Wind Farm, Wind Park, Wind Sheep, Wind Cows, & Wind-Flowers?
This week’s note on mangling English: Since when was an industrial plant a farm? Electricity does not grow, breathe, or look cute in photos. There is nothing biological to sell.
Some will say the term “farm” has broader definitions now. I say we might as well call a coal-fired-plant a “coal farm”, or Fukishima a “nuclear-farm” (that had a “farming accident”)?
The word “farm” has been stolen for its good PR value. Let’s take it back.
Industrial wind turbines are a massive subsidy swamp that produces almost nothing that can’t be provided in cheaper and more efficient ways elsewhere.
Can someone let Wikipedia know that Industrial Wind Turbines are not “Wind Parks” either?
Photo: “Windpark-Wind-Farm” by Philip May – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
What is the collective noun for that group?
You know, like a murder of crows and a gaggle of geese.
A scam of wind turbines?
How about the clinical option – a “turbine array”.
Or a “wind trap” – which carries appropriate connotations for investors.
OK, it’s a “wind grab” – which implies it reaches for, but doesn’t necessary capture all of, the wind.
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That is quite witty, Andrew M.
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The collective noun needs to have the word ‘concrete’ in there somewhere.
A highly carbon-intensive part of the wind farm is the parts you cannot see. It is the part under the ground – thousands and thousands of tonnes of concrete per ‘farm’.
The manufacture of cement – ie, concrete when mixed with other components – is a highly energy intensive industrial process. It depends on reliable base load electricity, nothing to do with intermittent power sources. For those who worry about the carbon footprint of various energy sources, we have to continually bring them back to the fact that a ‘concrete intensive zephyr capture plant’ (wind farm) has nothing to do with reducing the carbon footprint of electricity generation.
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In California the concrete for anchoring wind farm turbines is manufactured using energy from the burning of old farm tractor tyres, for which at least half the rubber is natural and comes from trees. Wind farms are entirely about reducing Carbon emissions, David Mason.
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BilB. A ludicrous response from you. Okay, let’s do some ‘quantity surveying’. How many old tractor tyres to make one tonne of cement? How many tonnes of cement to make all the concrete for one wind turbine? How many old tractor tyres to make all the concrete in one wind ‘farm’ in California? How many old tractor tyres for all the wind ‘farms’ in California?
Now let’s expand the calculation to other states of the United States. How many wind ‘farms’ in the USA? Calculate from this, how many old tractor tyres are needed?
Now let’s expand the scope again – to the other countries of the world. How many old tractor tyres to make all the concrete in all the all the wind ‘farms’? I guess this raises the question, How many old tractor tyres in the world?
Now, once we’ve calculated all that, let’s turn our attention to the embedded energy in the other things to make a wind turbine. What about the aluminium? Have you ever heard the throw-away line that aluminium is a form of congealed electricity? It certainly is. Making aluminium is an energy intensive process with a huge ‘carbon footprint’. Do you propose using old tractor tyres for this energy input too?
No matter how you do the sums on the energy needs of building wind ‘farms’, they gobble up a vast amount of energy – and a high proportion of this energy can only come from fossil fuels. Again, I repeat, a wind farm has nothing to do with reducing the carbon footprint of electricity generation.
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One other aspect of wind turbine manufacture is the magnets.
A single 3MW can use up to 2,700kg of magnets based on the rare earth neodymium, which is fairly difficult stuff to mine and purify, as well as being uncommon in nature.
In fact, 97% of the neodymium used comes from China. How about that for ‘energy security’?
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Rick: Rare earth’s are not actually rare. It’s a misnomer. They often a pain to mine and refine and occur with radioactive elements, however.
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I’m hapy to talk to you about wasted energy DavidM when you atually have something meaningful to say.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2337351/Worlds-biggest-tyre-graveyard-Incredible-images-Kuwaiti-landfill-site-huge-seen-space.html
http://www.scraptirenews.com/tdf.php
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BilB,
Regardless of whether it was intentional or unintended on your part, this statement is a red-herring. It diverts attention from the fact that the production of concrete is an energy intensive operation. Meaning that it really doesn’t matter what fuel is used to produce the energy required to produce the concrete, unless the concrete is produced using hydro or nuclear, there will always be a large amount of co2 produced as a by-product.
So you agree that there will be large amounts of co2 produced from the burning of natural rubber which comes from trees.
In fact, the only reasonable and logical calculation that must be made in order to determine what form of energy plant is less co2 intensive, either the wind-based power plant or the fossil fuel based power plant is as follows:
1. Determine how much co2 is produced in the manufacture of a wind based power plant.
2. Determine how much co2 is produced in the manufacture of a fossil-fuel based power plant.
3. Determine how much electricity will be produced during the expected lifetime of each of the types of power plant being compared.
4. In order for the comparison to be valid and sound, from a scientific point of view, the actual electrical output of each plant must be the same, not the nameplate.
5. The energy output of both plants needs to be expressed both in Mw/year and Mw/lifetime of the plant.
Agood place for you to start lookinginto the huge qmounts of co2 production required in the construction of wind-based power plants is How Much CO2 Gets Emitted to Build a Wind Turbine?
Wind farms are promoted as being entirely about reducing Carbon emissions, BilB. A careful and concientious calculation of the actual co2 production required by the construction of wind-based power plants shows that, without a doubt, they produce more co2 than they will ever mitigate.
Abe
Disclaimer: I have used the word ‘production’ rather than the word ’emission’ when referring to the co2 released into the atmosphere because, as in so many other cases, the words in the English language have been intentionally hijacked by adherents to CAGW ™ and promoters of so-called ‘renewable energy sources’, to mean something other than what they were intended to mean.
In this particular case, co2 is labeled an ’emission’ so as to give it the negative connotation connected with other emissions of harmful pollutants. CO2, in and of itself, is not a pollutant and is not dangerous to human life or for that matter, any other life on this planet. It is in fact the primary source of food for all plants and plankton on the planet. Without co2, all life on Earth would cease to exist.
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David, I have tried to point this (and other uncomfortable environmental facts about turbines) out over at the Fairfax pages, but readers there are convinced wind turbines are made of pixie dust and planted by fairies as they dance around in the moonlight. Consequently they only produce the cleanest purest nicest energy all the time.
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Well famrs need lots of fertilizer, and there certianly has been truckloads of that applied….
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An abattoir of eagles?
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A “slaughter of turbines” to compliment a “murder of crows”.
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I’d go with “unicorn f@rt plant”.
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Maybe even a “$WINDle of unicorn f@rts”.
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As subsidy of wind turbines?
Pointman
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A curse of windmills?
A scourge of windmills?
How about5 a blight of windmills?
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An infestation of windmills.
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A plague?
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now you’re talking
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A blight of turbines.
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An “occupation”?
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A “Tilt” of turbines
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Actually, a “Tilt” of windmills works too.
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You mean like prostitution?
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He meant both without really knowing it.
Abe
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A convection mine, a mincer maze or a fart yard.
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They’re called wind farms because they farm subsidies.
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And they farm those subsidies very well,in fact the only better business than that is the Climate Scientists Grant,which has much lower overheads and start up costs.
Not only does the Climate Scientist Grant have low start up costs it uses no outside components everything is in-house,all that is needed is to produce data,any data,it doesn’t even need to be of any use or have any truth to it,I know some people will say “what about the Stevenson Screens”,well what about them,they were built by the govt from taxes and as we have seen they have no practical use especially by the BoM.
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Here (UK) we had a cartoon with two farmer-types leaning on a fence looking into a field with a notice reading “Wind Farm Site” – one farmer saying to the other: Next year’s subsidy crop’s looking good, already.
Why “farm”? – Part of the propaganda – you know, reminds people of a few contented cows.
I object to the word “turbine”. Again it’s part of the propaganda – windmills are those old things of past centuries, made of timber – whereas these are products of a technological age. What is incorrect about “turbine” is that any turbine, gas or liquid, driving or driven, involves a pressure casing. Thank God no one has suggested that – yet.
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Oh, good grief.
They are just money spinners!
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But another thought nestles into a comfortable corner of what passes for Rereke’s brain:
A generator is more or less the same as a motor. It all depends on where the energy goes in.
We were discussing where excess power went a little while ago, and the thought occurs to me, that the windmills might just be fans, that are used to get rid of any excess energy on the grid caused by variable supply sources.
If that supposition was correct, wouldn’t that be a hoot?
Would somebody with more electrical power engineering expertise than I have, care to comment?
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The most efficient way to waste energy is to just heat a coil of heavy gauge wire, but with enough subsidies an entire fleet of low-efficiency motors turning blades to suck air and con the public is more self-sustaining apparently.. 😉
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Unfortunately Rereke, these bloody things even have to obey a few of the rules placed on other power producers.
A reverse current relay opens the main breaker as soon as power approaches the opposite direction.
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Presumably some of them dont do this, which is maybe why they burn ?
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You may be correct
Rereke. I have occasionally thought that the curvature of the blades on the modern windmills is the wrong way round. The curvature is the same as that of a propeller whilst for a turbine it should curve the other way.
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My website has a graphics page with some names I’ve used. Alters to Al Gore is what I frequently call them. That’s why they are tall and white. Purity that can be seen for miles.
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A model T Ford fitted with an alternator?
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I thought you meant it grabs your money.
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A Cathedral of Eco-crucifixes.
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They are feather farms.
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“Cluster”
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I am not sure that “bird-chopping, bat shredding, worm repelling eye-sores” will catch on …
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A ‘Laceration of windmills’ maybe?
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I thought it was because wind grows there. After all, they have all those windmills there just waiting to take advantage of the wind when it starts to grow. 😉
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You just water it and fertilize it like any farm and there you have it, amber waves of wind like the song says. 😉
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But Roy you need lots of lovely co2 to make it grow.
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And the complainers tell us that there’s plenty of CO2. So it should work out well all around.
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And that little red thumb has never developed a sense of humor. I’ll tell you what, red thumb, if I could I’d give every comment I make a red thumb just so you won’t have to come along and do it for me. But the site doesn’t permit that.
So there! See how accommodating I am. 🙂
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Good catch. I suppose the thought is “harvesting” the wind. (Which is a little scary-let the wind live and run free.)
Facility is probably the most neutral term (for an aggregated set of sources) and I hear it in the industry a lot for all types of generators.
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A bit silly – we have fuel farms at airports and elsewhere, and have done for years. And one of the causes of the French Revolution was tax farming.
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We also have fuel dumps, oil dumps, ammunition dumps…
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Fuel depots in Australia now, Tim. We no longer have fuel farms as we import the stuff, rather than producing and refining it.
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Which Magna Carta did nothing to stop
In fact, this activity has become more and more creative – eg. tax on a tax (GST on Stamp Duty); tax on breathing out (CO2, serves us right for metabolising all the time) …
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Metabolising? Definitely.
From what i’ve heard, the single largest cause of GHG emissions is cattle. More than transport.
Strange how there’s lots of talk about renewable power but no talk of meat taxes. Maybe those bureaucrats at the UNFCCC like a decent steak as much as the rest of us.
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Actually tank farms which store the fuel in fuel depots. Fuel dumps went out when the EPA came in!
MareeS, still refined at Geelong (Corio), Altona, Kwinana, and Bulwer Island (at the moment but could close this afternoon), but not much coming out of Bass Strait, etc now.
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Hi Jo, firstly thanks for many years of posting, this is one of my regular haunts.
However I think your clutching at straws(turbines)here. Ever heard of a tank farm, a collection of “things” in a field perhaps it should be a turbine farm though.
One definition I found is “A place devoted to producing or promoting something” generally applied to agriculture but not always, puppy or mink farm for instance, there aren’t many other examples I accept
Keep up the good work.
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Misuse of the term “farm” for tanks doesn’t justify using the term wrong. Puppies and minks are probably considered livestock, which means they really are farms just like with cattle, emus, chicken and ducks. Livestock and crops are farms. Industrial storage and wind turbines are not. It may be clutching at straws, but language does matter. If you open up words to any meaning desired, there’s no reality left. If I call a strip mall a business farm, does that make it a farm?
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Except that “farm” in this broader usage has been on-going for many, many years. According to my copy of the OED, farm has had multiple uses related to the original Latin firma.
Corporations often use the expression farm out in the sense of contracting work outside the company to other firms. Work is a more nebulous thing than land, and the use of farm in this sense shows how broad its usage is and has been for centuries.
The use of the verb farm or farm out in the sense of allowing the generic use of property by others goes back to 1593 or farther. See Shakespeare’s Richard II.
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A Greens Animal Farm?
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Ahh Very good!
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Jorge, my SOED gives the first historical meaning of farm as a fixed annual amount of rent or tax. The wind “farmers” may accidentally be closer to the truth than I realised.
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Yes, it’s so stated in my compact edition, and is of ancient origin. I think it’s a no-brainer. But I do like “wind park.” It has that euphemistic, green-weenie panache. And if I say, “I own a wind park,” people don’t look for dirt under my fingernails and cow poop on my boots.
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My ex was into vermiculture.
A box of dirt full of worms is a “worm farm”.
