Wind Power Shares Plummeting… “Green” Jobs Axed!

October 19, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

US Wind Power Outfits’ Shares Plummet – Hundreds of ‘Green’ Jobs Axed

October 19, 2015 by stopthesethings

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Remember all those stories about the wind industry providing millions of groovy, well-paid ‘green’ jobs – as secure as Fort Knox?

No?

Sure, you’ll hear mention of loads of promised wind industry jobs – in fictional retellings from wind industry spruikers – as they wail about dreaded ‘uncertainty’ – causing bankers to baulk and investors to flee; and as they demand (with menaces) that governments maintain essential, massive and endless subsidies until the end of time.

But, as is almost always the case with wind industry drivel, dreams and reality fast become an ugly amalgam, of what passes for wind industry ‘truth’.

When economists scroll through the books, however, claims about wind industry employment evaporate like snowflakes in summer – and, instead, the hard numbers show that the places where these things proliferate, are suffering from declining employment in real industries, particularly those with the tendency to use more than just a little power in the processes of production:

Wind Power Subsidies Crushing Families & Killing Thousands of Real Jobs

The Wind Industry’s Jobs Bonanza Myth Smashed, Again

It’s a confusing paradox, to be sure.

You see, on the one hand we’re told that the wind industry delivers a product, that customers can’t get enough of (at prices starting somewhere near “free” – and getting cheaper all the time), but, strangely, the merest mention or even hint that wind power subsidies might be trimmed or, heaven forbid, chopped, has wind industry parasites descending into a fixed state of apoplexy.

During their descent, wind industry spinners shout even louder about millions of new jobs, that are always just beyond the horizon; attainable – but if, and only if, the massive subsidies presently in place are set in stone. Here are a couple of pieces peppered with precisely that type of self-serving and deluded ranting.

Panel seeks to extend freeze on Ohio green energy targets
Associated Press
Julie Carr Smyth
1 October 2015

Government requirements for the use of solar, wind and other forms of renewable energy by Ohio power companies would be suspended indefinitely under recommendations released Wednesday by a legislative panel. The Energy Mandates Study Committee’s report cites legal uncertainty and a need for “greater clarity” surrounding proposed federal clean power rules among reasons for the recommendation.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Government requirements for the use of solar, wind and other forms of renewable energy by Ohio power companies would be suspended indefinitely under recommendations released Wednesday by a legislative panel.

The Energy Mandates Study Committee’s report cites legal uncertainty and a need for “greater clarity” surrounding proposed federal clean power rules among reasons for the recommendation. The suggestion drew swift criticism from environmental groups, alternative energy businesses, Democrats and Gov. John Kasich.

Committee chairman Troy Balderson, a Zanesville Republican, said the report represents a starting point for debate as legislation proposing changes to Ohio’s mandates is drafted.

“Look, I know what the headline on the report’s going to be. There’s more to it than that,” he said. “And there will continue to be more to it than that. Now we have to go through the legislative process.”

The panel’s additional recommendations include ultimately switching from mandates to an incentive system to encourage use of renewables and efforts toward energy efficiency; expediting the regulatory process for approving utilities’ energy-efficiency plans; and ensuring advanced-energy projects receive maximum credit.

The panel was charged with reviewing an Ohio law requiring utilities to generate 25 percent of electricity from alternative and advanced sources by 2025 and to meet certain energy efficiency targets.

The committee was created as part of a compromise brokered by Kasich amid efforts to repeal the targets outright. The deal placed a two-year freeze on phasing in existing mandates while the issue was studied. If legislators fail to act, the law would resume as planned in 2017.

The administration signaled dissatisfaction with extending the freeze any further.

“A continued freeze of Ohio’s energy standards is unacceptable and we stand willing to work with the Ohio General Assembly to craft a bill that supports a diverse mix of reliable, low-cost energy sources while preserving the gains we have made in the state’s economy,” Kasich spokesman Joe Andrews said.

Ohio is among states that have sued over the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, which sets targets for carbon dioxide emissions for existing power plants as a means of reducing emissions from 2005 levels by 32 percent by 2030. Kasich has written to President Barack Obama asking him to hold off on implementing the plan until questions are resolved by the courts.

“The US EPA, by promulgation of the proposed CPP, seeks to change the energy landscape significantly across the United States,” the report states.

Senate President Keith Faber said lawmakers and the governor — who was represented in deliberations over the report — may have to “agree to disagree.”

“I know their EPA director has gone and urged everybody to be cautious until we see the implementation of what the president’s new proposals are,” he said. “And so at this point, I’d like to hear their proposal if they think what we’re putting forward is unacceptable.”

Proponents argue that Ohio’s targets were creating jobs and benefiting the environment before they were frozen, and that the state would continue to do so if allowed to proceed.

State Rep. Michael Stinziano, a Columbus Democrat who sat on the Republican-dominated study committee, said the report’s recommendations ignore expert testimony by a number of witnesses “who attested to the positive impacts these standards had on the state until frozen.”

Senate Democrats called on Kasich to fight for restoration of the mandates.

“Allowing the clean energy industry to prosper could result in better products, a healthier population, cheaper prices, and more jobs over time,” they wrote.

Samantha Williams, attorney and energy policy advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Ohio’s momentum as “a clean energy trailblazer” has stalled.

“Any policies that block progress to regain Ohio’s leadership will only grow the mountain of missed opportunities and keep the state lagging behind its neighbors that are moving forward with clean energy to create jobs, boost their economy and protect public health,” she said in a statement.
Associated Press

The usual grab bag of nonsense is predictably pitched up by Samantha Williams – about wind power being a “clean energy” source; and a serious source of lasting jobs. Although, when the term “lasting” is used, we tend to think of jobs that don’t disappear with the merest hint of reining in a pointless subsidy.

Then there’s the claims about these things generating a “healthier population”!?!. Here’s a few from our archive that tend to suggest the opposite:

SA Farmers Paid $1 Million to Host 19 Turbines Tell Senate they “Would Never Do it Again” due to “Unbearable” Sleep-Destroying Noise

Labor’s Bill Shorten Publicly Ridicules Joanne Kermond – a Victim of Pacific Hydro’s Non-Compliant Cape Bridgewater Wind Farm

Wind Turbine Infrasound: What Drives Wind Farm Neighbours to Despair

Dr Bruce Rapley Slams Australian Medical Association as Totally Unqualified Wind Industry Propagandists

Audacity is the very essence of propaganda; taking patent nonsense, wrapping it in myth and pitching it up with a straight face, has been the core competence of the wind industry from the get go – it’s a skill that will follow it to its already dug and waiting grave.

Here’s another view of a panicked industry on the run, from Oklahoma.

Bill introduced to end wind tax credit
Washington Examiner
Kyle Feldscher
7 October 2015

A senator from the windswept state of Oklahoma wants to remove a tax credit for wind energy from the tax code.

Republican Sen. James Lankford introduced a bill Wednesday, titled the PTC Elimination Act, that would remove the Production Tax Credit from the tax code entirely. The credit expired at the end of 2014, but a renewal is attached to a tax extenders package making its way through Congress.

Lankford, echoing oil industry groups who spoke against the credit last month, said wind energy has become self-sustaining and no longer needs to be subsidized federally.

“I am a fan of an all-of-the-above energy strategy, and I certainly support wind as a large part of that goal,” he said.

“There is no need for the taxpayer to continue to subsidize a wind start-up tax credit.”

In addition to wind, the Production Tax Credit is tied to 11 other sources of renewable energy.

For wind, the tax credit is 2.3 cents per kilowatt-hour for the first 10 years of a facility’s existence. Lankford estimates the tax credit would cost taxpayers $10.5 billion during the next 10 years.

Right now, projects that began before Jan. 1 still qualify for the tax credit. Under Lankford’s bill, the last day any company could receive funds from the credit would be Dec. 31, 2026.

Lankford has campaigned in the past on relying more on fossil fuels, such as natural gas, instead of renewable sources.

Observers say it’s unlikely the bill will make much progress.

Oklahoma is a major player in wind energy. In 2014, the state was ranked fourth for installed wind capacity, according to the American Wind Energy Association.

There are 2,614 wind turbines in Oklahoma that produced about 17 percent of all electricity produced there in 2014, according to the association.

