Wind Turbines Don’t Make Sense…..Anywhere!

November 7, 2014November 7, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

There’s NO place for Wind Farms: Even Where the Streets Have No Name

November 7, 2014 by stopthesethings

Talk about “safe” setback distances for wind turbines is nonsense that only panders to the wind industry and its well-oiled and highly paid propaganda machine.

There is NO place for giant wind turbines ANYWHERE.

They are NOT fit for purpose ANYWHERE.

Because wind power can’t be delivered “on-demand” (can’t be stored) and is only “available” at crazy, random intervals (if at all) wind power will never be a substitute for conventional generation sources (see our post here). Accordingly, wind power is simply incapable of reducing CO2 emissions in the electricity sector (see our post here).

The wind industry has never produced a shred of evidence to show that wind power has reduced CO2 emissions in Australia’s electricity sector (or anywhere, for that matter). To the contrary of wind industry claims, the result of trying to incorporate wind power into a coal/gas fired grid is increased CO2 emissions (see this European paper here; this Irish paper here; this English paper here; this American article and this Dutch study here).

So far, so pointless.

Break down the terms on which wind power is “supplied”, and the “deal” reduces to this:

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

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

With those facts laid out, talk about “safe” setbacks brings with is an admission that wind farms are somehow okay if they’re in the “right” place.

Wind power is nothing more than an ideological fantasy, that feeds the vanities of the gullible and the ignorant for the benefit of a shrewd and cunning few (see our post here).

Because wind power will never provide a meaningful power supply – and can only increase CO2 emissions – there can be NO justification for the harm caused to neighbours, the slaughter of millions of birds and bats; and the destruction of the environment associated with the manufacture of turbines and in and surrounding wind farms.

As to the latter, here’s a take on how “green” hypocrites are hell-bent on destroying the fragile deserts of the American South-West written by an environmentalist, Jim Mattern, aka “Death Valley Jim.”

Jim has watched in horror as a “green” energy invasion of wind and solar power generators has turned the desert ecosystems he’s worked a life-time to preserve and protect into industrial wastelands.

Destroying our Desert in the name of “Green” Energy
Jim Mattern
Death Valley Jim
28 September 2014

I’m not passionate about a lot of things – but those things that I am, are closely related to the desert, whether it be historical or cultural elements, biological, or environmental. It hasn’t always been this way, as a teenager I was passionate about music; in a period of my twenties (after 9/11) it was politics. In my late twenties and now into my mid-thirties, I’ve grown into finding the love of my life – the deserts of the American Southwest.

I would have at one time called people like me “Tree hugger” or “Libtard” – today I wear the “Tree hugger” badge with pride, I’m not so sure on “Libtard” – I don’t find that I fall within the boundaries of any political agenda; I tend to sway in many different directions depending on the subject at hand. What I do know is that I will never vote for a political candidate with either an “R” or a “D” beside their names – both parties are essentially the same thing, they pull at people’s heartstrings for votes based on agendas that shouldn’t be political in the first place.

Enough on that – I honestly don’t have a political agenda, and besides the political lines are so blurred in the case of renewable energy, or “green” energy that the line is pretty much obsolete. When it comes down to it, we have two groups of people – people with a sincere love of the desert, as well as folks that see these solar facilities as the removal of public lands and access. Then there are those that don’t understand the desert, they see it is nothing more than open space – an opportunity for a quick money grab, or they have fallen into the spoon-fed agenda that this is the only way for renewable energy to be successful.

To those that don’t live in the desert, or only drive through it in haste from one place to the next – it can be easy to see why they think so little of the desert. From a majority of the highways, the desert can look boring, dead, and uninteresting. A place of horror films, serial killers, and just in general bad people who are hiding from society. It is unfortunate, because the opportunity for these people to see it any differently is more than likely never going to happen.

This line of thinking doesn’t end with big city people, it also trickles into our desert communities. For instance, I have been spending more time in the vicinity of Palm Springs, and the Coachella Valley as a whole. A large percent of these people think that they are living in the desert, but in reality their communities are a manufactured oasis, made to look as little “desert like” as possible. For a majority – their only “real” experience with the desert is driving the 10, hiking the Bump and Grind, or a visit to The Living Desert. It is all manufactured bullshit, in order to give them the “desert experience”, it’s no wonder that they see undeveloped desert land as expendable.

In the meanwhile, small desert communities across the Mojave and beyond are experiencing real problems – it started several years ago with wind power farms, and it is now escalating at an enormous pace with the new “green” energy solar explosion. Just ask many of the residents of the rural community of Mojave, CA – they were one of the first desert communities to be effected by the wind power craze. Those that own property along the seldom driven Backus Road, thought that they were living the life, property backed up against pristine BLM desert lands, only to now have wind turbines within a few hundred feet of their backyards. Their scenic views of the Tehachapi Mountains forever gone, and their property values sinking up to 50%.

These same people are now being attacked by the solar initiative – with a new facility recently opening at Silver Queen. It isn’t going to end there either, a look at the recently released “Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan,” shows that this entire corridor of the Mojave desert is designated as a renewable energy wasteland.

In the Eastern Mojave, there is the highly touted Ivanpah Solar Power Facility; owned by NRG Energy, Google, and BrightSource Energy. Ivanpah has literally whipped out 3,500 acres of previously untouched desert. This land was the home of the endangered desert tortoise as well as other reptiles, that have now been displaced. Since going online, there have been countless bird deaths – when birds fly over the facility, they are cooked mid-air due to the extreme temperatures caused by the mirrors that the plant utilizes.

What people are missing is that our desert is very fragile – is a thriving ecosystem, but it can easily and quickly be killed. The plants that grow in our desert have spent thousands of years perfecting desert living. I had the opportunity to discuss desert plant life with Jim André, biologist, and the director of the Sweeney Granite Mountain Desert Research Center, and was surprised to learn that every year, there are still new species of plants being found in the Mojave Desert.

Along the California and Arizona boarder in the Colorado Desert, there is the town of Blythe. In the desert outside of the town of 21,000 people, there are dozens of intaglios – these giant designs made by removing a layer of stones from the land are sacred to the Colorado River Indian Tribes. Much like petroglyphs, these designs were placed here hundreds if not thousands of years ago by their ancestors. Today they are under attack, with several already having been removed from the landscape during the construction of Blythe Solar.

What is very interesting is that these intaglios as well as other Native American sites are coming under attack by these projects, yet they are protected under the The Antiquities Act of 1906, and the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which is the same agency that is supposed to enforce these laws, are the ones green lighting projects that are in direct violation.

None of this destruction benefits the communities that are directly impacted. Much like the Owen’s Valley water and land grab of the early 1900’s, the land grab for renewable energy is only benefiting large cities like Los Angeles, who have plenty of open roof-tops that could be plastered with solar panels. This is not a new concept, it has been embraced by several countries.

There is also the ability to place solar panels over the aqueduct, it would utilize already disturbed ground, and help with the loss of water from evaporation. In India, this concept has already been successfully implemented. It is baffling that we are not taking a serious look at this option, considering the state-wide water crisis that we are in.

