not financially feasible

Faux-green Environmentalists (EPA), Push Their Political Agenda!

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EPA goes from Environmental Protection Agency to Extremist Political Agenda

A report from the EPA’s public hearings on the proposed Clean Power Plan

During the week of July 28, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) held hearings in four cities: Atlanta, Denver, Pittsburgh, and Washington, DC. The two-day sessions were to allow the public to have their voice heard about the proposed rules it released on June 2 that will supposedly cut CO2 emissions by 30%.

MaritaMany, including myself, believe that these rules are really an attempt to shut down coal-fueled electricity generation and implement a cap-and-trade program that the Administration couldn’t get through Congress in 2009, when cap-and-trade’s obvious allies held both houses of Congress.

If the EPA’s plans were clear, direct, and honest, the public would likely revolt outright. Instead, the intent is hidden in pages of cumbersome language and the messaging becomes all about clean air and water—and about the health of children.

Because I was in the area—speaking a few hours from Atlanta on Sunday—I took advantage of the proximity and signed up to speak at the hearing. When I first attempted to sign up, day one was already full. The EPA had so many people who wanted time to share their opinions, a second day was added, and I was put on the schedule.

The first day, Tuesday, July 29, included competing rallies held in near-record-low temperatures for Atlanta in July. Supporters of the EPA’s plan—many of whom were bussed in from surrounding states—gathered in Centennial Olympic Park. I spoke at the rally, made up of plan opponents, that was organized by Americans for Prosperity’s Georgia chapter held at the Sam Nunn Federal Center—where the hearing was originally scheduled (before a power outage forced a move to the Omni Hotel).

I spent the rest of the day at the hearing. It had a circus-like atmosphere. With tables of literature, people carrying signs, and many of the plan’s supporters identified by their matching pale-green tee shirts emblazoned with:

                             Protect our communities

                             CLIMATE ACTION NOW.

Once I had a taste of what to expect the next day, when I was to present my comments in the five minutes allotted, I prepared what I wanted to say. The following is my original text—though I had to edit it down to get it within the allowed time frame. For presentation here, I’ve also enhanced my comments with some additional insights from others. The verbiage that is not a part of my original testimony is included in italics.

* * * *

I was here yesterday and earlier today. I’ve listened to the well-intentioned pleas from many who have begged you, the EPA, to take even stronger action than this plan proposes. One even dramatically claimed: “You are the Environmental Protection Agency. You are our only hope. If you don’t protect us no one will?”

I heard a teary-eyed, young woman tell a tale about a man she knows who is dying of cancer, supposedly because he grew up near a coal-fired power plant—he couldn’t be here, so she told his story. She also said: “I am fortunate enough to have not been around in the 1960s when there was real smog.” Her father has told her about it.

One woman claimed her neighbor had gotten asthma from global warming.

Another addressed how she gets headaches from emissions. She told how lung tissue could be burned. And, how particulates are why people can no longer see the mountain in her region.

An attorney’s testimony told about seeing “carbon pollution” every day from his 36th floor office “a few blocks from here” from where he looks “out over a smog-covered city.”

The passion of these commenters supersedes their knowledge, as none of the issues I’ve mentioned here, and there are many more, are something caused by carbon dioxide—a clear, colorless gas that each of us breathe out and plants breathe in.

Marita and the UMWADave Bufalo is a retired civil engineer who attended and testified at the EPA’s Denver location. He told me he had a similar experience: “I was only able to stay for about an hour but I did hear about 10 testimonials. They were all in support of the EPA’s proposed regulation.  I don’t believe that anyone had really read the proposal prior to testifying. Their testimonies seemed to lack an understanding of the chemical nature of CO2. One elderly woman could only state that she thanked the EPA for insuring that she had clean air and water. One gentleman was clearly pushing for the sale of his company’s solar panels.” 

James Rust, Ph.D., is a retired professor of nuclear engineering from Georgia Tech. In his testimony in Atlanta, he referenced thousands of peer-reviewed papers showing carbon dioxide emissions had a negligible effect on climate change. He pointed to the stack of documents from the Heartland Institute called Climate Change Reconsidered I and II that contained these peer-reviewed articles. It was at that point, that a man in the front row shouted out “Liar!” Rust told me: “This is the typical type of response from the mob that promotes this climate change scare.  They use ad hominem attacks and don’t debate the real issues because they have no experimental data that backs up what they are proposing.”  

Carbon dioxide is a natural, and essential, part of the environment— massive, unknown, quantities of carbon dioxide are emitted each year from natural sources, such as volcanoes. Were we able to eliminate carbon dioxide from every industrial source in the United States, it would have virtually no impact on global carbon dioxide emissions.

I understand the concerns over true smog and pollution. I grew up in Southern California—graduating from high school in 1976. At that time, we had made a mess of our environment. We had polluted the air and water. Cleaning up our collective act was an important public policy issue. San Bernardino, where my family lived, is in a valley, surrounded by mountains. It was not uncommon for a family to move into the area in the summer, when the smog was the worst, and not even know the beautiful mountains existed. In the fall, when the winds came in and blew the smog out to sea, newcomers where amazed to discover the mountains.

