We Are Systematically Slaughtering Our Birds, With Useless Wind Turbines!

September 22, 2014 / 1957chev / 2 Comments

Bird Carcass Count proves AGL’s Macarthur Wind Farm is an Avian Slaughterhouse

September 22, 2014 by stopthesethings 2 Comments

Wind farm turbines take toll on birds of prey
The Australian
Graham Lloyd
22 September 2014

EAGLES, falcons and other raptors make up to a third of the estimated 1500 birds killed each year at Australia’s biggest wind farm.

The finding of an independent report for Macarthur Wind Farm operator AGL follows 12 monthly searches of 48 turbines at the 140-turbine operation in Victoria that found 576 bird carcasses.

After adjusting for birds eaten by scavengers between searches and the total 140 turbines, Australian Ecological Research Services estimated each turbine killed about 10 birds a year.

The analysis said this would include 500 raptors a year.

AGL has confirmed that 64 bird fatalities were found during the official searches and an additional 10 carcasses were found near turbines by maintenance personnel, landowners or ecologists when not undertaking scheduled carcass searches.

The total included eight brown falcons, seven nankeen kestrels, six wedge-tailed eagles, one black falcon, two black-shouldered kites and one spotted harrier.

But an AGL spokesman said the report had “shown no significant impact on threatened species”. The company said overall estimates of bird and bat mortality “are subject to several sources of bias which may result in inaccurate estimates”.

The report recommended more frequent searches of a smaller number of turbines to get a more accurate assessment.

Australian Ecological Research Services said there were several reasons for the high percentage of raptors killed. They were at higher risk of collision with turbine blades possibly due to a combination of factors such as the altitude they mostly fly at, the proportion of time spent flying and flying behaviour.

“Raptors tend to glide slowly and are constantly looking downward for potential prey, rather than flying in a single direction and looking where they are heading,” the report said. “This may increase their risk of flying through the rotor-swept area of turbines.

“Other studies have also suggested that raptors are more likely to collide with turbine blades than many other avian species due to their morphology and foraging behaviour.”

Anti-windfarm campaigner Hamish Cumming said: “If someone shot this many birds they’d be fined and jailed and there would be public outrage.

“But, somehow, we’re expected to just accept it if they are killed by a wind farm.

“And before anyone rolls out the tired old mantra of ‘statistics show more birds get killed flying into suburban windows’, just tell me when was the last time a wedge-tailed eagle flew into your lounge room window?”
The Australian

The report referred to above is available here: Macarthur bat and avifauna mortality monitoring report full. For a detailed rundown on what it says see Hamish Cumming’s email below.

The wind industry and its parasites have – from the outset – pitched their fans as a “planet saving, clean, green and environmentally friendly technology”; which doesn’t quite gel with the wholesale slaughter of birds and bats. Let’s call it an “inconvenient truth” (see our post here).

Were anyone caught shooting eagles or other protected raptors they would face prosecution.

Kill a relatively common Wedge-Tailed Eagle in Australia and you’ll face 6 months imprisonment or a $10,000 fine. As the stories in these links show – when lads with a .22 do it – there is media “shock” and “outrage” at a crime worthy of condign punishment.

But the operators of wind farms face no such criminal penalties – and get to slice and dice birds and bats of all shapes and sizes with impunity (see our posts here and here).

The one thing that giant fans can’t be accused of is “prejudice”: they’ll slaughter anything that flies by; from bats to lowly seagulls, pelicans, majestic raptors and everything in between. Here’s just a few of their range of victims:

STT Champion, Hamish Cumming has always been on the front foot when it comes to protecting our feathered friends (see our posts here and hereand here).

Armed with the report detailing the carnage at Macarthur, Hamish sent this pointed email to a couple of monstrous “green” hypocrites: Victorian Green, Greg Barber and Cam Walker who heads up economy wrecking ecofascist outfit, Enemies of the Earth:

Well Greg and Cam,

I know you both hug wind turbines more than you do trees these days, but what are you going to do about the slaughter of raptors at Macarthur.

AGL’s own report, which they state is likely to be conservative due to monitoring methods being poor, estimates a kill of 10.19 birds per turbine, (1426 per years) 30% of which are raptors.

This is 5 times the original estimation of bird kills and nearly 100 times the original raptor kill estimate.

AGL are also not following Planning Panel recommendations and are not shutting down problem turbines which are in some cases killing 80 birds per turbine just in two seasons.

So-called Greens and so-called Friends of the Earth are just standing by and watching it happen just because it is a wind farm.

If this was a forest being cleared, a developer destroying habitat or coal fired power station causing such carnage and devastating species numbers in a region, you would be beating your chests and in every media possible. Yet you both just sit there and do nothing, because it is a wind farm.

Bob Brown stood up to the wind farm companies at Woolnorth in Tasmania when 11 eagles were killed, because they found that as one is killed another comes in to take over the territory. Raptors are attracted to wind farms to feed on the smaller birds killed by turbines. Wind farms become a species sink for raptors and can deplete a whole area out to many kilometres. This is now happening at Macarthur, with hundreds being killed in just one year.

Today I received the Bat and Avifauna Mortality Monitoring report published June 2014.

Page 22 of the report (attached) shows AGL turbines are reportedly killing 10.19 birds per turbine per year or 1426 birds a year. That is killing birds at approximately 5 times the rate estimated at the time the permit was issued. Page 22 also shows that 30% of these deaths are raptors, even though they are less than 1% of the birds observed at the site during utilisation studies.

On Page 23 the report concludes that the once a month monitoring of 28% of turbines is insufficient, and should be changed to weekly surveys, as data from pages 14 to 17 shows many carcasses are removed within 2 weeks of death by predators

In the Macarthur Panel Hearing, consultant Bret Lane stated that there were very few birds of prey utilising the site and even fewer water birds. The panel commented at the time that this record was unexpectedly low considering the waterways, wetlands and terrain.

It was stated that the risk of collision of raptors was low.

The claim by wind farm consultants at that time was mortality at Australian wind farms was between 2 and 4 birds per turbine a year, but as Macarthur would not be shore based, the mortality would be lower. The consultant compared overseas (European and American) wind farm declared mortalities of .04 to 3.4 deaths per turbine per year, but concluded Macarthur would be half of that.

So the permit was granted with the expectation that mortality would be in the order of a maximum of 2 deaths per turbine per year.

In reality, the first year AGL have declared an average of 10 dead birds per turbine per year, with some individual turbines killing more than 80 each per year.

The panel concluded that:

The BAM Plan must include:

a) A strategy for managing and mitigating any significant bird and bat strike arising from the wind energy facility operations. The strategy must include procedures for the regular removal of carcasses likely to attract raptors to areas near generators and reporting on the species and numbers of carcasses found near generators. Such a strategy must ensure that any bird or bat strikes are detected within a short time frame.

(This has not happened and is likely to be increasing the problem)

The proponent also had to ascertain, the mortality rate for specified species which triggers the requirement for responsive mitigation measures to be undertaken by the proponent either on or off the wind farm site, to the satisfaction of the DSE.

Monitoring timing and frequency must be stated within the plan with intensity of monitoring increasing to coincide with the behaviours and movements of specific species.

A strategy to offset impacts if impacts are detected during monitoring.

(None of this has happened)

6. The panel recommends that the DSE recommended Management Actions required to address potential impacts on Brolga (and other species) be included in the EMP. They are:

Upon approval (including pre-construction), commitment to ongoing observations of Brolgas within a defined radius (eg. 20 km or 30 km) and at specified times of the year – to better understand Brolga behaviour and record species numbers and breeding sites; this could involve local land owners. This information should be provided to DSE for sharing with the wider research community;

(This has not happened)

Commitment to extended monitoring of bird and bat strike (on a specified schedule) with all species recorded. This information should be provided to DSE for sharing with the wider research community;
Link the survey and monitoring to collection of relevant information such as rainfall and climate data and wind farm operations so that patterns over time can be tracked and analysed;

(This has partially been addressed in the report June 2014)

Define the acceptable local population impact threshold. If this threshold is met at interval milestones, then continue the monitoring program but defer other mitigation measures. If the threshold is not met, then mitigation measures should be implemented. These might include measures to enhance habitat in the immediate vicinity of the wind farm or else in more protected locations, wind generator shutdown at critical times, and any other measure identified as the survey and monitoring programs are implemented; and

(None of this has happened)

The management of the wind farm should be flexible enough to account for unanticipated impacts on Brolga (and other species), and include turbine shutdown protocols. The panel recommends that in addition to dead bird searches, bird monitoring include protocols for indirect disturbance impact assessments and avoidance studies as part of the EMP.

(I do not believe this has happened either)

How about both of you do something to stop the raptor deaths? The turbines should be switched off until there is a realistic and workable plan.

Take action now if you really care for the environment at all.

Hamish Cumming

Nice work Hamish! STT doesn’t expect to see any meaningful response from Greg or Cam.

The wind industry kills millions of birds and bats across the world every year. In Spain alone, wind farms are killing between 6,000,000 and 18,000,000 birds every year. The figures come from 136 monitoring studies collected by the Spanish Ornithological Society. Here’s one take on the numbers killed by the Spectator.

A recent study in the US shows that the numbers of bird deaths accredited to turbines underestimates the true figure by more than 30%. (for the full story refer Smallwood, K Shawn. 2013. Comparing bird and bat fatality-rate estimates among North American wind-energy projects.Wildlife Society Bulletin 37: 19-33.)

When challenged about the slaughter, the standard wind industry response is to lie by denying it even happens.

