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London, 8 September: A new briefing note published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation examines claims made by a great many commentators across the world, including President Obama and Ed Davey, of an overwhelming consensus on climate change. These depend on research that has been subject to public and entirely unrebutted allegations that it is fraudulent. Although the authors of the research claim to have shown that most climate change papers accept that mankind is responsible for the majority of recent warming, in fact the underlying study shows no such thing. One senior climatologist described the paper as ‘poorly conceived, poorly designed and poorly executed’. Another researcher called it ‘completely invalid and untrustworthy’, adding that there was evidence of scientific fraud. Andrew Montford, the author of the paper, said: “It has now been shown beyond doubt that the claims of a 97% consensus on climate change are at best misleading, perhaps grossly so, and possibly deliberately so. It’s high time policymakers stopped citing this appalling study.” Full paper (pdf) – Fraud, Bias And Public Relations: The 97% ‘Consensus’ And Its Critics Contacts Andrew Montford Dr Benny Peiser |
Faux-green terrorists
If I Wanted America to Fail…. A Bone-Chilling Classic, becoming reality!
If I Wanted America to Fail
The group is called Free Market America, and its stated mission is to defend economic freedom, particularly from environmental extremism.
The video puts the viewer in the perspective of someone who wants to dismantle the country, and walks them though what they would do to accomplish it. Throughout the video, the viewer becomes aware of how many of today’s ideas match the destructive actions learned through this perspective.
What makes this argument compelling is that this sort of connection cannot be built from anything other than concrete evidence. Leaving the viewer to digest the sobering truth once the video ends.
After watching the video, feel free to read the transcript below if you would like a closer look at the video’s points.
If I wanted America to fail …
To follow, not lead; to suffer, not prosper; to despair, not dream — I’d start with energy.
I’d cut off America’s supply of cheap, abundant energy. Of course, I couldn’t take it by force. So, I’d make Americans feel guilty for using the energy that heats their homes, fuels their cars, runs their businesses, and powers their economy.
I’d make cheap energy expensive, so that expensive energy would seem cheap.
I would empower unelected bureaucrats to all-but-outlaw America’s most abundant sources of energy. And after banning its use in America, I’d make it illegal for American companies to ship it overseas.
If I wanted America to fail …
I’d use our schools to teach one generation of Americans that our factories and our cars will cause a new Ice Age, and I’d muster a straight face so I could teach the next generation that they’re causing Global Warming.
And when it’s cold out, I’d call it Climate Change instead.
I’d imply that America’s cities and factories could run on wind power and wishes. I’d teach children how to ignore the hypocrisy of condemning logging, mining and farming — while having roofs over their heads, heat in their homes and food on their tables.
I would never teach children that the free market is the only force in human history to uplift the poor, establish the middle class and create lasting prosperity. Instead, I’d demonize prosperity itself, so that they will not miss what they will never have.
If I wanted America to fail …
I would create countless new regulations and seldom cancel old ones. They would be so complicated that only bureaucrats, lawyers and lobbyists could understand them. That way small businesses with big ideas wouldn’t stand a chance — and I would never have to worry about another Thomas Edison, Henry Ford or Steve Jobs.
I would ridicule as “Flat Earthers” those who urge us to lower energy costs by increasing supply. And when the evangelists of commonsense try to remind people about the law of supply and demand, I’d enlist a sympathetic media to drown them out.
If I wanted America to fail …
I would empower unaccountable bureaucracies seated in a distant capitol to bully Americans out of their dreams and their property rights. I’d send federal agents to raid guitar factories for using the wrong kind of wood; I’d force homeowners to tear down the homes they built on their own land.
I’d make it almost impossible for farmers to farm, miners to mine, loggers to log, and builders to build. And because I don’t believe in free markets, I’d invent false ones. I’d devise fictitious products — like carbon credits — and trade them in imaginary markets. I’d convince people that this would create jobs and be good for the economy.
If I wanted America to fail …
For every concern, I’d invent a crisis; and for every crisis, I’d invent the cause.
Like shutting down entire industries and killing tens of thousands of jobs in the name of saving spotted owls. When everyone learned the stunning irony that the owls were victims of their larger cousins — and not people — it would already be decades too late.
If I wanted America to fail …
I’d make it easier to stop commerce than start it — easier to kill jobs than create them — more fashionable to resent success than to seek it. When industries seek to create jobs, I’d file lawsuits to stop them. And then I’d make taxpayers pay for my lawyers.
If I wanted America to fail …
I would transform the environmental agenda from a document of conservation to an economic suicide pact. I would concede entire industries to our economic rivals by imposing regulations that cost trillions.
I would celebrate those who preach environmental austerity in public while indulging a lavish lifestyle in private. I’d convince Americans that Europe has it right, and America has it wrong.
If I wanted America to fail …
I would prey on the goodness and decency of ordinary Americans. I would only need to convince them … that all of this is for the greater good.
If I wanted America to fail, I suppose I wouldn’t change a thing.
The Wind Turbine Scam is Destroying Our Economies, as Well as Our Communities!
Professor Ross McKitrick: Wind turbines don’t run on wind, they run on subsidies.
August 31, 2014 by
As STT followers are acutely aware, wind power is an economic and environmental fraud. Because wind power can only ever be delivered at crazy, random intervals – and, therefore, never “on-demand” – it will never be a substitute for those generation sources which are – ie hydro, nuclear, gas and coal (see our posts here and here and here and hereand here and here and here and here).
Were it not for government mandates – backed by a constant and colossal stream of subsidies (see our post here) – wind power generators would never dispatch a single spark to the grid, as they would never find a customer that would accept power delivered 30% of the time (at best) on terms where the vendor can never tell customers just when that power might be delivered – if at all (see our post here).
Ultimately, it’ll be the inherently flawed economics of wind power that will bring the greatest rort of all time to an end. The policies that created the wind industry are simply unsustainable and, inevitably, will either fail or be scrapped.
The Canadians are reeling under the ludicrous wind power policies of a hard-green-left Liberal government, clearly intent on committing economic suicide. Power prices – driven by exorbitant guaranteed rates to wind power outfits – have rocketed – tripling in less than a decade, driving energy intensive businesses – like manufacturing – out of business or offshore – stifling business investment – killing off or threatening thousands of sustainable (unsubsidised) jobs across Canada and otherwise creating economic chaos (see our post here).
The scale and scope of Canada’s wind power disaster hasn’t been lost on top energy market economists, like Ontario’s Professor Ross McKitrickfrom the University of Guelph.
Ross was interviewed for the brilliant Sun News documentary ‘Down Wind’ by presenter, Rebecca Thompson, which has been extracted in the video below. The transcript appears below.
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Downwind – Ross McKitrick – Uni of Guelph
Rebecca Thompson: First we turn to Professor Ross McKitrick, an economist. He recently published a very scathing review of how economically unsound the Ontario Liberal government’s Green Energy Act is.
Professor Ross McKitrick: Well the important thing to understand about wind turbines is that they don’t run on wind, they run on subsidies.
