A letter in today's Ipswich Chronicle:
Liz Krafchuk's piece about "Living Green" (Ipswich Chronicle, May 26) stated that a wind turbine in Ipswich would "offer some relief from the darkness of oil wars." Someone is surely mistaken here.
Oil is primarily used for transport. Only 2.3 percent nationally is used to make electricity. We export three times that amount. Reducing consumption of all kinds of energy is a worthy aim, but wind turbines -- no matter how big or how many -- have nothing to do with our use of oil. They don't have much effect on our use of current electricity sources, either.
Krafchuk reports an average wind speed of 11.5 mph. That translates to an average output from the 1.5-MW turbine of only about 150 KW, 10 percent of its capacity. Two-thirds of the time, the output would be less than that. Hull's "success" is not in the small amount of unpredictably variable electricity generated by wind, but in the profitable sale of "green credits."
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines
June 2, 2005
Another survey badly spun by the wind industry
Meridian Energy (New Zealand) spokesman Alan Seay in the Dominion Post yesterday that support of a wind plant in Wellington is "widespread":
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines
- 84 per cent of those surveyed are positive about a wind farm in the capital as long as they can neither see nor hear any turbines.
- There is 75 per cent support if turbines are visible, but cannot be heard.
- 68 per cent of people support a wind farm if the closest turbine is no less than 1km away and any noise is neither loud nor intrusive.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines
Wind turbines and noise
Irish market researcher Research and Markets has announced a new journal, Low Frequency Noise, Vibration and Active Control:
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism
"The considerable and growing interest in the phenomena of low frequency noise and vibration and their powerful effects on man, animals and the environment, spreads across several disciplines; studies of these topics are to be found at present in the periodical literature of acoustics, geophysics, architecture, civil and mechanical engineering, psychology and zoology. This quarterly journal brings together material which otherwise would be scattered: the journal is the cornerstone of the creation of a unified corpus of knowledge on the subject."This is not to say that industrial wind turbines (with 40-ton 80-meter-diameter rotors resisting an acre of wind to turn a gearbox and generator in a 55-ton nacelle on top of a 70-meter tower) are a possible source of such noise and vibration (after all, the only evidence is the testimony of people who live near them). But it does underscore the seriousness of the concern. There is a conference in October about wind turbines and noise at which some papers will address the issue.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism
June 1, 2005
Ecology review
As compiled in Sam Smith's Progressive Review yesterday, a few interesting developments on the pollution and energy front . . .
BRITISH OWNERS OF GAS GUZZLERS TO BE HIT WITH TAX INCREASE
SEVERIN CARRELL, INPEPENDENT - Motorists who drive fuel-hungry BMWs, people carriers and Range Rovers face a five-fold increase in road tax under radical plans to combat Britain's spiraling greenhouse gas emissions. The proposals are being studied by transport and environment ministers after it emerged that car buyers are ignoring warnings about the dangers of climate change by increasingly choosing luxury cars, larger MPVs and 4x4s with large, powerful engines.
The Government's influential energy conservation agency, the Energy Saving Trust, has told ministers the only way to force motorists to buy "green" cars is to introduce a new top rate of road tax as high as £900 a year. The new tax - more than five times the current rate of £165 a year for petrol engines - would have a major impact, by catching many popular larger family cars such as the Vauxhall Sharan or Ford Galaxy people carriers.
But at the same time, the agency has said, ministers should also make the most energy-efficient cars tax free or even give motorists a £150 annual tax rebate as a reward for buying them.
THAI PRIME MINISTERS ASKS EVERYONE TO TURN OFF LIGHTS FOR FIVE MINUTES
AP - Thailand's prime minister has asked the kingdom's entire population to turn off their lights for five minutes on Wednesday as part of an energy-saving campaign. ... Besides turning off unneeded lights, the government is also urging Thais to turn off air conditioners every day during their one-hour lunch break, and to drive at speeds of no more than 55 miles an hour. Energy Minister Wiset Jupibal has said that Thailand could save $29 million a year if every house switched off a light for one hour each day.
BAY AREA OFFERING FREE TRANSIT ON SMOGGY DAYS
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - Twenty-one public transit agencies around the Bay Area will give morning commuters free rides on as many as five smog-choked weekdays this summer. ... The Metropolitan Transportation Commission is coordinating the free-ride program and paying the bulk of the approximately $4 million cost. The money will cover five Spare the Air days.
categories: environment, environmentalism
BRITISH OWNERS OF GAS GUZZLERS TO BE HIT WITH TAX INCREASE
SEVERIN CARRELL, INPEPENDENT - Motorists who drive fuel-hungry BMWs, people carriers and Range Rovers face a five-fold increase in road tax under radical plans to combat Britain's spiraling greenhouse gas emissions. The proposals are being studied by transport and environment ministers after it emerged that car buyers are ignoring warnings about the dangers of climate change by increasingly choosing luxury cars, larger MPVs and 4x4s with large, powerful engines.
