fighting wind turbines
Speaking With Ron Stephens, on Canada Live Radio, Sunday July 5, from Noon till 2pm
Next Sunday, I will join Ron Stephens, on his radio show, where we will be discussing the wind fiasco, and the problems it is causing for so many people. Follow the link below. Available on YouTube
Courageous Aussies Fighting The Windweasels….and Winning!
Real concerns about turbines left blowing in the wind
Credit: By Graham Lloyd, Environment Editor | The Australian | June 27, 2015 | www.theaustralian.com.au ~~
Each morning fine-wool grower Ann Gardner broadcasts her wind farm woes to an unreceptive world.
Politicians, shock jocks, journalists and anyone Gardner hopes will listen are included as recipients of uncomfortable missives that outline the “torture” of living next door to Australia’s biggest wind farm at Macarthur, Victoria.
Gardner is used to being ignored, unlike her neighbours, Hamish and Anna Officer, who routinely are quoted as model wind farm devotees.
Last week, as the deadline counted down for the revised renewable energy target agreement to be finally approved in federal parliament, the Officers again were displayed prominently on the front page of Fairfax newspapers rebutting the comments of Tony Abbott that wind farms were noisy.
As the Officers’ immediate neighbour, Gardner thinks she, too, should have been asked by Fairfax papers about the noise.
If she had been, the Fairfax reports could have disclosed that the Officers receive an estimated $480,000 a year for 25 years for hosting 48 turbines.
And, a Senate inquiry has been told, after spending lavishly on renovating their Macarthur homestead the Officers will soon be moving on and leaving their wind turbines behind.
The Officers, no doubt, have good reasons for moving. And the facts can easily be construed to suggest Gardner is simply jealous about the good financial fortune of her neighbours thanks to big wind.
But other evidence to the Senate inquiry from wind turbine hosts Clive and Trina Gare, who say they bitterly regret their decision to host turbines because of noise, undermine the widespread claims that only jealous neighbours have a problem with wind farm noise and health.
Gardner contends the failure to report the plight of the Gares or the full picture for the Officers is typical of the one-sided treatment the wind turbine issue has received.
She says much of the media has shown itself willing to misconstrue findings from the National Health and Medical Research Council and suggest research had cleared wind turbines of ill effects.
In fact, the NHMRC said only limited, poor-quality research was available and the issue of wind farms and health remained an open scientific question.
The NHMRC has called for tenders for targeted research with a particular focus on low-frequency noise and infrasound.
After receiving evidence from more than 500 people, the Senate inquiry, chaired by John Madigan, this month released an interim report recommending urgent steps to improve scientific knowledge about the health effects of wind turbines. This includes the creation of an independent expert scientific committee on industrial sound to provide research and advice to the Environment Minister on the impact on human health of audible noise (including low frequency) and infrasound from wind turbines.
The Senate committee also calls for a national environment protection (wind turbine infrasound and low frequency noise) measure.
It says to get access to the billions of dollars’ worth of renewable energy certificates, wind farm projects would have to adhere not only to the national wind farm guidelines but also with the National Environment Protection Measures.
In its deal to secure passage of the revised RET through the Senate, the federal government agreed to some of the Senate committee’s key interim demands.
Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt says the agreement with the crossbench senators includes the appointment of a wind farm commissioner to receive complaints, make inquiries and to make appropriate findings.
The Clean Energy Council says it is “disappointed about moves to introduce further red tape on the wind sector, given the stringent and robust regulatory framework already in place for wind energy in Australia”.
However, CEC chief executive Kane Thornton says the industry will “work closely with the gov¬ernment to ensure these measures genuinely improve the regulatory framework and are developed based on credible scientific research by independent expert bodies”.
The issue of wind farms and health is not confined to Australia. The executive board of the German Medical Association is considering a motion from this year’s national congress calling for research on infrasound and low-frequency noise-related health effects of wind farms.
Like the NHMRC, the German Medical Association congress motion says there are no reliable and independent studies.
“Consequently, there is no proof that these emissions are safe from a health perspective,” it says.
Japanese researchers who have measured the brain waves of people exposed to noise from wind turbines have found “the infrasound was considered to be an annoyance to the technicians who work in close proximity to a modern large-scale wind turbine”.
And a new study by researchers from Oxford University’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine have found “the odds of being annoyed appear significantly increased by wind turbine noise”.
The research, published in Environment International, has found wind turbine noise significantly increases the odds of experiencing sleep disturbance, and results in lower quality of life scores.
The evidence flies in the face of wind industry claims that complaints have been confined largely to Australia and English-speaking countries where vocal lobby groups have reinforced each other’s dissatisfaction.
In fact, as Australia prepares to ramp up construction of thousands of new wind turbines to satisfy the RET, governments elsewhere are cutting back because of concerns about the cost and social cohesion.
The Finnish Energy Industries Association says the incoming government there effectively has “shut the door” on new wind farms.
Britain’s conservative government has pulled the brake on the UK’s onshore wind industry by closing its subsidy scheme a year early.
The move reportedly will stop about 2500 proposed turbines in 250 projects from being built.
Family First senator Bob Day, deputy chairman of the Senate committee that is undertaking public hearings, says in at least 15 countries people from all walks of life have come forward complaining about the health effects of wind turbines.
The complaints include nausea, blurred vision, vertigo, tachycardia, high blood pressure, ear pressure, tinnitus, headache, exacerbated migraine disorders, sleep deprivation, motion sensitivity and inner ear damage.
