fighting wind turbines

Barb Ashbee Speaks Out, On Behalf of Wind Turbine Victims!

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Sincere Thanks to Barb Ashbee.

 Barb, and her husband were forced to leave their home, because of the terrible health effects experienced by her family, and their pets.  They were compelled to seek legal assistance, to rectify the situation, because neither the wind company, nor the government, were willing to do the right thing, without legal intervention.  A very sad state of affairs, indeed.

 

To Prime Minister Harper, Minister MacKay, MP Diane Finlay and MP David Tilson

 
 
Prime Minister, what measurement does government use to decide on which Canadians are allowed to be harmed and which ones are to be protected?
How do you parse out who falls under fundamental human rights protections and who doesn’t rate such protection?
Is the direction by Stephana’s representative MP to move out of her home correct?
 
For years emissions from wind turbine installations have been making people sick, displacing many and forcing them to move from their homes. In many cases this has emotionally and financially decimated people, separated family members and destroyed their trust and their spirit. It’s not a very Canadian nor compassionate thing to do, is it?
 
My husband and I are one of many who had no choice but to move to save the deteriorating health impacts that we and our pets suffered after the start-up of the project around our home. Even in the face of strong engineering reports, it was we who were forced to leave and not the developer forced to return our home to a healthy and safe state.
We did not have our property expropriated. We had to hire legal help to get out.
 
We are very aware that we have been incredibly lucky to have been able to escape while many others, like Stephana and many of her neighbours and others in this province have not. 
The evidence and research world wide is overwhelming and irrefutable and yet you, with the power to do something, continue to allow more turbines to jeopardize more families, some whose children like Ms. Correia’s, have pre-existing conditions and are already challenged day to day.
 
How many more people, including our most vulnerable, must be forced to endure the very real torture of being exposed to constant noise levels that will not allow them to sleep, and/or infrasound permeating their homes and bodies with vibration. What about those with new cases of electrical pollution in their homes and buildings, present only after the turbine project became operational?
 
After years of personal communication with ministries and agencies at all levels, I have not had anyone, anywhere tell me who it is that impacted residents can turn to for help. The various ministries and agencies defer to each other in a cruel runaround.
Even our office of last resort claims the provincial legislation in place allowing this harm will remain as it is only those who created it and are strongly promoting the policy, that have the power to change it. Isn’t there something screaming wrong with this setup?
 
Who are the residents suffering this ultimate violation to turn to? How are others facing pending projects supposed to protect their homes and families?
 
This communication is a perfect opportunity to stop passing off concerns between ministries and agencies and all level of government.
 
I strongly encourage you speak with families who have been impacted so you can hear what is happening and give them a voice with an entity that has power to do something to help them. 
I also urge an immediate moratorium on all wind projects and shut down current areas for those already suffering. 
 
Please, give these people some relief.
 
Sincerely,
Barbara Ashbee
Mulmur, 
Dufferin County
Ontario
 

 

Stephana Johnston Appeals to the Federal Government, on Behalf of the Victims of the Windscam!

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Stephana Johnston is a wonderful woman, who is a retired schoolteacher, now fighting for not only her own health and well-being, but also that of other people suffering because of the poorly thought out policies, surrounding industrial wind turbines!  Thank you Stephana,  we greatly appreciate what you do for all of us!

 

To:

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper

Prime Minister of Canada

pm@pm.gc.ca

 

The Honourable Peter Gordon MacKay

Minister of Justice and Attorney General

mcu@justice.gc.ca

 

The Honourable Diane Finley

Member of Parliament for Haldimand-Norfolk

 

 

In a recent public letter to the Ontario Minister of Health and Long Term Care, the Attorney General of Ontario and the Acting Chief Medical Officer of Health Ontario, Ms. Shellie Correia, a mother trying to protect children, including her own, asked:

 

“what avenue does [government] suggest I take to make sure that my son is not harmed by the known noise and infrasound from the wind turbines, which are proposed to be built very close to our home.”

 

In 2012, at her constituency office in Simcoe, Ontario, the Honourable Member of Parliament for Haldimand-Norfolk, Ms. Diane Finley, advised me that I should move away from my home near Clear Creek, Ontario in order to avoid being harmed by the industrial wind energy facilities that were built around it.

 

Being forced to dismantle a household and attempt to sell and move on (under duress) is easier said than done, especially for me, an elderly, disabled woman who recently spent my life savings building the house, designed for my needs, expecting that I could use it to age-in-place. I did not expect that the agricultural, residential area would be converted to a toxic, electricity-generating industrial wind turbine zone.

 

 

I respectfully request that if the advice Hon. Diane Finley provided to me: that I should move away from my home in order to avoid being harmed by industrial wind energy facilities, reflects official government policy, that it be provided consistently and immediately to all Canadians. If Hon. Diane Finley’s advice is not official Canadian federal government policy, then what should Canadians in industrial wind turbine zones do?

 

Yours truly,

Stephana Johnston

Uncommonly Good News….I would Love to Hear Much More Like It!

