incompetent Liberals

Renewable Energy Targets…the Smart Thing to do, is Get Rid of Them! It’s a scam!

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Mandatory RET: An Expensive (and Unsustainable) Economic Burden

August 25, 2014 by  

Donkey HeavyLoad

The RET is an expensive burden on the economy
Australian Financial Review
Alan Moran
19 August 2014

People and firms should be free to choose how they trade off their sources of energy and price preferences.

With the carbon tax repealed, the focus has shifted to the renewable requirements. A key component of these, the renewable energy target (RET), is under review by a panel headed by former Caltex chief Dick Warburton. The RET forces electricity retailers to buy certificates to ensure they incorporate at least 20 per cent of renewable energy within their total supply. Few other countries have renewable schemes as ambitious as Australia’s.

Compared with $40 per megawatt hour, the price of unsubsidised electricity, the cheapest source of additional renewable energy is from wind and is about $110 per megawatt hour. The renewable energy certificates are intended to fill the gap but they have been trading at low prices of around $35 due to the subsidy from the carbon tax, very attractive subsidies to roof-top installations and the fact that the build-up of renewable requirements is gradual. The subsidy price, in after-tax terms, is capped at $93 per certificate (or per megawatt hour).

Two external analyses have been undertaken as part of the RET review process. While both of them adopted conservative assumptions about the required renewable subsidy, they each arrived at very high aggregate costs to the economy as a result of the existing scheme.

The review itself commissioned ACIL Allen to estimate the future costs of the present scheme in 2014 prices. ACIL Allen put this cost at $37 billion or $6 billion if the scheme were to be closed to new entrants but existing installations continued to receive the subsidy.

The ACIL Allen estimate is based on the renewable subsidy at $70 per megawatt hour. This is equivalent to providing renewables a carbon tax subsidy of about $60 per tonne of carbon dioxide compared with the now defunct broader carbon tax at about $25 per tonne.

The other study undertaken by Deloitte was funded in part by the government’s Consumer Advocacy Panel and estimated the overall cost to the economy from maintaining the scheme is $29 billion. If it were to be immediately closed to new entrants that cost would remain in excess of $16 billion. These two cost estimates of the RET ($29 billion to $37 billion) approach the combined value of the Australian electricity transmission network.

Gains to coal-fired generators

An analysis for the Climate Institute estimates the abolition of the RET would bring gains to coal-fired generators of $25 billion by 2030. Although coal would regain market share from not facing subsidised renewables, electricity supply is highly competitive and increased revenues to coal-fired generators would not involve any form of super-profit.

In terms of the direct impact on electricity consumers, the burden of renewable requirements this year is estimated by the energy regulator to add 12 per cent to the average household’s electricity costs. That’s about $260 per year.

On current policies, these costs will rise considerably over the next six years. The annual renewable energy certificates requirements will increase from 17,000 this year to 41,000 by 2020. In addition, the price of these certificates will need to rise sharply to allow incentives for the construction of new windfarms.

As a result, the cost of renewable programs for typical households could rise as much as fourfold.

In research IPA commissioned last week from Galaxy, people were asked whether they favoured retaining the present level of support, increasing support in line with current policy or scrapping all assistance to renewable energy. Only 14 per cent favoured increasing support along the lines of current policy. Twenty-three per cent favoured scrapping the scheme entirely.

While 62 per cent said they would be content to see the subsidy costs kept at present levels, people are rarely as profligate as they say they would be when it comes to their actual spending decisions. This is readily seen in the small take-up of consumers’ voluntary top-up sales of green energy at premium prices, which amount to only 0.7 per cent of the annual sales of electricity.

Moreover, the direct costs of renewable energy through electricity prices is only half of the costs that consumers bear – the rest come about through consequent higher costs of goods and services. And for businesses, the renewable requirements are much greater, as a share of total energy costs, than they are for consumers.

The renewable energy subsidies fail all tests. Consumers resent paying for them and they represent a dead weight on industry competitiveness and economic growth.

Restoring consumer sovereignty and allowing people and firms to make their own choices about trading off their sources of energy and price preferences is the appropriate course.

