|
Corruption among Windies!
Wind Turbine Farmers Finding Out the Truth. It is NOT a Good Idea!
Farmer Seeks Wind Answers
Wednesday, October 29, 2014 5:14 AM by
Lucknow farmer looking for answers, compensation for wind farm construction
(Lucknow)-A Lucknow farmer is looking for answers, and compensation.
In a letter addressed to Jay Shukin of K-2 Wind, George Alton describes a threatening document received from the power company.
In the letter from K-2, it is suggested the spreading of manure on his farm constitutes a health hazard to construction workers, and an impediment to construction.
Alton goes on to describe the necessity for manure, and the work needed to ensure it is used efficiently.
The farmer goes on to cite several issues with the turbine construction, including ditch reconstruction, open pits, harvest delays, loss of farmable land, and trespassing.
Alton requests answers as to how K-2 Power plans to compensate him for his losses.
Bayshore Broadcasting News is awaiting a response from K-2 power.
King Island Wind Project Cancelled! We’ve got One Less Problem, Without You!
King Island Set Free from Turbine Tyranny: Hydro Tasmania Pulls Plug on Chinese Backed Wind Farm
October 29, 2014 by
In yet another sign that the Australian wind industry is on its last legs, Hydro Tasmania has pulled up stumps on its plans to spear 600 turbines into the heart of King Island – the jewel of Bass Strait.
In typical wind weasel fashion, Hydro Tasmania sought community “support” for 200 turbines – but that was just phase 1 – when in reality its end game was to lob 600 of the monsters over every last inch of the place.
The proposal had the full backing of the Peoples Republic of China – which saw King Island as a handy anchor for the 600 turbines it planned to supply to its partner (see our post here).
With Australia’s Large-Scale RET on the nose, Hydro Tasmania has announced that it has dropped the project altogether. Here’s an ABC report on Hydro Tasmania’s retreat.
Hydro Tasmania ditches $2b King Island wind farm project
ABC News
27 October 2014
Factors cited by Hydro Tasmania
- Low $A pushing up costs of turbines and other components
- Declining demand for power on national grid
- Projected increase in on-island construction costs
State-owned power generator Hydro Tasmania has killed off a $2 billion wind farm planned for King Island because it says the project is not economically viable.
Hydro had planned to build a 600 megawatt wind farm on the island, with the power generated to be connected to the National Electricity Market via a high-voltage underwater cable across Bass Strait to Victoria.
The wind farm was expected to produce 2,400 gigawatt hours (GWh) of renewable energy for the national market, which is enough to supply around 240,000 homes.
Chief executive Steve Davy said changing economic conditions had seen the estimated capital costs for the wind farm alone increase by around $150 million.
“We have exhausted all avenues by which this concept could progress and now do not believe it appropriate to continue with the feasibility study,” he said.
“We will now focus our resources on further investigating the benefits and viability of a second inter-connector as outlined in the Tasmanian Government’s recent state budget.”
Tasmania’s Energy Minister Matthew Groom said Hydro had “done the right thing”.
“Hydro Tasmania has today made a commercial decision that they won’t be proceeding with the King Island Wind Farm proposal on the grounds that the proposal unfortunately has been found to be not economically viable,” he said.
Donald Graham from the No TasWind Farm Group said “Blind Freddy could see two years ago that the project would not be feasible”.
“Eighteen months ago they told us they needed to spend two years and many millions to do a feasibility study before they could determine if is was feasible,” he said.
“They have done virtually nothing for 12 months and have discovered the obvious answer. And what did the island get out of it? Nothing other than a severely split community.”
RET uncertainty not a factor
Hydro director Andrew Catchpole said it was disappointing that the project was abandoned.
“Of course it’s disappointing when a project or an idea doesn’t work out but this happens in business all the time you need to investigate the idea to a point to decide whether it’s viable,” he said.
Hydro Tasmania, Australia’s largest renewable energy company, had voiced concern about future projects because of uncertainty surrounding the country’s Renewable Energy Target (RET).
He said many renewable energy projects across the country would depend on the outcome of the RET negotiations at a federal level but insisted the board’s decision was driven by economics.
“Our investigations eventually found that TasWind was not viable even if the RET was maintained at the existing level,” Mr Davy said.
The company also cited factors such as the lower Australian dollar which was driving up the cost of building the turbines and a drop in demand from the National Electricity Market (NEM).
Federal MP for Braddon Brett Whiteley said the project “did not stack up”.
“It would certainly have boosted jobs on the island and given the local economy a shot in the arm during the construction phase,” he said.
“The Government is committed to supporting a sustainable renewable energy sector with an amended RET that will ensure long-term certainty for the renewables sector so it can continue to contribute to Australia’s diverse energy mix.”
Residents divided on wind farm proposal
The project had divided residents of King Island, with many strongly opposed to its development.
The 200-turbine wind farm was facing a legal challenge by the No Tas Wind Farm group who argued it did not have enough community backing.
Hydro said the project would not proceed to a feasibility study if the island’s residents did not support it.
