Alternative Energy Companies (fka NO-GAS)

[johnlw]

Wind farm myths and realities
Published: March 25, 2009 10:00 AM
Updated: March 25, 2009 10:22 AM

Ahead of the heard

By Will Verboven

Recently an Irish company announced that it was proposing an $850 million wind farm for southern Alberta. To those true believers in alternative renewable energy this would no doubt be greeted with self-righteous glee - once again showing that even in oil and coal favoured Alberta - politically-correct concepts can win. But as with everything else there is more to the story and as a taxpayer you are not going to like the conclusion.

Firstly, wind power promoters always fudge the figures when it comes to the amount of power that these projects allegedly will produce. This most recent project is supposed to generate 350 megawatts - that would be a significant output but that is only in theory.

The fact is there isn’t a wind power facility anywhere in the world that consistently produces anywhere near its theoretical capacity. The actual output is closer to 20 to 30% of designed capacity. That’s because you can’t count on the wind to be reliable. Much of the time there is either too little or too much wind and the windmills are shut down. Anyone within sight of a wind farm already knew that of course.

But capital investment in wind farms is based on full capacity - to compensate for the difference between fact and fiction - governments provide tax breaks and grants to wind farm projects. It gets worse - because wind farms produce unreliable intermittent power, the power is difficult to handle on the provincial grid which requires a steady predictable supply.

What Alberta utilities have had to do is sell wind power to the BC grid at high discounts, apparently the BC grid can better handle fluctuations in power supply. Ironically Alberta utilities have to buy power back from the BC grid at peak times - but at full price of course. To compensate for that pricing gap - governments try to force consumers to pay premium prices for wind power they never really receive. Governments also force utilities to buy wind power at a premium - the cost of which is then paid by all consumers.

That situation doesn’t just happen here in Alberta. Denmark is touted as being the wind power capital of the world. Apparently up to 25% of that country’s electrical needs is met by wind power. But that as it turns out is actually just theory and fudging of the facts. A report on that production noted that only 20% of the actual wind power generated was used in Denmark. The rest, you guessed it, was sold at discounted rates to the German grid. The Danes in turn bought the rest of their electrical needs from German coal-fired plants.

The Europeans also seem to have come to their senses about the realities of wind power. They are reducing or eliminating their subsidies. That has resulted in industrial-sized 50 wind mills being de-commissioned in the Netherlands. New wind mill projects are being cancelled. The Europeans have come to realize that windmills cost too much too build; are very inefficient compared to other electrical generation; they are an environmental disaster causing the deaths of countless thousands of birds and bats; and finally they are noise and sight polluters. The latter is becoming a major issue as citizens and landowners don’t want these giant eyesores ruining the landscape.

The eyesore issue has some irony. Governments everywhere go to great lengths to ban billboards along highways because they are considered a distraction and a blight on the scenery. Yet they approve wind farms which feature giant-sized industrial wind mills which exacerbate what they are trying to do by banning billboards. It boggles the mind but then wind mills have the advantage of being politically-correct and they are the darlings of duplicitous green groups.

That leads us back to the announcement of an $850 million wind farm project by an Irish company. Well hold onto your wallets poor bedraggled taxpayers. The reality is that European windmill companies have found that they have run out of sucker governments in Europe. Subsidies are disappearing and business has crashed over there - but wait there still seems to be some dumb governments left in the world.

Those governments still blinded by political correctness are still all too willing to provide subsidies and grants to build giant wind farms - well guess what - those European vultures are more than willing to separate taxpayers over here from their dollars. They will want to get these projects going soon - it will probably take our politically correct governments another ten years to figure out what the Europeans have already found out - windmills don’t work and are unsustainable. Contrary to that old Bob Dylan song - the answer is not blowing in the wind!!

http://www.albertalocalnews.com/stettlerindependent/community/null_41835912.html