People living in the Ontario’s large urban centres may not realize to what extent the Liberals, by means of undemocratic fiat, have imposed massive, invasive industrialization on rural Ontario. In many cases it has happened against the will of communities and people.
The Liberals’ Green Energy Act and its companion, the Environmental Review Tribunal—a toothless kangaroo court for any person or organization NOT a wind energy proponent—rob municipalities and property owners of their rights and any fair chance to prevent wind companies, mostly foreign-owned, from riding roughshod over their land and property values, wildlife and environmental protections, and human and livestock health concerns, never mind from visually polluting and despoiling the natural beauty of the Ontario landscape.
To make matters worse, none of the Liberals’ totalitarian-like “green” “renewable” energy push has made any economic sense, as was again confirmed by the Auditor General of Ontario Annual Report 2015, and in fact would appear to be willful appropriation and squandering of…
One of the myths pedalled by Australia’s self-appointed wind farm noise, sleep and health ‘expert’ (a former tobacco advertising guru) is that the known and obvious adverse health impacts from incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound are a cooked-up “phenomenon”, exclusive to the English speaking world. Trouble with that little tale is that’s been scotched by the Danes:
Now, back to Germany where – in the video below (it comes with English subtitles) – Heimke and Pieter Hogeveen lay bare their family’s daily despair at being unable to sleep in their very own home.
Ground down by incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound, these people have constructed a ‘bedroom’ in their cellar in an attempt to escape their sonic torment; and sent their children to a boarding school in Denmark for the same reason. Clearly fighters, Hiemke and Pieter have enlisted two lawyers in an action against the wind power outfit responsible.
The video features the turbine host responsible for their daily suffering, claiming he suffers no ill-effects. Funny how gag clauses in developer/host contracts seemingly immunize those pocketing their 30 pieces of silver. However, when the hosts are touched with a little human conscience, they tend to tell an incredibly similar story to people like the Hoogevens:
The Speigel TV report covers the latest German research on turbine generated infrasound; details the tragic story of another farming family (Konrad Saum) who have also been forced to abandon their spacious family home – unable to sleep there due to incessant turbine noise and vibration; and retreating to a tiny holiday unit to escape the sonic torture dished out by 6 turbines neighbouring their farmlet.
Undermining the ‘Green’ spinner, Jaeger’s piffle about infrasound being used as a sinister plot by German ‘anti-wind’ groups (now numbering over 500) to derail his profiteering racket, is the work being done by health and acoustic experts, taking measurements inside homes that show noise and vibration way above and beyond the levels claimed to exist by the wind industry. No surprises there: Three Decades of Wind Industry Deception: A Chronology of a Global Conspiracy of Silence and Subterfuge
The wind-worship cult, whether those wallowing in the subsidy trough or the political enablers that do their paymasters’ bidding by keeping the trough full-to-overflowing have one consistency of thought and action: and that’s a callous disregard for wind farm neighbours – be they clad in cloth, leather or feathers.
The industry’s parasites and spruikers turn themselves in ideological knots as they grapple with images of protected avian species, including majestic raptors – of the kind that grace flags, notes and coins: –
… piling up as splattered and dismembered carcasses, strewn across wind farms, all over the World:
The wind-worship cultist – who occupies some other ‘reality’ – hates being confronted with the fact that these things are responsible…
As the World reacts to the insane cost of backing an utterly pointless power source, by slashing subsidies and removing the only ‘reason’ for ‘investing’ in the greatest environmental and economic fraud of all time, there remains the suffering of thousands of unnecessary wind industry victims; ‘road-kill’ as its parasites like to refer to them.
STT takes their suffering and our ‘sanctuary’ status seriously – providing our comments space for the use of people who have been tragically impacted by – or who are fighting the threat of – giant industrial wind turbines.
STT is an exclusive place where our followers can speak openly and freely – and without fear of vilification or ridicule from trolls like Ketan Joshi,Mike Barnard & Co. And that’s something we have no intention of changing any time soon.
STT thinks compassion and empathy far greater virtues than self-righteous condescension.