But that pollution, that smog, has largely been cleaned up. Utilities have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on scrubbers, and on other highly technical equipment such as SCR’s, electrostatic precipitators, and bag houses, to successfully remove the vast majority of the particulates.

People often see a billowing white cloud coming from the stacks at a coal-fueled power plant and confuse it with pollution when it is really H2O—water in the form of steam. Depending on the time of year, or the time of day, it may be more, or less, visible. The weather conditions may make it settle like fog until the sun burns it off. And this, I believe, is mistaken for pollution.

If you haven’t seen Randy Scott Slavin’s Bird’s-Eye-View of New York City, I encourage you to check it out.  The book shows an birdseyeamazingly clean city—despite the more than 8 million people living in those compact 469 square miles. New York City is one of the most populated places on the planet, yet its air is sparkling.

This rule is not about pollution. It is about shutting down coal-fueled power plants, and thus killing jobs and raising electricity rates—both of which punish people who can least afford it. But plenty of others have addressed the economic impact, so I won’t take more of my time on that topic.

Dozens of members from a variety of different unions were present in Atlanta to speak out against the plan. Skip Howard, Business Manager for Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 421 in North and South Carolina, explained: “Although Nuclear Power is a clean, renewable source of energy and not affected by fluctuating oil-and-gas prices, energy from Coal-fired Plants is cheaper and helps keep the cost of electricity affordable to consumers. Coal-fired Plants are reliable and cheaper to build than a Nuclear Plant. Coal-fired plants are now designed to be a safe and efficient source of energy that supports grid systems, helping to avoid blackouts. New clean coal technologies create many thousands of new high-wage jobs across our country, helping our economy grow.” 

Several of the union members who testified in Atlanta assailed the EPA representatives because the hearing locations were far from where those most impacted—the coal miners—live. 

coal trainI spent some time on Tuesday talking with many of the union representatives. David Cagle, Marketing Representative for the Plumbers, Pipefitters, and HVAC/R Service Technicians Local Union 72 based in Atlanta, told me: “I appreciate your interest in helping our country to be able to continue to provide economical electric energy and well-paying jobs to America’s families and businesses.” He then offered me this brief history of what the coal-fired electric energy industry means to his family:

After World War II my father worked in one of the first large coal-fired powerhouses built in the state of Georgia. That well-paying job allowed him to help his parents pay off the mortgage on their house and also to start saving for a down payment for a home of his own one day.  My father worked on several coal-fired powerhouses throughout his career in the piping industry. These well-paying jobs provided a decent standard of living for his family.

The powerhouses that my father helped build are still providing well-paying jobs for the people who run them and the workers who do the maintenance on them. Hundreds of thousands of construction workers have benefited from the well-paying jobs in the construction and maintenance of these facilities. They are also still providing low-cost electrical power to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of customers.

”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””” 

Beside my family benefiting from the coal-powered electric generation industry, I can tell you firsthand what coal does for our country across the continent. 

powderrivercoalI lived in Campbell County, Wyoming, for two years in the mid-90s.  Campbell County is the Energy Capital of the United States. Thousands of families would lose a very good way of living, if the coal mines in Wyoming were shut down.  The coal mined there is very low in sulfur and produces some of the cleanest electricity on earth. I also know many people from West Virginia who depend on coal to be able to make a decent living. 

I fully understand the devastating effects the Obama Administration’s new EPA rules on coal-fired powerhouses would have on people on a fixed income. My parents are in their late 80s and early 90s. They are on a fixed income and in poor health. The last thing they need are large power bills that would destroy their budget and force them to rely on their children to help pay their power bills. 

My whole family are outdoorsmen. We have all been raised to hunt and fish and respect and protect our environment. My family would be the first to embrace a low-cost, environmentally sound alternative to coal-fired powerhouses. The problem is, there is no alternative economically viable source available at this time. 

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) covered a union protest that took place at the Pittsburgh hearing. It states: “Unions opposing the proposed rule argue that U.S. workers will pay the price for lowering emissions domestically while other countries—most notably China, where coal usage has grown rapidly—will continue to burn coal and emit carbon dioxide.” The WSJreported: “Unions focused their efforts on Pittsburgh, sending busloads of unionized miners, utility workers, railroad workers, and others from Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Alabama, and other states.”

scaliaI also want to address the constitutionality of the proposed plan, as it does exactly what the Supreme Court admonished the EPA about on June 23. Justice Antonin Scalia, for the majority, wrote this about the Tailoring Rule decision: “Were we to recognize the authority claimed by EPA in the Tailoring Rule, we would deal a severe blow to the Constitution’s separation of powers… The power of executing laws…does not include a power to revise clear statutory terms that turn out not to work in practice.” Yet, this is exactly what this proposed plan will do.

Later in the decision, Scalia says: “When an agency claims to discover in a long-extant statute an unheralded power to regulate ‘a significant portion of the American economy’ . . . we typically greet its announcement with a measure of skepticism. We expect Congress to speak clearly if it wishes to assign an agency decisions of vast ‘economic and political significance.’”

I believe on these grounds, this plan must not go forward. It is one more example of executive overreach.

