Bishop Hill Shukman on windfarms
Jan 1, 2012 BBC Energy: wind Ocean Powerhouse was a BBC show about offshore windfarms broadcast a couple of days ago. It can be seen here if you can get the iPlayer. It's a strange show, focusing mainly on the assembly process for a wind turbine, with lots of "corblimeying" over the size of everything and the technical challenges involved. The music makes it feel like a corporate puff-piece and there were indeed several opportunities for the various companies involved to sell their wares. However, a measure of balance was achieved: in the shape of a short interview with Dieter Helm, who said that the whole idea of offshore wind is a bit stupid, particularly in the current economic climate, and by the summing up, in which narrator David Shukman left it as an open question as to whether there is actually a future for offshore wind.
In these terms then, this was a rather unusual programme for the BBC in that for the most part it avoided most of the usual green propaganda.
That said, Shukman did blot his copybook and in a very serious way. He reported that it would take 200 turbines to replace a conventional power station. He should probably have realised that his maths was going to be checked, and unfortunately for him it was. Via the Countryside Guardian email newsletter comes this from Emeritus Professor Peter Cobbold:
The turbines were 5MW Installed Capacity. So allowing for a load factor of 33%, their real output is one third of 5MW. That means it needs 600 windmills to replace a 1GW conventional power plant.
Again the need for back-up plant to cover the holes in wind power output is completely ignored.
I don't know about you, but I think if Shukman had reported that it was going to take 600 turbines to replace a conventional power station viewers would have gained a remarkable insight into the sheer insanity of offshore wind. The conflating of installed capacity of windfarms with their actual output is an problem that has been repeated so often over the years that it is hard to accept it as an error any longer.
Reader Comments (132)
http://windfarmrealities.org/?tag=wolfe-island
SOMEONE STOP ME
Jan 1, 2012 at 3:32 PM | Brownedoff
"I know, that is why I said "changed". I was trying to keep it short." Yes, and that's why I said "Brownedoff is not (quite) correct."
You ask "Does anyone in the current ranks of the greenest government ever give you a glimmer of hope for such a substitution?" Well, yes, the faintest glimmer - remember Osborne's recent comment about carbon targets threatening British jobs? My point is that, were a cold blast of reality to be noticed one day (not impossible), changing the SoS would be vastly easier than repealing (or changing) the Act.
Perhaps not "many moons ago", but I too have mentioned this before on BH - see this (Dec 1, 2011 at 10:37 AM). BTW Cassio asked about Peter Lilley's reply: he agreed that he does "see merit in my approach".
Couple of comments:
1) I'm curious as to how many wind turbines it would take to completely power England.
2) I recall this comment (probably a bit dated since I've read they are building bigger turbines) by James Lovelock in a Jan 23, '09 New Scientist article:
Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance and industry wanted. It's not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it'll make a lot of money for a lot of people and postpone the moment of reckoning. I am not against renewable energy, but to spoil all the decent countryside in the UK with wind farms is driving me mad. It's absolutely unnecessary, and it takes 2500 square kilometres (which I believe is around 900 sq miles) to produce a gigawatt - that's an awful lot of countryside.
Is there enough land in England to completely power it with wind turbines?
One other comment.
According to the following link, petroleum is used in the manufacturing of over 400 mostly everyday items:
http://www.texasalliance.org/admin/assets/PDFs/The_many_uses_of_Petroleum.pdf
What's going to happen to these items (and the jobs associated with them as well as the economy) when the price of oil is increased and we are forced to ration our use of it? Will these items get so expensive that they will go away?
Fraudulent flatulence follies
Subsidy extraction fans
Latimer Alder says:
Pray &deity. that this is the year that Huhne ceases to reign over us and his evil hands are removed from the levers of power.
I don't care how...jail time, disgrace, resignation, assassination by his ex, shafting by Compo Cable and Clegg. Anything will do.
Just free us from this walking, expensive and deranged psychopathic disaster area.
