The World-Wide Wind Scam gets more Ridiculous, every day!

March 5, 2015 / 1957chev / 2 Comments

James Delingpole: UK’s Wind Power Debacle Reaches “High Farce”

March 5, 2015 by stopthesethings

The great wind farm farce
The Telegraph
James Delingpole
22 February 2015

Ed Davey’s plan for 400 turbines to be erected off the Yorkshire coast will be a heinous burden on the taxpayer

If ever there’s a competition for the most spectacularly pointless and wasteful project in engineering history, you’d be hard pressed to find amore promising candidate than the one announced this week, with great fanfare, by Energy Secretary Ed Davey.

Dogger Bank Creyke Beck is its name – and though it may seem a bit of an unfamiliar mouthful now, in future years it will trip off the tongue very nicely as the answer to any number of trivia questions.

As well as being the world’s largest offshore wind farm (covering 430 square miles), it will be the most expensive to build (£6-£8 billion), the most heavily subsidised (by as much as £900 million a year) and the one that does the most lasting damage to the UK economy.

But before we examine the downsides in more detail, let’s first see how Davey’s Department of Energy and Climate Change is trying to spin this misbegotten venture.

It will, according to DECC, generate enough electricity to power almost two million homes; it is expected to support “up to 900 green jobs in Yorkshire and Humberside and millions of pounds’ worth of investment to the UK’s economy”; and it will, of course, make a key contribution to Britain’s EU-mandated carbon emissions reduction target, whereby 32 per cent of all the electricity we need must come from renewable sources by 2020.

All this sounds superficially impressive. You can understand why a spokesman for industry lobbyist RenewableUK describes it as an “awesome” project. Each of its 400 turbines, when completed will be 600ft tall – one and a half times the height of Salisbury Cathedral spire.

The area they cover, 80 miles off the Yorkshire coast, will be bigger than Dartmoor National Park. And as a profit-maximising exercise it is almost without peer: the consortium building it, Forewind, will probably have covered its costs within the first 10 years. After that it can expect to generate well over £1 billion a year in profit.

These financial details, according to John Constable, director of wind industry analysts the Renewable Energy Foundation, are the project’s most troubling aspect.

“Not since British Leyland has the government awarded this much public subsidy to a single industry – and look how badly that ended,” he says. “It represents an experiment on such a scale that it could seriously disrupt the UK economy.”

To appreciate his concerns, you first need to understand the fundamental flaw of wind energy: being intermittent and unreliable (obviously, because it’s only available when the wind is blowing), it is a poor substitute for those other forms of energy (derived from fossil fuel or nuclear), which can be generated on demand according to consumer need.

This is why wind energy has to be so heavily subsidised. In a free market, no business would want to invest in a wind farm because no customer would want to buy its unreliable produce. So to make wind (and other renewables, like solar) more attractive to big business, the Government has rigged the market with a number of incentives.

Not only are renewables companies paid significantly above the going rate for what little energy they manage to produce when the wind is blowing, but also customers are forced to buy their product whether they like it or not.

Hence the involvement of Forewind (an international consortium ofenergy companies SSE, RWE, Statkraft and Statoil) in this massive capital project. Like sharks to blood, they have been lured by the eye-wateringly generous sweetener being offered by the Government.

For every megawatt (MW) of electricity their turbines produce, they will be paid the special offshore wind rate of £155 – more than three times what generators of fossil fuel electricity receive. In other words, a third of that money represents the market rate; the other two thirds is guaranteed, index-linked subsidy, created by government fiat and slapped on the bills of the hapless consumer.

If you asked DECC to justify this extraordinary £105 per MW surcharge it would give two main reasons. First, like all EU member states, Britain is obliged to fulfil its carbon emissions reduction targets. Second, it is a vital measure in the war to “combat climate change”.

Neither argument, unfortunately, holds much water. So many wind projects have either been built or approved by DECC that Britain has already overshot its carbon emissions reduction target. And, increasingly, most of the evidence suggests that the “climate change” threat is both woefully misunderstood and dangerously overstated.

And even if we take at face value official claims that anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to dangerous and unprecedented “global warming” there is little evidence that giant wind farms like the one proposed at Dogger Bank Creyke Beck could prevent it.

This is because, owing to its unreliable nature, wind power doesn’t actually displace any of the fossil fuel stations that need to remain on standby, continuing to supply the vast bulk of Britain’s energy needs. And also because, since wind turbines are so painfully inefficient it’s quite likely that in their brief lifetime what little “carbon” they save is more than offset by the greater quantities of “carbon” that have been exhausted manufacturing the turbines in the first place.

There are other problems, too. For a supposedly green, clean source of energy, turbines are remarkably eco-unfriendly. They are known to destroy wildlife on an industrial scale: according to the Spanish conservation charity SEO/Birdlife, a typical wind turbine kills between 110 and 330 birds per year. (Taking the lower estimate, that would see Creyke Beck slicing and dicing over 40,000 migratory and sea birds a year.)

On land, especially, they are also notorious for blighting cherished views, and for causing noise pollution, which research suggests can cause not just sleep disturbance but also a range of serious health issues in vulnerable people.

It’s because onshore wind farms are so unpopular with voters that Cameron’s “greenest government ever” now prefers to champion offshore wind. But in many ways, this is even more disastrous. It simply transfers all the environmental damage to equally sensitive marine environments (with wind projects being proposed off Dorset’s beautiful Jurassic Coast and the nature reserve off Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel). And it means ramping up costs to even more prohibitive levels because the sea, by nature, is such a hostile environment in which to erect 600ft-tall towers with bases big enough to anchor them to the seabed.

Research for the Renewable Energy Foundation by Prof Gordon Hughes, a former senior energy adviser for the World Bank, has shown that these structures have a working life considerably shorter than the optimistic official estimates.

Over 15 years, he calculated, the effects of weather and salt corrosion reduce their output from 45 per cent of capacity to barely 12 per cent. So inevitably, they will have to be expensively refitted much sooner than anticipated – or, more likely, left to rot.

Nor can supporters of Dogger Bank Creyke Beck draw much comfort from the experience of Germany where a similar but smaller offshore wind farm has been delayed for well over year with massive, unresolved technical difficulties which have cost it millions in lost revenue.

Given that these issues are in the public domain you might wonder why Davey gave the go-ahead to such a risky, costly and entirely unnecessary experiment. The answer is that for Davey – and the environmental zealots who dominate DECC – the interests of energy users (ie all of us) must always take second place to green ideology.

No doubt when David Cameron first handed the Liberal Democrats the keys to DECC as part of his Coalition sweetener deal, he imagined it was a harmless gesture that would burnish his eco credentials. But in reality, by granting green ideologues such as Davey (and his predecessor Chris Huhne) the power to authorise projects like Creyke Beck, he has caused untold damage to the UK economy.

If and when it is completed, Creyke Beck will cost energy users around £900 million a year in subsidies that will serve no purpose other to enrich shareholders in the Forewind consortium – among them the company’s chairman Charles Hendry who, as a former energy minister, appears to have done very well out of DECC’s ongoing close relationship with the renewables industry.

But this is a drop in the ocean, when you consider how much, in total, we are all being forced to pay to indulge DECC’s renewable energy fantasy. Between 2002 and 2040, the total cost to the UK economy of renewables (subsidies and system costs) will amount to £250 billion.

