Corrupt and Inaccurate Research, Hides Negative Effects from Wind Turbines!

September 18, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Biology professor blows the whistle on wind farms

The biggest danger: corrupt research

Infrasound and other problems recognized

In an interview published in Truthout, Dr Patricia Mora casts doubts about the way in which environmental studies are conducted.

“What happens is absolute corruption. I have to admit that generally there are “agreements” behind closed doors between the consultants or research centers and the government offices before the studies are conducted. They fill out forms with copied information (and sometimes badly copied), lies or half truths in order to divert attention from the real project while at the same time complying with requirements on paper. Unfortunately, consultants sometimes take advantage of high unemployment and hire inexperienced people or unemployed career professionals without proper titles. Sometimes the consultants even coerce them into modifying the data.

“Research centers, pressured by a lack of funding, accept these studies. It is well known that scientists recognized by CONACYT (National Counsel on Science and Technology)accept gifts from these companies, given that they need money to buy equipment for their laboratories and to fill their pocketbooks to maintain their lifestyles. This is the extent of the corruption. Upon reviewing these studies, it is clear that the findings are trash, sometimes even directly copied from other sources online. These studies tend to focus on the “benefits of the project” and do not include rigorous analysis.

“The Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) does follow-up to the studies, but everything can be negotiated. The bureaucrats have the last word.”

Patricia Mora is a research professor in coastal ecology and fisheries science at the Interdisciplinary Research Center for Comprehensive Regional Development, Oaxaca Unit (CIIDIR Oaxaca), at the National Institute of Technology.

She also raises other issues: the thorough destruction of biotopes by wind farms…

“… we find ourselves at the meeting point of various intimately related aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, known as “ecotones.” What occurs in each distinct ecosystem affects the dynamic on a larger scale, placing the existence of the adjoining ecosystems in danger.”

… the issues of low frequency sound, infrasound, and electromagnetic fields…

“There is abundant information about the harm caused by the sound waves produced by wind turbines. These sound waves are not perceptible to the human ear, which makes them all the more dangerous. They are also low frequency sound waves and act upon the pineal and nervous systems, causing anxiety, depression (there is a study from the United States that found an elevated suicide rate in regions with wind farms), migraines, dizziness and vomiting, among other symptoms. Western science has given very little weight to electromagnetic and sound waves. In contrast, Eastern science, which gives greater importance to the flow of energy through the body, links the origin of many illnesses to the pollution we generate through the emission of human-made energy flows. The harm caused by this pollution has only recently begun to be accepted.”

… the adverse effects on the population…

“The inhabitants would have to leave behind their traditional activities. Migration and misery would be their future. You can see how this has happened in other areas of the country. They would lose their culture and a lifestyle that has a deep respect for nature. For example, in the northwest coastal region of the country, the arrival of these projects has displaced the fishing communities and farmers. Today, many of these people and their children have migrated. In the worst cases, they have joined the drug trafficking business.”

“The only benefit has been for the companies. The carbon credits they have received have allowed them to avoid taxes and have permitted them to continue polluting.”

Read more: http://truth-out.org/news/item/26244-mexico-researcher-raises-alert-about-environmental-risks-in-region-with-highest-concentration-of-wind-farms-in-latin-america

Faux-green Windpushers Wreaking Havoc on the Poorest Citizens!

September 18, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

It’s the Poor Who Suffer Most from the Great Wind Power Fraud

September 18, 2014 by stopthesethings

In a number of posts we’ve covered Bjørn Lomborg’s critical analysis of how runaway renewables policies – and the spiralling power costs they cause – are having a devastating (and disproportionate) impact on the poorest in developed economies – and how they threaten to lock the poorest billion or so of our planet’s inhabitants into a future of misery, poverty and darkness (see our posts here and here and here).

When it comes to assessing the costs, risks and benefits of environmental policy Bjørn Lomborg has always tried to provide balanced, detailed analysis supported by facts and evidence. The economic choices we make – about allocating scarce resources to unlimited wants – should – as Lomborg consistently points out – be made taking into account all of the costs weighed against properly measured benefits (see our post here).

