Faux-green wind turbines

Why are there no Industrial Wind Complexes in Toronto? Ontario Place Grounds, would be perfect!

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TIME TO TURN THE TABLES ON WIND PROPONENTS WHO ACCUSE OPPONENTS OF ‘NIMBYISM’.

It’s astounding to read these days how pleased with themselves liberals are that the Wynne Ont gov’t is remaining steadfast in their refusal to amend the Green Energy Act in any meaningful way. It’s as easy as water off a ducks back for these progressives to delight in calling opponents to Industrial Wind Turbines as NIMBY’s and having democracy essentially waived to accomplish the policy goals backed by the GEA.

I only have this to say;

I want all these cheering Liberals to consider this;

Take your worst nightmare of a conservative leader. An amalgam of the very worst of Harper. Harris, throw in a little Ralph Klein and some Tea Party Timmy Hudak. I can sense your blood pressure rising as I write this. Oh the horror.
In the Legislature, a new bill is to be introduced called the “Nuclear Waste Recovery Act”

It will allow land owners to store nuclear waste on their properties until at such time facilities are available to neutralize the radioactive waste. Of course a setback of 550 metres would be required to non- participating “receptors” Land owners would negotiate 20 year contracts with the private companies running the nuclear facilities such as Bruce , Darlington and Pickering. Big time subsidies from the government ensure that developers and landowners alike are lining up out the door to cash in. Industrial Park areas sprinkled about the GTA sound like swell places to make this work.

Facilities that would eventually deal with the waste will be developed and the process of nuetralizing all that radioactive material would come online. The program would be a model to the world and create 50,000 jobs, ( Actually, this program could actually have a better shot at creating said number of jobs.) lowering the unemployment rate in the GTA which at present is above the national average.

So, developers with empty space in industrial parks in say, Scarborough, Pickering, North York or Mississauga, could apply for this and as long as they’re 550metres from residential areas, hey, it’s game on.

In addition, a special urban home owner program will be enacted. This unique initiative would allow home owners in large urban areas to sign contracts allowing a special individual-sized container of nuclear waste to be buried in their backyards. For doing this, each home owner will be paid $5,000 a year for 25 years. There will be no setback distances, because the government has done it’s homework and found numerous experts in the nuclear field who have testified that these containers are 100% safe. No neighbourhood input or objections would be allowed, since “nimbyism” will not be tolerated.

I sense it could face some opposition. Municipal governments would complain as their constituents would be going apoplectic over a nuclear waste facility in their neighborhood. Proponents, funded by Big Nuclear, would just refer to them as NIMBY’s. It would slowly dawn upon these residents that the NWR act strips away all municipalities rights to oppose this very much needed service.

Residents would come armed with health studies, but those dastardly conservatives in power have studies of their own citing that their own Medical Officer Of Health has signed off on the policy and states that there is “No significant hazard to health.” Tribunals set up to hear citizens grievances, would be stacked by the conservatives with sympathetic board members making any challenge an exercise in futility.

So now, with some facilities now open, reports of radiation leaks are ubiqutous. MoE will come to investigate and essentially find nothing since they’re not even equipped to measure anything. Wildlife , such as it is would be struggling to adapt to these conditions. Local human health could also suffer an immeasurable toll. Meanwhile, the developers and landowners are far,far away counting and folding all that taxpayer booty.

My point to all you liberal cheerleaders is that you’re all for this when it suits you. When it’s on the other foot, you’d be unspooling.  My contention is that no government, be it Liberal ,Conservative or otherwise should EVER be able to wield this kind of power over it’s citizens, urban or rural.

Paul Kuster

nuclearwaste-2

Liberal Government Won’t Put a Wind Project Near Their Home in Toronto!!!

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Ontario Place Grounds Would be Perfect For A Wind Project!

Bow Lake makes wind farm fight tough: MILLS 

By Tom Mills, Sault Star

Saturday, August 23, 2014 

With a government that continues to stack the procedural and legal deck against those who oppose the intrusion of wind farms on their neighbourhoods, you might expect to see turbines almost everywhere.

But it would take a sharp eye to spot one anywhere near the GTA. Wind-energy-watching is much easier in Algoma, Bruce and Chatham-Kent, which house about a third of Ontario’s turbines.

In a past column I mentioned the Toronto waterfront, where offshore wind turbines were seriously proposed. Then a Liberal government moratorium in 2011 put an end to the foolish notion of locating green energy generation where it might be consumed.

I’ve also suggested turbines be put in shopping malls, industrial parks and other places of large-scale ugliness within the bounds of the Greater Toronto Area.

One reader came up with the very feasible idea of lining Highway 400 with turbines from Barrie to Canada’s Wonderland.

Last week I found a couple of new prime locations: the Niagara Escarpment and the quaint main street of Niagara-on-the-Lake. Both seem to have wind in abundance.

Now NOTL, whose strict bylaws preserving the character of the historic village were strong enough to give a McDonalds sign fallen arches, would break out the 1812 muskets at the idea of blades whooshing o’er the fudge shoppes and inns.

And wine country doubtless would sour at the idea of blinking red lights festooning the limestone ridge like a strand of tacky Christmas lights.

But could they do much about it? I doubt it.

Preposterous, you say?

Well, a ruling last month by an environment ministry review panel on a wind farm north of Sault Ste. Marie makes it more daunting for anyone anywhere in Ontario to oppose a wind farm.

