Guest essay by Andi May
If you had told me a year ago that I would willingly move into proximity of a windfarm, I would have laughed. Yet this is precisely what I have done.
Wellington’s South Coast lies on the very southern tip of New Zealand’s North Island, and is renowned for the winds that blow here. In fact Wellington is known as the Windy City – or at least New Zealand’s version of it.
My new home sits on a hill overlooking Cook Strait (the water separating North and South Islands), at a height of 400 metres. The prevailing winds alternate between northerly and southerly. Rarely do I get anything from either east or west. Yet the views are simply stunning, especially the sunsets!
Yet the views are simply stunning
Running roughly due north from the coast are a series of windfarms stretching many kilometres, the closest is less than a kilometre away from me. From my door I count 32 masts, but there are many more to the north hidden from view.
Fortunately for me, a huge gully runs between my home and the windfarms, and as the Northerly or Southerly blows, all sound is whisked away by the breeze. I have rarely been aware of any infra-sound. I feel nothing but sympathy for those who are closer and affected. Certainly for those who lived peacefully before having windfarms forced on them. At least I had the choice of living here or not!
But here at the Coast where I live, these are baby windmills by the accounts of many, being a mere 47 metres in overall height. I understand to the north lie taller ones with Mill Creek having 26 Siemens 2.3MW wind turbines each 110 metres tall.
But where did New Zealand’s love of Windmills start?
In 1993, Wellington City Council in conjunction ECNZ (Electricity Corporation of New Zealand) installed the Brooklyn wind turbine as part of a research project.
The original Vesta V27 wind turbine installed at the top of locally renowned Brooklyn Hill in the Te Kopahou Reserve. The turbine was small by many standards at about 45 metres from ground to tip of the blade. The Vestas V27 turbine has a blade length of 13.5 meters. The turbine tower is 31 metres tall, has a capacity of 225 kilowatts (or 0.225 megawatts) and weighs 22.8 tonnes.
It became quite a prominent landmark, clearly visible over the city and attracting visitors by the score.
Yet by 2010, 7 years after installation, the turbine failed and was out of action for months. It was finally repaired but by 2016 it really had passed its sell-by date.
Surveys showed a surprising 85% of local residents wanted to retain such a landmark windmill at the site, and a decision was made to remove the Vesta V27 and replace it with something bigger and better. The Vesta was on-sold to be reused in a smaller project.
Here’s a YouTube time-lapse video of the new construction:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NuC2gG1ie8&feature=youtu.be
The new turbine, an Enercon E44, has a tip height of 67 metres (an increase of 22 metres) and weighs around 47 tonnes.it has a plated capacity of 900 kilowatts.
Brooklyn was used as a testing ground for wind energy in New Zealand, yet it seems fraught with problems.
I drive past this turbine on an almost daily basis, yet it can be out of action for weeks on end and is constantly visited by maintenance personnel.
Another weird thing I have noticed, is that on the calmest of days, when you could drop a feather and watch it fall straight at your feet, the turbine is turning merrily away. At the same time, the local windfarms a few kilometres away lay idle. So just what is going on I wonder?
Seen as a draw card for tourists, with the most spectacular views over Wellington, it is promoted by Wellington City Council. Many of the tour operators meeting the Cruise Liners as they arrive with their passengers more than willing to pay to be escorted up here.
I have to wonder if we are paying to keep the blades turning just to impress tourists? Just sayin!
Nonetheless, Brooklyn was, and still is, seen as the posterchild of modern-day wind energy generation in GodZone. That despite its low delivery rate. Add to that the fact that we frequently get windless days. But the majority of the time during the winter months at least, the winds can be pretty ferocious.
But back to my neighbouring windfarms.
These are baby windmills
Local windfarms making up this series in Wellington that I know of are Long Gully, Terawhiti, Makara and Mill Creek – with more planned. RES spent many years trying to obtain consent to construct a huge windfarm in one of our last remaining Regional Parks at Akatarawa – but everything is stalled at present and local opposition has been stiff, including one Court case. My name is proudly on the list of speakers in opposition.
Whilst I retain fond memories of this area, having been introduced to the ruggedness of the location nearly 30 years ago, I can’t help but feel the area is despoiled for little or no benefit. Indeed reading some posts I suspect that these actually add to CO2 emissions rather than diminish them.
Couple that to the fact that they lie dormant so many times that one has to wonder where the energy is coming from.
