Guest essay by Viv Forbes
Wind power is not free. All natural energy resources such as coal, wind and sun appear “free” – no one has to incur costs to create them. But turning a “free” resource into usable electricity costs money for collecting, generating and distributing that energy. To consumers and tax payers, the real cost of wind power is very high, no matter how well it is hidden by politicians.
Wind power is not reliable. No one can make the wind blow when the energy is needed – in fact, wind farms produce, on average, less than 30% of their nameplate capacity, often at times of lower demand.
Wind power harms the environment. Because of the large area of land needed to collect low-density wind energy, wind power requires more land-clearing, needs more transmission lines, kills more wildlife, lights more bushfires and uglifies more landscape per unit of electricity than conventional power. And the subsonic whine of the turbines drives neighbours batty and devalues local properties.
Like hydro-power, wind power is limited, with few suitable sites. And every wind turbine slows the wind, thus reducing the wind energy available to any downwind turbines. It is “renewable’ but it is not unlimited.
Wind power is justified by claims that it reduces emissions and thus reduces global warming. However, when all the steel, concrete, construction, maintenance, replacement and rehabilitation are taken into account, wind power contributes nothing to reducing emissions or changing global climate.
However wind turbines DO change the local weather. Wind is the major component of weather. Winds bring moisture to the inland, clear pollution from the cities, and change air temperatures everywhere. Wind towers rob the wind of its energy, affecting local wind speeds and changing local weather patterns.
Wind power is an expensive, intermittent and limited energy source that degrades the environment, kills birds, affects the local weather but does nothing to improve global climate.
It should be paid for by those who want it, not by captive taxpayers or electricity consumers.
Viv Forbes,
Rosewood Qld Australia
More reading for those interested:
Renewable Energy becoming a financial nightmare in Germany:
http://www.epaw.org/documents.php?lang=en&article=cost11
Wind Farm Performance vs Demand:
http://windfarmperformance.info/documents/analysis/monthly/aemo_wind_201203_hhour.pdf
Wind Farm noise harms health and sleep:
Spanish wind farms kill 6 to 18 million birds & bats a year:
Wind farms are a greater threat to wildlife than climate change:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8807761/wind-farms-vs-wildlife/
Wind turbines cause fog:
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/its-an-ill-wind/
Wind turbines cause local heating:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-30/wind-farms-linked-to-temperature-rises/3979930
Wind power Has Limits. The more you use the less there is:
http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2013/04/09/3732966.htm
Why Wind Won’t Work:
http://carbon-sense.com/2011/02/08/why-wind-wont-work/
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Chad says:
May 10, 2013 at 7:43 am
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Modern wind turbines are designed for an operating life expectancy of 120,000 hours, ie., about 13.5 years. Of course much depends upon wind loads and their variability which if heavy and very variable can reduce the life expectancy (aliter, if light and less variable). As you no doubt know, there are many periods when the turbine is not operating (due to wind conditions or perhaps being taken out of service due to grid requirements or even maintenance) and hence during these periods, operating hours are not used up and this extends the life expectancy. Hence the reason why there is now evidence coming in that the life expecatancy appears to be in the region of 12 to 15 years.
Of course, it is possible to replace the internals and rotor. The structure if it does not succumb to fatigue (no doubt you have seen photos of tower failures) can therefore be retained and with virtually complete refurbishment of internals etc, wind turbines errected in the 80s can still be in service.
As to the photo, without knowing the operating and maintenance history, I cannot further elucidate.
Doug Proctor says:
May 10, 2013 at 10:12 am
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As you say, energy storage is the biggest draw back since both solar and wind are often at their least efficient when demand for enery is at its peak.
I consider that solar already has a role, but presently this is only in tropical and sub tropical latitudes. Outside those bands it can be useful for low grade energy production such, as in summer, heating a swimming pool, or even in sunny climes the production of domestic hot water. But in mid northern latitudes, it is of little practical/viable use.