True it is that the roll-out of these things has, thankfully, ground to a halt in Australia and elsewhere, but for many unfortunates, their daily misery continues unabated. Here’s a journal detailing the wholly unnecessary suffering meted out by Irish wind power outfits with incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound.
The Misfortune Of Living By A Wind Farm
windfarmtorture.blogspot.ie
1 January 2016
The truth about having to live near Grouselodge wind farm, Co. Limerick, the illness they cause, the noise, the discomfort, the lies from developers, wind farm owners/operators
Daily Notes December 2015
A new month and still being subjected to LFN/Infrasound and audible noise
1st A low buzzing/humming noise could be heard all night, this morning ears ringing feel numb, face tingling, itchy head, headache
2nd Constant audible buzzing humming sound all night long again, ears ringing feel numb and full, face tingling, headache, eyes twitching
3rd Low cloud and rain feels like that helps to keep the noise and infrasound in, blades forcing it this way, ears ringing, eyes twitching, head ache, pressure in ears making them feel like they are pulsating and feel full, not a nice feeling
4th After yesterday onslaught we are still suffering with headache, eyes watering/twitching. ears ringing feel pulsating and swollen, thank god for panadol mints
5th Ears ringing, headache, itchy skin, eyes watering still recovering from the other day LFN onslaught, 3 turbines going at the moment still being invaded by industrial noise though, could be worse and have all 6 going
6th Last night we were subjected to noise and by the way my head feels about to explode we were subjected to LFN/infrasound ears feel full, pulsating, headache, face tingling, thankfully all turbines are off at the moment
7th Noise again last night a constant buzzing/humming sound all night, today ears feel full, pulsating, ringing sound, itchy head, face feels numb and tingling, eyes twitchy
8th An audible buzzing/humming noise was heard all night and still the same this morning, headache ears feel pulsating and full and ringing, headache, itchy skin, eyes twitching, loud swoosh thump noises can be heard coming from the turbines
9th Another night of a constant humming/buzzing noise heard inside and outside sounded like airboats in the back garden, no change on the noise levels today and this morning ears ringing, headaches, feeling breathless, itchy/tingling skin
10th Same as yesterday, Another night of a constant humming/buzzing noise heard inside and outside sounded like airboats in the back garden, no change on the noise levels today and this morning ears ringing, headaches, feeling breathless, itchy/tingling skin, the headaches and ringing in the ears seem to be a result of the constant humming/buzzing noise that can be heard all day long, especially at night when normal daytime noises, such as cars tractors, TV radio etc are gone
11th Another night of humming/buzzing noise i had ear plugs in with radio on and this noise could still be heard, today it can still be heard inside and outside we have what sounds like airboat noise, the blades are forcing all of the LFN/infrasound this way, headache, ears ringing, eyes twitchy, itchy skin, i know today will be a rough one
12th, Again pretty much the same as the past few days another night of humming/buzzing noise, today it can still be heard inside and outside we have what sounds like air boat noise, ears ringing, headache, eyes watering, trouble breathing these symptoms are pretty much daily occurrences now
13th Fog Today cant see the turbines at the moment, but can still hear them, swooshing and thumping in the distance, ears ringing feel like they are pulsating and exploding, headache, eyes watering
14th Rain, fog, low cloud all compounding the LFN/infrasound ears feel like exploding, pounding headache, dizzy feeling
15th Last night we were subjected to very loud swooshing noises outside which went to a buzzing/humming low droning sound inside, this morning ears feel like they are exploding, very acute headache, eyes watering, ears ringing
16th Last night swoosh thump clunk squeal etc etc all night outside, inside the normal humming/buzzing allnight, today ears ringing feel pulsating, eyes watering/twitchy, headache
17th Only 5 working today and still swoosh thump swoosh thump constantly, never ending, headache, ears ringing, i have concluded that ears ring worse when inside than when outside, tingling face, sea sick feeling of constantly moving horrible feeling
18th 5 working again but still air boats outside ears ringing, itchy skin, eyes twitchy
19th Only 5 working again, hope its broke for good, headache difficulty breathing out of breath just walking across the field this morning, eyes watering
