– and protect environmental values, endangered species, jobs and human welfare
Guest post by Paul Driessen
Unprecedented! As bills to extend seemingly perpetual wind energy subsidies were again introduced by industry lobbyists late last year, taxpayers finally decided they’d had enough.
Informed and inspired by a loose but growing national coalition of groups opposed to more giveaways with no scientifically proven net benefits, thousands of citizens called their senators and representatives – and rounded up enough Nay votes to run four different bills aground. For once, democracy worked.
A shocked American Wind Energy Association and its allies began even more aggressive recruiting of well-connected Democrat and Republican political operatives and cosponsors – and introducing more proposals like HR 3307 to extend the Production Tax Credit (PTC). Parallel efforts were launched in state legislatures, to maintain mandates, subsidies, feed-in tariffs, renewable energy credits, and other “temporary” ratepayer and taxpayer obligations.
This “emerging industry” is “vitally important” to our energy future, supporters insisted. It provides “clean energy” and “over 37,000” jobs that “states can’t afford to lose.” It helps prevent global warming.
None of these sales pitches holds up under objective scrutiny, and their growing awareness of this basic reality has finally made many in Congress inclined to eliminate this wasteful spending on wind power.
Entitlement advocates are petrified at that possibility. Crony corporatist lobbyists and politicians have built a small army to take on beleaguered taxpayers, rate payers and business owners who say America can no longer afford to spend more borrowed money, to prop up energy policies that drive up electricity costs, damage the environment, and primarily benefit foreign conglomerates and a privileged few.
To confront the growing onslaught of wind industry pressure and propaganda, citizens should understand the fundamental facts about wind energy. Here are some of the top reasons for opposing further handouts.
Energy 101. It is impossible to have wind turbines without fossil fuels, especially natural gas. Turbines average only 30% of their “rated capacity” – and less than 5% on the hottest and coldest days, when electricity is needed most. They produce excessive electricity when it is least needed, and electricity cannot be stored for later use. Hydrocarbon-fired backup generators must run constantly, to fill the gap and avoid brownouts, blackouts, and grid destabilization due to constant surges and falloffs in electricity to the grid. Wind turbines frequently draw electricity from the grid, to keep blades turning when the wind is not blowing, reduce strain on turbine gears, and prevent icing during periods of winter calm.
Energy 201. Despite tens of billions in subsidies, wind turbines still generate less than 3% of US electricity. Thankfully, conventional sources keep our country running – and America still has centuries of hydrocarbon resources. It’s time our government allowed us to develop and use those resources.
Economics 101. It is likewise impossible to have wind turbines without perpetual subsidies – mostly money borrowed from Chinese banks and future generations. Wind has never been able to compete economically with traditional energy, and there is no credible evidence that it will be able to in the foreseeable future, especially with abundant natural gas costing one-fourth what it did just a few years ago. It thus makes far more sense to rely on the plentiful, reliable, affordable electricity sources that have powered our economy for decades, build more gas-fired generators – and recycle wind turbines into useful products (while preserving a few as museum exhibits).
Economics 201. As Spain, Germany, Britain and other countries have learned, wind energy mandates and subsidies drive up the price of electricity – for families, factories, hospitals, schools, offices and shops. They squeeze budgets and cost jobs. Indeed, studies have found that two to four traditional jobs are lost for every wind or other “green” job created. That means the supposed 37,000 jobs (perpetuated by $5 billion to $10 billion in combined annual subsidies, or $135,000 to $270,000 per wind job) are likely costing the United States 74,000 to 158,000 traditional jobs, while diverting billions from far more productive uses.
Environment 101. Industrial wind turbine projects require enormous quantities of rare earth metals, concrete, steel, copper, fiberglass and other raw materials, for highly inefficient turbines, multiple backup generators and thousands of miles of high-voltage transmission lines. Extracting and processing these materials, turning them into finished components, and shipping and installing the turbines and power lines involve enormous amounts of fossil fuel and extensive environmental damage. Offshore wind turbine projects are even more expensive, resource intensive and indefensible. Calling wind energy “clean” or “eco-friendly” is an extraordinary distortion of the facts.
Environment 201. Wind turbines, transmission lines and backup generators also require vast amounts of crop, scenic and wildlife habitat land. Where a typical 600-megawatt coal or gas-fired power plant requires 250-750 acres, to generate power 90-95% of the year, a 600-MW wind installation needs 40,000 to 50,000 acres (or more), to deliver 30% performance. And while gas, coal and nuclear plants can be built close to cities, wind installations must go where the wind blows, typically hundreds of miles away – adding thousands of additional acres to every project for transmission lines.