What it all really comes down to is greed – it has nothing to do with being “green”, or saving us money on our electric bills. Has anyone’s electric bill actually decreased since wind and solar exploded onto our desert? Despite these promises of lower generating costs, SCE has increased rates over the past three years, with an 8% increase in 2014.

The only people reaping the benefit of the rape of our desert are the companies that are buildings them – our government is giving huge incentives and grants to build these plants, and build them fast.

Public comment is being ignored, undocumented, and undermined. Mass media is ignoring the outcry – only praising the “green” initiative, likely with one hand in the pocket of the initiative.

What is yet to be seen in the long-term effects of this mass rape – and yet we aren’t taking it slow to find out either. By 2040 – there are a planned 40 projects the size of Ivanpah in the works for the Mojave Desert.

When Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced the road map of the Desert Renewable Conservation Plan, she told reporters that she went for a hike, “We went out into the Big Morongo Preserve … fifteen, 20 minutes from here, there are wetlands. Wetlands. And 254 different bird species. Who knew?”

Well Sally, a lot know – now pack your shit up and go back to your office in Washington DC, and stop planning a conservation plan for a land that you are unfamiliar with. What you have done, is the equivalent of me planning a road system in Washington DC, without having visited it, studying it, and having no concept of how Washington DC or a road system works.

For more information on the impact of these projects on the desert, I recommend reading and following these websites:

Jim Mattern

Wind Turbines are NO Benefit to Anyone But the Rich Investors…

November 6, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Massive Subsidies for Wind Power a Crony Capitalist “Gift”

November 6, 2014 by stopthesethings

Ex-Rep. Istook: Wind Energy a Crony Capitalist Gift
Newsfront
Sean Piccoli
23 October 2014

Wealthy investors in wind power are reaping profits from an expensive — and subsidized — form of green energy that is driving up the electricity bills of ordinary Americans, a former Oklahoma congressman told Newsmax TV on Thursday.

Under the guise of saving the planet from global warming, wind power has become a taxpayer ripoff and a boon to investors claiming massive federal subsidies for an industry that cannot compete on price with traditional energy sources, former Republican Rep. Ernest Istook told “MidPoint” host Ed Berliner.

Of the $40 billion annually doled out to various green energy incentives, grants and loans, one of the biggest magnets for public funds is a wind energy tax credit first enacted in 1992, said Istook.

“For every megawatt hour that [producers] generate through wind energy, they get $23 from the U.S. Treasury,” he said, “and of course you multiply that by the many thousands of megawatt hours that are generated — which is still a small fraction of what the country uses — and they’re talking about an $18 billion renewal of this.”

“Now, this was supposed to be a temporary tax credit back in 1992 to help the industry get on its feet,” said Istook. “Well, the problem is wind power is such an expensive way to generate electricity, that even with these major subsidies — plus all sorts of subsidies from different states — it still is one of the costliest forms of power. And it makes people’s electric bills skyrocket.”

Istook said a new study from the Energy Information Administration — the U.S. Department of Energy’s statistical service — finds electric ratesrising four times faster in the states that use the most wind power.

He said the arrangement continues year in and year out thanks to a classic “vicious cycle,” in which subsidy recipients use their profits to secure more subsidies.

“I want to give you a quote, though, from one individual who was a major wind energy investor and getting a lot of these tax benefits: Warren Buffett,” said Istook, citing the Nebraska-based billionaire investment guru.

“These are his words, not mine: ‘We get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.’ Those are Warren Buffett’s words,” said Istook.

“The people that are making this investment recognize that unless they can get these crony capitalism dollars, it’s a bad investment,” he said. “But government is paying them to do that. It’s paying some people to get rich at our expense while our utility bills go up.”

Istook said the public has a chance to put a stop to the tax credit, which expired last December, but is being pushed for retroactive renewal by the administration during the lame-duck congressional session that begins after the Nov. 4 midterm elections.

“They’ve got the skids greased in the U.S. Senate to do it,” said Istook.

And they will, too, he said, “unless people call their member of Congress and say, ‘Don’t vote for anything that renews this $18 billion giveaway, no matter what it’s packaged with. Don’t vote for it.’ That’s the only way we’re going to put a stop to this crony capitalism.”
Newsfront

Nuclear…..Reliable, Efficient, and our Best Option for Green Energy!

November 4, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Psst, Wanna “Save” the Planet? Then it’s Time to Go Nuclear

November 4, 2014 by stopthesethings

The nuclear option must be high on agenda of energy green paper
The Australian
Gary Johns
4 November 2014

THE Abbott government is finalising an energy green paper (not to be confused with a green energy paper). Submissions are due today. Every group is in there pitching, including nuclear engineers.

China has under construction, planned or proposed 207 new nuclear reactors, tripling nuclear capacity by 2020. Our little green friends love to tout China as huge in windmills and solar panels, but China is really powered by coal, hydro and nuclear power. Stick that in your windmill and twist it!

Australia has an overcapacity in electricity generation, which is not forecast to disappear until 2023-24. Unless we cut the renewable energy target, it will force expensive renewables into an oversupplied market and strand existing assets.

Following the abolition of the carbon tax and touted adjustments to the RET, it should be clear there is no certainty in government support for future generators that are reliant on subsidies.

In this context, small modular nuclear reactors, which can deliver up to 100 megawatts base load, low-emission power, are ready now. They are most likely to be deployed in remote areas where other sources of power are expensive or where steam is required in addition to electricity.

If SMRs can make it in this market, without the level of subsidies that applies to renewables, then good luck to them. Last year, the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics found that, across the projection period to 2050, nuclear would remain cost-competitive with renewable and non-renewable technologies on a level cost of electricity generated basis (capacity of a plant divided by its energy output and cost).

A recent paper by Charles Frank of the Brookings Institution uses a methodology based on avoided emissions and avoided costs, rather than comparing levelised costs. The key finding was that nuclear, hydro and combined cycle natural gas have far greater net benefits than wind and solar, which suffer from a very high-capacity cost per megawatt, very low-capacity factors and low reliability, resulting in low avoided emissions and low avoided energy cost per dollar invested. Avoided emission calculations may become less relevant, however, as political support for climate abatement strategies wane.

The main safety concern regarding nuclear power is the possibility of an uncontrolled release of radioactive material, leading to contamination and radiation exposure off-site. In fact, the Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986) “disasters” were not only less disastrous than imagined, but comparing these reactors to current models is to compare the Model T to any recent car. Even the reactors involved in the Fukushima (2011) disaster were 1960s design and no one died from nuclear exposure at Fukushima.

Advanced reactors are inherently safer. Generation IV full-scale reactors, and SMRs under development, incorporate passive safety features that require no active controls or operational intervention to avoid accidents in the event of malfunction.

The major impediments to building SMRs in Australia are not safety or science, environment or economics but the law.

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, for example, states that the minister must not approve the construction or operation of a nuclear power plant. Such prohibition is unwarranted.

