People Worldwide are Waking Up to the Reality of the Wind Scam!

April 21, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Top US Energy Economist Takes the Scalpel to the Great Wind Power Fraud

April 21, 2015 by stopthesethings

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One of the great mysteries behind the lunacy that is the great wind power fraud is how and why so many governments launched into mandating massive and endless subsidies (filched from unwitting power consumers and/or taxpayers) for an utterly meaningless power generation source – WITHOUT ever having carried out a cost/benefit analysis?

You know, the kind of analysis that economists put together on a daily basis; and which are used to give the thumbs up (or down) to government policies BEFORE they’re set rolling like unstoppable locomotives; especially where, as here, they involve massive streams of corporate welfare.

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In a better late than never move, economists the world over are now taking the scalpel to the wind industry and, especially, its wilder claims about being “competitive” with conventional generation sources. Of course, if there was a shred of truth in that ripping yarn, the wind industry and its parasites wouldn’t need to spend every waking hour on the rent-seeker trail; bleating about the need for Renewable Energy Targets (written in stone), and the need to keep the subsidy gravy train rolling, interminably.

As the myth, fantasy and fallacy gets sliced away to reveal the true costs of wind power, the number crunchers are finding that wind power simply doesn’t measure up, on any score. Here’s Newsweek with one such dissection.

What’s the True Cost of Wind Power?
Newsweek
Randy Simmons
11 April 2015

As consumers, we pay for electricity twice: once through our monthly electricity bill and a second time through taxes that finance massive subsidies for inefficient wind and other energy producers.

Most cost estimates for wind power disregard the heavy burden of these subsidies on US taxpayers. But if Americans realized the full cost of generating energy from wind power, they would be less willing to foot the bill – because it’s more than most people think.

Over the past 35 years, wind energy – which supplied just 4.4% of US electricity in 2014 – has received US$30 billion in federal subsidies and grants. These subsidies shield people from the uncomfortable truth of just how much wind power actually costs and transfer money from average taxpayers to wealthy wind farm owners, many of which are units of foreign companies.

Financial advisory firm Lazard puts the cost of generating a megawatt-hour of electricity from wind at a range of $37 to $81. In reality, the true price tag is significantly higher.

This represents a waste of resources that could be better spent by taxpayers themselves. Even the supposed environmental gains of relying more on wind power are dubious because of its unreliability – it doesn’t always blow – meaning a stable backup power source must always be online to take over during periods of calm.

But at the same time, the subsidies make the US energy infrastructure more tenuous because the artificially cheap electricity prices push more reliable producers – including those needed as backup – out of the market. As we rely more on wind for our power and its inherent unreliability, the risk of blackouts grows. If that happens, the costs will really soar.

Many government agencies are in the wind business these days. GAO

Where the subsidies go

Many people may be familiar with Warren Buffet’s claim that federal policies are the only reason to build wind farms in the US, but few realize how many of the companies that benefit most are foreign. The Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University found that, as of 2010, 84% of total clean-energy grants awarded by the federal government went to foreign-owned wind companies.

More generally, the beneficiaries of federal renewable energy policies tend to be large companies, not individual taxpayers or small businesses. The top five recipients of federal grants and tax credits since 2000 are: Iberdrola, NextEra Energy, NRG Energy, Southern Company and Summit Power, all of which have received more than $1 billion in federal benefits.

Iberdrola Renewables alone, a unit of a Spanish utility, has collected $2.2 billion in federal grants and allocated tax credits over the past 15 years. That’s equivalent to about 6.7% of the parent company’s 2014 revenue of $33 billion (in current US dollars).

President Obama’s proposed 2016 budget would permanently extend the biggest federal subsidy for wind power, the Production Tax Credit (PTC), ensuring that large foreign companies continue to reap most of the taxpayer-funded benefits for wind. The PTC is a federal subsidy that pays wind farm owners $23 per megawatt-hour through the first ten years of a turbine’s operation. The credit expired at the end of 2013, but Congress extended it so that all projects under construction by the end of 2014 are eligible.

In all, Congress has enacted 82 policies, overseen by nine different agencies, to support wind power.

I explained in December why Congress shouldn’t revive the PTC, which expired at the end of 2014. In this article, I’m adding up the true cost of wind power in the US, including the impact of the PTC and other subsidies and mandates. It’s part of a study I’m doing of other energy sources including solar, natural gas, and coal to determine how much each one actually cost us when all factors are considered.

As Warren Buffett has said, there wouldn’t be a wind industry without the PTC. UCS, DOE, AWEA

Tallying the true costs of wind

Depending on which factors are included, estimates for the cost of wind power vary wildly. Lazard claims the cost of wind power ranges from $37 to $81 per megawatt-hour, while Michael Giberson at the Center for Energy Commerce at Texas Tech University suggests it’s closer to $149. Our analysis in an upcoming report explores this wide gap in cost estimates, finding that most studies underestimate the genuine cost of wind because they overlook key factors.

All estimates for wind power include the cost of purchasing capital and paying for operations and maintenance (O&M) of wind turbines. For the studies we examined, capital costs ranged from $48 to $88 per megawatt-hour, while O&M costs ranged from $9.8 to $21 per megawatt-hour.

Many estimates, however, don’t include costs related to the inherent unreliability of wind power and government subsidies and mandates. Since we can’t ensure the wind always blows, or how strongly, coal and natural gas plants must be kept on as backup to compensate when it’s calm. This is known as baseload cycling, and its cost ranges from $2 to $23 per megawatt-hour.

This also reduces the environmental friendliness of wind power. Because a coal-fired or natural gas power plant must be kept online in case there’s no wind, two plants are running to do the job of one. These plants create carbon emissions, reducing the environmental benefits of wind. The amount by which emissions reductions are offset by baseload cycling ranges from 20% to 50%, according to a modeling study by two professors at Carnegie Mellon University.

While the backup plants are necessary to ensure the grid’s reliability, their ability to operate is threatened by wind subsidies. The federal dollars encourage wind farm owners to produce power even when prices are low, flooding the market with cheap electricity. That pushes prices down even further and makes it harder for more reliable producers, such as nuclear plants, that don’t get hefty subsidies to stay in business.

For example, the Kewaunee Nuclear Plant in Wisconsin and the Yankee Nuclear Plant in Vermont both switched off their reactors in 2013. Dominion Energy, which owned both plants, blamed the artificially low prices caused by the PTC as one of the reasons for the shutdown.

As more reliable sources drop off and wind power takes their place, consumers are left with an electrical infrastructure that is less reliable and less capable of meeting demand.

Lost in transmission

Another factor often overlooked is the extra cost of transmission. Many of America’s wind-rich areas are remote and the turbines are often planted in open fields, far from major cities. That means new transmission lines must be built to carry electricity to consumers. The cost of building new transmission lines ranges from $15 to $27 per megawatt-hour.

In 2013, Texas completed its Competitive Renewable Energy Zone project, adding over 3,600 miles of transmission lines to remote wind farms, costing state taxpayers $7 billion.

Although transmission infrastructure may be considered a fixed cost that will reduce future transmission costs for wind power, these costs will likely remain important. Today’s wind farms are built in areas with prime wind resources. If we continue to subsidize wind power, producers will eventually expand to sub-prime locations that may be even further from population centers. This would feed demand for additional transmission projects to transport electricity from remote wind farms to cities.

The final bill comes to…

Finally, federal subsidies and state mandates also add significantly to the cost, even as many estimates claim these incentives actually reduce the cost of wind energy. In fact, they add to it as American taxpayers are forced to foot the bill. According to Giberson, federal and state policiesadd an average of $23 per megawatt-hour to the cost of wind power.

That includes the impact of state mandates, which end up increasing the cost of electricity on consumer power bills. California is one of the most aggressive in pushing so-called Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), requiring the state to consume 33% of its electricity from renewables by 2020. Overall electricity prices in states with RPS are 38% higher than those without, according to the Institute for Energy Research, a non-profit research group that promotes free markets.

The best estimate available for the total cost of wind power is $149 per megawatt-hour, taken from Giberson’s 2013 report.

It is difficult to quantify some factors of the cost of wind power, such as the cost of state policies. Giberson’s estimate, however, includes the most relevant factors in attempting to measure the true cost of producing electricity from wind power. In future reports, Strata will explore the true cost of producing electricity from solar, coal, and natural gas. Until those reports are completed, it is difficult to accurately compare the true cost of wind to other technologies, as true cost studies have not yet been completed.

Blowing in the wind

The high costs of federal subsidies and state mandates for wind power have not paid off for the American public. According to the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, wind energy receives a higher percentage of federal subsidies than any other type of energy while generating a very small percentage of the nation’s electricity.

In 2010 the wind energy sector received 42% of total federal subsidies while producing only 2% of the nation’s total electricity. By comparison, coal receives 10% of all subsidies and generates 45% and nuclear is about even at about 20%.

Wind gobbles up the largest share of subsidies yet produces little power. EIA

But policymakers at the federal and state level, unfortunately, have decided that the American people will have renewable energy, no matter how high the costs. As a result, taxpayers will be stuck paying the cost of subsidies to wealthy wind producers.

Meanwhile, electricity consumers will be forced to purchase the more expensive power that results from state-level mandates for renewable energy production. Although such policies may be well intended, the real results will be limited freedom, reduced prosperity and an increasingly unreliable power supply.

Randy Simmons is professor of political economy at Utah State University. Megan Hansen, a Strata policy analyst, co-authored this article, which first appeared on The Conversation. Full disclosure: Randy Simmons receives funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (grant has been completed and there is no current funding) and Strata, a 501 (c)3 non-profit organization. Megan Hansen, a Strata policy analyst, co-authored this article.

Newsweek

Why Does Wynne’s Granddaughter Deserve Protection, But NOT My Son???

April 18, 2015April 18, 2015 / 1957chev / 2 Comments

The SELFISH Granny…

Kathleen Wynne is not your friend. She says she wants to let you buy beer in the grocery store and save her granddaughter Olivia from Climate Change but she is not your friend.

Here is how I know.

My son Joey has a diagnosed neurological condition which has made his young life a great trial. He is extremely sensitive to noises and visual stimulations which can trigger seizures and cause serious harm to his health.

