wind and solar

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Energy Dept. decision knocks wind out of

proposed Lake Erie wind farm: Brent Larkin

LEEDCo-wind-turbine-barge.JPG
The Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation (LEEDCo) in May 2013 analyzed samples of the Lake Erie lake bed where the nonprofit company plans to build six 3-megawatt wind turbines. LEEDCo suffered a setback in early May when the U.S. Department of Energy awarded major development grants to three coastal offshore wind projects and gave the Cleveland project $3 million for additional development work. (Howard Tucker, Grossi Public Relations, File, 2013)

Brent Larkin, Northeast Ohio Media GroupBy Brent Larkin, Northeast Ohio Media Group 
on May 30, 2014 at 5:43 AM

There may come a time when it’s a good idea to produce electricity by putting windmills in Lake Erie a few miles northwest of downtown.

But the U.S. government has concluded that time is not now.

Nor may it ever be. At least not in the lifetime of anyone reading this piece.

Using our abundance of fresh water in ways that secure Greater Cleveland’s economic survival should always be at or near the top of the region’s list of priorities. As should exploring ways for a cleaner, greener Cleveland.

But read the next three paragraphs very carefully.

There are 534,899 households in Cuyahoga County. Installing five or six wind turbines seven miles out would generate enough power to light a maximum of 6,100 of those households.

The cost is pegged at about $150 million. In Cleveland dollars, that means overruns would push the final figure past the $200 million mark. That doesn’t include annual maintenance costs of about $5 million.

Because businesses and manufacturers always use between 30 percent and 40 percent of the power produced, the wind turbine pilot project would produce about 0.5 percent of the county’s required electricity.

Given the enormity of the region’s problems, it’s tough to justify that expenditure – even taking the long view.

Nevertheless, windmill supporters haven’t given up the chase. Even as business leaders who know how to read a bottom line have quietly backed away, proponents – led by the Cleveland Foundation – have refused to follow the lead of other Great Lakes citiesand scale back their grandiose plans.

So, on May 7, the U.S. Department of Energy did it for them.

In a stinging rebuke, the government rejected Cleveland’s application for a huge pot of federal money essential to help pay for the wildly expensive idea. Instead, the Energy Department awarded up to $47 million each to three projects off the coasts of New Jersey, Oregon and Virginia.

Cleveland received a booby prize of about $3 million for more design work.

When the wind turbine planning turned serious nearly a decade ago, the initial goal was to have them up and spinning by the end of 2011. But the warning signs about this project have been out there for years – signs many of the project’s boosters conveniently chose to ignore.

A $1 million feasibility study released five years ago this month and paid for, in part, by local taxpayers, warned that the high capital and operating costs of offshore wind would require significant funding from the Energy Department and philanthropic organizations. Former County Prosecutor Bill Mason, a prominent proponent of the idea at the time, admitted being staggered by the cost estimates.

The study, conducted by Juwi GmbH, a German company that develops wind energy projects, also warned, “In general the ice coverage on Lake Erie has a significant influence on the ability to perform major corrective maintenance. . . . Limited accessibility by service vessels during the ice season reduces turbine availability to produce electricity.”

There’s no way to spin the Energy Department’s decision not to fund the Cleveland project as anything less than a gigantic setback. And Lorry Wagner, president of theLake Erie Energy Development Corp., the nonprofit charged with making this project a reality, doesn’t mask his “disappointment” over the Energy Department’s decision.

Nevertheless, in an interview, Wagner repeatedly warned against interpreting that decision as an insurmountable setback, framing the issue as an effort to build an industry around wind turbines that creates jobs in a city that’s lost two-thirds of its population.

“So I would ask you to make sure your readers understand that, while this is challenging, we are not going away. It’s just too important for the entire region. It’s too important for our future to see if we can create jobs in the area and clean up the environment.

“We are moving forward. We’re looking at other options. We are driven by leaving this place a better place than when we came in and making a difference.”

Make no mistake. The wind turbine project is a much closer call than former Gov. Ted Strickland’s snail-speed rail plan that would have spent billions in tax money for a Cleveland-to-Cincinnati train that averaged 39 miles an hour. That boondoggle died a merciful death on Election Night 2010.

But it’s time for the folks at LEEDCo to be a lot more forthcoming about their timetable, and provide the public with a whole lot more details about how they might find the quarter of a billion dollars needed to pay for it.

Absent that, they should pull the plug.

Larkin was The Plain Dealer’s editorial director from 1991 until his retirement in 2009.

 

The Wind Scam is Sucking Billions of Dollars out of our Economies…..All for Naught!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Big Wind’s Totally Bogus Subsidy Adventure

May 29, 2014 by 

bill and ted

If time-travelling teens from the future (a world where wind farms had long since been cut up for scrap) lobbed into 2014, they’d be “totally bummed out” at what must have happened to our collective intelligence to end up with giant fans at centre-stage of today’s “modern” energy policy.

They’d think the idea of trying to run first world economies on wind power “a most heinous error”.

And they would, quite rightly, regard the idea of pouring $billions of tax payers’ and power consumers’ money at these things to be “totally bogus, dude”.

Here’s the US News on “Big Wind’s Totally Bogus Subsidy Adventure”.

Big Wind’s Bogus Subsidies
US News
Nancy Pfotenhauer
12 May 2014

Giving tax credits to the wind energy industry is a waste of time and money.

Despite being famous for touting the idea that the rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes, investor Warren Buffet seems to be perfectly fine with receiving tax breaks for making investments in Big Wind. “I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate,” Buffet told an audience in Omaha, Nebraska recently. “For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”

But while the wind production tax credit may be great for Buffet’s bottom line, it’s harmful for American taxpayers and energy consumers.

