Guest “Ha Ha!” by David Middleton
‘No more wind.’ WA state utility questions efficacy of wind farms for power generation
BY BILL VIRGIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
SEPTEMBER 19, 2020[…]
Renewables, a category that also can include solar and more exotic forms like geothermal or tidal, will, so the theory goes, help “de-carbonize” the region’s generating portfolio of coal and natural gas, leading eventually to an “all-green” electric grid.
Achieving that goal will require a whole lot more solar and a whole lot more wind, which makes it all the more interesting that one utility is breaking with energy orthodoxy by saying, “No more wind.”
[…]
[I]n a recently released report, “Wind Power and Clean Energy Policy Perspectives,” the utility’s commissioners say they “do not support further wind power development in the Northwest.”
More large-scale wind farms they say, will “contribute very little to keeping the regional power grid reliable and will not help Benton PUD solve our seasonal energy deficit problems” (when it needs to purchase additional power for winter and summer peaks), will drive up customer rates, won’t make a significant contribution to reducing greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change, will hurt revenues that utilities like Benton receive from the sale of surplus hydropower and will needlessly clutter up the “scenic hillsides, canyons and desert vistas in our region for little if any net environmental benefit.”
“We are continuing to sound the alarm regarding the unacceptably high risk of power grid blackouts in the Pacific Northwest being precipitated by overly aggressive clean energy policies and deepening dependence on wind power to replace retiring coal plants,” the commissioners say in a news release. “Benton PUD is calling on Governor Inslee and our state legislators to learn from California’s experience and to believe what utilities in Washington State are telling them. Rolling blackouts jeopardize the health, safety and well-being of all citizens and cannot be accepted in a region that, thanks to hydropower, is the envy of the nation when it comes to clean and low-cost electricity …
“While development of wind farms may be politically fashionable and appeal to many in the general public as a harmonization of nature with electricity production, the science and economics indicate powering modern civilization with intermittent generation resources like wind and solar power comes at a high financial and environmental cost.”
[…]
But as the Benton PUD report illustrates, just because those wind-turbine farms are self-proclaimed “green” resources doesn’t mean they are exempt from pointed questioning as to just how much the regional grid, consumers and businesses that are being asked to rely on wind really ought to.
The News Tribune
“No more wind.”
Residential electricity rates in Washington average 9.85¢/kWh, second lowest in the nation.
The state of Washington’s wind resource is rather lacking…
For comparison, here’s Texas’ wind resource map…
Even with its world class wind resource, Texas only generates an average of 20% of its electricity from wind power.
With minimal onshore wind resource, abundant hydroelectric resource and one of the lowest electricity rates in the nation, the Benton Public Utility District is demonstrating wisdom by saying “No more wind.”
The investment value of the Green Blight is predicated upon convincing the world that CO2, carbon generally, is a clear and progressive risk, which can be mitigated through exclusion, rather than development. The realization that the hypothesis is founded on unrealistic (e.g. laboratory) premises would force a catastrophic misalignment in global economies, which would mask the so-called “Great Depression”, and would probably conclude with an equally catastrophic anthropogenic event (e.g. “war”) to clear the books.
In a recently released report, “Wind Power and Clean Energy Policy Perspectives,” the utility’s commissioners say they “do not support further wind power development in the Northwest.”
More large-scale wind farms they say, will “contribute very little to keeping the regional power grid reliable and will not help Benton PUD solve our seasonal energy deficit problems” (when it needs to purchase additional power for winter and summer peaks), will drive up customer rates, won’t make a significant contribution to reducing greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change, will hurt revenues that utilities like Benton receive from the sale of surplus hydropower and will needlessly clutter up the “scenic hillsides, canyons and desert vistas in our region for little if any net environmental benefit.”