A survey taken in mid-2013 found almost 59 per cent of the community wanted the project to proceed.
The wind farm was expected to employ up to 60 workers on King Island if it went ahead.
Mr Davy thanked King Island residents for their input in the process and said Hydro Tasmania would continue to support the island.
“We recognise that the TasWind project has created significant community debate on the island over the past two years,” he said.
“We also recognise that today’s announcement will be received with mixed emotions.”
Mr Whiteley said he hoped the island could move on quickly.
“Although the proposed King Island wind project was not universally supported by the local community, I know some will be disappointed by this announcement,” he said.
“It is hugely disappointing that the process has caused so much division in what has always been a very close knit community.”
ABC News
STT followers will remember Hydro Tasmania as the bunch of liars and thugs that rode roughshod over the close-knit community of King Island in an effort to pepper giant fans all over the jewel of Bass Strait.
In the first round, Hydro Tasmania promised King Island locals that unless 60% supported their planned project, they would simply abandon it – by dropping their planned “feasibility study” (see our posts here andhere). Hydro Tasmania then set about buying the votes it needed to show 60% supporting its project (see our post here).
Those shovelling Hydro Tasmania’s cash out to bribe the locals must have flunked basic arithmetic, because they only managed to muster 58.7% of the vote. But, never mind, Hydro Tasmania simply decided to ignore its earlier promise and launched into its feasibility study, anyway (see our post here). So much for keeping promises.
But, as they say: “what goes around, comes around”.
While the ABC reports Hydro Tasmania citing 3 factors that led to retreat, STT thinks they might have overlooked the 10s of $millions that Hydro Tasmania has already lost (and the 100s of $millions it will lose) on their existing Tasmanian wind farm operations – placing risky bets on the price of Renewable Energy Certificates (see our post here).
And, in the irony of ironies, it’s blaming the Federal Government’s RET Review and the threat that the Government will breach its “promise” to retain the mandatory Renewable Energy Target for those losses.
All that self-inflicted financial grief couldn’t be happening to a nicer bunch of lads.
Now that the threat of turbine terror has finally passed, King Islanders can celebrate a fabulous victory.
Health Dept. working on a Way to Force Wind Industry to Address Health Concerns…
Paul Srubas, Press-Gazette MediaBrown County health officials have declared wind turbines a public health risk, but they haven’t determined how to put their declaration into action.
The county’s Health Board this month declared the Shirley Wind Farm operated by Duke Energy Renewables poses a health risk to its neighbors in the town of Glenmore. Three families have moved out of their homes rather than endure physical illness they blame on the low-frequency noise the wind turbines generate, according to Audrey Murphy, president of the board that oversees the Brown County Health Department.
“We struggled with this but just felt we needed to take some action to help these citizens,” Murphy said.
Murphy called the declaration a first step, but “the second step is up to the director of our Health Department, Judy Friederichs, and corporation counsel.”
The Health Department has statutory authority for licensing, inspection and enforcement for businesses where health and environmental problems are at issue, but just what that means for the wind farm has not yet been determined, Friederichs said.
State health officials have expressed interest in participating in Brown County’s discussion of the issue, Friederichs said. She, board members and the county’s lawyer need to put their heads together to determine the next step, she said. No timeline has been established.
“We’re all saying the same thing here: Now what?” Friederichs said. “There aren’t a lot of alternatives to mitigation. It really depends now on where this goes, what type of referrals we get, etc. There’s ongoing concerns. We’re going to have to really look at it, and it’s more of a legal question.”
Whatever happens, residents “are grateful to the Board of Health for reviewing the research and listening to the people of Brown County,” said Susan Ashley, who also lives in the Shirley area and who has helped rally opposition to the wind farm through the years.
Twenty families in the town have documented health issues since the wind farm started operated in 2009, Ashley said.
Duke Energy Renewables was not invited to the health board’s discussion and would have cited tests that determined sound levels from the wind generators were low and could not be linked to adverse health impacts, company spokeswoman Tammie McGee said. The company has not received any formal word about the board’s declaration, McGee said.
Dr. Jay Tibbetts, vice president of the Brown County health board and its medical adviser, said he knows of no science that proves there isn’t a link between health problems and the low-frequency noise the giant fans produce.
“There’s been nothing that’s debunked anything,” he said. “As far as what’s happening to these people, it doesn’t make a difference whether you’re in Shirley or Denmark, or Ontario, Canada. Forty people have moved out of their homes, and it’s not just for jollies. In Shirley, three people have moved out of their homes. I know all three. They’re not nuts. They’re severely suffering.”
People might not be able to hear the sounds the Shirley turbines produce, but Tibbetts said he knows of a teenager living in the area who can tell when the turbines are off or on without being able to see them. Area residents or former residents report headaches, nausea and other symptoms they say are brought on by the turbines, and those symptoms clear up when the residents move elsewhere for a time, Tibbetts said.
The board’s declaration may be cutting edge and controversial, but it wasn’t made lightly or without the weight of science behind it, Murphy said
“This is a serious step,” she said. “We didn’t make it lightly. There is science from around the world — the World Health Organization, Denmark, Poland, Germany. We believe there’s enough science.”