When that fails to wash (mounting piles of carcasses at the bases of turbines don’t help), its spin doctors admit the “problem” but downplay the kill-rate, by asserting that the numbers are “made up” by “mysterious forces” backed by “big coal”.

If an unsatisfied challenger persists, the response is a resort to the ol’ chestnut about “saving the planet from cataclysmic climate change”. And, for dramatic effect, calling the challenger an anti-wind, climate change DENIER.

Of course, giant fans have absolutely NOTHING to do with global warming or climate change (whichever is your poison) – as they require 100% of their capacity to be backed up 100% of the time with fossil fuel generation sources (see our post here). That simple and unassailable fact means wind power cannot and will never reduce CO2 emissions in the electricity sector: the sole justification for the wind industry’s heavily subsidised existence.

After more than 20 years in operation the wind industry has yet to produce a shred of credible evidence to support its claims about wind power abating CO2 – and all the evidence is to the contrary effect (seeour post here and this European paper here; this Irish paper here; this English paper here; and this Dutch study here).

In the result, there is no environmental gain for an awful lot of avian pain.

Once the wind industry’s fallacious (self) justification is stripped away, the deaths of millions of birds and bats can be seen for what it is: nothing more than senseless slaughter.

Corrupt and Inaccurate Research, Hides Negative Effects from Wind Turbines!

September 18, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Biology professor blows the whistle on wind farms

The biggest danger: corrupt research

Infrasound and other problems recognized

In an interview published in Truthout, Dr Patricia Mora casts doubts about the way in which environmental studies are conducted.

“What happens is absolute corruption. I have to admit that generally there are “agreements” behind closed doors between the consultants or research centers and the government offices before the studies are conducted. They fill out forms with copied information (and sometimes badly copied), lies or half truths in order to divert attention from the real project while at the same time complying with requirements on paper. Unfortunately, consultants sometimes take advantage of high unemployment and hire inexperienced people or unemployed career professionals without proper titles. Sometimes the consultants even coerce them into modifying the data.

“Research centers, pressured by a lack of funding, accept these studies. It is well known that scientists recognized by CONACYT (National Counsel on Science and Technology)accept gifts from these companies, given that they need money to buy equipment for their laboratories and to fill their pocketbooks to maintain their lifestyles. This is the extent of the corruption. Upon reviewing these studies, it is clear that the findings are trash, sometimes even directly copied from other sources online. These studies tend to focus on the “benefits of the project” and do not include rigorous analysis.

“The Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) does follow-up to the studies, but everything can be negotiated. The bureaucrats have the last word.”

Patricia Mora is a research professor in coastal ecology and fisheries science at the Interdisciplinary Research Center for Comprehensive Regional Development, Oaxaca Unit (CIIDIR Oaxaca), at the National Institute of Technology.

She also raises other issues: the thorough destruction of biotopes by wind farms…

“… we find ourselves at the meeting point of various intimately related aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, known as “ecotones.” What occurs in each distinct ecosystem affects the dynamic on a larger scale, placing the existence of the adjoining ecosystems in danger.”

… the issues of low frequency sound, infrasound, and electromagnetic fields…

“There is abundant information about the harm caused by the sound waves produced by wind turbines. These sound waves are not perceptible to the human ear, which makes them all the more dangerous. They are also low frequency sound waves and act upon the pineal and nervous systems, causing anxiety, depression (there is a study from the United States that found an elevated suicide rate in regions with wind farms), migraines, dizziness and vomiting, among other symptoms. Western science has given very little weight to electromagnetic and sound waves. In contrast, Eastern science, which gives greater importance to the flow of energy through the body, links the origin of many illnesses to the pollution we generate through the emission of human-made energy flows. The harm caused by this pollution has only recently begun to be accepted.”

… the adverse effects on the population…

“The inhabitants would have to leave behind their traditional activities. Migration and misery would be their future. You can see how this has happened in other areas of the country. They would lose their culture and a lifestyle that has a deep respect for nature. For example, in the northwest coastal region of the country, the arrival of these projects has displaced the fishing communities and farmers. Today, many of these people and their children have migrated. In the worst cases, they have joined the drug trafficking business.”

“The only benefit has been for the companies. The carbon credits they have received have allowed them to avoid taxes and have permitted them to continue polluting.”

Read more: http://truth-out.org/news/item/26244-mexico-researcher-raises-alert-about-environmental-risks-in-region-with-highest-concentration-of-wind-farms-in-latin-america

Faux-green Windpushers Wreaking Havoc on the Poorest Citizens!

September 18, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

It’s the Poor Who Suffer Most from the Great Wind Power Fraud

September 18, 2014 by stopthesethings

In a number of posts we’ve covered Bjørn Lomborg’s critical analysis of how runaway renewables policies – and the spiralling power costs they cause – are having a devastating (and disproportionate) impact on the poorest in developed economies – and how they threaten to lock the poorest billion or so of our planet’s inhabitants into a future of misery, poverty and darkness (see our posts here and here and here).

When it comes to assessing the costs, risks and benefits of environmental policy Bjørn Lomborg has always tried to provide balanced, detailed analysis supported by facts and evidence. The economic choices we make – about allocating scarce resources to unlimited wants – should – as Lomborg consistently points out – be made taking into account all of the costs weighed against properly measured benefits (see our post here).

When it comes to renewable energy policy, however, fundamental economic doctrine has been simply thrown to the wind.

The wind industry and its parasites tout spurious and unproven benefits in terms of CO2 emissions reductions – reductions which cannot and will never be delivered by a generation source delivered at crazy, random intervals that adds nothing to the entire Eastern Australian Grid hundreds of times each year – and which, therefore, requires 100% of its capacity to be backed up 100% of the time by fossil fuel generation sources (see our posts here and here).

Despite (or, rather, because of) its mad wind-rush Germany has seen CO2 emissions increase as it has had to build and re-commission coal fired plants to provide reliable base-load power to keep the grid up and running (see our posts here and here).

Not content with claiming fictional environmental benefits, the wind industry and its parasites dissemble and obfuscate on the true and hidden cost of wind power – only ever pointing to the wholesale price – when it falls – on those rare occasions when wind power output contributes something meaningful to the grid – which is usually at night-time, coinciding with the overnight plummet in demand, naturally resulting in a depressed wholesale price. The industry never discusses the costs that retailers pay through their Power Purchase Agreements – that guarantee minimum prices to wind power generators and which – at $90-120 per MW/h – are 3-4 times the cost of power from conventional sources. And it’s the price retailers pay under their PPAs and pass on to consumers that really matters to power punters.

Wherever there’s been any significant investment in wind power retail power prices have gone through the roof – witness Denmark, Germany and South Australia – which all jostle for the top spot on the table for the highest power prices in the world. See the table at page 11 in this paper: INTERNATIONAL-PRICE-COMPARISON-FOR-PUBLIC-RELEASE-19-MARCH-2012 – noting that the figures are from 2011 and SA’s retail power costs have risen significantly since then (and see our post here).

With thousands of Australian households living without power – having been chopped from the grid simply because they can no longer afford what used to be a basic necessity of life – and thousands more suffering “energy poverty” as they find themselves forced to choose between heating (or cooling) and eating – Australia risks the creation of an entrenched energy underclass, dividing Australian society into energy “haves” and “have-nots”.

For a taste of the scale (so far) of a – perfectly avoidable – social welfare disaster, here are articles from Queensland (click here); Victoria (click here); South Australia (click here); and New South Wales (click here).

Slapping a further $50 billion in REC Tax on top of already spiralling Australian power bills – all to be directed to wind power outfits over the next 17 years can only add to household misery (see our post here).

The Germans launched into massively subsidised wind and solar power, causing power prices to rise 80 per cent in real terms in little over a decade. Unable to pay skyrocketing power bills, 800,000 German households have been disconnected from the grid – with that number growing by 300,000 each year. In addition, almost 7 million German households are suffering “fuel poverty” – forced to choose between eating or heating. Large numbers of them have headed to their forests, stealing wood to cook with and heat their homes (see our post here).

The impact of spiralling power prices hits the poorest the hardest and hits those in the developing world the hardest of all – depriving them of the opportunity of ever having access to cheap and reliable power. Here’s a piece from Forbes detailing how it’s the poor that suffer most from the costs of “green” fantasies.

Who Pays For Green Dreams?
Forbes
Loren Steffy
15 September 2014

Renewable energy is coming to an economic crossroads, one that could have dire unintended consequences for some of the most vulnerable populations – the poor and the elderly.

As renewable energy expands, activists around the world are calling for programs that would supplant conventional fuels – coal, oil and, to a lesser extent, natural gas – with renewable sources such as wind and solar.

Programs such as the misguided fossil fuel divestiture movement, ignore the costs that forcing a move away from fossil fuels imposes on those who are slowest to embrace the change. While there are benefits to diversifying our fuel portfolio, in its current form, the growing use of renewables requires a subsidy from fossil fuels.

This isn’t a cost being foisted upon those who deny climate change. Quite the opposite. In many cases, it is those who already face the biggest impact from global warming who are being saddled with the greatest cost for switching to renewables.

Caleb Rossiter, an adjunct professor with American University’s School of International Service recently outlined his concerns with how the fossil fuel divestiture program could affect Africa:

Africa accounts for 5 percent of global emissions. America’s per-person emissions are 20 times higher. Successful divestment would freeze African economic development while having little effect on global emission levels. Africa has not taken part in the energy revolution that has boosted education, comfort, income and life expectancy. According to the World Bank, only 24 percent of Africans have access to electricity. The rest must resort to burning dung and wood in their houses and huts, leading to horrific rates of lung and heart disease.

