People, conservation, wildlife versus the wind industry
October 2, 2023
The Principle of Least Work is universal in nature. It is a fact in structural response to loads in buildings, ships, planes, cars, trucks, etc. This process happens by doing the least amount of work by most plants and animals. All non-living material and man-made structures also do the least amount of work when responding to loads. They never take a harder way.
Individuals and politicians promoting wind turbines and solar panels take a much harder way to generate electricity. That ignores the Principle of Least Work and employs the most work intensive, environmentally destructive, wasteful, and least reliable technologies for generating electricity.
The wind turbine and solar photovoltaic electric power industries use different strategies in Africa, Europe, and North America. It is all about up front profits with no regard for massive pollution at mine sites, costs and environmental disturbance of transmission lines from wind and solar sites to urban areas, more vulnerability to natural and man-made threats, massive costs for backup from fossil fuel plants or batteries, maintenance and repair requirements, costs for dismantling and disposing of debris every twenty or so years useful life continuing for thousands of years and in many cases no environmental restoration.
In affluent parts of the world the wind and solar industries promote unjustified fear of atmospheric carbon dioxide from fossil fuels. Very wealthy individuals and power obsessed politicians mandate abandoning fossil fuels and imposing “green” energy that cripples modern economies. They approach homeowners, smaller land owners and large ranches with the lure of tax benefits and cash flow even when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow to generate electricity. When wind and solar installations generate too much electricity, the source states and countries pay other states and countries to take the excess power. What a deal for the
utility customers!
In Africa and other places with weak or corrupt governments and masses of poor people, they prey on poor landowners to erect their “green” energy machines for income or one-time payment. They never provide a plan for complete lifecycle operation, dismantlement and disposal. Lands owned by the poor become vast trash sites with no environmental cleanup and restoration to original conditions.
Jon Boone: The truth is that wind and solar aren’t even comparable with fossil fuels and nuclear power, certainly not in terms of practical simile. The former have NO firm capacity, producing only unpredictable and largely uncontrollable hiccups that subvert any grid’s prime mission of matching supply with demand precisely at all times. Wind and solar behave much like a swarm of drunken fleas as it parasitizes the best trained hunting dogs of conventional generation, in the process compromising the performance of nuclear and fossil fuels. This is a much more accurate simile. Wind and solar produce no modern power and zero firm capacity. Any comparison with energy sources that do produce genuine power and high capacity is bogus. Utterly.
Moreover, wind and solar aren’t real problems when the air is not moving and the sun is not shinning because conventional generation can then do its thing unencumbered by rude intrusions from the yappy ankle biters from renewables hell. It is when the wind blows and the sun beams that wind machines and solar schemes induce grid dysfunction that results in even more use of conventional generation—at much greater cost in dollars, efficiency, and epistemic integrity. Wind and solar represent at best supplementary (supernumerary) generation that requires such bodacious supplementation that it completely subverts their reason for being.
John Droz: The main considerations for choosing our energy option should be:
a) overall economics,
b) reliability, and
c) net environmental
impact. When examined scientifically (i.e., objectively and comprehensively), wind and solar fail on all three.
Science exists to give us answers to our societal technical problems. What energy options we use is a profoundly significant societal technical problem. Therefore, our energy options should be based on real Science. Instead our energy policies are based on political science, which is what lobbyists advocate.
The guaranteed net effects of us ignoring Science are: 1) The benefits will be considerably less than advocates are assuring us, 2) Our energy costs will be much higher than what they are promised to be (or should be), and 3) There will be numerous, seriously negative side-effects. [Provide examples for each?]
When subsequently confronted by these realities, wind and solar advocates resort to their ace-in-the-hole. They piously assert that our very existence is immanently threatened, so some things (very high electricity cost, major environmental damage, etc.) will be unfortunate (but necessary) collateral damage in our all-out efforts to do everything possible to prevent the destruction of our planet.
The hypocrisy of this fundamental position is exposed by considering two Scientific facts: a) Nuclear power has saved more CO2 than all other means, yet it is not aggressively being advocated by the alarmists, and b) There are no Scientific studies that have concluded that wind energy saves a consequential amount of CO2. In fact several studies have concluded that Wind energy makes Climate Change worse! Taking the Wind Out of Climate Change
David Lester: “If they can’t export the power, the spot market price crashes along with the income for the wind and solar farms. So they plead for more subsidies.”
Ronald Stein. If we rid the world of crude oil, we’re back to the 1800’s ! Crude oil is the basis of our materialistic society. All the components and equipment for the generation of electricity by wind, solar, coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydro are all made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil !
The signers of this declaration are opposed to wind turbines and solar photovoltaic for generating electricity for most electrical needs. They recommend fossil fuels with pollution control systems where needed for the current applications and nuclear power.
Australia
Viv Forbes, Executive Director, Saltbush Club Germany
Reinhard Storz, Marine engineer
Signers
October 2, 2023
New Zealand
Bryan Leyland, Hydro-electric and dam engineer
USA
John Droz, Physicist, Founder of Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions
David Lester, Chemical Engineer
Kenneth Kok, Nuclear Engineer, Editor of The Nuclear Engineering Handbook
(*) John Shanahan, Civil Engineer, Editor allaboutenergy.net
(*) Communicating author: John Shanahan: john.shanahan@allaboutenergy.net