Jan 1, 2012 at 10:21 AM | Unregistered CommenterLatimer Alder
I had never noticed the closeness of the word "reign" and the word "resign before...just separated by a simple "s".
So, here is a simple rewrite of the first lines of Latimer's comment;
"Pray &deity. that this is the year that Huhne decides to resign from over us and his evil hands are removed from the levers of power."
Im the youngest in my family
My eldest brother was in the army and he drove a Cheiftan in West Germany
Well he got sent to Northern Ireland for Operation Motorman after Bloody Sunday
He drove an Armoured Vehical with a crane for removing barracades
When he was out there he got married to a prodestant girl (we are a non practising catholic family)
Her father was not only head of the Lodge (orange) but he was a Shop Steward at Harland And Wolfe shipyard in Belfast
Now last year i watched this documentary by Colonal Tim Collins (He gave a famous speech to his troops at the eve of the invasion of Iraq look it up Youtube hes played by Kenneth Brannah really brilliant moving stirring stuff )
So Tim Colling s told the full story Of Harland And Wolf shipyard .All the usuall stuff they built Titanic and Olympic and HMS Belfast and Camberra and during the wolfe when it was getting bombed by the Germans and the Catholic And Prodestant familys all ran into the same bomb shelters
Then in the 1960s Onassis brought it
Then the 1970s the IRA and the troubles
Then the 1980s Mrs Thatcher privatised it and so on
So needless to say their drydock is not big enough for the modern day container ships like the ones that go in and out of Tilbury They aint got the facilities to look after those big ships
The only work they got is offshore wind turbines and we all know economically that is BULLSHIT
They do a bit of Tidal power which is okay i suppose
And of Course Tourist trips around where Titanic was built
Eventually the wind turbine industry will collapse hopefully very soon and Harland And Wolfe
Their management must know they cant continue with wind turbines economically unsustainable
Well keep the two big cranes Samson Nnd Delila theres a preservation order on them
Fill in the dry dock and knock it all down and build YUPPY Flats supermarkets and council house on it
That makes me fill quite sad really
Windmills off their minds
(c. Dusty Springfield)
Orniblenders
Quoting Norfolk Dumpling:
"Nuclear power stations, especially the later technologies, are nearly all sustainably recyclable at the end of their lifetimes."
I had to say that line gave me a long slow double take. I was three or four comments down when my poor brain, recovering from a celebratory fugg and under active input processing circuits, realised what a corker of a line that would be to throw out at the nest 'transition town' meeting.
DougS :
"I have the dubious 'pleasure' of living a few miles from Britain's worst performing wind farm of 2010 - Blyth Harbour.
With an output of only 4.9% of installed capacity it's essentially 8 ornaments and half a wind turbine generator."
You're not being fair. I know from many landings at Newcastle Airport that those benighted turbines provide an excellent landmark for aircraft turning to the west for landing on runway 25. They also provide a great source of amusement for the locals, especially when one was hit by lightning (and I think never repaired?). Not much use for power generation as you say.
I drive on the interstate through New York state every year, on the way to visit my brother, and I always pass a big (and always stationary-bladed) turbine on my right. If someone is in the car with me I always turn to them and say:
"Look, The Monument to The Stupidity of Mankind is over there."
Andrew
@jamspid
You suggest that dead wind farms could be used as tourist attractions.
Just wondered what sort of tourist would pay money to see a f...g aerogenerator?
kramer
I'll try to answer you as briefly as possible but the question "1) I'm curious as to how many wind turbines it would take to completely power England." is loaded with uncertainties.
1. Average UK demand is 40GW [40,000MW] with peaking up to 65GW [65,000MW]. However, some 15-20% extra capacity is held on tap across the UK as Plant Margin/Spinning Reserve for if and when the conventional generators powering the Grid undergo their planned maintenance programmes or suffer rather INfrequent unplanned shutdowns. There is a design feature called Fault-Ride-Through to prevent total Grid shutdown should one generator fall off line.
Thus we need to have the equivalence of numerical Installed Capacity verging on (65 + 0.2x65) = 78,000MW.
