from Senator Malcolm Roberts and Cairns News
When the wind doesn’t blow the power doesn’t flow
The relentless march toward the insane renewable targets around the country is blinding many of us to the full cost of unreliable (renewable) energy.
Increasingly we are being told how “cheap” renewable energy is becoming, how many jobs they will create and that renewables are environmentally friendly.
Pic (Steven Nowakowski)
These are the consistent claims of Labor and Greens. The statements are wildly inaccurate, and they mislead the Australian public.
Take for example the proposed Chalumbin wind plant, 10km south of Ravenshoe in Far North Queensland. On completion this will be the largest wind plant in Australia boasting 94 wind turbines.
The original developer of the Chalumbin project, Epuron is a German group which in December sold its holding company to Korean entity Ark Energy.
Commenting on the transaction, Yun B. Choi, Chairman of Ark Energy and Vice Chairman of Korea Zinc said this friendly acquisition allows us to accelerate Korea Zinc Group’s energy transition and contributes to Ark Energy’s long-term ambition to develop a new green energy export corridor from Australia to South Korea.
Installation requires 31,500ha (77,805 acres) of virgin land of which 1,250ha will be cleared. Individual blades are the length of a football field and the turbine height is 160m and infrastructure includes 146km of roads up to 70m wide.
Close to the Koombooloomba and Tully Falls National Parks and the Tully Falls hydro power plant, this wind plant will have a huge negative impact on the local ecology, wildlife and farming.
On one hand the Greens want to demolish sustainable hardwood industries because of the impact on the environment, yet find it acceptable to demolish primary remnant vegetation for a wind plant.
The cost of producing unreliable (renewable) energies are never fully transparent. The inconvenient truth is that additional infrastructure costs, for example transmission lines, are left out of the full cost. The other major factor on which the Greens remain silent is the size of government subsidies.
Each of the 94 wind turbines in the Chalumbin wind plant receives a $500,000 / year subsidy; that is your taxpayer money used to produce this “cheap power”. And with a maximum of just 30 ongoing jobs, up to 10 that will be highly specialised, the prospect of significant local employment looks bleak, while higher electricity costs will kill agricultural and manufacturing jobs.
Another recently constructed wind farm covering 6000 acres adorns the Atherton Tablelands landscape at Walkamin just 50 klms north of Chalumbin. It came on line two years ago much to the objection of farmers and the general public.
Cairnsnews is reliably informed by contributors who travel past the 53 Mount Emerald monoliths on a daily basis that 80 per cent of the time these generators are turned off. Their blades are locked because the grid is over-supplied.
Yet under the terms of their contract to the Queensland Government, the owners, Ratch Australia get paid a guaranteed amount per kilowatt regardless if the turbines are turning or not.
RATCH-Australia is owned by the Singaporean-based RH International (Singapore) Corporation Pte Limited of which the Thailand-based Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding Public Company Limited is the ultimate parent.
Cairnsnews is unaware of any wind farms which are Australian owned.
https://mailchi.mp/0fedc99c7df7/cheap-renewables-a-lie?e=0f85f656c7
He is busy sipping chardonnay with the Sydney Mayor Clover Leaf and Albo at North Shore. Ed
Thanks Brian I heard Sen Roberts some years ago explain to some smart Ergon people and others the same
explanation and from memory they agreed. Ed
I think Se. Roberts is of the school, when the wind dont blow the power dont flow.
Wind turbines do not produce 50hz irrespective of wind force.
William H Richards, with respect I am not sure your invention works the way it needs to.
All our homes and industries require 50 hertz synchronous energy. The grid and generation is set up for 50hz. Wind turbines are Asynchronous.
When you refer to varying speeds I become worried. Take a hydro power station for example the turbines have to rotate at a fixed speed to produce an exact 50hz. When demand increases the turbines will slow down and to compensate the sluice gates are opened for increased water pressure to maintain turbine speed to maintain an exact 50hz.
