Climate fear mongers

The Wind Turbine Scam is Destroying Our Economies, as Well as Our Communities!

/ 1957chev / 3 Comments

Professor Ross McKitrick: Wind turbines don’t run on wind, they run on subsidies.

August 31, 2014 by  

economics101

As STT followers are acutely aware, wind power is an economic and environmental fraud. Because wind power can only ever be delivered at crazy, random intervals – and, therefore, never “on-demand” – it will never be a substitute for those generation sources which are – ie hydro, nuclear, gas and coal (see our posts here and here and here and hereand here and here and here and here).

Were it not for government mandates – backed by a constant and colossal stream of subsidies (see our post here) – wind power generators would never dispatch a single spark to the grid, as they would never find a customer that would accept power delivered 30% of the time (at best) on terms where the vendor can never tell customers just when that power might be delivered – if at all (see our post here).

Ultimately, it’ll be the inherently flawed economics of wind power that will bring the greatest rort of all time to an end. The policies that created the wind industry are simply unsustainable and, inevitably, will either fail or be scrapped.

The Canadians are reeling under the ludicrous wind power policies of a hard-green-left Liberal government, clearly intent on committing economic suicide. Power prices – driven by exorbitant guaranteed rates to wind power outfits – have rocketed – tripling in less than a decade, driving energy intensive businesses – like manufacturing – out of business or offshore – stifling business investment – killing off or threatening thousands of sustainable (unsubsidised) jobs across Canada and otherwise creating economic chaos (see our post here).

The scale and scope of Canada’s wind power disaster hasn’t been lost on top energy market economists, like Ontario’s Professor Ross McKitrickfrom the University of Guelph.

Downwind - Ross McKitrick - Uni of Guelph (Time 0_06_00;22)

Ross was interviewed for the brilliant Sun News documentary ‘Down Wind’ by presenter, Rebecca Thompson, which has been extracted in the video below. The transcript appears below.

****

Downwind – Ross McKitrick – Uni of Guelph

Downwind – Ross McKitrick – Uni of Guelph

 

Rebecca Thompson: First we turn to Professor Ross McKitrick, an economist. He recently published a very scathing review of how economically unsound the Ontario Liberal government’s Green Energy Act is.

Professor Ross McKitrick: Well the important thing to understand about wind turbines is that they don’t run on wind, they run on subsidies.

Rebecca Thompson:  We went to see McKitrick at the University of Guelph.

Professor Ross McKitrick:  All the arguments that they’ve put forward for the Green Energy Act they really turned out to be phoney once we looked at them closely. They said that it would improve the economy, reduce air pollution emissions and it would replace coal fired power. And the problem is with the first one, it is not going to improve the economy because of what you are doing is replacing power that costs 3 to 5 cents per kilowatt hour to generate, and you’re replacing it with power that costs at least 13 1/2 cents per kilowatt hour to generate. So you’re raising the cost of doing business, it will drive down the rate of return in manufacturing and mining and that has to translate into job losses and reduced investment and shrinking the economy.

Rebecca Thompson: So you’ve pointed out that wind energy in fact, isn’t in the public interest in the short term but will it be in the long term?

Professor Ross McKitrick:  Nobody was building wind turbines in Ontario until the government started throwing money at it. It is not a profitable source of electricity, it’s not cost-effective. Wind turbines can’t compete on the wholesale market without a lot of government support.

Rebecca Thompson: The system used to fund wind energy in many places around the world is called a Feed-In-Tariff (FIT).

Professor Ross McKitrick:  And that means if you build a bank of wind turbines somewhere, and you get the contract that everyone is looking for you get a guarantee of 20 years being paid 13 1/2 cents per kilowatt-hour for the electricity that’s generated while the wholesale rate in Ontario is typically between 2 – 4 cents per kilowatt hour.

Rebecca Thompson: The Ontario government piggybacked off what is a European idea of a feed in tariff policy where the prices are locked in for 20 year contracts. And here’s another head scratcher …

Professor Ross McKitrick: The other provision of the contracts is that the system has to buy the power from you whenever you produce it. So the standard power plants, nuclear plants and hydro plants and so forth – there is no guarantee for them to buy their power, they have to compete on a wholesale market they have to price their product, in this case electricity, so that the system operator will buy it. With wind turbines, if the blades are running, the system operator has to buy it. Now they have adjusted that slightly in the last year because of this problem of the system operator being forced to buy tons and tons of power when it doesn’t need it, at 13 1/2 cents per kilowatt hour and sell it on the export market at one or two cents per kilowatt-hour – it was costing hundreds of millions of dollars a year for the system operator to do that. So the province now allows the system operator to reject some of the power that the wind turbines produce and instead the province will pay the wind turbine owners a benefit for what they call ‘deemed production’. So it’s really just transferred that same costs on to the taxpayer now.

Rebecca Thompson: The bottom line is pretty good for the wind energy sector.

Professor Ross McKitrick:  They get a 20 year contract to sell wind power at far above market rates and it doesn’t matter that they are generating power at times when the province absolutely doesn’t need it, and we can’t use it, and we just have to try to find some neighbouring jurisdiction to buy it from us. We used to have a few large power plants in Ontario and we had our grid that was optimised to source electricity from a few large central locations. We’re now shutting down the large central locations and replacing them with this proliferation of tiny little unreliable wind farms and you have to build a whole new grid to accommodate that. So that’s again an extra cost to get something that we already had.

Rebecca Thompson: What’s more is that the Green Energy Act hasn’t even come close to creating the number of jobs the Liberals claimed it would.

