Faux-green Zealots Destroying Britain’s Economy….All for NOTHING!

December 23, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Exposure of UK’s Wind Power’s Crippling Costs sees Britain’s “Greenblob” Turn to Doublethink & Doublespeak

December 23, 2014 by stopthesethings

Britain’s energy policy is a debacle. It’s been driven by Marxist zealots of the hard-‘green’-left – branded the “Greenblob” by the reasonable and honest folks in politics, like Owen Paterson (see our post here).

The Greenblob have set Britain up for an inevitable economic disaster, by wedding its increasingly bleak future to insanely expensive, intermittent and utterly unreliable wind power (see our post here).

The obvious and inevitable consequence of throwing £billions in subsidies at wind power outfits and setting terms in 20 year contracts that see offshore wind power generators guaranteed obscene returns – being able to charge “three times the current wholesale price ofelectricity and about 60% more than is promised to onshore turbines” – is spiralling power bills (see our post here).

But sending millions into power-price-penury isn’t all that politically palatable, so the Greenblob spends much of its time covering up the true and hidden costs of wind power; and lying like fury when – despite their best efforts – those facts “unhelpfully” pop into view.

The hard numbers are, of course, “inconvenient” and, therefore “unhelpful” to the narrative being spun by Britain’s wind industry spin-masters embedded in Ed Davey’s Department of Energy and ClimateChange (DECC).

Instead of levelling with power punters on the true and ultimate costs of throwing £billions in subsidies at wind power outfits, the spinners at the DECC simply kept the “unhelpful” stuff under wraps. And, if the “Greenblob” operatives at DECC HQ had their way the hard facts would have never seen the light of day.

Well, thanks to some persistent digging by Dr John Constable, director of Renewable Energy Foundation, the truth is out.

Here’s The Telegraph exposing DECC’s determined efforts to see that British power punters are kept in the dark – in more ways than one.

Green policies to add up to 40pc to cost of household electricity
The Telegraph
Robert Mendick
14 December 2014

Official figures – initially withheld by ministers – show steep rises in the price of electricity by the end of the decade to pay for the Government’s policies to tackle climate change

The cost of household electricity will rise by as much as 40 per cent by the end of the decade because of the Government’s green energy policies.

Official figures — initially withheld by ministers — show an alarming increase in the price of electricity caused by generous subsidies to wind farms as well as other policies.

An average household is expected to pay as much as £250 more for electricity – mainly through consumer subsidies – to pay for the Government’s green energy schemes, while an electrically heated house could be as much as £440 a year worse off.

And by 2030, when thousands of planned offshore wind turbines are finally operating, the burden will be even greater, the numbers show. The average household could be paying an extra 60 per cent for electricity – equivalent to £350 more a year.

Medium-sized businesses will be hit very hard, according to the new data. On average such companies will see electricity bills rise by more than £500,000 a year – a cost likely to be passed on to consumers.

The figures were made public last week by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) following a Freedom of Information request by campaigners. The information was initially prepared for an official DECC report – released at the beginning of November – which claimed that the average household fuel bill had fallen by £90 thanks to the “impact of DECC policies”.

But the tables showing the actual cost of green policies on future electricity prices for households and businesses in 2020 and 2030 were kept secret because they were “thought to be confusing”.

Their release now will embarrass ministers, who are accused of presiding over an expensive consumer subsidy system.

The Government’s climate change policies include complex consumer subsidies for wind and solar farms, as well as grants for energy efficiency measures such as loft and wall insulation, available to certain households.

The introduction of smart meters, which it is hoped will encourage lower consumption, also helped contribute to rising electricity prices.

Dr John Constable, director of Renewable Energy Foundation, the think tank whose Freedom of Information request was responsible for forcing DECC to release the price impact tables, said: “The striking scale and increasing trend of the climate policy energy price impacts are bad enough in themselves, but DECC’s attempt to conceal these vitally important figures is breathtaking.”

Dr Constable said he had been told by informed sources that pressure had been put on DECC to withhold the tables.

“This is a very unsatisfactory situation,” he said, “Energy price impact data is so intrinsically important, and policy transparency so crucial to public trust in government, that very firm intervention is needed to clear the air and ensure that it will not happen again. This sounds like a job for the Prime Minister.”

DECC’s initial 88-page report was published on Nov 6, but the raw data on which the findings were based were omitted.

The Renewable Energy Foundation requested the figures and this week they were finally made available.

The supplementary tables show the “average impact of energy and climate change policies on households’ energy prices” will see the cost of electricity rise by as much as 42 per cent by 2020 from £131 per megawatt hour (MWh) to £186.

An average household uses about 4.5 MWh, meaning a rise of as much as £250 in the cost of electricity. By 2030, the price of a megwatt hour will increase by 60 per cent to £206.

Medium-sized businesses, according to DECC’s own figures, will pay as much as 77 per cent more for electricity in 2020 and 114 per cent more in 2030.

Such business on average consume 11,000 MWh – adding as much as £560,000 a year to the electricity bill. A typical bill could rise from £760,000 a year to £1.3 million.

DECC has claimed overall bills will fall because its green policies will lead to a reduction in household energy consumption with measures such as improved insulation and increased efficiency of electrical appliances leading to an overall drop in bills, it says.

A DECC spokeswoman said a decision had been taken to withhold the tables because it was “thought to be confusing”.

She said: “We always said we would publish the data anyway. It is not written anywhere but that is what we were quite clear about.”

She added: “Without the Government’s policies bills would still be higher.”
The Telegraph

George Orwell conjured up his nightmare world of malicious bureaucrats engaged in pernicious mind control in his novel, 1984.

At the time 1984 hit bookshelves in 1949, it was largely taken as a warning; directed at avoiding a future dominated by a malign few, at the expense of a pliant and gullible many. As the Iron Curtin descended across Europe, many took it as an analogue of the “how to” manual used by the Iron-Fisted, Communist regimes that ran the Soviet Bloc.

These days – as the great “Greenblob” (just the latest tribe of Neo-Marxists hell-bent on destroying free-market democracy from within) infects every aspect of political life and society – his prescient insights have taken on the air of a hard-hitting political documentary: from the piece above, it’s clear that Orwell’s future is now.

Orwell’s tongue wasn’t exactly wedged in his cheek when he coined terms such as “newspeak”; “doublespeak”; and “doublethink”: he was in deadly earnest.

“Doublethink” involves ordinary people simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct; but differs from plain old hypocrisy and neutrality. Somewhat related but almost the opposite is “cognitive dissonance”, where contradictory beliefs cause conflict in one’s mind. Doublethink is notable due to a lack of cognitive dissonance — as brainwashing renders the “doublethinker” completely unaware of any conflict or contradiction.

And, so it’s come to pass that those that purport to govern us, fight tooth-and-nail to bury the facts about the insane costs of wind power; and, when the facts get out, take to lying and obfuscation like ducks to water.

In Orwell’s dystopian vision, the Party spent its every energy to ensure the people knew nothing of what was really going on, ensuring that only a narrative approved by the “Ministry of Truth” saw the light of day.

When it comes to energy policy, Britain’s Big Brother mind control network is under the firm grip of the apparatchiks from the DECC: like the faceless, nameless “double-spokeswoman” who – along with her fellow travellers – decided to conceal the critical data on the true and hidden costs of wind power, because such “unhelpful” facts were “thought to be confusing”.

Heaven forbid! Facts? Confusing?

Sure, there’s always a risk that data spelling out, in unequivocal terms, the unassailable fact that paying wind power outfits 3-4 times the cost of conventional power results in escalating power bills (as night follows day), might end up “confusing” the average power punter. But we doubt it.

In bending over backwards to keep the facts secret – DECC’s real fear was more likely to be “confusion” amongst power punters about the motives of those they pay handsomely to serve and protect them: “confusion” about how that energy policy “giant”, Ed Davey could get it so, so wrong; and why his Department kept a lid on the facts that would reveal the lie?

Ed’s protectors at the DECC know full well that, as The Economist put it:

Offshore wind power is staggeringly expensive. Dieter Helm, an economist at Oxford University, describes it as “among the most expensive ways of marginally reducing carbon emissions known to man”. Under a subsidy system unveiled late in 2013, the government guarantees farms at sea £155 ($250) per megawatt hour for their juice. That is three times the current wholesale price of electricity and about 60% more than is promised to onshore turbines (see our post here).

Which is where DECC’s resort to “doublethink” comes into play. As Orwell defined it, “double think” is:

“The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them… To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies – all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.”

In a perfect example of Orwell’s “doublethink” in action, the “doublespeak” spinners with DECCs are able to deliberately lie by running the line that power prices will fall – due to its “brilliant” policy of throwing £billions in subsidies at wind power outfits – while simultaneously equipped with hard data that says just the exactly the opposite. Hmmm …

The deceit and high-handed arrogance of these people is, as the Renewable Energy Foundation’s director, Dr John Constable puts it: “breathtaking”. And it’s a phenomenon that’s overrun energy policy around the world.

When it comes to the dismal forecast laid out in 1984, that – if left to their own devices – those in power will inevitably corrupt and destroy the institutions that are meant to benefit society and, ultimately, destroy the society itself, George Orwell was an optimist.

Wind Industry is a Cesspool of Corruption, Collusion, and Coercion!

December 18, 2014 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Crooks & Corruption Rule: What is it with the Wind Industry?

December 18, 2014 by stopthesethings

The wind industry seems to attract a particular class of bloke, in much the same way that the Prohibition era drew lots of heavy-set Italians to the Mob.

Maybe that seemingly endless stream of massive subsidies filched from taxpayers and power consumers generates the same allure as festering dung does for swarms of flies?

Whatever it is, the whiff that surrounds the wind industry has attracted (and continues to attract) a class that has no hesitation lying, cheating, stealing and even bonking their way to the easy loot on offer.

The Italian Mob were in on the wind power fraud from the get-go: applying their considerable (and perfectly applicable) skills – leading the European wind power fraud, with what economists call “first-mover-advantage” (see our post here).

We’ve reported on just how rotten the wind industry is – from top to bottom – and whether it’s bribery and fraud; vote rigging scandals; tax fraud; investor fraud or REC fraud – wind weasels set a uniform standard that would make most businessman blush.

The crooks involved – and the corruption, lies thuggery and deceit that follow them – are uniform across the globe.

Wind power outfits in Taiwan – faced with a pesky community backlash – sent the muscle in and beat the protesters to a bloody pulp (see our posts here and here).

The Thais aren’t much better.

In Australia, Thai outfit RATCH has been lying to, bullying and threatening communities far and wide for years (see our posts here and here andhere).

In previous posts we’ve looked at how the goons that work for RATCH didn’t hesitate to invent a character – Frank Bestic – in a half-cunning attempt to infiltrate their opponents at Collector and elsewhere – see our posts here and here and here.

RATCH also teamed up with one of Queensland’s “white-shoe-brigade“, John Morris – in a joint plan to destroy the Atherton Tablelands by spearing 60 odd turbines into a patch of pristine wilderness on top of Mt Emerald – a move, quite rightly, opposed by 92% of locals (see our post here).

Morris – a five-star resort owner who has generously wined, dined and otherwise accommodated his mate, LNP pollie, David Kempton (who holds a rabid interest in the project getting approved, despite the fact that his own electorate is miles away) – has pulled out all stops to smooth the way to development approval (see our post here).

Faced with the inevitable community backlash to yet another pointless economic, environmental and public health disaster, the Queensland Planning Minister, Jeff Seeney has called “time-out”; declining to approve the project, as demanded by RATCH and Morris.

Morris – facing the uncharacteristic prospect of defeat – has turned to bullying and threatening the Planning Minister to ensure a speedy decision in his and RATCH’s favour: demanding that the Planning Minister make a decision no later than tomorrow (ie 19 December 2014) (see this article).

RATCH and Morris have shown all the care and restraint we’ve come to expect from the wind industry and its parasites: an “industry” that has absolutely no interest in producing meaningful power or “saving” the planet. Take away the promise of $50 billion in subsidies from the REC Tax on power consumers (see our post here) and this lot would will disappear in a heartbeat (see our post here).

RATCH shares its Thai roots with another Thai wind power outfit that owes its existence to the Thai Military Junta – “Wind Energy Holdings”.

Wind Energy Holdings has hit the news recently, as its hitherto-hot-shot head, Nopporn Suppipat has been caught with his fingers in the till. Having been caught – he’s acted with all the honour we’ve come to expect from wind weasels, wherever they ply their trade: he’s bolted!

Here’s The Wall Street Journal laying out an all too familiar wind industry tale.

Co-chief of Thailand’s Wind Energy a fugitive, say police
The Wall Street Journal
Warangkana Chomchuen and James Hookway
18 December 2014

UNTIL a few weeks ago, Nopporn Suppipat was a rising star in Thailand’s corporate scene.

The 43-year-old entrepreneur was profiled in local magazines, touted as a leader in alternative energy, and was firming up plans for a multi-billion-dollar initial public offering of the wind-power company he helped lead, Wind Energy Holding.

Now police say he has left the country to avoid arrest on accusations of extortion and insulting the monarchy, and Wind Energy said he had stepped down as co-chief executive.

The company’s IPO plans are on hold as it reorganises, according to source.

In a telephone interview from an undisclosed location, Mr Nopporn said he had done nothing wrong, yet he feared he might never be able to return to Thailand.

Mr Nopporn said his fall from grace was unexpected. He said his problems dated from the aftermath of Asia’s financial crisis in the late 1990s.

To shore up his personal finances, Mr Nopporn said, he had borrowed 17 million baht, the equivalent of about $630,000 today, from Gryphon International Holding, where he was then the largest shareholder, although had since divested himself of all of his shares.

Mr Nopporn’s business partners, though, filed an embezzlement complaint against him with the police, who forwarded to public prosecutors.

He arranged to pay the money back in instalments, finally settling the outstanding sum in court in 2012, according to a court document.

Most of his partners then agreed to settle the dispute, the document shows. However, Mr Nopporn said, one partner, Bundit Chotewitthayakul, refused to withdraw his lawsuit.

