Wind turbines pose a threat not just to bats, birds and bedtime, but also Buicks, buildings and babies.
By some miracle luck, no one was killed. This wind turbine was installed two weeks ago…
Coming soon: insurance premiums to rise in car parks under turbines, and real estate values to fall. Children’s car seats to be reinforced with 6ft thick titanium shells.
Presumably Al Gore and the member for Warringah will dismiss the risk and plan to build one in their own backyards.
Repeat after me: Wind energy is free and there are no hidden costs from installing gigatons of infrastructure across the country to catch low-density random unreliable energy.
This vertical axis turbine may not have been fitted with a brake so no limit to its rotational speed. If it had a brake then it was not effective.
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What did that turbine actually power? A single street light?
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bemused:
The video showed that the turbine was a vertical axis type, presumably a Darrieus type.
The damage seems to me to be from a piece of the vertical support pole. Raises questions about the design.
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so that is now 5 questions:
1. who thought it was a good idea?
2. who issued building consents for it?
3. who installed it?
4. who inspected it and signed it off?
and now:
5. who designed the thing?
so I’ll push it up to 7:
6. Was it insured?
7. who gets sued?
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Let’s have these surrounding Parliament Houses in all cities.
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🙂
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😀
… and carefully sited so they are visible from the debating chambers, and, if that’s not possible, so their noise and vibrations are at their worst in the debating chambers!
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That’s not a turbine, it’s a badly fitted bullbar!
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Pity it wasn’t a Tesla!
Now that would have made my day!
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Temperature in New York is close to freezing. Teslas do not like to go out in the cold:
It appears Tesla owners have a good reason for not showing up to work on a cold day providing the employer is also a climate worrier.
Batteries rely on chemical reaction. Reaction dynamics drop dramatically with falling temperature. Batteries are usually rated at 25C. The energy density of a lithium battery drops to about 50% of rating at -20C.
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It shows how dumb Tesla owners are if they do not realise the effect of cold weather on batteries and the fact that if they use the heater they will drain the battery in no time.
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The rule of thumb is reaction rate doubles for each ten degree Celsius rise in temperature; optimal at 25 degrees, half as good at fifteen, quarter as good at five, down to one thirty-second at minus twenty-five –definitely undriveable at minus 20°C; surely there’ll be a rethink about legislating internal combustion engines out of existence by 2040 considering that appears to be plumb in the middle of the coming little ice age.
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Shshshsh!
Not so loud! Not so loud!
I’ll be waiting for the anvils to drop after the really cold times hit. Then I’ll really poke really acidic borax.
Don’t spoil it by warning the prats too early!
Pollies with ear to ear egg all over their faces are a rare enough sight as it is, but with such an approaching opportunity to really cover their faces, let’s not let our cats out of their bags just yet …
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Rick, reduction in battery efficiency as the temperature drops will not be a problem in the future. AGW will prevent temperature drops. /sarc
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We could always put it around that lighting the battery — to keep it warm — will make it perform better … 😀
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I wonder if the turbine crashed because of an out of control Tesla 🙂
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At least we can be thankful for one thing eh!
Those wind plants we already have here in Australia won’t be affected by the bushfires. They have to clear all the land flat to install them in the first place.
And hey, let’s see if wind power can pull its weight, you know, replace coal fired power.
(And for the purpose of this exercise, let’s use the cost for Macarthur Wind plant here as the guide for replacement cost, and that’s $1.2 Billion for 420MW nameplate.)
There are 55 wind plants here in Australia.
Wind Power has a current Nameplate of 6702MW.
That’s around 3600 of those individual wind towers.