I fear that if it does, America will pay a dear price. This hearing was scheduled to take place down the street at the Sam Nunn Federal Center. However, it was moved due to a power outage. Note: business cannot be done without power. You were able to move this hearing. In a reduced-power environment businesses will move to places where they have access to energy that is effective, efficient, and economical. They will move, as many have already done, to places with far-looser environmental policies and the perceived gain will be lost.

Thinking that what we do in the United States will have a serious impact on global carbon dioxide emissions is like thinking that declaring a “no pee” section in the swimming pool will keep the water urine free.

I’ll end with a quote from the smog-viewing attorney who closed with: “I am hopeful that my new grandchildren, who will live into the 22nd century, will enjoy a world that my grandparents, born in the 19th century, would recognize.” If this plan is passed, he may get his wish. His grandparents’ world contained none of the energy-based modern conveniences or medical miracles we consider standard and essential today—let alone those yet to be developed or discovered by the 22nd century. In his grandparents’ day, life expectancy in the U.S. was estimated at 45 years. By 2000, this had increased to 78 years—mostly due to our expansion of cost-effective electricity throughout the nation.

Remember, the countries with the best human health and the most material wealth are those with the highest energy consumption. America needs energy that is abundant, available, and affordable.

* * * *

 

Wind Turbines are “Faux-Green”!

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Opposing wind generators is not anti-green

August 8 2014
By Keith Brier

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.”

Wind Pusher’s Conduct, Called Into Question!….Not acceptable!

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MSP calls for wind farm developer code of conduct

The move comes after constituents raised concerns about the activities of one particular developer in trying to garner public support for its proposed wind farm.

Speaking from his constituency office, Mr Fergusson said: “As competition grows for wind farm sites, developers will be keener than ever to attract support from communities and individuals for their proposed developments.

“In doing so, it would seem that one company in particular has angered a large number of my constituents by negotiating secret agreements with individuals to ensure that they don’t object to the development in return for an undisclosed sum of money.

“This activity causes suspicion between neighbours, division within communities and is the polar opposite of the levels of openness and accountability that ought to characterize the local negotiations that precede any wind farm development.

“In my opinion, a code of practice for developers would ensure that all affected communities and individuals would be treated with respect as negotiations move forward and remove the atmosphere of distrust and suspicion that clearly exists in at least one particular local situation.

“I have written to the minister to suggest a code of practice, and will pursue the possibility through normal parliamentary processes.”

Earlier this year, 50 community councils from across the region called for a moratorium on consent for wind farms in the region, claiming a map produced by Scottish Natural Heritage shows southern Scotland has more onshore wind farm developments proposed than any other part of the country.

 
 

Wind Pushers Try to Push the Noise Limits Beyond Tolerable Levels…

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Turbine neighbour prompts noise probe by ministry

By Nelson Zandbergen – AgriNews Staff Writer    

Ontario’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change installed the basketball-sized microphone atop a temporary 30-foot listening post in her backyard, along with a smaller meteorological tower.BRINSTON Leslie Disheau has her ear to the ground in South Dundas, and for 10 days last month, a very powerful ear trained on the sky around her Brinston home as well.

The ministry’s move was prompted by Disheau and partner Glen Baldwins complaints about nighttime noise emanating from two industrial wind turbines on either side of their place, one to their immediate northwest, the other to the southeast. Comprising part of the 10-turbine South Branch project that went into service earlier this year, both of the nearest units are less than one kilometer away from the home the couple shares with their two teenaged children.

But Disheau, candidate for deputy mayor in the municipal election and a fierce critic of the turbine industry, feared that developer EDP Renewables was intentionally slowing the two windmills to quiet them down while the ministry data-collection and audio-recording effort was underway with her participation.

The Houston-based firm almost immediately learned about the microphone on the day of the install, she said with some frustration.

Located just down the road from the projects main depot, it wasn’t more than three hours after the arrival of two ministry trucks in her driveway that EDP called the same ministry to question the presence of those vehicles, according to Disheau.

She says the audio technician putting up the equipment learned of EDPs inquiry while talking to his office by cell phone, then told her about it.

Disheau expressed unhappiness that a mandatory post-construction noise report had yet to be publicly filed by the company itself, after putting the project into service in March.

In the meantime, over a 10-day period in July, the ministry captured its own sound data with Disheau’s help. During those times she considered the turbines to be noisiest, she pressed a button inside her home, triggering the recording process via the outdoor microphone, which was tethered to audio equipment in a locked box.

Comparing the sound to that of a rumbling plane or jet, she got up at night when she couldn’t sleep to push the audio recording button located at the end of a long cord connected to the stuff outside. She also kept an accompanying log as part of the initiative.

The noise is most acute, she said, when the direction of the wind causes the blades to swivel toward her home in perpendicular fashion.

She scoffed at regulations that mandate 500-meter setbacks to neighbouring homes, pointing out the rule doesn’t take into account the cumulative, “overlapping” impact of multiple turbines that surround. Nor does the regulation change with the actual size of a turbine, she adds, asserting that, at 3-megawatts apiece, “these are the largest turbines in Ontario.”

Ultimately, the ministry will use the data collected by Disheau to create a report, which could potentially form the basis of ministry orders against the two offending turbines. “To shut them down at night so that people can sleep,” she said with a hopeful tone, though she also acknowledged the ministry may not issue orders. And even if it does, she expects the developer to appeal and appeal.

