Sweden set to break wind farm record

From the Local.

Sweden looks likely to play host to Europe's largest wind farm after a northern county gave its seal of approval to a major new energy project.

the Swedish government gives its green light as well, a total of 1,101 wind turbines will be built in northern Sweden at an estimated cost of 55 billion kronor ($6.9 billion), the Norrbotten county administrative board said in a statement.

Its environmental assessment delegation recommended that the government give the Swedish company Markbygden Vind AB a permit for the project. Stockholm is expected to announce its decision within the next 12 months.

"This would be Europe's, if not the world's, biggest wind farm," Caj Noren, a spokesman for the board, told AFP.

Construction could begin in two-and-a-half years and would be completed after about a decade, Noren said.

The wind farm would be located in Markbygden, west of the northern town of Piteå, in an area measuring about 450 square kilometres (175 square miles).

If and when the wind farm is fully operational, it would produce a total of eight to 12 terawatt hours per year.

The Markbygden project alone could thereby generate enough energy to meet Sweden's 2015 national wind power target of 10 terawatt hours per year. A terawatt is equal to one trillion watts.

The turbines would have a maximum height of 200 metres (650 feet), according to the plans.

Markbygden Vind AB is owned 75 percent by the Swedish group Svevind Holding and 25 percent by German group Enercon, one of the world's biggest wind turbine makers.

No contract has been signed yet for the construction of the turbines.

The late (and deeply missed) Kurt Lundgren are probably spinning so fast in his grave that he alone could generate 10 Terawatts of energy!

As he often pointed out; wind turbines are nothing but a hoax. They cost enormous amounts of energy=money, to produce. At any given day- even under ideal conditions about half of them stands still, producing nothing. To counter that, you need enourmous parks of accumulators to store energy to be used. The batteries themselves costs a lot to produce and have a very limited lifespan= more money (not to mention that the old used up batteries has to be taken care of somehow=more energy spent). If there are no wind- they produce nothing. If there are to much wind- they produce nothing. They break down at regular intervals, most likely it's the gearboxes who gives up. Replacing them costs even more money and energy. As you all know by now money=energy and energy= money. Money is just tokens of spent energy!

There is no way a wind turbine can produce enough energy to produce itself let alone give any excess energy.

So how is it that you actually can make profits from a wind turbine then?

That's because they are made with cheap nuclear energy! And furthermore, they are state subsided. That's MY tax money at work!

However you turn, your behind is at your rear end...

After looking in to it a little bit more, I discovered that an average wind turbine generates about 2 MW/year. That means that 450 of them would produce 900MW/year- no where near the 10 Terra watts that are spoken of in the article- and that's under ideal conditions! A more propable number I believe would be closer to 450MW or even less.

Also Wikipedia states that a wind turbine generates enough energy in ten months to make up for the energy spent building it and that the yield is on par of a factor of 5-30 : 1 under it's life span. What it does not say is what I remarked on earlier. The cost of a wind turbine "on the shelf" is NOT the actual cost of producing it, transporting it raise it, maintain it and the batteries needed! THAT cost is an order of a magnitude higher. Then there also is the esthetic factor. They are butt ugly!

Update no2:
Ok, now they report that it is going to be 1100 wind turbines. That still would only make up for 2200 MW a year, nothing remotely close to the ten terawatts they are speaking about. Every wind turbine needs a security zone of 200 square meters, that would mean that a wind turbine park like that would need 220 000 square meters to be deployed or roughly 50 soccer fields in size (well really 44 with the standard 2MW/Y turbines, but the security zone grows with the diameter and the yield of the turbines. Also maintainace roads and facilities has to be taken in to the equation, so 50 is a feacible number I believe).