Wind farms – cutting edge technology in 1185 A.D.

Here’s two criticisms of the high-tech version of medieval windmills, one humorously rhetorical and one serious.

First, wind farms were cutting edge technology 800 years ago – turbines are, quite literally, medieval.

Second, it is a sophisticated way to transfer money from public coffers to private pockets of a select few.

These are two of the points made by Douglas Carswell, Member of Parliament, writing at The Telegraph:  Wind farms and renewable energy: a modern version of a medieval scam.

On the ancient, medieval origin of the concept, he says

It is difficult to think of a more medieval technology than wind mills. They were cutting edge when Henry II was king and Richard the Lionheart was launching crusades.  The first certain reference to a wind mill in Europe dates from 1185AD Yorkshire, apparently.

Regardless of the clever rhetorical attack, he’s actually not bothered by either the technology or the visual pollution. What does bother him is the large subsidies needed to produce any wind farms. He points out electricity-from-wind is so expensive that few, if any, wind farms would ever have been built if it weren’t for very large subsidies.

A summary of wind farm economics in one sentence:

Unlike solar, which, thanks to innovation, will soon be cost effective, wind farms look like they be harvesting subsidies for a generation to come.

He calls that rent seeking. He’s right.  I’ll point out crony capitalism also applies.

His conclusion on the economics, which is a far more serious accusation than it being a medieval concept:

Through every age, a tiny parasitical elite seeks to game the system to transfer wealth from the many to the few.  The more I think about it, the more the renewable energy scam seems just a contemporary manifestation of this ancient, hideous idea.

Check out the full post.

One of the entertaining criticisms of fracking and other advanced oil production techniques is doing so consumes more energy than it produces. The irony is that wind energy costs more to capture than the value of electricity it provides.