After almost 6 months, 8 hearings in 4 States and the ACT, dozens of witnesses and almost 500 submissions, the Senate Inquiry into the great wind power fraud has delivered its ‘doorstop’ final report, which runs to some 350 pages – available here: Senate Report
Predictably, Labor’s dissenting report is filled with fantasy, fallacy and fiction – pumping up the ‘wonders’ of wind; completely ignoring the cost of the single greatest subsidy rort in the history of the Commonwealth; and treating the wind industry’s hundreds of unnecessary victims – of incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound – with the kind of malice, usually reserved for sworn and bitter foreign enemies.
Labor receives $millions in operational and election funding from Union Super Funds – which its members (both past and present) run as political slush funds – funds which are handled with wanton disregard for the working class mum and dads – who unwittingly end up ‘investing’ their hard earned savings in disasters like Pacific Hydro – a wind power outfit that torched $700 million of mum and dad super savings in a single year:
So, with their snouts wedged deep in the wind industry subsidy trough – and with everything to lose, it’s no surprise that Labor’s dissenting report is full of self-serving lies, omissions and half truths.
Fortunately, however, the majority of Senators on the Committee worked overtime to get the truth out – and made a suite of recommendations based on facts and evidence; and driven by those truly human attributes – common sense and compassion.
STT notes and thanks Coalition Members, Senators Chris Back and Matt Canavan – and Senators, John Madigan, David Leyonhjelm, Bob Day and SA’s Favourite Greek, Nick Xenophon for their tireless efforts throughout: efforts which have done more than any other Parliamentary Inquiry – anywhere on Earth – to expose the insane cost and utter pointlessness of the greatest economic and environmental fraud of all time.
Here’s a succinct little wrap-up on the Senate’s recommendations from Senator David Leyonhjelm.
Wind turbine report vindicates Senate scrutiny
Liberal Democratic Party
Monday August 3, 2015
Liberal Democrat Senator for NSW, David Leyonhjelm has hailed the findings of the Select Committee Inquiry on Wind Turbines as vindication of his motion to establish the inquiry and confirmation that regulation of the wind industry needs to change.
“It is abundantly clear from the evidence of regulators, the community, local councils and wind farm operators that the status quo is untenable,” Senator Leyonhjelm said.
“Only the wind industry and its cheer squad disagree. There are glaring planning and compliance deficiencies plus growing evidence, domestic and international, that infrasound and low frequency sound from wind turbines is having an adverse health impact on some people who live in the vicinity of wind farms. This is not something a responsible government can ignore.”
The report is critical of the work previously undertaken by the National Health and Medical Research Council on wind farm noise emissions, which many have relied upon to declare wind farms have no adverse health effects.
The committee is also concerned about “the lack of rigour” behind the position statement of the Australian Medical Association on wind turbine operations. The inquiry report criticised the AMA for refusing to give evidence before the inquiry, describing their position statement as “irresponsible and harmful”.
The final report, tabled in the Senate today, retains the recommendations of the interim report (which the government has accepted) but expands on these and adds more.
Among them is a requirement for wind farms to comply with national noise standards in order to be eligible for consumer funded Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), that eligibility for RECs cease after five years to lessen the financial burden on consumers, that state EPAs have jurisdiction over wind farms rather than local councils, that the Clean Energy Regulator be subject to a performance audit by the ANAO, and that the Productivity Commission be required to examine the impact of wind power generation on retail electricity prices.
“Senators involved in this inquiry have been attacked by the Big Wind lobby and those who see it is an assault on all renewable energy. The Labor representative on the Committee, Senator Anne Urquhart, joined this criticism following the interim report.
“However, the report shows there is a problem with the wind industry, not renewables such as solar, hydro, geothermal and biomass. There are potentially just as many jobs in these and nobody living close to them is getting sick. Labor’s enthusiasm for renewables needs to incorporate some compassion for those being hurt.”
Senator David Leyonhjelm
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A fair call David – but, then again, common sense rarely needs an advocate.
Meanwhile, Committee Chair, Senator John Madigan went on the offensive in his home state of Victoria – where wind industry front man, Labor Premier, Daniel Andrews has adopted an approach to his constituents that would have made his pin-up boy, Generalissimo Stalin, glow with pride.
Senator Madigan warns Premier Andrews: ‘Don’t gamble with the health of Victorians’
Senator John Madigan
Independent Senator for Victoria
July 16, 2015
Independent Senator for Victoria John Madigan has warned Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews the Victorian Government’s unshakeable commitment to wind energy is putting the health of Victorians at risk, while potentially exposing the state to future legal liabilities.
“There is growing evidence living near wind turbines can be detrimental to health,” Senator Madigan said.
“While for a long time this evidence mainly came from the reports of affected individuals, more recently a number of studies have lent scientific weight to their concerns, such as the German and Japanese studies recently reported on,” Senator Madigan said.
“Yet, in the face of this, we have the Premier telling us his government is ‘unashamedly pro-wind power’ and indicating plans to boost investment in the sector.
“Beyond the detrimental health impacts, this could leave the state liable to future claims by those who suffer ill-health as a result. Where there is a reasonably foreseeable risk of harm the law requires us to act prudently to avoid that harm. If we fail to do so we are expected to compensate those impacted. The Andrew’s government is confronted with just this type of situation.”
Senator Madigan said the Premier had been aware of the potential health impacts of wind turbines since at least June 2010 when, as Health Minister, he attended a community cabinet meeting in Bendigo and was handed a file containing approximately twenty statutory declarations made by people living near Waubra wind farm. Each statutory declaration detailed negative health impacts residents attributed to noise from the wind turbines.
Senator Madigan said: “Given the Premier has known about this for some time, it is completely irresponsible for him to be promoting the construction of more wind farms around the state.
“With peoples’ health at risk, the state government should exercise the precautionary principle and delay the approval of any further wind farms until their health impacts are properly understood. This is the only responsible position under the circumstances.”
Senator Madigan said he would write to the Premier to request a moratorium on the development of further wind farms until their health impacts are properly understood.
Falmouth Flushing Taxpayer Dollars Down The Toilet
The Town of Falmouth is wasting money on its commercial wind turbines
You have to ask how do people sit back and allow politicians to flush our money down the toilet ?
The average citizen is always trying to make ends meet. If Jill or Joe citizen waste or lose money, they feel it in their wallet.
It is clear and obvious – corruption is a huge problem, through corruption we are wasting billions and billions of our taxpayer’s money .
Falmouth has to face some facts. Those facts are corruption and its not hard to figure it out !
The town was warned prior to any installations of wind turbines that the Vestas wind turbine known as Falmout Wind 1 generated 110 decibels of noise almost twice the manufacturers specifications. That warning meant the turbine would break state noise regulations. The end result was the courts shut down the turbines because they broke state noise laws. Everyone always knew they would !
The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center in April 2013 gave a memo to the Town of Falmouth admitting they made mistakes in noise studies prior to the installation of the wind turbines. The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center knew well before the installations because they had owned the turbine for several years being held in storage for over $3300.00 a month for several years. They couldn’t sell the turbine even at auction. The turbine was a political embarrassment. They had to dump it on someone.
The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center offered the Town of Falmouth a one million dollar bribe to take the embarrassing old turbine held in storage off their hands as it was becoming a political embarrassment.
In Massachusetts this is called ( One Hand Washes the Other ). Everyone involved with Falmouth Wind 1 knew prior to the installation the turbine generated 110 decibels of noise almost double the specifications. The Falmouth turbine is a Vestas V-82 1.65 megawatt wind turbine. Vestas wind company had just bought out another company,Neg Micon, prior to the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center making the purchase. Falmouth Wind 1 is actually a Neg Micon NM- 82 1.65 megawatt turbine. A turbine that generates 110 decibels of noise.
In order to sell the Falmouth Wind 1 turbine to Falmouth the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center had to get a good noise test to install the turbine in Falmouth. That was simple they made what they call “mistakes” in the noise tests and then admit a few years later after the installation in an April 2013 memo to the Town of Falmouth they made a “mistake.”