Lankford contends the tax credit has outlived its usefulness and is a redundancy since 37 states already provide incentives for wind energy production. He said wind generation has grown 5,000 percent since the tax credit was instituted in 1992.

Some business groups disagree.

On Monday, 580 companies working in clean energy from around the country signed a letter urging Congress to extend the credit. Meanwhile, 2,000 businessmen and women signed a letter that also called on Congress to extend the tax credit, according to the wind trade group.

The Senate Finance Committee passed the extension of the credit 23-3. That included yes votes from senators on both sides of the aisle.

Rob Gramlich, senior vice president of government and public affairs at the American Wind Energy Association, said he’s hopeful that, contrary to Lankford’s bill, the wind tax credit will be renewed by the end of 2015.

“Hundreds of American businesses employing American workers have also made it clear extending these incentives is critical to plan their business and keep their doors open,” he said. “We will continue to educate all members of Congress about all of wind energy’s benefits to our economy.”
Washington Examiner

Good to see that the same rubbish pitched up by Samantha Williams in Ohio, being recycled by the AWEA’s Rob Gramlich – eerily familiar stuff; as you’d expect from people chanting the same mantra, from the same playbook.

Now, why would wind industry parasites like Samantha Williams and Rob Gramlich be fighting tooth-and-nail to ensure that the wind power subsidy trough is replenished from now until Armageddon?

Here’s a little clue.

After buying binge, SunEdison to cut 15% of workforce
Energy Wire
David Ferris
6 October 2015

SunEdison Inc., the world’s largest renewable energy developer, plans to cut 15 percent of its personnel after a yearlong spending spree and a precipitous drop in its stock price.

The cuts among the company’s 7,300 staff are even deeper than what was originally reported yesterday by Greentech Media. The board of the company decided a week ago to carry out the layoffs in the face of a slowing market and to eliminate redundancies among its many new arms, according to a document filed yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SunEdison plans a phone call with investors tomorrow to provide more details.

In the past month, nervous investors have pushed two of the most ambitious and acquisitive clean-energy companies — SunEdison and NRG Energy Inc. — to trim their plans. Both companies have plowed their moneymaking assets into yieldcos, a new investment vehicle that Wall Street loved a few months ago but has now soured on.

The core business of U.S.-based SunEdison is putting together large, complex solar- and wind-energy projects around the world, with operations as far-flung as India, Brazil, England and Massachusetts. In the past year, those operations became more complicated as the company entered new markets and bought up competitors around the globe.

Last November, the company expanded from solar into wind energy with a $2.4 billion purchase of First Wind. In June it bought Continuum Wind Energy, a wind developer in India, for about $620 million, according to Livemint. That same month, SunEdison snapped up a leading wind and solar developer in Central America. In July, it acquired Vivint Solar, a major U.S rooftop solar developer, for $2.2 billion.

Also this year, SunEdison created two yieldcos, which are essentially holding companies for the company’s completed projects. Since those projects are contracted to last decades, yieldcos were meant to provide investors with a long-term, dependable payback in the unpredictable renewable energy business, while giving their parent companies a cheap supply of capital.

Since 2013, at least 10 yieldcos have been created in the renewable energy sphere and received enthusiastic investment until midsummer, when confidence ebbed.

“The business model for many yieldcos is to issue equity, acquire projects and pay out cash flow. When the equity prices go down, that raises their finance cost, which jeopardizes the business model,” said Travis Miller, director of utilities equity research at Morningstar, a research firm.

This week’s news echoes that of NRG Energy, a company with a portfolio that is both different from and similar to SunEdison’s.

NRG’s principal business is operating one of the country’s largest fleets of traditional power plants running on coal and natural gas. In the past several years, the firm has bought its way into a diverse portfolio of clean energy projects, including large wind and solar farms, a rooftop solar installation business and a network of electric vehicle chargers (EnergyWire, Sept. 9, 2014).

NRG has seen its stock drop from a 52-week high of $32 to $18 per share a few weeks ago and a corresponding slide in its yieldco, called NRG Yield.

Three weeks ago, CEO David Crane announced that the company’s clean energy holdings would be reshuffled into a “GreenCo” that stands apart from the company’s traditional businesses (EnergyWire, Sept. 21). NRG hoped its intentions would increase confidence, but the stock has dropped further, to $14.

Growth, abated

At the time of the Vivint acquisition, SunEdison’s CEO, Ahmad Chatila, told Bloomberg that adding a major rooftop solar installer to the portfolio would give the company “unabated growth for 20 years.”

The firm continued to express confidence in its strategy, even as it took on heavy debt from its new purchases and its stock prices sank.SunEdison stock plunged from a high of $31 in mid-July to $9 at market close yesterday. Its two yieldcos, TerraForm Power and TerraForm Global, have experienced similar declines.

One analyst suggested the company’s bold, deal-making approach to energy projects may have not prepared it for the level of financial restraint it needed when participating in financial markets with its yieldcos.

John Hempton of Bronte Capital wrote in a blog post last week that Chatila ought to step down in favor of “someone whose job it is to ensure — and be seen to ensure — that bad projects are not funded.”

“Mr Chatila has built an institution for which he is profoundly unsuitable to run,” Hempton wrote.

Also yesterday, the man at SunEdison who will presumably carry out the layoffs — head of human resources Stephen Cerrone — acquired stock options worth $360,000, according to an SEC document.
Energy Wire

NRG the outfit that has seen “its stock drop from a 52-week high of $32 to $14” in a few weeks, is among a number of wind power outfits blaming its precarious finances on, of all things, the weather:

US Wind Power Outfits Curse ‘El Niño’ for Massive & Mounting Losses

Wind Power Ponzi Scheme Running Out of Puff

SunEdison – also suffering a “precipitous drop” in its share price, from $31 to $9 – is all set to lay off 15% of its 7,300 employees, which, on STT’s maths, translates to almost 1,100 people.

Now, what was all that talk from Samantha Williams and Rob Gramlich about the wind industry creating millions of well-paid, stable jobs that will outlast religion?

And what ever happened to the spruikers’ claims that, investing in wind power was not only groovy and ‘green’, but a solid, one-way bet?

There’s one thing for sure, and that’s that the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers will never be accused of consistency. But, internal inconsistency and blatant hypocrisy is precisely the stuff that wind industry propaganda is made of.

At its base level, this is all about separating fools from their money. As PT Barnum said: “every crowd has a silver lining”. Make sure you’re not part of this crowd.

Public Mislead on Climate Impacts….

October 19, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Public Misled on Climate Impacts
Global warming causes reduced extreme weather
By Tom Harris, International Climate Science Coalition and Dr. Tim Ball | October 18, 2015Last Updated: October 18, 2015 6:35 pm
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore attends a session of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 21, 2015. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images)
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore attends a session of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 21, 2015. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images)
The public is being told by politicians, bureaucrats, and activists that global warming will cause more extreme weather. Yet both the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) have said the exact opposite.

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In 2012 the IPCC said that a relationship between global warming and wildfires, rainfall, storms, hurricanes, and other extreme weather events has not been demonstrated. In its latest assessment report (2013), IPCC scientists concluded that they had only “low confidence” that “damaging increases will occur in either drought or tropical cyclone activity” as a result of global warming.

Hoesung Lee (R), the new president of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), speaks to French environmentalist Nicolas Hulot as he leaves the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris on Oct. 15, 2015, after a meeting with French President François Hollande. (Eric Feferberg/AFP/Getty Images)
Hoesung Lee (R), the new president of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), with French environmentalist Nicolas Hulot at Elysée Presidential Palace in Paris on Oct. 15, 2015, after a meeting with French President François Hollande. (Eric Feferberg/AFP/Getty Images)

The 2013 NIPCC report concluded the same, asserting, “In no case has a convincing relationship been established between warming over the past 100 years and increases in any of these extreme events.”

The NIPCC report “Summary for Policymakers” addressed drought as follows, “Observations from across the planet demonstrate droughts have not become more extreme or erratic in response to global warming. In most cases, the worst droughts in recorded meteorological history were much milder than droughts that occurred periodically during much colder times.”