The credit’s proponents say that tax breaks for green energy technologies will encourage innovation, but they fail to acknowledge that Washington’s history on these handouts and tax breaks for green energy have consistently failed. For example, we cannot control when or how much the wind blows, and it just so happens that it tends to blow when we need it least. On average, wind energy facilities operate at just 30 percent of their capacity and must be backed up by more reliable forms of energy such as natural gas. Instead of producing energy solutions that can survive and thrive in the marketplace, we’re left with botched green energy projects that have brought us no closer to our energy goals.

If private companies like Berkshire Hathaway are not willing to jump in without government incentives, it is a sign that the energy technology is a bad investment. It simply does not make sense for the government to subsidize energy technologies that are economically unviable, while attempting to restrict other options that provide reliable and affordable energy for everyday Americans.

We’ve all heard the saying, “there is no such thing as a free lunch,” and the very same adage applies to government subsidies. By arguing that that tax credits are needed to create jobs, proponents overlook what the rest of the economy gives up in exchange.

When lawmakers give special tax breaks to their friends and favorite industries, they shift the burden onto everybody left in the tax base. While subsidies may allow wind turbine makers to pump up their payrolls, the rest of the economy suffers as a result. The subsidy diverts labor and capital away from productive areas of the economy, which slows overall economic growth. With only a 0.1 percent GDP growth rate in the first quarter of 2014, slowing down is not a viable option.

Despite the statements of subsidy supporters, artificially propping up industries has a very real cost.

Not only are federal wind subsidies a colossal waste of money and detrimental to the economy, but they subsidize an industry that is actually harmful to the environment. The alleged goal of incentivizing “green energy” industries is to help protect the environment, but with wind energy comes a slew of environmental problems. For example, it is estimated that wind turbines in the U.S. kill up to 328,000 birds annually, and, last year alone, wind turbines killed 600,000 bats. What’s more, the amount of land needed for wind farms to be effective is staggering. For New York City to be powered by wind alone, every square meter of Connecticut would need to become a wind farm.

After expiring at the end of last year, Big Wind’s bread and butter subsidy – the production tax credit – is moving through Congress again. The Senate Finance Committee recently agreed to a measure that would retroactively extend it, which is likely to pass on the Senate floor. On the other side of Capitol Hill, the House Ways and Means Committee is poised to consider similar legislation later this summer – a package that extends the expired tax breaks. Unlike their colleagues in the Senate, representatives on the committee should hold firm and ensure that this handout for the wind energy industry stays out of the package.

Outside the Beltway, people are starting to notice the tax credit’s negative effects. Led by groups like Americans for Prosperity and the American Energy Alliance, there is an overwhelming opposition to wind subsidies at the grassroots level. (Full disclosure: I sit on AFP’s Board of Directors.) Leading up to the tax credit’s scheduled expiration last November, a diverse coalition of more than 100 organizations sent a letter to Congress, asking them to let the credit expire. American families are increasingly upset that subsidies for wind energy make them pay more and more when their energy bills come due each month.

Congress should stand up to special interests in the wind energy industry and oppose efforts to resurrect expired wind subsidies. Their constituents didn’t send them to Washington to enact policies that cost jobs, distort the energy market, and drive up energy bills – but by repeatedly extending the tax credit, that’s exactly what they’re doing.

At the end of the day, competition and free markets should shape U.S. energy policy, not handouts or favors for special interests like Big Wind.

Despite being famous for touting the idea that the rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes, investor Warren Buffet seems to be perfectly fine with receiving tax breaks for making investments in Big Wind. “I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate,” Buffet told an audience in Omaha, Nebraska recently. “For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”

But while the wind production tax credit may be great for Buffet’s bottom line, it’s harmful for American taxpayers and energy consumers.
US News

Bill and Ted_3_bogus

Alarmists Claim that CO2 is a Harmful Gas….Because they have their Own Agenda!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

May 30, 2014

The regulatory death of energy in America

By Alan Caruba


Before President Obama took office in 2009, the amount of electricity being produced by coal-fired utilities was approximately fifty percent of the total. Today it is approximately forty percent and, when the Environmental Protection Agency regulations take effect as of June 2, more such utilities are likely to close their doors. The basis for the regulations is utterly devoid of any scientific facts.

Environmentalism, as expressed by many of the organizations that advocate it is, in fact, an attack on America, its economic system of capitalism, and its need for energy to maintain and grow its business and industrial base. Electricity, of course, is also the energy we all use daily for a multitude of tasks ranging from heating or cooling our homes to the use of our computers and every other appliance.

The EPA regulations are said to be necessary to reduce “greenhouse gas” emissions, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2) which the Greens deem to be a “pollutant” in our atmosphere. It is not a pollutant, despite a Supreme Court decision that identifies it as such, but rather a gas vital to all life on Earth, used by all vegetation for its growth. CO2 is to vegetation what oxygen is to all animal life. Humans, all seven billion of us, exhale CO2!

Viv Forbes, the Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition and a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, notes that the Earth’s atmosphere “is not a greenhouse” and “does not have a glass roof. It uses convection to redistribute heat very quickly.” The claim for several decades has been that CO2 has an effect on the Earth’s surface temperature, but Forbes points out that “water vapor is a far more effective agent for insulating the Earth and preserving its warmth than carbon dioxide,” adding that “there is no evidence that man-made carbon dioxide is a significant cause of global warming.”

Indeed, even though the amount of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere has increased, Forbes points out that “Close examination of past records shows that temperature tends to rise before carbon dioxide content rises, sometimes centuries earlier.” Significantly, at the same time Greens have been crying out against emissions of CO2 from coal-fired utilities and other sources, the Earth has been in a cooling cycle now verging on eighteen years!

The EPA is lying to Americans regarding carbon dioxide and, worse, its proposed regulations will reduce the number of coal-fired utilities and drive up the cost of electricity for Americans.