This expenditure – roughly a third of the Government’s total annual spending – will not have made one iota of difference to “climate change” or the health of the environment generally, let alone made any meaningful contribution to the UK economy. It will simply have enabled a few misguided green ideologues to feel smug; and an even smaller number of cynical, crony capitalists disgustingly rich.
The Telegraph

Government and Wind Industry, Sets Wind Victims Up for Failure.

March 1, 2015 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Ontario families fighting massive legal bill from wind-farm companies

COLIN PERKEL

TORONTO — The Canadian Press

A demand that four Ontario families pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs to billion-dollar companies is a thinly disguised warning to anyone pondering a challenge to industrial wind farms in Ontario, the families say.

In asking the courts to set the legal bill aside, the citizens say the award would cripple them financially and undermine access to justice, even in important public-interest cases.

Court documents show the companies – K2 Wind, Armow, and St. Columban – are seeking $340,000 in costs from the Drennans, Ryans, Dixons and Kroeplins, who lost their bid to scuttle three wind-farm projects.

The families, who worry wind turbines near their homes could harm their health, had challenged the constitutionality of Ontario’s approvals process before Divisional Court. They are now hoping the province’s top court will hear the case, potentially adding more litigation costs.

Shawn Drennan said his $240,000 bill was excessive given that he was only looking to protect his rights.

“We will have to go to the bank and beg and ask if we can borrow more money to pay their costs and it will be a significant burden on my wife and I,” Shawn Drennan told The Canadian Press. “My wife already works two jobs.”

Lawyer Julian Falconer, who represents the families, called the wind companies “blood-sucking, intimidating bullies.”

“It’s not just a bar to justice, it’s actually a terror tactic,” Falconer said in an interview.

“This is not about money. The idea is to send a message: ‘We will wipe you out if you challenge us.’”

The companies say the high-stakes court challenge forced them to deploy considerable legal resources to defend projects they say are safe.

“While the appellants were entitled to bring their litigation, their decision to do so had significant consequences,” St. Columban argues in its court filing.

“There must be an appreciation of the real disruption, and real cost, suffered by the adverse party.”

Generally speaking and as a matter of fairness, the losing side in civil proceedings has to pay the legal bills incurred by the winning side.

K2, which is putting up 140 turbines, some of which are about 750 metres from the Drennans’ home near Goderich, Ont., says the families knew the risks of losing.

In addition, the failed bid to halt construction pending outcome of their court battle was unnecessary and should “never have been brought,” K2 says in its submissions.

The families argue they raised an important and novel constitutional issue that is squarely in the public interest given the reasonable prospect of serious harm to the health of citizens. They also say they did not stand to benefit financially.

The companies reject that argument. They maintain the families were indeed fighting a personal battle, do have the means to pay, and say the case was in fact contrary to the public interest because the challenge delayed government-approved green-energy projects.

For the families, it’s become a case of “lose your home to save your home,” they say.

“By simply exercising their right to access to the courts, the appellant families now face the disheartening prospect of financial ruin,” their submission states.

“When, as in this particular case, the consequence of that access becomes crippling financial loss, ‘access to justice’ becomes a meaningless platitude.”

Wind Proponents Fight To Conceal the Truth About Wind Turbines!

February 27, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

ABC’s “Ministry of Truth” – Media Watch – Cops Both Barrels from Graham Lloyd

February 27, 2015 by stopthesethings

In response to the Media Watch report about The Australian’s coverage of wind farms
The Australian
Graham Lloyd
23 February 2015

THE Media Watch report of February 16 (“Turbine torture: do wind farms make you sick?”) is littered with mistakes, omissions and misrepresentations from the opening scenes.

The program represents blatant advocacy for commercial interests over the widespread concerns of a genuine minority group who deserve thorough investigation of their complaints.

The Australian provided balanced, factual reporting of a national issue of public interest where Media Watch indulged in what amounts to littlemore than ad hominem, ideological propaganda.

The Media Watch program misrepresented the National Health and Medical Research Council position that the quality of existing research into the possible health impacts of wind turbines is poor and that it will fund more high quality research.

NHMRC chief executive Warwick Anderson said “it is important to say no consistent evidence does not necessarily mean no effect on human health.”

Media Watch selectively quoted Cape Bridgewater report author Steven Cooper to give the impression that he rejected certain things when in fact he was simply not professionally qualified to make comment on them.

Media Watch failed to acknowledge that Mr Cooper had said publicly that at all times The Australian’s reporting had been accurate and faithful to the contents of his Cape Bridgewater report. This fact has been confirmed to Media Watch by other suitably qualified acousticians.

Media Watch failed to report information it had received from US acoustics expert Dr Rob Rand that ran counter to its predetermined view.

The Australian published concerns raised by Pacific Hydro and wind industry groups about the Cooper report.

It also published praise for the robust nature of Cooper’s work and the significance of his findings from some of the most qualified and eminent acoustics experts in the world.

At no time did The Australian offer an opinion on the issue.

In contrast, Media Watch relied on wind industry advocates in academia including social scientists, political studies academics and a medical expert witness employed by wind developers to ascribe the symptoms to the now discredited “nocebo effect”.

Media Watch sought to mischievously discredit The Australian’s reporting with a series of factual inaccuracies and through sins of omission.

The Media Watch report failed to detail or report the existence of formal studies and inquiries which run counter to its pre-determined view and glossed over the peer review support the Cooper report received from some of the world’s most qualified acoustic experts..

It ignored the findings of the 2011 Federal Senate Inquiry chaired by Greens Senator Rachel Siewert, which found proper research into the impact of wind turbines on nearby residents should be undertaken as a matter of urgency.

Media Watch quoted studies that supported its case but failed to acknowledge the fact that the impact of low frequency noise generated by early model turbines had been linked to the exact same symptoms as those being reported today more than 30 years ago in research conducted for the renewable energy industry by NASA.

Media Watch failed to acknowledge any of the balancing quotes and arguments contained within The Australian’s reporting of the issue.

Media Watch did not bother to contact Channel 7.

Here is a line by line dissection of the Media Watch report.

*****************

MW transcript:

Presenter: Tonight, for the first time, hard evidence wind farms aren’t safe.

Today Tonight voiceover: They were told they were blowing in the wind, that it was all in their heads.

Interviewee: I’m not telling furphies, it’s real, we can feel it.

— Channel Seven, Today Tonight, 21st January, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

His name is David Mortimer, and he is a wind turbine host at InfigenEnergy’s Lake Bonney Wind Farm in South Australia who says he become unwell with characteristic symptoms of “wind turbine syndrome” soon after getting the turbines but didn’t know until very recently what was causing the symptoms.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: Yes, as TT told us recently, those wind turbines are so bad that even the chickens get flustered.

■ The Australian’s response

No, animals become physiologically stressed when exposed to wind turbine noise (eg the Taiwanese goats who died, reported by the BBC, confirmed by the goat farmer and the Taiwanese Agricultural authorities. STRESSED chickens lay yolkless eggs — an observation also made in Britain by residents living near an airfield where bombers took off from — the excessive noise had the same impact on those chickens many years ago.

———————–

MW transcript:

Today Tonight voiceover: Even the chooks appeared spooked by something.

Interviewee: “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. That’s not normal.”

— Channel Seven, Today Tonight, 21st January, 2015

Paul Barry: That TT footage on a wind farm in South Australia first got a run some two and a half years ago.

So why has it just popped up again?