That there is no trend toward increasing extreme weather is clearly evident in the data. The National Climate Data Center (NCDC) tracks state records for maximum and minimum temperature, precipitation, snowfall, and snow depth, and sometimes hail characteristics, for each of the 50 states, a total of 346 state records since the 1890s. The NCDC records reveal that no extreme weather state records have been set in 2015. Only one was set in 2014, one in 2013, one in 2012, four in 2011. By far the majority of state records were set well before late 20th century warming. For example, New York state’s extreme weather records are spread over the past century, with no recent increase. Here are New York’s records:

Maximum Temperature: 108 degrees F, 1926
Minimum Temperature: -52 degrees F, 1979
Maximum 24-Hour Precipitation: 13.57 inches, 2014
Maximum 24-Hour Snowfall: 49 inches, 1900
Maximum Snow Depth: 119 inches, 1943

Scientists understand that global warming leads to less, not more, extreme weather. The boundary between cold polar air and warmer tropical air marks the position of the polar front. Extreme storms with winter blizzards and heavy rain in spring and fall, including tornadoes and hailstorms, form along the front. The number and intensity of extreme weather events varies with the temperature difference across the front, a parameter referred to as the zonal index.

NOAA-US-State-Climate-Records

According to the climate models the IPCC holds dear, global warming will occur fastest in polar regions, thus reducing the zonal index and so also reducing extreme weather.

As documented in climate records—proxy indicators, written records, and the brief instrumental record—extreme weather events have always been with us. For example, British surveyor and explorer Peter Fidler’s “Red River District Report 1819″ notes, “The spring months have sometimes storms of wind and thunder even so early as March within these last years the Climate seems to be greatly changed the summer so backward with very little rain and even snow in winter much less than usual and the ground parched that all summer have entirely dried up …”

The Department of Water and Power (DWP) San Fernando Valley Generating Station in Sun Valley, Calif., on Dec. 11, 2008. In August, President Obama announced a major climate change plan aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the nation’s coal-burning power plants. (David McNew/Getty Images)
The Department of Water and Power (DWP) San Fernando Valley Generating Station in Sun Valley, Calif., on Dec. 11, 2008. In August, President Obama announced a major climate change plan aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the nation’s coal-burning power plants. (David McNew/Getty Images)

If governments truly want to help farmers and others “who live off the land,” they should be preparing for the far more dangerous threat to North American agriculture—cooling.

Contrary to official records, observational evidence from around the world indicates that we are in a period of cooling almost certainly caused by solar changes. This is expected to continue posing a serious threat to prairie agriculture. Canada, the breadbasket of much of the world, is especially at risk. Fifty percent of Manitoba’s crops cannot be grown with a 0.9 degree F overall temperature drop and much of Canadian agriculture is eliminated entirely by a 1.8 degrees of Fahrenheit cooling. It’s a trend made more threatening because governments, misled by decades of corrupted, predetermined science, plan only for warming.

Based on the false premise that there has been an increase in extreme weather caused by global warming, President Barack Obama wants to replace coal, America’s cheapest and most plentiful power source, with other more expensive fuels. It is of concern to all democratic nations when the world’s primary defender of freedom is bent on crippling itself in this way.

MORE:
The Climate Scare’s ‘Useful Idiots’
Pope, UN Sabotaging Development Goals With Climate Mitigation Focus
Instead of wasting money vainly trying to stop extreme weather from happening, governments should work to harden their societies to these inevitable events by burying electrical cables underground, and reinforcing buildings and other infrastructure. After all, Manhattan businesses that did not lose communications and power during Hurricane Sandy had their cables buried underground.

Yet, according to Climate Policy Initiative, of the almost $1 billion spent globally every day on climate finance, only about 7 percent of it goes to helping people adapt to climate change. This is the real climate crisis that should concern our leaders.

Dr. Tim Ball is an environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Tom Harris is executive director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition. ICSC is not right wing (our participants come from across the political spectrum), is not funded by “big oil,” and there are no lobbyists or “shills” for industry of any sort. Tom Harris has never worked as a lobbyist or PR rep for any company or sector.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Epoch Times.

Even in Iran, People are harmed by Wind Turbine Emissions….results of pilot study.

October 17, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

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

Author: <rel=author value=”Abbasi, Milad”>Abbasi, Milad; <rel=author value=”Monazzam, Mohammad Reza”>Monazzam, Mohammad Reza; <rel=author value=”Akbarzadeh, Arash”>Akbarzadeh, Arash; <rel=author value=”Zakerian, Seyyed Abbolfazl”>Zakerian, Seyyed Abbolfazl; and <rel=author value=”Ebrahimi, Mohammad Hossein”>Ebrahimi, Mohammad Hossein

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

Materials and methods: A total number of 53 workers took part in this study. Based on the type of job, they were categorized into three groups of maintenance, security and office staff. The persons’ exposure at each job-related group was measured by eight-hour equivalent sound level (LAeq, 8 h). A Noise annoyance scale, Epworth sleepiness scale and 28-item general health questionnaire was used for gathering data from workers. The data were analyzed through Multivariate Analysis of variance (MANOVA) test, Pillai’s Trace test, Paired comparisons analysis and Multivariate regression test were used in the R software.

Results and discussion: The results showed that, response variables (annoyance, sleep disturbance and health) were significantly different between job groups. The results also indicated that sleep disturbance as well as noise exposure had a significant effect on general health. Noise annoyance and distance from wind turbines could significantly explain about 44.5 and 34.2 % of the variance in sleep disturbance and worker’s general health, respectively. General health was significantly different in different age groups while age had no significant impact on sleep disturbance. The results were reverse for distance because it had no significant impact on health, but sleep disturbance was significantly affected.

Conclusions: We came to this conclusion that wind turbines noise can directly impact on annoyance, sleep and health. This type of energy generation can have potential health risks for wind farm workers. However, further research is needed to confirm the results of this study.

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

Journal of Environmental Health Science & Engineering (2015) 13:71
DOI: 10.1186/s40201-015-0225-8

Download original document: “Impact of wind turbine sound on general health, sleep disturbance and annoyance of workers: a pilot-study in Manjil wind farm, Iran”

Why Wynne Pushes Wind…..Follow the Money Trail!

October 12, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind Industry Welfare: How Crony Capitalism Drives the Great Wind Power Fraud

October 12, 2015 by stopthesethings

‘Wind PTC Action Hub’: Time to End Energy Cronyism
Master Resource
Robert Bradley Jr.
9 October 2015

“Without the PTC, any mandated wind generation would be an even bigger political problem because its cost inflation would be exposed. The wind-is-competitive-with-fossil-fuels hyperbole would be refuted in real time.”

Congress enacted the Wind Production Tax Credit (PTC) in 1992 as a temporary measure for an “infant” industry.

Decades and nine extensions later, it is time to eliminate the PTC.

Subsidized wind power inflates electricity costs, compromises taxpayers, and destabilizes the electric grid (wind-generated electricity is intermittent).

The huge tax credit allows pricing that ruins the economics of steady, conventional generation sources. Wind power, indeed, is the perfect imperfect energy.

The PTC It is most beneficial to wealthy wind developers who are able to reduce their tax rate at the expense of the rest of us. It is past time to end corporate welfare for this mature, and in their own words,competitive, wind industry.

Obama Needs the PTC

President Obama and the EPA’s aggressive regulation of existing power plants amounts to a federal takeover of the electricity system. One of the goals of this regulation is to shift electricity from affordable and dependable sources like coal toward expensive and unreliable sources like wind. (On-grid solar does the same thing.)

Without the PTC, any mandated wind generation would be an even bigger political problem because its cost inflation would be exposed. The wind-is-competitive-with-fossil-fuels hyperbole would be refuted in real time.

Extending the Wind PTC helps Obama/EPA get away with this phase of their forced energy transformation. It is past time to let wind producers stand on their own merit.

In short, a vote for the PTC is a vote for the President’s federal energy takeover.

To this end, the American Energy Alliance has launched a Wind PTC Action Hub. Yesterday’s press release follows:

WASHINGTON — Today, the American Energy Alliance launchedwww.EndWindWelfare.org—a resource and activist hub aimed at eliminating the wind Production Tax Credit (PTC).