The total power delivered for the last year, (Jan 1st to Dec 31st) came in at 16770GWH, so wind power delivered 8.2% of all the generated power. This was at an operational Capacity Factor for the year of 29.67%. (The Nameplate for wind changed six times during the year with the addition of new wind plants)
So 55 wind plants with 3600 wind towers delivered lass power than the ONE coal fired power plant at Bayswater. (17500GWH)
So with a Nameplate of 6702MW and Macarthur costing $1.2 Billion then the (equivalent) cost in today’s dollars comes in at $19.15 Billion, and with wind only lasting half the life of coal fired power, that makes $38.3 Billion ….. and you still haven’t equalled the output of that one large scale coal fired plant, and in reference back to what Joanne mentions in the text of her Post, Wind power doesn’t look all that free to me.
Incidentally, note how we are being told that we need to reduce our power consumption into the future. Well, it’s actually rising.
Tony.
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G’day Tony,
I think you’re a bit optimistic about wind farms being safe from bushfires. I reckon that might be true if their surrounds are well manicured regularly, but if a raging grass fire went through who”s going to put it out?
No plane will go close and ground based units would be at risk from falling bits, so will probably have to stay away until it’s safe.
Cheers
Dave B
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Wind farms start bushfires don’t they ?
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Infigen wind farms in Oz have to date caused 2 major bushfires, burning out thousands of hectares, destroying farm buildings and homes and killing livestock.
Infigen was on the wrong end of a class action brought by land owners burnt out in the NSW Currandooley fire of Jan 2017 on the southern tablelands, plus they had a previous fire in SA.
It’s OK though: at a public enquiry an Infigen rep told the officials that wind turbine gearbox oil is non-flammable.
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beowulf:
Did they say the gearbox oil is non-flammable UNDER OATH?
To quote W.E.Smith “there can be no defence and the damages will be enormous”.
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Off topic but it’s alarming…to me anyway…to look at the huge tracts of Australia Bob Brown’s ‘charity’ the Bush Heritage Foundation now owns… the question being whether we’re going to have our country still after this coming decade.
This one entity owns a huge and strategic portion of Australia it seems to me…when you look at it on their map.
https://www.bushheritage.org.au/places-we-protect
I’m wondering if anyone knows the status of it.
Eg… can this entity just give all this land holus bolus to the Aboriginal groups they claim to partner with for a grand noble pose…..or can they sell it to just anyone from anywhere….possibly creating a country within our country?
It seems to me as though they’re building a massive collective ….a Socialist Collective with ownership of huge tracts of Australia…that could put the rest of Australia at huge risk….an attack on Australian sovereignty from within.
Am I being paranoid …is it more benign than I think?
Depends on the title they hold over it all I guess…anyone know?
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Hmmm, I wonder what their fire management plans look like.
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Even if we did replace all our coal fired power stations with wind farms what are the crazy left going to do about all the other coal fired power stations around the world and the hundreds of new ones still to be built? Are they going to admit that it was all for nothing? Of course not. The left will go to the next level and tell us we have to kill most of our animal stock. At what point should our government come out and tell these crazy leftists to go jump or if they continue to peddle their scam they ought to be arrested?
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It’s our coal production and trade they really want to shut down….more than any others.
They know that if they’re ever going to shut down coal worldwide they’re going to have to end Australia’s extraction and sale…because it’s Australian cleaner coal that the big buyers China, India and Japan want.
Once they shut down the Australian coal industry…the UN would form and enforce a UN EU consumer cartel to prohibit purchase of coal…and that would shut down the rest of the trade ..except for US coal which would be shut down by US State Governors anyway.
The plan was all laid out in Hans Werner Sinn’s The Green Paradox….he calls it Super-Kyoto and it entails the UN appropriating the fossil fuel deposits of resource countries by forcing those countries to leave them in the ground…the UN becoming the virtual owner of the fossil fuels.
He says the appropriation must be done by stealth ..because the paradox is that if resource countries know such action could be coming…more fossil fuels will be extracted and sold at a faster rate than otherwise in order for buyers to get hold of it before the chop and sellers to make it pay before it becomes a stranded asset.
At the moment …since 2015….it’s our own government that’s doing the job for the poobahs of the EU/UN…along with Australian Socialist activist groups like Market Forces… with their nefarious international connections.