In its green paper, the Abbott government has promised to “review the current regulatory framework that governs nuclear and waste facilities to remove any duplication and streamline regulations”. This is not good enough. The ban on nuclear power must be lifted. These laws are based on old politics and old science. It is time that prohibition was repealed so all sources of power are on the table and assessed according to commercial and environmental risks.

Nuclear politics is hard. The commonwealth has still not secured a site for Australia’s low-level radioactive waste, following the failure to secure Muckaty Station, north of Alice Springs.

Nevertheless, community attitudes are changing to one aspect of the nuclear cycle, the export of uranium. In 2012, the Queensland government repealed a ban on uranium mining and the NSW government repealed a ban on uranium exploration. In South Australia — the main source of uranium exports — 48 per cent of the community support nuclear power while 33 per cent oppose it.

The white paper on energy should be neutral; any source of energy should be allowed to compete in the marketplace on its merits. Nuclear should be subject to the same stringent regulations as apply to coal and gas — no more, no less.
The Australian

For more detail on Charles Frank’s study on how nuclear power wins by a mile on CO2 abatement costs see our post here.

Let’s assume (as STT does, for the sake of argument) that the global warming/climate change Chicken Littles are right: the sky really is falling and it’s all CO2’s fault.

So what the HELL are we doing pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into subsidies for wind power? (see our posts here and here)

STT has always thought that if man-made CO2 emissions really were destroying the planet, then sensible governments would have moved to build nuclear power plants from the moment the Chicken Littles started wailing about the heavens collapsing.

The French generate over 75% of their sparks using nukes – and have used nuclear power – without any serious incident – for over 50 years: the first plant kicked off in 1962.

Nuclear power is the only stand-alone thermal power source that is base-load and which does not emit CO2 emissions when generating power.

It’s true that geothermal falls into the same category, but away from volcanic zones (think New Zealand and Iceland) depends on accessing “hot-rocks” deep underground – which tends to limit its scope for operation. Although STT thinks – as a “base-load” generator – it’s a source worth pursuing, with more funds directed at research and development (see our post here and this article).

STT readers know that we are a big fan of hydro power, the development of which stalled after the Greens “No Dams” mantra shot them to political power (and see our post here). The perversities of our renewable energy legislation mean that the cleanest and most reliable source of renewable energy – hydro – does not benefit from the incentives given to ludicrously expensive and completely unreliable wind power. That’s right, the “Waterboys” don’t get RECs (only hydro generating capacity built after 1998 is eligible – the 99% of total hydro capacity that was built before then gets nothing).

Although, as STT has predicted, the “old” hydro-snub may not last for much longer (see our post here).

Recent comments by PUP leader, Clive Palmer on ABC’s Lateline have sent the wind industry into a tail-spin. Big Clive (following the lead from Tasmania’s PUP Senator, Jacqui Lambie) made it plain that the PUP wants to include “old” hydro’s massive contribution to renewable energy generation (around 16,000 GWh annually) in the calculations that go to satisfying the annual targets set by the Large-Scale RET – that escalates to 41,000 GWh from 2020 through to 2031. This is what’s got the wind industry in a flap:

CLIVE PALMER: Well, why don’t you listen to what Clive Palmer says, Tony? I’m on the program, you’re interviewing me. If you want to interview Jacqui Lambie, invite her on. But I’m just telling you that electricity in Tasmania is generated by hydro. Hydro is clean energy. There’s an anomaly in the bill that doesn’t recognise that. So we think – same with the Snowy Mountain Scheme, if you’ve got hydroelectricity, it’s clean energy, it’s something that shouldn’t be categorised the same as you would a coal-fired power station, for example. But on the current legislation, that’s how they deal with it. That’s an anomaly which is not in the country’s interest and we think it should be rectified.

There is huge potential for further investment in hydro power in Australia (upgrades of existing plants and new schemes) – all up and down the Great Divide: bringing with it the ability to harvest huge volumes of water in times of flood; and to beneficially manage that water during periods of drought. However, the perverse nature of the mandatory RET provides every advantage to unreliable and costly wind power at the expense of hydro power: the former takes a matter of months to construct and begin earning revenue (ie RECs); whereas the latter takes years and sometimes decades to complete and for investors to start earning a return (see this video). Investors looking for a quick return on their cash have simply plumped for the soft option and piled in to wind power, with disastrous results on every level (see our post here).

The nuclear power debate has revved up in recent times, with numerous leaders of green groups coming out in favour of nukes as the only sensible answer to generating CO2 free sparks. These boys have been rounded on by their own kind as “heretics” in a style more befitting of the Spanish Inquisition.

The nuke debate is one that STT will leave to others (see our post here). But if the ever-more hysterical Chicken Littles are to retain any vestige of credibility, it’s high time they got serious about tackling the CO2 emissions they claim to dread so much – starting with a grown-up discussion about the merits of nuclear power.

World Council for Nature Shares Info. On Wind Turbines!

November 3, 2014 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Note: Infrasound & Low Frequency Noise is often referred to as “ILFN”

Simulation of infrasound waves propagating in the atmosphere
Source: BGR http://www.bgr.bund.de

IMPORTANT NEWS Nº 1:

Health Board: wind turbines are a hazard to human health

October 17th, 2014
GLENMORE, WISCONSIN, USA: “This week the Brown County Health Board went on record declaring that wind turbines “are a human health hazard“.

“Folks living in the Glenmore area near the Shirley Wind Project have been saying this for years though, and now they have the health department on their side. By state statute wind turbines can be within 1250 feet of a home. The Brown County Board of Health says that’s too close for comfort.”

Read more: windfarm a health hazard — don’t miss the video

The wording of the motion was as follows:

“To Declare The Industrial Wind Turbines In The Town Of Glenmore, Brown County. WI. A Human Health Hazard For All People (Residents, Workers, Visitors, And Sensitive Passersby) Who Are Exposed To Infrasound/Low Frequency Noise And Other Emissions Potentially Harmful To Human Health.”

Wind Turbines….The Facts Blow Them Out of the Water…..Useless Machines!

November 2, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind Turbine Campaign

People often ask me to explain ’ What have I got against wind turbines?’

Here are a few of their problems:

1 They exacerbate flooding due to the massive concrete bases being built on our hills for turbines which cause faster run-off during periods of heavy rain. Old wind farms, such as at Llandinam, have passed their sell-by date much earlier than expected and are being replaced by larger turbines, each of which requires a new concrete base. They old bases are left in the ground. As you will appreciate, the mountain will eventually be covered in concrete, a highly-polluting process itself, and this will increase flooding many-fold.