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Sheri,
The beautiful thing about language (especially and sometimes unfortunately English) is its ability to create new words and terms and adapt old ones to describe new concepts and circumstances. The number of words and terms added to the English lexicon, hence to the dictionary this way, just since I was born is awe inspiring. The computer alone has spawned so many terms and adaptations of words that I would be at a loss to count them. See definition 6 for “chip”. It never existed prior to invention of the integrated circuit.
However, I agree with you, we shouldn’t do it in quite such cavalier fashion as to redefine what the word farm means with no regard for its historical meaning; although, no one seems to have trouble understanding the meaning when “wind farm” is used — a place where wind is harvested by some means (specifically for electricity). It’s exactly the way new “things” enter our language so we can talk about them.
If these wind turbines stick around long enough I would expect the two words to be combined into windturbine and we have a new word in the human lexicon. God forbid they stick around that long though.
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Elton John should put out another version of his tired ditty: “Like a windmill in the wind.”
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Maybe “Scandal in the wind”?
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Or “pis_ing in the wind”.
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Greg
Jerry Jeff Walker has already sung that one with a refrain line
“The answer is p-I-t-w”
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I was about to complain on this very thing today somewhere. Thanks Jo!
It is a power plant, yet it does not even generate a lot of power – unless you make a huge 200metre tall monster; and still it provides power only if it happens to be windy but not too windy.
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Surprising Countries Where Solar and Wind Are Booming (NatGeo, July 2015)
NatGeo in 2005 suggested CO2 might create 50 million environmental refugees by 2010
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I must have missed the news on where those 50 million environmental refugees went.
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They are currently standing on a particularly boring island in the South Sandwich Group, toe to toe, waiting for it to sink under the tide from all the melting Antarctic ice, that is due any day now. They spend most of the time taking selfies, on their iphones, and complaining that the Royal Navy Supply Ship has gotten lost, again. 😉
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On a similar note, in my many attempts to protect my family from Eco-Lunacy(tm) , I told my 10 year old the fact you could put the entire earths population into NSW and they would have a 3m x 3m space to themselves.
Then you would have an empty rest-of-planet and plenty of space to go around….
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Thanks for the National Geographic link, Handjive.
It really amazes me that this BS gets into print. The writers live in their own little fantasy word. As I always say, Isaac Asimov couldn’t have done better for a science fiction story.
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I noticed that Time Magazines “Man of the Year” in 1938 was one Adolf Hitler…..
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,760539,00.html
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I notice most of the top 5 countries they list are now in financial ‘difficulties’.
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Wot a surprise. Not.
It’s most likely why they’re in financial difficulties.
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Talking of spin: My dictionary says a “turbine” is something top-shaped that spins rapidly. I suggest “windmill” or “airscrew” as apter.
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Oh, Peter, so Qantas’s aircraft are powered by “jet airscrews” are they? I’ll keep an eye out for that description.
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Quantas jet engines.
Top shaped, you know, shapped like a spinning top? They are.
And spinning rapidly, well they do that too?
Which part got you confused?
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Actually not far from the truth! Jet engines are just a huge air compressor, they ram (screw) air down into a smaller space then expand it to produce thrust.
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Peter Shaw
They are definitely windmills, similar to that of Cervantes’ in the book Don Quixote. This time however, the imaginary solution of windmills tilt at the imaginary enemy named CO2.
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You’ll all be thrilled to know that NSW farmers know what a wind farm is. So much so they’ve voted to have more of them. They’ve voted to to promote renewable energy. They’ve voted to drop the ridiculous idea of a royal commission on climate change. They’ve voted,…over 99.99 percent. Unanimously.
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NSW farmers, BilB? They’re a diverse lot, between agriculture, horticulture, grazing, broad-acre cropping, livestock specialists, vignerons, the equine industry. Where’s your link?
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mareeS,
As reported here on JoNova by pat.
Young farmers rewrite NSW Farmers climate change policy
Abe
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Second link not working.
From first link.
“Young Farmers triumphed over sceptics and complex meeting procedures to push climate change onto the agenda at the New South Wales Farmers Association annual conference.”
So, I’d hardly call that NSW farmers, just a couple of farmers from NSW.
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young, gullible and stupid.
When they grow up they will hopefully come to their senses !
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Greg Cavanagh,
Sorry I missed your reply when you made it. The second link was to this story:
Young farmers rewrite NSW Farmers climate change policy
Abe
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Farmers I know are not on side with the extreme Greens
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How much will they earn for each eco-crucifix on their land? I call that subsidy farming.
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In the United States, landowners can make over $10,000 per turbine in rental on a 20 year lease. Lowest amouts are somewhere aroung $2000 to $3000. You can also negotiate for a percentage of production, though that’s a dumb idea since turbines almost never perform as advertised. You cannot get rid of the turbine when it turns out to be noisy, you lose more land than you thought for a “safety zone”, etc. It’s best to be sure you really, really want that money before signing the lease.
There are many, many farmers and ranchers who love turbine money. Who doesn’t love a government handout? And farmers and ranchers in the US gets many, many handouts from the government, so this is just one more. This does come with a huge spinning tower of death on your property, but if it’s far enough away, who cares? Many your neighbors, but tough luck, right? It’s money for free!
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If energy prices must “necessarily skyrocket,” then going with a percentage rather than a flat annual payment is far from “dumb.” Besides, some leases include provision for a minimum quarterly payment per turbine, running or not, in addition to any energy payment.
Ultimately, it may not matter.
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I think the “necessarily skyrocket” applies to the consumer, not the wholesaler. In the US, contracts can be for 20 years with a built in 3% increase per year at a rate far above current prices. Some turbine owners do get paid for the turbine projected output whether or not it occurs. However, since our wind company is always weaseling out of property taxes by claiming lower production and therefore less value, I would bet wind companies make sure they get any surplus and not the lessee. If you can get an airtight, minimum quarterly payment per turbine, that would seem to me to be basically the same as a set lease of say $5000 per turbine. If the contract calls for more payment if the facility (turbines) exceed the projected amount, as long as you are guaranteed the minimum, it might make sense. (I’m not trusting of wind companies. I’ve seen them lie over and over.)
I agree that it may not matter in the end.
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Lets how they would respond BilB if a 2000 windmill dump is placed atop of the alluvial flats and prime AG land on the Liverpool plains.
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As I said before: “windmill dump or dumps” is a better description for me at least.
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Follow the money.
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But, of course Bilb, given that windmills are nett CO2 negative over their short lives, they can’t exactly be described as renewable, or even sustainable, can they? Would be better off growing apples, or even the biodiesel feed – weed caster oil on that land. At least then that land might actually make a difference to CO2 – but noooo!, gotta have that ecologically damaging wind or solar power hey?
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Bobl,
Flat out wrong. All of the sources I canvassed, including thd Wikipaedia, agreed on an EROI for wind of 18 ie produces 18 times the energy required to build it.
Someone has fed you a load of crap, you have not verified it, you have believed it, and now you are repeating it.
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Goodness me! All the sources you canvassed!
Well if that is what it says in “thd wikipaedia”, then it must be the gospel in the land of the Green religion.
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I verified your numbers—they appear to apply to commercial turbines, which are much larger and have a much higher EROI than the home versions. Here are a couple of interesting link:
Wind power has a high EROI value, with the mean perhaps as high as 18:1 (as derived in an existing meta-analysis by Kubiszewski et al., 2010) or even 20:1 (n of 26 from 18 publications) (see Lambert et al., 2012 for references) (Fig. 3). The value in practice may be less due to the need for backup facilities. (My bold)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421513003856
For a case where total energy input is higher (such as offshore wind), and total energy output is low (nearshore, downwind from land), you might get 18 times as much energy generated as put in. But as we only have one commercial offshore wind farm in the world that’s reached the end of its design life (Vindeby, built 1991-2), it’s still generating electricity (beyond its expected 20-year life), and is quite different to more modern wind farms (a lower-capacity onshore turbine installed very close to shore), these are best estimates.
http://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/2505/what-is-investment-outcome-ratio-for-wind-energy-in-terms-of-energy-eroei
FOR those interested in wind as a viable alternative to fossil fuels, this have some interesting data on the complete impossibility with today’s technology. It also have numbers for the amounts of materials, etc, involved in commercial turbine manufacture. Wind in NOT a clean, free energy source. Wind may be renewable, but the amounts of material required to build the wind gatherers is phenomenal.
http://www.theenergycollective.com/robertwilson190/344771/can-you-make-wind-turbine-without-fossil-fuels
00
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I think most of you are aware of how I detest that word ‘farm’ when attached to the word wind.
I have always referred to them as wind plants, because after all it is a power plant.
I really think they intentionally wanted to get away from using the word plant, and use the word ‘farm’ to give it a subliminally warmer and fuzzier feel, almost making them sound green.
Tony.
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Tony, how about Windmill Array Subsidized Turbine Energy Development?
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Not clear enough for the general public to extrapolate. How about the military term which many know better: WOFTAM
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It’s all academic, Tony. Jo has already noted that the term ‘Wind Park’ is already in use. Doesn’t a ‘wind park’ sound a lot less smelly and dirty than a ‘wind farm?’ Wind park it shall be.
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Tony, you must realise that they are farming – subsidy money from the tax payers. The turbines are a bit of a problem because they don’t want them but need them to be able to harvest the money.
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Gaols (correctional centres) are also referred to as “the farm”.
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Some prisons were actual farms where the inmates were used as labor to grow their own food.
Also applies to the “funny farm” for the mentally ill.
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I believe, iirc, according to the OED, “the Farm” originally was applied to the infirmary at a prison.
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Well you see you are driving down this road admiring the scenery and thinking this might be a good place to set up camp when you come cross this nice bit of open country with its rolling hills and its obviously good rainfall / good winds so you seek out an agent / government handout body and arrange to get your operation going on some of that fine country.
You find yourself a co-operative bank manager / some investor suckers and get the money organised / corporate affairs sorted out and a bit of to-ing and fro-ing with the local council / state government ministers to get title to the land you need for your operation.
First up will be some income earning machinery so that shiny new foreign built large Horse Power 4 wheel drive tractor / that foreign built 100 metre high turbine towers with those 30 metre long turbine blades plus the various bits of machinery to go along with the big gear all financed by your co-operative bank manager / your mates in the Government’s Climate change Department and you can get on with starting to work that soil / digging those bloody big holes to bury a 150 tonnes of concrete and steelbar in.
You sow your crop / erect those turbines and put plenty of fertilizer on it / release numerous glowing press releases full of bull shit to ensure that your crop and its yield / your application for the lucrative government subsidy will be able to give you a good return
Then of course you wait for it to rain enough / for the wind to blow hard enough so as to ensure your are going to get a good return on your crop, / you are going to get lots of subsidy returns for the power your turbines generate.
Sometimes, in fact often the rain doesn’t come in the amounts you and your bank manager had hoped for / the wind doesn’t blow like you and your sucker investors hoped it would and the income is not what you hoped it would be.
And then the bottom falls out of the international markets for your product / the government subsidies are reigned in and you find you are like those overseas operators who like yourself are also copping hell from the market / whose governments are also nearly broke and won’t pay the subsidies and the economics start to look very bad indeed.
Finally the day comes when the hard decision must be made and you have to walk sickenly away from your farm investment under great pressure from your bank manager with nothing much left for your future / loaded with cash that you have scraped very quietly off the side un-beknowns to your sucker investors and your generous subsidy supplying government department.
Why are Wind Farms called “Farms”?
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Why don’t we call them corruption personified.
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Wind Camp?
Wind Gulag?
Stalag Luft? (sorry to Germans, a WW2 reference)
Einzats Luft Gruppen? (ditto, but even nastier)
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Is the last “Air cluster duck”?
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A wind farm is one great eyesore,
Wasting acres of land by the score,
Being mostly inactive,
And not near as attractive,
As the follies in England of yore.
220
Taking back the language is a good idea.
Natural gas
Natural coal
Natural oil . . .
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I vote for “Wind Cemetry”
Where wind goes to die. Millions of Germans will testify to that.
(Some) People never thought that taking energy out of the wind would change the weather.
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Funny thought that and one which often bothered me when I was soaring in a glider.
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You’d definitely notice that in a glider.
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Absolutely. That was why it worried me.
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I always use “Wind plant” the same as any other power plant (as Tony notes he does). I have always told people these are NOT farms. It was a lie to try and make the environmental impact look benign. I usually end up saying “There are NO wind turbine seeds” and farming is in no way involved. It’s a power plant, plain and simple. In the US, they may have been called “farms” because they turbines were “planted” on Iowa farms. If one called them industrial, zoning entered. That’s still a factor in some places, which is why wind plant developers look for places with no zonig regulations. In Wyoming, if you plan to put in a large wind power plant, the industrial siting commission is involved. Clearly, these are industrial, not farming.
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He Who Owns The Language Owns The Mind
-Anonymous
Abe
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For those inclined to be PC:
Those Who Own The Language Own The Mind
-Anonymous
Abe
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They are farms. Subsidy farms.
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Puh-leez! Subsidy parks.
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Subsidy perks.
40
The collective noun for wind turbines should be “a disappointment”.
140
Farms? Shamanistic henges erected to ward off evil carbon spirits and proof that ill educated politicians believe in earth, wind and fire and water and not science. You can add hot rocks and tides. Tim Flannery talks insanely about Gaia and earth worship, suggesting we form a bond with the planet as equals and that the planet actually cares. King Harold’s Danish grandfather Canute could talk about the uselessness of convincing people that a king does not control the waves or the weather, but we have to learn it all again.
