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.

“Agenda 21” The Reason for the “War on Carbon Fuels”!

February 17, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Strange Allies in the War on Carbon Fuels

Guest Blogger / February 17, 2015

Guest opinion by Viv Forbes –

What great cause could unite Prince Charles, President Obama, the Pope, the Arab Oil sheiks, the United Nations, the European Union, the Russians, the Chinese, Pacific Island Nations, most undeveloped countries, the glitterati of Hollywood, left-wing politicians, unrepentant reds, government media, the climate research industry, Big Oil, Big Gas and the Green Blob. It must be something posing a clear and urgent danger to all humanity?

No, the crusade that unites them all is the War on Carbon Fuels, focussed mainly on that most vilified target, coal.

The biggest group, and the generals in this war on carbon, have no real interest in the facts or science of global climate change – they see climate alarmism as a great opportunity to achieve their goal of creating an unelected global government. They have even laid out their plans in a document called Agenda 21.

This group naturally includes the United Nations and all of its subsidiaries, the EU, and left wing politicians and media everywhere. At a news conference in Brussels recently, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity, but “to change the economic development model” ie destroy what is left of free enterprise and private property. See:
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/021015-738779-climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism.htm
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2014/10/10/shell-oil-lego-greenpeace-and-the-environmental-movement-s-war-on-capitalism/
The next big group of carbon warriors is the anti-western failed states who see this as their big chance to enrich and entrench their ruling classes with “climate reparations”.
Then there are the enviro-entrepreneurs forever seeking new crusades to energise their supporters and get the donations rolling in – Greenpeace, WWF, Get Up etc…
In the dark corner are the anti-human Malthusians and the Deep Greens who want to get rid of most of us other people – personified by the rich and powerful such as Prince Charles and Maurice Strong. They know that carbon fuels support millions of people by cultivating, harvesting, transporting, processing and storing most of the food that supports the cities of the world. Killing the use of carbon fuels will certainly achieve their goal of reduced world population.

See:
http://explosivereports.com/2013/01/12/prince-charles-openly-endorses-draconian-conclusions-of-new-population-study/

Naturally, government media usually support a bigger role for government, and all media like a scare story. Truth or logic does not matter greatly for most of them – just so long as they can coax a looming disaster story from someone. The daily diet of natural calamities soon heightens climate anxiety, which then motivates politicians to be seen to be “doing something”.
And then there are those who see that fighting carbon fuels also suits their pockets. As someone said “When placing a bet, the best horse to back is the one called ‘Self-interest’ – at least you know he is trying”.

For example, Shell, with its massive gas interests, was caught campaigning against coal fired power, the main competitor of gas in electricity generation. See:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/innovationchallenge/shell-admits-campaigning-against-coal-fired-power-plants/story-fn9dkrp5-1226770855004

Arab Oil interests were caught funding a film attacking their competitors – shale oil fracking in America. See:
http://dailysignal.com/2012/09/28/matt-damons-anti-fracking-movie-financed-by-oil-rich-arab-nation/

And a Russian oil company was exposed funding US anti-carbon green groups. See:
http://freebeacon.com/issues/foreign-firm-funding-u-s-green-groups-tied-to-state-owned-russian-oil-company/

The Chinese of course are great supporters of green energy as long as it is installed elsewhere – eg they supply the machines and solar panels and then welcome the factories forced from the host country by soaring electricity prices.
Gas, nuclear and hydro power will be the greatest long term beneficiaries of the war on coal. Initially they will be needed to provide base load and back up for intermittent green power like wind and solar. Then as green subsidies are withdrawn to appease angry taxpayers, the green play-toys will fail and grown-up generators will step easily into full time electricity production.

Finally, the government bureaucracy and the research grants industry justify their existence by “solving community crises”. They love “The Climate Crisis” because it can be blamed for any weather event anytime, anywhere. It is unlikely to be solved, no matter how many dollars are thrown at it – a problem that does not exist can never be “solved”. And the sinister “Greenhouse Effect”, like any good ghost, is invisible, mysterious in operation, debatable, and allows anyone to produce their own scare story.

Opposing this coalition of climate alarmists and opportunists is a rag-tag army of stressed tax payers and electricity consumers and a scattering of sceptical scientists and media researchers.
But the imposing alarmist empire has a hollow heart – the globe has refused to warm, the alarmist “science” is crumbling, their climate models are discredited, some researchers have been caught manipulating records and results, and the costs of green electricity are becoming obvious and onerous. The public is growing restive, governments can no longer afford the climate industry cuckoo in the public nest and the ranks of sceptics grow. Groups like UKIP in UK and the Tea Party in US have abandoned the war on carbon.

The climate revolt is spreading.

Disclosure: Viv Forbes is a shareholder and non-executive director of a small Australian coal exploration company. His views are not shared or supported by most Big Coal CEO’s.

Wind Turbines are a Huge Disaster….the Whole World Over!

February 8, 2015 / 1957chev / 2 Comments

More on Germany’s Wind Power Fiasco

February 8, 2015 by stopthesethings 1 Comment

The Germans went into wind power harder and faster than anyone else – and the cost of doing so is catching up with a vengeance. The subsidies have been colossal, the impacts on the electricity market chaotic and – contrary to the environmental purpose of the policy – CO2 emissions are rising fast: if “saving” the planet is – as we are repeatedly told – all about reducing man-made emissions of an odourless, colourless, naturally occurring trace gas, essential for all life on earth – then German energy/environmental policy has manifestly failed (see our post here).

Some 800,000 German homes have been disconnected from the grid – victims of what is euphemistically called “fuel poverty”. In response, Germans have picked up their axes and have headed to their forests in order to improve their sense of energy security – although foresters apparently take the view that this self-help measure is nothing more than blatant timber theft (see our post here).

German manufacturers – and other energy intensive industries – faced with escalating power bills are packing up and heading to the USA – where power prices are 1/3 of Germany’s (see our posts here and hereand here). And the “green” dream of creating thousands of jobs in the wind industry has to turned out to be just that: a dream (see our post here).

Now, Germans are fast waking up the unassailable fact that wind power is not only insanely expensive, it’s utterly meaningless as a power source.

Here’s a couple of no-nonsense pieces from NoTricksZone spelling it out in pictures, of the kind that the wind industry bends over backwards to ensure that you’ll never see.

THE CHART Wind Energy Proponents Fear You’ll See … Offshore Wind Turbines Stay In Bed 4 Of Every 5 Workdays!
NoTricksZone
P Gosselin
5 February 2015

Yesterday I published a piece by Fred F. Mueller on Germany’s out-of-control renewable energy transition and how it is in fact transitioning over to a disaster.

What follows below is a graphic that proponents of the offshore wind energy industry don’t want anyone to see. It tells the whole story about how (in)efficient and (un)reliable German offshore wind energy really is (Hat-tip: www.achgut.com) (for a clear look at the graph, click on it and it will open in a new window):

Chart shows the installed nameplate offshore wind capacity (shaded green) and the actual output (blue shaded area) since 2009. Wind’s poor performance and unreliable, wildly fluctuating supply disappoint and risk sinking Germany’s “Energiewende”. Chart source: R. Schuster.

