Hi all,
This very important German documentary from Spiegel TV was aired on June 7, 2015. We have added English subtitles.
(The YouTube link is just under the video)
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Ron and Chris Jelbart, and their son, Peter have come to prominence on these pages once or twice; for all the wrong reasons.
Ron and Peter have given evidence about the debilitating impacts of incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound on their ability to sleep and function as a farmer and heavy-vehicle driver:
Tide Turns as Senate Inquiry hears from the Wind Industry’s “Road-Kill”
Peter went on to detail how incessant night-time noise from AGL’s non-compliant Macarthur disaster impacts on his ability to operate safely behind the wheel:
Now, Peter has penned a simple but cutting riposte to the useful idiots at Fairfax and the ABC (aka the ‘Ministry of Truth’) that parrot wind industry lies and myths in blind deference to their Overlords. The letter got a run in the local rag, but STT thinks it worthy of much wider distribution.
TO THE EDITOR
Dear Sir,
I am writing in response to the latest media bombardment from the Clean Energy Council, formerly known as the Australian Wind Energy Alliance. This was in response to Tony Abbott’s interview where he said in no uncertain terms that he finds wind turbines visually awful and very noisy.
My radio station of choice is triple j. I listen to this daily at work and on weekends, and enjoy the musical content and lack of commercialisation.
Whilst listening to Dr Karl with Zan Rowe last week a person rang in with a question concerning health impacts from living in the vicinity of wind turbines. The answer that followed by the somewhat funny, often likeable doctor raised questions in my mind. There wasn’t a mutter or stumble, a tangent or a hesitation, no tweets from the audience and no need to refer to google scholar, just a torrent of denial of any sort of health impacts from wind turbines, all in all a very unscientific answer.
The definite nature of the response, although not surprised by his slant, aroused my suspicion. It all clicked after talking to my father on Friday night. This was a posed question with an already written answer, as was “Ian” from Macarthur who spoke to Neil Mitchell Friday morning. “Dennis” from Woodhouse who spoke to 774 ABC was also a suspect caller, again on Friday morning.
The ABC 7:30 report Thursday evening spoke to Mark Butler, the Federal Shadow Minister for Environment, obviously pro Wind Farm. Hamish and Anna Officer appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Standard, over the course of a couple of days.
What we have seen is the full force of the wind energy sectors Media and HR departments trying to turn the tide after Tony Abbott’s interview, well helped by the heavily Left leaning and gutless Media. The ABC is well known for its allegiance to the Labour side of politics and the Fairfax run Standard is obviously nailing its colours to the mast in no uncertain terms, after the last few days’ stories and editorials.
Whilst the Fairfax Warrnambool Standard does a great job on covering local news, such as school fetes and country football and netball, their coverage on the issue of wind farms has been pathetic. No journalist has sought deeper answers or asked proper questions. It seems they get all they need to cover a story straight from the huge Media departments of the wind farm operators, the same rhetoric always. Any complainant is just a jealous neighbour suffering from Nocebo.
There is a reason that there is a senate inquiry happening at the moment. I spoke briefly at the Portland hearing about the effects of sleep disturbance and deprivation that I suffer as a neighbour of Industrial Wind Turbines, a consequence of being stimulated by low frequency noise and infrasound. Steven Cooper’s research at Cape Bridgewater along with NASA’s research done years ago by Neil Kelley, confirm that infrasound has been known, and hidden by wind farm companies for a very long time.
The noise testing done at home pre and post windfarm is farcical, designed and financed by the wind farm companies to give them the answers they seek, lost data, flat batteries and setting up testing equipment under trees etc to distort and manipulate the truth all part of the game. Low frequency noise and infrasound is not part of the testing.
No one who has not had to live beside a windfarm for an extended period, and who isn’t subject to strict “gag” clauses, such as hosts and other neighbours who receive money for tree screening etc. is qualified to speak on the subject of windfarm noise. The sheer stupidity of the comments from people who pull up under them and say “I can hardly hear them” shows a complete lack of understanding of the infrasound problem and can only be put down to absolute ignorance or complete arrogance.
These visually awful, or “somewhat graceful and beautiful towers of man’s going to save mankind from himself” windmills, depending on your persuasion, apparently blend in a little too well to the landscape for our avian friends. As reported in 2014 “conservative estimates of bird deaths are at 10 per tower per year” and during official searches at AGL’s Macarthur wind farm 64 carcasses were found including falcons, kestrels, shrouded kites and a spotted harrier, as well as 6 Wedge Tailed Eagles. For an individual this bird kill would be disastrous, resulting in prison, fines and (rightly deserved) bad publicity but for a wind farm it’s all in a “day’s work”.
The people who are writing in weekly to papers such as the Standard are not political activists. They are farmers, teachers, secretaries, retirees, Salt of the Earth people. People with far better things to do, but impacted to such a degree that they will fight, they will tell their story and they will pursue the truth. The only thing that keeps them motivated is the fact that they know they have a problem and it’s not just “in their heads”.
They are not the liars, the villains, the cheats, the greedy, or the soft of heart or will.
Peter Jelbart
Hawkesdale
Nice work, Peter.
Although we think him too fair on the wind industry shills that people the struggling Fairfax stable and the ABC.
Pig ignorance, among children and the uninitiated, can be excused for a while, but in the face of insurmountable facts, not forever.
