wind and solar

We Know That Windweasels Are Corrupt….. Here’s More Proof!

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ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCHER: WIND INDUSTRY RIDDLED WITH ‘ABSOLUTE CORRUPTION’

by 20 Sep 2014, 5:04 AM PDT 322POST A COMMENT

A Mexican ecologist has blown the whistle on the corruption, lies and incompetence of the wind industry – and on the massive environmental damage it causes in the name of saving the planet.

Patricia Mora, a research professor in coastal ecology and fisheries science at the National Institute of Technology in Mexico, has been studying the impact of wind turbines in the Tehuantepec Isthmus in southern Mexico, an environmentally sensitive region which has the highest concentration of wind farms in Latin America.

The turbines, she says in an interview with Truthout, have had a disastrous effect on local flora and fauna.

When a project is installed, the first step is to “dismantle” the area, a process through which all surrounding vegetation is eliminated. This means the destruction of plants and sessilities – organisms that do not have stems or supporting mechanisms – and the slow displacement over time of reptiles, mammals, birds, amphibians, insects, arachnids, fungi, etc. Generally we perceive the macro scale only, that is to say, the large animals, without considering the small and even microscopic organisms…

….After the construction is finalized, the indirect impact continues in the sense that ecosystems are altered and fragmented. As a result, there is a larger probability of their disappearance, due to changes in the climate and the use of soil.

Then there is the damage caused by wind turbine noise:

There is abundant information about the harm caused by the sound waves produced by wind turbines. These sound waves are not perceptible to the human ear, which makes them all the more dangerous. They are also low frequency sound waves and act upon the pineal and nervous systems, causing anxiety, depression (there is a study from the United States that found an elevated suicide rate in regions with wind farms), migraines, dizziness and vomiting, among other symptoms.

But the wind turbine operators are able to get away with it because the system is so corrupt.

What happens is absolute corruption. I have to admit that generally there are “agreements” behind closed doors between the consultants or research centers and the government offices before the studies are conducted. They fill out forms with copied information (and sometimes badly copied), lies or half truths in order to divert attention from the real project while at the same time complying with requirements on paper. Unfortunately, consultants sometimes take advantage of high unemployment and hire inexperienced people or unemployed career professionals without proper titles. Sometimes the consultants even coerce them into modifying the data.

Research centers, pressured by a lack of funding, accept these studies. It is well known that scientists recognized by CONACYT (National Counsel on Science and Technology) accept gifts from these companies, given that they need money to buy equipment for their laboratories and to fill their pocketbooks to maintain their lifestyles. This is the extent of the corruption. Upon reviewing these studies, it is clear that the findings are trash, sometimes even directly copied from other sources online. These studies tend to focus on the “benefits of the project” and do not include rigorous analysis.

The Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) does follow-up to the studies, but everything can be negotiated. The bureaucrats have the last word.

Though Professor Mora is talking specifically about Mexico, what she says applies equally well to supposedly more transparent democracies such as Britain, Australia, the US, Canada and Denmark. The wind industry is necessarily one of the most corrupt enterprises on earth because it depends for its entire existence on government favours, backhanders, dishonest environmental impact assessments and on regulators turning a blind eye to the known health problems caused by wind turbine noise. Without crony capitalism, the wind industry simply would not exist.

Here are some links to a few of Breitbart’s hits on the subject. As I can personally testify from a decade spent covering this scandal, there are few forms of life on the planet lower than those parasites who make their fortune out of bird-chomping, bat-slicing eco-crucifixes.

Win Prize Money for Anti-Wind Turbine Art! AWESOME!

/ 1957chev / 1 Comment

Galerie Q would like to announce an exciting Art Competition

We are inviting the greater art community to present their vision of the effect which the Wind Turbines and the Solar farms have on nature, our health and our community.

Art Contest Poster

This event coincides with the ongoing challenges of having many Wind Turbines each 475 feet in height in our region and neighbourhoods.

Contest Details

Submission of 2D and 3D art works are encouraged in various mediums.
The Competition is open to artists of all ages regardless of where geographically they are located on the planet earth. There will be three divisions: children up to 12 years old, youth 13 to 19 years and adults 19 years and older.
We encourage the local schools, colleges and universities to promote this competition among their students as well as any interested artists who feel passionate about this subject.
Winners will be announced at our opening event which will showcase the winning submissions and the top runner up submissions.

Prizes

  • In the Children’s category top prize will be $250, Second prize $100 and Third prize $50.
  • In the Youth category top prize will be $500, Second prize $250 and Third prize $100.
  • In the Adult category top prize will be $2500, Second prize $1000 and Third prize $500.
  • The Competition will be open effective February 20th, 2014 and will close December 31st, 2014.

Check out the Gallery Q Website, for more details!

http://galerie-q.com/index.php/art-contest-rule

galerieq

European Union Finally “Gets It”….The Faux-Green Scam, is Nothing But a Money-Grab!

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When can we expect the same sanity from the Liberals, in Canada, especially Ontario?  They are ruining our manufacturing sector, with their outrageous energy prices!  Families can no longer afford their electricity bills.  It has to STOP!

EU Dismantles Its Climate Commission Amid Economic Struggles

European Union leaders announced they will be consolidating energy and environmental goals under a new commissioner, effectively axing the intergovernmental groups’ climate arm as green policies are making it harder for citizens to pay their power bills.

Former Spanish agriculture and environment minister Miguel Arias Canete was tapped by the EU Commission to take over a consolidated energy and climate office. Canete will be replacing Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard and Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger in what is seen as a huge blow to Europe’s global warming efforts.

“The EU is signalling a historical shift away from its green priority towards a new focus on economic recovery, competitiveness and energy cost,” Dr. Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Forum, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“This policy shift has been in the making for the last two years, but only now has Europe new leaders who are no longer obsessed with climate change,” said Peiser, who is based in the UK.

The change in EU energy and climate leadership was partly spurred by Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, which has put Europe’s natural gas supplies at risk. The Ukraine crisis also sparked calls for Europe to drill for its oil and gas using hydraulic fracturing and begin importing more energy from allies, like the U.S.

Europeans are also being burdened by rising energy bills from domestic green policies and EU rules that effectively mandate higher cost electricity generation from renewables, like wind and solar power. The UK, in particular has seen numerous power plants close down and is even considering WWII-style energy rationing to keep the lights and heat on this winter.

Canete preside over the drafting of new energy rules after the EU hashes out cap-and-trade reform and green energy targets in October. The former Spanish official will also have to balance Europe’s energy needs against pressures from interest groups and the United Nations to enter into a legally binding global climate treaty.

Environmentalists have expressed concerns that the EU Commission is abandoning too many of its environmental goals, especially by getting rid of its independent climate arm. Activists have even accused Canete of being too cozy with fossil fuels companies.

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“The choice of a Climate and Energy Commissioner with well-known links to the fossil fuel industry raises issues of conflict of interest,” reads a letter to the EU Commission from Green10 — a coalition of environmental groups.

“The fact that sustainable development, resource efficiency and the green economy are not covered at all at Vice-President level implies a Commission that will be operating on the basis of an outdated paradigm of economic growth, one that benefits the industries and jobs of the past over those of the future, and detached from real world constraints and limits,” the coalition said in its letter.