The above chart was prepared by Rolf Schuster, an industrial engineering designer, who during his free time has started a wind power databank in order to check the rosy claims being made by the wind power lobby. The results are not something any fast-talking salesman would want any potential buyer to see. The power that was input (blue) is a mere fraction of the rated capacity (green).

Schuster writes:

“If you divide the power fed in (blue) by the rated capacity (green) you get the percent of the rated capacity that actually gets fed into the grid. The linear trend shows a negative tendency – towards 20 percent of the rated capacity. That means: Despite the massively increased capacity in 2014, hardly more power has ended up getting delivered compared to the start of the year. Only one fifth of the rated capacity actually gets fed in.”

Many proponents used to argue that the wind is always blowing at the North Sea, and so a steady supply was a sure thing. Now we have real results coming in. That “steady” wind is only delivering 20% of the installed rated capacity. A fiasco.

Schuster also says that offshore turbines have serious technical problems as well. Foundations are being washed out from underneath; there’s corrosion, and overloads that lead to turbine shutdowns. The harsh conditions of the North Sea a proving much tougher to handle.

There are also major problems with the high-voltage direct currentsystems that have yet to be solved, Schuster writes. One entire North Sea wind park has been disconnected from the grid as a result. This, Schuster says, “makes one ask if the installation of a major power transmission line from North Germany to South Germany would be a high risk gamble for the German energy supply”.

Green power goes AWOL again!

Also a look at online energy portal Agora here also tracks renewable energy that gets fed into the German power grid. A look at today’s graphic for the last 31 days tells us that once again wind and solar have gone AWOL, and so conventional fuels such as gas, nuclear and coal have to jump in to bail out.

The above chart shows German energy supply and consumption for the last 31 days. Solar power that was fed into the grid is shown in yellow. Wind power is shown in blue. Cropped from Agora. (for a clear look at the graph, click on it and it will open in a new window)

Yesterday, February 4, we saw very little wind power getting fed into the grid, less than a gigawatt from a nameplate capacity of some 55 gigawatts of installed capacity – less than 2%! On February 4 wind and solar together virtually fed in almost nothing into the grid. If it had not been for coal, gas and nuclear, the country would have gone dark.
NoTricksZone

Germany’s “Energiewende” Leading To Suicide By Cannibalism. Huge Oversupply Risks Destabilization
NoTricksZone
P Gosselin
4 February 2015

The coming age of power cannibalism…Germany on the verge of committing energy suicide
By Fred F. Mueller

German politicians see themselves as the saviors of our climate. In the early 1990s German politicians started the policies that ultimately culminated in the “Energiewende”, which aims to eliminate nuclear power generation and some 76% of the fossil fuel power generation. By 2050 some 80% of power generation should come from “renewable” green sources such as wind, solar, biomass, waste incineration and hydro. Since the volatile sources of wind and solar power will have to contribute the lion’s share, politicians reluctantly concede 20% of the energy coming from reliable fossil power sources.

Germany’s endeavor is indeed breathtaking. A look at Figure 1 shows in detail how massively Germany had once relied upon fossil and nuclear power sources to secure a highly reliable power supply. These sources were controllable and highly reliable. And because Germany’s topology offers only limited possibilities for hydropower, that renewable source is minimal.

Figure 1: In 1990 the German grid was able to count on conventional power sources which were controllable and highly reliable. Renewable hydropower accounted for only 3.6 %.

Today, after some two decades of massive green energy policy, the situation has changed dramatically. Wind, solar, biomass and waste incineration plants have been promoted to such an extent that together with hydropower, the share of “green energy” today has reached 25.8 % of the country’s total electric power production. This resulted from Germany’s EEG renewable energy feed-in act which guarantees producers fixed rates for 20 years and forces power companies to buy up all the renewable power produced, regardless of the market conditions. The result has been a massive oversupply which has led to steep price drops on power trading floors, which in turn have pushed fossil fuel utilities to and beyond their profitability limits. Surplus production has been repeatedly dumped onto neighboring markets and resulted in massive disturbances for the respective national power grids. Readers interested in a more detailed description of the policy might have a look at the article of Marita Noon [NOON].

Capacity without control

The problem with the “renewable” power sources of wind and solar is their intrinsic volatility coupled with their poor capacity utilization rates of only 17.4% for wind and 8.3% for solar (average values for Germany).

That poor utilization rate means one has to build up huge overcapacities in order to achieve a certain amount of power production. Worse, the power source fluctuates wildly according to weather conditions. As a consequence, Germany has to maintain a dual power generation infrastructure that comprises a grossly overinflated capacity of “renewable” wind and solar power plants shadowed by a full scale backup set of conventional plants. These conventional power sources must always be on standby, ready to take over when weather conditions aren’t favorable. The production-fluctuation range of the “renewables” wind and solar is incredibly wide and volatile. For example in Germany there is an installed nameplate capacity of nearly 73,000 MW. Yet the minimum power output in Germany in 2014 from both sources was a meager 29 MW (only 0.04% of installed capacity) while the maximum value was 38,000 MW (48%).

The massive buildup in wind and solar power has already resulted in a considerable nominal overcapacity of “renewable” power sources.

The combined rated capacity of all “renewable” power sources already reaches about 87,000 MW, which is the maximum power consumption the grid has been designed to secure. Additionally, a minimum conventional power station capacity of some 28,000 MW has to be constantly connected to the grid in order to secure supply stability. As a result the risk of the grid reaching an oversupply situation if weather conditions are favorable for both wind and solar power plants is growing with every additional “renewable” plant that comes online. Currently 5,000 – 6,000 MW are getting added each year. That situation is aggravated by the fact that there exists no technology to absorb and store any noticeable quantities of oversupply. Neighboring countries are already taking measures to fend off surplus-power-dumping that could destabilize their grids.

Power cannibalism has already started

The result is a grid which at times is so oversupplied with power that something will have to give. Fossil fuel power plants have been throttled to the point where they are no longer profitable and many power companies have started mothballing them, so quickly in fact that Germany had to pass legislation forcing producers to keep their fossil plants on stand-by, and to do so even if they lost money. Even the reliable “classic” renewable power sources – e.g. hydropower – are starting to suffer because most are not supported by government schemes.

As the build-up in renewable capacity continues, even the subsidized “renewable” power sources will sooner rather than later be forced into fierce competition for access to the grid whenever the weather conditions turn favorable. One can speculate that within just a couple of years, the first “renewable” energy sources will slowly be driven out of the market because of oversupply. Eventually the renewable power producers will be forced to cannibalize each other in an increasingly fierce competition for privileged access to the power grid as the unwanted events of over-supply become increasingly more frequent.

Things are set to get much worse

Normally, one would think that a government confronted with such a situation would stop at this point and wait for a technically and commercially viable solution for storing the increasing amounts of produced surplus electric energy – for use during times when weather conditions are less favorable. Unfortunately no such storage solution is currently available at the required scale, and anything being proposed so far is either much too expensive or has efficiency factors that are not worth discussing.

