Residents Being Tortured by the Noise from Wind turbines!

November 15, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

OCOTILLO RESIDENTS SAY WIND TURBINE NOISE CREATES “LIVING HELL”

“It’s a horror beyond words; something you have to live to understand. Something must be done to stop the noise.” – Ocotillo resident Parke Ewing

November 14, 2014 (Ocotillo) – Residents in Ocotillo say that during windy conditions in early November, noise from wind turbines is making their lives unbearable.

Jim Pelley captured the loud noise on videotape, juxtaposed with footage of Pattern Energy’s Glenn Hodges selling the project to supervisors in Imperial Valley by claiming that noise would not be an issue due to setbacks. “The project was sold on the understanding to be five miles from the community of Ocotillo,” Pelley wrote on a Youtube post. “We have turbines as close as 1/2 mile, we are now forced to live with the horrible noise of 112 turbines when the wind blows.”

His neighbor, Parke Ewing, says his complaints to Imperial County and Bureau of Land Management officials, as well as Pattern Energy, have fallen on deaf ears, with no meaningful responses.

“The turbines have created a living hell to us as we try to continue on with our lives after the Ocotillo Wind Facility was constructed over our objections,” he wrote in a November 1^st letter sent to officials at those entities.”Turbines 176 and 169 and others are so loud when the wind blows that they disrupt everything. We can’t enjoy our property. The turbines are even more disruptive to our lives than even we could have imagined. It’s a horror beyond words; something you have to live to understand.

Something must be done to stop the noise. We are one of several families that have homes obviously too close to the turbines. The turbines located near my home need to be removed or relocated. We can’t go on trying to live our lives around the turbine noise. No body, including people that have objected to Ocotillo Wind, should have to live with the noise when the wind blows. We just can’t do it any longer…”

Ewing asked the County, BLM and Pattern to mitigate the problem, noting that the sound is much louder than Pattern’s description of a dishwasher in the next room. “Whoever’s idea of using that term as an adequate description of the noise we would experience has obviously never lived near a turbine in their life.. Let alone 112 “dishwashers” all running at the same time in the next room,” Ewing observed, adding that no officials have taken steps to measure the decibels, let alone measurements such as low-frequency infrasound.

“The turbine noise is creating a high degree anxiety in our lives. We don’t believe it is lawful for this to continue,” the beleaguered Ocotillo resident concluded. “I invite any of you to visit our property when the wind blows and stay awhile. Live the experience as we do- try to talk across your yard over the crashing sound of 336 blades turning and listening to the turbines as they generate their very irritating noise, nobody should be forced to endure this torture.”

Update November 15, 2014: After our story ran, we received this update from Parke Ewing the next morning, which reads in part:

“Believe it or not, of all days, after I contacted the site manager for Ocotillo Wind today, two representatives visited my home today for the first time. They listened for awhile, as today was one of those very loud turbine days, their only comment after I asked was, TBD (To Be Determined). Still no return calls or letters from the County of Imperial or BLM. A general manager for Pattern Energy, a Samuel Tasker, quit returning generic answers to me and Jim’s questions and concerns. Carrie Simmons at BLM turned us over to him after we questioned one of her comments regarding the oil leaks and a few other issues. (not noise)

Interestingly, I stood a hundred feet or so in front of a wind turbine yesterday and the noise was very much greater than standing underneath a turbine or even behind the turbine. I assumed that the noise would blow away from me, not into me against the wind, just the opposite of what we would expect. So since our home is in front of turbines 176 and 169 when the wind is coming from the west south west, we hear the turbines much more loudly than Jim Pelley, which is down wind. Then when wind is coming from the east we hear turbine 174 more, because we are in front of that one, weird how that works.”

Insane Windpushers Causing Energy Poverty – People Freezing!

November 14, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

UK’s Out of Control Wind Power Debacle Sets Brits up for Winters of Discontent

November 14, 2014 by stopthesethings

Homeowners face £1,000 increase in electricity bills: ‘Folly’ of relying on wind power ‘will cost homes £26bn by 2030’
The Daily Mail
Corey Charlton
15 October 2014

Wind farm reliance could see costly electricity bills and winterpower cuts
Experts claim it will lead to costs being passed on to consumers
Next winter’s electricity production margins are at an ‘all time low’

Homeowners are facing electricity bill increases of £1,000 and winter power cuts if the Government continues to rely on wind farms, experts warn.

A new report claims that if the Government continues to chase renewable wind power, the average household bill will soar by £1,000, costing homes £26billion by 2030.

The report, submitted to the Lords Science and Technology Select Committee, was authored by the Scientific Alliance.

By 2030, it projected the costs of meeting future energy demands using wind farms would be £26billion per year, which was a 53 per cent increase in the average consumer’s power bill.

Further to this would be increased costs coming from the industry and carbon taxes, which in total would add almost £1,000 onto the average consumer’s bill, the Daily Express reported.

The Scientific Alliance said the Government’s aims to have 35 per cent of electrical energy generated from renewable sources by 2020 will ‘not be achieved in their entirety’.

Sir Donald Miller, the former chairman of Scottish Power, said: ‘The blind reliance by successive governments on unreliable, intermittent renewable energy has reduced the margin of safety to a critical level,’ the paper reported.

‘This has brought the country to a position where power cuts could become a regular feature of cold winters for several years.’

The report, of which Sir Miller was a contributor, stated the electricity production margin for winter next winter was at an ‘all time low’ of 2 per cent.

‘It has been reported that National Grid are taking emergency measures to increase these margins by contracting with owners of small private standby generators for emergency supplies.

‘It is not known to what extent this will be helpful, but the costs per KWhr are likely to be high.’

By 2020, the supply margins will remain at a ‘critical’ level due to the planned withdrawal of conventional power generators over the next two years and the inadequate replacement of these with wind farms.

‘It should be remembered that these margins are against the background of no growth in demand and, even so, are likely to result in extended periods of loss of supply over periods of high winter demand.’

