not financially feasible

Fracking is a Far Greener Choice, than Wind!

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WIND POWER REQUIRES 700 TIMES AS MUCH LAND AS FRACKING

One of the weirder facts of contemporary life is that “environmentalists” generally prefer wind power to fracking. Unless you suffer from an anti-carbon fetish, there is no comparison, as the Telegraph reports:

A wind farm requires 700 times more land to produce the same amount of energy as a fracking site, according to analysis by the energy department’s recently-departed chief scientific advisor. …

Prof MacKay said that a shale gas site uses less land and “creates the least visual intrusion”, compared with a wind farm or solar farm capable of producing the equivalent amount of energy over 25 years.

This is not surprising. Wind power is generally feeble, and intermittent at best.

A spokesman for Cuadrilla said: “This comparison by David MacKay clearly demonstrates that, contrary to what some people may assume, exploration for and production of shale gas would actually have less far less impact on the countryside than wind or solar energy.

“To supply an equivalent amount of energy a shale gas site would occupy just a small fraction of the land required for either wind or solar sites, would have less visual intrusion and significantly less transport impact, given that in the UK we do not anticipate having to truck water to our proposed sites.”

In my experience, many environmentalists don’t actually care much about the environment. “Environmentalism” is most often a cover for something else–either a financial interest, or a general yearning for the government (controlled by them, of course) to have more power over the people they don’t like. There are, no doubt, a few honorable exceptions. But the vast disproportion in environmental impact between fracking and wind power illustrates the point.

Wind is a Really Bad Idea…..Former GE Executive, Tells All!

/ 1957chev / 1 Comment
AUGUST 15, 2014 BY

Former GE executive tells us why BigWind is a BAD idea

GE can’t be happy about this, but retirement can loosen the noose that limits free speech…

In a casual conversation, I was asked why wind energy is a bad idea. Once again, I realized that a one or two-word answer could not convey a readily understandable and accurate picture of wind energy.

This article will try to provide such an answer in a few hundred words, where one or two won’t suffice.

There are essentially four reasons why wind energy is a bad idea.

It is unreliable.  It is very, very expensive. It produces electricity when it isn’t needed. It has environmental issues.

Wind can only produce electricity when the wind is blowing at between 6 mph and 55 mph. Above 6 mph, it gradually increases its output until it reaches a maximum output at around 35 mph. Above 55 mph, the wind turbine is shut down to prevent damage to the turbine.

The wind can stop blowing abruptly, so backup power generation must be immediately available to replace the wind generated electricity, or the grid could collapse causing blackouts.

Typically, gas turbine generators are kept running 24/7 so they are available to be rapidly brought online.

A sufficient number of gas turbine generators must kept running at all times to be ready for when the wind stops blowing. This varies by region and on the reliability of day-ahead weather forecasts.

The electricity generated by wind has an intrinsic cost, based on leveled cost of electricity (LCOE) of around 11 cents per kWh. This compares with around 5 cents per kWh for natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power plants and around 6 cents for coal-fired power plants.

But there are other costs for wind energy that are seldom taken into consideration, and not included in LCOE calculations….

Wind farms also produce electricity at night, when it isn’t needed.

This has resulted in the bizarre situation where the owners of wind farms have sold electricity at a loss, for example, actually paid the regional transmission organization (RTO) 1 cent per kWh, in order to collect the 2.2 cents per kWh subsidy.

More importantly, the nameplate ratings of wind turbines overstate the amount of electricity they can produce. Wind turbines in the United States have had a capacity factor of around 32%, or lower during the recent past.

Capacity factor is the amount of electricity a wind turbine, or any other power generation method, produces over a year, compared with how much it could produce using its nameplate rating.

Coal-powered and NGCC power plants typically have a capacity factor of around 85%, while nuclear power plants have a capacity factor of 90% or higher.