This is not the advance of science, conquering our fears and providing for the future. It is a short term, useless exercise in massive waste because so many people have no idea how their phones work. Harnessing the power of the Twitterati. As Christiana Figueres says gleefully, a real opportunity for wealth transfer which has nothing whatever to do with the weather or the climate. Power hungry officials are planning the end of the Western world in Paris and the end of democracy, handing power to the unelected communists of the UN supported worldwide by Green parties, Green councils and socialist Green media around the world. Green is the new Red.
121
“Living near a wind turbine could harm emotional wellbeing after scientists discovered that low frequency sounds generated by rotor blades trigger a part of the brain which senses danger.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11736728/Wind-turbines-may-trigger-danger-response-in-brain.html
90
It’s also possible that the flicker of the blade motion in peripheral vision also serves as a trigger.
110
Hi all,
I’m looking for some help.
My memory would have it that I’ve read a quote somewhere, from Richard Muller, that goes to the effect “If it weren’t for Anthony Watts, we would not have good data”
Unfortunately, I can’t locate that quote. Can someone suggest any quote similar to that, and where I might find it?
40
Did you mean :-
“There were issues about station quality – Anthony Watts had shown that many of the stations had poor quality. We had studied that in great detail. Fortunately, we discovered that station quality did not affect the results. Even poor stations reflect temperature changes accurately.”
from this report if an interview ?
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2012/08/carbon-brief-interviews-richard-muller-transcript/
10
Thanks Eddie.
That’s very close, but not the one I’m looking for.
My current idea is that I must have attributed it incorrectly. Thanks for your help.
00
A single windmill is ‘wind trash’ so a collection of them at one location must form a ‘wind dump’.
140
Wind plantation.
40
Windmill forest
00
On Shorten’s new Carbon Tax, the story is that businesses would be forced to buy offsets overseas.
Now taxes can be wrong, unfair and even stupid, like a payroll tax as a disincentive to hiring anyone or a stamp duty to penalize people who buy a home. However at least it goes into general revenue. This offsets idea is money flowing out of the country to persons unknown to buy bits of paper which allow us to continue to burn our own coal. It is far worse than a tax. It will devastate the country increasing our National debt for nothing. Carbon indulgences.
When you consider that Australia contributes less than 2% to world CO2 and 98% of the CO2 in our country comes from overseas, we will be the ones paying? If CO2 was truly pollution and it all belonged to other people, 50% from China say, we should be nett receivers of money. As it is some of our cash will go to subsidize dam building and hydro schemes in China when we are not even allowed build dams? Not a tax, no it is the worst sort of Tax. A stupid impost given as gift to foreign countries whom we allege are substantially damaging our environment. What part of that makes sense?
At least Carbon Bill has said it was all ‘rubbish’ and promised there will not be a carbon tax in a government he leads.
111
100% Proof a carbon(sic) tax works!
JULY 04, 2011: Julia Gillard renews warnings as she returns to the scientific debate on climate change
“JULIA Gillard has invoked a doomsday-like scenario of metre-high sea level rises and a 2000km southward shift of Australia’s climactic zones as she battles an opposition scare campaign over her proposed carbon tax.”
> As everyone knows, Australia got Julia’s carbon(sic) tax. Kevin got a kiss.
July 16, 2015: Eastern Australia’s ongoing cold snap sees homeless move north
SYDNEY, July 16 (Xinhua) — Homeless people from Australia’s south which is experiencing a record and sustained cold snap are heading north to warmer areas.
. . .
If you believe that, leave your phone number below, I have some property you might be interested in.
90
oops.
Link:
Julia Gillard renews warnings as she returns to the scientific debate on climate change
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/no-tax-on-fuel-but-greens-win-productivity-commission-inquiry/story-fn59niix-1226087140792
50
.
Hand jive @ #31
I thought you specialised in bridge sales 🙂
70
It’s going to be interesting to see how the truth will eventually unfold. The accountants will be interesting to listen to.
One of the nasty little things about the windmills is their gearboxes. They’re `designed to last 25 years.’ Yeah right. Each windmill will need a new gearbox within about 5 years. It’s the bearings, y’ know. They crack. At USD100,000 per g’box … every 5 years … plus costs to install, that’s a big maintenance/repair cost. A million per 10 turbines.
I can’t see windmills ever breaking even, let alone being profitable.
100
Brilliant. More Green jobs they’ll argue.
60
As they rapidly turn from moral hazard to maintenance hazard.
10
You need thousands of wind turbines to produce the same power as one conventional power station. It is ridiculous to think that thousands of units of anything can be as reliable or economical as a single thing they are meant to replace. Conventional power stations are highly economical and will reliably run for decades (or more) with minimal basic maintenance.
70
Thousands of Green jobs then. Heh heh.
30
Speaking of reliability, exactly what does thousands of green jobs produce?
What’s better, a thousand small hand drills, or a single large industrial drill press?
10
I don’t know. POTUS keeps speaking about them. They seem to come and go quite quickly, rarely staying long enough to be categorised more tightly than phylum or class.
00
A Grinding of Turbines…
80
Lessons for Investors: many investors have been shocked by recent events, although they can’t really complain that there were no warning signs. Investing in a company or an asset whose economics depends upon government support / subsidy automatically carries policy risk.
experience from across Europe over the past five years shows that this often leads to very nasty shocks and the destruction of capital.
See
https://javatar.bluematrix.com/pdf/[email protected]
60
The huge losses on the Euro Emissions Trading Scheme from “phrawdz” and outright “misappropriations” and more “borrowings without permission” of truly awesome size and scope, must surely inspire and ignite great investor confidence.
Now that’s really the way to run an emissions trading scheme!
Oceania: take note.
20
Jo
O/T – a different sort of farming?
“Green donations splurged on swanky HQ”
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2015/7/16/green-donations-splurged-on-swanky-hq.html
50
For my money I’ll stick with the generic descriptor ‘windmill’ as it has come to imply a large aerofoil. The former wind powered sail rigged blades that drove a grain grinder or water pump should be honoured as the step forward it was in AD 500.
Anyway, wind power was superseded by methods associated with reliable and substantial power generation, and it will clearly be superseded once again, except perhaps in odd corners of the globe where small versions might have persisting domestic utility.
However, if someone does come up with truck-mobile fusion powered generators, they’ll be more green jobs to be had deconstructing nearly useless WIND FOLLIES that blight the sea and land.
60
A folly of windmills- sounds good!
50
Perfect and in keeping, given the upcoming escargot extravaganza in Paris this December. Les Folies Bergère is one of the city’s most renowned classic cabarets and “theaters of the people”.
50
Ken,
I agree with the idea but your expression is a bit general IMO as it looks to disparage the humble but still useful water pumping ones.
Collectively then something like “The Electrical Follies”?
40
I understand that it is known as marketing hyperbole and puffery. The Church of Climate Change have mastered the art of creating feel good images for the gullible public.
60
How about a “subsidy farm”? It “farms” subsidies.
They are also good for the farmer whom, I believe, earns about $5,000 per year per turbine for use of the land.
Also, there is a good break down of CO2 generated in the construction of a wind turbine here. http://stopthesethings.com/2014/08/16/how-much-co2-gets-emitted-to-build-a-wind-turbine (Not saying CO2 is a problem, but minimising CO2 emissions is the very reason for building these things and they probably use more CO2 in their construction than they ever save.)
110
Farm as somewhere to grow food or raise animals is a more recent meaning of the word. It was originally to do with rents, leases and annual rates. See: http://www.etymonline.com
I checked with the Oxford English Dictionary and they agree. I had to get down to Meaning 5 before it mentioned land at all: “A tract of land held on a lease …”.
30
Of course Australia has experienced period of snow falling many times but I cannot remember a time when so many roads and highways were closed to traffic in New South Wales.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-17/snow-coats-parts-of-nsw/6626632
30
Dennis,
Windmills turn very unreliable in cold and snowy weather.
20
The “farming” is of subsidies, or should I say a whole lot of milking going on.
50
Just taking in the Commentary above now and I see that Dave had already nailed it at #38
30
I thought of this acronym but it needs more work and word suggestions, especially the R word.
WIND FARM
What Insanity Nutters Did For Australian gReenhouse Madness
50
‘Wind Pharm’, because you’d need to be on drugs to see its benefits unless you’re just plain stupid which I wouldn’t imagine.
40
That ‘you’ isn’t directed at Dave of course, but rather at one. Anyone who thinks windmills are an affordable source for Grid connected electricity or will deliver reduced CO2 emissions
50
I understood that Eddie, but thanks for the clarification. 🙂
30
My preferred term for ‘wind farms’ is ‘industrial wind estates’.
50
Wind Farms? Raise false hopes, harvest public money requiring vast and continuing public subsidies, reproduce wildly covering the landscape, work only randomly when the wind blows and almost never when required, cost a fortune to establish and even more to harvest with a totally unpredictable return. Then you have a high probability of total collapse inside twenty years when stuck by rust or the end of normal lifespan. Then the farm will have to be rebuilt from scratch. They should be painted citrus yellow.
40
Christopher Booker has a good article about the devastation caused by this mad Green mania for renewables and bio-fuels.
All this idiocy is supported by the Labor and Green parties but their new co2 tax dream wouldn’t alter the temp by any measurable reading at all.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11718550/Why-are-greens-so-keen-to-destroy-the-worlds-wildlife.html
30
Has anybody here got anything good to say about the wind turbine scamming industry at all?
They don’t seem to have so I will make a positive [ ? ] suggestion!
“If” and maybe “as” we start to enter a period of falling global temperatures as is being increasingly predicted as Solar activity declines it might be advantageous for the likes of those semi frozen regions such as Tasmanians and South Island Kiwis to erect lots and lots of turbines.
There will be no need to connect them to anything and in fact not making them do any real work like generating electricity will be a big saver on the community’s power costs.
But they will warm things up by about 0.72 C per decade according to NASA.
This appears to be the only perceivable benefit justifying the erection of wind turbines and it is of course a quite specific benefit only for those regions where it already gets bloody cold and colder.
Skeptics of course have a real problem here as the wind turbines if we are to believe NASA, are already contributors to the Global Warming / Climate change Catastrophe belief by raising those night temperatures that 0.72 C per decade.
On the other hand if global cooling sets in due to a quiet Sun effect, then those turbines will take the edge of those miserably cold temperatures that again appear to be a direct outcome of the global warming / climate change catastrophe phenomena.
Damned if I know how Global Warming makes temperatures go down but the climate change cultists will think of something no doubt.
And if you think the installing all those turbines as above is a good idea and accept NASA’s research showing turbines warm temperatures up, you are right up there with the levels of understanding of 97% of the climate change cult believers
71
Here’s an interesting factoid. I just read that the heating of wind turbine blades to stop ice build-up may consume 10-20% of the rated power of a turbine. And since wind turbines don’t spin more than they do spin, does that mean grid power is consumed for heating when they are not spinning? I am not sure if any Australian turbines are heated as it is not cold enough in most places but they would be in colder places like North America and Europe.
60
It is actually much worse than that. It is suggested here http://www.aweo.org/windconsumption.html that a wind turbine might consume up to 50% its rated capacity for its own tasks.
70
David Maddison,
Coupled with the 80/20 rule for wind turbines: for 80% of the time they produce 20% of the energy.
50
David Maddison @ # 47
I posted that bit of info sometime ago here on Jo’s blog.
And no we don’t have turbine blade icing problems here in Australia where turbines in freezing conditions can and have thrown very large, metres long ice spears for over a kilometre from the turbine.
The power usage from the grid by turbines for maintenance of their electronics and temperature control of their gear box oils and to run the motors for blade angles and braking and nacelle turning into wind and for a slow turning of the blades to prevent main drive shaft bending due to the turbine blade weight is apparently not metered and is not paid for by the turbine companies.
We consumers have to pay for that as another deeply hidden subsidy to the turbine scammers
.
Internal gearbox failures followed by external Blade failure are the major sources of turbine failures.
And in the Australian context, in our highly fire prone environment, the most frightening failure are Nacelle fires from mechanical failure or lightning strikes which are the second major turbine failure mode being recorded.
As turbine nacelle fires are at least 30 plus metres above ground level, they are inaccessible to fire fighters so those nacelle fires burn for hours as the nacelle machinery lubrication oils, the plastic wiring in the electronics, some of the generator components and the fibre glass nacelle covering and the composite fibre blades and etc are all highly flammable.
So a turbines lighting up on one of our 40C plus days and a 40 KPH stinking hot north wind with the burning embers being blown some 3 or 4 kilometres downwind for some hours has the very real probability of burning out vast areas of farming and forest lands and the consequent likelihood of significant loss of life as there won’t be any way of stopping the nacelle fire which will continue for some hours to spread its burning embers over vast distances.
And it will be country people who have to bear this disaster and who have to fight those fires and who have to put their lives on line and who get nothing at all from those turbines except grief while the big city investors and subsidy scammers sit comfortably in their city A/C rooms bemoaning how hot it is while they watch the fires on TV and watch the subsidy money stacking up.
There is NOTHING that in anyway can justify the installation of wind turbines for power generation across Australia’s highly fire prone environment.
