In a recent article from Hot Air, titled “Note to Self: ‘Flying Canadian Blades’ Is Not a Hockey Team, But Do Wear a Helmet,” we are given a front-row seat to the spectacular failure of green energy initiatives, specifically a wind farm project on Prince Edward Island (PEI), Canada. This debacle serves as a stark reminder of the pitfalls of blindly embracing renewable energy without considering practical realities and economic viability.
The Ill-Fated Wind Farm Project
In 2012, the PEI government, in a burst of environmental enthusiasm, signed a $60 million contract with ACCIONA Windpower, a Spanish company, for a 10-turbine wind farm. The project, completed by 2014, was expected to have a lifespan of at least 20 years and provide a constant source of power generation for the local community.
$60M wind farm will lower power price: energy minister
Prince Edward Island’s Energy Minister Wes Sheridan promises the Hermanville wind farm, which is rapidly coming to completion, will bring down the price for power customers on the Island.
Sheridan said the $60-million investment is good for P.E.I.
“The price we get this electricity at is significantly below what we pay for our provider, in this case it’s New Brunswick for the rest of our power, so this brings our price down per kilowatts for all customers on P.E.I.”
The turbines should be fully operational within a week.
The ten wind turbines are the largest in North America. While they are owned by the province through the PEI Energy Corporation, they will be operated for the next 15 years through an agreement with Acciona Windpower, the company that manufactured them.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/60m-wind-farm-will-lower-power-price-energy-minister-1.2498382
The PEI government even gave tours touting the project’s projected success.
Cracks in the Green Dream
However, the reality was far from this rosy projection.
Merely two years into operation, cracks started to appear, both literally and figuratively. The wind farm, which faced opposition from the local community from its inception, began to show signs of wear. Small cracks were found in five blade bearings [bolts], a production hit that was just the beginning of the farm’s troubles.
The Downward Spiral
A consultant hired in 2022 to assess production problems at a wind farm owned by the P.E.I. government found severe damage, with turbine units possibly constituting a safety hazard and turbine blades at “high risk of imminent failure.”
Last month, high winds ripped two 56-metre blades off one of the turbines at the facility in Hermanville, near the northeastern tip of Prince Edward Island. For comparison, the province’s tallest building is only 39 metres tall; it’s the 10-storey Holman Grand Hotel in Charlottetown.
A provincial spokesperson said the turbine was not operational at the time, and was scheduled for repairs in April 2024. The province also said it expected insurance would pay for the broken blades.
It was just the latest setback at a wind farm that has seen a steep decline in energy production and is now losing the P.E.I. government money.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-hermanville-damage-blades-1.7074298
The situation continued to deteriorate through 2023.
Just four of 10 turbines at the Hermanville Wind Farm are currently running and one has failed completely.
A statement from PEI Energy, Environment and Climate Change did not clarify how long the issues have been affecting energy output or how much productivity has been lost at the north side facility. However, “Some turbines are paused and some are at reduced capacity,” the statement reads. “The newest fleet of Acciona 116/300 turbines are proving to require the largest amount of maintenance. A significant issue is the main bearings.”
Several sources have verified that for most of the past eight months only three or four turbines have been active at the same time.
Further information in the statement indicated a loss of 4500 MWh in the 20 days after Hurricane Fiona. That is aside from the issues with the turbine bearings.
More than half of the turbines at the Hermanville Wind Farm were sitting idle, and one had failed completely. The operation, barely eight years old, was producing only 35% of its initial output, a far cry from the promised efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
https://www.peicanada.com/eastern_graphic/more-than-half-of-hermanville-wind-turbines-sitting-idle/article_3c2bb72c-f994-11ed-bb04-7f44c83846f8.html
And at the end of the 2023.
The Reality of Wind Energy
This story is a microcosm of the larger issues plaguing the wind energy sector. The turbines, the largest in North America, were supposed to lower power prices and provide sustainable energy. Instead, they became a financial sinkhole and a symbol of unfulfilled promises. The PEI Energy Corporation admitted that the turbines had been offline for between 114 and 476 days, a staggering admission of failure.
