fighting wind turbines

Fracking is by Far….Better than Wind Turbines!

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Fracking – Fact or Fantasy

by Dougal Quixote

The green movement doesn’t like Fracking but they do like Wind. Why? Fact is wind is intermittent, drives people into fuel poverty and has to be supported by subsidy. Fracking on the other hand has reduced energy prices in the US, created thousands of jobs as energy prices tumble to the benefit of US industry and needs no subsidy. So why has the Green Lobby reacted so viciously to fracking. Their web sites are a liturgy of lies and obfuscations.

fracking objectors

They are the great unwashed, the swampies and the anti capitalist objectors and yet they are also rent a mob. Never has a Wind Farm objection rally needed the police manpower that fracking does. Truth is that it is simply political activism, what Patterson referred to as the Green Blob. How seldom do we see locals in their ranks. Those that are have believed the hype and failed to properly study the fact. Flaming faucets: cold bed methane in groundwater that would be there without any mining. Nothing to do with fracking at 8000ft well below groundwater. There are dangers, but none that cannot be adequately addressed by good management and oversight by an effective regulator. After all it is not in the developers interest to be faced with expensive clear up costs and loss of production.

So what about the real legacy of fracking. In the south we haver been drilling the Whytch oil field for years and few even know it exists. Fracking, as a technique, has been used for the best party of forty years but new equipment and deep wells have brought it into it’s own more recently. Centrica have been fracking wells for gas in Norway for the last few years. Interestingly they are using mostly Scottish engineers. Good well paid jobs for the indigenous population.

So what effect does fracking have. Essentially a fracking site will experience disturbance for about forty weeks after which it will revert to a simple well head.

Fracking well head

 

This is in Marcellus, New York State, and cannot be seen from the road. The alternative is something like this at Ardrossan.

Ardrossan

Ardrossan

Of course the first runs 24/7/365 for some forty years and the second runs as about 21% when the wind blows and has a life of about 16 years before it needs re-powering. We have all been promised a maximum of 25 years but do we believe them? No way. Read the small print. In practice what will happen is either the death of the industry with wholesale bankruptcies and rusting hulks littering our scenery or bigger monstrosities here for forty years or more.

For a safe, sustainable, future the truth is we need deliverable energy at a cost we can afford with a mix of clean coal, gas, nuclear and hydro. It is without doubt that as civilisation moves forward we will have an expanding demand for electricity, not because it is green, but because it is easy. Cars, buses, trains will all demand much higher energy requirements than we could currently(sic) supply. So listen to the Royal Geological Scociety, the Nuclear Industry and the engineers in the power industry. Don’t listen to the Swampys and green ideologues as they peddle dis-information. Get your facts from people who know, not the Green lobby with their eschewed values which even their founders now despair of.

We need to build a future based on fact, not fantasy!

Windweasels “Stack the Deck” for “Community Consultations”

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NSW Planning Department Helps Wind Farm Developers Rig Community “Consultations”

August 12, 2014 by  

dirtyrottenscoundrelsoriginal

As community hostility to wind farm plans erupts across the Southern Tablelands of NSW, wind power outfits have taken to sacking and stacking committees to ensure the “process” of “community consultation” is little more than high farce.

Spanish outfit, Union Fenosa didn’t like the prospect of having Tony Abbott’s key business adviser, Maurice Newman challenge its wild and fictional claims, so it did what any reasonable corporate citizen would do: it booted him off the committee at Crookwell (see our post here). What’s that you say about “shaping the debate”?

Now, EPYC – an outfit planning to spear 100 turbines into the heart of picture post-card Tarago – has adopted the same tactics: stacking the consultation committee with “friendlies” and preventing the appointment of anyone with any insight into the scope of the fraud. Here’s the Goulburn Post with a tale that sounds more like something from the old Soviet Bloc.

Windfarm group demands action
Goulburn Post
Louise Thrower
4 August 2014

OPPONENTS of a proposed wind farm near Tarago are calling on the state government to ‘do its job.’ Community consultative committees (CCCs) are mandatory under guidelines but are nothing more than a ‘fig leaf,’ says a residents’ group.

The Residents Against Jupiter Wind Farm (RAJWF) has not ruled out political action to press their point.

Last month the group met with a senior advisor to Planning Minister and Goulburn MP Pru Goward and a departmental official in Sydney.

Member and Tarago district resident Dr Michael Crawford said the government had the power to appoint CCCs but was abrogating its responsibility and letting wind farm companies decide the make-up.

“It’s not an even handed process but they want it to look as though it is by putting it in the guidelines,” Dr Crawford said.

“The Department is not doing its job to appoint community representatives and the independent chairperson and it doesn’t pull anyone up on it. We tried to get some real change.”

Instead, Dr Crawford said the Department gave him the “soft shoe shuffle.”

His comments follow Union Fenosa’s sacking of Maurice Newman from the Crookwell Three wind farm CCC. The move sparked outrage from NSW Landscape Guardians president Humphrey Price-Jones who called on Ms Goward and the Department to intervene.

Under existing draft guidelines, the director general signs off on CCC membership. But even Union Fenosa conceded that given the draft document, the state was leaving membership up to wind farm companies.

Tarago residents at least argue this is unacceptable.

“Nowhere in the guidelines is there any latitude for the wind farm developer to have a say about choosing community reps,” resident Jane Keaney stated in a letter to the editor.