In fact given the statistics on the fire proneness of wind turbines it is the height of stupidity to allow these turbines to be built anywhere where there is a likelihood of a serious fire risk near forests, scrublands or grasslands or farming areas.
And the fact is that the potential for massive damage and a very large loss of lives from turbine fires has the very strong probability of actually causing losses far greater in extent in both lives, socially, particularly in rural Australia, and economically than ANY possible and perceivable and minute benefit they might possibly bring in reducing fossil fuel usage, itself an entirely unproven claimed benefit of wind turbine power generation.
————–
Caithness Wind farm Information Forum
Accidents / failure statistics
**
Blade failure
By far the biggest number of incidents found was due to blade failure. “Blade failure” can arise from a number of possible sources, and results in either whole blades or pieces of blade being thrown from the turbine. A total of 317 separate incidences were found:
[ data ]
Pieces of blade are documented as travelling up to one mile. In Germany, blade pieces have gone through the roofs and walls of nearby buildings. This is why CWIF believe that there should be a minimum distance of at least 2km between turbines and occupied housing or work places,in order to adequately address public safety and other issues including noise and shadow flicker.
**
Fire
Fire is the second most common accident cause in incidents found. Fire can arise from a number of sources – and some turbine types seem more prone to fire than others. A total of 250 fire incidents were found:
[ data ]
The biggest problem with turbine fires is that, because of the turbine height, the fire brigade can do little but watch it burn itself out. While this may be acceptable in reasonably still conditions, in a storm it means burning debris being scattered over a wide area, with obvious consequences. In dry weather there is obviously a wider-area fire risk, especially for those constructed in or close to forest areas and/or close to housing or work places. Four fire accidents have badly burned wind industry workers.
**
Structural failure
From the data obtained, this is the third most common accident cause, with 162 instances found. “Structural failure” is assumed to be major component failure under conditions which components should be designed to withstand. This mainly concerns storm damage to turbines and tower collapse. However, poor quality control, lack of maintenance and component failure can also be responsible.
[ data ]
While structural failure is far more damaging (and more expensive) than blade failure, the accident consequences and risks to human health are most likely lower, as risks are confined to within a relatively short distance from the turbine. However, as smaller turbines are now being placed on and around buildings including schools, the accident frequency is expected to rise.
**
[ More ]
80
I don’t remember the Fire Risk being mentioned in the submissions to the recent parliamentary wind turbine enquiry. Hopefully someone mentioned it in a submission.
Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey have reduced or stopped further subsidies in wind turbines, at least for the present. I just wish that they had done a better job of explaining the reasons. Joe Hocket said he thought they looked offensive to him, which sounded a bit lame. There were a lot better reasons worth memtioning.
50
Wind
FarmsPlants, you know, electrical power for when you really really need it.Between 6.30 and 7AM this morning Friday 17th July 2015.
ALL of Eastern Australia in the middle of a cold snap. Snow on The Granite Belt in Queensland, and even 4C here in Rockhampton.
(Voice from the master bedroom, any bedroom east of the WA border) Turn on the heater!
Okay Mum.
Eastern Australia power rises (as it always does) to around 21,000MW consumption
One hour later, every school fires up, turning every classroom air conditioning unit on, preset onto the heat cycle.
One hour later, every workplace does the same, every high rise in every city and town.
Total power consumption now around 26,000MW, and still rising.
EVERY wind plant in Oz – total output – 1000MW (that’s around 27% Capacity Factor) (at 7AM)
Bayswater Unit 1 – 663MW, Unit 2 – 625MW, Unit 3 – 636MW, Unit 4 – 658MW. Total Bayswater – 2482MW. (at 7AM)
Liddell, (Backup for when extra power is needed, spinning reserve) Units one and three offline, Unit 2 – 455MW, Unit 4 – 446MW. Total Liddell – 901MW. (at 7AM)
So, Just two power plants are supplying 3.4 times the power output from EVERY wind tower in Australia, all 1600/1700/1800 of them, for 3669MW in total Nameplate.
1970/80 technology still covering for 2010 Technology.
The more advanced we become, the further into the past they want to take us.
Thank God for coal fired power. Without it ….. well you know the rest.
Tony.
160
On those days when the baseload is not being used and the windmills are not turning, why not feed the excess power from the base load back into the grid to make the windmills turn? That would look nice.
Then maybe we could cool our hot inner cities cities with their stifling heat island effect by creating our own wind with giant windmills in the inner city right next to the Green voters so they can enjoy them too and get the many health benefits? It will keep the pesky bird life down too and those cute electric cars will be much cleaner.
90
They turn those blades today in calm weather with power from the grid to prevent the bending and permanent setting of the bend of the main blade drive shaft due to the massive weight of the turbine blades.
It is a shaft bending problem that is also found in the big ships particularly the very large single propeller cargo and container ships which also slowly turn their propellers when stationary in port to prevent propeller shaft bending.
Also the same problem is found on the big power generating steam turbines with the same slow turning of the massive turbine to prevent shaft bending and permanent setting of the bend.
90
Rom: Interesting. Hadn’t thought of that. In extended calm periods, that could be a bad thing. I just thought that if you turn them with no wind, people will figure out this whole thing is a scam. I do know the turbines require grid input in order to work, and that said electrical usage apparently does not have a meter on it in many cases.
50
That’s true.
However, a big steam turbine is only stationary when it is undergoing maintenance, which is less than 2% of the time.
10
It’s a characteristic of today’s looser use of language and definitions. Many words today are interpenetrated differently from their original intent. It’s wrong and bad. Also why call them turbines? They do not fit the strict definition of a turbine. They are wind generators. We see the same nonsense in many other areas today, some of which I won’t dare mention as I probably be criticized.
60
I’m reluctant to even call them generators, considering the measly amount of power they actually produce, negated further by the power they require from the grid for onboard systems to function. Were they required to operate under their own power, once stopped they’d never start again – providing they even got turning in the first place.
50
As I understand it the power they pull from the grid is unmetered so their true cost can never be known.
20
ABC Science
15 July 2015: Climate increasing global fire danger ( but not in Australia )
On first glance the findings suggest the continent that is so famous for bushfires bucks the global trend, but the researchers warn this may not be the case.
Australian anomaly
However the researchers could not pick out a clear signal of increasing long fire weather seasons in Australia.
“It’s not what you’d expect because you’d think that one of the most flammable places in the world would be a place you’d logically see the trend,” says Bowman.
*He says colleagues in the US who can see lengthening fire seasons there are “dumbfounded” the trend can’t be seen in Australia.
“We’re not seeing [the global trend] clearly in Australia because of a statistical problem, not because it isn’t there,” says Dr David Bowman, a professor of environmental change biology at the University of Tasmania.
~ ~ ~
ABC Science
16 January 2003: Bushfires worsened by climate change – scientists
“Formerly head of mathematics at the university, Karoly has been an advisor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations body tasked with investigating global warming. Risbey is a mathematician at the university.
What set the 2002 drought apart, they said, was that the increased temperatures caused a substantial increase in evaporation rates from soil, watercourses and vegetation. This devastated agricultural pasture and dried the land to such an extent that bushfires were a far greater danger than normally.”
~ ~ ~
*Christina Holcroft, division director of Fire Analysis and Research at NFPA, gives three key findings from NFPA’s 2013 Fire loss report –
1. We know that more cities and towns are restricting open burning, but keep in mind that we don’t collect data on wild live fires that are reported to federal and state agencies, and the number of wild live fires has NOT been increasing.
(0.49 sec)
50
From the ORIGINAL CO2 MOLESTER, Prof. Hubert Lamb; who was promoting ”Big Ice Age for year 2000, because of CO2 DIMMING EFFECT:
Here’s a list of articles from the 70’s predicting the next ice age along with a link to the website that listed them. Many of the same scientists that are predicting global warming predicted global cooling not too long ago.
1970 – Colder Winters Held Dawn of New Ice Age – Scientists See Ice Age In the Future (The Washington Post, January 11, 1970)
1970 – Is Mankind Manufacturing a New Ice Age for Itself? (L.A. Times, January 15, 1970)
1970 – New Ice Age May Descend On Man (Sumter Daily Item, January 26, 1970)
1970 – Pollution Prospect A Chilling One (The Argus-Press, January 26, 1970)
1970 – Pollution’s 2-way ‘Freeze’ On Society (Middlesboro Daily News, January 28, 1970)
1970 – Cold Facts About Pollution (The Southeast Missourian, January 29, 1970)
1970 – Pollution Could Cause Ice Age, Agency Reports (St. Petersburg Times, March 4, 1970)
1970 – Scientist predicts a new ice age by 21st century (The Boston Globe, April 16, 1970)
1970 – Pollution Called Ice Age Threat (St. Petersburg Times, June 26, 1970)
1970 – U.S. and Soviet Press Studies of a Colder Arctic (The New York Times, July 18, 1970)
1970 – Dirt Will Bring New Ice Age (The Sydney Morning Herald, October 19, 1970)
1971 – Ice Age Refugee Dies Underground (Montreal Gazette, Febuary 17, 1971)
1971 – Pollution Might Lead To Another Ice Age (The Schenectady Gazette, March 22, 1971)
1971 – Pollution May Bring Ice Age – Scientist Rites Risk (The Windsor Star, March 23, 1971)
1971 – U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming (The Washington Post, July 9, 1971)
1971 – Ice Age Around the Corner (Chicago Tribune, July 10, 1971)
1971 – New Ice Age Coming – It’s Already Getting Colder (L.A. Times, October 24, 1971)
1971 – Another Ice Age? Pollution Blocking Sunlight (The Day, November 1, 1971)
1971 – Air Pollution Could Bring An Ice Age (Harlan Daily Enterprise, November 4, 1971)
1972 – Air pollution may cause ice age (Free-Lance Star, February 3, 1972)
1972 – Scientist Says New ice Age Coming (The Ledger, February 13, 1972)
1972 – Ice Age Cometh For Dicey Times (The Sun, May 29, 1972)
1972 – Ice Age Coming (Deseret News, September 8, 1972)
1972 – There’s a new Ice Age coming! (The Windsor Star, September 9, 1972)
1972 – Scientist predicts new ice age (Free-Lance Star, September 11, 1972)
1972 – British Expert on Climate Change Says New Ice Age Creeping Over Northern Hemisphere (Lewiston Evening Journal, September 11, 1972)
1972 – Climate Seen Cooling For Return Of Ice Age (The Portsmouth Times, September 11, 1972)
1972 – New Ice Age Slipping Over North (The Press-Courier, September 11, 1972)
1972 – Beginning of new ice age (The Canberra Times, September 12, 1972)
1972 – Ice Age Begins A New Assault In North (The Age, September 12, 1972)
1972 – Weather To Get Colder (Montreal Gazette, September 12, 1972)
1972 – British climate expert predicts new Ice Age (The Christian Science Monitor, September 23, 1972)
1972 – Scientist Sees Chilling Signs of New Ice Age (L.A. Times, September 24, 1972)
1972 – Science: Another Ice Age? (Time Magazine, November 13, 1972)
1972 – Geologist at Case Traces Long Winters – Sees Ice Age in 20 Years (Youngstown Vindicator, December 13, 1972)
1972 – Ice Age On Its Way, Scientist Says (Toledo Blade, December 13, 1972)
1972 – Ice Age Predicted In About 200 Years (The Portsmouth Times, December 14, 1972)
1973 – New Ice Age coming? (Popular Science, January 1973)
1973 – The Ice Age Cometh (The Saturday Review, March 24, 1973)
1973 – Believe new ice age is coming (The Bryan Times, March 31, 1973)
1973 – ‘Man-made Ice Age’ Worries Scientists (The Free Lance-Star, June 22, 1973)
1973 – Fear Of Man-made Ice Age (The Spartanburg Herald, June 28, 1973)
1973 – Possibility Of Ice Age Worries The Scientists (The Argus-Press, November 12, 1973)
1973 – Weather-watchers think another ice age may be on the way (The Christian Science Monitor, December 11, 1973)
1974 – Ominous Changes in the World’s Weather (PDF) (Fortune Magazine, February 1974)
1974 – Atmospheric Dirt: Ice Age Coming? (Pittsburgh Press, February 28, 1974)
1974 – Support for theory of a cooling world (The Canberra Times, May 16, 1974)
1974 – New evidence indicates ice age here (Eugene Register-Guard, May 29, 1974)
1974 – Another Ice Age? (Time Magazine, June 24, 1974)
1974 – 2 Scientists Think ‘Little’ Ice Age Near (Hartford Courant, August 11, 1974)
1974 – Ice Age, worse food crisis seen (Chicago Tribune, October 30, 1974)
1974 – Imminent Arrival of the Ice (Radio Times, November 14, 1974)
1974 – Making a BBC Science Special [The Weather Machine] (New Scientist, November 14, 1974)
1974 – The Weather Machine (BBC, November 20, 1974)
1974 – New ice age ‘could be in our lifetime’ (The Canberra Times, November 22, 1974)
1974 – Believes Pollution Could Bring On Ice Age (Ludington Daily News, December 4, 1974)