His neurological Specialist composed a letter for me to give to Kathleen Wynne describing his condition which I did have delivered to her and to the Minister of Energy Bob Chiarelli.

All say that they are concerned and that their ministry will make green energy to protect human health and that they are sure he will be ok. But they can’t say this. And they never tell the wind company not to come to your area because your son will have debilitating health problems for the rest of his life.

We moved to quiet rural area to protect Joey’s health. He has grown up here and at 14 making him leave our home will be devastating to his sense of safety and comfort. He will lose his school friends who have accepted him the way he is. His familiar surrounding will disappear.

Ms. Wynne though, only cares about her granddaughter Olivia. But I wonder what Olivia would say if she knew this? Would this make her feel good about her granny?

Like most innocent children I am sure Olivia would be very upset if she knew that this young boy Joey was going to have an impossible struggle to survive if he had to live surrounded by giant wind turbines at home and at school all day and all night? Where does he go?

I have had no help from my premier. But I have received some kind advice form an unlikely source. The Environmental Review Tribunal coordinator Eva Petrysik – a rare civil servant who seems to actually care suggested I write a pleading letter to the Mr. Dennis Maloney lawyer for the wind developer at Tory’s LLP.

My son’s personal safety matters. There are thousands of special needs and autistic kids in rural Ontario who will be chronically exposed to wind turbine emissions both noise and visual effects. So which ones does our devoted granny select to protect? Would you like to make this choice? Is unreliable, low performing, costly and harmful wind energy good enough to ruin these kids’ lives? We have international treaties and organizations to protect children from harm but your premier does not care. She is abusing her power and my son.

Climate Change Fraud is Much Bigger Than it Seems!

April 17, 2015April 17, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

The Great Wind Power Fraud: Just the Tip of the Climate Change Hysteria Spending Iceberg

April 17, 2015 by stopthesethings

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The tip of the climate spending iceberg
CFACT
Paul Driessen
31 March 2015

Lockheed Martin, a recent Washington Post article notes, is getting into renewable energy, nuclear fusion, “sustainability” and even fish farming projects, to augment its reduced defense profits. The company plans to forge new ties with Defense Department and other Obama initiatives, based on a shared belief in manmade climate change as a critical security and planetary threat.

It is charging ahead where other defense contractors have failed, confident that its expertise, lobbying skills and “socially responsible” commitment to preventing climate chaos will land it plentiful contracts and subsidies.

As with its polar counterparts, 90% of the titanic climate funding iceberg is invisible to most citizens, businessmen and politicians. The Lockheed action is the mere tip of the icy mountaintop.

The multi-billion-dollar agenda reflects the Obama Administration’s commitment to using climate change to radically transform America. It reflects a determination to make the climate crisis industry so enormous that no one will be able to tear it down, even as computer models and disaster claims become less and less credible – and even if Republicans control Congress and the White House after 2016. Lockheed is merely the latest in a long list of regulators, researchers, universities, businesses, manufacturers, pressure groups, journalists and politicians with such strong monetary, reputational and authority interests in alarmism that they will defend its tenets and largesse tooth and nail.

Above all, it reflects a conviction that alarmists have a right to control our energy use, lives, livelihoods and living standards, with no transparency and no accountability for mistakes they make or damage they inflict on disfavored industries and families.

And they are pursuing this agenda despite global warming again beingdead last in the latest Gallup poll of 15 issues of greatest concern to Americans: only 25% say they worry about it “a great deal,” despite steady hysteria; 24% are “not at all” worried about the climate. By comparison, 46% percent worry a great deal about the size and power of the federal government.

But Climate Crisis, Inc. is using our tax and consumer dollars to advance six simultaneous strategies.

1) Climate research. The US government spends $2.5 billion per year on research that focuses on carbon dioxide, ignores powerful natural forces that have always driven climate change, and generates numerous reports and press releases warning of record high temperatures, melting icecaps, rising seas, stronger storms, more droughts and other “unprecedented” crises. The claims are erroneous and deceitful.

They are consistently contradicted by actual climate and weather records, and so alarmists increasingly emphasize computer models that reinvent and substitute for reality. Penn State modeler Michael Mann has collected millions for headline-grabbing work like his latest assertion that the Gulf Stream is slowing – contrary to 20 years of actual measurements that show no change. Former NASA astronomer James Hansen received a questionable $250,000 Heinz Award from Secretary of State John Kerry’s wife, for his climate crisis and anti-coal advocacy. Al Gore and350.org also rake in millions. Alarmist scientists and institutions seek billions more, while virtually no government money goes to research into natural forces.

2) Renewable energy research and implementation grants, loans, subsidies and mandates drive projects to replace hydrocarbons that are still abundant and still 82% of all US energy consumed. Many recipientswent bankrupt despite huge taxpayer grants and loan guarantees. Wind turbine installations butcher millions of birds and bats annually, but are exempt from Endangered Species Act fines and penalties.

Tesla Motors received $256 million to produce electric cars for wealthy elites who receive $2,500 to $7,500 in tax credits, plus free charging and express lane access. From 2007 to 2013, corn ethanol interests spent$158 million lobbying for more “green” mandates and subsidies – and $6 million in campaign contributions – for a fuel that reduces mileage, damages engines, requires enormous amounts of land, water and fertilizer, and from stalk to tailpipe emits more carbon dioxide than gasoline.

General Electric spends tens of millions lobbying for more taxpayer renewable energy dollars; so do many other companies. The payoffs add up to tens of billions of dollars, from taxpayers and consumers.

3) Regulatory fiats increasingly substitute for laws and carbon taxes thatCongress refuses to enact, due to concerns about economic and employment impacts, and because China, India and other countries’ CO2 emissions dwarf America’s. EPA’s war on coal has already claimed thousands of jobs, raised electricity costs for millions of businesses and families, and adversely affected living standards, health and welfare for millions of families. The White House and EPA are also targeting oil and gas drilling and fracking.

Now the Obama Administration is unleashing a host of new mandates and standards, based on arbitrary “social cost of carbon” calculations that assume fossil fuel use imposes numerous climate and other costs, but brings minimal or no economic or societal benefits. The rules will require onerous new energy efficiency and CO2 emission reduction standards that will send consumer costs skyrocketing, while channeling billions of dollars to retailers, installers, banks and mostly overseas manufacturers.

As analyst Roger Bezdek explains, water heaters that now cost $675-1,500 will soon cost $1,200-2,450 – with newfangled exhaust fans, vent pipes and condensate removal systems. Pickup trucks with more fuel efficiency and less power will nearly double in price. Microwaves, cell phones, vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, toasters, coffee pots, lawn mowers, photocopiers, televisions and almost everything else will cost far more. Poor and middle class families will get clobbered, to prevent perhaps 5% of the USA’s 15% of all human CO2 emissions toward 0.04% of atmospheric CO2, and maybe 0.00001 degrees of warming.

4) A new UN climate treaty would limit fossil fuel use by developed countries, place no binding limits or timetables on developing nations, and redistribute hundreds of billions of dollars to poor countries that claim they have been harmed by emissions and warming due to rich country hydrocarbon use. Even IPCC officials now openly brag that climate policy has “almost nothing” to do with protecting the environment – and everything to do with intentionally transforming the global economy and redistributing its wealth.

5) Vicious personal attacks continue on scientists, businessmen, politicians and others who disagree publicly with the catechism of climate cataclysm. Alarmist pressure groups and Democrat members of Congress are out to destroy the studies, funding, reputations and careers of all who dare challenge climate disaster tautologies. At President Obama’s behest, even disaster aid agencies are piling on.

New FEMA rules require that any state seeking disaster preparedness funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency must first assess how climate change threatens their communities. This will mean relying on discredited, worthless alarmist models that routinely spew out predictions unrelated to reality. It likely means no federal funds will go to states that include or focus on natural causes, historical records or models that have better track records than those employed by the IPCC, EPA and President.

6) Thought control. In addition to vilifying climate chaos skeptics, alarmists are determined to control all thinking on the subject. They are terrified that people will find realist analyses and explanations far more persuasive. They refuse to debate skeptics, respond to NIPCC and other studies examining natural climate change and carbon dioxide benefits to wildlife and agriculture, or even admit there is no consensus.

They want the news media to ignore us but cannot put the internet genie back in the bottle. The White House is trying, though. It even sent picketers to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s home, to demand that he knuckle under and apply 1930s’ telephone laws to the internet, as a first step in content control States must refuse to play the climate crisis game.

Through lawsuits, hearings, investigations and other actions, governors, legislators, AGs and other officials can delay EPA diktats, educate citizens about solar and other natural forces, and explain the huge costs and trifling benefits of these draconian regulations.

Congress should hold hearings, demand an accounting of agency expenditures, require solid evidence for every climate claim and regulation, and cross-examine Administration officials on details. It should slash EPA and other agency budgets, so they cannot keep giving billions to pressure groups, propagandists and attack dogs. Honesty, transparency, accountability and a much shorter leash are long overdue.
CFACT

EU’s Green Policies. An Example That No One Should Follow!

April 16, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

EU’s green energy debacle shows the futility of climate change policies

Benny Peiser, Special to Financial Post | April 14, 2015

David Ramos/Getty ImagesA wind turbine spins at a wind farm on February 19, 2015 near Zaragoza, Spain.

Ontario will follow the EU at its peril — power rates will soar while industries depart

As the Ontario government announces new unilateral climate policies, Canadian policymakers would be well advised to heed the lessons of Europe’s self-defeating green energy debacle.

The European Union has long been committed to unilateral efforts to tackle climate change. For the last 20 years, Europe has felt a duty to set an example through radical climate policy-making at home. Political leaders were convinced that the development of a low-carbon economy based on renewables would give Europe a competitive advantage.

European governments have advanced the most expensive forms of energy generation at the expense of the least expensive kinds. No other major emitter has followed the EU’s aggressive climate policy and targets. As a result, electricity prices in Europe are now more than double those in North America and Europe’s remaining and struggling manufacturers are rapidly losing ground to international competition. European companies and investors are pouring money into the U.S., where energy prices have fallen to less than half those in the EU, thanks to the shale gas revolution.

