Wind energy -- Unreliable, expensive and utterly impractical

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. 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]

Levelized Cost of New Electricity Generating Technologies. Analysis shows wind and solar power are ridiculously expensive, compared to natural gas, coal and nuclear power.

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.

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.

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.

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 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 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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