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Contract scrapped

By Leith Dunick, tbnewswatch.com

View larger pictures
Streak of Green – Hair SalonHey Stylists! It’s time to go green! Looking for a F/T stylist to join our team in a very busy organic, eco friendly full service salonwww.streakofgreen.com

A spokeswoman for the Nor’Wester Mountain Escarpment Protection Committee says she’s ecstatic that Horizon Wind Inc.’s planned turbine farm in Thunder Bay might be dead in the water.

Irene Bond said she learned on Friday that the Ontario Power Authority had cancelled the Toronto-based company’s feed-in tariff contract, essentially ending the agreement to sell energy to the provincial grid. 

Bond said the news caught her off guard.

“If this is the news that will end this project, that the FIT contract is indeed cancelled for the whole project, yeah it is a surprise and a very welcome one,” she said.

“I’m just thrilled that this will finally be over. We’ve been at it for five years as a community grass-roots group to educate people about the destruction and the history of the land and that it deserves better than to be industrialized.”

The OPA confirmed the contract cancellation via email on Friday, citing project delays as the main reason for the decision.

“The Big Thunder Wind Park project was significantly delayed due to force majeure events,” OPA spokeswoman Mary Bernard said. “Under a FIT contract, either party to the contract has the right to terminate the contract if force majeure events delay a project past 24 months. The OPA terminated the Big Thunder Park project for this reason.”

According to Bernard, a force majeure is a stipulation in a contract that provides relief to a party when events beyond their control prevent them from fulfilling certain contractual obligations. But it also specifies a time limit to get things back on track.

“The OPA cannot provide details of the force majeure events due to confidentiality obligations under the contract,” Bernard said.

It’s unclear if there is an appeal process available to Horizon at this time.

Horizon Wind released a brief statement saying they have provided notice of dispute to the OPA on their decision to end the contract.

“Pending resolution of the disputed issues, Horizon Wind is evaluating its options,” the statement reads. 

The project was first approved by Thunder Bay city council in 2007.

A dispute with the city led to Horizon in 2010 filing a $126-million lawsuit against the municipality when council refused to approve certain turbine locations.

The city later backed down and the lawsuit was tossed.

More recently Fort William First Nation filed a judicial review against the Ministry of the Environment asking for all work on the project to stop until the community had been properly consulted.

The FWFN claim alleged the province failed to consult them about the project itself and the company’s 2013 renewable energy approval.

Fort William First Nation Chief Georjann Morriseau called it a great day, but said the band won’t drop any of its legal challenges until they’re 100 per cent certain the project won’t be completed. 

“It’s still slightly early for that,” Morriseau said. “Right now, today we’ve been working on trying to receive more confirmation on what this actually means for the project itself, for the REA application and process moving forward.

“Once we do receive that confirmation we’ll be sure to update both communities on the developments.” 

It’s not necessarily the end of the project, she cautioned. 

“It wouldn’t come as a surprise if there is an appeal,” she said, adding she thinks treaty rights must come first and be protected and will ultimately prevail.

City of Thunder Bay officials said they too are looking into the legal implications of the decision, after learning of it that morning.

“At this point we’re trying to understand what it means. We have a lease with Horizon, so I’ve asked our staff to look at it,” Commisso said, wary of speaking to specifics of the lease or whether or not he thinks it’s a good decision. 

Mayor Keith Hobbs had little to say.

“I have no comment at this time,” he said.

Minister of Natural Resources Bill Mauro said he was advised two or three days ago through the Ministry of Energy the contract was being terminated.

Mauro, a longtime opponent of the project, was coy in his reaction when asked Friday morning.

“My position on it has been well known,” Mauro said. “This is an OPA decision. The Ontario Power Authority has informed me … they’re not going through with the project and I think that we’re all going to move forward from there.”

Parker Gallant Exposes Energy Poverty, in Ontario

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Parker Gallant: Wind Turbines and solar panels bring Ontario Energy Poverty: Chapter 2

(July 23, 2014) The first Chapter on “energy poverty” introduced the reader to LIEN (Low-Income Energy Network) who held their 10th anniversary (formed one year after the Liberals were elected in 2003) and to APCH (A Place Called Home) of the City of Kawartha Lakes & Haliburton County.

 

The City has a population of 90,000 with Lindsay hosting slightly over 20,000 of that population.

In the research I found LIEN members included the CAW; who erected a wind turbine in Chatham Kent and the Windfall Centre, where Brent Kopperson sits as the founder and Executive Director. For those who have followed my articles, Kopperson was one of the original founders of the GEAA (Green Energy Act Alliance). Some of the attendees at the LIEN Conference also caught my attention as they included Environmental Defence (a GEAA founder), Toronto Hydro (the sole distribution company that attended and whose distribution rates have increased 176% in the past 11 years), the OEB (Ontario Energy Board) and the OPA (Ontario Power Authority). Union Gas & Enbridge were also represented.

Responsibility for creating “energy poverty” is not something that one would anticipate claiming responsibility for; but, as pointed out in the previous chapter, the letter Energy Minister, Bob Chiarelli sent to the OEB certainly inferred it was the ruling Liberal Party that created it. The letter, from Minister Chiarelli to the OEB was dated April 23, 2014, just over 10 years after the Liberals passed: Bill 100,Electricity Restructuring Act, 2004 creating the OPA which brought us four (4) long term energy plans in a 10 year time frame and whose responsibility has been to contract for intermittent, unreliable, expensive renewable energy.

