Don't Buy "Chainsaw" Autos!

Many Mendonoma friends and neighbors still display “Don’t drink chainsaw wine” bumper stickers, which came to mind as I read a Spiegel article “Mutiny in the land of wind turbines.” 

To refresh our memories, “Chainsaw wine” refers to the now-defunct Preservation Ranch proposal to “plant 1,150 acres of premium, sustainably farmed vineyards on 1,769 acres” (9% of 19,645 acres), which ardent environmentalists fought by abstaining from consuming a non-existing product.

Ardent environmentalists also spear-head the movement in Germany to aggressively replace nuclear and fossil fuel electrical generation with wind power, and so far succeeded in boosting Germany’s electricity cost to $0.31/kWh compared to $0.08-$0.17/kWh in the US.  As wind turbines in Germany have to locate deeper into its interior, productivity per turbine falls to under a third of offshore turbines, while greatly increasing visual and noise pollution, lowering property values, and slaughtering birds, bats, and insects. These are all the typical unintended consequences of blind environmental idealism.

But there’s more: ironically, the increase in land-based wind turbines unleashes a vast chainsaw-wielding army to clear-cut trees for foundations, access roads, and power lines. The German state of Hesse alone plans to cut down forest acreage equal to over ten proposed Preservation Ranch vineyards, and North Rhine-Westphalia wants to do even more.

Since automobiles are the preeminent German export produced by intensive electrical energy exploitation, true environmentalists should join me in fighting the degradation of German forests and loss of CO2-sequestering trees by buying and displaying my bumper sticker “Don’t buy chainsaw automobiles©”.

Unlike “chainsaw wine”, German automobiles are real, not symbolic, and their production is causing real environmental degradation.

Save the world! Buy bumper stickers, not BMW’s!

Wind Farm Slaughter

For nine years, 1989 to 1998, I lived in sight of the Altamont Pass wind farms in California near Livermore. Often none of the turbines were turning, but when they did, they killed about 5,000 large predator birds per year, and large but not counted numbers of bats. This slaughter appeared to be done with impunity, and for what seemed to be little benefit in terms of power generated. I saw some information that the wind farm generated at less than 30% of its rated capacity, and that the power it produced fluctuated constantly, requiring back-up supplement by natural gas and hydroelectric power generation.


In contrast to the lax regulation of bird and bat kill, I recently read about very high fines assessed against Texas oil companies for the deaths of a few common water birds in storage tanks.

Why the one would be treated harshly, and the other leniently, makes no sense. The wind farms are causing horrendous environmental damage for no value – in fact they are an expensive waste of taxpayer and ratepayer money.

The Answer is not Blowing in the Wind - The Futility of Wind Power

For nine years Alice and I lived on a small ranch east of Livermore, California. Two of my closest neighbors were the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and the Altamont Pass wind farm. I could only see a hint of the sprawling Livermore Lab campus, but from my backyard I could watch many of the wind turbines at Altamont not doing much.

On two occasions recently I drove through the Altamont Pass on Highway 580 and both times did not see even one wind turbine turning. The first time was understandable; it was just after noon on a desultory summer day. The second time, however, was during a driving rain storm.

Aside from their demonic ability to kill Eagles and raptors during their rare periods of operation, Altamont Pass should be viewed as a living laboratory of the futility of wind power. (For a very clear exposition of this point, click on this link to an excellent Master Resource blog post)

Its near neighbor, the Livermore Lab, is another matter. A recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle reported: "Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reported Thursday they have taken a major step toward harnessing the forces that power the sun in an effort to create unlimited energy on Earth."

There it is in a nutshell. On the one hand, the supposed scientifically enlightened pursue a very limited, costly, and as common sense demonstrates, futile method of meeting burgeoning energy needs. On the other hand, science is just taking baby steps to develop nuclear power production, which assuredly will one day become the means of satisfying mankind's ever increasing energy needs. One direction leads nowhere while fueling the cry that what must be done is for mankind to stop economic progress. The other direction unleashes the potential for mankind to achieve economic security for all, thereby reducing the need for politicians and their acolytes to preside over the division of shrinking resources.

We know which road politicians will choose, so common sense (and science) will lead us to choose the other.

San Francisco Tilts Towards Mass Hysteria

San Francisco may think it is on the cutting edge concerning urban wind farms (San Francisco tilts towards wind power, September 29, 2009), but the idea has long been tried and found wanting in Great Britain. The following critiques of urban wind power were all gleaned from the writings of wind power enthusiasts.

