Author: 1957chev

If You Truly Want to Support Wind Energy, READ THIS!

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A Challenge to the Pro-Wind Turbine Crowd….

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ATTENTION!  Important News for Promoters & Supporters of Wind Energy!

Let’s Be Honest…Wind Turbines are NOT for Everybody!~

By now, we all know, that there are people, who for whatever reason, will not be happy, or healthy, living near industrial wind turbines.

But!  That doesn’t have to mean the end of your green dreams.  There is a reasonable, logical, solution to this problem.

What I’m suggesting, for “ecologically minded” people, like yourself, is a registry, to sign up to buy, or trade, property, and homes, from the people in communities, with wind turbines.  You would be providing relief, to people whose lives are being made unbearable, through no fault of their own, and ensuring the wind industry, can continue on, without interference, from unhappy customers.

No one is asking you to do anything, that “Wind” promoters, have said it was reasonable to do, in exchange for “greener energy”.  Proponents of Wind…

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Global Warming is Socialism, Through the Back Door! Don’t Fall For It!

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George Will: “Global Warming Is Socialism By The Back Door”

George Will sits down with The Daily Caller‘s Jamie Weinstein.

GEORGE WILL: Global warming is socialism by the back door. The whole point of global warming is that it’s a rationalization for progressives to do what progressives want to do, which is concentrate more and more power in Washington, more and more Washington power in the executive branch, more and more executive branch power in independent czars and agencies to micromanage the lives of the American people — our shower heads, our toilets, our bathtubs, our garden hoses. Everything becomes involved in the exigencies of rescuing the planet.

Second, global warming is a religion in the sense that it’s a series of propositions that can’t be refuted. It’s very ironic that the global warming alarmists say, “We are the real defenders of science,” and then they adopt the absolute reverse of the scientific attitude, which is openness to evidence. You cannot refute what they say.

I own a house in Kiawah Island, South Carolina, facing the Atlantic, where the hurricanes come from. After Katrina, the global warming people said, “This is just a sign of the violent weather that’s going to become more common because of global warming.” Well, that certainly interested me. Of course, since then, there’s been a collapse of hurricane activity.

I was a columnist in the 1970s when Newsweek, Time, all sorts of media outlets said the real problem is global cooling. I remember the Washington Post reporting that the armadillos were going south to escape the coming chill, the threat of glaciation over northern Europe. We’ve been through this before. You say, “What happened to global cooling?” They say, “Well, our models were wrong.” Now we’re supposed to risk several trillion dollars of global growth and spending on new models that might be wrong?

One other thing, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change produced a report. The New Yorker, which is impeccably alarmed about global warming, the writer being their specialist began her story something like this: “In a report that should be but unfortunately will not be viewed as the final word in climate science.” Now, just think about that. The final word in microbiology, the final word in quantum mechanics. There are no final words in science. But there you have the deeply anti-scientific temper of the global warming advocacy groups: Final words.

Wind Pushers, and Their Supporters, In For a Rude Awakening!

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Got Money in the Great Wind Power Ponzi Scheme? Then, Grab it & Get Out Now!

August 20, 2015 by

house-of-cards

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The wind industry in Australia – as elsewhere – is in its death throes.

STT has likened it to the great corporate Ponzi schemes, pointing out, just once or twice, that the wind industry is little more than the most recent and elaborate effort to fleece gullible investors, in a list that dates back to “corporate investment classics”, like the South-Sea Bubble and Dutch tulip mania.

In the wind industry, the scam is all about pitching bogus projected returns (based on overblown wind “forecasts”) (see our posts here andhere and here and here); claiming that wind turbines will run for 25 years, without the need for so much as an oil change (see our posts hereand here and here); and telling investors that massive government mandated subsidy schemes will outlast religion (see our posts here andhere and here).

In Australia, one of the wind industry’s BIG players – Pacific Hydro – managed to rack up an annual loss of $700 million, last year; in circumstances where the subsidy scheme – on which its profits depend – hadn’t changed at all (see our post here).

But – if you needed any more convincing that wind power outfits are taking their cues from Charles Ponzi and Bernie Madoff – then this little tale from Britain should do the trick.

Savers asked to wait three months for interest due on windfarm bonds that promised 7.5% annual return
Daily Mail
Tania Jefferies
29 July 2015

  • Wind firm blames Tory green subsidy revamp for interest delay
  • Business to be restructured in response to ‘attack’ on wind projects
  • Savers bought four-year bonds for minimum investment of £500 each

Wind Prospect Group plans to delay interest payments to its mini-bond holders for three months, blaming a ‘sustained attack by the Conservative Government’ on onshore wind projects following the election.

Savers who lent money to the renewable energy company in 2011 via its four-year mini-bonds were promised 7.5 per cent annual interest, to be paid out in January and July every year, in return for a minimum investment of £500.

But bondholders wanting their capital returned this month are also set to wait an extra three months for the cash, as the company restructures its business in response to the Tories’ planned overhaul of green subsidies.

Unlike retail bonds, which are tradeable on the London Stock Exchange’s Orb markets, mini-bonds must be held to maturity meaning there is no exit route for investors who want to get out.

Savers are routinely warned to tread with care when buying any company bonds, because if you lend money to firms this way the money you make back depends on their financial strength – and ultimately on them staying in business.

Unlike with a savings account, you are not protected by the UK’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which guards against losses of up to £85,000 at present and up to £75,000 from next January.

The varying interest rates on retail bonds and mini-bonds reflect the amount of risk attached to them – generally speaking, the higher the rate on offer, the higher the risk.