STT has repeatedly clobbered the myth perpetuated by the lunatics of the hard-‘green’-left that wind power is capable of not only displacing, but wholly replacing, conventional generation sources, such as coal, gas and hydro:
Why Coal Miners, Oil and Gas Producers Simply Love Wind Power
Either our current crop of journos can’t interpret simple graphs or understand basic economics? Or their eyes simply glaze over while they mutter “no, it can’t be true?”
And the same horror and disbelief must grip them when faced with buckets of splattered bats and ute-loads of slaughtered birds:
Bird Carcass Count proves AGL’s Macarthur Wind Farm is an Avian Slaughterhouse
Faced with a few pics of Eagles sliced in two, shaken, they’re reduced to stuttering something about its “all okay because their cat once killed a bird too”.
Then there’s the classic wind industry spin – highlighted by Peter – that: “Any complainant is just a jealous neighbour suffering from Nocebo”.
It’s a wind industry line that was always specious and self-serving, but – in the light of the evidence given by Clive and Trina Gare to the Senate Inquiry – it’s downright dishonest.
Clive and Trina have hosted 19 2.1 MW Suzlon s88 turbines for five years, pocketing over $1 million along the way; and, yet, gave solemn evidence that the incessant low-frequency noise that’s generated at night-time has ruined their ability to sleep in their own home; and that they wouldn’t live within 20 km of a wind farm if they had their choice over again:
While Graham Lloyd from The Australian gave that story a run, don’t expect the ABC or Fairfax to do likewise.
And a little journalistic nouse would have uncovered what the wind industry has known, and worked like demons to cover up, for around 30 years:
But, no, those kind of facts would never do.
You see, as with any cult, even so much as questioning the mantra is tantamount to heresy – which leads to exclusion, if not expulsion, from the warmth and safety of the compound.
Instead, the chants from acolytes have grown louder, and more shrill, in an effort to maintain their own confidence in their increasingly shaky beliefs.
And so it was, in the last week, that hitherto hard-core heathens started quoting that world renowned long-range weather forecaster, the Pope – as the answer to their apocalyptic prayers and need for self-validation.
Now, with all due respect to His Holiness, directing his congregation in prayer for the poor and needy is a far more sensible use of his time, than prophesying about the temperature in 50 years time.
As that great philosopher, Yogi Berra warned: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
Notwithstanding that sage advice, STT is happy to predict that the Pope will end up with the same level of credibility as Australia’s own long-range weather forecaster, and ABC favourite, Tim Flannery (for a rundown on Tim’s prodigious prognostic skills see our post here).
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Not only is the current crop, claiming to call themselves journalists, gullible, they’re nasty too. The ABC’s political cutie pie, Annabel Crabb scooped the gold medal when she called long-suffering wind farm victims “Dick Brains” on ABC radio:
And the same outlets cite, with veneration, a former tobacco advertising guru as their “high priest” on the question of adverse health effects. Notwithstanding that his qualifications are limited to the effect ofadvertising on rates of smoking. The fact that he ridicules and demeans people he’s never met as “wind farm wing-nuts” doesn’t seem to trouble the ABC at all. What’s that stuff in its Charter about “balance” and “objectivity”?
No, what’s dished up from Fairfax and the National Broadcaster can’t be explained by simple, seasoned ignorance. As Ben Franklin put it:
“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid”.
At Fairfax and the ABC they’re clearly working very hard.
Credit: By Iain Ramage | The Press and Journal | 22 June 2015 | ~~
Protesters in the north are warning windfarm operators that some schemes could be shut down for breaching noise limits.
Highland activists are preparing to follow the lead of counterparts in England and Ireland who have collated extensive data they say proves that planning conditions have been flouted at a number of windfarms.
Campaigners in the north believe similar gauging of the industry in Scotland could open the floodgates for legal action against offending operators.
Sound estimates are usually carried out by developers as part of the groundwork for planning applications to give an indication of anticipated noise levels.
But there is currently no obligation to carry out monitoring once a scheme is built — at which stage councils merely respond to individual complaints about noise.
Residents living near a turbine development in Cambridgeshire have compiled what is thought to be the most comprehensive sound history of any UK windfarm.
Monitoring has taken place over two-and-a-half years, using industry-standard recording equipment to reveal what they claim have been regular breaches at the Cottonfarm scheme at Gravely.
Highland campaigners have seen the equipment operate and now plan to instal similar devices in the north. Bev Gray, 71, who worked in renewable energy before retiring, stopped holidaying in Scotland due to the spread of windfarms.
As an adviser to a residents’ group, he claims his local wind scheme – Cotton farm – is “one of the noisiest in the world”, based on data he gleaned by installing a £16,000 machine to measure the decibel output.
Residents there now want the equipment installed at every windfarm, at the owners’ expense, as part of planning conditions.
Mr Gray said: “Developer data is never tested because it’s always taken as being accurate.
“From a month’s worth of monitoring they take a minute’s worth of the lowest noise level to produce a figure.
“It’s part of the smoke and mirrors of an illusion that allows them to build windfarms close to homes.”
The Cotton farm scheme was taken over by a City of London investment group.
Spokesman Tom Rayner said: “Greencoat UK Wind has worked with the local environmental health officer to monitor noise levels and will continue to do so as required.”