“In fact, even without the guidelines, anyone with the faintest sense of fair play would recognise that allowing a developer of any sort to select the people who are going to be allowed to talk to the developer on behalf of the community, is anathema. How has the department come to tolerate this corruption of process?” The group has already asked Palerang and Goulburn Mulwaree Councils to help with election of its CCC.

In June, EPYC, which wants to build the 100 turbine wind farm southeast of Tarago, called for community representation.

In response, the group nominated seven people including Mr Crawford, who it wanted on the committee, with a further eight as alternative delegates. The Reverend Tom Frame supervised the election.

Dr Crawford said to date there has been no response from the company or the Department of Planning.

At the most recent Goulburn Mulwaree meeting, planning director Chris Stewart was appointed as Council’s representative.

While companies like Union Fenosa have defended their ability to appoint a wide cross section of views to the committees, others like Mr Price-Jones have branded them “wind farm propaganda” machines.

Dr Crawford said while all the Tarago nominees oppose the wind farm, he would welcome a variety of voices on the committee.

But he’s adamant that the state government needs to regain control.

“The government wants to paper the State with wind farms but the process is nothing more than a fig leaf,” he said.

“… At the meeting in Sydney I said they have to understand our timetable. There’s an election next year and if our members feel political action is required, we won’t sit on our hands.

It’s about government policy and the way to deal with it is through the political process.”

Ms Goward told the Post she had asked her department for a report on CCCs.

“We made it clear that we expect wind farm companies to genuinely consult with communities and the history is that they haven’t,” she said.

“We need to be sure CCCs are genuine, that they genuinely represent the community and can give unfettered advice.”

The company had not responded to requests for comment by the time of going to press.
Goulburn Post

STT is pleased to hear that Pru Goward has taken an interest in what can fairly be described as government gone rotten. The NSW Planning Department – like state planning departments around Australia – is infected with a pernicious brand of groupthink driven by the childish fantasy that wind power is a solution to “climate change” (previously known as “global warming” – until it became evident that it stopped getting warmer 17 years ago – see our post here).

Wedded to a delusion, woe betide anyone – like Maurice Newman or Dr Michael Crawford – who has the temerity to question their mantra. Hence the need to load these so-called “community consultation committees” with gullible “yes-men”.

Wind power – delivered at crazy, random intervals – requires 100% of its capacity to be backed up 100% of the time by fossil fuel generation sources and, therefore, cannot and will never reduce CO2 emissions in the electricity sector (see our posts here and here and here and here andhere and here and here).

Wind power is not a substitute for conventional generation sources and – if CO2 is the problem – presents as a solution to nothing (see our post here).

Remember that the ONLY justification for the $billions in subsidies directed at wind power (see our post here) is CO2 emissions abatement in the electricity sector. It’s the central and endlessly repeated lie that wind power outfits routinely trot out in their planning applications. You know, the guff about “powering 100,000 homes” and abating millions of tonnes of CO2 (see our post here).

Well, STT hears that the industry is about to be put to proof on its CO2 abatement claims.

The wind industry has never produced a shred of evidence to show that wind power has reduced CO2 emissions in Australia’s electricity sector. To the contrary of wind industry claims, the result of trying to incorporate wind power into a coal/gas fired grid is increased CO2 emissions (see thisEuropean paper here; this Irish paper here; this English paper here; and this Dutch study here).

Strip away that myth and the mandatory RET – upon which the entire wind industry depends – can be seen for what it is: the greatest economic and environmental fraud of all time.

pru-goward

Ineffective, Unreliable, Unaffordable, Wind Turbines!

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LETTER: Wind turbines are a waste of time and money

The coalition has sanctioned the construction of Rampion, despite the overwhelming evidence that wind turbines are unreliable, grossly inefficient, inflict huge damage on the environment and wildlife, do not reduce greenhouse emissions one iota, and are, by a large margin, the most expensive means of generating electricity.

Thus, one could be forgiven for thinking the two headlines are linked.

Consider, as revealed by the company awarded the contract for the construction of the off-shore wind farm that, although the designed output is 700 megawatts (MW) because of the unreliability of wind turbines, the actual output will be no more than 240MW. Compare this with the output of a gas-fired generator, costing less than half the over £2bn for Rampion, which produces ten times as much electricity 100 per cent of the time.

Some years ago, Centricia, and other electricity-producing companies, made it absolutely clear to the government that, because of the unreliability of the wind, full back-up of conventional power stations is essential.

Therefore, greenhouse gas-emitting generating plants will have to remain permanently in service – thus, there is no point in building wind turbines.

Denmark, which has the greatest number of wind turbines per capita, has the most expensive power in Europe. I have yet to meet

a qualified electrical engineer who thinks the construction of wind turbines to power the national grid is a good idea.

Rampion will cover 60 square miles from Beachy Head to the Isle of Wight. The unreliability, comparatively short life, and huge cost of maintaining the turbines, means that it is only a question of time before Rampion is seen as one of the biggest scrap metal sites in the world.

France, where 80 per cent of electricity is produced by nuclear power, has the cheapest electricity in Europe. To satisfy the Green lobby, nuclear power stations in the UK should employ thorium as the fuel which is much safer than uranium. Nuclear bombs cannot be produced using thorium.

