It’s time for wind energy proponents to admit that their well-intended idea of wind energy has in fact had disastrous ecological consequences.
No technological development has ever so negatively impacted the environment and landscape like wind turbines have. Not only do they blight the scenic landscape and make people living near them ill, they are a serious killer of avian wildlife, as made evident by a recent German ZDF Terra X documentary shows (starts at 34:15 min). Hat-tip: Alessandra E.
Wind turbines in fact do pose serious threat to endangered birds. Image cropped from ZDF Terra X.
One of Germany’s most protected bird species is the endangered red kite hawk. Today it faces a threat that is unprecedented: towering wind turbines strewn across the German landscape. The ZDF public television documentary reveals that the measures enacted by government wind park approval authorities have done nothing to protect this predatory bird.
The segment focusses on the southwest German state of Baden Württemberg, where its Green state minister is attempting to force through the construction of thousands of turbines on the regions idyllic landscape in a bid to go green.
To survive, the red kite finds its meals on the ground, and so it’s only natural that its sharp eyes remain focussed downward, and not ahead. That habit spells huge trouble for the bird in wind turbine regions. According to environmental journalist Andreas Kieling: “Ornithologists and experts have called wind turbines bird shredders.”
Worldwide, the ZDF reports, only about 25,000 pairs of the red kite remain — 60% of them are in wind-turbine country Germany.
Ignorance, corruption and criminal sabotage
Using a fake owl (owls are the enemies of red kites) as bait (37:20), researchers caught a red kite and tagged it with transmitter, thus allowing them to later track the bird’s flight patterns and the actual living space the bird really requires. As the results will show, the living space required by red kites is far greater than what is claimed by the wind industry and the officials who approve the parks.
Wind turbine approval boards have the responsibility of keeping wind turbines at a safe distance away. Unfortunately, likely due to a mixture of ignorance and outright corruption, the wind turbine rules in many cases call for a setback distance of a mere 1000 meters from a nest. We reported here last year of how stork nests were likely criminally sabotaged in order to clear the way for wind park construction approval!
Need 12 sq. km of space, and not 3 sq km.
Just how far the birds fly from their depends strongly on how far they have to go to find their prey. In the ZDF Terra X documentary, days later the researchers provided a graphical image of the flight activity of the tagged bird.
Flight area and plot of red kite activity after 30 days. Image cropped from ZDF Terra X.
The result is that the endangered red kite needs far more than a single measly 1 kilometer setback distance and 3 sq km of safe activity area as often claimed, but rather it needs some 12 sq km of space. In fact the examined bird located near Lake Constance flew as far as 19 km away from her nest (41:05). Other bird species showed similar patterns and space needs, yet turbine approval boards insist the current requirements are enough.
The experts disagree and summarize that the now specified setback distances offer “certainly no effective protection” for the birds.
Sooner or later every red kite ends up in the area of a turbine. The risk of a collision is hugely large.”
The expert then adds that in the areas where there is a large population, as is the case near Lake Constance, there should be “absolutely no wind turbines“, or to shut them down when the birds are hunting.
The ZDF Terra X report says that no one knows just how many red kites fall victim to turbines each year. Counting is difficult because a struck bird is often quickly taken away by foxes or other scavengers. One thing is sure: turbines are killing the endangered birds, and likely in numbers that wind lobby hopes will never be known.
I’m wondering what twisted claims will be used by the usual suspects here to deny the threat these endangered birds face from turbines.
“No technological development has ever so negatively impacted the environment and landscape like wind turbines have.”
sorry, but this is simply not true.
it totally ignores smog, for example in China:
http://blog.cdn.tego.com/Posts/2565.jpg?dm=0
or mountain top removal:
http://ohvec.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/57.jpg
I wonder what the animals who used to live their look like now…
PS: no excuses from my side. i am sad about every single bird of prey killed by wind power.
mountain top removal
https://graftonwindhamwind.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Laurel_Mountain_1.jpg
Most smog comes from NOT using modern coal and gas fired power.
Western countries solved the issue by providing good solid electricity at cheap prices.
But that is being destroyed, and the burning of local wood, and other unregulated materials, will soon be a part of many of those countries again.
back to the past.. progress destroyed.
Sod uses whataboutery
Then admits the truth in a postscript.
Nope, “what about the birds?” is whataboutism / whataboutism …
We know you couldn’t give a stuff about anything alive except yourself and your baseless AGW religion.
But really .. why state it so obviously.!!!
Sebastian is right.
the political right wing bringing up birds on the topic of wind power is the best example of “what about” that i can imagine.
