Author Topic: British Bird Boppers Benched  (Read 8858 times)

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Offline SgtRockTopic starter

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British Bird Boppers Benched
« on: October 31, 2012, 04:31:37 pm »
Greetings EEVBees:

--See below link to article about the recent outbreak of sobriety, not to mention arithmetic, in the UK, and a resounding victory for Don Quixote.  No more onshore Wind Farms other than those already in process will be built. The clamor for the giant bird bopping monstrosities that only produce 25% of their rated power, and draw a 100% subsidy on all power produced courtesy of rate payers, is finally dying away, in the wake of ever increasing electricity bills.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2225544/Good-riddance-wind-farms--dangerous-delusions-age.html\

"The only way the industry managed to fool politicians into accepting this crazy deal was by subterfuge — referring to turbines only in terms of their ‘capacity’  (i.e. what they could produce if the wind was blowing at optimum speeds 24 hours of every day). The truth is that their average actual output is barely a quarter of that figure. Yet it was on this deception that the industry managed to fool pretty well everyone that windfarms could make a contribution to Britain’s energy needs four times larger than reality — and thus was ‘the great wind scam’ launched on its way."

--Next on the chopping block will be the offshore bird boppers.

"It’s not just that the thousands of offshore turbines that the Government still wants built will not only produce amounts of electricity scarcely less pitiful than those onshore. Because they are so much more expensive to build, they attract  subsidies not at 100 per cent but at 200 per cent."

“For neither good nor evil can last for ever; and so it follows that as evil has lasted a long time, good must now be close at hand.” from Don Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 1547 - 1616

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Online tom66

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #1 on: October 31, 2012, 04:40:10 pm »
What did I say about the Daily Mail? Oh, I forgot... it was positive though. Yeah, they're a really great newspaper. Reliable too. That was it. /s

OK, I am really getting fed up with this "inefficiency" claim. First, the capacity isn't the average power it'll provide. If you have a car with a 200HP engine, is it continuously producing 200HP? Of course not! In the same way that a 1GW coal plant is rarely producing 1GW. But the capacity is there if and when it is needed.

The nature of wind power is discontinuous, so it should be understood that we need sufficient back-up in case of low wind. This can be done in numerous ways, from least to most preferable (a combination of systems is required):
a) supplementing it with traditional power (coal, nuclear, gas...)
b) buying energy from other countries (and selling it to them when they need it) -- already done, infrastructure exists between UK and Europe
c) more wind turbines in different places (likely to be windy somewhere)
d) solar power supplements (not really good enough in the UK at the moment, at least not with current tech)

I can only assume that the "bird bopping" comment relates to the fact that they may kill birds. I suppose it's plausible, but in the same way that a jet engine would do. Bird strikes on flying aircraft are quite rare, and I would suspect that on wind turbines, it would be similar. I do not have a source for this information, but I would be interested in a genuine scientific study (NOT in a tabloid newspaper.) If you find an interesting report, I just found out I have ATHENS support at uni, which means I can get pretty much any report/journal for free in electronic form.
« Last Edit: October 31, 2012, 04:42:35 pm by tom66 »
 

Offline Prizmatic

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #2 on: October 31, 2012, 05:10:35 pm »
Interesting statement.. Given it follows on the heels of Hitachi purchasing Horizon Nuclear Power, making them a keystone for implementing our nuclear development plans.
« Last Edit: October 31, 2012, 05:12:23 pm by Prizmatic »
 

Offline SgtRockTopic starter

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #3 on: October 31, 2012, 05:52:33 pm »
Greetings EEVBees:

--In response to the Daily Mail article stating that "Energy Minister John Hayes has announced no more wind farms are allowed to be built in the UK", Tom66 attacked the accuracy of the Newspaper, without, mind you, ever stating that the article was inaccurate.

