Wind energy

Unreliable, expensive and utterly impractical

Personally, I'd love to have a big windmill generator in my back yard, since there is plenty of wind in this part of the country.  It would help take the edge off my electric bill even if the windmill only supplied power to my hot water heater.  But the wind doesn't blow constantly or even predictably, so I would be unable to depend on it.  To run my kitchen appliances on a calm day, I would have to have an enormous battery bank and a very large inverter.  (See the commentary about locomotive batteries at the top of this page).  And even if the wind blew all day and all night, I'd have a hard time generating power as cheaply as I could buy it from the local electric utility. I am astonished to hear lately that many liberal environmentalists are opposed to windmills because they are unsightly or because they sometimes kill birds.  But if they can be used to reduce your electric bill, wouldn't they look really good?  Isn't this the "renewable energy" the environmentalists are so excited about? The use of windmills as an alternative to petroleum and nuclear power is utterly futile, considering that the total amount of electricity generated by solar and wind power is equivalent to the energy output of only one medium-sized coal mine, or the equivalent of about 76,000 barrels of oil a day. [1] [2] Obama's War on Bald Eagles.  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service is proposing to loosen regulations prohibiting the killing of bald eagles for the benefit of renewable energy companies. Time to terminate Big Wind subsidies.  This "emerging industry" is "vitally important" to our energy future, supporters insisted.  It provides "clean energy" and "over 37,000" jobs that "states can't afford to lose."  It helps prevent global warming.  None of these sales pitches holds up under objective scrutiny, and their growing awareness of this basic reality has finally made many in Congress inclined to eliminate this wasteful spending on wind power. Environmentalists Oppose Wind Power Line in Idaho, Wyoming.  Idaho and Wyoming residents and environmental groups are expressing opposition to a proposed 1,100-mile long high-voltage power line designed to transmit 3,000 megawatts of mostly wind-generated electricity to fast-growing areas in the West. [...] Among the many issues that have been raised by residents and environmental groups are concerns about the power line's effect on the habitat of the imperiled sage grouse. Destroy the economy, save the planet.  Socialists hate the idea that individuals acting through the free market would be allowed to improve their living conditions as a result of a process lacking centralized direction.  The leftist impulse is to entrust government with the responsibility of making decisions and imposing order.  That's why today's liberals remain enthralled with green technologies like wind and solar.  Though these are promoted as if they were forward-looking alternatives to fossil fuels, they're really throwbacks to pre-industrial times. [...] Forcing adoption of expensive and inefficient sources of power only drags down the economy, which is exactly what global warming's believers want. Film by Upstate New Yorker Documents Wind Power Impacts.  Meredith, New York seems like an idyllic placeÑpatchwork farms roll tranquilly along the western foothills of the Catskill Mountains, interspersed with small ponds and temperate woodlands.  Gentle breezes blow through the tall grasses, symbolizing the town's serene lifestyle.  That same breeze, however, has divided Meredith's 1,529 residents over whether to embrace the industrial wind development that has come knocking on their door.  Director Laura Israel, herself a resident of Meredith, documents this internal struggle in Windfall, her beautifully crafted debut work. Gouged by the Wind.  Politicians keep promising to reduce energy prices, but they keep ignoring one easy step:  repeal renewal energy standards.  Twenty-nine states have these rules requiring local utilities to purchase between 20% and 33% of their electric power from renewable sources.  They were enacted over the past decade when lawmakers bought into the fad about cheap "clean energy."  Their real effect has been to force utilities to pay above-market prices for electricity, which means higher electric bills for consumers. Restructuring Electric Power Grid for 'Clean Energy'.  In a Mar. 16 memorandum, Energy Secretary Steven Chu outlined plans to change the long-standing public-private management of the nation's hydroelectric distribution operations in an effort to advance the Obama administration's green energy agenda, critics charged on Thursday [4/26/2012].  The memo was the focus of a hearing of the House Committee on Natural Resources to examine Chu's plan, which includes centralizing oversight of the electric power grid to the federal government and setting rates based on criteria that would benefit wind, solar and other "renewable" energies. Wind Farms Warming Texas.  New research finds that wind farms actually warm up the surface of the land underneath them during the night, a phenomena [sic] that could put a damper on efforts to expand wind energy as a green energy solution.  Researchers used satellite data from 2003 to 2011 to examine surface temperatures across as wide swath of west Texas, which has built four of the world's largest wind farms. The Answer Really Isn't Blowing in the Wind.  In the natural world, 90 billion goes a long way.  But as we've discovered, a $90-billion investment to subsidize renewable energy sources in the natural world does surprisingly little.  This amount, allocated in 2009's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to subsidize green energy initiatives, has thus far yielded today's bustling "renewable-energy sector" that employs roughly 140,000 Americans.  And even that dismal figure is wildly inflated. The Editor says... I'll save you a trip to your calculator.  $90 billion divided by 140,000 jobs equals $642,857 per job. China slows solar, wind expansion undermining White House green PR strategy.  The Chinese government dealt the public relations strategy of green technology advocates in the Obama administration a blow last month when Premier Wen Jiabao announced that the state-run economy would stop expanding its wind and solar industries, choosing instead to focus on nuclear, hydroelectric and shale — or fracking — as the energies of the future. RIP wind power: Minister blows away plans for more turbines.  It looks as though the wind energy boom is over.  UK energy minister Greg Barker has hinted at a significant change in government strategy — cutting subsidies for the deployment and operation of environmentalists' favoured technologies.  The climate change minister hinted that R&D handouts would continue, but for the wind lobby the party appears to be over. The Editor's jaw drops, and then he says... They have a "climate change minister"?  And he still has a job? A new dark age for Germany?  If they're wise, American voters and congressmen will pay extra careful attention to the awful dilemma of German climate and energy policy, as exemplified by recent events, and make sure their country doesn't make the same "green" mistakes that Germany did.  Barely two months after the inauguration ceremony for Germany's first pilot offshore wind farm, "Alpha Ventus" in the North Sea, all six of the newly installed wind turbines were completely idle, due to gearbox damage.  Two turbines must be replaced entirely; the other four repaired. Litchfield [NY] passes local law banning industrial wind turbines.  The Town Board Thursday night [3/22/2012] passed in a 4-1 vote a local law that will ban construction of industrial wind turbines.  Councilman Mark O'Sullivan, who headed the committee that drafted the Wind Energy Facilities Law, said the council wants to keep the residential community the way it is, while keeping industrial turbines for industrial areas. Natural gas and nuclear are better clean energy sources.  Pursuing offshore wind power will introduce additional risk to Maryland's economy.  This is characteristic of the economic challenges inherent in electricity-generating technology.  The economic challenges come from the high direct and indirect costs associated with wind power.  The high costs can be attributed to two distinct, yet related, characteristics.  The first is intermittency.  Wind power only works when the wind blows.  This requires a significant increase in reserve generating capacity.  The second characteristic is the high construction costs which are related to the small scale of the individual wind turbines. NV Energy windmill program generates rebates, little electricity.  A year ago, a Reno clean energy businessman warned the Public Utilities Commission that if it didn't set a few standards for NV Energy's wind rebate program, its customers could end up footing the bill for turbines that rarely produce electricity.  One reason behind his concern:  To be eligible for rebates, customers didn't need to prove that the wind actually blows enough to justify installing a turbine on their property. Wind power is too costly, inefficient, and won't stop climate change.  While wind energy is cheaper than other, more ineffective renewables, such as solar, tidal, and ethanol, it is nowhere near competitive.  If it were, we wouldn't have to keep spending significant sums to subsidize it.  In the United Kingdom, for example, wind remains significantly more costly than other energy sources.  Using the U.K. Electricity Generation Costs 2010 update and measuring in cost per produced kilowatt-hour, wind is still 20 percent to 200 percent more expensive than the cheapest fossil-fuel options.  And even this is a significant underestimate. Ontario's green dream was just a fantasy.  Across the countryside outside Toronto, wind turbines are spreading like a plague.  They are being built over the strenuous objections of folks who live in rural towns, whose rights have been stomped on by the province.  They're chewing up birds.  Worst of all, they're chewing up billions of taxpayer dollars in the name of a green dream that's nothing but a fantasy. Midwest Power Prices Surge as Wind Production Drops.  Midwest wholesale power prices doubled in less than an hour [on 3/21/2012] to top $100 in an hour across the major hubs as wind generation fell below forecasts. New Voluntary Wind Guidelines Will Fail to Protect Birds.  American Bird Conservancy (ABC), the nation's leading bird conservation organization, has called the final, voluntary wind guidelines released today by the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) unenforceable, and charged that they will do little to protect millions of birds from the negative impacts of wind energy.  "ABC supports wind power when it is 'bird-smart.'  Unfortunately, voluntary guidelines will result in more lawsuits, more bird deaths, and more government subsidies for bad projects, instead of what America needs: true green and bird-safe wind energy," said Kelly Fuller, Wind Campaign Coordinator for ABC. Backlash Against Wind Coming From Left.  [Scroll down]  And now, the wind industry is facing yet another massive headache: increasing resistance from environmental groups who are concerned about the effect that unrestrained construction of wind turbines is having on birds and bats.  Ninety environmental groups, led by the American Bird Conservancy, have signed onto the "bird-smart wind petition" which has been submitted to the Fish and Wildlife Service. Maine Adopts Better Standards for Wind Turbine Noise Emissions.  The major change is that of a night time sound limit of 42 decibels instead of the prior 45 decibels.  The new rule also improves protection relative to Short Duration Repetitive Sounds (SDRS), which are best defined as high and low undulating sounds. How sustainable is wind power?  When looking at a wind powered electric generator, many people see a permanent source of renewable electricity.  The problem with this image is that wind generators have shorter life spans than the term "sustainable" would imply.  Wooden windmills in Holland that used to power industrial machinery before the invention of steam engines were more durable than these picket lines of propellers along our Columbia Gorge.  The composite material and rare earth chemicals they require are both perishable and costly to replace. Audubon Official Calls for Moratorium on Altamont Solar Arrays.  An official with the Audubon Society has called for a five-year moratorium on permitting new solar arrays near the nation's largest wind farm, at Altamont Pass, California.  Rich Cimino, conservation director for the Ohlone Audubon Society, says new solar arrays near Altamont Pass will worsen serious environmental impacts already being imposed by existing wind turbines.  Ohlone is an Alameda County community near Altamont Pass that is experiencing firsthand the negative environmental impacts of wind power.  Wind turbines at Altamont Pass kill approximately 5,000 birds each year.  Cimino reports raptors in particular are feeling the negative impact of Altamont wind turbines.  As a result, Cimino is urging Alameda County to create a raptor refuge in the Altamont area. Bird Conservancy Seeks Enforceable Wind Turbine Standards.  The American Bird Conservancy has filed a 100-page petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) requesting replacement of FWS's proposed voluntary guidelines for operating wind farms with mandatory, enforceable standards designed to protect birds and bats from turbines' deadly blades.  If FWS accepts the arguments laid out in the Bird Conservancy's petition, wind farms will be subject to a mandatory permitting system and required to mitigate harm to birds and bats. Wind Power: Environmental Concerns.  Grassroots environmental groups, such as Save Western Ohio, are expressing serious concerns about the negative environmental impacts of wind power.  The groups emphasize several worries:   •   According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, wind turbines in the United States annually kill 440,000 birds, including many protected and endangered species.   •   Wind turbines kill a prodigious number of bats, though the actual number of kills is hard to quantify.   •   Wind farms require 300 square miles or more of land to produce as much power as a single conventional power plant.   •   Wind turbines are most efficient in aesthetically and environmentally important places such as mountain ridges and coastlines. Agreement on plan to develop offshore Great Lakes wind farms.  New York and four other Great Lakes states have struck a deal with the Obama administration to more quickly develop offshore wind farms, a state official said this morning [3/30/2012].  The agreement comes just five months after New York state shelved a massive wind turbine project in Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Huge offshore wind-power project sparks backlash from Fukushima fishing community.  The government-sponsored project to build a huge, floating wind-power installation in waters off Fukushima Prefecture has sparked a fierce backlash from local fishermen already hit hard by the ongoing crisis at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. Wind, timber and hypocrisy in the Pacific Northwest.  Writing in yesterday's [3/8/2012] Wall Street Journal, Robert Bryce described the toll that the nation's burgeoning wind farms have taken on endangered birds.  At one site alone — Altamont in Alameda County, California — 2,400 raptors, including 70 golden eagles, have been killed by the giant whirling blades.  In 2009 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated the national death toll from wind turbines at 440,000 birds that year alone.  That seems like a lot of birds, particularly for those of us in the Pacific Northwest, where a once-vibrant timber economy has been devastated in a failing effort to save the spotted owl. USDA researching bald eagle death-by-wind-turbines.  Bald eagle deaths resulting from collisions with wind turbines has prompted U.S. Forest Service researchers to capture and outfit half-a-dozen of the birds with GPS transmitters that will allow the scientists to study bald eagle behavior. Government Using GPS to Track Bald Eagles — Right Into Wind Turbines?  The U.S. Forest Service plans to outfit six bald eagles with GPS devices to track their "interactions with wind farms."  The problem:  Eagles and many other birds are smacking into wind turbines and dying.  "Despite the many benefits which come from clean wind energy, one of the most majestic birds of prey, the eagle, is itself falling prey to the blades of wind-energy facilities," a Forest Service employee wrote Monday on the Agriculture Department blog. Wind farms: even worse than we thought.  Not only do the Bat Chomping Eco-Crucifixes (TM) ruin views, kill birds, cause bats to implode, destroy the British film industry, frighten horses, enrich rent-seeking toffs like David Cameron's father-in-law Sir Reginald Sheffield Bt, drive up electricity bills, kill jobs, create fuel poverty, cause old people to die of hypothermia, wipe out property values, drive people mad with strobing and noise pollution and enable smug liberal idiots to spout rubbish like "Oh, I don't mind them.  Actually I think they're rather beautiful", but also by 2020 they're set to drive up consumer bills in the UK alone by £120 billion. Wind-power companies lose luster with investors.  The weather's getting worse for wind-power companies, which are finding it increasingly difficult to attract venture backers.  U.S. investments in turbine farms and wind-energy businesses tumbled 38 percent last year to $9.7 billion, according to data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Wind farms in Pacific Northwest paid to not produce.  Wind farms in the Pacific Northwest — built with government subsidies and maintained with tax credits for every megawatt produced — are now getting paid to shut down as the federal agency charged with managing the region's electricity grid says there's an oversupply of renewable power at certain times of the year. Wind Turbine Ban Proposed in Virginia.  Floyd County, Virginia is considering banning structures taller than 40 feet on ridges within the county.  Although the ordinance would apply to most structures, with several narrow exceptions, the proposed ban has been drafted in response to local concerns about potential siting of wind farms. Dutch Pull the Plug on Offshore Wind Subsidies.  The nation known for its iconic windmills is throwing in the towel on offshore wind power, as Dutch officials have determined the Netherlands no longer can afford large-scale subsidies for expensive wind turbines that cannot produce electricity at economically competitive prices.  The decision is a powerful blow against renewable power advocates who long have asserted Holland proves renewable power can be practical and economical. Wind Spin: Misdirection and Fluff by a Taxpayer-enabled Industry.  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 sources as horse and oxen power). ... Conventional sources (like nuclear) have a Capacity Value of nearly 100%.  Wind has a Capacity Value of about 0%.  Big difference! Dying to be Green.  In Scotland, the perennially deranged Scottish National Party has called for generating 100 percent of the country's electricity from wind, wave and tidal power by 2020.  He may have only left out the fairies.  This plan would add 900 pounds to the average fuel bill.  Which is how fuel poverty gets started.  Wales, which has the highest fuel poverty rate in the UK, is working on one of Europe's largest wind farms and has a plan for total clean energy by 2025, if anyone is still alive and hasn't frozen to death.  Wind farms don't tend to do too well in the cold, and human beings don't tend to do too well without heat. Mean Green Killing Machines.  Wind turbines are decapitating golden eagles in California while federally financed solar projects threaten to kill hundreds of baby tortoises, disrupt protected kit fox populations, and potentially desecrate a Native American burial site — consequences that could have been avoided, experts say.  Advocacy groups claim the federal government's rush to promote renewable energy projects — to which the Obama administration has steered billions in taxpayer funding — has led it to ignore long-standing guidelines and processes designed to safeguard protected species and cultural artifacts. The Blowback Against Big Wind.  After years of successful marketing and lavish subsidies from taxpayers, the global wind industry now finds itself facing an unprecedented backlash.  And that backlash — largely coming from rural landowners — combined with low natural gas prices, and a Congress unwilling to extend more subsidies, has left the American and Canadian wind sectors gasping for breath.  A new and thoughtful look at the fight against Big Wind is Laura Israel's new film, Windfall, a documentary that focuses on the fight over the siting of wind turbines in the small town of Meredith, New York. Hurricanes deliver fatal blows to wind turbines.  The US Department of Energy set a goal for the country to generate 20 percent of its electricity from wind by 2030.  One-sixth is to come from shallow offshore turbines that sit in the path of hurricanes.  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. Wind energy is clean, but wind energy systems are not.  Last year, Gov.Martin O'Malley proposed to build 500 megawatts of offshore wind.  The debate centered around how much this would really cost, and the proposal died.  This year, the proposal is to spend a fixed amount of money by capping the amount by which Maryland electric bills can increase.  The state would be saying, essentially:  Give us a billion dollars so we can build some offshore wind.  Like most Marylanders, I want electric power that is cheap and clean.  However, I oppose offshore wind — because it is not cheap, and wind systems are not clean. Denmark is no model for the United States.  On multiple occasions, President Obama has cited Denmark's energy policy as a model for the United States.  This is in line with President Obama's statement that "under my plan ... electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket."  After all, residential electricity prices in Denmark are the highest in Europe — 41.2 cents (€ 0.3078) per kWh compared to 11.82 cents per kWh in the U.S.  One of the main drivers of Denmark's high residential electricity prices is their promotion of wind power. Against the wind.  Even before they threatened my property, I was opposed to wind farms.  They fail on all counts.  They are grossly inefficient, extremely expensive, socially inequitable, a danger to human health, environmentally harmful, divisive for communities, a blot on the landscape, and don't even achieve the purpose for which they were designed, namely the reliable generation of electricity and the reduction of CO2 emissions. National Wind Watch.  Large-scale wind is known to cause significant harm to wildlife, people, and the environment.  It is also known to do next to nothing for reducing dependence on other fuels or carbon and other emissions, due to the wind's intermittency and high variability. Chasing the green tail.  Recent advances in the production of natural gas mean greater supply and lower prices for this competitive source of electrical generation, further weakening the competitive positions of solar and wind.  Official projections are for slow growth at best. On the Cusp of a Natural Gas Bonanza, Massachusetts Bets on Wind Power.  You'd have to be a dim bulb — perhaps one of those 13-watt compact fluorescents — to believe that forcing utilities to purchase expensive offshore wind power will lead to economic prosperity.  Yet this is precisely the reaction of the Boston press to a recent deal brokered by Gov. Deval Patrick. The Ontario Federation of Agriculture speaks out agains wind energy.  Wind power is not dispatchable power.  That means it is available only when the wind blows with it being highly unlikely this coincides with peak power usage at any time, let alone on a regular basis.  The Ontario Auditor General's 2011 Annual Report highlighted this significant weakness in the developing green energy system.  Data in the report indicates IWT operate at a power capacity factor of 28% but have only 11% availability at peak demand due to lower wind output during the summer months. National Trust says Turbines are a 'Public Menace'.  Wind turbines are a 'public menace', the chairman of the National Trust chairman has said.  Sir Simon Jenkins dismissed wind as the 'least efficient' renewable power.  The honest admission is surprising coming from the the head of the charity, as it champions green energy as part of its conservation work.  'We are doing masses of renewables but wind is probably the least efficient and wrecks the countryside,' he said. The Musselroe Wind Farm Travesty In Tasmania.  Why is it that some of the most pristinely beautiful sites are the ones chosen for those new eyesores, Wind Towers.  Such is the case for a proposed new Wind Power Plant, euphemistically called 'Wind Farms'.  