Disheau also said there are measures that municipal governments can undertake to curtail the noise, including a nuisance noise bylaw of 32 decibels, which recently survived a court challenge in another Ontario municipality. She espouses such a policy in South Dundas and will push for it at the council table if elected.

Ill Health suffered by Residents Living near Wind Turbines!

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An ill wind blows as the surge of turbines stirs fears of silent danger to our health

TENS of thousands of Scots may be suffering from a hidden sickness epidemic caused by wind farms, campaigners have warned.

By: Paula Murray


Andrew Vivers has suffered from headaches since a wind farm was built near his home
[PAUL REID]

The Sunday Express can reveal that the Scottish Government has recently commissioned a study into the potential ill effects of turbines at 10 sites across the country.

More than 33,500 families live within two miles of these 10 wind farms – which represent just a fraction of the 2,300 turbines – already built north of the Border.

Hundreds of residents are now being asked to report back to Holyrood ministers about the visual impacts, and effects of noise and shadow flickers from nearby wind farms.

Campaigners fear that many people do not realise they are suffering from ailments brought on by infrasound – noise at such a low frequency that it cannot be heard but can be felt.

One such person is Andrew Vivers, an ex-Army captain who has suffered from headaches, dizziness, tinnitus, raised blood pressure and disturbed sleep since Ark Hill wind farm was built near his home in Glamis, Angus.

Mr Vivers, who served almost 10 years in the military, said the authorities had so far refused to accept the ill effects of infrasound despite it being a “known military interrogation aid and weapon”.

He said: “When white noise was disallowed they went on to infrasound. If it is directed at you, you can feel your brain or your body vibrating. With wind turbines, you don’t realise that is what’s happening to you.

“It is bonkers that infrasound low frequency noise monitoring is not included in any environmental assessments. It should be mandatory before and after turbine erection.”

He is raising concerns about an “acknowledged and unexplained increase of insomnia, dizziness and headaches in Dundee”, where two large wind turbines have been operating since 2006. Mr Vivers, 59, said all medical explanations of his own sudden health issues had been ruled out and it was more than 12 months before he was convinced of the link to the wind farm.

”I was getting these headaches and dizziness
and just not sleeping, but I was putting it all down
to all sorts of other things. A couple of times I was
walking on the hills around the house with my dogs
and got a really bad dizzy spell” Andrew Vivers

He said: “I was getting these headaches and dizziness and just not sleeping, but I was putting it all down to all sorts of other things. A couple of times I was walking on the hills around the house with my dogs and got a really bad dizzy spell.

“I actually had to sit down for a few minutes and while I was sitting down wondering what on earth was wrong with me, I did notice the wind was coming straight from the turbines.” Mr Vivers said he has also witnessed an “incredible number” of dead hares on the moors around Ark Hill and believes they may have succumbed to “internal haemorrhaging and death” as a result of the turbines.

He added: “If this coming winter is going to be anything like the last and with the plans to build a second wind farm much closer to us, I think we’ll have to sell our home and move elsewhere.”

The 10 sites under the microscope in the new survey include one in Dunfermline, where almost 23,000 households are nearby, and Little Raith near Lochgelly, Fife, where there are nearly 9,000 households.

The others are Achany in Sutherland, Baillie near Thurso, Caithness, Dalswinton in Dumfriesshire, Drone Hill, near Coldingham, Berwickshire, Griffin in Perthshire, Hadyard Hill in Ayrshire, Neilston in Renfrewshire and West Knock, near Stuartfield, Aberdeenshire.

About 2,000 questionnaires have been sent to residents in a move that is understood to have caused tension between the Scottish Government and the renewable energy industry.

The “wind farm impacts study” is being managed by ClimateXChange, which has published information about the project online.

It says: “The research will use two sources of information: how local residents experience and react to visual, noise and shadow-flicker impacts, and how the predicted impact at the planning stage matches the impact when the wind farm is operating.

“The final report is due in autumn 2014. It will inform the Scottish Government’s approach to planning policy on renewables and good practice on managing the impact of wind farms on local residents.”

One of the contractors involved in the project is Hoare Lea Acoustics, an international firm which specialises in measuring noise and vibration from wind farms.

However, Susan Croswaithe, the UK spokeswoman for campaign group European Platform Against Windfarms, said the study would be “little more than a box ticking exercise”.

She added: “On the face of it, it does look like a step in the right direction, but can we really trust it? My issue is that it is not independent enough.

“Our website is full of examples of people not being listened to.

“We have two very large wind farms near us in Ayrshire, Arecleoch and Mark Hill – 60 turbines and 28 turbines.

“If people in my area have noticed they are feeling better at the moment but do not understand why, it may be because the turbines have been switched off while they do maintenance on the grid.”

Germany Realizes, That Green Jobs are Fleeting, and Heavily Subsidized

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Germany’s Unsustainable “Green” Jobs “Miracle” Collapses

August 10, 2014 by  

angry german kid

The Germans went into wind power harder and faster than anyone else – and the cost of doing so is catching up with a vengeance. The subsidies have been colossal, the impacts on the electricity market chaotic and – contrary to the purpose of the policy – CO2 emissions are rising fast (seeour post here).