Alan Moran is director of the Institute of Public Affairs’ deregulation unit.
Australian Financial Review

Alan Moran is alive to the scale and scope of the wind power fraud (see our posts here and here and here). But we think his calculator must have flat batteries in order to explain his observation in the piece above that:

“The annual renewable energy certificates requirements will increase from 17,000 this year to 41,000 by 2020.”

In fact, the “renewable energy certificate requirement” referred to by Alan will increase from 16.1 million RECs this year to 41 million RECs each and every year from 2020 to 2031.

The target figures in the legislation are set in GWh (1 GW = 1,000 MW): 16,100 GWh for 2014 (which converts to 16,100,000 MWh); rising to 41,000 GWh in 2020 through to 2031 (which converts to 41,000,000 MWh) (here’s the relevant section).

The “renewable energy certificate requirement” is that retailers purchase renewable energy (with which they receive RECs) and surrender RECs sufficient to satisfy the mandated target: 1 REC has to be surrendered for each MWh set by the target. If they fail to surrender enough RECs, they will be hit with the mandated shortfall charge of $65 per MWh for every MWh below the mandated target (see our post here).

Wind power generators are issued 1 REC for every MWh of power dispatched to the grid – and this deal continues until 2031: the operator of a turbine erected in 2005 will receive RECs (1 per MWh dispatched) each and every year for 26 years.  Retailers aiming to satisfy the target purchase RECs through a Power Purchase Agreement with a wind power generator. The rates set by PPAs see wind power generators receive guaranteed prices of $90-120 per MWh (versus $30-40 for conventional power). PPAs run from 15 and up to 25 years.

As part of the PPA deal, whenever a MWh of wind power is dispatched to the grid, the generator claims a supply under the PPA; and recovers the guaranteed price from the retailer. For the same supply, the wind power generator is issued RECs (1 REC per MWh) by the Clean Energy Regulator. In accordance with the PPA, the wind power generator transfers the REC to the retailer which can cash it in, thereby reducing the net cost of the power supplied under the PPA (RECs are currently trading around $30).

For example, if the price set under the PPA is $110 per MWh, the retailer sells the REC that comes with it – pocketing $30 – and reducing the net cost to $80 per MWh (which is still double the rate for conventional power). In this example, the retailer pays, and the wind power generator gets, $110 per MWh (or, in reality, whatever the PPA price is) irrespective of the REC price. In that respect, the value of the REC operates as a direct subsidy, designed to support the inflated (fixed) price received by wind power generators under their PPAs.

In practice, the full cost of wind power supplied to retailers (as set by PPAs) is recovered from retail customers (with a retail margin of 7-10% on top of that). As such, the REC is a Federal Tax on all Australian power consumers (see our post here). On the other side of the equation, the RECs issued to wind power generators operate as a direct subsidy for wind power; the value of which allows wind power generators to charge retailers prices under PPAs 3-4 times the cost of conventional power.

While the RECs transferred to retailers act as a “sweeteners”, the failure to purchase RECs leaves retailers liable for the $65 per MWh shortfall charge – and it was the threat of being whacked with a whopping fine (bear in mind the conventional power retailers purchase costs less than $40 per MWh) that provided “encouragement” to retailers to sign up to PPAs. Although, a number of the big retailers – like Origin and EnergyAustralia – have said they would rather pay the shortfall charge than purchase unreliable wind power and pass the full cost of the fine on to their customers.

Between now and 2031, the cost of the REC Tax/Subsidy will range between $40 billion to $60 billion; depending on the price for RECs.

The total renewable energy target between 2014 and 2031 is 603,100 GWh, which converts to 603.1 million MWh. In order for the target to be met, 603.1 million RECs have be purchased and surrendered over the next 17 years.

Even at the current REC price of $30, the amount to be added to power consumers’ bills will hit $18 billion. However, beyond 2017 (when the target ratchets up from 27.2 million MWh to 41 million MWh and the $65 per MWh shortfall charge starts to bite) the REC price will almost certainly reach $65 and, due to the tax benefit attached to RECs, is likely to exceed $90.