With this new tool, which includes a legislative tracker and an action center, AEA will encourage lawmakers to support efforts to end this taxpayer-funded handout. One feature of the hub is a video illustrating how the PTC is tied to President Obama’s new carbon dioxide regulation.

The goal of this regulation is to shift electricity generation from affordable and dependable sources like coal toward expensive and unreliable sources like wind. Obama’s plan will unavoidably raise electricity rates – hurting poor and middle class families the most. But without the PTC, mandating industrial wind power is a much more difficult task, as wind power needs handouts to survive.

Thus, Congress can take meaningful action against the Obama’s administration’s anti-energy agenda by eliminating the PTC. Watch the video below:

****

The hub’s legislative tracker shows which representatives have publicly taken a stand against the PTC, allowing Americans to thank their elected leaders for opposing this handout, or hold them accountable for supporting wind welfare.

Our action center will also serve as a resource for policymakers and activists by providing recent reports, blog posts and ongoing advocacy efforts on the PTC.
Master Resource

In Australia, exactly the same forces are at work, driven by wind industry plants inside Environment Minister, Greg Hunt’s office, like Patrick Gibbons – who just happens to be very best mates with Vesta’s little darling, Ken McAlpine.

One of STT’s operatives recently stumbled across a cache of documents – recording a mass of work done by Gibbons, McAlpine and Miles George – of near-bankrupt wind power outfit, Infigen – back then known as Babcock and Brown. This mountain of documents – including internal memos, emails, press releases and presentations given to their political targets, like then Labor leader, Mark Latham – detail efforts by the trio to downplay any likely obstacles to their plans; and to blow the claimed ‘benefits’ of Babcock and Brown’s wind farms – and a planned Vesta’s blade manufacturing plant – out of all proportion with the truth.

Babcock and Brown’s investors, shareholders and creditors all ended up more than just a little worse for wear (to the tune of about $10 billion) as a result of precisely that kind of spin-doctoring shenanigans (see our post here).

In recent times, Gibbons is still working overtime to protect the wind industry by, among other skulduggery, rigging the terms of reference for the new wind farm commissioner in his benefactors’ favour; and appointing one of their own – a former renewable industry crony – as the commissioner.

Gibbons was also in there stacking the expert panel on wind farm noise emissions with hand-picked wind industry pets, like Kym Burgermeister – a noise ‘expert’ who has been defending his wind industry clients in the usual way for years.

Gibbon’s efforts to ‘fix’ it for his wind industry mates, by derailing the work done by the Senators on the Inquiry into the great wind power fraud, has left the Senate Cross-benchers – including STT Champion, David Leyonhjelm – furious.

Wind farm watchdog’s powers ‘not enough’ for crossbench senators
The Australian
Graham Lloyd
10 October 2015

The federal government has been accused of “reneging” on its commitment to crossbench senators regarding the powers of a scientific panel established to monitor wind turbine noise and health.

Australia’s renewable energy industry has promised to co-operate with a new wind farm commissioner and independent scientific committee appointed yesterday to handle complaints, and provide advice on health concerns and low frequency noise monitoring.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt said the appointments honoured a deal between the government and crossbench senators after a long Senate committee investigation earlier this year.

But senator David Leyonhjelm, who was on the committee, said the government had fallen short of its promise made to ensure passage of its renewable energy target legislation.

“I welcome the appointments of both the wind commissioner and the members of the expert scientific panel,” Senator Leyonhjelm said. “However, Minister Hunt has substantially strayed from the commitment he gave to crossbench senators on 23 June in the terms of reference for the expert scientific panel released today.

“Mr Hunt has reneged on his commitment, and it is difficult to see how the crossbench will be able to believe any of his undertakings in future.”

Crossbench senators had expected the panel to have greater investigatory powers.

But under the terms of reference the committee’s role will be to “improve science and monitoring of the potential impacts of sound from wind turbines (including low frequency and infrasound) on health and the environment’’. It will provide advice on the development of Australian methodologies and frameworks in sound measurement and standards for wind farms, including in the field of infrasound and low frequency sound.

Mr Hunt appointed Andrew Dyer as National Wind Farm Commissioner for three years. Mr Dyer is a former chairman of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman Council and has worked in the renewable energy industry.

The independent scientific panel will be chaired by RMIT adjunct professor Jon Davy.
The Australian

Patrick Gibbons has been the captain of crony wind industry capitalism inside the (purportedly) Conservative Coalition; and has fought tooth-and-nail to ensure that the most colossal industry subsidy scheme in the history of the Commonwealth – that will cost all Australian power consumers $3 billion a year in higher power prices – all of which will be directed to Gibbon’s wind industry mates – is maintained:

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

Thankfully, Australian banks and power retailers aren’t having a bar of it:

Let the Sun Shine In: Australia’s BIGGEST Power Retailer Determined to Kill Wind Power

Wind Industry Still Wailing About ‘Uncertainty’ as Australian Retailers Continue to Reject Wind Power ‘Deals’

Which means that Gibbons’ plans to destroy Australia’s economic future, on behalf of his mates at Infigen & Co, will eventually come to a shuddering halt:

Australia’s Most Notorious Wind Power Outfit – Infigen – Blames $304 Million Loss on the WIND

Wind Power ‘Investors’ Cut & Run from Australia as Ponzi Scheme Implodes

Any policy that is unsustainable – as America’s PTC and Australia’s LRET most clearly are – will inevitably collapse under its own weight; or be ignominiously scrapped by those that created it. And that is a fact of economic and political life.

Ontario has a Reputation…..for having a Messed Up Electricity System.

October 10, 2015 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Canada’s Wind Power Debacle: $Billions Wasted with CO2 Emissions to Double

October 10, 2015 by stopthesethings 2 Comments

Ontario is the place where the most bizarre energy policy in the world has seen thousands of these things speared into the backyards of homes – in the most agriculturally productive part of Canada. When we say “bizarre” we mean completely bonkers.

Canada has one of the “cleanest” power generation mixes on the planet, with the vast bulk of its electricity coming from zero emissions sources such as nuclear and hydro.

Adding to the lunacy is the fact that wind power outfits are guaranteed to reap fat profits despite market conditions.

Where the wholesale market price for power in Ontario is between $30-50 per MWh, wind power generators pocket a fixed price of $135 MWh – even if there is absolutely no market for it and the Province literally has to pay neighbouring US States to take it.

Then there’s the guff about wind farms ‘saving’ the environment.

The central, endlessly repeated lie (upon which the great wind power fraud rests) is that increasing wind power generation results in decreases in CO2 emissions.

The ONLY claimed justification for wind power – that has no commercial value – apart from the subsidies that it has attracted – is that these things will ‘save’ the planet by ‘killing’ coal and gas – allowing us to go ‘fossil free’ and slash CO2 emissions to a zephyr. Well, that’s what were told ….

Now, to add insult to massive economic injury, the fact that wind power cannot – and will never – reduce CO2 emissions in the electricity sector has been rumbled in Ontario, too.

Wind energy claim that it’s clean not true in Ontario context
The Observer
Santo Giorno
25 September 2015

The wind energy lobby, the provincial government and the mainstream environmental groups continue to claim that wind-generated electricity is “clean” and therefore “good for the environment” (Sarnia Observer, Sept. 23, Turbines rising in Lambton).

This claim is simply not true in the context of Ontario’s electricity sector.

With every megawatt-hour of wind-produced electricity accepted into the Ontario grid, the province is in fact substituting electricity that produces an average of 40 kg CO2 per megawatt-hour (from gas turbines operating ONLY during peak demand) with electricity that produces an average of 200 kg CO2 per megawatt-hour (from gas turbines that MUST operate whenever the wind stops blowing).

If the provincial government continues to promote wind energy, as outlined in their 2013 Long Term Energy Plan, the increasing amounts of wind-generated electricity will cause CO2 emissions from Ontario’s electricity sector to double between 2016 and 2032.

These are the findings in an annual report titled “Ontario’s Electricity Dilemma” by the two Ontario engineering societies – the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE) and the Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO). Available here: Ontario’s Electricity Dilemma – Achieving Low Emissions at Reasonable Electricity Rates

The latest edition, published in April 2015, can be found here:http://www.ospe.on.ca/?page=pres_lib#peo

The CO2 emission numbers were calculated using published data from the grid’s system operator, the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO).

