Wind Turbines causing a “World of Trouble”!

September 4, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Turbine protests: Green Energy Act under fire

Credit: Kingston, ON, Canada / CKWS TV | CKWS Newswatch | September 03, 2015 | www.ckwstv.com ~~

Whether you like them or not, wind and solar panel farms are going up in an area near you. The Liberal government is approving wind and solar farms across the province, most recently here on Amherst Island.

“They continue to approve these wind turbines, they’re doing it in Prince Edward County, they’re doing it on Amherst Island, they’re doing it in Addington Highlands, they’re doing it all across South Western Ontario, it’s not providing a reliable source of electricity and an affordable source.”

The Green Energy Act and the province’s Hydro policy were slammed during a public meeting hosted by MPP Todd Smith in Prince Edward County. About fifty concerned residents from across the region attended the roundtable discussion where Senator Bob Runicman talked about the steps anti-wind turbine groups could take to quash the act …like challenging it in a court of law and calling for a judicial inquiry.

“I think we’ve got to find ways to raise funds to be able to do this and at the very least try and delay it until the next provincial election and hopefully we’ll have a change in government with a different approach.”

Parker Gallant, a writer with the Financial Post and Green Energy Act critic says electricity costs are forcing people to make a tough choice, heat or eat.

“We have just a mess in our electricity sector it’s probably the most complex in all of North America.”

“It’s nothing short of insanity but they continue down that path and we have to fight them with every possible tool available.”

Smith says the green energy act is to blame.

“It’s taken Ontario from having the lowest cost electricity to the highest in North America in just a couple of years.”

“And it’s not only affecting homeowners. Goodyear decided not to expand it’s Napanee location. One of the reasons…rising electricity costs. A recent report from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce suggests that one in 20 Ontario Businesses will close their doors in the next five years due to rising electricity prices. Morganne Campbell CKWS Newswatch Prince Edward County.”

People All Over the World are Fighting Back Against the Wind Scam!

September 2, 2015September 2, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Forces Marshall in International Revolt Against the Great Wind Power Fraud

September 2, 2015 by stopthesethings

***

Across the Globe – wherever these things things have been threatened upon rural communities – or the threat has been realised – outrage follows.

One line spun is that the hostility is an entirely English speaking phenomenon. That piffle was firmly skewered by Lilli-Anne Green (an American researcher and documentary film-maker, who has spoken to hundreds of victims around the World) – when she appeared before the Australian Senate:

Lilli-Anne Green – no ‘Green’ Dupe – tells Senate: Wind Farm Health Impacts ‘Universal’

And STT has picked up plenty of examples to the same effect:

Winning Taiwanese Hearts and Minds?

Turkish Court Shuts Down 50 Turbines: Yaylaköy Residents Delighted at 1st Chance to Sleep in Years

Germany’s Wind Power ‘Dream’ Becomes a Living Nightmare

Vestas’ Danish Victims Lay Out the FACTS

Now, that’s not to overlook the fact that the English themselves are just as hostile to the concept of massive streams of government mandated subsidies, being filched from power consumers and taxpayers and used by wind power outfits to literally steal peoples’ homes.

This ripping little website shows just how switched on our British counterparts are – going head-to-head with the most polished band of liars and fraudsters ever assembled in the same tent:http://www.aswar.org.uk/

The site is a cracker; and leaves no room for error about what is – to those gifted with our good friends ‘logic’ and ‘reason’ – patently obvious: THESE THINGS DON’T WORK – on any level.

Here’s a sample of the unassailable from its pages – in relation to an effort by RES to destroy another idyllic part of Ol’ Blighty:

The subsidy farming McAlpine/RES, the same massive group who the BBC’s Panorama accused of setting up the illegal blacklist in the building trade, have put in another application to build four wind turbines in the Warwickshire heritage and wildlife beauty spot of the Upper Swift Valley.

This new application, along with bribes for the NIMBYs, will not only receive the same degree of local rejection on the same grounds as the earlier proposal was unanimously rejected but with the encroachment of an intense windfarm landscape in the last two years, there are even more planning reasons now for rejection.

There is no rational energy or economic reason in favour of these wind turbines that steal some 15% of everybody’s bills and stuff the subsidies into the pockets of speculators and rent-seeking landowners – 10% (33% by 2020) in green taxes plus a proportion of the new infra-structure cost of linking turbines to the grid.

How can it be right for companies to be paid twice to three times the going rate for electricity when they are damaging the environment and communities?

The alarmist propaganda in favour of wind turbines relies on the argument that they reduce the UK’s 2% of the world’s man-made CO2 emissions and thereby infinitesimally reduce global warming.

But actually the intermittency of wind makes it necessary to have fossil-fuel back-up spinning the whole time for the National Grid to maintain an even voltage; (electricity cannot be stored) therefore wind turbines don’t even save CO2 anyway. (also the scientists say that GW has not increased since 1997 – seventeen years of stand-still).

Mr Lorne Smith from ASWAR (Against Subsidised Windfarms Around Rugby) said:

“The community around Churchover/Cotesbach turned out in force to show their dislike at being victims of the windfarm scam for a second time. With each windfarm job in the UK being subsidised by £100,000 from our electricity bills, and 10 McAlpine/RES staff supporting their propaganda exhibition, there was £1 million of our money walking around Churchover today!”

It is surprising that anybody can support this energy policy that is making this nation globally uncompetitive, driving manufacturing jobs overseas and ordinary people into fuel poverty (a record number of people died from cold last winter), while attacking the asset values of innocent property owners and killing birds and bats (scientists say 900,000 bats are killed by wind turbines every year).

“Surprising”, indeed!

In the latter stages of 2015 – with the scale and scope the fraud laid bare for all to see – continuing ‘support’ for wind power can’t be explained by simple, seasoned ignorance. As Ben Franklin put it:

“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid”.

Those that parade as ‘journalists’ – especially at wind-worship cult-compounds – like The Guardian, the BBC – and here at Fairfax and the ABC – they’re clearly working very hard; with obvious success.

But – despite long, sweaty sessions inside their editorial bunkers, aimed at ensuring the public remain blissfully ignorant, too – the FACTS keep bubbling to the surface.

Facts like the obvious impacts caused to health – like constant sleep deprivation – from incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound, that leads to homes being uninhabitable and, therefore, worthless:

Brits to Force £2 Wind Power Outfits to Hold £Millions in Reserve to Pay Damages to Victims & for Decommissioning

Along with every other sensate being on the face of the Earth, the Poles have long-since had enough of being treated as wind industry “road-kill”, too. Hence, this promise made in April this year, by Presidential hopeful, Andrzej Duda:

“… if I am elected to be the President of Poland, I will propose a legislative initiative to introduce safe setbacks of wind parks from people’s dwellings…”

***

Andrzej Duda
Candidate in the Polish Presidential Elections
Zabkowice Slaskie, 8 April 2015

Fellow Poles!

The recent weeks have brought many intense encounters with people across Poland in the context of this presidential campaign. There have also been numerous opportunities to discuss the maladies encountered by citizens and their everyday worries. It has become apparent that the siting of wind farm developments gives rise to frequent protests, which are heard in hundreds of municipalities in our country.

Poles complain that their voices are being ignored, and large wind turbines that are placed excessively close to dwellings not only ruin the landscape, but also cause a serious reduction in the value of their properties. Furthermore, they bring attention to numerous procedural irregularities. These were also identified by the Supreme Audit Office (NIK) in its July 2014 report. I am sorry to say that the governing coalition of the Civic Platform and Polish Peasants’ Party have successfully prevented, during the last several years, the adoption of measures intended to properly regulate the matter of where wind farms are located.

I do recognise the importance of the issues addressed here. Therefore, I declare that, if I am elected to be the President of Poland, I will propose a legislative initiative to introduce safe setbacks of wind parks from people’s dwellings, ban such developments in municipalities where no zoning plans are currently in place, and, most importantly, to ensure effective participation of society in ongoing administrative proceedings.

Yours faithfully,

Andrzej Duda

[original in Polish available here]

Setting out with a sensible policy, built on common sense and human compassion, Mr Duda was duly elected. No surprises there.

STT hears that hundreds of Australian rural communities are gearing up, too.

The Coalition’s LRET policy is designed by its instigator and head wind industry spruiker – young Gregory Hunt – to see another 2,500 of these things speared into thousands of backyards across the Country. Labor’s insane 50% RET would up the ante, by carpeting the best, most productive and densely populated regions with more than 10,000:

Labor’s Renewable Target is Pure Insanity: the Coalition’s Target is Simply Madness

Given that our political betters are encumbered with ‘tin ears’ and ‘flat feet’, it’s now down to every man, woman and child to fight for what’s rightfully theirs: the ability to live, sleep in and otherwise comfortably use their very own homes.

Love those Aussies! They are Tearing Down the Windweasel’s Fortress!

August 31, 2015 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Senators Back & Leyonhjelm Keep Hammering the Great Wind Power Fraud

August 31, 2015 by stopthesethings

***

Following almost 6 months of solid graft, 8 hearings in 4 States and the ACT, dozens of witnesses and almost 500 submissions, the Senate Inquiry into the great wind power fraud delivered its ‘doorstop’ final report, which runs to some 350 pages – available here: Senate Report

The first 200 pages are filled with facts, clarity, common sense and compassion; the balance, labelled “Labor’s dissenting report”, was written by the wind industry’s parasites and spruikers – including the Clean Energy Council (these days a front for Infigen aka Babcock & Brown); theAustralian Wind Alliance; and Leigh Ewbank from the Enemies of the Earth.

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.

And the wind industry’s stooge on the Inquiry, Anne Urquhart – is still out their fighting a faltering, rearguard action – long after the battle for wind power supremacy was lost – a bit like the tales of ragged, 80 year old Japanese soldiers that kept fighting the Imperial War, until they were dragged out of the jungle and into the 21st Century. Nevermind the facts, when delusion will do!

****

Among those Senators on the Committee – who pulled no punches in getting the truth out – were Liberal Senator from WA, Chris Back and STT Champion, Liberal Democratic Party Senator, David Leyonhjelm from NSW.

While the wind industry and its parasites have been praying to the Wind-Gods that the whole thing might just ‘blow over’, those Senators on the Inquiry – not in thrall of Infigen, Vestas & Co – are still in there fighting for a fair-go for rural communities, across the Country; and power consumers, everywhere.

Always pleased to disappoint the beleaguered and dwindling band of wind worshippers in this country, STT is delighted that Chris Back and David Leyonhjelm show no sign of letting up.