Darrell Ashley, who is Susan Ashley’s father-in-law and lives within a mile of the Shirley turbines, said his wife moved out of the house for several months until her symptoms disappeared. She has since moved back, and her symptoms are coming back, he said.
“I’m getting worse and I can’t afford to move out,” he said. “I’m just getting weaker — my legs, back, feet. My concentration is gone, head pressure, ear aches, headaches, it just goes on and on.”
Prior to 2009, when the turbines weren’t operating, he and his wife had no such problems, he said. He praised the health board and said he appreciated that someone finally listened to residents’ complaints.
Murphy said Brown County is probably the first governmental body in Wisconsin and perhaps the first in the country to make the formal declaration.
The board has been wrestling with the issue for about the last four years, Murphy said. While some scientific studies have failed to find a link between health risks and the low-frequency noise that wind turbines generate, two studies done recently on the Shirley Wind Farm specifically say otherwise, Murphy said.
“While there may still be debate about the precise mechanism that causes these sounds to induce the symptoms, it is clear from (these studies) … that acoustic energy emitted by operation of modern wind turbines is at the root of adverse health effects,” Murphy said.
More Proof, of the Futility of Wind Turbines….
Press Release: Wind farms generate below 20% of their supposed output for 20 weeks a year, a new report finds
- A new study has found that wind farms generate below 20% of their supposed output for 20 weeks a year, and generate below 10% for 9 weeks a year.
- Wind farms, on average, only exceed 90% of their rated output for 17 hours a year.
- Though the government acknowledges that wind farms produce much less energy than their sticker capacity would suggest, the report shows that even the average production (of around a quarter of capacity) is extremely misleading about the amount of power wind farms can be relied up to provide.
Wind farms are extremely volatile, with outputs fluctuating by five percentage points over short periods of time, a report based on new data by the Adam Smith Institute and Scientific Alliance has found. These findings suggest the UK’s energy infrastructure can never be reliant on them in any significant way.
Specifically, the study found that wind farms generate below 20% of their supposed output for 20 weeks a year, and generate below 10% for 9 weeks a year. Wind farms, on average, only exceed 90% of their rated output for 17 hours a year.
The paper, “Wind Power Reassessed: A review of the UK wind resource for electricity generation”, (http://www.adamsmith.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Assessment7.pdf) looks at previously unexamined wind speed data reported by anemometers located at various airfields, used as a proxy for nearby wind farms, and concludes that UK wind farms, on average, exceed 80% of their supposed output for less than one week every year.
The study also looks at the short-term (30 – 90 minute) variability of wind generation and reveals swings in output are far higher than is normal from conventional energy generation, such as from gas or nuclear plants. Swings of five percentage points of output are not uncommon, which contradicts the claim that a widespread wind fleet installation will smooth variability. There are frequent but unpredictable periods where wind energy generation fails for days on end.
The report will severely undermine the case for a move towards yet more wind generation because it suggests that wind can never be a major, reliable source of energy for the UK. It also suggests that the UK’s drive to reduce its carbon footprint through expanding wind power is misguided. Wind power is so unreliable and intermittent that it makes much more sense to look to nuclear and gas as better low emission alternatives to the status quo.
In his research, the report’s author Dr. Capell Aris looked at 6.5m individual recordings from 22 sites in the UK and 21 from Ireland and the continent.
Commenting on the report, Dr Aris said:
The current reliance on wind energy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is inefficient and compromises energy security. Power output of the studied system is below 20% of nominal capacity for over 20 weeks of the year, and below 10% for 9 weeks.
When we study those periods when production falls below 20% of rated capacity, more than three quarters of this occurs in periods longer than 12 hours. Each winter has periods where wind generation is negligible for several days.
The situation across the whole of northern Europe is much the same, so a Europe-wide power grid would provide no extra security; the study demonstrates that interconnectors will not solve wind’s intermittency problem.
Head of Policy at the Adam Smith Institute, Ben Southwood, said:
Wind farms are a bad way of reducing emissions and a bad way of producing power. They are expensive and deeply inefficient and it seems like they reduce the value of housing enormously in nearby areas. We probably do want to reduce carbon emissions, because according to the IPCC global warming will begin to slow economic growth in one hundred years, but nuclear and gas power are our best ways of doing that until cheap and efficient energy storage options are available on a vast scale to smooth the highly variable output of renewables.
Director of the Scientific Alliance, Martin Livermore, said:
This study is a graphic illustration that wind turbines cannot provide a secure supply of electricity, no matter how large the distribution grid.
Notes to editors:
For further comments or to arrange an interview, contact Kate Andrews, Communications Manager, at kate@adamsmith.org / 07584 778207.
The Adam Smith Institute is an independent libertarian think tank based in London. It advocates classically liberal public policies to create a richer, freer world.
The Scientific Alliance was formed in 2001 to encourage politicians to make policy on the basis of scientific evidence rather than lobbying by vested interests.