I do hope everyone reading this will write to their MP, county and district councillors, demanding the construction of all wind turbines, both on and off-shore, be halted immediately.

Ideally, those wind turbines already constructed should be dismantled.

Derek Hunnikin

St Leodegar’s Way

Hunston

Wind Turbines are “Faux-Green”!

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Opposing wind generators is not anti-green

August 8 2014
By Keith Brier

The intolerance of dissenting views by the Green Lobby is an unpleasant aspect of some of its members. They are perhaps unaware that tolerance of difference is a pillar of democracy and essential to individual freedom. But, whatever the reasons for vitriolic attacks on those against wind generators, environmentalists should take a closer look at Scottish opposition.

The most prominent in Scotland is the Windfarm Action Group. This group firmly states that everyone should take environmental responsibilities seriously. Whatever the causes of global warming and the varying views on what causes it, we must protect our earth and steward it wisely. It accepts a need to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. It wants cleaner, reliable energy. It supports sound scientific solutions with the goal of a cleaner, greener world.

No sane, sensible person can disagree with this. Even the most rabid environmentalist should agree too.

But this green group and 300 others like in Britain, plus another 400 in four EU countries, are against windfarms. They have gone into the subject thoroughly and engineers and scientists back up their conclusions.

To those who accuse them of merely being concerned with their own backyards and not the common good, they say add up our membership and you will find an awful lot of backyards. They are simply against what does not make good sense. They are convinced that wind power:

– Is not a technically legitimate solution.

– Does not meaningfully reduce CO2 emissions.

– Is not a commercially viable source of energy

– Is not environmentally responsible.

They believe there are better solutions to Britain’s energy concerns; solutions that meet scientific, economic, and environmental tests – and they have good reasons.

They point to the massive subsidies that windfarms received initially from the British taxpayer, money that attracts multinational corporations like flies to treacle. These subsidies added to the higher price ordinary British householders pay for their electricity.

This “stealth” tax was considerable. Most consumers were unaware that it was used to make wind-generated economically feasible on the one hand, and to fill the pockets of the manufacturers on the other.

This largess allowed wind-generation companies to make generous payments to landowners for permission to use their land. Such was the temptation that some Welsh farmers trying to raise sheep in arduous and scarcely profitable areas leapt at it.

One told his local newspaper that if it were not for the payments he got, he would have given up farming long ago.

The Wind farm Action Group quotes British government documents that say each wind turbine in Britain still receives an annual subsidy of more than £235 000 (R4.3 million). Britain has about 1 120 turbines in 90 parts of the country.

Among the usual objections to windfarms – they do not work all the time, they are noisy, kill birds and bats, and so on, the group adds a few more. For example, wind generators interfere with radar; dirt and flying insects affect their performance; ice build-up on the propellers affects performance even more; and wind turbulence further reduces their power production.

Finally, there is rust. Britain is a wet place but offshore wind turbines have salt to contend with as well. One Danish offshore wind farm had to be entirely dismantled for repair when it was only 18 months old.

Yes, groups such as these exist almost everywhere there are windfarms. They are often, like this Scottish one, as caring of the environment as anyone, perhaps more so. They are not only concerned with their own backyard; they are concerned about everyone’s backyard.

Yet they say this: “We believe that in time this [windfarms] may well be the greatest environmental disaster that mankind in panic, haste, folly and greed, has ever conceived.”

Britain is an old country and its language is full of folk wisdom like this: “No one ever built a windmill, if he could build a watermill.”

A more modern version of common sense would be: “Using wind power to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is akin to trying to empty the Atlantic Ocean with a teaspoon.”

Wind Pusher’s Conduct, Called Into Question!….Not acceptable!

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MSP calls for wind farm developer code of conduct

The move comes after constituents raised concerns about the activities of one particular developer in trying to garner public support for its proposed wind farm.

Speaking from his constituency office, Mr Fergusson said: “As competition grows for wind farm sites, developers will be keener than ever to attract support from communities and individuals for their proposed developments.

“In doing so, it would seem that one company in particular has angered a large number of my constituents by negotiating secret agreements with individuals to ensure that they don’t object to the development in return for an undisclosed sum of money.

“This activity causes suspicion between neighbours, division within communities and is the polar opposite of the levels of openness and accountability that ought to characterize the local negotiations that precede any wind farm development.

“In my opinion, a code of practice for developers would ensure that all affected communities and individuals would be treated with respect as negotiations move forward and remove the atmosphere of distrust and suspicion that clearly exists in at least one particular local situation.

“I have written to the minister to suggest a code of practice, and will pursue the possibility through normal parliamentary processes.”

Earlier this year, 50 community councils from across the region called for a moratorium on consent for wind farms in the region, claiming a map produced by Scottish Natural Heritage shows southern Scotland has more onshore wind farm developments proposed than any other part of the country.

 
 

Wind Pushers Try to Push the Noise Limits Beyond Tolerable Levels…

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Turbine neighbour prompts noise probe by ministry

By Nelson Zandbergen – AgriNews Staff Writer    

Ontario’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change installed the basketball-sized microphone atop a temporary 30-foot listening post in her backyard, along with a smaller meteorological tower.BRINSTON Leslie Disheau has her ear to the ground in South Dundas, and for 10 days last month, a very powerful ear trained on the sky around her Brinston home as well.