Professor Ross McKitrick: It turned out that the province had claimed that there were going to be 50,000 new jobs created from the Green Energy Act. When the Auditor General asks them to back that up because it doesn’t really make sense that this would create any jobs – what they admitted was they were really talking about were temporary construction jobs – as you put up wind turbines you need some workers in to do that. But then once the wind turbines are built, then those jobs disappear and there are no ongoing jobs. In economics, it’s an old fallacy, what’s called the broken window fallacy. If you go around breaking shopkeeper’s windows, since they have to hire repair people to fix the windows then you’ve somehow improved the economy. But, you haven’t. All you have done is increase the cost of having what you had before – which was windows in stores.

Rebecca Thompson: If the new shift to green power is so inefficient why hasn’t anyone working in the system spoken out?

Professor Ross McKitrick:  There are a couple of reasons. The power workers union has spent money on advertisements. They did try to fight against the closing of Lambton and Nanticoke – they understood that this was a bad deal for the workers in the province. But they did want they could. But it’s hard to be up against a government that is pushing so much propaganda on coal. There were people certainly in the power generating sector that understood that the government’s numbers weren’t correct and didn’t add up. But, they were effectively muzzled.

Rebecca Thompson: McKitrick speaks to people all the time about the changes in the system.

Professor Ross McKitrick:  I do find people working in the power sector, they know that this is a crazy system. These wind farms are displacing hydro electricity which is just a waste on every level because we have the hydroelectric facilities, they don’t generate any air pollution emissions. They give us reliable, predictable baseload power. And now we run wind turbines and let those hydro-facilities sit idle. So people who work in the sector, they can see what’s going on and they know that this is a waste. But, for understandable reasons they’re not about to make a big noise about it because they could lose their jobs if they do.

Rebecca Thompson: Whether any government would actually be able to get out of existing contracts is debatable. Ross McKitrick says it’s possible.

Professor Ross McKitrick: One option might be to buy out some of the wind turbine companies and take those wind turbines off the grid, or only use their power when they’re competitive. In Europe, what governments have started to do though is put on special new taxes on renewable sources, solar and wind, to try and recover some of these costs. Alternatively, the government may look to try and tear up the contracts and accept the legal liability that goes with it, but it’s not going to be easy.
Sun News: Down Wind

Down Wind, which runs for 96 minutes, can be purchased as a file and downloaded or as a DVD for those in the US and Canada (here’s the link). For those outside the US and Canada the file can be purchased and downloaded (using this link). If you’re in there fighting the great wind power fraud, Down Wind is essential viewing.

For a detailed synopsis of Down Wind – see our post here.

down wind

Faux-green Energy…..No more than an Over-priced Novelty!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Obama’s Green Unicorn

 

The true cost of renewable energy is being masked by government subsidies and bailouts.

Wind turbines are silhouetted by the setting sun Friday, Aug. 23, 2013, near Beaumont, Kan. The turbines are part of the 100-unit Elk River Wind Farm in south central Kansas.

Propped up by the government.

By    Aug. 25, 2014 
America is about as likely to become reliant on green energy to meet its baseload power requirements as a unicorn is to stroll down the middle of Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue during rush hour followed by a pink elephant.

It’s just not happening – but that’s hasn’t deterred the modern day snake oil salesmen and their allies inside the Obama administration from continuing to make a push for wind and solar power as an eventual replacement for energy generated from traditional sources like coal, oil and natural gas. Renewable technology has improved, no doubt, but it’s a long way away from being ready to make a substantial contribution to the heating of our homes and the powering of our businesses unless the generous tax subsidies that create the illusion of cost competitiveness continue.

There’s nothing wrong per se with the pursuit of renewable energy; it’s just that what it actually costs is being masked by taxpayer subsidies, federal loan guarantees and renewable fuels mandates at the state level that force power companies to put wind and solar into the energy mix, sometimes at two to three times what traditional power costs. Ultimately, one way or another, the taxpayers and energy consumers are footing the bill even if they don’t know it

Congress has taken a few positive steps in the right direction. The federal Wind Production Tax Credit was allowed to expire at the end of the year, meaning new wind projects are going to have to be competitive at market rates to attract funding. Remember it was none other than billionaire Warren Buffett, the “Oracle of Omaha,” who explained recently to a group of investors that the tax credit was the only reason that any sensible person invested in wind projects in the first place.

Unfortunately, some federal agencies are trying to keep the program alive through the backdoor.

The worst offender in this regard may be the IRS, which recently issued new “guidelines” that make it even easier for wind projects currently in development to qualify for the tax credit on the basis of work already contemplated or completed. According to Politico, “The IRS says completed or in-progress facilities can be sold and the costs incurred by the seller will still count toward qualifying for the [credit], except in cases where tangible property (think equipment like wind turbines) bought for one project is sold and used at another site.”

To translate this into English, it’s a move to help keep the whole shell game alive until such time as wind power supporters can get the tax credit reauthorized. “There is a large pipeline of projects that were under development at some stage that by virtue of this guidance will be able to go forward. In that regard it is going to permit a lot of projects to be developed,” said one wind energy expert cited by Politico.

Outside groups are also weighing in, including the Sierra Club, which has targeted nine members of Congress in a pressure campaign over the August recess to push for reauthorization of the Wind Production Tax Credit. That is in addition to the online ad buys in 16 other districts that started in June.

