Wind Turbines Do NOT Reduce CO2….

November 25, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind Industry’s CO2 Abatement Claims Go Up in Smoke

November 25, 2015 by stopthesethings

The central, endlessly repeated lie upon which the wind industry seeks to ‘justify’ the colossal and endless subsidies upon which it critically depends; the destruction of wind farm neighbours’ health, wealth and happiness; and the slaughter of millions of birds and bats, is that wind power causes substantial reductions of CO2 emissions in the electricity sector.

STT has been slamming that myth since we cranked into gear nearly 3 years ago. It’s a topic that attracts plenty of interest.

Our post – How Much CO2 Gets Emitted to Build a Wind Turbine? – has clocked over 11,000 hits; and still attracts plenty of attention. But that story is limited to a back of the envelope calculation of the CO2 emissions that this so-called ‘fossil free’ power source clocks up before these things start spinning.

In this post we hand over to a pair of switched on energy experts, Alex Henney and Frank Udo, as they tackle the wind power CO2 abatement myth – in terms of its failure to reduce CO2 emissions to the degree claimed by the wind industry; or at all.

How Much CO2 Do Windmills Really Save?
Not a lot of people know that
Alex Henney
6 November 2015

WINDMILLS DO NOT MITIGATE CO2 AS CLAIMED ON THE TIN¹

Alex Henney² and Fred Udo³

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do sir?”
J.M. Keynes

INTRODUCTION

Peter Lang posted a blog “Wind turbines’ CO2 and abatement cost” on 27 April 2015 based on his submission to the Australian Select Committee on Wind Turbines dated 23 March 2015. He advanced similar analyses to those which provided to the then Minister for Energy of the British government in September 2011. We drew on empirical experience from Ireland and the US.

IRELAND

In 2011 gas produced 66% of Irish electricity; coal 11%; peat 8%; wind 12%; hydro and pumped hydro 2.5%; other 1%. Most of the balancing or load following to respond to variations in wind and output is provided byCCGTs and OCGT’s and 3 hydro facilities including a pumped storage plant.

Eirgrid, the system operator, calculates the emissions of CO₂ from the system as a whole using “static” heat rates for thermal plants (i.e. assuming they operate at a constant output). This approach overstates their efficiency and understates their CO₂emissions because when gas plant ramp-up and –down (i.e. “cycle”) their thermal efficiency reduces – hence their CO₂emissions/MWh increase (ⁱ).

The estimated average emissions using static heat rates for the period November 2010 to August 2011 was 451g/kWh while the average CO₂emissions calculated from the carbon input from gas and coal was 528g/kWh, which is 17% higher. Part or all of this difference can be attributed to the static approach used in the CO₂ calculation of Eirgrid.

The CO₂ savings for the period November 2010 to August 2011 were analysed and the “efficiency” of wind in reducing CO₂ emissions defined as (ⁱⁱ):-

The ratio of the measured reduction in CO₂emissions, to the reduction inCO₂emissions calculated as if every MWh of wind energy produced replaces a MWh of conventional electricity production without change in efficiency of the conventional plants.

The efficiency varies month by month, see exhibit 1.

Exhibit 1 The efficiency of wind in reducing CO2 in Ireland

Why the difference from month to month? In particular what happened in April 2011? The answer might be the availability of hydro, see exhibit 2.

Exhibit 2 The influence of hydro power on CO2 saving efficiency

In 2011 the pumped storage facility at Turlough Hill was being renovated; in consequence gas plants had to cycle more and thus produced more CO₂. The result was that a 12% wind contribution saved only 4% CO₂emissions⁴. A subsequent analysis found that when wind production averaged about 15% the thermal efficiency of the fleet of CCGTs was 40% compared with their nameplate efficiency of 55% (ⁱⁱⁱ).

Another constraint on wind is the amount of must-run capacity, which is 1300MW. Thus when the demand is low and the wind is high, wind energy has to be spilled. This is demonstrated with the aid of a load duration curve constructed from all the daily load curves with the points sorted in order of decreasing demand. Exhibit 3 shows the load duration curve (^iv) for November 2010 with the associated level of wind; once demand reduces below about 2500MW the wind is increasingly curtailed – in this case about 3% is lost.

Exhibit 3 Wind is uncorrelated with demand so when demand is low it would have to be spilled

The Irish government has a target of three times the current level of wind by 2020, which would result in spilling 30% of the wind energy production, see exhibit 4.

Exhibit 4 If the government target for wind in 2020 were met, 30% of the wind energy would have to be spilled

COLORADO AND ERCOT

Energy Consultant Bentek (^v) undertook a study of the effect of wind on emissions of SOx, NOx and CO₂ for two systems:-

The system of Colorado Public Service Company (PSCO), which in 2008 had 3.8GW of coal plant, 3.2GW of gas plant, 0.4GW of hydro and pump storage, and 1.1GW of wind, and

The ERCOT system in Texas, which is a virtually stand-alone system that manages about 85% of the capacity in Texas. In 2009 it had 17.5GW of coal plant, with 44.4GW of gas plant, 5.1GW of nuclear, 0.6GW of hydro, and 9.4GW of wind; the system produced 300TWh and met a maximum demand of 63GW. Wind provides between 5% and 8% of the average generation overall, depending on the season, but at night its contribution rises slightly from 6% (summer) to 10% (spring)

Both systems are predominantly thermal with significant wind relative to their size, and little hydro.

The studies used publicly available hourly data for boiler specific emissions and production which are provided to the Continuous Emissions Monitoring System of the Environmental Protection Agency and data provided to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

ERCOT also publishes wind, coal, nuclear, natural gas and hydro generation data on a 15-minute basis. The PSCO part of the report first examines in detail the impact of cycling for CO2 coal plants over a number of days when there are “wind events”.

The avoided generation from coal plants was calculated; the monthly and quarterly “stable day” emission rate was calculated; finally the difference between the actual emissions and the emissions that would have been generated if the avoided generation had been produced with the “stable day” emission rates was calculated.

The effect of cycling coal plant is shown by the operation of Cherokee Unit 4 located in Denver. Between 7:00 pm and 9:00 am on March 17 and 18, 2008, see exhibit 5. “Total generation from the plant is shown in blue; the heat rate – defined as the MMBtu of fuel per unit of generation – is shown in red.

Between 9:00 pm and 1:00 am, generation from the Cherokee 4 fell from 370 to 260 MW. It then increased to 373 MW by 4:00 am. During the period in which generation fell by 30%, heat rate rose by 38%. Heat rates are directly linked to cycling: as the generation from coal plants falls, the heat rate begins to climb. Initially, the heat rate climbs because generation of the plant is choked back and fewer MW are produced by the same amount of coal.

Later in the cycle, the heat rate climbs further because more coal is burned in order to bring the combustion temperature back up to the designed, steady-state rate. Additionally, for many hours after cycling, the heat rate is slightly higher than it was at the same generation level before cycling the plant.”

Exhibit 5 Impact of generation decline on heat rate

In addition to the micro study of wind events on particular plants, the study also looked at the coal cycling impacts on PSCO’s territory emissions. The conclusion of the study was that:-

“…cycling of coal-fired facilities has increased significantly since 2007 as wind energy generation increased to its current levels … the increased incidence of cycling has led to emission of greater volumes of SO2, NOx and CO₂. In 2008, depending on the method of calculation, cycling coal plants caused between 1.1 and 10.5 million pounds of SO₂to be produced that would not have been produced had the plants not been cycled…Cycling’s impact on CO₂is more ambiguous as the range is between creating a saving of 164,000 tons and a penalty of 151,000 tons. In 2009, generation from PSCO’s coal-fired plants fell off by about 20%, but their emissions did not diminish proportionately. Again, cycling appears to be a central factor … between 94,000 and 147,000 pounds of CO₂[was produced] more than would have been generated had the plants been run stably.”

The conclusion of the study of ERCOT, which was undertaken in a similar manner to their PSCO analysis, is:-

“Not only does wind generation not allow ERCOT utilities to save SO2, NOx and CO₂ emissions, it is directly responsible for creating more SO2 and NOx emissions and CO₂ emission savings are minimal at best.”

THE RESPONSE OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT TO THESE FINDINGS

Like the Irish system, the British system is predominantly thermal and balancing will largely depend on oldish frame CCGTs. The Irish system is the “canary in the mine”.

We recommended that before spending £ tens of billions more on windmills, the British government should commission an objective and empirical scientific study (^vi) of how efficient windmills are at mitigating CO₂ emissions.

We put these findings to the Minister of Energy and received a 3 page reply which was largely irrelevant or inaccurate. The letter incorrectly intimated that the Irish system was balanced by “old, relatively inefficient plant” – in fact the gas plants were relatively new.

The government did, however, agree:

“The Irish system is a better comparator to Britain as it is an island with wind being backed up predominantly by gas fired generation. Unfortunately we feel your otherwise very informative analysis falls into a trap of looking at a specific time period and trying to extrapolate from it. By looking at a period of time when pumped storage (which is a low carbon technology for balancing wind) was out of service you demonstrate a significant divergence between anticipated and actual emissions. It may be that the average intensity is significantly better than this, which is the danger inherent in taking short time periods in this way and using them to make a general point.”

Comment: This entirely misses our point. We looked at the time when the pumped storage was out of commission in order to see how the system performed when the wind was balanced by thermal plant, which is how the British system is balanced, and will increasingly be balanced if the government’s wind ambitions are achieved.

