They Call The Wind Pariah

Except for limited applications and locations wind power has been obsolete for hundreds of years. People in the future will look back at us and wonder what were they thinking, wasting all that money on windmills.

Kudos to the writers at Issues and Insights for a great play on words….very clever.

Destroying our economy to make a bunch of whacko's happy.

Nuclear is the only way.

Wind and Solar are not the answer right now. They have many disadvantages and the evidence is clear that they are not reliable. When the wind doesn't blow, there is no power generated, and when it does, what is generated cannot be stored for later use. A good hail storm will wipe out solar panels. Natural gas is a clean-burning option that seems to be TOTALLY forgotten or never mentioned at all because it is a byproduct of the EVIL FOSSIL FUEL industry. Nuclear has its risks, but is also quite reliable. #3 hits the nail squarely on the head-- this is all done "to make a bunch of whacko's happy" Why not use something totally reliable instead of things "Not ready for prime time"???

I'm so old I can remember when Californians objected to oil well platforms offshore because they spoiled the view but they are OK with wind farms.

Ca. is the 10th largest economy in the world. It cannot be ran on wind and solar.

Here's some calculations anyone can do. 1. Power and energy are not the same. Energy is power x time. kilowatt is power. kilowatt hr is energy. Your "power" bill is in energy in kilowatt hours. You pay about 12 cents per kilowatt hour. 2. Fossil fuel plants are rated in power (megawatts) because time is known for all fossil fuel plants. It's 24 hrs per day, 365 days a year. BUT solar is rated ALSO in megawatts. But that's peak power and is only produced 4 hours/day 250 days/yr (in Georgia). So the power ratings of the two technologies are not directly comparable unless you convert both to energy. Or you can use the ratio (24*365)/(4*250) = 9 (if you round it off.) 3. Get on Google maps and find a solar farm and look up the output of that facility. The output will be rated in megawatts. Which is power. NOT ENERGY. They will not easily volunteer the amount of time per year that the facility produces energy. From Google Maps you can use the Measure Distance tool(on a computer) to figure out the size of the solar facility. 4. The state of Georgia generates 45,000 megawatts. Those fossil fuel facilities take up less than 10 sq miles all total for the whole state. For equivalent solar ENERGY production it will take about 4000 sq miles just for the panels. That's more than 5% of all the land in the state. Plus there will need to be numerous power lines cross crossing the state connecting all solar farms together and all land under those lines kept clear of growth. And then there is the battery problem to cover the need for power for the other 20 hours per day when the Sun ain't shinning. 10% of the state will have to be shaved bares. And then there has to be storage facilities for the 20 hours per day when the Sun don't shine. And they will take up much land. Some calculations predict greater than the entire land area of the whole state. Tesla batteries aren't going to come close. 5. Some math. For solar it works out to be about 100megawatts(peak) per sq mile. That compares to the energy output of a fossil fuel plant rated at 100/9megawatts. So to produce the energy of just one fossil fuel turbine at 1000megawatts it will take 90 square miles of solar panels.

Remember when Texas froze? The north east has long winters and can not not run on fairy dust.

Here's the big problem. Yes, eventually they'll stop building these literal white elephants....but WHO will pay to take them down? Each of the current generation of wind turbines has 1 million pounds of concrete (about 260 cubic yards) under it. The land cannot be put back fully into cultivation until this million pound obstacle is removed. Prediction: In 1,000 years all those wind turbine concrete bases will still be right where they are now, messing up a lot of good soil in many states. And even taking down and getting rid of the above ground parts will be a huge expense. The blades are fiberglass composite....cannot be recycled, have to be either burned or just buried. Perhaps dumped at see in deep, deep water...but they, too will be there for hundreds of years unless they burn them. Lots of nasty smoke and chemical residues from burning them, and the glass fibers will be tough to get rid of afterwards, too. Disaterous to get rid of. Most of the old turbines in Tehachapi Pass are still there, just dead, standing, not turnning. I noted what appeared to be a few collapsed turbines laying where they fell when we drove through the pass last month.

Re #8. A friend who has now retired from the power industry as an engineer, and who worked on coal, gas and nuclear power plants during his career, told me that wind turbines produce about 30% of rated power over a year, and very unfortunately, produce the most power at night, when the least power is actually needed. So, the "1 megawatt" wind turbine actually will produce about 0.3 megawatts average over the year, and much of it when it is NOT needed or wanted. An unseen cost is that, because power companies are required by law to buy all the wind and solar power offered to them, even if they don't want it or need it, this forces the power companies to reduce power on their conventional power plants since ALL power is consumed as it is produced, none is stored. The problem is that turning a conventional power plant down lower than it was designed to run, forced by excess and unneeded wind power at night, causes temperatures of the boilers to drop below normal, which causes thermal stresses in the boiler internal parts, substantially shortening their lives. These power plants are designed to run over a certain range of output, with only small temperature changes which lower stresses on the internal parts and going lower power and temps than the designed range means shorter time between multimillion dollar overhauls. This cost to run the conventional power plant is increased because of wind turbines, but is an added cost not directly blamed on them, but should be. But YOU and I do pay for that boiler damage and shorter service life caused by wind turbines.