You may have noticed on your travels that any wind turbines that you come across have a rather unusual operational approach.
On windy days they can be seen to be completely motionless, whilst on almost windless days they are ticking round quite nicely.
I often thought that some clever chap who works for one of the turbine producers has come up with a cunning plan…..when there’s no wind put the turbines in reverse, that is, draw power from the electricity grid to turn the turbine to encourage the public to think ‘Turbines are turning…great….it’s working…government must buy more!’…..a little promotional stunt for the wind turbine industry…keeps the blades turning and keep the money coming in (though you couldn’t come up with a better stunt than getting paid to actually turn off your turbine!).
All nonsense of course?….apart from being paid to turn off the turbines….that’s all too real.
However the Telegraph has looked into wind turbines and just how effective they are in a snapshot:
Data released by one of the largest green energy companies shows wind farms producing enough electricity only to boil two to three kettles at a time.
At one stage last week, three big wind farms even took electricity out of the National Grid – to run basic power supplies on site – rather than actually supplying electricity to households.
According to RWE’s own data, three wind farms on Thursday afternoon appeared to be taking electricity from the National Grid rather than supplying it.
The eight turbines at Knabs Ridge, which is close to Harrogate in Yorkshire, used up 86KW of electricity while Lambrigg wind farm’s five turbines in Cumbria took 10KW from the grid.
Llyn Alaw wind farm, which is in Anglesey, and consists of 34 turbines also produced a negative output, according to RWE’s own data, of minus 80KW.
Somewhat indirectly connected to BBC bias….but it helps inform the debate and provides some background with which to judge BBC coverage of climate change and measures taken to supposedly combat it.
Powering wind farms from the grid generates CO2 emissions, doesn’t it?
The (mainly foreign) operators of wind farms do indeed get paid not to run them at times, or when they are unable to do do because it is too windy. Not only that, in many cases they are able to specify their own compensation payments, which are ultimately paid for by consumers and tax-payers. Whether it is state broadcasting or energy production, liberal left largesse has no boundaries when it comes to spending other peoples’ money.
Fully agree. It makes me wonder how the liberal left has been able to con so many people, for so much of the time, into accept policies which are not in their best interests. Some examples are: mass immigration, grotesque welfare payments which promote feckless behaviour rather than self respecting individuals, parents who have no idea how to parent and don’t care but expect the state to take responsibility, a criminal justice system that favours criminals over victims, suppression of freedom of speech, an education system which denies the intelligent, of any background, a worthy education and social mobility, but produces millions of children who can barely speak let alone read and write, denigration of our culture, re-writing of our history. The list goes on and on.
Why have the British been willing to vote for these policies for decades!? Well I think that the BBC carries huge responsibility for brainwashing the public into accepting these destructive policies as good and desirable. They have done untold harm to our country. I hope that I live to see the day when they are cut down to size and the people freed from their BBC imposed ignorance and allowed to make up their own minds rather than being spoon fed on an exclusive diet of liberal pap.
The answer is obvious. The British people never voted for these policies, and if asked, would have rejected them. The genius of the left liberal establishment was to make sure that the power elite were essentially of one view, and hence whoever the people voted for, the outcome was much the same. If you want to vote for a flabby complacent left liberal millionaire posh boy, you are spoiled for choice between Cameron, Clegg and Milliband. Mrs Thatcher challenged this consensus, but looking at politics now, it is clear she failed.
Here in the US, they did it by having each liberal president ensconce as many leftist loonies as possible in power positions in such key areas as Dept of Education, Environmental Protection, Defense, etc etc etc until no one could tell the difference between professional Democrat bureaucrats and mere bureaucratic professionals. It was a slow process, but it steadily had them take over regulation-writing agencies by stealth.
A couple of years ago I attended a talk on various micro-generation schemes by someone from a firm of consulting engineers who had surveyed domestic wind turbine installations. Their conclusion was that 95% of them were negative producers.
The ‘green’ campaigners are very fond of the ‘follow the money’ argument, (though that stops at the salaries paid to the people that work for the NGOs, universities etc.), but you can bet that morals and science are well down the agenda with some in business and money is near the top of most ‘green’ schemes. Remember the sun that shone at night in Spain? Commercial operators of rural solar arrays realised that if they ran diesel generators at night they could sell the electricity produced as subsidised ‘green’ solar. With a bit of creative (or should that be ;innovative’?) wiring an owner of domestic solar panels could ‘import’ grid power and use it to power their ‘generation’ meter. It is amazing how the promise of a ‘quick buck’ can fire the imagination of the criminal mind!
