I do not know how valid the count
is or whether we are dealing with smaller obsolete systems. Yet a windmill should remain operating if
only to generate whatever revenue they can produce. Creditors and other stake holders want
operating relief at the least.
Government subsidies certainly
got them capitalized and chapter 11 can get them recapitalized if it is
necessary. This suggests that certain designs
were never into positive cash flow and should never have been built. This should have been obvious from the first
shovel in the ground.
I assume this will get sorted out
for those with some economic value.
Green' debacle: Tens of thousands of abandoned wind turbines now litter
American landscape
Thursday, November 24, 2011 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
(NaturalNews) Literal beacons of the "green" energy movement,
giant wind turbines have been one of the renewable energy sources of choice for
the US
government, which has spent billions of taxpayer dollars subsidizing their
construction and use across the country. But high maintenance costs, high rates
of failure, and fluctuating weather conditions that affect energy production
render wind turbines expensive and inefficient, which is why more than 14,000
of them have since been abandoned.
Before government subsidies for the giant metals were cut or eliminated in many areas, wind farms were an energy boom business. But in the post-tax subsidy era, the costs of maintaining and operating wind turbines far outweighs the minimal power they generate in many areas, which has left a patchwork of wind turbine graveyards in many of the most popular wind farming areas of the US.
"Thousands of abandoned wind turbines littered the landscape of wind energy's California 'big three' locations which include Altamont Pass, Tehachapin and San Gorgonio, considered among the world's best wind sites," writes Andrew Walden of the American Thinker. "In the best wind spots on earth, over 14,000 turbines were simply abandoned. Spinning, post-industrial junk which generates nothing but bird kills."
Walden speaks, of course, about the birds, bats, and other air creatures that routinely get tangled in and killed by wind turbine propellers. And as far as the "post-industrial junk" language, well, if it costs too much to run the machines in the first place, then it definitely costs too much to uproot and remove them post-construction.
This whole wind energy mess just further illustrates how the American people have been played by their elected officials who bought into the "global warming" hysteria that spawned the push for wind energy in the first place. And now that the renewable energy tax subsidies are gradually coming to an end in some places, the true financial and economic viability, or lack of wind energy, is on display for the world to see.
"It is all about the tax subsidies," writes Don Surber of the
Sources for this article include:
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurbe...
http://toryaardvark.com/2011/11/17/..
Learn more:http://www.naturalnews.com/034234_wind_turbines_abandoned.html#ixzz1efcWMYRZ
Going green gets the green
November 23, 2011 by Don Surber
Minnesotans for Global Warming is a website that regularly skewers Al
Gore, Michael Mann and the lesser gods of global warming. As the website’s
motto notes, “It is stupid to politicize the weather!”
But politicizing the weather can be lucrative. The Celebrity Net Worth
site estimates Al Gore’s personal fortune at $100 million. Not all of the money
comes from global warming. Some of it was from his oil and mining interests.
But it is safe to say that between the books and the documentary, he has made a
few million from the theory.
It sure is easy being green — and it’s lucrative. With all the federal
subsidies and tax breaks out there for going green, I wonder how sensible it is
for a company to fight the global warming theory?
GE, BP and now Exxon have seen the light and are going green to get the
green. Indeed. Going green is a good way to reward those who raise money for
one’s presidential campaign. Billionaire George Kaiser raised money for
President Obama’s 2008 campaign. Kaiser and his family’s tax-exempt foundation
had a 35 percent stake in Solyndra, which received federal aid from the Obama
administration and a presidential visit in 2010 to tout its success.
“Kaiser’s role has been among the subjects of a congressional inquiry
into Solyndra since the California company
that received a $535 million U.S.
loan guarantee filed for bankruptcy in September,” Bloomberg News reported.
Solyndra made solar panels in a market flooded with them. Wind turbines also
are a drag on the market. Minnesotans For Global Warming reported last week on
what happens to some wind turbines when the subsidies run out. They die.
“The U.S.
experience with wind farms has left over 14,000 wind turbines abandoned and
slowly decaying. In most instances the turbines are just left as symbols of a
dying Climate Religion.
“Nowhere have the Green Environmentalists appeared to clear up their
mess or even complain about the abandoned wind farms,” Minnesotans For Global
Warming reported.
The figure — 14,000 dead wind turbines — comes from Andrew Walden of
the American Thinker in his report on the demise of a wind farm at Kamaoa,
Hawaii. It was abandoned in 2006 after 21 years of haphazard operation. Besides
killing migratory birds and bats — leading some smart alecks to call them
Cuisinarts — wind turbines are expensive to operate.
