US Wind Power Outfit Whacked with $2.5 million Fine for Rampant Bald Eagle Slaughter

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Fines are Simply Ineffective! Take the Useless, Killing Machines Down!

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eagle robert bryce Alive – an American icon; dead, an “inconvenient” wind industry fact.

The rampant slaughter of millions of birds and bats – including rare, endangered and majestic species, like America’s iconic golden eagle – is one of the many ‘inconvenient’ facts that moves the wind industry to lie like fury and – when the corpses can no longer be hidden and the lying fails – to issue court proceedings to literally bury those facts (see our post here).

But – in America, at least – the ‘inconvenient’ facts are starting to catch up with a vengeance, as US authorities start to do their jobs, finally punishing wind power outfits for what is nothing less than the pointless slaughter of thousands of rare, endangered and, what should be, protected birds.

Wind farm operator fined $2.5 million related to bird deaths in Wyoming
Associated Press
19 December 2014

CHEYENNE, Wyoming — Wind…

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Wind Pushers and Investors Losing Big, as Green/Greed Energy loses it’s Novelty!

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German Wind Power’s ‘Titanic’ Debacle: Bright Future for Coal Guaranteed, as Wind Power Investors Get Fleeced

January 4, 2015 by

titanic

The Germans went into wind power harder and faster than anyone else – and the cost of doing so is catching up with a vengeance. The subsidies have been colossal, the impacts on the electricity market chaotic and – contrary to the environmental purpose of the policy – CO2 emissions are rising fast: if “saving” the planet is – as we are repeatedly told – all about reducing man-made emissions of an odourless, colourless, naturally occurring trace gas, essential for all life on earth – then German energy/environmental policy has manifestly failed (see our post here).

Some 800,000 German homes have been disconnected from the grid – victims of what is euphemistically called “fuel poverty”. In response, Germans have picked up their axes and have headed to their forests in order to improve their sense of energy security – although foresters apparently take the view that this self-help measure is nothing more than blatant timber theft (see our post here).

German manufacturers – and other energy intensive industries – faced with escalating power bills are packing up and heading to the USA – where power prices are 1/3 of Germany’s (see our posts here and hereand here). And the “green” dream of creating thousands of jobs in the wind industry has to turned out to be just that: a dream (see our post here).

As Germans count the costs of their runaway wind power policy, a quick look at the CO2 reduction score board shows a monumental “FAIL”: the Germans have scrapped CO2 free nuclear generation and – in order to provide meaningful power (ie sparks available on-demand) – are flat-out building new (and upgrading existing) coal-fired plants. Oops!

The unsinkable German anti-CO2-Titanic just found its iceberg
WattsUpWithThat
Fred F. Mueller
10 December 2014

Unpleasant encounter with hard facts

Until just a few days ago, the determination of the German government to halt the presumed Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) seemed to be absolutely imperturbable.

The main driver behind the German resolve to hammer down CO2 emissions both domestically and abroad while at the same time finishing off its last remaining nuclear power generating units is Chancellor Angela Merkel. The daughter of a clergyman socialized in the formerly communist east of the country, she is known for her outstanding political cleverness and flexibility in avoiding conflicts she feels she can’t win.

Nevertheless, there are certain aspects where this cleverness is superseded by an almost fundamentalist doggedness when it comes to certain key points – such as exterminating nuclear power or saving the planet from overheating.

Only a few weeks ago, Germany engaged in a new initiative to revitalize the ailing international effort to reverse the course of constantly increasing worldwide CO2 emissions by replacing the vintage Kyoto protocol by more stringent and binding reduction targets at the UN conference that will be held in Paris in November/ December 2015.

To this effect, Germany convinced the other European Union states to agree to a 40% reduction scheme by 2030, sweeping across opposition from negatively affected member countries using a combination of compromises, financial incentives and sheer politico-economic pressure. As a result, the EU came out with bold CO2 reduction commitments. These in turn were meant to be used as a political lever during the preparatory meetings taking place in the current run-up to the big show.

The push for increased CO2 sobriety…

In order to underscore its ambition to shine out as a beacon of climate saving efforts, the German government additionally decided to further strengthen its position by renewing domestic efforts aimed at achieving its own commitment of reducing national CO2 emissions by 40% (compared to 1990) until 2020.

This target had at first seemed to be easily attainable since the country benefitted from the opportunity to decommission the ridiculously inefficient and energy-squandering industry it inherited from the former communist DDR. But in the past years, this special effect waned and the CO2 emissions even reversed course and climbed again. This countertrend was further underpinned when in the wake of the Fukushima events; the German government ordered to halt eight out of 17 existing nuclear power plants and decided to phase out the remaining ones by 2022.

The share of nuclear power was largely taken over by lignite- and coal-fired units, with the result that in the field of power generation, Germany was unable to achieve any reduction since 2000. During the same time period, the electric power markets were flooded with heavily subsidized “green” power, causing prices to collapse to a point where conventional power utilities were unable to generate sufficient revenues. Share pricescollapsed and more than ten thousand qualified jobs disappeared.

In the centers of political power in Berlin, the grievances of the sector went unnoticed and even the most urgent submissions fell on deaf ears. To add insult to injury, just a few weeks ago, the sector was confronted with tough additional regulations requiring it to further reduce its CO2 emissions, while signs of mounting albeit muted unease in a growing number of industrial sectors heavily burdened by skyrocketing energy prices were ignored.

This resulted in the rebellion of vital players…

In this situation, the frustration felt by a number of foreign investors in the sector – in the first place those involved in the energy giants E.ON and Vattenfall, a subsidiary of a Swedish state-owned energy producer, culminated. The background is highlighted in a recent article written for the renowned German financial newspaper “Handelsblatt” by Wolfram Weiner, former chief editor of several leading print media. In his item, he used unusually drastic language to chastise the current state of the sector: “In reality, E.ON is capitulating.

Faced with wrong decisions and impositions instigated by the German energy policy, the power generation industry is giving up in despair because political leaders have narrowed down their maneuvering space to such an extent that they are choking to death.

For too long a time, the political class naively believed that E.ON and RWE (the second in rank of the sector) could be indefinitely squeezed just as a lemon – but now it is dawning to some that there simply is no more juice left…the “Energiewende” (Energy U-turn) resembles a communist command economy … (the policy) has within a short period of time achieved what the communists had been dreaming of for decades: Power generating groups are being dismantled, market rule is supplemented by command economy. But the question remains – who will in the futurecare about Germany’s power supply, who will invest? Is the state willing to take over these activities too in order to finalize energy-socialism”?

The led to an event that can be likened to the proverbial iceberg unexpectedly popping up right in front of the German state ship while it was plowing through the waves on its climate-saving mission at full-steam.

With just a 48-hour notice delivered by a personal phone call to Ms. Merkel on a Saturday, the CEO of E.ON, the largest German and European power producer, let it be known that the company had decided to split itself in two, one part grouping fossil and nuclear power generation and a second part encompassing the “politically correct” activities in the field of “renewable” energies. Sort of a “Bad E.ON” / “Good E.ON” move.

The intention is to get rid of the “bad” part as soon as possible by putting it up for sale. At the same time, this also means the “good” part will cease to be duty bound to ensure a stable power supply under all circumstances. Obviously, such a liability is not enforceable from an entity whose only power sources are unstable wind and solar power plants. In a nutshell, the message behind this move is that the silverback of the “big four” German energy producers who group the bulk of the country’s conventional and nuclear power production is about to close shop at short notice. The others will probably follow suit.

Inflicting a deadly setback…

A situation where a country’s leadership is left only 48 hours to digest this sort of threat can be likened to the sudden crash of the Titanic hitting its iceberg. Although most of the German public has not yet noticed that something really important has gone wrong, frantic activities can be noticed on the bridge, with both the minister for economic affairs and the chancellor’s office hastily preparing new legislation aiming at enhancing the situation of coal-fired plants by implementing an all-new market design. It will most certainly provide for compensation payments for coal-fired plants forced to turn idle or at minimum load when the grid is clogged by an oversupply of wind and solar energy.