How I hate that term 'Wind Farm', and they use that term to make them sound like they are doing something constructive, associating it with the land somehow. Wind Power Could Kill Millions of Birds Per Year by 2030.  American Bird Conservancy (ABC), the nation's leading bird conservation organization, said today that the build-out of wind energy proposed by the federal government to meet a Department of Energy target of generating 20% of the nation's electricity through wind power is expected to kill at least one million birds per year by 2030, and probably significantly more. Golden Eagles Face Extinction In U.S. As Numbers Plummet, New Studies Reveal.  San Diego County's 48 pairs of nesting golden eagles and even rarer bald eagles could be in peril if proposed industrial-scale wind farms are built.  In a press release issued today [1/6/2012], Save the Eagles International (STEI) issued a dire warning, providing detailed documentation proving that golden eagles and their nests are disappearing rapidly near wind farms across the U.S. Killer Energy.  All Americans hope condors will not be sliced and diced by giant Cuisinarts.  But most of us are puzzled that so few "environmentalists" and FWS "caretakers" express concern about the countless bald and golden eagles, hawks, falcons, vultures, ducks, geese, bats, and other rare, threatened, endangered and common flying creatures imperiled by turbine blades.  And many of us get downright angry at the selective way endangered species and other wildlife laws are applied — leaving wind turbine operators free to exact their carnage, while harassing and punishing oil companies and citizens. Uncooperative reality.  Renewable electricity — wind and solar power, in particular — receives very large direct and indirect subsidies from the federal and state governments.  This policy support is far larger than that enjoyed by such conventional electric generation technologies as coal, natural gas, nuclear fuels, or hydroelectric facilities.  Moreover, a majority of states have mandated some form of guaranteed market shares for renewable electricity.  This political support for renewable power is substantial, broad-based, bipartisan, and long-standing.  Nonetheless, renewable electricity — particularly, wind and solar power — has very high costs, and this is likely to remain true for the foreseeable future. Toppling Tax Dollars for Turbines.  The wind energy industry has reason for concern.  America's appetite for subsidies has waned.  Congress is looking for any way it can to make cuts and the twenty-year old Production Tax Credit (PTC) for wind energy is in prime position for a cut — it naturally expires at the end of 2012.  Without action, it will go away. Why I Turned Against 'Green' Windpower:  Existing solely to save the planet by generating clean, affordable and environmentally friendly electricity, you can be sure that any addition to the plant owner's bank account is purely accidental. New Documentary Illustrates Global Backlash Against Big Wind.  After years of successful marketing and lavish subsidies from taxpayers, the global wind industry now finds itself facing an unprecedented backlash.  And that backlash — largely coming from rural landowners — combined with low natural gas prices, and a Congress unwilling to extend more subsidies, has left the American and Canadian wind sectors gasping for breath. NJ State Agency Urged to Turn Down Proposal for First Offshore Wind Farm.  [Scroll down]  Many details of the project were kept confidential in his testimony and an accompanying report, including the overall cost of building six wind turbines and what Fishermen's Energy would expect to get for the electricity the wind farm produces.  Daniel Cohen, president of Fishermen's Energy, dismissed the consultant's report, saying it contains many statements that are factually inaccurate, including the second sentence of its executive summary.  The report said Fishermen's wind turbine manufacturer, XEMC, a Chinese-based vendor, had not produced any direct-drive wind turbines.  Cohen said it has produced 1,300 turbines since 2006. The Folly of Wind power.  Wind-power is an inefficient way of cutting CO2 emissions, once allowance is made for the CO2 emissions involved in the construction of the turbines and the deployment of conventional back-up generation.  Nuclear power and gas-fired CCGT, replacing coal-fired plant, are the preferred technologies for reducing CO2 emissions.  Wind-power is therefore expensive and ineffective in cutting CO2 emissions.  If it were not for the renewables targets set by the Renewables Directive, wind-power would not even be entertained as a cost-effective way of generating electricity and/or cutting emissions. Wind Energy, Noise Pollution.  In his State of the Union address last week, President Barack Obama touted renewable energy and declared that he would "not walk away from workers" such as Bryan Ritterby, who is employed by a wind-turbine manufacturer in Michigan.  But in their rush to embrace the wind-energy business, Obama and numerous other politicians are walking away from rural residents such as David Enz and his wife, Rose.  A year ago, the couple abandoned their home near Denmark, Wis., because of the unbearable low-frequency noise produced by a half-dozen 495-foot-high wind turbines that were built near the home they've owned since 1978.  The closest was installed about 3,200 feet from their house. Danish Regulations on Wind Noise.  There has been considerable international interest in new Danish regulations for noise from wind turbines, as well as in the involvement (or otherwise) of researchers from Aalborg University during its preparation. All Those Billions, Blowing in the Wind.  [The twenty-year old Production Tax Credit] is part of a push for renewables that began in the Carter era.  Enacted in 1992, the twenty-year old wind energy PTC was designed to get the fledgling industry going.  However, after all this time, wind energy is still not a viable option. Big Wind's Inconvenient Truth.  By siting large turbine facilities close to population centers, the industry hopes to minimize the cost of expensive new transmission lines, but it faces a whirlwind of resistance from citizens objecting to the destruction of mountains, seascapes, wilderness areas, and natural quiet. Texas Wind Power.  Texas is currently one of the world's largest producers of wind energy, and home to the largest single wind facility in the world, the 781-MW Roscoe Industrial Wind Park.  In practice, Texas windpower offers much less energy than first appears.  Texas's wind farms are concentrated in the Texas Panhandle, far from the focus of the state's electricity demand along the I-35 corridor. Wind power to nuclear power infographic comparison.  Wind power is dilute and variable so some may argue this isn't a fair comparison.  Yet, we often read in news stories about a wind turbine being built that "can supply energy for 300 homes".  This limited information creates a misleading impression that one turbine will produce that power continuously.  If wind power is compared to a yearly megawatt hour (MWh) figure that a nuclear plant can produce, the impression of what wind can power dramatically shifts.  The numbers cannot be fully appreciated until they are fully visualized. Renewable Electricity Generation.  What is the outlook for renewable energy in electricity generation — particularly wind and solar power — as a substitute for such conventional fuels as coal and natural gas?  Economist Benjamin Zycher evaluates the central arguments in favor of policies that would expand the use of renewables and concludes that all are deeply problematic. Bonneville Power agrees to pay wind developers for electricity not received.  The Bonneville Power Administration proposed Tuesday [2/7/2012] to cover half the cost of wind farms' lost revenue when it curtails their output because too much hydropower already is being generated in the region.  BPA's proposal is the latest bid to end a dispute that began last spring.  At the time, the federal power marketing agency dealt with a huge runoff and resulting surge in power production by cutting off wind farms' transmission and substituting free hydropower to satisfy their scheduled energy deliveries. The 1,000-foot Set-Back Standard.  In Indiana and elsewhere, many counties are falling all over themselves to adopt the so-called "1,000-foot voluntary industry setback" between large wind turbines and residences.  In some states, it has become part of "model" wind ordinances created by wind developers and energy agencies.  This buffer zone (who said these structures were environmental?) is starkly smaller than those mandated in several countries widely touted by industry proponents as wind "success" stories.  In Denmark, for example, the setback is four times total turbine height (or about 2,000 feet for a large turbine), along with a built-in mechanism for compensating abutters for property-value losses. Vestas Cuts 2,335 Jobs With More at Risk This Year in U.S..  Vestas Wind Systems A/S (VWS), the world's biggest wind turbine maker, said it will halt production at one factory and cut 2,335 jobs, or 10 percent of its staff, to become more competitive with Chinese suppliers.  The changes are aimed at saving more than 150 million euros ($191 million) by the end of 2012, the company based in Aarhus, Denmark, said today in a statement.  Vestas said another 1,600 jobs in the U.S. are at risk as a tax credit supporting the industry expires at year-end. We need wind subsidies like we need VHS subsidies.  With enough taxpayer dollars, you can prop up just about any industry.  But it doesn't mean those jobs are adding value and growing the economy.  Still, politicians use this nonsensical thinking to justify projects that benefit them at the expense of the rest of America.  The latest is the push to extend wind energy's subsidies through 2016. The Obama Budget and Wind Power.  In the 1970s and 1980s, the proponents of wind power claimed that renewables would be cost-competitive in a few years if they just received some subsidies for a few years.  But thirty years later, renewables proponents are still clamoring for subsidies from U.S. taxpayers.  Despite a trillion dollar deficit, President Obama is once again responding to the renewable promoters and asking Congress to approve his budget with billions of dollars in energy subsidies. Wind power plug pulled in Illinois.  The wind power industry is predicting massive layoffs and stalled or abandoned projects after a deal to renew a tax credit failed Thursday [2/16/2012] in Washington.  The move is expected to have major ramifications in states such as Illinois, where 13,892 megawatts of planned wind projects — enough to power 3.3 million homes per year — are seeking to be connected to the electric grid.  Many of those projects will be abandoned or significantly delayed without federal subsidies. Wind power industry hits setback.  The wind power industry is predicting massive layoffs and stalled or abandoned projects after a deal to renew a tax credit failed Thursday [2/16/2012] in Washington.  The move is expected to have major ramifications in states such as Illinois, where 13,892 megawatts of wind projects — enough to power 3.3 million homes per year — wait to be connected to the electric grid.  Many of those projects will be abandoned or significantly delayed without federal subsidies. Environmentalists' Dilemma: "Green" Wind Farms Threaten Endangered Species.  One dilemma faced by environmentalists pushing the use of wind farms to generate electricity is that the machines are actually a deadly environmental hazard — to birds.  For instance, the huge turbines of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's wind farm in the Tehachapi Mountains north of Los Angeles have recently killed two more golden eagles — bringing the total of these endangered birds killed by the turbines' blades at the Pine Tree facility to eight. Experts predict half of proposed turbines will be ruined in 20 years. Could hurricanes wreck $700m offshore wind farms in U.S.?  Academic experts at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, say half of the turbines at four proposed offshore wind farms are likely to be destroyed by hurricanes in their 20-year life.  The proposed wind farms at Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina and Texas could cost $175 million each, but the researchers believe current designs of turbines mean many will not survive. Blowing Away the Windmill Lies.  It turns out that the wind turbines are 400 feet tall — the height of a good-sized Manhattan skyscraper placed incongruously in the sprawling countryside.  A single blade weighs seven tons.  The diameter of the cement base of the windmills can be 250 feet.  Once erected, they spoil the natural beauty of the nearby mountains, they cast giant shadows, they throw off dangerous quantities of ice.  People living under them complain of health problems, difficulty sleeping, and strange pressure in their ears, and the low, intense thudding noises of the turbines are compared to the effect of living next door to a disco that never closes, or being under a plane that never lands. Turbines are a 'public menace' and wind is the 'least efficient' renewable power, National Trust says.  Wind turbines are a 'public menace', the chairman of the National Trust chairman has said.  Sir Simon Jenkins dismissed wind as the 'least efficient' renewable power.  The honest admission is surprising coming from the head of the charity, as it champions green energy as part of its conservation work.  'We are doing masses of renewables but wind is probably the least efficient and wrecks the countryside,' he said. Wind Power Not Reliable.  Over the past decade, California's 1,500 MW of windmills have averaged 25 percent of their 'nameplate' capacity.  During peak summer demand it was only 9 percent.  Germany has found its windmills producing only 6 percent of its installed capacity. The best article on wind farms you will ever read.  What I love about [Kevin] Myers's piece is the concentrated rage — and the Swiftian disgust with all those who have been pushing the renewables scam or benefiting from it.  It chimes perfectly with how I feel.  Of all the miserable specimens on this planet, no category repels me quite so much as those parasites involved with the great renewables boondoggle. Energy policy based on renewables won't protect us from frostbite.  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 [2/3/2012], 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. Wind farm subsidy cut urged by MPs.  More than 100 Conservative MPs have written to the prime minister urging him to cut subsidies for wind turbines.  They also want planning rules changed to make it easier for local people to object to their construction. 101 Tories revolt over wind farms.  A total of 101 Tory MPs have written to the Prime Minister demanding that the £400 million-a-year subsidies paid to the "inefficient" onshore wind turbine industry are "dramatically cut".  The backbenchers, joined by some MPs from other parties, have also called on Mr Cameron to tighten up planning laws so local people have a better chance of stopping new farms being developed and protecting the countryside. Wind Farms Cause Global Warming, some Scientists Say.  While President Barack Obama is touting clean energy such as wind farms, a group of American scientists are raising alarm bells that wind turbines increase the effects of global warming, as well as killing birds that fall prey to the deadly spinning blades. Texas Wind Power Costs Climb.  The cost of building transmission lines for expensive wind power in Texas is coming in nearly 40 percent higher than initially promised.  Instead of $4.9 billion, as estimated in 2008, the transmission lines are now expected to cost $6.8 billion, according to a report prepared by the RS&H infrastructure consulting firm for the Texas Public Utility Commission.  That amounts to approximately $800 per household in the state. Dodo of the Year.  The Justice Department prosecutes oil companies for the death of 7 non-endangered birds, but does nothing about the death of endangered eagles and hundreds of thousands of other birds from wind turbines. [Synopsis from SEPP] Wind-Power Firms on Edge.  Wind power is facing a make-or-break moment in Congress, with renewable-energy firms' projects on hold as lawmakers debate whether to extend subsidies for new wind farms this month.  Currently U.S. tax credits are available only for facilities that come online before the end of 2012. Obama boosts Mid-Atlantic offshore wind-farm plans.  Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said federal environmental reviews for "wind energy areas" off Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and Virginia are now complete and find "no significant environmental impacts" from their development.  That finding clears the way for companies to seek leases.  A similar announcement for the Massachusetts coast is expected today [2/3/2012]. The Week That Was.  [At the bottom of Page 2:]  Slowly, information is leaking from nations that have spent heavily on wind and solar, such as Germany.  This information should give pause to those touting solar and wind, including politicians.  England is pulling back from wind, Germany has announced drastic cut-backs on its subsidies to solar, and Spain has announced the elimination of subsidies for renewable power.  These actions are not the result of success. Supervisors knock down Antelope Valley wind turbine study.  Efforts to build large electrical wind turbines in the Antelope Valley suffered a defeat Tuesday, when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors sided with a coalition of residents and environmentalists who opposed the project.  Opponents of the turbines feared the project could blight the view from the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, kill eagles, falcons and raptors and damage property values for people who live in that rural part of L.A. County, north of the San Gabriel Mountains. Why the Wind Industry Is Full Hot Air and Costing You Big Bucks.  The American Wind Energy Association has begun a major lobbying effort in Congress to extend some soon-to-expire renewable-energy tax credits.  And to bolster that effort, the lobby group's CEO, Denise Bode, is calling the wind industry "a tremendous American success story."  But the wind lobby's success has largely been the result of its ability to garner subsidies.  And those subsidies are coming with a big price tag for American taxpayers. Electricity Costs: The folly of wind power.  Excluding carbon costs, coal-fired power stations are the least expensive technology for generating electricity for both near-term and medium-term projects.  Including carbon costs, gas-fired power stations are the cheapest option for near-term projects, but nuclear power is the least expensive in the medium-term.  Other things being equal this would suggest that investment should be concentrated in gas and nuclear technologies. ... Nuclear power and gas-fired CCGT are therefore the preferred technologies for generating reliable and affordable electricity. Making Sense of Levelized Costs.  Intermittent technologies, like wind and solar, can only generate electricity when their resources are available, i.e. when the wind blows or the sun shines.  While such technologies do supply electricity, they do not supply capacity because they cannot be relied upon to provide power when it is demanded.  In fact, they need to be backed-up by technologies that can provide power upon demand.  Technologies that provide capacity when demanded are essential to the electric grid because electricity cannot be stored practically at the volume that is transmitted over the national grid. A sustainable depression.  As in other depressions, scads of real money has been lost, sustained by the snake oil that global warming is such a threat to us all that we should not just encourage, but legally compel, people to install the most economically inefficient form of electrical generation on the planet — solar photovoltaic, and its sibling in inconstancy, wind power.  In various states and around the world, these are legislated by "renewable portfolio standards."  What we get is a sustainable depression. The Hype Surrounding Renewable Energy.  [Scroll down]  First consider that even gargantuan wind installations covering thousands of acres generate only small amounts of expensive and unreliable power.  Even those relatively anemic outputs can't be sustained without fossil-fueled turbines (typically natural gas) that provide "spinning reserves" to balance out power grids as wind levels fluctuate. ... Advocates often grossly exaggerate the capacity of wind power to make a significant impact on our electrical needs through a failure to differentiate between maximum total capacities, rated in megawatts (MW) — vs. actual predicted kilowatt hours (kWh) determined by annual average wind conditions at a particular site.  Seasonal and daily velocities are often out of synch with power needs, such as during hot summer days when demands for air-conditioning are highest. Wind farms blasted.  Dr. Patrick Moore told more than 1,000 area farmers the industry destroys more jobs than it creates, and causes energy prices to climb for all users.  "The industry is a destroyer of wealth and negative to the economy," said Moore, speaking at the 19th annual Southwest Agricultural Conference at Ridgetown campus of the University of Guelph.  Moore, who now refers to himself as the "sensible environmentalist," said the solar bubble has burst and thinks the wind bubble is about to burst. NSW unveils tough new wind farm guidelines.  The New South Wales state Planning Minister is proposing what he calls the "toughest wind farm guidelines in Australia and possibly the world".  There'll be a new assessment process for wind farms proposed within two kilometres of existing homes and the noise levels for new wind farms won't be able to exceed 35 decibels. Bonneville Power Administration's (BPA) Wind Issue.  While many system operators have been forced to draw upon fossil fuel back-up units when power is most needed because wind was not available, BPA has had to deal with too much wind power conflicting with its hydroelectric generation of renewable electricity.  To balance supply and demand, BPA displaced nearly 100,000 megawatt hours of wind energy between May 18 and July 10 of this year [2011] (over 5 percent of the amount produced by wind power connected to its grid) in favor of hydroelectric power in order to protect the salmon in the Columbia River.  While BPA could have reduced the power output of its hydroelectric dams by routing excess water through a spillway, it chose not to because BPA believed it would have violated the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act.  Water passing over a spillway picks up nitrogen gas, which is harmful to salmon. Three more wind turbines are blown to pieces.  The impact of the devastating weather which has swept the country is shown by the state of these wind turbines — which couldn't withstand the strength of the gales.  The huge blades — 15ft long — flew off three turbines including one on the aptly-named Windmill Lane in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. Perdue Bringing "Solyndra" Politics to North Carolina.  In a political power-play to reward big business reminiscent of the handling of the Solyndra debacle that embarrassed the Obama administration, Perdue is urging for special treatment that would secure a $200 million federal government subsidy for a multi-billion dollar Spanish company.  Perdue recently sent a letter to the heads of Duke, Dominion, and Progress Energy stressing the importance of the proposed Desert Wind Power Project in Elizabeth City to be built by Iberdrola Renewables.  The Project involves the development of a 300 megawatt wind energy farm. County Commissioners hear more about the proposed wind farm.  [Scroll down]  The problem with wind generated electricity is that it costs more than oil, coal or nuclear-generated electricity.  Moreover, the variability in the current generated due to fluctuations in wind speeds causes problems for the electrical grid because stable backup generation capacity is required to compensate for variations in wind generated current.  So the power generated by wind turbines costs more to begin with but the utility still has to have as much backup generation capacity as it would have to have without wind generated power. US Fish & Wildlife Service objects to Pantego wind farm.  In what could be a potentially significant obstacle to the plans to build a windfarm near Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in Beaufort County the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service filed a position with the N. C. Utilities Commission Monday [12/5/2011] raising concerns about the impact the huge windmills would have on migratory birds in the area. ... Proponents argue that wind is an alternative to fossil fuels but studies have shown that wind power would only reduce CO2 emissions by a miniscule amount over twenty years. Senator Downing Tables WESRA.  At an energy forum in Great Barrington on December 14th, Senator Ben Downing announced that he is tabling the controversial wind siting bill.  