Along with the memo Nils Bolgen the wind turbine manager at the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center around the same time as the memo in a press release tells the public the Falmouth Wind 1 turbine was installed “Ad Hoc.”
Prior to the Falmouth wind turbine installation the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center was caught making “mistakes” in a 23 page wind turbine study in Mattapoisett. There was at least one mistake on each page that included contradictions between several sections and some cases up to three “mistakes” per page and it wasn’t spelling or punctuation. Nils Bolgen the wind turbine manager at the time blamed the mistakes on engineering students. Highly unlikely knowing what we know today.
The turbines were not installed in Mattapoisett because of a reference to two distinct types of noise. The distinct types of noise were “regulatory: and “human annoyance.” Today we know “human annoyance” is infra sound or low frequency noise.
To this day it has never been explained why the reference to “human annoyance” was dropped from the Falmouth wind study and there was NO warning to the Town of Falmouth or its citizens. Three guesses why they dropped the reference !
The only conclusion is everyone for years before the installation of Falmouth Wind 1 was aware of major noise issues with the Falmouth Wind 1 turbine. The noise issues included regulatory noise violations and human annoyance noise issues today known as infra sound or low frequency noise. The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center in 2005 described “ human annoyance” yet today acts like it doesn’t exist. Aka the Mass Clean Energy Center caught again in a contradiction.
The Falmouth Zoning Board of Appeals thinks the Town of Falmouth acted in good faith avoiding getting a special permit 240-166 prior to the installation of Falmouth Wind 1 ? Where have these people been ? At the beach with their heads buried in the sand ?
The facts speak for themselves. Had Falmouth applied for special permit 240-166 it would have required additional studies and the turbine would never have been installed. A simple fact.
This wind turbine installation is not just a mishap or “mistake.” The hiding of the noise warning from Vestas wind company, the noise study “Mistakes” by the Mass Clean Energy Center, Admission of an Ad Hoc installation, dropping noise warnings in prior studies about “human annoyance” aka infra sound and then the one million dollar bribe to the Town of Falmouth
The judicial branch of government could only conclude one thing ; C-O-R-R-U-P-T-I-O-N
The question of the 6 million dollars in stimulus funds, ARRA, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was the money for Falmouth Wind II a loan or a grant has never been answered.
Today everyone has got something on everyone else. The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center made its “mistakes” the town avoided the special permit 240-166 and they all knew well in advance the turbine was too loud.
Now the Town of Falmouth has the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center over a barrel and made them fork over 1.8 million dollars to help pay the town litigation fees.
Folks– You the taxpayers are financing this bunco scheme. You the taxpayers are being taken for ride of your life.
Please for the sake of humanity wake up this isn’t a dream. They are taking your health, property and your money.
In Australia, the wind industry exists – and ONLY exists – to wallow in a subsidy stream which will hit $3 billion annually in 2019; and continue at that colossal rate until 2031. The cost of the greatest subsidy rort in the history of the Commonwealth will exceed $45 billion – every last cent of which will be recovered from Australian power consumers through retail power bills:
True it is, that the PM is keen to R.E.D.U.C.E the LRET subsidy for these things, but plenty of other Coalition lightweights and wind industry shills – like Dan Tehan, Sarah Henderson and young Gregory Hunt (and two wind industry plants that work in his office) believe (or publicly claim) that the cost of the massive subsidies directed to wind power outfits under the LRET is magically picked up by fairies and pixies; and that the policy is a no-cost, family and business friendly vote winner.
However, the Senators on the Inquiry into the great wind power fraud – including Coalition Members, Chris Back and Matt Canavan – have worked out that the truth is all the other way – which has led to the recommendation of a 5 year limit to the rort:
The response from the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers – like the Clean Energy Council – is as galling as it is pathetic; predictably pathetic.
You see, we’re consistently told how wind power is getting cheaper all the time – so cheap, in fact, that it’s cheaper than the cheapest of them all: coal-fired power (for a trip to a parallel universe see this piece of twaddle from ruin-economy).
The Clean Energy Council would have us believe that its clients – although now that it’s headed up by Miles George from near-bankrupt wind power outfit, Infigen (aka Babcock and Brown), it’s hard to tell who’s servant and who’s master – are blessed with a kind of ‘divine altruism’, under which their only objective is to power the world for free, while saving the planet from the ‘dreaded’ CO2 gas; and otherwise spreading health, wealth and happiness all over the planet.
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But all of that benevolent bonhomie seems to melt away, like snow in summer, with the merest hint that the massive stream of power consumer and/or taxpayer subsidies are under threat.
Here’s STT Champion, Graham Lloyd with the parasites’ response to the Senate recommendations.
Subsidy limits ‘a wind farm body blow’
The Australian
Graham Lloyd
1 August 2015
Limiting subsidy payments for new wind farms to five years would destroy the future of renewable energy, says the industry’s peak lobby group, the Clean Energy Council.
A Senate committee will next week recommend the winding back of billions of dollars in subsidy support for wind farms. It will also recommend renewable energy certificates not be issued to projects in states which do not comply with federal guidelines on low frequency noise.
The final Senate report is due to be tabled in federal parliament on Monday.
Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt said the government presently had no plans to amend the Clean Energy Act but would consider the Senate inquiry recommendations after the report had been tabled.
The government accepted interim recommendations from the Senate committee to establish an independent scientific panel to oversee research into the impact of infrasound and low frequency noise.
It agreed to appoint a wind farm commissioner to receive complaints. And the government also instructed the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation to concentrate future funding on large-scale solar projects and emerging technologies rather than wind.
The final report of the Senate committee will call for new wind farm projects to be given renewable energy certificates for a maximum of five years, rather than 20. Clean Energy Council chief executive Kane Thornton said this would damage Australia’s international investment reputation.
“Business needs stability and confidence to invest, and this has only recently been restored to the renewable energy sector after 18 months of uncertainty,” he said. “Adopting the headline recommendation of this report would be economically reckless, and shows some of the senators are out of touch with the business community and the Australian people.”
Mr Thornton said the wind industry remained open to scrutiny, provided that the scrutiny was objective and based on evidence. “The wind industry remains committed to constant improvement in the way it interacts with the local communities surrounding wind farms, and to treating all community members with respect,” he said.
Mr Hunt said he would consider the Senate report. “We’ve recently passed Renewable Energy Target legislation that gives certainty to the industry and will see 23.5 per cent of Australia’s energy come from renewable sources by 2020,” he said. “We are not proposing and have no plans to make any changes to RET legislation.” The Australian
Kane Thornton’s whining is not just pathetic; it’s embarrassing.
Running counter to the CEC’s repeated claims about wind power being competitive and becoming cheaper all the time, Kane tells us that limiting the flow of renewable energy certificates (RECs) to a period of five years, spells the end of the wind industry.
What Kane won’t tell you, is that the amount of subsidy available for a single 3 MW turbine operating 35% of the time (with RECs trading at their expected value of $93) will top $855,000 annually. That single turbine – if planted in 2015 will keep raking in that same amount of subsidy until 2031; allowing its owner to pocket a total in the order of $13,686,624 over the remaining life of the LRET: all at power consumers’ expense.
So, Kane’s complaint breaks down to this: if the subsidy scam is limited to 5 years, his client’s turbines will only get to rack up RECs worth a mere $4,275,000.
And that’s just the federal government’s mandated subsidy: wind power outfits receive guaranteed rates of around $120 per MWh under power purchase agreements, which run for 10-15 years – a price which takes account of the assumed value of the REC received for the MWh dispatched. That figure compares, somewhat unfavourably, with the average wholesale price of around $35 per MWh.