Well, for much the same reason that radio hosts also went into a spin late last month:

ALAN JONES: “Now, it’s a headline today and it’s been called a world first study.”

— 2GB, The Alan Jones Breakfast Show, 21st January, 2015

TIM BENNETT: “Probably the biggest story today … is this front page on The Australian.”

— ABC 639 North and West SA, Mornings with Tim Bennett (fill in presenter), 21st January, 2015

ROSS STEVENSON: “Front page of The Australian has an exclusive story that people living near wind farms face a greater risk of suffering health complaints …”

— 3AW, Breakfast with Ross and John, 21st January, 2015

Paul Barry: Back in January The Australian headed its front page with an exclusive from Environment Editor Graham Lloyd, who told us excitedly in his opening paragraph:

“PEOPLE living near wind farms face a greater risk of suffering health complaints caused by the low-frequency noise generated by turbines, a groundbreaking study has found.”

— The Australian, 21st January, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

A statement issued by residents living near the Cape Bridgewater wind farm said; “Steven Cooper’s acoustic survey connects infrasound from wind turbines inside our homes with unacceptable health impacts.”

The Acoustic Group’s Principal, Mr Steven Cooper, was commissioned by wind developer Pacific Hydro to undertake an investigation into “noise” emitted from the wind farm as a result of our long unresolved complaints about the impact of Pacific Hydro’s Cape Bridgewater wind turbines on our health, on the habitability of our homes and on the quality of our lives. Symptoms we have experienced include severe nausea, headaches, ear pressure, inability to concentrate, and severe and debilitating sleep problems, which we have endured over the six years of operation of the Cape Bridgewater wind power facility.

The inclusion of complete shut-downs in the study clearly showed the wind farm generates specific infrasound frequencies that are directly related to the operation of the turbines.

Our diaries and the concurrent full spectrum acoustic measurements inside and outside our homes clearly demonstrate that it is the operation of the wind facility correlating with our symptoms.

The assertions made by others that our symptoms result from scaremongering (the nocebo effect) are untrue, and always have been. The inclusion of complete shut-down periods of the wind facility during the investigation reminded us of the general peace, serenity and wellbeing of our lives before the wind facility started operating.

The Cooper study was reviewed by well qualified acoustics experts.

Dr Bob Thorne, a psycho-acoustician who is also qualified to assess health impacts from noise and is considered an expert witness in court. Dr Thorne said in a written statement that the Cooper report was “ground breaking” and had made a “unique contribution to science”.

“At 235 pages for the report and six technical annexures (491 pages) the study cannot be matched by any previous wind farm study in Australia,” Dr Thorne said.

US acoustics expert Robert Rand said in a peer review of the Cooper Study;

“The correlation of sensation level to WTS tone level in the infrasonic and audible bands brings wind turbine acoustics right to the door of medical science. Medical tests in the homes, long overdue, can now be correlated directly to WTS.”

The study found that sensations including sleep disturbance were occurring with specific acoustic conditions. Those sensations included other symptoms such as nausea, headaches, and sensations of pressure. Sleep deprivation alone is an adverse health effect. Mr Cooper is not a medical practitioner and so cannot say it was a health study, but no medical practitioner would say that sleep deprivation or disturbance does not have adverse health effects if it is happening repeatedly …. so with the sleep deprivation alone there is going to be a greater risk of suffering health problems.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: Mr Lloyd has been worried about wind farms for some time — and those yolkless eggs — so was he right to claim he’d at last found evidence that they damage your health?

■ The Australian’s response

This is a significant issue of widespread public interest involving the duty of care towards a minority group of citizens. Some residents claim they have been forced to abandon their homes. In this case, The Australian was faithfully reporting the findings of a report released publicly by Pacific Hydro and Steven Cooper and accompanying statements by residents both verbally and in writing. Steven Cooper has confirmed The Australian’s report to be accurate in all respects with regard to his report. International acoustic experts have confirmed the study demonstrates a cause and effect exists between sensations experienced by residents and the operation of the wind turbines. The Australian report included comments from Pacific Hydro that it did not accept a cause and effect relationship had been established.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: Well, not according to several eminent scientists we talked to. And, remarkably, not according to Steven Cooper, the study’s author, who told Media Watch:

Steven Cooper: “No, it’s not correct … You can’t say that noise affects health from this study.”

— Steven Cooper, Acoustic Engineer, 28th January, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

Cooper can’t say that, but the residents had already said it as had their treating doctors — all of the residents have been told by treating health practitioners to leave their homes in order to regain their health. Mr Cooper has said he had been quoted faithfully and his report treated fairly by The Australian in all regards.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: So what did Mr Cooper think about Today Tonight’s claims that he had provided the first hard evidence that wind farms are unsafe?

Well, no again.

Steven Cooper: “Absolutely not, that’s incorrect.”

— Steven Cooper, Acoustic Engineer, 28th January, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

In fact, the first hard evidence was provided by Dr Neil Kelley and his team at NASA thirty years ago, who found that sleep disturbance and other symptoms and sensations were directly caused by wind turbine generated impulsive infrasound and low frequency noise. His finding led to a change in wind turbine design. More recently, British Acoustician and National Health and Medical Research Council Expert Reviewer for the 2011 NHMRC Rapid Review Professor Geoffrey Leventhall told the NHMRC workshop in 2011 that “annoyance symptoms’’ or “noise annoyance” symptoms were identical to “wind turbine syndrome” symptoms described by US Paediatric Specialist and researcher Dr Nina Pierpont. Media Watch’s academic commentator Simon Chapman was in the room when he said it.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: The company that commissioned the study, Pacific Hydro says it was not a scientific study, and not a health study, and does not show that wind farms are causing health complaints.

And asked on ABC Radio about this, Mr Cooper agreed.

Steven Cooper: “Pacific Hydro are correct that we don’t have a correlation in terms of medical and I agree with that 100 per cent.”

— ABC Ballarat, Mornings with Anne-Marie Middlemast, 21st January, 2015

Paul Barry: So how come The Australian and Today Tonight got it so wrong.

The head of medicine at Adelaide University, Professor Gary Wittert, told Media Watch:

Professor Gary Wittert: “The way The Australian reported this study was really the antithesis of good science reporting. I think a newspaper like The Australian should know better.”

— Professor Gary Wittert, Head of Medicine, The University of Adelaide, 6th February, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

Mr Cooper has said that Lloyd’s reporting was accurate. The residents were reporting sensations including sleep deprivation, nausea and headaches. Does Professor Wittert consider that these sensations are not adverse health effects? And that chronic sleep deprivation does not itself cause long term health problems? Has he actually read the acoustic investigation and does he understand what was found?

———————–

MW transcript:

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: So what exactly is wrong with the study and why should it not have been headline news? Well, first, it was not published in an academic journal* or peer reviewed by independent experts**.

■ The Australian’s response

*Oh, if something is not published in a journal it is not good science? Well what about PhD’s??? They are not published in journals? Are they not “science”?

■ The Australian’s response

ABC experts are conflicted, Wittert and Chapman have a history of working closely with the wind industry to protect its commercial interests, either as expert witness in court cases or to push the now disproved nocebo effect as the cause for the resident’s “sensations” which in Cooper’s study correlated with specific acoustic emissions — powering up and powering down.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: Indeed, in Professor Chapman’s view:

Simon Chapman: “The media should have treated this with absolute contempt.”