The ministry’s move was prompted by Disheau and partner Glen Baldwins complaints about nighttime noise emanating from two industrial wind turbines on either side of their place, one to their immediate northwest, the other to the southeast. Comprising part of the 10-turbine South Branch project that went into service earlier this year, both of the nearest units are less than one kilometer away from the home the couple shares with their two teenaged children.

But Disheau, candidate for deputy mayor in the municipal election and a fierce critic of the turbine industry, feared that developer EDP Renewables was intentionally slowing the two windmills to quiet them down while the ministry data-collection and audio-recording effort was underway with her participation.

The Houston-based firm almost immediately learned about the microphone on the day of the install, she said with some frustration.

Located just down the road from the projects main depot, it wasn’t more than three hours after the arrival of two ministry trucks in her driveway that EDP called the same ministry to question the presence of those vehicles, according to Disheau.

She says the audio technician putting up the equipment learned of EDPs inquiry while talking to his office by cell phone, then told her about it.

Disheau expressed unhappiness that a mandatory post-construction noise report had yet to be publicly filed by the company itself, after putting the project into service in March.

In the meantime, over a 10-day period in July, the ministry captured its own sound data with Disheau’s help. During those times she considered the turbines to be noisiest, she pressed a button inside her home, triggering the recording process via the outdoor microphone, which was tethered to audio equipment in a locked box.

Comparing the sound to that of a rumbling plane or jet, she got up at night when she couldn’t sleep to push the audio recording button located at the end of a long cord connected to the stuff outside. She also kept an accompanying log as part of the initiative.

The noise is most acute, she said, when the direction of the wind causes the blades to swivel toward her home in perpendicular fashion.

She scoffed at regulations that mandate 500-meter setbacks to neighbouring homes, pointing out the rule doesn’t take into account the cumulative, “overlapping” impact of multiple turbines that surround. Nor does the regulation change with the actual size of a turbine, she adds, asserting that, at 3-megawatts apiece, “these are the largest turbines in Ontario.”

Ultimately, the ministry will use the data collected by Disheau to create a report, which could potentially form the basis of ministry orders against the two offending turbines. “To shut them down at night so that people can sleep,” she said with a hopeful tone, though she also acknowledged the ministry may not issue orders. And even if it does, she expects the developer to appeal and appeal.

Disheau also said there are measures that municipal governments can undertake to curtail the noise, including a nuisance noise bylaw of 32 decibels, which recently survived a court challenge in another Ontario municipality. She espouses such a policy in South Dundas and will push for it at the council table if elected.

Ill Health suffered by Residents Living near Wind Turbines!

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An ill wind blows as the surge of turbines stirs fears of silent danger to our health

TENS of thousands of Scots may be suffering from a hidden sickness epidemic caused by wind farms, campaigners have warned.

By: Paula Murray


Andrew Vivers has suffered from headaches since a wind farm was built near his home
[PAUL REID]

The Sunday Express can reveal that the Scottish Government has recently commissioned a study into the potential ill effects of turbines at 10 sites across the country.

More than 33,500 families live within two miles of these 10 wind farms – which represent just a fraction of the 2,300 turbines – already built north of the Border.

Hundreds of residents are now being asked to report back to Holyrood ministers about the visual impacts, and effects of noise and shadow flickers from nearby wind farms.

Campaigners fear that many people do not realise they are suffering from ailments brought on by infrasound – noise at such a low frequency that it cannot be heard but can be felt.

One such person is Andrew Vivers, an ex-Army captain who has suffered from headaches, dizziness, tinnitus, raised blood pressure and disturbed sleep since Ark Hill wind farm was built near his home in Glamis, Angus.

Mr Vivers, who served almost 10 years in the military, said the authorities had so far refused to accept the ill effects of infrasound despite it being a “known military interrogation aid and weapon”.

He said: “When white noise was disallowed they went on to infrasound. If it is directed at you, you can feel your brain or your body vibrating. With wind turbines, you don’t realise that is what’s happening to you.

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

He is raising concerns about an “acknowledged and unexplained increase of insomnia, dizziness and headaches in Dundee”, where two large wind turbines have been operating since 2006. Mr Vivers, 59, said all medical explanations of his own sudden health issues had been ruled out and it was more than 12 months before he was convinced of the link to the wind farm.

”I was getting these headaches and dizziness
and just not sleeping, but I was putting it all down
to all sorts of other things. A couple of times I was
walking on the hills around the house with my dogs
and got a really bad dizzy spell” Andrew Vivers

He said: “I was getting these headaches and dizziness and just not sleeping, but I was putting it all down to all sorts of other things. A couple of times I was walking on the hills around the house with my dogs and got a really bad dizzy spell.

“I actually had to sit down for a few minutes and while I was sitting down wondering what on earth was wrong with me, I did notice the wind was coming straight from the turbines.” Mr Vivers said he has also witnessed an “incredible number” of dead hares on the moors around Ark Hill and believes they may have succumbed to “internal haemorrhaging and death” as a result of the turbines.

He added: “If this coming winter is going to be anything like the last and with the plans to build a second wind farm much closer to us, I think we’ll have to sell our home and move elsewhere.”

The 10 sites under the microscope in the new survey include one in Dunfermline, where almost 23,000 households are nearby, and Little Raith near Lochgelly, Fife, where there are nearly 9,000 households.