Mr Gray said his data had been taken on board by the local authorities in south Cambridgeshire and would allow people to use “accurate information” as a basis for legal action.
“We’re gradually bringing the wind industry to account,” he said.
“At the moment they can do what the hell they like. Nobody can prove them wrong because the authorities aren’t monitoring things.”
Prominent Highland anti-windfarm campaigner Lyndsey Ward, from Beauly near Inverness, has visited Cambridge and Ireland to witness communities’ monitoring of various schemes. She said the move was prompted by plans tabled by ABO Wind for a turbine scheme at Allt Carach, south- west of Beauly.
She said: “The potential devastation on our lives from ABO Wind’s proposed 25-turbine development has forced us to research the noise issue in more depth.
“Our home would have the prevailing wind in direct line from the turbines. This is not just for us, but for others across Scotland.
“Sleep deprivation can lead to more serious illnesses. Why there’s no legislation to compel developers to constantly monitor their operations beggars belief.”
Tom Harrison, project manager with Inverness-based ABO Wind UK, said: “Allt Carach is still under investigation, therefore its planning submission is uncertain. We would always comply with any noise legislation or planning condition set by the relevant planning authority.
“Should a community have concerns over noise, after consultation with that relevant community, a decision as to whether noise monitoring equipment is required would be considered.”
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On the plus side: Complaints ‘will be investigated’ and projects get ‘rigorous’ checks
Highland Council said last night it would investigate any complaints about noise levels at turbine developments.
An industry body insisted all projects were subjected to “rigorous” examination at the planning stage. A spokesman for the local authority said: “We seek to ensure that noise levels at a particular house nearby any turbine does not exceed minimum levels.
“Where there is a complaint this is investigated and, if necessary, a resolution sought to any breach of planning condition.”
Joss Blamire, of trade body Scottish Renewables, said: “All wind energy projects in Scotland go through a rigorous planning process that assesses the noise impacts of developments. Only those with acceptable impacts will be consented.”
Huntingdon District Council in Cambridgeshire plans to measure noise levels at Cottonfarm Windfarm after receiving a flood of complaints from residents in surrounding villages. The decision was prompted by evidence recorded by equipment installed by residents.
Locals argue the 413ft tall turbines were built too close to homes.
The sound of the turbines has been likened to that of an aircraft or helicopter in flight.
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The Scots are a tenacious bunch; and their history is a pungent mix of romance and tragedy.
Legendary characters like William Wallace – who – single-handed – raised a fearsome Highland revolt – muscled up against the English invaders, time and time again.
Wallace, with Andrew Moray gave a well-trained and drilled English army a drubbing at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in September 1297. However, Wallace, by then Guardian of Scotland, suffered an ignominious defeat in July 1298 at the Battle of Falkirk. Disunity was Wallace’s undoing: his Norman cavalry did a bunk as the battle began; the hero escaping by the skin of his teeth. Seven years later, and the Scots’ great defender was in English chains awaiting a fate worse than simple death.
With Wallace’s mortal remains carved up and spread across the English Realm, Robert de Bruce took up the mantle – giving his internal and external enemies hell, all over the Highlands, from Buchan to Galloway. De Bruce, like Wallace before him, was often a victim of internal intrigues and diabolical disunity. Quarrels with his archrival, John Comyn and his backers, and a defeat at the hands of the English, saw de Bruce relinquish his title as Guardian, flee to the Hebrides and later Ireland.
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Reacting to more betrayal by his brethren led to the murder of Comyn by de Bruce, who, having regrouped, went on to hammer Edward II in the battle for Stirling Castle, in June 1314. At the Battle of Bannockburn, de Bruce pulled off the defeat of an English army led by Edward – a force that heavily outnumbered his own: some 7,000 Scots (with a mere 500 mounted) faced 17,000 English troops: 2,000 heavy cavalry and 15,000 infantryman, bristling with longbows.
Victory for de Bruce at Bannockburn became his, and Scottish, legend.
For Scotland, the next four centuries brought a cycle of victories and defeats, as English monarchs variously sought to beguile or crush the Scots at their whim. The last romantic hoorah echoed at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, where Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Jacobite rebellion was ground into the heather and peat, near Inverness.
Through their history, in battle, the Scots were usually outnumbered, but rarely outwitted. However, the tragedy and the romance of that history was always tinged with double-dealing and betrayal. Wind the clock forward, and the same elements came to bear in the battle to keep the Highlands free of bat-chomping, bird slicing, blade-chucking, pyrotechnic,sonic-torture devices.
Sometime back, we likened the efforts to carpet the Highlands in tens of thousands of giant fans with the first waves of the Croft Clearances:
Giant Fans: the new Scottish “Croft Clearers”
Now, thanks to the Tories thumping election win, those North of the Border have won the prospect of respite.
David Cameron – a Scot in name and ancestry – has made it very clear that his government has no intention of advancing a single penny in subsidies to wind power outfits from here on:
Brits’ Wind Power Nightmare to End Soon: Tories Set to Take the Axe to Subsidies
The question is, how Cameron’s election manifesto will play out for Highlanders? Here’s The Telegraph heralding an age of deliverance, if not outright victory.
Rural Scotland’s delight at wind farm subsidy axe
The Telegraph
Simon Johnson
18 Jun 2015
Rural communities have reacted with relief and delight after David Cameron called time on the SNP’s wind farm march across Scotland’s countryside.