The crisis facing Britain regarding lack and surety of power supply was also acknowledged by the chair of the committee, Earl of Selborne.

In launching the inquiry, he said: ‘An investigation into the resilience of the UK’s electricity infrastructure is a timely one, given that we are set to see our safety cushion between demand and supply drop to particularly low levels over the next two winters.’
The Daily Mail

And here’s another take on Britain’s out of control wind power debacle from the Daily Express.

UK’s wind farm ‘folly’: Electric bills to soar by £1000 thanks to reliance on wind power
The Daily Express
John Ingham
15 October 2014

HOUSEHOLDERS are facing soaring energy bills and winter power cuts thanks to the “folly” of relying on wind power, experts said last night.

The green crusade of successive governments is set to double electricity bills for households and cost homes £26billion a year by 2030, it was claimed yesterday.

The cost of renewable energy and carbon taxes will put an extra £983 a year on household bills by then, compared to relying on a mix of nuclear and new gas-fired power stations, three experts told a Lords committee.

They also said the “foolhardy” green policy will do little to cut emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

The Scientific Alliance report highlights warnings by the regulator Ofgem that the margin for electricity production for the 2015-16 winter will be at an all-time low of 2 per cent compared to the pre-privatisation requirement of at least 20 per cent.

It means that in times of high demand, such as during very cold weather, Britain would be at risk of power cuts.

The alliance argues that wind power – which is the main renewable energy source depended on by Government – is unreliable.

One of the experts, Sir Donald Miller, former chairman of Scottish Power, said: “The blind reliance by successive governments on unreliable, intermittent renewable energy has reduced the margin of safety to a critical level.

“This has brought the country to a position where power cuts could become a regular feature of cold winters for several years.”

The written report has been submitted to the Lords Science and Technology Committee’s inquiry into the nation’s electricity infrastructure.

At the inquiry’s launch its chairman, the Earl of Selborne, said: “We are set to see our safety cushion between demand and supply drop to particularly low levels over the next two winters.”

And yesterday’s report stated: “The foolhardy policy of replacing reliable and efficient gas, nuclear and coal power stations by expensive and inefficient wind turbines and solar farms has raised energy prices while doing little to cut emissions of carbon dioxide.

“The total costs are some £12billion per year more in 2020 than an optimum programme of gas turbines and nuclear, and almost £26billion per year more by 2030.”

The alliance calls for new nuclear power plants to help plug shortfalls caused by the closure of ageing coal-fuelled power stations and rising demand.
The Daily Mail

No More Free Ride for Windweasels in the US!

November 11, 2014 / 1957chev / 2 Comments

Republican Mid-Term Victory Spells Doom for US Wind Industry

November 11, 2014 by stopthesethings

The US has just been through its mid-term elections, which saw sweeping gains by the Republican Party in the Senate, House, and in many gubernatorial elections, as well as state and local races.

The Republicans gained control of the Senate for the first time since 2006, and increased their majority in the House. The Republicans also gained several seats in governors’ races, defeating one incumbent Democrat and picking up three seats vacated by retiring Democrats. Counting continues with the Republicans set to pick up a number of seats in the House, and, possibly the Senate.

With Republicans firmly in control of Congress, the smooth subsidy-sailing enjoyed by the US wind industry (until now) is about to hit stormy waters.

Those US States that piled into wind power in a big way have seen power prices rocket, with some seeing increases of over 34% (Idaho). From 2008-2103, the top 10 wind power states saw their electricity prices rise an average of 20.7%, which is seven-fold higher than the national electricity price increase of merely 2.8% over the same period (see our post here). The cost of wind power is so uncompetitive that Nebraska has just knocked-back a long-term wind power deal because it was “just too expensive” (see our post here).

The adverse economic impacts of propping up the wind industry with exorbitant fixed priced State Feed-In-Tariffs and the Federal Production Tax Credit aren’t lost on Republicans. Here’s a wrap up on where America’s wind industry is headed.

It May be Lights Out for the Wind Industry Come the Midterms
FOXBusiness
Chris Versace
27 October 2014

The International Energy Agency recently cut its forecasts for oil demand growth for this year. Nevertheless, production in North America is exploding led by the shale oil boom. Already, the U.S. has become the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas.

For energy products like oil and natural gas operating in the marketplace, this excess production means lower costs for consumers. Lower prices have their own consequences for the industry as well. Analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co recently released a report revealing that current at prices as much as one-third of U.S. shale oil production will be “uneconomic” to harvest.

For government-backed industries such as wind energy, the relationship is directly the opposite – the more they produce, the more it costs ratepayers and taxpayers. Recent analysis shows that states with the largest use of wind power have the highest electricity bills. Such factors have caused private investors to largely bypass wind companies and leave them largely dependent upon the government for their survival.

Wind energy companies rely heavily upon a government construct known as the “Production Tax Credit” (PTC) to support their bottom lines. The PTC is a federal program that provides billions of dollars annually to subsidize renewable energy facilities such as wind farms. Generally speaking a clean technology facility receives a tax credit for 10 years after the date the facility is placed in service with the tax credit amount ranging from $0.23 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for wind to $0.011 per kWh for qualified hydroelectric.

Looking at the International Journal of Sustainable Manufacturing, researchers concluded that “in terms of cumulative energy payback, or the time to produce the amount of energy required of production and installation, a wind turbine with a working life of 20 years will offer a net benefit within five to eight months of being brought online.” This raises the question as to why any tax credit for wind energy would span more than just a few years at most let alone 10 years after the facility is up and running.

Congressional support for the PTC is largely split along party lines. Fifty-five Members of the House led by Rep. Mike Pompeo, (R-Kan.), have written a letter to the tax writing committee demanding an end to the wind energy subsidies. The letter stated:

“We offer our full support of the current process undertaken by the House Committee on Ways and Means that will allow the most anti-competitive and economically harmful tax provisions, specifically the wind energy production tax credit (PTC), to expire. Ensuring that our nation’s patchwork tax code undergoes significant reform is a noble goal and, as part of this process, we believe Congress should stop picking winners and losers and finally end the wind PTC.”