Rebecca Thompson: We went to see McKitrick at the University of Guelph.
Professor Ross McKitrick: All the arguments that they’ve put forward for the Green Energy Act they really turned out to be phoney once we looked at them closely. They said that it would improve the economy, reduce air pollution emissions and it would replace coal fired power. And the problem is with the first one, it is not going to improve the economy because of what you are doing is replacing power that costs 3 to 5 cents per kilowatt hour to generate, and you’re replacing it with power that costs at least 13 1/2 cents per kilowatt hour to generate. So you’re raising the cost of doing business, it will drive down the rate of return in manufacturing and mining and that has to translate into job losses and reduced investment and shrinking the economy.
Rebecca Thompson: So you’ve pointed out that wind energy in fact, isn’t in the public interest in the short term but will it be in the long term?
Professor Ross McKitrick: Nobody was building wind turbines in Ontario until the government started throwing money at it. It is not a profitable source of electricity, it’s not cost-effective. Wind turbines can’t compete on the wholesale market without a lot of government support.
Rebecca Thompson: The system used to fund wind energy in many places around the world is called a Feed-In-Tariff (FIT).
Professor Ross McKitrick: And that means if you build a bank of wind turbines somewhere, and you get the contract that everyone is looking for you get a guarantee of 20 years being paid 13 1/2 cents per kilowatt-hour for the electricity that’s generated while the wholesale rate in Ontario is typically between 2 – 4 cents per kilowatt hour.
Rebecca Thompson: The Ontario government piggybacked off what is a European idea of a feed in tariff policy where the prices are locked in for 20 year contracts. And here’s another head scratcher …
Professor Ross McKitrick: The other provision of the contracts is that the system has to buy the power from you whenever you produce it. So the standard power plants, nuclear plants and hydro plants and so forth – there is no guarantee for them to buy their power, they have to compete on a wholesale market they have to price their product, in this case electricity, so that the system operator will buy it. With wind turbines, if the blades are running, the system operator has to buy it. Now they have adjusted that slightly in the last year because of this problem of the system operator being forced to buy tons and tons of power when it doesn’t need it, at 13 1/2 cents per kilowatt hour and sell it on the export market at one or two cents per kilowatt-hour – it was costing hundreds of millions of dollars a year for the system operator to do that. So the province now allows the system operator to reject some of the power that the wind turbines produce and instead the province will pay the wind turbine owners a benefit for what they call ‘deemed production’. So it’s really just transferred that same costs on to the taxpayer now.
Rebecca Thompson: The bottom line is pretty good for the wind energy sector.
Professor Ross McKitrick: They get a 20 year contract to sell wind power at far above market rates and it doesn’t matter that they are generating power at times when the province absolutely doesn’t need it, and we can’t use it, and we just have to try to find some neighbouring jurisdiction to buy it from us. We used to have a few large power plants in Ontario and we had our grid that was optimised to source electricity from a few large central locations. We’re now shutting down the large central locations and replacing them with this proliferation of tiny little unreliable wind farms and you have to build a whole new grid to accommodate that. So that’s again an extra cost to get something that we already had.
Rebecca Thompson: What’s more is that the Green Energy Act hasn’t even come close to creating the number of jobs the Liberals claimed it would.
Professor Ross McKitrick: It turned out that the province had claimed that there were going to be 50,000 new jobs created from the Green Energy Act. When the Auditor General asks them to back that up because it doesn’t really make sense that this would create any jobs – what they admitted was they were really talking about were temporary construction jobs – as you put up wind turbines you need some workers in to do that. But then once the wind turbines are built, then those jobs disappear and there are no ongoing jobs. In economics, it’s an old fallacy, what’s called the broken window fallacy. If you go around breaking shopkeeper’s windows, since they have to hire repair people to fix the windows then you’ve somehow improved the economy. But, you haven’t. All you have done is increase the cost of having what you had before – which was windows in stores.
Rebecca Thompson: If the new shift to green power is so inefficient why hasn’t anyone working in the system spoken out?
Professor Ross McKitrick: There are a couple of reasons. The power workers union has spent money on advertisements. They did try to fight against the closing of Lambton and Nanticoke – they understood that this was a bad deal for the workers in the province. But they did want they could. But it’s hard to be up against a government that is pushing so much propaganda on coal. There were people certainly in the power generating sector that understood that the government’s numbers weren’t correct and didn’t add up. But, they were effectively muzzled.
Rebecca Thompson: McKitrick speaks to people all the time about the changes in the system.
Professor Ross McKitrick: I do find people working in the power sector, they know that this is a crazy system. These wind farms are displacing hydro electricity which is just a waste on every level because we have the hydroelectric facilities, they don’t generate any air pollution emissions. They give us reliable, predictable baseload power. And now we run wind turbines and let those hydro-facilities sit idle. So people who work in the sector, they can see what’s going on and they know that this is a waste. But, for understandable reasons they’re not about to make a big noise about it because they could lose their jobs if they do.
Rebecca Thompson: Whether any government would actually be able to get out of existing contracts is debatable. Ross McKitrick says it’s possible.
Professor Ross McKitrick: One option might be to buy out some of the wind turbine companies and take those wind turbines off the grid, or only use their power when they’re competitive. In Europe, what governments have started to do though is put on special new taxes on renewable sources, solar and wind, to try and recover some of these costs. Alternatively, the government may look to try and tear up the contracts and accept the legal liability that goes with it, but it’s not going to be easy.
Sun News: Down Wind
Down Wind, which runs for 96 minutes, can be purchased as a file and downloaded or as a DVD for those in the US and Canada (here’s the link). For those outside the US and Canada the file can be purchased and downloaded (using this link). If you’re in there fighting the great wind power fraud, Down Wind is essential viewing.
For a detailed synopsis of Down Wind – see our post here.
“Professional” Windweasel, Mike Barnard, Tries to Defend Harm Caused by Wind Turbines
Bullying a windfarm victim
In an article of August 22, 2014 by Lindsay Abrams, trying to discredit the claims of wind farm victims, we read: “Since 1998, 49 lawsuits in five countries have alleged that the clean energy source [wind farms] is making people sick. But according to new research published by the Energy and Policy Institute, the courts have shut those claims down in all cases but one.” http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/29416340-452/wind-turbines-dont-make-people-sick.html
– I say: we could find similarly meaningless statistics if we went back in time, when the courts were absolving the Tobacco Industry.
– Most courts, like governments, have swallowed the windfarm scam hook, line and sinker. This recent judgment, evidencing a strong pro-wind bias, says it all:http://www.epaw.org/media.php?lang=en&article=pr48
– Court decisions can’t be held as the gold standard of truth and fairness. All the more in a society obsessed with political correctness, where certain ideas are arbitrarily declared “consensual”, and turned into dogmas which become ipso facto more important than the facts. Don’t we know that progress in science is almost always achieved by rejecting the “consensus”? And so it is with infrasound emitted by wind turbines: the dogma saying these emissions are benign is about to be blown apart, and this is what sparks desperate attempts at bullying and discrediting windfarm victims and the health professionals who support them.