2. Industrial single aero-generators or wind turbines have preferred Installed Capacities which range 1.8MW, 2.3MW, 3.0MW and now offshore 5.0MW
3. We could need 78,000/1.8 = 43,333 of the 1.8MW aero-gens. But according to DUKES 2011, Table 7.4, the 5 year average Load Factor of On- and Offshore aero-gens including both Changed and Unchanged configurations is 27.9% [a multiplier of 0.279].
Thence, in truth, to arrive at the equivalence in terms of generating capacity of kiloWatt-hours, we would need 43,333/0.279 of the 1.8MW wind aero-gens/wind turbines, 155,315 in total number.
4. For 2.3MW wind turbines alone, the number is (155,315 x [1.8/2.3]) , 121,551.
5. For 3.0MW wind turbines alone, the number is (155,315 x [1.8/3.0]) , 93,189.
6. For 5.0MW wind turbines alone, the number is (155,315 x [1.8/5.0]) , 55,913.
7. Because of the slow subsidised advances in aero generators, basically associated with linear size and rotating mass increases, we would have to put up with combinations of each type.
8. However, the practical picture is that for every 1,000MW of Installed capacity wind power station erected, we are forced by real engineering knowledge to have to build 100%, 24/365, conventional backup generation to shadow these wind turbine outputs or the people of this country will get very angry at continually losing their electricity supplies.
9. I hope this has helped you realise what a total and utter scam is the non-sustainable renewables holy grail - it is non existent except in the minds of the political castes of the world and immoral financial thieves.
10. Wind power stations are "stochastically intermittent and erratic", the uncertainties amplified. Conventional power stations are secure, demandable and dispatchable. Boring certainty!
I hope this goes some way towards answering your question.
As you may guess I am a confirmed atheist with regard to renewables and the "Save the planet" band-wagon.
Apologies fellow bloggers for the length of comment.
I am a retired airline pilot refreshing my EE graduate degree at one of the premier U.S. EE graduate schools specializing in electrical power generation. I ask the following two questions often and have yet to receive anything approaching satisfactory answers.
1. In aviation, propellers are life-limited devices requiring rather frequent overhaul. Although wind energy conversion using wind turbines (I understand the reluctance to use “turbine”, but that unfortunately has become standard usage) is different from aircraft propulsion, there simply must be some standards established for blade inspection and overhaul. Surely? My professors are basically unable to answer the question. By default, it seems that blade replacement is performed “on condition”. That is, when the tower, generator, gearbox and blades are twisted rubble with one or more blades some distance from the original tower location.
2. After we achieve a 20% penetration of wind generation in the U.S. , wind would be producing about 60 TWhrs of energy annually (requiring about 17,000 2 MW generators). What is the weather and/or climate impact of extracting those amounts of energy from the atmosphere? Surprisingly, or maybe not, there is very little in the engineering literature on the subject. In the classroom, my question is usually met with yawns. One answer I get goes something like this: How could man affect the weather/climate by extracting these “puny” amounts of energy? Given the ferocity of the AGW debate, I find this answer amusing.
To add to Norfolk'Ds comment, the area of land needed is given in David MacKay's book "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air". There are only so many aero generators that can be placed in any area because of wind shadowing and turbulence. Basically you can put about 12x2MW aerogenerators in a sq mile. At a load factor of 25% you would need about 7,000 sq miles of land to get an average of 40GW. Of course you would need 7,000 sq miles of land that doesn't have any dwellings in it, no big valleys or hills and no main roads. That is why they are being shifted offshore. And as NorfolkD says, you would need to build your backup plants as well. On the other side of the coin, you could put 16x1.5GW nuclear power stations in a sq mile. So at a load factor of 90% you would need about1.5 sq mile of land to give 40MW.
Planners and Planning Inspectors have been directed only to take into consideration Installed Capacity, not to look at load factors. This, very conveniently, prevents any arguments about their efficacy.
