Wind Farm Scam, The [Paperback]

Good for John Etherington who, in this work, marshals relentless evidentiary support for his thesis that wind energy is a scam.

Indeed, industrial wind technology is a meretricious commodity, attractive in a superficial way but without real value--seemingly plausible, even significant but actually false and nugatory. Those who would profit from it either economically or ideologically are engaged in wholesale deception. For in contrast to their alluring but empty promises of closed coal plants and reduced carbon emissions is this reality: Wind energy is impotent while its environmental footprint is massive and malignant.

A wind project with a rated capacity of 100MW, for example, with 40 skyscraper-sized turbines, would likely produce an annual average of only 27MW, an imperceptible fraction of energy for most grid systems. More than 60% of the time, it would produce less than 27MW and, at peak times, often produce nothing. It would rarely achieve its rated capacity, producing most at times of least demand. Whatever it generated would be continuously skittering, intensifying, magnifying the destabilizing effects of demand fluctuations, for wind volatility is virtually indistinguishable from the phenomenon of people whimsically turning their appliances off and on.

Moreover, the project could never produce capacity value--specified amounts of energy on demand, something that should be anathema to regulatory agencies, with their task of ensuring reliable, secure, affordable electricity. The ability of machines to perform as expected on demand is the basis of modernity, underlying contemporary systems of economic growth, wealth creation and well-being. Machinery that doesn't do this is quickly discarded, although this wasn't the case for much of history (look at the early days of television or radio or even the automobile). Only in the last hundred years or so have has the West come to rely on machines with this standard. Capacity value allows society to go from pillar to post in accordance with its own schedule. Wind provides no capacity value and can pass no test for reliability; one can never be sure how much energy it will produce for any future time. And generating units that don't provide capacity value cannot be reasonably--and favorably--compared with those that do.

Adding wind instability to a grid may be an engineer's idea of job security. But for rate and taxpayers, and a better environment, it's criminal. For the grid is then forced to extend itself. As the wind bounces randomly around the system, operators must continuously balance it to match supply precisely with demand, compensating for the ebb and flow much in the way flippers keep the steel ball in play during a game of pinball. Windball expends a lot of energy. In real life on the most grids, more than 70% of any wind project's rated capacity must come from the flippers of reliable, flexible, fossil-fired generation, constantly turned up and back inefficiently to compensate for wind fluctuations. These inefficiencies will result in substantial carbon emissions. And increased consumer costs, as is the case anywhere wind is prevalent, such as in Denmark, Germany, Spain, California.

Yes, engineers can make-work by adding wind flux to the system. They can lead a horse to water; but they can't make it change its spots.... By its nature, wind will require lots of whips and whistles, even at small levels of penetration, in ways that will negate the very reason for its being. This is why people quickly switched to steam 200 years ago. Retrofitting modern technology to meet the needs of ancient wind flutter is monumentally backasswards, a sure sign that pundits and politicians, not scientists, are now in charge. It would take more than a smart grid to incorporate such a dumb idea successfully.

Because of wind's unpredictable variability, it can never replace the capacity of conventional generation. Twenty-five hundred 450-foot wind turbines, spread over five hundred miles, can mathematically offset a large coal or nuclear plant; but they cannot do so functionally--for what must happen when 5000MW of volatile wind is only producing 100MW at peak demand times, a common occurrence?

This business is absurd. The whole point of modern power systems has been to move beyond the flickering flutter of variable energy sources. Prostituting modern power performance to enable subprime energy schemes on behalf of half-baked technology is immoral. As is implementing highly regressive tax avoidance "incentives" to make it appear that pigs can fly. No coal plants will be shuttered and little, if any, carbon emissions will be reduced as a result of this project--or thousands of them.

Indeed, wind technology mirrors the subprime mortgage scams that wreaked havoc with the American economy. Both are enabled by wishful thinking; bogus projections; no accounting restraints, accountability, or transparency; no meaningful securitization; and regulatory agencies that looked the other way, allowing a few to make a great deal of money at everyone else's expense while providing no meaningful service.