The article proceeds to say: “The name “wind turbine syndrome” was coined by Nina Pierpont, a pediatrician who also happens to be an anti-wind activist”.
– This is the pot calling the kettle black. Mike Barnard, cited as a reference, is one of the world’s best known activists of the windfarm scam. He is in fact a professional activist, making a living from it, and receiving all kinds of help from the industry.
Mike Barnard
– Barnard, as quoted by the author of the article, criticizes people who “have declared themselves as experts”, forgetting that this includes himself. Indeed, he has no qualifications for doing what he does, yet he calls himself the “lead researcher” in the “new study” that is calling thousands of windfarm victims “liers”. The man does not know the meaning of the words “consistency” and “intellectual honesty”. He is the typical odious bully, and so appears to be Lindsay Abrams, who quotes him while adding a layer of smear of his own brew.
– Dr Nina Pierpont, on the other hand, is a courageous pediatrician who conducted field research years ago, paid with her own money, in which she found that wind farm neighbors who were complaining of sleep disruption, headaches, nauseas etc. had very consistent symptoms, which prompted her to coin a new ailment: the Wind Turbime Syndrome. She published a book on her findings, and is giving evidence in court around the world: does that make her an activist?
Dr Nina Pierpont
The propaganda piece continues: “But a review of 60 peer-reviewed articles published earlier this summer in the journal Frontiers of Public Health found only that audible noise from turbines can be annoying to some people — electromagnetic fields, low-frequency noise, infrasound and “shadow flicker” all were deemed unlikely to be affecting human health.”
– How could all these articles pretend that infrasound is “unlikely” to affect people, when we know that the military and the police have developed weapons using infrasound for debilitating enemy troops or unruly crowds? The technology is not mature yet, as a way must be found to spare friendly troops. But more devices are being patented all the time:http://www.schizophonia.com/archives/index.htm (click article: “Deadly Silence”)
– And what about the Vibro Acoustic Disease, a long-known ailment which affects people exposed to machines that produce infrasound? http://wcfn.org/2014/07/15/open-letter-to-the-danish-government/
– Then ask yourselves: if infrasound were harmless, would the wind industry and governments that promote it systematically refuse to conduct research into infrasound emitted by wind turbines? And this at the risk of being sued one day for gross negligence?
I can smell a rat, can’t you?
Finally, the author of the article resorts to personal attack: “When Dr. Pierpont attempts to appear in court as an expert witness, she is rejected outright along with her 294-page vanity press book, as happened in a tribunal related to the Adelaide wind farm in Ontario.”
– She did not “attempt to appear in Court”. Her testimony was called by windfarm victims but, abusively, the judge refused to hear their expert witness. What does that tell you about the independence of justice in Ontario, a Canadian Province thoroughly corrupted by the windfarm scam?
In other countries, she was allowed to testify, and her interventions have been very helpful, whatever the outcome.
– “rejected outright along with her 294-page vanity press book” says Lindsay Abrams.
– I say: while pro-wind litterature flourishes thanks to billions of dollars of public money spent to inundate the world with it, independent researchers must finance their own publications. Does that make these less valuable?
But Abrams could not resist bullying Dr Pierpont on this score, thereby bringing discredit upon himself.
Infrasound Can Cause Physical Distress, But Authorities Refuse to Monitor It!
The windswept Scottish highlands are increasingly becoming home to thousands of wind turbines due to government policies seeking to boost green energy production and fight global warming.
But such well-intentioned policies may be having an unintended side effect: They could be making people sick.
The Scottish Express reported Sunday that the Scottish government has commissioned a study into the “potential ill effects of turbines at 10 sites across the country.” There are more than 33,500 families living within two miles of these turbines, meaning thousands could be getting sick.
Activists warn that “infrasound” emanating from nearby wind turbines are causing people to feel sick. Infrasound is noise that is at such a low frequency, it can’t be heard but can be felt by those nearby.
Former U.K. army Capt. Andrew Vivers has been looking into the issue and was surprised that local authorities were unwilling to accept that infrasound could make people sick, even though it’s a “known military interrogation aid and weapon.”
“When white noise was disallowed they went on to infrasound,” Vivers told the Express. “If it is directed at you, you can feel your brain or your body vibrating.”
“It is bonkers that infrasound low frequency noise monitoring is not included in any environmental assessments. It should be mandatory before and after turbine erection,” Vivers added.
Vivers also noted that there has been an “acknowledged and unexplained increase of insomnia, dizziness and headaches” in the town of Dundee, which is where two wind turbines been in service since 2006.
The Scottish government study has been welcomed by communities that have complained about infrasound sickness, but anti-wind farm campaigners say it doesn’t go far enough.
“On the face of it, it does look like a step in the right direction, but can we really trust it? My issue is that it is not independent enough,” Susan Croswaithe, U.K. spokeswoman for the European Platform Against Windfarms, told the Express.
“Our website is full of examples of people not being listened to,” Croswaithe said. “We have two very large wind farms near us in Ayrshire, Arecleoch and Mark Hill – 60 turbines and 28 turbines.”
“If people in my area have noticed they are feeling better at the moment but do not understand why, it may be because the turbines have been switched off while they do maintenance on the grid,”she added.
But complaints about nearby wind turbines causing sickness have not been isolated to Scotland. U.S. residents have also complained of “wind turbine syndrome” causing headaches and nausea.
A Falmouth, Massachusetts woman was diagnosed with “wind turbine syndrome” by a Harvard Medical School doctor in 2011, after complaining about “headaches, ringing in her ears, insomnia and dizziness,” ABC News reported last year.
Sue Hobart didn’t immediately blame the three wind turbines that were installed 1,600 feet from her home in 2010, but after finding her symptoms went away when she left for vacation, it all started to fall into place.
But Hobar wasn’t the only Falmouth resident to supposedly become sick from wind turbines. Dozens of residents have filed lawsuits, arguing that three 400-foot tall wind turbines have been causing them to get sick.
Before Hobart was diagnosed with wind turbine syndrome, New Jersey state lawmakers proposed legislation outlawing the construction of wind turbines within 2,000 feet of residential-zoned land. The bill was championed by some coastal communities, but derided by environmentalists who want to see more green energy generation.
State Sen. Sean Kean introduced the bill after hundreds in his district turned out to protest a “proposed 325-foot windmill by Department of Military and Veterans Affairs at the National Guard training center in Sea Girt,” which residents said could “threaten birds, cause noise, pose health risks and decrease property values,” reports NJ.com.
So can wind turbines really make people sick? Wind turbine syndrome is not recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An expert Medical panel in Massachusetts was reported to have found “insufficient evidence that noise from wind turbines is directly… causing health problems or disease.” However, research shows that “human response to wind turbines relates to self-reported ‘annoyance,’ and this response appears to be a function of some combination of the sound itself, the sight of the turbine, and attitude towards the wind turbine project.”
