Financial
scandals are not new. Schemes to leverage risk and cheat the public are mainstays of the mad "Cap and Trade"
stratagem, in the ongoing war, against genuine free enterprise. The latest ploy is the industrial wind swindle.
In the essay, Wall Street Reaps Big Bucks from the
Wind, the strategy to defraud the public is explored. "The
latest rage out of the boiler room sharks that hawk new equity issues touts alternative energy. The hype that is coming out
of Wall Street resembles the internet band wagon before the bust . . . Goldman Sachs rushes to finance the offers with their
expertise – using other peoples’ money . . . Understand from the outset, that producing useful energy is not the
prime objective of wind projects."
To illustrate this
point the pending First Wind Holdings Inc. SEC S-1 and S-1A application for an IPO readily admits that producing electricity it is not necessary
to be profitable.
Understanding the complexity of industrial wind can
be a challenge. The derogative knock NIMBY, is meant to deceive and distract from the reality that an ill "Wall Street"
wind blows behind the heretical doctrine of global warming.
Jon Boone
PhD is a leading voice against industrial wind. WHY WIND WON’T WORK is a primer that dispels the myth that wind factories are a sensible solution to electric
generation, much less a remedy for climate change.
"The
hope for wind energy stems from a belief that it will offset significant carbon emissions as it substitutes for dirty burning
coal plants. But what is the evidence for this? Any analysis examining this issue must account for (1) what happens as wind
energy enters the grid, causing grid operators to turn off or back conventional generators in response (or hold back generators
that might otherwise have been deployed if there were no wind energy), and (2) what happens as operators seek to integrate
wind's wild fluctuations.
Wind adds another layer of instability that
must be smoothed out so that demand and supply are balanced precisely. Controllers respond to the wind influx by dialing back
the generation from the operation of conventional units, much as they do when demand decreases. And as the level of wind energy
flutters about the grid, rising and falling at random, rapidly responsive conventional generators are deployed to balance
this ebb and flow. When wind energy disappears from the grid, it is as if demand has again increased, and more power is required
from conventional sources to match it."
In a significant
analysis, Less For More: The Rube Goldberg Nature
of Industrial Wind Development, Dr. Boone concludes:
"Wind
energy, at industrial scales operating within the grid system as a whole, must be considered as only one of the reciprocals
in a fuel mix; it must be entangled with conventional fuel to make it viable even as a sporadic fuel substitute. Wind energy
simply cannot be loosed on the grid by itself. Grid stability requires that the fluctuations of wind be backed or compensated
for immediately by conventional, reliable generation on a minute by minute basis—that is, generation from highly flexible,
rapidly responsive thermal or hydro units."
Since generating
usable and reliable electricity is not the prime purpose for a wind developer, what impact can the ratepayer expect in their
electric bill?
A succinct explanation on The True Cost of Electricity from Wind
is Always Underestimated and its Value Always Overestimated, in the Science & Public Policy Institute, comes from this Glenn R. Schleede report. Mr. Schleede states:
"When
initially proposed, wind energy advocates argued that tax breaks and subsidies were necessary to permit a relatively "new
and developing technology" to gain a foothold in competition with other sources of energy for producing electricity.
However, industry demands for continuation, expansion and extension of subsidies have made it clear that there are no longer
any serious expectations that wind energy is competitive or that improvements in the technology will eventually make it competitive.
Instead, it appears that the only hope that wind energy would become economically competitive
with traditional energy sources is if the cost of electricity from traditional sources were driven much higher – with
all the adverse impacts on electric customers and local and national economies that result from high electricity prices."
Just how much more will consumers pay in higher rates over the conventional methods of electric
generation?
In the report, RENEWABLE ENERGY Not Cheap, Not "Green" by Robert L. Bradley Jr. in the Cato Policy Analysis No. 280, August 27, 1997 wrote,
"ratepayers typically pay three times more for wind power than they would pay for electricity in today's spot market,
and the premium could be higher. A conservative estimate of the total U.S. government (i.e., taxpayer) subsidy to wind power
totals over $1,200 per installed kilowatt, even greater than the direct capital cost of wind under advanced technology of
around $860 per kilowatt . . ."
These figures and estimates are well
over a decade old. With the increase in size of wind turbines, 2.5 MW to even 10 MW nameplate capacities, just escalate the
costs to levels that their 12-15% actual production performance can never earn a realistic pay back. With the half-baked rush
for additional tax credits and subsidies, the proponents of industrial wind need to rely upon a different "Green"
renewable; namely, the funny money printing press.
Glenn R. Schleede’s
review, highly recommends the book, "The Wind Farm Scam" by Dr. John Etherington. "It explains wind energy and its limitations and
environmental insults in easily understood terms. It explains why wind will never provide a significant, reliable source of
electricity. As in the US, "wind farms" are being built in the UK primarily because of government fiat and huge
government-forced subsidies, not because of their true environmental, economic or energy benefits."
Power Hungry: The Myths of "Green"
Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future by Robert Bryce provides an insightful account on energy and future developments.
A review of this book concludes: "Power Hungry demolishes the notion that oil is dirty; that carbon capture/sequestration
schemes can be globally effective; that cap-and-trade/taxation/renewable energy credit ideas for reducing carbon dioxide emissions
can do anything but worsen the situation, at the expense of tax and ratepayers. "When you have eliminated all which
is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." By eliminating the imposters and exposing
the disingenuous, he is then able to engage in rational discourse about the genuinely probable technologies that will in future
slake our ginormous craving for power."
Eliminating industrial wind
as a viable alternative makes good common sense. Jon Boone offers this description for industrial wind.
"There is little that is cognitively more dissonant than supporting the concept of minimizing the human footprint
on the earth while cheerleading for the rude intrusiveness of physically massive/energy feckless wind projects. The slap and
tickle of wind propaganda flatters the gullible, exploits the well intentioned, and nurtures the craven. Industrial
wind is a bunco scheme of enormous consequence. And people who value intellectual honesty should not quietly be fleeced
by such mendacity, even from their government."
Such
a backlash against wind energy inevitably receives stern retaliation from the designers of the new energy economy. Nothing
will stand in the way of the cover up and tax abuses of energy exploitation. How can people benefit from this plutocrat
plot?
SARTRE - April 18,
2010