“We are continuing to sound the alarm regarding the unacceptably high risk of power grid blackouts in the Pacific Northwest being precipitated by overly aggressive clean energy policies and deepening dependence on wind power to replace retiring coal plants,” the commissioners say in a news release. “Benton PUD is calling on Governor Inslee and our state legislators to learn from California’s experience and to believe what utilities in Washington State are telling them. Rolling blackouts jeopardize the health, safety and well-being of all citizens and cannot be accepted in a region that, thanks to hydropower, is the envy of the nation when it comes to clean and low-cost electricity …
“While development of wind farms may be politically fashionable and appeal to many in the general public as a harmonization of nature with electricity production, the science and economics indicate powering modern civilization with intermittent generation resources like wind and solar power comes at a high financial and environmental cost.”
______________________________
So authorities Washington State are finally showing a modicum of intelligence regarding wind power and its endemic inadequacy, due primarily to intermittency. Well, OK, but WE’VE KNOW THIS FACT SINCE ~FOREVER AND PUBLISHED A STRONG STATEMENT AGAINST GRID-CONNECTED WIND POWER IN 2002!
So we hereby award the authorities in Washington State the “RIP VAN WINKLE WAKE-TF-UP AWARD” for finally arousing from their decades-long slumber, recognizing that green energy is not green and does not produce much useful (dispatchable) energy. Attaboys all around!
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/09/10/nobel-prize-winning-economics-of-climate-change-is-misleading-and-dangerous-heres-why/#comment-3080876
[excerpt]
OUR MAJOR STATEMENTS MADE IN 2002*
Statements 1 and 2 below are by now accepted as true by competent scientists and engineers.
In 2002 co-authors Dr Sallie Baliunas, Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian, Dr Tim Patterson, Paleoclimatologist, Carleton, Ottawa and Allan MacRae published the following which are correct to date:
friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
1. “CLIMATE SCIENCE DOES NOT SUPPORT THE THEORY OF CATASTROPHIC HUMAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING – THE ALLEGED WARMING CRISIS DOES NOT EXIST.”
See Michael Shellenberger’s 2020 confession “On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare”. quillette.com/2020/06/30/on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/
THE CATASTROPHIC ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING (CAGW) AND THE HUMANMADE CLIMATE CHANGE CRISES ARE PROVED FALSE
By Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc.(Eng.), M.Eng., January 10, 2020
thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/the-catastrophic-anthropogenic-global-warming-cagw-and-the-humanmade-climate-change-crises-are-proved-false.pdf
2. “THE ULTIMATE AGENDA OF PRO-KYOTO ADVOCATES IS TO ELIMINATE FOSSIL FUELS, BUT THIS WOULD RESULT IN A CATASTROPHIC SHORTFALL IN GLOBAL ENERGY SUPPLY – THE WASTEFUL, INEFFICIENT ENERGY SOLUTIONS PROPOSED BY KYOTO ADVOCATES SIMPLY CANNOT REPLACE FOSSIL FUELS.”
See Michael Moore’s 2020 film “Planet of the Humans”. youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE
Don’t forget that Washington State utilities benefit from a gubmint program of yesteryear: The Bonneville Power Administration that built all those lovely hydroelectric dams up and down the Columbia River, from Grand Coulee Dam down to Bonneville Dam just upriver from Portland, Oregon.
It is crazy for Washington State utilities to sign up with wind. Let the fools in California do that.
Vested wind interests are pushing the Big Wind agenda. They have billions in funding. Refer Aloys Wobben, German wind baron, net worth $5 billion; Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co Limited, the Chicom-affiliated world’s largest wind turbine manufacturer, HQed in Beijing, Siemens, Vestas, etc. Various American carpetbaggers are also riding the wind gravy train. You think these guys are just gonna roll over and stop building their windmills? Wind is political. Utilities have been mandated by politicians to buy wind and solar to meet spurious renewable energy targets, whether because of bribery or feelgood virtue signalling or both. Contractors love building the things, lots of juicy fees to earn, while landowners love the rental payments for hosting the bat killers.
Wind is not going to die without a fight. Stopping the stupid subsidies for renewables is the best way to win this war.
Earth MRI Funds Critical Minerals Projects in Alaska
https://www.usgs.gov/news/earth-mri-funds-critical-minerals-projects-alaska?qt-news_science_products=4#qt-news_science_products
Hmm, breaking with wind?