“Colorado and ERCOT: In both these examples, unabated coal plant is being used to back up wind.

This is a helpful case study of why it is important for the British government to pursue the development of carbon capture storage (CCS) if we want coal to play a long term role in our energy mix, and also a helpful example of why the design of the Electric Market Reform (EMR) needs to incentivise the building and operation of the right kinds of balancing generation. This is the subject of ongoing work, also of ongoing dialogue with relevant industry players.”

COMMENTS

Let us believe CCS when we see it tested and viable.
Our paper was focused on 2020 and the technologies that are on the table. The electric industry has been bedeviled by dreams of technologies of the future…

“We can agree with you on the need for objective and scientific study of the issues. The government is engaging with the range of relevant industry players who have the data to inform this discussion, and will use this to inform our market design decisions as we finalise the operational details of EMR.”

Comment: Our concept of an “objective and scientific study” does not envisage either the government or industry having a lead role because neither have a record of either rigour or objectivity.

The British government has no interest in evidence based policy, only in policy based evidence. It has no interest in the cost of decarbonisation, because it is attempting to save the planet?

Never mind that the Chinese, Indians and Indonesians are not joining in and are increasing coal burn for generation at a great rate. Even the Germans and Dutch have just completed ten large new supercritical coal plants. The British government (like some others) does not live on planet earth when it comes to “climate change” and the policies flowing there from.

1 This blog is based on an article titled “Wind – Whitehall’s pointless profligacy” that was published in New Power, Issue 45, October, 2012.

2 Director EEE Ltd; once a director of London Electricity; the first person to propose in 1987 a competitive restructuring of the electric industry in England & Wales; advisor on electric systems from Norway to New Zealand; author of “The British Electric Industry 1990-2010: the rise and demise of competition”.

3 Retired Dutch physicist who worked at CERN Geneva, latterly on the Large Hadron Collider.

4 A detailed simulation by Joseph Wheatley, Quantifying CO2 Savings from Wind Power, 2012 (for the version submitted before peer review) concluded the effectiveness was only 53% during normal operations.

END NOTES

i) The topic of the significant loss of thermal efficiency of gas and coal plants cycling is dealt with in detail by Willem Post in “Wind Power and CO₂ Emissions”,

www.coalitionforenergysolutions.org/research_and_reports.

ii) Wind energy and CO₂ emissions – 2, F. Udo, 21 October 2011,www.clepair.net/udo_okt-e.html.

iii) http://euanmearns.com/the-balancing-capacity-issue-a-ticking-time-bomb-under-the-uks-energiewende/

iv) Wind turbines as a source of electricity. F. Udo, K de Groot and C. le Pair: http://www.clepair.net/windstroom e.html

v) How less became more: wind, power and unintended consequences in the Colorado Energy Market, Bentek Energy LLC, 16 April 2010,http://docs.wind-watch.org/BENTEK-How-Less-Became-More.pdf.

vi) While National Grid should be involved in the study, it should not lead it because it has a vested interest in claiming that windmills mitigate CO₂because it wants as many windmills on the system as possible in order to justify bulking up its grids. An example of the reaction of vested interests is given by the response of Mr. Nick Winser to Mr. Udo’s analysis of Ireland was “Thanks. Interesting. I doubt that your point about part loaded fossil negating the carbon benefits of wind is well founded particularly with our huge advances in wind forecasting accuracy.” There is a basic flaw in his response, namely although the forecasts may be more accurate that per se will not alter the outturn variability – hence cycling of plant.

Common Law Being Used to Fight Wind Turbine Noise

November 21, 2015 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

****

Bourne health board seeks injunction against Plymouth wind farm
Cape Cod Wicked Local
Paul Gately
19 November 2015

BOURNE

The Future Generation wind turbine project at cranberry grower Keith Mann’s Head of the Bay tract in South Plymouth may be hauled into superior court, likely in Barnstable.

The Bourne Board of Health is asking selectmen to authorize Town Counsel Robert S. Troy to request a court injunction — expressly to halt wind-farm construction.

The request comes from neighboring Morning Mist Lane residents in Buzzards Bay. They say they will be “directly impacted” by at least one of four turbines now going up.

The residents cite concerns related to flicker, noise, harmonics and low-frequency impacts and the health board has listened, even as Future Generation attorney Jon Fitch of Sandwich argues the Bourne board cannot apply its turbine review bylaw to a Plymouth project.

If there is an enemy for the group, it is time. One turbine can already be seen from the Route 25 connector and Head of the Bay Road.

Bourne Health Board Chairman Kathy Peterson said members are “following the best option left open to us,” notably a court injunction ordering turbine construction to cease and desist while possible impacts are sorted out.

Peterson said Future Generation has sidestepped all board requests to file for Bourne variance review under the town’s turbine bylaw. “We’ve asked repeatedly for sound data to review about what’s being put up but we haven’t received it,” she said Nov. 18.

Peterson told the Buzzards Bay residents that, even if Troy is directed to seek injunctive relief against Future Generation, it would still take time to prepare a case and “get before a judge.” Meanwhile, construction continues.

“They have an attorney guiding everything they do,” Peterson said. “We don’t have that.”

Fitch attended the Nov. 18 discussion with the health board but he did not comment on unfolding developments.

It was unclear when selectmen might meet again to discuss the health board request. An injunction to the extremely spending-conscious board may not seem so modest an objective. The health panel will continue its wind farm discussions Dec. 9.

The Mann-tract wind farm plan has caused a stir in Bourne to an extent that the selectmen’s vote to permit nightly turbine-equipment transport through Buzzards Bay Village via trucks was 3-2, with board members Peter Meier and Michael Blanton opposed to what was a detailed and straightforward – if not routine – special permit application.

In another respect, an injunction — should it be granted — might serve to shift some Cape Cod anti-turbine sentiment from Falmouth to Bourne. Indeed, a Falmouth resident urged the Bourne health board on Nov. 18 not to let the Head of the Bay wind farm happen.
Cape Cod Wicked Local

Good to see Future Generation playing the role of responsible corporate citizen there! Obviously falling over itself to cooperate with the body charged with looking after the health of citizens.

Deliberately withholding evidence that unequivocally demonstrates their guilt, is only one part of the wind industry’s arsenal, when it comes to destroying neighbour’s rights to live in, use, sleep in and otherwise enjoy the comfort of their very own homes. Although, when the evidence is about to sink them, they’re usually pretty quick to get their pet acoustic consultants to rewrite their (unhelpful) reports; and to ‘replace’ them with completely fabricated versions – in order to avoid pesky planning controls and having their subsidy entitlements revoked:

Pacific Hydro & Acciona’s Acoustic ‘Consultant’ Fakes ‘Compliance’ Reports for Non-Compliant Wind Farms

The wind industry, its parasites and spruikers have known all about the problem of incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound over 30 years and have been lying about it and covering it up ever since:

Three Decades of Wind Industry Deception: A Chronology of a Global Conspiracy of Silence and Subterfuge

The ‘standards’ written by the wind industry hold all the integrity of VW’s diesel emissions control ‘technology’ – and will end with the same raft of litigation against those responsible:

VW Mk II: Wind Industry’s Acoustic Consultants Caught In Noise ‘Standard’ Scandal

What the wind industry fears most are actions like those being taken by the Bourne Board of Health and individuals out to protect their common law rights to live free of interference from turbine noise and vibration.

What is fairly obvious to any human being gifted with our good friends ‘logic’ and ‘reason’ is that if you deprive someone of sleep over an extended period, their health will suffer.

Even after one ‘rough night’, you don’t ever hear the sufferer bubbling about how much better they felt in the morning. No, the usual response is about telling those around them to keep out of their way for the day, or there’ll be trouble (often in terms too ‘blue’ to print). However, that ‘trouble’ manifests as a danger not just to the sufferer and his nearest and dearest, but to a range of others who might end up tangling with the insomniac, as their sleep-deprived day draws on:

Wind Turbine Noise Deprives Farmers and Truckers of Essential Sleep & Creates Unnecessary Danger for All

Alive to the critical importance of regular, quality sleep to health, the common law has recognised a person’s right to a decent night’s sleep in their own home for over two centuries.

STT’s Nuisance “In-a-Nutshell”

Nuisance is a long recognised tort (civil wrong) at common law based on the wrongful interference with a landowner’s rights to the reasonable use and enjoyment of their land.

Negligence is not an element of nuisance, although aspects of the former may overlap with the latter. Where, as here, the conduct is intentional (ie the operation of the wind turbines is a deliberate act) liability is strict and will not be avoided by the defendant showing that it has taken all reasonable steps to avoid the nuisance created. Indeed, the conduct of the defendant is largely irrelevant (unless malice is alleged); the emphasis is on the defendant’s invasion of the neighbouring landowner’s interests.

A defendant will have committed the tort of nuisance when they are held to be responsible for an act indirectly causing physical injury to land or substantially interfering with the use or enjoyment of land or of an interest in land, where, in the light of all the surrounding circumstances, this injury or interference is held to be unreasonable.

The usual remedy for nuisance is an injunction restraining the defendant from the further creation or continuance of the nuisance. Injunctions are discretionary, in all cases, and will not be granted unless the nuisance caused is significant.

Where interference with the enjoyment of land is alleged, the interference must be “substantial” and not trivial.