With preparations for an IPO for Wind Energy beginning to get off the ground, Mr Nopporn said, earlier this year he had offered Mr Bundit 20 million baht to withdraw his complaint.

According to Mr Nopporn, Mr Bundit then asked for 100 million baht. Mr Bundit’s lawyer said his client declined to comment.

“I wanted to have a clean slate and I can afford it,” Mr Nopporn said.

Mr Nopporn said he then hired a negotiator to try to reach a lower settlement with Mr Bundit. Police said the negotiator then hired three brothers of the estranged wife of Thailand’s heir to the crown, who has since relinquished her royal title, to increase pressure on Mr Bundit. From that point, Mr Nopporn’s problems took a turn for the worse.

The brothers were arrested and accused of defaming the monarchy by exploiting their royal ties for personal gain, among other offences, as police investigators stepped up an anticorruption campaign that also implicated senior police officials.

The police officials, who have been arrested and accused of similar crimes, and the brothers are now in police custody.

It is unclear whether they entered pleas or whether they have legal representation.

Thailand has some of the world’s most severe lese majeste laws, allowing for prison sentences of up to 15 years.

With the investigation widening, Mr Nopporn said he chose to leave Thailand before an arrest warrant was issued alleging he committed lese majeste by contracting the former princess’s brothers, in addition to the police’s accusation that he attempted to extort Mr Bundit. The company has appointed Emma Collins as its sole chief executive; she was co-chief with Mr Nopporn.

A spokesman for Wind Energy said it was reviewing its options for an IPO, while the company said in a written statement that the criminal allegations against Mr Nopporn had nothing to do with Wind Energy.
The Wall Street Journal

STT loves the way the (unnamed) spokesman for Wind Energy Holdings was quick to cut their “star” boss loose: proving that there really is no honour amongst thieves!

Now – some might think that corporate “standards” could be expected to slip in a country run by a band of “brass-hats” – but things don’t get any better even where the outfit is Denmark’s leading (but woefully struggling) fan maker, Vestas.

Vestas set the benchmark a while back – true to form, it keeps lying and cheating its way into trouble wherever it goes.

While Vestas threw $millions at the Greens and other astro-turfing, eco-fascist outfits in Australia (and elsewhere) – employing them as spruikers for its well-oiled (but nauseating) “Act on Facts” propaganda campaign – it got belted in the US earlier this year for failing to give its own (and potential) investors the very sort of facts, upon which share market punters and free markets depend.

Consistent with Vesta’s “fast-and-loose” with the “truth” style of doing business, it was caught out cooking its books and lying to the markets about its profitability in an effort to take investors for a ride. That little subterfuge cost it a lazy $5 million.

Vestas reaches conditional settlement on US lawsuit for $5 million
Wind Power Monthly
James Quilter
27 June 2014

UNITED STATES: Vestas said it has conditionally settled a lawsuit from a pension fund claiming the company issued false information regarding its revenue and earnings.

The lawsuit originates from 2011 and alleged false reporting was made between October 2009 and October 2010.

Vestas said $5 million will be paid out to the plaintiffs. It denies any wrongdoing and said it was making the payment “in order to end the substantial expenses, burdens and uncertainties associated with a continued litigation in the USA”.

The settlement is still subject to approval by the US courts.

Speaking about the decision, Vestas chairman Bert Nordberg said: “We look forward to putting this case behind us, which will allow us to continue our focus on the operation of the business to the benefit of our customers and our owners.”

The 2009-2010 period represents a troubled time for Vestas. At the end of 2010 company changed its accounting procedures.

Deminor Recovery Services, a company targeting Vestas on behalf of disgruntled investors, has been focusing on this change, suggesting Vestas used it to shift around 1.8GW of orders from the 2009 results into 2010 figures.
Wind Power Monthly

Wind Weasels Determined to Continue Scamming the Ratepayers….

December 15, 2014December 15, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

The Wind Industry’s Need for Massive Subsidies: The Never Ending Story

December 15, 2014 by stopthesethings

Wind Power Is Intermittent, But Subsidies Are Eternal
Wall Street Journal
Tim Phillips
1 December 2014

“Tax credits have been essential to the economic viability of wind farms so far, but will not be needed within a few years.” So said Christopher Flavin, now president emeritus of the Worldwatch Institute – in 1984.

Thirty years and billions of dollars later, the wind industry is still saying it needs taxpayer support. Congress is currently hearing this argument as it debates whether to extend the 22-year-old “production tax credit” in the lame-duck session.

The PTC, which gives wind producers a 2.3-cent tax credit for each kilowatt-hour of electricity produced over 10 years, expired at the end of 2013. Now wind-industry lobbyists are roaming the halls of Congress, asking legislators to renew it as part of a tax-extenders package before adjourning on Dec. 15.

The industry’s arguments are bluster. Wind-power capacity has increased by nearly 5,000% since the PTC was created and the industry now makes billions of dollars in annual revenue. Meanwhile, the credit has devolved into another example of corporate welfare.

Over the past seven years, the PTC has cost taxpayers $7.3 billion, and it is expected to pay out $2.4 billion more in 2015. Combined with other subsidies and programs, wind generators received $56.29 in government subsidies per megawatt-hour in 2010, according to a 2012 report from the Institute for Energy Research. That’s compared with 64 cents in subsidies for natural gas and $3.14 for nuclear power.

The program operates as one of America’s least-known wealth-redistribution schemes, forcing taxpayers to pick up the tab for wind farms beyond their borders. In 2012 more than 30 states paid more in subsidies than wind farms in those states received in tax credits. Citizens in five states paid more than $100 million more in federal taxes than they received from the PTC: California ($196 million), New York ($163 million), Florida ($138 million), New Jersey ($126 million) and Ohio ($104 million). Eleven states paid into the PTC even though they have no qualifying wind production. The unlucky losers included Florida, Virginia and North Carolina.

The credit also encourages abuse — both of the electricity grid and the taxpayer. Instead of paying wind producers based on how much of their electricity is used, the PTC pays them based on how much electricity they generate. Companies that invest in wind power thus receive tax credits to produce something that consumers may not actually want. In fact, producers often pay electricity-grid operators to take their product. This phenomenon is known as “negative pricing.”

Wall Street has figured out that it can use this system to its advantage. The PTC offers major corporations a chance to lower their tax rates by investing in wind energy. But investors also realize that wind farms make little financial sense if the taxpayer isn’t picking up the tab.

Wind power’s fluctuating growth patterns bear this out. In 1992 wind installations produced about 2.8 million megawatt hours of electricity; in 2013 wind installations produced 167.6 million megawatt hours. Yet when the PTC expired temporarily in 2000, wind installations plummeted 92% the next year. The same thing happened in 2002 and 2004, when new installations fell 76% after two temporary expirations.

But the past few years deserve special mention. For most of 2012, wind producers weren’t sure if the PTC would be renewed at the end of the year. As a result, producers didn’t break ground on new projects, with only 1,100 new megawatts brought online the following year – a more than 90% drop.

Yet Congress caved and gave the PTC a one-year extension in January 2013, throwing in a bonus: Wind projects under construction by the end of the year would still be eligible for the PTC, even if they wouldn’t come online until after the credit expired.

Corporations and wind producers promptly rushed to cash in the taxpayer’s generosity. The industry broke ground on 12,000 megawatts of new wind farms before the PTC finally expired on Dec. 31. Thanks to the credit’s 10-year payout guarantee, taxpayers still have another decade of subsidizing wind.

It would be a mistake for Congress to renew the PTC again, and it is time to let the wind industry compete with other energy industries in a fair market. Congress should ignore the hot air surrounding the PTC and let it flutter away forever.

Mr. Phillips is the president of Americans for Prosperity.
Wall Street Journal

More than just a few parallels to be drawn from that great little piece and the wind industry’s current efforts to keep the scam rolling here.

No matter where they ply their trade, the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers will never be accused of running a consistent theme when it comes to wind power’s (supposed) ability to compete with conventional generation sources.

Whenever the political brains trust start challenging the true and hidden costs of wind power to their constituents, these boys start babbling about the wonders of wind being “free”; their costs coming down all the time; and – in their more fantasy-filled moments – making the wildest claim of all: that wind power is already truly competitive with coal and gas fired generation (see our posts here and here).

That drivel lasts for just as long as it takes for the political conversation to turn to chopping the massive stream of subsidies directed by government mandate to wind power outfits. At which point, they sober up really fast – and start whining like spoilt brats about threats to investment and jobs (read their “own investments and their own jobs”).

In this recent post, we threw down the gauntlet – challenging the Australian wind industry’s spruikers to pin their colours to the mast.

Is wind power REALLY competitive with conventional generators?

Or is it just a perpetual infant, that would die a natural death in a heartbeat in the absence of massive subsidies filched from power consumers, under the threat of whopping fines that get levied against retailers that fail or refuse to play ball?

While that story will shift like the desert sands – and continue to be delivered with the all the persuasion of Little Britain’s vacillating Queen of Darkley Noone, Vicky Pollard, whenever she’s put on the spot – the one constant is that the “future” of the wind industry will be just as it always has been: one entirely wedded to corporate welfare on a mammoth scale.

More Professionals Coming Forward to Protect wind Turbine Victims.

December 14, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind Syndrome: Public Health Crisis

By H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D — The Heartland Institute — December 12, 2014

Wind farms are a “human health hazard,” or so concludes Wisconsin’s Brown County Health Board (BCHB) with regard to the Shirley Wind Project, owned by Duke Energy (DE).

The board’s action has put Duke Energy on the defensive; the power company now has to prove its turbines are not making people sick or face a shutdown order.

This should also serve as a shot across the bow of other wind power operators, a warning to take health complaints seriously, because other towns and counties across the nation could follow BCHB’s example.
BCHB acted with cause. Its decision was based on a year-long study documenting infrasound in homes within a six-mile radius of the Shirley Wind turbines. In addition, BCHB examined peer-reviewed medical research and the complaints of people living around DE’s Shirley Wind Project, which included dozens of sworn affidavits attesting to chronic health problems they have suffered since the turbines began operation in 2010.

In repeated doctor visits, residents near the wind turbines reported experiencing unexplained chronic pain, inability to sleep, ear and head pressure, anxiety, and depression while at their homes, symptoms that disappear after a time away from the turbines. It’s become so bad some families living close to the wind farm have actually left their homes and are renting elsewhere while still paying their mortgages.

After examining all the evidence, BCHB declared “the Industrial Wind Turbines in the Town of Glenmore, Brown County, WI [are] a Human Health Hazard for all who are exposed to Infrasound/Low Frequency Noise and other emissions potentially harmful to human health.”

I have written extensively debunking various phantom health scares hyped by environmental lobbyists. From fears that chemicals in everyday use are causing unusual rates of cancer to unfounded assertions that biotech foods will cause unspecified catastrophic harms to human health or the environment, I’ve refuted them all.

However, there are big differences between the faux scares noted above and the claims wind farms may be making people sick.

First, biotech foods and medicines, as well as most chemicals in everyday use, have gone through extensive testing, and the evidence shows they are safe. With “wind turbine syndrome,” research is just beginning, and, as BCHB pointed out, studies have found evidence linking wind farms and health problems.

Second, genetically modified foods and medicines and modern synthetic chemicals provide myriad benefits other products can’t match, whereas wind power requires huge subsidies, is still inordinately expensive, and is unreliable, and the public has numerous better options for electric power.

Third, the government does not require consumers to purchase or use any GM products or synthetic chemicals about which any particular customer may have concerns. Thus, with a little research and studious shopping, one can avoid any product containing those foods or chemicals.

That is not true for wind power. Many states, including Wisconsin, mandate the use of wind farms and subsidize them; rate payers are captive purchasers. Worse, many states, such as Wisconsin, preempt localities’ authority to set conditions for turbine siting. Residents who don’t want turbines near their homes, who may indeed be made sick by their operations, have to live with the problems or move. If the health complaints prove true, the state government has put those people at risk.

At this point, we don’t know whether wind farms pose substantial health risks to those residing near them, but evidence is mounting they might, and now a public health authority has said they do. Why are major media outlets silent on the possible link between wind power and chronic health problems? I can’t imagine this kind of silence would exist if coal-fired power plants or oil terminals were linked to chronic health concerns.

Certainly, based on the current research and the numerous public complaints from California to New York, and internationally from Australia, Japan, and the United Kingdom, one might think a good investigative journalist would consider wind-turbine syndrome worth investigating, if only to try to disprove it. Consider the challenge laid down.

H. Sterling Burnett (hburnett@heartland.org) is a research fellow with The Heartland Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research institute based in Chicago, Illinois.

News That is So Wonderful, I must Share It Again! Windweasel Goes Down in Flames!

December 14, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Bye-Bye Barnyard: Mike Barnard’s Boss – IBM – Shuts Down the Wind Industry’s Most Rabid & Nasty Propaganda Parrot

December 14, 2014 by stopthesethings

Mike Barnard – “Barnyard”, as he’s affectionately known – is easily the most vicious, vile and virulent of the wind industry’s beleaguered band of propagandists, spruikers, parasites and media manipulators.

Along with other members of his dwindling pack of marauding-media-manipulators, Barnyard stalks internet sites and Twitter like a starving hyena – venting spleen; denigrating and ridiculing those unfortunates suffering from sleep deprivation caused by incessant low-frequency noise and infrasound – he sneeringly calls them “liars”, without a shred of first-hand evidence to support him, let alone relevant qualifications or experience relating to health or acoustics; slamming highly qualified health and acoustics professionals who’ve been working on the topic of noise and health their whole lives, while simultaneously trying to elevate his best mate – a former tobacco advertising guru – to the status of an acoustics/neuroscience “Einstein” on the health impacts of turbine noise; and otherwise doing his bit to perpetuate every lie, half-truth and myth about the “wonders” of wind.

For a taste of the delusion that grips the man, contrast this complete pile of piffle that Barnyard must have beamed in from the outer reaches of the Cosmos – with the detailed, factually based analysis produced by the Institute for Energy Research that came from good old Mother-ship, Earth (covered in our post here).