Between 2014 and 2031, with a REC price of $65, the cost of the REC Tax to power consumers (and the value of the subsidy to wind power outfits) will approach $40 billion – with RECs at $90, the cost of the REC Tax/Subsidy balloons to over $54 billion (see our post here).

As Liberal member for Hume, Angus Taylor – in his attacks on the cost of the subsidies directed to wind power outfits under the mandatory RET – puts it: “this is corporate welfare on steroids” (see our posts here andhere). STT thinks Angus is the master of understatement. In Australia’s history, there has never been an industry subsidy scheme that gets anywhere near the cost of the mandatory RET.

In the same edition, the AFR’s Editor chimed in with this eminently sensible piece of analysis.

Renewable target is not sustainable
Australian Financial Review
19 August 2014

The Abbott government’s moves to wind back or even scrap the Renewable Energy Target, as reported exclusively in this newspaper, would reduce a major distortion of the electricity market that has produced only a limited and expensive reduction in carbon emissions. How the RET affects the electricity market and prices is subject to much argument, including contradictory findings by computer modelling groups. But it clearly has forced considerable additional electricity supply – intermittently generated by windmills – into the market at a time of static electricity demand.

That extra capacity is pushing down wholesale prices at the expense of the margins of conventional electricity producers, as some modelling efforts have suggested. But force-feeding high-cost supply into a market of stagnating demand is likely to have some unintended consequences. One has been to short-circuit the hoped-for shift to less emissions-intensive gas plants. They have been squeezed out by the mandated high-cost windpower at one end and the sunk cost of the dirtier coal-fired power stations at the other. So the RET has restricted the expansion of an important transition fuel.

The RET scheme was conceived by the Howard government with a small initial target of 5 per cent of electricity consumption. But it took on a new life in 2010 when the Rudd government lifted the target to 20 per cent of estimated electricity consumption by 2020. That renewables target of 45 terawatt hours by 2020 assumed that the demand for electricity would continue to grow. Instead, demand has stalled due to soaring power prices and the decline of power-hungry manufacturing plants. So the absolute mandated target may amount to as much as 30 per cent of electricity consumption by 2020. That leaves the nation’s power grid heavily reliant on whether the wind blows.

Informed by a review by business leader Dick Warburton, the Abbott government is set to decide whether to wind the renewables mandate back to a “real 20 per cent” or even to end the scheme. In a world of a general carbon price, of course, a renewables target would become redundant. But, without a carbon price, Australia has been left in the worst of worlds. We have abandoned the lowest-cost mechanism for reducing emissions, adopted a budget-sapping “Direct Action” scheme that is surely no long-term answer and, so far, retained a high-cost renewables target. The government does need to be careful about the sovereign risk of changing its investment incentives. But mandating 30 per cent of our energy to come from high-cost renewables is not a sustainable energy policy.
Australian Financial Review

The mandatory RET is the most expensive and utterly ineffective policy ever devised.

As the AFR points out, the RET is simply not sustainable. Any policy that is unsustainable will either fail under its own steam; or its creators will eventually be forced to scrap it. European governments are responding to their unsustainable renewables policies by winding back subsidies and tearing up wind power contracts (see our posts here and here). And Australia won’t be far behind them.

STT hears that Tony Abbott is acutely aware that the mandatory RET is an entirely flawed piece of public policy; and is nothing more than an out of control industry subsidy scheme.

As such, it represents a ticking political time-bomb for a government that doesn’t need anymore grief from an angry proletariat. And boy, the proletariat are going to be angry when they find out that under the mandatory RET they’re being lined up to pay $50 billion in REC Tax – to be transferred as a direct subsidy to wind power outfits and added to their power bills – over the next 17 years.

For Tony Abbott to have any hope of a second term in government, the mandatory RET must go now.

abbottcover

Aussies Know Renewable Energy Targets are a SCAM! Get rid of them!

