3 replies to this topic

[Rogerdodger]

February 15, 2010
Wind Energy's Ghosts: Bankrupt Europe has a lesson for Congress about wind power.

Fraud of Wind Power: "green power" = generating electricity by burning dollars

"If wind power made sense, why would it need a government subsidy in the first place?
It's a bubble which bursts as soon as the government subsidies end."


Tehachapi's dead turbines


37 skeletal wind turbines abandoned to rust Hawaii's Kamaoa Wind Farm

The voices of Kamaoa cry out their warning as a new batch of colonists, having looted the taxpayers of Spain, Portugal, and Greece, seeks to expand upon their multi-billion-dollar foothold half a world away on the shores of the distant Potomac River. European wind developers are fleeing the EU's expiring wind subsidies, shuttering factories, laying off workers, and leaving billions of Euros of sovereign debt and a continent-wide financial crisis in their wake. But their game is not over. Already they are tapping a new vein of lucre from the taxpayers and ratepayers of the United States.

California's wind farms -- then comprising about 80% of the world's wind generation capacity -- ceased to generate much more quickly than Kamaoa. In the best wind spots on earth, over 14,000 turbines were simply abandoned. Spinning, post-industrial junk which generates nothing but bird kills.

The tax credits, mandates, and regulations which made Enron possible did not die with it.
Enron Wind's turbine manufacturing subsidiary was purchased by General Electric.
Many of its wind farms went to Florida Light and Power. By 2009, the US Department of Energy estimates mandate-and-subsidy-driven wind capacity would rise to 28,635mw.

That much coal or nuclear "capacity" would power 28.635 million homes, but wind "capacity" is calculated assuming perfect wind 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year. At the best wind sites, such as Kamaoa, newly installed turbines generate only 30-40% of "capacity". At most sites, the figure is 20% or less. After 30 years of development, wind produces only 2.3% of California's electricity.

In early 2009 the Socialist government of Spain reduced alternative energy subsidies by 30%. Calzada continues:

"At that point the whole pyramid collapsed. They are firing thousands of people. BP closed down the two largest solar production plants in Europe. They are firing between 25,000 and 40,000 people...."

"What do we do with all this industry that we have been creating with subsidies that now is collapsing? The bubble is too big. We cannot continue pumping enough money. ...The President of the Renewable Industry in Spain (wrote a column arguing that) ...the only way is finding other countries that will give taxpayers' money away to our industry to take it and continue maintaining these jobs."

That "other country" is the United States of America.

Waxman-Markey seems dead, and Europe's southern periphery is bankrupt. But the wind-subsidy proposals being floated in Congress suggest that American political leaders have yet to understand that "green power" means generating electricity by burning dollars.

LINK

Edited by Rogerdodger, 16 February 2010 - 02:30 PM.

[Rogerdodger]

Isn't it funny that those who hate BIG OIL have no reservations about the motives of BIG GREEN, including it's strangle-hold on several so called "GREEN" PROMOTING media outlets:

With 2008 sales of $18 billion, GE, the multi-industrial company makes everything: jet engines, water technologies, gas, wind and solar turbines, generators, healthcare equipment, computer accessories, oil and gas equipment, light bulbs, housewares, appliances, locomotive engines and fuel cell technology, to name a few. It also owns NBC television, along with many successful cable networks and Universal Movie Studios.

General Electric's Bright Future: Alternative Energy
General Electric is a key global player in solar technology, wind power, water and process technologies, and nuclear power plants. This business is over 20% of sales and profits and has the potential for high single-digit growth going forward. The wide scope of products offered ensures that GE is best positioned to take advantage of the future direction of alternative energy.

Pure play alternative stocks trade at very lofty multiples while GE's $2 billion to $3 billion in sales to alternative energy is trading at 10-12 times earnings. I can envision GE spinning out some of these attractive alternative energy pieces if the market doesn't recognize its potential a few years down the road as the global picture somehow finds normalcy. If that happens, then it would be worth a few extra dollars in the stock price. LINK

The modern CFL was invented by General Electric!
They benefit from a monopoly!

But CFLs, like all fluorescent lamps, contain mercury as vapor inside the glass tubing. Most CFLs contain 3 – 5 mg per bulb, with some brands containing as little as 1 mg. Because mercury is poisonous, even these small amounts are a concern for landfills and waste incinerators where the mercury from lamps may be released and contribute to air and water pollution.