When it comes to renewable energy policy, however, fundamental economic doctrine has been simply thrown to the wind.

The wind industry and its parasites tout spurious and unproven benefits in terms of CO2 emissions reductions – reductions which cannot and will never be delivered by a generation source delivered at crazy, random intervals that adds nothing to the entire Eastern Australian Grid hundreds of times each year – and which, therefore, requires 100% of its capacity to be backed up 100% of the time by fossil fuel generation sources (see our posts here and here).

Despite (or, rather, because of) its mad wind-rush Germany has seen CO2 emissions increase as it has had to build and re-commission coal fired plants to provide reliable base-load power to keep the grid up and running (see our posts here and here).

Not content with claiming fictional environmental benefits, the wind industry and its parasites dissemble and obfuscate on the true and hidden cost of wind power – only ever pointing to the wholesale price – when it falls – on those rare occasions when wind power output contributes something meaningful to the grid – which is usually at night-time, coinciding with the overnight plummet in demand, naturally resulting in a depressed wholesale price. The industry never discusses the costs that retailers pay through their Power Purchase Agreements – that guarantee minimum prices to wind power generators and which – at $90-120 per MW/h – are 3-4 times the cost of power from conventional sources. And it’s the price retailers pay under their PPAs and pass on to consumers that really matters to power punters.

Wherever there’s been any significant investment in wind power retail power prices have gone through the roof – witness Denmark, Germany and South Australia – which all jostle for the top spot on the table for the highest power prices in the world. See the table at page 11 in this paper: INTERNATIONAL-PRICE-COMPARISON-FOR-PUBLIC-RELEASE-19-MARCH-2012 – noting that the figures are from 2011 and SA’s retail power costs have risen significantly since then (and see our post here).

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

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

Slapping a further $50 billion in REC Tax on top of already spiralling Australian power bills – all to be directed to wind power outfits over the next 17 years can only add to household misery (see our post here).

The Germans launched into massively subsidised wind and solar power, causing power prices to rise 80 per cent in real terms in little over a decade. Unable to pay skyrocketing power bills, 800,000 German households have been disconnected from the grid – with that number growing by 300,000 each year. In addition, almost 7 million German households are suffering “fuel poverty” – forced to choose between eating or heating. Large numbers of them have headed to their forests, stealing wood to cook with and heat their homes (see our post here).

The impact of spiralling power prices hits the poorest the hardest and hits those in the developing world the hardest of all – depriving them of the opportunity of ever having access to cheap and reliable power. Here’s a piece from Forbes detailing how it’s the poor that suffer most from the costs of “green” fantasies.

Who Pays For Green Dreams?
Forbes
Loren Steffy
15 September 2014

Renewable energy is coming to an economic crossroads, one that could have dire unintended consequences for some of the most vulnerable populations – the poor and the elderly.

As renewable energy expands, activists around the world are calling for programs that would supplant conventional fuels – coal, oil and, to a lesser extent, natural gas – with renewable sources such as wind and solar.

Programs such as the misguided fossil fuel divestiture movement, ignore the costs that forcing a move away from fossil fuels imposes on those who are slowest to embrace the change. While there are benefits to diversifying our fuel portfolio, in its current form, the growing use of renewables requires a subsidy from fossil fuels.

This isn’t a cost being foisted upon those who deny climate change. Quite the opposite. In many cases, it is those who already face the biggest impact from global warming who are being saddled with the greatest cost for switching to renewables.

Caleb Rossiter, an adjunct professor with American University’s School of International Service recently outlined his concerns with how the fossil fuel divestiture program could affect Africa:

Africa accounts for 5 percent of global emissions. America’s per-person emissions are 20 times higher. Successful divestment would freeze African economic development while having little effect on global emission levels. Africa has not taken part in the energy revolution that has boosted education, comfort, income and life expectancy. According to the World Bank, only 24 percent of Africans have access to electricity. The rest must resort to burning dung and wood in their houses and huts, leading to horrific rates of lung and heart disease.

