Wrecking the Sea Bed with Offshore Wind (Part 4)

This is the fourth in a series of posts about the damage done to the sea floor by offshore "Wind Parks". Data has been taken from the proposed Navitus bay wind park consultation documents (Available On This Link) which are also available on a DVD. The main files are:
PEI3_Ch2_NavitusBayWindParkProject.pdf  ( Link HERE )
PEI3_Ch5_PhysicalProcesses.pdf  ( Link HERE )
PEI3-Ch_9_benthicecology.pdf (Link HERE)
PEI3_Ch_10_fishandshellfishecology.pdf ( Link HERE )

Foundations and Waste - adding it up

Yesterday I looked at the devastation wrought on the sea bed by a single gravity base turbine. In that scenario the spoil from the foundation excavations were dumped nearby.

There is an alternative to this. Instead of dumping the spoil on site it can be dumped elsewhere. Maybe at a nominated disposal site within the Solent itself.

Of course, for a single turbine, the disposal of several thousand tonnes of seabed spoil, whether locally or to a waste dump is unlikely to cause significant problems to the area as a whole. When regarded as a single entity, the waste issues caused by an individual turbine (while lamentable) are negligible within the bigger picture. 

The problems come when you add it all up.

Potentially, for the 213 turbines plus three substations a met mast and other assorted sea bed scrapings, the amount of displaced spoil comes in at well over one and half million tonnes. Even if they end up with a significant number of turbines that use foundation techniques that generate less spoil it is highly unlikely that the amount of seabed spoil will ever be less than about 1.2 million tonnes.

Remember this all gets excavated fairly rapidly over a four year period.

So how much is 1.6 million tonnes of sea-bed?

It has a volume of about 860,000 cubic meters. To give an idea of how much that is, let us build a solid cone of spoil sitting in Bournemouth Square. The base of this cone needs to be 100 meters across (325 ft). Now imagine building your cone upwards.

Do you remember from earlier how a 100m wide cone of rock debris (used to armour the cables) reached  beyond the height of Westminster Abbey?

Well, for this mountain of sea-bed spoil, that's kids stuff.

As you keep building it upward don't look back as you go past the height of Big Ben (96m - 300ft.) Keep going past the height of the London Eye (135m – 443ft).

You've got a helluva long way to go yet.

Keep going until you reach the height of the Shard in London (London's highest building 310m – 1017 feet). Take a quick breather if you like, but you are not there yet.

Keep on building up beyond the Eiffel Tower (324m) – but keep going.

You end up running out of spoil 40m short of the top of the Empire State Building in New York. The final height of your 100m wide solid cone of seabed spoil will be 344m - 1128 ft.

Now remember, if you plan dumping this mountain somewhere other than by your turbines, you will need to find a way of bringing it all back again during decommissioning. It will be needed to fill those craters left when you dig out the foundations of the defunct turbines. Or is there some other plan (if any) for this eventuality?

From the environmental assessments that form part of the Navitus documents, it appears that the disposal of this mountain of spoil will have a “negligible” affect on the environment. In fact “negligible” is a much used word in this documentation. It vies with “imperceptible” for popularity.

A Little Parallelism for you.

If I go to an ancient Oak forest and cut down and dig up an old Oak, the effect on the rest of the forest is probably “negligible”. The trashed area will no doubt recover in a few years. Then lets say, three days later, I do the same thing again. This is a large forest so again the effect is negligible. Then I do it again and again. I keep going for four years. Each Oak cut down makes a negligible change to the forest. But at the end of our four years of "negligible" destruction, we end up with a scene of desolation. A brutalised and trashed environment that will take, as a whole, very many years to recover (if at all).

I hope you can see the parallel with building an offshore wind park.

I was going to deal with heavy metal pollution and methane release from the spoil as well today but this post is too long already. That will come on another day. Sadly there is so much wrong with offshore Wind (and  Navitus Bay in particular) that I'm going to be at this for some time. (The last part of this series is HERE)

Wrecking the Sea Bed with Offshore Wind (Part 3)

This is the third in a series of posts about the damage done to the sea floor by offshore "Wind Parks". Data has been taken from the proposed Navitus bay wind park consultation documents (Available On This Link) which are also available on a DVD. The main files are:
PEI3_Ch2_NavitusBayWindParkProject.pdf  ( Link HERE )
PEI3_Ch5_PhysicalProcesses.pdf  ( Link HERE )
PEI3_Ch_10_fishandshellfishecology.pdf ( Link HERE )

Foundations and Waste

While the sea bed is being dug up with hundreds of miles of cable trenching (see last post), the average offshore wind park will also be gouging out the seabed for the foundations for the turbines themselves. 

Take a single gravity base turbine. 

