Wind turbines do not work

Wind Turbines might well be visually non-aesthetic and cause discomfort to those living nearby, however the greatest reason they should not be built is because they do not work! The information presented below is taken from NEM (National Electricity Market) web site a government body overseeing the Eastern Australia energy system and a very interesting article 'Wind Farms in Eastern Australia – Recent Lessons' by Paul Miskelly (2012).

When the 'Environmentalists' first pushed for the development of renewable energy, mainly in the form of Wind Farms, no one considered what the farms could do. Germany had started their 'Energiewende' program and the world was abuzz with the development of renewable energy. No one considered the limitations of an extremely intermittent and variable energy system. In the NEM website if one google searches www.energyanero.id.au, daily, and yearly wind energy graphs can be obtained on the wind output of various Wind Farms. Paul Miskelly (2012) had the following graph in his article.

This clearly shows the immense variation in output of a particular Wind Farm, this one being the Capital Wind Farm NSW. The Wind Farm proponents then said, but if we spread Wind Farms and took the electricity generated throughout the NEM constituency this variable and intermittent output will stabilise. NEM have produced the following graphs:

The top red line shows demand, and obviously Eastern Australia had a heat wave late January. The bottom blue line is NEM Wind Farm Performance. It shows on the left hand side the percentage of all output. The black line is the 14 day moving average (a spurious and meaningless number). Maximum output is nearly 80% in late June. The crucial part is the number of times the line goes below 10% when the renewable wind farm output needs to be totally supported by other generating systems.

The above graph illustrates this negligible output, where it can be seen extended periods of -10% are noted – First to Eighth May 2011 and later in the month from Twenty-eighth to Thirtieth of May 2011. These are not isolated occurrences, but happen all the time. It is crazy that the Greens-Labor Parties should be pursuing this electrical generation system.

To illustrate this even further, proponents are now proposing that battery backup (a new support system) as yet un-costed is needed to 'take out the peaks and lows' of wind generation. An Australian Company Redflow (RDF) listed on the Australian stock exchange has one of the most robust and developed large scale batteries in the world. However even their batteries would be hard pressed to back up the following situation:

This graph from NEM is the total output of Wind Farms in Eastern Australia on the 21^st July 2014 and clearly shows between 2 pm and 6pm negligible wind energy production. Looking at the graph after 6pm only one or two farms were producing 'significant' at around 40% of their rated capacity. This shows a significant period when wind energy needed almost 100% backup. So what happened the next day 22^nd July 2014:

Almost no output as a high pressure system dominated over Eastern Australia. This occurred for a period of over 24 hours. No backup battery system could be recharged during this period. So the logical conclusion is renewable generation needs to have a constant backup of (load following) base load electricity. In Australia this is electrical power from coal generators emitting CO2. A similar high pressure system dominated Eastern Australia on the 13-14^th June 2015.

We now have to ask, if coal generators are needed for total backup of Wind generators, why do we have Wind Turbines built in the first place, and the staggering fact that a total of 294MW (almost 28.3% of SA capacity at that time) – South Australian Wind Study Report (EAMO Report 2014) of wind energy coming off stream in one 5 minute period which occurred in NEM in 2014. We have to again consider what percentage of this backup coal fired power is needed and wasted, choofing out (unrecorded) CO2, and at what cost, just to satisfy the environmental lobby.

If the backup generators on the other hand were zero emitting nuclear generators then we could play the environmentalists games, at considerable cost, to our society and manufacturers by having two generating systems side by side. Germany the wunderkind is now facing considerable energy problems.

A recent article (29^th June 2015) in World Nuclear Association (Weekly Digest) notes that Germany will close the E.ON's Grafenrheinfeld PWR 1275Mw nuclear reactor. Tenne T the grid providers state that grid security will be compromised and that 12 years ago the transmission system had to cope with two or three special incidents per year, now it is two to three each day! It should also be noted that when German renewables are not working they can import electrical power from surrounding countries. Australia is not in such a fortunate position.

Also early this year in January the German wholesale prices had dropped to 3c/Kwhr. Because of 80 GWe of heavily subsidised solar and wind generators were producing considerable electricity. At this price nuclear and gas generators are not price competitive so are being replaced by brown coal generators. Germany the great clean society has rising CO2 emissions! The subsidised feed-in tariffs for renewable energy costs the German economy €21.5 billion which was onsold for €1.6 billion.

I would like to quote from an article in Biodiverivist 'We don't need Nuclear Energy because Renewables can do it all' which reads:

'A growing number of leading environmentalists have come to the realisation that nuclear energy and renewable energy are not competitors. Nuclear is for base load power whilst wind and solar are used to reduce fuel bills of gas turbine or diesel peaking or load following power plants. They are low carbon allies in the effort to find replacement for fossil fuels. We should be investing heavily to improve both forms of energy. Neither can do it alone. Neither is a magic bullet.'

I ask you to consider:

• The RET is a political aim by Labor and Greens – renewables don't work!
• A LET (Low Emissions Target) will help the world.

Yet we in Australia are the only OECD country with legislation forbidding the building of nuclear facilities!