Industrial wind projects will clearcut hundreds of acres, if placed on forested ridges. Even small 100MW wind facilities would hover for miles over sensitive terrain, threatening vulnerable species while mocking endangered species protections--and scenic highways strictures. They will cause unlawful noise for miles downrange. They will devalue properties in the area as much as 50%, if they could sell at all. Dynamiting will threaten wells and aquifers. Out-of-region workers would perform most of the temporary construction jobs and only one or two permanent jobs would result, at modest wages. There would be little value added revenue. Claims about local tax revenues would be typically unsubstantiated and unsecured.

There is little that is cognitively more dissonant than supporting the concept of minimizing the human footprint on the earth while cheerleading for the rude intrusiveness of physically massive/energy feckless wind projects. The slap and tickle of wind propaganda flatters the gullible, exploits the well intentioned, and nurtures the craven. It is made possible because there's no penalty for lying in the energy marketplace. The country has evidently arrived at a point in its legal culture where no negative consequences seem to exist for making false or misleading claims to sell wind energy--the stuff dreams are made of. But industrial wind is a bunco scheme of enormous consequence. And, as Etherington concludes, people who value intellectual honesty should not quietly be fleeced by such mendacity, even from their government.

This superb book shows the extreme folly of relying on wind power for reliable electricity supply.

In November 2008, the Minister for Energy and Climate Change said that gas-fired and coal-fired electricity cost £50 per megawatt hour (MWh) to generate and nuclear power cost £38. By contrast, offshore wind cost £92, onshore wind £72.

To keep the uneconomic option of wind power alive, the government has made us all pay huge hidden subsidies, through our electricity bills, to wind power companies. As the 2003 Energy White Paper admitted, "We have ... introduced a Renewables Obligation for England and Wales in April 2002. This will incentivize generators to supply progressively higher levels of renewable energy over time. The cost is met through higher prices to consumers. ... By 2010, it is estimated that this support and Climate Change Levy exemption will be worth around £1 billion a year to the UK renewables industry."

Yet by 2007, Britain's 2,400 wind turbines generated just 1.3 per cent of our electricity, and even this paltry supply was not reliable. The 2008 House of Lords Select Committee on The Economics of Renewable Energy said, "To make up for its intermittency ... back-up conventional plant will be essential to guarantee supply when required, to compensate for wind's very low capacity credit. Wind generation should be viewed largely as additional capacity to that which will need to be provided, in any event, by more reliable means; and the evidence suggests that its full costs, although declining over time, remain significantly higher than those of conventional or nuclear generation."

So wind power cannot replace coal, gas, oil or nuclear - it depends on them `to guarantee supply when required'. Wind power won't even save CO2 emissions. As Etherington points out, "the Government's own figure for saving of CO2 emission by renewables power generation, mainly wind, is just 9.2 million tonnes per year by 2010 ... This is less than the emission from a medium sized coal fired power station."

Wind farms also harm the environment, spoiling our landscapes and killing large numbers of birds and bats.

Given the controversial nature of this topic, the first thing to establish is the credentials of the author. Dr John Etherington was Reader in Ecology at the University of Wales, Cardiff until retirement in 1990. He is also a Thomas Huxley medalist (Royal College of Science), and a former editor of the Journal of Ecology.

He asserts that climate scares and EU targets drive the industry. Even basic independent research into the EU funding of wind power and enthusiasm for carbon taxes will back this up. Part of the EU agenda is to create a common power `super grid' using wind power as a Trojan horse to force change. In conjunction with EU 20/20 legislation and energy targets, Tony Blair bound the UK to energy and greenhouse gas reduction targets which may mean the UK will be forced to join a future European `supergrid' to prevent blackouts.

The 'ABS Windpower Report' (2006) noted that 'Wind power has been promoted for politico/environmental reasons and wind developers have benefited from substantial subsidies, leading to exaggerated claims. A reality check is needed.' (p.152) The frightening conclusion is that the UK will be at the mercy of European power supply if we join such a grid. Leaving the EU will be made economically highly dangerous and damaging for us if this occurs.

