![wind-turbine[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/wind-turbine1.jpg?quality=83)
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
During the recent statewide blackout in South Australia, there is no doubt that unstable output from wind farms triggered the cascade of events which caused the power outage. The question is – are wind farm operators liable for the economic harm their “product” caused?
Lawsuit looms over South Australia wind shutdown
South Australian businesses left without power could form a class action after it was revealed yesterday nine of the state’s 13 wind farms tripped or reduced output during last month’s storms because of a “software issue”.
Litigation funder IMF Bentham said the statewide blackout was on the company’s radar as state Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis warned of “lawyers at 20 paces everywhere”.
The Australian Energy Market Operator yesterday released an update to its preliminary report on the September 28 blackout. It identified six voltage disturbances which occurred in the network and also downed transmission towers, triggering the “ride through voltage” systems of nine wind farms.
The wind farm systems tripped as a result, causing them either to shut down or to reduce their output, pushing 445MW of electricity demand on to the Heywood interconnector linking South Australia to Victoria.
With the sudden rush in demand, the interconnector shut down to protect itself and isolated the state from the national grid.
…
“We knew this storm was coming, could there have been better preparation? I think so,” Mr Koutsantonis said.
The turbines affected remained on the factory settings and were installed unchanged, he said. “It wasn’t wind energy per se that caused this black system; it was a software glitch.”
The Institute of Public Affairs seized on the report. “The report shows that the five operating thermal generators powered through the storm, in contrast to the wind turbines that turned themselves off,” said Brett Hogan, research director at the free-market think tank. “Australia is a land of heat, cold and other weather extremes. At these times in particular, households and businesses need safe and reliable electricity.”
…
The Clean Energy Council said there was no evidence to show the power system would have stayed running if wind farms had not tripped off in an unsafe electrical environment.
The agency pointed to the finding in the AEMO report that five transmission line faults resulting in six voltage disturbances on the network “led to the SA region black system”.
…
Read more (paywalled): http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/lawsuit-looms-over-south-australia-wind-shutdown/news-story/cd3712fbccccff765826c7135af9a2f6
The following is an excerpt from the AEMO report referenced by The Australian.
…
In this updated report, it is now known that five system faults occurred within a period of 88 seconds on 28 September 2016, leading to six voltage disturbances.
Data now shows that nine of the 13 wind farms online at the time of the event did not ride through the six voltage disturbances, resulting in a loss of 445 MW of generation. Preliminary discussions with wind farm operators suggest this inability to ride through all disturbances was due to ‘voltage ride-through’ settings set to disconnect or reduce turbine output when between three to six disturbances are detected within a defined time period.
Thermal generators remained connected up until the SA system disconnected from the remainder of the National Electricity Market (NEM). The Heywood Interconnector remained connected up until the sudden increase in electricity flow resulting from the loss of generation caused the automatic protection mechanism to disconnect the lines.
…
Read more: http://aemo.com.au/Media-Centre/Update-to-report-into-SA-state-wide-power-outage
This affair could go very badly for wind farm operators.
Serious players, large mining and manufacturing companies, are making big claims against their insurance policies or reporting large losses to shareholders, because of the damage the South Australian blackout caused to their operations. The insurance companies are facing millions of dollars of payouts. The only option for recovering all those millions is to sue whoever was responsible, to sue wind farm operators, or possibly to sue the South Australian Government, if the courts determine that government energy policies rather than wind farm operators are to blame for the loss.
The comments by South Australian State Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis suggest the state will vigorously oppose any attempt to pin the blame on the government. Suggesting the problem was caused by turbines which had been misconfigured, left on their “default settings”, in my opinion suggests that Mr. Koutsantonis thinks the turbine operators were negligent.
Even if wind operators manage to wriggle out of legal and financial liability for the South Australian disaster, the world is watching – unless operators find an acceptable solution to the problems which caused the wind farms to abruptly disconnect from the grid, it is only a matter of time before something similar happens again. Reconfiguring turbines to be more tolerant of voltage disturbances might have prevented the wind turbines from going offline, but more fault tolerance might also create a higher risk of damaging voltage spikes and other electricity supply problems.
Whatever happens in this case, one thing seems clear. The financial risk of being a wind farm operator just skyrocketed.
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They are not Wind Mills, they are Breeze Mills. As soon as there is wind they have to close down.
