The true cost of chaotically intermittent wind power is staggering; the cost of offshore wind power is astronomical.

In Australia, the Labor backed construction union is howling about the fact that they can’t get an enormous offshore wind project up and running off the coast of Victoria.

Throwing scorn at the Federal Coalition government about the lack of ‘policy certainty’ and a perceived vendetta against renewables, the rent seekers involved apparently can’t spot the hypocrisy for the trees.

In one breath they’re telling us how cheap wind power is, in the next they’re bitching about the need for massive subsidies to last until kingdom come.

In truth, the project has absolutely no hope of getting off the ground. And the reason is that offshore wind power is ridiculously expensive.

The capital cost of spearing these things offshore is multiples greater than doing so and some dimwitted farmer’s back paddock…

Life next to industrial wind turbines is a living hell for far too many rural residents.

Practically incessant turbine-generated low-frequency noise and infra-sound drives neighbours nuts, preventing them from sleeping in – and otherwise enjoying the comforts of – their very own homes.

An Australian Court found long-term exposure to wind turbine noise to be a pathway to disease: Australian Court Finds Wind Turbine Noise Exposure a ‘Pathway to Disease’: Waubra Foundation Vindicated

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…

Electricity generation started off as an extension of science. These days, it’s all about vanity and virtue signalling. Not least those millions of shiny solar panels, which we’ve all helped subsidise – to allow our neighbours to bask in their own virtuous glow.

At the theoretical level – when the sun is up and the sky is cloud free – solar panels are generating electricity around 6.5 hours a day (on average). During their most virtuous cycle, they’re dispatching power back into the grid, and reducing their owner’s power bills (attracting feed in tariffs multiples greater than the value of the electricity itself – initially some states were paying figures in the order of $540 per MWh – coal-fired power costs less than $40).

Those without panels pick up the tab for the subsidies gifted to their neighbours (whether in the form of feed in tariffs or renewable energy certificates)…

Only the most delusional climate alarmist still believes that wind and solar power can help in their global crusade against carbon dioxide gas.

As we have said repeatedly, nuclear power is the only stand-alone power generation source which is capable of delivering power on demand, without CO2 emissions being generated in the process.

Perversely, notwithstanding that Australia is in the top 3 uranium exporters, it’s the only G20 country with a legislated prohibition on nuclear power generation.

The French use nuclear power to generate around 75% of their electricity and they pay around half of what it costs retail customers in wind ‘powered’ South Australia. Anyone claiming nuclear power is expensive, clearly haven’t been paying attention.

A bit over in September 2017, we reported on one of America’s leading eco-warriors, Michael Shellenberger and his road to Damascus moment. Michael has turned on wind and solar with a passion, and is among…

Bill Shorten: ready to swing 50% RET wrecking ball.

Australia’s renewable energy policy is already a disaster. But Labor’s Bill Shorten promises total catastrophe with his National 50% RET.

In yesterday’s post, STT picked up on economic analysis put forward by Dr Brian Fisher, which provided a wake-up call to Australians.

The economic cost of current so-called ‘climate and energy policy’ is in the tens of billions, in terms of reduced growth, lower incomes and higher unemployment.

Should Bill Shorten snatch government come May, his Labor/Green Alliance will introduce a giant carbon tax (aka a mandated cap on carbon dioxide emissions) along with a 50% RET – ie the same policy that throttled South Australia and turned it into an international laughingstock.

On that scenario, the economic cost will be in the hundreds of $billions and the results from blue-collar workers (once championed by the ALP) will be an…

Bill Shorten: pledges total economic destruction with 50% RET.

Australia’s energy policy reads more like a Greek tragedy. An obsession with wind and solar has left Australians with rocketing power prices and an unstable grid.

Renewable energy rent seekers have profited (obscenely) from the greatest government mandated wealth transfer in history: $70,000,000,000 worth of subsidies and soft loans will be thrown at wind and large-scale solar over the life of the Federal government’s Large-Scale Renewable Energy Target.

Starting in 2002, South Australia led the charge with its very own 50% RET. Infamous for the only statewide blackout in Australian history, mass power cuts and the highest power prices in the world – perversely, SA is still held up as Australia’s renewable energy capital. High praise indeed!

With a Federal election set for May, all eyes are on what happens next in the energy domain.

The current Coalition (Liberal/National) government…

The idea that one day soon we’ll all be powered by sunshine and breezes is infantile nonsense. No modern economy has ever powered itself entirely with wind and solar power. Still, we’re continually berated with the notion that our ‘transition’ to all wind and sun powered future is ‘inevitable’.

In reality, the only thing that is ‘inevitable’ are routine, sudden collapses in wind power output and sunset. As to the former, see above the total output from South Australia’s 1,929 MW of wind power capacity on 24 January, a day when power prices went through the roof ($14,500 per MWh – instead of the $50 that a coal-fired plant can deliver at a profit) and 30,000 households were left sweltering in the dark.

Step back for a moment and consider that the wind and solar industries have received hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies over the last…

No country has ever powered itself entirely using wind and solar, no country ever will. Andrew Cuomo appears to think that New York State can defy the laws of nature, physics and economics. The Governor is ready to trash his State’s reliable and affordable electricity supply, claiming he can replace it with a ‘system’ powered by nature’s wonder fuels.

As if examples like South Australia, Germany and Denmark aren’t enough – RE ‘superpowers’ that pay the world’s highest power prices – New York’s Governor, attempting to defy the odds, reckons he can deliver an all wind and sun powered future at no extra cost to his constituents.

As Norman Rogers points out, New Yorkers should prepare themselves for a world of rocketing power prices and an unstable grid.

New York State and Renewables
American Thinker
Norman Rogers
12 January 2019

New York State’s population is shrinking.  In the year ending on…

Bill says it’s time to stop jerking around with wind & solar.

When the world’s richest entrepreneur says wind and solar will never work, it’s probably time to listen.

Bill Gates made a fortune applying common sense to the untapped market of home computing. The meme has it that IBM’s CEO believed there was only a market for five computers in the entire world. Gates thought otherwise. Building a better system than any of his rivals and shrewdly working the marketplace, resulted in hundreds of millions hooked on PCs, Windows and Office. This is a man that knows a thing or two about systems and a lot about what it takes to satisfy the market.

For almost a century, electricity generation and distribution were treated as a tightly integrated system: it was designed and built as one, and is meant to operate as designed. However, the chaotic delivery of wind…

Keen to pay ridiculous amounts for power in an act of pointless vanity? – get your town to go 100% wind & solar. Georgetown, Texas did and its 71,000 citizens are paying a heavy price.

Despite the hype, the town isn’t being exclusively powered by sunshine and breezes; quietly and ever so hypocritically the town continues to tap into Texas’s gas and nuclear powered grid – whenever the sun sets and/or calm weather sets in.

Worse still, no doubt feeling shortchanged on the promise of their ‘virtuous’ all wind and solar future, the folk in Georgetown are being walloped with power prices multiples greater than their neighbours.

Seven years ago, when it all began, a former presidential hopeful had applauded Georgetown’s push for ‘moral’ supremacy. However, these days though its residents must now appreciate what it feels like to be thoroughly ‘Gored’.

Texas town’s environmental narcissism makes Al Gore happy…