Maurice Newman, the chief business adviser to the prime minister, said the science showing links between human activity and the warming climate was wrong but was being used as a “hook” by the UN to expand its global control.
“This is not about facts or logic. It’s about a new world order under the control of the UN,” he wrote in The Australian.
“It is opposed to capitalism and freedom and has made environmental catastrophism a household topic to achieve its objective.” Born in Ilford, England, and educated in Australia, Mr Newman, a staunch conservative and former chairman of the Australian Stock Exchange, has long been an outspoken critic of climate change science.
He was appointed chairman of the government’s business advisory council by Mr Abbott, who himself is something of a climate change sceptic and once famously described climate change as “absolute cr**” – a comment he later recanted.
In his comment piece – described by critics as “whacko” – Mr Newman said the world has been “subjected to extravagance from climate catastrophists for close to 50 years”.
“It’s a well-kept secret, but 95 per cent of the climate models we are told prove the link between human CO2 emissions and catastrophic global warming have been found, after nearly two decades of temperature stasis, to be in error,” he wrote.
“The real agenda is concentrated political authority. Global warming is the hook. Eco-catastrophists [ …] have captured the UN and are extremely well funded. They have a hugely powerful ally in the White House.”
Environmental groups and scientists described Mr Newman as a ‘crazed’ conspiracy theorist and some called on him to resign.
“His anti-science, fringe views are indistinguishable from those made by angry trolls on conspiracy theory forums,” said the Climate Change Council.
Professor Will Steffen, a climate change scientist, told The Australian Financial Review: “These are bizarre comments that would be funny if they did not come from [Mr Abbott’s] chief business adviser.” Mr Abbott’s office did not respond but his environment minister said he did not agree with Mr Newman’s comments.
The article was written by Mr Newman to coincide with a visit by Christiana Figueres, the UN climate change negotiation, who has urged Australia to reduce its reliance on coal. Australia is one of the world’s biggest emitters of carbon emissions per capita.
Since his election in 2013, Mr Abbott has abolished Labor’s carbon tax, scaled back renewable energy targets and appointed sceptics to several significant government positions.
Any ‘business’ model or industry that is built around endless streams of government mandated subsidies – like Australia’s REC Tax/Subsidy or the US’s Production Tax Credit – pins its hopes of long-term survival on the whims of our political betters, which tend to ebb and flow with the economics that dictate the fortunes of those they pretend to govern. Or, more crudely, if your business can only survive when firmly nuzzled to the public tit, then at some point, with the stroke of a parliamentary pen, you can expect to see your firm’s future grind to a shuddering halt.
But, eventually, the cost of propping up uncompetitive industries wears thin; governments grow tired of endless excuses as to why the recipients aren’t ready to ‘compete’, just yet; and/or pleading for the gravy train to roll for that little bit longer, at everyone elses’ expense.
Sometimes, when the flabby firms concerned are threatened by a government out to axe mandated corporate welfare schemes, they pipe up with claims of being ‘competitive’ SOON – like the naughty boy caught for the umpteenth time stealing mum’s Tim Tams, promising to be better in future.
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One such example is from Christopher Flavin, the President emeritus of the Worldwatch Institute, when he pitched the yarn that, in a few years’ time, wind energy will not need to be subsidised at all.
But, hang on, that was 1984 – and the very same line gets reloaded and fired off ad infinitum – without a hint of irony, or shame, at begging for more, over and over and over again.
But, sensible governments are catching on: the fiction that the wind industry will SOON be competitive with conventional power generators, is being treated with the contempt it rightly deserves; and, as a consequence, wind power outfits are being threatened with that which spells their immediate demise: the chance to compete NOW!
Here’s a take from the US on what the wind industry fears most.
It is a Bad Time to be in the Renewable Energy Industry
Heartland.org
Marita Noon
27 April 2015
2015 may go down in the books as the year support for renewable energy died – and we are only a few months in. Policy adjustments – whether for electricity generation or transportation fuels – are in the works on both the state and federal levels.
While the public is generally positive about the idea of renewable energy, the reality of years-long policy implementation that offers it special favors has changed public opinions. An October 2014 report in Oklahoma’s Enid News titled: “Wind worries?: A decade after welcoming wind farms, states reconsider,” offers this insightful summary:
“A decade ago, states offered wind-energy developers an open-armed embrace, envisioning a bright future for an industry that would offer cheap electricity, new jobs and steady income for large landowners, especially in rural areas with few other economic prospects. To ensure the opportunity didn’t slip away, lawmakers promised little or no regulation and generous tax breaks. But now that wind turbines stand tall across many parts of the nation’s windy heartland, some leaders in Oklahoma and other states fear their efforts succeeded too well, attracting an industry that gobbles up huge subsidies, draws frequent complaints and uses its powerful lobby to resist any reforms.”
But, it isn’t just wind energy that has fallen from favor. 2015 state and federal legislation reflects the “reconsider” prediction. Likewise “powerful” lobbyists are resisting the proposed reforms.
Oklahoma is just one state in what has become a new trend.
About a decade ago, when more than half of the states enacted strict Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), Oklahoma, and a few other states, agreed to voluntary targets. Now, nearly one-third of those states are reconsidering the legislation that sounded so good in a different energy era. Back then, it was widely believed that there was an energy shortage and “dealing with global warming” was a higher public priority.
“Roughly 30 bills relating to the Oklahoma wind industry have been filed in the state legislature in the 2015 session, including at least one targeting the tax breaks and others attempting to alter regulatory policies,” reports Fox News. On April 16, the Oklahoma House voted, 78-3, to eliminate the wind energy tax credit. The measure now moves to the Senate, which will review a companion bill introduced by Senator Mike Mazzei – it is expected to pass and will likely be headed to Governor Mary Fallin soon.
Oklahoma isn’t the first state to reconsider its renewable energy policies. That distinction goes to Ohio, which in May 2014, passed legislation that paused the state’s RPS for two years. Governor Kasich signed it in June. Meanwhile, according to Eli Miller, the Ohio State Director for Americans for Prosperity: “the economic well-being of our working families and businesses can be factored in before moving forward.” The International Business Timesprojects that the two years a commission has to study will lead to a “permanent reduction.”
Earlier this year, West Virginia became the first state to repeal its RPS. With unanimous support in the Senate and a 95-4 vote in the House, renewable energy supporters are dismayed. Calling it “pure political theater and probably a flop,” Nick Lawton, Staff Attorney at the Green Energy Institute dismisses the move: “West Virginia’s withdrawal of its weak renewable energy policy is unlikely to significantly change that state’s energy markets.” Nancy Guthrie, one of the four Democrats who voted “No,” did so because she believes “we are running out of coal, it’s that simple” – which is, of course, totally incorrect.
Last month the Texas Senate voted to end its RPS and another program that, according to the Star Telegram, “helped fuel the state’s years-long surge in wind energy production.” The bill now moves to the House State Affairs Committee. It is expected to pass the House and be signed by Governor Greg Abbott. While Texas is known for its leadership in wind energy, the termination of the RPS will impact the solar industry as well. Charlie Hemmeline, executive director of the Texas Solar Power Association, states: “Increasing uncertainty for our industry raises the cost of doing business in the state.”
Coming up, Kansas, North Carolina, and Michigan have legislation that revisits the states’ favorable renewable energy policies.
New Mexico and Colorado had bills to repeal or revise the RPS that passed in one chamber, but not in the other.
While Louisiana doesn’t have an RPS, it does have generous tax credits for solar panel installations that have exploded the cost to the state’s taxpayers.
The credits were originally expected to cost the state $500,000 a year. In 2014 the payouts ballooned to $63.5 million according to the Baton Rouge Advocate. Repealing or revising the policy is a key priority in the current legislative session.