1974 – Pollution Could Spur Ice Age, Nasa Says (Beaver Country Times, December 4, 1974)
1974 – Air Pollution May Trigger Ice Age, Scientists Feel (The Telegraph, December 5, 1974)
1974 – More Air Pollution Could Trigger Ice Age Disaster (Daily Sentinel, December 5, 1974)
1974 – Scientists Fear Smog Could Cause Ice Age (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 5, 1974)
1975 – Climate Changes Called Ominous (The New York Times, January 19, 1975)
1975 – Climate Change: Chilling Possibilities (Science News, March 1, 1975)
1975 – B-r-r-r-r: New Ice Age on way soon? (Chicago Tribune, March 2, 1975)
1975 – Cooling Trends Arouse Fear That New Ice Age Coming (Eugene Register-Guard, March 2, 1975)
1975 – Is Another Ice Age Due? Arctic Ice Expands In Last Decade (Youngstown Vindicator, March 2, 1975)
1975 – Is Earth Headed For Another Ice Age? (Reading Eagle, March 2, 1975)
1975 – New Ice Age Dawning? Significant Shift In Climate Seen (Times Daily, March 2, 1975)
1975 – There’s Troublesome Weather Ahead (Tri City Herald, March 2, 1975)
1975 – Is Earth Doomed To Live Through Another Ice Age? (The Robesonian, March 3, 1975)
1975 – The Ice Age cometh: the system that controls our climate (Chicago Tribune, April 13, 1975)
1975 – The Cooling World (Newsweek, April 28, 1975)
1975 – Cooling trend may signal coming of another Ice Age (The Sun, May 16, 1975)
1975 – Scientists Ask Why World Climate Is Changing; Major Cooling May Be Ahead (PDF) (The New York Times, May 21, 1975)
1975 – Summer of A New Ice Age (The Age, June 5, 1975)
1975 – In the Grip of a New Ice Age? (International Wildlife, July-August, 1975)
1975 – Experts ponder another ice age (The Spokesman-Review, September 8, 1975)
1975 – Oil Spill Could Cause New Ice Age (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 11, 1975)
1976 – Deadly Harvest [Film] (Starring: Kim Cattrall, Clint Walker, 1976)
1976 – The Cooling: Has the Next Ice Age Already Begun? [Book] (Lowell Ponte, 1976)
1976 – Ice Age Predicted (Reading Eagle, January 22, 1976)
1976 – Ice Age Predicted In Century (Bangor Daily News, January 22, 1976)
1976 – It’s Going To Get Chilly About 125 Years From Now (Sarasota Herald-Tribune, January 23, 1976)
1976 – Worrisome CIA Report; Even U.S. Farms May be Hit by Cooling Trend (U.S. News & World Report, May 31, 1976)
1977 – Blizzard – What Happens if it Doesn’t Stop? [Book] (George Stone, 1977)
1977 – The Weather Conspiracy: The Coming of the New Ice Age [Book] (The Impact Team, 1977)
1977 – The Ice Age Cometh… (New York Magazine, January 31, 1977)
1977 – The Big Freeze (Time Magazine, January 31, 1977)
1977 – Has The Ice Age Cometh Again? (Calgary Herald, February 1, 1977)
1977 – Space Mirrors Proposed To Prevent Crop Freezes (Bangor Daily News, February 7, 1977)
1977 – We Will Freeze in the Dark (Capital Cities Communications Documentary, Host: Nancy Dickerson, April 12, 1977)
1978 – Ice! [Book] (Arnold Federbush, 1978)
1978 – The New Ice Age [Book] (Henry Gilfond, 1978)
1978 – Winter May Be Colder Than In Last Ice Age (Deseret News, January 2, 1978)
1978 – Current Winters Seen Colder Than In Ice Age (The Telegraph, January 3, 1978)
1978 – Winter Temperatures Colder Than Last Ice Age (Eugene Register-Guard, Eugene Register-Guard, January 3, 1978)
1978 – International Team of Specialists Finds No End in Sight to 30-Year Cooling Trend in Northern Hemisphere (The New York Times, January 5, 1978)
1978 – Little Ice Age: Severe winters and cool summers ahead (Calgary Herald, January 10, 1978)
1978 – Winters Will Get Colder, ‘we’re Entering Little Ice Age’ (Daily Record, January 10, 1978)
1978 – Geologist Says Winters Getting Colder (Middlesboro Daily News, January 16, 1978)
1978 – It’s Going To Get Colder (Boca Raton News, January 17, 1978)
1978 – Another Ice Age? (Kentucky New Era, February 12, 1978)
1978 – Another Ice Age? (Reading Eagle, February 13, 1978)
1978 – The Coming Ice Age (In Search Of TV Show, Season 2, Episode 23, Host: Leonard Nimoy, May 1978)
1978 – An Ice Age Is Coming Weather Expert Fears (Milwaukee Sentinel, November 17, 1978)
1979 – A Choice of Catastrophes – The Disasters That Threaten Our World [Book] (Isaac Asimov, 1979)
1979 – The Sixth Winter [Book] (John R. Gribbin, 1979)
1979 – The New Ice Age Cometh (The Age, January 16, 1979)
1979 – Ice Age Building Up (Daily Record, June 5, 1979)
1979 – Large Glacial Buildup Could Mean Ice Age (Daily Chronicle, June 5, 1979)
1979 – Ice Age On Its Way (Lewiston Morning Tribune, June 7, 1979)
1979 – Get Ready to Freeze (Daily Chronicle, October 12, 1979)
1979 – New ice age almost upon us? (The Christian Science Monitor, November 14, 1979)
* Note: A couple of the news stories are duplicates in different papers with slightly different titles, this is intentional to show that these types of stories were not isolated to a certain regional paper.
http://www.populartechnology.net/2013/02/the-1970s-global-cooling-alarmism.html
110
Surely Jo had the name in her article:-
WINDSWAMP
Says it all to me.
40
I found this comment on another forum;
Here’s the proof of the CON from IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer before the Cancun love in:
“… we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore…”
THE GREATEST SCAM EVER PULLED !!!
110
Yes, they certainly let the cat out of the bag with that admission !
IPCC Official: “Climate Policy Is Redistributing The World’s Wealth”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/18/ipcc-official-%E2%80%9Cclimate-policy-is-redistributing-the-worlds-wealth%E2%80%9D/
10
No you all missed it.
I guess no diary farming in your areas.
They are truthfully called wind farms, because somebody is getting milked.
The taxpayer and home owner is getting robbed to pay these subsidies.
Best piece of theft from the many to enrich the well connected few, using the Kleptocracy to facilitate this robbery.
70
Google definitions.
Dairy: a building or room for the processing, storage, and distribution of milk and milk products.
Farm: an area of land and its buildings, used for growing crops and rearing animals.
A dairy farm says exactly what it means. Livestock and a building for processing of milk products.
20
(wind) farming……the taxpayers of Australia !
20
speaking of windy, i keep seeing comments on Bolt’s blog about Gore:
– Our best friend is giving a talk at the University of Melbourne in 2 weeks:
“Former US Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore will deliver a presentation on the impacts of and solutions to the climate crisis at the University of Melbourne on Monday, 27 July. “
The strange thing is I haven’t heard any word of this anywhere on the media, or google, or publicly from the University itself. In fact I can’t find any word that he will even be in Australia, not even on any of his web sites or Facebook or anything. It is almost like they are trying to keep it secret (probably doesn’t want to deal with inconvenient truths).
The only reason I know is the University sent around an email to students yesterday (only 2 weeks before it happens). Pretty short notice for a Nobel Laureate. Still no public announcement.
____
i tried yesterday and today, but also found nothing online. however, he’s the man at The Guardian:
16 July: Guardian: In exclusive interview Al Gore says climate deniers won’t win – video
In an exclusive interview with The Guardian’s Suzanne Goldenberg, Al Gore speaks about Paris2015, oil drilling in the Arctic, and the forgotten tradition of environmental Republicans.
by Suzanne Goldenberg, Valerie Lapinski, Laurence Mathieu-Leger,
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/video/2015/jul/16/in-exclusive-interview-al-gore-says-climate-deniers-won-t-win-video
52
Being generous, what’s a bet there will be 2 crickets in attendance.
40
pat,
On the ‘Which Country Has The Most Skeptics’ thread, a comment from Delory:
Unfortunately that link to Melbourne Uni redirects to a log-in page so only registered users can read about it.
Pat, I know you can’t possibly read every single comment on every thread so I’m not criticizing in any way. Just thought I’d give Delroy some ‘love’.
I also know I read that he’ll be speaking at three universities in Australia but can’t seem to locate the link just now. 🙁
Abe
40
The Great Indoctrinator!
16 July: Guardian: Suzanne Goldenberg: Al Gore criticizes Obama on climate change and ‘insane’ Arctic drilling
At the request of the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, Gore has taken his climate training on the road to eight countries seen as critical to a strong outcome at Paris: the big emitters US, India, Australia, Canada, China, and Brazil and those on the front lines such as South Africa and the Philippines.
The 50-person gatherings in Carthage, Tennessee, have given way to audiences of several hundred at a time – 1,200 were at the Chicago session.
In the last two years alone, Gore has trained more than 5,000 new Climate Reality recruits in 115 countries, according to the group’s own figures…
Really they are scouting for anyone with strong ties to a community – a church, a school – who can tell a convincing story.
Over three days, the trainees are inducted into the world of climate activism as described in Gore’s narrative arc: starting with the picture of earth as viewed from space, the latest science on drought and sea-level rise and other consequences of climate change, and then the multi-coloured grids of solar and wind installations.
This is where Gore’s excitement really lies. When he talks about, say, solar installations in Costa Rica, his speech gets increasingly folksy – like the clean energy Garrison Keillor – and there are whoops from the hundreds of activists in the ballroom.
The sessions are free, although activists have to make their own way to the venue. So far, only one known climate denier has managed to infiltrate one of the trainings.
The idea is for trained-up climate activists – directly schooled in the latest science by Gore and other trainers – to use their personal experience and contacts to spread the word.
Some may go on to use their connections to lobby in high places…
Ken Berlin, Climate Reality’s chief executive, said graduates put on a total of 2,500 speaking events last year. The group claims a Facebook following of 361,000, with about 35% in the US, followed by India, Pakistan and the Philippines…
It’s an open secret of the climate negotiations that there is nothing compelling leaders to take strong climate action…
For Gore, however, that’s not the point of Paris. The agreement is just meant as a kind of cattle prod to get countries moving on the systemic transformation of their economies, away for coal, oil and gas and to energy sources that do not rely on fossil fuels.
“Even if it falls a little bit short of the 2-degree threshold it will definitely lend a tremendous amount of momentum to an historic transition that is now well underway, away from carbon based energy and towards renewables efficiency, battery storage and sustainable agriculture and forestry,” Gore said.
“My optimism is focused on primarily on the larger goal of making this transition and finding a solution for the climate crisis…
“The Paris agreement will be an important milestone but I think we are now seeing development in the marketplace.”
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/16/al-gore-obama-climate-change-arctic-drilling
31
“the guardian” is the equivalent of the old communist ussr “news” outlet PRAVDA !
20
Do you suppose if we renamed drill rigs to “temporary trees” and the whole operation as “temporary tree cultivation” we could sell the idea? Maybe paint the rigs green and put some foliage on top so they look pretty. It seems apparance is everything now.
50
They’ve done that with a few mobile phone towers here in smaller towns, make them look like trees to remove the eyesore.
40
16 July: Shanghai Daily: Eastern Australia’s ongoing cold snap sees homeless move north
SYDNEY, July 16 (Xinhua) — Homeless people from Australia’s south which is experiencing a record and sustained cold snap are heading north to warmer areas.
Successive Antarctic cold fronts have dumped snow and freezing rain in the southern states of Victoria and Queensland and seen temperatures drop below zero in many areas and as low as five degrees in usually warmer coastal areas at night.
But the wind chill factor has made conditions much colder and it was reported by Fairfax Media on Thursday that one Sydney homeless woman died from hypothermia last week, and was not murdered as police first thought.
Those moving north and heading to Queensland’s Gold Coast tourist strip, either hitchhiking or using a once a year train trip available to those on welfare, which most homeless people are.
But News Corp quoted Jason McDonald who works with homeless people on the Gold Coast as saying the new arrivals were putting a strain on their services.
“They come by public transport or hitchhike. It’s too cold down there,” he said.
“The problem is we don’t have enough emergency housing to help everyone out.”…
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=292914
41
Shades of Midnight Cowboy.
30
With some assistance from TonyfromOz I have attempted to calculate the cost of electricity from wind farms versus coal.
I found one wind farm example from Macarthur in Victoria, 420MW nameplate capacity with 3MW turbines on 140 towers, completed in 2013 at a capital cost of $1 billion.
(It’s unclear whether that is after subsidies.)
But let’s work an example with those numbers.
Capital Cost $1000 million.
Estimated life 25 years, so annual depreciation charge is $40 million.
Allow 5% per year as maintenance and other operating costs equals $50 million (includes lease payments to land owners)
Allow for an 8% return on investment (ROI) equals $80 million per year.
Annual charges including ROI therefore total $170 million.
Total annual electricity production at 33% utilization is 1215 GWhr.
Therefore average electricity price required for Macarthur is 14 cents/kWhr (or 7.4 cents with no return on investment)
That compares with solar feed in tariff of 8 cents, and an average current wholesale electricity price according to AEMO of about 4 cents/kWhr.