Other state health departments and medical review panels have also concluded that there are no direct health impacts from wind turbines.
But complaints of sickness from wind turbines keep cropping up across the world as government policies cause wind farms to sprout up in places where they previously were not.
Windweasels Swarming US Market, After Europeans Started to “Wise Up”, and say NO!
Big Wind’s latest deceitful ad campaign
Facing trouble abroad, Siemens ads seek to tap into US taxpayers and wind welfare system
Guest essay by Mary Kay Barton
If you watch much mainstream TV, you’ve probably seen Siemens’ new multi-million-dollaradvertising blitz to sell the American public on industrial wind. Why the sudden ad onslaught? Watch the video below.
The wind business abroad has taken a huge hit of late. European countries have begun slashing renewable mandates, due to the ever-broadening realization that renewables cost far more than industrial wind proponents have led people to believe: economically, environmentally, technically, and civilly.
Siemens’ energy business took a €48m hit in the second quarter due to a bearings issue with onshore turbines, and a €23m charge due to ongoing offshore grid issues in Germany – on top of subsidy and feed-in tariff cutbacks, recent articles have pointed out.
As Siemens’ tax-sheltering market dries up in Europe, its U.S. marketing efforts are clearly geared toward increasing its income and profits via wind’s tax sheltering schemes in the United States. The company stands to make millions, so Siemens ad campaign is obviously part of an overall pitch to persuade Congress to extend the hefty wind Production Tax Credit (PTC), more accurately called“Pork-To-Cronies.” As Warren Buffett recently admitted, “We get tax credits if we build lots of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”
Taxpayers and ratepayers, beware!
President Obama often says he intends to “close corporate loopholes,” but his PTC and other policies continue funneling billions of taxpayer dollars to his wealthy corporate insiders and campaign contributors – while we continue to rack up unconscionable debt for our children and grandchildren.
Increasing public awareness of the wind energy scam has led to increased opposition to extendingany more corporate welfare to Big Wind via the PTC and energy investment tax credit (ITC). Enter another bureaucratic end-run around once clear statutory language by this Administration.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the increasingly politicized IRS recently relaxed the definition of “commence construction” to the point where the definition bears no resemblance to the actual words. During a hearing by the House Energy Policy, Health Care and Entitlements subcommittee last October, Curtis G. Wilson of the IRS admitted that developers can now game the system to the point where projects built years in the future could still meet the eligibility requirement for “commence” now.
U.S. taxpayers and ratepayers are doomed when, instead of allowing the markets to work, crony-corruptocrats are picking the winners and losers in the energy marketplace, using such nefarious tactics.
Sadly, most people don’t even know the difference between energy and power. This reality has built the framework for the biggest swindle ever perpetrated on citizens worldwide. Many have bought into the alarmist argument that “we have to do something” to stop “dangerous manmade global warming.” Enter the wind industry sales department, primed to capitalize on public fears and alarmist hype.
Siemens also needs to convince the 80% of U.S. citizens who live in suburbia that industrial wind factories are “environment-friendly,” and everyone loves them. Thus, as usual for these disingenuous ad campaigns, a sprawling wind facility is pictured among green fields, with no homes anywhere to be seen, no birds are being slaughtered, while a happy Iowa leaseholder smiles and says she loves wind.
A drive out Route 20A in Wyoming County, western New York State, however, tells a far different story. The western side of Wyoming County – which used to be some of the most beautiful countryside in New York State, has been industrialized with 308 giant, 430-foot-tall towers, and their 11-ton, bird-chopping blades spinning overhead, only hundreds of feet from peoples’ homes and roadways. There’s no doubt that Siemens won’t be showing you this reality in any of their TV ads!
Unfortunately for the residents of Orangeville in Wyoming County, greed at the top in Washington, DC determined their fate. The sole reason Invenergy went ahead with its plan to build its 58-turbine project was that, in the early morning hours of January 1, 2013, the PTC was added as pork for companies sucking at the wind welfare teat.
Ever appreciative of the handouts, Invenergy owner Ukrainian Michael Polsky rewarded President Obama by holding a $35,000 a plate fundraiser at his Chicago mansion. Mr. Obama is so committed to Big Wind that he’s even legalized 30-year eagle kill permits just for the wind industry. Anyone else harming an eagle, or even possessing a single bald eagle feather, is penalized with an iron fist.
There you have it – corporate cronyism in all its glory, with bird murder as its crowning achievement.
Word of impending lawsuits lingers in Orangeville. It remains to be seen if disenchanted leaseholders will end up suing Big Wind, as others have. In the meantime, we’re hoping we don’t have any 11-ton blade breaks that throw shrapnel for thousands of feet, or any airplanes crashing into wind turbines during fog, as occurred in South Dakota earlier this year, killing all four on board. (I’ll bet you won’t be seeing any of these facts in Siemens’ ads, either.)
Our elected officials need energy literacy. Even a small dose would help.
What’s most frustrating, when attempting any kind of correspondence regarding these energy issues with many elected officials, is the kind of response I received from Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY)when I wrote him a letter about ending the Wind PTC. Senator Schumer never even mentioned the PTC in his response. Instead, he rambled on about the need to “reduce foreign oil imports,” and increase “efficiency” – neither of which has a thing to do with wind-generated electricity.
Mr. Schumer recently feigned alarm following complaints by citizens about soaring electric rates – demanding answers about it, while simultaneously supporting yet another Wind PTC extension (plus other rate-increasing “renewable” projects). Senator Schumer’s hypocrisy is outrageous, and unacceptable.
Perhaps it’s time for U.S. ratepayers and taxpayers to demand that their elected officials first pass an energy literacy exam, before they pass such cost-exorbitant, “green” boondoggles on to consumers.
Congress is on vacation through Labor Day, which makes this the perfect time to approach your senators and representatives while they’re home. Attend town hall meetings and in-district fundraisers. Remind your representatives that we put them in office, and that we can also vote them out!
Since energy plays a pivotal role in our national economy – impacting the cost of absolutely everything else – candidates should have “energy” listed on their “issues” webpage.
Good candidates will support an “All of the Sensible” energy policy, as opposed to the “All of the Above” energy policy which President Obama has been pushing on behalf of the “green” movement.“Sensible” alternative energy options are those that are backed up by scientific and economic proof that they provide net societal benefits. Industrial wind fails this test miserably!
For more information, refer friends and elected officials to Robert Bryce’s excellent book, Power Hungry: The myths of “green” energy and the real fuels of the future.
Continue to call and write their offices, and encourage them to oppose any extension of the PTC and ITC! Write letters to your local newspapers, copy their district offices, and post information on their social media pages (e.g., Face Book & Twitter).
We must demand accountability from elected officials, or vote them out! Reliable, affordable energy is what has made America great. We need to keep it that way.
Mary Kay Barton is a retired health educator, New York State small business owner, Cornell-certified Master Gardener, and is a tireless advocate for scientifically sound, affordable, and reliable electricity for all Americans.
World-wide Climate Scam is the Result of Corruption and Collusion!
