The Wind Widget

Though wind's installed capacity does not currently form a large portion of the National Electricity Market's generation fleet, wind power still contributes meaningfully to the electricity market. The potential for wind farms to provide electricity, particularly for smaller rural communities that do not demand the enormous quantities we see in metropolitan areas, is well worth considering.

A map of South Australia's wind resource, via Renewables SA

With that in mind, I threw together a quick Google Sheets widget, based off a live wind farm generation megawatt value hosted on 'MisterVint' - a great website that displays and logs the percent of your electricity that comes from wind energy, on the National Electricity Market. It also provides a state-by-state breakdown.

I had to provide some relatively rough estimations of the instantaneous power consumption - a fridge, for instance, can vary greatly in its power consumption depending whether the compressor is on or off. Still, the averages gives us a good idea of how much we consume, as individuals, and how much power is currently being generated by wind farms on the grid.

Click here to see the plain HTML version, or click here to visit the Google Sheets spreadsheet (you can make a copy and play with the assumptions and calculations yourself, if you like). If you want to embed it on your webpage, copy and paste the code below (adjust the width and height values, in pixels, to get it right):

<iframe width='500' height='300' frameborder='0' src='https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AqAu73EozSjEdFRYei0tbUN6QTByQjNVM0dvZjUtNUE&single=true&gid=2&output=html&widget=true'></iframe>

Enjoy!



Thoughts on Energy and Power


800 years ago, wind energy powered one of the most significant endeavours in human history. Impossibly brave men stood on the sterns of wooden craft, and traveled to unexplored lands, powered only by the wind in their sails. Their energy source did not deliver consistently. This did not erode their bravery or determination, and they pushed forward into the future, unhindered.

The concept of capturing energy from the movements of the atmosphere has relevance and utility for modern energy systems. It would be a silly conceit to equate modern wind power with the brave explorers of the past, but both share the need to contend with one important feature: a power source that is variable.

Wind energy is often measured as a 'capacity factor' - essentially, how much power came out of your machines, as a percentage of their maximum capacity? It's convenient and quick, but personally, I don't like it. It tries to condense too much information into a single value. It's sort of like changing the resolution of a picture to one pixel by one pixel. It also carries the implicit suggestion that wind farms ought to be generating at 100% capacity all the time. They shouldn't.

Wind turbines don't generate at maximum capacity all the time - on average, their generation is about 35% of their installed capacity. The range of wind speeds that the machine needs to deal with is broad, and so you build a wind turbine with an equally broad capacity. Capacity factor is misleading because the capacity of a wind turbine is stretched high to capture infrequent but important periods of very high wind speeds. It's also frequently mistaken to be an indicator of 'efficiency', which it most definitely is not. 

Permit me to elaborate. Let's say that, on average, you drive your car at 60 km/h. Occasionally, when you're backing into your driveway, you're going at 5 km/h. Sometimes, on the highway, you go at 110 km/h. The maximum speed of your car is 200 km/h. So does your speedometer show you your average speed, as a percentage of your maximum? No. It shows you your current speed, and the distance you've traveled. No one really cares about the 'capacity factor' of their car, because the metric doesn't really tell them anything significant. 

You can measure the electrical equivalent of 'distance' by looking at 'energy' - measured over time, and in 'watt hours'. In South Australia, in FY12, wind energy contributed 3,349,000,000,000 watt hours (3,349 gigawatt hours) to the grid -  26% of total energy generated in the state (see page 16 of this PDF). 

If you stored one year's worth of South Australian wind energy in a battery, it could power one average Australian home for about 19,000 years. It's not a quantity that can be dismissed easily. It's good to think closely about definitions, metrics and measurements, when someone's talking to you about renewable energy. 

The Mutated Phrase Feed

I am confused, a lot of the time. I hate it when people fudge common phrases, yet, I sort of love it. This may seem a horribly conflicted realm in which to dwell, but I relish every second of it.