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) is constantly bragging about how many Megawatts (MW) are being installed, when wind turbine’s true ability to produce electricity is only one-third the amount claimed by the nameplate rating.

Essentially, wind turbines produce small amounts of electricity compared with the other methods….

via Why Wind Energy is a Bad Idea | Power For USA.

Wind and Solar….No More Than an Overpriced, Inefficient, Novelty

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FRIDAY, AUGUST 15, 2014

Parasitic Power Producers

 
 

Another Issue of “Carbon Sense” prepared by The Carbon Sense Coalition. 
Please pass on. We rely on our supporters to spread the word.


www.carbon-sense.com
15 August 2014

Promoting Parasitic Power Producers

Wind and solar are parasitic power producers, unable to survive in a modern electricity grid without the back-up of stand-alone electricity generators such as hydro, coal, gas or nuclear. And like all parasites, they weaken their hosts, causing increased operating and transmission costs and reduced profits for all participants in the grid.

Without subsidies, few large wind/solar plants would be built; and without mandated targets, few would get connected to the grid.

Green zealots posing as energy engineers should be free to play with their green energy toys at their own expense, on their own properties, but the rest of us should not be saddled with their costs and unreliability.

We should stop promoting parasitic power producers. As a first step, all green energy subsidies and targets should be abolished.

 
The Miracle of Green Energy – by Steve Hunter  www.stevehunterillustrations.com.au
Viv Forbes,17th July 2014
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Community Opposition to Wind Farms Grows Because Wind Power is a Fraud

August 13, 2014 by  

lies

As community and political opposition to the great wind power fraud rolls and builds across the world, the charge that opponents are red-necked climate change deniers, infected with a dose of Not In My Backyard syndrome, starts to ring hollow.

Surely that charge can’t stick to each and every one of the 1,000 who signed the petition against the Mt Emerald wind farm proposal in Far North QLD – and the 92% of locals there who are bitterly opposed to it (see our post here)?

The same level of opposition arises at the local level – wherever wind power outfits are seeking to spear turbines into closely settled agricultural communities (see our post here).

Communities across the Southern Tablelands of NSW, locals are up in arms at efforts by wind farm outfits and the NSW Planning Department to sack and stack “community consultation committees” to ensure their development applications don’t face any real scrutiny. At Rye Park, 91% of locals are opposed to the wind farm being pitched by Epuron (see our post here). And communities like Tarago have erupted in anger at plans to destroy their lives and livelihoods (see our post here).

A little while back, the usual response from those opposed to wind farms was along the lines of: “we’re all in favour of renewable energy, so long as wind farms are built in the right place”.

But that was before people understood the phenomenal cost of the subsidies directed at wind power through the mandatory RET (see our post here) – and the impact on retail power prices (see our post here).

Fair minded country people are usually ready to give others the benefit of the doubt; and, not used to being lied to, accepted arguments pitched by wind power outfits about the “merits” of wind power: guff like “this wind farm will power 100,000 homes and save 10 million tonnes of CO2 emissions” (see our post here).

Not anymore.

Apart from the very few farmers that stand to profit by hosting turbines, rural communities have woken up to the fact that wind power – which can only ever be delivered at crazy, random intervals – is meaningless as a power source because it cannot and will never replace on-demand sources, such as hydro, gas and coal. And, as a consequence, that wind power cannot and will never reduce CO2 emissions in the electricity sector. The wind industry has never produced a shred of actual evidence to show it has; and the evidence that has been gathered shows intermittent wind power causing CO2 emissions to increase, not decrease (see this European paper here; this Irish paper here; this English paper here; and this Dutch study here).

The realisation that the wind industry is built on series of unsustainable fictions has local communities angrier than ever and helps explain the remarkable numbers opposed: 90% is what’s fairly called a solid “majority” in anybody’s book.

This extract from the Mt Emerald survey captures some of the changing mood and the reasons for it.

