Evan Beaver: you don’t seem to be a disinguous person but you do understand the argument about what constitutes a subsidy so how can you ignore the fact that Renewable Energy requirements are a huge de facto subsidy. Certainly businesses may choose wind on commercial grounds but it is a bit like saying “the government doesn’t force anyone to eat dog txxds but it does mandate that you have a daily dose of arsenic, cyanide or dog sxit”.

As to planning laws, that is partly the trouble. Without actual flouting of planning laws a huge amount of economic loss can be caused by way of reduction in land values. I know of one heritage property where the well-heeled owner has spent hundreds of thousands fighting a proposal whereby a lot of neighbours, and former friends, would make a lot of money out of wind generators erected to destroy historically renowned views from and to the heritage house and garden. As he has also exhausted himself with hundreds of hours of work on the issue he has recently retired to the coast and handed over his property to a younger son who will probably make strictly commercial stop-loss decisions with less emotion. The owner estimates that $5 million has been taken off the immediate selling price of the property. That may not cost the taxpayer, or charities, or indeed anyone but the owner or his family any part of that $5 million but it is still a loss of Australian assets caused by a policy, and decisions, which have LESS THAN NOTHING going for them in economic terms (a small plus for a few contractors and investors and a big loss to neighbours and to electricity consumers).

As to planning laws, that is partly the trouble. Without actual flouting of planning laws a huge amount of economic loss can be caused by way of reduction in land values. I know of one heritage property where the well-heeled owner has spent hundreds of thousands fighting a proposal whereby a lot of neighbours, and former friends, would make a lot of money out of wind generators erected to destroy historically renowned views from and to the heritage house and garden. As he has also exhausted himself with hundreds of hours of work on the issue he has recently retired to the coast and handed over his property to a younger son who will probably make strictly commercial stop-loss decisions with less emotion. The owner estimates that $5 million has been taken off the immediate selling price of the property. That may not cost the taxpayer, or charities, or indeed anyone but the owner or his family any part of that $5 million but it is still a loss of Australian assets caused by a policy, and decisions, which have LESS THAN NOTHING going for them in economic terms (a small plus for a few contractors and investors and a big loss to neighbours and to electricity consumers).

I suspect that your assertion that ‘they don’t do what they say on the tin’ is suggesting that they don’t generate all the time? An individual turbine will certainly achieve it’s rated capacity in the right conditions, often vastly exceeding it; most nameplate ratings are based on P50 or P80 scenarios for generation.

What I actually suspect is that you mean they don’t generate all the time; and yes this is true of ANY generating technology. It’s called ‘capacity factor’ and refers to the amount of time (not necessarily amount of power) that the generator is available over time. wind and solar are in the 25-40% range; coal and nuclear in the low to high 90s. Biogas engines I’ve worked on averaged around 70 and some as low as 50 with the high maintenance requirements. No one has ever disputed this. It comes with the territory. Do you have any references that suggest I’m wrong? I’d love to see them.

Which planning laws have been dismissed to approve wind farms? Like the endangered animals act that stopped the Bald Hills farm?

There isn’t as much energy efficiency available as you think. Might be as much as 30% available domestically, mostly in hot water, and yes that should be fixed. But all projections see an increase in demand for electricity, partly due to uptake in electric vehicles. Like it or not, we will need new generating capcity. I agree, domestic solar is a crap way to achieve it.

And no, the Government has not ‘plumped for wind’. As I said, there is no Government support for wind turbines available. Corporations have decided on wind as a commercial reality. Quite the opposite is actually happening; the Govt is heavily supporting both domestic and grid scale solar, Carbon Sequestration and the Tooth Fairy. Wind is chosen by corporations because it is relatively cheap and reliable.

And “fraud” applies not just to health but to all aspects of wind power generation: wind doesn’t deliver. Now we’re told 4500 wind turbines will be built in the next few years- rammed through, dismissing any sensible planning controls, to meet MRET. The claimed 9000MW is of course false- turbines don’t do what they say on the tin. Be lucky to make 20%, and usually when it is not needed. There’s so much that could be done to cheaply reduce demand, without increasing useless supply instead. Domestic solar will expensively reduce demand right now, but the govt. has plumped for wind. The backlash so far will appear modest compared with what is now developing.