2 Proximity to wind turbines can cause high blood pressure, tinitus, sleeplessness and many other health problems, due to infra-sound – there is now much evidence of this in many countries, with massed chronic examples in the US, Canada and Australia. (many reports, including Wind Turbines Make Waves: Why Some Residents Near Wind Turbines Become Ill, contained in the Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 30th September 2011; Wind Turbine Syndrome, A Report on a Natural Experiment, by Dr Nina Pierpont, published 2009 by K-Selected Books, Santa Fe). The UK government insists on using a system called ETSU-97 for monitoring wind noise, but this is 16 years old, produced when turbines were far smaller, and there is much more sensitive equipment available now, which they refuse to use because it will reveal the shortcomings of the industry. Unbelievably, the Health & Safety Executive are kept well away from wind turbine developments, when every other form of activity in the UK is subject to their investigations, even harmless bookshops in Brecon.

3 Despite what government and the wind industry say, turbines devalue property and in many cases destroy any chance of selling the property – there is a lot of evidence from estate agents all over the UK.

4 In extreme cases people such as Jane and Julian Davis in Lincolnshire even had to abandon their property. There is no provision for compensation for such people.

5 Wind energy destroys local jobs: according to a report commissioned by the Scottish government 3.7 jobs in the UK are lost for every 1 wind one produced (Verso Economics: The Economic Impact of Renewable Energy Policy in Scotland and the UK 2011).

6 The Mid-Wales economy relies heavily on tourism, and many businesses will have to close and the economy devastated if hundreds more turbines are erected. It is completely unfair that Powys should bear such massive numbers of these alien, out-of-scale objects and have to pay some £3m to fight it through the public inquiries – that is why we have the highest hike in council tax in the country. See the PCC Red Kite newsletter.

7 Industrialising much of our finest natural landscapes that are vital for people’s wellbeing, tourism, etc, is totally unacceptable in a civilised society. We need natural landscapes unadulterated by monstrous metal structures, for our well-being.

8 Introducing gridlock into Mid-Wales highways over 7 years or more as is forecast by Powys CC (comment by Dale Boyington, Director of Highways, PCC in 2012) if current proposals go ahead will inevitably destroy much of the fabric of our society and culture, but this matters not a jot to those in Cardiff or Westminster.

9 This is leading to the disintegration of local communities, many of whom will be virtually imprisoned when surrounded by monstrous metal turbines nearly 500 feet high.

10 Billions of our money going abroad to foreign energy corporations (who form some 70% of our energy companies), furthering problems with our balance of payments.

11 Energy bills are rising alarmingly, mainly because of subsidies to wind energy, thus creating fuel poverty for so many in Mid-Wales, with consequent increase in deaths in winter.

12 Turbines kill birds (particular raptors) and bats, also spook many domestic animals. Horses are especially vulnerable.

13 Turbine bases destroy vast areas of peat blanket, the British equivalent of a rain forest and thus releasing vast tonnes of CO2.

14 The intermittency of wind energy makes it a pretty useless source of energy, leading to brown-outs, grid destabilisation and costly backup from traditional power stations which are forced to operate at inefficient levels, and thus creating more CO2 than if they operated normally without the turbines.

15 People regard nuclear power as being dangerous, yet more people have died from wind turbine accidents over the last five years than from nuclear ones. During the 5 years up to December 2011 there were 1,500 accidents and incidents on UK wind farms, with four deaths, according to Renewable UK.

16 During periods when the grid cannot cope with input from wind turbines the latter are told to shut down, yet are given hundreds of thousands of pounds for not producing any power.

17 Wind turbines each have a magnet as part of their structure, and some of the content for this comes from rare earth minerals mined exclusively in China. This process is dirty and dangerous, with waste products, including radioactive thorium apparently allowed to leech into the waterways. See http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/july-dec09/china_12-14.html

This book explains much of the above in greater detail:
The Wind Farm Scam by Dr John Etherington, £9.99 Stacey International publishers

David Bellamy

Watch this excellent film by Godfrey Bloom explaining the economics and the threats to our energy supply that will result from our government’s obsession with wind energy

Mynydd y Gwair, Watercolour by David Bellamy

There is a proposal to built a large Wind Turbine development on this beautiful unspoilt common land, with views across Swansea Bay, the Bristol Channel and the Decon coastline. The local people will loose their peace and serenity, and walkers will loose the sense of isolation and solitude so vital to restore well-being in many of us. And all for the sake of a small supply of intermittent electricity

We are both very concerned about the impact of proposed Wind Turbine developments in the Welsh Uplands. Numerous developments of large Wind Turbines are currently being proposed for many of the country’s most beautiful hilltops. Sixteen wind turbine developments already exist in Wales creating an unacceptable visual intrustion. Some turbine developments are currently being built such as Cefn Croes in Ceredigion where huge tracts of land are being devastated in order to install access roads. Visit Cefn Croeswebsite to see the damage. All this destruction in order to produce a very small and intermittent supply of electricity.

‘We are both working to bring about more awareness of the issues’

The two David Bellamys have met on two protest marches against wind turbine developments in Wales.

David and Jenny passionately believe in the principle of renewable energy but wind turbines are the least reliable or productive, and the most intrusive of all the renewable options.

Far from being a ‘green’ option, there are many arguments against them. For example – here are just two of the many facts

1. Their unreliability means that conventional coal, gas or oil fired power stations will still have to be kept running on standby in case the wind stops blowing, or blows too fast, thus any perceived saving of carbon emissions is a myth.

2. 1,000 tons of concrete is required to install each individual turbine. Concrete production is the second most polluting industrial process in the world.

Please take the time to educate yourself on this subject as we are being told by our government that this is the solution to reducing our carbon emissions but wind tubines cannot help to solve the problem of global warming in fact they may even be adding to it.

The only people to benefit from this industrialisation of our countryside will be the developers.

Ridiculous Faux-green Energy Policies Wrecking Economies and Hurting the Poor!

October 31, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

The Hard-“Green”-Left Promote Energy Policies that Wreck Economies & Smash the Poor

October 31, 2014 by stopthesethings

A little while back, the good Senator from Victoria, John “Marshall” Madigan launched an Exocet missile at the seedy world of hard-green-left politics and the wind power outfits that fund the Australian Greens (seeour post here).

The Greens have been particularly coy about where the hundreds of thousands of dollars used to fund their last Federal election campaign (including the rerun of the West Australian Senate election) came from. The Greens set out to crush SA’s favourite Greek, Nick Xenophon due to his efforts to bring the wind power fraud to an end: the Green vote went backwards, but Nick (a true STT Champion) – who ran as an independent candidate – polled a snicker under 25% in the South Australian Senate race (beating the Labor Party’s vote of 22.7%) – an all-time record for an independent Senator.

But, we digress. Since the launch of Vestas’ “Act on Facts” campaign in June last year it was evident that the Vestas were throwing mountains of cash at the Greens (see this article and see our post here).

With Vestas as their new paymaster, the Greens have completely abandoned any claim to be friends of the environment and have instead become rabid spruikers for the wind industry: ignoring the millions of birds and bats being slaughtered (see our posts here and here) and lambasting and ridiculing wind farm neighbours suffering from turbine noise generated sleep deprivation – bending over backwards to prevent any research into the problem, in a naked effort to protect their financial backers (see our post here).

Recently, it’s come to light that the billionaire founder of wotif.com, Graeme Wood has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Green’s coffers. And, just like Vestas, is using the Greens to advance his wind farm interests, proving that the Greens truly are the best party money can buy.