The others are Achany in Sutherland, Baillie near Thurso, Caithness, Dalswinton in Dumfriesshire, Drone Hill, near Coldingham, Berwickshire, Griffin in Perthshire, Hadyard Hill in Ayrshire, Neilston in Renfrewshire and West Knock, near Stuartfield, Aberdeenshire.

About 2,000 questionnaires have been sent to residents in a move that is understood to have caused tension between the Scottish Government and the renewable energy industry.

The “wind farm impacts study” is being managed by ClimateXChange, which has published information about the project online.

It says: “The research will use two sources of information: how local residents experience and react to visual, noise and shadow-flicker impacts, and how the predicted impact at the planning stage matches the impact when the wind farm is operating.

“The final report is due in autumn 2014. It will inform the Scottish Government’s approach to planning policy on renewables and good practice on managing the impact of wind farms on local residents.”

One of the contractors involved in the project is Hoare Lea Acoustics, an international firm which specialises in measuring noise and vibration from wind farms.

However, Susan Croswaithe, the UK spokeswoman for campaign group European Platform Against Windfarms, said the study would be “little more than a box ticking exercise”.

She added: “On the face of it, it does look like a step in the right direction, but can we really trust it? My issue is that it is not independent enough.

“Our website is full of examples of people not being listened to.

“We have two very large wind farms near us in Ayrshire, Arecleoch and Mark Hill – 60 turbines and 28 turbines.

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

Wynne Couldn’t make her Disrespect for Rural Ontario, Any Clearer.

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Wynne’s rural outreach efforts could unravel in face of budget challenges

ADAM RADWANSKI

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Last updated Saturday, Aug. 09 2014

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne listens to remarks from Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger (not shown) at the opening of the Building Canada Up Summit in Toronto on Wednesday August 6, 2014. (Chris Young/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

In a year-and-a-half as premier, Kathleen Wynne has probably spent as much time visiting Ontario’s rural regions and its smaller cities as Dalton McGuinty did in nearly a decade. She has backtracked on policies, such as an end to financial support for horse racing, that rankled those communities. Somewhat dubiously, she served as her own agriculture minister.

In short, Ms. Wynne has made an effort to demonstrate that her Ontario includes more than just Toronto, Ottawa and a few other urban centres, and to ensure the rest of the province doesn’t feel as neglected under her watch as it did under her predecessor’s.

And yet as her government seeks to eliminate its $12.5-billion deficit in three years, there is reason to believe Ms. Wynne is on a collision course with the regions to which she has tried to reach out.

The biggest hint came last month in an interview with Treasury Board President Deb Matthews, the most powerful minister in Ms. Wynne’s cabinet and the one charged with leading the fight to get back to balance.

“I think across government, we’re more and more moving to a population-based system,” Ms. Matthews said on the subject of “rationalizing” program spending. What she meant, it was fairly clear, was that to meet the needs of fast-growing communities without significantly increasing the overall envelope, it would be necessary to reduce or at least freeze spending in areas where stagnant or shrinking populations are currently overserved by comparison.

She didn’t spell out which areas she was talking about, but it’s not difficult to figure that out.

During the past census period, from 2006 to 2011, municipalities in the Greater Toronto Area grew hugely. Milton was the most extreme example, going from 53,889 residents to 84,362 – an increase of 56.5 per cent. Much bigger Brampton increased by 20.8 per cent, bringing it up to 523,911. Those places are both still getting bigger, as are other suburbs.

Meanwhile, much of the province is shrinking. Down in the southwest, Chatham-Kent recorded one of the most significant population losses (4.2 per cent) in the country between censuses. Windsor went down, too, as did Thunder Bay in the north, Brockville in the east, and plenty more; many others flat-lined.

As long as economies of scale are duly taken into account, it’s difficult to argue in theory with the basic premise that funding needs to be reallocated. But that won’t make it any less bitter a pill to swallow for communities that might be asked to make do with less.

As Ms. Matthews noted, the shift is already happening with hospitals, and child care is on the radar. Education might be a particular flashpoint, with the merging of schools in which classrooms are filled partly with empty chairs.

In conversations since that interview, Ms. Wynne’s Liberals have acknowledged both the perceived need to make such adjustments, and the difficulty in acting upon it. While most of their seats are urban and suburban, their thin majority government still includes MPPs from eastern, southwestern and northern Ontario, and they could easily feel hung out to dry.

If the Liberals prove willing and able to withstand that sort of backlash, it may have something to do with another consequence of the population trends.

At some point before the next Ontario election, the province is likely to adopt the new federal riding map so that constituencies at the two levels continue to mirror each other. If so, 11 of 15 new seats will be in the GTA. Much of the rest of the province could see its smaller share of program spending accompanied by less political clout.

Ms. Wynne may not be inclined toward that sort of cold calculation; she appears genuinely concerned about the alienation of whole chunks of the province. But that may not be compatible with returning Ontario to balance, at least as she and her top minister intend to achieve it.

Follow Adam Radwanski on Twitter: @aradwanski

Wind Industry Gets Rid of Top Acoustic Professor, Who Dared to Tell the Truth!

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Vestas Helps Engineer Sacking of Denmark’s Top Acoustic Professor, Henrik Møller

August 9, 2014 by Leave a Comment

lies

In Denmark, Vestas is the wind industry. And like the wind industry everywhere, it’s done its level best to infiltrate and influence every aspect of political and academic life: all aimed at preventing any pesky opposition to its plans to cover the planet with its giant fans.