There are fears that people who do not invest into a number of bonds may be putting too many eggs in one basket, as their investment is dependent solely on one company’s solvency.

But mini-bonds and retail bonds have proved hugely popular in recent years as the annual returns on offer attract savers struggling to generate a decent income from their nest eggs in an era of low interest rates.

These bonds are routinely oversubscribed, with offer periods often ending early because the fundraising target has been easily met or beaten.

Wind Prospect said that like most renewable energy companies in the UK, it had ‘reviewed its options’ following the election and the Tory ‘attack’ on onshore wind.

It further explained its actions in a statement that said: ‘In order to minimise the impact of government announcements for its ReBond holders, the business is proposing to separate its services business and development assets.

‘The existing UK and overseas development assets will then be ring fenced so that the proceeds from these are directly and contractually available to pay interest and repay capital going forward.

‘To achieve this, Wind Prospect has asked its bondholders to agree to a three-month moratorium on payments of interest and capital while the details are confirmed and a productive consultation can take place.’

Wind Prospect reportedly also delayed its January 2014 interest payment for a few days, but the company was unavailable to confirm this.

The spokeswoman who released its statement said: ‘We do not have any further comment to make at this time.’

People who invested in Wind Prospect’s four-year bonds in 2011 had to give notice last January if they wanted their capital returned to them this month, instead of just being given it back automatically.

Wind Prospect boss Euan Cameron said: ‘We are confident that the plan we deliver will be in the best interests of our bondholders and that these assets, many of which are projects outside the UK, have sufficient value to enable us to meet our commitments to bondholders in full.

‘This measure will significantly increase bond security as well as improve the strength of our service business and the services we provide to our clients. It will also ensure that our services business is robust and clearly defined as we embark on diversifying into new technologies and markets.

‘It is business as usual for the Wind Prospect team and we look forward to fruitful discussions with our bondholders over the next three months to reach the most positive outcome for all parties.’
Daily Mail

please-take-a-moment-and-look-around-and-find-the-nearest-exit

Wind Pushers try to Discredit, Doctor Sarah Laurie, Advocate for Victims of Wind Turbine Emissions!

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Wind farm advocate Simon Chapman sorry for false allegations

Simon Chapman n has been widely criticised for his outspoken advocacy for the wind industry and research.

Public health professor and wind farm advocate Simon Chapman has published a long apology to ­industrial noise campaigner Sarah Laurie for falsely claiming she had been deregistered as a doctor.

The apology exposes a long-running campaign to discredit Dr Laurie, who has spoken out for residents affected by noise from wind turbines and other industrial ­sources through the Waubra Foundation.

Dr Laurie welcomed the apology but said Professor Chapman’s personal attacks on her professional integrity were “just one example of a broader strategy ­employed by the wind industry to denigrate, marginalise and, therefore, exclude from public and political discourse anyone sincerely investigating a worldwide public health issue’’.

Lawyers for Dr Laurie have threatened action against wind ­industry employees Ken McAlpine, formerly from Vestas, Ketan Joshi from Infigen and Fairfax Media over a tweet first posted by Mr McAlpine in March last year.

Professor Chapman, who is not a medical practitioner, repeated the tweet, which said “NOT DROWNING, RANTING: Deregistered “Dr” Sarah Laurie doesn’t like the medicine dished up by @ama_media Waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/open”.

In his apology, Professor Chapman said the tweet implied that Ms Laurie had given cause to the Medical Board of Australia to deregister her on account of unprofessional conduct, that she was not entitled to use the title “Dr”, and that she did so in contravention of the laws that govern the conduct of medical practitioners.

“These allegations were ­implied without foundation and are entirely false,” Professor Chapman said.

“Ms Laurie is not deregistered and has never been sanctioned by the Medical Board of Australia.’’

Dr Laurie told a Senate committee into wind turbines and health this year that she graduated from Flinders University with a bachelor of medicine and a bachelor of surgery in 1995 and attained a fellowship of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners in 1998.

Dr Laurie had been a councillor on the South Australian Medical ­Association branch but that was prematurely cut short when she was diagnosed with an illness.

Dr Laurie said she was still ­legally entitled to use the honorific Dr but voluntarily offered not to use it for her work with the ­Waubra Foundation to prevent members of the public from thinking she was currently registered.

Dr Laurie told a Senate committee she had been “very reluctant to accept that there could be anything wrong (with wind ­turbines)”.

“I used to take my children to go and watch wind turbines being built locally near our home,” she said. “I had no idea about any ­adverse health impacts from wind turbines.

“But, when you listen to the ­stories of people affected by noise when they are trying to sleep in their beds at night, it does not matter what the source of the noise is if they cannot sleep and they are having these other very distressing symptoms and deteriorating health.”

Professor Chapman has been widely criticised for his outspoken advocacy for the wind industry and research, which found complaints about wind turbines were due to a “nocebo” effect.

Senator John Madigan told parliament in June last year that Professor Chapman “obtained his PhD from the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, a self-proclaimed expert in marketing and public manipulation via media sources”.

“He is a person who is not lawfully permitted to conduct any form of medical research or study in relation to human health,” ­Senator Madigan said.

He said Professor Chapman’s undergraduate qualifications were in sociology and his PhD looked into the relationship between cigarette smoke and advertising.

Professor Chapman told the ­recent Senate inquiry he had “a PhD in medicine and I am a fellow of the Academy of the Social ­Sciences in Australia”.

He was awarded an Order of Australia for distinguished service to medical research, particularly in the area of public health policy.

Asked about the offending tweet by the Senate committee, he said: “I would regret having re­tweeted that one, because obviously ‘deregistered’ is incorrect.”