According to comments in various press articles, the German government seems to have realized its vessel is taking in water and is starting to list. So while the ship’s orchestra composed of green and socialist parties together with assorted NGO’s and the accomplices in the media is doing its best to drown out first anxious noises by playing climato-patriotic anthems at full pitch, the power brokers in Berlin seem to be hammering out a plan B in a desperate attempt to fend off a catastrophic breakdown of the nets.

Outlines currently emerging suggest that:

A) Nuclear power will remain banned. More than 30 years of demonization of the technology probably cannot be reversed;

B) Plans to rein in the soaring price of electric power prices will be abandoned. A key representative of the ruling CDU party has already warned that price hikes will continue;

C) The hope of the government that highly flexible combined cycle gas-fired power plants can be deployed in large numbers to offset the highly volatile production from wind and solar plants has gone up in smoke since these entities have much higher costs than coal-fired units. They thus were the first to succumb to the market distortions brought about by the heavily subsidized “renewable” technologies;

D) The government now implicitly recognizes that in the years to come, coal and lignite fired plants will play a substantially bigger role in securing the country’s power supply than projected. The obvious hope is that it may be possible to stabilize the vessel without having to explicitly admit the core pieces of the previous strategy have to be scrapped.

On to sweet green dreams

While the German public, lulled by decades of seemingly incessant economic upturn, will probably continue to ignore these harsh realities for some time, the long-term implications for CAGW supporters inside and outside of the country do not bode well.

Given the fact that the “renewable” energy lobby remains extremely strong, with millions of people having been misguided to invest their life’s savings and pension claims into “planet-saving” energy projects, resistance to any plans to limit further engagements in the “green energy” sector will be extremely fierce.

Together with the need to stabilize the ailing conventional energy sector in order to avoid a total breakdown, all requirements for energy costs spiraling out of control are in place. The government can only hope that the public will continue to accept these hikes without too much resistance. But a major stumbling blocks remains in place: German electric energy prices, already the second-highest in Europe, are increasingly choking off economic growth.

More and more key sectors such as the aluminum, steel making and chemical industry are increasingly opting out of investing in the country, turning to regions offering more reasonable energy prices, notably the US. Over time, this will put the wealth of the country and with it the fate of its political leaders in jeopardy.

Germany’s anti-CO2 policy is poised to fail

With their naïve two-pronged approach to abolish nuclear and fossil fuel powered electricity generation in parallel, the German political leaders have maneuvered themselves into an impasse and now find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place.

The “renewable” sector propped up with at least half a trillion € in subsidies has reached proportions making it too big to fail, while conventional generation will now call in the same favors that had hitherto been granted to the “good ones”, threatening to cut supplies if they are not treated likewise.

Embittered by more than a decade and a half of injuries “sweetened” by insults, one can expect that they will probably be pushing for fulfilment of their demands with little regard as to whom it might hurt. With the door to nuclear generation firmly shut and welded tight, German CO2 emissions are set to increase as naïve expectations of falling electricity demand will dissipate. Especially since no-one seems to have taken into account the power requirements of e.g. the many million electric cars that are supposed to crowd German streets in the coming decades.

While arrogantly claiming the role of a vanguard policy-maker with respect to climate-saving measures, German politicians have entangled themselves in a maze of conflicting interests and harsh realities restraining their actions to near-immobility.

At some point, when the populace will finally realize it has been fooled and plundered, politicians will refrain from CAGW aspirations when it becomes evident they will not be favorable for their future prospects to be elected. And if and when Germany fails in full focus of the spotlights they themselves asked to be turned upon them, the CAGW theories will suffer a major blow on a worldwide scale. This might hopefully turn out as an important contribution to the demise of the whole CAGW scam.
WattsUpWithThat.com

Meanwhile – despite the fact the the wind industry in Germany has pocketed the lion’s share of at “least half a trillion € in subsidies” – wind farm investors are being fleeced by the same types of hucksters and weasels that run outfits like near-bankrupt Infigen (aka Babcock and Brown); and the smarmy gits that set up so-called “community wind farms” – praying on greentard gullibility in their efforts to pocket $billions in REC Tax/Subsidies.

The scam is the same the world over: pitch numbers that show returns that are too good to be true (they are) and watch the suckers beat a path to your door: greed trumps common sense often enough.

As PT Barnum said: “every crowd has a silver lining” – an adage put to great effect by wholesale fraudsters like Bernie Madoff in scams often tagged “Ponzi” schemes; named after Charles Ponzi – who would have taken to the wind industry like a duck to water.

Madoff – who ended up with a 150 year stretch in stir for his share-market shenanigans – would, no doubt, be pleased to know that the wind industry has followed his “model” and is keeping the Ponzi “dream” alive.

Wind power outfits routinely base their expected returns on pumped up wind forecasts – thereby way overstating their anticipated gross returns (see our posts here and here and here and here).

While, at the same time, lying about their true operating costs (see ourpost here), which start to tack up pretty quickly when it’s revealed that turbines last less than half the time claimed: with an ‘economic’ lifespan of 10-12 years, as opposed to the 25 years wildly claimed by fan makers (see our post here).

Or, in the case of top-flight German manufacturer, Siemens – less than 2 years – one of it’s latest batches required wholesale blade and bearing replacement, starting almost as soon as they cranked them into gear (seeour post here) – Siemens blaming “harsh weather conditions both onshore and offshore” – as if its fans had been designed to run inside aircraft hangars ….

Little wonder then that in Germany, “37 percent of wind farms are losing investors’ money” and “two thirds are in deficit or just about cover their running costs”. Here’s Focus Magazine on how easy it is to separate fools and their money.

turbine fire 7

Eco-Paradise Lost: Wind Power Bleeds Investors
Focus Magazine
Alexander Wendt
20 November 2014

Germany’s green paradise, where wind turbines were considered a foolproof investment, has burned down.

For a long time, German wind power was seen as a safe investment thanks to generous subsidies. Green investors are now losing massive amounts of money – because they overlooked major pitfalls.

Beliefs do not disappear quickly. “I’m still a proponent of renewable energy,” says Dresden engineer Wolfgang Strübing. Political scientist Christian Herz from Berlin and tax auditor Werner Daldorf from Kassel see it the same way. The three share a lot: They are among tens of thousands of Germans who have invested their money in wind turbines. And they sit on the Investor Advisory Board of the German Wind Energy Association.

Suspiciously viewed by the association’s leadership, the three began to collect information about tricks, traps and false promises in the wind power industry from all over Germany. The trio has now collected the by far greatest amount of data on this problem in Germany. And according to their data, many of the approximately 24,000 wind turbines are investment destroyers – despite massive subsidies. The eco-paradise, where wind turbines were considered as a foolproof investment, has burned down.

Just over a third of all wind farms return more than they cost

Werner Daldorf, Chairman of the Investor Advisory Board of the German Wind Power Association, examined 1,400 annual accounts of 192 wind farms in Germany over a period of ten years. His sobering conclusion: 37 percent of wind farms are losing investors’ money: “The repayment of loans was higher than the generated funds.”

Only 35 percent of the wind power companies paid two or more percent return to their investors. For wind farms with a fund structure, two thirds are in deficit or just about cover their running costs, according to Daldorf.

His colleague Christian Herz evaluated the accounts of 1,400 wind power funds. His conclusion: “Two thirds are far below the investment return that was originally predicated.”
Translation Philipp Mueller: Full story (in German)
Focus Magazine

half shorn sheep

More Evidence of the Futility of the Wind Scam!