Current thinking is that the low-frequency noise impact from wind turbines is felt most acutely by people who are susceptible to motion sickness.
Publicly, the wind industry has an army of supporters ever ready to rubbish claims that wind farms can have any effect on health. But there is evidence the wind industry has known about the impact of infra¬sound for more than two decades.
The first documented complaints were made in 1979 by residents living 3.5km from an old model wind turbine in the US.
The residents described a “feeling” or “presence” that was felt rather than heard, accompanied by sensations of uneasiness and personal disturbance. The “sounds” were louder and more annoying inside the affected homes, they said.
NASA researchers found the wind turbine operation created enormous sound pressure waves and the turbine was redesigned from downwind to upwind, swapping the blade location on the tower.
The author of the NASA research, Neil Kelley, tells Inquirer modern turbines could have the same issues under certain conditions.
In September 1982, the results of NASA research on human impacts was provided to the wind industry. In 1985 the hypothesis was developed for infrasound-induced motion sickness and major NASA research on community annoyance from wind turbines was released.
But over the following decade wind farm noise regulations were developed that specifically avoided measuring low frequency noise.
This is despite the NASA research and the fact the harmful effects of low-frequency noise from other industrial sources have been firmly established and are well understood.
A federal Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism report into airborne contaminants, noise and vibration, published in October 2009, says “sound in the frequency range below 20 hertz is normally defined as ‘infrasound’ and can be heard (or felt) as a pulsating sensation and/or pressure on the ears or chest”.
The common sources of low-frequency noise and infrasound are large pumps, motors or fans and crushing circuits and screens.
The report says low-frequency noise can be particularly annoying and result in complaints many kilometres away from the source.
And because low-frequency noises between 20Hz and 200Hz propagate with minimal attenuation across large distances and transmit easily through building fabric, “it can be quite prominent inside residences”.
The report does not refer to wind turbines but it accurately describes many of the complaints that are being made.
Hunt says the federal government will act in good faith on the Senate inquiry recommendations when the final report is made public in August.
Done properly, the Senate committee recommendations should go to the heart of complaints being made by wind farm neighbours such as Gardner.
They want real-time monitoring of noise, including low frequency and infrasound. And if limits are exceeded they want the turbines shut down, particularly at night.
One thing is certain: when the wind farm commissioner takes up the position there is a good chance they will be receiving plenty of correspondence from Gardner.
Wind Turbine Hosts Love the Money! but…..Hate the Wind Turbines!
Macarthur Turbine Hosts Destroy Local Community & Bolt, as Hammering the Wind Industry becomes the “New Black”
June 27, 2015 by
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When STT cranked into gear in December 2012, hammering the wind industry was a fairly lonely occupation: hardly fashionable; a bit like wearing yellow to a funeral, really.
Back then, openly questioning the “wonders” of wind power was a guaranteed dinner party showstopper. Nervous hosts – choking on their organic pinot gris – would seek to segue to another less contentious topic – the joys of dancing cat videos, say; tempers might flare, among raised voices one of the more passionate would shout something about: “the science is settled man”. The protagonist asserting that dreaded CO2 gas was an obvious planet killing “problem”; to which the only “solution” was carpeting the world in an endless sea of bat-chomping, bird slicing,blade-chucking, pyrotechnic, sonic-torture devices – not that the wound-up wind power advocate would have ever presented, let alone dealt with, minor issues like those, as part of his “we’ve gotta save the planet” manifesto.
But that was then, this is now.
Now, people with a modicum of intelligence – anything like an inquisitive nature; and gifted with a shred of logic – are able to unpick the fraud in several easy steps. Indeed, in discourse among those with an adult’s mental capacity it’s no longer a mortal sin these days to express the bleeding obvious: THESE THINGS DON’T WORK.
On the contrary, calling the great wind power fraud for what it is has become fashionable: for want of a better phrase it’s “the new black”.
For a look at the latest fashion trend, we’ll start off with this cracking article from STT Champion, Graham Lloyd, which struts the catwalk with the self-assured style of Claudia Schiffer.
Real concerns about turbines left blowing in the wind
The Australian
Graham Lloyd
27 June 2015
Each morning fine-wool grower Ann Gardner broadcasts her wind farm woes to an unreceptive world.
Politicians, shock jocks, journalists and anyone Gardner hopes will listen are included as recipients of uncomfortable missives that outline the “torture” of living next door to Australia’s biggest wind farm at Macarthur, Victoria.
Gardner is used to being ignored, unlike her neighbours, Hamish and Anna Officer, who routinely are quoted as model wind farm devotees.
Last week, as the deadline counted down for the revised renewable energy target agreement to be finally approved in federal parliament, the Officers again were displayed prominently on the front page of Fairfax newspapers rebutting the comments of Tony Abbott that wind farms were noisy.
As the Officers’ immediate neighbour, Gardner thinks she, too, should have been asked by Fairfax papers about the noise.
If she had been, the Fairfax reports could have disclosed that the Officers receive an estimated $480,000 a year for 25 years for hosting 48 turbines.
And, a Senate inquiry has been told, after spending lavishly on renovating their Macarthur homestead the Officers will soon be moving on and leaving their wind turbines behind.
The Officers, no doubt, have good reasons for moving. And the facts can easily be construed to suggest Gardner is simply jealous about the good financial fortune of her neighbours thanks to big wind.
