Wind Turbines Overrated: More Danger than Help

Big wind turbines do not produce nearly the power that is claimed, do not last nearly as long as projected, and generate far higher lifetime costs than is acknowledged by their big money promoters and politically-connected investors.

The implementation of at least 20% wind energy will have major impacts on the US electric power system and will require trillions of dollars.

However, it appears the capacity factors of wind energy projects are much less than estimated by project developers. As a result, the capital costs and environmental impacts of implementation would be much greater, because a greater capacity of wind turbines and transmission systems would be required to generate the same quantity of energy.

Recent studies of IWT useful service lives in Denmark and the UK indicate these lives are about 15 - 20 years, say 17 years, instead of the 25 years typically used by IWT project developers to obtain bank financing, federal and state subsidies and "Certificate of Public Good" approvals. Instead of 2 replacements in 2 x 25 = 50 years, there will be 3 replacements in 3 x 17 = 51 years, i.e. a 50% greater replacement rate.

As the above US IWT build-out proceeds, almost all of the existing 52,000 MW of IWTs will need to be replaced during 2012 - 2029, plus the new IWTs built during 2012 - 2029 will need to be replaced during 2029 - 2046, etc.

The increased capital cost of IWT build-outs and replacements and the impact of the lesser CFs will greatly add to the US levelized cost of energy.

Unless other developed nations handicap themselves in the same manner (which appears increasingly less likely, based on COP-18 in Dohu, Qatar, in 2012), the US will be at an even greater economic disadvantage than at present. _Willem Post

Germany plans to increase its dependence on the intermittent unreliables to 40% by 2020 -- a mind-bending leap into the great energy and economic unknown. But greens in California are poised to make exactly the same bad bet on the unreliables as Germany. Go figure.

10% dependency on big wind and/or big solar is pushing it. Anything more than 10% is a recipe for disaster.

Looming Electricity Shortages in Europe

Industry observers last month expressed concern over a potential electricity supply crisis this winter because of a tighter nuclear supply scenario in Belgium, Germany and France.

After Germany closed some of its oldest nuclear reactors following the 2011 Fukushima disaster, another big blow to supply were cracks at Belgian nuclear reactors Tihange 2 and Doel 3, which have grounded 2,000 MW when Belgium would typically be a net exporter to France. _Reuters

The risk of freezing to death during a cold winter is many orders of magnitude higher than the risk of being harmed by a nuclear reactor. And yet Europe's leaders march steadfast toward the brink of the energy cliff, undeterred by the dangers and hardships that confront their citizens as a result of their actions.

Green dreams of intermittent unreiable wind and solar: they'll be the death of Europe yet.

Germany's Green Suicide

In the US northeast, long lines for food, water, cash, and fuels -- but no one lined up for wind turbines after Hurricane Sandy. Wind turbines are exorbitant luxuries -- the essence of inessentiality. In a disaster -- and in hard times -- the last thing you need to do is to waste money on intermittent unreliables.

And in the UK, the Energy Minister announced that no new onshore wind farms would be built:

So unreliable are wind turbines — thanks to the wind’s constant vagaries — that they are one of the most inefficient means of producing electricity ever devised. _Telegraph

Aside from the UK, can you explain Europe's headlong rush toward a green energy suicide? Can it all be explained by the pseudoscientific religion of carbon hysteria, or is something more sinister afoot?

We know that wealthy and politically-connected wind farm developers can reap a healthy return on investment, even if the wind farm never generates any electricity -- thanks to government subsidies, loan guarantees, tax breaks, mandates, etc etc. We know that political leaders can win votes and financial support / payoffs, by promising "clean energy."

Face it: there's a sucker born every minute.

Just try not to be one of them.

Guest Article: 20 Bad Things About Wind Power

The following is a guest article written by John Droz, first published at Masterresource.org. It is also being cross-posted to Al Fin

1 – Wind energy was abandoned well over a hundred years ago, as even in the late 1800s it was totally inconsistent with our burgeoning, more modern needs for power. When we throw the switch, we expect that the lights will go on – 100% of the time. It’s not possible for wind energy, by itself, to EVER do this, which is one of the main reasons it was relegated to the dust bin of antiquated technologies (along with such other inadequate energy sources as horse and oxen power).

2 – Fast forward to several years ago. With politicians being convinced that Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) was an imminent catastrophic threat, lobbyists launched campaigns to favor anything that would purportedly reduce carbon dioxide. This was the marketing opportunity that the wind energy business needed. Wind energy was resurrected from the dust bin of power sources, as its promoters pushed the fact that wind turbines did not produce CO2 while generating electricity.

3 – Of course, just that by itself is not significant, so the original wind development lobbyists then made the case for a quantum leap: that by adding wind turbines to the grid we could significantly reduce CO2 from those “dirty” fossil fuel electrical sources (especially coal). This argument became the basis for many states implementing a Renewable Energy Standard (RES) or Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) – which mandated that the state’s utilities use (or purchase) a prescribed amount of wind energy (“renewables”), by a set date.

Why was a mandate necessary? Simply because the real world reality of integrating wind energy made it a very expensive option. As such, no utility companies would likely do this on their own. They had to be forced to. For more on the cost, please keep reading.

4 – Interestingly, although the stated main goal of these RES/RPS programs was to reduce CO2, not a single state’s RES/RPS requires verification of CO2 reduction from any wind project, either beforehand or after the fact. The politicians simply took the sales peoples’ word that consequential CO2 savings would be realized!

5 - It wasn’t too long before utility companies and independent energy experts calculated that the actual CO2 savings were miniscule (if any). This was due to the inherent nature of wind energy, and the realities of necessarily continuously balancing the grid, on a second-by-second basis, with fossil-fuel-generated electricity. The frequently cited Bentek study (How Less Became More) is a sample independent assessment of this aspect. More importantly, there has been zero scientific empirical proof provided by the wind industry to support their claims of consequential CO2 reduction.

6 – Suspecting that the CO2 deception would soon be exposed, the wind lobbyists took pre-emptive action, and added another rationale to prop up their case: energy diversity. However, since our electricity system already had considerable diversity (and many asked “more diversity at what cost?”) this hype never gained much traction. Back to the drawing board….

7 - The next justification put forward by the wind marketers was energy independence. This cleverly played on the concern most people have about oil and Middle East instability. Many ads were run promoting wind energy as a good way to reduce our “dependence on Middle Eastern oil.”

None of these ads mentioned that only about 1% of our electricity is generated from oil. Or that the US exports more oil than we use for electricity. Or that our main import source for oil is Canada (not the Middle East). Despite the significant omissions and misrepresentations, this claim still resonates with many people, so it continues to be pushed. Whatever works.

8 – Knowing full well that the assertions used to date were specious, wind proponents manufactured still another claim: green jobs. This was carefully selected to coincide with widespread employment concerns. Unfortunately, when independent qualified parties examined the situation more closely, they found that the claims were wildly exaggerated. Big surprise!

Further, as attorney and energy expert Chris Horner has so eloquently stated:

There is nothing – no program, no hobby, no vice, no crime – that does not ‘create jobs.’ Tsunamis, computer viruses and shooting convenience store clerks all ‘create jobs.’ So that claim misses the point. Since it applies to all, it is an argument in favor of none. Instead of making a case on the merits, it is an admission that one has no such arguments.

See a very detailed critique of the jobs situation at PTCFacts.Info. Listed there are TEN major reasons why using jobs as an argument is not appropriate or meaningful. Additionally there is a list of some 45 reports written by independent experts, and they all agree that renewable energy claims are based on numerous fallacies.

9 – Relentlessly moving forward, wind marketers then tried to change the focus from jobs to “economic development.” The marketers typically utilized a computer program called JEDI to make bold economic projections. Unfortunately, JEDI is a totally inadequate model for accurately arriving at such numbers, for a variety of technical reasons. The economic development contentions have also been shown to be inaccurate, as they never take into account economic losses that result from wind energy implementation – for example agricultural losses due to bat killings, and job losses due to higher electricity costs for factories, hospitals and numerous other employers.

Additionally, as with jobs, economic development in-and-of-itself has nothing to do with the merits of wind energy as a power source. Let’s say we have a transportation RES mandating that 20% of a state’s vehicles be replaced by horse power by 2020. There would be a LOT of “economic development” (making horse carriages and buggy whips, building horse barns, growing and shipping hay) that would result from such an edict. But would that be any indication that it is an intelligent, beneficial policy?

10 – Along the way, yet another claim began making the rounds: that wind energy is low cost. This is surprisingly bold, considering that if that were really true, RES/RPS mandates would not be necessary. For some reason, all calculations showing wind to be “low cost” conveniently ignore exorbitant subsidies, augmentation costs, power adjusting (see next item), additional transmission costs, and so on. Independent analyses of levelized costs (e.g. from the EIA) have concluded that (when ALL applicable wind-related costs are accurately calculated) wind energy is MUCH more expensive than any conventional source we have.

