The Murmansk wind park that collapsed

Murmansk harbour [image credit: Martin Lie / Wikipedia]

Too much wind for these wind turbines near the north Russian coast to cope with. The solar panels at the same site also face technical problems. Back to diesel again.

It was an innovative project which was to power several local villages with green energy. Two years after it opened, the strong Arctic winds have knocked down the turbines, says The Barents Observer.

It was cheering and rejoice in Chavanga and Chapoma, the villages on the coast of the White Sea, as a unique small-scale power generating complex was officially opened in late summer 2015.

Wind turbine breaks apart at Australia Antarctic base

The head of a turbine is lying on the ground at Australia’s Mawson Antarctic base [image processed by CodeCarvings Piczard]

Flying turbines ahoy! Fossil fuel to the rescue as usual.

The blades of a wind turbine at an Australian Antarctic base broke off and narrowly missed a storage building as they crashed to the ground, reports Phys.org, forcing the icy outpost to switch to backup power.

The head of the turbine, one of two at Mawson station, plunged 30 metres (100 feet) on Tuesday evening, despite there being only moderate gusts of wind at the time.

All 13 members of the expedition at the station are safe, and were inside their living quarters at the time, said Rob Wooding, general manager of support and operations at the base.

The second turbine was deactivated as a precaution, with the base switching to its diesel generators.

German wind farms to be terminated as subsidies run out

The short working life of wind turbines compared to power stations, plus their lack of commercial viability, will likely put the brakes on German renewables expansion according to this GWPF report. Where do used wind farms go to die?

Wind power is the most important component of Germany’s green energy transition.

The end of subsidies for older turbines, however, threatens countless wind farms. By 2023, more than a quarter of Germany’s onshore wind farms may be gone.

Scottish Power says UK will need to boost capacity

Image credit: BBC Scotland

In the world of wishful thinking, everyone will drive wind-powered electric cars and run their homes entirely on electricity. In the real world wind power is variable from hour to hour, right down to near-zero sometimes. Relentless carpeting of the countryside with expensive wind turbines is unpopular with people living near them, but not with profit-chasing power companies.

Britain will need to boost its generation of electricity by about a quarter, Scottish Power has estimated. The energy firm said electric cars and a shift to electric heating could send demand for power soaring, reports BBC News.

Its chief executive also said there would have to be a major investment in the wiring necessary to handle rapid charging of car batteries.

Last Man Standing: Nuclear Plants Power Texans During Deluge – Wind Turbines Automatically Shut Down During Hurricane Harvey

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There are robust and reliable electricity supplies, or the other kind.

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Texans have been in the news for all the wrong reasons, over the last week or so.

Hurricane Harvey belted the Texan coast with 130 mph (209 kph) winds and delivered a deluge of biblical proportions.

For some time now, Texas has been the pinup girl for American wind worshippers. With some 21,000 MW of nominal capacity spread over 40 projects, like everything in Texas, wind power is ‘big’.

Except, of course, when the weather turns nasty.

Modern industrial wind turbines do not operate when wind speeds hit around 25 m/s (90kph or 55mph) – Hurricane Harvey dished up a gale double that speed, and more.

In order to prevent their catastrophic disintegration (as seen in the video below) Texas’s turbines downed tools, en masse, (as they are deliberately designed to do) leaving the critical work of providing power to storm battered Texans to its fleet of nuclear power plants.

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The Scottish wind-power racket

21st Century Scottish landscape

John Constable and Matt Ridley at Capx deliver the lowdown on how Scotland gets UK taxpayers to pay for its windfarms, even when there’s no wind – or too much wind.

Imagine a sausage factory – the luckiest, most profitable sausage factory in the world. Its machines crank out their sausages, and lorries carry them to supermarkets. So far, so normal.

But this particular factory makes as many sausages as the management and staff choose. If they feel like taking the day off, the lorries and shelves stay empty. If they want to go a bit wild, they sometimes make so many sausages that there aren’t enough lorries to take them away. Or they carry on cranking out sausages even if the shelves are already full.

