Y2Kyoto: You Don't Need No Stinking Coal Generation

the answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, the answer is blowin' in the wind!

Holy Cow! A stupendously courageous piece from a BEEBITE!

http://climaterealists.com/?id=4868

Go nuclear, we are.

Omighod.

I can't believe any serious country is considering installing wind turbines as anything but "extreme situation" source of power. i.e. Where running a real line or other copsts are prohibitve.

Can't anybody read a engineering of financial report anymore? Seriously?

a. They are unpredictably unreliable intrinsically, compared to things like nuclear, coal, or diesel or gas turbines, or even flipping solar electric panels.

b. They are expensive per KW ( Waaaay more than than the competition.)

c. They are unreliable part two: No wind no power, that means EVERY KW of wind energy needs a kW of real power to back it up if you expect to count on it when the going gets tough. Gee, you've DOUBLED the number of kW you have to produce.

d. They are not without enviro-costs. These things have to be built, which means needs heavy concrete foundations which means access roads in pristine areas, they kill lots of birds all the time, they are noisy, and the blades can shed large dangerous hunks of ice and blades too. And they block the view. And remember kids it's not that they are LESS so than a Fission reactor or coal plant which too have costs, but IN ADDITION TO because of C. where you have to back each KW with another one.

Sigh.

That picture in The Telegraph must have been taken with really fast film, cause the propellers aren't blurred at all.

Any plan to exploit wind must include the assumption that the turbines might not generate any power at all at the worst possible time.

And in related news, Peak Oil is again delayed by a few decades . . .

"Shares of oil companies McMoran Exploration, Energy XXI and Plains Exploration & Production are jumping this morning amid news that the trio has made a nice oil discovery at its Davy Jones prospect in the Gulf of Mexico. Drilling logs on the 28,000-foot-deep well (that's 5 miles down!) show a likely prize of as much as 165 million barrels of oil and natural gas."

http://blogs.forbes.com/energysource/2010/01/11/davy-jones-locker-full-of-oil/

I say let em freeze!!

they obviously need to learn the hard way ....so they will and so they should ...let them bankrupt there country tring to push this crap and then when it doesn't work and they have no money only then will they snap out of it. Then and only then when they are in a corner and have now where else to look but straight ahead at reality then they will wake up ...if ti is not to late ...even if it is to bad so sad !!!

Paul in calgary.

Another poll begging to go drastically wrong...

http://www.bryonwilfert.ca/?q=content/message-bryon

"Do you support the Conservative Government proroguing Parliament until March 3rd?"

It was bad enough that the outdoor bird grinders shut down, but now our feathered friends are going to freeze to death!
Oh, the Birdmanity!

That was satire for the lefties reading this.

I have seen plenty of idiocy during my 50 years of existence on this planet, but this whole "tilting at windmills" thing is beyond comprehension.

What part of "all base load generating capacity must remain in effect" do these morons not understand?

Until there are massive advancements in battery technology, this whole wind thing is one large pipe dream.

And to all of you greenies who have decided to build your own "renewable" energy systems within your own homes, I strongly suggest you store those batteries in your shed, or at least in a well ventilated garage.
(I spent almost 10 years installing and maintaining large DC power systems, including rectifiers and batteries, so I kind of know what I am talking about)

If you really want to save energy, do what I just did today. I purchased my 2nd 98% efficient, in-line NG hot water heater......mahvellous dahling, simply mahhhhhvelous.

They can allways burn books....cheaper than coal!

165 million barrels of oil! That'll meet the entire world's demand for almost two days!

I agree with Fred. If the UK is barmy enough to rely on windmills, they deserve what they get. They were pushing the panic button this winter. Wait until even more coal plants age off the rolls.

It's sad when Political Correctness trumps reality.

Just helped out Bryon Wilfert's poll.

"The cold weather has been accompanied by high pressure and a lack of wind," Whoda thunk!

Sask Power guys are still asleep at the switch.

This is a premeditated crime against the British people. Alot more are going to freeze to death in their homes if they stay the course. Read about a elderly couple found dead and frozen on someones blog today.

Me, too, Ken. Thanks for the heads up BC Monkey.

Ever wonder why they stopped using windmills in Holland when other means of generation became available? Same on Canadian farms I understand.

Nova Scotia Power and the NDP, lefty, green freak residents of this province are on the wind-saviour kool-aid too. Punch drunk on the stuff in fact.

Idiots.

I agree with you Paul from Calgary - it seems the country is full of middle aged teenagers of the same mental age as the fellow in the Whitehouse. They only learn the hard way.

the money qoute from:
Economic impacts from the promotion of renewable energies: The German experience Final report – October 2009

PV = acronyn photovoltaics

"There are much cheaper ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions than subsidizing
renewable energies. CO2 abatement costs of PV are estimated to be as high as
716 € (US $1,050) per tonne, while those of wind power are estimated at 54 € (US $80) per tonne. By contrast, the current price of emissions certificates on the European emissions trading scheme is only 13.4 Euro per tonne. Hence, the cost from emission reductions as determined by the market is about 53 times cheaper than employing PV and 4 times cheaper than using wind power."