Environment 301. Sometimes referred to as “Cuisinarts of the air,” US wind turbines also slaughter nearly half a million eagles, hawks, falcons, vultures, ducks, geese, bats and other rare, threatened, endangered and otherwise protected flying creatures every year. (Those aren’t song birds killed by house cats, and this may be a conservative number, as coyotes and turbine operator cleanup crews remove much of the evidence.) But while oil companies are prosecuted for the deaths of even a dozen common ducks, turbine operators have been granted a blanket exemption from endangered and migratory species laws and penalties. Now the US Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing a formal rule to allow repeated “takings” (killings) of bald and golden eagles by wind turbines – in effect granting operators a 007 license to kill.
Environment 401. Scientific support for CO2-driven catastrophic manmade global warming continues to diminish. Even if carbon dioxide does contribute to climate change, there is no evidence that even thousands of US wind turbines will affect future global temperatures by more than a few hundredths of a degree. Not only do CO2 emissions from backup generators (and wind turbine manufacturing) offset any reductions by the turbines, but rapidly increasing emissions from Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and other rapidly developing countries dwarf any possible US wind-related CO2 reductions.
Human Health and Welfare 101. Skyrocketing electricity prices due to “renewable portfolio standards” raise heating and air conditioning costs; drive families into fuel poverty; increase food, medical, school and other costs; and force companies to lay off workers, further impairing their families’ health and welfare. The strobe-light effect, annoying audible noise, and inaudible low-frequency sound from whirling blades result in nervous fatigue, headaches, dizziness, irritability, sleep problems, and vibro-acoustic effects on people’s hearts and lungs. Land owners receive royalties for having turbines on their property, but neighbors receive no income and face adverse health effects, decreased property values and difficulty selling their homes. Formerly close-knit communities are torn apart.
Real World Civics 101. Politicians take billions from taxpayers, ratepayers and profitable businesses, to provide subsidies to Big Wind companies, who buy mostly Made Somewhere Else turbines – and then contribute millions to the politicians’ reelection campaigns, to keep the incestuous cycle going.
It is truly government gone wild – GSA on steroids. It is unsustainable. It is a classic sWINDle.
Citizens can contact senators, congressmen, congressional committees and state representatives – to demand science-based energy policies. These reasons could be a good way to start the conversation.
___________
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author or Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.
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I thought we had red-lines around taxation and parliament was sovereign in that field?
Surely, if parliament levied VAT on domestic fuel at 0% then VAT on domestic fuel is 0%.
We collect it at a national level and possession is 9/10ths of the law.
It’s time to let the wind farmers and solar farmers exist on their own, without subsidies from government ie. taxpayers. It’s just common sense. Now is the time.
Thanks David Evans. You do say that…… (my bad.)
‘Stephen Brown says:
May 8, 2012 at 11:50 pm ‘
The neta website alone should be enough to blow the argument for renewables out of the water. Every time a politician spouts off about the benefits of renewables the backdrop should be a realtime graph of the neta site. I’m surprised the site hasn’t been taken down already for reasons of national security.
Kind of off topic butstill related to “sustainable energy” and subsities for products that dont work.
Did the calcs for the Cimarron solar plant.
Total land area in US (acres) = 2,425,600,000
Cimarron plant = 250 acres
Plants fit in US = 9,702,400
Plant MW’s = 34
Total MW’s produced = 329,881,600
Total US power production in a year = 4,369,000,000
% supplied by solar plants = 7.5%
Cost of each plant = $240,000,000
Total cost = $2.33×10^15
This is considering a 100% capacity factor (not even Nuke plants have), no degredation in performance, and peak sun light 100% of the time. Is this really sustainable?
I like very much the compactness of this summary of issues. That part was well done.
Where this and other political posts perform poorly is that it doesn’t name names in the political arena. For instance, there is a link under “contribute millions” to the opensecrets.org page for “American Wind Association”. Ok, truthful information, but hopelessly down in the details. I will go so far as to say that it is lying by misdirection. Try this page instead: the page for Energy and Natural Resources PACS. Where’s the Wind PAC. It’s under Misc. Energy. And only one of many. This is enlightenment?
I care less from whom they get their campaign funds than how they voted. I care less about how they voted as whether they sponsored which bills that did what. I care less about sponsorship as how they shaped bills coming to the floor on key issues. I care less about the shaping of bills as I do about how they work to bring issues to the floor and how they keep issues from being recorded as votes.