He did not ­respond to The Australian yesterday.

Noise Violations Captured in Kingston Data

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Noise levels are NEVER adhered to….

windwisema's avatarWind Wise ~ Massachusetts

Noise–well above the allowable 10 decibels above ambient–is the take-away from data gathered on December 13, 2013. Stephen Ambrose charted readings HMMH recorded that night. Green areas show the allowable limit. Readings above that level are highlighted in pink. He notes that the turbines were not even running at full power.
KWI-Noise-12-13-2013

Question marks indicate anomalies in the measurements.

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Stop the Subsidies for Novelty “Wind Energy”! It is a waste!

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Wind Industry Pockets Lion’s Share of Subsidies for Commercially Generated Power

August 17, 2015 by

Subsidies_for_electricity_production_2013-14 (1)

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STT followers are painfully aware that the wind industry exists – and ONLY exists – to wallow in an endless stream of subsidies filched from power consumers and/or taxpayers:

The Wind Industry: Always and Everywhere the Result of Massive & Endless Subsidies (Part 1)

The Wind Industry: Always and Everywhere the Result of Massive & Endless Subsidies (Part 2)

One of the sillier claims made by wind-worshippers is that to focus on the massive pile of cash added to power bills and directed to these things, is to overlook what are said to be ‘colossal subsidies’ paid to BIG COAL and BIG GAS.

However, like most eco-fascist fictions, scratch the surface of their fossil-fuel subsidy myth, and you’ll find that there’s nary a tad of subsidy directed to electricity producers using coal or gas (see above).

True it is that solar generation is well soaked in subsidy (see above), but that’s to limit the analysis to the cost per MWh delivered to the grid.

Wind power – provided the subsidies keep flowing – is (occasionally) delivered in commercial quantities. Wind farms connected to the Eastern Grid sometimes deliver around 75% of their 3,669MW installed capacity – at least for a few short hours – until the whole outfit completely downs tools, and produces a tiny fraction of that, or even next-to-nothing, for hours; and even days at a time:

The Wind Power Fraud (in pictures): Part 2 – The Whole Eastern Grid Debacle

June 2015 National

Solar, however, is, in the main, generated on the rooftops of domestic dwellings; and barely adds 1% to total power production in Australia – there is very little ‘large-scale’ solar in Australia, as yet.

So, while the subsidy per MWh for solar is colossal, its impact on retail power prices pales by comparison to what is pocketed by the wind industry. Here’s a little wrap-up from the Minerals Council on a report put together by Principal Economics.

The high cost of renewable energy subsidies
Minerals Council
Brendan Pearson
7 August 2015

A report, undertaken by economic consultancy Principal Economics, has found that Australia’s renewable energy sector received subsidies (including the Renewable Energy Target, feed in tariffs and other green policy costs) worth $2.8 billion in 2013-14.  This dwarfed the public support for research and demonstration projects for low emissions coal technologies being conducted by the CSIRO and other research bodies (and matched by the coal industry).

On an output basis, these renewable subsidies translated into almost $412 per megawatt hour (MWh) for solar technologies, $42 per MWh for wind and $18 per MWh for all other renewable sources (including hydro).

By comparison coal fired power received less than $1 per MWh and natural gas less than 1 cent per MWh delivered.

In 2013/14, these renewable energy subsidies added between 3 to 9 per cent to the average household bill and up to 20 per cent for some industrial users.

The report uses the World Trade Organisation’s definition of subsidies, an approach similar to the method used by the Productivity Commission in its annual Trade and Assistance Review.

At face value, increasing Australia’s share of renewable energy is a laudable goal.  The minerals industry is a user of renewable energy and hopes that it will provide a solution to provision of competitively priced energy, especially in remote areas.  And renewable energy depends on the minerals sector – after all, every off shore wind turbine contains 250 tonnes of metallurgical coal.

But renewable energy must win increased market share on its own merits, not be guaranteed it by expensive mandatory targets and feed-in tariffs, the cost of which is simply borne by householders and industrial users. For household consumers, the burden falls heaviest on low income households.  For industrial users, the burden shackles export and import-competing businesses in many sectors.
Minerals Council

You can read the report in full here: Electricity production subsidies in Australia.

Here’s an important little snippet from the report.

Implications for electricity customers
Principal Economics
2015

While the cost of public support financed through government budgets is recovered from taxpayers, the subsidies created by the RET and FiT schemes are levied on electricity customers.

Given the very large sums involved, the impacts on electricity bills for households and businesses have been substantial.

Estimates of the impacts of the RET and FiT schemes on customer bills vary. According to the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC, 2014), an average household paid around $109 per annum in South East Queensland, $107 in New South Wales and $155 in South Australia for the combined LRET, SRES and FiT components of household bills in 2013-14. These payments are estimated by the AEMC to make up between 3 and 9 per cent of annual household bills. In contrast, the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART, 2013) estimated the combined costs of the RET and FiT schemes for a typical residential customer in New South Wales at around $145 in 2013-14.

ROAM/Synergies Consulting (2014) considered the impacts of renewable schemes on electricity bills of households and businesses, and concluded that the RET accounts for a significant component of bills (Chart 1). ROAM/Synergies estimate that during 2013-14, the RET comprised 3 per cent of the typical household or small business electricity bill and 9.6 per cent for a large business that consumes more than 5 GWh of electricity per annum and is not eligible for partial exemption certificates. They conclude that, as is the case for other renewable schemes, the LRET and SRES contribute a relatively higher percentage of costs for large businesses.

According to ROAM/Synergies (2014), state-based energy policies – of which FiT schemes are by far the most costly – impose comparable or higher costs than the LRET and SRES combined. They estimate that these state-based schemes account for up to 12 per cent of the electricity bill for a large business.