New Zealand is blessed with a huge Hydro reserve and is exploiting Geothermal Energy in the central North Island volcanic region. Ironically NZ government refuses to recognise either Hydro or Geothermal as “Renewable” – if they did we would climb the international scales significantly.
So this headlong rush to despoil GodZone’s once idyllic landscapes continue unabated.
In some locations as here, these are well away from public gaze, so what the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over. However, in others, such as the Manawatu Region, the whole countryside is littered with these windfarms on ridgelines visible for miles around as here below:-
But perhaps all is not lost. The following quote from the New Zealand Wind Energy Association gives some hope:-
Wind farms are no longer eligible for carbon credits, although some developers have yet to collect the credits they were granted under the PRE. The last round of the PRE was in 2004. Wind farms will not receive a free allocation of carbon credits under the Emissions Trading Scheme. Wind farms are built today only if they can generate electricity at a cost that is competitive with other forms of generation. (highlighting mine)
However, it may all be changing as New Zealand has just elected a coalition Government with the Greens holding significant sway.
So to answer the question – Why Move Here?
Well, I have superb views with stunning sunsets, I am fortunate that the windfarm doesn’t bother me with infrasound although it is an eyesore. Couple that with the fact that I enjoy the remoteness this location affords – after all I am 8.8Km from the nearest tar seal!!!
I also fell in love with the area many years ago before the windfarm was even thought of, so I consider myself very fortunate indeed to live here and completely off-grid to boot!
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In the bad old days of the Soviet Union, it was rumored that compressed air was used to keep the big red flag atop the Kremlin flying straight out. So, given the Stalinist tendencies of the AGW/CC crowd, my first reaction when I read that the Brooklyn turbine was spinning even when the air was still in the city and at other turbine sites was that the Brooklyn turbine was being artificially made to spin.
Fir me, nothing demonstrates the irrationality if self declared “greens” than their willingness to destroy the environment with windmills in order to save it from a predicted problem that does not actually exist.
It’s more than a little bit strange, isn’t it, hunter. I think one of the consequences of no longer utilizing fossil fuels to power our prosperity producing economic enterprises could be a re-institutionalizing of institutional slavery. Along with a slide backwards to lifestyles that are more ‘primitive’ over-all.
They can try to spin the numbers any way they want, but the fact remains that wind energy is expensive and unreliable, and the only reason they have been pushed is because of the “carbon” sc@m, and because they make sheeple feel good. Because wind energy is helping “save the planet”. In decades hence they will become idle, decaying monuments to an age of Stupid.
“Another weird thing I have noticed, is that on the calmest of days, when you could drop a feather and watch it fall straight at your feet, the turbine is turning merrily away. At the same time, the local windfarms a few kilometres away lay idle. So just what is going on I wonder?”
With millions of dollars of taxpayer credits they have created “Giant Pinwheels”. It’s art by insane leftists and so called “greens”.
Wind is the answer to world energy production. If you believe that then I have a windmill in Brooklyn to sell you.
What I find interesting about wind power is that, as a general matter, the public seems to support, or at least does not seriously object to, wind turbines in wind farms or in smaller clusters. This is particularly so if the wind farm is cited remotely – people do not like them in their back yard. There is a large wind farm in northeastern NC (near Elizabeth City) that you drive by for several miles on US17. It took a while to get it permitted because of its sheer size, but it has simply become part of the landscape.
There’s a certain romance about wind turbines. It seems to harken back to the old Dutch windmills which have always been a romantic symbol. People just seem to like them. If you drive through North Texas on I-40 you’ll see thousands of them. And people just seem to accept them.
Of course, many people object to them on many grounds, either because of appearance, supposed inefficiency, as a bird killer, or simply by contrarians who reflexively object to any “green” energy system. It’s difficult to find a single supporter of wind power on this blog.
My only point is that wind turbines are not viewed by the general public as simply a brainchild of green politics. And neither, interestingly, are solar farms, which of course are much less visible. Both seemed to be viewed as reasonable examples of “cleaner energy” solutions. If we had a public referendum they would be overwhelmingly favored. My guess is that we’ll see a lot more of both.
Interesting. So you’re saying people actually like paying exhorbitant prices for unreliable energy which additionally has its own environmental issues, as long as it’s “green”? I highly doubt that John Q is really that dumb/ignorant.
