Government and Wind Industry, Sets Wind Victims Up for Failure.

March 1, 2015 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Ontario families fighting massive legal bill from wind-farm companies

COLIN PERKEL

TORONTO — The Canadian Press

A demand that four Ontario families pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs to billion-dollar companies is a thinly disguised warning to anyone pondering a challenge to industrial wind farms in Ontario, the families say.

In asking the courts to set the legal bill aside, the citizens say the award would cripple them financially and undermine access to justice, even in important public-interest cases.

Court documents show the companies – K2 Wind, Armow, and St. Columban – are seeking $340,000 in costs from the Drennans, Ryans, Dixons and Kroeplins, who lost their bid to scuttle three wind-farm projects.

The families, who worry wind turbines near their homes could harm their health, had challenged the constitutionality of Ontario’s approvals process before Divisional Court. They are now hoping the province’s top court will hear the case, potentially adding more litigation costs.

Shawn Drennan said his $240,000 bill was excessive given that he was only looking to protect his rights.

“We will have to go to the bank and beg and ask if we can borrow more money to pay their costs and it will be a significant burden on my wife and I,” Shawn Drennan told The Canadian Press. “My wife already works two jobs.”

Lawyer Julian Falconer, who represents the families, called the wind companies “blood-sucking, intimidating bullies.”

“It’s not just a bar to justice, it’s actually a terror tactic,” Falconer said in an interview.

“This is not about money. The idea is to send a message: ‘We will wipe you out if you challenge us.’”

The companies say the high-stakes court challenge forced them to deploy considerable legal resources to defend projects they say are safe.

“While the appellants were entitled to bring their litigation, their decision to do so had significant consequences,” St. Columban argues in its court filing.

“There must be an appreciation of the real disruption, and real cost, suffered by the adverse party.”

Generally speaking and as a matter of fairness, the losing side in civil proceedings has to pay the legal bills incurred by the winning side.

K2, which is putting up 140 turbines, some of which are about 750 metres from the Drennans’ home near Goderich, Ont., says the families knew the risks of losing.

In addition, the failed bid to halt construction pending outcome of their court battle was unnecessary and should “never have been brought,” K2 says in its submissions.

The families argue they raised an important and novel constitutional issue that is squarely in the public interest given the reasonable prospect of serious harm to the health of citizens. They also say they did not stand to benefit financially.

The companies reject that argument. They maintain the families were indeed fighting a personal battle, do have the means to pay, and say the case was in fact contrary to the public interest because the challenge delayed government-approved green-energy projects.

For the families, it’s become a case of “lose your home to save your home,” they say.

“By simply exercising their right to access to the courts, the appellant families now face the disheartening prospect of financial ruin,” their submission states.

“When, as in this particular case, the consequence of that access becomes crippling financial loss, ‘access to justice’ becomes a meaningless platitude.”

Aussie Wind Turbine Hosts to tell the Truth About Useless Wind Turbines!

March 1, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Turbine Hosts Line Up to Tip a Bucket on Wind Power Outfits, as Senate Submissions Deadline Extended to 23 March 2015

March 1, 2015 by stopthesethings

The Australian Senate is about to rip into the greatest fraud of all time, with a Select Committee Inquiry into wind farms. Chaired by Victorian Senator, John Madigan, and set to kick off in March, it will operate under wide-ranging terms of reference, as its brief says:

(1) That a select committee, to be known as the Select Committee onWind Turbines be established to inquire into and report on the application of regulatory governance and economic impact of wind turbines by 24 June 2015, with particular reference to:

(a) the effect on household power prices, particularly households which receive no benefit from rooftop solar panels, and the merits of consumer subsidies for operators;

(b) how effective the Clean Energy Regulator is in performing its legislative responsibilities and whether there is a need to broaden those responsibilities;

(c) the role and capacity of the National Health and MedicalResearch Council in providing guidance to state and territory authorities;

(d) the implementation of planning processes in relation to wind farms, including the level of information available to prospective wind farm hosts;

(e) the adequacy of monitoring and compliance governance of wind farms;

(f) the application and integrity of national wind farm guidelines;

(g) the effect that wind towers have on fauna and aerial operations around turbines, including firefighting and crop management;

(h) the energy and emission input and output equations from whole-of-life operation of wind turbines; and

(i) any related matter.

Last week, the deadline for submissions to the Inquiry was extended to 23 March 2015 (for more information see Parliament’s website here).

So, if you’re still working on your submissions, take your time to polish them up; if you have already submitted, but have something to add, drop in a supplementary submission; and, if you haven’t started, then there’s no time like the present to get cracking.

For some inspiration see our posts here:

Three Decades of Wind Industry Deception: A Chronology of a Global Conspiracy of Silence and Subterfuge

Pacific Hydro’s “Monumental Own Goal”: Or How Steven Cooper’s Wind Farm Study Helps Sink the Wind Industry

Steven Cooper’s Cape Bridgewater Wind Farm Study the Beginning of the End for the Wind Industry

More Wind Turbine Terror: Blades Thrown to the Four-Winds in Ireland

“Unscheduled” Wind Farm Shut-Down Shows Low-Frequency Noise Impact at Waterloo, SA

BUSHFIRE RED ALERT: Wind Power Really Is Setting the World on FIRE

Victoria’s Wind Rush sees 34,000 Households Chopped from the Power Grid

Why Intermittent Wind Power Increases CO2 Emissions in the Electricity Sector

As to the Inquiry, term of reference 1(d) opens the door to an issue that the wind industry dreads most, and works its hardest to suppress.

Since STT popped up this little post – Unwilling Turbine Hosts Set to Revolt, as NSW Planning Minister – Pru Goward – Slams Spanish Fan Plans at Yass – the number of very angry turbine hosts (ie, those farmers contracted with wind power outfits to permit them to spear giant fans all over their properties) presenting themselves to the Senators sitting on the Inquiry, is growing by the day.

Their fast-filling ranks include those with turbines which have been operating (in some cases, for many years), as well as those desperately hoping to avoid that prospect altogether.

STT hears that these people – many from New South Wales, South Australia, as well as Victoria – have had, as Australians say “a gutful” of the deception, thuggery and bullying dished out by the goons employed by wind power outfits, such as Infigen (see our post here) and RATCH (see our posts here and here and here). No surprises there.

After years of being shunned by former friends and neighbours for introducing turbines into their communities (or signing up for that to happen in future), many turbine hosts are keen to wind the clock back and make amends. Community division, angry former friends and hostile neighbours are just one aspect of what’s encouraging actual and potential turbine hosts to speak to the Senators involved in the Inquiry. For a taste of what real farmers, from real communities, think about wind farms, check out this cracking little video:

****

One of the constant threats made by wind power outfits, is that if their actual or potential turbine hosts were to utter so much as a “peep” about the company’s malfeasance and misconduct, they will be breaching the Draconian confidentiality provisions of their contracts.

These threats have, until now, fuelled fears by turbine hosts that have usually prevented them from speaking to anyone; let alone in a public forum, such as a Senate Inquiry.

Fortunately, there can be no right of action for a breach of confidentiality agreements against anybody giving evidence (whether in the form of documents or oral evidence) to their Parliament. Indeed, it’s been that way since 1688. In relation to a previous Senate Inquiry into wind farms and confidentiality agreements, the Clerk of the Senate, Rosemary Laing gave this advice:

I understand that there have been inquiries from potential witnesses who have signed confidentiality agreements with the wind farm operators and who are concerned to establish whether their evidence to the committee would be protected by parliamentary privilege.

The short answer to this question is yes. Section 16 of the Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987 reasserts the application of Article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1688 to parliamentary proceedings and then goes on to explain what those proceedings include. Article 9 provides that the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place outside Parliament. The effect of this protection is that no action can be taken against any person on the basis of proceedings in Parliament and their participation in such proceedings is immune from suit in any court or tribunal. Examples are protected proceedings under section 16(2) of the Privileges Act include:

the giving of evidence to a committee, and the evidence so given;
the presentation or submission of a document to a committee; and
the preparation of a document for the purposes of or incidental to the transacting of any such business.

If a person who is covered by a confidentiality provision in an agreement gave evidence to a parliamentary committee about the contents of that agreement, they could not be sued for breaching the confidentiality agreement. Furthermore, if they were subject to any penalty, threat or intimidation as a consequence of their having given evidence to a committee, Privilege Resolution 1(18) provides that a committee must enquire into the circumstances, ascertain the facts and, if those facts disclosed that a person may have been improperly influenced or subject to or threatened with penalty or injury in respect of the evidence, the committee shall report the matter to the Senate. The Senate may then deal with the matter as a potential contempt which may attract penalties including fines and imprisonment. The action may also be prosecuted as an offence under section 12 of the Privileges Act.

The full advice is available here.

So, for those farmers keen to help put things right in this fine Country of ours, you can feel assured that your Senators will protect you. Not only are you completely free to tell your Parliament about how you have been mistreated, lied to etc; if you face any further thuggery, threats or bullying (whether from lawyers or otherwise), those dishing it out will be squarely in the gun for prosecution for contempt of Parliament.

If you have any questions then STT suggests that you speak direct to the offices of Senators John Madigan, Chris Back, or David Leyonhjelm, whose friendly staff will happily guide you through the process. To contact their offices direct call: (03) 5331 2321 (for Senator Madigan); (089) 414 7288 (for Senator Back); and (02) 9719 1078 (for Senator Leyonhjelm).