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bills

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Overall, ROAM/Synergies highlight the proliferation of green energy policies over the last decade at both the federal and state level and the significant cumulative impacts of these policies:

  • For residential and small business customers, green energy policies (excluding a carbon price) represents 5 per cent of electricity bills
  • For large business customers, green energy policies represent around 20 per cent of electricity bills (with the RET up to 9.6 per cent and state-based schemes up to 12 per cent respectively) excluding carbon price.

Looking forward, the burden on electricity customers as a result of the RET and FiT schemes is unlikely to diminish:

  • While the most generous FiT schemes have now been closed to new applicants, the obligations entered into by state governments imply that considerable subsidies will continue to have to be paid to eligible households for many years into the future. For instance, the Queensland Competition Authority (QCA 2013) has estimated that Energex and Ergon Energy will incur accumulated feed-in tariff payments of around $2.9 billion by the end of the scheme in 2028, and that these costs will flow directly through to network charges and electricity bills.
  • The RET will similarly continue to represent a significant burden on customers. The LRET has been revised to achieve a target of 33,000 GWh in 2020 (Australian Government 2015), almost double the 2014 target of 16,950 GWh. No changes have been made to the SRES, which will continue to offer significant financial incentives for customers with PV installations by legislating demand for the corresponding certificates.

Principal Economics

Like most efforts to tally up the insane costs of Australia’s Renewable Energy Target, Principal Economics largely takes the “rear-view mirror” approach, by focusing on what’s been and gone. Although, in the very last dot point above its at least noted that the LRET target doubles – from its current annual target of 16,950 GWh – to 33,000 GWh by 2020 – at which poverty inducing and economy killing level it remains until 2031.

STT has, instead, had its eyes peeled on the road ahead, from the very beginning, as did Victorian Senator, John Madigan, when spelling out in his speech to the Senate, that the future cost of the LRET will add $45 billion to retail power bills, in terms of the REC Tax/Subsidy alone:

Wind Power Fraud Finally Exposed: Senator John Madigan Details LRET’s Astronomical 45 Billion Dollar Cost to Power Consumers

But even that horrifying prospect for Australian power punters, is to ignore the chaos that attempting to integrate a wholly weather dependent power generation system has on power markets, such as Australia’s so-called wind power capital – and resultant economic basket case – South Australia:

South Australia’s Unbridled Wind Power Insanity: Wind Power Collapses see Spot Prices Rocket from $70 to $13,800 per MWh

So, with the Coalition’s 33,000 GWh LRET target – and Labor’s plan for a 100,000 GWh target – Australia’s poorest and most vulnerable can look forward to eating tins of cold baked beans, while sitting freezing (or boiling) in the dark.

Child-poverty-007

Simon Chapman Gives Formal, Public, Apology, to Dr. Sarah Laurie, in Australia!

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Dr. Sarah Laurie gets “much deserved apology”, from Simon Chapman!

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A Much-Deserved Apology, to Dr. Sarah Laurie…Shame for Simon Chapman

Most of us, fighting the windscam, have read at some point, the nonsense spewed by wind industry shill, Simon Chapman.  He has gone to extreme lengths, to try to discredit people, who are fighting for their health and well being, and to be free from the harmful emissions from industrial wind turbines.  One of the nastier methods Chapman used, was to discredit one of our finest champions, Dr, Sarah Laurie.  This man had the audacity to attack Dr. Laurie, personally, even suggesting, that she has lost the right to call herself a doctor.  As you can see, from this formal, public apology, the man has been forced to “eat his nasty words”!

I want to congratulate Dr. Sarah Laurie, for having the strength of character, to continue to help the victims of the wind scam, in spite of the wailing…

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Every Country That Has Wind Turbines, Has People Suffering From the Effects!

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Lilli-Anne Green – no ‘Green’ Dupe – tells Senate: Wind Farm Health Impacts ‘Universal’

August 16, 2015 by

senate review

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Following almost 6 months of solid graft, 8 hearings in 4 States and the ACT, dozens of witnesses and almost 500 submissions, the Senate Inquiry into the great wind power fraud delivered its ‘doorstop’ final report, which runs to some 350 pages – available here: Senate Report

The first 200 pages are filled with facts, clarity, common sense and compassion; the balance, labelled “Labor’s dissenting report”, was written by the wind industry’s parasites and spruikers – including the Clean Energy Council (these days a front for Infigen aka Babcock & Brown); theAustralian Wind Alliance; and Leigh Ewbank from the Enemies of the Earth.

Predictably, Labor’s dissenting report is filled with fantasy, fallacy and fiction – pumping up the ‘wonders’ of wind; completely ignoring the cost of the single greatest subsidy rort in the history of the Commonwealth; and treating the wind industry’s hundreds of unnecessary victims – of incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound – with the kind of malice, usually reserved for sworn and bitter foreign enemies.

To get to the truth, the Inquiry had to wade through a fairly pungent cesspit of ‘material’ dropped on it by the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers. No doubt to their great relief (or, in the case of wind industry stooge, Anne Urquhart, infuriation) the Senators heard from a raft of genuine and highly qualified people, who are clearly dedicated to protecting their fellow human beings – rather than ridiculing, denigrating or deriding them as “anti-wind farm wing-nuts” or “Dick Brains”.