The irony of the situation is palpable. In their rush to embrace green energy solutions, officials overlooked the practical and economic aspects of such projects. The result was a costly venture that failed to deliver on its promises, leaving taxpayers on the hook for a $70 million loss.
The debacle of the Hermanville wind farm on Prince Edward Island is a clear example of the pitfalls of poorly planned and executed green energy initiatives.
This story should serve as a reminder that misguided good intentions in environmental policy must be grounded in practical reality.
Read the original article at Hot Air for even more schadenfreude and humorous details.
H/T John G
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Even PEI finds Big Wind to be Unsustainable in a stiff breeze.
I wonder if the bearings and Bolts are rated for the depth of cold in those parts??
Thoughtful. Also, have they had the extreme weather in the past that they had more recently? We visited in mid 2023 and there were still lots of felled trees.
But isn’t the main reason for windmills to mitigate extreme weather?
So a failure on that score too.
Who disagrees that such projects need to be fit for the environment? If this project was poorly executed and/or sited, then shut it down and properly restore the site.
Jeez BoB.
Was your new year’s resolution to try getting rational?
If so, well done you 🙂
you need to really be able to read into his irrational side. His ‘shut it down and properly restore the site’ relates to his obsession with oil infrastructure. If you agree with what he says here, he will expect you to agree with his personal irrational cost assessments against the oil companies and their infrastructure.
That applies to basically every wind turbine subsidy farm on the planet !
So I guess for Wind Turbines to aid in taming weather (strong winds) there must be a sufficient quantity installed as to completely block the winds and thereby render themselves useless for generation
Well they always were a zero sum game.
This is great. Wind turbines for two thirds off.
If the bolts are manufactured in China, they’re always going to be suspect. We discovered our derrick bolts were Chinese and NFG on a 6th generation drillship and had to replace them. Dual derrick, so lots of bolts and a long delivery delay.
but they look so majestic
/sarc
Schadenfreude – so much for free energy.
Is that OIL I see running down the shaft?
Probably Rust from where the blade, after separating from the axle, struck the mast and damaged the finish…allowing rust to form. Or bearing grease😂
Green tears.
These infant failures seem atypical to me, but I don’t have data. Except for these scrapes.
https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/energy-explained/can-wind-turbine-blades-be-recycled#:~:text=There%20are%20more%20than%208%2C000,around%2020%2D25%20years).&text=They%20can%20mostly%20be%20recycled,that%20have%20already%20been%20recycled.
“There are more than 8,000 parts to one wind turbine and they can have an operational lifespan of up to 25 years (most last around 20-25 years).”
https://www.twi-global.com/technical-knowledge/faqs/how-long-do-wind-turbines-last
“A good quality, modern wind turbine will generally last for 20 years, although this can be extended to 25 years or longer depending on environmental factors and the correct maintenance procedures being followed.”
If there are studies that indicate that many/most blades get damaged after 2 years, I can be convinced that my links are biased. But I looked and couldn’t find any….
All your studies are trumped by the real-world experience in this article.
Thousands of projects, world wide. What is anecdote not the singular of?
AGAIN, if this was at all typical, per data, then Got Me There. I looked, couldn’t find anything generalizing this experience. Can you? Anyone? Anyone?
10 Wind Turbine Failures Caught On Camera
How many more were not ‘caught on camera’
I can probably find similar pictures myself. The ’80’s era project around Tehachapi California comes to mind.
Means nada without contextual data on the thousands of installed projects.
I think all you need to do is look at the true costs of reliable wind turbine energy to realize that construction and maintenance costs are much higher than fossil fuel energy. And they clutter the skyline view – even when they are not on fire.
Siemens Energy announces massive costs to repair wind turbines, resulting in a record loss of 3 billion euros in the third quarter. Despite the turbulence in the wind energy market, the Group is adapting and remains optimistic about the potential of wind power, despite the challenges.
