unaffordable renewables

Wynne has Maxed out her Ontario Taxpayer Credit Card. Something’s gotta give!

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Scott Stinson: Union contract showdown will put an end,

to Wynne’s charade of a painless fiscal balance

Scott Stinson | June 13, 2014 5:27 PM ET

Hundreds of union protesters shouted at delegates as they arrived at the Ontario Liberal Party leadership convention in Toronto on Jan. 26, 2013.

Frank Gunn/The Canadian PressHundreds of union protesters shouted at delegates as they arrived at the Ontario Liberal Party leadership convention in Toronto on Jan. 26, 2013.
Three scenes from the making of a quandary, beginning in January, 2013: Outside Maple Leaf Gardens, where the Ontario Liberals had convened to select a new Premier, hundreds of public-sector workers stood on Carlton Street in a heavy snowstorm to shout slogans and wave placards as party members filed in. Many of the signs bore the picture of an elephant; a reminder, the protestors said, that they would remember the way the outgoing Liberal leader had strong-armed them. “We won’t forget,” they yelled.

Matt Gurney: Cheer up, Tories, Wynne will impose austerity for you — she has no choice

Here’s something that may help perk all those demoralized Ontario Tories about there: In a weird way, their defeat doesn’t matter. They’ll get their agenda through, anyway. In substance, if not in name.

Who won is, in a big way, immaterial. Oh, the result matters to the participants, of course, and in terms of the dismal message it sends about how tolerant the Ontario voter is of Liberal abuse and mismanagement. But in the big picture, who is premier or what party won the most seats wasn’t the real issue.

Read full column…

April, 2014: Just before Kathleen Wynne’s second budget was tabled, officials with AMAPCEO, the union representing skilled professionals, held a press conference at Queen’s Park to announce overwhelming support for their first strike vote in 22 years. Government negotiators, they said, were making unreasonable demands, including a four-year wage freeze. “We thought it was over in 2012, that the nightmare would end,” said president Gary Gannage. “But it’s back in 2014.”

His members, he said, while typically not confrontational, did not want to “wear a deficit that was not of their making.”

June, 2014: In a packed, sweaty bakery on Royal York Road on the day before the election, candidate Peter Milczyn introduced Kathleen Wynne to the thronging mass in red. This is the person who has the plan to build Ontario up, he said. “And she will do it with no cuts!” He hit the last two words hard. Cheers erupted.

They are scenes that, taken together, illustrate the kind of pickle that Kathleen Wynne finds herself in now. Fresh from a remarkable victory in which the Liberal leader demonized the Progressive Conservative plan to freeze public-sector wages and shrink the size of government, Ms. Wynne will in short order have to confront how she will live up to her own promises to balance the budget on schedule, ramping down spending with, as Mr. Milczyn put it so enthusiastically on Wednesday, no cuts.

In the very short term, the business will be easy. A majority government will allow the Premier to bring her failed budget back for quick passage shortly after the legislature returns on July 2. That budget pushed the messy problem of expense restraint another year down the road, which meant that it did exactly what it was supposed to do on the campaign trail: it made vanquished PC leader Tim Hudak isolated in his call for austerity, and allowed Ms. Wynne to assert that hers was the gentle, painless path to balance.

That charade ends right about now. Once the budget is passed, if not sooner, the Liberal government will have to begin negotiating in earnest with the province’s major public-sector unions, who are nearing the end of the two-year contracts that were signed, under the threat of binding legislation, not long before Dalton McGuinty left office, thanks in part to the push of the union boot. Ms. Wynne has often expressed regret for the way that process unfolded and she has been consistent, dating back to her leadership run, that she would not pursue similar tactics. When her government ripped up contracts with Ontario’s two largest teachers’ unions that had been imposed under Mr. McGuinty, language in the new, negotiated agreements specifically said that changes to compensation measures in future deals would be “the subject of collective bargaining.” This is in keeping with all of the Premier’s public statements on contract negotiations: she will respect the bargaining process.

But what that means, essentially, is that Ms. Wynne has forfeited her only avenue for leverage in those contract talks. Her budget states that there is no new money available for compensation increases, something she repeated often on the campaign trail, but it is no secret that the unions aren’t about to accept an opening offer full of zeroes. Even a friendly union like AMAPCEO is preparing to man the barricades, while the teachers’ federations have been telling members to prepare for the possibility of work stoppages in the fall, as they top up their strike funds. The comments from Mr. Gannage last month are a good representation of what labour leaders have been saying since Mr. McGuinty began his austerity push two years ago: the deficit isn’t our problem, so don’t put it on our backs to fix it. There’s also a lingering feeling that unions that promised not to strike in 2012, in hopes of getting the Liberals to blink first, were burned when the government imposed contracts anyway. There’s little appetite for repeating that process.

The next round of negotiations, then, will have unions uninterested in continued compensation restraint pitted against a government that has no money to offer and whose leader has promised to allow the bargaining process to play out. And Ms. Wynne can’t trade pay increases for layoffs, because, no cuts.

It is quite difficult to see how these positions, poles apart as they are, can be resolved. Will the Premier hope that asking nicely will convince the unions to fold? Will the unions force work stoppages, bringing about the labour chaos that Ms. Wynne just spent six weeks telling everyone would be avoided if they voted Liberal?

