Wind and solar collapses in SA and VIC on 24 and 25 January sent power prices into orbit, as conventional generators cashed in on the chaos. As wind and solar power output hit the floor, the spot price of power hit $14,500 per MWh. The additional cost to power consumers was in excess of $1,100,000,000 – for the owners of fast-start peaking plants (OCGTs and diesel generators) – money for jam.

For peaking power operators, the inevitable and total collapses in wind power output is where the greatest rort of all time begins.

You see, it’s not really about the costs of running OCGTs (or diesel engined generators) this is all about what the operator can get away with.

The pattern was set up by the energy market whizzkids from Enron – back in the days when it raped and pillaged the Californian power market, using much the same…

Craig Kelly: champion for common sense & reason.

Everything about Australia’s renewable energy calamity was perfectly predictable and perfectly avoidable. Throwing $60,000,000,000 in subsidies at chaotically intermittent wind and solar was a pretty good start. Placing lunatics in charge of the entire operation sealed the deal.

Australia’s Eastern Grid (covering QLD, NSW, VIC, TAS, ACT & SA) is on the brink of collapse; under threat every time the temperature rises (and with it demand for electricity), the wind drops and the sun drops over the horizon.

South Australia, its wind and solar capital, pays the highest power prices in the world.

Victoria, with its own ludicrous 50% renewable energy target, is catching up fast. It’s also coming to experience the mass blackouts and load shedding that wind ‘powered’ South Australians are renowned for: Worthless Wind Power: Australia’s RE Debacle Deepens With 200,000 Victorian Households Left Powerless During Heatwave

At…

As the mob rumbles the fact that wind and solar can’t replace conventional generators, RE zealots can only mutter about ‘mega-batteries’.

Mass load shedding in Victoria and South Australia – following dramatic collapses in wind power output – left hundreds of thousands sweltering and fuming at just what’s been done to our once reliable and affordable power supply.

The chaotic delivery of wind and solar is said to have its solution in enormous lithium-ion batteries, of the kind peddled by Californian carpetbagger, Elon Musk. He managed to offload one unit in wind power obsessed, South Australia, collected $150 million, and was never seen again.

Here’s Donn Dears dealing with the insane cost of redelivering trivial amounts of electricity using Musk’s mega-battery.

Four Minutes for $150 million
Power For USA
Donn Dears
15 January 2019

South Australia installed battery storage supplied by Musk for an estimated cost of $150 million.

With…

The wind industry is a law unto itself, merrily crushing community opposition with the help of pliant and gullible politicians. And, where corruption reaches its natural limit, cash takes over. Mind you, spending other people’s money is always a treat.

Leases with farmers who ‘host’ the turbines and so-called “good neighbour” agreements with their neighbours who would otherwise suffer the torment from incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound without any compensation for their misery, all contain bullet proof gag clauses. Contractual terms designed to prevent any complaint or criticism of the wind power outfit in question, any of its activities, its wind turbines, the noise and shadow flicker they generate, anywhere, anytime, at all, ever.

Good neighbour agreements are a standard form and provide for the same result: you the neighbour are paid around $5-8,000 per year in exchange for which you relinquish every statutory and common law right…

Never to torment Falmouth, ever again.

Beating the wind industry takes tenacity, patience and perseverance. In Falmouth, Massachusetts that combination helped locals regain their town after two Vestas V82s were speared within a few hundred metres of homes set in, once perfectly peaceful, idyllic rural countryside. Practically incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound literally drove neighbours nuts, for years. But once the fight began, there was no going back.

Back in November 2013, we reported on the orders made by a Court in Falmouth, Massachusetts that pulled their operation to a halt (see our post here).

We’ve also reported on Barry Funfar, a former Marine whose own country has forsaken him and his family, by aiding and abetting the local wind power outfit to ride roughshod over the rules; and decent Americans, like Barry (see our post here).

We gave an update on the Falmouth case in…

Like pushing on string, adding wind and solar adds nothing to reliable power generation capacity: never there when you need it, and often there when you don’t, wind and solar are just a perpetual irritant to grid managers – the people attempting to keep the lights on and air conditioners humming this summer.

On 25 January, 200,000 Victorian households and businesses were left without power and fuming over what’s been done to their once reliable and affordable power supply.

Their Premier, Daniel Andrews and Minister for Wrecking the Grid, Lily D’Ambrosio danced a jig when a 1,600 MW coal-fired power plant, Hazelwood was knocked out of the game by subsidised wind.

Had that plant been up and running on 25 January, it would have easily covered the 833 MW collapse in wind power output that occurred over the space of a few hours that day. When the power went out…

When your power supply depends on the weather … life’s a lottery.

Electricity used to be taken for granted in Australia, like running water. Not anymore. Thanks to chaotically delivered wind and solar, having power during hot weather is now treated more like winning the lottery.

Joni Mitchell sang about not knowing what you’ve got till it’s gone in her ditty, Big Yellow Taxi. Likewise, Victorians have joined wind ‘powered’ South Australians in their appreciation of knowing what it’s like to swelter in the dark, whenever the sun sets and/or calm weather sets in.

200,000 Victorian businesses and households were left fuming after a dramatic wind power output collapse during hot weather. This is happening in a state determined to destroy its coal-fired electricity supply (Labor MPs wept with joy when Hazlewood, a 1,600 MW plant closed) and throw all caution to the wind and sun. Victoria, just like SA…

Everyone ‘loves’ the idea of wind and solar power, until they’re sweltering in the dark. 200,000 Victorian homes and businesses left powerless – after a sudden and dramatic wind power output collapse on 25 January – have got a taste of what wind ‘powered’ South Australians have been putting up with for years. And they don’t like it.

Above is the wind power output in Victoria (up there with SA as an Australian RE ‘hero’) on 25 January – for 200,000 Victorians aka ‘Black(out) Friday’ – courtesy of Aneroid Energy.

In this post, we covered the fact that Victorian wind power output struggled to produce 20% of its nameplate capacity, while hundreds of thousands of households and businesses struggled to survive without refrigeration, air-conditioning, or any of those other creature comforts one expects in a (notionally) first world country.

One seasoned Melburnian, Judith Sloan recounts what it’s…

The Finns are renowned for their stoicism, but grinding, pulsing wind turbine noise is too much for any sentient being, even the Finnish.

The evidence proving the unnecessary damage done to wind farm neighbours by the noise generated by giant industrial wind turbines is mounting by the day: Germany’s Max Planck Institute has identified sub-audible infrasound as the cause of stress, sleep disruption and more (see our post here); and a Swedish group have shown that it’s the pulsing nature of low-frequency wind turbine noise  (‘amplitude modulation’) that is responsible for sleep problems in those forced to live with it (see our post here).

Making a mockery of planning rules that permit giant industrial wind turbines to be speared within a thousand metres or so of residential dwellings, a Finnish study reckons that the safe setback distance is more like 15,000m.

Pilot study shows no significant reduction in…

It takes more than audacity to promote an all wind and sun powered future – it requires the deluded to make nonsense sound reasonable.

When zealots start waffling about wonderful wind and solar ‘resources’, that the wind and sun are ‘free’ and if we all believed together, we’re just a heartbeat away from ditching fossil fuels forever – don’t just grab a bucket, make sure you’ve got a firm grip on your wallet, as well.

Because – whatever the prospects might be for nature’s wonder fuels – the cost will be astronomical; and it’s you who will end up paying.

Texas is held up by American wind worshippers as a model of what can be done. However, as Willis Eschenbach points out, the Lone Star State is the perfect example of unhinged hyperbole. As Willis details, the cost of adding even a trivial amount of chaotically intermittent wind power to…