Siemens Energy: the bill for the wind power debacle is mounting
Most of the issues revolve around quality problems at Siemens Gamesa’s two most recent onshore wind turbine platforms, the 4.X and 5.X, specifically certain rotor blades and main bearings.
The company said that while around 2,100 4.X and 800 5.X models were in the field, not all of those turbines were affected by the problems, which include wrinkles in rotor blades and unspecified particles in the bearings section.
What are the issues with Siemens Gamesa’s wind turbines?
Thank you, and with a thumb as well. This is a better indication of more general problems. But I noted this quote from your link:
“We believe as never before in the potential of wind power,” said Group CEO Christian Bruch at a press conference on Monday.”
If these problems become endemic – which is not referenced in your links – and if thereare no commercially applicable solutions, then the scale and applicability of these projects will be reassessed.
Who disagrees?
What this guy is believing or not, I don’t care so much 😀
You mean what this guy has to say to keep his job?
A 60% failure rate does not impress him.
But a 40% success rate does for some reason
A statistical anomaly
Bob,
For many Britons of my age there’s an acronym MRDA which is appropriate in this case.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mandy_Rice-Davies_applies
Well, you do….
“We believe as never before in the potential of wind power,”
You have not invested the bulk of your portfolio in this guys’s (or any other) wind scheme.
I’m very aware of wind power’s potential, and have invested my money accordingly – equal amounts into coal and uranium.
Probably most dedicated to the narrative politicians.
What do you think a CEO of a
huge failing windmill company would say? I assure you this guy is losing a lot of sleep thinking about the scores and scores of bankruptcies dotting the greenscape.There is a credulous underpinning to nearly all your offerings Big Oil. Question more. Go to Missouri for a spell.
Even if you are right and most wind projects work without flaws, they’re still a giant boondoggle: intermittent, low quality and expensive. Not to mention that they require a large amount of fossil fuels to exist.
I just don’t see what you see. The average lifespan of a wind turbine is around 20 years. Having worked out the failure rate in a Danish wind farm I can tell you that there is a 10-12% failure rate in those turbines each and every year. Repairs and maintenance, beyond what would reasonably be expected, will fix some of those problems, some have to be replaced. Your blasé attitude towards maintenance costs are probably more typical than the idea of a 100% working wind farm – maintenance and replacement costs reduce the profitability of the site to the point where it is no longer cost-effective to replace the turbines after 5-10 years. This will result in fewer and fewer working turbines with the damaged ones cannibalised to keep the others working as the cost of manufacturers spares or replacements (if they are still available) are simply not worth it. While it is possible to keep turbines working right up to the 20-25 year mark (like Triggers broom) with extensive repairs and replacements, it becomes uneconomical after a few years and those windfarms that are still going after 20 years do so at a fraction of their output. This PEI windfarm, whilst much smaller than most windfarms, is typical in terms of the economic viability of maintenance and replacements.
To restate Graemethecat’s comment – This article has more data points (10 turbines) than the link bigoilbob provided (zero real turbines).
I don’t have any references, I don’t save such things and don’t know how to find them years later, but I have read a number of articles citing wind projects that have been abandoned after about 15 years because subsidies expired and maintenance costs began to exceed income. The main issues of the articles were that almost all wind projects (and industrial sized solar projects), unlike oil well, coal mines, etc., had no requirements for the builders or owners to to do anything about old, no longer useful turbines or the sites thereof. Possibly that has been rectified in more recent contracts.
Also, from one pf bigoilbob’s links:
“A good quality, modern wind turbine will generally last for 20 years…”
Oh really? How many being built today have at least 20 years history to begin assessing their reliability.
You don’t need to be much of a cynic to think this is the typical promise made by a company salesman who doesn’t even care if it might turn out to be true. They’ll be working somewhere else by then.