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AS BRITAIN FREEZES, WIND FARMS TAKE POWER FROM GRID TO PREVENT ICING
AFP
by DONNA RACHEL EDMUNDS  2 Jan 2015
As Britain shivers under a blanket of snow and ice, it has emerged that offshore windfarms have been idling to prevent icing up – and drawing electricity off the national grid to do so. Critics have pointed out the “folly” of having windfarms idle in a cold snap, but industry experts insist that all forms of power generation involve some electrical input.

The issue has been raised by Brian Christley, a resident of Abergele, Wales, who wrote to the Daily Telegraph to say: “Over the weekend just gone, the coldest of the year so far, all 100-plus off-shore wind turbines along the North Wales coast were idling very slowly, all using grid power for de-icing and to power their hydraulic systems that keep the blades facing in the same direction.

“Thanks to Ed Davey, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, we will be subsidising these follies for the next 30 years. And then, if we continue to vote for technically naive green politicians, for further periods after that.”

The energy firm which owns the 30 turbines off the North Wales coastline has countered that, on the days in question, the turbines were actually a net contributor to the grid. A spokesman said: “Our turbines were not idling but generating electricity during each of the days in question, contributing a positive balance of energy into the grid. All energy generators use a small amount of electricity to keep their systems running smoothly, in the case of wind farms drawing power from either an adjacent operating turbine or the grid.”

John Constable, of the Renewable Energy Foundation, a charity which promotes sustainable development through the use of renewable energies, said: “We know that in Denmark there are days when their wind farms are net consumers of electricity, so in some ways this is not surprising. It’s another example of how wind power is difficult and expensive to manage.”

Theoretically, Britain’s wind farms, both onshore and off, have a combined capacity of 12.1GW, enough to power 8.8 million homes. However, a report published last October by the Scientific Alliance and the Adam Smith Institute found that the chance of all Britain’s windfarms running at full capacity together was “vanishingly small”, meaning that actual output is often far lower. Rather, they found that the average output was just eight percent of the headline figure.

Moreover, they can only produce energy if the wind is blowing at between 10 and 50 mph, above which they automatically shut down to prevent damage. And in freezing conditions they must draw on the energy grid to rotate their blades slowly to prevent them icing, and to power the system which turns the blades into the wind. It also costs about twice as much to produce offshore wind energy as it does to produce traditional coal fired energy.

Roger Helmer, energy spokesman for the UK Independence Party, who want to see wind farm subsidies scrapped, told Breitbart London: “We’re familiar with the layers of subsidy necessary to make wind farms viable. We’re familiar with the inefficiency of the necessary back-up fossil fuel generation, for when the wind doesn’t blow. Now we learn that on windless days these wind turbines are cannibalising power from the grid merely to help maintain them. Will the folly never stop?”

Faux-green Zealots Destroying Britain’s Economy….All for NOTHING!

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Exposure of UK’s Wind Power’s Crippling Costs sees Britain’s “Greenblob” Turn to Doublethink & Doublespeak

December 23, 2014 by

1984-george-orwell-adaptation-slice

Britain’s energy policy is a debacle. It’s been driven by Marxist zealots of the hard-‘green’-left – branded the “Greenblob” by the reasonable and honest folks in politics, like Owen Paterson (see our post here).

The Greenblob have set Britain up for an inevitable economic disaster, by wedding its increasingly bleak future to insanely expensive, intermittent and utterly unreliable wind power (see our post here).

The obvious and inevitable consequence of throwing £billions in subsidies at wind power outfits and setting terms in 20 year contracts that see offshore wind power generators guaranteed obscene returns – being able to charge “three times the current wholesale price ofelectricity and about 60% more than is promised to onshore turbines” – is spiralling power bills (see our post here).

But sending millions into power-price-penury isn’t all that politically palatable, so the Greenblob spends much of its time covering up the true and hidden costs of wind power; and lying like fury when – despite their best efforts – those facts “unhelpfully” pop into view.

The hard numbers are, of course, “inconvenient” and, therefore “unhelpful” to the narrative being spun by Britain’s wind industry spin-masters embedded in Ed Davey’s Department of Energy and ClimateChange (DECC).

Instead of levelling with power punters on the true and ultimate costs of throwing £billions in subsidies at wind power outfits, the spinners at the DECC simply kept the “unhelpful” stuff under wraps. And, if the “Greenblob” operatives at DECC HQ had their way the hard facts would have never seen the light of day.

Well, thanks to some persistent digging by Dr John Constable, director of Renewable Energy Foundation, the truth is out.

john constable

Here’s The Telegraph exposing DECC’s determined efforts to see that British power punters are kept in the dark – in more ways than one.

Green policies to add up to 40pc to cost of household electricity
The Telegraph
Robert Mendick
14 December 2014

Official figures – initially withheld by ministers – show steep rises in the price of electricity by the end of the decade to pay for the Government’s policies to tackle climate change

The cost of household electricity will rise by as much as 40 per cent by the end of the decade because of the Government’s green energy policies.

Official figures — initially withheld by ministers — show an alarming increase in the price of electricity caused by generous subsidies to wind farms as well as other policies.

An average household is expected to pay as much as £250 more for electricity – mainly through consumer subsidies – to pay for the Government’s green energy schemes, while an electrically heated house could be as much as £440 a year worse off.

And by 2030, when thousands of planned offshore wind turbines are finally operating, the burden will be even greater, the numbers show. The average household could be paying an extra 60 per cent for electricity – equivalent to £350 more a year.

Medium-sized businesses will be hit very hard, according to the new data. On average such companies will see electricity bills rise by more than £500,000 a year – a cost likely to be passed on to consumers.

The figures were made public last week by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) following a Freedom of Information request by campaigners. The information was initially prepared for an official DECC report – released at the beginning of November – which claimed that the average household fuel bill had fallen by £90 thanks to the “impact of DECC policies”.

But the tables showing the actual cost of green policies on future electricity prices for households and businesses in 2020 and 2030 were kept secret because they were “thought to be confusing”.

Their release now will embarrass ministers, who are accused of presiding over an expensive consumer subsidy system.

The Government’s climate change policies include complex consumer subsidies for wind and solar farms, as well as grants for energy efficiency measures such as loft and wall insulation, available to certain households.

The introduction of smart meters, which it is hoped will encourage lower consumption, also helped contribute to rising electricity prices.

Dr John Constable, director of Renewable Energy Foundation, the think tank whose Freedom of Information request was responsible for forcing DECC to release the price impact tables, said: “The striking scale and increasing trend of the climate policy energy price impacts are bad enough in themselves, but DECC’s attempt to conceal these vitally important figures is breathtaking.”

Dr Constable said he had been told by informed sources that pressure had been put on DECC to withhold the tables.

“This is a very unsatisfactory situation,” he said, “Energy price impact data is so intrinsically important, and policy transparency so crucial to public trust in government, that very firm intervention is needed to clear the air and ensure that it will not happen again. This sounds like a job for the Prime Minister.”

DECC’s initial 88-page report was published on Nov 6, but the raw data on which the findings were based were omitted.

The Renewable Energy Foundation requested the figures and this week they were finally made available.

The supplementary tables show the “average impact of energy and climate change policies on households’ energy prices” will see the cost of electricity rise by as much as 42 per cent by 2020 from £131 per megawatt hour (MWh) to £186.

An average household uses about 4.5 MWh, meaning a rise of as much as £250 in the cost of electricity. By 2030, the price of a megwatt hour will increase by 60 per cent to £206.

Medium-sized businesses, according to DECC’s own figures, will pay as much as 77 per cent more for electricity in 2020 and 114 per cent more in 2030.

Such business on average consume 11,000 MWh – adding as much as £560,000 a year to the electricity bill. A typical bill could rise from £760,000 a year to £1.3 million.

DECC has claimed overall bills will fall because its green policies will lead to a reduction in household energy consumption with measures such as improved insulation and increased efficiency of electrical appliances leading to an overall drop in bills, it says.

A DECC spokeswoman said a decision had been taken to withhold the tables because it was “thought to be confusing”.

