All wind turbines should look like this…

I’ve lost count of the number of times ACM has reported on the total uselessness of wind farms as a way to mitigate GHGs.

Added to which, they are inefficient, hugely expensive and ugly. And they kill birds and bats. None of this matters to the Green zealots who see the wind farms as monuments to Gaia, rather than monuments to incredible stupidity.

The Australian reports that Victorian wind farms, for all their hype and subsidies, have eliminated virtually zero GHGs, thanks to the need for backup coal power stations to keep running at full speed to cope with the fluctuations in wind generation:

The early signs are that a $23 carbon tax has displaced some marginal high-cost generation in South Australia and Queensland, but it is too soon to say whether this is a trend or coincidence.

But any gains are swamped by the findings of a two-year analysis of Victoria’s wind-farm developments by mechanical engineer Hamish Cumming.

His analysis shows that despite receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from green energy schemes driven by the renewable energy target, Victoria’s wind-farm developments have saved virtually zero carbon dioxide emissions in the state.

A forensic examination of publicly available power-supply data shows Victoria’s carbon-intensive brown-coal power stations do not reduce the amount of coal they burn when wind power is available to the grid.

Cumming says surplus energy is wasted to make room for intermittent supplies from wind.

Cumming’s findings have been confirmed by Victoria’s coal-fired electricity producers and by independent energy analysts who say it is more efficient to keep a brown-coal power-station running than turn it down and then back up.

Without gas or some other form of peaking power supply the Victorian electricity system is not equipped for the vagaries of wind power.

Even in SA, which uses gas, not coal, for base-load power and makes much greater use of wind, Cumming estimates the cost of greenhouse gas abatement at $1484 a tonne.

Cumming used data published by the Australian Energy Market Operator, which tracks power sector generation every five minutes.

The results showed fossil fuel generators, in the same periods when wind turbines had been operating, fluctuated their output to match demand but did not reduce their rate of coal consumption.

In an email to Cumming, electricity generator IPR-GDF SUEZ Australia confirmed his findings.

“Given that the power stations mentioned are all ‘baseload’, their generation output is relatively constant 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, other than due to minor fluctuations depending on market demand and/or shutdown of generation units for maintenance or repairs,” a company spokesman said.

Cumming says his investigation demonstrates how green energy theories do not always match the facts. (source – paywall)

Gee – you don’t say…

How many times do we have to hear this kind of indictment of wind power before anyone takes any notice?

Freaking useless, and expensive

It doesn’t matter how many times the eco-loons are told that wind is a complete and utter waste of money, they refuse to listen, as they view the monstrosities as a symbol of their cause.

Earlier this week, Matt Ridley argued that the case for wind power had been torpedoed, and now another UK study demonstrates (yet again) that wind power is highly expensive, inefficient (and ugly), claiming that wind power is ten times more expensive than using gas-fired power stations to achieve the same emissions reductions:

GOVERNMENTS are squandering billions of dollars on “uneconomic” wind farms, according to a landmark study that undermines the case for Labor’s huge renewable energy subsidies.

 Investment in wind turbines will fail to cut enough greenhouse gas emissions to justify their cost, economists warned yesterday after a detailed British analysis released this week

The conclusions challenge a cornerstone of Labor’s climate change policy as the federal government pours taxpayer funds into wind projects using direct subsidies, a planned $10 billion investment fund and renewable energy targets.

In a finding with direct relevance to Australia, the study by University of Edinburgh economics professor Gordon Hughes warns that using wind turbines to cut emissions costs 10 times the price of a gas-fired power station.

“Wind power is an extraordinarily expensive and inefficient way of reducing CO2 emissions when compared with the option of investing in efficient and flexible gas combined-cycle plans,” he concludes.

Professor Hughes, a commissioner on Britain’s Infrastructure Planning Commission and a former World Bank senior adviser, conducted his study for the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which is chaired by former Conservative chancellor Nigel Lawson.

The British study warns of the rising cost to consumers of wind power subsidies on the grounds that governments could achieve the same environmental benefits by other means at much lower cost.

Comparing a £13 billion ($19bn) outlay on a combined-cycle gas plant against a £120bn outlay on wind farms, Professor Hughes found the renewable energy option was too expensive by any standard. (source)

Note that this isn’t just about rubbishing renewable energy, this is about reducing emissions in the most cost effective manner (if you believe that such reductions are required, that is). And on any basis for comparison, wind just sucks – big time. In years to come, when they are finally abandoned,  they will be regarded as a monument to astonishing Green stupidity.

The full report (PDF) is here.

The best thing that can happen to a wind farm

Wind farms are, as we all know, inefficient, expensive and ugly. And that’s just their good points. They are also a scandalous waste of money, generating pitiful amounts of electricity, and rarely running at more than 25% of their rated capacity. And back-up traditional power stations are still required for when the wind isn’t blowing, or isn’t blowing hard enough (which is most of the time). Not only that but there are other concerns too:

URGENT research should be undertaken into the potentially damaging health effects of wind farms on nearby residents, says a landmark Senate report released yesterday.

In a dramatic win for residents’ groups who have raised widespread concerns about the impact of wind farms on rural communities, the committee recommended that noise measurements be expanded to include low-frequency noise, or infrasound.