20th Only 5 working again, crane at the broken one yesterday doing something, woke up trouble breathing again, ears ringing, headache ithcy skin, eye twitchy/watering
21st Only 5 working again, but still air boat noise outside and a constant humming buzzing inside all night and still going on this morning, trouble sleeping, woke up hard to breath, face tingling, eyes twitching, ears ringing, blurred vision
22nd You know it is going to be bad day, when you have had a bad nights sleep due to the constant audible noise and LFN/infrasound, and you are woken up by the noise unable to breath, feels like you have run a marathon but you have just woke up, ears ringing feel pulsating, headache, eyes watering. n a good note still only 5 working today again
23rd 6 working again, woken up early again trouble breathing, felt like i had run a marathon, ears feel full, like they want to explode, ringing, tingling/numb feeling face, eyes twitchy blurry vision
24th A constant buzzing/humming noise since yesterday afternoon, woken up early again trouble breathing, face tingling, eyes watering, ears feel full,numb and ringing, headache
25th Difficulty breathing all night and this morning, can only be related to the same as having a asthma attack and struggling to get a breath, face tingling, eyes watering, ears tingling, throbbing, cant see them at the moment due to fog but i can hear them and feel them pulsing the air that we live in
26th All seems nice, quiet and clean undisturbed air at the moment, i cant see the wind farm but i cant hear it, so it must be off, but after Christmas days onslaught of LFN/infrasound and audible noise ears ringing feel numb, headache. itchy skin, eyes twitchy
27th Woken up early trouble breathing as usual, eyes watering, face numb, ears ringing, numb, tingling, blurred vision, lack of concentration
28th Disturbed sleep again woken up with headache, ears ringing throbbing, blurred vision, face tingling
29th Another night of constant audible noise being heard inside the house, if the noise was at the allowed levels set out by planning we would not hear it, woken up early again due to the audible and infrasound, ears ringing/pulsating/throbbing, face numb/tingling, skin itchy, headache, out of breath
30th Woken up early again, 5am, disturbed sleep due to LFN/infrasound, constant audible industrial noise all night, ears ringing/numb/pulsing, headache, eyes twitching, blurred vision, storm frank needs to blow harder and blow the damn turbines over or spin the blades out of control, the good thing about this amount of wind is it hides the noise from the turbines
31st Now the storm has passed the turbines can be heard again inside the house woken up early again, 5am, disturbed sleep due to LFN/infrasound, constant audible industrial noise all night, ears ringing/numb/pulsing, headache, eyes twitching, blurred vision
windfarmtorture.blogspot.ie
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For those fortunate enough to have never experienced the effects of constant industrial wind turbine noise, here’s a little primer:
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However, the malicious melody belted out by Vestas & Co in that video goes nowhere near covering the effect of the sub-audible stuff (aka ‘infrasound’) that can’t be heard but is most certainly felt by those exposed.
Trying to explain the combined effect of the audible low-frequency and sub-audible frequencies generated by giant turbines, to those that haven’t had to live with it on a daily basis, is like trying to explain a migraine to someone who has never had a headache.
One fairly clear and succinct explanation was given in this video by Professor Alec Salt:
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What is detailed in the diary above is perfectly consistent with the experiences of wind farm neighbours across the Globe. Here’s an extract from an earlier post (here), which includes Rob Rand and Rick James explaining the symptoms caused by pulsing infrasound (of precisely the kind detailed above):
One resident, who wished to remain anonymous, said she knew right away that the turbines were moving because she began to feel nauseous, along with a headache. “I have 100 turbines to the north of me, 25 to the west and 20 to the southwest,” she said. “When the wind was coming out of the north, I woke up feeling dizzy and nauseous.”
She also said her animals were acting strangely. “My donkeys and horses keep wanting to go back into their stalls,” she said. “They have not wanted to leave the barn all day.”
Robert Rand, a Boulder, Colorado, resident and an acoustic investigator and member of the Acoustical Society of America, said the reason for the headaches and nausea is directly related to the wind turbines. It has to do with infrasound and low frequency noise, he said.