But of course it’s only a 10th-order ishoo and you have to break eggs, etc etc.

And as you say, you’ll never have to experience them, being safely in Cambra.

I’m not trying to patronise you Frank, just point out that your view of wind turbines is more emotionally charged than mine. You don’t like them. Fine. I do. I would happily live near a wind farm, however I don’t think the threat is that great in central Canberra. I love the idea of this ‘appliance’ you essentially plug in and make power from simply and with relatively low impact. It would make me happy on windy days (which I generally despise, terrible weather for climbing) to look out the window and see the enormous blades churning out kWh. I would put even a small inefficient one on the roof of my house if planning laws allowed it. Further, I think they are heaps better than the alternatives. Solar is relatively expensive and hugely energy intensive. Hydro is no longer an environmental solution above 25MW, my objections to nuclear are detailed greatly above. You’re not going to convince me to change my mind either. At this stage of the game, we need to reduce CO2 emissions as quickly and cheaply as possible. Wind is the most mature and reliable of the options. That doesn’t mean you need one in your house, but we should build as many as poossible. Your concerns about people suffering are valid, but there is a middle ground between ruining people’s lives and not installing turbines.

As for exaggeration, you haven’t specified just what is “exaggerated”. And I’ve been reading for years now exactly your form of words: “windfarms annoy a few people, others actually like them”. You should research the social and psychological impacts. This dismissive, airy response is patronising. Those who “like” wind turbines don’t live amongst them.

You refer to “democracy”: it’s a sham democracy that permits people’s rights to be trashed. And you continue to patronise me with reference to barrow-pushing. No wonder so much political damage is being to environmentalism when real concerns are dismissed with put-downs like that. Treat people’s suffering with respect Evan, even if you choose to do nothing about it.

I know very well the resources required to make a turbine and yes, it does use resources. Name me one generation form that doesn’t? Big numbers don’t scare me, it’s all about energy and CO2 payback time. Wind is miles in front of the low carbon alternatives.

Your concerns are valid, although they are a little bit exagerated. You’ve also done something that annoys me deeply; taken potshots at something rather than comparing it to the alternative. A problem that must be solved has been identified (low carbon electricity generation). Sure, wind turbines annoy a few people; equal or greater numbers actually like them. But, the criticisms you raise apply equally to all generation forms, save possibly solar. Live next to a coal mine? Down go property prices. Build a nuclear plant and watch the people move away. Coal and uranium mining destroy habitat, arguably killing more wildlife than turbines.

Your passion is duly noted. Lots of people disagree with you. Keep pushing that barrow and contributing to the debate. We live in a democracy and it is your responsibility to be heard, but no one else’s responsibility to agree with you.

People suffer. Their property falls sharply in value or is unsaleable. There are appalling problems with infrasound. There is no compensation. Their rentier neighbours get rich and move to the coast to escape their own turbines. Tourism declines. Internal migration ceases and with it imported capital. Birds and bats are slaughtered. Bushfires ignite. Pylons proliferate along with turbine towers. The countryside is industrialised. The planning process is farcical. There is no remedy or defence.

Yet there are plans to put huge windfarms in unpopulated areas, notably the world’s largest west of Broken Hill. A colossal waste of capital, but if it is feasible out there and we can’t stop you, go right ahead, make our day.

(Incidentally, that windfarm will require 160,000 tonnes of concrete just for the pads, based on the 40,000 used in the Waubra windfarm. So don’t imagine that windpower is clean ‘n green.)

Not one contributor to this discussion has even mentioned social and environmental drawbacks to turbines. You either don’t care that your fellow-citizens suffer or you are blithely unaware.

As for my property, it isn’t and won’t be threatened by wind turbines, but I’ve watched the disaster unfold within a 100km radius over five years. I can testify to the political damage done to the green movt. in the provinces. I’ve seen friends in anguish. And guess who cheers whenever a windfarm is announced? The vicious, feral rednecks who infest the bush. They don’t benefit, so why the delight? It’s something too subtle for the urban left to comprehend: rednecks want to control and ransack the bush. They ransack every day and every night, legally and illegally. They see turbines as symbols of domination over the environment. They’re right.