You are probably right about wind turbines having great support, at least among those not living anywhere near them. But that’s because the global warming armageddon scenario has been so successfully sold, and who would not wish to do his/her part if convinced that we will soon self-destruct unless we do exactly as instructed. All negative positions about wind turbines then crumble, regardless of all contrary evidence.
I’m not saying that acceptance of wind energy is evidence-based. It’s hard to find an “evidence-based” treatment anywhere.
What I am saying is that once you remove yourself from the echo chamber, people’s opinions on issues like this run the gamut, sort of like they do elsewhere in the real world.
“Exhorbitant prices for unreliable energy”? Well, in NC energy prices have declined for residential customers. Subsidies may have something to do with this, but whatever the reasons, the angst level in NC about wind and solar are quite low. Republican legislators were the only group that seriously opposed it, other than a few NIMBY folks in the area.
Huh? Where do you live in NC, scraft1? Here in the Triangle, our electricity prices have been going up, not down, thanks to the exorbitant cost of North Carolina’s destructive Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS).
https://www.google.com/search?q=Duke+Progress+rate+increase
Wind power does generate a lot of political lobbyists to keep the money flowing.
We need to find out if the lobbyists for industrial scale wind are connected in any way to criminal groups. Italy and Spain have exposed such connections.
https://stopthesethings.com/2013/04/05/same-story-in-australia-they-just-go-by-a-different-name/#comments
Had to look up “tar seal”. I am interpreting it as “paved road”. It never ceases to amaze me what our more “British” speaking allies have as a lexicon for common usage. Does look like a beautiful site, though, in spite of the bird choppers. Here in the US our southern brethren also have some language which at times requires interpretation. G’day. Or is that more Australian?
‘once idyllic landscapes’
Really! Somebody has a low standard for natural beauty judging from the pictures.
Recently someone called for a daytime TV talk show for women with a very liberal bias to be banned from broadcasting. It takes no effort to not turn on the idiot box and not watch something I do not like.
Wind and solar is based on many in the public not liking coal, nuclear, or hydro. Almost all of our electricity is based on good engineering judgement. However, at least in the US, providing electricity is a public service.
So blame your neighbors and not engineers at the power company.
As a mechanical engineer I think modern wind turbines are an engineering marvel. I think they are beautiful along with nuke plants, coal, plants, and dams.
My advice for enjoying life is to make an effort to like things you do not like and avoid things that irritate you. For example, we love camping along the ocean but do not like RV parks. Along the Pacific Coast highway the state California has posted signs that say no parking 2am to 6 am. State parks prices are outrageous. There is a long list of California politics I do not like. Texas, Oregon, and Washington State have yet to criminalize enjoying nature.
I think semiconductors are a modern marvel including the cost curves for them.
http://www.firstsolar.com/Modules/Series-6
http://www.firstsolar.com/en/PV-Plants/Utility-Scale
http://investor.firstsolar.com/
Retired Kit P says:
So blame your neighbors and not engineers at the power company.
Haven’t many wind-farms in Canada been forced on the land-owners despite their protests? Or at least right next to land-owners where their protests are ignored?
Beng maybe you missed ‘at least in the US’.
While I have never heard any noise from from a wind turbine, everyplace I go there are folks with leaf blowers, chain saws, motor cycles, air planes taking off, coal trains rumbling by.
Not to mention aquaking birds.
Dutch windmills are quaint and attractive. Modern windmills, while not technologically advanced to any substantial degree are very expensive, ridiculously distracting , with the most gigantic environmental footprint of any power technology, and mostly a really stupid way to make unreliable electricty, with or without expensive batteries, which mostly serve to notify the grid that wind and power will shortly be declining, so the gas turbine generators better get spooled up fast.
c. 1300, from wind (n.1) + mill (n.). Similar formation in German Windmühle, Dutch windmolen, French moulin à vent. Verb meaning “to swing the arms wildly” is recorded from 1888. Related: Windmilled; windmilling.
A poignant description. More today than ever before.
Tar Seal
I think most NZers would use this as one word, especially as a verb.
Chambers dictionary defines TARSEAL as NZ’s version of TARMACADAM.
As a layman I apologize in advance if these two questions have been addressed or are simply foolish.
One of the popular expressions from Chaos theory is the butterfly effect. An early version of this says that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can set off a tornado in Texas. I’m wondering if this might apply to the green dream of global wind power.
