Governments the World Over, Try to Evade Responsibility for Harming Citizens with Wind Turbines!

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From Scotland: Turbines and the health risk

by ashbee2

The Herald Scotland — 13 August 2014
I WAS interested in the Scottish Government’s response to the Winds for Justice concerns about the health implications of wind turbines on those living in close proximity to them (“Protesters fight wind farms on grounds of health”, The Herald, August 11) when it said there was “no clear evidence of a causal link between the operation of wind turbines and adverse health effects”.

I WAS interested in the Scottish Government’s response to the Winds for Justice concerns about the health implications of wind turbines on those living in close proximity to them (\”Protesters fight wind farms on grounds of health\”, The Herald, August 11) when it said there was \”no clear evidence of a causal link between the operation of wind turbines and adverse health effects\”.
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In April, 2012, The British Medical Journal reviewed the consequences of wind turbine noise and available evidence and concluded at that stage that “wind turbine noise seems to affect health adversely and an independent review of evidence is needed”.

With the thousands of wind turbines already in operation in Scotland and many thousands more planned, the health implications should be of concern to the Scottish Government and at least until further studies and review of the evidence, as suggested by the British Medical Journal, no more should be constructed within two kilometres of homes.

The Scottish Government was made aware at the time of the BMJ article but chose not to take it on board.

Dr James Weir,

Glenlora Cottage,

Lochwinnoch.

Aussies Know Renewable Energy Targets are a SCAM! Get rid of them!

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Senator Matt Canavan: mandatory RET is an Enormous Wind Industry Protection Racket

August 20, 2014 by

abbott, hockey, cormann

With news that Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey and Mathias Cormann have teamed up to axe the mandatory RET (see our post here), the wind industry and its parasites have been reduced to a pitiful spectacle: drifting between pleading and begging for mercy, on the one hand, and foaming rage, on the other.

These desperados are like a band of teenage brats facing a little “parenting” for the first time in their lives: how dare anyone pull the plug on $50 billion worth of REC Tax/Subsidy that would have given me a delightful Point Piper view of Sydney Harbour, and kept me and my mates in Mercs and Beamers for life?!?!

And like spoilt infants facing a little discipline, these boys are looking for any hint that they might avoid punishment. Overblown reports put out by the ABC and Fairfax press that the Coalition isn’t really intent on scrapping the mandatory RET outright have been seized on by the wind industry and its parasites like shipwreck survivors clinging to floating wreckage.

But this is one occasion where the stricken will be denied any salvation.

STT hears that what was reported in the Australian Financial Review (and covered in this post) is just the beginning of the wind industry’s woes.

STT hears that Tony Abbott harbours a deep antipathy to the wind industry, which is only matched by his distaste for corporate welfare; we’ve covered a little of it in our posts here and here and here.  The PM is determined to bring the wind industry to an end; the only question is precisely how that objective is to be achieved. While the shortest route home is to simply scrap the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000, there are plenty of other ways of skinning the subsidy cat.

STT hears that the (current) preferred option is to leave the legislation in tact, but to gut it in such a way that the wind industry will be starved of subsidies by choking off the current and, more importantly, expected value of RECs.

The plan goes a little like this.

The Coalition has a policy aimed at achieving least-cost CO2 abatement, called “Direct Action” (a run down on the policy is available here). The policy has its critics on other scores, but it may well end up being the wind industry’s Armageddon.

Under the Direct Action policy, CO2 abatement is to be achieved at the lowest possible cost using “Australian Carbon Credit Units” (CCUs).

CCUs would be issued on audited proof of the abatement of 1 tonne of CO2. That could be by way of “carbon farming”: planting trees or restoring vegetation cover to over-grazed pastoral range-lands, say.

RECs, on the other hand, are issued on proof of renewable power dispatched to the grid: 1 REC for each and every MWh delivered. The deal has proceeded on the (wild) assumption that 1 MWh of wind power dispatched to the grid results in 1 tonne of CO2 emissions reduction in the electricity sector.

Under the PM’s brewing plan to kill the wind industry, RECs would be made redundant and, instead, wind power generators would be entitled to apply for CCUs. RECs and CCUs would be consolidated, with the former being phased out, and eventually replaced by the latter.

Now, here’s the clever part.

A CCU will only be issued on audited proof that the applicant has, in fact, reduced or abated 1 tonne of CO2 emissions. That will see wind power outfits struggle to jump the first hurdle: despite some “smoke and mirrors” modelling, the wind industry has never produced a shred of evidence to back its CO2 abatement claims.

The auditing of CCU applications will be done by way of certification and verification by a registered valuer. In the event that wind power outfits can satisfy the auditor and pocket a CCU, they then face the prospect of a far less generous subsidy stream.

(As an aside, one earlier variation of the plan was that the recipient of the CCU would not be able to cash it in, but would, rather, surrender the CCU to the Australian Tax Office and enjoy a reduction in their taxable income to the (pre-determined) value of the CCU: after auditing, the applicant would present their CCUs to a Certified Practicing Accountant to be submitted to the ATO with the applicant’s tax returns.)

The point of Direct Action and the CCU is to bring about the cheapest possible CO2 abatement, by whatever means. This means that the market for CCUs will be open to all comers and competitive in a way which the market for RECs isn’t.

The REC price is underpinned by the mandated shortfall charge of $65 per MWh: the effect of which comes into play from 2017, as the annual RET figure begins to climb from 27,200 GWh to the 41,000 GWh target, effective from 2020 to 2031. It’s that relationship that has wind power outfits salivating at the prospect of RECs being worth at least $65 and, by 2017, exceeding $100.

The CCU, however, is meant to be tradeable and interchangeable with carbon credits on international markets; such as those traded in Europe. Under Direct Action, certain CO2 emitters will be able to meet their obligations to surrender CCUs by purchasing European carbon credits at the going rate: the trading price of which has ranged between A$7-10.

The price for CCUs is, therefore, expected to top out at around $10.

And it’s on the issue of being able to trade CCU’s on the international market that the Coalition have been talking seriously to big Clive Palmer and, in this respect, may end up adopting parts of the PUP’s much reported plan for an ETS – starting with internationally tradeable CCUs. Of course, Palmer’s stated position is that the price for ETS credits must be set at ZERO, until such time as all of Australia’s major trading partners (like Europe, China, Japan, Canada and the US etc) sign up to an international ETS (see our post here).

For wind power outfits to survive, let alone build any new capacity, they need RECs to be trading at around $40, at a minimum. Anything less than $30, and wind power generators will never cover their operating costs, which run between $25-30 per MWh (see our post here).

Under Direct Action (assuming audited proof that 1 tonne of CO2 emissions has been abated) wind power generators would be issued with 1 CCU (instead of 1 REC).

By replacing RECs (currently trading around $30) with CCUs likely to trade around $8, the wind industry would disappear in a heartbeat. Although, we note that wind industry barrackers, the Climate Institute predicts that wind power outfits will soon be able to survive on subsidies of around $10 per MWh (see further below) – in which case, the wind industry will lap up CCUs at $8-10 and rub along just fine: but we doubt it … What’s that they say about being careful about what you wish for?

STT hears that over the last few months crack energy market economist, Danny Price has been working on the plan to rework the RET to bring it into line with the Direct Action policy; starting with the plan to replace the REC system with CCUs (see our post here).