And here’s the really amazing thing: even when the lorries can’t cope or there is no demand for sausages, the factory gets paid.

SA’s Wind Power Disaster: Deluded, Potty-Mouthed Premier Brands Critics ‘Right-Wing Fu@%wits’

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This is a fun spectacle from a distance, but not so much for South Australia’s hard-pressed electricity consumers.

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What left wing fu%#wits can achieve…

South Australians must wake up each morning in the vain hope that it’s all just a very bad dream.

Alas, their sorry reality is one dictated by wind worshipping lunatics, not least its vapid Premier, Jay Weatherill.

Last week, Weatherill launched an astonishing tirade against Chris Kenny – a columnist with The Australian and The Advertiser – calling him a “right-wing fuckwit” for having the temerity to point out one or two fairly obvious facts about the unfolding disaster caused by Weatherill’s obsession with wind power.

With a grid on the brink of collapse (the coming summer promises more mass blackouts and load shedding, whenever wind power output collapses on a total and totally predictable basis) and the highest power prices in the world by a country mile, you might think that humility would be the order of the day among the leaders responsible…

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Study to take soundings on dolphins’ attitude to turbines

Bottlenose dolphin [image credit: NASA]

H/T Wind Energy News

Ideally these studies should have been done years ago, but better late than never.

Scottish scientists are set to gain new insights into the lives and habits of the world’s most northerly resident population of bottlenose dolphins and how they are coping with wind turbines in the North Sea, says The Scotsman.

The study is one of four new scientific projects selected as part of a pioneering £2.7 million investigation into the potential impact of offshore wind farms on society and the environment launched by the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre (EOWDC).

The £300 million scheme, Scotland’s largest offshore wind power testing facility, will trial cutting-edge renewables technology in Aberdeen Bay. Experts say the innovative programme, which is jointly funded by EOWDC owner Vattenfall and the European Union, will put Scotland at the forefront of research and development in the sector.

Tourists shun Scottish regions hit by wind turbine ‘blight’

Whitelee wind farm, Scotland [image credit: Bjmullan / Wikipedia]

Wherever onshore wind turbines are built there will also be networks of electricity pylons to carry the power away. Tourism is big business in windy Scotland.

A survey carried out on behalf of the John Muir Trust (JMT) found that 55% of respondents were “less likely” to venture into areas of the countryside industrialised by giant turbines, electricity pylons and super-quarries, reports The Times (via GWPF).

Just 3% said they were “more likely” to visit such areas, while 26% said such large-scale developments would make “no difference”. The poll has rekindled calls for Scottish ministers to increase protection for wild and scenic areas that, it is argued, will protect rural tourism businesses.

Monckton: Green policy kills jobs and causes energy poverty

Visit Cartoonsbyjosh.com

Excerpt from an open letter to the head of MIT:

Professor Reif of MIT says, “In 2016 alone, solar industry employment grew by 25 percent, while wind jobs grew 32%.” These numbers are highly misleading. In fact, they underscore how deficient these energy sources are as job creators.

Growing jobs by subsidy is easy, provided that one cares nothing for the far greater number of jobs destroyed by the additional taxation, energy price hikes or public borrowing necessary to pay for the subsidy. Several studieshave shown that the creation of one “green” job results in the loss of two to four jobs elsewhere in the economy. In Spain the estimated ratio was two jobs lost for each one created by renewable energy, prompting the government to finally end most renewable subsidies.

And yet, despite all those subsidies, wind and solar power generation expensively and unreliably account for 5.6% and 0.9% of total U.S. electricity production, respectively. On its own, electricity provides only a small fraction of total energy consumption, including transportation, industrial processes, heating and electricity generation, so these numbers actually exaggerate the contribution of wind and solar facilities to overall energy consumption.

Oklahoma’s Former Governor: Subsidised Wind Power a Multi-Billion Dollar Mistake

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Governor on the wind power fiasco: ‘Decisions made now will affect, and perhaps destroy, our state government financially over the next 14 years.’

You couldn’t make it up.

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As Mark Twain put it: “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” And, even when the dupe accepts his folly, sorry seems to be the hardest word.