11 – A subtle (but significant) difference between wind energy and other conventional sources of electricity is in power quality. This term refers to such technical performance factors as voltage transients, voltage variations, waveform distortion (e.g. harmonics), frequency variations, and so forth. The reality is that wind energy introduces many more of these issues than does a conventional power facility. Additional costs are needed to deal with these wind-caused problems. These are rarely identified in pro-wind economic analyses.

12 – When confronted with the reality that wind energy is considerably more expensive than any conventional source, a common rejoinder is to object to that by saying that once the “externalities” of conventional sources are taken into account, wind is less expensive than those conventional sources.

To gullible sheeple, this might make sense. But consider the following two points. First, externality analyses posited by wind zealots never take into account the true environmental consequences of wind energy (rare earth impacts [see below], human health effects, bird and bat deaths, the CO2 generated from a two million pound concrete base, etc.).

Second, the “externalities” for things like coal are always only the negative part. If these advocates want a true big picture calculation, then they need to also add in the benefits to us from low-cost coal-based electricity. Considering that coal played a major part in our economic success and improved health and living standards over the past century, such a plus factor would be enormous.

[BTW there is some evidence that the negative externalities (e.g. about coal related asthma claims) are exaggerated. What a surprise!]

13 – A key grid ingredient is Firm Capacity. (A layman’s translation is that this is an indication of dependability.) Conventional sources (like nuclear) have a Firm Capacity of nearly 100%. Wind has a Firm Capacity of about 0%. Big difference!

14 – Since this enormous Firm Capacity discrepancy is indisputable, wind energy apologists then decided to adopt the strategy that wind energy isn’t a “capacity resource” after all, but rather an “energy resource.” Surprisingly, this may be the first contention that is actually true! But what does this really mean?

The reality is that saying “wind is an energy source” is a trivial statement, on a par with saying “wind turbines are white.” Lightning is an energy source. So what? The fact is that your cat is an energy source too. In this Alice-in-Wonderland reality, connecting the cat to the grid (after heavily subsidizing it, of course), makes as much sense as does connecting puff power.

15 - Wind marketers then hit on a new tactic: that we should use wind as it is a plentiful resource. This is a strategy based on a part truth: that we should be utilizing energy sources that are abundant, reliable, and low-cost. There are two major deficiences in this thinking.

First, abundant sources that are not reliable and that are not low-cost (i.e. wind energy), are a net detriment to our economy. Second, if they are really saying that abundance should be our primary focus, then they should be promoting nuclear power and geothermal energy. Both of these sources have something like a million times the available energy that wind does. Both of those are orders of magnitude more reliable than wind is. Both are lower cost when comparing the actual levelized cost of wind energy (e.g. Wind+ Gas).

16 - One of the latest buzz-words is sustainability. One has to give these marketeers credit for being persistently imaginative. The truth about sustainability is:

a) It is totally hypocritical to have wind advocates attacking fossil fuels as unsustainable, when the wind business has an ENORMOUS dependency on fossil fuels for their construction, delivery, maintenance and operation. This article explains some of it.

b) Nothing is sustainable, as this piece accurately explains.

c) Wind energy is our LEAST sustainable option!

17 – A related pitch is that our adoption of wind energy will help us break “our fossil fuel dependence.” Guess what? The reality is that wind actually guarantees our perpetual dependence on fossil fuels! In addition to wind turbines’ dependence on fossil fuels for manufacture, delivery and maintenance, the only way wind energy can quasi-function on the grid is to have it continuously augmented by a fast responding power source – which for a variety of technical and economic reasons is usually gas.

It’s rather amusing that the same environmental organizations that support wind energy are also against shale gas. That’s like saying that you love Italian food but hate tomato sauce. The two are paired together like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

Realizing that their best defense is a good offense, some of these hucksters are now contending the inverse: that wind actually augments gas! So wind that generates electricity 25±% of the time is “augmenting” gas, which has to supply the 75±%! This immediately brings to mind the British army band playing “The World Turned Upside Down.”

18 – The claim that wind energy is “green” or “environmentally friendly” is laugh-out-loud hilarious – except for the fact that the reality is not funny at all. Consider just one part of a turbine, the generator, which uses considerable rare earth elements (2000± pounds per MW).

The mining and processing of these metals has horrific environmental consequences that are unacknowledged and ignored by the wind industry and its environmental surrogates. For instance, a typical 100 MW wind project would generate approximately:

a) 20,000 square meters of destroyed vegetation,

b) 6 million cubic meters of toxic air pollution,

c) 33 million gallons of poisoned water,

d) 600 million pounds of highly contaminated tailing sands, and

e) 100,000 pounds of radioactive waste. (See this, and this, and this.)

19 – Modern civilization is based on our ability to produce electrical POWER. Our modern sense of power is inextricably related to controlled performance expectations: when we turn the knob, we expect the stove to go on 100% of the time – not just on those wildly intermittent occasions when the wind is blowing within a certain speed range.

Underlying a lot of the wind lobbyists’ claims is a carefully crafted, implied message that there is some kind of wind energy “equivalency” to conventional sources. This assumption is the basis for such assertions that XYZ wind project will power 1,000 homes. Such claims are totally false. They are dishonest from several perspectives: the most obvious error being that XYZ wind project will NEVER provide power to any 1000 homes 24/7 (or really seconds or fractions of a second within each minute of each hour). It might not provide power for even one home 86400/1440/24/7.

Yet we see this same “equivalency” message conveyed even more subtly on EIA tables for levelized costs. Wind and conventional sources should not be on the same table, but they are (defended only by a small footnote). One useful analogy is to consider the cost, speed, reliability and load capacity of a single eighteen-wheeler truck in making daily interstate deliveries of furniture, heavy equipment or other large products. This semi-truck is equivalent to a nuclear plant.

In energy generation terms, the wind turbine equivalent is to attempt to replace the single truck with golf carts. How many golf carts would it take to equal the cost, speed, reliability and load capacity of a single eighteen-wheeler in making daily interstate deliveries? This is a trick question, as the answer is that there is no number that would work: not ten, not a hundred, not ten thousand, not a million. Exactly the same situation exists in the electricity sector: no number of turbines will ever equal the cost, reliability and output of one conventional electricity plant.

20 – A close cousin of the prior illegitimate contention is that “The wind is always blowing somewhere, so spreading wind projects out will result in a combination that has a dependable output.” Like essentially all the wind industry mis-infomercials do, this bald assertion has a soothing, reassuring ring. But this marketing claim is unsupported by any empirical, real world evidence. For instance, in southeastern Australia about 20 wind projects are spread out over a single 1000± mile long grid. Yet the combined result in no way even approximates the consistent dependable performance of our primary conventional sources.

Again, our modern society is based on abundant, reliable, affordable electric power. All these specious claims for wind energy are simply part of a long line of snake oil sales spiels – intended to fool the public and enable politicians to justify favoring special interests by enriching various rent-seekers (which will then return the favor via campaign contributions and other reelection support).

They get away with this primarily for three basic reasons.

1 - Wind proponents are not asked to independently PROVE the merits of their claims before (or after) their product is forced on the public.

2 - There is no penalty for making bogus assertions or dishonest claims about their product’s “benefits,” so each successive contention is more grandiose than the last.

3 - Promoting wind is a political agenda that is divorced from real science. A true scientific assessment is a comprehensive, objective evaluation with transparent real world data – not on carefully massaged computer models and slick advertising campaigns, which are the mainstay of anti-science evangelists promoting political agendas.

So, in effect, we have come around full circle. A hundred-plus years ago, wind energy was recognized as an antiquated, unreliable and expensive source of energy – and now, after hundreds of billions of wasted tax and consumer dollars, we find that (surprise!) it still is an antiquated, unreliable and expensive source of energy. This is what happens when science is relegated to a back-of-the-bus status.

Paraphrasing Dr. Jon Boone:

Let’s see the real world evidence for the lobbyists’ case. I’m weary of these relentless projections, uncontaminated as they are by reality. In a nutshell, what these profiteers are seeking to do, through methodological legerdemain, is to make wind appear to be what it is not. This is a plot lifted out of Cinderella and her step-sisters, or the Emperor’s New Clothes. It’s really a story of class aspirations, but one that is bizarrely twisted: giving wind a makeover to make her seem fetching and comely when in fact she’s really a frog.

When you hear that wind opposition is all about NIMBYs, think about the above points, and then reflect on what NIMBY really means: The Next Idiot Might Be You.