[MORE: Cartoons on Gas Prices]

The Democrats who run the Senate want to keep the now-expired credit alive and have, in the Senate Finance Committee, already approved a package of so-called “extenders” that would breathe new life into it. The House has thus far refused to go along – and kudos to Texas Republican Rep. Randy Weber, who deserves credit for successfully introducing an amendment to shut the whole business down permanently. But he’s not just fighting the lobbyists and green groups in favor of the credit, but the entire federal bureaucracy which, once a program has been established, is loath to let it die.

Major government investment in speculative green projects may have at one time made sense. But even if that were once the case, it is so no longer. The Obama green energy push has enriched more than a few politically well-connected liberals who used tax credits and government bailouts to enlarge their portfolios, but it has done little to make energy more abundant or lower costs to consumers, which is the justification in the first place to get the taxpayers involved. If people want to build wind farms – on land or offshore – and they want to reap the benefits of their investments, then they should be willing to take the same risks as everyone else. The way the bureaucrats have it structured now, the taxpayers are making payments on both ends through subsidies for construction and higher rates on consumption. It’s a system only a bureaucrat could love.

Faux-Green Terrorists, Want to Steal Our Property Rights! We Have to Fight Them!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Chemistry parable – Sustainability: The Universal Solvent of Private Property Rights

/ 2 hours ago August 29, 2014

Guest essay by Charles Battig, MD | The alchemists of old were diligently ambitious in their goals. These antecedents of modern chemistry were not hindered by a lack of knowledge of atomic structure and physical chemistry when it came to setting priorities. Lacking a nuclear reactor and knowledge of atomic reactions, they postulated the existence of “The Philosopher’s Stone.” This mythical substance was thought to be able to turn base metals into gold, and endow eternal life and wisdom to its discoverer.

Another magical substance hypothesized was the “universal solvent.” Such a substance would be able to dissolve all other substances, including gold. Philosophical discussions over what container could hold this universal solvent must have been lively. Aqua regia, a mixture of concentrated nitric and hydrochloric acids, was eventually discovered, and comes close to the definition. This “royal water,” named by the alchemists because of its ability to dissolve gold and the noble metals, was also thought to have therapeutic healing properties as well.

Far from the realm of primitive physical sciences, another universal solvent has been created by the progressive social engineers. It is able to limit personal freedoms, diminish private property rights, destroy the useful products of civilization and their means of production, deprive humanity of natural resources and their access, and impose hardship on the least prosperous members of humanity. I term it “The Progressives’ Stone,” as it can do all this and more. Regrettably, it is real and not mythical. It permeates all levels of our government.

“Sustainability” is the embodiment of the planner’s “Progressives’ Stone,” a universal societal solvent… infinitely elastic and open-ended in its ability to justify most any action taken in the name of social and environmental justice. It is the societal equivalent of the ancient “royal water” in its corrosive properties when employed against our constitutionally mandated unalienable rights of ordinary free citizens.

sustainability_cloudDocumenting the origins of the “Philosopher’s Stone is a task for historians probing the Middle Ages. “The Progressives’ Stone” has a more recent and defined linage. British economist Barbara Ward’s 1966 book“Spaceship Earth” advocated for sustainable development and a new international economic order linking the global environment and social justice. Population control was an inherent part of the message.

On this side of the Atlantic, Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, “Silent Spring” laid the groundwork for a message that found a receptive audience in guilt prone readers. She put a human face on the claimed crimes against the environment. Misuse of insecticides was translated into a fear of all insecticides at any level. DDT was made the poster child for environmental destruction. Bird deaths and egg thinning were offered as evidence. Years later, many of the claims in her book were termed “lies,” once they were subject to scientific review. In the interim, millions of innocent children have suffered Malaria-related deaths in Africa from prohibition of DDT use, and the term “eco-imperialism” became a book title.

As a formalized political doctrine, “Sustainability” was introduced by the 1987 “Our Common Future” report of the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, authored by Gro Harlem Bruntland, VP of the World Socialist Party. The official U.N. website contains the “Sustainability” definition: “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” The capitalized “S” serves to distinguish the U.N. definition from the mundane usage indicating “lasting or continuing for a long time.” The U.N. pre-supposes an all-knowing ruling class that has unique knowledge of the present and of the future. In reality, the needs of the future are subject to change, and planning now for an unknowable future is the planner’s folly. Fredrick Hayek aptly described this as the “Fatal Conceit.” Who knew a century ago, that commonplace sand (silica) would become essential to our transistor and integrated-circuit world of today?

Much of the U.N.’s vision of “Sustainability” was eventually incorporated into official U.S. Federal policy by President Clinton. He established the “President’s Council on Sustainable Development” by executive Order No. 12852, dated June 29, 1993. It published the 1999 report “Towards A Sustainable America…Advancing Prosperity, Opportunity, and a Healthy Environment for the 21st Century.” Perhaps well intentioned in its Utopian vision of our future, it has become a weapon of mass destruction against many of the visions of our Founding Fathers, and our basic freedoms.

Professional planners have adopted these precepts, and their official organization, the American Planning Association, has a formalized policy guide. The Environmental Policy Agency has its own. Business has learned how to make a profit from it. Enthusiastic application of sustainability concepts has provided the commercial world with financial rewards. Do-more-with-less is the way to greater profits and positive public perception.

Like a Madison Avenue brainstormed advertising mantra, “Sustainability” now appears throughout the media and in governmental policy requirements. If it is not “Sustainable,” it must be stopped, altered, or mitigated, until the project has met prescribed guidelines. “Sustainability” has been elevated in governmental policy to a level higher than our Constitutional unalienable rights. Unlike the business model, “Sustainability” in the governmental sphere has uses beyond a more efficient government. Henry Lamb and others recognized the threat to personal property rights early on. Tom DeWeese has been sounding the alarm for decades.