Wising Up to the Great Wind Power Fraud!
Jay Lehr: Sooner or Later the World will Wise-up to the Great Wind Power Fraud
October 27, 2014 by
The Rationale for Wind Power Won’t Fly
Heartland.org
Jay Lehr PhD
21 October 2014
To understand the folly that drives too much of the nation’s energy policies, consider these basic facts about wind energy.
After decades of federal subsidies – almost $24 billion according to a recent estimate by former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm – nowhere in the United States, or anywhere else, has an array of wind turbines replaced a single conventional power plant. Nowhere.
But wind farms do take up space. The available data from wind-power companies, with which the Environmental Protection Agency agrees, show that the most effective of them can generate about five kilowatts per acre. This means 300 square miles of land – 192,000 acres – are necessary to generate the 1,000 megawatts (a billion watts) of electricity that a conventional power plant using coal, nuclear energy or natural gas can generate on a few hundred acres. A billion watts fulfills the average annual power demand of a city of 700,000.
Taxpayer support for wind energy will eventually come to an end, I optimistically predict. The only question is how soon. My pessimistic guess is it will take another decade – by which time the number of wind turbines, currently about 45,000 according to the American Wind Energy Association, could more than double.
It is unclear whether very many wind-energy firms have sufficient monetary reserves to cover dismantling these behemoth lawn sculptures once the tax credits wind down or disappear. If not, the result will be a scene from a science fiction movie – as though giant aliens descended onto our planet only to freeze in place.
The promise that wind and solar power could replace conventional electricity production never really made sense. It’s known to everybody in the industry that a wind turbine will generate electricity 30% of the time – but it’s impossible to predict when that time will be. A true believer might be willing to do without electricity when the wind is not blowing, but most people will not. And so, during the 30% of the time the blades are spinning, conventional power plants are also spinning on low, waiting to operate during the other 70% of the time.
Importantly, the amount of electricity the wind can generate per acre of land is unrelated to the size of the turbines. Yes, by doubling the turbine’s blade length you quadruple the turbine’s power output. The problem? If the turbines are big and tall you need fewer of them, but they must be more widely separated. If they’re smaller you need more of them, closer together.
Another inescapable problem for electricity grids: The power generated by a wind turbine varies with the cube of the wind speed. When the wind speed doubles – say from 10 miles per hour to 20 miles per hour – the energy output increases eightfold (2 x 2 x 2). Someone, or some computer, has to balance these huge variations on the grid by calling on standby generators to produce more or less power to maintain the stability essential to the grid.
So, you might wonder, do high winds make turbines really hum? No. Turbines must be shut down in high winds because centrifugal force would begin to tear the blades apart. Also, the world has learned from experience in Europe – whose wind sculpture gardens may one day dwarf ours – that a one-millimeter buildup of bugs on the blades reduces their power output by as much as 25%.
There are other problems. Thousands of turbine breakdowns and accidents have been reported in recent years. The basic concrete foundations are suffering from strains, as reported by industry sources and on the wind-farm construction website windfarmbop.com.
And there are environmental factors. Annoying, low-frequency noise produced by wind turbines, particularly large turbines, is driving some people away from their homes, according to numerous press reports. (Low-frequency noise regulations are already in place in Denmark while the phenomenon is the subject of continuing research.) The Audubon Society now estimates bird deaths from turbines exceed a million per year.
Wind is at best a niche player in energy. Grandiose claims made on behalf of wind-generated electricity are rubbish, whether or not renewable-energy advocates admit it. Wind-power developers will milk taxpayers across the world out of a few billion more dollars, euros or pounds in subsidies, tax credits and the like, but sooner or later the public will wise up.
Heartland.org
French Doctor Talks about Health Effects From Wind Turbines…..No More Denial!
Chevallier: wind turbines, eco sham and new drama Public Health
The Point – Published 10/24/2014 at 15:34
We swear by these symbols of environmental cleanliness. Yet the myth to reality, there is an abyss, and maybe even a scandal!
By DR. LAURENT CHEVALLIER
Ecology is still good. European companies seeking by all means to implement giant wind (we approach the 200 m high) in the French countryside, close to the houses. It is clear that wind turbines do not have anything green with the thousands of tons of concrete needed to support these steel monsters; about the energy, it is far from the account feedback from those already established.
My concern, as a physician and member of the European Association Physicians for a healthier environment being created, focus on health. A report by the National Academy of Medicine, published in 2006, concluded that the need to suspend (or prohibit) the construction of wind turbines with a capacity greater than 2.5 megawatts located within 1500 meters of housing. These are actually real industrial plants inducing nuisance, including noise.
Industrial wind turbines are in fact classified as ICPE: installations and plants that generate risks or dangers. Several scientific studies are being published, the results recommend that wind turbines are not located within 2.5 kilometers of homes. Thus, clinical observations of Dr. Michael Nissenbaum two wind farms in the state of Maine to the United States indicate that there is a correlation between the distance residential wind turbines and health problems for residents.