So, if you hear the members of the Coalition talking about retaining the mandatory RET, don’t be too concerned. STT hears that Tony Abbott is absolutely committed to killing the wind industry; and how it’s done is a matter of substance, not form.

In the meantime, a growing number of Coalition members are going on the offensive; calling for the mandatory RET to be scrapped outright.

matt canavan

Another to join the queue is Queensland Nationals Senator, Matt Canavan (a former Director of the Productivity Commission) who penned this brilliant piece for The Australian.

Dodgy sums on renewables don’t add up
The Australian
Matt Canavan
19 August 2014

THE advocates of renewable energy would have you believe that they have discovered the economic equivalent of the fountain of youth. According to them, we can adopt more expensive ways of doing things, yet that will lead to cheaper prices.

That renewable energy is more expensive than fossil fuels should not be in dispute. If renewables were cheaper, they would not need the billions of dollars in subsidies they receive every year courtesy of taxpayers.

The most recent example of magic pudding economic modelling was released by the Climate Institute yesterday and purports to show that subsidising renewable energy will in fact reduce energy prices. The report concedes, at least in its graphs, that abolishing the renewable energy target will reduce power prices.

The Climate Institute claims that after a few years of falling prices, they will increase. This primarily occurs because the modelling assumes that renewable energy will get cheaper through learning by doing. Thanks to this miraculously rapid learning, it is assumed that subsidies to renewables will drop from more than $70 per megawatt hour in 2020 to just over $10 by 2030. The modelling refers to “international studies” to support this assumption without referencing any. So much for peer review.

Windmills have been around for centuries and despite massive investment from countries such as Denmark, they are still not economically viable without subsidies. But if the RET is about to solve the problem of affordable energy, why stop there?

For instance, Australia has long had a problem producing cheap and competitive cars but we have the solution. All we need is a domestic automobile target. The DAT will mandate that, say, 20 per cent of our cars should be produced domestically. Domestic manufacturers will receive domestic automobile certificates for every car they produce. Importers of cars will have to buy these DACs. We know this will work because it is a market-based solution. Just like the RET, it should magically reduce the price of cars for Australian consumers.

In reality, such a scheme would be nothing but a fancy form of tariff. Those who argued for tariffs argued that Australian industry needed protection when it was young, but one day it would grow up and would become cheaper and more competitive. Advocates of renewables use a version of this discredited infant industry argument today.

The models used to support this just confirm the old joke: ask an economist what two plus two equals and he will respond: “How much would you like it to equal?”

Some who can’t bear to defend wealthy companies asking for taxpayer handouts say the RET is cheap. It is true that credible economic modelling shows the RET probably costs consumers about $50 a year. Is that cheap?

Last week, the nation was gripped by the spectacle of a “regressive” fuel tax that would cost the average consumer $20 a year. The same people who pillory the Treasurer for indexing fuel excise argue for a RET more than twice as costly. At least fuel excise will help build roads, whereas the RET doesn’t make electricity more reliable or powerful, it just makes pensioners and the poor go without heating or airconditioning to subsidise the lucky few with the resources to invest in the latest fad: renewables.

The RET is an extremely expensive form of emission reductions, between double and six times the cost of the carbon tax.

And it doesn’t stop there. The big losers from the RET are those industries that use lots of energy, such as aluminium and fertiliser producers. Some economic modelling finds that the RET will lead to 5000 fewer jobs.

There are few supporters left of high car or other tariffs. The biggest protection racket left is renewable energy.

The final argument used to stop protection from being removed is that it introduces sovereign risk and would be unfair to those who have invested in an industry based on government policy. Even some who want to remove renewable subsidies argue that we should grandfather existing investments.

There is merit in this but it cuts both ways. When the 20 per cent RET was introduced five years ago it effectively devalued billions of dollars worth of coal and gas assets. Some estimates say the RET will transfer more than $5 billion from fossil fuel to renewable assets in the next 15 years. Such an expropriation also represents sovereign risk. It is fine to talk about grand­fathering renewables but we should also great-grandfather those who invested in coal, gas or aluminium before there was a prospect of a RET.

As an economically damaging protectionist policy, the RET should be removed. The adjustment should be done over time and the costs should be shared between fossil fuel, energy-intensive and renewable sectors alike.

Matt Canavan is a Nationals senator for Queensland. He was formerly a director of the Productivity Commission.
The Australian

The only quibble we have with Matt’s fine piece of analysis is the implicit concession that reducing or scrapping the mandatory RET amounts to “sovereign risk”.

In this post, WA Senator, Chris Back slammed that one straight over the long-boundary, based on Parliamentary advice which, funnily enough, reflects what STT has already said on the issue (see our posts here andhere). What the wind industry faces is “regulatory risk” – just like the risk realised by aluminium processors and conventional power generators when Labor increased the mandatory RET to 41,000 GWh in 2010: examples relied on by Matt when dealing with the claimed need for “grandfathering” wind industry investments.

Matt has a pretty fair crack at the “Magic Pudding” economics put up by wind industry cheer squad, the Climate Institute and its nonsensical claims that subsidies to wind power outfits will drop from $70 per MWh in 2020 to around $10 per MWh by 2030. That fiction dissolves with a cursory peek at the legislation that makes up the mandatory RET; and the application of plain old arithmetic to its terms.

By 2020, the RECs issued to wind power outfits (1 REC per MWh dispatched) will be worth at least $65 (equal to the cost of the mandated shortfall charge) – and are expected to trade at around $100 by then – which means the subsidy extracted from power consumers and directed to wind power outfits will be worth at least $65 per MWh and, more likely, $100 per MWh, right up until 2031. Between 2014 and 2031, the REC Tax/Subsidy will add between $36 billion and $50 billion to Australian power consumers’ bills (see our post here).

Not only is the Climate Institute’s claim about the cost of subsidies to wind power outfits utter bunkum, its “modelling”, of course, deliberately ignores the impact of the Power Purchase Agreements struck between wind power generators and retailers, which guarantee returns of between $90-120 per MWh (versus the wholesale price for conventional power of $30-40 per MWh). Sticking with its “Magic Pudding” approach to the cost of the mandatory RET, the Climate Institute tosses up the wind industry’s argument that wind power lowers wholesale prices: precisely how it does so on days when the entire wind power output of all wind farms connected to the Eastern Grid struggles to top 20 MW is anybody’s guess (see our post here). But, in any event, power consumers don’t pay the wholesale price (and couldn’t care less about it): it’s the price fixed by PPAs (which run from 15 to 25 years) that determines the price retailers charge their customers and the final cost of wind power; and, therefore, retail prices (see our posts here and here).

The Magic Pudding’s ability to return to his original form – no matter how many times he was eaten – is the stuff of delicious fantasy. However, slice $50 billion from Australian power consumers and our economy is unlikely to mimic the Magic Pudding’s most desirable quality and bounce back without a scratch. The mandatory RET is not only “the biggest protection racket left”, it is the single biggest (and perfectly avoidable) threat to sustainable Australian employment and prosperity there is. The mandatory RET must go now.

MagicPudding

Sherri Lange, from NAPAW, calls for an Audit of the Green Energy, and Green Economies Act!