You have to maintain a fixed speed.
How are you metering you output? With a smart meter or analogue?
Malcolm Roberts does not understand that wind turbine are a massive con/scam and produce nothing.
If he did understand he would be acting to prevent any future wind farms and to have existing wind farms disconnected AND to put those involved in the scam on trial.
He does nothing.
Additional information Roof top PV solar does not have the capacity to supply the grid.
Stop Press. The snowy pumped hydro scheme/scam should be stopped. Has anyone heard from Malcolm.
I remember Senator Malcolm Roberts (engineer) saying this years ago. Ed
When their useless wind generators are past their use by dale, will the foreign owners take their s….t with them as they leave.
To Cairns News and others, are you seated. A wind turbine cannot boil a jug. They are totally useless and were built for the fraudulent subsidies. They are Asynchronous and produce useless harmonics which show on a smart meter as energy. The useless harmonics are added to consumers power accounts hence the reason power bills rose after smart meters were installed.
Can anyone find a registered engineer who will put his licence on the line and attempt to prove wind turbines produce real 50 hertz energy.
To the editor and Chief,
Cairns News.
Dear Sirs
I an Aussie battler who has work and researched alternate Renewable energy since 1980.
Seen the lot.
Solar power needs sun, windturbine need wind.
Both solar and wind leave carbon footprints greater than they produce.
Wind turbines have a maximum life of 15 years.
Most either fail or collapse and blades require repairs from either wind , dust or hail damage.
Ok.
I am a general engineer now living in N-E Thailand.
Previously I worked with 2 hydro water turbines companies and left them because they had too many moving parts and service and maintenance was constant.
I live on the south side of the Mekong river opposite Laos.
In.2008 i witnessed the largest flood in the past 40 years.
I saw a 600 meter wide river rise nearly 10 meters, very powerful and very scary, many meganeutons of kinetic energy flowing down the river going to waste.
My mission was to design a turbine that could work in both the high flood and low water dry season .
After 10 years and most of my cash i finally had a design.
November 2018 i went to Sofia in Bulgaria and meet with Professor Georgi Touverlo, Dean of Engineering at Sofia University..
He was impressed and we spent the next 14 months doing the POC..
I initially designed a floating Hydro-Electric turbine wheel that when all simulations had been completed could produce high torque outputs at very low rpm. With very high efficiencies.
We simulated water flows at 5, 10 and 15 meters per second.
At 5 meters per second the turbine could generate 35 megawatts, at 10 meters per second over 90 megawatts and at 15 meters per sec over 150 megawatts.
The turbine wheel turned at 2.5 rpm.theat drove a speed increasing planetary hub gear box up to 12 rpm.
It.then drove a ( my design also) a permanent magnet, dual core axial flux alternator with calculated output of 3.3 megawatts per core.
After many simulations in Maxwell and much tweaking we got 8.8 megawatts per core.at 11 rpm.and brought it up to 96% efficiency. This style of alternator is designed to last over the life of the neodymium permanent magnets of over 300 years and as long as the wheel is turning it generates power with out any outside electrical excitment.
The turbine wheel has no moving parts and max rotation is only 3 rpm.
Power output is frequency controlled and speed of wheel is governed by raising or lowering it as per the water flow rate..
Have also developed and tested venturies where it can generate 10 megawatts at 2 meters per second water flow.
The pontoon hulls have also been designed for high efficiency and streamlined water flow .
No dams are required,
No Marine life is affected.
No population is required.to be relocated,
No fuel is required.
Very little maintenance as the maximum bearing speed is on 24rpm.
All bearings are of steel rolling mill standards, high temperature and pressure.
A 30 or 50 megawatts floating power station can pay for itself at 10 cents per kilowatt in 2.8 years.
A syndicate or private investor could recover their principal investment in 3 years and also be a Independent Power Provider IPP. And a maintenance program of 3 percent of total output could service the floating power station.
