Main Stream Media, Not Reporting Honestly, When it Comes to Wind Turbines…

August 19, 2014August 19, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

ABC’s Pro-Wind Power Bias Exposed as a National Scandal

August 19, 2014 by stopthesethings

Ever had the feeling that certain quarters of the media give the wind industry an easy run?

Australia’s National broad-sheet, The Australian stands as an exception; publishing plenty of pieces that, quite rightly, highlight the obscene cost and spurious “benefits” of the mandatory Renewable Energy Target and its product: the wind industry (for just a few examples, see our posts hereand here and here and here and here).

Not so, over at “your” ABC. The ABC (aka “Aunty”) is referred to as “the National Broadcaster”; it has numerous TV channels and radio stations that broadcast news and current affairs across the country. It is fully funded by Australian taxpayers to the tune of around $1.3 billion annually.

When it comes to renewable energy, and the wind industry in particular, the ABC runs a consistent narrative that touts the purported benefits, but rarely, if ever, delves into the fundamental flaws of trying to rely on highly unpredictable, unreliable and intermittent wind power. Moreover, the ABC avoids any investigation or analysis of the massive stream of subsidies added to power bills and directed to wind power outfits in the form of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), courtesy of the mandatory RET (see our post here).

Indeed, when confronted with that – inconvenient – part of the ABC’s pro-wind industry narrative, the ABC’s journalists become defensive and appear to act as advocates for the wind industry, rather than advocating for the Australian taxpayer and power consumer (ie, those that pay for the ABC) – as in this 7.30 interview of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Chief Economist Burchell Wilson (see our post here).

The wind industry puff pieces – often engineered by wind industry spin doctors, the Clean Energy Council – put up by the ABC conflate the issue of climate change with wind farms time and time again. If there’s a mention of the former, there’s almost certain to be an image and/or reference to the latter.

The ABC’s climate change narrative puts wind power up as THE solution to climate change, deliberately ignoring the facts; namely the need for 100% of its capacity to be backed up 100% of the time by fossil fuel generation sources, which means, therefore, that wind power cannot and will never reduce CO2 emissions in the electricity sector (see our postshere and here and here and here and here and here and here).

Wind power is not a substitute for conventional generation sources and – if CO2 is the problem – presents as a solution to nothing (see our post here).

The wind industry has never produced a shred of evidence to show that wind power has reduced CO2 emissions in Australia’s electricity sector. To the contrary of wind industry claims, the result of trying to incorporate wind power into a coal/gas fired grid is increased CO2 emissions (see thisEuropean paper here; this Irish paper here; this English paper here; and this Dutch study here). But, despite the evidence, the gullible and naive that pass for journalists at the ABC suck up the drivel spouted by the wind industry and its parasites, and present wind industry spin as gospel fact.

What’s that they say about never letting the facts get in the way of a good story?

With news that PM, Tony Abbott, his Treasurer, Joe Hockey and Finance Minister, Mathias Cormann have joined forces on a mission to scrap the mandatory RET outright, the ABC immediately went into damage control, trotting out the “usual suspects” – spin doctors from the Climate Institute and Clean Energy Council hell-bent on saving the RET for the benefit of their paymasters; and giving panic stricken rent-seekers, like Infigen an unchallenged forum to plead for policy mercy.

On ABC’s News 24 (and elsewhere on the ABC) wind industry cheer squad, the Climate Institute trotted out “modelling” based on a complete fiction that subsidies to wind power outfits will drop from $70 per MWh in 2020 to around $10 per MWh by 2030.

The starry-eyed presenters at the ABC might have been able to challenge that transparent myth if they had bothered to take a cursory peek at the legislation that makes up the mandatory RET and applied a little good old fashioned arithmetic to its terms. By 2020, the RECs issued to wind power outfits (1 REC per MWh dispatched) will be worth at least $65 – and are expected to trade at around $100 by then – which means the subsidy extracted from power consumers and directed to wind power outfits will be worth at least $65 per MWh and, more likely, $100 per MWh. Between 2020 and 2031, the REC Tax/Subsidy will add between $36 billion and $50 billion to Australian power consumers’ bills (see our post here). But simple and hard facts are lost or ignored as “inconvenient” and “unhelpful” to the ABC’s pro-wind industry “narrative”.

More than just a little suspicious that the ABC is infected by groupthink and could, just maybe, be a teensy-weensy bit biased in favour of renewables, the Institute of Public Affairs commissioned independent research to see if their hunch had something in it.

Here’s The Australian on the – not so surprising – findings.

Environment of fear as ABC fails bias test
The Australian
James Paterson
12 August 2014

THE ABC is not like any other broadcaster. With more than $1 billion in public funding, we rightly demand the ABC be rigorously fair, balanced and impartial.

On energy policy, we now know the ABC fails that test. As reported in The Australian yesterday, the Institute of Public Affairs released research that conclusively demonstrates the ABC’s bias against fossil fuels and in favour of renewable energy.

Energy policy is vital to our prosperity. Despite an abundance of natural resources, Australians pay among the highest electricity prices in the world, as a direct result of policy choices that have unquestionably been influenced by media coverage. However, this analysis could easily be replicated with the same results in other areas of ABC coverage.

In March, the IPA commissioned the independent media monitoring agency iSentia to analyse the ABC’s coverage of energy policy issues in relation to the coalmining industry, the coal-seam gas industry and the renewable energy industry. In the largest study of its kind, iSentia analysed 2359 separate ABC reports over a six-month period on these industries across national, metropolitan and regional radio and television.

The results were striking. iSentia found an astonishing 52 per cent of all ABC reports on renewable energy were favourable. Just 10.8 per cent were unfavourable.

Yet only 15.9 per cent of coalmining stories were favourable, while 31.6 per cent were unfavourable. And just 12.1 per cent of coal-seam gas stories were favourable and 43.6 per cent unfavourable. The renewable energy industry is heavily reliant on subsidies and regulatory favours via the mandatory renewable energy target. Indeed, independent modelling conducted by Deloitte Access Economics for the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has found the RET alone will cost the Australian economy $29 billion by 2020, push up power prices for households and businesses and kill 5000 jobs.

Yet iSentia found only 14 stories that cast the economic impact of the renewable energy industry in an unfavourable light. An incredible 117 stories suggested that renewable energy had a positive economic impact.

CSG and coalmining generate thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of exports, without government subsidies or regulatory favours, but the ABC was obsessed with the potential environmental impacts of the fossil fuels.

During the sample period, only 37 stories were broadcast that depicted the economic impact of the coal industry in a positive light, against 115 that suggested the industry would have a negative environmental impact. The benefits brought by CSG to the Australian economy merited the ABC’s attention only 52 times, but the assertion the industry would have a negative environmental impact was delivered in 259 stories.

iSentia found — surprise, surprise — that hopeful language featured in 93 stories on renewable energy, compared with 21 stories on CSG. The language of fear was used in 306 stories on CSG compared with 51 stories on renewable energy.

That’s hardly surprising given the interviewees. On coal-seam gas, the ABC’s go-to man is NSW Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham, quoted in 92 stories — more than double the next most prominent guest. While federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt was the most quoted in stories about coalmining, a close second was Queensland Greens senator Larissa Waters.

On both radio and television, and across regional, metropolitan and national programs, the ABC consistently and overwhelmingly favoured renewable energy and treated the coalmining and coal-seam gas industries with extreme disfavour. This suggests the problem of bias at the ABC is endemic across the organisation.

If, as David Marr said, you have to be a leftie to be a journalist, then those who choose to work at a public broadcaster instead of a commercial outlet are even more likely to be left-wing. Once surrounded by others of a similar world view, and insulated from their audiences by the absence of a commercial imperative to seek advertising, it’s predictable that the personal preferences of journalists dominate coverage.

If bias at the ABC is systemic, only structural reform will solve it. A new board or management won’t change the culture. Privatising the ABC is the only way to ensure taxpayers’ money is not used to fund biased coverage.

James Paterson is director of communications at the Institute of Public Affairs.
The Australian

The Australian’s Editor had this to say.

ABC all puff and wind on coal
The Australian
12 August 2014

IF the national broadcaster realised the climate change debate was about facts and options rather than motives and agendas, it might be able to bring itself to discuss the implications and possible causes of more than 15 years without a rise in global average temperatures. The now notorious groupthink at Aunty — outed by none other than its former chairman Maurice Newman — can’t seem to cope with raising this global warming pause lest it insinuate some scepticism about the causes and trajectory of climate change.

That any group of inquiring minds could be so timid about dealing with reality is troubling enough, but when you consider this cohort is paid by taxpayers for the express purpose of providing balanced, objective and comprehensive communications about relevant facts and opinions, it approaches a national scandal. The world’s most prominent climate scientists seem to be capable of discussing how the climate is defying models without abandoning their alarm, retreating from their scientific theories or being isolated by their peers. But at the ABC, where they perhaps see themselves as a foothold of enlightenment holding back the hordes of capitalist exploitation and scientific denialism, we can only assume that they can’t handle the truth.

And so it is, presumably for the same reasons, with discussion of energy issues. Because the ABC has religion on climate — we saw in an Institute of Public Affairs report yesterday — it is intent on portraying coal as the devil and renewable energy as the saviour. Now, even if we were generous and said this ultimately might be the case, it does not excuse important facts about coal versus renewables in the here and now being ignored or misrepresented. The economic case is abundantly clear thanks to the overwhelming cost advantages of coal in electricity generation and its contribution to GDP. Coal generates 70 per cent of our electricity and more than 40 per cent worldwide. It is a $120 billion export industry, making us the second largest exporter after Indonesia. And, as the IPA reports, the cost per megawatt hour of coal-fired power is about $35, whereas wind and solar generation is typically at least three times the cost and available only a third of the time.

Yet ABC coverage gives three times more favourable coverage to renewable energy over coal, and in return provides three times more negative reporting on coal over renewables. Surprisingly the ratios are even worse — less favourable coverage and more negative — for coal-seam gas, even though this is the resource that has revolutionalised the energy sector worldwide by producing affordable baseload generation with about half the emissions of coal. Carried out by media monitors iSentia, which analysed 2359 reports over six months, the survey found the “language of fear” was used in more than a quarter of the CSG stories, a fifth of coal stories but about one in 20 renewable reports.

The ABC tends to discount the economic benefits of coal and CSG, preferring to focus on perceived environmental harm, while it trumpets the green benefits of renewables, tends to ignore costs and impracticalities but exaggerates potential economic gains. As Bjorn Lomborg often points out in these pages (ridiculously decried as a sceptic for his trouble), the climate challenge demands consideration of economic imperatives: costs, benefits, options and alternatives. Taxpayers deserve that debate. They can handle it.
The Australian

Aussie Politicians, We Can ALL Be Proud Of!!!

August 18, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey & Mathias Cormann: Natural Born RET Killers

August 18, 2014 by stopthesethings

Tony Abbott has made no secret of his eagerness to do away with the most colossal corporate welfare scheme in the history of the Commonwealth (see our posts here and here and here).

And his Treasurer, Joe Hockey has pinned his colours to the mast as someone who can’t stand wind farms – and whose political mission is to bring the “age of entitlement” to an end, which includes the stream of subsidies directed at wind power outfits (see our posts here and here).

The Finance Minister, Mathias Cormann made his disdain for the great wind power fraud known by joining Hockey to prevent the Clean Energy Finance Corporation signing up anymore unsecured loans to wind power outfits (see our post here).

So it comes as no surprise that Abbott, Hockey and Cormann would team up as Natural Born RET Killers. Here’s the Australian Financial Review heralding the beginning of the end for the mandatory RET and, with it, the end of the great Australian wind power fraud.

Abbott’s plan to axe RET
Australian Financial Review
Phillip Coorey
18 August 2014

The federal government is moving towards abolishing the Renewable Energy Target rather than scaling it back in a move that will cost almost $11 billion in proposed investment and which is at odds with the views of its own Environment Minister.

The Australian Financial Review understands Prime Minister Tony Abbott has asked businessman Dick Warburton, whom he handpicked after the election to review the RET, to do more work on the option of terminating the target altogether. This was after Mr Warburton’s review leant towards scaling back the RET.