The typical African business loses power 56 days each year, constraining commerce, agriculture, education and industry. Growth suffers, and because wealth allows people to live healthily, so does life expectancy.

Energy poverty is stunting the sort of economic growth that Africa needs if it is to move from 59 years of life expectancy to the 79 that China has achieved through 20 years of economic growth fueled by intense, government-backed promotion of carbon-based electrical capacity.

It isn’t just Africa, though. The cost of increasing renewables use is being borne in developed countries, too. On Sunday, the New York Times had a story about the expanding use of renewables in Germany. Germany leads in the industrialized world in renewable energy production, and it will soon get 30 percent of its power from renewable sources.

That sounds great, but as the Times piece points out, all of Germany’s investment in offshore wind and solar has resulted in an increase in intermittent power sources. The country’s conventional utilities are still expected to find a way to keep the lights on when the wind doesn’t blow.

That means in Germany, just as in the U.S. and other countries, the shift to renewable power is being subsidized by those who continue to use conventional energy sources.

In most countries, customers pay for electricity based on the amount they use. Using less – by, say, putting solar panels on your house — means paying less. But renewables, despite their growth, remain supplemental energy sources. Utilities are still responsible for maintaining reliability of the electric system, and they still bear most of the same costs as they did before renewables entered the mix.

Those costs get spread disproportionately among ratepayers who are still using conventional power. As a result, customers who don’t use renewables wind up subsidizing the reliability for those who do. In many cases that means poorer customers who can’t afford to install solar panels, or the elderly who are slower to embrace new technology.

The irony is that if everyone embraced renewables completely, no one would be able to afford them. Like it or not, in the developed world, the shift to renewables is being funded by fossil fuels, and probably will be for decades.

In developing regions like Africa, the subsidies are even more damning, because the development of affordable and reliable power is the road out of poverty. Activists in the west would have their green dreams financed by the continued poverty of the poorest nations on earth.
Forbes

Michael Mann has been Left at the Altar, by his “Science” Friends!

September 17, 2014September 17, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Quote of the week: The link between ‘defending Michael Mann is defending climate science’ seems to have been broken

Anthony Watts

Mark Steyn writes:

[Tuesday] marked a not unimportant court deadline in the upcoming Mann vs Steyn trial of the century, and I wouldn’t want to let it pass without comment. Ever since this tedious suit was launched by Doctor Fraudpants in defense of his global-warming hockey stick, Michael Mann’s supporters have insisted that it’s not, as I and my fellow defendants have insisted, about free speech. Instead, as they see it, it’s about science finally fighting back against a sustained assault by Koch-funded “denialists”. This sub-headline encapsulates the general line:

Michael Mann is taking a stand for science.

Gotcha. Michael Mann is not doing this for Michael Mann, or even for Michael Mann’s science, or even for climate science. He’s doing it for science. Mann is science and science is Mann.

A few weeks ago, you’ll recall, the ACLU, The Washington Post, NBC News, The Los Angeles Times and various other notorious right-wing deniers all filed amici briefs opposed to Michael Mann and his assault on free speech. They did this not because they have any great love for me, but because their antipathy to wackjob foreign blowhards is outweighed by their appreciation of the First Amendment – and an understanding of the damage a Mann victory would inflict on it. After noting the upsurge of opposition to Mann, Reuters enquired of Catherine Reilly (one of his vast legal team) whether there would be any amici filing pro-Mann briefs:

I asked Reilly if the professor would have any supporting briefs next month when he responds to the defendants in the D.C. appeals court.

“At this point, we don’t know,” she said.

Ms Reilly was a pleasant sort when I met her in court over a year ago, but she struck me as a formidable opponent. So I naturally assumed that the above was what what the political types call “lowering expectations”. As I wrote:

I would be surprised if Mann didn’t have any supporting briefs. I was in court when Ms Reilly’s genial co-counsel made his argument for Mann, which was a straightforward appeal to authority: Why, all these eminent acronymic bodies, from the EPA and NSF and NOAA even unto HMG in London, have proved that all criticisms of Mann are false and without merit. So I would certainly expect them to file briefs – and, given that Mann sees this as part of a broader “war on science” by well-funded “deniers”, I would also expect briefs from the various professional bodies: the National Academy of Sciences, the American Physical Society, etc. As pleasant as it is to find my side of the court suddenly so crowded, I’m confident Mann will be able to even up the numbers.

Well, yesterday was the deadline, and not a single amicus brief was filed on behalf of Mann. Not one. So Michael Mann is taking a stand for science. But evidently science is disinclined to take a stand for Michael Mann. The self-appointed captain of the hockey team is playing solo. As Judith Curry wrote last month:

The link between ‘defending Michael Mann is defending climate science’ seems to have been broken.

As yesterday’s deafening silence confirms. If you’re defending Michael Mann, you’re not defending science, or defending climate science, or theories on global warming or anything else. Defending Michael Mann means defending Michael Mann – and it turns out not many people are willing to go there.

===========================================

More here: http://www.steynonline.com/6565/the-lonesomest-mann-in-town

This development is very telling, and is the moment that the tide of consensus receded and left Mann out standing in his field.

Fighting the Corruption Behind the Windscam!

September 17, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

How to Fight the Great Wind Power Fraud

September 17, 2014 by stopthesethings

In this post we documented over 2,000 Anti-Wind Power Fraud groups operating world-wide, fighting to protect their homes, farms, families and communities from being overrun and destroyed by giant industrial wind turbines.

The battles being waged have a common enemy, but the tactics and strategies employed are diverse – and, unfortunately, in some cases play into the hands of wind power outfits, their advocates and apologists.

In Australia, when the battle to save communities began some years back, the usual response from those opposed to wind farms was along the lines of: “we’re all in favour of renewable energy, so long as wind farms are built in the right place”.

Thankfully, it’s a line rarely heard these days as people switch on to the scale and scope of the great wind power fraud – and open their eyes, for the first time, to the phenomenal cost of the subsidies directed at wind power through the mandatory RET (see our post here) – and the impact on retail power prices (see our post here).

Fair minded country people are usually ready to give others the benefit of the doubt; and, not used to being lied to, accepted arguments pitched by wind power outfits about the “merits” of wind power: guff like “this wind farm will power 100,000 homes and save 10 million tonnes of CO2 emissions” (see our post here).

Not anymore.

Apart from the very few farmers that stand to profit by hosting turbines, rural communities have woken up to the fact that wind power – which can only ever be delivered at crazy, random intervals – is meaningless as a power source because it cannot and will never replace on-demand sources, such as hydro, gas and coal. And, as a consequence, that wind power cannot and will never reduce CO2 emissions in the electricity sector. The wind industry has never produced a shred of actual evidence to show it has; and the evidence that has been gathered shows intermittent wind power causing CO2 emissions to increase, not decrease (see our post here and this European paper here; this Irish paper here; this English paper here; and this Dutch study here).

The realisation that the wind industry is built on series of unsustainable fictions has local communities angrier than ever and helps explain the phenomenal numbers opposed to wind farms within those communities: 90% or more in plenty of cases (see our post here).

However, if your group (wherever it is) is still running the line that: “there’s nothing wrong with wind farms just as long as they’re in the right place”, you might as well run up the white flag now. Likewise, if your pitch is based on a proposed wind farm’s negative impact on your visual amenity.

When arguments like these are reduced to their common denominator they’re all based on the “my patch of paradise is special, so go and find somewhere else” proposition.

Wind farm developers have faced that pitch thousands of times in hundreds of places. Their obvious response is that ALL of these places can’t be “special”; governments set up policies to save the planet; therefore, wind farms have to go somewhere, so it may as well be at [insert place name], right next to your place ….

Having stuck with a “wind farms are alright somewhere else” case, pro-community and pro-farming groups find themselves being steamrolled by the combined forces of lying, cheating wind farm developers and corrupt planning systems.

STT thinks your group will have far more success if you don’t concede that there is any right place for a wind farm, anywhere, ever.

STT has hammered the fact that wind power is both an economic and environmental fraud, making it plain that there is never a “right” place for any wind farm: we’d like to think that we’ve got that message across; to the benefit of many, we hope.

While the wind industry in Australia is on its knees, there are plenty of threatened communities here still taking it up to slimy developers and bent planning panels, to make damn sure that the country surrounding their towns, farms and homes remains turbine free.

In any battle, it is always sound practice to settle on a strategy from the beginning and to stick with it, no matter what the enemy throws back.

Fighting planning battles at the local level requires a different strategy than that required to get the Federal government to chop the mandatory RET, where the case to kill the wind industry is largely about subsidies and power prices. However, there are some arguments that will win traction in both forums; such as the absurdity of trying to rely on a power source that has to have 100% of its capacity backed up 100% of the time by conventional generation sources, among others.

If you’re engaged in a local battle, STT thinks that this wrap up from American Physicist and Environmental Activist, John Droz Jr is as good a template as you’ll find.

An Analysis of Anti-Wind Farm Strategies
John Droz Jr
16 May 2009

As a “concerned citizen” I often (probably too frequently) find myself in the situation of trying to fix some type of community problem — like propagating wind power.

Through years of valiant efforts — often successful but sometimes not — one thing I have learned is that being right isn’t enough. As a scientist, this concept is not intuitive to my way of thinking. It generally seems to me that the facts should determine the outcome.

But no, people being people, that often is not what happens.

This had lead me to a greater appreciation of the value of Public Relations. Most people do not understand Public Relations very well, as they confuse it with “advertising”, or categorized as a “pseudo-science” that amounts to a lot of subjective opinions. It’s neither.