PEI3_Ch5_PhysicalProcesses.pdf  

The concept appears to be that the sea bed is variously excavated, levelled and generally dug over and the 7600 Tonnes of spoil from these operations is shipped to the surface. The gravity base structure is then built on top of part of the excavated area. The final coup-de-grace to the area is then executed by rapidly dumping the spoil in the vicinity of the turbine base.

Over a period of a few minutes, directly below the spoil barge, a devils rain of 4800 tonnes of boulders, stones and gravel smash into the sea bed destroying everything in its path. As the waste piles up it will collapse and spread out, cascading outward like magma from a volcano. The area of destruction is likely to be well over 100 meters wide. 

Within this area everything dies. 

Flora, fauna, starfish, crabs, everything. It is unlikely that even fast swimming fish would escape the devils rain but even if they did, they are not going to live for long. Nature does not favour creatures evicted from their immediate habitat. Survival would be the exception rather than the rule.

That accounts for 4800 tonnes of the spoil. Then we have the remaining 2800 tonnes of mud and fine sand to consider.

The sea acts like a filter. The large rubble in the spoil falls directly to the sea bed leaving the smaller particles in suspension. The rate these fall to the sea bed is dictated by their size. A large opaque bloom of debris will spread out from the dump site flowing along with tidal direction. It will (mostly) sink as it travels. While some of this debris will remain in suspension for days, most will smear out a suffocating coat of mud over the sea bed extending out hundreds of meters from the dump site. Assuming a suffocation depth of 10cms and that 500 tonnes of the particulate matter is fine enough to remain in suspension, the remaining 2300 tonnes has the capability to extend the destroyed area by another 10,000 square meters.

So this single turbine has the potential to destroy an area of sea-bed equal to the excavated area (para 5.155) plus the area of the dump site and a further area suffocated by mud

2000 square meter excavated area

7500 square meters destroyed by large spoil

10000 square meters suffocated by mud

Thats not far short of 20,000 square meters of sea bed totally destroyed and left devoid of life - a ring of death with a diameter of over 150 meters.

From the documentation Navitus optimistically report that the environmental damage will take around 5 years to heal.

Really?

While this may be true for the mud polluted areas, it is difficult to see how areas covered with large amounts of immovable rock, shingle and boulders, piled haphazardly on the what was the sea bed will recover. You have dumped what amounts to 7600 tonnes of (at best) sub-soil on what was the sea bed.

Ask any gardener how well plants grow in mining spoil. Ask the older people in the valleys of South Wales how well vegetation grew on the spoil heaps that were imposed on them.

Truly, life is tenacious. It will in some form return to the devastated areas. But the likelyhood is that the balance of flora and fauna will at least be different and more likely to be diminished and enfeebled.

All of the above is for a single turbine. Navitus plan to build 213 of these things. 

The seabed “preparation” will be done at 3 day intervals. Every 15 working days another 100,000 square meters of sea bed will have been destroyed. This will go on for four years.

Even on their own reckoning, by the time they have trashed this 1000 Acres of sea-bed none of it will have had time to recover.

Now add this 1000 Acres of devastation to the 1000 acres of ruin brought about by the cable laying and the cable rock armour.

All this for a pitifully inadaquate, intermittent and massively expensive power generation technology.

Ruin upon ruin. 

But it does not stop there. Next I will look at the scale of the total amount of spoil produced and also some of the less desirable elements within that spoil that will be released into the marine environment.

(Next post is HERE)

How Wind Turbines Increase Global Warming

Below, using some peer reviewed data I hope to show you why an Industrial Wind Turbine, replacing coal plant, will actually increase Global Warming for well beyond the lifespan of the Industrial Wind Turbine itself.

First of all, just to be nice, we are going to assume that some highly dubious pro-wind propaganda is true.

We will assume a turbine has a productive life of 25 years.
We will assume that it directly offsets coal plant on a one-for one basis.
We will assume it needs no spinning reserve at all.
We will totally forget about the concrete/Neodymium mining/ steel/fibreglass/copper etc.
We will ignore the methane ( a strong greenhouse gas) that gets released from disturbed peat bogs where IWT's are sometimes placed.

Most of all we will completely forget about the environmental damage to wildlife. We will also totally ignore those pesky Human Beings who think they have a right to have a say about what gets built near them (Nimbys - damn them all!)

For those of you who are either falling about laughing or about to burst a blood vessel at this point, please bear with me and read on.

At this point we need to bring in the current ruckous over shale gas.

The data here I use here is taken from this paper: Coal To Gas: The Influence of Methane Leakage by Tom L. Wigley of the (U.S.A) National Center for Atmospheric research.

The main thrust of Wigleys research was to study what effect different rates of Methane loss (rogue methane) would have on a coal to gas conversion. His initial paper dealt with only a 50% coal replacement over 50  year period with a linear rate of replacement. The electronic suppliment dealt with a much more drastic changeover where coal was totally replaced by gas in 50 years.