_John Droz

For a more thorough discussion of the problems with wind energy, see this slideshare presentation by John Droz

The Impending Collapse of Ephemeral Wind

What Happens to Wind Without Massive Government Subsidy

The wind energy lives and dies by its tax credit. That's because there is no money to be made in generating electricity from windmills. They are tremendously materials intensive, consuming steel and concrete in prodigious amounts. Each 40-story windmill produces 2 megawatts at best, so you need hundred of them to equal a conventional power plant. Even then, they generate unpredictably and only 30 percent of the time. The only thing that makes them worth building is the production tax credit. _RealClearEnergy

But the PTC makes them VERY worthwhile to businesses looking for tax write-offs. Before it went bankrupt in 2003, Enron was the country's largest owner of windmills. Later it was supplanted by the Marriott Hotel chain. A major corporation looking for tax advantages can make money from windmills without ever generating a kilowatt of electricity.

So when Congress fails to renew the tax credit, the industry collapses. This is indicated on the bar chart. Before 2005, the renewal was on a one-year cycle. When Congress failed to renew in 2000, 2002, and 2004, production fell by at least 73 percent each time. In 2005 the PTC was extended to a two-year cycle and was last renewed in the Stimulus Act of 2009. With Republicans now in control of the House of Representatives, however, the PTC will probably not be renewed unless Democrats achieve a remarkable victory in November. As a result, windmill construction is about to end almost completely. Layoffs have already begun. _RCE

It is time to put the faux environmentalist chimera of big wind energy out of the US' misery.

It may be too late for Europe to save itself from the monstrous economic debacle of big wind. But the UK can still save itself.

Beware of politicians bearing gifts of big wind, big sun, and carbon credits. Do what you must to preserve the future for yourselves and your progeny.

Graphic Illustration of Why Wind Doesn't Fit the Grid

The electrical grid is a high-wire act in which supply must be matched with demand on a minute-to-minute basis. _RealClearEnergy

Wind is highly unpredictable, and cannot be controlled. Human demand for electrical power is only somewhat unpredictable, and can be planned for ahead of time if humans have access to power sources that they can control -- "dispatchable" power sources -- in addition to power sources that remain on virtually all the time -- "baseload" power sources. Using these two types of power sources together, grid managers can meet a somewhat variable and unpredictable demand.

But wind energy is neither dispatchable nor baseload. Wind is unpredictable and highly variable, making it a poor match for finely balanced power grids.

Real Clear Energy

The electrical grid is a high-wire act in which supply must be matched with demand on a minute-to-minute basis. If supply surges above demand, electrical equipment everywhere can be damaged. (That’s why you have a “surge protector” between your computer and the wall outlet.) If supply slumps below demand, brownouts and blackouts can occur.

Although windmills have great energy potential, they produce electricity that is not “dispatchable.” In other words, it cannot be called at will by the operator but comes and goes as the wind blows. As wind energy becomes a larger and larger part of the electrical grid, the problem of matching supply and demand will become ever more difficult.

To illustrate the problem, the PJM (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland) regional grid has produced a line graph matching showing how actual demand compares with the projected output of a grid powered 100 percent by windmills.

The horizontal axis represents the two factors over a period from December 18, 2008 to January 22, 2010. The red line represents grid demand, which varies between 50,000 and 100,000 megawatts (MW) on a seasonal basis. The blue line represents wind’s output over the same period. Output varies wildly, from highs of more than 300,000 MW to lows of nearly zero. It is important to remember that these are not necessarily seasonal or even daily variations. The output of a windmill can fall from full capacity to zero in a matter of hours.

In all those periods where output falls below demand, wind will have to be supplemented by other forms of generation, most likely natural gas. In periods where its output exceeds the demand, the surplus electricity will have to be dumped unless technologies for utility-sized electrical storage can be developed. Currently, the only technology is pumped hydroelectric storage, which requires a large reservoir in a mountainous area, a rare combination. _Real Clear Energy

We feel compelled to go over these issues repeatedly, due to their immense importance to the future costs and reliability of the electrical power grid. If government policies degrade the usefulness and reliability of something so important to a society's well-being, such governments should be replaced.

Big Wind is a Disaster

Britain is a world leader in wind with a subsidized program to take advantage of the windiest conditions in Europe. But its program continues to fail. Figures released in early January showed that as temperatures plunged to well below freezing and electric power demand soared, electricity production at Britain’s 3,100 wind turbines fell from an average of 8.6 percent of Britain’s electricity mix to just 1.8 percent. On the evening of Dec. 20, Britain’s average temperature fell to minus 5.6 Celsius. At 6:30 that evening, Britain’s wind farms, which have a generating capacity of 5,200 MW of electricity, were actually generating 40 MW. _Source

Hmmm. 40 MW divided by 5200 MW gives you a capacity factor of . . . . roughly 0.008, or 8 tenths of 1 per cent! Is this the future of energy that US President Obama is boasting about? Sad indeed.

The wind industry is imploding, and the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) is providing the details. Suffice it to say that there will be no Jay Leno at the next AWEA confab.

With accumulating layoffs, extending the Production Tax Credit (PTC) is increasingly becoming too late. AWEA has been warming about 10,000 job losses by September 1, and now the number is 37,000 in the next seven or so months.

Wind companies are wising up to the fact that consumers don’t like their product. _Master Resource

More details on massive wind industry layoffs at link above.

When politicians from Germany to the UK to the US to Japan continue to double down on stupid, there is likely to be a connecting thread of stupidity behind their stupid decisions. The connecting thread in this case is the global faux environmental movement, along with pseudo-scientific carbon hysteria and climate alarmism.

Politicians have hysterically pursued big wind and big solar -- despite the ruinous economic implications -- out of a crusader's zeal for "green" energy and "green" jobs. Unfortunately, what we are seeing is green ruin across the board.

And as penetration of big wind into the power grid generation ensenble continues to increase -- displacing more reliable and less expensive forms of energy -- we are beginning to see the destabilising effects of big wind on critical power grids.

Most politicians probably never worked an honest day in their lives. Corrupt to the core, depleting the public purse and oppressing the private sector, these top level parasites are lining their own nests and those of their families and supporters. And to hell with everyone else.

Spain's and Germany's Green Blunders;

RCE Solar Jacks Up German Electricity Prices

Spain's economy is in dire straits, in large part due to its government support and subsidies for big wind and big solar power.

During the first two years of his administration, President Barack Obama and top officials praised Spain as a successful model to create employment and improve energy security. So did everyone else, for that matter, but it’s time to heed the lessons.

For over a decade Spain has accumulated nearly 25 billion euro in debt –equivalent to more than half of the urgent capitalization needs of its distraught financial system- mostly in the form of subsidies for wind and solar energy.

...Spain’s generous subsidies already attracted more than twice as much installed capacity than its peak demand of 40 GW, and much cheaper fossil fuel and nuclear generators are being left idle to pay for renewable output. In this context, the country has no choice but to pull the plug on its renewable experiment. More than a decade of robust Spanish growth ended in 2008 as a construction boom went bust leaving millions without a job and as the global economic crisis further undermined the economy.

...Spain is the worst example, but not the only. A recent International Energy Agency outlook of renewable power this decade suggests how Spain’s model embodies the “wrongs” of unconditionally supporting the industry.

Now its renewable revision is going to eliminate thousands of jobs and billions in investment, and more critically become another agonizing drag on the economy.

Many countries overdid it, plain and simple. Renewable industries in OECD reached maturity and have become an economic drain, which is why countries are quietly backtracking, as the data shows. _EnergyTribune

These are sobering lessons for anyone who is paying attention. Unfortunately, it does not appear that the US Obama administration is paying attention to anything except those internal voices which never seem to waver or quieten.

Now, Germany is following the same devastating path that led Spain over the fiscal cliff. Even worse, Germany is shutting down its safe, affordable, and reliable nuclear plants in favour of exorbitantly expensive intermittent unreliables!

As far back as 1990, Germany enacted a feed-in tariff that guaranteed providers of solar electricity a price well above market level. Consequently, it has been very easy for solar producers to make a profit. The idea was to foster domestic industries but much of transfer has ended up going to Chinese firms.

The less obvious downside, however, is that consumers end up paying more for electricity. The high solar prices are averaged in with all other sources and consumers end up paying the bill, both as taxpayers and consumers.

... the German solar industry is about to suffer now that Germany has found it too expensive to maintain the feed-in tariffs. They say Spain has had a worse experience, with $50 billion in wind and solar-related debt now floating around the country. Spain's solar bubble, which soon popped, has played a large role in its overall debt crisis as well. _RCE

Denmark power customers pay the highest cost for energy in Europe, due largely to government support for big wind power.

Now it looks as if the UK may be tumbling down the same energy policy avalanche.

And if US President Obama is re-elected in November, you can expect his administration to double down on the stupid energy policies of Spain et al.

What is it about green politicians and bureaucrats that makes them so destructive to the countries they are supposed to serve?

