Posted on 03/02/2011 10:03:47 AM PST by PDMiller
Have you noticed many of the new windmills along Route 5 are not working?
This isn't the first time they've had mechanical problems, and we managed to dig up some hard numbers on just how much electricity they actually are generating.
In its first year, Steelwinds had to replace all of the gear boxes in the eight turbines. The next year, the blades had to be fixed. And for this entire winter, only half of the Lackawanna windmills have been working at any given time.
(Excerpt) Read more at wivb.com ...
Sorry to keep beating this dead horse today, but it really pi**es me off!
Windmills = Pinwheels...... only not as pretty.
Made in “F”ing China?
Check the tax issues. Sometimes you write off twice your “maintenance” costs (That was the case in a wind farm I was considering investing in).
So the trick is to make just enough electricity to pay salaries and rent and a little more, so you don’t get hit with corporate taxes. Then down for maintenance, and if you write 2X off, you have sheltered other profits from taxation.
So in some cases it pays to keep them not spinning.
The money comes from somewhere. It either comes from the end user of the power, or from the government in the form of a subsidy. In the latter case, if the money was really supplied by printing it, then it came by dilution of the proportionate wealth of all holders of that currency. In any case, to the extent these windmills cost more than power from conventional sources, it is a waste.
For all the real value these windmills provide to the utility’s customers, if the utility hired union workers to mold bricks and throw them in Lake Erie, the economic effect would be identical.
It will really piss you off that the mfgs of the wind mills knows this and has known this for the last 50 years.
It just happens that an oil for the gear box hasn’t been invented yet that can make these wind mills reliable yet.
Typical Democrat theory, if we can dream it, we can have the government invent it.
For some reason they require a lot of wind to turn and also they are electrical, so someone has to turn them on before they can spin in the wind and generate electricity. Sort of works like an electric car apparently.
Well, the dirty little secret is that windmills generally do not store power. The electricity they generate must be used in real time. Therefore, if electrical demand is low they can’t use wind power and there is no need to run expensive windmills so they feather them or “turn them off”.
And people wonder why Upstate NY is dying....
Another dirty little secret is that if the wind is blowing too hard and they don’t turn them off, they catch fire and burn down.
The Windmill Union says thay can’t?
Anyway, on the subject of wind, the author said wind is fine as
supplemental, but only where the wind blows, and mentions
some PA project that a congresscritter got for his district that
has minimal winds.
Then I saw an article by an Aussie reporter about CA projects that
are built where there is wind, but nobody around to use the
power, and inadequate transmission facilities to get it to where
it could be used.
The same kicker applies about tax credits. The company didn't
even bother to intstall a number of turbines, let alone unpack
them them, because of the above, and they still got the tax credits.
I can't remember if it was a Clinton or Bush43 thing.
Could be worse, they could be ordered not to even use them for fear that they *cough* harm the environment.
Local business in Orange County NY had a windmill, figured they would use it insted of slurping from ‘the grid’ for a fraction of their energy demand.
Well, there were complaints about the noise it made.
Then there were complaints that it could harm birds.
Then finally they were told to not use it at all.
Finally it was disassembled, only the mounting is left to remind everyone why green power will not ever work.
Lack-a-winda
MAde in China? Probably by scum company General Electric. Blades break, gearboxes break, junk.
Obviously, you heard this somewhere but have not bothered to research the actual problems.
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