Poor operators might have to give back some of the money they have panhandled.
I think Subsidy Mills is most appropriate.
Subsidy Pumps – I think you mean.
They are not any kind of a mill. Mills are for milling ( the clue is in the name ). These things are called wind turbines.
This story just like a giant buck-passing operation. I do not see how the SA govt can get away from the fundamental problem being a massive over reliance on non synchronising generators. They have so heavily rigged the market that they have forced coal burning generators to shut ( and quite intentionally so ). They have competent engineers who have been warning about this structural problem for years and they have been ignored by the politicians who make the rules. The buck must stop there.
Whether the ‘default’ settings for the trip-out were optimal or not was not the heart of the problem.
They are called windelecs. Mills grind things. Elecs produce electricity.
The risks increase……the wind farm operators will ask larger subsidies……..and the political whores will pay it….and taxes will go up. Regardless, I hope they will sued for their incompetence and that they have to pay heavily.
The political whores wont pay for it the tax payers will.
However the tax payers got these political whores at the ballot box – self inflicted injury – an own goal
As an Aussie.. I say… SWEEEET !!!!
That’s GOLD!
it would seem that the South Australian government policy demanding renewables is responsible, but I am still feeling a sense of schaudenfreude over the rent-seeking wind farm operators.
The idiot politicians in South Australia who are fully responsible for this renewable energy electric system failure fiasco will no doubt create government protections to cheat energy users from receiving damages they are in fact completely entitled to while shielding the electric system incompetence of renewable energy providers from any financial damages.
Those ignoring the proven reality of renewable energy which have created a complete debacle of electric system and grid instability in South Australia will continue to promote this costly, unreliable and highly limited energy supply capability and be rewarded for their lies, deception and distortions that try to excuse these fundamentally unavoidable and flawed performance inadequacies of these technologies.
I think you will find those protections are already in place to protect the politicians who are responsible for this sham.
Don’t you people vote them in?
Yes, we do.
However we also have a preferential voting system where electors MUST distribute preferences to candidates below their first choice. This can, and has, resulted in a candidate with fewer first preference votes being elected due to a deal with other candidates, generally independents or the Greens!
South Australia, along with Tasmania, is a mendicant state which is propped up financially by the growth states such as NSW, QLD & WA.
Our Federal Government has given the green light for SA to build our next fleet submarines, at an expected additional cost of some Billions.
The fact that the turbines are renewable and subsidized is irrelevant to the technical issues. If the setpoints had been correct, would the blackout not have happened? It is at least logically possible it would have happened anyway, then who would you sue? It is not a trivial exercise to get the right setpoints, I was part of an effort that examined them at two US nuclear stations over 30 years ago. A number were found to be OK for grid settings, but their impact on the emergency electrical equipment had not been realized. It took a considerable engineering effort to calculate the correct setpoints. So part of this could be attributed to growing pains.
So think of it this way, if the turbines were not favored by subsidies and were simply another way to generate power, we would chalk this up to lessons learned, extract whatever market penalties the contracts stipulated, like any other generator and then move on. The favoritism leaves a foul taste in everyone’s mouth.
Oeman — To compare the set points of a nuclear power generating plant to those of wildly unpredictable, highly prone to failure, wind turbine power generation is worse than useless, for by doing so you create a false impression of the state of wind tech. It is ABYSMALLY not ready for prime time.
And look as far ahead on the known or reasonably-likely-to-happen horizon as you can strain your eyes (or research on the web) to see and you will find that the scenario is a bleak one. Very bleak.
No one, NO ONE, other than a gambling addict, would invest in wind (or solar), but for the funding provided by tax/rate surcharge on viable power sources.
***********************************
Sue those rotters into oblivion, Australian Industry!
and as an ex-South Australian, I’m glad I no longer live there. I’m still rather disappointed that Tony Abbott is no longer PM, and we have to put up with Turnbull’s carbon trading nonsense.
I think there is fine print allowing Electricity providers free reign in regard to most power shutdowns.
If wires fall over in a normal storm or lines are hit by trees or a power pole by a truck the loss of power and consequent damages is not claimable by law.
Though this is a different and foolish way for the power to go down I think the operators are unfortunately in this case, and most cases.
“Serious players, large mining and manufacturing companies, are making big claims against their insurance policies or reporting large losses to shareholders, because of the damage the South Australian blackout caused to their operations.”