Bear in mind, that a 3MW machine and its installation costs less than $3 million; and that being able to spear it into some dimwit’s back paddock under a landholder agreement costs a piddling $10-15,000 per year. Oh, and as the CEC and its clients keep telling us, the “wind is free”; and that these things run on the smell of an oily rag for over 25 years:
Under the Senate’s recommendation, your clients would get to pocket RECs worth over $4 million per turbine, at power consumers’ expense – more than the price of the turbine – where, on your case, the “fuel” is “free”; and the power produced is so cheap, retailers are just chafing at the bit to take it (although the fact that commercial retailers haven’t signed a PPA with a wind power outfit since November 2012, suggests otherwise). So, 5 years of RECs should be seen as money for jam, Kane?
The CEC, and the wind power outfits that it’s paid handsomely to represent, are starting to sound like a bunch of spoiled brats being disciplined for the very first time.
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The other Kane ‘cracker’ – that we just can’t let go – is his throwaway that the “wind industry remains committed to constant improvement in the way it interacts with the local communities surrounding wind farms, and to treating all community members with respect”.
Either Kane has been living under a rock, and remains blissfully unaware of just how his clients “interact” with rural communities and the kind of “respect” that they mete out; or his idea of community “interaction” and “respect” is drawn from the pages of the old GDR’s Stasi Handbook on community relations.
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As noted above, Kane’s boss, Miles George runs Infigen – an outfit that has had many “interactions” with rural communities; and has, apparently, created its own definition of “respect”.
Back in June, three farmers told the Senate Inquiry about how Infigen managed to force them to enter land holder contracts with it, through a combination of threats, bullying and deceit. One of them, Robert Griffin, told the Senate:
It is hard for us to generalise because we have one man, Jonathan Upson, from one company, Infigen. I must say he was really shocking. He was an incredibly arrogant man. He was arrogant about everyone. All the protesters were just idiots. You could never have any discussion. They were just idiots. The department of planning were dopey. When we raised problems, we were the troublemakers.
We never got anywhere with him at all, except to get threats. Even when the department of planning first said that they would have to get our written signature on a document after the date of approval we never got any consultation. We read in the local newspaper that we were going to be made to come into line. For six months we did not get one bit of consultation from them. They could not come around and try and sweet talk us—’What’s your problem?’- none of that. We just got threats straight away, right from the word go. We were told, ‘They will be made to step into line.’ That was the thing in the local newspaper and that was the attitude.
Funnily enough, the farmers in question have resolved to get out of their contracts with Infigen; and wish to have nothing more to do with goons like Jonathan Upson:
Then there’s that paragon of community relations, Pac Hydro. The union super fund backed Pac Hydro has destroyed the ability of the Cape Bridgwater community to sleep, live in and otherwise enjoy their homes for over 7 years:
After receiving hundreds of complaints over that time – largely ignoring and dismissing them – Pac Hydro was eventually forced by residents to engage Steven Cooper to carry out some proper acoustic testing. Cooper’s work – properly described as groundbreaking by qualified acoustic experts, including America’s best – demonstrated that the terrible effects being suffered – including constant sleep deprivation – were clearly related to the operation of Pac Hydro’s turbines:
After Cooper’s smoking gun research was made public, Pac Hydro was faced with a community and media backlash. True to form, Pac Hydro responded with its own brand of community “respect”. During a “community relations” meeting in February its then head-spruiker, Lane Crocket accepted Cooper’s work, and then practically told its numerous and long-suffering victims to “get stuffed”:
After that effort, wind industry corporate relations were never sunnier – well, not since James Hardie spent $millions trying to cover up and avoid its liability for thousands of asbestos-related deaths and illnesses – all with the help of the same class of so-called “academics”, that help run cover for the wind industry today (see our post here).
STT can only endorse the CEC’s brand of “community interaction”; and the type of “respect” dished up by Infigen, Pac Hydro & Co. If there was anything that was guaranteed to result in the demise of the wind industry, it’s treating honest, decent hard-working country people with condescending contempt, of the kind usually reserved for bitter and sworn enemies.
Australians – especially rural Australians – aren’t so gullible and guileless to tolerate the lies, treachery and deceit doled out by the likes of the CEC and its clients. Under the current LRET, the Coalition is expecting rural communities to cosy up alongside another 2,500 of these things; Labor’s 50% renewable energy target lunacy requires more than 10,000.
There is no way that rural Australians will take this rubbish lying down. Not anymore.
STT hears that hundreds of people, in dozens of communities are already organising the mother of all counter-attacks. And it’s the high-handed arrogance of outfits like the CEC, Infigen and Pac Hydro that’s driving them to revolt. Thanks Kane.
“From a legal point of view what is important is that the courts, including the Supreme Court, accepted the expert evidence of the authors of this paper concerning the terrible toll that infrasound and low-frequency noise has on both humans and animals, whilst it rejected the opposing evidence led by the wind industry lawyers.”
By Neil van Dokkum (B. SocSc; LLB; LLM; PGC Con.Lit)
Neil van Dokkum is a law lecturer.
I have just finished reading a fascinating article “Low Frequency Noise-Induced Pathology: Contributions Provided by the Portuguese Wind Turbine Case” written by Nuno A. A. Castelo Branco, MD, Senior Surgical Pathologist; Mariana Alves-Pereira, PhD, Biomedical Engineer; Augusto Martinho Pimenta, MD, Senior Neurologist; and José Reis Ferreira, MD, Senior Pneumologist; all resident and practising in Lisbon, Portugal. The authors were involved in giving evidence to the Portuguese courts culminating in a Supreme Court action.
Their findings were presented and accepted as expert evidence to Portuguese courts which eventually resulted in the wind farm developer being ordered by the Supreme Court of Justice of Portugal to remove the wind turbines from the vicinity of the applicant’s property (Supreme Court of Justice of Portugal. Decision No. 2209/08.oTBTVD.L1.S1, 30 May 2013).
These legal proceedings involved four wind turbines (although more were built subsequent to the commencement of the legal proceedings).
The four wind turbines were located adjacent to the family farm as follows:
No. 1: 321.83m from the house and 182.36m from the stables,
No. 2: 539.92m from the house and 439.64m from the stables,
No. 3: 579.86m from the house and 565.50m from the stables,
No. 4: 642.08m from the house and 503m from the stables.
The distances are important to Irish readers as our current guidelines suggest a clearance of 500m from residential homes (which wind developers routinely ignore in any event). Therefore, three of the listed turbines would be in a permissible position in Ireland.
What are expert witnesses?
As a general rule, witnesses can only testify about facts. It is the task of the jury, or the judge if there is no jury, to draw inferences from the facts presented in court, and witnesses must not be allowed to usurp this central function.
There are two notable exceptions to this general rule. First, expert witnesses may give opinion evidence, which is their primary function. Secondly, non-experts are sometimes allowed to give opinion evidence in defined circumstances, usually where their evidence would not make any sense if it were not accompanied by opinion.
Generally, a witness is considered an expert on the basis of their experience, training and knowledge. An expert witness is there to assist the court in coming to a conclusion in areas where the trial judge or jury might not have considerable expertise.
The expert witness is called for his or her expertise and as such should regard themselves as ‘neutral’ witnesses, there to help the court rather than to help one of the litigating parties. Indeed, the authors point this out very clearly at the end of their paper, saying that they are only interpreting the evidence, and in fact support the push towards renewable energy.
A famous decision setting out what is expected of expert witnesses is National Justice Compania Naviera S.A. v. Prudential Assurance Co. Ltd (“The Ikarian Reefer”) [1993] 2 Lloyd’s Rep. 68 Where the court held:
Expert evidence presented to the Court should be, and should be seen to be, the independent product of the expert, uninfluenced as to form or content by the exigencies of litigation.
An expert witness should provide independent assistance to the Court by way of objective unbiased opinion in relation to matters within his expertise.
An expert witness should state the facts or assumption upon which his opinion is based. He should not omit to consider material facts which could detract from his concluded opinion.
An expert witness should make it clear when a particular question or issue falls outside his expertise.
If an expert’s opinion is not properly researched because he considers that insufficient data is available, then this must be stated with an indication that the opinion is no more than a provisional one.
If, after exchange of reports, an expert witness changes his view on a material matter having read the other side’s report or for any other reason, such change of view should be communicated to the other side.
