The pain in Spain cannot be sustained. That’s the conclusion of the Spanish government, which is slashing its subsidies for wind power and other renewable energy as part of a deficit-fighting move. Spain is the latest European country to cut subsidies for clean energy — following similar moves in the U.K., Germany and Italy — because they’re driving up costs for consumers.
Power companies decried the elimination of the subsidies, which will cost them an estimated $3.5 billion. The government will absorb another $1.2 billion or so.
It’s a sad end for a program once heralded as a model by the Obama administration for its own renewables initiative. Yet it’s also not a surprising one. Despite its promise, wind energy has struggled to overcome economic barriers. Without government subsidies, it simply isn’t a viable business.
Why, a thought just occurred to me! Brad Wall may not know about this!
h/t Maz2
Coming soon to Ontariowe. Thankfully, the corner of Eastern Ontario I live in is rated a 2 out of 10 for windpower suitability.
In what is shaping up to be a near record high for Ont, the fleet of 1200+ turbines is putting out a whopping 47 MW. Total demand is for 21,175 MW at 9:00 AM. Wind is contributing .2% of electricity demand. Keep these figures in mind when the next Liberal politician is blathering on about the goal of 15% or whatever figure to come from “renewables” Paving over all Ont cropland with wind factories really wouldn’t add anything to generated output today. it would still round to zero. 69% of supply today is coming from clean, green sources, nuclear and hydro. Wind power again is the solution to exactly what problem?
My message to Brad Wall.
No green subsidies. Real energy needs no crutch. If it limps, it’s a lie. No windmills, no solar panels … or no vote from me.
I went to a PEO sponsered event regarding renewables about 4 years ago. There was a prof from U Guelph presenting. He was specializing in and an advocate of wind power. He presented a wind map of Ontario. Even then all the choice spots were taken unless they went offshore, ie current locations for turbines already filled all of the areas where there was enough wind speed to spin a blade even some of the time.
McGuinty kept saying we had to lead the world in green jobs, when anyone paying attention knew that the Germans, Spaniards and Brits were way ahead, and already there was plenty of evidence it was not viable. The fact that the media knew it was impossible for us to lead, and it wasn’t working anyway is just another example of malpractice on the part of these ‘professionals’.
and all that non power wind energy needs backup power.
I giant scam has been exposed in England where thousands of Eeevil Diesel powered gensets are being used and the owners are being paid huge subsidies.
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=84147
Why don’t they just hook up a giant diesel motor to each wind turbine . . they would work even if the wind isn’t blowing. Then they could get a subsidy for the diesel generator AND the green wind energy.
Nothing like a double dipping eco greenie ponzi scheme & scam to make friends of the regime rich and rate payers poor.
They could do the same thing for all those solar farms that are useless on cloudy days and at night. One big diesel generator driving some nice big stadium light and Voila!! Green solar power at nighyt.
Environmentalism is so simple if you know how to work the grift.
Best line in the whole thing is this
“The government will absorb another $1.2 billion or so.”
No….the TAXPAYERS will absorb another $1.2 billion or so.
Meanwhile in France:
Greenpeace and other eco activists ….”accuse Hollande of not doing enough to reduce France’s reliance on nuclear power and increase the use of renewable sources of energy.
The president has pledged to cut the share of nuclear energy in the country’s electricity mix to 50 percent from 75 percent by 2025.
Greenpeace said to honor his promise, Hollande would have to close at least 10 reactors by 2017 and 20 by 2020.”
You just can’t make this stuff up.
Brad Wall doesn’t care because he knows you’ll back him to the hilt regardless.
Something like that did happen in Spain – people hooked up diesels to supply the grid. Got caught when the authorities finally noticed solar power was being supplied at night.
Does anyone remember Dr. Gabriel Alvarez’s study on the green economy in Spain that for every green job created by public investment, 2.2 jobs elsewhere in the economy were destroyed? That was assailed by the usual suspects (media matters, greenpeace, etc). Looks like his conclusions were largely correct.
A quick question, forgive my ignorance and laziness to research – are the gov’ts that are slashing the subsidies the same ones that were in power when the programs started, or did the parties in power change? I’m looking at you ONT…
I have the answer! Booster turbines, each sized the same as the wind turbine they boost, and situated about 2.5 rotor radii upwind. Each booster turbine powered by its own 2.5 mW Diesel genset. Even when the wind isn’t blowing, the booster turbines will keep the giant fans spinning. 100% up-time, people! What’s not to like?
/
Your premier bears an unfortunate resemblance to Jay Carney.
Whatever you do, don’t suggest this to Prem Wynne, it is exactly the sort of fix she would go for, the sort that got Ont into todays mess.
Current Ontario wind power output = 108 Mw.
Current Ontario electricity consumption = 24,511 Mw.
That says it all.
I think this is what you’re referring to fred. “Nighttime solar energy”?!
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/465409/spanish_nighttime_solar_energy_fraud_unlikely_in_uk.html
Amen.
