Wind Farms are Useless

The original news story “ Wind farms are useless, says Duke ” was reported in the UK Telegraph, and in it the Duke of Edinburgh claimed wind farms would “never work” and accused people who support them of believing in a “fairy tale”.

This is followed by “The Duke’s views are politically charged, as they put him at odds with the Government’s policy significantly to increase the amount of electricity generated by wind turbines.”

The article continued: “One of the main arguments of the anti-wind farm lobby is that because turbines do not produce electricity without wind, there is still a need for other ways to generate power. Their proponents argue that it is possible to build “pump storage” schemes, which would use excess energy from wind power to pump water into reservoirs to generate further electricity in times of high demand and low supply.”

All of this rich fodder for a clear-thinking mind, but please read the entire article at source for the best view.

In the first place, Wind farms can’t be said to be truly useless; if nothing else they may well serve as a great example of political desire overcoming common-sense.

I imagine hordes of green enthusiasts lobbying politicians and vast sums of money being exchanged with an eye on getting votes in the next election.

More about that later, but it’s easy to see a politician jumping on the green bandwagon as a way of “leading” in the direction that the great unwashed public think they want to go; arrogant of me, I know, but probably closer to the truth than you’d care to admit right now.

Secondly “never work” is too strong a statement for my liking. Windmills have a great history of pumping water out (The Netherlands) and pumping water in (Australia’s artesian basin) and pumping oil and … Windmills are a great source of low-cost (but note, not “free”) energy.

Thirdly, and to my mind versed in physics, that the windmills produce power only part of the time is the biggest blow to their success imaginable. While it is true that one could store excess energy – somehow – and reclaim it when the wind dies down, it seems to me that the inefficiencies in transforming energy from wind to kinetic (water reservoir) or chemical (batteries) and back again based on a wind-stream that operates only 30% of the time is just plain stupid.

(If the wind blows only 30% of the time, then the windmills need to generate 100/70 of the local power requirements, and then factor in inefficiencies of, say, 80% for conversion each way, 80% x 80% yielding 64%, and you have a system that is 64% x 30% or about 20% efficient; it needs a five-fold output when the wind is blowing)

I have not yet seen articles that justify this.

Fourthly, I have a suspicion that developers run tests to show that a windmill generates X mega-watts of power (while the wind is blowing), multiply this by N windmills and use those figures to prove to a dim-witted poli that an entire town can be supplied if Mister Brown’s farm is given over to windmills; I suspect Mister Brown is in on the scam. I further suspect that the developer fails to mention the 20% or even 30% efficiency. Most politicians do NOT have a good grounding in high-school physics or chemistry.

November is one of the windiest months here in Toronto.

I’m going to keep a log of the pine tree 300 meters from my window, and track when it is swaying in the wind.

Fifthly (will it never end?) I am of the mind that the Windsor family is ideally placed to make comments that are, maybe, or can be judged “politically incorrect”. Unlike your local sheriff, the Windsor’s did NOT get voted into office, and have resisted all efforts to allow themselves to be voted OUT of office.

Who better to make a comment about the government than someone who doesn’t have to fear for their job.

As well as being someone who has spent over 60 years traveling the globe and meeting bright people.

Unlike you and I.

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