I am all for alternative energy sources but they have to work and by and large wind farms are a failure.
Andrew Bolt, Hearald Sun Blogs, 16/02/2010, reports
"Some say that Ka Le is haunted—and it is. But it’s haunted not by Hawaii’s legendary night marchers. The mysterious sounds are “Na leo o Kamaoa"-- the disembodied voices of 37 skeletal wind turbines abandoned to rust on the hundred-acre site of the former Kamaoa Wind Farm…
The ghosts of Kamaoa are not alone in warning us. Five other abandoned wind sites dot the Hawaiian Isles—but it is in California where the impact of past mandates and subsidies is felt most strongly. Thousands of abandoned wind turbines littered the landscape of wind energy’s California “big three” locations—Altamont Pass, Tehachapin (above), and San Gorgonio—considered among the world’s best wind sites…
California’s wind farms— comprising about 80% of the world’s wind generation capacity—ceased to generate much more quickly than Kamaoa. In the best wind spots on earth, over 14,000 turbines were simply abandoned. Spinning, post-industrial junk which generates nothing but bird kills..."Do politicians have a duty of care toward our money?
Let us imagine there is a Greens politician on the South Coast standing in the next State election and he is a rabid supporter of wind farms. We'll call him Mr Whingegut. Whingegut says he would like to see the jewel like coastline between Kiama and Gerringong dotted with wind turbines.
Yes you know that beautiful piece of coastline adjacent to the Kiama Bends.
I wonder has Whingegut done his due diligence on wind farms?
At Altamont In Southern California turbines have, since 2008, been tethered four months of every year in an effort to protect migrating birds after environmentalists filed suit.
I can just see it!
Whingegut and the Greens are instrumental in getting their beloved wind turbines installed and three years later, after a multitude of bird kills and Whingegut loosing his seat, the Greens sue the Government of the day over bird kills! Lovely!
Without government intervention, utilities normally avoid wind energy. Wind's erratic power feed destabilizes power grids and forces engineers to stand by, always ready to fire up traditional generators.
Wind does not fit into an electric supply model made up of steady massive low cost "base load" coal plants backed up by on-call natural gas powered "peaker" units, similar to the one on Lake Illawarra, which kick in during high demand. Worldwide no coal or nuclear power plant has ever been replaced by wind energy.
The formulae do not take into account carbon emitted by idling coal and natural gas plants nor the excess carbon generated by constant fire-up and shut down cycles necessitated to balance fluctuating wind supplies.
The London Sunday Telegraph January 10, 2010 reported that wind farms produced "practically no electricity" during the cold snap which manufacturers' groups say could lead to severe winter energy shortages within the next decade. http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/sunday-telegraph-the-london-uk/mi_8064/is_20100110/idle-wind-turbines-risk-energy/ai_n45916424/
The cold weather has been accompanied by high pressure and a lack of wind, which meant that only 0.2pc of a possible 5pc of the UK's energy was generated by wind turbines over the last few days.
On the coldest days, in the coldest winter experienced in the Northern Hemisphere in 30 years, when energy use peaked, the wind turbines could only produce point 2% of that energy requirement!
Did you get that Mr Whingeguts? How are your beloved wind generators looking now?
May I make a suggestion?
The tides operate twice every 24 hours regardless!
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