She said: “We always said we would publish the data anyway. It is not written anywhere but that is what we were quite clear about.”

She added: “Without the Government’s policies bills would still be higher.”
The Telegraph

ed davey DECC

George Orwell conjured up his nightmare world of malicious bureaucrats engaged in pernicious mind control in his novel, 1984.

At the time 1984 hit bookshelves in 1949, it was largely taken as a warning; directed at avoiding a future dominated by a malign few, at the expense of a pliant and gullible many. As the Iron Curtin descended across Europe, many took it as an analogue of the “how to” manual used by the Iron-Fisted, Communist regimes that ran the Soviet Bloc.

These days – as the great “Greenblob” (just the latest tribe of Neo-Marxists hell-bent on destroying free-market democracy from within) infects every aspect of political life and society – his prescient insights have taken on the air of a hard-hitting political documentary: from the piece above, it’s clear that Orwell’s future is now.

Orwell’s tongue wasn’t exactly wedged in his cheek when he coined terms such as “newspeak”; “doublespeak”; and “doublethink”: he was in deadly earnest.

“Doublethink” involves ordinary people simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct; but differs from plain old hypocrisy and neutrality. Somewhat related but almost the opposite is “cognitive dissonance”, where contradictory beliefs cause conflict in one’s mind. Doublethink is notable due to a lack of cognitive dissonance — as brainwashing renders the “doublethinker” completely unaware of any conflict or contradiction.

And, so it’s come to pass that those that purport to govern us, fight tooth-and-nail to bury the facts about the insane costs of wind power; and, when the facts get out, take to lying and obfuscation like ducks to water.

In Orwell’s dystopian vision, the Party spent its every energy to ensure the people knew nothing of what was really going on, ensuring that only a narrative approved by the “Ministry of Truth” saw the light of day.

When it comes to energy policy, Britain’s Big Brother mind control network is under the firm grip of the apparatchiks from the DECC: like the faceless, nameless “double-spokeswoman” who – along with her fellow travellers – decided to conceal the critical data on the true and hidden costs of wind power, because such “unhelpful” facts were “thought to be confusing”.

Heaven forbid! Facts? Confusing?

Sure, there’s always a risk that data spelling out, in unequivocal terms, the unassailable fact that paying wind power outfits 3-4 times the cost of conventional power results in escalating power bills (as night follows day), might end up “confusing” the average power punter. But we doubt it.

In bending over backwards to keep the facts secret – DECC’s real fear was more likely to be “confusion” amongst power punters about the motives of those they pay handsomely to serve and protect them: “confusion” about how that energy policy “giant”, Ed Davey could get it so, so wrong; and why his Department kept a lid on the facts that would reveal the lie?

Ed’s protectors at the DECC know full well that, as The Economist put it:

Offshore wind power is staggeringly expensive. Dieter Helm, an economist at Oxford University, describes it as “among the most expensive ways of marginally reducing carbon emissions known to man”. Under a subsidy system unveiled late in 2013, the government guarantees farms at sea £155 ($250) per megawatt hour for their juice. That is three times the current wholesale price of electricity and about 60% more than is promised to onshore turbines (see our post here).

Which is where DECC’s resort to “doublethink” comes into play. As Orwell defined it, “double think” is:

“The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them… To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies – all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.”

In a perfect example of Orwell’s “doublethink” in action, the “doublespeak” spinners with DECCs are able to deliberately lie by running the line that power prices will fall – due to its “brilliant” policy of throwing £billions in subsidies at wind power outfits – while simultaneously equipped with hard data that says just the exactly the opposite. Hmmm …

The deceit and high-handed arrogance of these people is, as the Renewable Energy Foundation’s director, Dr John Constable puts it: “breathtaking”. And it’s a phenomenon that’s overrun energy policy around the world.

When it comes to the dismal forecast laid out in 1984, that – if left to their own devices – those in power will inevitably corrupt and destroy the institutions that are meant to benefit society and, ultimately, destroy the society itself, George Orwell was an optimist.

george-orwell-6

Wind Turbines Have A Tendency to Tumble….Look Out Below!

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Gravity Bringing Wind Power to its Knees: Blades Keep Flying, as Farmers & Schoolkids Learn to Run & Duck for Cover

December 21, 2014 by 2 Comments

turbine collapse 9

A little while back we covered a spate of turbine collapses across the UK – terrorising locals not used to the sky-falling in around them on a regular basis (see our post here).

And we’ve dealt with the increasing numbers of turbine blades that routinely unshackle themselves in bids for airborne freedom, troublesome events, which the wind industry euphemistically calls “component liberation” (see our posts here and here and here and here).

As one of Newton’s predicted constants, gravity seems to be working its frightening magic without relent in Britain. Here’s, yet another, tale of toppling turbines from the UK – this time it’s the Scottish Highlands where things are going bump in the night.

Wind turbine topples over near New Deer
pressandjournal.co.uk
14 November 2014

turbine toppled new deer

A homeowner near the north-east village of New Deer was left bewildered yesterday after a wind turbine crashed to the ground through the night.

The structure is one of three 72ft turbines near the former Cairnorrie Primary School on the B9170 Methlick to New Deer road.

David Richards, who lives in view of the toppled turbine, described last night how he had first noticed that it had fallen over in the early morning of yesterday.

He said: “I don’t know when it happened. It was there – fine – on Wednesday afternoon when I went out to feed the animals. Then I came downstairs this morning and looked out the window and saw it was lying flat and sort of bent. It was a bit of a shock.

“We’ve not had it too bad around here. In fact, for a windy place, it’s actually been quite calm.”

“The people who put it up came and chopped it up and took away the top.”

Mr Richards, who has lived at his property near the B-road for nine years, said that he had originally objected to the plans when they were first submitted to the local authority.

“I just don’t like wind turbines. I think they’re a blot on the landscape. When we came, there weren’t any turbines. Then a new power line was put up, then the application for those went in. There were quite a few objections.

“They’re closer to us than they should be, and they’re closer to us than we want them to be. Some people love them, some people can’t be bothered by them, and some people don’t like them very much at all. I fall into that last category.

“The place is becoming a bit like ‘turbine alley’,” he added.

The turbine’s owners, a nearby farmer, declined to comment last night when approached.
pressandjournal.co.uk

And it’s not just farmers dodging flying blades and collapsing towers.

Oh, no.

Thanks to eco-fascist efforts to indoctrinate the young and impressionable on the “wonders” of wind, it’s school kids that have to learn the finer points of how to successfully run, duck and take cover: wind weasels have planted hundreds of their whirling monsters in schoolyards across the UK, including dozens at schools in the Highlands of Scotland.

Wind power outfits in Scotland have engineered propaganda opportunities around forcing kids to name wind turbines.

And the same tactic of brainwashing captive audiences of impressionable youngsters is part-and-parcel of the wind industry wherever you go: Australia, no exception (see our post here).

Infigen windy & gusto

A while back we covered the story of turbine blades being flung around the schoolyard at Caithness in Scotland (see our post here). Fortunately, that unscheduled “component liberation” event, didn’t end with decapitated pupils – but, give it time, and the casualties of “green” zealotry will mount, as more and more turbines collapse or otherwise self-destruct (see this article from last week for yet another story on collapsing fans and flying blades – this time next door to a community hall).

caithness turbine

It’s a point not lost on Highlander, Brenda Herrick who penned this brilliant letter published by her local rag, The John O’Groats Journal, in response to the local Council’s malign indifference to the risks to little lives and limbs created by the, wholly unnecessary, eco-crucifixes being used by wind weasels to warp the minds of the young and innocent.

To the Editor
Sir,

It is interesting that the Council responded to your article on the safety of school turbines last week by emphasising that they are ensuring they get value for money. It is unlikely these turbines will ever pay for themselves but that’s not the point. The Council did not consider the risks of installing fast spinning machines where children at school are forced to play until I alerted councillors to the danger and others became involved. No risk assessments were carried out at individual schools prior to installation.