“Canete is a surprising choice, given his connections to the oil industry,” Greenpeace’s managing director in the EU, Mahi Sideridou, told Bloomberg in an emailed statement. “To prove he is the right man for the job, he’ll have to resolve conflicts of interests and improve on his environmental record as a minister.”

Canete is a lawyer by training and worked for Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s government from 2011 to 2014, reports Bloomberg. Canete was elected to EU Parliament in May 2014.

He has been described as “an acute politician” by analysts and could help make the EU’s fragmented energy and environmental goals more coherent and workable.

“His number one challenge will be to bring coherence into very fragmented policies, reflecting the commission’s recent proposal to put the [emissions trading system] back in the center of EU energy and climate policy,” Laurent Donceel, director at the consulting firm G+Europe, told Bloomberg.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/09/12/eu-dismantles-its-climate-commission-amid-economic-struggles/#ixzz3DPWpd0Z1

Angus Taylor…..An Australian Hero! Putting Windweasels on Notice!

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The Wind Industry’s Worst Nightmare – Angus Taylor – says: time to kill the LRET

September 15, 2014 by

Nightmare (1962) Jerry wakes up

Member for Hume, Angus “the Enforcer” Taylor has taken the lead on behalf of the Coalition in Tony Abbott’s quest to bring the wind industry to its knees. While there’s been a lot of huff and puff emanating from Ian “Macca” Macfarlane and his faithful ward, young Gregory Hunt about saving the mandatory RET with magical “third ways”, STT says keep your eyes focused on Taylor and the PM.

To give you some idea of where Taylor is coming from – and where the wind industry is headed – here’s an interview he gave last week (9 September 2014) on Sky News (transcript follows).

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http://blob:https%3A//www.youtube.com/fe2546b4-a7de-461e-8946-528eaf70770e

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Graham Richardson: Angus Taylor is the member for Hume, and he’s in our Canberra studio. G’day Angus how are you?

Angus Taylor: G’day Graham.

Graham Richardson: Now I’ve got to say that if I was a minister, I’d be looking behind me and saying there’s a Rhodes scholar on the backbench, we can’t have him there for long. I mean, you’d have to get, you’d have be promoted – I don’t see how they can keep a Rhodes scholar on the backbench.

Alan Jones:  He is a patient man, he’s a farmer’s son. He’s a patient man. Angus, just explain to us would you, in layman’s language, what is the Renewable Energy Target.

Angus Taylor:  Alan, it’s a scheme designed to increase the level of renewable electricity in Australia. And the way it works in practice is it gives big subsidies to renewable projects and it builds those subsidies into our electricity prices ….

Alan Jones:  Sorry to interrupt you – go even simpler – the Renewable, Angus, a renewable project – just explain what a renewable project is.

Angus Taylor:  Well, so there are two schemes, the large scale scheme, which is essentially wind – there is a bit of hydro in there but no new hydro. So that’s the large-scale scheme and that is the majority of it. That’s about 90% of the total. And then there is the small scale scheme which is largely rooftop solar. So they’re the two schemes, and we pay for those big subsidies in our electricity prices, in our bills – they’re not transparent.

Alan Jones:  And that energy is infinitely dearer to produce than coal-fired power so isn’t it fair to say that without massive subsidies, these outfits couldn’t survive. Now if the government is not going to give money to the motor vehicle industry, and it’s not going to give money to SPC Ardmona, why is it giving billions of dollars to Qatari owned wind turbines?

Angus Taylor:  Well that’s a good question. I mean we’ve just had a review of this, led by Dick Warburton, and what the review concluded was that these are expensive schemes, very expensive schemes, but as importantly they’re very expensive ways to reduce carbon emissions. They did come to different conclusions on solar and the large-scale, the wind subsidies, and what we know is rooftop solar in remote areas can be economic, but large-scale wind it’s very clear that it’s not economic on any grounds.

Graham Richardson: If it is not economic, tell me how uneconomic is it? How much dearer? You know, is it 50%, is it 80% dearer than coal-fired power? How much?

Angus Taylor:  Well, put it in perspective. A wind project to get investment will probably need a price somewhere in their long-term contract of somewhere close to $100. And we’re buying electricity now, wholesale electricity at about $30 a megawatt hour. So say three times is a good rule of thumb … What we also know is the cost of reducing carbon emissions this way – it’s something like $60-70 and of course the carbon tax was far less that and we think still way too high.

Alan Jones:   Let’s just go  … just go to where our viewers are involved in all of this. Let me just ask you a simple question, right, I’m a big Qatari investor, because I know that Australians are suckers, we know the Australian government is just shelling out money, now I come from Qatar and I want to build wind turbines and I’ve found this farmer, Angus Taylor in Goulburn and he’s got this a big hill out there – and I think this would be a good place to build wind turbines, so go to Angus Taylor and I say to him I want to put 70 wind turbines on your property. Just basically rule of thumb, how much would you expect to get from me, the big Qatari Guru, how much would you expect to get from me per wind turbine? And I want 70 of them on your farm.

Angus Taylor:  You’d get about 10 to 12 thousand dollars so if you going to have

Alan Jones:  So I kick in $700,000 to you, that’s right. So I build the 70 wind turbines. Enter the taxpayer. So I’m from Qatar, I’m a big wind power man, what’s the taxpayer going to fork out to me in order that I so-called ‘produce’ this wind power?

Angus Taylor:  Look on average you’d expect it to be about $400,000 per year, per turbine.

Alan Jones:  For 30 years.

Angus Taylor: In fact in the next few years – yes for 30 years (GR Wow). 400,000 per turbine.

Alan Jones: Start again

Angus Taylor: So if you had 70 turbines, that’s $28 million a year.

Alan Jones:   28 million on his farm – on his farm – 28 million – so the people watching you – say it again – I’m a Qatari I’m not even an Australian – $28 million a year for one farm. How the hell can this be sustainable?

Angus Taylor: For 70 turbines – and of course we are all paying for that in our electricity bills that’s how it’s coming through.

Graham Richardson:  Can I ask you Angus – at the moment what is the energy target and how close have we got to it?

Angus Taylor:  Right so the energy target is supposed to be 20% of total demand. It’s turning out that it is way above that. The unit is 41 terawatt hours – but what’s important is we’re overshooting the 20% target by a long way. Now the problem with that, the problem with that is from here on in, we would have to build a Snowy Mountains Scheme every year for the next 5 years to reach the target. That’s a Snowy Mountain every year, for the next 5 years to reach the target. And the target will take us well over the 20% mark. The reason it’s going to take us way over the 20% mark, which was the original target, we were originally set ourselves a target of 20%, the reason we’re going way over is that electricity demand has actually been going backwards in Australia and the expectation was it would keep growing. So we’ve got this very high target, huge amount of renewable capacity to be built to reach it, and it’s going to take us way over what we originally expected to do.

Alan Jones:   And Angus isn’t t fair to say that written into the budget there is an expenditure figure of $17 billion – 17 thousand million dollars, to build between 700 and 10,000 of these. Now can I just ask this? If the Abbott Government is not going to give money to SPC Ardmona, and if it’s not going to give money to the car industry – and out there is tax payer land they say, nor should they, why the hell are we subsidising Chinese and Qatari wind farmers jacking up the price of energy, pushing manufacturing out of business? Why are we doing it?

Angus Taylor:  Well, look this is the good question. We are paying these massive subsidies out in our electricity bills we are going way over the target we originally set ourselves and really what this is becoming now is just industry assistance, it’s becoming industry assistance and primarily for the wind industry.