One of the many Green organizations, Earthjustice, claims that “Climate change threatens the world as we know it – and the chief culprit is fossil fuel burning. To avert ecological disaster, Earthjustice is pushing for a shift from dirty to clean energy to stabilize our climate and build a thriving sustainable world.”

There is literally nothing that mankind can do to “stabilize” the Earth’s climate. While the Earth has been going through climate change for 4.5 billion years, there is no evidence that anything mankind does has any effect on it. The change the Earth has encountered, as mentioned, is a cooling, a far different scenario than the “global warming” claims of the past three decades or more.

Tom Richard, the editor of ClimageChangeDispatch.com, notes that “Arctic sea ice has rebounded to higher and higher levels each year. Antarctica is actually gaining in size and there has been no increase in droughts, tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, ‘extreme weather,’ flooding, et cetera.”

Reducing CO2 would have zero benefits while, at the same time, the EPA regulations would have a dangerous and totally unnecessary effect on CO2 emissions from plants producing electricity. Other nations around the world are actually abandoning “clean energy.” i.e., wind and solar power, in favor of building many more coal-fired plants to meet their need to provide energy for their populations and their economic growth. China and India are just two examples.

To support its claims of the forthcoming EPA regulations, EarthJustice is claiming that climate change “hits people of color the hardest” and that power plants “disproportionately impact Latino communities.” It noted “the moral obligation of faith community to act on climate change and support carbon pollution limits.” This has nothing to do with the actual facts of climate change and CO2 as noted here and is a blatant political campaign to secure support from these groups.

The reality, as noted by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a policy research organization founded by former Senate leaders from both parties, was quoted in the May 26 edition of The Wall Street Journal saying “A 25% reduction (of CO2) with a 2015 baseline might make it impossible for some companies to operate,” noting that the cap-and-trade policies of emissions allowances that the EPA is putting in place “amounts to a hidden tax” on a whole range of electrical generation and industrial plants that produce CO2 emissions. The EPA will likely use the term “budget program” to avoid “cap-and-trade,” a proposal that was rejected by Congress.

Writing in Commentary, Jonathan S. Tobin, said that the new regulations on carbon emissions “will have a potentially devastating impact on America’s more than 600 coal-fired power plants” noting that “the move was made possible by Supreme Court decisions that ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency had the right to regulate (CO2) emissions, giving the President virtual carte blanche to remake this sector of our economy without requiring congressional consent.”

In July, the Heartland Institute, a free market think tank, will hold its ninth international conference on climate change. Previous conferences have brought together some of the world’s leading authorities on meteorology and climatology to debunk the decades of lies Greens have told about climate change and global warming.

The President has put “climate change” high on his list of priorities and it is an attack on the nation’s ability to affordably and extensively provide the energy needed to meet current needs for electricity and reducing our capacity to meet future needs.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is on record saying that the President’s bogus “climate change” policy could cost the U.S. economy $50 billion a year and force more than a third of coal-fired plants to close by 2030. The Heritage Foundation says “The plan will drive up energy prices for American families and businesses without making a dent in global temperatures.”

This is a form of regulatory death for the nation and comes straight out of the Oval Office of the White House.

© Alan Caruba

Residents “Fed Up”, with Unaffordable Wind Turbines. Want them to compete!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

A Pushback on Green Power

By MAY 28, 2014

Wind turbines that collect renewable energy, set in a pasture in Van Wert County, Ohio, are visible for miles.Laura J. Gardner/The Journal Gazette, via Associated Press
As renewable energy production has surged in recent years, opponents of government policies that have helped spur its growth have pushed to roll back those incentives and mandates in state after state.

On Wednesday, they claimed their first victory, when Ohio lawmakers voted to freeze the phasing-in of power that utilities must buy from renewable energy sources.

The bill, which passed the Ohio House of Representatives, 54 to 38, was expected to be signed into law by Gov. John R. Kasich, who helped negotiate its final draft.

It stands in marked contrast to the broad consensus behind the original law in 2008, when it was approved with virtually no opposition, and comes after considerable disagreement among lawmakers, energy executives and public interest groups.

Opponents of the mandates argued, in part, that wind and solar power, whose costs have plunged in recent years, should compete on their own with traditional fossil fuels. But the debate has taken on a broader, more political tone as well, analysts say, with disagreements over the role of government, the economic needs of the state and the debate over climate change.

Wind turbines in Ohio, where the House voted to freeze the phasing-in of renewable energy for two years.Laura J. Gardner/The Journal Gazette, via Associated Press

“It used to be that renewables was this Kumbaya, come-together moment for Republicans and Democrats,” said Michael E. Webber, deputy director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. “The intellectual rhetoric around why you would want renewables has been lost and replaced by partisanship.”

Since 2013, more than a dozen states have taken up proposals to weaken or eliminate green energy mandates and incentives, often helped by conservative and libertarian policy or advocacy groups like the Heartland Institute, Americans for Prosperity and the American Legislative Exchange Council.

In Kansas, for example, lawmakers recently defeated a bill that would have phased out the state’s renewable energy mandates, but its backers have vowed to propose it again.

Jay Apt, director of the Electricity Industry Center at Carnegie Mellon University, said the Ohio battle was “another skirmish in the question of whether we are committed to cleaning up pollution, and people are divided.” He added, “Renewable portfolio standards and other mechanisms of pollution control are not cost-free.”

The Ohio bill freezes mandates that require utilities to gradually phase in the purchase of 25 percent of their power from alternative sources, including wind, solar and emerging technologies like clean coal production, by 2025. While the freeze is in effect for two years, a commission would study the issue.

At the federal level, alternative energy industries like solar and wind have pushed hard in recent years to preserve important tax breaks that they say have helped spur new development and sharply increased the supply of clean energy flowing into the grid.

But the demand for that energy has been largely propelled at the state level by mandates, known as renewable portfolio standards, that generally set goals for utilities to increase the percentage of green energy they include in the power they buy for their customers.