The typical African business loses power 56 days each year, constraining commerce, agriculture, education and industry. Growth suffers, and because wealth allows people to live healthily, so does life expectancy.

Energy poverty is stunting the sort of economic growth that Africa needs if it is to move from 59 years of life expectancy to the 79 that China has achieved through 20 years of economic growth fueled by intense, government-backed promotion of carbon-based electrical capacity.

It isn’t just Africa, though. The cost of increasing renewables use is being borne in developed countries, too. On Sunday, the New York Times had a story about the expanding use of renewables in Germany. Germany leads in the industrialized world in renewable energy production, and it will soon get 30 percent of its power from renewable sources.

That sounds great, but as the Times piece points out, all of Germany’s investment in offshore wind and solar has resulted in an increase in intermittent power sources. The country’s conventional utilities are still expected to find a way to keep the lights on when the wind doesn’t blow.

That means in Germany, just as in the U.S. and other countries, the shift to renewable power is being subsidized by those who continue to use conventional energy sources.

In most countries, customers pay for electricity based on the amount they use. Using less – by, say, putting solar panels on your house — means paying less. But renewables, despite their growth, remain supplemental energy sources. Utilities are still responsible for maintaining reliability of the electric system, and they still bear most of the same costs as they did before renewables entered the mix.

Those costs get spread disproportionately among ratepayers who are still using conventional power. As a result, customers who don’t use renewables wind up subsidizing the reliability for those who do. In many cases that means poorer customers who can’t afford to install solar panels, or the elderly who are slower to embrace new technology.

The irony is that if everyone embraced renewables completely, no one would be able to afford them. Like it or not, in the developed world, the shift to renewables is being funded by fossil fuels, and probably will be for decades.

In developing regions like Africa, the subsidies are even more damning, because the development of affordable and reliable power is the road out of poverty. Activists in the west would have their green dreams financed by the continued poverty of the poorest nations on earth.
Forbes

Win Prize Money for Anti-Wind Turbine Art! AWESOME!

September 17, 2014September 17, 2014 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Galerie Q would like to announce an exciting Art Competition

We are inviting the greater art community to present their vision of the effect which the Wind Turbines and the Solar farms have on nature, our health and our community.

Art Contest Poster

This event coincides with the ongoing challenges of having many Wind Turbines each 475 feet in height in our region and neighbourhoods.

Contest Details

Submission of 2D and 3D art works are encouraged in various mediums.

The Competition is open to artists of all ages regardless of where geographically they are located on the planet earth. There will be three divisions: children up to 12 years old, youth 13 to 19 years and adults 19 years and older.

We encourage the local schools, colleges and universities to promote this competition among their students as well as any interested artists who feel passionate about this subject.

Winners will be announced at our opening event which will showcase the winning submissions and the top runner up submissions.

Prizes

In the Children’s category top prize will be $250, Second prize $100 and Third prize $50.
In the Youth category top prize will be $500, Second prize $250 and Third prize $100.
In the Adult category top prize will be $2500, Second prize $1000 and Third prize $500.
The Competition will be open effective February 20th, 2014 and will close December 31st, 2014.

Check out the Gallery Q Website, for more details!

http://galerie-q.com/index.php/art-contest-rule

galerieq

Wind Turbine Troubles…..They’re Definitely NOT Safe!

September 17, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

The scandal of UK’s death-trap wind turbines: A turbine built for 115mph winds felled in 50mph gusts. Dozens more affected by cost-cutting. Why residents living in their shadow demand to know – are they safe?

Health and Safety Executive release reports on collapsed wind turbines
Causes were manufacturing faults and basic installation mistakes
Campaigners believe the risk of turbines collapsing will continue to grow

By SIMON TRUMP FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

PUBLISHED: 22:36 GMT, 13 September 2014

It was just before midnight on a winter’s night last year. Outside in the gusting January wind it was freezing, but Bill Jarvis was sitting by the fire with his wife Annie and a few relatives in their cottage on the North Devon moors.

