This piece has engendered a lot of commentary from all points of view. The comments section, when one looks past the vitriol, has some interesting information.
Clearly, wind energy inspires a lot of conversation from all directions, sometimes with good, backed up and tested information, and sometimes not.
Whatever the point of view, at least people are talking, and are allowed to talk. Thankfully, we live in a country where that is possible.
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How green was my wind turbine
MARGARET WENTE
February 26, 2009
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is nothing if not a visionary. He recently released a $2.2-million report, co-authored by intellectual glamourpuss Richard Florida, instructing us that the province's salvation lies in becoming more "creative." No specifics were supplied, but it sounded quite delightful. If only we can turn laid-off auto workers into art gallery owners, things will be swell!
This week, the future's looking even better, thanks to the Premier's fabulous new Green Energy and Green Economy Act. This visionary scheme will create 50,000 green jobs, more clean electricity and a healthier planet for our children. It doesn't get better than that.
"It's transformational," said John Kourtoff, CEO of Trillium Power Wind Corp., which wants to build a giant wind farm at the eastern end of Lake Ontario. "The Green Energy Act will serve as a turning point in Ontario's economic history." No doubt. It will also serve as a massive transfer of wealth to wind companies such as Trillium Power. The wind companies will get a guaranteed payment that will probably be at least twice what consumers are paying for their electricity now. The solar outfits will get an even bigger subsidy - maybe 10 times more.
Not surprisingly, wind companies from all over are lining up for a piece of the free money. Little citizens' groups have sprung up across the province to try to stop them from erecting 35-storey wind turbines in their backyards. But the Premier's energy minister, George Smitherman (a.k.a. The Enforcer), has declared that he will squash the NIMBYs like a bug.
I have wind turbines coming to my backyard, too. I wouldn't mind - if only they made sense. If only they could really help us break our addiction to coal and oil, cut our emissions etc. But they can't.
One problem with wind power is, it's not reliable. No wind, no power. No one has figured out how to store the energy from wind. That means you always need a backup source of conventional energy (natural gas, for example) to keep the lights from going out.
Wind power also eats up vast amounts of land (to say nothing of steel, cement and new transmission lines). To power a toaster, you need about 100 square metres of windy land, according to Rockefeller University's Jesse Ausubel. To power the city of New York, you'd need a wind farm the size of Connecticut.
But the real problem is this: Technologies succeed when they start to achieve economies of scale. That hasn't happened with renewables. Barack Obama's energy secretary, Stephen Chu, acknowledges that we need major scientific breakthroughs before wind, solar and biomass will become as cheap and easy to use as oil and coal. That's why Mr. Obama is planning to invest billions in basic energy research. "Everything you can think of that is a renewable - or somewhat more renewable - energy option has roadblocks to it, and needs a science solution," says George Crabtree, co-chair of a new U.S. Energy Department task force.
Right now, the best way to cut our dependence on fossil fuels is to focus on conservation. The trouble is, that's boring. A picture of a smart meter simply does not say "visionary." For that, you need a picture of happy little children frolicking among the wind turbines. Nor will conservation create 50,000 jobs. Better to pretend those laid-off auto workers will find creative new careers harvesting the wind.
"Ontario's Green Energy Act could propel the province past California as the most innovative North American leader in the renewable energy field," gushes renowned environmental activist Denis Hayes. For all our sakes, let's hope not. California invested heavily in renewables, until it ran out of energy and had to load up on natural gas in a hurry. Today, the state is disastrously broke, its power rates are astronomically high and manufacturers are leaving in droves. Twenty years from now, wind turbines, like ethanol, could well be obsolete. But hey! Every premier has got to have a vision.
6 comments:
Ms.Wente's opinion piece shows a lack of serious research with her acceptane of two pieces of nuclear industry misinformation.
She claims wind energy will come in at twice the cost of present energy. Eveybody involved in the discussion here knows that wind generated electricity costs NS Power about 8.5cents per kilawatt hour. Even the most myopic can see that this is less than the 11.5 cents charged to their account. Wind enrgy is cheaper than nuclear and competitive with other fuels. As fuel costs rise, wind, free, will be even more competitive.