However, this in no way states the real objection to wind power, whether with modern generators or not. Wind power simply cannot supply predictable and reliable energy to the national grid: the reason being that the wind stops and starts, and sometimes blows too hard. Unless the wind is just right, there is no power generated. The electricity cannot be stored and must be used as produced and supplied to the grid, thus making grid regulation more complex, and in some cases dangerously unstable. Power generation does not cut in above a wind speed of about 10mph, and is cut off in gales and storms as the rotors may fail and the generator be damaged. Even so, wind generators may be blown over in storms.

Even worse, as wind power stops and starts, all wind power WHICH IS RELIED ON must be backed up by equivalent conventional power stations kept on standby - these are gas and coal-fired stations normally. Blackouts in Spain and the USA have occurred where this has not been the case (p.68). Of course, where the wind generators are NOT RELIED ON but are merely cosmetic there is no need to cover their output with stand-by power. This problem is one which the manufacturers of wind generators in Denmark, Germany, and elsewhere are always quiet about. So, where we bring more and more wind generators online in Europe, we ensure that more and more conventional power stations will be kept idle, just waiting for a lull in the wind over Europe.

Wind power is very expensive to build and run. This extra cost is hidden by the legalised RO (Renewables Obligation) subsidy, and tax breaks which are added to every electricity bill in Britain. The enthusiasm of the UK government is seen in that the Exchequer actually benefits from the 'green' tax of renewables collected by the 'Non-Fossil Purchasing Agency', and has done since at least 2005. Some is used to promote renewable energy, the rest goes into the general Consolidated Fund (p.150), estimated at about an extra £1 billion in 2010. The UK wind power excess cost per household per year was over £80 in 2008 (p.81)

Wind power does very little to reduce emission of CO2, the reason it was initially pushed. The amount it does save is grossly exaggerated by its proponents. Whether manmade CO2 is bad, or even significant as a greenhouse gas, is a moot point in science. The visual impact on the landscape reduces tourism, damaging jobs and income in areas such as Wales, where tourism contributes about 7% of GDP. A Spanish study found that the huge EU subsidies given to create 'green' jobs such as wind power destroys 2.2 existing jobs by displacement per 'green' job created (p.147).

The irrational and deceitful 'green' opposition propaganda to nuclear power in the UK is one of the reasons people are afraid to oppose wind power. France gets 80% of its electricity from nuclear power and has a superb safety record. Britain buys off-peak nuclear power electricity from France because it is such reliable baseload supply. Finland and France are both currently building large (1,600MW) pressurized water design nuclear reactors (p.190). We cannot assume that this is all done in the name of concern for the environment. Protected species of birds such as golden eagles and red kites are regularly killed by the rotor blades in Germany, the USA, and Sweden, violating laws protecting these species (p.103-9). Bats, also protected species, are killed by lung damage and shock when hit by flying in the blade vortices (air-wake of the rotor).

The health impact on humans is still being studied. The thumping noise and earth vibration of wind 'turbines' is unique and these effects are still being studied. Many people react badly to the low frequency hum (infrasound), which cannot easily measured physically by any of the decibel scales, the effect is psychological as much as physical. The sound and vibration effects penetrate easily into dwellings. The visual flicker effect of the rotor can be psychologically disturbing and is very intrusive inside dwellings. Reductions in Council Tax ratings have been won on the basis of reduced property value (p.119).

As common sense would predict, property values near even small wind 'farms' decline, a reduction of about 50% has been recorded (p.143). The Ministry Of Defence have often successfully blocked planning applications for wind 'farms' as they interfere with military radar (and commercial radar), and jets on low-fly exercises may hit the rotor blades. The commonest danger is of rotor blade failure, with other dangers such as friction fires igniting oil sumps, falling ice, lightning strike, and electrocution are downplayed. The life of a wind generator (so-called 'turbine') is 20-25 years, but few if any have usefully run for their lifetime to assess the full hazards and maintenance costs.

There is a foreword by Christopher Booker, an author's preface, a glossary of acronyms and abbreviations, and an index.

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