The responsibility of prefects engaged
A number of doctors have already identified multiple health problems related to ownership with these industrial machines. A medically defined the “wind syndrome” which includes increasing headache (noise and turbulence as triggers of migraines), ringing in the ears like tinnitus, sleep disorders, an increase of anxiety and depressive disorders, sometimes the appearance as Dr. Jean-François FERRIEU of “nausea, dizziness, palpitations, all of these chronic conditions can promote authentic depressions” said.
This dimension is not taken into account, or insufficiently, by the government, probably through lack of information. During this time, various local businesses, which more often then sell the exploitation rights to legally well structured international companies continue to put pressure on municipalities to accelerate Starts at times 500 meters of housing, wind farms, as they are never isolated wind turbines are located but the groups multiplied effects. The responsibility of prefects is committed to this day, since it is they who issue building permits.
Gel ongoing projects
On the evidence currently available, it would seem sensible in principle of responsibility to recommend minimum distances of 5 km between industrial wind turbines and homes. Ideally, it would be desirable to freeze all ongoing projects now and deepen health dimension not induce new diseases on a large scale.
It may also come to the conclusion that, for the health of humans and animals such as birds, farm animals or bats, precious “insecticides” natural which have been the subject of a report of the American Academy of Sciences (PNAS, September 29, 2014), it is sufficient to ban industrial wind turbines on land.
As noted by Nicolas Hulot , “initially, wind energy is a great idea, but upon arrival, it is a tragic realization. If we were told that at least it would close plants, but this is not the case. ”
Corruption and Collusion….Pillars of the Faux-Green Blob!
EXPOSED: How a shadowy network funded by foreign millions is making our household energy bills soar – for a low-carbon Britain
- Shadowy pro-green lobbyists working at every level of the Establishment
- Organisations are channelling tens of millions of pounds into green policies
- Elite lobby group linked to Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the WWF
- Current energy policies shaped by the Green Blob will cost up to £400billion
- If continued, there will be further eye-watering energy bill rises for Britons
The ‘Green Blob’, a phrase first coined by former Environment Secretary Owen Paterson, is a group of pro-green lobbyists working at every level of the British Establishment
The Mail on Sunday today exposes how a ‘Green Blob’ financed by a shadowy group of hugely wealthy foreign donors is driving Britain towards economically ruinous eco targets.
The phrase the ‘Green Blob’ was coined by former Environment Secretary Owen Paterson after he was sacked from the Cabinet in July.
He was referring to a network of pro-green lobbyists working at every level of the British Establishment, who have helped shape the eco policies sending household energy bills soaring.
But investigations by this newspaper reveal the Blob is not just an abstract concept.
We have found that innocuous-sounding bodies such as the Dutch National Postcode Lottery, the American William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Swiss Oak Foundation are channelling tens of millions of pounds each year to climate change lobbyists in Britain, including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.
They have publicly congratulated themselves on their ability to create green Government policy in the UK – most notably after Ed Miliband steered through aggressive CO2 reduction targets in his 2008 Climate Change Act, and announced there would be no more coal power stations.
Yet the consequences of their continuing success are certain: further eye-watering rises in energy costs for millions of Britons and an increasing risk of blackouts.
According to leading energy analyst Peter Atherton of Liberum Capital, current UK energy policies shaped by the Blob will cost between £360 billion and £400 billion to implement by 2030. He said this will see bills rise by at least a third in real terms – on top of the increases already seen over the past ten years.
This bill dwarfs the EU’s £1.7 billion demand from Britain last week.
Scroll down for video
Lobbying by the Blob helped lead to a new European Union emissions deal announced on Friday, when EU leaders including the Prime Minister agreed to triple the current pace of emissions cuts.
Following earlier deals, EU-wide emissions of CO2 are supposed to fall 20 per cent over the 30-year period 1990 to 2020.
Under the new agreement, this reduction must be doubled in just a decade, reaching ‘at least’ 40 per cent by 2030 – a goal that could only be accomplished through further massive investment in wind and nuclear energy.
At the heart of the Blob is a single institution – the European Climate Foundation (ECF) – which has offices in London, Brussels, The Hague, Berlin and Warsaw.
Every year it receives about £20 million from ‘philanthropic’ foundations in America, Holland and Switzerland, and channels most of it to green campaign and lobby groups.
An investigation has found the ‘Green Blob’ is working at every level of the British Establishment and Westminster (pictured)
It refuses to disclose how much it gives to each recipient, and does not publish its accounts. But it admits that the purpose of these grants is to influence British and EU climate and energy policy across a broad front.
Many more millions are fed directly to British and European lobby groups from the same overseas foundations which also fund ECF.
In its last annual report, ECF said working towards a 2030 deal was ‘a big focus area for ECF as a whole’.
ECF managing director Tom Brookes told The Mail on Sunday he provides ‘a fact-base’ to help policy-makers make the ‘many complex decisions that are necessary to move towards a high-innovation, prosperous and low-carbon future’. He added: ‘The UK is a leader in many of these fields.’