Mt emerald survey2

These days, locals fighting wind power outfits are quick to challenge the wild and unsubstantiated environmental benefits touted by the developers; and will launch into them about the massive subsidies (ie the mandatory RET and the REC Tax) upon which the whole rort depends.

And it’s not because these people are “anti-environment” – it’s simply because they’ve woken up to the fact that wind power is pointless: both as a power source; and as a solution to CO2 emissions reduction. Here’s the Business Report with a take on the same tale from Britain and Europe.

Opposing wind generators is not anti-green
Business Report
Keith Bryer
8 August 2014

The intolerance of dissenting views by the Green Lobby is an unpleasant aspect of some of its members. They are perhaps unaware that tolerance of difference is a pillar of democracy and essential to individual freedom. But, whatever the reasons for vitriolic attacks on those against wind generators, environmentalists should take a closer look at Scottish opposition.

The most prominent in Scotland is the Windfarm Action Group. This group firmly states that everyone should take environmental responsibilities seriously. Whatever the causes of global warming and the varying views on what causes it, we must protect our earth and steward it wisely. It accepts a need to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. It wants cleaner, reliable energy. It supports sound scientific solutions with the goal of a cleaner, greener world.

No sane, sensible person can disagree with this. Even the most rabid environmentalist should agree too.

But this green group and 300 others like in Britain, plus another 400 in four EU countries, are against windfarms. They have gone into the subject thoroughly and engineers and scientists back up their conclusions.

To those who accuse them of merely being concerned with their own backyards and not the common good, they say add up our membership and you will find an awful lot of backyards. They are simply against what does not make good sense. They are convinced that wind power:

– Is not a technically legitimate solution.

– Does not meaningfully reduce CO2 emissions.

– Is not a commercially viable source of energy

– Is not environmentally responsible.

They believe there are better solutions to Britain’s energy concerns; solutions that meet scientific, economic, and environmental tests – and they have good reasons.

They point to the massive subsidies that windfarms received initially from the British taxpayer, money that attracts multinational corporations like flies to treacle. These subsidies added to the higher price ordinary British householders pay for their electricity.

This “stealth” tax was considerable. Most consumers were unaware that it was used to make wind-generated economically feasible on the one hand, and to fill the pockets of the manufacturers on the other.

This largess allowed wind-generation companies to make generous payments to landowners for permission to use their land. Such was the temptation that some Welsh farmers trying to raise sheep in arduous and scarcely profitable areas leapt at it.

One told his local newspaper that if it were not for the payments he got, he would have given up farming long ago.

The Wind farm Action Group quotes British government documents that say each wind turbine in Britain still receives an annual subsidy of more than £235,000 (R4.3 million). Britain has about 1,120 turbines in 90 parts of the country.

Among the usual objections to windfarms – they do not work all the time, they are noisy, kill birds and bats, and so on, the group adds a few more. For example, wind generators interfere with radar; dirt and flying insects affect their performance; ice build-up on the propellers affects performance even more; and wind turbulence further reduces their power production.

Finally, there is rust. Britain is a wet place but offshore wind turbines have salt to contend with as well. One Danish offshore wind farm had to be entirely dismantled for repair when it was only 18 months old.

Yes, groups such as these exist almost everywhere there are windfarms. They are often, like this Scottish one, as caring of the environment as anyone, perhaps more so. They are not only concerned with their own backyard; they are concerned about everyone’s backyard.

Yet they say this: “We believe that in time this [windfarms] may well be the greatest environmental disaster that mankind in panic, haste, folly and greed, has ever conceived.”

Britain is an old country and its language is full of folk wisdom like this: “No one ever built a windmill, if he could build a watermill.”

A more modern version of common sense would be: “Using wind power to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is akin to trying to empty the Atlantic Ocean with a teaspoon.”
BusinessReport

The mythical claims of the wind industry and its parasites have all be hinged on a perverse notion of “green” is good. But just what being “green” means these days is a matter of politics, not reason, fact or beneficial environmental outcomes: it’s become little more than a political fashion statement.