What is also important to remember is that an expert witness must be recognised as such by the court. The party who wants to lead expert evidence has to prove to the court that their witness is indeed an expert in their field. The opposition (in this case the wind industry) is entitled to attack the qualifications of the expert witness and attempt to convince the court that the witness should not be allowed to give his or her expert evidence. They can also call an opposing expert witness.
In this case the Portuguese Supreme Court not only accepted the expertise of the authors of this article and allowed them to give evidence, but the Court also preferred their evidence to that of the expert witnesses used by the wind industry, whose evidence was rejected.
So what was that evidence?
The family in question consisted of a father, a mother, and two children. Before the wind farm was built, the eldest son was a high achiever and regularly came top of his class at school. The authors take up the story:
“The Industrial Wind Turbines were installed at a distance of 321-642 m from the residential home. Complaints of sleep disturbances were first reported in December 2006. In mid-March, Mr. and Mrs. R received a letter from their 12-year-old son’s schoolteacher, expressing concern for the growing difficulties in an otherwise outstanding student, “particularly in English, Humanities and Physical Education. He progressed in Mathematics, which is a field that naturally attracts his type of intelligence. However, in the above mentioned coursework, it seems that [the child] has lost interest, makes a lesser effort, as if he were permanently tired. In Physical Education, an abnormal amount of tiredness is also observed. Is [the child] leading a healthy life? Does he sleep sufficient hours during the night?”
This immediately prompted the parents to begin legal proceedings and seek medical assistance, and thus, this team’s first contact with Family R.”
The family hired an accredited acoustical firm to conduct continuous acoustical monitoring both inside and outside their home, for a period of 2 weeks, and that included real time wind speed data. Numerical data regarding acoustical and wind speed information, independently collected by the accredited firm, was then provided to these experts (the abovementioned authors) for analysis and these experts deemed the turbine noise to be dangerous to the health of this family.
On that basis the family were sent for medical examination. The authors summarise the findings of the examinations (my emphasis):
“The 12-yearold child received a neurological test assessing cortical nerve conduction times: P300 Event Related Evoked Potentials (ERP). P300 ERP disclosed nerve conduction time to be 352 ms, when expected value should be closer to 300 ms. Brainstem Auditory Evoked Potentials (BAEP) disclosed asymmetries in the right and left nerve conduction times, and the right I-V interval interlatency value was at the threshold of normal (4.44 ms). Mr. and Mrs. R. disclosed slight to moderate pericardial thickening: between 1.7 mm and 2.0 mm (normal for the equipment in use: <1.2mm) [12]. Respiratory drive was below normalized values in both adults (46%-53%, normal: >60%), suggesting the existence ofbrain lesions in the areas responsible for the neurological control of breathing.
Observations made by the family included animal behavioural changes: Horses were seen to lie down and sleep during the day; Dogs were lethargic, and no longer jumped up requesting attention from their owners. Ants simply disappeared.”
Remember that these examinations are carried out in 2007, just a few months after the wind turbines are erected, and already the effects are dramatic.
Alarmed by these symptoms, the mother and children moved into an apartment in the city in 2007. The boy’s health improved immediately and dramatically:
“After the summer vacation in 2007, spent away from the farm, the 12-year-old child had again received the P300 ERP examination that, this time, disclosed nerve conduction times much closer to normal: 302 ms. In 2010, this child was again an outstanding student, top of his class.”
The father, Mr. R, did not have the option of moving into town, as he had to stay with the family business on the farm. In contrast to his son, his health continued to deteriorate rapidly in those three years between 2007 and 2010:
“Over these 3 years, Mr. R’s health and wellbeing had continuously and visibly deteriorated: intolerance to (any) noise had become more severe; situations compatible with an unregulated sympathetic nervous system increased in frequency; and cognitive impairment became more pronounced.”
I would like a medical person to comment on this but to me this sounds like the father became seriously noise-sensitive, nervous and jumpy, and confused in his thinking.
The family’s business was also threatened:
“Between 2000 and 2006, 13 healthy thoroughbred Lusitanian horses were born and raised on Mr. R’s property. All horses born after 2007 (after the wind farm was erected) on his farm developed asymmetric flexural limb deformities. Besides the IWT (Industrial Wind Turbines) installed in November 2006, no other changes (constructions, industries, etc) were introduced into the area during this time.”
This echoes the findings of another study detailing limb deformities in horses caused by industrial wind turbines.
In 2015 the following alarming observations were made on the father’s health:
“Mr. R continues to live away from Mrs. R and the children, and his health has further deteriorated. The respiratory drive value that in 2007 was 46% (normal: >60%) is now at 28%. The development of balance disturbances associated with loss of consciousness has apparently caused several falls, requiring medical treatment for facial and rib fractures. This situation is still under clinical study, as late-onset epilepsy is one of the most severe outcomes of excessive ILFN (Infrasound & Low Frequency Noise) exposure.”
In May 2013 the Supreme Court of Justice of Portugal decided that the remaining 3 turbines had to be removed from the vicinity of Mr. R’s property. The lower court had ordered the removal of the closest turbine but allowed the other three to stay, hence the appeal to the Supreme Court. The developer is apparently appealing the decision to the European Court.
In addition to ordering the removal of the wind turbines, the court also granted damages to the family. The wind farm developer was ordered to pay damages as follows:
For personal injury, the sums of € 250,000.00 to Mr. R, and the sum of € 150,000.00 each to Mrs. R and the two children.
To Mr. and Mrs. R, as co-owners of the land, the difference in value of the land before and after the wind turbines were erected.
The payment of € 200,000.00 to Mr. R, for his business losses.
The payment of all legal fees and costs, whether judicial or extrajudicial, that the family have incurred in order to bring the legal action and the cost of relocation of people and goods during the period of operation of the wind turbines.
A bittersweet victory given that Mr R’s health is ruined and the family’s way of life destroyed. Money cannot fix that sort of damage. Further turbines have also been built in the area as these legal proceedings concerned only the first four that were built (adjoining the family farm) and therefore the battle is not over yet.
From a legal point of view what is important is that the courts, including the Supreme Court, accepted the expert evidence of the authors of this paper concerning the terrible toll that infrasound and low-frequency noise has on both humans and animals, whilst it rejected the opposing evidence led by the wind industry lawyers.
A court is clearly neutral in this matter and has no hidden interests in a decision going one way or the other. A civil court must decide the evidence on a balance of probabilities. This means that before it accepts evidence, the court must be satisfied that the evidence is probable (capable of belief) and that it is more probable than the evidence given by the other side. In this case the Supreme Court accepted the evidence of the independent and neutral expert witnesses concerning the destructive effect of infrasound and low-frequency sound on the health of this family, whilst rejecting the evidence of the wind farm developer’s expert witnesses who claimed that the noise was within acceptable limits.
As the authors conclude:
“An effort toward developing and implementing appropriate construction techniques that would minimize the deleterious effects of in-home ILFN could be, perhaps, an excellent beginning. The hindrance to this apparently viable beginning is the sine qua non prior recognition that ILFN is, de facto, a physical agent of disease.”
Again, I am not a medical person but I take that to mean: Wind farms are a danger to our health. Period.
A Senate committee says renewable energy subsidies for new wind farms should be limited to five years from more than 20.
It also wants the issue of renewable energy certificates restricted to projects in states that adopt federal regulations on infrasound and low frequency noise.
A Senate committee says renewable energy subsidies for new wind farms should be limited to five years from more than 20. Source: Supplied
The AustralianJuly 31, 2015Australia
Canberra urged to strip billions from windfarm subsidies
By Graham Lloyd, Environment Editor, Sydney
The Abbott government is being urged to strip billions more from subsidies to wind farms in the final report of a Senate committee that has already pushed renewable energy investment to favour solar.
In its recommendations, the committee says renewable energy subsidies for new wind farms should be limited to five years from more than 20.
It also wants the issue of renewable energy certificates restricted to projects in states that adopt federal regulations on infrasound and low frequency noise.
