abandoned wind farms in hawaii
They produce less energy before they break down than the energy it took to make them. Abandoned Wind Farm in Hawaii. WebHawi Wind Farm is a wind farm on Upolu Point, the northern tip of Hawaii's largest island, Hawai'i. Apparently, the left only cares about the needs of society over the environment when it comes to climate change. And the number of permanently inactive wind turbines is diminishing as they are replaced with working modern turbines. In 2021 residents and the Kahuku Community Association objected to the presence of 20 large-scale wind turbines in their neighborhood. Similarly, an Oregon utility company, PacifiCorp, had to pay up $10.5 million when 232 eagles died after power lines were placed in Wyoming. The cumulative impacts are huge, said Shawn Smallwood, an expert studying the effects of wind farms on local bird populations. WInd turbines dont whiz around like the fan you have in your office. But, once again, we have to balance all the needs of society. Politics plays a huge role here, Smallwood said. He doesnt make any effort to show how he arrived at this magical number. Wind power in Hawaii has the potential to provide all of the electricity generation in the electricity sector in Hawaii. One thing sources who inflate the number of inactive wind turbines do is mistake temporarily inactive wind turbines for permanently inactive ones. It is not inconceivable to me that we could reduce golden eagle populations by a great deal, if not wipe them out.. Californias wind farms, almost 80% of the worlds wind generation capacity ceased to generate even more quickly than Kamaoa Wind Farm in Hawaii. http://bit.ly/1UDsOJT, (Also, 20rpm = 1 full rotation every 3 seconds. Five other abandoned wind sites dot the Hawaiian Islesbut it is in California where the impact of past mandates and subsidies is felt most strongly. According to the Golden Gate Audubon Society 75-110 Golden Eagles, 380 Burrowing Owls, 300 Red-Tailed Hawks and 333 American Kestrels are killed by the turbines every year. There are many reasons why a wind turbine might not be spinning despite the presence of wind, and the majority of these are in keeping with good grid management techniques. 14,000 wind turbines permanently inactive would represent about 6% of the total installed base being inactive today. He gives the wind farms a free pass when Eagles are killed. Why did President Obama seem to think the Wind farms needed protection from laws that protected birds? City: Honolulu; Commissioning: 30 turbines: Siemens SWT-2.3-101 (power 2 300 kW, diameter 101 m) Web[ Multitudes of abandoned wind turbines at South Point, Hawaii, USA. This means more bats and migratory birds will live. Apparently, once the subsidies and the wind run out, these 20-story high Cuisinarts are de-bladed and retired. The mysterious sounds are Na leo o Kamaoa the disembodied voices of 37 skeletal wind turbines abandoned to rust on the hundred-acre site of the former Kamaoa Wind Farm I guess being an environmentalist means what you folks say it means, and nothing more or less. In the best wind spots on earth, over 14,000 turbines were simply abandoned. Thanks Rob for the article. One can be sure that if the societal needs had to do with oil rigs, the same people remaining silent on the death of birds would be up in arms against the oil companies. This is obvious hypocrisy and shows everyone that wind farms are above the law and that anything that shows them in a negative light should be downplayed or simply ignored. Without government subsidy, they are unaffordable, https://americanelephant.wordpress.cunited-states/. Sadly, this same area is a hunting ground for birds of prey as well as a migratory path for birds that travel from Canada to Mexico with the change of seasons. The most recent citing was in the official policy of an Australian political party, the Democratic Labour Party of Australia. A more reasonable but still very conservative upper limit of 1 per cent would bring that down to a maximum of 2,400 permanently inactive wind turbines. ik/+ Bm;GjEh_MD K3U6&[\Oe)BsSww=X.P,uA + They have THOUSANDS of wind turbines in New Zealand, where their native fauna is predominantly birdlife, and they are totally unconcerned about wind farms killing birds. He doesnt show calculations. He wrote an article starting with the Kamaoa Wind Farm in Hawaii, that was heading for decommissioning and repowering and pulled the number of 14,000 permanently inactive wind turbines out of somewhere. Wind power in Hawaii has the potential to provide all of the electricity generation in the electricity sector in Hawaii. The majority of the permanently inactive wind turbines were built in the 1970s and are very old technology. (LogOut/ by Don Surber, UK Daily Mail Nov 19, 2011, As Jimi Hendrix may have put it: And the wind cries bankrupt. They are highly unsightly, and they are huge, and thats a lot of material to get rid of. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. This hypocrisy has always been a cornerstone of Al Gores climate change rhetoric. We would like to have no bird deaths and no bird injuries. The United States is Littered With More than 14,000 Abandoned Wind Turbines Wind power, the renewable That last word, somewhere, is used advisedly. "dG0_G*JYzWJGFk[6~w['O*eJ.