I’d like to see the shareholders and mining and manufacturing companies be vindicated and made whole.
But how can the insurers respond and offer plans that do not punish every one with higher rates for what SA did to destabilize their own grid?
“I’d like to see the shareholders and mining and manufacturing companies be vindicated and made whole.”
Made whole? Do their contracts with the electricity suppliers promise uninterrupted power with penalties? If not, then they should have a backup plan to keep running, or just accept that blackouts are a thing that happens.
If they aren’t paying for the promise of uninterruptible power, then they aren’t owed anything if they don’t get it.
They would have uninterrupted power if the green thugs didn’t force the stupid on them
Yeah, back in the good old days when blackouts weren’t a thing…
“Victims of the South Australia Statewide Blackout to Sue Wind Farm Operators”
So far, in the report it’s just talk from a “litigation funder”:
“IMF Bentham investment manager Justin McLernon said the fund was awaiting further information from the numerous inquiries under way at state and federal levels. “We are always interested in assisting claimants who have suffered a loss in these types of cases if there is wrongful conduct or someone to blame,” Mr McLernon said.
“Certainly it is on our radar and we will be taking a look at it.””
There is nothing in the report to say that the planned target of the notional suit is ‘wind farm operators’. And no indication that Bentham have signed up any “victims” yet. They are just looking for business.
There are victims and there are damages. Nick damages himself with square quotes.
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‘Scare quotes’, as shameful by any other name.
==========
I am quoting the title.
Nick is correct.
Where there is a Will, there is a way – to dispute it.
In former colonies of Great Britain the grid operator is responsible for damages arising from a disconnection of supply. Compensation for spoiled food (etc) though small, is routinely paid.
One doesn’t have to sue to get it, just file a claim for direct harm. Indirect harm is not compensated nor should it be. Life does not come with a guarantee.
Quote marks have various meanings. If you weren’t demeaning the victims, I take back the allegation of shameful behaviour.
============================
Crispin in Waterloo but really in Bishkek October 22, 2016 at 11:16 pm
Nick is correct.
Where there is a Will, there is a way – to dispute it.
——————————————————————————
Replace “Dispute with “Obfuscate”
“…So far, in the report it’s just talk from a ‘litigation funder’:..”
The first words quoted from the article in the Australian say, “Lawsuit looms.” Take it up with them.
And if it were more than “just talk from a ‘litigation funder,” then we’d be in the “suing” phase, not “to sue.”
But play whatever stupid semantics you want with it. It puts you one rung on the ladder above the grammar Nazis. Maybe the Skeptical Science folks will give you an outfit.
“But play whatever stupid semantics”
No, relying on hype (“lawsuit looms”) is the stupid semantics. The heading here makes claims of fact “Victims sue windfarm operators”. No victims have been identified as wanting to sue, and no targets of any potential suit have been named. All we have is a lawyer hoping that somebody unnamed will sue somebody unspecified. Looking for business.
Again, Nick, you appear to demean the victims.
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The damages bill will be huge. and hopefully the insurance companies around the world will come to their senses and realise just how much risk they are carrying because of the UNRELIABILITY of wind turbines and solar energy.
If something like this happened in Germany, imagine the damage.
This STUPIDITY of subsidised, mandated erratic energy from unreliable sources surely has to come to an end soon.
The world’s economies cannot sustain it much longer.
And there should be harsh prison sentences for the politicians and activist scientists who fraudulently diddled data to bring us to this state of affairs.
Lock Them Up! Lock Them Up!
I certainly don’t want to see them locked up. My preference would see them stripped of every asset they possess, down to and including their underwear, then forced into indentured servitude until the trillions of wasted money are recovered. Not that it would be possible in their lifetime, but who cares? Until politicians and advocacy groups are held personally and jointly responsible with real and painful consequences there is no hope the madness will end.
The Scams are being slowly exposed.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3863462/Exposed-university-helped-secure-9million-money-passing-rivals-research-bankroll-climate-change-agenda.html
Please explain why prison sentences would not be more appropriate for those who fail to take action to provide clean energy.
Continuing to pump vast amounts of CO2 into the sky is clearly insane by any measure.
Continuing to pump vast amounts of CO2 into the sky is clearly insane by any measure.
================
The problem is that the alternative are worse. Every solution has unintended consequences. Every one. As a result, it is always easier to propose solutions to problems than to actually build solutions that don’t cause more problems than they solve.