“Taxpayer support for wind energy is also losing momentum in Congress,” says Fox News. It points out: “Capitol Hill lawmakers at the end of last year did not extend the Federal Production Tax Credit (PTC). And in March, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), failed to rally support behind an amendment that would have put a five-year extension on the PTC.”
It is not just wind energy that has lost favor in Congress. The Ethanol mandates – known as the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) – are being re-examined, too.
On January 16, 2015, Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) introduced the “Corn Ethanol Mandate Elimination Act of 2015.”
More recently, a “former Obama economic adviser” issued a report that calls for changes to the 10-year-old RFS. Harvard University Professor Jim Stock served on the Council of Economic Advisers in 2013 and 2014.
The Hillstates: “His report comes at a time of growing angst among lawmakers, regulators and the industry over the future of the RFS, which mandates fuel refiners blend a certain volume of ethanol and biodiesel into their traditional gasoline and diesel supplies.” The Wall Street Journal(WSJ) supports the sentiment calling Stock’s report: “a key voice to a growing chorus of people who say the policy isn’t working.” It continues: “The report adds to a growing body of politicians and experts who are questioning the law’s effectiveness amid regulatory uncertainty and lower prices.”
Hawaii, uniquely, has its own ethanol mandate, but it, too, is coming under attack. KHON states: “Nine years after a major change at the gas pump was forced on Hawaii drivers, many are now calling it a failed experiment and want it gone.”
In both the case of Hawaii and the federal government, lawmakers are looking toward advanced biofuels that don’t raise food costs. However, the Environmental Protection Agency – tasked with implementing the RFS – has repeatedly waived or reduced the cellulosic biofuel requirements because, despite more than $126 billion invested since 2003, the industry has yet to produce commercially viable quantities of fuel.
Addressing dwindling investment in biofuels and growing skepticism, The Economist, on April 18, says: “Campaigners generally find it easier to fulminate against those which damage the environment or food security than to explain exactly how they ought to be grown.” It concludes: “Whether such bright ideas can be commercialised at scale is a different question. Some companies, indeed, are starting to give up. Several algae-to-fuel ventures in America are switching to the manufacture of high-value chemicals instead. Sunlight is a great source of energy. Biology may not be the best way of storing it.”
And this doesn’t include the public’s failure to embrace higher-priced electric cars – even with tens of thousands of dollars of subsidies and tax credits.
Looking at all the policy reviews, the trend is clear. As Watchdog.org, in areport titled: “Why repealing the renewable energy mandates is good for the economy,” concludes: “The best policy for the states is to leave energy consumption decisions to consumers in the market rather than legislate them.” Heartland.org
The Germans went into wind power harder and faster than anyone else – and the cost of doing so is catching up with a vengeance. The subsidies have been colossal, the impacts on the electricity market chaotic and – contrary to the environmental purpose of the policy – CO2 emissions are rising fast: if “saving” the planet is – as we are repeatedly told – all about reducing man-made emissions of an odourless, colourless, naturally occurring trace gas, essential for all life on earth – then German energy/environmental policy has manifestly failed (see our post here).
Some 800,000 German homes have been disconnected from the grid – victims of what is euphemistically called “fuel poverty”. In response, Germans have picked up their axes and have headed to their forests in order to improve their sense of energy security – although foresters apparently take the view that this self-help measure is nothing more than blatant timber theft (see our post here).
German manufacturers – and other energy intensive industries – faced with escalating power bills are packing up and heading to the USA – where power prices are 1/3 of Germany’s (see our posts here and hereand here). And the “green” dream of creating thousands of jobs in the wind industry has to turned out to be just that: a dream (see our post here).
Now, with Germany’s wind powered energy debacle clearly running completely out of control, a few sober individuals – like German physicist, climate scientist and spokesman for the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE), Prof. Dr. Horst-Joachim Lüdecke – have weighed in. Prof Lüdecke has ripped into his country’s insane renewables policy; in an effort to get his compatriots to sober up, before they’re all left without a job, living on welfare and sitting freezing, in the dark.
German Climate Physicist: Alternative Energy, Climate Are A “Religious Creed”… “Miles Away” From Openness
NoTricksZone
P Gosselin
26 April 2015
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Yesterday approximately 15,000 coal miners turned out to protest the German government’s energy policy.
German Economics Minister Sigmar Gabriel announced earlier he intended to levy a CO2 surcharge on older coal power plants with the aim of shutting them down.
Before yesterday’s demonstration, German physicist and climate scientist and spokesman for the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE), Prof. Dr. Horst-Joachim Lüdecke, published a sharply-worded commentary here on the government’s anti-fossil fuel/nuclear power policy. As the introduction Lüdecke wrote:
“Climate protection and the switch over to renewable energies were instilled in German citizens by state propaganda, green brainwashing and with the help of all of Germany’s mainstream media. The unconditional necessity to advance into alternative energies has become a religious creed. By historical and global comparison, such a thing happens the most easily here, time after time. The logic used by the politically interested parties every time appears to be infallible. [..]
The argument goes as follows: The rescue of the planet from a death by heat and the immediate shutdown of the irresponsible German nuclear power plants are essential. The question of whether this is really true is not to be asked, let alone discussed.”
Lüdecke says, however, that public awareness over the madness of Germany’s energy policy is beginning to dawn and that he believes “now is the phase of sobering up, but unfortunately not yet one of reason.” Leading print media are beginning to soften their support for the so-called Energiewende as it now stands, he writes. As angry coal miners take to the street, and thousands of industrial jobs become threatened, it is becoming increasingly apparent something has gone awry.
Lüdecke thinks that the sobering-up process will take time because every political party has made green issues part of its platform. “Green is a very difficult color to wash away,” the German physicist writes.
Lüdecke then explains the primary disadvantage of renewable energy: their low energy density, i.e. meaning they require vast areas and that the major ones are weather-dependent. The German EIKE professor does not know how long the sobering-up process will take, citing the immense power of an array of lobbies behind the green movement.
Lüdecke also aims harsh words at Germany’s pompous and one-sided media:
“Finally a word for the German media, here especially for the public TV and radio networks. They are rightly being compared by the current contemporaries to the conditions of former East Germany or even earlier times.”
At the political level, Lüdecke blasts the atmosphere of intimidation against people who have alternative views, who often are threatened with physical violence from radical leftists groups.
When it comes to openness, such as that proclaimed by French philosopher Voltaire, the German climatologist writes “in the dark media of Germany, we are miles away.” He adds:
“Factual discourse, connected with polite listening and taking the arguments from opponents seriously, is definitely not in fashion.”
Lüdecke describes Germany as a desert when it comes to independent reporting and expression of opinions. NoTricksZone
There, as here, a gullible and pliant media has aided and abetted the greatest environmental and economic fraud of all time. Whether it’s bone laziness, or intellectual dishonesty, modern journos have a lot to answer for.
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Once upon a time, the ambitious young hack was inquisitive, suspicious and had the kind of forensic zeal that would have teamed up well with Sherlock Holmes and his side-kick, Watson. Not any more.
But, thanks to the likes of NoTricksZone, and a few other dedicated bloggers, the unassailable facts are seeing the light of day; much to the horror and annoyance of the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers.
As the scale and scope of the fraud is steadily being revealed – despite the wind industry’s best efforts to keep a lid on it – those who are in a position to have called it a long time ago – and failed or refused to do so – are going to end up looking like either gullible dupes; or willing worshippers, in an insidious, quasi-religious cult.
Deprive someone of a decent night’s sleep and the wheels start to fall off pretty quickly.
In the absence of quality sleep, it’s not long and people start suffering mood swings, impaired mental function, lose capacity for abstract thought and – if operating heavy machinery or driving – become a danger to workmates and/or fellow road users.
Depriving anyone of a decent night’s sleep is tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment; to inflict that punishment on people trying to sleep in their own homes is an invasion of their property rights; and, therefore, amounts to a form of theft, as well:
But stealing someone’s ability to get a solid 8 in the sack, has particular consequences for those who work with dangerous tools, machinery; or those who jump behind the wheel of a 60 tonne B-Double, and thunder off on days long treks, on Australia’s endless highways.