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Senator Matt Canavan: mandatory RET is an Enormous Wind Industry Protection Racket

August 20, 2014 by

abbott, hockey, cormann

With news that Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey and Mathias Cormann have teamed up to axe the mandatory RET (see our post here), the wind industry and its parasites have been reduced to a pitiful spectacle: drifting between pleading and begging for mercy, on the one hand, and foaming rage, on the other.

These desperados are like a band of teenage brats facing a little “parenting” for the first time in their lives: how dare anyone pull the plug on $50 billion worth of REC Tax/Subsidy that would have given me a delightful Point Piper view of Sydney Harbour, and kept me and my mates in Mercs and Beamers for life?!?!

And like spoilt infants facing a little discipline, these boys are looking for any hint that they might avoid punishment. Overblown reports put out by the ABC and Fairfax press that the Coalition isn’t really intent on scrapping the mandatory RET outright have been seized on by the wind industry and its parasites like shipwreck survivors clinging to floating wreckage.

But this is one occasion where the stricken will be denied any salvation.

STT hears that what was reported in the Australian Financial Review (and covered in this post) is just the beginning of the wind industry’s woes.

STT hears that Tony Abbott harbours a deep antipathy to the wind industry, which is only matched by his distaste for corporate welfare; we’ve covered a little of it in our posts here and here and here.  The PM is determined to bring the wind industry to an end; the only question is precisely how that objective is to be achieved. While the shortest route home is to simply scrap the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000, there are plenty of other ways of skinning the subsidy cat.

STT hears that the (current) preferred option is to leave the legislation in tact, but to gut it in such a way that the wind industry will be starved of subsidies by choking off the current and, more importantly, expected value of RECs.

The plan goes a little like this.

The Coalition has a policy aimed at achieving least-cost CO2 abatement, called “Direct Action” (a run down on the policy is available here). The policy has its critics on other scores, but it may well end up being the wind industry’s Armageddon.

Under the Direct Action policy, CO2 abatement is to be achieved at the lowest possible cost using “Australian Carbon Credit Units” (CCUs).

CCUs would be issued on audited proof of the abatement of 1 tonne of CO2. That could be by way of “carbon farming”: planting trees or restoring vegetation cover to over-grazed pastoral range-lands, say.

RECs, on the other hand, are issued on proof of renewable power dispatched to the grid: 1 REC for each and every MWh delivered. The deal has proceeded on the (wild) assumption that 1 MWh of wind power dispatched to the grid results in 1 tonne of CO2 emissions reduction in the electricity sector.

Under the PM’s brewing plan to kill the wind industry, RECs would be made redundant and, instead, wind power generators would be entitled to apply for CCUs. RECs and CCUs would be consolidated, with the former being phased out, and eventually replaced by the latter.

Now, here’s the clever part.

A CCU will only be issued on audited proof that the applicant has, in fact, reduced or abated 1 tonne of CO2 emissions. That will see wind power outfits struggle to jump the first hurdle: despite some “smoke and mirrors” modelling, the wind industry has never produced a shred of evidence to back its CO2 abatement claims.

The auditing of CCU applications will be done by way of certification and verification by a registered valuer. In the event that wind power outfits can satisfy the auditor and pocket a CCU, they then face the prospect of a far less generous subsidy stream.

(As an aside, one earlier variation of the plan was that the recipient of the CCU would not be able to cash it in, but would, rather, surrender the CCU to the Australian Tax Office and enjoy a reduction in their taxable income to the (pre-determined) value of the CCU: after auditing, the applicant would present their CCUs to a Certified Practicing Accountant to be submitted to the ATO with the applicant’s tax returns.)

The point of Direct Action and the CCU is to bring about the cheapest possible CO2 abatement, by whatever means. This means that the market for CCUs will be open to all comers and competitive in a way which the market for RECs isn’t.

The REC price is underpinned by the mandated shortfall charge of $65 per MWh: the effect of which comes into play from 2017, as the annual RET figure begins to climb from 27,200 GWh to the 41,000 GWh target, effective from 2020 to 2031. It’s that relationship that has wind power outfits salivating at the prospect of RECs being worth at least $65 and, by 2017, exceeding $100.