The quality of life people enjoy is directly tied to the amount of energy they use.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_per_capita
Fossil fuels have improved the quality of life around the world because they provide huge amounts of energy at low cost, as compared to the alternatives. People says that the wind is free, but so is coal in the ground. It is extracting the energy into useful work that costs the money. And therein lies the problem. It is a whole lot easier to heat your house with a lump of coal than it is to heat it with the wind.
@terry –
plants and animals know otherwise
Terry, I can see there is no sense trying to explain anything to you, so I will simply use your own logic. If you believe as you do, you need to stop using all forms of energy that release carbon dioxide, as well as any product which was produced using such energy. The only reason fossil fuels are used is because of the demand for cheap, reliable energy, and products made by that energy, from people like you. If people are jailed, then you should be, too, for paying people to generate carbon dioxide-producing energy. You can easily choose not to and live a caveman existence.
To Terry at 3:46 a.m.: The CO2 in the air that we breathe is a trace gas at a mere 4 molecules out of every 10,000 (the real meaning of 400 ppm / 0.04% / 0.0004 (decimal). I would not consider that to be “vast amounts of CO2”. (To the above, add that more than 95% of the CO2 going into the atmosphere is from decay and other natural causes.)
Nothing more unreliable about a wind farm than a coal plant.
Coal generators are breaking down all the time.
As battery storage comes into play it will further smooth out power supply.
Distributed energy is what creates grid stability.
Seriously? Coal generators can produce power 24×7 for years at a time before being taken off-line for maintenance. That’s reliability. Being able to produce power only when the wind blows at certain speeds is not.
The greens really do not understand it.
“Read more (paywalled)” work-around
Lawsuit looms over South Australia wind shutdown
Thanks clipe, the paywall was there to collect a few bucks from those that might have been willing to pay the bucks to read 1 article, what a bunch of sleezes. The few times I have read some of their free articles stopped me anyways.
It would seem that the poorly built transmission towers are more at fault than the wind farms…given that so many towers crumpled.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/no-to-coal-how-sa-labor-killed-reliable-power-supply/news-story/f1038963e074427c34f8917ad5e9ded3
These two paragraphs in the story, are a “chilling”(don’t excuse the pun) reminder to Americans of Clintons vow to shut down their coal industry.
“It builds on revelations by The Australian news paper, that Alinta had approached the government in January last year for help, with plans to expand the life of the power plant and mine to 2028.
But the government rejected its approach and the power station closed in May, with South Australians being hit with immediate electricity price rises of almost 75 per cent…”
Read that last line out aloud to yourself as you gaze at your electricity bill! A bill that’s probably comparable with your monthly mortgage or rent bill now.
A read here gives you further insight into the world wide madness of these climate lunatics.
http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/boondoggle-how-ontarios-pursuit-of-renewable-energy-broke-the-provinces-electricity-system?__lsa=441c-114c
The biggest question appears to be, how do we stop the barstards? When all partys around the world, seem hell bent on traveling down the same road to financial ruin.
The fight back continues against the ‘Climate Alarmists’.
“Exposed: How top university helped secure £9million of YOUR money by passing off rivals’ research as its own… to bankroll climate change agenda”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3863462/Exposed-university-helped-secure-9million-money-passing-rivals-research-bankroll-climate-change-agenda.html
D.I.,
Natalie Suckall. What an unfortunate moniker.
In California they are nothing but a con job to suck money out of taxpayers and give it crony-capitalists who then “donate” a proportion back to Democrat politicians and party. A complete scam.
I am sure it is the same elsewhere.
You even boldfaced the quote that explicitly stated this has nothing to do with the power coming from wind versus any other source: “It wasn’t wind energy per se that caused this black system; it was a software glitch.”
The reason I boldfaced the “software glitch” comment is because I discussed why it might be difficult to fix.
That is the knee-jerk default denial, the updated report skewers the falsehood that “It wasn’t wind energy per se that caused this black system [ …]”
A software issue INHERENT to the operation of wind turbines.
And NO , it was not a glitch….. it was how they were meant to be programmed.
Or are you saying the operators were incompetent ?
not wise to say that, a big legal door opens up.