When I originally spoke with the LIEN Coordinator, Zee Bhanji, I questioned her as to who was the local distribution company (LDC) with the worst reputation in respect to cutting off clients for not paying their electricity bills. The answer was Hydro One, the Provincially owned LDC with about 25% of the residential clients in Ontario. Co-incidentally when I touched base with Jennifer Lopinski of APCH it turned out Hydro One were the LDC for the City of Kawartha Lakes & Haliburton County. The data that APCH had gathered and sent to me disclosed some interesting statistics that if applied to Hydro One’s full client base of 1.1 million residential customers and the 4.4 million total customers; paints a dismal picture for those living at the “low-income” levels detailed in Minister Chiarelli’s letter to the OEB. Minister Chiarelli certainly wasn’t concerned about the 11,800 plus personnel of OPG and Hydro One on the 2014 “Sunshine List”!

The statistics that Jennifer supplied (years 2008 through to Dec. 31, 2013) covered five (5) fuel types including; oil, wood, natural gas, propane and hydro. Out of $251,474 of fuel utility requests (2013), 86.5% ($217,490) were for electricity supplied by Hydro One. The number of requests for 2013 were 276 meaning Hydro One represented approximately 239 on the list and the average negotiated amount appears to be about $875 per household and represents .644% of all households (37,100) in the City.

Extrapolating the APCH numbers to Hydro One’s 1.1 million residential clients would mean that 7,100 of their customers would be affected by “energy poverty” and taking that further would mean that they would be called on to provide $6.2 million in support. When I examined theLEAP (Low-Income Energy Assistance Program) for 2012 in the report prepared by the OEB it indicated that Hydro One had provided grants of $1,503,062 to 2,628 customers and that amount was $1.3 million less than the salaries of their top 5 executives.

If one extrapolates the foregoing to all LDC supplied residential ratepayer households the number of customers living in “energy poverty”; at a minimum, is 28,300 households or 20,000 more than the LEAP program supported and translates into a requirement for $25 million versus the $3.9 million actually disbursed in 2012.

It is worth noting that the numbers kindly supplied by Jennifer Lopinski of APCH only encompasses those who approached the charity for help. There are probably many households that were unaware of APCH and never contacted them for assistance. Perhaps Hydro One has the answer to that question?
Another reference made in Chapter One was to a letter to the editor of the London Free Press written by Kris Stevens, Executive Director of the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association just prior to the June 12, 2014 Provincial election. One of the quotes from Stevens letter was this nonsensical iteration:

“We’re making real progress and we can do so much more. On election day don’t vote for those that want to kill thousands of new jobs in the clean green energy sector. Vote for an Ontario that is heated, cooled and moved by a modern distributed clean sustainable energy system. A modern green energy system will power our prosperity for generations to come.”

“Real progress” to those who pushed renewable energy has proven to be a fallacy that has done nothing more than create prosperity for foreign companies that rushed to Ontario for the money extracted from Ontario’s ratepayers. At the same time the push for wind and solar power has played a major role at creating “energy poverty” that now rivals Germany with over 1% of all households (44,000) in Ontario suffering from that malady!

Parker Gallant is a retired bank executive and a former director of Energy Probe Research Foundation. As with all independent bloggers on this site, Parker’s views do not necessarily reflect those of Energy Probe.

Intelligent People, the World Over, Reject the Faux-Green Scam!

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Green NGOs Reject The Green Economy And Carbon Taxes

JUL 23

Posted by 

A UN sponsored climate conference in Venezuela has badly wrong for Big Green when it ended with a declaration to dump carbon taxation and the Green economy.

These are strange times we are living through, a Green scam that once held sway over nearly all world leaders is dying, kept alive on by Green rent seekers, crony capitalists and the Greens who want to tell us all how to live our lives, their way.

Things that were unthinkable, heretical even only 2 years ago are now happening, Australia has dumped it’s wealth and job killing Green Carbon Tax.

The global Green outcry was deafening, reminiscent of 16th Century religious fervor where once the mob cried “Heretic“, “Witch” and “Denier” , er come to think of it the Green mob still cry “Denier.” During the 500 years or so that have elapsed since the 16th Century the mob have progressed to adding “Climate” as in “Climate Denier“, someone who denies there is a climate, makes about as much sense as the whole AGW boondoggle.

This latest embarrassment for the UN and Big Green comes from within, and this they most definitely will not have seen coming:

A UN-backed conference in Venezuela has ended with a declaration to scrap carbon markets and reject the green economy.

The Margarita Declaration was issued at the end of a four-day meeting of around 130 green activist groups, which the Venezuelan government hosted in order to raise the volume of civil society demands in UN discussions on climate change.

So the Green NGOs are going to embrace a fossil fuel driven free market economy on the Western model?

“The structural causes of climate change are linked to the current capitalist hegemonic system,” the final declaration said. “To combat climate change it is necessary to change the system.”

Communism it is then.

No surprises really, this Venezuela, once the fiefdom of the late and unlamented Hugo Chavez, the man whose reference to “the silent and terrible ghost in the room” at the failed UNFCCC COP15 was direct reference of capitalism and democracy. Sadly for the people of Venezuela the current socialist government is carrying on the legacy of Chavez.

