In a week that has seen President Trump take the mickey out of his detractors by saying he was going to array the Mexican border wall with solar panels and then had a blast against wind turbines in a speech in Iowa, claiming they kill over 500,000 birds a year in the US (including raptors such as Golden Eagles and Bald Eagles) we have a couple of critiques of renewable energy from another angle. In one study their unreliability and cost to the consumer has been exposed and debunked – a guest post by Larry Hamlin at https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/21/renewable-energy-cost-and-reliabi… … based on a paper published by PNAS from NOAAs Earth System laboratory. To say they are not impressed by renewable energy claims is an understatement – they systematically pull all the propaganda apart. The PNAS paper is especially critical of a prior study that was financed and bankrolled by the renewable energy industry and the fat cats feeding at the trough of public subsidies. Not only is the older study based on 'modelling inadequacies' and contains 'numerous shortcomings' and 'errors' that make it 'unreliable' as a guide as far as feasibility is concerned when it comes to a proposed grid based on 100 per cent wind and solar.
At http://notrickszone.com/2017/06/22/2-new-papers-expose-the-environmental… … which focuses on the disposal of used wind turbine blades that only have a working life of 20 years. What happens then? Disposing of them is not easy as they are not recyclable – the very opposite of the green mantra. Land fill is the answer, it is suggested – but the EU does not like landfill and effectively shut down many landfill sites in the UK. Are they going to incinerate them? Time will tell but after last month's revelation that co2 emissions involved in manufacturing wind turbines far outweighs anything saved from not burning fossil fuels during their lifetimes one has to accept all this has nothing to do with climate change whatsoever – and everything to do with raking in a big profit at the expense of the plebs.
In the second paper we learn about the incredible number of birds that die at the hands of wind turbine blades, which create a vortex that sucks them in. We also learn that between 3 and 5 million bats are kill by wind turbines each year. It is not clear if this is confined to Europe or is a global number – but in the UK bats are supposed to be a protected species. The local vicar can't do anything about bats in his belfry but the wind farm down the road can execute them at will – and nothing is said by the great and the good (or the environmentalists). Prick the skin of any RSPB spokesman, as I did a couple of weeks ago, and they'll berate you with how global warming is a threat to bird life. This guy reckoned a subscription or donation could help save those birds being shot as they cross the Mediterranean region and yet was oblivious and uncaring about the birds being shredded by the mincing apparatus on hills across the UK. How do these RSPB people sleep at night you might wonder – but apparently they have no problem. It must be the sound of the cash in brown envelopes from the renewable industry that lulls them into lethargy.
Note … the RSPB is the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, a bit of an oxymoron in today's political climate.