For comparison, new coal plant: 2000 MW capacity, 83 % utilization gives 14,550 GWhr of production per year.
Capital cost $4000 million.
Depreciation over 50 years, $80 million per year.
Annual maintenance costs @ 5%, $200 million per year.
Raw material costs 14 tonne/MW/day of coal at $80/tonne equals $700 million per year.
Labour costs $10 million per year.
8% charge for return on investment $320 million per year.
Total annual charges $600 million.
Average cost of electricity 4 cents/kWhr.
So how do wind investors make money? BIG government subsidies that we pay for through higher electricity prices.
Lots of assumptions in the numbers above, so welcome constructive comments to improve the analysis.
40
Major error. Didn’t include the raw material cost in the coal example.
So, total annual charges rise to $1300 million for coal, giving average cost of electricity of 9 cents/kWhr from new coal station.
40
For wind what about the cost of power to be kept on spinning reserve to backup the wind power when the wind stops blowing? I think reserve power from closed cycle gas turbines can cost $100,000 per MWhr.
41
Agree. Don’t know how to make an allowance for that.
There are also the additional network management costs resulting from the variable power supply from wind from multiple locations than can be seen in AEMO’s large swings in wholesale prices in 30 minutes.
20
Also, the power drawn from the grid to power the internal systems is unmetered but significant (I saw a figure of 50kW). The blades have to be turned under power to a minimum speed before the wind will drive them.
20
Robber
What about the extra cable networks to hook up the “Electric Follies”?
10
Yes, there are additional network costs, and I don’t have any data to try and calculate the cost in cents/kWhr. Someone in the industry must know.
00
Unless I’ve misunderstood, you did indeed include raw coal costs pa
This equates to about 10mtpa, which for a raw coal feed of mean Specific Energy 25Mj/kg and 28% raw ash (domestic supply) is about right for a 2Gw installation
For completeness, export requirements are for about 28Mj/kg and 15% raw ash. Any lesser quality coal is sold at a discount and blended before utilising it
20
If by 2GW you mean a facility of 2MW capacity, you are a bit high.
I recall that Lambton Generating Station consumed 360 tons (327 tonnes) per hour at capacity of 2 MW.
That’s about 7.85 tonnes per MW. That was coal from Venezuela.
20
There is likely to be a range of raw material costs depending on location. Some may argue the coal is free, so the only costs are extraction costs.
00
Robber @ #60
From; The Performance of Wind Farms in the United Kingdom and Denmark
——————–
Executive summary;
3. The normalised load factor for UK onshore wind farms declines from a peak of about 24% at age 1 to 15% at age 10 and 11% at age 15.
The decline in the normalised load factor for Danish onshore wind farms is slower but still significant with a fall from a peak of 22% to 18% at age 15.
On the other hand for offshore wind farms in Denmark the normalised load factor falls from 39% at age 0 to 15% at age 10.
The reasons for the observed declines in normalised load factors cannot be fully assessed using the data available but outages due to mechanical breakdowns appear to be a contributory factor.
&
5. These findings have important implications for policy towards wind generation in the UK. First, they suggest that the subsidy regime is extremely generous if investment in new wind farms is profitable despite the decline in performance due to age and over time.
Second, meeting the UK Government’s targets for wind generation will require a much higher level of wind capacity – and, thus, capital investment – than current projections imply.
Third, the structure of contracts offered to wind generators under the proposed reform of the electricity market should be modified since few wind farms will operate for more than 12–15 years.
————
As we now know the British government has put a stop to the further expansion its renewable energy subsidy system within the last few days as it is becoming unaffordable in terms of the cost to the government and to the British consumer.
Germany, the poster child of renewable energy industry is fast approaching a point where it too will stop the exploitation of its renewable energy subsidy system as it is also becoming an unaffordable system as economic belt tightening gets under way in western Europe
40
I have tried to produce a best possible cost comparison. Clearly as utilization drops below 33% the unit cost rises in proportion, because all costs are fixed, no variable costs.
10
16 July: Thursday’s Papers Finland:
(SCROLL DOWN) Historically cold summer in the works
Next, the country’s leading daily Helsingin Sanomat reports that the summer of 2015 may just go down as the second-coldest summer on record, as Finland has only had four days where the temperature has reached more than 25 degrees Celsius so far. “If you measure the summer in terms of the number of very warm days, this summer is not quite the worst ever, however. In 1962, Finland only had three days over 25C all summer,” says the paper’s meteorologist Annina Torma.
Many locations in Finland haven’t even made it past the 25 degree mark yet this summer. Even Oulu, which is known for its high summer temps, has only seen a high of 23. The temperature reached 30 degrees Celsius at nine observation stations in Finland on only one day this summer, July 3rd. Torma says we won’t enjoy temps of over 20 again until the middle of next week. http://yle.fi/uutiset/thursdays_papers_metro_delays_pori_panel_2nd_coldest_summer_and_6th_place_reputation/8159914
41
A German Maths Prof blasts renewable energy and claims that it hasn’t saved even 1 KG of co2 emissions.
http://notrickszone.com/2015/07/13/professor-blasts-german-renewable-energy-policy-based-on-naivety-ignorance-ideology-illusions-false-incentives/#sthash.Mwg8sDAO.dpbs
51
Oops, hit the button to soon. Didn’t include the raw material cost in the coal example.
So, total annual charges rise to $1300 million for coal, giving average cost of electricity of 9 cents/kWhr from new coal station.
10
13 July: NIWA New Zealand: Temperature records broken around the country
NIWA data shows at more than 30 weather stations from Cape Reinga in the north to Stewart Island, had daily maximum temperature recordings that were either the lowest ever recorded, or at least in the top four coldest for July.
At South West Cape, the southernmost point on Stewart Island the temperature reached just 5.2°C on July 6. This was the third lowest for July for this location since records began in 1991.
At the opposite end of the country at Cape Reinga the temperature was a comparably balmy 10.8°C on July 10, but this was the lowest daily maximum July temperature there since 1971.
Lowest daily maximum temperatures were also recorded at Kaitaia, Port Taharoa, Waione and Ngawi.
Suspicions that the early mornings for the first half of July have been especially chilly have also been confirmed at several locations.
In particular Northlanders have been feeling the cold with Kaitaia, Kerikeri and Warkworth all recording the lowest July temperature on record. Kaitaia’s lowest daily minimum was 0°C on July 11, Kerikeri’s -0.7°C on July 12 and Warkworth’s -2.3°C also on July 12.
Te Kuiti plummeted to -4.9°C overnight on July 13, marking it as the coldest July temperature for the town since records began in 1959. In fact, Te Kuiti has observed its two-lowest July temperatures on record over the past three days: -4.5°C was recorded on July 11 which is its second-lowest July temperature.
And in Greymouth -2.6°C on July 9 put it in the record books as the coldest July temperature there since records begin in 1947…
The current list of July 2015 record breakers is…etc
https://www.niwa.co.nz/news/temperature-records-broken-around-the-country
21
If you haven’t been close to a wind plant here is a video I made of one where I tried to demonstrate the noise. https://youtu.be/eujRIOjVge0 “Toora Wind Farm, South Gippsland, Victoria, Australia, noise, sound of turbine”
20
It’s an interesting video, but I must note that knowing how much sound is the turbine and how much is the wind is very difficult. I’ve been around six different wind plants, living within 5 miles of an 11 turbine plant. I have tried videoing to show the noise, but to be honest, with the wind howling, I can’t tell. Even in low wind, the noise of the wind and the noise of the turbine are very, very similar. Maybe if I could filter out the wind sound, that would show how loud these are. I’ve just not ever found that the turbines are that loud. Even where there are 30 or more turbines.
40
Has anyone seen or read the following. Interesting and does not bode well for the future of wind.
http://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline/latest/embed/index.html?source=0Ak2bgr7C0nhPdGR3S1lEekU3T3p4ZDhUNDdRV2Y2ZkE&font=Bevan-PotanoSans&maptype=toner&lang=en&height=650
http://stopthesethings.com/2013/02/12/something-very-rotten-in-denmark/
http://stopthesethings.com/2015/04/29/denmark-calls-halt-to-more-wind-farm-harm/
30
“winds of change” – the Met Office “rationalisation” of the hottest July hour on record! hilarious…read all:
16 July: CarbonBrief: Roz Pidcock: Met Office: Wind data dispels doubt about cause of Heathrow high temperatures
Earlier this week, The Telegraph claimed the Met Office was “forced to defend” the credibility of the record high July temperatures recorded at Heathrow airport during the recent UK heatwave.
But a quick look at the temperature and wind data and a chat with Dr Mark McCarthy, head of the Met Office’s National Climate Information Centre, shows why claims that we shouldn’t trust the data don’t stand up to scrutiny…
The blue line below shows the air temperature recorded 1.5 metres off the ground at the Heathrow weather station for an hour-long period from 13:51pm-14:50pm on 1 July…
But Homewood’s suggestion that the high temperature is down to little more than a change in wind on the hot tarmac is easily checkable. The Met Office will release an hour or so of weather station data for free, since it’s unlikely to serve any commercial purpose.
So, Carbon Brief asked for it.
Winds of change
The plot below from the Met Office shows wind data for the same period as shown above for temperature. Arrows show the direction from which the wind was blowing. The data is plotted in five-minute intervals over an hour-long period, centred on 14:13pm when the temperature record was reached.
You can see the wind direction remains fairly stable from a southeasterly direction, McCarthy tells Carbon Brief…
In McCarthy’s opinion, the significant increase in solar radiation is “the most plausible and sufficient explanation” for the peak in temperatures…
It’s worth noting that the Met Office isn’t saying this was the hottest day ever for the UK, just thehighest temperature recorded in the UK on a July day.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/07/met-office-wind-data-dispels-doubt-about-cause-of-heathrow-high-temperatures/
11
For all those with a taste for the surreal:
Al Gore inspires ‘CO2,’ an opera; a physicist lectures on climate change with a string quartet.
The article is kind of long, but as you read you begin to understand how the whole exercise, and others like it, are purely aimed at influencing the public’s perception of climate change ™ by engaging their emotional reactions to the music and mixing them together with the so-called ‘scientific facts’.
Psy-ops right out in the open! 😮
Abe
41
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11718550/Why-are-greens-so-keen-to-destroy-the-worlds-wildlife.html
20
16 July: CarbonBrief: Sophie Yeo: Climate finance: Funding a low-carbon global economy
Over the next decades, trillions of dollars will be required to tackle climate change…
But the investment required to deal with climate change will likely cost trillions, as infrastructure and energy across the world reshape into a greener, more resilient form, compatible with a world where temperatures rise no more than 2C. Enabling this will require a rethink of how the financial system itself works…
The Pascal-Grandjean Commission proposed in its report a “low-carbon financial roadmap” that would prompt the shift towards a greener economy.
This would be largely shaped by existing bodies outside the UN, such as the G20, Basel Committee and the FSB, with the IMF and the World Bank charged with supervising and implementing it, suggests Pascal Canfin, a former French development minister who led the Commission…
Conclusion
Tackling climate change requires a lot of money. Mobilising these funds is a task for both politicians and the financial sector.
But, as the New Climate Economy points out, it will also save a lot of money – potentially trillions – as fossil fuels are phased out and the share of renewable energy increases.
But the benefits aren’t purely financial. Limiting global warming and preparing citizens to deal with the impacts of climate change will also better protect the world’s poorest and most vulnerable communities.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/07/climate-finance-funding-a-low-carbon-global-economy/
16 July: UK Independent: Oliver Wright: Government faces multi-billion pound black hole in budget to pay for clean energy supplies – which could mean your electricity bill rises
The Government is facing a multi-billion pound black hole in its budget to pay for new clean energy supplies, which could result in rising household electricity bills unless there is a dramatic decline in investment in renewable technologies.
Senior Whitehall sources have told The Independent that the Department of Energy and Climate Change has already overspent its budget by £1.5bn to support renewable energy projects over the next five years…
Under the Government’s current projections, the total additional costs added to an average household’s electricity bill to pay for the green schemes are already due to rise from £89-a-year to £188 by 2020. But if ministers continue to pursue official targets with the necessary future investment, this figure will rise significantly…
Under the scheme, everyone – from a household who decided to put a solar panel on the roof to the developer of an offshore wind farm – was guaranteed a premium on top of the market price for electricity, to help encourage the development of renewables…
Unless more money can be found, key projects such as carbon capture and storage, as well as the future of new offshore wind farms, could be placed in jeopardy…
However, they are also aware that any attempt to pay for the addition investment by increasing gas and electricity bills is politically toxic…
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/government-faces-multibillion-pound-black-hole-in-budget-to-pay-for-clean-energy-supplies–which-could-mean-your-electricity-bill-rises-10391608.html
21
It’s a metaphor (oh noes! our poor little heads!)…a place where a large, perennial crop (of wind) is cultivated (intercepted, by an array of windmills) and harvested (kinetic energy converted to electricity). It’s a natural metaphor, and a good one. It’s just that the crop is an undependable, subsistence one, of poor quality, that cannot sustain either a large population or a modern civilization, so the farm is a massive scam. Don’t blame that on the metaphor.