Interference from noise will be substantial, even if only temporary in duration, if it causes any interference with the plaintiff’s sleep.

The loss of even one night’s sleep through excessive noise has been repeatedly held to be substantial and not trivial in this sense (seeAndreae v Selfridge & Co [1937] 3 All ER 255 at 261, quoted with approval in Munro v Dairies Ltd [1955] VLR 332 at 335; Kidman v Page [1959] St R Qd 53 at 59; see also Halsey v Esso Petroleum Co Ltd [1961] 1 WLR 683 at 701: “a man is entitled to sleep during the night in his own house”).

It is not a defence for the party creating the nuisance to claim that he is merely making a reasonable use of his property. The defendant’s conduct may well be otherwise lawful, but still constitute actionable nuisance. The activity engaged in by the defendant may be of great social utility or benefit, but that has been repeatedly held as being “insufficient to justify what otherwise would be a nuisance” (see For example, Munro v Dairies Ltd [1955] VLR 332 at 335; see also Halsey v Esso Petroleum Co Ltd [1961] 1 WLR 683)

Halsey’s case is well worth a read – a real “David and Goliath” battle, as described by the trial Judge: “This is a case, if ever there was one, of the little man asking for the protection of the law against the activities of a large and powerful neighbour.” And just like David’s epic battle with a thuggish giant, the little bloke won!

Here’s a link to the case: Halsey v Esso Petroleum [1961] 1 WLR 683

Precisely the same principles were at work in the case pursued by Julian and Jane Davis, who successfully obtained a £2 million out of court settlement from a wind farm operator, for noise nuisance; and the resultant loss of property value (the home became uninhabitable due to low-frequency noise, infrasound and vibration).

The Particulars of Julian and Jane Davis’ Claim are available here: Davis Complaint Particulars of Claim

And Jane Davis’ Statement (detailing their unsettling experiences and entirely unnecessary suffering) is available here: davis-noise-statement

The common law also recognises the ability to prevent a neighbour from building a noise generation source that will inevitably cause nuisance (with what is called a quia timet injunction). The rule is based on the common sense principle that it’s easier and fairer to keep wild horses corralled, than it is to round them up once they’ve bolted.

One pertinent example is Grasso v Love [1980] VR 163 (available here).

The Full Court of the Supreme Court of Victoria upheld the trial judge’s decision to grant a quia timet injunction to prevent the construction of a Drive-in Theatre which a developer was planning to build right next to the plaintiffs’ home. The injunction was granted on the basis that the noise created by the Drive-in at night-time (noise from the speakers, loud voices, banging car doors, engines starting and tooting horns) would be heard within the plaintiffs’ home and, therefore, cause a very substantial degree of interference with the use and enjoyment of their home. On the basis of the noise likely to be created, the threat of nuisance to the plaintiffs was substantial and, accordingly, they were entitled to an injunction stopping the developer from building his Drive-in, as proposed.

What the growing band of individuals – like Julian and Jane Davis – are relying upon to protect their health, wealth and happiness are the rights that citizens of civilised societies have fought over centuries to establish and maintain (think Magna Carta and all that).

STT is heartened that outfits like the Bourne Board of Health are in there fighting to protect those very same rights. As an observer of the manner in which governments and those within its organs who are paid handsomely to do just that have, instead, sided with the wind industry in wantonly destroying those rights and, worse still, derided its victims, STT says about jolly time.

But don’t expect the venal who supp from the same subsidy trough to take up the cudgels on your behalf any time soon. Oh no, the only guaranteed defender of your own rights is you.

Freedom from noise nuisance (and the ability to sleep in your own home) isn’t a “concern”; it’s a hard-won legal “right” – that’s been upheld against the mighty, rich and powerful for close to 200 hundred years.

The wind industry is – with knowing assistance from your very own governments – more than prepared to simply trample on those rights and, in doing so, to literally steal what’s yours from under you. Don’t let them take what’s rightfully yours without a fight; and don’t sit back and leave it to someone else. These are your homes, your families and your rights – fight for them. There’s a judge just waiting to hear from you.

More Proof that Wind Energy is a SCAM! It’s NOT About the Environment!!!

November 16, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

UK’s Wind ‘Powered’ Disaster: Britain to Roll Out Thousands of Diesel Generators for 1.5GW of Wind Farm ‘Back-Up’

November 16, 2015 by stopthesethings

It’s either spending £billions on 1.5GW worth of these, or …..

****

Thanks to its ludicrous wind rush, Britain is reeling with a combination of skyrocketing power prices and a grid on the brink of total collapse:

Another Wind Power Collapse has Britain Scrambling to Keep its Lights On (Again)

Now, in the mother of all ironies, Brits are turning to the most inefficient and costly to run source of commercial power generation there is: diesel generators. Not, as it turns out, that they have much choice in the matter.

UK turns to diesel to meet power supply crunch
Financial Times
Kiran Stacey
3 November 2015

Britain is set to grant hundreds of millions of pounds in subsidies to highly polluting diesel generators as a way to help solve the energy supply crunch facing the country over the next 15 years.

Analysis of publicly available figures shows that companies have registered to build a total of about 1.5 gigawatts of diesel power under a government scheme to encourage back-up energy for the grid. The figures have been analysed by the Financial Times and experts at both the Institute of Public Policy Research and Sandbag, an environmental think-tank.

If all of those registered are successful in their bids — which analysts believe is likely — it could cost the taxpayer £436m, provide enough energy to power more than 1m homes and emit several million tonnes of carbon a year.

The subsidies on offer are so appealing that even solar-power developers, which have recently had their own subsidies cut, are building diesel generation on their sites as a way of maximising their returns. Lark Energy, a solar-power developer, is bidding for subsidies to build 18MW of diesel generation on its Ellough project in Suffolk, for example.

The UK is facing serious energy-supply difficulties over the next few years as old coal plants are taken offline without new power plants being built to replace them. National Grid, which runs the country’s power network, has predicted that the gap between electricity supply and demand this winter could get as close as 5 per cent — the tightest in a decade.

As part of the solution to that problem, ministers last year decided to start paying electricity providers extra money to make additional capacity available at short notice should the need arise.

They did so by holding an auction where companies bid for those subsidies, which they hoped would encourage gas plants to be built. Instead, it was more successful in giving incentives to other forms of generation such as nuclear power.

This year diesel looks to be one of the main beneficiaries of the process, with 1.5GW of generation having successfully registered for the bidding process.

The collapse in the oil price over the past year has driven down the price of electricity supply, making it uneconomic for companies to build capacity with high capital costs, such as new gas plant.

Dave Jones, power sector expert at Sandbag, said: “All diesel operators have to do is buy in diesel units in shipping containers from China and plug them into a grid connection.

“The low capital cost means that they can undercut things like gas.”

If all of those schemes secure government funding at the same level as last year, it would cost the taxpayer £436m.

According to the International Energy Agency, diesel electricity production emits only slightly less carbon than burning coal, and if the power plants were to run full-time for a year, they would emit 10m tonnes of carbon. They will avoid having to pay for their carbon pollution under the European emissions trading scheme, however, because they are too small to do so.

They would also emit a significant amount of nitrous oxide, though the exact figure is unknown. As a comparison, 1.5GW of power is equivalent to that used by 24,000 Volkswagen Golfs.

Ed Davey, the former energy secretary who set up the scheme, known as the “capacity market auction”, said the problem arose because of EU rules that forbid discriminating against any one type of generation.

Mr Davey told the FT: “At no time when I was secretary of state did people say we were going to get flexible diesel, but I have now heard about large amounts of diesel being preregistered for the auction.

“The government has got to take measures to stop it, because it is extraordinarily counterproductive and absolutely was not what was intended by the capacity auction. We don’t want diesel plants being built anywhere.”

Until last week, many diesel operators expected to be eligible for two types of subsidy: through the capacity auction and via tax breaks granted through a separate enterprise investment scheme.

But ministers have recently decided to close this loophole, writing a clause into the finance bill passing through parliament to ban companies participating in the capacity auction from also claiming these tax advantages.

A wider boom in diesel is also being driven by measures taken by National Grid to encourage industry to cut its power usage. In an attempt to widen the gap between supply and demand this winter, the company has agreed to pay large energy users, such as factories and hospitals, to switch over to back-up generation — much of which is diesel-powered — when necessary.

Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace, said: “Ministers claim to be helping consumers by cutting support for the cleanest energy sources but are about to force them to pay millions to one of the dirtiest.”

Tim Emrich, chief executive of UK Power Reserve, which owns existing diesel-power generation but now concentrates on gas, called on ministers to halt the auction altogether.

He said: “The only way to avoid this happening is to delay or cancel the 2015 capacity market auction. The government needs to ensure that we as taxpayers are buying the right kind of generation for the future . . . not wasting Treasury incentives on the diesel generation of the past.”

A spokesperson for the energy department said: “Small-scale flexible generation, such as diesel, has a small but important role to play in securing our electricity system. It responds quickly, doesn’t have to warm up and is run for short periods, so emission impacts are limited.”
Financial Times

Ed Davey: about as bright as an energy saving 5 watt globe …

****

There’s only one reason that Britain is about to spend 100s of £millions on diesel generation; and that’s to cover routine, total and totally unpredictable wind power output collapses.