If the wind is too strong it is dangerous to let the turbines run. OTH when there is no wind, the turbines can run from the grid at optimal rpm, generating electricity.
Now there is a price differential between electricity from normal generation, and wind turbine produced electricity.
Is this a possibility?
“However the Telegraph has looked into wind turbines and just how effective they are in a snapshot”
When Alan cites a source it is always interesting to read the article cited in full rather than rely on his “edited highlights”.
For someone who regularly attacks the BBC for “bias by omission” perhaps he can explain why he did not include the following in his post:
““August is generally a low wind month and also one of the lower months for consumption. ”
““You need to look at the year as a whole – the latest Government figures show that in 2012, more than 11 per cent of the UK’s electricity came from renewable sources, with wind providing the lion’s share.”
“We hit a new record in March when we generated enough electricity from wind at one point to power four out of 10 British homes.
“So while our critics may choose to pick out individual examples of periods when it was less windy, we prefer to look at the bigger picture as that’s far more representative overall.”
“In very low wind conditions import can occur to power wind farm control systems and keep turbines ready to respond when the wind picks up. These are very small amounts of consumption.” – basically the same as any over means of generation and in particular nuclear and hydro which do not operate continuously.
We hit a new record in March when “at one point” etc etc
Useful idiot.
“We hit a new record in March …. to power four out of 10 British homes.”
“…more than 11 per cent of the UK’s electricity came from renewable sources”
Is that the best they (and you) can manage??? They are eyesores, are very expensive and even at their best, even according to your quotes, are woefully inadequate to meet a fraction of this country’s needs!
What’s more – the offshore wind monstrosities kill thousands of migrant birds. So much for environmental-friendliness. All they are is a big money maker for those who have propagandised them and invested in them. The sooner they are pulled down and we can go back to sensible and truly environmentally-friendly energy sources the better.
Unfortunately pulling them down may not be an option as they are not recyclable. In any event the massive concrete bases on which they stand will remain for ever and a day. There is no obligation in the contracts handed out to WF developers for them to restore the land they have ruined.
In the lovelock interview I mentioned elsewhere recently ,he made the point that the amount of concrete used in the erection of wind turbines means that over their life span they in fact produce more CO2 than non-renewable forms generation for the total amount of electricity generated, I’m guessing that that’s based on the assumption that the gas/oil power station has a longer productive life and produces closer to its full potential over that period .But even so it shows what a farce wind farms are .And remember this was James Lovelock father of ‘Gaia’
We hit a new record in March when we generated enough electricity from wind at one point to power four out of 10 British homes.
Nice wording. ‘Four out of ten homes’ sound good. No need to tell anyone that the power generated represented only 10% of the UK’s needs. And it occurred for only two days in March. What about the rest of March? But I thank him for this snapshot. It made the earlier claim
in 2012, more than 11 per cent of the UK’s electricity came from renewable sources, with wind providing the lion’s share.”
look dubious. Wind turbines provided a 47% share (see here ) of the electricity generated by renewables. A lion’s share?
Ah, at last Albaman comes out of the closet to proclaim his man-made global warming/’renewables’ credentials.
You missed this, Albaman:
‘The figures show just how little electricity giant turbines produce at certain times bolstering claims by critics that wind turbines cannot be relied upon to provide a constant source of electricity. ‘
In a word: unreliable. Which means gas fired power stations need to be in a constant state of standby to kick in when the wind ain’t blowin’. In other words we still need as much fossil-fuelled electricity production to be available. Did you actually know that? Or has the BBC brainwashed you into believing the ‘renewables’ hype?
And this:
‘While the snapshot analysed by the Telegraph shows how little electricity was produced by some wind farms on still, summer days, there have been other times in the past month when wind farm owners have been paid by the National Grid to shut down in order not to over load the electricity supply system.
Such payments – known as constraint payments – have reached £7.5 million for the first three weeks of August.’
So that’s £7.5 million of taxpayers’ money down the swanee, no?
And then there’s this:
‘ The Government has been keen to promote wind energy in its attempt to meet a European Union-wide target of providing 15 per cent of energy needs from renewable energy by 2020. The Labour government introduced a consumer subsidy, added on to electricity bills, to encourage the construction of wind farms.