I now understand Public Relations as really meaning “effective communication.” Clearly any issue stands a better chance of being resolved when there is better communication.

Public Relations is most applicable at public meetings, Letters to the Editor, websites, etc.

So how does this apply to local groups or environmental organizations who are against industrial wind power?

Since you will be up against well-financed businesses, money-focused politicians, and maybe even well-intentioned (but misinformed) environmental organizations, it is critical that your group employ a well thought out strategy if you have any hope of success — and there HAVE been grassroots groups that were successful in fighting off wind developers.

In my opinion, by far the most important decision that needs to be made is exactly where you want to have the battle, and then carefully controlling things to keep it there.

The problem I see with most groups trying to resist the wind power conglomerate, is that they are fighting the war on the wrong front.

These groups say something like “we will accept wind power if it is sited properly.” Then they work to get “proper siting” to deal with one or more (legitimate) concerns: noise levels, bird flyways, habitat destruction, property devaluation, view setbacks, etc.

In my opinion, this is a MAJOR and usually lethal mistake. Here’s why:

1 – This position amounts to a counter-proposal to the developers: that if the turbines are moved X feet in some direction, then the project will be acceptable. Implicit in that is an admission that wind power really works.This admission is erroneous and is usually fatal.

2 – Once the developers have your acknowledgment that wind power will work (with just a different positioning of turbines), they will then focus on undermining your proposed adjustments. They do this by bringing in their experts who dispute your noise, etc. findings.

The result usually is that it ends up being “He says, She says”. There is almost never a clear cut victory for you on such points — even though you may well be 100% right!

3 – Let’s say that the developer agrees with your objection and moves the wind towers X feet in some direction. Are you saying that this is now a good thing, that these wind towers are now an asset to your community?Hopefully not, but that is also implied with this strategy.

4 – Framing your group’s position as a siting issue gives the appearance (right or wrong) that this is a NIMBY matter. Be assured that the proponents will put it that way.

5 – You are unlikely to get widespread public support using such tactics, because if another community member isn’t personally affected by your issue (e.g. noise levels) then they could probably care less. You need broad public support!

6 – Another problem in garnering public support is presenting multiple, technical issues for average citizens to absorb. What does Joe Public know about acceptable decibel levels?

7 – Going down this path will also likely fracture your group. Some will want certain issues front and center, others will want different ones. This is not a recipe for success.

8 – Even under the best circumstances — that you prove your point (e.g. that in some cases the noise will be too loud), you will then have to deal with their trump card:

“Yes that may be so, but we all have to make real sacrifices to save the planet.”

Now what are you going to say? Effectively you’ve lost.

All this happened because of one thing: you fought the wrong battle.

————————————————————————————————————

Let’s start over. Your one position is that you support sound scientific solutions — and wind power is not acceptable as: it fails to deliver the goods.

By this you mean that wind energy:

1) is not a technically legitimate solution for our grid, or to meaningfully reduce CO2, and

2 is not a commercially viable source of energy on its own; and

3) is not environmentally responsible.

Those basic criteria haven’t been selected to make wind power look bad, but are what should be used to evaluate the legitimacy of any proposed new alternative source of energy. You are not against global warming or renewable energy or economic incentives: you are only against proposals that don’t make good scientific sense.

Here are some benefits of this approach:

1 – You are on MUCH stronger technical ground than you would be on any of the secondary issues, as the wind power industry does NOT have proof — anyplace in the world — that CO2 has been materially reduced, or that any coal power plant has been shut down due to wind power added to the grid.

Since there are some 100,000 wind turbines now in operation world wide, such evidence should be plentiful and easy to produce. Maybe it has been too long since I got out of graduate school, but my recollection of how science is supposed to work is this:

When a new idea is proposed as a potential solution of a problem, it is up to the solution proponents to PROVE its efficacy — not the other way around.

Here we have businessmen, investors and politicians proposing wind power as part of an energy “solution” to global warming. So the ball is in their court as to providing independent, objective proof that wind poweris a viable solution from all pertinent perspectives. THIS HAS NOT YET HAPPENED, and your group should stay focused on that significant vulnerability of theirs.

2 – Once you fully absorb the understanding that wind power does not work, then you can see the foolishness of saying that it is OK if it is “sited properly.” {Exactly what is proper siting for something that does not work?} Since siting is no longer a major issue, there is an increased likelihood that (if you win) that there will be NO wind project in your community. Isn’t that a MUCH better result than getting one with setbacks?

3 – Once you get your members educated, they can ALL be on the same page. Who would be in favor of something that doesn’t work?

4 – Your group will no longer come across to the public as a fractured collection of malcontents trying to protect some niche area of personal interest.

5 – It will be easier to educate the public on this one issue.

6 – You can still bring in some secondary issues (but only as need be) under the auspices of “wind power is not environmentally responsible because…”.

7 – Taking this approach will less likely result in criticism of your group being NIMBYs.

Saying that you are against something because it doesn’t work, is quitedifferent from saying that you are against it because it’s in your backyard.

8 – You are also less likely to be labeled as anti-green, because you are infavor of green solutions to our energy situation — but wind power isn’t green and isn’t a meaningful solution. There are alternative energy sources that better meet the science/economics/environmental tests much better than wind: like geothermal.

9 – The only good reason to support setbacks is to make them so restrictive that the cost of the project becomes prohibitive and the developer leaves. It is important to do this ONLY after making clear that your position is that wind power does not work. [An excellent example of scientifically based setbacks is from an ordinance in Trempealeau County, Wisconsin. Find this and others at my site <<http://www.wiseenergy.org>>.]

10 – Most importantly of all, the “it doesn’t work” strategy removes the developer’s trump card. There is no “sacrifice for the planet” anymore, as you have proved that his development doesn’t help the planet one whit.

————————————————————————————————————

Hopefully this should show you which path is in your best interest. Let’s say you take my suggestion and fight on the “It doesn’t work” front. Are you still home free?

Almost, but they will likely throw out a new trump card: “OK it may not work, but look at all the money our community will get!”

That’s good as you will have successfully ferreted out the real driving force here: MONEY.

Here’s how to deal with that:

1 – Anticipate this ending, at the beginning. Get your town board (or whoever is advocating this) to make a commitment before you show your hand. Get on the pubic record their answer to your question: “Are you supporting this project because of the global warming benefits, or the money?” It is almost 100% assured that they will say the former.

2 – Now at the end, you bring out their documented position and say that you have addressed their good objective of helping with global warming, and shown that this project does NOT help. Therefore you expect them to be good to their word and not support it.

3 – You can point out the fact that the money that the developer is so generously tossing around is not through his own largess — it is taxpayer money in the first place. Are we really so gullible that we can be bribed with our own money?

4 – Let’s say that they now admit that it’s only all about the money. This is where you put that position in context. “OK, what I hear you say is that you want to bring money into our community — despite the fact that wind power has no other meaningful benefit to anyone, and despite the fact that wind power has proven environmental liabilities. Well then I ask you, since this seems to be your thinking, what’s next?”

“Should we expect that you will be signing us up for a regional landfill? How about a toxic chemical plant? How about a slaughterhouse? Maybe a prison for terrorists? Should we clear-cut all our trees to cash in on their value? Maybe a strip mining operation? How about selling our water to Nestle to bottle? These businesses would also employ people and pay taxes — just like wind power.”

“We live here. We work here. We have brought up our children here. Our life is here. What is at stake here is our quality of life. As our representative, we want to make this very clear: our quality of life is not for sale at any price.”

If done right, this approach will have widespread community support, and that is your best chance for victory.

————————————————————————————————————

Let’s wrap it up here and just say that despite ALL your good efforts that your representatives refuse to listen to reason, and still choose not to do the right thing.

Unfortunately, it happens!

In brief you have two options: a) replace them, or b) sue them.

The obvious way to replace a person who is a poor representative is to vote them out. But how do you do this if they are entrenched in the system, or elections are a long way off?

One strategy that does work is to get them to resign, through public pressure. (Again you only embark on this option after you have exhausted the polite attempts at conversion.)

Another effective tactic is to form a Political Action Committee (PAC). Since this is a legal matter, it is discussed in our Some Legal Optionsreport (see wiseenergy.org).

The good news is that if you have gone about this in the proper way, then you have set the stage for a lawsuit (a latter level recourse) that is likely to be successful.

Because there is a lot to the legal aspect topic, please refer to the aforementioned Some Legal Options report for more information.

Whatever your strategy, to be successful your group must get a sound understanding of the wind power matter before taking on the developers or local politicians.

There is a wealth of applicable information at my web page: <<http://www.wiseenergy.org>>. Please consider the findings of independent, environmentally concerned scientists that are listed at that page, especially “Essential Reading” which also has more links to detailed information.

John Droz, jr.
Physicist & Environmental Activist
Brantingham Lake, NY

Climate Change Alarmists are “Confused”….Reality doesn’t match their “Predictions”! No kidding!

September 15, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently requested a figure for its annual report, to show global temperature trends over the last 10,000 years, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Zhengyu Liu knew that was going to be a problem.

“We have been building models and there are now robust contradictions,” says Liu, a professor in the UW-Madison Center for Climatic Research. “Data from observation says global cooling. The physical model says it has to be warming.”

Writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences today, Liu and colleagues from Rutgers University, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, the University of Hawaii, the University of Reading, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the University of Albany describe a consistent global warming trend over the course of the Holocene, our current geological epoch, counter to a study published last year that described a period of global cooling before human influence.

The scientists call this problem the Holocene temperature conundrum. It has important implications for understanding climate change and evaluating climate models, as well as for the benchmarks used to create climate models for the future. It does not, the authors emphasize, change the evidence of human impact on global climate beginning in the 20th century.