Here they are giving the wind industry another whipping in the Senate (video and Hansard transcript)..

****

THE SENATE
PROOF
COMMITTEES
Wind Turbines Select Committee
Report
SPEECH
Thursday, 13 August 2015

Senator BACK (Western Australia) (18:11): History will record that Senator Urquhart’s words will come back home to haunt her in the future, as indeed will many of those who have so derisively commented adversely on the outcomes of this report. Let me put on the record that I am very much in favour of aspects of renewable energy. I proudly ordered and had constructed the largest number of small-scale solar units, hot water systems—some 240—ever in Western Australia. I also had responsibility for the first wind turbine in Western Australia. It failed; in fact, the first four all failed. That is history.

I also want to place on the record my strong support for hydroelectricity in your state, Senator Urquhart, and in the Snowy Mountains. When you can generate in the high peak periods and when you can use off-peak periods to pump water back up to generate again the next time it is needed surely has to be the ultimate value of renewable energy. I do not think wind turbines are a renewable energy source.

I reflected on this driving back from Sydney on Sunday. I happened to be looking at the wind turbines just out of Canberra and thought to myself that I want to look at this in both environmental terms and economic terms. I said to myself, ‘What is the environmental benefit of wind turbines?’ Of course, the benefit would be greenhouse gases forgiven during the generation process. I said, ‘That’s good.’ So that is a positive benefit. What are the negatives? What do you have to take off that greenhouse gas forgiven? Firstly, you have to take off the massive cost of greenhouse gases, the carbon dioxide, used in the construction—the original iron ore, the steel, the transportation and the tens of thousands of tonnes of concrete that go into each of these.

The committee had evidence—and Senator Urquhart did not like it much—from Mr Hamish Cumming, whom I found to be a very credible witness, that about 16 years of the use of a wind turbine would be necessary before you would actually get back to the cost-benefit of the greenhouse gases forgiven as a result of the construction.

Secondly, what do you take off that greenhouse gas benefit?

You take off the cost of the baseload generated electricity, the carbon dioxide, required when you need coal, gas or whatever other form of baseload generation you need in reserve, because when the wind does not blow and the ship does not go you do need another form of baseload power. Then something that will have a profound effect on people who are hosting wind turbines—and local governments around this country—will be the environmental cost of decommissioning these wind turbines at the end. So I suspect there is very little, if any, actual environmental benefit.

I then looked at economic benefits. The benefit from wind turbines would be the value of the power generated, but from that what do you deduct? You have got to deduct the huge costs of the renewable energy certificates that are quaintly absorbed and the burden on consumers. Funnily enough, consumers are also taxpayers—isn’t that amazing? This is not a tax, the renewable energy certificate; it is a ‘cost to the consumer’.

Somehow or other I do not think they are different people. Again, in an equation you must take away the dollar value of the baseload power that is sitting there doing nothing in case the wind blows or does not blow. In the future I hope we see effective, valuable battery storage. Whether we do or not, nevertheless it still comes at a cost. If you want to look at the economic benefits of these wind turbines, then it is one of the costs. And again you have the dollar value of the decommissioning process.

I admire that Senator Urquhart and indeed, in Cairns, Deputy President Senator Marshall attended each one of the hearings. That is to their credit. I have got to say that unfortunately the Greens political party—despite the fact that Senator Siewert chaired the inquiry in 2009—chose not to participate at all in this inquiry. I do not think that is to their credit.

Senator Urquhart mentioned the Canadian study, which has been put out there as a very credible study—until you get some advice from other credible Canadian scientists, who told us that when the data was collated, this mass of Canadian data, they just happened to reject, with no reasons given, the majority of the data that was captured and collated. They decided to ignore it—no reasons given.

The other interesting thing is that they also decided to eliminate all people under the age of 18 and older than 79 years. No reason was given; they just dropped them off. Under 18 and over 79—they do not count. In the days when I was around as a scientist if without explanation somebody were to produce international results and ask for them to be credited I would expect them to give some explanation as to why they would wipe out a significant proportion of the population and indeed a significant amount of the dataset.

Our dear friend Professor Chapman speaks of the nocebo effect. This is the effect that you think you are going to get sick from wind turbines, or you think you are going to get sick going out in a boat, so you do. Initially Professor Chapman would always say, ‘I’ve never ever heard of a host who, if he or she is making money out of these, got sick.’

The first ones, unfortunately for dear old Professor Chapman, were Mr and Mrs Mortimer. Mr Mortimer is a retired naval officer whose sphere of influence happened to be the movement of waves through solids, liquids and gases, so he knew a little bit about this. Mortimer was the first person to stand up and say, ‘Despite the fact that the income we are getting from these couple of turbines is enormously important to our retirement income, we can’t live on our farm.’ Funnily enough, they could not see the turbines but they knew when they were on. When they went away from their home for a week or so, strangely enough the nocebo effect seemed to disappear.

The other interesting case was that of a Mr and Mrs Gare, who appeared before us in Adelaide. Mr and Mrs Gare make $200,000 a year from hosting wind turbines. Mr and Mrs Gare said to us, ‘If we could have our time over again, if we could get rid of these wind turbines and get rid of the $200,000 so that we could go back to living on our farm and working on our farm, we would do it tomorrow.’ I do not know where the nocebo effect came in there, Professor Chapman.

In the time available left to me, all I will do is ask this question. I ask it of Senator Urquhart and I ask it of others who spoke before us. Why do these people carry on the way they do?

The case down at Cape Bridgewater—five generations of the family have lived on their farm, so what is in it for them to walk away from their community? People say that they are not really sick at all, that it is just in their heads. It is in their heads. You are quite right. Nausea, anxiety, annoyance and sleeplessness are sure as hell in your head. The question is: why would that family walk away? Why would their children not be able to go to school? Do they get compensation like in the old RSI days? No, they do not; there is no compensation out there. There is no hope of any reward for carrying on like this. They lose their friends in their communities. We know that in many rural communities it tears communities apart.

I have said before in this place that we have circumstances now in my home state of Western Australia where bushfire brigade members do not turn out if there happens to be a fire on the farm of someone they are opposed to on this. CWA members—and they are the two pillars of rural communities: bushfire brigades and CWAs. People are not going. They are not shopping in the towns. Why is that? Is it that they all of a sudden woke up one day and, as Senator Urquhart said, they are not sick at all?

The value of their properties—we learnt all over Australia that their properties are effectively worthless. They have not just gone down significantly. People who moved into the Barossa Valley for their change of lifestyle, the tree change, are now in a situation where they have had to walk away. So what is in it for them? Generally there has got to be a motivator if you are going to change your whole lifestyle, if you are going to walk away from your friends—you bet your life. Do not worry about Senator Urquhart going on about English speaking—Germany, Finland. Why did the Prime Minister of the UK go into the election saying he is going to stop subsidising on-land turbines and win the election? There is a long way to go in this story. I assure you it is not finished.

***

Senator Leyonhjelm (New South Wales) (18:21): Today I take the opportunity to inform the Senate about the final report of the Senate Select Committee on Wind Turbines, as the previous two speakers have done, and why I moved to establish the inquiry. I wish to highlight three critical inquiry findings. First, there is no dispute that wind turbines emit infrasound; second, since 2009 the federal government has known and reported that inappropriate levels of infrasound cause adverse health impacts, whatever the source; and, third, wind farm guidelines and regulations do not require the measurement or restraint of infrasound levels.

As a distant observer of the debate on wind farms, I came to the inquiry with an open mind. I was opposed to the subsidies, but otherwise had no firm views. What prompted me to establish an inquiry was a meeting in my electorate office with half a dozen people from various rural communities. These were ordinary, down-to-earth people, people you would be pleased to have as neighbours. What became apparent was that something was terribly wrong with the planning and regulatory regime governing wind farms. I listened to their concerns with a growing sense of unease as they documented a litany of failures by government and the wind industry to address, or even acknowledge, what seemed like genuine issues.

I read the reports and the recommendations from the 2011 and 2012 Senate inquiries into wind farms and excessive sound, and noted that these all-party inquiries had recommended health and acoustical studies be undertaken as a priority.

At the time of the 2011 inquiry report, the Clean Energy Council welcomed these recommendations for medical research. But these recommendations were never acted upon, either by the Gillard government or the National Health and Medical Research Council, at least not prior to the establishment of the select committee.

The NHMRC only undertook backward looking literature reviews. They failed to commission research into the claimed link between wind turbine sound emissions and adverse health impacts. The NHMRC is the primary oversight body for medical research. Planning and health ministers, local councils, local GPs, the media and the wind industry all look for authoritative guidance from the NHMRC when responding to those complaining of being affected. The fact is that the NHMRC has been sitting on this issue for the best part of a decade. This has led to unnecessary anguish for many affected residents.

During the course of the inquiry, the NHMRC announced the first research grants to study wind farm sound emissions. Their grants are for a total of $2.5 million over five years. This is almost certainly entirely inadequate.

In evidence, acoustician Dr Bob Thorne noted this amount ‘would barely scratch the surface’. In fact, the NHMRC behaviour could be summarised as follows: ignore the problem as long as you can, equivocate when asked for guidance, and then grudgingly allocate a paltry sum stretched over five years to almost guarantee a non-result.

The inquiry report noted that ‘senior public health figures have also recognised that the quality of research of the NHMRC’s systemic review was sub-optimal’. In evidence, prominent New Zealand pyschoacoustician Dr Daniel Shepherd stated how surprised he was at how politicised the conduct of the NHMRC had been, to the point where health and medicine had been sidelined.

The wind industry also relies on the Australian Medical Association, the AMA. The committee found the AMA’s position statement lacked rigour. It described the AMA actions as ‘irresponsible and harmful’, and noted that the AMA ‘received pointed criticism’ for its position. Speaking for myself, I do not understand why the doctors’ union should be taken more seriously than any other union. They are not experts in anything.

One of the stand-out contributions to the inquiry was the evidence by acoustician Steven Cooper about his study of the Cape Bridgewater wind farm, commissioned by developer Pacific Hydro.

This was the first time a wind farm operator had cooperated in this type of study by providing wind speed data and allowing the stop and start of wind turbines. Cooper’s study demonstrated a correlation between certain phases of wind turbine operation and impacts felt by residents—some severe. His work was hailed as ground breaking by prominent acousticians from around the world.

Cooper’s report provides a platform from which health professionals can launch further research to determine definitively whether there is a causal link between turbine operations and adverse health impacts. This is a game-changer in providing researchers with an informed place to start their research. But it requires other wind turbine operators to cooperate, as Pacific Hydro did, and release their operating data. That indeed was the reason for the recommendations in the interim and final reports.

