It’s all about the costs, stupid

WARNING: to the mentally challenged, greentards and eco-fascists THIS SITE CONTAINS HUMOUR.

HUMOUR including but not limited to “SATIRE”, “PARODY”, “IRONY” and good ol’ “SARCASM” – and, on occasions, extending to “RIDICULE” and “MOCKERY”.

IF YOU HAVE DIFFICULTY WITH ANY OF THESE CONCEPTS PLEASE SEEK ASSISTANCE FROM A GROWN UP OR, IF A GROWN UP FAILS, A MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL.

The warning above was prompted by this piece of wind industry backed drivel published in the Courier Mail earlier this week. STT readers, if you want to know what we are up against, this little effort provides a particularly sad example. Yes, they walk among us.

This piece of Martian waffle from the Courier Mail can be explained on the basis that the “pseudo-environmentalist” that put it together (if it wasn’t just a “rehash” of a Clean Energy Council Press Release?) clearly hasn’t bothered to read the STT posts he glosses over; if he has read them, he hasn’t understood them; he is suffering from SDD (satire deficit disorder); or he is thicker than a whale omelette?

STT’s “revelation” that IWTs are really WMDs was what is called down at the pub a “piss-take” at the expense of “Prowind” who claimed in response to a video on our post “Life in the Throw Zone” that wind turbine owners are “purposely” causing their turbines to self-destruct. STT is now aware that “Prowind” is an AGL employee from Macarthur – hence his claim that “this is NEVER going to happen at Macarthur”.

Anyone of even moderate intelligence would have picked up that we were taking the Mickey – but not the intellectual giants employed by the Courier Mail. But we note that story – IWTs or WMDs? – also covers the fact that several workers have been killed by collapsing and exploding turbines – no laughing matter. But for the true eco-fascist what’s a few corpses here and there on a way to “save” the Planet, hey?

Anyway, we digress.

We have been banging on about power prices, which to 30 something journos still living at home with mum and dad are no real “biggy”, as they say.

We’ve covered the derisory output of the totality of Australian windfarms in NSW, SA, Victoria, and Tasmania (all connected to the Eastern Grid) in our exposé of the wind industry furphy that the wind has ceased to be intermittent.

We’ve looked at wind power driven price punishment in Germany here and here and in South Australia here and here.

Well here’s a little piece that sets out just why SA has the highest power prices in the World.

The greentard’s eyes have glazed over by this point, so to save them the trouble we’ll tell them the reason: SA has more wind turbines than any other State – 40% of its “installed capacity”, in fact.

The reason that SA’s windfarms have such a massive impact on prices is the fact the wind really is intermittent and when it stops for hours at a time the “missing megawatts” all have to come from “peaking power plants” which cost 3-4 times what base-load thermal does.

So greentards – here’s the STT challenge.

READ these 2 articles here and here (be WARNED the second contains SATIRE and SARCASM)

COMPREHEND them (this may require the assistance of a Grown Up – or, preferably, someone with an Economics, Law or Maths Degree)

ANALYZE them (see above)

FORM A LOGICAL ARGUMENT TO THE CONTRARY (see above)

WRITE A PIECE WHICH REFUTES THE FOLLOWING (see above):

1. the fact that wind power is unreliable and intermittent

2. the fact that when the wind stops blowing the shortfall is supplied by fossil fuel generators

3. by reason of 1 and 2 above, the fact that every MW of installed wind farm capacity has to be continually backed up with a MW of fossil fuel generating capacity (or at least 90% thereof)

4. the fact that power prices reflect the inbuilt cost of the REC (see a grown up);

5. the fact that power prices in SA are the highest in the World by reason of the above and by reason of the fact it has 40% of its installed capacity in wind turbines

6. and, by reason of 1 to 3 above, that wind farms cannot and will never reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If you are having a mind melt down with this proposition read the articles and papers that appear here, here and here.

Now, we know our challenge carries risks, just like letting the “littlelys” play with the sharp scissors at kindy, but we are sure that, with proper assistance, a human being of moderate intelligence can handle it. When we say “proper assistance” we mean from people other than the Clean Energy Council.

And by the way the “serial ratbag, radio demagogue and leader of the rent-a-rage crowd, Alan Jones”, as the Courier Mail calls him, has well over 400,000 regular listeners each morning – all of them grown ups, who vote. Which, in STT’s view, compares rather well with the Courier Mail’s dwindling circulation of 170,000.

Oh and a tip to the Courier Mail’s HR department – hire humans, not muppets.

WARNING: to the mentally challenged, greentards and eco-fascists THIS POST – being all of the writing and pictures on it – CONTAINS HUMOUR, namely SATIRE, SARCASM & MOCKERY.