Gas and coal-fired power generation has a long history to fall back on when it comes to issuing credible reliability predictions.
And more than some break after less than 10 years.
A Coal Generation facility can last for 60 years with proper maintenance
Again, about the same level of backup as the other posts.
FYI, LCOE estimates require much more than that. FYI, the average modern oil and gas well becomes uneconomic sooner than this. Which, I admit, with the lack of ability of US shale oil producers to economically replace proved, on oil and oil associated gas reserves, is a poor example.
Also required are externalized costs. For coal, they include shirked asset retirement costs, shirked medical and pension costs, and ACC costs that have already been implicitly assessed via bipartisan 45q legislation at ~$45/carbon ton.
They are about the same for upstream oil and gas, except for the fact that US upstream oil workers are victims and have never unionized.
Petersburg generating station Unit 1 began service in 1967, 56 years ago
Searles valley mimerals Argus Cogen in service 1978 – 45 years old
Belews Creek unit 1 in service 1974 (50 yeaars)
Big Bend Power Station in service 1969 (55 years)
Brunner Island unit 1 in service 1961 (62 years)
Those power stations must be economically viable or they would close. Of course, they run on their own money, not on government subsidies.
Yawn! You’re such a pathetic waste of oxygen boob.
I most wholeheartedly agree with this post.
At least BOBs oxygen waste turns into CO2 output which aids in the greening of the biosphere… so there’s that in his favor
You’ll have to prove that assumption.
BigOilBob, when you say “the average modern oil and gas well becomes uneconomic sooner than this” I suspect you are correct, as many shale gas wells have a pretty steep production dropoff in the first year or so. But what amount of energy is produced by the well during that time, in comparison to the energy generated by the wind turbine during its lifetime? I don’t have the answer, but I think it would be relevant to know. Do you agree, or am I missing something.
You don’t have to worry about pensions and accounting when the government simply adds to the deficit and pretends the same types of costs wouldn’t exist if wind power were financed by private companies.
What’s happening, time and time again, is that there are plenty of people happy to take money and build whatever, as long as they don’t have to make any guarantees.
Wind power was an interesting idea. When medium-scale batteries become economically viable, small projects can work. But it’s never going to power the energy grid. No intermittent source of power can unless there’s a leap in battery technology that doesn’t yet exist.
It was interesting. But it was misused, and has failed badly. Even if they all lasted 20 years, it’s still a bad idea. Which is why the cost keeps going up even with the massive additions to public debt throughout the western world.
Paraphrasing someone: Please stop cutting the cost of wind power, it’s too expensive already.
Rubbish. The LCOE estimates are investment company propaganda and should never be used as if they were properly researched documentation. The LCOE figures for fossil fuels go into a lot of depth regarding the costs of projects whilst renewables are glossed over and handwaved away. The LCOE documents are simply designed to get people to invest in renewables and not in fossil fuels so are deliberately and purposefully skewed in favour of renewables; only an idiot should believe what is written in them.
For reference, find a full LCOE document and look at the disclaimer right at the very front, go on – have a look.
🤣 😂 🤣 🤣 😂 🤣 😂 🤣 😂 🤣 😂 🤣 😂 🤣 😂
Imagine that, Levelized Cost of Energy is based upon “estimates”!
Utter BS.
It is pointless to debate facts with most of these people, the majority have no choice but to believe or not believe in something.
Knowing is not within them, they lack the intelligence.
Oh you’re so right eLiT3
These deplorables! Why some of them probably don’t even own a yacht or a senator.
Not deplorables, just people debating things that are only within the faintest grasp of their comprehension, and the keyboard makes them brave.
And for the majority of them examining data to evaluate if a talking moneys words are true on here, completely beyond most primates’ capabilities.
For some coming here it is about debating the scientific merits of an article, but for the majority, they are here for the fight (skeptic vs alarmist), typical Cro-Magnon behavior.
Oh my mistake, that wasn’t the least bit elitist or condescending.