And that’s when they heard it: a tremendous ‘crack’, louder than a thunderclap.

‘We rushed outside wondering what on earth had happened,’ recalls Bill. ‘We thought perhaps a plane had crashed it was such a loud noise. ‘We couldn’t see flames or anything burning, even though we peered out in the direction it had come from. There was nothing else though, no more noise or aftershocks.’

Collapsed: The turbine that fell at East Ash Farm, Bradworthy had been installed with the wrong configuration of nuts at its base, upsetting its balance

Deafeningly loud it might have been, but what the Jarvis family had heard – as they were to discover the following morning – had taken place at Bradworthy, a mile away. It was the noise of a 115ft-high wind turbine crashing to the ground.

‘It’s pretty terrifying stuff,’ says Mr Jarvis. ‘I’m no fan of the things and this has just added to my worries. Just think what could have happened. It sends a shiver down your spine.’

He is not the only one feeling nervous about the march of the giant metal windmills across the British landscape.

This week, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) produced two reports – one into the catastrophic failure of the Bradworthy turbine and another into the collapse of a turbine in the next county, Cornwall, just three nights later.

And its conclusions are not merely unsettling, but have frightening implications for wind turbines and their safety right across the country.

Man down: The wind turbine at Winsdon Farm, North Petherwin, Cornwall, fell due to a fault with the components, resulting in a failure in the foundation rods concreted into its base

The turbines in Devon and Cornwall came down when the wind was blowing at barely 50mph, despite the fact that they are supposed to withstand blasts of just over 115mph.

And, as the HSE concluded, the causes were manufacturing faults and basic mistakes in the way they were installed. The errors have already been replicated elsewhere in the country, as the two reports make clear, and could affect dozens – if not hundreds – more of the giant towers.

It is hardly encouraging to learn that the HSE reports were not published in a normal sense, but were available only on request.

They have come to light now only through Freedom of Information (FoI) requests lodged by a number of concerned residents.

Dr Philip Bratby, from CPRE Devon, believes the risk of collapse will continue to grow as long as the wind industry is allowed to operate behind a wall of secrecy.

A retired physicist, who formerly worked in nuclear energy, he says: ‘Safety standards in my line of work were paramount. We constantly monitored, tested and maintained equipment but this does not seem the case with turbines.

‘These two failures were catastrophic. The towers came crashing down with great force from a great height.

‘It was only down to luck it happened in the night and no people or animals were injured or killed.

‘The wind industry is very secretive about everything it does. It won’t publicise any definitive information about accidents so it is impossible to make an independent assessment of the risks.’

Dr Bratby lives at Rackenford, high on the edge of Exmoor, where there has also been a proliferation of turbines.

‘I am not convinced that we are learning from the bad experiences and feeding those lessons back into the education of designers and constructors because the industry is growing so rapidly,’ he says.

‘The size of these turbines seems to keep on increasing and I believe the dangers will increase accordingly. The bigger the turbine that fails, the bigger the potential for disaster and death.’

Turbine towers are supposedly secured by lowering them on to a series of foundation rods that emerge vertically from a concrete foundation.

These are levelled by the adjustment of bottom nuts below a flange at the base and then fixed with another set of nuts above the base.

Campaigners believe the risk of turbines collapsing will continue to grow as long as the wind industry is allowed to operate behind a wall of secrecy

All the exposed metal, including the rods and the nuts, is then encased in grout which protects it and spreads the stresses from any movement in the turbine.

Yet as these groundbreaking HSE reports show, not only were some of the parts faulty, two different sets of sub-contractors made the same basic – possibly cost-cutting – errors. And the result was that the metal monsters were not secure at all.