Although EU policy has managed to reduce CO2 emissions domestically, this was only achieved by shifting energy-intensive industries to overseas locations without stringent emission limits, where energy and labour is cheap and which are now growing much faster than the EU.

Most products consumed in the EU today are imported from countries without binding CO2 targets. While the EU’s domestic CO2 emissions have fallen, if you factor in CO2 emissions embedded in goods imported into EU, the figure remains substantially higher.

Of all the unintended consequences of EU climate policy perhaps the most bizarre is the detrimental effect of wind and solar schemes on the price of electricity generated by natural gas. Many gas power plants can no longer operate enough hours. They incur big costs as they have to be switched on and off to back-up renewables.

Most products consumed in the EU today are imported from countries without binding CO2 targets

This week, Germany’s energy industry association warned that more than half of all power plants in planning are about to fold: Even the most efficient gas-fired power plants can no longer be operated profitably.

Every 10 new units worth of wind power installation has to be backed up with some eight units worth of fossil fuel generation. This is because fossil fuel plants have to power up suddenly to meet the deficiencies of intermittent renewables. In short, renewables do not provide an escape route from fossil fuel use without which they are unsustainable.

Gas-fired power generation has become uneconomic in the EU, even for some of the most efficient and least carbon-intensive plants. At the end of 2013, 14 per cent of the EU’s installed gas-fired plants stood still, had closed or were at risk of closure. If all gas plants currently under review were to close, this would amount to 28 per cent of current capacity by 2016. Almost 20 per cent of gas power plants in Germany have already become unprofitable and face shutdown as renewables flood the electricity grid with preferential energy.

To avoid blackouts, the government has to subsidize uneconomic gas and coal power plants. Already half of the 28 EU countries have in place or are planning to subsidize fossil fuel power plants to keep the lights on.

Germany’s renewable energy levy, which subsidizes green energy production, rose from 14 billion euros to 20 billion euros in just one year as a result of the fierce expansion of wind and solar power projects. Since the introduction of the levy in 2000, the electricity bill of the typical German consumer has doubled.

As wealthy homeowners and business owners install wind turbines on their land and solar panels on their homes and commercial buildings, low-income families all over Europe have had to foot the skyrocketing electric bills. Many can no longer afford to pay, so the utilities are cutting off their power. The German Association of Energy Consumers estimates that up to 800,000 Germans have had their power cut off because they were unable to pay the country’s rising electricity bills.

The EU’s unilateral climate policy is absurd. First consumers are forced to pay ever increasing subsidies for wind and solar energy; secondly they are asked to subsidize nuclear energy too; thirdly, they are forced to pay for increasingly uneconomic coal and gas plants to back up power needed by intermittent wind and solar energy; fourthly, consumers are additionally hit by multi-billion subsidies that become necessary to upgrade the national grids; fifthly, the cost of power is made even more expensive by adding a unilateral Emissions Trading Scheme. Finally, because Europe has created such a foolish scheme that is crippling its heavy industries, consumers are forced to pay even more billions in subsidizing almost the entire manufacturing sector.

In the last few years, major economies such as Canada, Australia and Japan have begun to realize the futility of going it alone and have retreated from unilateral policies and targets. Now even the EU has decided to walk away and has adopted a conditional climate pledge. It has burdened European taxpayers and businesses with astronomical costs while shifting its heavy industry and CO2 emissions to other parts of the world. Europe’s climate policy failure demonstrates beyond doubt that its unilateralism has been a complete fiasco. The lessons of this self-defeating debacle are clear: Don’t make the same mistakes or you will face the same fiasco.

Benny Peiser is the director of the London-based Global Warming Policy Forum. The text is based on written evidence he gave to the Committee on Environment and Public Works of the U.S. Senate.

More on the Climate Change Scam, From a Real Climate Scientist!

April 15, 2015 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Judith Curry on Mark Levin–I think she’s pissed

Posted on April 15, 2015

Who am I, but a man of experience and intelligence, to consider the reason why Judith Curry, climate scientist and Chair of Enviro Science at Georgia Tech would go on the Mark Levin Radio Show at 6:30 pm on 4-15-15 to talk about her testimony before congress in the previous 24 hours, condemning the warmer hype?

I think that Raul (the wart hog) Grijalva’s inquiries into her travel and funding and the general problem of an inquisition Boxer and others on the left in congress, have raised the lady’s hackles.

I like that. My hackles are perpetually raised because of the lies of the EPA funded junk scientists and their running dog allies in the press and the congress.

So today Dr. Curry showed up to talk to Mark Levin, not a shrinking violet as a conservative, and she told the story of why she is where she is on the warming battle.

May I remind you of what she did in testimony the past 24 hours and what she has done in the past.

It’s not like we have not noticed her courage and integrity before.

today before the Levin show:

http://junkscience.com/2015/04/15/judith-curry-moves-to-becoming-a-pariah-in-the-house-that-green-built/

In the past you might have thought I was considering sainthood for Curry–take a look:

http://junkscience.com/?s=judith+curry

Huron County – Trouble in Paradise, for Wind Pushers…

April 15, 2015 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Local officials at Michigan’s ground zero for wind energy are telling wind developers “enough is enough.” Huron County has 328 wind turbines, more than all of the other Michigan counties combined. But it has just enacted a moratorium on any additional ones until stricter regulations for industrial wind turbines can be put in place.

“What this means is no turbines for people who don’t want them,” Huron County Commissioner John Nugent said. “The people who want them can still have them as long as it doesn’t adversely affect their neighbors.”

At its final March meeting the Huron County Commission voted 4-3 to adopt the moratorium, which will last 90 days, or until the county zoning ordinance is updated with changes recommended by the county’s wind energy zoning committee. If the changes aren’t enacted within 90 days the moratorium could be extended until they are.

Nugent said there is no secret about what the new regulations will be like. They will include increasing the setback distance for the turbines, creating tighter noise restrictions, eliminating turbine flicker for the homes of nonparticipating residents, and a ban on wind development within three miles of the Lake Huron shoreline. This three-mile no-windmill zone was recommended by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The county’s wind energy zoning committee has been working on revisions for more than a year, and a possible moratorium has been under discussion by the board of commissioners for months. On Dec. 30, 2014, the board voted to seek legal assistance for drafting a moratorium. In addition to the moratorium, the board has also taken action to assure it covers wind developers that had already submitted site plan review requests to the planning commission.

Complaints that living near industrial wind turbines causes adverse health impacts have been voiced worldwide. They include symptoms such as headaches and dizziness allegedly caused by exposure to low-frequency noise, infrasound emitted by the turbines and visual problems allegedly caused by the flicker effect of the turbine blades.

“This is a big deal,” said Kevon Martis director of the Interstate Informed Citizens Coalition (IICC), a nonprofit organization that is concerned about the construction of wind turbines in the region. “The moratorium in Huron County is a significant blow to Michigan wind development. Wind developers will no doubt continue to whistle past the tombstones and claim that most people do not mind having entire townships and counties turned into 50-story-tall power plants. But as wind development has increased in Michigan, people’s voices of protest have also increased. And most communities hosting wind turbines are now using every legal and regulatory means at their disposal to stop the bleeding.”

Minnesota-based Geronimo Wind Energy, arguably the wind developer most immediately affected by the moratorium, did not respond to a phone call offering the opportunity to comment.

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Huron County Looks at Wind Turbine Moratorium

Wisconsin Wind Turbines Declared Health Hazard

Utility Appeals Wind Turbine Noise Ruling

Court Backs Finding of Wind Turbine Noise Problem

Utility Asks Court To Slap Down Excessive Wind Turbine Noise Finding

Michigan’s Renewable Energy Mandate Causing Harm, Probably Unconstitutional

Energy Company At Odds With County Over Safety of Wind Turbines

Lawsuit Alleges Wind Power A Threat To Health and Safety

Most of Michigan Is ‘Poor’ or ‘Marginal’ For Wind Energy

Effort In Lansing To Override Voters’ Rebuke of Higher-Cost Energy Mandate

Cape Bridgewater Wind Facility- Acoustic Engineering Investigation

April 9, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Acoustic Engineering Investigation at Cape Bridgewater Wind Facility

Acoustic Engineering Investigation into Airborne and Ground-Borne Pressure Pulses from Pacific Hydro’s Wind Turbines at Cape Bridgewater

Waubra Foundation Definitive Document
1 February, 2015

A Simplified Explanation of the Findings, Previous Research, and the Consequences