Or, does her commitment to bargaining extend only so far as determining a deal within the government’s fiscal parameters cannot be reached? In that scenario, the prospects of legislatively imposed contracts remain. But this is a labour movement in Ontario that just spent untold millions in aid of the Liberal cause. (That cause being: don’t vote PC.) Would the Wynne Liberals in 2014, in other words, pick the same fight with the unions that the McGuinty Liberals did in 2012?

Given all that Ms. Wynne has said and done since taking office, that seems highly unlikely. The irony is, had Mr. McGuinty had the same majority then that Ms. Wynne enjoys now, it’s a fight he would have won.

Professional Engineer Knows This Rush to Renewables is NOT Rational….

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Power station’s demise ‘a destruction of British engineering’

5:00pm Wednesday 25th June 2014

By Ben Holgate

THE engineer responsible for turning Didcot A power station both on and off does not want to witness it being blown up, believing the environmental strategy behind its closure is flawed.

“The answer is no. I want to be as far away from it as possible,” said Lyn Bowen.

“I suppose locals see it as a spectacle. I see it as destruction of British engineering.”

Didcot residents are expected to rise early to watch the dawn explosion on Sunday, July 27, when the three southern cooling towers are due to come down in the first phase of demolition.

As reported in yesterday’s Oxford Mail, RWE npower has refused to disclose the specific time three of the six iconic towers will be demolished in an attempt to minimise the number of onlookers.

The three remaining towers will be demolished at a later date.

Mr Bowen, 74, from East Hanney, near Wantage, remains bitterly disappointed at the decommissioning of the power station, which had been a large part of his life for 23 years.

The father-of-two worked there as a charge engineer until 1993, when he retired.

In March last year, he returned briefly to switch off Didcot A for good, giving an emotional thumbs-down signal to staff members.

It was a poignant moment, as almost 43 years earlier Mr Bowen had switched on the power station in September, 1970.

Didcot A closed as part of a nationwide switch to gas-fired power stations, which are less

environmentally damaging, and gas-fired Didcot B power station remains.

The move is the result of a European Union directive to lower carbon emissions, but Mr Bowen disputes the policy’s benefits.

“We need these power stations. We’ve got ourselves in a bit of a hole,” he said.

“Coal-fired power stations should never close down.”

Mr Bowen believes the UK should not have wound down its coal-mining industry, as there is “plenty of coal left” underground.

“It’s a shame, as the coal used at Didcot was coming from Siberia,” he said.

He regards nuclear power as dangerous and estimates it would take 2,300 wind turbines to generate the same amount of electricity

that Didcot A supplied.   “It’s all political, I’m afraid,” he added.

“I haven’t stopped campaigning with politicians to get my view across.”

Didcot’s three southern cooling towers will be demolished next month, followed by more explosions to clear the site over the

next two years.  The main buildings are to be blown up in 2015, and the northern cooling towers dismantled in 2016.

Meanwhile, Birmingham-based Coleman & Company, which is contracted to demolish the power station, announced the firm

has commissioned six large demolition specification excavators from Liebherr Great Britain for the project.

Coleman & Company chose Liebherr, which it has worked with in the past, after consulting with four manufacturers.

Managing director Mark Coleman said Libherr was the only manufacturer that was able to meet all of his firm’s requirements,

and that Liebherr was a leader in the production of bespoke demolition equipment.

Coleman & Company is one of the UK’s largest demolition contractors.

The Didcot demolition includes six 325ft cooling towers, office blocks, boilers, a turbine hall and a 200-metre chimney.

Clowes Developments (UK) Ltd, which has struck a deal with npower to buy a large part of the site, has been told it should

concentrate on using the land for business.  Clowes said some of the land could be used for housing.

But Vale of White Horse District Council leader Matthew Barber and members of Didcot Town Council have said they think the site

should be used for businesses.   Mr Barber said a lot of work would have to be done at the site before any building work could start.

Our top stories:

Update: Fire at Didcot Power Station earmarked for demolition + pictures and video

8:50pm Wednesday 25th June 2014 in News

Oxford Mail: Fire at Didcot Power Station earmarked for demolitionFire at Didcot Power Station earmarked for demolition

A FIRE has broken out in a transformer at Didcot A Power Station.

Crews were called out to the power station at about 4.30pm today.

Three cooling towers at the plant are to be demolished on July 27.

An Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service spokeswoman said firefighters were still on the scene, including three senior fire officers.

Savings Are Rarely Passed on to Consumers. Increases, Always Are!

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 Print    

Carbon tax abolition won’t translate into big electricity bill changes: ESAA

By consumer affairs reporter Amy Bainbridge

Updated 1 hour 49 minutes ago

O'Farrell pushes for power bill compensationPHOTO: The electricity industry collects about $11 million per day in carbon liability. (7pm TV News NSW)
RELATED STORY: Palmer’s carbon tax offer tops menu for breakfast meeting with Abbott
MAP: Australia

Consumers are being told not to expect a big windfall gain in their power bill if the carbon tax is repealed.

With Palmer United Palmer leader Clive Palmer pledging support for the repeal of the carbon tax, the Energy Supply Association of Australia (ESAA) wants the repeal to be passed as soon as possible.

ESAA chief executive Matthew Warren says if the Senate wants to repeal the carbon tax, the best result for consumers would be for it to swiftly end uncertainty in the industry.