Anti-turbine campaigners praised the UK Government’s decision to exclude new onshore wind farms from claiming a key subsidy from April next year, 12 months earlier than expected.
They said the move, which is expected to stop the construction of many developments not yet given planning permission, was a welcome respite for communities “besieged by subsidy chasers” taking advantage of the SNP’s “open door” policy.
But they said it was to the “eternal shame” of the Scottish Government that it was only the Conservatives who had heeded the concerns of rural Scots, with one prominent campaigner stating: “Thank God for Westminster.”
SNP ministers were furious with the decision, even claiming they may challenge it in the courts, with Nicola Sturgeon describing it as “wrong-headed”, “perverse” and “downright outrageous”.
In a letter to Mr Cameron, she warned the wind farm companies may sue the taxpayer for compensation for planned schemes “rendered useless by this decision.” The industry claimed the move would cost consumers up to £3 billion.
However, the John Muir Trust, the eminent environmental protection group, said it was the “right time” to work out an energy mix that is affordable “without damaging our wild and natural landscapes.”
The funding for the subsidy comes from the Renewable Obligation (RO), which is funded by levies added to household bills. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said there will be grace period for projects already with planning permission.
Although energy policy is reserved to Westminster, the SNP government in Edinburgh has used its control over the planning system in Scotland to encourage the construction of thousands of turbines across the countryside.
Alex Salmond, the former First Minister, set a target of generating the equivalent of all Scotland’s electricity from renewable sources by 2020, with the vast majority coming from onshore wind.
Amid growing opposition from local communities, Scotland’s most senior planning officials even warned that the countryside risked becoming a “wind farm landscape”.
But the Scottish Government told council planners they had set aside too little land for wind farms and Scotland now hosts more than half the UK’s onshore turbines.
Scotland Against Spin, a national alliance of groups and individuals which campaigns against turbines being built in unsuitable locations, said it was “delighted” the Tories had honoured an election manifesto promise to “end the ludicrously generous subsidies for onshore wind farms.”
Graham Lang, the group’s chairman, said: “Speculative developers from across the world have flocked to Scotland because of the SNP’s open door policy to the wind industry. Scottish communities besieged by subsidy-chasers can at last look forward to some respite.
“Yet to its eternal shame the Scottish Government has ignored the clamour for reform from its own people. There is a terrible irony that the Conservatives at Westminster, not the nationalists at Holyrood, have finally stood up to the wind speculators and put the interests of communities and consumers first.”
Lyndsey Ward said she hoped the decision would stop the construction of 25 turbines near her home just outside of Beauly, in the Scottish Highlands.
She said she was “fairly disgusted” with the Scottish Government as Fergus Ewing, the SNP Energy Minister, had “parroted wind industry propaganda”. She added: “They should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Thank God for Westminster.”
Campaigners against a plan to erect 18 410ft-tall turbines in rural Angus, above the Blackwater Reservoir, also welcomed the announcement.
Sue Smith, a spokesman for the Friends of Backwater and Glenisla Against Turbines group, whose husband Maj Gen Martin Smith is Commandant General of the Royal Marines, said: “The removal of obscene levels of financial gain which these subsidies offer should discourage land owners and turbine developers from exploiting irresistible opportunities to make a fast buck, at the expense of local communities and their environments.”
She also praised the UK Government plans to give communities the final say on large wind farm developments south of the Border and attacked the SNP for failing to introduce this in Scotland.
But, speaking at First Minister’s Questions, Ms Sturgeon said the decision was “utterly wrong-headed” and her government would “do everything in our power” to get it changed.
Mr Ewing said repeated the wind farm companies’ claims the move could cost consumers £3 billion, adding: “We have warned the UK Government that the decision, which appears irrational, may well be the subject of a judicial review.”
But Murdo Fraser, Scottish Tory energy spokesman, said: “This is a Conservative Government standing up for communities that the central belt SNP couldn’t care less about.”
He added: “The latest figures show that, with all the wind projects already constructed, those under construction or given consent, we have already met the SNPs 100 per cent target for renewable electricity.”
A DECC spokesman said: “If we’d allowed the RO to stay open longer, we could have ended up with more projects than we can afford – which would have led to either higher bills, or other renewable technologies losing out on support.”
The Telegraph
As with our in-a-nutshell overview of Scottish history above, it will be internal forces, disunity and betrayal that stand as the only obstacle to outright victory for the Scots.
Claims by wind power outfits about suing the government, in order to ensure their ability to obtain massive subsidies until kingdom come, involve little more than the petulant rattling of Claymores.
Hopeful developers are not in any contractual relationship with the government; and have little more than an expectation that government (read taxpayer and power consumer, in their guise as voters) largesse is endless and immutable. Unfortunately for wind power outfits, mere “expectations” based on policy “promises” don’t provide the soundest basis to sue for “damages”.
And Nicola Sturgeon’s huffing and puffing is little more than, well, hot air.
STT’s Highland operatives have previously pointed out that there is absolutely no market for any more intermittent and unreliable wind power in Scotland: that ‘market’ is saturated.
The only hope for Sturgeon and her wind industry backers is to send Scottish sparks south of the Border – in huge volumes – whenever the wind is blowing. However, through quirks of history – some of which we’ve touched on – that’s an area still controlled by David Cameron.
