“No nukes” Berton, a promoter of junk science, says the government is dithering on the “proven” technology of wind power:
It’s not as if wind power is controversial. It has demonstrated its potential as a reliable and cost-effective source of clean energy and economic development the world over.
Despite that, we are falling behind such countries as the United States and many in Europe in terms of the percentage of power produced by wind, and now it looks as if we may fall even further behind.
Gee, even the renewable energy and sustainable development crowd says that commercial wind power is neither efficient, nor cost-effective.
From Global Subsidies Initiatives: Wind farms criticized as costly an inefficient in report by renewable energy group
Ultimately, the REF concludes that wind power works better on a small scale, and should not be promoted as realistic alternative to fossil fuel plants.
And The Case Against Commercial Wind Power
Plus from the Energy Tribune: Overblown: The Real Cost of Wind Power
The bottom line is that the debate about renewables, and investment in them, is as much about ideology and political belief as about economics and environmental issues. When the real cost of wind power as a major player in our future power needs is assessed, the answer won’t be found just “blowin’ in the wind.”
It seems Paul “Kumbaya” Berton would beg to differ…
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I would like to get him drunk on Jack Daniel’s , take him on a plane to Cuba, and talk him into signing up for Castro’s red army. Let him experience the in’s and out’s of socialism at its finest. Hell, it would be good him, give him something real to write about.
i read that in order to power toronto you would have to cover an area the size of pei. i don’t think the socialist islanders would like that very much. idiots.
I have a friend who lives on a rural acreage. His idea was to make the house and land ‘revenue neutral’. He rents out his productive acreage to share croppers and his bush land is classified as prime wildlife habitat paid to be kept out of development by Fed subsidy. The place pretty much pays its own taxes without him dipping into the bank account. He next set out to become self sufficient and get off the municipal services so he installed a state of the art bio-active sewage cistern and drilled a new well into an aquifer with plenty of gal/min to spare for watering lawns and crops. So far things were working well, no bills for water or sewage, land tax paid by property-generated suppliments, house heated with high efficiency wood stoves fed with free acreage deadfall.
Next he wanted off the hydro grid and chose a smaller state of the art wind generator. His rationale was he would produce more power than he consumed and sell the excess back to the hydro grid and actually make some bucks after the wind generator paid for itself.
great theory
To make this long story short, the self sustain high tech things (particularly the wind mill) malfunctioned and did damage (for which he was fined) and needed constant maintenance which almost bankrupted him.
The moral of the story is kids: being energy efficient/self sufficient is a very costly endever with few benefits to the environment.
You know, I like self-reliant people, and the idea of reducing what you pay to the government is wonderful. It’s too bad it didn’t work out for your friend regarding the wind generator. Still, it sounds like everything else paid off. Did he get rid of wind generator?
It does bug me, though, when do-gooder eco-freaks like Berton want big government to force these untested theories on all of us — at our expense.
Berton, is just an hippie who smokes cheap herb his hippie neighbour grows in his attic, and he drinks expensive whine laced with snobbery.
Berton got way too much money, and he feels guilty about it. Like all old rich socialist hippies, he romanticizes poverty. He wants to live in the woods, grow his own food, build his hut out of grass and mud. He feels he is up to the job of diplomat, talking to the other clans,
bringing peace. Even if they had to eat grannie last winter to survive, he believes he can talk them out of raiding his clan’s foodstuffs.
Berton ignores the fact that windmills do not generate enough power to run his hair dryer and toaster at the same time. He wants a green depression, poverty turns his crank.
Berton, I am here to tell you, there is nothing romantic about poverty. It’s not even a fight or flight scenario. It is just fight, a hard one, and you wouldn’t last six months at it.
Berton is somethin’, isn’t he? I know I should just ignore him, but I can’t help myself.
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