Ben Acheson writes for the Huffington Post. He’s also the Energy and Environment Policy Adviser and Parliamentary Assistant to Struan Stevenson MEP at the European Parliament in Brussels. For a taste of Ben’s views on wind power – see our post here.

Here’s Ben taking a swipe at faux “green” politics:

 

When the Outrageous Subsidies Disappear, so does the Viability of the Wind Turbines.

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CEZ Predicts Further Drop in Power Prices as Profit Declines

By Ladka Bauerova August 12, 2014

“The prices probably won’t rise in the foreseeable future,” Chief Executive Officer Daniel Benes told reporters today in Prague, after releasing earnings. “They are more likely to fall further.”

CEZ, along with its European peers, has been battling waning demand and falling electricity prices, hovering near a record low. Reduction of subsidies for renewable energy in Romania, where CEZ operates a 600-megawatt wind park, also eroded earnings in the quarter.

VIDEO: What’s Behind Singapore Air’s Profit Drop?

Net income fell to 7.3 billion koruna ($351 million) in the three months ended June 30 from 10.7 billion koruna a year earlier, the Prague-based company said today in a statement. That missed the 7.5 billion-koruna average of 12 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Revenue fell 9 percent to 48.5 billion koruna.

“The decline in earnings reflects the ever-worsening conditions in the European energy sector, falling power prices and an exceptionally warm and dry winter,” Benes said in the statement.

CEZ shares gained as much as 0.9 percent to 596.90 koruna and traded at 593.10 koruna as of 12:17 p.m. in Prague. The stock has gained 15 percent this year.

VIDEO: Softbank Profit Slumps on Alibaba Charge

Higher Target

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization fell 10 percent to 18.7 billion koruna. That beat the average analyst estimate of 17.7 billion koruna. The company maintained its full-year Ebitda target of 70.5 billion koruna and slightly raised its target for net income to 29 billion koruna from 27.5 billion koruna previously.

Power for 2015 delivery to Germany, where CEZ sells part of its output, dropped 3.3 percent this year, extending the 16 percent decline in 2013. The forward contract decreased to a record 33.75 euros ($45) per megawatt-hour on April 4.

Ebitda in Romania, where CEZ runs a 600-megawatt wind farm, dropped by 1.1 billion koruna in the first half of the year after the country cut support for renewable energy and power prices plunged. The wind farm is receiving only one green certificate from the government for every megawatt-hour generated, instead of two previously.

VIDEO: Standard Chartered Profit Drops, CEO Under Pressure

First-half Ebitda in the Czech Republic dropped 20 percent to 23.1 billion koruna.

Pre-Sale

CEZ has pre-sold 82 percent of its 2015 output at 39.5 euros per megawatt hour, 54 percent of 2016 production at 36.5 euros per megawatt hour, and 22 percent of 2017 generated power at 36 euros per megawatt hour, the company said.

The company plans to cut operating costs in the next two years by 16 percent, according to the statement. Through an arbitration suit, CEZ reached an agreement with the Albanian government for a 100 million-euro compensation for having its license revoked and assets confiscated last year.

STORY: The Totally Unsurprising Apple-Samsung Patent Truce

In April, the utility called off a $15 billion tender for two new reactors at its Temelin nuclear power plant after the Czech government refused to provide guarantees to ensure the project’s profitability. The government is drawing up a new national energy strategy to be introduced at the beginning of next year.

CEZ is interested in Enel SpA’s assets in Slovakia, which the Italian company plans to sell to cut debt. The process is “at the very beginning,” Benes said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ladka Bauerova in Prague at lbauerova@bloomberg.net

VIDEO: Why Did HSBC’s Profit Fall in the First Half?