The surprise announcement came a little over a week after Senate President Therese Murray changed her position on the bill.  She said she was persuaded by her constituents, who have testified to the adverse impacts of wind turbines on health as well as property values. Myths of Wind Energy.  Governor Patrick has set a goal for 2,000 megawatts of wind generation capacity to power 800,000 homes by the year 2020.  The reasons generally given are that it would reduce cost, reduce our dependence on fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas, reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, and create green jobs.  There is mounting evidence from around the world that these claims, promoted by the wind industry, are based on assumptions that cannot be substantiated by studies using production data from wind installations here and abroad. Epidemiologic Evidence for Health Effects from Wind Turbines.  There is overwhelming evidence that wind turbines cause serious health problems in nearby residents, usually stress-disorder type diseases, at a nontrivial rate.  The bulk of the evidence takes the form of thousands of adverse event reports.  There is also a small amount of systematically-gathered data.  The adverse event reports provide compelling evidence of the seriousness of the problems and of causation in this case because of their volume, the ease of observing exposure and outcome incidence, and case-crossover data. Chris Horner Testifies on the Folly of Green Energy Policy.  [Scroll down]  One distraction has proved persistent within the repertoire even as others get tried out.  It is a new utilitarian "green" talking point, applied so far to the entire suite of folly, from electric cars to windmills, and thus deserves response.  This is that we must make bold moves on this front or face the prospect of falling behind China in the great [insert green scheme here] race.  Steven Chu, the federal Secretary of Energy, speaks regularly of the "clean energy race", specifically focusing on China and fears that they will "win" it. ... The truth is that China's edge is in mass producing commodities.  Not innovating. The high cost of wind.  If built, the Desert Wind Power Project — named for the flat, agricultural region in the area — would be on about 20,000 acres of private land near Elizabeth City. ... Now the project has hit a glitch — no utility company, i.e., Progress Energy, Duke Power or Old Dominion, wants to buy the power Iberdrola might produce because it is more expensive than they're paying for conventional power now. Leading Bird Conservation Group Formally Petitions Feds.  The government estimates that a minimum of 440,000 birds are currently killed each year by collisions with wind turbines.  In the absence of clear, legally enforceable regulations, the massive expansion of wind power in the United States will likely result in the deaths of more than one million birds each year by 2020.  Further, wind energy projects are also expected to adversely impact almost 20,000 square miles of terrestrial habitat, and another 4,000 square miles of marine habitat. Bird Slaughterhouse.  These vast, deadly installations not only destroy hundreds of acres of sensitive and critical habitats for wildlife, but they guillotine birds by the millions, and the change in air-pressure around the whirling blades actually causes the lungs of bats to explode. Wildlife Slows Wind Power.  New federal rules on how wind-power operators must manage threats to wildlife could create another challenge for the fast-growing industry as it seeks more footholds in the U.S. energy landscape.  The death of an endangered bat in September at a wind farm in Pennsylvania was the latest in a series of incidents that have caught the attention of regulators and conservation-minded scientists, who worry that large numbers of bats, bald eagles and other birds are being killed by wind turbines' spinning blades. 1,500 accidents and incidents on UK wind farms over the past five years.  The figures — released by RenewableUK, the industry's trade body — include four deaths and a further 300 injuries to workers.  The scale of incidents — equivalent to almost one a day — emerges following the publication of dramatic photographs showing one turbine which had crashed to the ground in a field near a road and another exploding into flames, caused by 150 mph winds which buffeted Scotland and northern England last week. Wind energy concerns:  There are some problems with wind energy which need more attention, and are not much discussed among wind promoters.  [A recent] article emphasized the role of transmission of wind energy, but failed to mention that wind energy is an inefficient user of transmission capacity.  The transmission lines, substations, etc., must be built with the capacity for the nameplate capacity of the generators, but in operation only about 35 to 45 percent of that capacity is used over an annual basis.  The rest of the capacity cannot be used by other generation; it must be reserved for the infrequent times when the wind generation needs it all. The collapse of the green-energy bubble.  The parallel-energy universe known as renewables, a place where dollars and economic theory know no bounds and make no sense, looks increasingly like a bubble set to collapse. Wind Turbines & "Green" Subsidies Under Fire.  Despite billions in taxpayer subsidies pumped into the so-called "green-energy" industry, almost 15,000 windmills — maybe more — have been left to rot across America.  And while the turbines have been abandoned over a period of decades, the growing amount of "green junk" littering the American landscape is back in the headlines again this week.  Across the country, subsidized wind farms are meeting increasing resistance — and not just from taxpayers and electricity consumers forced to foot the bill. Wind turbine Explodes as Northern Britain hit with hurricane-force gusts.  In one spectacular incident yesterday a 300ft wind turbine exploded in flames as it was buffeted by the high winds.  Another wind turbine was completely blown down on Wednesday [12/7/2011], raising questions about the ability of wind farms to cope with the weather.  The flaming £2million wind turbine was in Ardrossan, North Ayrshire, Scotland.  Witnesses said its blades were locked at the time, because the National Grid would be unable to cope with a sudden power surge. The people of England have had enough of the windmills. An e-Petition:  Reforming the Subsidies for Wind Farms.  Electricity bills have soared, and more increases are in the pipeline.  This punishes the 6 million people already in fuel poverty, restricts economic growth, and makes British industry less competitive.  A key factor in this increase is the Renewables Obligation, which indirectly provides more than 40% of the income of wind-farms.  These complex and covert subsidies (most of which go to foreign companies) are paid not by the government, but instead are ENTIRELY financed by increasing the price of our electricity bills. Dutch fall out of love with windmills.  When the Netherlands built its first sea-based wind turbines in 2006, they were seen as symbols of a greener future.  Towering over the waves of the North Sea like an army of giants, blades whipping through the wind, the turbines were the country's best hope to curb carbon emissions and meet growing demand for electricity. Wind power truly in the realm of mysticism.  Wind power paranoia has bypassed science logic and is well and truly in the realm of mysticism.  Let me state categorically that, as a physicist, I am in favour of wind power that is genuinely economically viable.  The problem is that large-scale wind power fed into a national grid is just not viable — either economically or practically — from an engineering stand point.  The dream of some enthusiasts that there is some major technological leap just waiting in the wings that will make wind power viable is extremely unlikely to take place. Washington wind farm canceled due to seabird.  Energy Northwest and four southwest Washington utilities have canceled the Radar Ridge wind power project, which had been proposed as the first major wind farm in Western Washington. ... At issue was habitat for marbled murrelets, a seabird listed in 1992 as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. What wind energy can do to a formerly peaceful and friendly community: The casualties of wind development.  To wind proponents, here is the gift wind brought you sealed in the belly of the Trojan horse you let through the gates: a longtime supervisor overturned, the Planning Board chairman and three Planning Board members gone, three councilmen removed or resigned, a long-time town justice removed, a local wind-conflicted state senator removed, and worst, a town socially torn apart.  All brought to you courtesy of your clean, green wind energy. The myth of renewable energy.  Renewable energy sounds so much more natural and believable than a perpetual-motion machine, but there's one big problem: Unless you're planning to live without electricity and motorized transportation, you need more than just wind, water, sunlight, and plants for energy.  You need raw materials, real estate, and other things that will run out one day.  You need stuff that has to be mined, drilled, transported, and bulldozed — not simply harvested or farmed.  You need non-renewable resources. National Follies.  Windfarms don't work.  They produce a trickle of electricity at vast cost to the consumer.  They desecrate the landscape and make people's lives a misery.  And they don't even cut carbon emissions.  They are literally a waste of space. The Misuse of Infrasound: Industry, military, and now the cops.  Of course, the military industrial crowd has been [ecstatic] over infrasonic weaponry ("acoustic weapons") for decades.  Do a Google search to find titillating reading of varying degrees of credibility.  Now New York City cops are using it. ... The issue is not so much what the cochlea "hears," but the sound pressure that messes up the vestibular organs — the sound pressure that, as others have put it, "kills us softly with its torture."  Or not so softly, depending on intensity, duration of exposure, and pulse of the infrasound. Why "Big Wind's" noise measurements are a big fat lie.  The reason the wind industry experts can claim that wind turbines produce insignificant levels of infrasound and low frequency sound is not because there isn't any, but because the instruments and methods they use cannot detect it.  In effect, they go hunting for a needle in the haystack using a magnet, when the problem is the needle is made of plastic.  When analyzed using a tool that can detect it, we find that infrasound and low frequency noise are there and they are there at Sound Pressure Levels (SPL's) much higher than previously considered likely. Wind energy bullies — and a burning barn.  Green Mountain Power (GMP) is offering to buy Don & Shirley Nelson's hillside farm at the asking price, to prove that real estate values do not decline due to noisy, 460-ft tall wind turbines on 2,000 ft high ridge lines, and to get the Nelson's invited guests off the Nelson's land so GMPs dynamite blasters can proceed with the partial destruction of Lowell Mountain.  If the Nelsons do not agree to sell and do not agree to remove their guests from their land, GMP will take the Nelsons to court and sue them for about $1,000,000.  (The Nelson's are an elderly couple.)  This is a public relations disaster for Vermont's wind energy oligarchy, that will be heard all over the world during Vermont's foliage season. Smoke, mirrors and public deceit:  The [Australian] National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) was questioned about its decision to wait to correct its statement "There is currently no published scientific evidence to positively link wind turbines with adverse health effects," to the public until May 2012.  Senator Madigan said the council's lack of urgency on matters of public health was nothing short of abuse.  "The Government is knowingly doing harm to its citizens by ignoring recent findings.  This is against public policy."  "There is plenty of published scientific evidence and recent health reports that link industrial wind turbines and the serious health effects of living too close to them.  This evidence is being ignored as it does not sit with the current political agenda." Universal Rules for the Public Approval of Wind Energy Projects.  Rural residents plagued by turbines, yet currently forced to live with them, consider that they have suffered a government-mandated theft by the developer of the value and amenity of their property, the health and wellbeing of their family and even the workability and profitability of their land.  This situation simply cannot continue. Hurrah for Philip! Wind power is the most ruinous folly of our age.  Once again, Prince Philip has performed an invaluable national service by tilting at windmills — or to be more precise in this case, wind turbines.  In private remarks that found their way into the Press, he apparently said wind turbines were 'absolutely useless', completely reliant on subsidies and that those who claimed they were one of the most cost-effective forms of renewable energy believed in 'fairytales'. Duke of Edinburgh Calls Wind Farms Useless.  Perhaps peeved by his son's struggle to carve out a public role for himself as the Green Prince, the Duke of Edinburgh summoned up the spirit of Don Quixote to let fly at the windmills that, in his view are polluting the British countryside to no good purpose.  They will never work he said, and "are a disgrace."  They are inefficient and cannot work without huge subsidies, and because they do not supply constant energy, traditional power plants must continue to be built to back them up.  As the Daily Telegraph notes in its story, the Duke's frank dismissal of wind farms as absolutely useless subsidy hogs can easily be construed as an attack on government policy.  As the Telegraph points out, it is the current policy of the duke's wife's government to throw up as many windfarms as possible. Prince Philip: Only tickling the nose of our energy crisis.  You have to hand it to the Duke of Edinburgh.  At 90, he is still as incisive as ever.  Once again, the Royal family has articulated what ordinary people, without the ear of the media, have long felt.  His son might have called the wind farms that are besmirching our mountains and waving their giant arms inanely out at sea "a monstrous carbuncle".  Prince Philip chose "disgrace".  So they are.  The politicians who foisted them upon us should be put in the stocks. 14,000 abandoned wind turbines.  Minnesotans for Global Warming report that in the last 30 years, the United States has had 14,000 wind turbines abandoned.  Apparently, once the subsidies and the wind run out, these 20-story high Cuisinarts are de-bladed and retired.  This means more bats and migratory birds will live. Wind turbines 'a waste of space' says MEP.  In a hard-hitting keynote address to the National Windfarm Conference in Ayr, Conservative MEP Mr Stevenson will attack the use of wind farms to generate power in Scotland.  He will describe the SNP's veto on nuclear power as "sheer madness", label the target of generating the equivalent of 100 percent of Scotland's electricity demand from renewables by 2020 as "ludicrous" and argue that rich landowners are raking in profits from wind farms at the expense of consumers. Scrapping wind farms in favour of nuclear and gas will save each of us £550.  Shelving expensive wind farms in favour of cheaper nuclear and gas-fired power stations would save every Briton almost £550, it is claimed.  Government plans to cut pollution by a third by 2020 rely heavily on wind power and will cost £108 billion to implement, an accountancy firm has calculated.  But shifting the emphasis away from turbines and towards nuclear and gas-fired power stations would slash the bill by £34 billion, according to KPMG. Wind Farms Disrupting Radar, Scientists Say.  Wind farms, along with solar power and other alternative energy sources, are supposed to produce the energy of tomorrow.  Evidence indicates that their countless whirring fan blades produce something else:  "blank spots" that distort radar readings.  Now government agencies that depend on radar — such as the Department of Defense and the National Weather Service — are spending millions in a scramble to preserve their detection capabilities.  A four-star Air Force general recently spelled out the problem to Dave Beloite, the director of the Department of Defense's Energy Siting Clearinghouse. Alaska's Billion Dollar Mountain.  There are 17 rare earth metals on the periodic table, divided between "heavy" and "light" based on their atomic weight, the heavies being far more rare and expensive.  Together they're referred to as technology metals.  In the 1980s research in rare earths led to the revolution in electronic miniaturization. ... They're also an important part of the green revolution.  The gearbox of a 300-foot-tall, two-megawatt wind turbine contains 372 kilograms of neodymium and 60 kilograms of dysprosium.  At today's prices, those rare earths alone cost $301,680. Second Energy Department-backed company goes bankrupt.  A Massachusetts company that received a $43 million Energy Department loan guarantee last year filed for bankruptcy Sunday [10/30/2011], a step certain to fuel criticism of federal green energy financing in the wake of the solar company Solyndra's collapse.  Beacon Power Corp., which develops energy storage systems, filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. The Editor says... Name one government office in your area that's open on Sunday.  If you were to file for bankruptcy, wouldn't you have to wait until Monday morning? Wind farms shut because it's too windy.  National Grid has been forced to ask wind farms to shut down for the second time in a month — because it's too windy.  Seven wind farm operators switched off their turbines on Monday night [10/24/2011]. ... It leaves taxpayers with yet another bill.  National Grid has to pay wind farm operators compensation when asking them to stop the turbines. California's Green Power Crisis.  Among the many difficulties that the state of California has been facing, one in particular is looming larger and larger:  the power problem.  The state is slowly coming to grips with the fact that its preferred sources of electric power — wind and solar — are neither cheap nor reliable.  Yet, California is committed by law to increasing the use of wind, solar and other forms of renewable energy.  The economics don't come close to supporting this model. Scottish Wind Farms Paid to Shut Down Generation.  In April [2011], six Scottish wind farm companies were paid £300,000 (US$485,000) to shut down generation.  The problem?  Over a two-day period they were producing too much electricity.  UK wind power groups were cock-a-hoop.  At last, a good news wind energy story not built on the quicksand of fanciful claims to "free" energy, for once based on the hard math of actual production.  Unfortunately, the apparent "success" story turns out instead merely to reinforce serious concerns over the volatility of base load supply to power grids from highly variable generation sources; not to mention highlighting yet another 'hidden' public subsidy necessary to cope with the problem. The Bizarre World of Radical Climate Science.  People who are ignorant concerning engineering or science may accept the notion that wind and solar are realistic sources of electricity.  It is more difficult to explain why the government is dumping billions of dollars into these technologies, both in the form of cash and in the form of mandates that shift the cost to electricity users. House GOP demands White House release Obama's emails on Solyndra.  House Republicans are pushing forward with their request for all internal White House communications related to the now-bankrupt solar firm Solyndra, including President Obama's emails.  In a letter to White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler on Tuesday [10/18/2011], top Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee argue that the White House should turn over internal emails and documents related to the $535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra.  They rejected arguments from the White House that it has already turned over hundreds of documents, and said efforts by other administrative agencies are not enough. Windmills stopped at night after bat death.  Thirty-five windmills at a western Pennsylvania wind farm have been silenced at night since a bat that belongs to an endangered species was found dead under one of the turbines. Windmills to shut at night following demise of rare bat.  Night operation of the windmills in the North Allegheny Windpower Project has been halted following discovery of a dead Indiana bat under one of the turbines, an official with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Monday [10/17/2011].  The finding marks only the second location where an Indiana bat has been found dead under a wind turbine.  Two Indiana bats were found under turbines in the Mid-west, said Clint Riley, supervisor for Fish and Wildlife's Pennsylvania field office. Eco loons go bat crazy.  The warped mentality that puts the (imaginary) needs of bats perfectly capable of looking after themselves before those of humans differs little from the warped mentality which demands that stretches of countryside be carpeted with environmentally unfriendly, economically ruinous wind farms...  This mentality in turn causes real people — not fluttery, squeaky, nocturnal insectivores, but actual humans with families, friends, histories, consciousness, emotions etc — genuine suffering and distress.  As this newspaper reports today, at least 2,700 people are dying every year because they can't afford to heat their homes in winter.  And one of the main reasons they can't do so is because of the misguided policies of eco-zealots... Turbine designer arrested for fraud.  A series of wind turbines planned for the city of Jonestown is on hold after criminal charges were filed against one of the designers.  Charlie Malouff, the founder of the C.M Energies, has been arrested on charges of securing execution of a document by deception.  C.M. Energies is the Taylor-based company which produces the wind turbines. Another Offshore Wind Project in Trouble Due to High Costs.  Offshore wind is far more expensive than onshore wind and even pro-green states like New York are having second thoughts.  General Electric is facing lower than expected offshore wind orders and is considering laying off some of its wind workers in Norway.  And even with substantial federal subsidies, some utilities are fighting back against the offshore wind industry mainly because of its expense. Federal Officials Investigate Wind Farm Eagle Deaths.  [Scroll down to page 16]  Federal wildlife officials are investigating the deaths of at least six golden eagles at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Pine Tree Wind project 100 miles north of the city.  Bird deaths at Pine Tree are unusually high, even for wind farms, and conservationists are calling for measures to reduce the deaths of federally protected birds. Rotten Wind in the State of Denmark.  Denmark is yet another country that has made wind power a hallmark of its energy policy.  But are the lofty claims about Danish wind true? No. Scuttled wind farm project was a billion-dollar boondoogle.  When the New York Power Authority formally pulled the plug Tuesday [7/27/2011] on the offshore wind farm project, NYPA officials said it wasn't "fiscally prudent" because even a 150-megawatt project — on the small side of the agency's guidelines — would require subsidies of $60 million to $100 million a year.  That was two to four times the subsidy a similarly sized land-based wind farm would require to be economically feasible. The Not-So-Green Mountains.  Bulldozers arrived a couple of weeks ago at the base of the nearby Lowell Mountains and began clawing their way through the forest to the ridgeline, where Green Mountain Power plans to erect 21 wind turbines, each rising to 459 feet from the ground to the tip of the blades. ... Ironically, most of the state's environmental groups have not taken a stand on this ecologically disastrous project.  Apparently, they are unwilling to stand in the way of "green" energy development, no matter how much destruction it wreaks upon Vermont's core asset:  the landscape that has made us who we are. A NH Solyndra? Wind farm gets fed loan.  In the name of "green energy," the Obama administration is using taxpayer money to subsidize a New Hampshire wind farm that is a subsidiary of a hugely profitable company. O'Malley's wind energy plan worse than hot air.  Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's plan to build one of the nation's first offshore wind farms off the coast of Ocean City was wisely put on hold last year by state legislators, who said they needed more time to study the proposal.  Key questions about the centerpiece of O'Malley's environmental policy have finally been answered, and they don't help the cause. Wind Power's Political Payoff.  