Alan Jones:   It’s industry welfare on steroids.

Graham Richardson: How much investment goes into it? How much private investment goes into it?

Angus Taylor:  Well look, you know, it depends on what’s being built Graham but it is a big number, 17 billion is probably not a bad number to go with, which is the number that Alan mentioned earlier. So there’s a lot of investment- but remember what’s happening here – it’s not creating jobs, we’re actually taking jobs away from other places. In fact, Deloitte tells us that we’re actually going to lose in total 5000 jobs as a result of this – now we gain some in one place and lose them in the other, but the net, we are going to lose 5000 jobs and the reason for that is that it is inefficient investment – we are actually replacing electricity generation we don’t need to replace because demand is going backwards, not forwards. So this is costing us a lot.

Alan Jones:   Yes, it is costing us. Isn’t it valid to say – and it may be an oversimplification, you can either have a manufacturing industry, or a Renewable Energy Target – you can’t have both.

Angus Taylor:  Well, the other part of this, of course, is if it’s pushing electricity prices up, and in the next 5 years it’s likely to push them up quite a lot, if it’s pushing electricity prices up, not only is that hurting households, it’s hurting businesses in exactly the same way that the Carbon tax was hurting businesses. There’s no difference. It’s pushing up electricity prices and that’s hurting all of us.

Alan Jones:  But you said …

Angus Taylor: We’ve gone from being a low cost energy country to a high cost energy country and this is continuing to be one of the contributors. So if all of this was for a good purpose, if it was a cheap way to reduce carbon emissions, depending on your view on whether that’s a good thing to do, then you might be able to justify it. But it’s not and the Review Panel told us that very clearly.

Alan Jones:   Terry McCrann, the very experienced economist said many many years ago, if you want to de-carbonise the Australian economy, your writing yourself a national suicide note. Now here we are forcing manufacturing overseas, forcing jobs, Deloitte said that, up to 6000 jobs. Now at what point do we say to Macfarlane, you said it in the party room, Macfarlane is the Energy Minister, he said this week, there’d be no changes, there’ll be no changes, we’ll make no changes that damage or end the Renewable Energy Target. This is the Energy Minister. You’ve got a Rhode scholar here saying – hang on – this is an inefficient use of resources, this is welfare on steroids and you’ve got the Minister – don’t ask me what I think of that bloke – but you’ve got this Minister saying the exact opposite. What is the party room saying about this?

Angus Taylor: Look, there’s clearly some concerns about solar in the party room, but the overwhelming view of the party room has always been that we have got to contain electricity prices. There’s no question about that. I think, to be fair to the Minister, in the last 48 hours he’s made it very clear that he’s concerned about the rise in electricity prices we’re likely to see in the next few years. He’s made that very clear. You know, look if there’s one cause that we took to the last election, aside from stopping the boats, it was that we needed to contain electricity price increases. That was a view that the party room held…

Graham Richardson:  But the argument was … Angus , the trouble is you ran the argument about the Carbon tax being the cause and it was only a small part of the cause, so you actually didn’t really tell the truth about the Carbon tax, because I think it was about 9% and everybody tried to make it sound like it was a great deal more.

Angus Taylor:  Well, 10% on someone’s electricity bill Graham is a big number for the average Australian and remember the people who are hit hardest here are those are least well off, and energy-intensive businesses which have been the core of Australia’s strength over the years. So 10% impact on electricity bills, and we are seeing that come off now, now that the Carbon tax is gone, that’s a big deal, it’s a big deal for your average Australian and it’s a big deal for Australian businesses.

Graham Richardson:  If we dropped these massive subsidies, which by the way are far greater than I’d ever believed, what would be the effect on electricity prices then?

Angus Taylor:  Well look, it depends but it will be 3-5% over the next few years, but the real problem is this, over the next 5 years, we are not likely to reach the target that was set. We’re not likely to reach it. Now when that happens, the price of these subsidies, they’re caught up in these certificates, the price of those certificates, which goes into your electricity bills, will go sky rocketing.

Alan Jones:  Correct.

Angus Taylor:  And this is the worry – and to be fair to the Minister – he has voiced this concern in the last 48 hours – the real worry is that the sky rocketing price of these subsidies because we can’t get enough of this large scale renewable capacity coming on, the wind turbines, we can’t get them on fast enough, the cost of this scheme is going to go right up in the next few years. And that’s the real concern and it’s a concern that I think the Labor party should share too, I mean they know. You only have to go door knocking in the less well off parts of my electorate or in any other electorate, to know that electricity prices and cost of living are right at the top of the list – so anything that’s pushing that up they’re concerned about.

Alan Jones:   But manufacturing is moving offshore. Jobs are being lost all over the place. Deloitte said that. But you talked at the beginning of this program Graham ‘what’s this bloke doing on the back bench?’ What kind of an Energy Minister would he make? You’re being very charitable to Macfarlane – I will tell you what Macfarlane said about the Renewable Energy Target. These are his exact words. ‘Anything the government does, will not effect any existing investment in renewable energy’. ‘Any existing investment’. I mean, is this bloke off his head? Manufacturing is closing down, jobs are being lost people out there can’t turn on their electric blanket because of the escalating cost of electricity and there should be a comprehensive movement by the Abbott government to reverse all of that.

Angus Taylor:  Look the concern the Minister voiced there is that people have invested to this point in good faith and we should respect investments they’ve made in good faith. I think what he has also said in the last 48 hours is the real issue is here is do we want more of this investment, accelerating over the next 5 years and costing us all a great deal and I think that is the real concern – I mean, do we want to just keep going – and do we want to miss this target.

Alan Jones:  But the real concern, just finally, Angus, isn’t the real concern if there is no money for Holden in the car industry, and no money for SPC Ardmona, why are there billions and billions of dollars for this industry?

Angus Taylor:  I think that’s a good question. I think unfortunately a lot of these schemes set out with the best of intentions and end up being industry assistance, industry pork-barrelling on steroids, as you say, and that’s the concern here. And it’s why there is a legitimate debate – a very legitimate debate in my view, about scaling it back. The Review Panel has said to us that that’s its preferred option. It gave us 2 options on the large scale, on the wind subsidies, and you know, I have made no secret of the fact that I think that we should scale it back. I think, as I say, to be fair to the Minister, he knows that if we don’t scale it back, we have a very serious risk of big increases in electricity prices and escalating subsidies.

Graham Richardson:  I’ve really got to say we have to leave it here. Now I am not concerned about being fair to the Minister. If the Minister is fair dinkum, then he’ll do something about it, and he will do it quickly. Because this is a debacle. And it is just something that you can’t wait. You can’t sit and look at it. It’s got to be addressed immediately. And I don’t understand why he doesn’t. I can’t get it. But we have got to leave it there. Well go on have one last word, very quickly…

Angus Taylor: I was just going say we need the Labor party to help us, we’ve got to get this through the Senate. Either the Labor party or the cross-benchers have got to help us as it needs legislative change so it is incredibly important.

Graham Richardson: Well we will see what we can do.

Alan Jones: good on you Angus

Graham Richardson: I don’t actually hold out a great deal of hope on that front – but I will see what I can do because I think you are right.

Alan Jones:  Hope of the side – this bloke.

Graham Richardson: Certainly is – as I said if I was a Minister looking behind, I’d be on my toes. Angus Taylor, a pleasure to have you on the show. I hope to talk to you again soon.