The meeting, called the Social Pre-COP, is the first time that civil society has been invited to participate with the UN at this scale at international climate talks.

Groups who participated in the meeting include WWF, CAN International, Third World Network and Christian Aid.

In fairness there were a number of Green NGOs that stayed away from the meeting:

He added that most of the Venezuelan groups present at the meeting were supportive of the government’s position, in contrast to the 34 Venezuelan NGOs who rejected their invitation to the gathering, due to concerns that it would provide an opportunity for the government to push their socialist agenda.

The head of the UNFCCC Christiana Figueres is a long time Chavez protege, socialist thinker and deeply against Democracy.

In a statement in March 2014 Figueres said “democracy is a poor political system for fighting global warming. Communist China is the best model“

Some sections of Big Green realize that this declaration is a major PR disaster and are trying to downplay it as a fringe minority, but a fringe minority it is not, especially when the head of the UNFCCC is wholly aligned with “Chinese Democracy“.

Novelty Wind Energy….Good for – NOTHING!

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Bjørn Lomborg: Wind Power is a Vanity Project

July 23, 2014 by  
Bjorn-Lomborg-wsj

Bjørn Lomborg: the Skeptical Environmentalist.

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 sources (see our posts hereand here).

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.

Bjørn continues his argument against the waste of wind energy in The Australian today.

Copenhagen’s wind plan is little more than a costly vanity project
Bjørn Lomborg
The Australian
23 July 2014

COPENHAGEN, Denmark’s capital, wants to be the world’s first CO2-neutral city by 2025. But, as many other well-meaning cities and countries have discovered, cutting CO2 significantly is more difficult than it seems, and may ­require quite a bit of creative ­accounting.

More surprisingly, Copenhagen’s politicians have confidently declared that cutting CO2 now will ultimately make the city and its citizens wealthier, with today’s expensive green-energy investments more than paying off when fossil-fuel prices rise. But how can deliberately limiting one’s options improve one’s prospects? These sound more like the arguments of green campaigners — and they are most likely wrong.

The first challenge that Copenhagen faces in reaching its zero-emissions goal is the lack of cost-effective options for some sources of CO2, particularly cars. Denmark already provides the world’s largest subsidy to electric cars by exempting them from its marginal 180 per cent car-registration tax. For the most popular electric car, the Nissan Leaf, this exemption is worth €63,000 ($90,000). Yet, just 1536 of Denmark’s 2.7 million cars are electric.

There is also the challenge inherent in wind-generated electricity: ensuring the city can run when the wind is not blowing. To address this, Copenhagen had to devise an electricity-generation strategy that enables it sometimes to run on coal-fired power, without creating net emissions.

The city’s plan is to build more than 100 wind turbines within the greater Copenhagen area and in the shallow waters around it. With a combined output of 360 megawatts, these turbines will more than cover Copenhagen’s electricity needs — and the surplus can be used to offset the city’s remaining CO2 emissions, including from the city’s millions of non-electric cars.

Copenhagen’s success thus depends on the surrounding areas not aiming for CO2 neutrality. After all, the whole accounting exercise works only if others are still using fossil fuels that Copenhagen’s unpredictable wind power can replace. In this sense, Copenhagen is hogging the chance to feel righteous.

The city’s political leaders promise that this strategy for attaining carbon neutrality “provides an overall positive economic picture and will lead to economic benefits for Copenhageners” based on the expectation that ­prices for conventional energy sources like coal, oil, and gas will rise in the coming years. But the often-heard justification for this assumption — that humanity is rapidly depleting these scarce ­resources — is inconsistent with real-world events, as innovation has effectively expanded oil, gas, and coal reserves to unprecedented levels in recent years.

Consider Copenhagen’s wind-turbine plan, the single largest ­expected source of savings. The total cost of construction and maintenance is projected to be $US919 million ($979m). Even assuming a very large carbon tax of €20 a tonne now (it is actually €5 a ton) rising to €50 a tonne in 2045, this would give a paltry $US142m that they would avoid in hypothetical CO2 taxes. They also estimate saving $US1038m from not buying fossil-fuel-generated ­electricity. The cost for all the wind ­turbines is $US919m. In total, the saving is $US142m + $US1038m – $US919m = $US261m.

While that sounds impressive, it depends on a huge 68 per cent increase in the price of fossil-fuel-produced electricity by 2030. And Copenhagen is not alone in making such assumptions; the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change estimates a 51 per cent price increase by 2030.

It is likely that these projections are unrealistic. Look at the long-term price trends of coal and gas, which power the vast majority of global electricity production. Despite a recent increase, real coal prices have been trending downward since the 1950s.

In the US, the shale-gas revolution, facilitated by the development of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), has brought prices to their lowest levels since natural gas gained prominence after the oil crises of the 1970s. With many more countries set to tap shale-gas reserves over the next decade, this downward trend will most likely continue, helping to lower the price of electricity generation ­further. That is why Aurora Energy Research recently projected a significant decline in electricity prices for the next three decades.

