Friday
Mar142014
by 
Josh
Josh RSPBonkers - Josh 264
Mar 14, 2014 Energy: fracking Energy: shale Josh RSPB Wind turbines 
Not to mention the wind turbines' need for tons of steel and concrete, the devastation of the countryside, permanent loss of habitat and noise pollution. And they produce little energy for no reduction in CO2 emissions. Barbaric vandalism.
H/t BishopHill and Ron Hughes' grandson
Reader Comments (24)
I like the 'fire hydrant' image for the wellhead. Much utility.
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Enough of this bird-centric animalism, think of the bats! Those little creatures have a hard time without the bird choppers.
Also when it gets very cold, the turbines need to be supplied with electricity! Bah Humbug
The generators that need neodymium for the magnets cause other environmental problems - but not here so they probably don't count.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html
Groan, groan and thrice groan. Just watched an interview on the BBC (where else?) featuring Charles Ferguson, he of Inside job fame. He's currently working on a new film about Energy and climate change.
"And they produce little energy for no reduction in CO2 emissions. Barbaric vandalism."
They do, however, make a rather hideous amount of cash for Cameron's in-laws.....Which by some strange twist might also end up in Camerons' pocket if the wifelet features highly in the will?
I'm quite sure that it's all above board though.
You get law in this world ...justice in the next.
Do you mean those bird choppers that have been producing less than 2Gw all week, sometimes actually at ZERO Gw and have only just ramped up to an astounding 4Gw today?
Eddie the Eagle!
What do I win?
[J: Well done! That is worth a pint at least ;-) ]
Does that particular raptor now qualify as a Para Olympian? and Pist off all of us
Mar 14, 2014 at 6:17 PM | Mike Jackson
No. I don't think we need him Chundering all over this post.
The RSPB re in full denial mode about the bird deaths caused by wind turbine rotors, e.g.here are some bird mortality stats from the Smola wind farm in western Norway:
And in the UK, the RSPB Scotland, despite much pleading from local ornithologists, chose not to object to wind farms in important raptor habitats, e.g. they refused to object at the public inquiry into SSE's Grifffin windfarm in Highland Perthshire, which then killed two hen harriers (an Agenda 1 species) in it's first year of operation. They also refused to object to the Calliachar wind farm even though it is only a few km from a golden eagle nest site.
http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/local/perth-kinross/windfarm-opponents-angry-at-loss-of-birds-of-prey-1.62387
http://www.windbyte.co.uk/birds.html
Here's the carnage at the Wolf Island Ontario wind farm.
The 2010 Bird and Bat report commissioned by Transalta, a component of the Post Construction Follow-up Plan (PCFP), states that over the first six months of operation bird mortality due to blade strike was 602 birds of which 13 were raptors. That reflects 6.99 birds per turbine over six months (almost 14 strikes per turbine per year).
@ lapogus
Have a look at the photo that was chosen "Best Nordic Picture of Threatened Nature" in 2011:
http://www.nina.no/Default.aspx?TabId=945&ArticleId=1233
One can see that the windmills are safe for the eagles under windstill winter conditions... when the power is needed.
The article mentions that "The pair of sea eagles in the photo is one of only four pairs that remain inside the wind park on Smøla".
I think big green sees wind power as a way to go 'legit' and to be able to tell each other they are big business tycoons.
So a member of the coalition as it were, is not likely to object to the pesky problems of bird and bat mortality due to windmills. After all- they are in business now,and saving the planet. Or so they tell us.
That's a cracker, Josh!
This from 'The Rational Pessimist,' Matt Ridley, Chapter 10, re decarbonizing the economy,
for Britain to power its economy w/out fossil fuels would rmean:"
' There would be sixty nuclear power stations around coasts, wind farms would cover 10% of the entire
land ( or a big part of the sea), there would be solar panels covering an area the size of Lincolnshire,
eighteen Greater Londons growing bio-fuels, forty-seven New Forests growing fast rotation harvested
timber,hundreds of miles of wave machines off the coast, huge tidal barrages in the Severn Estuary
and Strangford Lough, and twenty-five times as many hydro dams as there are today.'
Oh so environmental.
The RSPB probably regard the birds killed by wind turbines as martyrs in the green cause.
'Do you mean those bird choppers that have been producing less than 2Gw all week, sometimes actually at ZERO Gw and have only just ramped up to an astounding 4Gw today?
Mar 14, 2014 at 5:49 PM | A C Osborn '
Yes, that's them. With approx 10 GW installed capacity it is very easy to calculate the % output of these inefficient, ruinously expensive, monuments to green idiocy.
The RSPB don't do irony but because of an inherent political psychosis wedded to political correctness, adherence to the green mania, devotion to the their Brussels paymasters - sock puppets all - Kommissars, "we tell you what to do and you go wind up [um] the UK peasants" and a basic misanthropy inbred into all watermelons.................................
Josh on the other hand obliges and a picture paints a thousand words.
Thank you Josh, simple and to the point.
I do find it shocking that RSPB can spout such nonsense when they have their Beckingham Marshes reserve right next to wells that have been fracked several times since the seventies.
It is interesting to read that after this article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2396378/50-year-old-fracking-site-makes-mockery-Balcombe-zealots-Its-nature-reserve--fracked-gas-oil-power-21-000-homes-day--complaints-locals.html
they were contacted here
http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/placestovisit/beckinghammarshes/f/12673/t/107054.aspx?Redirected=true
and it is clear from their reply that they had no idea....
Obviously the signs of "Wildlife Disturbance" are only noticable after you have been informed the fracking has been happening for several years.
"Do you mean those bird choppers that have been producing less than 2Gw all week, sometimes actually at ZERO Gw and have only just ramped up to an astounding 4Gw today?"
I took a screen shot of the BM Reports site at 7:35PM on Thursday when they were producing a pathetic 98MW, or 0.2% of demand. It had dropped to less than 80MW by midnight. Of course, if we were totally reliant on these useless monstrosities, there wouldn't be enough power to run that site, let alone my PC...
I wonder how the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds might react if Her Majesty were to query their stance on turbines? The Plebs Society for the Protection of Birds doesn't have quite the same ring to it...
We ought to be explaining the correct definition of these wind-turbines and solar arrays as “renewables”; when broken, they cannot be repaired, and have to be renewed. How “Green” is that?
Great cartoon, as usual, Josh. IS there any way that the message it conveys be passed beyond the walls of sites like this?
I did email our dearly beloved DECC informing them that wind was, at a point in time last week, providing around 1% of (a relatively modest) electricity demand - but needless to say I've had no response..