According to an article written by acoustic engineer Richard James, published at http://wiseenergy.org Feb. 20, “Infrasound is acoustic energy, sound pressure, just like the low to high frequency sounds that we are accustomed to hearing. What makes infrasound different is that it is at the lowest end of the acoustical frequency spectrum even below the deep bass rumble of distant thunder or all but the largest pipe organ tones.
“As the frequency of an infrasonic tone moves to lower frequencies: 5Hz, 2Hz, 1Hz and lower, the sounds are more likely to be perceived as separate pressure pulsations … . Unlike mid and high frequency sound, infrasound is not blocked by common construction materials. As such, it is often more of a problem inside homes, which are otherwise quiet, than it is outside the home.”
Rand said the separate pressure pulsations are like the “whump, whump, whump,” people sometimes experience when they are riding in a car with the windows down. “I have been attempting to acoustically measure phenomena that could present a conflict to human physiology that could then provide a basis to do more research,” Rand said. “My work in acoustics has really been designing and planning. I don’t need more medical research because I know what they (wind turbines) do to people because it happened to me.”
According to an article accepted into The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America Feb. 4, when the body experiences an external force on the inner ear, such as acoustic pressure pulses — but there is no visual input to associate with that pressure — a sensory conflict occurs. That conflict is felt as motion sickness, and it is felt to the same degree as seasickness.
The problem of incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound has been known about (covered up and lied about) by the wind industry for around 30 years:
And all that state-sanctioned misery and suffering is inflicted for an utterly meaningless power source, abandoned in the 19th Century for pretty obvious reasons.
Tom Koutsantonis: is he just pretending to listen to a State in crisis?
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South Australians dwell in Australia’s economically dismal ‘wind power capital’. Their attempt to rely on these things as a ‘meaningful’ power source sees them not only paying the highest power prices in the Nation by a mile (if not the world, on a purchasing power parity basis) – but sees them glaring at each other through Stone Age ‘gloom’ when its wind power output totally collapses, on a totally unpredictable basis:
The consequences are a thoroughly unreliable grid, prone to mass wind power blackouts, and family punishing and business crippling power prices – which will rocket further as its cheapest base-load plant at Port Augusta is closed…
The wind industry, its parasites and spruikers, around the globe, hail Germany as THE wind power ‘Super Model’. Trouble is, in Germany – as elsewhere – the ‘gloss’ has well-and-truly worn off – and the ‘Model’ is looking more than just a little worse for wear.
The Germans went into wind power harder and faster than anyone else – and the cost of doing so is catching up with a vengeance. The subsidies have been colossal, the impacts on the electricity market chaotic and – contrary to the environmental purpose of the policy – CO2 emissions are rising fast: if “saving” the planet is – as we are repeatedly told – all about reducing man-made emissions of an odourless, colourless, naturally occurring trace gas, essential for all life on earth – then German energy/environmental policy has manifestly failed (see our post here).
Some 800,000 German homes have been disconnected from the grid – victims of what is euphemistically called “fuel poverty”. In response, Germans picked up their axes and headed into their forests in order to improve their sense of energy security – although foresters apparently take the view that this self-help measure is nothing more than blatant timber theft (see our post here).
And the economics are so bizarre, that you’d think its “Energiewende” policy had been put together by the GDR’s ‘brains trust’, before the Berlin Wall took its tumble in 1989.
In Germany, around €100 billion has already been burnt on renewable subsidies; currently the green energy levy costs €56 million every day. And, the level of subsidy for wind and solar sees Germans paying €20 billion a year for power that gets sold on the power exchange for around €2 billion.
Squandering €18 billion on power – which Germans have in abundance from meaningful sources – has them asking the fair and reasonable question: just how much power are they getting for the €billions that they’ve thrown – and continue to throw at wind and solar?
But beyond the economy destroying costs of subsidising a meaningless power source, with NO commercial value – apart from the subsidies it attracts – there’s also the (not insignificant) issue of turbines flinging their 10 tonne blades to the four winds and/or yielding to gravity and allowing their entire 290 tonne bulk to crash back to Earth.
The increasing number of self-destructing turbines and ‘component liberation’ events might almost be forgiven if the power produced were even a tad reliable. But, that source of potential mitigation has dried up in Germany, too.