1. Background

Turbines create “waste energy” in the form of airborne pressure waves (sound) and ground-borne pressure waves (vibration).
Noise is that part of the sound frequency spectrum which is audible, but “noise” is also defined by psychoacousticians as “unwanted sound”.
The strength (sometimes expressed as a loudness in the case of noise) of the sound is measured in decibels (“dB”).
The wavelength of individual sound waves is a measure of the distance between the peaks of the pressure waves. The speed of sound divided by the wavelength gives the frequency of the sound and is expressed in hertz (Hz).
Where the frequency of the sound waves is below 20 Hz, the distance between the waves is relatively long, and the general term for this portion of the frequency spectrum is known as infrasound. Infrasound is only audible at very high levels (dB). However it can be damaging to the human body at levels well below audibility.
Impulsive infrasound from a variety of industrial sources has long been known to have the potential to be harmful to humans, especially with chronic exposure. For example, human and animal studies have shown infrasound directly causes both physiological stress, and collagen thickening in a variety of tissues including cardiac valves, arteries, and pericardium which themselves lead to a variety of cardiovascular diseases.
Infrasound persists for much greater distances than audible sound and, unlike audible sound, penetrates well insulated building structures (including double glazing) with ease; and often increases the impact by resonating within the house, like a drum. This occurs, regardless of the source of sound & vibration energy. Penetration of buildings and amplification via resonance can also occur from sound and vibration from natural sources such as earthquakes and thunder.
Standards for wind turbine noise pollution in Australia are set in audible decibels (“dBA”) outside houses. Use of dBA excludes accurate measurement of frequencies below 200 Hz, including both infrasound (0 – 20 Hz) and low frequency noise (20 – 200 Hz). These Standards do not require infrasound (either within or outside homes) to be predicted in planning submissions nor to be measured in the required compliance testing to the planning permit noise conditions. Most jurisdictions do not require wind turbine generated low frequency noise to be predicted or measured either (unlike other sources of industrial noise). In fact most noise measuring instruments and microphones are unable to measure accurately in the infrasound range, especially below 8 Hz., and some Standards explicitly specify the use of equipment which cannot measure infrasound.
Wind turbines produce infrasound along with audible noise. The more powerful the wind turbine the greater the proportion of infrasound and low frequency noise emitted, which then increases significantly if the turbines are sited too close together, now common practice in Australia. Most newer wind turbines are now 3 MW or 3.5 MW, compared to2MW at Cape Bridgewater.
By the use of different sound meters and microphones, and in narrow (frequency) bands it is quite possible to identify and measure infrasound specifically from wind turbines, in the field. This unique “wind turbine signature” has now been demonstrated by the acoustic consultants involved in the Health Canada Study, and by Professor Colin Hansen’s team at Waterloo, in addition to Mr Cooper’s measurements at a number of locations in Australia prior to, and including, the Cape Bridgewater Acoustic Investigation.
Increasing numbers of residents living within 10km of wind turbines have suffered, and are still suffering, severe adverse health impacts since the wind turbines started operating. Many have left their homes repeatedly, and eventually permanently, to live in greatly diminished financial circumstances, as their homes are no longer habitable or saleable. Some residents become too unwell to work. Wind turbines are not the only source of impulsive infrasound and low frequency noise causing severe health damage. The same pattern of identical serious adverse health effects, sleep deprivation and home abandonments, sometimes out to similar distances are being reported by neighbours to other known sources of infrasound and low frequency noise, at open cut coal mining (e.g. Hunter Valley in New South Wales), underground mines with large extractor fans (eg Lithgow, in New South Wales), gas turbine power stations (e.g. Uranquinty, in New South Wales, Port Campbell in Victoria) and numerous other sources (eg Tara gas field in Queensland).
Wind power projects and other energy generating noise polluting industrial developments involve very large sums of money in construction, in revenues and in the case of industrial wind turbines — public subsidies. It is not uncommon to find companies with large investments and large cash flows going to great and improper lengths to maintain their cash flows.
The wind industry has never been asked to prove that their machines are safe, unlike other products on the market. When queries are raised about impacts on neighbours, the industry and its supporters trigger the “Four Ds” of denial, dissemble, delay and destroy the messenger, despite the wind industry being well aware of the seminal research by Dr Neil Kelley and NASA which established direct causation of symptoms from impulsive infrasound and low frequency noise from wind turbines and other sources in the 1980s, by both field and laboratory research.

2. The Purpose of the Cape Bridgewater Acoustic Investigation

The purpose of the investigation was simply to find out what was causing the symptoms and sensations, resulting in sleep disturbance and health damage, reported to Pacific Hydro between 2009 and 2014 by the residents of three homes sited between 600 – 1600 metres from wind turbines sited at the Cape Bridgewater Wind Project in Victoria, Australia.

3. What Are the Key Findings of the Cooper Acoustic Investigation?

The findings include:

By using sound meters and microphones that can accurately measure infrasound and recording the infrasound levels in narrow frequency bands (rather than dBA or 1/3 octave bands) it was clear that infrasound generated specifically by the wind turbines was present in the three homes.
Wind turbines emit a recognisable and repeatable sound “signature” (or profile), being the relationship between the blade pass frequency and multiple harmonics of that frequency. At times the acoustic signature included audible characteristics and modulation across the full frequency spectrum. Further, this signature, whilst it contains significant energy in the infrasound range, is in no way comparable to other sources of infrasound such as waves on the beach, other fast rotating machinery, i.e. refrigerators, trains, road traffic, as claimed by wind industry “experts” and supporters.

This discovered profile ”wind turbine signature” does not need further research, and has been independently documented by other acousticians and researchers around the world.

Wind turbine infrasound is present inside each of the three homes investigated (when the turbines are operating), at levels known thirty years ago to directly cause the same symptoms and sensations including sleep disturbance and body vibrations. The intensity of the infrasound levels inside the houses varied between and within rooms (probably due to resonances and different outlooks to the wind farm).

A potentially causative energy problem was identified in each of the three houses.

It was determined from early testing by Steven Cooper and the residents that recording of impacts solely by the previously used parameters of noise and vibration was not enough. A third impact being “sensation” was added to cover, as it transpired, the reaction of the body to infrasound.

Diaries used by the SA EPA at the Waterloo project were not designed to investigate the reported impacts from “sensations”. The SA EPA’s conclusions in that study were wrong, and are therefore now irrelevant.

The residents’ impact diaries (based on the South Australian EPA Waterloo Acoustic Survey diary format) were substantially modified to improve their ease of use, reliability and differentiation between perceptions of noise, vibration (external to the body), and “sensations” (determined in this study to be reactions to infrasound).

The form of these diaries must be the minimum standard for future multidisciplinary investigations.

Since measurements and predictive noise models for wind turbines being expressed in dBA exclude accurate measurement of infrasound and low frequency noise, it follows that dBA is useless as a proxy for predicting damage to neighbours, or for setting Standards to protect them from harm. Even before Steven Cooper’s investigation, the wind turbine noise Standards were known to be dangerously inadequate. Responsible authorities should have altered the Standards to include sound as a whole and infrasound in particular, especially after Dr Neil Kelley’s work establishing direct causation from infrasound and low frequency noise resurfaced in mid 2013. Steven Cooper’s work at Cape Bridgewater reinforces the need for urgent revision of existing Australian standards and regulations, and to develop a standard for “sensation”.

These current Standards are now known to be dangerous, clearly do not protect people, and must not ever be used again.

Methods of measuring sound must: utilise instruments able to monitor the whole spectrum of sound; be conducted inside as well as outside homes; produce results in narrow bands not one third octaves or dBA as is currently standard, and must continue over sufficient periods of time, to cover most if not all environmental conditions (wind speed and direction etc.).

No other acoustic investigations have been so inclusive of a range of environmental conditions, apart from Dr Neil Kelley and NASA’s work, funded by the US Department of Energy in the 1980’s which originally identified the direct causal relationship between symptoms and sensations and impulsive ILFN from the various sound sources which included wind turbines, gas turbines and military aircraft.

Changes in wind speed, wind direction, turbine start up, and operating at near shutdown speed coincided with sensations being at the highest level (characterised as equivalent to a compulsive need to flee the house).

Causality of intolerable symptoms and sensations from infrasound has been established, repeatedly and predictably. This means it is now indefensible for any public authority or official to rely on the nocebo nonsense to explain residents’ symptoms and sensations.

Without any argument the investigation showed that the six residents in the three houses were regularly subject to wind turbine derived infrasound, inside their homes particularly in the 4 to 5 hertz range of infrasound frequencies, at levels known thirty years ago to be dangerous to health. The residents’ own diaries and personal health histories demonstrate that all of the residents have been severely impacted.

4. Commentary

With better instruments, more reliable and useful diaries, plus eight weeks of data and the opportunity to measure sound and vibration when the turbines were shut down, this thorough acoustic investigation by a highly regarded, ethical acoustic engineer was established to find the truth whatever it may be.

A number of lesser studies previously conducted by other acousticians, show signs of intellectual corruption and/or ineptitude, and of being designed to find no problems; thereby shielding the flow of cash to wind project owners; whilst holding off the liability for supposedly expert but incorrect opinions delivered by a group of acousticians on behalf of project operators and of companies seeking planning permits.

Predictably, the wind turbine product defence team are still trying to fault the Cooper investigation.

A guide to understanding the key claims follows.

a) Misrepresenting an Engineering Investigation as an all embracing academic research project, and then criticizing it because it was not.

The brief was very specific — to determine whether certain wind speeds and certain sound levels related to disturbances related to specific local residents. This was a thorough, independent, acoustic investigation into why these three houses were virtually uninhabitable. The answer was found and the cause established. Evidence of court quality has been established. It was not a generously funded academic research project.

b) No Peer Review

It is correct that this report was not peer reviewed prior to public release.

Pacific Hydro did not allow peer review to occur, prior to its publication. However, peer reviews by acoustic consultants are occurring now, and preliminary peer reviews from acousticians with first hand knowledge of the reported health problems and the challenges of conducting research inside the homes of impacted residents have acknowledged the quality and usefulness of this acoustic investigation.

Engineers seek a repeatable result. The way a repeatable result is sought includes checking the suitability and location of the instruments, then painstakingly calibrating them before measurements start. The calibration and measurement processes are repeated ad nauseumuntil it is clear, without out any doubt, that the results are repeatable. This is precisely what Steven Cooper has done. It is also of great value that the methodology of the study, and the problems he encountered, have been so clearly described in detail in the report, for the benefit of future researchers.

c) No Control Group

Some non epidemiologists and wind industry employees and supporters who have commented publicly on this research have said it is meaningless because there is no “control” group for comparison. The brief from Pacific Hydro prohibited a separate control group of separate non exposed “controls”. In fact, the residents were their own controls in this acoustic investigation, which in epidemiological terms is a “prospective case (series) crossover” design, also used in pharmacological research to assess the individual responses to differing doses of drugs over time.

In other words this particular study design gives detailed information about a number of individuals’ responses to specific doses (in this instance “exposure doses at specific sound frequencies”) over time, and also the human responses when no drug (wind turbine infrasound) is present. Prospective case (series) crossover studies are well known to epidemiologists as a powerful epidemiological study design, and help to establish causation, as well as therapeutic and safety thresholds, depending on those varied individual responses.

d) Small Sample Size

This was a detailed investigation into three houses, over eight weeks, with six residents who had reported serious adverse health impacts for many years. The sample size limits were established by Pacific Hydro, who commissioned the study, and are to be commended for doing so. This level of detailed direct investigation of acoustic exposures and human impacts has not been seen for thirty years, since the US Department of Energy funded acoustic field research conducted by Dr Neil Kelley and NASA in 1985.

The results are consistent with Kelley’s research, which established direct causation between infrasound and low frequency noise emissions and reported sensations. Predictably the wind industry and its supporters have denied the current relevance of the Kelley research, despite it being instrumental in forcing a significant design change of wind turbines to reduce the generation of impulsive infrasound and low frequency noise, in order to prevent health damage.

e) Can the Results be Extrapolated to Other Locations?