That subsidy is predicted to rise to £6 billion by 2020.’
Yep, that’s £6,000,000,000 you pay through your fuel bill for the pleasure of combating a non-existent threat, as temperature records and God-knows-what-else are telling us.
Finally, have a read of this:
‘‘Hamish’ lives in a remote, relatively windy, farmhouse location in Scotland. Being an unreconstructed liberal with cash to splash, Hamish decided eighteen months ago to invest in his ‘free’ wind power dream. Disgusted that his power company would not buy any excess electricity a ‘home’ turbine would produce, Hamish switched to the one Scottish power company that was prepared to buy it. By February 2011, having bought his lb55,000 ($88,000) turbine and completed the infrastructure and after the power company laid the cables, Hamish received a bombshell. Having tested the system the power company refused to allow Hamish to turn it all on because variable wind surges would trip out the power grid……..
Oxford University economist Deiter Helm, speaking to ClimateWire, states the case starkly, “Basically, governments have allowed the build up of wind power without thinking through the grid consequences.” A conundrum to which, as Helm states, there are only two possible responses, “Stop wasting so much on the rapid development of wind and its questionable economics, or plough on regardless, in which case enormous grid investments are urgently needed.” The problem being faced across wind pioneering Europe, especially Britain – Europe’s windiest nation – is that having poured enormous sums of public money into the renewable energy infrastructure, who is now going to stump up the $138 billion estimated to be necessary to reconstitute and upgrade existing national onshore grids to cope over the next decade?’
http://www.energytribune.com/7160/wind-power-gridlock#sthash.KuUXkJi8.riXv7jtp.dpbs
And here’s waht’s happening to solar:
‘In June, the sun finally set on Germany’s solar sector with power companies, large and small, seeing their £21 billion investment in solar energy disappear into the ether. As one German commentator wryly observed: “the sun does send an invoice after all”.
By mid-June the German company Siemens announced it was winding down its solar division with a view to shutting down completely by next spring. Siemens had entered the solar thermal systems market when it bought the Israeli company Solel, believing market growth would be rapid. The gamble failed. Siemens lost around €1 billion.
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/3827/the_great_renewables_scam_unravels
Plus if you have an answer as to how we are going to plug the looming energy gap that doesn’t involve being held to ransom by unfriendly foreign states, or doesn’t involve fracking, here’s your chance…..
“Ah, at last Albaman comes out of the closet to proclaim his man-made global warming/’renewables’ credentials.” – Where did I say this?
“Plus if you have an answer as to how we are going to plug the looming energy gap that doesn’t involve being held to ransom by unfriendly foreign states, or doesn’t involve fracking, here’s your chance….. ”
A sensible government policy would be to plan long term as opposed to constantly thinking only as far as the next election. A mixed power generation capacity including renewables, nuclear and fossil fuels would be a sensible option.
That is still a “green” reply. Why on earth do we need renewables at all if they are grossly uneconomic and cause fuel poverty. Other than hydroelectric power, long established in Scotland, there appears to be nothing worthwhile except nuclear, gas-and-oil fired electricity, gas, oil and maybe a bit of coal. A bit of marginal capacity from sewage and farm slurry.
So continuing to talk about renewables as part of the solution is just part of the Green and leftie Mumbo-Jumbo.
” Why on earth do we need renewables at all if they are grossly uneconomic and cause fuel poverty. Other than hydroelectric power, long established in Scotland,……………..”
Does this not qualify as a “green” reply as well then?
No, because I stated hydro as a specific technology – which is proven. Your general mantra of “renewables” covers all the uneconomic crap the BBC never tells us about.
When the post is about entire windfarms producing only enough electricity to boil a few kettles – don’t you think you would be wise to keep your head down.
Or are your kneejerk responses entirely uncontrollable ? You can stop a “kneejerk” by holding the knee and calf down. Likewise you could stop your kneejerk incontinence fairly easily.
“No, because I stated hydro as a specific technology – which is proven.”
Yes – proven to be uneconomic!
“During the Second World War the North of Scotland Hydro Electric Board (NOSHEB) was formed. It was championed by Tom Johnston, the then Secretary of State for Scotland who dreamt it would pave the way for great economic development in the Highlands. In the next two decades many schemes were built before it was finally accepted in the 1960s that new hydro schemes were uneconomic as the real price of electricity fell.”
http://www.tdsfb.org/GarryHydroboardhistory.htm
Early hydro schemes in Scotland were most definitely economic. A lot of them will remain part of the mix – because they pay their way.