One voice of common sense and compassion – to the contrary of the nasty nonsense pitched up by the shills that run interference for their wind industry clients – came from Lilli-Anne Green – an active environmentalist and CEO of a healthcare consultancy that covers the USA. Lilli-Anne was – with her late husband – the creator of ‘Pandora’s Pinwheels: the Reality of Living with Wind Turbines‘ – the first and best account of the hell-on-earth these things create for those who have to suffer incessant low-frequency noise and infrasound on a daily basis. If you haven’t seen it, here it is:

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Backing up the insights in that hard-hitting documentary, here’s what Lilli-Anne told the Australian Senate.

Senate Select Committee on Wind Turbines – 29 June 2015

GREEN, Ms Lilli-Anne, Private capacity
Committee met at 08:35
Evidence was taken via teleconference—

CHAIR ( Senator Madigan ): Welcome. I declare open this final public hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Wind Turbines. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay our respect to elders past and present. This is a public hearing and a Hansard transcript of the proceedings is being made. The audio of this public hearing is also being broadcast via the internet. Before the committee starts taking evidence, I remind all present here today that in giving evidence to the committee witnesses are protected by parliamentary privilege. It is unlawful for anyone to threaten or disadvantage a witness on account of evidence given to the committee and such action may be treated by the Senate as a contempt. It is also a contempt to give false or misleading evidence to the committee.

The committee prefers all evidence to be given in public, but under the Senate’s resolutions witnesses have the right to request to be heard in private session. It is important that witnesses give the committee notice if they intend to ask to give evidence in camera. If you are a witness here today and you intend to request to give evidence in camera, please bring this to the attention of the secretariat staff as soon as possible.

Do you have any comments to make on the capacity in which you appear?

Ms Green:  I am CEO of a healthcare consulting firm with a national reach in the United States. My company works in all sectors of the healthcare industry. One of the core competencies of the firm is to develop educational programs to help doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers to better communicate with their patients around the various disease states. Currently, as a volunteer in my town, I am secretary of our energy committee and a delegate to the Cape Cod National Seashore Advisory Commission as an alternate. Cape Cod National Seashore is part of the United States National Park Service. In the late 1970s, I built a passive solar superinsulated home. I directed an environmental education school for several years. I work seasonally as a naturalist interpretive ranger for the National Park Service. I have been interested and active in the environmental movement since the early seventies. Today, I speak as a private citizen.

CHAIR:  Thank you. Could you please confirm that information on parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses and evidence has been provided to you?

Ms Green:  It has.

CHAIR:  Thank you. The committee has your submission and we now invite you to make a brief opening statement and at the conclusion of your remarks, I will invite members of the committee to put questions to you.

Ms Green:  Thank you. Until the beginning of 2010, I believed wind turbines were good and green. My town was interested in constructing wind turbines and a friend visited my office in early March 2010 to provide my husband and business partner and me with new information. Following the visit, I spent the next 10 hours researching wind turbines. That very day, after concluding my research, I was saddened but I became convinced there was credible evidence that wind turbines cause adverse health impacts for some people who live nearby. In the past, over five years, I have learned it is a global phenomenon that wind turbines make some people who live nearby sick and it is a dose response so these people become more ill over time.

My husband, who is now deceased, and I travelled to Australia and New Zealand in 2010-11 and subsequently created a film called Pandora’s Pinwheels: The Reality of Living with Wind Turbines. We then travelled around the world in 2012 and conducted interviews in 15 different countries. Most of the people we interviewed expressed that they were in favour of wind energy prior to wind turbine construction nearby. There are some common symptoms people the world over report who live and work too close to wind turbines. A good summary is found in the book Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Report on a Natural Experiment by Nina Pierpont, MD, PhD.

It does not matter whether people live in English-speaking countries or in countries where people do not speak English. People reported to us they are made sick when they live too close to wind turbines, no matter what country they live in. We interviewed people in both English-speaking countries and non-English-speaking countries alike who reported to us they were not ill prior to wind turbine construction nearby and after the wind turbines were operational nearby they were made sick.

We interviewed people in five countries — France, Germany, Holland, Denmark and Sweden — who either needed an interpreter to speak with us or who spoke broken English. Some locations were quite rural with little or no internet connection. Still, the people we interviewed through interpreters expressed the same symptoms, others the world over described to us. These people with no or limited internet connection even used similar phrases, analogies and gestures, as others did globally to describe their symptoms. What we actually found is most people are reluctant to speak about their health problems.

In the United States, there are privacy laws regarding medical information. Culturally, people do not openly discuss their health problems with strangers. We found this to be the case in the countries we visited around the world. It was a brave person who opened up to us about their health problems. Usually, the people we interviewed expressed they wanted to help others. If anything, people tended to minimise their symptoms of try to attribute the symptoms to other circumstances. Even when they acknowledged a common symptom such as sleep deprivation, many people who experienced additional common symptoms were reluctant to attribute these other symptoms to the wind turbines nearby. Furthermore, people the world over reported that they and their healthcare providers puzzled over health problems that appeared after wind turbines were constructed near their homes.

Many endured a huge battery of medical tasks to try to determine what the cause of their health problems were. The medical tasks, at a huge cost to the healthcare system, only ruled out various diseases. Typically, the cause of their sickness was not diagnosed by their healthcare professional. Frequently, we heard that the patients would be in a social situation with others in their neighbourhood and eventually people they knew well confided they had similar health problems that recently appeared, or after research online about a different topic these people reported stumbling upon the cause of their health problems, which were the wind turbines constructed nearby.

We even interviewed people who lived for 11 years near wind turbines in a non-English speaking country — and that was in 2012. Several people came to an interview to talk about their property devaluation. It was only during the interviews when they heard others speak about health problems that the people realised they had been suffering because they lived too close to wind turbines. One man in his 80s sobbed during his interview. He had been visiting his doctor for 11 years trying to figure out what was wrong with his health.

