Wind Power...Some News

Originally posted by PuterMan
Indeed we do!

Danger
www.wind-watch.org...
Pollution
www.wind-watch.org...
Bird deaths
www.wind-watch.org...
Destruction of environment
www.wind-watch.org...

Oh brother here we go...



Nuclear Power Dangers.
Three Mile Island accident
Chernobyl disaster


Oil pollution
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Coal Pollution
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[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/fcc73da299e7.jpg[/atsimg]
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/8e46c812bb33.jpg[/atsimg]

reply to post by SLAYER69


Epic fail my man. I said I supported tidal power and gas. I support your view on all of those things. Just add wind to it as well.

It behoves you to read the posts before replying.

And by the way even the desert has an ecology.

reply to post by PuterMan


Well it is hard to keep track while you keep going back and editing your previous posts and replying new posts while I'm typing out a reply.

Fair enough?

Again why are you so personally touchy on the topic?

reply to post by SLAYER69


If I had then yes. The only edits I have done is to spelling and some titles, none to content except the addition of a video.

I am touchy about the subject because I care about the planet and I care about my fellow man. Having been in the power industry I know where this is going to lead and it is not a good place for anyone. The only people with an agenda here are the oh so green governments and the PTB like the EU. This wind power scam takes the money out of your pocket and puts it in the hands of the rich. You may not be able to see that yet but believe me it does.

When the power fails and you are sitting in the dark contemplating the destruction of the economies of the western world just remember this thread. Wind power is a part of the impending doom.

No more to say to really other than go and get enlightened, you might find what I am saying is the truth.

Wow...thanks for the lively and informative discussion

reply to post by PuterMan

An interesting perspective and certainly more to think about.

At the link you posted, the author mentions something I hadn't been all that aware of before...industrial geothermal. Hot springs...makes sense, but it seems that's pretty closely linked to coal? (History Of Geothermal Energy)

The chart you posted also shows a very low carbon footprint for wind energy? And relatively low cost as compared to the bios and the oils?

As for the reliance on China...can't we make the turbines out of something we can invent? I mean we built the space shuttle! Went to the moon!


reply to post by SLAYER69

Hmm...there's been quite the push for coal again the last decade or so, hasn't there? Wonder how true this is?

U.S. Interior Secretary: East Coast Wind Turbines Can Replace 3,000 Coal Plants

If everyone produced their own power needs then there wouldnt be a need to suck on the government and big companies tits.Oh but i need my air con because its over 25 degrees C. Most people in this world are friggen cry babies .Toughen up or F off.

reply to post by 12voltz


I think wind is a great way to do that too in some areas...unless you're lucky enough to live by water. We should be focusing more on solar too.

But there's like no way for "them" to charge us for these things, eh? No renewable sustainable huge profits.

reply to post by ~Lucidity


Sorry for the rant but i get annoyed when people want dig up more yellow cake and then wonder why their kids are born with two heads or a third ear growing out of their elbow.So what if it a few flying rats get sliced and diced by the blades or the hum from the turbines is interrupting your piano lesson.The fact is people need to get over this fear of renewable energy not because of climate change or the whales ,but because smart people dont s#it in their own backyard. The planet is everyone's backyard .

reply to post by ~Lucidity


Hi Lucidity, don't get me wrong, I am not anti personal wind turbines. With them the onus for provision lies with yourself and if you are using an on-grid system them you pay appropriately. Whilst this does make system demand more difficult to forecast the effect is minimal as the 'home' systems are a small proportion.

I came acoss this in relation to the States:

[www.wind-watch.org...]Source[/url]

(Emphasis by me.)

Even now, the wind industry is clamoring for an extension beyond 2008 of the lucrative “Production Tax Credit” (PTC) that was first enacted in 1992 during the Administration of George H. W. Bush. (The wind PTC idea can be traced to Ken Lay of Enron fame. [ii]) The US EIA recently estimated that in 2007 alone the wind PTC alone permitted “wind farm” owners to avoid nearly $700 million in federal taxes, thus shifting that tax burden to ordinary taxpayers who can’t escape their tax liabilities.

A flourishing wind energy industry is now in place and the costs of competing energy sources have increased dramatically but industry lobbyists continue to press for an extension in the wind PTC. Their accomplices in Congress will probably comply now that it has returned from its “recess.”

How can BP and Shell use “wind farms” to shelter oil profits from income taxes?

Senator Domenici’s April 2008 letter suggests that Congress may not understand how wind energy tax breaks permit a few large organizations to escape hundreds of millions in tax liability — and shift that tax burden to others. Tax breaks for “wind farms” apparently have helped at least one large corporation avoid paying any federal income tax for at least two years on over two billion dollars in profit. [iii]

and

The huge tax breaks and subsidies for wind energy are especially repulsive to many citizens, electric customers and taxpayers because it has become increasingly clear during the past 3 years that the wind industry and other wind advocates have, for more than a decade, greatly overstated environmental, energy and economic benefits of wind energy and greatly understated or ignored its adverse environmental, ecological, economic, scenic, and property value impacts.