Congress bans incandescent bulbs

Critical-thinking people see the desirability in incandescent bulbs especially in cooler climates since they produce a local heat source with no dangerous mercury.
But GE does not profit from the monopoly they enjoy with CFLs.

Edited by Rogerdodger, 16 February 2010 - 03:04 PM.

[mss]

AND SAFETY FROM ICE ETC.


Safety Issues

* Warning: don't hug a wind turbine: May 2006, The Sunday Times, Scotland..."IT HAS been dubbed '21st- century tree-hugging' While Swampy got up close and personal with a Dutch elm, modern eco-enthusiasts are being urged to 'touch a turbine.' ...The trend is backed by the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA), which is calling on the public to visit and touch wind turbines ...But while the trend appears to be growing, the government has warned the public that it could be in for a shock.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) claims that the turbines carry the risk of electrocution and injury from loose machinery. ...The DTI’s engineering inspectorate has issued guidelines discouraging people from touching the turbines following a series of accidents.

Anti-wind farm campaigners have catalogued hundreds of safety breaches, including turbines collapsing and lumps of ice thrown at high speed. Yesterday it was reported that ScottishPower had ordered a walker to leave the area around a wind farm in Argyll after chunks of ice began falling from the blades."

* Doctor Terry Matilsky On Ice Throw: Dr. Terry Matilsky, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Rutgers University, addresses the kinetics of ice throw..."The bottom line is that ice, debris or anything breaking off the wind turbines blades (including the blades themselves) can impact a point almost 1700 feet away from the base of the turbine…"

* RISK ANALYSIS OF ICE THROW FROM WIND TURBINES: Paper presented at BOREAS 6, 9 to 11 April 2003, Pyhä, Finland, Henry Seifert, Annette Westerhellweg, Jürgen Kröning, et al..."Wind turbines are normally erected far away from houses, industry, etc., as the wind conditions are not favourable in the vicinity of large obstacles... However, the turbines are erected close to roads or agricultural infrastructure in order to avoid long and expensive access roads for erection and maintenance. This induces a risk for persons passing by the wind turbines, cars passing the streets if ice fragments fall down from a turbine. Especially in the mountainous sites or in the northern areas icing may occur frequently and any exposed structure - also wind turbines - will be covered by ice under special meteorological conditions. This is also true if today’s Multi Megawatt turbines with heights from ground to the top rotor blade tip of more than 150 m can easily reach lower clouds with supercooled rain in the cold season, causing icing if it hits the leading edge."...

"...(page 2) If a wind turbine operates in icing conditions which are described in [1], two types of risks may occur if the rotor blades collect ice. The fragments from the rotor are thrown off from the operating turbine due to aerodynamic and centrifugal forces or they fall down from the turbine when it is shut down or idling without power production..."...

"...(page 5) In principle, a shut down wind turbine does not differ from other structures like towers, antenna masts, masts of power lines, etc. concerning ice accretion. Depending on the rotor position of the braked or idling rotor different fall widths along the prevailing wind will result at the end of the icing event and increasing temperatures. For automatically detecting ice on the rotor blades, several methods can be recommended. However, at present all these methods or instruments have to be improved and further validated... Observation showed that ice fragments which fall from a stopped rotor break into smaller parts on the way down to the ground. In the worst case - large ice fragments reach longer distances from the still standing rotor - two meter long fragments have been investigated."...

"...Conclusion: The experience and the results of many calculations show that during operation small fragments are hitting the ground in a larger distance than those with a big area whereas from stopped turbines the larger pieces can be transported wider than small ones. However, provided that the turbine is operating the area of risk is larger than at standstill. In both cases the wind direction is an important parameter for the assessment of possible risk and an important parameter for the control systems concerning its behaviour during icing events. Ice sensors and also ice detection by using power curve plausibilisation or two anemometers - oneheated, one unheated - is not reliable enough at the moment and needs to be improved. There is still a lot of information required from operators after icing events in their wind farms. Observation of the turbines and especially the blades by web cameras proved to be a suited, but time consuming method in the Tauernwind project. The calculation methods as well as the assumptions made for the ice fragments have to be improved and validated against observation, if available."...

"...As a general recommendation it can be stated that wind farm developers should be very careful at ice endangered sites in the planning phase and take ice throw into account as a safety issue. Each incident or accident caused by ice throw is an unnecessary event and will decrease the public acceptance of wind energy."

* Man Dies In Wind Tower Fire: Associated Press, Nov 11, 2005..."A South Dakota man died and two people were injured Friday in a wind tower fire in southwestern Minnesota. Benjamin James Thovson, 26, of Sioux Falls, S.D., died at the scene. He fell about 210 feet, Deputy Randy Donahue said. The other two were able to climb down and escape, but were taken to a local hospital.