Roughly 30 states have the standards, which can range from modest voluntary goals like Indiana’s target of 10 percent by 2025 to more aggressive requirements like Hawaii’s, which aim for 40 percent by 2030, according to the Department of Energy.

“Energy markets are highly policy-driven,” said Todd Foley, senior vice president of policy and government relations at the American Council on Renewable Energy. “When states and even the federal government continually revisit these policies, it sends a signal of uncertainty. It chills market and investment momentum.”

In Ohio, where opponents of the mandate argued that it raised the price of electricity and supporters worried about the loss of economic development and jobs, Mr. Kasich worked to broker the compromise bill, said a spokesman for the governor.

“We rejected the efforts by those who’d like to kill renewable energy altogether, and instead we’re moving forward in a balanced way that supports renewable energy while also preserving the economic recovery that’s created more than 250,000 jobs,” the spokesman, Rob Nichols, said. “It’s not what everyone wanted, which probably means we came down at the right spot.”

Eli Miller, Americans for Prosperity’s Ohio state director, backed by the billionaire industrialists David H. and Charles G. Koch, called the proposed law “a prudent step” to re-examine standards that could be a “potential impediment to job creation and job growth here in the Buckeye State.”

But Gabe Elsner, executive director of the Energy and Policy Institute, a pro-renewables group that sees efforts to weaken incentives and mandates as part of a campaign by utility and fossil fuel interests, said the temporary halt could do away with the law entirely.

“The fossil fuel and utility industry has been caught off guard by the rise of cheap, clean energy, and over the past 18 months they’ve responded in a really big way across the country,” he said. “We’re seeing the results of that campaign now in Ohio.”

Renewable energy still represents a small fraction of the overall energy mix, reaching about 6 percent of net generation in 2013, according to the United States Energy Information Administration. But it is on the rise, representing 30 percent of power plant capacity added that year.

For renewable developers, the outlook is uncertain. Michael Speerschneider, chief permitting and public policy officer for EverPower, which recently won approval to develop a 176-turbine project in Ohio, said the ruling would make it more difficult to find a buyer for the power, dimming prospects for doing business in the state.

“We came to Ohio based on the policies that were in place,” he said. “Changing that now, freezing it, just sends a message that says, ‘Now, we don’t want you here anymore.’ ”

Rural Ontario Fights Back Against Wind Turbine Fiasco!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Agricultural issues take centre stage at all-candidates forum in Listowel

By Mike Beitz, The Beacon Herald

Thursday, May 29, 2014 10:16:15 EDT AM

Perth-Middlesex candidates, from left, Irma DeVries (Family Coalition), Matthew Murphy (independent), Romayne Smith Fullerton (NDP), Chris Desjardins (Green), Randy Pettapiece (Progressive Conservative), Robby Smink (Freedom) and Stewart Skinner (Liberal), participate in a forum in Listowel Wednesday night hosted by the Perth and Middlesex federations of agriculture. (MIKE BEITZ, The Beacon Herald)

Perth-Middlesex candidates, from left, Irma DeVries (Family Coalition), Matthew Murphy (independent), Romayne Smith Fullerton (NDP), Chris Desjardins (Green), Randy Pettapiece (Progressive Conservative), Robby Smink (Freedom) and Stewart Skinner (Liberal), participate in a forum in Listowel Wednesday night.
A small group of protesters with “Stop the Turbines” and “Not a Willing Host” signs standing outside of the St. Joseph’s Parish Centre in Listowel Wednesday night foreshadowed a key issue that would be discussed inside. Industrial wind turbine projects were raised several times during a well-attended all-candidates forum hosted by the Perth and Wellington federations of agriculture. But it wasn’t until well into the evening that the seven participating provincial candidates – Irma DeVries (Family Coalition Party), Matthew Murphy (independent), Romayne Smith Fullerton (NDP), Chris Desjardins (Green Party), Randy Pettapiece (Progressive Conservative Party), Robby Smink (Freedom Party) and Stewart Skinner (Liberal Party), were asked directly if they support them. Predictably, none of them gave an outright yes. Murphy suggested several times that turbines belong offshore, where their impact on communities would be minimized, and also advocated for more local control over where they’re located. “I think you have a right to say, ‘We don’t want them nearby. We don’t want them here,'” he said. Smith Fullerton agreed with the need for more local control, and suggested that the issue has been “devastating” for rural Ontario. The NDP would consult with the auditor general to determine if contracts could be opened up again, she added. Desjardin argued that wind turbine projects should be “community owned,” with the community deciding where they’re placed. When told by someone in the audience that 70 Ontario communities have declared themselves unwilling hosts for wind turbines, he looked shocked. “We do want the community to say where they’re going, and if you’re an unwilling host, I guess they’re not going in your community,” said Desjardins. Pettapiece said it was unfortunate that wind turbine opponents in rural Ontario are given the NIMBY (not in my backyard) label. “We would cancel the FIT program that deals with these projects,” he said, “and we would certainly investigate the contracts that have been handed out on anything that’s not hooked up to the grid.” Smink, who prefaced most of his responses with a criticism of government interference, did the same when describing his stance on the “windmill idiocy.” “This is exactly the type of problems that you have when you have big government basically telling you how to run your life,” he said. DeVries, who repeated a similar “smaller government” mantra throughout the evening, said the Family Coalition Party would introduce legislation to restore the rights of municipalities to refuse turbines. Even Skinner, whose Liberal Party implemented the Green Energy Act, said that changes are in order, particularly when it comes to protecting fertile soil like those found in Perth-Wellington. “Going forward, I’m going to advocate for protection for prime farmland, that we’re not placing turbines on good Class 1 and Class 2 lands,” he said, adding that he would push for minimum distance separation between turbines and livestock operations. His suggestion that neither he nor any of the other candidates could stop the controversial wind turbine projects planned just outside of Listowel, and that “it’s done,” prompted a sharp response from the crowd. “It’s not done,” several people called out loudly. The wind turbine issues was just one of a number of rural-focused topics on which the candidates were quizzed at the forum Wednesday. Preserving prime agricultural land, extending natural gas lines to rural areas, keeping electricity rates affordable, protecting front-line health care workers and supporting agriculture education in schools were just a few of the issues on which there was general – but not total – agreement. The candidates are expected to square off again tonight in Stratford at a forum organized by the Stratford and District Chamber of Commerce. mike.beitz@sunmedia.ca ​

