Wyoming Wind Turbines Killed 23,000 Birds And Bats Last Year

Because that is good for the environment, or something. Wyoming Wind Turbines Killed More Than 23,000 Birds And Bats Last Year | Cowboy State Daily

In 2025, wind turbines killed 1,160 large birds, such as raptors and waterfowl, Wyoming Game and Fish habitat protection program supervisor Will Schultz told the state Game and Fish Commission on Wednesday.

Turbine blades also killed 9,152 small birds, such as meadowlarks, and 13,423 bats, Schultz said.

Hat tip to MaddMedic at Freedom Is Just Another Word…

But it’s okay.
It’s not dirty oil!
It’s GREEN!!

New York Faces Energy Shortages This Summer

New York has painted itself into a corner with its Green Energy™ policy. Extended heat wave could cripple New York’s grid this summer: NYISO. NYISO, or ISO, is the New York Independent System Operator. They run the grid for NY State.

New York legisators have demanded that the state cut back on the evil fossil fuels, and now are looking at problems for the summer.

“This assessment reflects the challenges of the grid in transition — declining reliability margins, performance issues with aging generators, and an absence of new dispatchable resources,” [Aaron Markham, ISO vice president of operations] said.

Dispatchable resources have been gas-powered turbine generators. They can be fired up fairly quickly, as these things go, and added to the grid to deal with extreme temperatures, lack of wind/solar generation, etc. They've been forbidden by a green energy law in NY.

So what happens if things go bad for the grid?

The ISO can take emergency actions, including purchasing energy, calling for voluntary industrial curtailment and allowing a reduction in operating reserves

Shutting down your idustrial grid, or asking them to "voluntarily cut back," doesn't seem like the way to grow your economy. Is New York trying to attract any AI data centers?

Things are so bad that even the politicians are waking up to reality.

The state has fallen behind on its decarbonization goals, and Gov. Kathy Hochul is considering rewriting landmark 2019 climate legislation to provide a longer path towards a carbon-free electric grid.

"Landmark" is not the word I would use. I do love it when politicians pretend to be engineers.

I think we are likely to see another NYC blackout in the next few years, probably associated with an extreme summer heatwave. Maybe not this summer, but soon.

Hat tip to William Teach at Pirate's Cove: New York’s Over-Reliance On “Green” Energy Could Cause Blackouts

Well, when you get rid of reliable coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy generation you are left with unreliable, undependable, and more expensive energy, which cannot meet the demands of more and more consumers/businesses, even with all those people moving out of NY.

Supply and Demand Means Supply IS Important to Price

If you close, and outlaw, several classes of power generating stations, you are going to restrict electric supply, and drive up price. The Data Center Price Myth

A simple story has taken hold in American politics: Big Tech is consuming vast amounts of electricity to power artificial intelligence, and ordinary households are paying the price.

It's a tidy narrative with a villain, a victim, and a moral. It also happens to be wrong.

But it is becoming clear that wind and solar are not really up to the task of running an industrial society, and that is a problem for the people who are screaming about climate boiling and net zero. And so the Left is now against data centers and technology.

Blaming data centers for rising electricity prices is like blaming FedEx for the cost of gasoline. Demand didn't fail. Supply was boxed in.

Click thru for the details on how politics have conspired to stop electric power.

Democrats and Your Electricity Bill

What happens when politicians pretend they understand the engineering and physical constraints behind power generation? Nothing good. From The Daily Caller: EXCLUSIVE: Democrats Are Behind Your Crippling Electricity Bills, Report Confirms

State policies are a monumental factor in electricity costs, and Democrat-led states have driven prices upward through pushing aggressive mandates and choking reliable power supply, according to a new report by the Institute for Energy Research (IER).

The new report, first provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation, found that blue states generally have higher electricity costs than red states. Titled “Blue States, High Rates. Electricity Prices: Elections Have Consequences,” IER’s report notes that all but one of the top 10 most expensive states for energy — measured by cost per kilowatt hour — are governed by Democrats.

The article almost touches on reliability, but doesn't quite. When you get enough solar and wind in the mix, keeping the grid stable becomes a nightmare, and then, if you keep adding "renewables" it becomes impossible.

When politicians pretend they understand engineering and physics, or just ignore the engineering and physics, bad things happen. (Hat tip to Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

Asbestos Found in Chinese Wind Turbines

Are we shocked? Nationwide alert issued after asbestos is detected in Chinese-made wind turbines across the country

An urgent safety alert has been issued at wind farms across Australia after asbestos was discovered in Chinese-made wind turbines.