No-one has to put up with the wind industry’s lies, treachery and deceit. Last time we looked, Australia was a place where people could speak openly and freely to anyone they liked; our elected representatives included.

For turbine hosts (actual and potential), this Inquiry may be the first and last time you will be able to speak openly in public; and with complete immunity.

As a disgruntled host, you will, however, not only be keen to tip a bucket on just how rotten this industry is, you will also be looking to extricate yourself from contracts that will well and truly outlive you; and continue to vex your children and grandchildren, for a generation or more.

Contracts will be set aside in precisely the circumstances in which you were misled by the developer into entering your contract in the first place.

A representation of a material fact made by a party offering a contract to another party in order to induce them to enter into that contract, which has that effect, and is a false statement, is a misrepresentation. To be actionable, the misrepresentation need only to have induced the contract and does not have to be a central or even important inducement.

Under section 52 of the Trade Practices Act (now see Chapter 2, Part 2-1 of the Australian Consumer Law) contracts will be set aside for misleading and deceptive conduct. This includes the situation where a person offering a contract makes representations (which are untrue at the time they are made) to the other party, which are relied on, and induce that party to enter a contract.

Under both the common law and the TPA and ACL the failure to disclose important facts will amount to a misrepresentation and/or misleading conduct; especially where the facts, if disclosed, would have resulted in a reasonable person in your position refusing to enter the contract being offered. And even more so, where you have asked specific questions about important facts and the developer has said nothing: eg, “are wind turbines noisy?”; or simply lied, by answering “no”. (click here for a discussion of what amounts to misleading and decepetive conduct by silence).

Pursuing your lawful right to have your contract set aside for misrepresentation and/or misleading and deceptive conduct will require some competent legal advice from hard-hitting commercial lawyers, with litigation experience; and, perhaps, a trip to a court of competent jurisdiction.

As to actions against developers pursued by turbine hosts, see our post here.

For friends and neighbours of turbine hosts, this is an opportunity to help people who were duped by a pack of lying hounds into entering contracts which will last for 75 years; destroy everybody’s ability to live in, use and enjoy their homes for miles around – including the hosts and their families; and, under which, the turbine hosts receive a piddling $10,000-$15,000 a year, for a turbine that will receive upwards of $800,000 a year in REC subsidies, alone (see our post here).

As the nervous preacher (always in fear of an actual response) says at weddings, “speak now, or forever hold your peace”.

Wind Proponents Fight To Conceal the Truth About Wind Turbines!

February 27, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

ABC’s “Ministry of Truth” – Media Watch – Cops Both Barrels from Graham Lloyd

February 27, 2015 by stopthesethings

In response to the Media Watch report about The Australian’s coverage of wind farms
The Australian
Graham Lloyd
23 February 2015

THE Media Watch report of February 16 (“Turbine torture: do wind farms make you sick?”) is littered with mistakes, omissions and misrepresentations from the opening scenes.

The program represents blatant advocacy for commercial interests over the widespread concerns of a genuine minority group who deserve thorough investigation of their complaints.

The Australian provided balanced, factual reporting of a national issue of public interest where Media Watch indulged in what amounts to littlemore than ad hominem, ideological propaganda.

The Media Watch program misrepresented the National Health and Medical Research Council position that the quality of existing research into the possible health impacts of wind turbines is poor and that it will fund more high quality research.

NHMRC chief executive Warwick Anderson said “it is important to say no consistent evidence does not necessarily mean no effect on human health.”

Media Watch selectively quoted Cape Bridgewater report author Steven Cooper to give the impression that he rejected certain things when in fact he was simply not professionally qualified to make comment on them.

Media Watch failed to acknowledge that Mr Cooper had said publicly that at all times The Australian’s reporting had been accurate and faithful to the contents of his Cape Bridgewater report. This fact has been confirmed to Media Watch by other suitably qualified acousticians.

Media Watch failed to report information it had received from US acoustics expert Dr Rob Rand that ran counter to its predetermined view.

The Australian published concerns raised by Pacific Hydro and wind industry groups about the Cooper report.

It also published praise for the robust nature of Cooper’s work and the significance of his findings from some of the most qualified and eminent acoustics experts in the world.

At no time did The Australian offer an opinion on the issue.

In contrast, Media Watch relied on wind industry advocates in academia including social scientists, political studies academics and a medical expert witness employed by wind developers to ascribe the symptoms to the now discredited “nocebo effect”.

Media Watch sought to mischievously discredit The Australian’s reporting with a series of factual inaccuracies and through sins of omission.

The Media Watch report failed to detail or report the existence of formal studies and inquiries which run counter to its pre-determined view and glossed over the peer review support the Cooper report received from some of the world’s most qualified acoustic experts..

It ignored the findings of the 2011 Federal Senate Inquiry chaired by Greens Senator Rachel Siewert, which found proper research into the impact of wind turbines on nearby residents should be undertaken as a matter of urgency.

Media Watch quoted studies that supported its case but failed to acknowledge the fact that the impact of low frequency noise generated by early model turbines had been linked to the exact same symptoms as those being reported today more than 30 years ago in research conducted for the renewable energy industry by NASA.

Media Watch failed to acknowledge any of the balancing quotes and arguments contained within The Australian’s reporting of the issue.

Media Watch did not bother to contact Channel 7.

Here is a line by line dissection of the Media Watch report.

*****************

MW transcript:

Presenter: Tonight, for the first time, hard evidence wind farms aren’t safe.

Today Tonight voiceover: They were told they were blowing in the wind, that it was all in their heads.

Interviewee: I’m not telling furphies, it’s real, we can feel it.

— Channel Seven, Today Tonight, 21st January, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

His name is David Mortimer, and he is a wind turbine host at InfigenEnergy’s Lake Bonney Wind Farm in South Australia who says he become unwell with characteristic symptoms of “wind turbine syndrome” soon after getting the turbines but didn’t know until very recently what was causing the symptoms.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: Yes, as TT told us recently, those wind turbines are so bad that even the chickens get flustered.

■ The Australian’s response

No, animals become physiologically stressed when exposed to wind turbine noise (eg the Taiwanese goats who died, reported by the BBC, confirmed by the goat farmer and the Taiwanese Agricultural authorities. STRESSED chickens lay yolkless eggs — an observation also made in Britain by residents living near an airfield where bombers took off from — the excessive noise had the same impact on those chickens many years ago.

———————–

MW transcript:

Today Tonight voiceover: Even the chooks appeared spooked by something.

Interviewee: “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. That’s not normal.”

— Channel Seven, Today Tonight, 21st January, 2015

Paul Barry: That TT footage on a wind farm in South Australia first got a run some two and a half years ago.

So why has it just popped up again?

Well, for much the same reason that radio hosts also went into a spin late last month:

ALAN JONES: “Now, it’s a headline today and it’s been called a world first study.”

— 2GB, The Alan Jones Breakfast Show, 21st January, 2015

TIM BENNETT: “Probably the biggest story today … is this front page on The Australian.”

— ABC 639 North and West SA, Mornings with Tim Bennett (fill in presenter), 21st January, 2015

ROSS STEVENSON: “Front page of The Australian has an exclusive story that people living near wind farms face a greater risk of suffering health complaints …”

— 3AW, Breakfast with Ross and John, 21st January, 2015

Paul Barry: Back in January The Australian headed its front page with an exclusive from Environment Editor Graham Lloyd, who told us excitedly in his opening paragraph:

“PEOPLE living near wind farms face a greater risk of suffering health complaints caused by the low-frequency noise generated by turbines, a groundbreaking study has found.”

— The Australian, 21st January, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

A statement issued by residents living near the Cape Bridgewater wind farm said; “Steven Cooper’s acoustic survey connects infrasound from wind turbines inside our homes with unacceptable health impacts.”

The Acoustic Group’s Principal, Mr Steven Cooper, was commissioned by wind developer Pacific Hydro to undertake an investigation into “noise” emitted from the wind farm as a result of our long unresolved complaints about the impact of Pacific Hydro’s Cape Bridgewater wind turbines on our health, on the habitability of our homes and on the quality of our lives. Symptoms we have experienced include severe nausea, headaches, ear pressure, inability to concentrate, and severe and debilitating sleep problems, which we have endured over the six years of operation of the Cape Bridgewater wind power facility.

The inclusion of complete shut-downs in the study clearly showed the wind farm generates specific infrasound frequencies that are directly related to the operation of the turbines.

Our diaries and the concurrent full spectrum acoustic measurements inside and outside our homes clearly demonstrate that it is the operation of the wind facility correlating with our symptoms.

The assertions made by others that our symptoms result from scaremongering (the nocebo effect) are untrue, and always have been. The inclusion of complete shut-down periods of the wind facility during the investigation reminded us of the general peace, serenity and wellbeing of our lives before the wind facility started operating.

The Cooper study was reviewed by well qualified acoustics experts.

Dr Bob Thorne, a psycho-acoustician who is also qualified to assess health impacts from noise and is considered an expert witness in court. Dr Thorne said in a written statement that the Cooper report was “ground breaking” and had made a “unique contribution to science”.

“At 235 pages for the report and six technical annexures (491 pages) the study cannot be matched by any previous wind farm study in Australia,” Dr Thorne said.

US acoustics expert Robert Rand said in a peer review of the Cooper Study;

“The correlation of sensation level to WTS tone level in the infrasonic and audible bands brings wind turbine acoustics right to the door of medical science. Medical tests in the homes, long overdue, can now be correlated directly to WTS.”