The surprising outcome from this research is that in the first 40 -60 years or so, as gas replaces coal the main driver of global warming is the reduction in Aerosols emmitted from coal plant. A primary constituent of coal Aerosols is Sulphur Dioxide which is a very potent anti-greenhouse gas. So the removal of the aerosols actually increases global warming. It is only after about 60 years before the reduction in Carbon Dioxide overwhelms this warming.

The best graph to illustrate the problem is actually in the electronic supplement to this paper (see graph ESM2) This graph assumes total replacement of coal with gas over 50 years.

This is the graph (the top half refers only to proposed global temperature increase and is irrelevent here)

Notice with Natural Gas there are three issues surrounding it's affect on Global warming:

1. Carbon Dioxide (CO2) reduction by displacing coal (causes reduction)
2. Seepage of Methane (CH4) from either pipes or wells. (causes increase)
3. Reduction of Aerosols (mainly Sulphur Dioxide SO2) by replacing coal. (causes increase)

You can see this clearly on the left hand portion of the above graph. While this graph includes rogue methane from natural gas, clearly, even when you take the methane out of the picture the net affect  on progressively replacing Coal plant for any non sulphurous generating plant for the first 40-60 years will be an increase in Global Warming.

Let us replace the Gas for Industrial Wind Turbines.

(We will ignore IWT peat bog methane release - although we shouldn't)

Over the 25 year life time of our idealised super Industrial Wind Turbine, these will be no reduction in Global Warming from a decrease in Carbon Dioxide generation at all. But over the same period, the reduction in Sulphur Dioxide emissions from the replaced coal plant will cause a much higher and significant rise on Global Warming.

This is true for Gas, Nuclear, Hydro, Wind and Solar. Anything, that in a rolling program reduces Sulphur Dioxide emissions will cause more Global Warming (not less) in the first 40-60 years after coal replacement starts.

A Gas plant will last 40+ years. Nuclear 60+ years, Hydro 100+ years. Plus all the three will give a consistent and reliable output without requiring any form of backup.

Even assuming the cloud cuckoo land concept of an IWT having a lifespan of 25 years, it will need to be replaced at least twice before any productive gains from Carbon Dioxide reduction will be made. The same applies to Solar.

But worse than that, the IWT's will always need backup from Gas anyway. It is very easy to visualise that even if a madcap scheme involving the building of hundreds of thousands of our idealised turbines took place, there would be no decrease in global warming at all this century. But there would be an increase in at least the first 40-60 years..

This all assumes the lies wishful thinking of the wind turbine industry are true. In my own opinion, the most likely outcome is that Industrial Wind Turbines will have no impact positive or negative on global warming at all, simply because they are so damn ineffective.

Of course, removing Sulphur Dioxide is actually a very good thing. Even if it causes a temporary rise in Global Warming. Today hundreds of thousands of people die from coal based aerosols and the sooner they are removed the better.

But really, do we need to try and do it with half baked, wildly expensive and short lived plant like IWT's? Just about anything Gas, Hydro or Nuclear is more effective. The only technology that may be even more ineffective than IWT's is solar.

The end result of this, even if you believe the Wind Industry, is that Industrial Wind Turbines are NOT going to help prevent global warming within their 25 year life span. Or during the life span of the replacement or even the replacement after that. In fact assuming they actually do replace coal plant they will increase global warming for the next two generations at least.

Note: A less valid version of this argument is currently being used by the Greens against fracking. Their argument is less valid because gas is reliable, dispatchable and requires no backup other than standard fail-safe spinning reserve. It is also plentiful, is useable in transport as well as power generation and can be stored. It is also vital as a backup for the useless wind turbines even though it already cuts CO2 emissions by 60% from coal by itself. 

But it appears that the Greens now think Sulphur Dioxide is "A Good Thing". (God help us all) 

The Executioners Turbine

H/t to @MorainePains  at twitter who is currently fighting off the wind turbine Carpet Baggers in Ontario Canada. A little entertainment for all...

A modern day execution (seriously, this is good)

Birds Bats Bugs Bees and Wind turbines

A tale of the Double Stall.

A lot of my friends get extremely animated about the slaughter of bats and birds by wind turbines.
This Canada Free Press Report indicates that in Spain alone around 6 - 18 million birds and bats get chopped every year.

But compared to the numbers of less fashionable critters that get chopped, the slaughter of the birds is small beer.

So do the bugs matter?

Well, to the wind energy companies it matters greatly (although for all the wrong reasons).

As the bugs get slapped by the rotor they do roughly what they do when they hit your windscreen.
They splat. Having splatted, they stick to the offending aerofoil. This increases what is known as the rugosity (or roughness) of the blade. The rougher the blade, the less effective it is at  taking energy out of the wind. (A bit like the difference on pushing a wood block across the carpet then trying to do the same with it wrapped in sandpaper.)