It is presumed that a GOP controlled Congress would see the PTC on the chopping block in 2015 and a Democrat-controlled Congress will fight for renewal.

It would be an understatement to say that the outcome of the 2014 elections is important for wind energy producers. In an effort to see PTC friendly Harry Reid as Majority Leader, the wind industry has essentially turned the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) into their own personal Trojan horse.

Much of the LCV leadership has deep ties to the wind energy:

Tom Kiernan, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) serves as the Treasure of the LCV.
Peter Mandelstam, former AWEA board member and founder of Green Sails wind energy company also serves on the LCV board.

Unsurprisingly, much of the LCV’s campaign activities have been aimed squarely at renewal of the PTC. The organization brags that it will spend over $25 million supporting pro PTC candidates and attacking their opponents before November elections.

Should LCV’s campaign fail, loss of the PTC could prove fatal to some wind companies. As Warren Buffet recently told his loyal investors, “I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate. For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”

The outcome of the elections remain far from certain as does the fate of the PTC under any election outcome scenario and Washington D.C.’s capacity for cronyism should never be underestimated.

That said, it should leave investors holding off if not second-guessing the potential of First Trust ISE Global Wind Energy ETF (FAN) shares or its holdings that include Capstone Turbine Holdings (CPST), Otter Tail Corp. (OTTR), NextEra Energy (NEE) and others. Especially if the Republicans take control of Congress as expected, and run a full tally of their friends and enemies during this election cycle, it may well be lights out for the wind energy industry sooner than anyone expects.
FOXBusiness

The Truth Has Been Out There a Long time…Why Won’t the Gov’t Listen?

November 10, 2014 / 1957chev / 2 Comments

Unreliables cannot provide energy security or enhance natural environment

Rod Adams · September 16, 2011

My new word for the energy sources popularly known as “renewables” is “unreliables”. Though there may be some tiny exceptions, the general characteristic is that they are all diffuse sources that cannot actually be controlled by humans or automated control systems.

One of the main reasons that energy has been a huge political topic since about World War I is that it plays a major role in the economic security posture of any nation. With accessible sources of energy that can be focused and exploited in a short period of time, a nation literally has the “power” to do great things for its population or to do very nasty things to others. It is a matter of choice as to how that power (energy per unit time) is deployed.

One of the issues that caused Japan to attack Pearl Harbor was a desire to protect sea lines of communication to secure sources of energy in the South Pacific. One of the main reasons that Hitler pressed into Russia was a desire to access energy sources in the Caspian region. A primary purpose of Rommel’s move through North Africa was gaining access to oil. Though there were other factors, America’s secure Texas, California, Oklahoma and Louisiana oil fields were a major factor in our ability to deploy sufficient power to defeat the Axis nations.

Throughout my military career, which lasted 33 years from the time I first entered the Naval Academy, I studied the importance of energy in our foreign policy actions. When I learned about Henry Kissenger’s famous statement “America doesn’t have friends. America only has interests.” it was in the context learning about efforts to secure access to energy resources that could supply our economy, ships, aircraft, trucks and tanks.

In the name of energy security, there are some people, like T. Boone Pickens, who try to sell the idea that unreliables like wind and solar energy can make a contribution. As a trained military man, that whole concept makes no sense. A diffuse source of energy that cannot be called on when needed is not a source of power; it is a source of impotency. It turns people into passive recipients of nature’s largess instead of being able to establish control and decision making authority.

Please do not get me wrong; I like the natural environment. I simply do not agree with the notion that building massive collecting systems to harness energy from nature has anything to do with improving national security or providing power to the people. It does not enable development, but forces a reduction in living standards that is often portrayed as some kind of admirable “conservation”. The act of “doing without” might bring some kind of inner pleasure to some, but for a nation it brings poverty vice economic prosperity.Finally, I want to point out that many advocates of unreliables will attempt to point out that nuclear energy does not replace oil since we do not use oil in the continental United States to operate our power grid anymore. My response is multidimensional.

The operative word regarding oil on the electrical grid is “anymore”. Until nuclear pushed oil out of the market, it provided as much as 17% of our power. We burned it at the rate of a million barrels of oil per day in 1978.
Solar, wind, geothermal, waves, and ocean thermal energy cannot directly power cars and trucks either.
We do use a lot of oil for process heat. Nuclear energy can provide reliable heat as well as electricity.
Nuclear energy can push natural gas out of the electricity market and force well capitalized oil and natural gas companies to invest in compressed natural gas infrastructure to open up a new market in vehicles.

Most of the time, unreliables advocates get impatient with me before I finish the first bullet.

A contact suggested that blogging on Atomic Insights and engaging in discussions in a group called Nuclear Safety might be limiting the conversation to those who already agree with me. At his advice, I joined the “Sierra Club” group on LinkedIn. (The group is not affiliated or sponsored by the Sierra Club, but it includes individual members and other people who are interested in the Sierra Club.)

That contact had started a conversation thread about nuclear energy and attracted some rather pointed commentary. Here is my first contribution to that discussion, which had already included almost two dozen comments.

Please allow me to politely join the conversation.

I am not a Sierra Club member, but I wish I could be one. I respect the organization’s long record of wilderness preservation achievements and agree with about 90% of the organization’s goals. I have studied its history in the roots of Ansel Adams (no relation) and John Muir and its epic struggles to prevent filling priceless canyons with water held back by enormous hydroelectric and flood control dams.

Though I am a life-long suburban dweller, I have spent many of the best hours of my life practicing “no trace” camping and hiking in eastern mountains in Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. I have been driving a 40+ MPG car since 2001, but even before that I always bought cars with as high a gas mileage as possible.