Hydro works and it is clean. We are seeing a cultish devotion to unworkable projects at the taxpayers’ expense. We should be rioting in the streets.
Alternative energy producers have been approaching the business I worked at for years and years with all sorts of wind, biofuel, etc. projects. Every time we would meet with these guys and every time they could never really explain how you made any money off this stuff. Frankly, half the time they conceded they weren’t even sure the tech worked properly.
They are fully reliant on government subsidies on PPAs to get any financing at all. Every single project proposed to us that I have kept track of through the years has been a failure. What kills me is that there still a lot lenders that will throw tens of millions at these projects despite all the failures. Meanwhile, a lot of pretty solid businesses can’t get debt at all. Crazy.
Martin,
One 747 engine coupled to a generator can generate just about
30MW. In combined cycle, the ecxhaust gasses heat water to
drive another generator through a steam turbine. So one modern
cogenertion plant can produce more electricity than those 1,200
bird-shredders on a site smaller than an acre.
Why don’t they just hook up a giant diesel motor to each wind turbine…Posted by: Fred on July 17, 2013 12:01 PM
That’s been done for quite some time and it works very well, especially with vertical axis wind turbines. The diesel engine and the wind turbine are both connected to the same generator by a differential gear-set. When the wind blows the diesel engine automatically adjusts the load. This system works well in remote communities far beyond the grid where diesel is scarce and wind is plentiful.
The idiocy with politically driven solar and wind is that they’re sited for political reasons, not where the resource is most concentrated.
The lesson is that government meddling can [and will] screw up any viable technology.
So what came out of Brad Walls Bilderberg meetings in the UK a few weeks ago?
At least unlike Alison Redfraud he claims that taxpayers wouldn’t foot the bill. But why can’t Saskatchewan tax payers know the details of meeting concerning their provincial economy/ or whatever between their Premier and the Global elitists?
“Wall acknowledged he won’t be able to discuss specific details from the meeting. But the premier said that’s why the Saskatchewan Party is paying for the trip — not taxpayers”.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/story/2013/06/03/sk-brad-wall-bilderberg-130603.html
Len Jones:
OK I take your word for it, but I was jesting as I assume gord was also.
Such a setup would work, especially in remote areas, but it is not something someone would design to hook up to the main electrical grid. For fossil fuel generation, probably gas fired generators with the latest clean technology would be most efficient. Something like McGuinty and Wynne canceled twice already.Interestingly gas is contributing 23% of supply now (4:00) something has to generate power and it won’t be wind today.
The question raised is why not invest in gas fired plants and skip the ruinous investment in wind turbines altogether? Think of how further ahead Ont would be today if McGuinty had never felt the call of the wind religion?
“….Think of how further ahead Ont would be today if McGuinty had never felt the call of the wind religion?”
Sorry Martin, the only hymn that Dildo McDinky ever heard was the sound of voters clapping for this Green Stupidity…and they gave him 2 standing ovations. The Dildo is no more an advocate of wind or solar power than I am – he would have been all for generators powered by albatross farts if he thought for a second that this dumb public would have gone for it.
And for years, there was absolute silence from the PCs on this stupidity…nary a peep. And now, Tiger Tim Hudak says he’s going to scrap it…to bring in his own version of Greeneeism; with a mandated 2 percent bio content in diesel fuel.
You know, we keep hearing about the habitat destruction caused by the oil sands, but not one politician or media type or eco-parasitic ENGO seems to have any thoughts about the tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of acres of bush that have been torn up in Ontario in the last five years to plant corn – to satiate the insane North American ethanol market.
The amount of energy wind generation has produced in Ontario is utterly trivial to the real electricity supply additions in the past few years. The vast bulk of new electricity in Ontario over the past 10 years has come from Bruce Power restarting two reactors at the Bruce site last year. Together, they produce about 10 TWh annually, that’s 10 Million MWh or 10 billion kWh. Ontario’s wind fleet, roughly equal to the two reactors, would need about 12 years to produce the same amount of electricity that the two reactors produce in one.
Now from the Spanish cut to wind, there are two takeaways.
1. There is no commercial basis for wind. If there was, the industry would continue albeit at a much slower rate.
2. Despite the howling, climate change (even if it were granted that wind is any kind of a solution) has no place on a government’s agenda when they get into economic trouble. So CC is not “the most important challenge facing the world”. Economic collapse is.
The story told of McGuinty and his wind revelation, may be apocryphal, but it says that he became a wind advocate by reading a magazine article. I do not doubt it, but once the seed was planted, dozens of advocates with money to make certainly came out of the woodwork to push the idea along.
I have not read of the acres diverted to corn ethanol but if true I would agree its another very bad idea.
On the wind turbine case, a conservative estimate is 3.3 acres of crop land removed from agriculture for each turbine, that is towers, access roads, distribution lines and sub-stations. That adds to about 4000 acres of irreplaceable crop land lost in Ont so far. Wynne/Horwath and their wind cronies are just getting started. More acreage is removed by housing for sure, but at least bad as that is, someone gets a house to live in.