The study found that sensations including sleep disturbance were occurring with specific acoustic conditions. Those sensations included other symptoms such as nausea, headaches, and sensations of pressure. Sleep deprivation alone is an adverse health effect. Mr Cooper is not a medical practitioner and so cannot say it was a health study, but no medical practitioner would say that sleep deprivation or disturbance does not have adverse health effects if it is happening repeatedly …. so with the sleep deprivation alone there is going to be a greater risk of suffering health problems.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: Mr Lloyd has been worried about wind farms for some time — and those yolkless eggs — so was he right to claim he’d at last found evidence that they damage your health?

■ The Australian’s response

This is a significant issue of widespread public interest involving the duty of care towards a minority group of citizens. Some residents claim they have been forced to abandon their homes. In this case, The Australian was faithfully reporting the findings of a report released publicly by Pacific Hydro and Steven Cooper and accompanying statements by residents both verbally and in writing. Steven Cooper has confirmed The Australian’s report to be accurate in all respects with regard to his report. International acoustic experts have confirmed the study demonstrates a cause and effect exists between sensations experienced by residents and the operation of the wind turbines. The Australian report included comments from Pacific Hydro that it did not accept a cause and effect relationship had been established.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: Well, not according to several eminent scientists we talked to. And, remarkably, not according to Steven Cooper, the study’s author, who told Media Watch:

Steven Cooper: “No, it’s not correct … You can’t say that noise affects health from this study.”

— Steven Cooper, Acoustic Engineer, 28th January, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

Cooper can’t say that, but the residents had already said it as had their treating doctors — all of the residents have been told by treating health practitioners to leave their homes in order to regain their health. Mr Cooper has said he had been quoted faithfully and his report treated fairly by The Australian in all regards.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: So what did Mr Cooper think about Today Tonight’s claims that he had provided the first hard evidence that wind farms are unsafe?

Well, no again.

Steven Cooper: “Absolutely not, that’s incorrect.”

— Steven Cooper, Acoustic Engineer, 28th January, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

In fact, the first hard evidence was provided by Dr Neil Kelley and his team at NASA thirty years ago, who found that sleep disturbance and other symptoms and sensations were directly caused by wind turbine generated impulsive infrasound and low frequency noise. His finding led to a change in wind turbine design. More recently, British Acoustician and National Health and Medical Research Council Expert Reviewer for the 2011 NHMRC Rapid Review Professor Geoffrey Leventhall told the NHMRC workshop in 2011 that “annoyance symptoms’’ or “noise annoyance” symptoms were identical to “wind turbine syndrome” symptoms described by US Paediatric Specialist and researcher Dr Nina Pierpont. Media Watch’s academic commentator Simon Chapman was in the room when he said it.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: The company that commissioned the study, Pacific Hydro says it was not a scientific study, and not a health study, and does not show that wind farms are causing health complaints.

And asked on ABC Radio about this, Mr Cooper agreed.

Steven Cooper: “Pacific Hydro are correct that we don’t have a correlation in terms of medical and I agree with that 100 per cent.”

— ABC Ballarat, Mornings with Anne-Marie Middlemast, 21st January, 2015

Paul Barry: So how come The Australian and Today Tonight got it so wrong.

The head of medicine at Adelaide University, Professor Gary Wittert, told Media Watch:

Professor Gary Wittert: “The way The Australian reported this study was really the antithesis of good science reporting. I think a newspaper like The Australian should know better.”

— Professor Gary Wittert, Head of Medicine, The University of Adelaide, 6th February, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

Mr Cooper has said that Lloyd’s reporting was accurate. The residents were reporting sensations including sleep deprivation, nausea and headaches. Does Professor Wittert consider that these sensations are not adverse health effects? And that chronic sleep deprivation does not itself cause long term health problems? Has he actually read the acoustic investigation and does he understand what was found?

———————–

MW transcript:

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: So what exactly is wrong with the study and why should it not have been headline news? Well, first, it was not published in an academic journal* or peer reviewed by independent experts**.

■ The Australian’s response

*Oh, if something is not published in a journal it is not good science? Well what about PhD’s??? They are not published in journals? Are they not “science”?

■ The Australian’s response

ABC experts are conflicted, Wittert and Chapman have a history of working closely with the wind industry to protect its commercial interests, either as expert witness in court cases or to push the now disproved nocebo effect as the cause for the resident’s “sensations” which in Cooper’s study correlated with specific acoustic emissions — powering up and powering down.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: Indeed, in Professor Chapman’s view:

Simon Chapman: “The media should have treated this with absolute contempt.”

— Professor Simon Chapman, School of Public Health, University of Sydney, 23rd January, 2015

Paul Barry: Now there’s no doubt that some people living close to wind farms have health problems.

And they believe that the wind farms are the cause.

But as The Conversation reminded us … a recent study in the British Medical Journal found they are not alone in having these health complaints.

“… almost 90% of the general population experienced many of the common symptoms associated with wind turbine syndrome within a given week.”

— The Conversation, 22nd January, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

The BMJ article and Grant and Hoepner and Chapman and others ignore the cross over effect — when residents are exposed, they have symptoms and when they are not exposed, they do not have those symptoms and sensations. The Australian has written advice from a professor of epidemiology that the study could be classified as a small cross over trial.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: Much of the debate turns on whether there’s something special about the noise from wind farms that makes them harmful to health … even if the noise is below health limits.

■ The Australian’s response

Just what do Media Watch mean by “below health limits”? The Australian has been advised that Kelley established those health limits thirty years ago in the NASA trials and Cooper’s results were almost identical. Above 50 dB at 4 Hz people who are sensitised to the sound energy experience and report unpleasant sensations.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: The study’s author Steven Cooper has long believed there is … and that it’s called infrasound.

■ The Australian’s response

Cooper is not the only one. Broner, the only acoustic expert on the NHMRC committee also believed it on the basis of empirical evidence in a paper delivered to the 2007 International Acoustics Congress in Madrid, “The missing 16 Hz, Can We Live With It?”

Abstract:

“As the need for power increases, power utilities are resorting to the use of peaking plants incorporating Open Cycle Gas Turbines. OCGT manufacturers generally supply noise data for these down to the 31.5 Hz octave band. However, most of these units also generate significant energy in the 16 Hz octave band. Both of these bands need to be considered when assessing potential noise impact on neighbouring residential communities.”

———————–

MW transcript:

Steven Cooper: “Infrasound is energy that appears in the spectrum below what the human ear can normally hear.”

— Channel Seven, Today Tonight, 4th June, 2012

Paul Barry: Infrasound, says Cooper, interferes with our sleep and our brain patterns.

And he says his latest study suggests … sensations people feel near wind farms … may be caused by the infrasound the turbines produce.

THIS IS NOT TRUE. Many of the reviews Chapman cites state that there is not a lot of scientific evidence. NONE of them say they are SAFE. The National Health and Medical Research Council recently reviewed 4000 pieces of literature and found only 13 were suitable for evaluation and none could be considered high quality. As a result it said the impact of wind turbines on health remained an open scientific question and that it would call for targeted, high quality research. A priority area is low frequency and infrasound.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: Indeed, last week, the government’s National Health and Medical Research Council published the results of its review of seven studies of wind farms and health.

And the NHMRC came to the conclusion that:

“There is no consistent* evidence that noise from wind turbines … is associated with self-reported human health effects.”**

— National Health and Medical Research Council, Systematic review of the human health effects of wind farms, 11 February, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

*The NHMRC cannot and did not say there is NO evidence of adverse health effects, because they know that is untrue. In other words, Professor Chapman’s assertions that wind turbines are safe is not supported by the NHMRC’s statement, or by the existing scientific evidence.

“Given the poor quality of current direct evidence and the concern expressed by some members of the community, high quality research into possible health effects of wind farm, particularly within 1500 metres is warranted,” the NHMRC statement said.

NHMRC chief executive Warwick Anderson said “It is important to say no consistent evidence does not necessarily mean no effect on human health.’’

“From a scientific perspective I see the question as still open,” he said.

Professor Bruce Armstrong, chair of the NHMRC’s wind farm committee said “to not investigate would be negligent from a public health point of view.” Dr Armstrong said research into low frequency and infrasound was an important priority “because it is what people who are concerned about health impacts focus on and it is not something that has been done particularly well to date.”

— The Weekend Australian, 14-15 February, 2015

Paul Barry: That so-called groundbreaking research was the Cooper study … again.

The one that Professor Chapman* describes as an atrocious piece of research and other experts** assure us is bad science.

■ The Australian’s response

*Chapman, the Tobacco Advertising Propaganda Expert, sociologist, and wind industry advocate.

**No, not EXPERTS. Hand selected advocates for the wind industry carefully chosen by the ABC, for the wind industry who do not have any research qualifications or experience in directly investigating the circumstances of the sick people. ANU PhD candidate and journalist, Jacqui Hoepner, and her supervisor, Will Grant, who describes himself as “a talker, writer, thinker and reader, based primarily at the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science at ANU. His talking / writing / thinking / reading has focused mostly on the intersection of science, politics and society, and how this is changing in response to new technologies.”

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: And the expert quoted in this ‘peer’ review was an American scientist who has long agreed with Mr Cooper’s theories.