The CCU, however, is meant to be tradeable and interchangeable with carbon credits on international markets; such as those traded in Europe. Under Direct Action, certain CO2 emitters will be able to meet their obligations to surrender CCUs by purchasing European carbon credits at the going rate: the trading price of which has ranged between A$7-10.

The price for CCUs is, therefore, expected to top out at around $10.

And it’s on the issue of being able to trade CCU’s on the international market that the Coalition have been talking seriously to big Clive Palmer and, in this respect, may end up adopting parts of the PUP’s much reported plan for an ETS – starting with internationally tradeable CCUs. Of course, Palmer’s stated position is that the price for ETS credits must be set at ZERO, until such time as all of Australia’s major trading partners (like Europe, China, Japan, Canada and the US etc) sign up to an international ETS (see our post here).

For wind power outfits to survive, let alone build any new capacity, they need RECs to be trading at around $40, at a minimum. Anything less than $30, and wind power generators will never cover their operating costs, which run between $25-30 per MWh (see our post here).

Under Direct Action (assuming audited proof that 1 tonne of CO2 emissions has been abated) wind power generators would be issued with 1 CCU (instead of 1 REC).

By replacing RECs (currently trading around $30) with CCUs likely to trade around $8, the wind industry would disappear in a heartbeat. Although, we note that wind industry barrackers, the Climate Institute predicts that wind power outfits will soon be able to survive on subsidies of around $10 per MWh (see further below) – in which case, the wind industry will lap up CCUs at $8-10 and rub along just fine: but we doubt it … What’s that they say about being careful about what you wish for?

STT hears that over the last few months crack energy market economist, Danny Price has been working on the plan to rework the RET to bring it into line with the Direct Action policy; starting with the plan to replace the REC system with CCUs (see our post here).

So, if you hear the members of the Coalition talking about retaining the mandatory RET, don’t be too concerned. STT hears that Tony Abbott is absolutely committed to killing the wind industry; and how it’s done is a matter of substance, not form.

In the meantime, a growing number of Coalition members are going on the offensive; calling for the mandatory RET to be scrapped outright.

matt canavan

Another to join the queue is Queensland Nationals Senator, Matt Canavan (a former Director of the Productivity Commission) who penned this brilliant piece for The Australian.

Dodgy sums on renewables don’t add up
The Australian
Matt Canavan
19 August 2014

THE advocates of renewable energy would have you believe that they have discovered the economic equivalent of the fountain of youth. According to them, we can adopt more expensive ways of doing things, yet that will lead to cheaper prices.

That renewable energy is more expensive than fossil fuels should not be in dispute. If renewables were cheaper, they would not need the billions of dollars in subsidies they receive every year courtesy of taxpayers.

The most recent example of magic pudding economic modelling was released by the Climate Institute yesterday and purports to show that subsidising renewable energy will in fact reduce energy prices. The report concedes, at least in its graphs, that abolishing the renewable energy target will reduce power prices.

The Climate Institute claims that after a few years of falling prices, they will increase. This primarily occurs because the modelling assumes that renewable energy will get cheaper through learning by doing. Thanks to this miraculously rapid learning, it is assumed that subsidies to renewables will drop from more than $70 per megawatt hour in 2020 to just over $10 by 2030. The modelling refers to “international studies” to support this assumption without referencing any. So much for peer review.

Windmills have been around for centuries and despite massive investment from countries such as Denmark, they are still not economically viable without subsidies. But if the RET is about to solve the problem of affordable energy, why stop there?

For instance, Australia has long had a problem producing cheap and competitive cars but we have the solution. All we need is a domestic automobile target. The DAT will mandate that, say, 20 per cent of our cars should be produced domestically. Domestic manufacturers will receive domestic automobile certificates for every car they produce. Importers of cars will have to buy these DACs. We know this will work because it is a market-based solution. Just like the RET, it should magically reduce the price of cars for Australian consumers.

In reality, such a scheme would be nothing but a fancy form of tariff. Those who argued for tariffs argued that Australian industry needed protection when it was young, but one day it would grow up and would become cheaper and more competitive. Advocates of renewables use a version of this discredited infant industry argument today.