Twitter has catalysed this joy for me recently, with a real-time stream of hideous, malformed phraseology at my fingertips. A constant, unending litany and pain and joy and suffering and glory. Mmmmm.

Below, I gather this unforgiving river of beautifully misshapen misery. Forgive those who quote the phrase to mock those who use it mistakenly. They know not what they do.

Wreck havoc - To destroy someone's attempts to induce havoc, ie to induce calm (See: Buddha)

Tweets about ""wreck havoc""

Mute point - When someone is trying to make a point without really saying anything (See: Andrew Bolt)

Tweets about ""mute point""

Beyond the pail - Near a bucket (See: Me with a very bad hangover)

Tweets about ""beyond the pail""

Baited breath - Fishy (See: Silvio Burlesconi)

Tweets about ""baited breath""

For all intensive purposes - Someone who is purposefully intense. (See: Gordon Ramsay)

Tweets about ""all intensive purposes""

I could care less - A probabilistic assessment of the likelihood of being able to experience less caring (See: The British Royal Family)

Tweets about ""could care less""

Irregardless - Towards something being regardless. Sort of regardless, but not quite. (See: The Voice)

Tweets about "irregardless"

Things are getting worst - Everything is nearly as bad as it possibly can be. (See: The apocalypse)

Tweets about ""things are getting worst""

I know, I know. I 'blog on wind energy'. I made this, to satisfy that immutable criterion:

Balancing the Scales: Science and Threat

Subterfuge, menace and politics. These things are deeply compelling. You need not linger long on your favourite news program to hear stories of intimidation and drama, breathlessly and urgently thrust at viewers hungry for cunning. 

A frequent casualty in the ever-churning maelstrom of political drama is rational discourse. As soon as powerful individuals with interests in fossil fuels opened their wallets to climate denial, public conversation became horribly disfigured – a cabal of non-expert climate change deniers, furiously and tirelessly disseminating falsehoods across many different forms of media.

The science of climate change has become heavily politicised (source: news.com.au)

Muting science with emotive political manoeuvring has been the modus operandi of the anti-wind lobby for several years. Though much of their lobbying is set on implying that wind energy is a threat to human health, there is no published scientific evidence to suggest that this is the case. Randall Bell, president of the Victorian Landscape Guardians, openly admits a political skew in an interview with Four Corners:

ANDREW FOWLER: For Randall Bell and the Landscape Guardians, the battle against wind farms is no longer purely a scientific argument.

RANDALL BELL: It's always political. It always was. I never got it until very late in life that it was always going to be about votes.

ANDREW FOWLER: So it's a battle. It's a political battle.

RANDALL BELL: Yes.

ANDREW FOWLER: And you use any weapon you can to win that?

RANDALL BELL: Yes.

The deficiencies and logical fallacies inherent in the claims of anti-wind groups are slowly growing more public. As their claims are examined more thoroughly, the need to distract with increasing quantities of drama grows.

'Wind Turbine Syndrome' is borne of individuals heavily divested from standard scientific methodology. A deficiency in scientific rigour is masked through a focus on politics, drama and emotion. 

Recently, the TasWind development on King Island faced the political weaponry of the anti-wind lobby firsthand. The Waubra Foundation, a key player in anti-wind activism across Australia, has become deeply intertwined in the proposal. According to an anonymous and emphatically hyperbolic anti-wind blog, threats to the CEO of the Waubra Foundation's safety were brought to the attention of Tasmanian police. 

The concerns were called actually in by anti-wind groups from North America and Spain. Mark Duchamp, founder of the ‘World Council For Nature’, was behind the email to Tasmanian police:

“She is known worldwide for her devotion to wind farm victims and her awareness campaign, but in her own country she has received multiple threats”

Three articles are referenced as evidence of these threats. It's worth considering their content in some detail. 

"Battle for King Island: Wind energy politics at 20 paces" is a thoughtful piece on the events at King Island, and mentions Sarah Lauriea few times. Nowhere is Laurie threatened, insulted or denigrated. If critiquing the intentions or credentials of a lobbyist were to constitute a threat to safety, then 99% of all media content would be instantaneously criminal. 