Due the intermittent and chaotic delivery of wind power, the Germans are now coming to terms with deliberate ‘targeted blackouts’ – where grid mangers are chopping power to major consumers and even whole cities in response to wild and unpredictable wind power collapses (just like Adelaide, in South Australia).
Catastrophic Turbine Failures, Targeted Blackouts Plague German Power As Wind, Solar Energy Increase
NoTricksZone
Pierre Gosselin
31 December 2015
Thanks in large part to wind and solar energy, not only have German electricity prices paid by consumers skyrocketed over the past years, thus casting a large number of homes into home fuel poverty, but also the supply itself is rapidly becoming precarious and unreliable.
One problem is the stabilization of the power grid in the face of wildly fluctuating wind and solar energy feed-in. The other problem is the mechanical integrity associated the wind turbines themselves.
Catastrophic wind turbine failures
Increasingly it is becoming apparent that wind turbines have a way of just collapsing – often without notice – due to mysterious causes. One might suspect mechanical fatigue due to the complex cyclic loading that wind turbines are subjected to.
Consequently wind parks are becoming hazardous zones for persons and property in the vicinity – never mind the proven detrimental health effects of infrasound.
One example (of many) of a recent catastrophic turbine failure is reported by the North German Ostesee Zeitung here. According to the article, just 2 days ago, the blade of a wind turbine snapped off unexpectedly, boring itself into the ground.
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The Ostsee Zeitung writes that local residents were “shocked” and the reason for the collapse is unknown. The online news site writes:
“At the time of the accident there was neither a storm nor unusual weather conditions. ‘We are baffled as well,’ says Carlo Schmidt, Managing Director of Windprojekt company, which operates the turbine in question.”
Luckily no one was injured, or killed.
Wind turbine in Sweden fails with “incredible bang”
Another recent catastrophic failure occurred in Sweden, so reports the Swedish online svt.se news site here.
Forestry machinery operator Erik Karlsson of the Vetlanda municipality heard an “incredible bang” while working on Christmas Eve, but thought nothing of it. Later as went home he discovered that a nearby wind turbine had fallen to the ground across the road.
The huge turbine mast had snapped some 15 meters up and the unit came crashing down, the SVT writes. Authorities quickly cordoned off the wind park area. Here as well the cause of the failure is unknown. The wind park has since been designated as a hazardous area: “The public has been asked to keep away.”
These are just two recent examples of many of wind turbine collapses.
Blackouts to prevent blackouts
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In addition to catastrophic mechanical failures, wind and solar energy are wreaking havoc on power grid stability, so writes the German onlinemittelhessen.de here.
The online newssite reports that the future for the residents of Wetzlar may be looking bleak. Why?
“If in the future the power goes out, the reason maybe rooted in the energy management act. In order to eliminate the possibility of widespread blackouts, grid operators such as Enwag are obligated to switch off consumers or even entire parts of the city.”
These targeted blackouts are necessary, mittelhessen.de writes, because it is the only way left to keep the power grid from over or under-loading. The site tells readers:
“The probability of large blackouts is increasing with the strongly growing power generation from wind and sun. Experts have long seen the power grid threatened by this.”
Unfortunately grid operators will have to react very quickly to the power grid fluctuations. The mittelhessen.de reports that “there won’t be any time for operators to make long calculations” and that “there will be only an hour to react”. Just how vulnerable is the power grid in the Wetzlar region? Mittelhessen.de writes:
“A chain of seemingly harmless single incidents can in the worst case lead to a domino effect and lead to outages in all connected power networks.”
In plain English: one small problem could lead to a widespread blackout.
To keep this from happening, the solution is now to conduct targeted blackouts in an attempt to keep the grid balanced. If you are running a company, or merely working on an important document at your PC, then it’ll just be tough luck. Just use paper and pen, and light up a candle.
Junk energy at a high price. Other countries may wish to think twice before copying the model. NoTricksZone
Many people harp on about their human rights but I am always amazed that most people do not know of the extent of their rights or where they come from.
