EXPOSED: A KEY ELEMENT OF THE WIND ENERGY FRAUD

powerlineblog ^ | NOVEMBER 26, 2018 | JOHN HINDERAKER

[vette6387]

The “longevity issue” is most likely couched in the tax write-offs. These companies are operating by “depreciating” these “assets” over 20 years, so they arbitrarily “assign” a useful life of 20 years because that’s what the IRS allows them. They don’t want the “tax consequences” of having to recapture their depreciation, so they simply scrap them at the end of their “IRS useful life,” which evidently is 20 years. This isn’t about wind energy being a good bet economically, it’s simply about making money any way that they can.

[vette6387]

“I wouldn’t trust my life to a twenty year old helicopter transmission I don’t think.”

No, but you don’t go flying around on a wind turbine either.

[DUMBGRUNT]

Good stuff, but no mention of the life of the support tower or the power generation equipment?

The life is projected at 100-120K hours.

And the underwater cables are like heavy extension cords; roll them up and reuse?

Such a deal!

[j. earl carter]

There are millions of them in the flat area of the Ohio and Indiana area boarder area.

There seems to be a continuous line of them all the way across Indiana and Illinois. If you drive up I-69, I-65, I-55, etc.; you run across them at about the same latitude.

[Retvet]

And they’re ugly as sin. Devastating environmental scenery.

[Texas Fossil]

They don’t want them to last for a long time.

They get subsidy on new units for a period of time. When they fail, they replace them with new ones so they can continue to get the subsidy.

The Wind Turbine thing is like the rest of the alternative energy. NOT that practical is you are honest about the economics.

[encm(ss)]

And who will removed the 500 tons of concrete underneath each of them??

Just plant your new m.j. farm on them. Problem solved, potheads happy. Problem goes away.

[WhoisAlanGreenspan?]

When the stuff you're designing is physically and financially huge you over build it and make sure it will last. Like the last step in the engineering equation;

Complex formula = answer X 1.5 (the fudge factor)

[AFreeBird]

The blue Ridge is a fantastic drive

[rlmorel]

Nice! Hope that works out...:)

[rlmorel]

You would hope that would be the case, but I have never been convinced that ideologically driven engineers would make the correct balance between reaching a price point that would allow greater acceptance of a technology, yet still maintain quality, durability, and longevity in their product.

Leftists in general pay no attention the lessons of the past, and don’t care about incorporating future maintenance into things when the price point or contract stipulations might get in the way of an ideologically driven purpose.

But I know exactly what you mean.

[Truthoverpower]

Moving parts

[rlmorel]

How right you are...that is a beautiful part of the country!

A couple of years before, I had a similar opportunity to do a boondoggle like the other one I mentioned, and I drove all the way down to Fort Meyer. Stopped and visited with the DC chapter of FR and the Trooprallys, visited friends along the way, and drove up and stayed at Sevierville, TN (LOL, "DollyWorld" if that rings a bell) for a couple of days with a plan to drive all the way up to MA via the Blue Ridge in one day.

I got up at 4 AM but the weather was pouring rain and fog, and I endured an hour of white knuckle driving until I recognized there was no way I was going to make it. I pulled out my iPad and began looking for a place to stay.

There was only one place I could find (it was a popular wedding time of the year) and it turned out to be completely fortuitous. It was a horse farm, and I got a chance to really ride a horse for the first time in my life. I had been riding plenty of times, but you know how that was...you look at the butt of the horse in front of you, and that is pretty much it.

There were not many people there to ride, so one day I went out and me and the guy who ran the place split off from his wife, who had three 12 year old girls riding for a birthday party. Off we went, just me and him.

It was beautiful. The grass was lush green and spotted with tiny little bright yellow specks that were buttercups, the terrain in the Shenandoah Mountains was just...typical. Large boulders, little creeks here and there, lots of broadleaf trees. Just beautiful. Here is what it looked like:

I was able to take the horse wherever I wanted, off the trail, whatever suited me. He was galloping his horse to and fro, the front of the brim of his broad hat flattened up like a mule skinner! When we came out higher up into a large meadow, he said "You want to gallop that horse?" and with a huge grin I said "You bet!"

He said "Let's go, then!" and kicked his horse and we began to run.

He had been bragging about how his stallion was the fastest horse in those parts, and that horse just took off. As my horse began going faster, I just began to laugh. It was amazing, and I was having the damnedest time just staying in the saddle, having never done that before. I was slamming up and down to the point where it began to hurt, but it was unbelievably exhilarating.

I have driven fast cars and boats, but I have to tell you: riding a living thing and hurtling over the earth like that was like nothing else I had ever done.

I began to try to figure out how to keep from crashing up and down, and oddly, I actually felt the horse accelerate...she apparently had got the idea she could keep up with the other horse, and began to really speed up. It was astonishing to me. I could feel her come alive, as if she actually did gather herself up, coil and expand...and suddenly the ride smoothed out just a little the faster we went.

The closest thing I can liken it to is sailing in a small fast racing type of boat, when you trim it just right, it heels as you hang over the side, and as you pull in the sheet...you can actually FEEL the power of the wind get transferred right into the boat, and it has a feel of a living thing as it accelerates.

