Yesterday Zero Hedge published a post about problems withdrawing cash from the bank. What will you say if your bank challenges you about why you’re withdrawing – or transferring – your money?
Should your bank be allowed to question you about what you do with your own money? Or worse, to ask to see proof of that?
It’s one thing to try and help protect customers from fraud, but this seems to be more. Read more here.
It is generally acknowledged that we cannot keep using fossil fuels for ever – we need alternative energy sources, especially as we approach (or perhaps have already reached) peak oil. And governments worldwide are determined to march us towards Net Zero. However, while there seems to be plenty of encouragement to invest in wind power, there are those who think that wind is definitely not the answer.
A recent Zero Hedge article discussed Professor Wade Allison’s paper that says wind power is failing on every count, so we thought we’d look into wind power in some more detail.
How do wind turbines work?
As well as the blades, a turbine includes a generator, gearbox and speed brakes. It’s a complex system. Wind turns the propeller-like blades of a turbine around a rotor, which spins a generator, which creates electricity. The US Department of Energy has information on this: https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/how-do-wind-turbines-work
The most visible parts are the blades, which are manufactured using a composite mix of glass, carbon fibre, and plastic. This unique material gives the blades the strength and durability to do their job.
Generating rubbish?
A big issue is that at the moment, the blades can’t be recycled, although some people are reusing them. The World Economic Forum concedes that it’s a problem: “… disposing of retired turbine blades has become a headache for the renewable energy industry. They’re made of materials that can’t easily be recycled.”
“Up to 85% of an existing wind turbine, including the steel mast and electrical components made of metals like copper, can be recycled, but not the turbine blades, which already account for 10% of Europe’s fibre-reinforced composite material waste.”
However, the world’s first recyclable wind turbine blade has now been produced, so perhaps future builds might be more environmentally friendly.
What else do you need to install a wind turbine?
As well as manufacturing and transporting the turbine, you can’t just plonk it down anywhere. The location needs to be suitably windy (but preferably not too windy) and you have to prepare the site. Utility Smarts says that the typical base of a 1 MW turbine is around 15 metres in diameter, and 1.5 to 3.5 metres deep, so using around 130-240 cubic metres of concrete and potentially 150 metric tons of steel. Then of course you need to have roads in place to physically move the huge turbines to the site – so those might need to be built too.
So how much do turbines cost?
Semprius, a company specialising in renewable energy, estimates the total cost (in US dollars) of an average turbine as $2.5 to $4 million; the most powerful 12 MW turbines can cost up to $400 million to manufacture and install. That’s a lot of money for something that will only last 20 to 30 years. They say that:
“Turbines that are properly maintained and occasionally have their parts replaced will last a full 25 to 30 years. But if the operators fall behind on maintenance, the turbines may face an early death. This is especially true for wind farms in harsh environments, such as those out at sea (whose replacement is much costlier, due to their geography).”
Are turbines bad for wildlife?
There has been a lot of concern regarding birds being killed by wind turbines, particularly apex predators like eagles and hawks. A 2022 article on Daily Sceptic was extremely concerned about bats being killed by onshore turbines, and James Delingpole has long been an opponent – in this article from ten years ago he describes them as “bat chomping and bird slicing”.
As well as flying creatures being killed directly by colliding with turbine blades, they can be affected by direct habitat loss, disturbance and displacement. However, according to its website the RSPB seems fairly unperturbed by this and their website says they work with developers to install wind farms responsibly. In the US, American Bird Conservancy takes a dimmer view and says turbines are a threat to birds; they too work with developers to try to minimise impact on wildlife.
… and bad for humans?
There’s an argument that quality of life is reduced by being in proximity to turbines – perhaps they seem okay off in the distance, but nobody really wants to live right next door to massive steel objects, no matter how much energy is produced.
There have been lots of reports of people struggling with health issues caused by the sound of the blades, usually described as a low-frequency hum. These reports are usually dismissed, although it’s worth pointing out that as everybody is unique, some people could be badly affected even if most have no problems. The turbines not only produce sound but also affect air pressure, so some people may be more sensitive to air pressure changes, resulting in discomfort or illness.
Show me the money?
Somebody must be making lots of money from wind turbines, right? Earlier this month the UK government recently announced £205 million for British renewables. In September 2021 the UK government announced a “milestone subsidy scheme” of £265 million for renewables, including £200 million for offshore wind farms. Despite some comments in the press about the cost of offshore wind power falling in recent years, it seems that wind farms continue to be heavily subsidised.