Barnyard, runs very close with the other “gold-pass” members of the hyena parasite-pack: “Enemies of the Earth’s”, eco-fascist-in-chief, Leigh Ewbank (aka FOE – a fully paid-up front for Danish fan maker, Vestas); Infigen’s in-house spin-master Ketan Joshi; and “Wind-Lord” Ken McAlpine, the struggling Danish fan maker’s front man in Oz.

But his days of pious pontification, rabid-hate-filled-rants, virulent attacks on highly respected academics, acoustics and health professionals and pedaling myths on the “wonders” of wind power are over.

Barnyard’s self-appointed “expert” status, nastiness and internet ubiquity was speared in a cracking open letter by none-other than STT Champion, Jackie Rovensky who, quite rightly, ripped into his reprehensible ranting with this fine piece of work, that hit pro-community websites back in September.

Mike Barnard’s disreputable wind industry propagandist role revealed
JA Rovensky

Vicious, grossly inaccurate and sometimes defamatory attacks on professionals and researchers are relentless from the wind industry and its vocal cheer squad. Their targets include individuals such as Dr Nina Pierpont, Professor Bob McMurtry, Dr Michael Nissenbaum, Dr Sarah Laurie, Mr Steven Cooper, Professor Colin Hansen, Mr Les Huson, Mr Rick James and numerous others, who work to uncover the truth of reported acoustic emission related adverse health impacts linked to Industrial Wind Turbines.

One of the most prolific and virulent is someone called Mike Barnard, an IBM employee. It seems he began his attacks when living in Canada, and is now physically located in Singapore. Whilst Barnard claims to be operating independently of his employer, IBM, the amount of time he spends blogging on wind power and smart grid related issues, and the business connections IBM have with the renewables industry with respect to smart grid technology and renewable energy, make his assertion that IBM are not involved and supporting his activities questionable.

When one of Barnard’s cyber bullying victims informed him what he’d written was libellous, Barnard’s comment in response was to the effect that he was laughing at them because he was untouchable by living in Singapore and utilising free blogging software in a “Cloud”? IBM has a strict policy on cyberbullying, and has been specifically made aware of Barnard’s activities. What action has IBM taken to discipline their vocal employee, who is bringing their organisation into considerable international disrepute with his behaviour?

So who is Mike Barnard, and what are his professional qualifications? On Barnard’s personal blog site he states he became interested in blogging on energy concerns several years ago, and this led:

to significant contacts, research and writing related to wind energy and its myriad societal and commercial interconnections, including the electrical grid, wind energy innovations, social license, health, noise and legal aspects. [1]

In a response to comment on one of his blogs he responded with:

For a little context on my background, I was the Business Architect responsible for delivery of the world’s first full public health surveillance system for communicable diseases, … funded by the Canadian government …

On his blog site introduction he states:

IBM was engaged to build the major technical solution which automated management of communicable disease and public health surveillance.

This related to Canada. He goes on to state he:

joined the program in the late 2000’s as the business architect, responsible for understanding policy, epidemiology and other business drivers and balancing them with what was pragmatically possible …

IBM was contracted in 2006 to design a system to be completed in 2007. They completed the design of the program in 2008, but in June 2013 the Canadian Medical Association Journal : Journal de l’Association medicale canadienne (CMAJ:JAMC) published an article which reported since then progress had been delayed because of numerous technical problems and confusion among provinces and little had been heard of the program since, “The concept has gone almost nowhere” [2].

Barnard continues to inform us how he has read through health studies and reviews related to wind power from around the world and claims:

constant and deep access and conversations related to public health management, epidemiology and the nature of medical evidence … That experience and on-the-job education has been invaluable as I’ve read through health studies and reviews related to wind power from around the world …

This has apparently also led to:

recognition of my expertise … I’m pleased to say that my material is helping to shape legal defences of wind energy, advocacy programs and investments in several countries.

In addition in 2013 he was assigning a blog “debate” relating to bird flight paths through a proposed Wind Turbine site, as being his impetus to start collecting material, and creating his own personal blog saying:

A few years ago I started down a road that has led to an unexpected place.

However, blogs can be found from him on energy from around 2010 [3], his voyage into health issues seems to have begun around 2012 when he attacked Dr Nina Pierpont and Dr Nissenbaum. Barnard has been involved in blogging on wind energy issues for some time, and he considers himself to be an integral part of the wind industry’s product defence strategy, which is certainly consistent with his behaviour. This is also consistent with how he is perceived by others who are also actively engaged in the same dishonest activities of denying the known adverse health impacts of wind turbine acoustic emissions; known to the wind industry and acousticians to cause damage to health via “annoyance” symptoms including sleep disturbance and body vibrations for nearly thirty years, since the work undertaken by Dr Neil Kelley et al in collaboration with NASA and a number of research organisations and wind turbine manufacturers.

The list of “publications” following these claims relate to blog sites and/or websites which are sites supporting Renewable Energy production and blogs which repeat the misinformation. They are not peer reviewed journal articles, nor has Mr Barnard been qualified to give expert evidence in any jurisdiction on wind turbine health and noise issues.

Barnard proudly displays a list of his 50 “Skills and Expertise” which includes “Wind Energy and Health”. None of the others cover any medical or health skill or expertise, and it hasn’t been possible to locate any medical or health related training or degree, or indeed any other relevant technical, professional or academic qualifications he has achieved with direct relevance to wind turbine noise or health, as he does not provide details of them. This suggests that Mr Barnard does not have that relevant professional background, academic training or expertise.

Just what is Mr Barnard’s specific expertise in this area?

Throughout Barnard’s blogging career he has concentrated on castigating, defaming and ridiculing those who do have qualifications, research and/or authorships, and who are demonstrably independent of the wind industry and from those who benefit financially from its operations.

One person in particular he’s taken aim at is Dr Sarah Laurie from South Australia, who is the CEO of the Waubra Foundation. The Waubra Foundation was established to facilitate independent multidisciplinary research into the impacts of infrasound and low frequency noise and vibration on human health. Wind turbine noise is just one source of noise the Foundation is concerned with.

Dr Sarah Laurie is a fully trained and qualified doctor, with clinical experience as a highly regarded rural General Practitioner, but she is not currently registered to practice medicine because of personal and family health issues and caring responsibilities. In Australia, it is a requirement that to practice medicine, you must be currently registered with the Australian Health Practitioners Regulatory Agency (AHPRA). Dr Laurie is not currently practising medicine with her current work as CEO of the Waubra Foundation. She is not seeing patients, she is not diagnosing conditions, and she is not prescribing medicine. She is listening carefully to what people adversely impacted by environmental noise tell her about their health problems, and the diagnoses their treating health practitioners have given them, if they choose to share that information with her.

Claims made by Mr Barnard (and others working with the wind industry such as Infigen Employee Laura Dunphy, and VESTAS employee Ken McAlpine) that she is deregistered are deliberately false. Implying that she has been “struck off” for professional misconduct is just one example of Barnard’s regular defamatory utterances, which are then repeated by others. Further his claims that she was “forced” to stop using the title of Doctor are also false. Mr Barnard continually deliberately misleads his readers with such comments and is clearly disinterested in the truth.

Because of a spurious complaint to the regulatory authority that she was “practising medicine whilst being unregistered” Dr Laurie voluntarily offered to AHPRA not to use the title “Dr” which retired or non-practising doctors are legally entitled to do in Australia, because she did not wish to mislead anyone about her current non registered status in her work with the Waubra Foundation. There had been no complaints to AHPRA from anyone who Sarah had interacted with that she had misled them as she had always been careful to ensure that anyone contacting her directly for information about their own circumstances was well aware of her current unregistered status. Indeed anyone with any awareness of this issue would be well aware of her current unregistered status because of the wide and frequent publicity this issue was given by the wind industry and its vocal supporters, particularly Professor Simon Chapman, the ABC and Fairfax media.

There is no restriction on anyone else referring to her as “Dr”, nor is there a restriction on her using the title if she was not performing her role as the Waubra Foundation CEO. AHPRA staff expressed their gratitude to her for this offer not to use the title “Dr”, which they accepted, with the proviso that when she reregistered to practice she would resume using the title “Dr”.

This issue was specifically clarified in the Environmental Review Tribunal Decision: Bovaird v. Director, Ministry of the Environment where the judgment stated the following:

The Tribunal finds that this evidence supports Ms. Laurie’s assertion that the AHPRA did not make any finding in respect of the complaint made against her.

Why did Mike Barnard ignore this finding of the Tribunal?

It is clear that he did not mention it because his intent was to deliberately smear Dr Laurie’s professional and personal reputation. It is also clear that the original widely publicised complaint to the NHMRC and AHPRA alleging professional and research misconduct, was done for precisely the same reasons by those within public health and wind industry circles in Australia who were unhappy with the attention the issue of health damage from wind turbine noise was attracting.

Those involved in this sordid episode include senior people in the ranks of public health bodies in Australia, including the Public Health Association of Australia, whose CEO, Michael Moore made the complaint, and whose computer created the defamatory “anonymous” allegation document. Mr Moore has since apologised to Dr Laurie, and the NHMRC CEO Professor Warwick Anderson has also apologised for the NHMRC’s behaviour towards Dr Laurie in a letter to the Chair of the Waubra Foundation, Peter Mitchell. The NHMRC unnamed “spokesperson” had leaked information about the allegations to crikey journalist Amber Jamieson, specifically naming Dr Laurie. Others such as Professor Simon Chapman have admitted they “saw a draft” of the defamatory allegations document, and Infigen Energy’s propagandist Ketan Joshi is uncharacteristically silent when challenged by others on various blog sites about his knowledge and involvement in the production and distribution of this defamatory document. The format of the document was remarkably similar to the way Infigen energy prepares their responses to issues raised by objectors to their environmental assessments.

Among Dr Laurie’s credentials are her positions as a former Examiner for the Australian College of General Practitioners, a former Mid-North Division of General Practice representative and former member of the regional Mental Health Advisory Committee. She was a provider of pro bono services to the local Aboriginal community and a cofounder of the regional Rape and Sexual Assault service. She also undertook emergency care work at the local rural hospital as a visiting medical officer, in addition to her role as an employee, associate and then partner in a local medical practice.

These credentials are not confidential, and are available to Mr Barnard and anyone else who wishes to ascertain her qualifications, just by looking at the Waubra Foundation website [4], and reading the speech given in the Australian Federal Parliament about this matter, by the former Member for Hume, Alby Schultz [5].

Dr Laurie states clearly she has no expertise in acoustics, but does consult regularly and collaborates closely with those who are acousticians, to help ensure she understands what she needs to in relation to exposure levels of infrasound, audible noise and vibration and correlations with reported health symptoms. She also repeats constantly she does not undertake and is not trained to do research in an academic manner, but is actively facilitating the research being conducted by others. What she goes to great pains to explain is that she listens very carefully to the symptoms people living near environmental noise experience themselves and then try and describe. This is a core skill required by rural general practitioners, something she was specifically trained to do and was particularly skilled at. Rural doctors need excellent diagnostic skills, most of which is dependent on taking a very careful clinical history, as they do not have the luxury of specialists “next door” and easy and rapid access to a range of diagnostic facilities which city counterparts take for granted.

Dr Laurie then collects and collates pieces of information given to her by people reporting changes to their health after wind turbines and other industrial noise sources begin operating in their vicinity, looking for similarities and patterns which give important clues as to direct causation. Occasionally people provide her with some of their medical records and other health data, which is kept confidential unless the person concerned gives their permission for the information to be out in the public domain, or the information has already been reported publicly in the media or in oral or written testimony to courts, tribunals, and parliamentary inquiries.

Dr Laurie always maintains confidentiality, even when under significant and very public pressure from others demanding she release information to them for their research. One example is the repeated private and public harassment from Professor Simon Chapman, Professor of Public Health at Sydney University, and Expert Adviser to the Climate and Health Alliance, to release the names of residents forced to leave their homes and other details such as locations of their abandoned homes [6]. Much of that information had been provided to her in confidence, and some of the information could have caused significant harm to the people concerned – for example because of non-disclosure clauses in legal documents signed by people providing the information, or by their close relations. Others requested privacy because of concerns about property damage, burglary or arson to unoccupied homes. It has subsequently emerged from inquiries made by Senator Madigan’s staff, that at the time Professor Chapman conducted his inquiries, he did not have in place prior ethics committee approvals from the Sydney University Ethics Committee. Requests for information were made directly to wind turbine noise affected residents, causing them considerable distress. [update:The Sydney University Ethics Committee has clarified that no approval was required, as the ‘research’ entailed only asking people to corroborate already public statements.]

Whatever the Bovaird ERT Tribunal said in Ontario, Dr Laurie cannot be objectively considered as having been “diagnosing” patients since she ceased practicing.

Examination of information consisting of health issues diagnosed by treating physicians and discussing this information with the informants does not constitute “making a diagnosis”, which is a process requiring a thorough clinical evaluation by a treating health practitioner. What Dr Laurie did in the Boviard case is no different to what she has done elsewhere, and can only be considered as evaluating the combination of specific individual clinical circumstances with respect to the available research evidence and clinical knowledge. That was precisely what Dr Laurie had been asked to do. She was not asked to diagnose patients, nor would she have done so, as she is well aware of the appropriate constraints on such activities for those who are not currently registered to practice medicine.

Irrespective of the Environment Review Tribunal’s questionable determination in the Boviard case, which is consistent with other questionable decisions made by the same Tribunal resulting in many rural Ontarians being harmed by wind turbine noise because of unsafe and continuing wind turbine development approvals, it is logically impossible for anyone to diagnose someone “before” they have symptoms.

Identifying that some people who have one or more acknowledged risk factors prior to Industrial Wind Turbines beginning to operate provides information about predictable health problems which may ensue with exposure to infrasound and low frequency noise. You don’t have to be a trained doctor or research academic to come to that conclusion, but clearly the knowledge attained from years of study and subsequent clinical practice does put a formerly registered practising medical practitioner in a position where her expertise can be utilised, as an expert witness in this field, without her currently “practising” medicine.