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

One justification put up by the wind industry for the social and economic chaos caused by spiralling power costs was the claim that investment in wind power would create a “new” economy with millions of groovy “green” jobs.

True it was that Germany saw an increase in renewables related employment – the bulk of it in the development and manufacture of solar panels – but all of it was built on a raft of taxpayer and power consumer subsidies: it was – therefore – unsustainable.

Any job that relies on a subsidy results in a loss of employment elsewhere in the economy. In Germany, the subsidies for “green” jobs are paid for in rocketing power prices, which impacts on the profitability and competitiveness of all businesses and industries. German manufacturers – and other energy intensive industries – faced with escalating power bills are set to pack up and head to the USA – where power prices are 1/3 of Germany’s (see our posts here and here and here).

In the result, Germany faces a decline in industrial output and, therefore, declining employment.

And now that the Germans have started to wind back subsidies for renewables (see our post here), the “green” jobs that were built on them are disappearing fast. Here’s Die Welt on the unsustainable “green” jobs “miracle”.

Germany’s Green Jobs Miracle Collapses
Die Welt
Daniel Wetzel
28 May 2014

Renewable energy was supposed to create tens of thousands of green jobs. Yet despite three-digit Euro billions of subsidies, the number of jobs is falling rapidly. Seven out of ten jobs will only remain as long as the subsidies keep flowing.

The subsidization of renewable energy has not led to a significant, sustainable increase in jobs. According to recent figures from the German Government, the gross employment in renewable energy decreased by around seven per cent to 363,100 in 2013.

Counting the employees in government agencies and academic institution too, renewable energy creates work for about 370,000 people.

This means, however, that only to about 0.86 percent of the nearly 42 million workers, which are employed in Germany, work in the highly subsidized sector of renewable energy. Much of this employment is limited to the maintenance and operation of existing facilities.

Further job cuts expected

In the core of the industry, the production of renewable energy systems, only 230,800 people were employed last year: a drop of 13 percent within one year, which is primarily due to the collapse of the German solar industry.

There is no improvement in sight, according to the recent report by the Federal Government. It says: “Overall, a further decline of employees will probably be observed in the renewable energies sector this and next year.”

15 years after the start of green energy subsidies through the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), the vast majority of jobs from in this sector are still dependent on subsidies.

Hardly any self-supporting jobs in Green energy

According to official figures from the Federal Government, 70% of gross employment was due to the EEG last year. Although this is a slight decrease compared to 2012, seven out of ten jobs in the eco-energy sector are still subsidized by the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG).

Around 137,800 employees work in the wind sector which was the only eco-energy sector, besides geothermal, that increased employment. About 56,000 employees in photovoltaic sector depend on EEG payments.

Investments drop by 20 percent 

Subsidies for the generation of green electricity have been paid for almost 15 years and have piled up into a three-digit billion sum, which has to be paid over 20 years by electricity consumers through their electricity bills. This year alone, consumers must subsidize the production of green electricity to the tune of around 20 billion Euros. A lasting effect on the labour market is not obvious.

The report, “Gross employment in renewable energy sources in Germany in 2013”, commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Economy and Energy, was jointly written by the institutes DLR, DIW, STW, GWS and Prognos. According to the researchers, the cause of the decrease in employment is the declining investments in green energy systems.

The investments in renewable energy sources in Germany fell by a fifth, to 16.09 billion Euros in the past year. Only about half as many solar panels were installed in Germany as the year before. Investment in biomass plants and solar thermal dropped as well.

“Nothing left from the job miracle” 

The researchers do not expect that the production of high quality green energy systems will still lead to a job boom in Germany. For this year and the next they expect a further decline in employment instead. Thereafter, low-tech sectors such as “operation and maintenance” as well as the supply of biomass fuels are expected to “stabilise the employment effect”.

“A few years ago the renewable sector was the job miracle in Germany, now nothing is left of all of that,” said the deputy leader of the Greens in the Bundestag, Oliver Krischer.

The Green politician is sceptical about the attempts by the Federal Government to reduce the subsidy dependence of the green energy sector: “The brakes on the expansion of renewables by the previous conservative-liberal government is now fully hitting the job market,” said Krischer: “Thanks to the current EEG reform by the Union and SPD, the innovative and young renewables industry will lose more jobs.”

The bottom line, no jobs remain 

The report by the Federal Government explicitly estimates only the “gross employment” created primarily by green subsidies. The same subsidies, however, have led to rising costs and job losses in many other areas, such as heavy industry and commerce as well as conventional power plant operators. For a net analysis, the number of jobs that have been prevented or destroyed as a result would have to be deducted from the gross number of green jobs.

Official figures for the net effect of renewables on employment in Germany were originally supposed to be presented in July, according to the Federal Economics Ministry. However, the presentation has now been delayed until the autumn.

Researchers such as the president of the Munich-based IFO institute, Hans-Werner Sinn, believe that the net effect of subsidies for renewable energy on the labour market is equal to zero: “Whoever claims that net jobs have been created must prove that the capital intensity of production in the new sectors is smaller than in the old ones. There are no indications for that.”

