“So, when you think of industrial wind turbines on a ridge line, envision an airport with a line of airplanes that are holding for take-off. The airplanes are powered by chainsaw engines that have run up their engines to full power. But, unlike planes at an airport, the turbines never take off. Now, imagine this at two o’clock in the morning.”
What do you think of when you think of an industrial wind project? Wind developers want you to think of free, green electricity. People who live near industrial wind turbines think of noise. Let’s see why.
An industrial wind project in Swanton, Vermont proposes to install seven 499-foot tall wind turbines along 6,000 feet of Rocky Ridge (elevation 323 feet). We don’t know what turbine model the developer is considering, so let’s look at the GE 2.75-120 Wind Turbine.…
Continue Reading“The current strategies major implementations of ‘clean’ energy sources, largely depending on wind and solar, to address concerns about climate change are seriously misguided, and should be abandoned.”
Part I (total usage) and Part II (electricity) showed that fossil fuels dominate primary-energy consumption–and will continue to do so. This expectation comes from a range of official forecasts–but really from the imbedded inertia of the system where oil-powered transportation dominates and power generation is wed to fossil fuels with nuclear in the mix.
The electricity sector is projected to grow to about 50 per cent of the total by 2035; Part III today will attempt to quantify the emissions impact within a range of primary-fuel scenarios along with the associated capital costs.
Wind, Solar Mirage
Regarding the power market, wind and solar will actually play a minor, even inconsequential, role in reducing emissions by 2035.…
Continue Reading“By eliminating wind and solar from the 2014–2035 projections, almost $3 trillion in capital costs would be saved globally without any significant loss in needed power generation capacity.”
Part 1 of this series (yesterday) provided an analysis of the global use of primary energy sources. It showed that in projections to 2035 the new renewables of industrial wind turbines and solar panels will provide only about 5 percent of our total primary energy consumption.
This post narrows the focus to the electricity sector where some primary energy sources, the so-called “clean” technologies (wind, solar, hydro and nuclear), are almost exclusively used. This indicates why this sector is the focus for much of the very questionable, ineffective ‘revolutionary’ changes being advocated today.
The trends in electricity-generation primary-energy use are much the same as in overall use, that is, fossil fuels dominate notably, to date and as projected to 2035, in spite of substantial future investments in new wind and solar plant implementation of almost $3 trillion.…
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