But you’ve made one mistake. We’re mostly neanderthals here. Next time, do a little research.
Sorry Rich, we (my family) are predominantly, Homo Sapien with traces of Neanderthal genetics, along with the majority of the human race. The race with the highest quantity of Neanderthal genetics would be the Chinese, if memory serves.
But who said anything about genetics, I was talking about behavior.
Cro-Magnon, is a bad choice of words, it is a dying word not really used anymore in research. But it was once was, I guess my knowledge spans too many decades. The point was to compare the deductive reasoning skills of many people with primitive humans. Not a nice thing at all to say, but the truth is what is lacking in society today.
No, research required.
🙂
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/QG1ObrqpPao?feature=share
Since you may have missed the reference
There’s a book from a bygone age you should read.
It’s called –
“How To Win Friends And Influence People”
“typical Cro-Magnon behavior”
Oh dear… Does LT3 lives in a house of mirrors !
More than a few don’t lack the intelligence – if only they were willing to make the effort. They choose to accept the verdict of the Party, no matter what its pronouncements. They can’t even stand the emotional strain of hearing something contrary to what the Party says. Conflict is so enervating and the Enemy has already been well defined.
I don’t know Andy, I have been in a highly technical field and it is easy to hire someone who just does not have what it takes upstairs to be able to contribute to complex projects involving implementing physics to solve real world problems.
But you are right about people being too lazy to search for the truth.
The big picture is not for everybody.
Ya know, when I was in the Army 40 years ago, we had a saying: “There’s nothing more dangerous than a second LT with a clipboard”. You sound like one of those.
As one totters into his dotage, one often loses the filter which once had enabled smooth social interactions.
But for a few, raw arrogance, often abetted by privilege, carried them through to the pinnacle of a career littered with the metaphorical corpses of those unfortunates who crossed their path.
Just a few random thoughts, apropos to nothing in particular.
France’s nuclear power stations are still going strong for way more than 20 years. In fact, France is investing in more.
Makes you think, doesn’t it?
Only about 50 years and already some of them allegedly need maintenance.
Remind me the purpose of wind power?
It’s to demonstrate to the perpetually anxious proles that their governments are “doing something” to address the anxieties they have inflicted on the proles in the first place.
So basically, the purpose of wind power is to get politicians re-elected.
Q.E.D.
Well, you just proved that your are not an engineer.
The weaknesses of every one of those 8,000 parts are added to calculate failure rates.
e.g., if your best part “can” last 25 years, the time to failure for the totality of the 8,000 parts will be far far shorter.
That someone bought a lesser grade of bolt or worse, cheated and bought the cheap stuff at the big box hardware stores is both worrisome and an insight into the overall quality of the entire turbine.
Piece of junk surrounded and protected by greens and politician lies.
Regarding cost- I wonder if they included depreciation? What’s the supposed life span, assuming they work- which of course isn’t the case- but if they did work?
A year or so ago I looked at the Danish wind farms which are (now) at the end of their 20 year lifespans. What I found was that there is a huge accumulated maintenance issue that results in an average failure rate of 10-12% per year in a windfarm, irrespective of size. It is an average; there may be few, if any, failures (stopped working due to several minor issues or a major one) for a few years, then one or two, then more and by the time you get to 10-15 years the failure rate is significantly higher – to the point where they are fairly common near the end of the turbines lifespan. If you took a 100 turbine array, without any maintenance at all, it is highly unlikely that any would survive to the 20 year mark.
Regarding depreciation, it’s usually worked out based on the average resale value of an item. With wind turbines, there is little appetite for selling used turbines bigger than a household unit – the bigger ones are scrapped or cannibalised for spare parts. I would suggest that, once installed and operating, depreciation is a very steep drop-off, maybe 50% or more. Nobody wants to buy a big, used wind turbine.
This kind of failure has occurred in other locations.