This rugosity has an astonishing effect on the output and can decrease the output by nearly 50%. It is mooted that this accounts for a problem that the wind industry has kept quiet for about ten years. The problem has become known as the Double Stall.

This graph from HERE shows the effect of the Double Stall phenomena.

So what exactly is the Double Stall? The problem came to light when numerous identical turbines, positioned in equivalently windy locations produced massively different output. (up to 50%). Initially various ideas were mooted for this. Most came down to some form of operator incompetence.

But it looks like the problem is not the operator error. The problem is the layer of bug DNA smeared over the leading edge of the aerofoil. See  This Paper  by Corten and Veldkamp. Also link to Nature report Here

(If the above link to the paper by Corten & Veldkamp is problematic  - try this direct link

http://www.ecn.nl/docs/library/report/2001/rx01052.pdf

Various cleaning methodologies have been investigated but most can only be done in low wind speeds with the thing stopped. Even then, dangling 200 feet up in the air while scraping off dead insects is not for the faint hearted.

The down time can be anything up to three days at a time. For a larger turbines (bigger than 1MW) I suspect it might be considerably longer.

But of course, scraping off the DNA to boost your profits hardly addresses the millions of critters that must get splatted in the name of Green fashionability. But as they are not "pretty" they get ignored. Even by the anti-wind compaigners.

It is just an hypothesis, but it would be interesting to find out the effect IWT's have on the local bug/bee population. After all, most of the time IWT's are spinning idly in low wind, producing little but the murder millions of insects. That must have an effect on bird food supplies and I suspect insect populations. Maybe this is even part of the recent drop in Bee populations?

So next time you lament for a bird like this:

(image from Daily Mirror HERE)

Please remember the billions of insects that met a similar fate. Spare a thought for our ugly bugs, wasps and bees as well as our bats and birds.

They are all just as important to our countryside and environment.

Fiddling While Sumatra Burns

Photo CBC news - see link below

So here we are, spending billions upon billions on marginal power generation schemes while  in Indonesia the whole of the UK Carbon Dioxide emissions per year are more than duplicated due to a mixture of slash and burn farming, illegal logging and yet another green energy scam (Palm Oil). Currently the whole of South East Asia is choking beneath the smoke ( See Here ) ( And Here )

Here are the total UK Carbon Dioxide emissions for 2011 and 2012. ( Taken From Here )

See this recent research paper ( Here ) by Hooije, Page et al. The true horror of the current Peat/rain forest burn in Indonesia is revealed. Based on what has already happened in Indonesia and particularly Sumatra they predict the following:

[quote]
If current rates and practices of peatland development and degradation continue, CO2 emission is expected to peak at 745 Mt y-1 in 2015
[unquote]

But don't think that it stops there. Although the figure steadily drops, annually it will still be above 2011 UK emissions until 2030. But concentrating simply on Carbon Dioxide misses out the horrendous mass pollution that is also being endured by the people of South East Asia.

We buy into the Palm Oil scam which is the main crop which is causing this obscenity in the Far East. Meanwhile we spend well over a billion a year in subsidy for the wind turbine scam which (assuming you believe their figures - See this Post) even the wind energy industry reckon to save less than 1% of our annual carbon dioxide emissions, while causing enormous distress to the communities on who these useless totems are imposed.

A fashion statement energy policy that squanders huge amounts of resources on ineffective feel good generation while disregarding the engineering, science and real politik is a disgrace.

We should put a ban on using palm oil for energy and divert a fraction of the money wasted on wind turbines to direct loans to dirt poor Indonesian peasants. This would not only reduce Carbon Dioxide  but significantly reduce smoke pollution as well.

No doubt the green cults, especially the WWF  ( See Here ) would be up in arms and protest about how their Palm Oil is "sustainable" (yea right ). Just don't ask them what happened to the Peat and Rain-Forest that used to be on their dodgy oh-so-green plantations.

Fiddling around the edges, while lining the pockets of the greedy and appeasing a luddite clique is never going to prevent mass pollution. Either here or in Indonesia.

In fact it could well be argued our obsession with ridiculous green energy scams is mostly to blame for this on going tragedy in Indonesia, as well as damaging our own local environment.

The Damage Done by Wind Power

The above picture shows a turbine blade that ended up in a daycare centre in Oklahoma during a recent tornado. (thanks to @Ginger_Zee on twitter).

But this post is not about how turbines are being built too close to peoples homes.

Neither is it about people being driven from their homes or seeing their one major asset (their home) devalued.

Neither is it about greedy landowners backed by ruthless corporations making illgotten fortunes for no effort. Except for the effort that is expended in selling out their neighbours.