Given Cameron’s resolve, and Sturgeon’s policy and legislative impotence, STT suggests that it would be far from premature for Highlanders to don their kilts and celebrate their victory with a wee Highland fling.
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STT keeps a close eye on Germany. It’s held up by eco-fascist nut jobs around the globe as the wind power “Super Model” – although, as we pointed out in this recent post, their “pin-up girl” is looking a little worse for wear:
Germany’s Wind Power ‘Dream’ Becomes a Living Nightmare
Last week – with the announcement that South Australians can look forward to skyrocketing power prices with the closure of its cheapest conventional generation source, the Port Augusta power station – we made it pretty clear that wind power is nothing but fantastic nonsense:
South Australians are well down the track to an economic disaster – with its unemployment rate of 7.6% (and rising fast) it’s easily the worst performing State in the Nation, apparently keen as mustard to get whacked with the tag “rust-belt”. Rising power prices are punishing struggling families – 50,000 homes do without power altogether – and a raft of power hungry businesses and industries are shutting up shop for good (see this article).
STT usually wears its optimism on its sleeve, but holds grave fears, not only for South Australia, but for the Country as a whole.
For a taste of what we’re in for – in a cooking show “here’s one we’ve prepared earlier” moment – we’ll cut to Germany for another look at how its ludicrous efforts to rely upon wind power have sent power markets into chaos, and, with electricity prices skyrocketing, has left 800,000 German homes without power. Here’s Germany’s leading renewable energy expert and climate science critic Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt on the unfolding calamity.
Energy Expert Issues Warning On “Carbon-Free Society”: “Destruction On An Astronomical Scale” … “Cost Avalanche”
NoTricksZone
6 June 2015
Germany’s leading renewable energy expert and climate science critic Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt warns of an irrational and panicked rush into renewable energies.
In a penned opinion piece in Germany’s Manager Magazin titled: “Why a Phase Out of Coal Would Be Damaging”, the German professor believes the movement to divest from fossil fuels is seriously misguided and that the move to a completely carbon-free global society would lead to “destruction on an astronomical scale”. He writes:
“In order to produce the same amount of power with wind, we would see a surface area consumption and corresponding destruction of natural habitat on an astronomical scale.”
Fritz Vahrenholt was formerly responsible for the renewable energies arm of European power giant RWE, RWE Innogy GmbH. No one has overseen the installation of as much renewable energy in Europe as Vahrenholt has. In the field of wind energy he is a leading expert. He has since become a leading critic of renewable energy and climate science.
Vahrenholt, a professor of chemistry and former Environment Senator for the City of Hamburg in the SPD socialist party, asks:
“How realistic is it really to produce not only electricity but also heat and fuels for transportation worldwide from China to Brazil over the coming decades without fossil fuels? As before in China a coal power plant goes online every 14 days, and India is well on the way to do the same as its neighbor.”
“Cost avalanche of 1000 billion euros”
Vahrenholt sharply criticizes Germany’s transistion away from coal and nuclear power and over to renewables because of the enormous cost burdens that citzens will have to bear in the years ahead. He writes that German Economics Minister Sigmar Gabriel knows that “if the brakes on renewable are not applied, a cost avalanche of 1000 billion euros is headed our way”.
Uncontrollable supply
And as exorbitant quantities of wind and solar power are added to the power grid, Vahrenholt warns that during windy and sunny periods, large quantities of power will have to be “disposed of” on foreign markets.
“We will have to dispose of the power in foreign countries more often than we do today and even pay money to Austria, Holland, Poland and the Czech Republic to take the power.”
Excess power of course would be ruinous to foreign markets. Vahrenholt reminds that sun and wind energy are fraught with technical problems because they work a minimal part time. Storage technology remains nowhere in sight.
Will have near zero impact
And even if Germany were able to solve the unsolvable technical problems, the CO2 emissions savings that Germany would achieve through a shut-down of its coal power plants would be offset by growth in China in a matter of just 2 months. The result would be no “climate protection” at all and Germans would only be able to boast over a flickering mess of a power supply.
In Vahrenholt’s view, the German green energy model is so costly that “no country in the world is going to follow it”.
Exaggerated science, flawed models
He also calls the climate science “wildly exaggerated” and maintains the climate models have been false:
“There are more and more scientific findings showing that the climate effect by CO2 has been wildly exaggerated by the IPCC. There has not been any significant warming in 16 years even though one third of the historical CO2 emissions occurred in the same time period and the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is rising year after year.”
Vahrenholt describes the climate models as a joke as they do not even take the long-known ocean and solar cycles into account.
Leaping before looking
He tells us that Germany is rushing unnecessarily into renewable energies and that the natural cycles mean we have lots of time and that we should take that time and do the transition in a sensible manner. He asks:
“Why the frenzied go-it-alone approach that is putting so much at risk? No nation on the planet is going to follow us when they see their own industrial base being destroyed and citizens financially overwhelmed.”
Vahrenholt adds:
“In addition to the destruction of capital, there is also a grand destruction of many thousands of jobs.”
But none of this seems to impress Germany’s green government authorities, who continue to overzealously pursue shutting down fossil fuels and pushing for large-scale installation of an piece-meal energy infrastructure that has been proven to be technically flawed.