AUSTRALIAN BUREAU OF METEOROLOGY ACCUSED OF CRIMINALLY ADJUSTED GLOBAL WARMING
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has been caught red-handed manipulating temperature data to show “global warming” where none actually exists.
At Amberley, Queensland, for example, the data at a weather station showing 1 degree Celsius cooling per century was “homogenized” (adjusted) by the Bureau so that it instead showed a 2.5 degrees warming per century.
At Rutherglen, Victoria, a cooling trend of -0.35 degrees C per century was magically transformed at the stroke of an Australian meteorologist’s pen into a warming trend of 1.73 degrees C per century.
Last year, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology made headlines in the liberal media by claiming that 2013 was Australia’s hottest year on record. This prompted Australia’s alarmist-in-chief Tim Flannery – an English literature graduate who later went on to earn his scientific credentials with a PhD in palaeontology, digging up ancient kangaroo bones – to observe that global warming in Australia was “like climate change on steroids.”
But we now know, thanks to research by Australian scientist Jennifer Marohasy, that the hysteria this story generated was based on fabrications and lies.
Though the Bureau of Meteorology has insisted its data adjustments are “robust”, it has been unable to come up with a credible explanation as to why it translated real-world data showing a cooling trend into homogenized data showing a warming trend.
She wrote:
“Repetition is a propaganda technique. The deletion of information from records, and the use of exaggeration and half-truths, are �others. The Bureau of Meteorology uses all these techniques, while wilfully ignoring evidence that contradicts its own propaganda.’’
This is a global problem. Earlier this year, Breitbart reported that similarly dishonest adjustments had been made to temperature records by NASA and NOAA. Similarly implicated are the UK temperature records of the Met Office Hadley Centre and at Phil “Climategate” Jones’s disgraced Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.
One of the many disingenuous arguments used by climate alarmists against sceptics is mockingly to accuse them of being conspiracy theorists. “How could global warming possibly not be a problem when all the world’s temperature data sets from Australia to the US to the UK clearly show that it is? Are you seriously suggesting that so many different scientists and so many distinguished institutions from across the globe would collude in such a massive lie?” their argument runs.
Our answer: yes we bloody well are.
How Much Proof Do The Wind-Pushers Need, Before They Stop Harming Innocent People?
Vibroacoustic Disease, or VAD, is a chronic, progressive, cumulative, systemic disease. Exposure to high-intensity/low-frequency sound and infrasound can lead to Vibroacoustic Disease. Studies have shown that environments with high-intensity sound over 110 dB, coupled with low-frequency sounds below 100 Hz, place people at high risk for developing Vibroacoustic Disease. For example, Vibroacoustic Disease has been identified in disk jockeys, due to loud music exposure.
When exposed to high-intensity/low-frequency sound, which includes loud music, the body is subjected to powerful sound vibrations. This noise stressor leads to: homeostatic imbalance, disease, interference with behavior and performance, visual problems, epilepsy, stroke, neurological deficiencies, psychic disturbances, thromboembolism, central nervous system lesions, vascular lesions in most areas of the body, lung local fibrosis, mitral valve abnormalities, pericardial abnormalities, malignancy, gastrointestinal dysfunction, infections of the oropharynx, increased frequency of sister chromatid exchanges, immunological changes, cardiac infarcts, cancer, rage reactions, suicide, and altered coagulation parameters.
Infrasound exposure INCREASES the rate of development of Vibroacoustic Disease (VAD). “The evolution of VAD is classified by three stages based on years of noise exposure – mild (1-3 yr), moderate (4-9 yr) and severe (10-15 yr).”
“VAD is essentially characterized by a proliferation of extra-cellular matrix. This means that blood vessels can become thicker, thus impeding the normal blood flow. Within the cardiac structures, the parietal pericardium and the mitral and aortic valves also become thickened. The most recent VAD studies have been suggesting that infrasound exposure may be crucial to the rate of evolution of VAD. Occupational exposure to infrasound is suspected to cause an increase in the rate of thickening of the pericardium and cardiac valves in commercial airline pilots over that of flight attendants (Alves-Pereira et al, 1999).”
In addition, sources of low-frequency noise that place people at risk for developing Vibroacoustic Disease are rock concerts, dance clubs, “Powerful car audio equipment,” water jet skies, and motorcycles. (Source: VIBROACOUSTIC DISEASE: THE NEED FOR A NEW ATTITUDE TOWARDS NOISE, by Mariana Alves-Pereira and Nuno Castelo Branco).
“Among the most serious on-the-job consequences of untreated VAD are rage-reactions, epilepsy, and suicide. VAD patients do not have the usual suicidal profile: after the event, if unsuccessful, they remember nothing, and are confused about the entire episode (Castelo Branco et al, 1999). Similarly, patients who suffer rage-reactions also appear confused and seem to remember nothing (Castelo Branco et al, 1999). These events can have dire consequences if they occur on the job. Not only can other individuals be injured, but also costly sophisticated equipment could become irreparably damaged.” (Source – VIBROACOUSTIC DISEASE: THE NEED FOR A NEW ATTITUDE TOWARDS NOISE, by Mariana Alves-Pereira and Nuno Castelo Branco)
The stages of Vibroacoustic Disease are as follows:
Stage 1 – MILD (1-4 years) Slight mood swings, indigestion, heartburn, mouth/throat infections, bronchitis
Stage 2 – MODERATE (4-10 years) Chest pain, definite mood swings, back pain, fatigue, skin infections (fungal, viral, and parasitic), inflammation of stomach lining, pain and blood in urine, conjunctivitis, allergies.
Stage 3 – SEVERE (> 10 years) psychiatric disturbances, hemorrhages (nasal, digestive, conjunctive mucosa) varicose veins, hemorrhoids, duodenal ulcers, spastic colitis, decrease in visual acuity, headaches, severe joint pain, intense muscular pain, neurological disturbances. (Source – MONITORING VIBROACOUSTIC DISEASE, by Branco, Pimenta, Ferreira, and Alves -Pereira)
“After four years of exposure, the individual tends to recognize the existence of memory lapses, mood changes become more pronounced, and a variety of simultaneous ailments can appear. In the advanced stages, neurological disorders include epilepsy, balance disorders, and a marked increase in cognitive impairment. The palmo-mental reflex – a primitive reflex that is frequently present in several pathologies associated with cognitive deterioration – is a common feature in VAD patients. Facial dyskinesia triggered by auditory stimulus has also been identified in LFN-exposed workers.” (Note: LFN is low-frequency noise).
Psychiatric disorders, such as suicidal tendencies and rage-reactions, are some of the most tragic consequences of unmonitored LFN exposure. Respiratory disorders appear within the first four years of exposure, and can progress into shortness of breath, and focal pulmonary fibrosis. This is independent of smoking habits.” (Source – MONITORING VIBROACOUSTIC DISEASE, by Branco, Pimenta, Ferreira, and Alves-Pereira)
Studies have been done to see what effect vibrations have on the human body. As high-intensity/low-frequency sounds (extreme amplified bass) rattles a boom car, the occupants in it, secondary listeners, and structures surrounding it, this study is interesting to note. (WBV is Whole Body Vibration).
