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January 23, 2008
The Wind Power Money Pit
The easiest way to tell if something is a wise investment is to see if people put their money in it voluntarily, or if they must be forced to do so by bureaucrats. TCS Daily reports on Britain's push to save the world from the imaginary climate change crisis by building 7,000 wind turbines:
Despite public subsidies to the UK wind industry of over $500 million the government has so far only seen that such a massive investment provided less than half of one percent of the UK's electricity needs. In August 2007, the BBC's Radio 4 Costing the Earth program reported that figures proved that government financial incentives were encouraging wind industry firms to cash-in on massive government subsidies and build wind farms on non-viable sites across the mainland. Even in Europe's windiest country, the winds are just "too variable", with most turbines consistently under-performing. Having analysed figures submitted to the UK electricity watchdog Ofgem on every farm's load factor, Engineering Consultant Jim Oswald explained to the BBC, "It's the power swings that worry us. Over a 20-hour period you can go from almost 100 percent wind output to 20 percent."
The recommended "load factor" to make a wind farm economically viable and efficient is just over 30 percent. However, many of Britain's onshore farms have been running at around 20 percent, with some, in urban areas, dropping as low as 9 percent. Oswald believes that an over-reliance on wind power will result both in major power failures across the UK and an increase in electricity bills of up to 50 percent.
The beauty of the free market is that unlike bureaucratic ideologues, it discerns between what really works and what doesn't. Without subsidies and other incentives, wind power would die the natural death of all inefficient technologies. But thanks to the wind of enviromoonbats and the power of the state, it will be kept alive as a money pit for years to come.
On a tip from Byron.
Posted by Van Helsing at January 23, 2008 12:38 PM
Comments
"They exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator...Therefore, God gave them up to passions of dishonor; for their females exchanged the natural use for that which is contrary to nature." - Romans 1:25-26
Posted by: Kristy at January 23, 2008 12:58 PM
Speaking of blow, Guess what else Hugo Chavez and the Hollywood left have in common.
Posted by: V the K at January 23, 2008 1:11 PM
Wind power wouldn't even begin to be sufficient till they're able to have mobile turbines way up there in the jet stream.
Posted by: Corona at January 23, 2008 4:28 PM
Don Quixote meets Kevin Costner
Posted by: Anonymous at January 23, 2008 6:15 PM
Oh, Helsing you gonna love this...
Free Republic's pick of the best 40 political cartoons of 2007!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1953336/posts
It just couldn't wait to be tipped.
Posted by: BUUUUURRRRNING HOT at January 23, 2008 6:21 PM
Wind power: variability is far from the only problem, and the only way to "smooth out" the variations is with (non-existent) storage (batteries).
- - -
A couple of years ago, I noticed some figures for the wind farm supposed to power Long Island in New York USA. To power the island's homes (not things like street lights, offices, hospitals...), a farm of four hundred square miles was proposed. 400 square miles! To power London would probably need a "farm" the size of France (hmm...).
- - -
Solar power: same base problems, except perhaps for individual free-standing homes. Given the money to buy the equipment (including batteries),
it seems possible. But for a city? Size comes back into it, although perhaps Wales rather than France.
Posted by: teqjack at January 23, 2008 6:24 PM
wind power is great - it's the maintenance on the turbines (nacells) and motors that is costly - my husband used to maintain a wind turbine farm in minnesota and one in iowa a few years ago - they NEVER ironed out the problems they had with them.
that and they were owned by enron...
they make me physically sick to my stomach to watch them and the sound is horrendous.
there are smaller, lattice tower versions that are easierand not so costly to maintain and the power companies will buy the power from you.
believe it or not, some of those blades are 75 feet long - once, a guy got stuck in one before it was fired back up - he took quite a tumble and lived through it...one good thing about being a pothead i suppose...
Posted by: nanc at January 23, 2008 7:04 PM
yeah, I'm against windpower because they make nanc sick when she looks at them.
We could invade more Middle Eastern countries. nanc isn't offended by the sight of blood.
Posted by: Anonymous at January 24, 2008 3:19 AM
Anon,
That's a damn good idea. What country would you suggest?
Posted by: Farmer Ted at January 24, 2008 5:45 AM
Fighting terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan has nothing to do with wind turbines. Even if the entire landscape was littered with the damn things terrorists would still want to kill us and we would still need to hunt them down. In fact if all of a sudden we stopped buying middle east oil their governments would collapse from lack of oil money and then we would likely be forced to nuke them once the terrorists took over. Oil money appeasing the masses in countries like Saudi Arabia is the only thing keeping the whole middle east from exploding. You get a billion impoverished Muslims with no money at all and look out - they will begin moving over the face of the Earth like a cloud of locusts. Of course then we could have to nuke them - on 2nd thought....hmmm... ok build more windmills!
Posted by: Anonymous at January 24, 2008 6:14 AM
I think windpower could be a part of an overall energy strategy but it is moronic to believe that a wind generator is carbon neutral. Where do people think all the raw materials are going to come from to build these things and maintain them. Low frequency vibrations make them useless in urban situations (not to mention the fact that wind generator next to your house would look like a strobe light as the sun set behind it). They also kill migrating birds.
Posted by: baldeagle390 at January 24, 2008 6:20 AM