Vestas isn’t afraid to cut all the ethical corners in its quest to be the world’s dominant fan maker: Vestas bosses are under investigation for abusing their positions to secure private financial gains through its business dealings with others in the wind industry (see our post here).

In Australia, Vestas splashed a fat pile of cash at “green” groups, going on the propaganda front foot, spending $millions in Australia to “shape the debate” – paying its team of dilettante advocates and juvenile propagandists a bucket of loot to “win hearts and minds” – and threw a fat pile of cash at the Australian Greens in their futile efforts to unseat STT Champion, SA Senator, Nick Xenophon at the Federal election last September (see our post here).

Back in Denmark, it appears Vestas has used its sway to see that Denmark’s leading academic expert on noise research, Henrik Møller would no longer be a thorn in its side. As a highly respected University Professor, Henrik Møller presented a clear and present danger to Vesta’s commercial interests: he has worked for years to show that turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound causes sleep deprivation and other adverse health effects; he has been especially critical of the noise “standards” set for households – which were written by the wind industry (read Vestas) in order to allow turbines to comply, no matter how large or how close to homes.

Vestas has been a vocal critic of Dr Møller and has continually complained about him to his boss, Dean Eskild Holm Nielsen. Vestas must be chuffed that its efforts have all paid off: Dr Møller has been sacked. Here’s John Droz Jr detailing Vesta’s successful effort to shoot the messenger.

The Danish Democracy Doesn’t Like the Truth
windfarmaction
John Droz Jr
5 August 2014

Henrik Møller, Denmark’s leading academic expert on noise research, has been fired by his university after exposing a far-reaching cover up by the Danish government of the health risks caused by wind turbine noise pollution.

Shock and outrage at this latest example of the heavy-handed cover up of government-backed junk science has brought strong condemnation from independent scientists. John Droz Jr, a respected critic of wind farms, has issued the following condemnatory response:

As you probably know, a passion of mine is defending my profession (Science) from assault.

This is approaching a full-time job, as those promoting political or economic agendas are painfully aware that real Science is a major threat to their aspirations — so they are aggressively attacking it on multiple fronts. (See ScienceUnderAssault.info.)

We now have yet another distressing example, where a leading scientist has lost his job — apparently for the crime of being a conscientious, competent academic, focused on quality research (instead of chasing grant money).

Dr. Henrik Møller, is a world-renowned expert on infra-sound, and has published several high-quality studies on low-frequency acoustics (like here, here, here, and here). More recently, some of these have dealt with industrial wind energy noise (e.g. here — which was peer-reviewed).

He has been praised as Denmark’s “leading noise researcher.” What’s even more important is that he has been courageous enough to have publicly spoken out against poor government policies, as well as the misinformation disseminated from the wind energy cartel.

In Denmark there have been several newspaper reports about this surprising firing, but I’m sending this to the AWED list as such an event should have much wider coverage. Here are English translations of a few Danish articles (I have the originals as well). It seems to me that some of the key points made in them are:

— Dr. Møller has had thirty eight (38) years of distinguished service for Aalborg University.

— Ironically, this institution publicly prides itself as looking out for its professors: “At Aalborg University we focus intensively on staff welfare and job satisfaction.”

— He was the only one of 200± researchers at the Department of Electronic Systems in Aalborg who was let go …

— The purported reason for his firing, is that the professor is no longer “financially lucrative” for the university …

— Despite claiming that the termination was due to a shortage of funds, the university had recently hired two additional people in the same department …

— Dr. Møller’s reasoned responses were:

1) During the last year he may not have produced that much income, but in many other years his work resulted in substantial profit to the university.

2) Statistically, approximately half of the faculty would be operating at a loss — so why single him out?

3) In his prior 38 years of employment, and reviews, he was never informed that his job was solely dependent on outside funding.

4) Additionally, prior to the sacking, he had not been informed that his income production was a problem that need to be addressed — giving him a chance to do so.

— The Danish Society of Engineers, and the Danish Association of Masters and PhDs, have gone on record stating that it is unreasonable to dismiss researchers due to a lack of grants. Furthermore they reportedly said such a policy is contrary to the Danish University Act, which specifies that the purpose of research is to promote education, not to be a profit-making venture …

— The VP of the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations stated that it’s rare that a Danish professor is fired.

— It has been reported that the wind industry has frequently complained about Dr. Møller to his boss (Dean Eskild Holm Nielsen) …

— Consider this: the same Dean Nielsen was a keynote speaker at the Wind Industry Association’s meeting, the day after he fired Dr. Møller!

— As one article explains, this termination might have also come from the fact that the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) has a very close association with the wind industry, and that Dr. Møller’s scientific research had resulted in embarrassing revelations.

— The same article states that with Dr. Møller out of the picture, wind industry friendly DTU will now take over responsibility for assessing acoustical impacts of industrial wind turbines on Danish citizens. (I wonder what conclusions they will reach?)

As one report accurately stated: it takes courage for academics to focus on scientific research, instead of pursuing outside funding.