That panel shot down attempts by seasonal resident James Fata and others to block installation of turbines on a scenic hill area near the Lake Superior coast, the Bow Lake wind farm near Montreal River.

In the process, it pared down the grounds anyone could use to oppose a wind farm.

Both the approval and appeal processes set up by Ontario’s MOE already were heavily weighted against wind farm opponents.

As the tribunal’s decision notes, “An appellant is required to prove . . . that a project will cause the harm,” not just raise “the potential for harm.” No onus on the developer.

That seems akin to the government allowing pharmaceutical companies to dump drugs on the market and then requiring consumers to conduct scientific studies proving them to be unsafe.

And a tribunal is severely limited as to what reasons it can allow an opponent to use to object to a wind farm. None of that “scenic beauty” stuff for our ministry, even though this particular tribunal granted that the Superior landscape is “iconic.”

But the tribunal narrowed things even more by chopping references to property devaluation, economic impact on the tourism industry and a “prejudiced and unilateral consultation process” from the appeal.

That left Fata et al trying to prove turbines cause indisputably serious harm to human health, something many others have tried and failed, or latching on to an animal species that would be seriously and irreversibly harmed, in this case some little brown bats.

Evidence at the hearing suggested while turbines would doom a whole bunch of little brown bats, there are plenty more little brown bats where those came from.

And the tribunal rejected arguments by people such as adventurer Joanie McGuffin that the visual and social impacts of wind turbines on a natural landscape so striking as to have been featured by the historic Group of Seven artists could result in human health consequences.

So I’d say that leaves folks in Niagara with not too many weapons in their arsenal if some incentive-hungry developer proposed a wind farm.

Scenic beauty? Forget it. Historical significance? Nope. Tourist industry? Not likely.

About all that could stop a wind farm on NOTL’s Queen Street or along the escarpment is the fact that those places lie in the Greater Toronto Area’s back yard, much beloved of Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government.

Yep. That should do it.

Email tom.mills@sunmedia.ca to contact Tom Mills. Comment at saultstar.com.

 

Sherri Lange Appeals to the Auditor General to Audit the Disastrous GEA

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Canada’s Wind Power Disaster Laid Bare

August 22, 2014 by  

Ontario april-28-protest-rally-3

Ontario is about to boil over, as impacted and threatened communities unite in seething rage at what their political betters have done to energy policy (see our post here).

The hard-green-left Liberals have created a wind power policy so insane as to beggar belief: sending power prices through the roof (referred to as “hydro bills”, as the bulk of their energy comes from hydro power); killing hundreds of thousands of real jobs; and destroying the lives of thousands of hard-working rural people, who’ve been left to endure a swathe of giant fans speared into the heart of the most productive agricultural country in Canada, rendering hundreds of perfectly good family homes uninhabitable.

One of those taking up the fight is Sherri Lange, who heads up the NA-PAW (North American Platform Against Wind Power), is the Founding Director Toronto Wind Action, the Executive Director Canada, Great Lakes Wind Truth and is the VP Canada, Save the Eagles International.

In this brilliant letter to Ontario’s Auditor General, Sherri lays out the disaster that is wind power in Canada and details the scale and scope of the greatest economic and environmental fraud of all time.

Ms. Bonnie Lysyk
Auditor General for Ontario
20 Dundas Street West, Suite 1530
Toronto
M5G 2C2
Fax 416 327 9862
August 11, 2014

Dear Ms Lysyk,

Please consider this letter as an urgent formal request for a complete and impartial audit for all matters pertaining to the Green Energy and Green Economy Act, 2009, and its false assertions and negative results for Ontario: these misrepresentations include vigorous job creation, suggested cleaner air space, the ability to create energy facilities, wind and solar, in particular, in a cost savings manner, or competitive manner.

The Green Energy and Green Economy Act has suggested with not a little hyperbole, that it will “spark” growth in “renewables sources in Ontario, while creating savings, and producing 50,000 jobs, direct and indirect,” and “make a positive contribution towards climate change objectives,” whereas in fact the GEA threatens to eviscerate the economy of Ontario and Canada as a whole. The factual results of the GEA are of economic chaos, massive job losses, environmental degradation of the highest order, a decay of our treasured environmental protections in law, and yet uncounted human health and productivity costs.

Under the guise of positive net growth, and climate change objectives, this Act has been used to gouge and tyrannize the province, materially and economically.

We believe that the mandate of the Auditor General to provide access to “value for money” data, within an audit, will provide even more information with respect to the waste and perhaps fraud at the highest levels; consumers are indeed not being provided with fair business practices, but are continually subjected to even more egregious attacks in their daily “energy expensive” lives due to a battered and debt ridden economy.

Jobs continue to leave Ontario. Some are relocating to Buffalo, to save, in one instance, $4 million per year in energy savings, or to Saskatchewan, for example. The bleed of jobs cannot continue, and we believe that an assertive and clear look at the funding and economic threat of the Green Energy Act will bear striking similarities to the international failure of wind power and Green Energy policies. Even information provided years ago by your office and the Fraser Institute did nothing to change the course.

We contend that none of the GEA assertions and projections have proven valid, and have in fact been a major contributor, likely THE major contributor, to the near demise of manufacturing in Ontario, to energy poverty for many Ontarians whose hydro bills have risen 30-40% with promises of more hikes, to the loss of jobs to the USA and western Canada, to the ill health of hundreds of Ontarians, some of whom have been forced to abandon homes, or been bought out by developers, or who reside in parking lots at Walmart, or at cottages, or with relatives. The energy chaos of Ontario now handily competes with that of Spain, Germany, or the UK.