Market Forces has just in recent weeks bragged about their success in using activist shareholders to force insurance orgs like SunCorp…..the last to succumb, they claim…to end all insurance cover to any coal-related companies.
Similar activists and the Greens have done the same with banks and finance for coal…causing the vital risk premium to be placed on coal investment …the risk premium that makes it possible tho not plausible for the RE racket to claim their intermittents are cheaper than coal.
MPs must all know this is engineered by Socialist vested interests…yet almost all of them allow the lie …that intermittents are now cheaper than coal…to prevail even while they force us to massively fund the subsidies and props that RE must have to be dispatchable at all.
IMO we have a totally derelict Government [except for the conservative few] and Opposition…that are forcing Australia out on a dangerous limb.
No other government in the world is harming its people as these politicians are.
I wonder if they’ve thought of how it might be if Australia is the only country in the world where all systems collapse because ….stuck with the world’s ONLY 100% weather-dependent intermittent electricity system…having killed off all baseload electricity that’s powered this country cheaply and reliably for all our lives….. they can’t provide the reliable secure electricity the internet and everything that totally depends on it must have.
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A follow on youtube from the Lake Cajola film was instructive about the way in which turbine blades deteriorate due to erosion of the leading edge. Such events as hailstorms and dusty air begin the delamination process which further reduces the blades efficiency. The result is that the design life of turbines is reduced so your calculations probably should be downgraded making coal or nuclear plants comparatively so much cheaper to build.
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I am watching the news and they are reporting on the mass evacuations from fire danger areas. T
Power has been cut and they are trying to get generators so the petrol pumps can operate. They are also trucking is additional petrol
I am yet to hear from anyone who has been demanding we move to electric cars en masse. Had everyone been in EVs, how many would not be able to get out, and how woul EV emergency response vehicles be coping?
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William you might be surprised to hear that there was naff all difference in EV policy between the Libs and Bill Shorten.
Unfortunately for the Lino and labor greens most of Australia is classed as remote or extremely remote and good luck getting charging points on remote tracks .
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EVs are predicated on CAGW …so its nonsense to start with….
So going to the cost to stick a charging station out on the Birdsville track is the pinnacle of stupid….
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Fire thread posted just now. Check out the video of Lake Conjola. Lordy. What a mess.
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My profile picture is Balmoral in Sydney. The other day I went to Balmoral in the Southern Highlands. The loss and tragedy is dreadful.
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Despite the risks to life and health, wind turbines continue to be built at schools (for propaganda purposes you understand).
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Another successful fantasy catcher installation. It failed almost immediately rather than not delivering electricity in any useful quantity for years and then failing. The money “invested” is a total loss without any visible return. The price of electricity will have to be increased for at least 20 years to pay off the banks who lent the money to build it. Their plan is working to perfection. They get the money and you get the bill. What could have been built with the money invested will not be built nor can it be built for that 20 years.
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I love that term “fantasy catcher” but can think of another “subsidy catcher” .
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How dare you!
There is nothing funny about failed UN doomsday global warming, unless you laugh at the sad sack climate zombies who believe
it is the rapture.
Check out this latest effort from the Chaser lads @abc …
youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=iSRTsQbW9qk&feature=emb_logo
For a laugh check the depressed doomsday sad sacks in the twitter comments:
https://twitter.com/chaser/status/1211862020821094402
No one thinks it is funny.
Perhaps I should provide a lifeline link for the believers.
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Whatever you do, don’t mention the fires.
Look, a windmill!
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Simon which one of the fires were started by climate change ?
Victoriastan have had two royal commissions into devasting bushfires and both found that prolonged drought and fuel loads were the two biggest factors , one also pointed to fires in the 1800’s had the same issue with prolonged drought .
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All of them
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Came the alcohol befuddled “reply”.
