What's that sucking sound? It's that wind farm that is actually drawing power from the fossil fuel based electrical grid.
8/14/2019
I have wondered for decades how much wind farms ACTUALLY PRODUCE. Not these lofty promises of how many homes they can power as those are all figures at peak ability which never occurs. Those figures of powering 100,000 homes is a little like your speedometer that used to go to 150 mph. It's like that car sales man at the lemon store that will tell you anything he thinks you want to hear.
Wind typically produces about 18% of what is stated is what I read, but wait, there's more, when you calculate the subsides you pay into the equasion it becomes quite a wind energy produced static shock.
They never tell you how many WATT HOURS which is the wattage plus the time factor. Without this time factor we do not get a real view of what they actually produce. There are other things to consider but I wanted to point out what might be the most important thing to look at when considering wind energy that wants to blow into your back yard,
Warren Buffett put it “We get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”
Imagine that, world's richiest financier saying they are non-sensical. He stated this many years ago when wind was just starting to catch on everywhere fueled by things like fear of Earth's climate doom. He's another of many who's focus is on cash flow for himself. I am more concerned for your and my cash flow, that is.... stopping that sucking sound from renewable energy scams.
Tax credits is a direct payment of money. Money is energy. It takes energy to make money. Most of that energy is produced on the backs of hard working people. Some energy is siphoned into big bank accounts that are filled with tons of energy that they keep using on lavish lifestyles that use massive amounts of energy, then these energy pushers get into political arenas and tell all of us that we need to make more energy, give it to them, to save energy. It's an endless loop where the rich win get more stuff that all uses our energy.
Wind farming seems to by all indications be founded on this principle. If Warren Buffet and so many others keep telling us that our energy in the form of money is what builds these things that energy has to a part of the calculation as to whether or not these things actually make energy or do they just siphon energy?
StopTheseThings.com has a great article on some of the exacts as to how much energy these turbines USE and PRODUCE from a technician's point of view who actually knows all the ins and outs of the operations of these massively complex energy producing and consuming machines that tower as high as many skyscrapers.
I am currently in discussion with S. Power as to these exact figures regarding their project and will share the data they provide when I get it***. In the meantime the following quoted from the article at StopTheseThings.com may provide a reference. It rates the power output in kilowatt hours at half what they are rated for so considering that the wind does not blow every hour stating that they only produce about 18% what they are rated for seems fair.
The maintenance superintendent told me they have 27 towers, that the installation cost was about $2 million each, and that each turbine is rated at 2.3 megawatts/hr but produces an average of 1.3 megawatts/hr (= 1,300 kW/hr). The blades are 187 ft long so the total height is nearly 400 feet high, and the tower at the base is about 13 ft in diameter encapsulated in huge quantity of concrete. The project pays about $1 million in taxes to the community each year and has a 20-year lease.
Keep in mind that's only if they are spinning for a full hour.
So it pays $1 million of your energy you provide in your taxes and get back? I would guess that if we calculated how much we give them in subsidies it's a lot more than $1 million so if that is true we should really be considered investors and receive amounts back at minimum a divident that investors receive.
Another fun fact in the article is that in cold climates in winter the blades can "ice up" and the ice is melted using electricity from the grid. Ice flying off the blades is very hazardous. Of course no one ever lives right under these things but animals and wandering teenagers or curious other humans that are facinated with wind and climate and what they represent as they try to get close ups in winter should beware. I have never once ever heard any public service announcements or mention of this danger when it comes to wind until today albeit minimal if only one person can be or is harmed by that it's significant. If we then fenced all those areas off which of course uses a lot more fossil fuel energy building, transporting, installing fencing, we would in Chevelon Butte wind project 48 square miles of land become more like a parking lot in scope.
Another fun fact in the article is how the author calculated how much $ amount in electric they viably produce, stating "$65,000/year/tower is nowhere near enough to even pay the interest on a 5% loan to construct the tower $2 million tower."
And one more, "the company gets money back to the tune of $.02/kWhr after it sells the electricity for $.03/kWhr". That would mean when we calculate what YOU PAY in taxes to give these companies direct payments FROM YOU they are getting reimbursed a whopping, sit down......66% of the cost for what's generated for the energy market back in $$$$ from YOU.
Why on Earth are we doing this to ourselves? Because we believe in the fantasy of climate change and carbon dioxide AIR BLANKETS?
These actually then are causing us to use more energy and creating more carbon blankets of air then as it takes fossil fuels to make all that $ energy to pay 66% of that energy made.
Money does not grow on trees or on wind farms. In the case of trees they reduce carbon dioxide anyway. In the case of wind farms they appear to be fueled by the very thing they are telling us they are supposed to be unfueling.
There's yet more, "the oils used in the turbines are very temperature sensitive and, when the turbines are not generating power, they must be heated – with electricity." This of course comes from fossil fuel burning to produce reliable electricity in the grid.
"Whether the wind is blowing in the desired range or not, they need power to keep the generator magnetized, to keep the blade and generator assembly facing the wind, to periodically spin that assembly to unwind the cables in the tower and to balance the pressure on the shaft, to heat the blades in icy conditions, to start the blades turning when the wind is not blowing fast enough to keep them going, to keep the blades pitched to spin at a regular rate, and to run the lights, internal control and communication systems."
And talk about wind turbine blades being bird shredders, we learn that blades hitting flying creatures is not the only cause of their deaths, it's' the vacuum that causes the creatures lungs to explode. Isn't that nice. We get these pretty pictures painted in our minds of how lovely these things are and they are monsters to wild flying life.
It appears the article is discussing the S. Power wind project that has been running since 2016 in Monticello, Utah. The S Power website confirms they have a farm there.
snapshot 8/14/2019 at 8:52 am pt from https://www.spower.com/project-list-utility.php
*** update 9/26/2019 they did not answer direct questions that would have provided actual output of energy produced, maybe they draw more energy than they produce?
copyright 2019 Kenneth Wegorowski