The woman who invited us to interview her and her neighbours learned about health problems from wind turbines when she saw the film I produced Pandora’s Pinwheels, with interviews conducted in Australia and New Zealand, that was translated into her language. These people needed an interpreter; they did not speak English. She told me that her husband had passed away in the not too distant past due to heart problems. Before he died, he had complained quite frequently of common health symptoms people living near wind turbines experience. Although they visited their doctor frequently, no-one could figure out why he was so sick. She thanked us because, in seeing our film, it helped her to understand what her husband had been going through and why. It gave her closure that she did not have prior to viewing our film.

Another person at the interview told us she had to hold on to the walls of her house some days in order to walk from room to room and felt nauseous frequently. She knew she was unwell in her home and abandoned it. She did not know why until she saw our film. She came back to the area for the interview because she wanted to tell the world that wind turbines made her so ill that she sold her home at a huge loss.

One of the people I have known for the past five years lives in Falmouth, Massachusetts, which is very close to where I live — it is an hour and a half away. In 2010, he had recently retired to his dream home of many years. He was in great physical health, very fit and has over a 20-year record of normal to low to blood pressure. Since the wind turbines have been constructed in Falmouth, Massachusetts, he has reported that his blood pressure skyrockets to heart attack and stroke levels when the wind is coming in the wrong direction for him.

In Falmouth there are three wind turbines that are 1.65 megawatts near this person’s home. This person’s doctor, whom he has seen over the past 20 years, is in the Boston area and his doctor has been quite blunt. The doctor has told the patient that his life is in danger and he must move. Unfortunately, the Falmouth resident is crushed and cannot bear to leave his dream home at this point in time. He goes to other locations when the wind is predicted to be coming from the wrong direction. Others we interviewed in many different countries told us similar stories. Many reported they have abandoned their homes, sold their homes at a huge loss, purchased other homes to live in when the wind is coming from the wrong direction or in order to sleep in, and others spend time away from their homes at a huge and unexpected expense. People considered their homes as sanctuaries prior to the construction of wind turbines nearby. Now their opinion is not the same.

We have interviewed people on three continents who live more than five miles from the nearest wind turbine and are sick since wind turbine construction. I contend that we need honest research to determine how far wind turbines need to be sited from people in order to do no harm. People report to us that over time their symptoms become more severe. Many report not experiencing ill effects for some time following wind turbine construction, meanwhile their spouse became ill the day the wind turbines nearby became operational. They speak of thinking they were one of the lucky ones at first, but after a number of months or years they become as ill as their spouse. Not one person who stayed near wind turbines reported to us that they got used to it or got better; they all became more ill over time.

Since we are dealing with a dose response, we do not know over the projected lifetime of a wind turbine — say, 20 to 25 years — how far from people it is necessary to site wind turbines. To me, it is just wrong to knowingly harm the health and safety of people. There are responsible solutions to environmental issues that do not impact the health and safety of people nearby. Our humanity is in question when we continue to knowingly harm others. I thank you for your time today. I sincerely hope that you do take active steps to help the people in your country who are suffering due to living and working too close to wind turbines, and I am glad to answer questions you may have.

CHAIR:  Thank you.

Senator LEYONHJELM:  Good morning, Ms Green — I suppose it is not morning there. Thank you for your submission —

Ms Green:  No, it is Sunday evening here.

Senator LEYONHJELM:  Sunday evening? I am sorry to being interrupting your evening.

Ms Green:  I am glad to speak with you.

Senator LEYONHJELM:  You have interviewed people in 15 countries, I think you said, under all different circumstances and so on. I appreciate we are not pretending this is a gold-plated, statistical survey, but I am interested in your impressions because I think you have more experience of this than any other witness we have heard from. What do you think, based on your experience, are the common factors in the people you have interviewed in different communities living near wind turbines? What are the common factors to all of them?

Ms Green:  I think we seriously do not have enough research to understand this problem fully. We saw the same symptoms. Slide 17 that I submitted has a listing of the common symptoms that Dr Pierpont lists in her book. I really believe that we just do not have enough information yet. But throughout the interviews, country by country, people described the same symptoms. Many times they used the same phrases to describe them and the same gestures — and they were not speaking English. There is a common thread here.

Senator LEYONHJELM:  Do you get the impression that not everybody exposed to wind turbines is affected the same? Have you seen evidence of substantial individual variation?

Ms Green:  I have, indeed. Just as some people are more prone to asthma and some people are more prone to lung cancer, let’s say, or any disease, we did see a variation. It appeared that if there were people who were, say, prone to migraine headaches, they were severely affected. But, again, there were people who did not seem to have the symptoms who were living either in the same house or nearby. I do not know whether it is a question of time, if over 20 years people become more sensitised and they will become sick. Very frequently we did hear the same theme running through the stories of the people we interviewed, where, say, the husband thought he was one of the lucky ones and six months later he could not sleep, he was experiencing ear pressure, ear pain and severe headaches or other symptoms.

Senator LEYONHJELM:  We are aware of community groups in English-speaking countries who have expressed opposition to wind turbines, but we are not aware of that sort of phenomenon in non-English speaking countries. Have you encountered that?