FYI, this is one other location. That said I am sure you are right. But to be relevant, here’s what’s required.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/01/08/a-cautionary-tale-from-prince-edward-island/#comment-3844229
Giant Wind Turbines Keep Mysteriously Falling Over. This Shouldn’t Be Happening.
A few years ago I spoke with one of the engineers involved in the construction and operation of the country’s first megawatt wind turbine. The problems they had were design, construction and materials failures, as could be expected with any new technology. The utility wasn’t in a position to make the needed improvements so the project was abandoned. Experimental in nature, it wasn’t expected to be a forerunner of a system of wind turbines. At the time the federal government, still expanding the electrical system to rural America through the REA, was spending considerable funds on the study of renewable wind energy. The failure of this project brought that effort to a close.
The first wind turbine was installed 1888 by Charles Brush in Cleveland
The World’s First Automatic Wind Turbine
Made in China. What a waste of good coal.
You provided data on zero locations. Every other comment is more relevant.
Reality bites.
Would you please get this story right? “5 blade bearings”? “Cracks were found in some of the bolts”? Come on man!
Charles just repeated information found in this CBC piece: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/repair-reduce-wind-farm-production-1.3705844
“The blade bearing is an eight foot ring that turns and connects the blade itself to the hub of the turbine.”
In other words Michael –
“trouble at (wind) mill.
one-arm flay rod came askew on treadle”
Even without mechanical failure wind turbine return of usable electricity is iffy and less reliable than PV panels.
Not necessarily, the Texas grid is a model that appears to be working. I never really liked the idea of Windmills, and they appear to be unable to operate profitably without subsidies.
But looking at the data, during Spring and Fall (in Texas) when the wind is blowing the Hydrocarbon resources are not being depleted as fast. And large quantities of easily accessible natural gas trapped in reservoirs will likely be depleted by the end of this century. The only viable option to power civilization when that is gone, is back to coal or fission towards the end of this century. Batteries are improving but there simply is not enough surface area on the average person’s dwelling to generate enough electricity and store it to power their lives. And if solar panels doubled efficiency and dropped by 1/2 the cost, it still would not be able run one of Brandons stoves very long, not to mention heat pumps, water heaters and clothes dryers. If humanity does not adopt something like fission by the end of this century, they will be back to burning coal. And after coal, there is methane hydrate, and that’s it.
So, the point is conservation, and windmills are a legitimate reason to implement, if they can save OUR natural resources long enough until we can bridge the gap with an acceptable power source that does not require combustion. And nuclear fusion appears to only be feasible in the pressures and heat created by the gravity well of a star. It is just one more taxpayer funded boondoggle that will never amount to anything but an occasional press release of how they created the hottest temperature Eva for a couple of milliseconds, and how your tax dollars are being put to good use.
Perhaps someone will invent a neutrino light panel that will generate power 24/7, but right now, this ball runs on fire, this energy we have burning over the course of a couple of centuries took hundreds of millions of years of sunlight to produce.
Texas grid, watts generated by energy source.
Real-time Operating Grid – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
It may be true that the wind facilities in Texas are decreasing the rate of FF use there but various studies have claimed that the FF costs of construction, relative to useful energy out to the grid, exceed the operation savings. Of course, getting good data on all aspects apparently isn’t easy. This aspect also doesn’t consider the full environmental life cycle costs.
Doom & Gloom in above. Nature, together with Human Inginuity, governed by Critical Thinking, will overcome any problem, provided humans can subdue Stupid Politics.
That should be “ingenuity”.
Wind works well…when it works (which may not be when you need it). According to the Energy Information Administration Texas Wind works…about 44% of the time (so for every 100MW capacity of wind 44MW is produced). However there are many times when Wind produces barely 5-10% of nameplate capacity.
In the case of Texas wind was almost literally ICED out while demand increased to 12,329MW over supply. Many blame Gas but looking at this graph it sure looks like gas stepped up
The problem gas had was over demand (heating and generating) creating an under supply situation coupled with unpowered gas valves caused by the lack of generation
Wind and Solar are sheer money pits. Without taxpayer sourced subsidies they could never be built – they cost far more than they can ever contribute. It’s a dead-end technology that’s just wasting money that could be used far more effectively elsewhere.
