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Wind Articles

Wind Failures, July 19, 2009

Wind Tax Breaks, September 14, 2008

New Reports Critical of Wind Energy. June 24,2007

Community Fights Back. February 12, 2006

Wind Farms Cost More than Nuclear. October 23, 2005

Tax Breaks Fuel Wind Energy. April 24, 2005

Wind Hits Turbulence. February 20, 2005

Largest Wind Turbine. December 19, 2004

True Costs of Wind Power. July 11, 2004

Wind Farm Benefits Overstated. May 16, 2004

Wind Energy’s Real Costs.  March  21, 2004

Largest Wind Turbine. December 14, 2003

Doubts About Wind in Germany September 21, 2003

Groups Protest Bird Kills.  July 6, 2003

New Reports Critical of Wind Energy.

The National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council concluded that CO2 emissions will only be reduced by a relatively small amount even if the maximum forecast of new wind power is installed. (See below for another negative report by EMPA.)

It also concluded that wind power could cause environmental damage and that environmental issues need to be better understood.

The report recommends that regulatory bodies adopt an evaluation guide when determining whether a project should be given approval.

The report concluded that CO2 emissions from power generation will be reduced by 4.5%, assuming that the maximum forecast of 72 GW of installed capacity by 2020 is achieved. (NREL forecast.) The EIA forecast is for an installed capacity of 19 GW by 2020, which would result in correspondingly smaller reductions in CO2 emissions. Because electric generation produces 39% of total U.S. emissions, the maximum reduction in total U.S. CO2 emissions will be less than 2.25%.

Possible adverse effects on bat populations are significant and there is evidence that some bird species (e.g., raptors) may also be adversely affected.

Studies should be conducted comparing proposed wind power installations with alternative methods of generating electricity. Well established methods for evaluating the impact of wind installations on scenic values should also be applied to each proposed installation.

Planning and authorization of wind projects, usually done by local authorities, is uneven in many respects.

The underlying physics of wind power are a negative when compared with nuclear, coal and natural gas installations.

Wind power has a capacity factor of 30% meaning that a wind installation actually only produces 30% of the rated capacity. A 1.5 MW wind turbine is, for practical purposes, only a .5 MW installation. In addition wind capacity factors vary by season and time of day and invariably run counter to peak demand. This results, for example, in wind being virtually useless for meeting air conditioning demand.

Because wind power is intermittent, it is not suitable for dispatching. This means a gas turbine or hydro installation must be kept spinning as backup to replace wind electricity if the wind stops blowing or blows too fast.

Negative Report by EMPA.

Coincidentally another expert on wind power published its report, A Critical Evaluation of the Energy Plans and Actions [of  New York State] that condemned New York State’s actions. The report stated that “claims of economic benefits and additional jobs, apparently assembled for the Governor by [NY] state officials, are not credible,” that “wind is simply not a source for reliable generating capacity” and that “state officials appear to be unaware of facts about wind energy."

This latter comment reinforces the conclusions of the report issued by the National Academy of Sciences.

Sources:

Environmental Impact of Wind Energy Projects; published by the National Academies, May 3, 2007.

Energy Market and Policy Analysis (EMPA)

June 24, 2007

TSAugust

Community Fights Back.

Pendleton County West Virginia is fighting to prevent wind turbines from being built. 

US Route 219 Tucker County

Large-scale industrial wind turbines threaten the one sure economic resource Pendleton County has; magnificent, unblighted scenery that forms the basis for its tourism enterprises and the second home/vacation home real estate market”.

They have established a web site that states: “Property values and scenic values are under assault in Pendleton County.

The previous photo reinforces the way that wind turbines affect scenery.

Liberty Gap Wind Force gave notice to Pendleton County that it has applied to the PSC for a siting certificate for 50 turbines on Jack Mountain.

The Pendleton community has taken legal action and established a letter writing campaign to stop Liberty Gap Wind Force from building 50 turbines. The letters highlight the killing of bats by wind turbines, the lack of accurate maps showing the route of the transmission lines from the wind turbines, and the way that short term construction projects provide little lasting benefit to the County or its residents.

