Video of Senator John Madigan Speaking About the Victims of the Wind Turbine Industry…Brilliant!

September 16, 2015September 16, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Below, is the transcript of Senator Madigan’s speech.

Fraud and corruption in the power generation industry

September 16, 2015

Tonight I speak about corruption and fraud in the power generation industry.

The Senate Wind Turbine Inquiry’s final report made 15 important recommendations. Today, I rise to speak in support the Labor senators’ Dissenting report’s fifth recommendation:

that state and territory government consider reforming the current system whereby windfarm developers directly retain acoustic consultants to provide advice on post-construction compliance.

Avoiding noise from wind turbines is an expensive bother that does not hold any appeal to windfarm operators. Slowing down turbines increases costs and slows down profits.

So I was not surprised to learn that in the seven years of its controversial operation, the adjustments necessary to ensure Cape Bridgewater Windfarm operated in compliance with its planning permit have never been applied.

Mr President, wind farm operators have found a far less expensive and simple process to game the system. They employ compliant “experts.”

In 2006, Marshall Day Acoustics with consultant Christophe Delaire prepared a pre-construction Noise Impact Assessment for the Cape Bridgewater Windfarm.

The report predicted that compliance could not be achieved at Cape Bridgewater windfarm without operating 13 of 29 wind turbines in reduced operational noise modes.

Before it was even built, developers knew this windfarm would operate in breach of permit unless adjustments were made.

But Delaire told the committee of inquiry:

following measurements on site, it was found that noise optimisation was not required.

How did Delaire’s “expert” pre-construction and post construction reports come to draw such contrasting conclusions?

The answer is simple. Pacific Hydro didn’t noise optimise turbines at Cape Bridgewater because they knew they wouldn’t have to! They only had to commission a post-construction noise report to say the windfarm was compliant.

On both occasions, Pacific Hydro got exactly the report they wanted from MDA. But the compliance assessments were not compliant with the standard and neither were the reports!

Questions of multiple reports reaching opposite conclusions were raised at the Portland Hearing.

During the Cape Bridgewater windfarm’s noise monitoring program, measurements were taken every month and monthly noise reports were generated to assess compliance at dwellings.

Let’s look at a few from House 63.

October 2008: “windfarm noise levels exceed the NZ noise limits.”

June 2009: “the NZ limits are significantly exceeded”.

July 2009: “the NZ limits are significantly exceeded”.

MDA’s original reports identified noncompliance at multiple homes and every wind speed.

This didn’t satisfy the client.

On 22 July, MDA reissued revised monthly reports for every house and every month. These reports were to Pacific Hydro’s satisfaction (but not the permit’s.)

The reissued versions for October and July said: there is reasonable correlation between measured noise levels and wind speeds.

References to exceeding the NZ limits, erased.

Without incriminating original reports, MDA’s final report concluded: noise emissions from the Cape Bridgewater Windfarm comply with the NZ noise limits at all houses and at all assessed wind speeds.

Pacific Hydro submitted it to the Planning Minister as “proof” the Cape Bridgewater Windfarm was compliant.

But how?

MDA combined all the reissued monthly reports and averaged them out for each property.

There is nothing in the 1998 NZ standard that allows acousticians to find “average” post- construction noise levels and yet Pacific Hydro told the Committee:

Current noise standards require the average post-construction wind farm noise level.

There is no tolerance within the Standard that would allow a windfarm to casually comply with its noise limits, in some months but not others. Condition 13 does not allow the windfarm to occasionally comply with its permitted use.

NZ Standard is supposed to protect amenity and night time sleep. Windfarm planning permits are issued with conditions that decision-makers expect will protect the communities that host them – in real time.

In February 2009, the panel assessing the Lal Lal windfarm stated:

There is little point in giving permission for a windfarm to operate under certain conditions unless compliance with those conditions can be demonstrated.

adding,

Any exceedance of the limit should be considered as a breach of the condition.

An “average” noise level means nothing. That’s why the permit requires that when the windfarm is operated it must comply with the NZ noise limits at all dwellings and clearly, this one doesn’t.

The Cape Bridgewater windfarm has never been compliant, despite the falsified conclusions drawn by MDA and the claims of its master, Pacific Hydro.

A Victorian Planning officer told the Committee: “studies need to be done in a way which is robust. That is why the peer review of the work is important.”

So why wasn’t a review of the Cape Bridgewater report commissioned as a matter of due diligence, not to mention consistency?

When Acciona gave the Minister its report, the Minister sent a copy to the EPA and within a week, he had commissioned an independent technical review.

He promptly wrote to Acciona describing multiple breaches of permit and expressing his dissatisfaction that compliance had been achieved with the noise monitoring program required by condition 17.

He said that the report shows that the operation of the Waubra Windfarm does not comply with the noise standard at several dwellings and he was not satisfied in accordance with Condition 14 that the operation of the facility complies with the relevant standard.

Then he asked Acciona to “noise optimise the turbines.”

Delaire from MDA prepared Waubra’s Windfarm’s preconstruction noise report which predicted noise would exceed the NZ limits and would only comply if 50 of its 128 turbines were noise optimised.

Same preconstruction formula, same post-construction problems.

If not for that pesky peer-review, Acciona might have got away with it. They had never intended to operate noise optimise turbines in compliance with the limits.

WHY? Acciona had a MDA post construction noise report that concluded Waubra Windfarm operated in compliance with noise limits without needing to noise optimise any turbines, let alone fifty of them.

The Minister wrote to Acciona again a year later, stating that the MDA report it submitted showed non-compliance and that testing wasn’t undertaken in accordance with the NZ standard. The Minister queried “who it was that undertook the assessment and whether this person or people were qualified and experienced to do so.”

MDA’s website says Delaire graduated with an engineering diploma in 2002 after beginning with MDA as a work experience student the year before.

Delaire has prepared acoustic reports for 50 wind farms.

MDA’s website promotes its: “Proven record of successful wind farm approvals” and credits Delaire for developing a ‘specialty’ in wind farm environmental noise assessments.”

At the beginning of MDA’s reports there is an extraordinary disclaimer which acknowledges that reports are written to satisfy the client’s brief. It says their reports ‘may not be suitable’ for other uses.

MDA’s disclaimer proves they are not fit for purpose as independent compliance documents.

MDA is a member firm of the Association of Australian Acoustical Consultants whose Code of Professional Conduct requires that members avoid making statements are misleading or unethical and endeavour to promote the well-being of the community.

They must not knowingly omit from any finalised report any information that would materially alter the conclusion that could be drawn from the report.

MDA has clearly failed the community. Consistently.

There’s no doubt that MDA’s commercial arrangements with both Acciona and Pacific Hydro adversely affected the independence of reports and the legitimacy of conclusions.

This example alone shows exactly why we needed an Inquiry that examined the regulatory governance of wind farms and why the scrutiny of an independent, national wind farm commissioner is essential.

There must be arm’s length relationships between acousticians and windfarm operators. Independence would put a stop to the practice where false compliance documents allow operators to gain pecuniary advantage!

Local, state and Commonwealth government authorities, departments and agencies have been duped by sham compliance reports.

A windfarm that is “compliant” with state laws can receive RECs.

A “compliant” windfarm can secure finance – like the $70 million Pacific Hydro swindled from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

But those who these reports fail most are decent rural people left suffering the consequences of deception. A shonky noise report can’t erase away the harm and nuisance it has caused for those living, working and suffering beside excessively noisy industrial machines.

Last month I asked the Victorian government to take a good hard look at all the submissions we received, in particular, from people duped by the regulatory failures of the Waubra and Cape Bridgewater windfarms.

Samantha Stepnell’s submission is #470. Melissa Ware’s submission is #206.

While Acciona and Pacific Hydro were busy breaching their permits to maximise their profits, residents were and still are often exposed to horrendously excessive noise. Twenty or more of these same people had sent affidavits to former Health Minister and current Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews, in June 2010.

They reported severe sleep disturbances and a series of unexplained adverse health effects that were not present before the windfarm started operating. Local doctors and a Sleep specialist confirmed concerns of a correlation.

By December 2010, eleven families around Waubra alone had vacated their homes, citing noise nuisance as the reason.

But the Victorian government refused Pyrenees Council’s request for a Health Impact Assessment, citing the NHMRC’s Rapid Review. That very rapid review found that there was no evidence of adverse effects when planning guidelines were followed.

At Waubra, we know that they were not. A simple peer review would have found that they weren’t followed at Cape Bridgewater either.

With callous indifference, the Victorian government has consistently failed in its duty of care to these people.

These people represent the human cost of corporate fraud, regulatory failure and political indifference.

These families still have the right to be able to sleep at night, to work safely on their farms and to live in the peace and quiet enjoyment of their homes. This is as much a human rights issue as it is an environmental one.