These two engineering societies are not against renewables like wind energy. Their report contains a number of suggestions on how the province can better integrate renewable energy sources into the grid.

The increase in CO2 emission results directly from the government’s decision to give wind-generated electricity first access to our grid regardless of demand, regardless of the fact that our current generating capacity is 30 per cent above base load demand, regardless of the fact that because wind electricity is intermittent, only gas-powered generating plants ramp up fast enough to maintain grid stability, regardless of the fact that clean energy with zero CO2 emission – hydro and nuclear – is being dumped.

Let’s look at what this means locally. Suncor’s 100 MW Cedar Point project has an annual real capacity of about 30 MW because the wind doesn’t always blow; so it will produce about 262,800 megawatt-hours of electricity in one year.

This amount of electricity from our other sources – nuclear/hydro/gas – would result in the yearly emission of 10,500 metric tons of CO2.

The same output from Suncor’s Cedar Point project will result in yearly emissions of 52,560 metric tons of CO2 emission because additional gas-generated electricity is required. This is an INCREASE of 42,000 metric tons of CO2 each year for the next 20 years. Had this project not been built, the environment would be cleaner by that amount.

Our two engineering societies should be commended for producing this report. It reminds us that the provincial government has never undertaken a financial cost/benefit analysis, or an environmental cost/benefit analysis of its Green Energy Act; and so it continues with a program that has enormous financial and social costs; a program that will actually increase CO2 emissions and worsen the effects of climate change.
The Observer

We note The Observer’s concerns about ‘climate change’.

Of course, the climate “changes” – change is endogenous to the model. Whether that change is significant or “dangerous”, as the most strident hysterics would have us believe, is yet to be seen. Humans have tolerated severe ice ages and, somehow, miraculously managed to survive. If the planet warms, as we’ve been lately warned, STT is pretty confident we will survive that too: it’s called “adaptation” – a feature of humanity, oft referred to as “ingenuity”.

However, in the main, we leave the topic of global warming or climate change (whichever is your poison) to others.

STT takes the position that man-made emissions of CO2 may increase atmospheric temperatures. But we don’t concede that wind power has made – or is even capable of making – one jot of difference to CO2 emissions in the electricity sector; principally because it is NOT – and will never be – an ‘alternative’ to conventional generation systems, which are always and everywhere available on demand:

The Wind Power Fraud (in pictures): Part 2 – The Whole Eastern Grid Debacle

STT seeks to completely disconnect claims for and against global warming, and wind power generation.

As wind power can only ever be delivered (if at all) at crazy, random intervals it will never amount to a meaningful power source and will always require 100% of its capacity to be backed up 100% of the time with fossil fuel generation sources; in Australia, principally coal-fired plant. As a result, wind power generation will never “displace”, let alone “replace” fossil fuel generation sources.

Contrary to the anti-fossil fuel squad’s ranting, there isn’t a ‘choice’ between wind power and fossil fuel power generation: there’s a ‘choice’ between wind power (with fossil fuel powered back-up equal to 100% of its capacity) and relying on wind power alone. If you’re ready to ‘pick’ the latter, expect to be sitting freezing (or boiling) in the dark more than 60% of the time.

Wind power isn’t a ‘system’, it’s ‘chaos’ – the pictures tell the story: this is the ‘output’ from every wind farm connected to the Eastern Grid (based in NSW, VIC, TAS & SA – and with a combined installed capacity of 3,669MW) during May.

From The Observer’s observations, the wind has about the same level of reliability in Ontario, as elsewhere. With the cost running into the hundreds of $billions; and nothing to show for it, power punters in Ontario could be forgiven for feeling like they’ve been fleeced.

Rural Dweller Want to Run the Windpushers out of Town!!

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

Democracy in Action: Vermonters Vent Fury at Planned Wind Power Project

October 6, 2015 by stopthesethings Leave a Comment

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Remember all those glowing stories about wind power outfits being welcomed into rural communities with open arms? You know, tales about how farmers are dying to have turbines lined up all over their properties? How locals can’t wait to pick up some of the thousands of permanent,high paying jobs on offer? How developers are viewed with the kind of reverence reserved for Royalty?

No?

We’ve forgotten them too.

It’s ‘outrage’ that’s become the order of the day. With the wind industry facing growing and increasingly hostile hordes, their teams of community ‘liaison’ officers have taken to literally thumping their message home, setting the muscle on to old-age pensioners and disabled farmers:

Wind Industry Belting its ‘Message’ Home: Trustpower’s Thugs Assault 79-Year-Old Pensioner & Disabled Farmer

It’s a sure sign that the wind industry’s ‘game’ is lost.

Pro-(real)farming, pro-family, pro-community and pro-(real)power groups have an air of ascendancy now; they’re angry, they’re organised, and they aren’t about to be taken for fools any longer. Here’s another example of people fighting back against the greatest economic and environmental fraud of all time.

Vermont town set for protest vote against wind turbines
Vermont Watchdog
Bruce Parker
1 October 2015

IRASBURG, Vt. — The ongoing clash between Vermonters and Big Wind is set for a slugfest Thursday night as Irasburg residents will attempt a protest vote against two 500-foot wind turbines to be sited atop the ridgeline of nearby Kidder Hill.

In a special Selectboard meeting at 6:30 p.m. at Irasburg’s Town Hall, voters will cast ballots to answer the following question: “Shall Kidder Hill, or any other ridgelines of the town of Irasburg, Vermont, be used for development by industrial wind turbine projects?”

A no vote would be a setback for David Blittersdorf, whose Kidder Hill Community Wind company plans to construct the 5-megawatt electricity-generating towers to provide power for approximately 2,100 homes in the area.

“We have 421 signatures opposing this project,” said Ron Holland, a local resident, and member of the Irasburg Ridgeline Alliance, which led a petition drive against the turbines.

Holland, who helped expose broad opposition to the project, said a no vote would launch a sustained revolt by residents who are determined to protect local ridgelines.

“It will send a very clear message to the administration of the state of Vermont, and to Mr. Blittersdorf, that he can expect total noncooperation from the citizens of Irasburg.”

While Blittersdorf has yet to present his plan to regulators at the Public Service Board, the green energy mogul told a meeting of Addison County Democrats in June that Vermonters can expect wind turbines on one-third of Vermont’s ridgelines as part of the state’s goal to become 90 percent renewable-powered by 2050. A YouTube video of the meeting went viral across Vermont.

Residents who oppose the project say unsightly turbines would negatively affect property values and generate unhealthy amounts of noise in the community. Holland said he’s equally concerned by the sale of Vermont’s ridgelines to developers whose biggest supporters are well-funded politicians.

“This is an alliance between state interests and business interests that excludes towns in the decision-making process. This is being foisted on us and we have no say,” Holland said, referring to the town’s lack of authority to block energy projects.

“The policies that have been developed are a textbook example of crony capitalism. There are far less expensive, far less polluting, far less destructive options available that don’t make money for the people that control Vermont utilities. But they haven’t been considered.”

Asked for evidence of a state-business alliance, Holland said Blittersdorf is a major donor to Gov. Peter Shumlin, House Speaker Shap Smith and Joint Energy Committee Chair Rep. Tony Klein.

Blittersdorf did not return Watchdog’s request for comment. However, the green energy CEO is scheduled to give a speech defending Kidder Hill Community Wind prior to the vote.

Wind turbine opponents also have politicians in the fight.

State Sen. John Rodgers, D-Essex/Orleans, who represents Irasburg and other towns in the Northeast Kingdom, is a vocal critic of unregulated siting of renewable energy projects.

“The Northeast Kingdom has become the dumping ground for every ill-conceived, poorly sited renewable energy project the developers can dream up,” Rodgers said in a news release. “Environmental and energy issues are real, but we know that there are far more effective ways to address them without ruining the quality of life that defines us as Vermonters.”

Rodgers is a rare Democrat. Given that the state’s Democratic legislative majority overwhelmingly supports industrial scale renewables, blocking controversial wind turbines rests with local citizens.

For Irasburg residents like Rebecca Boulanger, it’s the feeling of powerlessness that has stoked the flames of anger in the small town.