It is the backroom whipping, vote that isn’t recorded, that matters most.
Name names. Who are the Heroes? Who are the Villains? See who the caucus sheep in the middle follow.
FYI: Here is an interesting real-time graphic of Forecast, Yesterday, and Actual Wind Power from the Texas grid agency ERCOT
http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/CURRENT_DAYCOP_HSL.html
David A. Evans says:
May 9, 2012 at 2:53 am
Well wind power in the UK is generating at 4.1% of installed capacity as I write.
DaveE.
Which as I write is 0.8% (340MW) of demand.
SandyS
M Courtney says:
May 9, 2012 at 6:07 am
Unfortunately, where VAT is concerned, once it has been charged on an item, the minimum it can be dropped to is 5%. VAT is an EU tax, levied locally. It was introduced in, (I think ’73,).
It is that lack of sovereignty which caused the furore over the so called pasty tax. As hot takeaway food was levied at standard rate and EU rules state that the same class of goods cannot be levied at a different rate, Osborne had to start taxing hot pies etc. at the same rate. It came about because of a case in Germany where it was ruled that serving hot takeaway was not a service but a good. Osborne could have reduced the rate to 5% but chose instead to just levy at 20%.
DaveE.
In CA, there isn’t enough land with the required class 5 winds to make a dent in energy needs. And that’s if you could store the power. That means if you really wanted to produce a significant percentage of electricity demand it would have to be offshore, along the coast. Right, 30,000 turbines for hundreds of miles along the coast? FAIL.
Smartgrid is needed to regulate flucuating power supply from unreliable sources like wind and solar. The way they plan to handle a sudden drop in supply is to force a sudden drop in demand. That’s called “autoresponse”. To make it work, they have to install a Home Area Network and make you purchase network capable appliances. These appliances, including TVs and even computers, will have built-in two-way communications devices that report any data available to the utility and government. There is no limit to data mining in the Energy Independence and Security Act 2007.
Without wind and solar, there is no justification for this intrusion since other forms of energy are reliable. Government know these energy sources will never work, but they want smartgrid to monitor what we do, and to replace the internet. They’ll keep the game going long enough to get what they want. GE believes it has a wide open market for new appliance sales. They are going along with their ‘ecomagination’ and get to pay 0% corporate tax. They aren’t the only ones playing that game.
It all stinks.
The part of the article I found most interesting was the claim that windmills actually draw electricity from the grid, and that the usage is a) not metered, but free, and b) not publicized at all, even to the point where the manufacturers don’t give out such numbers to purchasers.
I have difficulty believing this, but so far none of the comments appear to address it. Anyone have real-world insights about this? One thing I’m certain of is that people are generally unaware of the possibility that windmills are actually drawing net power from the grid at times. It would be really interesting to know the details as to how much they typically draw, and whether it’s metered power.
David A. Evans says:
May 9, 2012 at 7:40 am
Well I confess I did not know that. Thank you for the insight.
And thank you for being about the only one who bothered to consider the counter points I raised earlier. They do need ot be confronted unless this site does become the echo chamber it accused of being.
Stephen Rasey says:
May 9, 2012 at 7:08 am
Try this page instead: the page for Energy and Natural Resources PACS. Where’s the Wind PAC. It’s under Misc. Energy. And only one of many. This is enlightenment?
——————-
Interesting choice of words describing donations through that link.
What are: Energy Conversion Devices?
Kit P says:
May 9, 2012 at 6:07 am
“Skyrocketing electricity prices ”
Idiots say this a lot.
You then immediately quote an example in your own electricity bill of government (through policy) putting up your bill.
I’m wondering who’s the idiot?
Rod Everson says:
“I have difficulty believing this, but so far none of the comments appear to address it. Anyone have real-world insights about this? One thing I’m certain of is that people are generally unaware of the possibility that windmills are actually drawing net power from the grid at times. It would be really interesting to know the details as to how much they typically draw, and whether it’s metered power.”
When a wind turbine is offline and not generating power it still needs power to run its auxilliary systems (oil, exciter, blade feathering). this requires a backfeed from the grid. If the entire wind farm is shut down then the farm could be drawing in substantial amounts of power. (not sure how much).
Not too familiar with wind farms but if they were ever to be completely disconnected from the grid (switchyard breakers) then they would need a black-start deisel generator or something equivalent. My guess is that they are permanently tied onto the grid and supply and take power as needed.