“The electricity market is incredibly complicated and there is thousands of electricity contracts with carbon in them and millions of dollars of them being traded,” he said.

“Unwinding that process after days and weeks and months into the financial year gets extremely complicated.

“So if the Senate wants to give consumers a clean run and a carbon free electricity bill then the best way of doing that is to repeal [it] in the first weeks of July.”

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has been given additional funding to ensure money is returned to consumers.

Mr Warren says it is difficult to give an estimate of how much people will save, because it depends on which state or territory they live in and how intense their electricity use is.

The carbon is in the order of cents per day so 20, 30, 50 cents a day is carbon in an electricity bill so that’s the kind of numbers you’ll see come out the other side.

Matthew Warren

 

“So we’ve already seen numbers like 8 per cent in Queensland, 7 per cent in Tasmania, that sort of order of magnitude,” he said.

“[It’s] a bit less in South Australia where they use more gas so there’s less carbon in their power bills but that’s the kind of size of reduction we should expect to see once the tax is repealed.

“The carbon is in the order of cents per day so 20, 30, 50 cents a day is carbon in an electricity bill so that’s the kind of numbers you’ll see come out the other side.”

Mr Warren says because many consumers receive their bills monthly, they will not necessarily notice a substantial difference in what they pay.

Industry has been collecting about $11 million per day in carbon liability, which Mr Warren says is part of the complication.

“We square the carbon tax up at the end of the year so a repeal that occurs swiftly after that time is pretty easy to execute,” he said.

“If we’re deep into the financial year and we’re trying to unwind $11 million accumulating every day it starts to get extremely complicated, so that’s why our advice is if the Senate is serious about repealing then let’s just repeal quickly.”

According to a 2013 St Vincent de Paul report on energy prices, South Australia has the largest annual average electricity bill of $2,300.

However, because the carbon tax is only applied to the generation component of power supply, the 8 per cent reduction due to the repeal will not apply to the whole bill.

The St Vincent de Paul report also shows combined electricity and gas bills have risen as much as 85 per cent since 2009 in some parts of Australia.

Martin Jones from the Consumer Utilities Advocacy Centre says the carbon price is in the long-term interest of consumers.

“Should the carbon price be repealed, we would expect energy retailers to pass the savings on to their customers quickly and in full,” Mr Jones said.

“However, we think the ACCC will find it difficult to enforce this for retailers not operating in regulated markets and that consumers may not fully realise savings as a result.”

Do you know more? Email investigations@abc.net.au

More on this story

When it Comes to Wind Turbines, All the Rules are Thrown Out….

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First Nation returns to court seeking injunction against wind farm

Credit:  June 24, 2014 | www.tbnewswatch.com ~~

 

THUNDER BAY – The Fort William First Nation, Horizon Wind Inc., and the province were back in a Thunder Bay Courtroom Monday.

Fort William First Nation is seeking an injunction against the Ministry of Environment and other provincial ministries.

The First Nation alleges Crown ministries have failed in their duty to consult over the proposed Big Thunder Wind Park.

The First Nation has also filed Judicial Reviews against the province.

On Monday they were seeking an injunction to prevent the Ministry of Environment from approving Horizon Wind’s project until those Judicial Reviews are heard.

Lawyers representing the Crown argued there is still consultation underway. But that comes as news to the First Nation, which says there has been no meaningful talks ongoing.

The Judge reserved her decision on the injunction.

It could be weeks or months before a decision is rendered.

Representatives of the First Nation believe the Ministry of Environment is on the verge of approving the wind farm, despite the concerns they have raised.

It’s Not a Theory….It’s a FACT! Agenda 21 is a Serious Threat!

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The Conspiracy Theory

Posted on 25/06/2014by 

In the Politics of Energy and the Global Warming Agenda we come across certain terms which reflect where we as a Society have gone:

conspiracy theoryCognitive Dissonance – The tendency to resist information that we don’t want to think about, because if we did it would conflict with an illusion we have ought into – and perhaps require us to act in ways that are outside our comfort zone – Lean Festinger

Common Purpose – A UK ‘Charity’ specialising in Behavioural Modification. An elitest pro-EU political organisation helping to replace democracy in UK, and worldwide, with CP chosen ‘elite’ leaders. In truth, their hidden networks and political objectives are undermining and destroying our democratic society. Google their ‘graduates’.You will be alarmed.

Common Good – The political expediency that Politicians actions are in support of the common good. In that way there is no room for individuals. It is their definition of Democracy.

Agenda 21 – said to be a major tool of the New World order, conceived in 1992 in Rio De Janiero at the “UN Earth Summit.” its original aim was “Sustainable Development”. However there have been worrying glimpses of something much more invasive: “global land use, global education and global population control and reduction” The true objectives of Agenda 21, revealed, include an end to national sovereignty; restructure of the family unit which means basically the state will take care of your children, with a keen eye toward indoctrinating them into state control over family allegiance; abolition of private property. Looking at the SNP moves to provide every child a state guardian and their new Land Reforms does question whether this is as far fetched and conspiracy theory as we first think. After all the IPCC and AGW could be considered the first steps down the road of global governance. The actions of the EU in attempting to foist a Federal Europe on us. The removal of state veto and the power of the EU elite.