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Will Kennedy at wkennedy3@bloomberg.net Indranil Ghosh, Ana Monteiro

Wynne’s Liberals Out to Bankrupt Ontario, for No Benefit At All!~

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Achtung, Ontario! Renewables are a money pit

 

Brady Yauch, Special to Financial Post | August 12, 2014 

Germany’s decision to support renewable energy at all costs has, ultimately, cost the country’s ratepayers billions of dollars and led to a doubling of monthly electricity bills over the past decade. So, why is Ontario following Germany's lead?

FotoliaGermany’s decision to support renewable energy at all costs has, ultimately, cost the country’s ratepayers billions of dollars and led to a doubling of monthly electricity bills over the past decade. So, why is Ontario following Germany?

Germany, the model for Ontario’s wind and solar developments, now regrets its spending spree

Germany – the country on which Ontario modelled its approach to renewable energy development – has a $412-billion lesson for Ontario. That’s the amount the country has spent on subsidies in support of solar and wind energy, among other renewables, over the past 20 years, all in the push to wean the country off fossil fuel and nuclear generation.

On the surface – and according to many news sites – the program has been a success, and not just because of the 378,000 people renewables now employ.

By the end of 2012 (the most recent year for data), wind and solar provided about 13% of all German electricity consumption. Adding in hydro and biomass, renewables provided more than 23%. And in May, headline writers around the world proudly trumpeted that renewable energy provided 75% of the country’s total electricity consumption.

But scratch a bit below the surface and an entirely different picture emerges – one with households being pushed into “energy poverty” as renewable subsidies lead to soaring power bills, handouts to the country’s big businesses and exporters so they can avoid paying for those subsidies and a systematic bankrupting of traditional utilities. As for that one day in May when headlines celebrated that 75% of power generation came from renewables, well, it was a Sunday when demand for power is at its lowest level.

Germany’s decision to support renewable energy at all costs has, ultimately, cost the country’s ratepayers billions of dollars and led to a doubling of monthly electricity bills over the past decade. Households now pay the second highest rates for electricity in the EU – second only to Denmark, the world leader in wind turbines. The country’s feed-in tariff program – which offers renewable energy producers a guaranteed rate for their power – has already cost $412-billion, but could, according to one estimate from the former Minister of the Environment Peter, produce an $884-billion price tag by 2022. Germany will hand out $31.1-billion of renewable energy subsidies in this year alone.

The price of electricity paid by German households has increased from 14 cents (euro) per kilowatt hour in 2000 to 29 cents per kilowatt hour last year – marking a 107% increase, while inflation over that time period was about 22%. The biggest reason for that increase is the renewable energy subsidy, which amounted to 1.4% of the total bill when it was first introduced in 2000, but now accounts for 18%. That renewable levy now costs the average household in Germany more than $320 a year.

Rising electricity prices for households ledDer Spiegel, one of the country’s most respected magazines, to warn that electricity was becoming a “luxury good.” More than 300,000 households each year are being left in the dark because they can’t afford electricity.

German households are being hit particularly hard by the cost of renewable subsidies because the country’s largest businesses – many of them exporters and in energy-intensive sectors – have been exempt from paying for them. Regulators and politicians – fearing that that high electricity prices would hurt the economy and result in job losses or plant closures – gave big business a free pass and instead shifted the costs to households.

The renewable subsidies have distorted Germany’s power market to such an extent that traditional utilities are being pushed to the brink of collapse. Electricity generated from solar and wind has no relationship with the market. Because the price the producers receive is guaranteed and is not based on demand, they dump their output whenever it is produced. This glut of power has, at times, pushed the price of wholesale power below zero – meaning the utilities need to pay someone to use it. This has skewed the price to such an extent that traditional generators can’t economically produce power – they simply stop producing when the price goes too low.

While the answer would seem to be to close those uneconomic generators, that’s not possible since renewable energy is intermittent – at times it will produce no power, while at others it will produce too much – and traditional generators are needed to provide a secure, reliable source of power. Utilities are being asked to keep producing power even though the economics of it don’t make sense anymore. To prevent utilities in Germany from pulling out of the business of generation, the government now offers more than billion dollars in “balancing payments” – sometimes 400 times the price of power – to stabilize the grid.

