The Madness of worshipping wind Power
For too long, wind power has been championed to the exclusion of virtually all other energy alternatives. That must end.
Take a wild guess at how much of the UK’s total primary demand for energy was supplied by wind power in 2020.
Half? 30 per cent? No, in fact, it was less than four per cent.
That’s right, all those vast wind farms in the North Sea, or disfiguring the hills of Wales and Scotland, give us little more than one-thirtieth of the energy we need to light and heat our homes, power our businesses or move our cars and trains.
Last week, Government ministers were considering lowering people’s energy bills if they live close to onshore wind turbines.
They’re also considering relaxing the rules so that onshore wind farms no longer need the backing of local communities and councils in order to get planning permission.
This will give wind farms an easier ride through the planning process than new housing — or shale gas drilling sites.
More importantly, it means further privileging an industry that has cost a fortune, wrecked green and pleasant landscapes and made us dependent on the weather for our energy needs — and thus more wedded to natural gas as a back-up.
The wind industry has already been fattened on subsidies of more than £6billion a year (paid for out of green levies on your electricity bills), it has privileged access to the grid and is paid extra compensation when the wind blows too strongly and the grid cannot cope with the energy output.
Indeed, the way wind power has managed to get politicians and others to think it is uniquely virtuous will deserve close study by future theologians.
Its symbols, akin to a post-modern Easter crucifix, now adorn almost any document that purports to be about British energy needs, signalling ‘goodness’.
Tousle-headed eco-protesters go weak at the knees when they see an industrial wind farm on wild land, while angry anti-capitalists won’t hear a word against the financial firms that back wind companies, somehow convincing themselves that this is all about re-empowering the common man.
When faced with a looming energy crisis, it’s obvious that the Government needs to act fast to secure energy selfsufficiency.
But what is so special about wind?
Why, to the exclusion of all else — in particular, fracking and nuclear energy — has arguably the most inefficient solution been privileged?
I was once a fan of wind power, because it seemed to be free. But it’s not.
It takes a lot of expensive machinery to extract useful power from the wind.
And once turbines are up and running, they’re not reliable.
Because you cannot store electricity for any length of time without huge cost, wind farms need backing up by ‘fossil-fuel’ power stations.
This makes wind even more expensive.
As I write this article in still, fine spring weather, millions of tonnes of turbines stand largely idle, generating just three per cent of our electricity.
Coal contributes five per cent.
As a source of energy, wind is so weak that to generate any meaningful electricity output you need three 20-tonne carbon-fibre blades — each nearly the length of a football pitch — turning a 300-tonne generator atop a gigantic steel tower set in reinforced concrete.
Hundreds of these monsters are required to produce as much electricity as one small gas-powered plant. In terms of land covered, wind takes 700 times as much space to generate the same energy that one low-rise shale gas pad can.
It is not as if wind turbines are good for the environment. They kill thousands of birds and bats every year, often rare eagles on land and soaring gannets at sea.
If you were even to disturb a bat when adding a conservatory, you could end up in jail.
The wind turbines are also near impossible to recycle, with the rare earth metals such as neodymium that are vital for the magnets inside most of their generators coming from polluted mines in China.
Wind turbines are often built on hills to catch the breeze, meaning they inevitably intrude into natural beauty.
My favourite Northumbrian view, of Bamburgh Castle and Cheviot from the Farne Islands, is now visually polluted by a giant wind farm.
But for those who live closer to them, life can be intolerable.
The unresolved problem of wind turbine noise can make sleep difficult.
On sunny days, the shadows of the blades create an unnerving flicker as they pass your windows.
Being next to a wind farm won’t enhance your house’s value — and I doubt any reduction in your energy bill would help.
Nor is it clear that wind farms reduce emissions significantly.
If the meagre four per cent of our energy that came from wind in 2020 had entirely displaced coal, we would have seen at least a modest cut in our emissions.
But there are three reasons why that is not what happens.
First, we need other power stations to back up the wind farms when the wind does not blow, and these plants — mostly burning gas — are inevitably less efficient when being ramped up and down to support wind’s erratic output.