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If you are an Irish citizen then a lot of your human rights should come from our Constitution, the so-called ‘fundamental rights’:
Right to a fair trial (Article 38.1)
Equality before the law (Article 40.1)
Right to life (Article 40.3)
Right to liberty (Article 40.4)
Right to freedom of expression, assembly and association (Article 40.6.1)
Protection of the family (Article 41),
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In addition, the Irish Courts have interpreted the Constitution as including certain human rights. These are referred to as ‘unenumerated rights’, which means that although they are not specifically set out in so many words, it is possible to find them ‘between the lines’ of the Constitution. These include:
The wind industry is copping a flogging all over the World. Increasingly, as the industry’s lies and propaganda are replaced by facts, more and more are coming to the obvious conclusion: THESE THINGS DON’T WORK – on any level.
Getting there was only a matter of time.
What has surprised STT is not that journos, pundits and even Global Warming hysterics have sussed the wind power fraud for what it is; it’s that those that previously championed wind power have, instead, joined a chorus calling for serious investment in nuclear power.
Here’s a little ‘paint-by-numbers’ breakdown that reaches that very same conclusion, for much the same reasons.
Top 11 Problems Plaguing Solar And Wind Power
Daily Caller
Andrew Follett
25 December 2015
This is true for home power storage as well, even with the latest batteries. A Tesla power-wall capable of powering a home costs $7,340 to buy. A conservative analysis estimates that a power-wall can save its owner a maximum of $1.06 a day. Such a system would take approximately 25 years to pay for itself, according to the same analysis.
One of the world’s largest and most powerful batteries, located in Fairbanks, Ala., weighs 1,300-metric tons and is larger than a football field. It can only provide enough electricity for about 12,000 residents, or 38 percent of Fairbanks’ population, for seven minutes. That’s useful for short outages, which happen a lot in Alaska, but isn’t effective enough to act as a reserve for solar and wind.
The best way we have of “storing” power is pumping water up a hill, which actually accounts for 99 percent of all global energy storage.
2: The U.S. Power Grid Is Older, And Has Trouble Handling Solar And Wind
“Our power grid works well today. Some complain, but blackouts are rare and large-scale blackout are really rare. The power grid was set up for the [electrical] generation we have. Building a lot of new wind and solar requires much greater expenditure on the grid,” Vice President for Policy of the Institute for Energy Research Daniel Simmons told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
According to the Department of Energy, 70 percent of the transmission lines and power transformers in the country are at least 25 years old.
In order for the power grid to function, demand for energy must exactly match supply. Power demand is relatively predictable and conventional power plans, like nuclear plants and natural gas, can adjust output accordingly. Solar and wind power, however, cannot easily adjust output. They also provide power unpredictably relative to conventional power sources.
On an especially cloudy or windless day, the electrical grid can’t supply enough power from solar or wind alone. Wind and solar also run the risk of producing too much power which can overload and fry the power grid. This is why electrical companies will occasionally pay consumers to take electricity.
3: Rebuilding The Power Grid To Handle Solar And Wind Is Absurdly Expensive
The three power grids that supply the United States with energy are massive and expensive pieces of infrastructure. The power grids are valued at trillions of dollars and can’t be replaced in a timely manner. It takes more than a year to manufacture a new transformer, and transformers aren’t interchangeable, as each one must be individually built specifically for its location. At a time when the U.S. government is more than $18 trillion in debt, building power grids that can handle solar and wind may not be feasible.
Merely building a 3,000-mile network of transmission lines capable of moving power from wind-rich West Texas to market in East Texas proved to be a $6.8 billion effort that began in 2008 and still isn’t entirely finished. Building the infrastructure to move large amounts of solar or wind power from the best places to generate it to the places where power is needed would be incredibly expensive and could cost many times the price of generating the power.
4: Solar and Wind Don’t Provide Power At Useful Times
“Solar is better than wind for providing electricity when electricity is used,” says Simmons. “But during much of the year in, for example, peak electricity demand comes after dark. For example, [on December 17] in California peak electricity demand was at 6pm. But peak solar was at 12:36 and by 6pm, solar production was a zero.”
