Aren't wind turbines wonderful!

The claim by Enxco's David Steeb (see previous post) that a 5,000-acre power plant of 120 330-ft-high spinning turbines is necessary to preserving the rural character of Kittitas County in Washington reminds me just how magically wonderful this technology is. In fact, we in the U.S. probably need to start recognizing its crucial role in providing affordable health care and prescription drugs as well as improving our schools (by bribes to municipal councils in the latter case, by the desire to transform "unproductive" wilderness into a source of tax revenue in the former).

First of all, the turbines will reverse global warming, potentially displacing a tiny fraction of fossil-fuel-generated electricity even as that generation and consumption become cleaner and more efficient and energy use for heating and transport continues to rise.

They will end war and poverty, too, as we move so dramatically move away from fossil fuels to "free" wind power as just described.

They will increase tourism to wilderness areas, because people who try to escape the industrial world for a weekend will be glad to be reminded that they can't.

They create jobs, as long as they keep getting built. Former trail guides and country innkeepers will be pleased with new careers in road building, foundation digging, and cement hauling -- moving into the future instead of sitting stuck in a fantasy of the past. One of them may get to rent their house to a maintenance engineer.

They are phenomenally beautiful, bringing tears to the eyes of many sensitive souls, such as American writer Annie Dillard. They manifest the presence of the wind in a way swaying trees and fluttering leaves never could. They bring high (300-440 feet high!) culture to the rural masses. They are awe-inspiring symbols of our imperial might, our ability and right to dominate nature. They are like prehistoric stone circles, sleek new henges rising as testament to our self-love.

They save farmers and ranchers from having to break up and sell their land, and if their neighbors got into the game as well they would have a little money to help them move instead of just complaining about being left holding a bag of shite.

They are profitable, because governments around the world make sure they are. What better use of public money than to make things appear better?

They make us feel so good and proud and right, because so many of the problems in the world are solved by the fantastic schemes that make them possible.

The people love them, which is why local input must be minimized: The central government has read the company materials and already knows you want them.

They don't kill birds -- that's a total lie! Anyway, not many, a few dozen per turbine each year. A skyscraper out in those fields or on that mountain top would kill a lot more! And who really cares about all those bats? And global warming and acid rain and all that is killing even more!, which is exactly what building these massive wind towers is meant to stop (see first point, above).

They're very quiet, only making noise when the wind blows.

Above all, the market, with government's help and the visionary collaboration of global environmental groups, says they work. The dot-com bubble is gone, so industrial wind power is the new cool investment.

Bottom line: Are you so uncool that you would "protect" rural and wilderness areas during this rare convergence of forces that makes it possible to turn them into real money makers? Play or bray!

Had I the concordant wiseheads of Messrs Gregory and Lyons alongside of Dr Tarpey's and I dorsay the reverend Mr Mac Dougall's, but I, poor ass, am but as their fourpart tinckler's dunkey. -- Finnegans Wake

Enxco says wind turbine noise a problem 22% of time

David Steeb, of the 120-turbine, 5,237-acre Desert Claim wind power project proposed in Kittitas County, Washington, said at a public hearing Tuesday that noise would indeed be a problem 22% of the time (avge. 5-1/4 hours a day).

One wonders where he got that figure, which is suspiciously similar to the expected actual output of the facility.

He said that when the wind blows enough to make the turbine blades turn it also makes other noise to mask the machine's. Wind promoters claim, however, in answer to the charge that a site isn't really that windy to rely on it as a source of electricity, that up at the top of the tower it's a lot windier. So a lot of the time when the turbines are doing their thing, the wind isn't whipping things up around your house. Result (as if rustling leaves (or bare twigs in the winter) could mask the whumping of 120 turbines): turbine noise.

Steeb also pleaded that his massive power plant was essential to preserving the county's rural character. The planning commission unanimously rejected the proposal. Congratulations, citizens of Kittitas County!

Phasing out nuclear power in Germany

Late last year, Germany announced the closing of their Stade nuclear reactor, the first of its total of 19 reactors that it plans to permanently shut down as they come to the end of their operating life.

Nuclear power provides over 30% of Germany's electricity and does not officially contribute to global warming (its huge emission of water vapor isn't counted, only the absence of carbon dioxide and the other officially recognized greenhouse gases), so replacing that energy source is a major challenge. Germany is aggressively pushing conservation and efficiency as well as renewable-energy sources such as wind, solar, and biomass.

Although no news article or official statement says anything like it, advocates of utility-scale wind point to Germany's huge installed capacity (one third of the world's total) as the reason Stade was able to be shut down.

Ignoring the more significant changes in Germany's energy use patterns, let us suppose the claim was indeed so. The 672-MW Stade plant represented just over 3% of Germany's total nuclear-powered capacity (less than 1% of their total electricity use). When it was closed down, Germany had about 14,000 MW of wind-power capacity installed. To close down the rest, they would need 430,000 MW more!

Dangerous as nuclear power is, replacing 19 such facilities with several hundred thousand 300-400-foot-high wind towers is not an attractive alternative.

