Galicia Goofs Up As Foz Fights Becoming A Windy City

There are so many rank absurdities in the energy space these days that it has taken me a full week to get to it, but the Wall Street Journal ran a terrific piece by Matthew Dalton last Monday about the real impacts of uncontrolled expansion of wind power capacity across the European landscape, with a specific focus on what is happening in the Spanish province of Galicia. It’s a long but compelling story that everyone should take the time to read.

Alcoa facility in Galicia, just up the shore from Foz

Way down around the 30th paragraph, the writer focuses on efforts by the Galician government to force Alcoa to “electrify” an aluminum smelting plant using only wind power, and efforts by the town of Foz and its residents to oppose the planned siting of a massive windfarm literally in their back yards.

Below is a key excerpt from the story. While the plight of the local residents is compelling, readers should pay special attention to the amount of wind capacity that must be built to make the plan work:

The regional government of Galicia initially gave a negative opinion on the project, indicating it wouldn’t sign off, because the turbines would be outside the area that Galicia had previously set aside for wind farms—on land farther from populated areas. Officials revised their stance and approved the plans when the turbines were designated to supply energy to Alcoa.

Ms. Martin and her husband, Antonio Cubas, were among the local residents who mobilized against it, holding a protest in front of the town hall. The Foz town council submitted objections to the Galician government saying the turbines would be too close to people’s houses and exceed noise limits. Tourism, a growing business in Foz, would suffer, they said.

…

The project developers could have located the wind turbines anywhere in Spain, since the turbines won’t be selling directly to the smelter but into the country’s electrical grid. But officials said building them as close as possible to the plant helps build support.

The public “understands that this renewable energy is supporting local industry,” said Antonio Fernández-Montells, chief financial officer of Greenalia. “We have more resources, cheaper energy, so we have more competitive industry.”

Alcoa also has a contract with Spanish energy company Endesa for another 816 megawatts of wind capacity.

Because wind and solar power can’t produce energy when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining, projects need a large amount of excess capacity to cover the steady electricity needs of factories. More than two gigawatts of wind energy capacity will be needed to meet the Alcoa smelter’s electricity consumption: 400 megawatts of power, 24 hours a day, when the plant is producing at full capacity.

You get that? In order to fully “electrify” this one smelter, which consumes about 400 megawatts of power 24 hours per day, it is necessary to build TWO GIGAWATTS of wind energy capacity because, well, the wind only blows properly a few hours each day. In other words, you must build 5 times the plant’s energy consumption to hope to have enough wind generation capacity to fill this isolated need.

Think of the incredible amount of wasted effort and resources this represents. Think of how utterly senseless this plan is, given that so many less wasteful options exist. And these climate religious zealots want to force this kind of waste to take place all over the face of the earth.

To give you a real-world idea of how much generating capacity is represented by two gigawatts, it is enough capacity to power 1.5 million homes, if the capacity consists of thermal, i.e., natural gas or coal, or nuclear power. When generated by reliable, 24-hour sources, in other words, two gigawatts is enough to power a pretty large city. But when it consists of wind power, it’s only enough to power a single smelting plant.

I write and talk a lot about the voracious resource requirements of wind, solar and electric vehicles, and why that will very soon be revealed to all as a severe limiter on the plans by climate alarmists to force this energy transition. Rapacious resource waste like that represented in this example will only speed up the timeline for when the inevitable global train wreck in critical energy mineral supplies will take place.

That train wreck is coming soon – probably sooner than even I expect. This kind of brainless stupidity will ensure it.

This article originally appeared at the excellent Energy Transition Absurdities (subscribe today!) and is reposted here with the permission of the author.