■ The Australian’s response

No, “the scientist” was two very eminent acousticians, one of whom has spent most of his life consulting to and for the WIND INDUSTRY (Hessler) and the other is the leading environmental acoustics researcher in the world — and DIRECTOR of ACOUSTICS Standards and chair of the American delegation to the International Standards Committee. Dr Schomer has not “long agreed with Mr Cooper’s theories” — he and four other acousticians including three who work almost exclusively for the wind industry (Bruce Walker, George and David Hessler) conducted the research at the Shirley Wind Farm reported in December 2012 which measured the full spectrum of sound inside and outside homes and came to the conclusion that infrasound and low frequency noise were an issue and that they could affect the future of the wind industry.

Peer reviewers Schomer and Hessler both completely understood the value of what Cooper had done and came out strongly because it is indeed Cause and Effect. People did NOT get the symptoms when the turbines were not turning but did get symptoms when they were turning. There was an exception for one resident who is extremely sensitised AND there were wind gusts which shook the towers, induced vibrations which she could feel, even though she could not see the towers.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: But let’s go back to what Cooper himself told the ABC about how groundbreaking this research is.

Asked about whether he has found a correlation between infrasound and headaches or other sensations of which people were complaining he said:

Steven Cooper: “I don’t have enough data to say a correlation. The study is limited, it’s a pilot study and there’s a trend line that’s very clear. Correlation needs a lot more scientific rigour with a larger population to come up with the answer.”

— ABC Ballarat, Mornings with Anne-Marie Middlemast, 21st January, 2015

■ The Australian’s response

Cooper was being deliberately very conservative. In a written response to The Australian, prior to the Media Watch episode Mr Cooper said “The study does show a link between the operation of the wind farm and the disturbances reported by the residents. There is a trend not a correlation (because there is not enough data and that wasn’t the brief) However, one can take the reports of the residents who form the view there is a link to their health impacts.”

Lloyd has met and interviewed residents who have explained the “disturbances” they have experienced and are in no doubt that they consider them to be health impacts, some have even been advised by their medical practitioners to leave their homes as a result. Their concerns about health impacts and understanding of what Cooper had found were expressed in a media statement of which Media Watch was or should have been fully aware.

———————–

MW transcript:

Paul Barry: Now … The Australian has sent us a long statement defending its original coverage which we’d encourage you to read on our website. But its key point is:

“… The Australian believes this is clearly an issue of significant public interest, worthy of presentation on page one and of extensive investigation and further reporting.”

— Clive Mathieson, Editor, The Australian, 8th February, 2015

Paul Barry: Well, we’d certainly agree that more work needs to be done.

But we believe The Australian needs to get its facts right, and to approach it in a more scientific and objective fashion.

■ The Australian’s response

No, the ABC needs to follow its own advice and “get its facts right, and approach it in a more scientific and objective fashion”. It Is also about time the ABC started accurately identifying conflicts of interest in its “experts” and stopped putting pre-recorded programs to air which refer to vulnerable and sick rural residents as “DICK BRAINS” — Annabel Crabb on the science show, aired by Robin Williams in January 2015.
The Australian

Lies the Windweasels tell…..And there are many years of deception!

February 22, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Three Decades of Wind Industry Deception: A Chronology of a Global Conspiracy of Silence and Subterfuge

February 22, 2015 by stopthesethings 2 Comments

A little while back, a Scottish pen-smith posed a little rhetorical on the subtle art of skulduggery:

Oh, what a tangled web we weave

When first we practise to deceive!

There have been few industries that have had more practice, and as much success, in that subtle art, as the wind industry.

STT has popped up 880 posts in the, just over, two years since we cranked into gear – on our mission to destroy the wind industry.

A fair slice of them have concerned the topic of the adverse health effects caused by turbine generated incessant low-frequency noise and infrasound; the woefully inadequate, indeed, utterly irrelevant noise standards written by the wind industry; and the institutional corruption that:

a) allowed those standards to become the “benchmarks” in the first place; and

b) witnesses public authorities, with a responsibility to protect public health, not only sitting on their hands, but barracking in favour of the wind industry, at the expense of the very people these planning and public health agencies and authorities are paid handsomely to protect.

In this post, STT sets out a chronology of what the wind industry and its pet acoustic consultants knew (and when they knew it); what the wind industry did in response to that knowledge; and how the wind industry and its parasites are fighting tooth and nail at present to ensure that that knowledge has no impact on its freedom to ride roughshod over the human rights, health and well-being of people living next door to wind farms.

The chronology is set out as a timeline, which can be accessed by clicking on this link here or the image below.

Each page of the timeline gives a short run down of significant events (a headline and brief summary); contains images of key data or pages extracted from research papers referred to; some of those images are copies of the entire paper being referred to – these documents can be accessed for reading and printing by dragging your mouse over the image and clicking on the “pop out” window at the top right of the image (you will see a scroll-bar on those where a paper is reproduced). Below the images you will find links to papers, webpages, including the sources referenced and STT posts, for example (if the link does not work, simply copy and paste the URL into a fresh tab in your browser).

At the bottom of the timeline, there is a banner collecting all of the relevant events (you will probably need to scroll down to see it) which you can use to see all of the events in order: simply hold down your mouse and drag the banner left or right; to access any of the events summarised in the banner, simply click on it.

Alternatively, you can use the arrows on the far left or right of the screen (they appear about half-way up each page of the timeline) to move forward or backwards in time.

The NASA Research

Starting in the early 1980s, a decade’s worth of research was undertaken by NASA into a series of large wind turbines (then being developed by NASA), which included a stellar cast of physicists, meteorologists, geophysicists, seismologists, engineers (both mechanical and acoustic), and psycho-acousticians. Part of that research involved a multidisciplinary effort to identify the causes of complaints made by neighbours in relation to the operation of those turbines: we refer to it as “the NASA research”, which also included work carried out by Neil Kelley.

Some of the key findings of the NASA research into the neighbours’ complaints were that:

“very low frequency” noise generated by NASA’s turbines (which was defined to include “infrasound”) was the cause of the “annoyance” reported by neighbours (“annoyance” being an acoustics term which does not involve emotional responses – ie “antipathy” to the “look” of wind turbines);

the “annoyance” being reported by neighbours included numerous physiological responses, which were described as “sensations”. These “sensations”, which they felt rather than heard, were sensations of “pressure”, “a sense of uneasiness”, “booming or thumping pulsations”. These sensations were at their worst in the bedrooms where they were trying to sleep;

the “very low frequency” noise generated by turbines interacted with, and was amplified by, the complainant’s homes, creating “structural resonances”, whereby low-frequency sound-waves “excited” materials within the home, causing vibration of the home;

the “very low frequency noise” generated by turbines was not “attenuated” by the structure of the homes (ie, sound pressure levels were not significantly reduced inside homes), but, rather, interacted with homes in the manner described above – resulting in higher sound pressure levels at very low frequencies (ie the noise levels recorded were higher inside than outside), causing greater “annoyance” to neighbours, as a result;

the vibration of these homes, caused by turbine generated infrasound, resulted in neighbours perceiving that vibration with their whole bodies (ie “whole body perception”);

the very low-frequency noise generated by NASA’s turbines was replicated in a “house” (a three room structure) during a further study; and was shown to cause “annoyance/displeasure” as a “presence” which participants could “feel” to varying degrees, up to “extremely annoying and uncomfortable”; sensations of “vibration/pressure” and “pulsations”, which participants could also “feel” to varying degrees, up to and including “severe vibration” and “very heavy pulses, booms and thumps”;

the common noise descriptor or weighting, dB(A) (used to measure noise sources such as air-conditioners) was found to be totally inadequate, with almost no significant relationship to the sensations and symptoms being reported; and, was, accordingly found to be the worst possible measure for predicting the level of “annoyance” being reported by neighbours;

a variety of noise descriptors, designed to capture low-frequency noise, showed strong correlations between the noise levels generated and the sensations recorded;

the first of the NASA turbine designs being studied as part of research had its blades down wind from the tower. The second turbine design placed the blades up wind (ie, in front of the tower). The infrasound and low-frequency noise levels generated were not significantly altered as a result. (Modern wind turbines use the “up wind” design);

the homes where people were adversely affected were situated out to as far as 3km from a single turbine;

the propagation distance (ie the distance over which noise travels before it “decays”) is far greater for low-frequency noise and infrasound generated by turbines, than the propagation distance of noise which does not contain sound energy at low frequencies.

In 1987, at a wind power conference in San Francisco, the wind industry was presented with the findings of NASA’s research; and told that these findings meant that dB(A) was an inappropriate method of measuring wind turbine noise, and the impact of that noise on neighbours. It was further told that low-frequency noise and infrasound were the dominant features of wind turbine generated noise, which would cause significant “annoyance” to neighbours.

Independent of, but concurrent with, the NASA research substantial efforts were made in investigating the impacts of infrasound on human health, particularly in relation to effects such as nausea, headaches and vertigo.

In 1985, a study was published (Nussbaum) that established infrasound as the cause of symptoms including: accelerated heart rate; increased respiration; fatigue; dizziness (vertigo); nausea (motion sickness); and headaches, among other things. The study found that certain people were more greatly affected by infrasound than others (ie more serious symptoms and/or sensations were experienced; or were experienced to a greater degree). These differences in response were, among other things, attributed to physiological differences, including differences in the size of the internal passages of the subjects’ ears.

The Wind Industry Cover Up

As the wind industry began to take off in the early 1990s it needed to set noise limits and planning criteria that would not present any obstacle to it in rolling out turbines in quiet rural environments.

The wind industry gathered what became known as the “noise working group” in 1995; a group which then, and thereafter, worked on wind industry noise guidelines.

The result was a document called ETSU-R-97.