The nocebo theory is obliterated by the fact that the noise measured at Waubra and Cape Bridgewater exceeds World Health Organisation recommendations for sleep protection. Sleep deprivation is an indisputable adverse health effect.

Even the NHMRC now admits there are “probably” adverse health impacts for residents living within 1.5kms of a wind turbine.

I have been writing to the AMA since May 2014 about its windfarm position statement, asking why audible noise impacts had not been considered. The AMA has failed to respond but blindly endorses the disproven nocebo drivel by Chapman and Crichton stating:

The available Australian and international evidence does not support the view that the infrasound or low frequency sound generated by wind farms, as they are currently regulated in Australia, causes adverse health effects on populations residing in their vicinity.

That’s because infrasound and low frequency sound from windfarms aren’t regulated in Australia!

Irrespective of what the AMA has been told or wants to admit, exposures to excessive audible noise, low frequency pressure and vibration cause debilitating nuisance, sleep disturbance and compromised health and amenity that reduces quality of life.

So where does that leave those suffering the continuing nuisance at Cape Bridgewater?

In submission #206, Melissa Ware said she was driven beyond despair and wretchedness.

Last year, Pacific Hydro told residents: “it is our goal to improve your quality of life or at least restore it to what it was before the wind farm was there.”

They told me personally: “We recognise that the wind farm has reduced their quality of life, and we want to help them get it back.”

But that was before Steven Cooper’s study found that all six residents surveyed are adversely impacted by the operation of the Cape Bridgewater Windfarm.

Funnily enough, Cooper was instructed not to test compliance!

Despite the infamous screeching, thumping, whirring, whistle and siren-like audible sounds produced by the Cape Bridgewater windfarm, Special Audible Characteristics weren’t assessed in MDA’s report. If the 5 db SAC penalty were properly applied, an independent report would identify non-compliance at every dwelling, at every wind speed.

The Waubra and Cape Bridgewater reports were written within months of each other by the same acoustician from the same firm, using the same formula.

Perhaps the Planning Minister hasn’t commission a review of Cape Bridgewater’s report because he already knows it shows non-compliance?

Is this the real reason why the Planning Minister insists that it’s Glenelg Shire’s responsibility to enforce noise compliance at Cape Bridgewater, not his?

Glenelg Shire can’t enforce compliance without any access to noise reports and the complaints procedure. Only the minister has that information.

Condition 13 says compliance must be to the satisfaction of the Minister. Council cannot legally exercise that judgement.

Condition 13 remains un-resolved, Cape Bridgewater windfarm continues to operate at full capacity and maximum noise without any regulatory authority accepting responsibility for enforcement.

In submission 456, Sonia Trist explains how officers from the Victorian Planning Department admitted noise limits are exceeded at her home, one apologising that:

“The Department adjusts information to obtain the required results.”

In June 2014, this retiring officer called me and later sent me an email, blowing-the-whistle on his department.

There is so such more to convey and I am sorry that I cannot do so now. Department incompetence and indifference is the primary reason for the current situation.

I found it hard to find the truth, working inside, so it must be hard for your side.

On “my side” are those exposed to excessive and harmful, sleep destroying, audible noise emissions at levels that exceed noise standards and breach permits.

Those not on my side include complicit regulators, wilfully blind health bodies, greedy operators who put corporate profits before country people. And neither are crooked acousticians flaunting a fraudulent reporting formula, that concludes compliance when there isn’t.

Notable for their refusal to attend the senate inquiry and be questioned, the Australian Medical Association were not alone. Others who similarly refused were the authors of the two NHMRC commissioned Literature Reviews from both Adelaide University and Monash University, and Professor Gary Wittert.

In December, 2013, I warned about the culture of non-compliance arising from systemic regulatory failure in Victoria.

But that culture of non-compliance, aided, abetted and enabled by recklessly irresponsible reporting and regulatory indifference will only continue for as long as we tolerate it.

This industry demands root and branch regulatory reform.

Those who have actively and deceptively harmed communities, gamed the planning system, rorted the RET and exposed the CEFC and the private sector to investment risk must be investigated and held to account.

I urge the government to swiftly adopt the prudent Recommendations of the Wind Turbine Inquiry. We insist that the Labour Senator’s fifth recommendation is acted upon as a matter of urgency.

Windpushers Want Guarantees, That Their Scam Will be Allowed to Continue!

September 6, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind Industry Still Wailing About ‘Uncertainty’ as Australian Retailers Continue to Reject Wind Power ‘Deals’

September 6, 2015 by stopthesethings

[Could it be something about the ‘product’, maybe?]

Back in February this year, STT covered the unassailable fact that Australia’s Large-Scale Renewable Energy Target (LRET) – then set at a colossal 41,000 GWh – was completely unsustainable on every level – economic, political and social:

LRET “Stealth Tax” to Cost Australian Power Punters $30 BILLION

Our little analysis came at a time when a debate was underway about not whether, but by how much, the ultimate annual target needed to be cut to preserve a little of the wind industry’s furniture.

You see – with the ultimate target set at 41,000 GWh for 2020 – barely 16,000 GWh of power available from eligible renewable sources – and no new wind power capacity being built and none likely to be built – the imposition of the whopping $65 per MWh “shortfall charge” was then looming fast.

The actual cost to consumers of what is, pure and simple, a Federally mandated fine on electricity retailers – which will be recovered from all Australian power consumers – is around $93 per MWh, which is added to the average wholesale price of around $35 per MWh.

The Coalition’s wind industry front man, young Gregory Hunt calls it his “massive $93 per tonne carbon tax”. Its particular political toxicity was what focused the minds of our political betters in Canberra; and resulted in the first cut to the LRET’s ultimate annual target from 41,000 GWh to 33,000 GWh.

The principal logic that drove both the Coalition and Labor to slash the LRET target being fear of a power consumer (read “voter”) backlash – a revolt that will inevitably result when power consumers receive spiralling bills spelling out the fact that they are being hit with a mammoth, Federal electricity stealth tax.

Politicians of all hues know it – and, more importantly, Australia’s major electricity retailers know it: there is absolutely no way that – in an economy about to start going backwards – struggling businesses, manufacturing industries and cash-strapped households will tolerate the imposition of an enormous (and utterly pointless) Federal tax on electricity consumption.

Remember, this is the same electorate that smashed Julia Gillard over her ‘carbon tax’ – which, as another Federally mandated tax on electricity, was seen by voters as economically ‘toxic’; and gifted government to Tony Abbott’s Coalition 2 years ago.

After a lot of huffing and puffing – and shenanigans in the Senate – the reduced LRET target passed in June. At the time, the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers were howling one minute about the attack on “wonderful wind”; and breathing a collective sigh of relief that the dreaded “uncertainty” about the target was finally over.

Well, the trouble is that certain “certainties” still, and will always exist, in relation to the greatest economic and environmental fraud of all time: THESE THINGS DON’T WORK.

The retailers are about selling power on demand; not according to the vagaries of the wind.

Now, our favourite wind-worship cult-commanders – the Climate Spectator’s Tristan Edis (see this piece of wishful thinking) and ruin-economy’s Giles Parkinson – are furious about the fact that – despite the ‘agreement’ that settled on the latest LRET target – Australia’s retail power companies have absolutely NO interest in signing up to buy a “product” that can only ever be delivered at crazy random intervals, if at all. A product that brings total chaos for grid managers and allows peaking power operators to scoop up $millions in minutes:

South Australia’s Unbridled Wind Power Insanity: Wind Power Collapses see Spot Prices Rocket from $70 to $13,800 per MWh

The Wind Power Fraud (in pictures): Part 1 – the South Australian Wind Farm Fiasco

The Wind Power Fraud (in pictures): Part 2 – The Whole Eastern Grid Debacle

On top of that, the Senate Inquiry’s report (see our post here) into the great wind power fraud concluded that the adverse health effects caused by incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound – such as sleep deprivation – are real; and not the product of some BIG COAL plot.

With 200 pages setting out the evidence of victims like SA turbine hosts, Clive and Trina Gare (see our post here), retailers are fully alive to the fact that it’s a matter of when, not if, wind farm neighbours start suing wind power outfits for $millions in damages. ‘Slam dunk’ common law claims in nuisance for the loss of the use of their homes; loss of property values etc, are brewing up as we speak. The outcome of which is that the $2 outfits used as fronts for the likes of Infigen will be insolvent, as soon as the victims file their claims:

Potential Wind Farm Neighbour Finds Idyllic Property is Now ‘Unsaleable’ at Any Price

Brits to Force £2 Wind Power Outfits to Hold £Millions in Reserve to Pay Damages to Victims & for Decommissioning

Bankers, retailers and anyone else with real skin-in-the-game hate risk – of any description. Signing up to lend money to – or buy wind power from – an outfit liable to go under in heartbeat is bad enough, but where the wind power outfit in question is in the gun for $millions in liability claims for nuisance or negligence, then it’s RISK that only the crazy-brave would take on.