The inquiry heard many truly distressing stories of people driven from their homes by sound emitted from wind turbines. Residents told how, when they could take no more and left their homes for respite, they would recover, but when they returned, if the turbines were operating, they again suffered adverse impacts.

The inquiry heard from turbine hosts who receive $200,000 a year in rent and regret they ever agreed to host turbines. Senator Back has just referred to them. These people were previously enthusiastic supporters of wind power generation, but now would not live within 20 kilometres of a wind farm. It beggars belief that people who were so supportive of wind power and so financially rewarded now oppose the establishment of wind farms too close to residences, unless they suffer real rather than imagined effects on their lives.

Committee senators witnessed firsthand the callous indifference of some wind farm operators and their cheerleaders, who ridiculed and denigrated those who they described as ‘nutty anti-wind activists’. Wind farm operators argued that if they conformed to regulations, shown to be manifestly inadequate in protecting residents, they owed no further duty of care. This is eerily similar to evidence many years ago from tobacco companies, and I suspect the same fate awaits them.

The planning and regulatory governance for wind farms in every state was also shown to be shambolic, incompetent and not fit for purpose. The Victorian government cannot decide who should give approval for wind farms and who should monitor ongoing compliance. In the last few years this has gone from controlling at a state level to devolving it to local councils, and now the state government is taking back the approval stage while leaving compliance with councils.

Councillors and council officers gave evidence of incompetent state regulators providing little technical assistance to poorly resourced local councils which were responsible for assessing and approving billion dollar wind projects. Ongoing compliance monitoring costs tens of thousands of dollars, and this needs to be funded by ratepayers in financially strapped rural shires.

This inquiry report—the third in the last five years—is the most comprehensive in its recommendations and addresses the festering issues arising from the abject failure of the states to provide an appropriate planning and governance regime.

The states are rightly responsible for these matters, but the federal government, through the Renewable Energy Target and the large subsidies available to turbine operators, has driven the growth of the wind industry. If state governments choose not to have a robust governance regime for the wind industry they must expect to forgo the benefits of those subsidies flowing to their state, as per the recommendations of this inquiry.

I commend the inquiry report to the Senate, and urge the government to bring an end to this long, sorry saga by adopting the report’s recommendations. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Hansard, 13 August 2015

****

For more background on some of the topics canvassed above tap into the following:

SA Farmers Paid $1 Million to Host 19 Turbines Tell Senate they “Would Never Do it Again” due to “Unbearable” Sleep-Destroying Noise

Unwilling Turbine Hosts Tell Senate: Australia’s Most Notorious Wind Power Outfit – Infigen – a Team of Bullies, Liars & Thugs

Wind Industry’s CO2 Abatement Claims Smashed by Top Physics Professor – Dr Joe Wheatley

Angry Wind Farm Victims Pull the Trigger: Turbines Shot-Up in Montana and Victoria

Wind Industry’s Propaganda King – Simon Chapman Forced to Apologise to Dr Sarah Laurie for False & Malicious Taunts

David Mortimer, Turbine Host: An “Inconvenient” Wind Industry Fact

Dr Bruce Rapley Slams Australian Medical Association as Totally Unqualified Wind Industry Propagandists

The Snowy Scheme: Time to Do it Again

WINDWEASELS….and How They Intend to Steal Your Home & Your Property Rights….

August 29, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

How Wind Farm Subsidies are Used to Steal People’s Homes

August 29, 2015 by stopthesethings

***

In two well-drawn pieces, Jamin Hübner throws light on the greatest economic and environmental fraud of all time. His insight and clarity of expression are notable; and so is his particular focus on the fact that the massive and endless subsidies being thrown at wind power outfits (to make ‘possible’, the otherwise impossible) has the insidious and unjustified result of destroying the value of neighbours’ properties; or as Jamin puts it – “wind energy is one of the most efficient ways of depreciating land“.

Some might call it ‘appropriation by stealth’, we call it ‘state-sponsored theft’.

Wind farms the worst idea since Cash for Clunkers
The Daily Republic
Jamin Hübner
29 April 2015

Remember Cash for Clunkers? That 2009 government program that spent $6 billion to save $1 billion? Imagine walking up to a person and saying, “I want to save some money; I’ll give you six dollars if you give me one dollar back.” Genius. Leave it to Congress to devise (and enact) such brilliance.

There are dozens of government programs like these — all failures. The reason why is easy to understand: the government has no money of its own. It can only take from others and “give” some of it back. A full return is impossible, since this process of organized theft costs money itself. The end result is a net loss — regardless of how many jobs were temporarily created.

Wind farms is another such program. I didn’t realize this at first when witnessing their construction near Tripp (and soon to be Bon Homme County, where I was raised).

I used to think wind farms were about electricity … until I realized:

Few, if any, wind farms bring electricity to an area that does not already have it. It’s too much work and money to build an entire electrical grid from the ground up. Wind energy is “supplemental,” not essential.
Wind farms are subsidized by the government precisely because they generate a loss. Wind farms have to be paid to operate. People, uncoerced and unbribed, do not want wind farms because if they did, they would build them on their own like any other product in the free market.
Wind farms function as a tax deduction for the wealthy — which is why they are built in the first place. Warren Buffett says it best: “I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate … on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.” Exactly. Wind energy is a siphoning mechanism that offsets taxes and puts federal money into political and corporate pockets. Electricity and lease-agreement royalties are only a byproduct (and a great public cover). Proof of this is that wind farm production nearly stops every time the production credit gets suspended or canceled by Congress.

I use to think wind farms were “green energy” … until I realized:

Hundreds of thousands of birds (and even more bats) die each year from wind turbines.
At 450 to 500 feet tall, wind farms are a pilot’s nightmare (recall the death of four air passengers near Highmore last year). Crop dusting has now become a risky and complicated agricultural venture.
Wind turbines are made of heavy gauge metal and concrete — transported across the nation with the heaviest gas-guzzlers of machinery. While not as bad as Al Gore’s private jet, the carbon footprint is anything but green.
Local soils are depleted because of underground vibrations, audible and inaudible low-frequency noise (“infrasound”) and electromagnetic radiation from power cables that drive away earthworms and other local organisms, the same way loud marine motors drive away fish.
Wind energy cannot be stored (e.g., batteries) and can only harness wind speeds within a tight range.
Chances are, there will be no incentive to remove the turbines once the temporary government funds disappear. Massive steel towers rusting over decades in agricultural fields are not very “green.”

I used to think wind farms supported local energy … until I realized:

A substantial percentage of wind farms are owned by overseas investors/corporations. This is not evident until the initial developers literally “sell the farm” after having built it.
Wind turbines are typically not built by local construction workers and materials.
Because of noise, adverse health effects (e.g., loss of sleep), visual pollution (bright red lights at night and shadow-flicker during mornings/evenings) and all other related liabilities (e.g., shoddy 30- and 65-year wind right contracts), wind energy is one of the most efficient ways of depreciating land.
Small communities are divided, not united, over wind farm projects. One only has to read the Avon Clarion editorials for March and April to witness such intensity and strife. This isn’t to mention the deceptive methods of obtaining wind rights (wind developers put snake-oil salesmen to shame).

At the end of the day, it is not politics or science that determine how wind farms should develop. It is the right to private property. If some people don’t care about the noise, shadows and flashing lights, no problem. But for those who do, they should be justly compensated to the extent that their rights are violated. As Supreme Court Justice Andrew Napolitano observed in “It’s Dangerous to Be Right When the Government is Wrong,” “If you lived in a very crowded area, would the government be justified in preventing you from blaring extraordinarily loud music at midnight, or at least requiring you to pay “damages” to your neighbors for doing so?

“Certainly, by playing obnoxious music, you are diminishing your neighbors’ natural right to the use and enjoyment of their property. And over time, if you were habitually noisy, then most likely would decrease the market value of their property. Thus, although the government could not criminalize this kind of expression, it would be more than justified in making it actionable, or in other words, the basis for lawsuit.”
The Daily Republic

***

Let’s talk about money and wind farms
The Daily Republic
Jamin Hübner
14 August 2015

On April 29, The Daily Republic published my column, “Wind Farms: The Worst Idea Since Cash for Clunkers.” Since then, there have been several local responses to both my article and to criticism of wind energy in general. Allow me to briefly focus on two items.

I reminded readers that (all things considered) government programs cost greater than what such programs “produce.” Subsidies equal (inherently inefficient) income redistribution. The government cannot “pull a rabbit out of a hat.” In a May 14 column for The Daily Republic, Anthony Rezac essentially reached into a hat and proclaimed, “oh yes it can.” I will leave him to that imaginary world.

By June 8, the CEO of American Wind Association finished crafting a remarkably misleading piece of political prose for the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. Like Rezac and others, the majority of anti-wind concerns were casually dismissed while strings of dollar bills were lowered into readers’ faces and swung repeatedly (perhaps this would silence the critics). But, no—no fires were put out, and I might suggest that waving a dismissive hand at South Dakotans as if they were too gullible to care is not a particularly good strategy.

So, since all that pro-wind advocates seem capable of consistently conversing about is money, let’s talk about money and wind farms.

First, to repeat, wind farms have to be subsidized because they generate such a huge financial loss, and no one in the free market is silly enough to build them from their own resources. In Buffett’s words, “they don’t make sense without the tax credit.” It is precisely because of this monetary loss that pro-wind advocates have to resign to exaggerated estimates, numerical figures, and macro-level statistics (absent of micro-level realities) in the first place. They are on the defensive for good reasons.

Second, by comparison, wind energy is the most financially wasteful government-sponsored energy program in existence. This was ably demonstrated in a 2010 study conducted by Simmons et. al. for Utah State University. One key finding was, “In 2010 the wind energy sector received 42 percent of total federal subsidies while producing only 2 percent of the nation’s total electricity. By comparison, coal receives 10 percent of all subsidies and generates 45 percent and nuclear is about even at about 20 percent.”

These figures have not significantly improved today. And yet we are supposed to believe Tom Kiernan’s claim that wind energy will soon “compete” with other sources of energy? Like a tricycle in Nascar.

Third, claiming American wind energy helps the American economy by being distinctively “local” is absurd. Between 75-90 percent of wind farms are owned by foreign corporations/investors, and more than 60 percent of wind turbines are manufactured by foreign companies, according to Choma. American wind energy is as American as a pair of shoes labeled “Made in China.”