The reason I cannot join the Club is that I cannot come to terms with the illogic of its shift, dating back more than 30 years, from an official policy of “Atoms Not Dams” to a strong and inflexible antinuclear stance. I call myself a hard headed BHL; I learned that from my dad, the guy who taught me to appreciate camping in National Forests as being a lot more fun than the trips to Disney World that most of our neighbors took during their vacations.

Dad was an electrical engineer who was firmly rooted in rational approaches to problem solving. When I was about 8 years old, he came home from work and told me about the amazing new power plants that his company was building at Turkey Point, Florida that did not even need any smoke stacks.

We talked a lot more about nuclear power and by the time I was ready to go to college, I had decided I would become a nuclear engineer. I got detoured slightly; I actually majored in English, but I did it at a school where English majors were still required to take 4 semesters of calculus and post calculus math, 2 semesters of physics, 2 semesters of chemistry, 2 semesters of thermodynamics, a semester of basic propulsion systems and 2 semesters of electrical engineering.

When I graduated, I entered into the Navy nuclear power training pipeline and eventually served as the Engineer Officer on a submarine. When you have lived in a completely closed environment with a nuclear reactor as your sole source of power, it becomes very difficult to see why there is so much concern about the technology. We had clean air, all the clean fresh water we could want, air conditioning, and refrigeration. Our computers did not contribute to global warming.

The 9,000 ton ship I was on operated for about 14 years on a quantity of fuel that weighed just a little bit more than I do. Every used core that the Navy has produced since starting to operate the USS Nautilus is stored in a single, modestly sized building with an indoor pool in Idaho.

That almost magical technology is built on an incredible gift from god (mother nature if you prefer) that packs as much energy into a pound of uranium as it packed into 2 MILLION pounds of oil. I cannot understand why an organization that was founded on protecting as much of the natural environment and heritage as possible would prefer to cover vast quantities of it with industrial scale wind turbines built by some of the world’s largest and least admirable corporations. I do not understand why the Club supports projects like the Abengoa solar project that will cover hundreds to thousands of acres in the Mohave desert with shiny mirrors aimed at hazardous heat transfer liquids for no more than 50% of the day and predictably become idle monstrosities every single night.

Finally, and most illogically, I cannot understand why the national club, supported by Carl Pope’s strong statements over a number of years, is ignoring the feedback from local chapters in Pennsylvania who have seen first hand the full scale of the environmental destruction that comes with the industrial process of extracting methane gas using horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.

(Note: BHL – Bleeding Heart Liberal)

I’ll let you know if any interesting conversation develops. During my twenty years of Internet conversations – dating back to Prodigy, USENET and AOL – I have had the sometimes disheartening experience of making the last comment in an interesting thread.

Once Again….I have reached out to the Gov’t, to help My Son, and all Children!

November 10, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

November 10, 2014

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper

Prime Minister of Canada

Dear Prime Minster Harper,

I am writing to you, as supporter and friend of the

Conservative party. I am hoping that you will be able to intervene to help protect

all Canadians from intrusive health damaging noise from industrial wind projects.

As you know, I have a personal interest in this issue. The large Niagara wind

project near my home has just received approval. It is no coincidence that its

approval was announced immediately after Health Canada Issued its flawed,

fraudulent report which claims it’s research sows that “there are no health

problems” from wind turbines

This Health Canada report was funded to the tune of $2.1 million from the

Canadian taxpayers, and therefore as Prime Minster, you are ultimately

responsible for it, and the consequences which flow from it’s use in Canada.

It is inevitable that many MORE Canadians will be harmed from wind turbine

noise as result of this study which has been widely criticized for adopting

methodology designed to hide and deny the health problems, rather than

properly investigate them. It is telling that

x Health Canada ignored the advice of professionals with expertise in this

are who are independent of the wind industry

x Health Canada used various parties who have conflicts of interest

including commercial conflicts of interest with the wind industry, and did

not disclose them

x Health Canada issued the report without the date, making it impossible for

others with extensive experience working directly in this area, to critique it

properly

x The report gives very appearance of being “made to order” by the wind

industry and delivered by our government, in order to be able to continue

to knowingly harm vulnerable Canadian citizens, by pretending “there is

no problem”

With respect other project just approved near my home, the closest wind turbine

would be 550M from the center of our home. The wind developer has admitted

that it would be producing noise, at the maximum allowable levels. These

decibel levels were arbitrarily established, and only with healthy brains, in mind.

There is no evidence to demonstrate that the current levels of noise pollution

from wind turbines in Ontario are safe, and there are Ministry of Environment

Field Officers who have admitted these levels are not safe. No consideration has

been given to individuals, who suffer from sensory processing issues, such as

my son, Joey.

Joey’s specialist wrote a letter for me to share, which is enclosed, explaining that

the noise from a wind turbine in close proximity our home would be very

harmful, for my son. The cyclical, and uncontrollable nature of wind turbine noise

is especially unbearable.

I also have realized, during my struggles with the Provincial government, and

their many branches, that there has been nothing put in place to protect anyone,

regardless of what problems may arise, as result of the industrial wind projects

being forced into areas where they are not appropriate. I have met, and spoken

personally, to Premier Wynne, Minister Chiarelli, Agatha Garcia Wright, from the

M.O. E., and many more gov’t branches, trying to get some sort of assistance,

in finding a solution to my problems, but to no avail. Getting help Federally, is my

only option, at this point, because the only suggestion they would give me, is

“get a lawyer”. Unfortunately, I live in Ontario, and we are struggling to pay our

ever growing electricity bills, on top of skyrocketing prices for the basics that

families need. Paying fora lawyer is not something many families can afford,

and the Liberal government knows that.

As you can see, I desperately need help to protect my son. The recent Health

Study was woefully incomplete, and did not even mention children, or any type of

special needs individuals. Indeed children were explicitly excluded.