Transformer and power grid connections are extra.
Have also designed the turbine for tidal flow with a reversible turbine blade.
The permanent magnet axial flux multi core alternator works the same in either direction.
I haven’t invented anything new just made it more efficient and better.to be a highly effective Ecco Sustainable Green Renewable Electrical Energy that after manfacture and installation has a mega low carbon footprint.
Basically some synthetic lubricants and paint touch ups. All paint is non toxic and neutral to marine environment.
Bearing life should be within a 60 year plus range.
With the 3% service program warranty can be extended continuously subject to correct opperation procedures.
Please send me an email address so as i can send you a letter from Professor Georgi Touverlo, thank you.
The hull and all equipment is designed as standard shipping container size and can be shipped, railed and trucked to location for assembly and commissioning.
If this is of any great interest and you have contacts in this field that would invest or become partners etc i would be greatly appreciate it if you could forward it on.
My company name in Thailand is Double R Marine and Engineering Pty Ltd.
Energy Department is,
Flow Werks.
Yours Truly.
William H.Richards.
CEO, Design/Chief Engineer.
I went down to Canberra the other week. Before reaching there, I noticed a huge wind farm along the way. Only 3 of the turbines were actually working. The rest were either broken down, damaged (missing blades), or actually falling to the ground! It looked real eerie to see such a large barren land devoid of any fauna with stacks of these super tall structures standing about in absolute neglect. What people don’t realise is that they only last about 10 years – if that. Then, as they break down, they are left to fall to the ground. Meanwhile the main stand – must be about 40 metres or more in height, still stands albeit without its blades as its made from concrete. To tear them out of the ground costs many more times than it cost to put them in. So, they are left and the land is no longer used. Such waste the Libs and Labor have carried out with OUR money.
Im sure there are perfectly good deserts in this country that these monstrosities can corrode in. I recommend watching Mike Moores doco – Planet Human to see the udlgy side of this sham https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE
That header photo is all that should be needed to can anymore thought of introducing more of these useless eyesores into our beautiful NQ. A blight on the landscape and a drain on the taxpayers’ pockets.
I grow high density vegetables. Recently, a plague of rats invaded. I killed all the rats, built a rat-proof fence, and demolished the rat nests. Any rat now approaching gets a bullet and I get entertainment.
The moral of this story is…
Australia, the world’s most popular Banana Republic!
As useful as real windmills are for stoneground grain and similar power needs, these turkeys are ‘sustainable’. They will be destructive of the birdlife, insectbiome and give animals migraine headaches and heebeejeebeez. We are stuck with them under the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals – UN code for – tank the economies of the Western nations as per Earth Summit dictate of Gorbachev and Strong. So they will be obligatory for Australia.
This is worse than stone age technology. This is depopulation and earth destruction technology for the 4IR. We are building the world soviet here and we are in the chao / destruction phase of project: ordo ab chao.
We certainly won’t be allowed to capture the annual monsoon rainfall across the FNQ and make hydro-electric power as any Western economy capable of engineering would do. The Communist overlords and stooge governments can’t have that.
Has anyone noticed gride power cost decrease as renewable energy sources get larger?
When are the idiots going to wake up?
It doesn’t work, we are sending ourselves broke and forcing manufacturers, farmers and industry into foreign owned companies or overseas.
Wake up Australia before it’s to late. The only people who benefit from wind and solar are the companies who own and manufacture them.
Fantastic! More of our energy supply in foreign hands! Way to go Australia, own nothing and be happy.
It requires energy to manufacture steel, copper, concrete, plastic etc,
these being components of wind turbines and their foundations.
Prof Ian Plimer in his book “Not for Greens” has calculated that it
would require a Wind Turbine to operate for TWENTY YEARS before it ‘pays
back’ the energy that was used in its manufacture.
By the time you get to 20 years, some wind turbines have failed, and
most require maintenance, which requires the expenditure of energy.
regards, Lex Stewart