Please cite your estimate for the “reliability” of PV panels located on PEI, Canada, given the area’s average annual cloud coverage and snowfall amount.
PEI normally averages 1846 hours of bright sunshine during a year . . . that’s about 21% of the duration of a full year. But the percentage of daylight hours with bright sunshine can vary by a factor of more than 2:1 from a peak in July to minimums in Nov-Dec.
— https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Canada/Prince-Edward-Island/sunshine-by-month.php
“During the winter, PEI receives an average total yearly snowfall of 290 centimetres (114 inches) . . . Snow usually arrives in November and lasts through April. When a snowstorm hits, the Island experiences a “snow day” when schools and businesses close until the weather clears up.”
— https://www.princeedwardisland.ca/en/information/environment-energy-and-climate-action/pei-climate-and-weather
Where is the snail darter of green projects?
Maybe here?
story tip
Conflict in full swing: Forest bats avoid large areas around fast-moving wind turbines | ScienceDaily
Forest bats obviously know about Darwin Awards.
All of this was foreseeable given past experiences elsewhere. It takes intentional blindness to support a project like this and absolute deceit to try and sell it to taxpayers as a step forward when, in fact, it is simply a way of burning up resources with no return and destroying beautiful natural spaces.
Made in China?
We are hugely encouraged to tell you that our legal challenge to the Clashindaroch windfarm, has made front page news in one of Scotland’s biggest newspapers. It is the top story in The Herald as you can see in the image above. It is also featured online and you can read the story here:
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/24031448.scottish-wildcats-aberdeen-wind-farm-decision-goes-judicial-review/
The story is already spreading widely and we have a busy afternoon of interviews ahead.
The voice of the wildcat is growing and surely given the public outcry, Vattenfall who are the Swedish owned developers, should withdraw from this site. The price in terms of the potentially catastrophic impact on the Scottish wildcat, is simply too high to pay for a windfarm that can be built on a bare hill elsewhere.
https://www.wildcathaven.com/news/front-page-news-a-must-read
The Google Earth view is from 2021, but the “street view” is from 7/2013 with construction in progress.
See at:
46.459778, -62.276054
The rush to build wind facilities (and fully electric autos) has been filled with silliness from the beginning. While many appear to work as designed, some do not – as the above post reports. At about the same time as the Prince Edward Island project was underway, near me . . .
In 2013, Ellensburg, WA, one of 5 “experimental-design” towers fell over in a gust of wind well below what should have been a non-event. The project was funded with other people’s money (OPM) and when authorities realized the investigation, cleanup, and continuation would require local taxpayer’s money, they shut the project down. The other 4 “experimental” units were taken down, the area cleared – all except for the concrete pads.
See those here: 46.991032, -120.570218
The wind turbine in the photo (with two broken blades) is the new version of a one-armed bandit of taxpayers.
With the one-armed bandits in Vegas, one at least has the choice of not inserting any money.
This is yet another example of one jurisdiction or another jumping onto the green bandwagon only to find it’s prone to develop broken axles and flat tires. What the province should have done was to build just one of these, assess its performance and durability, and if it was found to be economically viable and performance reliable in providing the electricity it was supposed to provide, then additional ones could have been built. Instead, PEI went too whole hog and finally found production promises just couldn’t deliver. This is why most renewables are falling into the same category. They’ve been overbuilt; then they become evident that without fossil fuel backups, they’re almost completely unreliable and non-productive. It’s also the reason that EVs aren’t selling. Promoters overestimated the demand for them, overpriced them from the outset and have now found that only a small minority of drivers are willing to pay a premium price for a product that’s proving to be far less reliable than its gas/diesel counterparts.
