“Politicians, and wind industry shills who … deny the risks to health, are now liable to be successfully sued by wind farm victims. And so are governments, as they still refuse to measure infrasound emitted by modern wind turbines.”

In Denmark last month, 1,600 animals were born prematurely at a mink farm. Many had deformities, and most were dead on arrival. The lack of eyeballs was the most common malformation. Veterinarians ruled out food and viruses as possible causes. The only thing different at the farm since last year has been the installation of four large wind turbines only 328 meters away.

The wind farm consists of four 3 MW turbines, VESTAS model V112, reaching out to 140 meters in height at the tip of the blades. When they became operative last fall, a first mishap was reported by the mink farmer at a parliamentary committee on wind farms in January this year.…

“The U.S. wind industry has … demonstrated reliability and performance levels that make them very competitive.”

– Statement of Michael L.S. Bergey, American Wind Energy Association, 1986.

“The wind PTC was initially passed in 1992 as a temporary incentive to help a then fledgling industry – with the expectation that wind energy would be environmentally benign and would become commercially viable. However, after nearly 40 years of subsidies for wind energy R&D and 20 years of lucrative wind energy tax breaks — together totaling over $100 billion.”

– Glenn Schleede, “Republicans for Obama Energy (Senate Finance Committee Okays PTC/ITC Subsidies),” April 16, 2014.

Concentrated benefits/diffused costs. The cronies, rent-seeking profits calculated, lobby government in the capitals. Most of the rest of us, just paying a fraction of a penny for their many dollars, stay home. …

“[The Georgia] situation is part of a trend where regulators are becoming the senior partners in the monopoly-regulatory cartel.”

Georgia Power is getting a lot of press these days about its commitment to using solar and wind generation. The problem is the age-old triumph of political power over consumer-driven power. The Company does not need this marginal supply, and what is being committed to is more expensive and less reliable than what they already have or could otherwise purchase.

Background

Back in 2007 Georgia Power had its peak year in sales; today’s average is down about 15%. However, the Company continued to increase capacity, and its capacity factor (average utilization) has fallen to 55% from 73% in 2007. With a big nuclear plant coming on, why in the world is Georgia Power out buying more power capacity from other sources?…

“Even with carbon emissions valued at $50 per metric ton, nuclear, hydro and natural gas combined cycle generation plants have far more net benefits than either wind or solar.”

The recent paper by Charles Frank of the Brookings Institution, “The Net Benefits of Low and No-Carbon Electricity Technologies” provides a reasonably broad, detailed analysis of the lack of value in pursing policies of implementing wind and solar industrial-scale generation plants to reduce carbon emissions. This analysis, however, while on track, misses some very important considerations that strengthen the already negative verdict.

In summary, the paper finds:

• Even with carbon emissions valued at $50 per metric ton, nuclear, hydro and natural gas combined cycle (combined cycle gas turbine, or CCGT) generation plants have far more net benefits than either wind or solar, because the latter have a very high capacity cost per megawatt (MW), very low capacity factors, and low reliability.