“Here in Vermont, where we’re known worldwide for our town-meeting democracy, it is inconceivable that a decision with so many irreversible consequences for our citizens would be made without regard for the democratic process,” she said.

But for Holland, who said he expects a win Thursday night, protecting Vermont’s pristine ridgelines is simply about being a good neighbor.

“If your neighbor’s house is on fire, you go and help put it out. These people’s homes are going to be destroyed in terms of what happens in the environment around there, and so the neighbors are coming to the rescue.”
Vermont Watchdog

What was forecast by the community defenders themselves was realised at the meeting that took place a few nights later; where 96% of voters made plain their outright hostility to the great wind power fraud. No surprises there!

What was surprising is how the Editor of the local rag reported on the community’s clear expression of outrage.

Over the last few years, the media’s attitude and approach to the wind industry has ranged from fawning acquiescence to foaming eco-fascism.

In the former guise, journos would simply parrot the propaganda handed to them by wind power outfits, their parasites and spruikers: recounting complete fictions such as this project “will power 200,000 homes, save gazillions of tonnes of CO2 and all for free”. The resultant gushing drivel, arising from the combination of the scribes’ inherent laziness and infantile gullibility.

At the extreme end of the spectrum were journalists that attacked anyone with the temerity to challenge the Wind Gods; and the infallibility of the high priests that faithfully serve them.

Now, however, journalists too, have worked out the fickle nature of the Wind Gods; and that the wind industry’s high priests have all the credibility and moral fibre you’d expect from deranged cult leaders – of the same class as Jim Jones and David Koresh:

Vesta’s Ken McAlpine Forced to Apoligise to Dr Sarah Laurie for …. well, just being ‘Ken’

Wind Industry’s Propaganda King – Simon Chapman Forced to Apologise to Dr Sarah Laurie for False & Malicious Taunts

In the early days, newspaper editors took the deluded and warm and fuzzy view that everyone simply loves wind power to bits.

Now that community defenders – in places like Vermont and Rye Park in New South Wales – have joined forces and shown that the great majority would, rather than hugging them, simply love to blow these things to bits, newspapers have, for obvious commercial reasons, sided with the great majority. It’s pretty hard to sell newspapers thumping wind industry propaganda to a population, where 90% have worked out that the wind power pitch is utter bunkum.

Instead, newspapers are calling the wind industry for what it is: the greatest economic and environmental fraud of all time.

Here’s an example from The Caledonian Record, as it recounts the backlash against wind power and Vermont and slaughters the developer’s high-handed arrogance, lies, treachery and deceit.

Editorial: Blowing Blittersdorff Away
The Caledonian Record
3 October 2015

On Thursday night hundreds of people packed into the Irasburg Town Hall to tell renewable energy developer David Blittersdorf they don’t want his industrial wind towers in their town. Out of 285 voters, 274 said “NO” to wind development in town.

Dr. Ron Holland, the town’s moderator, also presented a folder of petitions to the select board, signed by 481 voters, asking the select board to take a formal stand against wind development. Dr. Holland also spoke about a formal organization formed to challenge Blittersdorf’s plan — the Irasburg Ridgeline Alliance — and reasons for their opposition. Among them: the health effects of living near towers, the effect on property values, aesthetics, and their utter failure to reduce carbon emissions.

Blittersdorf didn’t attend the meeting but sent a strongly worded email that we translated to say — “I believe in renewable energy, I know what my property rights are, and I don’t care what Irasburg thinks.”

Blittersdorf has gotten filthy rich on renewable energy subsidies and mandates. In fact, he’s had a hand in writing many of the rules and laws that benefit his companies directly. Nobody in Vermont, that we know of, has gotten richer from gaming the rigged system than Blittersdorf. He knows how to cash in both as a developer and as a manufacturer of renewable energy systems.

He says he’s on a crusade to save the world. But anyone as involved in green energy as Blittersdorf is knows that the small benefit of wind energy can’t ever justify their overall inefficiency or heavily subsidized expense.

He knows wind projects are a bad fit for Vermont’s climate, make no sense economically, and yield zero impact on net carbon footprint.

He knows, because of well-known and understood transmission and infrastructure limitations, the New England grid operator has to limit the amount of power it can absorb from Vermont’s boutique projects.

He knows that taxpayers and ratepayers are getting fleeced at every turn of the turbine.

He knows that there aren’t “green jobs” associated with power generation.

He knows that after a quarter decade, and billions of tax subsidies through the wind Production Tax Credit, that wind farms aren’t competitive anywhere in the United States.

He knows that his developments are irreconcilable with the spirit, and the letter, of Act 250 land protections.

He knows wind tax credits (as one critic explained) “are nothing more than a cost imposed on all taxpayers in order to accommodate development of a politically well-connected, high-priced, low-value resource that cannot meet our electric capacity needs.”

He knows most of the state’s carbon footprint derives from vehicles and heating our homes in winter. As such, expensive and inefficient wind projects yield no meaningful effect on aggregate carbon emissions.

He knows wind energy is notoriously intermittent and unreliable, requiring fossil-fuel powered backup plants when the wind doesn’t blow.

He knows Shumlin’s grand plan that calls for Vermont’s energy use to come from 90 percent renewable sources by 2050 is not only unachievable, but the tax subsidies that it will require in the intervening failed effort to reach it will cost Vermont taxpayers an unforgivable and unsustainable fortune.

He knows wind is only a winner for developers – earning tax credits, naked subsidies, and guaranteed (fixed) consumption by ratepayers.

He knows wind projects distort energy markets and require such intensive energy to develop that nobody believes them to actually be “green.”

He knows, despite his invocation of property rights, that wind development is the ultimate zoning issue and has enormous impact on surrounding communities.

He knows that those communities are being torn apart by bad public policy, big government subsidies and a misguided pursuit of “green energy.”

Of course Blittersdorf knows all of this. What he might not know is that Northeast Kingdom residents won’t suffer fools. And they’ve gotten better over the years, and from hard experience, at protecting themselves from predatory developers.

Everyone now understands that this isn’t about the environment or global warming. It’s a naked money grab.

And we all stand with Irasburg in saying bureaucrats, investors and hotshot energy lobbyists shouldn’t have more say about what happens in our communities than the people actually living here.
The Caledonian Record

Winning this war involves winning skirmishes and battles: house by house, village by village and town by town.

Education is the key; facts the key weapon.

The endless lies tossed up by the wind industry and its parasites just don’t wash anymore: these days, people are switched on to the fraud; and angry for having been taken for gullible country bumpkins.

Once reasonable people are introduced to the facts about the insane costs of intermittent and unreliable wind power they cease to support it.

When they learn of the senseless slaughter of millions of birds and bats, and the tragic suffering caused to hard working rural people by giant fans, reasonable people start to bristle.

But when they learn that – contrary to the ONLY “justification” for the $billions filched from power consumer and taxpayers and directed as perpetual subsidies to wind power outfits – wind power INCREASES CO2 emissions in the electricity sector – rather than decreasing them, as claimed – their attitude stiffens to the point of hostility to those behind the fraud and those hell-bent on sustaining it.

In our travels we’ve met plenty of people that started out in favour of wind power and turned against it. But we’ve yet to meet anyone who started out opposed to wind power, who later became a supporter. Funny about that.

Present the facts to reasonable people – and they’ll want to know how the scam got started in the first place and why it hasn’t been stopped in its tracks already?

Once communities and their newspapers turn against the great wind power fraud, they’ll never turn back.

Get angry, get organised and make some noise. These are your homes, your families and your communities. Fight them; and they will flee.

Harm From Wind Turbines Will Dwarf that of Asbestos…..

October 5, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

June 2015 New Zealand

Wind turbines worse than asbestos?

The views of Dr Bruce Rapley given to the Australian senate select committee on wind turbines in June 2015.Video also available on our YouTube channel

Dr. Bruce Rapley is a consulting scientist with Atkinson & Rapley Consulting Ltd., New Zealand, specialising in acoustics and human health.

He has three degrees from Massey University in New Zealand. A BSc in biological systems, an MPhil in technology (System Design and Testing of a Medical Biostimulator) and a PhD in acoustics and human health (Sound in the Military Environment: Detection, Measurement and Perception – undertaken in collaboration with the New Zealand Defence Force).