Paying $millions to so-called “green” politicians and astro-turfing propaganda outfits like the WWF (see our post here), Getup! and 350.org (see our post here) has become a central wind industry strategy: if you’re a foreign owned company worth $billions, with no political credibility and rolling in mountains of (other peoples’) cash, why not pay a bunch of slick little political manipulators to plead and beg to governments on your behalf?

But the purpose of all this propaganda and political manipulation goes way beyond promoting wind power; and ensuring it has unobstructed access to an overflowing subsidy trough.

Still bitter about the fact that their team lost the ideological battle when the Berlin Wall succumbed to sledgehammers back in 1989, the hard-green-left have redoubled their efforts to command and control the economic fortunes of countries around the Globe; both rich and poor alike.

The shortest route to wrecking an economy is to deprive it of cheap, reliable power. By portraying fossil fuel generators as evil; and nuclear generators, more so, the new Trotsky-ites aim to hammer energy intensive industry (which they hate) and the poor (who they couldn’t care less about).

If you’ve ever wondered about the motivation of so-called “green” groups – and how their hysterical propaganda manages to garner so much attention – then take your time and enjoy this detailed analysis from the Daily Mail.

EXPOSED: How a shadowy network funded by foreign millions is making our household energy bills soar – for a low-carbon Britain
Daily Mail
David Rose
26 October 2014

Shadowy pro-green lobbyists working at every level of the Establishment
Organisations are channelling tens of millions of pounds into green policies
Elite lobby group linked to Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the WWF
Current energy policies shaped by the Green Blob will cost up to £400 billion
If continued, there will be further eye-watering energy bill rises for Britons

The Mail on Sunday today exposes how a ‘Green Blob’ financed by a shadowy group of hugely wealthy foreign donors is driving Britain towards economically ruinous eco targets.

The phrase the ‘Green Blob’ was coined by former Environment Secretary Owen Paterson after he was sacked from the Cabinet in July.

He was referring to a network of pro-green lobbyists working at every level of the British Establishment, who have helped shape the eco policies sending household energy bills soaring.

But investigations by this newspaper reveal the Blob is not just an abstract concept.

We have found that innocuous-sounding bodies such as the Dutch National Postcode Lottery, the American William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Swiss Oak Foundation are channelling tens of millions of pounds each year to climate change lobbyists in Britain, including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.

They have publicly congratulated themselves on their ability to create green Government policy in the UK – most notably after Ed Miliband steered through aggressive CO2 reduction targets in his 2008 Climate Change Act, and announced there would be no more coal power stations.

Yet the consequences of their continuing success are certain: further eye-watering rises in energy costs for millions of Britons and an increasing risk of blackouts.

According to leading energy analyst Peter Atherton of Liberum Capital, current UK energy policies shaped by the Blob will cost between £360 billion and £400 billion to implement by 2030. He said this will see bills rise by at least a third in real terms – on top of the increases already seen over the past ten years.

This bill dwarfs the EU’s £1.7 billion demand from Britain last week.

Lobbying by the Blob helped lead to a new European Union emissions deal announced on Friday, when EU leaders including the Prime Minister agreed to triple the current pace of emissions cuts.

Following earlier deals, EU-wide emissions of CO2 are supposed to fall 20 per cent over the 30-year period 1990 to 2020.

Under the new agreement, this reduction must be doubled in just a decade, reaching ‘at least’ 40 per cent by 2030 – a goal that could only be accomplished through further massive investment in wind and nuclear energy.

At the heart of the Blob is a single institution – the European Climate Foundation (ECF) – which has offices in London, Brussels, The Hague, Berlin and Warsaw.

Every year it receives about £20 million from ‘philanthropic’ foundations in America, Holland and Switzerland, and channels most of it to green campaign and lobby groups.

It refuses to disclose how much it gives to each recipient, and does not publish its accounts. But it admits that the purpose of these grants is to influence British and EU climate and energy policy across a broad front.

Many more millions are fed directly to British and European lobby groups from the same overseas foundations which also fund ECF.

In its last annual report, ECF said working towards a 2030 deal was ‘a big focus area for ECF as a whole’.

ECF managing director Tom Brookes told The Mail on Sunday he provides ‘a fact-base’ to help policy-makers make the ‘many complex decisions that are necessary to move towards a high-innovation, prosperous and low-carbon future’. He added: ‘The UK is a leader in many of these fields.’

The Blob and Red Ed

Friday’s EU deal contains a get-out clause: if the rest of the world fails to agree a binding global emissions treaty at a UN conference in Paris next year, then Europe’s targets can be ‘reviewed’ – or in other words, abandoned.

Giants such as China, India and Australia have insisted they will not sign such a treaty. It is also unlikely to be approved by the US Congress, which is Republican-controlled.

However, thanks to Ed Miliband and his 2008 Climate Change Act, the get-out will make no difference for Britain. The UK is the only country which already has a binding target for 2050. By then, the law says, UK emissions must be 80 per cent down on 1990.

Mr Miliband’s Act also created a mechanism for ensuring the country sticks to a path that achieves this target – the so-called ‘carbon budget’. The scale of the challenge that its latest version poses is not widely realised.

Over the next 15 years, the electricity industry has to cut the CO2 it emits for every kilowatt it generates by 90 per cent – an unprecedented transformation.

But the carbon budget also means the total amount of power generating capacity has to more than double. In order to meet the 2050 target, there has to be a massive shift towards electric vehicles and heating. While fossil fuel power plants will close, both their replacements and this vast additional capacity will have to be wind or nuclear – by far the most expensive types of power.

Remarkably, green lobby group Friends of the Earth not only conceived the Climate Change Act, but Bryony Worthington, the FoE official who came up with the idea and lobbied MPs to support it, later actually drafted it.

‘When you’re on the outside lobbying, you kind of hope that you are going to have an impact, [but] you’re never really very sure,’ she told a green seminar three years ago.

But she hit the jackpot. Her proposal was taken up first by the new Tory leader, David Cameron, and followed by the then-Labour Government. Worthington, who was seconded into the civil service, was asked to rewrite her lobbyist’s memo, this time as a law.

Once it was safely on the statute book, she left the civil service to form a new green campaign group, Sandbag, which presses the Government to adopt more stringent forms of carbon taxes. Like her previous employer FoE, it is now funded by ECF. Ed Miliband made her a Labour peer in 2011.

While the Act was going through Parliament, the ECF, which was launched in 2007-8, was giving money to Greenpeace UK, FoE, Christian Aid and the WWF to mount a campaign against coal-fired power plants. Also funded was Client Earth, a group of lawyers who secured court acquittals for ‘direct action’ protesters who broke into the Kingsnorth plant in Kent, climbed its chimneys and occupied it.

The campaign persuaded Mr Miliband to announce the cancellation of a planned new generating unit at Kingsnorth – and that there would be no new coal plants built in Britain.