Fourth, property owners who have sold their wind rights may never earn their royalties fast enough to cover the loss in property values from owning them. In other words, those who are supposed to be making millions, don’t. (You can find this out yourself simply by asking around.) None of the financial figures produced by the AWA or — to my knowledge, by any pro-wind advocate — takes into full account this central negative factor: depreciation of land. This is significant not only because of the amount of depreciation for land near and under wind farms (which is high), but because of the ever-increasing value of land (amplifying the losses).

More than a half-dozen independent studies conducted by appraisers and university-sponsored groups in the last decade found a 15-59 percent decrease in property values on or near wind farms (see McCann Appraisal LLC, summaries). (Predictably, pro-wind studies creatively generate data with lower estimates).

Combined with 30-40 percent income tax on earnings from wind royalties, shoddy contracts often not inflation-adjusted and dependent on Washington’s empty wallet (and irrational politics), certain land-owners with wind farms ultimately earn pennies instead of millions over the long haul. (This is what you won’t hear when signing a 30- or 60-year contract.) Even for the lucky few in better situations, the profits still don’t add up to the glorious estimates because of these losses.

Fifth, because of this liability, investors will go elsewhere to invest their money (as will families in local communities). Few want to live on or near a wind farm, and no investor wants to invest in land that has any potential for significant depreciation. (And this is true whether land actually depreciates or not; ambiguity is enough to stop investors).

Sixth, as mentioned above, wind-farm developers’ numbers (whether royalty estimates, long term sales, “bringing money to the community,” etc.) are so out of touch with reality that it’s hard to even keep a straight face. Speaking of, Kiernan in his article even claims wind energy will contribute to the prevention of “a total of 22,000 premature deaths by mid-century” via cleaner air. What’s next? The vibration from turbines will cure constipation? Happy day, Farmer Joe.

Space does not allow for seventh, eighth, etc. But, wind energy advocates should at least pause before mindlessly regurgitating monetary figures in public and proclaiming everyone a financial winner with wind farms. Nothing is free, and the monstrous costs of wind energy are coming to the light year after year.
The Daily Republic

Climate Change Rhetoric is Nothing More Than a Cover for Wealth Redistribution.

August 26, 2015 / 1957chev / 3 Comments

Nine Experts Slam EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy’s ‘Clean Power Plan’ Speech
Like a river in Colorado, the EPA is poisoning the climate debate.
by Tom Harris
August 24, 2015
Anyone trying to understand why the climate change debate has become so toxic need look no further than the August 11 speech by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy.

In her presentation at the Resources for the Future (RFF) Policy Leadership Forum, her first public appearance since the August 3 release of the EPA’s “Clean Power Plan“ (CPP), McCarthy demonstrated everything that is wrong with the Obama administration’s approach to the issue. The EPA employs error-riddled interpretations of climate science and economics, and couples this with language designed to trick the public and the press into thinking the plan is something it is not.
————-

A Biased Host

The forum started with an introduction by Dr. Raymond Kopp, RFF’s Energy & Climate Economics co-director, who told the audience:

As many of you know, we’re not an advocacy organization. We’re not cheerleaders for any particular policy or point of view. Our goal is really to provide the best scholarly research to the policy community so it can develop the most efficient, efficacious, affordable, and best public policies possible.

Laudable goals indeed … but Kopp immediately betrayed RFF’s supposed objectives when he next said:

The Clean Power Plan in its current form as a final rule is likely the most significant development in U.S. history with respect to climate change. I don’t think any of us believe otherwise. It is a tremendously substantial rule and one that will have significant impact.

[Developing the rule] took a lot of hard work by many people inside and outside of government and it took an awful lot of leadership and luckily Gina McCarthy was available, ready, and willing to undertake that leadership role and for that we are most thankful.

Addressing McCarthy directly, Kopp concluded:

Thank you for getting the job done, for doing it exceedingly well, and shepherding the Clean Power Plan through all of these hurdles that were necessary to bring it to a final rule today. And, I think, thank you for doing it in an environment where the politics and the rhetoric really make this job as difficult as possible.

Considering Kopp’s remarks, it is not surprising that, according to RFF Forum attendee Dr. Alan Carlin — former EPA senior analyst and manager, and past chairman of the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club — “RFF went all out to prevent me from handing out my comments and to keep out any skeptical comments from the Q&A.”

So much for RFF’s claim to not be “cheerleaders for any particular policy or point of view.”

—————

EPA Misrepresents Climate Science

McCarthy started the climate change part of her presentation with a politically correct assertion:

Climate change is one of the most important issues that we face. It is a global challenge but, in many ways, it’s also very personal to all of us because it affects everything and everyone we know and we love.

Climate change is, of course, a regional challenge, not a global one.

There is no super being straddling the planet, experiencing global trends. All that matters is what is happening — increases or decreases in the incidence of floods and droughts, heat waves and cold spells, and so on — in regions where people, plants, and animals are found. For example, what sense would it make for a community to prepare for a global sea level rise if, in that particular region, sea level was falling?

New Zealand-based renewable energy consultant Bryan Leyland pointed out:

Climate change has been a problem to mankind for hundreds of thousands of years. But we survived the last ice age, compared with which, the recent change in climate is but a minor wiggle. The greatest climate risk we face at the moment is a high probability that we are entering a period of cooling comparable to the Little Ice Age.

Many scientists agree with Leyland. For example, Dr. Howard Hayden, emeritus professor of physics at the University of Connecticut, explained:

The Earth is on a descent into the next 100,000-year ice age. For the moment, the glaciers seem to be in retreat, but they are not remnants of the last ice age. They have been growing during the last 8,000 years.

High-resolution spectroscopy specialist Dr. John Nicol, former senior lecturer of physics and dean of science at James Cook University in Australia, elaborated:

Since 1997, the Earth has not warmed but has, in fact, very slightly cooled even though atmospheric CO2 levels have been increasing. McCarthy’s assertion that climate change is “very personal to all of us” clearly demonstrates her emotional rather than the scientific approach to this non-issue.

————–

Gina McCarthy next said:

By now we all know that climate change is driven in large part by carbon pollution and it leads to more extreme heat, cold, storms, fires, and floods.

Referring to carbon dioxide (CO2) as “carbon pollution” is one of the most common rhetorical tricks employed by the Obama administration. In the EPA’s news release announcing the CPP, they referenced “carbon pollution” five times in the release’s first four sentences.

Calling the gas “carbon” encourages the public to think of it as something dirty, like graphite or soot — which really are carbon.

Calling CO2 by its proper name would help the public remember that it is a non-toxic, odorless, invisible gas essential to plant photosynthesis. It is no more pollution than is water vapor, by far the principal greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. The EPA website is riddled with this “carbon” deception.

Leyland replied to the EPA chief:

It is shocking that McCarthy does not understand the difference between carbon dioxide — a harmless gas that benefits agriculture — and genuine pollutants like particulates, sulphur dioxide and the like emitted from old obsolete power stations. Modern coal-fired stations do not emit these pollutants.

McCarthy is not fit to head the EPA if she doesn’t know such basic science. Regardless, neither theory nor observations support the EPA chief’s claim that CO2 rise causes “more extreme heat, cold, storms, fires and floods.” Hyderabad, India-based Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy — formerly chief technical advisor for the UN World Meteorological Organization and author of Climate Change – Myths & Realities — said that McCarthy’s statement is “not true”:

Extreme heat, cold, storms and floods are part of natural variation. These are modified by local general circulation patterns existing over different parts of the globe over different seasons.

Nicol also contested McCarthy’s assertion:

Not only is the claim that CO2 is to blame [for increases in extreme weather] wrong, but the contradictory statements regarding these weather events, which are NO different from those of 200 years ago, demonstrates the desperation of lobby groups trying to maintain this myth.

If the world were to warm appreciably due to increasing CO2 emissions, temperatures at high latitudes are forecast to rise the most, reducing the difference between arctic and tropical temperatures. Since this differential drives weather, we should see weaker midlatitude cyclones in a warmer world — and thus fewer extremes in weather, not more.

Indeed, the lack of extreme weather increase with global warming is one of the few areas of agreement between the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC). In 2012, the IPCC asserted that a relationship between global warming and wildfires, rainfall, storms, hurricanes, and other extreme weather events has not been demonstrated. In their latest assessment report (Sep 2013), IPCC scientists concluded that they had only “low confidence” that “damaging increases will occur in either drought or tropical cyclone activity” as a result of global warming.

The Sep 2013 NIPCC report concluded the same, asserting:

In no case has a convincing relationship been established between warming over the past 100 years and increases in any of these extreme events.

NIPCC report chapter lead author Dr. Timothy Ball, environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg, explained that the EPA is taking the approach that American journalist Farhad Manjoo identified in his book True Enough: Learning To Live in a Post-Fact Society:

You create your theory then hire experts. The EPA agenda is political, not scientific.

Climate Change Is Normal

McCarthy then told the RFF Forum:

For farmers who are strained by the drought, for families with homes in the path of a wildfire, for small businesses along our coastlines, climate change is indeed very personal.

Nicol labeled these comments “utter rubbish,” writing:

Farmers do not believe in Global Warming or Climate Change as spruced by the human-caused global warming industry. Farmers have mostly been on their properties since they were children and have also been given detailed accounts of the weather and the seasons from when their great-grandfathers began farming.

This fact upsets those who try to claim that there are obvious changes. Farmers will tell you that the seasons come in cycles and any season we have now has been seen in the past — possibly 100 years ago.

Reddy also replied to McCarthy:

These [phenomena McCarthy lists] are associated with human actions on nature — land use and land cover changes, pollution (air, water, soil, and food) and adulterated foods, etc. For example, recent devastations in Jammu & Kashmir and Himalayan states of India were associated with occupation/building houses on river banks.

—————

McCarthy continued:

We all know that climate change is impacting us today and will continue to get worse if we don’t take action.

The EPA chief knows full well that this is not true.

After intense questioning from Representative Mike Pompeo (R-KS) at the September 18, 2013 hearing of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power, McCarthy admitted that the CPP will have essentially no impact on climate. Hayden agreed:

Even if the restrictions were enacted, the effect on worldwide temperature would be too tiny to measure.

——————

McCarthy Suppresses Open Scientific Debate

McCarthy said:

We are way past any further discussion or debate.

Scientists are as sure that humans are causing climate change as they are that cigarette smoke causes lung cancer. So, unless you want to debate that point, don’t debate about climate change any longer because it is our moral responsibility to act.