But it’s risk of a different kind that has poor old Giles Parkinson almost turning on the waterworks in this, his latest lament: Renewable investment drought to continue as utilities extend buyers’ strike

Giles cites Miles George – head of Australia’s most notorious wind power outfit, Infigen (aka Babcock and Brown) – as he rails against the fact that Australia’s 3 biggest retailers – Origin, EnergyAustralia and AGL – have no intention of entering power purchase agreements with wind power outfits, which means they will never obtain the finance needed to build any new wind power capacity, anywhere FULL STOP.

Although never one quick to join the dots, Giles fails to make the (fairly obvious) connection between the unwillingness of $billion outfits – like Origin – to contract with near-bankrupt Infigen – even though Giles focuses on Infigen’s latest whopping $304 million annual loss: ever heard of ‘due diligence’, Giles?

In the mother of all ironies, Infigen, again blames its latest financial disaster on ….. wait for it …. “PARTICULARLY POOR WIND CONDITIONS”.

Oh, mother!

But should Miles and the gang really be complaining? After all, the wind is – as they repeatedly tell us – “FREE”. Which calls to mind that old chestnut about “getting precisely what you pay for”.

We’ll pick up Infigen’s latest ‘be-calmed-cash-loss-calamity’ in another post, shortly.

The ONLY reason power retailers do any business with cowboys like Infigen and union backed thugs like Pacific Hydro, is to obtain renewable energy certificates (RECs); and, thereby, avoid the imposition of the shortfall penalty. However, the likes of Giles and Tristan are unable to recognise that power retailers do, in fact, have a ‘choice’, in that respect.

They do not need to purchase RECs at all – power retailers are perfectly entitled to pay the fine and collect it from their customers. Which brings us back to ‘pending political toxicity’.

The big retailers know full well that Australian power consumers will not tolerate being lumbered with fines that will add close to $22 billion to their power bills, over the life of the LRET scheme. Here’s the calculus of what no-one – on either side of government – is willing to reveal, let alone prepared to ‘sell’, to voters.

The LRET target is set by s40 of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 (here). At the present time, the total annual contribution to the LRET from eligible renewable energy generation sources is 16,000 GWh; and, because commercial retailers have not entered PPAs with wind power outfits for well over 2½ years – and have no apparent intention of doing so from hereon – that’s where the figure will remain.

In the table below, the “Shortfall in MWh (millions)” is based on the current, total contribution of 16,000,000 MWh, as against the current 33,000 GWh target, set out as the “Target in MWh (millions)”.

A REC is issued for every MWh of eligible renewable electricity dispatched to the grid; and a shortfall penalty applies to a retailer for every MWh that they fall short of the target – the target is meant to be met by retailers purchasing and surrendering RECs. As set out below, the shortfall charge kicks in this calendar year. Given the impact of the shortfall charge, and the tax treatment of RECs versus the shortfall charge, the full cost of the shortfall charge to retailers is $93. Using that figure, here is the cost of the shortfall penalty.

Year	Target in MWh (millions)	Shortfall in MWh (millions)	Penalty on Shortfall @ $65 per MWh	Minimum Retailers recover @ $93
2015	18.85	2.85	$185,250,000	$265,050,000
2016	21.431	5.431	$353,015,000	$505,083,000
2017	26.031	10.031	$652,015,000	$932,883,000
2018	28.637	12.637	$821,405,000	$1,175,241,000
2019	31.244	15.244	$990,860,000	$1,417,692,000
2020	33.85	17.85	$1,160,250,000	$1,660,050,000
2021	33	17	$1,105,000,000	$1,581,000,000
2022	33	17	$1,105,000,000	$1,581,000,000
2023	33	17	$1,105,000,000	$1,581,000,000
2024	33	17	$1,105,000,000	$1,581,000,000
2025	33	17	$1,105,000,000	$1,581,000,000
2026	33	17	$1,105,000,000	$1,581,000,000
2027	33	17	$1,105,000,000	$1,581,000,000
2028	33	17	$1,105,000,000	$1,581,000,000
2029	33	17	$1,105,000,000	$1,581,000,000
2030	33	17	$1,105,000,000	$1,581,000,000
Total	490.043	234.043	$15,212,795,000	$21,765,999,000

The almost $22 billion in fines payable by power consumers will sit on top of the $22-23 billion worth of RECs that will also be added to power bills (see our post here).

Now, while Giles Parkinson’s article misses the point, his headline, which includes the words “buyers’ strike” touches on the “golden rule”: whoever has the gold, makes the rules.

When we first looked at this issue in February, we drew the analogy with another Federal government backed producer subsidy scheme, which also imploded due to a “buyers strike”.

With Giles, among others, struggling to come to terms with the “golden rule”, we think that it would be rude not to give that analysis another run.

In a little case of déjà vu, STT thinks that there are some significant parallels and important lessons to be learnt from how the Australian wool industry saw its Federally mandated subsidy scheme implode during the 1990s; all but killing the industry and costing growers and taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.

The wool industry’s “cause of death” was the Federally backed Reserve Price Support scheme (RPS), which set a guaranteed minimum price for all Australian wool.

A little background on the RPS

For over 150 years, Australia happily rode on the sheep’s back: until the 1970s the wool industry was, for the Australian economy, the “goose that laid the golden egg”; textile manufacturers from all over the world clamoured for the fibre; which was, for most of that time, the largest single commodity export by value; Australia produces over 80% of the world’s apparel wool. However, as fashions changed (the three-piece wool suit became, well, so “yesterday”) and new synthetics began to eat into its market share, the dominance of Australian apparel wool was no longer a certainty.

Against the backdrop of increasing competition, for the wool industry there was always the perennial issue, not only of fluctuating demand, but also of wildly fluctuating swings in production. Dorothea McKellar’s land of “droughts and flooding rains” meant that a few years of meagre production (and favourable, and even phenomenal, wool prices) would be soon eclipsed by sheds and wool stores overflowing with fibre ready for market (sending prices and woolgrower profits plummeting).

The response to these (often climate driven) marketing “swings and roundabouts”, was the establishment of the Australian Wool Corporation (AWC) and the RPS in 1973.

The RPS would set a minimum price for all types of wool, guaranteeing woolgrowers a minimum return; such that if supply exceeded demand, the AWC would purchase any wool being offered, if it failed to reach the minimum price set (referred to as the “floor price”).

Wool being offered at auction that failed to meet the floor price was purchased by the AWC and “stockpiled” (ie stored), until such time as either supply fell or demand conditions improved; at which point the AWC would offer stockpiled wool to the trade. The aim being the smooth and more orderly marketing of wool over the supply and demand cycle; with higher average returns to growers; and less risk for buyers and sellers along the way.

The scheme worked swimmingly (as designed and intended) until the late 1980s.

The reserve price set under the RPS was fixed in Australian dollar terms. However, with the float of the Australian dollar in 1983 (resulting in a massive 40% depreciation of the dollar between February 1985 and August 1986), maintaining the reserve price without reference to the terms of trade and fluctuations in trading currencies (particularly the US dollar) set the scheme up for a spectacular failure; simply because what goes down can just as easily go up.

During the 1980s, there was a solid increase in demand for wool, driven by demand from the USSR, a then fast growing Japan, buoyant Europeans, and a newly emergent China, as a textile manufacturer and consumer. However, that surge in demand occurred in the context of an Australian dollar trading in a range around US$0.55-75.

During the 1980s, under pressure from wool grower lobby groups, the floor price was continually increased: from 1986 to July 1988 the floor price jumped 71% to 870 cents per kilogram.

That did not, in itself, create any problems: a general surge in demand, relatively low production and a plummeting Australian dollar generated auction room sale prices well above the rising floor price, which reached their zenith in April 1988: the market indicator peaked at 1269 cents per kg, and the market continued its bull run for most of that year, well above the 870 floor price set in July.

However, as international economic conditions worsened, Australian interest rates soared (the consequence of Paul Keating’s “recession that we had to have”) and the value of the Australian dollar with it (hitting US$0.80 by early 1990), the market indicator headed south and, over the next few years, the AWC was forced to purchase over 80% of the Australian wool clip at the 870 cent per kg floor price. Adding to the AWC’s difficulties was a massive surge in production; driven by growers responding to the high and “guaranteed” floor price; and a run of exceptional growing seasons (1989 being a standout across Australia). Production went from 727 million kg in 1983/84 to over 1 billion kg in 1990/91.

Despite worsening market conditions, the AWC, under pressure from wool grower lobby groups, was forced to maintain the 870 cent per kilogram floor price.

