Oh I Love Gillard and Dem Greens. Dey Are Just So Smart!

There are more then a couple of these big ugly clunkers out near Crookwell in southern NSW and there is an observation area where you can stop and listen to their deep "whakkata whakkata" moan. Five minutes listening to their ethereal reverb was enough for me. I really pity the poor buggers who have to live in the vicinity of a windfarm, particularly if they are not getting the green bribe money from the feral guvmint called clean energy rebates.

A new report just released in Britain really lifts the lid on how hopelessly inefficient wind turbines are.

 By 2020 the British Government plans to have vast offshore wind farms around Britain that will cost, at the governments reckoning, £100 billion  plus £40 billion more to connect the wind farms to the grid. Remember these wind farms are at sea - in more ways then one.

That is £5,600  for every household in Britain!

A Swedish firm, Vattenfall, has spent £500 million on building 30 five‑megawatt turbines with a total “capacity” of 150MW. What the Government did not tell the people, is that, thanks to the vagaries of the wind, these machines will only produce a fraction of their capacity (30 per cent was the offshore average in the past two years). So their actual output is only likely to average 45MW, or £11 million per MW.

Compare this with the figures for Britain’s newest gas-fired power station, recently opened in Plymouth. This is capable of generating 882MW at a capital cost of £400 million – just £500,000 for each megawatt.

Thus the wind farm is 22 times more expensive, and could only be built because its owners will receive a 200 per cent subsidy: £40 million a year, on top of the £20 million they will get for the electricity itself.

This the British will all have to pay for through their electricity bills, whereas the unsubsidised cost of power from the gas plant, even including the price of the gas, will be a third as much.

To keep the lights on during peak times, for every new megawatt of wind capacity built it will be necessary to build a megawatt of capacity from gas-fired stations, kept wastefully running 24/7, chucking out carbon dioxide. This will add further billions to energy bills, while ensuring that wind power does nothing whatever to reduce our overall emission of CO2. 

Is this the future that "our" government has in store for us in Australia?



I guess it is a little like buying a car to drive to work that costs 22 times more then its nearest competetor, runs at only half the speed and costs twice as much to operate! Oh, and there is a pushbike in the boot because under some weather conditions your car won't run and you will have to resort to the pushie.





 Oh I love Gillard and dem Greens. They are just so smart!