Tom Carnahan, of the Missouri Carnahans, arguably that state's most prominent political family, is listed on President Obama's campaign website as a host of the St. Louis fundraising extravaganza amid widespread unemployment and tanking markets.  Coincidentally, of course, Carnahan's energy development firm, Wind Capital Group, is the recipient of a $107 million federal tax credit to develop a wind power facility in his state. Top 10 Green Job Fiascos.  [#3]  Spanish windmills:  Spain's quixotic quest to create a green-jobs economy should have been a lesson for the United States.  After Spain went crazy subsidizing windmills and solar farms, the result was higher utility bills for consumers, with a loss of 2.2 jobs in other industries for every green job created.  And each green job came at a cost of $774,000 to Spanish taxpayers. The Renewable Energy Boondoggle.  Dominion [Virginia Power]'s entire generation portfolio produces about 28,000 megawatts of electricity.  Its two reactors at the North Anna nuclear power station produce a combined 1,960 megawatts, or 7 percent of the total.  The new hybrid-energy center in Wise, which will get up to 20 percent of its juice from burning biomass, will crank out 585 megawatts.  Dominion also is working on a solar-energy unit in Halifax.  Generation capacity?  Four megawatts.  Not 400.  Four.  Could Dominion produce more power from renewable sources?  Sure it could — if you don't mind paying out the wazoo. GE Guts Offshore Wind-Power Plans.  General Electric, the U.S.-based industrial giant and leading manufacturer of wind-power turbines, is scaling back efforts to expand its presence in the offshore wind power market.  The rationale:  there is no meaningful offshore wind market to speak of — at least not yet. We Spent Billions on Wind Power, and All I Got Was a Rolling Blackout.  For a time, Texas was bragging about being the #1 state for "wind power" (it still is) and we were bombarded with TV commercials and newspaper editorial touting the "Pickens Plan" for massive spending on wind energy.  Pickens himself was building a huge wind farm in northwest Texas.  He has now ceased construction. When the temperature rises, the wind slows down. Texas Wind Energy Fails, Again.  Wednesday [8/24/2011] brought yet another unspeakably hot day to Texas and, alas, it was yet another day when wind energy failed the state's consumers.  Indeed, as record heat and drought continue to hammer the Lone Star State, the inanity of the state's multi-billion-dollar spending spree on wind energy becomes ever more apparent.  On Wednesday afternoon, ERCOT, the state's grid operator, declared a power emergency as some of the state's generation units began to falter under the soaring demand for electricity. Obama's Real Energy Policy.  [Scroll down]  Wind power has received a lot of press, but even there, the largest project planned for the country was canceled because of obstruction and a poor financial outlook.  Wind power is subsidized at up to 10 times the cost of conventional energy and is unpredictable.  In studies of the over 6,000 turbines in Denmark, it has been found that without heavy subsidies, wind power would rapidly fail.  Germany and Spain have withdrawn subsidies for wind power installations not because the industry has grown more viable, but rather because the difficulties and costs associated with this source of power outweigh the benefits. Federal Subsidies to Solar Up 626%, Subsidies to Wind Up 946%.  While President Barack Obama wants to end subsidies that go to oil and natural gas companies, a new Department of Energy report shows that federal subsidies to clean energy are way up, with solar seeing a subsidy increase of 626 percent between FY 2007 and 2010 and wind getting a 946 percent increase. Dead Birds are the Unintended Consequence of Wind Power Development.  As California attempts to divorce itself from fossil-fueled electricity, it may be trading one environmental sin for another — although you don't hear state officials admitting it.  Wind power is the fastest growing component in the state's green energy portfolio, but wildlife advocates say the marriage has an unintended consequence:  dead birds, including protected species of eagles, hawks and owls. Renewable energy running scared.  The ethanol, wind and solar industries are running scared from a House proposal to reduce federal subsidies for renewable energy by 25 percent for fiscal 2012.  A surefire sign of the trouble with big government is that you run out of other people's money. Government Gluttony at the American Wind Energy Association.  The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) is on a mission to keep its members fat and happy as they bloat up at the public trough. Wind farms multiply, fueling clashes with nearby residents.  Nearly 3,000 turbines, many of them bigger than Ferris wheels, were installed across the country last year.  The growth is being propelled by federal incentives and state clean-energy mandates.  In April, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law that requires California utilities to get 33% of the state's electricity from renewable sources by 2020.  As of the first quarter of 2011, they're at 17.9%. In Australia... Wind farms blow up electricity cost.  An investigation has revealed 29 wind farm projects could be operating across NSW by 2020.  There are three active wind farms at Tarago, Upper Lachlan and Walwa running 113 turbines.  A further nine major projects, ranging from 15 to 598 turbines, are under construction.  Within a few years, the number of turbines could jump to 3011. A New Study Takes The Wind Out Of Wind Energy.  For years, it's been an article of faith among advocates of renewables that increased use of wind energy can provide a cost-effective method of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.  The reality:  wind energy's carbon dioxide-cutting benefits are vastly overstated.  Furthermore, if wind energy does help reduce carbon emissions, those reductions are too expensive to be used on any kind of scale. The Blunder of Relying On Wind Power.  Because wind does not blow all the time, wind power is an "intermittent" technology that needs other power as back-up to ensure that the lights stay on.  Currently, wind capacity is backed up by existing fossil fuel capacity (natural gas or coal), but Britain has determined that it will need an additional 17 natural-gas powered plants to keep the lights on by 2020.  The generators that will be used when the wind does not blow will cost UK consumers 10 billion pounds. Wasteful energy.  Self-proclaimed environmentalists dream of a future powered by wind and solar energy.  The free market, of course, knows this isn't going to happen.  Every windmill and solar farm on the planet would go bankrupt if the daily truckloads of taxpayer cash ever missed a delivery. Proof that the Government is tilting at windmills.  Centrica and other energy companies last week told DECC that, if Britain is to spend £100 billion on building thousands of wind turbines, it will require the building of 17 new gas-fired power stations simply to provide back-up for all those times when the wind drops and the windmills produce even less power than usual.  We will thus be landed in the ludicrous position of having to spend an additional £10 billion on those 17 dedicated power stations, which will be kept running on "spinning reserve", 24 hours a day, just to make up for the fundamental problem of wind turbines.  This is that their power continually fluctuates anywhere between full capacity to zero (where it often stood last winter, when national electricity demand was at a peak).  So unless back-up power is instantly available to match any shortfall, the lights will go out. Wind-Turbine Maker That Obama Praised Files for Bankruptcy.  Cardinal Fastener & Specialty Co., a Cleveland-based manufacturer of screws and bolts for wind turbines, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Thursday [6/30/2011]. Wind Farm Madness.  The futility of squandering money on wind farms has been laid bare by the United Kingdom's new budget for windmill construction.  Christopher Booker of the U.K. Telegraph in his column yesterday highlighted the folly that is ongoing in the United Kingdom and Europe. Wind Power Generation Disappoints, Study Finds.  [Scroll down to page 15]  Wind turbines provide power less than 30 percent of the time, and the power is unpredictable on a day-by-day and even minute-by-minute basis.  As a result, wind farms, no matter how large, can displace only a minor amount of conventional power. ... Using U.S. Energy Information Administration cost data, [George S.] Taylor showed the cumulative cost of wind power generation (comprised of wind power, backup natural gas power, and the construction of new transmission lines) would be five times as much as an all-gas option. North Charleston may turn to wind turbines.  City leaders this week will discuss a plan to put five wind turbines on the roof [of the City Hall] where they will capture the exhaust breezes coming off the building's air-conditioning system.  As the turbines turn, the blades produce recycled energy to be carried back inside. The Editor says... I find it very difficult to believe that more than a few watts of power can be recovered using this method.  The city hopes to save up to $5,000 per year, based on a utility rate of "between 9 and 10 cents per kilowatt hour."  Suppose the rate is 10¢ per kWh, and the system generates power 24 hours a day.  There are 8,760 hours in a year.  That means they hope to save 57¢ per hour, which means their new system is expected to produce at least 5.7 kilowatts.  According to the article, "the wind turbines that North Charleston is considering measure 6 feet in diameter...", and they look a lot like one of these, which produces about one-third of the projected power, at a constant wind velocity of 35 mph.  If the "breeze" coming out of the air conditioning system is that strong, and there is enough wind to keep four or five of these windmills spinning, there's something fundamentally wrong with the air conditioning system's design. More Enviro-Anomalies.  Nationwide, wind farms kill an estimated 440,000 birds a year — and again, because that estimate is based on counts of the bodies of shredded birds, the estimate is very likely too low.  But amazingly, not one wind farm operator has been sued by the gazillion federal agencies that supposedly enforce laws such as the Endangered Species Act and the Migratory Bird Act.  Contrast this with the treatment of fossil fuel companies:  should they even threaten an obscure lizard, the EPA or some other federal agency will pounce on them like a golden eagle on a rabbit.  The recent report on the obscure dunes sagebrush lizard makes this much clear. Industry begins to count the true cost of 'climate change'.  [Scroll down]  At one end of the scale, then, whole industries are protesting that the soaring costs of "climate change" measures will amount, in effect, to a colossal economic suicide note.  At the other, we begin to see how the obsession with "climate change" will push our own household energy bills through the roof, driving millions more people into "fuel poverty".  Apart from anything else, by 2020 our Government expects us to pay £100 billion for a further 10,000 useless, subsidised windmills, plus £40 billion to connect them to the National Grid.  These costs alone would almost double our present electricity bills. Why 'vote blue, go green' doesn't sound quite so clever any more.  Onshore wind-power, which was built on the expectation of 33 per cent average capacity, has recently been coming in at nearer 22 per cent.  Public resistance to the turbines has slowed construction.  Offshore ones cost twice as much per gigawatt as nuclear or (if you include the carbon price) gas.  Conversion on the scale, at the cost, and in the time demanded simply cannot be done.  So one must add another prediction:  our politicians will quite soon have to wriggle out of it. Wind Energy's Overblown Prospects.  Unfortunately, wind doesn't afford the benefits marketers promise.  It isn't an abundant, reliable power source; doesn't appreciably reduce fossil dependence or CO2 emissions; isn't free, or even cheap; doesn't produce net job gains; nor does it cool brows of feverish environmental critics. Solar energy plans pit green vs. green.  Janine Blaeloch, executive director of the Western Lands Project, a non-profit group that examines the impacts of government land privatization, supports developing America's renewable energy sources but says fields of mirrors along miles of open desert isn't the way to do it.  "These plants will introduce a huge amount of damage to our public land and habitat," she said. Wind farms aren't just a blight, they're a folly.  [Scroll down]  The impression is given that since wind is free, plentiful and doesn't produce CO₂, then it must be the answer to our renewable-energy conundrum.  If this were true, then it might be worth sacrificing a few views:  but it isn't.  To produce the same amount of electricity as one coal-fired power station, you'd need a wind farm the size of Greater London.  And when there is no wind — or even when there is too much — the power produced is minuscule or the turbine has to be switched off while fossil-fuel stations take up the slack.  They can be useful in powering a collection of farms, or a small industrial site, but that is about it.  So to see remote tracts of countryside that, by and large, survived the industrialisation of the landscape now threatened with defilement for no good reason is scandalous. Wind power turbines in Altamont Pass threaten protected birds.  Scores of golden eagles have been killed after striking the thousands of wind turbines in the Bay Area, raising questions about California's move toward alternative power. CO2 Mitigation: It's Dopey.  In the first full year of the Oldbury White Elephant's 20-year life it generated a gratifying 209 KWh of electricity — enough to power a single 100W reading lamp for less than three months.  The rest of the year you'll have to find something else to do in bed.  Gross revenue for the year, at 11p/KWh, was, um ... almost £23.  Assuming that there are no costs of finance, installation, insurance, or maintenance, and after subtracting 20 years' revenue at last year's rate, the net undiscounted and unamortized capital cost of the project, as we financiers call it, is U.S. $8935. Wind farms: Britain is 'running out of wind'.  According to government figures, 13 of the past 16 months have been calmer than normal — while 2010 was the "stillest" year of the past decade.  Meteorologists believe that changes to the Atlantic jet stream could alter the pattern of winds over the next 40 years and leave much of the nation's growing army of power-generating turbines becalmed. Northwest power surplus may halt wind energy.  The manager of most of the electricity in the Pacific Northwest is running such a surplus of power from hydroelectric dams that it put wind farms on notice Friday [5/13/2011] that they may be shut down as early as this weekend. No Wind Power Needed in the Pacific Northwest.  What a waste of money. Alternative Energy and the King Canute Strategy.  Proponents of so-called "renewable energy" suffer from the delusion that it can replace a large share of our coal, oil, and nuclear energy.  They ignore or deny the consequence:  a decline in real income. ... The sun does not shine at high noon in a cloudless sky 24 hours a day, nor does the wind blow forever at designed speed. ... [Wind and solar power] are expensive in part because their installed capacity must be several times that of coal or nuclear plants to generate the same total output.  They are idle much of the time, waiting for the sun or the wind.  They also require more land. Renewable Electricity Mandates Raise Prices and Kill Jobs.  Renewable electricity mandates are causing electricity prices to rise and killing jobs in the states that have enacted them.  "Electricity prices are already nearly 40 percent higher in states with an REM (renewable electricity mandate).  While the renewable mandates may not be the only reason electricity prices are higher in those states, these mandates likely contribute to higher prices and certainly are not helping to decrease the price," reports a recent study from the Institute for Energy Research. The folly of renewable electricity.  The energy content of wind flows and sunlight is unconcentrated, which means that massive amounts of land and materials have to be employed to make renewable power even technically practical.  A 1,000-megawatt gas plant needs about 10-15 acres; a 1,000-megawatt wind farm needs about 50,000 acres (78 square miles).  A square meter of solar receiving capacity even in theory is only sufficient to power one 100-watt light bulb; a solar plant of only 100 megawatts would require about 1,250 acres (2 square miles).  Unlike conventional power plants, wind and solar facilities have to be sited where the wind blows and the sun shines with sufficient intensity.  The upshot:  higher transmission costs, estimated by the California Public Utilities Commission at $12 billion for the 33 percent requirement. Wind power: Even worse than you thought.  A new analysis of wind energy supplied to the UK National Grid in recent years has shown that wind farms produce significantly less electricity than had been thought, and that they cause more problems for the Grid than had been believed. ... In general it tends to be assumed that a wind farm will generate an average of 30 per cent of its maximum capacity over time.  However the new study shows that this is actually untrue... Report Questions Wind Power's Ability to Deliver Electricity When Most Needed.  Stuart Young Consulting, with support from the John Muir Trust, has released a report studying the ability of wind power to make a significant contribution to the UK's energy supply.  It concludes that the average power output of wind turbines across Scotland is well below the rates often claimed by industry and government. Official:  Wind farms are totally useless.  Normally the people most busily pushing these bird-chomping, bat-crunching, taxpayer-fleecing monstrosities on our magnificent landscape are those who claim, ludicrously, to be "green."  Thank you, John Muir Trust, for reminding as that being "green" doesn't necessarily have to include economically suicidal schemes to destroy perhaps our greatest national asset: the British countryside. Renewable-energy standards are unconstitutional.  Colorado is widely recognized for its wind-power capabilities, but even there, wind power is inconsistent and undependable.  Studies by Bentek Energy, which examined energy deployment in Texas and Colorado, found that emissions of pollutants actually increase with RES because wind requires backup generation by fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.  When generators powered by those fuels are required to turn on and off constantly as backstops for wind, they burn more coal or gas than if those fossil-fuel generators ran consistently. Wind turbines 'hit' bat populations.  Scientists found the blades of wind turbines were a major threat to bats particularly when they are migrating.  Bats are useful to farmers because they eat large numbers of crop damaging insects, reducing the amount that has to be spent on pesticides.  Writing in the journal Science, the researchers estimated that bats could be worth billions to agriculture around the world. Inconvenient Truth: Wind Energy Has Killed More Americans Than Nuclear.  According to the Caithness Windfarm Information Forum, there were 35 fatalities associated with wind turbines in the United States from 1970 through 2010.  Nuclear energy, by contrast, did not kill a single American in that time.  The meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979 did not kill or injure anyone, since the power plant's cement containment apparatus did its job — the safety measures put in place were effective.  Apparently the safety measures associated with wind energy are not adequate to prevent loss of life. Wind Power Causes Gridlock.  [Scroll down]  In Britain alarm bells are already sounding over the potential detrimental effect to the power grid of power surges from amassing increasing volumes of highly variable renewable-sourced GW (gigawatts).  Derek Birkett is a consultant UK National Grid control engineer.  His new book When Will The Lights Go Out? has gained a deal of interest and makes for sober reading.  Birkett has amassed a deal of grid expertise.  He predicts that a UK grid with more than 6 GW of variable wind power attached will render the entire grid vulnerable to outages during severe weather conditions due to the uncontrollable stop-go nature of its generation. Painful Lessons for Wind Power.  Neil Anderson lives a quarter of a mile from the turbine.  He's an avid supporter of alternative energy, having owned and operated a passive solar company on Cape Cod for the past 25 years.  "It is dangerous," he told WGBH in Boston.  "Headaches.  Loss of sleep.  And the ringing in my ears never goes away.  I could look at it all day, and it does not bother me ... but it's way too close."  Tired of the constant chopping sound, pained residents decided to lawyer up.  This month a deal was struck with the town to disengage the turbine when winds exceed 23 miles an hour.  This is problematic because giant windmills such as Wind One operate at optimum efficiency at about 30 miles an hour. Wind farms kill whales: blubber on the green movement's hands.  So wind farms don't just despoil countryside, frighten horses, chop up birds, spontaneously combust, drive down property prices, madden those who live nearby with their subsonic humming, drive up electricity prices, promote rentseeking, make rich landowners richer (and everyone else poorer), ruin views, buy more electric sports cars for that dreadful Dale Vince character, require rare earth minerals which cause enormous environmental damage, destroy 3.7 real jobs for every fake "green" job they "create", blight neighbourhoods, kill off tourism and ruin lives, but they also KILL WHALES! Global Warming, R.I.P.  [Scroll down]  The current Prime Minister of Australia is busy trying to impose a carbon tax on that nation.  The British have dug themselves a deep hole by embracing windmills instead of coal mines.  Billions have been wasted by Spain and Germany on alternative energy sources.  The anti-energy agenda will have devastating affects on life in the West.  Electricity consumers in the United Kingdom were recently told by the CEO of the country's grid operation that, by 2020, they will have to get used to having no electricity for periods during the day and night.  This will put the U.K. on par with North Korea. Life Under The Blades.  Standing on his home's porch, Neil Anderson points through the thicket of trees in his front yard and across Blacksmith Shop Road towards one of his closest neighbors:  A wind turbine.  "Right now we are 1,320 feet, which is one-quarter mile south of Wind One, which is Falmouth's first wind turbine.  It's been online since April.  And we've been trying to get it stopped since April," Anderson says. Obama's green subsidies attract do-gooder bandits.  President Obama's green energy push is rapidly proving to be a crooked racket.  It works like this:  Revolving-door political hires rev up subsidy programs that enrich their former employers.  Then they cash out themselves, pocketing taxpayer loot while turning out energy products that range from inefficient technologies to total failures.  Faster than the turbine on a subsidized wind mill, the "clean-tech" revolving door spins out green bandits who get rich off the subsidies they helped craft. The real cost of 'global warming'.  [Scroll down]  When pressed on this, politicians talk airily of all the "Green jobs" which will ensue from "investment" (ie massive taxpayer subsidy) in renewables and of all the "energy security" which will result.  The chutzpah required to come out with this guff is astonishing given that there is not a scintilla of real-world evidence to back up these claims.  We already know that wind and solar power have proved a disaster in Germany, Denmark and Spain (where Dr Gabriel Calzada Alvarez calculated that for every "green job" the country had destroyed 2.2 jobs in the real economy).  We also know that because of the unreliability of wind power, it has to be permanently backed up by conventional power. Wind Power:  Questionable Benefits, Concealed Impacts.  Turbines require enormous quantities of concrete, steel, copper, fiberglass and rare earth minerals  — all of which involve substantial resource extraction, refining, smelting, manufacturing and shipping.  Land and habitat impacts, rock removal and pulverizing, solid waste disposal, burning fossil fuels, air and water pollution, and carbon dioxide emissions occur on large scales during every step of the process.  Over 95% of global rare earth production occurs in China and Mongolia, using their technology, coal-fired electricity generation facilities and environmental rules. UK's most useless wind turbine.  