But other evidence to the Senate inquiry from wind turbine hosts Clive and Trina Gare, who say they bitterly regret their decision to host turbines because of noise, undermine the widespread claims that only jealous neighbours have a problem with wind farm noise and health.
Gardner contends the failure to report the plight of the Gares or the full picture for the Officers is typical of the one-sided treatment the wind turbine issue has received.
She says much of the media has shown itself willing to misconstrue findings from the National Health and Medical Research Council and suggest research had cleared wind turbines of ill effects.
In fact, the NHMRC said only limited, poor-quality research was available and the issue of wind farms and health remained an open scientific question.
The NHMRC has called for tenders for targeted research with a particular focus on low-frequency noise and infrasound.
After receiving evidence from more than 500 people, the Senate inquiry, chaired by John Madigan, this month released an interim report recommending urgent steps to improve scientific knowledge about the health effects of wind turbines. This includes the creation of an independent expert scientific committee on industrial sound to provide research and advice to the Environment Minister on the impact on human health of audible noise (including low frequency) and infrasound from wind turbines.
The Senate committee also calls for a national environment protection (wind turbine infrasound and low frequency noise) measure.
It says to get access to the billions of dollars’ worth of renewable energy certificates, wind farm projects would have to adhere not only to the national wind farm guidelines but also with the National Environment Protection Measures.
In its deal to secure passage of the revised RET through the Senate, the federal government agreed to some of the Senate committee’s key interim demands.
Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt says the agreement with the crossbench senators includes the appointment of a wind farm commissioner to receive complaints, make inquiries and to make appropriate findings.
The Clean Energy Council says it is “disappointed about moves to introduce further red tape on the wind sector, given the stringent and robust regulatory framework already in place for wind energy in Australia”.
However, CEC chief executive Kane Thornton says the industry will “work closely with the government to ensure these measures genuinely improve the regulatory framework and are developed based on credible scientific research by independent expert bodies”.
The issue of wind farms and health is not confined to Australia. The executive board of the German Medical Association is considering a motion from this year’s national congress calling for research on infrasound and low-frequency noise-related health effects of wind farms.
Like the NHMRC, the German Medical Association congress motion says there are no reliable and independent studies.
“Consequently, there is no proof that these emissions are safe from a health perspective,” it says.
Japanese researchers who have measured the brain waves of people exposed to noise from wind turbines have found “the infrasound was considered to be an annoyance to the technicians who work in close proximity to a modern large-scale wind turbine”.
And a new study by researchers from Oxford University’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine have found “the odds of being annoyed appear significantly increased by wind turbine noise”.
The research, published in Environment International, has found wind turbine noise significantly increases the odds of experiencing sleep disturbance, and results in lower quality of life scores.
The evidence flies in the face of wind industry claims that complaints have been confined largely to Australia and English-speaking countries where vocal lobby groups have reinforced each other’s dissatisfaction.
In fact, as Australia prepares to ramp up construction of thousands of new wind turbines to satisfy the RET, governments elsewhere are cutting back because of concerns about the cost and social cohesion.
The Finnish Energy Industries Association says the incoming government there effectively has “shut the door” on new wind farms.
Britain’s conservative government has pulled the brake on the UK’s onshore wind industry by closing its subsidy scheme a year early.
The move reportedly will stop about 2500 proposed turbines in 250 projects from being built.
Family First senator Bob Day, deputy chairman of the Senate committee that is undertaking public hearings, says in at least 15 countries people from all walks of life have come forward complaining about the health effects of wind turbines.
The complaints include nausea, blurred vision, vertigo, tachycardia, high blood pressure, ear pressure, tinnitus, headache, exacerbated migraine disorders, sleep deprivation, motion sensitivity and inner ear damage.
Current thinking is that the low-frequency noise impact from wind turbines is felt most acutely by people who are susceptible to motion sickness.
Publicly, the wind industry has an army of supporters ever ready to rubbish claims that wind farms can have any effect on health. But there is evidence the wind industry has known about the impact of infrasound for more than two decades.
The first documented complaints were made in 1979 by residents living 3.5km from an old model wind turbine in the US.
The residents described a “feeling” or “presence” that was felt rather than heard, accompanied by sensations of uneasiness and personal disturbance. The “sounds” were louder and more annoying inside the affected homes, they said.
NASA researchers found the wind turbine operation created enormous sound pressure waves and the turbine was redesigned from downwind to upwind, swapping the blade location on the tower.
The author of the NASA research, Neil Kelley, tells Inquirer modern turbines could have the same issues under certain conditions.
In September 1982, the results of NASA research on human impacts was provided to the wind industry. In 1985 the hypothesis was developed for infrasound-induced motion sickness and major NASA research on community annoyance from wind turbines was released.
But over the following decade wind farm noise regulations were developed that specifically avoided measuring low frequency noise.
This is despite the NASA research and the fact the harmful effects of low-frequency noise from other industrial sources have been firmly established and are well understood.
A federal Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism report into airborne contaminants, noise and vibration, published in October 2009, says “sound in the frequency range below 20 hertz is normally defined as ‘infrasound’ and can be heard (or felt) as a pulsating sensation and/or pressure on the ears or chest”.
The common sources of low-frequency noise and infrasound are large pumps, motors or fans and crushing circuits and screens.