“Vibration is believed to cause a range of problems. These include:
· Disorders of the joints and muscles and especially the spine (WBV)
· Disorders of the circulation (hand-arm vibration)
· Cardiovascular, respiratory, endocrine, and metabolic changes (WBV)
· Problems in the digestive system (WBV)
· Reproductive damage in females (WBV)
· Impairment of vision and/or balance (WBV)
· Interference with activities
· Discomfort
The most frequently reported problem from all sources of WBV is low-back pain arising from early degeneration of the lumbar system and herniated lumbar disc. Muscular fatigue and stiffness have also been reported.” (Source – ATSB – ROAD SAFETY REPORTS: HEAVY VEHICLE SEAT VIBRATION AND DRIVER FATIGUE)
The SUN AND WEEKLY HERALD (Sun-Herald.com) recently interviewed Dr. Robert Fifer, the Director of Audiology and Speech Language Pathology, at the Mailman Center for Child Development at the University of Miami. He discussed Vibroacoustic Disease and its relation to infrasound and boom cars. The article states, “But the physical vibration so prized by car audio fanatics, and despised by their victims, is largely produced by sounds pitched too low to hear, called subsonic or infrasonic sounds. Medical research over the past four decades shows that exposure to infrasound can have devastating effects on the human body and mind that go far beyond mere hearing loss.”
The article goes on to discuss the fight-or-flight adrenaline response and how it is also triggered by LPALF (large pressure amplitude – low-frequency noise) or high-intensity/low-frequency sound. In other words, the fight-or-flight adrenaline response can be triggered by sounds you don’t even hear!
At loud enough volumes, infrasound can “shake an object o bits the same way a soprano’s high motes can shatter a wine class.” (Source – INFRASOUND: I’M ALL SHOOK UP! – Sun and Weekly Herald, Sun-Herald.com, 8/24/2003)
Listening to classical music, such as Mozart, can increase your IQ, heal the body, and increases brain development in babies. Classical music enhances abstract thinking. On the other hand, listening to loud, hard, grunge rock, rap, or new age music actually interferes with abstract thinking. Gansta/porno rap is a favorite choice for listeners addicted to loud, bass sounds. Gangsta/porno rap (for example, Eminem) and some acid or hard rock (Marilyn Manson) glorifies violence, suicide, illegal drug use, murder, killing police officers, rape, and promotes hatred against society, women, and the law.
Music AFFECTS and REFLECTS your state of mind. In addition, your behavior reflects your personality.
Posted This To Prove that Wind Turbines are NOT Green!
In China, the true cost of Britain’s clean, green wind power experiment:
Pollution on a disastrous scale
By SIMON PARRY in China and ED DOUGLAS in Scotland
This toxic lake poisons Chinese farmers, their children and their land. It is what’s left behind after making the magnets for Britain’s latest wind turbines… and, as a special Live investigation reveals, is merely one of a multitude of environmental sins committed in the name of our new green Jerusalem
The lake of toxic waste at Baotou, China, which as been dumped by the rare earth processing plants in the background
On the outskirts of one of China’s most polluted cities, an old farmer stares despairingly out across an immense lake of bubbling toxic waste covered in black dust. He remembers it as fields of wheat and corn.
Yan Man Jia Hong is a dedicated Communist. At 74, he still believes in his revolutionary heroes, but he despises the young local officials and entrepreneurs who have let this happen.
‘Chairman Mao was a hero and saved us,’ he says. ‘But these people only care about money. They have destroyed our lives.’
Vast fortunes are being amassed here in Inner Mongolia; the region has more than 90 per cent of the world’s legal reserves of rare earth metals, and specifically neodymium, the element needed to make the magnets in the most striking of green energy producers, wind turbines.
Live has uncovered the distinctly dirty truth about the process used to extract neodymium: it has an appalling environmental impact that raises serious questions over the credibility of so-called green technology.
The reality is that, as Britain flaunts its environmental credentials by speckling its coastlines and unspoiled moors and mountains with thousands of wind turbines, it is contributing to a vast man-made lake of poison in northern China. This is the deadly and sinister side of the massively profitable rare-earths industry that the ‘green’ companies profiting from the demand for wind turbines would prefer you knew nothing about.
Hidden out of sight behind smoke-shrouded factory complexes in the city of Baotou, and patrolled by platoons of security guards, lies a five-mile wide ‘tailing’ lake. It has killed farmland for miles around, made thousands of people ill and put one of China’s key waterways in jeopardy.
This vast, hissing cauldron of chemicals is the dumping ground for seven million tons a year of mined rare earth after it has been doused in acid and chemicals and processed through red-hot furnaces to extract its components.
Wind power’s uncertainties don’t end with intermittency. There is huge controversy about how much energy a wind farm will produce (Pictured above, wind turbines in Dun Law, Scotland)
Rusting pipelines meander for miles from factories processing rare earths in Baotou out to the man-made lake where, mixed with water, the foul-smelling radioactive waste from this industrial process is pumped day after day. No signposts and no paved roads lead here, and as we approach security guards shoo us away and tail us. When we finally break through the cordon and climb sand dunes to reach its brim, an apocalyptic sight greets us: a giant, secret toxic dump, made bigger by every wind turbine we build.
The lake instantly assaults your senses. Stand on the black crust for just seconds and your eyes water and a powerful, acrid stench fills your lungs.
For hours after our visit, my stomach lurched and my head throbbed. We were there for only one hour, but those who live in Mr Yan’s village of Dalahai, and other villages around, breathe in the same poison every day.
Retired farmer Su Bairen, 69, who led us to the lake, says it was initially a novelty – a multi-coloured pond set in farmland as early rare earth factories run by the state-owned Baogang group of companies began work in the Sixties.
‘At first it was just a hole in the ground,’ he says. ‘When it dried in the winter and summer, it turned into a black crust and children would play on it. Then one or two of them fell through and drowned in the sludge below. Since then, children have stayed away.’
As more factories sprang up, the banks grew higher, the lake grew larger and the stench and fumes grew more overwhelming.
‘It turned into a mountain that towered over us,’ says Mr Su. ‘Anything we planted just withered, then our animals started to sicken and die.’
People too began to suffer. Dalahai villagers say their teeth began to fall out, their hair turned white at unusually young ages, and they suffered from severe skin and respiratory diseases. Children were born with soft bones and cancer rates rocketed.
Official studies carried out five years ago in Dalahai village confirmed there were unusually high rates of cancer along with high rates of osteoporosis and skin and respiratory diseases. The lake’s radiation levels are ten times higher than in the surrounding countryside, the studies found.
Since then, maybe because of pressure from the companies operating around the lake, which pump out waste 24 hours a day, the results of ongoing radiation and toxicity tests carried out on the lake have been kept secret and officials have refused to publicly acknowledge health risks to nearby villages.