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Australian heavy vehicle drivers are all subject to very strict rules about the maximum time behind the wheel, rest intervals and sleep. The assumption is that if the driver is off the road, then he or she will be catching some ZZZs; and, thereafter, be refreshed for yet another 8 hour slog down the road, before taking another scheduled break. All of these common sense rules are aimed at road safety – the driver’s own, and every other road user. And fair enough, too.
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Farmers often jump behind the wheel of trucks in the wee-hours to get stock to markets or grain to silos; and spend endless hours on tractors during cropping activities. And there are a range of other dangerous activities that require a farmer to have their wits about them: operating post-hole diggers; and hanging onto a whirring handpiece while shearing or crutching a thumping big wether keen to avoid losing any part of its fibrous coat, to name a couple.
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So, to deprive this class of people of a decent night’s sleep creates a health and safety problem, with the potential for some very serious impacts.
Ron and Chris Jelbart are farmers who live next door to AGL’s Macarthur wind farm disaster in Western Victoria. Chris has detailed, in graphic terms, her suffering, caused by the incessant low-frequency noise and infrasound generated by 140 3MW Vestas V112s, since they kicked into operation in October 2012, in hundreds of complaints to AGL; and as set out in this letter to the local rag:
From: Chris JelbartSent: Tuesday, September 10, 2013 7:05 PM
To: editor@thestandard.net.au Subject: wind farm noise
Dear Sir,
I write in answer both to Nick Thies (Saturday letter), and to AGL (Tuesday Standard article). No-one who has not lived next to a wind farm can speak about the effects.
Multi-disciplinary scientific research has NOT been carried out. Any evidence is usually produced by groups or individuals who don’t want the truth known. Any evidence contrary to their views is ignored.
The extensive testing done by AGL by “independent” acoustic companies rely on parameters set by AGL so that full spectrum testing is not done. Sounds or noise that they don’t want are filtered out. Their testing could be compared with Collingwood being able to choose their own umpire on Saturday. I am sure the result would have been to Collingwood’s advantage.
The Senate recommended TWO years ago that research should be done, but nothing has happened. Now people surrounding the Macarthur Wind Energy Facility are suffering the consequences.
Why should we have to put up with disturbed and broken night’s sleep? Why should I have to hang over the sink dry-retching as I get lunch organised for the day? (I am 58 and not pregnant.) Why should my friends and neighbours suffer headaches, palpitations and head pressure? Why should families have to leave their homes to escape the effects of both audible and inaudible noise?
Not all people suffer from these problems. Some began experiencing symptoms immediately, for me it took at least 6 months. Others around the district are becoming more aware of problems as time goes on. It is NOT Simon Chapman’s nocebo effect. Some of those suffering believed we were talking utter nonsense 12 months ago.
We have to put up with the ridicule of people who live in their cities and towns with no clue of what is happening in our homes, expressing their disbelief at our suffering.
If AGL truly believes that their WEF at Macarthur is compliant, and not causing the distress that the surrounding residents are suffering, then it should encourage totally independent research to refute our suggestion to the contrary. Chris Jelbart Penshurst
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Ron, and their son, Peter recently gave evidence to the Senate Inquiry into the great wind power fraud at Portland (see our post here) – evidence of the kind described by Senator Bob Day as “harrowing”:
This is my submission in regard to the senate enquiry to wind farms.
My name is Peter Jelbart, I am 31 years old and grew up at our home property, where mum and dad farm to this day. It was a great place to grow up and my upbringing, although it was not perfect, was very good.
I remember as a young child dad working away shearing 5 days a week and farming on weekends, to hold onto the dream of farming grandpa’s block.
I remember them having to sell land up the road, and only just holding onto the home block. I remember as a primary school age kid feeding hay and grain to sheep after school, while dad was away for, at times, weeks.
I remember sheep being pitted and being told to play while the crack of 22 bullets rang out and truck load after truck load of sheep got dumped in a pit. This was in the early 90’s, wool was bad, land was worth nothing and interest rates were running into the 20% region.
However, as bad as things were at home mum and dad did everything they could for us. Obviously education was a priority, as was being involved with local football and cricket. The farm and home means everything to us. It is my parent’s life’s work, superannuation and life savings, all in one neat block of Western Victorian dirt.
From the age of 19 I moved to Port Fairy to play football and fell into work driving trucks, which I have loved from as early as I can remember. I lived in town for 3 years, and then moved to Portland for a year before ending up in Western Australia.
Since I started driving trucks I have been very focused on firstly building a career and secondly trying to work toward financial security. I have been quite successful at this early stage.
As I sit here writing this I am financially secure, happy and healthy. But there is a big problem. I am back at home after working away and the Macarthur Industrial Wind Turbines are driving me mad. I have had disrupted sleeps since day one of operation, but only when I stay at home. I am not neurotic or psychotic, I do not suffer from “The Nocebo Effect”, I have very disrupted sleep at home.
As a truck driver I have become used to sleeping in different environments. I have worked big hours in the past. I have slept beside busy highways often, and in Western Australia I regularly slept with an “Ice Pack” running, which is basically a diesel motor that runs a refrigerated air con unit and an alternator, which is used when the truck is parked, to cool the bunk. Initially these take a lot of getting used to. They are noisy and they cycle. They cut in and out but once I’m asleep they don’t worry me. I have become very aware of the way I sleep since I started to be disrupted by the Macarthur IWF.
My parent’s farm is within a couple of kilometres from the nearest tower, not that that means anything to you or to us, as we may as well have a tower on the back lawn.
From an aesthetic point of view they are unattractive. It is not this that that worries me. The Industrial Wind Turbines are not necessarily noisy, although they are audible most days. The problem is the sleep disruption, the inaudible noise and the “un-feelable” vibration.
We are suffering a very real and serious problem at home. Dad is suffering from severe sleep disruption; I have severely interrupted sleep, mixed with lucid dreams. I have been fortunate to spend most of my time away from home since the Macarthur IWTs started.
I have recently ended up living at home again and this has only reinforced what I already knew, that there is a serious problem coming from the emissions of the IWTs next door.
As a professional heavy vehicle driver I know about fatigue. I have sat through courses related to fatigue management yearly for the last ten years. I have worked big hours, illegal hours, and I know what tired is. I know what sleep is. I know the principals of circadian rhythms, how to handle shift work, what to eat, what to drink and what to avoid.
I also know that the sleep, or lack of, that happens at home, is completely foreign. It is not a problem with my head, my mind, my body, or anything else. It is a problem from being externally stimulated by the IWTs close to home. It is a combination of infrasound and low frequency noise. “Noise” that doesn’t get measured by planners, government, hosts or acousticians. “Noise” that doesn’t exist. “Noise” that is all in our heads. “Noise” that is completely denied by wind farm companies.
For years I have dreamed of running a truck of my own. Ideally I would use home as a base. This is no longer a viable option because of the sleep issue. How can I as a heavy vehicle driver, whose fatigue is measured in 15 minute intervals, with fines starting at $600 for minor breaches, work out of a place where I can’t sleep? What am I to do when I can’t turn up fit for duty, even if I spent 8 hours in bed?
Wind is a dirty industry, built on lies, mistruths and hypotheticals. It is an unsustainable industry. It will cost Australia dearly, not just now but into the future. We at home are merely political road kill. We don’t matter. As the great green con rolls on, our lives have been disrupted to a level unimaginable to almost all. Unless you personally experience the disruption, the sleepless nights, the constant battering, you don’t get it.
I have only touched on the most personal issue to me, the disrupted sleep. There are far more qualified people out there who will hopefully make submissions outlining the political and financial failings of wind farms. I can live in the shadows of a wind farm, I can put up with the industrialisation of the landscape. The thing I can’t handle is not being able to sleep at home.
