14,000 Windmill Losers

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 Charleston Daily Mail. "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."

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

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/46751

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

NOV 17

Posted by Tory Aardvark

 http://toryaardvark.com/2011/11/17/14000-abandoned-wind-turbines-in-the-usa/

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…

California’s wind farms— comprising about 80% of the world’s wind generation capacity—ceased to generate much more quickly than Kamaoa. In the best wind spots on earth, over 14,000 turbines were simply abandoned. Spinning, post-industrial junk which generates nothing but bird kills…”

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:

Altamont’s turbines have since 2008 been tethered four months of every year in an effort to protect migrating birds after environmentalists filed suit. According to the Golden Gate Audubon Society, 75 to 110 Golden Eagles, 380 Burrowing Owls, 300 Red-tailed Hawks, and 333 American Kestrels (falcons) are killed by Altamont turbines annually. A July, 2008 study by the Alameda County Community Development Agency points to 10,000 annual bird deaths from Altamont Pass wind turbines. Audubon calls Altamont, “probably the worst site ever chosen for a wind energy project.”

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 24^th

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:

California’s wind farms — then comprising about 80% of the world’s wind generation capacity — ceased to generate much more quickly than Kamaoa. In the best wind spots on earth,over 14,000 turbines were simply abandoned. Spinning, post-industrial junk which generates nothing but bird kills.