“The question is, ‘Who is right?'” says Liu. “Or, maybe none of us is completely right. It could be partly a data problem, since some of the data in last year’s study contradicts itself. It could partly be a model problem because of some missing physical mechanisms.”

Over the last 10,000 years, Liu says, we know atmospheric carbon dioxide rose by 20 parts per million before the 20th century, and the massive ice sheet of the Last Glacial Maximum has been retreating. These physical changes suggest that, globally, the annual mean global temperature should have continued to warm, even as regions of the world experienced cooling, such as during the Little Ice Age in Europe between the 16th and 19th centuries.

The three models Liu and colleagues generated took two years to complete. They ran simulations of climate influences that spanned from the intensity of sunlight on Earth to global greenhouse gases, ice sheet cover and meltwater changes. Each shows global warming over the last 10,000 years.

Yet, the bio- and geo-thermometers used last year in a study in the journal Science suggest a period of global cooling beginning about 7,000 years ago and continuing until humans began to leave a mark, the so-called “hockey stick” on the current climate model graph, which reflects a profound global warming trend.

In that study, the authors looked at data collected by other scientists from ice core samples, phytoplankton sediments and more at 73 sites around the world. The data they gathered sometimes conflicted, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere.

Because interpretation of these proxies is complicated, Liu and colleagues believe they may not adequately address the bigger picture. For instance, biological samples taken from a core deposited in the summer may be different from samples at the exact same site had they been taken from a winter sediment. It’s a limitation the authors of last year’s study recognize.

“In the Northern Atlantic, there is cooling and warming data the (climate change) community hasn’t been able to figure out,” says Liu.

With their current knowledge, Liu and colleagues don’t believe any physical forces over the last 10,000 years could have been strong enough to overwhelm the warming indicated by the increase in global greenhouse gases and the meltingice sheet, nor do the physical models in the study show that it’s possible.

“The fundamental laws of physics say that as the temperature goes up, it has to get warmer,” Liu says.

Caveats in the latest study include a lack of influence from volcanic activity in the models, which could lead to cooling—though the authors point out there is no evidence to suggest significant volcanic activity during the Holocene—and no dust or vegetation contributions, which could also cause cooling.

Liu says climate scientists plan to meet this fall to discuss the conundrum.

“Both communities have to look back critically and see what is missing,” he says. “I think it is a puzzle.”

More information: The Holocene temperature conundrum, PNAS, http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1407229111

Provided by University of Wisconsin-Madison

Windweasels Deny Health Problems Caused By Wind Turbines….They’re Not Telling the Truth!

September 14, 2014 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

How Do Wind Turbines Affect Human Health?

BY STEFFANIE PETRONI

“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

~ World Health Organization

During the1930’s the public began expressing concerns about smoking referencing a persistent smoker’s cough or smoker’s hack. When the tobacco companies caught wind of the grumblings they concocted a pre-emptive marketing campaign. Who was more trusted than doctors on the matter of health? Tobacco companies like Lucky Strike and Camels enlisted the reassuring image of doctors, though most were actors, to endorse the ‘throat soothing’ qualities and preferred smooth taste of a particular brand.

In the 1940’s and 1950’s tobacco companies applied a different spin to their advertising. While some pitched that their cigarettes weren’t harmful, other brands claimed to be less harmful. Around this time physicians were aware of the addictive quality of cigarettes but weren’t convinced that there was a direct causal factor between smoking and disease.

It was in 1964 when the United States Surgeon General issued the first report of the Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health. Their findings concluded- over thirty years after the public first began ringing alarm bells, that there was certainly a direct link between smoking and lung cancer and bronchitis.

As noted by Alec N. Salt and Jeffery T. Lichtenhan in their paper, How Does Wind Turbine Noise Affect People? (April 2014), “Whether it is a chemical industry blamed for contaminating groundwater with cancer-causing dioxin, the tobacco industry accused of contributing to lung cancer, or athletes of the National Football League putatively being susceptible to brain damage, it can be extremely difficult to establish the truth when some have an agenda to protect the status quo. It is only when sufficient scientific evidence is compiled by those not working for the industry that the issue is considered seriously.”

As the spread of industrial wind turbine farms have increased across the Canadian landscape so have concerns related to the impact on human health prompted by the installations of these 21^st century machines in rural and small populated areas of the nation.

In his peer reviewed paper, Adverse Health Effects of Industrial Wind Turbines, Dr. R. Jeffery states that, “People who live or work in close proximity to industrial wind turbines have experienced symptoms that include decreased quality of life, annoyance, stress, sleep disturbance, headache, anxiety, depression, and cognitive dysfunction. Some have also felt anger, grief, or a sense of injustice.” Jeffery surmises that causes of such symptoms include a combination of industrial wind turbine noise and infrasound in addition to other relatable grounds.

Responding to public health concerns in 2010, the Chief Medical Officer of Health released a report The Potential Health Impact of Wind Turbines and concluded that ‘the scientific evidence available to date does not demonstrate a direct causal link between industrial wind turbine noise and adverse health effects.

The report clarifies that the “normal human ear perceives sounds at frequencies ranging from 20 Hz to 20, 000 Hz” where Hz represents the frequency or pitch of sound. “Frequencies below 200 Hz are commonly referred to as ‘low frequency sound’ and those below 20 Hz as ‘infrasound’. A decibel (dB) is “characterized by its sound pressure level” or loudness. Adverse health effects can occur at 50 to 70 dB.

As noted in the national report, sound from industrial wind turbines is produced ‘through mechanical and aerodynamic routes’ and the ‘dominant sound source from modern wind turbines is aerodynamic. The aerodynamic noise is present at all frequencies, from infrasound to low frequency to the normal audible range.’

In their paper Salt and Lichtenhan emphasize, “The million-dollar question is whether the effects of wind turbine infrasound stimulation stay confined to the ear and have no other influence on the person or animal. At present, the stance of wind industry and its acoustician advisors is that there are no consequences to long-term low-frequency and infrasonic stimulation. This is not based on studies showing that long-term stimulation to low-level infrasound has no influence on humans or animals. No such studies have ever been performed. Their narrow perspective shows a remarkable lack of understanding of the sophistication of biological systems and is almost certainly incorrect.”

Ménière’s disease is a disorder of the inner ear that causes spontaneous episodes of vertigo -a sensation of a spinning motion along with fluctuating hearing loss, tinnitus, and sometimes a feeling of fullness or pressure in your ear. Salt and Lichtenhan draw comparison to Ménière’s disease and the symptoms that are described by many people who live near wind turbines.

“A condition called “endolymphatic hydrops,” which is found in humans with Ménière’s disease, can displace the sensory organ as the space containing the fluid called endolymph swells.” Their extensive research suggests that infrasound and low-frequency “could affect the ear and give rise to the symptoms that some people living near wind turbines report.”

Jeffrey acknowledges that noise is the most frequent complaint from people living near industrial wind turbines. He states, “The noise is described as piercing, preoccupying, and continually surprising, as it is irregular in intensity. The noise includes grating and incongruous sounds that distract the attention or disturb rest.”

It is interesting to note that in the Chief Medical Officer’s 2010 report it is stated that, “Little information is available on actual measurements of sound levels generated from wind turbines and other environmental sources. Since there is no widely accepted protocol for the measurement of noise from wind turbines, current regulatory requirements are based on modelling.”

Pursuant to requirements in Ontario, industrial wind turbine setbacks of 550 meters from a dwelling are said to limit the degree of perceived noise created by wind turbines to 40 dB which is a ‘sound level comparable to indoor background sound’ or a mosquito buzzing next to your ear.

In Jeffrey’s report he states, “Reports of industrial wind turbines –induced adverse health effects have been dismissed by some commentators including government authorities and other organizations. Physicians have been exposed to efforts to convince the public of the benefits of industrial wind turbine’s while minimizing the health risks.”

Dr. David Kolby, Chief Medical Officer of Health for the Chatam-Kent region was interviewed on behalf of the Canadian Wind Energy Association. In his interview he states, “The benefits of renewable is that they’re clean. Once you get through the impacts associated with equipment manufacturing the operating factor is zero pollution. As more and more of these come online and displace more damaging forms of energy it’s going to be a significant improvement over what we have now. Coal is a dirty inefficient way to generate energy. The health problems associated with emissions is well documented and costing society a lot of money.”

He goes on to conclude, “There is a large body of literature on sound and health and they do not emit enough acoustical energy to have a pathological effect on human tissues. I’ve been accepted by the Ontario Environmental Review Tribunal as a legally designated expert in wind turbines sound and health and would put my expertise up against any medical doctor in that capacity. The noise studies indicate that there should be no problem with current wind design at anything more than 300 meters. So I think the 550 meter as a minimum setback is safe and acceptable. People for the common good have to adapt to a certain amount of annoying stimuli- that’s called society.”

Commenting on many reports that claim that industrial wind turbines bear no impact on human health Jeffrey states, “These industrial wind turbine health effects are often discounted because ‘direct pathological effects’ or a ‘direct causal link’ have not been established.”

However Jeffrey counters the position stating, “Owing to the lack of adequately protective siting guidelines, people exposed to industrial wind turbines can be expected to present to their family physicians in increasing numbers. The documented symptoms are usually stress disorder-type diseases acting via indirect pathways and can represent serious harm to human health.”

Salt and Lichtenhan caution that research to date is limited and that the professional community possess only a ‘primitive’ understanding regarding the consequences of long-term exposure to infrasound.