--In response to the statement in the article that "The only way the industry managed to fool politicians into accepting this crazy deal was by subterfuge — referring to turbines only in terms of their ‘capacity’ "

--Tom 66 stated that "OK, I am really getting fed up with this "inefficiency" claim. First, the capacity isn't the average power it'll provide. If you have a car with a 200HP engine, is it continuously producing 200HP? Of course not! In the same way that a 1GW coal plant is rarely producing 1GW. But the capacity is there if and when it is needed."

--Which of course does not at all address the "subterfuge" statement in any way. Also a 200hp engine or 1 1GW coal plant can indeed provide rated capactiy when needed. But not so Wind Power, is can on do so when the wind cooperates and not "when needed". Nice try, but no cigar.

--Finally Tom66 stated "I can only assume that the "bird bopping" comment relates to the fact that they may kill birds. I suppose it's plausible, but in the same way that a jet engine would do. Bird strikes on flying aircraft are quite rare, and I would suspect that on wind turbines, ... I do not have a source for this information ...

--The assumption that "the "bird bopping" comment relates to the fact that they may kill birds." is indeed correct and, wins an honorary Deerstalker Hat and Calabash Pipe for this amazing feat of successful sleuthing. I should add that I, as well, do not have a source for the contention that windmills only kill as many birds as jet engines, uh make that flying aircraft.

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."
Thomas Gray 1716 - 1771

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Online tom66

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #4 on: October 31, 2012, 06:00:36 pm »
--Which of course does not at all address the "subterfuge" statement in any way. Also a 200hp engine or 1 1GW coal plant can indeed provide rated capactiy when needed. But not so Wind Power, is can on do so when the wind cooperates and not "when needed". Nice try, but no cigar.

I addressed this point in the second paragraph, please re-read it.


--The assumption that "the "bird bopping" comment relates to the fact that they may kill birds." is indeed correct and, wins an honorary Deerstalker Hat and Calabash Pipe for this amazing feat of successful sleuthing. I should add that I, as well, do not have a source for the contention that windmills only kill as many birds as jet engines, uh make that flying aircraft.

Hmm, where do I collect my prize?

Yeah, my bad on flying aircraft != jets -- although the majority probably is due to jet aircraft.
 

Offline SgtRockTopic starter

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #5 on: October 31, 2012, 06:27:19 pm »
Dear Tom66:

--You stated "I addressed this point in the second paragraph, please re-read it."

--Begging your pardon, Sir, but I do not believe you did. The question was why did the Wind Power companies sell their product to the UK government on the basis of capacity, rather than the more truthful "actual average power output" which you so accurately delineated in your second paragraph, leaving aside for the moment the the "when needed" problem. The reason they did this was so the press could quote it to pull the wool over the eyes of rate payers.

--And with regard to Bird Bopping, see the below link, to an article from the Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/wind-farms-under-fire-for-bird-kills/2011/08/25/gIQAP0bVlJ_story.html

"Windmills kill nearly half a million birds a year, according to a Fish and Wildlife estimate. The American Bird Conservancy projected that the number could more than double in 20 years if the administration realizes its goal for wind power." [In just the US]

“Before turning to those moral and mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest difficulties, let the inquirer begin by mastering more elementary problems.."
Sherlock Holmes 1887 -

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Online tom66

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #6 on: October 31, 2012, 06:44:45 pm »
--Begging your pardon, Sir, but I do not believe you did. The question was why did the Wind Power companies sell their product to the UK government on the basis of capacity, rather than the more truthful "actual average power output" which you so accurately delineated in your second paragraph, leaving aside for the moment the the "when needed" problem. The reason they did this was so the press could quote it to pull the wool over the eyes of rate payers.

The question is -- did they? We would not know unless the government released internal correspondence. And they are unlikely to do so. Now, it is more than possible (if not quite likely) that they lied to the public. I'm not going to argue against that, companies will do almost anything to make a buck.

--And with regard to Bird Bopping, see the below link, to an article from the Washington Post.