The report says low-frequency noise can be particularly annoying and result in complaints many kilometres away from the source.
And because low-frequency noises between 20Hz and 200Hz propagate with minimal attenuation across large distances and transmit easily through building fabric, “it can be quite prominent inside residences”.
The report does not refer to wind turbines but it accurately describes many of the complaints that are being made.
Hunt says the federal government will act in good faith on the Senate inquiry recommendations when the final report is made public in August.
Done properly, the Senate committee recommendations should go to the heart of complaints being made by wind farm neighbours such as Gardner.
They want real-time monitoring of noise, including low frequency and infrasound. And if limits are exceeded they want the turbines shut down, particularly at night.
One thing is certain: when the wind farm commissioner takes up the position there is a good chance they will be receiving plenty of correspondence from Gardner.
The Australian
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Nice work, Graham! Typically hard-hitting stuff, focusing on the sort of things that STT dishes up on a daily basis, like the damning evidence given by Clive and Trina Gare:
And the fact that the wind industry has known about – and sought to cover up – the devastating impacts of incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound for over 30 years:
That Graham Lloyd has the temerity to present those kind of facts – against the run of the drivel dished up by the struggling Fairfax stable and the ABC’s “Ministry of Truth” (see our post here) – might be seen by some as “controversial”; and, by the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers, as an “outrage”: STT, however, simply calls it journalism.
And it’s that kind of journalism that has started to educate the dinner party dimwits referred to above.
In the last couple of months there has been a monumental shift in the attitudes and responses among those commenting on newspaper websites, blog forums and the like.
No longer do eco-fascist fantasists get a free run. Instead, they’re rounded up with what they hate most: FACTS. Quite often the ‘debates’ on comments pages and web forums about the ‘merits’ of wind power get pulled to a conclusive halt with links from STT, used in a “put-that-in-your-pipe and smoke it” moment.
Call it an “awakening”; call it a “fashion trend” – or whatever takes your fancy – but it’s real, and irreversible. As we’ve pointed out before, in our travels we’ve met plenty of people that started out in favour of wind power and turned against it. But we’ve yet to meet anyone who started out opposed to wind power, who later became a supporter.
As STT was putting this post together there were only three comments on The Australian’s website and all of them directed at hammering the great wind power fraud:
Roger
$10,000 per turbine per year. Now that’s what I call easy money. Largely provided by the gullible taxpayer.
Bernie
The whole wind energy thing is a complete farce – that will eventually turn into a disaster.
The only way these monstrosities make money is because of government subsidies – on their own, they can never generate sufficient income to be profitable.
It is therefore blindingly obvious what will eventually and inevitably happen: one day the government subsidies will stop, because future governments will logically decide that this folly can no longer continue and that the pointless expenditure of public funds must cease.
That is when things will get interesting.
As soon as the government subsidies cease – all the companies that own the wind turbines will immediately go out of business. So what then happens to the thousands of wind turbines scattered across the country side? Well, the first thing to determine will be this: who owns them? The company that has gone out of business? The banks and other financiers? The farmer whose land the wind turbine is on? The State? That question in itself will keep legions of lawyers well fed for years.
But the next thing to determine is even more important: who is responsible for their maintenance? Because an unmaintained wind turbine is a disaster waiting to happen – eventually a strong wind will make it turn at the speed of an aircraft propeller – and if it hasn’t been maintained for a couple of years, it will suffer from terminal friction and burst into flames.
Which is not what you want on a scorching Victorian summer day with a temperature of 45C and with a 50 knot wind.
Just one of those wind turbines, on such a day and in such a condition, spewing flames, molten plastic and molten metal on to the long, dry grass below, could be responsible for the next Black Saturday. Who will be sued for hundreds of millions? The banks? The farmer? The state?
All of these questions and issues are just a-blowin’ in the wind.
Terence
Wind energy – “works” SEVEN hours a day with a capital cost of FOUR times base load power is now considered to be unsafe.
Reminds me of Victoria’s State Electricity Commission business model which was to provide Safe, Cheap and Reliable energy. Wind energy promoted by the Renewable Energy industry, politicians and the MSM is quite obviously Unsafe, Expensive and Unreliable.
Yep we got rid of those who understood the energy business like the SECV which planned 20 years into the future whereas today planning only extends to the next election creating industry uncertainty as politics discard our previous safe, cheap reliable power and for what? A few Green preferences.
Hmmmm…. Not a lot of support for “wonderful, free wind energy” being expressed there. And no apparent hesitance amongst the correspondents in hammering the greatest economic and environmental fraud of all time.
Now, back to Graham Lloyd’s article. Graham raises the story of Hamish and Anna Officer – who are pitched up by the wind industry as the happiest turbine hosts on earth. Well …. not quite.
As Graham points out, the Officers have – with all the personal integrity of Judas Iscariot – pocketed their 30 pieces of silver; destroyed their community into the bargain; and are all set to leave their long-suffering neighbours for dead. Here’s some more detail on the Officer’s fine community spirit and moral integrity in this letter from Annie Gardner to 2GB’s Alan Jones.
2GB, Alan Jones Breakfast
Dear Alan,
Our neighbour, turbine host of around 40 turbines (this is an approximate number as we are not sure of exact figures) Mr Hamish Officer, who gave evidence at the Portland Senate Inquiry hearing on 30th March – omitted to inform the Senators in this hearing that he and his family will no doubt soon be moving off their property Brandon, where they host turbines to a new property which they purchased quite some time ago and on which they are building a new, very substantial home.