“If, in time, the symptoms of those living near the turbines are demonstrated to have a physiological basis, it will become apparent that the years of assertions from the wind industry’s acousticians that “what you can’t hear can’t affect you” or that symptoms are psychosomatic or a nocebo effect was a great injustice. The current highly-polarized situation has arisen because our understanding of the consequences of long-term infrasound stimulation remains at a very primitive level. Based on well-established principles of the physiology of the ear and how it responds to very low-frequency sounds, there is ample justification to take this problem more seriously than it has been to date.”

Wind Turbines Increase the Amount of CO2 Being Produced to Make Electricity!

September 7, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Why Intermittent Wind Power Increases CO2 Emissions in the Electricity Sector

September 7, 2014 by stopthesethings

The central, endlessly repeated lie (upon which the great wind power fraud rests) is that increasing wind power generation results in decreases in CO2 emissions.

In Australia, the central object of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 is for “renewable” energy to “reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in the electricity sector” (see s3). But, somewhere along the way, what was a CO2 abatement scheme became an industry subsidy scheme which is nothing short of “corporate welfare on steroids” (see our post here).

At no point since that legislation took effect over 13 years ago has the wind industry provided any actual proof that it has in fact reduced CO2 emissions in the electricity sector. When we talk about “proof” we’re not talking about smoke and mirrors “modelling” based on long-term average wind farm output – which ignores the extra gas and coal being burnt (and wasted) in order to balance the grid to account for wild fluctuations in wind power output (see our post here); and to maintain additional “spinning reserve” (see our post here) to account for complete collapses in wind power output – as seen in this post.

As we have pointed out just once or twice – the need for 100% of wind power capacity to be backed up 100% of the time by fossil fuel generation sources means that wind power cannot and will never reduce CO2 emissions in the electricity sector (see our posts here and hereand here and here and here and here and here).

E.ON operates numerous transmission grids in Germany and, therefore, has the unenviable task of being forced to integrate the wildly fluctuating and unpredictable output from wind power generators, while trying to keep the German grid from collapsing (E.ON sets out a number of the headaches caused by intermittent wind power in the Summary of this paper at page 4). Dealing with the fantasy that wind power is an alternative to conventional generation sources, E.ON says:

“Wind energy is only able to replace traditional power stations to a limited extent. Their dependence on the prevailing wind conditions means that wind power has a limited load factor even when technically available. It is not possible to guarantee its use for the continual cover of electricity consumption. Consequently, traditional power stations with capacities equal to 90% of the installed wind power capacity must be permanently online [and burning fuel] in order to guarantee power supply at all times.”

STT is happy to go all out and say that in Australia wind power requires 100% of its capacity to be backed up 100% of the time by conventional generation sources. As just one recent example, on 3 consecutive days (20, 21 and 22 July 2014) the total output from all of the wind farms connected to the Eastern Grid (total capacity of 2,952 MW – and spread over 4 states, SA, Victoria, Tasmania and NSW) was a derisory 20 MW (or 0.67% of installed capacity) for hours on end (see our post here). The 99.33% of wind power output that went AWOL for hours (at various times, 3 days straight) was, instead, all supplied by conventional generators; the vast bulk of which came from coal and gas plants, with the balance coming from hydro.

For wind power to reduce CO2 emissions in the electricity sector it has be a true “substitute” for conventional generation sources. Because it can’t be delivered “on-demand” (can’t be stored) and is only “available” at crazy, random intervals (if at all) wind power will never be a substitute for conventional generation sources (see our post here).

Perhaps the reason that the wind industry has never produced a shred of evidence to show that wind power has reduced CO2 emissions in Australia’s electricity sector is simply because it can’t. Running counter to wind industry claims about wind power abating CO2 emissions, the result of trying to incorporate wind power into a coal/gas fired grid is increased CO2 emissions (see this European paper here; this Irish paper here; this English paper here; this American article and this Dutch study here).

This American study details just why increasing wind power capacity – and trying to incorporate its wildly fluctuating output into a coal and gas fired grid – results in increased CO2 emissions across the electricity sector.

Wind Integration vs. Air Emission Reductions: A Primer for Policymakers
Master Resource
Mary Hutzler
24 June 2010

Many claim that wind generation is beneficial because it reduces pollution emissions and does not emit carbon dioxide. This isn’t necessarily the case. The following article explains a phenomena called cycling where the introduction of wind power into a generation system that uses carbon technologies to back-up the wind actually reduces the energy efficiency of the carbon technologies. Recent studies with actual data have estimated the impact of cycling on air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions.

Energy modelers evaluating the impact of legislation such as Senator Bingaman’s American Clean Energy Leadership Act and the American Power Act proposed by Senators Kerry and Lieberman should take note for their models most likely are underestimating the cost of compliance by incorrectly modeling the integration of wind power into the electricity grid.

Wind is not a new technology. It was one of our principal sources of energy, along with wood and water, prior to the carbon era. But the use of renewables in the pre-carbon age was very different from the current use of renewables. Today, people rely on energy being available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, regardless of whether the sun shines, the wind blows, or there are high or low water levels. We now have over 1,000 gigawatts of generating plants[1], and a large and elaborate electrical grid that requires great coordination among system operators to avoid disruptions.

Also, in the pre-carbon energy era, when renewables were the sole source of energy, there were no coal-fired or natural-gas fired power plants to provide back-up power. Studies have found that the efficiency of those carbon-based plants is affected by incorporating wind energy into the system. When a plant’s efficiency is reduced, its fuel consumption and emissions increase, causing unintended consequences that wind proponents do not disclose. Requiring even larger amounts of renewable energy through renewable portfolio standards will only exacerbate this problem.

Background

Our various electricity generating technologies were designed and constructed to meet electricity demand based on their best operating characteristics for meeting portions of the electricity load duration curve. The load duration curve illustrates periods of constant demand that are served by base-load power versus periods of intermediate and peak demand. Owing to their high capital cost, low fuel cost, and high capacity factors, technologies such as coal and nuclear were designed to operate continuously to meet the base-load demand component. Owing to their lower capital costs but higher fuel costs, natural gas technologies, including combined-cycle and turbine plants, were designed to meet intermediate and peak electrical load.

Wind is an intermittent technology since it can generate power only when the wind blows. Its low operating cost (with no fuel component) and the mandates of state Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) make it practically a “must take” technology for system operators. RPSs require that a certain amount of electricity generation be produced by renewable fuels. The renewable target mandates tend to start out low but increase over time, with those of most RPS states reaching 15 to 30 percent by 2020 or 2025.[2] Wind tends to be the primary technology for meeting RPS targets, since it is lower in capital cost than solar, thermal, and photovoltaic technologies, the other politically acceptable “green” technologies.

Part of the rationale for introducing RPSs is that the substitution of “green” technologies for carbon technologies is supposed to reduce pollution emissions as well as carbon dioxide emissions. However, studies have shown that this may not be the case. As conventional generation (coal or natural gas) is reduced to make room for wind generation and is then increased as wind generation subsides, its heat rate rises. The heat rate is a measure of a generating station’s thermal efficiency commonly stated in units of Btu per kilowatt-hour. This reduction in efficiency increases its fuel consumption and emissions. When sudden increases or decreases occur in generation output, it is referred to as “cycling”.

The Bentek Study

Bentek did a study of the results of integrating wind into the generation mix of the Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCO), using data from the company’s financial reports, the Energy Information Administration, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.[3] PSCO is a largely coal-fired utility with 3,764 megawatts of coal-fired generators, 3,236 megawatts of gas-fired combined-cycle and gas turbine capacity, 405 megawatts of hydro and pumped storage capacity, and 1,064 megawatts of wind generators. Colorado has an RPS that required 3 percent of the electricity generated by investor-owned utilities come from qualifying renewable technologies by 2007, and 30 percent by 2020.[4]

Colorado’s energy demand is highest during the day, peaking in late afternoon or early evening. Wind generation, however, is greatest between the hours of 9 pm and 5 am; it cannot be counted on to provide power when most needed, and so is used when available to meet the RPS. Most of the time that wind generation is available, it backs out (or replaces) natural gas. However, there are times when coal generation, which provides over 50 percent of PSCO’s base-load generation, is backed out to make room for the wind generation. When this happens, coal generation is cycled, causing its heat rate to increase and resulting in more fuel consumption and emissions. In PSCO, coal cycling predominates because of the low amount of gas generation in the system since most of its gas-fired generation is from turbines and because wind is strongest at night when coal use is even more pronounced.

In the Denver non-attainment area, PSCO has 4 coal-fired plants: Arapahoe, Valmont, Pawnee, and Cherokee. Between 2006 and 2009, these coal-fired plants have experienced higher emissions rates ranging from 17 to 172 percent higher for sulfur dioxide, 0 to 9 percent higher for nitrous oxide, and 0 to 9 percent higher for carbon dioxide. In 2008, Cherokee even switched to a lower sulfur coal, but still ended up with sulfur dioxide emissions higher by 18 percent. And, between 2006 and 2009, these plants reduced their generation by over 37 percent, exacerbating further the increase in emissions.

Because the PSCO data are limited, Bentek checked their results against data from the Energy Reliability Council of Texas, whose utilities are required to report generation levels by fuel every 15 minutes. Texas has the most wind capacity in the country—over 9,500 megawatts.[5] Texas also has an RPS that was instituted during George W. Bush’s governorship and that pushed Texas ahead of California in wind capacity during 2006. The Texas renewable portfolio standard requires that utilities have 5,880 megawatts of renewable capacity by 2015, including a target of 500 megawatts of renewable-energy capacity from resources other than wind. The legislation also set a target of reaching 10,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2025, although it will be exceeded much earlier.[6] However, even in Texas, which has a large natural gas–fired capacity base, with over 40 percent of its generation being natural gas-fired,[7] coal-fired generation is cycled as is shown in the graph below.