However, from around August 1989, international wool buyers simply sat on their hands in auction sale rooms (in May 1990 the AWC bought 87.5% of the offering); and waited for the RPS to implode.

Knowing that the system was unsustainable, the last thing that buyers wanted was to be caught with wool purchased at prices above the floor price which, when the floor price was cut or collapsed, would immediately be worth less than what they had paid for it. Moreover, traders were dumping stock as fast as they could to avoid the risk of a collapse in the RPS and, therefore, a collapse in the price of any wool they happened to hold.

The RPS was ultimately backed by the Federal government. With the buying trade sitting on their hands, those responsible for maintaining the floor price ended up in a staring competition, the only question was, who would blink first: the AWC (or, rather, the government underwriting the RPS); or the buyers?

With the AWC purchasing millions of bales of wool at the floor price the cost of supporting the RPS was running into the billions of dollars: primarily the support came from a grower levy on sales, but, at the point which that soon became insufficient to support the RPS (despite upping the levy from 8% to 25%), support came from $billions in mounting government debt; the buyers had no reason to blink.

Instead, in May 1990, the government announced its decision to retreat to a new floor price of 700 cents per kilogram, and directed the AWC to fight on in support of the reduced floor price. The Minister for Primary Industry, John Kerin boldly asserting that the 700 cent floor price was “immutable, the floor price will not be reduced”.

But, having blinked once, the buyers largely continued to sit on their hands and simply waited for the government to blink again. The stockpile continued to balloon; and with it government debt: by February 1991 the stockpile reached 4.77 million bales (equivalent to a full year’s production); the accrued government debt stood at $2.8 billion; and the cost of storing the stockpile was over $1 million a day.

Faced with the inevitable, the government blinked, again: John Kerin was forced to eat his words about the floor price being “immutable”; on 11 February 1991, announcing the suspension of the floor price. The RPS had totally collapsed; the buyers had won.

The wool industry’s saga is beautifully, if tragically, told by Charles Massy in “Breaking the Sheep’s Back” (2011, UQP), which should be required reading for any of our political betters pretending to know more than the market (eg, the power market).

Which brings us to the lessons and parallels.

The LRET effectively sets the price for RECs: the minimum price is meant to be set by the shortfall charge of $65 per MWh (rising to $93 when account is given to the tax benefit), as the penalty begins to apply on the shortfall (as detailed above). That equation is based on an ultimate 33,000 GWh target.

In the event that the cost of the shortfall charge was reduced, there would be a commensurate fall in the REC price. Likewise, if the LRET target was further reduced: the total number of MWhs which would then attract the shortfall charge if RECs were not purchased would fall too; also resulting in a fall in the REC price.

In addition, any reduction in the LRET would simply result in a reduction in the demand for RECs overall: fewer RECs would need to be purchased and surrendered during the life of the LRET; again, resulting in a fall in the REC price. Of course, were the LRET to be scrapped in its entirety, RECs would become utterly worthless.

The retailers, are alive to all of this, hence their reluctance to enter PPAs for the purpose of purchasing RECs; agreements which run for a minimum of 15 years.

In December last year, Ian “Macca” Macfarlane and his youthful ward, Greg Hunt started running around pushing for a target of 27,000 GWh; and their boss made clear that he wanted to kill it outright. There followed overtures from the Labor opposition pitching for a target around 35,000 GWh.

Whether they knew it or not – with their public debate on what an amended target should be – in the staring competition with retailers – these boys blinked.

Faced with the inevitable political furore that will erupt when power consumers (ie, voters) realise they are being whacked with the full cost (and some) of the shortfall charge (being nothing more than a “stealth tax” to be recovered by retailers via their power bills), the pressure will mount on both sides of politics to slash the LRET – once again.

That both Labor and the Coalition have already blinked (in obvious recognition of the brewing political storm in power punter land over the inevitable imposition of the shortfall charge) is not lost on the likes of Grant King from Origin, and all of Australia’s other electricity retailers.

And for retail power buyers the choice of sticking with permanent recalcitrance has been made even easier: Tony Abbot making it plain that he would have cut the LRET even harder, were it not for a hostile Senate; and Labor’s Bill Shorten pushing for an entirely ludicrous 50% LRET – that would require a further 10,000 of these things to be speared all over Australia’s rural heartland. Where there was once ‘bipartisan’ support for these things, the major parties are diametrically opposed.

****

With the politics of the LRET already on the nose, like wool buyers sitting on their hands in sale rooms during 1990, waiting for the floor price to collapse, electricity retailers need only sit back and wait for the whole LRET scheme to implode.

Like wool buyers refusing to buy above the floor price and carry stock with the risk of the RPS collapsing, why would electricity retailers sign up for 15 year long PPAs with wind power outfits in order to purchase a stream of RECs over that period, knowing the value of those certificates depends entirely upon a scheme which is both economically and politically unsustainable?

However, the similarities between the wool market and the market for wind power end right about there.

There is, and always was, a natural market for Australian wool; the only issue during the late 80s and early 90s was the price that had to be paid by buyers to beat the floor price, set artificially under the RPS.

Wind power has no such market.

Available only in fits and spurts, and at crazy, random intervals, at a price which is 3-4 times that of conventional generation, retailers have no incentive to purchase it.

In the absence of the threat of the $65 per MWh fine (the stick), coupled with the promise of pocketing $93 as a subsidy in the form of a REC (the carrot), electricity retailers would not touch wind power with a barge pole: it simply has no commercial value.

Moreover, with an abundance of conventional generation capacity in Australia at present, retailers are very much in a “buyers’ market”. Overcapacity, coupled with shrinking demand (thanks to policies like the LRET that are killing mineral processors, manufacturing and industry) means that retailers can expect to see wholesale prices decline over the next few years, at least. And, for the first time in almost 20 years, a sharply declining Australian economy is a fast looming reality: unemployed households have an even tougher time paying rocketing power bills.

With those fundamentals in mind, electricity retailers will simply opt to pay the shortfall charge and recover it from power consumers, knowing that that situation will not last for very long.

Sooner or later, the Federal government (whichever side is in power) will have to face an electorate furious at the fact that their power bills have gone through the roof, as a result of a policy that achieved absolutely nothing.

Tony Abbott’s chances of leading his Coalition to a second term are tied to fundamental ‘mum and dad’ policies like electricity costs. Power prices matter; and in a battle between Australia’s Big 3 Retailers and the LRET, STT’s money is firmly on commercial self-interest.

STT hears that the big retailers are planning to wait until they look like exhausting the pile of RECs that they’re sitting on at present. At which point they’ll build some large-scale solar power facilities, in order to obtain the RECs needed to avoid the shortfall charge; for as long as it takes for the politics to turn gangrenous. As soon as the LRET gets scrapped, the plan is to sell the panels back into the residential roof-top market.

The cost of the LRET – and all that comes with it – to retail customers is at the heart of what’s driving retailers’ efforts to crush the LRET; and the wind industry with it.

This might sound obvious, if not a little silly: electricity retailers are NOT in the business of NOT selling power.

Adding a $45 billion electricity tax to retail power bills can only make power even less affordable to tens of thousands of households and struggling businesses, indeed whole industries, meaning fewer and fewer customers for retailers like Origin, AGL and EnergyAustralia.

The strategy adopted by retailers of refusing to ‘play ball’ by signing up for PPAs will, ultimately, kill the LRET; it’s a strategy aimed at being able to sell more power, at affordable prices, to more households and businesses.

And it’s working a treat, so far.

The wind industry’s incessant daily whining about “uncertainty”, is simply a signal that the retailers’ have already won. Once upon a time, the wind industry and its parasites used to cling to the idea that the RET “has bi-partisan support“, as a self-comforting mantra: but not anymore. And it’s the retailers refusal to sign PPAs that’s thrown the spanner in the wind industry’s works.

While the likes of Tristan, Giles and Miles will continue to work themselves into a lather about their inevitable fate, in the meantime, retailers, like Origin, AGL and EnergyAustralia, can simply sit back, watch the political fireworks, and wait for the inevitable and complete collapse of the LRET; and, with it, the Australian wind industry.

Love those Aussies! They are Tearing Down the Windweasel’s Fortress!

August 31, 2015 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Senators Back & Leyonhjelm Keep Hammering the Great Wind Power Fraud

August 31, 2015 by stopthesethings

***

Following almost 6 months of solid graft, 8 hearings in 4 States and the ACT, dozens of witnesses and almost 500 submissions, the Senate Inquiry into the great wind power fraud delivered its ‘doorstop’ final report, which runs to some 350 pages – available here: Senate Report

The first 200 pages are filled with facts, clarity, common sense and compassion; the balance, labelled “Labor’s dissenting report”, was written by the wind industry’s parasites and spruikers – including the Clean Energy Council (these days a front for Infigen aka Babcock & Brown); theAustralian Wind Alliance; and Leigh Ewbank from the Enemies of the Earth.