Windpower is just a Green dream, uneconomic pretty well everywhere. The should not be part of the mix, they represent Green madness.
‘Where did I say this?’
Through your unequivocal support for the BBC and your failure to acknowledge its bias on the subject.
‘A mixed power generation capacity including renewables, nuclear and fossil fuels would be a sensible option. ‘
Do you ever bother taking on board other people’s arguments and the hard facts?
Any ‘mixture’ involving renewables is not a mixture at all, as fossil/nuclear always has to be on hot standby to kick in when the wind doesn’t blow/the sun doesn’t shine. And the only way ‘renewables’ might be made competitive anyway is through government a) giving subsidies and b) making fossil fuels uncompetitive through carbon taxes.
You are just continuing to push the BBC line whilst failing to acknowledge some very painful truths.
“‘Where did I say this?’
“Through your unequivocal support for the BBC and your failure to acknowledge its bias on the subject.”
Thanks for confirming that I did not come “out of the closet to proclaim (my) man-made global warming/’renewables’ credentials.”
As for: “Do you ever bother taking on board other people’s arguments and the hard facts?” – pot, kettle and black spring to mind!!
Ok, Albaman. Do you accept the accusation (backed by many hundreds of posts) of BBC bias on ‘climate change’? Yes or no?
Or are you going to continue to waste everyone’s time with your teasing smart-arse (or so you’d like to think) contributions – e.g. you haven’t addressed a single one of the points raised and links provided in my post above.
You haven’t made any comment at all on the BBC’s one-sided reporting of ‘renewables’.
And I can’t wait for you to inform me what it is I’ve ignored in your post that the BBC isn’t constantly trumpeting about windmills.
Why do you discount the use of fracking? Does the thought of a relatively cheap energy source worry you?
The quotes Albaman has cherry picked come from the spokeswoman for RWE npower renewables and from deputy chief executive of RenewableUK, the trade body that represents wind power respectively. Hardly neutral, and certainly not authoritative in the sense that they are undisputed ‘facts’.
Other commenters have pointed out that the unreliability of wind makes it close to useless as the only source of energy, and that to use it effectively one must build overcapacity into generation to allow for times when wind input is zero, so I won’t dwell on that.
The heart of the problem here is the continued framing of the energy generation question in terms of carbon dioxide emissions, when the science is increasingly clear that man-made emissions are not causing the climate changes that we’re seeing. Until AGW is tackled head on for the lie it is, we’re going to continue to have an energy policy driven by emotion rather than fact.
That a technology such as wind farms, which are demonstrably inadequate to provide year-round reliable energy supply for any application, are touted as one of the great hopes of the green movement should demonstrate how vapid the arguments being used are. Perhaps I’d be a bit less sceptical if we saw some kind of hybrid designs around wind (e.g. generation of hydrogen during times of overcapacity as a means of storing the wind energy until it could be used) but so far I’ve seen very little beyond wind farm owners seeking to wring out as much as they can from the government’s misguided subsidies of wind without actually providing any real answer to long term UK energy needs.
There is a probably a technical reason why the wind turbines have to be rotated when there is no wind.
I have never seen the drawings of the machinery but am almost certain that it will contain roller bearings. Such bearings, if standing still for long periods, can suffer from so-called ‘brinelling’ where the inner and outer races become damaged by the pressure of the roller acting on one small area.
The turbines at Kessingland near Lowestoft can often be seen rotating extremely slowly; probably around half a revolution per minute. This, as pointed out in previous posts, consumes power and detracts from the net power output of the turbine.
Perhaps someone with greater knowledge than mine will point out if I am wrong.
This bears further consideration then: ‘Such bearings, if standing still for long periods..’
These are probably the ‘points’ not taken by some as snapshots between notional capacity and actual deliverables, or selectively quoted by their supporters.
Saxman is using the correct term: brinelling.
It is precisely how he describes it, the continued loading in one static position, which will produce an indentation in tne supporting bearing material.
I always think of these Chicken-licking green Cassandras as only being lazier, thicker and more hectoring that those Jehovahs Witnesses and Christian sandwich-board jobbies that used to line the route to football grounds way back.