My submission is to outline purely the fact there is a real and proper concern as far as sleep deprivation and sleep disturbance go as neighbours of a wind farm. I realise there are too many people investing too much money and I realise that politicians and policy makers don’t like knowing or admitting that they have been lied to, conned and bluffed by wind energy, and as such I doubt any real outcome will be achieved by this senate enquiry, although I thank anyone who holds real concern for us.
The only thing that I can realistically relate wind energy to is asbestos, and maybe tobacco. For how long have we heard the proponents claiming all the upsides with no side effects, at all, EVER!!
Wake up to the con, the lies, the bullshit, that is wind, before more disruption to good everyday people takes place. There is a reason a senate enquiry is taking place and it is about time some real answers were heard from people affected by wind farms.
Peter Jelbart Submission 270 Select Committee on Wind Turbines
Last month’s announcement by Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne that her province would link up with the existing Quebec and California carbon dioxide cap-and-trade systems prompted an editorial in this newspaper headlined, “Is this Green Energy Act Round Two?”
Ontario’s Green Energy Act offered so-called “feed-in rates” almost four times existing electricity rates for wind and more than 10 times for solar power. Like bees to honey, wind and solar companies rushed in. By the time the government realized that these subsidies were driving Ontario from one of the lowest to one of the highest power cost jurisdictions in North America, the province had signed myriad 20-year-locked-in-rate-guaranteed contracts that will drive power rates up a further 40 per cent to 50 per cent in coming years. Adding salt to this self-inflicted wound is the reality that much of the green power comes on stream when it isn’t needed. This unneeded electricity is dumped into the United States at bargain-basement prices that Ontario’s Auditor-General found has already cost Ontario power consumers billions of dollars, with much bigger losses yet to come before those 20-year contracts expire.
Given these disastrous results, one would think that Ms. Wynne and her cabinet colleagues would have carefully studied experience in other jurisdictions before implementing green policy two. The first and largest carbon cap-and-trade scheme is Europe’s 10-year-old system. As in Ontario, the story begins with huge subsidies for wind and solar power that drove up electricity prices precipitously. Cap-and-trade handed wind and solar power companies a second windfall by creating a “carbon trading market” that allowed them to sell “carbon offsets” from their low-emission projects.
On the other hand, many factories and industrial plants, already struggling with high power costs, found it more profitable to shut down and sell their carbon credit allocation in the carbon trading market. As a result, the bulk of Europe’s emissions reductions have been achieved by the departure of energy-intensive industries to overseas locations. Many of the products consumed by Europeans are now produced in countries without emissions limits, demonstrating the futility of imposing local carbon cap measures without global commitments. And since European industry was already among the world’s most energy efficient, the emissions embedded in most of those imported goods are higher than when the same goods were produced domestically.
Adding irony to this job-exporting fiasco, some European countries, including Germany, have implemented subsidies in an effort to keep the remnants of their industrial sector from shutting down. German electricity consumers paid some €20-billion ($27.2-billion) in green power subsidies last year, while at the same time their government spent billions of euros to help industrial plants survive the combination of high electricity and cap-and-trade costs that made them uncompetitive in the first place.
The Ontario announcement has promulgated a debate as to whether cap-and-trade is a tax. Clearly, for those having to buy carbon credits, it amounts to a tax. But for those who have credits to sell, it amounts to a subsidy.
But what most commenters have missed is that former premier Dalton McGuinty’s Green Energy Act created what is, for practical purposes, an indirect tax on energy consumers. Now comes Ms. Wynne’s equally ill-considered cap-and-trade tax. In mirror image to Europe’s green-power-driven levy on electricity consumers followed by cap-and-trade, Ontario’s ill-considered green scheme No. 2 could strike the final blow that drives industry elsewhere.
This leaves the question as to why Quebec so warmly welcomed Ontario’s decision to join its cap-and-trade system. Quebec’s electricity comes almost entirely from cheap, emissions-free hydropower, mitigating much of the competitive impact of cap-and-trade. Quebec has just announced a massive expansion of its hydropower capacity and is looking for markets. The net effect of signing Ontario onto its cap-and-trade system may well be the export of jobs from Ontario to Quebec businesses and the export of electricity from Quebec to Ontario consumers, along with the added bonus of selling carbon credits to Ontario businesses unable to meet cap-and-trade targets.
Ontario generates just 0.5 per cent of global carbon emissions. Even a giant 20-per-cent reduction would knock just a tenth of 1 per cent off global emissions. A minuscule gain for the globe, at a potentially enormous cost to the people of Ontario, and all Canadians.
Gwyn Morgan is a retired Canadian business leader who has been a director of five global corporations
The wind industry seems to attract a particular class of bloke, in much the same way that the Prohibition era drew lots of heavy-set Italians to the Mob.
Maybe that seemingly endless stream of massive subsidies filched from taxpayers and power consumers generates the same allure as festering dung does for swarms of flies?
Whatever it is, the whiff that surrounds the wind industry has attracted (and continues to attract) a class that has no hesitation lying, cheating, stealing and even bonking their way to the easy loot on offer.
The Italian Mob were in on the wind power fraud from the get-go: applying their considerable (and perfectly applicable) skills – leading the European wind power fraud, with what economists call “first-mover-advantage” (see our post here).
The crooks involved – and the corruption, lies thuggery and deceit that follow them – are uniform across the globe.
Wind power outfits in Taiwan – faced with a pesky community backlash – sent the muscle in and beat the protesters to a bloody pulp (see our posts here and here).
The Thais aren’t much better.
In Australia, Thai outfit RATCH has been lying to, bullying and threatening communities far and wide for years (see our posts here and here andhere).
In previous posts we’ve looked at how the goons that work for RATCH didn’t hesitate to invent a character – Frank Bestic – in a half-cunning attempt to infiltrate their opponents at Collector and elsewhere – see our posts here and here and here.
RATCH also teamed up with one of Queensland’s property developer, “white-shoe-brigade“, John Morris – in a joint plan to destroy the Atherton Tablelands, by spearing 60 odd turbines into a patch of pristine, tropical wilderness on top of Mt Emerald – a move, quite rightly, opposed by 92% of locals (see our post here).
Morris is a five-star resort owner, who generously wined, dined and otherwise accommodated his mate, LNP pollie, David Kempton. Kempton got rolled at the last election, but while in power, held a rabid interest in getting the project approved, despite the fact that his own electorate was miles away, and pulled out all stops to ‘smooth’ the way to development approval (see our post here).
RATCH and Morris have shown all the care and restraint we’ve come to expect from the wind industry and its parasites: an “industry” that has absolutely no interest in producing meaningful power or “saving” the planet. Take away the promise of $50 billion in subsidies from the REC Tax on power consumers (see our post here) and this lot will disappear in a heartbeat (see our post here).
RATCH shares its Thai roots with another Thai wind power outfit that owes its existence to the Thai Military Junta – “Wind Energy Holdings”.
Wind Energy Holdings hit the news a while back when its hitherto-hot-shot head, Nopporn Suppipat was caught with his fingers in the till. Having been caught – he acted with all the honour we’ve come to expect from wind weasels, wherever they ply their trade: he bolted! (see our post here)
Now, it’s the turn of Spanish Wind Conquistadors to feel the heat.
That the wind industry is the product of institutional corruption – fuelled by back-slaps, and $millions in back-handers to planning officers, local councils and others in charge of the rubber stamps needed to start and keep the wind power fraud rolling – is no secret.
However, as these boys have bought the sanction of governments, rooting out the recipients of that crooked cash – when it’s sprinkled all the way to the top – presents investigators with more than the usual forensic challenges. Here’s Spain’s El País on España’s errant wind fraudsters’ trail.