— Professor Simon Chapman, School of Public Health, University of Sydney, 23rd January, 2015

Paul Barry: Now there’s no doubt that some people living close to wind farms have health problems.

And they believe that the wind farms are the cause.

But as The Conversation reminded us … a recent study in the British Medical Journal found they are not alone in having these health complaints.

“… almost 90% of the general population experienced many of the common symptoms associated with wind turbine syndrome within a given week.”

— The Conversation, 22nd January, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

The BMJ article and Grant and Hoepner and Chapman and others ignore the cross over effect — when residents are exposed, they have symptoms and when they are not exposed, they do not have those symptoms and sensations. The Australian has written advice from a professor of epidemiology that the study could be classified as a small cross over trial.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: Much of the debate turns on whether there’s something special about the noise from wind farms that makes them harmful to health … even if the noise is below health limits.

■ The Australian’s response

Just what do Media Watch mean by “below health limits”? The Australian has been advised that Kelley established those health limits thirty years ago in the NASA trials and Cooper’s results were almost identical. Above 50 dB at 4 Hz people who are sensitised to the sound energy experience and report unpleasant sensations.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: The study’s author Steven Cooper has long believed there is … and that it’s called infrasound.

■ The Australian’s response

Cooper is not the only one. Broner, the only acoustic expert on the NHMRC committee also believed it on the basis of empirical evidence in a paper delivered to the 2007 International Acoustics Congress in Madrid, “The missing 16 Hz, Can We Live With It?”

Abstract:

“As the need for power increases, power utilities are resorting to the use of peaking plants incorporating Open Cycle Gas Turbines. OCGT manufacturers generally supply noise data for these down to the 31.5 Hz octave band. However, most of these units also generate significant energy in the 16 Hz octave band. Both of these bands need to be considered when assessing potential noise impact on neighbouring residential communities.”

———————–

MW transcript:

Steven Cooper: “Infrasound is energy that appears in the spectrum below what the human ear can normally hear.”

— Channel Seven, Today Tonight, 4th June, 2012

Paul Barry: Infrasound, says Cooper, interferes with our sleep and our brain patterns.

And he says his latest study suggests … sensations people feel near wind farms … may be caused by the infrasound the turbines produce.

THIS IS NOT TRUE. Many of the reviews Chapman cites state that there is not a lot of scientific evidence. NONE of them say they are SAFE. The National Health and Medical Research Council recently reviewed 4000 pieces of literature and found only 13 were suitable for evaluation and none could be considered high quality. As a result it said the impact of wind turbines on health remained an open scientific question and that it would call for targeted, high quality research. A priority area is low frequency and infrasound.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: Indeed, last week, the government’s National Health and Medical Research Council published the results of its review of seven studies of wind farms and health.

And the NHMRC came to the conclusion that:

“There is no consistent* evidence that noise from wind turbines … is associated with self-reported human health effects.”**

— National Health and Medical Research Council, Systematic review of the human health effects of wind farms, 11 February, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

*The NHMRC cannot and did not say there is NO evidence of adverse health effects, because they know that is untrue. In other words, Professor Chapman’s assertions that wind turbines are safe is not supported by the NHMRC’s statement, or by the existing scientific evidence.

“Given the poor quality of current direct evidence and the concern expressed by some members of the community, high quality research into possible health effects of wind farm, particularly within 1500 metres is warranted,” the NHMRC statement said.

NHMRC chief executive Warwick Anderson said “It is important to say no consistent evidence does not necessarily mean no effect on human health.’’

“From a scientific perspective I see the question as still open,” he said.

Professor Bruce Armstrong, chair of the NHMRC’s wind farm committee said “to not investigate would be negligent from a public health point of view.” Dr Armstrong said research into low frequency and infrasound was an important priority “because it is what people who are concerned about health impacts focus on and it is not something that has been done particularly well to date.”

— The Weekend Australian, 14-15 February, 2015

Paul Barry: That so-called groundbreaking research was the Cooper study … again.

The one that Professor Chapman* describes as an atrocious piece of research and other experts** assure us is bad science.

■ The Australian’s response

*Chapman, the Tobacco Advertising Propaganda Expert, sociologist, and wind industry advocate.

**No, not EXPERTS. Hand selected advocates for the wind industry carefully chosen by the ABC, for the wind industry who do not have any research qualifications or experience in directly investigating the circumstances of the sick people. ANU PhD candidate and journalist, Jacqui Hoepner, and her supervisor, Will Grant, who describes himself as “a talker, writer, thinker and reader, based primarily at the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science at ANU. His talking / writing / thinking / reading has focused mostly on the intersection of science, politics and society, and how this is changing in response to new technologies.”

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: And the expert quoted in this ‘peer’ review was an American scientist who has long agreed with Mr Cooper’s theories.

■ The Australian’s response

No, “the scientist” was two very eminent acousticians, one of whom has spent most of his life consulting to and for the WIND INDUSTRY (Hessler) and the other is the leading environmental acoustics researcher in the world — and DIRECTOR of ACOUSTICS Standards and chair of the American delegation to the International Standards Committee. Dr Schomer has not “long agreed with Mr Cooper’s theories” — he and four other acousticians including three who work almost exclusively for the wind industry (Bruce Walker, George and David Hessler) conducted the research at the Shirley Wind Farm reported in December 2012 which measured the full spectrum of sound inside and outside homes and came to the conclusion that infrasound and low frequency noise were an issue and that they could affect the future of the wind industry.

Peer reviewers Schomer and Hessler both completely understood the value of what Cooper had done and came out strongly because it is indeed Cause and Effect. People did NOT get the symptoms when the turbines were not turning but did get symptoms when they were turning. There was an exception for one resident who is extremely sensitised AND there were wind gusts which shook the towers, induced vibrations which she could feel, even though she could not see the towers.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: But let’s go back to what Cooper himself told the ABC about how groundbreaking this research is.

Asked about whether he has found a correlation between infrasound and headaches or other sensations of which people were complaining he said:

Steven Cooper: “I don’t have enough data to say a correlation. The study is limited, it’s a pilot study and there’s a trend line that’s very clear. Correlation needs a lot more scientific rigour with a larger population to come up with the answer.”

— ABC Ballarat, Mornings with Anne-Marie Middlemast, 21st January, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

Cooper was being deliberately very conservative. In a written response to The Australian, prior to the Media Watch episode Mr Cooper said “The study does show a link between the operation of the wind farm and the disturbances reported by the residents. There is a trend not a correlation (because there is not enough data and that wasn’t the brief) However, one can take the reports of the residents who form the view there is a link to their health impacts.”

Lloyd has met and interviewed residents who have explained the “disturbances” they have experienced and are in no doubt that they consider them to be health impacts, some have even been advised by their medical practitioners to leave their homes as a result. Their concerns about health impacts and understanding of what Cooper had found were expressed in a media statement of which Media Watch was or should have been fully aware.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: Now … The Australian has sent us a long statement defending its original coverage which we’d encourage you to read on our website. But its key point is:

“… The Australian believes this is clearly an issue of significant public interest, worthy of presentation on page one and of extensive investigation and further reporting.”

— Clive Mathieson, Editor, The Australian, 8th February, 2015

Paul Barry: Well, we’d certainly agree that more work needs to be done.

But we believe The Australian needs to get its facts right, and to approach it in a more scientific and objective fashion.

