Gas against wind

Thanks Fred for sending me this. Real environmentalists of course, by real I mean ones who look at science to help protect the environment, are on the endangered species list, being replaced by anti-corporate leftists, union thugs I grow more and more to suspect are on the Iranian payroll and crypto-enviornmentalist groups who are in the pay of the Saudis to make sure that there are no real options except for fossil fuels produced in Saudi Arabia.

Only a part of the article is here. Please click the link below for the whole thing.

From The Rational Optimist:

Here’s an article I wrote for this week’s Spectator about UK energy policy. Wind must give way to gas before it ruins us all, and our landscapes.

Which would you rather have in the view from your house? A thing about the size of a domestic garage, or eight towers twice the height of Nelson’s column with blades noisily thrumming the air. The energy they can produce over ten years is similar: eight wind turbines of 2.5-megawatts (working at roughly 25% capacity) roughly equal the output of an average Pennsylvania shale gas well (converted to electricity at 50% efficiency) in its first ten years.

Difficult choice? Let’s make it easier. The gas well can be hidden in a hollow, behind a hedge. The eight wind turbines must be on top of hills, because that is where the wind blows, visible for up to 40 miles. And they require the construction of new pylons marching to the towns; the gas well is connected by an underground pipe.

Unpersuaded? Wind turbines slice thousands of birds of prey in half every year, including white-tailed eagles in Norway, golden eagles in California, wedge-tailed eagles in Tasmania. There’s a video on Youtube of one winging a griffon vulture in Crete. According to a study in Pennsylvania, a wind farm with eight turbines would kill about a 200 bats a year. The pressure wave from the passing blade just implodes the little creatures’ lungs. You and I can go to jail for harming bats or eagles; wind companies are immune.

Still can’t make up your mind? The wind farm requires eight tonnes of an element called neodymium, which is produced only in Inner Mongolia, by boiling ores in acid leaving lakes of radioactive tailings so toxic no creature goes near them.

Not convinced? The gas well requires no subsidy – in fact it pays a hefty tax to the government – whereas the wind turbines each cost you a substantial add-on to your electricity bill, part of which goes to the rich landowner whose land they stand on. Wind power costs three times as much as gas-fired power. Make that nine times if the wind farm is offshore. And that’s assuming the cost of decommissioning the wind farm is left to your children – few will last 25 years.

Decided yet? I forgot to mention something. If you choose the gas well, that’s it, you can have it. If you choose the wind farm, you are going to need the gas well too. That’s because when the wind does not blow you will need a back-up power station running on something more reliable. But the bloke who builds gas turbines is not happy to build one that only operates when the wind drops, so he’s now demanding a subsidy, too.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

6 Replies to “Gas against wind”

  1. Of course OPEC is funding the anti hydrocarbon (I don’t believe in the fossil origin) drive within the Western lands. Whenever I see that pig King Abdullah or that smelly ape Chavez, I see them writing checks for the eco fascists. It’s so obvious.

  2. The enviro movement started with good intentions, and was necessary at the time. I remember when two rivers caught fire and burned for days before they went out, I remember when fish from the Missouri and Mississippi rivers couldn’t be eaten because of the pollution. Now the rivers are clean and so is the air, but the enviro movement is still pushing for more regulation, first because the USSR use to infiltrate and fund them and now because other left wing groups as well as the Saudi’s fund them. I don’t know off hand how many times a Democrat has said that the Republicans want to poison us with dirty air and water. Part of the people saying this don’t believe it but want to further their own power, and part of the people saying this are so dumb they believe their own propaganda.

  3. Don’t forget the endless *Whup* *Whup* *Whup* *Whup* sound these damn things make. You can hear them for miles.

  4. And the fact that without government subsidies they cost more to build then the electricity can be sold for.

  5. Unless the West have their own gas, I think it is unwise to import gas from the east. I think reducing our gas usage will enhance the quality of our life. Anyway, gas is not a better alternative to anything. I hated it, if we are forced to use the gas just because it is cheaper, even though it is more inconvenient and more dangerous.

  6. The west has a lot of gas, the problem is the left in the form of the environmentalists (green on the outside but red on the inside) who are stopping us from developing our own resources. If we were allowed to drill and open new refineries North America would be energy self sufficient. The left doesn’t want us energy self sufficient, they want us dependent on foreign oil and they want the prices high to prevent the west from remaining strong. As far as they are concerned the wrong side won the Cold War and they are working hard to correct what they see as a major mistake and disaster.