I forget the exact day, I have it scribbled somewhere, which I will find and update this post with, but it was within a couple days of the late November storm that dumped a foot of snow in these parts. I was driving in Henry County Illinois, home of three “wind farm” developments comprising in total over two-hundred units. The latest greatest big ones.
It was damn cold but the wind was dead calm. Every one of the units I could see, and I could pick out 50 or more , were dead to the world as far as exporting energy. This a day when electric and forced air furnaces in homes and businesses needed electricity, as did factories, and every other civilized structure. Why even “pollution free”* electric cars needed to charge.
Now did anyone suffer the cold? No! Not because of back-up energy, as the concept does not apply. The core energy – fossil and nuke – had to be built, up and running. And thank God that is what we depend on, not these ugly contraptions scarring the land. They are not even serious back-up energy. They are superfluous or undependable energy which is a waist of investment that would not take place but for tax payer subsidies and people at the trough.
And as many people do not realize these behemoths suck energy in the cold as they are kept online, to insure operational readiness. Operational readiness, what a joke.
Here are a few pictures from my vehicle. Again I warrant, attest, certify, swear that in the five minutes or so I parked and watched, none of the blades moved on the fifty or so units I could observe unaided. The picture of one blade in transit (three per unit) shows how big each of these boondoggles are.
*Are electric cars worse for the environment?
Crunch the numbers, and it looks like all those subsidies might be counterproductive.
Tesla’s Electric Cars Aren’t as Green as You Might Think
Where Electric Vehicles Actually Cause More Pollution Than Gas Cars
Note the sources – Politico, Wired, City Lab — not our conservative outlets