Sources said Environment Minister Greg Hunt, who advocated scaling back the RET as a compromise, has been sidelined from the process and is understood to be unhappy. They said Mr Abbott, Treasurer Joe Hockey and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann are pushing the issue now.

A government source said when the government announced its decision, possibly before the end of this month, it was now “more likely” the RET will be abolished under a so-called “closed to new entrants scenario” in which existing contracts only would be honoured.

Given Clive Palmer has vowed to block any change to the RET until after the 2016 election, it remains unclear when the government could declare the RET terminated.

Independent modelling commissioned by the Climate Institute and other environmental groups, and which will be released Monday, found that under the termination scenario, coal-fired power generators would reap an extra $25 billion in profits between 2015 and 2030.

There would be no reduction to household power prices and carbon emissions would climb by 15 million tonnes a year on the back of a 9 percent increase in coal-fired power.

Diminished investments

Abolishing the RET would diminish investment in renewable energy by $10.6 billion, said the modelling, conducted by consulting firm Jacobs.

Conceived under the Howard government, the RET mandated that 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity be generated from renewable sources by 2020. The Abbott government has been lobbied heavily by the business and energy sectors to abolish or water it down as renewable energy gained a larger than expected share of the electricity market.

When the RET was first conceived, it was envisaged 20 per cent of total power production by 2020 would equate to 41,000 gigawatt/hours of renewable energy produced each year.

Under the scaleback favoured by Mr Hunt, annual production of renewable energy in 2020 would be reduced to 27,000GWh. But this would still amount to 20 per cent of total energy production because forecast total energy production for 2020 had been downgraded due to the decline in manufacturing, especially the collapse of the car industry and the closure of two aluminium smelters. This is known as the “real 20 per cent” option.

The abolition proposal would reduce renewable energy production in 2020 to 16,000GWh.

It is understood Mr Abbott’s office was briefed on the recommendations of the Warburton review in late July. The review found the RET did not add significantly to household and commercial power bills, as its critics, including Mr Abbott, had argued, and that it should be scaled back to the real 20 per cent model as advocated by Mr Hunt.

With the government favouring termination, Mr Warburton was asked to give the option more consideration and his report is expected this week.

Energy oversupply

The government source said the market was oversupplied with energy and there was no longer any cause for a mandated use of any specific type of power. The source said while there would be investment losses if the RET was abolished, or even scaled back, investors “would have to have been blind to know this wasn’t coming”.

Miles George, managing director of renewable company Infigen Energy, said either scaling back or terminating the RET “would be devastating”.

He said the creation of sovereign risk would be significant and the very issue had been raised by prospective foreign investors, including Canadian pension funds which Mr Abbott sought to woo when abroad in June.

“Infigen’s shareholder base of over 20,000 investors has invested in renewable energy in Australia on the basis of a fixed target of 41,000 GWh by 2020,” Mr George said. “This is no different to investors in private public partnerships acquiring a toll road concession, or a port lease.

“If the Government pulls the rug from under institutional investors in renewable energy we shouldn’t expect those investors to come back to buy other infrastructure assets here, including the electricity networks and generation assets that the governments of NSW and Queensland are proposing to sell or lease.”
Australian Financial Review

The AFR touts the wind industry line about “diminished investments”, as if wind power outfits are lining up to make an outright, “no-strings-attached” gift of $10.6 billion to Australian power consumers.

On that spin, Australia’s power punters are meant to fear the “loss” and shed a tear for cowboys like Infigen (aka Babcock & Brown) who are, apparently, just itching to give their investors’ money away.

Of course, like every investment, those stumping up the capital will only do so where a juicy return is on offer; and, under the current 41,000 GWh target set by the mandatory RET, the returns promised to be very “juicy”, indeed. Until now.

So let’s have a look at just who ends up paying for the promised (or, rather, threatened) $billions in wind power investment: we’ll call it $10 billion for ease of reference.

Before we kick off, there are a few things to note.

First, is that around 50% of the value of the threatened “investment” will go to foreign turbine manufacturers in China, India and Denmark. So that sends at least $5 billion offshore; adding to Australia’s current account deficit.

Next, is the fact that the great bulk of any wind power “investment” is underwritten by all Australian power consumers via the mandatory RET – as detailed below.

And it needs to borne in mind that any “investment” in wind power generation capacity has to be matched with an equal investment in fossil fuel generation capacity (principally fast-start-up Open Cycle Gas Turbines) to provide power to balance the grid (the need for which increases – along with the need for additional spinning reserve held by base-load thermal generators – due to the wild fluctuations in wind power output – see our post here) and to accommodate routine, but unpredictable, collapses in wind power output (our posts here and hereand here and here and here and here and here and here).

The greater the amount of installed wind power capacity, the greater the need for highly inefficient OCGTs – the installation of which needs to be financed, allowing for returns to those providing the capital: a cost that is never included in calculations accounting for the costs attached to wind power generation (see our post here).

As noted by the AFR, the Australian energy market is oversupplied, which means any further investment in an unpredictable and unreliable source like wind power will simply cause further and substantial increases in retail power prices, additional grid instability and energy market chaos – precisely the circumstances the Germans now find themselves in, after years of runaway renewable energy policy (see our post here).

An “investment” NOT a “gift”

Any investor naturally looks for a return on a capital investment. Ideally, that return exceeds bank interest and – if there is any risk involved – accounts for that risk by way of higher returns. Investors in wind farm projects aim for a gross return on the capital invested in the order of 20% per annum.

That means that the investors stumping up $10 billion to build new wind power capacity will be looking to recover $2 billion from power consumers each and every year to achieve that level of return: returns on wind power investments can only be recouped via income received from power sales – there is NO other source of revenue.

So, rather than being the objects of $10 billion in wind industry largesse, power consumers are being lined up for an enormous, additional and – because there is already ample generating capacity to meet (declining) demand well into the future – completely unnecessary $2 billion hit in the hip pocket each and every year.

A fair slice of the $2 billion annual return on investment required by investors would be recouped via power bills in the form of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs): a Federal Tax on all Australian electricity consumers. RECs are issued to wind power generators and transferred to retailers under the Power Purchase Agreements signed between them (see our post here).

Which brings us to another furphy trotted out in the AFR piece – based on “modelling” by wind industry cheer squad, the Climate Institute – that the mandatory RET hasn’t had any significant effect on retail power prices; and that scrapping it would not result in any decrease in power bills.

As we’ve just pointed out, the $10 billion in threatened wind power investment would, alone, add $2 billion to Australian power bills each and every year: no return, no “investment” – simple as that.

The true cost of the mandatory RET

As is the style of the wind industry and its parasites, whenever they’re pitching about the “wonders” of wind it’s all done with “modelling” and never with real numbers. Smoke and mirrors stuff, using assumptions that never hold water – and always ignoring the terms of the legislation upon which the whole rort depends.

So – let’s forget about “models” – based on nonsensical and unjustified assumptions – and simply apply a little old fashioned arithmetic to the provisions that make up the mandatory RET.

Putting aside the hidden costs of providing fossil fuel back up to cover the occasions when wind power output plummets every day – and for days on end (see our post here); putting aside the need for a duplicated network to carry wind power from the back blocks to urban markets (seeour post here); putting aside the cost of running highly inefficient Open Cycle Gas Turbines to cover wind power “outages” (see our post here), for the purpose of this argument let’s just focus on the cost of Renewable Energy Certificates and their bedmate – the mandated shortfall charge.

Under the mandatory RET – retailers are fined $65 per MWh for every MW they fall below the mandated annual target: what’s called the “shortfall charge” – follow the links here and here. The shortfall charge is directed straight to the Commonwealth, ending up as general revenue.

The alternative is to buy RECs (which is done via the retailer’s PPA with the wind power generator) and surrender them as proof that the retailer has purchased a MWh of renewable energy.

Wind power generators are issued 1 REC for every MWh of power dispatched to the grid – and this deal continues until 2031: the operator of a turbine erected in 2005 will receive RECs (1 per MWh dispatched) each and every year for 26 years.

Since the RET began in April 2001, over 195 million RECs have been created – worth more than $8 billion – the cost of which has all been added to our power bills.

The cost of the REC is ultimately borne by retail customers and, therefore, constitutes a Federal Tax on all Australian electricity consumers (see our post here).

Time for a little arithmetic.

If no RECs were purchased, retailers would simply be hit with the $65 per MWh shortfall charge on the entire figure set by the mandatory RET legislation (see the link here).

That cost alone would add $2.665 billion to power bills annually from 2020 to 2031.

Alternatively, if sufficient RECs to satisfy the target were purchased at $100, say, the cost rises to $4.1 billion a year from 2020 through to 2031.

Year	RET in MWh (millions)	Shortfall Charge (or RECs) @ $65	RECs @ $100
2014	16.1	$1,046,500,000	$1,610,000,000
2015	18	$1,117,000,000	$1,800,000,000
2016	22.6	$1,469,000,000	$2,260,000,000
2017	27.2	$1,768,000,000	$2,720,000,000
2018	31.8	$2,067,000,000	$3,180,000,000
2019	36.4	$2,366,000,000	$3,640,000,000
2020	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
2021	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
2022	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
2023	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
2024	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
2025	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
2026	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
2027	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
2028	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
2029	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
2030	41	$2,665,000,000	$4,100,000,000
	Total	$36,483,500,000	$56,210,000,000

RECs are currently trading around $30, but, as the target starts to bite from 2017, the price is expected to reach $90 and is tipped to reach $100 beyond that.

The shortfall charge (as a fine) is a cost that the retailer can’t claim as a legitimate tax deduction, whereas the REC is – this places an added value on the REC to the extent that its face value can reduce the retailer’s taxable income. At a minimum then, RECs can be expected to trade at a figure at least equal to the shortfall charge. But with the tax benefit attached, RECs would be worth at least $94 – based on a shortfall charge of $65.

At the bottom end, this means the value of RECs surrendered (and/or the shortfall charge applied) will add over $36 billion to power bills over the next 17 years. At the top end, the figure (assuming RECs hit $100 by 2017) will exceed $50 billion.

These figures represent the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the Commonwealth: a transfer that comes at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable in society; struggling manufacturing businesses, real jobs and families. To call the mandatory RET obscene is pure understatement. No single policy has ever threatened to cost so much for nothing in return.

It’s these hard and fast facts that have united the PM, his Treasurer and Finance Minister with the intention of killing the mandatory RET outright; and the vast majority of the Coalition are right behind them. The sooner the Coalition axe it, the better. The mandatory RET must go now.

Getting Rid of Windweasels is Easy….Just Turn Off the Money Tap!

August 17, 2014August 17, 2014 / 1957chev / 2 Comments

European Governments Rip Up Wind Power Contracts

August 17, 2014 by stopthesethings

In recent weeks there has been a cacophony of wind industry rent-seeker bleating. Turbine makers, like America’s GE have been running hard in the press touting the “merits” of retaining the mandatory Renewable Energy Target – a scheme that will see $50 billion added to Australian power bills and directed to wind power outfits over the next 17 years (see our post here): a whopping proportion of which would end up in the pockets of fan makers like GE – no self-interest there.

Retaining the RET would allow GE to line up for a double-helping. Not only does it make giant fans, it also makes the Open Cycle Gas Turbines that provide the “fire-up-in-a-heartbeat” back-up essential to accommodate daily collapses in wind power output – that can’t be predicted, but which happen on a routine basis (see our posts here andhere and here and here and here and here and here and here). The greater the installed capacity of wind power, the more OCGTs that are needed to balance the grid and back it up when it goes AWOL (see our post here).

The wind industry and its coterie of parasites, consultants and hangers-on are in flat panic about what the RET Review Panel is going to recommend; seizing on every recent breath and utterance from Panel head, Dick Warburton – and dissecting it with the earnestness of a Witch Doctor looking for omens in entrails. Here’s a little piece from The Australian that suggests the omens aren’t what the wind industry was looking for.

AEMO report ‘a very large part’ of RET Review
The Australian
John Conroy
11 August 2014

Dick Warburton, the head of the federal government’s panel reviewing the Renewable Energy Target, has told journalists that a report finding Australia would not need to add any generation capacity to meet demand in the next 10 years had formed “a very large part” of his panel’s findings, Fairfax Media reports.