Alan Jones:  Thanks Angus.

Angus Taylor: Thanks Graham.

Angus Taylor

Keep Roof Top Solar, (Domestic), and get rid of Wind Turbines….BRILLIANT IDEA!

/ 1957chev / 1 Comment

Angus Taylor: Coalition set to kill the wind industry, while supporting rooftop solar

September 6, 2014 by  

divide-and-conquer2

With the wind industry reeling after the RET review panel delivered its recommendation to slam the door shut on any more wind farms (see our post here), it’s sought to whip up support for the mandatory RET by enlisting the usual band of useful Marxist idiots (like GetUp! and 350.org) to rally a band of imaginary troops (apparently ready to die on the barricades); and to rattle cans to fund super-shrill ad campaigns. What’s that they say about “astro-turfing”?

What the wind industry has counted on (so far) in its attempt to retain the RET, is support from the solar industry; and its many satisfied customers.

The wind industry and its parasites like to shelter under the same umbrella as the solar boys: blancmanging the two very distinct animals under the “renewables” tagline.

There are, however, a number of key distinctions between the wind industry and domestic (rooftop) solar. The differences are significant, have political consequences, and the Coalition government is alive to them.

Installing rooftop solar has created a big number of specialist installers (mostly electricians and panel fitters) who way outnumber the handful of permanent jobs created in the wind industry. This band (numbering some 18,000) work for, or operate, hundreds of small businesses across Australia; and, therefore, have the potential of becoming very vocal regarding any threat to the small scale renewable energy scheme (SRES) – which doles out subsidies for rooftop solar.

The RET review panel delivered a recommendation that the SRES should be scrapped immediately. However, STT hears that (for reasons that follow) the Coalition are not going to follow that recommendation.

Unlike the wind industry, rooftop solar has lots of friends and no real enemies.

Were the Coalition to cut the SRES, thousands of solar installers would immediately face an uncertain future: no doubt, many would lose their jobs. There are thousands of panel installers who are currently employed or who own business built on the SRES – all feel threatened – and have been lobbying Coalition members for a retention of the SRES.

In suburban Australia, rooftop solar has become an aspirational good – with families planning their next home (or new home) with panels; or otherwise hoping to take up rooftop solar in order to reduce their spiralling power bills. To an extent, given the massive take-up of rooftop solar to date, getting solar panels has become a game of “keeping up with the Jones”.

So, between thousands of rooftop solar installers and tens of thousands of families who see solar panels as a right of household passage (all of them potential Coalition voters), the Coalition faces a serious loss of political capital were it to chop the SRES (as recommended by the panel).

The wind industry, on the other hand, has very few friends and lots of enemies (see our posts here and here). Its “friends” are panicky investors and died-in-the-wool Labor and Green voters (predominantly inner city trendies from the hard-green-left) who would never vote for the Coalition in a fit. Pandering to this lot has no political upside for Tony Abbott and his team.

The wind industry was brought to life by the Large-Scale RET (LRET). The RET review panel has recommended that the current target set by the LRET of 41,000 GWh be slashed and that the scheme be closed to new entrants from here on.

STT hears that the Coalition, starting with Tony Abbott, is all set to follow that recommendation. While Environment Minister, Greg Hunt has been working flat-out in the media, touting claims that the Coalition supports a real 20% target, he couldn’t be more isolated from his own party than if he were Robinson Crusoe. STT hears that, for his recent efforts, young Greg is about to have his wings clipped by the Head Boy (as soon as he returns from his trip to India).

Unlike rooftop solar and the SRES, were the LRET scaled back and closed to new entrants hardly any current wind industry jobs would face immediate threat.

In the wind industry, most of the jobs involve the fleeting work created during wind farm construction (see our post here). Australia doesn’t manufacture wind turbines: every single one of them has been imported from Denmark, India, Germany and China.

In Australia, wind farm construction is almost at a standstill: “investment” in the construction of wind farms went from $2.69 billion in 2013 to a piddling $40 million this year (see this article). So it’s not as if thousands of currently employed construction workers will lose their jobs as a result of changes to the LRET.

As to the few permanent jobs created by the wind industry, most of these involve the repair and maintenance of turbines (changing oil, changing over gearboxes, bearings etc); and these jobs are not under immediate threat – turbines put up in the last decade will continue to need repairs (and more so, as time passes).

Employment in the wind industry is all about what might be; rather than what is. With hardly any jobs under immediate threat, the Coalition has little political capital to lose and much to gain in following the panel’s recommendations regarding the LRET.

The SRES is estimated to cost a further $1.5-2 billion, which is chickenfeed compared to the future cost of the LRET. The wind industry has been, and would be, the only practical beneficiary of the LRET; and stands to reap a further $50 billion in subsidies via the REC Tax levied on all Australian power consumers (see our post here).

From a political perspective then, the options are a “no-brainer”: keep the SRES and kill off the LRET.

By closing off any threat to rooftop solar, the Coalition avoids a battle that it’s likely to lose – and also allows it to target the wind industry standing all on its lonesome.

In the battle to “win hearts and minds” over the fate of the RET, the wind industry has used the solar industry as a kind of “human shield”: avoiding political flack by hiding behind a sea of suburban solar panels; the hundreds of small businesses that install them; and the mums and dads that own (or want to own) them.

With the Coalition coming out in support of the SRES, the political “stink” being kicked up by the solar lobby will simply fade away – and the wind industry will lose its “solar shield”. Oops!

Leading the Coalition’s charge to maintain the SRES (and government support for rooftop solar); and to kill the wind industry (by following the panel’s recommendation on the LRET) is STT Champion, Angus “the Enforcer” Taylor. Here’s a piece Angus penned for the Australian Financial Review, outlining the Coalition’s shift on renewable policy.

Time to get rational about the RET (Renewable Energy Target)
Australian Financial Review
Angus Taylor
4 September 2014

Now that the renewable energy target (RET) review panel has published its findings, it is time to focus on home truths and explode some myths relating to renewables.

As politicians’ inboxes fill with carefully crafted messages from vested interests with huge dollars at stake, it is important to keep a grip on the facts.

First, we need to remember that, strictly speaking, there is no RET. In fact, there are two schemes. The large scale renewable target (LRET) focused mostly on wind, and the small scale renewable energy scheme (SRES), focused mostly on roof-top solar. Many renewables interests, particularly the wind industry, want to confuse the two, because roof-top solar has far more mainstream political support than other renewables. However, the review made quite different recommendations for the two, and the government will need to announce different policies for each scheme.

Second, the review and other recent work showed that there are many cheaper carbon abatement options than renewables. We should not forget that the purpose of the exercise is to reduce carbon emissions, not to build an industry. If an industry emerges out of our efforts to reduce emissions, then well and good, but industry pork-barrelling has not been an aspiration of this government.

Deloitte tells us that we all wear these costs, but the least well-off are hardest hit by higher retail electricity prices, as with the carbon tax. Investment is not a free lunch, and bad investment reduces productivity, wages and jobs, despite all the talk about green jobs. Deloitte’s estimate is that the cost is 5000 jobs and over $1250 in lost earnings for the average Australian.