The Blob and Red Ed
Friday’s EU deal contains a get-out clause: if the rest of the world fails to agree a binding global emissions treaty at a UN conference in Paris next year, then Europe’s targets can be ‘reviewed’ – or in other words, abandoned.
Giants such as China, India and Australia have insisted they will not sign such a treaty. It is also unlikely to be approved by the US Congress, which is Republican-controlled.
However, thanks to Ed Miliband and his 2008 Climate Change Act, the get-out will make no difference for Britain. The UK is the only country which already has a binding target for 2050. By then, the law says, UK emissions must be 80 per cent down on 1990.
Mr Miliband’s Act also created a mechanism for ensuring the country sticks to a path that achieves this target – the so-called ‘carbon budget’. The scale of the challenge that its latest version poses is not widely realised.
Over the next 15 years, the electricity industry has to cut the CO2 it emits for every kilowatt it generates by 90 per cent – an unprecedented transformation.
An EU deal contains a climate change get-out clause – but thanks to Miliband’s 2008 Climate Change Act – this makes no difference to Britain
But the carbon budget also means the total amount of power generating capacity has to more than double. In order to meet the 2050 target, there has to be a massive shift towards electric vehicles and heating. While fossil fuel power plants will close, both their replacements and this vast additional capacity will have to be wind or nuclear – by far the most expensive types of power.
Remarkably, green lobby group Friends of the Earth not only conceived the Climate Change Act, but Bryony Worthington, the FoE official who came up with the idea and lobbied MPs to support it, later actually drafted it.
‘When you’re on the outside lobbying, you kind of hope that you are going to have an impact, [but] you’re never really very sure,’ she told a green seminar three years ago.
But she hit the jackpot. Her proposal was taken up first by the new Tory leader, David Cameron, and followed by the then-Labour Government. Worthington, who was seconded into the civil service, was asked to rewrite her lobbyist’s memo, this time as a law.
Once it was safely on the statute book, she left the civil service to form a new green campaign group, Sandbag, which presses the Government to adopt more stringent forms of carbon taxes. Like her previous employer FoE, it is now funded by ECF. Ed Miliband made her a Labour peer in 2011.
While the Act was going through Parliament, the ECF, which was launched in 2007-8, was giving money to Greenpeace UK, FoE, Christian Aid and the WWF to mount a campaign against coal-fired power plants. Also funded was Client Earth, a group of lawyers who secured court acquittals for ‘direct action’ protesters who broke into the Kingsnorth plant in Kent, climbed its chimneys and occupied it.
The campaign persuaded Mr Miliband to announce the cancellation of a planned new generating unit at Kingsnorth – and that there would be no new coal plants built in Britain.
Afterwards, the ECF president, Jules Kortenhorst, boasted that Miliband had acted in response to ‘a complex, multifaceted effort over a year and a half, with grass-roots mobilisation campaigns [and] behind the scenes lobbying’.
He added: ‘All of this work, backed by substantial philanthropic investment, resulted in UK Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband announcing that no new coal-fired power plants would be built… This is an example of a policy that can be replicated, increasing its impact.’
Follow the money
The most significant source for the ECF’s millions is a body called Climate Works – a private foundation which channels colossal sums to climate campaigners worldwide.
The Climate Works manifesto was set out in 2007 in a document entitled ‘Design to Win: Philanthropy’s Role in the Fight Against Global Warming’. It said that to be effective, a campaign to change government policies on energy and emissions would need at least $600 million from donors.
Generous grants have been given to campaigners in countries such as Britain who have detailed knowledge of their local political systems. Their brief is to ‘promote renewables and low emission alternatives’. Pictured is Drax Power Station near Selby
It was driven by the belief that without radical action, ‘we could lose the fight against global warming over the next ten years’.
It advocated the giving of generous grants to local campaigners in countries such as Britain who had detailed knowledge of the way their political systems operated.
As well as better energy efficiency, carbon taxes and emissions caps, they must ‘promote renewables and low emission alternatives’. Utility companies must be given ‘financial incentives’ – in other words, enormous subsidies from tax and bill payers – to make this happen.
Climate Works soon achieved its ambitious fundraising target, with a grant in 2008 of $500 million from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which spends the fortune amassed by the co-founder of the Hewlett-Packard computer firm. This was followed by further grants of up to $100 million, and donations of $60 million from the sister Packard foundation. In July, a report by a US Senate committee named the Hewlett foundation as a key element in a ‘billionaires’ club’ which effectively controlled the environmental movement, pumping more than half a billion dollars a year into green groups around the world.
It claimed these ‘wealthy liberals fully exploit the benefits of a generous tax code meant to promote genuine philanthropy and charitable acts’, but instead were transferring money to ‘activists’ to ‘promote shared political goals’.
One of the US-based Climate Works’s first acts was to set up and fund ECF as its European regional office. All ECF’s main funders are represented on ECF’s board, including Charlotte Pera, who is also Climate Works’s CEO. Susan Bell, ECF’s vice-chairman, was formerly the Hewlett foundation’s vice-president.