In the incident at East Ash Farm, Bradworthy, on January 27, 2013 – the one heard by Mr Jarvis – an E3120 model, made by Canadian-based Endurance, was found to have been installed with the wrong configuration of nuts at its base.

This upset the ‘loadings’, or balance, of the tower. The implication is that it wasn’t level. To compound the problem, the contractors who installed it had failed to use structural-grade grout to seal the rods and bolts from the worst of the weather and had used a ‘cosmetic’ compound instead.

The HSE reports reveal that the same faulty configuration of nuts had been to blame at Wattlesborough, near Shrewsbury in Shropshire, the previous year when another E3120 collapsed.

To date, Endurance has erected 300 of the E3120s throughout the United Kingdom.

The UK arm of the company says it has inspected all of them and carried out urgent repairs on 29 of the towers.

A different type of turbine fell at Winsdon Farm, North Petherwin, Cornwall, on January 30. This was a G133, manufactured by Gaia-Wind, originally a Danish firm.

This time there was a fault with the components, resulting in a failure in the foundation rods concreted into its base. But again, it had been badly installed with a lack of grout. As the HSE inspector concluded, there was ‘a lack of resilience to the fatigue loading within the securing arrangement… and poor fatigue strength in the securing components’.

The collapse of another G133 turbine at Otley, near Leeds, in April 2013 occurred in identical circumstances. Again, the securing rods were substandard. Once again, they had not been properly grouted in place.

As Dr Bratby points out, the footings and securings, which are difficult to inspect when encased in concrete and grout, are critical because they are subject to such huge and varying forces.

‘Over time they clearly degrade to the point of failure,’ he says. ‘We should be asking ourselves whether we are at a tipping point as the first-generation technology is exposed and compromised.’

Green energy: Wind turbines and windfarms provide a renewable alternative

Dr Bratby is frustrated at the lack of risk assessments undertaken when looking at sites.

He says: ‘I accept that the dangers from wind turbines located on farms without public access and remote from public rights of way are probably acceptable.

‘That is not always the case. They have been located close to roads and railways, at workplaces, in schools, hospitals and parks without any formal assessment of the dangers. I think that is unacceptable.’

His views are shared by fellow campaigner Alan Dransfield, from Exeter, who helped to mastermind the FoI application.

‘These reports took the best part of a year and several thousand pounds to compile, and the HSE decided to investigate because of the extensive media coverage and widespread public concern,’ Mr Dransfield says.

‘I’m delighted they did because look what they’ve found. Without doubt there is an urgent need for a more proactive stance with regard to the wind-turbine industry. It clearly can’t police itself.’

Taken together, there are 380 E3120 and GI33 towers. Of these, four are known to have collapsed, while repairs were necessary in 39 others to prevent potential further collapses.

Meanwhile, an as yet undisclosed number have further problems with the way they are bolted down, according to the HSE, and need repairing as soon as possible.

Revealing as they are, however, the two new reports deal with only a small minority of British turbines: there are 6,500 of differing design and manufacture across the country, and when it comes to problems with collapse or faulty installation, the public is wholly in the dark.

Figures from Caithness Windfarm Information Forum, a wind-turbine monitoring website, show that structural failure is the third most common major fault, behind blade failure and fire.

It has recorded an average of 149 accidents worldwide every year between 2009 and 2013 but believes this to be the ‘tip of the iceberg’ as it relies on scanning the internet for reports of such incidents.

‘The trend is as expected – as more turbines are built, more accidents occur,’ says a spokesman. ‘The numbers will continue upwards until the HSE helps force significant change.

‘In particular, the public should be protected by declaring a minimum safe distance between new turbine developments and occupied houses and buildings.’

However, Chris Streatfeild, director of health and safety with Renewable UK, the industry trade association, believes that any fears of wind power are unfounded and the risks minimal and acceptable.

‘Manufacturers, installers and owners work hard to ensure that they meet extremely stringent health and safety standards,’ he says.

‘There’s a rigorous process, verified by independent bodies, to ensure strict installation standards and safe siting. That’s why problems are so rare.’