My reply ( we need to compare to the impact of other energy sources) on the other hand is the very type of questions that have to be asked when discussing such a topic.
Sob.. anti-environmentalist
Bird hater.. Nature hater
No wonder you still to you inner city far-left ghetto/slum !!
“I wonder what the animals who used to live their look like now…”
I’m sure they would have almost all had time to resettle themselves somewhere else, and most would have led a nice worthwhile life (you should try the “worthwhile” bit sometime, sob)
Having to change where you live is FAR different than being HACKED TO DEATH mid flight.
Wouldn’t you agree, sob !!
Start a study, buy some HAD cameras and constantly monitor windparks for bird casualties. I suspect cats are still the most proficient bird killers in Germany.
Cats have nothing to do with the endangered red kite. Your silly change-the-subject comment comes as no surprise to me.
I doubt that many birds of prey get killed by house cats, but the the situation is a little less clear than you think it is, especially when you consider young birds starting to learn to fly…
Bobcat vs eagle:
https://youtu.be/VegwG4QKdNA?t=61
“I doubt that many birds of prey get killed by house cats”
Precisely. that is the wind turbine’s job. !
Cheering those wind turbines on, all the way, aren’t you sob.
Get rid of the birds of prey, so the rodents of the sob world can proliferate.
Yep, cats make great food for birds of prey..
Your point is?
Glad to know that you have no care at all for birds being HACKED TO DEATH.
Birds of prey keep RODENTS at bay.
No wonder seb hates them so much.
“Having to change where you live is FAR different than being HACKED TO DEATH mid flight.”
what are you talking about? Most animals will figure out that their mountain top is being removed when it is blown up.
your total disinterest in animal life is showing by your ignorance on this topic. There are plenty of animals that can not change habitat fast enough.
Most can.
You have shown already your abject uncaring ignorance of anything to do with nature, and your total willingness to just MAKE CRAP UP.
so why change now?
In civilised countries, large efforts are made to move nature from mining areas.
Unlike wind turbines, its not just HACK, HACK, HACK !!
“Most can.”
No. Most can not. fact. Most animals are too small to change place. You know absolutely nothing about animals. It is not all red kites….
If habitat change was so simple, you would just need to drive the red kites away. But that is not simple.
Your ignorance of the efforts made to rehabilitate animals before mining takes place is that of an inner-city ghetto basement scummer.
Big difference is that mining tries to avoid wholesale SLAUGHTER, whereas wind turbine scammers try to HIDE the HACK, HACK, HACK !!
They know its going to happen..
… but they JUST DON’T CARE !!
You wouldn’t know a fact if it slapped you in the gob.
Small animals easily relocate themselves, and in the case of mining, often get VERY CARING assistance.
Your little inner city ghetto teaches you NOTHING about the world around you.
Remain wilfully IGNORANT.. its all you have to fuel your FANTASIES, sob.
Bang on cue! Well done, sod.
You may not be making excuses but you are still trying to divert the argument away from the damage done to birds by wind turbines. If you have something useful to contribute, fine; if not why not go off and start your own thread somewhere?
Sod your examples are trivial by comparison with the 24/7 worldwide bat and bird slaughter by the monstrousities, called wind-turbines. Or to give them their proper name, subsidy farms.
A slaughter? Where is the evidence? You skeptics need evidence for everything to accept it as a possibility, but with those “slaughters” it is enough to say “no one knows just how many red kites fall victim to turbines each year. Counting is difficult because a struck bird is often quickly taken away by foxes or other scavengers” … How convenient.
I guess you didn’t watch the film. There are no official numbers, but there are enough good estimates on the number of victims of wind turbines each year. But none of that impresses you, and so we’ll put you down as being in the same camp as the profit hungry wind lobby.
.
https://notrickszone.com/2016/08/08/bat-destruction-data-show-wind-energy-is-wiping-out-wildlife-and-not-saving-it/
There is substantial evidence (as noted by scientists in the above link) that about 4 million bats are killed by wind turbines per year, and wind turbines are now the leading cause of multiple mortality events in bats.
At the current rate of wind turbine construction across the globe, that number will soon swell to about 10 million bat deaths per year due to wind turbines. Several already-endangered species of bats are thus projected to go extinct during the next few decades.
Do you care, SebastianH? Of course you don’t. What’s the evidence for your indifference? When reading about the wildlife (birds) costs of erecting wind turbines, you cutely respond by concocting an analogy pertaining to red kites.
Sick.