The complete lack of critical thinking used by members of the Ontario Environment Review Tribunal who used such irrational logic to determine whether someone has the ability to offer a hypothesis, is mind boggling at best and disturbingly suggestive of bias at worst.

There are constant references to Dr Laurie not being able to stipulate what distance she determines is a safe distance these turbines should be from people. Dr Laurie consistently states she cannot provide a fixed distance, as there are many variables to be considered and the multi-disciplinary research needs to be undertaken first. After all, not only are turbines becoming larger, and installed in greater numbers in individual projects or through extending existing project many other variables have to be taken into account, such as the geology, wind directions and speed, seasonal changes, temperatures to name some.

Professor Colin Hansen’s research group’s latest acoustic survey at Waterloo Wind Development in South Australia [7] is a good example of the sort of research Dr Laurie has been stating is required for the last four years. That acoustic survey demonstrated that there is indeed a low frequency noise problem for neighbours to Waterloo wind development, and that it can extend out even beyond 8km under certain circumstances.

This is precisely what Dr Laurie stated three years ago; when the Waubra Foundation’s explicit Cautionary Notice was issued on 29th June, 2011. The information which led to the distance of 10km being specified in that document came from adversely impacted residents at Waterloo. Professor Hansen’s team’s research findings have now supported Dr Laurie’s statement in 2011 about the distance of impact and are consistent with the residents’ consistent reports for nearly four years of a low frequency noise problem from the wind turbines at Waterloo, which severely disrupts their sleep.

Much is made by Mr Barnard and others of the “nocebo” effect, whilst they dismiss the existence of “wind turbine syndrome”. However Mr Barnard fails to disclose that British Acoustician Dr Geoff Leventhall specifically acknowledges the existence of the symptoms of wind turbine syndrome, indeed Leventhall stated in June 2011 in a presentation to the National Health and Medical Research Council [8] that he had been familiar with the identical symptoms to WTS which he calls “noise annoyance” for “years”. Leventhall further noted that Dr Nina Pierpont’s contribution to the field of environmental noise was to identify certain risk factors for developing “noise annoyance” symptoms.

For those interested, the presentation and the slide show are available on the NHMRC website, and also on www.wind-watch.org. The relevant slides are slides 42–44, and the footage is between 49 and 52 minutes of the video.

Mr Barnard has also failed to disclose that leading otologist, and Harvard Professor Steven Rauch has recently confirmed that he is seeing patients with the characteristic symptoms of “wind turbine syndrome”. Journalist Alex Halperin had this to say in a recent article [9]:

Dr Steven Rauch, an otologist at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and a professor at Harvard Medical School, believes WTS is real. Patients who have come to him to discuss WTS suffer from a “very consistent” collection of symptoms, he says. Rauch compares WTS to migraines, adding that people who suffer from migraines are among the most susceptible to turbines. There’s no existing test for either condition but “Nobody questions whether or not migraine is real.”

“The patients deserve the benefit of the doubt,” Rauch says. “It’s clear from the documents that come out of the industry that they’re trying very hard to suppress the notion of WTS and they’ve done it in a way that [involves] a lot of blaming the victim.”

Mr Barnard also fails to mention the opinions of rural family physicians such as Dr Sandy Reider, from Vermont, who is at the front line of clinical care for those affected by wind turbine noise, that “wind turbine syndrome” is a euphemistic description which does not sufficiently depict the clinical severity of the clinical cases he is seeing [10].

Mr Barnard fails to mention the opinion of Irish Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Colette Bonner, who has also publicly acknowledged the existence of “wind turbine syndrome” and said that those affected need to be treated with understanding. A recent media report from Ireland stated the following [11]:

“The Department of Health’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Colette Bonner, has said that older people, people who suffer from migraine, and others with a sensitivity to low-frequency vibration, are some of those who can be at risk of “wind turbine syndrome”.

“These people must be treated appropriately and sensitively as these symptoms can be very debilitating,” she commented in a report to the Department of the Environment last year.”

Mr Barnard, and those whose commercial interests he is working so hard to protect, is involved in a grubby, dishonest, misinformation and vilification campaign, as part of a global defence strategy for the global wind industry. This industry has been well aware of the problems directly caused by wind turbine noise since 1987, when Dr Neil Kelley’s research [12] establishing direct causation of annoyance symptoms from infrasound and low frequency noise was presented at the American Wind Energy Association conference.

Mr Barnard and his associates’ behaviour is further eroding the personal and professional reputations of all those involved, and eroding the reputations of the companies and organisations they work for, including in this instance IBM.

However, perhaps more importantly Mr Barnard’s behaviour is further eroding the public’s confidence in the global wind industry and its social licence to operate. Such tactics in Australia will only result in the lessening of political and public support for the large subsidies from electrical consumers which are required to keep the wind industry operating.

As Professor Ross McKitrick from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, recently pointed out, the wind industry runs on subsidies [13]. Without the support of the public who are funding the wind industry via their mounting electricity bills, and the politicians responsible for the legislation which forces the subsidies to be collected directly from the public, the wind industry in Australia and elsewhere around the world is doomed – a fitting consequence for such a dishonest and health damaging industry which has shattered the lives of too many rural residents and their families for too long.

It’s time, as a growing number of professionals and researchers are openly saying, for the wind industry to accept the problem, and work to eliminate it. “Shooting the professional messengers” as the Energy and Policy Institute publication by Barnard [14] has tried to do, will not stop the litigation for noise nuisance, negligence against complicit acousticians, or applications for injunctions to cease the operation of turbines, and will only further reduce the diminishing social licence for the wind industry to operate.

JA Rovensky

Nice work, Jackie!

To see the original, along with Jackie’s numerous footnotes and references – click here.

That link also contains a detailed comment from the documentary film maker, Andrew Greg – who put together the brilliant wind power fraud expose, Wind Rush for CBC.

For his fine, well-researched and documented efforts, Andrew was rewarded with one of wind-lunatic, Barnyard’s typically vehement, unhinged tirades: demanding that CBC never employ him ever again; personally attacking Andrew and his family; and anyone else that Barnyard could think of, that poses a threat to his maniacal world-view.

Barnyard’s “motive” for all that untamed malice?

Why, the mighty dollar, of course.

Barnyard works for American IT giant, IBM, developing the computer software that’s used in “smart” grid management systems and “smart” power meters – that are part and parcel of the chaos associated with Barnyard’s pet power generation “system”: a “system” centred on a wholly weather dependent power source, that will only ever deliver power at crazy, random intervals (if at all).

It’s that inherent chaos which provides the “market” for Barnyard’s “smart” grid software, among wind power outfits and grid managers.

And it’s the chaos inherent in the wind power “system” that sets up an increase in the opportunities for rampant gaming and rorting of the market for sparks – which is where Barnyard’s “smart” meter software comes into its own.

“Smart” meters are perfectly designed to allow power companies to make out like Mexican bandits on the hundreds of occasions each year when wind power collapses for hours each day, and for days on end. These inevitable and unpredictable wind power output collapses see the usual dispatch price for power, of around $40 per MWh, quickly rocket towards the regulated cap of $12,500 per MWh and, on plenty of occasions, hit it (see our posts here and here and here and here).

The only trouble for power companies is, that – in the absence of “smart” meters – they can’t hit power punters directly for the full costs of these wind power “outage” driven price spikes. With Barnyard’s smart meter systems in place, they can.

Clever stuff!

The inevitable result will be that – when demand for power to run fans and air-conditioners spikes on a hot, still summer’s day (or for heating during still, frosty weather) – coinciding with a (natural) total wind power output collapse – power punters will face being walloped with the full cost of the rort – being charged at the price prevailing at that very moment by peaking-power piranhas – ie not based on the average cost of power to the grid, but on the actual dispatch price, as it rockets its way from around $40 to $12,500 per MWh.

But – with 10s of thousands of Australians already struggling to afford power and 10s of thousands more being disconnected at unprecedented rates for failure to pay their bills now – adding “smart” meters simply means that more power-starved grannies will end up perishing in hot weather (or shivering to death in winter).

Now, that explains Barnyard’s mercenary motives, but trying to find some kind of explanation for his inherent nastiness requires an investigation to find out whether it’s because mummy didn’t love him, or if he was the fat kid that his schoolmates habitually and gleefully rolled down the hill just for fun?

And – returning to Jackie’s letter – don’t you just love it when self-appointed “experts”, like Barnyard – without a shred of qualification or experience relevant to the task at hand – launch vitriolic attacks on those who do? Barnyard’s style is an insidious phenomenon that’s pervasive among the wind industry’s parasites and spruikers: the less qualified they are, the nastier they are, the louder they shout, and the more lies they tell.

Jackie’s open letter was greeted with cheers among communities battling the great wind power fraud around the Globe; and the thrust of it was drawn to the attention of his boss, IBM, by the North American Platform Against Wind Power (NA-PAW) in a delightful and insightful letter (for a copy of NA-PAW’s thumping letter to IBM – click here).

Now IBM have responded in the only way a major corporation trying to protect an International reputation for ethical and socially responsible dealing could: it’s pulled Barnyard into gear – forcing him to: shut down his wind industry backed propaganda website, Barnardonwind; drop his self-appointed “role” as “Senior Fellow” for wind industry propaganda front, the Energy and Policy Institute; and to “no longer publish on wind energy”.

OUCH!

Here’s a rundown on IBM’s embarrassed response to Barnyard’s unauthorized, vitriolic and deranged extracurricular activities from NA-PAW.

Mike Barnard’s wind wings clipped by employer IBM
NA-PAW (North American Platform Against Wind Power)
12 December 2014

Barnard told to stop writing on wind power, resign fellowship from Energy and Policy Institute, and delete his blog: Barnard on Wind

Mike Barnard last month was taken to task by researcher Jackie Rovensky of AU and NA-PAW (North American Platform Against Wind Power) for a long-standing series of malicious attacks on trusted and respected professionals worldwide, who have variously documented and researched the now widely recognized devastating effects of industrial wind on human health.

This action by IBM is easily understood.

Barnard is best known for his self-proclaimed stance as a pro wind “expert”, who critiques others for their “lack of expertise.” He has zero qualifications for his writings on wind, yet “calls himself the lead researcher” in a study that calls wind victims “liars.”

Barnard has also falsely asserted that his “power reading” and “constant and deep access and conversations related to public health management, epidemiology and the nature of medical evidence … That experience and on-the-job education has been invaluable as I’ve read through health studies and reviews related to wind power from around the world” … which led to “recognition of my expertise … I’m pleased to say that my material is helping to shape legal defences of wind energy, advocacy programs and investments in several countries.”

This bravado has found its “religious” base with wind power developers and promoters, but Barnard now can only boast of a protracted vacation from writing on wind.

Others use his cyber bullying and “manufactured facts” to recreate their own smears.

IBM Corporate Officer (Brand Manager, Communications) Carrie Bendzsa, after numerous discussions with Lange of NA-PAW, wrote to NA-PAW, thanking the organization for bringing this matter to their attention, asserting that none of “these postings or comments (libel by Barnard) were IBM endorsed actions.”

The communique continues:

“We don’t have an advocacy position on energy and we have a number of social computing guidelines and policies in place that our employees are instructed and expected to follow. Furthermore, the individuals who are upset by the postings should be assured that IBM does not have any negative views about them personally or professionally.

“IBM has spent considerable time reviewing this matter internally and has taken several actions that our employee has agreed to comply with to resolve this matter. These include having the employee delete the Barnardonwind blog, terminate the Energy and Policy Institute Senior Fellow role and agree to no longer publish on wind energy.”

“We truly appreciate you stepping forward to bring this matter to our attention.”

Lange notes that the kind of serial cyber bullying that has occurred with Barnard on Wind, some of which has been subsumed into other pro wind sites, is of a serious nature: “It is regarded as irrational, unprovoked criticism,” based on the apparent, some would say obvious, intent to harm careers and cast doubt on the professional integrity of individuals. It has no basis in fact, and can be compared in a way to “hate” speech.

Notes Lange: “Cyber Bullying and defamation falls under the Criminal Code, and is punishable by up to 10 years in prison in Canada.” “Defamatory libel is likewise a crime under the Criminal Code, if the libelous statement is directed against a person in authority and could seriously harm his or her reputation.” (The persons affected by the Barnard libel are indeed persons in authority.) “This is punishable by up to five years in prison.” (While the US defamation laws are less plaintiff friendly, there are legal markers since 1964 for those knowingly harming by the power of innuendo and falsehoods.)

NA-PAW expresses thanks to IBM for its ethical leadership, and reserves the right to observe and facilitate the removal of all related and corollary defamation from satellite websites, if need be with the assistance of web expert libel/defamation lawyers.

One of several bullying notes to Dr. Sarah Laurie of the Waubra Foundation:

Ms. Laurie: You have not responded as of yet to my letter below. I await your confirmation that you will stop actively promoting health fears which cause illness near wind farms in light of the recent and historical research showing this to be the case.

Yours,
Mike Barnard
Singapore

CONTACT:
Sherri Lange
CEO NA-PAW (North American Platform Against Wind Power)
www.na-paw.org
kodaisl@rogers.com
416 567 5115

For the original with references – click here.

From NA-PAW’s piece above, it seems that those Barnyard’s attacked in Canada are keen to see him spend a little time in a Canadian “cooler”; although we’re not sure what the extradition rules are between Canada and Singapore?

In any event, Barnyard – who taunts his growing band of detractors from his bunker in Singapore – might like to hole up for a while with boys like Julian Assange, in the Ecuadorian Consulate in London; or Edward Snowden in Russia? That way he would get to compare notes with some other computer programmers, who turned opportunistic, self-righteous, narcissistic, media manipulators. We’re sure that he’d be amongst friends.

But, Barnyard’s clear and present danger isn’t a Canadian Clink, it’s his future tenure with IBM.

IBM’s edict that: Barnyard “no longer publish on wind energy” is going to have an utterly crippling effect on the rogue blogger and website-stalker.

What will he do with the thousands of hours that he would have otherwise spent vilifying and attacking those who don’t share his infantile love of giant fans? Take up golf? More time at Pilates?