A visit to your local governmental planning board or board of supervisors should convince you that “Sustainability” is the universal solvent able to shut down private property rights. Want to build a home on your dream location? No…it is not sustainable to the environment. Want to add on to your home…no, it imposes non-sustainable burdens on the wildlife. Nor are golf courses, ski resorts, livestock , soil tilling, fences, industry, septic fields, roads, logging, dams and reservoirs, power line and fiber optic projects “Sustainable,” if so designated by local or Federal government. Get out of “Sustainability” Jail cards are called proffers or mitigating off-sets; such extra costs make surviving projects more expensive for the increasingly poor taxpayer.

Increase your chances of living a sustainable life as envisioned by our Founding Fathers by challenging “Sustainability” as envisioned by government planners. Private property rights are an endangered species not protected by “Sustainability.”

 

Faux-green Climate Alarmists are Harming our Planet! Don’t Believe Their Lies!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

 

Posted on August 29, 2014by

image003 (640x640)
That old canard that “97% of scientists support Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW)” is cropping up again in social media, parroted cheerfully without critical analysis, so I’ve been drawing attention to my rebuttal on the subject.  This was based on Lord Monckton’s painstaking analysis of the original study on which the 97% claim is based.  It seems that those who produced the 97% figure cheerfully assumed that any paper that failed to deny AGW outright was supporting it.  Far from 97% backing the theory, Monckton showed that less than 3% of the papers cited specifically endorsed it.

Yet the 97% claim keeps coming up, just like the “3½ million jobs at risk if we leave the EU” claim, which is equally fraudulent.

Of course the Warmists are in disarray because all their climate models predicted rising global temperatures based on increasing levels of atmospheric CO2, yet for seventeen years there’s been no further warming.  Here we have the classic scientific method: make a hypothesis (AGW); make predictions based on the hypothesis (the computer models); then test the predictions against the real world.  We’ve done that, and the predictions have failed.  Therefore we have to reject the hypothesis.

 

Rather than reject their cherished mythology, however, they’ve chosen to come up with ingenious ad hoc explanations of why the models appear to be wrong.  Lord Lawson’sGlobal Warming Policy Foundation has been keeping tabs on these explanations (or as some would describe them, “Just So Stories”) and has counted over 30 so far.

 

The latest idea is that the world is indeed getting hotter, but because of the circulation of ocean currents, the extra heat is hiding away in the deep oceans, and will come out again in a couple of decades to bite our ankles.  You have been warned.  The Warmists don’t seem to have realised that if you need to introduce a new and previously unknown concept to explain the failure of your original models, you are simply admitting that the models themselves were wrong, wrong, wrong.  The need for major post-facto tweaks is an admission of failure.  At the very least, they are admitting that the climate system is far more complicated, and the future trajectory of climate far less certain, than they would have had us believe.  Yet they still want us to mortgage our children and bankrupt our grandchildren on the strength of their predictions.

 

Of course no one disputes that CO2 is a greenhouse gas — if we had none, the world would be frozen.  But its effect is governed by a negative logarithmic relationship — a law of diminishing returns.  From where we are now, further increases have little effect, and anyway man-made emissions are small compared to the natural CO2 cycle (wait for the next Icelandic volcano!).

 

The IPCC gets its alarmist results by assuming an exaggerated climate sensitivity to CO2.  It justifies this by postulating “positive feedbacks”.  But these feedbacks are neither proven nor demonstrated, and many scientists point to negative feedbacks (greater cloud formation and higher albedo, for example) and believe that the balance of feedback effects could be negative.

 

In any case CO2 is just a single factor amongst many that influence a highly complex climate system that is poorly understood (witness the Warmist need it invent Just So Stories when their predictions fail).  Clearly the largest influence on terrestrial climate is the Sun, and well-established, long-term climate cycles are clearly driven by the Sun and other astronomical factors.

 

The slight warming since the late 18th Century is entirely consistent with the long-term cyclical pattern (like the Mediæval Warm Period and the Roman Optimum).  And the historical record clearly shows that CO2 level changes come after temperature changes (since temperature drives the CO2 balance between oceans and atmosphere).  The slight recent warming predates the industrial revolution, and the current increase in CO2 is therefore likely the result, not the cause, of the warming.

 

So let’s stop panicking, and start worrying instead about the damage which “green” policies are doing to our economy.

 

Even Democrats Find Obama’s Climate Nonsense, Hard to Swallow!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

LOL! Obama’s Climate Plan Spooks U.S. Democrats

 / August 27, 2014

Yesterday we mentioned Obama’s nuclear option event, and now the fallout begins. |

From Timothy Cama and Scott Wong, The Hill
keep-calm-and-run-for-your-life-66[1]President Obama’s election-year plan to win a new international climate change accord is making vulnerable Democrats nervous.

The administration is in talks at the United Nations about a deal that would seek to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by “naming and shaming” governments that fail to take significant action.

The State Department on Wednesday denied a report in The New York Times that the plan is to come up with a treaty that would not require Senate confirmation, but that appeared to provide cold comfort to Democrats worried the issue will revive GOP cries about an imperial Obama presidency.

One Democratic strategist said the proposal would put swing-state candidates who are critical to the party keeping its Senate majority “in front of the firing squad.”

“You’re … making it more difficult for them to win and certainty putting them in a position to lose,” the strategist said.

Several vulnerable Senate Democrats kept mum on the issue.
 