Interesting article. I am in favour of wind turbines over solar power for now, but do wish there was a better (sustainable) alternative. I do not know for certain, but can a number be put on the number of birds perhaps killed by increasing climate change? It may turn out more die out due to greater pollution, warming planet, etc. But it is a good point.
 

Offline poptones

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #7 on: October 31, 2012, 07:32:42 pm »
There are a few hundred birds killed each year in the US by wind farms. I'm not linking to it because I don't have time to look right now, but I do recall it being several hundred. I really don't know how common it is but if you look on youtube you can find videos of people actually filming bird strikes, so it must be common enough for that. Some of it of course comes down to chance - there are videos of train derailments as they are happening and there are thousands of russian car accident videos but then everyone is driving around with cameras on their dash. And there are lots of train spotters who hang out next to tracks just to film trains. How many people hang out at wind farms? No idea. But the number of live windmill bird kills on youtube is definitely nonzero.

I think it's just gonna happen. How many birds end up in radiators? I've hit at least three myself in my life.

What I really don't understand is why there is no talk of putting solar closets in homes. Why aren't there government programs to help retrofit homes with solar home and water heating? These are technologies that work TODAY and are much more affordable than windmills. You can put solar home and water heating in your home for just a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. It may not offset the electricity and gas completely but it will put a dent in your power bill.

Oh, wait...
 

Online tom66

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #8 on: October 31, 2012, 07:42:24 pm »
I missed this gem when quickly scanning over the article:

Quote
But federal officials, other wildlife groups and a wind-farm industry representative said the conservancy’s views are extreme. Wind farms currently kill far fewer birds than the estimated 100 million that fly into glass buildings, or up to 500 million killed yearly by cats. Power lines kill an estimated 10 million, and nearly 11 million are hit by automobiles, according to studies.

So, let's take a lower bound estimate of total birds killed is the sum of all these categories = 622 million (inclusive of maximum wind farm deaths.)

Wind farm deaths = 500,000, possibly 1,000,000, or 0.08%. Or 0.16% if it doubles.

It's hardly a significant cause.
 

Offline mariush

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #9 on: October 31, 2012, 08:01:00 pm »
Not sure if this was posted before:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9559656/Germanys-wind-power-chaos-should-be-a-warning-to-the-UK.html

Quote

On Friday, September 14, just before 10am, Britain’s 3,500 wind turbines broke all records by briefly supplying just over four gigawatts (GW) of electricity to the national grid. Three hours later, in Germany, that country’s 23,000 wind turbines and millions of solar panels similarly achieved an unprecedented output of 31GW. But the responses to these events in the two countries could not have been in starker contrast.

[...]

In fact, Germany is being horribly caught out by precisely the same delusion about renewable energy that our own politicians have fallen for. Like all enthusiasts for “free, clean, renewable electricity”, they overlook the fatal implications of the fact that wind speeds and sunlight constantly vary. They are taken in by the wind industry’s trick of vastly exaggerating the usefulness of wind farms by talking in terms of their “capacity”, hiding the fact that their actual output will waver between 100 per cent of capacity and zero. In Britain it averages around 25 per cent; in Germany it is lower, just 17 per cent.

The more a country depends on such sources of energy, the more there will arise – as Germany is discovering – two massive technical problems. One is that it becomes incredibly difficult to maintain a consistent supply of power to the grid, when that wildly fluctuating renewable output has to be balanced by input from conventional power stations. The other is that, to keep that back-up constantly available can require fossil-fuel power plants to run much of the time very inefficiently and expensively (incidentally chucking out so much more “carbon” than normal that it negates any supposed CO2 savings from the wind).

[...]

Last year, its wind turbines already had 29GW of capacity, equivalent to a quarter of Germany’s average electricity demand. But because these turbines are even less efficient than our own, their actual output averaged only 5GW, and most of the rest had to come from grown-up power stations, ready to supply up to 29GW at any time and then switch off as the wind picked up again.