Following his bosses’ orders will, no doubt, be a big challenge.

But STT’s sure that our followers will be only too glad to help him stay on the “straight-and-narrow” with his employer. Think of it in the same vein as steering that struggling AA member away from the pub and otherwise keeping them off the booze.

To that end, we suggest that from here on in, wherever and whenever you see Mike Barnard (or Mike using any known or suspected nom de plume) “publish on wind energy” – whether posting or commenting on a blog or website, writing papers, journals, etc; or otherwise spreading his version of the “wonders” of wind energy – let Sherri Lange of NA-PAW know with an email to: kodaisl@rogers.com – so she can pass on the links to Barnard’s posts, comments, etc to IBM.

STT’s has no doubt that Sherri will be delighted to help Barnyard keep his future employment with IBM safe and secure.

Or, if you catch Barnyard breaching IBM’s edict about not publishing on wind energy, why not send his posts, comments and rants DIRECT to IBM?

Here’s the link to send an email to IBM:http://www.ibm.com/scripts/contact/contact/us/en

And here’s the postal addresses, if you think snail-mail would work better:

Chairman, President and CEO, Ginni Rometty
IBM Corporation
New Orchard Road
Armonk, New York 10504
C.c. Board of Directors

And

IBM Non-Management Directors
c/o Chair, IBM Directors and Corporate Governance Committee
International Business Machines Corporation
Mail Drop 390
New Orchard Road
Armonk, NY 10504

Think of it as noble work – you’ll be helping some-one who can’t help himself keep his well-paid job with IBM, while ridding the internet of one of its most rabid pests.

Oh, and if you see Barnyard commenting and/or blogging in relation to this post, be sure to let Sherri Lang and IBM know.

Institute for Energy Research Exposes the Wind Power Fraud!

December 10, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Institute for Energy Research Takes the Scalpel to the Great Wind Power Fraud

December 10, 2014 by stopthesethings

As time goes by, the number of crack energy market experts joining the effort to bring the great wind power fraud to its inevitable denouement – and the quality of their work directed at that fine and noble task – has increased exponentially.

The American “Institute for Energy Research” has just released a brilliant piece of analysis (pdf available here) that tips an enormous bucket on each and every one of the vacuous claims made by the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers about the “merits” of wind power.

We’ve picked the eyes out of the (very substantial) paper and summarised its key points below – but we recommend you take time to digest the whole study for the range of topics covered, its attention to detail and carefully crafted arguments – all thoroughly supported and well referenced.

The study also includes a solid section on the adverse effects of wind turbines on human health, the slaughter of millions of birds and bats and the toxic mountains of sludge generated during the manufacture of turbines, which we haven’t included in our summary below – providing another good reason to read the whole study.

The study has direct application to the wind industry rort in Australia: just substitute “Canberra” for “Washington”; the “Clean Energy Council” for the “American Wind Energy Association (AWEA)”; and substitute “Large-Scale Renewable Energy Target (LRET) and Renewable Energy Certificate (REC)” for “Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) and the Production Tax Credit (PTC)”.

The Case Against the Wind Production Tax Credit
Institute for Energy Research
November 2014

Executive Summary

The federal wind Production Tax Credit (PTC) is a substantial subsidy that has provided the wind industry billions of taxpayer dollars and is working to harm reliable, affordable sources of electricity generation such as natural gas, coal, and nuclear power. The PTC was first enacted in 1992 as a temporary measure to bolster the wind industry. From 1992 through today, it has been extended seven times. In its current form, the PTC provides owners of wind facilities a subsidy of $23 per megawatt-hour of electricity generated for the facility’s first 10 years of operation.

The PTC technically expired at the end of calendar year 2013, but new facilities will still qualify through 2015 under new, expanded conditions. A new two-year extension, as is contemplated in a bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee, would cost American taxpayers more than $13 billion. For context, that amounts to 4.8 million families’ entire federal tax bill in a single year – or enough to buy the entire Mongolian economy and still have more than a billion dollars left over.

This report offers hard facts about the PTC. Another extension of the PTC would:

Give tax breaks to politically well-connected investors at the expense of taxpayers
Increase the overall cost of electricity
Threaten the reliability of America’s power grid
Destroy more jobs than it creates
Stifle innovation in energy technologies
Provide a handout to a large, mature industry
Add to a tangled web of over 80 different federal programs supporting wind power
Do nothing to advance the environmental goals it was designed to address

In sum, the PTC is one of the most egregious subsidies that the federal government provides.

Introduction

The wind industry in the U.S. benefits from many federal programs intended to make wind-generated electricity competitive with other sources. Chief among these federal programs is the wind Production Tax Credit (PTC). The PTC was first enacted in 1992 and has since been extended seven times. In its current form, the PTC provides owners of wind facilities a subsidy of $23 per megawatt-hour of electricity generated for the facility’s first 10 years of operation. To put the size of the subsidy in perspective, prices in wholesale electricity markets typically hover around $50 per megawatt-hour.

Most recently, the PTC was extended in January 2013 and expired at the end of that year. In the last extension bill, however, Congress expanded the qualification criteria to include facilities that had commenced construction by the end of 2013 instead of requiring that facilities be complete.

The change in language enabled the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to expand eligibility to projects that had not initiated physical construction but had merely secured financing, including many facilities that began or will begin operation between January 1, 2014 and January 1, 2016.

As a result, taxpayers will be on the hook for PTC payments through the year 2025.

In April 2014, the Senate Finance Committee approved an $85 billion extension of roughly 60 expired tax provisions commonly referred to as “tax extenders.” The bill includes a two-year extension of the PTC — a retroactive extension for 2014 and a new extension through 2015. The PTC extension in the Senate bill would cost American taxpayers more than $13 billion over the next ten years.

The House has taken a piecemeal approach to the expiring tax provisions and has not put forward an extension of the PTC. During the current lame-duck session to close out the 113th Congress, passing a tax extenderspackage will be a top priority.

In a final push to include the PTC in the coming tax legislation, wind industry lobbyists such as the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) will likely repeat a variety of well-worn arguments about why the PTC should be extended for the eighth time.

The PTC was never intended to be permanent, and even AWEA has recognized that the PTC should end soon.

If Congress chooses not to extend the PTC during the lame-duck session, the result will be a gradual 10-year phase-out of PTC payments, and new eligibility for the PTC will likely remain closed after 2015.

The Case Against the PTC

The PTC Puts Wealthy, Politically-Connected Investors Before American Families and Taxpayers

Average Taxpayers Shoulder the Burden of the PTC

The Senate Finance Committee estimates that a two-year extension of the wind PTC would constitute a tax expenditure of $13.35 billion, an enormous implicit transfer from the general taxpayers to the wind industry and its financial partners over ten years.

For scale, that’s enough to pay 124 million Americans’ average monthly electricity bill for a whole month. Alternatively, this is the same as the total tax bill of 4.8 million families with median incomes for a single year.

The PTC Raises the Cost of Electricity

Supporters of the wind PTC argue that new wind turbines are the cheapest way to generate electricity and to replace the rapidly retiring fleet of coal-fired power plants.

However, adding wind power to the grid raises the total cost of delivering electricity in two important ways. First, wind is a more expensive source of electricity than new natural gas-fired power plants, or existing coal plants, nuclear facilities, and hydroelectric plants.

Second, the unreliable nature of wind power imposes new costs on the grid and hurts current sources of electricity generation.

The High Cost of Wind Power

PTC advocates often cite the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) to argue that wind energy is cheaper than alternatives. LCOE is an estimate of the cost of electricity from new electricity generators produced by both the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

This method, however, fails to measure the true cost of wind energy on the grid for three main reasons: 1) Comparing the levelized cost of electricity from natural gas, coal, or nuclear to wind is an apples to oranges comparison, 2) LCOE ignores the low cost of existing sources of generation, and 3) the LCOE for wind power is based on unrealistic assumptions.

Comparing the cost of electricity from intermittent wind (a non-dispatchable source) to sources that can be controlled (dispatchable sources) is an apples-to-oranges comparison because there is a lot of value to being able to rely on electricity sources to help keep the lights on. Here’s how EIA explains this issue:

Since load must be balanced on a continuous basis, units whose output can be varied to follow demand (dispatchable technologies) generally have more value to a system than less flexible units (non-dispatchable technologies), or those whose operation is tied to the availability of an intermittent resource. The LCOE values for dispatchable and non-dispatchable technologies are listed separately in the tables, because caution should be used when comparing them to one another.

Despite EIA’s words of caution about directly comparing reliable sources and intermittent sources, frequently people make the comparison. The way to make an apples to apples comparison between wind and natural gas, coal, or nuclear would be to include the cost of backup power with other wind costs to make a valid direct comparison.

To the second point, most levelized cost calculations focus on the costs of new generation. It does not provide a useful comparison of the cost of existing coal, gas, and nuclear plants against wind power. Even if the EIA’s estimate of wind power’s LCOE — around $80 per MWh — is assumed to be accurate, wind cannot supply electricity as cheaply as current wholesale electricity prices, which hover around $50 per MWh.

These low wholesale prices reflect the low cost of providing electricity using the existing infrastructure of natural gas, coal, and nuclear plants.

Further, a recent IER study shows that the EIA makes many questionable assumptions in formulating its LCOE for wind power. Using more realistic assumptions, the IER study found the following:

While expenses faced by wind project developers are an important element of the overall cost of wind power, addition of wind power to the power grid involves a number of other costs. If a more reasonable estimate of the installed cost of capital is $88 per MWh and operating costs are $21 per MWh, we can estimate a reasonable LCOE for wind power near $109 per MWh rather than NREL’s estimate of $72 — a more than 50 percent increase. [emphasis added]

A study by George Taylor and Tom Tanton found that, when factoring in a 20-year lifespan for wind turbines and a lack of subsidies, wind power costs $101 per MWh. When backup generation is accounted for, the cost goes up to $149-$153.

Levelized cost estimates don’t incorporate the full costs of long-distance transmission associated with wind power.

Because high-quality wind resources are often located far away from places where people use electricity, wind power is more expensive to transmit than conventional sources that can be sited closer to demand. The costly transmission investments needed to bring wind power to the grid factor into electricity rates and frequently translate into higher rates for customers.

According to Berkeley Labs researchers, transmission expenses range from $0 to $79 per MWh — the median cost being around $15 per MWh.

One example of the high cost of new transmission projects is the Competitive Renewable Energy Zone in Texas (CREZ). This electricity transmission project linked the large wind facilities in west Texas to the population centers in east Texas. The CREZ project cost nearly $7 billion.

Lastly, the cost of building new wind facilities and new transmission lines to get the electricity from the windy areas to the population centers of the United States also creates additional costs because total U.S. electricity generation has not increased in nearly 10 years.

This lack of an increase in electricity generation means that adding new sources to the generation system is duplicative in many cases.

The PTC Imposes New Costs on the Grid

In Germany, despite more than two decades of subsidies, solar and wind power only accounted for 11 percent of overall electricity generation in 2011. As the German government began pursuing aggressive green energy targets by closing reliable power plants, electricity costs dramatically increased.

The levelized cost of electricity focuses on each source of electricity on its own (one at a time). As such, it fails to reflect the costs that wind imposes on other components of the power grid, including other sources of generation. In addition to the long distance between the best wind resources and population centers, the inherent variability and unpredictability of wind power necessitates additional (backup) generation resources.

We can see how adding more and more wind power to the energy mix has played out in the real world. Electricity prices are high and rising in countries that have aggressive policies subsidizing wind, like Germany, Spain, and Canada. It’s the same story in many of the largest wind-producing states in the U.S.

In Germany, despite more than two decades of subsidies, solar and wind power only accounted for 11 percent of overall electricity generation in 2011. As the German government began pursuing aggressive green energy targets by closing reliable power plants, electricity costs dramatically increased. According to the Wall Street Journal:

Average electricity prices for companies have jumped 60% over the past five years because of costs passed along as part of government subsidies of renewable energy producers. Prices are now more than double those in the U.S.

Due to theses price increases, as many as 800,000 citizens have been unable to pay their electricity bills and have had their power cut off. The situation has gotten so out of hand that the International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned of consumer backlash if the government fails to contain energy costs.

Also, German industries such as BASF are curtailing investments in Germany as a result of the country’s energy policies.

In the U.S., many states that have seen the greatest increases in wind power have also seen prices rise. In fact, with the exception of Oklahoma, every one of the top ten wind power states has had electricity prices increase by at least 14 percent. Given that this rise is five times faster than the national average, it is a trend that cannot be ignored by policymakers.

The chart below from the U.S. EIA highlights the rapidly increasing electricity prices in Europe as compared to the U.S. The EIA explains that regulatory structures, taxes, and investment in renewable energy technologies influence electricity price.

In Spain, a program to subsidize renewable energy began in 2000 and was expanded in 2008. One consequence of these policies has been a large increase in rates — electricity prices have risen by more than 90 percent in the last 6 years.

A similar story has unfolded in Canada, where government-subsidized wind power provides just under 4 percent of Ontario’s power, but accounts for about 20 percent of the cost of electricity.

Given that this rise is five times faster than the national average, it is a trend that cannot be ignored by policymakers.

Simply put, the framework used by wind PTC proponents to demonstrate the “low” price of wind power does not reflect reality. While we can see how wind power increases electricity prices, perhaps more concerning are its effects on grid reliability.

The PTC Threatens Power Grid Reliability

Subsidizing wind power on a per-megawatt basis threatens the reliability of our electric grid. The stability of the U.S. power system depends on the ability of electricity suppliers to match demand second by second, every day. Because wind power depends on the weather (and there is still no cost-effective way to store electricity for times when the wind isn’t blowing), wind energy is not capable of continuously meeting demand.

Wind power also tends to be more available at night, when demand is low. Despite the low value of electricity overnight, the PTC gives wind developers the same tax credit to produce electricity at night as it does to produce it during times when electricity is the most valuable.