The Bilderberg Group – Bilderberg Club is an annual private conference of approximately 120–150 political leaders and experts from industry, finance, academia and the media.The Group is not democratic or accountable to the people of the world. Yet the decisions taken by this group affect every human being on earth, now and far ahead into the future. And Bilderberg Group meetings are never reported in the news.

Quotes by H.L. Mencken, famous columnist: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed — and hence clamorous to be led to safety — by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” And, “The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false face for the urge to rule it.”
The threat to the world, as is always the case, is a current group(s) of humans who want to impose their values and desires on others. These people represent such a group, and they are not saints as individuals; in fact, quite the opposite, unfortunately

Now we need to consider where common sense and conspiracy theory diverge. And that I will leave you to ponder!

Bob Chiarelli Back Again?…. What’s Up With That?

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Return of Ontario’s Six Billion Dollar Man

Posted by  on 24 June 2014, 4:07 pm

Bob Chiarelli is back as the Wynne government’s Energy Minister.

Last December, I started the series “Chiarelli: Ontario’s Six Billion Dollar Man” to track some of Bob wacky assertions about energy in Ontario.

The first edition of this series addressed his claim that Ontario’s electricity exports have earned profits of $6 billion. My question was picked up by Steve Paikin at TVO and Minister Chiarelli eventually explained that he relies on the Toronto Sun for his research on electricity export economics, as discussed in the third edition of this series.

The second edition challenged his repetition of the longstanding junk claim from the Liberals that Ontario has cut health care and environmental costs of $4.4 billion per year by closing coal plants, four of which have effective scrubbers drastically reducing hazardous emissions.

The fifth edition of this series lampooned the Minister’s claims that OPG profits have paid $7 billion toward the cost of education in Ontario.

I have also asked the Minister a number of questions on Twitter, none of which has elicited any response from him. These include:

April 4, 2014 in response to a tweet from Minister Chiarelli announcing an industrial power rate subsidy program: “Hey @Bob_Chiarelli you subsidize industrials while ordering more junk wind/solar/bio/storage. Double hit 4 small user
http://www.powerauthority.on.ca/sites/default/files/news/MC-2014-852.pdf”

April 15, 2014: “Hey @Bob_Chiarelli, once Thunder Bay GS is running on “advanced biomass” what will the power cost?”

April 25, 2014: “Hey @Bob_Chiarelli, ON exports at a loss, pays gens to not produce & you just ordered more gen contracts. How does conservation save money?”

– See more at: http://www.tomadamsenergy.com/2014/06/24/return-of-ontarios-six-billion-dollar-man/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=return-of-ontarios-six-billion-dollar-man#sthash.J8pj85xT.dpuf

Wind Weasels Don’t Want You to Hear…..the Truth!

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The Battle for Mt Emerald FNQ: What’s the Price

for the Sound of Your Silence?

June 25, 2014 by 

John Madigan

Proving the adage that you can never keep a good man down, Senator John Madigan has bobbed up in Far North Queensland and walked straight into a hornet’s nest – this time over gag clauses in land contracts for properties being sold next door to a wind farm by the developer of that wind farm. Here’s The Cairns Post on the brewing rumble for Mt Emerald.

Senator queries wind farm ‘gag’ clause while in Cairns
The Cairns Post
Daniel Bateman
21 June 2014

A VICTORIAN Senator has questioned why the property developer behind a Tableland wind farm has any need to ban residents from speaking out about the project.

Developer Port Bajool Pty Ltd has placed a clause in its contracts of sale for properties at Oaky Creek Farms, stating there be no objection to the proposed $380 million Mt Emerald Wind Farm.

The developer claims the clause merely ensured buyers were fully aware of the proposed wind farm prior to purchasing property.

The State Government has called in the application for the development from the Mareeba Shire Council and is expected to decide if it will proceed by the end of the year.

Ballarat-based Democratic Labour Party Senator John Madigan, in Cairns this week for the AUSVEG convention, said he sympathised with residents living near the proposed wind farm.

Mr Madigan described the developer’s claims of transparency as “a load of crap”.

“These gag clauses: if this was as pure as driven snow, why do you need gag clauses?” he said.

Cook MP David Kempton denied residents had been forced to sign gag orders.

“There’s no gag order. I reckon (opponents) are playing with that to try and make it look like (the developer) is something he isn’t,” he said.
The Cairns Post

So, what’s all the fuss about? Why don’t we start by having a look at the clause in question?

Set out below is an extract from the “Contracts for Sale” for properties at Oaky Creek Farms, Mutchilba (Queensland, Australia).  These properties are being sold by Port Bajool Pty Ltd. Port Bajool Pty Ltd is the owner of the property (situated on Mt Emerald) – on which RATCH (aka RACL, a subsidiary of Thailand’s biggest power producer) is planning to construct a 63 turbine wind farm (aka the High Road Wind Farm) – and Port Bajool Pty Ltd is also a partner with RATCH in the $2.00 company, Mt Emerald Wind Farm Pty Ltd. The properties at Oaky Creek Farms are all within a 5km radius of proposed turbines, as identified on RATCH’s “Surrounding Residences” map.