The Government's influential energy conservation agency, the Energy Saving Trust, has told ministers the only way to force motorists to buy "green" cars is to introduce a new top rate of road tax as high as £900 a year. The new tax - more than five times the current rate of £165 a year for petrol engines - would have a major impact, by catching many popular larger family cars such as the Vauxhall Sharan or Ford Galaxy people carriers.
But at the same time, the agency has said, ministers should also make the most energy-efficient cars tax free or even give motorists a £150 annual tax rebate as a reward for buying them.
THAI PRIME MINISTERS ASKS EVERYONE TO TURN OFF LIGHTS FOR FIVE MINUTES
AP - Thailand's prime minister has asked the kingdom's entire population to turn off their lights for five minutes on Wednesday as part of an energy-saving campaign. ... Besides turning off unneeded lights, the government is also urging Thais to turn off air conditioners every day during their one-hour lunch break, and to drive at speeds of no more than 55 miles an hour. Energy Minister Wiset Jupibal has said that Thailand could save $29 million a year if every house switched off a light for one hour each day.
BAY AREA OFFERING FREE TRANSIT ON SMOGGY DAYS
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - Twenty-one public transit agencies around the Bay Area will give morning commuters free rides on as many as five smog-choked weekdays this summer. ... The Metropolitan Transportation Commission is coordinating the free-ride program and paying the bulk of the approximately $4 million cost. The money will cover five Spare the Air days.
categories: environment, environmentalism
May 31, 2005
Pro-wind violence
On the island of Skye off Scotland, a three-year effort to build an industrial wind plant in Edinbane was sent back to square one last week because of legal technicalities. Concerns about peat destruction and raptor deaths have also been newly raised. Members of the Skye Windfarm Action Group (SWAG) had already been subject to intimidating letters, telephone calls, and vandalism, and this weekend the pro-wind camp were true to form: painting a bed-and-breakfast sign with "SWAG scum," cutting down a dozen spruce trees and piling them in a driveway, smashing and pulling up road signs.
news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=593462005
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4594555.stm
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms
news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=593462005
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4594555.stm
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms
The color of money
Disgen, the company behind the Brodie Mtn. project in Massachusetts, has an outline of the "Wind Development Process" (a 135-KB PDF). Under "Financing," the source of equity is characterized with "Rate of Return 16-18%."
Even if you were convinced that large-scale wind could make significant contributions to the grid and that there would be correspondingly significant environmental benefits so that the industry needs or at least deserves government support, this promised return clearly goes far beyond that -- into the realm of piracy.
categories: wind power, wind energy
Even if you were convinced that large-scale wind could make significant contributions to the grid and that there would be correspondingly significant environmental benefits so that the industry needs or at least deserves government support, this promised return clearly goes far beyond that -- into the realm of piracy.
categories: wind power, wind energy
May 26, 2005
Gone with the wind
Letter in the Financial Times (London), May 24:
From Mr Hugh Sharman [Hals, Denmark].categories: wind power, wind energy
Sir, in your editorial ("Glowing green", May 16) you wrote that "Denmark, which relies on intermittent wind power for nearly 20 per cent of its power, has stability problems on its grid".
Although it is true that the wind power we have creates "stability problems", it is not true that we inhabitants of west Denmark rely on wind power at all.
Whenever west Denmark produces a lot of wind power, it simultaneously exports almost equivalent quantities along its strong inter-connections with Norway, Sweden and Germany.
In other words, in spite of wind turbines producing a quantity of power equivalent to more than 20 per cent of its domestic consumption, very little of this power is actually consumed in west Denmark. I have calculated that in 2003, more than 80 per cent of wind output was exported, leaving west Denmark to consume about 4 per cent of its power from its enormous capacity of wind turbines.
There is an added irony here. The Danish consumer pays the highest tariffs for electricity in Europe. Much of these are hypothecated for the support of windmill owners. However, the wind wind power is sold on the spot market at rates that are much lower.
Thus there is a direct transfer of wealth from Danish consumers to consumers in Sweden, Norway and Germany, every time 1kWh of electricity is sold in this way. During 2003, this net transfer of wealth amounted to more than £100m -- or £40 per inhabitant.
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