The final report of the Senate investigation into wind farms and their possible health effects will be tabled in parliament on Monday.
The report has been circulated and details have been provided to The Australian.
The call for time limits on subsidies and federal noise oversight is likely to provoke a backlash from the wind industry, already reeling from a federal government directive to the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation that it stop lending to wind projects.
The lending freeze was agreed with crossbench senators after the federal government adopted the committee’s interim report recommendations.
The deal included crossbench support to include forest waste in the revised renewable energy target legislation.
In a letter tabled in the Senate, Environment Minister Greg Hunt said the federal government would respond “actively and in good faith” to the Senate committee findings.
The final report says a five-year limit on renewable energy certificates, down from more than 20 years, recognised that wind turbine technology was well developed and a “mature” industry.
A ban on issuing RECS to wind farms in states that do not adopt federal guidelines on infrasound is designed to force the hand of governments that rejected a national approach at the last Council of Australian Governments meeting.
At present, noise guidelines are administered by the states, but renewable energy certificates are issued by the commonwealth.
Renewable energy companies are issued RECS for the amount of power they generate.
The RECS are sold to power authorities, which must secure a set portion of their supply from renewable sources under the RET.
The cost of buying RECS is added to consumer electricity bills as a subsidy for renewable energy over other sources of power.
Crossbench senators are confident the federal government will accept the recommendations and the measures can be passed through both houses. Adoption will require legislative changes to the Clean Energy Act.
Legislation would require the support of six non-government senators in the upper house.
The Senate committee has been particularly concerned by complaints from people living near wind farms who believe low- frequency noise and infrasound is having an impact on their health.
The existence of health impacts from wind turbines has been rejected as unproven by health authorities, but as the number of complaints increases the issue is being investigated worldwide.
The final Senate report recommends the scientific committee have the power to provide “guidance, advice and oversight” to bodies funding and undertaking research into infrasound.
LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, July 14 unanimously approved to ban utility-scale wind turbines in the unincorporated areas of the county, according to a news release from the office of Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich.
Antonovich, who introduced the motion to the board, said wind turbines create visual blight on the desert landscape, generate noise, impact wildlife and contradict the county’s Dark Skies ordinance in the Antelope Valley.
“Our residents have consistently opposed wind turbine development that would create an industrial backdrop similar to what Kern County has allowed in the Tehachapis,” he said.
The motion also directed the Department of Public Health to report back in 60 days on a protocol for requiring soil tests to detect Valley Fever when developing renewable energy projects in the Antelope Valley.
The Rural Outdoor Lighting District (Dark Skies) Ordinance promotes dark skies in selected unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County for the enjoyment and health of humans and wildlife, according to county officials. In particular, the ordinance regulates light emissions to prevent the disruption of animal and bird habitats that are threatened from light trespass.
More information on the Rural Outdoor Lighting District (Dark Skies) is available atLACounty.gov/dataportal.
Wind turbine syndrome is not confined to English-speaking countries!
Lilli-Ann Green gives evidence that wind turbines cause adverse health impacts for some people who live nearby in France, Germany, Holland, Denmark and Sweden.
SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON WIND TURBINES
Monday, 29 June 2015
Extract from Official Committee Hansard (page 1 to 6):
Lilli-Ann Green
(Cape Cod Times/Ron Schloerb)
Ms Green: I am CEO of a healthcare consulting firm with a national reach in the United States. My company works in all sectors of the healthcare industry. One of the core competencies of the firm is to develop educational programs to help doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers better communicate with their patients around various disease states. Currently, as a volunteer in my town, I am secretary of our energy committee and a delegate to the Cape Cod National Seashore Advisory Commission as an alternate. Cape Cod National Seashore is part of the United States National Park Service. In the late 1970s, I built a passive solar superinsulated home. I directed an environmental education school for several years. I work seasonally as a naturalist interpretive ranger for the National Park Service. I have been interested and active in the environmental movement since the early seventies. Today, I speak as a private citizen.
CHAIR (Senator Madigan): Thank you. Could you please confirm that information on parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses and evidence has been provided to you?
Ms Green: It has.
CHAIR: Thank you. The committee has your submission and we now invite you to make a brief opening statement and at the conclusion of your remarks, I will invite members of the committee to put questions to you.
Ms Green: Thank you. Until the beginning of 2010, I believed wind turbines were good and green. My town was interested in constructing wind turbines and a friend visited my office in early March 2010 to provide my husband and business partner and me with new information. Following the visit, I spent the next 10 hours researching wind turbines. That very day, after concluding my research, I was saddened but I became convinced there was credible evidence that wind turbines cause adverse health impacts for some people who live nearby. In the past, over five years, I have learned it is a global phenomenon that wind turbines make some people who live nearby sick and it is a dose response so these people become more ill over time.
My husband, who is now deceased, and I travelled to Australia and New Zealand in 2010-11 and subsequently created a film called Pandora’s Pinwheels: The Reality of Living with Wind Turbines. We then travelled around the world in 2012 and conducted interviews in 15 different countries. Most of the people we interviewed expressed that they were in favour of wind energy prior to wind turbine construction nearby. There are some common symptoms people the world over report who live and work too close to wind turbines. A good summary is found in the book Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Report on a Natural Experiment by Nina Pierpont, MD, PhD.
It does not matter whether people live in English-speaking countries or in countries where people do not speak English. People reported to us they are made sick when they live too close to wind turbines, no matter what country they live in. We interviewed people in both English-speaking countries and non-English-speaking countries alike who reported to us they were not ill prior to wind turbine construction nearby and after the wind turbines were operational nearby they were made sick.
We interviewed people in five countries—France, Germany, Holland, Denmark and Sweden—who either needed an interpreter to speak with us or who spoke broken English. Some locations were quite rural with little or no internet connection. Still, the people we interviewed through interpreters expressed the same symptoms, others the world over described to us. These people with no or limited internet connection even used similar phrases, analogies and gestures, as others did globally to describe their symptoms. What we actually found is most people are reluctant to speak about their health problems.
In the United States, there are privacy laws regarding medical information. Culturally, people do not openly discuss their health problems with strangers. We found this to be the case in the countries we visited around the world. It was a brave person who opened up to us about their health problems. Usually, the people we interviewed expressed they wanted to help others. If anything, people tended to minimise their symptoms or try to attribute the symptoms to other circumstances. Even when they acknowledged a common symptom such as sleep deprivation, many people who experienced additional common symptoms were reluctant to attribute these other symptoms to the wind turbines nearby. Furthermore, people the world over reported that they and their healthcare providers puzzled over health problems that appeared after wind turbines were constructed near their homes.
Many endured a huge battery of medical tests to try to determine what the cause of their health problems were. The medical tests, at a huge cost to the healthcare system, only ruled out various diseases. Typically, the cause of their sickness was not diagnosed by their healthcare professional. Frequently, we heard that the patients would be in a social situation with others in their neighbourhood and eventually people they knew well confided they had similar health problems that recently appeared, or after research online about a different topic these people reported stumbling upon the cause of their health problems, which were the wind turbines constructed nearby.
We even interviewed people who lived for 11 years near wind turbines in a non-English speaking country—and that was in 2012. Several people came to an interview to talk about their property devaluation. It was only during the interviews when they heard others speak about health problems that the people realised they had been suffering because they lived too close to wind turbines. One man in his 80s sobbed during his interview. He had been visiting his doctor for 11 years trying to figure out what was wrong with his health.
The woman who invited us to interview her and her neighbours learned about health problems from wind turbines when she saw the film I produced Pandora’s Pinwheels, with interviews conducted in Australia and New Zealand, that was translated into her language. These people needed an interpreter; they did not speak English. She told me that her husband had passed away in the not too distant past due to heart problems. Before he died, he had complained quite frequently of common health symptoms people living near wind turbines experience. Although they visited their doctor frequently, no-one could figure out why he was so sick. She thanked us because, in seeing our film, it helped her to understand what her husband had been going through and why. It gave her closure that she did not have prior to viewing our film.