Please help us find a solution to this very serious problem – for Joey, as well as

for ALL Canadians.This Health Canada Report, needs to be withdrawn, and

immediately subjected to rigorous peer review, with all of the data made public

immediately, to professionals and researchers with expertise in this area.

Reviews of all the possible conflicts of interest of all involved with this report, need

to be conducted, and made public.

A failure to take these steps, and to allow the Health Canada study to escape

proper critical scrutiny and peer review could eventually lead to charges of public

officials being complicit with torture occurring, given the widespread occurrence

of serious prolonged sleep deprivation alone, That, along with all the other health

problems residents are experiencing and health practicioners such as Joey’s

paediatrician are warning about. Such possible legal action against public

officials is being seriously considered internationally.

Sincerely,

Shellie Correia, Founder and Director,

Mothers Against wind Turbines

Wind Turbines are Indeed, a Health hazard!

November 10, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind turbines declared health hazard in Wisconsin

By Thomas Lifson

An historic first! Jack Spencer in Michigan Capitol Confidential writes:

…the Board of Health in Brown County, Wisconsin, where Green Bay is located, has declared a local industrial wind plant to be a human health hazard. The specific facility consists of eight 500-foot high, 2.5 megawatt industrial wind turbines.

The board made its finding with a 4-0 vote (three members were not present) at an Oct. 14 meeting after it had wrestled with health complaints about the wind plant for more than four years. Ultimately, the board’s ruling was based on a year-long survey which documented health complaints and demonstrated that infrasound and low-frequency noise emanating from the turbines was detectable inside homes within a 6.2-mile radius of the industrial wind plant.

Jay Tibbetts, a physician and a member of the Brown County Board of Health, said the board based its position that the turbines constitute a health hazard on the weight of evidence.

“I can tell you that we are absolutely not an anti-wind energy board,” Tibbetts said. “We worked on this for four and a half years before making this decision. Three families have moved out. I knew all of them. We also know that this isn’t only happening here. In Ontario 40 families have abandoned their homes to get away from the effects of wind turbines.”

According to Tibbetts, micro barometers were placed in homes located in the area surrounding the industrial wind plant. The purpose of this was to detect acoustic emissions, including infrasound and low frequency noise emanating from the turbines.

“They found that there were tones of infrasound and low frequency noise as far away as 6.2 miles from the nearest wind turbine,” Tibbetts said. “There were no complaints associated with the home that was 6.2 miles away, but there were complaints associated with one 4.2 miles away.

“We have 80 people on record who have made health complaints, including a nurse who is going deaf,” Tibbetts continued. “We can’t just ignore this.”

In addition to these problems, I am aware that wind turbines sin arid locales, such as the massive wind farm near Palm Springs, California, kick uop a lot of dust, aka particulate matter. Moreover, there is no mention of the toll on migratory birds that tend to follow the same wind patterns that wind farms are situated to exploit. Doug Schmidt points out:

The Truth About the Climate Scam, Fear Mongering, and Faux-Green Energy!

November 10, 2014 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Bjørn Lomborg: Climate Change “Fixes”? – the “Cure” is Worse than the “Disease”

November 10, 2014 by stopthesethings Leave a Comment

When it comes to assessing the costs, risks and benefits of environmental policy, Bjørn Lomborg is one of the very few that provide balanced, detailed analysis supported by facts and evidence. The economic choices we make – about allocating scarce resources to unlimited wants – should – as Lomborg consistently points out – be made taking into account all of the costs weighed against properly measured benefits (see our post here).

Bjørn Lomborg has become one of the most high profile critics of insanely expensive and utterly pointless renewable energy policies across the globe (see our posts here and here and here).

Bjørn’s back – in this piece published by The Telegraph – in which he hammers the insane cost and utter pointlessness of tying our energy futures to unreliable and intermittent renewables, like wind power.

Climate change is a problem. But our attempts to fix it could be worse than useless
The Telegraph
Bjørn Lomborg
3 November 2014

Panicked, ill-thought-through responses to the threat of climate change could hurt more people than they save

The UN Climate Panel came out with its final report yesterday. It is a summary of its 3 main reports, published over the last year. It tells us that global warming is real and a significant problem. And as usual, the media hears something else – in the words of Mother Jones magazine, how future warming will be “ghastly, horrid, awful, shocking, grisly, gruesome.”

In between the alarmist hype and the reality of climate change we once again risk losing an opportunity to think smartly about energy and find a realistic way to fix global warming.

We need to realise that the world will not come off fossil fuels for many decades. Globally, we get a minuscule 0.3pc of our energy from solar and wind. According to the International Energy Agency, even with a wildly optimistic scenario, we will get just 3.5pc of our energy from solar and wind in 2035, while paying almost $100 billion in annual subsidies. Today, the world gets 82pc of its energy from fossil fuels, in 21 years it will still be more than 79pc.

The simple reason is that cheap and abundant energy is what powers economic growth. And for now, that means four fifths from fossil fuel, and much of the rest from water and nuclear. While wind is lower cost in a few, rural areas, coal is for the most part much cheaper, and provides power, also when the wind is not blowing.

As the poor half of our world is reaching for a similar development to that of China, they will also want much, much more power, most of it powered by coal. Even the climate-worried World Bank president accepts that “there’s never been a country that has developed with intermittent power.”

Realising that fossil fuels will be here for a long time means stronger focus on moving from coal to gas, since gas emits about half the greenhouse gasses. The US shale gas revolution has reduced gas prices and lead to a significant switch from coal to gas. This has reduced US CO₂ emissions to their lowest in 20 years.

In 2012, US shale gas reduced emissions three times more than all the solar and wind in Europe. At the same time, Europe paid about $40 billion in annual subsidies for solar, while the Americans made more than $200 billion every year from the shale gas revolution. Gas is obviously still a fossil fuel and not the final solution, but it can reduce emissions over the next 10-20 years, especially if the shale revolution is expanded to China and the rest of the developing world.