The wind industry promises that the more wind farms we build, the more likely we are to find there will always be a breeze somewhere.
But experience shows the opposite. Last week, for instance, was virtually still everywhere; the week before was windy everywhere.
A recent study published in the International Journal for Nuclear Power, looking at Germany and 17 neighbouring countries, confirmed this erratic output.
Its author, physicist Thomas Linnemann, wrote:
‘Wind power from a European perspective always will require practically 100 per cent back-up systems.’
Second, wind turbines themselves are built and maintained using ‘fossil fuels’.
Analysis of audited accounts suggests that many wind farms will not work for much more than 15 years before the cost of maintaining the machine eats into income and it has to be scrapped and replaced.
The capital refreshment cycle for these machines is very short.
A gas turbine on the other hand can easily last 30 or 40 years.
Third, the one source of energy whose economic rationale has been most damaged by wind power is zero-carbon nuclear.
Nuclear plants all over the world are closing down early, or being cancelled, because they cannot pay their way in a world where bursts of almost valueless wind energy keep being dumped into the grid.
Nuclear plants cannot ‘fill a gap’ when the wind drops — they’re efficient only when generating constantly.
A wind-powered grid can be backed up with gas, or a nuclear grid topped up with gas, but a grid powered by wind and nuclear will not work.
Wind’s champions insist its costs are coming down and that its electricity is now cheaper than from gas or even coal.
But there is a great deal of data, all pointing to industry costs (per megawatthour) not falling but rising, as economics Professor Gordon Hughes of Edinburgh University has found.
Building and maintaining wind farms is about to get even more costly because of the rocketing costs of fuel and raw materials.
As for the competition, gas is currently very expensive in Britain, but it used to be cheap and it could be once more — particularly if we open up the North Sea and get fracking.
Then there’s the cost of ‘constraint payments’, which means extra compensation paid (by you, the electricity consumer) to wind farms when the grid cannot cope with their output.
Some wind farms in Scotland have been paid to throw away large fractions of their energy.
Since the introduction of the payments in 2010, the cost to consumers has topped a staggering £1.1bn.
That’s before you consider the subsidies, which data shows have been rising for offshore wind for two decades.
When the wind industry boasts of being cheap and you challenge them to forgo subsidies, they mutter and look down at their feet.
This happened at a parliamentary select committee this month: boasts of cheapness followed by protestations that subsidies must be maintained.
Something doesn’t add up.
Even these costs understate the problem because they do not include the huge ‘system costs’ in reconfiguring and operating the national grid to cope with more unreliable energy if we continue our mad dash to wind power.
These costs would be shared by all power sources, so wind’s competitors would pay for wind’s privileges.
Here is what Professor Hughes and Dr John Constable of the Renewable Energy Foundation said recently:
‘The assumptions which underpin the BEIS [Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy] estimates of the cost of generation for wind and solar power are fanciful, and do not withstand even cursory scrutiny; under close analysis they disintegrate and are a disgrace to the civil service and an embarrassment to ministers.
They are so far from the actual costs incurred … and recorded in audited accounts that they are not worth further consideration, except as evidence for fundamental civil service reform.’
Why is this so important? Professor Hughes explains:
‘The Government is creating a situation in which it will have no option other than to bail out failed and failing projects to ensure continuity of electricity supply.
Ultimately [the losses] will fall largely on taxpayers and customers.’
Thousands of words, mine included, have been written, demonstrating the deluded obsession with wind — and the huge benefits of untapped alternatives, particularly shale gas (accessed through fracking) and nuclear power.
These arguments are based on reason and data.
Yet the Government dismisses them with bluster and deflection, standing up instead for the wind industry.
Someone needs to start standing up for the rest of us.
See more here: dailymail.co.uk
Bold emphasis added
Header image: Whitelees Windfarm on the outskirts of Glasgow
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VOWG
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I have tried to simplify things for years with very little success. No matter how many times you point out that wind turbines cannot be made without massive inputs of fossil fuels the idiots still think they can do away with fossil fuels, the disconnect is disturbing to say the least.