&aPSH*1|eR[ 0XD&$gZ/bQZ He just comes up with 14,000 for the world through some magical process. A little simple math says that conservativelythese inactive wind turbines might represent 0.1 per cent of total wind generation capacity. Wind turbines, like solar panels, break down. 14,000 ABANDONED WIND TURBINES LITTER THE UNITED STATES. I can't even imagine how many tax payer dollars have been wasted on this boondoggle and these rusting hulks littering the landscape and killing endangered birds. Died a quiet Death. Abandoned and cannibalized Kamaoa wind farm turbines, Hawaii. Imagine the outraged Green chorus if those turbines were abandoned oil drilling rigs. Hawaii News Now reports: An endangered native bat is at the center of a fight over a controversial wind farm proposal on Oahu's North Shore. In a previous post regarding the disrespectful placement of wind turbines on the D Day beaches of Normandy it was concluded that leftist propagandists would be up in arms if this are were home to a threatened species of bat: Now if the area around the Normandy beaches were home to a threatened species of aquatic fruit bat then every NGO from Greenpeace to the WWF would be up in arms. Its now apparent that this assumption is wrong and that the wind turbine comes second to none for climate change activists. Despite these cases of companies and individuals being held responsible for harming wildlife, the USFWS has yet to punish any wind turbine company for their role in the deaths of protected bird species. cAGcE%k+.h[]1E%t$>eDJr%+=7]p21g,LkY.)X-wsMou} In parts of the United States, there are cases where wind facilities were abandoned for some time before being decommissioned or repowered. There are five other abandoned wind x\M8! kSNSimk:;K`x]h_cZM,jL7\;U=%V|,Nu"3JqZ![h3O jS*BwyG#[3.q^zv7ZMchgr9H4,$Xxz4.DD+- The power companies could see we were making progress with our many DIY projects and because of the OPEC scare, we were growing as a group of concerned citizens who only desired all Americans to be free of energy bills. Hawaii began research into wind power in the mid-1980s with a 340 kW turbine on Maui, and the 2.3MW Lalamilo Wells wind farm on Oahu and the 9MW Kamaoa wind farm on the Big Island of Hawaii . The MOD-5B, a 3.2MW wind turbine, on Oahu was the largest in the world in 1987. Hubs awaiting recycling. Built in 1986, the Kamaoa wind farm at South Point on the southern tip of the island of Hawaii stopped producing energy for the Big Islands grid in the last ten years. Its a bubble which bursts as soon as the government subsidies end therein lies a lesson that is going be learnt by those that sought to make fortunes out of tax payer subsidies, the whole renewables industry of solar, wind and biomass is just an artificial bubble incapable of surviving without subsides from governments and tax payers which many businesses and NGOs like WWF, FoE and Greenpeace now think is their god given right, as the money is going on Green Climate Religion approved clean energy.The Green evangelists who push so hard for these wind farms, as usual have not thought the whole idea through, no surprises for a left agenda like Climate Change, which like all things Green and socialist is just a knee jerk reaction: Altamonts turbines have since 2008 been tethered four months of every year in an effort to protect migrating birds after environmentalists filed suit. Major parts of a wind turbine at the 21-megawatt Auwahi Wind project at the Ulupalakua Ranch on Maui separated from the tower structure and fell to the ground, these useless, inefficient, space-hogging eyesores kill every year? Installed and Potential Wind Power Capacity and Generation", "State wind energy potential (2010) spreadsheet", "Renewable Energy Technical Potential | Geospatial Data Science | NREL", The Cost and Feasibility of Floating Offshore Wind Energy in the Oahu Region, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wind_power_in_Hawaii&oldid=1111572894, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2019, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Megawatts of Installed Generating Capacity, Kamaoa Wind Farm, 9.3 MW, in use 1987-2006, This page was last edited on 21 September 2022, at 18:17. Most jurisdictions are seeing replacements of older and inactive wind turbines with modern technologies. The Democratic Labour Party of Australia is hardly a force in the Australian Government. It would appear this was a wrought! They only have 1 of 76 senators and 0 of 150 in the house of representatives. California had the big three of wind farm locations Altamont Pass, Tehachapi, and San Gorgonio, considered the worlds best wind sites. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. What is the myth? There are about 2,500 of these golden eagles in California and the biggest wind turbine farm is said to kill about 80 of these eagles each year, on average. I challenge any scientist or engineer to prove that energy farms are not wasteful. As this happens, wildlife experts are warning that this renewable energy source will have a negative impact on the bird species in the area including the numerous protected eagles, owls, and hawks. [ Hit "play" button below, or click click here to view or download as a 1-MB FLV file or document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Abandoned wind farm at South Point Hawaii. The same areas that are good for siting wind farms are also good for birds of prey and migrating birds to pass through, shame for the birds that none of the Green mental midgets who care so much about everything in nature, thought that one through when pushing their anti fossil fuel agenda. Simply put, Dont do as I do, do as I say.. A cluster of 37 wind turbines formerly marked the spot of the Kamaoa Wind Farm, at the far south end of Hawaiis Big Island. The small wind farm opened in 1987 and was decommissioned 20 years later after a deal for the turbines power expired. What percentage of generating capacity would these represent? When similar environmental tragedies happened, like the 2009 Exxon oil spill that killed around 85 birds across five states, they were fined $600,000. P:]:%N]WC]kT2dA9yi?7wM^|~il].'