Passed by millions of drivers a year, it is one of England's best known wind turbines.  It is also one of its most useless.  According to latest figures, the 280ft generator towering over the M4 near Reading worked at just 15 per cent of its capacity last year.  And although it generated electricity worth an estimated £100,000, it had to be subsidised with £130,000 of public money. Our Don Quixote Energy Policy.  Tilting once again at windmills, the Interior Department has announced that it's fast-tracking wind farms off four Atlantic states.  Now, if they were oil rigs, we might actually get some real energy. Kerry urges feds to OK loans for Cape Wind project.  U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts is urging federal officials to approve a key portion of Cape Wind's financing plan. The Editor says... "Financing plan" = more government debt. "Green" Wind Power Devastates Environment.  Alternative energy production has often proven to be of dubious benefit to the overall economy, but it has served as an arena offering environmentalists the opportunity to feel better about living a modern lifestyle — at the cost of massive federal subsidies to less efficient forms of energy production.  But an in-depth study of the horrific environmental costs associated with wind power generation is calling into question an entire branch of alternative energy. The Failure of Green Energy.  Yesterday Rush Limbaugh discussed a UK Telegraph story from early January, in which reporter Louise Gray details the sad underperformance of Britain's wind farms during the holiday season.  Actually, "underperformance" is a very charitable word.  The windmills were pretty much useless. ... Britons can rest assured their landscape will soon be marred by thousands more of these wind turbine albatrosses, as the government plans to double their number over the next ten years.  No amount of miserable failure will change these plans, as they have been dictated by religious edict from the Church of Global Warming, not scientific reason or engineering reality. Changing times in Wyoming:  Wind turbines destroy at least as much environment as coal mines -- although the turbines do this by removing large circles of terrain (for the bases) and roads between turbines, rather than one large hole dug in the ground.  They actually take out more land than a coal mine does.  I am unsure how much maintenance is involved (some claim it's constant and that the turbines are not as well built as we are told).  In any case, roads are cut between turbines, just like they are between oil derricks. Going Broke by Going Green.  [Scroll down]  Wind and solar facilities work only 10-30 percent of the time, compared to 90-95 percent for coal, gas and nuclear power plants.  Even worse, prolonged cold is almost invariably associated with high atmospheric pressure, and thus very little wind.  On December 21, 2010 — one of the coldest days on record for Yorkshire, England — the region's coal, gas and nuclear power plants generated 53,000 megawatts of electricity; its wind turbines provided a measly 20 MW, or 0.04% of the total.  The same high pressure, no wind scenario happens on the hottest summer days. You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.  Over the past three weeks, with demand for power at record levels because of the freezing weather, there have been days when the contribution of our forests of wind turbines has been precisely nothing.  It gets better.  As the temperature has plummeted, the turbines have had to be heated to prevent them seizing up.  Consequently, they have been consuming more electricity than they generate. The Midwest Wind Surtax.  In Massachusetts, electricity from the Cape Wind project will cost two to three times more per kilowatt hour than electricity from coal or natural gas.  The wind industry has essentially conceded that without the ability to socialize costs, its projects can't compete with coal, natural gas or nuclear power. Electricity from wind plant so expensive, no one will buy it.  Cape Wind has outlasted a decade of government review, a slew of court brawls and fierce opposition from mariners, fishermen, Indian tribes and Kennedys just to win the right to sell its wind-fueled electricity.  Now, all it needs are customers. Blown Away:  Wind Energy Analyzed.  [Scroll down]  Wind turbines cannot be lined up in a row as the resulting turbulence would lower the downwind turbines to zero production if not destroy them from asymmetrical wind forces.  So there is just so much power that can be generated per acre of wind farm.  And remember, these will have to be sited in areas that some environmentalists will go to the wall for to prevent development, including the construction of transmission lines.  The figure given by the EPA, assuming a 30-percent capacity factor, is 1.23 watts per square meter, or about 5 kW per acre. The Wind-farm Eruption.  Those of us who drive in the Midwest or Southwest are often startled to see a plethora of wind turbines sprouting like overnight mushrooms in an area we remember as farms or grazing lands.  But unlike the fragile mushrooms that we kicked over when walking to school on spring mornings, these mushrooms have 700-ton concrete bases, are nearly 30 stories tall, and cost upwards of $3,570,000 each.  What caused all this to happen since our last trip to the area?  Who is footing the bill?  And why?  To find who is driving the construction of these massive fields of wind turbines, and who's paying for them, it behooves us to know who is not behind them, such as electricity consumers. It's Always Blowing Somewhere.  [Scroll down]  As they say, "It sounds good in theory."  Perhaps we could look around the world and see if this holds true.  Fortunately, there is such a place to provide us an example.  In Southeast Australia, there are 18 wind "projects" or "farms" interconnected within an area covering 40,000 square miles. ... Certainly most of us would consider 40,000 square miles sufficient for wind power to "average out."  The Australian projects have the added benefit that they are all built near the coast where the winds are stronger and more constant than in the outlined area in the United States.  But the graph here, which provides actual output data from hundreds of wind turbines, shows this to be another wind fiction. Clean Energy: The Nuclear Solution.  [Scroll down]  The environmentalist lobby doesn't like nuclear any more than it does coal-fired generation, mainly because it works!  The alternatives they give are non-solutions.  Take wind turbines that require some kind of back-up — usually gas turbines with very high fuel costs.  European studies show that when about 5-10 percent of grid electricity is generated by wind, the grid becomes unmanageable because of constant fluctuations.  Fluctuations are a part of balancing the grid, but most can be anticipated.  Not so with wind.  Moreover, the peak electricity usage in most of the United States is on summer afternoons, the very time that wind is at its minimum. Environmental groups sue to block wind farm.  Some conservationists have filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block the startup of Maryland's first industrial wind farm because it allegedly threatens federally protected Indiana bats. Green Power generates Red Ink.  The mindless green dream of producing serious base load power from whimsical breezes and intermittent sunbeams has caused a halt to new low-cost coal power, a boom in expensive gas power, a national debate about nuclear power and no effect at all on global climate.  The frivolous wind and solar generators already installed have caused a surge in electricity prices, a bonanza for Chinese manufacturers and well founded doubts about our future ability to keep the lights on.  Provision of cheap reliable energy is a basic requirement for modern civilisation and is the engine that lifts people from poverty.  It is far too important to be left to green dreamers, anti-industrial zealots, vote-seeking politicians, engineering illiterates and guilt-ridden millionaires. Hot Air From The Unsustainable Wind-Energy Industry.  Wind energy; you hear a lot about how great it is.  But what is the truth?  Well, apparently this source of power which environmental activists tout as the solution to all of our problems is more unsustainable than it is sustainable.  Right now the wind-energy industry is lobbying hard to get subsidies which have sustained it renewed.  For all the bluster about how great this alternative source of energy is, apparently it is not very economically feasible and has become yet another government boondoggle along the lines of the whole ethanol industry. Climate change:  the warmist demands heat up as 'green' costs soar.  [Scroll down]  Mr Salmond's proudest boast is that, within 10 years, 80 per cent of all Scotland's electricity will come from renewable sources, most of it from thousands more wind turbines.  Like many other politicians, Mr Salmond does not seem to have registered that the wind is not always blowing.  Last Tuesday evening, when many places in Britain were registering their lowest temperatures on record, UK electricity demand was a staggering 60 gigawatts.  But the amount coming from wind turbines was just 0.2 per cent -- one 500th of what we were using.  Ten times as much was coming from nuclear reactors in France, through the interconnector under the Channel. $450 Million in U.S. Stimulus Money Going To Chinese "Green" Company?  It seems that some of that Obama-Reid-Pelosi stimulus money, which was supposed to be used to help create jobs here at home, may be helping to stimulate the Chinese economy instead.  This would be on top of the help that the Chinese would get competitively if Obama's cap-and-trade proposals are ever enacted.  As reported by MSNBC, top Democratic fundraisers, union supporters and lobbyists with links to the Obama White House are behind a proposed wind farm in Texas that stands to get $450 million in stimulus money. Obama administration files WTO complaint against China over wind power subsidies.  The Obama administration on Wednesday [12/22/2010] backed the United Steelworkers union in its accusation that China is giving an illegal boost to wind power manufacturers there. Wind doesn't blow hard enough.  In its quest for a "green" future, the Obama administration proposes to rely on wind power to generate 20 percent of U.S. electrical power by 2030.  There are a number of problems with this proposal.  First, the European experience illustrates that the hidden costs of wind-power generation require massive subsidies that are borne by taxpayers.  Second, wind power is unsuitable for meeting "base load" power demand (as opposed to helping to meet peak power demand). Orders for wind turbines to fall by 93%, energy experts predict.  Orders for offshore wind turbines in Britain will slump next year, threatening to halt the industry's recent growth and the expected creation of up to 10,000 "green economy" jobs.  Analysts are forecasting a 93% drop in the installation of new offshore windfarms in 2013 compared with the previous year. Cost of Green Power Makes Projects Tougher Sell.  Michael Polsky's wind farm company was doing so well in 2008 that banks were happy to lend millions for his effort to light up America with clean electricity.  But two years later, Mr. Polsky has a product he is hard-pressed to sell.  His company, Invenergy, had a contract to sell power to a utility in Virginia, but state regulators rejected the deal, citing the recession and the lower prices of natural gas and other fossil fuels. Searching for Maine's wind.  Supporters of wind development say wind is like a crop because you won't get a good yield everywhere.  When utility costs increased dramatically in 2008 Saco and Kittery installed wind turbines.  Unfortunately neither turbine produced the amount of electricity that was expected.  According to leaders in both towns there just isn't enough wind. Chris Huhne has a blueprint for a green, cold, dark Britain.  As much of the northern hemisphere last week froze under the snows of the fourth unusually cold winter in a row, our ministers, led by David Cameron and Chris Huhne, the Climate Change Secretary, laid out a blueprint that promises to inflict on Britain a social and economic catastrophe unique in the world. Obama jumps on natural gas bandwagon.  A remark by President Obama at his postelection news conference Wednesday should send Iowa's wind energy advocates into full alert.  When asked about environmental issues, the President suddenly started talking up natural gas, saying there are "terrific natural gas resources" in the United States. The Wind-farm Eruption.  wind farmThose of us who drive in the Midwest or Southwest are often startled to see a plethora of wind turbines sprouting like overnight mushrooms in an area we remember as farms or grazing lands.  But unlike the fragile mushrooms that we kicked over when walking to school on spring mornings, these mushrooms have 700-ton concrete bases, are nearly 30 stories tall, and cost upwards of $3,570,000 each. Should Ethanol Subsidies Be Gone (With the Wind)?  Ultimately, [Ed] Hiserodt concludes that wind energy sounds "good in theory," but it "does not fit into normal generation plans, and the savings of fossil fuels is largely a myth."  He explains, "The vagaries of the weather insure times of insufficient wind; therefore, all current generating assets must be kept available," virtually defeating the purpose of wind energy. Wind power mirages.  We Americans are often told we must end our "addiction" to oil and coal, because they harm the environment and Earth's climate.  "Ecologically friendly" wind energy, some say, will generate 20% of America's energy in another decade, greatly reducing carbon dioxide emissions and land use impacts from mining and drilling.  These claims are a driving force behind the cap-tax-and-trade and renewable energy bills that Congress may try to ram through during a "lame duck" session — as well as the Environmental Protection Agency's economy-threatening regulations under its ruling that carbon dioxide "endangers human health and welfare." Droz says wind farms are a lot of hot air.  [Scroll down]  After applying a six-stage, scientific analysis of wind production, paralleled with other sources such as coal, gas, and nuclear, he now sees the wind option as impractical and lacking in proof of consistent power output.  Green-oriented environmentalists look to wind as a clean source of energy and a solution to global warming.  [John] Droz sees the Global Warming Theory as not scientific and unproven, one that appeals to the public good but remains a hypothesis. For Those Near, the Miserable Hum of Clean Energy.  Like nearly all of the residents on this island in Penobscot Bay, Art Lindgren and his wife, Cheryl, celebrated the arrival of three giant wind turbines late last year.  That was before they were turned on.  "In the first 10 minutes, our jaws dropped to the ground," Mr. Lindgren said.  "Nobody in the area could believe it.  They were so loud." Obama's Costly Green Jobs Project.  [Scroll down]  Fortunately, the sun shines in the Mohave Desert during peak demand for air conditioning in Los Angeles, but the California Public Utilities Commission confesses that:  ["]the State will face an increasing challenge to integrate the higher intermittent renewable penetration without decreasing system reliability [i.e., brownouts and blackouts].["] ... In other words, in order to avoid blackouts, they'll have to duplicate some of the capacity supplied by renewable energy with "ancillary resources" (coal, natural gas, nuclear) to cover the times when it's dark or the wind isn't blowing. Gone with the Wind.  Renewables like solar power and others can't fuel America's future. Time Running Out for Big Wind.  The case for wind energy is simply not being made.  The latest example of this comes from Denmark.  A September 12 article in the U.K. Telegraph entitled ["]An ill wind blows for Denmark's green energy revolution["] exposes this fact.  It appears the Danish people aren't as enamored with their renewable experiment as Big Wind would like us to believe. An ill wind blows for Denmark's green energy revolution.  Denmark has long been a role model for green activists, but now it has become one of the first countries to turn against the turbines. Britain's offshore windpower costs twice as much as coal and gas generated electricity.  Off shore wind farms cost twice as much to produce electricity as gas and coal powered stations and will need subsidies for at least 20 years, a major report warns. Wind Energy's House of Cards.  The house of cards is a global industry based entirely on subsidies, price guarantees, and mandates.  Wind generation systems are not deployed anywhere in the world without extensive government financial or mandated support.  Fourteen of the 20 IEA member nations use feed-in tariffs (FITs) to force utility companies to buy electricity from wind farms at above market rates. SJC ruling gives Cape Wind project green light to build.  A divided Supreme Judicial Court ruled yesterday [8/31/2010] that a state board had the power to sidestep community opposition to grant the controversial Cape Wind energy project local and state permits it needs to start construction in the waters off Cape Cod. Wind Power Won't Cool Down the Planet.  The wind industry has achieved remarkable growth largely due to the claim that it will provide major reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.  There's just one problem:  It's not true.  A slew of recent studies show that wind-generated electricity likely won't result in any reduction in carbon emissions — or that they'll be so small as to be almost meaningless. Climate Profiteers.  According to a recently released Center for Responsive Politics review of reports filed with the U.S. Senate and U.S. House, General Electric and its subsidiaries spent more than $9.5 million on federal lobbying from April to June — the most it's spent on lobbying since President Obama has been in office.  Why?  As the fight over cap-and-trade grows, so does lobbying.  Since January, GE and its units have spent more than $17.6 million on lobbying — a jump of 50% over the first six months of 2009.  GE is just one of many organizations and individuals that stand to make money if cap-and-trade makes it through Congress.  GE makes wind turbines, not oil rigs, and has a vested interest in shutting down its fossil fuel competitors. Wind Turbine Projects Run Into Resistance.  The United States military has found a new menace hiding here in the vast emptiness of the Mojave Desert in California:  wind turbines.  Moving turbine blades can be indistinguishable from airplanes on many radar systems, and they can even cause blackout zones in which planes disappear from radar entirely. An Ill Wind (Power) in New Jersey.  Since his election, New Jersey's Governor Chris Christie has been remarkably successful in dealing with the Democrat controlled state legislature and has rocketed to national fame for simply being the real deal when it comes to conservative politics and policies.  That is, until he signed a bill on August 19 that one columnist described as touting "the idea of raising your electric rates to place windmills in the ocean off New Jersey."  In this case the windmill would be 75 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty!  None of the residents of Union Beach want a windmill no matter how far out in the Atlantic it's built. Somewhere over the wind farm.  The oil patch has always had its ups and downs, but it has always provided well paying jobs to a wide array of employees.  From divers to doodelbuggers, technicians to toolpushers, geoscientists to general counsel, cooks to .... You get the picture.  While the oil patch has always been a scapegoat for greed, high gas prices, overall inflation, it is now under threat of extinction.  Environmental fascists, and an ideological government, with help from an uninformed public, using overblown threats of planetary disaster, are the predatory warriors. Obama's Green Energy Myth.  Both wind power and solar power are more expensive — incredibly so in the case of solar — than either fossil power or nuclear power.  Worse, you can't count on either wind or solar as a reliable source of energy, since the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine.  Accordingly, for each megawatt of wind and solar capacity we develop, another megawatt of back-up power, typically powered by fossil fuels, has to be in place.  This redundancy adds to the already unacceptable cost of "green energy." We need to talk about wind farms....  "Energy prices may rise by a third," says our disastrous secretary of state of energy and climate change Chris Huhne.  Rubbish.  They're going to rise by ... a lot more than that before he is finished.  Alternative energy, let us never forget, is just that:  an alternative to energy.  Wind power and solar power are so risibly inefficient that the only way they can ever be economically viable is with lashings and lashings of taxpayer subsidy.  Nuclear power would be much more effective but Huhne has effectively ruled it out. Myths Associated with the 'Smart' Electrical Grid.  [Scroll down]  The Bonneville Power Administration is a federal agency that operates a series of hydroelectric generators in the Pacific Northwest.  Recently, they've added a substantial number of wind generators to the system, and they make the actual operating data available on their website.  The data is very high time resolution, and includes aggregate wind production at 5-minute intervals.  A sampling of this aggregate power production data at various times of year support BPA's statement that output from wind is "essentially random."  "Essentially random" in this case means that the aggregate output can range anywhere from literally zero to almost two gigawatts, and typically switches between almost zero and over one gigawatt several times a week.  It spends a rather large amount of time at close to zero output. Clean Energy:  The Nuclear Solution.  [Scroll down]  The environmentalist lobby doesn't like nuclear any more than it does coal-fired generation, mainly because it works!  The alternatives they give are non-solutions.  Take wind turbines that require some kind of back-up — usually gas turbines with very high fuel costs.  European studies show that when about 5-10 percent of grid electricity is generated by wind, the grid becomes unmanageable because of constant fluctuations.  Fluctuations are a part of balancing the grid, but most can be anticipated.  Not so with wind.  Moreover, the peak electricity usage in most of the United States is on summer afternoons, the very time that wind is at its minimum. How High are Your State's Electricity Prices?  Electricity prices are nearly 40 percent higher in states with renewable electricity mandates.  Petroleum produces only 1 percent of our electricity.  Using wind power or solar to produce electricity will do nothing to reduce our use of foreign oil. Firms paid to shut down wind farms when the wind is blowing.  Energy firms will receive thousands of pounds a day per wind farm to turn off their turbines because the National Grid cannot use the power they are producing.  Critics of wind farms have seized on the revelation as evidence of the unsuitability of turbines to meet the UK's energy needs in the future.  They claim that the 'intermittent' nature of wind makes such farms unreliable providers of electricity. Levelized Cost of New Electricity Generating Technologies.  Analysis shows wind and solar power are ridiculously expensive, compared to natural gas, coal and nuclear power. Chortling At Chu.  Subsidizing alternative energy fits the classic definition of insanity. Despite huge subsidies, it has proved to be neither cost-effective nor a reliable, significant contributor to our national power grid.  Yet we keep subsidizing it, expecting a different result. Emissions Targets & Electricity Generation.  Touring politicians have a habit of making wild promises in international forums, leaving the difficult engineering consequences to overloaded power engineers and the unpalatable cost consequences to the suffering consumers. Does money grow in wind farms?  [Renewables UK] says that "every unit of electricity from a wind turbine displaces one from conventional power stations", and even the existing wind turbines have "the capacity to prevent the emission of 3.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per annum".  The key weasel word in that last sentence is "capacity".  The CO2 reduction figure assumes that all wind turbines are able to generate electricity to 100 per cent of their capacity, 100 per cent of the time.  But the basic problem with wind power is that most of the time, the wind does not blow. Shoddy Parts Trip Up Major North Sea Wind Farm.  Germany's first offshore wind park was dealt a blow with the failure of two turbines due to inferior materials.  The rough patch has energy executives scurrying to reassure Berlin and banks scrutinizing their billions in offshore wind energy investments. Cape Wind to buy turbines from Germany-based Siemens.  