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Mark Tapley
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Hello VOWG:
Just as with the fake virus fear and control campaign that has conditioned the herd to fear a non existent pathogen and submit to more losses natural rights, while bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars into the pockets of the insiders, we see another similar strategy playing out in the climate change (formerly global warming) scam run by the same cartel of criminals. They have the money (banking cartel), fake media, and control all of the top political appointments and key positions in all countries of any consequence. Any one who opposes the agenda such as PCR inventor Mullis or the 5 presidents of countries not willing to play ball, are eliminated. This methodical, incremental, generational conspiracy for global hegemony has advanced steadily since at least the time of the French Revolution. Now they are close to achieving their goal of destruction of all the countries to be replaced by a global totalitarian state. This is what Klaus’s WEF “great Reset” refers to, and is being presented to the livestock in regional planning format known as the U.N. Sustainable Development Initiative -Agenda 2030-21.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/HVoiQbL5i4I3/
https://www.bitchute.com/video/j4cd72brE6JY/
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Eric the Red
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Monetary costs? What about the laws of thermodynamics in the real world? Has everyone just forgotten about those? Or do they believe that by telling enough lies about reality, reality will just somehow magically conform to their Holy Narrative?
This is not just bizarro clown world we live in, it’s a post-Truth society, where the goal is to foist off some jackass’s favorite narrative on as many unsuspecting rubes as possible, filled with magic words and some fake moral imperative. With leftists thoroughly in control of society, it’s the normalization of insanity.
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Alan
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An excellent article explaining the problems clearly. But still too difficult for our stupid politicians, Greta and her followers and the jet set celebrities.
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Robert Beatty
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“I was once a fan of wind power, because it seemed to be free. But it’s not.” If Matt could not get it right then, what makes his advice any better this time around.
“Because you cannot store electricity for any length of time without huge cost, wind farms need backing up by ‘fossil-fuel’ power stations.” Well if you use wind power to exclusively pump water to a higher level, you can generate from the potential energy any time you need it. But if you use it to bastardise existing base load power, you are following a Marxist agenda.
“The unresolved problem of wind turbine noise can make sleep difficult.” Putting big blades near a hollow tube causes the tube to hum at very low frequency, and big swinging blades act as bird slicers. The blades need to be enclosed:
See https://principia-scientific.org/wind-power-is-the-fuselage-turbine-a-better-design/
Wind like all other forms of power has its place in a modern economy, but let the trained engineers recommend where those places are rather than letting a Top Down government dictate the application. See https://bosmin.com/HOME/Bottom-UpGovernment.pdf
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Lyn Jenkins [Mr]
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It is obvious that wind energy can NEVER supply the whole UK and all its vehicles. In 2021, UK wind energy averaged around 5600MW according to National Grid site Gridwatch.co.uk.
We need 60000MW in cold weather to power homes, offices, factories, hospitals, farms, hotels etc. Do you realise that if we have 30 million SMALL electric cars like the Nissan Leaf, that 150,000MW will need to be available in the National Grid for 2 hours each day to PARTIALLY CHARGE 30 million EVs to travel only 37 miles per day per car. That’s without heaters, wipers and air con being switched on !! There are about 37 million vehicles in UK. Once diesel/petrol manufacture is scrapped in 2030, we will have to import even more diesel/petrol cars for MANY DECADES, because the electricity does NOT EXIST for even 5 million EVs if we rely on wind and solar energy.
Where to put wind turbines?? How about those who WANT THEM putting them all over the Cotswolds, Malverns, Chilterns, Herefordshire , Hampshire and Shropshire instead of dumping the vast English share of these useless part-time 3-arm bandits on Wales !!
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richard
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I would have thought the gas debacle in Germany would put paid to the notion that Wind and Solar unicorns can power a country.
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Kevin Doyle
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What is also not explained by technically illiterate politicians and wind power advocates is that when the wind speed drops in half, you get only 1/4th power output.
Also, GE never explains the wind speed used to estimate power output for wind turbines, such as the GE Haliade 150-6. They claim it is 6 mega-watts output, with a ‘reference speed’ of 50 meters per second, which is 180 kilometers/hour.
