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Archive for November 23rd, 2012

Nov 23

blowing_in_the_wind
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How Wind And Solar Power Are Polluting The Commons

(Thanks to our reader, Scott, for this article)

John Petersen — Seeking Alpha — October 2012

In a watershed 1968 essay, ecologist Garrett Hardin defined “The Tragedy of the Commons” as the depletion of a shared resource by individuals, acting independently and rationally according to their own self-interest, despite the knowledge that depleting the shared resource is contrary to the best long-term interests of their society.

He began with an example from medieval times when residents of a village frequently had the right to graze their cows on a community pasture. An individual herder pursuing his own best interest would invariably increase the number of cows he grazed in the pasture. But when all herders made the same individually rational decision, the common pasture was depleted or even destroyed by overgrazing.

As a trailblazer and thought leader in the early days of the environmental movement, Mr. Hardin was particularly critical of pollution of the commons, which he described as follows:

“In a reverse way, the tragedy of the commons reappears in problems of pollution. Here it is not a question of taking something out of the commons, but of putting something in — sewage, or chemical, radioactive, and heat wastes into water; noxious and dangerous fumes into the air; and distracting and unpleasant advertising signs into the line of sight. The calculations of utility are much the same as before. The rational man finds that his share of the cost of the wastes he discharges into the commons is less than the cost of purifying his wastes before releasing them. Since this is true for everyone, we are locked into a system of “fouling our own nest,” so long as we behave only as independent, rational, free enterprisers.”

(To continue reading, click here)

Nov 23

21824_Windmills2650
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Wind power creates market havoc, is unreliable and costly

Thanks to Central Bruce Wind Action for this gem.

Jonathan Lesser, President of Continental Economics — The Columbus Dispatch — November 22, 2012

The United States has subsidized the wind industry for 35 years. For the past 20 years, most of these subsidies have taken the form of a production tax credit, which provides wind-generation owners a 2.2 cent per kilowatt-hour (kWh) tax credit. The credit already has been extended by Congress five times. Now, Congress is considering whether to extend it one more year, at a cost to taxpayers of more than $12 billion. If so, the many will once again pay to benefit the politically connected few.

The wind industry says it needs more time to become fully competitive. Whether that’s true or not, one thing is certain: high-cost wind generation provides low-value electricity. On hot and humid summer days that Midwesterners well know, the demand for electricity peaks, because everyone is using air conditioners. But my analysis of four years of wind-generation data shows that, on those same days, wind blows the least. No wind, no wind power. For example, last July 6 the temperature hit 103 degrees in Chicago. Electricity demand skyrocketed. But that day, the 2,700 megawatts of wind turbines in Northern Illinois produced an average of just 4 megawatts of power, enough to power 4,000 Chicagoans’ blow dryers.

An analysis of four years of data from the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Texas, where more than half of the nation’s wind turbines are located, shows a disturbing pattern: wind turbines generate the most power when it is least needed — at night, and in the spring and fall — and the least amount of power in summer, when it is most needed. The data show that wind generation is available less than 15 percent of the time on the highest-demand days. That’s why wind power is “low-value.” It’s like a soda machine that works only if you are not thirsty.

(To continue reading, click here)

Nov 23

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UK — Top Tory who earns thousands from green energy firms says it is ‘reasonable’ for bills to rise by £2-a-week to pay for wind farms

Tamara Cohen and Matt Chorley — Daily Mail.online — November 23, 2012

A senior Tory MP who earns thousands of pounds advising green energy firms today insisted it was ‘reasonable’ for electricity bills to rise by £100-a-year to help pay for more wind farms.

Tim Yeo, chairman of the Commons energy and climate change committee, leapt to the government’s defence after it emerged deal between Tories and Lib Dems on Britain’s power plans would see bills rise.

Electricity bills could rise by £75 a year by 2020 to fund a new generation of wind farms and nuclear reactors. And by 2030 annual bills will go up by an estimated £178 under all the Government’s green and fuel poverty policies.

A green energy strategy to be unveiled next week will treble the costs levied on bills from £2.35billion a year to £7.6billion.

But Mr Yeo insisted it was not a problem.  ’I personally think that a couple of pounds a week – maybe rising to almost £3 a week – is a reasonable price for Britain to achieve a degree of energy security to reduce its total dependence on fossil fuels and to honour its commitments to cut green house gases,’ he told BBC Radio 4.

However Mr Yeo, who earns almost £140,000 from green energy companies, faced criticism from Conservative colleagues.

Douglas Carswell, Tory MP for Clacton, said: ‘The average constituent in Clacton is already paying between £10 and £20 extra for their electricity as a direct consequence of these hidden green surcharges.

‘If you have lots of non-executive payments from green energy companies, then perhaps another £2 or £3 a week doesn’t sound a large sum of money from your household budget.

‘For those in my constituency who do not have green energy directorships, then it is a lot of money.’

Earlier Energy Secretary Ed Davey dismissed claims of huge hikes in bills as ‘utter rubbish’ and claimed without the measures bills would rise even higher.