Board of Directors:
Prof. Dr. Christoph M. Schmidt (President)
Prof. Dr. Thomas K. Bauer (Vicepresident)
Prof. Dr. Wim Kösters
Governing Board:
Dr. Eberhard Heinke (Chairman);
Dr. Henning Osthues-Albrecht; Dr. Rolf Pohlig; Reinhold Schulte
(Vice Chairmen);
Manfred Breuer; Oliver Burkhard; Dr. Hans Georg Fabritius;
Hans Jürgen Kerkhoff ; Dr. Thomas Köster; Dr. Wilhelm Koll;
Prof. Dr. Walter Krämer; Dr. Thomas A. Lange; Tillmann Neinhaus;
Hermann Rappen; Dr.-Ing. Sandra Scheermesser
Scientifi c Advisory Board:
Prof. Michael C. Burda, Ph.D.; Prof. David Card, Ph.D.; Prof. Dr. Clemens Fuest;
Prof. Dr. Justus Haucap; Prof. Dr. Walter Krämer; Prof. Dr. Michael Lechner;
Prof. Dr. Till Requate; Prof. Nina Smith, Ph.D.
Honorary Members of RWI
Heinrich Frommknecht, Prof. Dr. Paul Klemmer †, Dr. Dietmar Kuhnt

knowing that CO2 is no longer credibly linked to "climate change" does not make the above any easier to digest. would you like some right leg with your ecology burger?

Wind Turbines - kinda like a jock strap without elastics. When you need it most, you're running along trying to hold the damn thing up.

Just think of all the aid money the world wasted on THE GREAT HOAX global warming, that could be going to the poor people of Haiti now. Algore and his co-horts in this scam should be rounded up and flogged in the public square. Just watch the pathetic MSM turn against these bastards within the next couple of years as the dull reporters realize how duped they were. The giant turbines of southern Alberta will become a Fred Sanfords wet dream within 20 years, one wind farm here brought in ten percent of last years revenue this year, no wind. If polititians are to stupid to understand where energy comes from, they should get out of the way.

abcd:

Agreed the discovery above is small change.

This however will unlock a trillion-plus barrels in Alberta and sask alone:

http://www.capp.ca/energySupply/innovationStories/Water/Pages/undergroundCombustion.aspx#QfDxpWLdgiG2

for a half to a third of the cost of SAGD and nil h2o and ch4.

Problem #1: In a climate like the UK, the blades get covered with wet snow, cutting the efficiency down to zero. Add the hazard of throwing the baldes off balance--and you have a heavy duty problem. By the way, grandad had the same problem with his Jacobs 32 Volt wind generator in 1949!!
Solution: Grandad bought a Delco gasoline powered gen-set that used one quart of "purple" gas an hour.

Umpteen billion pounds in, Her Majesty's Government "discovers" the wind doesn't blow when its cold.

Just as the Liberals "discovered" the gun registry didn't reduce crime after they spent a billion.

Media malpractice is expensive, yes? We should send them a bill.

This is a premeditated crime against the British people. Alot more are going to freeze to death in their homes if they stay the course. Read about a elderly couple found dead and frozen on someones blog today.

Just reducing their carbon footprint. And if they're in the UK, this also gets them off the NHS rolls - saves a few grand in health care expenses! /sarcasm

Environmentalists hate people. This is news to anyone? They'd rather you freeze to death than some precious bird be inconvenienced. So I vote we start finding the places where environmentalists live and cut their power and heat supplies first.

Let them lead by example.

SaskPower’s Centennial Wind Power Facility
• 83 “Vestas-V80” with a potential capacity of 150 megawatts of power on 30 km2 or 11.7 mile2
• 2nd largest wind facility in Canada when opened in 2006
• But, in SK they generate about 40% of this potential or 60 megawatts (see Saskatchewan Legislature Hansard, January 2007, page 794)
• They require a minimum wind speed of 14km/hr to operate and reach maximum power at 50km/hr
• They do not work at temperatures below -30 Celsius
• Footprint is thus 2 MW/km2 or 5.13 MW/mile2
• Each unit;
• is 351 ft tall , or 107 meters, or over 30-stories
• weighs 222 tonnes or 489,510 pounds
• has 3 x 39-meter blades, with tips moving at speeds up to 256kms/hr

Footprint of Wind vs. Nuclear is 1,440:1
• Bruce Power proposal for AB and “eluded to” for SK is, for example;
– 2 Areva EPRs
– 3,200 megawatts from a 250-acre facility (1 km2 or less than ½ mile2)
– Operates 90% of the time at full capacity or 2,880 MW
– Footprint is 2,880 MW/km2
• To get 2,880 MW from wind, at same scale as the Centennial project and efficiency (0.72 MW/turbine) (2 MW/km2), it would require;
– 4,000 turbines covering 1,440 km2
– or, a wind farm over 4.6 kms wide, stretching from Regina to Prince Albert (or 1 km wide from Regina Victoria, BC)
– The total weight of 4,000 turbines themselves (mostly steel, and without the concrete pads they sit on) would be 888,000 tonnes or 1,958,040,000 lbs (a lot of GHG).