.... So yeah... they CAN produce lots of power, but it's so fluctuating that it's almost not worth the costs, you always have to keep very inefficient turbine and fast acting power stations to push power when wind goes down.

imho the bird killing is seriously inflated... there were studies that showed birds were capable of adapting and going around them...


 

Offline SgtRockTopic starter

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #10 on: October 31, 2012, 11:01:30 pm »
Greetings EEVBees:

--Tom66 makes a good point "So, let's take a lower bound estimate of total birds killed is the sum of all these categories = 622 million (inclusive of maximum wind farm deaths. Wind farm deaths = 500,000, possibly 1,000,000, or 0.08%. Or 0.16% if it doubles. It's hardly a significant cause. So, let's take a lower bound estimate of total birds killed is the sum of all these categories = 622 million (inclusive of maximum wind farm deaths. Wind farm deaths = 500,000, possibly 1,000,000, or 0.08%. Or 0.16% if it doubles. It's hardly a significant cause."

--My point was to establish that they probably kill many more than aircraft. I still cannot find a source for the numbers of birds killed by aircraft and airports. If someone has a source for that figure I would like to see it. Also I wanted to point out the cognitive dissonance of the government with regard to suing or stopping company projects based on animal deaths. The environmentalists aided by the EPA and other government agencies are forever trying to put the quietus to projects based on this sort of thing. Case in point with link below.

"In the US, birds are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which dates back to 1918. Over the past two decades, the federal government has brought hundreds of cases against energy companies for killing wild birds in the operation of their businesses. For example, in July 2009, the Oregon based electric utility PacifiCorp paid $1.4 million in fines for killing 232 eagles in Wyoming over a period of two years. The birds were electrocuted by poorly-designed power lines."

http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content/wind-power-green-and-deadly

--And obviously the claim that they kill only a few hundred per year would appear to be a misreading of the the claim that each one kills a few hundred per year, on average.

--So indeed, Tom66 wins the point. I just wish the Environmentalists would use his logic and common sense in their other arguments. For instance the drowning Polar Bears hoax, which lead the EPA to declare CO2 a pollutant.

--And to Mariush: Your facts appear to be correct. Thanks for the good post.

Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people."
William Claude Dukenfield, W. C. Fields 1880 1946

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Offline mariush

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #11 on: November 01, 2012, 12:29:50 am »
A bit unrelated ... as in it's not about birds but about the stress German wind power puts on the other countries and the grid network:

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-10-25/windmills-overload-east-europe-s-grid-risking-blackout-energy

Quote
Central and Eastern European countries are moving to disconnect their power lines from Germany’s during the windiest days. That’s when they get flooded with energy, echoing struggles seen from China to Texas over accommodating the world’s 200,000 windmills.
[..]
The power grids in the former communist countries are “stretched to their limits” and face potential blackouts when output surges from wind turbines in northern Germany or on the Baltic Sea, according to Czech grid operator CEPS. The Czechs plan to install security switches near borders by year-end to disconnect from Europe’s biggest economy to avoid critical overload.
Wind Farms

The bottleneck is one of many in the last eight years as $460 billion of wind farms were built worldwide on plains, hills and at sea before networks were fully expanded to deliver the power to consumers. Upgrading Germany’s system alone to address capacity and technical shortfalls will cost at least 32 billion euros ($42 billion), its four grid operators said in May.

Germany installed more than 8,885 megawatts of wind energy since 2007, mostly in the north. Now it’s studying how to build the power backbone to connect to the industrialized south, home to hundreds of factories such as those of chemicals manufacturer Wacker Chemie AG (WCH) and Siemens AG. (SIE) The electricity detours through the Czech Republic and Poland when German cables can’t handle the load as the countries’ grids are interconnected.