Two New Methods of Utility Scale Electrical Storage

Electrical storage technology is long overdue for significant innovations and breakthroughs. Applications from electric vehicles, to scalable emergency power backup systems, to power grid load leveling could all benefit immensely from improvements in energy storage. We take a look at two promising prospects below:

Brian Westenhaus takes a look at a new combination of supercapacitors and scalable flow cell batteries, as a possible future means of utility load leveling.

The Drexel’s team of researchers is putting forward a plan to integrate into the grid an electrochemical storage system that combines principles behind the flow batteries and supercapacitors that power our daily technology.

The team’s research has yielded a novel solution that combines the strengths of batteries with supercapacitors plus taking away the scalability problem. Their new “electrochemical flow capacitor” (EFC) consists of an electrochemical cell connected to two external electrolyte reservoirs – a design similar to existing redox flow batteries which are used in electrical vehicles.

The Drexel team’s new technology is unique because it uses small carbon particles suspended in the electrolyte liquid to create a slurry of particles that can carry an electric charge. The uncharged slurry is pumped from its tanks through a flow cell, where energy stored in the cell is then transferred to the carbon particles. The charged slurry can then be stored in reservoirs until the energy is needed, at which time the entire process is reversed in order to discharge the EFC.

The EFC design allows it to be constructed on a scale large enough to store large amounts of energy and allows for rapid disbursal of the energy when the demand load needs it. _NewEnergyandFuel

A distinctly different approach to utility scale electrical storage is taken by General Electric, with its new ceramic electrolyte battery:

The key to the technology is a ceramic electrolyte material that separates the electrodes. During charging, chloride ions are released from sodium chloride and combine with nickel to form nickel chloride. The sodium ions that remain move through the electrolyte into a reservoir. When the battery produces power, the ions move back through the electrode and the reaction is reversed. The process takes place at about 300 °C, inside an insulated container.

...The batteries are more expensive per kilowatt-hour than lead-acid batteries, but they're expected to last longer, especially in applications in which the batteries are deeply discharged on a frequent basis, which damages lead-acid batteries. In some applications, lead-acid batteries might last only six months. Designed to be deeply discharged at least 3,500 times, GE's sodium-nickel batteries could last through a decade of daily charging.

...GE will have strong competition for new grid battery technologies from companies such as Aquion Energy and Liquid Metal Battery, the manufacturing giant clearly has high ambitions for its technology, recently forming a new business unit to commercialize the battery technology. Indeed, at the factory opening, the company announced an additional $70 million investment to increase its capacity to help meet a backlog of orders. "The cost of electricity over time is going to go down because [GE's battery] is going to give utilities the ability to use a multitude of different technologies at the same time," GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt told a group of reporters at the plant opening.

The first applications will be somewhat less ambitious. GE's first customer is a South African company—Megatron Federal—that will use the batteries to power cell-phone towers in Nigeria. Those are usually powered by diesel generators. Pairing the generators with the new batteries can help them run far more efficiently. "You save 53 percent on fuel, 45 percent on maintenance, and about 60 percent on diesel generator replacements," says Brandon Harcus, division manager for telecommunications for Megatron Federal. "For our Nigerian application, the savings are substantial, about $1.3 million over 20 years per cell tower. You use a lot less fuel and produce a lot less carbon."

For this application, the battery has two primary advantages over the lead-acid batteries that sometimes back up the generators. They can charge faster—over two hours compared to 10 hours for lead-acid batteries. And unlike many other batteries, GE's new battery doesn't require air conditioning, which helps reduce fuel consumption at the site.

Besides powering cell-phone towers, the batteries could also be used to store power from wind turbines and solar panels to even out fluctuations in these power sources. GE also says they could be used in microgrids, small grids that are often the size of a village or military base and are designed to operate independently of the larger electrical grid while still getting grid-quality electricity. _TechnologyReview

These are very interesting technologies, and deserve to be tested in the real world to see what they can do.

Unfortunately, they are being promoted as technologies which can remedy the faults of intermittent unreliable approaches to energy, such as big wind and big solar. The swings of intermittency in big wind and big solar are unfortunately too large to allow for the affordable use of energy storage for large grid backup, with these or any other technologies currently in the pipeline.

Much better to promote these useful technologies for what they can do, rather than to promise things which cannot be delivered for many decades yet. And by then, people will wonder why anyone would be willing to go to so much work and expense for the sake of inherently flawed approaches to energy production, such as big wind and big solar.

The Great and Devastating German Green Energy Folly

German electricity consumers are paying the second highest power rates in all of Europe, second only to Denmark. Germany is losing industrial plants to other countries with more reasonable electricity rates, and jobs are fleeing the country along with the plants.

What was the German government thinking in 2004, when it offered a subsidy, known as a feed-in tariff, that guaranteed investors as much as €0.57 per kilowatt-hour for the next two decades of photovoltaic generation? At the time, the average price for electricity from other sources was about €0.20/kWh; by comparison, the average U.S. electricity price in 2004 was 7.6 cents, or about €0.06/kWh. With subsidies like that, it was no wonder that Bavaria Solarpark was just the beginning of a rush to build photovoltaic plants in Germany. By the end of 2011, Germany’s PV installations had a capacity of nearly 25 gigawatts, which was more than a third of the global total. If you subsidize something enough, at first it can seem almost reasonable; only later does reality intervene. This past March, stung by the news that Germans were paying the second highest electricity rates in Europe, the German parliament voted to cut the various solar subsidies by up to 29 percent.

Such generous subsidies are by no means a German peculiarity. They have been the norm in the new world of renewable energies; only their targets differ. Spain also subsidized wind and PV generation before cutting its feed-in tariff for large installations by nearly 50 percent in 2010. China’s bene­fits to its wind-turbine makers were so generous that the United States complained about them to the World Trade Organization in December 2010. _Vaclav Smil in IEEE

Big wind and big solar are not economical without massive and ruinously expensive government subsidies, mandates, tax breaks, and other special favours -- often given to developers who happen to be political cronies of the party in power.

The most ardent supporters of solar, wind, and biomass argue that these sources can replace fossil fuels and create highly reliable, nonpolluting, carbon-free systems priced no higher than today’s cheapest coal-fired electricity generation, all in just a few decades. That would be soon enough to prevent the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide from its current level of 394 parts per million to more than 450 ppm—at which point, climatologists estimate, the average global temperature will rise by 2 °C. I wish all these promises would come true, but I think instead I’ll put my faith in clear-eyed technical assessments.

...But other analyses refute the claims of cheap wind electricity, and still others take into account the fact that photo­voltaic installations require not just cells but also frames, inverters, batteries, and labor. These associated expenses are not plummeting at all, and that is why the cost of electricity generated by residential solar systems in the United States has not changed dramatically since 2000. At that time the national mean was close to 40 U.S. cents per kilowatt­-hour, while the latest Solarbuzz data for 2012 show 28.91 cents per kilowatt-hour in sunny climates and 63.60 cents per kilowatt-­hour in cloudy ones. That’s still far more expensive than using fossil fuels, which in the United States cost between 11 and 12 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2011. The age of mass-scale, decentralized photovoltaic generation is not here yet. _Vaclav Smil in IEEE

Wind and solar power supporters invariably undestimate the costs of their favourite forms of energy, because they never take into account the costs of intermittency, or the costs of ancillary infrastructure which must be built to support and back up the intermittent unreliable forms of energy they prefer.

Projections of wind-power generation into the future have been misleadingly optimistic, because they are all based on initial increases from a minuscule base. So what if total global wind turbine capacity rose sixfold between 2001 and 2011? Such high growth rates are typical of systems in early stages of development, particularly when—as in this case—the growth has been driven primarily by subsidies.

And a new factor has been changing the prospects for wind and solar: the arrival of abundant supplies of natural gas extracted by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, from shales. Fracking is uncommon outside the United States and Canada at the moment, but it could be used in many countries in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, which also have large shale deposits. Some countries, such as France and Germany, have banned the technology for fear of possible environmental effects, but such concerns accompany all new energy technologies, even those touted for their environmental virtues. And natural gas can be used to generate electricity in particularly efficient ways. For example, combined-cycle gas plants exploit the heat leaving the gas turbine to produce steam and generate additional electricity using a steam turbine. What’s more, gas turbine modules with up to 60 megawatts of capacity can be up and running within a month of delivery, and they can be conveniently sited so as to feed their output into existing transmission lines.

The siting of massive wind farms is also becoming increasingly contentious—many people don’t like their look, object to their noise, or worry about their effect on migrating birds and bats [see “Fixing Wind Power’s Bat Problem,” in this issue]. This has become a problem even for some offshore projects. For example, a vast project off Martha’s Vineyard island, in Massachusetts, which was supposed to be the first offshore wind farm in the United States, has been stalled for years because of local opposition. The intermittence of the wind makes it hard to estimate how much electricity can be generated in a few days’ time, and the shortage of operating experience with large turbines introduces even greater uncertainty over the long term. We’ll just have to wait to see how reliable they’ll be over their supposed lifetimes of 20 to 30 years and how much repair and maintenance they will require.