Consequences “close to insurmountable”
The German energy folly is already taking its toll, Vahrenholt writes. He claims that the “insidious process of deindustrialization has already begun” in Germany because of skyrocketing energy prices and growing uncertainty.
Consequently Vahrenholt is calling for a “fundamental reform” of the country’s energy policy and a return to a more market-oriented approach. He calls Germany’s famous EEG renewable energy feed-in act an obsolete model that is “bringing no reduction in CO2 emissions” and one that is “eroding Germany as a place for industry” and whose “consequences will be close to insurmountable”.
NoTricksZone
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When the Senate Inquiry into the great wind power fraud kicked off in Portland, Victoria on 30 March, STT predicted that the wind industry was headed for a world of pain, misery and woe (see our post here). Well, not to say we told you so, but things are going from disastrous to catastrophic. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
To say the wind industry is in a state of panic-filled hysteria is to put it mildly: this week has its parasites and spruikers turning up the dial to apoplectic.
The Senate Inquiry has just issued its Interim Report (available here) – which hasn’t helped calm their thread-bare nerves.
And the shenanigans in Canberra over moves by the Cross-Bench Senators (which includes Senators Madigan, Leyonhjelm, Day and Xenophon who sit on the Inquiry) to extract concessions from the Coalition on a better deal for all Australians – especially those currently affected and/or threatened by the incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound – has the usual bunch of Twitter jockeys working over-time, ranting about coal-fuelled conspiracies.
Added to which is fact that two South Australian turbine hosts – who – despite pocketing over $1 million for hosting 19 turbines – gave evidence to the Senate that the “unbearable” noise has ruined their ability to sleep in their own home; so much so that they would never do it again; and that they wouldn’t live within 20km of a wind farm.
That set of damning facts has completely up-ended the rubbish about “nocebo” effects; and all the other drivel pedaled by former tobacco advertising gurus and the like.
While STT had the scoop on that story, it didn’t take long for Australia’s National Daily to pick it up. Over to STT Champion, Graham Lloyd.
Tougher scrutiny on wind farming after crossbench talks
The Australian
Graham Lloyd
18 June 2015
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Mary Morris, at the Waterloo windfarm north of Adelaide, conducted one of the only studies accepted by the National Health and Medical Research Council.
Wind farms could face greater federal government scrutiny after a last-minute intervention by Tony Abbott ahead of the Senate vote on the revised renewable energy target today.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister met four crossbench senators concerned about the cost and possible health impacts of the renewable energy technology.
After the meeting, Environment Minister Greg Hunt was asked to write to senators David Leyonhjelm, John Madigan, Bob Day and Jacqui Lambie setting out the new protections.
A spokesman for Mr Hunt confirmed last night that a letter was being prepared.
The government is hoping a written pledge will avoid amendments to the RET legislation, which is expected to be voted on in the Senate today.
The crossbench senators have raised concerns about a range of issues regarding wind-farm developments and the fact that the revised RET will strongly favour wind.
Mr Abbott has said the reduced RET was designed to limit the number of wind farms built.
A Senate inquiry into wind farms will today release an interim report into its hearings, which have taken evidence from the wind industry, acoustics experts and residents who claim to have been affected.
The wind industry maintains claims that the technology is inefficient or potentially harmful to nearby residents have been thoroughly investigated and discounted. But one farm couple who has been paid $1 million to host 19 wind turbines over five years told the Senate inquiry that the noise had been unbearable.
South Australian cattle grazier Clive Gare told a hearing in Adelaide he was initially excited about hosting renewable energy, but now believed “towers should not be any closer than 5km to a dwelling”.
“If we had to buy another property it would not be within a 20km distance to a wind farm. I think that says it all,” Mr Gare said.
The wind industry has said complaints about noise impacts had not been made by people who received lucrative contracts to host them. Wind farm company AGL has paid thousands to insulate the Gare property from the noise of the wind turbines, which are as close as 800m from the house, but Mr Gare and his wife, Trina, told the inquiry they were still impacted.
Mary Morris, who conducted one of the only studies accepted by the National Health and Medical Research Council, said she would welcome any undertakings by the federal government to increase supervision.
Ms Morris became involved in the wind farms initially to support people who claimed to be affected by the Waterloo wind farm in South Australia.
In a speech to the Senate on the federal government’s compromise RET bill, Senator Leyonhjelm said the revised RET would be “no more than a wind industry support fund”.
Jacqui Lambie received support from Coalition senators for a speech in which she criticised reliance on renewable energy.
“Apart from hydro, the only way to de-carbonise energy is to move very quickly to nuclear,” she said. “And it’s about time we move to that option.”
The Australian
4:55PM BST 18 Jun 2015
Rural communities have reacted with relief and delight after David Cameron called time on the SNP’s wind farm march across Scotland’s countryside.
Anti-turbine campaigners praised the UK Government’s decision to exclude new onshore wind farms from claiming a key subsidy from April next year, 12 months earlier than expected.
They said the move, which is expected to stop the construction of many developments not yet given planning permission, was a welcome respite for communities “besieged by subsidy chasers” taking advantage of the SNP’s “open door” policy.
But they said it was to the “eternal shame” of the Scottish Government that it was only the Conservatives who had heeded the concerns of rural Scots, with one prominent campaigner stating: “Thank God for Westminster.”