Here’s the offending clause:

No Objection to Wind Farm

The Vendor discloses that certain feasibility studies (including geotechnical surveys and construction and operation of monitoring equipment) and a development application or procedure have been or may be made in respect to the use or development of Lot 7 SP235244 for construction of wind electricity power generation (by means of a connected group of wind turbine generators, together with associated electrical infrastructure and connection equipment). The Purchaser must not object to any application or procedure made or initiated by or on behalf of the Vendor or a third party in respect of any use or development of Lot 7 SP235244. The Purchaser acknowledges that the Purchaser will not be materially prejudiced by the development or use of Lot 7 SP 235244 as a “wind farm” for the generation of electrical power.

The clause is pretty straightforward – a purchaser of land from the joint-developer of the wind farm signs away any right to object to any application or procedure made in respect of any use or development on the site of the proposed wind farm: Lot 7 SP235244.

The purchaser also effectively signs away their private law rights (such as nuisance or negligence caused by wind turbine noise, say) by acknowledging that they “will not be materially prejudiced by the development or use” of the site “as a “wind farm” for the generation of electrical power.”

The purchaser’s agreement not to object to any application or procedure made by the developer in respect of any use of the site – combined with the acknowledgement that the purchaser “will not be materially prejudiced by the development or use” of the site as a wind farm – can be fairly described as a “gag clause”. While there are much tougher versions around, this one is probably tough enough for the developer’s purposes (see our post here).

In practical effect, the purchaser would not be entitled to raise any objection to the wind farm at all. To object would be a breach of the Contract for Sale; and an objection would include any negative or disparaging statement made about the use or operation of the site as a wind farm. This would not be limited to statements made during the planning process, but would extend to cover any application or procedure made by the developer during the life of the wind farm.

Moreover, should the purchaser take action (including legal action) in relation to any complaint concerning negative impacts caused by the operation of the wind farm, the purchaser will breach that part of the clause that acknowledges that they “will not be materially prejudiced by the development or use” of the site as a wind farm. Were the purchaser to make their complaint to the press, for example, the developer may also assert that this breaches that same acknowledgement; and would, therefore, constitute a breach of contract.

Whichever way you slice it, the clause is Draconian. And, if wind farms make such wonderful neighbours, obviously unnecessary, surely? A point well made by John “Marshall” Madigan in the piece above.

But don’t just take our word for it, the Tablelands Regional Council received legal advice (click here for the advice) in relation to the Ratch’s High Road Wind Farm development. In apparent response to the clause set out above (and clauses like it) the advice was as follows (see page 18):

We do recommend that Council make HRWF (High Road Wind Farm) aware that in conducting any negotiations they couldn’t stifle comments from residents who are likely to be affected. The Court [inBunnings Building Supplies Pty Ltd v Redland Shire Council and Ors[2000] QPELR 193, paras [30] and [32]] has warned:

“The Council should have the opportunity to assess the application in the light of the informed attitude of interested parties, especially local residents and most especially those living closest to the site who would mostly be affected. That informed attitude may well be perverted by a developer who uses the cheque book … In this case the cheque book approach to potential submitters has not affected the merits of the various arguments on the disputed issues. I take the opportunity, however, to deplore it in the strongest terms. Should this approach manifest itself in other application, the Court will have to examine the ramifications in detail. Could it have the effect of vitiating the public notification stage, requiring re-notification? Might it amount to an abuse of process?”

We note that the [noise] Standard recommends that a regulatory authority set criteria that is flexible to account for existing agreements between landowners. We do not agree with this approach.

Now, some might quibble and say – referring to the concept of freedom of contract – that where parties willingly enter agreements they should be bound to honour them, no matter what their terms.

Call us sticklers for fairness – but that principle no longer holds where the beneficiary of a punitive clause has deliberately engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct.  And there is no party more likely to mislead or deceive than the prospective wind farm developer; and the “softer” the target, the easier the ruse.

Lies and deception work a treat if your audience is a 60 something farmer’s wife living on an isolated property and of the class that accepts people at face value.  The targets come from places where people (who want to function and remain in these communities) just don’t lie.  So they can’t pick it when the wind developer’s goons drop in for that one-on-one chat over a cuppa and start lying before the scones are popped on the table.

These are the private consultations where the unwitting victim is told that: “no, wind turbines aren’t noisy – they make the same noise as a fridge at 500m.” They’re told that: “our proposed wind farm will meet the toughestnoise standards in the world“; that: “the only people that complain arethose that aren’t getting paid“; that: “modern wind turbines don’t produce infrasound“; that: “the NHMRC said that the evidence proves that there are no adverse health effects from wind turbines”.  And so on and so on …. The same pitches have, no doubt, been made to prospective purchasers of properties at Oaky Creek Farms.

As a general rule, only those that have been forced to live with incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infra-sound for an extended period have the faintest idea as to what it’s like to live in a sonic torture trap (see our posts here and here).

A wind farm developer will never admit that turbine noise is a problem – it’s what they pay their pet acoustic consultants big-money to deflect or bury – victims can expect to hear pitches like the one that says listening to wind turbine noise is just like listening to waves lapping on a moonlit beach.

A wind farm developer who is also selling lifestyle properties right next door has a double incentive to gild the lily.

No wonder this one’s keen to buy the buyer’s silence.

Governments Colluded With Wind Industry, to Hide Truth About Wind Turbine Noise!

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Low-frequency noise on the line

Credit:  Peter Skeel Hjorth, June 13, 2014. jyllands-posten.dk ~~

 

The government, parliament and all others were fooled by the country’s wind turbine giants and the Environmental Protection Agency, who worked in close cooperation to design the rules for the low-frequency noise limit of 20 decibels, and had them approved politically.