According to the news service, Mr Warburton, a businessman and climate sceptic appointed by the Abbott Government to head the review, was referring to an Australia Energy Market Operator analysis finding there will be more electricity generation than required until 2024.

“It’s hard to interpret those remarks any other way – that they’re likely to recommend that the [target] be scaled back,” Hugh Saddler, of consultants Pitt & Sherry, told Fairfax.
The Australian

Just what Dick Warburton’s views on climate change have to do with the RET review is a little puzzling?

The largest current (and potential) beneficiary of the RET rort is the wind industry and (assuming “climate change” is all down to carbon dioxide gas) it’s yet to produce any credible evidence that wind power has reduced CO2 emissions in the electricity sector, which is probably because studies based on actual data point in the opposite direction (see this American article here; this European paper here; this Irish paper here; this English paper here; and this Dutch study here). If CO2 emissions are the cause of “climate change”, then wind power sure ain’t the solution.

With the current 41,000 GWh target set by the mandatory RET almost certain to get the chop, the wind industry has been wailing louder than ever about “sovereign risk” and the need to be “compensated” for any change to the target; as if Renewable Energy Certificates were some God-given-right. In this post, WA Senator, Chris Back slammed that one straight over the long-boundary, based on Parliamentary advice which, funnily enough, reflects what STT has already said on the issue (see our postshere and here).

Meanwhile in Europe, governments – being bled to death by the obscene subsidy streams set up by their renewables policies – are tearing up contracts with wind and solar power outfits – apparently unmoved by the howls of outfits that would have never existed, but for the unwilling largesse of taxpayers and power consumers. The Spanish, Italians, French and Belgians have all woken up to the fact that these schemes are simply unsustainable and have to go. Here’s the Financial Post on the great renewables retreat.

Governments rip up renewable contracts
Financial Post
Brady Yauch
19 March 2014

Companies ‘do not have a right [to expect the compensation] not to be changed’.

Governments across Europe, regretting the over-generous deals doled out to the renewable energy sector, have begun reneging on them. To slow ruinous power bills hikes, governments are unilaterally rewriting contracts and clawing back unseemly profits.

In Italy, one of Europe’s largest economies and one that lavished billions in subsidies on the renewable sector, the government in 2013 applied its so-called “Robin Hood tax” to renewable energy producers. Under the new rule, renewable energy producers with more than €3 million in revenue and income greater than €300,000 must now pay a tax of 10.5%.

That follows a 2012 move to charge all solar producers a five cent tax per kilowatt hour on all self-consumed energy. The government also told solar producers that it would stop taking their power – and would offer no compensation – when their output overwhelms the system.

The result of these and other changes, says the solar industry, has been a surge in bankruptcies and a massive decrease in solar investment.

In Belgium – where both regional and federal bodies hand out renewable subsidies – a number of retroactive changes have capped the largesse renewable producers once received. In one region the price for “green certificates” – which producers received for renewable energy – was slashed by 79%. The government original committed to buy green certificates at a benchmarked price for 20 years, then cut it to 10 years.

Belgium’s regulators tried to impose a fee on all energy added to the grid from small- to medium-sized solar producers. While the country’s court of appeals struck down that fee, a defiant regional government plans to reintroduce it next year, forcing all solar producers to pay an annual fee that varies with the power they pump into the grid. Various municipalities, meanwhile, are introducing taxes on new and existing wind turbines.

As in Italy, Belgium’s renewable sector in the country has gone dark –“imploded” in the view of a solar industry publication. Many companies shrank or went bankrupt.

In France the government last year cut by 20% the “guaranteed” rate offered to all solar producers, and retroactively applied it to projects connected to the grid in the previous three months. The government is also considering ending an 11% tax break on solar energy producers.

Perhaps the most dramatic moves occurred in Spain, for years the poster child for those touting a transition to green energy. Since 2000, Spain has given renewable producers $41-billion more for their power than it has fetched on the open market.

To recover those subsidies, the Spanish government recently killed its Feed In Tariff (FIT) program for renewables, which paid them an outlandishly high guaranteed price for their power, replacing it with the market price for their power plus a subsidy deemed more “reasonable.” Companies’ profits are now capped at a 7.4% return, following which they must then sell their power at market rates. That measure is retroactive, with renewable energy producers who got too fat off their profits now being starved until they reach the 7.4% cap.

For example, if a company spent $100-million on a solar installation in Spain and was posting a return of 14%, or $14-million, annually on that investment, then the government would cut it off from subsidies until its total return – starting from when it was first built – fell to 7.4%, or $7.4 million, a year.

Wind projects built before 2005 will no longer receive any form of subsidy – a move a wind energy trade group called a “sacking” of the sector that will see more than a third of wind producers lose their subsidy.

The fallout in Spain was immediate. Its solar sector, which once employed 60,000 workers, now employs 5,000. The wind sector is estimated to have laid off 20,000 workers. Ikea – the Swedish furniture retailer that became enamoured of renewables – announced it was cutting its losses and abandoning a solar plant it had built in Spain. Investment in the sector also collapsed. In 2011, Spain attracted $10 billion in solar investment. In 2013, the level of investment dropped by almost 90%.

Spain’s Supreme Court offered no sympathy to the solar industry, in ruling against its argument that the government’s retroactive changes were wrong. “The evolution of the energy sector … was putting the financial sustainability of the electricity system at risk,” the court decided, adding that the companies “do not have a right [to expect the government compensation regime] not to be changed.”

Europe’s renewable energy investors are facing a harsh reality – that the promises from politicians can be taken away at any moment. Canada’s renewable energy investors may soon face that same reality.

Brady Yauch is an economist and executive director of Consumer Policy Institute, a division of Energy Probe Research Foundation.
Financial Post

Windweasels “Stack the Deck” for “Community Consultations”

August 12, 2014 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

NSW Planning Department Helps Wind Farm Developers Rig Community “Consultations”

August 12, 2014 by stopthesethings

As community hostility to wind farm plans erupts across the Southern Tablelands of NSW, wind power outfits have taken to sacking and stacking committees to ensure the “process” of “community consultation” is little more than high farce.

Spanish outfit, Union Fenosa didn’t like the prospect of having Tony Abbott’s key business adviser, Maurice Newman challenge its wild and fictional claims, so it did what any reasonable corporate citizen would do: it booted him off the committee at Crookwell (see our post here). What’s that you say about “shaping the debate”?

Now, EPYC – an outfit planning to spear 100 turbines into the heart of picture post-card Tarago – has adopted the same tactics: stacking the consultation committee with “friendlies” and preventing the appointment of anyone with any insight into the scope of the fraud. Here’s the Goulburn Post with a tale that sounds more like something from the old Soviet Bloc.

Windfarm group demands action
Goulburn Post
Louise Thrower
4 August 2014

OPPONENTS of a proposed wind farm near Tarago are calling on the state government to ‘do its job.’ Community consultative committees (CCCs) are mandatory under guidelines but are nothing more than a ‘fig leaf,’ says a residents’ group.

The Residents Against Jupiter Wind Farm (RAJWF) has not ruled out political action to press their point.

Last month the group met with a senior advisor to Planning Minister and Goulburn MP Pru Goward and a departmental official in Sydney.

Member and Tarago district resident Dr Michael Crawford said the government had the power to appoint CCCs but was abrogating its responsibility and letting wind farm companies decide the make-up.

“It’s not an even handed process but they want it to look as though it is by putting it in the guidelines,” Dr Crawford said.

“The Department is not doing its job to appoint community representatives and the independent chairperson and it doesn’t pull anyone up on it. We tried to get some real change.”

Instead, Dr Crawford said the Department gave him the “soft shoe shuffle.”

His comments follow Union Fenosa’s sacking of Maurice Newman from the Crookwell Three wind farm CCC. The move sparked outrage from NSW Landscape Guardians president Humphrey Price-Jones who called on Ms Goward and the Department to intervene.

Under existing draft guidelines, the director general signs off on CCC membership. But even Union Fenosa conceded that given the draft document, the state was leaving membership up to wind farm companies.

Tarago residents at least argue this is unacceptable.

“Nowhere in the guidelines is there any latitude for the wind farm developer to have a say about choosing community reps,” resident Jane Keaney stated in a letter to the editor.

“In fact, even without the guidelines, anyone with the faintest sense of fair play would recognise that allowing a developer of any sort to select the people who are going to be allowed to talk to the developer on behalf of the community, is anathema. How has the department come to tolerate this corruption of process?” The group has already asked Palerang and Goulburn Mulwaree Councils to help with election of its CCC.

In June, EPYC, which wants to build the 100 turbine wind farm southeast of Tarago, called for community representation.

In response, the group nominated seven people including Mr Crawford, who it wanted on the committee, with a further eight as alternative delegates. The Reverend Tom Frame supervised the election.

Dr Crawford said to date there has been no response from the company or the Department of Planning.

At the most recent Goulburn Mulwaree meeting, planning director Chris Stewart was appointed as Council’s representative.

While companies like Union Fenosa have defended their ability to appoint a wide cross section of views to the committees, others like Mr Price-Jones have branded them “wind farm propaganda” machines.

Dr Crawford said while all the Tarago nominees oppose the wind farm, he would welcome a variety of voices on the committee.

But he’s adamant that the state government needs to regain control.

“The government wants to paper the State with wind farms but the process is nothing more than a fig leaf,” he said.

“… At the meeting in Sydney I said they have to understand our timetable. There’s an election next year and if our members feel political action is required, we won’t sit on our hands.

It’s about government policy and the way to deal with it is through the political process.”

Ms Goward told the Post she had asked her department for a report on CCCs.

“We made it clear that we expect wind farm companies to genuinely consult with communities and the history is that they haven’t,” she said.

“We need to be sure CCCs are genuine, that they genuinely represent the community and can give unfettered advice.”

The company had not responded to requests for comment by the time of going to press.
Goulburn Post

STT is pleased to hear that Pru Goward has taken an interest in what can fairly be described as government gone rotten. The NSW Planning Department – like state planning departments around Australia – is infected with a pernicious brand of groupthink driven by the childish fantasy that wind power is a solution to “climate change” (previously known as “global warming” – until it became evident that it stopped getting warmer 17 years ago – see our post here).

Wedded to a delusion, woe betide anyone – like Maurice Newman or Dr Michael Crawford – who has the temerity to question their mantra. Hence the need to load these so-called “community consultation committees” with gullible “yes-men”.

Wind power – delivered at crazy, random intervals – requires 100% of its capacity to be backed up 100% of the time by fossil fuel generation sources and, therefore, cannot and will never reduce CO2 emissions in the electricity sector (see our posts here and here and here and here andhere and here and here).

Wind power is not a substitute for conventional generation sources and – if CO2 is the problem – presents as a solution to nothing (see our post here).

Remember that the ONLY justification for the $billions in subsidies directed at wind power (see our post here) is CO2 emissions abatement in the electricity sector. It’s the central and endlessly repeated lie that wind power outfits routinely trot out in their planning applications. You know, the guff about “powering 100,000 homes” and abating millions of tonnes of CO2 (see our post here).

Well, STT hears that the industry is about to be put to proof on its CO2 abatement claims.

Strip away that myth and the mandatory RET – upon which the entire wind industry depends – can be seen for what it is: the greatest economic and environmental fraud of all time.

The Truth About Wind Turbine Noise… Waubra Foundation

August 7, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind Turbine Noise: a simple statement of facts

Author: Waubra Foundation

Emission of Sound and Vibration

Note: ILFN = infrasound and low-frequency noise.

1. Wind turbine blades produce airborne pressure waves (correctly called sound but which, when unwanted, is called noise) and ground-borne surface motion (vibration).

2. Recent measurements have indicated that turbines generate vibrations even when shut down,[1] presumably from the wind causing the flexing of large blades and the tower structure, and that this vibration (when turbines are shut down) can be measured at significant distances.

3. The airborne energy manifests as sound across a range of frequencies from infrasonic (0–20 Hertz [Hz]) up through low-frequency sound (generally said to be below 200 Hz), and into the higher audible frequency range above 200 Hz. (Hertz is the variation in a particular changing level of sound pressure, as the rate of cycles [or period] per second).