“There is no positive net effect on employment by the EEG,” said Sinn: “Through subsidies for inefficient technologies not a single new job has been created, but wealth has been destroyed.”

Translation Philip Mueller
Die Welt

The handful of permanent jobs (as well as fleeting construction work) created in Australia’s wind industry were all the product the mandatory Renewable Energy Target and the Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) issued to wind power generators under it. The REC is a Federal Tax on all Australian power consumers paid as a direct subsidy to wind power outfits.

So far, the REC Tax has cost Australian power consumers around $8 billion and – if the RET remains – will add a further $50 billion to power bills over the next 17 years (see our post here).

It’s the cost impact on power prices of that massive subsidy stream that has energy intensive industries – like aluminium processing and mining – lining up to ensure that the mandatory RET gets scrapped now (see our posts here and here). If the RET is retained, expect to see more industrial outfits close their doors, killing off real jobs in the thousands (see our posts here and here).

But don’t expect Tony Abbott to sit back and allow a policy built on a “green” fantasy to destroy Australia’s economic future (see our post here). As the Head Boy puts it:

[T]he renewable energy target is very significantly driving up power prices. Increasing power prices obviously pose a serious threat, not just to domestic budgets, but also to the competitiveness of industries, particularly energy-intensive industries.

I think we should be the affordable energy capital of the world, not the unaffordable capital of the world, and that’s why the carbon tax must go and that’s why we’re reviewing the renewable energy target.

I don’t want to lose perfectly good industries that employ thousands of people and which value-add for our country …

… The review is taking place now … let’s wait and see what the review comes up with. But all of us should want to see lower power prices and, plainly at the moment, the renewable energy target is a very significant impact on higher power prices.

As the Germans are learning fast, any policy that is unsustainable will, eventually, fail or compel its creators to scrap it. The mandatory RET is no exception.

port henry smelter

Wynne Couldn’t make her Disrespect for Rural Ontario, Any Clearer.

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Wynne’s rural outreach efforts could unravel in face of budget challenges

ADAM RADWANSKI

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Last updated Saturday, Aug. 09 2014

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne listens to remarks from Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger (not shown) at the opening of the Building Canada Up Summit in Toronto on Wednesday August 6, 2014. (Chris Young/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

In a year-and-a-half as premier, Kathleen Wynne has probably spent as much time visiting Ontario’s rural regions and its smaller cities as Dalton McGuinty did in nearly a decade. She has backtracked on policies, such as an end to financial support for horse racing, that rankled those communities. Somewhat dubiously, she served as her own agriculture minister.

In short, Ms. Wynne has made an effort to demonstrate that her Ontario includes more than just Toronto, Ottawa and a few other urban centres, and to ensure the rest of the province doesn’t feel as neglected under her watch as it did under her predecessor’s.

And yet as her government seeks to eliminate its $12.5-billion deficit in three years, there is reason to believe Ms. Wynne is on a collision course with the regions to which she has tried to reach out.

The biggest hint came last month in an interview with Treasury Board President Deb Matthews, the most powerful minister in Ms. Wynne’s cabinet and the one charged with leading the fight to get back to balance.

“I think across government, we’re more and more moving to a population-based system,” Ms. Matthews said on the subject of “rationalizing” program spending. What she meant, it was fairly clear, was that to meet the needs of fast-growing communities without significantly increasing the overall envelope, it would be necessary to reduce or at least freeze spending in areas where stagnant or shrinking populations are currently overserved by comparison.

She didn’t spell out which areas she was talking about, but it’s not difficult to figure that out.

During the past census period, from 2006 to 2011, municipalities in the Greater Toronto Area grew hugely. Milton was the most extreme example, going from 53,889 residents to 84,362 – an increase of 56.5 per cent. Much bigger Brampton increased by 20.8 per cent, bringing it up to 523,911. Those places are both still getting bigger, as are other suburbs.

Meanwhile, much of the province is shrinking. Down in the southwest, Chatham-Kent recorded one of the most significant population losses (4.2 per cent) in the country between censuses. Windsor went down, too, as did Thunder Bay in the north, Brockville in the east, and plenty more; many others flat-lined.

As long as economies of scale are duly taken into account, it’s difficult to argue in theory with the basic premise that funding needs to be reallocated. But that won’t make it any less bitter a pill to swallow for communities that might be asked to make do with less.

As Ms. Matthews noted, the shift is already happening with hospitals, and child care is on the radar. Education might be a particular flashpoint, with the merging of schools in which classrooms are filled partly with empty chairs.

In conversations since that interview, Ms. Wynne’s Liberals have acknowledged both the perceived need to make such adjustments, and the difficulty in acting upon it. While most of their seats are urban and suburban, their thin majority government still includes MPPs from eastern, southwestern and northern Ontario, and they could easily feel hung out to dry.

If the Liberals prove willing and able to withstand that sort of backlash, it may have something to do with another consequence of the population trends.

At some point before the next Ontario election, the province is likely to adopt the new federal riding map so that constituencies at the two levels continue to mirror each other. If so, 11 of 15 new seats will be in the GTA. Much of the rest of the province could see its smaller share of program spending accompanied by less political clout.