The deadly material was first found in brake pads used in wind turbine tower lifts at the Goldwind Cattle Hill wind farm in central Tasmania.

The asbestos is in brake pads used in wind turbine tower elevators. The supplier in question has provided these brake pads to wind farms all over the country of Australia, so people think the problem is not limited to one state.

This is the MGUY Australia video Health SHOCK: ASBESTOS found in Chinese wind turbines

Well, this is unfortunately what happens when governments drunk on net zero Kool-Aid rush headlong into a disastrous energy transition, not knowing the first thing about energy. Idiots like Chris Bowen have no scientific understanding and have spent their entire careers as Labor Party staffers and couldn't run a sweet shop in the real world. But suddenly, they're in charge of billions of dollars of government money pumped at the supposed climate crisis.

The video is about 5 minutes long.

One interesting thing is that Australia only outlawed asbestos in 2003, where the US did it something in the late 1970s

UK Spends £1 Billion in 2025 to NOT Generate Electricity

What happens when politicians who don't understand how power distribution and generation work pass laws about power generation and distribution? Britons spend £1 billion to switch off wind farms this year

The wind farms in the United Kingdom are typically remote from urban centers. So when a storm rolls through and generates a lot of power, the UK grid PAYS the wind farms to NOT generate any electric power. Why? Because they don't have a hope of getting that power to where it is needed.

And one thing that people miss, is that power generated and power consumed need to be in balance. When they fall out of balance you get blackouts, as happened in Europe recently.

But back to the UK.

Energy billpayers have spent a record £1 billion this year to switch off wind turbines because of flaws in the UK’s drive for net zero.

In a single day, October 1, Britain’s electricity operator paid wind farm operators £1.3 million in compensation for lost revenue after ordering them to switch off turbines to avoid overloading the grid. At the same time the grid operator was forced to pay £4.9 million to buy energy from abroad and switch on more expensive gas power generation to meet demand.

"How hard can it be?" That question will be asked by people who haven't taken a science course since high school.

Here is an explanation of the situation. Storm Amy brings negative electricity prices to UK

UK wholesale power prices turn negative when there is too much electricity generation, often from wind and solar, and not enough demand, so the grid needs buyers to take the excess in order to remain balanced.

Basically when generation is too high, you have to pay to inject your generated power into the grid. So if you can turn off your generation, you do.

I don't think the change the retail prices during that time, though they might to encourage more demand.

Hat tip to MGUY Australia and his video Net Zero MADNESS: UK pays £1 BILLION to turn wind turbines OFF

Spanish Blackout - Net Zero or a “Rare Atmospheric Phenomenon”

Personally I'm betting on Net Zero infrastructure. From Iowa Climate Science Education: Days after Spain reaches 100% renewable, mass blackouts hit, due to mysterious “rare atmospheric phenomenon”

Is this the Net Zero world we’re aiming for?

It could be a coincidence, but Spain’s grid ran entirely on renewables for the first time on April 16th. Less than two weeks later, at lunchtime Monday Spain and Portugal and even parts of France suffered massive cascading blackouts. Thirteen gigawatts of electricity, about half the grid, suddenly disappeared at 12:30pm. Trains were halted, and people were stuck in dark subway tunnels. A tennis tournament was stopped, flights were cancelled and diverted, and prosaically, as an emblem of the Western World, Spain’s nuclear plants shut too, and are now running on diesel back up.

The climate folks are sure it was nothing but a strange weather phenomenon. It couldn't be that Net Zero doesn't work. Or could it? And do we believe the Green-Powers-That-Be when they say "coincidence?"

Notably, Spain has one of the highest proportions of renewable power in Europe — with 50% of the national supply coming from pure unreliable power. Spain has 32 GW of solar power, and 32GW of wind turbines. As it happens, the wind turbines have been largely useless for the last 24 hours. The Telegraph is reporting that solar power was providing almost 60% of Spain’s power two hours before the blackout.

And here is a fact that proponents of solar don't like to advertise. Solar panels become LESS efficient when they get hot. Since most of them are black or dark blue, this is an issue on a sunny day. I forget what the temperature is that most panels are rated at, but I think it is a panel temperature of about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Note that is not air temperature. On a 60 degree day, those black panels will be much warmer when they have been in direct sun for a few hours. As the panels get warmer, they produce less electricity.

And the extreme temperature event... it was reported to be 23 degrees Celsius in Spain today. That is roughly 73 degrees for those of you who don't speak International System of Units. In other words, it was a beautiful day in Spain. Except for the power outage, which killed trains, closed airports, shut off refrigerators, etc.