And, of course, you can’t use wind turbines unless you’re prepared to hook them to the grid by building lots of additional high-voltage transmission lines, an expensive and typically legally challenging undertaking. _Vaclav Smil in IEEE

Germany is just beginning to pay the price for its impetuous descent into a reliance on intermittent unreliable green forms of energy. The final costs to Germany and Europe will by much higher than anyone -- even the most pessimistic analyst -- has yet anticipated.

And so, naturally, US President Obama wishes to take the United States down the same destructive energy decline as the greens in Europe have chosen. Obama had best hope that US voters do not catch on to his foolish agenda before the next US national election.

Basic Problems with Big Wind Energy

Here is a very brief and basic look at a few of the many problems with big wind energy, by Paul Driessen:

Energy 101: It is impossible to have wind turbines without fossil fuels, especially natural gas. Turbines average only 30 percent of their “rated capacity,” and less than 5 percent on the hottest and coldest days, when electricity is needed most. Hydrocarbon-fired backup generators must run constantly, to avoid brownouts, blackouts and grid destabilization owing to constant surges and fall-offs in electricity to the grid.

Energy 201:Despite tens of billions in subsidies, wind turbines still generate less than 3 percent of U.S. electricity. Thankfully, conventional sources keep our country running - and America still has centuries of hydrocarbon resources, if only our government would make them available.

Economics 101:It is impossible to have wind turbines without perpetual subsidies - mostly borrowed from Chinese banks and future generations. There is no credible evidence that wind will be able to compete economically with traditional energy in the foreseeable future, especially with abundant natural gas costing one-fourth what it did just a few years ago. It makes more sense to rely on the plentiful, reliable, affordable electricity sources that have powered our economy for decades, build more coal and gas-fired generators - and recycle wind turbines into useful products (while preserving a few as museum exhibits).

Economics 201:As Spain, Germany, Britain and other countries have learned, wind-energy mandates and subsidies drive up the price of electricity - for families, factories, hospitals, schools, offices, churches and shops. That means two to four traditional jobs are lost for every wind or other “green” job created. It means the 37,000 jobs that the AWEA claims the U.S. wind industry creates (via $5 billion to $10 billion in combined annual subsidies, or $135,000 to $270,000 per wind job) are likely costing the United States 74,000 to 148,000 traditional jobs every year.

Environment 101:Industrial wind-turbine projects require enormous quantities of rare-earth metals, concrete, steel, copper, fiberglass and other raw materials; for highly inefficient turbines, multiple backup generators and thousands of miles of high-voltage transmission lines. Extracting and processing these materials, turning them into finished components, and shipping and installing the turbines and power lines involve enormous amounts of fossil fuel and extensive environmental damage.

Environment 201:Wind turbines, transmission lines and backup generators also require vast amounts of crop, scenic and wildlife habitat land. A typical 600-megawatt coal or gas-fired power plant requires 250 to 750 acres, to generate power 90 percent to 95 percent of the year; a 600-megawatt wind installation needs 40,000 to 50,000 acres (or more), to deliver 30 percent performance. Because wind installations must go where the wind blows, hundreds of miles from our cities - transmission lines add thousands more acres to every project.

Environment 301:U.S. wind turbines slaughter nearly half a million eagles, hawks, falcons, vultures, ducks, geese, bats and other rare, threatened, endangered and otherwise protected flying creatures every year. But while oil companies are prosecuted for the deaths of even a dozen common ducks, turbine operators have effectively been granted a “007 license to kill” exemption from endangered- and migratory-species laws and penalties.

Environment 401:Even if carbon dioxide does contribute to climate change, there is no evidence that even thousands of U.S. wind turbines will affect future global temperatures by more than a few hundredths of a degree. Carbon-dioxide emissions from backup generators (and wind-turbine manufacturing) offset any reductions from wind installations, and rapidly increasing emissions from Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and other developing countries dwarf any possible U.S. wind-related CO2 reductions.

Human Health and Welfare 101: Skyrocketing electricity prices owing to “renewable portfolio standards” raise heating and air-conditioning costs; drive families into fuel poverty; increase food, medical, school and other costs; and force companies to lay off workers, further impairing their families’ health and welfare. Audible and inaudible turbine noise causes fatigue, headaches, dizziness, irritability, sleep problems and vibro-acoustic effects on people’s hearts and lungs. Landowners receive royalties for having turbines on their property, but neighbors receive no income and face adverse health effects, decreased property values and difficulty selling their homes.

Real World Civics 101: Politicians take billions from taxpayers, ratepayers and profitable businesses to provide subsidies to Big Wind companies, who buy turbines mostly made overseas - and contribute millions to the politicians’ re-election campaigns, to keep the cycle going.

It is truly government gone wild and is unsustainable. _WT Paul Driessen

Huge resources across the western world are being devoted to this destructive and ultimately futile attempt to provide "clean energy." We should skip the euphemisms and call it what it is: energy starvation of a most expensive and wasteful kind.

Germany's Agenda of Energy Starvation Could not Happen at a Worse Time for European Economies

Germany is proceeding along a path that puts it at greater and greater risk of potentially catastrophic power blackouts.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is unrepentant -- and almost boastful -- over her energy plan which commits Germany to invest at least $25 billion to upgrade its power grid. The German grid is the power hub of Europe -- if it fails, Europe's grid fails.

The high cost of upgrades to the power grid could not come at a worse time for Germany or Europe, already stressed by a banking crisis. But the $25 billion or $30 billion needed to improve the grid systems is only the barest down payment toward the ultimate costs of Merkel's suicidal energy decisions.

Germany is phasing out its nuclear power plants and attempting to replace its infrastructure of baseload power generation with big wind and big solar installations. Germany publicly hopes to provide as much as 50% of its electrical power from wind and solar within the next few decades.

Unfortunately, large power grids grow unstable when big wind and big solar -- intermittent unreliables -- attempt to provide more than 20% of overall power. Going far beyond that level of dependency on intermittent unreliables would place the German gird -- and thus the European grid -- in an untenable position.
More information
A look at Denmark's unfortunate experience with wind energy (PDF)

Spain was once caught up in the green fantasy of the intermittent unreliables, just like Merkel's Germany. But Spain was forced to admit that it could not afford the green fantasy any longer. Eventually, Germany will be forced to come to the same conclusion. The only question is the price that the German people will have to pay for the stubborn stupidity of its leaders.

Greens are reluctant to admit the problems which intermittent unreliables pose for grid stability, particularly the higher the levels of penetration of the intermittent unreliable sources. But the truth will come out in the most painful ways, and many people will remember who has led them to suffer unnecessarily.

Europe is undergoing a demographic implosion, which is putting increasing -- although still subtle -- pressures on the ability of European nations to maintain technological infrastructures and to pay back large debts. If Europe goes through with this suicidal abandonment of reliable power sources in favour of the intermittent unreliables -- and goes even more deeply in debt in the process -- future generations of Europeans will pay the the price.

Intermittent Wind Cannot Replace Baseload Power

Affordable, utility-scale batteries are a number of decades away. One cannot rationally discuss the topic of national or international grid dependency on intermittent power sources without admitting that basic fact.

We should first look at some basics.

Let's look first at two graphs depicting power grid load curves:

This graph looks at

• baseload power -- predictable 24/7 power loads
• intermediate load -- predictable loads of intermediate duration
• peak loads -- less predictable shorter duration loads.

for both summer and winter conditions. It is clear that baseload and intermediate load, being predictable, would require predictable supplies of power, generated by reliable power sources.

Energy sources that are intermittent are -- by definition -- not predictable, and generally unsuitable to supply baseload and intermediate load power. In the same way, intermittents are even less suitable to supply peak power, since in that case both the load and the supply are unpredictable to grid managers.

This graph looks at grid load curves in summer and winter, but assumes a large electrical vehicle fleet, which is re-charging itself during non-peak hours, when power charges are lower. When such a large-scale re-charging takes place, the grid load curves are essentially altered to make most demand into baseload.

Such a grid load curve -- where most of the load over 24/7 is baseload -- matches both nuclear power plants and coal power plants almost perfectly.

Here is a very basic introduction to the problem of trying to use intermittent power supply for critical power loads which must be supplied on a reliable basis:

Here is the analogy: Suppose there is a car on the market that is very environmentally friendly. Its mileage is phenomenal! I call it a “super-green” car.

This super-green car has the same horsepower as a conventional car. It will handle steep hills as well as a conventional car. It has the same 0 to 60 mph performance. The only difference is that when you try to start it in the morning, it will only start 25 percent of the time, and you can never predict on which day it will start. It runs, randomly, 25 percent of the time.