■ The Australian’s response

No, the ABC needs to follow its own advice and “get its facts right, and approach it in a more scientific and objective fashion”. It Is also about time the ABC started accurately identifying conflicts of interest in its “experts” and stopped putting pre-recorded programs to air which refer to vulnerable and sick rural residents as “DICK BRAINS” — Annabel Crabb on the science show, aired by Robin Williams in January 2015.
The Australian

MP from Scotland, John Lamont, Calls for Compensation for Wind Victims!

February 25, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Scots MP – John Lamont – Calls for Just Compensation for Wind Farm Victims

February 25, 2015 by stopthesethings 1 Comment

There is something about an industry that believes it can deprive people of the use and benefit of their homes with complete impunity. The idea that wind power outfits can run their operations around the clock, depriving people of their right to sleep so as to drive them mad if they are forced (by reason of their financial situation) to remain there suffering; or to retreat and become refugees from their own homes has always struck a nerve with STT.

Call us old fashioned, but we tend to follow the old line about a man’shome being his (and, indeed, her) castle. In that respect, STT is happy to rely on the maxim carved out, nearly 400 years ago, by lawyer and politician Sir Edward Coke (pronounced Cook), in The Institutes of the Laws of England, 1628:

“For a man’s house is his castle, et domus sua cuique est tutissimum refugium [and each man’s home is his safest refuge].”

And so it is that a few decent, fair-minded Scots politicians are looking to bring wind power outfits to book for their contumelious disregard for those very rights.

Rural action plan calls for windfarm compensation for homeowners
scottishconservatives.com
John Lamont MSP
15 Feb 2015

Homeowners who think the price of their house would be hit by a nearby windfarm development should be able to claim compensation, the Scottish Conservatives have said.

The party will launch a comprehensive rural action plan on Monday at a major rural showcase in Stirling.

The strategy will cover a range of issues confronting rural Scotland, and was devised after the Scottish Government made clear its only focus was on land reform.

As part of the proposals, the Scottish Conservatives have called for a valuation system to be set up allowing people to recover the lost market value on homes affected by new windfarms.

Many communities across the country have complained that large turbines looming over their towns and villages have made the area less appealing to live, therefore reducing the price of their properties.

The party is asking the Scottish Government to look at a similar model in Denmark, where a valuation authority can decide if a person’s home has been impacted, and how much the windfarm developers should pay in compensation.

The SNP’s extreme pro-windfarm approach has sparked a rise in windfarms being built across rural Scotland, despite concerns among residents and local councils.

Scotland, despite having less than 10 per cent of the UK’s population, now hosts more than half of the UK’s windfarms.

Thousands of objections are submitted by the public every year, while local authorities receive scores of applications for developments each month.

Scottish Conservative chief whip John Lamont said:

“When communities are saddled with a major windfarm development on their doorstep, that has a series of immediate impacts.

“Often treasured views are spoiled, the local tourism industry threatened, and the very appearance of their towns and villages altered significantly.

“All of these aspects can affect house prices, so it is essential we take steps to ensure no-one is left out-of-pocket in future as a result of a windfarm project they probably didn’t want.

“That’s why a valuation authority system, which people who think they’ve lost value on their home could appeal to, would go some way to balancing this.

“There’s currently no vehicle for doing this, and that is blatantly unfair.

“The SNP has made it perfectly clear the only rural issue it cares about is land reform.

“While that is important – and our rural action plan will include policy and recommendations on this – there are several other matters which are causing widespread concerns in communities the length and breadth of Scotland.”
scottishconservatives.com

Nuclear Proponents Look Foolish, When They Support Useless Wind Turbines!

February 24, 2015February 24, 2015 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Renewable Energy Appeasement

I was mildly shocked yesterday because one of my nuclear friends started “supporting” renewables.*

His intention was to “appease” renewable backers so they may eventually agree not to oppose nuclear.

Well, in my opinion that is the wrong approach. Scientists pinpoint the problems but it is us engineers that need to solve those problems.

Renewables, in general, make no sense.

Why?

Because they are intermittent, unreliable, diffuse (in other words, they require loads of material and area to produce significant amounts of power), expensive (particularly when the “system” is considered), short lived (compared to other options) and do not particularly reduce carbon emissions (again, once the system is considered).

Yes, they have and will continue to have a niche in the global energy market, but it makes no sense to subsidize them to push them above and beyond their “natural” market penetration.

Solar, for example, makes a lot of sense in off-grid remote localities but eventually inhabitants in those locations will demand “real” electricity.**

Governments are creating a monster that will damage the economy (see what has happened in Germany with the Energiewende) if they don’t curtail, and fast, all overt / covert subsidies for renewables.

Yes, if somebody wants to spend money from their own pocket in renewables, that is OK. What is not OK is for society to pay for their hobby.

Yes, yes, yes, fossil fuels also have subsidies, but when you measure them per unit of energy actually produced they are lower than the renewable ones. Sure, we have nobusiness subsidizing fossil fuels either, but two wrongs don’t make a right.

Renewables, for the most part, are already mature technologies. That is one of the reasons why China is the #1 producer of solar panels and wind turbines.

As mentioned, renewables (since they capture diffuse power) require loads of “material” to produce meaningful amounts of energy. Some of the elements being consumed in the renewable trade are quite scarce and are badly needed in other sectors. Should we even be sinking them into renewables? This is a question we should definitely ask. ***

Finally, we have to understand that our financial / material resources are not infinite and thus we must use them wisely. Are we going to waste them in renewables, or invest them in better options such as nuclear, natural gas (replacing coal with it), and efficiency?

Appeasement won’t work. We have to stand firm and defend our convictions on what works better for a) reducing our carbon emissions and b) begin to gradually reduce the market share of fossil fuels in the global energy diet.

Thank you.

Feel free to add to the conversation on Twitter.

* By renewables I mean mainly solar PV and wind turbines. There is nothing wrong with supporting hydro which is, was, and will continue to be the premier renewable source.

**http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/bihar-village-dharnai-nitish-kumar-clamours-for-real-electricity/1/375733.html

*** http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Issues/2011/January/CriticalThinking.asp

Lies the Windweasels tell…..And there are many years of deception!

February 22, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

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

February 22, 2015 by stopthesethings 2 Comments

A little while back, a Scottish pen-smith posed a little rhetorical on the subtle art of skulduggery:

Oh, what a tangled web we weave

When first we practise to deceive!

There have been few industries that have had more practice, and as much success, in that subtle art, as the wind industry.

STT has popped up 880 posts in the, just over, two years since we cranked into gear – on our mission to destroy the wind industry.

A fair slice of them have concerned the topic of the adverse health effects caused by turbine generated incessant low-frequency noise and infrasound; the woefully inadequate, indeed, utterly irrelevant noise standards written by the wind industry; and the institutional corruption that:

a) allowed those standards to become the “benchmarks” in the first place; and

b) witnesses public authorities, with a responsibility to protect public health, not only sitting on their hands, but barracking in favour of the wind industry, at the expense of the very people these planning and public health agencies and authorities are paid handsomely to protect.

In this post, STT sets out a chronology of what the wind industry and its pet acoustic consultants knew (and when they knew it); what the wind industry did in response to that knowledge; and how the wind industry and its parasites are fighting tooth and nail at present to ensure that that knowledge has no impact on its freedom to ride roughshod over the human rights, health and well-being of people living next door to wind farms.