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Letter to Auditor General for Ontario from North American Platform Against Windpower

by Sherri Lange
August 19, 2014

To: Ms. Bonnie Lysyk (Auditor General for Ontario)       (Letter of August 11, 2014)

Dear Ms Lysyk,

Please consider this letter as an urgent formal request for a complete and impartial audit for all matters pertaining to the Green Energy and Green Economy Act, 2009, and its false assertions and negative results for Ontario: these misrepresentations include vigorous job creation, suggested cleaner air space, the ability to create energy facilities, wind and solar, in particular, in a cost savings manner, or competitive manner.

The Green Energy and Green Economy Act has suggested with not a little hyperbole, that it will “spark” growth in “renewables sources in Ontario, while creating savings, and producing 50,000 jobs, direct and indirect,” and “make a positive contribution towards climate change objectives,” whereas in fact the GEA threatens to eviscerate the economy of Ontario and Canada as a whole. The factual results of the GEA are of economic chaos, massive job losses, environmental degradation of the highest order, a decay of our treasured environmental protections in law, and yet uncounted human health and productivity costs.

Under the guise of positive net growth, and climate change objectives, this Act has been used to gouge and tyrannize the province, materially and economically.

We believe that the mandate of the Auditor General to provide access to “value for money” data, within an audit, will provide even more information with respect to the waste and perhaps fraud at the highest levels; consumers are indeed not being provided with fair business practices, but are continually subjected to even more egregious attacks in their daily “energy expensive” lives due to a battered and debt ridden economy. Jobs continue to leave Ontario. Some are relocating to Buffalo, to save, in one instance, $4 million per year in energy savings, or to Saskatchewan, for example. The bleed of jobs cannot continue, and we believe that an assertive and clear look at the funding and economic threat of the Green Energy Act will bear striking similarities to the international failure of wind power and Green Energy policies. Even information provided years ago by your office and the Fraser Institute did nothing to change the course.

We contend that none of the GEA assertions and projections have proven valid, and have in fact been a major contributor, likely THE major contributor, to the near demise of manufacturing in Ontario, to energy poverty for many Ontarians whose hydro bills have risen 30-40% with promises of more hikes, to the loss of jobs to the USA and western Canada, to the ill health of hundreds of Ontarians, some of whom have been forced to abandon homes, or been bought out by developers, or who reside in parking lots at Walmart, or at cottages, or with relatives. The energy chaos of Ontario now handily competes with that of Spain, Germany, or the UK.

All of this should be and should have been preventable, since the facts are well known. Indeed, the facts of the Green Energy failures of Europe should have been a lesson learned before this Ontario failure of a massive scale. (Ontario now has the unenviable position of having the highest cost of power in North America. The significance of this is not lost on Moody’s Credit Ratings system, with the threat of downgrades to Ontario.) The lessons of Europe have been put before the Legislature, all parties, on many occasions, without benefit or improvement.

The Fraser report of 2013 has already indicated that the assertions of the GEA are egregiously false.

“Already, the GEA has caused major price increases for large energy consumers, and we’re anticipating additional hikes of 40 to 50 per cent over the next few years,” said Ross McKitrick, Fraser Institute senior fellow and author of Environmental and Economic Consequences of Ontario’s Green Energy Act.”

“The Ontario government defends the GEA by referring to a confidential 2005 cost-benefit analysis on reducing air pollution from power plants. That report did not recommend pursuing wind or solar power; instead it looked at conventional pollution control methods which would have yielded the same environmental benefits as the GEA, but at a tenth of the current cost. If the province sticks to its targets for expanding renewables, the GEA will end up being 70 times costlier than the alternative, with no greater benefits.” (News release, April 2013)

The study goes on to indicate that returns to investment in manufacturing are “likely to decline by 29 per cent, mining by 13 per cent, and forestry by less than one per cent.”

Professor McKitrick explains in his report that wind is especially wasteful, as surplus generation occurs generally when demand is low, and the resulting “dumping” also results in net losses to Ontario.

“The Auditor General of Ontario estimates that the province has already lost close to $2 billion on surplus wind exports, and figures from the electricity grid operator show the ongoing losses are $200 million annually”, says the report.

Terrance Corcoran in the Financial Post quotes from the Auditor’s report that the cost of power is estimated to rise again another 46% in the next four years. In his analysis of the Auditor General’s 2011 report on electricity, Mr. Corcoran writes of “wilful negligence” and a “high level of fiscal negligence and abuse of process and disdain for taxpayers and electricity consumers.”

A prime example of the negative impact on the Ontario jobs situation is reflected in Magna’s (the largest automotive parts manufacturer in Canada) announcement that due to the high cost of electricity in Ontario, it will not make any further investments. (Specifically, for Magna between 2013 and 2014, normal business activities resulted in an increased cost of electricity of 30 million dollars.)

The expressed primary purpose of the 2011 audit was to ensure that the OEB had sufficient and adequate systems in place to protect consumers, ratepayers. As noted also in the report, consumers are protected under the Energy Consumer Protection Act, 2010, and that under this legislation consumers shall be provided with the information they require about contracts, prices, and that they will be protected by fair business practices. This fairness has not been brought to fruition.

And the serial negligence continuing until this day, despite hearty and clear directives from the Fraser Institute and your office, has resulted merely in the advance of even more industrial wind in Ontario under Premier Wynne. Consumers are indeed not being increasingly protected, and continue to be recklessly thrown under the fiscal bus.

What we find most egregious is that the people of Ontario have warned the Premier(s) McGuinty and Wynne, and made reports to the Finance Committee, as well as reporting to these offices the results of energy chaos in Germany, Spain, the UK as well as other European states previously under the spell of “renewables.” (Please note the letter to the Editor, Financial Post, March 3, 2011: “No such thing as renewable energy.”) These abject economic failures in Europe should have provided clear warning of the folly of subsidizing inefficient non base load sources of power, particularly wind turbines.

The government and lobbying association CanWEA’s (Canadian Wind Energy Association) assertion that the wind turbine industry operates safely and without damage to human health is false and must also be examined, since the reports of ill health given to the MOE (Environment) now number in the thousands. The MOE (Ministry of the Environment) has recognized the problem, and admitted in an email obtained from an FOI that they “did not know what to do.” The costs of wind power to our medical system and human productivity have not yet been accounted for.

We remind you that with about 240,000 wind turbines worldwide, we yet only receive one half of one percent, NET ZERO, of our power needs from this source. This industry is a failure, plain and simple; does the build out then have something to do with massive subsidies deep in the pockets of developers? Who is receiving these massive double or quadruple profits? We would like to see a chart of the major beneficiaries of the FIT program in Ontario. In Spain, the profits have been so tidy, that the Government recently asked for some retroactive repayments,understandably chilling the wind developers’ aspirations. (The lineup of crimes against consumers continues in Ontario: with 86% of Ontario’s wind power being produced on days when we are already in a surplus export mode. Another net loss for consumers is obvious.)

Please also include an environmental impacts costs study in your findings. The extreme damage to water tables, prime farm land, general ecological tragedies and killing of wildlife, has an external cost factor as well, to be borne, sadly, by our future generations.