Sens. Mark Begich (Alaska) and Mark Udall (Colo.), along with a handful of House Democrats, either declined to comment or didn’t respond to interview requests.
 
Senate Energy Committee Chairwoman Mary Landrieu (La.) cautiously signaled support for the oil and gas industry that is important to her state, without commenting on the plan to sidestep the Senate.
 
“It is important that all nations do what they can to reduce carbon in the atmosphere,” she said. “But the president should not take any action that undermines the American energy revolution currently underway that is creating thousands of high-paying jobs for middle class families in Louisiana and across the country.”
 
spokesman for Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), who heads a House climate task force, said it was premature to comment on a plan with so few details.

Drew Hammill, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who pushed a climate change bill through the House in 2009, said the Times story was inaccurate but had no further comment.

Other Democrats immediately distanced themselves from the proposal.

“This administration’s go it alone strategy is surely less about dysfunction in Congress than about the president’s own unwillingness to listen to our coal miners, steelworkers, farmers and working families,” Rep. Nick Rahall (W.Va.) said in a statement. Rahall is in a difficult reelection race.

Republicans in tight Senate contests, for their part, quickly seized on the issue.

Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), who’s trying to unseat Udall, called on the incumbent to denounce Obama’s “latest executive power grab.”

“Coloradans don’t elect Senators to watch them toss their power to the president, whether Republican or Democrat,” Gardner said.

Republicans have been seeking to make the 2014 elections all about Obama, whose approval numbers remain low. They’ve sought to tie candidates such as Udall and Landrieu to Obama, and the Democratic strategist said the climate change proposal gave them ammunition.

Republicans have also sought to portray Obama as a figure abusing his power with executive actions. House Republicans approved legislation in August that would allow Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to file a lawsuit challenging Obama’s actions.

“Once again, the president is circumventing the wishes of the American people and their elected representatives, and doing so in a fashion that will destroy more jobs,” Boehner said Wednesday of the climate report.

Both the White House and State Department said the climate agreement is still being discussed, and they denied that it was a sure thing that the administration would seek to go around Congress.

Industrial Wind Projects are Falling Out of Favour, and for Good Reasons!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

As the tide turns on wind farms in Northumberland, we look at what is causing the wind of change

A growing number of wind farm proposals in Northumberland are being refused amid an apparent turning of the tide…

 
Wingates in Northumberland where a wind farm community fund has not been set up as agreed with wind farm developers.

You don’t have to go back too far to a time when you couldn’t open The Journal without reading about residents Northumberland begging for mercy from an onslaught of wind turbines.

People in the county adopted a siege mentality as figures time and again proved that they were being made to live with more wind farms than elsewhere in the country. Planning application after planning application seemed to be nodded through despite their desperate pleas.

Indeed new figures from Northumberland County Council show that the authority has approved 80 out of 98 wind related proposals in the last three years.

In 2012, Dr James Lunn, who was involved in a fight to halt plans for generators near his Fenrother home, not far from Morpeth, said: “We need both a national and Northumberland policy to protect settlements, because we can’t rely on the county council planning department to protect us.

“They seem to believe there is no upper limit for the number of wind farms that can be considered.”

Back to the present and the wind of change seems to have blown through the whole vexed issue on onshore wind.

Only recently proposals for wind turbines at Dr Lunn’s village, at a site close to the Duddo Stone Circle and Flodden battlefield have been rejected or approvals quashed.

And the brakes are being applied by the Government, namely the Department of Communities and Local Government.

Another scheme at Rayburn Lake has also been recommended for refusal by council officers although a decision has been deferred.

But what is behind the turning tide? Is it a recognition that Northumberland has had enough as residents would argue?

Or is it as a growing number of commentators in the industry believe, politics at play?

Many believe that the DCLG and its boss Eric Pickles is acting out of a desire to appease rank and file Conservative voters, who rightly or wrongly are associated with an anti-wind stance.

The minister created the new planning guidance, so sought by Dr Lunn, which decreed that the importance of renewable energy should not automatically override the views of communities.

Mr Pickles himself issued the final say on appeal decisions – including Fenrother and the Flodden scheme – in order to ensure that guidance was being followed.

Those behind the wind farms are becoming used to disappointment.

Jennifer Webber, spokesman for RenewableUK, the self proclaimed voice of wind energy, said: “The vast majority of people in the North East support more onshore wind with polling last year finding that three quarters of people in the North East would support more wind farms in the area they live.

“Polling consistently shows that people are in favour of onshore wind, so it’s unfortunate that the secretary of state for communities and local government is trying to block schemes, based on a misguided belief that such an approach will be popular with voters.

“Each megawatt of installed onshore wind brings in £100,000 of income to the local community over its lifetime, and it’s a shame communities are missing out on this.”

The organisation’s claims about the popularity of wind will no doubt surprise its opponents in the wide open spaces of the North East.

The claim that Mr Pickles is seeking to appease his voters is disputed by one Conservative in Northumberland.

Longhorsley Councillor Glen Sanderson at Wingates in Northumberland where a wind farm community fund has not been set up as agreed
Longhorsley Councillor Glen Sanderson at Wingates in Northumberland

 

County councillor for Longhorsley Glen Sanderson, who was a vocal opponent of the Fenrother scheme, said: “I think that would be far from the truth, it is not just Conservative voters who feel strongly about the impact that wind farms have on our very sensitive parts of the country.

“It is not just Conservatives, it is visitors to our county and people who enjoy the beauty around them.

“It is not a political point at all.”

The councillor believes, not unsurprisingly, that his minister, has accepted the argument often made in Northumberland that the perceived desecration of the countryside must stop.