The chronology is set out as a timeline, which can be accessed by clicking on this link here or the image below.

Each page of the timeline gives a short run down of significant events (a headline and brief summary); contains images of key data or pages extracted from research papers referred to; some of those images are copies of the entire paper being referred to – these documents can be accessed for reading and printing by dragging your mouse over the image and clicking on the “pop out” window at the top right of the image (you will see a scroll-bar on those where a paper is reproduced). Below the images you will find links to papers, webpages, including the sources referenced and STT posts, for example (if the link does not work, simply copy and paste the URL into a fresh tab in your browser).

At the bottom of the timeline, there is a banner collecting all of the relevant events (you will probably need to scroll down to see it) which you can use to see all of the events in order: simply hold down your mouse and drag the banner left or right; to access any of the events summarised in the banner, simply click on it.

Alternatively, you can use the arrows on the far left or right of the screen (they appear about half-way up each page of the timeline) to move forward or backwards in time.

The NASA Research

Starting in the early 1980s, a decade’s worth of research was undertaken by NASA into a series of large wind turbines (then being developed by NASA), which included a stellar cast of physicists, meteorologists, geophysicists, seismologists, engineers (both mechanical and acoustic), and psycho-acousticians. Part of that research involved a multidisciplinary effort to identify the causes of complaints made by neighbours in relation to the operation of those turbines: we refer to it as “the NASA research”, which also included work carried out by Neil Kelley.

Some of the key findings of the NASA research into the neighbours’ complaints were that:

“very low frequency” noise generated by NASA’s turbines (which was defined to include “infrasound”) was the cause of the “annoyance” reported by neighbours (“annoyance” being an acoustics term which does not involve emotional responses – ie “antipathy” to the “look” of wind turbines);

the “annoyance” being reported by neighbours included numerous physiological responses, which were described as “sensations”. These “sensations”, which they felt rather than heard, were sensations of “pressure”, “a sense of uneasiness”, “booming or thumping pulsations”. These sensations were at their worst in the bedrooms where they were trying to sleep;

the “very low frequency” noise generated by turbines interacted with, and was amplified by, the complainant’s homes, creating “structural resonances”, whereby low-frequency sound-waves “excited” materials within the home, causing vibration of the home;

the “very low frequency noise” generated by turbines was not “attenuated” by the structure of the homes (ie, sound pressure levels were not significantly reduced inside homes), but, rather, interacted with homes in the manner described above – resulting in higher sound pressure levels at very low frequencies (ie the noise levels recorded were higher inside than outside), causing greater “annoyance” to neighbours, as a result;

the vibration of these homes, caused by turbine generated infrasound, resulted in neighbours perceiving that vibration with their whole bodies (ie “whole body perception”);

the very low-frequency noise generated by NASA’s turbines was replicated in a “house” (a three room structure) during a further study; and was shown to cause “annoyance/displeasure” as a “presence” which participants could “feel” to varying degrees, up to “extremely annoying and uncomfortable”; sensations of “vibration/pressure” and “pulsations”, which participants could also “feel” to varying degrees, up to and including “severe vibration” and “very heavy pulses, booms and thumps”;

the common noise descriptor or weighting, dB(A) (used to measure noise sources such as air-conditioners) was found to be totally inadequate, with almost no significant relationship to the sensations and symptoms being reported; and, was, accordingly found to be the worst possible measure for predicting the level of “annoyance” being reported by neighbours;

a variety of noise descriptors, designed to capture low-frequency noise, showed strong correlations between the noise levels generated and the sensations recorded;

the first of the NASA turbine designs being studied as part of research had its blades down wind from the tower. The second turbine design placed the blades up wind (ie, in front of the tower). The infrasound and low-frequency noise levels generated were not significantly altered as a result. (Modern wind turbines use the “up wind” design);

the homes where people were adversely affected were situated out to as far as 3km from a single turbine;

the propagation distance (ie the distance over which noise travels before it “decays”) is far greater for low-frequency noise and infrasound generated by turbines, than the propagation distance of noise which does not contain sound energy at low frequencies.

In 1987, at a wind power conference in San Francisco, the wind industry was presented with the findings of NASA’s research; and told that these findings meant that dB(A) was an inappropriate method of measuring wind turbine noise, and the impact of that noise on neighbours. It was further told that low-frequency noise and infrasound were the dominant features of wind turbine generated noise, which would cause significant “annoyance” to neighbours.

Independent of, but concurrent with, the NASA research substantial efforts were made in investigating the impacts of infrasound on human health, particularly in relation to effects such as nausea, headaches and vertigo.

In 1985, a study was published (Nussbaum) that established infrasound as the cause of symptoms including: accelerated heart rate; increased respiration; fatigue; dizziness (vertigo); nausea (motion sickness); and headaches, among other things. The study found that certain people were more greatly affected by infrasound than others (ie more serious symptoms and/or sensations were experienced; or were experienced to a greater degree). These differences in response were, among other things, attributed to physiological differences, including differences in the size of the internal passages of the subjects’ ears.

The Wind Industry Cover Up

As the wind industry began to take off in the early 1990s it needed to set noise limits and planning criteria that would not present any obstacle to it in rolling out turbines in quiet rural environments.

The wind industry gathered what became known as the “noise working group” in 1995; a group which then, and thereafter, worked on wind industry noise guidelines.

The result was a document called ETSU-R-97.

That document reads as if the NASA research had never happened as it:

excludes any reference to low-frequency noise (the source of the problem shown by the NASA research as the cause of the sensations and symptoms suffered);
excludes the noise descriptors and weightings that were found by the NASA research to be the best predictors of the annoyance caused to neighbours, and the sensations and symptoms suffered;
relies exclusively on the dB(A) weighting (found to be irrelevant as a consequence of the NASA research);
assumes that, in all cases, the sound pressure levels inside neighbouring homes are substantially less than what is recorded outside those homes (entirely to the contrary of the findings made in the NASA research);
excludes testing inside homes for noise of any frequency (let alone low-frequency noise);
instead, limits noise testing to measurements taken external to homes, using the dB(A) weighting only;
established methods by which monitoring equipment can be placed in a way that will simply measure environmental noise (eg “wind in the trees”). In the first instance, these “methods” allow for the placement of monitoring equipment in locations where high levels can be recorded prior to the construction of a wind farm (eg, underneath trees or in bushes). Subsequently, noise level criteria can be met by simply shifting the location of the monitoring equipment (eg, placing them in the open away from trees or bushes).

All of the wind industry noise standards or guidelines which have emerged around the world since then can trace their origins to ETSU-R-97 – think of it as the wind industry’s template for deception.

Over the last decade or so, the wind industry has fought tooth and nail to defend these standards or guidelines. It has resisted all attempts or even suggestions that would:

result in standards which include the measurement of low-frequency noise and infrasound;
set controls for low-frequency noise and infrasound inside homes;
require wind farm operators to cooperate with meaningful noise testing by, for example:
- shutting turbines on and off in order to distinguish between the noise generated by turbines and environmental noise, such as wind in the trees; or
- providing operational data, such as wind speed and power output data;

Indeed, whenever these topics are raised by authorities or community groups the wind industry becomes defensive; and even aggressive in response.

Along the way, the wind industry continued to press planning authorities for even higher noise limits than were originally set (in the irrelevant dB(A) measure, of course) – that would permit ever larger turbines to be located ever closer to residential homes; planning authorities and Environmental Protection Agencies willingly obliged.