“The ghosts of Kamaoa are not alone in warning us,” Walden wrote. “Five
other abandoned wind sites dot the Hawaiian Isles — but it is in California where the
impact of past mandates and subsidies is felt most strongly. Thousands of
abandoned wind turbines littered the landscape of wind energy’s California big three locations – Altamont Pass ,
Tehachapi, and San Gorgonio — considered among the world’s best wind sites.”
Wind isn’t the most important thing about wind turbines. It is all
about the tax subsidies. The blades churn until the money runs out. If an
honest history is written about the turn of the 21st century, it will include a
large, harsh chapter on how fears about global warming were overplayed for
profit by corporations.
Solyndra is just the iceberg’s tip.
14000 Abandoned Wind Turbines In The USA
Posted by Tory Aardvark
There are many hidden
truths about the world of wind turbines from the pollution and
environmental damage caused in China by manufacturing bird choppers, the blight
on people’s lives of noise and the flicker factor and the countless
numbers of birds that are killed each year by these blots on the landscape.
The symbol of Green renewable energy, our saviour from the non existent
problem of Global Warming, abandoned wind farms are starting to litter the
planet as globally governments cut the taxes that consumers pay for
the privilege of having a very expensive power source that does not work every
day for various reasons like it’s too cold or the wind speed is too high.
The US experience with wind farms has left over 14,000 wind turbines
abandoned and slowly decaying, in most instances the turbines are just left as
symbols of a dying Climate Religion, nowhere have the Green Environmentalists
appeared to clear up their mess or even complain about the abandoned wind
farms.
The US
has had wind farms since 1981:
“Some say that Ka Le is haunted—and it is. But it’s haunted not by Hawaii ’s legendary night
marchers. The mysterious sounds are “Na leo o Kamaoa”– the disembodied voices
of 37 skeletal wind turbines abandoned to rust on the hundred-acre site of the
former Kamaoa Wind Farm…
The ghosts of Kamaoa are not alone in warning us. Five other abandoned
wind sites dot the Hawaiian Isles—but it is in California where the impact of past mandates
and subsidies is felt most strongly. Thousands of abandoned wind turbines
littered the landscape of wind energy’s California “big three”
locations—Altamont Pass, Tehachapin (above), and San Gorgonio—considered among
the world’s best wind sites…
The problem with wind farms when they are abandoned is getting the
turbines removed, as usual there are non Green environmentalists to be seen:
The City of Palm Springs
was forced to enact an ordinance requiring their removal from San Gorgonio. But
California ’s Kern County ,
encompassing the Tehachapi area, has no such law
Imagine the outraged Green chorus if those turbines were abandoned oil
drilling rigs.
It took nearly a decade from the time the first flimsy wind turbines
were installed before the performance of California
wind projects could dispel the widespread belief among the public and investors
that wind energy was just a tax scam.
Ben Lieberman, a senior policy analyst focusing on energy and
environmental issues for the Heritage Foundation, is not surprised. He asks:
“If wind power made sense, why would it need a government subsidy in
the first place? It’s a bubble which bursts as soon as the government subsidies
end.”
“It’s a bubble which bursts as soon as the government subsidies end” therein
lies a lesson that is going be learnt by those that sought to make fortunes out
of tax payer subsidies, the whole renewables industry of solar, wind and
biomass is just an artificial bubble incapable of surviving without subsides
from governments and tax payers which many businesses and NGO’s like WWF, FoE
and Greenpeace now think is their
god given right, as the money is going on Green Climate Religion approved
clean energy.
The Green evangelists who push so hard for these wind farms, as usual
have not thought the whole idea through, no surprises for a left agenda like
Climate Change, which like all things Green and socialist is just a knee jerk
reaction:
The same areas that are good for siting wind farms are also good for
birds of prey and migrating birds to pass through, shame for the birds that
none of the Green mental midgets who care so much about everything in nature,
thought that one through when pushing their anti fossil fuel agenda.
After the debacle of the First California Wind Rush, the European Union
had moved ahead of the US on efforts to subsidize “renewable” energy–including
a “Feed
in Tariff” even more lucrative than the ISO4 contracts.
The tax payers who paid for the subsidies to build the wind farms, then
paid over the odds for an unreliable source of power generation will,
ultimately be left to pick up the bill for clearing up the Green eco mess in
the post man made Global Warming world.
Updated November 24th
In answer to several allegations that the number of abandoned wind
turbines was made up, the following quote from the article and link will
confirm this figure to be true:
2 comments:
This did not pass the smell test, so I did a quick search and found:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altamont_Pass_Wind_Farm
Seems that old turbines are being replaced by newer more efficient more bird friendly ones. Imagine that. Updating technology
The green power deniers are like the drug warriors. The only arguments that they have are flat out lies
Thanks
This is an industry in which bigger and taller truly is much better and much cheaper per watt.
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