Finally this post is not about how utterly useless IWT's are for providing dispatchable electricity.

This post is about how public perception regarding the scientific debate regarding Global Warming has been utterly poisoned by the disgrace that is the wind turbine fraud.

I have spoken and corresponded with many people who have had their lives impacted by the sleasy gold rush that epitomises wind energy. Initially these folk have no idea how ineffective, costly and down right counter productive IWT's are. Then due to the imminence of this blight
appearing in their neighbourhood, they do some reading. I expect they are mostly seeking reassurance. Sadly they get none. The transparent spin from the wind industry soon gets blown away. Then they see the ugly truth.

The wind turbine scam is all about fanatics, corporate and individual greed and has little or nothing to do with Carbon Dioxide emissions.

They see the zealots, the crooks and the carpet baggers all lining up and bleating about global warming as some super justification for their arrogance and excess. The people (ordinary bog standard two kids and a mortgage people - the folks so hated by the zealots) end up despising the sham.

But beyond this justifiable rejection of greed and bigotry, they also reject the science used as a prop by the wind turbine carpet baggers.

The end result is that the science surrounding Global Warming is now as despised and derided as the wind turbine scam itself. Which is much more than a shame.

We all need to keep an open mind on global warming and not let the poisonous con job that is the wind industry turn us against the science that the wind industry has so ruthlessly exploited for their own ends.

Global Warming may need us to take (useful) action, then nobody would happier than me if it were proved to be wrong.

But I think it would be foolish to disregard the current scientific opinion simply because of the ugly wind turbine fraud that has exploited it.

Wind Turbine Scam On Steroids

There are times when the stupidity of Her Majesties Government exceeds even the realms of fantasy we normally expect from these buffoons.

Believe me, Monty Python has nothing on what I am about to tell you. Terry Pratchet could
imagine nothing so absurd.

When it comes avarice and greed, Arthur Daly would have blushed at such a scandalously lucrative con.

If I tell you that this involves the current wind turbine fiasco will probably also come as no surprise.

But believe me, my grubby little Englander, this is the wind turbine scam on steroids. If you thought the carpet baggers in the wind turbine cartel were already ripping us all off to the limit of endurance then get used to being screwed some more. (See Spectator Here)

So how does this scam work?

Basically it revolves around the utterly hopeless capability of these absurdly large structures to generate electricity.

If you forget about intermittency, a 125m tall standard 2.0 MW wind turbine actually acts like a piddling 0.5 MW generator (albeit an unreliable and unpredictable one). In other words in England it has a capacity factor (CF) of around 25%.

Most of the time though it is running at significantly less than 25% CF. It relies on occasional and highly unpredictable high wind events to big up the CF to 25%

Now if you reduce the maximum rating of the generator attached to the turbine to less than 2.0MW, but keep the same horrendously large structure, you increase the capacity factor. But you decrease the maximum output as you can no longer exploit the high wind events. So over a year the total amount of electricity generated will be less. Even though the CF has been increased.

And here comes the rub.

If you keep the preposterous size but reduce the generator rating to 0.5 MW your subisdy per MW/hr rises from about £50 to £125.

So whereas nuclear, coal or gas get paid about £45 per MW/hr and a standard 2.0 MW turbine gets paid £95 per MW/hr. A 2.0 MW size turbine crippled to max out at 0.5MW gets paid £175 per MW/hr.

Bear in mind MOST of the time this turbine will be outputting well under 0.5 MW irrespective of whether it has a 2.0 MW generator or a 0.5 MW generator.

It doesn't take a genius to work out that the carpet baggers will be raking in even more subsidy by  running these monsters inefficiently. They don't care about losing even over half of the annual output of the thing, they still get paid more by crippling it

Here is the punch line: Your government is encouraging this. They think this is a "good idea".

Well, all I can say is: What do you expect from a government led by someone who is such a  technical incompetent that he believes you can use windmills to power cars? (See Here)

Regards
Billo

Wind Turbines: A Major New Noise Report

Just a quick post about a new peer reviewed study, published in a leading academic journal on the effects of wind turbine noise on nearby residents. It has been written by three leading academics. (including Dr Chris Hanning - arguably the worlds leading expert in sleep deprivation)

The study (quicklink) is Here

Full Citation:

Nissenbaum MA, Aramini JJ, Hanning CD. Effects of industrial wind turbine noise on sleep and health. Noise Health [serial online] 2012 [cited 2012 Nov 11];14:237-43. 
Available from: http://www.noiseandhealth.org/text.asp?2012/14/60/237/102961

Basically this study reinforces the the now well founded opinion that wind turbines should be no
nearer than 2Km to residential dwellings.

Needless to say, this report will be vigorously ignored and then denied by the money hungry wind turbine cartel and by their brown nosed apologist fashion loving followers. No doubt we will also hear the hysterical slurs and accusations against the researchers in due course. As has happened before.