More good news. They said each wind turbine would provide 1% of PEI power needs, With ten turbines that would be 10%. My question is what source of energy was providing the other 90% and how reliable was that source?
I think the article said that PEI got most of it’s electricity from New Brunswick.
None of this much matters anyway. PEI has a total population of 152,000. It gets most of its electricity by importing nuclear power on a firm purchase basis from New Brunswick Power. Regardless of all this nonsense about wind turbines, PEI in fact gets most of its electricity from Point Lepreau on a contract basis.
Other than potatoes, tourism and some commercial fishing, the Island has no other significant economic activity.
But apparently it is good at building debt.
Is that “$70 million loss” $10 million added to the initial $60 million price or $70 million additional?
Pull those things down and fix Gaia-
“Irreparable injury:” Courts order dismantling of wind farms in US, France | RenewEconomy
Nup yer not doing that to Gaia-
Major blow to offshore wind as critical port project ruled environmentally “unacceptable” | RenewEconomy
We’ve been trying to tell you nut-zero climate changers it just aint sustainable.
The wind is free yet it costs much less to move a ship using fossil fuels than using sails.
The only exception is small craft that cannot carry enough fuel to cross oceans. They must use sails.
This simple truth explains why windmills cannot deliver cheap energy.
DEEP OCEAN VOLCANOS CAUSE CONTINUOUS, PERIODIC GLOBAL WARMING BY EL NINOs
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/natural-forces-cause-periodic-global-warming
EXCERPT
Self-Destruction of the West?
.
This study shows, the existence of the UAH satellite measurements started in 1979, world temperature increases have been increasing, step-by-step, and are dominantly due to El Niños, and their after effects.
The sun and moon and tectonic plate movement are driving forces of El Niños.
We must adhere to the golden rule of causality of real science: observe, measure and repeat.
In reality, CO2 does not play the slightest role here.
The IPCC climate models are based on political pseudo-science and are therefore worthless.
.
A Simplified Calculation to Put Matters in Perspective
From Image 7, it can be concluded, a very strong El Niño produces a lower atmosphere temperature jump across the entire Earth of approximately 0.3 C.
E = K x T^4, where K = 5.670367 x 10^-8 is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant
Taking the derivative delivers:
dE= 4 x K x T^3 x dT = 4 x 5.670367^-8 x 288^3 x 0.3 = 1.625 W/m2
If the Earth were to absorb this energy flux as radiation, the Stefan-Boltzmann equation indicates, this corresponds to a radiation effect of 1.625 W/m².
Watt = Joule/second
That is 829 TW for the total earth surface of 510,100,000 km², or an annual energy production of 26,143 EJ (Exajoules).
Annual human primary energy production for all uses was estimated at about 557 EJ
A single, very strong El Niño produces a warming effect on the lower atmosphere 26143/557 = 47 times stronger than the annual CO2 emissions of the human annual primary energy.
For perspective,
1) The annual human CO2 emissions, plus some other IPCC factors, increased the temperature of the lower atmosphere by 0.5 C , in 45 years. See Image 7
2) An El Niño (weak to very strong) can occur, on average, every 3.6 years, each contributing to lower atmospheric warming to a far greater extent than the annual human CO2 emissions. See Images 1 and 9
.
Conclusion
.
The impact of human CO2 emissions from annual primary energy on Earth’s temperature is extremely small.
It compares to just one of the many active volcanic, submarine hot spots (weak to very strong), estimated at 5,000 in the world, of which the El Niño heat source often is a strong one. See Image 1
.
It is completely self-destructive for the Western world to impose restrictions on CO2 emissions that have only a small, not even marginal impact, on world atmospheric temperatures, as accurately measured by satellites
The human primary energy CO2 emissions are completely insignificant compared to the external thermal influences to which the earth is subjected.
.
All politicians and activists have been warned: the earth, moon, sun and celestial bodies will never listen to capricious rules and legislation imposed by them on the earth’s inhabitants.
Clearly, what is needed is higher taxes and bigger government.