All of this should be and should have been preventable, since the facts are well known. Indeed, the facts of the Green Energy failures of Europe should have been a lesson learned before this Ontario failure of a massive scale. (Ontario now has the unenviable position of having the highest cost of power in North America. The significance of this is not lost on Moody’s Credit Ratings system, with the threat of downgrades to Ontario.) The lessons of Europe have been put before the Legislature, all parties, on many occasions, without benefit or improvement.

The Fraser report of 2013 has already indicated that the assertions of the GEA are egregiously false.

“Already, the GEA has caused major price increases for large energy consumers, and we’re anticipating additional hikes of 40 to 50 per cent over the next few years,” said Ross McKitrick, Fraser Institute senior fellow and author of Environmental and Economic Consequences of Ontario’s Green Energy Act.”

“The Ontario government defends the GEA by referring to a confidential 2005 cost-benefit analysis on reducing air pollution from power plants. That report did not recommend pursuing wind or solar power; instead it looked at conventional pollution control methods which would have yielded the same environmental benefits as the GEA, but at a tenth of the current cost. If the province sticks to its targets for expanding renewables, the GEA will end up being 70 times costlier than the alternative, with no greater benefits.” (News release, April 2013)

The study goes on to indicate that returns to investment in manufacturingare “likely to decline by 29 per cent, mining by 13 per cent, and forestry by less than one per cent.”

Professor McKitrick explains in his report that wind is especially wasteful, as surplus generation occurs generally when demand is low, and the resulting “dumping” also results in net losses to Ontario.

“The Auditor General of Ontario estimates that the province has already lost close to $2 billion on surplus wind exports, and figures from the electricity grid operator show the ongoing losses are $200 million annually”, says the report.

Terrance Corcoran in the Financial Post quotes from the Auditor’s report that the cost of power is estimated to rise again another 46% in the next four years. In his analysis of the Auditor General’s 2011 report on electricity, Mr. Corcoran writes of “wilful negligence” and a “high level of fiscal negligence and abuse of process and disdain for taxpayers and electricity consumers.”

The Fraser report of 2013 has already indicated that the assertions of the GEA are egregiously false.

“Already, the GEA has caused major price increases for large energy consumers, and we’re anticipating additional hikes of 40 to 50 per cent over the next few years,” said Ross McKitrick, Fraser Institute senior fellow and author of Environmental and Economic Consequences of Ontario’s Green Energy Act.”

“The Ontario government defends the GEA by referring to a confidential 2005 cost-benefit analysis on reducing air pollution from power plants. That report did not recommend pursuing wind or solar power; instead it looked at conventional pollution control methods which would have yielded the same environmental benefits as the GEA, but at a tenth of the current cost. If the province sticks to its targets for expanding renewables, the GEA will end up being 70 times costlier than the alternative, with no greater benefits.” (News release, April 2013)

The study goes on to indicate that returns to investment in manufacturing are “likely to decline by 29 per cent, mining by 13 per cent, and forestry by less than one per cent.”

Professor McKitrick explains in his report that wind is especially wasteful, as surplus generation occurs generally when demand is low, and the resulting “dumping” also results in net losses to Ontario.

“The Auditor General of Ontario estimates that the province has already lost close to $2 billion on surplus wind exports, and figures from the electricity grid operator show the ongoing losses are $200 million annually”, says the report.

Terrance Corcoran in the Financial Post quotes from the Auditor’s report that the cost of power is estimated to rise again another 46% in the next four years. In his analysis of the Auditor General’s 2011 report on electricity, Mr. Corcoran writes of “wilful negligence” and a “high level of fiscal negligence and abuse of process and disdain for taxpayers and electricity consumers.”

A prime example of the negative impact on the Ontario jobs situation is reflected in Magna’s (the largest automotive parts manufacturer in Canada) announcement that due to the high cost of electricity in Ontario, it will not make any further investments. (Specifically, for Magna between 2013 and 2014, normal business activities resulted in an increased cost of electricity of 30 million dollars.)

The expressed primary purpose of the 2011 audit was to ensure that the OEB had sufficient and adequate systems in place to protect consumers, ratepayers. As noted also in the report, consumers are protected under the Energy Consumer Protection Act, 2010, and that under this legislation consumers shall be provided with the information they require about contracts, prices, and that they will be protected by fair business practices. This fairness has not been brought to fruition.

And the serial negligence continuing until this day, despite hearty and clear directives from the Fraser Institute and your office, has resulted merely in the advance of even more industrial wind in Ontario under Premier Wynne. Consumers are indeed not being increasingly protected, and continue to be recklessly thrown under the fiscal bus.

What we find most egregious is that the people of Ontario have warned the Premier(s) McGuinty and Wynne, and made reports to the Finance Committee, as well as reporting to these offices the results of energy chaos in Germany, Spain, the UK as well as other European states previously under the spell of “renewables.” (Please note the letter to the Editor, Financial Post, March 3, 2011: “No such thing as renewable energy.”) These abject economic failures in Europe should have provided clear warning of the folly of subsidizing inefficient non base load sources of power, particularly wind turbines.