If only you had such passion for actually saving the planet …
Please find out how many bats die of other causes. I found an interesting statistic about birds … while 234000 birds were killed by wind turbines in 2013 (study), up to 1 billion died by colliding with windows and cats killed around 4 billion. Multiple other human causes like cars and pesticides are killing birds in the millions.
So what are the numbers for bats? Do wind turbines really cause them to go extinct? Are there easy fixes besides not building wind turbines if this would really be a big problem? Why does the OP need to call it a slaughter?
We do.. we want to save it from the DEVASTATION of wind turbines
…and we want to save it from the totalitarian religious scam of AGW.
and we want to leave the world with FAR MORE atmospheric CO2 resources to support the world’s growing population
We want to help poor countries to develop their status of life, by providing them with solid reliable energy.
seb et al want the civilised world to degrade into the dark, pestilent, freezing times of the LIA.
This is what you ENJOY, right seb !!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NAAzBArYdw
From what? A 1/100th of 1 percent change in the atmospheric CO2 concentration? You have no idea who you’re talking to when it comes to my “passion” for humanity and the biosphere.
Your side wishes to deny electricity access to hundreds of millions of impoverished people on the basis that any new power source must come from costly, unreliable, and intermittent wind or solar power that actually increases CO2 emissions rather than reducing them.
If you had the choice of lifting 60 million people out of poverty (or at least allow them access to electricity) with natural gas and coal power, or lifting 5 million people out of poverty with wind and solar power, which would you choose?
Get ready for the wrong answer.
Get ready for no answer at all (from you) … What are the numbers for bats? Are windmills really slaughtering them because bats fly only when it’s windy?
I already provided the scientific conclusion: 4 million bats per year are killed by wind turbines, and wind blades are now the leading cause of mass deaths in bats.
Would you rather lift 60 million people out of poverty with gas and coal, or 5 million out of poverty with wind and solar? Is your non-answer another indication that you’d prefer to let poor people go without access to refrigeration, lighting, hospital services…for the sake of what? Increasing CO2 emissions?
You are a nasty piece of slime-troll, seb!!
No care for anything of life except your scam AGW agenda.
As the experiment with wind power flutters on, it becomes increasingly difficult to find anything good to say about the result.
This episode in human history reminds me of the saying
“This too shall pass” – reminiscent of a kidney stone.
There is strong evidence, that other sources kill more birds than wind turbines (power lines are a big problem for big birds):
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-05-27/tall-buildings-are-bigger-threat-to-birds-than-wind-power
wind and solar are also at the lower end of the energy sources that kill birds:
https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/08/22/pecking-order-energys-toll-on-birds
In total, it is utterly strange to see people argue against wind power killing birds, who never said a single critical word about environmental damages done by another power source.
Show us the pictures of birds killed by other energy sources.
That whole second article was based on a scam from start to finish.
and you bought it.. as usual
Proof, sob.. pictures of bird killed by coal fired power station.
PUT UP OR SHUT UP
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/gallery/2002/11/18/oilcover300.jpg
AndyG55 … who cares so much about the environment. This is too funny. Go on, And 😉
So change to an oil accident, which they do everything they can to prevent, as opposed to the PURPOSEFUL hacking of avian birdlife, that they do everything they can to cover up.
SLIMY tactics, seb.. as we have come to expect from you.
Birds killed by coal fired power stations.
PUT UP OR SHUT UP.
sod,
How could you believe Bloomberg could be objective in its assessment when it is market with the Sierra Club as helpers.
https://www.bloomberg.org/program/environment/clean-energy/
Or how about this fact based approach:
Scotland produced 136% of its house hold demand in wind power last month. Or 58% of Scotlands entire electricity demand of the months.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/wind-power-energy-green-scottish-households-136-per-cent-scotland-renewable-farms-turbines-a7666406.html
Do they even still have a single living bird there?
Or could it be that these scare tactics again are contradicted by reality in the most hard way possible?!?
“Do they even still have a single living bird there?”
Certainly a whole lot less than they used to !!
https://www.rspb.org.uk/our-work/rspb-news/news/382325-scotlands-kestrels-in-severe-decline
https://www.bto.org/news-events/news/2013-11/scottish-bird-indicators-highlight-decline-upland-birds
https://stopthesethings.com/2014/11/13/green-hypocrisy-rspb-fiddles-as-scotlands-wind-farms-found-guilty-of-rampant-raptor-slaughter/
Is THIS what you want, sob.. you truly are SICK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO5LjgIEofg
http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/14408530.Turbine_toll_on_birdlife/
http://www.birdwatch.co.uk/channel/newsitem.asp?cate=__14606
http://www.cfact.org/2013/03/18/wind-turbines-kill-up-to-39-million-birds-a-year/
But this is ALL good news to sob and seb. !!
again: IF wind turbines were a significant risk to birds, we would expect a total slaughter in the places that are nearly 60% wind. we do not see such an effect in Scotland.
