Prof Sir David MacKay’s Last Interview, Tells of the Futility of Wind Turbines!

May 4, 2016 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Wind turbines and solar panels are a waste of money if Britain wants reliable low carbon electricity supplies through the winter, the late Professor Sir David MacKay said in his final interview.

Prof MacKay, who served as chief scientific advisor to the Department of Energy and Climate Change for five years until 2014, died from cancer last month.

In an interview with the science writer Mark Lynas, filmed 11 days before his death and released posthumously, Prof Mackay said the “sensible thing” for the UK to do was to focus on nuclear and on carbon capture and storage technology, which traps the emissions from power stations.

He criticised the “appalling delusion” that renewable sources of power could simply be scaled up and paired with battery storage to provide all the UK’s energy needs, citing the high costs and large areas of land that would be required.

Wind turbines — Prof Sir David MacKay said there was no point building wind turbines if the country had enough low-carbon energy to cope with periods of no wind ADRIAN DENNIE/AFP/GETTY

Prof MacKay was renowned in the energy world for his bookSustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air, which examined the potential limitations of renewable power, but said he had “always tried to avoid advocating particular solutions”.

However in his final interview – in which he stressed he would be “content with any plan that adds up” – he set out for the first time his own recommendation for “the rational thing to do in the UK”, explaining: “Maybe [as] the time is getting thinner, I should call a spade a spade.”

“For the UK, I think we want a zero carbon solution and it has to work in the winter,” he said.

The British public also seemed to care about the cost of energy, he said, so “we should be looking for a low carbon solution that is low cost”.

Prof MacKay said: “If you just cost-optimise and say it has to keep working in the winter, even if there’s no wind for seven days at time and obviously no sun… the sensible thing to do for a country like the UK, I think, is to focus on carbon capture and storage (CCS), which the world needs anyway, and nuclear.

“Then if you ask, what is the optimal amount of wind and solar to add in as well? The answer is going to be almost zero.”

Prof MacKay said he loved wind turbines, describing them as “the cathedrals of the modern age”, but said that if the country managed to build enough low-carbon supplies to get it through periods of no wind or sun in winter, then there was “actually no point in having any wind or solar”.

Wind turbines were a “waste of money” in that scenario since “when the wind blows you are going to have to either turn those wind turbines down or something else down that you have already paid for like the nukes or the CCS”, he said.

While advocates of renewable technologies often cite the potential for electricity storage to deal with their intermittency, Prof MacKay said that balancing wind-based power supplies would require “hundreds of flooded valleys” for hydroelectric storage.

Powering the UK from solely solar and batteries would require “absurdly large” batteries, while the cost of battery technology would need to come down “by a factor of 100” for it to be a realistic option, he said.

He alleged that solar panels had been subsidised in the UK against the advice of civil servants, due to their popularity with MPs and the work of solar lobbyists.

However, Prof MacKay emphasised that the best energy solutions would vary from country to country depending on their demands and political priorities.

Solar panels were a “really good idea” in hot countries where solar power supplies correlated with times of high demand, he said, while a combination of wind and storage might make sense in a country where “price doesn’t matter”.

Professor Sir David MacKay, physicist – obituary

Wind Projects Destroy Farming Communities!

April 20, 2016 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Want Hate-Filled Communities? Then Just Add Wind Farms

April 20, 2016 by stopthesethings

The wind industry, its parasites and spruikers keep telling us that rural communities are falling over themselves to get in on some wind farm action. However, as usual, theirSPIN and the reality on the ground are miles apart.

Nancy Tips details how wind farms destroy the trust and faith that make vibrant and prosperous rural communities tick.

Lessons about community from Windham
Burlington Free Press
Nancy Tips
7 April 2016

It has become a cliche to say, towns targeted for industrial wind installations are torn apart by the experience. If it’s an experience you haven’t had, you might well wonder what’s behind the cliche. If you really want to understand, you might start by asking the question, what is the nature of the bonds that hold a community together in the first place?

I don’t know about your small town, but in ours, neighborly bonds tend to be of the feel-good type: I do you a kindness and we both benefit. You break your leg? I plow your drive. Your weed whacker is in the shop? I lend you mine. Your brother dies? I go to the funeral, even if I didn’t know him. What a dandy fellow I am, and everyone knows it.