To answer this question it is necessary to consider probabilities. The relevant inputs are:

modern wind turbines produce impulsive infrasound, in increasing proportions as the turbine power increases;
impulsive infrasound can and does cause serious impacts on humans, known for thirty years;
impulsive infrasound from wind turbines penetrates homes, and the characteristic symptoms are being reported by residents at distances of at least 8km –10km from wind turbines, and correlate directly with exposure to operating wind turbines;
multiple home abandonments at multiple wind projects have taken place because the owners are suffering symptoms associated with turbine proximity, and their medical practitioners are increasingly advising them to move, in order to prevent further serious health damage;
in Australia nearly every wind project with turbines of 1.5MW or more has generated public complaints from residents who live nearby, unless those residents have been silenced with non disclosure clauses in various agreements – the use of which have been denied by the industry despite documented evidence to the contrary.

The answer to the question posed is:

“where there are or have been multiple complaints of the characteristic symptoms and “sensations” by residents, there is a very high probability of infrasound at health damaging levels being present inside those homes, and that being the cause of the complaints and serious adverse health effects reported by residents.”

The research protocol and tools developed by Steven Cooper and the residents are easily reproducible at other locations where similar adverse health impacts are being reported, regardless of the source of the sound and vibration.

This study can be easily extended to include concurrent physiological data collection with the full spectrum acoustic measurements inside and outside homes. There is no reason why information about specific indicators of health status cannot also be collected from study participants, such as those used by Dr Bob Thorne , Dr Daniel Shepherd and Dr Michael Nissenbaum in their respective studies, which have established adverse health effects in different wind turbine noise affected study populations previously.

The realization that this acoustic investigation study design is also a prospective case (series) cross over design increases the power of this specific study design to provide important answers as to causation and safety thresholds, when replicated at any site where these characteristic symptom and sensation complaints have been reported by residents living within ten km. As one of the acoustic peer reviewers said, “may the medical testing begin”.

5. Finally – the Consequences

The operator at Cape Bridgewater and the responsible authorities now have to deal fairly and equitably with these three families.

More broadly, the various public authorities involved in regulating the wind industry (and indeed noise pollution regulation in Australia from any source) need to take notice.

Steven Cooper’s study design can now be used to investigate the acoustic impacts at any wind power or other noise emitting development where the characteristic health problems have been reported by nearby residents. When combined with the concurrent physiological data collection (e.g. heart rate, sleep EEG, non invasive blood pressure, and stress hormones) the results will demonstrate both direct causation of the physiological impacts the residents are clearly describing, and also reliable and consistent thresholds of perception for those chronically exposed, from which new and much safer “noise” pollution guidelines can be implemented and properly enforced, to prevent further serious harm to physical and mental health.

The relevant politicians, public authorities and officials need to ensure that the requisite research is adequately funded, and properly conducted, as a matter of urgency. Research directly investigating the sound frequencies inside people’s homes was recommended “as a priority” in June 2011, by the Senate Committee Report into the Social and Economic Impacts of Rural Wind Farms, chaired by Greens Senator Rachel Siewert and has since been endorsed by both houses of Australian Federal Parliament. This multidisciplinary research was also a pre election promise of the current Federal Government.

The conduct of such research must be undertaken in a transparent manner adhering to the highest ethical standards and must involve the community in such investigations and vetting the investigation team. It cannot be conducted in laboratories but must use operational wind farms and existing residents (for both affected and control groups). The wind development operators and owners must be required to provide all necessary operational data, and to cooperate without restriction with “on off testing”.

If this Cape Bridgewater research, commissioned by a wind developer, conducted by an ethical independent acoustician with the cooperation of both the wind developer and the affected residents, is not acted upon immediately to prevent further harm, the public authorities and politicians who choose not to act are then in a position of knowingly allowing the serious damage to physical and mental health from impulsive infrasound and low frequency noise from wind turbines to continue.

Given that the most serious and common complaint around the world from neighbours to industrial wind turbines and other sources of impulsive infrasound and low frequency noise is repeatedly disturbed and interrupted sleep, (resulting in prolonged and chronic sleep deprivation, which itself is acknowledged as a method of torture by the UN Committee against Torture ), the individual public officials are risking future charges against them of either committing or acquiescing to torture, which if proven could lead to custodial sentences. The maximum penalty under the Criminal Code Act 1995 as amended in 2010 for torture or acquiescence to torture is a twenty year jail sentence.

Immediate action is required from public officials at every level of government who are responsible for the current situation. This is not only to prevent further serious damage to human health, but also to reduce officials’ personal risk of future successful prosecution against them by severely impacted rural residents, for torture or acquiescence to torture, or for ignoring ongoing cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, about which officials have been repeatedly personally advised.

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[i] For example the 1985 study from the University of Toronto by Nussbaum and Reinishttps://www.wind-watch.org/documents/some-individual-differences-in-human-response-to-infrasound/ , the Chinese study from 2004 http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/an-investigation-physiological-and-psychological-effects-infrasound-persons/ , the work cited in the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Literature Review in 2001http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/infrasound-brief-review-toxicological-literature/

[ii] the extensive body of work by the Portuguese research team into Vibroacoustic disease and collagen thickening is summarised in this review article:http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/vibroacoustic-disease-biological-effects-infrasound-alves-periera-castelo-branco/

[iii] see for example the Falmouth acoustic survey by Rand and Ambrose, December 2012http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/bruce-mcpherson-infrasound-low-frequency-noise-study/

[iv] Also Mr William Palmer’s research measuring infrasound from wind turbines inside rural farmhouses in Ontario https://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wind-turbine-annoyance-a-clue-from-acoustic-room-modes/

[v] for a discussion about the origins of the various Australian Standards by two acousticians who helped write the South Australian Wind Turbine Noise guidelines see Chris Turnbull and Jason Turner’s paper delivered in Denver, Colorado in 2013http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/turnbull-c-turner-j-recent-developments-wind-farm-noise-australia/

[vi] The Danish research which established this was by Professors Moller and Pedersen in 2011http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/moller-pedersen-low-frequency-noise-from-large-wind-turbines/

[vii] see the exchanges between Dr Malcolm Swinbanks and Mr Les Huson about the distances between wind turbines at AGL’s Macarthur Wind Development in Western Victoria, at the end of the Waubra Foundation submission to the RET reviewhttp://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/renewable-energy-target-review-waubra-foundation-submission-2014/

[viii] MG Acoustics, Ottowa and Ontario, Canada, “Wind Turbine Noise Propagation” report for Health Canada Study, 2014, Figure 3 https://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wind-turbine-noise-propagation-below-100-hz/

[ix] https://www.wind-watch.org/documents/comparison-of-the-noise-levels-measured-in-the-vicinity-of-a-wind-farm-for-shutdown-and-operational-conditions/

[x] Please see the noise impact surveys on the Waubra Foundation website for further details of the systematically gathered data by Morris (2012, Waterloo, South Australia), Schneider (2012 &2013, Cullerin, New South Wales) and Schafer (2013, Macarthur, Victoria) which concur with what the Waubra Foundation has been told directly by individuals living near wind developments in Australia, out to distances of ten km and in some locations even further under some weather (temperature inversion) and wind (downwind) conditions:http://waubrafoundation.org.au/library/community-noise-impact-surveys/

[xi] For adverse health effects confirmed in residents at Waubra and Cape Bridgewater wind developments, see Dr Bob Thorne’s study from 2012, reissued in 2014http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/thorne-r-victorian-wind-farm-review-updated-june-2014/

[xii] For other details see the references at the bottom of the document “Environmental Noise, Sleep Deprivation, and Torture” http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/environmental-noise-sleep-deprivation-torture-september-2014/

[xiii] Dr Neil Kelley’s research is summarised in the Waubra Foundation’s Explicit Warning Notice, November 2013. http://waubrafoundation.org.au/2013/explicit-warning-notice/

[xiv] the Cape Bridgewater Acoustic Survey can be accessed on the Pacific Hydro website:http://www.pacifichydro.com.au/english/our-communities/communities/cape-bridgewater-acoustic-study-report/?language=en and the resident’s statement can be found here:http://waubrafoundation.org.au/2015/steven-coopers-cape-bridgewater-acoustic-research-commissioned-by-pacific-hydro-released/

[xv] Further information about the SA EPA Acoustic survey is here:http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/open-letter-premier-south-australia-clean-energy-regulator-concerning-sa-epa-acoustic-survey-2/ and Professor Colin Hansen’s team’s report of their acoustic survey (concurrent with the SA EPA is here:http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/hansen-zajamsek-hansen-noise-monitoring-waterloo-wind-farm/

[xvi] The pro forma of the diaries used by the residents can be downloaded here (scroll down to the bottom of the webpage): http://waubrafoundation.org.au/information/residents/journals/

[xvii] The research in the USA into military aircraft noise perception by Harvey Hubbard in 1982 is here: http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/hubbard-h-1982-noise-induced-house-vibrations-human-perception/ , and the early research into gas and wind turbines from 1982 is here:http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/kelley-et-al-methodology-for-assessment-wind-turbine-noise-generation-1982/

[xviii] For a simple explanation of a case cross over designed study, see this description:https://onlinecourses.science.psu.edu/stat507/node/51 and for an example of how it can be used in pharmaceutical and clinical epidemiological research please seehttp://smm.sagepub.com/content/18/1/53.abstract

[xix] The 1985 Kelley / NASA acoustic field research report:http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/kelley-et-al-1985-acoustic-noise-associated-with-mod-1-wind-turbine/

[xx] Senator Chris Back’s speech to Federal Parliament in October 2012 contains extracts from a number of contracts which contain non disclosure clauses (also known as “gag” clauses)http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/senator-back-reveals-gag-clauses-wind-developer-contracts/

[xxi] Thorne’s research at Cape Bridgewater and Waubra in Victoria, Australia, first submitted to the Senate Inquiry in 2012, and reissued in 2014 :http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/thorne-r-victorian-wind-farm-review-updated-june-2014/

[xxii] Shepherd et al’s research at Makara in New Zealand, published in Noise and Health in 2011http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/evaluating-impact-wind-turbine-noise-health-related-quality-life/

[xiii] Nissenbaum et al’s research at Maine and Vinalhaven, USA, published in Noise and Health in October 2012 http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/effects-industrial-wind-turbine-noise-sleep-and-health/

[xxiv] Mr Rob Rand, acoustician from the USA http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/rand-r-congratulations-cape-bridgewater-acoustic-study-report/

[xxv] other acoustic peer reviewers include Mr Steven Ambrosehttp://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/ambrose-se-congratulations-steven-cooper-cape-bridgewater-report/ and Dr Bob Thorne http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/thorne-r-congratulation-cape-bridgewater-investigation/

[xxvi] Justice Muse, in Falmouth USA issued an injunction in December 2013 to prevent wind turbines operating at night time in order to “prevent irreparable harm to physical and psychological health” http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/falmouth-mass-judge-muse-decision-shut-down-wind-turbines-causing-irreparable-harm/

[xxvii] The Australian Senate inquiry recommendations from 2011 are here:http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/australian-federal-senate-inquiry-into-wind-farms-health-report/

[xxviii] the text of the UN Convention, and the words of the UN Committee Against Torture concerning sleep deprivation are here: http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/un-convention-against-torture/

[xxix] More detailed information about “Environmental Noise, Sleep Deprivation and Torture” is here: http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/environmental-noise-sleep-deprivation-torture-september-2014/ , and the risks for public officials who acquiesce to acts of torture is here:http://waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/public-officials-at-risk-criminal-charges-for-torture-public-statement/

Download the Definitive Document, including all references →

Funny that Wind Proponents refuse to Study REAL PEOPLE! Obvious they know the truth!