The models used to support this just confirm the old joke: ask an economist what two plus two equals and he will respond: “How much would you like it to equal?”

Some who can’t bear to defend wealthy companies asking for taxpayer handouts say the RET is cheap. It is true that credible economic modelling shows the RET probably costs consumers about $50 a year. Is that cheap?

Last week, the nation was gripped by the spectacle of a “regressive” fuel tax that would cost the average consumer $20 a year. The same people who pillory the Treasurer for indexing fuel excise argue for a RET more than twice as costly. At least fuel excise will help build roads, whereas the RET doesn’t make electricity more reliable or powerful, it just makes pensioners and the poor go without heating or airconditioning to subsidise the lucky few with the resources to invest in the latest fad: renewables.

The RET is an extremely expensive form of emission reductions, between double and six times the cost of the carbon tax.

And it doesn’t stop there. The big losers from the RET are those industries that use lots of energy, such as aluminium and fertiliser producers. Some economic modelling finds that the RET will lead to 5000 fewer jobs.

There are few supporters left of high car or other tariffs. The biggest protection racket left is renewable energy.

The final argument used to stop protection from being removed is that it introduces sovereign risk and would be unfair to those who have invested in an industry based on government policy. Even some who want to remove renewable subsidies argue that we should grandfather existing investments.

There is merit in this but it cuts both ways. When the 20 per cent RET was introduced five years ago it effectively devalued billions of dollars worth of coal and gas assets. Some estimates say the RET will transfer more than $5 billion from fossil fuel to renewable assets in the next 15 years. Such an expropriation also represents sovereign risk. It is fine to talk about grand­fathering renewables but we should also great-grandfather those who invested in coal, gas or aluminium before there was a prospect of a RET.

As an economically damaging protectionist policy, the RET should be removed. The adjustment should be done over time and the costs should be shared between fossil fuel, energy-intensive and renewable sectors alike.

Matt Canavan is a Nationals senator for Queensland. He was formerly a director of the Productivity Commission.
The Australian

The only quibble we have with Matt’s fine piece of analysis is the implicit concession that reducing or scrapping the mandatory RET amounts to “sovereign risk”.

In this post, WA Senator, Chris Back slammed that one straight over the long-boundary, based on Parliamentary advice which, funnily enough, reflects what STT has already said on the issue (see our posts here andhere). What the wind industry faces is “regulatory risk” – just like the risk realised by aluminium processors and conventional power generators when Labor increased the mandatory RET to 41,000 GWh in 2010: examples relied on by Matt when dealing with the claimed need for “grandfathering” wind industry investments.

Matt has a pretty fair crack at the “Magic Pudding” economics put up by wind industry cheer squad, the Climate Institute and its nonsensical claims that subsidies to wind power outfits will drop from $70 per MWh in 2020 to around $10 per MWh by 2030. That fiction dissolves with a cursory peek at the legislation that makes up the mandatory RET; and the application of plain old arithmetic to its terms.

By 2020, the RECs issued to wind power outfits (1 REC per MWh dispatched) will be worth at least $65 (equal to the cost of the mandated shortfall charge) – and are expected to trade at around $100 by then – which means the subsidy extracted from power consumers and directed to wind power outfits will be worth at least $65 per MWh and, more likely, $100 per MWh, right up until 2031. Between 2014 and 2031, the REC Tax/Subsidy will add between $36 billion and $50 billion to Australian power consumers’ bills (see our post here).

Not only is the Climate Institute’s claim about the cost of subsidies to wind power outfits utter bunkum, its “modelling”, of course, deliberately ignores the impact of the Power Purchase Agreements struck between wind power generators and retailers, which guarantee returns of between $90-120 per MWh (versus the wholesale price for conventional power of $30-40 per MWh). Sticking with its “Magic Pudding” approach to the cost of the mandatory RET, the Climate Institute tosses up the wind industry’s argument that wind power lowers wholesale prices: precisely how it does so on days when the entire wind power output of all wind farms connected to the Eastern Grid struggles to top 20 MW is anybody’s guess (see our post here). But, in any event, power consumers don’t pay the wholesale price (and couldn’t care less about it): it’s the price fixed by PPAs (which run from 15 to 25 years) that determines the price retailers charge their customers and the final cost of wind power; and, therefore, retail prices (see our posts here and here).

