As soon as ‘Joe Public’ worked out that the idea of running on sunshine and breezes was so much childish nonsense, renewables rent-seekers started peddling an even greater myth: that mega-batteries would store ‘free and abundant’ wind and solar power, whenever the sun was up and the wind was blowing (just right).

Then, the myth continues, at absolutely zero cost to power consumers, giant grid-scale batteries would lovingly release groovy ‘green’ power as and when businesses and households needed it.

The zealot’s argument runs that – if only fossil fuel junkies and evil climate deniers would get out of the way – a few million mega-batteries would allow power consumers, hungry for ‘green’ virtue, to finally plug in and turn on to the ‘fuels of the future’.

So much for the hype.

South Australia, Australia’s wind power capital, has signed up to squander $150 million on one of Elon Musk’s…

In this repost, STT welcomes Britain’s Peak Protection Force – and its blog, MindWind to our International Network.

This insightful piece tackles the type of awkward questions that the wind industry would rather you never asked. And, sure as hell, will never openly answer.

Awkward Questions Answered
MindWind
Peak Protection Force
24 September 2017

This weekend’s roadtrip was one that could not have come at a better time, and its write-up could not be more germane to the discussion at hand.

I travelled about 80 miles from Leeds to just outside Louth in Lincolnshire, and along the way I saw: one dead coal-fired power station (Ferrybridge); one operational coal-fired power station, with a new gas-fired power station being constructed alongside (Eggborough); one hybrid coal/biomass power station (Drax); one of the largest and most hideous “cumulative” agglomerations of onshore wind farms in Britain (stretching pretty much unbroken from Goole to Scunthorpe)…

The wind industry is little more than the most recent and elaborate effort to fleece gullible investors, in a list that dates back to “corporate investment classics”, like the South-Sea Bubble and Dutch tulip mania.

In the wind industry, the scam is all about pitching bogus projected returns (based on overblown wind “forecasts”) (see our posts here and here and here and here); claiming that wind turbines will run for 25 years, without the need for so much as an oil change (see our posts here and here and here); and telling investors that massive government mandated subsidy schemes will outlast religion (see our posts here and here and here).

Now that the subsidies are drying up across Europe, solar panel and wind turbine makers are feeling the pinch, with tens of thousands of those groovy ‘green’ jobs already gone, or about to face the axe.

Claims that wind turbines run on the smell of an oily rag and last for 25 years are a proven nonsense.

What wind worshippers tend to forget is that these things have a useful (that is to say ‘economic’) lifespan of around 12 years.

Subsidies are what built them. Subsidies are what run them. So, when the subsidies run out, it isn’t long before the only remaining force at work is rust.

No country went harder or faster than Germany, when it came to spearing wind turbines and splaying solar panels as far as the eye can see.

The cost for German households and businesses, in terms of rocketing power prices, has been colossal and the effect on its grid is both costly and chaotic (a point picked up in the second piece in today’s post).

But first, here’s what happens when the subsidy plug gets pulled.

German Wind…

In their sillier moments, wind and sun worshippers claim that, if only fossil fuel guzzling, climate-deniers would get out of their way, nature’s ‘wonder fuels’ could provide 100% of everybody’s energy needs, now and until kingdom come.

However, in the global scheme of things, the contribution from wind and solar power barely registers, and amounts to little more than an accounting rounding error.

In short, even with massive and endless subsidies, the wind and solar ‘industries’ will always be energy ‘piss-ants’. And claims that they will one day rule the world, sound like the demented rantings of Austin Power’s nemesis, Dr Evil.

Here’s Matt Ridley crushing the nonsense that, one day, we’ll all get 100% of our power from the sun and the wind.

The green movement has broken in two: what happens next?
Reaction
Matt Ridley
7 November 2017

You can always tell when there is a United Nations…

Germany has been held up by renewable energy zealots as the shining example of how to run on sunshine and breezes. However, like its doppelgänger down under, South Australia, eventually and inevitably, reality bites.

German householders and businesses (just like those in South Australia) are being belted by rocketing power prices and – every time the sun goes down or the wind stops blowing – grid managers have the pull-out all stops to prevent the grid from collapsing.

In South Australia, the first spell of hot weather is barely a month away, which will bring with it inevitable mass load-shedding and, if the grid manager loses control of the situation, yet another total ‘system black’.

In Germany too, there’s a growing sense of panic about what happens next.

In this NoTricksZone piece a top engineering professor, Dr Ing Hans-Günter Appel, who is clearly apprehensive about Germany’s energy future, points out…

AIF, Le Verguier, France: a soldier’s well dug trench, often became his final place of rest; and to Australians, our most hallowed ground.

On this day, at the 11^th hour, 99 years ago the guns fell silent all across the Western Front. Remembrance Day in Australia doesn’t just mark an outbreak of poppies in lapels, it marks the end of what was meant to be the War to end all Wars.

STT’s grandfathers served with the AIF in Belgium and France, and were there when the Armistice took effect. One of them, who had won a Military Medal for conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty, described how every house and vehicle flew Allied flags and how the French went wild with delight, in Paris and all across France that day.

The killing and bloodshed had stopped; battered, broken and bruised these boys were going home.

But by no means…

‘Green’ energy fails every test
Watts Up with That?
John Hinderacker
18 October 2017

The sad story of Minnesota’s green energy failure is one that no doubt is being replicated around the country. And one of the ironies of green energy is that it is terrible for the environment.

Liberals will tell you that Minnesota is one of the nation’s leaders in “green” energy, so its experience represents a good test: can green energy fulfill the extravagant promises made by its backers?

The answer is a resounding No, according to a blockbuster paper by our own Steve Hayward and Center of the American Experiment’s Peter Nelson. The paper, titled “Energy Policy in Minnesota: the High Cost of Failure,” can be read or downloaded at the Center’s web site.

Minnesota is a poor place for solar power, so its renewable policies have focused on wind. Minnesota has gone whole hog for…

As STT followers are well-aware, this site doesn’t mince its words: wind power is the greatest economic and environmental fraud in human history.

Pull the subsidies, and this so-called ‘industry’ would disappear in a heartbeat.

For the best part of 20 years, the wind cult has attempted to justify the hundreds of $billions squandered on subsidies for wind power, as being all for the greater good.

Armchair environmentalists – who have never planted trees to prevent erosion on creek lines or dragged junk and gunk out of polluted waterways – claim ‘mission accomplished’, every time a new wind turbine whirls into (occasional) action.

Obsequious charlatans (like Simon Holmes a Court) even encourage naïve and gullible virtue signallers into ‘investing’ in so-called community wind farms (see our post here). They never get their money back, but at least they can tell their mates at Getup! that they’ve done their bit…