As for wind, unless and until a suitable storage system can be designed at viable cost, wind energy production serves no useful purpose. Its limitations are too great, and materially it does not result in the meaningful saving of CO2 emissions (should the reduction of CO2 emissions be desirable). As for looks, they are not what I consider to be a work of art (unlike some Victorian steam engines, or have the awe of say weaving machinery in cotton mills), and I consider them a blight on the natural beauty of the landscape, but I accept that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder such that some might like the look of them, and might prefer to see plains, and mountain ridges studded with them.
Power Grab says:
May 10, 2013 at 3:02 pm
Mid-American has 5700 MW of non-wind generating capability. After the expansion they will have 3000 MW of wind capacity. They count 13% of existing wind as base capacity, so that total will be 390 MW. Wind capacity has to be in operation and evaluated based on its operation before any part is included as base capacity, so the ultimate percentage may not be 13%. That is not a large percentage of existing capacity that would have to provided as additional back up, even if they proposed it. However there are already projects in various stages of evaluation, planning and design for natural gas, coal, and nuclear. “Excuses” for expansion are not needed.
This is not entirely wind related, wind is included although most of the DOE loan losses seem to come from solar enterprises.
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/05/renewable-energy-projects-cost-us-taxpayers-26-billion-for-only-2300-permanent-jobs-which-is-11-5-million-per-job/
Renewable energy projects cost US taxpayers $26 billion for only 2,300 permanent jobs, which is $11.5 million per job
Mark J. Perry | May 10, 2013, 8:53 am
http://www.aei-ideas.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/DOE-loan-losses4.jpg
.”..In 2008, Barack Obama pledged to create 5 million jobs over 10 years by directing taxpayer dollars toward renewable energy projects in the form of loan guarantees. But here’s what has actually happened according to recently released data by the Department of Energy’s Loans Programs Office, and summarized in the chart above by the Institute for Energy Research:
More than $26 billion has been spent (or pledged in loan guarantees) since 2009 on DOE Section 1703 projects (taxpayer support for clean energy technologies that are typically unable to obtain conventional private financing) and Section 1705 loan guarantees (for certain renewable energy systems and leading edge biofuels). Unfortunately for taxpayers, fewer than 2,300 permanent jobs have been created for all of those billions of dollars, at a cost to taxpayers of more than $11.45 million per job. Solar projects generated an especially poor return for taxpayer funding – almost $1 billion of taxpayer dollars were spent on just two now-bankrupt solar companies – Abound and Solyndra – that in the end created no permanent jobs.”
Note that the list seems to be limited to alt energy projects and doesn’t include things like Fisker, A123, and numerous other “green” stimulapalooza projects that went down the tubes, taking billions of tax dollars with them.
I think “Chad” and “Chris4692” are really T. Boone Pickens and Nancy Pelosi.
Or… someone who likes to read Huffpo:
“‘The company wants to build 656 turbines, though the locations have yet to be chosen. Customers won’t see new rate increases because federal tax credits are expected to offset the project’s cost over the next 30 years,’ company spokesman Tim Grabinski said. ***
MidAmerican President William Fehrman … said construction would start before the end of the year to ensure that the project qualifies for a federal tax credit for wind production. The credit, first enacted in 1992, was extended by Congress earlier this year.
‘This is all about our customers. … .’ *** ” [LOL]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/09/midamerican-energy-wind-projects-farm-turbines_n_3241205.html
“federal tax credits”
Oh, no, the federal government isn’t paying us to build windmills. The
federal governmentU. S. taxpayers are paying our CUSTOMERS to buy our product (if it’s produced using windmills).LOL — who in the WORLD do you think you are fooling?
Wind farms also alter the temperature and humidity of the land downwind of them, rendering the land hotter and drier and less arable.
For Chad and his friend, didn’t I hear that the Texas wind farms are about water rights below them as much as power production?
Whines are high-pitched; groans low.
@MorningGuy says:
you suppose ?