Comparing the science linking cigarette smoke and cancer with the science of climate change is ridiculous. Climate science is becoming more uncertain as the field advances — we don’t even know if warming or cooling lies ahead.

University of Western Ontario applied mathematician Dr. Chris Essex, an expert in the mathematical models that are the basis of the climate scare, explained:

Climate is one of the most challenging open problems in modern science. Some knowledgeable scientists believe that the climate problem can never be solved.

The NIPCC reports list hundreds of peer-reviewed science papers that show that much of what we thought we knew about climate is wrong or highly debatable. In particular, the lack of global warming over the past 18 years, a period during which CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has risen 10%, shows there is something seriously wrong with the human-caused warming theory.

Reddy responded to McCarthy’s statement:

We still need to discuss global warming science since the IPCC is not sure of the correct sensitivity factor that relates anthropogenic greenhouse gas increases to temperature rise.

This is illustrated by the fact that they changed the sensitivity factor [the temperature rise in degrees Celsius forecast to occur due to a doubling of CO2], from 1.95 in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (2007) to 1.55 in their Fifth Assessment Report (2013).

They are merely employing trial and error, and not physical process paths.

Ball points out what the IPCC itself admitted in its Third Assessment Report (2001):

In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.

John Nicol said of the scientists who support McCarthy’s position:

They are mistaken since they do not have a proper understanding of the spectroscopic behavior of carbon dioxide or its interactions in a mixture of other gases — oxygen and nitrogen.

—————

McCarthy next told the audience that Obama:

… reminded us that, while we are the first generation to feel the impacts of climate change, we are the last that can effectively do something about it.

Nicol answered:

We are not the first people to experience climate change. The Navajo in America, civilizations in the Middle East, and many others moved across continents to escape climate change-related events which were totally the responsibility of Nature and caused huge upheaval.

The changes claimed to be perceived today are, by comparison, trivial.

Carbon dioxide is not causing changes to the climate — Nature causes changes and always has, always will.

Ball asked:

How on Earth did we ever survive the climate change that has gone on for five billion years?

Of course, the idea that we can do something about it speaks to the arrogant godlessness of Obama and the environmentalists. If you get rid of God, you have to play God, and Obama’s angels are the bureaucrats like McCarthy. It’s interesting that another McCarthy, Mary, said: “Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, [is] the modern form of despotism.”

————

McCarthy concluded her comments:

Science has spoken on this. A low-carbon future is inevitable. We’re sending exactly the right signals on what, at least EPA believes to be, a future of lower pollution that is essential for public health and the environment.

Nicol replied:

Advocates for the destruction of society and world control of our societies are the actual offenders who have spoken on this.

Real and demonstrable science shows that a low carbon future will have no influence on the world’s climate and will destroy our ability to care for the world’s poor.

Energy is essential for the distribution of health and wealth to the poorer nations. This means that coal-fired power is essential, as recognized by the world’s largest economies, China and India.

Who are we to dictate the living standards of these and other nations?

Leyland added:

The main effect of the drive for a low carbon future is that energy will become more and more expensive and more and more people will die in the winter from the cold and in summer because they cannot afford to run the air conditioning.

The health effects would be seriously negative. The environmental effects will be a reduction in plant growth that could cost the agricultural economy trillions of dollars.

CPP’s Fictitious Health and Financial Benefits

McCarthy made numerous excited claims about the health impacts of the new climate rule:

As a result [of the CPP], in 2030, we are going to be avoiding thousands of premature deaths and hospital admissions, tens of thousands of asthma attacks and hundreds of thousands of missed school days and missed work days.

But the CPP does not regulate pollution. It regulates CO2, which has no detrimental impact on human health.

Only by assuming that enabling the CPP will force the closure of coal-fired electricity stations – and that that will reduce pollution emissions – can one claim the health benefits claimed by McCarthy. As explained by William Yeatman, environmental policy expert and editor of the Cooler Heads Coalition:

[This is] an EPA scam, known as “co-benefits,” by which the agency has justified a number of recent highly politicized regulations.

[T]here are entire sections of the Clean Air Act given to the regulation of particulate matter and nitrogen oxides. There is, therefore, neither a public health purpose nor a need for EPA to use a climate plan to regulate particulate matter and nitrogen oxides emissions under the Clean Air Act.

Furthermore, Yeatman demonstrates that the EPA’s methodology for estimating health benefits of the Clean Air Act “is based almost entirely on controversial, ‘secret’ science.” Not only do their forecasts of lives saved make no sense, but the agency refuses to release the data used to make these calculations. Carlin labeled the supposed health benefits of the CPP “dubious if not imaginary,” and asked:

If these benefits actually exist, why has EPA not already obtained them directly and more efficiently using “conventional” pollutant regulations?

McCarthy concluded her presentation by claiming that in 2030, as a result of the CPP:

The average American family will start seeing $85 in annual savings on their utility bills.

This is lunacy. Independent climate researcher Willis Eschenbach demonstrated on Watts Up With That that the CPP will almost quadruple U.S. electricity prices by 2030 if the Obama administration’s latest CO2 rule is fully implemented. As seen in Figure 1 below, Eschenbach calculated that “renewable” capacity per capita accounts for 84% of electricity cost variations between European countries (about €1 trillion has been spent so far in Europe on the installation of renewable energy technologies for electricity generation).

Figure 1: Electricity costs as a function of per capita installed renewable capacity. Wind and solar only, excludes hydropower.

Eschenbach explained:

We get about 4% of our electricity from wind and solar. He [Obama] wants to jack it to 28%, meaning we need seven times the installed capacity. Currently we have about 231 kW/capita of installed wind and solar (see Figure 1).

So Obama’s plan will require that we have a little less than seven times that, 1537 kW/capita. And assuming that we can extend the relationship we see in Figure 1, this means that the average price of electricity in the U.S. will perforce go up to no less than 43 cents per kilowatt-hour [the current average U.S. price of electricity is about 12 cents per kilowatt-hour] (This includes the hidden 1.4 cents/kW cost due to the five cents per kilowatt-hour subsidy paid to the solar/wind producers).

In January 2008, Obama, then a candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, told the San Francisco Chronicle that under his energy plan “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

Eschenbach and other analysts (for example, here and here) show that the CPP will finally allow the president to fulfill this promise.

Climate Hoax Must Be Confronted

Dr. Jay Lehr, science director at The Heartland Institute, summed up the situation well:

There is no science behind the idea that man controls the climate. Yet, billions of dollars are being diverted from our taxes to scam artists for renewable energy, fallacious mathematical model research, and political rewards.

It is a scam that dwarfs all others that have come before. And this will continue unabated for years to come until the public rises up in dissent.

Rather than just go with the flow or try to game the system to their advantage, industry leaders, scientists, and ordinary citizens must speak out against the climate scare that threatens America. If they do not, operatives such as Gina McCarthy will have free rein to enable the president’s disastrous climate plans.

More Proof that Climate Change Hysteria is a HOAX!

August 23, 2015August 23, 2015 / 1957chev / 6 Comments

Realities Of Climate Change, Politics And Public Knowledge.

Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball

The minute a small cabal hijacked climate for a political agenda it determined that setting the record straight required political answers. Naomi Klein admitted it wasn’t about the science directly. That fighting climate change was necessary to combat capitalism. This was the objective all along and expressed in 1993 when Senator Wirth admitted,

“We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing …”  

The “right thing” is achieving Maurice Strong’s objective of getting rid of the industrialized nations.

Too many skeptics continue to think that scientific points are going to change the public understanding. Most of the public don’t understand, but, more important, don’t want to understand. I doubt the 75% who failed the Yale Education Climate Change test lost any sleep. Polls, such as those of the Pew Center and overall analysis of trends indicate global warming or climate change are not a concern for most people. I suspect they don’t care because they don’t understand or want to understand. They also know how about the unreliability of weather forecasts, and that is all the science they need. One Pew pollconfirms that the public believes global warming is a political issue. Because of this, politicians and environmentalists with political agendas continue to control the story.James Delingpole puts the amount of money wasted because of this control at $4 billion a day.

Because science is ideally amoral and apolitical most scientists avoid politics, which results in a failure to provide necessary information to open-minded politicians and media. They need this to counter the pseudo-science of the IPCC proponents. They knew what to do from the start. Stephen Schneider set it out succinctly in Discover magazine a year after Hansen appeared before Wirth’s Senate committee and put the entire issue into the political realm.

On the one hand we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but& which means that we must include all the doubts, caveats, ifs and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists, but human beings as well. And like most people, we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that we have to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This double ethical bind which we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.

If this sounds familiar today, it is because it summarizes the words in the recent Encyclical of Pope Francis. Schneider is wrong. There is no decision about right and wrong, which is why the Pope’s connection with climate deceivers contradicts his central role as upholder of truth and is so deeply troubling. It is the rationale Naomi Klein and other use, which is why they brought her on board. It is basic Alinsky; the end justifies the means.

I spoke about the need to counter the false science from a political and social perspective, in my presentation at the First Heartland Conference in New York ten years ago. I pointed out that Gore’s movie was a brilliant piece of propaganda. A view supported by Justice Burton the UK judge who ruled on its use in the classroom.

It is now common ground that it is not simply a science film – although it is clear that it is based substantially on scientific research and opinion – but that it is a political film, albeit of course not party political.

Justice Burton recommended teachers provide balance by also showing The Great Global Warming Swindle. I proudly advised producer Martin Durkin and appeared in the movie. I also warned him that the US media would not run it, as proved the case, although it is now generally available. The problem is that only a small percentage of people watch documentaries on television. Gore bypassed that by using Hollywood to make the movie but also to market it through all their traditional venues. They knew how to achieve Schneider’s goal of getting “broad-based support” and “capturing the public’s imagination.”

Skeptics have, for a variety of reasons, avoided the “Hollywood” approach. It is a major error. We need to realize that tactics are tactics, and that the adage that you fight fire with fire is true. The first thing to do in any strategy is define the problem and the second is to determine the target and thirdly use tactics appropriate to the situation.

The problem is a failure to explain climate science and its abuse in a way a majority can understand. The following points are gleaned from my experience with media interviews, school visits, questions after a presentation, and questions via email. They represent the issues I confront every day. They are the real challenges anybody trying to offset the misinformation about climate and climate change must consider. They are the political dynamics that influence how you help people understand and deal with science issues.

1. People can’t believe a small group of people could mislead the world. Nowadays, the explosion of conspiracy theories because of the Internet, make the idea even more remote and unpalatable. They need to heed world-renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead’s observation.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

This comment implies that “thoughtful” and “committed” are pursuing positive changes. History indicates they are never positive as power centralizes and corrupts and people lose freedoms.