Sources: Protect Pendleton web site www.protectpendleton.com; and www.windwatch.org that has additional pictures of wind turbines and their impact on housing etc.

February 12, 2006

Wind Farms Cost More than Nuclear.

The capital costs for a wind turbine, not including transmission lines or back-up power, is frequently quoted as $1,000 /Kw.

Capital costs for the first new nuclear plants are estimated to be $1,400 /Kw by the nuclear power industry. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) believes the costs will be $1,928 /Kw.

Nuclear plants operate with a better than 90% capacity factor while wind turbines operate at 33%. In other words, to generate the same amount of electricity as a nuclear power plant will require capital investment of nearly $3,000 /Kw for wind power versus $1,928 /Kw (EIA estimate) or $1,400 /Kw (Industry estimate) for nuclear.

Using the EIA’s estimate for the cost of the first new nuclear plants, wind power capital costs are 55% greater than for nuclear power.

For wind, this is the most optimistic calculation.

Capital costs for wind power have recently increased: By one calculation (FPD Canada) the cost for wind power is now $US 1,300 /Kw.

At $1,300 /Kw the capital cost for wind power (to generate the same amount of electricity) is nearly twice the capital cost for nuclear using the EIA cost estimate; or 2.5 times more costly when compared with industry estimates for the initial new nuclear plants.

While capital costs for wind are increasing, the nuclear industry expects that capital costs for nuclear will be approximately $1,000 /Kw after the first few new units are built and start-up costs have been assimilated.

Sources:

CBO Analysis and Nuclear Energy Institute. See http://www.nei.org/documents/Testimony_Fertel_02-03-05.doc

Federal Programs Division of Environment Canada. See www.on.ec.gc.ca/pollution/fpd/technologies/t-1000-e.html

October 23, 2005

Tax Breaks Fuel Wind Energy. 

U.S. wind farms are being built primarily for tax avoidance, not to generate electricity: Tax breaks and subsidies have more value than the revenue from the sale of wind generated electricity.

Meanwhile more and more people are objecting to the environmental and scenic impact of wind farms.

Companies such as Florida Power and Light (FPL), one of the largest wind farm owners, avoided paying any income taxes in 2002 or 2003 on income of $2 billion. “Apparently FPL Energy (FPL’s wind energy subsidiary) took more than $1.2 billion in depreciation deductions in those years."

J.P.Morgan and Goldman Sachs are major financers of wind farms and are acquiring wind farms themselves.

These are a few of the findings in a comprehensive paper by Glenn Schleede.

Hidden behind all the hype surrounding wind farms is that the true cost of electricity from wind farms and damage to the environment is much greater than the advocates of wind power would admit.

Wind power only works when the wind is blowing so that the electricity generated by wind farms is variable and inconsistent: It doesn’t start until wind is blowing at 8 mph and cuts off when the wind blows above 56 mph. All the while a backup gas turbine must be kept running to go on line at a moment’s notice when the wind stops blowing. The cost of backup power isn’t included when advocates calculate the cost of wind power. The extra burden of managing the grid and transmitting this power is also excluded.

Last year the Royal Academy of Engineering established that wind energy costs twice as much as coal, gas or nuclear generated electricity.

Bird kills, scenic destruction and emissions from the backup gas turbines are not included in the hype by wind advocates.

This latest report shows how big money and unknowing politicians have foisted wind power on the public; with the tax payer picking up the bill.

April 24, 2005  

Wind Hits Turbulence. 

Recent events have seen wind hit some rough turbulence; here and in Germany.

In Germany, a country that has embraced wind power, the magazine Der Spiegel published details leaked from a report prepared at the behest of the German Parliament that said overall energy costs for consumers will climb from EU 1.4 billion to EU 5.4 billion if Germany doubles its wind power by 2015; this is a 380% increase.