Mr. Geoffrey Cox, a UK Conservative MP, expressed his disgust for the “gigantic machines” which are terrorizing his country:

“The reality is there is a Klondike-type gold-rush going on in rural areas where developers are anxious to get their applications through to pick up the vast profits that can be made.

“This is having a disruptive, devastating and distressing effect on dozens of small rural communities that are being torn apart by these huge industrial machines that are just yards away from their home.

“The number of applications seems to be going up rather than receding. What is going on is a stealthy, silent revolution of the most beautiful landscapes in Great Britain.

“If we carry on we will have ruined this most extraordinary inheritance.”We look forward to your prompt reply and a rapid advancement into an impartial audit of these matters in their complete impacts on Ontario, on the economy, and on fairness, or in this case, unfairness, to each consumer and job seeker. It will be extremely useful to untangle some of the Byzantine financial and undemocratic policy arrangements that have led to this “made in Ontario” crisis. We must immediately stop this re-creation of the catastrophic results of Green Energy failures in Europe.

Please conduct an impartial and in depth assessment of all financial matters pertaining to the GEA and relay these findings to the people of Ontario at your earliest convenience. We anticipate that your report might reflect also on the medical costs to Ontario families, the loss of economic vibrancy and stability of rural Ontario which continues to bear the assault fully on its shoulders, the loss of tourism, and the loss of property values, which also contribute to economic stagnancy. Please also conduct a study on a trace of the profits to developers, kWh by kWh, if possible. We have a right to know where our hydro dollars are going.

The high octane waste of the “Green Energy and Green Economy Act”, which has been repeatedly explained to legislators, must cease immediately. It must also be retroactively remediated. Your office has the ability to further outline to the Government not only how it may alter course, but how it must immediately repair.

(We will be writing under separate cover to Commissioner Hawkes, as we fully believe the waste and apparent fraud of the GEA far overpowers the ORNGE, E-Health, and Gas Plant scandals.)

Thanking you in advance,

Sherri Lange

CEO NA-PAW (North American Platform Against Wind Power); Founding Director Toronto Wind Action; Executive Director Canada, Great Lakes Wind Truth; VP Canada, Save the Eagles International (www.na-paw.org)

Appendix

What we know

· Industrial wind turbines are inefficient and pitiably useless

· Industrial wind installations, factories, create energy sprawl and high levels of environmental pollution and toxic waste

· Industrial wind does not work when we need it to and over performs at times to the extent that developers are sometimes paid to NOT produce

· Huge subsidies support the industry, without which, the industry does not survive

· The GEA suppresses all democratic opposition to wind and solar power, and the cards are stacked in favor of preferred accelerated promotion of wind turbines at the expense of Municipal and community cohesion and preferences

· Massive amounts of base load back up power are always required; there is zero reduction in GHG’s

· The industry (lobby)gets to sit at the table with policy makers and lay the table for the feast

· There has been no reasonable or realistic or honest explanation for the massive outlay of wind turbines in Ontario

· Energy poverty is abundant now in Ontario, along with massive job losses and gutting of the public purse

· Lessons from Europe are not being acknowledged

IS THIS CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE?

 

– See more at: http://www.masterresource.org/2014/08/letter-to-auditor-general-for-ontario-from-north-american-platform-against-windpower/#more-31441

Will the Liberal gov’t in Ontario, smarten up, and do the right thing? Let’s hope so!

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Prospects of negative governmental action in Ontario’s energy sector

August 2014
 

By James J. Shanks

When investments are made in the private sector sophisticated financial models are developed, complete with multiple inputs, all designed to predict a range of best and worst case scenarios. If a significant model input strays beyond its originally anticipated value range for example, if customer demand for a business’s products collapses then the financial model for the business may fail. If so, stakeholders in the business will likely face a restructuring of their investments. 

The chances of a restructuring are far less likely when government is the main customer of the business, not only because governments are presumed to have deep pockets, but also because, in those businesses where government acts as an intermediary between the business and the ultimate consumers of the business’s products, the government’s intermediation tends to insulate the business from model failure and its usual consequences. Nevertheless, if model failure is severe and persistent enough, history in Canada suggests that governments may be tempted to impose a restructuring even on these sorts of businesses. 

In the years leading up to Ontario’s Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) program, it was generally accepted that Ontario was approaching a near-term shortage of electricity as surging demand threatened massive brownouts.  Government financial models, no doubt, assumed that the cost of developing renewable energy infrastructure involving long-term power purchases at prices significantly above market could be recouped by steadily increasing electricity rates over time, all without unduly reducing customer demand.1 However, subsequent experience seems to suggest that Ontario’s electricity demand may have been more elastic than anticipated, especially as many urban and rural electricity consumers have reacted to increasing prices by switching some of their electricity needs to lower-priced natural gas and propane. Moreover, as price increases in the Province have outpaced those in neighbouring jurisdictions (leaving Ontario’s electricity prices 30-60% higher than in those jurisdictions), some large commercial users have reacted by moving their operations out of Ontario, further depressing overall demand.2  In fact, far from remaining steady, electricity demand in the Province is now projected to decline until at least 2021.3

Even as electricity demand has declined, Ontario’s generating capacity has increased.  Overall generating capacity in Ontario has increased by 13% since 2003, while demand has decreased by 10% since 2005.4 The end result has been a large and continuing surplus of generating capacity, with Ontario’s generating capacity expected to exceed forecast (normal weather peak) demand this summer by 25-50%.5  Partly as a consequence, electricity spot prices in the Province have plummeted, sometimes falling to $0.025/kWh.6  Higher-priced, surplus Ontario electricity is sometimes resold to neighbouring jurisdictions at a substantial discount7 and the Global Adjustment amount charged to Ontario consumers has now risen to record levels.8

In summation, some of the model inputs in the Province’s original financial models may already have strayed beyond their initially anticipated value ranges, suggesting at least the possibility that model failure has occurred in the sector or that it may be imminent.  If so, then recent entrants into Ontario’s energy sector, otherwise dependent on the continuance of long-term government purchases, are quite right to be concerned about the possibility of a government-imposed restructuring in their sector.

Unlike private sector restructurings which typically involve a court process, government-imposed restructurings generally take the form of confiscatory legislation or some other form of negative governmental action.  It should come as no surprise that governments in Canada have from time to time engaged in various sorts of negative governmental action, invariably with the intent of modifying (or even abrogating altogether) undesirable government obligations.  Such action has even occurred previously in Ontario’s utility sector.9 For example, in the 1930’s, successive Ontario governments enacted several pieces of legislation abrogating various contractual commitments to private sector power producers, all with the intent of assisting the then-fledgling, and government-owned Ontario Hydro to become the dominant power producer and distributor in the Province.  Indeed, overall, scholarly research suggests that negative governmental action usually occurs (if it occurs at all): (a) when technological change in a given industry sector is occurring rapidly, (b) when pricing, demand or other important financial variables cannot be perfectly forecast, and (c) when governments have entered into long-term contracts that cannot easily be altered.10 In other words, the restructuring risk increases on model failure occurring within this context.  

