Hands Off

Bugger off nanny

Bird Mincers fall over

Ever wonder about which bits of a wind turbine fails the most? Well here you are.

What surprised me was that as these are onshore, why should the towers fail? I would have put bearings, gearboxes, and blades first. How can a tower built on land fail? It’s not as we have massive earthquakes every year. I expect it of offshore turbines due to poor grouting and scour of the sea bed around the towers, but not onshore. I wouldn’t want one of those on my doorstep.

And we’re paying a green Tariff for these poorly constructed blots on the landscape. Sheesh.

The graph comes from a source that is from a wind turbine company which I’d rather not mention here. If so my source of information may dry up.

And now for the News

Second Smoke kills……..

Or not if this study is correct.

1. 80 epidemiological studies of lung cancer among lifelong nonsmokers have been published.

2. The overall evidence shows no statistically significant increased risk of lung cancer in relation to ETS exposure from parents in childhood, or in social situations, or to nonspousal ETS exposure at home.

3. The overall evidence shows that lung cancer risk among nonsmoking women is significantly associated with having a husband who smokes (with a similar association seen in nonsmoking men in relation to smoking by the wife, though based on far less data).
There is also evidence of a dose-response relationship,1 with risk higher if the husband smokes more cigarettes per day or for a longer period of time. However, there are a number of reasons why this association and dose-response relationship cannot be interpreted as indicating a causal effect of ETS exposure including:

the association is weak and is not statistically significant in the great majority of studies: over 80% show no statistically significant association between smoking by the husband and the development of lung cancer;

It goes on with a lot more elucidation, ending with this final bullet point before the data part.

Taken as a whole, the epidemiology does not support the claim that ETS causes lung cancer in non-smokers.

I’m sure the nanny state and the Fascists over at ASH don’t want you to know this. So I’m telling you instead.

Happy Birthday to me.

At least I’ve still remembered. Shows I’m not senile yet.

We will fight on the blogs, we will fight with art……

We will prevail

Have you ever wondered……

Who’s watching you on line

Track the trackers. If you use Firefox you might like to try their add on called Collusion.

Collusion is an experimental add-on for Firefox and allows you to see all the third parties that are tracking your movements across the Web. It will show, in real time, how that data creates a spider-web of interaction between companies and other trackers.

It really is quite startling to see, in a cloud type format, who has linked to you with a cookie.

Bonus Features of the Chevy Volt

Tongue in cheek article

Toe to Toe with a sandal wearer

I couldn’t resist replying to asmugblog AGWer who decided to berate me for querying his belief. His rebuttal.

My house is powered by wind.  No rolling blackouts.. even in the cold winters of the northerly tar sands.
As an engineer, you will of course be able to provide an exact source for your statements.  Citation please?   (Didn't think so.  You guys never have anything.)
Also, as you know, the numbers will lead the way.  Right?  You're an engineer, so you don't go by hunches or use advertising to make decisions, right?
The numbers have always and consistently pointed to the injection of CO2 in our atmosphere as the leading cause of global warming.  There are no other numbers adding up to that.
On the plus side, at least we're at peak oil.  And 'yes', I will blame you.
Here's Hansen's ground breaking paper;
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1988/1988_Hansen_etal.pdf
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Hansen-1988-prediction-basic.htm

I replied:

So your house is powered purely by wind. In the UK we are now being inundated with onshore and offshore wind farms supposedly supplying 7% of our electricity needs. It was interesting to see in January when we had a very cold spell caused by a high pressure system how effective that wind power was. Bearing in mind that wind turbines rarely achieve more than than 30% of their rated output at best (Load factor), (Look it up yourself) The total amount of wind generated from figures published by DECC (Department of Energy and Climate Change) was a staggering 0.9%.
Since we have been forced to have green energy, my energy bill has increased by 18% in the last year. yes you did read that right 18%.
http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/stats/publications/dukes/2309-dukes-2011-chapter-7-renewable-sources.pdf
Not only such a pathetic figure of supply, but the British Taxpayer was also obligated to pay the wind turbine owners for the non supply of energy. We also had to feed back electricity to the non turning turbines in order to lubricate the gearboxes.
You might also like to see the stats for turbine failures. Our offshore wind turbines which were predicted to have a life of twenty years, are failing after eight. mainly due to poorly thought out monopile grout and scouring of the sea bed.
https://eeweb01.ee.kth.se/upload/publications/reports/2006/XR-EE-EEK_2006_009.pdf
So you might think again about wind power.
And peak oil. Sorry, cheap oil yes, peak oil no.
http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/news/article.aspx?articleid=86242&categoryid=13

I really should stop this trolling shouldn't I?

UPDATE:

A reply:

It's funny how deniers so often add 1 + 1 and get 3. Let's not look at facts eh TFE? Like......errr, I dont know.....say the fact that our houses are now filled with more energy sucking appliances than ever?! That we leave on standy, or leave the heating/cooling on all day or night? Noooo, it couldn't be that, it's the big green monster....that, with your engineering degree and trained logic is the only explanation.

My reply:

Exscuse me for daring to argue. I have added no new equipment into my house. It's the green tariff that has put up my bills. I did state that it was a rise of One year. The green imposed charge is stated on my bill.
As for:
"Here are experts in the industry explaining that it is the costs of upgrading the transmission and distribution networks that are costing us more in power prices."
Of course it is. When you have intermittent energy supplies from green sources such as wind turbines then the control of such sources need very expensive forms of energy regulation. if you have one turbine with a generation frequency of 40 hz and another generating at 60 hz (wind speed dependant), then you will have to spend money to adjust the frequency of supply.
Please look up the practicalities.

And as for:

The only place that believes the "drill baby drill" philosphophy will lower petrol/gas prices is on denier and conservative blogs. Elsewhere in fact world and reality, the story is different

You obviously didn't bother to read the link. Do keep up.

I've been accused of not linking. I have now, An element of curtesy would be to at least read them before replying with a knee jerk reaction.

Charity begins at home.

 

I just had a call from a Charity asking me to donate some of my clothes to the starving people throughout the world.
I told them to **** off. Anybody who fits into my clothes isn't starving.