Yet Germany has a unique peculiarity: its leaders sometimes exhibit a stunning inability to recognize when the time has come to abandon a lost cause. So far €500 billion has already been invested in the “Energiewende”, which is clearly emerging as a failure. Yet all political parties continue to throw their full weight behind the policy rather than admitting it is a failure (which would be tantamount to political suicide). Instead, the current government coalition has even decided to shift into an even higher gear on the path to achieving its objective of generating 80% of German electric power from “renewable” sources by 2050. If the situation is practically unmanageable now with 25% renewable energy, it’ll be an uncontrollable disaster when (if) it reaches 80%.

If the government sticks to its targets, the share of the different power sources will probably appear as in Figure 2. Currently just 26% has been achieved so far, and the existing biomass share of some 7% is more or less doomed and thus will also have to be replaced by wind and solar. One can easily see how daunting the task that still lies ahead really is.

Figure 2. The official goal of achieving 80% power supply from “renewable” sources by 2050 requires further massive investments in wind and solar power technologies. Imagine the huge power supply fluctuations one can expect to see from wind and sun.

Waiting for the grand finale

The real risks that lie ahead for the German power generating infrastructure become more recognizable if one looks at the nameplate capacity buildup that has taken place, e.g. just over the past five years, and compares it to what will additionally be needed by 2050, see Figure 2. Keeping in mind that €500 billion have already been contracted and will have to be paid by the consumer, one gets an idea of the proportions of the task still to be tackled in the coming years.

Figure 3. The installed nameplate power production capacities for wind, solar and biomass as of 2014 has already severely burdened the German consumer with costs of about €500 billion. That will dwarfed by what lies ahead, if politicians don’t change course. Note how 376,000 MW of wind and sun capacity may be installed to ensure meeting the country’s roughly 70,000 MW of demand.

Apart from the sheer dimensions of the costs that lie ahead, the additional cannibalism aspect will grow to enormous proportions. Since an installed wind and solar capacity of some 73,000 MW in 2014 yielded a combined maximum power output of 38,000 MW, the 376,000 MW that are to be installed by 2050 will generate a peak output of 196,000 MW to a grid that might just be able to take up between 40,000 and 90,000 MW. That means, depending on the weather, between 106,000 and 156,000 MW will have to be dumped somewhere else.

In the fight to get power into an often times severely overloaded grid, that’s when cannibalism amongst “renewable” power sources will really become intense. Will wind farmers sabotage solar plantations? Will solar owners sabotage wind turbines? Time will tell, maybe much sooner than we think.
Fred F. Mueller

Sources: [NOON] Marita Noon: Germany’s “energy transformation:” unsustainable subsidies and an unstable systemwww.cfact.org/2014/12/16/germanys-unsustainable-subsidies-and-an-unstable-system/

NoTricksZone

An Engineer from Energy Industry, in Scotland Tells Truth About Renewable Energy!

February 6, 2015February 6, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Why do the politicians listen to

Greenpeace, WWF and FoE,

but not to Engineers?

by Dougal Quixote

We recalled the name D B Watson. He has written several excellent letters and, as this letter reproduced below states, he is a chartered engineer with experience in the energy industry. As we’ve said many times before, all the engineers state the same thing in the same way; there is little if any variation. So why are the politicians not listening? As Helen McDade asked at a meeting a couple of years ago – why is there no engineering-based study? – GL
Renewables cannot supply the energy that is provided by gas
Tuesday 26 February 2013
I NOTE with interest Iain Macwhirter’s article on energy (“The rise and rise of the energy production racket”, The Herald, February 21).
As a chartered electrical engineer with around 35 years’ experience in the energy industry I feel compelled to take issue with the emergence of a new energy unit called, apparently, the “home”.
I refer to the often-heard statistic that a new wind farm or renewable energy device will power or provide enough energy for many hundreds or thousands of homes.
The data, promulgated by power companies and repeated by bodies such as the Scottish Parliament, local councils, equipment manufacturers, and countless quangos without challenge are, at best, misleading and, conveniently, support the impression that the energy being generated from renewables is considerably more than the reality.
Most power-generating companies adopt the RenewableUK assessment of average household usage of 4266 kilowatt hours per year when calculating the average number of homes that can be supplied from the output of a new renewables project.
This annual total is equivalent to less than 12 kilowatt hours per day per average home – that is, a one-bar 1kW electric fire operating for less than 12 hours each day, so includes next to nothing for electrical heating.
However, half of the energy consumed in Scotland is in the form of heat, with approximately half of that being consumed in our homes. Ofgem’s detailed statistical 2011 assessment for the (median) dual fuel needs of an average UK home is 4000 kilowatt hours per year of electricity plus 16,900 kilowatt hours of gas for heating/cooking . It also calculated typical high usage figures of 5100 kilowatt hours of electricity and 23,000 kilowatt hours of gas depending on the size and location of your home and the calorific value of your supplied gas (the equivalent amount of energy you get from burning the gas).
Scotland is of course at the high end of these figures given our cooler climate.
Domestic gas energy consumption for the typical home is therefore in addition to and between four and six times higher than the household electrical energy usage and much cheaper, at a cost of around one third per kilowatt hour of electricity at standard tariffs.
So the actual total average energy requirements for a UK home is approximately 20000 kilowatt hours per year whether you are all-electric or have both gas and electricity and not 4266 kilowatt hours. So wind farms provide around one-fifth of the actual energy requirements of the number of homes they claim to provide for.
The fallacy of the home claim is further apparent when you consider that in Scotland around one-third of domestic properties are not connected to the national gas network, compared to only one in 10 in the rest of the UK and this means there are more than 800,000 homes in Scotland that have to use electricity (the vast majority) and/or solid fuel or bottled gas for heating and cooking. Ironically, this includes all the island communities and much of the Highlands, where several of the wind farms are located.
It is of little surprise therefore that more than 120,000 Scottish families are officially in fuel poverty.
Almost every major wind farm generates into the nationwide electrical network and is distributed throughout the country, so the power companies’ claims that 4266kW hours per year provides enough electricity for a certain number of homes does not apply to at least 800,000 homes in Scotland.
Similarly, all claims that 4266kW hours powers a home are wrong as they do not include the heat energy we require and this applies equally to the rest of the UK.
This is important because the renewable industry also claims it is the future with gas supplies due to run out, by which argument it will then have to supply all the energy presently provided by gas. Then its current misleading claims will be shown to be wrong.
The renewables industry’s marketing people can’t have it both ways.
All in the industry and the politicians and the quangos need to start playing it straight with the public.
D B Watson,
********,
***********,
Cumbernauld

The Dark, Cruel, and Ugly Side of Faux-Green Environmentalism

February 6, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

A climate of hate and a license to kill.

by Pointman

Of late we’ve seen a rash of examples showing just how ugly the face of the cult of environmentalism can be. There’ve been calls for the beheading of skeptics and even a wish that their children should kill them. If you’re fresh to what’s laughably called the climate debate, you’ll probably be appalled by such extremist exhortations to do the type of sick things which would quite comfortably fit into the sort of violence porn uploaded to YouTube for wannabe Jihadis and the like to get their rocks off on. However, if you’ve been following the issue for a few years, you’ll know such repulsive and vile sentiments are far from anything new though they are of late stronger.

