Mega Wind farm that will only operate seven months a year
When does it make sense to build 122 giant industrial turbines that can’t operate for nearly half a year?
The EPA has approved Robbins Island Mega Wind Factory in a remote island off Tasmania that will have to stop working for five months of the year so it doesn’t hurt the Orange-bellied Parrot.
It will however be able to kill eagles and other birds for the other seven months of the year.
Green electrons are revered, Orange-bellied parrots are sacred but our way of life is up for grabs. It’s a cult.
This is infrastructure that only works about 30 percent of the time anyhow, and now will be reduced to something like 17 percent.
The theoretical capacity will be 340MW in the first stage, supposedly growing to 900MW if they can somehow build the extra 170km transmission lines and perhaps get the taxpayer to help build another undersea cable across the Bass Strait. (If the company was going to pay, why was the Tasmanian government spending $20m on the “business case”?)
It will be one of the largest wind factories in the Southern Hemisphere (the biggest being West of Melbourne), but as Tom Quirk showed years ago, when the wind stops in Tasmania it often also stops in Victoria.
So the two giant wind factories with supposedly 2GW of random unreliable power between them will both probably be useless together.
In 2019, this mega industrial proposal was the point where the Greens suddenly realized that skeptics were right and wind-farms were ugly bird killers.
Coming in a hundred years, the Greens will figure out that we can save birds and forests if we burn brown coal:
Robbins Island wind farm proposal approved on condition of 5-month annual shutdown due to orange-bellied parrots
By Erin Cooper, Meg Powell, and Monte Bovill, ABC
A contentious wind farm proposed for Tasmania’s north-western tip has been given the green light from the state’s environment watchdog, but under the condition it doesn’t operate for almost half the year.
Philippines-based multinational renewables company ACEN has sought approval to build a wind farm with up to 122 turbines on Robbins Island and a parcel of land called Jim’s Plain, north-west of Smithton.
The Environment Protection Authority (EPA) has granted conditional approval for the project, which has been vehemently opposed by environmentalists and some Circular Head residents.
Notice the speed with which the EPA operates:
Some 383 representations were received during the public consultation period in January and February 2022.
Plenty more birds to kill:
Dr Woehler [from BirdLife Tasmania] questioned the location for the proposal, describing it as “incredible the EPA hasn’t thought at all about the 20,000 migratory and resident shore birds that use the area”.
“You cannot have a wind farm with 120-plus turbines in the middle of wetlands that are important for migratory shore birds, resident shore birds, orange-bellied parrots, eagles.”
Is this the point where the Greens realize they’ve been used by Big-Money?
Robbins Island is home to more than half of Tasmania’s shorebird population, including many critically-endangered species.
Not to mention the disease-free population of Tasmanian devils, bird species that migrate from the other side of the globe, and iconic wedge-tailed eagles.
The huge Tasmania wind farm faces Aboriginal cultural heritage claims too:
A request for Robbins Island and its surrounding waters be declared a significant Aboriginal area, to be preserved and protected from injury or desecration, has been submitted to federal environment minister Sussan Ley, RenewEconomy has learned.
See more here joannenova.com.au
Some bold emphasis added
Please Donate Below To Support Our Ongoing Work To Defend The Scientific Method
PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL, legally registered in the UK as a company 
incorporated for charitable purposes. Head Office: 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX.
Trackback from your site.
VOWG
| #
None of this wind turbine solar foolishness makes any sense. Someone is lining their pockets and the taxpayers are being robbed. All the insanity requires massive inputs of fossil fuel energy to build these unicorns of a different breed.
Reply
Tom
| #
Totally impracticable. Like big pharma mRNA injections, which serve no practical purpose, it’s all about the money. No wonder the aliens pass this planet by…they must think humans are truly insane.
Reply
Robert Beatty
| #
If we must build wind generators, why not relook at the basic engineering?
Current turbines rely on the work of Albert Betz (1929) who calculated that existing wind mills are limited to extracting 59% of the available wind energy. If we use fuselage turbines we can generate power when the wind is too strong for wind mills, and benefit with the use of a perforated nozzle ahead of the fan, and diffuser to reduce the back pressure. We can precondition the incoming air by injecting water vapour to increase the density and available power. We also use an enclosed blade system which separates the birds from the air stream. See details at https://principia-scientific.com/wind-power-is-the-fuselage-turbine-a-better-design/
But wait. This is a new design. The precautionary mob cannot recommend anything new, can they.
Reply
Howdy
| #
“I wonder if this explains where the ultra-low frequency noise pollution comes from?”
While I have no knowledge of this field, I say it sounds likely, Robert.
Obstructions in close proximity to fan blades generate sound. Though not exactly the same principle, mechanical sirens use precisely this function using holes to generate sound, with frequency dependent on fan speed. Scale the siren up, slow it down, voila! Instant sub-audio generator.
It also occurs in low speed computer fans, if any object comes close enough. Even the fan’s own structure is a problem in some cases.
Though more complication, what if the blades were altered when passing the support, like the cyclic of a helicopter? Pulsing stress eliminated. Also, why not use conical gearing to remove the over-speed problem? It works for machine tools.
Ultimately, none of which is any use in the absence of wind.
Reply
Robert Beatty
| #
We must be loosing our minds as a species. Apparently it is good to destroy our visual landscapes with these impossible structures – to say nothing of their hugely negative economic impacts.
After exerting so much effort to conserve threatened species – it is suddenly OK to slice and dice them. Better still if it happens at sea where people are not aware of the environmental destruction.
All this destruction in the name of restricting the emission of carbon dioxide – a harmless gas critical to the survival of most flora and fauna – and with no negative connection to the ‘climate’.
The great days of the human populations are ending rapidly, to maybe replaced by another period of dark age. It is time to reassess how we survive as a species.
My suggestion is to change our top-down form of governments to the bottom-up alternative.
Reply