SNP ministers were furious with the decision, even claiming they may challenge it in the courts, with Nicola Sturgeon describing it as “wrong-headed”, “perverse” and “downright outrageous”.
In a letter to Mr Cameron, she warned the wind farm companies may sue the taxpayer for compensation for planned schemes “rendered useless by this decision.” The industry claimed the move would cost consumers up to £3 billion.
However, the John Muir Trust, the eminent environmental protection group, said it was the “right time” to work out an energy mix that is affordable “without damaging our wild and natural landscapes.”
The funding for the subsidy comes from the Renewable Obligation (RO), which is funded by levies added to household bills. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said there will be grace period for projects already with planning permission.
Although energy policy is reserved to Westminster, the SNP government in Edinburgh has used its control over the planning system in Scotland to encourage the construction of thousands of turbines across the countryside.
Alex Salmond, the former First Minister, set a target of generating the equivalent of all Scotland’s electricity from renewable sources by 2020, with the vast majority coming from onshore wind.
Amid growing opposition from local communities, Scotland’s most senior planning officials even warned that the countryside risked becoming a “wind farm landscape”.
But the Scottish Government told council planners they had set aside too little land for wind farms and Scotland now hosts more than half the UK’s onshore turbines.
Nicola Sturgeon was outraged at the UK Government’s decision
Scotland Against Spin, a national alliance of groups and individuals which campaigns against turbines being built in unsuitable locations, said it was “delighted” the Tories had honoured an election manifesto promise to “end the ludicrously generous subsidies for onshore wind farms.”
Graham Lang, the group’s chairman, said: “ Speculative developers from across the world have flocked to Scotland because of the SNP’s open door policy to the wind industry. Scottish communities besieged by subsidy-chasers can at last look forward to some respite.
“Yet to its eternal shame the Scottish Government has ignored the clamour for reform from its own people. There is a terrible irony that the Conservatives at Westminster, not the nationalists at Holyrood, have finally stood up to the wind speculators and put the interests of communities and consumers first.”
Lyndsey Ward said she hoped the decision would stop the construction of 25 turbines near her home just outside of Beauly, in the Scottish Highlands.
She said she was “fairly disgusted” with the Scottish Government as Fergus Ewing, the SNP Energy Minister, had “parroted wind industry propaganda”. She added: “They should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Thank God for Westminster.”
Campaigners against a plan to erect 18 410ft-tall turbines in rural Angus, above the Blackwater Reservoir, also welcomed the announcement.
Sue Smith, a spokesman for the Friends of Backwater and Glenisla Against Turbines group, whose husband Maj Gen Martin Smith is Commandant General of the Royal Marines, said: “The removal of obscene levels of financial gain which these subsidies offer should discourage land owners and turbine developers from exploiting irresistible opportunities to make a fast buck, at the expense of local communities and their environments.”
She also praised the UK Government plans to give communities the final say on large wind farm developments south of the Border and attacked the SNP for failing to introduce this in Scotland.
But, speaking at First Minister’s Questions, Ms Sturgeon said the decision was “utterly wrong-headed” and her government would “do everything in our power” to get it changed.
Mr Ewing said repeated the wind farm companies’ claims the move could cost consumers £3 billion, adding: “We have warned the UK Government that the decision, which appears irrational, may well be the subject of a judicial review.”
But Murdo Fraser, Scottish Tory energy spokesman, said: “This is a Conservative Government standing up for communities that the central belt SNP couldn’t care less about.”
He added: “The latest figures show that, with all the wind projects already constructed, those under construction or given consent, we have already met the SNPs 100 per cent target for renewable electricity.”
A DECC spokesman said: “If we’d allowed the RO to stay open longer, we could have ended up with more projects than we can afford – which would have led to either higher bills, or other renewable technologies losing out on support.”
“This report records the committee’s concern with the issue of infrasound and low frequency noise emitted from wind turbines and the possible impact on human health.
Independent, multi-disciplinary and high quality research into this field is an urgent priority.”
1.1 The Senate Select Committee on Wind Turbines was established in December 2014. To date, it has received 464 submissions from a wide range of stakeholders. It has conducted public hearings in Portland in south-west Victoria on 30 March, in Cairns on 18 May, in Canberra on 19 May, in Melbourne on 9 June and in Adelaide on 10 June 2015. Further public hearings are planned in Canberra on 19 June and 23 June and in Sydney on 29 June 2015.
1.2 This represents a considerable volume of evidence relating directly to the committee’s terms of reference. The committee has received written and verbal evidence from State Governments, local councils, various federal government agencies, wind farm operators and manufacturers, country fire authorities, acousticians, medical experts and representatives from various associations and institutes. In addition, many private citizens have had the opportunity to voice their concerns with the planning, consultation, approval, development and operation of wind farms in Australia.
1.3 Access to all public submissions and public hearing transcripts can be found on the committee’s website.
1.4 This report presents seven headline recommendations. The committee believes that these recommendations are important and urgent given that legislation on the renewable energy target is due to be debated in the Senate shortly. The final report in August this year will provide supporting evidence and supporting recommendations. It will also address other terms of reference, including the merit of subsidies for wind farm operators and the effect of wind power on household power prices.