Regional officials and businessmen may have received €110 million, say auditors
El País
F.Garea; R. Méndez
20 April 2015
Private renewable energy firms may have paid more than €110 million in commissions to government officials and local businessmen in Castilla y León to help them obtain licenses and push through paperwork to install wind farms across the region between 2004 and 2007, tax inspectors said.
In a December 30 report obtained by EL PAÍS, seven transactions detail how energy firms paid local businessmen and people connected to the regional Popular Party (PP) government either directly or through stocks in companies created to build and operate wind farms.
The Spanish AEAT tax agency has turned over the 94-page report to anti-corruption prosecutors to investigate if money laundering or other crimes may have been committed.
Those suspected of taking part in the commission deals are public officials in Castilla y León; go-betweens who negotiated on behalf of the energy firms and were able to obtain administrative approvals; and companies belonging to local businessmen who, “without any valid economic motives, received the transfer of funds and stock for an amount superior to €110 million,” inspectors said.
In some cases, the firms transferred stock in the businesses set up in such a way so as to multiply the initial capital invested by hundreds, even thousands, of times.
Among those who may have benefited from this alleged scheme were officials from Castilla y León’s economy department, which authorized the wind farms.
EL PAÍS was unable to reach Rafael Delgado Núñez, who was the deputy chief of the economy department at the time and the official responsible for signing the administrative permits.
In some cases, the firms multiplied the initial capital invested by hundreds, even thousands, of times
Along with other officials, Delgado Núñez was called in to give a statement before tax inspectors. According to his testimony, which was included in the audit, he said the procedure in the region was “very efficient” because there was hardly any legal framework supporting these operations at the time and the government wanted to ensure that “the companies that applied had regional interests.”
One of the main figures in the report is Alberto Esgueva, who until 2006 was CEO of Excal – a public entity formed by the Castilla y León government to promote regional exports. His own firm, according to inspectors, received the most commissions from the operations. Since September Esgueva has been living in Poland, where he runs a real estate business.
He declined to be interviewed for this article despite various attempts to contact him through his secretary.
A spokesman for the region’s economy department said he had no knowledge about the report but added that all the transactions were legally carried out and there was no evidence that commissions were paid.
Tomás Villanueva, who has headed up Castilla y León’s economy department since 2003 and is considered a close aide to PP regional premier Juan Vicente Herrera, on Monday stated that, after carrying out a “first check,” the paperwork authorizing the wind farms under question by the Tax Agency “was correct and in line with the law.”
Villanueva’s name surfaces in one part of the audit where tax inspectors mentioned that Delgado Núñez “played an important role” in both the economic and education departments.
In their report, inspectors alleged that numerous payments helped pave the way for the regional government to make quick decisions about the installation of wind farms. In one case, the money helped overcome the bureaucracy that had been blocking the project for six years.
Utility companies that wanted to install wind farms allegedly set up joint venture vehicles with local businesses and officials who had government ties to the region, the report said.
The association with the local businessman or government official would allegedly help push through the paperwork and, once the electric companies had received authorization to build the wind farm, they would pay back the investors more than what they had initially put into the joint venture.
One of the renewable energy companies that paid out a large amount to install a wind farm was Preneal, owned by Eduardo Merigó, the former president of Visa in Spain and an ex-secretary of state in former Spanish Prime Minister Adolfo Suarez’s Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD) administration (1977-1982). He told tax inspectors that he “felt like a victim of the system.”
Merigó also declined to speak to EL PAÍS for this article.
Preneal paid €6 million to San Cayetano Wind, which belonged to Esgueva, without “any obligation or compensation,” the report states.
Another €7 million was paid to Cronos Global, which was half owned by Esgueva. Last December, a Preneal representative told tax inspectors that Cronos had nothing to do with obtaining permits or building wind farms.
The projects have still not been approved, but Cronos Global received €7 million after putting down a €1.5 million initial investment.
Tax inspectors have also discovered suspicious bank transfers by Cronos Global at the beginning of the recession of up to €100 million to Poland and the United States while around €38 million was transferred to Spain.
The other partners in Cronos Global was Luis María García Clerigó and his family.
Clerigó is the president of the now-defunct Parqueolid, a construction firm in Valladolid. When contacted by EL PAÍS, Clerigó said he had difficulty remembering anything because he suffered a stroke seven years ago.
Parqueolid is under investigation in another case for allegedly receiving €50 million from the Castilla y León regional government to build new offices for the economic department. A judge investigating this case has targeted Delgado Núñez, who served as deputy chief of the regional economy department for eight years, and is also sifting through his bank accounts. El País
It called its new public relations model “Act on Facts” – we covered some of their “facts” in this post.
Well, as is often the case, the facts eventually surface; and, when they do, the ‘unhelpful’ ones have a nasty habit of working against those that, like Vestas, have worked hardest to suppress them:
Danes complain about precisely the same effects from the incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound that Vestas’ victims at Macarthur in Victoria do (see our posts here and here).
And the Danes’ complaints have seen victims awarded substantial compensation for the sonic torture being inflicted unnecessarily and endlessly by Vestas & Co:
Danish wind power outfits have had to concede that human beings and giant fans simply don’t mix, and have taken to buying up huge numbers of homes, and even whole villages; bulldozing them in order to carpet the entire country in their blade-chucking, pyrotechnic, sonic torture devices:
Now, the Danish government has gone into legal liability damage control by refusing to issue any further permits for wind farms. Here’s NoTrickZone on the Danes’ latest lament.
Under Fire Due To Health Impacts From Infrasound … Danish Permitting Halts!
NoTricksZone P Gosselin
21 April 2015
Beleaguered Industry: Wind Parks Coming Under Fire Due To Health Impacts From Infrasound … Danish Permitting Halts!
The debate on the effects of infrasound on the health of people and animals living near wind parks has been raging on with more intensity than ever – especially since Denmark unexpectedly halted the permitting of new wind parks due to “health concerns” from infrasound.
Infrasound is defined as low frequency sound under 16 Hz – below the threshold of human hearing. Wind farms are notorious for generating these potentially harmful sub-audible frequencies. It is said that infrasound can be sensed as pressure to the ears or to the stomach, or as a slight vibration.
There’s a Swedish report available on the hazard, click here. It calls for the legal framework for the creation of wind parks to be revised.
German NTV public television reports recently that in Denmark mink farm operator Kaj Bank Olesen from Herning is a neighbor to four large-scale wind turbines only 330 meters away. Olesen and other neighbors had protested the planning of the wind turbines, fearing negative consequences from their noise and shadows.
However the community rejected their claims, basing it on a lack of credibility. The turbines were installed. Now it seems that Olesen’s earlier fears may have had merit as he claims that the infrasound generated by the turbines are making the mink animals on the farm aggressive and is leading them to die. After one night he found 200 dead minks the next morning. The incident has since sparked the Danish government to take action. Permitting of wind parks in Denmark is now on hold.
In Schleswig Holstein, Germany, the Hogeveens have been forced to sleep and eat in their basement in a desperate attempt to find refuge from the maddening infrasound emitted by recently installed turbines near their home.
The wind industry and many government authorities deny there’s a connection between infrasound from wind turbines and health impacts on humans. Hermann Albers of a wind lobby group says there’s no connection between the turbines and the irritation sensed by those living close by, claiming that it is a “subjective” perception or that it’s “politically motivated”. In other words, people living close to wind turbines are just making it all up and they should instead just shut up and live with it.
The German government says it will study the matter further and consider if infrasound should be taken into consideration during the wind park permitting process.
In Australia a link has also been found between wind turbines and health in the so-called Cape Bridgewater report. Steven Cooper investigated the possible link, saying that availbale data so far is very small, but adds:
“There’s definitely a trend. There’s definitely a connection between the operation of a wind farm and what the residents were identifying as disturbances, and so it’s definitely open to debate as to what the cause or link is in terms of that data.”