(To continue reading, click here)

Nov 23

Wind refugees in Ontario

Kincardine — November 2012

Nov 23

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Interesting Energy article by an International Business Executive (More common sense)

M Marwood — September 2012

Get Smart about your Energy Future

I’m going to try to have an honest conversation about our energy future, climate change and what it means for you as a member of the generation that will have to live with the consequences of today’s energy policy choices. My goal is to present an argument based on easily verifiable facts and to appeal to your common sense.

On October 31, 2011, the world’s population reached 7 billion. By the middle of this century the population could be close to 10 billion. Consider also that about 1/3rd of those folks have never flipped on a light switch. There should be no doubt that we must all be concerned about how the world will meet its energy needs in the future. There may be no greater challenge facing mankind.

A Review of History

The youths of today are being told that by the time they are my age the world will no longer be powered by fossil fuels. That’s the same story they were telling me in 1973 when Saudi Arabia suddenly got miffed about the Yom Kipper War and created a crisis by suddenly shutting off our oil supply. In those years, the “scientific consensus” was that the world was running out of oil, the earth was cooling, fossil fuels were to blame and we were all going to freeze to death unless we kicked our addiction to fossil fuels.

We were told that we needed to find alternatives to fossil fuels, and fast! President Jimmy Carter declared that we would be out of oil by 1990 and said that developing alternative energy was the “moral equivalent of war.” The challenge was considered too important to leave to market forces so the government intervened with massive tax-payer subsidies in an attempt to find alternatives to oil. That thinking led to the 1977 National Energy Plan in the United States, an attempt at central planning that failed miserably. We are still heavily dependent on foreign oil.

Fast forward to today, and we see the situation has not changed much, except that now the “scientific consensus” is that the earth is getting hotter rather than colder and that humans are to blame. Once again we are told the world is running out of oil and we are all doomed unless we find alternatives to oil, gas and coal … fast! And guess what … we are also being told again that the job is too important to be left to the free-market entrepreneurs, that government must intervene and subsidize the alternative energy initiatives with huge tax-payer subsidies.

The doomsayers in the 1970’s were remarkably wrong then, and I will wager that the doomsayers of today will be wrong too. In the last 35 years the world has consumed more oil than three times the known oil reserves when Jimmy Carter made his declaration. And the known oil reserves today are more than double what they were then.

(To continue reading, click here)

 

Nov 23

Strong, mixed opinions in Chatham turbine trip

Don Fraser — QMI Agency — November 22, 2012

WEST LINCOLN - For West Lincoln Mayor Doug Joyner, it was a wind-power trip walkabout that drove home the issue’s divisiveness.

On Wednesday, Joyner, plus four West Lincoln aldermen and senior staff stopped by Blenheim in Chatham-Kint.

This, during a tour organized by Niagara Region Wind Corp. to show off existing wind turbines in that area.

At Blenheim, Joyner and others chatted randomly along Blenheim’s main street.

They met with people at the paper, barbershop, realtor and others. They wanted honest reflections on what locals thought of the turbines installed in their municipality.

“And they were all over the map,” Joyner said. “There are a lot of fears out there, but I’d say 50% of the people were just as happy to have industrial wind turbines in the Chatham-Kent area.

“I didn’t come across anybody that didn’t have an opinion,” he said. “In my own municipality people are all over the map … and people in West Lincoln that don’t want industrial turbines are very passionate.”

The NRWC wants to install 77 wind turbines in West Lincoln, Wainfleet and Haldimand County, with the project is still in the public meeting phase.

Transmission lines will also be installed to the provincial grid through Lincoln and Grimsby,

These provincial wind initiatives — including Niagara’s 230 megawatt project — are governed by the province’s Green Energy Act, meaning affected municipalities don’t have a say in approving the turbines.

It’s situation Joyner and some local politicians complain has stripped them of their right to make a local decision.

(To continue reading, click here)

Nov 23

Wind energy in Denmark : wind turbines in Holstebro , Westjutland

Writer links health care cuts to wind turbine funding

Bill Lawrence — The Manitoulin Expositor — November 21, 2012

I have read stories in your paper about wind turbines and hospital cutbacks. I wonder if your readers are aware there is an interesting financial connection between these two stories?

In the name of reducing the deficit, the Ontario government has seen fit to slash and/or close many health services including eye surgery and eye degeneration treatment, orthopedic closures in some hospitals, some essential drugs no longer covered by health care, and reduction of hospital global budgets just to name a few. At the same time, the Ontario government is involved in an all-out effort to build and surreptitiously fund wind turbines. We are being told these turbines will supply us with cheap power. This so-called cheap power is a myth.

In most areas of the province we currently pay between 6.5 and 11.7 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity, subject to the time of day. The government has agreed to an access of four times that amount for wind turbine generation—so much for cheap power. It is a shame that an area as beautiful as Manitoulin Island must be desecrated in the name of making money. Make no mistake Islanders will not receive cheap power from this folly.

I have researched the installation of water generation in this province only to discover there is no desire, assistance, or cooperation from the government to utilize available water power generation. This water power generated electricity can be brought on line at a fraction of the cost of wind power. The Ontario government has decreed that additional electrical power generation in Northern Ontario is now the exclusive domain of wind power.

This is not the first time our Governments have been sold a pig in a poke, and sadly it will not be the last.

Bill Lawrence
Providence Bay