4. Sound at 100 Hz is audible at sound levels of around 27dB (decibels) for an average person, whilst the level of sound required for average audibility rises quite quickly below frequencies of, say, 25 Hz. Sensation, being non-auditory but bodily recognition of airborne pressure waves, occurs at lower pressure levels of infrasonic frequencies than can be heard. At infrasonic frequencies the “sounds,” i.e., pressure waves, exist and may be detected by the body and brain as pressure pulses or sensations, but via different mechanisms than the perception of audible noise.

5. Periodic pressure pulses are created by each turbine blade passing the supporting pylon. This is an inherent consequence of the design of horizontal axis wind turbines. These energy pulses increase with increasing blade length, as does the power generating capacity. People living near turbines have described the effect of these pulses on their homes as “like living inside a drum”.

6. Larger turbines produce a greater percentage of their total sound emissions as low-frequency noise and infrasound than do smaller turbines.[2] Therefore replacing a number of small turbines with a lesser number of larger turbines, whilst keeping the total power output of a wind project constant, will increase the total ILFN emitted by the development. This effect will be compounded by increased wake interference, unless the turbines have also been repositioned further apart in accordance with the spacing specifications for the larger turbines. Wake interference results in turbulent air flow into adjacent turbines, with a consequent loss of efficiency, and increased ILFN generation.

7. If estimated sound contours have been used in seeking planning permits, then replacing the permitted turbines with larger turbines will significantly increase the persistence of the wake turbulence, and thereby the sound emitted by adjacent turbines (and the proportion of ILFN emitted) will be significantly above the predicted contours. This is what occurred at the Waubra development, and will occur when a lesser number of larger turbines are used to maintain the generating capacity of the development, as occurred at Macarthur (both projects being in Western Victoria).

Infrasound

1. Infrasound is common in our world, but most natural infrasound is irregular and random, or is caused by a transient event (e.g. earthquakes). Some frequency bands below 20 Hz have been shown experimentally to cause a physiological stress response in humans at below audible levels.[3] Industrial machinery noises are often regular and repetitive, as is the case with wind farm noise emissions, across the audible and infrasonic frequency spectrum.

2. Infrasonic pulsations travel much larger distances than audible noise and easily penetrate normal building materials, and once inside can resonate building elements (i.e., increase in impact inside rooms).[4]

3. Infrasonic pulsations from a single 4 MW wind turbine were measured 10km from their source by NASA researcher William Willshire in 1985.[5] Recent data collected by acoustician Les Huson in Australia and in the United Kingdom at onshore and offshore wind developments has shown that attenuation (reduction in sound level with increasing distance from the source) can be much less than the 3dB per doubling of distance found by Willshire in 1985.[6]

4. Some acoustic pressure pulsations are relatively harmless and indeed even pleasant to the body, including waves on a beach. Organ music at frequencies just below 20 Hz generates “feelings” in people that can be either pleasant or unpleasant, and has been designed to produce emotive effects.[7] Once it is understood that different frequencies can have very different effects on humans, it is easy to understand the importance of accurate acoustic measurement.

5. Dr Neil Kelley and his colleagues from NASA demonstrated in the 1980’s that wind turbine–generated energy pulses and noise in the infrasonic and low-frequency bands, which then penetrated and resonated inside the residents’ living structures, directly caused the range of symptoms described as “annoyance” by acousticians and some researchers.[8] A more accurate general descriptor would be mild, serious or intolerable “impacts”.

6. Residents and their treating medical practitioners know these symptoms and sensations include repetitive sleep disturbance, feelings of intense anxiety, nausea, vertigo, headaches, and other distressing symptoms including body vibration. American Paediatrician Dr Nina Pierpont gave this constellation of symptoms the name “wind turbine syndrome” in 2009.[9] Dr Geoff Leventhall, a British acoustician who was one of two peer reviewers of the NHMRC’s 2010 Rapid Review, has accepted these symptoms and sensations as “annoyance” symptoms, which he attributes to a stress effect, known to him to be caused by exposure to environmental noise, one source of which is wind turbine noise.[10]

Wake Interference and Turbulence

1. Historically it was accepted that wind turbines should be no less than 5–8 rotor diameters apart, depending on the direction and consistency of the prevailing wind, with the higher separation being for turbines in line with the major wind direction. This was accepted industry practice and, as an example, was explicitly specified in the 2002 NSW SEDA handbook.[11] The purpose of this specification is to minimise turbulent air entering the blades of an adjacent turbine. As noted above, turbulent air is associated with increased sound levels and infrasonic pulsations.[12]

2. If a significant proportion of the wind blows at a right angle (90°) from the major direction used for turbine layout it follows that turbine spacing should be 7 or 8 rotor diameters in both directions. It should be noted that the 7–8 rotor diameters number is a compromise between ensuring smooth air inflow to all turbines (and hence less noise and vibration) and packing as many turbines as possible into the project area. Research conducted at Johns Hopkins University in 2012 showed that the best design for efficient energy extraction suggests wind turbines should be 15 rotor diameters apart.[13]

3. It is increasingly evident that some projects are not laid out in accordance with accepted specifications to reduce turbulence, which in turn significantly increases acoustic emissions including audible noise and infrasonic pressure pulses. The consequences of increased turbulent air entering upwind-bladed wind turbines resulting in increased generation of impulsive infrasonic pressure waves and low-frequency noise were known to the industry in 1989.[14] Recent projects with turbines positioned inappropriately too close together should not have been given final approval by the responsible authorities.

4. Yawing (side to side movement of the blades caused by minor wind direction changes) is also known to increase wake interference.

Transmission of Energy Pulses

1. Information on the different attenuative and penetrative properties of infrasound and audible sound are discussed above.

2. Topography, wind speed, wind direction, wind shear, and ambient temperature will also have an impact on noise emissions and how that sound travels.

Noise Guidelines for Turbines

1. Many acoustic consultants and senior acousticians have known that wind turbines produce pulsatile ILFN as the blades pass the tower. It was common knowledge in the 1980’s, from research conducted by Dr Neil Kelley [15] and NASA researchers such as Harvey Hubbard,[16] that the pulsatile infrasound generated by a single downwind-bladed wind turbine and other sources of ILFN such as military aircraft and gas fired turbines penetrated buildings, amplified and resonated inside the building structures, and directly caused “annoyance” symptoms including repetitive sleep disturbance.[17]

2. Long-term sleep disturbance and chronic stress symptoms (accepted as “annoyance” symptoms), are well known to medical practitioners and clinical researchers to damage human health. Dr Kelley was quoted in 2013 as advising that the conclusions from his research in the 1980’s were equally relevant to modern turbine designs,[18] and this seems to have been confirmed in the preliminary results of acoustic measurements commissioned by Pacific Hydro and conducted by acoustician Steven Cooper at the Cape Bridgewater (Victoria) development.[19]

3. The New Zealand and Australian Noise Standards for wind projects were written by the then uninformed planning authorities. They were based on the UK ETSU 97 standard, also an uninformed document.[20,21]

4. Despite information being available from the Kelley research in 1985 specifying recommended exposure levels of ILFN which should not be exceeded,[22] the respective Australian guidelines only specified limits for audible, filtered, sound levels expressed as dBA outside homes; so there are no recommended limits or requirements to forecast, or to measure, ILFN levels or vibration inside homes neighbouring wind projects.

5. Permitted sound levels across most Australian States for all industrial equipment are background noise levels plus 5dBA or 35dBA whichever is less, whereas for wind turbines they are background plus 5dBA or 40dBA whichever is more. There is no scientific evidence or reason for this difference. An increase of 5dBA represents an approximate doubling of the sound level. Most rural environments have a background noise level of 18dBA to 25dBA, approximately averaging 22dBA at night. This represents a huge increase in audible sound. Increases of 10dBA at night are long known by acoustic consultants to raise complaints, and increases of 15–20dB are associated with widespread complaints and legal action. Averaging measured levels of sound across too-wide frequency bands also allows the hiding of sound pressure (level) peaks to which the ear responds, understating the true extent of facility noise emission levels.

6. World Health Organisation (WHO) Night Noise Guidelines for Europe quoted the 1999 WHO Community Noise Guidelines: “If negative effects on sleep are to be avoided the equivalent sound pressure level should not exceed 30 dBA indoors for continuous noise”.[23] Cities have a higher background noise than country areas. Denmark limits indoor noise from industrial sources, including wind turbines, to a maximum of 20 dBA at night.[24]

7. The currently permitted outdoor noise level in New Zealand and some Australian states has been ameliorated somewhat by the addition of a deduction of 5dBA from the 40dBA limit to allow for especially quiet environments.

8. History has shown that these Australian guidelines were based on ETSU 97 from the UK, and were expressly designed to encourage development of the wind industry, not to protect the health of rural residents from wind turbine noise. Predictably, because the Kelley criteria limiting exposure to impulsive ILFN were ignored,[25] these guidelines have turned out to be completely unsafe.

9. It is therefore necessary to predict and measure sound pressure levels across the full spectrum of frequencies in order to predict and control sound energy impacts on project neighbours.

Compliance with Permitted Noise Conditions

There are several problems associated with validating compliance.

1. Compliance is generally carried out by an acoustician or acoustics consultancy, paid directly by the owner or operator of the project. In one case a wind turbine manufacturer has contracted the acousticians directly, making the results even more questionable.

2. Compliance is of utmost importance to all parties with a financial interest in the development, but it is critical to families that neighbour the projects.

3. There are many ways that data measurements can be rigged (faux compliance): measuring instruments placed under trees or too close to buildings; waiting for optimum weather and wind conditions; not measuring for long enough continuously, recording in octave bands that are too broad and other averaging techniques. Operators may also reduce operational noise by reducing power output (with blade angle changes and slowed rotation) to reduce the noise during the monitoring period. Operators may also refuse to provide wind turbine facility operating data from test periods, claiming that it is “commercial in confidence”, thus making it impossible to verify actual operating conditions.

4. It would therefore be both appropriate and necessary for all projects to have their compliance independently audited.

5. Sufferers will not escape disturbance to their sleep and damage to their health even if a project is properly compliant with its permit conditions and noise guidelines, as preliminary findings of the acoustic survey commissioned by Pacific Hydro, conducted by Steven Cooper, have recently demonstrated.[26]

6. A compliant project may still cause damage to neighbours for numerous reasons. First, the standard refers to dBA only and thereby omits reference to ILFN; and second, even with regard to audible noise, the standard refers to a maximum of 40dBA outdoors, whereas every other form of industrial or other noise in country and city is limited to 35dBA maximum. There is no technical basis for such an aberration, and it is clearly (intended or not) discriminatory. Third, in quiet rural environments, even 35dBA will be intrusive and loud if the background level is below 25dBA, which is not uncommon. The ear responds to the peaks of sound levels, not the averages. The wind turbine noise standards all refer only to averages, and exclude ILFN, and do not account for the human response, so cannot protect people from predictable serious harm to their health.

Notes:

More Proof that Wind Turbine Syndrome is REAL!

August 6, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Pac Hydro’s Cape Bridgewater Wind Farm Victims Vindicated

August 6, 2014 by stopthesethings

Headache for residents after monitoring reveals bad vibes
The Australian
Graham Lloyd
2 August 2014

FOR the past two months, Melissa Ware’s 150-year-old stone-foundation house in the shadow of the Cape Bridgewater wind farm in Victoria has been wired to monitor sounds that cannot be heard easily by the human ear.

Ware, who is partially deaf, and two nearby families have kept a diary of the physical sensations they were experiencing at regular intervals. A scorecard was developed ranking three factors — noise, vibration and sensation — on a scale of one to five.

The research has been funded by wind farm owner Pacific Hydro and undertaken by acoustics specialist Steven Cooper, who has had a long interest in why wind turbines have produced so many health complaints that defy easy explanation.

For six years, since the wind turbines started operating at Cape Bridgewater, Ware has complained of headaches and other “pressure” effects she can attribute only to the arrival of the renewable energy project she once had supported enthusiastically.

The early results from comparing the readings from Cooper’s highly sensitive microphones and Ware’s diary notes provide uncomfortable evidence for the wind industry and some relief for Ware, told for six years that her problems were all in her head.

During the eight-week trials at Cape Bridgewater, from inside her house, Ware has been able to express with 100 per cent accuracy what is happening with the wind turbines outside.

