Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Green supporters of renewable energy are horrified at the devastation construction has wrought on pristine Cairns wilderness.
The wind farms angering renewable energy fans
In the ranges behind Cairns, bushland is being cleared in the name of climate action. It’s pitting eco warriors against green energy projects.
Investigation by Mayeta Clark
On the day the Mount Emerald wind farm was officially declared open, Steve Nowakowski felt a heady optimism.
It was winter 2019, the sky was clear and a slight breeze ruffled Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s hair as she spruiked Queensland’s clean, green energy future.
Steve, a renowned wilderness photographer and veteran environmental campaigner, listened in fierce agreement.
“We know we need a very quick transition to renewables and this was a part of a solution,” he says.
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So after the opening ceremony, he walked to the top of Mt Emerald to get aerial shots of the site.
Steve had bushwalked through Mt Emerald’s native scrub years earlier and knew the landscape well.
…
He had no idea at the time that Mt Emerald would become just one of many wind and solar projects proposed, or already under construction, in this part of Queensland, some on significant tracts of unspoilt wilderness.
“It’s really out of control,” Steve says. “And no one knows about it.”
…
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-12/queensland-wind-farms-clearing-bushland/100683198
I mean, a late awakening Steve, but welcome to the party.
I know we don’t agree on climate change, but the utter devastation of wilderness areas is a significant part of the reason WUWT supporters are opposed to renewable energy. Renewable energy is diffuse, so vast acreages of devastated landscape are required to produce even a fraction of the renewable energy our society would need to transition to Net Zero. And its set to get worse. The materials needs of renewable facilities are so gargantuan, mining and processing would have to be expanded by at least 50% to hit Net Zero by 2050. And that’s not even including backup battery manufacture.
Steve, Michael Moore even made a documentary about the green energy horror show. He set out to expose Big Oil, but what he found was very different to what he expected. I guess you didn’t see his documentary, before you gave your backing to the wind projects.
There is a zero carbon alternative to widespread destruction of the wilderness – nuclear power. Instead of 10s of square miles of wilderness devastation to power a city, an equivalent nuclear plant takes a few acres of land. Maybe its time you and your green friends took a closer look at the possibilities.
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Mayeta Clark: “Steve, a renowned wilderness photographer and veteran environmental campaigner, listened in fierce agreement.”
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Listening in fierce agreement? I’ll have to give Mayeta high marks for purple prose.
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And there’s this bit:
“It’s really out of control,” Steve says. “And no one knows about it.”
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The environmentalist ignorati remind me of the sort that attended the old Hellfire and Brimstone tent revival meetings. The traveling preacher would absolutely torch the emotions of the attendees. Much tears, regret, and repentance… Hallelujah, brother! Everyone heads out all fired up and ready to save some souls.
The Green Sheeple, Steve, for example, are much the same. They attend rallies (tent revivals) and get all worked up to “Save The Planet”. They read the Green religious tracts (constant propaganda) and they contemplate the Green religious icons such as images of starving polar bears.
So long as people limit themselves to tent revivals and green protests, they will remain true believers. But once they stumble outside the bounds of their ‘religion’, like Steve, they will see things that make them question their ‘one true religion’.
It looks like Steve stepped outside the tent.
Yes but it’s ok because Nick comes along to define it’s just light scrub and what they did was wind development best practice. So Steve must immediately stop looking and just believe as it’s a matter of faith because the great green blob deemed it so.
Stepped outside the tent after a large herbivore had walked past.
“There are none so blind as those who will not see”
It looks like Steve tripped and rolled outside the tent, then realized the tent was gone.
Once the brain learns to see, it incredibly hard to stop seeing.
If wind and solar are good for the planet, they’re good for Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Gold Coast of Chicago, and the D.C. mall – for starters. Preferably all federal and state lands so the leases won’t cost anything. ANWR using the supercooled transmission lines which are supposed to be so efficient.
Quinn’s First Law. Leftists always produce the exact opposite of their stated intent.
California is producing too much solar energy now and still forces roof top solar on all new homes. This is after paying the States of Nevada and Arizona $0.08 Kwh to take our excess. Now they are curtailing solar to the grid from 11 AM to 2 PM.
“California is producing too much solar energy now and still forces roof top solar on all new homes. This is after paying the States of Nevada and Arizona $0.08 Kwh to take our excess.”
***********
This is just my opinion, but there is something seriously wrong when you are producing a commodity (solar electricity) and you have to pay somebody to take it off your hands. That is totally ludicrous.
This is an example of government embracing a narrative that has run amok. The idea behind a free market economy is to produce a commodity that you can sell profitably. When that idea is turned on its head because of govt edict, then government has become dysfunctional and no longer serves its purpose.
Germany has been doing that for at least 15 years.
Nobody is paying anything.
During periods of strong winds and low demand, and very low or negative wholesale prices, the existing power plants connected to the German grid cannot back off enough to enable the massive wind quantities to enter the German grid.