In previous years, there’s been suggestions that “deniers” should have the word tattooed on their forehead, the targeting and naming of their children by certain verminous types not only in the real world but in the virtual twittering world, appearances in the dead of night of masked people on their front lawns with burning torches in the traditional KKK fashion, there should be climate criminal trials à la Nuremburg and that such deniers should be gathered together in central facilities for re-education, the latter suggestion being made by a second-generation blood relative of JFK, who’d probably be appalled at any genetic connection to such a closet fascist hiding behind the skirts of the Democratic Party and totally disgracing his Irish immigrant lineage.

I suppose he’s someone who’s lived nothing but a lard-arsed privileged life, safely insulated inside a rich clan skating along on a dead man’s reputation without ever putting his ass anywhere near the everyday experience of bagging up groceries in the local supermarket just to make a minimum wage, never mind the risk of getting it shot off in the service of his country. I despise such pointless people who’re totally without any sense of decency and whose whole career is based on feeding off the memory of a better man. I really do. There’s no decency, no sense of decorum about them and without ruthlessly exploiting the familial connection, they’d be nobodies.

There are a number of things to be noticed about such visceral hate speech. I suppose for starters it’s a one way street, if only because only one side owns all the mass propaganda outlets. Once you get outside the free blogosphere and into the mainstream media, climate skeptics who speak their mind are a very small demographic and hunted down enthusiastically by an overwhelmingly yee-haw lynch mob of hang the nigga high liberals of the media in pursuit of the only minority left about whom anything can be said.

You can sense a sort of glee, a certain cathartic joy at actually having the freedom to hurl the sort of vile bigoted slurs that haven’t been publishable in a newspaper for the last half century. The good news is you can’t be punished for it. Indeed, your stock will only rise in the righteous circles you crave so badly to be a part of. Not only can you say horrible things about them, you can even get away with committing criminal offences against them, just ask Peter “identity thief” Gleick. You won’t even get charged.

It’s the new touchy-feely McCarthyite era of the twenty-first century. Just substitute Denier for Commie and it’s all very familiar. Are you now or have you ever been a denier? Let the hearings begin, but not as a committee of Congress but in the full glare of the mainstream media. The results of such a trial by media are exactly the same as those achieved by the Senator from Wisconsin. Blacklisting, deprivation of livelihood, your reputation besmirched and all of it with absolutely no mechanism to defend yourself, never mind any right of reply.

What type of person feels free to indulge in such extremist dialogue?

The most visible is what’s called the troll or cyber bully plying their anonymous trade. They’re mostly personality defectives of one type or another but more often than people might think, they’re actually paid commenters earning a living by trying to close down debate in the blogosphere, usually by inciting a screaming match. To a large extent, that worked in former years, but since the plunge in visitors to alarmist sites they’ve been obliged to move their activities to the skeptic sites, but by now most of those sites recognise them for what they are and keep them on a short leash. If they let them in, it’s just for a bit of fun. Personally, I just don’t let them through the door, though occasionally I like to do a bit of troll baiting when things are slow.

What’s important to note about the trolls, is that they are like a deniable terrorist wing of a supposedly respectable political movement. For instance, the Guardian left comments calling for the beheading of Matt Ridley up on their site for four days, while at the same time deleting other comments protesting about it. More than a few of the more virulent ones are in reality supposedly sane commenters operating under a nom de guerre.

The next demographic would be establishment figures, politicians on the make, climate scientists, troughers sucking up the monetary swill and mainstream journalists. I exclude the alarmist bloggers from this set, since they’re only read by a few devoted acolytes and definitely nobody of any consequence, simply because the content is poor, juvenile, often libellous and suitable only for consumption by the alarmingly thick. You really do have to wipe your feet and wash your hands after visiting one. A little jet set experience on a bidet wouldn’t hurt either …

To a large extent, this grouping indulges in a more subtle form of stereotyping but invariably with the “denier” word unconsciously used as a given. It’s a useful discriminant to spot them. Once they use that word, you know what you’re dealing with; a true believer. They’re the next step up, a bit more respectable than the trolls or bloggers though at times the margin can be pretty slim.

The common denominator they all share is that they’re all activists who’re quite prepared to trash the perceived integrity of whatever profession they’re supposed to be practising in order to advance the “cause”, as it’s referred to in the climategate emails. They’re quite happy to distort, deceive, spin, destroy, pervert and simply lie their heads off because they just know the end justifies any means, and that’s something so many skeptics still find hard to get their head around.

There are one or two of them who like to represent themselves as honest brokers in the middle ground, but when push comes to shove or they’re in the right company and getting their ego stroked, the old denier word soon comes creeping out of hiding.

The last and most dishonourable group would be the people who’ve taken some time to look into the issue, who know the weakness of the alarmist case, know it’s so often a perversion of science, recognise only too well the professional calibre of the people indulging in the hate speech and yet stand still on the side-lines saying nothing. As Burke said, all that’s necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to stand idly by and do nothing. They may not be using the hate speech, but their silence condones it and therefore allows it to grow.

They are the only solution to the problem but as long as they maintain their silence and do not speak out against it, they are a part of the problem.

The last question to ask is why? Why all the hate, why all the venom? For most of them, it’s the anger phase in the death of their belief system and the skeptics are the ones they blame totally for their particular Götterdämmerung, the twilight of the gods or in this case Gaia. The skeptics reflect the sentiment of the common man, whose concerns have been placing worrying about the environment at the bottom of every poll for several years. It’s all our fault, we low creatures destroyed their dreams. Any belief in Gaia is dying because of us.

The real point about unrestricted hate speech is that it’s an enabler. When a non-stop, unrestrained stream of perverted, violent and hateful invective is allowed to be rained down on any group, eventually the words will lead to doing the deeds. We in the West allowed extremist imams to preach violence and we’re now seeing the results of allowing such “free speech”, in the form of home-grown terrorists attacking the societies they were raised in.

What I do know because I’ve seen it before is that there will be consequences from such an accepted environment of casual hate speech. Someone, somewhere, sometime will decide one of the deniers will have to be killed to protect the environment. It’s a prediction but one I feel will eventually happen as the hate speech spirals ever more violently out of control and gives someone a feeling of authorisation to do something murderous to save the planet.

On that day, one or more people will have died and some people’s invective will have to be examined in the light of that tragic event, because there will be no wiggle out using that venerable excuse of a lone demented maniac who had nothing to do with you. You’ll have made him, you’ll have made him feel righteous, you conditioned him, you wound him up, he murdered people – it’ll be on your conscience.

Is there any real chance the people actually responsible for inciting the murder will ever face a court of law for their part in it? Of course not, they’re in that long tradition ofslinking away unpunished and on with their prestigious lives to horizons anew and all is forgotten. Their skirts will be clean and no blood will rub off on their hems.

The more the hate escalates, the more certain it becomes that the sad day is slouching towards us.

©Pointman

Interest in Wind Projects Wanes, and Prices Dropping Fast!

