Faux-green

People of Oklahoma to Fight the Wind Industry….In Courts of Law!!!

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Oklahomans Launch Pre-Emptive Legal Action to Prevent Wind Farm Construction

August 30, 2014 by

For most non-Okies, their appreciation of the glories of life on the great prairies of Oklahoma comes from Gordon Macrae (as Curly) – bathed in “a bright golden haze on the meadow” and crooning from a fine looking mount about what was clearly a very “beautiful morning”.

While Curly waxed lyrically about seeing stratospheric corn, his profound sensory enjoyment included being able to hear nature at its untrammelled best, in a place where “all the sounds of the earth are like music”.

Well, they used to be.

Oklahoma hasn’t escaped America’s great wind power fraud: turbines have sprung up like mushrooms all over the, once tranquil, State. And, like everywhere else, the locals are fighting back.

Not content to let wind power outfits turn their beautiful mornings into sonic torture events, a group of Oklahomans have just launched court action, seeking an injunction to prevent 300 giant fans from being speared into their peaceful patch of prairie paradise.

The action, filed by 6 plaintiffs, is being pursued in “nuisance”: the common law right attached to property to be able to enjoy it free from any unreasonable interference from the activities of neighbours, which includes unreasonable interference from noise – particularly where the noise in question interferes with sleep (see our post here).

The plaintiffs’ claim (available here) sets out the nature of their action as:

This action seeks to enjoin Defendants from creating a nuisance that will cause unreasonable inconvenience, interference, annoyance, adverse health effects, and loss of use and value of each Plaintiff and class member’s property.

Where the plaintiffs say they are seeking to “enjoin Defendants” they mean that they are asking the court for an injunction preventing the developers from constructing the turbines proposed.

The plaintiffs face the prospect of being left with properties that are worth a fraction of what they would be without turbines as neighbours – and ending up with homes that are uninhabitable due to incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound (see our post here). So, their planning authorities having failed them, it’s off to court.

Here’s a run down on the plaintiffs’ action from the Oklahoma Wind Action Association.

Oklahoma citizens file class action lawsuit against wind energy companies
Oklahoma Wind Action Association
27 August 2014

Seeking reasonable placement of wind farms to protect health of nearby residents.

Citizens of Canadian and Kingfisher counties filed a class action lawsuit in United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma today to prohibit the placement of wind turbines that will harm residents.

After exhausting all local and state legislative and government resources, members of the lawsuit are seeking protection from adverse health effects, and loss of use and value of their property, by requiring wind turbines be placed a safe distance from their homes.

There are multiple wind farms planned for Kingfisher and Canadian counties consisting of more than 300 industrial wind turbines. From plaintiff Julie Harris’ land, there are 47 turbines targeted near her home with the closest planned less than one-half mile from her property. The turbines are almost 500 feet tall, equivalent to approximately five-eighths (5/8) the size of Devon Tower in downtown Oklahoma City, Okla.

“Despite working tirelessly with local officials and the wind company to request a reasonable setback of wind turbines from our property, our only recourse now is litigation,” said Terra Walker, a plaintiff and property owner in Okarche, Okla. “There are real health concerns when turbines are placed too close to homes. This is about requiring safe setbacks to protect the health and safety of our families.”

The plaintiffs are concerned about health impacts and interference in the use and enjoyment of their land. In the complaint, the plaintiffs note that wind turbines emit infra and low frequency sounds that are inaudible to the human ear, but have a long history of causing adverse effects to the human body and mind, including sleep loss, increased stress and cardiac issues. The plaintiffs are also concerned about how noise and shadow flicker emitted from rotating blades deteriorates the ability — in both children and adults — to properly think, remember, or concentrate.

“The wind farms located next to our house have ruined our health and property,” said Tammy and Rick Huffstutlar, living outside of Calumet, Okla. and in the middle of the Canadian Hills Wind Farm.

The Huffstutlars live adjacent to wind turbines and experience significant shadow flicker, noise and disruptions in air pressure, resulting in a worsening heart condition, severe headaches, and lack of sleep.