In addition the newspaper Die Welt reported that German banks are increasingly unwilling to finance off-shore wind farms. Their reasoning is that off-shore installations are too risky.

Thousands of bat carcasses have been found among the trees and ridges of West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

The off-shore wind farm at Cape Cod suffered a set back when the Army Corps of Engineers reported that radar detected 127,697 birds and bats flying through the project’s proposed area during a recent two month period. 

This proposed wind farm covers 24 square miles and sits less than five miles from shore in places. The 130 wind turbines would stand 328 feet high, or roughly the height of a 33 story building.

In California, the slaughter of thousands of birds each year, including golden eagles, hawks and owls, has led the San Francisco based Center for Biological Diversity to file a lawsuit seeking a halt or significant reduction in bird deaths from wind turbines.

Farmers near Flint Hills, Kansas, together with the Audubon Society and The Nature Conservancy, have opposed the building of wind farms. What has these groups up in arms is that the Flint Hills area is where two thirds of the remnants of America’s tallgrass prairie still exists. The proposed wind farms would destroy the habitat and beauty afforded by this area. Furthermore, it is claimed that only two absentee land owners would benefit from lucrative leases at the first complex; a 10 acre site near Rosalia in Butler County.

In Louisiana there is a proposal to build up to 10 wind farms totaling as many as 250 wind turbines as tall as 27 story buildings; with many visible from the shoreline. Even supporters of these wind farms admit that they are economically unviable and will fail unless the state forces Louisiana residents to purchase power at up to three times the cost of conventional electricity: Supporters seek such a requirement through a proposed renewable portfolio standard. The Times-Picayune observed "in most cases, green power costs more-- sometimes considerably more--than electricity produced by more conventional methods. Commissioner Foster Campbell, a supporter of the wind farm proposal, said "Without a renewable energy portfolio standard, this project will be dead".

February 20, 2005

Largest Wind Turbine. 

REpower Sytems AG completed the installation of a prototype 5MW wind turbine next to the 800 MW Brunsbüttel nuclear power station in northern Germany in October and connected it to the grid in early November.

The 5MW unit is intended for off-shore applications and has a rating twice that of GE’s largest unit which is also designed for off-shore applications.

To test the unit off-shore, REpower also signed an agreement to install another 5MW unit in the Cuxhaven test field in 2005.

Siting the 5MW unit next to the nuclear power station begs comparison of wind energy and nuclear power.

Because wind turbines have a capacity factor of approximately 30% while nuclear has a capacity factor of over 90%, it will require approximately 480, 5MW wind turbines to produce the same power as the 800 MW nuclear power plant.

The operating costs of nuclear are approximately 1.5 cents per KwH while wind, after accounting for the need to maintain spinning reserves, is about 4 times as costly.

Capital cost of the 5 MW units were not given by REpower systems AG so capital costs of these wind turbines cannot be compared with the capital cost of nuclear.

Two other issues; area required for wind turbines, and whether wind energy contributes to energy independence are important.

Larger wind turbines require more area due to the way wind turbines disturb the air flow around the units: Larger units require that they be spaced further apart so that output per area does not increase with larger units.

Only 2.45% of the electricity generated in the U.S. is generated by oil, so that little if any oil is saved by using wind power. Adopting wind power, therefore, does not contribute to energy independence.

The 5 MW unit stands about 330 feet above sea level and has a rotor diameter of approximately 430 feet. For comparison purposes the height of the Statue of Liberty is 307 feet (distance from pedestal foundation to torch).

December 19, 2004  

True Costs of Wind Power. 

“The true cost of electricity from wind is much greater than the benefits”. This was the message at a meeting of the owners and members of the Associated Electric Cooperative Inc., St Louis , Missouri on June 24.

Tax avoidance by wind farm developers is the prime motivation for building wind farms…Not the environment. Accelerated depreciation and the production tax credit (PTC) result in huge write offs to the developer, with the consumer ultimately paying the bill. This was only part of the message presented by Glenn Schleede at the meeting.