The government and lobbying association CanWEA’s (Canadian Wind Energy Association) assertion that the wind turbine industry operates safely and without damage to human health is false and must also be examined, since the reports of ill health given to the MOE (Environment) now number in the thousands. The MOE (Ministry of the Environment) has recognized the problem, and admitted in an email obtained from an FOI that they “did not know what to do.” The costs of wind power to our medical system and human productivity have not yet been accounted for.

We remind you that with about 240,000 wind turbines worldwide, we yet only receive one half of one percent, NET ZERO, of our power needs from this source. This industry is a failure, plain and simple; does the build out then have something to do with massive subsidies deep in the pockets of developers? Who is receiving these massive double or quadruple profits?

We would like to see a chart of the major beneficiaries of the FIT program in Ontario. In Spain, the profits have been so tidy, that the Government recently asked for some retroactive repayments, understandably chilling the wind developers’ aspirations. (The lineup of crimes against consumers continues in Ontario: with 86% of Ontario’s wind power being produced on days when we are already in a surplus export mode. Another net loss for consumers is obvious.)

Please also include an environmental impacts costs study in your findings. The extreme damage to water tables, prime farm land, general ecological tragedies and killing of wildlife, has an external cost factor as well, to be borne, sadly, by our future generations.

Mr. Geoffrey Cox, a UK Conservative MP, expressed his disgust for the “gigantic machines” which are terrorizing his country:

“The reality is there is a Klondike-type gold-rush going on in rural areas where developers are anxious to get their applications through to pick up the vast profits that can be made.

“This is having a disruptive, devastating and distressing effect on dozens of small rural communities that are being torn apart by these huge industrial machines that are just yards away from their home.

“The number of applications seems to be going up rather than receding. What is going on is a stealthy, silent revolution of the most beautiful landscapes in Great Britain. “If we carry on we will have ruined this most extraordinary inheritance.”

SNAPSHOT
What we know

  • Industrial wind turbines are inefficient and pitiably useless
  • Industrial wind installations, factories, create energy sprawl and high levels of environmental pollution and toxic waste
  • Industrial wind does not work when we need it to and over performs at times to the extent that developers are sometimes paid to NOT produce
  • Huge subsidies support the industry, without which, the industry does not survive
  • The GEA suppresses all democratic opposition to wind and solar power, and the cards are stacked in favor of preferred accelerated promotion of wind turbines at the expense of Municipal and community cohesion and preferences
  • Massive amounts of base load back up power are always required; there is zero reduction in GHG’s
  • The industry (lobby) gets to sit at the table with policy makers and lay the table for the feast
  • There has been no reasonable or realistic or honest explanation for the massive outlay of wind turbines in Ontario
  • Energy poverty is abundant now in Ontario, along with massive job losses and gutting of the public purse
  • Lessons from Europe are not being acknowledged
  • IS THIS CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE?

We look forward to your prompt reply and a rapid advancement into an impartial audit of these matters in their complete impacts on Ontario, on the economy, and on fairness, or in this case, unfairness, to each consumer and job seeker. It will be extremely useful to untangle some of the Byzantine financial and undemocratic policy arrangements that have led to this “made in Ontario” crisis. We must immediately stop this re-creation of the catastrophic results of Green Energy failures in Europe.

Please conduct an impartial and in depth assessment of all financial matters pertaining to the GEA and relay these findings to the people of Ontario at your earliest convenience. We anticipate that your report might reflect also on the medical costs to Ontario families, the loss of economic vibrancy and stability of rural Ontario which continues to bear the assault fully on its shoulders, the loss of tourism, and the loss of property values, which also contribute to economic stagnancy. Please also conduct a study on a trace of the profits to developers, kWh by kWh, if possible. We have a right to know where our hydro dollars are going.

The high octane waste of the “Green Energy and Green Economy Act”, which has been repeatedly explained to legislators, must cease immediately. It must also be retroactively remediated. Your office has the ability to further outline to the Government not only how it may alter course, but how it must immediately repair.

(We will be writing under separate cover to Commissioner Hawkes, as we fully believe the waste and apparent fraud of the GEA far overpowers the ORNGE, E-Health, and Gas Plant scandals.)

Thanking you in advance,
Sherri Lange
CEO NA-PAW (North American Platform Against Wind Power)
Founding Director Toronto Wind Action
Executive Director Canada, Great Lakes Wind Truth
VP Canada, Save the Eagles International
www.na-paw.org

C.c. Vince Hawkes, Commissioner of the OPP
C.c. Honorable Joe Oliver, MP and Minister of Finance, Canada
C.c. Interested parties

sherriwithwildasterspp

How Much Proof Do The Wind-Pushers Need, Before They Stop Harming Innocent People?

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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.

Corruption In The Wind Industry, Drags Weak People In!

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Texas is not what you think it is–because of politics on energy

Posted on August 19, 2014   by John 1282

I have a person clown senator–Troy Fraser, who was, before he became a well dressed Texas Senator who walks around the State House like Khan, a guy who made pallets–wooden flats for heavy items.

I first met Fraser when he was handing out cards in front of the Walmart, kind of a dumpy guy on the rise. Now he looks like a million bucks, striding around the capitol like a nobleman.

He is a political oligarch and he paid the price–he wrote bill more than 10 years ago that guaranteed we would be dealing with wind turbines in Texas forever, Texas of the Oil industry–but Fraser is owned by the wind turbine hustlers. Beats hustling pallets for sure.