Negative governmental action can take many forms, including specifically, the passage of legislation modifying government payables, authorizing or curing contract breaches, limiting court access, amending or cancelling contract commitments, and even expropriating completed projects. A recent, well publicized, example of negative governmental action in Canada occurred in the early 1990s when the federal government summarily cancelled several long-term contracts with private sector participants for the redevelopment of Toronto’s Pearson Airport.11 Bill C-22, passed by the House of Commons provided that: (a) all contracts relating to the redevelopment were declared not to have come into existence or to have had any legal effect, (b) all obligations, rights and interests arising out of the contracts were declared not to have come into existence, (c) no action or proceeding, including for damages for breach of contract, could be brought against the government, and (d) every action against the federal government was summarily dismissed.  Bill C-22 also authorized the relevant federal Minister, for a period of 30 days, to enter into agreements with aggrieved stakeholders to pay compensation in such amounts as the Minister considered appropriate.  Notably, compensation for lost profits was expressly prohibited under the legislation. 

Using Bill C-22 as an example, it may appear at first blush that governments in Canada hold all the cards when it comes to negative governmental action. However, stakeholders should note that there are various countervailing influences that will moderate the actual exercise of such extraordinary power. For example, government will be mindful of reputational concerns.12 Specifically, international credit rating agencies may react to negative governmental action by downgrading the subject government’s public debt due to increased “country risk”, thereby increasing future borrowing costs for the subject government. Foreign governments may impose “tit-for-tat” sanctions on projects in their jurisdictions that are intended to hurt nationals of the expropriating state. Judgments rendered by sympathetic foreign courts may be executable against the subject government’s assets located in foreign jurisdictions. And finally, equity investors in non-related sectors may avoid investment in the jurisdiction altogether for fear of falling victim to similar governmental action.

Aside from reputational concerns, some jurisdictions offer constitutional safeguards against negative governmental action without due process. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution are good examples.  Unfortunately, no such constitutional protection currently exists in Canada.13 Specifically, Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms contains no express provision for the protection of property, economic, or even contract rights.14 And based on a string of Charter cases decided by the Supreme Court of Canada, it is unlikely that any general protection of this nature will be implied any time soon.15 Instead, stakeholders in Canada will have to derive comfort from the fact that Canadian courts will generally construe confiscatory legislation very strictly against the subject government, straining if at all possible to find that the legislation does not exclude the payment of appropriate levels of compensation or review by the judiciary. Nevertheless, if the legislation is sufficiently precise, even a strict constructionist approach will be of little use to an aggrieved stakeholder.

In such circumstances, Canada’s free trade agreements may assist, but only if the stakeholder is a national of a treaty-protected country. As is well known, Canada is a signatory to a number of free-trade and foreign investment protection agreements, some of which prohibit confiscatory action without payment of appropriate compensation.  For example, under Article 1110 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), no federal or provincial government is permitted to “nationalize or expropriate an investment of a [US or Mexican] investor…or take a measure tantamount to nationalization or expropriation”, unless such action is: (a) for a public purpose, (b) effected on a non-discriminatory basis, (c) effected in accordance with due process, and (d) carried out upon payment of compensation equivalent to the fair market value of the expropriated investment.  

Particularly instructive here is the case of Metalclad Corporation v. Mexico16, a NAFTA case brought by an American company against the state of Mexico in 2000.  In that case, an arbitral tribunal ruled that, as a result of numerous laws and other negative governmental actions passed and undertaken by Mexican state and municipal authorities, Mexico had effectively expropriated Metalclad’s newly-constructed waste facility in Guadalcaza. The tribunal awarded Metalclad US$16,685,000 in damages representing Metalclad’s sunk costs of the investment.17 While damages awarded against Mexico did not include an amount on account of discounted lost profits, such damages are thought to be sustainable under NAFTA in certain circumstances.

Equally instructive is a 2012 NAFTA case brought against Canada by the Abitibi-Bowater group and involving certain confiscatory legislation passed by the Province of Newfoundland. In this case, the provincial legislation provided for: (a) the expropriation of significant Abitibi-Bowater properties used for hydroelectric generation and transmission, (b) the cancellation of various hydroelectric contracts between the Abitibi-Bowater group and the Province, and (c) the termination of certain timber and water rights. While the legislation provided for compensation for the expropriated properties, no compensation was to be forthcoming for the terminated timber and water rights. The Abitibi-Bowater group brought a NAFTA claim asserting that the Newfoundland legislation constituted an expropriation of its assets without appropriate compensation contrary to NAFTA Article 1110. Faced with the prospect of an uphill fight, the Canadian government opted to settle the claim for $140 million.  

Besides NAFTA, and as indicated above, several bilateral trade arrangements exist which contain similar foreign investor protection.18 Importantly, the proposed multilateral Trans-Pacific Partnership currently being negotiated with several Asia-Pacific countries and the proposed Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (not yet in force) will also contain similar investor protection. Once implemented, these new trade arrangements will significantly expand the list of treaty-protected countries and the range of foreign stakeholders that will be able to benefit from investor protection.  Notably however Canada’s trade agreements cannot be used by Canadian nationals to protect themselves against negative governmental action occurring within Canada in relation to their domestic investments.   

With the recent re-election of Ontario’s Liberal government, stakeholders in Ontario’s energy sector are, no doubt, breathing a little easier, as putative threats to tear up the Province’s FIT contracts are now much more clearly off the table.19 Most assuredly, the restructuring risk has subsided.  Still, the issues here are as much financial as they are political, and history in Canada suggests that negative governmental action can never truly be ruled out.  If financial model failure occurs and is considered severe and persistent enough, then negative governmental action will remain a distinct (even if remote) possibility. 

1 The comprehensiveness of the Government’s original financial models has been questioned by Ontario Auditor General in the Annual Report of the Office of the Auditor-General of Ontario.

2 Remarks of Greg Abel, Chairman, President and CEO of Spectra Energy, to Economic Club of Canada, June 24, 2014.  See also “Environmental and Economic Consequences of Ontario’s Green Energy Act”, R. R. McKitrick, Report prepared for Fraser Institute, 2013, and also “High Ontario Electricity Prices Hamper Ring of Fire Processing and Other Industry”, L. Di Matteo, February 6, 2011.

3 Ontario’s Electricity Surplus: An Opportunity to Reduce Costs”(the “Ontario Surplus”), a publication of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance Research Inc., July 2012.

4 See Ontario Surplus, supra.  See also “Eighteen Month Outlook: From March 2014 to August 2015” (the “18 Month Outlook”), a publication of the IESO, p. 4.

5 Based on 18 Month Outlook, Tables 3.1, 4.3-4.5.
 
6 See Ontario Surplus, p.3.
 
7 “Ontario’s Power Trip: Power Dumping”, Gallant, P., Financial Post, July 20, 2011, and “Ontario’s Power Trip: Province lost $1.2-billion this year exporting power”, Gallant, P., Financial Post, December 2, 2013.
 
8 “Ontario power fee sets new record: The global adjustment — a fee added to the market price of electricity in Ontario — has reached a record high”, Walton, T., The Toronto Star, September 3, 2013.
 
9 “Regulatory Failure and Renewal: The Evolution of the Natural Monopoly Contract”,  J. Baldwin, Ottawa: Economic Council of Canada 1989.
 
10 See Baldwin, Chaps. 3, 10 and 12, for example.  See also “Public Accountability in the Age of Contracting Out”, E. Atwood and M.J. Trebilcock, (1996) 27 Can. Bus. L.J., v. 27, n. 1, p. 1, at p. 38.
 