Do you seriously think there is a difference between the wind cartel and the tobacco industry? Dream on. If there is one, it is as thick as a cigarette paper.

But at least there are signs that these greedy corporate monsters, who are imposing immense misery on an untold number of communities across our country are now meeting some resistance.

Wiltshire County Council has set a minimum setback distance of 2Km (3Km for large turbines).
(See Here). Good for them. Standing up for your community is exactly what local democracy should be all about. Wiltshire County councillors deserve out applause.

But most of all we should salute Dr Chris Hanning and his colleagues for having the courage to publish.

The opinions and scientific findings of Dr Chris Hanning, Dr Mike Nissenbaum and  Dr Jeff  Aramini should cause anyone with the slightest moral conscience to pause in of building these useless monsters anywhere near residential dwellings.

Will that happen?

Don't hold your breath.

Wind, Bluster and Carbon Reduction

The IPPC commissioned Garrard Hassan to do a report on how effective wind power is at reducing carbon emissions. For those who don't know, Garrard Hassan are a leading consultancy engaged in the wind turbine gold rush. Commissioning them was a bit like asking the Jesuits to give an even handed account of Catholicism. But never mind. Here I'm going to expand on their main claim that in 2011 Wind power reduced Carbon Dioxide  emissions by at least 5.5 Million tonnes. I'll leave their comedic denialist style claims regarding intermittency and reliability to another post.

Their arrogantly titled report "Beyond the Bluster" is HERE. This "peer reviewed" report (peer review panel of one) bases a great deal of its gravitas on another (quite good) report "Empirical estimates of emissions avoided from wind power generation" (good quality copy available HERE)   Garrard Hassan interpret the results from this report  and then grandly come to the conclusion that in 2011 at least 5.5 million tons of carbon dioxide was mitigated by wind. Of course they cannot but help to gild the lily by then going on to claim that this figure could potentially save over twice as much if all the wind power was directly offset by cycling coal plant (which, of course, in the UK  it hardly ever is, and is frankly, absurd) So I think we'll stick to the optimistic 5.5 million tons and put the gilding down to a little over enthusiasm.

5.5 million tons of Carbon Dioxide. Sounds impressive. Unfortunately sounding impressive is not quite the same thing as being impressive.

Ideally wind will have displaced carbon intensive power production i.e. Coal. But in the UK it is unlikely that coal is ever directly replaced.  Gas displaces coal and then cycling the CCGT plant accommodates the intermittent wind supply. But let us be nice, let's assume all of the 5.5 million tons can eventually be reflected down to a shut down of coal plant.

Now coal is almost pure Carbon. In fact 27% of carbon dioxide by weight is Carbon. So our 5.5 million tons carbon dioxide equates to a burn of 1.5 million tons coal.

Now, what size power plant does that correspond to?

Well, one ton of coal roughly corresponds to 2 MW/hr of generated electricity. (See here) So our 1.5 million tons of coal correspond to 3 million megawatt/hrs. There are 8760 hours in a year. So we can work out what size power station could provide this in a year. (3000000/8760)

So our idealistic  reduction in coal burn equates to a continuous output of 340MW.

Now assuming a good coal fired power station operates with a capacity factor between 70% and 85% the 340MW equates to a single power coal fired power station of around 400 - 450MW.

So in 2011 (a windy year) the entire wind turbine fleet, at a subsidy cost of over £800 million managed to reduce carbon emissions corresponding to a single small to medium sized coal fired power station.

That is of course, if you believe the wind industry. Remember, this 5.5 million tonnes is NOT my figure it comes from Garrard Hassan - doyens of the wind industry!

This also means that the cost of offsetting that 1.5 million tons of coal comes out at well over £500 per ton in subsidy to the wind energy cartel. Every ton of coal saved from burning by wind costs us an extra £500 in subsidy on top of the actual cost of the power generation.

By chance an old clapped out, 50 year old Magnox nuclear power station in Oldbury was retired in 2012. It had been producing carbon free power for nearly half a century. Its rating? 430MW.

So every year for the last 44 years, this single small first generation nuclear power station reduced carbon dioxide emissions by roughly the same amount as the entire wind turbine fleet managed in a windy 2011.

Don't figures like that just knock you out?

The Wind Industry and Rotten Onions

When I first started this blog I had no plans for it to be dominated by the energy debate. But so far, and by a long margin, my most prolific output has centred on the utter disgrace that is wind power.

It is worthwhile (at least for me) to see how this blog has got subsumed by the energy debate. Perhaps it may also be of interest to those who rather amusingly think I am in the pay of some grand conspiracy against wind.

I came at this as a wind turbine virgin.