That document reads as if the NASA research had never happened as it:

excludes any reference to low-frequency noise (the source of the problem shown by the NASA research as the cause of the sensations and symptoms suffered);
excludes the noise descriptors and weightings that were found by the NASA research to be the best predictors of the annoyance caused to neighbours, and the sensations and symptoms suffered;
relies exclusively on the dB(A) weighting (found to be irrelevant as a consequence of the NASA research);
assumes that, in all cases, the sound pressure levels inside neighbouring homes are substantially less than what is recorded outside those homes (entirely to the contrary of the findings made in the NASA research);
excludes testing inside homes for noise of any frequency (let alone low-frequency noise);
instead, limits noise testing to measurements taken external to homes, using the dB(A) weighting only;
established methods by which monitoring equipment can be placed in a way that will simply measure environmental noise (eg “wind in the trees”). In the first instance, these “methods” allow for the placement of monitoring equipment in locations where high levels can be recorded prior to the construction of a wind farm (eg, underneath trees or in bushes). Subsequently, noise level criteria can be met by simply shifting the location of the monitoring equipment (eg, placing them in the open away from trees or bushes).

All of the wind industry noise standards or guidelines which have emerged around the world since then can trace their origins to ETSU-R-97 – think of it as the wind industry’s template for deception.

Over the last decade or so, the wind industry has fought tooth and nail to defend these standards or guidelines. It has resisted all attempts or even suggestions that would:

result in standards which include the measurement of low-frequency noise and infrasound;
set controls for low-frequency noise and infrasound inside homes;
require wind farm operators to cooperate with meaningful noise testing by, for example:
- shutting turbines on and off in order to distinguish between the noise generated by turbines and environmental noise, such as wind in the trees; or
- providing operational data, such as wind speed and power output data;

Indeed, whenever these topics are raised by authorities or community groups the wind industry becomes defensive; and even aggressive in response.

Along the way, the wind industry continued to press planning authorities for even higher noise limits than were originally set (in the irrelevant dB(A) measure, of course) – that would permit ever larger turbines to be located ever closer to residential homes; planning authorities and Environmental Protection Agencies willingly obliged.

In South Australia – the first state in Australia to introduce wind farm noise guidelines – its EPA was so obliging to the wind industry, that its 2003 guidelines include the entirely fictional assertion that wind turbines do not produce infrasound at all, the guidelines stating:

Infrasound was a characteristic of some wind turbine models that has been attributed to early designs in which turbine blades were downwind of the main tower. The effect was generated as the blades cut through the turbulence generated around the downwind side of the tower.

Modern designs generally have the blades upwind of the tower. Wind conditions around the blades and improved blade design minimise the generation of the effect. The EPA has consulted the working group and completed an extensive literature search but is not aware of infrasound being present at any modern wind farm site.

The same fiction appears in the current version of the SA EPA wind farm noise guidelines published in 2009.

The wind industry’s efforts to use noise standards to cover up the issue of infrasound, and to obtain ever higher dB(A) noise limits, occurred despite knowing, full well, that low-frequency noise and infrasound was causing harm and distress to wind farm neighbours.

For example, from 2004 onwards, employees and management of Danish turbine manufacturer, Vestas warned that the wind turbine noise guidelines were inadequate in relation to the protection of wind farm neighbours; and, by 2011, knew that greater setback distances were required to avoid problems of precisely the kind being caused; especially in relation to the larger 3MW turbines, which were being rolled out by Vestas from 2010 onwards.

All of the above, and more, is laid out in the timeline.

The World Turns Full Circle

Recent work performed by leading acoustic engineers around the world has simply confirmed all of the facts and findings made in the NASA research, which concluded over 27 years ago.

The recent research that confirms the extensive work done by NASA, includes work carried out by:

Dr Paul Schomer, George Hessler, Rob Rand and Dr Bruce Walker at Shirley, Wisconsin in 2012 (available here);
Professor Colin Hansen and his team from the Adelaide University at Waterloo in South Australia during 2014 (see our post here); and
the groundbreaking research conducted by Steven Cooper at Cape Bridgewater in Victoria, also during 2014 (which has been recently published – see our posts here and here).

That work, like the NASA research before it, shows that the noise guidelines written by, and relied upon, by the wind industry are utterly irrelevant when it comes to the question of protecting public health; and the adverse consequences of living with incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound.

The aim of the timeline is not just to catalogue the trail of wind industry lies and deception. It is squarely aimed at showing how regulatory authorities have been duped by (or have been complicit with) an industry completely devoid of any desirable moral characteristics; and which is, rather, driven by a callous disregard for human health and well-being.

Wherever you are fighting to bring the wind industry to a halt; to obtain the ability to live in and use your own homes; or to achieve just compensation for the damage and harm caused through government supported wind industry malfeasance, STT simply invites you to use our little timeline to your best advantage.

Ontarians paying for Power We Do Not Need & Can’t Afford. Wynne wants MORE!

February 21, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

New York, Michigan and Quebec Thanks You

[ 0 ] February 21, 2015 | Lydia

So while we’re in one of the coldest winter cold snaps that Ontario has seen in a long time, we exported a whole bunch of power to neighboring jurisdictions last month.

I won’t go into yet another rant about the incompetence and absolute idiocy of the Green Energy Act,… suffice to say that what the month of January had in store for the Ontario taxpayer, is something more akin to an April Fools Day joke.

Parker Gallant is on top of this subject and has the smarts needed to figure out how much the Ontario citizens are getting hosed.

Yes, now in February, with temperatures falling into the -30s and beyond and when people are turning their heat down in order to afford their hydro bill – it’s nice to know that the citizens of New York, Quebec, Michigan and probably Manitoba got a nice big gratuity of electricity on our backs.

We exported over $164 million worth of electricity in January. Problem is we only got paid $58.5 million for it. Yep, we the Ontario tax payers and rate payers will be picking up the tab for the other $106.5 million. Rather nice of us, don’t you think?

Grandma and Grandpa can hardly afford to stay in their homes because they can’t afford their utility bills anymore, but hey, we have windmills. Lots and lots of completely useless and expensive windmills.

The nice people with the big bloated windfarm contacts are happy too. They’re getting paid big bucks for their investment. We’re such nice people in Ontario. Suckers, but nice.

Wind Pushers Desperate to Deny the Negative Health Risks from Wind Turbines!

February 19, 2015February 19, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Adverse Health Effects of Wind Turbine Infrasound Explained

February 19, 2015 by stopthesethings

The impact of low-frequency noise and infrasound from wind turbines on neighbours has been known by the wind industry since NASA turned a massive, multidisciplinary microscope on the problem back in the 1980s (see our posts here and here and here).

Mind you, that highly relevant research has been steadfastly ignored by Australia’s peak public health body, the NHMRC for very political reasons (see our posts here and here).

Trying to explain turbine generated infrasound (large changes in air pressure that, by definition, can’t be heard, but are sensed via the inner ear; or other parts of the nervous system) to those who have never experienced its effects is like trying to explain a migraine to someone who has never had a headache.

Top Neuro-Physiologist, Professor Alec Salt gives a pretty clear wrap-up for the uninitiated in this video:

****

One of the impacts is nausea (ie motion sickness), which other research has put down to infrasound too (see our post here).

When the brain receives mixed messages from its sensory receptors, including the inner ear, for example, it can trigger an ancient evolutionary response – motion sickness – but can also manifest as symptoms of ear pressure, vertigo, heart palpitations and other symptoms.

Of course, in its efforts to lie, cover up and otherwise avoid the facts, the wind industry and its pet acoustic consultants continue to maintain that “modern” wind turbines don’t produce infrasound at all; this statement appears in the South Australian EPA “Wind farms environmental noise guidelines”:

Infrasound was a characteristic of some wind turbine models that has been attributed to early designs in which turbine blades were downwind of the main tower. The effect was generated as the blades cut through the turbulence generated around the downwind side of the tower.

The “working group” that “helped” the EPA reach its “conclusions” on infrasound from “modern wind farms” was made up of the wind industry’s pet acoustic consultants – Marshall Day, Vipac, AECOM and Sonus – and Sonus – which used to brag on its website that it wrote the guidelines – was formed by blokes who worked for the EPA. Now how cosy is that!

Trouble is that infrasound is produced at levels which can be sensed and can be measured, but it requires the proper kit and to use it inside peoples’ homes, which the wind industry refuses to do and its guidelines deliberately avoid.

Steven Cooper’s groundbreaking study at Cape Bridgewater has removed all doubt that wind turbine generated infrasound is the agent responsible for the adverse sensations experienced by wind farm victims (including sleep deprivation) (see our post here).

Another top-notch researcher, Kevin Dooley has turned his attention to the impact of wind turbine infrasound on wind farm victims, and like Steven Cooper has actually gone inside homes with his kit to do so. Here’s a screen grab from a video produced by Kevin (see below) showing infrasound detected inside wind farm victim, Norma Schmidt’s home in Ontario:

The oscilloscope image shows how the infrasonic pressure waves from wind turbines penetrate the walls of the home, free to to their worst on people like Norma (see our post here).

Kevin goes on to give a very detailed explanation of turbine infrasound impacts in this video, including the manner in which infrasound causes nausea:

*****blob:https%3A//www.youtube.com/f15b0282-7dea-4343-a0c6-60f67336a9b0

****

Windweasels Scurry to Circle the Wagons, as Steven Cooper’s Study “Makes Waves”!