Would you replace your conventional car with a super-green car to get you to work every day? To keep the analogy simple, let us assume that if the car starts on a particular day, it will also take you home at the end of the workday. If it doesn’t start on a particular day, however, it won’t start that day no matter how often you turn the starter key.

To most people, the answer is obvious. Most of us would not hold on to a job very long if we randomly showed up at work only 25 percent of the time. So the answer is no, the super-green car cannot replace the conventional car. Horsepower is the equivalent of capacity in this analogy. An intermittent electrical power source with a capacity (or power capability when it is working) to generate 1000MW cannot replace a conventional power plant with a capacity of 1000MW. Even though the capacities are the same, the power plants are not equivalent. Yet capacity comparisons are made all the time, as if this somehow makes the power plants equivalent. They are not equivalent.

Capacity factor

Others would say that since the capacity factor is 25 percent (the car works 25 percent of the time), you would just need four cars to reliably get you to work every day. This is also not true, however. There is a chance that none of the cars will work on a particular day. As a matter of fact, this probability can be computed, if the probability of each car not working is independent of the other cars not working. It is 0.75 x 0.75 x 0.75 x 0.75 or (0.75)^4, which is equal to 32 percent. So if you owned four super-green cars, the probability of none of them working on a particular day is 32 percent. So, with four super-green cars, you get to work 68 percent of the time, which is better than 25 percent of the time, but it is still a long way from 100 percent of the time.

Another problem with using capacity factor as an equalizing parameter is that there are times when more than one car will start. The extra cars, however, are of no value to you as far as getting to work is concerned. The extra working cars do not average out with the demand to get to work on time each day. They are working at the wrong time.

Note that in the case of a wind farm, the probability of each turbine not working is not independent. If the wind doesn’t blow in a particular area, it will affect all wind turbines. The probabilities are not randomly independent. Therefore, wind farms must be in separate weather patterns, in order to significantly reduce the unavailable time.

Generation

A better equalizing parameter is generation. When the super-green car works, it generates highly economical miles. That parameter has its problems as well, however. The generation of economical miles can be increased simply by taking the long route to work. Those extra economical miles are of no value as far as getting to work is concerned. In the same way, generated electricity has no value unless there is a demand for it at the time that it is generated. This is because electricity has zero shelf-life. It must be consumed when it is generated.

So, when generation cost comparisons are made between intermittent and baseload power sources, this presumes that the resulting electricity value is the same. This is actually not the case, because electricity generated when the demand for it is not certain does not have the same value as electricity that is generated when there is demand for it.

There is no perfect equalization parameter when making comparisons between intermittent and baseload generated electricity. Capacity is by far the worst, next comes capacity factor, and the best is generation, but it is not perfect.

Conclusion

So, the conclusion is that intermittently generated electricity cannot replace baseload generation. Just like there is a chance that none of the super-green cars are working on a particular day, there is also a chance that no electricity is generated by an intermittent source. Hence, all the conventional power sources are still needed. _Energy Collective

Go to the link above and skim through the article, then read the comments. It is obvious that many of the readers of the website live in a land of green dreams and wishful thinking. Affordable and reliable utility scale storage batteries are decades away. And yet these green dreamers want to push big wind and big solar onto the grid today! And at a much higher proportion of total grid capacity than power grids can adjust to. In other words, for all their good intentions, these green commenters are promoting policies that would crash the power grid!

It is true, of course, that large scale electrical fleets capable of converting grid load curves to an overall 24/7 baseload graph, are also decades away. Because the same technological limitations on utility-scale batteries also apply to EV batteries.

Even if utility scale batteries were available, would it make sense to replace nuclear, coal, and gas power plants with big wind and big solar? Of course not. If you look at the total costs of methods of power generation over their lifetime, adjusting for the cost of infrastructure buildup and conversion, and adjusting for the costs of backup power, maintenance, and replacement -- it becomes clear that big wind and big solar are not even close to ready for prime time.

Green dreamers will be the death of us all -- which is exactly what many of the purveyors of these green dreams are hoping. The people behind the green dreams know better, but they do it anyway. Powerful individuals in the big money green-industrial-political complex -- better known as lefty-Luddite dieoff.orgiast greens -- would like nothing better than to see 90% or more of the global human population simply disappear. At least they believe they would like to see it.

Energy starvation of the advanced world -- through forced conversion to unreliable intermittents, through forced carbon taxes and trading, through carbon hysteric rules and regulations etc. -- will have cascading effects on the emerging and developing worlds, leading to significant hardship and possibly large-scale death. At least that is the hope and the plan, by the lefty-Luddites at the top of the food chain. The green dreamers who leave vacuous comments on Energy Collective websites are the expendable cannon fodder.

As for those who understand the potentially disastrous effects of green faux environmental policies being forced onto the industry, commerce, and power supplies of the advanced world: Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

Wind Turbines a Fire Danger to Wildlands, Forests

A recent wind turbine fire in Germany exposes the risk of constructing wind farms in drylands and wild lands subject to wildfire. The image below of a turbine explosion and fire in Scotland, illustrates the danger.

And now we learn that such fires are not considered uncommon by insurers:

“You do get fires occasionally and it comes with the territory,” McLachlan said by phone. The turbine may take at least a year to replace, he said.

...With many potential causes, “we can’t start any investigation until we have a chance to look at the turbine and in order to do that we have to get to the nacelle,” Andrew Hilton, a spokesman for the company, said of the casing on the tower that houses the turbine’s power-generating components.

The company will survey the damage more intensely tomorrow, Hilton said by phone from Aarhus. The site is in the countryside, not in a residential area, he said.

A fire at such a machine could lead to a potential loss of 300,000 euros to 400,000 euros ($400,000 to $533,000) per year, according to Fraser McLachlan, chief executive officer of GCube Underwriting Ltd., an insurer of renewable energy projects. _Bloomberg

As more people discover the cluster-foque nature of wind farms -- from the outlandish costs of service and maintenance, to the inherent unreliability and risk to the power grid, to the human illness caused by proximity to the turbines, etc. etc. etc. -- public support for these monstrous monuments to the green dieoff religion should subside.

As public opposition to these counter-productive boondoggles grows, a bit of energy reality should eventually be enforced -- even in lands such as Germany, where sun and wind faeries are worshiped in all government buildings.

More on the Fukushima Follies

...no one has died from radiation exposure at Fukushima and...the health effects from radiation exposure are too small to measure.

"Fukushima was no Chernobyl." _Dan Yurman

One year after Fukushima, independent scientists working for the UN say bluntly that irrational fears of radiation poisoning will cause far more harm than the radiation itself. Not a single individual from the Japanese public received a dangerous dose, according to the early and informal analyses by the scientists. (Conspiracy theories cannot survive against the constant independent radiation measurements uploaded on Twitter.) Even the 70 altruistic plant workers who stayed behind gained an additional cancer risk of just 0.002% -- effectively zero in a country where four out of ten people get cancer. _Breakthrough Institute

As skankstream media outlets from Japan to Europe to North America continue to spew their anti-nuclear hysteria, the sober reality of the situtation is that no one died or was harmed by radiation exposure at the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown.

Skankstream thug-monkeys of a green-dominated media want you to forget that both the earthquake and the subsequent tsunami were exceptionally catastrophic events, killing tens of thousands of people. Instead they want you to adopt their own anti-nuclear hysteria, and to insist that all other nations adopt the irrational and reflexive flight from nuclear which was adopted by Japan and Germany, following the natural disasters in Japan.

How does one explain such a headlong rush away from reality?

Bending to a panicked public, Japan shut down its nuclear plants, and has had to spend the eye-popping sum of $100 million more every day to import and burn fossil fuels. Cancer-causing pollution fumes are up, as are greenhouse gases (four percent despite reduced overall energy use, according to a Breakthrough analysis). The turn back to fossil energy has turned Japan's decades-long trade surplus into a trade deficit. Higher energy costs exacerbate the nation's ability to deal with its $12 trillion debt, which at 212% of its GDP is far higher than even that of Greece (165%) or Italy (128%).

Despite the over-reaction in Japan and Europe, Fukushima has not slowed the pace of new nuclear plant construction globally (something we predicted last year). Against claims made in this week's Economist, the number of reactors planned and under construction is virtually unchanged. In the US, the main obstacle to the expansion of nuclear has not been fear of radiation but rather the abundance of cheap natural gas from shale -- a reality which similarly challenges the expansion of renewables.

There was nothing inevitable or natural about Japan's panicked reaction to Fukushima. Growing mistrust of the government long pre-dates the tsunami. "The hysteria about radiation reflects a breakdown in trust, as witnessed by endless media accounts quoting people who doubt the government's monitoring of food and soil," wrote former Tokyo correspondent for the Washington Post, Paul Blustein.