Another benefit that wind power generators get is that their forecast power generation entails no penalty if it is not available. Other generators must provide their own back-up power if their generation is suddenly unavailable. But the owners of wind generators believe that they can’t be held accountable for whether the wind blows and thus for inaccuracies in their forecasting capability. For example, on February 26, 2008, a cold front moved through West Texas and rendered wind’s output 1,000 megawatts less than promised, and that unexpectedly had to be made up by other generating technologies.[8] Only careful and extensive coordination, such as was carried out in West Texas on that cold February day, can prevent brown outs and black outs from occurring.

The Netherlands Experience[9]

Two researchers, C. le Pair and K. de Groot, found that the Netherlands government was overestimating the amount of carbon dioxide reductions associated with wind production. The government was using incorrect data because it did not correct for the reduction in efficiency of the conventional power plants once wind was introduced into the system. Using data provided by CBS, the Dutch Institute for Statistics, the researchers made an estimate of the “turning point” where the efficiency reduction of conventional power plants balances out the fuel savings from wind energy. Using data for 2007, when wind power was at 3 percent, they found the turning point to be at an efficiency reduction of 2 percent based on all the power stations serving the Netherlands. That is, when the efficiency of the back-up plants was reduced by over 2 percent due to cycling caused by the integration of wind energy into the system, fuel use and emissions of the back-up plants increased.

Heat Rate Simulations

An engineer, Kent Hawkins, evaluated several heat rate simulations to represent cycling of the plants when wind is introduced into the system.[10] One set of simulations evaluates wind energy replacing coal power with different technologies serving as the back-up power to wind, in order to evaluate their effect on fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions. He found that because of cycling, carbon dioxide emissions increase with the incorporation of wind energy if coal is the sole back-up power for wind. If coal and gas turbines or gas combined-cycle and gas turbines are used to back up the wind power, carbon dioxide emissions are reduced mainly due to the lower carbon dioxide emissions produced from natural gas generators as compared to coal generators. This is best seen by examining the last bar in the chart below where the lowest carbon dioxide emissions result when natural gas combined-cycle plants are solely used to replace coal.

An interesting consequence of this analysis is that certain areas of the world where wind is integrated into a system that is primarily coal-based may result in an increase in total carbon dioxide emissions from using wind in their generating sector. That is, in these circumstances, wind would not be providing an offset in carbon dioxide emissions, but would actually be providing an increase in those emissions. China, for example, relies on coal for 80 percent of its generation and natural gas for only 2 percent.[11] China also added the most wind power of any country in 2009, 13 gigawatts,[12] ranking third in the world in total wind capacity, with the United States first and Germany second.[13] Since China’s wind would primarily be backed up by power from coal-fired generating units, it is no wonder that China’s carbon dioxide emissions increased by 9 percent in 2009.[14]

Conclusion

As more wind units are built and data become available regarding their integration into conventional energy systems, we will learn more about the effects of wind units on the operation of conventional plants. A few studies have been done showing that the effect of wind integration on both fuel consumption and emission reductions can in fact be negative. Further evaluation of our current wind units and their effects on fuel consumption and emissions should be done before increasing the penetration of renewable energy to the 20 and 30 percent levels currently mandated by some state renewable portfolio standards, and before a national renewable portfolio standard is considered for enactment.

[1] Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Annual,http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat1p2.html

[2] Institute for Energy Research, Energy Regulation of the States: A Wake-up Call, www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/states/

[3] Bentek Energy LLC, How Less Became More: Wind, Power and Unintended Consequences in the Colorado Energy Market,http://www.bentekenergy.com/WindCoalandGasStudy.aspx

[4] Institute for Energy Research, Energy Regulation of the States: A Wake-up Call, http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/states/colorado/

[5] American Wind Energy Association,http://www.awea.org/projects/projects.aspx?s=Texas

[6] Institute for Energy Research, Energy Regulation of the States: A Wake-up Call, http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/states/texas/

[7] Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly, March 2010, http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ftproot/electricity/epm/02261003.pdf

[8] The Wall Street Journal, Natural Gas Tilts at Windmills in Power Feud, March 2, 2010,http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704188104575083982637451248.html

[9] The impact of wind generated electricity on fossil fuel consumption, C. le Pair and K. de Groot, http://www.clepair.net/windefficiency.html

[10] Wind Integration: Incremental Emissions from Back-Up Generation Cycling (Part V: Calculator Update), Kent Hawkins, February 12, 2010,http://www.masterresource.org/2010/02/wind-integration-incremental-emissions-from-back-up-generation-cycling-part-v-calculator-update/#more-7271

[11] Energy Information Administration, International Energy Outlook 2010, Tables H10, H12, and H13,http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/pdf/ieoecg.pdf

[12] Global Wind Energy Council, Global wind power boom continues amid economic woes, March 2, 2010, http://www.gwec.net/index.php?id=30&no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=247&tx_ttnews[backPid]=4&cHash=1196e940a0

[13] Global Wind Energy Council, http://www.gwec.net/index.php?id=13, and Global Wind Energy Council, Global wind power boom continues amid economic woes, March 2, 2010, http://www.gwec.net/index.php?id=30&no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=247&tx_ttnews[backPid]=4&cHash=1196e940a0

[14] Reuters, China top carbon emitter for second year running, June 9, 2010, http://alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE6580Y1.htm

The Consequences of Faux-green Renewable Energy, on Nature, in Germany!

September 2, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Deutschland
How The Green Energy Transition Is Destroying Germany’s Nature

Date: 28/08/14

Fritz Vahrenholt, Die Welt

Germany’s climate and energy policy is the main threat to bio-diversity. Politicians, however, have closed their eyes from the destructive effects of the rampant expansion of renewable energy.

Dankwart Guratzsch has convincingly described the destruction of the environment by the energy transition in these pages. The mayor of Tübingen, Boris Palmer (Green Party), responded in an article, saying: “Everything is not so bad. The impact of wind farms on nature is almost zero … The only relevant negative aspect of wind power is the optical … Many wind farms attract visitors, who do not find repulsive.”

What a devastating form of denial by the Green mayor. But he shares the fatal disregard for the destruction of nature with many greens who – helped by the WWF and Greenpeace – open up forests and premium areas of natural beauty for businesses and belittle the intrusion by wind turbines into nature.

More and more citizens are beginning to realise how the green energy transition is at odds with nature conservation and environmental protection in Germany. A grassroot protest movement has started with thousands of local citizens’ initiatives, barely connected with each other, who are against the planting of biofuels far and wide and which is destroying biodiversity, against the threats to indigenous birds by wind turbines built in forests, and against the devastation of unique cultural and landscape areas by photovoltaic excesses.

A biodiversity disaster

Of Germany’s 115 most common bird species, 51 have declined significantly in the last 20 years. The head of the biosphere reserve in Schorfheide, Martin Flade, speaks of a “biodiversity disaster” which is due to “the hectic climate, energy and agricultural policy: In the corn farmland birds have no chance – the field processing falls in the breeding season, and later they hardly find any insects to eat in these mono-cultures. Of the 30 most common species, there are just four that could hold their numbers, all the rest are declining since at least since 2007.”

The Lesser Spotted Eagle, also called Pomerania Eagle, became extinct in Saxony-Anhalt last year. Only 108 breeding pairs remain in Germany. It finds less and less food in the declining grassland and open meadow. The distances between breeding sites and food areas are getting longer and are also increasingly endangered by wind turbines.

Notably countries with Green Party ministers (North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Baden-Wurttemberg, Brandenburg and Hessen) have approved regulations which open the use of forests for wind turbines. To place a wind farm every 500 meters in the forest, six meter wide open lanes have to be cut through the forest in order to transport the 100-ton turbines and to maintain them later. Around each turbine, a five-acre open area must be created to lift the blades by giant cranes.

Wind farms in pristine forests

What a wind farm forest looks like can now be seen in many parts of Germany – for instance around Soonwaldsteig, a part of the Hunsrück, one of the last great, largely untouched forest areas in Rhineland-Palatinate with high biodiversity and the presence of numerous highly endangered species. There, the project developer Juwi has erected eight wind turbines in the middle of a forest – despite public protests – and then sold the park to an Austrian energy supplier. Faced with the images of demonstrating citizens, the Green minister Evelin Lemke could only come up with: “Without climate protection, there will be no more biodiversity here.”

But a policy that overestimates the dangers of climate change and that subordinates all other policy objectives, including nature conservation, whatever the cost, generates resistance. The Soonwaldsteig has become a nationwide focal point of citizens’ initiatives against the use of wind power in sensitive areas.

Today, 200,000 dead bats are found under wind turbines annually. The clever animals locate the rotors, fly through them and in the lee behind the turbines, where the air pressure decreases sharply, the bats’ lungs burst. Particularly affected are the noctule, the Serotine, the Small Noctule or the parti-colored bat. The female bat only gives birth to one or two young per year, thus these useful insectivores are endangered by a further uncontrolled construction of new wind turbines.

The red kite is acutely threatened

Following the review of the German Council for Bird Preservation (DRV) and the umbrella organization of German Avifaunists (DDA, 2012), the Red Kite is also in particular danger. After an investigation by the State Ornithological Institute of Brandenburg, the Red Kite is no longer safe in this state with its 3,200 wind turbines. About 300 Red Kites are killed annually in Brandenburg alone by wind turbines.