So there’s the barrow, Evan. It’s human rights and the environment. I supported turbines when I was ignorant about them. Since then I’ve had death threats, bomb threats, arson threats, verbal abuse etc, just like many others Out Here, far from the pulsating magnetic field of Daylesford and its satellite, Melbourne. Think Wake in Fright (1971) and Deliverance (1976). Think smart-arse commentators ramming things up other people’s arses and crusading politicians pretending to save the planet.

Guy: It’s hardly worth commenting on your analogy between the moving parts of domestic appliances and wind turbines. My point is simply that over the 25 year life of wind turbines, they are expensive to maintain. There are frequent breakdowns. These and many other costs are never considered by proponents of wind energy.

I look forward to the fruits of your research into windpower.

On waste, an idea I’ve had recently is that there may be a certain synergy between nuclear and geothermal. Once the heat in a given rock volume is significantly diminished, it occurs to me that there could be a further use for those dozens of 4 km-deep production holes. They should accommodate spent fuel rods quite nicely. Might even extend the life of the geothermal production.

They’d have to be extremely well organised lunatics to dig the stuff up from a depth of four kilometres.

2. Yes we COULD change. But we wont. The changes you suggest would be tantamount to a dictatorship. It could happen, but will not.

3. Again, you dodge the political stability issue. I agree it is geologically stable, but the politics is important. If some lunatics, within 300 years, 50% longer than white settlement in Australia and roughly 6 times longer than the nuclear age, decide they want to dig up this outrageously poisonous waste they will know exactly where to go and what to do when they get there. Sure, you can make Synrock or something from the waste, but are you including that in your energy balance?

2. Again, if we’re fair dinkum about climate change being a 1942, war footing-type emergency, regulations can be streamlined a great deal.

3. Gawler Craton, South Australia. Geologically stable for the last 1500 million years, likely to remain so for hundreds of millions of years more, notable for historical lack of insurrections.

I don’t especially want a complex energy solution. I just want something that works. In bulk. All the time.

1. It is political suicide. Educate as many people as you want but the misinformation campaign by the other side will be more than ample to put people off. Remember the nonsense that came out with the republic debate? What about DLS time in WA?

2. It’s too slow. Sure, we COULD build a reactor in lets say 3 years. But the approval time would be diabolical. Have a look at how the pulp mill has played out. Add 10 years before carbon equivalence of the embedded energy is met and we’re miles behind the game.

3. Waste. Sure, it’s only 300 years, but find me a region that is not only geologically stable over that time, but also politically stable over this time and you’ll see we have a problem. Add to this the refining, mining and supply chain and there are a lot of holes in the system.

Over all I think it’s a pointlessly stupid overly complex solution. Wind, solar, wave, hydro, geothermal, you just plug the thing and walk away. No fuel supply problems, no security risks, no emissions. Why do you want to make it so bloody complex?

All these figures can be checked through the ABARE website for the pedants.

Also Evan Beaver: you seem to have a limited view of what logically constitutes as subsidy for the purpose of a discussioin like this. It is like the various forms of trade protection. If a customer is forced to buy a certain amount or proportion of a product or service so that he can be charged an inflated price that is clearly a means of subsidising the recipient of the excessive price. Renewables are heavily subsidised in this way and it is proposed to add to the subsidies by requiring 20 per cent of electricity to be sourced from renewables.

What’s that line of FDOTM’s? ‘This is so stupid I have gone blind.’

There’s a rather large difference - like many, many orders of magnitude - between pushing around cartloads of textiles and pushing electrons. And that’s only considering mass.

As for lack of imagination - well, you’re free to imagine a new set of laws of physics if you want. But here in reality, the laws of physics we’re stuck with enforce real constraints on how much it’s practical to do with renewable energy.

Finally I maintain that nuclear power technology has also been seriously underinvested since around 1970 (Evan’s comment @ 3:07pm notwithstanding; I think you’ll find the bomb came before the power generation, not the other way around).