The fact that wind produced only about one third of 1% of the electricity consumed in 2002 and that the US energy Information Administration (EIA) doesn’t expect wind to supply even 1% of US electricity by 2025 demonstrates the false promise of wind power; wind power will not play a significant role in US power generation by 2025…if ever.

In fact, the EIA forecasts that traditional methods using coal, natural gas, hydro and nuclear will continue to produce 95% of the electricity consumed in the US between now and 2025. (Most of the balance is produced by wood and trash. Solar, geothermal etc. produce the rest.)

Some of the technical reasons for the poor performance of wind include:

• Very low capacity factor. (The units only generate electricity when the wind is blowing…and isn’t blowing too fast.)

• Transmission line losses compared with traditional units located nearer the customer. (Remote wind turbines must move power from their remote location to where it is used which incurs line losses.)

• The need for stand-by power. Since wind doesn’t blow steadily, traditional generating units must be kept spinning to take up the slack or fill in when wind power varies; or stops.

Arguments often used by the proponents of wind power include a contention that traditional fuels, coal, nuclear and natural gas, receive subsidies and that the US is an energy wastrel.

The presentation demonstrates that wind receives a disproportionate amount of subsidization.

And, in so far as the US being an energy wastrel is concerned, the facts belie such an assertion; “the US accounts for 29% of the world’s Domestic Product but it accounts for only 24% of the world’s energy consumption”.

The entire presentation “Facing up to the True Costs and Benefits of Wind Energy” can be downloaded from the renewables section of this web site.

July 11, 2004

Wind Farm Benefits Overstated.  

A new analysis of wind farms shows that the Jobs and Economic Development Impact (JEDI) model developed by the Department of Energy grossly overstates the economic benefits derived from the building of wind farms. (See next page to download full report.) 

The JEDI model uses default values to determine the number of jobs and other economic benefits resulting from the building of a wind farm. Default values can be adjusted to reflect local conditions.

The new study shows that the JEDI “default recommendations produces estimates of economic benefits and jobs that are more than 200% higher than estimates based on more reasonable assumptions”.

For example the JEDI model includes, in its job forecast, highly specialized jobs for which local workers will not be qualified. These specialized jobs, such as for tower construction and turbine installation, will likely be filled by imported workers. Similarly, maintenance of turbines and controls will probably be performed by traveling specialists, not by local workers.

The JEDI model also does not include costs that the community will incur once the wind farm is built. These costs include police and fire protection, road maintenance and possible environmental costs, including loss of scenic value. The JEDI model also does not include the higher cost of electricity produced by the wind farm.

State and local government officials and those interested in wind farms can download this report from this web site.

Report can be downloaded from Renewables section.

“Errors and Excesses in the NREL’s JEDI-WIM Model 

that Provides 

Estimates of the State or Local Economic Impact of “Wind Farms”

Includes

A demonstration of the NREL Model’s Overestimates -- 

Using the Example of a “Wind Farm” proposed 

for Highland County, Virginia

By Glenn Schleede

May 16, 2004

Wind Energy’s Real Costs.  

A study published by the Royal Academy of Engineering established that wind energy costs twice as much as coal, gas or nuclear generated electricity.

Furthermore, the study established that wind power was generally more costly even after assigning charges for CO2 against the coal and gas power plants.

The RAE web site introduces their report as follows:

“Can we afford to keep the lights on? 

Real future electricity costs"

"In a report published today (10 March), The Royal Academy of Engineering reveals that electricity from offshore wind farms, currently the most viable renewable source, will cost at least twice as much as that from conventional sources.”

Study results are shown here. Costs are in pence per kWhr.