In a report-back meeting to residents and the company, Cooper posed the theory that high sensations, including headaches and chest pains, correlated to times when the turbine blades were not efficiently aligned to the wind.

The results from recordings and residents’ diaries show that a change in power output of more than 20 per cent leads to a change in sensation for the residents.

“The main thing I get from the study is that there is a direct correlation from the noise coming out of the wind farm and the response in my body to that noise,” Ware says. “I have a bilateral hearing impairment, and I don’t always hear from the wind farm, but I feel it from the ground, the floor or the furniture I am sitting on.”

Cooper has said the Pacific Hydro Cape Bridgewater development complies with existing noise guidelines. Issues of ambient noise from waves on surrounding cliffs and wind direction also are relevant in the data.

Pacific Hydro has published the minutes of the report-back meetings and Cooper’s preliminary findings but has drawn no public conclusions. Company spokesman Andrew Richards says Cooper’s work has “resulted in some interesting data” but “doesn’t necessarily provide any conclusions or outcomes”.

But Richards acknowledges there is a problem. “Whatever they are experiencing is real for them,” he says.

University of Sydney public health specialist Simon Chapman has used the term “nocebo” to argue that the complaints are psychosomatic and exacerbated by warnings from anti-wind farm groups.

In a new paper, Chapman says “The statement that ‘more than 40’ houses have been ‘abandoned’ because of wind turbines in Australia is a factoid promoted by wind farm opponents for dramatic, rhetorical impact.”

A review by the National Health and Medical Research Council says there is “no consistent evidence that adverse health effects are caused by exposure to wind turbine noise”.

However, it says: “While no research has directly addressed the association between infrasound from wind turbines and health effects, the possibility of such an association cannot be excluded on present evidence.”

Concerned residents in Australia want the federal government to use Cooper’s research methodology at Cape Bridgewater as the basis for an independent study that has been promised by Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane.
The Australian

Steven Cooper is yet to analyse the mountain of data he has collected, but a snapshot of his initial findings can be found in the presentation he gave Cape Bridgewater’s long-suffering residents a couple of weeks back: pdf available here. Here’s a summary of his preliminary findings:

Initial Findings

Discussions revealed different impacts on residents – broken down to noise, vibration and sensation to be reported on a 1 – 5 severity scale.
Developed a method of graphically displaying results where blue is noise, green is vibration and red is sensation
When plotting power output of wind farms the initial assessment could not correlate results with observations except for showing changes
Found residents were just reporting changes they noticed in their perceived impacts. MAJOR FINDING
Changed reporting to give regular (1 – 2 hr) observations not just changes.
Plotting the observations versus the power output of the wind farm found correlation with some of the various acoustic indices INSIDE the dwellings.
High sensation levels related to turbines just starting, change in power levels by say more than 20% (either up or down) and when wind exceeds maximum power output and blades are being de-powered.
Correlation of external background level versus power output but no correlation of observations with the external dB(A) level.
Issue of ambient noise from waves on cliff/ocean and wind direction is relevant in data.

Preliminary Findings to Date

The use of dB(A) noise levels external to a dwelling have no correlation with internal noise levels or impacts that residents identified as occurring as a result of the wind farm.
With the wind farm not in operation the residents indicate that noise, vibration and sensation are all at low severity ratings although there was one resident who clearly has a greater sensitivity than the other residents and is able to identify instances of noise, vibration and sensation that are above a threshold level.
However those instances are of short duration and are not of a constant impact.
There is a direct correlation with the external dB(A) level and the power output of the wind farm.
There is correlation between the power level of the wind farm versus the dB(A)LF level determined inside residential dwellings.
Where the dB(A)LF exceeds 20 dB there is a corresponding identification of noise in the diary observations.
Where the internal measurements reveal the dB(A) L95 is above 20 dB(A) together with the dB(A)LF above 20 and the same time dB(C) above 50dB and the 4 Hz 1/3 octave band above 50dB then there is a higher degree of noise and sensation which would be deemed by the residents as unacceptable.
The higher levels of sensation occur with the qualification of the above indices and also exhibit a noticeable drop in the dB(C) Leq minus dB(A) Leq together with an increase in dB(A) Leq minus dB(A) L95. This may provide a simple tool to identify the need for examination of modulation of characteristics. However it is noted that there are some limitations in normal noise loggers to provide accurate results of the dB(A) Leq and dB(A) L95, due to the noise floor of instrumentation used.
At none of the houses has the dB(G) been above 85 and therefore if that level has taken as the hearing threshold of infrasound then there is no audible infrasound in any of the houses
The presence of the wind turbine signature, which is related to the blade pass frequency and multiple harmonics of that frequency, is readily identified inside dwellings and at times outside dwellings.
The wind turbines signature does not exists when the turbines are not operational.
The use of 1/3 octave band information to compare infrasound generated by turbines and the infrasound in the natural environment does not contain the required information to identify any difference. When supplemented by narrow band analysis of the infrasound region the results clearly show that the natural environment of infrasound has no such periodic patterns.
Electrical interference/surges in mains + very strong winds has created problems with some data collection.
The significant amount of data that is available from the monitoring will require further time for detailed analysis in view of issues that have been raised by the residents during the course of the monitoring and the findings to date.
Analysis of vibration measurements around an inside houses is yet to be undertaken.
Basic material is to be presented looking at the pitch angles etc. during certain time periods for further analysis by Pacific Hydro and its turbine suppliers.
The resident’s observations and identification of sensation separately to vibration and noise indicates that the major source of complaint for the operation of the turbines would appear to be related to sensation rather than noise.

Steven Cooper July 2014

It’s clear then that what people like Melissa Ware are experiencing isn’t a figment of their imaginations; or the product of “scaremongering” by the Waubra Foundation.

The punishment being meted out to people like Melissa leaves them with a choice: stay and suffer; or pack up and leave. Plenty of Australian families have plumped for the latter.

For a rundown on Australian wind farm victims abandoning perfectly good homes see our post here – where Senator John Madigan details the scale of a perfectly avoidable disaster.

Among those who have decided that their long-term health is more important than their homes is another of Pac Hydro’s victims, Sonia Trist (see our post here).

All of this suffering is the direct product of the mandatory RET: no RET, no RECs, no wind farms. The misery being dealt up at Cape Bridgewater on a nightly basis is just another unjustified cost of the most costly and perverse industry welfare scheme ever devised (see our post here).

Almost graciously, Pac Hydro spin doctor Andrew Richards concedes in favour of its victims that: “Whatever they are experiencing is real for them.” Funny about that.

For a little taste of the “reality” of the life brought to Cape Bridgewater by Pac Hydro, cop an earful of the soundtrack to this video (and see our post here).

****

Stop the Windweasels Dead in Their Tracks! It’s a SCAM! NO R.E.T.!

August 3, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Lessons from Germany’s Wind Power Disaster

August 3, 2014 by stopthesethings

All lies and promises – the wind industry has finally been rumbled in Germany and is about to be shown the door in Australia.

The wind industry and its parasites have been guilty of more than just a little hubris. Claiming to be able to deliver cheap, reliable sparks was always going to be their undoing. Gradually, Europeans are waking up to the unassailable fact that wind power is based on a technology that was redundant before it began.

No modern economy can run with electricity delivered at crazy, random intervals. To compensate for that meteorological fact, Germany is flat out building more coal fired power stations – not less. Around the globe the wind industry promises to displace “dirty” coal fired power and Germany is no exception. But the reality is very different: the facts have finally caught up with them – wind power will never replace fossil fuel generators and the costs of having capacity to back up wind power is astronomical.

German industry is bailing out and heading to the US – where power is a third of the cost that it is in Germany – and some 800,000 German homeshave been disconnected from the grid – victims of what is euphemistically called “fuel poverty”. For Germans the attraction to wind power is fading fast – funny about that.

A group of Swiss energy market economists have launched a scathing attack on Germany’s wind and solar policies: “Development And Integration Of Renewable Energy: Lessons Learned From Germany” – Hans Poser; Jeffrey Altman; Felix ab Egg; Andreas Granata; and Ross Board
July 2014 (pdf available here).

We’ve extracted some of the key findings and conclusions below.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Over the last decade, well-intentioned policymakers in Germany and other European countries created renewable energy policies with generous subsidies that have slowly revealed themselves to be unsustainable, resulting in profound, unintended consequences for all industry stakeholders. While these policies have created an impressive roll-out of renewable energy resources, they have also clearly generated disequilibrium in the power markets, resulting in significant increases in energy prices to most users, as well as value destruction for all stakeholders: consumers, renewable companies, electric utilities, financial institutions, and investors.

The rapid growth of renewable energy in Germany and other European countries during the 2000’s was due to proactive European and national policies aimed at directly increasing the share of renewable production in their energy mixes through a variety of generous subsidy programs. Two main types of subsidy programs for renewable power developed in Europe include feed-in tariffs (FITs), which very quickly became the policy of choice for Germany and many other European countries, and quota obligation systems.

FITs are incentives to increase production of renewable energy. This type of subsidy guarantees long-term (usually for 20 years) fixed tariffs per unit of renewable power produced. These fixed tariffs normally are independent of market prices and are usually set by the government, but can be structured to be reduced periodically to account for technology cost decreases. The level of the tariffs normally depends on the technology used and the size of the production facility. Because of their generosity, FITs proved capable of quickly increasing the share of renewable power, but since the FITs are set administratively, it is difficult to meet renewable energy goals in the most cost-effective way possible.

The most important lessons learned include:

Policymakers underestimated the cost of renewable subsidies and the strain they would have on national economies. As an example, Germany’s FIT program has cost more than $412 billion to date (including granted and guaranteed, but not yet paid FIT). Former German Minister of the Environment Peter Altmaier recently estimated that the program costs would reach $884 billion (€680 billion) by 2022. He added that this figure could increase further if the market price of electricity fell, or if the rules and subsidy levels were not changed. Moreover, it is estimated that Germany will pay $31.1 billion in subsidies for 2014 alone. A recent analysis found that from 2008 to 2013, Germany incurred $67.6 billion (€52 billion) in net export losses because of its high energy costs, compared to its five leading trade partners. Losses in energy intensive industries accounted for 60 percent of the total losses. This was further highlighted by a recent International Energy Agency report, which stated that the European Union (EU) is expected to lose one-third of its global market share of energy intensive exports over the next two decades due to high energy prices, expensive energy imports of gas and oil, as well as costly domestic subsidies for renewable energy.

Retail prices to many electricity consumers have increased significantly, as subsidies in Germany and the rest of Europe are generally paid by the end users through a costsharing procedure. Household electricity prices in Germany have more than doubled, increasing from €0.14/kilowatt hour (kWh) ($0.18) in 2000 to more than €0.29/kWh ($0.38) in 2013. In Spain, prices also doubled from €0.09/kWh in 2004 to €0.18/kWh in 2013 ($0.12 to $0.23) while Greece’s prices climbed from €0.06/kWh in 2004 to €0.12/kWh in 2013 ($0.08 to $0.16). Comparatively, household electricity prices in the United States average $0.13/kWh, and have remained relatively stable over the last decade.

Fossil and nuclear plants are now facing stresses to their operational systems as these plants are now operating under less stable conditions and are required to cycle more often to help balance renewables’ variability. Investments in retrofits will be required for these plants in order to allow them to run to these new operational requirements. Moreover, renewable resources are dramatically changing thermal plants’ resource planning and margins. As a result, many of these plants are now being retired or are required to receive capacity payments in order to economically be kept online.

Large scale deployment of renewable capacity does not translate into a substantial displacement of thermal capacity. Because of the variability of wind and solar, there are many hours in the year during which most generation comes from thermal power plants, which are required to provide almost complete redundant capacity to ensure the reliability of the system. In turn, grid interventions have increased significantly as operators have to intervene and switch off or start plants that are not programmed to run following marketbased dispatching. For instance, one German transmission operator saw interventions grow from two in 2002 to 1,213 in 2013. It is higher amounts of renewables with low full load hours relative to the total portfolio of power production that creates greater variability and strains on the grid. In the case of Germany, it is the large-scale deployment of both wind and solar that has impacted the entire system.