Greenies, however won`t dare call on the doorstep-nor risk those footie rough`uns by standing out in the cold(so much for global warming!).
If you see them as that-Green Chicken-Lickers too effete to carry a sandwich board-and self-appointed to break the law, blockade villages, sit on airport runways(because they`re virtuous enough for the law not to ever apply to them)…you`ll not go far wrong.
Christopher Booker has them banged to rights-which is why you can only read him in the Telegraph-the BBC don`t seem to ever ask him to crush the Junipers, Porritts or Hyndes do they?
Excellent point
Booker has decades of experience as a journalist, and is without doubt one of the the best informed on “Green” issues. I wonder what the ratio is between his appearances on BBC with some nutter like, say, George Monbiot ? 1 to 100, maybe ?
Christopher Booker authored the Global Warming Policy “Report 5” about the Climate Change policy at the BBC between 2005-2011, called “The BBC and Climate Change: A Triple Betrayal” which reveals some of the corrupt ideological mindset at the BBC. He is not scientist, but unlike most journalists, he does ask for advice from Atmospheric Physicists and Astronomers and other causational or attribution climate scientists. The BBC is full of journalists who only talk to environmental activists and temperature measurers, these left-wing morons do not know the difference between speculation and conclusion.
Well said, ChrisH, Booker would demolish any Warmist/renewable argument in minutes.
Oh, hang on, but Booker isn’t a scientist is he?
Yes Alan in spite of Alabaman’s cries – this is the BBC’s bias by omission. Positive press releases for alternative sources of energy are snapped up and included in the Today programme, the 6 o’clock news etc etc – even though we are in slow news days somehow the BBC hadn’t time to bring on David Shukman for this story.
No, slow snails and possible baby pandas are FAR more important…
I live right next to Llyn Alaw and for the last 2 days the turbines have been turning all day yet with out a breath of wind ? and even more amazing they are all facing in opposite directions while turning ? how do they do that !
I don’t think we need wait any longer in conferring Alan with the Fuckwit of the day award for another factually inaccurate and biased post.
It scores even more points because it has nothing to do with the BBC but probably loses out on the Monthly award because he forgot to relate it to a jihadist conspiracy at eon
Arise Sir Fuckwit.
FACT- as a measure of how ludicrous the whole windfarm scandal has become, at one point some entire farms, multiple “generators”, were producing only enough electricity to boil a kettle or two.
FACT – often when there is no wind,, the is a NEGATIVE OUTPUT from windfarms – they actually draw electricity from the grid to keep turning slowly and for other on-site services
FACT – windfarms impose a huge burden on power consumers
FACT – the whole policy is crazy.
Booker’s article simply points all this out – again.
FACT – the BBC NEVER points all this out.
ergo, Alan’s notes are both accurate and relevant to BBC bias.
I have seldom seen Alby looking so stupid through his kneejerk attacks on Alan.
“I have seldom seen Alby looking so stupid through his kneejerk attacks on Alan. ”
No attack on Alan – simply pointed out that this site is concerned with “bias by omission” at the BBC. It seems hypocritical that Alan, as a “major contributor”, should often be guilty of “bias by omission”.
Trolls should be starved or shot but never fed.
Quite right, sorry.
Which part of Alan’s post is inaccurate, Queenie? Two examples will suffice, if you can be bothered to rise above personal insults.
Albaman, Alan can choose whatever bias he so desires on this web site. The BBC are not supposed to show any bias whether by omission or not. To do so is against their charter to broadcast.
Just so I understand.
It is allowable for Alan to be biased in his perception of BBC bias because Alan’s is the right kind of bias.
And there was me thinking that to counter claims of “bias” the best form of attack would be objectivity.
Plenty of objectivity on this site. And then you beeboids arrived.
Perhaps you should try it some time.
It’s always welcome to see Albaman’s foot firmly planted in its customary place – in his mouth.
The fact that the Telegraph actually carried the dissembling of the eco-loon in the pay of Big Green is the key here, whether Alan quoted it or not.
There are two points to consider. The first is whether the BBC goes out of its way to investigate the true economics of wind power,, as the Telegraph has done.
The second is whether, at the end of one of Harrabin or that imbecile Black’s little puff pieces for ‘Green’ pseudo-science, there is space given for the alternative point of view, as happened in the Telegraph.
As we can see from this site, day after day, there is no such balance on the BBC. Green lies are presented as facts and opponents treated as pariahs.
