ACCIONA Energy announces Molonglo Wind Farm not viable investment

The reality is that if producers don’t start passing on all of the costs of generating power like they do for any other consumable, we’re all f.cked. Wind power has 70-80% public support in Germany, even with the extra costs (about 17 euro per household per year to move to 20% wind by 2020).

… unfortunately, fnaah, they would pass that cost to consumers, which would contribute to rising costs and inflation, making them, and the govt, extremely unpopular.

Saving the planet is good and all, but the realities of life need to be considered also.

“not a viable investment”.

I bet if the government spent some money and built it/ran it themselves, *then* imposed a carbon tax (thus making everything else a bad investment), they’d be making a truckload of money and have power gen companies banging down the door to try and buy pieces of it.

*And* they’d be helping save the planet.

amaroo – you’re not dreaming.

As an adjunct to the Germany discussion, about 20% of Denmark’s power comes from wind. They have proven that you can run a significant proportion of your grid on wind alone.

CSIRO has mapped the entire country for wind and knows exactly where we should be siting them for maximum efficacy. The more widely geographically distributed the wind farms, the more reliable they become (ie. the higher capacity factor). Wind farms have the smallest land footprint of any electricity generating technology, even if you include the roads necessary for construction and servicing. The property values and noise arguments are utter bullshit.

Why this country isn’t embarking on a national 20% of the grid by 2020 wind power strategy I will never understand. If the carbon price comes in a t $30/ton, wind at current prices will be about the same price, if it comes in a t $40/ton, wind will be cheaper. Constructing and maintaining the infrastructure will generate jobs and secondary industry investment. And best of all, the environmental impact is negligible, certainly lower than fossil fuel stations which pollute through both mining and the combustion process.

*bangs head against wall*

BUILD THE FREAKIN WIND FARM, AND HUNDREDS MORE LIKE IT SPREAD ACROSS THE COUNTRY!!!

That’s what gets me about this debate. If WMC’s stats are right and a country as small as Germany can produce that much energy from windfarms, surely to God in a vast country like ours there is the space, wit and innovation to make it work here. Or am I just dreaming?

Sorry – that’s 28,000 MW from onshore farms, not 8,000 MW. According to Wikipedia, Germany’s installed capacity in 2007 was 22,247 MW. That’s 7% of the country’s energy use, or 25-30% of the power of the three federal states in which they tend to be located, creating 64,000 jobs.

Germany has over 11,000 wind turbines. By 2020 it wants 8,000 MW of power from onshore windfarms and 20,000 MW of power from offshore windfarms in the Baltic and North Sea. Maybe they should invade Wales and show them how to do it right.

What convinced me wind power wasn’t the answer was when I was over at Anglesey in Wales UK. Over there they have 72 wind turbines that produce 35MW of power when the wind is blowing. The wind farm covers some 600 hectares in total. Ironically the best place to view them from is the relatively small nearby nuclear power station which happens to continuously produce 980MW. No contest really.

The real question is this: can I buy some some rural land and lease it to the power companies to build wind farms? I can smell an investment coming on!

I don’t give two craps if someone thinks it’s ugly!

OK, call me a POIMBY (Put One In My Back Yard) because I think they are a brilliant idea.