One of the reasons windmills cannot generate energy efficiently is that the wind doesn't always blow — and when it does blow, bureaucrats pay wind farms to shut down:
Energy firms will receive thousands of pounds a day per wind farm to turn off their turbines because the National Grid cannot use the power they are producing.
Critics of wind farms have seized on the revelation as evidence of the unsuitability of turbines to meet the UK's energy needs in the future. They claim that the 'intermittent' nature of wind makes such farms unreliable providers of electricity.
The word "claim" in this context means "observe the obvious fact."
The National Grid fears that on breezy summer nights, wind farms could actually cause a surge in the electricity supply which is not met by demand from businesses and households.
The electricity cannot be stored, so one solution — known as the 'balancing mechanism' — is to switch off or reduce the power supplied. …
The first successful test shut down of wind farms took place three weeks ago. Scottish Power received £13,000 for closing down two farms for a little over an hour on 30 May at about five in the morning.
Whereas coal and gas power stations often pay the National Grid £15 to £20 per megawatt hour they do not supply, Scottish Power was paid £180 per megawatt hour during the test to switch off its turbines. …
Earlier this year, The Sunday Telegraph revealed that electricity customers are paying more than £1 billion a year to subsidise wind farms and other forms of renewable energy.
This is why the corrupt crony capitalists at GE are so into green energy that they have devoted their NBC Universal holding to propagandizing on its behalf. It is an utter boondoggle, but so long as it is coercively subsidized to the hilt, they'll make a fortune off it. Meanwhile, the "small people" (as Obama's pro-green energy financiers at BP call us) will pay much more for much less, so that politicians can thump their chests and proclaim that they've saved the polar bears by altering the weather.
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Here's what a couple of bloggers wrote:
So typical left - PAID to NOT work.
What I don't get is if the whole idea is to be "green" than why shut down the wind turbine when it is producing? Why wouldn't they suspend the coal or oil fired plant instead?
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Sounds like wind energy is about as useless as the biodiesel that congeals in the freezing winters of Minnesota and according to the mighty El Rushbo:
"They've got windmills in Minnesota. You know what? The windmills have stopped working. You know why? Because it's cold!"
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To read the full article go to:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/7840035/Firms-paid-to-shut-down-wind-farms-when-the-wind-is-blowing.html
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/biodiesel-congeals-school-buses-stall/
