The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types–the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution. [1924]

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Green Illusions BOOK REVIEW
Just as we’ve stated about the video, watch the first 31 minutes, thus we also say about the book, read the first 60 pages: they contain the chapters on Solar and Wind.   The book’s subtitle is: The Dirty Secrets of Green Energy and the Future of Environmentalism.

Ozzie Zehner is an Environmentalist who prefers to call a tree a tree and not a carbon credit. And we make these further distinctions, based on the contents of the book: Environmentalist, one who Preserves, Protects and fosters the natural and human environment; Environmentalism, a secular Faith that leads one to Green Illusions; Enviro-Crusader, a pseudo-environmentalist who pursues Green at any cost.

One short epigram (introducing the Biofuels chapter, p.61) in our view captures the political and corporate anima of Green Energy and the spirit of Illusion:
Years ago, fairy tales all began with, ‘Once upon a time…’ Now we know they    all begin with, ‘If I’m elected’. [Carolyn Warner]
To say that so-called Green Energy is/was born of a Big Government and Big Business nexus is to repeat a truism. To say that it is, “renewable” energy is really to say that is is unreliable energy, as Zehner proves.

Part one, chap.2. Wind Power’s Flurry of Limitations
Compared to Solar, Wind is much more economical in terms of total cost; however, it is not much better at generating power and relies on the variable kinetic energy of the wind. Turbines don’t pour out CO2 into the air, but they do create and generate EMFs (electromagnetic frequencies) [they cause adverse health effects, produce noise, vibration, shadow flicker, etc]; and their diesel backup systems do emit CO2 when engaged. The total carbon footprint of IWT’s from mining of ore, to building, transporting, installing, clearing, maintaining and decommissioning add up to a large footprint, not to mention the toxic rare-earth metals in the carbon fibre blades (none of which can be recycled). All Turbine operations and turbine building before erection have a higher not lower footprint[p.41]. The Turbine lifecycle relies heavily on fossil fuels and in practice the Turbine is really a fossil fuel hybrid[p.42]: wind is renewable, Turbines are not.
The electrical output is erratic: when wind is down and generation is low, power plants have to be fired up to supply the shortfall [p.43]. And turbines need electrical power fed to them to operate massive steering systems and idling functions [.p.44]; nor can Turbines provide base or peak power demands. The generated power cannot be stored and must be dumped when production is high because of high wind [p.45]. The blowing wind cannot be controlled as can be flowing water for hydro turbines; one cannot conjure the wind when power is in great demand [p.47]. Environmental organizations oppose the expansion of the power grid through protected lands and national forests because of the devastation caused by construction [p.47].
Wind proponents, especially developers, politicians and bureaucrats, confuse the public in order to stir support by misquoting the meaning of basic concepts, namely: Capacity and Production. Maximum output is called, “nameplate capacity”, whilst actual output is, “production”[p.49]. Since the two don’t match, we can see how duplicitous the Green game is when almost always proponents will refer to “nameplate capacity”. A 100MW coal plant generator will produce 74% of that power, compared to the same “Nameplate Capacity” (100MW) of a Wind Turbine that produces only 24MW, on average[p49]. To match the coal plant production, 3 Turbines would have to built, transported and erected. Comparing power production by various means, Nuclear has a production capacity of 92%, Coal 74%, Natural Gas 42%, Hydro 38%, Wind 24%, Solar 14% [p.50]. The capacity factor is be the most important “blind” in the touting and advertising of wind energy, tantamount to true misrepresentation. Wind powere is 67% more expensive on average and 40% less effective than is usually touted by proponents [p.57].
The land space required for a wind farm is huge, if towers are spaced per technical specs: a minimum of 5 rotor-diameters apart side-by-side, ten diameters front-to-back [p.55]. A “farm” of 100 Turbines, for example, therefore would require a massively huge amount of land [which is why Wind Developers usually do not abide by the minimum specs for placement]. It doesn’t take much to see that this massive amount of land is taken out of production in agricultural areas or de-forested in other zones effectively destroys the land forever, given the tonnage of concrete and land needed just for each each base.
Three MAIN problems with wind power:
FIRST, making a fetish out of expectations for wind power, which has not displaced traditional power generation; increased production means increased supply and more consumption (example, Spain is presented as the Green Energy leader over the last 20 years; nevertheless, its greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 40% over the same period [p.59].
SECOND, the huge fanfare over wind power diverts attention from other solutions: less consumption; improved building techniques; conervation, etc. [p. 59].
THIRD, all myths do not come true. In the case of Green Energy, they are sustained by two sets of data, one private and internal (Green is not clean), the other public and touted by industry (Green is good for all the reasons debunked above, and made better by public subsidies). There is no Energy Crisis; we have a Consumption Crisis[p.60].

[read the rest: Green Illusions]

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