On that score, STT notes a particularly valiant effort from former wind industry front man, Ed Davey – with his suggestion that “At no time when I was secretary of state did people say we were going to get flexible diesel” and that diesel generation “was not what was intended by the capacity auction. We don’t want diesel plants being built anywhere”.

You see, Ed is well and truly on the hook for the debacle that is Britain’s energy ‘policy’; and the claim that he didn’t see the need for diesel coming is utter bunkum.

James Delingpole was all over it more than 2 years ago, at a time when Davey was top banana at the DECC, and fully aware of the diesel roll-out that was on in earnest, way back then:

Delingpole On Fire: Exposes $Billions Spent on Diesel Generators for Wind Power Backup

No, Ed’s political legacy has left Britain facing the choice between millions of highly inefficient diesel generators, costing taxpayers and power consumers £billions to subsidise, set up and run; or a whole lot more candlelit, cold baked bean dinners.

or … tucking into cold baked beans every other night, with
the enforced ‘romance’ of a few flickering candles.

Wind Energy…..Much Less Power, for MUCH MORE money!!!

November 15, 2015 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Rocketing Prices AND Blackouts: South Australians Lament Their Dark & Dismal Wind ‘Powered’ Future

November 15, 2015 by stopthesethings

SA’s media digs into its wind power debacle: spiralling
power prices AND mass blackouts, who would have thought?

****

A week back we covered the unfolding calamity in South Australia – where a sudden wind power output collapse plunged 110,000 homes into darkness, across most of the State, without warning:

Wind Industry’s Armageddon: Wind Farm Output Collapse Leaves 110,000 South Australian Homes & Businesses Powerless

What’s become painfully clear to the general populace (although probably at times when they’re without the aid of electric light) is that attempting to ‘rely’ on a wholly weather dependent generation ‘system’ is a seriously dangerous fantasy.

In the aftermath of one of the worst blackouts in recent history, politicians of all persuasions copped a grilling on radio stations; from people like ABC’s Matt and Dave; and 5AA’s, Leon Byner.

Byner is to South Australian airwaves what Alan Jones is to national radio broadcasting; sharp and to the point – and with a “take no prisoners” attitude. As the interview below attests.

First, a little background on the protagonists. Christopher Pyne is a Liberal member of Federal Parliament, steeped in South Australian Liberal politics.

Tom Koutsantonis, Industry Minister in the State Labor government, has been top head kicker and part of Labor’s squad; going back to Premier Mike Rann – the principal offender in South Australia’s unfolding wind power disaster.

Danny Price, energy market expert with Frontier Economics, hates wind power with a burning passion; and has been pointing out the ludicrous costs of subsidising wind power, as well as the insanity of trying to rely upon a wholly weather dependent generation source, for years now.

What follows is a very telling exchange amongst them.

SA’s State power outage and Renewable Energy
Leon Byner with Tom Koutsantonis
5AA
2 November 2015

LEON BYNER: The Industry Minister joining us, Christopher what do you say?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning Leon, well the point that I wanted to make was that South Australians pay the highest energy prices in Australia.

We have one of the most unreliable supplies of energy. We’ve been obsessed for some years with renewable energy, which in itself is not a bad thing. But I think the public, it always surprises me how they don’t understand that they are subsidising wind and solar power to such an enormous extent.

They seem to think when I talk to people in the supermarkets in my electorate for example, that this is all coming without a cost. But the truth is the only reason wind power is viable in South Australia is because of the massive subsidies being paid by the taxpayer and the same goes for solar power.

And even more concerning to me, to have solar power in years gone by you needed to stump up the several thousands of dollars to get the solar energy and then you got the subsidy. Which means the poorest South Australians were subsidising some of the most well off South Australians, who have got much lower energy costs as a result of solar power.

So, I just think that in the debate the public need to know the facts, which are that these things don’t come without a cost.

LEON BYNER: What would you be suggesting the Government do, Chris?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well obviously the Government has made some bad decisions and bad choices over the years because of an ideological obsession with renewable energy and I wouldn’t discourage renewable energy. But they also made it harder for Alinta to stay in business.

When Alinta said that they were closing Leigh Creek and Port Augusta, one of the factors they stated was because of the subsidies for wind and solar power. Now how they produce those subsidies is something that the State Government needs to look at, because it’s a question whether they are sustainable at the level that they are into the future, especially if they are not delivering, as we saw last night, reliable power to South Australia. Or maybe the South Australian Government needs to invest in another way of connecting with interstate energy rather than the one we have through Hayward at the moment.

LEON BYNER: Ok what do you say Tom?

TOM KOUTSANTONIS: Well I think a lot of what Christopher says is right. There is only one problem, it’s not the State Government that’s subsidising Leon, it’s the Commonwealth Government. They are the ones that give the subsidies to the wind generators, but the reality is, is that we needs to be a national solution to this problem because coal is not sustainable. The world is not going to keep burning coal to generate electricity; the world is going to look to other sources…

LEON BYNER: Yes but we have an immediate need and I don’t think you were…

TOM KOUTSANTONIS: Yes I understand that. We have an abundant transitional energy source here in South Australia, which is gas. Now we should be doing as much as we can to incentivise gas. We are in this perverse position where the Commonwealth Government are incentivising renewables as has the state in the past with the solar feeding tariffs off peoples rooves and then coal is given preferential treatment and the transitional fuel in the middle, gas and which is probably the solution to our energy needs gets almost nothing.

Now the reality is we need to be looking at what our natural abundant resources are, especially in this state and we have two of them: uranium and gas. So we should be doing as much as we can to support and incentivise the export of uranium out of the state for the world’s power needs and doing as much as we possibly can to incentivise the extraction of gas for generations to come in South Australia.

LEON BYNER: Yes but you see you can do all the extraction you like, it’s still got to be viable. Chris, what do you say to that?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I think it’s hard for Tom Koutsantonis to claim that the Rann-Weatherill Government didn’t do a great deal to encourage wind generators to be set up in South Australia.

I mean they provided a great deal of support for wind power and Mike Rann trumpeted South Australia’s growing reliance on wind power as has Jay Weatherill.

Now I agree however with Tom that what we do need to do is get our uranium moving out of Australia and that’s why the current Federal Government is trying to settle a deal with India to sell them uranium and I’d encourage him to encourage his federal colleagues to make that easier rather than harder, because that well help us get the revenue he needs and the Commonwealth needs and particularly the South Australian Government needs to invest in energy.

This is something that needs to have a bipartisan approach between Labor and Liberal and he can help us with his federal colleagues to make that treaty with India around uranium sales sail smoothly through the Parliament.

LEON BYNER: Now Tom so let me get this right, you’re going to make an announcement sooner rather than later on incentivising some kind of, either other interconnection or indeed base load power, because as Danny Price pointed out with the upgrade of the interconnector, lightening or other problems aren’t going to be much use to us.

TOM KOUTSANTONIS: Yes that’s right; we need to incentivise the existing base load energy that we already have…

LEON BYNER: And you’ll be making an announcement about that when?

TOM KOUTSANTONIS: I will very, very soon and I’ll come on your programme and I can talk to your listeners, I’m quite happy to do that with you Leon. But I’ll just point out this, the Howard Government, the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd-Abbott-Turnbull Governments all subsidise wind.

The support we give them is planning approval and the actual subsidy for the power generated comes from the Commonwealth Government. So I don’t want to get into a he-said, she-said with Christopher other than to say this is a national problem and we need national solutions and this State Labor Government, especially me as Energy Minister and Treasurer, I am very keen to work with Christopher to come up with a solution that benefits South Australia and the nation.

LEON BYNER: Alright just quickly, Danny Price is what you’re hearing today is that ‘hey they get it’ yet or what?

DANNY PRICE: Nothing else has this ability to concentrate with this level of political interest and I’m kind of pleased to see this, because this has been a long time coming. I think what the Minister’s saying about wind farms is exactly right. I think it’s disingenuous to say that this is just a Commonwealth problem. But I also agree with the Treasurer that it has to be a national solution. South Australia is just part of what we call the national electricity market. It has to be a national…

LEON BYNER: One question, we got nothing up the connector and there are those who say why didn’t the other states that have got electricity feel any pain? Or was it just because of our reliance on wind that failed?

DANNY PRICE: Well the market is basically designed to as much as possible cut the cost consequences of local problems to that local region and that’s precisely why the market is set up that way.

Now in South Australia people are now looking for solutions for supply in South Australia, that’s what the market is designed to do.

My only concern with what the Treasurer seems to be hinting at is that it may be that he’s thinking about contracting directly with the Pelican Point power station, but the problem with that of course is that you have to think about the consequences down the line and so if these primary generators suddenly think that they’ve got the Government over the barrel and the Government is prepared to directly contract with these generators, you might find them offering less on the market than they would otherwise which forces the Government’s hand. So you’ve got to be careful about starting that game.

LEON BYNER: Danny Price thank you. Well know you’ve got the full story about what happened last night and the fact that it won’t be the end.
5AA

Of Byner’s line up, only Danny Price really gets it.

****

Despite Koutsantonis being an entrenched member of the team that created the wind power debacle in South Australia, he was remarkably quick off the mark to throw responsibility back at the Federal Government when he (rightly) says: “the actual subsidy for the power generated comes from the Commonwealth Government”.