Afterwards, the ECF president, Jules Kortenhorst, boasted that Miliband had acted in response to ‘a complex, multifaceted effort over a year and a half, with grass-roots mobilisation campaigns [and] behind the scenes lobbying’.

He added: ‘All of this work, backed by substantial philanthropic investment, resulted in UK Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband announcing that no new coal-fired power plants would be built… This is an example of a policy that can be replicated, increasing its impact.’

Follow the money

The most significant source for the ECF’s millions is a body called Climate Works – a private foundation which channels colossal sums to climate campaigners worldwide.

The Climate Works manifesto was set out in 2007 in a document entitled ‘Design to Win: Philanthropy’s Role in the Fight Against Global Warming’. It said that to be effective, a campaign to change government policies on energy and emissions would need at least $600 million from donors.

It was driven by the belief that without radical action, ‘we could lose the fight against global warming over the next ten years’.

It advocated the giving of generous grants to local campaigners in countries such as Britain who had detailed knowledge of the way their political systems operated.

As well as better energy efficiency, carbon taxes and emissions caps, they must ‘promote renewables and low emission alternatives’. Utility companies must be given ‘financial incentives’ – in other words, enormous subsidies from tax and bill payers – to make this happen.

Climate Works soon achieved its ambitious fundraising target, with a grant in 2008 of $500 million from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which spends the fortune amassed by the co-founder of the Hewlett-Packard computer firm. This was followed by further grants of up to $100 million, and donations of $60 million from the sister Packard foundation. In July, a report by a US Senate committee named the Hewlett foundation as a key element in a ‘billionaires’ club’ which effectively controlled the environmental movement, pumping more than half a billion dollars a year into green groups around the world.

It claimed these ‘wealthy liberals fully exploit the benefits of a generous tax code meant to promote genuine philanthropy and charitable acts’, but instead were transferring money to ‘activists’ to ‘promote shared political goals’.

One of the US-based Climate Works’s first acts was to set up and fund ECF as its European regional office. All ECF’s main funders are represented on ECF’s board, including Charlotte Pera, who is also Climate Works’s CEO. Susan Bell, ECF’s vice-chairman, was formerly the Hewlett foundation’s vice-president.

Another director is Kate Hampton, an executive director at the Children’s Investment Fund, a UK charity with assets worth £324 million.Others come from finance and business. ECF’s chairman is Caio Koch-Weser, vice-chairman of Deutsche Bank, whose contacts in Brussels could not be better: from 2003–5, he chaired the EU’s Economic and Financial committee. Yet another director is Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland.

No transparency

It is hard to assess the ECF’s full impact for a simple reason – although it publishes the names of some of the organisations it funds, it does not state how much it gives, nor exactly how this money is used.

The ECF’s Tom Brookes said: ‘The projects we fund all fall within the overall mission of the Foundation to support the development of a prosperous low-carbon economy in Europe.’

He would not explain why no amounts were stated, saying only that ECF’s annual report ‘describes the objectives of each ECF programme area and its significant grantees.

‘We are confident that this is a sufficient level of detail to provide insight into the work of the Foundation… Our policy on the information we publish reflects our responsibilities to our grantees and donors.’

Nevertheless, it is clear from the information that is available that the list of ECF funding recipients is a Who’s Who of the green movement, including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the WWF, Client Earth, Carbon Brief, the Green Alliance, and E3G, the elite lobby group that persuaded the Government to set up the £3 billion Green Investment Bank.

The 2013 ECF report sets out its priorities for Britain, praising its ‘leadership on the climate front’ – thanks to the Climate Change Act.

It also boasts that its grants had an impact on this year’s Energy Act: ‘ECF grantees such as Green Alliance, E3G, and Greenpeace helped secure important milestones such as an emissions performance standard for new power stations.’

To ECF’s dismay, however, the supposed UK ‘consensus’ on climate and energy is now in jeopardy: ‘Household energy bills have shot to the top of the political agenda, and progress on decarbonisation is tangled in competing visions of the country’s energy future… A growing number of media and political voices are casting doubt on the climate science and the economic case for action.’

Against this opposition, ECF’s 2013 report says it intends to work with British greens to ‘rebuild confidence in the low-carbon transition’, by ‘fact-checking the UK media’s coverage of climate and energy issues’.

It says it will ‘establish a new unit that will promote evidence-based discussions in the media and mobilise authoritative voices on the low-carbon economy’.

Since the report was published, this unit has come into being, run by former BBC environment correspondent Richard Black. How effective it will be remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, it is clear that the sheer scale of this lavishly funded lobbying effort dwarfs that of its opponents.

The Global Warming Policy Forum in London, Europe’s only think-tank which is sceptical about climate science and energy policy, has an annual budget of £300,000 and employs just three people.

Its director, Dr Benny Peiser, said yesterday: ‘At the end of the day, someone will have to be held accountable for us committing economic suicide. We are the only organisation that does what we do – against hundreds on the other side, all saying the same thing.’
Daily Mail

Oxford Professor Tells the Truth About Green Energy!

October 30, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

OXFORD PROF SHREDS GOVERNMENT’S GREEN ENERGY POLICY

by DONNA RACHEL EDMUNDS 29 Oct 2014 30POST A COMMENT

An Oxford University Professor has torn the UK government’s energy policy to shreds in his appearance before the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee.

Speaking to the Lords yesterday, Professor Dieter Helm said that the “Miliband-Huhne-Davey” policy (referring to the last three energy secretaries), which is based on an assumption that fossil fuel prices would rise, was “dramatically wrong”. (h/t to Bishop Hill, where the full exchange of views can be seen).

The Lords Committee gathered to hear evidence from a range of energy experts including power companies and the National Grid to determine whether there was indeed a risk of the lights going out this winter, as has been widely reported (including on Breitbart London).

Opening the second session, Professor Helm gave his name and title, before delivering a short two minute speech lambasting the governance of energy policy in recent times.

“It is a quite extraordinary state of affairs for a major industrialised economy to find itself even debating whether there is a possibility that the margins may not be sufficient of electricity to guarantee supply,” he said.

“If it was achieving carbon objectives and if it was producing low prices there might be some consolation. The wholesale price in Great Britain is twice that of northern Europe and on a CO2 front we’ve been switching from gas to burn as much coal as possible, and our emissions are actually rising on a production basis and of course on a carbon consumption basis which is the basis that matters for decarbonisation.

“For a major industrial economy to fail on one of the three objectives is a serious problem. But to fail on security and on competitiveness of price, and on decarbonisation is a sad state of affairs. And it’s even sadder in the context of which the problem isn’t fundamentally particularly difficult.

“It’s ultimately about having enough power stations and enough wires to supply the needs of the population. It’s a problem that’s been with us for a century. Many other countries solve these problems and it’s, as I say, rather sad that we’ve got to this particular point.”

The Committee probed the professor on a range of aspects including “resilience”, which the Professor explained was a matter not just of physical capability, but also the price which people are asked to pay for the energy supplied. If prices rise above people’s desire or ability to pay, people simply “turn themselves off, as happened in California”, he pointed out.