He adds: ‘When incidents do occur, it’s important to learn from them and implement any lessons fully and promptly. Any serious incident has to be reported to the HSE and we work closely with them to ensure high standards are maintained.

‘To put this into its proper context, no member of the public has ever been injured by a wind turbine. It’s unfortunate a handful of anti-wind campaigners are choosing to indulge in scaremongering.

‘Climate change is a real and pressing issue. When it comes to generating clean electricity, onshore wind is the most cost-effective way so we should be making the most of it.’

At Bradworthy, farmers Des and Vera Ludwell were also staying quiet about their windmill. A new turbine stands in the position of its collapsed predecessor, about 50 yards from the road. A second one is even closer, leaving little safety margin.

Councillor David Tomlin revealed there are 50 turbines within a six-mile radius of Bradworthy, a quiet market town, and a further 20 have been approved.

‘We are not anti-wind power as such,’ he says. ‘But there is a visual intrusion and residents who live close to turbines report a constant whooshing noise from blades. Most importantly, can we still be certain they are safe?

‘What happened here and in Cornwall and analysed in detail in these two reports should be a wake- up call. Perhaps we should halt the erection of further turbines pending an investigation of the industry as a whole.’

An earlier version of this article said the HSE reports had been published in redacted form. We would like to make clear this was incorrect and the full reports have been available.

Self-Destructing Wind Turbines…..a Brilliant Idea!

September 16, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

New Wave of Turbine Terror: Brits Brace as Giant Fans Keep Collapsing

September 16, 2014 by stopthesethings 1 Comment

A while back we covered what the wind industry and its parasites call “component liberation” in our post – Life in the “throw zone” which included video of a Vestas’ turbine “liberating” its components.

That led to a retort from an employee from AGL’s Macarthur wind farm disaster – calling himself “Prowind” – about the exploding turbine – “that turbine in the video is not accident, they purposely let it self destruct. That is NEVER going to happen at MacArthur.”

We dealt with “Prowind” in our post – Logic: not found on other planets?– which included a serious scientific study into the distances blades are likely to travel during “component liberation”. The study dealt with over 37 “component liberation” events, recording blade throw distances of up to 1,600 m.

And we covered a turbine liberating its components in a schoolyard at Caithness, Scotland in this post: Remember the days of the old school yard?

We also covered – yet another component liberation – in our spoof post –IWTs or WMDs?

The obvious irony and sarcasm in that post was lost on greentards – a humourless bunch at the best of times – which prompted us to explain the difference between the literal and the figurative – in this post – It’s all about the costs, stupid.

Not only are giant fans determined to “liberate” their blades all over the countryside, schools and homes, these friendly little puppies are just as keen to collapse, laying waste to anything in their path.

Here’s a wrap up from the UK on the terror and havoc being caused by collapsing turbines.

The scandal of UK’s death-trap wind turbines:
The Mail on Sunday
Simon Trump
14 September 2014

A turbine built for 115mph winds felled in 50mph gusts. Dozens more affected by cost-cutting. Why residents living in their shadow demand to know – are they safe?

Health and Safety Executive release reports on collapsed wind turbines
Causes were manufacturing faults and basic installation mistakes
Campaigners believe the risk of turbines collapsing will continue to grow

And that’s when they heard it: a tremendous ‘crack’, louder than a thunderclap.

‘It’s pretty terrifying stuff,’ says Mr Jarvis. ‘I’m no fan of the things and this has just added to my worries. Just think what could have happened. It sends a shiver down your spine.’

He is not the only one feeling nervous about the march of the giant metal windmills across the British landscape.

And its conclusions are not merely unsettling, but have frightening implications for wind turbines and their safety right across the country.

The turbines in Devon and Cornwall came down when the wind was blowing at barely 50mph, despite the fact that they are supposed to withstand blasts of just over 115mph.

It is hardly encouraging to learn that the HSE reports were not published in a normal sense, but were available only on request and in redacted form.