During the course of the proceedings, the EPA itself delivered the evidence that a world-leading noise researcher, Professor Henrik Møller at Aalborg University, was right, and that the EPA had been wrong about the problems of low-frequency wind turbine noise.

The central official of the EPA has retired. He was the link to the wind turbine industry, but not the only person responsible for what was happening. What remains now is a Danish EPA with a huge problem needing explanation. Henrik Møller is now fired.

With a red – i.e. urgent – briefing, the EPA warned the then Minister of the Environment, Karen Ellemann, on May 6, 2011, that » the new turbines from the industry do not comply with the EPA’s recommended low-frequency limit «. There was a very good reason for the briefing being marked red.

Because the Minister had earlier in a reply to parliament said the exactly opposite: » (…) when wind turbines comply with the usual noise limits, the low-frequency noise will not give problems, « she wrote while referring to a report which the private consulting company Delta had prepared for the EPA. The same was said over and over again by the EPA.

Both the EPA and the wind energy industry had taken great care to downplay the significance of low-frequency wind turbine noise, which in the population had given, and gives, rise to widespread concern. The situation was therefore delicate for the EPA.

If you dig yourself through the many acts below the surface, the preparation of the Danish wind turbine statutory order appears in a completely new light, with foul play in the process and other critical conditions that have not been exposed so far.

In the spring of 2011, the parties behind the parliament resolution on the national test center for offshore wind turbines in Thy had demanded a new low-frequency noise limit, and the EPA had started a review of the wind turbine statutory order.

At an initial meeting at Delta in Aarhus, all the participants were from the wind energy industry with the exception of the EPA representative. It was thus the wind turbine industry representatives who discussed and planned how to proceed. They found that it would be fine with a limit of 20 decibels, which is the limit for other industrial noise sources at night. Wind turbines run, as we all know, also during the night.

» But it depends on the overall objective that the new limit should not impose new restrictions on wind turbines. What is possible to establish today should also be possible after the summer; it’s a challenge, « says the minutes from the EPA.

Neither Professor Henrik Møller nor others from the country’s qualified and most independent institution for noise attended the meeting. There had been talks with them a few days before, but at that time no specific plans were on the table. There were fine intentions of good cooperation, but that never got off the ground. Henrik Møller and his colleagues heard nothing more on the matter before the rules had been designed.

If the critics were heard, it could end up with rules that would push wind turbines further away from neighbors. That this, for example, would create problems for the most economical turbine from Vestas, because it was not technically possible to reduce the noise, is documented in the personal letter, then CEO Ditlev Engel sent to the Minister of the Environment later in the process. The wind turbine industry had therefore a clear interest in seeing that the noise limit did not lead to tightened distance requirements.

From Siemens and Vestas the EPA received confidential noise data for a number of large industrial turbines and made confidential consequence analyzes. These showed that the low-frequency noise would often be more than 20 decibels. Now the EPA was left with a Gordian knot, since the Minister insisted that the limit should be 20 decibels.

After this, the EPA held a number of meetings with the Danish Wind Industry Association, Vestas and Siemens. So says the central official’s calendar. But there are apparently no minutes of what was discussed at these meetings. At least, the EPA has to date been unable to find any.

After these meetings, on 23 May 2011, the EPA issued a draft of a revised statutory order. In several stages, the sound insulation figures had been changed. Without further explanation they had now been increased again.

The sound insulation figures describe how well noise is transmitted to the interior of a house. The original numbers stem from measurements made in 1996, when quite simply a noise source was put up in the garden and the sound measured on the other side of the wall inside a number of houses. A high sound insulation figure means a good sound insulation and a low means poor sound insulation.

The use of sound insulation figures and the measurement method for low-frequency noise indoors have been key issues in the professional disagreement between Professor Henrik Møller and the EPA.

In addition to increasing the sound insulation figures, the EPA had introduced a prescribed uncertainty of 2 decibels – i.e. the low-frequency noise may exceed the noise limit by 2 decibels under inspection once the turbine has been set up. An inspection does not consist of a measurement at the neighbors, as one might think, but a measurement close to the turbine and then a calculation of the noise at the neighbor. In this way, the Gordian knot was cut.

At the same time, Aalborg University was underway with an update of a previous report, and the media had made inquiries. The EPA sent another urgent red briefing to the minister, bearing in handwriting » URGENT – political parties’ spokesmen to be informed today «. This means that the spokesmen had to approve the draft before the contents of the report from Aalborg University became known. The critical noise researchers should not be heard.

At that time, there had been a long-term professional disagreement on low-frequency wind turbine noise between researchers at Aalborg University and the EPA’s leading noise expert. Among other things, they had diverging opinions on the how the sound insulation for low-frequency wind turbine noise should be measured.

The EPA used a measurement method that should be applied carefully in order to be suitable. However, it was used incorrectly, said amongst others Henrik Møller. When used properly it may very well be suitable. But it is difficult to use in practice. And this was precisely where things went wrong.

In a so-called technical pre-hearing on the draft order, Professor Dorte Hammershøi from Aalborg University wondered about the interest to relax the rules as much as possible. » If the rules are not properly worked out, it may well be that you comply with them, but neighbors still cannot sleep at night, « she said, according to the report.