DownWind is an Amazing Opportunity, to Educate the Public! Don’t Miss It!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Canadians Fight Back Against Ontario’s Wind Farm Onslaught

May 30, 2014 by 

Ezra Levant_jpg_1274831cl-8

Canada’s Sun News was among the first news outfits worldwide to grasp the scale and scope of the great wind power fraud; and the associated harm inflicted on hard-working rural people. And Sun’s Ezra Levant led the charge, doing what real journalists do: getting the truth out, despite the efforts of those who seek to profit from burying it (check out this broadcast).

Exposing the wind industry for what it is, Sun has produced a truly ground-breaking documentary on how wind power outfits have fleeced power consumers for $billions, while happily destroying the lives hundreds of farming families across Ontario.

The documentary, “Down Wind” will screen on Wednesday, on 4th June; and will be available online, thereafter. Here’s the trailer:

Meanwhile, Kevin Marriott, Mayor of Enniskillen has reminded residents of their right to remain silent, in a clever effort to stymie a developer’s ability to subsequently claim that it had “consulted” with those whose lives it is hell-bent on destroying. Fair call, Kevin.

The “community consultations” run by developers are nothing more than occasions for baseless wind industry propaganda delivered by a pack of lying, sociopaths (see our post here).

These are the people that publicly feign genuine interest in community “concerns”, but are quick to ridicule, bully and berate anyone who has the temerity to point out that losing the ability to sleep in one’s own home due to the incessant low-frequency noise generated by giant fans isn’t a “concern”, it’s a State sponsored and funded crime (see our post here).

Here’s the Sarnia Observer on the Ontario community back lash.

Mayor urging township residents to not speak to wind developers
Sarnia Observer
Paul Morden
15 May 2014

Enniskillen Township residents should feel free to exercise their right to remain silent when wind energy companies come calling, says Mayor Kevin Marriott.

EDF EN Canada has reportedly been approaching residents and groups about its Churchill Wind Project proposal, a 100 to 150-MW wind farm it wants to build in Enniskillen and neighbouring Plympton-Wyoming.

Marriott said he turned down a request from the company to meet with township council, and urged others in the community to do the same.

“We’re unwilling hosts,” Marriott said. “We’re not interested, end of discussion.”

Enniskillen was among approximately 80 Ontario municipalities declaring themselves unwilling hosts for wind turbines after the provincial government said it was changing how it awards renewable energy contracts.

The 2009 Green Energy Act took away municipalities’ planning powers for wind projects, leading to an outcry from many rural communities and municipal councils. Last year, the province said a new system of awarding renewable energy projects will require companies to work with municipalities.

“It will be very, very difficult for a developer to be approved without municipal engagement, in some significant way,” Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli said last June.

But, Marriott said that until the province clarifies what it means by municipal engagement, “We’re being vigilant.”

He advised the anti-wind turbine group, Conservation of Rural Enniskillen (CORE), against meeting with the company.

“I said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t consult with them because they may be able to use that as a check mark,’” Marriott said.

“Who knows what could be construed as public consultation.”

CORE also ran newspaper ads urging township residents to not speak with wind company representatives.

Lambton County has 14 wind turbines in Lambton Shores and Brooke-Alvinston Township, but construction has begun on the 92-turbine Jericho wind project, and Suncor Energy is awaiting provincial approval for its 46-turbine Cedar Point project. Both new projects sit north of Highway 402 in Lambton.

Brooke Leystra, president of the Lambton Federation of Agriculture, said it also turned down the wind company’s request to meet because the group represents farmers on both sides of the turbine debate.

“We didn’t want it to be misconstrued as us working with them, in any way,” Leystra said.

By early June, Ontario is expected to finalize its plan for awarding contracts for up to 300 megawatts of new wind-generated electricity this year, and a similar amount in 2015.

“The government has been really wishy-washy on what this new process does consist of,” Marriott said.
Sarnia Observer

And here’s a fantastic letter from Martina Hayward that captures the seething rage that’s building across Ontario.

Letter to southwesternontario.ca
14 May 2014

We are not willing hosts
Dear Editor:

Influenced to write yet another article overflowing with concerns related to the Goliath that is Industrial Wind, I feel burdened yet galvanized to transcribe the Whole Truth.

The article in the Regional Country News appears to praise the encroachment of these industrial skyscrapers as a “new crop” that must be “liked or lumped.” I, for one, decline the offer to endure these monuments of destruction.

Apparently “owners of the land eventually will share in a harvest of the wind.” The yield we will be forced to consume is the serious, irreversible harm to human health, animal health and the natural environment.

The repercussions of these mechanized tempest power plants seems untold as of late. Perhaps the season of Truth harvest has also arrived.

Communities worldwide are sadly experiencing the environmental, social and economic impacts of wind projects. These towers are merely a tool for energy companies and investment banks to make billions of dollars in subsidies that are subsequently added to the existing debt.

Industrial wind turbines do not reduce greenhouse gases or fossil fuel use. They can reduce your property values by 40 per cent or more.