These small acts of kindness do indeed build a sense of community. But as with other relationships, you don’t really know your community until the chips are down.

You don’t know what “for better or for worse” means until you get to the “worse” part. You quickly find out, when a wind developer comes knocking on your community door.

It’s very bad times, at least for some people. And the fact that people are differently affected depending on where they live is, it turns out, at the heart of what you learn about “community.”

You learn when the friend from over the way regards you with a steely gaze when you tell him, “My home, and my family’s home, are a half mile from five 500-foot tall wind turbines.” “I feel for you,” says your friend, quickly changing the subject.

You learn when you try to explain that your fear and sadness are keeping you awake. “All my family’s wealth is in our family farm, which would lie less than 3,000 feet from five 40-story wind turbines. We won’t be able to live here, and the land owner and developer have said they wouldn’t compensate anyone for lost use of their property.” “Please,” chuckles your friend, “it won’t be that bad.”

You learn when you look at the people who are fighting as hard as you are to stop the wind turbine project and realize that the project will probably not affect them so personally, but that they care about their neighbors who will be harmed. And you know they will be next to you, blocking the road, if the day comes when the unimaginably huge trucks arrive with wind turbine parts.

In our little town, we’ve spent nearly four years watching the company reps of the wind developer, an immense multi-national, mosey about on our ridgeline, trying to answer their precious question, is the “wind resource” on your pristine ridgeline enough for us to make lots of money by putting turbines here?

But we have a question too, and although we’ve looked equally hard for the answer, we can’t find it.

Our question is, what will happen to us, as individuals and as a community, if the developer does decide we’re good enough to “host” their project? Who will care for our tattered community, and our damaged lives?

That there is no answer to, or even interest in, our question does not feel good – it feels abusive, unjust. It feels vicious, violent. It feels as if Vermont, my entire family’s beloved adopted home, were the most dangerous place in the world for me and my family to live.

So the days go on, lessons abounding. I learn about mercy, for instance, when I hear my husband on the phone with a “friend,” explaining that turbine noise at a distance of less than half a mile stands a good chance of affecting the development of my infant grandson’s brain. Then I hear my husband, suddenly fierce, say, “I’m not asking you to feel sorry for me!”

Well you know what, my friend? I am asking you to feel sorry for me. I am asking you, god forbid, to have pity on me. I am asking for your mercy. Your answer will tell me something very important about “community.”
Burlington Free Press

Not a Tear is Shed, When Windweasels Bite the Dust!

April 12, 2016 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Ponzi Power: US Wind Power Company – Sun Edison – Implodes

April 12, 2016 by stopthesethings

****

STT has likened it to the great corporate Ponzi schemes, pointing out, just once or twice, that the wind industry is little more than the most recent and elaborate effort to fleece gullible investors, in a list that dates back to “corporateinvestment classics”, like the South-Sea Bubble and Dutch tulip mania.

In the wind industry, the scam is all about pitching bogus projected returns (based on overblown wind “forecasts”) (see our posts here andhere and here and here); claiming that wind turbines will run for 25 years, without the need for so much as an oil change (see our posts hereand here and here); and telling investors that massive government mandated subsidy schemes will outlast religion (see our posts here andhere and here).

In Britain, Wind Prospect Group stopped paying dividends to its bond holders and prevented them from cashing them in to recover their capital outlay:

Got Money in the Great Wind Power Ponzi Scheme? Then, Grab it & Get Out Now!

In Australia, one of the wind industry’s BIG players – Pacific Hydro – managed to rack up an annual loss of $700 million, in 2014; in circumstances where the subsidy scheme – on which its profits depend – hadn’t changed at all (see our post here).

Following that well-established trend is US wind power outfit, Sun Edison; whose shares have plummeted from US$32 to a faction of a single greenback, is on the verge ofbankruptcy. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

Share Price Plunges for Operator of Maine Wind Farms Amid Bankruptcy Concerns
MPBN News
Fred Bever
29 March 2016

The operator of several wind energy facilities in Maine could be headed for bankruptcy. But Sun Edison officials say the turbines will keepspinning, and providing taxes and other benefits [read misery ed.] to host communities.