While global warming will be a problem, much of the rhetoric is wildly exaggerated – like when UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon calls it “an existential challenge for the whole human race.” The IPCC finds that the total cost of climate change by 2070 is between 0.2pc and 2pc of GDP. While this is definitely a problem, it is equivalent to less than one year of recession over the next 60 years.

Global warming pales when compared to many other global problems. While the WHO estimates 250,000 annual deaths from global warming in 30 years, 4.3 million die right now each year from indoor air pollution, 800 million are starving, and 2.5 billion live in poverty and lack clean water and sanitation.

When the UN asked 5 million people for their top priorities the answers were better education and health care, less corruption, more jobs and affordable food. They placed global warming at the very last spot, as priority number 17.

Climate policies can easily cost much more than the global warming damage will – while helping very little. The German solar adventure, which has cost taxpayers more than $130 billion, will at the end of the century just postpone global warming by a trivial 37 hours.

While a low carbon tax in theory could help a little, the political reality is that climate policies almost everywhere have been ineffective, done little good while sustaining the most wasteful technologies. The IPCC warns than less-than-perfect climate policies can be 2-4 times more expensive. Biofuels, for instance, have driven up food costs, likely causing an extra 30 million starving, with prospects of starving another 100 million by 2020. And it is likely that biofuels cause net increase in CO₂ emissions, because they force agriculture to cut down forests elsewhere to grow food.

This is why we have to be careful in pushing for the right policies. For twenty years, the refrain has been promises to cut CO₂, like the Kyoto Protocol. For twenty years these policies have failed. We should instead look to climate economics to find smarter solutions.

The fundamental problem is that green energy is too expensive, which is why it will need billions in subsidies the next two decades. Instead of making more failed promises to pay ever more subsidies, we should spend the money on research and development of the next generations of green energy sources. If we can innovate the price of green energy down below the cost of fossil fuels, everyone will switch, including China and India. Economics confirm that for every dollar spent on green R&D, we will avoid $11 of climate damage.

But this requires us to separate the hype from the real message from IPCC: global warming is a problem, but unless we fix it smartly, we won’t fix it at all.
The Telegraph

Green Energy Nightmare Worsens in Ontario…

November 9, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wynne’s billion-dollar hydro boondoggle

Ontario hydro customers are trapped by the Wynne Liberals’ mad obsession with expensive and unneeded green energy

BY LORRIE GOLDSTEIN, TORONTO SUN

FIRST POSTED: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 08, 2014

windtubines — Ontario is heavily subsidizing companies to construct electricity generating wind turbines in a push for more renewable energy.

TORONTO – For anyone who wants to understand what a complete mess Ontario’s Liberal government has made of our hydro bills, Parker Gallant is must reading.

A retired banking executive, he easily dissects and explains in English the never-ending nonsense the Liberals pump out to justify their green energy financial disaster.

An occasional Sun News Network contributor and newspaper columnist, Parker and Scott Luft, an energy analyst and blogger, published a report last week on energy pricing for Wind Concerns Ontario — an anti-wind turbine group — that was truly alarming.

Titled: “October, 2014, Ontario’s breath-taking, record-breaking month for electricity bills”, Parker and Luft reveal that last month, Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government paid $1 billion more for electricity than the market value of that power.

Put another way, the so-called “Global Adjustment” in Ontario — the difference between the market value of electricity and what it actually cost to produce — topped $1 billion, for the first time, ever.

For the average Ontario household, Parker and Luft note, that will mean an extra charge of about $30 on November’s hydro bill alone, although it won’t appear as a separate item on many residential hydro bills because the Global Adjustment is incorporated into “time of use” rates.

The Liberals say the main reason for the Global Adjustment is to “cover the cost of building new electricity infrastructure … as well as providing conservation and demand response programs.”

But as Parker and Luft explain it:

“The situation has developed as a result of Ontario’s rush to incorporate renewable energy in the form of wind, solar and biomass into the grid, without proper planning on how this new capacity would align with demand.

“The result is that during the spring and fall seasons, when demand is lower, IESO (Independent Electricity System Operator) has a surplus supply capacity of over 100% during many hours of the day. Through the Global Adjustment fund, Ontario’s electricity consumers pay contracted generators to idle or curtail generation of thousands of megawatts.

“In October, wind power generators produced almost 600,000 MWh of electricity at a cost of $81 million and additionally were paid another $11 million for 100,000 MWh that they could have produced, but were asked not to add to the grid.

“Due to the glut of power in October, Ontario sold this power to neighbouring jurisdictions at an average of 4.31 per MWh, or $2.6 million, meaning a loss of almost $90 million for Ontario electricity users.”

Parker and Luft note these costs do not include the amount the government had to pay to the province’s privately-run nuclear operator not to produce electricity, because under the 20-year deals it signed with wind (and solar) operators, it has to buy their power first, meaning other sources have to be reduced when there’s a surplus of wind and solar .

Their advice to the Liberals is the same as energy analyst Tom Adams and University of Guelph economist Ross McKitrick gave in their recent report for the Fraser Institute, What Goes Up.

That is, at least stop making the situation worse by bringing more wind and solar power on line.

As Adams put it: “Wind and solar power systems provide less than 4% of Ontario’s power but account for 20% of the cost paid by Ontarians, yet the government wants to triple the number of wind and solar generators. That’s a good deal for wind and solar producers but a raw deal for consumers.”

(The Liberals insist wind and solar power only account for 8% of the cost of our energy bills — and that they were needed to close down polluting, coal-fired electricity. But that’s absurd because the Liberals didn’t replace coal power with wind and solar, but with nuclear power and natural gas).

Sadly, the longer the Liberals double down on their green disaster, the faster hydro rates are going to rise.

Even the Liberals acknowledged last year that hydro bills would jump 42% over the next five years.

Now-retired auditor general Jim McCarter produced similar numbers in his 2011 report that was sharply critical of the Liberals’ renewable energy programs, noting green energy initiatives would account for more than half (56%) of a 7.9% annual increase in hydro bills over the next five years.