2. People can’t believe scientists would distort, manipulate, or do anything other than proper science. They accept the view that science and scientists are amoral and apolitical. As Mary McCarthy said,

“In science, all facts, no matter how trivial or banal, enjoy democratic equality.”

This is reinforced by the practice of most scientists to avoid politics. The public assumes the silence is a tacit agreement with what is in the media about global warming.

3. It is mostly the politicians who talk about the 97% manufactured consensus. The public asks as happened to me twice on radio this week,

“How come thousands of scientists believe there is global warming and climate change?”

The simple answer is, very few are familiar with the science. They, like most of the public, assume other scientists would not distort, manipulate, or do anything other than proper science. When scientists find out, they are shocked as exemplified in Klaus-Eckert Pulscomment.

Ten years ago I simply parroted what the IPCC told us. One day I started checking the facts and data—first I started with a sense of doubt but then I became outraged when I discovered that much of

what the IPCC and the media were telling us was sheer nonsense and was not even supported by any scientific facts and measurements. To this day I still feel shame that as a scientist I made presentations of their science without first checking it.

IPCC proponents promoted and perpetuated this deception through science societies as I explained.

A particularly egregious exploitation was carried out through science societies and professional scientific groups. They were given the climate science of the IPCC and urged to support it on behalf of their members. Certainly a few were part of the exploitation, but a majority, including most of the members simply assumed that the rigorous methods of research and publication in their science were used. Lord May of the UK Royal Society was influential in the manipulation of public perception through national scientific societies. They persuaded other national societies to become involved by making public statements. The Russian Academy of Science, under its President Yuri Israel, refused to participate.

4. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, “Never in the history of mankind have so many been deceived by so few, with so few facts.” The more you try to counteract what the public knows using scientific facts, the more you lose the battle. If you use scientific facts you must couch them in terms and analogies everybody understands. I know this from 25 years of teaching a compulsory science credit course for Arts students. The abilities and techniques I developed there of explaining climate in ways the public understand made me a double threat to IPCC proponents because I was also qualified.

5. Most people don’t know what is “normal” or “natural” in nature. This made it easy to imply or infer that they were abnormal or unnatural. It works well with the modern practice of “sound bites” in which information is presented without context. Climate change is innately historical and demands context. There are two basic options to counter the problem. Publish the context for each story as soon as possible after it appears. Publish stories of true facts that are outside of people’s comprehension using analogies. For example, alarmists add human scale to stories with analogies. One year they reported Arctic sea ice melted more by an area the size of Texas than the previous year. Texas is 695,662 km², which is approximately 4.6% of the total Arctic ice of 15 million km². The change is within the natural annual variability, but Texas is big so it must be a problem.

6. We tell people CO2 isn’t causing the warming but fail to explain why. This is for people who don’t know what a greenhouse gas is or that water vapor is far more important. (Figure 1)

Figure 1 Source: Yale Education Climate Change Test.

We then fail to explain what is the most likely cause. As politicians learn to their peril, you can’t just be against something.

Today they push the global warming claims with increasing deception because the 21^stParis Conference of the Parties on climate is scheduled for 7-8 December 2015. They consider it imperative to pass a Kyoto type set of policies. Ironically, one thing that diminishes their chances is continued economic decline, the very objective of Wirth, Klein and the gang. It is ironic because politicians will reset their priorities to promote development, growth, and job creation because they don’t want angry voters. What they will get is angry global warming activists with a political agenda.

Wind Pushers, and Their Supporters, In For a Rude Awakening!

August 20, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Got Money in the Great Wind Power Ponzi Scheme? Then, Grab it & Get Out Now!

August 20, 2015 by stopthesethings

****

The wind industry in Australia – as elsewhere – is in its death throes.

STT has likened it to the great corporate Ponzi schemes, pointing out, just once or twice, that the wind industry is little more than the most recent and elaborate effort to fleece gullible investors, in a list that dates back to “corporate investment classics”, like the South-Sea Bubble and Dutch tulip mania.

In the wind industry, the scam is all about pitching bogus projected returns (based on overblown wind “forecasts”) (see our posts here andhere and here and here); claiming that wind turbines will run for 25 years, without the need for so much as an oil change (see our posts hereand here and here); and telling investors that massive government mandated subsidy schemes will outlast religion (see our posts here andhere and here).

In Australia, one of the wind industry’s BIG players – Pacific Hydro – managed to rack up an annual loss of $700 million, last year; in circumstances where the subsidy scheme – on which its profits depend – hadn’t changed at all (see our post here).

But – if you needed any more convincing that wind power outfits are taking their cues from Charles Ponzi and Bernie Madoff – then this little tale from Britain should do the trick.

Savers asked to wait three months for interest due on windfarm bonds that promised 7.5% annual return
Daily Mail
Tania Jefferies
29 July 2015

Wind firm blames Tory green subsidy revamp for interest delay
Business to be restructured in response to ‘attack’ on wind projects
Savers bought four-year bonds for minimum investment of £500 each

Wind Prospect Group plans to delay interest payments to its mini-bond holders for three months, blaming a ‘sustained attack by the Conservative Government’ on onshore wind projects following the election.

Savers who lent money to the renewable energy company in 2011 via its four-year mini-bonds were promised 7.5 per cent annual interest, to be paid out in January and July every year, in return for a minimum investment of £500.

But bondholders wanting their capital returned this month are also set to wait an extra three months for the cash, as the company restructures its business in response to the Tories’ planned overhaul of green subsidies.

Unlike retail bonds, which are tradeable on the London Stock Exchange’s Orb markets, mini-bonds must be held to maturity meaning there is no exit route for investors who want to get out.

Savers are routinely warned to tread with care when buying any company bonds, because if you lend money to firms this way the money you make back depends on their financial strength – and ultimately on them staying in business.

Unlike with a savings account, you are not protected by the UK’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which guards against losses of up to £85,000 at present and up to £75,000 from next January.

The varying interest rates on retail bonds and mini-bonds reflect the amount of risk attached to them – generally speaking, the higher the rate on offer, the higher the risk.

There are fears that people who do not invest into a number of bonds may be putting too many eggs in one basket, as their investment is dependent solely on one company’s solvency.

But mini-bonds and retail bonds have proved hugely popular in recent years as the annual returns on offer attract savers struggling to generate a decent income from their nest eggs in an era of low interest rates.

These bonds are routinely oversubscribed, with offer periods often ending early because the fundraising target has been easily met or beaten.

Wind Prospect said that like most renewable energy companies in the UK, it had ‘reviewed its options’ following the election and the Tory ‘attack’ on onshore wind.

It further explained its actions in a statement that said: ‘In order to minimise the impact of government announcements for its ReBond holders, the business is proposing to separate its services business and development assets.

‘The existing UK and overseas development assets will then be ring fenced so that the proceeds from these are directly and contractually available to pay interest and repay capital going forward.

‘To achieve this, Wind Prospect has asked its bondholders to agree to a three-month moratorium on payments of interest and capital while the details are confirmed and a productive consultation can take place.’

Wind Prospect reportedly also delayed its January 2014 interest payment for a few days, but the company was unavailable to confirm this.

The spokeswoman who released its statement said: ‘We do not have any further comment to make at this time.’

People who invested in Wind Prospect’s four-year bonds in 2011 had to give notice last January if they wanted their capital returned to them this month, instead of just being given it back automatically.

Wind Prospect boss Euan Cameron said: ‘We are confident that the plan we deliver will be in the best interests of our bondholders and that these assets, many of which are projects outside the UK, have sufficient value to enable us to meet our commitments to bondholders in full.

‘This measure will significantly increase bond security as well as improve the strength of our service business and the services we provide to our clients. It will also ensure that our services business is robust and clearly defined as we embark on diversifying into new technologies and markets.

‘It is business as usual for the Wind Prospect team and we look forward to fruitful discussions with our bondholders over the next three months to reach the most positive outcome for all parties.’
Daily Mail

Stop the Subsidies for Novelty “Wind Energy”! It is a waste!

August 17, 2015 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Wind Industry Pockets Lion’s Share of Subsidies for Commercially Generated Power

August 17, 2015 by stopthesethings

****

STT followers are painfully aware that the wind industry exists – and ONLY exists – to wallow in an endless stream of subsidies filched from power consumers and/or taxpayers:

The Wind Industry: Always and Everywhere the Result of Massive & Endless Subsidies (Part 1)

The Wind Industry: Always and Everywhere the Result of Massive & Endless Subsidies (Part 2)

One of the sillier claims made by wind-worshippers is that to focus on the massive pile of cash added to power bills and directed to these things, is to overlook what are said to be ‘colossal subsidies’ paid to BIG COAL and BIG GAS.

However, like most eco-fascist fictions, scratch the surface of their fossil-fuel subsidy myth, and you’ll find that there’s nary a tad of subsidy directed to electricity producers using coal or gas (see above).

True it is that solar generation is well soaked in subsidy (see above), but that’s to limit the analysis to the cost per MWh delivered to the grid.

Wind power – provided the subsidies keep flowing – is (occasionally) delivered in commercial quantities. Wind farms connected to the Eastern Grid sometimes deliver around 75% of their 3,669MW installed capacity – at least for a few short hours – until the whole outfit completely downs tools, and produces a tiny fraction of that, or even next-to-nothing, for hours; and even days at a time:

The Wind Power Fraud (in pictures): Part 2 – The Whole Eastern Grid Debacle

Solar, however, is, in the main, generated on the rooftops of domestic dwellings; and barely adds 1% to total power production in Australia – there is very little ‘large-scale’ solar in Australia, as yet.

So, while the subsidy per MWh for solar is colossal, its impact on retail power prices pales by comparison to what is pocketed by the wind industry. Here’s a little wrap-up from the Minerals Council on a report put together by Principal Economics.

The high cost of renewable energy subsidies
Minerals Council
Brendan Pearson
7 August 2015

A report, undertaken by economic consultancy Principal Economics, has found that Australia’s renewable energy sector received subsidies (including the Renewable Energy Target, feed in tariffs and other green policy costs) worth $2.8 billion in 2013-14. This dwarfed the public support for research and demonstration projects for low emissions coal technologies being conducted by the CSIRO and other research bodies (and matched by the coal industry).

On an output basis, these renewable subsidies translated into almost $412 per megawatt hour (MWh) for solar technologies, $42 per MWh for wind and $18 per MWh for all other renewable sources (including hydro).