Following publicity the Council braked the turbines and engaged the Building Research Establishment to produce a risk assessment process. The actual assessments were carried out by Council personnel. At installation each turbine had been surrounded by a small wooden fence, easily climbed by children. Following the assessment these were replaced by higher metal fences, which prevent children climbing in but do not protect them from falling parts, and maintenance intervals were halved. I am not sure what the Council’s “robust risk assessments” are designed to achieve but they cannot guarantee the safety of children.

The BRE report recommended “turbine siting safety zones” consisting of a Fall zone, a wider Topple zone and a wider still Ejection zone (parts flying off).

When I asked the Council “What is the actual diameter of an ejection zone as referred to in the reports, say for a 15m tower turbine?” the reply was “The Council’s approach has been on prevention of risk, thereby negating the need for exclusion.” So having commissioned a report they decided to ignore parts of it, presumably because in most school playgrounds there is no room for an ejection zone.

A blade flying off at speed can travel a considerable distance. They have apparently forgotten the incident on Skye in 2009 when a Highland school turbine started shedding springs and had to be taken down by the Head Teacher. The Council’s own sensible recommendations in its report of that incident included “Ensure that there is an adequate buffer zone from the main pathways and occupied area, in schools this should include entrance and regularly used pathways and playground areas.” There are no “buffer zones”.

The following are examples of school turbine failures I am aware of from press reports, so by no means a complete record:

The school’s wind turbine collapsed December 8 about 7 a.m., knocking down a power line and causing school to be cancelled for the day.

Last month the revolutionary eco-friendly school lost its green energy supply after a damper, used to control the blades, came off when bolts broke. The three-inch-square part, weighing several kilos, plunged to the ground, luckily outside school hours when there were no children around. 

But soon after being installed the wind turbine became faulty and after a few months seized up – showering the school’s playing field with debris.

A wind turbine at a school in Flackwell Heath has been repaired after part of it fell off into the school playground.

School wind turbine at Akron-Westfield school reported to be running out of control, suspected braking failure. School Superintendent described it as “life threatening”.

The turbine then collapsed, landing in the school’s playground, although no one was hurt.

Stunned students watched as a 40ft wind turbine crashed to earth during its installation on Fakenham High School playing field this lunchtime.

Within two years after installation, one of the three Proven 35-2 Wind Turbines installed at our Local High School came loose and crashed to the ground. It landed outside of the fenced off “Fall-Zone” behind the school.

A wind turbine came crashing down near Western Reserve High School.

Blade on the turbine at Seascale School blown off and landed 200m away in a field.

A FAMILY were left traumatised after a 4ft blade broke from a wind turbine in the grounds of a Rowley Regis school and spun out of control narrowly missing their house.

It is only luck that no-one so far has been injured at school.

There is a general denial of risk, presumably based on ignorance of the number of turbine failures occurring world-wide. One reason for this is that Renewable UK, the industry body, guarantees confidentiality to its members when reporting incidents.

Even the Health & Safety Executive cannot access their records and stated recently: “Consequently the HSE do not currently have a database of wind turbine failures on which they can base judgements on the reliability and risk assessments for wind turbines.” This is a disgraceful situation when turbines are so frequently close to people and buildings. Parents have a right to believe their children are not exposed to unnecessary risk in school grounds.

Brenda Herrick
Castletown
THURSO

For a run-down on the potential for murder and mayhem being caused by flying turbine blades in Scottish school yards, check out this detailed paper here and this summary of the chaos being created in this link here.

dirtyrottenscoundrelsoriginal

Of Course Wind Turbines Affect House Values, It’s Common Sense!

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Industry criticizes wind turbine reportHomeNews
by Jennifer Paterson18 Dec 2014

Is a $78,000 gingerbread house worth the investment?
The Christmas season is well underway: lights strung up outside the house, stockings hanging over the fireplace and the shopping (almost) done. It’s the time of year to take a break from your real estate investments – unless you are investing in the one house with building materials undoubtedly tastier than bricks and mortar: the gingerbread house.
Daily Market Update
Calgary resales market is ‘balanced’ says Conference Board… TD Economics forecasts slowdown in new Alberta jobs… Police uncover mortgage fraud… Employment insurance stable…
A recent study by the University of Guelph, which found wind turbines do not have an impact on nearby property values, might have earned a big sigh of relief from investors – but the study’s results have been strongly criticized by members of the real estate industry.

“I have had several deals fall apart in this area because, in the appraisal report, it has been mentioned that there are windmills visible or adjacent to the property and, once a lender gets wind of that (forgive the pun), they will not fund a mortgage,” said Angela Jenkins, a mortgage agent at Dominion Lending Centres, who lives and works in the Melancthon region, where the study was conducted.

“If a person cannot get financing due to windmills, then how can this be a positive thing?”

The study, which was published this month in the Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics, analyzed more than 7,000 home and farm sales in the area, and found that at least 1,000 of these were sold more than once, some several times.

John Leonard Goodwin, who has been a real estate broker for more than 10 years in the Grand Bend, Ont. market, asserted that wind turbines absolutely do affect property values. “Turbines complicate your property enjoyment, period,” he said. “That alone spells depreciated value(s).

“Turbines should be in remote, unpopulated locations. To all the folks who have turbines on their property: Enjoy your $18,000 per turbine per year, because you will be giving most of the lease payments back (in much lower property value) when you sell.

“These monsters are very bad for Ontario,” he continued. “We all pay to subsidize the electricity they produce and they will also cause a significant loss of real estate value.”

Lynn Stein, a sales representative at Hartford and Stein Real Estate, lives and sells real estate in Prince Edward County, where a large-scale wind turbine project is slated to begin.

“The turbines that are proposed here are quite large,” she said. “The majority of the population here very clearly doesn’t want them.

“Put simply, if you were to buy your future home, given the choice, would you buy where you would have noise, shadow flicker, an industrial view, potential health issues caused by the turbines, and the possibility of a very difficult resale, or would you spend your money elsewhere?”

A Downed Met. Mast: Evidence of a Disgusted and Irate Community?

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More MET Mast Mayhem: Community Defenders Drop Mast in Fight to Save Homes near Bangor, Maine

December 19, 2014 by Leave a Comment

pisgah MET mast-600x800

The MET masts used by developers to gauge wind speeds are the vanguard for every wind farm disaster: no MET mast data, no wind farm. As soon as they go up, the locals circle their wagons, marshal their forces and declare war on the developer. No surprises there.

With the wind industry on the ropes in Australia, developers are quietly pulling down their MET masts at places like Robertstown in South Australia – much to the delight of locals (see our post here).

Wherever MET masts get the chop, the locals breathe a sigh of relief as it signals the developer’s defeat and a victory for a community under threat.

But there are a growing number of cases where locals haven’t been prepared to wait for the developer to remove their masts on the grounds of defeat.

In a “we’ll never surrender” move, farmers from Maine have joined efforts elsewhere to hit wind power outfits where it hurts – grabbing their weapons of choice (a selection of spanners) in order to help a local MET mast rest safely on the ground.

Here’s a story from Bangor, Maine of a community taking its future out of the hands of a bent planning system that decided to change the rules in favour of a lying, cheating wind farm developer – AFTER a court scotched the development.

Owner says collapse of meteorological tower at site of proposed Clifton wind farm an act of vandalism
Bangor Daily News
Nok-Noi Ricker & Ryan McLaughlin
9 December 2014

The meteorological tower atop Pisgah Mountain, erected in 2010 to collect data about where there was enough wind to harvest, was found damaged Sunday.

CLIFTON, Maine — Paul Fuller of Bangor and his business partner Mike Smith went to Pisgah Mountain on Sunday to cut down Christmas trees to decorate their homes for the holidays and discovered a meteorological tower on the hilltop Fuller owns had collapsed.