Fracking has also enabled the US to tap its large shale-oil reserves, making it the world’s largest petroleum producer. Citigroup estimates that, by 2020, oil will cost just $US75 a barrel, and the former head of international forecasting at the OECD suggests the number could be closer to $US50.

This is inconvenient for climate mandarins in the UK and Copenhagen alike, because it reduces clean energy’s allure. Even if fossil-fuel-powered electricity prices remain constant, Copenhagen’s wind turbines become a net drain. If Aurora’s forecast proves correct, the city’s wind project would become a huge failure, costing 50 per cent more than the saved electricity is worth.

Instead of allowing politicians to spend public money on feel-good climate projects based on distant, and unreliable, predictions, citizens should encourage them to invest in clean-energy research and development, with the goal of making renewables inexpensive enough to overcome fossil fuels in the market. Initiatives like Copenhagen’s, however wonderful they sound, are ultimately little more than costly vanity projects.
The Australian

The same could be said for the ACT and Canberrians that are ‘”hogging the chance to feel righteous” with an aim for 90% renewables and to become a centre for “green” power. However – we all know that wind turbines run on subsidies not wind – and when the RET review findings are released – then the tide will strongly turn against intermittent wind energy and the investors for these vanity projects will disappear.

vanity-by-john-william-waterhouse

Wind is a Novelty Energy Source. Not Suitable for Everyday Use!

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Wind Power: Not Even Enough for a Cuppa

July 22, 2014 by  

sevensisters_2980822b

Giant wind farm will cost millions and ruin Brighton view
Christopher Booker
The Telegraph
19 July 2014

What good will come from the colossal wind turbines to be put up off the Sussex coast?

Over the next four years, visitors to Brighton and the Sussex coast are in for a shock. Visible all the way from Beachy Head to the Isle of Wight, they will see 100 or more colossal wind turbines rising up to 700ft into the sky, nearly 200ft higher than Blackpool Tower. These will form one of the world’s largest wind farms, covering more than 60sq miles of the English Channel.

If they wonder what purpose is served by this vast industrial installation, last week given the go-ahead by Ed Davey, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, they should not be fooled by the claim of the Rampion wind farm’s developers, the German energy giant E.on, that it will have the “capacity” to generate 700 megawatts (MW) of electricity. Buried in small print on its website, it admits that, thanks to the intermittency of the wind, the actual output of this £2 billion scheme will at best average only 240MW. To see how derisory this is, the latest gas-fired power station opened by another German firm, RWE, at Pembroke two years ago, at only half the capital cost, £1 billion, can reliably produce nearly 10 times as much electricity, 2,000MW, all the time.

Of course, no one would dream of building such a gargantuan wind factory as Rampion if it were not for Mr Davey’s ludicrous subsidy system. It may earn E.on some £325million a year. But £220 million of that will be subsidy, paid for by all of us through our electricity bills. Where the power from that Pembroke plant is costing us only £50 per megawatt hour, for that fed to the grid from Brighton we shall pay £155 per megawatt hour, more than three times as much.

Mr Davey happily brushes aside the immense damage his scheme will inflict on the natural environment, from the thousands of seabirds that will be killed by those whirling blades, to that wrought by the 15-mile long trench, up to 40 yards wide, needed to bury the huge cables connecting his windmills to the grid, much of it across the South Downs National Park. Davey may be happy to see the billions of pounds of profit from all this being repatriated to Germany. But he says nothing about the electricity that will be needed to provide back-up for the two-thirds of time, on average, when the wind is not blowing. And that, of course, will have to come from the fossil fuels he so likes to scorn. Future generations looking out to sea from Brighton will be astonished that we could have fallen for such insanity.

kettles

* When I recently observed that the output of a 50 kilowatt (KW) windmill near me on the Mendips would, in return for a £17,000-a-year subsidy, average only 13KW, I said this would be enough to boil just 13 kettles. This was based on our own old 1KW kettle. Since modern versions are now 3KW, I should have said four kettles.
The Telegraph

Novelty Energy at Best…Wind & Solar are NOT Making the Cut!

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Germany’s $412 Billion Green Energy Plan Meets Harsh Reality

Germany has been rapidly increasing its green energy production but hasn’t gotten the results it planned.

The Switzerland-based FAA Financial Advisory AG looked at the consequences of Germany’s “Energiewende” and found that the $412 billion effort did “not provide net savings to consumers, but rather a net increase in costs to consumers and other stakeholders.”

“Over the last decade, well-intentioned policymakers in Germany and other European countries have created renewable energy policies that have slowly revealed themselves to be unsustainable, resulting in profound, unintended consequences for all industry stakeholders,” reads FAA’s report which was prepared for the Edison Electric Institute and other European groups.

“Accordingly, the United States and other countries should carefully assess the lessons learned in Germany, with respect to generous subsidy programs and relatively rapid, large-scale deployment and integration of renewable energy into the power system,” FAA warns.

Germany was once touted by President Obama as a shining example of green energy policy. The country aims to get 80 percent of its power from green energy by 2050 in an effort to drastically cut its carbon dioxide emissions, which scientists say cause global warming.

A mix of subsidies and production quotas have allowed the country to rapidly expand its green energy production, growing from 4.3 percent of total energy consumption in 1990 to a whopping 23.5 percent in 2012 (this includes hydroelectric power). But the cost has been astronomical to consumers.