Dr. Bruce Rapley’s submissions to the Australian senate select committee on wind turbines:

Submission 1 – 27 February 2015

Appendices

Submission 2 – 1 June 2015

Brits Beginning to Hold Wind Pushers Accountable!

October 2, 2015 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Brits to Force £2 Wind Power Outfits to Hold £Millions in Reserve to Pay Damages to Victims & for Decommissioning

August 26, 2015 by stopthesethings

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In a stunningly brilliant legislative move, David Davis MP recently introduced a Bill in UK’s Parliament which will allow Britons to enforce judgments against wind power outfits; and which will ensure the removal of these things when they grind to an inevitable halt within the next decade or so – whether because the massive subsidies they run on are chopped; or because they have flamed out; rusted out; thrown their blades to the four winds; or have simply collapsed in heaps.

The standard corporate structures used by wind power outfits involve a parent company – like Infigen, say – usually as a holding company, with a subsidiary, which usually takes on the name of the wind farm (threatened or realised), such as Cherry Tree Wind Farm Pty Ltd (a wholly owned subsidiary of Infigen – going nowhere, thanks to its inability to obtain a Power Purchase Agreement).

The subsidiary is lumbered with all the current debts and other liabilities, which are loaded up in such a way as to exceed its assets (as long as the wind farm is operating, the parent sees that sufficient cash flushes through the subsidiary for it to remain technically solvent, at least in the short term).

In the event that a creditor pursues the subsidiary for any substantial claim, the parent (or related holding company) simply sits back and watches its subsidiary wind up in insolvency; leaving the creditor(s) without so much as a penny to pinch. Infigen has done it all before, back when it was called “Babcock and Brown”.

Among the class of creditors seeking to recover, are wind farm neighbours who successfully sue the windfarm operator (ie the subsidiary company) and who obtain a substantial award of damages for nuisance.

In David Davis’s speech below, he refers to the case of Julian and Jane Davis who successfully obtained a £2 million out of court settlement from a wind farm operator, for noise nuisance; and the resultant loss of property value (the home became uninhabitable due to low-frequency noise, infrasound and vibration).

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

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

So, the next time you’ve got some wind industry parasite mouthing off that there has never been a successful claim against a wind power outfit, simply flick them a link to this post.

The other reason for setting up £2 subsidiary companies (in Australia referred to as $2 companies) of little or no real value, is to avoid (by winding up in insolvency) liability to clean up the mess after the rort is all over and done with.

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While planning authorities often talk about obtaining what are called “decommissioning bonds”, whatever promises are made, are given by the subsidiary (not the parent), which is designed to have no assets available to cover the cost of decommissioning; whenever that inevitable event takes place. Hence, the thousands of wind turbines scattered all over California and Hawaii, left rusting as monuments to our political betters’ collective stupidity (see our post here).

To avoid that event, David Davis introduced the “Public Nuisance from Wind Farms (Mandatory Liability Cover) Bill”, which is to be voted on sometime next month. Here’s David’s speech as he introduces the Bill – video and then audio (Hansard – Transcript follows).

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Audio Player

00:00

Public Nuisance from Wind Farms (Mandatory Liability Cover) Bill
David Davis
21 July 2015
House of Commons Hansard

Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con): I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring a Bill to require the Secretary of State to make provision about obligations on wind farm operators in respect of financial cover for potential liabilities arising from cause of public nuisance; and for connected purposes.

Wind farms are contentious. Some argue passionately that they are a great public good and the solution to global warming while others equally passionately believe they are a waste of money. This Bill takes no side in that debate. It is narrowly defined to one aspect of public interest; it requires the operators of wind farms, who are in receipt of £797 million of public subsidy a year, to organise their affairs so that they are able to meet the costs of any nuisance imposed on people living near them.

In 1995 the World Health Organisation recommended that to prevent sleep interruption low frequency noise should not exceed 30 decibels. However, in 1996 the Government’s Energy Technology Support Unit—ETSU—set the noise limit for wind turbines at 43 decibels. That is an enormous difference; on the logarithmic decibel scale it is approximately double the WHO limit. We still use those standards today.

In the last five years no planning application was refused on noise-related grounds, but there have been 600 noise-related incidents arising from wind farm operations. The majority of complaints arise as a result of amplitude modulation, which is the loud, continuous thumping or swishing noise regularly described by those living near wind farms.

Numerous studies have identified that sleep is disturbed on a regular basis even at distances over 1 km away from turbines, yet under the ETSU standards turbines can be installed just 600 metres away from residential property. The wind farm companies are acutely aware of this, and all the more so since a member of the public, Jane Davis, sued a wind farm near her home for noise nuisance. The matter was settled out of court, and there is a gagging order preventing us from knowing the details, but the settlement is rumoured to have been in the region of £2 million.

Since this case, some dubious measures have been taken by the industry to obstruct perfectly legitimate claims for nuisance. The use of shell companies in the wind industry seems to be the commonest trick. The parent company provides a loan to a specially created subsidiary to set up the wind farm, then leaves it in control of operations. The subsidiary’s balance sheet typically comprises the wind farm physical assets, but they are more than offset by a very large loan from the parent company, with a resulting net liability. Profits from energy generation and large amounts of public subsidy are siphoned off to the parent company. The subsidiary is left as a financial shell, with very few liquid assets and total liabilities greater than total assets. That makes it impossible to bring litigation against a wind farm, simply because there is nothing to win from them. As such companies have negative net assets, even liquidating them would generate no cash to pay either damages or a legal bill.

One of my constituents bought his house in my constituency to enjoy a quiet retirement with his wife. After living there for more than a decade a 10-turbine wind farm was built near the house. The closest windmill is just over 600 metres from his home. He was assured at the planning stage that the wind farm would not trouble him, yet he has suffered the misery of regular noise and turbine blade flicker which has rendered his home almost unliveable. The low frequency noise from the turbines easily penetrates the double glazing. The couple have had to change bedrooms in order to sleep, but even so the persistent noise from the wind farm has taken its toll on his wife’s health; she now suffers heart palpitations and is prescribed anti-depressants on a permanent basis by her doctor.

My constituent, fearing his retirement has been ruined and his home thoroughly devalued, attempted to use his legal insurance to claim for nuisance from the wind farm operators. While there was a good chance of success in court, the company’s finances were organised so that there was no realistic prospect of recovering either damages or the legal costs of bringing the case. That being so, his insurers would, quite understandably, not cover his legal costs. That is despite the fact that the eventual owner of the wind farm is AES, a multibillion dollar international company involved partly in renewables but largely in coal and gas, that paid its chief executive $8.4 million last year. It laughably claims in its annual report to be a “World’s Most Ethical Company”.

It is not alone in its hypocrisy. In March I raised this disreputable practice with Falck Renewables, prospective operators of a wind farm near my own village in my constituency. I asked it whether it was going to do the same. It did not reply.

My constituents have no way to recover the tranquillity of the lives that they thought they were going to enjoy when they first moved to rural Yorkshire. They can neither sell their house nor get any financial recompense to enable them to afford to move, so they are trapped in this misery.

My point is a simple one. My constituents are just individual representatives of a situation that is repeated up and down the country. Wind farm companies must be adequately capitalised so that there can be a reasonable prospect of financial success for prospective litigants whose way of life they have damaged.

It is not only the noise that is a nuisance, of course. When the sun is low in the sky behind a turbine it creates a “strobe effect” which can be harmful to health and wellbeing, and there are also now concerns that some wind farms could be abandoned at the end of their operational lifespan, creating another sort of visual blight, this time in perpetuity.

The simple solution that I propose in this Bill is to require wind farm-operating companies to hold enough cash in hand to manage a legal case at any time, and in addition a financial bond—a guarantee, or insurance policy—as a security against potential liabilities, including all public nuisance and final decommissioning costs.

Any wind farm that fails to do that should lose its right to subsidy—which, as I said, amounted to £797 million in one year for the industry.