With wind factories Ont gets nothing. like todays output between 0 and 1.5% of supply.
Jamie Mac…..what has to be done is several thousand condos in the GTA torn down and windmills put up. The displaced peoples? Meh. A tent under the bird/bat choppers.
Oh. Same plan in AB.
Martin, do you have a reference for the 3.3 acre reference? I’ve been looking for some time for a reliable footprint estimate.
“Wall acknowledged he won’t be able to discuss specific details from the meeting. But the premier said that’s why the Saskatchewan Party is paying for the trip — not taxpayers”.
Nice try, Brad, but that’s still taxpayer money!!
Saskatchewan Party receives much of it’s funding through political donations which are tax deductible (at a ridiculous 75% rate)! Ergo, funds thusly obtained are really offset of taxes governments would have otherwise received!
Your statement probably did placate some, though.
Cgh:
So have I for quite some time. Not surprisingly the bureau who should have those figures readily at hand, Ont Ministry of Agriculture and Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) does not publicize them directly. This is easier to understand when one considers that zoning of lands for agricultural use has been expanded to include wind “farming”. OMAFRA which ordinarily would be protecting land against industrialization, in the case of wind plants actually promoted it, this in league with some of the Farm organizations.
The head of OMAFRA currently is…Kathleen Wynne, appointed Premier of Ont and self appointed Minister of Agriculture.
These estimates of 3.3 acres per turbine are from sources within OMAFRA. I consider them realistic, in the right ball park. The number of turbines 1200+ is also a hard figure to nail down, the wind industry is coy about that but it is between 1200 and 1300.
So 1200×3.3 round to 4000 acres.
The point is Wynne and her wind cronies have plans in place for many more than 1300 turbines, the plan is to license as many mega-projects as possible while clinging to power. Any wind plants I have seen are on Cl agriculture land.
“…The story told of McGuinty and his wind revelation, may be apocryphal, but it says that he became a wind advocate by reading a magazine article, I do not doubt it…”
May be apocryphal?
Coming from The Dildo?
Now that’s funny!
This is slightly off the topic of windmills, but I heard a gov-
erment propaganda PSA on the radio this morning. In the PSA,
it was announced that the U.S. Government was working in part-
nership with private industry, and are on the verge of being
able to produce batteries with enough power to jump start a
car with a battery the size of a cell phone battery.
I smell a subsidized rat! When the Chevy Volt was announced,
they claimed a 40 mile range on batteries alone, and a “Com-
bined” millage claim of over 200 miles. The reality is that
the Volt was lucky to get 25 to 30 miles per charge. The 100+
year old Roberts Electric car got an honest 40 miles per
charge. If battery technology has not advanced that much over
the last 100+ years, how can the new line of Tesla cars boast
400 miles per charge?
Now, I am being told to believe that some company has produced
a cell phone size battery that could that could deliver 100-
200 peak Amps? There is a word for this, it is called Bull-
shit! Any battery of this size would explode like a hand
grenade. This “Public / Private” partnership will end up like
Solyndra: Take a half billion taxpayer dollars, produce nothing,
declare bankruptcy and donate a few hundred million dollars to
the Democrat party.
Are we seeing a pattern here?
McGuilty made a mess he couldn’t fix or clean up so he left. Reminds me of a raccoon who visits my back yard, knocking over birdbaths and leaving blobs of poop on my deck for me to clean up.
Ontario has a chance in by-elections to send a message to the scandal ridden Liberal government, we’ll see how smart they are.
Thanks Martin. It’s also worth remembering that she’s unelected Premier as well. Ontario voters elected McGuinty to a minority government, not Wynne. I don’t blame the bureaucrats in OMAFRA for this; they do what the government tells them to do. But I do blame the farm associations for swallowing the green cyanide and supporting this to their members.
Leonard, if the numbers you quoted are in fact the case then this is indeed nonsense. 100 peak amps out of a cell phone battery would be an increase in battery density by at least two orders of magnitude beyond anything that exists today. You’re right; it would blow up.
“…But I do blame the farm associations for swallowing the green cyanide and supporting this to their members.”
Amen
And, just as Ontario voters are at fault for the state of affairs by electing and re-electing The Dildo, Ontario’s farmers are at fault for doing nothing about the Farm Registration and Farm Organizations Funding Act – which ensured that their farm organizations would be (a) government arse-lickers first, and (b) represent the interests of their members a distant second.
True in every word, Jamie. If we voted for it, or if we didn’t vote at all, we are responsible for the government we get.
In twenty years there will be thousands of derelict wind turbines strewn around Southern Ontario. Google “Kamaoa” wind farm or “Tehachapi” for a scenic view of the ruins. So who will be on the hook for the decommissioning? Or will they stand for a century as a reminder of governmental folly?