Since hitting a high of $32 per share last June, Sun Edison’s stock has been on a downward spiral, and has now dipped well below $1 a share following reports that it faces a substantial risk ofbankruptcy while securities regulators investigate itsbusiness practices.

But even if Sun Edison does file for bankruptcy or is restructured, company spokesman John LaMontagne says that does not pose a risk for host communities in Maine.

That’s because the plants themselves are actually owned by separate entities.

“All of those projects have existing contracts to deliver wind energy to utilities around New England,” he says. “So therefore they have certain revenues which ensure the projects will be able to meet their obligations in terms of community benefits, taxes and whatever else.”

Sun Edison operates six wind plants in Maine, including one under construction in Bingham. It has also proposed two new big projects as part of a major effort to ship new renewable energy to southern New England.

But LaMontagne said he could not comment on how those might be affected by Sun Edison’s financial issues.
MPBN News

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SunEdison’s Subsidy-Fueled Collapse
National Review
Robert Bryce
4 April 2016

The company burned no fossil fuels but plenty of taxpayer dollars.

Even $1.5 billion in subsidies andloan guarantees can’t save a “clean” energy company frombankruptcy.

That’s the takeaway from the looming failure of SunEdison, a company that touts itself as the “largest global renewable energy development company.” Once a darling of Wall Street and the green Left because of SunEdison’s portfolio of wind and solar projects, the company’s stock is now in free fall. Furthermore, two related companies that were spun off from SunEdison — TerraForm Global and TerraForm Power — also appear to be in financial distress. On March 30, Brian Wuebbels, the CEO of both TerraForm companies, resigned effective immediately. If all that weren’t enough, the company is also under investigation by both the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission about its finances and the disclosures it made to investors.

Last summer, SunEdison’s shares were selling for more than $30, and famous Wall Street investors, including David Einhorn and Daniel Loeb, were holding the stock. But by Friday afternoon, the company’s shares were trading for about 49 cents apiece, and Bloomberg writer Brian Eckhouse was reporting that the company was “teetering on the verge of bankruptcy.”

Why is SunEdison on the verge of failure? The short explanation is simple: It tried to grow too big, too fast. Over a 19-month period it went on a $2.6 billion acquisition binge. It paid too much for the companies it bought and now it can’t pay back its creditors. SunEdison has twice delayed the release of its 2015 annual report and appears to be intechnical default on at least $1.4 billion inloans and credit facilities.

To be sure, this isn’t a new story. The annals ofbusiness history are filled with companies that failed because they borrowed too heavily and didn’t have enough cash to pay back their creditors. But the remarkable thing about SunEdison is how much cash it was able to get from state and federal taxpayers during its low-emissions trip to bankruptcy court.

Before getting to the subsidies, a quick history. SunEdison was founded in 2003 by solar-energy promoter Jigar Shah, who is no longer an officer or board member at SunEdison. Shah was an early entrant in the domestic solar market, which has since grown at an astonishing rate. In 2003 the U.S. had about 73 megawatts of solar-energy capacity. By 2014, that figure had increased to 18,280 megawatts. During his time at SunEdison, Shah helped the company grow through the implementation of 20-year power-purchase deals that assured investors and buyers of long-term electricity delivery from renewable-energy projects.

Shah deserves some credit as a promoter. He also deserves a smidgen of credit for his new-found belief that solar subsidies should be eliminated. That said, it’s abundantly obvious that his company’s growth was fueled by hefty federal and state subsidies. That can be seen by looking at Subsidy Tracker, a project of Good Jobs First, a Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit that promotes “corporate and government accountability in economic development.” According to Subsidy Tracker, SunEdison has garnered some $650 million in federalgrants and tax credits. SunEdison ranks number 13 on Good Jobs First’s list of the top 100 recipients of grants and tax credits doled out by federal authorities since 2000.

The biggest federal handouts — two of them totaling $200 million — were made in 2010 and 2011 to a subsidiary of SunEdison, First Wind, for the Milford Wind project in Utah. In addition to the federal subsidies, SunEdison got $30 million in subsidies from various state authorities, including $21 million from governmental entities in New York. On top of that, SunEdison also received $846 million in federal loans,loanguarantees, tax-exempt federal bonds, and federal insurance. The total government support for SunEdison comes out to $1.5 billion.