Another person at the interview told us she had to hold on to the walls of her house some days in order to walk from room to room and felt nauseous frequently. She knew she was unwell in her home and abandoned it. She did not know why until she saw our film. She came back to the area for the interview because she wanted to tell the world that wind turbines made her so ill that she sold her home at a huge loss.
One of the people I have known for the past five years lives in Falmouth, Massachusetts, which is very close to where I live—it is an hour and a half away. In 2010, he had recently retired to his dream home of many years. He was in great physical health, very fit and has over a 20-year record of normal to low to blood pressure. Since the wind turbines have been constructed in Falmouth, Massachusetts, he has reported that his blood pressure skyrockets to heart attack and stroke levels when the wind is coming in the wrong direction for him.
In Falmouth there are three wind turbines that are 1.65 megawatts near this person’s home. This person’s doctor, whom he has seen over the past 20 years, is in the Boston area and his doctor has been quite blunt. The doctor has told the patient that his life is in danger and he must move. Unfortunately, the Falmouth resident is crushed and cannot bear to leave his dream home at this point in time. He goes to other locations when the wind is predicted to be coming from the wrong direction. Others we interviewed in many different countries told us similar stories. Many reported they have abandoned their homes, sold their homes at a huge loss, purchased other homes to live in when the wind is coming from the wrong direction or in order to sleep in, and others spend time away from their homes at a huge and unexpected expense. People considered their homes as sanctuaries prior to the construction of wind turbines nearby. Now their opinion is not the same.
We have interviewed people on three continents who live more than five miles from the nearest wind turbine and are sick since wind turbine construction. I contend that we need honest research to determine how far wind turbines need to be sited from people in order to do no harm. People report to us that over time their symptoms become more severe. Many report not experiencing ill effects for some time following wind turbine construction, meanwhile their spouse became ill the day the wind turbines nearby became operational. They speak of thinking they were one of the lucky ones at first, but after a number of months or years they become as ill as their spouse. Not one person who stayed near wind turbines reported to us that they got used to it or got better; they all became more ill over time.
Since we are dealing with a dose response, we do not know over the projected lifetime of a wind turbine—say, 20 to 25 years—how far from people it is necessary to site wind turbines. To me, it is just wrong to knowingly harm the health and safety of people. There are responsible solutions to environmental issues that do not impact the health and safety of people nearby. Our humanity is in question when we continue to knowingly harm others. I thank you for your time today. I sincerely hope that you do take active steps to help the people in your country who are suffering due to living and working too close to wind turbines, and I am glad to answer questions you may have.
CHAIR: Thank you.
Senator LEYONHJELM: Good morning, Ms Green—I suppose it is not morning there. Thank you for your submission—
Ms Green: No, it is Sunday evening here.
Senator LEYONHJELM: Sunday evening? I am sorry to being interrupting your evening.
Ms Green: I am glad to speak with you.
Senator LEYONHJELM: You have interviewed people in 15 countries, I think you said, under all different circumstances and so on. I appreciate we are not pretending this is a gold-plated, statistical survey, but I am interested in your impressions because I think you have more experience of this than any other witness we have heard from. What do you think, based on your experience, are the common factors in the people you have interviewed in different communities living near wind turbines? What are the common factors to all of them?
Ms Green: I think we seriously do not have enough research to understand this problem fully. We saw the same symptoms. Slide 17 that I submitted has a listing of the common symptoms that Dr Pierpont lists in her book. I really believe that we just do not have enough information yet. But throughout the interviews, country by country, people described the same symptoms. Many times they used the same phrases to describe them and the same gestures—even if they were not speaking English. There is a common thread here.
Senator LEYONHJELM: Do you get the impression that not everybody exposed to wind turbines is affected the same? Have you seen evidence of substantial individual variation?
Ms Green: I have, indeed. Just as some people are more prone to asthma and some people are more prone to lung cancer, let’s say, or any disease, we did see a variation. It appeared that if there were people who were, say, prone to migraine headaches, they were severely affected. But, again, there were people who did not seem to have the symptoms who were living either in the same house or nearby. I do not know whether it is a question of time, if over 20 years people become more sensitised and they will become sick. Very frequently we did hear the same theme running through the stories of the people we interviewed, where, say, the husband thought he was one of the lucky ones and six months later he could not sleep, he was experiencing ear pressure, ear pain and severe headaches or other symptoms.
Senator LEYONHJELM: We are aware of community groups in English-speaking countries who have expressed opposition to wind turbines, but we are not aware of that sort of phenomenon in non-English speaking countries. Have you encountered that?
Ms Green: Yes, indeed. We travelled around the world. It was a 10-year goal. We had it very well planned out and we thought it was for pleasure. But people kept emailing us and asking us to come and interview them. So we met people in a lot of non-English speaking countries, and they were such nice people, I have to say. They had just about any profession you would like to mention. They just wanted to tell their story. Many times these people wanted to talk to us for other reasons such as their house had been devalued because the wind turbines were nearby. As they were listening to other people in the room talking about their health problems, these people realised that they had been struggling with the same illness since the wind turbines were constructed nearby. They had never made that correlation before; in fact, they were quite frustrated. They told us that they would go back and back continually to their healthcare provider and talk about these symptoms, and they could not find a resolution or a reason. As I said, there is one man I recall quite vividly just sobbing—and that was in 2012; he was in his 80s. He had realised that since the wind turbines had been constructed nearby he was experiencing these symptoms that were the common symptoms.
Senator LEYONHJELM: Some witnesses have suggested to us that there is a relationship between not only the distance their residence is from the turbine but also the power of the turbine, the size of the turbine. Have you been able to come to any conclusions on that or is that outside your interest area?
Ms Green: No, it is not outside my interest area. In fact, it is quite alarming to me, because I have interviewed people who live near wind turbines that you in Australia would probably consider to be quite small and solitary—wind turbines that are 100 kilowatts, even—and they are experiencing health problems, even people living near a 10-kilowatt wind turbine. Frankly, it is the nearest wind turbine to where I live, and a number of neighbours are having problems, and not just with the audible noise but with the infrasound and low-frequency noise, based upon the symptoms they are reporting to me. It really is quite alarming. In my state, Massachusetts, there is a woman who has told me she lives more than five miles from the nearest wind turbine and she is quite ill. The onset of her symptoms was when the wind turbine was constructed. When she went on trips she was fine; when she came back she was ill, and it has only become worse over time. That wind turbine is not as powerful as wind turbines in Australia, and it is a solitary wind turbine.
Again, we travelled quite a distance in France—mid-south-eastern France—over a number of days at the invitation of the people in the area and visited several different communities where there were wind turbines. One of the situations is that the wind turbine is 10 kilometres from one of the neighbours who is very ill and 12 kilometres from the other neighbour. The person who lives 12 kilometres away reported to us that she had been very supportive of the wind turbines. She is very well known as an environmentalist in the area, has quite a reputation as an environmentalist and is highly regarded. But she is quite ill, and it was very difficult for her to speak with us.
The other person related a story of trying to detect what the problem was because he could not sleep and was becoming so frustrated that he would go in his car to try to find the source of what was keeping him awake. He talked about going night after night until he went into the wilderness. He could not imagine what was there, and then he found the wind turbines. They were creating a humming noise in his head at that point. He could actually hear this frequency. In our discussions with researchers, medical professionals and scientists, one of the scientists told us that what people hear is mostly a bell curve—that is the way it was described to us. Most people hear audible noise within a certain range, but there are people who are more sensitive to noise, and they hear sounds that most people would consider inaudible.
Senator URQUHART: I have a lot of questions. I am not going to get through them all, so I am wondering whether you are able to take some on notice at the end.
Ms Green: I will try. I am very busy, but I will try.
Senator URQUHART: In your submission you say you run a healthcare consultancy. Do you have any qualifications in health care or medicine?
Ms Green: I have a background in education.
Senator URQUHART: What is the name of your company?
Ms Green: I do not want that on the record.