20
Actually, wind turbines are hunter/gatherer technology. You put up a wind trap and hope to catch a breeze. If none come, you sit in the dark and wait longer. Fossil fuels are the agricultural/industrial technology where you can have lights and heat whenever you want. While the greens claim they are not sending us back to the stone age, they in fact advocating for just that: a return to hunter/gatherer lives.
30
To some people, these would be Dream Catchers.
30
15 July: RTCC: Fossil fuels are the ‘enemy’, OECD chief tells Addis finance meet
By Leo Barasi in Addis Ababa
“If we don’t stop climate change, we won’t be able to implement sustainable development or end poverty”, Sweden’s international development minister Isabella Lovin told a meeting at the conference.
“Without resources, commitments will amount to little more than promises on paper,” added UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, alluding to this year’s UN climate summit in Paris and the proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)…
“Putting a big fat price on carbon dioxide and other emissions is imperative”, Angel Gurría, Secretary-General of the OECD, told a side event in Addis.
“We’re all over the place, we’re still subsidising the enemy… We need to face up to fossil fuel subsidies,” he added.
At the same event, US economist Jeffrey Sachs described efforts to drill for oil in the Arctic as “an act of imbecility”, adding “we have no use for the oil they’re drilling”…
Among the most important result of the conference will be “the atmospherics”, Andrew Norton, director of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), told RTCC in his first interview since taking up the post last month…
“We could put fossil fuels out of business on price alone in ten years – what that’s about is finance”, he said…
http://www.rtcc.org/2015/07/15/fossil-fuels-are-the-enemy-oecd-chief-tells-addis-finance-meet/
11
wind turbine produce ”low voltage electricity” by the time it goes to the main greed; most of electricity is lost by resistance in the cable – may contribute enough electricity to run one transistor radio…?!
https://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/fusion-for-electricity/
31
pot calling kettle…
16 July: RTCC: Ed King: ‘Rude’ and ‘touchy’ climate sceptics losing UK battle, says Lord Deben
Conservative peer questions Lord Lawson’s care for poor, claims his budgets while chancellor suggest otherwise
The head of the UK’s independent climate change watchdog has dismissed suggestions the recent bonfire of green regulations is a sign the government is adopting a more sceptical stance on global warming…
***Deben said his fellow peers Lord Ridley and Lord Lawson – longtime critics of UK efforts to tackle global warming – were “dogmatists” repeating what he termed a “pre-rehearsed line”…
“Their influence is less and less I am happy to say. The facts of science, life and measured views of people like Pope Francis are undermining them. They have become just rude instead of arguing and they are so touchy.”Lord Lawson’s branding of the recent Papal Encyclical on the environment as “junk science” was evidence of a man “who hasn’t listened for years,” he said.“You can’t possibly have confidence in a man who thinks he can improve the Pope’s ethics.”…
Former UK climate chief Ed Davey told the Guardian prime minister Cameron “may as well hug a coal power station” as a result of the recent budget, while green commentators were equally incensed.But Deben defended the raft of proposals from an administration that has quietly dropped its ‘greenest ever’ moniker in favour of cutting short term costs.“The thing we have to accept about this government is that there is not a place for woolly good-heartedness,” he said.“[Osborne] does understand and does believe in climate change but he has a fundamental antagonism to the sort of loose thinking that means that people can’t add up.”…
Still, Deben said green groups were also to blame for the lacklustre debate and progress on climate action in the UK, lamenting the lack of effective grassroots action to influence MPs…
“I keep on saying this. I don’t want any member of parliament to go to his weekly surgery without at least one person raising the issue of climate change – and it’s not difficult to do that… but where are these much vaunted numbers?”…
http://www.rtcc.org/2015/07/16/rude-and-touchy-climate-sceptics-losing-uk-battle-says-lord-deben/
16 July: RTCC: The trillion-dollar question: How do we create sustainable development?
By Achim Steiner
(Achim Steiner is executive director of the UN Environment Programme)
From climate change to the need for inclusive, sustainable societies, the absence of even the smallest signals leads to investments that degrade the natural systems on which our economy vitally depends.
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result holds little promise if we are to achieve the ‘future we want’…
We need, instead, a very much ‘business unusual’ approach to find and invest the estimated US$90 trillion required between now and 2030 for critical infrastructure in countries that are modernising their economies.
We will also need tens of trillions more annually to invest in people, and the millions of small and medium sized business that represent the world’s primary source of employment…
***We will also need tens of trillions more annually to invest in people, and the millions of small and medium sized business that represent the world’s primary source of employment…
“How do we create sustainable development” is quite literally the trillion-dollar question.How we direct our investments in the next decades may very well determine the fate of the estimated 9 billion people who will need food, energy, clean air, clean water, but also healthy soils by mid-century.
http://www.rtcc.org/2015/07/16/the-trillion-dollar-question-how-do-we-create-sustainable-development/
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16 July: RTCC: ‘Job started’ in Addis but more development cash needed
No new money pledged for world’s poor at key summit, casting poverty reduction and climate goals into question
By Leo Barasi in Addis Ababa
The document, known as the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, is similar to the draft text presented at the start of the conference. It added a requirement for the UN secretary general to appoint government-nominated members to the UN tax body.
Its measures include the creation of a new Technology Facilitation Mechanism, designed to improve the UN’s support for transfer of technologies to poorer countries, and a new forum to coordinate infrastructure improvement in developing countries.
It also commits to the introduction of worldwide social safety net systems, which would seek to ensure everyone is guaranteed basic services and protection from hunger and disasters…
The agreement is short on details about the quantity of funds available and when they will be provided, apart from when it refers to existing commitments…
Representatives of developing and middle-income countries have expressed their disappointment about the lack of a commitment to create a new UN body to review global tax arrangements, with India’s delegate describing it as “a historic missed opportunity”…
One of the principal concerns is whether finance for climate change will replace other foreign aid, instead of being additional to it.
“It’s not adequately addressed: no-one’s talking about where these resources are going to come from – if we just use existing ODA [overseas development aid] then definitely it’s not enough”, Adam (Jean-Paul Adam, finance minister of the Seychelles) added…
http://www.rtcc.org/2015/07/16/job-started-in-addis-but-more-development-cash-needed/
10
I finally bit the bullet and have 4kw solar panels being installed, standard PV’s for the time being. They became more than cheap enough, so a mate is installing his at the same time. We were discussing yesterday how we need to set up our house wiring to take best advantage of the solar energy, and from the discussion we decided to also install a windmill each as well. Where we are, when the sun is not shining the wind is likely to be blowing, and the wind turbine will run 24 hours a portion of the year.
We won’t be calling this a wind farm, just a Damned Good idea.
05
BilB: It’s a really pretty fairy tale you are weaving but I know people who live completely off grid and it IS a fairy tale. In true liberal fashion, most deny a problem exists and that they are wonderfully happy, but the dark windows and sour demeanor kind of give away the lie of it all. Yes, there are people who like being miserable, and those who will give up every convenience in life to prove they are right, but most not so. If you are completely disconnecting from the grid, you’ll immediately see the fairy tale. Otherwise, you’ll be living in la-la land believing in string generators and long hidden free energy devices from the US Navy. I can forward a few offers. If you want to take full advantage of the technology, I advise using as few electrical devices as possible to live just like those in the 1800s did. I’m still sitting here laughing hysterically at your belief the wind turbine will run 24 hours and actually produce useful electricity (Bentz’s law strikes again). Wow, if only you were in the US and I could sell you a very special bridge.) The actual realists here will be referring it to as “BilB’s Folly” or BilB’s Fanatasy”.
30
Yes Sheri, the windmill is a smaller contributor to the my energy mix, but then cloudless days are a lesser loss to the solar panel output. It is a complementary contribution to the household energy set.
Also you are right in saying that all of the components of the fully sustainable household are not in place yet. But that is entirely the purpose of my engaging with solar technology, to find out where the missing parts are and to design the solutions.
First up is the refrigerator. The standard fridge has no eutectic panels to store the cold for the night time energy down time. There are several available, but they are on the basic end of the appliance spectrum. I’ll be experimenting with insert panels which can be quickly retro fitted to the average fridge.I’ve already replaced most of the lighting with LED bulbs bringing the entire household lighting consumption to under 200 watts, and the factory down to 400 watts from 3 kilowatts.
You think I will be doing without comforts, but you could not be more wrong. Conveniently energy demands are changing, even without the spectre of climate change. LED lighting, battery powered laptops, low energy consumption LCD television sets, battery powered tools, more efficient electric motor controls, etc. The contra to that is the expansion of access to airconditioners, so the sum total is a slight reduction in overall electricity consumption for the nation as a whole. However for the individual household, the adoption of a full suite of efficient energy devices means that the solar household can be fully self contained.
One of the elements that is not sufficiently covered is that for backup power generation. Current machinery is bulky and noisey, even the latest small packages out of Japan. There is a solution on the way but it is a few years off. That solution is the Liquid Crystal Engine (that is just a title, not a technology) which is a new type of rotary engine that runs with far less noise and vibration, and can run on a variety of fuels. This engine packaged with the Tesla Power Wall, and fuel from natural gas, is the optimal solar energy companion to give complete energy freedom, even fuelling hybrid electric vehicles.
We take so much technology fo granted when it fits seemlessly into our lives. People start their cars and drive around without any thought for the multiplicity of technologies that make that possible. Well households are now in the process of getting that total technology makeover. 20 years from now new houses will not be connected to street power cables at all. The house may only have a natural gass line attached and part of that pipe may have an optic fibre filament for extreme speed data connectivity laid in the same channel. The house energy management system will be entirely invisible to the occupants, but also be entirely renewable and free with the eception of the gass supply. The gas will be fully renewable as its source will be from recycled cellulosic waste (packaging cardboard and paper). The extra gain is that the 4.5 kw PVT household will also charge two hybride vehicles every day 8.5 kwhrs each for a total free 100 klms per day 365 days a year (36,500 klms for the household per year).
Think about what that means in terms of standard of living costs, and then tell me if I will be doing without. I suspect that your living aspect is rural and will this differently to city people, but there is a rural package possible for the country as well.
02
BilB: Are you using an inverter? I am always amazed that people go off-grid and then insist on going AC. (Power loss is surprisingly high to invert. We went DC in our cabin and it’s been fine. We have no fridge and use fossil fuels for heat. I built a panel with the 12 volt power points you find in autos and run lights and everything off the battery that charges with a solar panel. It is amazing how much DC equipment is out there. You can actually get DC evaporative coolers instead of an air conditioner.)
It’s admirable that you want to fill in the missing technology. I hope you can figure some of this out. However, realize that most people are not that hands on type that you are. I doubt we’ll ever reach a level where people are not attached to the grid. It’s also great you realize backup power is needed. You now need three sources of power to keep your house running. I’m not sure how efficient and how much conservation is found therein. All the components require maintenance and replacement over time, plus space. I guess if one’s goal is to “stick it to the power company” (the sales pitch I get at least weekly in my emails), it might make sense. Or a trip down nostalgia lane. Beyond that, it seems pointless. We have technology that works and works well. It’s great to have a backup plan if the grid went down for an extended period, but throwing out the grid?
I’m still going with BilB’s Fantasy for your project, thought I do understand more what your goal may be after you explained your ideas. You lost me with the Tesla Power Wall and the glowing picture of the future straight out of the utopian fantasy playbook.
I would think that my rural perspective would be considered an advantage by most, but I get the feeling you think it’s not?
10
In the boating world we tend to do things with DC, but that is because there are fewer high power gizmos to cater for. If you sre even slightly technically minded you will appreciate that to run a 2 kilowatt toaster wiyh 12 volts requires cabling suitable for 200 amps. This is heavy welder gage cable, not suitable for domestic solutions, hence the 240 volts. DC is suitable for lighting and a small fridge, but that is all. Also low voltage high current cabling is dangerous and I suggest that you make sure that your cabling is conduited in steel. As a lift mechanic years ago my workmate short circuited a small bridge rectifier to earth. The wire feeding the short circuit from its transformer (in your case battery) on the other end of the 3 wardrobe sized control cabinet set instantly glowed red hot over its entire length setting fire to nearly all of the looming through out the lift controller. It was obviously a fusing design fault and was entirely an unanticipated fault condition, but it happened just the same. Be careful with low voltage wiring.
Inverting power is not inefficient if the inverters are designed and specified properly. 97 percent efficient, 3 percent loss, is typical these days. The future solar airconditioner will be of the absorptive type and operate off solar heat, not electricity.
If you are not up to date on energy storage then you will be interested in this
http://www.teslamotors.com/en_AU/powerwall
3 feet high, 2 feet wide, 7 inches thick 10 kw storage capacity. The solutions are coming.
What will happen next is the complete household energy solution will be put together as one homogenous package which the new householder will not know that it is there, providing all of their energy needs. The LP backup generator will be 8 inches square and 24 inches long. It will provide a constant 2.4 kilowatt power (3.5 peak) and the water cooling (5 kilowatt) will backup water heating and space heating where necessary, just as in you car.
None of this is difficult technology. It just takes time to bring the technologies together and proportioned appropriately into one solution.
You see this from a rural perspective, I see it from a totally self sufficient yachting perspective where a grid connection is impossible.
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BilB: Solar toaster. Only eat toast on sunny days.