Re Robin Guernier's comments, I think it's time we ramped up a bit of pressure to remove Huhne and got a more sensible, less rapid SoS in his place, but who? Who can think of an MP, apart from Osborne, who won't be moved/demoted, who has the suitably sceptical qualifications for the job? I would think The Cleggites are mad enough to ditch the coalition if they lost the SoS of DECC position, but I am not aware the Cameron has changed his greenie stance just yet. When fighting against turbine applications the local MPs (in my area certainly) come out against them and do a bit of posturing in front of the local media. They even take part in early day motions discussing the subject, but seem to be very careful in making sure they talk specifically about why any proposals in their constituencies are unsuitable rather than criticising the Act.
Happy New Year.
B747
In answer to your question 1, aerogenerators have a design life of only 20 years. In practice they don't get that far before they become (as you say) rubble. Because of difficulty in performing maintenance, I suspect they inspect the blades using binoculars and they can do inspection and some maintenance of the electro-mechanical components inside the nacelle. I suspect that because the returns on investment are so high, it pays to operate them with minimum maintenance until they become rubble.
Re: Terminology discussion.
The only thing being farmed by these things is taxpayer wallets.
Mr. Bratby, "Only an idiot would consider building offshore wind farms". And the Europeans, which comes to the same thing.
Phillip/B747
Regarding inspection in situ of Wind turbine blades, have a look at:
http://www.cyberhawkinnovations.co.uk/wind-turbine-blade-inspection/
(I'd love one of those in my Christmas stocking next year!)
I heard somewhere that we would need a wind farm the size of Wales to replace one Nuclear Power Station,
The payback time for a wind turbine is 20 years and the life of one is 15 years. That from an engineer who installs them So some future generations are in for a huge bill.
Offshore installations carry strict environmental burdens for decommissioning on abandonment. Costs are considerable, as each installation must be cut at or below the seabed, the installation barged back to shore and recycled, and the seabed periodically inspected to ensure that no buried junk has been exposed by natural scour.
The same is true for offshore oil and gas facilities. But whereas one subsea completion gas well, for example, may be capable of producing 50 billion cubic feet of gas generating a lot of tax revenue to the nation not only from petroleum revenue and corporation taxes from the operating producer, also the transporter and marketer, now also forced to buy carbon credits, and the eventual consumer VAT as well. The abandonment costs are of course the responsibility of the operator and licensee parners.
I leave it to my betters to put a number on how many turbines can match a 50 BCF cumulative production gas well, but it will surely be in the hundreds at least. And nothing but taxpayer burden all the way, as far as I can see, to subsidised foreign opportunists. And, with each new major contract, we can be sure that we, as taxpayers and duped consumers, have been contractually obligated for at least 25 years, possibly 50 years. With full compensation liability for default.
When I think of wind turbines, I think of shafted and screwed. Repeatedly.
I still think Kim came up with the best name: bird death prayer wheels.
Cumbrian Lad
The ROAV inspection technique is intriguing. However, it seems to me to be the same as the preflight visual inspection of an aircraft propeller. That visual preflight inspection does not relieve the operator of removing the propeller every several thousand hours for a full inspection and overhaul. I would think it doubtful that the ROAV would find internal structural problems.
I think that technically they're "windscrews", like passive aeroplane propellers (airscrews). With windscrews we get screwed as well.
Phillip Bratby
So the bloody Queen Mary II can run into? Absolutely insane.
B747
As a pilot, how would you like to go flying in a 747 that had its "C" or "D" check completed by some kid flying a UAV over it for a few minutes looking at the outer surface with a camera?
Here's a list of known wind turbine failures. Many are fatal HERE
This is a more organized presentation of the above HERE
I read someplace that there is an effort underway to make it illegal to place a wind turbine within 2 km of an inhabited building as several of those failures consisted of the blade breaking off and flying through the air as far as something like 1.4 km. There are many examples of blades breaking on Youtube
Quite so B747. I suggested the link as an alternative to Phillips suggestion that visual inspection could only be done with binoculars. The UAV is a big improvement on that, but obviously it is only a visual. I imagine that on a remote platform such as the one in the link they could concievably mount other sensors, but at some point they would have to do a more detailed physical examination.