“Industrial wind energy in Oklahoma is unregulated, allowing companies to build wind farms wherever they can make deals with landowners without any required notice to those impacted,” said Brent Robinson, Oklahoma Wind Action Association (OWAA) president. “Research shows a negative impact to health for people within three miles of a turbine. Therefore, we believe a three-mile setback from property lines is necessary to protect our families.”

OWAA, along with other Oklahoma organizations such as Oklahoma Property Rights Association and Wind Waste, are combining forces to advocate for sensible laws to protect people and oversee future development in Oklahoma. The non-profit associations are concerned about the long-term impact this unregulated industry will have on property owners, and are fighting for oversight to ensure turbines are appropriately placed, operated safely, well-maintained and there is adequate funding to remove abandoned wind farms.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Terra Walker, Cheyenne Ward, Julie Harris, Janelle Grellner, Elise Kochenower, Karri Parson, Cindy Shelley, and Oklahoma Wind Action Association. The defendants are APEX Wind Construction, LLC, APEX Clean Energy, Inc., APEX Clean Energy Holdings, LLC, Kingfisher Wind, LLC, Kingfisher Wind Land Holdings, LLC, Campbell Creek Wind, LLC, and Campbell Creek Wind Transmission, LLC.

Oklahoma Wind Action Association was founded in February 2014 to protect its members from negative affects of industrial wind turbines. The organization serves more than 150 citizens in Canadian and Kingfisher counties.
Oklahoma Wind Action Association
27 August 2014

Curly & Laurey

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

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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.

Oh My…Enercon Floundering? What a Shame! Subsidies end….Turbines NOT Sustainable!

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Brazil Tax Exemption Removal Curbs Wobben’s Wind Turbine Orders

By Vanessa Dezem Aug 29, 2014 

Enercon GmbH’s Wobben Windpower is losing contracts in Brazil after tax authorities canceled some exemptions for wind turbine manufacturers in the country, an official said.

The Brazil unit of Germany’s Enercon had a single customer so far this year, Mathias Moser, a vice president of Wobben, said in an interview yesterday in Rio de Janeiro. The company had considered leaving South America’s fastest-growing market after Brazilian tax authorities in April removed a tax incentive and required turbine makers such as Wobben, Spain’s Gamesa Corp., Tecnologica SA and Denmark’s Vestas Wind Systems A/S to pay back taxes for the exemption.

“This is definitely a restructuring year for us in Brazil,” said Mathias, who came to the country in April amid a management change.

Enercon, based in Aurich, Germany, decided to stay in Brazil last month after filing an appeal on the tax incentive ruling, according to Mathias. He didn’t disclose how much the company owes in back taxes. Brazil is seeking the previous five fiscal years of back taxes for the exemption.

“We have always produced in Brazil, so we have had the benefit for many years,” Mathias said. “It is a lot of money.”

Wobben started manufacturing turbines in Brazil in 1995, the first turbine maker to install a facility in the country. It has four facilities in the country, and has the capacity to produce as many as 200 turbines at its Sorocaba plant in Sao Paulo state. In its sole contract this year, the company delivered 23 turbines for Elecnor SA of Spain’s wind park in southern Brazil.

“It is a drop from last year’s,” Mathias said, without specifying 2013 deliveries.

Turbine Talks

Brazil’s Ministry of Finance is considering reinstating the tax exemption for turbine makers, according to Elbia Melo, president of the country’s wind power association known as Abeeolica.

“The wind industry is facing problems with the government’s special incentive plan for the equipment manufacturers and it is relevant to solve it,” Melo said in a phone interview from Sao Paulo. “We are in talks with the government.”

The Ministry of Finance’s press office said it does not comment on potential rule changes.

Wind energy in Brazil is among the cheapest sources of power. The country has the biggest capacity in Latin America, according to a Global Wind Energy Council report of 2013.

Wobben is optimistic about winning its appeal in court, according to Mathias.