“It is a question of getting to grips with reality and understanding we only have one beautiful countryside and that government has a duty of ensuring that natural beauty is preserved.

“The government have listened to the people, not just Conservative voters.”

Dr Lunn feels the government is partially motivated by the desire to “win votes.” Yet he also believes the wind of change is inspired by acknowledgement that turbines are not benefiting the environment or the economy.

“I think there is a current nail in the coffin for large scale onshore wind farms both at local level and at national level.

“Both for political reasons in winning votes but also for the sheer fact is it not helping the country’s economy.

“Wind power was sold on the fact it was sustainable for the environment but it does not provide sustainable communities if not everyone likes it.

“It does not provide a sustainable economy if not everyone can afford it.

“It is no longer a sustainable green form of energy. Regardless of which political party is in power they can not argue it is a sustainable way to take the country forward.”

Dr Lunn does not fear a revival in the wind industry under a different government.

“I am not particularly concerned, it is seen as a vote winning policy. These things take five years from start to finish, regardless of who wins the next election you have got to look five years into the future.”

The Labour party has indicated it would allow decisions on planning applications to be made at local level if elected, hitting out at the Conservatives for allowing so many decisions to be made by the government.

The party believes this “reverse localism” could come back to bite Northumberland in the fracking debate.

Councillor Scott Dickinson, the new County Council Business Chair for Northumberland, at County Hall, Morpeth

 

Scott Dickinson, a party county councillor in Northumberland and parliamentary candidate for Berwick, said: “I’m uncomfortable that a Conservative secretary of state is making decisions about what’s best for North Northumberland rather than local people.

“Northumberland Conservatives seem to be happy to allow ‘reverse localism’ but I’m worried that this is a precursor to the ‘fracking debate.’

“If a secretary of state is intervening to halt planning applications for wind farms then what happens when communities want to stop ‘fracking’ in their backyard when its government policy to support ‘fracking’?

“Will he intervene to overrule local concerns.”

Coun Sanderson however argued the government has shown it will listen to local people on wind and would similarly do so with fracking.

Villagers from Fenrother, near Morpeth, celebrate plans for a Wind Farm at the village being refused
Villagers from Fenrother, near Morpeth, celebrate plans for a Wind Farm at the village being refused

 

“You just need to go back to a recent one in Fenrother where thousands of people were prepared to put their names against that proposal.

“If the same thing happened in Northumberland about fracking, I think the government would be forced to consider their position on that as well.

“I am absolutely convinced that localism has a part to play in all planning matters and I think the government has shown they have listened in their change of line on onshore wind farms.

“Otherwise they can not be a directly responsible government.”

In addition to the potential for fracking, Dr Lunn believes the loss of momentum could see an increase in applications for solar power, with a preliminary application for 160 acres at Bellingham already lodged.

Yet he believes wind will remain in the mix through small projects of one or two generators and domestic farm turbines, which he feels will became even more prevalent as doubts grow among landowners over large schemes.

Aussies Determined to Scrap the Renewable Energy Targets to Save the Poor!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Senator David Leyonhjelm: “Wake Up Clive!” – It’s Time to Kill the RET & Save the Poor

August 28, 2014 by 1 Comment

clive palmer sleeping

STT hears that Tony Abbott is hard at work on his mission to kill off the mandatory RET – with the aim of bringing an end to the most expensive and pointless policy of all time. One of the cross-bench Senators the PM needs to help demolish it during this parliament is David Leyonhjelm – the Liberal Democrats Senator for NSW – and he gets it.

David has come out with a cracking piece published by The Australian – which is pitched squarely at Clive Palmer and his PUPs. The Palmer United Party’s 3 Senators – Glenn Lazarus (QLD), Dio Wang (WA) and Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania) – are the only obstacle that stands in the way of scrapping the mandatory RET during the life of this parliament. Big Clive and his Senators should consider David’s article a timely “wake up” call.

Ditch RET to set economy free
The Australian
David Leyonhjelm
27 August 2014

If Labor and Clive Palmer care about the poor they will stop subsidies for windmills.

ELECTRICITY bills are a huge worry for many Australians. In coming months a lot of people will receive the biggest household utility bills they have seen.

The latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that in the five years to June 2012, Australia’s retail electricity prices rose by 72 per cent with even higher increases in Melbourne and Sydney.

The Queensland Competition Authority’s annual report revealed recently that 344 households were disconnected every week in the Sunshine State because of non-payment of electricity bills.

Senators and MPs, however, don’t need to worry about whether staying warm in chilly Canberra may send them broke. Perhaps if they had to pay for their own heating and airconditioning in Parliament House, it would concentrate their minds on the important discussion we need to have on the future of the renewable energy target.

The repeal of the carbon tax will help, but studies show that the RET has an even greater impact on the bottom line, reducing our living standards and the competitiveness of our entire economy.

The dramatic surge in power bills has been a major factor in the decline of our manufacturing sector and the loss of thousands of jobs. In a little more than 10 years the RET has rocketed Australia from almost the cheapest to almost the most expensive electricity in the world: Australian states occupy four of the top six spots beaten only by Denmark and Germany. These countries also are sapped pointlessly with punishing renewable energy policies producing small amounts of extremely expensive, intermittent power that has to be backed up by fossil fuel power anyway.

Contrary to claims by industry lobby groups and consultants representing Big Wind producers and merchant bankers, it is no coincidence that power prices went up so steeply when mandatory renewable energy targets were introduced. A report from the accounting firm Deloitte shows the RET will stifle the economy, cost jobs and drive up prices, and is a very inefficient means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It concludes that abolishing the RET would increase real GDP by $29 billion in net present terms relative to the RET continuation.

