Billions of Dollars Later, Minnesota Shows Us How Wind Power Can Fail Colossally

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Minnesota is the top state for wind energy! Yay! What a good little state it is, marching to the tune of the alternative energy drums. Oh, but, wait, they are raising their carbon footprint even as they dramatically increase their wind power!

The Center of the American Experiment, a Minnesota think tank, released a new study, “Energy Policy in Minnesota: The High Cost of Failure,” which exemplifies the failure of alternative energy in Minnesota, which in their case is wind power.

Minnesota has an ambitious renewable energy policy that reduces to a pro-wind power policy. It’s a failure despite increasing wind power by 92%.

The first failure was the state installed it when electricity demand was fairly flat. This new generation capacity wasn’t needed.

Minnesota’s electricity prices for the last 20 years have been 18.2% lower than the national average but in the last five years, they’ve lost that advantage and in the last few months, it has risen above. The Minnesota electricity prices are now above the national average which comes at a cost of $4 billion and climbing.

There is no price too high for the wind power minions however.

That’s not the real failure however. The real failure is although their greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) have fallen by 6.6%, the national average has fallen by 10%.

You want to know why no doubt.

The first chart from the report shows CO2 emissions from the electric power sector have risen slightly as new power has soared.

So, why isn’t all this wind power reducing emissions? We have the answer: because wind power falls when the wind doesn’t blow, especially in the summer when electricity demand increases sharply. Therefore, the wind power needs a backup from a fossil fuel. In Minnesota, that backup is COAL!

via Powerlineblog.com

 


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Greg
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Greg
6 years ago

At the time we had a Democrat Governor who capitalized on her husband’s name. She ended up in the Obama administration. That alone should speak wonders. What I will Never get over was her push to have State create and Own gambling casinos. They would forbid Indian owned casinos but had NO problem with the state owning their own.

Sam Snead
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Sam Snead
6 years ago

Just follow the money. I am sure the owner of the company that installed and manufactured the turbines is connected to someone in power at the state house.

Greg
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Greg
6 years ago

When I returned from my Mother’s funeral I took the Interstate which I hadn’t traveled on for many decades. To my shock the landscape along the Interstate was littered with those wind turbines. It was an abhorrent site. Since then I have found out they are scattered throughout the State. What I truly wonder is the analysis of such a proposal and implementation. It would be understandable to consider the miles of flat countryside and available winds as a primary motivator but there is also the negative side. This is also a state that is highly susceptible to tornadoes. They are known for traversing miles and miles and such an event could destroy a majority of those towers in minutes.

What is never discussed in the use of “wind power” is the narrow operational window that they have to operate in. If the wind is too slow or too high these turbines have to be locked down. Also involved is the necessary technology to transfer that power to the generation. Power generation is based upon a frequency of 60 cycles. This frequency was important in analog television which used that frequency to paint a new frame on the screen. It was the frequency of the vertical sync circuitry. So, I would have to assume they would use some type of battery storage for these turbines, as is with solar power. Well, Now then is the environmental concerns of the proliferation of battery technology. The disposal is of major concerns, and couple that with the desire to vastly increase battery use with vehicles. The same people who have been pushing these technologies have now ignored the concerns of the environment when it comes to the chemicals in batteries.