Adding wind turbines to a power grid is like pushing on string; the effort applied rarely matches the output at the other end of the line.
Australia has one the world’s largest interconnected grids, covering Queensland, NSW, ACT, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia – with wind turbines plastered far and wide across every one of those States (save ACT). And yet, there are numerous occasions when the entire 7,728 MW of wind power capacity connected to that grid is delivering less than 5% of that capacity, and plenty of occasions when its fleet of whirling wonders struggles to produce 2% of its notional capacity: Dead Calm: Australia’s Wind ‘Industry’ Suffering From Prolonged Wind ‘Drought’
Pathetic, costly and pointless.
While ideologues continue to wax lyrical about an all wind and sun powered future, those gifted with logic, reason and a little arithmetic beg to differ. One of them is Donn Dears. Here he is spelling it out in clear and simple terms.
It’s Time to Abandon Wind Power
Power for USA
Don Dears
21 July 2020
Adding more wind turbines to the grid merely replaces lower cost methods for generating electricity.
Every new wind turbine built this year is totally unnecessary.
The consumption of electricity is forecast to decline in 2020.
Actually the growth rate for electricity consumption for the past ten years has been nearly zero, and this means that virtually every new wind turbine added to the grid since 2010 has been a waste of money.
But it’s worse than that. Every new wind turbine added to the grid has resulted in higher costs for the consumer, because the coal-fired and nuclear power plants displaced by wind turbines produced electricity at a lower cost.
This is the real result of adding wind to the grid.
It’s time to stop adding wind turbines to the grid.
The cost of electricity produced by wind turbines is greater than the cost of producing electricity using natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power plants.
The EIA is misleading Americans when they say that the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) from wind is the same as from NGCC power plants.
Even if that were true, which it isn’t, the use of increasingly large amounts of wind requires the use of storage … and storage costs a great deal of money.
There is no way that wind lowers the cost of electricity for Americans. Instead, it increases the cost for every American.
In addition, wind is unreliable. No one can accurately predict when the wind will blow.
Wind turbines don’t generate electricity until the wind is at least 6 mph, and the wind turbine must be shut down when the wind speed is greater than 55 mph.
Not only that, but wind turbines must be shut down when there are severe freezing conditions.
The net result is that wind is unreliable and must have storage to back it up.
Cost is also increased because the best wind for wind turbines is located a thousand miles from where it’s needed, or off shore where bringing it to the grid is expensive. New, very expensive transmission lines must be built to bring the electricity to where it is used.
The cost of unnecessary transmission lines, especially those that are under water, aren’t included in LCOE calculations, but every American must pay for those unnecessary new transmission lines.
Wind turbines are expensive to build. It costs $2,000 per KW to build a new wind turbine, while it only costs $1,000 to build a new NGCC power plant.
The wind turbine will have to be replaced after 20 years, while the NGCC power plant can operate for 60 years.
What’s even worse is that the capacity factor (CF) for on-shore wind has been 30% or less, and with the newer larger units it could be around 35%. But the CF for a NGCC power plant is around 87%.
As a result, the NGCC power plant produces more than twice as much electricity as does a wind turbine over the year.
It’s long past the time since we should have abandoned wind turbines.
They are expensive, unreliable, need costly storage or backup, and generate only small amounts of electricity.
Power for USA
STOP THESE THINGS 
Due to the significant involvement of the ‘renewable’ energy industry in indoctrinating many members of the media it can be difficult for people to know exactly what is happening to our energy systems.
A classic report by someone who appears to be one of the indoctrinated was in today’s Adelaide Advertiser – “In another sign of the irreversible change to the electricity system, South Australia’s biggest power supplier, AGL, will install the first big battery system inside Adelaide city area…” Firstly it should be noted that while he (Chris Russell), states it will be in Adelaide City this is actually not true though he does go onto quote AGL stating where it will be installed – on Torrens Island which is not in Adelaide City, but on an island long used as a site for the states energy production facilities, closer to Port Adelaide than Adelaide itself.
Of course this could be seen as another manipulation of the truth, as it would make it appear these massive batteries are safe enough to be installed within the city of Adelaide and not out in a country area where there are fewer worries about people’s safety.
AGL itself continues with its fluffy indoctrination spiel in the report by saying how it is to be used to store excess energy for when it is needed.
This is quite strange as when the first ‘big’ battery was installed in SA which was the first in the Nation it was to smooth flow energy to help stop the ‘spiking’ of the system which causes interruptions to energy supply, and can create a situation where the Grid is tripped and shuts down. At that time it was said it could supply energy for a few hours if needed – but this was soundly shown to be an exaggeration.
What these batteries do is hide the shameful truth that Wind energy cannot be relied on, all it can do is blow – and that is intermittent due to natural forces beyond the control of human beings. Of course no matter how many ‘big’ batteries you install they cannot be refilled if the Turbines are not turning due to a lack of that natural thing called WIND or as it is most of the time a gentle breeze.
Over the past few weeks along the Eastern Grid there have been times when there has been so little wind other sources of energy production such as gas in SA, and coal in Victoria, NSW and Queensland have continued to keep the system going. by increasing their output.
‘Irreversible’ – goodness I hope not because if we have come to this then we have come to the end of life as we know it and back to the dark ages.
All nations should be afraid of the way in which indoctrination by the ‘Renewable’ energy Industrialists has become accepted – accepted without comment – do our Political leaders realise what is happening or are they happy to go along with handing the way we live and do business to these self indulgent money grabbers.
Do they accept that handing over to these people such an important aspect of our lives means we and our so called leaders no longer have any control on what happens to ANY aspect of our Governance. Do they not realise that controlling energy supply is the most power way to control the people, industry and the way of life of any nation.
It’s a matter of unlearning the lessons learned by our wise ancestors more than two centuries ago. One of my eighteenth century ancestors is a case in point, he tired of the unreliable “wind engine” used to pump water from one of his mines and opted to replace it with one of those new steam pumps.
The rest is history, the betterment of humanity through plentiful reliable power. The wind cult now demands we unlearn that lesson and return humanity to the feudal dark ages.
I wish Don’s excellent article would find its way to a larger audience. Sigh. This message just isn’t getting any time in the major media. They continue to toe the “green” line. Almost as if they’re paid to do so…
All of which makes many of us in Scotland wonder why they continue to build windfarms so far from where the energy is needed resulting in huge constraints payments – nearly £760m. to date – and the destruction of so much of the Highlands. Shetland is probably the worst example in Scotland and the furthest north – see http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/#Scotland