A FLAWED TARGET

Third, it is now very clear that the 20 per cent renewable target was flawed. In an atrocious decision, the former government decided to translate the 20 per cent target into 45,000 GWh of new capacity, allocating 41,000 of the target to large-scale schemes. This was based on ridiculously optimistic views of electricity demand growth and effectively eliminated demand risk for the renewables industry – a risk that other businesses face every day. In reality, electricity demand has been going backwards, not forwards. The forecaster responsible for the current target, AEMO, has done some serious soul searching and will need to do more.

Fourth, according to the spin from the renewables sector, the schemes are costless, because of a magical impact on wholesale electricity prices. No serious economist agrees that these schemes are costless. The review estimates the cross-subsidy to be $22 billion, and the only serious work done on economy wide impacts (Deloitte again) put that at $29 billion.

The critical question is who wears these costs. In reality, they are shared between electricity consumers (via higher electricity bills), electricity generators and the broader economy. The renewables industry likes to imagine that household bills will not go up, but the review rejects that argument, particularly in the next five years. Of course, if the cost of renewables drops in the longer term – which would be a great thing – then subsidies are no longer necessary.

INVESTMENTS IN GOOD FAITH

Finally, the review panel recognised the legitimate claim from the renewables industry that past investments were made in good faith, and those investments should be protected from changes to the LRET or the SRES. At the same time, non-renewable generators invested in good faith, and have had to wear a massive increase in capacity while demand has shrunk. We shouldn’t forget that many of the shareholders in these companies are mum and dad investors.

As a result of these competing considerations, the panel rightly recognised the need to scale back the LRET to reduce the massive subsidies to the wind industry, while simultaneously protecting past investment. The review offers two options that will strengthen the economy and reduce electricity prices in time, while maintaining a commitment to large scale renewables.

The prospects for solar are quite different and are positive. The SRES is planned to be phased out in coming years and is responsible for a fraction of the renewable subsidies, but much political noise. In the absence of new hugely expensive state-based feed in tariffs, solar’s future is hitched to its ability to cash in on the excessive network charges in electricity bills. We should support that goal.

Vigilance with the facts and measured policy debate will ensure noisy vested interests don’t subvert the national interest.

Angus Taylor is the federal member for Hume.
Australian Financial Review

Angus Taylor

Finally! Something Useful to do With Turbine blades, …Burn ’em for Fuel!

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Finally, a way to get energy from Wind Turbines. Burn them, make cement!

Blades being chopped for transport. | Global Cement Magazine

It’s the new alternative fuel — decommissioned turbines. There are 21,000 wind turbines in Germany alone at the moment. With 15,000 tons a year of old blades expected to be dumped by 2019, it’s a real problem to get rid of them. The EU says they can’t be dumped in landfill. Here’s the perfect solution. Chop them, shred them, then deliver the fibreglass reinforced plastic to the local cement plant. The resins hold 15MJ per kilo. “One tonne of resin saves 600 kg of coal at the cement plant!”

It’s a win-win all round. Residents get rid of the bird chopping towers, the cement plant gets energy, and the windmills may, possibly for the first time, save some CO2 for the Greens. What’s not to like?

Indeed this is recycling you can like. The raw materials in old blades can even be used in the cement too.

Wind Turbines make good alternative fuels for cement production.

Global Cement Magazine Sept 2014 page 10

Since 2009 Zajons has been working with Holcim’s Geocycle division to process and recycle wind turbine blades for use as an alternative fuel and raw material in the cement industry. The Cross-Flow Shredder has been customised to effect 100% recy cling of fibreglass-reinforced wind turbine blades.

The huge number of new wind farms is one catalyst for this, coupled with the fact that decommissioned wind turbine blades can no longer be sent to landfill. This has been prohibited in Germany since 2005 on the back of EU regulations. Conventional low-temperature waste incineration is not an option as melted glass fibres would cause the blockages in the system. A wind turbine has a maximum life-span of 20 years.

“By 2019 we expect decommissioned wind turbine blades to exceed 15,000t/yr,” said Lempke. “There are major technical issues involved in recycling these huge blades, the first being transporting the blades to the reprocessing plant. We saw the blades into transport-friendly lengths of around 10m on-site at the wind farm and use a special liquid to minimise dust, thus preventing site contamination.” Sawing the blades into manageable lengths on-site significantly reduces transportation costs (Figure 4). Once at the reprocessing plant, the metal components are removed and the blades are sawn into smaller pieces.

Suction, filter and watering technologies largely prevent dust production. The blade is ground in a Cross-Flow Shredder. The resulting material, which is primarily composed of fibreglass reinforced plastic, is homogenised and delivered to a nearby cement plant. The calorific value of the resins (around 15MJ/kg) is harnessed in the cement calciner and is used to thermally degrade the lime. One tonne of resin replaces 600kg of coal at the cement plant.

Even better, the silicon dioxide in the fibreglass can be used instead of sand:

Ash constitutes >50% of the wind turbine blade, which is mixed with the raw meal in the calciner. This is where an  additional benefit comes into play. The ash contains SiO 2 from the fibreglass, which is used in place of sand in the raw material mix. In addition to wind turbine blades, other fibreglass materials can also be used once ground. Thus, valuable raw materials can be substituted and supply conserved.

Using this method, more than 1000 wind turbine blades have been processed into homogeneous refuse derived fuel (RDF) for cement kilns. Working closely with partners like Holcim has enabled Zajons to develop innovative solutions for the manufacture of alternative raw materials for cement and incineration feedstocks, thereby generating significant added value for its cement industry customers.

 

http://www.globalcement.com/pdf/eGCSept2014ns.pdf

The Consequences of Faux-green Renewable Energy, on Nature, in Germany!

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germany Deutschland
How The Green Energy Transition Is Destroying Germany’s Nature

 Date: 28/08/14

  • Fritz Vahrenholt, Die Welt

Germany’s climate and energy policy is the main threat to bio-diversity. Politicians, however, have closed their eyes from the destructive effects of the rampant expansion of renewable energy.

Dankwart Guratzsch has convincingly described the destruction of the environment by the energy transition in these pages. The mayor of Tübingen, Boris Palmer (Green Party), responded in an article, saying: “Everything is not so bad. The impact of wind farms on nature is almost zero … The only relevant negative aspect of wind power is the optical … Many wind farms attract visitors, who do not find repulsive.”

What a devastating form of denial by the Green mayor. But he shares the fatal disregard for the destruction of nature with many greens who – helped by the WWF and Greenpeace – open up forests and premium areas of natural beauty for businesses and belittle the intrusion by wind turbines into nature.

More and more citizens are beginning to realise how the green energy transition is at odds with nature conservation and environmental protection in Germany. A grassroot protest movement has started with thousands of local citizens’ initiatives, barely connected with each other, who are against the planting of biofuels far and wide and which is destroying biodiversity, against the threats to indigenous birds by wind turbines built in forests, and against the devastation of unique cultural and landscape areas by photovoltaic excesses.

A biodiversity disaster

Of Germany’s 115 most common bird species, 51 have declined significantly in the last 20 years. The head of the biosphere reserve in Schorfheide, Martin Flade, speaks of a “biodiversity disaster” which is due to “the hectic climate, energy and agricultural policy: In the corn farmland birds have no chance – the field processing falls in the breeding season, and later they hardly find any insects to eat in these mono-cultures. Of the 30 most common species, there are just four that could hold their numbers, all the rest are declining since at least since 2007.”