Incidentally, the inspection footage I linked to earlier had some interesting shots of the type of damage those fibreglass blades take in what I assume is normal conditions. Quite unsettling in the light of the distance a failed blade would travel.
"As a pilot, how would you like to go flying in a 747 that had its "C" or "D" check completed by some kid flying a UAV over it for a few minutes looking at the outer surface with a camera?"
That's my point. No serious technical enterprise operates that way (for long).
And, regarding your statement, I wouldn't even bother going to the airport, let alone set foot on an airplane so inspected.
Cumbrian Lad
All of the images I saw on that website indicated that the blade had suffered delamination. Very bad. I would not want to be anywhere near those blades when they are spinning. I hope that they were taken out of service immediately, although somehow, I doubt that happened. And I bet they don't have any service life limits like they have on helicopter blades -- or almost any moving part on an airplane for that matter.
As B747 said, "No serious technical enterprise operates that way (for long)."
Philip Bratby’s link to the Caithness Windfarm Information Forum 2011 has made me think. Many people must be familiar with the alleged 2MW Ecotricity wind power plant just north of the M4 near junction 11.
Here is some information provided by the Caithness website:
"This general trend upward in accident numbers is predicted to continue to escalate unless HSE make some significant changes - in particular to protect the public by declaring a minimum safe distance between new turbine developments and occupied housing and buildings (currently 2km in Europe), and declaring "no-go" areas to the public, following the 500m exclusion zone around operational turbines imposed in France.
Some countries are finally accepting that industrial wind turbines can pose a significant public safety risk. In New Zealand, the government is set to change planning rules to give residents the right to veto wind turbines from being built within 2km of their homes. And in Canada, the Ontario Government has declared a moratorium on offshore wind projects and has proposed a reduction of noise from wind turbines from 40dB to 30-32dB, which would effectively extend the setback distance from homes."
The Ecotricity Reading wind generator is not only very near to the M4 but is also within 200 metres of the adjacent Costco store and 370 metres from the 20,000 seater Madjeski football and ruby stadium.
What are the current wind power siting rules in the UK? Why was this power plant allowed in that position? What does the local MP think about its position? Who carries the liability in case of catastrophic failure? Does its proximity to heavily used public spaces explain why it is often stationary during moderate breezes?
Jan 1, 2012 at 7:05 PM | Biddyb:
"Who can think of an MP ... who has the suitably sceptical qualifications for the job?"
Peter Lilley?
Phillip Bratby says,
Basically you can put about 12x2MW aerogenerators in a sq mile. At a load factor of 25% you would need about 7,000 sq miles of land to get an average of 40GW.
That is the maximum possible. You are forgetting about the wind shadow effect. With a square or oblong array (as Horns Rev 1) the last rows generated practically no power at al. It was claimed that removing the second last line (about 7 turbines) would actually increase power output slightly. An output of 3.6 to 4.4 MW per sq. mile would be more realistic, rather than your figure of 6.
The failure rate of blades was checked out in Finland and worked out around 1 blade per 100 turbines per annum. They further worked out that maintenance was far more costly than thought. One company in the USA was using 2 men per 50 turbines full time, with travel (and landing on the top) by helicopter.
Other companies might well be neglecting maintenance to enhance (short term) profits. Anecdotally there are nearly 7,000 defunct turbines in the USA now. The average 'life' of a turbine in the UK is 7-9 years, although when I last checked there was a turbine 19 years old (but not functioning for many years).
The distance travelled by a broken blade was 1.3 kilometres but that was by a 1.4 tonne part of a fairly small (3 tonne) blade, one capable of, say, slicing a van in two. Larger blades (15 tonnes upwards) can expected to travel further because of their inertia.