Pegs uses Jesse Ausebel as a source, no doubt enamoured of his pro-nuclear writings. A cursory glance at his work reveals fatal flaws. His claims of 770 square kilometers needed for 1000 megs is off by a factor of at least 7. 4 or 5 square kilometes near Pugwash will produce 40 megs.He also seems to claim that the land can't be used for anything but turbines. The Irishtown Road site is agricultural land: pasture and hayfield used in the producion of food . This will not change. Tower pads and access roads generally use 5% of the acreage leaving the rest for other use. Cows will happily graze, and farmers will harvest hay on the wind farm just as they do now.
Peggy looks more and more like Long Johh Silvers bird, sitting on the shoulder of the nuclear lobby mindlessly parroting their propaganda.
John McManus
I couldn't agree with you more John.
Although the host of this site continues to claim that she is of an open forum it is so obviously one sided that it is almost blinding. The enemies of wind as they are now being called are not gonna win this battle.
Your lucky we don't live in a place like Venezuela where you would be told to go pound sound or wose take a dirtnap if you opposed government endorsed projects.
Why doesn't the attached article actually outine what the subsidized amount is for the IPP's under 10 megs and the solar projects of the same size. You continue to point to so called experts that have no background or udnerstanding ofthe tru sunject matter. All they do is support your own falsehoods.
Bruce from Halifax
The wind doesn't blow all the time and when it does the turbines generate low frequency electromagnetic energies and infrasonic sound-both being a long term health hazard to all living matter unfortunate to be in the neighbourhood of these.
Can someone explain how you gonna make up the difference in demand and this erratic availability no matter what the cost when these are idle??
Can someone explain how you gonna switch all these into and out of the grid smoothly as they slowly warm up and die so Mr.MCManus's children 's computers won't crash?
Can someone explain how you gonna transport,erect new turbines ( when the older designs wear out and the developers/politicians have all made their money and dissappeared) onto the old structures when there is
no oil-in about 50 years or so????
-- to run big ships to bring them here from Europe (or costing 50 times what it does now)
--and to run the big trucks and cranes required to lift them 20 stories or more into place(assuming there is some oil to fuel big steal making plants required to build them and the parts to keep all the above functioning)
--and that the newer designs can be utilised/adapted on the old structures/etc.(thats if the plants that build these aren't destroyed by China/USSR/India during world war III which has started from fighting over middle east oil supplies)
Can someone explain what we gonna do if the storm of the century caused by global warming and solar sunspot maxima effects blows these all down or beyond repair?
?
To whomever wrote the above comments I truly feel for you. If all of the things happen that you are proposing than we won't have to worry about some speck called Pugwash, because the whole world will be beyond repair for many generations due to your apocalyptic predictions.
Come on give it a rest. You build something and then you take it down, pretty simple. In fact when the world goes to heck the guys from Tatamagouche with their guns and dynamite can come and blow them up. Noone will be around to care anyways.
In terms of intermmittency of power you obviously have no idea how the current interconnection is dealt with for wind farms and that it has been working fine in hundreds of jurisdictions around the world. If people like you would embrace the use of combined renewable resources and research and development than ideas like wind farms with off/onsite storage capapcity for downtime could happen. Sounds outlandish now to your pea brain, but them so did the TV 100 years ago!
The equation for the future is based on a world having less and less oil to use until it is all gone!
You can pretend/blank it out/hope that its not gonna be a problem however the reality is definite.
They ain't making anymore of this stuff!
Wind power is intermittant.
There are technical problems with smoothly switching this into and out of the present (fossil fuel powered)grid.
Talk to the engineers at NSPC and they will explain this to you and why there are limits as to how much wind generated power can be used to satisfy our present demands.
There are no obvious methods to store the juice in Pugwash that won't cost a small fortune(if ever proven viable).
-and if there is enough oil left over after your food,shelter,clothing needs to build such in the future!
...better still
-talk to John McManus
the local wind industry representative.
He can explain all this to you and make up that which he doesn't know.
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