Data from comprehensive studies are difficult to come by. Wind farms are reluctant to share their data with researchers, fearing unfavorable results and consequences.
The impacts from infrasound on human health will continue to be debated in the future. But other things are already sure and beyond debate: Wind farms are rapidly losing their attractiveness and support from the public due to their poor performance, hazard to birdlife, ruining of property values, and their blighting of the natural landscape.
An adverse connection to human health would be yet another large nail in the coffin of the now increasingly controversial wind industry.
In the piece above it’s said that “Permitting of wind parks in Denmark is now on hold“.
STT’s Danish operatives have confirmed that that is, indeed, the case. Not that you’ll read about in the Australian press; or see or hear it on your ABC.
Governments – Federal, State and Local – around the world are getting jumpy about their legal liability to their citizens, for having set up planning laws so lax as to be risible and/or for manifestly failing to enforce even those derisory rules. Moreover, the very existence of the wind industry is the direct result of massive subsidies and/or mandated government targets, fines and penalties, so governments are in it up to their necks; and can’t possibly hope to get out of trouble by pulling the Sergeant Schultz defence:
In liability terms, governments that continue to allow turbines to be speared into peoples’ backyards, or which fail to shut them down wherever neighbours can’t sleep, are sitting ducks as defendants in negligence actions. The evidence of harm and personal injury is clear enough; and those in power can no longer claim to be unaware of it (seeour post here).
Having set themselves up for compensation claims that will run into the hundreds of $millions, governments (and their insurers) are keen to limit their exposure by pointing to others: for example, wind power outfits and their pet acoustic consultants who claimed the noise standards they wrote were the gold-standard in protecting public health (see our post here). Or, in the case of Brown County, Wisconsin making it clear that it’s not game to rely on the lies pitched up the wind industry’s mercenary acoustics acolytes by coming out publicly:
“To declare the Industrial Wind Turbines in the Town of Glenmore, Brown County. WI. a Human Health Hazard for all people (residents, workers, visitors, and sensitive passersby) who are exposed to Infrasound/Low Frequency Noise and other emissions potentially harmful to human health.” (see our post here)
Now, it seems that the Danish government is also out to draw a line between it and the wind industry; if only in an attempt to quarantine its liability to thousands of its victims.
STT likes to go in hard, call it early and keep on backing it up. Sure we descend to colourful language, and polish it off with a healthy smear of good old-fashioned sarcasm. But the idiom and imagery we use sits atop a pile of festering wind industry generated lies, deception and common garden variety fraud.
Back in January this year, we likened Steven Cooper’s groundbreaking acoustic study into the harm caused by Pac Hydro’s Cape Bridgewater wind farm disaster, to the detonation of a small, but effective, nuclear device:
Earlier this week, a small, but very effective, nuclear device was detonated at Cape Bridewater, which – before Union Super Funds backed Pacific Hydro destroyed it – was a pristine, coastal idyll in South-Western Victoria.
The bomb that went off was a study carried out by one of Australia’s crack acoustic specialists, Steven Cooper – and some typically solid journalism from The Australian’s Graham Lloyd – that put the Pac Hydro initiated pyrotechnics in the International spotlight.
Over the next few posts, STT will analyse just what the detonation, its aftermath and fallout means for an industry which, in Australia, is already on the ropes.
And we’ll look at what it means to the thousands of wind farm victims here – and around the world.
Three months on, and we don’t shy away from any of that. Oh no. If anything likening events at Cape Bridgewater to the wind industry’s very own Hiroshima, was mastery in understatement.
You see, Cooper’s work became the central focus of day one of the Senate Inquiry into the great wind power fraud – which kicked off on 30 March, at Portland, Victoria; right next to Cape Bridgewater.
Not only did Cooper impress the Senators (save Anne Urquhaut – a wind industry apologist and mouthpiece for Friends of the Earth’s propaganda parrot, Leigh Ewbank), the subjects of Cooper’s study gave evidence to the Committee in camera (privately); and a number of the Senators (save Urquhaut, of course) visited them in their homes the night before the hearing. A number of other wind farm victims laid out the suffering they’ve been forced to endure by wind farm operators, like AGL at Glenthompson and Macarthur, as well.
From what STT hears, to say that the Senators were “moved” is to put it mildly.
The gut-wrenching evidence of the symptoms and sensations experienced by these people and caused by incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise, infrasound and vibration, left a group of seasoned political performers and parliamentary knuckle men, including libertarian tough-nut, David Leyonhjelm, with watery eyes and lumpy throats.
And, so it was, that South Australian Senator, Bob Day came to describe their evidence as “harrowing”: thankfully, not a word that gets much of a run these days; but, given the gravity of the harm being caused, and the genuineness and obvious sincerity of the victims, one that’s right on the money.
The real significance of the day was not only what Day had to say, but that he, and the other Senators on the Committee, including David Leyonhjelm from NSW and Matt Canavan from Queensland have had their eyes opened to the scale of the wind power fraud; and the entirely unnecessary suffering it continues to cause.
These boys have uniformly stiffened their opposition to the wind industry; and have joined forces to call for a halt to the greatest rort of all time.
‘Wait for wind inquiry before changing RET’: Bob Day
The Australian
Rosie Lewis
22 April 2015
Family First senator Bob Day has asked Tony Abbott and Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane to delay a vote to change the Renewable Energy Target for six months, until the conclusion of a Senate inquiry into wind turbines.
Any lengthy delay to the scheme is likely to frustrate the renewables sector and energy intensive businesses, which have urged the Prime Minister to end the RET stalemate.
Senator Day said he had heard “harrowing” evidence about the impact of wind turbines on humans and animals during the inquiry’s first hearing last month and wanted to know all the “facts and figures” before a RET deal was reached. “I think it’s not unreasonable to ask that we don’t come to any agreement on the Renewable Energy Target until such time that we get to the bottom of this,” he said.
“I’m not talking about ending the RET, I’m just talking about ‘let’s defer the decision on it’. Nothing’s going to happen in the next six months anyway. It’s more important to do this right than do this quick.”
Labor has backed a compromise from the Clean Energy Council, which would cut the large-scale RET from 41,000-GWh by 2020 to 33,500GWh, but the government’s final offer remains at 32,000GWh.
Without support from Labor or the Greens the government needs six crossbench votes to see legislation pass the Senate.
Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm, who is also on the wind turbine committee, said he had given the government’s RET offer conditional support.
Senator Leyonhjelm said he was much more likely to support the government’s target if there was less of a “big leg up” to the wind power industry.
“Ian Macfarlane is doing the rounds in an effort to get six votes,” he said. “I think he probably will get six votes. (The government) will have my vote, with conditions. I’m not a fan of wind turbines, they are killing birds and they are also making some people sick.
“My support for 32,000GWh relates to not giving a particularly big leg up to wind and giving more scope for other sources.” The Australian
Bob Day followed up with this letter to The Australian on 27 April 2015.
No rush on RET
Because I have asked Industry Minister Ian Mcfarlane and the Prime Minister to defer a vote on the Renewable Energy Target until a Senate inquiry into wind turbines has handed down its report, Kane Thornton of the Clean Energy Council tells me I have little regard for the many thousands of people whose jobs are at risk every day this review remains unresolved.
This inquiry held its first hearing on March 30 and heard evidence about the adverse effects of wind turbines on humans and animals. The evidence was compelling. There was also evidence on the efficacy of wind turbines to reduce carbon dioxide given the amount of the gas required to manufacture and install them.
Since that hearing, information has been provided regarding reports from the 1980s about the adverse effects of wind turbines. The enquiry is keen to understand what wind turbine owners know, and how long they have known it.
The inquiry hands down its report in August. Given the seriousness of the evidence so far, I do not think it unreasonable to request deferring a vote on the RET until then. Bob Day, Senator for South Australia
The claim by the CEC’s head spruiker, Kane Thornton that “thousands of jobs are at risk” is utter bunkum.