“We are staying, given the good prospects for the Brazilian market,” said Mathias. “The size of the company’s business in the country can be affected if we don’t sign contracts in the future.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Vanessa Dezem in Sao Paulo at vdezem@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.netRobin Saponar, Carlos Caminada

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

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    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!

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    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.

     

    Wind Pushers are Allowed to Slaughter Birds, With Impunity!

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    Bye Bye Birdie
    Does the government give green-energy firms a free pass on bird deaths?

    Death from Above: A wind-power tower (Dreamstime)
     
    Two former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigators tell National Review Online that the federal government acted with a bias, giving renewable-energy companies a pass on unlawful bird deaths while rigorously prosecuting traditional energy companies for the same infractions.

    “If birds were electrocuted or in oil pits, we prosecuted those companies,” says Tim Eicher, a special agent who handled cases involving migratory birds, eagles, and endangered species until his retirement three years ago. But the Fish and Wildlife Service “has drunk the Kool-Aid on global warming,” Eicher tells NRO. When it comes to wind- and solar-energy companies, “the end, to them, justifies the means: They’re saving the planet, and if eagles die in the process, so be it.”

     

    Dominic Domenici, a former Fish and Wildlife Service investigator who worked with Eicher in Wyoming, says the bias is obvious because, when unlawful bird deaths occur, the federal government “prosecutes everything except for wind and solar — and they give [those renewable companies] permits” for bird-killing. That bias, Domenici says, is “top-down” within the Fish and Wildlife Service.

    “They have chosen to do everything they can to make wind energy look perfect,” Domenici says. He adds: “I think they just want an alternative energy so badly that they’re prepared to turn a blind eye on all the bad parts of it. And it may be the best thing in the world, and it may be the answer — but they still need to enforce the laws to put the incentives [against bird-killing in place].”

    Potential bias in the enforcement and prosecution of bird deaths has piqued the interest of the House Natural Resources Committee, which in March subpoenaed the case files for all Obama-administration investigations conducted under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act or the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

    But to date, the Fish and Wildlife Service has not provided all of the records, says the committee’s press rep, Michael Tadeo.

    “Our subpoena has not been fully complied with,” Tadeo says. “The documents we have received have been heavily redacted, and the administration continues to stonewall us on this issue.”

    Republican Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota congressman who’s on the Natural Resources Committee, tells NRO: “The Obama administration is clearly not just biased but hard-biased against fossil-fuel development, and it is willing to selectively enforce federal laws and rules to favor what they consider to be clean energy. It’s certainly not played out any clearer than it is with [the administration’s] enforcement of things like the Migratory Bird Act. . . . It’s a clear-cut bias. I think it’s hypocrisy at its worst. On one hand, they want to be environmentally clean. On the other, they don’t care how many birds they kill doing it.”

    But Mike Daulton, vice president of government relations at the Audubon Society, says he’s skeptical of claims or suspicions of bias on the part of the Fish and Wildlife Service.

    “I think it’s a stretch to say that the law is being applied more to oil or gas, or that it’s being disproportionately applied,” Daulton tells NRO. “This is looking for an excuse to attack the administration. In the past, [the Migratory Bird Treaty Act] has been applied in very narrow circumstances. The application of the law to wind could be broader. . . . I’ve heard that there are cases in the pipeline at the Department of Interior and Justice.”

    But Bob Johns, director of public relations at the American Bird Conservancy, says, “The numbers don’t lie — and those numbers say that the wind- and the solar-energy industries have not been held to the same standards that other industries have.”

    Johns noted that the Altamont Energy wind farms in California, for example, kill between 70 and 80 golden eagles a year — and have never been prosecuted. He adds that he’s not aware of any prosecutions against solar companies.

    Testifying to the House committee in March, the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service said the agency was investigating 17 incidents at wind farms, along with 21 at oil and gas sites. It’s unclear whether any investigations have occurred at solar-energy sites, even as reports emerge that California’s Ivanpah solar plant alone may be responsible for up to 28,000 bird deaths annually.

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

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    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.

    Infrasound Can Cause Physical Distress, But Authorities Refuse to Monitor It!