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Simon, there were posts on the bushfires on the 24th Dec, the 31st Dec, and the 1st of Jan. You made a similar hysterical comment over at WUWT today. You’re displaying classic signs of neurotic doom-obsession. It’s a bushfire season, we get them. Bad bushfire seasons occur several times per decade. Virtue-gesticulation does not actually change this, and nor will converting to unemployed communists loons who subsist on beetroot soup and scrummy UN Maggot-Burgersâ„¢.
Get a grip.
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Sorry Simon, I didn’t realize I was meant to replace the ABC as your news source?
Do you think skeptics have anything to hide regarding fires? We were the ones saying “fuel reduction” six years ago. We were the ones saying fires are a real threat but climate change isn’t. We are still the ones join the dots that your profs won’t join — that global warming causes more rain, that a the opposite of that causes droughts and heat, and that “CAGW driven climate change” has nothing to do with fires.
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OT but Chris Smith just exposed the Nowa Nowa cancelled planned burn because of green activists and with help from the ABC that have removed all trace of the story from their website .
Chris wants to know why the story was suddenly removed and who removed it .
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Ta. Posted. http://joannenova.com.au/2020/01/abc-deleting-facebook-posts-on-how-protesters-stop-prescribed-burns-more-worried-about-climate-change-than-wildfires/
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I went through the thread; the Australia-stupid, it burns. It’s sad to see stupid on such an industrial scale. Sop many [I know, it’s only Twitter which is comprised of people at the extremes of the Bell Curve] big-hearted and no-brained people without even a passing acquaintance with reason and logic.
BTW, this isn’t an attack on Australia-stupid, American-stupid and EU-stupid run just as deep.
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Take a look online at a photograph of a coal fired electricity generating plant.
Estimate how many wind turbines are needed to create the equivalent power, just ignore the need for storage batteries for the moment.
Estimate the land required to locate those turbines.
Compared with the area of the coal fired plant the turbines need much more land.
Coupled with the fact that engineering wise, the turbines are a design nightmare with massive moving vibrating parts, the idea that they are viable is absolutely Nutso.
They’re designed to fail, are expensive to run and so costly to decommission that owners simply abandon them when they inevitably fail.
The process of running wind turbines isn’t called “subsidy farming” for nothing.
But let’s forget about the VLF pulsing for a moment and focus on the real issue; the money.
The only purpose they serve is in virtue signalling to buy votes.
KK
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I think wind can work as an energy source. Not these three-blade atrocities. But other more humble designs. Just so long as wind is not tied to the grid. What I am always offended by is how undeveloped our hillside farms are. If you imagine a series of dams from the top of the hill to the bottom. And some sort of wind energy pump passively pumping the water from the bottom dam, which tends to fill, to the top dam which tends to empty, thats a pretty sound use of wind energy.
But then those of you from the crude Cato-institute version of libertarian thinking may be saying….. “Well thats up to the farmer.” Individual liberty. Individual responsibility. A lot of libertarian happy-talk. As you ignore banker welfarism. And our no-banker-left-behind policies. Its important to use a bit of imagination as to how things ought to be if there wasn’t so much market failure out there.
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Perhaps the next Greenpeace marketing campaign will feature windmills rather than polar bears falling out of the sky . At least that appears more realistic.
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The failed wind turbine in NY raises some interesting weather related side effects.
If it is really cold, the Gearbox has to be heated to keep the thing from self destruction.
If there is snow or freezing rain the blades have to be heated to prevent the turbine self destructing.
If the wind is too strong there has to be electrical power to apply the brakes to stop the turbine self destructing. What happens if that power is not available?
In short, the nameplate of a wind turbine is dependent upon an Electrical supply to keep the darn thing functioning.
Do the operators have to pay for that electricity, or is it a hidden cost of operation?
One could therefore say, Wind turbines provide ‘Free’ energy, but only under ideal conditions!
If the conditions are not ideal the ‘User pays’ is the operational hidden cost!
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Too bad it was not a Tesla, in woke New York, a wind turbine crushing an electric car, now that would be ironic.
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Think of the Buicks! Won’t somebody please think of the Buicks?
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