Consumer energy bills have been spiking for years to the point where electricity in the country has been called a “luxury good” by major media outlets. German households have seen electricity prices more than double in the last decade “increasing from €0.14/kilowatt hour (kWh) ($0.18) in 2000 to more than €0.29/kWh ($0.38) in 2013,” according to FAA. This is compared to U.S. household prices, which have been stable at $0.13 per kilowatt hour over the last decade.

FAA also reports that German consumers will pay $31.1 billion for energy subsidies this year alone. Furthermore, in the past five years Germany has suffered $67.6 billion in net export losses from high energy costs — a huge blow to an export-led economy like Germany.

“While these policies have created an impressive roll-out of renewable energy resources, they have also clearly generated disequilibrium in the power markets, resulting in significant increases in energy prices to most users, as well as value destruction for all stakeholders: consumers, renewable companies, electric utilities, financial institutions, and investors,” FAA notes.

“From 2005 to 2011, Germany’s CO2 emissions declined by 99 million metric tons, or 12 percent,” reports FAA. “Yet, since 2009, a number of factors have led to an increase in German emissions: low prices for CO2 certificates, low coal prices … larger power generation needs due to the increase in electricity consumption in response to the economic recovery, the decommissioning of nuclear plants, and the increase in power exports.”

While Germany’s emissions have been increasing in recent years, the U.S. has seen carbon dioxide dramatically reduced because of the increased use of natural gas brought about by hydraulic fracturing.

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Tags: Germany, green energy

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/07/21/germanys-412-billion-green-energy-plan-meets-harsh-reality/#ixzz38A4TlsLU

Wind and Solar Are Not Environmentally Friendly, Or Financially Feasible

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Big Wind’s Dirty Little Secret: Toxic Lakes and Radioactive Waste

OCTOBER 23, 2013
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The wind industry promotes itself as better for the environment than traditional energy sources such as coal and natural gas. For example, the industry claimsthat wind energy reduces carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming.

But there are many ways to skin a cat. As IER pointed out last week, even if wind curbs CO2 emissions, wind installations injure, maim, and kill hundreds of thousands of birds each year in clear violation of federal law. Any marginal reduction in emissions comes at the expense of protected bird species, including bald and golden eagles. The truth is, all energy sources impact the natural environment in some way, and life is full of necessary trade-offs. The further truth is that affordable, abundant energy has made life for billions of people much better than it ever was.

Another environmental trade-off concerns the materials necessary to construct wind turbines. Modern wind turbines depend on rare earth minerals mined primarily from China. Unfortunately, given federal regulations in the U.S. that restrict rare earth mineral development and China’s poor record of environmental stewardship, the process of extracting these minerals imposes wretched environmental and public health impacts on local communities. It’s a story Big Wind doesn’t want you to hear.

Rare Earth Horrors

Manufacturing wind turbines is a resource-intensive process. A typical wind turbine contains more than 8,000 different components, many of which are made from steel, cast iron, and concrete. One such component are magnets made from neodymium and dysprosium, rare earth minerals mined almost exclusively in China, which controls 95 percent of the world’s supply of rare earth minerals.

Simon Parry from the Daily Mail traveled to Baotou, China, to see the mines, factories, and dumping grounds associated with China’s rare-earths industry. What he found was truly haunting:

As more factories sprang up, the banks grew higher, the lake grew larger and the stench and fumes grew more overwhelming.

‘It turned into a mountain that towered over us,’ says Mr Su. ‘Anything we planted just withered, then our animals started to sicken and die.’

People too began to suffer. Dalahai villagers say their teeth began to fall out, their hair turned white at unusually young ages, and they suffered from severe skin and respiratory diseases. Children were born with soft bones and cancer rates rocketed.

Official studies carried out five years ago in Dalahai village confirmed there were unusually high rates of cancer along with high rates of osteoporosis and skin and respiratory diseases. The lake’s radiation levels are ten times higher than in the surrounding countryside, the studies found.

As the wind industry grows, these horrors will likely only get worse. Growth in the wind industry could raise demand for neodymium by as much as 700 percent over the next 25 years, while demand for dysprosium could increase by 2,600 percent, according to a recent MIT study. The more wind turbines pop up in America, the more people in China are likely to suffer due to China’s policies. Or as the Daily Mail put it, every turbine we erect contributes to “a vast man-made lake of poison in northern China.”

Big Wind’s Dependence on China’s “Toxic Lakes”

The wind industry requires an astounding amount of rare earth minerals, primarily neodymium and dysprosium, which are key components of the magnets used in modern wind turbines. Developed by GE in 1982, neodymium magnets are manufactured in many shapes and sizes for numerous purposes. One of their most common uses is in the generators of wind turbines.

Estimates of the exact amount of rare earth minerals in wind turbines vary, but in any case the numbers are staggering. According to the Bulletin of Atomic Sciences, a 2 megawatt (MW) wind turbine contains about 800 pounds of neodymium and 130 pounds of dysprosium. The MIT study cited above estimates that a 2 MW wind turbine contains about 752 pounds of rare earth minerals.