The problem may intensify with the approaching winter. With an insufficient north-south connection, Germany’s power network came close to a collapse last February when high winds in the Baltic sea flooded it with power and the Czech Republic and Poland threatened to disconnect their grids. The coming winter can be critical, German Economy Minister Philipp Roesler said last week.
[..]
“We do understand that the Czech and the Polish grid operators are concerned about market and system security,” Volker Kamm, a spokesman for grid operator 50Hertz Transmission GmbH, said in a phone interview from Berlin. “We are seeking a constructive solution.”

Lack of grid connections, such as in China, or oversupply as in Texas have made wind energy’s global rollout a lumpy process. Wind farms in West Texas earlier this year were paying utilities to use their electricity on particularly gusty days because they can still earn $22 a megawatt-hour in federal tax credits.
[...]
Both Poland and the Czech Republic are planning to install so-called phase-shifter transformers in the trans-border area with Germany to regulate power flows and protect their transmission networks. While the Czechs are still negotiating with Germany on other short-term solutions and pushing for a creation of smaller power-trading areas with realistic capacity allocation, they’re already counting on installing four transformers by 2017, CEPS said.

“The Germans are using our infrastructure in an excessive manner,” CEPS board member Zbynek Boldis said in an interview in Prague. “At this point they’re getting a free lunch.”

Germany’s eastern neighbors have also said that the common German-Austrian power market puts them at a disadvantage since they must reduce cross-border transmission capacity because of trades between the two nations and have to take costly measures to protect their grids.

Southern Germany imports power from Austria’s pumped- storage hydroelectric power stations in the Alps during peak periods, again using the Czech grid while excluding the Czechs from the benefits of trading within a single-border area.

... more in the article.

 

Online tom66

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #12 on: November 01, 2012, 12:38:09 am »
I don't understand this. Every modern wind generator has a disconnect switch. Too much power? Turn off the generators until the power is just right. Seems like a major design ****-up if it allows the grid to be saturated with power (which will cause line frequency to rise beyond the rated max 50.2 Hz.)
 

Offline poptones

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #13 on: November 01, 2012, 04:08:24 am »
I can't believe I'm having to point this out in an electronics forum, but... well...

W=EI

If a grid is becoming "overloaded" it's because they have generation capacity and demand that outstrips the ability of their WIRES to deliver the power to its destination. It's not like windmills are suddenly driving everyone's electricity taps to 480V.

It doesn't surprise me the Czech republic is having a hard time with capacity. From what I have seen of there, Ukraine and Russia and Moldova it's amazing half the towns haven't burned to the ground from all the illegal taps.
 

Offline G7PSK

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #14 on: November 01, 2012, 05:44:02 pm »
The big wind turbines are frequency controlled, the problem with the wind speed is the control only works over a limited wind speed band. The other problem is the higher the wind speed the more the blades bend, to much and they clash with the support tower. So when the wind speed gets over a certain limit I think its something like 22 mile per hour the blades are feathered to low a wind speed and the turbines cant get enough speed to sync with the grid. I dont know how all the units work but the ecotricity unit shown on another post has about three sets of winding's for various wind speed bands the actual speed is controlled by the blade pitch. There are two ecotricity units about 7 miles from me, I built a wind turbine for my fathers house (1KW) that runs over a far wider speed range than those two units one of which can bee seen from where my fathers turbine is sited so I can see both at the same time I know approximately the times of day these units are called for and on many ocasions my fathers unit is running and those big ones are not due to high or low wind conditions. Having also visited the wind turbine many times and some other wind farms in the area I can state that I have not seen any dead birds near them except on the dual carriageway that runs past one of them and they are due to the traffic.
 

Online tom66

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #15 on: November 01, 2012, 06:00:28 pm »
Interesting. I wonder if designing them to work at (in addition) higher speeds would cost more than it's worth.
 