But that is just a fact again.
And no, pictures of a single dead bird of prey do not contradict the facts…
DENIAL of such slaughter really is a very SICK, PUTRID stance to take, sob. !!
HACK, HACK, HACK.. and you just don’t care so long as you get to push the AGW scam.
Independent article and arguments based on WWF report. Hardly an objective source.
“ndependent article and arguments based on WWF report. Hardly an objective source.”
the source does not matter here. this is a fact based approach:
either the 60% wind in Scotland are killing significant amounts of birds or those places with 10% do not have a problem at all.
the obvious answer is, that birds are doing fine in Scotland and even 100% wind will have not such a huge impact. The simple reason for that is, what my sources tell you: other causes of bird killing are much worse than wind power. This topic simply is fake news.
Birds are being SLAUGHTERED by wind farms throughout the world and sob just DENIES and LIES. !
https://www.rspb.org.uk/our-work/rspb-news/news/382325-scotlands-kestrels-in-severe-decline
https://www.bto.org/news-events/news/2013-11/scottish-bird-indicators-highlight-decline-upland-birds
https://stopthesethings.com/2014/11/13/green-hypocrisy-rspb-fiddles-as-scotlands-wind-farms-found-guilty-of-rampant-raptor-slaughter/
THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT, sob.
it is part of the AGW mantra..
CHOP, CHOP, CHOP!!!
Why are you DENYING it.,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO5LjgIEofg
No sod, wrong again WWF does not supply facts, they supply propaganda.
Still you wouldn’t know the difference .
Oh and by the way, we have a red kite living here. I see him basically once per week. But we are also living in Baden Wuerttemberg, with very little wind power so far….
And I’ll bet you have no interest of moving anywhere within cooee of a major wind farm .. right , sob !!
More for seb’s and sob’s viewing PLEASURE.
http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/
I wonder if you care as much about roadkill. Should we ban cars? It’s sick that we kill so many animals by driving around.
Its sick that you PURPOSELY support the erection of turbines that you know are going to hack to death so many precious rare birds to death.
At least roads and transport have a function.
Wind turbines are just a SICK agenda driven scam that they KNOW will decimate avian life..
..but people like you… JUST DON’T CARE.
The fact that you can’t tell the difference, really does put you at the lowest end of human existence.
And then there are the bats. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14593-wind-turbines-make-bat-lungs-explode/
But of course bats are not cuddly or pretty so they don’t matter, or do they?
Of course the other side of killing birds and bats is the rise in scavenging species like magpies, rats, and “conspiracies” of ravens.
Kill off the bats, and the insects lose a major predator.
This shifting of the balance due to the UNCARING, almost WANTON, destruction of higher bird species and night time insectivores, could come back to bite us big time.!
Ok, so let wind mills start at higher windspeeds in regions where bats are active. Owner loses around 1% of generated power and 90% of the “slaughtered” bats are saved.
Still waiting on numbers about bats … for birds, windmills are a minor threat compared to cars, powerlines, oh … and cats. For bats it should be owls and WNS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-nose_syndrome) which cause the highest death tolls.
Cars and cats have nothing to do with the endangered red kite.
O’Shea et al., 2016
“Two factors led to a major shift in causes of MMEs [multiple mortality events] in bats at around 2000: the global increase of industrial wind-power facilities and the outbreak of white-nose syndrome in North America. Collisions with wind turbines and white-nose syndrome are now the leading causes of reported MMEs [multiple mortality events] in bats.”
—
Frick et al., 2017
“Large numbers of migratory bats are killed every year at wind energy facilities. However, population-level impacts are unknown as we lack basic demographic information about these species. We investigated whether fatalities at wind turbines could impact population viability of migratory bats, focusing on the hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus), the species most frequently killed by turbines in North America. Using expert elicitation and population projection models, we show that mortality from wind turbines may drastically reduce population size and increase the risk of extinction. For example, the hoary bat population could decline by as much as 90% in the next 50 years if the initial population size is near 2.5 million bats and annual population growth rate is similar to rates estimated for other bat species (λ = 1.01). Our results suggest that wind energy development may pose a substantial threat to migratory bats in North America. If viable populations are to be sustained, conservation measures to reduce mortality from turbine collisions likely need to be initiated soon. Our findings inform policy decisions regarding preventing or mitigating impacts of energy infrastructure development on wildlife.”