It’s the installation of domestic rooftop solar that’s created the thousands of jobs he’s referring to; and none of them are under threat. No-one is out to scrap the Small-Scale Renewable Scheme (SRES) – which provides the subsidies for rooftop solar – it’s got plenty of backers and – unlike the wind industry – no sworn enemies.
Contrary to the CEC’s wailing, there are no wind industry jobs under threat. Construction activity has ground to a standstill, simply because retailers stopped entering Power Purchase Agreements over 2½ years ago, in November 2012, long before the RET Review kicked off in April 2014 (see our post here).
In the absence of PPAs, wind power outfits have been unable to obtain finance to sling up any new fans. And it’s that fact that means that there are no construction jobs under threat – jobs which are fleeting, in any event. And the handful of wind industry jobs that have any permanence – such as changing oil, replacing generators and blades etc – are under no threat at all from the RET Review. No the CEC’s “case” is all about conflating domestic solar and industrial wind power, when they have absolutely nothing in common – in its efforts to ensure the LRET remains untouched, the wind industry has been using the domestic solar business as a kind of political “human shield”:
As to the claims about the LRET creating thousands of “groovy green” jobs, to debunk that myth you need look no further than Germany, where its insane rush into wind power has seen major energy intensive industries head to the USA to avoid rocketing power prices, while at the same time the millions of so-called “green” jobs, promised by the wind industry there, simply failed to materialise:
So, Bob Day needn’t worry too much about the CEC’s last ditch attempts to save the LRET; and to avoid the unavoidable: the wind industry is on its last legs, and the CEC knows it.
Matt Canavan – who hails from Rockhampton in Queensland, and was another on the Senate Inquiry Committee whose eyes and ears were opened at Portland – has now taken a keen interest in the disaster planned by one of Queensland’s cheesy “white-shoe brigade” for the pristine, tropical wilderness of Mt Emerald, on the Atherton Tablelands:
STT’s covered the politically stinky relationships and wheel greasing that’s gone on behind closed 5 Star Resort doors in the developer’s efforts to side-step the obstacle to his plans to wallow in the REC Subsidy trough, created by a thousand or so dedicated pro-farming and pro-community advocates:
SENATOR REQUESTS DELAY TO DECISION ON MT EMERALD WIND FARM
Media Release
23 April 2015
Senator Matt Canavan has requested the Queensland Government to delay making a final decision on the Mt Emerald wind farm proposal west of Cairns.
This follows a decision by a Senate committee inquiring into wind turbines to hold a public hearing in Cairns on May 18.
Senator Canavan is a member of the Committee and has written to Deputy Premier Jackie Trad requesting a decision on the Mt Emerald proposal be deferred until after the Cairns hearing.
“One of the purposes of the Committee’s hearing in Cairns will be to hear from the local community, and the proponent, about the proposed wind farm at Mt Emerald,” Senator Canavan said. “My understanding is that the Queensland Government is currently considering whether to approve this project.”
“In the interests of wide stakeholder consultation and best-practice policy-making principles, I have requested that the Queensland Government delay making a final decision on the Mt Emerald proposal until it has the opportunity to hear the evidence presented to the Senate Committee.”
“Previous hearings have heard compelling evidence from residents living close to wind turbines about their impact on residents’ health and wellbeing. Unlike other States, Queensland has no specific regulatory guidelines on the minimum distance turbines can be from a place of residence.
“Parliamentary committees provide witnesses with a range of protections. As a result, the evidence provided at this public hearing may add to the statements made at other public consultations that the Queensland Government has already conducted in regards to the Mt Emerald wind turbines proposal.”
Senator Canavan said the Senate Select Committee on Wind Turbines confirmed on Wednesday that it will conduct a public hearing in Cairns on May 18. The Committee is tasked with inquiring into and reporting on the application of regulatory governance and economic impact of wind turbines. Senator Matt Canavan
Despite Matt’s more than reasonable call for a little public health prudence, Labor wind industry shill, Jackie Trad went ahead and gave planning approval, in accordance with the Labor Party/Union Super Fund business model.
Were Trad to have canned the project, it would have cut across Labor’s cash cow, by further threatening the Ponzi scheme in which Labor/Union heavy owned and (badly) run outfits, like Pac Hydro are well ensconced. In a cunning move, Trad’s press release giving the disaster the nod, was slipped out on Anzac Day, so that there would be no way the media would give it any oxygen at all.
STT thinks that it’s no surprise that the Senators on the wind farm Inquiry Committee have turned sharply against the great wind power fraud. And, with Jackie Trad’s sly little move at Mt Emerald, we expect Matt Canavan will come back swinging just that little bit harder.
Human beings, possessed of a modicum of empathy and decency, generally don’t like to sit back and watch the common law rights of hard-working people to live in, use and enjoy their homes get steam-rolled. And much less so, when there’s no justification at all for the harm and suffering being endured by the wind industry’s victims – which it regards as “road-kill” – and which the mock-medicos that spruik for it sneeringly call “wind farm wing-nuts“.
However, as we’ve pointed out before, the endless lies tossed up by the wind industry and its parasites just don’t wash anymore. These days, people are becoming switched on to the fraud; and angry for having been taken for gullible dupes.
Once reasonable people are introduced to the facts about the insane costs of intermittent and unreliable wind power they cease to support it.
When they learn of the senseless slaughter of millions of birds and bats, and the tragic suffering caused to hard working rural people by giant fans, reasonable people start to bristle.
But when they learn that – contrary to the ONLY “justification” for the$billions filched from power consumer and taxpayers and directed as perpetual subsidies to wind power outfits – wind power INCREASES CO2 emissions in the electricity sector – rather than decreasing them, as claimed – their attitude stiffens to the point of hostility to those behind the fraud and those hell-bent on sustaining it.
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. Funny about that.
Present the facts to reasonable people – and they’ll want to know how the scam got started in the first place, and why it hasn’t been stopped in its tracks already?
Watching the Senators on the Inquiry arriving at that point, provides STT with more than just a little encouragement: from here-on, the wind industry hasn’t got a hope in hell of convincing them as to any part of its pitch.
As seminal mod-rockers, The Who, wailed in 1971, STT thinks it’s a case of we Won’t Get Fooled Again:
Open letter on wind turbine noise and action
in response to this letter
Dear decision-makers, politicians, Members of the EU Parliament, EU-Commission and other responsible public officials,
1) 29th April, 2015 is the 20th anniversary of International Noise Awareness Day, so we would like to warn you about the dangers of wind turbine infrasound and low frequency noise (ILFN) which have been largely and intentionally ignored by the global wind industry, politicians and even health authorities. Worldwide the wind industry has been trying to force their wind turbines (WT) as close to people’s homes as possible, for the sake of profit but at the expense of the health of the local residents, by deliberately ignoring the known sleep disturbance and serious health problems caused directly by impulsive wind turbine ILFN. Government authorities have been complicit in ignoring the existing scientific evidence, and the harm.
2) We therefore request you do your own due diligence on this issue, and investigate for yourself. There is an abundance of acoustic, scientific and clinical information independent of wind industry influence at websites such as epaw.org;na-paw.org; waubrafoundation.org.au and scientific evidence found there, and books as Wind Turbine Syndrome by a medical doctor Dr. Nina Pierpont, MD PhD, 2009 (see also: windturbinesyndrome.com) and The Wind Farm Scam by a Reader in Ecology at the University of Wales Dr. John Etherington, 2009).
3) The facts are that wind turbine noise: audible (low frequency noise LFN – under 200 Hz) and inaudible, but sensed very much (infrasound– under 20 Hz) results in serious adverse health effects, and is extremely dangerous to human health. Direct causation of symptoms and sensations from wind turbine generated impulsive infrasound and low frequency noise was established by US scientist Dr Neil Kelley in the 1980’s. More recently Steven Cooper’s work in Australia at Cape Bridgewater for wind developer Pacific Hydro has confirmed many aspects of Kelley’s research thirty years earlier.