The rise of renewable power has also led to coal making a comeback. The amount of generation from coal actually increased from 43% of all output in 2011 to nearly 45% in 2012. Electricity generation from lignite, a cheaper and dirtier form of coal, has also been on the rise because, according to one Germany utility, it’s the only thing that can compete with subsidized renewable energy.

The energy situation in Germany has become so disruptive and politically untenable that the government has recently done everything it can to pull back on subsidies and other support for renewable energy, much to the dismay of renewable producers that still can’t survive on their own.

Far from being a success, Germany’s rush into renewable energy has crushed households, taxpayers and utilities. Ontario needs a better model.

Brady Yauch is an economist and the executive director of Consumer Policy Institute.

Fracking is by Far….Better than Wind Turbines!

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Fracking – Fact or Fantasy

by Dougal Quixote

The green movement doesn’t like Fracking but they do like Wind. Why? Fact is wind is intermittent, drives people into fuel poverty and has to be supported by subsidy. Fracking on the other hand has reduced energy prices in the US, created thousands of jobs as energy prices tumble to the benefit of US industry and needs no subsidy. So why has the Green Lobby reacted so viciously to fracking. Their web sites are a liturgy of lies and obfuscations.

fracking objectors

They are the great unwashed, the swampies and the anti capitalist objectors and yet they are also rent a mob. Never has a Wind Farm objection rally needed the police manpower that fracking does. Truth is that it is simply political activism, what Patterson referred to as the Green Blob. How seldom do we see locals in their ranks. Those that are have believed the hype and failed to properly study the fact. Flaming faucets: cold bed methane in groundwater that would be there without any mining. Nothing to do with fracking at 8000ft well below groundwater. There are dangers, but none that cannot be adequately addressed by good management and oversight by an effective regulator. After all it is not in the developers interest to be faced with expensive clear up costs and loss of production.

So what about the real legacy of fracking. In the south we haver been drilling the Whytch oil field for years and few even know it exists. Fracking, as a technique, has been used for the best party of forty years but new equipment and deep wells have brought it into it’s own more recently. Centrica have been fracking wells for gas in Norway for the last few years. Interestingly they are using mostly Scottish engineers. Good well paid jobs for the indigenous population.

So what effect does fracking have. Essentially a fracking site will experience disturbance for about forty weeks after which it will revert to a simple well head.

Fracking well head

 

This is in Marcellus, New York State, and cannot be seen from the road. The alternative is something like this at Ardrossan.

Ardrossan

Ardrossan

Of course the first runs 24/7/365 for some forty years and the second runs as about 21% when the wind blows and has a life of about 16 years before it needs re-powering. We have all been promised a maximum of 25 years but do we believe them? No way. Read the small print. In practice what will happen is either the death of the industry with wholesale bankruptcies and rusting hulks littering our scenery or bigger monstrosities here for forty years or more.

For a safe, sustainable, future the truth is we need deliverable energy at a cost we can afford with a mix of clean coal, gas, nuclear and hydro. It is without doubt that as civilisation moves forward we will have an expanding demand for electricity, not because it is green, but because it is easy. Cars, buses, trains will all demand much higher energy requirements than we could currently(sic) supply. So listen to the Royal Geological Scociety, the Nuclear Industry and the engineers in the power industry. Don’t listen to the Swampys and green ideologues as they peddle dis-information. Get your facts from people who know, not the Green lobby with their eschewed values which even their founders now despair of.

We need to build a future based on fact, not fantasy!

Windweasels “Stack the Deck” for “Community Consultations”

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NSW Planning Department Helps Wind Farm Developers Rig Community “Consultations”

August 12, 2014 by  

dirtyrottenscoundrelsoriginal

As community hostility to wind farm plans erupts across the Southern Tablelands of NSW, wind power outfits have taken to sacking and stacking committees to ensure the “process” of “community consultation” is little more than high farce.