"Wind farm fear mongering: It’s enough to make you sick" is an examination of a series of claims made by Laurie in a radio interview. The author, Mike Barnard, deflates the various falsehoods stated by Laurie. He also provides references for his assertions. Nowhere is Laurie threatened, insulted or denigrated.

"Authorities examine complaint against anti-windfarm activist" reports on the CEO of the Waubra Foundation, Sarah Laurie, being the subject of a complaint directed to the NHMRC, for conducting unethical reseach. The Waubra Foundation recently released an official response to the news, replete with conspiracy theories, claims of a "contemporaneous and coordinated press campaign" and an astonishingly unhinged request for a Royal Commission into the complaint. 

These concerns were raised by anti-wind campaigners thousands of kilometres from King Island. Significantly, their concerns were predicated not on unambiguous threats, but on fully-referenced critiques of Laurie's statements, including an article on her own potential misconduct. Compare the articles above to an actual threat [PDF, language warning], sent to climate scientist Phil Jones:

Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2010 5:34 PM

To: p.jones@uea.ac.uk

Subject: Kill youself (sic) scum

Fuck you for your lies and deceit. You deserve to die. And if you don’t take your own life, then I fucking hope someone does it for you.

Some of the more colourful emails sent to climate scientists. (source - Treehugger)

The gulf between real threats of violence and Duchamp’s skewed perception of threat is vast. Climate scientists now have to regularly deal with death threats – a nasty and unforgiveable by-product of the approach of climate change deniers, such as James Delingpole.

James Delingpole recently promoted the 'metaphorical' murder of climate science proponents (source - The Guardian)

A telling example of a real threat can be sourced from the aforementioned Randall Bell. In March this year he issued the following warning to the new premier of Victoria, regarding the two kilometre setback laws currently in place:

“If Dr Napthine reneges on that policy, I’ll break his arms.”

Renewable energy campaigners Yes 2 Renewables called on the Landscape Guardians and the Waubra Foundation to condemn Bell’s remarks. Unsurprisingly, there was no denouncement. If anti-renewable groups throw down their political artillery, their cause may be judged on scientific evidence alone – an outcome they will avoid at all costs.  

Caveys and the Causal Gap - The Problems with Self-Reported Illnesses

We don't like being told that we're liars. This feeling is so powerful that we perceive accusations of falsehood, even when they don't exist. This is startlingly clear in the case of 'Wind Turbine Syndrome' - when you state that someone hasn't produced sufficient evidence to link their symptoms to wind turbines, it's perceived as a direct attack on personal integrity:

@ontariosea @no2spin You know what - this sort of thing is saying those who are suffering r liars. Y wld people leave their homes 4 nothing?
— S.W.A.T (@no2wind) March 16, 2013

A huge quantity of confusion orbits furiously around this concept - people report real illnesses, but apportion blame in the wrong direction, influenced by misinformation from anti-wind groups like the Waubra Foundation. You don't need to lie - you simply need to frame your reports in the right way. 

I decided to perform a little demonstration of this effect, using my pet guinea pig, Mrs Ewan McGregor. I was inspired by Ben Goldacre, whose dead cat Henrietta is a certified professional member of the American Association of Nutritional Consultants - a neat demonstration of how websites can simulate authority, but in reality, have no strong verification or certification process. 

I am the only person who will ever use this stock photo

"It looks as if all you need to be a certified member of the AANC is a name, an address, and a spare $60. You don’t need to be human. You don’t even need to be alive. No exam. No check-up on your qualifications. And no assessment of your practice."

Ill Wind Reporting "looks to uncover and document the many instances of negative effects from wind developments in rural communities". There's a focus on health effects, but they also include 'oil leaks', 'ice throw' and 'unethical behaviour'. Essentially, it serves as a repository of reports of 'wind turbine syndrome'. Note the phrase 'from wind developments', a statement that the reports they list are causally linked to wind energy. 