In fact, the huge machines (many 400 ft or 40 stories) produce very little electricity. That electricity is intermittent, volatile, and unreliable. Further, because their output is dependent on wind speed, wind turbines cannot be counted on to be available at the time of peak electricity demand. This means that areas experiencing increases in peak demand or needing to replace older generators will have to add reliable (“dispatchable”) generating capacity whether or not “wind farms” are built. Electric customers could be paying twice: once for wind turbines and again for reliable generating units.

I really don't think people realise what a scam wind power is and what a drain on the economy. Please read that document.

Of course we want greener power but this is not the way to do it.

reply to post by ~Lucidity


I am not aware of any close link between Geothermal and coal other than possibly that the same power companies do both.

Geothermal is OK provided it does not induce too many earthquakes!

Where i live they just canceled a 250 mw solar power plant over a ground squirrel.
The company that was building the project got word from Nevada authorities that they would be permited there in two years.
Here in Calif it was going to take two years just to do a EIR in the impact on a ground squirrel then have to deal with whatever the state throw at them next,
www.ridgecrestca.com...

So i guess there will be more work in Nevada and less in Calif.
Wonder why Calif is going broke in a hurry and everyone is leaving.to find work.

reply to post by PuterMan


Thanks...I'm reading it now...but first here are my initial thoughts from reading thought the excerpts you posted
.
Ugh...Ken Lay.

"How can BP and Shell use “wind farms” to shelter oil profits from income taxes?" The way I see it, the oil companies are into anything and everything that could potentially suck money away from them. Seems to me they get into the mix for two reasons.

1. want to make sure they get to keep their piece of the pie when the shift starts to happen...heaven forbid other companies get a shot at harnessing and making obscene profits from resources that belong to the earth foremost and all of us second.

2. It it happens to be the kind of energy we all dream about...renewable, earth and living being friendly, and cheap (or free), they want to stop that. See number 1.

I'm not sure I quite yet see the harm in us via the government supporting this industry, maybe even despite some of the weasels that have thrown themselves into the mix. I'm still reserving judgment about the pros and cons as I don't really know enough about it yet, but I'd hate to think we throw a potentially good thing out just because some schmucks with track records of nefarious doings got their hands on it.

The rest I'll reserve until after I read the paper.

reply to post by PuterMan


The sponsors on that one link I posted was what made me make that connection in my head.

What powers them? Do they simply harness from the earth or do they create? That's something I'll need to read more about. I'm learning a lot here.

reply to post by ~Lucidity


Basically water is pumped down deep into the earth and converted to superheated steam which comes back up and drives the turbines.

One thing people need to understand about wind is that it is NOT efficient. You must have some other plant on standby as the wind does not blow when you want it to. The output plays havoc with the systems because it is mostly unregulated, or difficult to regulate. You get dirty power and that causes equipment problems and failures for both business and domestic customers. We have 57 windmills around us here and we pop light bulbs like they are going out of fashion. Fridges and freezers don't last neither do any electronic things. The computer UPS might last 12 months if I am lucky.

Read the summary of interviews in Australia

These things have serious health impacts in addition to anything else.

I will say it again - if there were no subsidies for wind power no turbines would be built. They are uneconomic and unsustainable without grants and allowances. You said something about not throwing wind power out? What you mean is not throwing it out for a second time. It has already been abandoned once as a failure.

reply to post by 12voltz

Ranting is good and necessary when you feel passionate about something. I enjoyed your rant. And agree we have to be respectful of and good to the planet that sustains us.

Originally posted by PuterMan
reply to post by ~Lucidity

 

Basically water is pumped down deep into the earth and converted to superheated steam which comes back up and drives the turbines.

One thing people need to understand about wind is that it is NOT efficient. You must have some other plant on standby as the wind does not blow when you want it to. The output plays havoc with the systems because it is mostly unregulated, or difficult to regulate. You get dirty power and that causes equipment problems and failures for both business and domestic customers. We have 57 windmills around us here and we pop light bulbs like they are going out of fashion. Fridges and freezers don't last neither do any electronic things. The computer UPS might last 12 months if I am lucky.

Read the summary of interviews in Australia

These things have serious health impacts in addition to anything else.

I will say it again - if there were no subsidies for wind power no turbines would be built. They are uneconomic and unsustainable without grants and allowances. You said something about not throwing wind power out? What you mean is not throwing it out for a second time. It has already been abandoned once as a failure.

I would agree with you if they stopped giving subsidies to gas/oil/coal/agriculture/etc and refused to give insurance companies government assurance when funding new nuclear power plants. Without the government, insurance companies don't want to back nuclear power because of the fears and massive initial sums of money involved. Fact is, subsidies and 'government assurance' are a reality and a part of many things in our economy. This isn't just a wind power problem.

