14,000 Abandoned Wind Turbines Litter the United States
The towering symbols of a fading religion, over 14,000 wind turbines, abandoned, rusting, slowly decaying. When it is time to clean up after a failed idea, no green environmentalists are to be found. Wind was free, natural, harnessing Earth’s bounty for the benefit of all mankind, sounded like a good idea. Wind turbines, like solar panels, break down. They produce less energy before they break down than the energy it took to make them. The wind does not blow all the time, or even most of the time. When it is not blowing, they require full-time backup from conventional power plants.
Without government subsidy, they are unaffordable. With governments facing financial troubles, the subsidies are unaffordable. It was a nice dream, a very expensive dream, but it didn’t work.
Sunday, March 6, 2016
Like the Remnant Temples of Athena and Jupiter
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The number 14,000 is shocking. But essentially un-sourced, and the wind-power industry (of course?) says that it is untrue.
ReplyDeleteMany articles about abandonment of wind turbines mention the Kamaoa Wind Farm, from which all of the towers and turbines have now been been removed, or the Tehachapi pass, where newly-built increase in the grid capacity has been impetus for subsidy-seekers to replace non-working turbines with larger higher slower-moving turbines.
I think the 14000 number must be an extrapolation to the whole country from the figure of 4500 wind turbines abandoned in California --- but when the expert surmised 4500 abandoned in California at such highly visible places like Tehachapi, San Gorgonio, and Altamont passes, he also said of the 4,500 "it is estimated that 500 are still standing". So "abandoned" as in EOL, replaced, or dismantled, not necessarily an eyesore left standing.
It's a real problem, an old enough problem that Sonny Bono was a prominent activist against the blight of derelict turbines, and an area where consent to build should include escrow for removal costs at end-of-useful-life.
But the "anti-wind" side should have no need to make up numbers or pull them out of our ear.
Minor correction:
ReplyDelete"The wind does not blow all the time, or even most of the time. When it is not blowing, they require full-time backup from conventional power plants."
When the wind IS BLOWING they require full time backup on "Hot Standby." This costs about 40-60% as much as just producing the power with the standby generators.
Wind energy is the most insane form of green energy yet devised by the mind of man.
FormerFlyer
Minor correction:
ReplyDelete"The wind does not blow all the time, or even most of the time. When it is not blowing, they require full-time backup from conventional power plants."
When the wind IS BLOWING they require full time backup on "Hot Standby." This costs about 40-60% as much as just producing the power with the standby generators.
Wind energy is the most insane form of green energy yet devised by the mind of man.
FormerFlyer