“The kit is there. If the will is there to do it, and the expertise and capacity of the grid I think is up to it, they will manage to make supply equal demand. The question is: how much higher will the price go as a result, and how long will Britain carry on having such high wholesale prices with all the consequences there are for British industry and also consumers?” he asked.

When questioned about medium term threats to resilience, Prof Helm was particularly scathing. Pointing to the fact that “the commodity super-cycle is over” and that gas, coal and oil prices are all falling, he blasted energy secretary Ed Davey, saying “We have a policy with the secretary of state repeatedly reminds us is based on the idea that gas prices are rising and volatile. Well, they’re falling and the volatility is something that we don’t want to protect customers from. [That is, downwards volatility is good for customers who want the benefit of cheaper prices immediately].

“Should we worry about resilience of fuel supplies? No, I don’t think so. The world is awash with gas. Unconventional gas is popping up all over the place America is no longer importing, plenty of supplies around, plenty more being discovered.

“The one medium term ‘risk’ that I would pay much less attention to but clearly the government thinks they should pay much more attention to is whether or not we’ll get enough supplies of fossil fuels. We have enough fossil fuels in the world to fry the planet many times over.”

He then set his target wider, laying into the “Miliband-Huhne-Davey policy”, so called “because it’s very consistent through that period”, as a whole. Successive energy secretaries had based their policy on the assumption that fossil fuel prices would continue to rise, making renewables comparatively cheaper by the 2020s and allowing subsidies to fall away; an assumption that the professor said “[doesn’t have] any part in energy policy.

“That fossil fuel prices are going to go up. … That’s an outcome of the market, not a policy assumption to make. … If your bet turns out to be dramatically wrong, you’re going to have lots of technologies which are ‘out of the market’ for some considerable period to come. We will have to subsidise those technologies right through the 2020s and beyond.

“This knowledge that politicians have, that politicians know what the winners are, we’ve been there so many times before. It usually turns out badly and it has done this time.”

Wind Turbines are “Novelty Energy”. They Will Never Be Feasible for Everyday Use!

October 30, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Why Wind Power Will Never be a Serious Alternative to Conventional Power Generation

October 30, 2014 by stopthesethings 1 Comment

Study: Wind Turbines are ‘Expensive, Unreliable and Inefficient’
Breitbart.com
Donna Rachel Edmunds
27 October 2014

Wind power is too variable and too unpredictable to provide a serious alternative to fossil fuels, a new study by the Scientific Alliance and the Adam Smith Institute has confirmed. The researchers concluded that, although it is true that the wind is always blowing somewhere, the base line is only around 2 percent of capacity, assuming a network capacity of 10GW.

The majority of the time, wind will only deliver 8 percent of total capacity in the system, whilst the chances of the wind network running at full capacity is “vanishingly small”. As a consequence, fossil fuel plants capable of delivering the same amount of energy will always be required as backup.

The report was undertaken by the Scientific Alliance and the Adam Smith Institute. Using data on wind speed and direction gathered hourly from 22 sites around the UK over the last nine years, the researchers were able to build a comprehensive picture of how much the wind blows in the UK, where it blows, and how variable it is.

They found that, contrary to popular opinion, variability was a significant factor as “swings of around 10 percent are normal” across the whole system within 30 – 90 minute timeframes. “This observation contradicts the claim that a widespread wind fleet installation will smooth variability,” the authors write.

Likewise, and again contrary to popular assumptions, wind does not follow daily or even seasonal outputs. There were long periods in which the wind was not blowing even in winter, making it difficult to match generation of wind power to demand. The report concludes that covering these low periods would either need 15 storage plants the size of Dinorwig (a pumped storage hydroelectric power station in Wales with a 1.7GW capacity), or preserving and renewing our fossil plants as a reserve.

Most significantly, it found that the system would be only running at 90 percent of capacity or higher for 17 hours a year, and at 80 percent or higher for less than one week a year; conversely, total output was at less than 20 percent of capacity for 20 weeks of the year, and below 10 percent during nine weeks a year. “The most common power output of this 10GW model wind fleet is approximately 800MW. The probability that the wind fleet will produce full output is vanishingly small,” the authors note. The consequence is that many more wind turbines will have to be built than is often assumed, as the capacity of the fleet can’t be assumed to be synonymous with actual output.

The findings will deliver a body blow to governmental claims that their current target of generating 27 percent of energy from renewable sources – mostly wind and solar – by 2030 is credible.

“If there were no arbitrary renewable energy target, governments would be free to focus on what most voters expect: providing a framework in which a secure and affordable energy supply can be delivered,”commented Martin Livermore, director of the Scientific Alliance.

“If emissions are also to be reduced, the most effective measures currently would be a move from coal to gas and a programme of nuclear new build. In the meantime, the renewables industry continues to grow on a diet of subsidies, and we all pick up the tab. Getting out of this hole is not going to be easy, but it’s time the government started the process rather than continuing to dig deeper.”

According to the 2013 Renewable Energy Roadmap (the most recent to date), offshore wind capacity reached 3.5GW by June 2013, and onshore capacity reached 7GW in the same month. Governmental modelling suggests that offshore wind capacity will hit 16GW by 2020, and 39GW by 2030.

In the introduction to the Roadmap, the ministerial team headed by Ed Davey, secretary of state for energy and climate change wrote “The Government’s commitment to cost effective renewable energy as part of a diverse, low-carbon and secure energy mix, is as strong as ever. Alongside gas and low-carbon transport fuels, nuclear power and carbon capture and storage, renewable energy provides energy security, helps us meet our decarbonisation objectives and brings green growth to all parts of the UK.”
Breitbart.com

The report is available in pdf here.

The same conclusions apply to the “performance” of Australia’s installed wind power “capacity”.

Every wind farm in South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania and New South Wales is connected to the same Eastern Grid.

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

Despite being spread over a geographical expanse of 632,755 km² – an area which is 2.75 times the combined area of England (130,395 km²) Scotland (78,387 km²) and Wales (20,761 km²) of 229,543 km² – there are hundreds of occasions each year when – for substantial periods – the combined output of all of these interconnected wind farms is less than 10% of total capacity; around 100 or so when combined output is less than 5%; and dozens when combined output is less than 2%.

For a few examples of why wind power will never be a serious alternative to generation sources which are available on demand, see our posts here:

Intermittent & Unreliable Wind Power in Australia

Intermittent & Unreliable Wind Power: Texas, Germany & the UK

If this wasn’t costing us $billions in wasted subsidies and rocketing power bills, it would almost be funny.

French Doctor Talks about Health Effects From Wind Turbines…..No More Denial!

October 26, 2014 / 1957chev / 2 Comments

Chevallier: wind turbines, eco sham and new drama Public Health

The Point – Published 10/24/2014 at 15:34

We swear by these symbols of environmental cleanliness. Yet the myth to reality, there is an abyss, and maybe even a scandal!