Cape Wind, the controversial wind power project proposed for Nantucket Sound, will purchase its 130 industrial turbines from Siemens Energy Inc., the developers said today [3/31/2010]. The Cost and Benefits of Offshore Wind Power in Massachusetts.  In March 2004, we released a report entitled Free but Costly in which we estimated the costs and benefits of building an offshore wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts.  Since then, a number of factors have changed:  the cost of energy has risen, the price of wind turbine generators (WTGs) has increased, and more is known about how to run a large wind farm.  To take account of these and other changes, we have revised and updated our cost-benefit analysis. Cape Wind project spins on generous public subsidy.  A study released today [5/15/2006] by the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University finds that a proposed wind energy plant for Nantucket Sound would confer above-average profits on its developer thanks to hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies.  In its analysis, the institute found that the developer, Cape Wind Associates, would receive a 25% return on equity, 2.5 times the historical average for all corporations. Concessions to Kennedys in Wind Farm Approval.  After 46 years in the U.S. Senate, the late Edward M. Kennedy now appears to be influencing government decisions from the grave. ... "In a nod to the concerns of the Kennedys — and presumably other property owners in the area," the New York Times reported today [4/30/2010], "Mr. Salazar said he had ordered Cape Wind to limit the number of turbines to 130 instead of the initial 170, to move the farm farther away from Nantucket and to reduce its breadth to make it less visible from the Nantucket Historic District." Interior Department Approves Construction of Controversial Offshore Wind Farm.  Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Wednesday [4/28/2010] approved the construction of a controversial wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod that puts the Obama administration at odds with one of the president's biggest supporters:  the Kennedy family. US approves first offshore wind farm despite Kennedy opposition.  America's first offshore wind farm has been approved by the Obama administration despite years of opposition from local Indian tribes and the Kennedy family. A Windy Day in Camelot.  First they lose the family throne, ... and finally — and most ignominiously — the feds have approved a permit for a giant wind farm that will, horror of horrors, mar the ocean view at the Kennedy's Hyannis Port compound. The Wind Farm Scam.  I never thought I'd agree with a member of the Kennedy clan, but Bobby Kennedy's son got it right when he dismissed the much-hyped Cape Wind project that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar approved last week.  "It's a boondoggle of the worst kind," Kennedy said.  "It's going to cost the people of Massachusetts $4 billion over the next 20 years in extra costs." Interior Dept Approves Cape Wind Project; Kennedy Blasts High Costs of Wind Power.  U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar yesterday [4/28/2010] approved the construction of a controversial wind farm in Nantucket Sound off the coast of Massachusetts.  Towering wind turbines will soon be visible from the Kennedy family compound on Martha's Vineyard, and global warming activist Robert F. Kennedy responded by blasting the high cost of wind power. ... Kennedy claims his opposition to the Cape Wind project has nothing to do with its location within view of the multi-million dollar Kennedy estate.  His opposition, he claims, is purely economic. Cape Wind finds buyer for offshore wind power.  At a press conference on Friday, National Grid U.S. president Tom King said that National Grid will pay 20.7 cents per kilowatt-hour for the electricity from Cape Wind starting in 2013.  Currently, comparable prices are about 8 to 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, King said. Cape Wind rate shock.  The controversial Cape Wind project will cost taxpayers and ratepayers more than $2 billion to build — three times its original estimate.  That colossal cost is the driving force behind the sky-high electric rates it plans to charge Massachusetts customers in coming years. The Editor says... Let this be a lesson to the rest of the country.  Wind is free, but electricity is not. Billions for Big Wind.  The highly touted Cape Wind project is already stoking fears of an open-ended ratepayer burden and lack of accountability reminiscent of the state's Big Dig nightmare. Did someone mention The Big Dig? Wind Power Contract Rejected by R.I. Public Utilities Commission.  The R.I. Public Utilities Commission on Tuesday rejected a contract that would have allowed Rhode Island's largest electric utility to buy power from a wind farm that's planned for the waters off the R.I. coast.  It would have been the first project of its kind in the United States, the Providence Journal reported. DeKalb County wind farm lawsuit moves forward.  A Circuit Court judge cleared the way this week for a lawsuit filed by a group of DeKalb County residents who claim 126 wind turbines are there illegally and want them torn down. Final Decision Expected Soon on Building Major Wind Farm Off Cape Cod.  Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar will decide in coming weeks whether a Boston company may proceed with plans to build a major wind farm off Cape Cod, in Nantucket Sound.  Environmentalists, Native American tribes, fishermen and historic preservationists are among those fighting the plan, which has the support of Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick, who wants to expand the state's "clean energy" industry. Against the Wind:  Some Promising Developments in New England.  While the reasons for the two decisions were quite different (preservation in Massachusetts and high electricity rates in Rhode Island), the results were similar — to slow down the drive to build unsightly and costly electric generating facilities off the US coast.  Both projects, if completed, would represent the triumph of green-energy hype over anything that might go for rational thought on the matter of energy policy. The Economics of Nuclear Power:  As David Schlageter pointed out in EnergyPulse (2008),"Renewable energy sources only supplement the electric grid with intermittent power that rarely matches the daily electrical demand."  He continues by saying that "In order for an electric system to remain stable, it needs large generators running 24/7 to create voltage stability.  Wind and solar generation are not on-line when needed to meet energy demand, and therefore to help decrease system losses."  In the promised land of wind energy, Denmark, voltage stability is attained by drawing on the energy resources of Sweden and Germany (and perhaps Norway). Kansas Court Considers Wind Farm Ban.  Wabaunsee County, Kansas acted reasonably in determining that aesthetics and ecological concerns justified banning commercial wind farms, the Kansas Supreme Court has ruled.  Having made that decision, the court is now considering whether such a ban constitutes an unconstitutional taking of property rights without compensation, and that the county's decision to carve out an exemption for personal windmills improperly discriminates against interstate commerce. DOE E-Mails To Wind Energy Lobbyists Cast Cloud Over Green Jobs Proposals.  The Energy Department worked closely with the wind industry lobby to discredit a Spanish report that criticized wind power as a job killer, internal DOE e-mails reveal.  The e-mails obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request show how, starting last April, lobbyists at the American Wind Energy Association became alarmed that lawmakers were citing a study by Spain's King Juan Carlos University.  The study found that Spain's massive investments in wind power cost 2.2 jobs for every "green" job created. The Big Wind-Power Cover-Up:  Spain exposed the boondoggle of wind power in 2009, discrediting an idea touted by the Obama administration.  In response, U.S. officials banded with trade lobbyists to hide the facts. Wind farms failing to produce enough power.  Some of Britain's most beautiful landscapes have been blighted by wind farms for only small returns in energy, research shows.  The analysis of power output found that more than 20 wind farms are operating at less than one-fifth of their full capacity. Wind turbines stir up bad feelings, health concerns in DeKalb County.  Months have passed since anyone has waved hello to one another in Waterman or Shabbona in rural DeKalb County.  Some people claim they've even stopped going to church to avoid having to talk to former friends.  "It's gone.  The country way of living is gone," declares Susan Flex, who lives in Waterman with her husband and their nine children.  The animosity stems from the greenest of energy sources:  a wind farm. 'Anti-Lobbyist' Obama Administration Recruited Left-Wing Lobbyists to Sell Bogus 'Green Jobs'.  A FOIA [request] reveals the Department of Energy turned to George Soros and to wind industry lobbyists to help cover up two economic studies pointing to the failure of European wind energy programs. Did someone mention "green jobs"? Released Emails Show Wind Lobby, Soros Group Helped with White House PR.  Emails recently obtained under the Freedom of Information Act — seen here for the first time — show how political influence and lobbyists are shaping Obama administration policy and public relations.  The emails show that the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) coordinated their response to a damning Spanish report on "green jobs" with wind industry lobbyists and the Center for American Progress (the progressive think tank founded by John Podesta and funded by George Soros). Noisy wind farms face crackdown.  At least one in six of the 255 wind farms in Britain have received noise complaints according to figures obtained by the Daily Telegraph.  But local authorities have never managed to prosecute on the grounds of noise nuisance because it is so difficult to prove.  The main problem is the intermittent nature of noise from wind farms that makes it difficult to measure. Maine wind farm not soothing to all ears.  "That noise is so insidious that you can feel it," said David Wylie, 62, a transplant from Concord, Mass., who has owned property on the island since 1992.  "I didn't come up to Vinalhaven to live next to a dishwasher."  Instead of a win-win mix of green power and continued tranquility, Wylie and other critics said, the turbines have brought chest-thumping noise, questionable cost savings, and frustrating stonewalling from wind farm managers who reject their claims of night-rattling sound. The wind-energy cover-up:  Barack Obama promised many things on his way into office.  Key among these was transparency and a vow to banish lobbyists from insider roles in the policy process.  Using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Competitive Enterprise Institute has confirmed that both promises are being aggressively violated. Wind turbines:  'Eco-friendly' — but not to eagles.  In all my scores of items over the years on why the obsession with wind turbines will be seen as one of the major follies of our age, there is one issue I haven't touched on.  The main practical objection to turbines, of course, is that they are useless, producing derisory amounts of electricity at colossal cost.  A feature of these supposedly environment-friendly machines that I haven't mentioned, however, is their devastating effect on wildlife, notably on large birds of prey, such as eagles and red kites. Rare red kite found dead at wind farm 'harmless to wildlife'.  Experts believe an endangered bird of prey found dead at a wind farm in the Highlands was killed after colliding with a turbine, despite assurances that the devices are harmless to wildlife.  The carcass of the rare red kite was discovered at the Fairburn wind farm in Ross-shire.  It was examined by a Scottish Agricultural College vet and was found to have suffered bruising and fractures consistent with an impact. Obama Admin. Caught Red-Handed Working with Big Wind Energy Lobbyists.  Despite calls for increased transparency and openness, recent U.S. Energy Department documents obtained through FOIA requests and reported by The Chicago Tribune show significant collusion among Energy Department officials and the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), as well as other third party special-interest groups, including the left-of-center Center for American Progress. Cost and Quantity of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Avoided by Wind Generation.  Wind power does not avoid significant amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.  Wind power is a very high cost way to avoid greenhouse gas emissions.  Wind power, even with high capacity penetration, can not make a significant contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Windy Wyoming debates excise tax for wind energy.  A proposal in Wyoming to impose the nation's first state excise tax on wind energy production is generating debate over how the state should handle the arrival of massive wind farms to its wind-swept plains and plateaus. Energy Suicide:  Unplugging America.  Under the cold conditions of recent winter events, some wind turbines simply froze and ceased to function.  In more temperate conditions, there is always the likelihood that the wind will not blow, thus necessitating the constant maintenance of back-up facilities that require coal or natural gas.  This raises the obvious question, why bother with wind? Our Wrong-Headed Approach to Utilizing Alternative Energy Sources.  Carefully consider this challenge:  "Compared to our other alternatives, name one consequential benefit that wind energy provides to our electrical grid".  I am aware of some serious grid liabilities of adding wind energy to the grid, but zero benefits — but please correct me if I'm wrong. New Wind Farms in the U.S. Do Not Bring Jobs.  Nearly $2 billion in money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been spent on wind power, funding the creation of enough new wind farms to power 2.4 million homes over the past year.  But [a recent] study found that nearly 80 percent of that money has gone to foreign manufacturers of wind turbines. Minnesota's No-Spin Zone.  First came news that energy saving LED traffic lights can't be seen after a snowstorm, a condition that caused at least one fatal accident and which has resulted in additional costs to municipalities who have to pay maintenance crews to remove the snow.  Now comes news of wind turbines that are going to need to be retro fitted with heaters if they are to keep spinning when the temperatures get really cold. Tribes reject wind-fall.  Cape Wind developer Jim Gordon has offered two Native American tribes millions to halt their opposition as the clock runs down on the review period for the controversial wind power project slated for Nantucket Sound.  Sources told the Herald that Gordon, through a middleman, offered to pay the two tribes a total of $50,000 a year for 20 years if they would support the project. Wind Energy's Ghosts:  The sound floats on the winds of Ka Le, this southernmost tip of Hawaii's Big Island, where Polynesian colonists first landed some 1,500 years ago.  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. Wind turbines make their own clouds.  An offshore wind farm has been creating its own 'micro-climate' by stirring up air to create low-level clouds around its giant, spinning blades. Wind turbines fail in Minnesota's cold weather.  President Obama is telling Americans to count on the creation of "green jobs" to help ease the rising unemployment in the country.  These green energy failures only further the concern that pinning the country's economic salvation on the hopes of an industry still facing performance issues hardly makes any sense. When Windmills Don't Spin, People Expect Some Answers.  Turbines, more than 100 feet tall, were installed last year in 11 Minnesota cities to provide power, and also to serve as educational symbols in a state that has mandated that a quarter of its electricity come from renewable resources by 2025.  One problem, though:  The windmills, supposed to go online this winter, mostly just sat still, people in cities like North St. Paul and Chaska said, rarely if ever budging.  Residents took note.  Schoolchildren asked questions.  Complaints accumulated. The Editor says... Maybe they should have "mandated" some wind, too. Wind power takes a blow around Minnesota.  Just as they are being touted as a green, economical and job-producing energy source, wind farms in Minnesota are starting to get serious blowback.  Across the state, people are opposing projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars.  Opposition is also rising in other states.  It's not likely to blow over quickly in Minnesota, which is the nation's fourth-largest producer of wind power and on track to double its 1,805-megawatt capacity in the next couple of years. Wind's Chill Factor:  The government says wind power could supply the eastern half of the U.S. with a fifth of its electricity by 2024.  Just don't try building wind farms where someone might see them.  A claim is contained in a new study released by the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and technically it might be true.  But we've heard these overblown predictions before, and experience around the world with heavily subsidized alternative energy has not worked out well. Pickens Shelves Texas Wind Project.  T. Boone Pickens, the oilman and clean-energy booster, shelved his massive wind-power project in Texas even as he stepped up his push to increase the use of natural gas for transportation.  Cheap natural gas, the lack of electricity-transmission lines and the lingering credit crunch have combined to take the shine off large-scale renewable-energy projects... Public gasps at Lake Michigan wind farm images.  A collective gasp was heard when computer enhanced photographs depicting numerous wind turbine generators were shown in Lake Michigan off Pentwater harbor and Little Point Sable at informational meeting in Scottville Tuesday night [12/15/2009]. Windfarms?  We might as well use hamsters on treadmills.  The 'Man-made Climate Change' fanatics are applauded and praised, even as they force us to abandon perfectly sensible electric lights, and instead subject ourselves to strange, flickering substitutes, simultaneously worse and more costly than the ones they replace.  There is worse to come.  The same people wish to compel us to rely for our power on windmills, million upon million of them, as if we had never discovered more efficient and reliable ways of generating electricity. Unscientific American.  [Scroll down slowly]  Windmills may only offline for maintenance 2 percent of the time but the wind only blows about 30 percent of the time.  Solar power is available even less.  Neither is "dispatchable," as the electrical engineers say, and therefore require constant back-up from other sources.  Storage techniques may eventually solve this problem but the storage facilities will take up as much room as the generators themselves. The thinking on climate is frozen solid.  The vast programme of wind turbines for which the bills are now coming in will not, by the way, avert the energy cut-offs declared last week by the national grid.  Quite the opposite:  as is often the case, the recent icy temperatures have been accompanied by negligible amounts of wind.  If we had already decommissioned any of our fossil-fuel power stations and replaced them with wind power, we would now be facing a genuine civil emergency rather than merely inconvenience. GE wins $1.4 billion wind farm contract.  Power company Caithness Energy has given General Electric a $1.4 billion contract to supply wind turbines and 10 years' worth of maintenance for an Oregon wind farm, GE announced Thursday [12/10/2009].  The massive 845-megawatt wind farm, Shepherds Flat, will be located near Arlington, Oregon, but span approximately 30 square miles and cover parts of Oregon's Gilliam and Morrow Counties. The Editor says... That's 44 kilowatts per acre — if the wind is blowing at just the right speed. North Carolina Senate Rejects Mountaintop Wind Farms.  The North Carolina Senate has voted overwhelmingly to ban commercial wind farms from the state's picturesque western mountain ranges.  With its 42 to 1 vote, the Senate appears to have dealt a near-fatal blow to prospects for commercial generation of wind energy in the Tar Heel State. Alternative Energy Sources Offer Minimal Promise.  The Nature Conservancy predicts by 2030 "eco-friendly" wind, solar, and biofuel projects will require the development of land equivalent in size to the state of Minnesota, simply to replace the energy we now get from oil, gas, and coal.  U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's proposal to have offshore wind turbines replace those power sources would require 336,000 gigantic, migratory bird-killing wind turbines off our coasts producing power 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.  Far more wind turbines would be required under more realistic production conditions. Chinese-Made Turbines to Fill U.S. Wind Farm.  A Chinese wind-turbine company, with financing help from Beijing, has struck a deal to be the exclusive supplier to one of the largest wind-farm developments in the U.S., a sign of how Chinese firms are aggressively capitalizing on America's clean-energy push. The Editor says... How is this helping our "energy independence"? Wind power:  Obama's promises just hot air so far.  President Barack Obama is still at least a year away from seeing wind turbines take root anywhere off the U.S. coast, even though his administration has promised to make offshore wind a priority, and even though developers are lining up to string wind farms up and down the Atlantic seaboard. Are America's Winds Taking a Breather?  It's easy to take the wind for granted.  We count on it for all kinds of things, like propelling sailboats, turning giant power-producing turbine blades and keeping kites aloft.  But what if the wind doesn't blow as hard as it used to? Tiny bat pits green against green.  Workers atop mountain ridges are putting together 389-foot windmills with massive blades that will turn Appalachian breezes into energy.  Retiree David Cowan is fighting to stop them.  Because of the bats. Judge Halts West Virginia Wind Farm to Save Bats.  The wind power industry has suffered a setback as U.S. District Judge Roger Titus has ruled wind turbines under construction on a mountain ridge in West Virginia would kill and injure thousands of endangered Indiana bats. Funding sought to turn Detroit into wind turbine hub.  NextEnergy, an alternative energy business incubator, is seeking $45  million in federal funding that, if awarded, could turn downtown Detroit into a hub for testing wind turbine equipment. Global Warming Blues:  Green electric power from windmills and solar energy is impracticable.  Its expensive and due to the erratic nature of sunshine and wind, solar and wind power must be backed up by duplicate power plants or by energy storage systems that are as expensive as duplicate power plants.  It sometimes seems that the advocates of solar power don't realize that the sun does not shine at night. Windfarm Britain means (very) expensive electricity.  A recent industry study into the UK energy sector of 2030 — which according to government plans will use a hugely increased amount of wind power — suggests that massive electricity price rises will be required, and some form of additional government action in order to avoid power cuts.  This could have a negative impact on plans for electrification of transport and domestic energy use. Wind farms:  a mad mix of grandiosity and greed.  I have yet to see any argument that this gigantic land grab will effectively deliver us from 'dirty' energy or make an iota of difference to [England]'s carbon emissions.  On the contrary, wind farms are not replacing any conventional power stations, and their enormous cost in public subsidies and environmental destructiveness is in no way matched by efficient output or appropriate contribution to future needs. ... The wind may be 'free', but there is nothing renewable about devastated landscapes and ecosystems. Windmills Are Killing Our Birds.  A July 2008 study of the wind farm at Altamont Pass, Calif., estimated that its turbines kill an average of 80 golden eagles per year.  The study, funded by the Alameda County Community Development Agency, also estimated that about 10,000 birds — nearly all protected by the migratory bird act — are being whacked every year at Altamont. How Wishful Thinkers Are Forced To Reconnect With Energy Reality:  You couldn't make it up even if you tried:  One day Energy Secretary Ed Milliband sets out his proposed expansion of the U.K.'s wind power-led alternative energy revolution; the next day, Vestas, the U.K.'s largest wind turbine manufacturer, shuts down a big part of its British operations citing "low demand" and public opposition to onshore wind farms. The Alice in Wonderland World of the Greens.  