. The part that made my hair stand on end was this throwaway line from just before the end:
Two-thirds of the country’s wind turbines are owned by foreign companies, which are estimated to reap £500 million a year in subsidies.
Yikes! I’m too gobsmacked to even comment on that, other than to say I guess we know how they lost their Empire … not that the US is far behind …
w.
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On the BBC programme “question time” last Thursday a member of the public asked the panel(mainly politicians) the following question.
Why do poor people like widows have £50 added to their electricity bills to subsidise the owners of large estates who use their land to erect subsidised windmills.
The politicians were stumped.
The Labour member then said the last year he was in Latin America.
In his absence his mother had her electricity cut off because she could not afford to pay the bill.
A significant and growing section of the population are now classed as being in “fuel poverty”.
They are then entitled to a means tested help with the bill.
Official figures show that 27,000 people died of hypothermia last year in the UK.
When will the madness stop?
Dave Springer says:
November 20, 2011 at 12:52 pm
Teh windmills are better looking than oil wells that’s for sure. Teh windmills don’t smell bad like oil wells either. Developed oil fields are nas-tee.
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Sorry Dave. Couldn’t disagree with you more. I live on a farm surrounded by oil and gas wells, I have one on my land, and several adjacent. Never see them as they are screened by trees. Try screening a wind mill ….
The Dutchman should have known better than to repeat royal comments. Goodness knows what he was thinking of. The phrases sound authentic, though. The Telegraph has also reported today that “following complaints about the noise of rotating blades from nearby residents, operators have agreed to switch off the machines or reduce their speed when the wind is blowing too strongly”. You couldn’t make it up.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/8901431/Switch-off-for-noisy-wind-farms.html
The Welsh aren’t keen on them.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/welsh-politics/welsh-politics-news/2011/11/09/pay-attention-to-protests-against-wind-farms-peer-tells-govenment-91466-29748924/
Nor are the Dutch.
http://thegwpf.org/energy-news/4358-dutch-fall-out-of-love-with-windmills.html
As Matt Ridley has put it:
“To persist with a policy of pursuing subsidized renewable energy in the midst of a terrible recession, at a time when vast reserves of cheap low-carbon gas have suddenly become available is so perverse it borders on the insane. Nothing but bureaucratic inertia and vested interest can explain it.”
http://www.newgeography.com/content/002509-gas-against-wind
Wind farms are bad economics AND bad politics.
@Joshualdo
France & Germany. We (I speak only for England – although the Welsh/Irish/Scots have been involved!) have had the occasional disagreement with each over the last few centuries, if memory serves.
Latitude says:
November 20, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Dave says:
November 20, 2011 at 12:51 pm
Bruce. I think that at one time the WWF, Greenpeace Etc.. really were decent well intended protectors of Nature and our Natural world
============================================
Dave, I’m not picking on you….you just mentioned WWF and Greenpeace in the same post… 😉
HI Latitude.
I;m am not offended and agree with your statement, I too am sickened by the same crowd, but I did know some early Greenpeace members here in Vancouver and they weren’t the same tyrants, liars, money grabbers and bully’s we see today. In fact they are now skeptics of more than just the climate issue but the whole Eco fascist movement and are despised and hated by the present green gang including the zealot Suzuki another high living Vancouver Hypocrite.
PS. I always enjoy your comments and input.
Dave.
Don’t get too carried away with the Duke. He’s against wind power but not because it’s an expensive way to give people the energy they need. He’s against it because he believes there are too many people and they shouldn’t be allowed energy. When asked about reincarnation, he said he would come back as a deadly virus to reduce the earth’s population.
He’s not a sensible middle of the road person. He’s so far green that he believes we shouldn’t even have windmills.
It exposes the quandary of the radical greens. They can’t just say “No energy. Die”, so they propose useless windmills as a diversion on the path to their mad goal of no energy.
O H Dahlsveen says:
Thinking about it, I am not convinced that they actually need to be connected to the grid. As far as I know the turbine owners get the money and ROC for generating the electricity. If they used the entire output from the turbine to, say generate heat, and don’t feed anything into the grid they would still get paid.
When I get time I’ll have to look into it.
Anyone who recognizes my handle and remembers my normal attitude regarding these Marxists wrap-up in Environmentalist clothing, might be surprised by what I am about to say.
The WWF, quite apart from any other organization was at one point more interested in wildlife then politics. A long-long time ago, they even supported “harvesting” (aka hunting) as a useful management technique, that could be used to generate the funds needed for other conservation efforts.
“Chris B says:
November 20, 2011 at 1:01 pm
Isn’t that photo dramatically altered with Photoshop?”