Large-scale investments in the grid are being required to expand transmission grids so they can connect offshore and onshore wind projects in the north of Germany to consumers in the south of the country. The total investment cost for the build-out of German onshore and offshore transmission systems is estimated to be around $52 billion (€40 billion) over the next 10 years. Moreover, the grids are now being challenged to meet the dynamic flows of variable renewables and require significant additional investment to accommodate increased penetration of renewables. All of these costs will ultimately be passed on to electricity consumers. This has not gone unnoticed in Germany or in the EU. A report was released in late February 2014 by an independent expert commission mandated by the German government, which concluded that Germany’s current program of incenting renewables is an uneconomic and inefficient means to reduce emissions and therefore should be stopped. Moreover, the European Commission released new guidelines on April 9, 2014, with effect starting in 2017 that will correct market distortions. It will essentially ban all FIT subsidies and introduce technology agnostic auctions as the only incentives for renewables.

Large thermal as back-up – grid interventions

The more variable renewables there are, the more the thermal power plants will serve as back-up and balancing for renewables.

Figure 24 shows the daily production of solar, wind, and conventional generation in Germany. The maximum daily solar and wind-combined production in 2012 was 530 GWh on January 5, 2012, while the minimum was only 30 GWh on December 19, 2012.

Given the average daily power consumption of around 1,643 GWh in Germany, this means that in spite of the 13.2 percent share of wind and solar power in total power generation, there must be almost complete redundant capacity of thermal plants or storage.

Wind and solar energy, by their very nature, are highly variable, with fluctuations in weather conditions causing significant variance over multiple timescales: seconds (gusts of wind and passing cloud cover), minutes (wind speed variations, briefly overcast skies), days (diurnal cycles, creating peaks of solar condition), months/quarters (seasonal cycles), and years (annual variation in environmental conditions).

At yearly and seasonal levels, both wind and solar generation can be forecasted with relative certainty. It is when considering diurnal (daily) generation profiles that variability occurs and requires system operators to intervene and make sure that supply and demand of electricity are equal at all times.

In Germany, as the percentage of renewable power increased, so did the number of times that grid operators had to intervene to rebalance the market. In 2012, there were 1,213 such interventions.

For new thermal power plants to replace the currently uneconomical power plants once they reach their technical lifetime, current prices will have to rise. The effect of fewer operational hours needs to be compensated by higher prices in these hours. As a consequence, it is likely that markets will experience lower prices in times when there is sufficient renewable power and much higher prices at other times.

Renewables generate higher direct costs than traditional power production. Traditional base load wholesale power can be generated in Germany at around €65/MWh, but wind power and solar PV in Germany receive a FIT of around €90 /MWh.

Because renewables, like wind and solar, do not produce at certain times, available back-up power to the system is required. The back-up capacity must be financed even if it is used only occasionally as back-up. Therefore the little power that is produced in the back-up plants will become expensive. Data drawn from business models of Finadvice show that a CCGT can produce 3000 GWh per year at fixed costs of €11/MWh, in a power system without renewables. If renewables reduce the production of the CCGT to for example 1500 GWh, the price needed to recover fixed costs will double to €22/MWh. In a nutshell, this could mean that the cost of power in the hours with renewable power is the subsidized €90/MWh instead of conventional €65 MWh, and when there is no renewable power, the (back-up) power price will be €76/MWh (65 + 11).

CONCLUSION: TAKEAWAYS OF THE GERMAN AND EUROPEAN EXPERIENCE WITH RENEWABLES

The United States and other countries have a unique opportunity to assess the lessons learned in Germany and other European-member states and achieve positive results at lower cost and risk for all stakeholders.

The large increase in market share of variable renewable generation (mainly from solar PV and wind) is changing the dynamics and operations of electricity markets, as exemplified in Germany:

While in the past, German wholesale prices followed the demand curve, they now react to the weather, going down when the sun shines and the wind blows, and up, during times of high demand, when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow. Accordingly, price forecasts and power trading now require new modeling and different inputs, including a much greater focus on weather forecasting.
Power trading has become more short-term (intra-day, quarter hour, regulation, capacity) than in a conventional generation environment.
Regulatory policies were not designed to incentivize flexible renewable power to be available where and when needed. Therefore, further regulatory interventions will be required to create a balanced system that will ultimately impact investments for both renewable companies and utilities over time as various energy markets transition to an increased portfolio of renewables.
The power grid has to be upgraded to accept dynamic power input from many decentralized and distant variable sources.
In the absence of energy storage, current electric systems cannot easily cope with the surplus of renewable energy, and curtailment will be required at times in order to maintain reliability.
Intermittent renewables, like solar and wind, tend to cannibalize their own market by reducing prices when they are available. With current cost structures, if wind and solar are to produce a significant share of the power generation, they will likely require support through energy storage or additional subsidies to be profitable.

In conclusion, the lessons learned in Europe prove that the large-scale integration of renewable power does not provide net savings to consumers, but rather a net increase in costs to consumers and other stakeholders. Moreover, when not properly assessed in advance, large-scale integration of renewables into the power system ultimately leads to disequilibrium in the power markets, as well as value destruction to both renewable companies and utilities, and their respective investors.

Finadvice FAA Financial Advisory AG
July 2014

The takeaway from all that is that if Australia wants energy market chaos; energy poverty; and to kill what’s left of its manufacturing sector it need only keep following Germany’s lead.

The mandatory RET must go now.

Faux-green Enviro-fanatics Hide Their Sins…A Diesel Spill, no less!

August 2, 2014August 2, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Week-end Humour! Green Group Dumps Oil on Great Barrier Reef

Posted: 01 Aug 2014 12:38 AM PDT

It may not be Australia’s Exxon Valdez, but when a ship dumps 500 litres of diesel into the pristine Trinity Inlet at the Great Barrier Reef, there would be headlines around the world, wouldn’t there?

Well, wouldn’t there?

And wouldn’t the Greens led by Christine Moan and the “Sea Patrol” Devotee Sarah Hanson-Bling be screaming to the high heavens?

Well, it happened. And they didn’t raise a murmur.

In fact it happen five months ago.

Do you remember the headlines in all the Main stream Media (MSM)? Did you see ANY headlines in the MSM?

If the answer is no; obviously you do not read the Cairns Post. (LINK)

diesel spill that dropped up to 500 litres

of diesel into the Trinity Inlet

And why, you pry, didn’t we hear a cry? Shouldn’t they fry? Who was the bad guy? Was it Captain Bligh? No, according to Moan and Hanson-Bling it was a good guy!

It was the New Atlantis under the Captainship of the Green’s Fellow Earthling Bob Brown, Sea Shepherd extraordinaire.

….ship owned by conservation group Sea Shepherd dropped up to 500 litres of diesel into the Trinity Inlet. The environmental organisation, whose Australian arm is chaired by former politician Bob Brown, yesterday pleaded guilty to the marine pollution offence in the Cairns Magistrates Court.

Surely you heard about it, didn’t you? You would have heard about it

From the SMH and the Age
Blasted over “our” ABC’s speakers;
From 7’s Mark Riley and 9’s Laurie Oakes;
The Deafening wail from the Greens;

Did the crew of the Sea Shepherd discover the dreadful leak? NO.

The court was told a passerby noticed diesel flowing into the sea about 6.30pm and tried to alert crew members before notifying the master of a ship moored alongside who boarded the New Atlantis and told them.

“She noticed a strong smell of diesel fuel and saw liquid running from the New Atlantis into the water,” the court document read.

“The smell was so strong the passerby had to put a jumper over her nose … “

Well, even if the Greens, the MSM and the TV channels didn’t think to mention it, the Magistrate thought that it was significant.

Magistrate Kevin Priestly called the amount “not insignificant” and questioned why a crewman was performing the fuel transfer and not the chief engineer.

Department of Transport and Main Roads prosecutor Anne Roseler called for a penalty of between $15,000 and $30,000. Mr Priestly adjourned the decision to a date to be fixed.

Hhmmmmm…….

Excellent Letter from the Waubra Foundation! Important information!!

July 31, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Rye Park Wind Development, NSW. Letter to Minister for Planning from Waubra Foundation

Waubra Foundation letter to Hon Pru Goward, Minister for Planning, NSW Government. July 4, 2014

Dear Minister Goward,

I am writing directly to you to express the Foundation’s grave concern about the inevitable serious damage to human health, which will occur if the proposed Rye Park Wind Development is approved. Unlike the NSW Health Department, the Waubra Foundation has investigated these problems directly at NSW wind developments. The problems reported by NSW residents for over ten years are consistent with those being reported around the world. I have been working specifically in this area of low frequency noise and health full time for four years, and have given expert evidence in court proceedings in Canada and In Australia.

It is our opinion that previous advice given by the responsible officials from NSW Health to NSW Planning and NSW PAC members about wind turbine noise related adverse health effects (“no evidence of a problem”) is at best grossly ignorant, at worst willfully blind. We therefore urge you, as the NSW Government Minister ultimately responsible, to take heed of the warnings about serious harm to human health from wind turbine noise being increasingly expressed by researchers, medical practitioners, acousticians and scientists internationally, who have direct knowledge of the severity of the health problems, unlike theNSW Health Department who have refused to investigate for themselves.

I have attached a recent summary of the state of knowledge in this area, dated 1st June, 2014 together with a number of other documents which are of relevance, including a detailed critique of the latest 2014 NHMRC literature review, which details the material which was omitted from that literature review.

I have also attached some of the material sent to the Australian Medical Association from international researchers and clinicians who were extremely concerned at the ignorance and bias contained in the AMA’s recent position statement, and very concerned at the harm that would ensue if that advice was relied upon. Predictably wind developers including Epuron are publicizing that misleading AMA statement in order to mislead the public about the adverse health impacts which are very well known to the global wind industry (see http://www.epuron.com.au/wind-farms-health-australian-medical-association/ ).

The abovementioned material together with the large body of related research, and our direct knowledge of the problems being reported by residents living near wind developments in Australia and internationally provides the background context to the weight of our concerns about the impact of the Rye Park proposal on the immediate neighbours, out to at least 10km from where the wind turbines are located.

We have been advised there is a school in Rye Park, currently with 23 students and approximately 240 residents in Rye Park itself, but many more residents in the surrounding area out to 10km from the proposed wind development, which include part of the towns of Boorowa, Yass, Dalton as well as Rye Park.

We note that 10km is increasingly being acknowledged as the “acoustic impact zone” for large wind turbines, most recently by acoustic consultants working for a Thai wind developer, RATCH (see further details below).

We first mentioned the 10km distance in our Explicit Cautionary Notice, which we sent to the NSW Departments of Planning and Health in June 2011.

That Explicit Cautionary Notice and the reference to 10km was compiled because of the reports of characteristic symptoms and health problems from residents living out to that distance at wind developments in Australia, particularly the then only 3MW wind development (Waterloo in South Australia). Our concerns have only increased since then, with the evidence collected independently of the Waubra Foundation contained in the population noise impact surveys conducted at Cullerin in NSW, Macarthur in Western Victoria and Waterloo in South Australia, and the independent acoustic evidence collected independently of the Waubra Foundation which is confirming the presence and effects of wind turbine infrasound and low frequency noise out to that distance (see appendix 1 for details).

We note that Marshall Day Acoustics in their report for RATCH re the Mt Emerald wind development have recently referred to 10km in the context of cumulative impacts from other wind developments, and they are now specifically referencing infrasound and low frequency noise. In section 5.6 they stated in their section “review of cumulative impact” (my emphasis in red):

“Separate wind farm developments that are in close proximity to each other have the potential to impact on the same receiver. It is therefore necessary to assess any potential cumulative noise impact on receivers, where such circumstances exist. We understand that there are no other wind farm developments currently planned or operating within 10km of the proposed MEWF. On this basis, cumulative impacts of noise from more than one operating wind farm are not considered further.”

(http://mtemeraldwindfarm.com.au/updates/mewf_eis_docs/R72894%20EIS%20MEWF%20Volume%203%20-%20Appendix%207%20-%20Mt%20Emerald%20Wind%20Farm%20-%20Noise%20Impact%20Assessment.pdf

We note that Rye Park town itself is in a valley, and that the turbines will be on the ridges, which is known to increase the distance of sound propagation, especially with temperature inversions, common in this area.