I had not bothered investigating the pros and cons of wind farms. I had no reason to. Like most people I had blindly assumed that wind energy was a viable and sensible option. After all, why was so much money being thrown at it otherwise?

Checking out the ability of wind farms to actually generate useful energy had frankly, never occurred to me. I had certainly never heard of ROCs. I just took it as a given. Probably just like most of the population.

Then one day (2009) I was driving to work through East Stoke. The local radio reported on how Infinergy had modified their proposal for a wind farm at East Stoke from six to four turbines. Breathlessly the reported said this four turbine industrial complex would generate 9.2 MW. I guffawed. Seriously. I thought the reporter had left a nought off.

So that night I thought I would have a gentle poke at the mathematical illiteracy of the reporter in my new blog. Just to ensure I got it right I Googled what it should be. Good job I did!

The reporter had not left off a nought. In fact the reporter had reported the maximum output. An output that would hardly ever be achieved. We now know that the averaged output over a year would be about 20% or 1.8MW. Or less that 0.5 MW for each huge turbine. (It is actually considerably worse than that, but I won't go into that now)

To say I was shocked was an understatement.

Ever since then it has been like peeling the layers off a rotten onion. Each time I exposed another rancid layer, I thought that it could not get any worse. But each time I have been dis-proven.

On closer examination virtually every pro wind statement proved, at best to be optimistic. At worst an outright lie.

I have not blogged for a while basically because I've got bored with it. Particularly, blogging about the Wind Farm Scam is a bit like continually clearing up sewage, it gets tedious and unpleasant.

Hence the break.

But (as has been pointed out to me!) I need to get back into it. I literally have stuff backed up I need to post on. The wind industry is still awash with graft and greed.

Perhaps most depressing of all this is how the dogmatic quasi-religious followers of the carpet baggers blindly ignore the facts, while chanting out the propaganda spewed out by their well heeled idols. Maybe they don't actually lie, maybe they are so soaked in their dogma that (in their minds) 2 + 2 really does equal 5

I have been entertained by the childish accusations from the zealots of being in the pay of "the global conspiracy" (or whatever), but hardly ever get meaningful challenges to any of the data I present.

So, to my friends ( and detractors) - I have not given up, and I certainly have not gone away.

I am just having a breather from poking a virtual stick into the filthy self serving mess that is the wind industry.

An Irish Lament

hat-tip to caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/

Bad Engineering and Premature Technology

Taken from "The Times" (letters to the Editor) today.....

[quote]
I am most worried by the billions of pounds being misinvested and lost as a consequence.

Look out to sea at the end of 2015 and see how many windmills are not turning and you will get my point: there are already 14,000 abandoned windmills onshore in the US.

Premature technology deployment is thoroughly bad engineering, and my taxes are subsidising it against my will and professional judgement.

Professor Michael Kelly 
Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge
[unquote]


That just about says it all really.

ROC and Roll Rip-offs

The ROC is the veiled subsidy paid to wind turbine operators. Every MW/hr generated by a turbine operator gains the turbine operator a ROC certificate. This certificate is then sold to fossil fuel generators. These fossil fuel generators are forced to buy these certificates or they have to pay a fine.

At the end of the day, due to the ROC, an on-shore turbine operator gets paid about double for the electricity produced. An off-shore operator gets paid triple.

If we ever managed to produce 20% of our power by wind it would account for at least 50% of the wholesale cost.

The naive political theory behind these massive subsidies is that they were supposed to kick start a whole new industry. This industry would then magically develop ever more effective and reliable wind turbines. (Oh Boy - do they need to be more effective and reliable!)

Unfortunately the truth is very far from the hype.

As the fairy-land theory goes, in the scenario of 100% "renewable" supply the ROC would become redundant, and we would have a vibrant industry developing and producing competitive alternative energy for us and the rest of the world.

Dream on.

Unfortunately this attempt at forced development neglects several very important aspects which are more related to physics and basic economics than political wishful thinking.

First, virtually all of the turbines purchased come from a group of foreign companies. These companies occasionally toss the odd manufacturing bone across the channel when is suites them. But as we saw in the Isle of Wight with Vestas, they are just as keen to maximise their profits at the expense of the workforce as any other ruthless faceless and foreign corporation.

Secondly no turbine in the current turbine fleet could possibly be economically viable without the ROC. The government has recently suggested a measly 10% reduction. This has flown into a hail of objection from the wind turbine lobby.

So if these things become unviable at a mere 10% reduction in the ROC how the hell are you ever going to get to a zero cost ROC? Remember these things are supposed to have a life of 25 years! They are still going to be at least as inefficient and ineffective in 10 -20 years time as they are now.

Of course we must also remember that wind turbines can never replace all fossil fuel generation. Many would say they cannot replace any.