I was curious to see to what extent they ignored causal relationships - so, I submitted a report based around a common behaviour in guinea pigs - 'rumble strutting', an obscenely cute dominance display, involving a weird vibrating purr and some serious booty popping. 

Mrs Ewan McGregor, chomping down on some Pak Choy.

"I live two kilometres away from a wind turbine in Glebe - ever since the wind turbine started up I have noticed strange behaviour in my pets. I have two guinea pigs. Since the wind turbine started generating, they have been making a low 'rumbling' noise, almost like vibrating. They do this all the time."

Here's the important part: Everything I submitted to their website is true.

- I do live two km away from a wind turbine in Glebe

- My two guinea pigs were born around the same time the wind turbine became operational, so, they have been exhibiting the behaviour since the wind turbine 'started generating' 

- They make low rumbling noises, with regularity.  

I don't need to lie, to implicate a nearby technology. The causal association is simply implied by stating two facts next to each other: "I live near a wind turbine" and "My guinea pigs make strange noises". If you read those two things, and you desperately hate wind energy, you'll fill that causal gap with relish. 

They also give you the option of providing your name and email, so they can 'verify' your submission. I opted out. Despite this, they accepted my report and published it online [PDF or WebCite, if it's taken down], including the adorable picture of her smashing down some veggies. Sneakily, they even listed it as 'VERIFIED' in a friendly green box:

A liberal interpretation of the term 'VERIFIED'

adorable. 

What does it take to supply 'verified' symptoms of 'wind turbine syndrome'? Well, you need a keyboard, an internet connection, and basic literacy skills. Nothing else. Oddly, they also took no issue with me classifying my guinea pigs as 'children' - plenty of the 'health effects' on the website are categorised liberally, presumably to over-inflate each category. 

There's an important point to take away from this. The trick being deployed here is frequently used by groups pushing pseudoscience online. Through an unchecked submission process, combined with a deceptive 'VERIFIED' tag, they simulate a global epidemic of 'wind turbine syndrome':

The formatting and presentation is likely designed to mimic actual maps of disease spread

Unremarkable symptoms leap gleefully over the causal gap, and are assumed to be due to the presence of wind turbines. This reinforces the belief that that wind energy is harmful - a self-sustaining pattern of unjustified health fears. 

This tapestry of fabricated causality breeds fear, anxiety and stress, catalysed by the speed and reach of the internet. The causal gap is no barrier to loudly professing scientific authority. See, for instance, the 'Reaction Report Form' available on the anti-vaccination lobby's masthead website:

"And I really urge anyone who is listening to this, if they or their children have had an adverse reaction to vaccination, please visit the website and fill in the reaction report form, 'cause we need to get these reactions reported."
- Meryl Dorey

The real dangers of websites like Ill Wind Reporting, and the 'Australian Vaccination Network' lie in the possibility that someone might actually head to their website, instead of to a doctor, when looking for the cause of certain symptoms. If they've been misled into attributing their illness to a wind turbine, they run the risk of letting a real problem go unchecked, and there's no doubt they'll object passionately to perceived accusations of lying about their symptoms. 

They're not lying. Their experience is real. Groups that spread pseudoscience and health fears, with no scientific or medical backing, ought to be examined closely and carefully. Websites like 'Ill Wind Reporting' serve only to reinforce unjustified anxiety that should never have existed in the first place. 

[PDF] - The submission page

[PDF] - The published report 

Night terrors

The wind only blows at night so we'll be bankrupt in no time. This is ridiculous!! soc.li/4cCxHQP #indyref
— Colin Walker (@Barlowfarlow) December 6, 2012

Oh no! The wind only blows at night! This is ridiculous!
The sum generation of all NEM-registered wind farms, last summer:

Sorry, haters. To ease your pain, here's dressy cat on a tricycle:

Hugs,

Ketan

Getting It Wrong - Anonymously

It must be fun, publishing content anonymously. There are many advantages. One is being able to publish cruel vilification without facing any type of accountability. Another is the freedom of consistent wrongness - without the risk of tainting one's reputation. 