During the Planning Panel for the Macarthur wind farm in 2006, the Officer family denigrated the many neighbouring families objecting to their proposal, claiming they would be happy to build their new dream home and live amongst the turbines. We were described as “mad” by the locals for objecting and were told there would be “not as much noise from the turbines as an ordinary working farm”.
Several years ago, we heard that the Officers had purchased several hundred acres about 30 kilometres from the Macarthur wind farm where they host around 40 turbines. This is where they planned to build their new “dream home” …..
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From the pictures above you will observe that this magnificent new home is not far from completion yet Mr. Officer, during his presentation to the panel on 30th March 2015, and in his submission where he extremely sarcastically told the story that he was disappointed he couldn’t open his bakery specialising in pavlovas, as his eggs, alas were not yolkless – FORGOT to tell the Senate Inquiry he and his family were intending to MOVE AWAY FROM THE WIND FARM ……
However, in recent years, the Officers have spent megabucks, renovating their homestead on the wind farm – this home is absolutely beautiful now – and also have, I’m informed, spent around $1 million on an equestrian horse complex.
The new property which I think is a few hundred acres – it’s five minutes out of Hamilton at least 30 km if not 35 km from the wind farm at “Brandon”.
I drove past the new property some weeks ago and the house is nearly finished. They’ve begun building a horse complex close to the road, and the new house which they’ll move into very soon I’m told, is quite close to the road, which surprised me. It’s relatively large, maybe 35 squares, but I had expected it to be more grand…. After all, we’d heard for years they were going to build their dream home, possibly $1-$2 million worth and whilst very nice and quite substantial, this didn’t quite fit the picture.
BUT, recently we were told this new house into which they’ll move soon, is only where they’ll live whilst their far grander “dream home” is being built further back into the property!!!!
In his evidence to the Senate Inquiry on 30th March in Portland, Mr. Officer claimed “There are not a lot of people who actually live and work in amongst turbines so that is why I am here today …. My experiences so far have been very positive”.
If that is the case, then why are the Officer family moving 30 kilometres away from the turbines?
People have heard that their two young daughters have admitted that the turbines are “terribly noisy”. We’ve also heard their move is to be closer to education, but the truth is that there are most convenient school bus services to Hamilton College, a very fine private school in Hamilton and after all, it is most likely that the Officer children will be sent away to boarding school in keeping with the tradition on both sides of the family for several generations.
In the opinion of the local people of this district Mr. Officer is guilty of misleading the Senators, by not divulging the information that he and his family will soon be moving away from their turbine host property.
With the inevitable relocation of the Officer family from the Macarthur wind farm, the absentee ownership of one other host (they live full-time in Hamilton 35 kms away) and the situation whereby the principal host, the Robertson family own properties in Port Fairy and Melbourne which they visit regularly, and to where they could easily relocate if necessary. It appears that in reality NOT ONE of the turbine hosts, once the Officers have moved into their new home near Hamilton, live permanently on their turbine host properties.
Ann Gardner
If you Host a Wind Turbine, You’re Part of the Problem! Stop the Wind Scam!
Wind Turbines: The Evil Seed
June 26, 2015 by
They came in like a soft silent breeze
Hushing the naïve
Speaking with forked tongues
Proclaiming black is green
Maiming thinkers with corrupt words
Casting a thick cloud of concern
Residing with hidden evils
Leaving a trail of trash
Forever scarred
The stench you see
Smells of decay
What appears above and below is a plea from Michigan. The author quite rightly sees the roll out of giant industrial wind turbines akin to an evil seed – that, like an errant tumour, takes root, multiplies and ends up totally consuming once productive, healthy and happy rural communities.
It all starts with a host – no host, no turbines.
That host may start with good intentions, hoping to be ‘green’, and accepting what they have been told. But the reality is so profoundly different. Many hosts are gagged by the slick and cunning lawyers and can not share their suffering – but some can and do:
David Mortimer, Turbine Host: An “Inconvenient” Wind Industry Fact
Once turbines are allowed in a community, it becomes easier for the system to bring in more – chasing the stream of subsidies that have caused this perversion in the first place.
This story comes from Tuscola County, in Michigan, in the US, where with no more than a week of notice, the first turbines were approved.
This area, called the Thumb (the shape of the State resembles a mitten protruding into the Great Lakes of North America) is considered the third most fertile agricultural land on earth – the naturally blackened dirt fields are ‘bars of gold’ for farming.
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It intersects key bird migration pathways.
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Now turbines are everywhere. The views of the Northern lights are replaced with an industrialised red light district.
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And the community is ruined. Community cohesion is gone. All those years of built community friendships are gone.
But the aggressive cancer of turbines progresses unabated. A further 2,700 turbines are planned for the area, with a new transmission line now completed. That number is more than twice the total number of wind turbines in Australia.
And it all starts with a host, who signs away so much, for a tiny sack of silver.
Don’t let the evil seed settle where you live. Please stop these things before they start.
When the Truth is Told, Wind Turbines Are a Wast of Time, Space & Money!
Larry Pickering: on the Quixotic Calamity of Wind
June 25, 2015 by
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Larry Pickering is a four-time Walkley Award winning political commentator and Churchill Fellow, whose life’s work has been irritating the loopy-left. Here he is slaying the great wind power fraud.