February 17, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Pacific Hydro Orders ABC’s “Ministry of Truth” to hound Steven Cooper, Graham Lloyd and Channel 7 Over Wind Farm Study

February 17, 2015 by stopthesethings

Media Watch ‘just skimmed my report’: researcher
The Australian
Sonia Kohlbacher
16 February 2015

A SCIENTIFIC researcher whose groundbreaking study into the impact of wind turbines on nearby residents has criticised the ABC’s Media Watch program, saying its journalist hounded his company about alleged media misrepresentations without reading or understanding his report.

The study by acoustics expert Steven Cooper measured the sensations felt by a group of residents who had complained of health concerns, and matched their diary records with the wind farm operations. The study found a correlation between severe sensations experienced by the small group of residents studied and the power output of the turbines at Cape Bridgewater in Victoria.

The Cooper report has been hailed internationally as representing a breakthrough in the study of wind turbines and possible impacts.

The Australian’s environment editor Graham Lloyd has extensively reported on the findings of the study after they were released last month and has been the subject of inquiries by Media Watch journalist Flint Duxfield.

Media Watch has asked The Australian to justify the prominent coverage it gave to the study.

Mr Cooper was critical of Duxfield when contacted by The Australian yesterday, and said the journalist had failed to properly read his report before making inquiries into its fair and accurate representation in the media.

Mr Cooper said he was appalled by the ABC’s attempts to contact his office, which he said was “hounded” by hourly calls over a four-day period.

“In the end I spoke to them to answer questions and I wasn’t overly impressed,” he said.

“They were after Channel Seven and Graham Lloyd, and in the end his inquiries were about people not reading and reporting incorrect information.

“It got to a point where he was asking questions and I said, ‘You haven’t read the report’, to which he replied, ‘Oh, I’ve skimmed the report’, and I said, ‘Well that’s a problem, you’re here about talking about people misrepresenting but you haven’t read the report’.

“He just tried to talk about people misrepresenting. I did tell him that what Graham Lloyd had presented was correct.”

Media Watch host Paul Barry, responding on behalf of Duxfield, said he was not party to the conversation, “but I can tell you that he is always unfailingly courteous and never hounds anyone — and yes, Flint has read the report”.

Barry claimed that “some eminent Australian scientists” had concerns about The Australian’s coverage of the Cooper report.

Lloyd said the issue was about making sure minority rights were properly respected. “This is not about ideology,” he said. “The absence of high-quality research, as evidenced by the National Health and Medical Research Council’s latest statement, is astonishing.”
The Australian

In Australia, the ABC’s “Media Watch” represents the front line for the Green-blob’s Orwellian “Ministry of Truth” (see our post here); which, on a weekly basis, attacks any journalist with the temerity to question hard green-left shibboleths; such as imminent global incineration; or its other favourite, the wind industry (see our posts here and here).

STT has already covered the rampant institutional bias of Australia’s so-called “National broadcaster” (see our posts here and here).

The latter story involved cutie-pie political commentator, Annabel Crabb, referring to Pac Hydro’s (now well and truly vindicated) victims at Cape Bridgewater as “dick brains”, during a 45 minute diatribe on the ABC’s radio science show.

The audio and transcript of Annabel’s “dick brain” outburst can be found on the ABC’s website here. However, to avoid the need to listen to (or trawl through reams of transcript of) almost an hour of tedious and nauseating ‘green’ group-think, we’ve extracted the relevant parts of the transcript, which is available here.

Most of that broadcast was devoted to the “wonders” of wind power; and denigrating anybody with the hide to raise the issue of the harm caused to wind farm neighbours, or with the sense to question the merits of backing a technology which was abandoned in the 19^th century, for obvious reasons (see our post here).

Crabb went on to say that she was in the market for a home right next to a wind farm. Well Annabel, there are several up for grabs at Cape Bridgewater (which their owners have had to abandon), so why not put in a bid?

Given Crabb’s long-winded, nausea inducing rant (on what is supposed to be a serious scientific radio programme); and the continual stream of wind industry goons, parasites and spruikers trotted out on the ABC’s green-left love-in, The Drum, it seems more than just a little rich for Media Watch to challenge The Australian about “the prominent coverage it gave to” Steven Cooper’s groundbreaking study.

But the ABC’s Ministry of Truth, is not so much concerned about “the prominent coverage” given to Steven Cooper’s study, Graham Lloyd’s ‘crime’ against the Party was to have published anything about the study at all.

So too, Channel Seven, when it went to air with its piece on Cooper’s study on its current affairs show, Today Tonight: – available here.

The Media Watch attack dogs were released in response to a direction from Pac Hydro – which is (as a consequence of Cooper’s work) now squarely in the gun, facing $millions in damages claims from its victims at Cape Bridgewater.

Now, with that in mind, it’s no surprise to see Pac Hydro’s goons attacking Steven Cooper directly through the media, as well as attacking two of the most respected and qualified acoustic experts from the US, Dr PaulSchomer and George Hessler. For a taste of their highly relevant qualifications and experience why not check out their thumping CVs here:Schomer and Hessler; and both of them were involved in another proper piece of investigation into the adverse impacts of turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound on neighbours at Shirley, Wisconsin back in 2012 (see this article and our post here).

Dr Schomer and Mr Hessler in their peer review of Cooper’s study, not only endorsed it, but found that the data itself proves a causal relationship between the operation of the wind turbines and the adverse health effects recorded by all of those people who took part in the study (see our post here).

When Graham Lloyd fronted Pac Hydro about the peer review produced by Dr Schomer and Mr Hessler, its spin doctors simply went to ground and refused to comment; a move entirely consistent with stock standard wind industry strategy: lie, cover up the facts and, when all else fails, run and hide (see our post here).

And, further, it’s no surprise at all to see Pac Hydro directing traffic at the ABC and Media Watch, in particular.

While always pitching from the “holier than thou” journalistic moral high ground, Media Watch ain’t afraid to pull its punches, when it’s out to ensure that the wind industry’s narrative is never threatened.

And so it was, getting its “researcher”, Flint Duxfield to repeatedly hound Steven Cooper about media misrepresentation of the study, in circumstances where he clearly hadn’t even bothered to read it. Hmmm. Oh, the irony.

Where Media Watch’s Paul Barry – clearly in damage control – asserts that “Flint [Duxfield] has read the report”, he simply raises two questions: when did he read it? And, if he read it, was he capable of understanding it?

STT’s betting that Duxfield’s efforts went no further than a cursory perusal (the whole thing runs to over 800 pages – the report is available in our post here), but even if we fail to collect on that wager, there is absolutely no chance that he understood it.

No, instead, as with all of the media parrots used by the wind industry, it’s an odds-on bet that Duxfield was simply relying upon the press releases issued by Pac Hydro, in which it’s sought to downplay the significance of the work (which it paid for, and set the limitations on, by the way) and is using in its efforts at serious corporate “damage control”.

STT notes Barry’s claim that “some eminent Australian scientists” had “concerns” with the coverage. No doubt the shills in the employ of the wind industry are deeply troubled by the facts that have emerged at Cape Bridgewater. They’ll have to work overtime from here on to bury them, lie, and otherwise distort and misrepresent them.

And who were these “eminent Australian scientists”?

Why, none other than a former tobacco advertising guru; a “scientist” who has no acoustic training or qualifications; who is not a legally qualified medical practitioner; who was used to front up struggling Danish fan maker, Vesta’s laughable Act on Facts campaign (see our post here); and who has received scathing criticism in Australia’s Federal Parliament on more than one occasion (see our posts here and here). And it must only add to his sense of moral superiority to find himself as the front man for an outfit run by crooks and fraudsters (see our post here).

No, this is all about media manipulation, using the same band of pseudo-scientists, spin doctors and the tactics of ridicule, denigration and personal attack to advance an ideological position in keeping with the Party line.

Not one of the people who they trot out as “eminent scientists” or “experts” have ever bothered to go out in the field; gather any real data; or even speak, in person (ie in the same room at the same time) to the people suffering the known and obvious adverse health effects caused by incessant low-frequency noise and infrasound.

That, of course, would cause them to confront the “problems” face-to-face and eye-to-eye. Much easier to sit in the coward’s castles of sandstone universities and ABC studios, where they will never have to face the wind industry’s victims; or the facts.

And, even where these so-called “researchers” pretend to investigate the issue, they hold no relevant qualifications; such as the wind industry’s latest mouthpiece, Jacqui Hoepner (who’s been flat out running the “nocebo” nonsense on the ABC and elsewhere this week). Jacqui is, surprise, surprise, equipped with nothing more than a degree in journalism and politics (check out her bio here). Hmmmm, how very “Ministry of Truth” …

STT hears, however, that the Ministry of Truth’s attack on Graham Lloyd, The Australian and Channel 7 is about to backfire in spectacular fashion. What’s that saying about keeping your mouth shut when you’re in it up to your neck?

Expect to hear a whole lot more about Steven Cooper’s study, and Pac Hydro’s victims at Cape Bridgewater, over the coming weeks and months.

Lambton Municipal Gov’t Steps Up to Help Wind Turbine Victims with Their Court Challenge!

February 16, 2015February 16, 2015 / 1957chev / 1 Comment

Lambton will join wind turbine appeal

BUSINESS | FRONT PAGE | NEWS.

Posted February 15, 2015:

Lambton County is anteing up more cash in the constitutional fight against wind turbine development.

County councilors set aside up to $60,000 to become part of a wider court battle which questions the constitutionality of the way Ontario allows the development of industrial wind turbines. “You became involved because of injustices and the lack of control” in the process WAIT- Plympton-Wyoming Spokesman Santo Giorno recently told county councilors.