Another director is Kate Hampton, an executive director at the Children’s Investment Fund, a UK charity with assets worth £324 million.Others come from finance and business. ECF’s chairman is Caio Koch-Weser, vice-chairman of Deutsche Bank, whose contacts in Brussels could not be better: from 2003–5, he chaired the EU’s Economic and Financial committee. Yet another director is Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland.
No transparency
It is hard to assess the ECF’s full impact for a simple reason – although it publishes the names of some of the organisations it funds, it does not state how much it gives, nor exactly how this money is used.
The ECF’s Tom Brookes said: ‘The projects we fund all fall within the overall mission of the Foundation to support the development of a prosperous low-carbon economy in Europe.’
He would not explain why no amounts were stated, saying only that ECF’s annual report ‘describes the objectives of each ECF programme area and its significant grantees.
‘We are confident that this is a sufficient level of detail to provide insight into the work of the Foundation… Our policy on the information we publish reflects our responsibilities to our grantees and donors.’
Nevertheless, it is clear from the information that is available that the list of ECF funding recipients is a Who’s Who of the green movement, including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the WWF, Client Earth, Carbon Brief, the Green Alliance, and E3G, the elite lobby group that persuaded the Government to set up the £3 billion Green Investment Bank.
The 2013 ECF report sets out its priorities for Britain, praising its ‘leadership on the climate front’ – thanks to the Climate Change Act.
It also boasts that its grants had an impact on this year’s Energy Act: ‘ECF grantees such as Green Alliance, E3G, and Greenpeace helped secure important milestones such as an emissions performance standard for new power stations.’
The 2013 ECF report boasts of gains made in emissions performance standards for new power stations. File image used
To ECF’s dismay, however, the supposed UK ‘consensus’ on climate and energy is now in jeopardy: ‘Household energy bills have shot to the top of the political agenda, and progress on decarbonisation is tangled in competing visions of the country’s energy future… A growing number of media and political voices are casting doubt on the climate science and the economic case for action.’
Against this opposition, ECF’s 2013 report says it intends to work with British greens to ‘rebuild confidence in the low-carbon transition’, by ‘fact-checking the UK media’s coverage of climate and energy issues’.
It says it will ‘establish a new unit that will promote evidence-based discussions in the media and mobilise authoritative voices on the low-carbon economy’.
Since the report was published, this unit has come into being, run by former BBC environment correspondent Richard Black. How effective it will be remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, it is clear that the sheer scale of this lavishly funded lobbying effort dwarfs that of its opponents.
The Global Warming Policy Forum in London, Europe’s only think-tank which is sceptical about climate science and energy policy, has an annual budget of £300,000 and employs just three people.
Its director, Dr Benny Peiser, said yesterday: ‘At the end of the day, someone will have to be held accountable for us committing economic suicide. We are the only organisation that does what we do – against hundreds on the other side, all saying the same thing.’
Windweasels Attack Another Community….Residents in Fighting Mode….
Jupiter Wind Farm Proponents from Another Planet
October 25, 2014 by
Yet another wind farm disaster proposed for the Southern Tablelands, yet another community backlash. This time it’s the threatened Jupiter wind farm at Tarago that has sent locals into orbit: the community is nothing short of ropeable (see our posts here and here).
Here’s one of their number smashing the Spanish developer, the disgraceful NSW Planning Department and the hypocritical ACT government.
LETTER: They are on another planet
Greg Faulkner
Goulburn Post
15 October 2014
I AM writing regarding Jupiter wind farm, proposed for the area surrounding Tarago. The proposed development would consist of up to 110 wind turbines each 170 meters or 50 stories tall.
The developer is EPYC a company which I understand is over 80 per cent Spanish owned.
My partner and I are long term residents from within the project area.
Like most locals we live here for the peace and quiet. We now face the sickening possibility of our home being sandwiched between banks of these colossal turbines, situated on our neighbours land, and possibly as close as 600 meters from our house door.
After having contacted NSW Dept of Planning about the situation, and having received no helpful response, we find ourselves with no alternative but to speak out publicly against the frightening unfairness surrounding the current approach to wind farm development in The Southern Highlands.
The turbines proposed are mind boggling huge, this cannot be overstated.
They are taller than the Sydney Harbour Bridge and very nearly as tall as Canberra’s Black Mountain Tower.
They are bigger than the ones around Bungendore and, for close residents, will never be obscured by tree plantings or anything else. Giant turbines may be a novelty to marvel at for a few moments, as we drive past, but I don’t think many Australians would want to live in their midst 24/7. I have observed the use of the term NIMBY in the media, in relation to rural residents who express any doubt about wind farm development near their homes.
The most enthusiastic users of this brutal and provocative term seem to be “green” city residents, who may be comfortable in the knowledge that their communities will never be the target of wind farm development. It seems common sense that any person who learns that their beloved home may soon be surrounded by giant turbines will be understandably devastated, and should not be subjected to cheap name calling.
A little understanding would be more productive.
Like most working, middle aged Australians, our home represents virtually all of our capital and its sale was to be central to any type of retirement or health care in our old age (not so far away).