Does 180 Km/h wind speed sound typical to anyone?
I will need to work the equations backwards to find the real wind speed used to estimate this charade.
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John Alexander
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It is difficult to believe that with all the evidence accumulated since the 14th century that people believe that this technology still has some use in powering a modern economy is astounding.
I invite them to view two videos’ as no matter how much written evidence is offered they still cannot discern.
Here are the two videos they should view and in the proposed sequence. It’s only 10 minutes worth so they should have an attention span of at least 15 to grasp it. That is the caveat.
https://www.prageru.com/video/how-much-energy-will-the-world-need?
https://www.prageru.com/video/whats-wrong-with-wind-and-solar
Thereafter they will need psychiatric help.
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Kevin Doyle
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John Alexander – My first textbook on Thermodynamics asked the student to calculate how many windmills would be required to supply power for America.
The answer: The entire U.S. – Mexico border would need to be lined with windmills 100 meters in diameter, and that still would only be if the wind speed were higher than average…
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MattH
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Hi Kevin Doyle.
I appreciate your informed and educated comments. Heaps better than reading peoples prejudices and belief systems.
I will print off these two comments for future references.
Thank you. Matt
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MattH
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And thank you John Alexander also.
I was growing skeptical about the prageru presentation until at the conclusion nuclear energy was included.
Cheers. Matt
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Kevin Doyle
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Matt, Over 300 years ago, Isaac Newton figured out F=ma (Force = Mass * Acceleration). All objects being moved must obey this.
The energy from a windmill is a function of area of circle of blades, density of air, and wind velocity squared.
Energy = 1/2 * Rho * (Pi*D) * V^2
In order to make a car or aircraft move twice as fast, you need four times the energy. Same thing with extracting energy from wind or flowing water.
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MattH
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Thank you again Kevin.
Which leaves me wondering. At what speed in which gear is my six speed Triton most efficient?
Cheers Matt
Mark Tapley
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The windmills are not supposed to work but to fail. That is why the fake global warming scam was started by the elite insiders Club of Rome in 1969. Prosperous economies of free individuals do nothing for the Zionist syndicate who have their puppet leaders acting as figureheads in all the countries. As more “Green Energy” disasters are installed in order the fight the fake greenhouse gas, the worse the energy situation will become. This again will be blamed on manmade CO2 which will require more unworkable “Green Energy” which will crater the economies, then used as an excuse for martial law, austerity measures and endemic shortages which will usher in “urgent measures” leading to the implementation of the long term U.N. Sustainable Development Initiative Agenda 2030-21. Just like Marx (Moses Mordecai Levy) planned all along.
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Kevin Doyle
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Update: I did find a Norwegian company claiming the Sway Turbine ST10, is rated at 10 Mega-Watt output at wind speed of 13meters/second = 47 KPH = 29 MPH.
The wind speeds here in New England, USA vary from 5-15 MPH. Only in stormy conditions does it exceed 20 MPH = 32 Kilometers per hour.
These claims of the wind turbine manufacturers are unrealistic, and dishonest.
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Kevin Doyle
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I stand corrected. After consulting my ‘Thermodynamics’ text book, the proper equation for a energy captured by a windmill:
The energy from a windmill is a function of area of circle of blades squared, density of air, and wind velocity cubed.
Energy = 1/2 * Rho * (PiDD) * V^3
This, of course is the raw wind potential power. In the real world we would multiply this by the ‘efficiency’ of the windmill, which is between 30-40%.
Thus if the wind speed drops in half, you net 1/8th the energy!
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Kevin Doyle
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Power = Rho * (Pi/8) * (D^2) * (V^3)
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Charles H Jefferson
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The madness is not only re wind power in excess, it is in existential power from all sources as the answer to the already over powered human activity that is destroying our Biosphere on this finite planet. Lucky if our species survives another couple of generations as the consequences of what we do now will not become manifest well in the future. Our problems now were created years ago by us. There is usually a long lag between cause and effect and we fail to recognize that!
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