To power the world with wind energy (ignoring the nearly impossible practical hurdles) would require many millions of wind turbines. That’s a helluva lot more than a butterfly. My question is whether the butterfly effect applies here; if widespread wind power would alter or disrupt global wind circulation; if the impact could be described and/or estimated; and how this might influence global climate.
Similar question for solar power. Say we build and install enough solar panels to theoretically power the world. (Again forget the practical hurdles.) Would we then capture and retain more energy and heat from the sun? Would that extra heat/energy be enough to alter the climate system, or is it so trivial we can safely ignore it?
I’ve wondered about this also. A wind farm will absorb a huge amount of wind energy. This will definitely affect the wind speed. Whether it would be enough to affect circulation generally I don’t know. Hopefully we’ll learn more about this before we commit to a massive windfarm ramp-up.
Sufficient numbers of wind driven electricity generators to supply electricity to the soon to be eight billion humans on the planet would likely stop the winds from circulating the Earth. Consequently, the drag of the static atmosphere would slow planetary revolution very slightly, causing the Earth to veer out of its orbit & head towards the Moon. The increased gravitational effects on the Moon would change the tides causing all the seawater to heap up on one side of our planet & thus lopsidedly slingshot us into a collision with the sun.
That’s a plot outline that should get the attention of http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/
I understand that turbines have to be kept turning, otherwise the shaft takes a set, hence the blades will be moving even if there is no wind. (There is a motor for the purpose, it seems.) The brinelling is something new to me, but that is why I spend so much time on WUWT.
You are optically braver than I am. I find the visual assault of spinning blades to be intolerable.
On the way to the Eclipse this summer via Casper, WY, I can guarantee that not a single wind turbine of the more than 100 was spinning NW of Laramie (Medicine Bow?), and on the way back 8 hrs later there were maybe 10 spinning. Do they really need to spin? As I ask my friends —who is generating the electricity!
You amaze me. With New Zealand’s abundance of locations for hydro why would they bother with expensive, unreliable and generally bothersome wind farms? The explanation of the turning blades with no wind is that the turbine is drawing power from the grid in order to prevent the turbine bearings from developing flat spots.
Derek Colman
February 20, 2018 at 5:40 pm
There have been several attempts to create more dams in NZ, either for power generation or irrigation projects. Almost all get stopped by the green mob. They rarely object to more bird choppers though.
Similar problems exist for those wanting to construct useful things like mines, highways, power transmission lines,etc. NIMBY is big here. As is BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything).
Andi, I’m a Manawatuite, or is that ‘tuvian’, I’m not sure? When the first windfarm was set up on the northern Tararua Range by the Manawatu Gorge it was seen as a novelty. Locals got it that our province is renowned for wind (in reality most of NZ is windy!) so why not put them there on the least rugged most boring piece of the range. Then the next lot on the northern side of the Gorge came along. Much bigger in every way. Locals became less enamoured by them and resistance grew. A deep divide quickly appeared and it seemed even some in authority were saying enough is enough.
New Zealand is rightly known for its scenery and although the Manawatu wouldn’t make the top 10 list for beautiful regions in this country, for us locals there are many treasures often overlooked by the casual traveller. The spread of this dominant industrialisation across our landscape has lead many to appreciate what we have even more, and to be not so welcoming to more wind farm initiatives, no matter what the economics may be.
Just one point as far as the Manawatus reputation for being windy is concerned. We only have wind records going back to the end of WW II, but in the late 1940’s & all of 50’s the wind run was only 65% of the annual daily long term total of 248km/day and luckily for the wind people since the late 90’s, when the wind farms were first built, the daily mean has been at 118%. How reliable will this intermittent energy source be if we return to the relative calmness of the 1950’s? Our reputation will be in tatters! I say bring it on. The only good westerly is the one that gets rid of the humid northerly. After that they (the Westerly winds) can piss off!
Yours, Coops from the Roaring 40’s!
Are wind turbines a blemish on the skyline? Depends. I am a 1945’er, born when the horizon was dotted by Chicago wind pumps. Then I used to count upwards of 80. No one complained; they were essential. No motor pumps, even less electricity. The night-time clanging was reassuring that the wind-pump was doing its job.
Its an imprint on my memory and I miss them today. It is what one gets used to when young that one readily accepts. Today the night is full of noise; its called modern music, hellish sounds of the modern demented. It is also necessary; its tourism.