Ms Green:  Yes, indeed. We travelled around the world. It was a 10-year goal. We had it very well planned out and we thought it was for pleasure. But people kept emailing us and asking us to come and interview them. So we met people in a lot of non-English speaking countries, and they were such nice people, I have to say. They had just about any profession you would like to mention. They just wanted to tell their story. Many times these people wanted to talk to us for other reasons such as their house had been devalued because the wind turbines were nearby. As they were listening to other people in the room talking about their health problems, these people realised that they had been struggling with the same illness since the wind turbines were constructed nearby. They had never made that correlation before; in fact, they were quite frustrated. They told us that they would go back and back continually to their healthcare provider and talk about these symptoms, and they could not find a resolution or a reason. As I said, there is one man I recall quite vividly just sobbing — and that was in 2012; he was in his 80s. He had realised that since the wind turbines had been constructed nearby he was experiencing these symptoms that were the common symptoms.

Senator LEYONHJELM:  Some witnesses have suggested to us that there is a relationship between not only the distance their residence is from the turbine but also the power of the turbine, the size of the turbine. Have you been able to come to any conclusions on that or is that outside your interest area?

Ms Green:  No, it is not outside my interest area. In fact, it is quite alarming to me, because I have interviewed people who live near wind turbines that you in Australia would probably consider to be quite small and solitary — wind turbines that are 100 kilowatts, even — and they are experiencing health problems, even people living near a 10-kilowatt wind turbine. Frankly, it is the nearest wind turbine to where I live, and a number of neighbours are having problems, and not just with the audible noise but with the infrasound and low-frequency noise, based upon the symptoms they are reporting to me. It really is quite alarming. In my state, Massachusetts, there is a woman who has told me she lives more than five miles from the nearest wind turbine and she is quite ill. The onset of her symptoms was when the wind turbine was constructed. When she went on trips she was fine; when she came back she was ill, and it has only become worse over time. That wind turbine is not as powerful as wind turbines in Australia, and it is a solitary wind turbine.

Again, we travelled quite a distance in France — mid-south-eastern France — over a number of days at the invitation of the people in the area and visited several different communities where there were wind turbines. One of the situations is that the wind turbine is 10 kilometres from one of the neighbours who is very ill and 12 kilometres from the other neighbour. The person who lives 12 kilometres away reported to us that she had been very supportive of the wind turbines. She is very well known as an environmentalist in the area, has quite a reputation as an environmentalist and is highly regarded. But she is quite ill, and it was very difficult for her to speak with us.

The other person related a story of trying to detect what the problem was because he could not sleep and was becoming so frustrated that he would go in his car to try to find the source of what was keeping him awake. He talked about going night after night until he went into the wilderness. He could not imagine what was there, and then he found the wind turbines. They were creating a humming noise in his head at that point. He could actually hear this frequency. In our discussions with researchers, medical professionals and scientists, one of the scientists told us that what people hear is mostly a bell curve — that is the way it was described to us. Most people hear audible noise within a certain range, but there are people who are more sensitive to noise, and they hear sounds that most people would consider inaudible.

Senator URQUHART:  I have a lot of questions. I am not going to get through them all, so I am wondering whether you are able to take some on notice at the end.

Ms Green:  I will try. I am very busy, but I will try.

Senator URQUHART:  In your submission you say you run a healthcare consultancy. Do you have any qualifications in health care or medicine?

Ms Green:  I have a background in education.

Senator URQUHART:  What is the name of your company?

Ms Green:  I do not want that on the record.

Senator URQUHART:  Can I ask why?

Ms Green:  I am speaking today as a private citizen. I would be glad to give you that information if it is held as in-confidence.

Senator URQUHART:  Okay. How many employees do you have?

Ms Green:  My husband has passed away. He was my business partner, and I have scaled back the business. I am the only employee at this point in time. However, I will tell you that I have created in our company, with teams of people, educational programs that have been implemented throughout the United States. One of the oncology programs that was created by my team, which was quite a large team, interviewed over 100 oncology patients throughout the United States and numerous doctors and nurses and was mandatory for all of the nurses in the Kaiser health system in California.

Senator URQUHART:  In your submission you say that 300,000 physicians have undertaken training through your company.

Ms Green:  That is correct.

Senator URQUHART:  What are the products or services? Is it communication? What is it that you actually sell?

Ms Green:  There is a number of different core competencies in our company. One is developing educational programs around different disease states, such as oncology, diabetes, heart disease and various other disease states. Another path we have taken is to develop a service quality initiative. My husband was an extraordinary speaker and was often the keynote speaker for national conferences in all sectors of the healthcare industry.

Senator URQUHART:  In your opening statement you talked about how you had interviewed many people from various countries. I could not find any of the transcripts, either in your submission or online. I am sorry if I have missed them.

Ms Green:  You have not missed them. In the company we are still in the process of editing the films. It is a huge undertaking of many months, at huge expense. There is a lot of information that is still being edited.

Senator URQUHART:  Are you able to provide copies of the transcripts and the full names of the people you interviewed?

Ms Green:  No. It is on film; it is videotaped interviews, and the film is being edited.

Senator URQUHART:  You talked about how you undertook the research after you had new information from people within your area who were concerned about wind farms. Was that the purpose of the interviews?

Ms Green:  No. In my town, one month after we learned that our energy committee wanted to put a 1.65 wind turbine in our town — and we had conducted the research and people in our town were quite concerned — our board of selectmen, which is like your town councils, decided to not move forward with the project. I am on my energy committee, as secretary, and we are devising a plan to become 100 per cent electrical energy efficient without wind energy but using other alternative methods. Are you asking me what propels me to do the interviews?

Senator URQUHART:  Yes. I guess my real reasoning was whether the purpose of the interviews was to inform the body of research on international attitudes to wind farms. Is that why —

Ms Green:  No. It is not an attitude; it is to understand the realities of living near wind turbines — living, working, attending school, being incarcerated near wind turbines.