One of Fraser’s projects in the past was creating the nonsense of a set asides. Fraser wrote up–to cater to his wind campaign supporters–a bill requiring that Texas Electricity/Energy Companies set aside 15% of their portfolios of energy production for alternative sources.

Troy Fraser is a well dressed male whore. Simple as that.

And Texas has an immense investment in a stupid idea–wind.

http://environmentblog.ncpa.org/texas-wind-energys-expensive-wait-and-see-experiment/

Wind Power Does Nothing to Help Our Environment! Faux-green…

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How Much CO2 Gets Emitted to Build a Wind Turbine?

August 16, 2014 by  

turbine base

The ONLY justification for wind power – the massive subsidies upon which it entirely depends (see our post here); spiralling power prices (seeour post here); and the suffering caused to neighbours by incessant low-frequency noise and infrasound (see our post here) – is the claim that it reduces CO2 emissions in the electricity sector.

STT has pointed out – just once or twice – that that claim is nothing more than a central, endlessly repeated lie. Because wind power fails to deliver at all hundreds of times each year, 100% of its capacity has to be backed up 100% of the time by fossil fuel generation sources – which run constantly in the background to balance the grid and prevent blackouts when wind power output collapses – as it does on a routine, but unpredictable, basis (see our posts here and here and here and here andhere and here and here and here).

But – even before the blades start spinning – the average wind farm clocks up thousands of tonnes of CO2 emissions: “embedded” in thousands of tonnes of steel and concrete. So, every wind farm starts with its CO2 abatement ledger in the negative.  Here’s Andy’s Rant with a breakdown of just how much CO2 goes to build a giant fan.

So what’s the carbon foot print of a wind turbine with 45 tons of rebar & 481m3 of concrete?
Andy’s Rant
4 August 2014

Its carbon footprint is massive – try 241.85 tons of CO2.

Here’s the breakdown of the CO2 numbers.

To create a 1,000 Kg of pig iron, you start with 1,800 Kg of iron ore, 900 Kg of coking coal 450 Kg of limestone. The blast furnace consumes 4,500 Kg of air. The temperature at the core of the blast furnace reaches nearly 1,600 degrees C (about 3,000 degrees F).

The pig iron is then transferred to the basic oxygen furnace to make steel.

1,350 Kg of CO2 is emitted per 1,000 Kg pig iron produced.

A further 1,460 Kg CO2 is emitted per 1,000 Kg of Steel produced so all up 2,810 Kg CO2 is emitted.

45 tons of rebar (steel) are required so that equals 126.45 tons of CO2 are emitted.

To create a 1,000 Kg of Portland cement, calcium carbonate (60%), silicon (20%), aluminium (10%), iron (10%) and very small amounts of other ingredients are heated in a large kiln to over 1,500 degrees C to convert the raw materials into clinker. The clinker is then interground with other ingredients to produce the final cement product. When cement is mixed with water, sand and gravel forms the rock-like mass know as concrete.

An average of 927 Kg of CO2 is emitted per 1,000 Kg of Portland cement. On average, concrete has 10% cement, with the balance being gravel (41%), sand (25%), water (18%) and air (6%). One cubic metre of concrete weighs approx. 2,400 Kg so approx. 240 Kg of CO2 is emitted for every cubic metre.

481m3 of concrete are required so that equals 115.4 tons of CO2 are emitted.

Now I have not included the emissions of the mining of the raw materials or the transportation of the fabricated materials to the turbine site so the emission calculation above would be on the low end at best.

Extra stats about wind turbines you may not know about:

The average towering wind turbine being installed around beautiful Australia right now is over 80 metres in height (nearly the same height as the pylons on the Sydney Harbour Bridge). The rotor assembly for one turbine – that’s the blades and hub – weighs over 22,000 Kg and the nacelle, which contains the generator components, weighs over 52,000 Kg.

All this stands on a concrete base constructed from 45,000 Kg of reinforcing rebar which also contains over 481 cubic metres of concrete (that’s over 481,000 litres of concrete – about 20% of the volume of an Olympic swimming pool).

Each turbine blade is made of glass fibre reinforced plastics, (GRP), i.e. glass fibre reinforced polyester or epoxy and on average each turbine blade weighs around 7,000 Kg each.

Each turbine has three blades so there’s 21,000 Kgs of GRP and each blade can be as long as 50 metres.

A typical wind farm of 20 turbines can extend over 101 hectares of land (1.01 Km2).

Each and every wind turbine has a magnet made of a metal called neodymium. There are 2,500 Kg of it in each of the behemoths that have just gone up around Australia.

The mining and refining of neodymium is so dirty and toxic – involving repeated boiling in acid, with radioactive thorium as a waste product – that only one country does it – China. (See our posts here and here).

All this for an intermittent highly unreliable energy source.

And I haven’t even considered the manufacture of the thousands of pylons and tens of thousands of kilometres of transmission wire needed to get the power to the grid. And what about the land space needed to house thousands of these bird chomping death machines?

You see, renewables like wind turbines will incur far more carbon dioxide emissions in their manufacture and installation than what their operational life will ever save.

Maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t the “cure” of using wind turbines sound worse than the problem? A bit like amputating your leg to “cure” your in-growing toe nail?

Metal emission stats from page 25 from the 2006 IPCC Chapter 4 Metal Industry Emissions report.

Cement and concrete stats from page 6 & 7 from the 2012 NRMCA Concrete CO2 Fact Sheet.
Andy’s Rant

light-in-darkness

Wind Turbines are Bad for our Health. No More Denying!