Was this really a ‘software glitch’ in the individual turbines (or the whole windfarm control system, if such exists), which was perhaps not predictable, or simply sloppy work in just choosing to use the default value for the ‘voltage ride-through settings’, rather than this (now apparently) vital step in the commissioning process having been discussed and agreed between the turbine manufacturer, the windfarm operator and the network operator (and maybe the SA govt.), and then the whole system tested before the farm went online? This might make all the difference in any liability court case. I watch with interest…
Looks like they set them up and activated them to employ the settings from the factory, declining to adjust them for area specific needs or emergency situations.
I’m sure the answer is more subsidies.
It was not a software glitch. It is a feature. Wind farm operators knew their farms would switch off like that when detecting with sudden grid voltage changes. If they did not know, it was their incompetence.
Improper settings is not a software glitch, it is operator error.
Looks like the full story might just find its way to the surface , one things for sure South Australia is definately about to pay more for their already overpriced electrickery and the unreliability issue won’t go away anytime soon .
South Australians voted for this madness and now suffer the consequences good riddance .
Rob, I fear that the rest of us in Oz will share that burden as well in the provision of backups systems to protect SA’s energy reliability. To me, they shyte in their own nest and they alone should lie in it.
There are two interconnectors with Victoria, the AC one through the southern part of SA and a DC one that goes a bit north and east of Adelaide to Mildura. The Redcliffs terminal station at Mildura Vic is interconnected to NSW grid as well.
The Heywood interconnector has capacity about five times that of Mildura.
So long as Hazelwood is operating.. If it closes, that capacity means nothing.
It’s just unbelievable that Oz isn’t powered by coal. The impact on the environment to supply OZ’s electricity with coal and with today’s tech with the new scrubbing methods is minimal at worst.
Most of Australia is powered by coal or gas (Tassie, sensibly, uses mostly hydro, because they can)
If we updated our current coal fired powered stations to the latest HELE types we would almost certainly reduce our CO2 emissions by more than any attempt at using unreliables would, and we would still have a robust energy supply system that could support a thriving economy.
This FAD of unreliable energy supplies must be brought to a halt before more even damage is done.
Trouble is that we have far-left pseudo-green governments in SA, Victoria, and Queensland, and a federal government that doesn’t have the guts to say.. ENOUGH !!!
Australia is a NET CARBON SINK. !
Last week somebody “leaked” the discussions into closing the Hazelwood power plant in Victoria. Forcing the Andrews government into issuing a denial. A sure fire gaurante it’s happening. Make no mistake, Andrews is in bed with Wetherill in South Australia.
This should end not just his ideolygy driven governments assault on the people of Victoria. It should also drive the final nail into the coffin of the South Australian government at the next election but I fear not.
But health researchers are joining the global warming jihad. Coal power is now routinely demonized for causing XXXXXX’s of deaths worldwide (WHO reports put the global burden of disease at 7 million per year due to air pollution). UK health SJWs recently issued another report demanding UK stop burning coal for energy. I expect Oz has this kind of thing too.
PS: I must accept some responsibility myself for promoting/accepting these arguments. I apologise to coal! I won’t do it again.
PS 2: “Global burden of disease”, GBD, says 7 million “deaths” annually due to air pollution. It does not seem to mean 7 million people actually die. WHO measure of all negative effects on health: illness, lost work days, actual deaths (if any) to get “Disability Adjusted Life Years” (DALY) values, which are a kind of “death equivalent”. So 7 million seems to refer to a DALY value of 7 million.
PS 3: It should go without saying that life expectancy is now higher than at any time in the history of the world. All of that made possible by levering fossil fuel to build civilization.
Yep the 7 million is a FABRICATION , just like everything to do with this scam. !
And how many people die per year because they DON’T have decent electricity power supply.
And where are the studies providing death figures if all coal plants were shut down? Methinks that number would be much higher.
Doesn’t “air pollution” include all sources? Like cooking over dung fires? Watch too for the computer model on those numbers. Nothing is real anymore. It’s all virtual reality.
Beginning of the end of wind power??
We can hope!
Not by a long shot. All other states and territories in Australia have made commitments to go down the renewable path to a similar extent to South Australia in the next 20 or so years.
Let’s hope it crashes and burns before then.
Wind power works fine in many applications (e.g. my rancher neighbor’s well pump for his water trough).
Just don’t tell us it can replace everything when it can’t.