DMarshall says:
May 8, 2012 at 11:09 pm
Here’s an idea ( or two ) – remove ALL (the thousands of) small, obsolete and broken-down turbines from Techahapi, San Gorgonio and Altamont as fast as possible and replace them with just enough larger modern turbines to keep the average electricity production the same.
Subsidize only well-sited turbines but cut the overall industry subsidies in half.
Cancel all subsidies to Big Oil and redistribute to solar projects, preferably in sunny cities, of which there are no shortage in America, and focus on large rooftop and parking lots, while encouraging citizen ownership.
———
Here’s an idea……”stop”
The government is no better than you at picking winners and losers. (Solarandra investment?)
Why don’t you just take all of the money you can scrape together and invest it in solar and wind projects without my taxpayer money.
Now that’s a good idea!
When you walk into a dark room in your house and flip the lightswitch, is it acceptable for the lights to come on (a) in 10 seconds, (b) in 1 minute, (c) 15 minutes, (d) 1 or more hours? Ask the same question about power for air heating, air conditioning, cooking, internet blogging, etc. How about if instead of full illumination, the lights came on at only 50% brightness, or less?
Now I expect that most individuals could find a way to live with energy delivery that is less than immediate or less than 100% of demand and in fact much of the world lives this way today. But I cannot conceive of anyone willing to pay the same or even more for unreliable energy as they would for reliable energy.
Now look at it from the point of view of the utility. If I operate a grid and sell power to a combination of residential and business/industrial users, why would I pay the same wholesale price for variable and unreliable supply as I would for constant and reliable supply? If I have a choice between a contract that promises constant delivery with a 95+% availability guarantee and a competing offer for variable supply “when circumstances permit”, why would I or anyone in their right mind go with the second option? That would only be rational in a world where retail customers are willing to pay more for unreliable power.
So if you are a windfarm operator and I am a power grid operator, I’m willing to buy from you only when my customer demand exceeds my constant base supply and I’m looking at firing up a peaking generator. And the price I’m willing to pay is at most my cost to get the same power from that peaking source. In the real world, I’m not willing to pay even that much because there is a chance you won’t deliver the power I need and I’ll have to fire up the peaking generator anyway. In the real world, you’ll compensate me for taking that risk by accepting a lower rate.
If I’m interpreting the Department of Energy 2011 levelized cost comparison for power generation types correctly, it looks like you’d have to subsidize about 40% of the construction cost for a windfarm to offer power at the same rate as a CCGT source. This assumes a 34% capacity factor for wind, which many people argue is higher than actual experience.
But of course you’d have to subsidize more than 40% of the construction cost because in a rational market any grid operator would demand a lower rate for unreliable power. This leads to the second half of the double-whammy of wind power: regulatory mandates on grid operators to purchase from windfarms at inflated (relative to a rational market) prices. The only way to make wind power viable for the wind operators is to force wholesale and hence retail customers to buy their product. Where have we seen that approach before? You only have to use force to get people to do things which harm them.
What we have with the current set of subsidies and regulatory mandates is the promotion of less reliable and more expensive power over other available sources. We are supposed to accept this because it provides environmental benefits. However it makes you feel, you have to admit wind provides less available, less reliable and more expensive electrical power. Speaking for myself I’d have to feel really, really good about environmental benefits to accept those penalties. And as Paul has argued, there are significant environmental drawbacks to windfarms, so even that aspect is not a clear win.
Prior to the mid 19th century, human civilization relied heavily on wind power for transportation in the form of sailing ships. The transition to wood/steam, coal/steam, oil/steam and now diesel/electric all happened because each succeeding technology was cheaper and more reliable. In 1854 the clipper ship Flying Cloud set the pure sail record from New York to San Francisco which stood for more that 100 years: 89 days, 8 hours. That’s one fourth of a year, or about half of a US baseball season — would anyone accept this today absent force? As another WUWT poster noted, all the technology advances since then haven’t made the wind blow stronger or more reliably. Windpower is not just one, but several large steps backwards.
We’ve seen claims recently that in the near future children won’t know what snow is. A more likely scenario is one where children are read bedtime stories by hand-crank generator LEDs which start like this:
and children in that future will believe it is a fairy tale.
I believe wind farms are not generally utility owned, and therefore they have to be metered to get paid. One reason for rising energy prices from renewables, especially wind power, is operation and maintenance costs. All of the moving parts need constant attention. These problems are compounded in offshore operations. Also, there is an opportunity cost with resepect to the land and even the ocean where the turbines are sited. They take up space (about 80 acres each) and are incompatible with many other uses. Humans can’t live around the large turbines. For one thing, we know when they fail, they could kill people nearby.
