Posted on 11/24/2011 10:21:06 AM PST by LRoggy
(NaturalNews) Literal beacons of the "green" energy movement, giant wind turbines have been one of the renewable energy sources of choice for the US government, which has spent billions of taxpayer dollars subsidizing their construction and use across the country. But high maintenance costs, high rates of failure, and fluctuating weather conditions that affect energy production render wind turbines expensive and inefficient, which is why more than 14,000 of them have since been abandoned.
Before government subsidies for the giant metals were cut or eliminated in many areas, wind farms were an energy boom business. But in the post-tax subsidy era, the costs of maintaining and operating wind turbines far outweighs the minimal power they generate in many areas, which has left a patchwork of wind turbine graveyards in many of the most popular wind farming areas of the US.
"Thousands of abandoned wind turbines littered the landscape of wind energy's California 'big three' locations which include Altamont Pass, Tehachapin and San Gorgonio, considered among the world's best wind sites," writes Andrew Walden of the American Thinker. "In the best wind spots on earth, over 14,000 turbines were simply abandoned. Spinning, post-industrial junk which generates nothing but bird kills."
Walden speaks, of course, about the birds, bats, and other air creatures that routinely get tangled in and killed by wind turbine propellers. And as far as the "post-industrial junk" language, well, if it costs too much to run the machines in the first place, then it definitely costs too much to uproot and remove them post-construction.
This whole wind energy mess just further illustrates how the American people have been played by their elected officials who bought into the "global warming" hysteria that spawned the push for wind energy in the first place. And now that the renewable energy tax subsidies are gradually coming to an end in some places, the true financial and economic viability, or lack of wind energy, is on display for the world to see.
"It is all about the tax subsidies," writes Don Surber of the Charleston Daily Mail. "The blades churn until the money runs out. If an honest history is written about the turn of the 21st century, it will include a large, harsh chapter on how fears about global warming were overplayed for profit by corporations."
Sources for this article include:
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurbe...
http://toryaardvark.com/2011/11/17/...
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034234_wind_turbines_abandoned.html#ixzz1eeDXyzva
Time to give a few hundred billion dollars as grants to Al Gore’s companies so that they can save the world by dismantling these windmills and disposing them in a safe manner.
“overplayed for profit by corporations.”
Gee it’s sure nice to see that blame can be placed on evil capitalists!!!
Good story, but Don Surber of the Charleston Daily Mail is a blithering idiot when he says “...fears about global warming were overplayed for profit by corporations.” It was false fears stoked by the government-adademe cabal, commies who want to restrict your free choices and control your life, and a government full of progs only too happy to use our tax money to further their arcadian dream of carbon-free energy. Corporations were generally the last to get on board with this game when it finally became evident this horrific scheme was not going away and there were huge profits to be made at the expense of taxpayers.
It was a windmill.
Just sayin'.
Wind turbines can & do work but on the small scale ie homestead scale the giant turbines are AC power which gets fed directly into the power grid the homestead scale turbines are DC that charge batteries that convert DC to AC by the use of a device called an inverter . The problem with homestead scale is that it is the responsibility of the owner to maintain the system also the NIMBY factor .
You’re right. Good point.
This is not the complete picture. Businesses like Solyndra were part of this cabal too. Many of these businesses were funded by venture capitalists like Kleiner Perkins (Al Gore is a partner) whose aim was to feed off the system. This is what is called crony capitalism. There is no need to pretend that businesses do not join the cabal. We should oppose businesses that hate the free-market and prefer crony capitalism. Merely being businesses do not make them virtuous.
They just broke ground on a 17,000 acre, $400 million dollar windfarm near here.
All union-only jobs to prepare for and build them too.
Some of the best farmland in the country to be dotted with 200 ton slabs of concrete. And in a state that has a huge supply of cheap coal under it.
In 20 years, it’ll be a big business dropping these things like redwoods and scrapping the metals.
I did, however, make a crapload of money doing a bunch of work for a farmer that got a crapload of this money for his numerous land leases to the project.
Ping.
So what nifty thing can we make out of really big windmill pieces?
They could make some component of cool architecture. The blades would make cool swooping portico roofs.
When I first saw these things, my experience as a millwright and subsequently a designer and engineer of large scale processing plants, I said immediately that the issue of maintenance would far outweigh their capability to generate enough power to pay for itself.
The first farm I saw was the one at the pass outside of Palm Springs on my way back to Florida from one of the last races at Riverside.
Always execute the straight face test first.
Believe it or not, there are a lot of people like me that like this technology but we don't want it forced on us. Let the private sector figure it out. If it is truly viable, it will catch on and the entry price point will drop the more people voluntarily begin to use it.
What is needed next is a new investigation of all the companies, past and present who received government grant funding and then coordinate that with congress critters who also invested in these companies beforehand.
Recently driving down to Milwaukee from Fond du Lac ran into a bunch of these wind turbines dotting the farmlands. Very ugly on the skyline.
“harsh chapter on how fears about global warming were overplayed for profit by corporations.””
Once again its the evil corporations. /s
I’d imagine those evil bastards wouldn’t have done this without the envirwhacko’s and their political influence and bribes.
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