That’s a figure worth considering, given that on Friday, the market capitalization of SunEdison — that is, the value of all of its outstanding stock — was about $176 million. Thus, federal and state taxpayers have shelled out roughly eight times as much money in subsidies andloanguarantees as SunEdison is now worth.

Alas, SunEdison isn’t the only example of how federal taxpayers have helped prop up poor management in the “clean energy” sector. Earlier this week, the Spanish energy company Abengoa SA filed for Chapter 15 protection in U.S.bankruptcy court in Wilmington, Del., claiming some $16.5 billion in debt. Like SunEdison, Abengoa has been a leading promoter of solar projects in the U.S. According to Subsidy Tracker, Abengoa has received $986 million in federalgrants and tax credits, as well as another $7.8 million in state and local subsidies. The bulk of that sum — about $841 million — was for solar projects. But the company has also collected about $122 million in federal grants for biofuel projects in Kansas, Illinois, and Nebraska. Several of Abengoa’s biofuel plants have already been shuttered, including a plant in Hugoton, Kans., that was supposed to be making cellulosic ethanol (that is, alcohol made with non-food feedstocks). Abengoa was able to build the Hugoton plant thanks to a $97 million federal grant and a $132 million federal loan guarantee.

In all, Abengoa got some $2.6 billion in federal loans and loan guarantees as well as $986 million in federal grants and tax credits. Thus, between the collapse of Abengoa and the looming bankruptcy of SunEdison, federal taxpayers have shelled out some $5 billion in direct grants and loan guarantees to lousy management teams in subsidy-dependent businesses that would never have grown to their current size had they not been able to binge on taxpayer cash.

Critics of the federal government’s support for “clean energy” companies have repeatedly claimed that the government shouldn’t be “pickingwinners.” To that, I can only say that the evidence — from the failed solar company Solyndra and failed battery companies like Ener1 and A123 to SunEdison and Abengoa — proves that the government hasn’t in fact, been pickingwinners. Quite the opposite.
National Review

Green/Greed Energy Act, a Travesty in Ontario!

April 11, 2016 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Projects ‘a disaster’

By Elliot Ferguson, Kingston Whig-Standard

Sunday, April 10, 2016

PLEVNA — A Brule Lake resident is challenging some of the arguments the Ontario government is using to support its push to build more renewable energy projects.

Chris Albinson responded to Tuesday’s announcement by the Ontario government that it was launching the second phase of its Large Renewable Procurement.

Phase 2 of the Large Renewable Procurement program announced Tuesday called for up to 930 megawatts of green energy to be added to the province.

Contracts for Phase 1 of the program were offered in March and amounted to about 455 megawatts.

In the announcement, the government said green energy projects had created 42,000 jobs since 2003 and reduced carbon dioxide emissions.

Albinson said neither statements are true and the Liberal government’s Green Energy Act has hurt the province’s economy and increased the cost of electricity for residents and businesses.

“The Green Energy Act was a nice idea that has turned into an economic catastrophe through gross mismanagement and corruption,” he wrote in an email to The Whig-Standard.

Albinson said reports from the province’s auditor general show the expectations about the job creation, environmental benefit and economic value of the renewable energy projects in Ontario are greatly overestimated by the Liberal government.

“Any rational government would look at the facts and the auditor general report and stop the program,” he wrote. “In the bizarre thinking of this government, they are doubling the size of the disaster.”

In 2011, then Ontario auditor general Jim McCarter pointed out that while the Green Energy Act promised 40,000 jobs would be created by renewable energy products, most were short term and that estimate did not account for job losses in other sectors.

“However, about 30,000, or 75 per cent, of these jobs were expected to be construction jobs lasting only from one to three years,” McCarter wrote in his 2011 report.

Government estimates of green energy job creation also did not factor in job losses from other sectors of the economy because of higher electricity prices.

“A 2009 study conducted in Spain found that for each job created through renewable energy programs, about two jobs were lost in other sectors of the economy,” McCarter’s report stated.

Another 2009 study from Denmark noted “that a job created in the renewable sector does not amount to a new job but, rather, usually comes at the expense of a job lost in another sector.” The renewable energy job is often heavily subsidized, the study showed.