Hey at least they don’t create 20sqm km of uninhabitable land for 1000 years like fukushima did when things go wrong.
+++++++++++++++++
You are confused: The radiation levels around Fukushima are now equivalent to the levels in Boulder CO… which has natural background levels due to the granite which is radioactive. This level is 4 times the evacuation level set in Japan… Except, in reality, there is zero difference in cancer rates at that level in Boulder CO. So, no the statement about 20km of unusable land for 1000 years is unfounded.
And there are no deaths that I can find related to Fukushima’s radiation levels.
I have sought out sites where I could listen for the noise from a wind turbine, driving around to listen at various distances and locations upwind and downwind. I have not heard anything from them more irritating than what a grain dryer, a grain elevator or an air conditioning compressor emits. I would want it some distance away, as the flicker would be irritating.
Only 23% of people can even detect most of these sounds in the first place, and to top that, if the wind is not blowing the turbines at capacity the sound is going to be a fraction of what it is on a windy day. Most people can hear this at night when the wind is blowing, but again, only 23% really complain about it as everyone else just gets used to it. This type of sound as a rule is one that people do not even consciously recognize even if you try. In other words, anyone can hear it, but most people will not even realize they are hearing it unless they are part of that 23% who can and who suffer health ailments due to these sounds.
The problem with the research as it stands is that at certain levels these sounds will cause the headaches and ailments in everyone as seen by reseach by the NAVY. The difference being perhaps we have not reached that level of sound and right now only a minority of people can be affected. But if we open up vast new wind turbines, I am willing to bet this will influence more and more people. My issue of course with this is that since I am susceptible and the fact that these sounds travel over such vast distances, I have to be careful where I live. I shouldn’t have to choose where I live due to the presence of these things because frankly I find being in vicinity to them unbearable.
This alone should be enough to stop making these. I don’t ask other people to suffer for my sake, why should I suffer for the “green’s” sake?
d power production has basically nothing to do with end user electricity price, so stop saying it raises prices.
Probably because in the US the money comes from subsidies. This money comes from the Federal Government, so ergo you will not see the price tag from consumer prices of electricity. You see the price-tag in your tax bill. Someone will pay for the price difference between wind and other forms of electricity.
Having said that, I once again saw some clueless person going on about how “solar and wind” are the power sources of the future. Sorry to correct you, but that is old technology. Humans have for years harvested both the wind and solar whether it is through farming, heating, bringing water uphill or other things. We stopped using both of these forms of electricity because we wanted on demand power. Solar and wind do not provide this. And so therefore, just like the data shows, you emit more CO2 and other things into the atmosphere and wind power does not give you any reduction in pollution. Solar is a little better since the solar energy is always highest during high peak times…but in the northern hemisphere in winter this amount of power is neglible.
Wind and solar power are obsolete in comparison to fossil fuels of any kind. This is why we stopped using wind (and solar) power until some idiots decided it was a “great source of energy” back in the 1970’s and started mandating its usage. Perhaps they made a killing on it and this was why people wanted these forms of power, to farm subsidies.
Anyone who thinks this is looking forward is just being delusional. This is backwards thinking for yesteryear. You can love history all you want, but you can not bring back obsolete technologies that were abandoned for good reasons. It is exactly the same thing as saying we will bring back knights from the middle ages. Sure, it sounds romantic, but guns will literally and figurtively blow the knights away in the real world. This is why solar and wind are nothing but novelties today and should remain that way. Adopting large scale wind and solar farms without any of the issues with them being solved is exactly like trying to field an army of knights with armor and horses. Its silly at best, and at worst a criminal waste of resources that could have gone into something useful as opposed to tax breaks for large land-owners.
If you really want to “clean up energy production”, I suggest putting money into research and development versus subsidy farms. If this had been done over the last 30-40 years versus subsidiy farms for a select few rich people, we would probably have another form of electricity today. But no, today we are wasting money on such things as “large-scale pumped storage” , battery development, server farms to predict future wind, extra power plants to back up these inferior forms of technology….and other technologies that are not even necessary if you just use fossil fuels.