Please consider writing a short, polite email to Dr. Møller’s boss (who fired him) objecting to this shameful termination: Dean Nielsen dekan-teknat@adm.aau.dk

It would be helpful to cc a reporter at an important Danish newspaper: Axel Pihl-Andersen:axel.andersen@jp.dkand bcc Dr. Møller:henrikmoeller2@gmail.com

Regards,
John Droz, Jr.
Physicist & Environmental Advocate

PS — Although his studies on industrial wind energy only comprise a small amount of his thirty eight years of academic work, they may have resulted in the most notoriety.

Since many of the people on this list are interested in that topic, here are a few other examples of Dr. Møller’s work related to wind energy, in his words:

1) We made an analysis of a wind project in Maastricht, planned to possibly have turbines from a Danish company. The City Council stopped the project after our report — a result that did not make us popular with the Danish wind industry.

2) A reason why we seem to be a nuisance to the wind industry in Denmark is that we keep finding errors in noise calculations and evaluations. As an example, we found serious errors in the environmental impact assessment behind a new law on a wind turbine test center, and the law had to be changed.

3) We also revealed that in a big Vestas promotion, they mixed up two acoustical terms (and Vestas had to change part of their campaign). I’m afraid there are only Danish newspaper articles about that — which is unfortunate, because it was quite funny.

4) We also criticized Danish regulation of wind turbine noise, which resulted in feature articles in Danish newspapers. I am not sure if others have been translated, but here is one example.

5) We also put together some web pages about the Danish wind regulations, which made the wind industry complain about me to the Dean (again).

windfarmaction

henrik moeller

Windweasels Not Above Using Bribery to Push Wind Turbines Onto Communities

/ 1957chev / 17 Comments

Can’t “Win” Support for your Wind Farm? Why Not Try Bribing the Locals

August 8, 2014 by Leave a Comment

dirtyrottenscoundrelsoriginal

A blustery reception for wind turbines as locals voice their opposition
Irish Examiner
Michael Clifford
26 July 2014

An energy developer has Meath GAA onboard for its project, but local people are not so receptive to the plan, writes Special Correspondent Michael Clifford.

THEY carried the pipe the day after Enda Kenny sat down with them for two hours. The pipe, as it has come to be known, measured 190m and was assembled to give locals an illustration of the size of the proposed wind turbines. Dozens of people put shoulders to the pipe, lugging it from St Michael’s GAA club down through the main drag in Carlanstown. The assembled gathering, running into the high hundreds, came from the village, outlying areas, and three neighbouring villages to observe the funereal procession.

Protests over energy projects are now commonplace throughout rural Ireland, but the dispute in north Meath is very different. This time, the whole county is being dragged in. The developer has pledged to help construct a €2.5m centre of excellence for the county’s GAA.

Element Power will donate €375,000 towards the construction of the facility, in Dunganny, outside Trim, many miles from the affected communities. The 59 clubs in the county will vote on the offer on August 11, but less than a dozen clubs are located in the broad area of the proposed windfarm. The county board executive has recommended acceptance of the offer.

Depending on where you stand, the offer is either astute or cynical. Investment in communities has become a major plank of developers’ strategy for new energy projects. Having the GAA onside in a planning application, in a county where the association is particularly strong, would be a major boost. Apart from the sponsorship offer, Element has pledged to invest €3.5m in the community over the lifetime of the farm.

What has really angered the local clubs and communities is that the county board executive has recommended acceptance. “I’ve worked my life for the GAA,” says Dermot Curtis of the Rathkenny club. “All we’re asking is that the executive stay neutral. We can live without this [sponsorship]. We can manage. If the GAA takes this money it will be destroyed in this county.”

His sentiment is echoed by others who have come together to oppose the project. Personnel from clubs in the vicinity of the proposed farm are working furiously to, as they see it, tell their colleagues elsewhere in the county of the implications for voting to accept.

“The board is mesmerised by money,” says Michael Newman, chair of the North Meath Wind Information Group, formed to oppose the project. “But the amount is chickenfeed. It works out at €25 per club a week for five years. We could raise €1,200 on a good night’s fundraising. That’s what they’re selling out for. And what if Element goes bust in the next five years, or doesn’t get planning permission?”

For the county board, the issue is straightforward. It was first approached by the developer a year ago, but only received a concrete offer early in the summer.

“When an opportunity like this comes along we have a responsibility to put it to the clubs,” says NMWIG public relations officer Martin O’Halloran. “The executive has recommended acceptance, but we won’t get involved in any debate. We want the clubs to make the decision. It is a divisive issue but the clubs will decide on its merits.”

The matter first came up at the July board meeting, but after some disagreement, it was put back for decision to next month.

Energy projects elicit the most primal emotions among those who believe they will be adversely affected. Health is the primary concern, particularly from noise pollution and the concept of shadow flicker, which adversely affects light. Beyond that, many see it as a harbinger of a darker future for their way of life.

The area in question is relatively low-lying, with rolling drumlins anchored by the villages of Castletown, Rathkenny, and Carlanstown. Only Lobinstown rises up out of the rich, green pastures, a picturesque cluster of homes of small businesses.

Locally, the sponsorship offer is seen as one of three cynical elements in the project. The 47 proposed turbines were part of the Midland Energy Project, involving 1,500 turbines across seven counties, which was designed to export wind power to the UK.

In April, the then energy minister, Pat Rabbitte, announced the project was not going ahead. A week later, it began to dawn that Element Power was intent on pushing on with this phase for the domestic market. The NMWIG sees the proposal as an attempt to salvage the larger project that had to be abandoned.