...Perhaps the most important lesson to be drawn from Japan's radiation scare is the need for new, credible sources -- independent of both electric utilities and governments -- able to soberly put the risks and benefits of energy technologies in context. Alas, if the Natural Resource Defense Council's slickly demagogic "nuclear fallout crisis" map is any indication, such credible sources won't likely come from the traditional environmental movement. _BreakthroughInstitute

No, the "traditional environmental movement" is too closely tied to the big money green supported dieoff.orgy movement, which wants to abolish all reliable and affordable forms of large scale energy, in favour of exorbitantly expensive and dangerously unreliable green forms of energy such as big wind and big solar.

We know that the sun doesn't shine at night or in cloudy weather, making big solar a huge joke in terms of supplying reliable baseload power. We also know that the wind does not usually blow its best during peak load hours, but tends to blow either too hard or not hard enough. And now we learn that wind turbines may need to be turned off at night, to satisfy environmental regulations and laws.

If the dieoff.orgy greens do away with nuclear power, coal power, and gas power, what are we left with? Unreliable and expensive solar -- which does not generate power at night -- and capricious wind, which will have to be shut down at night, whether the wind is blowing or not?

The most likely conclusion one is left with, is that the big money greens of the lefty-Luddite persuasion, truly do want to starve modern societies of energy, with necessarily catastrophic economic impacts. And it looks as if governments in the US, the EU, Australia, and elsewhere, are closely tied to this movement -- politically and ideologically.

Sooner or later, thinking people of the western world will have some difficult decisions to make, if they are to avert an existential crisis foisted on them from above.

Is Google Suffering from Alzheimer's in its Old Age?

Google's Wind Scam: Is Google the Scammer or the Scammed?

Google claims to be buying up to 30% of the energy used to power its servers from wind, in an effort to be seen as an environmentally conscious power consumer.

Google (GOOG) is stepping up wind-power purchases to reduce emissions, even as it devotes most of its renewable energy investments to sun-related projects, a trade-off aimed at reining in costs as the company seeks higher returns.

Google drew 30 percent of the energy it consumed last year from renewable sources, virtually all of it from wind, up from 19 percent a year earlier. Yet of the $917 million that the company has invested in renewable-energy projects, about two-thirds—or $622 million —is channeled toward solar.

Wind power is at least 50 percent cheaper than solar energy, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That explains why Google, which consumes 2.26 million megawatt-hours of electricity a year, mainly for data centers that run its billions of Web searches, increasingly prefers wind. _BusinessWeek

But regular readers of this blog understand that electrical power delivered to consumers cannot be sorted by utilities according its source. The power that Google buys could be generated by coal power plants, nuclear plants, natural gas plants, or even by covert power plants that burn torrefied human corpses for fuel. There is no way to know how Google's particular power is being generated.

Q: If a customer signs up for the CTCleanEnergyOptions, does that mean that clean energy is being delivered directly to that customer’s home or business?
A: No. The clean energy that is being generated is being delivered to the electric system and this will displace an equal amount of electricity that would have been generated from traditional sources, such as nuclear, coal, oil and natural gas-fired generating plants. Once in the system, the electricity from clean sources (like the electricity produced from any generator) follows the path of least resistance and, thus, cannot be delivered to a specific location (home or business). _CTCleanEnergyOptions Q&A

So is all of this posturing by Google a big public relations stunt, or does Google actually believe it is buying wind energy? Probably a little of both, depending upon who at Google you are asking the question of.

But even if Google could be sure it was buying wind power specifically, would that be a smart buy? Only from a public relations point of view, if targeted toward a particularly stupid public such as coastal dwellers of the US Pacific coast, the US Northeastern coast, or Vermont.

In fact, if one were to choose a specific source for his electrical power, one could hardly do worse than wind -- except perhaps for solar in an Antarctic July or an Arctic January. Wind is an intermittent power source which typically does not blow when it is needed, but generally blows when demand is low. This means that since power generation must be instantaneously matched with power load, excess generation must be "dumped," or wasted.

This is what Google is signing up for -- the growing waste of unneeded power, and a growing risk of insufficient supply of power when it is truly needed. That is the cost of frivolous intermittent energy producers such as big wind and big solar, and it is an issue which the frivolous people who tend to endorse and support big wind and big solar choose not to discuss.

Fortunately, people such as Matt Ridley are willing to discuss the issue. As are people such as Robert Bradley Jr., and K Hawkins. (Much more from Master Resource)

And here is something that the people at Google -- the ones not suffering from terminal dementia -- should be sure to study.

Big wind is a delusion. The issue of big wind energy has been in the public eye long enough for intelligent and aware persons to look at it critically, without being influenced by the feel-good herd vibrations of green dominated media, politicians, academics, and big money lobbies.

Google is supposed to be a cutting-edge technology company, with clear-thinking leaders and planners. So what happened to Google? Does anyone know?

Half of Offshore Wind Farms Likely to be Destroyed by Storms

Stephen Rose and colleagues from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, modelled the risk hurricanes might pose to turbines at four proposed wind farm sites. They found that nearly half of the planned turbines are likely to be destroyed over the 20-year life of the farms. Turbines shut down in high winds, but hurricane-force winds can topple them. _NS

The marine environment is extremely harsh to mechanical and electrical systems. The minimum expense of placing and maintaining large offshore wind farms is exorbitant -- and will drive up the costs of electrical power for anyone who tries to depend upon them for vital power. A relentlessly chaotic rocking of waves combined with corrosive salt spray and water vapour, begin to work their destruction upon the giant but vulnerable turbines from the very first day in the water.

Million dollar gearboxes fail frequently, as do bearings and other moving parts. Turbines will be out of reach of maintenance crews for months out of the year due to storms and winds. A relatively large proportion of turbines should be expected to be out of service at any given time.

Now if you add the likelihood that entire wind farms will be destroyed by hurricanes and other strong storms on a regular basis, most reasonable persons would be forced to ask why any responsible government or entity would support the building of these expensive, unreliable, and ultimately doomed monstrosities and hazards to navigation.

Widespread Dependence on Big Wind Will Bring Frostbite and Death

People are waking up to the ludicrous logic underlying the big wind development schemes that have been foisted upon Europe and North America.

Russia's main gas-company, Gazprom, was unable to meet demand last weekend as blizzards swept across Europe, and over three hundred people died. Did anyone even think of deploying our wind turbines to make good the energy shortfall from Russia?

Of course not. We all know that windmills are a self-indulgent and sanctimonious luxury whose purpose is to make us feel good. Had Europe genuinely depended on green energy on Friday, by Sunday thousands would be dead from frostbite and exposure, and the EU would have suffered an economic body blow to match that of Japan's tsunami a year ago. No electricity means no water, no trams, no trains, no airports, no traffic lights, no phone systems, no sewerage, no factories, no service stations, no office lifts, no central heating and even no hospitals, once their generators run out of fuel.

Modern cities are incredibly fragile organisms, which tremble on the edge of disaster the entire time. During a severe blizzard, it is electricity alone that prevents a midwinter urban holocaust. We saw what adverse weather can do, when 15,000 people died in the heatwave that hit France in August 2003. But those deaths were spread over a month. Last weekend's weather, without energy, could have caused many tens of thousands of deaths over a couple of days.

Why does the entire green spectrum, which now incorporates most conventional parties across Europe, deny the most obvious of truths? To play lethal games with our energy systems in order to honour the whimsical god of climate change is as intelligent and scientific as the Aztec sacrifice of their young. Actually, it is far more frivolous, because at least the Aztecs knew how many people they were sacrificing: no one has the least idea of the loss of life that might result from the EU embracing "green" energy policies.

Frau Merkel has announced that Germany is going to phase out nuclear power, simply because of the Japanese tsunami. Well, that is like basing water-collection policies in Rhineland-Westphalia on the monsoon cycle of Borneo. As I was saying last week, the Germans have a powerfully emotional attachment to everything that is "green", and an energy policy based on renewables will usually win German hearts. But it will not protect the owners of those hearts from frostbite and death due to exposure, for wind can often be not so much a Renewable as an Unusable, and also an Unpredictable, an Unstorable, and -- normally when it's very cold -- an Unmovable. _Independent.ie

Wind energy is not dispatchable -- in other words, society cannot rely upon it. And yet lefty-Luddite greens ensconced in governments across the western world continue forcing societies to depend upon the undependable. Reliable energy and power is a life or death matter. Somehow the reality of that situation should be impressed upon these green activists who have wormed their way into positions of control.

It may be that they are merely pursuing the fastest route to the "great human dieoff," an issue dear to the hearts of large numbers of green activists and philanthropists. But those of us who actually wish to live our lives, must get in the habit of telling them: "You first!"

