WIND POWER - GOOD IDEA - BAD PRACTICE?
Wind wakes affect the performance of downwind wind turbines.
Cambridge, Mass. – February 25, 2013 – “People have often thought there’s no upper bound for wind power—that it’s one of the most scalable power sources,” says Harvard applied physicist David Keith. After all, gusts and breezes don’t seem likely to “run out” on a global scale in the way oil wells might run dry.
Yet the latest research in mesoscale atmospheric modeling, published today in the journal Environmental Research Letters, suggests that the generating capacity of large-scale wind farms has been overestimated.
http://www.seas.harvard.edu/...
IMPACT OF WIND FARMS ON BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAIN ENVIRONMENT
http://www.keepersoftheblueridge.com/...
BRITAIN OPTS FOR NUCLEAR DEVELOPMENT OVER RURAL WIND TURBINES
Nuclear power station will avoid 'blight' of 30,000 wind turbines, minister says
A new generation of nuclear power stations will avoid the "blight" of building tens of thousands of wind turbines in the countryside, a minister has said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/...
THE COST TO PRODUCE WIND ENERGY IS CONTROVERSIAL
Wind power is more expensive, so adding wind power can lower costs???
Posted on October 17, 2013 by sandyjfs
When all of the costs are included, wind energy costs were found to be nearly double government estimates while raising energy costs for consumers. Yet U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing wind energy at a cost of $12 billion a year.
A study (available here) by Dr. Michael Giberson, PhD., with Texas Tech University’s Center for Energy Commerce, found that the most frequently cited estimates of wind energy costs fail to include all of the costs, including wind power capacity and integrating wind power into transmission grids. The complexity of the power grid and the technical nature of most studies make it hard for policy makers and the general public to understand them, he wrote.
The federal government devotes substantially more financial resources to subsidize the production of wind power than it does to study wind power. The GAO counted over 80 separate federal programs offering economic support to wind power producers, though the largest program by a wide margin is the Production Tax Credit. State and local governments offer additional support. Government subsidies for wind power naturally raise questions concerning costs and benefits associated with the policy. Indeed, a complete policy analysis would assess both costs and benefits in a complete and consistent manner. Perhaps surprisingly given the extent of federal policy support for wind power, no systematic effort has been made to calculate the overall net benefit (or cost) of public policies supporting wind power.
The money quote: “So long as wind power remains more expensive than the alternatives, adding wind power cannot reduce the overall cost of power to the economy….”
http://junkscience.com/...
THERE ARE REAL DEATHS ASSOCIATED WITH WIND POWER PRODUCTION
Forget Eagle Deaths, Wind Turbines Kill Humans
In England, there were 163 wind turbine accidents that killed 14 people in 2011. Wind produced about 15 billion kWhrs that year, so using a capacity factor of 25%, that translates to about 1,000 deaths per trillion kWhrs produced (the world produces 15 trillion kWhrs per year from all sources).
These are pretty low numbers. By contrast, in 2011 coal produced about 180 billion kWhrs in England with about 3,000 related deaths. Nuclear energy produced over 90 billion kWhrs in England with no deaths. In that same year, America produced about 800 billion kWhrs from nuclear with no deaths.
http://www.forbes.com/...
WIND ENERGY FACTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD
Wind Energy is a Failed Technology - evidence from around the world
Germany (size of Montana ) is the world's largest user of wind technology. Over the last 20 years, Germany has erected 18,000 wind turbines that have only been able to generate 6% of the country's total electricity supply.
In Feb. 2005, the German Government's energy agency released a report that concluded that wind plants were an expensive and inefficient way of generating sustainable energy and also had serious environmental effects.
This same report suggested reduction of greenhouse gases could be more effectively and cheaply reduced by simply installing filters on existing fossil-fuel plants.
Denmark has 6000 wind turbines; in 2003 that country's greenhouse gas emissions increased 7.3% over 2002 levels.
Despite being blanketed with wind turbines, Denmark has not been able to shut down one single conventional power plant.
Development of onshore wind plants in Denmark has effectively stopped. The Government has cancelled plans for three offshore wind plants for 2008 and has scheduled the withdrawal of subsidies for existing sites.
The California Energy Commission reported that the state's 14,000 turbines produced half of one percent of their electricity in 2002. Extrapolating this record to the U.S. as a whole, it would take over 100,000 wind turbines spread over 10 million acres of land (costing $150-300 billion) to produce 5% of the country's electricity.
Kansas politician Frank Miller was quoted in a press release stating wind plants in Kansas were only expected to supply 1% of the energy used in the state.
The Wind Industry is meeting much public resistance in Europe, especially in Germany and Denmark , the inefficiency has become apparent and people are angry at the cost of wasted resources. The industry is searching for a bigger market in the U.S. to replace lost sales in Europe .
http://www.keepersoftheblueridge.com/...