Germany merely sends the highly subsidized, excess wind electricity, via HVDC lines, to Norway, which merely runs less water through the hydro plants.
All this is automatically happening at very high speeds, milliseconds.
At some other time, the wholesale prices are positive. Accounts are settled, on a real-time basis, by the grid operator; similar to VISA settlements
Denmark does exactly the same, already for at least 40 years.
There are times Denmark produces more wind than its ENTIRE demand.
WIND AND SOLAR TO PROVIDE 30 PERCENT OF NEW ENGLAND ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION BY 2050
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/wind-and-solar-provide-50-percent-of-future-new-england
This occurs on a daily basis in Australia. But the intermittents have to pay to send out so they stop generating.
It is termed economic curtailment. The faint orange dotted line in the linked chart shows the amount of intermittent curtailment in the Victorian market:
http://nemlog.com.au/gen/region/vic/
You can observe the negative price dips in the wholesale price here if you select “Price and Demand” for Victoria:
https://www.aemo.com.au/energy-systems/electricity/national-electricity-market-nem/data-nem/data-dashboard-nem#price-demand
Once the price dips negative, the intermittent generators voluntarily curtail.
Lunchtime power in Australia is now a scourge. It is degrading the grid. There is so much rooftop connected that the domestic networks are sitting at the upper voltage limit and the rooftop systems have automatically restricted output to prevent overvoltage. It will require massive investment to get the rooftop output back into the system. It needs automatic tap-changing transformers at the retail distribution level.
And the crony capitalists still get paid even if it is “curtailed,” on top of all the original subsidies. Take from the poor and give to the rich: Robin Hood with his socialist hood up his ass.
They should ban themselves from using any form of energy to get their message out.
Looks like gas well locations in the Four Corners but HUGER!!!
Who, just who, would have thought that Greening would mean devastation?!? Anyone with half a brain!
Wow, a hearty thanx for pointing to Mayeta Clark’s article! This non-reliable energy nonsense can’t take a good does of daylight!
A little 12 acre nuclear power plant – Diablo Canyon – can provide 10% of all of California’s electrical needs. Nine of those plants – about what would fit on that foreground hill in the photo, the one with 6 windmills – would power ALL of Australia (Australia uses about 87% of the electricity of California).
Nuclear is the ONLY sane source of clean, reliable, minimal-footprint power.
A group of crows is called a “murder.” I think it only appropriate, considering the number of birds, bats, insects and mammals that they kill, that wind turbine installations should be referred to using the same nomenclature.
— derived from a very similar H. L. Mencken quote.
This is the “net zero” obsession in a nutshell.
There is no magic solution that doesn’t have significant other costs.
And that just the electric generation, which accounts for about one fourth of total fossil fuel consumption.
“Since 2010 the average amount of minerals needed for a new unit of power generation capacity has increased by 50% as the share of renewables has risen”
International Energy Agency, ‘The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions’ May 2021
I can’t find the reference (buried by ministry of truth?) to the 90km strip of National Forest along the coast of Denmark that was cut down for a wind ‘farm’ about 20yrs ago. I was blown away that this tiny country could even have 90km of forest.
Seven million trees have been cut down in Scotland for wind and they plan to double this.
https://scotlandagainstspin.org/2020/02/millions-of-trees-felled-to-make-way-for-north-of-scotland-wind-farms-energy-voice/
Most pictures of Scotland look like tundra so this could be an even bigger sacrifice than it seems.
Epuron the same group that made that mess has applied for another site at Lotus Creek in old growth forest in Queensland. It has been rejected once (https://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/43905/20200611/100m-queensland-wind-farm-proposal-gets-rejected.htm)
They have put in a new submission moving it slightly and don’t worry they have a statement of best practice for the site .. what could possibly go wrong
https://epuron.com.au/news/2021/9/2/253-epuron-renews-best-practice-commitment/
Nick will be along shortly to define it as scrub and there are no concern with Koalas as they aren’t tall enough to get chopped by the blades.
What about the endangered Drop Bears? Won’t that destroy their habitat?
No they aren’t a problem as long as you have an empty beer can to throw at them.
anti nuke people really screwed things up in the past
Another case of the Left eating itself. Eventually activists of all stripes end up either seeing the light and denouncing their cause or becoming so inner focused that they isolate themselves. It’s the nature of the beast.
The irony is that the Welsh government is pushing for school-children to plant free trees – having already taken out almost 2,000,000 trees to make way for wind turbines.
“It’s pitting eco warriors against green energy projects.” – article
I wondered when “the awakening” might start. Others will follow.
Here’s a weak defense of the wind and solar industries, brought to you by Yale.