The first problem with urban wind turbines is the urban environment; buildings and other structures cause turbulence which reduces wind speed and causes it to swirl. The only rooftop wind turbines suited to a swirling wind are vertical axis (“eggbeater”) turbines, which are severely limited in size and are subject to frequent – and very expensive – gearbox failure.

Roof mounted wind turbines also are very noisy and produce heavy – and very annoying – vibrations. In an urban setting they may pay off on their investment in twenty years if they’re maintenance free, and none are. In urban settings small windmills usually don’t even pay back their carbon investment and are more likely to be net consumers of electricity than producers, since the inverter uses electricity when the turbine is not generating.

To operate efficiently, the larger the wind turbine the better, necessitating tall towers and long blades which are not appropriate in an urban setting. Manufacturers recommend that even small wind turbines be mounted on 80- to 120-foot towers to clear turbulence since nothing is generated until wind speed exceeds the cut-in rate of 7 to 10 mph. Such towers are unsuitable for installation on most rooftops.

San Francisco’s 44-member urban wind power task force producing a report recommending urban wind power is an illustration of how anthropogenic global warming inspires mass hysteria.

The Silent Windmills of Altamont

We had Christmas with Alice’s daughters’ families in Walnut Creek, about forty miles east of San Francisco, overnighted with a friend in Livermore not far from the five-acre ranch where we lived for nine years, and on the last day of 2008 we set off for Southern California via Highway 580. Soon we were passing through the Altamont Pass, famed as the site of a massive free rock concert in 1969 featuring the Rolling Stones with the Hell’s Angels as security, or maybe not.

Now Altamont Pass is a much quieter place, the site of what was once the largest wind farm in the world. As we drove past it on a winter afternoon, not one of the 4,900 windmills was turning. When we came back through Altamont eight days later, no windmill was turning. On the basis of the consistent, persistent cold weather during our eight-day sojourn, the Altamont wind farm probably didn’t produce much, if any, electrical power during that period.

I wasn’t surprised. During our nine years in Livermore, Alice and I could see many of the windmills from our back yard. As often as not, none would be turning, particularly in the morning, in the evening, in the winter, and from my very limited personal observations, at night (it was too dark to view the still windmills except for the few times I drove through Altamont Pass after dark). The reason for the rampant inactivity is quite simple: windmills are powered by the sun creating temperature differentials, and the resultant movement of air masses.

During the day, the San Joaquin Valley warms rapidly, and the Pacific Ocean doesn’t. Warm air rises from the land, and cooler air rushes inland through the Altamont Pass, powering the windmills as it passes. The land cools faster than the ocean after the sun goes down, and the process is reversed – except the cooling is slower, and the air movement is also slower, providing far less energy to move the windmills.

Wind farms like the Altamont Pass are very inefficient, and wouldn’t exist without heavy subsidies and wishful thinking on the part of politicians and environmentalists. The Altamont wind farm only operates at an average efficiency of 22 percent (producing about 125 megawatts from a 576 megawatts capacity). In fact, because so much power is generated by higher windspeed, much of the energy comes in short bursts; half of the energy available comes from just 15% of the operating time.

To an honest engineer, the math is very simple: moving air has a very low energy density and is unreliable – a huge land area is needed to harvest energy from it. The United States is blessed with stronger winds than Europe, and still wind generates only about one percent of our electricity. According to the Department of Energy, wind farms “could generate 20% of US electricity by 2030.” Apparently no honest engineers were consulted before the Department of Energy made this asinine pronouncement. Wind farms will be lucky to stay at one percent, given our current economic downturn.

An honest assessment of wind power is that it can only be relied on to "supply a low proportion of total demand."
When a wind farm is erected, the fossil fuel generator providing power to the area can't be closed and torn down. Based on my observations, and the observations of others, it still has to run almost eighty percent of the time, and that would be true even if the capacity of the wind farm quadrupled, quintupled, or even exceeded ten times the capacity of the old generator. Why? Simple. No matter how big a wind farm you build, when the wind isn't blowing, it isn't generating.

But the need for electricity doesn't wait for the wind to return.

Where will funding for wind farms arise? From the Federal government, running record deficits while over a trillion dollars is going to bail out banks and automobile manufacturers? From the states? California is in a forty billion dollar hole, with deep cutbacks in education and health services, to name just the neediest state programs. From investors? They’ve been eaten alive by the recession, and wind farm investments make sense only if heavily subsidized by the government – and then they still don’t make sense.

The next time you admire a wind farm, chances are that you will be observing wind mills in inaction. If that is the case, think of all the politicians and engineers that have sold their integrity to create an expensive and wasteful eyesore.

One that you helped build, and must subsidize to operate.