They should sue and get retribution. They should have built some nuclear plants as have Tennessee…:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/21/first-new-nuclear-power-plant-in-u-s-in-20-years-goes-online/
20 years is way way too long…
Australia has some of the best coal in the world.
SA has very good gas supplies
Those are what Australia should be using.
This idiocy of unreliable so-called renewables needs to be stopped somehow. !
They are also a big uranium exporter.
Australia has ~500 years of known reserves of coal at current consumption rates. There is so many undiscovered reserves. True, Australia is a big exporter of uranium. Sad that we can’t use it here. Fear, as with CO2, prevents it in small-minded Australia.
I expect the equivalent of a deluge of amicus briefs from everyone who frequents this site.
Just noticed whenever the CAGW crowd have a photo to demonstrate the evil C02 they use a photo of some plant spewing steam and whenever our side do a story on wind power we show a wind turbine on fire .
Seems fitting .
The wind turbine on fire is schadenfreud. We love it.
By definition, the term “default settings” means the windmills did what they were supposed to: At the slightest hint of trouble, like Brave Sir Robin, they buggered off.
The pension funds love windfarms because the IRR is underwritten by subsidies and take-or-pay contracts. Nothing can go wrong. Well they’re about to learn a new lesson.
I read somewhere that there are some 14,000 abandoned wind turbines in the USA.
As you say “rotting hulks”.. but left for someone else to tidy up.
In Flanders Field the crosses stand,
The wind has died, and so the land.
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“AndyG55 October 22, 2016 at 10:59 pm
I read somewhere that there are some 14,000 abandoned wind turbines in the USA.”
I have read that too, but have not been able to find reliable information about that. There are images of derelict turbines, but I am not sure about there validity. Images on the interweby are unreliable.
I used to work in the USA a often flew into California in small aircraft at low level. I was surprised by the fields of derelict wind turbines – and this was in 1992.
How many are there now ?
I live in california and there were some failed wind farms in the state that were standing when I move here. They were early designs that didn’t work well. They have since then all been removed and replaced with newer designs that work. I have driven past other wind farms in other states and not seen any derelicts.
I think that 14,000 number is a myth or includes a lot of very old designs which were often small and never generated power. Most were probably removed some time ago.
Your post would be credible if you can quote the number of oil rigs on fire compared to wind turbines.
You’ve almost got the point, Patrick: Fighting anecdote with anecdote is the first cousin of fighting fire with fire.
“Your post would be credible if you can quote the number of oil rigs on fire compared to wind turbines.”
How about comparing the size of the fire, or the cost of the damage?
Here’s another for you, Brandon.
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwieh4vW9PHPAhXIWhoKHRD1BIIQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgreatlakeswindtruth.org%2Fnewsworthy%2Fdual-deaths-in-wind-turbine-fire-highlight-hazards%2F&psig=AFQjCNE138OY070NdslfWeHdEVKBCtAHnw&ust=1477345895094306
Guess what happened to the two technicians?
> Guess what happened to the two technicians?
If they didn’t jump to their deaths, I’m guessing they got cooked extra crispy. How well-done do you suppose the 167 roughnecks lost in the Piper Alpha SNAFU were? And can I get that with a side of chips and some coleslaw?
Here’s some *non-anecdotal* data, catweazle666. Educate yourself if you have the willingness and capacity to do so. Conversely, you could continue to cook your own goose. Which?
“Educate yourself if you have the willingness and capacity to do so”
Hehehe!
Gates you foolish, patronising, credulous, frightened little man, I was educated way, way beyond your capacity maybe half a century ago.
Live with it.
> Gates you foolish, patronising, credulous, frightened little man, I was educated way, way beyond your capacity maybe half a century ago.
I’m pretty sure empirical data was preferred to anecdotal even in science classes 50 years ago, catweazle666. You might want to ask for a refund.
Comparing Ocean-going oil rigs with land based eco-crucifixes are we?
We don’t object to windmills because they catch fire, Brandon. Personally, I love it when a windmill catches fire and in Australia people shoot at them.
Think of it this way, if every windmill was a bore for oil or a fracking well and thousands of them littered the landscape, they would do less harm to wildlife, yet you and every other greenie activist would be screaming from the rooftops at their very presence for being damaging and intrusive.
Which is what windmills are. Damaging and intrusive and destructive to ecosystems. Environmentalists should hate them. REAL environmentalists (in the original sense) do.