The bigger the blade radius the greater the stress, so blades get thicker and heavier. Some of the larger blades are moving to carbon fibre and (autoclaved) epoxy rather than fibre glass and polyester. This is much more expensive, so the "economics" suffer.
Here in Australia, 1 State has banned turbines within 2 Km of a house, and another is about to do so.
A further thought on the Climate Change Act:
Booker said in today's Sunday Telegraph that "the third mammoth UN conference in as many years fizzled out in Durban". Unfortunately that's not quite true. There were at least two positive outcomes for the warmists: (1) it kept their gravy train going - seemingly until 2020 and (2) (as I noted here at 2:52 PM) in particular it makes it harder for us to argue that the international situation had changed sufficiently for an amendment under Section 2 of the CCAct. I fear any such attempt would be characterised as a disgraceful attempt to jeopardise a critical international initiative. Thus Ruth Davis (Greenpeace UK chief policy advisor) can say: "This deal is a lot better than no deal, not least because it scuppers George Osborne's push to gut domestic environmental action on the altar of international inertia." Likewise, I heard someone on a BBC Radio 4 "predictions for 2012" item yesterday suggest that action on climate change was likely to be intensified following "the success of the Durban conference".
Rather depressing.
Graeme No. 3
Last I heard the down wind units (wind shadow) of offshore arrays in the half a kilometer grids were experiencing significantly more "stress". Time will tell if this manifests into more down time.
I must say that I do miss Shukman's Daily AGW Doomsday Report on the BBC drom the pre-Climategate era. They had a certain Monty Python quality that made them particularly entertaining.
"I still think Kim came up with the best name: bird death prayer wheels." --lapogu
Tripod Towers? [Watch The Trippy Show on the BBC for more details.]
Though I do not like the way the wind machines stuff up the grid (I'm an engineer at a power station), they aren't as bad as some of the most vocal critics make out. When they are on a strong node at less than 5% of total load, they are OK. Then they are no different to run of the river hydro. Looking at the generation and financial data, wind generators' main function seems to be to harvest credits rather than do anything useful.
Vibration condition monitoring of the plant has come a long way. Not only will it pick up bearing faults, but even blade deterioration as an imbalance. This is similar to picking up a cracked shaft on steam turbines or pumps. However, a lot depends on the installation and the quality of the person doing the data interpretation. Too many try to save money by automating it.
Wind turbines have their place. They can be very viable at remote sites like Scott Base or Mawson in Antarctica. However, making them the backbone of your grid is both economic and societal suicide.
Roger Tolson
"If Sir Charles Parsons...was alive today he would probably be spinning in his grave..."
Probably one of the best Yogi-isms I've ever read. :)
Pardon me for chipping in way off topic (and not having the patience to read all of these post, yet), but have a gander at this FB site: http://www.facebook.com/RecoveringCCDenialists.
Not had the time to investigate further, but the host(?) says he is a reformed denialist, and wishes to help those like... well, us (to lay my own cards on the table), get back on "cause".
RSP
Our energy secretary, Chu, the guy who wanted to paint all the roofs in the US white, suggested a couple of years ago that we should install enough windscrew machines off our east coast to power the entire eastern seaboard of the US. I then read where someone had calculated that it would require a line of the things, many miles in depth, stretching from Cape Cod to Miami. And he is a Nobel Laureate in physics. Phew!
Back to names: I liked all the suggestions, but, to be honest, I was looking for a more serious subsitution. I am leaning toward "aerogenerator collectives", but then you run the risk when mentioning that to someone of having them look at you strangely and then brightly answering, "Oh, you mean 'wind farms'."
In a sense they are farms in that they harvest the wind, but you don't have to wonder how long farmers would put up with machines that harvested only ten to twenty-five percent of their crops, meanwhile killing birds in their fields.
Oh well, "wind farms" are acquiring such a pejorative connotation that we are probably better off sticking with the term.