4) The lifetime span of wind-turbines is from 20 up to 25 years and there are another 25 years to be expected with new turbines at the same place, therefore there is no escape from them for people in their lifetime. People are mostly exposed to pulsating infrasound. These pulses arise as the wind turbine blades pass the pillar.
5) Therefore we firmly demand that you, as one of the decision-makers:
5.1. Start considering the scientific evidence on the dangers of wind turbine noise, which go back as far as 30 years (NASA study, others and a historical overview on the wind turbine noise). These studies have shown that especially infrasound penetrates through closed windows and walls, and even resonates and amplifies within rooms to cause even stronger effects (cdn.knightlab.com ),
5.2. Stop ignoring so many people all over the world crying for help and even leaving their homes due to the wind turbine noise (for example: epaw.org; na-paw.org),
5.3. Recognize that wind farms are one of the worst night time noise pollutants of today and that prolonged sleep deprivation is also considered to be a method of torture by the ‘’The UN Committee against Torture (CAT),
5.4. Recognize what the wind industry does not want the general public and responsible public officials to learn, that there is much evidence on infra- and LFN wind turbine noise including the facts that:
– More megawatts produced by more powerful wind turbines means a greater proportion of infrasound and low frequency noise is generated,
– Infrasound is known to travel very, very long distances,
– Noise-pollution by wind power developments with many wind turbines is much, much stronger than one with only wind turbine, although serious health damage can occur from just one wind turbine if it is too close to homes and workplaces,
– Infrasound from wind turbines on hills will travel greater distances,
– Stronger winds, higher air moisture, lower background noise in rural areas, temperature inversion, etc., can mean greater adverse impacts from relatively higher levels of infra- and LFN noise pollution,
– No current models exist which accurately predict real wind farm infrasound and low frequency noise pollution,
– Children, older people, pregnant women are especially sensitive and threatened,
– Safe setback distances for different sized wind turbines in different terrain have NOT yet been established and demonstrated to protect the surrounding population.
– Change the current noise measurements to full spectrum measurement inside homes and recognize that A-Weighted Sound Level (dBA) is inappropriate and unsafe because it does not include low-frequency noise and infrasound,
– Stop the use of dBA for wind turbine noise assessments immediately,
– Stop the wind power subsidies immediately.
We look forward to hearing from you soon. Thank you in advance.
Yours faithfully,
Jean -Louis Butré
European Platform Against Wind Farms
EPAW : 877 organisations from 24 European Countries
President 3 rue des eaux Paris 75016 France contact@epaw.org www.epaw.org
+33 6 80 99 38 08
Sherri Lange
North American Platform Against Wind Power
NA-PAW, USA-Canada : 106 organisations
CEO 416-567-5115 kodaisl@rogers.com www.na-paw.org
Sarah Laurie
WAUBRA FOUNDATION
The Waubra Foundation is a national Australian organisation formed to facilitate properly conducted, independent multidisciplinary research into the new health problems identified by residents living near wind turbines
BMBS CEO PO Box 7112 Banyule VIC 3084 AUSTRALIA +61 474 050 463 sarah@waubrafoundation.org.au
www.waubrafoundation.org.au/
Our Toxic Relationship with Wind Power
The Valley Patriot
Christine Morabito
February, 2015
If clean, safe and efficient energy is to be our standard, then why use wind power at all?
When we examine the entire process, the construction and operation of wind turbines is a dangerous and toxic affair. It begins with the mining of rare earth minerals, a collection of chemical elements manufactured mostly in China. The ill-protected workers are exposed to hazardous materials like hydrofluoric acid and radioactive particles. These substances are then exported worldwide, for use in wind turbines as well as computers, cell phones, hybrid cars and energy saving light bulbs.
The process of refining of these elements leaves death and destruction in its wake, polluting farmland, killing livestock, seeping into waterways and poisoning drinking water. Besides the devastation to the environment, nearby villagers report significant health problems, like bone, respiratory and heart diseases. Some residents suffer helplessly while their teeth fall out. But, since all this is occurring in the Far East, Western environmentalists don’t seem particularly concerned.
Meanwhile, in the United States, the massive windmills gobble up valuable habitat, as do the roads needed to access them. These eyesores ruin otherwise picturesque landscapes, and are built with little regard for the migratory paths of protected wildlife. The deadly blades can reach speeds up to 170 mph, often chopping birds into pieces. Most recent data estimates that 600,000 birds and hundreds of thousands of bats fall prey to this “green” technology every year.
Just east of San Francisco lies a 58 square mile wind farm called theAltamont Pass. The turbines have reportedly killed some 3,000 golden eagles, putting their population in serious jeopardy.
In the 30-odd years that wind energy has existed, only 2 companies have been prosecuted for illegally killing protected birds. The first was in 2013, when the U.S. Department of Justice and Duke Energy, of Wyoming, announced a $1 million settlement related to the deaths of 14 golden eagles and 149 hawks, blackbirds, larks, wrens and sparrows.
In January, 2015, Pacific Corp, also in Wyoming, was ordered to pay $2.5 million for killing 38 golden eagles and 336 other protected birds.
Under the auspices of fighting climate change, the Obama Administration is awarding wind-power companies a 30-year amnesty in the form of “take permits,” which allow the killing of endangered species. It’s ironic that our tax dollars are being used to study and protect endangered species, while simultaneously subsidizing an industry that is killing the aforementioned animals.
By working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, wind producers can avoid creating killing fields. The key is to bypass well-known migration routes.
I spoke to Bob Johns, Public Relations Director at the American Bird Conservancy. When holding energy companies accountable, Johns says, “green energy is held to a different standard.” The problem is one of selective enforcement. Fish and Wildlife Service guidelines are voluntaryand not enforced via regulation like those governing oil and electric companies. Johns stressed that “wind producers are not ‘mom and pop’ businesses, but large corporations,” with little incentive to follow mere guidelines. He believes regulations are needed to stop the egregious killing of birds and level the playing field. Deadly turbines are a worldwide problem, with wind farms in Spain, Belgium, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands, among others.
What exactly is the up-side? Wind energy is expensive, costing about twice as much as conventional power sources. And, since wind is heavily subsidized, taxpayers fund it before and after it is produced, as evidenced by the infamous Cape Wind project in Massachusetts, which is already $10 million over budget. Wind energy is not particularly efficient, producing only between 3 to 4 percent of our country’s electricity. Like other alternative energy sources, turbines must be backed-up by fossil fuels when the wind isn’t blowing.
Like all fledgling energy sources, new technologies, combined with regulations, will make wind energy safer, cleaner and more efficient. Through innovative filtration systems, we have made great strides inremoving pollutants from fossil fuel emissions. The plastics we have come to rely on were once discarded waste products from oil refining, proving that the human race will continue to innovate – because that’s what we do.
While there is risk in producing every type of energy, the risks of using fossil fuels are greatly exaggerated; the benefits rarely mentioned. The well-funded, well-connected environmental lobby has an ideological, knee-jerk reaction to energy. In their world, fossil fuels = bad, alternative energy = good.
Massachusetts State Senator, Kathleen O’Connor Ives plans to introduce legislation to ban the practice of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in Massachusetts. While carrying some hypothetical risk, fracking has the phenomenal ability to make America energy independent. Lower energy costs make us all richer, and we are sending billions less to our oil producing enemies – who, as we speak, are plotting our demise.
I know Senator Ives to be a reasonable legislator, and I’m hoping she and others will consider the pros and cons of every energy source at our disposal. In our quest for energy alternatives, facts should trump ideology. The earth and all its inhabitants deserve nothing less. The Valley Patriot
"Mothers Against Wind Turbines™" Phoenix Rising... 