> We don’t object to windmills because they catch fire, Brandon.
I didn’t say “we” did, A.D.
> Personally, I love it when a windmill catches fire and in Australia people shoot at them.
Yes, someone else already invoked schadenfreude as a reason for Anthony’s affinity for that burning wind turbine pic. I get it … images of ‘sploding offshore oil rigs are somewhat satisfying in a morbidly perverse way for me, and such pictures can certainly come in handy for attempting to score points in a policy spat as you have just seen. I’d probably limit my shooting to photography if I ever saw one go up in person, however.
Personally, I’m inclined to let otters voice their own opinions for themselves. Speaking of …
> Think of it this way, if every windmill was a bore for oil or a fracking well and thousands of them littered the landscape, they would do less harm to wildlife, yet you and every other greenie activist would be screaming from the rooftops at their very presence for being damaging and intrusive.
… I can say that you’re quite wrong about that on my part. But since buildings kill more birds than windmills, and windmills power some buildings, I’m confused about which I should hate most. Oh, never mind, I remember …
http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2014/09/state-of-birds-2014-001.jpg
… I hate feral cats the most. Easy call.
> Which is what windmills are. Damaging and intrusive and destructive to ecosystems. Environmentalists should hate them. REAL environmentalists (in the original sense) do.
I know of no human activity necessary for our well-being and comfort which is NOT somehow intrusive and/or otherwise damaging to the ecosystem. But since I place my own species success above all others, I do try to make intelligent and informed choices about what’s in our overall *net* best interests. Part of that calculus is not wrecking the environments upon which we depend for food. Another part is not more directly killing ourselves. As such, I’m a big fan of nuclear fission by these numbers as the primary replacement for fossil fueled electricity in most of the industrialized world. Number two would be geothermal where that could be made to work, followed by solar, wind and finally hydro.
That’s in a “perfect” world. In the real world, hydro and wind currently happen to be the most politically and economically viable options that aren’t natural gas … but I’m ok with natural gas as a trade for coal. These are at least steps in what I consider to be the correct direction, just not in the order of prioritization I’d otherwise wish.
“In the real world, hydro and wind currently happen to be the most politically and economically viable options”
In fact, hydro power is responsible for several orders of magnitude more deaths than most other energy sources. Take the Banqiao Dam disaster, for example:
Casualties
According to the Hydrology Department of Henan Province, in the province, approximately 26,000 people died[14] from flooding and another 145,000 died during subsequent epidemics and famine. In addition, about 5,960,000 buildings collapsed, and 11 million residents were affected. Unofficial estimates of the number of people killed by the disaster have run as high as 230,000 people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
Or the Sichuan earthquake, perhaps:
BEIJING — Nearly nine months after a devastating earthquake in Sichuan Province, China, left 80,000 people dead or missing, a growing number of American and Chinese scientists are suggesting that the calamity was triggered by a four-year-old reservoir built close to the earthquake’s geological fault line.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/world/asia/06quake.html?pagewanted=all
How many were displaced by the Three Gorges, do you know?
Then there’s the current disquiet among the Greens about methane from the dams…
I can see you are quite emotional. I guess this post has upset you. Never mind. Buck up. Go have a hot chocolate and hug a pillow or something.
[snip -multiple policy violations -mod]
Thank you, moderator – much appreciated. Cheers! 🙂
> In fact, hydro power is responsible for several orders of magnitude more deaths than most other energy sources. Take the Banqiao Dam disaster, for example:
How is an *example* supposed to support your claim that hydro power is responsible for several orders of magnitude more deaths than other energy sources, catweazle666?
This is what a *comparison* looks like:
From the article, which you apparently did not read the first time I linked it for you, says, “Hydro is dominated by a few rare large dam failures like Banqiao in China in 1976 which killed about 171,000 people.”
I ranked hydro *dead last* in my order of preferences for reasons. It’s almost as if I know something about their environmental and human impacts or something.
> Then there’s the current disquiet among the Greens about methane from the dams…
Dams were disquieting to “Greens” well before the methane story broke, you know. In the grand scheme of things, that would be the least of my concerns about them.
As I understand it the whole event, i.e. the blackout, was triggered when several (six?) transmission towers carrying electricity from windfarms were blown over in the storm. This initiated the domino effect of cutouts.