This means that wind generators are not concerned about trying to produce electricity when demand is high and electricity is available, but rather to produce as much electricity as possible whenever the wind is blowing regardless of whether the electricity is needed or not. The unreliable nature of wind power, fueled by the PTC, threatens the reliability of our electric grid because it makes it more difficult to balance supply and demand. The PTC also makes affordable and reliable electricity sources less economical by allowing wind producers to pay utilities to take their power.

Wind production tends to peak in the spring and the fall, when the need for energy is at its lowest, and it decreases in the winter and summer when heating and cooling needs drive up electricity use. The same problem occurs on a day-to-day basis: more wind energy is produced at night, when power demand is down, than during peak hours during the day. This directly threatens grid reliability: at times when demand for power is low, the grid is flooded with excess of wind generated power which forces base load plants running on coal and natural gas to operate at inefficient levels. Plants running at these inefficient levels produce far more CO2 emissions than they normally do, which offsets much of the reduction in CO2 emissions to which wind power might lead.

A 2011 report from BENTEK Energy revealed that any decreases in CO2 levels resulting from wind power were negligible in size or economically impractical.

Wind Energy Cannot Keep the Lights On

In order to supply electricity when people demand it, some power plants have to be ready to quickly increase and decrease production to match consumer demand in real time. To accomplish this feat, different plants provide varying amounts of power at different times of the day. Wind power does not fill any of the roles below because it is not “dispatchable” (a grid operator cannot “turn on” a wind facility because its output depends entirely on weather conditions).

There are three types of power plants:

Baseload plants are those which provide consistent power in an efficient and cost-effective manner, handling electricity demand at all times of the day or night. These plants are usually coal-fired or nuclear-powered.
Intermediate load plants, such as combined cycle natural gas facilities, can ramp up and down in a relatively efficient way depending on electricity demand, but they are most efficient when they operate for extended periods.
Peak load plants, which are usually simple cycle natural gas or oil-burning plants, are even more flexible and can increase or decrease output very quickly, but they operate less efficiently than baseload or intermediate generators.

Wind power only produces electricity when the wind is blowing, so these other sources of electricity have to back it up to satisfy demand. When demand is low and winds are high, reliable power plants are sometimes forced to back off, as wind turbines generate unneeded power. It is inefficient for any plant to ramp up and down more than is needed to meet demand.

Instead of helping utilities match supply and demand, wind makes it more difficult to operate the grid reliably.

The PTC Destroys More Jobs than it Creates

The question isn’t whether the PTC “creates jobs” — it’s whether it creates more jobs than it takes away from the rest of the economy.

The wind PTC does not create jobs on net, compared to an alternative policy in which the federal government refrains from using the tax code to pick winners and losers.

Although the American Wind Energy Association claims that failing to reauthorize the tax credit would “kill jobs,” the money used to subsidize those jobs comes from taxpayers, not from thin air.

Rather than arbitrarily limiting tax credits to wind producers, generally returning the money to taxpayers would have “created jobs” as well — jobs that produce goods and services that Americans actually want. As we have pointed out:

At the end of last year [2012], the federal wind production tax credit was extended for another year. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, this one-year extension of the PTC would cost $12.1 billion. The American Wind Energy Association, the lobby for the wind industry, claims that 37,000 jobs would have been lost if the PTC was not extended. This means that each job “saved” cost the U.S. Treasury $327,000. While the PTC…might “create” some identifiable jobs, they do not create jobs “on net.” The money to pay for the…PTC, has to come from somewhere. In other words, if taxpayers had been able to keep the money instead of it going to subsidies, the taxpayers would have spent the money and that spending would have created other jobs. [Emphasis added]

The question isn’t whether the PTC “creates jobs” — it’s whether it creates more jobs than it takes away from the rest of the economy.

In Spain, for example, where the government pushed “green energy subsidies” aggressively, 2.2 jobs were lost for every “green job” that the subsidies supported.

For the reasons above, it is completely disingenuous for AWEA to sell the PTC as a job creator.

The PTC Never Protected an “Infant” Industry

Modern wind turbines have been used for electricity generation more than 125 years, and the wind PTC has existed since 1992. In 1995, wind expert Paul Gipe wrote about the wind industry’s maturity in his book Wind Energy Comes of Age:

Although wind energy suffered severe growing pains and struggled through a stormy adolescence during the 1980s, it has matured. Wind energy is now ready to take its place alongside fossil and nuclear fuels as a conventional source of electricity.

Gipe is not alone in arguing that the wind industry is mature. Senator Chuck Grassley, the original author of the PTC, stated in 2003 that “we’re going to have to [subsidize wind] for at least another five years, maybe for 10 years. Sometime we’re going to reach that point where it’s competitive.” Senator Grassley’s statement was eleven years after the PTC was enacted. Now, eleven years after that, the Senate is grappling over Grassley’s recent addition of a two-year extension of the PTC to a broader tax extenders package.

According to data from the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2014, installed wind turbine capacity increased 3,705 percent from 1997 to 2013, jumping from 1,611 MW to 61,292 MW. If the wind industry was mature before it saw such rapid growth, why does it still need the PTC now?

A 2012 study by David Dismukes, professor, associate executive director, and director of Policy Analysis at the Center for Energy Studies at Louisiana State University, notes that wind energy is far from an “infant industry”:

Contrary to popular rhetoric, the wind industry is not an “infant industry” in need of continued training wheels, but one that is comprised of 50,000 megawatts (“MWs”) of nameplate capacity, representing close to a five-fold increase since 2006 and a 1,300 percent increase in riskier merchant wind over the last ten years. [Emphasis added]

The “infant industry” rationale for supporting wind power thus has little basis in reality.

If AWEA is correct when it says, “Wind power in good wind resource areas is now very cost-competitive with any other new generating plant,” then there is no need to continue propping up the wind industry with taxpayer subsidies. If AWEA is wrong, and the wind industry still isn’t competitive after twenty-two years of heavy subsidies, then the PTC amounts to a failed experiment and a waste of taxpayer funds.

Federal Support for Renewables Increased through “Stimulus” Package

The Energy Information Administration conducted a renewable energy subsidy analysis for FY2007 to FY2011 and found that federal support for renewables increased by 108 percent. This increase was mainly because of the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, which was meant to “stimulate” the economy during the worst part of the recession. Specifically, the amount of federal subsidy money available to the wind industry skyrocketed to $4.99 billion.

Rather than replace other federal and state subsidies for wind power, this surge in the amount of federal financing available merely added to the total. Much of the ARRA stimulus money for wind came from the Treasury through Section 1603 of the law.

The Section 1603 program provided grants equal to 30 per cent of the cost of a renewable energy project to developers. The program expired on December 31, 2011. Today, no new projects can take advantage of this subsidy, but projects that were initiated before 2011 can still garner funding from this program, if the project is completed by December 31, 2016.

In FY 2010, wind was subsidized more heavily per unit of energy production than coal, natural gas, nuclear power, geothermal, and hydropower. Only solar energy received more subsidies than wind.

In FY 2010, wind received $52.68 per MWh. Despite generating the majority of U.S. electricity for that year, coal only received $0.64 per MWh, and natural gas and petroleum liquids received only $0.63 per MWh.

Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Wind is frequently promoted as a way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. But wind does not generate much in the way of carbon dioxide emission reductions. Energy expert Robert Bryce explained:

The American Wind Energy Association claims that wind energy reduced U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by 80 million tons in 2012. That sounds significant. But consider this: global emissions of that gas totaled 34.5 billion tons in 2012. Thus, the 60,000 megawatts of installed wind-generation capacity in the United States reduced global carbon dioxide emissions by about two-tenths of 1 percent. That’s a fart in a hurricane. [Emphasis added]

Thus, even if AWEA is correct in its CO2 reduction estimates, wind power has no appreciable impact on global CO2 emissions. In fact, contrary to AWEA’s claims, wind can also actually increase emissions. A study by the United Kingdom-based research group Civitas, for example, explains:

Wind-power … requires conventional back-up plants to provide electricity when the wind is either blowing at very low speeds (or not at all) or with uncontrolled variability (intermittency) … This is all the more relevant given the relatively high CO2 emissions from conventional plants when they are used in a back-up capacity. In a comprehensive quantitative analysis of CO2 emissions and wind-power, Dutch physicist C. le Pair has recently shown that deploying wind turbines on “normal windy days” in the Netherlands actually increased fuel (gas) consumption, rather than saving it, when compared to electricity generation with modern high-efficiency gas turbines. Ironically and paradoxically the use of wind farms therefore actually increased CO2 emissions, compared with using efficient gas-fired combined cycle gas turbines (CCGTs) at full power. [Emphasis added]

That is, because wind power relies on backup electricity from coal-fired or natural gas-fired plants when the wind isn’t blowing, we have to take into account CO2 emissions from the backup generation. The Civitas study reveals that CO2 emissions from these plants are especially high when used in a backup capacity — combined cycle natural gas plants operating without wind on the grid would emit less CO2.

Conclusion

We can do better. We shouldn’t pursue an energy strategy that subsidizes unreliable sources of power while simultaneously cracking down on reliable sources with new regulations from the EPA.

It is well past time for Washington to take the training wheels off of the wind industry and let it chart its own course. The federal wind production tax credit has propped up the wind industry for 22 years — on top of dozens of other federal and state policies designed to support wind — yet industry lobbyists claim it still needs help.

Two decades after the PTC was first enacted, wind-generated electricity comprises less than 5 percent of our total supply. At the same time, wind power has contributed little to the environmental and energy security goals it was meant to address. Unfortunately, the PTC is a very effective way to accomplish at least one thing: wasting American taxpayers’ money.

We can do better. We shouldn’t pursue an energy strategy that subsidizes unreliable sources of power while simultaneously cracking down on reliable sources with new regulations from the EPA. Wind energy can’t deliver reliable power because, even after two decades of a tax credit, it still relies on random weather patterns to generate electricity. Subsidizing today’s wind industry does nothing to solve wind power’s fundamental reliability problem.

Furthermore, far from being a “job creator,” the PTC is a net jobs loser. Even if the industry does add some jobs to the economy, those jobs come at the expense of other jobs in industries that would create new value for customers. We should not follow the example of Spain, where 2.2 jobs were lost for every “green job” created.

The PTC cannot be justified on environmental grounds, either. The U.S. is already outpacing the rest of the world in terms of CO2 reductions, largely because of innovations in natural gas rather than because of wind power. Wind turbines also kill a staggering amount of protected birds and bats and have negative health effects on nearby residents.

The costs of the PTC overwhelmingly outweigh the benefits. Lawmakers should prioritize American households over wind industry lobbyists.

Institute for Energy Research
November 2014

The cost of the PTC to American taxpayers – at a mere US$23 (currently AUD$27.65) per MWh – is a modest snip compared to the expected cost to all Australian power consumers of its Australian equivalent – the Renewable Energy Certificate (the “REC” aka the “LGC”).

While RECs are currently trading at $32, from 2017 – when the annual figure for the LRET starts to increase dramatically – RECs will be worth at least as much as the mandated shortfall charge of $65 per MWh.

The total renewable energy target between 2014 and 2031 is 603,100 GWh, which converts to 603.1 million MWh (1 GW = 1,000 MW). In order for the target to be met, 603.1 million RECs have be purchased and surrendered over the next 17 years: 1 REC is issued for every MWh of renewable energy dispatched to the grid. The REC is a Federal Tax on all Australian electricity consumers.

The cost of subsiding the wind industry through the REC Tax is born entirely by Australian power consumers. As Origin Energy chief executive Grant King correctly put it earlier this year:

“[T]he subsidy is the REC, and the REC certificate is acquitted at the retail level and is included in the retail price of electricity”.

It’s power consumers that get lumped with the “retail price of electricity” and, therefore, the cost of the REC subsidy to wind power outfits.

Even at the current REC price of $32, the amount to be added to power consumers’ bills will hit $18 billion. However, beyond 2017 (when the annual LRET target ratchets up from 27.2 million MWh to 41 million MWh and the $65 per MWh shortfall charge starts to bite) the REC price will almost certainly reach $65 and, due to the tax benefit attached to purchasing RECs, is likely to exceed $90.

Between 2014 and 2031, with a REC price of $65, the cost of the REC Tax to power consumers (and the value of the subsidy to wind power outfits) will approach $40 billion – with RECs at $90, the cost of the REC Tax/Subsidy balloons to over $54 billion (see our post here).

This massive stream of subsidies for wind power is the greatest wealth transfer in the history of the Commonwealth; and stands as a regressive tax/subsidy grab by stealth, which hits the poorest and most vulnerable; struggling businesses; energy intensive industries; and cash-strapped families the hardest – with absolutely NO measurable economic or environmental benefit in return.

Precisely as the Institute for Energy Research concludes: “The costs of the PTC overwhelmingly outweigh the benefits. Lawmakers should prioritize American households over wind industry lobbyists.”

Adapted for Australian circumstances that conclusion reads:

“The costs of the mandatory LRET overwhelmingly outweigh the benefits. The Coalition and the Senate Cross-Benchers should prioritize Australian households over Infigen, Pac Hydro, et al; wind industry lobbyists, like the Clean Energy Council, the Australia Institute, Union Super Funds; and every other parasite and rent-seeker out to profit from the greatest rort of all time.”

The insane and pointless costs of the mandatory LRET are little more than a form of economic and social self-flagellation.

The LRET (like the PTC) is simply unsustainable. Any policy that is unsustainable will either fail under its own steam; or its creators will eventually be forced to scrap it.

STT hears that Tony Abbott is acutely aware that the mandatory LRET is an entirely flawed piece of public policy; and is nothing more than an out of control industry subsidy scheme.

As such, it represents a ticking political time-bomb for a government that doesn’t need anymore grief from an angry proletariat. And boy, the proletariat are going to be angry when they find out that under the mandatory LRET they’re being lined up to pay $50 billion in REC Tax – to be transferred as a direct subsidy to wind power outfits and added to their power bills – over the next 17 years.

For Tony Abbott to have any hope of a second term in government, the mandatory LRET must go now.

Wind Turbines DO Destroy Property Values….