Ms. Wynne may not be inclined toward that sort of cold calculation; she appears genuinely concerned about the alienation of whole chunks of the province. But that may not be compatible with returning Ontario to balance, at least as she and her top minister intend to achieve it.

Follow Adam Radwanski on Twitter: @aradwanski

The Agenda Behind Climate Alarmism, is Far Worse than Climate Change!

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Climate Change And The Human Condition: Is It Time To Reconsider Climatic Determinism?

Posted on August 9, 2014 by

Guest Opinion by Dr. Tim Ball

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana (Original quote from his book The Life of Reason, much paraphrased.)

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its supporters urge action because the planet and humans are threatened by global warming. We must modify our behavior, mitigate the warming, or die by the millions. In the centuries prior to the First World War (WWI) these reactions were classified as climatic determinism, the idea that human behavior is dictated by climate. As one research group explains.

Climatic determinism has a very long and checkered history. It gave a framework for thinking about the relationship between the human and natural environments by making the climate a demiurge of social universe.

Later, they explain why they are discussing the concept.

While most of such thinking has been discredited, in recent years, the omnipresence of anthropogenic climate change has caused a resurgence of similar ideas, causing scholars and commentators to ask if these represent a revival of climatic determinism and, if so, with what consequences?

The truth is, it should not have been discredited or abandoned. Shakespeare said, “The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.” This doesn’t mean we discredit or abandon them. A complete analysis is required about why the concept was abandoned and how it was used and misused for a political agenda.

The history of the hypothesis of climatic determinism illustrates the fundamental difference between Science and Social Science. A scientific hypothesis is validated by predictive success. Social Science hypotheses invalidate themselves, because humans react to the predictions and alter the outcome. The latter failure is due to something that cannot be quantified – free will.

Failed predictions caused the IPCC to adopt the term projection as early as the second Report (1995). Their projections continue to fail because they blend invalid and inadequate science with the inherent failures of social science. The entire theme behind the Club of Rome, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), Agenda 21 and the IPCC is neo-Malthusian. Populations, especially when industrialized, will outgrow all resources. They chose global warming and latterly climate change as the dangers imposed, in a modern form of climatic determinism that ignores their belief in evolution.

Climate Influence On Evolution and Human History

We commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I. Hopefully, we learned from that history, but, ironically, history indicates we don’t. World leaders forgot the lessons of World War I very quickly, as the Treaty of Versailles demonstrated. Treaty failures, skillfully exploited by Hitler, resulted in World War II becoming a continuation of the problems. In fact it was one war with a brief interlude.

Appropriately, we commemorate the sacrifices and losses of people. We acknowledge the positive changes that occurred because of the wars, such as the role of women in both Wars and the emancipation of colonial regions. What we rarely remember are other casualties of war, usually ideas or intellectual pursuits.

As a graduate student in the 1960s I escorted Professor Fisher, from the University of Durham, on a tour of Winnipeg, Manitoba. We passed an English style lawn bowling facility. He asked about it, given the climate of the region. I somewhat flippantly suggested it contradicted the philosophy of climatic determinism. He angrily replied, “Don’t mention that vile topic again.”

I became interested in the topic for a few reasons, but mostly because scientific studies of natural changes omitted humans as an agent. For example, variables listed as part of soil formation included, parent material (rock), weathering, organic agents and chemical activity. The “organic agents” did not include humans. It was part of the ongoing, but essentially ignored, debate about humans as animals.

At about the same time, I became aware of the work of a conference and subsequently an important book by William Thomas titled Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth.The concepts came from George Perkins Marsh, an earlier author I also knew from research for my Honors Thesis, “Some Philosophical Considerations of Humans as a Source of Change”. You can study history and geography separately, but you only have clear understanding when you put them together. I hold that history is the play and geography the stage and only by combining them understand and find appropriate solutions.

 

Products of the Earth: Climatic Determinism Misused.

Climatic determinism is a subset of environmental determinism, which was effectively resurrected as part of social Darwinism. Resurrected, because it was an idea rooted in many early philosophical works from Ancient Greece through to the present.

For example, Montesquieu, the French lawyer and philosopher wrote about it extensively.As one history commentator wrote,

In his famous book, The spirit of laws, French philosopher Montesquieu proposes the controversial theory that geography and climate can influence the nature of men and societies.

The rider, “controversial theory” is wrong. It wasn’t controversial when written, relatively new, but not controversial.

At the end of the 19th-century Darwin influenced Friedrich Ratzel’s influential bookAnthropogeographie (French version). It was a book grossly misused by Adolf Hitler, but gave academic justification for what he did. Karl Haushofer, a German General in WWI, was a keen student of Ratzel’s His views were transmitted to Hitler by Haushofer’s assistant, Rudolf Hess. Anthropogeographie included the term lebensraum to describe how a more powerful state will occupy weaker states as it expanded – a natural process he called the organic state theory.

Seeking or misusing academic justification for political action is common since the emergence of universities. Global warming is just a recent example as Gore and others misused the ideas of Roger Revelle.