Because wind can never replace much fossil plant there will always be a demand for the ROCs. So our wind turbine carpet bagger friends can always get a good return on their pieces of paper.

They simply have to ensure that their turbines don't actually do what they are hyped up to do. Bearing in mind the physics of the situation (aka Betts Law) this is the defacto situation anyway.

So get used to being ripped off. Until we get a government that is willing to stand up to this ugly wind energy cartel  the robbery will continue.

Bearing in mind how financially involved many senior politicians are with this outrage, change threatens to be a long time coming.

The Great Wind Farm Robbery Revisited

The wind turbine industry gets ever more greedy with its claims for curtailment/constraint payments. Turbine operators are claiming huge sums of money just in order to shut down. 
( The Scotsman HERE ) ( Telegraph HERE )

Luckily for us, wind turbines are so pathetically incapable of actually generating on a reliable basis that the need for curtailment payments are relatively rare. 

Take this scatter graph from the National Grid Winter Consultation 2011 ( HERE )

Each dot represents an individual wind farm output (y-axis) against actual demand (x-axis) The line National Grid have drawn shows where curtailment payments may have to be made. Inevitably these are at times when turbine output is high but demand is low. In other words the turbine power is being generated when it is not needed. Yet they still have the nerve to claim huge curtailment payments.

This scatter graph also confirms two other shocking truths about wind power. The majority of the time the output is actually well below the capacity factor. It is only the occasional high wind occurrence that bigs up the capacity factor to the (still derisory) value of 20-25%. 

Also it confirms the rather obvious flaw in wind power in that there is absolutely no correlation between wind turbine output and demand. Look to the right hand end of the x-axis and you will see plenty of evidence of turbine output being well below 10% while demand was near maximum.

But still, there are occasions when for operational reasons, during periods of low demand and high wind that the grid needs to get turbines to shut down. When these occasions happen the turbine owners go into a feeding frenzy. They demand and get payments many times the value of the electricity the could have produced - just to shut down.

While other generation technologies can also get curtailment payments, they all seem to have more of a sense of moral responsibility than the massively subsidised wind turbine cartel.

These shockingly greedy payments demanded by the wind turbine operators are at least open to inspection.

But the REF (Renewable Energy Foundation - HERE) have discovered that as well as these outrageous payments there are a set of secretive extra payments made to turbine operators which are actually even more extravagant. ( SEE THIS REF LINK ) also (Power Engineering Magazine HERE).

Even so, all these payments get dwarfed by the massive ROC subsidy turbine operators receive. But these greedy claims for yet more cash are perhaps a clearer indication of the predatory and ruthless motives that drive the wind turbine gravy train.

Morally there is no reason a massively subsidised wind turbine should get even a sniff of a constraint payment. Bearing in mind how much of the time they have to rely on other generation to pick up the shortfall caused by their intermittency the occassional call to shut down should go unrewarded.

My original piece on the Great Wind Farm Robbery is HERE

Wind Turbines: Dilbert and Windtoons say it all

So my grubby little Englanders, it looks like Infinergy have lodged an appeal. They are keen to overturn the democratic decision which rejected their dirty little money making plan for 4 industrial wind turbines at East Stoke in the Purbecks.

While  the average two year old understands that No means NO clearly the ugly corporate monster that is Infinergy cannot do without their filthy lucre, irrespective of the consequences for the local people.

Anyway, as you would expect this blog will be carrying a number of articles regarding windpower, greed and fanaticism over the next few months.

But tonight lets enjoy a few little gems from Dilbert and Windtoons.com

Oh So true... So True!

Turbine, Turbine, Burning Bright

A turbine burns. No doubt the bearings in the gearbox on the doubly fed induction generator failed.

An unattended machine suffering a catastrophic failure.

One turbine. Among many. For the rich and influential owners, an easy and occasional sacrifice.

With the new Neodymium gearboxes, you may argue, even the flaming turbines will be a thing of the past. The horrendously complex gearboxes that fail so frequently  will soon be replaced.

Maybe that is true.

Maybe.

But if you are an avid windy supporter, you need to understand why so many people will be cheering as the flaming monster burns.

You need to understand that those cheering and applauding will inevitably be the bog standard average folk who live nearby.

Those whose lives are ruined, impacted, or maligned by a useless gesture to a Luddite clique.

Meanwhile those reading through the clauses in the insurance policy, the owners of the burning monster, will be the rich and the well connected. The likes of Sir Reginald Sheffield (see who he is related to) would no doubt, be getting one of their minions to sort out the mess.

That is what it comes down to.

Are you with the rich and well connected? As they make their enormous profits while carelessly ruining the lives of many?

Or are you with the common folk, those whose lives and welfare are impacted by these pathetic totems to greed and ignorant stupidity?

The decision is yours.

I hope that you, like me, you are celebrating the burning of the monster.