Recommendation 1
1.5 The committee recommends the Commonwealth Government create anIndependent Expert Scientific Committee on Industrial Sound responsible for providing research and advice to the Minister for the Environment on the impact on human health of audible noise (including low frequency) and infrasound from wind turbines. The IESC should be established under the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000.
Recommendation 2
1.6 The committee recommends that the National Environment Protection Council establish a National Environment Protection (Wind Turbine Infrasound and Low Frequency Noise) Measure (NEPM). This NEPM must be developed through the findings of the Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Industrial Sound. The Commonwealth Government should insist that the ongoing accreditation of wind turbine facilities under the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 in a State or Territory is dependent on the NEPM becoming valid law in that State or Territory.
Recommendation 3
1.7 The committee recommends that the Commonwealth Government introduceNational Wind Farm Guidelines which each Australian State and Territory Government should reflect in their relevant planning and environmental statutes. The committee proposes these guidelines be finalized within 12 months and that the Commonwealth Government periodically assess the Guidelines with a view to codifying at least some of them.
Recommendation 4
1.8 The committee recommends that eligibility to receive Renewable Energy Certificates should be made subject to general compliance with the National Wind Farm Guidelines and specific compliance with the NEPM. This should apply immediately to new developments, while existing and approved wind farms should be given a period of no more than five years in which to comply.
Recommendation 5
1.9 The committee recommends that the Commonwealth Government establish aNational Wind Farm Ombudsman to handle complaints from concerned community residents about the operations of wind turbine facilities accredited to receive renewable energy certificates. The Ombudsman will be a one-stop-shop to refer complaints to relevant state authorities and help ensure that complaints are satisfactorily addressed.
Recommendation 6
1.10 The committee recommends that the Commonwealth Government impose a levy on wind turbine operators accredited to receive renewable energy certificates to fund the costs of the Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Wind Turbines—including the funding of additional research—and the costs of a National Wind Farm Ombudsman.
Recommendation 7
1.11 The committee recommends that the data collected by wind turbine operators relating to wind speed, basic operation statistics including operating hours and noise monitoring should be made freely and publicly available on a regular basis. The proposed Independent Expert Scientific Committee should consult with scientific researchers and the wind industry to establish what data can be reasonably made freely and publicly available from all wind turbine operations accredited to receive renewable energy certificates.
1.12 Why are there so many people who live in close proximity to wind turbines complaining of similar physiological and psychological symptoms? As with previous Senate inquiries, this committee has gathered evidence from many submitters attributing symptoms of dizziness, nausea, migraines, high blood pressure, tinnitus, chronic sleep deprivation and depression to the operation of nearby wind turbines. The committee invites the public to read and consider the evidence of people who have experienced these symptoms and who attribute their anxiety and ill health to the operation of turbines.
1.13 These health affects should not be trivialised or ignored. The committee was particularly distressed by renewable energy advocates, wind farm developers and operators, public officials and academics who publicly derided and sometimes lampooned local residents who were genuinely attempting to make known the adverse health effects they were suffering.
1.14 The committee is aware of people complaining of these impacts who have since left their family home. Some now live a nomadic and uncertain existence. In one case, the now deserted home had been in the family for five generations—since the 1840s. These are not decisions taken lightly. Having left the turbine vicinity, several witnesses noted that the symptoms had faded if not disappeared.
1.15 Some submitters attribute these illnesses to a ‘nocebo effect’—a result of expectations of harm rather than exposure to turbine activity. This claim has been made by Professor Simon Chapman, a sociologist by training and a professor of Public Health at Sydney University. He has labelled wind turbine syndrome ‘a communicated disease’, claiming that it ‘spreads by…being talked about and is therefore a strong candidate for being defined as a psychogenic condition’.
1.16 However, most people recognise that noise including low frequency noise could cause these impacts and emphasise that noise standards, properly enforced, are crucial to ensuring public safety. This view acknowledges that the noise from wind turbines creates annoyances which can manifest in sleep disruption. The clear remedy is to set noise standards (such as the New Zealand Standard) and enforce these standards. This is essentially the public position of the relevant authorities in Australia.
1.17 The committee highlights the need for more research into the impact of low frequency noise and infrasound (0–20 hertz) from wind turbines on human health. A 2014 pilot study conducted by acoustician Mr Steven Cooper found a correlation between infrasound emitting from turbines at Cape Bridgewater in Victoria and ‘sensations’ felt, and diarised, by six residents of three nearby homes. By identifying a unique infrasound ‘wind turbine signature’, recording it as present in the homes, and linking it to ‘sensations’ felt by the residents, Mr Cooper’s research has received international attention.
1.18 It is clear that the extent and nature of wind turbines’ impact on human health is a contested issue. The nocebo effect, the existing standards for measuring audible noise and the NHMRC’s 2011 literature review have all been criticised by submitters and witnesses to this inquiry. The criticisms relate both to flaws in methodology and to inaccurate and incomplete findings.
1.19 Fundamentally, the lack of detailed, reliable data does not allow for a proper scientific conclusion to be drawn. The committee is struck by the considerable gaps in understanding about the impact of wind turbines on human health. These gaps have widely acknowledged key issues, both explicitly and implicitly:
1.20 Independent scientific research is needed into acoustic matters—such as whether each wind turbine has unique ‘signature’ and the effect of that signature on neighbouring turbines—and into health matters.
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