Wind turbine sound is well known to travel along valleys. We note there are two other large wind developments proposed for the area (Bango Wind Development (122 turbines to the west of Rye Park) and Rugby Wind Development (52 turbines to the north of Rye Park) which increase our concerns about the cumulative adverse acoustic impact of all these projects, particularly on residents in the town of Rye Park.

Adverse Health effects from excessive noise known for many years

The significant adverse health consequences resulting from chronic exposure to excessive environmental noise resulting in chronic sleep disturbance and chronic stress and their serious downstream health consequences are detailed in numerous World Health Organisation major literature reviews on noise since 1995 (Community Noise 1995 and 1999, Night Noise Guidelines for Europe 2009, and Environmental Noise – Burden of Disease 2011 seehttp://waubrafoundation.org.au/information/acousticians-noise-regulators/literature-reviews/ ). They are also documented in a major Australian literature review on Environmental noise in 2004 (http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/health-effects-environmental-noise-other-than-hearing-loss/ ). In other words, this issue of serious health problems being caused by excessive environmental noise is not new.

The longer the period of time the residents are exposed to excessive noise, the worse the cumulative effect will be on their health, and the greater proportion of the population who will be adversely impacted and report disturbance from the noise, because of progressive “sensitization” to the wind turbine noise (known and described in 1985 by Dr Neil Kelley et al http://waubrafoundation.org.au/2013/explicit-warning-notice/ and also documented by Professor Geoffrey Leventhall in 2003 http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/review-published-research-low-frequency-noise-leventhall/ ) and noted by UK ENT specialist Amir Farboud in 2013 (http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/wind-turbine-syndrome-fact-or-fiction-farboud-et-al/ ).

Progressive worsening of the noise related sleep impacts with cumulative exposure on a given population is illustrated by the population noise impact surveys conducted in 2012 and 2013 by NSW resident Mrs Patina Schneider, on the Cullerin Range wind development, just outside of Goulburn (see appendix 1).

Your department officials and other public servants and ministers in the NSW government are well aware of the reported wind turbine noise related sleep and health problems at Cullerin, and other NSW wind developments, but have done nothing to improve the regulation of excessive noise from wind turbines which is harming the health of NSW citizens in predictable ways.

Breaches of Human Rights

Australia is a signatory to various UN Conventions and Covenants (see https://www.humanrights.gov.au/chart-related-rights-and-articles-human-rights-instruments-human-rights-your-fingertips-human-rights . There are two general areas where the human rights of rural residents living near wind turbines are being regularly breached, particularly because of the sleep deprivation they are experiencing. They are:

a) the right of citizens to attain the highest level of mental and physical health possible
b) the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

Torture from sleep deprivation is a serious matter; as sleep deprivation and sensory bombardment from noise are acknowledged as methods of torture by bodies such as the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT), Physicians for Human Rights, and by the courts. Australia is a signatory to a number of UN conventions and covenants which prohibit the torture and cruel and inhuman degrading treatment of citizens, and for which responsible public officials may be held to be complicit or responsible if there is evidence of “intention”. See Part 1, Article 1, Section 1 of the UN Convention against Torture – bolding my emphasis (http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/un-convention-against-torture/ )

“For the purposes of this Convention, the term “torture” means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person …… for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.”

The longstanding attitude of neglect towards, or bias against rural residents badly impacted by environmental noise from wind turbines and other sources such as coal mining is blatantly discriminatory. Documented public statements by some NSW public service employees that rural residents are “collateral damage” (in the case of wind turbine noise) could be held to indicate “intent”, and a discriminatory attitude, when complaints of human rights abuses currently being prepared by some residents severely impacted by environmental noise are lodged with the Human Rights Commission.

Other UN conventions and covenants stipulate that the state will help individuals to attain the best possible physical and mental health (seehttps://www.humanrights.gov.au/chart-related-rights-and-articles-human-rights-instruments-human-rights-your-fingertips-human-rights ). This is impossible for rural residents to achieve if environmental noise pollution including wind turbine noise pollution is not properly regulated, independently of the noise polluter.

From a planning perspective, if wind turbines are sited too close to homes this will also result in predictable and serious harm to health. There is documented harm to sleep and health in residents living out to 10km from existing wind developments in NSW, Victoria and South Australia (appendix 1).

Wind turbine noise is being measured inside these homes, and increasingly acoustic events involving infrasound and low frequency noise are being shown to correlate directly with particular sensations perceived by the residents, which is consistent with the NASA & Kelley US research in the 1980’s (see particularly Professor Con Doolan’s work at Waterloo in South Australia http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/characterisation-noise-homes-affected-by-wind-turbine-noise/ as well as Mr Les Huson’s acoustic data collection at Macarthur in Western Victoria relating to “pressure bolt sensations” http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/huson-l-expert-evidence-at-vcat-cherry-tree-hearing/ and most recently Mr Steven Cooper’s acoustic survey work at Cape Bridgewater, commissioned by Pacific Hydro, currently being completed (preliminary details here: http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/trist-sonia-pacific-hydro-meeting-with-cape-bridgewater-residents-june-2–2014/ ).

Wind Turbine Infrasound and Low Frequency Noise Directly Cause Symptoms

The knowledge of direct causation of “annoyance” symptoms including sleep disturbance from impulsive wind turbine generated infrasound and low frequency noise is not new, but has been long ignored and denied by the wind industry, who are well aware of it. It is unfortunate that much of this crucially important research by credible research institutions was not included in the recent NHMRC literature review or draft information statement.

Researchers including NASA and Solar Energy Research Institute scientists led by Dr Neil Kelley in the USA established direct causation of “annoyance” symptoms from wind turbine noise in the 1980’s, which we have summarized in our Explicit Warning notice, also attached.

These research findings were consistent with previous scientific knowledge relating to military aircraft noise by Harvey Hubbard. Kelley also established a dose response relationship and recommended maximum exposure levels to help protect people from the adverse effects, which were based on his empirical data.

These exposure levels for chronic exposure to infrasound and low frequency noise were also ignored by the wind industry and its acoustic consultants, and no government wind turbine noise guidelines anywhere in the world has incorporated their measurement. This is hardly surprising given the very active role wind turbine manufacturers and developers have played in helping to write wind turbine noise guidelines – a gross financial conflict of interest which should never have happened.

The South Australian wind turbine noise pollution guidelines adopted by NSW were based on guidelines written in the UK called ETSU 97, which had a significant number of wind developer’s acousticians involved, and whose priority was the expansion of the British wind industry. Whilst acousticians have a professional obligation to protect the health and safety of the public above commercial considerations, it is clear that has not happened.

The NSW Department of Planning has also historically ignored the obvious financial conflict of interest which wind developers and wind turbine manufacturers have on this issue. Please look at the correspondence held in your department between Jonathon Upson of Infigen and responsible officers in the NSW Planning department, and Mr Ken McAlpine’s (VESTAS) submission to the NSW department of Planning concerning the proposed Wind Farm Planning Guidelines, with particular reference to their comments about infrasound and low frequency noise. Mr McAlpine’s comments were made at a time when the VESTAS CEO knew low frequency noise was harmful, but had lobbied the then Danish Environment Minister to ensure the proposed Danish low frequency noise guidelines were weakened in order to protect Danish jobs. (http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/vestas-lobbies-danish-environment-minister-not-tighten-noise-regulations/ )

Further evidence that the wind industry are well aware of the direct causation of sleep deprivation and a range of other “annoyance” symptoms now known as “wind turbine syndrome” (WTS) includes the following:

• Non disclosure clauses or “gag clauses” in the following types of agreements with wind developers

o Property buy out agreements of affected residents (admitted by Slater & Gordon, May 2012) http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/slater-gordon-acknowledge-confidentiality-clauses/

o Wind turbine host contracts (documented by Coalition Senator Chris Back in the Federal Senate in October 2012 http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/senator-back-reveals-gag-clauses-wind-developer-contracts/

o So called “good neighbour agreements” which stop neighbours from complaining in the future about noise & health impacts. These have been particularly aggressively used by New Zealand developers Trustpower (http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/neighbour-deed-palmer-wind-farm-south-australia/ ) and Meridian Energy, including in Western Australia.

o Clauses in contracts of sale of land near wind developments (Mt Emerald, QLD) http://waubrafoundation.org.au/2014/developer-port-bajool-pty-ltd-inserts-clause-stating-no-objection-wind-farm-contracts-sale-oaky-creek-farm-properties/

• Encumbrances over neighbouring properties. See for example schedule 3 inserted in 2006 by Meridian Energy in a contract used in NZ.http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/meridian-energy-nz-forestry-group-memorandum-encumbrance/

• Confirmation by Professor Geoffrey Leventhall that he has known of the symptoms of “wind turbine syndrome” for years at the NHMRC workshop in June 2011, and in court proceedings in Canada. Professor Leventhall was one of two undisclosed peer reviewers of the first NHMRC literature review, who has worked with the wind industry for some years to protect its interests in various court proceedings internationally.

• The symptoms covered by the word “annoyance” were listed in the 2009 Literature Review commissioned by the American and Canadian Wind Industry in 2009 (the Colby Review) which was a key document relied upon by the NHMRC in its first literature review – the 2010 “Rapid Review”. Further details of what “annoyance” has been taken to mean are available here:

http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/annoyance-and-wind-turbines-society-for-wind-vigilance/

The inevitable results of this denial of the established science about the known adverse health impacts resulting from exposure to infrasound and low frequency noise, are the shattered lives and communities in places like Waterloo, South Australia and Macarthur in Western Victoria where VESTAS V 90 and V 112 wind turbines have destroyed the sleep, health and amenity of a growing number of local residents.

The experiences of these residents have been documented in senate inquiries, and in affidavits to legal proceedings in both Victoria and South Australia, and in no instance was the truth of the resident’s accounts questioned or disputed.

The importance of wind turbine separation distances

It is also of importance that these two wind developments using 3 MW turbines (Macarthur and Waterloo) as well as Cullerin Range in New South Wales (2 MWturbines), do not have the recommended turbine separation distances between them – they are far too close together, which inevitably increases the wake turbulence and the amount of infrasound and low frequency noise generated.

The NSW SEDA Wind Farm Planning Handbook from 2002 acknowledges the importance of adequate turbine separation distances (5 – 8 rotor diameters aparthttp://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/nsw-wind-energy-handbook-2002/ ) and yet the wind industry are pushing to have wind turbines sited much more closely together (eg 3 – 5 rotor diameter separation distances) at numerous wind developments across Australia (Cherry Tree in Victoria and Stony Gap in South Australia).

This is occuring despite longstanding research from NASA showing that increased generation of wind turbine infrasound and low frequency noise will result from upwind bladed wind turbines if the inflow air is turbulent (http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/shepherd-k-hubbard-h-noise-radiation-characteristics-westinghouse-wwg-0600-wind-turbine-generator /).

A useful visual dynamic depiction of this turbulence, from the tip vortices, was recently captured by researchers at the University of Minnesota using laser lighting during a snow storm http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/university-minnesota-eolos-research-new-study-uses-blizzard-measure-wind-turbine-airflow/ .

At static depiction of the wake turbulence and the extent of the impacts (out to 20km) from Maritime wind development at Horns Rev in the Atlantic is illustrated below.

This increased generation of infrasound and low frequency noise is further exacerbated when larger wind turbines are used, because the sound energy generated from larger more powerful machines shifts down to the lower frequencies (http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/moller-pedersen-low-frequency-noise-from-large-wind-turbines/ ).

Recent industry independent research from Johns Hopkins University has found that maximum energy generation efficiencies are obtained with turbine separation distances of 15 rotor diameters (http://www.windturbinesyndrome.com/2011/wind-farm-operators-are-going-to-have-to-space-turbines-farther-apart-johns-hopkins-univ-researcher/ .

Recent Adelaide University research published this year has confirmed that the tip vortices start breaking down at 7 rotor diameters distant from the turbine emitting them (https://www.wind-watch.org/documents/a-discussion-of-wind-turbine-interaction-and-stall-contributions-to-wind-farm-noise/ ).

It would therefore appear that a minimum of 7 rotor diameters should be used by wind developers as spacing between large wind turbines, in order to prevent the generation of excessive noise, including infrasound and low frequency noise, at least until further research is conducted to evaluate the human and acoustic impacts of using that separation distance. At the very least, in NSW, the 5 – 8 rotor diameter separation distances should be being adhered to, in accordance with the 2002 SEDA Handbook.