The decline of the red kites since 2005 in West Germany is striking, as Klaus Richarz, former head of the State Ornithological Institutes for Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, has warned. For him too, windmills built in the habitats of kites are fatal for the birds. The protection of the Red Kite is of special obligation for Germany, because a large percentage of the global population of the birds live in Germany. If you like, it is the real national bird of Germany.

In his hard-hitting article “From the energy transition to biodiversity disaster” Martin Flade, the recognized bird expert, describes climate protection and energy policy as a “major threat to biological diversity”. He concludes: “Overall, you have to draw the bitter conclusion that effects of climate change on biodiversity are hardly detectable; the effects of climate and energy policies, however, are dramatic.”

The problem with intermittent wind turbines

Tübingen’s mayor Boris Palmer demands: “We need to double the number of currently 25,000 wind turbines in order to supply Germany.” What a mistake!

Even 50,000 wind turbines only lead to massive surpluses if the wind blows. Wind turbines have on average around 2,500 full load hours per year, but the year has 8,760 hours. In times of no wind, no electricity is generated, even if one multiplies the number of facilities. Zero times x is zero. The intermittency of renewable energy such as wind and solar require either backup fossil power plants or energy storage capacities.

Storage technologies can only do this tasks with excessive costs. Without fossil power plants to balance the intermittency of renewable energy there will be no guaranteed power supply in Germany, with fatal consequences for the competitiveness of German industry and the manufacturing industry.

It should also be known to the Greens that the expansion of renewable energy due to Germany’s Renewable Energy Law is completely ineffective in terms of CO2 emissions in Europe. The CO2 emissions in Europe are determined solely by the capping of the emissions trading scheme. New wind and solar power, in fact, set more emission allowances free.

These certificates float through the stock exchanges to coal power plants in other EU countries where they allow further increase in CO2 emissions which amount to the same level as the reductions in Germany. Besides additional costs for citizens and the devastation of nature, any expansion of renewable energy will not achieve a single ton of CO2 reduction.

Assumptions of climate policy are flawed

Fossil fuel power plants are not an alternative for Boris Palmer and the Greens because they cause climate change, claiming that “some nature reserves, but also some urban areas cannot be saved from rising sea levels, drought and floods and devastating storms”.

But there are growing signs that the assumptions used for German and European climate policy are flawed. Surprisingly, no global temperature increase has occurred for about 15 years. However, computer models used by climate scientists had predicted a temperature rise of 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade.

In early 2013, 17 renowned climate scientists came to the conclusion that the climate sensitivity of greenhouse gases should be significantly reduced. Hans von Storch, researcher from the Helmholtz Centre in Geesthacht, admits: “First option: global warming is weaker because the greenhouse gases, especially CO2, have a lower impact than assumed. That does not mean that there is no man-made greenhouse effect, only that our influence on the climate system would not be as strong as expected. The other possibility: In our simulations we have underestimated how much the climate varies due to natural causes “.

In fact, there are good reasons for the global warming pause. Solar activity has reached a maximum in the second half of the last century. But since the last eleven-year solar cycle, solar activity has decreased dramatically, the solar maximum exited very quickly. The current solar cycle 24 is the weakest in 200 years.

Ocean currents shift into cold phase

Another crucial error by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was its failure to take into account the 60-year-old oceanic-atmospheric cycle of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). The ocean currents change in 30-year intervals between warm and cold phases. They are now moving into a cold phase in which they will remain until 2035. The natural temperature rise in the past was also blamed on CO2, and so scientists got the wrong predictions.

Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas; it causes a warming of about 1.1 degrees Celsius per doubling of its concentration. But catastrophic global warming of three to six degrees Celsius this century, which justifies energy policies that threaten the existence of local wildlife, is not to be feared.

The sacrifice of German forests may do for wind energy what the battle against the Whyl nuclear power plant was for Germany’s nuclear energy. None of the political parties represented in the German parliament intends to end this attack on the environment. However, the Green Party would feel the impact most if the growing protest movement against the destruction of nature were to raise this threat onto the political agenda.

Fritz Vahrenholt is the chairman of the German Wildlife Foundation and author of the 2012 bestseller “The Neglected Sun”. He is a member of the GWPF’s Academic Advisory Council.

Translation Philipp Mueller

Renewable Energy Targets Force Consumers to Use Inefficient, Unreliable, Overpriced Products!

September 1, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

The crazy world of Renewable Energy Targets

Nothing makes sense about Renewable Energy Targets, except at a “Bumper-Sticker” level. Today the AFR front page suggests* the federal government is shifting to remove the scheme (by closing it to new entrants) rather than just scaling it back. It can’t come a day too soon. Right now, the Greens who care about CO2 emissions should be cheering too. The scheme was designed to promote an industry, not to cut CO2.

UPDATE: Mathias Cormann later says “that the government’s position was to “keep the renewable energy target in place” SMH. Mixed messages indeed.

We’ve been sold the idea that if we subsidize “renewable” energy (which produces less CO2) we’d get a world with lower CO2 emissions. But it ain’t so. The fake “free” market in renewables does not remotely achieve what it was advertised to do — the perverse incentives make the RET good for increasing “renewables” but bad for reducing CO2, and, worse, the more wind power you have, the less CO2 you save. Coal fired electricity is so cheap that doing anything other than making it more efficient is a wildly expensive and inefficient way to reduce CO2. But the Greens hate coal more than they want to reduce carbon dioxide. The dilemma!

The RET scheme in Australian pays a subsidy to wind farms and solar installations. Below, Tom Quirk shows that this is effectively a carbon tax (but a lousy one), and it shifts supply — perversely taxing brown coal at $27/ton, black coal at $40/ton and gas at up to $100/ton. Because it’s applied to renewables rather than CO2 directly, it’s effectively a higher tax rate for the non-renewable but lower CO2 emitters.

Calculating the true cost of electricity is fiendishly difficult. “Levelized costs” is the simple idea that we can add up the entire lifecycle cost of each energy type, but it’s almost impossible to calculate meaningful numbers. Because wind power is fickle, yet electricity demand is most definitely not, the real cost of wind power is not just the construction, maintenance and final disposal, but also the cost of having a gas back-up or expensive battery (give-us-your-gold) storage. It’s just inefficient every which way. Coal and nuclear stations are cheaper when run constantly rather than in a stop-start fashion (just like your car is). So the cost of renewables also includes the cost of shifting these “base load” suppliers from efficient to inefficient use — and in the case of coal it means producing more CO2 for the same megawatts. South Australia is the most renewable-dependent state in mainland Australia, and it’s a basketcase (look at the cost stack below). Real costs only come with modeling, and we all know how difficult that is.

If the aim is really the research and development of renewables (and not “low CO2″) then I’ve long said that we should pay for the research and development directly, not pay companies to put up inefficient and fairly useless versions in the hope that companies might earn enough to pay for the research out of the profits. Tom Quirk points out that it’s all frightfully perverse again, because most innovations come from industry, not government funded research, but in Australia we hardly have any industry making parts used in power generation — we don’t have the teams of electrical engineers working on the problem anymore. I suppose the theory is that Chinese companies will profit from solar panels and do the R&D for us (keeping “our” patents too)? It would be cheaper just to gift them the money direct wouldn’t it — rather than pay an industry to produce and install a product that no one would buy, which doesn’t work, and hope that the “profits” translate into discoveries that will produce royalties and jobs for people overseas. I’m sure Chinese workers and entrepreneurs will be grateful. Yay.

Meanwhile, Green fans have suddenly discovered the idea of sovereign risk (where were they while the Rudd-Gillard team blitzed Australia’s reputation for stable, predictable policy?). According to the AFR, the government is scornful (and rightly so):

The government source said the market was oversupplied with energy and there was no longer any cause for a mandated use of any specific type of power. The source said while there would be investment losses if the RET was abolished, or even scaled back, investors “would have to have been blind to know this wasn’t coming’’.

On Catalaxy files, Judith Sloan mocks the Fin for pushing a press release from a rent-seeking firm, and guesses the Abbott government will be too “gutless” to ditch this economic and environmental dog of a policy.

— Jo

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The Consequences of Faux-green Renewable Energy, on Nature, in Germany!

Deutschland
How The Green Energy Transition Is Destroying Germany’s Nature

Date: 28/08/14

Germany’s climate and energy policy is the main threat to bio-diversity. Politicians, however, have closed their eyes from the destructive effects of the rampant expansion of renewable energy.

A biodiversity disaster

Wind farms in pristine forests

The red kite is acutely threatened

The problem with intermittent wind turbines

Assumptions of climate policy are flawed

Ocean currents shift into cold phase

Renewable Energy Targets Force Consumers to Use Inefficient, Unreliable, Overpriced Products!

The crazy world of Renewable Energy Targets

Bird Carcass Count proves AGL’s Macarthur Wind Farm is an Avian Slaughterhouse

It’s the Poor Who Suffer Most from the Great Wind Power Fraud

How to Fight the Great Wind Power Fraud

“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

~ World Health Organization

Why Intermittent Wind Power Increases CO2 Emissions in the Electricity Sector

DeutschlandHow The Green Energy Transition Is Destroying Germany’s Nature

Date: 28/08/14

Germany’s climate and energy policy is the main threat to bio-diversity. Politicians, however, have closed their eyes from the destructive effects of the rampant expansion of renewable energy.

A biodiversity disaster

Wind farms in pristine forests

The red kite is acutely threatened

The problem with intermittent wind turbines

Assumptions of climate policy are flawed

Ocean currents shift into cold phase

The crazy world of Renewable Energy Targets

Deutschland
How The Green Energy Transition Is Destroying Germany’s Nature