The Lesser Spotted Eagle, also called Pomerania Eagle, became extinct in Saxony-Anhalt last year. Only 108 breeding pairs remain in Germany. It finds less and less food in the declining grassland and open meadow. The distances between breeding sites and food areas are getting longer and are also increasingly endangered by wind turbines.

Notably countries with Green Party ministers (North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Baden-Wurttemberg, Brandenburg and Hessen) have approved regulations which open the use of forests for wind turbines. To place a wind farm every 500 meters in the forest, six meter wide open lanes have to be cut through the forest in order to transport the 100-ton turbines and to maintain them later. Around each turbine, a five-acre open area must be created to lift the blades by giant cranes.

Wind farms in pristine forests

What a wind farm forest looks like can now be seen in many parts of Germany – for instance around Soonwaldsteig, a part of the Hunsrück, one of the last great, largely untouched forest areas in Rhineland-Palatinate with high biodiversity and the presence of numerous highly endangered species. There, the project developer Juwi has erected eight wind turbines in the middle of a forest – despite public protests – and then sold the park to an Austrian energy supplier. Faced with the images of demonstrating citizens, the Green minister Evelin Lemke could only come up with: “Without climate protection, there will be no more biodiversity here.”

But a policy that overestimates the dangers of climate change and that subordinates all other policy objectives, including nature conservation, whatever the cost, generates resistance. The Soonwaldsteig has become a nationwide focal point of citizens’ initiatives against the use of wind power in sensitive areas.

Today, 200,000 dead bats are found under wind turbines annually. The clever animals locate the rotors, fly through them and in the lee behind the turbines, where the air pressure decreases sharply, the bats’ lungs burst. Particularly affected are the noctule, the Serotine, the Small Noctule or the parti-colored bat. The female bat only gives birth to one or two young per year, thus these useful insectivores are endangered by a further uncontrolled construction of new wind turbines.

The red kite is acutely threatened

Following the review of the German Council for Bird Preservation (DRV) and the umbrella organization of German Avifaunists (DDA, 2012), the Red Kite is also in particular danger. After an investigation by the State Ornithological Institute of Brandenburg, the Red Kite is no longer safe in this state with its 3,200 wind turbines. About 300 Red Kites are killed annually in Brandenburg alone by wind turbines.

The decline of the red kites since 2005 in West Germany is striking, as Klaus Richarz, former head of the State Ornithological Institutes for Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, has warned. For him too, windmills built in the habitats of kites are fatal for the birds. The protection of the Red Kite is of special obligation for Germany, because a large percentage of the global population of the birds live in Germany. If you like, it is the real national bird of Germany.

In his hard-hitting article “From the energy transition to biodiversity disaster” Martin Flade, the recognized bird expert, describes climate protection and energy policy as a “major threat to biological diversity”. He concludes: “Overall, you have to draw the bitter conclusion that effects of climate change on biodiversity are hardly detectable; the effects of climate and energy policies, however, are dramatic.”

The problem with intermittent wind turbines

Tübingen’s mayor Boris Palmer demands: “We need to double the number of currently 25,000 wind turbines in order to supply Germany.” What a mistake!

Even 50,000 wind turbines only lead to massive surpluses if the wind blows. Wind turbines have on average around 2,500 full load hours per year, but the year has 8,760 hours. In times of no wind, no electricity is generated, even if one multiplies the number of facilities. Zero times x is zero. The intermittency of renewable energy such as wind and solar require either backup fossil power plants or energy storage capacities.

Storage technologies can only do this tasks with excessive costs. Without fossil power plants to balance the intermittency of renewable energy there will be no guaranteed power supply in Germany, with fatal consequences for the competitiveness of German industry and the manufacturing industry.

It should also be known to the Greens that the expansion of renewable energy due to Germany’s Renewable Energy Law is completely ineffective in terms of CO2 emissions in Europe. The CO2 emissions in Europe are determined solely by the capping of the emissions trading scheme. New wind and solar power, in fact, set more emission allowances free.

These certificates float through the stock exchanges to coal power plants in other EU countries where they allow further increase in CO2 emissions which amount to the same level as the reductions in Germany. Besides additional costs for citizens and the devastation of nature, any expansion of renewable energy will not achieve a single ton of CO2 reduction.

Assumptions of climate policy are flawed

Fossil fuel power plants are not an alternative for Boris Palmer and the Greens because they cause climate change, claiming that “some nature reserves, but also some urban areas cannot be saved from rising sea levels, drought and floods and devastating storms”.

But there are growing signs that the assumptions used for German and European climate policy are flawed. Surprisingly, no global temperature increase has occurred for about 15 years. However, computer models used by climate scientists had predicted a temperature rise of 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade.

In early 2013, 17 renowned climate scientists came to the conclusion that the climate sensitivity of greenhouse gases should be significantly reduced. Hans von Storch, researcher from the Helmholtz Centre in Geesthacht, admits: “First option: global warming is weaker because the greenhouse gases, especially CO2, have a lower impact than assumed. That does not mean that there is no man-made greenhouse effect, only that our influence on the climate system would not be as strong as expected. The other possibility: In our simulations we have underestimated how much the climate varies due to natural causes “.

In fact, there are good reasons for the global warming pause. Solar activity has reached a maximum in the second half of the last century. But since the last eleven-year solar cycle, solar activity has decreased dramatically, the solar maximum exited very quickly. The current solar cycle 24 is the weakest in 200 years.

Ocean currents shift into cold phase

Another crucial error by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was its failure to take into account the 60-year-old oceanic-atmospheric cycle of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). The ocean currents change in 30-year intervals between warm and cold phases. They are now moving into a cold phase in which they will remain until 2035. The natural temperature rise in the past was also blamed on CO2, and so scientists got the wrong predictions.

Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas; it causes a warming of about 1.1 degrees Celsius per doubling of its concentration. But catastrophic global warming of three to six degrees Celsius this century, which justifies energy policies that threaten the existence of local wildlife, is not to be feared.

The sacrifice of German forests may do for wind energy what the battle against the Whyl nuclear power plant was for Germany’s nuclear energy. None of the political parties represented in the German parliament intends to end this attack on the environment. However, the Green Party would feel the impact most if the growing protest movement against the destruction of nature were to raise this threat onto the political agenda.

Fritz Vahrenholt is the chairman of the German Wildlife Foundation and author of the 2012 bestseller “The Neglected Sun”. He is a member of the GWPF’s Academic Advisory Council.

Translation Philipp Mueller

 

Would you Mind Waiting Till the Wind blows, if you want Electricity? (but not too much)

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Of Unicorns & Pink Elephants: “Reliance” on Wind Power is Pure “Green” Fantasy

September 2, 2014 by  

Unicorn Drinking from a River

When it comes to their demand for electricity, the power consumer has a couple of basic needs: when they hit the light switch they assume illumination will shortly follow and that when the kettle is kicked into gear it’ll be boiling soon thereafter. And the power consumer assumes that these – and similar actions in a household or business – will be open to them at any time of the night or day, every day of the year.

For conventional generators, delivering power on the basic terms outlined above is a doddle: delivering base-load power around the clock, rain, hail or shine is just good business. It’s what the customer wants and is prepared to pay for, so it makes good sense to deliver on-demand.

But for wind power generators it’s never about how much the customer wants or when they want it, it’s always and everywhere about the vagaries of the wind. When the wind speed increases to 25 m/s, turbines are automatically shut-off to protect the blades and bearings; and below 6-7 m/s turbines are incapable of producing any power at all.

