Environment & Energy

...wind turbine, operating and decommissioned in their offshore oil and gas drilling hellhole of a country?

They stopped updating it when it became clear that their systems were unreliable and didn't last. The average lifetime before decommissioning for those decommissioned was a little over 17 years.

Again, in case any so called "renewable energy" apologist missed it, I analyzed this data sometime back in this space.

A Commentary on Failure, Delusion and Faith: Danish Data on Big Wind Turbines and Their Lifetimes.

I'm perfectly happy with the level of detail I provided in that post, and a the risk of being called rude by stating something called "truth," I provide a few excerpts of that post, of which I am proud:

It is unsurprising to me to see for me to see someone working in the fossil fuel dependent wind industry - one showing distain for engineers with a passion for calling bullshit, um, bullshit - in denial about the death toll associated with fossil fuels.

This, in my view, is the result of the fact that the wind industry requires fossil fuels to operate.

Expressing contempt for engineers as being, um, "too rude" strikes me as the inability to understand the frustration of engineers when confronted with denial, whether that denial is in the form of denying the vast death toll produced by the combustion of fossil fuels - on which the useless wind industry depends - or denying the reality of engineering realities to the engineer reporting them.

You know, in my lifetime, I may have poured through thousands of graduate theses at both the Ph.D. level and Master's level. These theses are definitely an underutilized resource. Most of them are highly literate, and certainly more literate than much of what I see here, including from those defending the indefensible, a cranky bunch, who make specious generalized attacks without bothering to offer any reference for their claims.

Many of my engineering and science posts on this website, by contrast, are based on references to the primary scientific literature, as is the OP in this thread.

Hatred for scientists and engineers is becoming increasingly prevalent in this country; a scientific superpower is being decimated. As for individuals here at DU participating, it is happily not all that prevalent, but we can see that examples here are not completely absent.

If any apologists for the so called "renewable energy" scam are here to claim that the trillions of dollars spent to trash wilderness by industrializing it for wind farms has had any effect on the use of fossil fuels or the rate of accumulation of dangerous fossil fuel waste, they can easily be dismissed by pointing to something called "numbers."

Here for instance, not that the apologists for the fossil fuel dependent wind industry give a rat's ass, is my recent analysis of the situation with respect to the concentration of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide, about which, I know, the wind industry couldn't care less, except for trying to pawn off their wilderness destroying junk:

New Weekly CO2 Concentration Record Set at the Mauna Loa Observatory, 430.86 ppm



It's depressing to note that months later that data point for the 52 week running average for 10 year increases reported in week 18 was 26.12 has reached, as of the week beginning September 7, 2025, week 36, 26.40 ppm/10 years.

As for the question as to whether nuclear plants require maintenance, of course they do. This is certainly not unique to any energy industry, dirty plants in industries like the dangerous natural gas that backs up wind turbines, coal plants, oil refineries, cars, trucks, and trains. Is this surprising somehow? Occasionally nuclear reactors need complete refurbishing, as is the case with the beautiful Bruce and Darlington CANDU reactors in Canada that have been saving lives since the 20th century.

To wit:




...and so on...

Bruce 2, first connected to the grid in 1976, operated in 2024 at 100% capacity utilization, producing 7186 GWh (25.87 Petajoules) of electricity in a single building. There isn't a wind turbine on this planet that operated for a year at 100% capacity utilization for a year, which doesn't stop the wind industry from reporting their crappy stuff in units of peak power, power levels they almost never obtain, and if they do, for periods of minutes, not years.

The refurbishment program of CANDU reactors - in my view some of the most important reactors in the world owing to their potential for thermal breeding - means that reactors that connected to the grid in the 1970's and 1980's will be saving lives well into the 21st century. This will be true irrespective of whether representatives of the useless fossil fuel coddling and dependent wind industry question the scientific fact that air pollution kills people.

The noted climate scientist Jim Hansen made a nice calculation in 2013 about how many lives were saved from air pollution by nuclear energy by the way.

It's here:

Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)

The above note is called a "reference," as distinct from handwaving and blank assertions about, let's say wonderful wind turbines in Iowa that last forever. I do hope that providing references to facts, as Dr. Hansen clearly does in his paper in my view, isn't considered "rude," but if it is, well, I can't help it.

As for the claim that "nobody cares about," I would call into question whether the many nice notes I've received in my 22 years at DU advocating for nuclear energy and, occasionally commenting on other scientific issues connected with my career, and, after a time, my practice of denigrating the expensive fossil fuel dependent and useless so called "renewable energy" industry, many people have written me very nice notes about my work here. I certainly didn't ask anyone to do so, and I'm not here seeking either praise or condemnation. I am merely commenting on my views on the important issue of extreme global heating. I have people who appreciate my efforts, and I am assured, in spite of anyone asserting otherwise, that they are not "nobodies."

I'm fully aware that there are airheads all over the world who claim to speak for "everyone." Usually they're uninteresting people with weak minds and in some cases, for example, the orange pedophile in the White House, dangerous people. I would characterize anyone coddling fossil fuels dangerous, but that's just my opinion.

If someone finds stating one's opinions, supported by references and the evocation of facts "rude" that's not my problem. In my view, it's their problem.

In this vein, let me offer another analogy that I often use when I am confronted with complaints about the statement of facts being done in a "rude" way.

A guy is walking down the street near a railroad track, and he sees someone walking on the tracks and a train approaching. He yells out "Hey asshole! Get off the track! A fucking train is coming!!!"

The person walking on the tracks calls back, "Ask me nicely and I'll consider it."

One can only shake one's head in disbelief.

The planet is burning. The trillions of dollars squandered on wind energy in the last 10 years has done nothing, zero, zip, to address this outcome. In fact, the wind industry can't even keep up with the increases in fossil fuel use if one uses units of energy in lieu of effectively lying by pointing to peak power. I certainly feel no compunction to be nice about it, especially to people defending the indefensible fossil fuel dependent wind industry.

My son and his serious girlfriend are both rising nuclear engineers nearing the completion of their Ph.Ds. They are doing what they are doing in hopes of saving what is left to be saved, which is less and less by the hour. They are spectacularly disinterested in malcontents confusing themselves with grammarians, but I'm sure my son and his girlfriend both know that they will encounter in their careers, people who get angry with them, disparage them, and demean them for stating the truth.

It goes with the territory. It's entirely unsurprising to me and it won't be to them.

I trust you're having a swell day out there in those wind industrial parks. Try not to breath in any aerosol plastics spallated from those magical wind turbine blades when the wind is blowing.

Have a wonderful evening as well.