Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Wind farms have the lives of parasites. They cannot produce continuous electricity
without coal, gas, nuclear, hydro or geothermal backup. They freeload by attaching
themselves to an existing electricity grid built and paid for by those using conventional
energy.
Each January-February, the Northern Hemisphere has a cold snap and wind just does
not blow. People die. In southeastern Australia in January 2014, the grid needed 12,000
megawatts at peak when the temperature was more than 40°C for days. The 28 wind farms
in southeastern Australia could only provide 128 of the 12,000 megawatts required and it
was coal that provided the electricity for air conditioning. When wind farms were needed
to provide much needed electricity for cooling, they only operated at less than 5 per cent
capacity.
Furthermore, during the 45°C heatwave on 14 January 2014, South Australian
electricity wholesale prices spiked at $10,515 per megawatt hour. Many people were
without electricity. This dwarfed the wholesale long-term spot price of $70 per megawatt
hour. In South Australia, 40 per cent of the electricity is supposed to come from wind
power. It doesn't.
If the wind were constantly blowing at eleven metres per second at every wind farm in
South Australia spread over hundreds of kilometres, then the nameplate capacity of 1,203
megawatts would be generated.
This does not happen. The Greens state that the wind is always blowing somewhere
oversuchanextensiveareasopowerisalwaysbeingproduced.Realityisdifferentandthis
does not happen.
Inreality,only60percentofSouthAustralia'snotionalgeneratingcapacityisavailable
to service demand when wind watts go walkabout over 100 times a year. When there is
no wind, open cycle gas turbines (at $300 per megawatt hour) and 65 megawatts of diesel
generators at the defunct Adelaide Desalination Plant kick in to generate electricity and
make a killing at the expense of the consumer.
Wind turbines all tend to produce peak power at the same time, when winds are
strong. They also all produce nothing when there is no wind. This surging creates huge
transmissionnetworkproblemsand,attimes,thenetworkisover-capacity.Becauseofthis,
wind power is very sensitive to wind speed and can only operate at low wind speeds and
therefore is the lowest quality power for the grid. At other times, it is under-capacity.
Conclusion
Climate change catastrophism is the biggest scientific fraud that has ever occurred. Much
climate 'science' is political ideology dressed up as science. There are times in history
when the popular consensus is demonstrably wrong and we live in such a time. Cheap
