Dakota Beacon

First the unsurprising fact: In Scotland, wind turbines are yielding far less than the "expected" levels of electrical power--about half.

Now the government's comical response: Blame "unusually calm weather." But unless you live in the Kerguelen Islands of the extreme southern Indian Ocean, the most consistently windy place on Earth, you'd kinda sorta already know that winds are highly variable and unpredictable. Remember, we're not dealing with realists. We're dealing with the same critters that think that all we need is a few extra ears of corn to make "biofuels." Then the oil industry can go away.

Truly disheartening to alternative energy zealots are the "long spells" during which almost no electricity has flowed from Scotland's wind farms. But there's at least one sane conservationist (versus radical environmentalist) voice that acknowledges reality. The head of a Scottish nature preservation group, Helen McDade, observed,

We have always been told that even if it isn't windy in one part of the country, it will be elsewhere. However, this suggests that is not the case.

What will the consequences be when we become more reliant on wind power, and switch off the other resources, such as the coal-fired power stations?

I think vested interests and blind hope are the reasons we are careering down this route.

Bravo to an honest greenie.

If Scottish plans for conversion of the power grid to wind energy were to proceed unaltered, and the winds continue to behave as winds behave--blowing sometimes and not blowing at other times--then according to the researcher that performed the wind farm analysis, "with very high demand and very low output—the only thing is to turn customers off."

The researcher points out,

I hope this makes the politicians sit up and listen. They are not listening now. They have got their hands over their ears and they are in thrall to the wind industry.

Why is the Scotland wind farm saga relevant to the United States?

For three years, my wife and I have driven past a sparkling array of wind turbines in eastern Arizona. A few weeks ago, for the first time in six trips, we saw the big white blades being whipped by the wind. The point? The wind is the wind is the wind. Scotland or America. Sometimes she get up and move. Sometimes she sit real still.

For more on greenies' wind power fantasies, see my previous posts HERE, HERE, and HERE.

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© 2010 Chuck Rogér