I have attached the Waubra Foundation’s submission to the Federal Renewable Energy Target review, which contains correspondence and data from independent acousticians Dr Malcolm Swinbanks and Mr Les Huson from the UK and Australia respectively which illustrates this point with respect to the Macarthur wind development in Victoria (see appendix http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/renewable-energy-target-review-waubra-foundation-submission-2014/ .

Concluding remarks

The serious adverse health effects including repetitive sleep deprivation and other symptoms euphemistically called “annoyance” have been known to the global wind industry and its acousticians for over thirty years (see http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/james-r-warning-signs-that-were-not-heard/ ).

UK Acoustician Professor Geoffrey Leventhall has publicly stated at the NHMRC workshop in Canberra in 2011 that the symptoms known to him as “annoyance” are identical to those described by Dr Nina Pierpont as “Wind Turbine Syndrome” (WTS). WTS is being acknowledged by increasing numbers of doctors and researchers globally, including most recently Dr Colette Bonner, the Irish Deputy Chief Medical Officer, and Dr Steven Rauch, a leading US otoneurologist from Harvard Medical School.

In addition to the sleep deprivation, annoyance symptoms and impaired quality of life which the recent 2014 NHMRC commissioned Systematic Literature Review identified, there is a disease complex known as “Vibroacoustic Disease”, (VAD) caused by chronic exposure to infrasound and low frequency noise and vibration, also described in the scientific literature for thirty years, which has more recently been identified in neighbours to wind turbines. The pathology associated withVAD is permanent, serious, and a growing public health problem because of the lack of noise pollution regulation of sound energy frequencies down in the infrasound and low frequency noise part of the sound spectra. VAD has been demonstrated in wind turbine neighbours in Portugal (http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/alves-pereria-m-castelo-branco-n-ltr-australian-new-zealand-journal-public-health/ ) and reported by rural residents living near wind turbines in Germany (http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/windwahn-story/ ).

Symptoms and disease complexes indicative of both WTS and VAD are being reported in an increasing number of rural Australian residents, together with exhaustion from sleep deprivation.

Sleep deprivation has been determined by courts to be an act of torture, or cruel and inhuman treatment because “sleep is considered a basic life necessity” (“Leave No Marks” http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/reports/leave-no-marks-report-2007.html ).

Sleep deprivation is well known to clinical medicine to be extremely damaging for mental and physical health, if it is prolonged. This is increasingly being demonstrated in the research literature, documented at length in the WHO guidelines for night time noise (http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/who-night-noise-guidelines-for-europe/ ) and also since (http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/sleep-duration-predicts-cardiovascular-outcomes/ ,http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/munzel-t-et-al-cardiovascular-effects-environmental-noise-exposure/ ).

Regardless of any other symptoms and health problems particular susceptible individuals may develop with exposure to excessive infrasound and low frequency noise, the cumulative sleep deprivation and its well known consequences will be the inevitable consequence for many residents in the vicinity of the Rye Park wind development, if it is approved by the NSW Government.

If this wind development is approved, those responsible for approving it cannot say they were not warned of the predictable serious adverse health consequences.

Yours sincerely

Sarah Laurie,

CEO Waubra Foundation

Attachments (downloadable at the following links)

Waubra Foundation: Recent Summary of Adverse Health Effects, 1st June, 2014
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/wind-turbine-noise-adverse-health-effects-june-2014/

Waubra Foundation: Open letter to NHMRC re flaws in 2014 Systematic Literature Review, 2014
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/waubra-foundation-open-letter-nhmrc-re-systematic-literature-review/

Waubra Foundation: Submission to the Australian Federal Government RET Review, 2014
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/renewable-energy-target-review-waubra-foundation-submission-2014/

Explicit Cautionary Notice
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/about/explicit-cautionary-notice/

Explicit Warning Notice
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/2013/explicit-warning-notice/

Letter to AMA and recent literature review, Emeritus Professor Alun Evans, Epidemiologist, Ireland, 2014
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/evans-prof-emeritus-alun-dismiss-any-adverse-effects-absurd-view-mounting-evidence/

Letter to AMA by Swedish Otoneurologist Dr Hakan Enbom
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/enbom-h-infrasound-from-wind-turbines-can-trigger-migraine-and-related-symptoms/

Letter to AMA from Danish Occupational Health Physician, Dr Mauri Johansson, 2014
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/johansson-dr-mauri-m-d-highly-alarming-position-paper-from-medical-association-ama/

Letter to AMA from Professor Robert McMurtry, Canada, 2014
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/prof-robert-mcmurtry-former-dean-medicine-writes-ama/

Letter to AMA from NZ scientist Dr Bruce Rapley, New Zealand. 2014
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/rapley-b-letter-ama-audibility-and-effects-infrasound/

Article by Professor Salt and Professor Lichtenhan in the Winter Edition of Acoustics Today, 2014
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/salt-n-lichtenhan-j-t-how-does-wind-turbine-noise-affect-people/

Physicians for Human Rights, “Leave No Marks” 2007 with particular reference to pp 22 – 26 relating to the use of sleep deprivation and sensory bombardment with noise as methods of torture
http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/reports/leave-no-marks-report-2007.html

Appendix 1 — Evidence for 10km acoustic impact zone from 2 – 3 MW turbines

Waubra Foundation’s Explicit Cautionary Notice, June 2011 first mentioned problems out to 10km
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/about/explicit-cautionary-notice/

Acoustic evidence of wind turbine noise extending out to 10km
NASA research from 1985 by William Willshire
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/nasa-long-range-down-wind-propagation-low-frequency-sound/

Professor Colin Hansen’s ongoing work relating to wind turbine noise out to 10km from Waterloo wind turbines is not yet published, however his opinion based on acoustic evidence was included in his letter to the Victorian Department of Health, regarding false and misleading statements about infrasound in their technical document issued in 2013
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/prof-colin-hansen-writes-victorian-dept-health-recent-wind-farms-health-doc/

Steven Cooper’s acoustic data from Waterloo wind development (8km)
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/are-wind-farms-too-close-communities/

Mr Les Huson’s expert evidence from the Cherry Tree case, relating to Macarthur, where he found that there was no attenuation of infrasound between 1.8km and 6.4 km from the nearest wind turbines, indicating that wind turbine generated infrasound will be travelling for very large distances (much greater than 10km)
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/huson-l-expert-evidence-at-vcat-cherry-tree-hearing/

The various population noise impact surveys done in Australia are here:
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/library/community-noise-impact-surveys/

Waterloo, South Australia – VESTAS V 90 (37 along a ridge)

Mrs Mary Morris’s 2012 survey conducted at Waterloo in South Australia. This survey was the only Australian research included in the 2014 NHMRC Systematic Literature Review
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/waterloo-wind-farm-survey-2012/

This 2012 survey by Mrs Morris was based on one conducted in 2011 by Frank Wang, an Adelaide University Masters student, but the population surveyed in Wang’s survey was only out to 5km
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/evaluation-wind-farm-noise-policies-south-australia/

Mrs Morris then compiled this information in 2013 showing what happened when the turbines at Waterloo were off for a week http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/morris-m-waterloo-case-series-preliminary-report/

Cullerin Range, NSW, 2 MW Repower turbines, sited on a ridge

Mrs Schneider’s 2012 and 2013 population noise impact surveys show the extent of the sleep deprivation. Nothing has been done about the severe night time noise related sleep disturbance and adverse health impact for these NSW residents by any NSW government department, despite many complaints which are documented in the 2013 survey.
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/cullerin-range-wind-farm-survey-august-2012/

http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/schneider-p-cullerin-range-wind-farm-survey-follow-up-july-august-2013/

Macarthur Wind Development, 140 3 MW V 112 VESTAS wind turbines, sited on flat land in Victoria

This survey was conducted only 6 months since the wind development commenced operating. Residents report being far more adversely impacted now, because of the predictable and known adverse cumulative health effects of chronic sleep deprivation and chronic stress.
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/macarthur-wind-energy-facility-preliminary-survey/

Evidence from Macarthur Wind Development Residents and acoustician Mr Les Huson was heard during the Cherry Tree Court case before the Victorian Civil Administrative Appeal Tribunal in 2013. Links to affidavits from Macarthur residents relating to that court case are below:

Mrs Maria Linke (lives 5km away, with her husband and four children – sleep adverse affected immediately)
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/linke-m-witness-statement-vcat-cherry-tree-hearing/

Mrs Jan Hetherington, widow, glass artist, working from her home 3km away from nearest wind turbine
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/hetherington-j-witness-statement-vcat-cherry-tree-tribunal/

Mr Andrew Gardner, Farmer, home is 1.8km away from nearest wind turbine
http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/gardner-statement-vcat-cherry-tree-hearing/ (1.8km away)

Download the letter →

Posted on: 25 July 2014. Category: Human Rights, Waubra Foundation Documents. Tags: Ann Schafer, Bango Wind Development, Dr Neil Kelley, Epuron,Infrasound, Low Frequency Noise, Macarthur, MArshall Day Acoustics, Mary Morris, Mt. Emerald, Nigh Noise Guidelines, NSW, PAC, Patina Schneider, Prof Geoffrey Leventhall, Prof. Con Doolan, RATCH, Rugby Wibnd Development, Rye Park Wind Development, Vestas, WHO.

Renewable Energy Targets, are the Best Targets to Miss. Stop them All Together!

July 29, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Hostages to a renewable ruse

Written by Nick Cater, Australian on 28 July 2014.

wind farm blight If there is a sound more pitiable than the whine of a pious environmental activist, it is the wail of a financier about to do his dough.

The mournful chorus now wafting from Greg Hunt’s waiting room is the sound of the two in unison, pleading with the Environment Minister to save the life of their misshapen bastard child, the renewable energy target.

You have to hand it to Hunt, who either has nerves of steel or is stone deaf, for he has retained both his cool and his fortitude.

The RET review by Dick Warburton on the government’s behalf has brought the rent-seekers out in force, for billions of dollars of corporate welfare is resting on its outcome.

As it stands, the RET will produce a bounteous return for a small group of investors shrewd enough to get into the windmill game while the rest of us are slapped with four-figure power bills.

Wind farms may be ugly but they are certainly not cheap, nor is the electricity that trickles from them. No one in their right minds would buy one if they had to sell power for $30 to $40 a megawatt hour, the going rate for conventional producers.

But since the retailers are forced to buy a proportion of renewable power, the windmill mafia can charge two to three times that price, a practice that in any other market would be known as price gouging.

As if a $60 premium were not reward enough, the transaction is further sweetened with a renewable energy certificate that they can sell to energy producers who insist on generating power in a more disreputable manner.

The going rate of $40 a megawatt hour means the total income per megawatt for wind farms is three to five times that of conventional power, and unless the government changes the scheme that return is only going to get better.

In an act of rent-seeking genius, the renewable lobby managed to persuade the Rudd government to set the 2020 target as a quantity — 41 terawatt hours — rather than 20 per cent of overall power as originally proposed.

Since the target was set, the energy generation forecast for 2020 has fallen substantially, meaning the locked-in renewable target is now more like 28 per cent.

That will send conventional producers scrambling for certificates, pushing up their price beyond $100. It’s a mouth-watering prospect for the merchant bankers and venture capitalists who were smart enough to jump on board, and brilliant news for Mercedes dealerships on the lower north shore, but of little or any benefit to the planet.

The cost of this speculative financial picnic will be about $17 billion by 2030 or thereabouts, according to Deloitte, which produced a report on the messy business last week.

Since the extra cost will be added to electricity bills, the RET is a carbon tax by another name, a regressive impost that will fall most heavily on those with limited incomes, such as pensioners.

The lowest income households already spend 7 per cent of their disposable incomes on energy, according to the Australian Council of Social Service. Energy takes just 2.6 per cent of the budget of those on high incomes.

Thus under the cover of responding to climate change — “the greatest moral, economic and social challenge of our time” — billions of dollars are taken from the poor and given to the rich investors in the unsightly industrial turbines that are blighting the lives of rural communities and stripping value from the properties of people who just wish to be left to live in peace.

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