Looks like it to me as they give the impression of going round, which is pretty rare in my experience of seeing them.
So he doesn’t know what his wife and son have been up to? NIMBY, windfarms lucrative for them from a deal Charles put together.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1323228/Queens-38m-year-offshore-windfarm-windfall–owns-seabed.html
Get richer schemes great for some, Lizzie claims ownership of around 70% of the seabed around Britain.
Still, good Philip said it. When it was covered on the Beeb’s press preview last night, it was downplayed to being comment about the lack of wind at times and ‘as if that hasn’t been taken into consideration’ fudge and they moved swiftly on…
Charles not quite the environmental goody two shoes he makes out he is, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/04/prince-charles-environment-estate_n_1076276.html
The funniest though is Charles and his Aston Martin, he had it converted to run on wine.. 🙂
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/2223663/Prince-Charless-Aston-Martin-is-wine-powered.html
Jeremy says:
November 20, 2011 at 1:31 pm
Absolutely. Nobody wants a coal-fried power station in their backyard either……
_______________________
ERRRrrrr I am sitting here and when I look up I see through the window a Coal fired plant AND a Nuclear plant. I can even sometimes hear them talking if the wind is right.
I figure if I am pro-nuclear I am going to live near one because I am not a hypocrite.
Interesting stuff in the UK Sunday Times (printed version).
Jonathan Leake (Environment Editor)
Quoting Professor David MacKay chief advisor to DECC. (Department of Environment and Climate Change)
1 gigawatt power station = 1400 onshore windturbines
Area required to supply Europe with electrical power = 140,000 square miles (1.5x UK land area)
Area required to supply 1 car with biofuel for one year = 158 acres
Covering the windiest 10% of the UK in windturbines would generate one 6th Uk’s energy needs.
An area of the sahara the size of Germany would be required to supply Europe’s energy needs by solar power. (No mention of night or supply lines to Northern Europe though.)
Apparently Prof MacKay soesn’t want to undermine the country’s plans to meet 20% of energy demands from renewables from 2020. He simply wanted to make clear the scale of the engineering challenge and environmental impact of covering so much of the land with turbines, solar farms or biofuel planatations. So finally an academic who is also a political advisor sees the blindingly obvious.
“Chris B says:
November 20, 2011 at 1:01 pm
‘Isn’t that photo dramatically altered with Photoshop?”
They’ve Photoshopped out all the dead birds and replaced them with live sheep.
Sheep don’t fly.. as much as plummet.
Being able to see the housing of the 3rd windmill through the blur of the left blade of the most forward windmill looks genuine. So does the fact that the blur increases the farther out one looks along a blade. The blur is probably just a matter that the camera shutter speed wasn’t fast enough to freeze the blades in time.
Standing on the Great Wall of China, the Duke suggested to some tourists that they didn’t stay too long lest they become, “Yellow and slitty eyed”. The press went wild, “How could he insult his hosts like that?” Then someone tried for an angry Chinese reaction to this ghastly faux pas. Turned out they thought yellow and slitty was a lot more attractive than pasty and bulging.
We Brits have a curious relationship with our Royals, I’ve lived here for 60 years and I couldn’t explain it.
Check out the growing opposition to windfarms – on health grounds – from this Downunder group of heavy hitters. The Explicit Cautionary Notice makes particularly good reading. Will the banks continue to provide finance for these enterprises?
http://waubrafoundation.com.au/
It is ironic but most pleasing that it should be a Duke who declared
publicly that the Green Emperor has no clothes.
TomRude says:
November 20, 2011 at 1:41 pm
How about that ABC News new stunt?….
____________________
Yes I notice it is about “Greenhouse Gases” but no one states CO2 is about 0.0360% while water vapor is up to 4% of the atmosphere. Or that Water Vapor accounts for about 95% of the Earth’s greenhouse effect or that man’s total contribution is a whopping 0.28%. Yeah about a quarter of a percent. http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
The usual lies through misdirection and omission.
Too bad the truth in advertising laws the water/dehydration fiasco ran into do not apply to this.
…the world’s climate scientists are so frightened because they see the end of their gravy train!