\kn_:/.oO{z3F\x@{X But nice tax scams for his crony-capitalist backers will work well as long as he can blame it all on saving the planet. There are many hidden truths about the world of wind turbines from the pollution and environmental damage caused in China by manufacturing bird choppers, the blight on peoples lives of noise and the flicker factor and the countless numbers of birds that are killed each year by these blots on the landscape.The symbol of Green renewable energy, our saviour from the non existent problem of Global Warming, abandoned wind farms are starting to litter the planet as globally governments cut the subsidies taxes that consumers pay for the privilege of having a very expensive power source that does not work every day for various reasons like its too cold or the wind speed is too high.The US experience with wind farms has left over 14,000 wind turbines abandoned and slowly decaying, in most instances the turbines are just left as symbols of a dying Climate Religion, nowhere have the Green Environmentalists appeared to clear up their mess or even complain about the abandoned wind farms.The US has had wind farms since 1981: Some say that Ka Le is hauntedand it is. I think its okay as a small part of an overall energy strategy, but not as a sole source. 14,000 abandoned wind turbines As Jimi Hendrix may have put it: And the wind cries bankrupt Minnesotans for Global Warming report that in the last 30 years, the United States has had 14,000 wind turbines abandoned. I was wondering what had happened to the ones in Kahuku and elsewhere. They concluded that Spains 18,000 wind turbines are killing 6-18 million birds and bats yearly.. One more instance of companies paying up for harming protected species was in 2005 when a fish hatchery owner had to pay $65,000 and spend six months in a federally-run halfway house after shooting an eagle for feeding out of his businesss hatchery. By 2004 Kamaoa accounts began to show up on a Hawaii State Department of Finance list of unclaimed properties. Had the DIYers gotten the bulk of the research money, individual power provided on a per home basis would have been realized by now. These would be a few good places to start. [11] Hawaii used 9,962 GWh in 2011, so Hawaii has the potential to generate all electricity used in the state from wind and solar power. Instead of being concerned about this number, the state is looking to triple their wind turbine capacity in order to generate 33% of its electricity from green energy by 2020. In 2015, wind turbines produced 6.4% of Hawaii's electricity. Kawailoa (USA) - Wind farms - Online access - The Wind Power ; Online store . You apparently know little about the carnage they cause worldwide to our flying friends. Of course, the inactive wind turbines are being replaced with new generation capacity as part of the Tehachapi Pass Renewable Transmission Project, so the number of dead turbines is going to drop substantially. Spinning, post-industrial junk which generates nothing but bird kills. If a project owner chooses to close a wind farm completely, Monaghan explained, it is the responsibility of the owner to decommission the farm, which includes 14,000 wind turbines in the USA is laughably unrealistic; the US has about 20 per cent of installed wind generation, so a more likely maximum number is 400 small, old wind turbines around the US. California is just funny, as there are about 14,000 wind turbines in total in that state, so 100 per cent of them would have to be rusting in place for that claim to be true. The Audubon Society makes up numbers like the EPA, but theres a reason why they call them bird Cuisinarts. Spinning, post-industrial junk which generates nothing but bird kills.. http://bit.ly/1UDskn6 This article was originally published on Barnard on Wind. More money Are all wind turbines that arent spinning permanently inactive? The problem with wind farms when they are abandoned is getting the turbines removed, as usual there are non Green environmentalists to be seen: The City of Palm Springs was forced to enact an ordinance requiring their removal from San Gorgonio. If you or I killed an eagle, were looking at major consequences.. You would think that the lack of any supporting evidence would prevent people from quoting and then exaggerating even his already wildly exaggerated claim. Hawaii Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, Hawaii's Partnership for Appropriate & Compassionate Care, Hawaii Free Press - All Rights Reserved. In the best wind spots on earth, over 14,000 turbines were simply abandoned. If they cant avoid that, they are easy prey and wont last long anyway. Genious? Although, I am known to debunk common myths that people often believe are true. They rotate at a speed around 20rpm or so that any flying creature could avoid. Self sufficiency is empowering to the individual. So, 14,000 permanently inactive wind turbines world-wide is gross hyperbole at roughly four times the worst case scenario, and becomes close to an order of magnitude of inflation when compared to a likely scenario. Wind power, the renewable energy that will save the world from global warming, is actually an environmental disaster that is directly affecting the bird population in certain places and causing a nuisance to the people who live close to these monsters. So your science and math to debunk the 14,000 number is nothing but conjecture? Thats pretty damn fast for something that massive, and something as massive as a turbine blade can do some serious damage at that speed.). You may want to do more reading on the subject. In the best wind spots on earth, over 14,000 turbines were simply abandoned. Theres a big, big hypocrisy here, Sue Hammer of Tehachapi Wildlife Rehab in Kern County said.