Without CO2 emissions charge

• Gas fired Combined Cycle Gas Turbine 2.2 p

• Nuclear 2.3 p

• Coal fired pulverized coal 2.5 p

With CO2 emissions charge

• Gas fired Combined Cycle Gas Turbine 3.4 p

• Nuclear 2.3 p

• Coal fired pulverized coal 5.0 p

The CO2 charge was £30 per ton (approximately $45 per ton)

 Without standby generation

• On Shore Wind farm, and 3.7 p

• Off Shore Wind Farm and 5.5 p

With standby generation

• On Shore Wind farm, 5.4 p

• Off Shore Wind Farm 7.2 p

Wind turbines depend on the wind which is an intermittent source of power. For this reason nearly all wind farms require standby generation, which, as the above numbers show causes both on shore and off shore wind energy to be much more expensive than conventional sources of electricity.

These costs were derived by accounting for construction cost of new plants together with maintenance, operation and fuel costs. Decommissioning costs were assigned to the nuclear alternatives but not the others on the assumption that scrap value would equal decommissioning costs for wind etc.

The complete report can be seen by going to the Royal Academy of Engineering web site www.raeng.org.uk

March  21, 2004

Largest Wind Turbine.

REpower Systems AG recently unveiled plans for a 5 MW wind turbine at the Husam, Germany wind exhibition. The completed unit will have a rotor diameter of 415 feet and stand 400 feet tall. Typical 2.5 MW units are around 360 feet tall. 

For comparison purposes the Statue of Liberty is 305 feet tall.

The unit is targeting offshore applications. It is believed that fewer units spaced further apart will reduce objections people have re wind turbines obstructing the scenery.

The larger unit will not produce more electricity per acre than smaller units. Aerodynamics require that all wind turbines be separated by approximately seven times their rotor diameter which results in larger units having a greater distance between them: And with fewer units per land (or sea) area the amount of electricity generated per acre remains unchanged. 5 KW per acre has been determined to be the approximate amount that can be generated by wind turbines.

The prototype is to be built in 2004. Typical large units currently in production by GE, Vestas and other companies are rated 2.5 MW. 3 MW prototype units have been built with GE advertising a 3.6 MW unit.

When considering the amount of electricity wind turbines can generate, it is important to remember that their capacity factor is about 30%.

For more complete information on Renewable Energy see ”The False Promise of Renewable Energy” under “Renewables” on the home page.

December 14, 2003

Doubts About Wind in Germany  

Growing chorus of German politicians want to shift back to coal, oil and gas. Economic Minister Clement has stated that the 4.5 percent of Germany’s total energy that currently comes from renewable sources is more than enough.. The crisis looms as Germany is forced to close all its nuclear plants by 2020 as the result of Green legislation.

Meanwhile the summer heat wave showed that wind power wasn’t available when it was needed the most: for air conditioning. The heat wave produced windless days and nights: and little power from wind turbines.

Critics have argued that wind power is too expensive to fill the vacuum left after Germany's nuclear plants go off the power grid. Wind power has been highly subsidized: In addition, wind power producers receive preferential pricing (above market price) that is passed on to all consumers.

Clement's predecessor in 2001, Werner Miller, concluded Germany could not meet its energy needs and emissions targets established in the Kyoto Protocol if it entirely abandoned nuclear energy.

September 21, 2003

Groups Protest Bird Kills. 

Over 25 environmental groups and individuals called on the Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton, to investigate the impact of wind turbines on migratory birds. The letter specifically referred to the planned construction of several hundred wind turbines along Appalachian mountain ridges. Wind turbines rise 400 feet above the ground and there have been reported deaths of migratory birds, such as warblers and other song birds, in West Virginia and elsewhere.

Over 500 wind turbines have been planned within a fifteen mile area in Maryland and West Virginia along ridge lines. Companies are rushing to complete construction before the possible expiration at the end of 2003 of the federal tax credit for wind turbines.

The organizations responsible for the letter included the National Audubon Society, Endangered Species Coalition, The Humane Society of the United States, Friends of Blackwater, Massachusetts Audubon Society, Audubon-Pennsylvania, Appalachian Voices, The Center for Biological Diversity, International Wildlife Coalition, Center for Native Ecosystems, Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project, Defenders of Wildlife, Animal Protection Institute, plus another seventeen organizations and numerous scientists and individuals.

Sunday July 6, 2003

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