Windmills

[jaycee]

Whilst motoring to work this morning I heard a news item on ABC FM.
The story was about a new inland wind farm somewhere or other. Wasn't listening to the location of this wind farm, I was still spluttering over the cost........... $200mil for 20 turbines!!!!!!

We have lots of windmills in Mexico. Try as hard I have, I have never been able to find out the cost of these local windmills.............. it seems to be a closely guarded secret.
These local windmills have been erected by deveopers with huge federal govt. subsidies and then they have been sold on to European power companies...... apparently to offset their carbon emmissions in their own country of origin. Some (at least) of our local windmills are owned by a Spanish Power Co. They use the green power generated here to offset coal generation in Spain, so it seems, and I bet there is a lot of tax write offs/deductions.

Turbines in this new farm are gunna cost $10mil each, all up, so lets just half that to get some sort of realistic? price for the local Mexican products. These local turbines produce 1MW, but are only 20% efficient in costal regions. Mexico is the most wind free part of Victoria. Half the reason Jay and Cee moved here was because of the silence...... little wind and no ocean noise. Our local turbines haven't revolved even once in the last 5 days. Lets be generous and give the local windmills a 10% efficiency.
My neighbour Fred isn't connected to the grid. He uses solar cells and a small windmill. His diary shows his windmill is only usefull about 20 days per annum. With hindsight, Fred reckons he wasted money on the windmill....... would have been better investing in more solar panels.
The projected life of a windmill is 20 years, but I know the farm of 12 erected at Toora in Sth Gippsland between 1998 and 2001 are now all dead.
Questions:
Why is so much money and resources being spent in an area that promises so little return?
Why is so much money and resources being spent on such an intermittent form of energy generation?

Is this all just another case of politics........of "being seen to be doing something" while, in fact, doing nothing in particular and definately NOT upsetting the all powerful coal industry?

[jaycee]

This link http://www.waubrawindfarm.com.au/waubra/index.htm gives some information on the wind farm I was discussing in the above post.
The grand scheme is/was to extend this windfarm all the way to Maryborough up the mountain range.

A week ago last Friday, in the dead of night, a test turbine erected just 8 km from our place, was destroyed when it collapsed after someone cut the stabilising wire ropes. Damage $100,000.

This followed much heated local debate about the Corporate and State Govt. tactics to steamroll through approval of windfarm extensions at any cost to local inhabitants.
Coincidentally, the following Monday morning, in the mail, a letter from Acciona (see above link) arrived announcing the intention to permanently defer plans to extend the Waubra wind farm.
The bulk of the letter was a very bland comment about how Acciona wished to respect the community feelings towards wind farms but the last paragraph was most intriguing in that it stated that the generation of power fell way short of expectations.
I'm most curious to know just how short of expectations it fell.
Seems that the engineers hired by the developer of the wind farm came up with figures for wind performance far in excess of either the local community members experience or the Bureau of Meteorology statistics.

Another $billion of taxpayers money wasted in subsidies to be seen to be doing something?

[telepoint]

It is surprising that their calculations appear to have been that far out.

Maybe the offsets by just providing the windmills was sufficient for the Spanish? especially if they were given a good old Ozzie subsidy?

The cost is also surprising (10 million) the numbersof these around the world is growing almost exponentially so the cost should be coming down. Of course if the subsidy is dependant on the amount invested rather than the amount of power generated would leave a lot of room to play with the numbers?

Not that this would happen of course

[jaycee]

One small local windfarm bites the dust:
http://www.thecourier.com.au/news/local/news/general/tuki-wind-farm-plans-dropped/1810938.aspx

This larger local windfarm seems to be forging ahead:
http://www.stockyardhillwindfarm.com.au/


An interesting comparison report on gas/wind power generation:
http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/Prod/parlment/committee.nsf/0/ff67317a0c8d7809ca2576260023f3fa/$FILE/PM-AEC.002.RPT.pdf

[telepoint]

The downside of gas is that it is still burning fossil fuels. While the economics add up to make the gas a better market proposition I guess one has to decide if this is the main determinant.

[jaycee]

The downside of gas is that it is still burning fossil fuels.

Absolutely correct.

My complaint is: If govts. (State or Feral) were serious about reducing emissions, they should force any private industry interested in power generation, to develop reliable sources that cut existing emissions caused by coal fired generators.

Because if the inherent unreliability of wind, and the inability to store large volumes of generated electricity, windmill power generation is utterly useless............... it has no effect whatsoever on base load, coal powered, power generation. So, wind power does not cut overall emissions caused by coal power generation.


Seeing that Origin Energy wish to throw $1.6 Bil into power generation, they should be "guided" by the various govts. into spending that amount on something sustainable and reliable and cleaner. eg. Solar, Lunar (tidal), Hydro, or much lower emission, Fossil .............. some sort of power generation that will CUT the base load of coal fired power generation which in turn cuts emissions.

[telepoint]

I thought the government tried that but the opposition to it was such that they have delayed anything further for 3 years?

[skt852]

Put Australian uranium into clean, safe power plants rather than selling it off to other countries.

[telepoint]

Using this argument (in line with Johns post) convert all coal plants to gas plants and stop selling the LNG to others at incredibly low prices?

The market says that it will exploit everything (in the interests of shareholders of course) while there is a profit to be made. I fthere is no social cost built into the model eg energy companies do not pay for air pollution, then there is increased scope for profits.

The social component ie taxpayers, will always be left to pay for the cleanup. A classic argument is the Gulf oil spill, the opponents are starting to blame Obama for not acting fast enough on a problem that belongs completely with teh oil companies. While they are blaming Obama they are in court seeking to reduce their payout and compensation. Perhaps billions of dollars will be left for the taxpayer to cleanup.

Drifted off a bit here. The free market wants to be free while holding out its hand for subsidy and liability limits from the government while actively lobbying for the market to be free.

[jaycee]

Put Australian uranium into clean, safe power plants rather than selling it off to other countries.

I don't care if we import uranium............... it is a far better proposition than bloody windmills.

Drifted off a bit here.

That's all right

[tvseriesgalore]

Hmm.......... Not sure if I want a nuclear power station at French Island like they've always talked about though. Far too close to TV's - maybe only 1-2kms.

Better put it down at Wonthaggi near the desal plant instead.