A May 2018 article from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) noted that the International Energy Agency (IEA) had calculated that in 2016 subsidies for renewable energy technologies amounted to US$140 billion. They also said that fossil fuels received about US$260 billion in the same period, although fossil fuel subsidies had fallen about 15% from the previous year.
The ONS says that wind power is one of the largest sources of renewable electricity in the UK and is expected to continue to grow as we head towards the target of “Net Zero”. It says that the UK generated 75,610 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity from both offshore and onshore wind in 2020 – and that “the offshore and onshore wind sectors generated almost £6 billion in turnover in 2019.” Yet in November 2022 the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) was asking why “unsubsidised” wind farms are getting constraint payments – payments to reduce their output. The REF says that the cost to consumers totals well over £1 billion since the payments began in 2010.
So – positive or negative?
Are turbines a good source of renewable energy, and worth investing in to improve them? Or should they be binned as a waste of time? What do you think? Professor Allison’s paper is worth reading (link below).
As always, make up your own mind.
Further reading
Professor Allison’s paper on why wind power is failing on every count https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2023/03/Allison-Wind-energy.pdf
Information on wind power engineering https://www.windpowerengineering.com/how-is-a-nacelle-manufactured/
Map of renewable energy projects, including wind farms, in the UK https://energyguide.org.uk/wind-farms-uk-map/
National Wind Watch (USA based) https://www.wind-watch.org/
Treehugger.com article on Peak Oil https://www.treehugger.com/what-is-peak-oil-have-we-reached-it-5189178
Peak Prosperity has a number of articles on Peak Oil https://peakprosperity.com/
Renewable Energy Foundation https://ref.org.uk/index.php
UK Government’s Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-ten-point-plan-for-a-green-industrial-revolution/title
UK Government’s Energy white paper aiming for Net Zero https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/energy-white-paper-powering-our-net-zero-future
September 2022 review of Net Zero https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-of-net-zero
Statistics on UK energy generation https://www.statista.com/topics/4936/electricity-production-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/#topicOverview
Unfortunately, we think the answer to this is probably YES.
Not only has US bank SVB gone down recently (apparently its UK business has transferred seamlessly to HSBC without any cost to the taxpayers, so phew) but Credit Suisse shares have plunged in price, causing further worry.
The Bad Cattitude newsletter writes that it’s “bank crisis groundhog day” – this is well worth a read. A quote from which possibly sums things up:
the simple fact is that banking is largely opaque. we could sit down with every piece of public and regulatory data about deutche bank and spend a month going over it and still wind up with what ultimately amounts to a black box bet on the soundness and hedging of a derivatives portfolio nearly 3 orders of magnitude larger than their total equity.
Richard Vobes interviewed Justin Walker (co-founder of HARE – the Hardwick Alliance for Real Ecology) on his YouTube channel yesterday – the episode is called Stop the Collapse! Justin tells some very interesting stories, and suggests that some people want a financial collapse, as an excuse to bring in CDBCs (central bank digital currencies).
Justin says there is an alternative to CDBCs – the Bradbury Pound, as introduced in 1914. He has written about this on UK Column. His document Sovereign Money is available here: https://richardvobes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/SOVEREIGN-MONEY-Original.pdf
If CDBCs are brought in, governments and banks will be able to track every single transaction. Not only will there be no privacy, but the potential (likely?) next step is to use the CDBC to control you. For example, you might have already used up your budget for petrol for the month, so you would not be allowed to buy any more fuel. Perhaps you won’t be allowed to buy meat, if the government decides that you shouldn’t. Perhaps you will only be allowed to purchase certain things from “authorised suppliers”.
There’s also a very real possibility that if you do something you don’t like – perhaps you speak up against a pro-vaccination narrative, or drop litter – the CDBC system will be used to punish you. This already happens in China – social credit scores have prevented people from using their money to buy plane or train tickets.
There’s a good article which goes into the good, the bad and the ugly about CDBCs on crunchbase.com.
Is there anything we can do about this? To fight back against CDBCs, the best thing is to use cash as much as possible – the more cash is being used, the harder it is for the government to bring in a CDBC to replace it. Try to use #CashEveryDay.
Suggestions for further reading:
#CashFriday and #CashEveryDay
https://rescue.substack.com/p/stop-digital-dictators-with-cashfriday
The Solari Report on how to stop CDBCs https://home.solari.com/i-want-to-stop-cbdcs-what-can-i-do/
Peak Prosperity – Chris Martenson writes on the economy and the site has a wealth of information on prosperity and resilience.
As always, don’t just believe us – look into the issue yourself. But we do think this is something to be pretty concerned about.
© 2024 Why Should I Worry?
Theme by Anders Norén — Up ↑