Big Wind Shown In a Very Bad Light on the Big Screen

A new documentary is out, which exposes the unhappy impact of a big wind project on a small, placid community in New York state. Sometimes, a simple factual narrative can hit with a much stronger impact than any number of numbers and facts.

Master Resource blog takes a look at three reviews of the new documentary. And it seems as if even lifelong media leftists may be vulnerable to the simple, factual narrative of "Windfall". We can only hope. Read more:

Three major reviews on WINDFALL–a 1 hour 22 minute expose that I previously reviewed at MasterResource–is another important development in the growing grassroot pushback against industrial wind parks. Such is a welcome advance from the photo-shopped image of wind as a benign, costless form of modern energy.

Here is Robert Ebert’s review of Windfall (February 1, 2012).

Driving from Los Angeles to Palm Springs, you pass through a desert terrain in which a new species has taken hold…. This wind farm is a good thing, yes? I’ve always assumed so, and driven on without much thought.

A documentary named “Windfall” has taken the wind out of my sails. Assuming it can be trusted (and many of its claims seem self-evident), wind turbines are a blight upon the land and yet another device by which energy corporations and Wall Street, led by the always reliable Goldman Sachs, are picking the pockets of those who can least afford it. There is even some question whether wind energy uses more power than it generates.

Director Laura Israel’s film is set almost entirely in Meredith, N.Y., a farming area of some 2,000 people in a beautiful Catskills landscape. A few dairy and beef farms still survive, but many of the residents are now retired people who have come here with their dreams. Most of them were once “of course” in favor of wind power, which offered the hope of clean, cheap energy. When an Irish corporation named Airtricity came around offering land owners $5,000, neighbors $500 apiece and the town a 2 percent cut of the revenue, that was a win-win, right?

So it appeared. But some residents, including a former editor for an encyclopedia and the final photo editor of Life magazine, began doing some research. The town board set up an energy advisory panel, and after a year of study, it recommended the town refuse the Airtricity offer. The town board rejected the panel’s finding. One of them reclused himself because of his personal holdings in energy. The others saw no conflict.

This generated a furor in Meredith, and we meet people who were best friends for years and now were no longer on speaking terms. We watch board meetings and meet lots of locals; the film bypasses the usual expert talking heads and relies on the personal experiences of these individuals.

I learned that wind turbines are unimaginably larger than I thought. It’s not a matter of having a cute little windmill in your backyard. A turbine is 400 feet tall, weighs 600,000 pounds, and is rooted in tons and tons of poured concrete. If one is nearby (and given the necessary density, one is always nearby), it generates a relentless low-frequency thrum-thrum-thrum that seems to emanate from the very walls of your home. The dark revolving shadows of its blades are cast for miles, and cause a rhythmic light-and-shade pulsing inside and outside your house. Living in an area with all that going, many people have developed headaches, nausea, depression and hypertension.

The effect on property values is devastating…. Nor do other living things like wind turbines. Their blades, revolving at 150 miles an hour, slice birds into pieces and create low-pressure areas that cause the lungs of bats to explode.

For the loss of its peace of mind, a community’s cut of the profits may be enough to pay for a pickup truck. Tax revenue drops because many of those (who can afford to) flee. Turbines sometimes topple over or catch fire (all firemen can do is stand and watch). And of course the local taxing agencies have been required to take advantage of sweetheart state and federal tax cuts, promoted by the industry’s lobbyists.

“Windfall” left me disheartened. I thought wind energy was something I could believe in. This film suggests it’s just another corporate flim-flam game. Of course, the documentary could be mistaken, and there are no doubt platoons of lawyers, lobbyists and publicists to say so. How many of them live on wind farms?

Andy Webster wrote in his New York Times review of Windfall, Turbines in the Backyard: The Sound and the Strobes (February 2, 2012):

We can all agree that energy independence is a worthy objective, right? Alternative energy sources like solar power can help free the United States from fossil fuels and the grip of unstable Persian Gulf states. And wind power — wait, not so fast, says “Windfall,” Laura Israel’s urgent, informative and artfully assembled documentary.

An account of rural Meredith, in upstate New York, when wind turbines came to town, the film depicts the perils of a booming industry and the bitter rancor it sowed among a citizenry.

In 2004 residents of this once-flourishing dairy center were approached by companies offering to pay a nominal fee to erect turbines on their property while insisting on confidentiality agreements (to keep competitors ignorant of costs). Economically beset, some people, like Ron and Sue Bailey, jumped at first. But others, like Keitha Capouya, now the town supervisor, dug into the research and sounded an alarm.

Turbines are huge: some are 40 stories tall, with 130-foot blades weighing seven tons and spinning at 150 miles an hour. They can fall over or send parts flying; struck by lightning, say, they can catch fire. Their 24/7 rotation emits nerve-racking low frequencies (like a pulsing disco) amplified by rain and moisture, and can generate a disorienting strobe effect in sunlight. Giant flickering shadows can tarnish a sunset’s glow on a landscape.

People in Lowville, N.Y., farther north, express despair on camera at having caved to the wind companies’ entreaties; Bovina, N.Y., banned turbines entirely. Meredith is riven by the issue, which pits the Planning Board against the Town Board and neighbor against neighbor. Former city dwellers escaping urban anxieties are surprised to see themselves as activists. Concerns like setback (the distance of turbines from a property line) are debated….

But the film’s implications are clear: The quest for energy independence comes with caveats. Developers’ motives must be weighed, as should the risks Americans are willing to take in their own backyard. Despite BP’s three-month blanketing of Gulf of Mexico beaches in crude oil; the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan; and the possible impact of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on the water table, energy companies remain eager to plunder nature’s bounty in pursuit of profit.

Andrew O’Hehir in Salon takes a second look at industrial wind.

In telling the story of a small-town political fight over wind power, Laura Israel’s fascinating documentary “Windfall” at first seems like another entry in the long laundry list of post-”Inconvenient Truth” doomsayer environmental films.

Indeed, “Windfall” has some of the rural, homespun feeling of Josh Fox’s Oscar-nominated “Gasland” which helped ignite a national debate over the natural-gas extraction method known as fracking. Israel’s film also offers a direct riposte to Bill Haney’s “The Last Mountain,” in which Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is seen promoting wind power as a clean alternative to the dirty and destructive combination of mountaintop-removal coal mining and coal-generated electricity.

Viewed through a long lens, “Windfall” is about much more than the hidden costs and unexpected side effects of wind-power generation, or about a citizens’ uprising in the tiny town of Meredith, N.Y., in the Catskill region 150 or so miles northwest of Manhattan. (Mind you, both are gripping stories.) It’s about the American tendency — and very likely the human tendency — to look for magic-bullet solutions to complicated social and economic problems, where none are available….

… people in Meredith and numerous other communities in the wind-friendly rural Northeast and Great Lakes region have discovered, living anywhere near those gargantuan wind-harnessing engines is quite a different matter. These days, the typical industrial wind turbine is around 400 feet high — the height of a 40-story building, or twice the length of a jumbo jet. The blades alone can weigh upward of 35 tons, and the entire assembly anywhere from 150 to 400 tons (resting on a platform of concrete and rebar, which itself may be 30 feet deep and weigh several hundred tons).

It’s an enormous construction site, culminating in a high-voltage electrical device, that emits a 24/7 whoppa-whoppa-whoppa noise and incessant low-frequency vibration, and is topped with a brilliant flashing light. By daylight, there’s the nightmarish strobe effect — the vast rotating shadow that falls across an entire neighborhood when the turbine is between you and the sun. (While the question of whether it’s actually unhealthful to live near a turbine is unresolved, it’s definitely unpleasant.) If your neighbor put one up in her backyard without asking permission, how would you feel? ….

People on both sides of the issue in Meredith assumed at first that the anti-turbine forces were an elitist minority, partly because the town board had always been dominated by the same landowning families, and partly because wind-power companies had signed people up to secret agreements that forbade them from discussing anything about the relationship.

What ensued was a fascinating lesson in democracy (and a version of the same lesson the Tea Party and its supporters may learn later this year). After 826 people — more than half of Meredith’s total population — signed a petition opposing the town board’s pro-development policy on wind turbines, it turned out that the people who thought of themselves as the “real” residents were in the minority, and the jig was up for the wind industry in this one tiny corner of America.

Yet as one newly elected board member reflects at the end of the film, nobody came out of this fight feeling good. A formerly harmonious community is now bitterly divided, and the Mitt Romney-style venture capitalists of wind power will just move on to the next town and sell their pseudo-green poisoned chalice to somebody else.

The heavy environmental footprint of industrial wind is now entering the mainstream. There will be pushback from the American Wind Energy Association and Big Wind as a result of Windfall. But the debate is now joined. _MasterResource

More reviews and press coverage of Windfall