Antinuclear

Wind farms unhealthy for Australians, but not for 1 million Danes?

our wind resource is twice as powerful as in Europe.

Australia’s twist in the wind, CLIMATE SPECTATOR: Matthew Wright, 13 Mar 2012 Denmark’s renewable energy achievements and its ambitious targets demonstrate a serious plan to lead the world in tackling global climate and energy security. Wind turbine technology will power half of its plan.

At the end of last year, Denmark announced that it will increase its share of wind power in the electricity supply mix from 25 per cent, its total today, to 50 per cent by 2020. The earlier plan was to do the same, but by 2025.

Denmark’s bullish drive towards wind energy comes from the public’s ongoing strong support for the industry and technology. Over one million Danes currently live within one kilometre of an operating wind farm. Many of these wind farms are being, or are scheduled to be, upgraded with newer turbines. This ongoing process of upgrades shows that support for wind energy stays strong in the local vicinity even after communities have lived with a generation of turbines that have served their useful lives.

Denmark will reach its 50 per cent wind power target through three main tracks. They’re building a generation of new onshore wind farms as well as the establishing a brand new offshore wind industry. A very important part of the plan involves the repowering of existing wind farms. That is where many older wind turbines with lower hub heights
and lower capacity factors are taken down and recycled; then a smaller
number of taller, quieter more efficient machines are built in their
place.

The Danes aren’t just narrowly looking at today’s electricity sector
either. They’ve got a plan for full decarbonisation right across the
economy, freeing the country from fossil fuels completely by mid
century.  In 2020 they’ll be running half the country’s electricity on
wind. Two per cent will come from rooftop solar and given that
Copenhagen has relatively good sun for Northern Europe, they’ve
probably grossly underestimated this contribution in their
plans……..
Contrast Denmark with Australia.

For every wind turbine we install, for every cubic metre of concrete
we pour, or for every hour we employ someone to build one wind turbine
we’ll get twice as much electricity out the other end during the wind
turbine’s design life (30 years). Why? Because our wind resource is
twice as powerful as in Europe.

Think of it as a ‘buy one get one free’ scheme. People literally crawl
over each other to get that kind of deal at the Myer’s Christmas sale.

So why aren’t we rushing to install wind energy? We’ll get twice the
bang for our buck. In Australia, we are lucky to be a member of an
exclusive club of countries like Chile and New Zealand that achieve
exceptionally high wind capacity factors that are twice or more than
the average of Europe (36 per cent vs 18 per cent). However, despite
this advantage, we have failed to run with our luck.

How myopic Australia is, only getting a measly 2 per cent of its
electricity from wind power. The Victorian and New South Wales
governments have tried their best (and so far

successfully) to make it difficult for wind and solar  farms. If this
retrogressive policy prevails the Australian population will become
far more dependent than it needs to be on 19th century fossil energy
and locked out of the more secure energy future wind and solar
provide……
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/wind-power-renewables-energy-climate-carbon-emissi-pd20120313-SBVUH?opendocument&src=rss

March 14, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, wind | wind