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Capricious benefits
Credit: thechronicleherald.ca | 18 May 2012 ~~
For Nova Scotia Power users disgusted with endless rate hikes, the Hatch Report on Wind Power Integration on the government website suggests the costs associated with wind power integration are just beginning to be felt. By 2013, the power grid will require “hundreds of millions of dollars” of upgrades to cope with the fluctuating power production of the wind turbines.
For the same reason, the old coal- and oil-fired turbines will need to be kept spinning in reserve and their output ramped up and down to accommodate the sporadic contributions of the wind turbines, a mode of operation for which they were never designed, and which will reduce efficiency, increase wear and tear, and probably increase CO2 emissions.
Denmark has 30 years of experience perfecting wind power and despite wildly conflicting claims about how much wind power they produce and how much they can actually use within their borders, one thing is certain: Danish consumers pay some of the highest electricity rates in the world.
No one would argue the desirability of reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, but the headlong rush to wind power entails many significant costs, both financial and otherwise. The wholesale industrial destruction of large swaths of pristine coastal areas by the incursion of gigantic wind turbines is just one more sad and steep price to pay for the capricious benefits of wind power.
David MacAulay, Shubenacadie
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