When help arrived, Donahue said, 'the wind generator was engulfed in flames.'"

* Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader for viewing WHITE PAPER: WIND FARMS AND THEIR EFFECTS ON PUBLIC SAFETY RADIO SYSTEMS: SUMMARY:... "In many parts of the country, wind farms are being installed to alleviate the need to build more electrical generating plants. These wind farms can have a profound effect on your public safety, utility, and governmental microwave systems by chopping and reflecting the microwave beam.

WHAT YOU SHOULD DO: Notify your city and county zoning authority that any application for a wind farm can profoundly affect your emergency communications system and a design review focused on the wind farm’s effects on critical communication systems."

* Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Says She Is Stunned At Windfarm-radar Controversy : May 12, 2006, Radio Plus, INC...The Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor is weighing in on news that state wind energy projects are on hold because of Homeland Security radar concerns. Renew Wisconsin says an open ended stop work order is in place for more than a dozen wind projects...including the Horicon Marsh windfarm. The projects are on hold until a turbine blade-radar impact study is complete and published in the Congressional Report. Lieutenant Governor, Barbara Lawton, tells AM 1170 WFDL's Between the Liens program she is absolutely stunned to hear the news. Lawton says you would think the potential radar concern would have been addressed years ago.

* Why do wind turbines confuse military radar?: March 4, 2004, David Adam, The Guardian..."The rotating turbine blades fool techniques used to filter out tall buildings, trees and other stationary objects. And because different blades can be picked out during different radar sweeps, banks of turbines appear as a confusing, twinkling mass on screens that can make genuine targets difficult to pick out... There are even concerns that turbines cast a radar shadow behind them, within which enemy planes would be invisible, though recent measurements indicate that it would last for only a few hundred metres and would hide only very small objects."

* Windfarm plan hits turbulence: May 2002, The Scotsman..."Plans to build Europe’s largest windfarm on a moor south of Glasgow threatens the lives of thousands of airline passengers flying in to the city’s airport, according to its owner... A senior air traffic controller at Glasgow Airport said: 'If this windfarm goes ahead we will have a disaster waiting to happen. It is every air traffic controller’s nightmare when a snowstorm of blips shows up on the radar screen.'

* Ministry of Defence and Radar Interference: Humble Hill, Kielder... "In the Spring 2000 edition of OpenView we featured an article about the need to take account of military and civil radar interference from windfarms. Two projects (07-02Graigenlee Fell in Galloway and 08-07Humble Hill, Kielder Forest, Northumberland ) were mentioned and both have since been rejected or withdrawn after MOD objections."

"..the Ministry of Defence objected to the original proposal on the grounds that the wind turbines would interfere with primary and secondary radar therefore impairing the effectiveness of the nearby Spadeadam Electronic Tactics Range (EWTR). In an effort to overcome the MOD's objection the Company reduced the number of wind turbines and reconfigured their location on the site. To this effect the Company submitted a variation to the application.........the MOD maintained their original objection, that is, a windfarm operating in the vicinity of the ETWR would be unacceptable as the training facilities of the EWTR are unique and imperative for the front-line training of RAF crews. MOD believe that the proposed windfarm would interfere both with radar and also with low flying, creating an acute safety hazard to both to members of the public and RAF crews.The MOD indicated that current studies have not conclusively proved that the rotating action of wind turbine blades has no effect on ground and airborne radar. Therefore they rely on their own research which concludes that wind turbines cause interference to primary surveillance radar and also that detection and tracking of aircraft flying over a windfarm is extremely difficult since the responses between the aircraft and the turbine cannot be distinguished.

[mss]

AND ICE SAFETY - LIGHTS DANGEROUS LOW HEAT

LED traffic lights don't melt snow, do cause accidents HAVING TO ADD ENERGY HEAT!!!
By Vladislav Savov posted Dec 17th 2009 9:16AM

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A number of cold weather American states are reporting their dismay at finding out that LED traffic lights are so energy efficient that they do not produce enough excess heat to dissipate any snow that covers them. It turns out, perhaps in an homage to bad engineering everywhere, that the inefficiency of incandescent light bulbs was previously relied upon to keep traffic signals unimpeded. The new LEDs do not achieve the saLED traffic lights don't melt snow, do cause accidents
By Vladislav Savov posted Dec 17th 2009 9:16AM