December 10, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind farm property value study should not have been published: Queens prof

by ottawawindconcerns

You may have seen the Canadian Press story that surfaced on Sunday and Mondayabout a study done by a University of Guelph agricultural economics teacher, which was published in the Journal of Agricultural Economics. While the headlines said wind turbines caused NO effect on property value, the real study said otherwise: the co-authors noted that they had very little data, that expired listings (houses listed for sale that never sold) were not included, and neither were sales not on the open market, such as the properties purchased by wind power developers.

So the situation was: very few sales, houses not selling at all, and some houses that did sell changed hands many times. What’s wrong with that picture?

Well, plenty. Here’s a letter to the editor of the journal that published the study, released today. Too bad the damage has been done by the headline writers.

Letter to the Editors of Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics:

The paper by Vyn and McCullough (2014) should not have been published in its current form as the results are being misinterpreted and highly publicized in the press and in radio broadcasts. The core issue is the lack of power in the statistical tests, a problem partially acknowledged by the authors but then dismissed by their focusing attention on tests for the sensitivity of their model specification. The article appears to encourage the misinterpretation of its statistical findings.

Out of the 5414 sales, only 79 post-turbine sales are of properties within a 5 kilometer radius and the rest are within a 50 kilometer radius. The diversity of the houses in the sample is very large as indicated by their price range of ten thousand to two million dollars and by the relatively low R-squares (0.57) in the hedonic regressions. Given the small number of properties that may have been adversely affected and the great diversity of properties in the sample, it is not at all surprising that the regressions yield no ‘statistically significant’ results. The shortage of observations on properties close to the turbines cannot be overcome by extensive sensitivity testing of model form. The problem is with the lack of data not with model form and focusing on the form tends to obfuscate the issue.

The authors do recognize the data problem: “Unfortunately, there are relatively few observations in the post-turbine periods that are in close proximity to turbines” (p 375) and “Hence, these numbers of observations are likely too few to detect significant effects, which represents a major limitation of this analysis” (p 387). But there are three problems that should have been picked up and corrected through the peer review and editorial decision process.

First, the authors conclude:

“The empirical results generated by the hedonic models, using three different measures to account for disamenity effects, suggest that these turbines have not impacted the value of surrounding properties” (p 388). This is wrong for two reasons. First they could not discern an impact which is different from not having an impact. Second, they misuse the term ‘value’. If you have a choice between two identical properties, identical in all respects except that one is close to a turbine while the other is not and if you choose the far one, then the turbine has an effect on the value of the property. This hypothetical example tests the paper’s hypothesis using common sense rather than a statistical measure.

Second, the authors claim:

“The findings of this paper will provide evidence that may help to resolve the controversy that exists in Ontario regarding the impacts of wind turbines on property values” (p 369) and then proceed to do all they can to make a non-finding appear important and repeat the general statement that they found no significant impact. They correctly said in the CBC interview this morning that their study did not find a statistically significant price effect but the public and reporters, not being familiar with statistical terms interpret this as saying that there was no price effect. Not finding a statistically significant impact due to a data shortage does not mean that there was no significant (i.e. important) impact. This distinction was not made clear enough in the paper nor in the follow up interviews and newspaper articles.

Third, the reviewers and finally the editors should have insisted on the power of the statistical tests to be calculated and reported. I understand that editors in the major health science journals insist on this as their readers, doctors and other clinicians, are not always aware of statistical fine-points but they need to be fully aware of the qualifications before using the results to change their practice. Given the potential impact a misinterpretation of the findings could generate, the test of the power should be reported even in the abstract. The reader should be told how big an impact would have to be before it can be detected by a statistical test with this number of observations. Had the price of properties near the turbines been 10 percent lower than they actually were, would the model have yielded a statistically significant finding of a price decrease at say the 0.05 probability level? What about a 20 percent decrease, would it have been ‘statistically significant’? Answers to this type of question would have been easy to produce and far more relevant that sensitivity tests of the model form.

The paper deals with an important issue that can have serious policy implications affecting the wellbeing of many people. The results can affect the location of wind turbine farms and the compensation claims of affected parties. Incorrect information or interpretations can be very hard to correct. In such cases, it is the journal editors’ responsibility to ensure that results are presented in a manner that, at the very least, does not encourage the misinterpretation of the findings.

Sincerely,

Andrejs Skaburskis, Professor Emeritus

North American Editor: Urban Studies,

School of Urban and Regional Planning,

Queen’s University,

Kingston Ontario, Canada

Big wind Pressing Congress, For More Money! $$$$$$$$ It’s a money-pit!

November 30, 2014November 30, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Via. Greenie Watch 30 November 2014

Big Wind is pressing Congress for yet another bailout

By Mary Kay Barton

Taxpayers beware! While you were sleeping, enjoying your family and eating turkey,

Congress has been busy.

Congressional Republicans are negotiating with Senate Democrats to extend the infamous wind energy Production Tax Credit through to

2017, after which it will supposedly be phased out, just as was supposed to happen in the past. This sneaky, dark-of-night “lame duck”

session tactic should be flatly rejected.

While you’ve been busy just trying to make ends meet, wondering why the cost of everything is going up, and agonizing over how your

children and grandchildren will ever pay the mounting $18 TRILLION dollar national debt – the wind industry lobbyists’ group, the

American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), just sent Congress a letter seeking to extend the federal, taxpayer-funded wind Production Tax

Credit (PTC).

The list of signers to AWEA’s letter include rent-seeking industries and “green” groups who’ve all benefitted by tapping into

taxpayers’ wallets via the Big Wind PTC (aka: Pork-To-Cronies). It certainly isn’t hard to figure out why these corporations pay many

millions of dollars to hire lobbyists and run national TV advertising campaigns geared at convincing crony-politicians to vote to

continue these TAXES and higher energy prices on American citizens.

AWEA’a letter is typical of wind industry propaganda. It makes specious claims about creating jobs and reducing pollution, without

providing a shred of evidence to PROVE any of their claims. AWEA apparently hopes Congressional officials are “too stupid” to

understand what energy-literate citizens nationwide know: Industrial wind can NEVER provide reliable power. It raises electricity

costs, even after subsidies are factored in. It kills more jobs than it creates. It defiles wildlife habitats and kills eagles, hawks,

other birds and bats – with no penalties to Big Wind operators.

Here’s the reality: After 22+ years of picking U.S. taxpayers’ and ratepayers’ pockets, industrial wind has NOT significantly reduced

carbon dioxide emissions. It has not replaced any conventional power plants, anywhere. However, the $Trillions spent on these “green”

boondoggles to date have significantly added to the $18+ TRILLION dollar debt that our children and grandchildren will have to bear.

AWEA’s own statements from years and decades past can be used against them. To cite just one example, 31 years ago, a study coauthored

by the AWEA stated:

The private sector can be expected to develop improved solar and wind technologies which will begin to become competitive and self-

supporting on a national level by the end of the decade if assisted by tax credits and augmented by federally sponsored R&D.

[American Wind Energy Association, et al. Quoted in Renewable Energy Industry, Joint Hearing before the Subcommittees of the Committee

on Energy and Commerce et al., House of Representatives, 98th Cong., 1st sess. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1983, p.

52.]

In other words, the PTC should have ended 20 years ago, because wind energy would be self-sustaining by then. It wasn’t. It still

isn’t. It never will be. We need to pull the PTC plug now!

Here are some details about the bill that is currently being negotiated during the lame duck session –before the newly elected,

Republican majority Senate takes office and can do much about it.

In 2016, wind developers would be eligible for 80% percent of the PTC’s value. They could also claim 60% of its value through the first

nine months of 2017, after which it would supposedly expire.

The proposed congressional deal also seems to continue basing PTC eligibility on when project construction project begins. That opens

huge doors for abuse.

The last time Congress extended the PTC, as part of its “fiscal cliff” deal in 2013, it said “eligibility” for taxpayer largesse

covered projects “under construction,” rather than requiring that they be “placed in service” by a certain date. In practice, this

means just a shovelful of dirt has to be moved by that date.

Remember too that the Production Tax Credit supposedly expired last year. But this clever language has allowed construction and

expansion in the meantime. Meanwhile, Lois Lerner’s Internal Revenue Service has helpfully said projects that were started or “safe-

harbored” prior to the PTC’s most recent pseudo-expiration can claim tax credits if they are in service by 2015. And then they can

claim the $23-per-MWh credit for ten more years!

What a wonderful holiday gift for Big Wind and its political sponsors – at your expense.

Our government should NOT be in the business of picking and choosing the winners and losers in the energy marketplace – while

assaulting and harming the very citizens they are forcing to pay for this “green” energy scam. It’s time for government to get out of

the way and let the markets work!

The best solutions will rise to the top of their own accord because they will provide modern power at the best prices – thereby

maintaining the reliable, affordable power that has made America great.

Citizens nation-wide have awakened to this massive “green” energy scam. Many have sent letters to Congress like the one below. You can

join the fight by contacting your representatives and urging them to do the right thing: Protect American consumers, taxpayers and

ratepayers. END Wind Welfare (#EndWindWelfare)!

Ontario’s Liberal Government Ignores, and Denies, Health Effects of Wind Turbines…

November 30, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Ontario’s Wind Powered Health Calamity

November 30, 2014 by stopthesethings

Ontario is the scene of a perfectly avoidable and entirely unnecessarypublic health disaster.

The rights of people to live peaceful, healthy lives in rural Ontario have been trampled under the jackboots of Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals – a solid team of hard-‘green’-left eco-fascist nutjobs, responsible for the most bizarre, pointless and costly energy policy on Earth (see our posts hereand here and here)

The scale and scope of the disaster was laid bare in the brilliant documentary, Down Wind (see our post here) and has been pursued with proper journalistic zeal by Sun News’ investigative reporter, Rebecca Thompson (see our posts here and here).

A couple of weeks back, Wynne’s puppets at her Health Department (laughably called “Health Canada”) threw together yet another half-baked, wind industry approved pile of tosh parading as “research” on the known and obvious impacts of turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound.

Ever since, properly qualified people have been slamming it for the sloppiness of the work and the wild assumptions upon which its undercooked “conclusions” rest.

Two of them – Carmen Krogh and Bob McMurtry penned the piece below.

Carmen Krogh, BScPharm (retired), is a peer reviewed IWT health researcher and former Director of Publications and Editor-in-Chief of the CPS.

RY “Bob” McMurtry is Professor Emeritus (Surgery) of Western University (formerly University of Western Ontario). Dr. McMurtry was also an ADM at Health Canada 2000-02.

Health Canada and Wind Turbines: Too little too late?
CMAJ
28 November 2014

Industrial wind turbines (IWTs) are being erected at rapid pace around the world. Coinciding with the introduction of IWTs, some individuals living in proximity to IWTs report adverse health effects including annoyance, sleep disturbance, stress-related health impacts and reduced quality of life. [i],[ii],[iii],[iv],[v],[vi],[vii],[viii],[ix],[x],[xi],[xii] In some cases Canadian families reporting adverse health effects have abandoned their homes, been billeted away from their homes or hired legal counsel to successfully reach a financial agreement with the wind energy developer.[xiii]

To help address public concern over these health effects Health Canada (HC) announced the Health Canada Wind Turbine Noise and Health Study(HC Study) 2 years ago and brought forth preliminary results November 6, 2014.

Here we briefly comment on the HC Study results and provide some historical context.

Acknowledgement of IWT adverse health effects is not new. The term “annoyance” frequently appears when discussing IWT health effects.

In a 2009 letter the Honourable Rona Ambrose, disclosed:

“Health Canada provides advice on the health effect of noise and low-frequency electric and magnetic fields from proposed wind turbine projects…To date, their examination of the scientific literature on wind turbine noise is that the only health effect conclusively demonstrated from exposure to wind turbine noise is an increase of self-reported general annoyance and complaints (i.e., headaches, nausea, tinnitus, vertigo).” [xiv]

In 2009, the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) sponsored a literature review which acknowledges the reported symptoms such as headaches, nausea, tinnitus, vertigo and state they “… are not new and have been published previously in the context of “annoyance”…” and are the “… well-known stress effects of exposure to noise …”[xv]

In 2011, a health survey of people exposed to IWTs in Ontario reported altered quality of life, sleep disturbance, excessive tiredness, headaches, stress and distress. [xvi]

In the same year, CanWEA posted a media release which advised those impacted by wind turbine annoyance stating “The association has always acknowledged that a small percentage of people can be annoyed by wind turbines in their vicinity. … When annoyance has a significant impact on an individual’s quality of life, it is important that they consult their doctor.”[xvii]

It turns out it’s not a small percentage of people annoyed by wind turbines. An Ontario Government report concluded a non-trivial percentage of persons are expected to be highly annoyed.

The December 2011 report prepared by a member of CanWEA for the Ontario Ministry of Environment states in the conclusions:

“The audible sound from wind turbines, at the levels experienced at typical receptor distances in Ontario, is nonetheless expected to result in a non-trivial percentage of persons being highly annoyed. As with sounds from many sources, research has shown that annoyance associated with sound from wind turbines can be expected to contribute to stress related health impacts in some persons.”[xviii]

The World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledges noise induced annoyance to be a health effect [xix] and the results of WHO research “…confirmed, on an epidemiological level, an increased health risk from chronic noise annoyance…”[xx]

HC also acknowledges noise induced annoyance to be an adverse health effect. [xxi],[xxii] The Principal Investigator of the recent HC Study also states “noise-induced annoyance is an adverse health effect”. [xxiii]

Canadian Government sponsored research has found statistically significant relationships from IWT noise exposure.

A 2014 review article in the Canadian Journal of Rural Medicine reports:

“In 2013, research funded by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment indicated a statistically significant relation between residents’ distance from the turbine and the symptoms of disturbed sleep, vertigo and tinnitus, and recommended that future research focus on the effects of wind turbine noise on sleep disturbance and symptoms of inner ear problems.” [xxiv]

Recently on November 6, 2014, HC posted on its website preliminary results of its HC Study[xxv]. Wind turbine noise “…. annoyance was found to be statistically related to several self-reporting health effects including, but not limited to, blood pressure, migraines, tinnitus, dizziness, scores on the PSQI, and perceived stress” as well as related to “measured hair cortisol, systolic and diastolic blood pressure.”