Albinson also questioned the government’s assertion that the additional renewable energy will reduce the province’s carbon dioxide emissions.

Again, he referred to reports from the auditor general that showed renewable energy sources — mainly wind and solar — rely on unpredictable weather and must bebacked up by electricity from gas-powered generation stations and nuclear power plants.

In her 2015 report, Ontario auditor general Bonnie Lysyk pointed out that the electricity sector in 2012 produced 14.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide, about nine per cent of the province’s total emissions. Transportation and industry produce 34 per cent and 30 per cent, respectively.

“According to the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, emission reduction is important, but the cost of reducing emissions from the electricity sector should be evaluated against initiatives taken to reduce emissions from other, higher-emitting sectors such as the transportation industry,” Lysyk wrote.

“Reducing emissions from cars and trucks could very well be more cost-effective than reducing emissions through phasing out coal plants and procuring renewable energy at expensive prices.”

“It is almost as if the Ontario Liberal government has adopted a Donald Trump approach — even if you are lying and everyone knows you are lying, you just have to keep saying it long enough and loud enough that people believe you,” Albinson wrote.

Wind Scam Always Results in “Energy Poverty”….Heat, or Eat!

April 9, 2016 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind Power Costs Crush the Poor

April 9, 2016 by stopthesethings

The rush to ‘power’ modern economies with a Medieval ‘technology’, abandoned Centuries ago for pretty obvious reasons, has brought with it a banquet of consequences: not least, ‘energy poverty’.

That term is one that has only come into common parlance with the soaring cost of electricity, caused by throwing $billions at a wholly weather dependent power source which, but for those massive subsidies, has NO commercial value whatsoever: wind power operators in Australia’s wind power capital, South Australia, literally pay the grid operator to take their chaotically produced power, andmake a profit from the RECs they receive.

There’s an irony in there somewhere, as the ‘policies’ that have wrecked power markets and left grids on the brink of collapse, have been pedalled by so-called political ‘progressives’. However, the only ‘progress’ is towards thoroughly avoidable social and economic misery.

The graph above tells of Germany’s self-inflicted catastrophe, the graph below shows the cause as the wind rushes that broke out, not only in Germany, but in Denmark too.

Now, here’s a piece from Andrew Follett that tallies up the cost for those who can least afford it.

How the poor bear the brunt of Europe’s obsession with global warming
The Daily Caller
Andrew Follett
25 March 2016

European global warming policies are hurting the continent’s poor, according to a Manhattan Institute study published Thursday.

Europe has tried to fight global warming with cap-and-trade schemes and lucrative financial support to green power since 2005. Though well-meaning, the continent’s environmental efforts have only made life harder for Europe’s poor.

“The European Union’s renewable-energy policies have had one very clear result: they’ve dramatically raised electricity prices,” Robert Bryce, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who authored the study, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Between 2005, when Europe adopted these policies, and 2014, residential electricity rates on the continent increased by 63 percent according to the study. Over the same period, residential rates in the U.S. rose by 32 percent. Germany, Spain and the U.K, which intervened the most in their energy markets, saw their electricity bills rise the fastest,according to the study.

The poor tend to spend a higher proportion of their incomes on electricity, gasoline, food and other basic needs. Furthermore, when the price of electricity increases, the cost of producing goods and services that use electricity increases too. Thus, high electricity prices effectively increase the price of most basic goods.

European-style global warming policies hurt the poor 1.4 to 4 times more than they hurt the rich, according to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“Environmental advocates like to claim that Germany is the role model we should emulate, even though Germany’s residential customers are now paying about 40 cents per kilowatt-hour for their electricity,” Bryce continued. “That’s more than three times the average cost of electricity here in the US.”

Brits alone paid a whopping 54 percent more for electricity than Americans in 2014 while energy taxes cost residents roughly $6.6 billion every year. Green energy subsidies in the U.K regularly exceed spending caps and account for roughly 7 percent of British energy bills, according to government study released last July.

Polling indicates that 38 percent of British households are cutting back essential purchases, like food, to pay for high energy bills. Another 59 percent of homes are worried about how they are going to pay energy bills.