Janice Moore says:
May 10, 2013 at 8:31 pm
.
And that is what Janice Moore thinks advances the discussion? An Ad Hom?
I point out that the assertion by others that there must be standby plants idling is not a universal truth, and you can only assert an ad hom?
I point out that the assumption of long transmission lines and losses is not a universal truth, and all you can come up with is an ad hom?
I point out that the variations in power demand, and the other demands are not great un-conquerable technical challenges, because at least one company is making a profit doing just that and all you can come up with is an ad hom?
I do not read Huffington Post. The details of the current proposal were all available in the local Iowa press. Though I work mostly with sewage, I have read SEC filings of Mid-American. I have worked with and talked with engineers and operators of power plants on the job and off, including those of Mid-Amercan as well as others. I have done structural design for power plants, some Mid-American and some not. I have done emissions testing for power plants, some Mid-Am and some not, and I have completed rate studies to determine electrical rates for municipal utilities. I have also sought out wind farms to observe noise and other effects for myself.
I do not pretend to know the thinking of the design engineers of Mid-Am, but I am certain that they know far more about their situation than anyone commenting here. They made a rational financial decision, based on what they know, which is much more than any of us commenting here. That should be a very solid clue that many of the hyperbolic assumptions and assertions regarding wind energy expressed here are at least very highly questionable, and more likely wrong. Large power companies do not make billion dollar decisions absent thorough analysis. They have more information on the power production of wind, on the effects of the transmission losses, the effects of the variability of wind on the efficiency of the system than anyone that reads here has any hope of ever learning.
In many years of engineering, I have learned to be very careful of phantasmagorical claims and to hold back and evaluate when assertions get extreme, either for or against. It is apparent that many here have not developed that habit.
Wind energy is neither a magic elixir, nor is it a great evil. It is just an option to be evaluated for the situation.
And BTW, politically I am closest to Barry Goldwater than any other politician I can think of.
Let me know if you have anything substantial to say, otherwise I’d recommend you’d work on a habit of self-restraint.
Every last bit of this environmental crap should be paid for by those who want it and no one else. If you’re so damn sure that fossil fuels are causing the death of the planet then to use even one drop is sacrelige. They should be the ones forced to forego oil and coal products (and die in the process) not us. I would love to see the energy companies deny service to these idiots for a month or longer to bring them back to reality. No gasoline, natural gas or electricity for a month. No use of anything made from oil. No food bought from a grocery store. No clothing because it used energy to make.
There needs to be a big island set aside to ship these human-haters off to so they can live Lord-of-the-flies style. Lots of prosecutions too of scientists and Gore-bots. I want to live long enough to see the day when anyone who identifies as an environmentalist is shunned like the blacks were in the US a hundred years ago.
Denmark, wind farm, Eagle, part 1 and 2
http://i2-images2.tv2net.dk/s/18/37963218-e9c9318322dd9de6a44af6c7d306fa05.jpeg
Good article, but doesn’t mention the additional problems regarding the use of rare earth elements (REEs) in wind turbines. REEs are used in the magnets of the turbines. The are currently mined predominantly in China and the local environment usually suffers due to lax mining regulations. Disposal of the REEs after use can also cause problems.
@Morning Guy, the point you missed is that wind is environmentally devastating even when used as intended! It’s not just the fires / collapses that create a mess – it’s the construction and manufacture, the installation, and the use. Oh and nuclear saves lives – radio medicine dominates all other considerations.
Chris4692 says: “I have not heard anything from them more irritating than what a grain dryer, a grain elevator or an air conditioning compressor emits.”
Oh for Chrisakes! I was starting to think you were an unbiased, rational person until I read that codswallop.
About ten years ago I was looking at purchasing a small mini-farm in Boone County Indiana. I was about to make an offer on the property when I decided to spend an afternoon to check out what it would be like living there.