January 29, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind auction sees low interest

Only two of four offshore MA wind areas get bids; sale prices much lower than prior sales off other states

By Mike Lawrence

Only two of four wind energy lease areas in federal waters south of Martha’s Vineyard received bids in an auction today and the sale prices were millions of dollars lower than previous auctions for leases of smaller sizes off other coastal states, according to statements by federal energy officials.

Leaders of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) expressed a sunny outlook, though, in a conference call to media following the sales.

BOEM put four lease areas up for auction this morning. The areas are collectively known as the Massachusetts Wind Energy Area and cover more than 742,000 acres in federal waters about 12 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard.

BOEM Deputy Director Walter Cruickshank said the 187,523-acre lease area closest to shore sold for $281,285 to Renewable Energy Systems (RES) Americas, and the adjacent 166,886-acre lease area sold for $166,886 to Offshore MW. The other two lease areas, farther from shore, were not bid on, he said.

U.S. Wind paid $8.7 million in August for leases on two areas totaling 79,707 acres off the Maryland coast, according to BOEM data. In September 2013, Dominion Resources paid $1.6 million for a lease on 112,799 acres off the coast of Virginia.

Deepwater Wind paid $3.8 million for two lease areas totaling 164,749 acres in the Rhode Island/Massachusetts Wind Area – adjacent to, and closer to shore than, the areas auctioned today – in BOEM’s first competitive auction of offshore wind development leases, in July 2013.

BOEM Director Abby Ross Hopper said the bureau was “happy with the results of (today’s) auction” and set the minimum bids lower than in previous auctions because of water depth and other factors.

“The Massachusetts Wind Energy Area is located in deeper water than some of our other wind energy areas in other states,” Hopper said. “We knew that developing…in this area was going to be more expensive.”

Hopper said another factor was that, unlike Massachusetts, other states had offered offshore wind credits and other financial incentives to renewable energy developers.

“That obviously has value,” Hopper said, adding that legislation has been introduced in Massachusetts to add incentives for offshore wind, but has not yet been approved.

Cheap oil and gas prices this month also may have deflated interest in wind power ahead of today’s auction. Additionally, the regional wind industry recently took a separate hit to the jaw, when utility giants NStar and Northeast Utilities announced the termination of their contracts to buy wind power generated by Cape Wind in Nantucket Sound, saying Cape Wind failed to meet critical financing milestones.

Hopper denied a connection between Cape Wind and the lack of bids on two lease areas today.

“I think the recent activity at Cape Wind shouldn’t be read as any sort of indicator of what happened in today’s auction,” she said. “I am very encouraged by the fact that two experienced wind developers have won provisional leases in the state of Massachusetts.”

The provisional leases bought today represent less than half of the 742,000 acres that were up for auction.

Cruickshank said the two areas that did not receive bids “are still part of the Massachusetts Wind Energy Area” and the bureau will discuss future options for their use with state agencies.

He said RES Americas and Offshore MW were the only companies that placed bids in today’s auction.

Follow Mike Lawrence on Twitter: @MikeLawrenceSCT

Danish Villages Bulldozed Because of Wind Turbines….Agenda 21

January 20, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

This Town is ‘coming like a Ghost Town: Wind Industry Buys Up & Bulldozes Whole Danish Villages

January 20, 2015 by stopthesethings

The Specials there, outlining Vesta’s ultimate plans for a town like yours.

If any further evidence was needed to show that the wind industry is the extension of the human-haters – who regard people, in the words of Greenpeace founder, Patrick Moore “as the enemies of the Earth, a cancer on the planet” – that, these days, try to pass themselves off as “greens” out to ‘save’ the planet, then look no further than Denmark.

Denmark is the home of the original eco-fascist profiteers – Vestas – thestruggling fan maker – run by by a band of crooks – that exhorted the world to “Act on (its parallel universe version of the) Facts” a while back: paying $millions to the Australian Greens and Trotskyite fronts like Getup! & Co – and pitching lies like the one about the noise from V112s being just like the noise from a fridge 500m away (see our post here).Tune your ears into your electric icebox for a few minutes and compare it with this:

Well, it seems, that on their home turf at least, the Vesta’s ‘fridge-noise-analogy’ isn’t cutting the mustard.

Having already been whacked with costly lawsuits from wind farm neighbours – in one case a court awarding Dkr 500,000 (A$93,439) in compensation for the substantial reduction in the value of the plaintiffs’ home, caused by incessant turbine noise (see our post here) – the Danish wind industry has resorted to the wholesale destruction of homes in order to carpet the country in even more of the things. So instead of this:

It’s down to this:

Company’s extreme wind strategy: Towns today, turbines tomorrow
The Copenhagen Post
Philip Tees
16 January 2015

Swedish energy company Vattenfall is going to extreme lengths for the sake of its Danish windfarms – buying up whole villages in rural Denmark, razing them to the ground and replacing the buildings with wind turbines, Børsen reports.

Mette Korsager, who is responsible for Vattenfall’s onshore wind projects in Denmark, told the business newspaper that the strategy was to make it easier for the company to achieve the goal of installing 250 MW of wind turbines in Denmark by 2018-2019. “We typically buy up farms in bad condition and demolish the farmhouse,” she said.

“Recently we bought most of a village to make a windpark.”

Helps the region, according to Vattenfall

That village is Kølby in northern Jutland, and Vattenfall plans to acquire a total of 20 properties.

Korsager told Børsen the strategy served a number of purposes. “We solve the problem of unsellable properties in peripheral regions,” she said.

“We solve the problem of neighbours being critical of wind farms, and we make it easier to reach agreements about the installation of wind turbines at the municipalities because we go in and help them by developing problem areas.”
The Copenhagen Post

STT bets that you just can’t wait for the wind industry to get in there and “help your region” by flattening every home as far as the eye can see?

And what an admission from the perpetrators of this grand-scale human expulsion project?

Aren’t we forever being told how much everyone loves wind turbines and just can’t get enough of them?

Now, why on earth would there be any kind of “problem of neighbours being critical of wind farms”?

One theory pedalled by a former tobacco advertising guru is that opposition to the ‘joys’ of living with giant fans is only a problem among English speaking countries: the guru reckons that complaints like those heard from dozens of wind farms around Australia are a cooked-up phenomenon exclusive to the English speaking world – as pitched-up inthis piece of propaganda on ABC radio and parroted in this piece of eco-fascist drivel from ruin-economy (for a taste of what the Taiwanese – not the world’s strongest English speakers – think about giant fans, see our post here).

Curious that Danes should complain about precisely the same effects from the incessant low-frequency noise and infra-sound generated by giant fans that Vestas’ victims at Macarthur in Victoria do? (see our post here)

Curious too, that Vestas and Siemens refused to be interviewed for the video? Surely, here was a golden opportunity to toss up some more “wonderful facts” about their products? But, we guess, it’s probably safer to keep your head below the parapet when you’re not in complete control of the final product.

The only contribution from Vestas was a pious eco-fascist guilt trip – laid on thicker than a whale omelette – that appears towards the end of the video.