The Magic Pudding’s ability to return to his original form – no matter how many times he was eaten – is the stuff of delicious fantasy. However, slice $50 billion from Australian power consumers and our economy is unlikely to mimic the Magic Pudding’s most desirable quality and bounce back without a scratch. The mandatory RET is not only “the biggest protection racket left”, it is the single biggest (and perfectly avoidable) threat to sustainable Australian employment and prosperity there is. The mandatory RET must go now.

MagicPudding

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

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Scotland’s Toxic Shock: Wind Farms Poisoning Neighbours

August 15, 2014 by  

Laurence Well

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

lies

I wouldn’t Lend the Ontario Liberals a nickel. Soon, nobody will!

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Moody’s issues warning about Ontario’s growing deficit

ADRIAN MORROW

TORONTO — The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Jul. 02 2014, 8:26 PM EDT

On the eve of a Throne Speech outlining Premier Kathleen Wynne’s plan for her new majority mandate, Moody’s has issued a stark warning on Ontario’s growing deficit.

The bond rating agency has changed its outlook on the province to “negative,” cautioning its credit rating could be downgraded if it doesn’t show progress either cutting spending or hiking revenues. In a note late Wednesday, Moody’s said it was concerned by the Liberals’ plan to miss interim targets for erasing red ink.

The province is pledging to balance the books in three years, but will run a far larger deficit this year than originally projected.

“The expected path to balance and stabilization of the debt burden, in our opinion, faces greater challenges than before,” Michael Yake, Moody’s lead analyst for Ontario, said in a statement.

A senior government source said the Speech – to be delivered by Lieutenant-Governor David Onley but written by Ms. Wynne’s office – will provide further details on Treasury Board President Deb Matthews’s plan to find savings. It will promise to govern “from the activist centre” and put “evidence before ideology,” balancing Ms. Wynne’s massive policy agenda with the need to erase the deficit.

The address will also announce a trade mission to China this fall, the source said, Ms. Wynne’s first overseas trip since becoming Premier a year and a half ago.

Ms. Wynne won the June 12 election in large part by rallying voters opposed to former Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak’s plan for aggressive budget cutting, which included a promise to slash 100,000 public-sector jobs.

MPPs gathered Wednesday for the first time since the vote. They re-elected Liberal Dave Levac as Speaker over four other candidates – fellow Liberal Shafiq Qaadri, PC Rick Nicholls, and New Democrats Paul Miller and Cheri DiNovo – after three ballots.

He promised to take an even-handed approach in the often-fractious assembly: “It’s like a steam pipe: If you squeeze it too much, it blows up. So you let off a little at a time.”

The PCs, meanwhile, chose veteran MPP Jim Wilson as interim leader. In a disarmingly frank scrum with reporters, he said the party must break from the divisive policies of the past.

“Let’s not be attacking people. We’ve been attacking people for a decade,” Mr. Wilson said. “There’s no need to pick on particular groups.”

He also promised a more collegial leadership style. The 100,000 job cut plan, he said, was foisted on caucus with no consultation.

“We shot ourselves in the foot in the last election and we’ve got to stop doing that,” he said. “We’ve had a period, about a decade, where caucus has felt badly disenfranchised.”

Mr. Wilson, a former health and energy minister under premier Mike Harris, defeated Chief Whip John Yakabuski and maverick MPP Randy Hillier for the interim post. He will stay in place until a permanent leader is chosen.

The legislature, on the whole, had an unusually relaxed, collegial feel Wednesday. MPPs from all sides walked across the floor to mingle while ballots were counted in the race for Speaker. Ms. Wynne made the rounds of newly elected members, introducing herself and greeting each personally. At one point, Mr. Yakabuski even sat down on the Liberal front bench as he chatted amiably with a group of cabinet ministers.