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Scotland’s Toxic Shock: Wind Farms Poisoning Neighbours

August 15, 2014 by  

Laurence Well

Some time back, in our post “The Breakout” we talked about just how sick and tired we all are of crippling wind power driven electricity prices, how those unfortunates stuck with giant fans are sick and constantly tired as a result of incessant and debilitating low-frequency turbine noise – and how the world is growing tired of the nauseating stream of wind industry corruption, lies and deceit.

Adverse interference with water tables is just another “wonderful” feature of “eco-friendly” wind farms.  The largest turbines require a steel reinforced concrete base of around 400 m³.

The base itself – depending on the rock strata – for 3MW turbines will be set up to 30 m below the surface and – if the soil is unstable and rock anchors are required – reinforced concrete pillars are drilled up to 90 m below the surface and literally screwed into the rock strata.  In either event, there will be obvious disturbance of – and interference with – underground water or streams percolating underground.

Wind power outfits routinely lie about the impact of their giant fans on groundwater.  One of them – Scottish Power – was caught out in Bonnie Scotland not only poisoning the local inhabitants drinking from their water supply – the water supply it polluted – but lying and obfuscating in classic wind weasel fashion about the harm that it is causing to human health (see our post here).

Since then, the list of environmental havoc caused by wind farms across Scotland has grown to such proportions as to be fairly called an unmitigated ecological disaster. Here’s the Sunday Post cataloging just some of the trail of toxic destruction caused by the roll-out of wind power across the Highlands.

Special Investigation: Toxic wind turbines
Sunday Post
Derek Lambie
23 March 2014

Damning evidence of wind farms polluting the Scottish countryside can today be revealed by The Sunday Post.

Scotland’s environmental watchdog has probed more than 100 incidents involving turbines in just six years, including diesel spills, dirty rivers, blocked drains and excessive noise.

Alarmingly, they also include the contamination of drinking water and the indiscriminate dumping of waste, with warning notices issued to a handful of energy giants.

The revelations come just a week after our investigation showed £1.8 billion in Government subsidies have been awarded to operators to build turbines since Alex Salmond took office in 2007.

Anti-wind farm campaigners yesterday insisted Scotland’s communities are now “under siege” and demanded an independent inquiry into the environmental damage.

Murdo Fraser MSP, convener of Holyrood’s Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, said: “I am both surprised and concerned by the scale of these incidents.

“The fact there were more than 100 complaints is a dismal record.  This should serve as a wake-up call that wind energy is not as clean and green as is being suggested.”  He added: “What’s worse is that the current Scottish Government seems to have an obsession about wind power and the expansion in the number of turbines shows no signs of relenting any time soon.”

Promotion of green energy, particularly the growth of onshore and off-shore wind farms, has been one of the SNP’s key policies since 2007.

The Scottish Government’s target is to generate the equivalent of 100% of the country’s electricity consumption, and 11% of heat demand, from renewables by 2020.

In recent years, ministers have invested heavily in the sector, insisting Scotland has a quarter of all of Europe’s wind energy potential.

But wind power is becoming increasingly unpopular, with giant turbines now scattered across much of the Scottish countryside.

There are now 219 operational wind farms in Scotland, with at least 2,400 turbines between them.

Moray has the most sites, with 20 in operation, while Orkney has the most turbines, with 600 across the archipelago, although the majority are owned by farmers and other individuals.

Now, we can reveal the Scottish Environment Protection Agency has investigated 130 ‘pollution reports’ connected to wind farms or turbines over the past six years. In June 2012, elevated levels of the banned insecticide Dieldrin were found in samples from a private drinking water supply in Aberdeenshire.

A redacted SEPA report, obtained under Freedom of Information, states: “It was noted a wind turbine had recently been erected by the nearby farmer.”

Run-off from the construction of a wind farm near Loch Fyne in February 2012 caused concern that fish had stopped feeding, with SEPA officers discovering a burn was “running brown” and that “a noticeable slick on Loch Fyne was visible”.

In another incident in November 2011, 1,000 litres of oil leaked from a turbine at the Clyde wind farm in Abington, Lanarkshire, resulting in an emergency clean-up operation.

Warning letters have been sent by the environment agency to a number of operators, including Siemens, after another fuel spill at the same 152-turbine site four months later.

A report on that incident states: “Siemens…maintained it was under control. However…operators who then visited the area did not see any action being taken and fuel ponding at the base of the generator”.

A warning was issued to Scottish and Southern Energy in February 2011 after the Tombane burn, near the Griffin wind farm in Perthshire, turned yellow as a result of poor drainage.

The same firm was sent another letter in June that year after SEPA found high levels of silt in a burn near a wind farm in Elvanfoot, Lanarkshire.

Officers also then discovered “significant damage” to 50 metres of land and found “the entire area had been stripped of vegetation” as a result of unauthorized work to divert water.

Other incidents investigated since 2007 include odours, excessive noise from turbines and heavy goods vehicles and the indiscriminate dumping of waste and soil.

Dr John Constable, director of the Renewable Energy Foundation, a charity that publishes data on the energy sector, said: “The new information from SEPA deepens concerns about the corrupting effect of overly generous subsidies to wind power.  Many will wonder whether wind companies are just too busy counting their money to take proper care of the environment.”