In South Australia – the first state in Australia to introduce wind farm noise guidelines – its EPA was so obliging to the wind industry, that its 2003 guidelines include the entirely fictional assertion that wind turbines do not produce infrasound at all, the guidelines stating:

Infrasound was a characteristic of some wind turbine models that has been attributed to early designs in which turbine blades were downwind of the main tower. The effect was generated as the blades cut through the turbulence generated around the downwind side of the tower.

Modern designs generally have the blades upwind of the tower. Wind conditions around the blades and improved blade design minimise the generation of the effect. The EPA has consulted the working group and completed an extensive literature search but is not aware of infrasound being present at any modern wind farm site.

The same fiction appears in the current version of the SA EPA wind farm noise guidelines published in 2009.

The wind industry’s efforts to use noise standards to cover up the issue of infrasound, and to obtain ever higher dB(A) noise limits, occurred despite knowing, full well, that low-frequency noise and infrasound was causing harm and distress to wind farm neighbours.

For example, from 2004 onwards, employees and management of Danish turbine manufacturer, Vestas warned that the wind turbine noise guidelines were inadequate in relation to the protection of wind farm neighbours; and, by 2011, knew that greater setback distances were required to avoid problems of precisely the kind being caused; especially in relation to the larger 3MW turbines, which were being rolled out by Vestas from 2010 onwards.

All of the above, and more, is laid out in the timeline.

The World Turns Full Circle

Recent work performed by leading acoustic engineers around the world has simply confirmed all of the facts and findings made in the NASA research, which concluded over 27 years ago.

The recent research that confirms the extensive work done by NASA, includes work carried out by:

Dr Paul Schomer, George Hessler, Rob Rand and Dr Bruce Walker at Shirley, Wisconsin in 2012 (available here);
Professor Colin Hansen and his team from the Adelaide University at Waterloo in South Australia during 2014 (see our post here); and
the groundbreaking research conducted by Steven Cooper at Cape Bridgewater in Victoria, also during 2014 (which has been recently published – see our posts here and here).

That work, like the NASA research before it, shows that the noise guidelines written by, and relied upon, by the wind industry are utterly irrelevant when it comes to the question of protecting public health; and the adverse consequences of living with incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound.

The aim of the timeline is not just to catalogue the trail of wind industry lies and deception. It is squarely aimed at showing how regulatory authorities have been duped by (or have been complicit with) an industry completely devoid of any desirable moral characteristics; and which is, rather, driven by a callous disregard for human health and well-being.

Wherever you are fighting to bring the wind industry to a halt; to obtain the ability to live in and use your own homes; or to achieve just compensation for the damage and harm caused through government supported wind industry malfeasance, STT simply invites you to use our little timeline to your best advantage.

Ontarians paying for Power We Do Not Need & Can’t Afford. Wynne wants MORE!

February 21, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

New York, Michigan and Quebec Thanks You

[ 0 ] February 21, 2015 | Lydia

So while we’re in one of the coldest winter cold snaps that Ontario has seen in a long time, we exported a whole bunch of power to neighboring jurisdictions last month.

I won’t go into yet another rant about the incompetence and absolute idiocy of the Green Energy Act,… suffice to say that what the month of January had in store for the Ontario taxpayer, is something more akin to an April Fools Day joke.

Parker Gallant is on top of this subject and has the smarts needed to figure out how much the Ontario citizens are getting hosed.

Yes, now in February, with temperatures falling into the -30s and beyond and when people are turning their heat down in order to afford their hydro bill – it’s nice to know that the citizens of New York, Quebec, Michigan and probably Manitoba got a nice big gratuity of electricity on our backs.

We exported over $164 million worth of electricity in January. Problem is we only got paid $58.5 million for it. Yep, we the Ontario tax payers and rate payers will be picking up the tab for the other $106.5 million. Rather nice of us, don’t you think?

Grandma and Grandpa can hardly afford to stay in their homes because they can’t afford their utility bills anymore, but hey, we have windmills. Lots and lots of completely useless and expensive windmills.

The nice people with the big bloated windfarm contacts are happy too. They’re getting paid big bucks for their investment. We’re such nice people in Ontario. Suckers, but nice.

Wind Pushers Desperate to Deny the Negative Health Risks from Wind Turbines!

February 19, 2015February 19, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Adverse Health Effects of Wind Turbine Infrasound Explained

February 19, 2015 by stopthesethings

The impact of low-frequency noise and infrasound from wind turbines on neighbours has been known by the wind industry since NASA turned a massive, multidisciplinary microscope on the problem back in the 1980s (see our posts here and here and here).

Mind you, that highly relevant research has been steadfastly ignored by Australia’s peak public health body, the NHMRC for very political reasons (see our posts here and here).

Trying to explain turbine generated infrasound (large changes in air pressure that, by definition, can’t be heard, but are sensed via the inner ear; or other parts of the nervous system) to those who have never experienced its effects is like trying to explain a migraine to someone who has never had a headache.

Top Neuro-Physiologist, Professor Alec Salt gives a pretty clear wrap-up for the uninitiated in this video:

****

One of the impacts is nausea (ie motion sickness), which other research has put down to infrasound too (see our post here).

When the brain receives mixed messages from its sensory receptors, including the inner ear, for example, it can trigger an ancient evolutionary response – motion sickness – but can also manifest as symptoms of ear pressure, vertigo, heart palpitations and other symptoms.

Of course, in its efforts to lie, cover up and otherwise avoid the facts, the wind industry and its pet acoustic consultants continue to maintain that “modern” wind turbines don’t produce infrasound at all; this statement appears in the South Australian EPA “Wind farms environmental noise guidelines”:

Infrasound was a characteristic of some wind turbine models that has been attributed to early designs in which turbine blades were downwind of the main tower. The effect was generated as the blades cut through the turbulence generated around the downwind side of the tower.

The “working group” that “helped” the EPA reach its “conclusions” on infrasound from “modern wind farms” was made up of the wind industry’s pet acoustic consultants – Marshall Day, Vipac, AECOM and Sonus – and Sonus – which used to brag on its website that it wrote the guidelines – was formed by blokes who worked for the EPA. Now how cosy is that!

Trouble is that infrasound is produced at levels which can be sensed and can be measured, but it requires the proper kit and to use it inside peoples’ homes, which the wind industry refuses to do and its guidelines deliberately avoid.

Steven Cooper’s groundbreaking study at Cape Bridgewater has removed all doubt that wind turbine generated infrasound is the agent responsible for the adverse sensations experienced by wind farm victims (including sleep deprivation) (see our post here).

Another top-notch researcher, Kevin Dooley has turned his attention to the impact of wind turbine infrasound on wind farm victims, and like Steven Cooper has actually gone inside homes with his kit to do so. Here’s a screen grab from a video produced by Kevin (see below) showing infrasound detected inside wind farm victim, Norma Schmidt’s home in Ontario:

The oscilloscope image shows how the infrasonic pressure waves from wind turbines penetrate the walls of the home, free to to their worst on people like Norma (see our post here).

Kevin goes on to give a very detailed explanation of turbine infrasound impacts in this video, including the manner in which infrasound causes nausea:

*****blob:https%3A//www.youtube.com/f15b0282-7dea-4343-a0c6-60f67336a9b0

****

Lambton Municipal Gov’t Steps Up to Help Wind Turbine Victims with Their Court Challenge!