Senator URQUHART: Can I ask why?
Ms Green: I am speaking today as a private citizen. I would be glad to give you that information if it is held as in-confidence.
Senator URQUHART: Okay. How many employees do you have?
Ms Green: My husband has passed away. He was my business partner, and I have scaled back the business. I am the only employee at this point in time. However, I will tell you that I have created in our company, with teams of people, educational programs that have been implemented throughout the United States. One of the oncology programs that was created by my team, which was quite a large team, interviewed over 100 oncology patients throughout the United States and numerous doctors and nurses and was mandatory for all of the oncology nurses in the Kaiser health system in California.
Senator URQUHART: In your submission you say that 300,000 physicians and healthcare professionals have undertaken training through your company.
Ms Green: That is correct.
Senator URQUHART: What are the products or services? Is it communication? What is it that you actually sell?
Ms Green: There is a number of different core competencies in our company. One is developing educational programs around different disease states, such as oncology, diabetes, heart disease and various other disease states. Another path we have taken is to develop a service quality initiative. My husband was an extraordinary speaker and was often the keynote speaker for national conferences in all sectors of the healthcare industry.
Senator URQUHART: In your opening statement you talked about how you had interviewed many people from various countries. I could not find any of the transcripts, either in your submission or online. I am sorry if I have missed them.
Ms Green: You have not missed them. In the company we are still in the process of editing the films. It was a huge undertaking of many months, at huge expense. There is a lot of information that is still being edited.
Senator URQUHART: Are you able to provide copies of the transcripts and the full names of the people you interviewed?
Ms Green: No. It is on film; it is videotaped interviews, and the film is being edited.
Senator URQUHART: You talked about how you undertook the research after you had new information from people within your area who were concerned about wind farms. Was that the purpose of the interviews?
Ms Green: No. In my town, one month after we learned that our energy committee wanted to put one 1.65 wind turbine in our town—and we had conducted the research and people in our town were quite concerned—our board of selectmen, which is like your town councils, decided to not move forward with the project. I am now on my energy committee, as secretary, and we are devising a plan to become 100 per cent electrical energy efficient without wind energy but using other alternative methods. Are you asking me what propels me to do the interviews?
Senator URQUHART: Yes. I guess my real reasoning was whether the purpose of the interviews was to inform the body of research on international attitudes to wind farms. Is that why—
Ms Green: No. It is not an attitude; it is to understand the realities of living near wind turbines—living, working, attending school, being incarcerated near wind turbines.
What happened was that my stepson was living in Australia and we went to Australia at the end of 2010. I knew there was a location called Waubra and I had seen the Dean report that had been recently published. I put out one little email asking ‘We will be in the Melbourne area and is it possible to meet some of the people that are living near the wind turbines at Waubra? Is it possible to see the Waubra area?’
It was amazing that I was connected with the people in that area of Australia. My husband and I drove to the area and we interviewed over 17 people in one day. They welcomed us into their homes. We did not know what to expect. We turned the camera on and we asked them questions, and they told us their story. We had no idea what we were going to find. We went to New Zealand and people emailed us after they had heard we had been to Waubra. They asked us if we would come and visit them and interview them. We did that in two different locations in New Zealand. When we came home we put together this film called Pandora’s Pinwheels—
Senator URQUHART: You interviewed people—
Ms Green: During our 2012 travels we just thought we would go back to Waubra and talk to the people at Waubra because we had been emailing them over the year. But people around the world kept on emailing us and asking us to come and interview them.
Senator URQUHART: So you conducted interviews in 15 countries, as I understand it from your submission. Is that how you got the contact information on the people you interviewed?
Ms Green: I do not understand your question. Everywhere we were travelling people kept on emailing us and contacting us and asking if we would come and interview them and talk with them. They wanted to go on camera and tell their story. We had no agenda; we had no plan. We work in the healthcare industry; we talk about various illnesses and disease states, and we educate doctors and nurses about disease states. I am sorry; I want to retract that: we find a cross-section where patients are having issues with the communication around their disease state, and the doctors and nurses are having issues around communicating with their patients. We find those intersections and help doctors and nurses better communicate with the patients. So we are trying to improve patient care. That is what we do as one of the core competencies of our business.
When we found the health problems with the wind turbines and when we saw in every country we visited that people were saying the same thing, we wanted to get that word out to people like you who are hearing from your constituents that they are having health problems. That is all I want to do—to provide you with the truth.
Senator DAY: Ms Green, as you might imagine, we have received submissions from hundreds of people who have reported adverse health impacts and yet we are being accused of trying to destroy the wind industry. We are being accused of rigging this inquiry and of being engaged in a political stitch up. What has been your experience with such hostility towards genuine inquiry?
Ms Green: I really do not have a response for you, Senator. I have heard a lot of stories from people and I have experiences myself, but I really do not have a response on that topic.
Senator DAY: Okay. I will follow up then: you say that a number of governments around the world are realising there is a need for more or better regulation surrounding the wind energy industry. Which governments are doing better in this area, in your opinion?
Ms Green: I know that in my state, I have a new governor and my governor has a background in health care, and I am expecting that my governor understands that people do have health problems when they live and work too close to wind turbines in my state.
Senator BACK: Ms Green, I have just one quick question; I know that we are over time. In Australia, we are proceeding to have independent medical research undertaken for the first time. One of the proposals put to us is that they try and simulate this effect of either noise or infrasound, and do so in a one-off exposure in a clinically sterile circumstance for exposure times of somewhere between 10 to 30 minutes and an hour. From what you have learned and heard—and from interviewing people—do you think there would be anything to be learned in exposing somebody for a very limited period of time, and once only, in a sort of laboratory-type circumstance? Do you believe that is likely to lead to any reasonable outcome or result that we might be able to use?
Ms Green: Senator, I am not a researcher or a doctor. But given what I have heard from people and what people have reported to me, I find it highly unlikely that that would have any results that would have any validity.
Senator BACK: Thank you.
CHAIR: Thank you for evidence today to the committee, Ms Green. You will receive questions on notice and if you are able to come back to us with answers to those, that would be appreciated.
Ms Green: Absolutely. I would like to thank the committee; the chair, Senator Madigan, and the members of the committee, and also to thank you, Graham.
The Australian wind industry is copping a belting from all sides at the moment.
With the Senate Inquiry about to release its final report on the great wind power fraud; retailers flatly refusing to enter long-term Power Purchase Agreements – essential to obtain finance for new wind farms; and with an increasing number of farmers refusing to host these things and/or hell-bent on getting out of their contracts to do so, its parasites and spruikers have been reduced to making wild and unsubstantiated claims about the continued growth of wind power in European countries such as Germany, Denmark, Spain and the UK.
The only trouble with that story is the fact that all of them have slammed the bag on further subsidies; some of them have, in effect, set upmoratoriums against any more new wind farms; and all of them are facing a furious backlash from power consumers (read ‘voters’) fed up with escalating power bills.
The consequence of the European’s retreat from their respective wind power disasters is that investment in wind power has dropped off a cliff (see the graph above – which tends to suggest a little trend) – in the UK, with David Cameron’s election win, subsidies have been pulled to a halt and, as an inevitable result, hundreds of threatened projects have been blown to the four winds.
The unvarnished truth about the European wind power debacle isn’t something you’re likely to read in any of the struggling Fairfax mastheads; or hear about on your ABC. No, as has often been the case with the mainstream press, it’s down to Graham Lloyd from The Australian, to throw a little light on the subject.
Europe slashes subsidies for renewables as energy prices rise
The Australian
Graham Lloyd
25 July 2015
Shorten’s vow on green energy comes just as other governments scale back
More than three million people a week watch the heute-show, Germany’s answer to The Chaser, which cuts through the pretence to slaughter society’s holy cows.
Last year heute-show host, comedian and journalist Oliver Welke, sacrificed the holiest of them all, Germany’s multi-billion-euro renewable energy transformation that routinely is held up as green-friendly world’s best practice. “Could it be that the Grand Coalition has gone nuts?” Welke said.