I agree that wind power is expensive. It's a wonder how it gets through. You're right that them having to transport all of the needed materials to build them makes them very ineffective at combating CO2 emissions. But that's a transportation problem, is it not? Nonetheless, you're correct. And wind, by any account, is incredibly ineffective versus nuclear. But it's equally mystifying why we continue to build coal power plants and pollute and contribute to global warming at an alarming rate. I'm not al gore, but I don't think it's wise to do these experiments. If it were my choice, i'd invest in solar thermal and tidal power and fourth generation nuclear power.

Another thing we need to do is look at regions on a case by case basis. I think that already happens most of the time. Some areas have good geothermal potential, some have wind potential, some have tidal potential, and so on. It's important to treat each area differently.

Unlike you, I will not say wind power will NEVER work. It might in specific cases. Heck, wind power has been used for several centuries. They used windmills for all sorts of things long before we burned gas and coal. They used to grind grain, for example. And I'm sure there're far off places where science does research and they can't afford to transmit the power so they put up supplemental solar cells and/or wind turbines to power their research facility in addition to burning gas using generators.

Here's a link about windmills and their history:
www.theoildrum.com...

Originally posted by PuterMan


I really don't think people realise what a scam wind power is and what a drain on the economy. Please read that document.

Of course we want greener power but this is not the way to do it.

I was 100% for wind power. They said it would
cost 4cents KW hr.

I believed them. Naive.

You have completely changed my opinion which
I thought had been based on facts, but was based
on their propaganda.
This is like a religious conversion. I loved wind power. When you add in all the costs and how they can upset the grid,as well as the need for
total standby power,they are very expensive.

There is no joy in mudville,
Windpower has struck out.

Who would even contemplate wind power without some sort of storage method? Without a battery bank they are useless.

reply to post by jonnywhite


Hi, yes - when I sat it will never work I mean it will never work as a large-scale commercial source of energy.

As I think i noted domestic wind installations are OK - they work - for the individual. It is this over-hyped, over-subsidised mass wind farm nonsense that will not. Yes indeed, as you say small scale scientific needs. Ths sort of thing it is ideal for.

reply to post by ~Lucidity


You might be interested in this site which shows power generation in the UK at any given time.

When you go to the site tick the hide all box and then tick the ones I have shown here:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/30e05d622cfa.png[/atsimg]

The first box gives the Peak wind forecast and the total wind capacity for the UK.

Here it is right now:

Thursday 2011-01-27 Forecast Today Forecast Tomorrow

Time of Maximum Wind Generation
00:00 17:00

Peak (Max) MW
261 208

Total Metered Capacity (MW)
2662

It makes more sense on the screen, but they are forecasting for today 261 MW from 2662 MW installed capacity. Tomorrow it is even worse.

Sorry, don't bother with the forecast out turn. Go to the next box - Generation by fuel types.
Here you see generation in the UK with percentages for all fuel types in the UK for the last half hour and the last 24 hrs. (Power generation is metered and charged/paid in 48 half hourly periods in a trading day - 0600hrs - 0600 hrs in Ireland and I think the same in England.

WIND 252 0.5% 257 0.5% 11062 1.0%

So in the last half hour wind was running at 252Mw - less than 10% of installed capacity.out of total generation of 52160 MW - so as it says only 0.5% of the current demand.

Don't forget this is not because it does not have the capacity for more, simply that the wind is not blowing. It is cold today, frosty, and there will be more demand. This has to be made up by other sources, but the cost and associated damage and other problems of health etc are still there.

The lower graph is just a representation of all types. See if you can spot the wind in the stacked bar.

I was thinking about the comment by another poster about how they used to fully support wind power.

So did I. I was right behind it 100% no doubts and full of the "No, turbines don't spoil the countryside, they are beautiful and think of the benefits". My Mrs will tell you that. I was out and out dyed in the wool sheeple having assimilated all the BS hook line and climate warming sinker.

Then I got a job in the power industry and began to see the truth. I then researched things further and the real facts about wind power began to emerge.

Sorry, went off track.

So when they say XYZ wind farm (takes look at this one: Derrybrien ) can supply x number of homes - it is can.

59.5MW. Produces enough green energy to meet the electricity needs of more than 33,000 homes.

If you apply the percentage above (10%) of capacity this means today it will be producing 5.95 MW - enough to power 3,300 homes. Of course on a no wind day it is not supplying anything at all and a very windy day - over 55 mph (quite common here) they are also shut down to prevent damage. Pretty useless really.

I also heard - and I must be honest and say I have not verified this yet - that in really cold weather when the wind is not blowing they have to supply power TO the turbines to keep them turning slowly so they don't ice up. I doubt that would apply in Eire/UK but is something to be looked into for the US and Canada.