| Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005. |
Wind Power News: Blogs
These news and opinion items are gathered by National Wind Watch in its noncommercial educational effort to help keep readers informed about developments related to industrial wind energy. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of National Wind Watch. They are the products of and owned by the organizations or individuals noted and are shared here according to “fair use” and “fair dealing” provisions of copyright law.
Windbaggery: The wind energy sector’s days are numbered
“Reason, I sacrifice you to the evening breeze.” – Aimé Césaire To be an effective podcast guest requires a few basic tactics. First, it is important to let the host get their full question asked before beginning to answer yourself. In normal conversation, it is not uncommon to understand where a friend is going and to get there before they do, but in a podcast setting it can be off-putting. It is also advisable to directly address the host’s questions . . . Complete story »
UK Govt rejects request to share whale stranding data, fuelling suspicions over offshore wind farms
While recent statistics from other countries are in the public domain, the UK’s delay in publishing data has increased speculation that the government might be hiding another sharp increase in cetacean strandings, and it’s fuelling further suspicions of a link between wind farms and the demise of marine life. Five-fold increase in UK cetacean strandings The 2018 tally of 1000+ cetaceans stranded on UK beaches, compares with an annual reported average of around 200 or less over a period of . . . Complete story »
New guidelines on environmental impact assessments for offshore wind projects released
The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) has published the ‘Key environmental factors for offshore windfarm environmental impact assessment under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999’ (Guidance Document). There are 13 key impacts to be assessed by offshore wind proponents. The Guidance Document identifies 13 key impacts typically associated with offshore wind projects which should be considered when undertaking EIA. As the guidance is intended to apply nationally, not all of the impacts may . . . Complete story »
Offshore wind may not reduce CO₂ emissions
There is a common assumption that offshore wind electricity generation greatly reduces CO2 emissions. In fact this is the primary justification for the horrendous cost and adverse impact of these offshore megaprojects. As with many green assumptions, this may well be false. First, given the way power generation actually works the reduction in fossil fuel emissions may not be all that great. In fact offshore wind could actually increase fossil fuel emissions. This is explained below. Let’s take New Jersey . . . Complete story »
Wind farms in all the wrong places – The desecration of nature in pursuit of ‘green’ energy
July 16th, 2023 – Lewis, Western Isles: The terrible sight of 55 Pilot whales washed up dead and dying on a remote Scottish beach caused a deep sense of sadness that resonated around the world. July 20th, 2023: A Minke whale is found dead on the very same stretch of sand. It’s clearly no coincidence that the whales perished in the same location, but what was the cause? Although theories abound as to why these great mammals stranded, there is . . . Complete story »
The energy transition isn’t
Despite $4.1 trillion spent on wind and solar, they aren’t even keeping pace with the growth in hydrocarbons. We are inundated with claims about the “energy transition.” In February, E&E News, reporting on the State of the Union speech said, “President Joe Biden laid out his vision for the energy transition Tuesday night.” In March, a reporter for Politico declared “The U.S. energy transition is well underway.” Also in March, during a speech at the CERAWeek conference in Houston, Energy . . . Complete story »
Battery storage can’t fix wind & solar’s intermittency problem
Claims that mega-batteries will fix wind and solar’s natural intermittency problem turn out to be mega-myths. First, lithium-ion batteries of the kind pitched by Tesla – like every kind of battery – do not generate a single watt of power and are net consumers of electricity during their charge/discharge phase. Second, they are insanely expensive – relative to the trivial amounts of power they are capable of storing and releasing. Third, they are not designed to operate at grid-scale; at . . . Complete story »
Grid operators are sounding alarms about the increasing instability of US power grids
The near failure of the Texas power grid, coming just 4 minutes and 37 seconds from a complete collapse on February 14, 2021, was the first alarm bell that something was dreadfully wrong with US power grids. Meredith Angwin, a physical chemist and power grid specialist, described the February 2021 failure of the Texas power grid failure as a seminal event that was not a surprise: “Those of us who were watching the grid had noticed for years that Texas . . . Complete story »
Industrial wind turbines are the proverbial yo-yo
Over the past few days those of us living in southeastern Ontario couldn’t help but notice the ups and downs of the wind with both windy ones followed by almost a mid-summer doldrum! As a result of that experience it was worth a look at some IESO data and that is displayed below in a screenshot of April 4th to 9th taken on April 9th. The green on the chart shows the IWT (industrial wind turbines) grid connected generation over . . . Complete story »
Falmouth Town Meeting rejects Article 15
The citizen’s article asked Town Meeting to support soil testing on town land for possible cable landing sites associated with the cable landing necessary for the SouthCoast offshore wind energy project south of Martha’s Vineyard. Town Meeting members signaled their opposition to playing host to a major offshore wind farm development that could lead to unforeseen and unwanted consequences. The developer of the proposed offshore wind farm, according to Select Board Chair Nancy Taylor and Select Board member Doug Brown, . . . Complete story »