Offline LaurenceW

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #16 on: November 01, 2012, 08:56:22 pm »
I should point out that I hail from the same side of The Pond as tom66, and we Limies have learned from many years of experience to regard some of of our popular press (and we know the the Daily Mail is popular, because they keep telling us so) as more driven by sales and telling their readers what they want to hear than um, facts. That is a sweeping generalisation, but characterises a great amount of the press' reporting of energy; certainly here in the UK and maybe elsewhere.

Look, every kWhr of electricity that any renewable resource pumps into the grid is one kWhr of non-renewable resource less burned for the same end result.

And if, in ten years' time, all the nay-sayers are right about wind power, well, we can just take the turbines down and return the land to it's original beauty (and in time, its inhabitants to regular blackouts). But that's for another thread.

Of course, all of this, all of this, is just a massive and convenient distraction to the screaming truth that nobody really wants to think about. The UK's power consumption continues to rise (odd recessionary effects aside), while we continue to pull the breakers out for the last time of our ageing nuclear power stations and inefficient coal plants. Allof this is happening faster than anybody is prepared to rebuild capacity.

Narrow arguments about whether "wind is/is not the answer" only display the populace's ignorance, I am afraid. Aided and abetted by commercial newspapers. Windmills (where they weren't) are easier to see and complain about that massive power shortages in the coming years.
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Offline SgtRockTopic starter

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #17 on: November 01, 2012, 11:46:31 pm »
Greetings EEVBees:

--Apparently the UK Government is walking back the statement by Energy Minister John Hayes. They confiscated his speech, but not before he had released a copy to the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail as LaurenceW will tell you is one of those publications which is concerned with sales, and this possibly because of the profit motive, which is always suspect.

--Please see at the bottom of this post a link to a later article, this one from the Guardian. Now, I do not know if the Guardian is concerned with sales and profitability or not, perhaps they have a Trust.

"The UK's power consumption continues to rise (odd recessionary effects aside), while we continue to pull the breakers out for the last time of our ageing nuclear power stations and inefficient coal plants. All of this is happening faster than anybody is prepared to rebuild capacity."

--In my limited Yank view all of this is not just "happening", it is a direct result of short sighted Government policy, and one not undertaken at the behest of those dreaded commercial newspapers.

"Narrow arguments about whether "wind is/is not the answer" only display the populace's ignorance, I am afraid. Aided and abetted by commercial newspapers. Windmills (where they weren't) are easier to see and complain about that massive power shortages in the coming years."

--Apparently the real problem is the ignorant populace being allowed to vote, the free press, and other outdated neanderthal principles of British law.

--See below the latest on the John Hayes walkback from an article in the Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/31/coalition-wind-farm-dispute-renewables

--I often do not agree with the Guardian, but I see no reason to impugn it, since the solution to speech you do not like is more speech. And the Guardian article makes no charge that the previous article in a "for profit" publication was in any way inaccurate at the time of its publication.

--Finally, my quibble with Wind Power in the UK, or anywhere else for that matter, is: "Does it perform at or near the levels promised when it was sold to the public? Repeatedly stating the Capacity rather than actual Power Output, and forgetting to count the cost of running power lines, tend to arouse my suspicions in this regard.

"I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left. "
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Offline baljemmett

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #18 on: November 02, 2012, 12:23:36 am »
--Please see at the bottom of this post a link to a later article, this one from the Guardian. Now, I do not know if the Guardian is concerned with sales and profitability or not, perhaps they have a Trust.

Indeed so, although they've dicked around with the ownership a bit in recent years.  The usual suspects have a synopsis that may be illuminating; in particular note that it doesn't turn a profit.
 