—
Do you care, SebastianH? No, you don’t. That’s why you pathetically pivot to talking about red kite deaths.
classic case of whataboutery
Yeah, how do you counter “what about birds/bats”? With “what about other causes of deaths?” …
Other causes are NOT intentional, like wind turbine deaths are.
ZERO attempt is made to avoid wind turbine deaths..
They are in fact, hushed up.
so that the Chop, Chop, Chop can continue unabated.
Huge fines often apply to people hurting top level birds, but somehow the slaughter of the wind turbines is allowed. Why would that be.
Here is another picture for you to GLOAT over.
http://www.birdsandblades.com/wind-farm-bird-apocalypse/
Did you ever find any pictures of birds killed by coal fired power stations?
Or are you going to keep up your meaningless yapping like you always do.
DOWN WIND – Wind Farm documentary – FULL DOC in HD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55-jBCjtJ88
DOWN WIND – Wind Farm documentary – FULL DOC in HD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55-jBCjtJ88
Hello all, since I rarely visit this blog, but when I read the articles my sleeping brain snaps wide awake.
I have a question. Since upon hearing about Global Warming, then Climate Change, what have you and your family sacrificed in your lifestyle?
Well.. I do what I can NOT to reduce my CO2 output, even if it does cost me financially. (I can proudly say that, according to the electricity bill, by myself I use as nearly much electricity as a three person family 🙂 )
I fight as hard as I can to bring some REALISM into the debate. Its a fight against a load of brain-washed anti-nature AGW religious activists, intent on bring the civilised world to its knees, and who will DENY every fact that brings a light onto their mentally deficit AGW agenda.
I’ve learned that CO2 in the atmosphere was getting dangerously low with respect to plant growth. It seems about 600 ppm to 800 ppm would give Earth a good cushion. Now it is just over about 400 ppm.
Knowing this, we have been burning more wood in the stove and trying to cut down on the electricity used. Our electricity is from hydro (big dams), and our house, except for the wood stove, is all electric. Dropping water through a turbine doesn’t help keep the CO2 growing.
We can’t do much more, but we do try to use charcoal for grilling when the weather is good. It has been too cold and snowy. We (getting older now) are not looking forward to the next glacial advance – we can see a glacier from here, but not the one that will advance on our house.
Hope that helps.
“I have a question. Since upon hearing about Global Warming, then Climate Change, what have you and your family sacrificed in your lifestyle?”
1. Price rises across the board because of worthless ‘carbon tax’ measures.
2. Removing the TV from the building as there is too much ‘climate’ propaganda broadcast.
3. We now joke about ‘sustainable’ being the new BS word of the moment — the only upside to modern politics.
offshore wind without subsidies:
http://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/offshore-windpark-101.html
Great fun to read the comments on conservative FAZ:
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/energiepolitik/windparks-ohne-foerderung-erneuerbare-energie-lohnt-sich-endlich-14971139-p2.html
Everyone should read the spin on this by Daniel Wetzel from “Die Welt” (possibly the most cited journalist on this blog).
In one of the most extreme versions of “the grapes i can not reach must be sour” he is misinterpreting the new wind without subsidies as a sign that we have been overpaying before.
https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article163681001/Die-brutale-Kostenwahrheit-ueber-die-Windkraft-Branche.html
I can explain this easily: the prices fell, BECAUSE we were giving a subsidy to those who invested early!
That is exactly how subsidies are supposed to work: you give a subsidy to a technology and then after some time they do not need the subsidy any longer. To complicated for Wetzel though…
I’d say Wetzel is not the one here who misunderstands things.
Hm. I am not convinced that Wetzel understands this subject. Has he been predicting that offshore wind would not need any subsidy at all? Has anyone here claimed this recently?
and take this paragraph:
“Das Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz (EEG) sah deshalb in einer Variante vor, dass der Verbraucher für die Kilowattstunden vom Meer acht Jahre lang 19,4 Cent bezahlen muss – danach fällt die Einspeisevergütung auf 3,9 Cent. Über einen Förderzeitraum von 20 Jahren ergibt sich so eine durchschnittliche Förderung zwischen zehn und 13 Cent pro Kilowattstunde.”
https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article163681001/Die-brutale-Kostenwahrheit-ueber-die-Windkraft-Branche.html
His calculation is simply false. neither is the support between 10 and 13 ct, nor is such a average useful for anything.