Link again: http://news.yahoo.com/greenhouse-gases-weren-t-invisible-123052512.html;_ylt=ArNtBcCBaWeX66oj8ABCFJZVbBAF;_ylu=X3oDMTRvdWVla2cyBGNjb2RlA2dtcHRvcDEwMDBwb29sd2lraXVwcmVzdARtaXQDTmV3cyBmb3IgeW91BHBrZwM3ZDI0MzViYi04YmI1LTM3YjgtOGZmNy1mOTVjYTUxMTFkOWEEcG9zAzcEc2VjA25ld3NfZm9yX3lvdQR2ZXIDMDFhZGM0YTAtMTM4Yy0xMWUxLTlmZmUtZDJmZjRkN2FhOTc5;_ylg=X3oDMTM1YmoxaTRmBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDYzVkNzgwMjYtYzI3YS0zYzdjLTkyNDAtMGIxZDk2ZGJkZjJlBHBzdGNhdAN3b3JsZHxldXJvcGUEcHQDc3RvcnlwYWdlBHRlc3QD;_ylv=3
Ol Dukie is not as dumb as he looks. Good for him. Too bad his wife’s government is so dodgy.
On the other hand, wind power does make a certain amount of sense when one is not anywhere near the grid. Put a meter on it and it becomes not so good. Windmills are basically local power extractors. When they are tried to be made into something they aren’t, trouble and failure results.
They would be quite practical in Nowhere, Nevada or a deserted Island like the dry tortugas.
Funny to see the NIMBY attitude run all the way up to Royalty. I’ve never been a big fan the economic subsidies given to alternative energy, nor that given to oil companies for that matter. Products and technologies should able to stand on their own, without interference from the government. Can you imagine, for example, the absurdity of the government needing to subsidize Apple several years ago to help push the ipad to market? Superior technology will win the day and the more the government interferes to “guide” the market, the more dependent the market becomes on that very same “help” to make any money.
This quote by Willis, however, requires a bit more comment:
“Yikes! I’m too gobsmacked to even comment on that, other than to say I guess we know how they lost their Empire … not that the US is far behind …”
——–
Before talking about the way the British lost their Empire, we might want to talk about how they created. Of course it was by the plundering and subjugation of dark-skinned people in far-away lands, and by the direct control of the economy by the Crown, allowing their corporate interests to call the shots and reap vast profits. One such corporate interest, directly controlled and connected to the British Crown was the East India company, whose worldwide economic reach included the trading of tea to the Colony in New England. The East India Company did not have to pay the high tariffs on the tea as did the smaller businesses, and thus controlled the marketplace thanks to the favorable treatment from the Crown. This really pissed off the merchants in Boston, and lead to the true Boston Tea Party, which was really about the too-close of an association between government and a big corporation.
It was a good thing to see the British Empire collapse, as it freed millions of people from the distant control of the crown, just as it was a very good thing that the Colonists were successful in throwing off that very same control and the unfair market dominance of the East India company that went with it. What lessons this might have for the current and future U.S. Empire I will leave for another time.
Dave says:
November 20, 2011 at 12:51 pm
“Bruce. I think that at one time the WWF, Greenpeace Etc.. really were decent well intended protectors of Nature and our Natural world”
Not so, in my experience. There might have been small divisions with noble purpose within them, but I was opposing WWF submissions in 1975 because they were outrageous in any reasonable benefit:cost study.
There was a public face and a hidden face and the latter was ugly.
Wayne Delbeke;
Try screening a wind mill ….>>>
What a waste of beer! And now my keyboard is all sticky too. Thanks a lot, lol!
You’ve gotta love him!
I’ve always been a big fan of the Duke (or ‘Phil the Greek’ as he’s known here in the UK). He’s never cared what people think about him and has a great turn of phrase:
Back in the 70s, whilst on a trip to Hong Kong, a member of the press kept badgering the Duke. Not realising his mike was on and he could be heard by all and sundry, Phil told the irritating journo, “F**k off or I’ll have you shot”.
The man’s a star and having read his pronouncements about useless wind farms he’s just gone up in my estimation by another 2000%.
There’s another shoe yet to drop on the windfarm nonsense.
How long will it be before some group of farmers sues the windfarms for altering the weather patterns downwind? A few sharp lawyers and a few climate studies…and presto! those windfarms ought to be responsible for drought, flooding, increased temperatures, decreased temperatures, earlier snow fall, later snowfall, more snowfall, less snowfall, extinction of symbiotic species like insect pollinators, increases in parasitic species, falling crop yields, falling milk yields, falling beef yields and falling down drunks.
They ought to be able to come up with enough “science” to convince a judge, they don’t actually have to be right.
Steve in SC says:
November 20, 2011 at 3:39 pm
On the other hand, wind power does make a certain amount of sense when one is not anywhere near the grid…. They would be quite practical in Nowhere, Nevada or a deserted Island like the dry tortugas.
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Wind power is good for sailing ships, pumping water, maybe grinding grain. Anything that does not need a constant reliable source of energy. Otherwise they are just a money hole that needs constant repair.