Hydro rates were bumped up again on Nov. 1 and there’s no relief in sight.

Then again, Al Gore does think the world of the Liberals.

Wind Project Gets Go-Ahead….In Spite of Objections….

November 7, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Province gives greenlight to wind farm Niagara region Wind Corp’s turbines to be largest in North America

Credit: Grimsby Lincoln News | November 06, 2014

The Province has given the go ahead for a 77-turbine wind energy project in Niagara and Haldimand.

The Ministry of the Environment has issued a Renewable Energy Approval to Niagara Region Wind Corporation to construct a wind farm within the Townships of West Lincoln and Wainfleet, and the Town of Lincoln in the Region of Niagara and Haldimand County.

The facility is known as the Niagara Region Wind Farm.

As a result of comments received by the municipality and local residents a condition of the approval requires Niagara Region Wind Corporation to:

• not construct or operate more than seventy-seven out of the eighty wind turbine generators identified in the approval

• comply with the ministry’s noise emission limits at all times

• carry out an acoustic emission audit of the sound levels produced by the operation of the equipment at five receptors

• carry out an acoustic emission audit of the acoustic emissions produced by the operation of two of the wind turbine generators

• manage stormwater, and control sediment and erosion during and post construction

• develop and implement a pre- and post-construction ground water monitoring program

• carry out specific items if foundation dewatering or water takings by tanker exceed 50,000 L/day

• apply the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Operational Statement, if during construction, waterbodies that were previously not identified are discovered

• design, construct and operate a spill containment facility for each of the Transformer Substations

• implement the pre and post construction Natural Heritage monitoring program, which includes bird and bat monitoring

• undertake the supplementary monitoring program discussed with Environment Canada and determine next steps as part of the program including the implementation of mitigation measures in response to any potential unanticipated adverse effects

• ensure that activities requiring authorizations under the Endangered Species Act are not commenced until authorizations are in place

• create a Community Liaison Committee with members of the public and applicant

• undertake ongoing Aboriginal consultation and fulfill all commitments made by it

• prepare a Traffic Management Plan to be provided to the upper and lower tier municipalities, and

• notify the ministry of complaints received alleging adverse effect caused by the construction, installation, operation, use or retirement of the facility.

A release by the Province stated that Ontario’s Renewable Energy Approval process ensures that extensive municipal, Aboriginal and public consultation takes place. All comments the ministry received regarding the project were carefully considered before a decision was made to approve this project. The approval notice is posted on the Environmental Registry and a link can be found here:

Wind Turbines Don’t Make Sense…..Anywhere!

November 7, 2014November 7, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

There’s NO place for Wind Farms: Even Where the Streets Have No Name

November 7, 2014 by stopthesethings

Talk about “safe” setback distances for wind turbines is nonsense that only panders to the wind industry and its well-oiled and highly paid propaganda machine.

There is NO place for giant wind turbines ANYWHERE.

They are NOT fit for purpose ANYWHERE.

Because wind power can’t be delivered “on-demand” (can’t be stored) and is only “available” at crazy, random intervals (if at all) wind power will never be a substitute for conventional generation sources (see our post here). Accordingly, wind power is simply incapable of reducing CO2 emissions in the electricity sector (see our post here).

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

So far, so pointless.

Break down the terms on which wind power is “supplied”, and the “deal” reduces to this:

we (“the wind power generator”) will supply and you (“the hopeful punter at the end of the line”) will take every single watt we produce, whenever that might be;
except that this will occur less than 30% of the time; and, no, we can’t tell you when that might be – although it will probably be in the middle of the night when you don’t need it;
around 70% of the time – when the wind stops blowing altogether – we won’t be supplying anything at all;
in which event, it’s a case of “tough luck” sucker, you’re on your own, but you can try your luck with dreaded coal or gas-fired generators, they’re burning mountains of coal and gas anyway to cover our little daily output “hiccups” – so they’ll probably help you keep your home and business running; and
the price for the pleasure of our chaotic, unpredictable power “supply” will be fixed for 25 years at 4 times the price charged by those “evil” fossil fuel generators.

It’s little wonder that – in the absence of fines and penalties that force retailers to sign up to take wind power (see our post here) and/or massive subsidies (see our post here) – no retailer would ever bother to purchase wind power on the standard “irresistible” terms above.

With those facts laid out, talk about “safe” setbacks brings with is an admission that wind farms are somehow okay if they’re in the “right” place.

Wind power is nothing more than an ideological fantasy, that feeds the vanities of the gullible and the ignorant for the benefit of a shrewd and cunning few (see our post here).

Because wind power will never provide a meaningful power supply – and can only increase CO2 emissions – there can be NO justification for the harm caused to neighbours, the slaughter of millions of birds and bats; and the destruction of the environment associated with the manufacture of turbines and in and surrounding wind farms.

As to the latter, here’s a take on how “green” hypocrites are hell-bent on destroying the fragile deserts of the American South-West written by an environmentalist, Jim Mattern, aka “Death Valley Jim.”

Jim has watched in horror as a “green” energy invasion of wind and solar power generators has turned the desert ecosystems he’s worked a life-time to preserve and protect into industrial wastelands.

Destroying our Desert in the name of “Green” Energy
Jim Mattern
Death Valley Jim
28 September 2014

I’m not passionate about a lot of things – but those things that I am, are closely related to the desert, whether it be historical or cultural elements, biological, or environmental. It hasn’t always been this way, as a teenager I was passionate about music; in a period of my twenties (after 9/11) it was politics. In my late twenties and now into my mid-thirties, I’ve grown into finding the love of my life – the deserts of the American Southwest.

I would have at one time called people like me “Tree hugger” or “Libtard” – today I wear the “Tree hugger” badge with pride, I’m not so sure on “Libtard” – I don’t find that I fall within the boundaries of any political agenda; I tend to sway in many different directions depending on the subject at hand. What I do know is that I will never vote for a political candidate with either an “R” or a “D” beside their names – both parties are essentially the same thing, they pull at people’s heartstrings for votes based on agendas that shouldn’t be political in the first place.