By comparison coal fired power received less than $1 per MWh and natural gas less than 1 cent per MWh delivered.

In 2013/14, these renewable energy subsidies added between 3 to 9 per cent to the average household bill and up to 20 per cent for some industrial users.

The report uses the World Trade Organisation’s definition of subsidies, an approach similar to the method used by the Productivity Commission in its annual Trade and Assistance Review.

At face value, increasing Australia’s share of renewable energy is a laudable goal. The minerals industry is a user of renewable energy and hopes that it will provide a solution to provision of competitively priced energy, especially in remote areas. And renewable energy depends on the minerals sector – after all, every off shore wind turbine contains 250 tonnes of metallurgical coal.

But renewable energy must win increased market share on its own merits, not be guaranteed it by expensive mandatory targets and feed-in tariffs, the cost of which is simply borne by householders and industrial users. For household consumers, the burden falls heaviest on low income households. For industrial users, the burden shackles export and import-competing businesses in many sectors.
Minerals Council

You can read the report in full here: Electricity production subsidies in Australia.

Here’s an important little snippet from the report.

Implications for electricity customers
Principal Economics
2015

While the cost of public support financed through government budgets is recovered from taxpayers, the subsidies created by the RET and FiT schemes are levied on electricity customers.

Given the very large sums involved, the impacts on electricity bills for households and businesses have been substantial.

Estimates of the impacts of the RET and FiT schemes on customer bills vary. According to the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC, 2014), an average household paid around $109 per annum in South East Queensland, $107 in New South Wales and $155 in South Australia for the combined LRET, SRES and FiT components of household bills in 2013-14. These payments are estimated by the AEMC to make up between 3 and 9 per cent of annual household bills. In contrast, the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART, 2013) estimated the combined costs of the RET and FiT schemes for a typical residential customer in New South Wales at around $145 in 2013-14.

ROAM/Synergies Consulting (2014) considered the impacts of renewable schemes on electricity bills of households and businesses, and concluded that the RET accounts for a significant component of bills (Chart 1). ROAM/Synergies estimate that during 2013-14, the RET comprised 3 per cent of the typical household or small business electricity bill and 9.6 per cent for a large business that consumes more than 5 GWh of electricity per annum and is not eligible for partial exemption certificates. They conclude that, as is the case for other renewable schemes, the LRET and SRES contribute a relatively higher percentage of costs for large businesses.

According to ROAM/Synergies (2014), state-based energy policies – of which FiT schemes are by far the most costly – impose comparable or higher costs than the LRET and SRES combined. They estimate that these state-based schemes account for up to 12 per cent of the electricity bill for a large business.

***

Overall, ROAM/Synergies highlight the proliferation of green energy policies over the last decade at both the federal and state level and the significant cumulative impacts of these policies:

For residential and small business customers, green energy policies (excluding a carbon price) represents 5 per cent of electricity bills
For large business customers, green energy policies represent around 20 per cent of electricity bills (with the RET up to 9.6 per cent and state-based schemes up to 12 per cent respectively) excluding carbon price.

Looking forward, the burden on electricity customers as a result of the RET and FiT schemes is unlikely to diminish:

While the most generous FiT schemes have now been closed to new applicants, the obligations entered into by state governments imply that considerable subsidies will continue to have to be paid to eligible households for many years into the future. For instance, the Queensland Competition Authority (QCA 2013) has estimated that Energex and Ergon Energy will incur accumulated feed-in tariff payments of around $2.9 billion by the end of the scheme in 2028, and that these costs will flow directly through to network charges and electricity bills.
The RET will similarly continue to represent a significant burden on customers. The LRET has been revised to achieve a target of 33,000 GWh in 2020 (Australian Government 2015), almost double the 2014 target of 16,950 GWh. No changes have been made to the SRES, which will continue to offer significant financial incentives for customers with PV installations by legislating demand for the corresponding certificates.

Principal Economics

Like most efforts to tally up the insane costs of Australia’s Renewable Energy Target, Principal Economics largely takes the “rear-view mirror” approach, by focusing on what’s been and gone. Although, in the very last dot point above its at least noted that the LRET target doubles – from its current annual target of 16,950 GWh – to 33,000 GWh by 2020 – at which poverty inducing and economy killing level it remains until 2031.

STT has, instead, had its eyes peeled on the road ahead, from the very beginning, as did Victorian Senator, John Madigan, when spelling out in his speech to the Senate, that the future cost of the LRET will add $45 billion to retail power bills, in terms of the REC Tax/Subsidy alone:

Wind Power Fraud Finally Exposed: Senator John Madigan Details LRET’s Astronomical 45 Billion Dollar Cost to Power Consumers

But even that horrifying prospect for Australian power punters, is to ignore the chaos that attempting to integrate a wholly weather dependent power generation system has on power markets, such as Australia’s so-called wind power capital – and resultant economic basket case – South Australia:

South Australia’s Unbridled Wind Power Insanity: Wind Power Collapses see Spot Prices Rocket from $70 to $13,800 per MWh

So, with the Coalition’s 33,000 GWh LRET target – and Labor’s plan for a 100,000 GWh target – Australia’s poorest and most vulnerable can look forward to eating tins of cold baked beans, while sitting freezing (or boiling) in the dark.

The Wind Scam in Germany, (and elsewhere), Keeps on Getting Worse….

August 15, 2015 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Germany’s Wind Power Surges Plunge Their Neighbours Into Darkness

August 15, 2015 by stopthesethings

****

The economics of Germany’s “Energiewende” are so bizarre, that you’d think it had been put together by the GDR’s ‘brains trust’, before the Berlin Wall took its tumble in 1989.

In Germany, around €100 billion has already been burnt on renewable subsidies; currently the green energy levy costs €56 million every day. And, the level of subsidy for wind and solar sees Germans paying €20 billion a year for power that gets sold on the power exchange for around €2 billion.

Squandering €18 billion a year on power – which Germans have in abundance from meaningful sources – has them asking the fair and reasonable question: just how much power are they getting for the €billions that they’ve thrown – and continue to throw at wind and solar?

The answer is: NOT MUCH: Germans Spend 100s of €Billions on their “Energiewende” & Get Only 3% of their Power in Return

But that’s merely to focus on the insane cost to German power consumers and taxpayers – and the meagre returns for their hundreds of €billions in subsidies – of what can only be described as an energy market fiasco.

At a more practical – and to power punters more significant – level chaotic unpredictable surges in wind power output have brought the German grid to the brink of collapse:

Germany’s Wind Power Debacle Escalates: Nation’s Grid on the Brink of Collapse

Unable to build any further transmission capacity of its own – principally because Germans are fed up with having their bucolic homeland turned into an industrial wasteland – not to mention the colossal and wholly unnecessary cost of building a duplicated network simply to take occasional bursts of wind power output – Germany is dumping power into its neighbours’ grids.

The result is that their Czech, Polish, Dutch, Belgian and French neighbours’ grids are being swamped with excess power – whenever the wind picks up in Germany’s North – resulting in grid instability and blackouts.

Germany has – from time to time – been a somewhat boisterous neighbour. With Germany dumping excess wind power on an unscheduled basis – into grids which are simply not designed to take rapid increases in volume – neighbours are fuming again about German arrogance and the cost of accommodating it.

Here’s a couple of takes on yet another aspect of Germany’s wind power disaster.

Germany’s Neighbors Rankled by Its Energiewende
The American Interest
4 August 2015

The German energy mix has been radically changed in recent years, predominantly driven by two forces: a desire to expand renewables’ market share (a task accomplished by generous state subsidies called feed-in tariffs), and an aversion to nuclear power following the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Within Germany these changes have had a number of perhaps unforeseen and certainly unfortunate consequences, including jacked-up power bills for businesses and households and, somewhat bizarrely, an increased reliance on the particularly dirty type of coal called lignite. But the ripple effects of Berlin’s energiewende are expanding past national boundaries, and, as Politico reports, Germany’s neighbors are finding their own grids strained by intermittent solar and wind production:

The country’s move away from nuclear power and increase in production of wind or solar energy has pushed it to the point where its existing power grids can’t always cope. And it’s the Czech Republic, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium and France that have taken the brunt.

“If there is a strong blow of the wind in the North, we get it, we have the blackout,” Martin Povejšil, the Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the EU said at a briefing in Brussels recently.

Germany has failed to beef up its energy transmission infrastructure at the same pace as its burgeoning solar and wind industries, that is, and on especially sunny and windy days it relies on the hospitality of its neighbors to distribute those supplies. Poland and the Czech Republic have been forced to pony up $180 million “to protect their systems from German power surges”, while within Germany itself NIMBY-ism is preventing the construction of some key transmission lines.

When examining the costs of boosting renewables, it’s a big mistake to leave out the expense of building out the grids needed to handle production. Germany seems to have made just that error with its energiewende, and central Europe is struggling to cope.
The American Interest

German winds make Central Europe shiver: Junking nuclear power is creating problems for Germany’s neighbors.
Politico
Kalina Oroschakoff
3 August 2015

Germany’s shift to renewable energy has been hailed as an historic policy move — but its neighbors don’t like it.

Germany’s north-south power lines have too limited a capacity to carry all the power that is produced from wind turbines along the North Sea to industrial states like Bavaria or Baden-Württemberg and onto Austria. That means the extra electricity is shunted through the Czech Republic and Poland.

To put an end to the often unexpected power flows from Germany — so-called loop flows — the countries are taking the matter into their own hands. Concerned about the stability of their own grids, additional costs and the ability to export their own power, the Czechs, for example, are installing devices to block the power from 2016 onwards.

Poland is also working on the devices, known as phase shifters, and expects to have some operating this year. To the west, the Netherlands, Belgium and France have also installed phase shifters to deal with the flows.

These separate moves come as Brussels pushes for integration of Europe’s energy markets. The struggle shows how the drive toward more renewables, combined with outdated infrastructure and inconsistent cooperation within the EU, is having unintended consequences.

“In the past, with coal and nuclear power plants, the power system was extremely predictable. Now, with ever more renewable energy coming online, the system isn’t as predictable anymore, which can cause challenges also for the single market debate,” said Joanna Maćkowiak Pandera, a senior associate with German think tank Agora Energiewende.

“We have been telling that to the Germans, ‘Increase your transmission system, or we will shut you off’,” an EU diplomat said at a briefing in Brussels recently.

Power loop flows occur when a country’s power grid infrastructure isn’t sufficient to handle new production, so the electricity is automatically diverted through neighboring countries on its way to its destination in the producing country.

