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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MJB" data-source="post: 3300026" data-attributes="member: 88928">Yet another deflection, and a Big Lie - the German government statements over the last few years make it clear that the costs I mentioned have to be budgeted for over the next several decades. Responding to your deflection to France, the retail energy prices are part of a strategy to make French industry more competitive, and are increasing their national debt at a higher rate than elsewhere. The French government has not published any costed strategy for end-of-life decommissioning of nuclear plants or millenia-long storage of nuclear waste. The short Economist article, which adds detail to costs that should be considered, doesn't cite any technical studies and avoids any mention of nuclear decommissioning costs, and leans heavily on a single Paul Joskow statement. Joskow is one of the few economists well-regarded across the political spectrum, but his statement on 'levelisation' was made in the context of the deteriorating US grid, which hasn't had any upgrading on a Federal level, just on a company-by-company basis. The consequence is that balancing the US grid is very difficult day-to-day (there are many articles on this problem) and so it often can't handle load transfers from one area to another. The whole strategy of wind power is based on upgraded grids transferring power when needed. In the US and in much of the UK, national-level investment in power grids to cope with future loads is conspicuous by its absence in the last 30 years and so load transfer capability which should have been improved in that period generally hasn't happened. The lack of basic technical competence in politicians probably has caused this mismatch of demand and capability.The Brookings Institute is the leading economic think-tank in the US, generally neutral in its political alignments, although some of its studies have been unpalatable to one political group or another. They, too, are vulnerable to the charge that their studies lean too heavily on summaries of technical, engineering and scientific advice rather than on embedded expertise in its authorial teams.Citing wattsupwiththat on any subject doesn't add any credit whatsoever. Its current main page praises Christopher Monckton, the serial climate misinformer and scientific illiterate, who has made no effort to prevent people addressing him as 'Lord Monckton', despite the House of Lords' widespread publishing his lack of entitlement. If his ego is that delusional, his claims elsewhere deserve the closest scrutiny.:-OThe graph you provided is interesting, but there's no clue to its origin, and I'm guessing it's not from any peer-reviewed journal. I would like to see the report in which it featured.On wind farms in general, there's no question that many are sited in locations that result in more bird/bat casualties than elsewhere, that older turbine towers provide dangerous perches for birds, and that some are built on migration routes favoured by birds. That's because the environmental impact studies were omitted/inadequate/flawed deliberately: for that blame the politicians and the contractors who built them. That doesn't make wind power itself bad, but it alienates people who feel ignored by government.Like pratincol, i was in the Highlands last week, seeing the mostly motionless wind turbines, but my regrets were that most people haven't grasped that the intended strategy of wind-farm building was to be able to transfer the power from where it was being generated to where it was needed. The corollary is that it is an everyday experience to see motionless wind turbines somewhere. Criticising wind turbines for not magicking up wind to power them isn't rational.I accept that wind turbines are disliked by many - I think they are extraordinarily graceful. Yes, there are locations where they should not be placed. The power line pylons are definitely less aesthetically pleasing, and should not have crossed protected areas. Do bear in mind when the first major hydro-electric schemes were introduced in the 1950s in Scotland, thousands of people went on bus tours to see the pylons that had just been built, for these represented a huge change in living quality for thousands, and were a source of pride. Tastes change, of course.:t:MJB</blockquote>

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