In 2008, Delta published a summary report for the Danish Energy Agency. Its professional quality is disputable. It is muddy and lacks consistency in tables and figures. However, it shows that the large turbines are unable to meet the noise limit of 20 decibels.

In 2010, Delta came to the opposite conclusion in a final report to the Danish Energy Agency. Now the noise from the large turbines had decreased to 20 decibels. The Minister has explained that other (higher) sound insulation figures had been used. That explains why the noise from the large turbines was lower. However, at the same time, the noise from small turbines had increased. This is not trustworthy. And the whole thing was just calculations. Not a single measurement of wind turbine noise indoors had been made.

Professor Henrik Møller and his staff were unable to get the numbers in the report to fit. They did further calculations and reached the conclusion that low-frequency noise from large wind turbines is a problem. And that is exactly the report the EPA would forestall politically.

The political parties got a noise limit of 20 decibels – and the wind energy industry got what they wanted. But essential preconditions had been changed behind closed doors.

The political process was guided with a steady hand by a central government official in close collaboration with the wind energy industry, so the mandatory noise limit will have no real impact – just as Delta later happened to reveal in a report to the Norwegian Ministry of the Environment – by mere eagerness to tell the Norwegians that are no problems with low-frequency wind turbine noise. The bottom line remains unchanged: Wind turbines make noise, and the low-frequency noise is a problem for the neighbors.

Also see:  The perfect political crime

MPAC Property Devaluation Studies Are Not Worth the Paper They Are Written On!

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Municipal Property Assessment Corporation

2012 study of wind turbine impacts on

residential property assessments

Author:  “Gulden, Wayne”

 

Last week [April 2014] the Ontario Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) released the 2012 version of their continuing study (following one in 2008) of wind turbines and property values in Ontario, entitled Impact of Industrial Wind Turbines on Residential Property Assessment In Ontario. To sum it up, they still find no evidence that wind turbines cause property value declines.

The study consists of a 31-page main section [backup link] along with 12 appendices. MPAC seems to have their own language and it isn’t easily penetrated by a layman. I’ve read over it carefully several times and there are still aspects of it that escape me. The appendices are generally beyond anyone who is not a professional. On page 4 they state their goals for this version of the study:

Specifically, the study examined the following two statements:

1. Determine if residential properties in close proximity to IWTs are assessed equitably in relation to residential properties located at a greater distance. In this report, this is referred to as Study 1 – Equity of Residential Assessments in Proximity to Industrial Wind Turbines.

2. Determine if sale prices of residential properties are affected by the presence of an IWT in close proximity. In this report, this is referred to as Study 2 – Effect of Industrial Wind Turbines on Residential Sale Prices.

Their two main conclusions, on page 5, are:

Following MPAC’s review, it was concluded that 2012 CVAs of properties located within proximity of an IWT are assessed at their current value and are equitably assessed in relation to homes at greater distances. No adjustments are required for 2012 CVAs. This finding is consistent with MPAC’s 2008 CVA report.

MPAC’s findings also concluded that there is no statistically significant impact on sale prices of residential properties in these market areas resulting from proximity to an IWT, when analysing sale prices.

Actually, there are three parts to this study, with the third contained in Appendix G [backup link]. Early in 2013 one Ben Lansink published a pretty solid study that showed property value declines of anywhere from 22% to 59% and averaging about 37% on residential properties close (all within 1 km) to IWTs, which I posted on at the time. Apparently Lansink’s work was solid enough that MPAC felt obliged to attack it.

For me to critique all three parts would make for a very long posting, so I’m going to divide it up. Obviously the details will follow in my subsequent postings, but for the impatient let me summarize below.

Part 1, are MPAC’s evaluations close to IWTs as accurate (equitable, in their words) as those further away? This section is only of tangential interest to me, as the central question isn’t MPAC’s accuracy, but rather the effect of IWTs on prices. It seems that, given MPAC’s explanations, their appraisals are accurate. Still, there are some items in this part that are of interest. For example, it seems that MPAC has been playing games to get the appraisals to agree with the market while hiding the effect of wind turbines. They studied turbines 1.5mw and larger, not older turbines and the areas in Ontario where the impact has already been felt.

Part 2, do IWTs have an effect on properties closer to them? This section is of central interest. Unfortunately there are only 5 pages in Part 2, leaving lots of details missing. Things like the sales prices within the close-in areas. MPAC’s major tool for doing mass appraisals (4.7 million in Ontario) is multiple regression analysis and we’ve had lots of experience with how that can be manipulated to obtain the answer your sponsor wants. Instead of providing us the prices and letting us judge for ourselves what any effects might be, they opaquely run those prices through their regressions and voila! claim there’s nothing to see here!

But whoever wrote Part 2 must not have been talking to whoever wrote Part 1. On page 18, well within part 1, there’s Figure 2. It’s purpose there is to show how close the appraisals are to the sales data (the paired blue and green bars) for the different distances from the IWTs.

 

gulden-mpac-raw-data 

Note the blindingly obvious. Prices (and appraisals) within 5 km of IWTs are substantially lower than those further away. I’ve added the horizontal lines so we can better determine the values, which are noted to the side. Michael McCann, among others, has done a number of studies on IWTs and prices, and his overall conclusion is a decline of 25-40%, with almost 100% in some cases. Does anyone want to calculate the decline from 228,000 to 171,000? Perhaps the disparity is due to something as simple as the spread between rural and urban properties, but don’t you think MPAC would at least mention something? Nope. Nada.