The chief beneficiary of the RET is the wind industry, which receives Renewable Energy Certificates worth about $30 for every megawatt of electricity it produces, on top of the price paid to it for electricity generated by wind turbines. The certificates are funded by electricity customers as a hidden charge on their bills. The net effect of this subsidy is to hand an additional $17bn of our money to these companies over 15 years for no measurable environmental benefit.

It is undisputed that despite being a mature technology the wind generation industry is not viable anywhere in the world without government or customer subsidies. It is just government mandated corporate welfare.

Grant King, chief executive of Origin Energy, one of Australia’s largest electricity retailers with extensive interests in gas and wind energy generation, has said that the RET would be the main driver of electricity price rises by 2020 and that renewable energy costs now accounted for 14 per cent of electricity bills, up from 2 per cent five years ago; for larger users it is 30 per cent of their bills.

If Labor, the Greens and Clive Palmer really care for social justice they will not allow working families, pensioners and the disadvantaged to be ripped off by wealthy wind generators and will back the abolition of the RET.

David Leyonhjelm is the Liberal Democrats senator for NSW.
The Australian

david leyonhjelm

When David talks about handing wind power outfits “$17bn of our money … over 15 years for no measurable environmental benefit”, he bases that figure on a REC price of $30.

While RECs are currently trading at $30, from 2017 – when the annual figure for the RET starts to increase dramatically – RECs will be worth at least as much as the mandated shortfall charge of $65 per MWh.

The total renewable energy target between 2014 and 2031 is 603,100 GWh, which converts to 603.1 million MWh (1 GW = 1,000 MW). In order for the target to be met, 603.1 million RECs have be purchased and surrendered over the next 17 years: 1 REC is issued for every MWh of renewable energy dispatched to the grid. The REC is a Federal Tax on all Australian electricity consumers.

The cost of subsiding the wind industry through the REC Tax is born entirely by Australian power consumers. As Origin Energy chief executive Grant King correctly put it earlier this week:

“[T]he subsidy is the REC, and the REC certificate is acquitted at the retail level and is included in the retail price of electricity”.

It’s power consumers that get lumped with the “retail price of electricity” and, therefore, the cost of the REC subsidy to wind power outfits.

Even at the current REC price of $30, the amount to be added to power consumers’ bills will hit $18 billion (David gets pretty close with his figure of $17 billion). However, beyond 2017 (when the target ratchets up from 27.2 million MWh to 41 million MWh and the $65 per MWh shortfall charge starts to bite) the REC price will almost certainly reach $65 and, due to the tax benefit attached to RECs, is likely to exceed $90.

Between 2014 and 2031, with a REC price of $65, the cost of the REC Tax to power consumers (and the value of the subsidy to wind power outfits) will approach $40 billion – with RECs at $90, the cost of the REC Tax/Subsidy balloons to over $54 billion (see our post here).

This massive stream of subsidies for wind power stands as the greatest wealth transfer in the history of the Commonwealth.

That transfer comes at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable; struggling businesses; and cash-strapped families.

If Clive Palmer is serious when he says he is out to represent the poorest in society, he has a golden opportunity to put his money where his mouth is.

With thousands of Australian households living without power – having been chopped from the grid simply because they can no longer afford what used to be a basic necessity of life – and thousands more suffering “energy poverty” as they find themselves forced to choose between heating (or cooling) and eating – Australia risks the creation of an entrenched energy underclass, dividing Australian society into energy “haves” and “have-nots”.

For a taste of the scale (so far) of a – perfectly avoidable – social welfare disaster, here are articles from Queensland (click here); Victoria (click here); South Australia (click here); and New South Wales (click here).

Slapping a further $50 billion on top of already spiralling Australian power bills over the next 17 years can only add to household misery. So Clive, if you really do care about the poor? – then it’s time to muscle up and help kill the mandatory RET now.

Beyond the RET’s perverse impact on the poorest and most vulnerable is its wealth and job destroying impact on the economy as a whole.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) – the top body representing Australian business – came out with this press release in full support of the position taken by David Leyonhjelm – calling for the mandatory RET to be scrapped outright.

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
MEDIA RELEASE
WEDNESDAY, August 27, 2014

BUSINESS WELCOMES LEADERSHIP ON RENEWABLE ENERGY TARGET

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), Australia’s largest and most representative business organisation, welcomes the leadership of Independent Senator David Leyonhjelm in calling for the abolition of the Renewable Energy Target (RET).

The RET is a major policy failure that drives up electricity prices and is a highly inefficient means of emissions abatement. Economic modelling by Deloitte Access Economics commissioned by ACCI makes a powerful policy case for the abolition of the RET. The modelling shows that persisting with the policy in its current form will cost the economy $29bn in lost economic output and more than 5,000 jobs.

“It is a matter of deep regret that a policy with such appalling economic foundations has remained uncontested for so long”, remarked Chief Economist Burchell Wilson.

“This insidious tax needs to be taken off energy users and is important step toward restoring the competitiveness of Australian industry.”

“The business community remains hopeful that the Palmer United Party after examining the findings of the Deloitte Access Economics modelling will reconsider their support for a policy that is driving up electricity prices, sending businesses to the wall and destroying jobs”.

While options for appropriate compensation for sunk investment under the scheme will need to be considered, it is clear that abolition of the RET is the best outcome for energy users and the economy.