11 A more recent instance occurred when in 2008 the Government of Newfoundland expropriated various power generating and transmission assets of the Abitibi-Bowater group (discussed further below in this article) pursuant to the Abitibi-Consolidated Rights And Assets Act (Newfoundland).
 
12 See for example “A Constant Recontracting Model of Sovereign Debt”,  J. Bulow & K. Rogoff (1989) Journal of Political Economy, 155.
 
13 For a contrary view regarding the government’s right to implement negative governmental action, see “Is the Pearson Airport Legislation Unconstitutional?: The Rule of Law as a Limit on Contract Repudiation by Government”, P. Monahan, (1996) Osgoode H.L.J., v. 33, n. 3, p. 411, where the author argues that where legislation like Bill C-22 purports to deny access to the courts, the legislation breaches the rule of law implicitly enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and therefore is unconstitutional.
 
14 While the Canadian Bill of Rights provides an explicit right to the “enjoyment of property” and the right not to be deprived thereof without due process, the Canadian Bill of Rights only applies to federal laws, may not entitle the aggrieved party to compensation if the confiscatory legislation provides otherwise, and creates rights that do not have the same status as Charter rights. 
 
15 Siemens v. Manitoba (Attorney General), 2003 SCC 3; The Attorney General of Quebecv. Irwin Toy Limited, [1989] 1 S.C.R. 927; Whitbread v. Walley [1991] 2 W.W.R. 195 (SCC);Olympia Interiors Ltd. v. R. (1999), 167 F.T.R. 165 (Fed. T.D.), affirmed (1999), 1999 CarswellNat 1978 (Fed. C.A.), leave to appeal refused (2000), 252 N.R. 393 (S.C.C.);Energy Probe et al. v. The Attorney General Of Canada et al., (1994) 17 O.R. (3d) 717 (Ont. C.J.); and Shaw v. Stein, 2004 SKQB 194. 
 
16 See Metalclad Corporation v. Mexico, ICSID Case No. ARB(AF)/97/1 (NAFTA), Award. For an unsuccessful appeal of the NAFTA award to British Columbia Supreme Court, seeUnited Mexican States v. Metalclad Corp., 2001 BCSC 664.
 
17 Damages were based on the claimant’s actual investment in the property because the facility had not been operational long enough, and thus had not established a sufficient record of profitability, such that damages for lost profits could be proven.  The tribunal suggested that a “fair market value” award of damages for a going concern with a history of profitable operations would usually be based on an estimate of future profits, subject to a discounted cash flow analysis.  See  also Biloune, et al. v. Ghana Investment Centre, et al., 95 I.L.R.183, 207-10 (1993).
 
18 See, for example, Article 9.1 of the Canada-Panama Free Trade Agreement, Article G-10 of the Canada-Chile Free Trade Agreement, and Article 8.11 of the Canada-Korea Free Trade Agreement (not yet in force), all of which provide compensation for expropriatory measures taken by the federal or any provincial government.
 
19 See, for example, the Alliance for Renewable Energy’s view of the threat in: “June 12 Provincial Election will determine the Future of Ontario FIT Programs”,  June 3, 2014.

Etowa County Residents Ecstatic! Wind Leases Terminated, Wind Pushers Leave Town!

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Wind energy company pulling out of Cherokee, Etowah County projects, opposition says

 
on August 19, 2014 
 
Oklahoma wind farm.jpg

CENTRE, Alabama — Groups opposed to a proposed wind farm project in Cherokee and Etowah counties say the company behind the development has informed them that it will not be building a wind farm in Alabama.

According to a document filed July 9 in Cherokee County Probate Court, Pioneer Green Energy President Andrew Bowman signed a memorandum terminating a lease to about 1,889 acres of property, slated to be developed for the project. 

Mitzi Gibbs Eaker, with No Wind Alabama, said a similar agreement was signed in Etowah County.

Charlie Stewart, the attorney for Pioneer Green, had no comment beyond the filed documents. Company officials referred media inquiries to Stewart.

Pioneer Green Energy announced last year it planned to develop wind energy projects in Cherokee and Etowah counties, and said land leases had already been secured.

Five Cherokee County residents filed suit in an attempt to stop the development, and a group of Etowah County residents also filed suit, opposing the project in their county.

Pioneer Green later announced the $40 million Cherokee County project, which called for seven to eight turbines, probably would not begin construction until 2015. Company officials said the larger Etowah County project, which projected 30 to 45 turbines costing $160 million, probably would begin no earlier than the end of 2015.

Residents said they opposed the project for several reasons – among them environmental and property value concerns, noise, the change to the landscape and the long-term prospects of the development. “No Wind Alabama” took its name from what it said was the reason why wind developments have largely avoided the South -because of a lack of wind energy to supply sufficient power.

Pioneer Green officials countered that wind energy technology has improved to the point where wind could be used in areas earlier thought unable to support it.

Ginny Shaver, a Leesburg resident who opposed the project, said the turning point was in getting legislation passed calling for design specifications, setbacks and other regulations.

“When we got the local bills, that was the winning moment in my eyes,” Shaver said. “We had so much support from residents, in our groups, and it was just good, old fashioned lobbying from the people. From there, it was contacting legislators, making trips to Montgomery. It was literally a David versus Goliath thing. We didn’t have money, but we had people, and it was just a question of getting information out and educating folks.”

Eaker, who said she opposed the project because it would have negatively impacted her parents’ property in Etowah County, said she never felt confident of the outcome until attorneys informed her of the documents today.

“The residents are ecstatic that they can get back to their lives as normal,” she said. “We never felt confident. We always wondered what they had in their back pocket. It was only when we learned that the leases had been terminated that we knew it was really over.” 

 
 

For All the People Who Have Asked or Wondered about the “Copycat” website….

Featured / 1957chev / 2 Comments

There are 2 people that resigned from my Mothers Against Wind Turbines group, who are trying to run their own group, and are using my name. I am delighted that they are starting their own group, but disgusted, that they are trying to steal my name.  My trademarked name.  It is the name I came up with, while looking for a way to protect my son, as well as help other families protect their children.  My story is on my blog, but surprisingly enough, they have put it on their mothersagainstturbines.com website, and refuse to remove it, even though I have asked them repeatedly, to do so.  I want everyone to know, I do NOT endorse what these people are doing, I have no involvement with these people, and I am working toward resolving this issue.

I want to thank everyone who has been patient while this mess gets straightened out.          Shellie Correia

The Original Mother Against Wind Turbines

 

  • ® r for a registered trademark. The owner of a registered trademark may commence legal proceedings for trademark infringement to prevent unauthorized use of that trademark. However, registration is not required. The owner of a common law trademark may also file suit, but an unregistered mark may be protectable only within the geographical area within which it has been used or in geographical areas into which it may be reasonably expected to expand.

 

 

*****IMPORTANT*****

It has been brought to my attention, that the people using my name, Mothers Against Wind Turbines, with inc stuck at the end of it, are soliciting the people of West Lincoln, for money.  These are the same individuals that resigned, and then snuck around, behind my back, and took all of the money out of my MAWT account.  Thousands of dollars that had been earned by myself, and some supporters from the community.  They had NO right to do this.  I would highly recommend that any donations toward the wind fight go directly to:   http://swearontario.wix.com/swearontario     Thank you,   Shellie Correia

The Faux-Green Scam, is Completely Unsustainable!