Frank Keating was governor of Oklahoma 1995-2003 and is responsible for its wind power calamity, as he calls it.

Uncharacteristically of a modern politician, Keating taps into that fast disappearing virtue – grace – not only admitting that he was fooled, but sincerely apologising for the harm caused to Okies and their State.

Frank Keating: I signed wind industry tax breaks, and I was wrong
Tulsa World
Frank Keating
25 February 2017

In 2001, when I served as governor of Oklahoma, I signed legislation creating the Zero Emissions Tax Credit for industrial wind energy. The tax credit was designed to give a jump-start to a wind industry in its infancy in Oklahoma at the time. It was…

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Last Chance Hotel: Australia’s Energy Crisis at the Crossroads

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Anyone who fondly imagines that wind and solar power are about to become as cheap as chips in some glorious renewable future, should read this tale of Australian woe.

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No way back from here: Malcolm muddles & Frydenberg fudges.

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Australia’s energy crisis is a self-inflicted calamity with no apparent end in sight.

The PM, Malcolm Turnbull seems intent on protecting his son, Alex’s investment in Australia’s most notorious wind power outfit, Infigen (see our post here).

While his gormless Energy Minister, Josh Frydenberg behaves like a punch-drunk boxer, who cannot land a punch and with absolutely no idea what’s going on around him.

Into that mix strides Alan Finkel; a boffin tasked with trying to rescue Australia’s power grid from imminent collapse, the consequence of loading it up with intermittent, chaotic and erratic wind and solar power.

Some see Finkel as the Great White Hope.

STT will reserve its judgement on that matter: bright and shiny ideas are one thing, implementing them over a pack of rabid, salivating rent-seekers out to prevent you from doing so is…

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Reality Bites: ‘Green’ Dreamers Struggling to Spin Away South Australia’s Failed Wind Power Experiment

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Reality is catching up with wind power dreamers in South Australia as the public wake up to the truth – via power failures.

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Fantastic in theory, but reality is another place.

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It’s been barely 5 months since South Australia experienced a state wide blackout on 28 September, when a typically vigorous spring storm delivered wind speeds in excess of 90km/h, causing the majority of turbines operating at its 18 wind farms to automatically shutdown to avoid self-destruction. The ensuing collapse in wind power output overloaded the interconnectors with Victoria, which tripped automatically; and thereafter South Australia suffered what is now known as a ‘system black’ (see our post here).

With a string of blackouts during December (see our post here) and mass load shedding during a heat wave when, yet again, wind power output plummeted (see our post here), humour among South Australians is now a rare and treasured commodity.

Inversely related to South Australians’ fury at their power pricing and supply calamity, is the battle that the wind…

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Wind power on steroids: Typhoon turbines to provide the ultimate clean energy to Japan by 2020

Vertical axis wind turbine [credit: Challenergy]

‘Wind power on steroids’ or another madcap ‘sustainability’ scheme that never gets off the ground? No mention of storage, and typhoons are far from everyday events.

In what could be the ultimate clean energy, Japan is set to start harnessing the energy of typhoons, with wind turbines that are able to withstand intense storms – and turn them into power, reports the IB Times.

Typhoon turbines, also known as the Magnus Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT), were first thought up by Atsushi Shimizu, chief executive of Challenergy Inc. After seeing the widespread destruction caused by the Fukushima nuclear disaster, he wanted to find a way to provide a safe and sustainable source of energy.

Wind Power Disaster Means South Australian Labor Government ‘Gone with the Wind’

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South Australia has found out the hard way that relying too much on wind turbines is bad news for everyone, including the politicians who ordered it.

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Jay Weatherill’s political future all but blacked-out.

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While the power pricing and supply calamity that is South Australia is down to the subsidies awarded to wind power under the Federal government’s Large-Scale RET, the state Labor government has done plenty to create the unfolding disaster and nothing to mitigate it.

It’s vapid Premier, Jay Weatherill must know that, as a wind power champion, he’s yesterday’s ‘hero’ and, as a so-called political leader, today’s fool.