Large wind projects in Vermont

Here is an outline of the current industrial-scale wind projects targeted for Vermont. Note the huge leap in size from the existing Searsburg facility that we are all urged to go see and love and love as well the new very much larger facilities being planned.

size data provided:
number of towers × rated capacity of each turbine = capacity of facility
height = hub height + blade length (r); area swept by blades of each turbine (πr²) = x acre(s)

Existing:

Searsburg (1996) -- Enxco & Green Mountain Power

• 11 × 555-KW = 6 MW
  
• 198' = 132' + 66'; 12,868 ft² = 0.30 acre

Planned:

Searsburg expansion -- Enxco & Green Mountain Power

• 20-30 × 1.5-MW = 30-45 MW
  
• 340' = 213' + 127'; 50,273 ft² = 1.16 acres

East Mountain (East Haven) -- Mathew Rubin

• 50 × 1.5-MW = 75 MW
  (4 × 1.5-MW = 6 MW demonstration project currently in permitting process)
  
• 335' = 220' + 115'; 41,548 ft² = 0.96 acre

Glebe Mountain (Londonderry) -- Catamount Energy

• 27 × 1.5-MW = 48.6 MW
  
• 387' = 256' (78 m) + 131' (40 m); 5,027 m² = 1.24 acres

Lowell Mountain -- Enxco & Vermont Public Power Supply Authority

• 12-26 × 1.5-MW = 18-39 MW
  
• 328' = 212' (64.7 m) + 116' (35.25 m); 3,904 m² = 0.96 acre

Hardscrabble Mountain (Sheffield) -- UPC Wind Partners

• total 30 MW (per American Wind Energy Association)
  
• 3 × 131' (40 m) measurement towers approved by Public Service Board, 1 currrently erected

Mt. Equinox (Manchester) -- Endless Energy

• 5 × 1.5-MW = 7.5 MW
  
• 330' = 200' + 130'; 53,093 ft² = 1.22 acres

Nearby:

Hoosac Range (Florida & Monroe, Mass.) -- Enxco

• 20 × 1.5-MW = 30 MW
  
• 340' = 213' + 127'; 50,273 ft² = 1.16 acres

Gardner Mountain (Lyman, N.H.) -- UPC Wind Partners

• 20 turbines
  
• 158' measurement tower proposed

Is VPIRG lying?

"Section 248 includes the exact same criteria for reviewing a projects impact on the environment and aesthetics as Act 250. Only, unlike Act 250, Section 248 puts the onus on the developer to PROVE his or her project wont harm the environment, as opposed to forcing citizens to pursue a costly legal process as Act 250 now does."

-- Andrew Hudson
Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) field director
personal communication

In Vermont, Act 250 is the environmental review law, and Section 248 describes the review process for energy-generating facilities. Section 248 relies on a legalistic process before the public service board, who must determine if the project "will promote the general good of the state." That is, local concerns may be trumped by a perceived statewide need or the mere desire of a powerful entity. In contrast to Drew Hudson's claim, it is very difficult -- and costly -- for citizens to be involved in the Section 248 process. Only one public hearing is called for.

It is, again in opposition to Hudson's statement, Act 250 that requires the developer to prove that a project won't harm the environment, either natural or human. Section 248 relies on others to present information about negative impact. But even then, the public service board (Section 248) looks at the effect on the state as a whole, easily dismissing local concerns, whereas Act 250 requires regional environmental boards to examine precisely the local impact of a project. Act 250 facilitates heavy citizen involvement.

When asked if he might have inadvertently gotten the two processes backwards in his description, Hudson did not reply. Of course, the misleading statement makes sense as part of VPIRG's campaign against subjecting utility-scale wind power facilities to Act 250 review. How else can an "environmentalist" group argue against the state's environmental law, except by claiming that the utility-review law is actually better? How else can one-time environmentalists who are now active corporate lobbyists live with themselves, except by calling industrial development of wild mountaintops "environmental" and the state environmental law "anti-democratic"? In short, replace reality with a lie -- an all too common predilection these days.

(An earlier post describes VPIRG's desire to build power plants on state-protected land. And another describes VPIRG's proposal to double what even the developers plan for the state.

Environmentally friendly wind power lobbyists -- not!

The American Wind Energy Association's PAC has donated to the campaign of California representative Richard Pombo, who as one of Congress's most anti-environmentalist members is also supported by oil and gas companies, mining interests, factory farmers, paper companies, etc. Pombo's support for the wind industry is an effort to exempt them from federal environmental laws (see earlier posts here and here). The green mask of the AWEA has slipped off to reveal the ruthless industrialists they really represent.

Energy units

Here is a primer on the units one tends to encounter in researching energy issues.

The watt (W) is a measure of electrical power. (Power is the rate of doing work or producing or expending energy.) One watt is equal to 1 joule (J) per second.

The joule is a measure of energy, or the ability or capacity to do work. Other measures of energy are

• kilowatt-hour (KW-h), a thousand watts of power produced or used for one hour, equivalent to 3.6 MJ.
  
  One PJ = 277.78 TW-h.
  
  When a 1-MW [maximum rate of energy generation] wind turbine produces at 25% of that capacity as averaged over a year, its annual output is
  
  1 MW × 0.25 × 365 days × 24 hours = 2,190 MW-h.


• British thermal unit (Btu), equivalent to 1,054.8 J or 0.293 W-h.
  
  Quadrillion Btu = 1.055 PJ = 293 TW-h.


• million tonne oil equivalent (mtoe), equivalent to 41,868 MJ or 11,630 KW-h.

The metric system prefixes:

K means kilo, a thousand, or 10³
M means mega, a million, or 10⁶
G means giga, a billion, or 10⁹
T means tera, a trillion, or 10¹²
P means peta, a quadrillion, or 10¹⁵
E means exa, a thousand times more than peta, or 10¹⁸