February 16, 2015February 16, 2015 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Lambton will join wind turbine appeal

BUSINESS | FRONT PAGE | NEWS.

Posted February 15, 2015:

Lambton County is anteing up more cash in the constitutional fight against wind turbine development.

County councilors set aside up to $60,000 to become part of a wider court battle which questions the constitutionality of the way Ontario allows the development of industrial wind turbines. “You became involved because of injustices and the lack of control” in the process WAIT- Plympton-Wyoming Spokesman Santo Giorno recently told county councilors.

Giorno says the first hearing in the fight at Divisional Court was “unsuccessful” and the lawyer, Julian Falconer, has filed a motion for the right to appeal for the three families. Lambton County was an intervener in the first case, and Giorno asked them to be involved in the appeal.

“The presence of an upper tier municipality at an appeal can’t be understated,” says Giorno. “It goes from four families who don’t like turbines to a government worried about the health of the community…it opens up the overall question of what is happening across the province.”

Giorno asked for money left over from the first court case – about $21,000 – be used in a possible appeal.

Councilors agreed and decided to set aside an additional $20,000 if necessary.

Shut off the Subsidy Tap, and the WindWeasels Scurry! Well Done Aussies!

February 14, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind Industry Howls & Predicts Mass Exodus from Australia as Subsidy Trough Dries Up

February 14, 2015 by stopthesethings

Australian windfarms face $13 bln wipeout from political impasse
Reuters
Byron Kaye
9 February 2015

* PM Abbott wants to cut state support for industry

* Labor opposition won’t back cutting clean energy target

* Uncertain support regime is causing a freeze in investment

* Some predict an exodus of investment

SYDNEY, Feb 8 (Reuters) – Australia faces a A$17 billion ($13.3 billion) exodus of investment from its windfarm industry because of a political deadlock, threatening to deal the country a major economic blow and killhopes of meeting a self-imposed clean energy target.

Some 44 Australian windfarm projects, about half overseas-funded, have been shelved since a new conservative government said it wanted to cut state support for the industry a year ago, with investors and operators saying they are considering either downscaling or leaving the country altogether if it succeeds.

Even Australian windfarm companies such as Infigen and Pacific Hydro have effectively shelved their Australian operations, with Infigen saying it plans to pour all its financial muscle into the more amenable U.S. market.

“It’s a difficult time at the moment, and the policy uncertainty is the main cause of it,” said Shaq Mohajerani, an Australian spokesman for wind farm company Union Fenosa, owned by Spanish energy giant Gas Natural.

“We’re still considering all options on how to proceed. The parent company will provide us with the strategy.”

An Acciona spokesperson said the firm had an “attractive backlog” in Australia but “we are waiting for the whole development of the new framework for renewable energy and hope our presence … in the country can be maintained”.

Wind power in Australia is not the only renewable energy sector to be affected by uncertainty over government subsidies or actual cuts. In Europe, Germany has scaled back support for solar power over the past few years, leading to a flood of insolvency filings by solar firms and a shrunken market.

Italy’s plans to cut subsidies for solar power firms have prompted an investor exodus. Retroactive solar subsidy cuts have also happened in Spain, Greece, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic over the past couple of years, putting off new investors as governments try to rein in energy costs and cut debt.

Windfarms are Australia’s No. 2 renewable energy source, behind hydropower but ahead of solar, providing a quarter of the country’s clean energy and 4 percent of its total energy demand. But while households can collect rebates for installing their own rooftop solar panels, windfarms rely on “certificates”, or tradeable securities handed out by the government, to offset costs.

That support hit a roadblock a year ago when new conservative prime minister Tony Abbott ordered a review of the country’s target for clean energy use by 2020, which ultimately recommended slashing it by a third, in line with falling overall energy demand. A lower target would mean a lower certificate price.

The centre-left Labor opposition, whose support the government needs to lower the target, refused to budge on the higher target it set when in power in 2009, resulting in an impasse that has effectively seen the industry grind to a halt.

A spokeswoman for U.S. owned GE Australia & New Zealand, which has stakes in several renewable energy projects, said further investment “will only occur once investor confidence in the policy environment is restored. For this to happen, bipartisan support regarding the future of the renewable energy target is essential.”

The Australian arm of Spanish infrastructure group Acciona , the world’s largest renewable energy firm, has frozen about A$750 million of windfarm projects because of the stalemate, said local managing director Andrew Thomson.

“When you’re a subsidiary (of a global business), you’re competing for capital, you’re competing for your budget allocation next year,” he said.

“If the parent company can’t see that there’s a stable environment it becomes really difficult to get traction. For us at the moment it’s a really difficult sell.”

If the renewable energy target is cut, “it’s the type of jolt to industry that basically would create such an upheaval that you would have a mass exodus”, said Alex Hewitt, managing director of Bulgarian-Polish-U.S.-backed windfarm operator CWP Renewables, which has A$1.5 billion of projects on ice.

“I can’t say whether we’d completely exit the country, but you would be looking at such a level of reduction in the level of investment into people in the company that it would be very significant,” Hewitt said.

($1 = 1.2793 Australian dollars) (Additional reporting by Jose Elías Rodríguez in Madrid and Nina Chestney in London; Editing by Will Waterman and David Evans)
Reuters

So, all this promised (or, rather threatened) “investment” really is just about the massive stream of subsidies, after all?

Whatever happened to that piffle pitched by the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers about being competitive with conventional power generation sources?

You know, the delusional stuff where they tell us – ad nauseam – that the cost of wind power is now so low it can compete on the open market with the cheapest of them all: coal-fired power (see this trip to Disneyland and back by the shills from ruin-economy).

If there were a scintilla of substance to the eco-fascists’ fantasy about wind power being competitive (and, therefore, profitable without the need for wind power outfits to perpetually slurp from the subsidy trough), then these ‘investors’ wouldn’t be wailing about ‘uncertainty’; indeed, the story above wouldn’t be a ‘story’ at all: outfits like Acciona would be spearing giant fans all over Australia at a cracking pace.

But, when the investors’ rubber hits the investment road, cheap talk melts like snow in the Australian outback.

Or, rather, as only the Americans could put it: “money talks, and bullshit walks.”

In Australia, the “money” that the subsidy suckers are seeking is in the order of another $50 billion under the current Large-Scale Renewable Energy Target (see our post here). And want they might get it. But ‘want’, on its own, is rarely enough.

The LRET is a policy which is simply unsustainable: any policy which is unsustainable will eventually fail under its own unfathomable weight; or its creators will be forced to scrap it, in circumstances of shame and ignominy.

The massive cuts to renewable subsidies in Europe – detailed above make the point well enough. The Germans have cut wind power subsidies; the Spaniards have slashed them – retroactively (see our postshere and this story here).

In upcoming posts, STT will detail just why this whole scam is on the very brink of total collapse, which will leave many a politician red-faced; and many a wind power investor shirtless.

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James Delingpole: UK’s Wind Power Debacle Reaches “High Farce”

ABC’s “Ministry of Truth” – Media Watch – Cops Both Barrels from Graham Lloyd

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Scots MP – John Lamont – Calls for Just Compensation for Wind Farm Victims

Renewable Energy Appeasement

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

Adverse Health Effects of Wind Turbine Infrasound Explained

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Wind Industry Howls & Predicts Mass Exodus from Australia as Subsidy Trough Dries Up