“The nuts and bolts from one [support] cable had been removed on one side and dropped it,” Fuller said Monday, after filing a report with Maine State Police Trooper Tucker Bonnevie.

“It’s a $30,000 piece of equipment that is destroyed,” said Fuller, who believes the slender 196-foot tall metal structure was downed as an act of vandalism.

Bonnevie said Tuesday that the tower had fallen, but “there’s no evidence at this time that any crime was committed.”

“We don’t know for sure that it’s vandalism,” Bonnevie said. “We don’t know if [the bolts] just gave way or somebody actually loosened them.”

Just one of around a dozen wires securing the tower came down, the trooper said.

Fuller and his wife in 2009 purchased 270 acres on Pisgah Mountain, which is located just south of Rebel Hill Road, and shortly thereafter approached the Clifton Planning Board about placing the meteorological tower on the hilltop to collect data about wind currents.

Fuller said the tower’s data demonstrated that there is plenty of wind to operate a wind farm, and in 2010 he submitted a five-turbine plan with the town.

The $25 million wind farm project was originally permitted in Oct. 2011, but local farmers Peter and Julie Beckford appealed the project’s permit and in December 2013 a Superior Court judge said the land use code was not followed.

The Pisgah Mountain developers filed an appeal in January to the state’s highest court to overturn the judge’s decision.

“We’re still waiting for the decision,” Fuller said Monday.

In the meantime, local planners have changed the wind farm ordinance by removing and adding items mentioned as hurdles in the Superior Court business and consumer judge’s decision.

“This doesn’t stop us in any way,” Fuller said. “It’s just frustrating because somebody [resorted] to vandalism.”

“There were not prints anywhere near the site or around it,” said Bonnevie.

The property is not gated and does not have security cameras, and “he lets anybody and everybody hunt there,” the trooper said of Fuller, adding he understands the proposed wind tower project is a controversial issue in town.

“At this point there is no evidence, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t vandalism or criminal mischief,” Bonnevie said.

“It’s not an active investigation, but the investigation is ongoing,” the trooper said later. “I’m still asking around town.”
Bangor Daily News

So, hopeful turbine host, Paul Fuller is a bit peeved that his neighbours have downed a wind power outfit’s MET mast.

It’s pretty clear that Fuller doesn’t live anywhere near his hill-top hunting ground, but his neighbours, farmers Peter and Julie Beckford, among hundreds of others, most certainly do.

Fuller is keen to pocket 30 pieces of silver with scant regard to those who will suffer for his pitiful betrayal: at most, he would receive $10,000 per year, per turbine – in exchange for which he’ll render plenty of his neighbours’ homes sonic torture traps and uninhabitable; and, in any event, send the value of their properties plummeting.

Cute, too the efforts by the local “planners” to shift the goal posts in favour of the wind power developer AFTER the Superior Court had canned the project back in December 2013. Why play by the rules, when it’s far simpler to change them, retrospectively? That way you get to ride roughshod over communities, under the pretence of development “progress”.

It’s precisely that kind of insidious institutional corruption that has led to a breakout of sabotage and destruction being wreaked by community defenders in Scotland (see our post here) and in Ontario (see our post here).

STT predicts that 2015 will see an escalation of action by those people set upon by rapacious wind power outfits, turbine hosts blessed with the same moral compass as Judas and bent planning “systems” filled with eco-fascists eager to destroy the communities they’re paid handsomely to serve and protect.

While some, like Paul Fuller, might call dropping a MET mast “vandalism”, at least the people involved can be forgiven for having a solid moral (if not, legal) justification for their actions: defending homes and protecting families from harm has rarely been looked at with disdain, usually attracts plaudits and, where it results in a criminal offence, is excused under the law as “self-defence”.

Contrast the clearly understandable stance taken by Bangor’s farmers – facing a direct threat to their livelihoods, homes and health – with the “exuberant political activism” on display in the Peruvian desert last week; orchestrated by a team of nutcases, who had jetted in fresh from Uni campuses all around the world, for the purpose of “raising awareness” about imminent Global incineration.

Those of the hard-‘green’-left have been reduced to facile diatribes, as they seek to justify the consequences of the “awareness raising” efforts of their Overlords, Greenpeace: efforts that resulted in irreparable damage to highly significant sites of ancient Peruvian cultural heritage and artefacts – all in the name of making an infantile visual point about their ludicrous desire to go “100% renewable” and their ultimate goal of covering the entire globe with giant fans (well, your patch of it, not theirs).

greenpeace nasca lines

Greenpeace protest ‘permanently damaged’ Peru’s Nazca Lines, government says
The Wall Street Journal
Robert Kozak
16 December 2014

Drones sent up to study the Nazca Lines in Peru show that a protest against global warming by the environment action group Greenpeace permanently damaged an area around the famed geoglyphs, the government says.

Culture Minister Diana Alvarez-Calderon said yesterday that evidence gathered during an investigation by the government will be used as part of a legal suit against Greenpeace.

“The damage done is irreparable and the apologies offered by the environmental group aren’t enough,” she said.

Greenpeace has apologised for laying out big yellow letters on the desert floor beside the geoglyph of a giant hummingbird. The letters read: “Time for change! The future is renewable.”

The protest took place last week during a high-level UN-sponsored meeting taking place in Lima aimed at stopping global climate warming.

Peru says the activists damaged an area around the hummingbird by grinding rocks into the sandy soil. Access to the area around the lines is strictly prohibited.

President Ollanta Humala has called the Greenpeace actions a “lack of respect for our cultural patrimony and Peruvian laws”.

The ministry wanted the activists to be detained before they could leave Peru, but a judge initially refused to hold any of the activists and they are believed to have left Peru.

Greenpeace has promised to fully co-operate with any investigation and said it is willing to “face fair and reasonable consequences”. Greenpeace’s International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo met with Peruvian officials in Lima yesterday.

The Nazca Lines are a mysterious series of huge animal, imaginary human and plant symbols etched into the ground sometime between 500BC and AD500. The hummingbird design is one of the most famous and best preserved of the lines.

Experts disagree on why the lines were made, but some say they may have had ritual astronomical functions.

The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, or UNESCO, placed the lines on its World Heritage List in 1994.
The Wall Street Journal

What was that we were saying about justifying vandalism?

Wind Industry is a Cesspool of Corruption, Collusion, and Coercion!

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Crooks & Corruption Rule: What is it with the Wind Industry?

December 18, 2014 by

al-capone

The wind industry seems to attract a particular class of bloke, in much the same way that the Prohibition era drew lots of heavy-set Italians to the Mob.

Maybe that seemingly endless stream of massive subsidies filched from taxpayers and power consumers generates the same allure as festering dung does for swarms of flies?

Whatever it is, the whiff that surrounds the wind industry has attracted (and continues to attract) a class that has no hesitation lying, cheating, stealing and even bonking their way to the easy loot on offer.

The Italian Mob were in on the wind power fraud from the get-go: applying their considerable (and perfectly applicable) skills – leading the European wind power fraud, with what economists call “first-mover-advantage” (see our post here).

We’ve reported on just how rotten the wind industry is – from top to bottom – and whether it’s bribery and fraud; vote rigging scandals; tax fraud; investor fraud or REC fraud – wind weasels set a uniform standard that would make most businessman blush.

The crooks involved – and the corruption, lies thuggery and deceit that follow them – are uniform across the globe.

Wind power outfits in Taiwan – faced with a pesky community backlash – sent the muscle in and beat the protesters to a bloody pulp (see our posts here and here).

The Thais aren’t much better.

In Australia, Thai outfit RATCH has been lying to, bullying and threatening communities far and wide for years (see our posts here and here andhere).

In previous posts we’ve looked at how the goons that work for RATCH didn’t hesitate to invent a character – Frank Bestic – in a half-cunning attempt to infiltrate their opponents at Collector and elsewhere – see our posts here and here and here.