Predictably, Labor’s dissenting report is filled with fantasy, fallacy and fiction – pumping up the ‘wonders’ of wind; completely ignoring the cost of the single greatest subsidy rort in the history of the Commonwealth; and treating the wind industry’s hundreds of unnecessary victims – of incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound – with the kind of malice, usually reserved for sworn and bitter foreign enemies.

And the wind industry’s stooge on the Inquiry, Anne Urquhart – is still out their fighting a faltering, rearguard action – long after the battle for wind power supremacy was lost – a bit like the tales of ragged, 80 year old Japanese soldiers that kept fighting the Imperial War, until they were dragged out of the jungle and into the 21st Century. Nevermind the facts, when delusion will do!

****

Among those Senators on the Committee – who pulled no punches in getting the truth out – were Liberal Senator from WA, Chris Back and STT Champion, Liberal Democratic Party Senator, David Leyonhjelm from NSW.

While the wind industry and its parasites have been praying to the Wind-Gods that the whole thing might just ‘blow over’, those Senators on the Inquiry – not in thrall of Infigen, Vestas & Co – are still in there fighting for a fair-go for rural communities, across the Country; and power consumers, everywhere.

Always pleased to disappoint the beleaguered and dwindling band of wind worshippers in this country, STT is delighted that Chris Back and David Leyonhjelm show no sign of letting up.

Here they are giving the wind industry another whipping in the Senate (video and Hansard transcript)..

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THE SENATE
PROOF
COMMITTEES
Wind Turbines Select Committee
Report
SPEECH
Thursday, 13 August 2015

Senator BACK (Western Australia) (18:11): History will record that Senator Urquhart’s words will come back home to haunt her in the future, as indeed will many of those who have so derisively commented adversely on the outcomes of this report. Let me put on the record that I am very much in favour of aspects of renewable energy. I proudly ordered and had constructed the largest number of small-scale solar units, hot water systems—some 240—ever in Western Australia. I also had responsibility for the first wind turbine in Western Australia. It failed; in fact, the first four all failed. That is history.

I also want to place on the record my strong support for hydroelectricity in your state, Senator Urquhart, and in the Snowy Mountains. When you can generate in the high peak periods and when you can use off-peak periods to pump water back up to generate again the next time it is needed surely has to be the ultimate value of renewable energy. I do not think wind turbines are a renewable energy source.

I reflected on this driving back from Sydney on Sunday. I happened to be looking at the wind turbines just out of Canberra and thought to myself that I want to look at this in both environmental terms and economic terms. I said to myself, ‘What is the environmental benefit of wind turbines?’ Of course, the benefit would be greenhouse gases forgiven during the generation process. I said, ‘That’s good.’ So that is a positive benefit. What are the negatives? What do you have to take off that greenhouse gas forgiven? Firstly, you have to take off the massive cost of greenhouse gases, the carbon dioxide, used in the construction—the original iron ore, the steel, the transportation and the tens of thousands of tonnes of concrete that go into each of these.

The committee had evidence—and Senator Urquhart did not like it much—from Mr Hamish Cumming, whom I found to be a very credible witness, that about 16 years of the use of a wind turbine would be necessary before you would actually get back to the cost-benefit of the greenhouse gases forgiven as a result of the construction.

Secondly, what do you take off that greenhouse gas benefit?

You take off the cost of the baseload generated electricity, the carbon dioxide, required when you need coal, gas or whatever other form of baseload generation you need in reserve, because when the wind does not blow and the ship does not go you do need another form of baseload power. Then something that will have a profound effect on people who are hosting wind turbines—and local governments around this country—will be the environmental cost of decommissioning these wind turbines at the end. So I suspect there is very little, if any, actual environmental benefit.

I then looked at economic benefits. The benefit from wind turbines would be the value of the power generated, but from that what do you deduct? You have got to deduct the huge costs of the renewable energy certificates that are quaintly absorbed and the burden on consumers. Funnily enough, consumers are also taxpayers—isn’t that amazing? This is not a tax, the renewable energy certificate; it is a ‘cost to the consumer’.

Somehow or other I do not think they are different people. Again, in an equation you must take away the dollar value of the baseload power that is sitting there doing nothing in case the wind blows or does not blow. In the future I hope we see effective, valuable battery storage. Whether we do or not, nevertheless it still comes at a cost. If you want to look at the economic benefits of these wind turbines, then it is one of the costs. And again you have the dollar value of the decommissioning process.

I admire that Senator Urquhart and indeed, in Cairns, Deputy President Senator Marshall attended each one of the hearings. That is to their credit. I have got to say that unfortunately the Greens political party—despite the fact that Senator Siewert chaired the inquiry in 2009—chose not to participate at all in this inquiry. I do not think that is to their credit.

Senator Urquhart mentioned the Canadian study, which has been put out there as a very credible study—until you get some advice from other credible Canadian scientists, who told us that when the data was collated, this mass of Canadian data, they just happened to reject, with no reasons given, the majority of the data that was captured and collated. They decided to ignore it—no reasons given.

The other interesting thing is that they also decided to eliminate all people under the age of 18 and older than 79 years. No reason was given; they just dropped them off. Under 18 and over 79—they do not count. In the days when I was around as a scientist if without explanation somebody were to produce international results and ask for them to be credited I would expect them to give some explanation as to why they would wipe out a significant proportion of the population and indeed a significant amount of the dataset.

Our dear friend Professor Chapman speaks of the nocebo effect. This is the effect that you think you are going to get sick from wind turbines, or you think you are going to get sick going out in a boat, so you do. Initially Professor Chapman would always say, ‘I’ve never ever heard of a host who, if he or she is making money out of these, got sick.’

The first ones, unfortunately for dear old Professor Chapman, were Mr and Mrs Mortimer. Mr Mortimer is a retired naval officer whose sphere of influence happened to be the movement of waves through solids, liquids and gases, so he knew a little bit about this. Mortimer was the first person to stand up and say, ‘Despite the fact that the income we are getting from these couple of turbines is enormously important to our retirement income, we can’t live on our farm.’ Funnily enough, they could not see the turbines but they knew when they were on. When they went away from their home for a week or so, strangely enough the nocebo effect seemed to disappear.

The other interesting case was that of a Mr and Mrs Gare, who appeared before us in Adelaide. Mr and Mrs Gare make $200,000 a year from hosting wind turbines. Mr and Mrs Gare said to us, ‘If we could have our time over again, if we could get rid of these wind turbines and get rid of the $200,000 so that we could go back to living on our farm and working on our farm, we would do it tomorrow.’ I do not know where the nocebo effect came in there, Professor Chapman.

In the time available left to me, all I will do is ask this question. I ask it of Senator Urquhart and I ask it of others who spoke before us. Why do these people carry on the way they do?

The case down at Cape Bridgewater—five generations of the family have lived on their farm, so what is in it for them to walk away from their community? People say that they are not really sick at all, that it is just in their heads. It is in their heads. You are quite right. Nausea, anxiety, annoyance and sleeplessness are sure as hell in your head. The question is: why would that family walk away? Why would their children not be able to go to school? Do they get compensation like in the old RSI days? No, they do not; there is no compensation out there. There is no hope of any reward for carrying on like this. They lose their friends in their communities. We know that in many rural communities it tears communities apart.

I have said before in this place that we have circumstances now in my home state of Western Australia where bushfire brigade members do not turn out if there happens to be a fire on the farm of someone they are opposed to on this. CWA members—and they are the two pillars of rural communities: bushfire brigades and CWAs. People are not going. They are not shopping in the towns. Why is that? Is it that they all of a sudden woke up one day and, as Senator Urquhart said, they are not sick at all?

The value of their properties—we learnt all over Australia that their properties are effectively worthless. They have not just gone down significantly. People who moved into the Barossa Valley for their change of lifestyle, the tree change, are now in a situation where they have had to walk away. So what is in it for them? Generally there has got to be a motivator if you are going to change your whole lifestyle, if you are going to walk away from your friends—you bet your life. Do not worry about Senator Urquhart going on about English speaking—Germany, Finland. Why did the Prime Minister of the UK go into the election saying he is going to stop subsidising on-land turbines and win the election? There is a long way to go in this story. I assure you it is not finished.

***

Senator Leyonhjelm (New South Wales) (18:21): Today I take the opportunity to inform the Senate about the final report of the Senate Select Committee on Wind Turbines, as the previous two speakers have done, and why I moved to establish the inquiry. I wish to highlight three critical inquiry findings. First, there is no dispute that wind turbines emit infrasound; second, since 2009 the federal government has known and reported that inappropriate levels of infrasound cause adverse health impacts, whatever the source; and, third, wind farm guidelines and regulations do not require the measurement or restraint of infrasound levels.