Spanish outfit, Union Fenosa didn’t like the prospect of having Tony Abbott’s key business adviser, Maurice Newman challenge its wild and fictional claims, so it did what any reasonable corporate citizen would do: it booted him off the committee at Crookwell (see our post here). What’s that you say about “shaping the debate”?

Now, EPYC – an outfit planning to spear 100 turbines into the heart of picture post-card Tarago – has adopted the same tactics: stacking the consultation committee with “friendlies” and preventing the appointment of anyone with any insight into the scope of the fraud. Here’s the Goulburn Post with a tale that sounds more like something from the old Soviet Bloc.

Windfarm group demands action
Goulburn Post
Louise Thrower
4 August 2014

OPPONENTS of a proposed wind farm near Tarago are calling on the state government to ‘do its job.’ Community consultative committees (CCCs) are mandatory under guidelines but are nothing more than a ‘fig leaf,’ says a residents’ group.

The Residents Against Jupiter Wind Farm (RAJWF) has not ruled out political action to press their point.

Last month the group met with a senior advisor to Planning Minister and Goulburn MP Pru Goward and a departmental official in Sydney.

Member and Tarago district resident Dr Michael Crawford said the government had the power to appoint CCCs but was abrogating its responsibility and letting wind farm companies decide the make-up.

“It’s not an even handed process but they want it to look as though it is by putting it in the guidelines,” Dr Crawford said.

“The Department is not doing its job to appoint community representatives and the independent chairperson and it doesn’t pull anyone up on it. We tried to get some real change.”

Instead, Dr Crawford said the Department gave him the “soft shoe shuffle.”

His comments follow Union Fenosa’s sacking of Maurice Newman from the Crookwell Three wind farm CCC. The move sparked outrage from NSW Landscape Guardians president Humphrey Price-Jones who called on Ms Goward and the Department to intervene.

Under existing draft guidelines, the director general signs off on CCC membership. But even Union Fenosa conceded that given the draft document, the state was leaving membership up to wind farm companies.

Tarago residents at least argue this is unacceptable.

“Nowhere in the guidelines is there any latitude for the wind farm developer to have a say about choosing community reps,” resident Jane Keaney stated in a letter to the editor.

“In fact, even without the guidelines, anyone with the faintest sense of fair play would recognise that allowing a developer of any sort to select the people who are going to be allowed to talk to the developer on behalf of the community, is anathema. How has the department come to tolerate this corruption of process?” The group has already asked Palerang and Goulburn Mulwaree Councils to help with election of its CCC.

In June, EPYC, which wants to build the 100 turbine wind farm southeast of Tarago, called for community representation.

In response, the group nominated seven people including Mr Crawford, who it wanted on the committee, with a further eight as alternative delegates. The Reverend Tom Frame supervised the election.

Dr Crawford said to date there has been no response from the company or the Department of Planning.

At the most recent Goulburn Mulwaree meeting, planning director Chris Stewart was appointed as Council’s representative.

While companies like Union Fenosa have defended their ability to appoint a wide cross section of views to the committees, others like Mr Price-Jones have branded them “wind farm propaganda” machines.

Dr Crawford said while all the Tarago nominees oppose the wind farm, he would welcome a variety of voices on the committee.

But he’s adamant that the state government needs to regain control.

“The government wants to paper the State with wind farms but the process is nothing more than a fig leaf,” he said.

“… At the meeting in Sydney I said they have to understand our timetable. There’s an election next year and if our members feel political action is required, we won’t sit on our hands.

It’s about government policy and the way to deal with it is through the political process.”

Ms Goward told the Post she had asked her department for a report on CCCs.

“We made it clear that we expect wind farm companies to genuinely consult with communities and the history is that they haven’t,” she said.

