Wind Weasels Having a Hard Time Trying to Deny Negative Health Effects From Wind Turbines!

March 16, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Simon Chapman, Will Grant & Jacqui Hoepner: the Wind Industry’s Health “Expert” Great Pretenders

March 16, 2015 by stopthesethings

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It’s been nearly 2 months since Steven Cooper’s ground breaking Cape Bridgewater acoustic study exploded like a small, but rather effective nuclear device – putting him on the international stage – and Scotching, once and for all, the nonsense that wind farm victims’ complaints about sleep deprivation, and other adverse health effects, caused by incessant turbine generated low-frequency and infrasound are simply fictions of their “climate change denying imaginations” (ie the so called, “nocebo” effect) (see our post here).

At the direction of Pacific Hydro and the Clean Energy Council (with Miles George as its head, now the political front for Infigen) the attack dogs over at the ABC’s “Ministry of Truth”, Media Watch (see our post here) launched a vicious, unwarranted attack: not only on Cooper, but on Pac Hydro’s long-suffering victims at Cape Bridgewater – asserting that Cooper’s study was “atrocious” and that the subjects of the study had conspired and colluded to fabricate the data that – according to America’s top acoustic experts, Dr Paul Schomer and George Hessler – proves the relationship between adverse health effects and turbine generated noise and vibration (see our post here).

Media Watch’s hatchet job depended on the “expertise” of several well-known wind industry shills, including a former tobacco advertising guru, and self-proclaimed wind farm health expert, who calls wind farm victims “wind farm wing-nuts” (see our posts here and here) – and a couple of journalist/academics from the Australian National University – Will Grant and Jacqui Hoepner. We’ll return to the “qualifications” of the ABC’s so-called “experts” in a moment, but first a little dissection from The Australian.

Sound advice on acoustics for Media Watch
The Australian
Simon King
2 March 2015

IN its stinging criticism of the research of acoustic expert Steven Cooper on the effect of the Pacific Hydro wind turbines on local residents and the reporting of it by The Australian and Today Tonight, the ABC’s Media Watch program failed to mention that its key expert was a paid advocate for the industry.

Such was the misrepresentation of the February 16 report that Mr Cooper is now considering legal action against the program and is pursuing action against the show’s expert, Sydney University’s professor of public health, Simon Chapman.

In making its case, as well as choosing not to use the opinion of qualified acoustic experts who supported the Cooper research, Media Watch championed the opinion of Professor Chapman, but in doing so failed to mention his conflict of interests.

A paper published in December 2014 by Professor Chapman, Ketan Joshi and Luke Fry titled “Fomenting sickness: nocebo priming of residents about expected wind turbine health harms” included the following conflict of interest statement: “Simon Chapman provided and was remunerated for expert advice on psychogenic aspects of wind farm health complaints by lawyers acting for Infigen Energy in the Cherry Tree VCAT case described in this paper. Ketan Joshi is employed by Infigen Energy. Luke Fry has no conflicts of interest to declare.”

The Cherry Tree VCAT case concluded in 2013.

Referring to the statement, Professor Chapman said on Twitter: “Expert witnesses have a duty to courts, not to those ‘hiring’ them.”

Professor Chapman also has no formal qualification as an acoustician or medical practitioner — his PhD is on the topic of “Cigarette Advertising As Myth: A Re-Evaluation Of The Relationship Of Advertising To Smoking”.

But Media Watch turned to his opinion to say: “Scientifically, it’s an absolutely atrocious piece of research and is entirely unpublishable other than on the front page of The Australian”.

Professor Chapman is so far ensconced in the pro-wind turbine camp that he has very publicly referred to those affected by wind turbines and those involved in the growing amount of evidence from the US and Canada that the vibrations caused by the giant blades can cause a range of conditions ranging from nausea, headaches to sleep deprivation, as “anti wind farm wing nuts”.

In a statement to the federal Senate on June 17 last year, Democratic Labor Party senator John Madigan said: “It is fair and reasonable to encourage people to look behind the blatant campaigning done by people like Professor Chapman of the University of Sydney.

“Professor Chapman has been an outspoken critic of those who have dared to question the wind farm orthodoxy.”

When asked about Professor’s Chapman’s background, Media Watch host Paul Barry said: “We didn’t say that Professor Simon Chapman has given evidence on behalf of wind farm operators, for the same reason that we didn’t say Steven Cooper has given evidence on several occasions for wind farm opponents.

“It’s perfectly clear which side of the debate they line up on and why.”

Barry also pointed to the fact The Australian story published on January 23 said the Cooper study had been independently peer reviewed by Bob Thorne without making it clear Dr Thorne had done paid work for wind farm opponents.

Media Watch has not been the only one that failed to mention Professor Chapman’s past paid work for Infigen Energy. In a February 25, 2014 article published by The Conversation titled “Study finds no evidence wind turbines make you sick — again”, the disclosure statement reads: “Simon Chapman AO receives no financial or other material support from any company or person in the wind energy industry or agents acting on their behalf.”

This is not the first time Professor Chapman contacted Media Watch to push a view.

In 2006 he approached the program indignant over an article in the British Journal of Criminology — which was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald — which showed that the gun laws introduced in 1996 by the Howard government in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre failed to reduce gun homicide or suicides in Australia.

In the 1990s, Professor Chapman was a member of the Coalition for Gun Control.
The Australian

The two sets of reasons in the Cherry Tree decision (referred to above) are available here and here.

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But – despite the tobacco advertising guru’s claims about being hired as “an expert witness” in the case – you won’t find any mention of him as a “witness”: Infigen never called him as a witness – “expert”, or otherwise. The guru would have never qualified as an “expert” on any issue in the case, even if it had called him: the effect of tobacco advertising on rates of smoking was, funnily enough, not a matter in dispute. Nor, in either of the sets of reasons given by VCAT, will you find any mention of the guru, in any capacity; or any mention of his “expert advice” – VCAT simply had no regard to his, so-called, “expert advice”.

In fact, the guru has never given evidence in any wind farm case – slipping into the witness box to go a few rounds with a skilled cross-examiner just isn’t the guru’s “style” – so much safer for the ego to pontificate from the coward’s castle of a sandstone Uni; or to spin the wind industry’s line, with the eager help of the ABC’s useful idiots, on The Drum, ABC Radio and the ABC’s other propaganda platforms (see our post here).

Then there’s the line from near-bankrupt wind power outfit, Infigen’s head propaganda parrot, Ketan Joshi that the guru: “was remunerated for expert advice on psychogenic aspects of wind farm health complaints by lawyers acting for Infigen Energy”.

That would be the first time in litigation history when “lawyers”, acting for corporate litigants, personally “remunerated” an “expert” witness – or anyone for “expert” advice – in relation to their client’s case.

Joshi – not the sharpest tool in the shed – might not understand the manner in which law firms operate, but we doubt it. There is no way on earth that a hard-hitting firm, like Herbert Smith Freehills, paid so much as a shekel towards the guru’s fees – Joshi’s boss, Infigen stumped up every last cent paid to obtain the guru’s waffle about the obvious health effects of incessant turbine-generated low-frequency noise and infrasound being all in the victims’ heads; and a “communicated disease”, exclusive to the English speaking world.

The guru’s “expert” study – that Infigen paid handsomely for, and that VCAT had no regard to in the Cherry Tree case – was a mighty “fine” piece of work; that made spurious claims – based entirely on what wind power outfits told him – that there were NO recorded complaints from neighbours at numerous wind farm operations around Australia – including Cullerin in NSW, where neighbours had previously lodged 322 complaints, including 93 with the wind farm operator itself (see our post here).

The guru’s late “admission” to have been paid as a wind industry advocate stands in contrast to every other “disclosure” statement he’s made on the topic, including this one (if it looks fuzzy, click on it, it’ll pop up in a new window, use your magnifier and it’ll look crystal clear – as to the “clarity” of the “disclosure”, well, that’s another matter):

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The guru raves on about the PhD in Medicine he picked up for his thesis: “Cigarette Advertising As Myth: A Re-Evaluation Of The Relationship Of Advertising To Smoking” – and, on the basis of that “qualification”, purports to give remote, long-distance medical diagnoses – which he says applies to all health effects recorded and reported by wind farm neighbours all around the world. It’s like he’s using some kind of magic stethoscope, mounted in an orbiting satellite.

But the guru is not alone in pushing the envelope, when it comes to claims about being qualified as a “health professional”.

Two of the “experts” relied upon by Media Watch to justify its efforts to slam Steven Cooper’s brilliant study, are journalism and politics student, Jacqui Hoepner; and her PhD supervisor, Will Grant.

Relying on these highly qualified “experts”, Media Watch had this to say:

Paul Barry: Writing in The Conversation, the Australian National University’s Jacqui Hoepner and Will Grant also condemned The Australian’s front page story and the study it was based on, branding it:

“… an exemplary case of what we consider to be bad science and bad science reporting.”

— The Conversation, 22nd January, 2015

The Australian’s response (as covered in this post) was that:

And these two have no relevant qualifications. Grant has a PhD in politics, and Hoepner is a journalist. Neither has either medical or acoustical training or experience.

The Australian

In the middle of the furore that erupted among the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers, as The Australian attacked Media Watch’s woefully inaccurate and patently biased reporting, Jacqui decided to throw some “light” on her “qualifications” as an “expert” on the adverse health effects caused by turbine generated noise and vibration, in this curious little letter to the Oz.

Wind-farm qualifications

Last Monday, The Australian questioned my qualifications (“Legal threat on Media Watch report”, 23/2). I am not a journalist, pro-turbine or an advocate for the wind industry.

I have never received financial support from the wind industry. Where appropriate, I’ve challenged counterproductive actions by individuals or groups in this debate, including wind companies.

My only agenda is to investigate what factors contribute to the symptoms experienced by people living near wind farms in a way that are appropriate to my qualifications.

Jacqui Hoepner, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT.

Hmmm, where to start? …

It’s great to see that Jacqui is ready to challenge “counterproductive actions”. However, that leaves the question begging: “counterproductive” to what?

Perhaps a clue was given by the fact that she’s prepared to admit that she has an “agenda”. Although, if she’s not “pro-turbine or an advocate for the wind industry”, as she asserts, just what is she in favour of?

STT thinks a little clue as to what that “agenda” might be, is given by her fellow traveller, and PhD supervisor, Will Grant.

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Will turned up to the great wind power fraud rally, held in Canberra back in June 2013, wearing a giant foam hat – apparently in some kind of nod to Australian political maverick, and 10-gallon hat fan, Bob Katter.

Will was clearly hoping that the rally would turn into a media circus, like the “anti-carbon-tax protests” – where protesters waved banners and placards screaming “Ditch the Witch”, in a pointed message to then PM, Julia Gillard.

Will – you’ll find his manifesto here – was somewhat disappointed to find that the 380 or so who turned up in Canberra from South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and as far away as Western Australia and Far North Queensland (see our posts here and here) were, as he put it, “disciplined and on message” – and, much to his chagrin, there wasn’t a “Ditch the Witch” placard in sight (see Will’s lament on The Conversation blog here).

The giveaway as to Will’s true motives pops up in this line from his article that:

“But these academic motivations mask the fact that I also like to quietly troll my political opponents, and this looked like an occasion for a little mischievous fun.”

That glimpse into Will’s true motives doesn’t turn up in his disclosure statement on “The Conversation”, funnily enough.

But the fact that he’s prepared to view wind farm victims as “political” opposition; and to “troll” them “for a little mischievous fun”, gives a pretty fair insight into his agenda, as well as the “unspoken agenda” of his PhD student, Jacqui Hoepner.

But, what of their qualifications?

Will Grant’s “PhD in politics” – awarded for a thesis titled “A Certain India An enquiry into a claim to national territory” – is hardly the strongest starting point for someone looking to investigate the health symptoms associated with, and caused by, incessant low-frequency noise and infrasound.

STT loves the tagline of the ANU unit Jacqui and Will hail from: the “Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science”; how very “Ministry of Truth” – and a fair clue as what this pair are really up to. From her online “bio”, Jacqui points to her undergraduate degree in politics and journalism:

Again, not the most solid foundation, you’d think, for someone setting out to investigate – as she tells us in her letter – “the symptomsexperienced by people living near wind farms”.

“The symptoms experienced” are either physiological, psychological, or a mixture of both (see our posts here and here).

Now, that narrows down the kind of “qualifications” necessary to investigate those symptoms: either the investigator holds a “medical” qualification and/or a qualification in “psychology”.

Although, to be fair to Jacqui, Will and the guru – qualifications in acoustics, vibration, or mechanical engineering would also hold relevance to the type of “investigation” that Jacqui’s engaged in. But that’s not what Jacqui’s been up to.

Oh no, Jacqui has been doing her darndest to infiltrate communities affected by wind turbine generated noise and vibration – in an effort to expand upon the nonsense “nocebo” story; and advance the “agenda” shared with her supervisor, Will Grant – and all the other wind industry spruikers and shills – that aims to maintain the great wind power fraud, at the expense and misery of hundreds of hard-working country people.

So, as a word of warning, if Jacqui Hoepner contacts you to find out what you think about the turbines thumping and grinding away next to your house, keeping you awake all night and otherwise making your life a misery on earth – STT suggests you delete her emails, hang-up the phone and generally refuse to “play ball” – remember her boss is hoping to “troll” you, and people like you, all “for a little mischievous fun”.

But there’s another element to this little game; and that’s where people like Jacqui hold themselves out to be qualified to investigate health symptoms suffered by people; whether those symptoms are physiological or psychological, or a mixture of both.

Most civilised countries have rules about people claiming to be qualified to deal with or investigate other people’s health problems. Some of those rules take the “game” of people claiming to be “health professionals” fairly seriously.

In Australia, that “game” is governed pretty strictly by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Authority (AHPRA) – under what’s called the “Health Practitioner National Regulation Law” (see the link here) – which is set out as uniform legislation that operates in all States and Territories, including NSW (for the NSW’s Act click here), which deals with people claiming to hold qualifications as “health professionals” in section 116:

Claims by persons as to registration as health practitioner

(1) A person who is not a registered health practitioner must not knowingly or recklessly –

(a) take or use the title of “registered health practitioner”, whether with or without any other words; or

(b) take or use a title, name, initial, symbol, word or description that, having regard to the circumstances in which it is taken or used, indicates or could be reasonably understood to indicate –

(i) the person is a health practitioner; or

(ii) the person is authorised or qualified to practise in a health profession; or

(d) claim to be qualified to practise as a health practitioner.

Maximum penalty –

(a) in the case of an individual – $30,000; or

(b) in the case of a body corporate-$60,000.

(2) A person must not knowingly or recklessly –

(a) take or use the title of “registered health practitioner”, whether with or without any other words, in relation to another person who is not a registered health practitioner; or

(b) take or use a title, name, initial, symbol, word or description that, having regard to the circumstances in which it is taken or used, indicates or could be reasonably understood to indicate –

(i) another person is a health practitioner if the other person is not a health practitioner; or

(ii) another person is authorised or qualified to practise in a health profession if the other person is not a registered health practitioner in that health profession; or

(c) claim another person is registered under this Law, or hold the other person out as being registered under this Law, if the other person is not registered under this Law; or

(d) claim another person is qualified to practise as a health practitioner if the other person is not a registered health practitioner.

Maximum penalty –

(a) in the case of an individual – $30,000; or

(b) in the case of a body corporate – $60,000.

For the purposes of section 116, “health profession” is defined by section 5 to mean: “the following professions, and includes a recognised specialty in any of the following professions – … “(e) medical” and … “(n) psychology”. And “health practitioner” is defined to mean “an individual who practises a health profession”.

So, with Jacqui Hoepner’s wind farm health investigation limited to one about “symptoms”, which can only involve the physiological and/or psychological aspects of human health, if she contacts you to quiz you about your symptoms, you might like to contact AHPRA about what she tells you about her qualifications.

AHPRA is in the business of protecting the integrity of Australia’s health system, by preventing unqualified people holding themselves out as being qualified to investigate, diagnose or otherwise make public statements about the causes and effects of reported and recorded health symptoms: that’s the kind of stuff properly reserved for legally qualified medical practitioners.

So, if you get anybody suggesting to you that they’re qualified to investigate your symptoms, why not give AHPRA a call – or drop them a line? You’ll get the number, the email and postal address right here:AHPRA Contact.

Oh, nearly forgot, there’s a pretty solid case that what the ABC’s Media Watch has done – in holding out Grant, Hoepner and the guru as “experts” qualified to pass judgment on the adverse health effects caused by wind farm noise and vibration – falls smack-bang within section 116(2), by Media Watch using a “title, name, initial, symbol, word or description that, having regard to the circumstances in which it is taken or used, indicates or could be reasonably understood to indicate that:

another person is a health practitioner;
another person is authorised or qualified to practise in a health profession;
or to claim another person is qualified to practise as a health practitioner.

– when none of them hold any qualifications to practise in a “health profession”; or as a “health practitioner”, at all.

As well as being informed about Jacqui’s lack of health qualifications, AHPRA might also like to hear from the guru’s so-called, “wind farm wing-nuts” about Media Watch’s little “holding out” effort too? Why not drop AHPRA a line on both counts?

New Movie, Kingsman: The Secret Service – about the Elitist, Narcissistic Nature of Climate Alarmists!

March 15, 2015 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Kingsman: the most subversive anti-AGW movie

Anthony Cox

Some movies are unintentionally anti-AGW because they are so pretentious like Atavaror just plain stupid like Noah.

Some are subtle and sly in their critique of AGW like Interstellar, a great movie orCaptain America: The Winter Soldier another great piece of cinema.

But there is nothing subtle or sly about Kingsman: The Secret Service; this movie presents in Technicolour the awful nature of alarmists; they are elitist, narcissistic and misanthropic. And riddled in hypocrisy.

The villain is Valentine, played by Samuel Jackson. Valentine is another tech billionaire who despises his fellow man for causing AGW. His solution is to kill off 99.9% of the human population.

His sales pitch to the rich and famous is classic alarmist agigprop. Valentine tells them that humans are a virus raising the temperature of the living Earth. If the virus isn’t destroyed the planet’s fever will worsen and either the planet will fight back and kill the disease of the disease will kill the planet.

The idea that humans are a disease or parasite has underpinned the AGW narrative and is espoused by all the leading AGW scientists and particularly AGW’s many rich supporters like Bill Gates.

In Kingsman Valentine is seen convincing Obama of his vision which is ironic since Obama’s chief scientist, John Holdren, is an avid supporter of forced reduction of humanity. In real life Obama would have taking no convincing.

Valentine, as the archetypal rich supporter of AGW, has a tenuous hold on real life. He thinks he is living in a movie and can’t stand the sight of blood even though he is prepared to kill billions.

Valentine is the perfect portrayal of the elitist loon who supports AGW. He has made his vast wealth from his society and now as a matter of vanity will destroy that society. The thought that his lifestyle will cease when the society is destroyed doesn’t enter his thinking. This is cognitive dissonance on a grand scale.

Valentine implants chips in the chosen ones so they can resist the doomsday device he has perfected.

In a delicious twist all the elistists, including Obama (and Prince Charles) literally lose their heads when the device backfires.

The movie wittily portrays the religious nature of AGW belief when Valentine tests his device on a bible bashing Southern Baptist church. The message is plain: when religion claims to be fact trouble is inevitable. This is what has happened with AGW: it is religion masquerading as fact. Armed with the pseudoscience of AGW rich crackpots like Valentine can live out their dreams. At the end Valentine can’t tell reality from his ego generated bubble of fantasy.

The movie offers no formal solution to the blight of public corruption by the AGW scam and relies on a steadfast and very aggressive secret organisation to violently eradicate the AGW zealots and hypocrites.

We should be so lucky in the real world.

DEBUNKING THE SCAM….

CO2 is a “trace gas” in air, insignificant by definition. It absorbs 1/7th as much IR, heat energy, from sunlight as water vapor which has 188 times as many molecules capturing 1200 times as much heat making 99.8% of all “global warming.” CO2 does only 0.2% of it. For this we should destroy our economy?

There is no possible “greenhouse effect” in an atmosphere. A greenhouse has a solid, clear cover that traps heat. The atmosphere does not trap heat as gas molecules cannot form surfaces as required for greenhouses. Molecules have to be in contact, as in liquids and solids like water and glass, to form surfaces.

The Medieval Warming from 800 AD to 1300 AD Micheal Mann erased to make his “hockey stick” was several degrees warmer than anything “global warmers” fear. It was the longest time, 500 years, of peace with great abundance for all.

Vostock Ice Core data analysis show CO2 increases follow temperature increases by 800 years 19 times in 450,000 years. That means temperature change is cause and CO2 change effect; not the other way around. This alone refutes the anthropogenic global warming concept.

Methane is called “a greenhouse gas 20 to 500 times more potent than CO2,” depending on who is raving, but it is not per the on-line absorption chart at the American Meteorological Society. It has an absorption profile very similar to nitrogen which is classified “transparent” to IR, heat waves and is only present to 18 ppm. “Green vegans” blame cow flatulence for global warming in their war against eating meat.

Carbon combustion generates 80% of our energy. Control and taxing of carbon would give the elected ruling class more power and money than anything since the Magna Carta of 1215 AD.

Most scientists and science educators work for tax supported institutions. They are eager to help government raise more money for them and they love being seen as “saving the planet.”

Google “Two Minute Conservative,” and you will be applauded when you speak truth at your next dinner party, barbecue or church picnic.

Wind Weasels Do NOT Care Who They Hurt!

March 14, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind Power Outfits – Thugs and Bullies the World Over

March 14, 2015 by stopthesethings Leave a Comment

Potential threat to burial site on route to wind farm
Press release, Inishowen, Donegal, Ireland
4 March 2015

PRESS RELEASE

The developer of the wind farm at Crockbrack Hill has sent the Council a map that shows the route the turbines and related material will take from Noone’s Bridge past Ballinacrae Chapel into the Long Glen.

One local resident has said:

“I have recently had sight of the transport route of the wind turbines destined for Crockbrack Hill, near Kinnagoe Bay.

The most disturbing aspect of the plan is to cut through the field beside Ballinacrae Chapel to widen and build up the road to take the weight, width and length of lorries carrying turbines, cranes and concrete.

This passes close to the site of the old Ballinacrae chapel and graveyard which is still in use. Across the road is the new chapel and new graveyard.

What concerns me is that in my generation many of us know of relatives who died before baptism and in later life in tragic circumstances who were not buried on consecrated ground. It was traditional custom and practise for burials in children’s graves or along the hedges and walls on the outside of graveyards, in the adjacent field.

I go cold at the thought of a contractor possibly digging up human bones of all ages and discarding them in a pile of rubble to be dumped in a pit on Crockbrack hill”.

Another local resident said:

“Two years ago we went to local councillors and they knew nothing about the wind farm or the route. Since then they have promised that the tree in Moville would be saved from having to be chopped down to get the wind turbines through the village. And now this. This is far more upsetting.”

END OF PRESS RELEASE

After the above was printed in one paper, phone calls came asking for interviews on the local radio. It was of interest to the press. It was clearly of public interest. The local residents were excited and reassured by the level of media interest.

What the local residents didn’t expect was how the developer would respond.

He rang the paper and threatened them with his solicitors.

A letter from his solicitors duly arrived at the paper threatening legal action against the paper.

Then he sent the same solicitor’s letter to all the other print media and radio media in the area.

We are told by a reliable source that his solicitor letters stated the article defamed the developer.

You may have noticed that the developer’s name is not mentioned in the article. Nor was it in the solicitor’s letter demanding a correction.

The developers are two brothers out of Letterkenny called Eamonn and Niall Doherty. They have several wind companies (11 at the last count). The company that is developing the Kinnagoe Bay Crockbrack Hill wind farm is Regan Wind (Company Number: 495480). Their solicitors are Lanigan and Clarke. The consultants preparing the application, amendments and appeals are Harley Newman, Planning and Development Consultants. This is a partnership between Jim Harley and Conall Newman.

The residents are left bemused by the developer’s tactics.

Were they not planning to do an archaeological survey on that part of the field close to the graveyard, before any work began?
If they found remains, would it hold up the development?
Has the Council given them permission to go ahead?

The permission for the Wind Farm was granted in December 2012 by An Bord Pleanála, after an appeal by the developer to Donegal Council’s rejection of it. An Bord Pleanála rejected their own Inspector’s recommendation to turn down the appeal on the grounds that the site is inappropriate for a wind farm. Since then the developer has put in seven amendments and another appeal. He has yet to start building.

Absent from the An Bord Pleanála Conditions attached to the permission was the need for the developer to state the route to be used for the transportation of the turbines and relevant materials. Is this unusual?

Equally significant, the absence of a Condition addressing the route means that An Bord Pleanála obviously then did not require an Archaeological Survey on that land.

The residents are left with questions.

What is more important, the developers’ profit or possibly disturbing the sanctity of the dead?
Why so heavy handed with the press and media over a stretch of land? What are they frightened of?
If they intended to do an archaeological survey, which they have to do on the site itself, why wouldn’t they say so?
Are they hiding something?
Will they use these kinds of tactics again?

National Wind Watch

Curt Devlin’s…. “WIND TURBINE TORTURE!” A MUST READ!

March 12, 2015 / 1957chev / 2 Comments

Wind Turbine Torture

By Curt Devlin

It is easy to forget just how essential sleep is to health and happiness; until of course, you yourself have been deprived of it for a night or two. Firsthand experience of sleep deprivation, even for a few days, is a powerful reminder of how mentally and physically debilitating it is. Even the ongoing disruption or restriction of sleep for a relatively short period of time can have devastating health consequences. Medicalresearch has clearly shown that sleep is essential to human health and wellbeing. Prolonged sleep deprivation has been linked to memory loss, hallucination, weakened resistance to pain, obesity, hypertension, diabetes, impaired immune response, extreme anxiety, stress, clinical depression, and suicide. In the most extreme cases, animal experimentation suggests that lack of sleep can kill you.

Sleep deprivation has long been recognized as torture by the Geneva Conventions of 1949, the United Nations Convention against Torture (CAT), and the United States War Crimes Act. Depriving someone of proper sleep is torture, regardless of whether it is perpetrated by the CIA against suspected terrorists, OR by reckless planning authorities who permit the wind industry to site industrial-scale wind turbines in residential neighborhoods, or by noise pollution regulatory authorities and health authorities who ignore consistent reports of sleep deprivation from neighboring residents. When authorities deem developments “compliant” with regulations, or wind developers effect specious mitigations; they are inflicting torture. They are violating fundamental human rights.

Recently, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee released what has come to be known as the Torture Report. It reveals that sleep deprivation was one of the frequently used CIA “enhanced interrogation” tactics. The use of prolonged sleep deprivation led Committee Chairman, Diane Feinstein to conclude “…that, under any common meaning of the term, CIA detainees were tortured.” She goes on to say “…that the conditions of confinement and the use of authorized and unauthorized interrogation and conditioning techniques were cruel, inhuman, and degrading.” The same can be said of the practice of siting industrial turbines too close to homes. Failure to take action to stop excessive noise pollution, or to enforce existing legal limits on “noise nuisance” whenever noise-induced sleep disturbance or deprivation is reported by wind turbine neighbors, hosts, or their families is full complicity with torture.

It is grimly ironic that the US Senate Committee condemns sleep deprivation as cruel and inhuman when used by the CIA interrogators on terror suspects, but blithely ignores it when imposed by wind developers and local authorities on ordinary, law-abiding citizens who pose no threat to anyone. The only threat they pose is to the income generated by taxpayer subsidies to unscrupulous wind developers.

Is it really fair to compare the torture of detainees to that of turbine neighbors? Consider that the detainees were forced to endure sleeplessness for a few days at a time on many occasions, but never more than a week. Wind turbine victims must endure this same deprivation for arbitrary periods of time whenever the wind is blowing, sometimes intermittently for decades. Often, their only hope of escape or reprieve from this torment is to flee their homes which no one will buy—despite the fact that they are not suspected of any crimes whatsoever. At least detainees were not forced to lie awake and watch their families suffer the same deprivation.

When the turbines were shut down during a winter storm with near hurricane-force winds, one young mother of infant twins living in Fairhaven, Massachusetts USA wrote “Isn’t it crazy that in a weird twist it takes a blizzard to give us peace. According to the power dash the beasts stopped at around 9PM.” Later on, she wrote, “I sleep ok in the basement but the babies still wake up randomly almost every night.” Most who are tortured by turbines will tell you that “the beast” can usually finds them even when they are hiding in the cellar. Not only are people kept awake by the turbines, but they must endure headaches, nausea, dizziness, breathing difficulties, and in some cases uncontrollable anxiety and severe acute depression.

In one incident described in the Torture Report, an Afghani named Arsala Khan “…suffered disturbing hallucinations after 56 hours of standing sleep deprivation….” Afterwards, the CIA determined that he actually was not involved in any plans or activities to harm the U.S! The innocent victims tortured by the wind industry are in a position to know just how it feels to be tortured indiscriminately.

Publicly, the Bush administration and the CIA chose to describe their treatment of detainees as “enhanced interrogation.” The wind industry chooses to call its noise impact mere “annoyance” and refer to residents’ “concerns”. These euphemisms are carefully selected to conceal the ugly reality that sleep deprivation is torture, plain and simple. Such terms attempt to hide what is known to be—by any standard of human decency—utterly wrong and depraved. The Senate Intelligence Committee and others have begun to shine a spotlight on the CIA torture program; but the wind industry program of cruelty continues to operate with impunity, largely beyond the glare of public scrutiny.

When the US Senate Committee report placed the issue of torture front and center in the media, it prompted outrage among some journalists, who have used terms like ‘depravity,’ ‘harrowing,’ and ‘gruesome’ to describe the techniques used by the CIA. Yet the media has no outrage when prolonged sleep deprivation and cruelties are routinely visited on local neighborhoods throughout America and across the world. When the subject turns to wind turbines, all talk of human rights violationsimmediately goes silent.

Remarkably, and despite the condemnation of the Intelligence Committee and the outraged media reaction to it, public opinion polls consistently show that a majority of Americans still consider the CIA’s use of torture justified. Even those who disagree with this view, may be able to understand it. The rationale for torture is that it was necessary to prevent another 911; but what, then, is the rationale for torturing ordinary men, women, and children in their own homes on a nightly basis? What accounts for the almost universal apathy of government officials, mainstream media, and the general public, toward the victims of wind energy? It seems America is one nation, with liberty, and justice for all—except for those unlucky few, who can be tortured without any good cause at all. Our silence gives consent to continue.

Perhaps this silence about turbine victims can be partially explained by a monumental form of social denial. Psychologists have noted that when confronted with tacit complicity with torture, most people tend to diminish in their own minds the actual harm being inflicted. Terms like ‘enhanced interrogation’ and ‘annoyance’ encourage such forms of self-deception. However, this pervasive complicity with torture cannot be fully explained by denial alone. There is a far more ominous and compelling explanation supplied long ago by the experiments of Stanley Milgram.

In 1962, Milgram, a Harvard-trained psychologist, devised a set of experiments designed to explain why people are willing to accept and even participate in torture. Initially, Milgram thought it was a lack of moral fiber. Prior to conducting his experiments, Milgram believed that most Americans were morally superior to those who were responsible for the torture and atrocities of the Holocaust. He predicted that most of his (American) subjects would reject the use of torture out of hand. Milgram also polled many of his fellow psychologists, who made similar predictions. Contrary to all expectations, however, Milgram’s experiment actually proved that about two thirds of Americans were willing to administer torture by electroshock to innocent victims, even to the point of possible lethality, simply because they were told by someone in a position of perceived authority that it was necessary to do so. Contrary to the much beloved American mythology of rugged individualism and personal independence, Milgram has shown that most Americans are just as blindly obedient to authority as everyone else.

Since that time, Milgram’s experiment has been repeated dozens of times by him and other scientists, with subjects from different counties and cultures, but the results are always the same. About 65% of all subjects are willing to administer torture—even to the point of lethality—as long as someone in authority tells them it is necessary. Even when controls are added to identify potentially confounding factors, this result is highly repeatable. This shows that obedience to authority, even to the point of partaking in torture of innocent victims, is so deeply ingrained in human nature that it transcends language, culture, and moral outlook—it is a truly global phenomenon. The evidence for this is sadly pervasive.

People are willing to ignore, condone, and even participate in torturing detainees simply because they are told that it was necessary to protect America from new terrorist attacks. Similarly, people are willing to tolerate, approve, and contribute to the torture of their neighbors with the ill effects of wind turbines simply because they have been told by public officials, the media, or green zealots that it is necessary to “save the planet” from global climate change. There is ample evidence to show that torture is not an effective means of interrogation and that industrial wind turbines cannot stem climate change. No matter. Like subjects in Milgram’s experiment, the public is being told by authority that “the experiment requires that you continue.”

In a position paper entitled Leave No Marks: Enhanced Interrogation Techniques and the Risk of Criminality, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and Human Rights First (HRF) have collaborated to publish a detailed condemnation of the CIA torture program, as well as the participation of physicians in these practices. Section 6 specifically details the physical harm and health consequences of forced sleep deprivation and interruption. It also delineates the criminal consequences for anyone who knowingly engages in it. Here it is pointed out that “the U.S. State Department has condemned Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey for using sleep deprivation as a form of torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.”

In case anyone is inclined to minimize sleep deprivation as mere annoyance, as the wind industry and its advocates would have you believe; Leave No Marks goes on to note that:

Even sleep restriction of four hours per night for less than a week can result in physical harm, including hypertension, cardiovascular disease, altered glucose tolerance and insulin resistance. Sleep deprivation can impair immune function and result in increased risk of infectious diseases. Further, chronic pain syndromes are associated with alterations in sleep continuity and sleep patterns.

Many of those who are routinely awakened by nearby industrial turbines would consider themselves lucky to get even four consecutive hours of uninterrupted sleep on a regular basis. This paper notes that U.S. federal courts have found that sleep deprivation is also a violation of the Eight Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

Perhaps it is time for groups like Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights First and indeed the medical profession generally, to turn their intention toward the ongoing torture and cruelty perpetrated by the wind industry. Surely, such acts are criminal whether they are committed by governments or private industry.

Dr. William Hallstein, treating psychiatrist from Falmouth USA, made it abundantly clear that the impacts of the turbines are indeed tantamount to torture in his letter to the Falmouth Town Board of Health. It is telling that Justice Muse from the Falmouth Superior Court issued an injunction in December 2013 to prevent “irreparable harm to physical and psychological health” by turning the turbines off at night. The turbines at Falmouth (USA) remain turned off, over a year later.

Perhaps it’s time to face our own complicity and involvement in these fundamental violations of both civil and human rights, as well.

The wind industry cannot hide behind a claim of ignorance about the devastating impact of wind turbine noise on human health. N.D. Kelley and other NASA scientists from the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI) have published papers that ascribe the direct causation of human disturbance to wind turbine noise. This group published numerous papers on this subject between 1982 and 1985 based on sound research and clear evidence. Then, in 1987, this research was presented directly to the wind industry at the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) Conference in San Francisco. In short, the wind industry has continued to site its industrial scale power and noise generators near residential neighborhoods for more than thirty years, knowing full well that it was inflicting cruelty and suffering on those living near them. The silence of public officials, the media, and the public indicates wind turbine torture may be allowed to continue for decades to come.

There can be no doubt that wind turbines cause chronic sleep deprivation, and no doubt that sleep deprivation is torture. The scientific evidence that turbines do cause sleeplessness is already prolific and continues to grow. Moreover, the most comprehensive literature reviews on this question reveal that there is virtually no independent evidence to controvert this conclusion. Perhaps the most damning evidence of all comes from the public record of heath complaints from people around the world. According to the noted epidemiologist Carl V. Phillips, “There is overwhelming evidence that large electricity-generating wind turbines (hereafter: turbines) cause serious health problems in a nontrivial fraction of residents living near them.” Among these public health reports from turbine neighbors, sleep deprivation and disruption are by far the most common.

Taken together, the science and the public record of adverse health reports offer clear and compelling evidence that wind turbines are instruments of torture. Therefore, anyone who advocates for, or participates in, the siting of wind turbines near people is inflicting torture on them. Anyone who contributes to, or endorses, unsafe government noise pollution regulations, or who allows them to continue unabated when turbines are clearly causing sleep deprivation and other forms of human misery, or who ignores community complaints, or obstructs the accurate measurement of infrasound and low frequency noise inside homes is complicit with torture. And, anyone who knowingly conducts spurious turbine noise mitigations, or who permits or helps to perpetuate levels of infrasound and low frequency noise emissions above the thresholds established by Dr. Neil Kelley, and confirmed most recently by Steven Cooper’s research at Cape Bridgewater in Australia, must be held accountable for inflicting, or helping to perpetuate torture by prolonged sleep deprivation. Those who do so are guilty of criminal violation of both civil and human rights on an industrial scale.

This is why the global wind industry has strategically and systematically sought to silence wind turbine hosts and neighbors with property buy-outs and non-disclosure agreements. Undoubtedly, this is also why they and those who support them have publicly targeted acoustic engineers, health practitioners, and public health experts who have attempted to expose this truth in accordance with their canons of professional ethics. This industry subjects legitimate science to ridicule, its authors to character assassination, and its sleepless victims to blame and aspersions of mental defect. All of this is done to cloak conscious criminal cruelty in the name of unbridled greed.

In its determination to hide the ugly reality of industrial wind turbines, this industry uses money and the false promise of cheap energy to exert undue influence over public officials. It substitutes pseudo-science for legitimate science, spends untold millions on PR campaigns to drown out honest journalism, and sponsors fear-mongering in place of reasoned public discourse on renewable energy.

There may be no better evidence for this campaign of pubic deception than the so-called “Wind Turbine Health Impact Study: Report of Independent Expert Panel” produced in January, 2012 by an unholy alliance between the wind industry and Massachusetts governor’s office. This document epitomizes the fraudulence, distortion, and misinformation that flourish when wind industry influence over government goes unchecked by public scrutiny and legal safeguards. The title notwithstanding, none of the authors of this so-called health study had any recognized expertise related to the health effects of wind turbines. None had ever given a physical examination to a turbine sufferer, and no turbine-related health complaints were investigated during the course of this study—despite the vocal and repeated pleas by effected residents to be examined as part of it. Although insufficient peer-review was one of the most salient criticism leveled against the legitimate studies reviewed; the Massachusetts study itself was not submitted to peer-review before its publication. For these and other reasons, it was deemed junk science by Dr. Raymond Hartmann, who is widely recognized for his expertise in analyzing scientific evidence, and exposing the junk science used by the Tobacco industry to defend its products.

The “Expert Panel” study was published by the Massachusetts Departments of Environmental Protection and Public Health. When such junk science such as this is published by the very agencies responsible for protecting the environment and public health, it gives them the ring of authority. It is as though the state has mandated to an unsuspecting public that the torture must continue. In Milgram’s experiment, when a subject refused to continue administering shocks, the authority figure would reassure them by saying something to the effect that no permanent tissue damage will be caused. In that context, the statement was quite true because no real shock was actually being given. But in the case of wind turbines, government sanctioned torture is very real and does real damage to health and safety—and that damage may indeed be permanent. As the epigraph from Leave No Marks reminds us, “The absence of physical evidence should not be construed to suggest that torture did not occur, since such acts of violence against persons frequently leave no marks or permanent scars.”

For those who are willing to face their own conscience, there may be a glimmer of hope in Stanley Milgram’s otherwise bleak findings. In some of his later experiments, Milgram tried to determine how conformity would affect the obedience of the experimental subjects. He found that when at least two others in the room refused to comply with authority, only about 10% of the experimental subjects were willing to continue torturing. For those who have the courage to defy authority, it seems that disobedience can be contagious, and raising your voice loudly, publicly, and repeatedly against indiscriminant torture and injustice can truly make a difference.

About the author: Curt Devlin currently lives in Fairhaven, Massachusetts U.S.A. He was formerly a Teaching Fellow in the Philosophy Department at Tulane University. His opposition to the irresponsible use of wind energy began in 2007, when a wind project was proposed for the undisturbed and ecologically sensitive salt marshes surrounding a quite estuary in the Little Bay area of Fairhaven—an area which is bordered by densely populated neighborhoods. Although this project was defeated, construction began clandestinely on Veteran’s Day in November of 2011. Since then, Devlin been an outspoken critic of the wind industry and its proponents. He has written numerous articles and editorials on this and related topics. He has been a guest speaker at the Fairhaven Wind Forum in 2012, where he criticized the irresponsible siting of turbines in residential neighborhoods across Massachusetts and around the world. In 2013, he spoke on the fundamental human right to be free of unwarranted experimentation at the Falmouth Human Rights Conference in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Professionally, Devlin works as a software architect focused on the development of health science solutions for the detection and treatment of cancer and the improvement of human health.

Our Special Needs Children are Being Abused by Noise from Wind Turbines

March 12, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

WindAwareIreland

Autism and Wind Turbines

Autism is a neuro-developmental disorder that affects the development of the brain in the area of social interaction. It has been well documented that individuals on the Autistic Spectrum experience a degree of sensory impairment which renders them extremely sensitive to specific sounds, light and reflection and in many cases touch. To this end, it is reasonable to assume that individuals on the Autistic Spectrum will be even more susceptible to infrasound, mechanical noise and shadow flicker from wind turbines than the general population.

A 2003 study by Stansfeld and Matheson found that children in general represent a group who are particularly vulnerable to the non-auditory (infrasound) effects of noise. The report stated “In view of the fact that children are still developing both physically and cognitively, there is a possible risk that exposure to an environmental stressor such as noise may have an irreversible negative consequence for this group”. In 2010 a study by Steigler and Davis found that noise sensitivity is a particular problem with those with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

In fact, in the UK, Planning Inspectors and Planning Authorities have been sufficiently convinced of the effects of infrasound on those with Autistic Spectrum Disorders that they have refused planning permission for several wind energy facilities on the grounds that there were individuals living nearby with the condition. For example, a wind farm planned for North Lincolnshire was rejected in 2010 because of the serious effect it would have on twin autistic boys living nearby. A report from a Clinical Psychologist in this case pointed out the “extreme distress” that turbines could cause to people with autism. In this particular case, the twin boys had a fixation with spinning objects and the report asserted that “the time they spend engaged in spinning and observing objects had to be limited in order to allow them to engage in other more meaningful activities.” In another case in Aberdeenshire, Scotland in 2011, the parents of a severely autistic boy forced a wind energy company to backtrack on plans to site wind turbines near their home on the basis of evidence from Consultant Clinical Psychologist Dr. Susan Stebbings. Closer to home, Dan Danaher reported in the Clare Champion newspaper on the 26^th Jan 2012 how a Co. Clare mother claimed that her life “had been turned upside down” following the erection of a 19.6m agricultural turbine in a neighbouring property.

The turbines planned for Ireland are 185m high, almost ten times the height of the 19.6 m high turbine in Co. Clare.

The prevalence of autism in the general population in Ireland is now 1 in 100 according to a recent study by Prof. Staines of D.C.U.. Many Irish families with autistic members are very worried whether they will be able to stay in their homes if the planned wind farms proceed. There seems to be wilful negligence on the part of the Irish State in its failure to consider the increasing body of peer-reviewed evidence on the link between wind farms and adverse health effects and in particular its failure to consider the impacts these developments would have on the most vulnerable in our community, including those with Autistic Spectrum Disorders.

Keep informed << click here to stay up to date

References

Data collated, presented and prepared by WindAwareIreland

Cristina Becchio, Morena Mori, Umberto Castiello (2010) Perception of shadows in children with ASD. View

Catherine Purple Cherry & Lauren Underwood. The ideal home for the Autistic child. Autism Science Digest; The Journal of Autismone, Issue 03. View

Flavia Cortesi et al (2010). Sleep in children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders, Sleep Medicine 11 (2010) 659-664. View

Stansfeld & Matheson (2003) Health Impact Assessment Ch 7. B.A.C. View

Lillian N Steigler & Rebecca Davis (2010) Understanding Sound Sensitivity in Individuals with Autistic Spectrum Disorders, Online First. View

BBC website 27 April 2010. View

The Press and Journal, David Mc Kay 23 April 2011. View

Opposition to Wind Turbine Scam, is Growing Exponentially!

March 12, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Canadian Wind Power Outfit – Innergex – Runs Into 100% Opposition to its “Stupid Project”

March 12, 2015 by stopthesethings

Around the world, rural communities are fighting back hard against the great wind power fraud.

Wherever wind farms have appeared – or have been threatened – big numbers of locals take a set against the monsters being speared into their previously peaceful – and often idyllic – rural communities.

Their anger extends to the goons that lied their way to development approval – and the bent officials that rubber-stamped their applications and who, thereafter, help the operators ride roughshod over locals’ rights to live in and enjoy the peace and comfort of their own homes and properties (see our post here).

Australians are in there fighting hard – with the numbers solidly against wind power outfits that cause nothing more than community division and open hostility wherever they go (see our posts here and here and hereand here). In Australia, the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers have completely lost their grip on the ‘game’ (see our post here).

The Irish have already hit the streets to bring an end to the fraud: some 10,000 stormed Dublin back in April last year. The sense of anger in Ireland – as elsewhere – is palpable (see our post here).

Rural Ontario is seething, with locals taking the law into their own hands – sabotaging turbines and construction equipment in order to defend their (once) peaceful and prosperous communities (see our post here).

And the Scots have joined in – tearing down MET masts in order to prevent wind power outfits from gaining a foothold and, thereafter, violating their right to live free from turbine terror (see our post here).

The back-lash against wind power outfits has been mirrored in the US – with communities rallying to shut down projects before they begin; and a raft of litigation launched by neighbours (see our post here) – as well as 23 Texan turbine hosts suing the wind farm outfit they contracted with for turbine noise impacts and loss of property value, etc (see our post here).

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.

Back to the mounting fury in Ontario. Community opposition there continues to mount and, with the vast majority of those set upon by the great wind power fraud opposed, has reached boiling point, as this Bay Today story details.

Mattawa wind farm opposition gaining momentum
Bay Today
6 March 2015
Liam Berti

Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli was one of 12 representatives opposing the proposed Mattawa-area wind farm who spoke to a standing-room only audience at Mike Rodden Arena on Friday night.

Some used humour, others were brought to tears.

But the message from three First Nation Chiefs, various Mayors and federal and provincial leaders was the same: the proposed wind farm for the Mattawa region will be fought to the end.

Area residents packed the second floor of Mattawa’s Mike Rodden Arena on Friday night to listen to the opposition leaders rally against Innergex Renewable Energy Inc.’s tentative plans for a 150-megawatt wind farm in the area.

Their respective arguments ranged from the Algonquin Land Claim agreement, the environmental toll, and the true economic impact, among many others.

The Nodinosi Project, as Innergex and the partnering Algonquins of Pikwàkanagàn First Nation have named it, calls for anywhere between 50-60 wind turbines on crown land just north of the Mattawa River in the Olrig and Mattawan Townships.

Some of the turbines in the project are expected to tower at 80-120 metres in height, which would be some of the largest of their kind.

The Mattawa/North Bay Algonquin First Nation, Antoine First Nation and Shabot Obaadjiwan leaders took precedence on the evening, defending their land that they feel the government is destroying and exploiting.

“If you want to develop our lands, our consent is required,” said Dave Joanisse, Chief for the Antoine First Nation. “Going to court and fighting for title is one way the that the Algonquin Communities have to settle long outstanding Claims.

“The other way is for the government to conduct negotiation in good faith with Aboriginal Communities,” he continued.

Innergex has promoted the project in partnership with the Algonquins of Pikwàkanagàn First Nation, who are situated over 200 kilometres from the proposed project site, near Pembroke, Ont.

But Joanisse continued to send his strong message to the fellow First Nation, whose integrity he questioned for entering the agreement and potentially jeopardizing the Algonquin Land Claim agreement-in-principle in the first public consultation.

“I am truly disappointed in the leadership from Pikwàkanagàn,” he said on Friday. “This unilateral decision made by them truly undermines the process we have all supported for the last 20 years.”

Nipissing Member of Provincial Parliament Vic Fedeli encapsulated the crowd with his arguments against the province’s wind power plans and, more specifically, the Mattawa proposal.

Fedeli, who was Ontario’s energy critic for two years, argued that the province’s Green Energy Act has been ideologically driven and lacks substance, which he said the new Innergex proposal is a prime example of.

He said the provincial government has spent $50 billion on green energy and paid $2.6 billion to Quebec and the United States between 2006 and 2013 to take the surplus energy made exclusively from wind.

“We got into this thing in Ontario by a mistake, forced into it by ideology, it caused your hydro rates to triple and cost 300,000 manufacturing jobs in Ontario so far,” Fedeli said.

But François Morin, senior advisor of public affairs for the Quebec-based company, said that isn’t the whole story.

“In the energy sector, you have to plan 20-25 years ahead,” he added. “Maybe you have a surplus of energy now, but in a few years it could be very different. In Ontario, the projection calls for a deficit of energy in the next 3-4 years.”

The intermittent power source, Fedeli argued, is being forced on Ontario after the province stripped municipalities the ability to object to the farms and that they continue to unfairly incentivize their development to the private companies.

The crowd also heard from North Bay Mayor Al McDonald, Nipissing-Timiskaming MP Jay Aspin, John Kelsall of the Lake Talon Conservation Authority, and other area mayors.

Many in attendance said the standing room-only session was the biggest turnout they have ever seen for an event like that in Mattawa.

Mattawa Mayor Dean Backer brought the evening to a climax, rallying the crowd to their feet in his brief but powerful statements.

“Innergex, we mean no ill will, but you’re coming into our back yard and it’s not going to happen in our back yard, I can promise you that,” he said to a standing ovation. “Our municipality is 100 per cent against this stupid proposal.”

And it appears that, for now, those strong messages have gotten through to Innergex.

Morin said the responsibility is now on Innergex to redevelop the proposal around the concerns they have heard.

“Social acceptability is a cornerstone of our development and a vital part of any project, so for now, I can tell you, no we don’t have a project because we don’t have that social acceptability,” he said after the meeting.

“For now, the responsibility is with us to find a way to make a better project,” he concluded.

Morin said the company will now go back to the drawing board and redevelop new ideas for the Nodinosi Project.
Bay Today

The Willful Blindness of the Wind Industry & Their Gov’t Accomplices!

March 9, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind Turbine Syndrome

Posted by WindWise Ireland/ March 09, 2015

Lobbying from the wind industry could be likened to lobbying from the tobacco industry in the 1950s. We are now fully aware of the hazards of smoking tobacco but how long before our government stop accepting lobbying from the industry and wake up to the hazards of living near wind turbines?

“When a mistake is repeated, it is not a mistake anymore…it is a decision”- Paolo Coelho.

In the 1950’s, the tobacco lobby used medical professionals to insist that there was no medical evidence of harm from tobacco products. Indeed one advertisement, supported by research conducted by physicians, declared that “Phillip Morris” brand tobacco eased irritated throats and “every case of irritation cleared completely or definitely improved.” Phillip Morris soon became a major brand.
The tobacco lobby in the 1950’s could be compared to the powerful wind industry lobby today. Despite the growing body of peer-reviewed research demonstrating that wind turbines can cause serious adverse health effects in susceptible nearby residents, the wind lobby and Governments continue to dismiss this evidence.
However, in a recent groundbreaking study at Pacific Hydro’s Cape Bridgewater wind farm in the state of Victoria, Australia’s leading acoustical engineer Steven Cooper found that a unique infrasound pattern, which he had labelled “Wind Turbine Signature” in previous studies, correlates (through a “trend line”) with the occurrence and severity of symptoms of residents who had complained of often-unbearable “sensations”. These include sleep disturbance, headaches, heart racing, pressure in the head, ears or chest, etc. as described by the residents (symptoms generally known as Wind Turbine Syndrome (WTS), or the euphemism “noise annoyance”).
The acoustician also identified “discrete low frequency amplitude modulated signals” emitted by wind turbines and found the wind farm victims were also reacting to those. The Wind Turbine Signature cannot be detected using traditional measuring indexes such as dB(A) or dB(C) and 1/3 Octave bands, concludes his study. Narrowband analysis must be used instead, with results expressed in dB(WTS). He suggests medical studies be conducted using infrasound measurements in dB(WTS) in order to determine the threshold of what is unacceptable in terms of sound pressure level.
The findings are consistent with the official Kelley studies published in the US more than 30 years ago, which showed that infrasound emitted by early, downwind turbines caused sleep disturbance and other WTS symptoms. These studies were shelved, upwind turbines were designed and the regulatory authorities simply trusted the wind industry’s assertion that the new models did not emit dangerous infrasound. The Cooper study now proves they were wrong.
Another conclusion of his study is that the Danish method used for measuring low-frequency “noise annoyance” near wind farms is inadequate. So are the wind turbine noise standards applied to wind farms in Victoria, Australia and New Zealand, known as “New Zealand Standard 6808”. Just as inadequate are all other standards regulating “annoyance” near wind farms around the world including Ireland. They simply don’t take infrasound into account. Scores of medical practitioners and researchers from around the world are vindicated by this benchmark study, as are the residents reporting WTS symptoms themselves, many of whom have had to regularly or permanently abandon their homes.
Nevertheless, Governments in many countries around the world continue to assert that wind energy is viewed as a viable and environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels, although as Sherri Lange of NA-PAW points out “wind does nothing at all to abate climate change or reduce CO2 levels. It is possibly the largest scale environmental and economic fraud ever perpetuated.”
The Brown County Town Health Board in Wisconsin recently declared Duke Energy’s Shirley Industrial Wind Turbine Development to be a Human Health Hazard. The precise wording of the declaration was: “To declare the Industrial Wind Turbines in the Town of Glenmore, Brown County. WI. a Human Health Hazard for all people (residents, workers, visitors, and sensitive passersby) who are exposed to Infrasound/Low Frequency Noise and other emissions potentially harmful to human health.” Link
Meanwhile, a Canadian lawyer said recently that Ontario’s Green Energy Act violates the constitutional right of turbine neighbours to live in a place free from the “reasonable prospect of serious harm.” In the first constitutional challenge of the turbine approval process to hit the Ontario Court of Appeal, lawyer Julian Falconer argued that the whole approvals process “doesn’t allow people to protect their own health.” That, he said, violates their rights to live free from harm.
Health, according to the World Health Organisation, is a fundamental human right:
“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being”. (WHO, 1948).
So, here in Ireland, where does our own Department of Health stand on all of this? In their response to a query from Deputy Helen McEntee on 30th Oct 2014, the Department stated as follows; “A range of symptoms have been described by people living close to wind turbines mainly related to environmental noise exposure. These symptoms include headaches, irritability, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, dizziness, anxiety and sleep disturbance and are often described in relation to annoyance. Anyone who experiences such symptoms should seek medical advice from their family doctor who may be able to prescribe suitable medication.”
So the Irish Department of Health is aware of the effects of WTN on human health and instead of urging that the precautionary principle should apply, they are advocating medication for sufferers!
Having presided over thalidomide and symphysiotomy scandals as well as the notorious vaccine trials, one would imagine that our Department of Health would be treading with caution here. Clearly, this does not seem to be the case. It has taken decades for Governments to realise that the powerful tobacco lobby were peddling untruths in the 1950’s when they proclaimed the health benefits of smoking. Will it take Governments as long to realise that living in proximity to industrial wind turbines causes deleterious adverse health effects in susceptible neighbours? They can’t say that they weren’t warned!

Faux-Green Renewable Energy…..It doesn’t work!

March 9, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Marita on renewable nonsense

Posted on March 9, 2015

Can you imagine that people are still straining to make renewables work–when they are such colossal failures.

Solar and the renewable idiocy are the focus of this essay by Marita

Link to: Solar Power propaganda vs. the real world

Greetings!

You know I have written on extensively on what I call Obama’s green-energycrony-corruption. I’ve addressed news stories such as the near-certain death of Cape Wind and exposed the criminal activity of the solar panel Abengoa. In December, based on a thorough report someone else produced, I wrote a column about the German renewable energy experiment. It got me thinking, what if I pulled all of my research, and others, together and produced a report like the German one on which I’d based my Germany’s “energy transformation” — unsustainable subsidies and an unstable system column?

For the past couple of months, I have been quietly working behind the scenes to put together my first “white paper:” Solar Power in the U.S.—intended to provide a comprehensive look at the impacts of solar power on the nation’s consumers. It has been planned to be released today! I know when we released it, a review of the content would be the topic of this week’s column. I just didn’t know how it was going to take shape. But then, someone on my newsletter distribution list sent me a link to a U.S. News and World Report blog. As I read it, I kept finding discrepancies, omissions and flat-out untruths. While the Blog posttitle is: Keystone isn’t about jobs, the author was really writing about solar. He has obviously bought into the talking points; the propaganda—but didn’t know (or chose to ignore) the real world implementation of solar power in the U.S. As I read it, I knew I had the structure for this week’s column: Solar Power propaganda vs. the real world.

I had fun writing Solar Power propaganda vs. the real world—especially since I’d just completed the report and had the content top-of-mind. I hope you enjoy reading it and will post it and/or pass it on. It introduces the new report.

Thanks to Solar Power in the U.S., there is now a handy (15 page) guide that offers the real view, rather than the fantasy version, of what solar power can and cannot do, how effective it is, and the impact its rapid implementation is having on consumers. It is my hope that both consumers and policymakers will read Solar Power in the U.S. before making decisions with long-term implications.

Because I already have the 900-word version ready, I am offer you both the full-length and the shorter version. Please use whichever is better for your readers. The full-length version is pasted-in-below.

Marita Noon

Executive Director, Energy Makes America Great, inc.

PO Box 52103, Albuquerque, NM 87181

505.239.8998

For immediate release: March 9, 2015.

Commentary by Marita Noon

Executive Director, Energy Makes America Great Inc.

Contact: 505.239.8998, marita@responsiblenergy.org

Words: 1277

Solar Power propaganda vs. the real world

When a former “senior communications official at the White House” writes a blog post for U.S. News and World Report, you should be able to trust it. But when the author states that the Keystone pipeline (should it be approved) would create only 19 weeks of temporary jobs, everything else he says must be suspect—including the claim that our “energy infrastructure will be 100 percent solar by 2030.”

I contacted both a union representative and one from TransCanada—the company behind the Keystone pipeline. Each affirmed that the 19-week timeframe was total fantasy. The portion of the Keystone pipeline that remains to be built is 1179 miles long—the vast majority of that within the U.S.—with construction expected to take two years.

TransCanada’s spokesperson Mark Cooper responded to my query: “While some people belittle these jobs as temporary, we know that without temporaryconstruction jobs—and the hard work of the men and women who do them—we wouldn’t have roads, highways, schools or hospitals. We wouldn’t have the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, or the Hoover Dam. So, I would say to these detractors: ‘It is OK if you don’t like or support Keystone XL. But let’s stop putting down the very people who have helped build America.’”

The premise of the On the Edge blog post is that we shouldn’t look at Keystone as a jobs creator. Instead, the author claims, the jobs are in “solar energy disruption.” He is frustrated that “GOP leaders almost universally ignore or disdain this emerging energy economy.”

He states: “A third of all new electric generation in 2014 came from solar. A new solar installation or project now occurs somewhere in the U.S.—built by a team of American workers employed in the fastest growing energy sector in the world—every three minutes.”

This may be true but, as you’ll see, it belies several important details. Plenty of cause exists for Republican lawmakers to “disdain” the growth in renewable energy.

If “a third of all new electric generation in 2014 came from solar,” there is reason for it—and it does not include sound economics.

First, efficient and effective base-load, coal-fueled electricity that has provided the bulk of America’s power is being prematurely shut down by regulations prompted by environmental lobbyists and promulgated by the Obama administration. It is virtually impossible to get a new coal-fueled power plant permitted in the U.S. Even natural gas-powered plants, such as the one planned to replace the Salem Harbor coal-fueled plant, meet with resistance from groups such as Grassroots Against Another Salem Plant, which “has pledged to use peaceful civil disobedience to block construction of the gas plant.” And, of course, just try to build a nuclear power plant and all the fear-mongers come out.

What’s left? Renewables, such as wind and solar, receive favorable treatment through a combination of mandates and subsidies. Even industrial wind and solar have their own opposition within the environmental lobby groups because they chop up and fry birds and bats— including protected bald and golden eagles.

The brand new report, Solar Power in the U.S. (SPUS), presents a comprehensive look at the impacts of solar power on the nation’s consumers.

Clearly, without the mandates and subsidies, this “solar energy disruption” would go dark.

We’ve seen companies, such as Solyndra, Abound Solar, and Evergreen Solar, gobankrupt even with millions of dollars in state and federal (taxpayer) assistance. I’ve written extensively on these stories and that of Abengoa—which received the largest federal loan guarantee ($2.8 billion) and has resorted to questionable business practices to keep the doors open (Abengoa is currently under investigation from several federal agencies).

SPUS shows that without the subsidies and mandates these renewable projects can’t survive. For example, in Australia, sales of solar systems “fell as soon as the incentives were cut back.” Since the Australian government announced that it was reconsidering its Renewable Energy Targets, “investments have started to dry up.”

Knowing the importance of the “incentives,” the solar industry has now become a major campaign donor, providing political pressure and money to candidates, who will bring on more mandates, subsidies, and tax credits. Those candidates are generally Democrats, as one of the key differences between the two parties is that Democrats tend to support government involvement. By contrast, Republicans lean toward limited government and the free market. The GOP doesn’t “disdain” solar, but they know it only survives because of government mandates that require a certain percentage of renewables, and specifically solar, in the energy mix, plus the subsidies and tax credits that make it attractive. Therefore, they can’t get excited about the jobs being created as a result of taxpayers’ involuntary investment, nor higher energy costs. There is a big difference between disdaining solar power and disdaining the government involvement that gives it an unfair advantage in the marketplace.

The blog post compares the “solar energy disruption” to what “occurred when direcTV and Dish started to compete with cable television. More choices emerged and a whole lot of new jobs were created.” However, those jobs were created through private investment and the free market—a fact that, along with solar’s dependence on incentives, he never mentions. Likewise, the jobs supported by building the Keystone pipeline would be through private funding.

The blog’s author touts this claim, from the book Clean Disruption: “Should solar continue on its exponential trajectory, the energy infrastructure will be 100 percent solar by 2030”—15 years from now. Even if state and federal governments were to continue to pour money into solar energy—which, as is pointed out in SPUS, subsidies are already being dialed back on a variety of fronts, there is no currently available solution to solar’s intermittency.

SPUS draws upon the example of Germany, which has led the way globally in solar and other renewables. Over time the high renewable penetration has contributed to residential electricity prices more than doubling. Renewables received favored status, called “priority dispatch,” which means that, when renewable electricity becomes available, the utilities must dispatch it first, thereby changing the merit order for thermal plants. Now many modern natural gas-fueled plants, as well as coal, couldn’t operate profitably. As a result, many were shut down, while several plants were provided “capacity payments” by the government (a double subsidy) in order to stay online as back-up—which maintains system stability. In Germany’s push for 80 percent renewable energy by 2050, it has found that despite the high penetration of renewables, given their inherent intermittency, a large amount of redundancy of coal- and natural-gas-fueled electricity (nuclear being decommissioned) is necessary to maintain the reliability of the grid.

As the German experience makes clear, without a major technological breakthrough to store electricity generated through solar systems, “100 percent solar by 2030” is just one more fantasy.

The blog post ends with this: “the GOP congressional leadership ignores these new jobs inside an innovative, disruptive energy sector that is about to sweep across the country it leads—in favor of a vanishingly small number of mythical Keystone ‘jobs’ that may never materialize. It makes you wonder. Why?”

The answers can be found in SPUS, which addresses the policy, regulatory, and consumer protection issues that have manifested themselves through the rapid rise of solar power and deals with many more elements than covered here. It concludes: “Solar is an important part of our energy future, but there must be forethought, taking into account future costs, jobs, energy reliability and the overall energy infrastructure already in place. This technology must come online with the needs of the taxpayer, consumer and ratepayer in mind instead of giving the solar industry priority.”

The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE). She hosts a weekly radio program: America’s Voice for Energy—which expands on the content of her weekly column.

Lies are the “Fuel”, that the Wind Industry Thrives On!

March 9, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Ian Macfarlane, Greg Hunt & Australia’s Wind Power Debacle: is it Dumb and Dumber 2, or Liar Liar?

March 9, 2015 by stopthesethings

Australia’s Energy Minister, Ian “Macca” Macfarlane and his youthful ward, Environment Minister, Greg Hunt are the flies in the Coalition’s political ointment, when it comes to engineering anything like a sensible policy on energy. Both Macfarlane’s and Hunt’s offices are filled with wind industry plants and stooges, like Hunt’s senior adviser, Patrick Gibbons. Patrick is best mates with Vesta’s former head – and now full-time wind industry lobbyist – Ken McAlpine.

Both Macca and Hunt are still working flat-out at the minute trying to salvage the wreckage of the (completely unsustainable) Large-ScaleRenewable Energy Target (LRET).

For months now, Macca has been trying to cut a deal with Labor in an effort to help his mates over at the near-bankrupt wind power outfit, Infigen (aka Babcock and Brown) stay afloat.

Meanwhile, Macca’s side-kick, Greg Hunt has been trying to woo the cross-bench Senators, as part of the same last-ditch, salvage and rescue mission: back in December, Greg jetted down to Hobart to try and convince newly independent Tasmanian Senator, Jacqui Lambie about the “wonders” of wind power (see our post here).

And his office has pulled out all stops to prevent anyone with the first clue about the scale of the great wind power fraud from having any directcontact with Hunt, to avoid the Minister being confronted and embarrassed by the facts of an unmitigated policy fiasco (see our post here).

For more than just a little while, STT has been pointing out that the Large-Scale Renewable Energy Target (LRET) is simply unsustainable – be that as a matter of simple economics; or as a cold, hard political fact.

STT provided a very detailed analysis as to just why the LRET is all set to implode, in this post:

LRET “Stealth Tax” to Cost Australian Power Punters $30 BILLION

And backed it up in this post:

Rearranging Deckchairs on the Titanic: or Ian Macfarlane’s Futile Efforts to Save the LRET & his mates at Infigen

As part of STT’s analysis we drew the parallels between the collapse of the government backed, wool Reserve Price Scheme (RPS) back in 1991, and the inevitable collapse of the LRET.

Both effectively involved government (read “taxpayer”) underwritten floor prices, aimed at protecting the prices received by producers. The RPS collapsed because wool buyers simply refused to buy wool at the mandated floor price. The LRET will collapse because electricity retailers are refusing to enter Power Purchase Agreements with wind power outfits: PPAs are only entered in order to buy Renewable Energy Certificates, which are used by retailers to satisfy the LRET target.

Australia’s commercial power retailers have downed pens – having refused to enter any PPAs for over two years – they have no intention of doing so now; and will simply pay the shortfall charge, and collect it as a Federal tax from struggling power consumers (a theme to which we will return below). In the absence of long-term PPAs, wind power outfits will never obtain finance to build any new wind farms, which means that there will be no new wind power capacity built from here on (see our post here).

So, all the talk from Hunt and Macfarlane about “adjusting” targets under the LRET is little more than meaningless political twaddle. Despite all their smooth talk and conciliatory tones over reaching a “reasonable” deal with Labor on a “new” target, neither Hunt, nor Macfarlane can force Origin’s Grant King – or any other retailer – to enter PPAs; purchase RECs; or otherwise play ball, to save either the LRET, their mates at Infigen, or their political skins.

First, we’ll tune into some political gobbledygook dished up by Macfarlane on Sky News a couple of weeks back.

Sky News
Ian Macfarlane Interview with Sky News
26 February 2015

JOURNALIST: How are your negotiations going with the Opposition and others when it comes to the Renewable Energy Target? Any progress?

IAN MACFARLANE: Well we have put a position to the industry. We are waiting for the industry to consider it. The reality is that we have a gross oversupply of electricity generation in Australia and the biggest obstacle to the renewable energy industry building new capacity at the moment is that they can’t get anyone to buy the electricity because there is so much electricity generation around.

Now I’ve offered them a process of certainty, I’ve offered them a number and I’ve offered them a guarantee that this will be the last review before 2020 so that we change the legislation that requires a review every two years. I’ve offered them a scheme where we will deal with the overhang of credits in the market, so the industry can get on and build, particularly those wind farms that have already been given an approval and have gone to final investment decision, so we can continue to see the amount of renewable energy generated in Australia grow.

That is still happening. I mean, we’re still seeing an exponential growth in rooftop solar in Australia and we are on track to very significantly exceed the rooftop solar target which was 4,000 gigawatt hours and we’re already at about 7,000 gigawatt hours. So it is happening. The industry will have to understand that we are not going to build way more generation capacity then we need. There has to be some rationality in this. The other problem they’ve got is that if the scheme stays as it is, and that’s the alternative – that we just walk away and leave it – the renewable energy industry will be the one that pays the cost of that.

JOURNALIST: Is that offer that you have extended to the industry, above 30,000 gigawatt hours?

IAN MACFARLANE: I’m not going to get involved in that discussion, but look, yes it is. The industry knows what it is, I’m sure the Labor Party knows what it is because they seem to work in lockstep with the Clean Energy Council. The offer that’s been made is based not only on sound policy, but on the reality of where renewable energy is in Australia and that is that we are seeing a significant growth in rooftop and small scale solar which has to be taken into consideration. We don’t want to do it in a way which impinges on the large scale renewable energy scheme.

So they’ve got an offer, they can think about it for as long as they like, because until they come to an agreement, the scheme will continue untouched. So the scheme that has been agreed to by Penny Wong and I back in 2009 will continue as it is. We’re not going to touch it.

JOURNALIST: It’s been a somewhat messy process hasn’t it, and it has delivered a whole lot of uncertainty for the industry?

IAN MACFARLANE: No well I don’t think it has. I mean the situation is we’ve got a scheme that everyone agrees is going to go into default, is not going to be sustainable, is going to basically do something that in the end is not good for the renewable energy industry. I’ve offered them a compromise, an alternative, a logical solution to the issue, or they can keep the scheme they’ve got. That’s their choice.

If they don’t want compromise, if they don’t want to come to a point where we can actually have a sustainable renewable energy scheme, one which I’ve been involved in since day one since 2001 when I was the Resources Minister, if they don’t want to do that, then I’ll give them what they’ve got. I’ll give them what they asked for. That is the current scheme.

But I know that is going to end in tears and I know the people that will lose out of that will actually be the renewable energy industry.

JOURNALIST: Industry and Science Minister Ian Macfarlane, thanks for your time.
Sky News

Macfarlane would have been better off saving his breath. The “conversation” above was little more than a besieged Minister, thinking out loud in a stream of consciousness session, in the presence of a bemused observer.

For Mcfarlane – and his wind industry backers – the “elephant in the room” is the fact that retailers have NO reason to enter PPAs – and every reason not to. In the result, Australian power consumers will inevitably end up paying $30 billion in a stealth tax under the LRET. Which brings us to Mcfarlane’s little throwaways that:

“[T]the renewable energy industry will be the one that pays the cost of that”. “But I know that is going to end in tears and I know the people that will lose out of that will actually be the renewable energy industry”.

Er, not quite, Ian. The biggest losers will be REAL Australian businesses, and hard-pressed households, who will end up paying for the costliest and most pointless policy debacle in the Commonwealth’s history.

At this point, we’ll pick up a little more twaddle from the “dynamic duo”, as young Greg Hunt ties himself in knots on ABC radio.

Renewable Energy Target
ABC Radio (The World Today)
Interview with David Mark
5 March 2015

DAVID MARK: Greg Hunt, the issue of the Renewable Energy Target, where it should be set, has been running for some time. You’ve been holding talks with the various industry representatives as well as the Labor Party. What is the progress of those talks?

GREG HUNT: Good. We are making real and significant and important progress. My view is that we are within reach of an agreement which will effectively double the renewable energy that has been installed over the last fifteen years within the next five years. Real progress on a constructive basis, but in a way which will manage people’s power prices and take any risk of additional pressure off them.

DAVID MARK: You talk about doubling the amount of renewable energy; the sticking point has been over this target. Should it be 41,000 gigawatt hours, which was the target set back when the RET first was set up, or the 26,000 that you were originally proposing. What’s the number?

GREG HUNT: Sure, you can understand that I won’t put any particular figure on the table but I think what matters to the Australian public is that we are making real progress, we are within sight of an agreement, we’re working constructively with the sector and I really appreciate their work.

We are also working constructively with the ALP and the manufacturing sector and so the critical part here is the potential for doubling what’s been installed over the last 15 years within half a decade and that’s a very good outcome for the environment, it’s a good outcome for the sector, but it means it will be done in a way that it can actually build rather than the risk of not achieving and then falling into a de-facto, massive penalty carbon tax of $93 per tonne which nobody wants to see.

DAVID MARK: Will the doubling of that renewable power, that renewable electricity be as a result of the RET? Or are you talking about other programmes?

GREG HUNT: No this is exclusively through the Renewable Energy Target. So the way the Renewable Energy Target works – for the listeners – is a benchmark is set. It has to be achieved by law and therefore the renewable energy has to be built and supplied to that level. If we reach an agreement which is an effective doubling then that is very, very significant.

It means that the renewable energy will have to be constructed, but it will be done in a way which ensures that it’s real renewable energy that is actually generated rather than a figure created but which is never actually built, which is then paid for by a penalty in the form of a $93 per tonne carbon tax and that’s been our concern.

I think we are very close, very close to a constructive outcome both for emissions, for solar, for renewable energy and for putting a cap in terms of removing any risk of a jump in power prices which was the legacy of the flaw in the pre-existing system.

DAVID MARK: As you know there are a large number of projects – wind projects and other projects – that are on the shelf now because of the uncertainty over the RET. If you get the deal that you’re talking about now, that you say you’re close to negotiating, are those projects going to be taken off the shelf? Will they be built?

GREG HUNT: Well I think this will allow additional renewable energy. Whether it’s solar or geothermal, whether it is small hydro or other forms of renewable energy, to proceed. We are of course…

DAVID MARK: But what about those projects that have been shelved will they come into play again?

GREG HUNT: Well of course, by definition, the projects that are most ready to go are those that are most likely to advance immediately. We are still increasing our renewable energy. I saw a list of many, many projects that have been commenced over the course of the last year.

I think that that’s been a tremendous step forward, but the risk that we all faced was failing to achieve the target because realistically the build just wasn’t possible and as a consequence, facing a massive $93 a tonne carbon tax penalty equivalent, whereas we can avoid that dead-weight cost, we can protect people’s power prices, but we can get the prospect of solar and wind and hydro and geothermal – these are real and significant steps forward.

DAVID MARK: You’re not talking about numbers but can you give us an indication? Obviously that number is going to somewhere between 26,000 gigawatt hours and 41. Is that correct?

GREG HUNT: That’s correct. And I’m not being…

DAVID MARK: In the upper 30s, in the lower 40s?

GREG HUNT: No, look, I have always said that we need to achieve a modest, sensible, balanced outcome. We’re being very reasonable. To be frank, I’ve found a very different position from the ALP in the last week and I respect and appreciate that, it’s been encouraging and constructive. And similarly we’ve found an extremely constructive approach from the Clean Energy Council and many members.

People have decided they want a deal and so I understandably won’t speculate on a number, but the order of magnitude for the Australian public is an approximate or near doubling of renewable energy in the ground and being generated.

DAVID MARK: Greg Hunt, how much has this period of uncertainty cost the renewables industry?

GREG HUNT: Well, I think that if we head towards a realistic target, that is the best long term sustainable outcome and it actually will advantage the sector in the medium term.

DAVID MARK: When do you expect to sign off on a deal?

GREG HUNT: I won’t put a timeframe on it but I would like to do it early and soon. We, of course, inherited the statutory review. It was a review enshrined in law by the ALP when they set up the Renewable Energy Target.

People can agree or disagree – it was inherited, we’ve done it, but I think we can get an outcome here which good for clean energy production, good for consumers – that has been an extremely important issue to make sure that the risk of a massive spike and penalty and burden for consumers is avoided.

DAVID MARK: You say want to do a deal soon – what are the sticking points?

GREG HUNT: Look I think that obviously the number and the means of calculation, but we’re close on that. Then something that’s been very important to the renewable sector has been soaking up some of the 24 million surplus credits which were created largely as a result of the phantom credit scheme where people were paid for renewable energy which was never actually produced.

Extraordinary, amazing, incredible. A bizarre Labor initiative, but we’ve had to deal with the consequences of that and there is a way through that I think we have largely agreed upon with the Clean Energy Council and those are the two most important things.

DAVID MARK: Greg Hunt, thanks very much for your time.

GREG HUNT: It’s a pleasure.
ABC, The World Today

Let’s start by throwing a spotlight on some of Hunt’s little musings – we’ve highlighted the important bits above, but we’ll set them out again:

We are also working constructively with the ALP and the manufacturing sector and so the critical part here is the potential for doubling what’s been installed over the last 15 years within half a decade and that’s a very good outcome for the environment, it’s a good outcome for the sector, but it means it will be done in a way that it can actually build rather than the risk of not achieving and then falling into a de-facto, massive penalty carbon tax of $93 per tonne which nobody wants to see.

It means that the renewable energy will have to be constructed, but it will be done in a way which ensures that it’s real renewable energy that is actually generated rather than a figure created but which is never actually built, which is then paid for by a penalty in the form of a $93 per tonne carbon tax and that’s been our concern.

I think that that’s been a tremendous step forward, but the risk that we all faced was failing to achieve the target because realistically the build just wasn’t possible and as a consequence, facing a massive $93 a tonne carbon tax penalty equivalent, whereas we can avoid that dead-weight cost, we can protect people’s power prices, but we can get the prospect of solar and wind and hydro and geothermal – these are real and significant steps forward.

What Greg is referring to – but can’t quite bring himself to mention – is the $65 per MWh shortfall charge (read “fine”) mandated under the LRET; which is destined to add $30 billion to Australian power bills over the life of the scheme (see below and our post here).

What Greg must surely know – but can’t bear revealing – is that there is no way any new wind power capacity is going to be added to satisfy the current (or any “amended”) target under the LRET.

With retailers refusing to enter PPAs; and, instead, deciding to pay the shortfall charge, the full cost of that penalty will simply be recovered as aFederal tax on all Australian electricity consumers. In an effort to bring the LRET rort to an end, retailers aim to make that politically unpalatable fact plain on their power bills, by adding the words “Federal Tax on Electricity Consumers”.

But, it’s Greg’s confusing claim that building new wind power capacity will, by avoiding the shortfall penalty, somehow “protect people’s power prices” – that has STT’s attention. According to young Greg’s take on things, rolling out thousands of giant fans will, magically, result in lower retail power prices.

Time to look at some numbers; and put Greg’s wild claims to the sword.

The LRET target is set by s40 of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 (here).

At the present time, the total annual contribution to the LRET from eligible renewable energy generation sources is 16,000 GWh; and, because retailers will not enter PPAs, is stuck there now and forever.

In the table below, the “Shortfall in MWh (millions)” is based on a total contribution to the LRET from eligible renewable sources of 16,000,000 MWh (1GWh = 1,000MWh). The LRET target is, likewise, set out in MWh (millions). As set out below, this means that the shortfall charge will kick in this calendar year; insiders say later this month.

Between now and 2031 the total target could be satisfied by the issue and surrender of 587 million RECs. However, with only 16 million RECs available annually there will be a total shortfall of 331 million. That means that only 256 million RECs will be available to satisfy the remaining 587 million MWh target, over the life of the LRET.

The REC price is, due to the impact of the shortfall charge, expected to hit $94, and, due to the taxation treatment of RECs versus the shortfall charge, the full cost of the shortfall charge to retailers is also $94.

At the end of the day, retailers will have to recover the TOTAL cost of BOTH RECs AND the shortfall charge from Australian power consumers, via retail power bills. And that’s the figure we’ve totted up in the right hand column – which combines the annual cost to retailers of 16 million RECs at $94 (ie $1,504,000,000) and the shortfall penalty, as it applies each year from now until 2031, at the same ultimate cost to power consumers of $94.

Year	Target in MWh (millions)	Shortfall in MWh (millions)	Shortfall Charge Recovered by Retailers @ $94	Total Recovered by Retailers as RECs & Shortfall Charge @ $94
2015	18	2	$188,000,000	$1,692,000,000
2016	22.6	6.6	$620,400,000	$2,124,400,000
2017	27.2	11.2	$1,052,800,000	$2,556,800,000
2018	31.8	15.8	$1,485,200,000	$2,989,200,000
2019	36.4	20.4	$1,917,600,000	$3,421,600,000
2020	41	25	$2,350,000,000	$3,854,000,000
2021	41	25	$2,350,000,000	$3,854,000,000
2022	41	25	$2,350,000,000	$3,854,000,000
2023	41	25	$2,350,000,000	$3,854,000,000
2024	41	25	$2,350,000,000	$3,854,000,000
2025	41	25	$2,350,000,000	$3,854,000,000
2026	41	25	$2,350,000,000	$3,854,000,000
2027	41	25	$2,350,000,000	$3,854,000,000
2028	41	25	$2,350,000,000	$3,854,000,000
2029	41	25	$2,350,000,000	$3,854,000,000
2030	41	25	$2,350,000,000	$3,854,000,000
Total	587	331	$31,114,000,000	$55,178,000,000

So, once regard is had to the legislation on which the LRET is based, and the fact that retailers will be recovering BOTH the cost of the shortfall charge AND the cost of purchasing whatever RECs might be available, it’s hard to see how building new wind power capacity will “protect people’s power prices” – as young Gregory claims.

Whether it’s RECs being generated by current (or additional) wind power generation, or the shortfall charge being applied, retailers will be recovering the combined costs of BOTH – and power consumers will not “avoid” any of it.

As our simple little exercise in arithmetic makes plain, over $55 billion will be added to all Australian power consumers’ bills; irrespective of whether young Greg is able to satisfy the desires of his mates at Infigen & Co to carpet the country in giant fans.

Not that it matters much to Australian power consumers footing the bill, but the ONLY difference is where that $55 billion gets funnelled. In the case of the REC Tax, that gets directed as a subsidy to wind power outfits (like Infigen and Pac Hydro); in the case of the shortfall charge, that gets directed to the Federal government, and goes straight into general revenue – as we call it, a “stealth tax” – as young Greg calls it, a: “massive penalty carbon tax.”

Which leaves us wondering whether Greg Hunt simply doesn’t know his onions – and is simply a bumbling incompetent, unfit to be left anywhere near Australia’s energy policy?

Or, if Greg has got a grip on the facts relevant to the operation and cost of the LRET, whether he’s just playing “dumb”; telling “porkies”; and taking the Australian public for fools?

But, behind Greg’s fluffing, there is a little paradox, wrapped up in an energy irony; in this unfolding policy fiasco.

It seems difficult to suggest that Australian power consumers will be better off being hit with a $30 billion stealth tax (in the form of the shortfall charge under the LRET), but that, indeed, is the practical result. Yes, that’s right; Australian power consumers will be financially better off if left to simply pay $30 billion in a pointless electricity tax.

If Greg Hunt was able to realise the dreams of his benefactors at Infigen & Co, not only would Australians be hit with the combined $55 billion cost of REC Tax/Subsidy and the shortfall charge (as set out above), any substantial increase in wind power generation capacity brings with it a number of totally unnecessary, additional and phenomenal costs – all of which will be borne by Australian power consumers.

Let’s start with just a few of them.

“Investment” in wind power generation capacity

The wind industry has been bleating about uncertainty over the LRET that will “prevent” some $17 billion worth of “investment” in new wind power generation capacity. That amount is, apparently, said to be what’s needed to install the turbines needed to satisfy the ultimate 41,000 GWh target from 2020 and beyond.

The wind industry throws around the term “investment”, as if wind power outfits are lining up to make an outright, “no-strings-attached” gift of $17 billion to Australian power consumers. What the wind industry and its parasites don’t say is that – like any capital investment – the investors stumping up the cash will be looking for a juicy return in exchange.

Any investor naturally looks for a return on a capital investment. Ideally, that return exceeds bank interest and – if there is any risk involved – accounts for that risk by way of higher returns. Investors in wind farm projects – due to the massive REC Subsidy – aim for a gross return on the capital invested in the order of 20% per annum.

That means that the investors stumping up $17 billion to install new turbines will be looking to recover $3.4 billion from power consumers each and every year to achieve that level of return: returns on wind power investments can only be recouped via income received from power sales – there is NO other source of revenue.

So, rather than being the objects of $17 billion in wind industry largesse, power consumers are being lined up for an enormous, additional and – because there is already ample generating capacity to meet (declining) demand well into the future – completely unnecessary $3.4 billion hit in the hip pocket each and every year.

Further unnecessary capital costs and “investment” in a duplicated electricity grid

For a little history of the LRET and a great summary of its likely total costs – see this detailed article by Ray Evans and Tom Quirk.

Back in 2009 Tom and Ray predicted with chilling accuracy (in this paper) the escalation of power prices due to increasing wind power generation.

Ray and Tom concluded that the total capital cost of installing an extra 26,000 MW of wind power capacity to reach the 2020 target is in the order of $52 billion.

On their figures, adding to that cost will be the need to have backup generation capacity of at least 23,400 MW – from base-load sources such as coal or gas – to ensure continuity of supply. In addition, this will also bring with it the need to pay the cost of having conventional generators on standby to meet demand during routine and unpredictable collapses in wind power output, through what are called “capacity payments” (see our post here).

And to absorb the intermittent and unpredictable wind power generated by wind turbines dispersed over Tasmania, South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland – all feeding into the Eastern grid – there will need to be at least $30 billion invested in a duplicated transmission network.

The wind industry and its parasites try to deflect the true cost of the LRET and wind power by attributing escalating power prices to the cost of “poles and wires” – when they talk about “gold plated networks” (for a detailed rebuttal to that furphy, see our post here). To carry 26,000 MW of new wind power generating capacity, scattered all over South-Eastern Australia, will require the network to be “platinum plated”.

The $30 billion talked about by Ray and Tom in their papers is the cost of duplicating the network just to take wind power – on the few occasions it actually delivers (see our posts here and here and here and here).

What Tom Evans and Ray Quirk mean by duplicating the transmission network to accommodate wind power includes $107 million for an interconnector for no other purpose than to send South Australian generated wind power to Victoria at night-time – as reported by The Age.

A network exclusively devoted to sending wind power output from remote, rural locations to urban population centres (where the demand is) will only ever carry meaningful output 30-35% of the time, at best. The balance of the time, networks devoted to carrying wind power will carry nothing – for lengthy periods there will be no return on the capital cost – the lines will simply lay idle until the wind picks up.

The 26,000 MW of new wind power capacity that Ray and Tom suggest would be built to meet the 41,000 GWh target would see turbines spread far and wide over rural NSW, SA, Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania (which would be all connected to the Eastern grid). For that to happen, a network will need to be built that runs in the reverse direction to the existing grid.

Most major capitals have substantial generating capacity within relatively close proximity and existing networks radiate out from there – sending power out to rural and regional towns and farms. With wind farms being spread over huge geographical areas their output has to be chanelled back to where the markets are. The coasts and coastal cities are where the populations are – rural and regional Australia is relatively sparsely populated and the further you go inland the sparser it gets.

To specifically cater for a huge increase in wind power capacity will necessarily require an enormous investment in dedicated high capacity transmission lines (and all the other associated infrastructure) running from remote, regional and rural Australia back to the population centres – rather than the other way round.

We haven’t even got to the costs of installing and operating highly inefficient peaking power plants needed to backup wind power capacity when it disappears each day and for days on end, but we’ve made our point (for the impact of peaking power on power prices, see our postshere and here).

As our little table shows, the operation of the LRET means that retailers will be recovering $55 billion; as either REC Tax/Subsidy; or as the shortfall charge – and, either way, it’s Australian power consumers that will be paying for the lot.

In the event that there is any further increase in wind power generation capacity that equation does not alter, except that a greater proportion will be recovered as REC Tax/Subsidy, rather than as the shortfall charge.

However, if there is any increase in wind power generation capacity it will simply result in increased capital costs needed to install turbines; build a duplicated transmission grid; build additional peaking power generation capacity; and/or to pay “capacity payments” to conventional generators, etc, etc.

And, on top of that, comes the return on all of that capital “investment”: at least $52 billion to install 26,000 MW of further wind power capacity; and a further $30 billion in setting up a network to get it to market. Power consumers will end up paying for all of that “investment” through their power bills – think of a 20% gross annual return being recovered from power consumers on an $82 billion investment.

The potential cost to power consumers can only be described as colossal.

Which is why STT says that power consumers will, in fact, the better off by simply paying $30 billion to satisfy the shortfall charge under the LRET from here on.

Retailers, like Origin’s Grant King are perfectly aware that fully satisfying the LRET target by way of new wind power generation capacity will drive retail power prices through the roof over the next four years.

As we have pointed out, electricity retailers have a choice: enter PPAs to purchase RECs, or pay the shortfall charge; and they’ve decided to be hit with the latter, and to recover it via retail power bills. So, for retailers, whatever the LRET target might end up at is a matter of utter commercial indifference.

In the LRET wash up, retailers are aware that retail power prices will actually be substantially lower if there is no new wind power generation capacity built, because it avoids the need for added network costs etc – massive costs which retailers will be bound to recover from power consumers.

For retailers, power consumers aren’t just voters who might take out their anger at a ballot box every few years; these are a power retailers’ only customers: and these customers are already struggling to pay their power bills – tens of thousands of Australian households can’t afford their power bills now (see our posts here and here).

So, despite young Gregory’s weaselly efforts to deflect attention from the ultimate costs of the LRET to Australian power consumers, his little subterfuge is unlikely to slip under the guard of Australia’s power retailers: these boys are no fools.

And, soon enough, Australia’s power consumers will work out that they are being lined up to pay the obscene costs of an unmitigated power policy debacle.

The only question remaining is whether their Energy and Environment Ministers are just plain dumb, or whether they’re bare-faced liars?

Wind Pushers Try to Discourage Studies, Claiming they’ll Blame it on “Nocebo Effect”, Regardless of Findings!

March 8, 2015March 8, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

A $2.5m investment in wind farms and health won’t solve anything

In even the best of studies, it will be impossible to separate out ‘nocebo’ effects from direct effects. reynermedia/Flickr, CC BY

The out-going head of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Warwick Anderson confirmed in Senate Estimates recently that calls for research proposals for up to a total of A$2.5 million over five years will soon be made to investigate questions about wind farms and health.

Under questioning from Greens Senator Richard Di Natale, Anderson told the committee A$2.5m was a paltry fraction of the agency’s total research budget, which in 2014 stood at A$802.42m. So A$2.5m is the equivalent of less than 0.06% of a projected five-year research budget on today’s allocations.

But researchers’ success obtaining grants has never been lower in Australia, with many strong grants falling below the cut-off score, which is ultimately budget determined. In 2014, researchers submitted 3,700 applications for project grants, with only one in 6.7 of these (14.9%) being funded. In the health services research field, 91.8% if applications were not funded.

Anderson has been emphatic that research standards will not be compromised in all this, and that only high-quality applications from suitably experienced researchers will be funded. It is not clear yet whether only one or more applications will be funded, if indeed any are.

The main debate in this area is between those who are adamant that wind turbines emit sounds and vibrations that upset and harm some of those exposed, and those who argue that the available evidence points strongly to health problems and complaints being psychogenic.

Nocebo phenomena – the idea that fear about wind turbines will cause some people to get symptoms – seem to be at the heart of both complaints and claims of illness.

I have documented an Old Testament-length list of 244 different symptoms and diseases alleged by wind farm opponents to be caused by the pestilence of wind farm exposure. The most bizarre of these include herpes, haemorrhoids, lung skin cancer and disoriented echidnas.

Study limitations

In even the best of studies, it will be impossible to separate out nocebo effects from putative direct effects. Here’s why. Ideally, researchers could select a location where a wind farm was being planned and conduct symptom- and illness-prevalence studies well before the wind farm was constructed and operational.

They would then repeat those measures at different times after the turbines began, analysing the influence of variables such as noise levels, economic benefit, pre-existing levels of antipathy to wind farms and “negatively oriented personality”. They could also request the production of medical records to see whether reported health problems long preceded the commencement of the turbines.

But this sort of research design will always be corrupted by wind farm opponents who, at the first hint of any wind farm development, move into a local area with the express purpose of alarming and frightening as many local residents as possible about what’s down the track.

No wind farm developer could ever commence construction without a long and open period of community consultation. These trigger the alarmists to turn on their best efforts to worry residents sick. This nocebo-priming case study I published recently describes in detail how they operate.

Residents fully sworn against wind farms are highly biased and can game such studies where self-reports of symptoms are central.

Lessons from Canada

Canada has already conducted the sort of study that might be proposed in Australia. In response to agitation from anti-wind groups, starting in 2012, it undertook the largest study of wind turbines and health ever attempted.

The study involved 1,235 houses in Ontario and Prince Edward Island, where randomly selected residents of all houses within 600m of 399 turbines on 18 wind farms were compared with those living 600m to 10km away.

In October 2014, Health Canada published the top-line results from the $CAN2.2 million study of the very sort that the NHMRC might well be asked to replicate.

It found the following were not associated with wind turbine noise:

self-reported sleep (such as general disturbance, use of sleep medication, diagnosed sleep disorders)
self-reported illnesses (such as dizziness, tinnitus, prevalence of frequent migraines and headaches) and chronic health conditions (such as heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes)
self-reported perceived stress and quality of life.

It did find that “annoyance” was related to wind turbine noise, with 16.5% of houses in Ontario and 6.3% on Prince Edward Island being annoyed.

Ontario is the epicentre of Canadian anti-wind farm activism, while Price Edward Island has seen little of this. So this major difference in the prevalence of annoyance lends support to the idea that wind farm annoyance is a “communicated disease” spread by anti-wind farm agitators.

The Canadian study also found that:

annoyance was significantly lower among the 110 participants who received personal benefit, which could include rent, payments or other indirect benefits of having wind turbines in the area e.g., community improvements. However, there were other factors that were found to be more strongly associated with annoyance, such as the visual appearance, concern for physical safety due to the presence of wind turbines and reporting to be sensitive to noise in general.

These findings are consistent with conclusions reached in what is now 24 reviews of the evidence.

Predictably, anti-wind farm groups in Canada rejected the Canadian study’s conclusions. It seems obvious that the only reports that such groups will ever accept are those which confirm their agenda. This is not a debate which will ever be resolved by research.

Political interests

Disturbingly, the NHMRC has allowed itself to be influenced by what reported internal email described as “the macro policy environment” – bureaucratic code for sensitivity to political interests.

Instead, Warwick Anderson and the Council should have stated clearly and emphatically to the parliament and the public that any researcher wanting to investigate wind farms and health was at perfect liberty to submit such a proposal to compete with all those being submitted by researchers considering any other topic. Such proposals would stand or fall on their competitiveness as determined by peer review.

There is no dedicated research funding being set aside by the NHMRC to further investigate the known massive risks to human health from fossil fuel extraction and burning. And it would be unimaginable for the NHMRC to quarantine money for any other non-disease like wifi sensitivity, smart electricity meter dangers or “fan death”. But this is what it has done here.

The money allocated is not much. But the real damage will be that in having this issue thus elevated to privileged research status, its political apostles will be greatly encouraged.

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A $2.5m investment in wind farms and health won’t solve anything

Study limitations

Lessons from Canada

Political interests