Planning for the proposal is to be sought in the coming weeks, under existing guidelines which date from 2006. Following major controversy across the country in recent years, and the threefold increase in the size of turbines in the interim, new guidelines are being prepared. These were due to be ready in September, but this week, it was announced that the deadline had been postponed.

Irrespective of that, Element’s project will be processed under the old guidelines, which, locals believe, are entirely out of time.

“How can they do that,” asks Marina Reilly, from Castletown. “It’s an industrial project for what is a rural, but highly residential area.”

The mother of two says she is petrified about the future. “My husband came home from the information meeting the company had recently, and he showed us the pictures [of the proposed turbines and locations]. We were so shocked we couldn’t eat our dinner.”

As is now standard in these situations, the group has educated itself on wind energy to a frightening degree. International and domestic reports are presented as evidence of the rightness of their cause.

Unlike other groups, NMWIG even managed to snaffle a meeting with the Taoiseach. Ten days ago, Enda Kenny met a delegation in the Kells office of local Fine Gael TD Helen McEntee. The meeting was scheduled to last 20 minutes, but they ended up having his ear for two hours.

Marina Reilly gave him a piece of her mind. “I badgered Enda Kenny about the health problems,” she says. “I asked him for an assurance that health will be taken into account, because health matters aren’t in the existing guidelines. He said he would.”

The following day, they carried the pipe through Carlanstown.

From Element’s point of view, it’s just trying to do its business, while being sensitive of local perceptions and disruption. The company has introduced an innovative “near neighbour” fund, in which anybody within 1km of the farm will be entitled to a grant of up to €5,000 for their homes.

“We believe the community fund should benefit the specific region and community where the windfarm is located,” the company’s development manager Kevin Hayes says.

“We are presently drawing up a model to disburse the community fund based on an extensive consultation programme with various community groups and other stakeholders in north Meath over the last year.”

He confirmed that the sponsorship offer for the centre of excellence was dependant on the project going ahead.

Farmers and landowners on whose land the turbines will be sited have already been signed up. Around €20,000 rent per annum per turbine is the going rate. As elsewhere, the rent agreements have opened up fissures in the community. Sources say that relations between the locals who are opposed, and the beneficiaries of lucrative rents, “have cooled”. All within the NMWIG reject totally any standard rumours that there has been intimidation of landowners.

The most immediate objective for the NMWIG is to ensure the clubs reject the sponsorship offer. Time constraints have ensured that only one local club has managed to formally delegate rejection, but those involved say all others in the locality will definitely oppose.

How the clubs from beyond the immediate area vote will be fascinating to observe. Sponsorship money, in today’s world, is difficult to come by. On the other hand, the ties that have bound the GAA into an unrivalled community organisation have always relied on strength and loyalty at grassroots level. That loyalty would be tested like never before in north Meath if the offer is accepted. If so, it could be that, in time, wounds will heal and the association will continue as before. Or it could be much worse than that.

At a gathering of members of NMWIG on Thursday, one local man referenced the dire performance of the county team in last week’s Leinster final against Dublin. “Unlike the Meath team last Sunday, we won’t be lying down,” he says.

Wind farms 

There was anger and confusion yesterday after it emerged that Minister for Environment Alan Kelly may overturn a decision by Donegal County Council to make large tracts of Donegal out-of-bounds for windfarm development.

Last month County Councillors voted to vary the County Development Plan in favour of restricting wind farms.

They voted by 18-11, with one abstention, to create a set-back distance of 10 times the tip height of proposed turbines from residential properties and other population centres.

However, Mr Kelly wrote to the council CEO Seamus Neely on Monday informing him that, in making their decision, the council has “ignored or not taken into account” the advice of his department.

As a result, another public consultation will take place in the county before Mr Kelly decides whether or not to formally overturn the council’s decision.

His draft direction also relates to two other variations made by councillors last month.

The council voted 16-13 to accept the inclusion of Fresh Water Pearl Mussel areas at Clady, Eske, Glaskeelin, Leannan, Owencarrow, and Owenea as areas not favoured for wind farm developments.

On the third vote, councillors decided by 21-9 that turbines could only be erected in areas that their ‘zone of visual influence’ did not include Glenveagh National Park.

Speaking yesterday, a spokesman for the Glenties Wind farm Information Group described the minister’s decision to consider overturning the councillor’s variation as “incredible” and without legal basis.

He said last month’s variation was a “triumph for democracy” and a vindication of the 3,326 people who made submissions in support of them.

“The draft Ministerial Order against the variation is an incredible decision by the minister,” said the spokesman. “He did not challenge the executive when they made the current development plan in 2012 and declared 2,300 townlands were ‘preferable’ for windfarm development.

“But now he is challenging the people of Donegal. In his draft direction to the CEO this week, the minister said that the council did not have due regard to the 2006 planning guidelines, even though these guidelines are under review and will not be published by September, as originally planned.”

The spokesman also rubbished Mr Kelly’s assertion that the variation was “not evidence- based” and did not give proper regard to the 2006 guidelines.

A spokesman for the minister said yesterday he could not elaborate on the draft issued to the council as a statutory process must now begin.

A spokesperson for the council said they are currently examining the minister’s notification.
Irish Examiner

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