The Green Energy Act overrides ALL local laws and grants foreign corporations unrestricted power to DO whatever they want, WHEREVER they want. The Canadian Wind Energy Association requested the Ministry of the Environment EXCLUDE the measurement of Low Frequency Noise at wind development sites. Low Frequency Noise has been found to cause nausea, headaches, dizziness, vertigo, tinnitus, memory and concentration problems, fatigue, sleep disturbances in humans. In animals such as goats, it just kills them dead. Sheep, horses, cattle are all afflicted similarly.

According to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Section 7, “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person, and the right not to be deprived thereof, except in accordance with the principle of fundamental justice.” Section 7 also “guarantees life, liberty and personal security of all Canadians.” It also “demands that governments respect the basic principles of justice whenever it intrudes on those rights.”

Finally, the article in Regional Country News quotes NextEra’s site safety manager, Tim Cole: “We have to win the hearts and minds of the community by being nice.”

Well, Mr. Cole, is it nice to break the hearts and beleaguer the minds of hard-working people in our communities?

I conclude, absolutely not. We are NOT WILLING HOSTS. No still means no.

Please take the time to read Wind Turbine Syndrome (Dr. Nina Pierpont) and The Constitution Act of 1982 (The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms), and Acoustics Today Winter 2014, and go towww.howgreenisthis.org. Educate yourselves.

Martina Hayward,
Priceville

Mandated subsidies for wind power is a policy that is inherently unsustainable. Any policy that is unsustainable will be scrapped or surely fail: it’s only a matter of time.

In the meantime, keep fighting, Martina: justice and sanity will soon prevail.

churchill hell

Wind Turbines May Leave Scotland, “In the Dark”!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

More wind farms could lead to blackouts

OPPONENTS of wind farms have claimed that the increasing reliance on them could plunge Scotland into darkness.

By: Rod Mills

Published: Thu, May 29, 2014

Wind Farms, Green Energy, Scotland, Scottish Power, Blackouts, Energy, Electricity, Current, Power, As the debate around green energy rages, some are claiming Wind Farms would darken Scotland[ALAMY]

The Scottish Government is considering more than 40 applications for major projects, which could clear the way for nearly 1,000 turbines.

Each wind farm could produce enough electricity to power thousands of homes, but objectors claim that even if just some of them were approved, the grid would become overloaded and trigger blackouts.

Campaigners cite the Czech Republic, which installed security breakers near its border with Germany, because its network could not cope with the electricity produced by its neighbours during peak periods.

The anti-wind farm lobby says a surge of electricity from turbines caused by high winds was to blame for a power cut last month that affected 200,000 properties in parts of the Highlands and islands. The overload claims have been dismissed by the National Grid and energy giants Scottish Hydro Electric said it had positively identified the cause of the blackout as faulty equipment in a substation.

There is no evidence that adding more onshore wind generation will lead to blackouts.

Michael Rieley, of Scottish Renewables

Campaigner Lyndsey Ward, of Kiltarlity, near Inverness, said: “With other countries safeguarding their grids from the dumping of unwanted wind energy by neighbours, the Scottish Government is taking us for fools if they think we blindly believe what they say.”

SNP ministers are examining 41 applications for developments of 50 megawatts or more, a total of 966 giant turbines, including 10 in the Highlands, one each in Moray and the Western Isles and three in Argyll and Bute.

Andrew Mackay, a campaigner and electrical engineer from Tain, Easter Ross, said that when it was blustery, turbines produced “junk” electricity that could not be used. He said: “We are going to get more power cuts because more and more junk electricity will end up on the grid.”

But Michael Rieley, of Scottish Renewables, said: “There is no evidence that adding more onshore wind generation will lead to blackouts.” A spokesman for Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission said last month’s blackout was caused by a faulty relay.

He said: “Our investigation identified that the outage was triggered by a mal-operating electronic relay within Knocknagael substation, south of Inverness. A review of the network has been completed and we are confident that the cause has now been addressed.”

Related articles

A National Grid spokeswoman said it was unlikely a surge in wind-produced electricity would cause a blackout, and a Scottish Government spokesman said: “Claims on overloading the grid are incorrect. The transmission owners are obliged under their licence to ensure that the electricity network is planned, operated and maintained to the required quality and security of supply standards at all times.”

Lord Deben of Winston, formerly Conservative minister John Selwyn Gummer, said yesterday that the UK had already approved enough onshore wind turbines to meet legally binding climate change targets.

The Tory peer is the UK government’s chief climate adviser.

 

101, (out of over a Billion) reasons NOT to Vote for Wynne & the Liberals!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

 


Title - Chris Savard
Choose Cornwall
Follow OurHometown.ca on... Follow Us on Facebook Follow Us on Twitter Follow us on RSS Follow Us with E-Mail Updates!
Ontario Election: 101 reasons not to vote for Kathleen Wynne
By Chris Savard

OurHometown.ca
Ontario Election: 101 reasons not to vote for Kathleen Wynne
The reality is that this $5 million in funding for children with special needs is literally a drop in Lake Ontario compared to the wasteful spending practices of the McGunity-Wynne Liberals over the last 11 years. This amount works out to the equivalent of less than $50,000 per riding across the province.
PHOTO CREDIT – KathleenWynne.ca

Stoney Point – May 20, 2014 –OurHometown.ca recently received a media release from the Ontario Liberal Party, touting how they plan to invest an additional $5 million to help children with special needs. The release went on to say that NDP leader Andrea Horwath has put this funding at risk by not supporting the budget.

The reality is that this $5 million in funding for children with special needs is literally a drop in Lake Ontario compared to the wasteful spending practices of the McGunity-Wynne Liberals over the last 11 years. This amount works out to the equivalent of less than $50,000 per riding across the province.

In 2007 when I ran for a seat in the provincial legislature, I heard from many families who expressed concern about the lack of support and length of wait times for assistance for children with Autism. Since that time, our son Tristan has been diagnosed with autism. While I thought I understood the magnitude of the problem then, I most certainly do now.

