Wind turbines do nothing for CO2 reduction...
The experience in Germany has not been good...
Germany's renewable energy companies are a tremendous success story. Roughly 15 percent of the country's electricity comes from solar, wind or biomass facilities, almost 250,000 jobs have been created and the net worth of the business is €35 billion per year.
But there's a catch: The climate hasn't in fact profited from these developments. As astonishing as it may sound, the new wind turbines and solar cells haven't prohibited the emission of even a single gram of CO2.
Even more surprising, the European Union's own climate change policies, touted as the most progressive in the world, are to blame. The EU-wide emissions trading system determines the total amount of CO2 that can be emitted by power companies and industries. And this amount doesn't change -- no matter how many wind turbines are erected.
Experts have known about this situation for some time, but it still isn't widely known to the public. Even Germany's government officials mention it only under their breath. No one wants to discuss the political ramifications.
posted by GayandRight @ 9:00 AM
2 Comments:
Another concern is that once they get to many of these windmills going all the wind will be harvested and it'll be a dead calm then. The earths rotation will seize up - then we'll be screwed big time.
I saw McGuinty on TV the other night and he was really stressed about local citizens groups trying to block wind-turbines.
He has hitched his wagon to the green movement and cannot or will not accept that it is a total failure.
He needs to look at Sweden's failure in alternative energy.
http://tinyurl.com/c6p4x5
" ...Europe has apparently had a change of heart on nuclear power. First Germany began reconsidering its ban on nuclear power generation, and now Sweden has ended its ban on reactors. The path to green energy requires a few split atoms, it seems (via Instapundit):
The Swedish government agreed Thursday to scrap a three-decade ban on building new nuclear reactors, saying it needs to avoid producing more greenhouse gases.
Sweden is a leader on renewable energy but is struggling to develop alternative source like hydropower and wind to meet its growing energy demands. If parliament approves scrapping the ban, Sweden would join a growing list of countries rethinking nuclear power as a source of energy amid concerns over global warming and the reliability of energy suppliers such as Russia. Britain, France and Poland are planning new reactors and Finland is currently building Europe’s first new atomic plant in over a decade.
...
The Swedes have exploited hydropower for all it’s worth, but still cannot generate enough to make up the loss of nuclear power. As the promise of alternatives looks more and more long-term rather than immediate, Europeans have reconsidered their opposition to nuclear power. It eliminates greenhouse gas emissions, and new systems such as pebble-bed reactors are significantly safer than even the reliable earlier models which continue to function almost 30 years after the referendum that demanded their closure. ..."
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