It’s more than a Quixotic Calamity
Larry Pickering
The Pickering Post
20 June 2015
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The European Renewable Energy Foundation, a Green body supportive of all forms of renewable energy, has carried out research at Edinburgh University involving a look at years of wind farm performance data from the UK and Denmark.
Their conclusion is this:
“Put bluntly, wind turbines onshore and offshore still cost too much and wear out far too quickly to offer the developing world a realistic alternative to coal.”
And these guys are Green renewable energy nuts!
The good news for Australia is that this highly subsidised and ineffective form of Green inspired visual pollution will be non-existent within ten years.
The report [available here] found that by 10 years of age, the output of an average wind turbine will have declined by a third … and by 12 years of age it will be uneconomic to recondition the moving parts.
The bad news for Australia, if they intend to persist with this windmill madness, is that they will all reach their maximum life span at the same time!
Bloody thousands and thousands of these hideous, noisy monstrosities will all need to be replaced at once, and guess what? Investors will have headed for the hills because all those delicious subsidies will have disappeared like Christine Milne and it will cost governments (again you and me) a motza to dismantle and dump the things in the ocean as fish reefs.
They will become worthless bits of metal and plastic no other industry can possibly use. The government of the day will no doubt keep one turbine in a museum somewhere as an artifact so schoolchildren can be shown just how stupid the Greens really are.
South Australia, which has the highest cost of electricity in the nation and the most wind turbines per capita, has saved 4% of their rated capacity in fossil fuels at a cost of $1,484 per ton. That’s roughly $1,474 per ton more expensive than Europe’s current carbon credit price.
The cost of these commercial white elephants, that must eventually be destroyed, is between a highly subsidised $350,000 and $1.3 million each…and the temperature of the globe hasn’t shifted one thousandth of a degree.
Stand underneath a wind turbine that is typically 120 metres tall and try to imagine how our beautiful countryside once looked.
But that’s a visual and noise pollution that will never disadvantage the Greens, oh no, they’ll be happily sipping their lattes in leafy green inner suburbs.
Only two forms of energy can replace the Greens’ hated coal, and neither is wind or solar.
The only freely available clean forms of energy are hydro and nuclear but the Greens refuse to allow dams to be built while frogs need protecting and uranium evokes Green paranoia. Funny eh?
The Pickering Post
Tom Harris Speaks Out About Remarks Made by the Pope, and Why it Was Wrong to Make Them!
Tom Harris has used the situation with my son, Joey, to show that the way the climate alarmists are going about pushing senseless solutions, (for problems they can’t prove will ever occur), is harming people here, and now. This is obscene, and has to stop! Please read this article, and share!
Important Documentary from Germany, on “Infrasound”, Caused by “Wind Turbines”…
Sick by infrasound: Fight against wind turbines
“You cannot smell it, you cannot see it, and you cannot really hear it but maybe it still drives some people crazy.”
Hi all,
This very important German documentary from Spiegel TV was aired on June 7, 2015. We have added English subtitles.
(The YouTube link is just under the video)
The Wind Industry Lies, and Then Pays Their Useful Idiots to Back Them Up!
Fairfax & the ABC: the Wind Industry’s Useful Idiots; or How “Mantras” Killed Journalism
June 23, 2015 by 4 Comments
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Ron and Chris Jelbart, and their son, Peter have come to prominence on these pages once or twice; for all the wrong reasons.
Ron and Peter have given evidence about the debilitating impacts of incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound on their ability to sleep and function as a farmer and heavy-vehicle driver:
Tide Turns as Senate Inquiry hears from the Wind Industry’s “Road-Kill”
Peter went on to detail how incessant night-time noise from AGL’s non-compliant Macarthur disaster impacts on his ability to operate safely behind the wheel:
Now, Peter has penned a simple but cutting riposte to the useful idiots at Fairfax and the ABC (aka the ‘Ministry of Truth’) that parrot wind industry lies and myths in blind deference to their Overlords. The letter got a run in the local rag, but STT thinks it worthy of much wider distribution.
TO THE EDITOR
Dear Sir,
I am writing in response to the latest media bombardment from the Clean Energy Council, formerly known as the Australian Wind Energy Alliance. This was in response to Tony Abbott’s interview where he said in no uncertain terms that he finds wind turbines visually awful and very noisy.
My radio station of choice is triple j. I listen to this daily at work and on weekends, and enjoy the musical content and lack of commercialisation.
Whilst listening to Dr Karl with Zan Rowe last week a person rang in with a question concerning health impacts from living in the vicinity of wind turbines. The answer that followed by the somewhat funny, often likeable doctor raised questions in my mind. There wasn’t a mutter or stumble, a tangent or a hesitation, no tweets from the audience and no need to refer to google scholar, just a torrent of denial of any sort of health impacts from wind turbines, all in all a very unscientific answer.
The definite nature of the response, although not surprised by his slant, aroused my suspicion. It all clicked after talking to my father on Friday night. This was a posed question with an already written answer, as was “Ian” from Macarthur who spoke to Neil Mitchell Friday morning. “Dennis” from Woodhouse who spoke to 774 ABC was also a suspect caller, again on Friday morning.
The ABC 7:30 report Thursday evening spoke to Mark Butler, the Federal Shadow Minister for Environment, obviously pro Wind Farm. Hamish and Anna Officer appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Standard, over the course of a couple of days.