There are 17 ‘rare earth metals’ – the name doesn’t mean they are necessarily in short supply; it refers to the fact that the metals occur in scattered deposits of minerals, rather than concentrated ores. Rare earth metals usually occur together, and, once mined, have to be separated.
Villagers Su Bairen, 69, and Yan Man Jia Hong, 74, stand on the edge of the six-mile-wide toxic lake in Baotou, China that has devastated their farmland and ruined the health of the people in their community
Neodymium is commonly used as part of a Neodymium-Iron-Boron alloy (Nd2Fe14B) which, thanks to its tetragonal crystal structure, is used to make the most powerful magnets in the world. Electric motors and generators rely on the basic principles of electromagnetism, and the stronger the magnets they use, the more efficient they can be. It’s been used in small quantities in common technologies for quite a long time – hi-fi speakers, hard drives and lasers, for example. But only with the rise of alternative energy solutions has neodymium really come to prominence, for use in hybrid cars and wind turbines. A direct-drive permanent-magnet generator for a top capacity wind turbine would use 4,400lb of neodymium-based permanent magnet material.
In the pollution-blighted city of Baotou, most people wear face masks everywhere they go.
‘You have to wear one otherwise the dust gets into your lungs and poisons you,’ our taxi driver tells us, pulling over so we can buy white cloth masks from a roadside hawker.
Posing as buyers, we visit Baotou Xijun Rare Earth Co Ltd. A large billboard in front of the factory shows an idyllic image of fields of sheep grazing in green fields with wind turbines in the background.
In a smartly appointed boardroom, Vice General Manager Cheng Qing tells us proudly that his company is the fourth biggest producer of rare earth metals in China, processing 30,000 tons a year. He leads us down to a complex of primitive workshops where workers with no protective clothing except for cotton gloves and face masks ladle molten rare earth from furnaces with temperatures of 1,000°C.
The result is 1.5kg bricks of neodymium, packed into blue barrels weighing 250kg each. Its price has more than doubled in the past year – it now costs around £80 per kilogram. So a 1.5kg block would be worth £120 – or more than a fortnight’s wages for the workers handling them. The waste from this highly toxic process ends up being pumped into the lake looming over Dalahai.
The state-owned Baogang Group, which operates most of the factories in Baotou, claims it invests tens of millions of pounds a year in environmental protection and processes the waste before it is discharged.
According to Du Youlu of Baogang’s safety and environmental protection department, seven million tons of waste a year was discharged into the lake, which is already 100ft high and growing by three feet each year.
In what appeared an attempt to shift responsibility onto China’s national leaders and their close control of the rare earths industry, he added: ‘The tailing is a national resource and China will ultimately decide what will be done with the lake.’
Jamie Choi, an expert on toxics for Greenpeace China, says villagers living near the lake face horrendous health risks from the carcinogenic and radioactive waste.
‘There’s not one step of the rare earth mining process that is not disastrous for the environment. Ores are being extracted by pumping acid into the ground, and then they are processed using more acid and chemicals.
Inside the Baotou Xijun Rare Earth refinery in Baotou, where neodymium, essential in new wind turbine magnets, is processed
Finally they are dumped into tailing lakes that are often very poorly constructed and maintained. And throughout this process, large amounts of highly toxic acids, heavy metals and other chemicals are emitted into the air that people breathe, and leak into surface and ground water. Villagers rely on this for irrigation of their crops and for drinking water. Whenever we purchase products that contain rare earth metals, we are unknowingly taking part in massive environmental degradation and the destruction of communities.’
The fact that the wind-turbine industry relies on neodymium, which even in legal factories has a catastrophic environmental impact, is an irony Ms Choi acknowledges.
‘It is a real dilemma for environmentalists who want to see the growth of the industry,’ she says. ‘But we have the responsibility to recognise the environmental destruction that is being caused while making these wind turbines.’
It’s a long way from the grim conditions in Baotou to the raw beauty of the Monadhliath mountains in Scotland. But the environmental damage wind turbines cause will be felt here, too. These hills are the latest battleground in a war being fought all over Britain – and particularly in Scotland – between wind-farm developers and those opposed to them.
Cameron McNeish, a hill walker and TV presenter who lives in the Monadhliath, campaigned for almost a decade against the Dunmaglass wind farm before the Scottish government gave the go-ahead in December. Soon, 33 turbines will be erected on the hills north of the upper Findhorn valley.
McNeish is passionate about this landscape: ‘It’s vast and wild and isolated,’ he says. Huge empty spaces, however, are also perfect for wind turbines and unlike the nearby Cairngorms there are no landscape designations to protect this area. When the Labour government put in place the policy framework and subsidies to boost renewable energy, the Monadhliath became a mouth-watering opportunity.
People have been trying to make real money from Scottish estates like Jack Hayward’s Dunmaglass. Hayward, a Bermuda-based property developer and former chairman of Wolverhampton Wanderers, struck a deal with renewable energy company RES which, campaigners believe, will earn the estate an estimated £9 million over the next 25 years.
Each of the turbines at Dunmaglass will require servicing, which means a network of new and improved roads 20 miles long being built across the hills. They also need 1,500 tons of concrete foundations to keep them upright in a strong wind, which will scar the area.
Dunmaglass is just one among scores of wind farms in Scotland with planning permission. Scores more are still in the planning system. There are currently 3,153 turbines in the UK overall, with a maximum capacity of 5,203 megawatts.
Around half of them are in Scotland. First Minister Alex Salmond and the Scottish government have said they want to get 80 per cent of Scotland’s electricity from renewables by 2020, which means more turbines spread across the country’s hills and moors.
Many environmental pressure groups share Salmond’s view. Friends of the Earth opposes the Arctic being ruined by oil extraction, but when it comes to damaging Scotland’s wilderness with concrete and hundreds of miles of roads, they say wind energy is worth it as the impact of climate change has to be faced.
‘No way of generating energy is 100 per cent clean and problem-free,’ says Craig Bennett, director of policy and campaigns at Friends of the Earth.
‘Wind energy causes far fewer problems than coal, gas or nuclear. If we don’t invest in green energy, business experts have warned that future generations will be landed with a bill that will dwarf the current financial crisis. But we need to ensure the use of materials like neodymium and concrete is kept to a minimum, that turbines use recycled materials wherever possible and that they are carefully sited to the reduce the already minimal impact on bird populations.’
But Helen McDade, head of policy at the John Muir Trust, a small but feisty campaign group dedicated to protecting Scotland’s wild lands, also points out that leaving aside the damage to the landscape, nobody is really sure how much carbon is being released by the renewable energy construction boom. Peat moors lock up huge amounts of carbon, which gets released when it’s drained to put up a turbine.
Environmental considerations aside, as the percentage of electricity generated by wind increases, renewable energy is coming under a lot more scrutiny now for one simple reason – money. We pay extra for wind power – around twice as much – because it can’t compete with other forms of electricity generation. Under the Renewable Obligation (RO), suppliers have to buy a percentage of their electricity from renewable generators and can hand that cost on to consumers. If they don’t, they pay a fine instead.