We have been told that Windsor-Essex has some of the shortest wait times in the province, yet Tristan has been on the wait list for over 18 months for IBI therapy. The coordinators and therapists we deal with are great but their hands are tied on how quickly the list can move simply because there is not enough money to meet the ever growing demand. Current stats suggest that 1 in 68 children will be diagnosed with autism.

Needless to say, the release from Kathleen Wynne hit a nerve with us, as we can see the wasteful spending and how it detracts from assistance for children like Tristan. In this instance, I am drawing analogies to the special needs funding shortfall but there are countless other provincial priorities that could put additional funding to good use – health care, education, job development, tourism and the list goes on.

The Liberals are running a tag line on their website today – “What Leadership is”. How ironic.

I was recently sent a list compiled by Marilyn E. Taylor of McGuinty-Wynne scandals and poor management practices. It clearly provides 101 reasons not to vote Liberal on June 12th.

Green Energy Act (20 billion)

eHealth scandal (almost 2 billion)

Gas plant scandal (1.1 billion theft and cover-up of our tax dollars)

Deleting e-mails

ORNGE scandal (700 million)

Ontario Northland Railway scandal (820 million)

Caledonia Hydro Line scandal (116 million)

Lobbyist scandal (two multi-million dollar scandals)

Eco-Fee Reversal scandal (18 million)

CancerCare Ontario scandal (millions of dollars)

Slush Fund scandal (32 million)

Niagara Falls Commission scandal

Ontario Power Generation scandal

Children’s Aid Society scandal

Nanticoke Coal Power Plant Shutdown scandal

G20 Secretly Approved Police Power scandal

Auto Insurance scandal

Foreign Scholarships scandal (our students pay the highest tuition in Canada while foreign students get free university educations)

Offshore Wind Turbines scandal

Samsung scandal (sole-sourcing)

Pan Am scandal (cost increase from 1.4 to 2.5 billion)

MPAC scandal (over and under-valuation of properties)

OLG scandal (millions of dollars)

Isotape Shortage scandal

Chemotherapy Dosage scandal

Payout for Pan Am CEO (250 million)

Trillium Wind Power and Sky Power Limited lawsuit (500 million)

Cement company lawsuit (275 million) – Quarry outside Hamilton was scuttled for political reasons

School bus service lawsuit

Augusta/Westland lawsuit as it pertains to ORNGE

Elliot Lake Collapse lawsuits (two lives lost due to recovery delays)

Ontario Medical Association lawsuits – applied to Superior Court alleging McGuinty not negotiating in “good faith”

Breast Screening scandal (ensuing lawsuits due to thousands of misread mammograms, one life lost)

Class-action lawsuit for autism funding cancellation

Over 650 new agencies, boards, commissions and entities such as LHIN’s and CCAC’s

Over 300,000 new public servants many of whom, are on the sunshine list

Public sector employment in health care increased by 39%

Public sector employment in social services increased by 39%

Public sector employment in education increased by 34%

Paying more Liberal taxes only to receive fewer services as taxes now being spent to pay the salaries and perks of newly-assigned, Liberal-friendly public servants

Gutted our manufacturing base (job growth across Canada except in Ontario)

Nearly one million Ontarians now out of work

Increased spending by 80% while our economy grew by only 9%

More than doubled our debt to 288 billion

Running a 11.3 billion annual deficit

Debt servicing costs will rise from 11.4 billion today to 14.5 billion once the debt exceeds 300 billion by 2017-18

Interest payments on our debt now the third largest budget expenditure after health and education

Task Force on Competitiveness, Productivity and Economic Progress confirmed that McGuinty’s Green Energy Act grossly underestimated the cost to consumers and overestimated the number of new jobs that would be created

Tax collectors getting 45,000.00 severance packages for switching job titles from provincial to federal

Two ministries under an OPP criminal investigation – ORNGE and gas plant scandals

Pharmacy war

Illegal green taxes

Increased smart meter, electricity, hydro, tuition and car insurance costs

Implemented tire tax, electronics tax, eco fee, health premium (tax), WSIB tax increase, HST, beer surtax

Failing grade on ADHD education

Ranking the lowest of all provinces for fiscal performance

Delisting eye exams, physiotherapy, chiropractic care, diabetic strips, etc.

Increasing wait time for cataract surgery

No longer covered for eye exams yet taxpayers paying for sex changes

Wait time for nursing home bed tripled

Failure to disclose elevated radiation levels

OES missed its collection and recycling targets by 59%

Not correcting the foreign ownership of our beer market

Acceptance of garbage striker extortion

Harassing labour inspectors

Kowtowing to green energy lobbies

Imposing blood alcohol rules that punish people who are not impaired

Public utilities donating to Liberals

Voting to cover up the Niagara Parks Commission scandal

Emergency room wait times not meeting provincial targets

Put on notice by Standard and Poor, credit rating downgraded, under a very serious credit watch

Have-not province for the first time in Canadian history

Borrowing more debt than any province except NB

Dramatic cuts in health care services in schools

Nurses getting bonuses despite a wage freeze

Insufficient senior homecare services

Failing grade of Family Responsibility Office

Abstained from vote to investigate CBC expenses

Cash kickback scheme involving government cleaning contracts

Talked about a two-year freeze on wages for public sector while previously giving the OPP a 5% wage increase – the OPP received another raise of over 8% in January, 2014

Energy now unaffordable yet we must pay Quebec and some north-eastern States to take our surplus energy

Encouraging farmers to build small-scale solar projects but having no way to connect them to the power grid

Laid up in US hospital beds as no beds available in Ontario

Refusing public inquiry into G20 fiasco

Giving those who hire only newcomers a 10,000.00 tax credit

Third highest user of food banks

Announced pay freezes knowing that 38,000 were getting a 3% salary increase after the election