As a distant observer of the debate on wind farms, I came to the inquiry with an open mind. I was opposed to the subsidies, but otherwise had no firm views. What prompted me to establish an inquiry was a meeting in my electorate office with half a dozen people from various rural communities. These were ordinary, down-to-earth people, people you would be pleased to have as neighbours. What became apparent was that something was terribly wrong with the planning and regulatory regime governing wind farms. I listened to their concerns with a growing sense of unease as they documented a litany of failures by government and the wind industry to address, or even acknowledge, what seemed like genuine issues.

I read the reports and the recommendations from the 2011 and 2012 Senate inquiries into wind farms and excessive sound, and noted that these all-party inquiries had recommended health and acoustical studies be undertaken as a priority.

At the time of the 2011 inquiry report, the Clean Energy Council welcomed these recommendations for medical research. But these recommendations were never acted upon, either by the Gillard government or the National Health and Medical Research Council, at least not prior to the establishment of the select committee.

The NHMRC only undertook backward looking literature reviews. They failed to commission research into the claimed link between wind turbine sound emissions and adverse health impacts. The NHMRC is the primary oversight body for medical research. Planning and health ministers, local councils, local GPs, the media and the wind industry all look for authoritative guidance from the NHMRC when responding to those complaining of being affected. The fact is that the NHMRC has been sitting on this issue for the best part of a decade. This has led to unnecessary anguish for many affected residents.

During the course of the inquiry, the NHMRC announced the first research grants to study wind farm sound emissions. Their grants are for a total of $2.5 million over five years. This is almost certainly entirely inadequate.

In evidence, acoustician Dr Bob Thorne noted this amount ‘would barely scratch the surface’. In fact, the NHMRC behaviour could be summarised as follows: ignore the problem as long as you can, equivocate when asked for guidance, and then grudgingly allocate a paltry sum stretched over five years to almost guarantee a non-result.

The inquiry report noted that ‘senior public health figures have also recognised that the quality of research of the NHMRC’s systemic review was sub-optimal’. In evidence, prominent New Zealand pyschoacoustician Dr Daniel Shepherd stated how surprised he was at how politicised the conduct of the NHMRC had been, to the point where health and medicine had been sidelined.

The wind industry also relies on the Australian Medical Association, the AMA. The committee found the AMA’s position statement lacked rigour. It described the AMA actions as ‘irresponsible and harmful’, and noted that the AMA ‘received pointed criticism’ for its position. Speaking for myself, I do not understand why the doctors’ union should be taken more seriously than any other union. They are not experts in anything.

One of the stand-out contributions to the inquiry was the evidence by acoustician Steven Cooper about his study of the Cape Bridgewater wind farm, commissioned by developer Pacific Hydro.

This was the first time a wind farm operator had cooperated in this type of study by providing wind speed data and allowing the stop and start of wind turbines. Cooper’s study demonstrated a correlation between certain phases of wind turbine operation and impacts felt by residents—some severe. His work was hailed as ground breaking by prominent acousticians from around the world.

Cooper’s report provides a platform from which health professionals can launch further research to determine definitively whether there is a causal link between turbine operations and adverse health impacts. This is a game-changer in providing researchers with an informed place to start their research. But it requires other wind turbine operators to cooperate, as Pacific Hydro did, and release their operating data. That indeed was the reason for the recommendations in the interim and final reports.

The inquiry heard many truly distressing stories of people driven from their homes by sound emitted from wind turbines. Residents told how, when they could take no more and left their homes for respite, they would recover, but when they returned, if the turbines were operating, they again suffered adverse impacts.

The inquiry heard from turbine hosts who receive $200,000 a year in rent and regret they ever agreed to host turbines. Senator Back has just referred to them. These people were previously enthusiastic supporters of wind power generation, but now would not live within 20 kilometres of a wind farm. It beggars belief that people who were so supportive of wind power and so financially rewarded now oppose the establishment of wind farms too close to residences, unless they suffer real rather than imagined effects on their lives.

Committee senators witnessed firsthand the callous indifference of some wind farm operators and their cheerleaders, who ridiculed and denigrated those who they described as ‘nutty anti-wind activists’. Wind farm operators argued that if they conformed to regulations, shown to be manifestly inadequate in protecting residents, they owed no further duty of care. This is eerily similar to evidence many years ago from tobacco companies, and I suspect the same fate awaits them.

The planning and regulatory governance for wind farms in every state was also shown to be shambolic, incompetent and not fit for purpose. The Victorian government cannot decide who should give approval for wind farms and who should monitor ongoing compliance. In the last few years this has gone from controlling at a state level to devolving it to local councils, and now the state government is taking back the approval stage while leaving compliance with councils.

Councillors and council officers gave evidence of incompetent state regulators providing little technical assistance to poorly resourced local councils which were responsible for assessing and approving billion dollar wind projects. Ongoing compliance monitoring costs tens of thousands of dollars, and this needs to be funded by ratepayers in financially strapped rural shires.

This inquiry report—the third in the last five years—is the most comprehensive in its recommendations and addresses the festering issues arising from the abject failure of the states to provide an appropriate planning and governance regime.

The states are rightly responsible for these matters, but the federal government, through the Renewable Energy Target and the large subsidies available to turbine operators, has driven the growth of the wind industry. If state governments choose not to have a robust governance regime for the wind industry they must expect to forgo the benefits of those subsidies flowing to their state, as per the recommendations of this inquiry.

I commend the inquiry report to the Senate, and urge the government to bring an end to this long, sorry saga by adopting the report’s recommendations. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Hansard, 13 August 2015

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For more background on some of the topics canvassed above tap into the following:

SA Farmers Paid $1 Million to Host 19 Turbines Tell Senate they “Would Never Do it Again” due to “Unbearable” Sleep-Destroying Noise

Unwilling Turbine Hosts Tell Senate: Australia’s Most Notorious Wind Power Outfit – Infigen – a Team of Bullies, Liars & Thugs

Wind Industry’s CO2 Abatement Claims Smashed by Top Physics Professor – Dr Joe Wheatley

Angry Wind Farm Victims Pull the Trigger: Turbines Shot-Up in Montana and Victoria

Wind Industry’s Propaganda King – Simon Chapman Forced to Apologise to Dr Sarah Laurie for False & Malicious Taunts

David Mortimer, Turbine Host: An “Inconvenient” Wind Industry Fact

Dr Bruce Rapley Slams Australian Medical Association as Totally Unqualified Wind Industry Propagandists

The Snowy Scheme: Time to Do it Again

Wind Industry Shill, Simon Chapman, Forced to Apologize for Attacking Dr. Sarah Laurie…

August 23, 2015 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Wind Industry’s Propaganda King – Simon Chapman Forced to Apologise to Dr Sarah Laurie for False & Malicious Taunts

August 23, 2015 by stopthesethings

***

Australia is blessed with a former tobacco advertising guru who is paid a packet by wind power outfits – like near-bankrupt Infigen – to pedal a story that the adverse health impacts caused by incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound (such as sleep deprivation) are the product of “scare-mongering” – which, on his story, affects only English-speaking “climate deniers”; and that never, ever affects those farmers paid to host turbines.

This grab bag of nonsense is pitched up under the tagline “nocebo”. Now, that doesn’t sound altogether scientific, but nor does the term “anti-wind farm wing-nut”, used by the guru as part of his efforts to diagnose (without clinical consultation, mind you) those said to be suffering from “nocebo”. We think he uses a magic stethoscope mounted in an orbiting satellite to reach his long-distance, infallible medical diagnoses.

Mean, nasty and narcissistic, the guru – and his nonsense ‘nocebo’ story – were repeatedly excoriated by highly qualified experts who appeared before the Senate Inquiry into the great wind power fraud:

Dr Bruce Rapley tells Senate: Wind Farm Nocebo Story “Nefarious Pseudoscience” & an “Insult to Intelligence”

Dr Bruce Rapley Slams Australian Medical Association as Totally Unqualified Wind Industry Propagandists

Dr Malcolm Swinbanks tells Senate: ‘NASA’s 1980s Research on Health Effects from Wind Farm Noise More Relevant Than Ever’

And, after the guru’s hand trembling appearance before the Committee, the Senate’s final report demolished what little remaining credibility he had with its findings (starting at page 18 of the Report) that:

Professor Chapman and his critics

2.1 Professor Simon Chapman AO, Professor of Public Health at the University of Sydney, has been an outspoken critic of those who suffer ill-effects from wind turbines. In both his written and oral submissions, Professor Chapman cited many of his own publications in support for his view that:

…the phenomenon of people claiming to be adversely affected by exposure to wind turbines is best understood as a communicated disease that exhibits many signs of the classic psychosocial and nocebo phenomenon where negative expectations can translate into symptoms of tension and anxiety.

