We just visited Prowind’s website for an update—there is none, there never is–and were delighted to see the little sidebar of facts about wind power is still there. Cute little factoids pop up like, Wind power development increases by 30% every two years.
Here are some facts of our own.
Wind power generation efficiency declines by 2 percent a year; by the end of the 20-year contract, the turbines are producing next to nothing, unless they have undergone expensive replacement of the nacelle and the blades.
Wind power efficiency is about 24 percent; solar is about 13, and nuclear is about 80 percent for 40 years. However, wind power developers typically peg the efficiency rate much higher. Algonquin Power, for example, claims an efficiency rate of 37 percent for some of its projects, and depicts a straight line rate of efficiency throughout the 20-years of its contract for government/taxpayer subsidies. This is not illegal; it’s up to investors to do their own research and discover the pie-in-the-sky claims.
Each large-scale wind turbine contains over a ton of “rare earth,” a material that is being mined in China with disastrous environmental consequences, and which is causing people to be made ill. At the end of the life of a large-scale wind turbine, the rare earth and all the toxic hydraulic fluids in the nacelle must be disposed of as toxic waste. With Ontario heading for more than 6,000 of these machines, where are we going to put all that stuff.
Wind turbines leak oil: just Google that and see the photos of the brown-streaked turbine towers.
Wind power developers claim that farm owners can farm right up to the turbines and can treat it just like a “very big tree,” said one company. The most of Ontario’s valuable farmland that is being used is 2 acres, they say. Not so: farm owners are finding out that despite the contract terms, as many as 12 acres of land are being used up, for access roads and equipment.
North American insurance companies are starting to have to explain to people who have leased land for large-scale turbines that they are no longer insured for property insurance or third-party liability. The risk is too great and, the insurance companies say, the property owners have no control over who’s coming on their land and when, so–no insurance! Specialty insurers will probably take over, at much greater premium costs.
The taxpayer-paid subsidy for the average large-scale wind turbine in Ontario si about $500,000 per turbine, per year. In return, the people of Ontario are getting: higher electricity bills, the bill for the transmission lines being built to service the wind power, the bill for power not to be produced when we don’t need it, lowered property values, dead birds and bats, and reduced attractiveness of some of Ontario’s most beautiful landscapes.
Email us at northgowerwindactiongroup@yahoo.ca