“Three Myths About Renewable Energy and the Grid, Debunked”
https://e360.yale.edu/features/three-myths-about-renewable-energy-and-the-grid-debunked
An electric system study by Amory Lovins and a disarmament guy … what could possibly be problems with the study? No consideration of practicality and cost are biggies. How about making unrealistic assumptions about future technology and its cost? Assuming that industry, businesses and people will only use energy when told is a pretty heroic assumption.
I’ll leave it to people with stronger stomachs to pick the “study” apart.
The Yale 360 web site (https://e360.yale.edu/) is loaded with green propaganda. I post comments on most of their essays as “mountain man”. I deconstruct the propaganda for fun. Unlike this blog, few people post there.
Using wind power simply does not lower CO2 emission. It is simply a waste of time and resources.
Wind energy could be useful to some people, but governmental wind industry, is not helping some people who might find wind power useful.
One could say the global satellite industry which use solar panels {which is best way to get energy in orbit] has enable the use solar energy for some people {unlike governmental wind industry]. Both solar and wind energy generation on Earth surface is not a national solution for energy.
A national interest of energy should be to provide cheap, and reliable energy for its citizens.
Most or all governments are failing to do this, adequately. And their insistence on using wind or solar energy as solution, is misguided.
There is problem with using nuclear energy as governmental involvement with nuclear energy makes nuclear energy costly. South Korea government has so far done the best in terms making cheaper nuclear energy. South Korea had the advantage of learning from other nation’s failure. And building on that success, would a pathway towards a more global use of nuclear energy.
But in terms best solution to providing global energy, the Space Environment is probably the long-term solution. Or solar panels work in earth orbit, as they can create a constant source of power. Also, the space environment could distribute electrical power, globally.
But getting energy from Space is long term issue. A major problem is high cost to launch stuff
into space. Many find SpaceX’s desire [and ability] to dramatically lower launch cost, as a sign that using Space Power Satellite is becoming near term solution. But probably still something which will take a fair amount of time.
The present focus, should related to exploring the Moon and exploring Mars.
What this exploration could do, is lead to lower the cost of electrical power beyond Earth surface.
Space is similar to what was called third world countries. The problem for decades and currently, is that regions of world where there is poverty- is the access to to cheaper energy- so international funds focused on making hydro power [which provided power and water].
With Moon, you need water to make lunar rocket fuel, and one mine lunar water, one needs cheap electrical power. Or having lunar water, will cause more electrical power need, and lower the cost of electrical power on the Moon. Or having lunar water, will create a large market for electrical power. But it requires time and competition to cause cheaper prices of electrical power. So this could take decades to significantly drive down costs.
And Mars is similar to Moon. Having both Moon and Mars, rather one or the other, will shorten the time of getting electrical power in space cheaper than electrical power on Earth.
Once electrical is cheaper in space, the added cost of beaming power to earth surface, becomes possible.
Or using economy of scale now, in regards to Space power Satellites, will lower electrical costs on Earth surface- but it significantly lowers cost of electrical power in Space- but of course at moment they aren’t enough of a market in space for that much electrical power.
In long term future, Space will have cheaper electrical power and cheaper water than Earth.
It’s worse than you imagine, Steve!
Got rare birds or bats in those Wilderness areas? You’ll find their bodies around the wind turbines.
Meanwhile, fossil fueled trucks and cars will be regularly driving around those Wilderness areas disturbing and destroying wildlife.
Pristine, is what those areas used to be, now they’re busy pseudo energy roadways.
You’ve got two choices, Steve, and renewable energy isn’t one of them.
1) If you truly believe fossil fuels are killing the world, throw off your clothes and shoes, trash your computer and phone and return to living naked in the bush.
2) Stop believing alarmist dooms! Pay attention to your own barometer and thermometer, start believing that Earth’s billions of years evolving, easily copes with a few degrees warming.
It’s Earth’s cooling you should fear. Earth’s millions of heavily glaciated years means that Earth is right now dangerously close to glaciation.
True, but Steve’s job should be to not just talk. He needs to be the lead in putting a stop to the confounded wind farms and the solar farms, and do more than just complain about his reality check.
It must have been quite a head thump when he realized that what he was supporting was worse than the prior alternative, all along.
suck it swampie. you got what you wanted.
There is a Nuclear facility in Washington State – –
Search for Columbia Generating Station
Using Google Earth, it appears to be about 9 square Kilometers with a perimeter of 11.5 K.
Its output can be seen here:
BPA Balancing Authority Load and Total Wind Generation
Info here:
Columbia Generating Station (energy-northwest.com)
“It’s really out of control,” Steve says. “And no one knows about it.” I have been uploading pictures or links about the destruction on pro and con sceptic CC web sites for at least 20 years. Do those reading these sites just think it’s “misinformation?” Vermont looks more and more like West Virginia and the destruction caused by mining coal. I don’t even bother taking my camera with me when I take trips through New England.
Their a hazard to Birds and their a total eyesore soil the view with ugly wind turbines ruin it for everyone