“Policymakers in New York and California, as well as more recently, Oregon, have decided to emulate the EU’s mandates,” Bryce concluded. “If they are concerned about poor and low-income constituents, they should be rethinking those mandates.

The study also illustrates that between 2005 and 2014, Europe reduced its carbon-dioxide emissions by 600 million tons per year. Over that same period, the combined emissions of China, India, Indonesia, and Brazil increased by 4.7 billion tons per year, or nearly eight times the reduction achieved in Europe.
Daily Caller

Definition of “Wind Turbines”….from an “Honest Encyclopedia”

April 8, 2016 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind turbine:

Wind turbine is the modern day windmill which is marketed as a clean energy solution to replace power from fossil fuel plants. The addition of multiple wind turbines in the same geographical location is referred to as a wind farm. The sales pitch…wind turbines power millions of homes with wonderful “free” energy. The truth is a much different story. “The wind power industry claims switching from conventional power to wind power will save consumers money and spur the economy. However, data from the top 10 wind power states show just the opposite.” ^[1]

Cost breakdown

Wind energy from turbines are power generating losers when compared to other technologies such as coal, hydro, gas and nuclear. One giant downside is no wind, no power generation. Sources say you need at least 10MPH wind speed to generate power and speeds in excess of 50MPH will shut down turbines to prevent damage. ^[2] Industry promoters often paint a rosy picture of the benefits of wind power when other sources claim as little as 8% of usable generation.

Not widely known but wind turbines actually use electricity from the grid (coal/gas/hydro/nuclear) to power their hydraulic systems that keep the blades facing in the same direction as the wind. In freezing weather conditions, electricity from the grid is used to keep the bladesspinning at low speeds as a method of de-icing.

The misconception is that youinstall a wind turbine and it will pay itself off within a decade. From that point out, it is a net energy gain at a fraction of a cost. Nothing can be further from the truth. Constant costs are involved to maintain these mechanical structures; Overheating bearings, plastic that melts, gallons of brake oil leaking, gallons of hydraulic fluid leaking, ^[3] blades that fall off, towers that collapse, replacement of yaw gear drives, bearings, gearboxes, and generators. The cost to put out wind turbine fires, some self-extinguish themselves out but others need fire departments to extinguish turbines and put out the brush fires below.

The cost to manufacture wind turbines prevents any offset gained transitioning to a ‘clean’ energy environment. ^[4]

“

A two-megawatt windmill contains 260 tonnes of steel requiring 170 tonnes of coking coal and 300 tonnes of iron ore, all mined, transported and produced by hydrocarbons.

”

Landscape, seascape wildlife costs are a major downside to power from wind. Eagles, bats, birds of all kinds are killed in the thousands by wind blades. Their rotting carcasses litter the ground below. Estimates place the number of birds killed by wind turbines at 30 million per year. ^[5]

In Ontario Canada, every turbine destroys 3 acres of land, roughly 21,000 acres of farmland. ^[6]

Wind Turbine Syndrome

Many people living within 2 km (1.25 miles) of thesespinning giants get sick says a peer-reviewed study by the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. ^[7] Low frequency noise and infrasound appear to be the chief disease-causing culprit according to Dr. Nina Pierpont. In Wisconsin, a study showed noise emanating from the turbines was detectable inside homes within a 6.2-mile radius of the industrial wind plant and declared wind turbines a health hazard. ^[8]

Government Subsidies and Crony Capitalists

Billions of taxpayer dollars are being shoveled into this inefficient scheme in order to promote Global Warming agendas at the expense of real power sources and the tens of thousands of jobs they replace. Government subsidies keep the growth of wind turbine construction alive and keep this technology running afterinstalled. Without government financial involvement, wind turbines become to costly to operate, go idle and start rusting the landscape. Without government funding, investors sell theirinvestments and shelve plans to expand.^[9] The UK’s Labour party insists that wind turbines can’tmake a profit without subsidies. ^[10] Tax credits are given to companies that manufacture, to companies thatinstall/maintain, to municipalities that own the property. The IRS is giving away $13 Billion per year in wind energy subsidies.^[11]

The world’s biggest billion dollar corporations, such as General Electric and Siemens, are reaping the investments made in subsidized wind turbine construction. The U.S. government has laid the groundwork for an endless welfare system devoted to big wind companies. ^[12]

External links

References

It Should Never Have Taken This Long, to Stop the Windscam!