Indeed it does; soon to be a figure in the order of $3 billion a year – all added on top of already rocketing Australian retail power bills:

Out to Save their Wind Industry Mates, Macfarlane & Hunt Lock-in $46 billion LRET Retail Power Tax

But Koutsantonis’ line that his State Government merely facilitated the rollout of 1,477MW of wind power capacity with SA’s 17 wind farms is kind of glib – reminiscent of war criminals who, when thrown in the dock by the victors, claimed they were “only following orders”.

All too cute, for STT’s liking. His former boss, Mike Rann saw to it that SA went harder and faster into the wind power fraud, than any other State; for his (and his relatives) own selfish, pecuniary interests; and did so without ever even considering the costs or putative benefits of a subsidy-scam loaded with the former; and bereft of the latter.

But, precisely the same can be said of the successive Federal governments that set up and have maintained the Large-Scale RET – the largest, single industry subsidy scheme in the history of the Commonwealth by a country mile (see the link above).

Although, as things are turning out, the accusatory finger-pointing between State and Federal governments, over just who’s responsible for South Australia’s calamitous energy mess, is of no real concern to South Australians.

Among the 110,000 homes and businesses that were plunged into darkness, two weeks ago, when wind power disappeared in the blink of an eye, there isn’t a whole lot of interest in whether it’s State or Federal policy to blame. These people are already sick and tired of paying the highest power prices in the Nation (if not, on a purchasing power parity basis, the highest in the world).

Plunging them into darkness without warning (placing them and their families at unnecessary mortal risk – think people at home on life support systems; and unlit intersections without functioning traffic lights) simply because wind power output collapsed is, for most, a bridge way too far.

Despite the best efforts of the wind industry’s top propaganda merchants, South Australians are a wake up to the fact that it wasn’t the fault of the interconnectors – that are designed to merely transport power (when available) from Victoria and New South Wales – but, rather, the fact that the 40% of SA’s generating capacity (said to always come from wind power) collapsed, because the wind stopped blowing that fateful Sunday night. Funny about that.

It’s a little hard for the wind industry and its spruikers to blame something else; when, for more than six years, they’ve been ramming the ‘wonders’ of wind power down South Australian throats, with maniacal zeal.

If you’re continually talking up SA’s brilliant “wind resource”; and bragging out loud via every media outlet about those (few) occasions when wind power output registers a half-decent proportion of its actual capacity, you’re going to have trouble explaining away those occasions when total (and totally unpredictable) collapses in wind power output coincide with mass blackouts. As this one, most certainly did.

No, this time around the cat is well and truly out of the bag.

In the hierarchy of media, when an issue becomes the top story on Channel 7’s Today Tonight, you can guarantee you’ve reached not only a substantial audience by number; but that you’ve also hit political dead-centre – in terms of reaching voters capable of deciding elections; and policies on the way to them.

The Today Tonight viewer mightn’t be a Twitter jockey, but he or she is a first-class talker; whether it’s at work or backyard barbecues, whatever they’ve seen soon becomes the topic of the day (or the week). When the topic is their spiralling power bills and, despite paying through the nose for the stuff, suffering statewide blackouts to boot, you can guarantee plenty of fist-waving fury being added to tea room and backyard debates on just who, or what’s to blame.

Just how dire things are for the wind industry, is laid out in just such a barbecue-stopper of a Today Tonight broadcast; one that has snapped South Australians out of their complacency about energy policy, in general; and their wind power debacle, in particular.

The only trick that Today Tonight missed, was the fact that the blackout wasn’t the interconnectors’ fault. As detailed in last week’s post (and the graph above), the interconnectors ‘failed’ because they became overloaded, as wind power output plummeted that night. The ‘load’ being drawn by SA over the interconnectors rose exponentially (and inversely with the wind power output collapse) until they hit the limit of their capacity and ‘tripped’, plunging SA into pre-historic gloom for hours.

STT hears that Today Tonight has been directed to our blackout post; and is keen to follow up with a story that sets the record straight, laying the blame – where it belongs – fair-and-square on SA’s ludicrous ‘reliance’ on the vagaries of the wind.

(Click on the image below to reach Today Tonight’s video of the broadcast – transcript appears below)

****

Transcript:

Rosanna Mangiarelli (Presenter): Good evening and welcome to the program. First tonight the price we’re all likely to pay for South Australia’s renewable energy experiment. Now as power stations close and we rely more and more on wind and solar power, the outlook, according to some experts is dim. Job losses, skyrocketing prices, and ongoing blackouts and as Hendrik Gout reports, they’re just some of the risks the state’s taking as we enter the untested and the unknown.

Hendrik Gout (Reporter): We South Australians are living in an experiment, a world first. We’re the white mice in this state-sized laboratory.

Mathew Warren (CEO, Energy Supply Association of Australia): South Australia is an accidental experiment in the deploy of renewables at scale in a large grid around the world.

Danny Price (Managing Director, Frontier Economics Australia): South Australia is the canary down the mine as it were. It’s more likely that there’s going to be blackouts because of the combination of your reliance on the interconnector, but particularly because of the large reliance on wind.

Mathew Warren: When we look around the world the problem is no one is doing it as aggressively as South Australia.

Hendrik Gout: Sometimes this experiment goes catastrophically wrong. On the night of Sunday the 1st of November 2015, Adelaide went black. It was lights out at 10 PM. 100,000 homes, businesses, service stations, all the streetlights, all dead, because of this – the interconnector. Think of it as a heavy-duty extension cord, taking electricity from Victoria’s Latrobe Valley power stations to energy dependant South Australia. And when it fails…

Danny Price: Unless those interconnectors are running it’s extremely difficult to reliably meet supply in South Australia.

Hendrik Gout: Danny Price from Frontier economics has shocking news for South Australia.

Danny Price: South Australia is an experimentation in systems control, power systems control and I think people are struggling to work out how it’s going work.

Hendrik Gout: Thomas Playford, Premier from the 30s to the 60s, decided South Australia should be electrically self-sufficient. His government developed the Leigh Creek coal fields to fuel this, South Australia’s huge Port Augusta plant. 800 million watts, for thoroughly modern living.

Narrator: You will envy this little lady, and say to yourselves, I would like an electric range myself.

Hendrik Gout: Here on Torrens Island, locally produced thermal electricity. And then ten years ago we cast our fate to the wind.

Mike Rann (Former SA Premier): Bit by bits we’ve started the process of making South Australia the leader in wind energy in Australia.

Pat Conlon (Former Labor Minster for Energy in SA Government): The truth is, green energy isn’t any cheaper in terms of dollar price than conventional energy but it is much, much cheaper for the environment.

Hendrik Gout: But from Starfish Hill to Snowtown, Waterloo to Wattle Point, Waymouth to Woakwine, it was new dawn for some and the end of an era for others. Fuelled by easy State Government approval, often overriding local objections, wind farms grew exponentially. Yet they produce power only intermittently. They’re unreliable, and sometimes they have their share of itty-bitty problems.

How many windfarms do we have, installed, planned, approved, or under construction? This many – 39.

Mathew Warren: Certainly the numbers that we are at now, around 40% of generation coming from solar and wind is incredibly high by global standards. And the world’s watching. The world is interested in how South Australia manages this.

Hendrik Gout: Australia’s Energy Supply Association is the industry’s peak national body. Its boss is Mathew Warren.

Mathew Warren: Clearly we need to pay very close attention to South Australia. It’s really at the cutting edge of integrating renewables in the world and that brings with it both, you know challenges but also risks.

Hendrik Gout: And those risks, well somebody accidentally unplugging this extension cord.

Mathew Warren: Sunday night was an event that no one planned when there was a fault, and the interconnector was out, and the consequences were an outage.

Hendrik Gout: The potential problems, says Danny Price, will get worse when the Northern Power station at Port Augusta closes early next year.

Danny Price: That’s the largest, single largest power station in the state and one that provides large quantities of reliable cheap energy.

Hendrik Gout: And South Australia has the most expensive electricity in the country. You probably pay more than $2,500 a year for electricity. People who live in the ACT pay not even $1500. In 2010 an 18% hike, 17% the next year, nearly 13% in 2012. Down by 1.8% (somebody probably got sacked for that) and then up again in 2014.

Hendrik Gout: So how much are your electricity bills a quarter?

Robert Bell: They’re up to around 3 grand.

Hendrik Gout: And what were they when you started?

Robert Bell: They were about $800-$900.

Hendrik Gout: Robert Bell sells fish from his Glynde aquarium. His tanks have heaters, pumps, bubblers.

Robert Bell: It’s now the second biggest bill that we have here, behind rent. It’s tripled in the last 6 years. It’s got a double edge sword effect for us. The customers are closing down their tanks and all the while, our overheads are going up here, with electricity.

Hendrik Gout: So fewer people are buying and your own costs are going up.

Robert Bell: Exactly.

Hendrik Gout: Compounding the problem –these -Solar PV systems.

Mathew Warren: South Australia has around 25% of its housing stocked now with solar panels on their roofs. This is the highest rate of roof-top solar PV penetration in the world.

Hendrik Gout: And that’s also pushing up prices through generous State government subsidies.

Mathew Warren: The renewable technologies, once they displace conventional generators are more expensive. If they were cheaper it would be a lot easier to manage this challenge.

Hendrik Gout: The closure of the Port Augusta power station also comes at a cost. A human cost – hundreds of South Australian jobs disappear as we switch to Victorian power, made by Victorian labour. According to Danny Price, wind power isn’t filling the vacuum.