When presented with FACTS about the very real human suffering caused by their fans (ie the daily acoustic misery lived by thousands of people globally, just like those in this video) these monsters fallback on the “threat” of man-made catastrophic global warming in an effort to justify it. And follow on with the utter fallacy that wind power will rid the world of CO2 gas – an odourless, colourless, beneficial trace gas, essential for life on earth (aka “plant food”).

For the purpose of simplifying the argument, STT is happy to concede that man-made CO2 emissions may cause an increase in atmospheric temperatures – whether or not modest increases in atmospheric temperature from present levels represents a threat to humans or the planet is another question again (see our post here).

The one, teensy, weensy problem with the wind industry’s “save the planet” pitch is that 100% of the capacity from intermittent and unreliable wind power has to be backed-up 100% of the time by fossil fuel generators running in the background and burning fuel ALL the time – and, therefore, increases CO2 emissions in the electricity sector.

But – the Danish wind industry with its mission to bulldoze homes and replace them, and the families that occupy them, with exploding pyrotechnic, sonic torture devices – in an astonishing admission of guilt – at least now recognises that humans and giant wind turbines are entirely INCOMPATIBLE.

The wind industry is alive to that FACT – and – wherever they’ve had to concede it – they quietly buy out their victims’ properties, bulldoze them (see our post here) and make damn sure they stitch up the unfortunate (homeless) family with bullet proof gag clauses (see our posts here andhere) – that their lawyers enforce with the zeal and vigour of the Old GDR’s Stasi (see our post here).

So, wind farm neighbours, next time you’re being hectored by the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers about the ‘wonders’ of wind power and told it’s “all in your head”; or being called “dick brains” by the ABC’ssmarmy little cutie-pie wind industry apologist, Annabel Crabb (as she did in a recent ABC radio wind industry propaganda broadcast) – flick them the link to this story.

The audio and transcript of Annabel’s “dick brain” outburst can be found on the ABC’s website here. However, to avoid the need to listen to (or trawl through reams of transcript of) almost an hour of tedious and nauseating ‘green’ group-think, we’ve extracted the relevant parts of the transcript, which is available here.

During the ABC’s little wind industry love-in, having called wind farm neighbours “dick brains”, that fabricate their complaints, Annabel – giggles on cue – and proudly tells us that: “I’m going to buy a property next to a wind farm, just to express the sincerity of my resolve”.

Now you can let her know that there are plenty up for grabs in Denmark; and quite a few up for grabs in Australia, but she’ll need to be quick before the Caterpillar D9s are fired-up and brought in to flatten them.

Wind Turbines are a Scourge on any Community, and People are Becoming Aware!

January 19, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Greenwich concerned about wind turbines

Greenwich Neighbors United is hosting an event to educate residents about proposed wind park and let them voice their concerns.

AARON KRAUSE

JAN 17, 2015

As members of the Greenwich community learn more about the proposed wind turbine park, they are voicing their concerns about its potential impact on this peaceful and tranquil community. The case is pending before the Ohio Power Siting Board (OPSB), docket #13-990-EL-BGN.

Kay VanScoy, a long-time resident of Greenwich who recently turned 100, said, “I think they will be too close to Greenwich. I’ve heard from big dairy farms that have turbines close to them that they have lost 20 percent of milk production because of them.”

Dean and Carol Sheldon, community members on Greenwich-Milan Townline Road, said, “We were impressed that the OPSB granted OMEGA the application for rehearing after reviewing the hundreds of comments filed by citizens and state and local officials. It would seem appropriate that an entire review of the Ohio Wind Farm siting criteria should be undertaken before a decision is made affecting submitted plans for the proposed Greenwich Wind Farm development.”

Other residents of the community, Heidi Johnson, and Tim Williams, voiced concerns about the impact on Greenwich.

Heidi said, “We have a geothermal heating/cooling system in our home, so we are not against alternative energy. Eight years ago we became interested in erecting a wind mill on our property. We had a company come and give us an estimate. The cost was going to be $25,000 and they told us that it would generate about $35 per month in electric. At that point, we realized that windpower was not a good investment in this area because the system would never pay for itself.

“We believe that putting 900 families within one-mile of a wind turbine is not a wise move. In Europe and Australia, they are moving wind turbines further and further away from private dwellings. Since wind turbines have been in these countries much longer than in the U.S., it seems that they have learned that placing them close to homes can cause problems for families.” Tim added, “If this project is pushed through, we as a community will be negatively impacted in many ways. Personally, there will be a negative visual impact which will ultimately lead to a larger and more destructive issue, the reduction of our property values.”

In addition, Ginnie Robson, life-long resident of Greenwich said, “In my mind I have been comparing the turbines coming to our area to the time before the indoor smoking ban was made law in Ohio in November of 2006. People’s choice to smoke directly infringed on non-smoker’s rights and health. Both sides of the issue were deeply affected but only one side had a choice. Again, the citizens neighboring the huge industrial complexes being created have no choice on a matter that will impact their health as well as their property values.”

The young, the old, life-long residents and those new to the area have great concerns about the proposed wind turbine development.

Greenwich Neighbors United is hosting an event on Feb. 22 to educate more citizens about the proposed wind park and provide an opportunity to voice their concerns. The event will be take place at South-Central (K-8) School, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

SUN, 01/18/2015 – 10:12AM

Hey! Right here! We are all so worried about where our electricity is going to come from? A nuclear power plant, coal fired or oil fired power plants. A wind farm, a solar farm, a hydro electric dam, geothermal… If you are receiving your electrical power from the grid, a lot of power has been already wasted before it gets to your house. Wasted in heat loss. Come on! I can create a device that can power your house without being connected to the grid. Almost zero power lost in the form of heat. This device can be modified and put in an automobile. With an electric motor, drive non stop. You could drive an Abrams Tank and not have to worry about MPG. Or you could drive a riding lawnmower and not have to worry about MPG. It is not a battery where you are limited to hours or miles driven. But something you could pass on to your children. Oil is dropping in price pulling global currencies down with it. Rely on this, rely on that. Everything is going to work itself out. People it will not work itself out. We have rode power generation into the ground. We need a new way to power our future. I have found a few alternative ways to generate electricity. Combustion free, no external forces needed, green energy. A closet size device, that would fit INSIDE your home or automobile, no POWER GRID. I am not afraid to say I can build this. I have lost multiple jobs, because of greener pastures. I want to create jobs and forge a new future for life past my own. Where is this affirmative action committee?

Battle with an outside company that wants to degrade your standard of living. Or create a device that changes the game of how you receive electricity and power your OWN future. No need to rely on a wind farm, a nuclear power plant, coal, or oil.

If Supplying Clean, Dependable, Electricity, is the Problem, Wind is NOT the solution!

January 18, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Greens clueless on energy
The Australian
Brendan Pearson
16 January 2015

DURING his formative years, the legendary 20th-century American journalist Walter Lippman spent a lot of time with revolutionaries, radical intellectuals and others with a weak grip on reality.