There is a baseline for the price and that is the market price. so it makes a huge difference, whether you pay 20 ct first and 4 ct later or whether you pay an average of 10 ct. Because if the market price is above 4ct, you simply do not pay anything at a 4 ct subsidy guaranteed price).
Today we had a a very good wind and solar day, but the market price was still between 2.5ct and 4ct so a wind park above 8 years would have barely gotten any subsidy. This would be totally different at an average 13 ct payout…
i found a graph showing long trends on spot prices. the 3.9 ct price would barely ever be used.
http://flari2013.bplaced.net/Strom/Preise/Spotpreise.png
Forming the average is simply false. Why is nobody defending Wetzel?
I agree. The technology in now “mature” as it ever will be.
All subsidies , all payments for non-supply, all feed-in mandates should be scrapped.
Level playing field, with tenders for power taken 2 days in advance, big fines for not meeting tender.
Wouldn’t you agree too, so.
And of course , make sure that proper fines are paid for every bird or bat sliced and diced.
“Level playing field, with tenders for power taken 2 days in advance, big fines for not meeting tender.”
it is so funny to see you run with the goal post. you have been demanding an end to subsidies. Now that happens. But it is not enough for you.
In the real world, the opposite of your demand is happening. Australia is thinking about tenders of 5 minutes (huge reduction from 30 minutes), which would massively benefit batteries.
The power companies are in big trouble, because your “reliable” fossil fuel plants have huuuuge start up times.
perfect graph here:
http://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/OCGT_FSIP.png
Reliability of supply. No contest.
Coal and gas win hands down
What is the amount (as percentage of nameplate) that wind can reliably guarantee to provide 95% of the time, sob?
And please don’t DENY that reliability is not the most important aspect of any electricity supply system.
You ALWAYS have to have that base load, than wind and solar can NEVER supply except in tiny niche situations.
When the subsidies, feed-in mandates, and anti-CO2 legislation, destroy the economic viability of these solid RELIABLE electricity sources, you are left with NOTHING but unreliable supply.
I really hope that your inner city ghetto starts to feel the effects of this soon, because places like South Australia certainly are.
“Reliability of supply. No contest.”
You are talking about a theoretical situation. In the real world, fossil fuel plants have been gaming the system all the time (Enron being the best example).
Australia is currently looking into this. Take a look at this strange bidding process:
http://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Screen-Shot-2017-04-12-at-10.42.24-AM.png
bids for the first 5 minutes of the 30 minute tender are incredibly high, then the price turns negative for the rest of the time span. As the price calculation is an average, fossil fuels get massively overpaid.
there also is a trend of having “reliable” plants not available during the most important times, driving up prices.
Love that first graph. lol.
Time to synchronise…. to what ??
Without the base load coal/gas power stations, there is nothing to synchronise to. !
That was EXACTLY what happened to South Australia, they got out of frequency sync, and had to shut down
You don’t have a rational enough thought process to figure any of this out, sob.
You really need to get the experience of NO ELECTRICITY, before the major problems being created by UNRELIABLES will sink into your tiny mind.
This zero cent subsidy offshore windparks are turning into a master lesson on fake news. The comment section of all papers (but mostly the conservative ones) are actually filled with hateful comments against wind power. They all ignore the basic facts (zero subsidy) and simply complain about all sort of stuff.
the comments on Spiegel also show this behaviour:
http://www.spiegel.de/forum/wirtschaft/energie-enbw-baut-windpark-ohne-subventionen-thread-590948-1.html
I also wonder whether people here saw this news about Europe: The power companies have agreed to not invest in new coal after 2020 (Poland and Greece did not join).
http://www.badische-zeitung.de/wirtschaft-3/die-kohle-wird-zum-auslaufmodell–135513097.html
There is only a handful of planned projects left and it is unclear if those will finish. So we might need those wind plants and you folks should start bringing in ideas how we can stop them from killing your beloved birds!
[…] Measures To Protect Endangered Birds From Wind Turbines Completely Ineffective! It’s time for wind energy proponents to admit that their well-intended idea of wind energy has in fact had disastrous ecological consequences. No technological development has ever so negatively impacted the environment and landscape like wind turbines have. Not only do they blight the scenic landscape and make people living near them ill, they are a serious killer of avian wildlife, as made evident by a recent German ZDF Terra X documentary shows (starts at 34:15 min). Hat-tip: Alessandra E. […]