Power demand is relatively predictable. The output of a solar or wind power plant is quite variable over time and generally doesn’t coincide with the times when power is most needed. Peak power demand also occurs in the evenings, when solar power is going offline. Adding power plants which only provide power at intermittent and unpredictable times makes the power grid more fragile.
5: Solar And Wind Can’t Keep the Lights On By Themselves
Solar and wind power systems require conventional backups to provide power when they cannot. Since the output of solar and wind plants cannot be predicted with high accuracy by forecasts, grid operators have to keep excess reserve running just in case.
But natural gas, coal-fired, or nuclear plants are not simple machines. They can require days to fully turn on from a dead stop. This means that solar and wind power require conventional sources in “stand-by” mode, which means they’re still generating electricity.
Despite this, environmental groups like The Sierra Club still call for “100 percent” solar and wind power.
6: The Best Places For Solar And Wind Are Usually Far Away From Consumers
The places with the highest potential for generating solar or wind power are typically relatively far away from the people who will consume power, according to the Department of Energy. The government agency even maintains maps of how unfeasible long-range transmission can become.
The vast majority of people who use power do not live in deserts or consistently windy areas. The kind of high voltage power lines needed to transport even relatively small amounts of power cost $1.9 to 3.1 million per mile built. Additionally, the kind of “smarter” power systems which can be adjusted to varying energy production created by wind and solar power can cost up to 50 percent more.
7: Solar And Wind Are A Very Small Percent Of The Power Grid Despite Years of Subsidies
“The first 8 months of 2015 wind and solar combined to produce 2.3% of the energy the U.S. consumed. Also wind production is down this year compared to last year,” says Simmons.
Solar and wind have been heavily subsidized since at least the 1970s. In 2010, wind power alone received $5 billion in subsidies, swamping the $654 million oil and gas received in subsides. One in four wind suppliers have gone out of business in the past two years.
In 2014, solar and wind power accounted for only 0.4 and 4.4 percent of electricity generated in the United States, respectively, according to the Energy Information Administration. The total amount of energy created by solar and wind is relatively small even though both systems are heavily subsidized.
8: The Solar And Wind “Low-Hanging Fruit” Have Already Been Taken
The locations where solar and wind power make the most economic sense generally already have a solar or wind power system. Since solar and wind power are only effective in a limited number of locations, “green” power sources are difficult to expand and are simply not practical in some areas.
9: Natural Gas Prices Are Very Low In The United States
Natural gas prices are currently incredibly low in the United States, making it much more difficult for solar and wind power to become cost competitive. Natural gas is already passing coal power as the most used source of electricity. Additionally, natural gas is quite environmentally friendly.
The Department of Energy agrees with research organization Berkeley Earth that “the transition from coal to natural gas for electricity generation has probably been the single largest contributor to the … largely unexpected decline in US CO2 emissions.”
10: Nuclear Energy Has Enormous Potential
The United States just approved its first new nuclear reactor in 20 years. New nuclear reactor designs are much safer and emit less radiation than the coal plants they replace. Nuclear plants take up far less space than wind or solar and do not emit any carbon dioxide.
Recent breakthroughs in fusion could also potentially restart the atomic age when nuclear progress was lauded as a pinnacle of human achievement. Operational fusion power will put most other forms of electricity generation permanently out of business and could occur very soon. Fusion power could easily be “too cheap to meter,” meaning that the cost of generating new power would be below the cost of determining how much power an individual was using, effectively making electricity generation nearly free.
11: Encouraging Wind And Solar Creates Incentives For Massive Corruption
Attempts by governments to encourage solar and wind power have created incentives for corruption even environmentalists acknowledge. The recent Volkswagen scandal illustrates that regulatory attempts to force a specific technology, in this case the adoption of cleaner diesel engines, create incentives that lead to sophisticated cheating by companies. The main incentive of the regulatory agencies is to make rules while avoiding bad publicity, not to actually solve the problem.
The push to encourage “green” systems has already led to serious corruption, such as the Solyndra scandal. Such corruption “crowds out” investment dollars that could be better spent on more workable solutions. Daily Caller
"Mothers Against Wind Turbines™" Phoenix Rising... 