Posted on 02/20/2012 5:41:20 AM PST by MichCapCon
That’s the verdict of British writer James Delingpole, in a blog posted in the Daily Telegraph, about an article by Kevin Myers published in the Irish Independent online version, brought to our attention by a Paul Chesser Facebook post. (Got all that? Ain’t the Internet grand?)
Myers’ focus is on the potentially fatal results of European wind energy, should this form of green delusion be carried to its logical extreme, and the pure destruction of wealth its massive misallocation of resources already represents (imagine hundreds of Solyndras). Thanks to members of the Michigan House and Senate, since 2008 the same dangerous and destructive folly is underway in the Great Lake State. That’s when they enacted a law imposing a 10 percent “renewable” energy mandate on electric utilities, and forcing customers to pay for it through higher electricity bills.
Here’s the relevant excerpt from “Energy policy based on renewables will win hearts but won't protect their owners from frostbite and death due to exposure”:
Russia's main gas company, Gazprom, was unable to meet demand last weekend as blizzards swept across Europe, and over three hundred people died. Did anyone even think of deploying our wind turbines to make good the energy shortfall from Russia?
Of course not. We all know that windmills are a self-indulgent and sanctimonious luxury whose purpose is to make us feel good. Had Europe genuinely depended on green energy on Friday, by Sunday thousands would be dead from frostbite and exposure, and the EU would have suffered an economic body blow to match that of Japan's tsunami a year ago. No electricity means no water, no trams, no trains, no airports, no traffic lights, no phone systems, no sewerage, no factories, no service stations, no office lifts, no central heating and even no hospitals, once their generators run out of fuel.
Modern cities are incredibly fragile organisms, which tremble on the edge of disaster the entire time. During a severe blizzard, it is electricity alone that prevents a midwinter urban holocaust. We saw what adverse weather can do, when 15,000 people died in the heat wave that hit France in August 2003. But those deaths were spread over a month. Last weekend's weather, without energy, could have caused many tens of thousands of deaths over a couple of days.
Why does the entire green spectrum, which now incorporates most conventional parties across Europe, deny the most obvious of truths? To play lethal games with our energy systems in order to honour the whimsical god of climate change is as intelligent and scientific as the Aztec sacrifice of their young. Actually, it is far more frivolous, because at least the Aztecs knew how many people they were sacrificing: no one has the least idea of the loss of life that might result from the EU embracing "green" energy policies.
“Pugs”? - you go too far when you start castigating dogs! Take it back or I’ll have my dogs dig up your lawn!
“Now go do that voodoo that you do, so well!”
Sounds like our energy policy, alright.
Leni
“Why does the entire green spectrum, which now incorporates most conventional parties across Europe, deny the most obvious of truths?”
Because the basis of the Green Movement is reduction of the human population to an “appropriate, reasonable, and sustainable” level.
They howl over anything that keeps people fed or warm.
Only when they turn. That depends on whether it's windy... and whether the sites were well-chosen.
I drive along eastern Massachusetts fairly often. On Mass. Rte 3, around Plymouth, there's a turbine just off the road. I've never -- I mean NEVER -- seen the blades move. Clearly, somebody got overexcited about green (or maybe THE green) and put this in with OPM (other people's money).
We keep letting them. That's how.
I’ve never — I mean NEVER — seen the blades move.”
Can’t speak for Mass and their setup, but here there is a strong tax benefit for writing off “maintenance” of your wind turbine. You make money by spinning the rotors until you have made a small profit, then take it offline for maintenance, which zeroes your corporate profits and shelters other income due to the tax writeoff on maintenance.
In other words, tax dollars go from someone else to your account, which stops if you spin the turbine all the time and make a real profit, which is heavily taxed.
Amen!
That's from Delingpole's piece. Kevin Myers' article is equally compelling.
Thanks for posting!
Wind farms would not exist if there was no Tax Credit.
At times they even pay to generate in West Texas.
You do realize that with the blades moving (which they do occasionally), they don’t generate any more power than when they are not moving, right? I posted this once before here when a discussion came up about the uselessness of wind as a component of the overall grid electrical supply. It mostly has to do with how wind integrates with the grid and how the grid has to work to accommodate it... http://www.masterresource.org/2009/11/wind-integration-incremental-emissions-from-back-up-generation-cycling-part-i-a-framework-and-calculator/comment-page-1/#comment-3244 You don't have to read the whole article as here is one small paragraph near the bottom that clearly makes the point.... In November 2009, Kent Hawkins, a Canadian electrical engineer, published a detailed analysis on the frequency with which gas-fired generators must be cycled on and off in order to back up wind power. Hawkins findings: the frequent switching on and off results in more gas consumption than if there were no wind turbines at all. His analysis suggests that it would be more efficient in terms of carbon dioxide emissions to simply run combined-cycle gas turbines on a continuous basis rather than use wind turbines backed up by gas-fired generators that are constantly being turned on and off. Hawkins concludes that wind power is not an “effective CO2 mitigation” strategy “because of inefficiencies introduced by fast-ramping (inefficient) operation of gas turbines.”
ping
Is she kneeling behind that chair? She looks awfully short. Besides, that pic is about 20 years old.
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