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The Three Faces of Sustainability

Paul Driessen –
June 23, 2014
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Pressure from the United Nations, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and environmental activists to promote “sustainable” development has led to “economically harmful and environmentally counterproductive” policies that have resulted in completely unsustainable practices, writes environmental expert Paul Driessen in a new report for The Heartland Institute.

The failure to define exactly what true sustainability is “gives unelected regulators increasing control over energy use, economic growth, and all other aspects of life,” writes Driessen. Both wealthy and economically depressed regions of the world are pressured to avoid developing coal, oil, natural gas, hydroelectric power, and nuclear power despite evidence showing them to be “the only abundant, reliable, and affordable sources of energy.” Such anti-energy policies “perpetuate poverty for developing countries and reduce living standards in wealthier countries.”

In “The Three Faces of Sustainability,” Driessen calls for “true sustainable development” that “improves living standards instead of paying mere lip service to them.” This requires “allowing people the freedom to develop and use new technologies and best practices that conserve resources, reduce waste and pollution, and give people incentives to choose the most efficient energy and mineral sources and to abandon them once better ones are found.”

He concludes,

Wise resource use is consistent with sustainable development because the creative human mind – what economist Julian Simon called the ultimate resource – will continue to devise new technologies and new ways of finding and extracting important natural resources. We will never lack the resources needed to continue improving lives, unless misguided activists, politicians, and regulators succeed in placing those resources off-limits. Our most valuable natural resources are not endangered or approaching exhaustion under any reasonable analysis. … In sharp contrast, political sustainability impedes efforts to improve lives, protect the planet, and prolong resource availability for current and future generations.

Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For a Constructive Tomorrow and a policy advisor to The Heartland Institute. His articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, Investor’s Business Daily, and numerous other newspapers and magazines, and on websites around the world.

Main Stream Media, Not Reporting Honestly, When it Comes to Wind Turbines…

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ABC’s Pro-Wind Power Bias Exposed as a National Scandal

August 19, 2014 by  

Facts

Ever had the feeling that certain quarters of the media give the wind industry an easy run?

Australia’s National broad-sheet, The Australian stands as an exception; publishing plenty of pieces that, quite rightly, highlight the obscene cost and spurious “benefits” of the mandatory Renewable Energy Target and its product: the wind industry (for just a few examples, see our posts hereand here and here and here and here).

Not so, over at “your” ABC. The ABC (aka “Aunty”) is referred to as “the National Broadcaster”; it has numerous TV channels and radio stations that broadcast news and current affairs across the country. It is fully funded by Australian taxpayers to the tune of around $1.3 billion annually.

When it comes to renewable energy, and the wind industry in particular, the ABC runs a consistent narrative that touts the purported benefits, but rarely, if ever, delves into the fundamental flaws of trying to rely on highly unpredictable, unreliable and intermittent wind power. Moreover, the ABC avoids any investigation or analysis of the massive stream of subsidies added to power bills and directed to wind power outfits in the form of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), courtesy of the mandatory RET (see our post here).

Indeed, when confronted with that – inconvenient – part of the ABC’s pro-wind industry narrative, the ABC’s journalists become defensive and appear to act as advocates for the wind industry, rather than advocating for the Australian taxpayer and power consumer (ie, those that pay for the ABC) – as in this 7.30 interview of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Chief Economist Burchell Wilson (see our post here).

The wind industry puff pieces – often engineered by wind industry spin doctors, the Clean Energy Council – put up by the ABC conflate the issue of climate change with wind farms time and time again. If there’s a mention of the former, there’s almost certain to be an image and/or reference to the latter.

The ABC’s climate change narrative puts wind power up as THE solution to climate change, deliberately ignoring the facts; namely the need for 100% of its capacity to be backed up 100% of the time by fossil fuel generation sources, which means, therefore, that wind power cannot and will never reduce CO2 emissions in the electricity sector (see our postshere and here and here and here and here and here and here).

Wind power is not a substitute for conventional generation sources and – if CO2 is the problem – presents as a solution to nothing (see our post here).

The wind industry has never produced a shred of evidence to show that wind power has reduced CO2 emissions in Australia’s electricity sector. To the contrary of wind industry claims, the result of trying to incorporate wind power into a coal/gas fired grid is increased CO2 emissions (see thisEuropean paper here; this Irish paper here; this English paper here; and this Dutch study here). But, despite the evidence, the gullible and naive that pass for journalists at the ABC suck up the drivel spouted by the wind industry and its parasites, and present wind industry spin as gospel fact.

What’s that they say about never letting the facts get in the way of a good story?

With news that PM, Tony Abbott, his Treasurer, Joe Hockey and Finance Minister, Mathias Cormann have joined forces on a mission to scrap the mandatory RET outright, the ABC immediately went into damage control, trotting out the “usual suspects” – spin doctors from the Climate Institute and Clean Energy Council hell-bent on saving the RET for the benefit of their paymasters; and giving panic stricken rent-seekers, like Infigen an unchallenged forum to plead for policy mercy.

On ABC’s News 24 (and elsewhere on the ABC) wind industry cheer squad, the Climate Institute trotted out “modelling” based on a complete fiction that subsidies to wind power outfits will drop from $70 per MWh in 2020 to around $10 per MWh by 2030.

The starry-eyed presenters at the ABC might have been able to challenge that transparent myth if they had bothered to take a cursory peek at the legislation that makes up the mandatory RET and applied a little good old fashioned arithmetic to its terms. By 2020, the RECs issued to wind power outfits (1 REC per MWh dispatched) will be worth at least $65 – and are expected to trade at around $100 by then – which means the subsidy extracted from power consumers and directed to wind power outfits will be worth at least $65 per MWh and, more likely, $100 per MWh. Between 2020 and 2031, the REC Tax/Subsidy will add between $36 billion and $50 billion to Australian power consumers’ bills (see our post here). But simple and hard facts are lost or ignored as “inconvenient” and “unhelpful” to the ABC’s pro-wind industry “narrative”.

More than just a little suspicious that the ABC is infected by groupthink and could, just maybe, be a teensy-weensy bit biased in favour of renewables, the Institute of Public Affairs commissioned independent research to see if their hunch had something in it.

Here’s The Australian on the – not so surprising – findings.

Environment of fear as ABC fails bias test
The Australian
James Paterson
12 August 2014

THE ABC is not like any other broadcaster. With more than $1 billion in public funding, we rightly demand the ABC be rigorously fair, balanced and impartial.

On energy policy, we now know the ABC fails that test. As reported in The Australian yesterday, the Institute of Public Affairs released research that conclusively demonstrates the ABC’s bias against fossil fuels and in favour of renewable energy.

Energy policy is vital to our prosperity. Despite an abundance of natural resources, Australians pay among the highest electricity prices in the world, as a direct result of policy choices that have unquestionably been influenced by media coverage. However, this analysis could easily be replicated with the same results in other areas of ABC coverage.