April 8, 2015 / 1957chev / 3 Comments

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 8, 2015

Toronto ON/ On April 9 the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) will release a report in Canada evaluating the literature on the impacts of wind turbine noise on human health called Understanding the Evidence: Wind Turbine Noise.

The group Canadians for Radiation Emissions Enforcement (CFREE) wants the endless reviewing of the literature on wind turbines and health to cease.

“The people of rural Canada don’t want any more expert reviewers reviewing other expert reviewers year after year”, says Shawn Drennan spokesperson for CFREE. “We are at a crossroads with the wind industry. We want action. The government of Ontario is plowing ahead with the planned 6000 industrial scale wind turbines while communities are desperate to be heard and protected. Why is the Radiation Emitting Devices Act – a Law created to protect Canadians from acoustical waves such as those emitted by wind turbines – being ignored?”

“How many people in rural Canada need to complain and suffer from the operation of wind turbines before justice takes hold?” Drennan added.

“Added to this is the fact that the CCA panel of experts, supported by the federal government and including a member of the wind industry lobby, has no mandate to investigate any individuals reporting health effects for this report. Where do we the public fit in?” adds Drennan.

It is prescribed in the REDA that if an importer or operator of a device such as a wind turbine is made aware of risk of personal injury or impairment of health they must “forthwith notify the Minister” [of Health for Canada]. CFREE asks why wind developers did not follow this law seven years ago when people first reported problems to them about the impacts of the noise emitted from turbines operating in their vicinity.

“If developers had complied with the law and reported the complaints to Health Canada, investigations would have been carried out back then before the Green Energy Act. This could have advanced the understanding a long time ago and avoided risk of harm to those living close to these facilities” said Joan Morris, an epidemiologist and Chair of CFREE.

Drennan adds, “So here we are seven years later- more reviews of the reviews while the problems have not gone away but have become more grievous for the people suffering in rural Canada.”

For more information:

Joan Morris

Oxford County ON

519 851-2092 morrisj99@gmail.com

Shawn Drennan

Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh Township in Huron County

www.CFREE.info

Legislators Finally Realizing That Wind Power is Useless! Pull the Subsidy Plug!

April 6, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

US “Wind Power States” Pull the Plug on Massive Wind Power Subsidy Schemes

April 6, 2015 by stopthesethings Leave a Comment

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This time last year, we took a look at the States in the US where $billions filched from power consumers and taxpayers have been thrown at wind power outfits, as a massive, and seemingly endless, stream of subsidies; and the skyrocketing power prices that have been the result:

Want skyrocketing power prices? Just add Wind Power

In that post, James M Taylor laid out the wind power driven blowout in power prices, noting that:

Skyrocketing Costs in Wind Power States

The 11 states that AWEA identifies as deriving more than 7 percent of their electricity from wind power are Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming. AWEA says these 11 states have had slightly falling electricity prices since 2008, but official U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data show nine of the 11 have dramatically rising prices. Here are EIA’s data on changes in electricity prices for each of the 11 states since 2008:

Colorado – up 14%

Idaho – up 33%

Iowa – up 17%

Kansas – up 29%

Minnesota – up 22%

North Dakota – up 24%

Oklahoma – down 1%

Oregon – up 15%

South Dakota – up 26%

Texas – down 19%

Wyoming – up 33%

The objective U.S. Energy Information Administration data show nine of the 11 largest wind power states are experiencing skyrocketing electricity prices, rising more than four times the national average. Moreover, prices in eight of the 11 states are rising more than twice as fast as in the 39 states with less than 7 percent wind power generation.

James goes on to explain the two outliers, Texas and Oklahoma:

The Two Outliers Explained

Other important factors further rebut AWEA’s claims in the two heavy wind power states where electricity prices are not skyrocketing.

In Oklahoma, where electricity prices remained essentially flat, there is no renewable power mandate. To the extent wind power is produced in Oklahoma, market forces, rather than state government, determine its generation. AWEA curiously argues relatively stable electricity prices in a state without renewable power mandates justify AWEA’s call for renewable power mandates.

In Texas, economists agree, electricity prices have been falling in recent years as a result of the state’s deregulation efforts during the past decade. Texas coal power, natural gas power, nuclear power, and wind power are all experiencing declining prices due to deregulation. Yet AWEA falsely ascribes the state’s declining electricity prices to wind power.

AWEA’s self-serving formula uses Texas’ deregulation to hide the cumulatively skyrocketing electricity prices in the 10 other states that generate the most wind power.

Now, in a cry of “enough is enough”, numerous States, including Ohio, Kansas, New Mexico and West Virginia have either pulled the plug on their “Renewable Energy Mandates” (State based subsidy schemes) or are set on the path to do so. What’s spooked them into action is the fact that:

“Electricity prices in states with mandates are 40 percent higher than in non-REM states.”

Remember, as Ross McKitrick puts it: “wind turbines don’t run on wind, they run on subsidies” (see our post here).

With States chopping the massive and endless subsidies on which the wind industry critically depends, the wind industry will finally be put to proof on its wild claims about about being “competitive” with conventional generators (see this nonsense from ruin-economy and our post here). As the Americans say to the foolish and/or brave: “well, good luck with that!”

Here’s the Washington Times on the beginning of the end for BIG WIND in the US.

Pulling the plug on renewable energy: States with mandates suffer exploding electricity prices
The Washington Times
Sterling Burnett
29 March 2015

There is never a good time for bad public policy. For few policies is this more evident than renewable energy mandates (REM), variously known as renewable portfolio standards, alternative energy standards and renewable energy standards.

The first renewable energy mandate was adopted in 1983, but most states did not impose these mandates until the 2000s. Though the details vary from state to state, in general, renewable energy mandates require utilities to provide a certain percentage of the electric power they supply from “renewable” sources, notably wind and solar, with the required percentages rising over time.

At the height of the renewable-energy mania, 30 states and the District of Columbia had imposed REMs and another seven had established voluntary standards.

Renewable energy mandate proponents included environmental lobbyists with a hatred for capitalism and fossil fuels that make modern society possible, crony socialists who saw the mandates as way of strong-arming exorbitant payments from government and ratepayers alike, and paternalistic politicians who look down on people’s choices in the marketplace, believing they know best what sources of energy people ought to choose.

Green-energy advocates, crony socialists and government elitists have seen their fortunes wax and wane over five decades. Government subsidies for unreliable, expensive renewable fuels had risen, fallen, been scrapped and begun anew since the 1970s. The existence and amount of subsidies tended to rise in fall with various energy crises — crises often created by the same government that then proposed subsidies for renewable energy as the solution for the problems it created.

For 50 years, green-energy gurus in industry and the environmental movement have sold the snake oil that renewable power would soon be as cheap and reliable as coal, oil, nuclear and natural gas. The nation has been told the turning point has always been just around the corner, always requiring a little more public funding and tax breaks before we have abundant, cheap, clean, reliable energy materializing from thin air.

All these promises were false, and the public and more-honest politicians have seen through the sales pitch. Now, support for renewables is as unreliable as the energy it provides.

To guarantee a market for renewables, green lobbyists fought successfully for mandates ensuring green-energy producers a slice of the electricity market regardless of the price and quality of the energy they produced.

Energy prices skyrocketed, as predicted by numerous energy analysts.

Though cost is an important concern, it is not the only problem with renewable power sources.

Renewable energy is not environmentally friendly. Renewable energy mandates have turned millions of acres of wild lands and wildlife habitats into a vast wasteland of wind and solar industrial energy facilities. In the process, renewable energy facilities have condemned to death hundreds of thousands of animals, including endangered birds, bats and tortoises. Finally, the construction and maintenance of these facilities have polluted the air and water. There is nothing green about all this. Still, continuing high costs, not environmental concerns, may finally spell doom for the mandates.

Citing high costs, Ohio became the first state to freeze its renewable energy mandate. Under Ohio’s mandate, utilities would have been required to provide 25 percent of the state’s electricity from qualified renewable sources by 2025. Under a law signed by Republican Gov. John Kasich in June 2014, Ohio froze its mandate at the current level of 12.5 percent, halving the mandated level.

In January, West Virginia repealed its renewable energy mandate entirely, and the New Mexico House of Representatives passed a bill freezing the state’s renewable standards in March.

Kansas has also recently held hearings on repealing its renewable energy mandate, spurred on in part by a new report from Utah State University reporting Kansas ratepayers are paying $171 million more than they would without the mandate. These additional costs have resulted in a loss of $4,367 each year in household disposable income.

What’s true for Kansas is true for other states with renewable energy mandates. States with mandates experienced 10 percent greater unemployment, due to higher energy prices resulting from the REM, than states without mandates. In addition, the U.S. Department of Energy has found electricity prices in states with renewable energy mandates have risen twice as fast as in states with no renewable requirement. Electricity prices in states with mandates are 40 percent higher than in non-REM states.