His comments followed release of an expert panel report commissioned by the Merkel government that found the much lauded Renewable Energy Act (EEG) a failure.
“So she (Merkel) pays these academic eggheads and as a thank you they give her in writing that she’s dumber than a box of hair!” said Welke. “Her own experts write ‘the green energy policy makes energy prices go up up up … and leads to less climate protection’,” he said.
Cue the canned laughter. Increasingly, however, it is not funny. Particularly not for German electricity consumers whose power bills have risen to become the second highest in Europe, behind Denmark.
And not for German industry, which has threatened to shift manufacturing offshore because it cannot compete with lower energy prices in the US.
Proving that Welke’s quips were not all jest, the German government has since slashed subsidy support for new wind and solar projects after it was forced to face the economic reality of what had been promised.
The German experience is relevant for Australia given the ALP’s pledge this week to boost Australia’s renewable energy target to 50 per cent by 2030 without any real details on how this would be achieved and the possible cost.
Also relevant is the green energy subsidy train wreck unfolding in Britain since the national election. This week, the Cameron government’s Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Amber Rudd, cut the subsidies to small-scale solar projects following earlier cuts to subsidies for onshore wind, large-scale solar and energy efficiency schemes.
The newly re-elected government also has angered the renewable energy industry with the introduction of a tax on producers of green power.
But Britain and Germany are not alone.
Since the global financial crisis, renewable energy subsidies have been slashed across Europe including Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, Denmark and elsewhere.
The lesson around the world is that while projections for future investment in renewables remain high, the free ride from electricity users in developed nations is coming to an end.
Britain’s Department of Energy and Climate Change has estimated the cost of renewables in Britain could reach £9.1 billion ($19.3bn) a year by the 2020-21 tax year compared with a proposed budget of £7.6 bn.
“We can’t have the situation where industry has a blank cheque and that cheque is paid for by people’s bills,” Rudd told BBC radio.
“My priorities are clear,” she told the Financial Times. “We need to keep bills as low as possible for hardworking families and businesses while reducing our emissions in the most cost-effective way. Our support has driven down the cost of renewable energy significantly. As costs continue to fall it becomes easier for parts of the renewables industry to survive without subsidies.”
After all, isn’t that what the renewables industry had promised?
But Jim Watson, from the UK Energy Research Centre, has warned that if solar subsidies disappeared completely the government risks the industry “dropping off a cliff”.
The change of approach to renewables does not suggest that governments in Europe have weakened their concerns about climate change or resolve to cut carbon dioxide emissions as part of a grand compact due to be declared in Paris in December.
But the more tough-love approach being adopted reflects public anger at rising power prices and concerns that public support may stifle innovation rather than promote it.
This is one reading of the report at the centre of the German comedy skit.
The report was prepared by the Commission for Research and Innovation (EFI) and recommended the Merkel government abolish all subsidies for green energy. The EFI report concluded that the system of feed-in-tariffs, under which the green power producers were paid guaranteed above market prices, was fundamentally flawed.
Subsidy support was neither a cost-effective way to address climate change nor was it producing a measurable effect on innovation, when assessed by the registration of patents.
“For both these reasons, there is no justification for a continuation of the EEG,” the report said.
The findings were seized on by German industry, including the BDI Industry Association, which represents about one-quarter of the German economy.
BDI managing director Markus Kerber told Reuters all support for renewable technologies must be designed in a way to “help companies be competitive and to innovate”.
But the EFI report findings were rejected by Germany’s economy ministry and environment groups.
Since the report was released, however, the German government has radically overhauled its feed-in tariff structure and renewable energy subsidy schemes.
Caps have been put on the amount of new onshore wind and solar that can be added to supply and the rates paid for renewable energy supply have been cut.
Support for renewables continues to be granted for a 20-year period but at much lower rates after the first five years.
Except for small plants, most renewables power sales will be sold by “direct marketing”, with payments supplemented by premiums similar to the support rates. The new scheme replaces feed-in tariffs, which the EC has ordered to be phased out over 2016 to 2020.
The government also has pulled back from placing a promised levy on coal-fired power plants and baulked at ordering the immediate shutdown of the most highly polluting.
Coal producers also have been told they will be compensated if they participate in a new “capacity reserve” system where coal-fired plants are kept in reserve and brought online when needed.
The reserve system again highlights a key weakness of the renewables revolution to date, intermittency.
Despite expanding its coal-fired industry to help replace baseload power surrendered through the closure of nuclear plants in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan, Germany is still forced to draw heavily on nuclear power from neighbouring countries to back up renewables when the wind fails to blow or sun to shine.
Supporters of the renewable transformation say these purchases are balanced by the sale of surplus renewable energy to neighbouring markets at other times.
But this misses the fundamental point that, unlike coal, gas and nuclear, exactly when renewable energy will be available cannot be guaranteed to match when it is needed.
The proof of intermittency in Australia is the extent to which South Australia draws on brown-coal fired generators in Victoria to secure its electricity supply during times of low wind.
The EU is pushing to greatly expand the trade of electricity between states to mirror Australia’s National Electricity Market.
In addition to guaranteed above-markets rates, intermittency helps explain why the addition of large scale renewables can lead to higher prices for electricity consumers.
“When you study the states of Australia that have had dramatic increases in their household power bills in recent years you will find a direct correlation to the number of wind turbines that have been connected to the grid in those states,” independent senator John Madigan told the Senate last month. “You will find the same correlation in European countries.
This is irrespective of whether wholesale electricity prices fall as a result of additional renewable energy forcing its way into an already oversupplied market.
Indeed, Germany has some of the lowest wholesale electricity prices in Europe but some of the highest retail prices.
This is because any money received on the spot market is of only secondary consideration for renewable energy suppliers who receive additional subsidy payments.
But an oversupply of electricity from renewables — and the depressing effect it has on spot prices — is potentially devastating for the economics of traditional generators.
This is why Germany is being forced to consider paying subsidies for coal and gas plants to keep them on standby.
Supporters of renewable energy argue many of these problems will be overcome as electricity grids develop through the take-up of new battery storage technology and more sophisticated monitoring and control systems.
The big generators, in Europe and Australia, are anticipating the change.
In a recent interview, former World Energy Council European chairman Johannes Teyssen said the energy world was diverging.
“On the one hand, the energy world of the future — characterised by renewables, intelligent networks and tailor-made customer-orientated energy solutions — is taking shape rapidly,” he said.
“On the other hand, the classical energy world — of the backbone systems characterised by high-volume production and trading structures for electricity, gas and other commodities — remains irreplaceable for the public good.”
But renewables will not simply replace conventional energy sources and, poorly handled, the transition carries grave risks to the security of once-stable electricity supplies.
More than anything, governments are learning that electricity consumers all around the world are becoming more wary of paying twice for power.
With the pullback of government subsidies, the renewable energy industry is challenged to innovate, both on cost of production and security of supply, and prove it is capable of standing on its own. The Australian
Another solid effort from Graham Lloyd, but – as we’ve pointed out before – the wind industry’s claims about cost-effective storage of bulk electricity is little more than patent nonsense:
Even Bill Gates has pointed to the bleeding obvious:
“There’s no battery technology that’s even close to allowing us to take all of our energy from renewables,” he said, pointing out – aswe’ve noted on these pages before – that it’s necessary “to deal not only with the 24-hour cycle but also with long periods of time where it’s cloudy and you don’t have sun or you don’t have wind.”
And we’ve dealt with the ludicrous concept of an electricity grid somehow reaching a state of ‘Zen consciousness’ that will overcome the chaotic and only occasional delivery of wind power – on that score, the video of Andrew Dodson at the end of this post is well worth watching:
And, for a properly detailed insight into the cost of Australia’s wind power debacle, here’s the speech by Senator John Madigan, referred to by Graham:
Slowly, but surely – thanks to efforts by journos like Graham – Australians are waking up to the fact that the wind power fraud is precisely the same, the world over.
"Mothers Against Wind Turbines™" Phoenix Rising... 