I got out of my car and started walking the property when I heard this godawful high pitched whine. At first I couldn’t tell where the racket was coming from, but slowly I began to detect the direction from which it was coming.
I dropped the top on my convertible and drove east for about a half a mile. I saw a farm with a grain silo. I walked up to the house and knocked. I asked the nice lady that came to the door what was making that sound.
She said it was their grain dryer. I asked if it ran all of the time. She said. “Oh no. Just from September to April.”
I went home and ripped up the contract proposal that same afternoon.
So saying that wind turbines are “no worse” than grain dryers is telling me you are an irrational apologist for wind turbines.
We spent a big part of the 19th century and most of the 20th century developing means to efficiently and cleanly use the already abundant naturally stored solar energy to provide abundant safe sustainable useful energy plus byproducts useful in building infrastructure. This practice eliminated the need for slavery and whale oil illumination.
Now we are being forced to abandon this technique, and instead build flimsy intermittant generators that are dangerous, and require much additional infrastructure and labor to service them. How long can this go on, before slavery becomes popular again?
Viv Forbes says…Like hydro-power, wind power is limited….
It may be limited but the limit is considerably higher than realised. For example a singe relatively small site near Sheffield once had 200 mills on it. In terms of electricity this matches a relatively large wind farm with no increased visibility whatever as the old mill building are mostly still there.
In one case I have seen the filing cabinet full of paperwork for, the only obstacle is the building is listed and had a wall added after the building ceased to be a water mill which would prevent the turbines being installed. The owner cannot get permission for the wall to be removed. The way the water board rules are phrased also makes for difficulties in using this power.
It may still be more expensive than coal but supply peaks at the same time as demand unlike wind which gives zero when we get the cold foggy periods that last a week round here.
Having lived in an area where the politicians 6 years ago decided that it would be just wonderful to go holus bolus into industrial wind turbines, I can tell you that the arguments for and against them reflect many of the views articulated in the foregoing posts. The people who support them generally are benefitting in some way….. or they live in an environment (typically urban) far away from the swaths of ground where the IWTs are sited such that in their romanticized worlds, they can feel they are simply doing their part to feel good by ‘being green and save the planet’. These individuals accuse those who oppose them of being NIMBYs, they trivialize the impact of health concerns and without any real understanding of the complexity of the environmental issues at stake are prepared to state that IWTs are essentially ‘less harmful’ than other electrical generation alternatives. And as for the complex world of trying to integrate IWTs on to a grid that can easily accommodate all these wildly fluctuating sources, there generally is zero attempt made to understand the impact.
I personally have met many rural residents living near IWTs who are faced with the reality that they can’t sell their properties even if the asking prices drops to 50% of what it would be if there were no IWTs…. In fact, I’ve witnessed precipitous drops in value by as much as 25% just on the rumour that IWTS are being proposed for their area. And what recourse do they have to this financial calamity that through no fault of their own has been forced upon them? Nothing, zip, zilch, zero, nadda, squat… they are stuck. So all those in favour of IWTs, put yourself in the shoes of these people who not only have had their beautiful rural countryside altered by it being vertically industrialized, it has cost them hugely right in the wallet… and this is over and above any arguments that have to do with taxpayer and ratepayer subsidies.
