Blowing Away Money: Wind Energy – fables, fallacies and failures
by Mark Lawson

There is some evidence from power grids overseas about the use of wind and alternative power on a large scale and, as far as alternative energy advocates are concerned, none of it is good.

Wind advocates can point to a number of studies saying that 20 per cent penetration of wind energy will increase wholesale electricity costs by 10 per cent. This implies that wind energy is 50 per cent more expensive than conventional, but a closer look shows that the studies are theoretical and don’t say anything about how much carbon would be saved. It is a safe bet that 20 per cent penetration will not result in 20 per cent savings, and some reason for thinking that it might not result in any saving at all.

Read the full document: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/wind-energy-fallacies.pdf
[PDF, 18KB]

The Carbon Sense Coalition has produced a submission to the Australian Government Enquiry into “The Enhanced Renewable Energy Target Scheme”, April 2010.

From the submission:

“The total justification for this massive upheaval of Australia’s industry and economy is the contention that man’s production of the colourless harmless gas, carbon dioxide, is likely to cause dangerous global warming. But never has the government conducted an open public enquiry to test the truth of this statement. Instead they have relied on an increasingly discredited political body, the UN’s IPCC, or on their own paid employees (who have learned the dangers of contradicting the message of powerful politicians.)”

Read the full submission: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/renewable-energy-targets.pdf [PDF, 83KB]

We are back from a visit to Melbourne for the Grand Prix. It is not carbon neutral.

After the race we spent 4 days driving along the coast to Adelaide. The weather was excellent with light sea breezes. There are many wind turbines on the nearby hills but alas the wind wasn’t reaching them and most days they were not turning. They look better than they work.

Bob Greenelsh
Brisbane Qld Australia

Touring politicians have a habit of making wild promises in international forums, leaving the difficult engineering consequences to overloaded power engineers and the unpalatable cost consequences to the suffering consumers.

Peter Lang is a professional with more than 40 years experience in the energy industry. His experience includes coal, oil, gas, hydro, geothermal, nuclear power plants, nuclear waste disposal and energy end use management.

Peter has previously written on:

• Wind Power Realities at: http://carbon-sense.com/2009/02/17/wind-power-costs/
• Solar Power Realities at: http://carbon-sense.com/2009/07/04/solar-realities/
• And more Solar Power at: http://carbon-sense.com/2009/09/04/solar-realities-addendum/

Now he looks at some inconvenient realities concerning the consequences for electricity generation if the government tries to achieve their unrealistic and pointless cuts in carbon dioxide emissions.

The paper compares five “energy mix” options with a “business as usual” case for electricity generation in Australia from 2010 to 2050. The options involve mixes of coal, gas, nuclear, wind and solar thermal technologies. The analysis indicates that continuing with the current mix of electricity sources (mainly coal) will provide the cheapest electricity. Gas, the other carbon fuel, has the next higher cost. All of the non-coal options (nuclear, solar and wind) will substantially increase electricity costs with solar being the most expensive.

Nuclear power is the only feasible option that could achieve the promised cuts in emissions. Wind and solar are very high cost options with little hope of achieving the emissions cuts promised, either alone or in combination.

Viv Forbes

The full paper, Emission Cuts Realities – Electricity Generation, can be seen at: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/emissions-generation-lang.pdf [PDF, 206 KB]

WASHINGTON – President Obama has frequently cited Denmark as an example to be followed in the field of wind power generation, stating on several occasions that the Danes satisfy “20 percent of their electricity through wind power.” The findings of a new study released this week cast serious doubt on the accuracy of that statement. The report finds that in 2006 scarcely five percent of the nation’s electricity demand was met by wind. And over the past five years, the average is less than 10 percent — despite Denmark having ‘carpeted’ its land with the machines.

Read the original article here:
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2009/09/14/something-rotten-obama-says-danes-receive-20-of-their-power-via-wind-new-study-tells-the-real-story/

The Carbon Sense Coalition today accused the Federal and some state governments of imposing Stealth Taxes on electricity consumers by forcing power retailers to buy expensive power from inefficient and costly renewable energy sources. Read the full press release here. [PDF, 30 KB]

This paper by Peter Lang, “…contains a simple analysis of the amount of greenhouse gas emissions avoided by wind power and the cost per tonne of emissions avoided. It puts these figures in context by comparing them with some other ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation.”

and concludes:

“1. Wind power does not avoid significant amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.
“2. Wind power is a very high cost way to avoid greenhouse gas emissions.
“3. Wind power, even with high capacity penetration, can not make a significant contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

Read the full document here [PDF, 177 KB].

See also: http://www.masterresource.org/2009/11/wind-integration-incremental-emissions-from-back-up-generation-cycling-part-i-a-framework-and-calculator/

(Used with permission from our Dutch Friends)