RATCH also teamed up with one of Queensland’s “white-shoe-brigade“, John Morris – in a joint plan to destroy the Atherton Tablelands by spearing 60 odd turbines into a patch of pristine wilderness on top of Mt Emerald – a move, quite rightly, opposed by 92% of locals (see our post here).

Morris – a five-star resort owner who has generously wined, dined and otherwise accommodated his mate, LNP pollie, David Kempton (who holds a rabid interest in the project getting approved, despite the fact that his own electorate is miles away) – has pulled out all stops to smooth the way to development approval (see our post here).

Faced with the inevitable community backlash to yet another pointless economic, environmental and public health disaster, the Queensland Planning Minister, Jeff Seeney has called “time-out”; declining to approve the project, as demanded by RATCH and Morris.

Morris – facing the uncharacteristic prospect of defeat – has turned to bullying and threatening the Planning Minister to ensure a speedy decision in his and RATCH’s favour: demanding that the Planning Minister make a decision no later than tomorrow (ie 19 December 2014) (see this article).

RATCH and Morris have shown all the care and restraint we’ve come to expect from the wind industry and its parasites: an “industry” that has absolutely no interest in producing meaningful power or “saving” the planet. Take away the promise of $50 billion in subsidies from the REC Tax on power consumers (see our post here) and this lot would will disappear in a heartbeat (see our post here).

RATCH shares its Thai roots with another Thai wind power outfit that owes its existence to the Thai Military Junta – “Wind Energy Holdings”.

Wind Energy Holdings has hit the news recently, as its hitherto-hot-shot head, Nopporn Suppipat has been caught with his fingers in the till. Having been caught – he’s acted with all the honour we’ve come to expect from wind weasels, wherever they ply their trade: he’s bolted!

Here’s The Wall Street Journal laying out an all too familiar wind industry tale.

Co-chief of Thailand’s Wind Energy a fugitive, say police
The Wall Street Journal
Warangkana Chomchuen and James Hookway
18 December 2014

UNTIL a few weeks ago, Nopporn Suppipat was a rising star in Thailand’s corporate scene.

The 43-year-old entrepreneur was profiled in local magazines, touted as a leader in alternative energy, and was firming up plans for a multi-billion-dollar initial public offering of the wind-power company he helped lead, Wind Energy Holding.

Now police say he has left the country to avoid arrest on accusations of extortion and insulting the monarchy, and Wind Energy said he had stepped down as co-chief executive.

The company’s IPO plans are on hold as it reorganises, according to source.

In a telephone interview from an undisclosed location, Mr Nopporn said he had done nothing wrong, yet he feared he might never be able to return to Thailand.

Mr Nopporn said his fall from grace was unexpected. He said his problems dated from the aftermath of Asia’s financial crisis in the late 1990s.

To shore up his personal finances, Mr Nopporn said, he had borrowed 17 million baht, the equivalent of about $630,000 today, from Gryphon International Holding, where he was then the largest shareholder, although had since divested himself of all of his shares.

Mr Nopporn’s business partners, though, filed an embezzlement complaint against him with the police, who forwarded to public prosecutors.

He arranged to pay the money back in instalments, finally settling the outstanding sum in court in 2012, according to a court document.

Most of his partners then agreed to settle the dispute, the document shows. However, Mr Nopporn said, one partner, Bundit Chotewitthayakul, refused to withdraw his lawsuit.

With preparations for an IPO for Wind Energy beginning to get off the ground, Mr Nopporn said, earlier this year he had offered Mr Bundit 20 million baht to withdraw his complaint.

According to Mr Nopporn, Mr Bundit then asked for 100 million baht. Mr Bundit’s lawyer said his client declined to comment.

“I wanted to have a clean slate and I can afford it,” Mr Nopporn said.

Mr Nopporn said he then hired a negotiator to try to reach a lower settlement with Mr Bundit. Police said the negotiator then hired three brothers of the estranged wife of Thailand’s heir to the crown, who has since relinquished her royal title, to increase pressure on Mr Bundit. From that point, Mr Nopporn’s problems took a turn for the worse.

The brothers were arrested and accused of defaming the monarchy by exploiting their royal ties for personal gain, among other offences, as police investigators stepped up an anticorruption campaign that also implicated senior police officials.

The police officials, who have been arrested and accused of similar crimes, and the brothers are now in police custody.

It is unclear whether they entered pleas or whether they have legal representation.

Thailand has some of the world’s most severe lese majeste laws, allowing for prison sentences of up to 15 years.

With the investigation widening, Mr Nopporn said he chose to leave Thailand before an arrest warrant was issued alleging he committed lese majeste by contracting the former princess’s brothers, in addition to the police’s accusation that he attempted to extort Mr Bundit. The company has appointed Emma Collins as its sole chief executive; she was co-chief with Mr Nopporn.

A spokesman for Wind Energy said it was reviewing its options for an IPO, while the company said in a written statement that the criminal allegations against Mr Nopporn had nothing to do with Wind Energy.
The Wall Street Journal

Nopporn Suppipat Thailand

STT loves the way the (unnamed) spokesman for Wind Energy Holdings was quick to cut their “star” boss loose: proving that there really is no honour amongst thieves!

Now – some might think that corporate “standards” could be expected to slip in a country run by a band of “brass-hats” – but things don’t get any better even where the outfit is Denmark’s leading (but woefully struggling) fan maker, Vestas.

Vestas set the benchmark a while back – true to form, it keeps lying and cheating its way into trouble wherever it goes.

While Vestas threw $millions at the Greens and other astro-turfing, eco-fascist outfits in Australia (and elsewhere) – employing them as spruikers for its well-oiled (but nauseating) “Act on Facts” propaganda campaign – it got belted in the US earlier this year for failing to give its own (and potential) investors the very sort of facts, upon which share market punters and free markets depend.

Consistent with Vesta’s “fast-and-loose” with the “truth” style of doing business, it was caught out cooking its books and lying to the markets about its profitability in an effort to take investors for a ride. That little subterfuge cost it a lazy $5 million.

Vestas reaches conditional settlement on US lawsuit for $5 million
Wind Power Monthly
James Quilter
27 June 2014

UNITED STATES: Vestas said it has conditionally settled a lawsuit from a pension fund claiming the company issued false information regarding its revenue and earnings.

The lawsuit originates from 2011 and alleged false reporting was made between October 2009 and October 2010.

Vestas said $5 million will be paid out to the plaintiffs. It denies any wrongdoing and said it was making the payment “in order to end the substantial expenses, burdens and uncertainties associated with a continued litigation in the USA”.

The settlement is still subject to approval by the US courts.

Speaking about the decision, Vestas chairman Bert Nordberg said: “We look forward to putting this case behind us, which will allow us to continue our focus on the operation of the business to the benefit of our customers and our owners.”

The 2009-2010 period represents a troubled time for Vestas. At the end of 2010 company changed its accounting procedures.

Deminor Recovery Services, a company targeting Vestas on behalf of disgruntled investors, has been focusing on this change, suggesting Vestas used it to shift around 1.8GW of orders from the 2009 results into 2010 figures.
Wind Power Monthly

cook-the-books

Wind Turbines…The Ultimate “Unsustainable Energy”…. Germany’s downfall.

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For immediate release: December 15, 2014.

Commentary by Marita Noon

Executive Director, Energy Makes America Great Inc.

Contact: 505.239.8998, marita@responsiblenergy.org

Germany’s “energy transformation:” unsustainable subsidies and an unstable system

Perhaps when Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel was a child, she attend a party and was the only one who came without a present, or wearing inappropriate attire—and the embarrassment she felt haunts her to this day. That’s how psychodynamic psychology (Freud) might explain her December 3 decision spend more money on Germany’s failing energy experiment to avoid, as Reuters puts it: “the embarrassment of missing her government’s goal of a 40 percent reduction of emissions by 2020.”