Third world beckons as Weatherill plays the fool
The Australian
Nick Cater
14 February 2017

It would be wrong to give Mike Rann and Jay Weatherill all the credit for turning South Australia into wackadoodle windmill world. We should recognise the contribution of those who egged the premiers on, like Al Gore, auteur of An Inconvenient Truth. When it came to showing leadership on renewable energy, said Gore, South Australia was “one of best examples…

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Planning permission for Scottish wind farm refused due to ‘significant’ visual harm

Windfarm objection in Galloway

Galloway has some great landscapes and doesn’t need to be disfigured any further by such intrusive monstrosities.

A Scottish government reporter has refused planning permission for a 12-turbine wind farm in Galloway, reports BBC News. He ruled the Shennanton project north of Kirkcowan would have a “significant adverse impact” on the landscape.

Brookfield Renewable had appealed over Dumfries and Galloway Council’s failure to determine its application. The reporter said the significant local support and boost for renewable energy targets did not outweigh the harm to the character of the area.

Scottish wind farm turbine collapse under investigation

Artist’s impression [credit: ScottishPower Renewables]

Ouch – embarrassing for the builders and a hefty bill for somebody. No reports of any injuries.

A wind turbine has collapsed in the south-west of Scotland, BBC Scotland understands.

The incident happened at Kilgallioch wind farm, which straddles the border between Dumfries and Galloway and South Ayrshire, early last Friday.

An investigation has been launched by developer Scottish Power Renewables and turbine manufacturer Gamesa.

Irish High Court Finds Wind Turbine Maker Liable for Noise Nuisance – 7 Irish Families to Get Millions in Punitive Damages

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In which the law catches up with one of the wind turbine industry’s many excesses, not before time.

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The Irish High Court has just handed down a decision holding German wind turbine manufacturer, Enercon liable in noise nuisance in a claim pursued by 7 families whose lives and livelihoods have been thoroughly and mercilessly destroyed by incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound.

A report on the decision follows below, but first we’ll start where it all started back in 2013.

Families bid to sue wind farm operator
Irish Examiner
Michael Clifford
19 March 2013
By Michael Clifford

A group of families in a north Cork village are suing a wind farm operator in a landmark case, claiming the huge turbines are adversely affecting their health.

The seven families from Banteer claim they have been severely impacted, particularly through noise pollution, since the turbines began operating in Nov 2011.

If the action is successful, it is expected to lead to a number of others on similar grounds. Already…

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Large-scale wind energy slows down winds and reduces turbine efficiencies

Welsh windfarm [image credit: PA / BBC]

If this research is correct, large windfarms could be losing a huge part of their potential output due to inadequate spacing, as Phys.org reports. Quote: “We found these dramatic effects at turbine spacings commonly used in present-day wind farms on land.”

Wind energy has been remarkably successful in providing an increasing share of cheap renewable energy. But can this trend continue to supply more and more renewable energy for decades to come?

A new study published by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany, lowers the expectations of wind energy when used at large scales.

Litigators Set to Recover $Millions in Blackout Losses Caused by SA’s Wind Power Shutdown

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Stopthesethings provides the lawyers chasing wind operators in South Australia for blackout compensation with plenty of ideas on how to press their arguments.

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South Australia’s ludicrous attempt to run on sunshine and breezes hit a ‘black spot’ on 28 September this year, when – yet another – totally unpredictable collapse in wind power output plunged the entire state into Stone Age darkness: ‘GUILTY’: South Australia’s Statewide Blackout Caused by Deliberate Wind Farm Shutdown

Many parts of the State remained without power for days and thousands of businesses together suffered multi-$million losses. The biggest of those losses were suffered by Nyrstar’s lead and zinc smelter at Port Pirie, BHP Billiton’s gold, copper and uranium mine at Olympic Dam, Oz Mineral’s Prominent Hill copper and goldmine and Arrium’s steel works at Whyalla: collectively, the losses suffered by SA’s miners and mineral processors are in the tens of $millions.

With litigators breathing down their necks, nervous wind power outfits are running confused and desperate interference over the (now, well-known) cause.

The latest wheeze is that the…

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