To quantify this in terms of environmental damages, consider that mining one ton of rare earth minerals produces about one ton of radioactive waste, according to the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security. In 2012, the U.S. added a record 13,131 MW of wind generating capacity. That means that between 4.9 million pounds (using MIT’s estimate) and 6.1 million pounds (using the Bulletin of Atomic Science’s estimate) of rare earths were used in wind turbines installed in 2012. It also means that between 4.9 million and 6.1 million pounds of radioactive waste were created to make these wind turbines.

For perspective, America’s nuclear industry produces between 4.4 million and 5 million pounds of spent nuclear fuel each year. That means the U.S. wind industry may well have created more radioactive waste last year than our entire nuclear industry produced in spent fuel. In this sense, the nuclear industry seems to be doing more with less: nuclear energy comprised about one-fifth of America’s electrical generation in 2012, while wind accounted for just 3.5 percent of all electricity generated in the United States.

While nuclear storage remains an important issue for many U.S. environmentalists, few are paying attention to the wind industry’s less efficient and less transparent use of radioactive material via rare earth mineral excavation in China. The U.S. nuclear industry employs numerous safeguards to ensure that spent nuclear fuel is stored safely. In 2010, the Obama administration withdrew funding for Yucca Mountain, the only permanent storage site for the country’s nuclear waste authorized by federal law. Lacking a permanent solution, nuclear energy companies have used specially designed pools at individual reactor sites. On the other hand, China has cut mining permits and imposed export quotas, but is only now beginning to draft rules to prevent illegal mining and reduce pollution. America may not have a perfect solution to nuclear storage, but it sure beats disposing of radioactive material in toxic lakes like near Baotou, China.

Not only do rare earths create radioactive waste residue, but according to the Chinese Society for Rare Earths, “one ton of calcined rare earth ore generates 9,600 to 12,000 cubic meters (339,021 to 423,776 cubic feet) of waste gas containing dust concentrate, hydrofluoric acid, sulfur dioxide, and sulfuric acid, [and] approximately 75 cubic meters (2,649 cubic feet) of acidic wastewater.”

Conclusion

Wind energy is not nearly as “clean” and “good for the environment” as the wind lobbyists want you to believe. The wind industry is dependent on rare earth minerals imported from China, the procurement of which results in staggering environmental damages. As one environmentalist told the Daily Mail, “There’s not one step of the rare earth mining process that is not disastrous for the environment.” That the destruction is mostly unseen and far-flung does not make it any less damaging.

All forms of energy production have some environmental impact. However, it is disingenuous for wind lobbyists to hide the impacts of their industry while highlighting the impacts of others. From illegal bird deaths to radioactive waste, wind energy poses serious environmental risks that the wind lobby would prefer you never know about. This makes it easier for them when arguing for more subsidies, tax credits, mandates and government supports.

IER Policy Associates Travis Fisher and Alex Fitzsimmons authored this post. 

Windweasels Trying to Force Themselves on Another Unwilling Community

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Battle for Mount Emerald Reaches Boiling Point

July 20, 2014 by 

The battle to prevent RATCH from getting planning approval for the disaster it proposes for Mount Emerald has reached fever pitch. With 90% of locals bitterly opposed to the project, common sense would suggest a polite withdrawal by the developer. Instead, however, RATCH has dipped into the standard book of wind industry lies and half-truths (we covered a few of them in this post). Here’s the Cairns Post on a few more of them.

Storm brewing over wind farm in Tableland
Daniel Batemen
The Cairns Post
13 July 2014

bruce

THERE’S an ill wind blowing across the Tablelands, with rural landholders considering abandoning their multi-million dollar properties if the Mt Emerald Wind Farm gets the go-ahead.

They have accused the developers behind the renewable energy project of deceiving the community by downplaying the scale and impact of the wind farm, which involves the construction of up to 75 turbines – each about three times taller than Cairns Hospital.

Power producer Ratch Australia and property developer Port Bajool’s $380 million dollar project involves up to 75 wind turbines generating up to 225 megawatts of power from a 2400 hectare property aloft Mt Emerald, which is located about halfway between Atherton and Mareeba.

Jenny

Each tower is to stand about 80-90m tall, with approximately 50m long blades.

The proponents claim the project will potentially generate enough electricity to power 75,000 homes each year. The two-year construction phase of the project will also create an estimated 158 jobs, with up to 45 people to be employed locally once it is complete.

Since the development application for the wind farm was brought to the Tablelands Regional Council in 2010, a storm of protest about the project has been stirred up within the close-knit Walkamin and Tolga farming community.

When the Tablelands Wind Turbine Action Group conducted a recent survey of those living within 5km of the proposed project site, it found about 90 per cent of residents opposed the development.

The group says locals are terrified of health and noise impacts from the turbines; they are concerned about the impact the construction phase could have upon native habitat; they fear their property values will be driven right down; and they have even questioned the spacing and efficiency of the turbines.

Jenny Disley and her partner Jack Krikorian live 1800m away from the project site, where they will have a clear view of the giant bladed towers from their back porch.

The couple have struggled to sell their sprawling 42.9ha property, which has been on the market for three years through multiple real estate agents, with a current price tag of about $5 million.