Most of the conventional power stations built in the 1970's throughout the UK were 2000MW and Drax 3300MW. Even Didcot has 3500MW of coal and gas-turbines. The replacement AGR nuclear power stations were intended to be 2640MW, i.e. 2x1320MW nuclear reactors. This means the average power station size intended for the UK power system would have been around 3000MW if the CEGB had continued rather than have a privatized electricity system. The average off-shore wind-turbine in the UK is I believe around 4MW and if the average output per year is 29% and the average conventional power plant operational output would be of the order of 70%, accounting for maintenance availability then you would need 2000 off-shore wind turbines to be the equivalent of a real power station.
The saddest reality is that however many wind-turbines are built for the security of electricity supply to be maintained, i.e. the 'lights-not-to-go-out', the power system in the UK will still need the same build quantity of conventional and nuclear power stations as if there were no wind-turbines. The reason being, as in the winter of 2009/2010 there was no wind at all on the very highest load peak in mid winter, just 0.2% output from wind turbines.
The other very wasteful fact is that wind-turbines get a 'must-run' 'green-power' pass whenever available as a must priority and the conventional power plants obviously have to be partly-loaded most of the time to balance the energy demand and provide the oscillatory real-time dynamic reserves and back-up short-notice reserves. This makes the conventional power stations considerably less efficient and very wasteful causing unnecessary increased carbon dioxide emissions. Yes, by the very nature of the conditions imposed on conventional plants we are probably generating more carbon dioxide emissions than we are saving.
What further has to be added to the carbon footprint count is the massive waste of the equivalent of two power station builds where only one, and possibly a maximum of 20% plant margin, would have been required had no wind turbines been built.
When all the above are factored in, I believe that we are causing more carbon dioxide emissions with wind-turbines than without them and we are paying three times the electricity prices for off-shore wind-turbines (they get 12p/kWh subsidy) than for gas and nuclear power.
Yet another additional factor is the new power transmission lines both by National Grid and the Distribution Companies connecting the wind-turbine developments and interconnectors to Europe, Ireland, Norway, most of these would not have been necessary if new gas and nuclear power stations were built on existing power station sites, that are fairly efficiently located/distributed around the country. These new connections are therefore wasting £20-billion pounds at least.
This whole sham is far worse than the banking crises and is beggaring our industries and the economy at large.
The next thing being quoted by the regulator Ofgem and power companies is to have 'smart-meters' in every household and smart grids. I ask the question 'WHY'. This will yet be a further cost burden per household. Will the standard house owner continually watch or program a smart meter to match continually changing prices in the electricity market, now come on Ofgem be realistic.
When will this absolute money wasting madness stop???
George Wood, retired senior specialist consultant, electricity markets.
We have had major problems here in the States with wind proponents greatly exaggerating the generating potential of various locations. In many cases the potential wind available for generating power has been greatly inflated only to find out when the units are installed that they are generating much less than was promised. Most of our problem with wind is that we face severe weather in the majority of the interior of our country. Experiencing temperatures that rage from 100F to -30F and facing such things as wind gusts over 60MPH, hailstones of greater than table tennis ball size, and glaze ice all over the course of a single year, places a great deal of wear and tear on the units resulting in a greatly reduced lifetime of wind turbines. An expensive power generation infrastructure that must be replaced every five years is not really attractive or a good use of the people's money.
I prefer the term 'climate mo‘ai' to emphasise that these are huge, expensive and worthless structures put up in the name of religion by elites who were losing their credibility with the common people, and who pursued in their folly to eventual collapse.
Radical Rodent suggests that we should look at a Facebook site for 'recovering denialists'
I did. It is without any merit. Don't bother.
Unfortunately, this politician in the Australian Senate is not the minister for energy, however he does give the bureaucrats a particularly hard time in Senate Estimates grillings. Here he is having a brief discussion with Ms Meghan Quinn, Manager, Industry, Environment and Defence Division about the huge number of envirojobs her department predicts will be created using their "equilibrium model" -
Read the rest of it as well. If it wasn't so sad it would be hilarious.
They really haven't got a clue, have they?
Mike Post asks:
I have given evidence on this issue at public inquiries. If you want the full details I can send them to you via our good host.