That was what it was like for me to do that for the first time, galloping that horse.

We ran across that meadow, the pale grass up there growing maybe a foot or two high. As we ran, I saw something else I had never seen before. A turkey appeared ahead, and began to make a beeline for the treeline. As the turkey picked up speed, it amazed me how fast it was, it was leaning further forward the faster it ran until suddenly...it took off! Now, I KNEW turkeys could fly, but all I had ever seen of them was a group standing together picking at the ground. (LOL, "As God is my Witness" turkey reference!)

As this turkey ran, about fifty yards from the trees it suddenly began to fly, and I was amazed to see how broad its wings were, front to back, as it flew into the tree line and disappeared.

What a day.

[gbaker]

But the batteries only last 7-10 years. Same goes for electric cars. Whatever savings you get from reduced fuel burn you will spend when it’s time to replace the batteries.//

True but you don’t need batteries for a solar array unless your going for net zero which then your payback and capital cost is just absurd.

[Radix]

I have actually been on a horse a few times, but I liked your description a lot.

I gotta do that.

[minnesota_bound]

The new towers will be improved Cuisinarts.
It slices and dices more birds then ever.

[SgtHooper]

Because they didn’t buy the maintenance plan for $69.95.

[AFreeBird]

Great experience. Nothing like being on the back of 1200lbs of muscle. Four legs and a mind of it’s own.

My trip on the BRP was one on a different steed. Two wheeled. Been camping in the Smokies many times. Yes, I know Dollywood. Passed by it, never went in.

Anyway, me and a buddy went down to the Smokies. I’m on a Yamaha Seca 750, he’s on a Honda 400 Four, with cafe bars! Cafe bars are great if you want to get down and dirty in the twisties, but a long distance trip?

We camped a few days, then decided; let’s take the BR up to Shenandoah.

HA!

We made it as far as Asheville. On that road, two wheels takes work. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a blast to ride. Well maintained. But with cliffs and drop offs and just a guard rail to keep you in, you gotta pay attention. And those tunnels, beware on two wheels. Wet slimy surface that just eats your headlight. Dark as night. Gotta ride them nice an easy.

Good times and great memories down that way.

[rlmorel]

Thing is, most of the places people like you and I ride, you get on the back of the horse, and then the horse follows the horse in front of you.

This place was different...granted, I had at least ridden before and wasn’t totally helpless on a horse, but...the guy and his wife who ran it had a very different attitude, and when I had the freedom to take a horse on my own path and not that path prescribed to me by the ten horses in front of me, it was very different!

I often think about buying enough land to own a horse, but...probably never happen. But I can dream...:)

[rlmorel]

I would think biking would be great in the right weather, but I speak with experience that I wouldn’t want to do some parts of it in the weather I saw, and definitely not on a motorcycle. But in good weather? Heck, yeah!

When I was at the horse ranch the second time, it poured for days, I had reservations for three days to do riding, but the people who ran it weren’t riding, I stayed there two nights doing absolutely nothing (the owners even drove off and gave me the run of the place...all by myself, no other guests) and I asked if I could worm out of my third night, and they were fine with that. When I left, I drove down into West Virginia on the Blue Ridge...on the way,there were waterfalls coming off the rocks all around me, in the ditches on both sides of the road there was white water (I saw a bunch of beer cans bobbing their way down!) and I was passed by a snow plow (in May) they were using to clear mud, branches, and other debris off the road. The grossly swollen James River was the color of the chocolate drink “Yoo Hoo” and made me think of every news footage of flooded countries I had ever seen. (I was the only one on the road up there, it seems) then I took a famous exit off the Blue Ridge that said “no recreational vehicles this exit” and boy, was I impressed why as I went down.

Heh, the DollyWood thing is humorous for me...I started off in Ft. Meyer, FL and drove north to a bed and breakfast at the entrance to the Smokey Mountains which would lead me into the Blue Ridge Parkway.

I left around 0400, and it is only a 12 hour drive, but...when I factored in meals and such, it was dark when I got up there. I had to pass through Sevierville to get there, and it was supposed to be rural and remote.

Well, I was about ten miles away from my destination, and I thought I was going to have a black night, see stars, all that, and as I got within five miles, and the sky was lit with a glow and I thought “What the hell is that?” and I drove into “DollyWood”...I had no idea such a place even existed!

Heh, it was exactly like when we were kids back in the mid-sixties, and my dad got orders to Japan and took our entire family on a cross country trip...all six of us were asleep in the back of the 1964 Chyrsler New Yorker station wagon one night, and when I woke up it was black as ink all around us as my dad drove through the night. But up ahead, there was a yellow glow on the horizon.

We drove through Las Vegas at around 3 AM, my Dad didn’t stop, but we were all sleepily blinking in the bright light, then...boom! Black as ink again!

To make a long story short...I couldn’t find the place at the entrance to the Smokey Mountains, I drove around in big circles on mountain roads for hours, and finally found the number to call the place. I had put the address into my GPS incorrectly...:(

I pulled in, exhausted, around 01:30. But now I knew all about “DollyWood”!