At the very least the target should be wound back to a level consistent with 20 per cent of demand in the wake of the collapse in actual and projected electricity consumption over the past five years.

A robust Parliamentary debate in which all the facts are on the table is the first step in achieving that objective.
Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
27 August 2014

kate carnell

Climate Alarmists Never Let the Truth Stand in Their Way!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Nothing To See Here – Move Along

Posted on August 28, 2014 by

Northern Hemisphere winter snow extent is going through the roof, due to Arctic air pushing further south.

BvElMTCCAAAfGr6Rutgers University Climate Lab :: Global Snow Lab

Antarctic sea ice extent is going through the roof

iphone.anomaly.antarctic (1)

iphone.anomaly.antarctic.png (512×412)

US summer temperatures are plummeting

ScreenHunter_2311 Aug. 26 05.44

Pay no attention to all this. Just keep believing the mindless propaganda being spewed by the White House and their minions.

Climate Alarmists Try to Go For the Heart….Cause our Brains Just Ain’t Buying It! LOL!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Gallery of Morose Moonbats Sulking About Collapse of Global Warming Hoax

Ever more desperate to get someone other than socialist journalists and bureaucrats to take the collapsing global warming hoax seriously, academics who make their living on it have resorted to releasing photographs of themselves wearing doleful expressions as they contemplate the hurt allegedly being inflicted on the earth by the highly beneficial CO2 that is produced by literally all human activity. The following is not a joke:

Photographer Nick Bowers, Art Director Celine Faledam and Copy Writer Rachel Guest have teamed up to bring attention to the issue of climate change in a completely novel and frankly terrifying way with their portrait/interview projectScared Scientists. …

Bowers takes moody, dark, black-and-white portraits of the scientists and those portraits are then put up on the Scares [sic] Scientists websitealongside a short interview with each of these climate experts — an interview headlined by their credentials and their greatest climate change fear.

Prominent among the woeful warmists on display is Tim Flannery:

tim-flannery_sad-moonbat

Readers may remember Flannery as the malevolent lunatic who called for fighting the nonexistent global warming menace by filling the sky with sulfur. Linking global warming to adecline in circumcision may be his most noteworthy scientific achievement.

Flannery was rattled by ClimateGate, which caused the wheels to start coming off the global warming hoax by proving that “scientific” research on the topic consists largely not just of extremely bad, politicized science, but of deliberate lies.

The triumph in his home country of Tony Abbott, who rose to Prime Minister largely on his promise to undo the damage to the economy inflicted by global warming zealots, must have hit Flannery even harder. No wonder he looks so blue.

Global warming propagandists who can foresee the end of the line for the government grant gravy train don’t just express their sadness with forlorn expressions. They also write sad notes:

Australian National University student Joe Duggan contacted scientists and asked them to write the letters about how they felt about climate change.

“What follows are the words of real scientists. Researchers that understand climate change,” states the Is This How You Feel website, where Duggan is publishing the letters.

This one from “climate change ecologist” Anthony Richardson of the University of Queensland tugs on the heartstrings when you consider the angst he must be enduring:

anthony-richardson-climate-moonbat-letter

Not to mention that he is fretful about people figuring out that climate change ecologists are about as useful as ice cubes in the arctic, and distraught about the possibility of having to find constructive employment.

Climate Alarmists Try to Go For the Heart….Cause our Brains Just Ain’t Buying It! LOL!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Gallery of Morose Moonbats Sulking About Collapse of Global Warming Hoax

Ever more desperate to get someone other than socialist journalists and bureaucrats to take the collapsing global warming hoax seriously, academics who make their living on it have resorted to releasing photographs of themselves wearing doleful expressions as they contemplate the hurt allegedly being inflicted on the earth by the highly beneficial CO2 that is produced by literally all human activity. The following is not a joke:

Photographer Nick Bowers, Art Director Celine Faledam and Copy Writer Rachel Guest have teamed up to bring attention to the issue of climate change in a completely novel and frankly terrifying way with their portrait/interview projectScared Scientists. …

Bowers takes moody, dark, black-and-white portraits of the scientists and those portraits are then put up on the Scares [sic] Scientists websitealongside a short interview with each of these climate experts — an interview headlined by their credentials and their greatest climate change fear.

Prominent among the woeful warmists on display is Tim Flannery:

tim-flannery_sad-moonbat

Readers may remember Flannery as the malevolent lunatic who called for fighting the nonexistent global warming menace by filling the sky with sulfur. Linking global warming to adecline in circumcision may be his most noteworthy scientific achievement.

Flannery was rattled by ClimateGate, which caused the wheels to start coming off the global warming hoax by proving that “scientific” research on the topic consists largely not just of extremely bad, politicized science, but of deliberate lies.

The triumph in his home country of Tony Abbott, who rose to Prime Minister largely on his promise to undo the damage to the economy inflicted by global warming zealots, must have hit Flannery even harder. No wonder he looks so blue.

Global warming propagandists who can foresee the end of the line for the government grant gravy train don’t just express their sadness with forlorn expressions. They also write sad notes:

Australian National University student Joe Duggan contacted scientists and asked them to write the letters about how they felt about climate change.

“What follows are the words of real scientists. Researchers that understand climate change,” states the Is This How You Feel website, where Duggan is publishing the letters.

This one from “climate change ecologist” Anthony Richardson of the University of Queensland tugs on the heartstrings when you consider the angst he must be enduring:

anthony-richardson-climate-moonbat-letter

Not to mention that he is fretful about people figuring out that climate change ecologists are about as useful as ice cubes in the arctic, and distraught about the possibility of having to find constructive employment.