Basically the operator is responsible and would be liable. The risks should be addressed at the planning stage, but of course they are glossed over and the local authority, responsible for giving planning permission, don't care and haven't the expertise to examine the issue. The H&S Executive don't care until work actually starts on site, by which time it is too late.
There are rules (guides really) about siting which are generally ignored. They shouldn't be within fall-over distance of a road or railway, fall-over distance +10% of an occupied building (dwelling or school or hospital etc) and fall-over distance + 50m of a major road (trunk road, motorway). There is no statutory separation between a wind turbine and a public right of way. Often the minimum distance
is taken to be that the turbine blades should not be permitted to oversail a public right of way, although at many wind farms, the public is allowed up to the base of the tower. Generally wind farms are not sited within about 500m of the dwelling of a non-interested member of the public (someone who hasn't a finacial interest) for reasons of noise.
Unbelievably, there have been proposals to site them in supermarket carparks and at football stadia!!!
At one public inquiry I told the Inspector that turbines were being sited within fall-over distance of a railway line and should be located further away. Of course, in his desire to grant permission, he ignored my evidence (which included numerous examples of fallen over wind turbines) and wrote in his report that, in his opinion (i.e. ignore the evidence) wind turbines must be safe because they are a simple technology!
There is no such thing as a fixed capacity factor for wind generation. Wind patterns vary from year to year. A year that I calculated for Germany from published data showed 17% output. A range of 15- 20% seems to be the case. A high or low wind year will lower output. Industry promoters do not count units down for maintenance, inspection and repair in their calculations. Also it is assumed that all output can be used when it is available. Unusable surplus power may have to wasted, sold cheaply or given away. Ontario Hydro pays US utilities to dispose of surplus wind energy.
Jan 1, 2012 at 10:27 PM | Robin Guenier
"Who can think of an MP ... who has the suitably sceptical qualifications for the job?"
Peter Lilley?
I know from some of your earlier messages on BH that you are/have been on speaking terms with Peter Lilley, but it seems to me that to be awarded high office in government you have to be at least "on message" but almost every time he stands up, he is immediately dismissed by his own "side".
Here is the latest example from Hansard 24 November 2011:
"24 Nov 2011 : Column 457
Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con): Will the Leader of the House grant us a debate as soon as possible on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in the light of its recent report suggesting that the extreme weather events we were previously promised may not occur for another two or three decades and the release of several thousand more e-mails from the East Anglia university climate research unit showing that many scientists are privately lukewarmists rather than alarmists about the climate but are afraid to say so in public? Secondly, the IPCC system is being systematically abused and Government officials have been urging scientists to come out with evidence biased in the direction of alarmism lest the Government appear foolish—
Mr Speaker: Order. This is an abuse. The right hon. Gentleman is an immensely senior Member. He had heard my exhortation to brevity and wilfully defied it. It really will not do.
Sir George Young: I understand my right hon. Friend’s strong views on this subject. He will know that a statement on related issues was given yesterday by the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change when there might have been an opportunity for him to amplify his views. I cannot promise a debate in the short term, but I hope my right hon. Friend is successful in applying for a debate on this important subject in Westminster Hall or on the Adjournment."
Setting aside The Squeaker's hysterical intervention, but nevertheless on the record, what Sir George is saying "oh, not again, you should have been here yesterday with your pesky views, maybe you can get a chance off-site in Westminster Hall or in HoC when everybody has gone home."
If Peter Lilley is the best you can up with then there will be no changes, will there?
If Huhne goes, he will be replaced with either another LibDem watermelon or Hendry.
Following on from Phillip Batby and Rick Bradford's comments on 1 Jan 2012
(unless there is some other idiot prepared to give you huge sums of money to do it).
Or tens of millions of taxpayers being forced to give you huge sums of money to do it
According to John Etherington's "The Wind Farm Scam" in US oil companies that operate when farms are given tax breaks on profits from non wind farm business (i.e. oil).
Try googling "wind farm oil company tax breaks"