As Europe’s biggest economy, Germany has also embraced the biggest carbon dioxide reductions through a program known as “Energiewende”—or, in English, also called energy change, shift, or transformation. Energiewende was launched in 2000 under Merkel’s predecessor who offered subsidies for any company that produced green energy.

While the European Union (E.U.) has committed to carbon dioxide cuts of 40 percent by 2030, Germany’s national goal aims to get there a decade sooner—which may have seemed achievable early in the program. After the 1990 reunification of Germany, the modernization of East Germany brought rapidly reduced emissions. However, the program’s overall result has raised costs and the emissions the expensive programs were designed to cut.

A few months ago, Bloomberg reported that due to increased coal consumption: “Germany’s emissions rose even as its production of intermittent wind and solar power climbed fivefold in the past decade”—hence Merkel’s potential embarrassment on the global stage where she’s put herself in the spotlight as a leader in reducing emissions.

On December 3, while 190 governments were meeting for two weeks of climate change talks in Lima, Peru (which, after 30 hours of overtime, produced a compromise deal that environmental groups see “went from weak to weaker to weakest”), Merkel’s cabinet agreed to a package that continues Germany’s optimistic—though unrealistic—goal and increases subsidies for measures designed to cut emissions. Regarding Germany’s “climate protection package”, Barbara Hendricks, Environment Minister, admitted: “if no additional steps were taken, Germany … would miss its targets by between five to eight percentage points.”

The results of the German agreement will require operators of coal-fueled power plants to reduce emissions by at least 22 million tons—the equivalent of closing eight of them. The Financial Times (FT) believes the plan will “lead to brownouts in German homes.”

With the goal of generating 80 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2050, Germany has aggressively pursued a green dream with unsustainable subsidies that have produced an unstable system described by FT, on November 25, as: “a lesson in doing too much too quickly on energy policy.”

So, what are the lessons? What should the U.S., and other countries, learn from Germany’s generous subsidy programs and rapid, large-scale deployment and integration of renewable energy into the power system? These are the questions U.S. legislators should be asking themselves as they argue over a tax extender package that includes a retroactive extension for the now-expired Production Tax Credit for wind energy.

Fortunately, the answers are easy to determine. Finadvice, a Switzerland based advisor to the utility and renewable industry, did an exhaustive study: “Development and Integration of Renewable Energy—Lessons Learned from Germany.” The introductory comments of the resulting report, includes the following statement: “The authors of this white paper would like to state that they fully support renewables as a part of the power portfolio. …a couple [of the authors] have direct equity interests in renewable projects.” The author’s viewpoint is an important consideration, especially in light of their findings. They wanted Germany’s experiment to work, yet they begin the Executive Summary with these words:

“Over the last decade, well-intentioned policymakers in Germany and other European countries created renewable energy policies with generous subsidies that have slowly revealed themselves to be unsustainable, resulting in profound, unintended consequences for all industry stakeholders. While these policies have created an impressive roll-out of renewable energy resources, they have also clearly generated disequilibrium in the power markets, resulting in significant increases in energy prices to most users, as well as value destruction for all stakeholders: consumers, renewable companies, electric utilities, financial institutions, and investors.”

After reading the entire 80-page white paper, I was struck with three distinct observations. The German experiment has been has raised energy costs to households and business, the subsidies are unsustainable, and, as a result, without intervention, the energy supply is unstable.

Cost

We, in the U.S., are constantly being told that renewable energy is close to cost parity with traditional power sources such as coal and natural gas. Yet, the study clearly points out the German experiment has resulted in “significant increases in energy prices to most users”—which will “ultimately be passed on to electricity consumers.” Germany’s cost increases, as much as fifty percent, are manmade not market-made—due to regulation rather than the trust costs. The high prices disproportionately hurt the poor giving birth to the new phrase: “energy poverty.”

The higher costs hurt—and not just in the pocket book. The authors cite an International Energy Agency report: “The European Union is expected to lose one-third of its global market share of energy intensive exports over the next two decades due to high energy prices.”

Subsidies and instability are big factors in Germany’s high prices.

Subsidies

To meet Germany’s green goals, feed-in tariffs (FIT) were introduced as a mechanism that allows for the “fostering of a technology that has not yet reached commercial viability.” FITs are “incentives to increase production of renewable energy.” About the FITs, the report states: “This subsidy is socialized and financed mainly by residential customers.” And: “Because of their generosity, FITs proved capable of quickly increasing the share of renewable power.”

Germany’s original FITs, “had no limit to the quantity of renewables to be built” and “lead to unsustainable growth of renewables.” As a result, Germany, and other E.U. countries have “had to modify, and eventually phase out, their program because of the very high costs of their renewable support mechanisms.”

Germany has also begun to introduce “self-generation fees” for households and businesses that generate their own electricity—typically through rooftop solar, “to ensure that the costs of maintaining the grid are paid for by all consumers, not just those without rooftop PVs.” These fees remove some of the cost-saving incentive for expensive solar installation.

Section four of the report, “Unintended Consequences of Germany’s Renewable Policies,” concludes: “Budgetary constraints, oversupply and distortion of power prices, transaction-specific operational performance, market economics (i.e. Germany proposing to cut all support for biogas), debt structures, and backlash of consumers paying higher prices were all factors contributing to regulatory intervention. Projecting past 2014, these factors are expected to continue over the next several years.”

Stability

Hopefully, by now, most people—especially my readers—understand that the intermittent and unreliable nature of wind and solar energy means that in order for us to have the lights go on every time we flip the switch (stability) every kilowatt of electric capacity must be backed up for times when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. But, what most of us don’t think about, that the report spotlights, is that because the favored renewables benefit from “priority dispatch”—which means that if a renewable source is generating power, the utility company must buy and use it rather than the coal, natural gas or nuclear power it has available—the traditional power plants operate inefficiently and uneconomically. “Baseload thermal plants were designed to operate on a continuous base. …they were built to operate at their highest efficiencies when running 24 hours a day, seven days a week.” Now, due to renewables, these plants operate only a fraction of the time—though the cost to build and maintain them is constant. “The effect of fewer operational hours needs to be compensated by higher prices in these hours.”

Prior to the large integration of renewables, power plants earned the most when demand is high—in the middle of the day (which is also when the most solar power is generated). The result impacts cost recovery. “There are fewer hours in which the conventional power plants earn more than the marginal cost since they run fewer hours than originally planned and, in many cases, provide back-up power only.”

This translates into financial difficulties for the utilities that have resulted in lower stock prices and credit ratings. (Note: utility stocks often make up a large share of retirement portfolios.) Many plants are closed prematurely—which means the initial investment has not been recovered.

Because the reduced use prevents the power plants from covering their full costs—yet they must be available 24/7, power station operators in Germany are now seeking subsidies in the form of “capacity payments.” The report explains that a plant threatened to close because of “economic problems.” However, due to its importance in “maintaining system stability” the plant was “kept online per decree” and the operator’s fixed costs are compensated.

*****

Anyone who reads “Development and Integration of Renewable Energy” will conclude that there is far more to providing energy that is efficient, effective and economical than the renewable fairytale storytellers want consumers to believe. Putting a solar panel on your roof is more involved than just installation. The German experiment proves that butterflies, rainbows and pixy dust won’t power the world after all—coal, natural gas, and nuclear power are all important parts of the power portfolio.

Why, then, did Merkel continue Germany commitment to an energy and economic suicide? It is all part of the global shaming that takes place at the climate change meetings like the one that just concluded in Lima, Peru.

If only U.S. legislators would read “Development and Integration of Renewable Energy” before they vote for more subsidies for renewable energy, but, heck, they don’t even read the bill—which is why calls from educated constituents are so important. I am optimistic. Maybe we could learn from Germany’s experience what they haven’t yet learned themselves.

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