Giorno says the first hearing in the fight at Divisional Court was “unsuccessful” and the lawyer, Julian Falconer, has filed a motion for the right to appeal for the three families. Lambton County was an intervener in the first case, and Giorno asked them to be involved in the appeal.

“The presence of an upper tier municipality at an appeal can’t be understated,” says Giorno. “It goes from four families who don’t like turbines to a government worried about the health of the community…it opens up the overall question of what is happening across the province.”

Giorno asked for money left over from the first court case – about $21,000 – be used in a possible appeal.

Councilors agreed and decided to set aside an additional $20,000 if necessary.

Shut off the Subsidy Tap, and the WindWeasels Scurry! Well Done Aussies!

February 14, 2015 / 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind Industry Howls & Predicts Mass Exodus from Australia as Subsidy Trough Dries Up

February 14, 2015 by stopthesethings

Australian windfarms face $13 bln wipeout from political impasse
Reuters
Byron Kaye
9 February 2015

* PM Abbott wants to cut state support for industry

* Labor opposition won’t back cutting clean energy target

* Uncertain support regime is causing a freeze in investment

* Some predict an exodus of investment

SYDNEY, Feb 8 (Reuters) – Australia faces a A$17 billion ($13.3 billion) exodus of investment from its windfarm industry because of a political deadlock, threatening to deal the country a major economic blow and killhopes of meeting a self-imposed clean energy target.

Some 44 Australian windfarm projects, about half overseas-funded, have been shelved since a new conservative government said it wanted to cut state support for the industry a year ago, with investors and operators saying they are considering either downscaling or leaving the country altogether if it succeeds.

Even Australian windfarm companies such as Infigen and Pacific Hydro have effectively shelved their Australian operations, with Infigen saying it plans to pour all its financial muscle into the more amenable U.S. market.

“It’s a difficult time at the moment, and the policy uncertainty is the main cause of it,” said Shaq Mohajerani, an Australian spokesman for wind farm company Union Fenosa, owned by Spanish energy giant Gas Natural.

“We’re still considering all options on how to proceed. The parent company will provide us with the strategy.”

An Acciona spokesperson said the firm had an “attractive backlog” in Australia but “we are waiting for the whole development of the new framework for renewable energy and hope our presence … in the country can be maintained”.

Wind power in Australia is not the only renewable energy sector to be affected by uncertainty over government subsidies or actual cuts. In Europe, Germany has scaled back support for solar power over the past few years, leading to a flood of insolvency filings by solar firms and a shrunken market.

Italy’s plans to cut subsidies for solar power firms have prompted an investor exodus. Retroactive solar subsidy cuts have also happened in Spain, Greece, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic over the past couple of years, putting off new investors as governments try to rein in energy costs and cut debt.

Windfarms are Australia’s No. 2 renewable energy source, behind hydropower but ahead of solar, providing a quarter of the country’s clean energy and 4 percent of its total energy demand. But while households can collect rebates for installing their own rooftop solar panels, windfarms rely on “certificates”, or tradeable securities handed out by the government, to offset costs.

That support hit a roadblock a year ago when new conservative prime minister Tony Abbott ordered a review of the country’s target for clean energy use by 2020, which ultimately recommended slashing it by a third, in line with falling overall energy demand. A lower target would mean a lower certificate price.

The centre-left Labor opposition, whose support the government needs to lower the target, refused to budge on the higher target it set when in power in 2009, resulting in an impasse that has effectively seen the industry grind to a halt.

A spokeswoman for U.S. owned GE Australia & New Zealand, which has stakes in several renewable energy projects, said further investment “will only occur once investor confidence in the policy environment is restored. For this to happen, bipartisan support regarding the future of the renewable energy target is essential.”

The Australian arm of Spanish infrastructure group Acciona , the world’s largest renewable energy firm, has frozen about A$750 million of windfarm projects because of the stalemate, said local managing director Andrew Thomson.

“When you’re a subsidiary (of a global business), you’re competing for capital, you’re competing for your budget allocation next year,” he said.

“If the parent company can’t see that there’s a stable environment it becomes really difficult to get traction. For us at the moment it’s a really difficult sell.”

If the renewable energy target is cut, “it’s the type of jolt to industry that basically would create such an upheaval that you would have a mass exodus”, said Alex Hewitt, managing director of Bulgarian-Polish-U.S.-backed windfarm operator CWP Renewables, which has A$1.5 billion of projects on ice.

“I can’t say whether we’d completely exit the country, but you would be looking at such a level of reduction in the level of investment into people in the company that it would be very significant,” Hewitt said.

($1 = 1.2793 Australian dollars) (Additional reporting by Jose Elías Rodríguez in Madrid and Nina Chestney in London; Editing by Will Waterman and David Evans)
Reuters

So, all this promised (or, rather threatened) “investment” really is just about the massive stream of subsidies, after all?

Whatever happened to that piffle pitched by the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers about being competitive with conventional power generation sources?

You know, the delusional stuff where they tell us – ad nauseam – that the cost of wind power is now so low it can compete on the open market with the cheapest of them all: coal-fired power (see this trip to Disneyland and back by the shills from ruin-economy).

If there were a scintilla of substance to the eco-fascists’ fantasy about wind power being competitive (and, therefore, profitable without the need for wind power outfits to perpetually slurp from the subsidy trough), then these ‘investors’ wouldn’t be wailing about ‘uncertainty’; indeed, the story above wouldn’t be a ‘story’ at all: outfits like Acciona would be spearing giant fans all over Australia at a cracking pace.

But, when the investors’ rubber hits the investment road, cheap talk melts like snow in the Australian outback.

Or, rather, as only the Americans could put it: “money talks, and bullshit walks.”

In Australia, the “money” that the subsidy suckers are seeking is in the order of another $50 billion under the current Large-Scale Renewable Energy Target (see our post here). And want they might get it. But ‘want’, on its own, is rarely enough.

The LRET is a policy which is simply unsustainable: any policy which is unsustainable will eventually fail under its own unfathomable weight; or its creators will be forced to scrap it, in circumstances of shame and ignominy.

The massive cuts to renewable subsidies in Europe – detailed above make the point well enough. The Germans have cut wind power subsidies; the Spaniards have slashed them – retroactively (see our postshere and this story here).

In upcoming posts, STT will detail just why this whole scam is on the very brink of total collapse, which will leave many a politician red-faced; and many a wind power investor shirtless.

Wind Turbines are a Huge Disaster….the Whole World Over!

February 8, 2015 / 1957chev / 2 Comments

More on Germany’s Wind Power Fiasco

February 8, 2015 by stopthesethings 1 Comment

The Germans went into wind power harder and faster than anyone else – and the cost of doing so is catching up with a vengeance. The subsidies have been colossal, the impacts on the electricity market chaotic and – contrary to the environmental purpose of the policy – CO2 emissions are rising fast: if “saving” the planet is – as we are repeatedly told – all about reducing man-made emissions of an odourless, colourless, naturally occurring trace gas, essential for all life on earth – then German energy/environmental policy has manifestly failed (see our post here).

Some 800,000 German homes have been disconnected from the grid – victims of what is euphemistically called “fuel poverty”. In response, Germans have picked up their axes and have headed to their forests in order to improve their sense of energy security – although foresters apparently take the view that this self-help measure is nothing more than blatant timber theft (see our post here).

German manufacturers – and other energy intensive industries – faced with escalating power bills are packing up and heading to the USA – where power prices are 1/3 of Germany’s (see our posts here and hereand here). And the “green” dream of creating thousands of jobs in the wind industry has to turned out to be just that: a dream (see our post here).

Now, Germans are fast waking up the unassailable fact that wind power is not only insanely expensive, it’s utterly meaningless as a power source.

Here’s a couple of no-nonsense pieces from NoTricksZone spelling it out in pictures, of the kind that the wind industry bends over backwards to ensure that you’ll never see.

THE CHART Wind Energy Proponents Fear You’ll See … Offshore Wind Turbines Stay In Bed 4 Of Every 5 Workdays!
NoTricksZone
P Gosselin
5 February 2015

Yesterday I published a piece by Fred F. Mueller on Germany’s out-of-control renewable energy transition and how it is in fact transitioning over to a disaster.

What follows below is a graphic that proponents of the offshore wind energy industry don’t want anyone to see. It tells the whole story about how (in)efficient and (un)reliable German offshore wind energy really is (Hat-tip: www.achgut.com) (for a clear look at the graph, click on it and it will open in a new window):

Chart shows the installed nameplate offshore wind capacity (shaded green) and the actual output (blue shaded area) since 2009. Wind’s poor performance and unreliable, wildly fluctuating supply disappoint and risk sinking Germany’s “Energiewende”. Chart source: R. Schuster.

The above chart was prepared by Rolf Schuster, an industrial engineering designer, who during his free time has started a wind power databank in order to check the rosy claims being made by the wind power lobby. The results are not something any fast-talking salesman would want any potential buyer to see. The power that was input (blue) is a mere fraction of the rated capacity (green).

Schuster writes:

“If you divide the power fed in (blue) by the rated capacity (green) you get the percent of the rated capacity that actually gets fed into the grid. The linear trend shows a negative tendency – towards 20 percent of the rated capacity. That means: Despite the massively increased capacity in 2014, hardly more power has ended up getting delivered compared to the start of the year. Only one fifth of the rated capacity actually gets fed in.”