But Lippman soon grew tired of “dilettante rebels, he who would rather dream 10 dreams than realise one; he who so often mistakes a discussion in a cafe for an artistic movement, or a committee meeting for a social revolution”. It was, he complained, “a form of lazy thoughtlessness to suppose that something can be made of nothing; that the act of creation consists of breathing upon the void”.

It is a description that is apt for activists, the Greens and related vested interests who argue blithely that fossil fuels can and should be phased out in the next few decades. No thought of the practicality of the goal or consideration of the consequences. No evidence is presented on whether such a transition is possible, or at what cost, including to the world’s poorest people. Nothing is allowed to interrupt the addiction to the pleasures of intellectual condescension.

Certainly no reference is made to the lessons of recent history. Between 1990 and 2010, 1.7 billion people secured access to electricity for the first time. More than 1.27 billion people secured access to electricity powered by fossil fuels. By comparison, 65 million people secured access to electricity for the first time from renewable energy sources. Put another way, 19 gained access to energy from fossil fuels for every one person who secured access via renewable energy sources.

Now let’s consider the plausibility of the challenge. Within a generation, can non-fossil fuel sources provide reliable, affordable electricity to 1.3 billion people who have no access to energy and another two billion people who have only limited access, while also replacing the 82 per cent of global primary energy that is currently supplied by fossil fuels?

According to the International Energy Agency, non-fossil-fuel energy sources (nuclear, hydro and other renewables) accounted for 18 per cent of energy in 2013. Let’s test this proposition using the IEA’s most aggressive emissions reduction scenario, consistent with the goal of limiting the global increase in temperature to 2C. Even under this scenario, fossil fuels will still provide 59 per cent of primary energy in 2040.

In short, if campaigners get their wish and fossil fuels are phased out by 2040, the world will face an energy gap of at least 9.2 billion tonnes of oil equivalent. That is the equivalent of 147 countries with no energy.

To illustrate, an energy gap like that would mean that the 56 nations of Africa, the 44 nations of Latin America, the 12 nations of the Middle East and 35 nations in Asia, including China, would have to exist without energy.

It would be a neo-medieval existence for most of the world’s population — much lower life expectancy and much higher levels of infant mortality, poverty and abject misery.

If nuclear and hydropower are off limits — the Greens are hostile to both — the situation is even worse. You can add the US and Japan to the list of 147 countries with no access to energy.

It is a point that demonstrates the farcical nature of the anti-fossil-fuel movement’s central proposition.

But why can’t renewables fill the gap? Independent analysis has shown that replacing existing fossil fuel-powered electricity with solar power by 2030 would take 470 years at the current rate of deployment. To do so with wind energy would take 270 years and require 3,460,000 wind turbines. (Incidentally that would be good news for the coal sector — every offshore wind turbine uses 250 tonnes of coking coal in its manufacture.)

What’s more, back-up power storage would be necessary for when the sun didn’t shine and the wind didn’t blow. That would mean 4600 new hydro projects — 13 times the number of large dams operating globally today.

The simple reality is that fossil fuels will continue to be indispensable if the world is to meet rapidly growing energy demand.

The good news is that continued fossil fuel use and lower emissions are not mutually exclusive. In addition to good progress on carbon capture and storage, conventional technologies are slashing carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired generation by as much as 50 per cent.

The bottom line is that all energy sources will be needed. To pretend otherwise is to substitute an ideological prejudice for empirical evidence. In Lippman’s words, it is simply “breathing upon the void”.

Brendan Pearson is chief executive of the Minerals Council of Australia.
The Australian

Not a bad little wrap-up there by Brendan, but his line “that all energy sources will be needed” – if taken to include wind power – represents the kind of wooly-headed thinking that got the great wind power fraud going in the first place.

The wind industry parades as an “alternative” energy source. Which begs the question: “alternative” to what?

When it comes to their demand for electricity, the power consumer has a couple of basic needs: when they hit the light switch they assume illumination will shortly follow and that when the kettle is kicked into gear it’ll be boiling soon thereafter. And the power consumer assumes that these – and similar actions in a household or business – will be open to them at any time of the night or day, every day of the year.

For conventional generators, delivering power on the basic terms outlined above is a doddle: delivering base-load power around the clock, rain, hail or shine is just good business. It’s what the customer wants and is prepared to pay for, so it makes good sense to deliver on-demand.

But for wind power generators it’s never about how much the customer wants or when they want it, it’s always and everywhere about the vagaries of the wind. When the wind speed increases to 25 m/s, turbines are automatically shut-off to protect the blades and bearings; and below 6-7 m/s turbines are incapable of producing any power at all.

The basic terms of the wind power “deal” break-down like this:

we (“the wind power generator”) will supply and you (“the hopeful punter at the end of the line”) will take every single watt we produce, whenever that might be;
except that this will occur less than 30% of the time; and, no, we can’t tell you when that might be – although it will probably be in the middle of the night when you don’t need it;
around 70% of the time – when the wind stops blowing altogether – we won’t be supplying anything at all;
in which event, it’s a case of “tough luck” sucker, you’re on your own, but you can try your luck with dreaded coal or gas-fired generators, they’re burning mountains of coal and gas anyway to cover our little daily output “hiccups” – so they’ll probably help you keep your homeand business running; and
the price for the pleasure of our chaotic, unpredictable power “supply” will be fixed for 25 years at 4 times the price charged by those “evil” fossil fuel generators.

It’s little wonder that – in the absence of fines and penalties that force retailers to sign up to take wind power (see our post here) and/or massive subsidies (see our post here) – no retailer would ever bother to purchase wind power on the standard “irresistible” terms above.

If you think we’re joking – or you’re suffering the kind of mental incapacity for which greentards are renowned – we’ll spell it out in pictures.

Here’s a little hard data from July and August last year for the entire Eastern Grid – which covers every wind farm in Victoria, Tasmania and New South Wales, as well as including the 1,329 MW of installed capacity that comes from Australia’s “wind power capital” – South Australia. All of these wind farms are connected to the Eastern Grid and, back then, had a total installed capacity of 2,952 MW. Oh, and if our data looks a little fuzzy, click on the image, it will pop up in a new window, use your magnifier and it will look crystal clear.

Entire Eastern Grid – 20 July 2014 – from 12 noon to 6.30pm (6.5hrs):

Total wind farm output: never more than 140 MW; generally less than 70 MW; collapsing to less than 20 MW for 2hrs. (Note the collapse of over 600 MW between 4.30am and 3pm).

Output as a percentage of total installed wind farm capacity: 12 noon to 6.30pm – 4.7%, generally less than 2.3%, falling to 0.67%.

Total demand (average): 22,000 MW.

Contribution to total demand as a percentage: 12 noon to 6.30pm – never more than 0.64%, generally less than 0.32%, falling to 0.09%.

Entire Eastern Grid – 21 July 2014 – from 11am to 8.30pm (9.5hrs):

Total wind farm output: never more than 120 MW; generally less than 60 MW; collapsing to less than 20 MW for 2hrs. (Note the collapse of 580 MW between 3am and 3pm).

Output as a percentage of total installed wind farm capacity: 11am to 8.30pm – 4.1%, generally less than 2%, falling to 0.67%.