Yachting? Sorry, not my thing.
Totally self-sufficient is a stretch. You still need parts, etc and you can’t really grow much food on a yacht. This still sounds like the fake self-sufficiency I see all around in the off-the-grid crowd.
There are tons of 12 volt items out there. We did have to increase the solar panels and batteries to run them, but it can be done.
00
So then BilB,
at absolutely enormous cost, SOME residential homes will have the utopia you dream of.
That will be around 5 perhaps 10% of those homes at the absolute best.
So, with residential power consumption totalling 30% in Australia, you have almost 3%, absolute best case scenario covered.
Any idea on where that other 97% of actual power consumption will be supplied from.
It’s people like you who think that power consumption is only what you consume in your home that have turned this (real and actual) power supply (non) debate into a meme that you think is actually achievable.
The average Commercial installation is residential multiplied by ten to twenty, and the average Industry consumption is residential multiplied by 100 to 200.
When you actually have a plan for all that, then perhaps you may be even taken seriously. Until then, all you have is hopes which dreamers say are within reach.
They aren’t.
Tony.
00
Tony, you are talking through your hat, and have absolutely no idea of what is possible or at what price. Nor will you ever learn while you are determined to prove solar a failure.
Your sticking your fingers in ears and yelling rhubarb rhubarb, rhubarb, will prevent you from hearing about it but it will not make solar energy go away, or stop working.
Yes there are some large energy consumers who will need to find their own renewable energy solutions, and there are some for which a fossil energy solution will be required for decades to come. One of those is of course shipping where the only practical solution is nuclear energy, but that industry is totally disinterested in building ship borne nuclear reactors.
I was looking at my mates much smaller system today. In the shorg period that it has been operational he has put 50 kwhrs into the grid and used 3 himself. He needs to turn that around by reorganising his consumption. Regardless, you seem to have a problem appreciating that power generation is cumulative. Lots of rooftops produce a huge amount of electricity and at the time that most consumers need it. But as is obvious the shoulder peaks are a problem that requires a mixture of solutions, and there are an army of creative minds, not disabled by the hysterical “it will never work” theme, working on those alternative solutions.
Hybrid CSP is the base baseload grid solution. Then there are a broad range of solutions to manage load levels. The Irish 20 meg spinning reserve flywheel currently being installed is gaining a lot of interest. Heat/cold energy storage is commonly deployed. The smart grid reduces capacity requirements by up to 30%. Renewable technologies are improving on a daily basis.
With your logic you would be telling the Wright Bros they are wasting their time as their plane can’t transport hundreds of people half way around the world.
01
Incredible that Bilbey and his ilk prattle on about “solutions”.
A solution requires a problem, so they propose a solution and then rush about like headless chooks looking for a problem that fits their solution.
10
What (nominal) capacity is the wind turbine? And is it attached to the house?
I’d have to dig into my archives but I remember a builder in the UK claiming that any roof
mounted turbine that returned a useful amount of energy would be big enough to rip the rafters off.
And remember the fiasco of Dave Cameron’s 500W house turbine; similar machines returned enough power in a year to boil the kettle 3 times.
20
We have a rural property. A guy down the road from us was full on with sustainability. Had his own chooks, pigs, cows, etc. His name was not MacDonald, which was a pity.
But it was a good life style, and seemed a great way to bring up his kids (a boy and a girl). He had a composting toilet, his own well (not connected to the toilet), and recycled everything he could.
But he was connected to the grid for electricity, and that went against his ethic. So he decided to put in a windmill, to generate his own electrical power. Well he soon found out that the power generated under load, was barely sufficient to run the lights in his house, let alone the the lights and pumps in the milking shed. But, a bit is better than none, so his shed stayed connected to the grid, and his house was self sufficient for lighting – while the wind blew. The battery backup supplied less than 70% of the power that came directly from the windmill, so he had to be selective about which lights were on, and when.
Not only that, one of his kids (I don’t know which one) got sick, and started throwing up at regular intervals. The child was hospitalised, for tests, but recovered in a matter of hours. They took the child home, and the symptoms returned almost immediately, so they went back to the hospital, and the child recovered, and then got sick again, when at home.
It came down to a range of subharmonic frequencies cause by the windmill. If the windmill wasn’t running, the child was fine. If it was, he or she got sick. Also, apparently, the hens stopped laying.
About a month later, the windmill came down, and the structural metal was recycled for other purposes. They have since moved away.
30
Talk about laugh out loud.
Thanks for that RW.
10
Rereke Whakaaro @ #77.3
———-
The difference between [ luke- ] warmistas and and skeptics.
BilB has it all worked out what it WILL do [ in theory.]
Rereke has seen the reality of what ACTUALLY happens.
00
You didn’t mention where you are located but I will have to assume that you are connected to a mains electricity supply.
With the advent of “smart” meters you should be able to have coal/gas/nuclear generated electricity excluded from your consumption.
In fact I think any company or individual that is “green” should be excluded from utilising c/g/n generated electricity.
30
Agreed. For power to be advertised as “green” it must not be allowed to be backed up by reliable power sources like coal/gas/nuclear.
Users of “green” solar and wind must be prepared to accept wildly fluctuating production and extended periods of no power when there is no sun or wind.
Can someone confirm that existing smart meters could be configured to only allow the import of “green” power and not reliable power (or export from a home of surplus solar, assuming therebwould be no wind turbines at a home)?
20
David Maddison @ #77.4.1
First; smart meters are interactive; information can flow both ways through the short range meter to meter node radio communication system.
Control of the smart meters ability to remotely control the customer’s power use is currently only available to the grid or retail operators
There is no actual need to modify the “smart meters” to only allow the consumer to access electricity from a particular generator at a particular and perhaps changing price.
The price flexibility is already via smart meters.
The meters can remotely switch off and switch on power to the specific household consumer.
The smart meters can adjust your grid power usage to take account of any solar power you might be generating for your own use or to feed back into the grid.
Smart meters are actually the dumb individual remote interactive terminals at each consumers location that are merely extensions of how the central Smart meter controlling program controls and prices the individual customer’s power consumption and point of power supply.
They merely carry out the individual physical adjustments and pricing of the customers power supply at his / her access point for power depending on what programming has been loaded into the retailers and / or grid operators central controlling computer system.
So it is reasonably easy I would think and possibly is already a part of the commercial grid and retailer’s retail power supply controlling programs needing only to be activated to switch consumers into and out of as well as or alternatively switch “off power” and “on power” whenever the renewable or other forms of power generation energy systems were supplying power to the grid and in accordance with the customers previously stated requirements and demands.
At insufficient renewable energy supplies, the consumer / client could indicate to the supplier the maximum they were prepared to pay for power and this financial auction for renewable power access would delineate the the order in which renewable power consumers would be switched into renewable energy supplies as they became available.
If they didn’t want any fossil fuel generated power, easy!.
Central computer switches their power off via the smart meter until the wind and solar kicks back in and then they are placed in line according to the maximum price they have nominated and which they are prepared to pay for renewable power to get switched back on again which can be done in an instant via the interactive Smart meters.
NOW that would sort all the wannabe and pseudo greenies out very quick smart from the real dyed in the wool dedicated greenies, a sorting out which would be very obvious the first time the greenies who had nominated renewable energy only, got switched off.
The howls of outrage would be deafening particularly when they looked out the door or window and saw the rest of the world with all the lights and heaters and coolers going full blast and just going as usual about their business, burning all that fossil fueled generated electricity without a care in the world about all that deadly nefarious carbon from that despicable coal being dispersed around in multi tonne lots.
10
BilB #77, Please would you generously provide a cost break down and define ‘cheap’ here?
30
400 dollars down and 50 dollars a week for 3 and a half years. With some care I can nearly break even on the payments and after the purchase period future electricity is free. Its a good enough deal for a 4 kw system. I am sure I could have found a cheaper package if I had the time to hunt around, but for me this is an experiment and serendipity is part of the experience.
01
Long term Green jobs?
As this document outlines, in order to get the unreliable power from windmills lots of regular maintenance is required.
30
Just a few links to what people perceive as the drawbacks to windmills —
Renewable Energy becoming a financial nightmare in Germany:
http://www.epaw.org/documents.php?lang=en&article=cost11
Wind Farm Performance vs Demand:
http://windfarmperformance.info/documents/analysis/monthly/aemo_wind_201203_hhour.pdf
Wind Farm noise harms health and sleep:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/9653429/Wind-farm-noise-does-harm-sleep-and-health-say-scientists.html
Spanish wind farms kill 6 to 18 million birds & bats a year:
http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/releases/spanish-wind-farms-kill-6-to-18-million-birds-bats-a-year.html
On killing or birds and bats.
http://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/more-about-wind-turbines-killing-birds-and-bats/
and
http://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2013/04/13/for-the-birds/
and
Wind farms are a greater threat to wildlife than climate change:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8807761/wind-farms-vs-wildlife/
Wind turbines cause fog:
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/its-an-ill-wind/
Wind turbines cause local heating:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-30/wind-farms-linked-to-temperature-rises/3979930
Wind power Has Limits. The more you use the less there is:
http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2013/04/09/3732966.htm
Why Wind Won’t Work:
http://carbon-sense.com/2011/02/08/why-wind-wont-work/
Shocking example of the “green” wind farm deceit practised in New Zealand.
http://nzwindfarms.wordpress.com/
Localised drying does occur and turbine fires are almost impossible to put out.
http://news.discovery.com/earth/weather-extreme-events/hot-wind-farms-120429.htm
http://bangordailynews.com/2011/06/29/opinion/forest-fires-and-wind-turbines-the-danger-no-one-is-talking-about/
http://www.fireengineering.com/news/2013/04/23/4-million-turbine-fire-at-kibby-mountain-puts-wind-energy-under-new-scrutiny-by-state-opponents.html
Thank-you mods for letting this list through…
40
I suggest the name “a windfall of bird shredders” for a conglomeration of these monstrosities.
30
Fly Around Raptor Mincers
20
Poor dino’s. They hung around for hundreds of millions of years to be almost completely obliterated by a cataclysmic extinction event. The few remaining relatives now have to dice with wind follies and they’re not coming off too well.
I wonder whether the random arbiter of natural selection will be kind to them?
20
Jo
when describing a photo we hear about background and foreground.
But in the photo at the start the “ground ground” seems to be substantially lacking in vegetation
So its “farming connections” aren’t agricultural IMO
10
Thats a near ripe grain crop at about the grain fill stage around those turbines and you can see the strip farming in the background which is done in parts of the USA to control wind erosion.
20
Windmill photo is called
jo.nova.s3.amazonaws.[c o m]/photo/man-made/renewables/wind-farm-lower-saxony-sml.jpg
20
Rice in Saxony? Hmmm. Here’s the Wikimedia information.
NB: Anybody can use web search engines like Google to find matching or similar images.
20
I’ve seen a coal farm. Been to an opal farm.
Yet to visit the gold farm in Kalgoorlie.
The nearby iron and steel farm closed down a while ago but the oil and gases farm is still operating.
50
Here are some very enlightening articles about these bird munching and health destroying useless “wind turbines”…….
New research suggests wind turbines excite brains – and not in a good way
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/new_research_suggests_wind_turbines_excite_brains_and_not_in_a_good_way/
Wind Energy’s Ghosts
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2010/02/wind_energys_ghosts_1.html
20
It’s like when someone wanted to put in a gravel, sand and rock depot across the road from us. The council notification had it described as a ‘wholesale nursery‘. It’s the same way the Left are trying to sell same-sex ‘marriage‘, by labeling the debate ‘marriage equality‘. People are way too passive when it comes to manipulation by terminology.
10
Farm, as a collective noun, is used for a lot of non farming related things such as – wind farms, solar farms (both are producers of electricity), server farm (Internet servers), etc. .
00
So it’s consistent with the EU-sense of a “farm” which is a non-industrial quasi-private enterprise using subsidies to operate so inefficiently as possible; to employ numerous bureaucracies to manage their feeble output.
20
A wheat farm produces grain and a pig farm produces pork. What does a wind farm produce?
10
Public opposition.
20
Collective noun suggestion: A deceit of wind turbines
00
I prefer to think of it as “wind scavenging” or “nuclear power by proxy”
00
Or perhaps, since in the early days of flight a propellor was an “airscrew”, a more appropriate term might be a “windscrewing plantation”.
00
Wind farms because they plough money into the land owners pockets . I know dumb .
Do the “farmers’ get to sell all the dead birds too ? A real win /win .
00
Not if the dead bird is an American Bald eagle. You can’t even posses feathers or any part of said bird. So I image they bury or burn (gasp!) the carcasses, especially of any endangered or popular birds they find dead. They have to maintain the ruse of being environmentally friendly, you know.
00
Some climate modeller must be able to figure out how much CO2 those !@#$ birds would have breathed out
had they lived.Then they could claim a carbon credit for those too . The revenue streams are endless .
Fuel poverty deaths caused by the obscene cost of intermittent wind power must be worth something . A demand side
management initiative . Who knew there was such money to be made from the premature death of birds ,bats and old people on fixed incomes .
Granny dies from fuel poverty hypothermia and you get a carbon offset cheque in the mail for those carbon (CO2 ) reductions .
Got to align those interests after all .
00