Enough on that – I honestly don’t have a political agenda, and besides the political lines are so blurred in the case of renewable energy, or “green” energy that the line is pretty much obsolete. When it comes down to it, we have two groups of people – people with a sincere love of the desert, as well as folks that see these solar facilities as the removal of public lands and access. Then there are those that don’t understand the desert, they see it is nothing more than open space – an opportunity for a quick money grab, or they have fallen into the spoon-fed agenda that this is the only way for renewable energy to be successful.

To those that don’t live in the desert, or only drive through it in haste from one place to the next – it can be easy to see why they think so little of the desert. From a majority of the highways, the desert can look boring, dead, and uninteresting. A place of horror films, serial killers, and just in general bad people who are hiding from society. It is unfortunate, because the opportunity for these people to see it any differently is more than likely never going to happen.

This line of thinking doesn’t end with big city people, it also trickles into our desert communities. For instance, I have been spending more time in the vicinity of Palm Springs, and the Coachella Valley as a whole. A large percent of these people think that they are living in the desert, but in reality their communities are a manufactured oasis, made to look as little “desert like” as possible. For a majority – their only “real” experience with the desert is driving the 10, hiking the Bump and Grind, or a visit to The Living Desert. It is all manufactured bullshit, in order to give them the “desert experience”, it’s no wonder that they see undeveloped desert land as expendable.

In the meanwhile, small desert communities across the Mojave and beyond are experiencing real problems – it started several years ago with wind power farms, and it is now escalating at an enormous pace with the new “green” energy solar explosion. Just ask many of the residents of the rural community of Mojave, CA – they were one of the first desert communities to be effected by the wind power craze. Those that own property along the seldom driven Backus Road, thought that they were living the life, property backed up against pristine BLM desert lands, only to now have wind turbines within a few hundred feet of their backyards. Their scenic views of the Tehachapi Mountains forever gone, and their property values sinking up to 50%.

These same people are now being attacked by the solar initiative – with a new facility recently opening at Silver Queen. It isn’t going to end there either, a look at the recently released “Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan,” shows that this entire corridor of the Mojave desert is designated as a renewable energy wasteland.

In the Eastern Mojave, there is the highly touted Ivanpah Solar Power Facility; owned by NRG Energy, Google, and BrightSource Energy. Ivanpah has literally whipped out 3,500 acres of previously untouched desert. This land was the home of the endangered desert tortoise as well as other reptiles, that have now been displaced. Since going online, there have been countless bird deaths – when birds fly over the facility, they are cooked mid-air due to the extreme temperatures caused by the mirrors that the plant utilizes.

What people are missing is that our desert is very fragile – is a thriving ecosystem, but it can easily and quickly be killed. The plants that grow in our desert have spent thousands of years perfecting desert living. I had the opportunity to discuss desert plant life with Jim André, biologist, and the director of the Sweeney Granite Mountain Desert Research Center, and was surprised to learn that every year, there are still new species of plants being found in the Mojave Desert.

Along the California and Arizona boarder in the Colorado Desert, there is the town of Blythe. In the desert outside of the town of 21,000 people, there are dozens of intaglios – these giant designs made by removing a layer of stones from the land are sacred to the Colorado River Indian Tribes. Much like petroglyphs, these designs were placed here hundreds if not thousands of years ago by their ancestors. Today they are under attack, with several already having been removed from the landscape during the construction of Blythe Solar.

What is very interesting is that these intaglios as well as other Native American sites are coming under attack by these projects, yet they are protected under the The Antiquities Act of 1906, and the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which is the same agency that is supposed to enforce these laws, are the ones green lighting projects that are in direct violation.

None of this destruction benefits the communities that are directly impacted. Much like the Owen’s Valley water and land grab of the early 1900’s, the land grab for renewable energy is only benefiting large cities like Los Angeles, who have plenty of open roof-tops that could be plastered with solar panels. This is not a new concept, it has been embraced by several countries.

There is also the ability to place solar panels over the aqueduct, it would utilize already disturbed ground, and help with the loss of water from evaporation. In India, this concept has already been successfully implemented. It is baffling that we are not taking a serious look at this option, considering the state-wide water crisis that we are in.

What it all really comes down to is greed – it has nothing to do with being “green”, or saving us money on our electric bills. Has anyone’s electric bill actually decreased since wind and solar exploded onto our desert? Despite these promises of lower generating costs, SCE has increased rates over the past three years, with an 8% increase in 2014.

The only people reaping the benefit of the rape of our desert are the companies that are buildings them – our government is giving huge incentives and grants to build these plants, and build them fast.

Public comment is being ignored, undocumented, and undermined. Mass media is ignoring the outcry – only praising the “green” initiative, likely with one hand in the pocket of the initiative.

What is yet to be seen in the long-term effects of this mass rape – and yet we aren’t taking it slow to find out either. By 2040 – there are a planned 40 projects the size of Ivanpah in the works for the Mojave Desert.

When Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced the road map of the Desert Renewable Conservation Plan, she told reporters that she went for a hike, “We went out into the Big Morongo Preserve … fifteen, 20 minutes from here, there are wetlands. Wetlands. And 254 different bird species. Who knew?”

Well Sally, a lot know – now pack your shit up and go back to your office in Washington DC, and stop planning a conservation plan for a land that you are unfamiliar with. What you have done, is the equivalent of me planning a road system in Washington DC, without having visited it, studying it, and having no concept of how Washington DC or a road system works.

For more information on the impact of these projects on the desert, I recommend reading and following these websites:

Jim Mattern

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	Bob Bateman on Government-Induced Climaphobia…
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"Mothers Against Wind Turbines™" Phoenix Rising…

Children Deserve Protection!

not financially feasible