“This also leads to congestion in neighboring systems,” said Georg Zachmann of the Brussels-based Bruegel think tank, adding that to deal with the situation countries can also reduce their own electricity exports to South Germany to make space for the German power. That, however, means that Germany’s energy transition is affecting the export potential of countries like the Czech Republic and France.

Pressure is building on Germany to expand its north-south connection. But the idea has aroused local opposition in Bavaria, with residents unwilling to see their picturesque countryside spoiled by unsightly transmission towers.

“If we want to have a growing share of renewables, we must build the grids,” Walter Boltz, vice chair of the regulators board of the EU’s Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER), told POLITICO.

The simplest solution, he said, would be for Germany to build up the necessary links. But that will take time. Alternatively, Germany could simply shut down wind power on highly productive days. But the country’s current policy stands in the way.

“It’s an uncomfortable problem and has to do with Germany’s irrational priority dispatch policy under which you cannot shut down renewables,” Boltz said.

Germany’s neighbors aren’t immune from criticism on the issue.

Poland, for instance, could also consume the power it imports from Germany, something it resists to shield its own industry, Boltz said. Further, Poland’s grids needed expansion, he said.

More cooperation

Germany, for its part, has stepped up cooperation with its neighbors to remedy the issue.

Energy Secretary Rainer Baake recently addressed criticism that Germany’s energy transition was an unilateral policy move, Germanmedia reported, saying, “People in this country and also outside of Germany who believe this must be some kind of act of re-nationalization of energy policy […] could not be more wrong.”

In 2014, German transmission operators agreed with the Czechs to regulate cross-border power flows to protect the Czech grid from overloading and reduce the danger of blackouts. A similar agreement was struck between the Polish and German sides.

On a political level in June, Germany signed a pact with 11 “electrical” neighbors, including France, Poland and the Czech Republic, to promote the integration of the respective power markets, counter overcapacity and let the market determine power prices.

Still, Poland’s regulator last year sent a letter to the ACER, asking it to come forward with an opinion on the loop flows from Germany. The response is expected in September.

In 2013, the agency issued an opinion on unscheduled loop flows, concluding that “in most cases these flows are a threat to a secure and efficient functioning of the Internal Electricity Market.”

Energy mix is a national policy

The situation is delicate for the Czech Republic and Poland, which have long insisted that choosing whether power should be generated by solar, wind, coal, nuclear or other ways remains a national issue, not one for Brussels.

So Germany is free to make decisions about how to generate electricity, in this case to shut down its nuclear plants.

Brussels has stepped up efforts to connect the bloc’s energy markets, with the European Commission in a policy paper in February stressing “the interconnection of the electricity markets must be a political priority.”

The Commission released an initial plan in mid-July about how to build a borderless power market that can deal with the rise in renewables. Draft legislation is expected in 2016.

“We haven’t developed the grids,” the EU bloc’s energy chief Miguel Arias Cañete told POLITICO last month, adding that while there has been a lot of investment in renewables, grids aren’t up to standard. That’s also why Brussels is keen on increasing cross-border power interconnections.

It’s making political and financial efforts to finally link up at least 10 percent of the EU’s installed electricity production capacity by 2020.

But it’s a long slog to connect the bloc: EU countries had originally pledged that target in 2002.
Politico

The Wind Scam Proves to be a Huge Waste of Money!

August 13, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Germans Spend 100s of €Billions on their “Energiewende” & Get Only 3% of their Power in Return

August 13, 2015 by stopthesethings Leave a Comment

The Germans are rueing the day the bought into the great wind power fraud.

The Germans went into wind power harder and faster than anyone else – and the cost of doing so is catching up with a vengeance. The subsidies have been colossal, the impacts on the electricity market chaotic and – contrary to the environmental purpose of the policy – CO2 emissions are rising fast: if “saving” the planet is – as we are repeatedly told – all about reducing man-made emissions of an odourless, colourless, naturally occurring trace gas, essential for all life on earth – then German energy/environmental policy has manifestly failed (see our post here).

Some 800,000 German homes have been disconnected from the grid – victims of what is euphemistically called “fuel poverty”. In response, Germans have picked up their axes and have headed to their forests in order to improve their sense of energy security – although foresters apparently take the view that this self-help measure is nothing more than blatant timber theft (see our post here).

German manufacturers – and other energy intensive industries – faced with escalating power bills are packing up and heading to the USA – where power prices are 1/3 of Germany’s (see our posts here and hereand here). And the “green” dream of creating thousands of jobs in the wind industry has turned out to be just that: a dream (see our post here).

The ‘gloss’ has well and truly worn off Germany’s wind power ‘Supermodel’ status – as communities fight back against having thousands of these things speared into their backyards – and for all the same reasons communities are fighting back all over the world; those with a head for numbers have called the fraud for what it is; and medicos have called for a complete moratorium on the construction of new wind farms in an effort to protect their patients and quarantine their professional liability:

Germany’s Wind Power ‘Dream’ Becomes a Living Nightmare

German Medicos Demand Moratorium on New Wind Farms

And, on a practical level, those in charge of Germany’s power grid have stepped up calls for an end to the lunacy of trying to absorb a wholly weather dependent generation source into what was never designed to deal with the chaos presented on a daily basis:

Germany’s Wind Power Debacle Escalates: Nation’s Grid on the Brink of Collapse

And the economics are so bizarre, that you’d think its “Energiewende” policy had been put together by the GDR’s ‘brains trust’, before the Berlin Wall took its tumble in 1989.

Squandering €18 billion on power – which Germans have in abundance from meaningful sources – has them asking the fair and reasonable question: just how much power are they getting for the €billions that they’ve thrown – and continue to throw at wind and solar?

The answer is: NOT MUCH.

Germany gets only 3.3% of its energy consumption from wind and solar. Ignore the headlines
Carbon Counter
Robert Wilson
31 July 2015

“Give a man a reputation as an early riser and he can sleep til noon” – Mark Twain.

There is apparently no greater leader on climate change than Germany. Here is some evidence. This country will build almost 11 GW of new coal power plants this decade, and is in the process of licensing new lignite coal mines. It prematurely shut down 8 zero-carbon nuclear power plants in 2011, closed another one this year, and will prematurely close all remaining nuclear power plants by 2022. Germans have reassured themselves by turning from the disturbing vision of the split atom to the nostalgia of coal fires.

But where does Germany’s climate change reputation come from? It certainly does not come from achievements in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This decade Germany’s emissions have been essentially flat, and Germany is on course to come a long way short of meeting its 2020 national targets for emissions reductions.

This planet saving reputation instead comes from what Germany has supposedly achieved with renewables. The German renewables revolution is apparently in full gear. If you want to understand what is happening in the world it is better to ignore adjectives and instead count.

Counting is instructive about the realities of renewables in Germany. According to the most recent data, Germany got only 3.3% of its final energy consumption from wind and solar installation (Eurostat data for 2013 available here and here).

Does that sound like a revolution? Obviously not.

The 3.3% figure above tells us that renewables are in fact marginal to Germany’s energy system. So where does this idea that there is a renewables revolution in Germany come from?

The answer is easy to find by googling and searching social media. This will immediately lead you to the following type of headline:

Germany Just Got 78 Percent Of Its Electricity From Renewable Sources

Another popular variant are headlines about German solar output exceeding 50% of electricity demand. The obvious problem with these headlines is that many people come to the mistaken conclusion that these record highs are somehow representative of what goes on the rest of the time. They are not.

Let’s quantify this. The record high renewables output (which included biomass and hydro, a fact rarely pointed out) occurred on the 25th July. Total wind and solar output was around about 39 GW according toFraunhofer ISE data.

How often does this happen? This is relatively easy to find out. All we need to do is add up all hourly wind and solar output and see how it is distributed throughout the year.

I have done this in the graph below. Hourly output was rounded to the nearest gigawatt. I have then added up the number of hours when total wind and solar output fell under each GW bracket. Each bracket covers the average output over an individual hour, in GW.

In total we have about 40 brackets, starting at 0 GW. Yes, German wind and solar falls to zero gigawatts, rounded to the nearest gigawatt. Resist that temptation to write “German wind and solar now meeting 0.1% of Germany energy needs” headlines.

Mean hourly output of German wind and solar was 9.6 GW in 2014, while the median output was 8 GW. The maximum output was almost 39 GW; four times greater than the average, no matter how you define the average.

Furthermore, total wind and solar output was above 30 GW only 2.1% of the time. It was above 25 GW only 9.6% of the time.

The heavily skewed distribution shown above has clearly lead to heavily skewed perceptions about German renewables.

So each time you see headlines about record high renewables output remember this: average output of combined German wind and solar is roughly one quarter of these record highs, and German wind and solar is still just over 3% of final energy consumption in Germany.
Carbon Counter

	How The Climate Grif… on There is NO Global Warming…
	Bob Bateman on Government-Induced Climaphobia…
	William Hooi on Germany’s Renewable Energy Dis…
	Jessica on Issues for Landowners to Consi…
	Raymond on Poorest Families Left Powerles…

"Mothers Against Wind Turbines™" Phoenix Rising…

Children Deserve Protection!

not financially feasible

Wind Turbines causing a “World of Trouble”!

Turbine protests: Green Energy Act under fire

People All Over the World are Fighting Back Against the Wind Scam!

Forces Marshall in International Revolt Against the Great Wind Power Fraud

Love those Aussies! They are Tearing Down the Windweasel’s Fortress!

Senators Back & Leyonhjelm Keep Hammering the Great Wind Power Fraud

WINDWEASELS….and How They Intend to Steal Your Home & Your Property Rights….

How Wind Farm Subsidies are Used to Steal People’s Homes

Climate Change Rhetoric is Nothing More Than a Cover for Wealth Redistribution.

More Proof that Climate Change Hysteria is a HOAX!

Realities Of Climate Change, Politics And Public Knowledge.

Wind Pushers, and Their Supporters, In For a Rude Awakening!

Got Money in the Great Wind Power Ponzi Scheme? Then, Grab it & Get Out Now!

Stop the Subsidies for Novelty “Wind Energy”! It is a waste!

Wind Industry Pockets Lion’s Share of Subsidies for Commercially Generated Power

The Wind Scam in Germany, (and elsewhere), Keeps on Getting Worse….

Germany’s Wind Power Surges Plunge Their Neighbours Into Darkness

The Wind Scam Proves to be a Huge Waste of Money!

Germans Spend 100s of €Billions on their “Energiewende” & Get Only 3% of their Power in Return