2.2 Several highly qualified and very experienced professionals have challenged this argument. Dr Malcolm Swinbanks, an acoustical engineer based in the United Kingdom, reasoned:

The argument that adverse health reactions are the result of nocebo effects, ie a directly anticipated adverse reaction, completely fails to consider the many cases where communities have initially welcomed the introduction of wind turbines, believing them to represent a clean, benign form of low-cost energy generation. It is only after the wind-turbines are commissioned, that residents start to experience directly the adverse nature of the health problems that they can induce.

2.3 The committee highlights the fact that Professor Chapman is not a qualified, registered nor experienced medical practitioner, psychiatrist, psychologist, acoustician, audiologist, physicist or engineer. Accordingly:

he has not medically assessed a single person suffering adverse health impacts from wind turbines;

his research work has been mainly—and perhaps solely—from an academic perspective without field studies;

his views have been heavily criticised by several independent medical and acoustic experts in the international community; and

many of his assertions do not withstand fact check analyses.

2.4 Professor Chapman has made several claims which are contrary to the evidence gathered by this committee. First, he argues that the majority of Australia’s wind turbines have never received a single complaint. There are various problems with this statement:

(i) wind turbines located significant distances from residents will not generate complaints;

(ii) many residents suffering adverse health effects were not aware of any nexus between their health and the impact of wind turbines in order to make a complaint;

(iii) just because residents do not lodge a formal complaint does not mean they are not suffering adverse health effects;

(iv) data obtained by Professor Chapman from wind farm operators of the numbers of complaints lodged cannot be relied upon; and

(v) the use of non-disclosure clauses and ‘good neighbour agreements’ legally restricts people from making adverse public statements or complaints.

2.5 Second, Professor Chapman has argued that complaints of adverse health effects from wind turbines tend to be limited to Anglophone nations. However, the committee has received written and oral evidence from several sources directly contradicting this view. The German Medical Assembly recently submitted a motion to the executive board of the German Medical Association calling for the German government to provide the necessary funding to research adverse health effects. This would not have happened in the absence of community concern. Moreover, Dr Bruce Rapley has argued that in terms of the limited number—and concentrated nature—of wind farm complaints:

It is the reporting which is largely at fault. The fact is that people are affected by this, and the numbers are in the thousands. I only have to look at the emails that cross my desk from all over the world. I get bombarded from the UK, Ireland, France, Canada, the United States, Australia, Germany. There are tonnes of these things out there but, because the system does not understand the problem, nor does it have a strategy, many of those complaints go unlisted.

2.6 Third, Professor Chapman has queried that if turbines are said to have acute, immediate effects on some people, why were there no such reports until recent years given that wind turbines have operated in different parts of the world for over 25 years. Several submissions to the committee have stated that adverse health effects from wind turbines do not necessarily have an acute immediate effect and can take time to manifest.

2.7 Fourth, Professor Chapman contests that people report symptoms from even micro-turbines. The committee heard evidence that once people are sensitised to low frequency infrasound, they can be affected by a range of noise sources, including large fans used in underground coal mines, coal fired power stations, gas fired power stations and even small wind turbines. As acoustician Dr Bob Thorne told the committee:

Low-frequency noise from large fans is a well-known and well-published issue, and wind turbines are simply large fans on top of a big pole; no more, no less. They have the same sort of physical characteristics; it is just that they have some fairly unique characteristics as well. But annoyance from low-frequency sound especially is very well known.

2.8 Fifth, Professor Chapman contends that there are apparently only two known examples anywhere in the world of wind turbine hosts complaining about the turbines on their land. However, there have been several Australian wind turbine hosts who have made submissions to this inquiry complaining of adverse health effects. Paragraphs 2.11–2.12 (above) noted the example of Mr Clive Gare and his wife from Jamestown. Submitters have also directed attention to the international experience. In Texas in 2014, twenty-three hosts sued two wind farm companies despite the fact that they stood to gain more than $50 million between them in revenue. The committee also makes the point that contractual non-disclosure clauses and ‘good neighbour’ agreements have significantly limited hosts from speaking out. This was a prominent theme of many submissions.

2.9 Sixth, Professor Chapman claims that there has been no case series or even single case studies of so-called wind turbine syndrome published in any reputable medical journal. But Professor Chapman does not define ‘reputable medical journal’ nor does he explain why the category of journals is limited to medical (as distinct, for example, from scientific or acoustic). The committee cannot therefore challenge this assertion. However, the committee does note that a decision to publish—or not to publish—an article in a journal is ultimately a business decision of the publisher: it does not necessarily reflect the quality of the article being submitted, nor an acknowledgment of the existence or otherwise of prevailing circumstances. The committee also notes that there exist considerable published and publicly available reports into adverse health effects from wind turbines.

2.10 The committee also notes that a peer reviewed case series crossover study involving 38 people was published in the form of a book by American paediatrician Dr Nina Pierpont, PhD, MD. Dr Pierpont’s Report for Clinicians and the raw case data was submitted by her to a previous Australian Senate inquiry (2011) to which Dr Pierpont also provided oral testimony. Further, at a workshop conducted by the NHMRC in June 2011, acoustical consultant Dr Geoffrey Leventhall stated that the symptoms of ‘wind turbine syndrome’ (as identified by Dr Pierpont), and what he and other acousticians refer to as ‘noise annoyance’, were the same. Dr Leventhall has also acknowledged Dr Pierpont’s peer reviewed work in identifying susceptibility or risk factors for developing wind turbine syndrome/’noise annoyance’. Whilst Dr Leventhall is critical of some aspects of Dr Pierpont’s research, he does state:

Pierpont has made one genuine contribution to the science of environmental noise, by showing that a proportion of those affected have underlying medical conditions, which act to increase their susceptibility.

2.11 Seventh, Professor Chapman claims that no medical practitioner has come forward with a submission to any committee in Australia about having diagnosed disease caused by a wind farm. Again, Professor Chapman fails to define ‘disease’. Nonetheless, both this committee, and inquiries undertaken by two Senate Standing Committees, have received oral and written evidence from medical practitioners contrary to Professor Chapman’s claim.

2.12 Eighth, Professor Chapman claims that there is not a single example of an accredited acoustics, medical or environmental association which has given any credence to direct harmful effects of wind turbines. The committee notes that the semantic distinction between ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ effects is not helpful. Dr Leventhall and the NHMRC describe stress, anxiety and sleep deprivation as ‘indirect’ effects, but these ailments nonetheless affect residents’ health.

2.13 Finally, Professor Chapman queries why there has never been a complainant that has succeeded in a common-law suit for negligence against a wind farm operator. This statement is simply incorrect. The committee is aware of court judgements against wind farm operators, operators making out of court settlements or withdrawing from proceedings, injunctions or shutdown orders being granted against operators, and properties adjacent to wind turbines being purchased by operators to avoid future conflict. The committee also reiterates its earlier point that contractual non-disclosure clauses have discouraged legal action by victims.
Select Committee on Wind Turbines

Not only did the Australian Senate find that the guru and the truth are involved in a somewhat ‘troubled’ relationship, STT Champion Dr Sarah Laurie called him out for falsely and maliciously claiming that she had been ‘struck-off’ by the Medical Board of Australia; in a clear breach ofthe Ninth Commandment.

Sarah has been the voice for rural communities set upon by the wind industry. For over 5 years, she has been advocating for an Australian ‘fair go’ for people trying to get a decent night’s sleep in their own homes; and, to that end, has relentlessly sought to get relevant, meaningful and enforceable noise standards drawn up to cover all industrial noise sources, including wind turbines:

Senate Wind Farm Inquiry – Dr Sarah Laurie says: “Kill the Noise & give Neighbours a Fair Go”

Fortitude, resilience, stoicism, fearlessness, and an overall desire to let right be done: terms that only begin to capture the essence of a remarkable women.

Set upon by the attack dogs that help run media and political interference for the wind industry, Sarah has been subjected to more than her fair share of utterly unwarranted, vilification and abuse. And the lion’s share of that has been generated, or orchestrated, by the guru.

The guru, along with fellow wind power propagandists, Vesta’s, Ken McAlpine, Infigen’s Ketan Joshi and the Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Hannam sent Tweets to their band of intellectually challenged followers, asserting that Dr Laurie had been “deregistered”; implying that she had engaged in professional misconduct, causing the Medical Board to chop her registration.

For no apparent reason – save malice – Joshi and Hannam sent the malicious Tweet (first sent by McAlpine) around once more during the guru’s appearance before the Senate Inquiry. In a “we’re not going to take it any more” move, in response, Sarah Laurie sent in her legal attack dogs, who forced the guru to eat a very generous serving of humble pie. Here’s The Australian’s Graham Lloyd detailing how far the guru has fallen.