April 8, 2016April 8, 2016 / 1957chev / 2 Comments

08/04/16

German Government ‘Plans To Stop

And Reverse Wind Power’

China Plans To Export

Cheap Energy To Europe

If the green energy plans by the German Federal Government are implemented, the expansion of onshore wind energy will soon come to a standstill and then go into reverse. In early March, German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel presented a draft for the amendment of the Renewable Energies Act (EEG). The new rules regulate the subsidy levels for renewable energy. The new regulations are to be adopted in coming months. A study by consultants ERA on behalf of the Green Party’s parliamentary group concludes that under these provisions the development of wind energy will collapse fairly soon. –Frank-Thomas Wenzel, Berliner Zeitung, 7 April 2016

China’s proposed investments in long-distance, ultra-high voltage (UHV) power transmission lines will pave the way for power exports as far as Germany, the head of the national power grid said on Tuesday as he launched an initiative for cross-border power connections. Talk of exporting power is a reversal for China, which as recently as 2004 suffered rolling blackouts across its manufacturing heartland. But huge investments in power in the decade since, and the construction of a number of dams, nuclear reactors and coal-fired plants due to begin operating in the next 10 years, mean the country faces a growing surplus. –Lucy Hornby, Financial Times, 31 March 2016

Renewables….Never More than “Novelty Energy”!

March 29, 2016 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Renewables are useless: The Evidence is Overwhelming

Eric Worrall / March 29, 2016

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Al Gore has a problem. He seems to want people to believe that only climate skeptics oppose renewables. The truth is, a small but growing number of prominent greens, openly acknowledge that renewables in their current form are not a scalable replacement for fossil fuels.

In Al Gore’s announcement of a climate witch hunt, titled “AGs United for Clean Power”, Al Gore said the following;

I really believe that years from now, this convening by attorney general Eric Schneiderman and his colleagues today, may well be looked back upon as a real turning point, in the effort to hold to account those commercial interests that have been, according to the best available evidence, deceiving the American people, communicating in a fraudulent way, both about the reality of the climate crisis and the dangers it poses to all of us, and committing fraud in their communications about the viability of renewable energy and efficiency, and energy storage, that together are posing this great competitive challenge to the long reliance on carbon based fuels.

Does Al Gore plan to prosecute James Hansen, Kerry Emanuel, Ken Caldeira and Tom Wigley for Fraud?

To solve the climate problem, policy must be based on facts and not on prejudice. The climate system cares about greenhouse gas emissions – not about whether energy comes from renewable power or abundant nuclear power. Some have argued that it is feasible to meet all of our energy needs with renewables. The 100% renewable scenarios downplay or ignore the intermittency issue by making unrealistic technical assumptions, and can contain high levels of biomass and hydroelectric power at the expense of true sustainability. Large amounts of nuclear power would make it much easier for solar and wind to close the energy gap.

Will the green believers at Google Corporation join James Hansen in the dock, when Al Gore prosecutes people who think renewables are not up to the job?

At the start of RE<C, we had shared the attitude of many stalwart environmentalists: We felt that with steady improvements to today’s renewable energy technologies, our society could stave off catastrophic climate change. We now know that to be a false hope … Renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.

Will Al Gore prosecute Rob Parker, president of the Australian Nuclear Association, for claiming renewables aren’t up to the job?

“My concern is that renewables won’t get us across the line in terms of emissions reduction,” said Rob Parker, the president of the ANA. “Nuclear is more reliable and it has a smaller resources footprint than renewables.

How about the British Government, whose relentless pursuit of renewables has utterly messed up the British energy market?

The second phase of modern energy policy began when Tony Blair signed the Renewable Energy Target in 2007.

What has this left us with?

We now have an electricity system where no form of power generation, not even gas-fired power stations, can be built without government intervention.

And a legacy of ageing, often unreliable plant.

Perversely, even with the huge growth in renewables, our dependence on coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, hasn’t been reduced.

If Al Gore succeeds in using government bullying, to silence critics of renewables, the same disaster could easily occur in the United States.

