I would like to see every electricity utility that has built wind power provide a running summary of each week’s delivery of power to the grid on their websites for customers. This would aid public awareness a great deal. The data needs to be visible so a realistic evaluation of performance can be done and the public become more educated. At present it feels as though people are operating on a wish and a belief about wind power. I am referring to the sustainability movement in general. It is not enough.

With respect to the process of ‘reviewing’ science through such a website as this, I am all for it. I can see that this methodology is sound and I support it. I am aware that it will not be seen as enough for those who want to see the usual protocols of science practice with journal publication. The climate of thinking today is not an easy one for anyone to navigate, let alone non-scientists who are quite frankly floundering but hanging on like hell to particular positions. This is why I made the suggestion above that it is high time for full transparency about wind power being delivered by utility companies to hit the airwaves. I have no idea how much extra work that would entail however, and therefore extra costs.

No. The articles I have posted on BNC are not published in peer reviewed scientific literature.

The pdf article attached to this thread “Cost and Quantity of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Avoided by Wind Generation” is based on (mostly) authoritative reports and studies conducted under contract to government agencies and research institutions (Australian and overseas). The sources are cited in the text. The article was reviewed by a number of engineers in the Australian electricity supply industry and are senior and competent in the areas they reviewed. It has also been commented on by engineers with relevant expertise in the industry in Australia and overseas.

No vested interest is paying me. I receive nothing. I am retired. Note the contrast between my position and the position of the wind energy advocates most of whom do have a vested interest in promoting renewable energy – i.e. their careers and their livelihood and maintaining ongoing public funding to support their work!

My purpose is to help to educate intelligent, interested, non specialists and therby to assist Australia to make economically rational decisions about how to cut GHG emissions, increase energy security and improve health, safety and environmental effects of electricity generation.

This series is an extensive technical analysis of wind electricity in Denmark. The intent is to develop: (1) plausible conclusions without resorting to extensive mathematics (except that provided by others), and (2) a framework within which to evaluate other claims of emissions relating to wind backup from fossil plants.

According to wind proponents, Denmark is a model of wind energy use for electricity generation to be emulated. It is claimed or suggested that:

- Denmark gets about 20% of its electricity from wind. [Note: This number is generation, not usage, which is a crucial distinction with negative implications for the wind lobby's argument.]

- Reduction in CO2 emissions is due in large part to increased wind electricity production.

These conclusions are superficial at best and invalid at worse. The analysis required to show this, however, is extensive and technical because the Denmark power market is very unique and wholly unlike the market in the U.S. or the UK.

The message in this post is that Denmark is a very unique situation. It is not one that can be reproduced virtually anywhere else. Further, as will be shown, Denmark does not enjoy, and should not be credited with, the benefits often claimed for it.

You know it makes sense … ;-)

In terms of value added per employee, the energy technology sector over the period 1999-2006 underperformed by as much as 13% compared with the industrial average. This implies that the effect of the government subsidy has been to shift employment from more productive employment in other sectors to less productive employment in the wind industry. As a consequence, Danish GDP is approximately 1.8 billion DKK ($270 million) lower than it would have been if the wind sector work force was employed elsewhere.’

Interesting. I wonder what the cost of our electricity market distortions are in Australia. (RET, feed-in-tariffs, subsidies for renewables, government funding for RE research, extra transmission systems, extra grid stabilisation, and diversion of labor from viable industries to subsidised industries). What is the impact on our GDP and our future GDP growth. For the ordinary person, what does that translate into in terms of hospital waiting times, bus and train transit times and higher fares, etc.

In Spain, subsidising the renewables energy industry has caused 2.2 real jobs to be lost for every ‘green’ job created (and subsidised from taxes).

It seems that once someone has caught the RE bug, their ability to think rationally departs.

I occasionally do it for amusement.

By the way, have you heard about my new renewable power scheme? I’ve come up with a way of doubling the efficiency of hydroelectric dams. It’s so simple I fon’t understand why no-one ever thought of it before. You know how hydroelectric stations use water flowing downhill to spin a turbine to create electricity? Well, that water could create just as much electricity by flowing back through the system and spinning the turbine the other way. Hidebound conservative engineering types will no doubt bleat that water doesn’t flow uphill, but this just represents the kind of cloistered thinking which has held the advance of renewable power for so long. Water will flow uphill if you give it enough of a push. It will require a bit more involvement in the power production process from the local community than people are used to, but that’s all part of the consiousness-raising lifestyle revolution which renewables will bless us with. A great new social dynamic shall unfold as the land reverberates to a new cry for a new age: “Push it uphill!”

For more details on my plan and to find out how YOU can invest in this great opportunity, please visit my site at http://www.pushituphill.com.

No. My enemies in this matter are people. Yours is physics. The victory will ultimately be with the pro-nuclear side. The question is how swift that victory will be.