Thus Alan’s point is perfectly reasonable and Albaman’s is… well, it is Albaman’s, with all that entails.
The BBC gives us a very one-sided view of ‘climate change’ and renewables – fact.
The BBC, through its charter, has a duty to ‘impartiality’ – fact.
The conclusion to be drawn is fucking obvious, I would have thought, even for Albaman The Obtuse, but he will never admit to a shred of BBC bias even when it is biting him on the arse.
(See also my reply to Albaman above.)
Glorious day out, so just a brief moment to catch up on the morning’s posts, and also see who is on duty today.
Bank Holiday seems to have taken its toll on quality, or maybe quotas have been upped and desperation is setting in.
The new work experience re-g..al rather set the tone, if destroying the ‘simple polite seekers after truth’ claims for the rest of the skeleton crew, reduced to first of all to as delusional a bit of irony failure as has been seen in a long while, followed now by question after question. It is of course hard to understand anything when the switch is only set to broadcast all the time.
So many questions, so few answers. The metaphor for the entity being in theory defended is stark.
They may seek a refund.
“The new work experience re-g..al rather set the tone”
Maybe it’s that time of year when newly-qualified Meeja graduates start trying to ingratiate themselves with a potential employer?
Up above, Alby, who claims to know all about Scotland, tried to claim that hydroelectric power in Scotland is uneconomic :
Against the argument that hydro is a technology that is proven, he said :
“Yes – proven to be uneconomic!
“During the Second World War the North of Scotland Hydro Electric Board (NOSHEB) was formed. It was championed by Tom Johnston, the then Secretary of State for Scotland who dreamt it would pave the way for great economic development in the Highlands. In the next two decades many schemes were built before it was finally accepted in the 1960s that new hydro schemes were uneconomic as the real price of electricity fell.”
Typical Alby attempt to falsify. Yes, by the 1960s some of the schemes being proposed were not economic against the falling real price of electricity. Because planners were getting diminishing returns from the newer schemes, the better sites had already been exploited. And there were some white elephant projects associated with the proposed aluminium smelters.
But the original hydro schemes in Scotland WERE economic. They DID bring power to the Highlands. And ALL the original schemes are still running, 60 or 70 years on..
Which sounds like a PROVEN technology, an ECONOMIC technology? (As compared to the turning-cucumbers-into-rainbows idea of wind power.)
Alby – factually wrong even in his own backyard. Or rather – deliberately misleading and dishonest..
Though hardly apparent from a glance at their website, most of the electricity supplied by Scottish “Hydro” Electric (a trading arm of Scottish & Southern Energy plc ) is actually generated from fossil fuels. Their gas power station at Peterhead (right) alone produces almost twice as much energy as all of SSE’s conventional hydro power stations put together.
Hydro electricity is expensive in relation to the amount of energy produced. For example it recently cost SSE about as much just to refurbish their power station on the River Gaur as it would to build a similar capacity windfarm from scratch. And that does not include the vast cost of constructing the dam and all the associated infrastructure. This power station only has an installed capacity of about 7MW, equivalent to about three modern land wind turbines, or little more than one of the new type of wind turbines being trialled in the Beatrice Field in the Moray Firth.
The paltry nature of hydro can be illustrated by way of the following example.
The River Tay has as much flow as the Thames and Severn combined. Lets use it to generate electricity.
Let’s build a dam across the Tay at the tidal limit at Perth.
For it to produce as much energy per year as Scotland’s biggest coal burning Longannet power station in Fife , the dam at Perth would need to be 500 metres high! That means the dam would have to be twice the height of Kinnoull Hill at Perth flooding everything from Crianlarich to Kirriemuir, Pitlochry, Dunkeld and Perth itself.
It would have to be a phenomenal construction, higher than Drumochter Pass which separates the Garry from Strathspey! It would even tower above the Three Gorges Dam in China, a mere dwarf at 181 metres!
You are ducking the point, Alby. You said that hydro in Scotland is uneconomic.
So how is it that all the original schemes are still running, 60 or 70 years on ?
You wanna kid us that wind farms will still be running 60 or 70 years on ?
You demonstrate the problem with ‘renewables’, namely energy density, how much energy is there in a kilogram in other words.
Water is energy dense compared to air but is nothing compared to coal.
The energy density of coal is a million times greater than that of air at wind turbine speeds.