Linda Holt, spokeswoman for action group Scotland Against Spin, said: “A lot of environmentalists actually oppose wind farms for reasons like this. If you go to wind farms they are odd, eerie, places that drive away wildlife, never mind people. The idea they are environmentally-friendly is not true — they can be hostile. We have always suspected they can do great harm to the landscape and now we have proof.”

Officials at SEPA stressed not all 130 complaints were found to be a direct result of wind farms, with some caused by “agricultural and human activities” near sites and others still unsubstantiated.

A spokesman added: “While a number of these complaints have been in connection with individual wind farms these are generally during the construction phase of the development and relate to instances of increased silt in watercourses as a result of run-off from the site. SEPA, alongside partner organisations, continues to actively engage with the renewable energy industry to ensure best practice is followed and measures put in place to mitigate against any impact on the local water environment.”

Joss Blamire, senior policy manager at Scottish Renewables, insisted the “biggest threat” to the countryside is climate change and not wind farms.  He added: “Onshore wind projects are subject to rigorous environmental assessments. We work closely with groups, including SEPA, the RSPB and Scottish Natural Heritage to ensure the highest conservation and biodiversity standards are met.”

The revelations come just months after evidence emerged of contamination in the water supply to homes in the shadow of Europe’s largest wind farm.

People living near Whitelee, which has 215 turbines, complained of severe vomiting and diarrhoea with water samples showing high readings of E. Coli and other coliform bacteria.

Tests carried out between May 2010 and April last year by local resident Dr Rachel Connor, a retired clinical radiologist, showed only three out of 36 samples met acceptable standards.

Operators Scottish Power denied causing the pollution, but admitted not warning anyone that drinking water from 10 homes in Ayrshire was, at times, grossly contaminated.

Dr Connor said: “I would expect this likely contamination of drinking water must be happening all over Scotland. If there is not an actual cover-up, then there is probably complacency to the point of negligence by developers and statutory authorities.”
Sunday Post

According to Scottish Renewable’s head spin doctor, Joss Blamire, the real threat to peoples’ health is “climate change”. Try telling that to the Whitelee wind farm’s victims – suffering severe vomiting and diarrhea caused by E. Coli and other coliform bacteria.

Much to the annoyance of the likes of Joss Blamire, Dr Rachel Connor has done precisely what competent and caring medicos do: she’s examined the evidence, analysed the data and concluded that peoples’ health is suffering as a direct result of water contamination caused by wind farms. 

 

Built on subsidies and lies, wrapped in half-truths, peopled by spin doctors, bullies and thugs, and toxic to the point of making people violently ill – the wind industry represents the greatest economic and environmental fraud of all time. This insanity must end now. In Australia, that means an end to the mandatory RET – the largest transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest in the history of the Commonwealth (seeour post here). And all that subsidy and suffering for no measurable environmental benefit.

lies

Wynne’s Liberals Out to Bankrupt Ontario, for No Benefit At All!~

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Achtung, Ontario! Renewables are a money pit

 

Brady Yauch, Special to Financial Post | August 12, 2014 

Germany’s decision to support renewable energy at all costs has, ultimately, cost the country’s ratepayers billions of dollars and led to a doubling of monthly electricity bills over the past decade. So, why is Ontario following Germany's lead?

FotoliaGermany’s decision to support renewable energy at all costs has, ultimately, cost the country’s ratepayers billions of dollars and led to a doubling of monthly electricity bills over the past decade. So, why is Ontario following Germany?

Germany, the model for Ontario’s wind and solar developments, now regrets its spending spree

Germany – the country on which Ontario modelled its approach to renewable energy development – has a $412-billion lesson for Ontario. That’s the amount the country has spent on subsidies in support of solar and wind energy, among other renewables, over the past 20 years, all in the push to wean the country off fossil fuel and nuclear generation.

On the surface – and according to many news sites – the program has been a success, and not just because of the 378,000 people renewables now employ.

By the end of 2012 (the most recent year for data), wind and solar provided about 13% of all German electricity consumption. Adding in hydro and biomass, renewables provided more than 23%. And in May, headline writers around the world proudly trumpeted that renewable energy provided 75% of the country’s total electricity consumption.

But scratch a bit below the surface and an entirely different picture emerges – one with households being pushed into “energy poverty” as renewable subsidies lead to soaring power bills, handouts to the country’s big businesses and exporters so they can avoid paying for those subsidies and a systematic bankrupting of traditional utilities. As for that one day in May when headlines celebrated that 75% of power generation came from renewables, well, it was a Sunday when demand for power is at its lowest level.

Germany’s decision to support renewable energy at all costs has, ultimately, cost the country’s ratepayers billions of dollars and led to a doubling of monthly electricity bills over the past decade. Households now pay the second highest rates for electricity in the EU – second only to Denmark, the world leader in wind turbines. The country’s feed-in tariff program – which offers renewable energy producers a guaranteed rate for their power – has already cost $412-billion, but could, according to one estimate from the former Minister of the Environment Peter, produce an $884-billion price tag by 2022. Germany will hand out $31.1-billion of renewable energy subsidies in this year alone.

The price of electricity paid by German households has increased from 14 cents (euro) per kilowatt hour in 2000 to 29 cents per kilowatt hour last year – marking a 107% increase, while inflation over that time period was about 22%. The biggest reason for that increase is the renewable energy subsidy, which amounted to 1.4% of the total bill when it was first introduced in 2000, but now accounts for 18%. That renewable levy now costs the average household in Germany more than $320 a year.