If Jupiter wind farm proceeds our house will be sandwiched between arrays of monstrous, spinning, noise emitting turbines.
I do not think I am being pessimistic when I predict that any sale will difficult, unless the price is very, very low indeed.
In this sense alone the development is an absolute disaster for us, and most of our neighbours are in the same boat.
Australia may want renewable power options but we cannot continue forward like this.
In its haste to establish the renewable power sector it seems the NSW Government is prepared to sacrifice the wellbeing of many rural residents in the Southern Highlands, so as to provide a financially appealing environment to tempt foreign investors. It has offered up the unregulated development of the Southern Highlands to foreign developers without bothering to provide any protection for existing residents.
Claims by developers that large turbine arrays don’t affect the value or amenity of a location are ludicrous and dishonest. It seems the ACT Government is also prepared to overlook the frightening unfairness of the various wind farm developments just outside its borders, in order to buy the power produced and achieve its renewable power ambitions.
The residents of Canberra may not be aware that these arrangements will come at a very high price for many families in neighbouring rural communities.
The ACT’s position is staggeringly hypocritical, given its long standing commitment to stringent height limits in its own planning law, which protect its own skyline from unsightly high rise development.
It is clear that the ACT government understands the importance of controlling development to ensure a healthy and unoffensive environment for its own residents.
It is also clear that this concern does not extend to nearby NSW neighbours who are being targeted for wind farm development that Canberra would never tolerate itself.
GREG FAULKNER, Boro Rd via Braidwood.
Goulburn Post
At a mere 600m from the nearest turbine, the Faulkner’s currently peaceful home will be turned into a sonic torture trap and will be totally uninhabitable.
That’s around the same distance that Pac Hydro lobbed its giant fans from long-suffering Sonia Trist’s Cape Bridgewater home. After years of suffering from incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound, Sonia has decided enough is enough and is abandoning her beautiful and – once tranquil – home (see our post here).
But not to worry, the Spanish outfit aiming to destroy the Faulkner’s property and ability to enjoy it will employ a little of the $millions it’ll receive in REC subsidy to buy the house, stitch up the owners with a bullet-proof gag clause (see our posts here and here) and then quietly bulldoze it (see our post here).
Wind Turbine Contracts…Lefty’s Use Them To Reward Their Cronies! Corruption!
Ex-Rep. Istook: Wind Energy a Crony Capitalist Gift
Thursday, 23 Oct 2014 10:13 PM
By Sean Piccoli
Wealthy investors in wind power are reaping profits from an expensive — and subsidized — form of green energy that is driving up the electricity bills of ordinary Americans, a former Oklahoma congressman told Newsmax TV on Thursday.
Under the guise of saving the planet from global warming, wind power has become a taxpayer ripoff and a boon to investors claiming massive federal subsidies for an industry that cannot compete on price with traditional energy sources, former Republican Rep. Ernest Istook told “MidPoint” host Ed Berliner.
Of the $40 billion annually doled out to various green energy incentives, grants and loans, one of the biggest magnets for public funds is a wind energy tax credit first enacted in 1992, said Istook.
“For every megawatt hour that [producers] generate through wind energy, they get $23 from the U.S. Treasury,” he said, “and of course you multiply that by the many thousands of megawatt hours that are generated — which is still a small fraction of what the country uses — and they’re talking about an $18 billion renewal of this.
“Now, this was supposed to be a temporary tax credit back in 1992 to help the industry get on its feet,” said Istook. “Well, the problem is wind power is such an expensive way to generate electricity, that even with these major subsidies — plus all sorts of subsidies from different states — it still is one of the costliest forms of power. And it makes people’s electric bills skyrocket.”
Istook said a new study from the Energy Information Administration — the U.S. Department of Energy’s statistical service — finds electric rates rising four times faster in the states that use the most wind power.
He said the arrangement continues year in and year out thanks to a classic “vicious cycle,” in which subsidy recipients use their profits to secure more subsidies.
“I want to give you a quote, though, from one individual who was a major wind energy investor and getting a lot of these tax benefits: Warren Buffett,” said Istook, citing the Nebraska-based billionaire investment guru.
“These are his words, not mine: ‘We get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.’ Those are Warren Buffett’s words,” said Istook.
“The people that are making this investment recognize that unless they can get these crony capitalism dollars, it’s a bad investment,” he said. “But government is paying them to do that. It’s paying some people to get rich at our expense while our utility bills go up”.
Istook said the public has a chance to put a stop to the tax credit, which expired last December, but is being pushed for retroactive renewal by the administration during the lame-duck congresional session that begins after the Nov. 4 midterm elections.
“They’ve got the skids greased in the U.S. Senate to do it,” said Istook.
And they will, too, he said, “unless people call their member of Congress and say, ‘Don’t vote for anything that renews this $18 billion giveaway, no matter what it’s packaged with. Don’t vote for it.’ That’s the only way we’re going to put a stop to this crony capitalism.”
"Mothers Against Wind Turbines™" Phoenix Rising... 