Campaigners welcomed the report and said there should be an immediate halt to wind farm developments until the potential health impacts were better understood.

According to the Clean Energy Council, there are 53 wind farms operating in Australia, with 1089 operating turbines that can reach the height of a 45-storey building and have blades up to 50m long.

…

The majority Senate report yesterday called for tougher rules on noise, new rules to govern how close wind farms can be built to houses, and an independent arbitrator to hear complaints.

It said arbitrary setbacks – the distance that a wind farm must be built from a residence – may not be adequate and each situation may need to be considered on its merits.

But the most dramatic findings were in the area of potential harm from low-frequency noise.

The committee said the commonwealth government should initiate as a matter of priority “thorough, adequately resourced epidemiological and laboratory studies of the possible effects of wind farms on human health”.

It doesn’t matter what route we take, as long as we put a stop to the wind farm madness.

Read it here.

And when they do work, they shred birds, or catch fire…

That’s wind power we’re talking about. And it’s total shite. As anyone with half a brain has always known. Repeat after me: wind power sucks. And here it is confirmed, in the key conclusions of a report by the John Muir Trust, “a leading UK charity dedicated to the protection of wild land for both nature and people”:

1. ‘Wind turbines will generate on average 30% of their rated capacity over a year’
In fact, the average output from wind was 27.18% of metered capacity in 2009, 21.14% in 2010, and 24.08% between November 2008 and December 2010 inclusive.

21.1% of rated capacity in 2010? That sucks.

2. ‘The wind is always blowing somewhere’
On 124 separate occasions from November 2008 to December 2010, the total generation from the windfarms metered by National Grid was less than 20MW (a fraction of the 450MW expected from a capacity in excess of 1600 MW). These periods of low wind lasted an average of 4.5 hours.

Total generation less than 20MW? Hardly enough to power a small town? That really sucks.

3. ‘Periods of widespread low wind are infrequent.’
Actually, low wind occurred every six days throughout the 26-month study period. The report finds that the average frequency and duration of a low wind event of 20MW or less between November 2008 and December 2010 was once every 6.38 days for a period of 4.93 hours.

Once every 6 days for nearly 5 hours? That really, really sucks.

4. ‘The probability of very low wind output coinciding with peak electricity demand is slight.’
At each of the four highest peak demand points of 2010, wind output was extremely low at 4.72%, 5.51%, 2.59% and 2.51% of capacity at peak demand.

Less than 5% of capacity at peak demand times? That really, really, really sucks.

5. ‘Pumped storage hydro can fill the generation gap during prolonged low wind periods.’
The entire pumped storage hydro capacity in the UK can provide up to 2788MW for only 5 hours then it drops to 1060MW, and finally runs out of water after 22 hours.

Let’s face it – wind power sucks big time. And yet this is what the UK is planning on relying on for its electricity generation? Oh. My. God. Last person to leave, please turn out the lights.

Hang on, they’re out already.

Read it here.

Monument to green stupidity

Wind farms are expensive, inefficient and ugly. And that’s just their good points. They are also a monument to green naiveté and stupidity. The UK is heading down a path to catastrophic energy shortages, as Chris Huhne plugs wind for all its worth, whilst reliable baseload generation falls into disrepair (see here and here for example). Australia isn’t anywhere near this (yet), but given half a chance, Bob Brown and his ilk would be in there like a shot, and the lights would steadily go out…

There is currently a Senate inquiry into the social and economic impact of rural wind farms (see here), and the Carbon Sense Coalition has recently published its submission, which is awash with common sense:

Why are governments still mollycoddling wind power?

There is no proof that wind farms reduce carbon dioxide emissions and it is ludicrous to believe that a few windmills in Australia are going to improve global climate.

Such wondrous expressions of green faith put our politicians on par with those who believe in the tooth fairy.

The wind is free but wind power is far from it. Its cost is far above all conventional methods of generating electricity.

Tax payers funding this “Wind Welfare” and consumers paying the escalating power bills are entitled to demand proof.

Not only is there no climate justification for wind farms, but they are also incapable of supplying reliable or economical power.

It is also surprising those who claim to be defenders of the environment can support this monstrous desecration of the environment.

Wind power is so dilute that to collect a significant quantity of wind energy will always require thousands of gigantic towers each with a massive concrete base and a network of interconnecting heavy duty roads and transmission lines. It has a huge land footprint.

Then the operating characteristics of turbine and generator mean that only a small part of the wind’s energy can be captured.

Finally, when they go into production, wind turbines slice up bats and eagles, disturb neighbours, reduce property values and start bushfires.

Wind power is intermittent, unreliable and hard to predict. To cover the total loss of power when the wind drops or blows too hard, every wind farm needs a conventional back-up power station (commonly gas-fired) with capacity of twice the design capacity of the wind farm to even out the sudden fluctuations in the electricity grid. This adds to the capital and operating costs and increases the instability of the network.

Why bother with the wind farm – just build the backup and achieve lower costs and better reliability?

There is no justification for continuing the complex network of state and federal subsidies, mandates and tax breaks that currently underpin construction of wind farms in Australia. If wind power is sustainable it will be developed without these financial crutches.

Wind power should compete on an equal basis with all other electricity generation options.

The full report can be downloaded here (30 page PDF).