These troubling results come as no surprise. Since at least 2007 HC employees including the Principal Investigator of the HC Study recommended wind turbine noise criteria which they predict will result in adverse health effects. (i.e. result in an increase percentage highly annoyed).[xxvi],[xxvii],[xxviii]

Then turbines were built and HC spent 2.1 million dollars to find out it appears to have under predicted the impact of IWT noise. HC’s IWT noise criteria does not use a dose response based on IWT noise but rather road noise. But of course IWTs are not cars and peer-reviewed studies consistently document that IWTs produce sound that is perceived to be more annoying than transportation or industrial noise at comparable sound pressure levels. [xxix],[xxx]

IWT noise annoyance starts at dBA sound pressure levels in the low 30s and rises sharply at 35 dBA as compared to road noise which starts at 55 dBA. These findings are further supported by the HC Study’s preliminary results. [xxxi]

IWT noise characteristics that are identified as plausible causes for reported health effects include amplitude modulation, audible low- frequency noise (LFN), infrasound, tonal noise, impulse noise and night-time noise. [xxxii]

The logical solution would be to develop IWT noise criteria which will protect human health but that would present a barrier to wind energy development. Noise limits impacts IWT siting, cost of energy produced[xxxiii] and by extension corporate profits. The wind energy industry has actively lobbied governments to be granted IWT noise exposure limits which benefit their industry.

Canadians trying to understand this should be mindful the Government of Canada has invested and distributed significant amounts of public money to attract and support the wind energy industry. [xxxiv],[xxxv],[xxxvi],[xxxvii],[xxxviii],[xxxix],[xl],[xli] In addition to providing funding, the Government of Canada in collaboration with wind industry stakeholders has developed the Wind Technology Road Map (Wind TRM) [xlii] which Natural Resources Canada defined to be an “…industry-led, government supported initiative that has developed a long-term vision for the Canadian wind energy industry …”.[xliii]

Canada’s Wind TRM states “Members of the Steering Committee, government and our industry will be using this roadmap to direct the actions that are necessary for Canada to develop its vast wind resources.”[xliv] HC is a member of the Interdepartmental Wind Technology Road Map Committee [xlv] which was created to assist in the implementation of Canada’s Wind TRM. [xlvi] One of the “key action items” detailed in the Wind TRM calls for Government and Industry collaboration to develop and maintain government documents that address concerns raised about wind energy projects including that of noise, infrasound and other. [xlvii]

Some jurisdictions are trying to take action to protect their residents. For example, several municipalities in Ontario are trying to establish bylaws that protect from IWT noise. In Wisconsin, on October 14, 2014 the Brown County Board of Health unanimously approved a motion to declare the IWTs at a local project a Human Health Hazard. [xlviii]

It would appear HC’s research effort is too little too late. A non-trivial percentage of Canadians continue to experience adverse health effects. HC now has additional scientific evidence of the “conclusively demonstrated” effects from exposure to IWT noise. It is time for HC to take action to help Canadians maintain and improve their health. (for the references, see below)
CMAJ

Bob and Carmen aren’t the only qualified experts dumping on the woeful “methods” and flawed assumptions of the Health Canada “research”.

John Harrison, a Queen’s University professor emeritus in physics, slammed the “research”, saying that: “the Health Canada study is more politics than science“.

John Harrison is joined by Denise Wolfe – a highly experienced clinical trial research auditor – who has taken a well-honed axe to the “study” – hammering it for:

hiding and fudging the raw data;
failing to meet the study design’s own sample size criteria;
only taking its noise samples during summer, when there is little or no wind;
inherent inconsistencies between the data relied on and the arguments presented in the report;
incomplete and inconsistent noise modelling;
excluding children – the most vulnerable group – from the study altogether;
failing to point out that annoyance of the kind identified by the study (which includes sleep deprivation) is defined by the WHO as an adverse health effect (refer to its Night-time Noise Guidelines for Europe – the Executive Summary at XI to XII covers the point);
failing to even bother analysing the infrasound data gathered;
and, having failed to even analyse the infrasound data, making wholly unsupported conclusions about its impact on sleep and health;
in relation to its flawed noise data modelling, relying on wind speed data up to 50km away from the residences involved;
making the bogus claim that the study has been published in a peer-reviewed journal (it hasn’t);
misleading verbiage (ie waffle and gobbledygook);
prematurely publishing what is a piece of political propaganda, based on incomplete and deliberately misleading and inconsistent information; and
failing to disclose links between those that worked on the study and their wind industry backers.

References (to the CMAJ article)

[i] Pedersen E, Persson KW. Perception and annoyance due to wind turbine noise–a dose response relationship. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 2004; 116: 3460-70.

[ii] Harry A. Wind turbines, noise and health. 2007, February. Availablehere

[iii] Pedersen E, Persson Waye K. Wind turbine noise, annoyance and self-reported health and well being in different living environments. Occupational and Environmental Medicine. 2007;64:480-86.

[iv] Phipps R, Amati M, McCoard S, Fisher R. Visual and noise effects reported by residents living close to Manawatu wind farms: Preliminary survey results. 2007. Available here

[v] Pedersen E, Bakker R, Bouma J, van den Berg F. Response to noise from modern wind farms in the Netherlands. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2009; 126: 634-43.

[vi] Pierpont N. Wind turbine syndrome: A report on a natural experiment. Santa Fe, NM: K-Selected Books. 2009. Available here

[vii] Krogh C, Gillis L, Kouwen N, Aramini J. WindVOiCe, a self-reporting survey: Adverse health effects, industrial wind turbines, and the need for vigilance monitoring. Bulletin of Science Technology & Society. 2011; 31: 334-45.

[viii] Shepherd D, McBride D, Welch D, Dirks KN, Hill EM. Evaluating the impact of wind turbine noise on health-related quality of life. Noise Health. 2011;13:333-9.

[ix] Thorne B. The problems with noise numbers for wind farm noise assessment. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society. 2011;31:262-90.

[x] Rand R., Ambrose S, Krogh C. Wind turbine acoustic investigation: infrasound and low-frequency noise–a case study, Bulletin of Science Technology & Society. 2012;32:128–41

[xi] Falmouth Health Department. Letter to Massachusetts Department of Public Health. June 11, 2012. Available on request.

[xii] Nissenbaum M, Aramini J, Hanning C. Effects of industrial wind turbine noise on sleep and health. Noise Health. 2012;14:60:237-43.

[xiii] Roy D. Jeffery, Carmen Krogh, and Brett Horner Industrial wind turbines and adverse health effects

[xiv] Can J Rural Med 2014;19(1):21-26

[xiv] Krogh – Correspondence from the Honourable Rona Ambrose, June 30, 2009. Available on request.

[xv] Colby, W. D., Dobie, R., Leventhall, G., Lipscomb, D. M., McCunney, R. J., Seilo, M. T., & Søndergaard, B., Wind Turbine Sound and Health Effects: An Expert Panel Review, Washington, DC: American Wind Energy Association and Canadian Wind Energy Association. (2009). Available here

[xvi] Krogh C, Gillis L, Kouwen N, Aramini J. WindVOiCe, a self-reporting survey: Adverse health effects, industrial wind turbines, and the need for vigilance monitoring. Bulletin of Science Technology & Society. 2011; 31: 334-45.

[xvii] The Canadian Wind Energy Association, The Canadian Wind Energy Association Responds To October 14, 2011 Statement By Wind Concerns Ontario, Media Release (2011, October 14) PDF Available on request.

[xviii] Howe Gastmeier Chapnik Limited. (2010, December 10). Low frequency noise and infrasound associated with wind turbine generator systems: A literature review (Rfp No. Oss-078696). Mississauga, Ontario, Canada: Ministry of the Environment.

[xix] World Health Organization, Guidelines for Community Noise,1999 Available here

[xx] Niemann H, Bonnefoy X, Braubach M, Hecht K, Maschke C, Rodrigues C, Robbel N. Noise-induced annoyance and morbidity results from the pan-European LARES study. Noise Health 2006;8:63-79

[xxi] Health Canada, Community Noise Annoyance, It’s Your Health, (2005, September). [cited 2014 Nov 25]. Available here

[xxii] Health Canada, Useful Information for Environmental Assessments, (2010), Published by authority of the Minister of Health. [cited 2014 Nov 25]]. Available here

[xxiii] Michaud, D. S., Keith, S. E., & McMurchy, D., “Noise Annoyance in Canada”, Noise Health, 7, 39-47, (2005)

[xxiv] Roy D. Jeffery, Carmen Krogh, and Brett Horner Industrial wind turbines and adverse health effects

[xiv] Can J Rural Med 2014;19(1) Available here

[xxv] Health Canada, Wind Turbine Noise and Health Study: Summary of Results, November 6 2014. Available here

[xxvi] Keith SE, Michaud DS, Bly SHP. A justification for using a 45 dBA sound level criterion for wind turbine projects. N.D.

[xxvii] Keith SE, Michaud DS, Bly SHP. A proposal for evaluating the potential health effects of wind turbine noise for projects under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. Second International Meeting on Wind Turbine Noise, Lyon France September 20 -21 2007

[xxviii] Keith SE, Michaud DS, Bly SHP. A proposal for evaluating the potential health effects of wind turbine noise for projects under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. J Low Freq Noise. 2008:27:253-65.

[xxix] Pedersen E, Persson KW. Perception and annoyance due to wind turbine noise–a dose response relationship. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 2004; 116: 3460-70.

[xxx] Pedersen E, Bakker R, Bouma J, van den Berg F. Response to noise from modern wind farms in the Netherlands. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2009; 126: 634-43.

[xxxi] Health Canada, Wind Turbine Noise and Health Study: Summary of Results, November 6 2014. Available here

[xxxii] Jeffery RD, Krogh CME, and Horner B, [Review] Industrial wind turbines and adverse health effects Can J Rural Med 2014;19(1), 21-26. Available here

[xxxiii] Canadian Wind Energy Association [website]. Letter to Neil Parish re: sound level limits for wind farms. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Wind Energy Association; 2004. Available on request.

[xxxiv] Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada, EcoEnergy for Renewable Power, web update June 1 2009 Improving Energy Performance in Canada an ecoACTION initiative. Available here

[xxxv] Government of Canada Natural Resources Canada: Government of Canada Announces $9.2 Million for Alberta Wind Energy Project. July 07, Available here

[xxxvi] Minister of Natural Resources Lisa Raitt (Thursday, 10 Sept 2009) MEDIA RELEASE -Renewable Energy Expands in Ontario. Available here

[xxxvii] Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada. ecoENERGY for Renewable Power Program Power Program Date Modified: 2011-02-25 Available here

[xxxviii] Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada. About Renewable Energy

[xxxix] Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada. ecoENERGY for Renewable Power Program, Available here

[xl] Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada. ecoENERGY for Renewable Power Program Power Program. Available here

[xli] The Honourable Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources Canada, Letter of correspondence August 10, 2012. Available on request.

[xlii] Access to Information and Privacy Request (ATIP) Briefing Note to the Ministers Office, Update on the Development of Federal-Provincial-Territorial Guidelines on Wind Turbine Noise

[xliii] Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada (NRCAN) Wind Energy | Canada’s Wind TRM (Technology Road Map). Available here

[xliv] Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada (NRCAN) Wind Energy | Canada’s Wind TRM (Technology Road Map). Available here

[xlv] Health Canada, (2012) Health Canada Policy and Research Approach for Wind Turbine Noise – A presentation to the Science Advisory Board, February 2, 2012 Available here

[xlvi] Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada. Wind Technology Road Map. Next Steps. Available here

[xlvii] Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada (NRCAN) Wind Energy | Canada’s Wind TRM (Technology Road Map). Available here

[xlviii] Proceedings of the Brown County Board of Health, Meeting, Tuesday, October 14, 2014 Available here (see page 13)
CMAJ

Data Tampering the Cause of Much Global Warming…

November 26, 2014 / 1957chev / 3 Comments

The End Game In US Data Tampering

Posted on November 25, 2014by stevengoddard

A lack of transparency is a huge political advantage

The animation below flashes between raw (measured) US thermometer data, and the final version which is reported to the public. The thermometers show no warming over the past 95 years – all of the reported warming is Mann-made by government employeestampering with data.

A big part of this data tampering is implemented by making up monthly temperatures at stations where USHCN says they have no thermometer data. The amount of fabricated data is increasing exponentially, and at current rates of fabrication 100% of the data will be fake by the year 2035 – i.e. there will be no actual thermometer data used after that date. NCDC says that their software which does this, is working “as expected.”

The next graph shows the total adjustments NCDC are making to the US temperature record. They knock about one degree off of older temperatures, and add a few tenths of a degree on to recent temperatures. Extrapolating out to the year 2035 when 100% of reported temperatures will be fake, the total upwards adjustment will be about one degree, making for a total adjustment of about two degrees.

The global warming agenda depends on a belief that temperatures are warming, so the fake graphs and press releases released by government agencies about warming and “record temperatures” are critical for perpetuating the big lie about climate.

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Wind Turbines DO Destroy Property Values….

Wind farm property value study should not have been published: Queens prof

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Big wind Pressing Congress, For More Money! $$$$$$$$ It’s a money-pit!

Ontario’s Liberal Government Ignores, and Denies, Health Effects of Wind Turbines…

Ontario’s Wind Powered Health Calamity

Data Tampering the Cause of Much Global Warming…

The End Game In US Data Tampering

Exposure of UK’s Wind Power’s Crippling Costs sees Britain’s “Greenblob” Turn to Doublethink & Doublespeak

Crooks & Corruption Rule: What is it with the Wind Industry?

The Wind Industry’s Need for Massive Subsidies: The Never Ending Story

Wind Syndrome: Public Health Crisis

Bye-Bye Barnyard: Mike Barnard’s Boss – IBM – Shuts Down the Wind Industry’s Most Rabid & Nasty Propaganda Parrot

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Institute for Energy Research Takes the Scalpel to the Great Wind Power Fraud

Letter to the Editors of Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics:

Ontario’s Wind Powered Health Calamity

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