Even with the most geographically widespread grid-connected set of wind farms in the world (the 3,342 MW of wind power capacity connected to Australia’s Eastern grid across SA, Victoria, Tasmania and NSW) there are dozens of occasions each year when total wind power output struggles to top 2% of installed capacity – and hundreds when it fails to muster even 5% (see our posts here and here and here).

Now, if the power consumer was given advance warning of when these total output failures were going to occur, they might simply reconsider their selfish demands of having illumination after dark or that hot cuppa in the morning. That way, they might still consider wind power a “perfect substitute” for conventional power; and plump for the (purportedly cheaper) former over the latter every time?

But, so far, power consumers remain stubbornly selfish; wedded to the idea that when they hit the switch, their power needs will be satisfied that very instant (the cheek, hey?). And that’s where claims that wind power is a “substitute” for conventional generation fall in a heap.

Power delivered at crazy, random intervals (which in practical terms means no power at all, hundreds of times each year) is NO substitute for power delivered on-demand; anytime of the day or night; every single day of the year – and in volumes sufficient to satisfy all consumers connected to the same network, at the same time.

Wind power cannot, therefore, be considered a “substitute” for power which is available on-demand. With every MW of wind power capacity matched with a MW of conventional generation capacity at all times – needed to keep the grid stable by balancing the wild fluctuations in wind power output (see our post here) and to meet demand when output collapses to nothing (see our post here) – wind power is nothing but childish nonsense.

The only reason turbines have been slung up anywhere is in order for wind power outfits and their backers to reap a fat pile of taxpayer and power consumer subsidies. Here’s a take on the greatest rort of all time from the US.

Obama’s Green Unicorn
US News
Peter Roff
25 August 2014

The true cost of renewable energy is being masked by government subsidies and bailouts.

America is about as likely to become reliant on green energy to meet its baseload power requirements as a unicorn is to stroll down the middle of Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue during rush hour followed by a pink elephant.

It’s just not happening – but that’s hasn’t deterred the modern day snake oil salesmen and their allies inside the Obama administration from continuing to make a push for wind and solar power as an eventual replacement for energy generated from traditional sources like coal, oil and natural gas. Renewable technology has improved, no doubt, but it’s a long way away from being ready to make a substantial contribution to the heating of our homes and the powering of our businesses unless the generous tax subsidies that create the illusion of cost competitiveness continue.

There’s nothing wrong per se with the pursuit of renewable energy; it’s just that what it actually costs is being masked by taxpayer subsidies, federal loan guarantees and renewable fuels mandates at the state level that force power companies to put wind and solar into the energy mix, sometimes at two to three times what traditional power costs. Ultimately, one way or another, the taxpayers and energy consumers are footing the bill even if they don’t know it.

Congress has taken a few positive steps in the right direction. The federal Wind Production Tax Credit was allowed to expire at the end of the year, meaning new wind projects are going to have to be competitive at market rates to attract funding. Remember it was none other than billionaire Warren Buffett, the “Oracle of Omaha,” who explained recently to a group of investors that the tax credit was the only reason that any sensible person invested in wind projects in the first place.

Unfortunately, some federal agencies are trying to keep the program alive through the backdoor.

The worst offender in this regard may be the IRS, which recently issued new “guidelines” that make it even easier for wind projects currently in development to qualify for the tax credit on the basis of work already contemplated or completed. According to Politico, “The IRS says completed or in-progress facilities can be sold and the costs incurred by the seller will still count toward qualifying for the [credit], except in cases where tangible property (think equipment like wind turbines) bought for one project is sold and used at another site.”

To translate this into English, it’s a move to help keep the whole shell game alive until such time as wind power supporters can get the tax credit reauthorized. “There is a large pipeline of projects that were under development at some stage that by virtue of this guidance will be able to go forward. In that regard it is going to permit a lot of projects to be developed,” said one wind energy expert cited by Politico.

Outside groups are also weighing in, including the Sierra Club, which has targeted nine members of Congress in a pressure campaign over the August recess to push for re-authorization of the Wind Production Tax Credit. That is in addition to the online ad buys in 16 other districts that started in June.

The Democrats who run the Senate want to keep the now-expired credit alive and have, in the Senate Finance Committee, already approved a package of so-called “extenders” that would breathe new life into it. The House has thus far refused to go along – and kudos to Texas Republican Rep. Randy Weber, who deserves credit for successfully introducing an amendment to shut the whole business down permanently. But he’s not just fighting the lobbyists and green groups in favor of the credit, but the entire federal bureaucracy which, once a program has been established, is loath to let it die.

Major government investment in speculative green projects may have at one time made sense. But even if that were once the case, it is so no longer. The Obama green energy push has enriched more than a few politically well-connected liberals who used tax credits and government bailouts to enlarge their portfolios, but it has done little to make energy more abundant or lower costs to consumers, which is the justification in the first place to get the taxpayers involved.

If people want to build wind farms – on land or offshore – and they want to reap the benefits of their investments, then they should be willing to take the same risks as everyone else. The way the bureaucrats have it structured now, the taxpayers are making payments on both ends through subsidies for construction and higher rates on consumption. It’s a system only a bureaucrat could love.
US News

yacht

Wind Turbines Killing a Very High number of bats!

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BAT DEATHS PROMPT CHANGE AT WIND FARM

web1_BATDEATHS_081414jb_01.jpg

The Spring Valley Wind Farm as seen in the north Spring Valley near Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada on Thursday morning, Aug. 14, 2014. (Jason Bean/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

image

By HENRY BREAN
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

A White Pine County wind farm that sells power to NV Energy has been forced to change operations after its massive turbines killed triple the number of bats allowed under an agreement with federal regulators.

The 152-megawatt Spring Valley Wind Energy project about 260 miles northeast of Las Vegas killed an estimated 566 bats in 2013, so its operator agreed to change when the windmills kick on in hopes of reducing the number of deaths.

In June, the wind farm’s 66 turbines — each standing up to 425 feet tall — were adjusted on nights with high bat activity so they would only start turning when sustained winds reach about 11 mph instead of the usual “cut-in” speed of about 7 mph.

The move was designed to reduce the number bats killed in collisions with the spinning blades because “when it gets too windy, the bats aren’t flying as much,” said Paul Podborny, a field manager with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s office in Ely.

Podborny is scheduled to meet next week with Spring Valley Wind representatives to review whether the new operating protocols are working. If bats continue to die in unacceptably high numbers, additional measures might include increasing the number of nights the higher cut-in speeds are used, increasing the cut-in speed even more or shutting down the turbines altogether on nights when a lot of bats are active, he said.

Matt Dallas, spokesman for San Francisco-based Pattern Energy, which owns the wind farm, said the turbine speed adjustment results in a small reduction in power output, “but we are willing to accept this in order to reduce our environmental impact.”

In an email, Pattern’s director of environmental compliance, Rene Braud, said the vast majority of the bats were Mexican free-tail bats, “a very common and abundant species” that migrates by the millions through the Spring Valley each year and is not protected under federal law.

“The project has had no impact at all on any threatened or endangered bat species,” Braud said.

To environmentalists, though, the higher-than-expected bat deaths prove what they have said all along.

Rob Mrowka, senior scientist for the Center for Biological Diversity in Nevada, put it this way: “The Spring Valley Wind project is an important component of a renewable energy portfolio placed in absolutely the wrong location.”