Avignonet Lauragais Midi-Pyrenees. Studies show a link between these giant industrial facilities and health problems.Gabalda © Remy / AFP

By DR. LAURENT CHEVALLIER

Ecology is still good. European companies seeking by all means to implement giant wind (we approach the 200 m high) in the French countryside, close to the houses. It is clear that wind turbines do not have anything green with the thousands of tons of concrete needed to support these steel monsters; about the energy, it is far from the account feedback from those already established.

My concern, as a physician and member of the European Association Physicians for a healthier environment being created, focus on health. A report by the National Academy of Medicine, published in 2006, concluded that the need to suspend (or prohibit) the construction of wind turbines with a capacity greater than 2.5 megawatts located within 1500 meters of housing. These are actually real industrial plants inducing nuisance, including noise.

Industrial wind turbines are in fact classified as ICPE: installations and plants that generate risks or dangers. Several scientific studies are being published, the results recommend that wind turbines are not located within 2.5 kilometers of homes. Thus, clinical observations of Dr. Michael Nissenbaum two wind farms in the state of Maine to the United States indicate that there is a correlation between the distance residential wind turbines and health problems for residents.

The responsibility of prefects engaged

A number of doctors have already identified multiple health problems related to ownership with these industrial machines. A medically defined the “wind syndrome” which includes increasing headache (noise and turbulence as triggers of migraines), ringing in the ears like tinnitus, sleep disorders, an increase of anxiety and depressive disorders, sometimes the appearance as Dr. Jean-François FERRIEU of “nausea, dizziness, palpitations, all of these chronic conditions can promote authentic depressions” said.

This dimension is not taken into account, or insufficiently, by the government, probably through lack of information. During this time, various local businesses, which more often then sell the exploitation rights to legally well structured international companies continue to put pressure on municipalities to accelerate Starts at times 500 meters of housing, wind farms, as they are never isolated wind turbines are located but the groups multiplied effects. The responsibility of prefects is committed to this day, since it is they who issue building permits.

Gel ongoing projects

On the evidence currently available, it would seem sensible in principle of responsibility to recommend minimum distances of 5 km between industrial wind turbines and homes. Ideally, it would be desirable to freeze all ongoing projects now and deepen health dimension not induce new diseases on a large scale.

It may also come to the conclusion that, for the health of humans and animals such as birds, farm animals or bats, precious “insecticides” natural which have been the subject of a report of the American Academy of Sciences (PNAS, September 29, 2014), it is sufficient to ban industrial wind turbines on land.

As noted by Nicolas Hulot , “initially, wind energy is a great idea, but upon arrival, it is a tragic realization. If we were told that at least it would close plants, but this is not the case. ”

Windweasels Attack Another Community….Residents in Fighting Mode….

October 25, 2014October 25, 2014 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Jupiter Wind Farm Proponents from Another Planet

October 25, 2014 by stopthesethings

Yet another wind farm disaster proposed for the Southern Tablelands, yet another community backlash. This time it’s the threatened Jupiter wind farm at Tarago that has sent locals into orbit: the community is nothing short of ropeable (see our posts here and here).

Here’s one of their number smashing the Spanish developer, the disgraceful NSW Planning Department and the hypocritical ACT government.

LETTER: They are on another planet
Greg Faulkner
Goulburn Post
15 October 2014

I AM writing regarding Jupiter wind farm, proposed for the area surrounding Tarago. The proposed development would consist of up to 110 wind turbines each 170 meters or 50 stories tall.

The developer is EPYC a company which I understand is over 80 per cent Spanish owned.

My partner and I are long term residents from within the project area.

Like most locals we live here for the peace and quiet. We now face the sickening possibility of our home being sandwiched between banks of these colossal turbines, situated on our neighbours land, and possibly as close as 600 meters from our house door.

After having contacted NSW Dept of Planning about the situation, and having received no helpful response, we find ourselves with no alternative but to speak out publicly against the frightening unfairness surrounding the current approach to wind farm development in The Southern Highlands.

The turbines proposed are mind boggling huge, this cannot be overstated.

They are taller than the Sydney Harbour Bridge and very nearly as tall as Canberra’s Black Mountain Tower.

They are bigger than the ones around Bungendore and, for close residents, will never be obscured by tree plantings or anything else. Giant turbines may be a novelty to marvel at for a few moments, as we drive past, but I don’t think many Australians would want to live in their midst 24/7. I have observed the use of the term NIMBY in the media, in relation to rural residents who express any doubt about wind farm development near their homes.

The most enthusiastic users of this brutal and provocative term seem to be “green” city residents, who may be comfortable in the knowledge that their communities will never be the target of wind farm development. It seems common sense that any person who learns that their beloved home may soon be surrounded by giant turbines will be understandably devastated, and should not be subjected to cheap name calling.

A little understanding would be more productive.

Like most working, middle aged Australians, our home represents virtually all of our capital and its sale was to be central to any type of retirement or health care in our old age (not so far away).

If Jupiter wind farm proceeds our house will be sandwiched between arrays of monstrous, spinning, noise emitting turbines.

I do not think I am being pessimistic when I predict that any sale will difficult, unless the price is very, very low indeed.

In this sense alone the development is an absolute disaster for us, and most of our neighbours are in the same boat.

Australia may want renewable power options but we cannot continue forward like this.

In its haste to establish the renewable power sector it seems the NSW Government is prepared to sacrifice the wellbeing of many rural residents in the Southern Highlands, so as to provide a financially appealing environment to tempt foreign investors. It has offered up the unregulated development of the Southern Highlands to foreign developers without bothering to provide any protection for existing residents.

Claims by developers that large turbine arrays don’t affect the value or amenity of a location are ludicrous and dishonest. It seems the ACT Government is also prepared to overlook the frightening unfairness of the various wind farm developments just outside its borders, in order to buy the power produced and achieve its renewable power ambitions.

The residents of Canberra may not be aware that these arrangements will come at a very high price for many families in neighbouring rural communities.

The ACT’s position is staggeringly hypocritical, given its long standing commitment to stringent height limits in its own planning law, which protect its own skyline from unsightly high rise development.

It is clear that the ACT government understands the importance of controlling development to ensure a healthy and unoffensive environment for its own residents.

It is also clear that this concern does not extend to nearby NSW neighbours who are being targeted for wind farm development that Canberra would never tolerate itself.
GREG FAULKNER, Boro Rd via Braidwood.
Goulburn Post

At a mere 600m from the nearest turbine, the Faulkner’s currently peaceful home will be turned into a sonic torture trap and will be totally uninhabitable.

That’s around the same distance that Pac Hydro lobbed its giant fans from long-suffering Sonia Trist’s Cape Bridgewater home. After years of suffering from incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound, Sonia has decided enough is enough and is abandoning her beautiful and – once tranquil – home (see our post here).

But not to worry, the Spanish outfit aiming to destroy the Faulkner’s property and ability to enjoy it will employ a little of the $millions it’ll receive in REC subsidy to buy the house, stitch up the owners with a bullet-proof gag clause (see our posts here and here) and then quietly bulldoze it (see our post here).

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