Danny Price: We don’t actually develop any wind technology here, we buy it all. We just simply assemble and that technology and it doesn’t take much labour to run it.

Hendrik Gout: An increased risk of blackouts, crippling power prices and the country’s highest unemployment.

Robert Bell: The economy is in a bad state and Adelaide, itself, is in a really bad state.

Hendrik Gout: The perfect storm.

Robert Bell: It really is for business owners in South Australia at the moment.

Danny Price: Some of the largest employers are those who use quite a lot of electricity. I am extremely doubtful that any new business would set up in South Australia. I think that they would be mad to, simply because of the high cost of electricity, which is set to get higher and unfortunately, more unreliable.
Today Tonight

That Today Tonight story hit the nail on the head.
Now, has anyone got any matches and candles?

Unreliable, Impractical Wind Turbines – When the Wind Don’t Blow, the Lights Don’t Glow!

November 12, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Another Wind Power Collapse has Britain Scrambling to Keep its Lights On (Again)

November 12, 2015 by stopthesethings

Nowhere near as ‘useful’ as they look …

****

There’s an old adage about ‘bad luck’ coming in threes. For the wind industry its rotten ‘luck’ seems to run in endless crashing waves. Here’s another board-snapping set from the UK.

National Grid uses ‘last resort’ measures to keep UK lights on
The Telegraph
Emily Gosden
4 November 2015

Coal plant breakdowns and low wind power output force National Grid to pay dozens of businesses to reduce their energy usage

Britain was forced to rely on new “last resort” measures to keep the lights on for the first time on Wednesday after coal power plants broke down and wind farms produced less than one per cent of required electricity.

National Grid used a new emergency scheme to pay large businesses to cut their electricity usage, resulting in dozens of large office buildings powering down their air conditioning and ventilation systems between 5pm and 6pm.

The scheme, which is paid for through levies on consumer energy bills, was introduced last year but had never been called upon before.

National Grid blamed the power crunch on “multiple plant break downs”. Several ageing coal-fired power plants had unexpected maintenance issues and temporarily shut down, experts said, reducing available supplies.

The problem was compounded by low wind speeds meaning most of Britain’s 6,500 onshore and offshore wind turbines were barely generating any power just as demand hit its highest.

UK wind farms have a theoretical maximum capacity of more than 13,000 megawatts, but produced less than 400 megawatts of power for much of the peak demand period – meeting less than one per cent of the UK’s electricity needs, published data suggests.

Britain’s 8,000 megawatts of solar panel capacity would also have produced no power during the peak, because it was dark at the time.

Electricity demand hits highest level – as wind power slumps to its lowest

National Grid first intervened in the market yesterday lunchtime, issuing an alert to power plants that more generation would needed between 4.30pm and 6.30pm.

The alert, called a Notification of Inadequate System Margin, (NISM), was the first to have been issued since 2012.

Short-term electricity prices spiked as a result, with analysts reporting that one power plant was paid £2,500 per megawatt-hour – about 50 times average power prices.

National Grid later announced that it had also had to use a scheme called “demand side balancing reserve” (DSBR) to reduce demand on the Grid by about 40 MW.

The scheme was one of two emergency schemes first introduced last year to help cope with Britain’s tightening power margins, as old coal plants are closed down and not replaced.

The second emergency measure, which has so far not been used, would see a reserve of old power plants fired up.

Businesses that volunteer to take part in the DSBR scheme are paid a retainer, in return for agreeing that they will receive additional payments to cut their demand if needed. National Grid has estimated the scheme will cost consumers about 50p a year.

National Grid had previously said that the schemes would only be used “as a last resort in the event that there is insufficient supply available in the market to meet demand”. Until Wednesday it had never actually asked businesses taking part to cut their usage.

Flexitricity, one of the companies coordinating businesses to take part in the scheme, said commercial energy users had reduced power at 46 sites, mostly by “turning down building ventilation”. This was primarily air conditioning at offices, it said.

A spokesman for National Grid insisted that the measures taken on Wednesday did “not mean we were at risk of blackouts”, only that “we needed the safety cushion of power in reserve to be higher”.

Lisa Nandy, Labour’s shadow energy secretary, blamed Government policy for “creating an energy security crisis” while the GMB Union said Britain was in the “bonkers position… where National Grid is using consumer’s money to pay firms to stop work in order to avoid blackouts”.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change declined to comment.

The Telegraph

Good to see the DECC – willing accomplices in implementing Britain’s energy disaster – quick to front up with reassuring words for British power punters! Maybe they were just busy rounding up truckloads of candles and blankets to secure Britons’ winter energy needs?

Earlier in the week we covered the unfolding calamity in South Australia – where a sudden wind power output collapse plunged 110,000 homes into darkness, across most of the State, without warning:

Wind Industry’s Armageddon: Wind Farm Output Collapse Leaves 110,000 South Australian Homes & Businesses Powerless

STT can’t wait to hear the cynical efforts from wind worshippers to explain and spin away the hundreds of avoidable deaths, that will inevitably occur, during Britain’s fast looming, dark and bitter winter – when wind power output collapses; the grid along with it; and little old ladies freeze to death in their unlit homes.

What started out as sell-able idea about ‘harnessing’ the power of the wind, has turned into an unmitigated disaster. Welcome to your wind ‘powered’ future.

Has anyone seen or heard anything from the
boys from the DECC or the Wind Energy Association?

Windpusher’s Noise Studies Have Fatal Flaws…..Not Surprising!

November 10, 2015 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Major Flaw Massachusetts : Wind Turbine Health Impact Study 2012

Vestas, is keen for the Town of Falmouth to understand the turbines produce up to 110 decibels of noise. Twice the written specifications.

Falmouth, MA

By FRANK HAGGERTY November 10, 2015

Major Flaw Massachusetts : Wind Turbine Health Impact Study 2012

Falmouth turbines110 decibels not 103.5 decibels

The Massachusetts expert panel reviewed literature and public media sources and met three times.

During 2012 the time of the Massachusetts wind health impact study it was assumed the Vestas V-82 commercial wind turbine in Falmouth had a manufacturers specification of a maximum output of 103.5 decibels.

The expert panel was unaware that in 2004 NEG Micon was a former Danish wind turbine manufacturer of the V-82 turbine and had merged with Vestas wind company. The V 82 generates up to 110 decibels before the cut out speed.

A University of Massachusetts overview of the ” 2012 Wind Turbine Health Impact Study” highlights chest pounding at 110 decibels.

The Massachusetts expert panel had no knowledge in 2012 the Vestas V 82 wind turbine generated 110 decibels.

Recently the Town of Falmouth released a warning letter from Vestas Wind Company in 2010 that stated the Vestas V 82 does in fact produce 110 decibels of noise. See letter bottom of page.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

The Study :

Massachusetts : Wind Turbine Health Impact Study: Report of Independent Expert Panel January 2012 Prepared for: Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Massachusetts Department of Public Health ;http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dep/energy/wind/turbine-impact-study.pdf
—————————————————————————————————————————————————
The Overview

Overview: Wind Turbine Health Impact Study. MA, 2012. Overview of. Wind Turbine Health Impact Study: Report of Independent Expert Panel. James Manwell. Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. UMass

Slide 1
webcache.googleusercontent.com

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:VB0rwexXu_AJ:https://www.umass.edu/windenergy/sites/default/files/downloads/mwwg/Wind_Turbine_Health_Impact_Study_Panel_Presentation_2-1-12.pptx+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

See this section under scroll down the page to infrasound and see section about 110 decibels
MA, 2012
Noise and Vibration –

Infrasound (less than 20 Hz)
can be heard if at very high level (> 110 dB)
can be felt (chest pound) if at very high level (> 110 dB)

Windpushers are so Corrupt, it Will Turn Your Stomach! Liars & Thieves!

November 9, 2015 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Next on Patch » John Wesley United Methodist Church Youth Group Holds…

Massachusetts Epicenter Of US Wind Turbine Corruption

Falmouth, Massachusetts Ground Zero For Poorly Placed Wind Turbines Using Vestas Wind Turbine Company.

Falmouth, MA

By FRANK HAGGERTY November 9, 2015

Massachusetts Epicenter Of US Wind Turbine Corruption

Falmouth, Massachusetts Ground Zero For Poorly Placed Wind Turbines Using Vestas Wind Turbine Company.

The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, MTC, today known as the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, MassCEC, bought two massive commercial Vestas V-82 commercial wind turbines to place in residential communities.

The trail of corruption starts in 2004 with the Massachusetts state legislature and former Governor Deval Patrick also known as “Sally Reynolds” to wind turbine contractors.

The former author of the “Green Communities Act” Massachusetts Speaker of the House Sal DiMasi sits in an undisclosed federal prison serving an eight year sentence for corruption.

Vestas wind company had to OK site plans to install any of its wind turbines in the United States. They gave the OK to install two town owned Vestas V-82 commercial 1.65 megawatt wind turbines in Falmouth, Massachusetts.

Vestas wind company had merged with a company called NEG Micon and was well aware the V-82 megawatt turbine installed in Falmouth produced 109 decibels of noise over twice the manufacturers written specifications. Vestas admitted the noise level in an August 3, 2010 letter to the Town of Falmouth, Massachusetts. The Town of Falmouth hid the letter from the public until recently.