CAVE OF CONCERN

The $225 million project went online in August 2012 as the first utility-scale wind farm in Nevada. It features 66 turbines scattered across more than 7,600 acres of federal land at the heart of the vast Spring Valley, which runs north-south for about 110 miles between the Schell Creek and Snake mountain ranges in eastern Nevada.

The facility was designed to generate enough electricity to supply about 40,000 homes, with NV Energy as its only customer for the first 20 years of operation. It drew stiff opposition from environmentalists.

The Center for Biological Diversity and the Western Watersheds Project sued to block construction in January 2011, accusing the BLM of skirting environmental regulations to fast-track the project. Settlement talks began after a federal judge refused to stop work to allow more study of the impact on bats and sage grouse, and the resulting agreement spelled out what Pattern must do to track and curb bird and bat mortality. It also set limits on the number of deaths allowed each year: 178 birds and 169 bats.

“To me, it was a compromise to both protect the bats and allow renewable energy to still be produced,” Mrowka said. “It is highly unlikely that without the agreement and without the vigilance by the conservation groups that any action would have been taken to protect the bats.”

Biologists think as many as 3 million Mexican free-tailed bats roost in Rose Cave, about five miles from the wind farm, on their southern migration to Central America from late July through early October.

Laser beams at the cavern’s mouth track the bats as they come and go. At peak times in August as many as 2,000 bats per minute leave Rose Cave.

Research suggests bats easily can navigate around stationary wind turbines, but not even echo-location will save some of them when the blades are turning.

Each of the 262-foot towers in Spring Valley holds a rotor the diameter of a football field. When one of its three blades is pointed straight up the structure stands taller than Planet Hollywood Resort on the Strip. Though the blades appear to spin slowly, their tips can reach 170 mph, churning the air into tornado-like swirls. Even a close call can be deadly for a bird or bat because sudden changes in barometric pressure cause their insides to explode.

FEWER BIRDS THAN BATS

While bat deaths at Spring Valley Wind were well above the mitigation threshold in 2013, bird deaths were well below it. The operation reported just 40 bird fatalities last year, though one in particular garnered widespread attention. A golden eagle was killed there in February, prompting an investigation by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and stoking national debate over the environmental trade-offs associated with the sort of large-scale green energy projects championed by the Obama administration in the face of climate change.

The Associated Press earlier this year documented the illegal killing of eagles around wind farms, the federal government’s reluctance to prosecute such cases and flaws in the regulatory framework.

In December, the Interior Department exempted wind farms from penalties associated with bald and golden eagle deaths for up to 30 years, provided companies obtain permits and make efforts to avoid killing protected birds.

The 30-year rule replaced an earlier version of the so-called “incidental take permit” implemented in 2009 to cover eagle deaths for up to five years. Wind energy developers argued the shorter-term permits created uncertainty that chilled investment in their projects. And since administration officials showed little appetite to penalize wind farms for killing eagles, no company ever bothered to get one of the five-year permits.

No other eagle deaths have been reported by Spring Valley Wind, but Podborny said even one more would be cause for concern and possible mitigation measures. Though bird deaths in general do not appear to be a problem at the facility, he said, “We still have to look at what species are being killed.”

Pattern Energy officials said they have been working with federal regulators since the eagle death. The company formally applied for a 30-year eagle take permit earlier this year. They expect the permitting process to last into 2015.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Contact Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350. Follow @RefriedBrea

Renewable Energy Targets Force Consumers to Use Inefficient, Unreliable, Overpriced Products!

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The crazy world of Renewable Energy Targets

Nothing makes sense about Renewable Energy Targets, except at a “Bumper-Sticker” level. Today the AFR front page suggests* the federal government is shifting to remove the scheme (by closing it to new entrants) rather than just scaling it back. It can’t come a day too soon. Right now, the Greens who care about CO2 emissions should be cheering too. The scheme was designed to promote an  industry, not to cut CO2.

UPDATE: Mathias Cormann later says “that the government’s position was to “keep the renewable energy target in place” SMH.  Mixed messages indeed.

We’ve been sold the idea that if we subsidize “renewable” energy (which produces less CO2) we’d get a world with lower CO2 emissions. But it ain’t so. The fake “free” market in renewables does not remotely achieve what it was advertised to do — the perverse incentives make the RET good for increasing “renewables” but bad for reducing CO2, and, worse, the more wind power you have, the less CO2 you save. Coal fired electricity is so cheap that doing anything other than making it more efficient is a wildly expensive and inefficient way to reduce CO2. But the Greens hate coal more than they want to reduce carbon dioxide. The dilemma!

The RET scheme in Australian pays a subsidy to wind farms and solar installations. Below, Tom Quirk shows that this is effectively a carbon tax (but a lousy one), and it shifts supply — perversely taxing brown coal at $27/ton, black coal at $40/ton and gas at up to $100/ton. Because it’s applied to renewables rather than CO2 directly, it’s effectively a higher tax rate for the non-renewable but lower CO2 emitters.

Calculating the true cost of electricity is fiendishly difficult. “Levelized costs” is the simple idea that we can add up the entire lifecycle cost of each energy type, but it’s almost impossible to calculate meaningful numbers. Because wind power is fickle, yet electricity demand is most definitely not, the real cost of wind power is not just the construction, maintenance and final disposal, but also the cost of having a gas back-up or expensive battery (give-us-your-gold) storage. It’s just inefficient every which way. Coal and nuclear stations are cheaper when run constantly rather than in a stop-start fashion (just like your car is). So the cost of renewables also includes the cost of shifting these “base load” suppliers from efficient to inefficient use — and in the case of coal it means producing more CO2 for the same megawatts. South Australia is the most renewable-dependent state in mainland Australia, and it’s a basketcase (look at the cost stack below). Real costs only come with modeling, and we all know how difficult that is.

If the aim is really the research and development of renewables (and not “low CO2″) then I’ve long said that we should pay for the research and development directly, not pay companies to put up inefficient and fairly useless versions in the hope that companies might earn enough to pay for the research out of the profits. Tom Quirk points out that it’s all frightfully perverse again, because most innovations come from industry, not government funded research, but in Australia we hardly have any industry making parts used in power generation — we don’t have the teams of electrical engineers working on the problem anymore. I suppose the theory is that Chinese companies will profit from solar panels and do the R&D for us (keeping “our” patents too)? It would be cheaper just to gift them the money direct wouldn’t it — rather than pay an industry to produce and install a product that no one would buy, which doesn’t work, and hope that the “profits” translate into discoveries that will produce royalties and jobs for people overseas. I’m sure Chinese workers and entrepreneurs will be grateful. Yay.

Meanwhile, Green fans have suddenly discovered the idea of sovereign risk (where were they while the Rudd-Gillard team blitzed Australia’s reputation for stable, predictable policy?). According to the AFR, the government is scornful (and rightly so):

The government source said the market was oversupplied with energy and there was no longer any cause for a mandated use of any specific type of power. The source said while there would be investment losses if the RET was abolished, or even scaled back, investors “would have to have been blind to know this wasn’t coming’’.

On Catalaxy files, Judith Sloan mocks the Fin for pushing a press release from a rent-seeking firm, and guesses the Abbott government will be too “gutless” to ditch this economic and environmental dog of a policy.

—   Jo