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Wind turbines are not a good idea

7th March 2014

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy

  

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Cecil John Rhodes was in many ways a ruthless, manipulative despot.

(Oh, if you do not know who he was, De Beers was his company).

The list of his lies and deceits is long and breathtaking. If you think not, consider what happened when there was an outbreak of smallpox at one of his Kimberly mines – he got a doctor to certify that it was a mild, noninfectious disease and his workers died in droves. At his mines, there was one fatality each day. He was a ruthless politician. And it goes on.

But there are some redeeming features. The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for selected foreigners to study at the University of Oxford and was the first large-scale programme of international scholarships and is widely considered the world’s most prestigious scholarship.

But, more fundamentally, if you go to Cape Town and look up to Table Mountain, you may well note that it is not covered in apartment blocks and houses. If there were such apartment blocks and houses, the view they would command would make them very desirable. But there are none. Rhodes owned vast areas of the lower slopes of Table Mountain, most of which he gave to the nation on his death.

Part of his estate was used for the University of Cape Town upper campus, part is now the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, while much of it was spared from less development. So I look up to the mountain and I think, hey, what a damn good idea the man had. Unique, beautiful and wonderful.

We turn now to Aalborg Univerity which, as we all know, is in Denmark. They have a new project, Wind2050: Multidisciplinary Study on Local Acceptance and Development of Wind Power Projects. It is touted as follows: “The project seeks to examine both the factors that influence local acceptance and the influence of governance, project development and deployment of wind power. The project applies an interactive research framework involving researchers from the legal, social, economic and technical sciences, who continuously exchange knowledge with end-users (the authorities, industry, interest organisations, citizens and other local actors).

“The overall analytical perspective considers wind power facilities as sociotechnical systems, which allows the work packages to use different scientific perspectives and methods in order to understand why and how different institutions, regulations, actors and perceptions induce or block deployment of wind power. The analyses are finally integrated in strategic scenarios, which provide recommendations and decision support for future deployment of wind power and other renewable energy sources.”

Well, apart from needing a serious lesson in communication and subediting, the message is contained in the phrase “. . . in order to understand why and how different institutions, regulations, actors and perceptions induce or block deployment of wind power”, and the whole blurb can be rewritten thus: “Why Do Some Ignorant People Oppose Wind Power? Let’s Find out and Combat Them.”

There are many reasons why wind power is not a good idea: wind is intermittent; every wind turbine has to be backed up by other generation, which, if this is a gas turbine, costs a fortune; wind turbines result in grid instability; and wind turbines kill birds (think not? Duke Energy, of the US, had to pay out a $1-million fine for killing off 14 golden eagles – and yes, cats kill birds but none of them are eagles, vultures, hawks or other raptors).

Most of all, wind turbines are visually intrusive. It used to be that, when you went over Sir Lowrys Pass, you saw the beautiful Caledon Valley beyond. Now you see the beautiful Caledon Valley and 15 turbines, each with a hub height of 100 m (the same height as a 20-storey building). It makes one sick.

This, my dear buddies in Aalborg, is the elephant in the room. Wind turbines do not work, do not help and look horrible. Every year, on July 5 (Rhodes’s birthday) I drink a toast to Table Mountain and Rhodes’ vision that it is kept free of buildings. One day, I pray, I will raise my glass when the turbines, having proved uneconomic and heavy maintenance are taken down and we get the beautiful Caledon Valley back once more.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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