It is like saying that you could light the Albert Hall with a candle, well you could but it isn’t what we are used to.
Passed several today that were completely motionless and presumably seeking needed power off their barely rotating mates.
Another had blown down in a winter storm. Too much wind. Oops.
Meanwhile in the land where reality once ruled – that is the England of yesterday- only a madman would have suggested building an advanced industrial civilisation on renewable energy. The Victorians would have put him in the madhouse.
But this is England 2013. In the grip of a delusionary cult that somehow has taken over the country- or at least the rulers of it.
It will pass but nor before this land of ours has been through a necessary dose of reality and discovered that the world is not as it appears to these deluded ones and that nobody anywhere owes us a living.
Look on the bright side.- turbines serve as a reminder should you need one (I don’t) of the utter folly of this generation of politicians.
At least the Lucky Country has a chance; with their next Prime Minister describing climate change as ‘utter crap’.
Windmills, 16th century technology – news just in, we’ve split the atom.
i suppose to a leftie wind turbines are the equivalent of of a giant statue to Stalin or Mao or even the Dear Leader
To Gaia. The religion has evolved.
Another BBC troll who can’t read, clearly.
No wonder the Corporation’s programmes are so poor.
Rather clearly, for the function you describe with such an entity, reading is not a required skill.
Broadcast only, of anything, to meet quota, is.
As someone said some days ago here I’d love to be able to get ‘free’ electricity to power my home. Trouble is it isn’t free and won’t be for some time, if ever.
I’m slightly concerned about fracking but if it reduces the load on the UK economy I’ll set light to my taps with glee and say it’s atmospheric, like a candle. The water around here tastes foul anyway and it will help light the kitchen at night.
I just cannot for the life of me see the economic or even ecological arguments behind wind power. They just don’t cut the mustard in the UK.
In France you can drive passed over a hundred wind turbines on the A26. They are usually all turning but then they are sat on a massive plain where the wind blows almost constantly. They still don’t make money for EDF.
In the UK, as even the wind power manufacturers admit, the wind is not strong enough or constant enough in enough places for wind to be a sensible operation. There’s a farmer near here who has a small turbine on his land turning pretty much constantly. It is well sited. I asked him how much money he was saving as I thought it might be worth it for my business. After prevaricating for a while he went into a spiel about CO2 and climate change and I came away with the distinct impression he was not saving any money. In fact when you look into these schemes it is only the big turbines that carry enough kick backs to make them profitable, so what’s the point?
It is truly depressing that we can get into a position where the State can rip money from the public to pay for bullshit enterprises that have no real benefits whatsoever. But I suppose that is what politicians are all about really, robbing the poor to pay the rich.
As someone pointed out above for every MW of wind power on stream there has to be the potential for an equivalent MW in case the wind changes and the turbine cannot produce power. That means that when the grid buys 1MW of wind power it has to ensure that it has 1MW of power unsynced with the grid ready to go instantly should the wind turbine drop out. This is extra to the unsynced power that the grid buys every day to cover demand changes and loss of input from carbon based power. Coal power stations can be put out of operation simply by a coal hopper jamming – it happens regularly and the grid has well established procedures to ensure the power stays on. That’s why we don’t get outages or brownouts in the UK except in exceptional circumstances.
When I put these arguments to greens they either revert to ad homs like the trolls here or use spurious arguments like ‘well, we need to improve renewables’ or ‘its a phase of operations that has to be gone through’. Well, I call bullshit on that.
So, no, renewables are, with the single exception of hydro, a waste of time and more importantly money. They are definitely not green.
With respect, Pah, that was an excellent post but for one thing. You promulgate the casual lies of the eco-loons with this stuff about water supplies and flaming taps. Why?
If you are concerned about the process, why not read-up on it? The ‘water supply’ story is just a tissue of lies. We should be knocking that idiocy out of the ground, not giving it even the slighest credence.
I had presumed that Pah meant that IF fracking indeed was to cause all sorts of events not remotely proven, s/he would still take the chance: a clear case of risk/gain ratio, or shall I say – gain/risk ratio.
Exactly so.
I have no idea id the eco-loon claims are true or not. As they are eco-loon claims they can generally be discounted but very occasionally they are right. I don’t know, despite reading up on this who is telling the truth but I suspect those in favour of fracking are lying the least. In the end it all comes down to belief and probability, like everything else.
Either way the gain outweighs the risk IMHO.