Offline M0BSW

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #19 on: November 02, 2012, 05:30:18 pm »
Greetings EEVBees:

--See below link to article about the recent outbreak of sobriety, not to mention arithmetic, in the UK, and a resounding victory for Don Quixote.  No more onshore Wind Farms other than those already in process will be built. The clamor for the giant bird bopping monstrosities that only produce 25% of their rated power, and draw a 100% subsidy on all power produced courtesy of rate payers, is finally dying away, in the wake of ever increasing electricity bills.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2225544/Good-riddance-wind-farms--dangerous-delusions-age.html\

"The only way the industry managed to fool politicians into accepting this crazy deal was by subterfuge — referring to turbines only in terms of their ‘capacity’  (i.e. what they could produce if the wind was blowing at optimum speeds 24 hours of every day). The truth is that their average actual output is barely a quarter of that figure. Yet it was on this deception that the industry managed to fool pretty well everyone that windfarms could make a contribution to Britain’s energy needs four times larger than reality — and thus was ‘the great wind scam’ launched on its way."

--Next on the chopping block will be the offshore bird boppers.

"It’s not just that the thousands of offshore turbines that the Government still wants built will not only produce amounts of electricity scarcely less pitiful than those onshore. Because they are so much more expensive to build, they attract  subsidies not at 100 per cent but at 200 per cent."

“For neither good nor evil can last for ever; and so it follows that as evil has lasted a long time, good must now be close at hand.” from Don Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 1547 - 1616

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Clear Ether
I listened on our local radio and learned something I found amusing our government here in the UK want these windmills and lots of them horrible looking things, what I found interesting is if the wind is strong they turn them off, as they can't handle it, surely you would think the more power produced, what a crazy situation, it further went on to say in the interview, that our government is warming to nuclear power. god help us we are only a small island , so if one went wrong that's it, we are zombies as once of the panel said.
no one would or will tell me how to delete this account
 

Online tom66

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #20 on: November 02, 2012, 06:31:05 pm »
This is what happens when a generator doesn't turn off (and lock rotor) due to excessive wind:



Everything has a limit.
 

Offline M0BSW

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #21 on: November 02, 2012, 10:15:51 pm »
WHOOPS
no one would or will tell me how to delete this account
 

Offline bilko

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #22 on: November 02, 2012, 10:38:55 pm »

OK, I am really getting fed up with this "inefficiency" claim. First, the capacity isn't the average power it'll provide. If you have a car with a 200HP engine, is it continuously producing 200HP? Of course not! In the same way that a 1GW coal plant is rarely producing 1GW. But the capacity is there if and when it is needed.


In the case of a car or a coal fired power station, demand can be met 'if needed'
How is demand met when needed with a wind farm ?
Hardly the same thing at all,the figures are more akin to the audiofoolery 2000W amplifier running from a 6w wallwart.

I have no axe to grind either way, but when the government choose to believe BS figures at the tax payers expense, then that is another matter.

If it is so good, remove the subsidies and allow new applications from the private sector.

 

Online tom66

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #23 on: November 02, 2012, 11:24:28 pm »
Similar tactics are used in the solar industry -- solar panels and systems with power ratings.

I would be in favour of reducing, or eliminating subsidies, if it were not for one thing -- it's pretty urgent that we move on. Keep burning fuel at our rate to run an ever increasing society and we'll either run out of it or ruin the climate more. I addressed some other points about handling the occasional low output from a wind turbine. You can supplement it with traditional coal/nuclear/gas, buy energy from other countries or use other wind farms. Either way it still reduces pollution.
 

Offline poptones

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Re: British Bird Boppers Benched
« Reply #24 on: November 03, 2012, 12:33:48 am »
Subsidies pick favorites. Would you really be so willing to give up subsidies on alternatives if you were forced to pay at the pump and in your heating bill what that energy actually cost? Take away the deficit spending on wars and send that cost directly to the gas pump. Take away the deficit spending on exploration and send that cost straight to the pump. Take away the transport subsidies, the fuel tax exemption for farmers and airlines and rail transport and send those costs straight to the shopper. How many subsidies would you be willing to throw toward alternative exploration when it cost twenty bucks for a pound of steak, ten bucks for a hamburger at mcd's, twice as much to heat your home in the winter and 200 bucks to fill up your car?

 


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