Rising electricity prices for households ledDer Spiegel, one of the country’s most respected magazines, to warn that electricity was becoming a “luxury good.” More than 300,000 households each year are being left in the dark because they can’t afford electricity.

German households are being hit particularly hard by the cost of renewable subsidies because the country’s largest businesses – many of them exporters and in energy-intensive sectors – have been exempt from paying for them. Regulators and politicians – fearing that that high electricity prices would hurt the economy and result in job losses or plant closures – gave big business a free pass and instead shifted the costs to households.

The renewable subsidies have distorted Germany’s power market to such an extent that traditional utilities are being pushed to the brink of collapse. Electricity generated from solar and wind has no relationship with the market. Because the price the producers receive is guaranteed and is not based on demand, they dump their output whenever it is produced. This glut of power has, at times, pushed the price of wholesale power below zero – meaning the utilities need to pay someone to use it. This has skewed the price to such an extent that traditional generators can’t economically produce power – they simply stop producing when the price goes too low.

While the answer would seem to be to close those uneconomic generators, that’s not possible since renewable energy is intermittent – at times it will produce no power, while at others it will produce too much – and traditional generators are needed to provide a secure, reliable source of power. Utilities are being asked to keep producing power even though the economics of it don’t make sense anymore. To prevent utilities in Germany from pulling out of the business of generation, the government now offers more than billion dollars in “balancing payments” – sometimes 400 times the price of power – to stabilize the grid.

The rise of renewable power has also led to coal making a comeback. The amount of generation from coal actually increased from 43% of all output in 2011 to nearly 45% in 2012. Electricity generation from lignite, a cheaper and dirtier form of coal, has also been on the rise because, according to one Germany utility, it’s the only thing that can compete with subsidized renewable energy.

The energy situation in Germany has become so disruptive and politically untenable that the government has recently done everything it can to pull back on subsidies and other support for renewable energy, much to the dismay of renewable producers that still can’t survive on their own.

Far from being a success, Germany’s rush into renewable energy has crushed households, taxpayers and utilities. Ontario needs a better model.

Brady Yauch is an economist and the executive director of Consumer Policy Institute.

Wind Turbines are “Faux-Green”!

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Opposing wind generators is not anti-green

August 8 2014
By Keith Brier

The intolerance of dissenting views by the Green Lobby is an unpleasant aspect of some of its members. They are perhaps unaware that tolerance of difference is a pillar of democracy and essential to individual freedom. But, whatever the reasons for vitriolic attacks on those against wind generators, environmentalists should take a closer look at Scottish opposition.

The most prominent in Scotland is the Windfarm Action Group. This group firmly states that everyone should take environmental responsibilities seriously. Whatever the causes of global warming and the varying views on what causes it, we must protect our earth and steward it wisely. It accepts a need to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. It wants cleaner, reliable energy. It supports sound scientific solutions with the goal of a cleaner, greener world.

No sane, sensible person can disagree with this. Even the most rabid environmentalist should agree too.

But this green group and 300 others like in Britain, plus another 400 in four EU countries, are against windfarms. They have gone into the subject thoroughly and engineers and scientists back up their conclusions.

To those who accuse them of merely being concerned with their own backyards and not the common good, they say add up our membership and you will find an awful lot of backyards. They are simply against what does not make good sense. They are convinced that wind power:

– Is not a technically legitimate solution.

– Does not meaningfully reduce CO2 emissions.

– Is not a commercially viable source of energy

– Is not environmentally responsible.

They believe there are better solutions to Britain’s energy concerns; solutions that meet scientific, economic, and environmental tests – and they have good reasons.

They point to the massive subsidies that windfarms received initially from the British taxpayer, money that attracts multinational corporations like flies to treacle. These subsidies added to the higher price ordinary British householders pay for their electricity.

This “stealth” tax was considerable. Most consumers were unaware that it was used to make wind-generated economically feasible on the one hand, and to fill the pockets of the manufacturers on the other.

This largess allowed wind-generation companies to make generous payments to landowners for permission to use their land. Such was the temptation that some Welsh farmers trying to raise sheep in arduous and scarcely profitable areas leapt at it.

One told his local newspaper that if it were not for the payments he got, he would have given up farming long ago.

The Wind farm Action Group quotes British government documents that say each wind turbine in Britain still receives an annual subsidy of more than £235 000 (R4.3 million). Britain has about 1 120 turbines in 90 parts of the country.

Among the usual objections to windfarms – they do not work all the time, they are noisy, kill birds and bats, and so on, the group adds a few more. For example, wind generators interfere with radar; dirt and flying insects affect their performance; ice build-up on the propellers affects performance even more; and wind turbulence further reduces their power production.

Finally, there is rust. Britain is a wet place but offshore wind turbines have salt to contend with as well. One Danish offshore wind farm had to be entirely dismantled for repair when it was only 18 months old.

Yes, groups such as these exist almost everywhere there are windfarms. They are often, like this Scottish one, as caring of the environment as anyone, perhaps more so. They are not only concerned with their own backyard; they are concerned about everyone’s backyard.

Yet they say this: “We believe that in time this [windfarms] may well be the greatest environmental disaster that mankind in panic, haste, folly and greed, has ever conceived.”

Britain is an old country and its language is full of folk wisdom like this: “No one ever built a windmill, if he could build a watermill.”

A more modern version of common sense would be: “Using wind power to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is akin to trying to empty the Atlantic Ocean with a teaspoon.”