Wind power is the flagship green energy industry if renewables are to become a serious player in the global energy mix.  Wind farms are already a reality and allow green ideologues to provide a romantic picture of endless 'free' energy from natural sources as easy enough with the right political will.  What they play down is the massive high investment and maintenance costs that make wind power such an extremely unattractive proposition to capitalist business investors, requiring constant public finance shots in the arm to maintain itself.  Wind power's inherently low energy returns requires significant further investment in high maintenance gas turbine back-up facilities to cope with its unreliability. Obama and the Alternative Energy Fiasco:  Forbes recently detailed the problems with windmills.  First, they depend upon a two-cent-per-kilowatt taxpayer subsidy to remain competitive.  They also require backup gas generators (in case the wind isn't blowing when needed) and new transmission lines running from windy places to population centers.  And while new technologies to store wind-generated electricity are in the works, they have so far proven uneconomical. Indiana's emerging wind farms whip up controversy.  More and more critics say windmills aren't that green, aren't a great source of energy — and can be harmful to people's health. Is wind the next ethanol?  Repeating past mistakes has long been a part of Washington's energy policy, but Congress used to wait a while before making the same blunder again.  Not anymore.  New legislation requiring wind energy closely resembles the ethanol mandate that sparked a backlash just last year.  For many years, wind has benefited from generous tax credits and subsidies, but it still provides less than two percent of the nation's electricity. Interference to radar systems: Wind Farms Skewing Weather Forecasts.  Wind farms built close to Doppler radar sites are can create the appearance of a violent storm or tornado in some parts of the country. Wind farms can appear sinister to weather forecasters.  Wind farms have been blamed for disrupting the lives of birds, bats and, most recently, the land-bound sage grouse.  Now the weather forecaster?  The massive spinning blades affixed to towers 200 feet high can appear on Doppler radar like a violent storm or even a tornado. Wind power growth limited by radar conflicts.  The most well-known obstacles to installing wind turbines are complaints over their visual impact and the potential for bird and bat deaths.  But conflict with radar systems have derailed over 9,000 megawatts worth of wind capacity — nearly as much as was installed in the U.S. last year. Military officials say wind turbines can stir up problems for bases.  Giant wind turbines dotting the Texas landscape have made the Lone Star State the nation's leader in the development of wind power, but they may also pose a hazard to military installations by interfering with crucial radar operations, state lawmakers were told Tuesday [4/27/2010]. Illinois senators hold up FAA nominee over wind farms.  Illinois' senators are blocking President Bush's nominee for a Federal Aviation Administration post as they seek his administration's answer to whether wind farms interfere with military operations. … Before they release their hold, they want the FAA to issue a conclusive determination as to whether the operation of wind farms under construction in the Midwest in such places as Bloomington, Ill., will interfere with radar systems. The Editor says... Are military radar systems so crude that they can be spoofed by windmills?  Of course not.  The Senators' concerns are purely political. Wind farms 'a threat to national security'.  Ambitious plans to meet up to a third of Britain's energy needs from offshore wind farms are in jeopardy because the Ministry of Defence objects that the turbines interfere with its radar.  The MoD has lodged last-minute objections to at least four onshore wind farms in the line of sight of its stations on the east coast because they make it impossible to spot aircraft, The Times has learnt. The Editor says... The British must be using really primitive radar equipment, if it can't tell the difference between a windmill and an airplane. Radar to the rescue: Wind farm's radar system stops birds getting the chop.  It could be considered an air traffic control system for birds who have flown perilously off course.  A wind farm in southern Texas, situated on a flight path used by millions of birds each autumn and spring, is pioneering the use of radar technology to avoid deadly collisions between a 2,500 lb rotating blade and bird.  US wind farms kill about 7,000 birds a year, according to a recent study. The Editor says... The article above leaves several questions unanswered.  How many birds does it take to trigger the radar and shut down a windmill?  If one flock of birds flies past a dozen windmills, will all the windmills come to a stop?  Does the word brownout come to mind? Radar could save bats from wind turbines.  Although bats use sound waves to steer in the dark by echolocation, radar employs radio waves, a form of light, so one might at first assume that radar would have no effect on bats. ... [But] the researchers discovered that radar helped keep bats away, reducing bat activity by 30 to 40 percent.  The radar did not keep insects away, which suggests that however the radar works as a deterrent, it does so by influencing the bats directly and not just their food. Wind turbine revolution is at the expense of natural beauty.  Nobody ravages a landscape more devastatingly than an environmentalist.  The crazed drive to promote wind farms has destroyed Scotland's natural beauty by peppering our rural wildernesses with Martian wind turbines — to no practical benefit. Renewable Electricity Mandate: Pay More For Less.  34 states already have renewable electricity standards.  Residential electricity rates are 38 percent higher and industrial rates are 50 percent higher in states with binding renewable mandates. Gov reacts strongly to Salazar's wind power comment.  Depending on where you stand, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's comment this week that wind energy could replace coal-fired power in the United States was either welcome news, or so much hot air.  "The idea that wind energy has the potential to replace most of our coal-burning power today is a very real possibility," Salazar said, according to The Associated Press.  "It is not technology that is pie-in-the sky; it is here and now." ... A spokesman for Salazar said Monday that the secretary does not expect wind power to be fully developed, but was speaking of its total potential if it were, according to the AP. The Editor asks... why would windmills necessarily replace coal-fired plants, Mr. Salazar?  Why can't we have both?  Then perhaps electricity will be cheap — at least on windy days. Wind turbines 'killed goats' by depriving them of sleep.  Late-night noise from spinning wind turbines on an outlying island of Taiwan may have killed 400 goats over the past three years by depriving them of sleep, an agricultural inspection official said on Thursday [5/21/2009]. Environmentalist Economic Strangulation.  [Scroll down]  Wind energy also runs into the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) syndrome.  Besides the legitimate environmental concern about the way windmills slice up birds and create low-pressure zones that explode the lungs of bats, environmentalists have started to block transmission networks that would tie the energy generated by windmills to the power grid. ... This green agenda is more than absurd, it is sinister.  The real goal of greens is not "clean energy" but less energy. U.S. to clear way for offshore wind farms.  The Interior Department has finalized sweeping rules that clear the way for the first offshore wind turbines to be erected along the Atlantic Coast, the most aggressive move yet from an administration that hopes to shift the nation's offshore energy goals from oil to wind power. Eco Move Threatens Obama-Teddy Windstorm.  The Obama administration yesterday released new environmental rules that could put offshore wind farms in Sen. Ted Kennedy's beloved sailing playground off Cape Cod.  The move sets up a highly charged showdown between the new president and Sen. Kennedy, one of Obama's earliest and most powerful supporters. US official says wind could replace coal for power.  Windmills off the eastern U.S. coast could generate enough electricity to replace most, if not all, the coal-fired power plants in the United States, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Monday [4/6/2009].  But those numbers were challenged as "overly optimistic" by a coal industry group, which noted that half the nation's electricity currently comes from coal-fired power plants. Modern Wind Turbines Generate Dangerously "Dirty" Electricity.  Wind turbines generate a sine wave of variable frequency in order to be able to take advantage of the full range of wind speeds.  However, the grid only operates at 60 Hz, so the variable frequency is converted to DC and then an inverter is used to convert the DC signal to 60 Hz AC.  This is the signal that is put on the power line.  Most inverters generate an extremely "dirty" signal, which is a 60Hz waveform polluted with a lot of high frequency transients. Instead of drilling for oil, Obama tilts at windmills.  [Interior Secretary Ken] Salazar claims wind turbines off the Atlantic can produce enough electricity to replace the 1 million megawatts currently being generated by coal, natural gas, nuclear, biomass and other energy sources.  "Secretary Salazar is living in fantasy land," Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, told The Examiner.  The wind currently generates less than 1 percent of our electricity needs, he said, adding that "we would need to install 309,587 giant turbines — about 172 turbines per mile of coast — and hope the wind blows 24 hours a day, seven days a week," while paying twice as much for electricity as we do now.  This is the road to economic ruin. Out of Thin Air.  Large wind farms are only effective in certain locations and if those locations happen to have nice scenery around them, you can expect tremendous resistance to them.  The great promise of wind energy currently depends on huge government subsidy.  As soon as the subsidy dries up, these great twirling giants will suddenly look pretty stupid when they are no longer cost-effective to build and maintain. Wind energy finds fix for exploding bats.  Researchers think they are close to solving a problem that has slowed progress in meeting America's future electricity needs — The giant wind turbines that constitute one of the most promising alternative energy technologies also cause bats to explode.  The problem is troubling to nature lovers, who have complained bitterly and delayed projects.  The small, airborne creatures help maintain an ecological balance and make neighborhoods more livable by eating large numbers of insects. Green energy plans in disarray as wind farm giant slashes investment.  Britain's ambition to become a global leader in renewable energy suffered a major setback last night [3/25/2009] when the world's biggest investor in wind power said that it was slashing its investment programme. Promoters overstated the environmental benefit of wind farms.  The wind farm industry has been forced to admit that the environmental benefit of wind power in reducing carbon emissions is only half as big as it had previously claimed. Obama's Looming Energy Disaster.  Wind farms [are] sprouting up all over the country like 65-story mushrooms.  The North American Reliability Council estimates we will have 175,000 megawatts of new capacity by 2017 (that's the equivalent of 175 major coal or nuclear plants).  Unfortunately, it admits, "only approximately 23,000 MW ... is projected to be available on peak."  That means these windmills will be idle most of the time. The Nonsense of Global Warming:  Windmills were the great invention of the early Middle Ages — man harnessing nature and using it to replace muscle power.  When I was a boy more than 70 years ago there were still a few windmills, but nobody doubted they were on their way out.  The thought of going back to wind power would have seemed preposterous.  Nevertheless, under pressure from Greens this has happened.  Wind power is a grotesquely expensive and inefficient form of energy, and the new windmills are hideous things, ruining the landscape and making an infernal noise. Pitched as source of clean energy, ranchers say mills are an eyesore.  Though embraced by state political leaders as a clean, renewable electricity source and welcomed by many rural landowners as newfound income, wind farms are gathering fresh opposition from Texas ranchers who say they are an ugly, noisy blight on the wide-open landscape.  Opponents say the turbines, which extend up 400 feet to the tips of their blades, not only threaten birds and wildlife but devalue property in areas such as the distant outskirts of Dallas-Fort Worth, where ranchland is increasingly being used for recreation and second homes. Who knew a "free" source of energy could be so expensive?  For wind turbines to produce power, the wind must blow.  Because the wind does not blow constantly, wind turbines produce a fraction of their potential generating capacities.  Furthermore, winds blows the least during the summer months when power is needed the most.  ERCOT relies on just 8.7% of wind power's capacity when determining available power during peak summer hours.  Also, due to wind's intermittency, wind farms must rely on conventional power sources to back up their supply. Blowin' in the Wind.  Wind seems to be blowing in the mind of the politically correct and those on the recent environmentalist bandwagon but the cost is going to be huge, no companies will plunge into it without massive government subsidies and, if actually built, power reliability will take a nosedive. Blown Away.  How can I possibly claim that every kilowatt hour generated by wind power doesn't eliminate that much pollution from a coal-fired plant?  Because it's true.  Most of our country is tied together in electrical grid so that power can be routed from one area to another as demands change from place to place.  Electricity is not stored on the grid.  If a portion of the power comes from wind generation, there must always be a backup in the event this drops significantly — like perhaps to zero.  These backup plants must be kept running as it requires hours if not days to bring them up to a level where they can provide power. Wind Power Risks:  It is now becoming more common to hear of wind power caused outages.  The outages are either a loss of service because the wind has stopped blowing or, surprisingly, because there is too much wind.  These problems were not so apparent when the percentage of wind power was low compared to the overall capacity, and in particular to rapid response generators such as hydro.  It seems that wind power has become too successful and the engineering required to integrate it into different grids has lagged behind. Wind turbines make bat lungs explode.  "Beware:  exploding lungs" is not a sign one would expect to see at a wind farm.  But a new study suggests this is the main reason bats die in large numbers around wind turbines.  The risk that wind turbines pose to birds is well known and has dogged debates over wind energy. Wind Farms Trump Local Land-Use Laws, Washington Governor, Court Decide.  Houston-based Horizon Wind Energy has proposed building a 100-megawatt industrial wind farm in Kittitas County, Washington.  County officials rejected the proposal, determining Horizon would be placing its turbines too close to adjacent properties.  A 2001 state law gives the governor the power to preempt local land-use laws for alternative energy projects. Wind Energy Bumps Into Power Grid's Limits.  Expansive dreams about renewable energy, like Al Gore's hope of replacing all fossil fuels in a decade, are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.  The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not. Leader of Ohio Environmental Group Testifies Against Wind Power Proposal.  Tom Stacy, managing director of the environmentalist group Save Western Ohio, presented compelling testimony to the Ohio House of Representatives Public Utilities Committee that a proposed renewable power mandate would substantially harm the environment and local communities.  The mandate, Stacy noted, would cause the construction of a growing number of wind turbines, a poor source of energy that harms wildlife and takes up excessive amounts of land. Loss of wind causes Texas power grid emergency.  A drop in wind generation late on Tuesday [2/26/2008], coupled with colder weather, triggered an electric emergency that caused the Texas grid operator to cut service to some large customers, the grid agency said on Wednesday [2/27/2008].  Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said a decline in wind energy production in west Texas occurred at the same time evening electric demand was building as colder temperatures moved into the state. Committee Acts to Doom New England Wind Farm.  A Senate-House conference committee has approved a measure that would effectively kill a proposal for the first large offshore wind farm in the United States, in Nantucket Sound south of Cape Cod, Mass. Democrats Lead the Fight Against West Virginia Wind Farms.  U.S. Reps. Alan Mollohan and Nick Rahall, both West Virginia Democrats, are leading a high-profile fight against industrial wind farms on the state's mountaintop ridges. Wind Turbines Kill Raptors, Lead to Rat Infestations.  Predictions by bat experts that expanded industrial wind farms in West Virginia will increase numbers of disease-carrying mosquitoes and crop-destroying grasshoppers, locusts, and moths are not the only expected ecological consequences of expanded wind farms. Giant wind turbines take an even greater toll on birds, including many endangered species and birds of prey instrumental in controlling rodent populations. Windfarms provide no useful electricity.  Wind turbines provide power when the wind is strong enough and not too strong.  It is very difficult to predict the precise moment when a windfarm will start to provide electricity to the grid.  And the wind can change over a large area.  Hence, the presence of many windfarms in a locality causes power surges. Greenie alarmists miss the target.  Electricity from wind farms costs double or more that from coal-fired power plants and is unreliable, adding further to power costs.  The Victorian Government has admitted that the Green Power scheme to encourage consumers to use more expensive green power has been a less than resounding success. California Wind Power Worries Environmentalists.  Defenders of Wildlife contends any new wind farms should be required to comply with a long list of siting considerations in addition to the guidelines designed to prevent them from being built in roadless forest areas or avian flyways. … "Ground-disturbing activities, such as road construction and the clearing of forests for new power lines, also result from wind farm construction," [spokesperson Kim] Delfino said. Wind Farms Costly for Kansans.  Wind farms proposed for the state of Kansas would take money out of citizens' pockets, harm the Kansas economy, and provide few if any environmental benefits, a new study finds.  The study, conducted by former New England Electric System Vice President Glenn Schleede and released on March 1, 2005, documents that Kansas consumers will pay higher taxes and higher electric bills if the state chooses to adopt wind power recommendations made by the Kansas Energy Council (KEC).  The KEC, in its Kansas Energy Report 2005, recommends Kansas bestow special privileges on the wind power industry, such as tax exemptions, direct cash subsidies, and a mandate that all Kansas citizens purchase a certain percentage of their power from large wind farms. Enviro Group Sues Wind Farm to Stop Bird Deaths.  Giant wind turbines at Altamont Pass, California, are illegally killing more than 1,000 birds of prey each year, according to a lawsuit filed January 12 by the Center for Biological Diversity.  The suit demands an injunction halting operation of the turbines until and unless protective measures are taken and highlights increasing concerns regarding a power source long hailed as environmentally friendly by environmental activist groups. Wind turbines send wildlife diving for cover.  Noisy wind farms in California are making squirrels edgy and prone to scurrying for cover.  This change in behaviour could have knock-on effects on animals that depend upon the squirrel, such as the golden eagle, which feeds on the rodent, and the red-legged frog and California tiger salamander, which live in its burrows. German Government Study Questions Value of Wind Power.  Opposition spokesmen such as Klaus Lippold MP [say], "The problem with wind farms is that you have to build them in places where you don't need electricity.  The electricity then has to be moved somewhere else.  There is growing resistance in Germany to wind farms, not least because of the disastrous effect on our landscape." Louisiana Wind Farm Economically Unviable.  A proposed wind farm off the coast of Louisiana is economically unviable, wind farm supporters admit, and will fail unless the state forces its citizens to purchase the power at up to three times the cost of conventional power.  Wind power supporters are seeking just such a requirement in a proposed renewable portfolio standard.  (See page 10 of the January 2005 Environment & Climate News) Comparing the costs of various methods of power generation.  Electricity generated from new fossil fuel plants powered by natural gas or coal costs 4 to 5 cents per kilowatt hour.  Wind power costs 6 cents per kilowatt hour — including federal subsidies amounting to 1.8 cents per kwh.  Solar power costs 14 cents kwh for thermal processes and 19 cents kwh for photovoltaic generation. Wind Power:  Red Not Green.  Renewable energy promoters claim that wind power is cheap, safe and "green."  These claims are untrue.  Wind power is expensive, doesn't deliver the environmental benefits it promises and imposes substantial environmental costs.  Accordingly, it does not merit continued government promotion or funding. Renewable Electricity 'Creating' Jobs, Destroying Wealth.  All over the world, for several centuries, workers have become more productive and their services have risen in value.  Renewable energy mandates, currently in force in 20 states, reverse this progress and require a cut in worker productivity and energy efficiency.  Twenty states have set standards that require utilities to obtain some of their power from "renewable" resources such as wind turbines and solar panels. Negawatts:  The renewable resource best beloved of ecophiles is wind power.  Despite decades of subsidies (amounting to more than $1,200 per installed kilowatt), wind power remains stubbornly uneconomic.  One problem is that the wind usually refuses to blow hardest at times of peak demand for electricity, generating only about 7.5 megawatts per 50 MW of nameplate capacity at peak.  "Wind farms" are thus sometimes called "tax farms." British Studies Show Prohibitive Cost of "Renewable" Energy.  A pair of British studies released in March and April 2004 show relying on wind power or other non-nuclear "renewables" to reduce air pollution or carbon dioxide emissions forces consumers to pay at least twice as much as they currently pay for electricity generated from fossil fuels or emissions-free nuclear power. There's too little power in wind.  The 83 existing and proposed windmills in Wisconsin generate very little electricity and cannot make a significant contribution in supplying Wisconsin's electricity or improving its reliability.  The total output from the 35 windmills on four existing wind farms represented just 0.082 percent of the state's 1999 electricity production. Map:  United States Average Annual Wind Power. Wind Power Prices Rising, Defying Predictions of Renewable Power Apologists.  The price of wind turbines is rapidly rising, defying global warming alarmists who justify renewable power subsidies and mandates by claiming prices for the economically uncompetitive renewable power will fall as more industrial wind farms are built. Awww... Windmills might spoil the view of Cape Cod. Save Teddy Kennedy's view.  Congress is about to decide whether a developer whom the Senate last year handed the exclusive right to build a 24-square-mile array of 417-foot-high windmills in the middle of the Nantucket Sound  — off Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket  — should be allowed to proceed.  The area's most famous resident, Sen. Teddy Kennedy (D-Mass.), has teamed up with Alaska's Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young, both Republicans, to stop it. Ted Kennedy:  Build the 'Wind Farm' Elsewhere.  Sen. Ted Kennedy has strongly opposed an environmentally friendly "wind farm" off the coast from the Kennedy compound in Hyannis.  