“We need to be sure CCCs are genuine, that they genuinely represent the community and can give unfettered advice.”

The company had not responded to requests for comment by the time of going to press.
Goulburn Post

STT is pleased to hear that Pru Goward has taken an interest in what can fairly be described as government gone rotten. The NSW Planning Department – like state planning departments around Australia – is infected with a pernicious brand of groupthink driven by the childish fantasy that wind power is a solution to “climate change” (previously known as “global warming” – until it became evident that it stopped getting warmer 17 years ago – see our post here).

Wedded to a delusion, woe betide anyone – like Maurice Newman or Dr Michael Crawford – who has the temerity to question their mantra. Hence the need to load these so-called “community consultation committees” with gullible “yes-men”.

Wind power – delivered at crazy, random intervals – requires 100% of its capacity to be backed up 100% of the time by fossil fuel generation sources and, therefore, cannot and will never reduce CO2 emissions in the electricity sector (see our posts here and here and here and here andhere and here and here).

Wind power is not a substitute for conventional generation sources and – if CO2 is the problem – presents as a solution to nothing (see our post here).

Remember that the ONLY justification for the $billions in subsidies directed at wind power (see our post here) is CO2 emissions abatement in the electricity sector. It’s the central and endlessly repeated lie that wind power outfits routinely trot out in their planning applications. You know, the guff about “powering 100,000 homes” and abating millions of tonnes of CO2 (see our post here).

Well, STT hears that the industry is about to be put to proof on its CO2 abatement claims.

The wind industry has never produced a shred of evidence to show that wind power has reduced CO2 emissions in Australia’s electricity sector. 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 thisEuropean paper here; this Irish paper here; this English paper here; and this Dutch study here).

Strip away that myth and the mandatory RET – upon which the entire wind industry depends – can be seen for what it is: the greatest economic and environmental fraud of all time.

pru-goward

Ineffective, Unreliable, Unaffordable, Wind Turbines!

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LETTER: Wind turbines are a waste of time and money

The coalition has sanctioned the construction of Rampion, despite the overwhelming evidence that wind turbines are unreliable, grossly inefficient, inflict huge damage on the environment and wildlife, do not reduce greenhouse emissions one iota, and are, by a large margin, the most expensive means of generating electricity.

Thus, one could be forgiven for thinking the two headlines are linked.

Consider, as revealed by the company awarded the contract for the construction of the off-shore wind farm that, although the designed output is 700 megawatts (MW) because of the unreliability of wind turbines, the actual output will be no more than 240MW. Compare this with the output of a gas-fired generator, costing less than half the over £2bn for Rampion, which produces ten times as much electricity 100 per cent of the time.

Some years ago, Centricia, and other electricity-producing companies, made it absolutely clear to the government that, because of the unreliability of the wind, full back-up of conventional power stations is essential.

Therefore, greenhouse gas-emitting generating plants will have to remain permanently in service – thus, there is no point in building wind turbines.

Denmark, which has the greatest number of wind turbines per capita, has the most expensive power in Europe. I have yet to meet

a qualified electrical engineer who thinks the construction of wind turbines to power the national grid is a good idea.

Rampion will cover 60 square miles from Beachy Head to the Isle of Wight. The unreliability, comparatively short life, and huge cost of maintaining the turbines, means that it is only a question of time before Rampion is seen as one of the biggest scrap metal sites in the world.

France, where 80 per cent of electricity is produced by nuclear power, has the cheapest electricity in Europe. To satisfy the Green lobby, nuclear power stations in the UK should employ thorium as the fuel which is much safer than uranium. Nuclear bombs cannot be produced using thorium.

I do hope everyone reading this will write to their MP, county and district councillors, demanding the construction of all wind turbines, both on and off-shore, be halted immediately.

Ideally, those wind turbines already constructed should be dismantled.

Derek Hunnikin

St Leodegar’s Way

Hunston