Wind farm advocate Simon Chapman sorry for false allegations
The Australian
Graham Lloyd
19 August 2015

Public health professor and wind farm advocate Simon Chapman has published a long apology to industrial noise campaigner Sarah Laurie for falsely claiming she had been deregistered as a doctor.

The apology exposes a long-running campaign to discredit Dr Laurie, who has spoken out for residents affected by noise from wind turbines and other industrial sources through the Waubra Foundation.

Dr Laurie welcomed the apology but said Professor Chapman’s personal attacks on her professional integrity were “just one example of a broader strategy employed by the wind industry to denigrate, marginalise and, therefore, exclude from public and political discourse anyone sincerely investigating a worldwide public health issue’’.

Lawyers for Dr Laurie have threatened action against wind industry employees Ken McAlpine, formerly from Vestas, Ketan Joshi from Infigen and Fairfax Media over a tweet first posted by Mr McAlpine in March last year.

Professor Chapman, who is not a medical practitioner, repeated the tweet, which said “NOT DROWNING, RANTING: Deregistered “Dr” Sarah Laurie doesn’t like the medicine dished up by @ama_media Waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/open”.

In his apology, Professor Chapman said the tweet implied that Ms Laurie had given cause to the Medical Board of Australia to deregister her on account of unprofessional conduct, that she was not entitled to use the title “Dr”, and that she did so in contravention of the laws that govern the conduct of medical practitioners.

“These allegations were implied without foundation and are entirely false,” Professor Chapman said.

“Ms Laurie is not deregistered and has never been sanctioned by the Medical Board of Australia.’’

Dr Laurie told a Senate committee into wind turbines and health this year that she graduated from Flinders University with a bachelor of medicine and a bachelor of surgery in 1995 and attained a fellowship of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners in 1998.

Dr Laurie had been a councillor on the South Australian Medical Association branch but that was prematurely cut short when she was diagnosed with an illness.

Dr Laurie said she was still legally entitled to use the honorific Dr but voluntarily offered not to use it for her work with the Waubra Foundation to prevent members of the public from thinking she was currently registered.

Dr Laurie told a Senate committee she had been “very reluctant to accept that there could be anything wrong (with wind turbines)”.

“I used to take my children to go and watch wind turbines being built locally near our home,” she said. “I had no idea about any adverse health impacts from wind turbines.

“But, when you listen to the stories of people affected by noise when they are trying to sleep in their beds at night, it does not matter what the source of the noise is if they cannot sleep and they are having these other very distressing symptoms and deteriorating health.”

Professor Chapman has been widely criticised for his outspoken advocacy for the wind industry and research, which found complaints about wind turbines were due to a “nocebo” effect.

Senator John Madigan told parliament in June last year that Professor Chapman “obtained his PhD from the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, a self-proclaimed expert in marketing and public manipulation via media sources”.

“He is a person who is not lawfully permitted to conduct any form of medical research or study in relation to human health,” Senator Madigan said.

He said Professor Chapman’s undergraduate qualifications were in sociology and his PhD looked into the relationship between cigarette smoke and advertising.

Professor Chapman told the recent Senate inquiry he had “a PhD in medicine and I am a fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia”.

He was awarded an Order of Australia for distinguished service to medical research, particularly in the area of public health policy.

Asked about the offending tweet by the Senate committee, he said: “I would regret having retweeted that one, because obviously ‘deregistered’ is incorrect.”

He did not respond to The Australian yesterday.
The Australian

Ouch!! How much the very first dose of public humility must have hurt?

And never ones to miss an opportunity to belt a blow-hard when he’s down, here’s the Correction and Apology in full:

CORRECTION & APOLOGY FROM PROFESSOR SIMON CHAPMAN TO SARAH LAURIE

I am a Professor of Public Health at the University of Sydney.

On 20 March 2014, I retweeted the following tweet concerning Sarah Laurie:

NOT DROWNING, RANTING: Deregistered “Dr” Sarah Laurie doesn’t like the medicine dished up by @ama_media Waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/open”

My tweet implied that Ms Laurie had given cause to the Medical Board of Australia to deregister her as a medical practitioner, on account of unprofessional conduct: that she is not entitled to use the title “Dr”; and that she does so in contravention of the laws that govern the conduct of medical practitioners.

These allegations were implied without foundation and are entirely false.

Ms Laurie is not deregistered and has never been sanctioned by the Medical Board of Australia. Sarah Laurie allowed her registration as a medical practitioner to lapse for personal reasons; and accordingly, does not currently practice.

I sincerely apologise to Sarah Laurie for the harm, embarrassment and distress caused by my allegations, which I unreservedly retract.

Professor Simon Chapman
University of Sydney
NSW

And rightly so! Australians that dig in and fight for a ‘fair go’ for all, shouldn’t have to take that kind of malicious and unwarranted abuse from anyone, let alone former tobacco advertising gurus, parading as medical experts.

Wind Pushers, and Their Supporters, In For a Rude Awakening!

August 20, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

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

August 20, 2015 by stopthesethings

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The wind industry in Australia – as elsewhere – is in its death throes.

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

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

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

But – if you needed any more convincing that wind power outfits are taking their cues from Charles Ponzi and Bernie Madoff – then this little tale from Britain should do the trick.

Savers asked to wait three months for interest due on windfarm bonds that promised 7.5% annual return
Daily Mail
Tania Jefferies
29 July 2015

Wind firm blames Tory green subsidy revamp for interest delay
Business to be restructured in response to ‘attack’ on wind projects
Savers bought four-year bonds for minimum investment of £500 each

Wind Prospect Group plans to delay interest payments to its mini-bond holders for three months, blaming a ‘sustained attack by the Conservative Government’ on onshore wind projects following the election.

Savers who lent money to the renewable energy company in 2011 via its four-year mini-bonds were promised 7.5 per cent annual interest, to be paid out in January and July every year, in return for a minimum investment of £500.

But bondholders wanting their capital returned this month are also set to wait an extra three months for the cash, as the company restructures its business in response to the Tories’ planned overhaul of green subsidies.

Unlike retail bonds, which are tradeable on the London Stock Exchange’s Orb markets, mini-bonds must be held to maturity meaning there is no exit route for investors who want to get out.

Savers are routinely warned to tread with care when buying any company bonds, because if you lend money to firms this way the money you make back depends on their financial strength – and ultimately on them staying in business.

Unlike with a savings account, you are not protected by the UK’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which guards against losses of up to £85,000 at present and up to £75,000 from next January.

The varying interest rates on retail bonds and mini-bonds reflect the amount of risk attached to them – generally speaking, the higher the rate on offer, the higher the risk.

There are fears that people who do not invest into a number of bonds may be putting too many eggs in one basket, as their investment is dependent solely on one company’s solvency.

But mini-bonds and retail bonds have proved hugely popular in recent years as the annual returns on offer attract savers struggling to generate a decent income from their nest eggs in an era of low interest rates.

These bonds are routinely oversubscribed, with offer periods often ending early because the fundraising target has been easily met or beaten.

Wind Prospect said that like most renewable energy companies in the UK, it had ‘reviewed its options’ following the election and the Tory ‘attack’ on onshore wind.

It further explained its actions in a statement that said: ‘In order to minimise the impact of government announcements for its ReBond holders, the business is proposing to separate its services business and development assets.

‘The existing UK and overseas development assets will then be ring fenced so that the proceeds from these are directly and contractually available to pay interest and repay capital going forward.

‘To achieve this, Wind Prospect has asked its bondholders to agree to a three-month moratorium on payments of interest and capital while the details are confirmed and a productive consultation can take place.’

Wind Prospect reportedly also delayed its January 2014 interest payment for a few days, but the company was unavailable to confirm this.

The spokeswoman who released its statement said: ‘We do not have any further comment to make at this time.’

People who invested in Wind Prospect’s four-year bonds in 2011 had to give notice last January if they wanted their capital returned to them this month, instead of just being given it back automatically.

Wind Prospect boss Euan Cameron said: ‘We are confident that the plan we deliver will be in the best interests of our bondholders and that these assets, many of which are projects outside the UK, have sufficient value to enable us to meet our commitments to bondholders in full.

‘This measure will significantly increase bond security as well as improve the strength of our service business and the services we provide to our clients. It will also ensure that our services business is robust and clearly defined as we embark on diversifying into new technologies and markets.

‘It is business as usual for the Wind Prospect team and we look forward to fruitful discussions with our bondholders over the next three months to reach the most positive outcome for all parties.’
Daily Mail

Wind Pushers try to Discredit, Doctor Sarah Laurie, Advocate for Victims of Wind Turbine Emissions!

August 19, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind farm advocate Simon Chapman sorry for false allegations

The Australian
August 19, 2015
Graham Lloyd

Simon Chapman n has been widely criticised for his outspoken advocacy for the wind industry and research.