One unit cell of Nd2Fe14b, the alloy used in neodymium magnets. The structure of the atoms gives the alloy its magnetic strength, due to a phenomenon known as magnetocrystalline anisotropy
There’s a simple beauty about RO for the government. Even though it’s defined as a tax, it doesn’t come out of pay packets but is stuck on our electricity bills. That has made funding wind farms a lot easier for the government than more cost-effective energy-efficiency measures.
‘If you want a grant for an energy conservation project on your house,’ says Helen McDade, ‘the money comes from taxes. But investment for turbines comes from energy companies.’
Already, RO adds £1.4 billion to our bills each year to provide a pot of money to pay power companies for their ‘green’ electricity. By 2020, the figure will have risen to somewhere between £5 billion and £10 billion.
When he was Chancellor, Gordon Brown added another decade to these price guarantees, extending the RO scheme to 2037, guaranteeing the subsidy for more than a quarter of a century.
It’s not surprising there’s been an avalanche of wind-farm applications in the Highlands. Wind speeds are stronger, land is cheaper and the government loves you.
‘You go to a landowner,’ McDade says, ‘and offer him what is peanuts to an energy company yet keeps him happily on his estate so they can put up a wind farm, which in turn raises ordinary people’s electricity bills. There’s a social issue here that doesn’t get discussed.’
By 2020, environmental regulation will be adding 31 per cent to our bills. That’s £160 green tax out of an average annual bill of £512. As costs rise, more people will be driven into fuel poverty. When he was secretary of state at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband decreed that these increases should be offset by improvements in energy efficiencies.
It’s a view shared by his successor Chris Huhne, who says inflation due to RO will be effectively one per cent. Britain’s low-income families, facing hikes in petrol and food costs, will hope he’s right.
Individual households aren’t the only ones shouldering the costs. Industry faces an even bigger burden. By 2020, environmental charges will add 33 per cent to industry’s energy costs.
Jeremy Nicholson, director of the Energy Intensive Users Group, says that, ‘Industry is getting the worst of both worlds. Around 80 per cent of the contracts for the new Thanet offshore wind farm (off the coast of Kent) went abroad, but the expensive electricity will be paid for here.’
Our current obsession with wind power, according to John Constable of energy think-tank the Renewable Energy Foundation, stems from the decision of the European Union on how to tackle climate change. Instead of just setting targets for reducing emissions, the EU told governments that by 2020, 15 per cent of all the energy we use must come from renewable sources.
Because of how we heat our houses and run our cars with gas and petrol, 30 per cent of electricity needs to come from renewables. And in the absence of other technologies, that means wind turbines. But there’s a structural flaw in the plan, which this winter has brutally exposed.
Study a graph of electricity consumption and it appears amazingly predictable, even down to reduced demand on public holidays. The graph for wind energy output, however, is far less predictable.
Take the figures for December, when we all shivered through sub-zero temperatures and wholesale electricity prices surged. Peak demand for the UK on 20 December was just over 60,000 megawatts. Maximum capacity for wind turbines throughout the UK is 5,891 megawatts, almost ten per cent of that peak demand figure.
Yet on December 20, because winds were light or non-existent, wind energy contributed a paltry 140 megawatts. Despite billions of pounds in investment and subsidies, Britain’s wind-turbine fleet was producing a feeble 2.43 per cent of its own capacity – and little more than 0.2 per cent of the nation’s electricity in the coldest month since records began.
The problems with the intermittency of wind energy are well known. A new network of cables linking ten countries around the North Sea is being suggested to smooth supply and take advantage of 140 gigawatts of offshore wind power. No one knows for sure how much this network will cost, although a figure of £25 billion has been mooted.
The government has also realised that when wind nears its target of 30 per cent, power companies will need more back-up to fill the gap when the wind doesn’t blow. Britain’s total capacity will need to rise from 76 gigawatts up to 120 gigawatts. That overcapacity will need another £50 billion and drive down prices when the wind’s blowing. Power companies are anxious about getting a decent price. Once again, consumers will pay.
Wind power’s uncertainties don’t end with intermittency. There is huge controversy about how much energy a wind farm will produce. Many developers claim their installations will achieve 30 per cent of their maximum output over the course of a year. More sober energy analysts suggest 26 per cent. But even that figure is starting to look generous. In December, the average figure was less than 21 per cent. In the year between October 2009 and September 2010, the average was 23.6 per cent, still nowhere near industry claims.
Then there’s the thorny question of how many homes new installations can power. According to wind farm developers like Scottish and Southern Electricity, a house uses 3.3MWh in a year. Lobby group RenewablesUK – formerly the British Wind Energy Association – gives a figure of 4.7MWh. In the Highlands electricity usage is even higher.
Last year, a report from the Royal Academy of Engineering warned that transforming our energy supply to produce a low-carbon economy would require the biggest investment and social change seen in peacetime. And yet Professor Sue Ion, who led the report, warned, ‘We are nowhere near having a plan.’
So, against the backdrop of environmental catastrophe in China and these less than attractive calculations, could the billions being thrown at wind farms be better spent? Undoubtedly, says John Constable.
‘The government is betting the farm on the throw of a die. What’s happening now is simply reckless.’
NUCLEAR, COAL, SOLAR, HYDRO, WIND: HOW THE ENERGY OPTIONS STACK UP
The British energy market is a hugely complicated and ever-changing landscape. We rely on a number of different sources for our energy – some more efficient than others, some more polluting than others.
Here, you can see how much energy each type contributes, how much they are predicted to contribute in 2020, how much carbon dioxide they generate and how efficient they are.
Renewable energy sources receive varying subsidies – which are added to our energy bills – as a result of the government’s Renewables Obligation, whereas ‘traditional’ sources do not.
Critically, government cost figures do not include subsidies, whereas our measure shows precisely how much money a power station receives for each megawatt-hour (MWh) it produces, which includes the price paid for the energy by the supplier and any applicable subsidy. This is an instant measure of an energy supply’s cost-efficiency; the lower the figure, the less that energy costs to produce.
Note: figures relate to UK energy production. Approximately seven per cent of our electricity comes from imports or other sources
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html#ixzz3AJj7uO4d
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Green is the New Black…..Hearted, that is! Faux Green Terrorists!
Greens go violent
Aug 4, 2014Energy: gasGreens
The BBC is reporting that an employee of an unconventional gas company in Northern Ireland has had his home petrol bombed.
The company exploring for shale gas in County Fermanagh has confirmed that the family home of one of its site workers has been attacked with petrol bombs.
Two petrol bombs were thrown at the house in Letterbreen during the early hours of Sunday, but no-one was hurt.
The fracking firm, Tamboran, said it followed a number of unlawful incidents and threats to its security staff.
Staff were threatened at a quarry in Belcoo, where Tamboran is intending to drill a gas exploration borehole.
Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth. They all sound so nice, don’t they?
"Mothers Against Wind Turbines™" Phoenix Rising... 