So….. if such harm is going to be allowed to be inflicted on those who through no fault of their own have had to put with such decisions that forced these things upon them, one would assume that there must be some societal benefit to justify the rather communistic idea that “yes some will be harmed but it is for the greater good”. Well, good luck with proving that one. I would urge all who believe that it is for the greater good to get educated in exactly what happens when IWT produced power is integrated on to a grid. First of all, there really is no such thing as IWT power…. there is only IWT plus backup power (usually natural gas) so that as winds fluctuate, the backup can accommodate the swings. There are some huge technical issues at stake here… In order to accommodate the rapid fluctuations of winds, the backup power has to be able to react on a moment’s notice. Why is this crucially important? It essentially means that open loop gas turbines (max efficiency of approximately 40%) are required as opposed to combined cycle gas turbines (max efficiency of approximately 60%) since combined cycle can’t ‘swing fast enough’. This difference in efficiency essentially negates the benefit of any wind generated power at all so in other words, if only combined cycle gas existed, the same amount of power could be generated for the same amount of gas if no IWTs existed at all. This is reasonably well documented…. I would urge those interested enough to educate themselves to go to the MasterResource website and start reviewing papers by an electrical engineer named Kent Hawkins (this is but a sample http://www.masterresource.org/category/hawkins-kent/). And looking at it from an economist’s point of view, review the paper produced by Dr Gordon Hughes (discussed here earlier on Wattsupwiththat http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/06/wind-energy-is-extraordinarily-expensive-and-inefficient/). Integrating IWTs on to an existing grid also means one more thing…. it is likely that all other controllable power plants will have to fluctuate output in ways that they never would have had to do before. If electrical power is primarily from hydro sources, this means simply ‘spilling the water’ as in bypassing the water around the water turbines at a waterfall… what an incredibly nonsensical idea. If the grid has a high percentage of nuclear….the choice may be either to pay neighbouring jurisdictions to ‘take your power away’ or to sequentially start to shut down nuclear units. Since it takes 2 to 3 days to bring a nuke unit back on line, this obviously doesn’t work and is an economic disaster…. but unfortunately, this has often happened. If the electrical power is from coal/gas/oil, it means cycling these units to accommodate the unpredictable variations and this introduces another big problem….it’s called fatigue. It’s no surprise that plants that are constantly fluctuating will have a far shorter life than plants that run at constant load or at least have fairly small load variations. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the introduction of sporadic electrical sources on to a grid will significantly shorten the life of those plants which are forced to accommodate such sources.
The bottom line is that it would be good if there was at least something good that one could say about IWTs…. Sadly, there is nothing and to top it off, it costs a lot to get nothing but negative outcomes.
Chris,
Thank you for a rational comment. The fact that power companies like Mid American will install so much wind with a tax credit of $22/MWh means that wind cannot cost more than a premium of $22/MWh to generate. I honestly don’t believe the premium is that high, and I also believe the subsidies should be eliminated.
On another tack… The arguments against windmill for aesthetic and audio reasons are far weaker than the exact same arguments applied against the highway (including interstate) system. Compare the amount of land used for highways to that proposed for windfarms, the decline in property value when an overpass is built next to your house, and the noise from each. Are there some winners and losers in each? Yes (commercial value goes up near an offramp, but apartment rents will go down due to the noise). However, we don’t (at least we shouldn’t) decide to build a highway based on who the winners and losers will be, but rather the decision ought to be based on the overall economic difference for the community (local and national depending on the particular road).
T Boone Pickens is a billionaire who made money in oil. He would like to see wind farms reduce the price of electricity to the point where it is uneconomical to burn Nat Gas for electricity. The Nat Gas would then be used in heavy engines (rail, long haul trucks, construction vehicles, etc.). Simultaneously he would like to see increased and improved drilling raise the amount of Nat Gas and Oil produced in the US. Then OPEC would be free to jump off a cliff, and we wouldn’t be responsible for being the police force of the middle east.
I am perfectly in line with that vision (especially the part about OPEC jumping off a collective cliff, since they appear to want to do just that). I disagree with whether credits are needed in the short term, and whether they ever should have been available. Certainly Federal and State land should be leased for wind farms, just as it is leased for drilling and logging. I don’t believe we should privlidge one technology with federal leases for land while blocking another technology on the same land. Local noise ordinances should be followed, and the same environmental impact studies applied for both drilling and wind. I am betting Pickens is right, and the greatest economic impact for Nat. Gas is in replacing oil for heavy engines, and wind picking up some of the capacity in electricity generation. Also I would wager that fracking, logging, and wind are similar in terms of environmental impact while deep coal mining is worse, and open pit coal mining is much worse.