• The Centennial Project was placed in the best wind producing area in the province (south of Swift Current) so its abilities cannot be reproduced elsewhere, so the farm would need to be even larger than described.
• See this link for wind averages/resource in SK http://generationprocurement.saskpower.com/pdf/SPD_80m_021403.pdf

Nuclear capitol costs are less than wind
• The Centennial Project cost $275 million to generate 60 MW (see Saskatchewan Legislature Hansard, January 2007, page 793 for costs); that is $4.5833 million/MW
• A nuclear complex generating 2,880 MW would thus have a comparable cost allowance of;
$4.5833 million/MW x 2,880 MW = $13,199.99 million
• A will-reported Finland reactor complex being built by Areva had a budget of $3,300 million that is now 50% over budget at $4,950 million. However, even at $4,950 million this reactor facility has less than half the capitol cost of wind, on a per MW basis.

Green is the new blackout

"Ever wonder why they stopped using windmills in Holland when other means of generation became available? Same on Canadian farms I understand."

In their defense windmills are probably pretty useful when they do someting that's :

A. In a very windy area...if all the local vegetation tilts at 45deg and isn't over 1m tall you've found a good site.
B. direct coupled, that is you are doing something direct, like pumping water, or grinding rocks. Not messing around with electricity with all the losses and storage problems
C. Something that can easily be offline for days or even seasonally, like pumping water to storage, or pumping out a polder for 30 years in the Netherlands comes to mind.
D. You have no choice because installing a powerplant or running wire to site is horrifically expensive and some wind power is better than nothing.

Anyway anyone who is advocating installing these thikngs to "be green" is a cretin.

In techincal terms Wind power is transient and unreliable. It can't spike on demand surges and it useless as a baseload supply. And that's no way to run a civilization that is 100% dependent on electricity.

...Meanwhile:

A man in Miami died of hypothermia:

http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-beat/Miamis-First-Cold-Weather-Death-Confirmed-81248747.html

And in related news, Peak Oil is again delayed by a few decades . . .

"Shares of oil companies McMoran Exploration, Energy XXI and Plains Exploration & Production are jumping this morning amid news that the trio has made a nice oil discovery at its Davy Jones prospect in the Gulf of Mexico. Drilling logs on the 28,000-foot-deep well (that's 5 miles down!) show a likely prize of as much as 165 million barrels of oil and natural gas."

Decades?

This will be gone in 46 hours.

There's a wonderful windmill museum in Etzikom, AB. It demonstrates the important role windmills played in the development of western agriculture. Without windmills, much of the prairie would never have been populated. They also serve really good icecream cones. Did I mention it's a museum?

Cost and Quantity of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Avoided by Wind Generation
Here is a paper by Peter Lang, an Austrialian power engineer, about wind energy.
http://carbon-sense.com/2009/02/17/wind-power-costs/

Once again the elephant in the room is the EU. The only reason that the UK is being forced into this nonsense is because the government slavishly adopts anything the EUrocrats foist on them.

The UK has been told to stop using coal fired power stations by the EU and in order to do that they need an alternative. The nuclear plants which currently generate about 10% of the countries electricity are in many cases reaching the end of their lives. They will have to be decommisioned in the next few years.

Thanks to all the tree hugging eco-mentalists and spineless socialist government they have failed to build new ones and the outlook is quite bleak.

They had a "dash for gas" in Britain in the 90's which largely exhausted the North Sea gas reserves so now most gas has to be imported.

Personally I think in the long run it will be a good thing. Once peole realise the reason their lights are going out is thanks to unelected bureaucrats in Brussels they may finally wake up and tell the EU to F off. In the meantime I have bought shares in DRAX.

I think you're generally right about wind power being a white elephant. I think that solar technology is probably the way to go in the long run, once something very compact and reliable is developed and can be applied on a mass scale, it will be far better than wind power which by its very nature is unreliable, bulky and very hard to bring to scale in economic terms.

The one place I've seen that it may make sense to have wind power is southern Alberta, the wind rarely stops blowing through the Crowsnest Pass. They have one giant wind turbine in plain view of the Winter Olympic sites on the north shore, just to make a statement I guess. Just choosing these unreliable sites for events in the first place is going to make a different kind of statement if the current weather holds, we are in major meltdown mode around the west coast. It's lucky that they had about ten times normal snow in Whistler earlier this winter, because it looks like they aren't getting much more, it's above freezing almost to the top of the highest peaks now. They say man-made [redacted]

i live in north central Iowa USA, and have a second home in Minneapolis, Minnesota-- about 250 miles away.
we travel there and back 4-5 times per month.
there are 2 "wind farms" en route.
since the turbines have been in place (about five years now) I've never seen them stop completely.
this past weekend, the temp was -9 deg F, and they were all happily turning.
maybe our cold is different than England's

OKE E DOKE - get them to shut down all other power sources then. When your right your right!!!!