Now he supports building another wind farm — in somebody else's "backyard." Foes of Cape Wind project see contributions drop sharply in 2006.  Opponents of a planned wind farm off Cape Cod see a sharp drop in contributions.  In 2006, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound raised about $2 million, according to federal tax filings submitted this month.  That's less than half what the group raised in each of the prior two years. Turbine plan brings whirlwind of questions.  For years, environmental groups have viewed electricity-producing wind farms with a touch of reverence:  energy from the natural rhythms of the air, without the need for fossil fuels or polluting greenhouse gases.  But questions about the risk, cost and environmental impact of offshore wind threaten to slow what some call a headlong state rush to approve a $1.6 billion, 150-turbine wind farm off Rehoboth Beach, along with one of two on-land, backup natural gas-powered generating plants. Texas Tops in Wind Energy Production.  Long known as a top oil- and natural gas-producing state, Texas has gained new energy acclaim by becoming the nation's top producer of wind energy.  Texas capacity stands at 2,370 megawatts, enough to power 600,000 average-sized homes a year, according to a midyear report released Tuesday [7/25/2006] by the American Wind Energy Association. Cape Wind Has Powerful Critics, Supporters.  The Cape Wind project has powerful opposition, including Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) and the Bay State's senior Democrat senator, Edward M. Kennedy.  An environmental group, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, also has worked against the plan. ... Supporters of the project argue the wind farm would generate 170 much-needed megawatts of electricity to a high-cost region. ... The project would generate about 2.5 percent of the electricity used by Massachusetts, or 1 percent of that used by all of New England. Wind farms generate bird worries.  The rapid expansion of wind energy farms in the Columbia River Gorge's shrub steppes could put hawks, eagles and other raptors on a collision course with fields of giant turbines and their 150-foot blades.  By year's end, more than 1,500 turbines will be churning out electricity in the gorge, a windy corridor at the forefront of a nationwide effort to produce cleaner energy. Questions Plague Efforts to Grow Wind Power Use.  Interest in wind power production seems to be on the rise, with recent numbers from the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) predicting a continuing boost in wind power production thanks to increasing government subsidies and mandates. … But a verdict on the long-term viability of wind as an energy source has yet to be reached, and no hope is in sight for the scores of birds and bats meeting grisly fates among the turning turbine blades. Wash Governor Forces Wind Farm Over Local Protest.  Residents of Kittitas County, Washington are expressing their outrage at Gov. Christine Gregoire's (D) September 18 decision to overrule county officials and allow 65 new, towering wind turbines to be built on hillsides surrounding the town of Ellensburg.  Kittitas County commissioners had rejected the proposed wind farm, noting local opposition to the 410-foot wind turbines that are expected to destroy scenic views, kill birds and bats, and create loud, reverberating noise in addition to generating a relatively small amount of electric power. Wind Power Costs Continue to Rise.  The U.S. Department of Energy reports the average cost of a turbine per megawatt of power generated rose 17 percent in 2006 and will likely rise by more than 14 percent this year.  Because utilities have no control over these costs, ratepayers or taxpayers end up paying the final bill.  In addition, wind farms have already been constructed in the most productive wind sites, leaving less-productive and less-reliable sites available for current and future wind farm construction. Wind power pricier, emits more CO2 than thought.  One of the most frequent criticisms levelled at wind power is variability.  That is, when the wind drops (or blows too hard) the windmills stop spinning and you get no power. Texas Approves a $4.93 Billion Wind-Power Project:  Texas regulators have approved a $4.93 billion wind-power transmission project, providing a major lift to the development of wind energy in the state.  The planned web of transmission lines will carry electricity from remote western parts of the state to major population centers like Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio.  The lines can handle 18,500 megawatts of power, enough for 3.7 million homes on a hot day when air-conditioners are running. The Editor says... That plan will only work on a hot and windy day.  Transmission lines can carry the power to the big city, which is good, but they can't store power for use on a day when it's hot but not windy, which is very often the case. Windmills split upstate NY town and families.  [John] Yancey stares at them, his face contorted in anger and pain.  He knows the futuristic towers are pumping clean electricity into the grid, knows they have been largely embraced by his community.  But Yancey hates them. Neighbors at odds over noise from wind turbines.  Not long after the wind turbines began to spin in March near Gerry Meyer's home, his son Robert, 13, and wife, Cheryl, complained of headaches.  They have trouble sleeping, and Cheryl Meyer, 55, sometimes feels a fluttering in her chest.  Gerry is sometimes nauseated and hears crackling. The culprit, they say, is the whooshing sound from the five industrial wind turbines near the 6-acre spread where they have lived for 37 years. Gone With The Wind.  Dr. Nina Pierpont has conducted substantial research on what she calls "wind turbine syndrome," the clinical name she has given to the "constellation of symptoms experienced by many (though not all) who live near industrial wind turbines."  These include sleep problems like insomnia; headaches; dizziness; unsteadiness and nausea; exhaustion; anxiety; anger and irritability; depression; memory loss; eye problems; problems with concentration and learning; and tinnitus (ringing in the ears). Gone With the Wind.  Mayor Bloomberg's idea to mount windmills atop city buildings and bridges is blowing nowhere fast — in fact, not even windmill manufacturers think it could work.  Large turbines would put too much strain on skyscrapers or bridges, and small ones wouldn't generate enough electricity to be worth the expense, according to Siemens AG, one of the world's largest makers of wind turbines. New York City Mayor Quickly Retracts Impractical Windmills-on-Bridges Plan.  A day after attracting extensive positive press coverage and fanfare for announcing plans to place windmills atop bridges and buildings throughout the nation's largest city, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) conceded the plan is unrealistic. Coal back-up for wind power 'will cost £100bn'.  A leading power company has claimed wind energy is so unreliable that even if 13,000 turbines are built to meet EU renewable energy targets, they could be relied on to provide only 7 percent of the country's peak winter electricity demand.  E.On has argued that, during the coldest days of winter, so little wind blows that 92 percent of installed wind capacity would have to be backed up by traditional power stations. Canadian wind industry faces delay, rising debt costs: industry financiers.  Independent wind producers are facing big hikes in debt costs, raising doubt on whether ambitious construction goals will be met over the next few years, say financing experts.  Chris Gifford, a vice president with Allied Irish Banks in Toronto, says worrisome signs for the industry came recently when EarthFirst Canada Inc. — the proponent of a major wind farm in British Columbia  — declared it was seeking creditor protection. A land rush in Wyoming spurred by wind power.  The man who came to Elsie Bacon's ranch house door in July asked the 71-year-old widow to grant access to a right of way across the dry hills and short grasses of her land here.  Bacon remembered his insistence on a quick, secret deal.  The man, a representative of the Little Rose Wind Farm of Boulder, Colorado, sought an easement for a transmission line to carry his company's wind-generated electricity to market.  His offer:  a fraction of the value of similar deals in the area. New York State Investigates Wind Companies for Improper Business and Political Dealings.  New York State Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo (D) has opened an investigation into two companies developing and operating wind farms in the state.  Cuomo, who announced the investigation July 15, said the focus will be on allegations of anti-competitive business practices and improper relationships between the companies and public officials. Wind Farms Threaten Endangered Whooping Cranes.  More than six decades of painstaking conservation efforts that have brought the majestic whooping crane back from the brink of extinction may come undone because of the proliferation of wind farms in the United States. Federal agency gives Cape Cod wind farm environmental OK.  Plans for the nation's first offshore wind farm got a boost Friday when a federal agency rejected high-profile opponents' arguments that the giant turbines would damage the environment off Cape Cod.  A bitter fight over the proposed wind farm has lasted more than seven years.  Its foes, including Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., argue the wind farm would kill birds and endanger sea life, and harm the scenic area's tourism and fishing industries. Wind, Obama and the energy answer.  It's the Obama hour, and for some that means the wind power hour, a time when this supposedly cheap source of endlessly abundant energy will have its non-polluting breakthrough, but just a minute.  Let's visit with Ted Kennedy and learn how he feels about one particular instance of the new dawn.  He's against it. The New Dictator In Washington Will Change America.  Wind turbines present Obama with a big problem with the environmentalists.  They want the electricity from the windmills to power their hybrids, but don't want the transmission lines draped across the landscape to carry the power from the turbines to the grid.  Some have complained about birds being killed by the spinning blades.  Why aren't they complaining about the eyesore these monstrosities create on the pristine land, like they do about overhead power lines and oil derricks and pipelines in Alaska?  It's simply more liberal agenda driven hypocrisy. Minnesota Green Group Fights Wind Power Transmission Line.  A Minnesota environmental activist group is fighting against the construction of power lines to deliver wind power to the state, shortly after environmental activist groups successfully pressured the state government into enacting renewable power mandates.  Less than two years after the state legislature passed an aggressive renewable power mandate, the Citizens Energy Task Force has registered as a "legally intervening party" and is drafting legal arguments asserting the proposed wind power transmission lines unlawfully threaten regional wildlife. The Editor says... Environmentalists apparently thrive on problems rather than solutions.  They want to replace reliable oil and gas with intermittent wind and solar power.  They want us to use the power of the wind, but they oppose the construction of electric transmission lines.  There is no way to satisfy environmentalists, other than to stop using energy altogether. Wind Turbines in Europe Do Nothing for Emissions-Reduction Goals.  Germany's renewable energy companies are a tremendous success story.  Roughly 15 percent of the country's electricity comes from solar, wind or biomass facilities, almost 250,000 jobs have been created and the net worth of the business is €35 billion per year.  But there's a catch:  The climate hasn't in fact profited from these developments.  As astonishing as it may sound, the new wind turbines and solar cells haven't prohibited the emission of even a single gram of CO2. Blowhards.  Green energy has been on the subsidy take for years, including in 2005 when [Congressman Bill] Delahunt was calling for "an Apollo project for alternative energy sources, for hybrid engines, for biodiesel, for wind and solar and everything else."  The reality is that all such projects are only commercially viable because of political patronage. Troubled wind?  [Dr. Albert] Aniel says he, six other physicians and one family nurse practitioner believe the conditions they've found online — things called "acoustic radiation" and "wind turbine syndrome," among them — and the possible symptoms — nausea, back problems, mood disorders, seizures, even heart attack — are serious enough to stall new wind projects while medical researchers around the world gather more information. Turbine complaints 'absurd'.  Opponents of wind turbines off the Scarborough Bluffs have worked themselves into an "artificial lather" as the government prepares to force "green" energy projects on neighbourhoods, says Energy Minister George Smitherman.  The proposed Toronto Hydro project would install up to 60 wind turbines "three or four" kilometres offshore, Smitherman noted, suggesting that should be far enough away from homes to ease fears. Let's Get Real About Renewable Energy.  [Scroll down]  Solar and wind sources are providing the equivalent of 76,000 barrels of oil per day. ... It's approximately equal to the raw energy output of one average-sized coal mine.  During his address to Congress, Mr. Obama did not mention coal — the fuel that provides nearly a quarter of total primary energy and about half of America's electricity — except to say that the U.S. should develop "clean coal." 'Bat' Men in Blow to Wind Power.  Wind-energy programs in New York — including a developer's plan to build the city's first wind farm at Staten Island's mothballed Fresh Kills landfill — are tied up in red tape because their projects will endanger bats, birds and other wildlife, The Post has learned. Map:  Wind resource potential  in the continental U.S.  It's not that great -- at least not where a lot of people live. Windmill power proposals by T. Boone Pickens: Tilting Toward Windmills.  In May, the U.S. Department of Energy released a report stating wind could provide 20 percent of national power needs by the year 2030.  However, such an increase would offset only 11 percent of natural gas use, not 22 percent as [T. Boone] Pickens claims.  Wind turbines only generate power during gusts, raising the question of what happens when the wind is not blowing.  The windmills' life is one-quarter that of nuclear facilities, assuring the massive expenditure of erecting the system will be repeated on a regular basis. Dissenting opinion: Energy's Prevailing Winds:  Last year, [T. Boone] Pickens correctly predicted that we would be seeing a $100 barrel of oil, and he recently announced plans to build a $10 billion, 150,000-acre wind farm in the Texas panhandle, which would be the biggest in the world. Yes, but... Talk of wind power is just that:  talk.  In his commercials, T. Boone Pickens seems minted in Hollywood.  He is the grizzled oilman who sagely tells the public that we can't drill our way out of this problem.  Wind power is part of the answer to the total energy picture, he said.  But here is what he told Newsweek about wind power:  "There are no turbines on my ranch, because I think they are ugly." A boon for Pickens, not for America.  [T. Boone] Pickens is right to suggest that America's oil dependence is a source of economic ruin and that Congress must act to stop the biggest transfer of wealth in human history.  But Pickens stands to benefit from his own campaign — and his proposal could do more damage than good to U.S. energy security. Boone Doggle.  Boone Pickens may be a fine man, and has played a colorful and useful role on the American stage for decades.  But his "energy plan," which he's spending a fortune to promote on cable TV, is not a plan.  Asserting that something would be good to do is not "a plan."  Saying how to do it is "a plan."  By this standard, what the legendary oil man is devoting $58 million to pitch hardly amounts to a decent slogan. Windmill Plan Offers Slim Energy Pickens.  While a net exporter twenty years ago, the United States today imports about 18% of its natural gas.  So without a very substantial change in our electric power generation portfolio, shifting from gasoline to natural gas would just shift us from one imported fuel to another.  Wind power is an improbable candidate for achieving such a shift. Pickens' Windy Scheme Will Leave Taxpayers Holding the Bag.  T. Boone Pickens is a smart businessman.  In fact, he's a genius at it. … The state of Texas's investment of $4.93 billion in wind technology is going to make wind farmers such as Pickens even wealthier.  Pickens' good fortune overshadows the misfortune of Texas taxpayers who will have to pay for this losing endeavor.  Like many states trying to cope with high energy prices, Texas is banking on wind as the next "big thing."  Unfortunately, wind has had a poor history as an energy source. Uh-oh... Pelosi and Pickens, investment partners.  It is difficult to imagine a more unlikely pair of investors than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens.  Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat, is among the most liberal and pro-environmentalist politicians in Congress, while Pickens has long been associated with Republicans, hedge funds and the energy industry. Pelosi Investment Shows Unlikely Energy Alliance.  Mr. Pickens seized the moment provided by the recent run-up in oil prices to campaign for a national energy plan that would move the country toward 20% reliance on renewable energy, such as wind turbines, and gradually changing the nation's vehicle fleet so it can run on natural gas.  Besides natural gas, Mr. Pickens has also invested billions in wind farms. … Mr. Pickens's recent embrace of renewable energy has made him the darling of the Democrats. Bait and switch:  Natural gas is what he's really selling. T Boone Pickens' cloak of green.  Pickens uses wind power as his cloak of green to buy credibility and time to make natural gas the primary power for vehicles and develop nuclear and coal sources.  He throws in other alternative energies as a lining to the cloak. ... So what concerns me about Pickens proposals?  Initially it was the wind power proposal, which clearly demonstrates his lack of understanding of the severe limitations of that energy. Testimony before a Texas Senate Hearing on Wind Turbines:  Mr. Pickens says he will erect 1500 one to two megawatt capacity wind turbines on 400,000 acres in North Texas around Pampa, which is a remote and desolate land, and that's a beginning to the answer.  Really?  1-2 million dollars a copy for the turbines, that are rated at 1-2 megawatts, but only produce 30 percent so that 1500 turbines would produce about one half of a normal coal plant?  At what cost and given the remote area, what transmission line costs?  But it sounds good, after all wind is free.  But it's also inconsistent and very inefficient. Pickens Plan Fails to Account for Serious Limitations on Wind Power.  The Pickens solution sounds so simple:  (1) Generate electricity with wind instead of natural gas.  (2) Free up natural gas to use for transportation.  (3) Voilá!  We are now energy independent.  Never mind that we get most of the "foreign oil" from Canada, and secondly from Mexico.  Never mind that we get our natural gas by drilling, and that Pickens has said we can't drill our way out of the "crisis." The Worst Predictions About 2008:  [#7]  "I think you'll see (oil prices at) $150 a barrel by the end of the year" — T. Boone Pickens, June 20, 2008.  Oil was then around $135 a barrel.  By late December it was below $40. Pickens plan is hot air that may burn America.  Radical environmentalists with the ear of Washington's new one-party political leadership oppose new domestic oil, natural gas and coal exploration and constructing new nuclear power plants.  Nothing but "alternative" energy seems acceptable.  One of the most prominent alternatives is the "Pickens Plan," trumpeted by Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens. Update: Pickens calls off massive wind farm in Texas.  Plans for the world's largest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle have been scrapped, energy baron T. Boone Pickens said Tuesday [7/7/2009], and he's looking for a home for 687 giant wind turbines.  Pickens has already ordered the turbines, which can stand 400 feet tall — taller than most 30-story buildings. Winds shifting for Pickens' wind farm plan.  T. Boone Pickens' massive wind farm, planned for Texas, is looking for a new home.  The energy tycoon and wind advocate told the Dallas Morning News that a project to install hundreds of wind turbines in the Texas panhandle will not work because of a lack of transmission lines. Instead, Pickens' wind company is looking for other locations in the Midwest and possibly Texas. Bill would boost natural gas vehicles.  Senate leaders, joined by Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens, unveiled a bill Wednesday to jumpstart the production of vehicles that run on natural gas.  The legislation, dubbed the NAT-GAS bill, was introduced by Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Robert Menendez, D-N.J.  It would increase tax credits for buying a natural gas-powered vehicle from $5,000 to $12,500, boost grants to create additional natural gas filling stations and create grants for light- and heavy-duty natural gas engine development. Congress gives your money to T. Boone Pickens.  The Pickens Plan, in short, is this:  We should get more electricity from windmills and power our cars with natural gas.  Pickens happens to be a major investor in windmills and natural-gas cars.  Both of these energy sources are heavily subsidized, but not enough for Pickens to profit from them, apparently. ... He used to make money through commerce and the power of the market, and for this he was abused.  Now, he makes money through subsidy and the power of the government.  Perversely, his recent shift — from selling oil that people want to buy, to selling stuff like gas cars and wind power that people buy only when it's subsidized or mandated — has elevated Pickens' reputation from greedy capitalist to world-saver. Pickens tilts for windmills.  Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens is a surprising convert to alternative energy and an unlikely wind-power proselytizer, but he is ramping up his campaign to cure the nation's energy dependence in the face of skeptics who say the effort is too ambitious.  Worried by the massive transfer of wealth to foreign and often unfriendly nations, the Texan last July proposed the Pickens Plan, a rapid national move to wind energy, with a decade's detour to natural gas, which would serve as a clean "bridge fuel" until we reached the promised land of wind power. Pickens' folly:  Just last year, Pickens' rangy visage filled the television networks as he touted his giant Texas windmill farm as the solution to America's energy problems.  Now it appears that his Texas farm is off the table, and Pickens' folly has been exposed. Climate Madness and Electricity Realities.  Imagine conditions in the once Great Britain.  Ice laden wind turbines sit idle in the still air; solar panels covered in snow; gas reserves down to 8 days; pensioners burning books to keep warm, and a bankrupt government.  This is happening because politicians have been conned by anti-industrial greens to neglect the UK's reliable and economical coal and nuclear generators, while wasting time and money on pointless climate crusades. Save a mountain, build a windmill, freeze in the dark.  Big Green environmentalists are pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to ban "mountaintop removal" coal mining.  To that end, the enviros have organized a vintage politically correct national PR campaign dubbed "Music Saves Mountaintops" featuring part country music and part the usual Natural Resources Defense Council agitprop.  The slogan of the campaign is "Save a Mountain, build a wind mill," referring to the contention of President Obama and his Big Green allies that alternative energy sources like wind can replace energy generated by fossil fuels. Pickpocketing with the Pickens Plan.  T. Boone Pickens is truly a piece of work.  The Texas billionaire has been at various times a champion of free markets and a major backer of conservative causes and candidates, but he has morphed into an unapologetic advocate of government subsidies and mandates.  His current obsession is natural gas and his belief that its abundance and current price advantage over gasoline and diesel fuel make it the perfect alternative to foreign oil.  Being an investor as well as a visionary, Mr. Pickens has invested heavily in natural gas and wants the rest of us to get with the program. Back to Supposedly good ideas that may not be good at all Jump to Environmentalists Oppose Every Practical Source of Energy Jump to the Environmental issues page Back to the Home page

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