If this is correct, then it was not a problem with the wind turbines themselves which was the cause. Perhaps someone with local knowledge might have information relating to this.
I should add that I am no fan of wind power, but if the above is correct then a knee jerk reaction blaming the turbines would be wrong. Whatever was the cause the truth is important.
Thomas
Your understanding is incorrect. Most of those towers were lost after, not before, the blackout. In any event they coild not cause a statewide blackout including Adelaide because they were in the north and most generation is in the southeast. The cause was about 30% of wind tripping off almost simultaneously for whatever reason (excess wind speed, frequency sag), which overloaded the rest, causing Hayward to trip off causing blackout. Been discussed and analyzed in detail here and elsewhere using the actual grid status monitoring data.
Before the towers started collapsing 20MW of wind power had tripped off line due to high winds. That is about 10 wind turbines. When the transmission lines towers collapsed during a 88 second window,6 voltage glitches were created. The wind turbine software detected these glitches and enter ride through mode. during the ride through the turbine continues to generate power at a fixed frequency to support the grid. The wind turbine software only allows a limited number of ride throughs in a specific period of time. The default for the software was about 3 in 2 minutes. there were 6 in 88 seconds during the storm. So after the 88 second even 9 out of 13 wind farms had shut down. For the other 4 the wind turbine operator had at the time of installation had changed the ride through settings and the turbines continued to produce power.
Based on the report:
the wind turbines did not shut down due to high wind speeds.
There is no evidence to support the claim that the transmission towers collapsed after the blackout.
System frequency also stayed in spec after the 4th glitch but at that point 9 out of 13 wind farms had disconnected from the failing grid.
When the 5 and 6 glitch occurred the grid collapsed. The remaining wind and thermal generator could not keep the grid up.
Most of the wind farms have already changed there default ride through setting to 19 faults in 2 minutes. Of the remainder some have changed the software to 9 ride throughs and are evaluating there system before making further changes. one wind farm needs a software upgrade.
There is no report yet on why the transmission towers collapsed. The wind turbines survived the winds witout damage. The grid did not.
https://www.aemo.com.au/Media-Centre/-/media/9027D5FB69294D408E4089249F38A36D.ashx
“It says much about the nature of our national dialogue these days that it degenerated into a rather tawdry ideological and political brawl even as a once-in-50-year, catastrophic storm event raged across South Australia, as homes and businesses remained without power, and the clean-up was still to come.
The brawl was on between those who wanted to blame renewable energy for the complete loss of power to an entire state, and those pointing out that the problem was not primarily in generation of power but in its transmission, after twin tornadoes on Wednesday brought down 22 massive transmission towers and generated 80,000 lightning strikes across SA.”
http://www.afr.com/opinion/a-perfect-storm-hits-south-australia-and-the-climate-change-debate-20160929-grrgkm
No. The brawl was between those that just wanted their power to keep going and those that wanted to push their own far-left ideologies onto everybody else.
Just curious about your apocalyptic but cherry-picked reference to
What’s the context? What are you comparing it to? SA is a very large territory. Are you suggesting that in the whole history of SA, they never had a previous storm that had 80,000 lightning strikes across SA, and that this one particular storm, that coincidentally wiped out the wind farms, was unprecedented? It is really amazing and mystifying to me how many weather events that most people historically have taken in stride become “unprecedented” in relation to CAGW and renewable energy.
Phil R said:
“Are you suggesting that in the whole history of SA, they never had a previous storm that had 80,000 lightning strikes across SA, and that this one particular storm, that coincidentally wiped out the wind farms, was unprecedented?”
Well, perhaps you can tell us about all the other storms in SA that took out that many transmission towers. If such a thing is common, I’m sure you’ll easily be able to give examples.
Philip Schaeffer, towers do go down. It’s not the first time such a thing has happened, but the loss of towers and lines do not take out the entire grid. There would be localized blackouts, yes, not the whole state left without power for a whole day.
A.D. Everard said:
“”Philip Schaeffer, towers do go down. It’s not the first time such a thing has happened, but the loss of towers and lines do not take out the entire grid. There would be localized blackouts, yes, not the whole state left without power for a whole day.”
OK, so tell me about the last time that many towers went down in one storm.
The problem is that policy makers arrogantly think they don’t need engineers involved in policy discussions. Engineers are by far the most informed people on power generation and should be involved from go to whoa.