This would ensure that citizens could reasonably sue when they suffer damage, but, just as importantly, it would be a strong incentive for the companies to operate wind farms in such a way as to avoid public nuisance, which is causing great distress in some cases, and would mean that when the turbines are decommissioned there is money or insurance to cover the cost of clearing the wind farm, avoiding a situation whereby the local council has to pick up the bill.

Whatever our stance on onshore wind, companies in receipt of public subsidy should be required to meet their public responsibilities. This measure seeks to ensure that the big wind farm companies can truly be held liable when they are at fault and gives families the protection they deserve. I beg to move.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Mr David Davis, supported by Chris Heaton-Harris, Tom Pursglove, John Mann and Jim Shannon, present the Bill

Mr David Davis accordingly presented the Bill

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 11 September, and to be presented (Bill 62).

Public Nuisance from Wind Farms (Mandatory Liability Cover) Bill

Corruption in the Wind Industry, is NO secret!

October 1, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

US Justice Dept Takes on Wind Power Outfits’ Bribery & Corruption

October 1, 2015 by stopthesethings

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Lies, treachery and deceit are the hallmarks of the wind industry – fraud of all manner of descriptions is de rigueur for wind power outfits; and whether it’s bribery and fraud; vote rigging scandals; tax fraud; investor fraud or REC fraud – crooks and corruption rule.

These boys are the grand masters of fleecing customers andshareholders; and hood-winking rural communities alike – see our postshere and here and here.

Bribery is standard practice; deployed to get unwilling locals and venal council members on-side:

UK Wind Industry Turns to Bribery as it Fails to “Win Brit’s Hearts & Minds”

However, as anger turns to fury, not only are rural communities refusing to be bought off with trinkets and blankets, they’ve called the wind industry’s efforts to ‘grease’ the wheels of ‘democracy’ for precisely what it is: corruption. Much to the wind industry’s horror.

Wind energy projects opponents try new tactic
The Whig: Kingston Whig-Standard
Elliot Ferguson
20 September 2015

DENBIGH — A group fighting proposed wind energy projects in Lennox and Addington County filed a complaint with the United States Justice Department against the project’s American parent companies.

The complaint was filed earlier this month by John Laforet of the public relations firm Broadview Strategy Group Inc. and supported by the group Bon Echo Area Residents Against Wind Turbines (BEARAT).

The complaint alleged that Florida-based NextEra Energy and Colorado-based Renewable Energy Systems Americas violated the United States’ Foreign Corrupt Practices Act when their Canadian subsidiaries offered financial compensation in exchange for resolutions of municipal support.

“I was taken fairly aback by the money-for-votes approach that both NextEra and RES Canada took when dealing with councils,” said Laforet, who was president of Wind Concerns Ontario from 2000 to 2011.

“Unlike community benefit or vibrancy agreements that exist elsewhere in Ontario, these are being negotiated as a condition of a support resolution which will then benefit the proponent in receiving a contract from the provincial government.

“It’s no longer a goodwill measure, its a transaction. Money for support.”

The U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment about Laforet’s complaint.

Steve Stengel, a spokesperson for NextEra Energy Canada, said in an email to the Whig-Standard that the Justice Department complaint will not stand up to scrutiny.

“The claims of Mr. Carruthers and Mr. Laforet are completely without merit,” Stengel said. “NextEra Energy, Inc. and its affiliates work tirelessly to ensure that all contracts with local municipalities, entities, and individuals fully adhere to all Canadian and U.S. laws.”

Peter Clibbon, senior vice-president with RES Canada, said in an email that the company has not received a copy of the complaint.

“As a matter of policy, the company does not comment on pending litigation,” he said.

Provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prohibit officials with American companies from making “payments to foreign government officials to assist in obtaining or retaining business.”

Laforet said that law should apply to American companies’ Canadian subsidiaries.

Protests and petitions by community groups across Ontario have failed to prevent wind energy projects from being built, said Ashby Lake resident Dan Carruthers, co-chair of the Bon Echo Area Residents Against Wind Turbines.

The Justice Department complaint is an effort to try something that hadn’t been tried before, he said.

“What we wanted to do was stay on step ahead of the proponents,” he said.

“We need to have a very novel approach to this problem, something that hasn’t been tried, something that will put these proponents off guard but is going to be effective.”

Carruthers said the complaint is meant to make the projects too unattractive for the Independent Electricity System Operator to approve.

“We want to make the North Frontenac-Addington Highlands proposals stink so much, just so toxic from a political and public relations point of view, that they are just going to say ‘We don’t want to touch this, we’re just going to stick it to the bottom of the pile. There are easier ones to pick,’” Carruthers said.

A community benefits package are fairly common with large renewable energy projects like these, said Queen’s University geography professor Warren Mabee, and are a good way to compensate the community and give residents a sense of ownership.

But Mabee said the justice department complaint is a tactic that he has never seen from an anti-turbine group.

“It could get very sticky,” said Mabee, director of Queen’s University’s Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy. “In all likelihood this is totally innocent and it is just a strategy by the companies to drive these projects forward with as few bumps as possible but it may backfire on them.”

Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator in the coming months is to award about 565 megawatts of new renewable energy contracts, including 300 megawatts of wind energy.

IESO spokesperson Alexandra Campbell said there are certain mandatory requirements that companies must meet in order for an application to be considered, including holding a public meeting and making sure local residents are informed about the project.

Community benefit agreements are not considered part of the mandatory process, she said.

“In terms of the project proponents’ discussions or engagements with either individuals or the municipality, we don’t have rules or are involved in those,” Campbell said.

“If a proponent and a municipality have met, talked about needs or there have been agreements, that is not something we are a part of. We sort of say ‘Do you have community support? Show us the documentation.’ And that is kind of the end of our role.”

NextEra and RES-Canada are among more than 40 companies approved to bid for the renewable energy contracts from the Ontario government.

RES-Canada is proposing to build 170-megawatt Denbigh Wind LP and NextEra Energy Canada is proposing its 200-megawatt Northpoint II project in Addington Highlands Township.

According to the minutes of the June 15 township council meeting, Stephen Cookson of RES-Canada told councillors the company would provide $25,000 in bursaries, $30,000 a year during development and an ongoing community benefit fund of $2,000 per megawatt in the project.

In a June 5 presentation to council, a delegation from NextEra Energy Canada told councillors the company would offer annually $1,750 per megawatt produced.

Both companies asked for a resolution of support from council, which would strengthen their applications to the Independent Electricity System Operator.

Addington Highlands Township council voted 3-2 in favour of supporting both projects on July 20.
The Whig

Renewables are “Novelty Energy”. Nuclear Power is Clean, and Can Do the Job!

September 30, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Aussie Nuclear Industry: “renewables won’t get us across the line”

Eric Worrall

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

The nuclear industry has announced plans to lobby the Australian government, to advocate nuclear power as an affordable, practical alternative to renewables.

According to The Guardian;

The Australian Nuclear Association (ANA) will accompany Danny Roderick, chief executive of the leading US nuclear technology firm Westinghouse, to talk to government ministers and business leaders in Canberra and Sydney next week.

Roderick said nuclear power could help produce “clean, reliable, affordable electricity for more people”.

“We’d like to help Australia explore ways to create jobs and economic opportunity that are also good for the environment,” he said.

…

“My concern is that renewables won’t get us across the line in terms of emissions reduction,” said Rob Parker, the president of the ANA. “Nuclear is more reliable and it has a smaller resources footprint than renewables.

“Until we approach the issue of carbon abatement honestly, we won’t replace coal because it is the cheapest fuel we have. Nuclear is dead until we acknowledge carbon abatement is the main issue. We already pay a premium for renewables but we need to go further or we’ll just keep burning coal.”

In my opinion, the last thing Australia needs is any form of new energy infrastructure investment, except where driven by economic demand. In one decade, Australia went from paying one of the cheapest electricity rates in the world, to paying some of the most expensive rates in the world, thanks largely to government green energy initiatives.

If Australia’s newly greened government is determined to waste taxpayer’s money on CO2 emissions reduction, nuclear power at least has the advantage that it works. You can convert a modern economy to nuclear power without ruining it. France for example,generates around 75% of their electricity from nuclear power.

By contrast, spending money on renewables is unlikely to deliver any value whatsoever. According to a report produced by top Google engineers, major scientific advances would be required to make renewable energy useful.

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