Posted on 06/27/2008 1:58:40 PM PDT by Entrepreneur
Today, a giant new wind turbine soars the height of a London tower block above the Mendip hills where I live in Somerset.
A perfect symbol of what is arguably the greatest single political madness engulfing Britain today.
[snip]
But there is another important point the Government is trying to conceal about this crackpot policy...
This is the unavoidable fact that wind speeds around the British Isles are constantly varying, often providing no power at all - so that the electricity actually generated by these turbines represents only between a quarter and a third of their nominal 'capacity'.
What this means is that conventional coal, gas, oil or nuclear-fired power stations must be on permanent stand-by to provide all the electricity the turbines are not able to produce when the wind is not blowing.
Earlier this month, Paul Golby, the chief executive of the German-owned E.ON (one of our largest electricity companies), came up with the shattering admission that the back-up needed for our new wind turbines would amount to 90 per cent of their capacity.
This alone would mean building scores more gas and coal-fired power plants, to guarantee continuous supply during those times when the wind is not blowing and therefore the turbines are not generating any electricity.
It is this which reveals the true enormity of the madness now confronting us - because Britain already faces an unprecedented crisis over its energy supplies, even before our infatuation with wind power is taken into account.
For the sum of £100 billion which the Government plans to spend on the new turbines, we could buy 37 'carbon-free' nuclear power stations at current prices, permanently supplying enough electricity to cover all our current needs.
(Excerpt) Read more at mailonsunday.co.uk ...
Where's Alice, because surely we are in Wonderland?
So (for those of us from Rio Linda) the whole problem with wind turbines is, since the wind only blows part of the time, full conventional generating capacity has to be built anyway.
And the windmills are basically a taxpayer-funded boutique item.
Great find! Great Post. No one has balls to bring it up during the debate on “renewable sources of energy”. Angry Mob wants it, so angry mob will get it.
But England, with it's mild maritime climate? That's just dumb.
bump for later...
The Best Global Warming Videos on the Internet |
wave power might be better for them. Methane production facilities given all the BS their legislators put out would be best.
“For the sum of £100 billion which the Government plans to spend on the new turbines, we could buy 37 ‘carbon-free’ nuclear power stations at current prices, permanently supplying enough electricity to cover all our current needs.”
You just can’t make this kind of stuff up.
Isn’t oil a “renewable” energy source.... if you wait long enough?
In a speech by Hyman Rickover, he gave the figure that every year we use as much oil as was created in 14 million years. Rickover gave this speech in the 1950's.
You could used some form of storage to smooth out the disparity between supply and demand. Have the windmills charge compressed air or pumped water storage and recover it during peak demand. It has been and is done. It’s even more expensive than wind power though.
Rickover said all kinds of stuff. Some of it was even true.
Let's check:
World proven oil reserves: 1137 billion barrels
Oil production/consumption per year: 17.6 billion barrels
Time to deplete reserves at current rate of consumption: 64.6 years
According to a little internet research I did, most oil has been formed since the pre-Cambrian period which ended 542 million years ago.
542 million / 64.6 = approx 8.4 million years to produce oil consumed in one year
So Rickover at least had the right order of magnitude.
I was under the impression that the eternal dream of “storing” power was right up there with the Philosopher’s Stone and Perpetual Motion.
Or economical solar cells or fusion power (”just give us more research funds”).
No, power storage is quite practical and actually in use. In Germany they use compressed air in old salt mines. U.S. utilities have proposed pumped storage, pumping water uphill during the night and using the water generate electricity during the day.
It’s expensive, but in an industry where a major cost is the cost of money, it is cheaper than adding peak load generating capacity.
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