In March, the IPA commissioned the independent media monitoring agency iSentia to analyse the ABC’s coverage of energy policy issues in relation to the coalmining industry, the coal-seam gas industry and the renewable energy industry. In the largest study of its kind, iSentia analysed 2359 separate ABC reports over a six-month period on these industries across national, metropolitan and regional radio and television.

The results were striking. iSentia found an astonishing 52 per cent of all ABC reports on renewable energy were favourable. Just 10.8 per cent were unfavourable.

Yet only 15.9 per cent of coalmining stories were favourable, while 31.6 per cent were unfavourable. And just 12.1 per cent of coal-seam gas stories were favourable and 43.6 per cent unfavourable. The renewable energy industry is heavily reliant on subsidies and regulatory favours via the mandatory renewable energy target. Indeed, independent modelling conducted by Deloitte Access Economics for the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has found the RET alone will cost the Australian economy $29 billion by 2020, push up power prices for households and businesses and kill 5000 jobs.

Yet iSentia found only 14 ­stories that cast the economic impact of the renewable energy industry in an unfavourable light. An incredible 117 stories suggested that renewable energy had a positive economic impact.

CSG and coalmining generate thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of exports, without government subsidies or regulatory favours, but the ABC was obsessed with the potential environmental impacts of the fossil fuels.

During the sample period, only 37 stories were broadcast that depicted the economic impact of the coal industry in a positive light, against 115 that suggested the industry would have a negative environmental impact. The benefits brought by CSG to the Australian economy merited the ABC’s attention only 52 times, but the assertion the industry would have a negative ­environmental impact was delivered in 259 stories.

iSentia found — surprise, surprise — that hopeful language featured in 93 stories on renewable energy, compared with 21 stories on CSG. The language of fear was used in 306 stories on CSG compared with 51 stories on renewable energy.

That’s hardly surprising given the interviewees. On coal-seam gas, the ABC’s go-to man is NSW Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham, quoted in 92 stories — more than double the next most prominent guest. While federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt was the most quoted in stories about coalmining, a close second was Queensland Greens senator Larissa Waters.

On both radio and television, and across regional, metropolitan and national programs, the ABC consistently and overwhelmingly favoured renewable energy and treated the coalmining and coal-seam gas industries with extreme disfavour. This suggests the problem of bias at the ABC is endemic across the organisation.

If, as David Marr said, you have to be a leftie to be a journalist, then those who choose to work at a public broadcaster instead of a commercial outlet are even more likely to be left-wing. Once surrounded by others of a similar world view, and insulated from their audiences by the absence of a commercial imperative to seek advertising, it’s predictable that the personal preferences of journalists dominate coverage.

If bias at the ABC is systemic, only structural reform will solve it. A new board or management won’t change the culture. Privatising the ABC is the only way to ensure taxpayers’ money is not used to fund biased coverage.

James Paterson is director of communications at the Institute of Public Affairs.
The Australian

The Australian’s Editor had this to say.

ABC all puff and wind on coal
The Australian
12 August 2014

IF the national broadcaster realised the climate change debate was about facts and options rather than motives and agendas, it might be able to bring itself to discuss the implications and possible causes of more than 15 years without a rise in global average temperatures. The now notorious groupthink at Aunty — outed by none other than its former chairman Maurice Newman — can’t seem to cope with raising this global warming pause lest it insinuate some scepticism about the causes and trajectory of climate change.

That any group of inquiring minds could be so timid about dealing with reality is troubling enough, but when you consider this cohort is paid by taxpayers for the express purpose of providing balanced, objective and comprehensive communications about relevant facts and opinions, it approaches a national scandal. The world’s most prominent climate scientists seem to be capable of discussing how the climate is defying models without abandoning their alarm, retreating from their scientific theories or being isolated by their peers. But at the ABC, where they perhaps see themselves as a foothold of enlightenment holding back the hordes of capitalist exploitation and scientific denialism, we can only assume that they can’t handle the truth.

And so it is, presumably for the same reasons, with discussion of energy issues. Because the ABC has religion on climate — we saw in an Institute of Public Affairs report yesterday — it is intent on portraying coal as the devil and renewable energy as the saviour. Now, even if we were generous and said this ultimately might be the case, it does not excuse important facts about coal versus renewables in the here and now being ignored or misrepresented. The economic case is abundantly clear thanks to the overwhelming cost advantages of coal in electricity generation and its contribution to GDP. Coal generates 70 per cent of our electricity and more than 40 per cent worldwide. It is a $120 billion export industry, making us the second largest exporter after Indonesia. And, as the IPA reports, the cost per megawatt hour of coal-fired power is about $35, whereas wind and solar generation is typically at least three times the cost and available only a third of the time.

Yet ABC coverage gives three times more favourable coverage to renewable energy over coal, and in return provides three times more negative reporting on coal over renewables. Surprisingly the ratios are even worse — less favourable coverage and more negative — for coal-seam gas, even though this is the resource that has revolutionalised the energy sector worldwide by producing affordable baseload generation with about half the emissions of coal. Carried out by media monitors iSentia, which analysed 2359 reports over six months, the survey found the “language of fear” was used in more than a quarter of the CSG stories, a fifth of coal stories but about one in 20 renewable reports.

The ABC tends to discount the economic benefits of coal and CSG, preferring to focus on perceived environmental harm, while it trumpets the green benefits of renewables, tends to ignore costs and impracticalities but exaggerates potential economic gains. As Bjorn Lomborg often points out in these pages (ridiculously decried as a sceptic for his trouble), the climate challenge demands consideration of economic imperatives: costs, benefits, options and alternatives. Taxpayers deserve that debate. They can handle it.
The Australian

abc-logo-b-

Corruption In The Wind Industry, Drags Weak People In!

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Texas is not what you think it is–because of politics on energy

Posted on August 19, 2014   by John 1282

I have a person clown senator–Troy Fraser, who was, before he became a well dressed Texas Senator who walks around the State House like Khan, a guy who made pallets–wooden flats for heavy items.

I first met Fraser when he was handing out cards in front of the Walmart, kind of a dumpy guy on the rise. Now he looks like a million bucks, striding around the capitol like a nobleman.

He is a political oligarch and he paid the price–he wrote bill more than 10 years ago that guaranteed we would be dealing with wind turbines in Texas forever, Texas of the Oil industry–but Fraser is owned by the wind turbine hustlers. Beats hustling pallets for sure.

One of Fraser’s projects in the past was creating the nonsense of a set asides. Fraser wrote up–to cater to his wind campaign supporters–a bill requiring that Texas Electricity/Energy Companies set aside 15% of their portfolios of energy production for alternative sources.

Troy Fraser is a well dressed male whore. Simple as that.

And Texas has an immense investment in a stupid idea–wind.

http://environmentblog.ncpa.org/texas-wind-energys-expensive-wait-and-see-experiment/

Faux-Green Renewable Energy is NOT Good In Any Way! It’s a nightmare!

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Green Energy Threatens All Flying Creatures

Posted on August 19, 2014by

On July 4, President Obama gave permission for wind farms to kill the national bird.

ScreenHunter_2082 Aug. 19 00.07

Solar is just as bad, or worse

ScreenHunter_2084 Aug. 19 00.09Emerging solar plants scorch birds in mid-air – The Washington Post

Environmental organizations have permitted their mindless fear about CO2, to completely corrupt their core principles.