    / 1957chev / 1 Comment

    Wind Turbine ‘Infrasound’ May Be Making Thousands Sick In UK, US

    By Michael Bastasch Published: August 11, 2014

    The windswept Scottish highlands are increasingly becoming home to thousands of wind turbines due to government policies seeking to boost green energy production and fight global warming.

    But such well-intentioned policies may be having an unintended side effect: They could be making people sick.

    The Scottish Express reported Sunday that the Scottish government has commissioned a study into the “potential ill effects of turbines at 10 sites across the country.” There are more than 33,500 families living within two miles of these turbines, meaning thousands could be getting sick.

    Activists warn that “infrasound” emanating from nearby wind turbines are causing people to feel sick. Infrasound is noise that is at such a low frequency, it can’t be heard but can be felt by those nearby.

    Former U.K. army Capt. Andrew Vivers has been looking into the issue and was surprised that local authorities were unwilling to accept that infrasound could make people sick, even though it’s a “known military interrogation aid and weapon.”

    “When white noise was disallowed they went on to infrasound,” Vivers told the Express. “If it is directed at you, you can feel your brain or your body vibrating.”

    “It is bonkers that infrasound low frequency noise monitoring is not included in any environmental assessments. It should be mandatory before and after turbine erection,” Vivers added.

    Vivers also noted that there has been an “acknowledged and unexplained increase of insomnia, dizziness and headaches” in the town of Dundee, which is where two wind turbines been in service since 2006.

    The Scottish government study has been welcomed by communities that have complained about infrasound sickness, but anti-wind farm campaigners say it doesn’t go far enough.

    “On the face of it, it does look like a step in the right direction, but can we really trust it? My issue is that it is not independent enough,” Susan Croswaithe, U.K. spokeswoman for the European Platform Against Windfarms, told the Express.

    “Our website is full of examples of people not being listened to,” Croswaithe said. “We have two very large wind farms near us in Ayrshire, Arecleoch and Mark Hill – 60 turbines and 28 turbines.”

    “If people in my area have noticed they are feeling better at the moment but do not understand why, it may be because the turbines have been switched off while they do maintenance on the grid,”she added.

    But complaints about nearby wind turbines causing sickness have not been isolated to Scotland. U.S. residents have also complained of “wind turbine syndrome” causing headaches and nausea.

    A Falmouth, Massachusetts woman was diagnosed with “wind turbine syndrome” by a Harvard Medical School doctor in 2011, after complaining about “headaches, ringing in her ears, insomnia and dizziness,” ABC News reported last year.

    Sue Hobart didn’t immediately blame the three wind turbines that were installed 1,600 feet from her home in 2010, but after finding her symptoms went away when she left for vacation, it all started to fall into place.

    But Hobar wasn’t the only Falmouth resident to supposedly become sick from wind turbines. Dozens of residents have filed lawsuits, arguing that three 400-foot tall wind turbines have been causing them to get sick.

    Before Hobart was diagnosed with wind turbine syndrome, New Jersey state lawmakers proposed legislation outlawing the construction of wind turbines within 2,000 feet of residential-zoned land. The bill was championed by some coastal communities, but derided by environmentalists who want to see more green energy generation.

    State Sen. Sean Kean introduced the bill after hundreds in his district turned out to protest a “proposed 325-foot windmill by Department of Military and Veterans Affairs at the National Guard training center in Sea Girt,” which residents said could “threaten birds, cause noise, pose health risks and decrease property values,” reports NJ.com.

    So can wind turbines really make people sick? Wind turbine syndrome is not recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An expert Medical panel in Massachusetts was reported to have found “insufficient evidence that noise from wind turbines is directly… causing health problems or disease.” However, research shows that “human response to wind turbines relates to self-reported ‘annoyance,’ and this response appears to be a function of some combination of the sound itself, the sight of the turbine, and attitude towards the wind turbine project.”

    Other state health departments and medical review panels have also concluded that there are no direct health impacts from wind turbines.

    But complaints of sickness from wind turbines keep cropping up across the world as government policies cause wind farms to sprout up in places where they previously were not.

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

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    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!

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    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