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The Forum > Article Comments > Health and economics will unravel wind power > Comments

Health and economics will unravel wind power : Comments

By Max Rheese, published 5/7/2011

Being too expensive isn't the only problem for wind power - damaging the health of neighbours is another.

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@spindoc: Coal, $68 per Kw/h, Wind, $1,456 per Kw/h, Solar, $4,482 per Kw/h.

The report you quote is just an conservative flak machine harpooning the greens. Nonetheless I didn't realise it was complete bs until I read your last sentence. At first I though it was just a typo: you meant MW/hr. I presume you did, even so it makes little sense.

For what it's worth, if someone is paying you $0.40 per KW/hr for small scale PV solar, and you know what you are doing you will make a profit here in Brisbane. That would be $400 per MW/hr. Anybody could make money at the price NSW is (was?) offering which was 0.60 or some ridiculous sum. Large scale solar thermal does much better, getting under well $0.20 per KW/hr. And wind does better again.

Why you think anybody will believe the hare brained figures you presented when something like this is available be beyond me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_cost_of_electricity_generated_by_different_sources

Shadow spelt out the real problems with wind and solar. It isn't the raw cost per KW/hr. It that their unreliability means they can only be a small portion of the total.
Posted by rstuart, Tuesday, 5 July 2011 2:36:42 PM
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I wonder if the weekend carbon tax announcement will include a special deal for wind power. If the tax is in the range $20 to $30 that won't be enough for the wind build to continue without subsidies and quotas. The industry has said it needs at least $40 carbon tax. Expect some special deal for wind farms despite both Garnaut and the Productivity Commission saying that the carbon price should be enough.

No real opinion on wind health issues except to point out nearby cows and sheep seem contented enough. The other big issue is standby costs for wind power. If we had plenty of counterbalancing hydro like the Denmark/Norway combination well and good. However we need mainly natural gas backup generation, a lot of it the quick start but higher CO2 open cycle gas turbine type. Because of this in some parts of the world it has been found gas only displaces half the CO2 proponents claim.

The correct thing to do with wind power is see how it survives just on $20-$30 carbon tax alone. Maybe it would be cheaper to do the entire job just on gas. One day gas will be very expensive but that could be a decade away so keep the wind farms under care and maintenance.
Posted by Taswegian, Tuesday, 5 July 2011 5:33:23 PM
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For me large arrays of wind turbine dotted over the countryside are objectionable from an aesthetic perspective. Some may find beauty in them, but I am sure most wouldn't. I have also read that large scale arrays of wind turbines may have adverse effects on local climate by their removal of wind energy. One study in USA concluded that they induced lower rainfall. Apart from that, wind won't be anything other than a minor player in energy supply because when its not windy, it's usually not windy over a wide area. In SE Australia, for example, autumn is the season of anticyclones: windless days and nights.
Posted by Robert__, Tuesday, 5 July 2011 8:57:05 PM
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rsruart, I guess you could suggest the wind farm figures produced by the wind farm power generators in the UK is “complete bs”, and that the John Muir Trust got it all wrong. You might just have a bit of a credibility problem though.

The Wikipedia link was interesting though, but I’m not going into the differences between, “relative costs”, “Production”, “Consumption” or “factored before or after government rebates”. If you feel the need to put the John Muir Trust and the wind power generators themselves up against Wikipedia, that’s your call.

You are right on one thing though, the issue of per Kw, Mw, Teraw or Picow is significant and did give you a good diversion. The whole point was of course the relative cost differences, before government rebate/subsidies/feed in tariffs between coal, wind and solar and that wind is 20 times more costly then coal. That was the point.

In order to avoid this “definition’ distraction in future, perhaps we could agree a standard, multi-thread description?

My suggestions might include; $xx per DPB’s (dead polar bears) or $xx per MMPIC (meter melting polar ice cap) or $xx per MMHG (meter melting Himalayan Glacier) or $xx per MSLRAB (meter sea level rise at bondi). You can have “Maids a Milking”, Ducks a Laying” or “Partridges in Pear Trees” but it won’t change the numbers.
Posted by spindoc, Wednesday, 6 July 2011 8:58:33 AM
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Wow, a moratorium on wind farms because of a fear of adverse health effects? This is a joke, right?

First, there is zero mention of what these adverse health risks might actually be. Let's put a moratorium on bird watching, navel gazing and flushing toilets too, until we can prove that there are no negative health effects.

Secondly, there are very significant and well-proven adverse health effects from the primary alternative, coal powered stations. There is more than just CO2 coming out of those chimney stacks. Believe me, I measure industrial air emissions for a living. I climb the things and take samples directly from the source. Even gas turbines emit their share of nasties.

Are you people saying we should stop wind farms because of unproven, unidentifiable and mystical health effects, but continue on with coal power with all it's known adverse health effects?

How about we tell the people who are complaining about the low-frequency noise from their neighbour's wind farms that we are going to replace them with a coal power station? I wonder how much they'll be complaining about the "aesthetic" affects and bothersome noise of wind farms then?

Most amusing of all is that it's many of those that refuse to accept AGW theory because it's not 100% proven who are jumping on this ridiculous square-wheeled wagon.
Posted by TrashcanMan, Wednesday, 6 July 2011 3:02:46 PM
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Where are conservationists when we need them? Hiding behind vested wind farm interests I guess?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwVz5hdAMGU
Posted by spindoc, Thursday, 7 July 2011 4:38:37 PM
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