Wind Turbines a Waste?

[oldno7]

http://www.ff.org/uk-wastes-millions-on-wind-turbines/

[Iceaxe]

The thread title is very deceiving.... it should read something like..... small wind turbines that are poorly engineered and poorly located are a POS....

The article never does address the large commercial wind turbines that have been well engineered and properly located.



Tap'n on my Galaxy G3

[rockgremlin]

The thread title is very deceiving.... it should read something like..... small wind turbines that are poorly engineered and poorly located are a POS....

The article never does address the large commercial wind turbines that have been well engineered and properly located.



Tap'n on my Galaxy G3

Even the large commercial ones that are well placed are a waste. There's a huge wind farm out here in the flats north of Milford. On a good week they'll be visibly spinning lazily 4 out of the 7 days. About half the time they are idle, and I've been told they have to use coal fired electricity just to keep them spinning some days....it's a joke.

I guess they're great if you are trying to provide supplemental power to a small town, but no way in hell wind farms have the capacity to supply power to cities as large as SLC and beyond.

[rockgremlin]

I bet you could rival the electricity generated by wind farms with foot powered sewing machines. Get all the citizens of a small town and have them bring their own machines and go to town 3 Amigos style. There's gotta be at least a few hundred kW of power generation there. Sew very old one, sew like the wind..!

[DesertDuke]

We have these here in Idaho Falls and the most telling aspect about how "good" they are is that we are all required to pay a supplemental fee on our bill to cover them. May I suggest the book or even the movie "Cool It" by one of my favorite experts on the subject of energy data analysis: Bjorn Lomborg.

[rockgremlin]

May I suggest the book or even the movie "Cool It" by one of my favorite experts on the subject of energy data analysis: Bjorn Lomborg.

Here here!! I read his book "A Skeptical Environmentalist" - a great read.

[double moo]

A friend of mine worked as the purchasing agent for a large wind farm construction company. He said that the maintenance on them cost more than the power they sold. He said everyone on the team figured that as soon as the gov't subsidies were gone that they would all be mothballed. He aslo noted that the wind speed needed to generate sellable power to the wind speed that over rotates them to destruction is a very narrow window - hence they spend a lot of time not working. I have no personal experience to detail this as fact... just discussions with a friend in the industry.

[reverse_dyno]

A news site with a subtitle of, "Securing the blessings of freedom", is obliviously a right wing propaganda site. Secondly, in SLC there is an inversion which is trapping the pollution on the West side of the Wasatch. It is widely known that air pollution tends to cause health problems.

No one is claiming that wind power is cheap; they are claiming that it is better to pay a little more for electricity than to dam rivers and poison the air. The true cost of coal and natural gas power plants is much higher than what we actually pay for electricity. For example, people that have asthma attacks due to high air pollution do not receive remuneration. Rather, the person that has the asthma attack gets stuck with the bill. Multiply that over millions of people and you get a better idea of the actual costs associated with smoke stacks.

[Rob L]

One of the "sales pitches" for large wind farms is their alleged "green" credentials, carbon etc.

I recall seeing a study where the energy required to design, project-manage, build, install, service, maintain and decommission (the so called "life-cycle") was more than they could produce in their life. More carbon was consumed than would be saved by not burning fossil fuels.

Much of it is political willy-waving, and only government subsidies can assist the cost of building them. They are a blot on the landscape (I have two 10-windmill windfarms close to me).

Now, a farmer friend of mine has just installed at his cost (no subsidies) a 12kW PV solar panel installation on the roof of one of his barns, plumbed into the national grid. There is a 6 year pay-back for his

[deagol]

Here here!! I read his book "A Skeptical Environmentalist" - a great read.

If anyone has the time to read this ..
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...to-lomborgs-re

[DesertDuke]

If anyone has the time to read this ..
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...to-lomborgs-re

"Cool It" is a different book.

[rockgremlin]

If anyone has the time to read this ..
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...to-lomborgs-re

Pfffffft...here's the author of that Scientific American article:




No way could he possibly be credible.

[oldno7]

Pfffffft...here's the author of that Scientific American article:




No way could he possibly be credible.

Well----that depends....
What song is he attempting to sing.
I think there should be a correlation between song choices and credibility, but only as it pertains to wind generation.

[rockgremlin]

Well----that depends....
What song is he attempting to sing.
I think there should be a correlation between song choices and credibility, but only as it pertains to wind generation.

This is what he's attempting to sing: