Greg Hunt: Minister for Infigen?

Ian “Macca” Macfarlane and his youthful ward, 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-Scale Renewable 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 woo the cross-bench Senators, as part of the same last-ditch, salvage…

David and Alida Mortimer: treated by the wind industry as
‘inconvenient’ facts. But they are facts, that just won’t go away.

With Steven Cooper’s Cape Bridgewater study sending shock-waves through the wind industry around the world (see our posts here and here and here), the wind industry – always prickly when it comes to fronting up to “inconvenient” facts (see our post here) – is more defensive than ever.

In Australia, one long-running “inconvenience” for the wind industry, is the situation popped up by David and Alida Mortimer.

The Mortimers signed up with Babcock and Brown – which, after its 2009 collapse, phoenixed into Infigen – to host turbines on their property near Millicent in the South-East of South Australia, way back in 2003.

Since the turbines kicked into gear in 2005, the Mortimers have suffered from a familiar list of turbine related adverse health effects, including sleep…

The wind industry: not quite as robust as originally thought.

Infigen is an all-wind-power-outfit that used to be called Babcock and Brown, which collapsed in spectacular fashion back in 2009: the way things are headed, get set for a replay.

Infigen is bleeding cash (it backed up a $55 million loss in 2011/12 with an $80 million loss in 2012/13 and keeps losing money, booking a $9 million loss last financial year). It scrambled to get development approvals for all of its Australian projects so they could be flogged off ASAP, and the cash used to ward off the receiver. But, no luck: in the current climate, its chances of finding buyers are slimmer than a German supermodel.

During its first incarnation as Babcock and Brown, these boys fleeced investors and creditors to the tune of something like $10 billion (while its directors pocketed – and somehow managed to retain…

STT has worked pretty solidly to cover the increasing numbers of turbine blades that routinely unshackle themselves in bids for airborne freedom, troublesome events, which the wind industry euphemistically calls “component liberation” (see our posts here and here and here and here).

But lately, STT has been working over-time to keep up with the wind industry’s diligent efforts to keep wind farm neighbours on their toes, with turbines collapsing in crumpled heaps and/or throwing their blades to the four-winds all over the world.

Whether it’s in Ireland (see our posts here and here); Scotland (see our posts here and here); Devon (see our post here); Nicaragua (see our post here)  – Brazil – Kansas – Pennsylvania – Germany and Scotland – turbines have been crashing back to earth and chucking blades around the country-side – like steroid-fuelled, German hammer-throwers – in frightening numbers.

After I’m…