What we have seen is the full force of the wind energy sectors Media and HR departments trying to turn the tide after Tony Abbott’s interview, well helped by the heavily Left leaning and gutless Media. The ABC is well known for its allegiance to the Labour side of politics and the Fairfax run Standard is obviously nailing its colours to the mast in no uncertain terms, after the last few days’ stories and editorials.
Whilst the Fairfax Warrnambool Standard does a great job on covering local news, such as school fetes and country football and netball, their coverage on the issue of wind farms has been pathetic. No journalist has sought deeper answers or asked proper questions. It seems they get all they need to cover a story straight from the huge Media departments of the wind farm operators, the same rhetoric always. Any complainant is just a jealous neighbour suffering from Nocebo.
There is a reason that there is a senate inquiry happening at the moment. I spoke briefly at the Portland hearing about the effects of sleep disturbance and deprivation that I suffer as a neighbour of Industrial Wind Turbines, a consequence of being stimulated by low frequency noise and infrasound. Steven Cooper’s research at Cape Bridgewater along with NASA’s research done years ago by Neil Kelley, confirm that infrasound has been known, and hidden by wind farm companies for a very long time.
The noise testing done at home pre and post windfarm is farcical, designed and financed by the wind farm companies to give them the answers they seek, lost data, flat batteries and setting up testing equipment under trees etc to distort and manipulate the truth all part of the game. Low frequency noise and infrasound is not part of the testing.
No one who has not had to live beside a windfarm for an extended period, and who isn’t subject to strict “gag” clauses, such as hosts and other neighbours who receive money for tree screening etc. is qualified to speak on the subject of windfarm noise. The sheer stupidity of the comments from people who pull up under them and say “I can hardly hear them” shows a complete lack of understanding of the infrasound problem and can only be put down to absolute ignorance or complete arrogance.
These visually awful, or “somewhat graceful and beautiful towers of man’s going to save mankind from himself” windmills, depending on your persuasion, apparently blend in a little too well to the landscape for our avian friends. As reported in 2014 “conservative estimates of bird deaths are at 10 per tower per year” and during official searches at AGL’s Macarthur wind farm 64 carcasses were found including falcons, kestrels, shrouded kites and a spotted harrier, as well as 6 Wedge Tailed Eagles. For an individual this bird kill would be disastrous, resulting in prison, fines and (rightly deserved) bad publicity but for a wind farm it’s all in a “day’s work”.
The people who are writing in weekly to papers such as the Standard are not political activists. They are farmers, teachers, secretaries, retirees, Salt of the Earth people. People with far better things to do, but impacted to such a degree that they will fight, they will tell their story and they will pursue the truth. The only thing that keeps them motivated is the fact that they know they have a problem and it’s not just “in their heads”.
They are not the liars, the villains, the cheats, the greedy, or the soft of heart or will.
Peter Jelbart
Hawkesdale
Nice work, Peter.
Although we think him too fair on the wind industry shills that people the struggling Fairfax stable and the ABC.
Pig ignorance, among children and the uninitiated, can be excused for a while, but in the face of insurmountable facts, not forever.
STT has repeatedly clobbered the myth perpetuated by the lunatics of the hard-‘green’-left that wind power is capable of not only displacing, but wholly replacing, conventional generation sources, such as coal, gas and hydro:
Why Coal Miners, Oil and Gas Producers Simply Love Wind Power
Either our current crop of journos can’t interpret simple graphs or understand basic economics? Or their eyes simply glaze over while they mutter “no, it can’t be true?”
And the same horror and disbelief must grip them when faced with buckets of splattered bats and ute-loads of slaughtered birds:
Bird Carcass Count proves AGL’s Macarthur Wind Farm is an Avian Slaughterhouse
Faced with a few pics of Eagles sliced in two, shaken, they’re reduced to stuttering something about its “all okay because their cat once killed a bird too”.
Then there’s the classic wind industry spin – highlighted by Peter – that: “Any complainant is just a jealous neighbour suffering from Nocebo”.
It’s a wind industry line that was always specious and self-serving, but – in the light of the evidence given by Clive and Trina Gare to the Senate Inquiry – it’s downright dishonest.
Clive and Trina have hosted 19 2.1 MW Suzlon s88 turbines for five years, pocketing over $1 million along the way; and, yet, gave solemn evidence that the incessant low-frequency noise that’s generated at night-time has ruined their ability to sleep in their own home; and that they wouldn’t live within 20 km of a wind farm if they had their choice over again:
While Graham Lloyd from The Australian gave that story a run, don’t expect the ABC or Fairfax to do likewise.
And a little journalistic nouse would have uncovered what the wind industry has known, and worked like demons to cover up, for around 30 years:
But, no, those kind of facts would never do.
You see, as with any cult, even so much as questioning the mantra is tantamount to heresy – which leads to exclusion, if not expulsion, from the warmth and safety of the compound.
Instead, the chants from acolytes have grown louder, and more shrill, in an effort to maintain their own confidence in their increasingly shaky beliefs.
And so it was, in the last week, that hitherto hard-core heathens started quoting that world renowned long-range weather forecaster, the Pope – as the answer to their apocalyptic prayers and need for self-validation.
Now, with all due respect to His Holiness, directing his congregation in prayer for the poor and needy is a far more sensible use of his time, than prophesying about the temperature in 50 years time.