Perhaps Al Gore’s real target are the practitioners of the “strange new form of denial”, the growing green schism which opposes the push for 100% renewables, as vigorously as any climate skeptic.

There is no evidence that renewables in their current form are a viable replacement for fossil fuels. But there is plenty of evidence that nuclear power delivers results. Nuclear power, the zero emission alternative to renewables, has been economically supplying 75% of France’s power since the 1970s. Nuclear power works, and works well. France demonstrated by doing, that mass production and economies of scale makes nuclear power affordable.

If the whole world copied what France did in the 1970s, by 2030 the world could cut billions of tons of CO2 emissions, without destroying the global economy.

If you are someone who cares about CO2 reductions, you should listen to scientists like James Hansen, who plausibly claim that nuclear power is the route to decarbonisation, not to scientific illiterates like Al Gore.

Are Birding Societies Finally Waking Up???

March 29, 2016 / 1957chev / 2 Comments

National bird advocacy group targets Niagara County wind turbine project

By Mark Belcher, News 4 Digital Producer

Published: March 28, 2016

Geese — FILE – In this Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012, file photo, migratory birds fly over Mad Island, Texas. Energy companies blamed for the deaths of migratory birds may be harder to prosecute under a century-old law that a federal court in September 2015 ruled applies only to intentional killings. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan, File)

SOMERSET, N.Y. (WIVB) — A project by Apex Clean Energy to erect wind turbines in Niagara County has fallen under the radar of the American Bird Conservancy.

According to the group, a vast number of migratory songbirds and raptors rely on the area to breed and find food. The group says putting up 570-foot-tall structures will see many birds die when they collide with the new turbines.

The group suggests it’s one of the top 10 worst locations for a planned turbine site in the nation currently, and has urged Apex Clean Energy to look elsewhere.

It’s not yet clear if their voices have been heard, or if the allure of the breeze off Lake Ontario is simply overwhelming it.

The American Bird Conservancy says Apex continues to move forward with its studies as it makes a case to build.

Windpushers Bury the Truth About Health Effects from Wind Turbines!

March 26, 2016 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Health repercussions due to windmills being kept under wraps…

C. TORDESILLAS

Update Date: Mar 21, 2016

Leaving near wind mills can cause migraine and other health problems

(Photo : Photo: Flickr/vrot01)

An ex-health director of Brown County in Wisconsin is among the latest who have reported health problems related to wind power.

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According to a USA Today report, Chua Xiong claimed in an email that she gets migraine headaches when she visits Duke Energy’s Shirley Wind Farm. Her revelation came just as developers are eyeing more high-profile wind farm projects in Wisconsin. Xiong has since retired.

Brown County Citizens for Responsible Wind Energy (BCCRWE) claims that the email, sent by Xiong to an intern on Nov. 21, is further proof that the low-frequency sound from wind turbines caused some residents to suffer from health problems.

However, Xiong later stated the following month that there isn’t sufficient evidence to link the turbines to the migraine. That caused the BCCRWE to claim that Xiong made the statement in order to avoid litigation with Duke Energy, and that her inaction will result in the prolonged daily suffering of Brown County residents.

There are a long line of reports that wind turbines are causing health problems to those who live nearby.

In an article published by National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) entitled “Adverse health effects of industrial wind turbines”, it was reported that people who live or work near industrial wind turbines have experienced decreased quality of life, annoyance, stress, sleep disturbance, headache, anxiety, depression, and cognitive dysfunction. Suggested causes of symptoms include a combination of wind turbine noise, infrasound, dirty electricity, ground current, and shadow flicker.

In a 2009 article by The Telegraph, a New York paediatrician, Dr Nina Pierpont, identified about 12 different health problems associated with WTS that range from tachycardia [abnormal heart beat], sleep disturbance, headaches, tinnitus, nausea, visual blurring, panic attacks with sensations of internal quivering to more general irritability.

She said that the vibration and noise emitted by wind turbines can produce a range of symptoms which she has named “Wind Turbine Syndrome” or WTS.

Pierpont observed that the illnesses associated with WTS would disappear when the person moves away from the wind turbines.

She said she expected that the wind industry would try to discredit and disparage her for the statements.

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