The MassCEC also dropped the warning of two distinct types of noise found in all boiler plate noise studies prior to the Falmouth wind turbine installations. The two types of noise were “regulatory” measured in decibels and “human annoyance” measured in low frequency. The noise tests were corrupt because they omitted warnings that would have alerted residents as they did in other towns prior to Falmouth. If this wasn’t corrupt was is corrupt ?

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center unable to place the wind turbines in other communities extrapolated acoustic noise test results in Falmouth to come in under Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection laws. As soon as the first turbine started in 2010 in Falmouth the noise complaints started. The corruption started to take the health and property rights of the residents. The MassDEP notified the Town of Falmouth the turbines are out of state noise compliance. The corrupt politicians always knew it would be.

Everyone involved in the installations of the Falmouth turbines knew the turbines were too loud. They needed a hook to fish in the local officials. The MassCEC unable to sell the loud turbines anywhere including an auction had to bribe local officials with one million dollars in renewable energy funds. They took the bait and went forward illegally permitting the turbines knowing the special permit requirements would require additional tests and notifications. How do you spell c-o-r-r-u-p-t-i-o-n?

Massachusetts officials embarrassed over the corruption over the poor placement of commercial wind turbines in Massachusetts are now going all in on the gamble they took with the health and property rights of its own citizens. More taxpayer money to cover up the corruption !

The MassCEC has provided the Town of Falmouth with another 1.8 million more in renewable energy funds to hire a Boston law firm to outspend the Falmouth victims who lost their health and property rights.

The plan now is to take the victims property through Article 2 at Falmouth Special Town Meeting November 10, 2015. The town wants to take up to 200 residential homes or purchase easements from the homes within 3000 feet of the turbines. The article creates the possibility of a 70 million dollar class action litigation of the homes based on an average cost of 350 thousand per home. The Falmouth Select Board has endorsed this article. The Boston attorneys may as well move to Falmouth for the foreseeable future. Another ten years of litigation.

The Massachusetts courts have ruled the wind turbines were illegally installed. The town now wants to go back in time and ask Town Meeting Members to change the laws in Article 3 at Falmouth Special Town Meeting November 10, 2015. This article creates a group of second class citizens living around the wind turbines. The Massachusetts constitution does not allow second class citizens.

There are many other communities in Massachusetts facing the same issues. Massachusetts has created a special class of second class citizens in Massachusetts who have had their health and property rights taken with no compensation.

It should be noted the news media in Massachusetts has to share the guilt as well. Over the years the main stream media has reproduced state press releases about commercial wind as real stories or what I call “puff” stories. It’s no secret editors of local news papers have retired and gone on the work for the Massachusetts Wind Energy Center. You be good to us and we will be good to you in the old boy network.

When Falmouth Wind 1, the first town owned wind turbine began to spin residents around the turbines immediatly began to complain about noise. During the first year the Falmouth Board of Health issued a special wind turbine noise complaint form. Today the Falmouth Board of Heath is in posession of thousands of certified hand or electronically written noise complaints, documents, studies and memos.

The certified noise complaints are the number one proof that the turbines were built far too close to residential homes. The written certified noise complaints are documents that show the main complaint of a lack of sleep.

Sleep deprivation causes impaired memory and cognitive functioning, decreased short term memory, speech impairment, hallucinations, psychosis, lowered immunity, headaches, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, stress, anxiety and depression.

Sleep deprivation is the major complaint from the wind turbine victims in Falmouth and other communities with megawatt turbines placed in residential communities.

The Falmouth Board of Health recently ignored all the thousands of complaints, documents and studies and only produced one document out of thousands for the Special Permitting process going on today. The omission of all the other documents is corruption. What else do you call the constant omission and deleting of the truth ?

Town Meeting Member David Moriarty discusses the upcoming Special Town Meeting concerning Wind 1 on youtube :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs8SwaR4KjE&feature=youtu.be

Harvey Wrightman Explains How One Wind Company is Bilking Taxpayers for $287,040,645.00 Per Year.

November 9, 2015November 9, 2015 / 1957chev / 3 Comments

Here’s how NextEra makes $287,040,645/year from Ontario wind projects

Posted on 11/09/2015 Ontario Wind Resistance

by Harvey Wrightman
Seven years ago when we first entered the fight against wind projects, everyone including myself assumed that wind companies sought to put their turbines on the sites with the most wind. Wind data was gathered and fiercely guarded by wind companies, the data being “proprietary.” That’s how it is in the real world – performance is the goal or should be.

Well, in the alter-world that is Ontario Energy Policy, real data is undesirable. Imaginary data is much more useful. It’s almost impossible to find out how much the wind companies are getting paid. The terms of the Feed in Tariff (FiT) contracts are never released to the public – that’s also proprietary and confidential information. However, from the minutes of the final Community Liaison Committee (CLC) meeting for NextEra’s Adelaide wind project in mid July this year, a smidgeon of real data did surface revealing how much power NextEra was claiming to have produced – it’s a lot more than anyone ever expected.

Here Operations Manager, Peter Miller, let slip how much NextEra was billing the Ontario Power Authority for power production (p 7):

“ … over 160,000 MWH of wind energy has been produced since commercial operation.”

That’s 160,000 MWh for 9 months, or 213,000 MWh/year.

Nameplate capacity for Adelaide Wind is 60 MW which means Adelaide Wind will produce 60 MWh x 24h x 365 days = 525,600 MWh/year if at 100% of capacity. This means that Adelaide Wind is claiming production efficiency of 41%!

At $135/MWh the Adelaide Wind project will rake in $28,755,000/year.

But, but, but… real world operational efficiency in SW Ontario rarely exceeds 25%according to the Independent System Operator (IESO) records. The windiest sites mightgenerate close to 40%, but that’s definitely the exception. It seems the Ontario government has decreed that the wind industry shall be paid what the wind industry believes it should be paid. Real numbers/data don’t matter.

Then a question is posed as to how the Independent System operator (IESO) determines who gets to put power into the grid (p 9). Ben Greenhouse, NextEra Executive Director of Development states:

“… our electricity system is bizarre … If we bid zero [to IESO, system operator], we would get zero from IESO but we would get compensated at the end of the month for our contract price which is 13.5 cents per kilowatt [$135/MWh].”

Greenhouse conveniently neglects to say that the grid must take renewable (wind/solar/biomass) if available over any other source, and the price for wind is 13.5 cents/KWH. He also doesn’t explain the complex calculation process used to determine the “theoretical availability” of a wind project. Whether it is operating or not doesn’t matter. It’s the theoretical or imaginary availability that does matter for payment purposes.

What the grid managers do to fill in the “theoretical” gaps is their headache. Wind companies could care less.

With payments based on an imagined capacity factor of a whopping 40%, it hardly matters where the project is sited – it could be in a cave! A little bit of creative data and you’ll be paid close to max. No doubt this is standard industry practice.

Let’s see how much of the $28.755 million filters down to the community. NextEra presents the annual payments to the municipality and lease-signed landowners (p 5):

Property taxes $250,000
Lease payments $500,000
Community contribution $150,000

Total: $900,000 or 3% of earnings goes to host community.

Estimating maintenance at ~ $2 million/year, total annual costs of Adelaide Wind come in around $3,000,000/year. This leaves NextEra Adelaide Wind with a tidy profit of $25,755,000/year.

Adelaide Wind cost ~$132 million to build. The return on investment is 19.5%! Where else can you get that?

I haven’t included the financing costs because these projects offer so many “securities packages” that are secured by liens on the farmland. Since the operating companies are “shell” entities lacking any real assets, attaching a lien to the leaseholder property is rather convenient.

Note also that NextEra states:

“Previous estimates included taxation on transmission line infrastructure, which we have determined is currently not being assessed.”

Once again Nexterror delights in rubbing a bit of dirt in your face.

Presently NextEra has 592 MW of nameplate capacity in its Ontario wind projects. Using the same calculated 41% capacity factor, NextEra will earn $287,040,645/year from its Ontario wind projects. Not much wonder they want to build more!

…and on an even larger scale, Ontario has 4042 MW of nameplate wind capacity. Using that figure from CanWEA , the yearly cost to Ontario homes and industry is about $2 billion/year for wind turbines – most of it imaginary power that has never been produced.

More Proof that Proximity to Wind Turbines, Affects Sleep & Quality of Life

November 6, 2015 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Scientific Proof: Wind Turbine Noise Causes Wind Farm Worker’s Sleep & Health to Suffer

November 6, 2015 by stopthesethings 1 Comment

Among the growing list of what’s getting to the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers is the fact that – despite their relentless efforts to cover up both the work and the results – highly skilled people are working flat out around the world to discover the precise mechanism that causes the adverse health effects from incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound, including sleep deprivation, vertigo and the like.

It’s not only the fact of their rather obvious conclusions that has wind-spinners in apoplexy, it’s the fact that they’re looking at all.

You see, the line being run is that there is NO problem – a tobacco advertising guru said so – so why on earth should anyone be looking?

For the wind industry and its parasites, the problem is, that there IS a problem: teams of highly skilled scientific investigators don’t generally devote their every waking hour to chase answers and solutions, when there’s nothing to chase.

Here’s just another example of what properly qualified people can do when looking for answers to real problems.

This time the victims are Iranian wind farm workers, who, funnily enough, suffer precisely the same negative health consequences as everyone else who has the miserable misfortune to be exposed to the insidious and intolerable noise and vibration generated by these things. Here’s a summary of the study.