“We’ve had a bit of interest but no one will buy,’’ Ms Disley told the Cairns Post. “They keep telling us the reason for that is because of the Mt Emerald wind farm uncertainty.”

The pair operate rural workers accommodation business Walkamin Enterprises, providing labour to the thriving local agricultural industry.

Mr Krikorian is most concerned about the impact noise generated by the turbines may have on up to 40 workers staying in various cabins and homes on their property.

“If the noise impacts on those 40 people, that’s the end of our business,’’ he said.

poster

“We are in the middle of an extremely active horticultural area, particularly for bananas, and all of those people need our service continuously.

“How do we get compensated, if everything that we work for is impacted?”

Ms Disley said if they were unable to be compensated for any land devaluation, and unable to sell, they would be left with no other choice but to abandon their land, becoming “wind farm refugees”.

“You can’t sell,’’ she said.

“You’ve sunk your whole life savings back into the property. If you can’t access your superannuation through a sale, you can’t live there because of the noise and infra (low frequency) sound.”

Ratch Australia thoroughly refutes any accusations the farm will generate noise pollution. It says any sound generated by the turbines will be less than that heard on a typical quiet suburban street (a level of 40 decibels).

The company and Port Bajool picked Mt Emerald for its “excellent” wind source, its proximity to the electricity grid, and potential for only “minimal” environmental and social impact.

At 4.5km away from Mt Emerald, one of the oldest families of the area, the Watkins family, believes that while the project may be a good idea, but it is being planned for the wrong spot.

Mt Uncle farmer and distillery owner Bruce Watkins says wind farms should be neither seen nor heard.

“If you see these things, you’re too close to them,’’ he said. “That’s the fact.”

“I’m not against green energy. None of us in (the action) group are – we’re all after sustainable, healthy, green energy. I’m putting solar panels up (on the distillery roof) now.”

“But where these so-called environmentalists go wrong, is they say we must have green energy, but they forget the (real) cost.”

The family has a berry farm within 1.5km of the wind farm site, employing more than 200 people. Mr Watkins said the construction phase of the development could create widespread problems for transport, and therefore businesses, across the region.

“There is a massive migration of the equipment to come up (to the Tablelands),’’ he said.

“You’ve got to appreciate they’ve got the right to commandeer main roads, traffic, everything. The delays in the traffic will be staggering.

“I’m not going to overemphasise it, but the fact is they’re going to get these things on the road, which are 80-tonne things, and they’re going to have to resurface the roads.

“At whose expense? We don’t know.”

When Bruce’s daughter Krista and her husband got married five years ago, they had been planning on building a dream house on the family’s land 2km from Mt Emerald.

The mountain even provided a backdrop in the couple’s wedding photos.

“We would have liked to have started to build a home there this year,’’ Krista said.

“But there is no way I’m going to spend $500,000 building an average home when the fact is I could be looking at a depreciated value of more than 50 per cent because of the wind turbines.”

About four years ago, the couple convinced friends to purchase property at the nearby Rangeview Estate.

Krista said it was a mistake that cost them a good relationship with their friends.

“It was the day they signed their contract, they bumped into some locals who were displaying Ratch’s own documents about the wind farm at the Tolga markets,’’ she said.

“The friends, furious, came back to us and said ‘you didn’t tell us about this’, and we saw (the development application) for the first time. We had no idea. (The developers) told us – many of us – it was just a few wind turbines. Way over the back. That was just a blatant lie, because they’re going to be all over that mountain.”

Last month, the development application was called in by the Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development, Infrastructure and Planning Jeff Seeney.

The minister, at the time, said given the complexity of the proposed development, independent assessments would be carried out to evaluate the true economic, environmental and community impacts and benefits of the project.

The development could be approved later this year, with construction to commence in early 2015.

Ratch Australia executive general manager, business development, Geoff Dutton, said the company had been as open and transparent as possible with the community, maintaining solid communication lines about the project since it was first tabled with the Tablelands Regional Council.

He assured locals would not be disturbed by the turbines, once they were operational.

“We have tried to analyse every aspect of noise and where it will go,’’ he said.

“We look at the individual wind turbine manufacturers and their offerings to us, and go through, with them, very detailed specifications.

“Wind towers aren’t just built, they’re built with a view to being within regulations.”

He conceded there would be “some queues” for traffic during the construction phase, as the turbines and their blades were being transported up to the mountain.

“We won’t be going up from Cairns through Mareeba – the more direct route – that is not practical because there are a few sharp bends that no blade will ever go around,’’ he said.

“The better way is to go the long way round further south and then come back around from the Ravenshoe direction up towards the site.”
The Cairns Post

One of the crackers tossed up by RATCH is that the noise generated by its turbines will be the same as a ‘typical quiet suburban street’. Depending on the suburb, most traffic noise dies down well before midnight and rarely resumes much before 6am. Leaving suburbanites a fair opportunity to catch a few zzzs during the hours of darkness.

Giant fans, on the other hand, operate whenever the wind blows – which usually means late evening/early morning and for some strange reason their noise has a habit of annoying neighbours, preventing them from sleeping and otherwise impacting on their good health. For the uninitiated, the sound tracks to these 2 videos might yield a clue.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOU39ws1gHo

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYpgVPAK5To

Leave Mount Emerald to the eagles.