With these facts, it is little wonder that states are doing a slow walk back from their previous support of costly, environmentally harmful renewable energy mandates. It’s a classic case of legislate in haste, repent in leisure.

H. Sterling Burnett is a research fellow on energy and the environment at the Heartland Institute.
The Washington Times

If any further proof were needed for Ross McKitrick’s “wind turbines don’t run on wind, they run on subsidies” adage, this little piece from Associated Press should do the trick.

Plans pulled for 223-turbine wind farm in Central Oregon
The Associated Press
27 March 2015

BEND — Plans for a big wind farm in north-central Oregon have been scrapped, state regulators say.

The Brush Canyon Wind Power Facility would have had as many as 223 turbines in Sherman and Wasco counties, The Bend Bulletin reported Friday.

It would have been in an area of 76,000 acres, or 119 square miles.

The turbines that have spread across the windy Columbia plateau in recent decades have benefited from two government initiatives: requirements by West Coast states that utilities include alternative energy among their energy sources and a federal tax credit based on turbine production.

But in December, Congress let lapse the federal tax break enacted in 1992 to nurture the fledgling wind industry.

The Brush Canyon proposal had its origin like many in the Northwest, proposed by the North American arm of a European or Scandinavian utility company, in this case the German firm E.ON (EE’-ahn) AG.

“We don’t know why they pulled out, but it’s not unusual,” said spokesman Rachel Wray of the state Department of Energy. “We’ve had a number of projects pulled over the last couple of years. Some that had gone a ways through the process . and others that were a lot less far along. It really varies.”

Calls and messages from The Associated Press to the company’s Chicago office and German headquarters were not immediately returned.

In Central Oregon, some were happy and relieved at the decision, saying the project was far too big and disruptive.

Residents of the high-desert town Antelope were anticipating that construction traffic would increase traffic by 600 percent, Mayor John Silvertooth said.

“It’s like a doctor telling a patient he’s in remission, or waking up from brain surgery and hearing everything was a success,” he said.

Antelope’s population is now about 50. It was larger in the 1980s, and got a lot of attention, when thousands of followers of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh tried to establish a political power base on a commune that was eventually forced out.
The Associated Press

Sign a Wind Turbine Contract in Haste? Repent at Your Leisure!

April 5, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Turbine Hosts’ Lament: Hammered by Wind Power Outfits; Hated by Former Friends, Relatives & Neighbours

April 5, 2015 by stopthesethings

****

After years of being shunned by former friends and neighbours for introducing turbines into their communities (or signing up for that to happen in future), many turbine hosts are keen to wind the clock back and make amends. Community division, angry former friends and hostile neighbours are just one aspect of what’s causing actual and potential turbine hosts to regret their decisions; and, in Australia, encouraging them to present their cases to the Senate Inquiry:

Unwilling Turbine Hosts Set to Revolt, as NSW Planning Minister – Pru Goward – Slams Spanish Fan Plans at Yass

Turbine Hosts Line Up to Tip a Bucket on Wind Power Outfits, as Senate Submissions Deadline Extended to 4 May 2015

For Australian turbine hosts, the Senate Inquiry into the great wind power fraud provides a golden opportunity to take the lid off the wind industry’s ‘stinky pot’, by exposing the goons and hucksters employed by wind power outfits for what they are: a bunch of liars and chancers. Your chance to tip a bucket by making submissions; to present documents; and to make it known that you’d like to give evidence, has been extended to 4 May. For details on what to do and who to contact see the posts above.

In the posts above we covered the grab-bag of lies and subterfuge used by the goons that stitch up land holder contracts for their masters.

One of the well-worn favourites was to convince a potential target farming family that they were the ONLY farmers who had NOT signed a contract to host turbines for the project concerned.

The development being scoped out might involve a dozen separate farming properties, say; all of which needed to be stitched up in contracts to make the project stack-up in terms of REC subsidies and/or infrastructure layout and associated engineering costs.

The developer’s goons would lob up at each and every one of them – on a one-on-one basis – telling them the very same story: “that all of their neighbours had already signed up”. These words were usually uttered at a point in time when the developer had not signed ANY contracts in relation to its proposed development at all. Pressure was often added by telling the targets that they needed to sign up quickly, because if they didn’t they would be holding up hundreds of $millions in investment, hundreds of jobs etc, etc.

Working on the adage of “loose lips sink ships”, on each occasion, the farmers being targeted were told that they mustn’t breathe a word about the contract being offered to any living soul: so much easier to perpetuate a lie when it can’t be tested by your target with a quick phone call to their neighbours.

In order to add a little more pressure to their targets – and to get their monikers on the contract being offered – the developer’s goons would tell the target farming family that, because everyone else had signed up, they would end up with turbines right up to the boundaries of their properties (sometimes within a few hundred metres of their homes); so they “may as well sign up anyway”, because that way they would at least get paid for hosting some turbines on their own property.

The thrust of the developer’s pitch being that: your life is going to be ruined by dozens of turbines on your neighbour’s property, so you may as well receive a few grand a year for your pending troubles.

The same set of lies would be told repeatedly; until such time as ink appeared on all of the contracts needed to get the wind farm project off the ground, and on its way to a dodgy-development approval.

So far, so insidious. And that particular ruse is one that’s been used around the world, as is made plain from the stories below, one of which reports a turbine host from Wisconsin saying that:

[W]e were also told that we were the ones holding up the project. That all of our neighbors had signed, and we were the last hold-outs. It persuaded us.

What we didn’t know then was the developer was not being truthful. We were not the ‘last hold-out’ at all. In later discussions with our neighbors we found out that in fact we were the very first farmers to sign up. I have since found out this kind of falsehood is a common tactic of wind developers.

But, it’s not just being duped that has turbine hosts wringing their hands.

Oh no.

It’s the fact that wind power outfits couldn’t care less about their farming operations; and being the subjects of social ostracism from former friends, relatives and neighbours that has really hit home.

Over the years, STT has been in contact with a number of disgruntled turbine hosts, from all over the country; and more of them have come forward in the last few months; particularly those who are in contracts where the turbines planned are yet to go up.

One of the facts that tends to rub salt into the turbine hosts’ wounds is just how derisory is the “compensation” they receive in exchange for their personal grief and the hatred of former friends and neighbours.

In Australia, turbine hosts receive a piddling $10,000-$15,000 a year, for a turbine that will receive upwards of $800,000 a year in REC subsidies, alone.

A REC is issued for each MWh of wind power delivered to the grid. A 3 MW turbine – if it operated 24 hours a day, 365 days a year – would receive 26,280 RECs (24 x 365 x 3). Assuming, generously, a capacity factor of 35% (the cowboys from wind power outfits often wildly claim more than that) that single turbine will receive 9,198 RECs annually.

At $94 – the expected price for RECs once the shortfall penalty bites this year – that single turbine will rake in $864,612 in Commonwealth mandated subsidy, which is drawn from all Australian power consumers as a tax on their power bills. But wait, there’s more: that subsidy doesn’t last for a single year.

A turbine operating now will continue to receive the REC subsidy for 16 years, until 2031 – such that a single 3 MW turbine can pocket a further $13,833,792 over the remaining life of the LRET.

In the meantime, the host gets a nominal $160,000 over the same period (with no index for inflation, the real value falling over time) and will end up with a pile of rusting turbines that they will have to pay to remove when the things fall apart, fling their blades to the four-winds, burst into flame or the subsidy scam inevitably gets scrapped – whichever occurs first.

****

The themes outlined above and detailed below are common, tragic and perfectly avoidable.

The pieces below dealing with the laments of turbine hosts popped up in Wisconsin, but the narratives could have come from anywhere.

“By signing that contract, I signed away the control of the family farm, and it’s the biggest regret I have ever experienced and will ever experience.”

Gary Steinich, Cambria, Wisconsin. June 2011.

Here’s the tale of Gary’s great regret from Better Plan, Wisconsin.

Sometime in late 2001 or early 2002, a wind developer working for Florida Power and Light showed up near the Wisconsin Town of Cambria looking to get in touch with someone at the Steinich family farm.

He wanted to talk to the landowner about leasing a bit of land for the installation of a met tower. He needed to measure the winds in the area for a possible windfarm and Walter Steinich’s land looked like a good place to do it.

The wind developer seemed like a good guy to Mr. Steinich who was in his early 70’s at the time. The money seemed good. A met tower didn’t seem like a big deal. It was just a tall pole with some guy wires, and it was temporary. Mr. Steinich signed the contract.

That was nearly ten years ago. Mr. Steinich has since passed away and now his son, Gary, runs the farm. He’s written an open letter to Wisconsin farmers about his experience with the wind company since then.

From One Wisconsin Farmer to Another:

This is an open letter to Wisconsin farmers who are considering signing a wind lease to host turbines on your land. Before you sign, I’d like to tell you about what happened to our family farm after we signed a contract with a wind developer.

In 2002, a wind developer approached my father about signing a lease agreement to place a MET tower on our land. My father was in his 70’s at the time. The developer did a good job of befriending him and gaining his trust.

He assured my father that the project wasn’t a done deal and was a long way off. They first had to put up the MET tower to measure the wind for awhile.

He told my father that if the project went forward there would be plenty of time to decide if we wanted to host turbines on our farm. There would be lots of details to work out and paperwork to sign well before the turbines would be built. The developer said my father could decide later on if he wanted to stay in the contract.

In 2003 the developer contacted us again. This time he wanted us to sign a contract to host turbines on our land. We were unsure about it, so we visited the closest wind project we knew of at the time. It was in Montfort, WI.

The Monfort project consists of 20 turbines that are about 300 feet tall and arranged in a straight line, taking up very little farmland with the turbine bases and access roads. The landowners seemed very satisfied with the turbines. But we were still unsure about making the commitment.

We were soon contacted again by the developer, and we told him we were undecided. Then he really started to put pressure on us to sign.

This was in March of 2004, a time of $1.60 corn and $1200 an acre land. It seemed worth it have to work around a couple of turbines for the extra cash. We were told the turbines would be in a straight line and only take up a little bit of land like the ones in Monfort.