An example of this is the righteous and defamatory anonymous blog 'Stop these things'. A few months ago, I was featured on their 'These people don't [get it]' page. 

I try to re-use this picture wherever I can. 

Recently, Simon Chapman, professor of public health at Sydney University wrote on The Conversation about a piece of research in pre-print that shows the prevalence of health complaints is not always related to the presence of wind turbines - rather, the interjection of anti-wind campaigners serves as a better predictor of these complaints.

Recently, Anonymous claimed that:

"The former editor of the academic journal which received a study by Simon Chapman denying wind turbine syndrome has questioned the quality of his research

Dr Jeanne Daly told a fiery public meeting to discuss a proposed community wind farm at Baringhup in Victoria that “at best” Chapman’s evidence was “equivocal”."

Is Anonymous referring to Chapman's paper on the distribution of health complaints? The commenters certainly seem convinced. In fact, there's nothing in the post to suggest otherwise. 

Daly was the editor of the Australia and New Zealand Journal of Public Health (ANZJPH). It seems odd that the ex-editor of a journal would publicly criticise research that is still under review by that journal. I contacted Simon Chapman, and he brought to my attention this email - sent to Daly:

"I'm not sure whether you have been faithfully reported (a transcript is being prepared) but if so, it seems that you are confused about my work.

The paper that ANZJPH is publishing soon is this one: 'How the factoid of wind turbines causing “vibroacoustic disease” came to be “irrefutably demonstrated”'. "

"Another paper of mine (see pre-print here is under review with an international journal. It has never been sent to you."

According to Chapman, Jeanne Daly was referring to a completely different paper. Not an insignificant error. But hang on, doesn't that mean Chapman's paper on 'Vibroacoustic disease (VAD)' is shoddy? 

Nope. Chapman points out in his email that the VAD paper has been accepted for publication by the ANZJPH. 

One impassioned commenter writes:

Ask, and ye shall receive. 

Update 06/05/2013: The page has been wordlessly removed from their blog, with no acknowledgement of error. Don't worry, though - it's stored permanently on WebCite. 

The Fictitious Uprising - Listed Professions

Listed Professions

In a previous post, I examined a list published by the European Platform Against Windfarms - comprised of 'professionals' who have expressed concern about wind farms. In that post, I looked at how their numbers are skewed towards countries that are Anglophone in nature - indicating that their concerns are related to a communicated, rather than physical, phenomenon. 

Let's have a look a their distribution across professional lines. The list is comprised of 78 total professionals. 41 of these have the term 'Dr' in their title. Not all of these are going to be medical professionals, though - I went through the list and did my best to identify those who are classified as health practitioners:

There seems to be 33 listed professionals that could be considered health practitioners - 8 'Rural medical practitioners', 6 'Ear Nose & Throat Specialists', and 5 'Medical practitioners', and a few others. 

The WHO estimates there are approximately 59,000,000 health workers worldwide. Thus, we can obtain a rough percentage of the number of health workers who have expressed concern about wind turbine syndrome. 

33/59,000,000 is 0.00006%

An angry refrain often directed at Simon Chapman, professor of public health at Sydney University, is that he is not qualified to comment on the wind farm health issues, as he is trained in sociology:

"As an academic discipline, sociology has never overcome the accusation of being either stupendously obvious or stupendously absurd.  Chapman’s Postulate illustrates the latter."

"Simon Chapman (Think healthy on wind farms, Monday March 18th) is not a medical doctor, but a sociologist"

"He is a Sociologist and surely is not in a position to know how to run valid experiments that need Scientific and medical evaluation?"

"On what grounds, as a sociologist, rather than an acoustician or a medical practitioner, do you disagree with Leventhall’s expert testimony "

A few professions from EPAW's listing:

My next post will be looking specifically at Australian doctors - what they state publicly, and what percentage of the Australian medical workforce they represent.