Impact of wind turbine sound on general health, sleep disturbance and annoyance of workers: a pilot-study in Manjil wind farm, Iran
15 October 2015

Authors: Abbasi, Milad; Monazzam, Mohammad Reza; Akbarzadeh, Arash; Zakerian, Seyyed Abbolfazl; and Ebrahimi, Mohammad Hossein

Background: The wind turbine’s sound seems to have a proportional effect on health of people living near to wind farms. This study aimed to investigate the effect of noise emitted from wind turbines on general health, sleep and annoyance among workers of Manjil wind farm, Iran.

Materials and methods: A total number of 53 workers took part in this study.

Based on the type of job, they were categorized into three groups of maintenance, security and office staff.

The persons’ exposure at each job-related group was measured by eight-hour equivalent sound level (LAeq, 8 h).

A Noise annoyance scale, Epworth sleepiness scale and 28-item general health questionnaire was used for gathering data from workers. The data were analyzed through Multivariate Analysis of variance (MANOVA) test, Pillai’s Trace test, Paired comparisons analysis and Multivariate regression test were used in the R software.

Results and discussion: The results showed that, response variables (annoyance, sleep disturbance and health) were significantly different between job groups.

The results also indicated that sleep disturbance as well as noise exposure had a significant effect on general health.

Noise annoyance and distance from wind turbines could significantly explain about 44.5 and 34.2% of the variance in sleep disturbance and worker’s general health, respectively.

General health was significantly different in different age groups while age had no significant impact on sleep disturbance. The results were reverse for distance because it had no significant impact on health, but sleep disturbance was significantly affected.

Conclusions: We came to this conclusion that wind turbines noise can directly impact on annoyance, sleep and health. This type of energy generation can have potential health risks for wind farm workers.

The hard-hitting team behind the paper were:

Milad Abbasi, Mohammad Reza Monnazzam, Seyyed Abolfazl Zakerian, Department of Occupational Health Engineering, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Arash Akbarzadeh, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Mohammad Hossein Ebrahimi Department of Occupational Health Engineering, School of Public Health, Shahroud University of Medical Sciences, Shahroud, Iran.

The full paper is available here: Impact of wind turbine sound on general health, sleep disturbance and annoyance of workers: a pilot-study in Manjil wind farm, Iran

Wind Industry Thugs….Destroying Lives, With Impunity. (Gov’t sanctioned)

November 3, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Fighting a Monstrous & Cruel Industry: Ireland Declares War on the Great Wind Power Fraud

November 3, 2015 by stopthesethings 1 Comment

****

What kills the wind industry is facts; including the fact that rural communities are fighting back, simply because THESE THINGS DON’T WORK at any level. Here’s a tale from the Emerald Isle that combines just about every pertinent fact, of the kind that spells inevitable doom for the wind industry and its parasites, everywhere.

Families forced to move out of homes due to industrial monster wind turbines
Irish Mirror
Henry Fingleton
9 October 2015

Prolonged exposure to this low frequency noise causes insomnia, headaches, nosebleeds, anxiety and a general inability to function normally

****

A war is taking place in rural Ireland. Not one with guns, bullets or bombs but with wind turbines and pylons.

Families are being forced to move out of their homes due to the negative health impacts of these giant industrial monsters.

The enormous turbines make so much noise, people who live near them cannot sleep.

Prolonged exposure to this low frequency noise causes insomnia, headaches, nosebleeds, anxiety and a general inability to function normally. Children are especially vulnerable.

Were you ever in the toilets of a night club and noticed how you could feel the base drum in your chest – that’s low frequency noise.

Imagine your children trying to sleep with that sensation.

Shortly after a turbine was built 1.6km from their home, one Co Cork family noticed their kids falling asleep at breakfast. This quickly became a rush to hospital with severe headaches and nosebleeds.

This family was forced to move from their home.

Thankfully, once at a safe distance away, they eventually returned to full health.

The wind developers denied liability and are facing legal action.

Meanwhile, this family can’t live in their home and can’t sell it because once a windfarm is built near a home, the value plummets.

Families are effectively being evicted by these developers.

But who can they turn to for help? Who is protecting our families, our children?

Alan Kelly is Environment Minister and it is his department’s job to make sure proper guidelines are in place to protect us.

But the wind industry is a cruel business and is forcing the Government to ignore the problem.

These turbines are so big – up to 185m. If you laid this out flat in Croke Park it wouldn’t fit in the stadium.

Labour Minister Alex White certainly isn’t helping.

He has been heavily lobbied by the wind industry not to publish guidelines so they have effectively blocked any measures that would help prevent this terrible situation where families all over the country are being made so sick they have to leave their homes.

Mr White says we can’t put anything in place that might impinge on wind developers because it’s the only way to meet renewable energy targets.

But opponents point to a fully-costed and assessed plan to convert Moneypoint power station in Co Clare from coal to sustainable biomass as a viable alternative.

If this was done, there would be no need for the massive grid upgrade with towering pylons snaking through the countryside to carry the power from the wind farms.

And we would save the country almost €3.5billion.

That’s almost €2,000 for every single worker in Ireland – €2,000 of your taxes wasted on pylons we don’t need.

But it gets worse. You also have to pay for the expensive electricity created by all these wind farms.

Look at your next ESB bill, see the PSO levy – most of it is meant for the wind developers.

Another way of taking money out of your pocket.

Converting Moneypoint could be done for a tenth of the cost of the Government’s plans for all the turbines and pylons.

Mr White admits, incredibly, they’ve never even looked at this alternative.

Besides the tragedy of families having to move from their homes, all of us have to pay huge electricity prices.

We have the third highest in Europe, mainly because of the cost of wind energy.

Contrary to popular belief, it turns out wind farms are not even good for the environment, giving us tiny CO2 savings.

So much for the “green, clean” image – turns out it’s a marketing slogan churned out by public relations gurus.

If there’s one thing this country can be really proud of is our truly world-class racehorses and stud farms.

Ann Marie O’Brien of world-renowned Ballydoyle racing stables says: “Wind turbines and pylons are incompatible with racehorses.”

This energy policy will destroy our bloodstock industry which directly employs 15,000 people.

That would be a devastating loss for our country.

Government energy policy is to turn our beautiful country into a pin cushion of massive industrial wind turbines, pylons and power lines.

And ALL for what?

No benefit for the economy, no benefit for the environment, and definitely no benefit for the ordinary working people.

It’s time this Government called a halt to the marching terror these wind farms and pylons are bringing to all corners of the country.

Time to stop the war that is being waged on our landscape.

Until that happens, nowhere is safe.
Irish Mirror

	How The Climate Grif… on There is NO Global Warming…
	Bob Bateman on Government-Induced Climaphobia…
	William Hooi on Germany’s Renewable Energy Dis…
	Jessica on Issues for Landowners to Consi…
	Raymond on Poorest Families Left Powerles…

"Mothers Against Wind Turbines™" Phoenix Rising…

Children Deserve Protection!

Dysfunctional wind turbines!

Wind Turbines Do NOT Reduce CO2….

Wind Industry’s CO2 Abatement Claims Go Up in Smoke

Common Law Being Used to Fight Wind Turbine Noise

More Proof that Wind Energy is a SCAM! It’s NOT About the Environment!!!

UK’s Wind ‘Powered’ Disaster: Britain to Roll Out Thousands of Diesel Generators for 1.5GW of Wind Farm ‘Back-Up’

Wind Energy…..Much Less Power, for MUCH MORE money!!!

Rocketing Prices AND Blackouts: South Australians Lament Their Dark & Dismal Wind ‘Powered’ Future

Unreliable, Impractical Wind Turbines – When the Wind Don’t Blow, the Lights Don’t Glow!

Another Wind Power Collapse has Britain Scrambling to Keep its Lights On (Again)

Windpusher’s Noise Studies Have Fatal Flaws…..Not Surprising!

Major Flaw Massachusetts : Wind Turbine Health Impact Study 2012

Falmouth, MA

Windpushers are so Corrupt, it Will Turn Your Stomach! Liars & Thieves!

Massachusetts Epicenter Of US Wind Turbine Corruption

Falmouth, MA

Harvey Wrightman Explains How One Wind Company is Bilking Taxpayers for $287,040,645.00 Per Year.

Here’s how NextEra makes $287,040,645/year from Ontario wind projects

More Proof that Proximity to Wind Turbines, Affects Sleep & Quality of Life

Scientific Proof: Wind Turbine Noise Causes Wind Farm Worker’s Sleep & Health to Suffer

Wind Industry Thugs….Destroying Lives, With Impunity. (Gov’t sanctioned)

Fighting a Monstrous & Cruel Industry: Ireland Declares War on the Great Wind Power Fraud

Wind Industry’s CO2 Abatement Claims Go Up in Smoke

UK’s Wind ‘Powered’ Disaster: Britain to Roll Out Thousands of Diesel Generators for 1.5GW of Wind Farm ‘Back-Up’

Rocketing Prices AND Blackouts: South Australians Lament Their Dark & Dismal Wind ‘Powered’ Future

Share this:

Another Wind Power Collapse has Britain Scrambling to Keep its Lights On (Again)

Scientific Proof: Wind Turbine Noise Causes Wind Farm Worker’s Sleep & Health to Suffer

Fighting a Monstrous & Cruel Industry: Ireland Declares War on the Great Wind Power Fraud