Ratzel’s work applied Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” to the merging nation-states. Herbert Spencer coined the phrase. Darwin liked it and as a strong supporter of Spencer’s work, put it in the sixth edition of Origin of Species. This is all part of today’s intellectual and philosophical contradiction that people, who totally agree with Darwin, are also usually advocates of socialism, the desire to make all things equal by actively offsetting natural inequalities.

 

The other misapplication of Ratzel’s work by Hitler did greater damage to climate determinism. This was the claim that people from cool and temperate climates were aggressive, industrious and superior, while people from hot climates were lazy, indolent and inferior. It became the most damaging part of what happened to climatic determinism because of the clear racial superiority implication.

Many issues, crucial to understanding human history and human evolutionary history, are not properly or fully examined. The current condemnation of humans, as the cause of environmental degradation, global warming and the goal to reduce human populations, especially developed and industrialized nations are not discussed in a complete context. A fundamental assumption is human activity is not natural, which infers humans are not natural. Also, it assumes we are not continuing to evolve, which is subtly built in to such assumptions as “business as usual”.

Ellsworth Huntington and Ellen Semple Churchill were two American supporters of Ratzel’s work at the turn of the 19th-century. Huntington contributed to the rejection of climatic determinism because he also promoted eugenics. Churchill was different. She learned German and attended lectures by Ratzel. She disconnected herself from his ideas disagreeing, particularly, with his organic state theory. She incorporated the wider idea of the relationship between history and geography in the 1903 publication of “American history and Its Geographic Conditions. The point about Churchill is she didn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, as happened to climatic determinism.

 

Drought Patterns and Human History

Huntington, like Alexander von Humboldt, also travelled extensively visiting all continents except Antarctica and wrote from observation and experience. Despite ethnocentricity and his support for eugenics, Huntington produced some fascinating observations about climate, specifically climate change, and determinism. His important work, The Pulse of Asia published in 1907 argued that the history of Eurasia was determined by the periods of drought and desiccation of grasslands. There are vast grasslands in central Asia, particularly the Tarim Basin. (Map)

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Drought patterns cause a periodic growth and decline of the grasses that support grazing herds. Most important for the Mongolian people are the horses essential as a food source, but transport for a migrating aggressive people. Huntington argues that the pulse is created as the population waxes with wetter conditions and expand out to surrounding regions and wanes as the dry conditions set in. Location and orientation of the Great Wall of China appears to support the theory, as does the fear of Mongol hordes throughout eastern and even parts of Western Europe. That fear extends to the present. The British, using their standard technique of divide and conquer, split the Kurdish people into four new countries, Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria.

Modern Adaptation Of Humans To Climate Change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) drew all the attention to temperature, to CO2 and specifically warming; even most skeptics became narrowly focused. There’s no question that temperature reaches limits that force responses and adjustments. The problem is climatic determinism is mostly about changing precipitation, particularly with regard to plants and animals, including humans. Governments prepare for warming and assume it will all be business as usual. They generally don’t allow for technological advances or any other adjustments, as humans have done in the past.

Climatic determinism is interpreted to mean that people, like animals, are passive victims of change. The only adaptations are to move or die. What is overlooked in the entire discussion was the transition from humans, as passive victims, to active controllers of their destiny. It is an evolutionary transition that environmentalists oppose. Consider Ron Arnold, Executive Vice-President of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, observation that,

“Environmentalism intends to transform government, economy, and society in order to liberate nature from human exploitation.”

David Graber, a research biologist with the National park Service said,

“Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, are not as important as a wild and healthy planet. I know social scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but it isn’t true. Somewhere along the line – at about a billion years ago – we quit the contract and became a cancer. We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth. It is cosmically unlikely that the developed world will choose to end its orgy of fossil energy consumption, and the Third World its suicidal consumption of landscape. Until such time as Homo Sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.”

That was likely the source of Prince Philips comment that, if reincarnated he would return as a deadly virus and eliminate most people. That’s fine if they start with monarchies. Richard Conniff’s comment in “Audubon” extends the idea.

“Among environmentalists sharing two or three beers, the notion is quite common that if only some calamity could wipe out the entire human race, other species might once again have a chance.”

 

Technological advances to offset the extent of climatic determinism, include, fire, clothing, irrigation and the transition from hunter-gatherer to sedentary agriculture. Why isn’t that part of evolution? It is, but it is philosophically opposite to the basis of environmentalism. Why assume that this evolution will not continue? Of course, if the environmentalists have their way we will be doomed back to absolute climatic determinism. The hockey stick rewrote history. The historic temperature record is lowered to rewrite history. Now they want to redress and halt evolution, the very theory sacrosanct to their belief in Darwin. Confused. Of course, because they haven’t learned from history, except to rewrite it for their political agenda.

Greentards Angry! PM Harper Allows Environment Canada, to tell the TRUTH!

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Environment Canada Engaging In Blatant Climate Denial

Posted on August 9, 2014by

Nobel Prize winner Al Gore says the Arctic will be ice free in a few weeks, but Environment Canada shows both ends of the Northwest Passage blocked with ice.

Ninety-seven percent of climate experts agree with Al Gore, so the only rational conclusion is that Environment Canada are engaging in heresy against the global warming religion.

ScreenHunter_1815 Aug. 09 13.23