The Great American Wind Power Fraud

Canada Free Press ^ | 10/22/2013 | Alan Caruba

[rktman]

Arguing that wind energy is an important element of the mix of energy provided by coal, natural gas, nuclear and hydroelectric facilities, the facts are that in 2012 coal accounted for 37 percent of total generation, natural gas represented 30 percent, and nuclear contributed 19 percent. Wind power accounted for just 1.4 percent of U.S. energy consumption in 2012 and only 3.5 percent of the nation’s electricity generation.

Since the PTC was first enacted two decades ago, it has cost taxpayers $20 billion dollars.

[rktman]

But just think of all them there greeeeeeen jobs that have been created. Sounds like a paltry 20 billion well spent. NOT! Thank you algore. Not to even mention the damage to my "view shed" the monstrosities are.

[Theoria]

Sure, a subsidized wind fraud sucks, but running off grid with some small turbines is the given and future if ya can.

[BreezyDog]

Also think how many birds wouldn’t have been needlessly killed. Eagles being the hardest hit.

[Jack Hydrazine]

If I had the money and space as well as lived in a place with lots of sun I would just go PV and have it sent back into the grid so the meter could go backwards.

[grania]

Got a call from one of those environmental-friendly groups a few weeks ago. They were asking for support to continue the money flowing into renewable energy. I asked the caller if that included windpower. She said it does. I asked for if she knew that windmills kill eagles. She did.

She could not answer the question "how can you love the environment but support the slaughter of eagles?"

One can only conclude these people are hypocritical idiots. PS: I'm a tree-hugger.....and I like those eagles soaring above the trees.

[Jim Noble]

Is shoveling up the dead birds a green job?

[Theoria]

' I'm a tree-hugger'

Noted. And added to the database. ;)

[Little Ray]

Big scale wind power is a fraud. Small scale “self-sufficient” wind power, esp. with an “earthship” type home, is not a bad idea.

[Freelance Warrior]

If I had the money and space as well as lived in a place with lots of sun I would just go PV and have it sent back into the grid so the meter could go backwards.

Check your meter first. Many electronic models don't care in which direction current flows, they simply count into their pockets.

[Uncle Miltie]

I went by a couple hundred windmills this weekend and last weekend. They were not moving. There was no wind.

So the coal, hydro, nuke, and gas plants all still had to exist.

Wind does virtually NOTHING marginally except create capital costs.

[Bruce Kurtz]

What happens when you shut down the coal fired generators that the EPA wants to do? I don’t think the greenies thought about that or they plain don’t care if we turn into a 3rd world country.

You can’t make up the difference with wind or solar. They are not going to build anymore nuke plants, we are probably tapped out on hydroelectric plants. Only one left is natural gas, but can that feel in the gap from coal? Only time will tell. I expect to see brownouts and rolling blackouts in the future.

[Bruce Kurtz]

feel = fill

[the OlLine Rebel]

I just read most of a very long set of articles on wind power in my Mechanical Engineering magazine (note: they often show their bias toward PC garbage).

As much as the scientists involved tried to simply explain the workings and make it seem feasible as a serious power generator, the bottom line was it violated majorly a basic tenet of ME: make it as simple as possible.

There is too much mechanization and back-logging and back-up storage going on just to get something out of an occasional wind burst.

Still smacks to me of true inefficiency - putting too much effort in to get a smidgeon of “work” out.

[21twelve]

Vantage, Washington? (I noticed the same there.)

[Uncle Miltie]

bzactly. And beyond.

[21twelve]

I guess that is better than what happened when they first put those in. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but the wind mills were pumping electricity out and had nothing to limit the current. The hydroelectric plants were running hard too, and combined they threatened to overload the system.

Seeing as they couldn’t “turn off” the wind power, they had to do an emergency dump of a bunch of water through the spillway at the dams. It wiped out a bunch of the salmon spawning areas for that year.

I guess they fixed that problem though. They sure are a blight on the sceanary though.

[dhs12345]

Answer (stating the obvious here): energy gets really expensive. That means heating your home (for some) and lighting your house, cooking meals, cooling your house in the summer, will become really expensive. Since everything we consume is touched but energy and specifically electricity, everything will be a lot more expensive to produce — food, etc. So the cost of everything goes up.

Apparently the EPA are so driven by their agenda that they don't think about the consequences. And the people who vote for the people who support the EPA are just as ignorant.

[rktman]

I wish I could afford it since I have a large open space on the south side that would catch sun all year. My neighbor has almost his entire south side roof covered with panels. They are gone most of the time and the pigeons absolutely love the 6 inch space in between.