As that great philosopher, Yogi Berra warned: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
Notwithstanding that sage advice, STT is happy to predict that the Pope will end up with the same level of credibility as Australia’s own long-range weather forecaster, and ABC favourite, Tim Flannery (for a rundown on Tim’s prodigious prognostic skills see our post here).
****
Not only is the current crop, claiming to call themselves journalists, gullible, they’re nasty too. The ABC’s political cutie pie, Annabel Crabb scooped the gold medal when she called long-suffering wind farm victims “Dick Brains” on ABC radio:
And the same outlets cite, with veneration, a former tobacco advertising guru as their “high priest” on the question of adverse health effects. Notwithstanding that his qualifications are limited to the effect ofadvertising on rates of smoking. The fact that he ridicules and demeans people he’s never met as “wind farm wing-nuts” doesn’t seem to trouble the ABC at all. What’s that stuff in its Charter about “balance” and “objectivity”?
No, what’s dished up from Fairfax and the National Broadcaster can’t be explained by simple, seasoned ignorance. As Ben Franklin put it:
“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid”.
At Fairfax and the ABC they’re clearly working very hard.
If Wind Projects Go Above Noise Levels Repeatedly, They Should Be SHUT DOWN!
Noise data new weapon in war on windfarms
Credit: By Iain Ramage | The Press and Journal | 22 June 2015 | ~~
Protesters in the north are warning windfarm operators that some schemes could be shut down for breaching noise limits.
Highland activists are preparing to follow the lead of counterparts in England and Ireland who have collated extensive data they say proves that planning conditions have been flouted at a number of windfarms.
Campaigners in the north believe similar gauging of the industry in Scotland could open the floodgates for legal action against offending operators.
Sound estimates are usually carried out by developers as part of the groundwork for planning applications to give an indication of anticipated noise levels.
But there is currently no obligation to carry out monitoring once a scheme is built — at which stage councils merely respond to individual complaints about noise.
Residents living near a turbine development in Cambridgeshire have compiled what is thought to be the most comprehensive sound history of any UK windfarm.
Monitoring has taken place over two-and-a-half years, using industry-standard recording equipment to reveal what they claim have been regular breaches at the Cottonfarm scheme at Gravely.
Highland campaigners have seen the equipment operate and now plan to instal similar devices in the north. Bev Gray, 71, who worked in renewable energy before retiring, stopped holidaying in Scotland due to the spread of windfarms.
As an adviser to a residents’ group, he claims his local wind scheme – Cotton farm – is “one of the noisiest in the world”, based on data he gleaned by installing a £16,000 machine to measure the decibel output.
Residents there now want the equipment installed at every windfarm, at the owners’ expense, as part of planning conditions.
Mr Gray said: “Developer data is never tested because it’s always taken as being accurate.
“From a month’s worth of monitoring they take a minute’s worth of the lowest noise level to produce a figure.
“It’s part of the smoke and mirrors of an illusion that allows them to build windfarms close to homes.”
The Cotton farm scheme was taken over by a City of London investment group.
Spokesman Tom Rayner said: “Greencoat UK Wind has worked with the local environmental health officer to monitor noise levels and will continue to do so as required.”
Mr Gray said his data had been taken on board by the local authorities in south Cambridgeshire and would allow people to use “accurate information” as a basis for legal action.
“We’re gradually bringing the wind industry to account,” he said.
“At the moment they can do what the hell they like. Nobody can prove them wrong because the authorities aren’t monitoring things.”
Prominent Highland anti-windfarm campaigner Lyndsey Ward, from Beauly near Inverness, has visited Cambridge and Ireland to witness communities’ monitoring of various schemes. She said the move was prompted by plans tabled by ABO Wind for a turbine scheme at Allt Carach, south- west of Beauly.
She said: “The potential devastation on our lives from ABO Wind’s proposed 25-turbine development has forced us to research the noise issue in more depth.
“Our home would have the prevailing wind in direct line from the turbines. This is not just for us, but for others across Scotland.
“Sleep deprivation can lead to more serious illnesses. Why there’s no legislation to compel developers to constantly monitor their operations beggars belief.”
Tom Harrison, project manager with Inverness-based ABO Wind UK, said: “Allt Carach is still under investigation, therefore its planning submission is uncertain. We would always comply with any noise legislation or planning condition set by the relevant planning authority.
“Should a community have concerns over noise, after consultation with that relevant community, a decision as to whether noise monitoring equipment is required would be considered.”
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On the plus side: Complaints ‘will be investigated’ and projects get ‘rigorous’ checks
Highland Council said last night it would investigate any complaints about noise levels at turbine developments.
An industry body insisted all projects were subjected to “rigorous” examination at the planning stage. A spokesman for the local authority said: “We seek to ensure that noise levels at a particular house nearby any turbine does not exceed minimum levels.
“Where there is a complaint this is investigated and, if necessary, a resolution sought to any breach of planning condition.”
Joss Blamire, of trade body Scottish Renewables, said: “All wind energy projects in Scotland go through a rigorous planning process that assesses the noise impacts of developments. Only those with acceptable impacts will be consented.”
Huntingdon District Council in Cambridgeshire plans to measure noise levels at Cottonfarm Windfarm after receiving a flood of complaints from residents in surrounding villages. The decision was prompted by evidence recorded by equipment installed by residents.
Locals argue the 413ft tall turbines were built too close to homes.
The sound of the turbines has been likened to that of an aircraft or helicopter in flight.
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