Hiding hospital errors from the public

Teachers skipping classes to assist with anti-Conservative campaign

Failing grade in northern forestry management

Almost 40 C. difficile deaths to date

Loss of 6,500 cancer patient health records

Highest rent increase rate in years

Ignoring evidence that wind turbines can cause poor health

Workers at eHealth suing for not receiving bonuses

Liam denied eye care that another child is receiving under OHIP

Ontarians pleading for their lives or dying because they aren’t getting the health care they need

Lady with a brain tumor denied help to cover costs which costs are covered in Manitoba

Electricity rates to rise 42% over five years

Prior loss of 60,000 jobs in the horse racing industry – now attempting to correct this

Cleaning kick-back scheme that ended with the conviction of three persons (two of whom were employed by Wynne’s ministry at the time …)



Wind Turbine Host Slams NextEra for Corrupt Business Practices!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Leaseholder speaks out against NextEra

Posted on 05/29/2014by 

OPEN LETTER TO: Premier Kathleen Wynne, Mr. Tim Hudak, Ms. Andrea Horvath, REA

Being landowners who were fraudulently scammed into signing an option/lease for wind development in 2011, the terms and conditions of which we remained unaware until October 2013 when we were first given the document, then officially threatened with legal proceedings and financial ruin coercing us into signing the NextEra lease in February 2014, we would like to outline our experience of meetings with Company contacts (CanAcre for NextEra) in the last three weeks.

Nexterror Bullies Canada IncAs yet, we have not received a copy of the lease complete with a NextEra signatory as we should have by now. May 6th a representative arranged to meet to discuss the location of a collection line . .. part of NextEra’s design for our property for which we were offered no opportunity to give input. The point of this meeting was unclear as no concerns of ours were taken into consideration, the placement of the intended line would most surely harm and possibly kill a mature windbreak of spruce and cedar and at the meeting conclusion, we were informed that in the next few days a “survey” and the planting of stakes would take place.

The lease states that the Lessee (that’s NextEra) shall consult with Lessor with respect to siting the Works and to act fairly and reasonably in so consulting. We had never been consulted. Ever.

In response to our written objection, the CanAcre representative scheduled “another look”. This meeting on May 12th lasted another 2 hours. Our concerns were discussed with construction personnel although the location of the collection line as related to the windbreak remained unresolved. We learned that no documents are provided to landowners without a specific request and from experience we can state they are often not provided after being requested. Another meeting was scheduled for May 21st to which they promised to bring documents as requested.

Again at this 3rd meeting the requested complete Lease was not produced. However a map we had not seen before indicated archaeological finds had been made, new information to us, finds made without our authorization to enter the land in the summer of 2011, a flint point credited with the qualities of those used 10,000 years ago. Now we could see that the electrical conduit placement was intended to avoid a large area around where the flint had been found and as a result endangered our trees. We finally understood that the NextEra layout designed in Florida was nonnegotiable and actual locations unknown by anyone until GPS points were staked. .. what CanAcre had been calling “surveyed”. Stakes would be a huge inconvenience during planting and a major problem for managing these organic fields needing scuffling through the season. Since the Goshen Project has not received REA approval and construction cannot begin until it does, we would not agree to the completion of the survey at this time. It had been repeatedly stressed that planting be allowed without the impediment of these stakes.

The next day the CanAcre rep phoned to indicate he would deliver our requested lease at 10 am. May 23rd and would be accompanied by an “expert in leases”…. !! On May 23rd he did not have the lease. The ‘lease expert’ turned out to be a CanAcre manager who had his own agenda, that being to spend another two hours reviewing our concerns indicating cooperation and the best possible outcomes before stating flat out that unless we allowed the survey to proceed, the proper care and attention to our concerns could not necessarily be given! This argument was lobbed strongly and repeatedly at us and capped off with his assurance that he would continue to harass us until verbal permission for the survey is given.

Since June 2011, we have been swindled, deprived of documents and information we should have been given, lied to, told one thing and then the opposite by CanAcre reps, and wasted endless hours. Of greater significance is the Horrendous Deception throughout…. that there are no health effects attributable to these Turbine farms, that they are Green, that they do not affect property values, that they will not interfere with farm operations……

And we know all that to be UNTRUE. The Ontario Government and REA need to close this system down!

Sincerely,

Bev Teeter

 

Don’t bet the Farm, on Wind and Solar! Bad Investments!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment


UPDATE 1-SunEdison solar power plant unit files for IPO

Thu May 29, 2014 5:29pm IST

May 29 (Reuters) – TerraForm Power Inc, a unit that solar company SunEdison Inc created to own and operate some of its solar power plants, filed for an initial public offering to raise up to $50 million.

SunEdison is following in the footsteps of NRG Energy Inc , which last July listed a unit holding some of its wind and natural gas assets, as solar firms seek newer and cheaper ways to finance new solar power plants.

Shares of the NRG’s unit, NRG Yield Inc, have gained 73 percent since it went public.

Rival SunPower Corp said in March that it would launch the first tranche of its bonds backed by solar assets in the second half of the year.

SunEdison’s TerraForm could be valued at between $800 million and $1 billion based on cash flow, SunEdison Chief Financial Officer Brian Wuebbels told Reuters in an interview last November.

TerraForm will operate as a “yield co”, which is a way for solar companies to bundle up existing solar power plants and then spin them off into separate entities.

Yield cos own and operate solar assets under long-term power-purchase agreements with utilities and any cash generated is paid out as dividends, with the remainder being re-invested in new plants.

TerraForm will own and operate solar power plants that it acquires from SunEdison and other parties, TerraForm said in a filing with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. (link.reuters.com/jax69v)

Goldman Sachs & Co, Barclays and Citigroup are underwriting the offering.

TerraForm intends to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol “TERP”.

The filing did not reveal how many shares the company planned to sell or their expected price.

The amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO could be different. (Reporting by Tanya Agrawal in Bangalore; Editing by Simon Jennings)