Hoser says:
May 9, 2012 at 8:11 am
Thanks for the clue in about Smartgrid.
For those who want the primary source.
TITLE XIII- SMART GRID SEC. 1301- 1308 STATEMENT OF POLICY ON MODERNIZATION OF ELECTRICITY GRID
Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 – SEC. 1301 – 1308
PDF of actual law: http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/oeprod/DocumentsandMedia/EISA_Title_XIII_Smart_Grid.pdf
So yes it looks like we all get shoved into buying new appliances that can be shut down by the power companies during “Brown outs” Are they going to be responsible for all the food in my freezer that goes bad because the EPA shut down the coal plants that supply 42% of the power to the USA?
All power plants regardless of untility or not are metered so that the regional grid operator knows how much power is coming and going where. the operators also need to know how much reserve they have and where they can get extra power for peak times. This reason is also another reason wind farms are not viable. They would not be able to come online whenever needed if the wind isnt there.
Hoser says:
May 9, 2012 at 8:50 am
I believe wind farms are not generally utility owned, and therefore they have to be metered to get paid.
I’m not sure if you were directing your comment to my earlier question or not, so I’ll repeat it for clarity. A link in the article went to a discussion about the grid electricity that windmills draw. In that discussion, it was posited that they might not even pay for the electricity they draw. I tend to doubt that, but surely someone must know what is typical practice.
Obviously the power provided by the windmill is metered, as you point out. The question is, does the meter run in reverse when the wind is not blowing and the blades are turning only because electricity from the grid is being used.
Again, I’ve never before seen a discussion of the amount of electricity a windmill farm draws from the grid, and yet it might be an important consideration when it comes to the economics of windmills. (The discussion at the link was quite interesting, and it’s the first I’ve seen of that nature.)
Excellent, concise, comprehensive summary. Michigan’s former governor needs to read it:
http://current.com/shows/the-war-room/videos/how-investing-in-wind-energy-can-save-american-jobs
Rod Everson says:
May 9, 2012 at 8:14 am
The part of the article I found most interesting was the claim that windmills actually draw electricity from the grid, and that the usage is a) not metered, but free, and b) not publicized at all, even to the point where the manufacturers don’t give out such numbers to purchasers.
I have difficulty believing this, but so far none of the comments appear to address it. Anyone have real-world insights about this? …..
________________________________
Someone here on WUWT addressed the issue. (you can go looking for it if you wish)
In a nut shell.
The turbine blades are so heavy and long they will warp if they do not rotate within a certain period of time therefore it is necessary to use energy from the grid to to move at least periodically. I think bearing lubrication was also part of the issue.
Rod Everson says:
May 9, 2012 at 8:14 am
Yes, Wind turbines also consume power. I seem to recall seeing a website which showed individual turbine status but unfortunately, I made the mistake of not bookmarking the site. 🙁
When you consider that the Vestas V80 turbine nacelle weight, ≈ 225-315 tonne. Somehow that must be rotated into the wind which uses 4 motors. (The V90 is lighter, using a different gearbox type.) Oil in the gearbox needs to be heated sometimes, Blades also sometimes need heating to prevent icing. When there is no wind, power is used periodically to turn the rotor to prevent deformation.
There are all sorts of things that wind turbines need power for but these I think are the main ones.
DaveE.
Wow, this is so overflowing with logical fallacies it’s hard to know where to begin.
So instead of just incurring the unwanted and unwarranted cost of erecting these new “larger modern turbines”, let’s also take on the expense of removing all the old ones. Here’s an idea, how about just remove all the old ones.
Subsidizing any of these “alternative energy” schemes is pure waste. Here’s an idea, cut the overall industry subsidies by 100%.
“Cancel all subsidies to Big Oil”? Sure, that would require destruction of the depreciation allowance and tax write-offs for exploration, investment in corporate infrastructure (including training and professional advancement programs), R&D, employee medical insurance, etc. Oh, by the way, if you do that it would be basically unconstitutional to direct this at so called “Big Oil” without it being discriminatory. Thereby removing these tax breaks and incentives for ALL businesses – large and small. Here’s an idea, let’s keep the tax code the same for all businesses (though I think we can all agree that some revision – read that as “simplification” – is in order).
Solar projects in sunny cities. Well, that SOUNDS like a splendid idea. Of course, I haven’t heard of any solar project whose ROI can make break-even – especially if you consider the subsidy as part of the expense.
Here’s an idea, how about getting the EPA and the courts out of the way so that new low or non-polluting electrical generation can be built in much less time and much less expense?