Many proponents used to argue that the wind is always blowing at the North Sea, and so a steady supply was a sure thing. Now we have real results coming in. That “steady” wind is only delivering 20% of the installed rated capacity. A fiasco.

Schuster also says that offshore turbines have serious technical problems as well. Foundations are being washed out from underneath; there’s corrosion, and overloads that lead to turbine shutdowns. The harsh conditions of the North Sea a proving much tougher to handle.

There are also major problems with the high-voltage direct currentsystems that have yet to be solved, Schuster writes. One entire North Sea wind park has been disconnected from the grid as a result. This, Schuster says, “makes one ask if the installation of a major power transmission line from North Germany to South Germany would be a high risk gamble for the German energy supply”.

Green power goes AWOL again!

Also a look at online energy portal Agora here also tracks renewable energy that gets fed into the German power grid. A look at today’s graphic for the last 31 days tells us that once again wind and solar have gone AWOL, and so conventional fuels such as gas, nuclear and coal have to jump in to bail out.

The above chart shows German energy supply and consumption for the last 31 days. Solar power that was fed into the grid is shown in yellow. Wind power is shown in blue. Cropped from Agora. (for a clear look at the graph, click on it and it will open in a new window)

Yesterday, February 4, we saw very little wind power getting fed into the grid, less than a gigawatt from a nameplate capacity of some 55 gigawatts of installed capacity – less than 2%! On February 4 wind and solar together virtually fed in almost nothing into the grid. If it had not been for coal, gas and nuclear, the country would have gone dark.
NoTricksZone

Germany’s “Energiewende” Leading To Suicide By Cannibalism. Huge Oversupply Risks Destabilization
NoTricksZone
P Gosselin
4 February 2015

The coming age of power cannibalism…Germany on the verge of committing energy suicide
By Fred F. Mueller

German politicians see themselves as the saviors of our climate. In the early 1990s German politicians started the policies that ultimately culminated in the “Energiewende”, which aims to eliminate nuclear power generation and some 76% of the fossil fuel power generation. By 2050 some 80% of power generation should come from “renewable” green sources such as wind, solar, biomass, waste incineration and hydro. Since the volatile sources of wind and solar power will have to contribute the lion’s share, politicians reluctantly concede 20% of the energy coming from reliable fossil power sources.

Germany’s endeavor is indeed breathtaking. A look at Figure 1 shows in detail how massively Germany had once relied upon fossil and nuclear power sources to secure a highly reliable power supply. These sources were controllable and highly reliable. And because Germany’s topology offers only limited possibilities for hydropower, that renewable source is minimal.

Figure 1: In 1990 the German grid was able to count on conventional power sources which were controllable and highly reliable. Renewable hydropower accounted for only 3.6 %.

Today, after some two decades of massive green energy policy, the situation has changed dramatically. Wind, solar, biomass and waste incineration plants have been promoted to such an extent that together with hydropower, the share of “green energy” today has reached 25.8 % of the country’s total electric power production. This resulted from Germany’s EEG renewable energy feed-in act which guarantees producers fixed rates for 20 years and forces power companies to buy up all the renewable power produced, regardless of the market conditions. The result has been a massive oversupply which has led to steep price drops on power trading floors, which in turn have pushed fossil fuel utilities to and beyond their profitability limits. Surplus production has been repeatedly dumped onto neighboring markets and resulted in massive disturbances for the respective national power grids. Readers interested in a more detailed description of the policy might have a look at the article of Marita Noon [NOON].

Capacity without control

The problem with the “renewable” power sources of wind and solar is their intrinsic volatility coupled with their poor capacity utilization rates of only 17.4% for wind and 8.3% for solar (average values for Germany).

That poor utilization rate means one has to build up huge overcapacities in order to achieve a certain amount of power production. Worse, the power source fluctuates wildly according to weather conditions. As a consequence, Germany has to maintain a dual power generation infrastructure that comprises a grossly overinflated capacity of “renewable” wind and solar power plants shadowed by a full scale backup set of conventional plants. These conventional power sources must always be on standby, ready to take over when weather conditions aren’t favorable. The production-fluctuation range of the “renewables” wind and solar is incredibly wide and volatile. For example in Germany there is an installed nameplate capacity of nearly 73,000 MW. Yet the minimum power output in Germany in 2014 from both sources was a meager 29 MW (only 0.04% of installed capacity) while the maximum value was 38,000 MW (48%).

The massive buildup in wind and solar power has already resulted in a considerable nominal overcapacity of “renewable” power sources.

The combined rated capacity of all “renewable” power sources already reaches about 87,000 MW, which is the maximum power consumption the grid has been designed to secure. Additionally, a minimum conventional power station capacity of some 28,000 MW has to be constantly connected to the grid in order to secure supply stability. As a result the risk of the grid reaching an oversupply situation if weather conditions are favorable for both wind and solar power plants is growing with every additional “renewable” plant that comes online. Currently 5,000 – 6,000 MW are getting added each year. That situation is aggravated by the fact that there exists no technology to absorb and store any noticeable quantities of oversupply. Neighboring countries are already taking measures to fend off surplus-power-dumping that could destabilize their grids.

Power cannibalism has already started

The result is a grid which at times is so oversupplied with power that something will have to give. Fossil fuel power plants have been throttled to the point where they are no longer profitable and many power companies have started mothballing them, so quickly in fact that Germany had to pass legislation forcing producers to keep their fossil plants on stand-by, and to do so even if they lost money. Even the reliable “classic” renewable power sources – e.g. hydropower – are starting to suffer because most are not supported by government schemes.

As the build-up in renewable capacity continues, even the subsidized “renewable” power sources will sooner rather than later be forced into fierce competition for access to the grid whenever the weather conditions turn favorable. One can speculate that within just a couple of years, the first “renewable” energy sources will slowly be driven out of the market because of oversupply. Eventually the renewable power producers will be forced to cannibalize each other in an increasingly fierce competition for privileged access to the power grid as the unwanted events of over-supply become increasingly more frequent.

Things are set to get much worse

Normally, one would think that a government confronted with such a situation would stop at this point and wait for a technically and commercially viable solution for storing the increasing amounts of produced surplus electric energy – for use during times when weather conditions are less favorable. Unfortunately no such storage solution is currently available at the required scale, and anything being proposed so far is either much too expensive or has efficiency factors that are not worth discussing.

Yet Germany has a unique peculiarity: its leaders sometimes exhibit a stunning inability to recognize when the time has come to abandon a lost cause. So far €500 billion has already been invested in the “Energiewende”, which is clearly emerging as a failure. Yet all political parties continue to throw their full weight behind the policy rather than admitting it is a failure (which would be tantamount to political suicide). Instead, the current government coalition has even decided to shift into an even higher gear on the path to achieving its objective of generating 80% of German electric power from “renewable” sources by 2050. If the situation is practically unmanageable now with 25% renewable energy, it’ll be an uncontrollable disaster when (if) it reaches 80%.

If the government sticks to its targets, the share of the different power sources will probably appear as in Figure 2. Currently just 26% has been achieved so far, and the existing biomass share of some 7% is more or less doomed and thus will also have to be replaced by wind and solar. One can easily see how daunting the task that still lies ahead really is.

Figure 2. The official goal of achieving 80% power supply from “renewable” sources by 2050 requires further massive investments in wind and solar power technologies. Imagine the huge power supply fluctuations one can expect to see from wind and sun.

Waiting for the grand finale

The real risks that lie ahead for the German power generating infrastructure become more recognizable if one looks at the nameplate capacity buildup that has taken place, e.g. just over the past five years, and compares it to what will additionally be needed by 2050, see Figure 2. Keeping in mind that €500 billion have already been contracted and will have to be paid by the consumer, one gets an idea of the proportions of the task still to be tackled in the coming years.

Figure 3. The installed nameplate power production capacities for wind, solar and biomass as of 2014 has already severely burdened the German consumer with costs of about €500 billion. That will dwarfed by what lies ahead, if politicians don’t change course. Note how 376,000 MW of wind and sun capacity may be installed to ensure meeting the country’s roughly 70,000 MW of demand.

Apart from the sheer dimensions of the costs that lie ahead, the additional cannibalism aspect will grow to enormous proportions. Since an installed wind and solar capacity of some 73,000 MW in 2014 yielded a combined maximum power output of 38,000 MW, the 376,000 MW that are to be installed by 2050 will generate a peak output of 196,000 MW to a grid that might just be able to take up between 40,000 and 90,000 MW. That means, depending on the weather, between 106,000 and 156,000 MW will have to be dumped somewhere else.

In the fight to get power into an often times severely overloaded grid, that’s when cannibalism amongst “renewable” power sources will really become intense. Will wind farmers sabotage solar plantations? Will solar owners sabotage wind turbines? Time will tell, maybe much sooner than we think.
Fred F. Mueller

Sources: [NOON] Marita Noon: Germany’s “energy transformation:” unsustainable subsidies and an unstable systemwww.cfact.org/2014/12/16/germanys-unsustainable-subsidies-and-an-unstable-system/

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Turbine Hosts Line Up to Tip a Bucket on Wind Power Outfits, as Senate Submissions Deadline Extended to 23 March 2015

ABC’s “Ministry of Truth” – Media Watch – Cops Both Barrels from Graham Lloyd

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Three Decades of Wind Industry Deception: A Chronology of a Global Conspiracy of Silence and Subterfuge

Adverse Health Effects of Wind Turbine Infrasound Explained

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More on Germany’s Wind Power Fiasco