And we were also told that we were the ones holding up the project. That all of our neighbors had signed, and we were the last hold-outs. It persuaded us.

My father read through the contract. He said he thought it was ok. I briefly skimmed through it, found the language confusing, but trusted my father’s judgment. We didn’t hire a lawyer to read it through with us. We didn’t feel the need to. The developer had explained what was in it.

The wind contract and easement on our farm was for 20 years. By then my dad was 75. He figured time was against him for dealing with this contract in the future so we agreed I should sign it. A few months later, my father died suddenly on Father’s Day, June 20th, 2004

After that, we didn’t hear a whole lot about the wind farm for a couple years. There was talk that the project was dead. And then in 2007 we were told the developer sold the rights to the project. A Wisconsin utility bought it.

After that everything changed. The contract I signed had an option that allowed it to be extended for an additional 10 years. The utility used it.

The turbines planned for the project wouldn’t be like the ones in Monfort. They were going to be much larger, 400 feet tall. And there were going to be 90 of them.

They weren’t going to be in a straight row. They’d be sited in the spots the developer felt were best for his needs, including in middle of fields, with access roads sometimes cutting diagonally across good farm land. Landowners could have an opinion about turbine placement but they would not have final say as to where the turbines and access roads would be placed. It was all in the contract.

Nothing was the way we thought it was going to be. We didn’t know how much land would be taken out of production by the access roads alone. And we didn’t understand how much the wind company could do to our land because of what was in the contract.

In 2008 I had the first of many disputes with the utility, and soon realized that according to the contract I had little to no say about anything. This became painfully clear to me once the actual construction phase began in 2010 and the trucks and equipment came to our farm and started tearing up the field.

In October of 2010 a representative of the utility contacted me to ask if a pile of soil could be removed from my farm. It was near the base of one of the turbines they were putting on my land. I said no, that no soil is to be removed from my farm.

The rep said that the pile was actually my neighbor’s soil, that the company was storing it on my land with plans to move it to another property.

Shortly afterwards I noticed the pile of subsoil was gone.

In November of 2011 I saw several trucks loading up a second pile of soil on my land and watched them exiting down the road. I followed them and then called the Columbia County Sheriff. Reps from the company were called out. I wanted my soil back.

A few days later the rep admitted they couldn’t give it back to me because my soil was gone. It had been taken and already dispersed on someone else’s land. I was offered 32 truck loads of soil from a stockpile they had. I was not guaranteed that the soil would be of the same quality and composition as the truck loads of soil they took from my farm.

I was informed by the lawyer for the utility that I had until April 30, 2011 to decide to take the soil. There would be no other offer. Take it or leave it.

I contacted the Public Service Commission for help. The PSC approved the terms of project and I believed the utility was violating those terms. The PSC responded by telling me they could do nothing because the issue involved a private contract between myself and the utility.

They told me my only option was to sue the utility.

My father and I both worked those fields. Watching the way they’ve been ripped apart would sicken any farmer. But what farmer has the time and money it would take to sue a Wisconsin utility?

By signing that contract I signed away the control of the family farm, and it’s the biggest regret I have ever experienced and will ever experience. I have only myself to blame for not paying close enough attention to what I was signing.

We had a peaceful community here before the developer showed up, but no more. Now it’s neighbor against neighbor, family members not speaking to one another and there is no ease in conversation like in the old days. Everyone is afraid to talk for fear the subject of the wind turbines will come up. The kind of life we enjoyed in our community is gone forever.

I spend a lot of sleepless nights wishing I could turn back the clock and apply what I’ve learned from this experience. Now corn and bean prices are up. The money from the turbines doesn’t balance out our crop loss from land taken out of production. The kind of life we enjoyed on our family farm is gone forever too.

I would not sign that contract today. As I write this, the utility is putting up the towers all around us. In a few months the turbines will be turned on and we’ll have noise and shadow flicker to deal with. If I have trouble with these things, too bad. I’ve signed away my right to complain. These are some of the many problems I knew nothing about when I signed onto the project.

If you are considering signing a wind lease, take the contract to a lawyer. Go over every detail. Find out exactly what can happen to your fields, find out all the developer will be allowed to do to your land. Go through that contract completely, and think hard before make your decision.

I can tell you from first hand experience, once you sign that contract, you will not have a chance to turn back.

Gary Steinich
Steinich Farms, Inc.
Cambria, WI
June, 2011

A Fond Du Lac Farmer has regrets about agreeing to host a wind turbine – Why can’t he speak openly about it?

When you sign a 20 to 30 year contract to host a wind turbine on your property you may be signing away many rights you’re unaware of. A confidentiality agreement in the contract may mean legal action can be taken against you if you complain publicly about the project. A Fond Du Lac farmer signed away his rights. He was interviewed by Don Bangart who wrote the following on behalf of the farmer, whose contract with the wind company prevents him from speaking openly about any problems.

WHAT HAVE I DONE?

Now each morning when I awake, I pray and then ask myself, “What have I done?”

I am involved with the BlueSky/Greenfield wind turbine project in N.E. Fond du Lac County. I am also a successful farmer who cherishes his land. My father taught me how to farm, to be a steward of my fields, and by doing so, produce far better crop production. As I view this year’s crops, my eyes feast on a most bountiful supply of corn and soybeans. And then my eyes focus again on the trenches and road scars leading to the turbine foundations. What have I done?

In 2003, the wind energy company made their first contacts with us. A $2,000 “incentive” started the process of winning us over, a few of us at a time. The city salesmen would throw out their nets, like fishermen trawling for fish. Their incentive “gift” first lured some of us in. Then the salesmen would leave and let us talk with other farmers. When the corporate salesmen returned, there would be more of us ready to sign up; farmers had heard about the money to be made. Perhaps because we were successful farmers, we were the leaders and their best salesmen.

Sometime in 2004 or 2005, we signed $4,000 turbine contracts allowing them to “lease” our land for their needs. Our leases favored the company, but what did we know back then? Nobody knew what we were doing. Nobody realized all the changes that would occur, over which we would have no control. How often my friends and I have made that statement: What have I done?!

I watched stakes being driven in the fields and men using GPS monitors to place markers here and there. When the cats and graders started tearing 22-foot-wide roads into my fields, the physical changes started to impact not only me and my family, but, unfortunately, also my dear friends and neighbors. Later, a 4-foot-deep by 2-foot-wide trench was started diagonally across my field. A field already divided by their road was now being divided again by the cables running to a substation. It was now making one large field into 4 smaller irregularly shaped plots. Other turbine hosts also complained about their fields being subdivided or multiple cable trenches requiring more of their land. Roads were cut in using anywhere from 1,000 feet to over half a mile of land to connect the locations. We soon realized that the company places roads and trenches where they will benefit the company most, not the landowner. One neighbor’s access road is right next to some of his outbuildings. Another’s is right next to his fence line.

At a wind company dinner presented for the farmers hosting the turbines, we were repeatedly told — nicely and indirectly — to stay away from the company work sites once they start. I watched as my friends faces showed the same concern I had, but none of us spoke out. Months later, when I approached a crew putting in lines where they promised me they definitely would not go, a representative told me I could not be there. He insisted that I leave. The line went in. The company had the right. I had signed the lease.

Grumbling started almost immediately after we agreed to 2% yearly increases on our 30-year lease contracts. Some felt we should have held out for 10%. What farmer would lock in the price of corn over the next 5 years, yet alone lock one in at 2% yearly for 30 years? Then rumors emerged that other farmers had received higher yearly rates, so now contracts varied. The fast-talking city sales folk had successfully delivered their plan. Without regard for our land, we were allowing them to come in and spoil it. All of the rocks we labored so hard to pick in our youth were replaced in a few hours by miles of roads packed hard with 10 inches of large breaker rock. Costly tiling that we installed to improve drainage had now been cut into pieces by company trenching machines.

Each night, a security team rides down our roads checking the foundation sites. They are checking for vandals and thieves. Once, when I had ventured with guests to show them foundation work, security stopped us and asked me, standing on my own property, what I was doing there. What have I done?

Now, at social functions, we can clearly see the huge division this has created among community members. Suddenly, there are strong-sided discussions and heated words between friends and, yes, between relatives about wind turbines. Perhaps this is a greater consequence than the harm caused to my land — life is short, and friendships are precious.

I tried, as did some of the other farmers, to get out of our contracts, but we had signed a binding contract. If you are considering placing wind turbines on your property, I strongly recommend that you please reconsider. Study the issues. Think of all the harm to your land, and, in the future, to your children’s land, versus the benefits from allowing companies to lease your land for turbines.

WHAT HAVE I DONE?

PLEASE DO NOT DO WHAT I HAVE DONE!

This was printed as a full page ad in the Chilton, Wisc., Times-Journal, October 25, 2007.

Why A Wisconsin Farmer is Having Regrets

As told in a recent ad, a Johnsburg farmer who will host wind turbines now has many regrets.

He regrets having been the “lure” to draw in other unsuspecting landowners. He regrets that he has allowed fields to be subdivided, road base to be spread on land once picked bare of rocks, costly tiling to be cut up. He regrets that he’s no longer the person who controls his own land and is now told where to go by security guards. He regrets the divide he has created between friends, between neighbors and between family members.

He regrets not having looked into all the ramifications first. That farmer is now locked in to a binding contract. But there are many landowners who have not yet suffered this fate.

Calumet County Citizens for Responsible Energy asks that landowners considering a contract first step back and study the issues. As with any financial transaction, don’t put a lot of trust in those who stand to gain financially.

Look for Web sites and information from those experiencing the effects of this worldwide “gold” rush for wind power. People across world are rebelling. They’re finding that they’ve lost control of their land and their lives. And they’re in danger of financial hardship if these companies dissolve.

Our irresponsible government representatives are forcing this “windfall” for wind investors on us. Their knee-jerk reaction to the global climate change alarms will cause billions of dollars to be wasted, lives to be ruined, and environments degraded for what is, in actuality, a very inefficient energy source.

With a declining tax base and state and U.S. legislators driving us further into massive debt, taxpayer subsidies for wind will be impossible to maintain.

And with the subsidies gone, what will you be left hosting?

Don Bangert,
Chilton, Wisconsin

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