Total demand (average): 24,000 MW.

Contribution to total demand as a percentage: 11am to 8.30pm – never more than 0.5%, generally less than 0.25%, falling to 0.08%.

Entire Eastern Grid – 22 July 2014 – from 3.30am to 6.30pm (15hrs):

Total wind farm output: never more than 140 MW; generally less than 70 MW; collapsing to less than 20 MW for 5hrs.

Output as a percentage of total installed wind farm capacity: 3.30am to 6.30pm – 4.7%, generally less than 2.3%, falling to 0.67%.

Total demand (average): 24,000 MW.

Contribution to total demand as a percentage: 3.30am to 6.30pm – never more than 0.58%, generally less than 0.29%, falling to 0.08%.

Entire Eastern Grid – 2 August 2014 – from 4.30am to 9pm (16.5hrs):

Total wind farm output: never more than 165 MW; generally less than 140 MW; dropping to 80 MW.

Output as a percentage of total installed wind farm capacity: 4.30am to 9pm – 5.6%, generally less than 4.7%, falling to 2.7%.

Total demand (average): 22,000 MW.

Contribution to total demand as a percentage: 4.30am to 9pm – never more than 0.75%, generally less than 0.63%, falling to 0.36%.

Bear in mind that the 30 wind farms covered by the data above are spread over 4 States.

On the Eastern Grid Australia’s wind farms are spread from: Jamestown in the Mid-North, west to Cathedral Rocks on lower Eyre Peninsula and south to Millicent in South Australia; down to Cape Portland (Musselroe) and Woolnorth (Cape Grim) in Tasmania; all over Victoria; and right up to Cullerin on the New South Wales Tablelands.

Those wind farms have hundreds of fans spread out over a geographical expanse of 632,755 km². That’s an area which is 2.75 times the combined area of England (130,395 km²) Scotland (78,387 km²) and Wales (20,761 km²) of 229,543 km².

One of the wilder claims made by the wind industry is that if you erect thousands of giant fans over a large enough area wind power will produce base-load power and replace on-demand sources such as hydro, gas and coal: the “distributed network” myth.

Nowhere else in the world are so many interconnected wind farms spread over such a large geographical expanse. If there was a shred of substance to the distributed network myth, then it would be just jumping out of the pictures above, but – surprise, surprise – it just ain’t there.

When you have 2,952 MW of installed capacity – connected and spread over an area more than twice the size of Great Britain – producing less than 140 MW for hours on end – and, on plenty of occasions, less than half that figure – the idea that wind power is providing (or could ever provide) “base-load” power – or even power “on demand” – by having wind farms spread far and wide is pure, infantile nonsense.

For a solid debunking of that and other wind industry myths see our post here.

Oh, and if you think the data we’ve picked represents a few “unlucky” days for wind power generators see our posts here and here and hereand here and here and here.

On the FACTS laid out in the pictures above, STT is happy to go all out and say that in Australia wind power requires 100% of its capacity to be backed up 100% of the time by conventional generation sources.

Where the TOTAL output from all of the wind farms connected to the Eastern Grid was a derisory 20 MW (or 0.67% of installed capacity) for hours on end (see our post here), the 99.33% of wind power output that went AWOL for hours (at various times, 3 days straight) HAD to come from somewhere.

And that somewhere was from conventional generators; the vast bulk of which came from coal and gas plants, with the balance coming from hydro.

Now and again we get comments which query the comparative costs of wind power and conventional power. But there is simply NO comparison: the question is patent nonsense.

Conventional generation – is available 24 x 7 – ON DEMAND – and doesn’t depend on the weather – therefore, comfortably earning the tag “generation system”.

Wind power will NEVER be available on demand (can’t be stored) – is entirely dependent upon the weather – and is, therefore, not a generation “system” at all: “chaos” and “system” are words that come from completely different paddocks; and which mean completely different things.

If an economy started out with a power generation “system” that was entirely based upon the inherent chaos of wind power generation – in order for its people to enjoy a meaningful power supply (ie, one available around the clock and every day of the year) so as to live, thrive and survive – that economy would inevitably need to build an entire conventional power generation system based on coal, gas, hydro, geo-thermal or nuclear power – with enough capacity to supply 100% of the predictable needs of all power consumers in that economy.

In other words, if an economy with no power generation system at all built a “system” based on wind power alone, it would inevitably need to build a conventional generation system – capable of supplying every last MW of power used by homes, business and industry – of the kind enjoyed by first world economies, like Australia, in any event.

The pictures tell the story.

Why should anyone be exposed to the dangers of these machines?

January 18, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Turbine safety concerns

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Published: 16 Jan 2015 17:00

FOLLOWING the unexplained collapse of a wind turbine at a Northern Ireland windfarm last week, one local politician has raised concerns over safety at windfarms closer to home.

Turbine risks?

Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale MP David Mundell is asking the Scottish Government, the Health & Safety Executive and Council Building Control to make them aware of the incident and asking if they are satisfied that all existing local developments are safe, with no likelihood of such a collapse.

Seven remaining wind turbines have been shut down at a wind farm near Fintona, County Tyrone, where a 100-metre high turbine collapsed last Friday night.

Mr Mundell has also expressed that new developments are being proposed with turbines closer to people’s homes and he has asked the Scottish Government and Council to confirm that minimum safe distances between housing and new Windfarms will be strictly enforced.

Mr Mundell said: “I was extremely concerned to learn about this incident at the Screggagh Windfarm in Co Tyronne. It is particularly troubling that there appears to be no obvious explanation such as very high winds at the time. The turbine involved is similar to many locally with a tower height of 60 metres, an 80 metres rotor diameter, and an overall base to blade tip height of 100 metres.

“I understand people in the area said the rotor blades were spinning out of control on the evening the turbine buckled. The sound of the failing mechanical structure was heard more than seven miles away and debris from the stricken turbine was scattered across the mountainside, with a large spike remaining impaled in the earth several hundred yards from the turbine site. I am pleased there were no injuries when the turbine collapsed.”

He added: “It’s now vitally important we get to the bottom of what happened and make sure there are no such incidents possible on local windfarms. That’s why I want to be clear that the Scottish Government, Health and Safety Executive and Building Control are all aware of this incident and the ongoing inquiry. I want to be reassured that all local turbines are completely safe and not in danger of collapse. We might not be so lucky next time to avoid injury or damage to property.

“I have been increasingly concerned about how close some proposed new developments are to people’s homes and this incident reinforces the need for regulation of that and for it to be enforced. So I am also raising those issues with the council and the Scottish Government. Of course, a better solution from my point of view would be to have no new windfarm developments locally at all.”

Local campaigner, Jerry Mulders added: “I share the concern that occasionally small mechanical equipment can fail.

“The concern I would have is with the developer promoting recreational and open areas for land on which windfarms are situated. I would be seeking reassurances from developers that windfarms are not open as recreational areas for things like horse riding as a safety precaution.”

– See more at: http://www.cumnockchronicle.com/news/roundup/articles/2015/01/16/521733-turbine-safety-concerns/#sthash.Zfm2OYG6.dpuf

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