This post is the first in a three part series that critiques the recently published article “Wind Power Always Replaces Fossil Fuels” by Chuck Kleekamp, which provides material for another in the series of my critiques of wind proponents’ claims. Previously analyzed were papers by Milligan, Komanoff and Gross. My understanding is that this author has previously made notable contributions to environmental matters. Let’s see how he does with respect to wind.
To begin, I cannot help commenting on the inclusion of “Always” in the title. The apparent certainty in this term immediately alerts me to a questionable analysis. Perhaps the author meant to be provocative, and was not serious in the use of this word. If so, this does not give due consideration to the importance of the matter.…
Setting aside the matter that wind turbines are not an effective means to supply utility-scale electricity, the claims of job creation and 21st century industrial development are equally illusory. A New York Times (NYT) article last month spoke volumes on this.
I have frequently claimed that the recently created wind turbine manufacturing industries in Europe (Denmark, Germany and Spain) are in jeopardy from competition by the emerging giants, China, India and the U.S. The Times article reports that China now controls almost half of the global market, having absorbed billions of dollars in government assistance and consumer subidies.
The wind businesses in these European countries have existed for little more than a decade, and having saturated their domestic markets, have enjoyed a brief, and unsustainable, dominance of global markets. I may have been mistaken in including the U.S.…
Part I yesterday introduced the latest version of the Calculator (14.2), which continues to illustrate the futility of wind as a means of reducing fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. This post provides more detail about the approach taken by the Calculator.
As important as the subject is, there are no extensive analyses of real-time information (finely grained time intervals for long periods of time) assessing all the variables affecting electricity system behaviour as wind penetration increases. Existing analyses have some or many of the following important limiting characteristics (not necessarily an exhaustive list):
· Are based solely on annual electricity production and annual averages (even statistical averaging is suspect in terms of real-time operation) of electricity generation.
· Use unrealistically high wind capacity factors, including offshore projections, which in practice deliver at about the same capacity factor as assumed at the high end for onshore.…