What happened was that my stepson was living in Australia and we went to Australia at the end of 2010. I knew there was a location called Waubra and I had seen the Dean report that had been recently published. I put out one little email asking ‘Do you happen to be in the Melbourne area and is it possible to meet some of the people that are living near the wind turbines at Waubra? Is it possible to see the Waubra area?’

It was amazing that I was connected with the people in that area of Australia. My husband and I drove to the area and we interviewed over 17 people in one day. They welcomed us into their homes. We did not know what to expect. We turned the camera on and we asked them questions, and they told us their story. We had no idea what we were going to find. We went to New Zealand and people emailed us after they had heard we had been to Waubra. They asked us if we would come and visit them and interview them. We did that in two different locations in New Zealand. When we came home we put together this film called Pandora’s Pinwheels —

Senator URQUHART:  You interviewed people —

Ms Green:  We just thought we would go back to Waubra and talk to the people at Waubra because we had been emailing them over the year. People around the world kept on emailing us and asking us to come and interview them.

Senator URQUHART:  So you conducted interviews in 15 countries, as I understand it from your submission. Is that how you got the contact information on the people you interviewed?

Ms Green:  I do not understand your question. Everywhere we were travelling people kept on emailing us and contacting us and asking if we would come and interview them and talk with them. They wanted to go on camera and tell their story. We had no agenda; we had no plan. We work in the healthcare industry; we talk about various illnesses and disease states, and we educate doctors and nurses about disease states. I am sorry; I want to retract that: we find a cross-section where patients are having issues with the communication around their disease state, and the doctors and nurses are having issues around communicating with their patients. We find those intersections and help doctors and nurses better communicate with the patients. So we are trying to improve patient care. That is what we do as one of the core competencies of our business.

When we found the health problems with the wind turbines and when we saw in every country we visited that people were saying the same thing, we wanted to get that word out to people like you who are hearing from your constituents that they are having health problems. That is all I want to do — to provide you with the truth.

Senator DAY:  Ms Green, as you might imagine, we have received submissions from hundreds of people who have reported adverse health impacts and yet we are being accused of trying to destroy the wind industry. We are being accused of rigging this inquiry and of being engaged in a political stitch up. What has been your experience with such hostility towards genuine inquiry?

Ms Green:  I really do not have a response for you, Senator. I have heard a lot of stories from people and I have experiences myself, but I really do not have a response on that topic.

Senator DAY:  Okay. I will follow up then: you say that a number of governments around the world are realising there is a need for more or better regulation surrounding the wind energy industry. Which governments are doing better in this area, in your opinion?

Ms Green:  I know that in my state, I have a new governor and my governor has a background in health care, and I am expecting that my governor understands that people do have health problems when they live and work too close to wind turbines in my state.

Senator BACK:  Ms Green, I have just one quick question; I know that we are over time. In Australia, we are proceeding to have independent medical research undertaken for the first time. One of the proposals put to us is that they try and simulate this effect of either noise or infrasound, and do so in a one-off exposure in a clinically sterile circumstance for exposure times of somewhere between 10 to 30 minutes and an hour. From what you have learned and heard — and from interviewing people — do you think there would be anything to be learned in exposing somebody for a very limited period of time, and once only, in a sort of laboratory-type circumstance? Do you believe that is likely to lead to any reasonable outcome or result that we might be able to use?

Ms Green:  Senator, I am not a researcher or a doctor. But given what I have heard from people and what people have reported to me, I find it highly unlikely that that would have any results that would have any validity.

Senator BACK:  Thank you.

CHAIR:  Thank you for evidence today to the committee, Ms Green. You will receive questions on notice and if you are able to come back to us with answers to those, that would be appreciated.

Ms Green:  Absolutely. I would like to thank the committee; the chair, Senator Madigan, and the members of the committee, and also to thank you, Graham.

CHAIR:  Thank you, Ms Green.

Hansard 29, June 2015

Ms Green’s evidence is available on the Parliament’s website here. And her submission to the Inquiry is available here (sub467_Green).

Ordinarily, STT has let the Senate’s witnesses do the talking, but the Inquisition launched by Labor’s Anne Urquhart is, self-evidently, worthy of a little passing comment.

That her questions were virulently loaded in favour of the wind power fraud, is largely a product of the fact that the vast bulk of them were drawn up by wind industry parasites and spruikers; like Andrew Brayfrom the Australian Wind Alliance and/or Leigh Ewbank from the Enemies of the Earth – who, during the Inquiry’s hearings, fed Urquhart with a constant stream of pointed fact-dodging, ‘Dorothy Dixers’ – directed to her iPad – in an infantile effort to protect their pay-masters’ interests.

Having adopted her usual tactic throughout the hearings – of trying to shoot the messenger because they did not hold highly relevant qualifications, such as journalism or sociology degrees – Urquhart – in a fit of disgust – drills Lilli-Anne about the obviously “insidious” purpose of the interviews that she’s carried out around the world.

And, from her – rabid-dog-with-a-bone – line of questioning, it’s apparent that Urquhart was utterly horrified that Lilli-Anne had the unmitigated temerity to interview ANYONE, ANYWHERE at ALL. This outrage would have never been sanctioned if Urquhart – and the other apparatchiks from the Ministry of Truth – had known about it.

You see, the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers – like Urquhart – cannot abide even the merest possibility that facts and evidence might see the light of day.

Suppression, obfuscation, denial – and, when all that fails – downright lying, characterises the wind industry; and all those that supp from the same subsidy trough.

Thankfully, however, those good Senators – not in the pay or thrall of the wind industry – were able to defeat efforts – by the likes of Urquhart – to suppress the truth; and, to thereby, maintain the stinking status quo.

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