Part 3, what are the problems with Lansink’s study? Appendix G is more or less readable and provides an excellent example of what David Michaels book, Doubt is Their Product, talks about. MPAC throws up, by my count, 7 objections to Lansink’s methodology; of which exactly zero actually indicate that Lansink’s numbers are wrong. Sewing confusion seems to be the most logical explanation. As an example, objection #4 of the 7 is that for some of the pre-IWT prices Lansink used, gasp!, MPAC’s own appraisals. Perhaps whoever wrote Appendix G didn’t bother reading the conclusions in Part 1.

There’s more details, of course, in the following.

Critique of Part 1

Critique of Part 2

Critique of the Lansink hatchet job

MPAC 2012, Study 1

Part 1 of MPAC’s 2012 study asks if MPAC has as equitably assessed properties close to IWTs as properties further away. This part, although of only tangential interest to wind opponents like myself, occupies the central part of the entire study. We think the larger question is: do IWTs reduce property values, not whether MPAC is clever and honest enough to correctly recognize those reductions.

MPAC is in the business of mass assessments, nearly 5 million in Ontario. Given this volume they have no choice but to use computers and computer-friendly techniques to do their assessments. That translates to a significant reliance on multiple regression analysis. They determine what sorts of characteristics influence the selling prices and then use the computers to find out how much influence each characteristic has. In their experience, 85% of the selling price can be calculated using 5 characteristics, or variables: location, building area, construction quality, lot size and age of the home adjusted for renovations and additions. Note that distance to a wind turbine is not one of their characteristics and MPAC seems determined to keep it so. But also note that location could be used in lieu of distance – more on this later.

MPAC uses the ASR, Assessment-to-Sales Ratio, to determine if their assessments are accurate. It is simply the assessment divided by selling price, with a ratio of 1.0 being a perfect match. MPAC expects ratios between 0.95 and 1.05, and presents what seems to be an endless series of charts demonstrating this, primarily in the appendices. While obviously MPAC (actually everyone) has an interest in accuracy their emphasis on it seems misplaced in a study entitled Impact of Industrial Wind Turbines on Residential Property Assessment In Ontario, which to me and most residents is quite a different question.

Just think of the ramifications if MPAC decided to include distance from an IWT in their regressions. I have little doubt it would make Ontario’s lawyers very happy. It would also put Ontario’s very-pro-IWT ruling party in a difficult political spot. And don’t forget that the board of MPAC is appointed by the Minister of Finance, who is a member of the ruling party’s cabinet.

Upstream I mentioned that MPAC could use the location variables that already exist in their regressions to finesse their way out of this problem. I point to Wolfe Island as an example of how this might work. The western half of WI is now home to 86 IWTs, a project that had been in development since roughly 2000. If this half constitutes a “neighborhood” then MPAC could reduce the values in that neighborhood in a uniform manner and never have to recognize the elephant in the room. As it happens, I posted on MPAC’s actions on Wolfe Island about 18 months ago. In the 7 years when the wind project went from being developed to operational, the roughly 700 properties on Wolfe received the following number and average reductions:

  • 2005/06: 130, 9.3%
  • 2006/07: 33, 15.2%
  • 2007/08: 12, 28.8%
  • 2008/09: 34, 12.4%
  • 2009/10: 44, 29.0%
  • 2010/11: 22, 30.0%
  • 2011/12: 27, 24.0%

That’s a total of 302 reductions, which seems like a rather large percentage of the properties there.

A Wolfe Island couple, the Kenneys, asked for a reduction which they say MPAC was willing to grant, although MPAC wouldn’t let IWTs be used as the reason. It ended up in court, and a local paper [backup link] had a reasonably good account of it. Perhaps MPAC’s reluctance to admit the obvious is that once they admit it they must then include distance in their regressions and doing that (and the legal and political repercussions) is just too unpleasant. So they limp along, using the location instead.

Their favored overall chain of logic seems to be: since the ratios in neighborhoods close to IWTs aren’t much different from those further away, and since those ratios indicate their assessments are accurate, and since MPAC doesn’t include distance to an IWT in their regressions, ergo distance from an IWT isn’t a factor in reducing values. Part 1 of this study is a necessary part of this chain. So the real main purpose of this part of the study (and the study as a whole) seems to be to publicize MPAC’s skills at keeping the assessments in line with reality, and at the same time deflect how MPAC is going about doing this. MPAC is, after all, in a tight spot. The reality is that home prices take a dive when close to IWTs. MPAC somehow has to lower the assessments around IWTs to keep the ASRs in line while keeping their bosses happy.

Unfortunately, the wind industry will be using this study for quite a different purpose – to bolster their argument that IWTs don’t impact home prices in the first place.

MPAC 2012, Study 2

I fear that this part will be a difficult one for most people to follow, not to mention being lengthy. Feel free to skip it. But I think it is important to document what this Study contains, and MPAC made no effort to make understanding it easier. I recommend you print out Study 2′s 5 pages (pdf pages 26 to 30) and have them at hand as you read this.

The purpose of Study 2 is to “study the effect of proximity to industrial wind turbines on residential sale prices.” In summary, Study 2 finds that “With the exceptions noted above, no distance variables entered any regression equations for any of the other market areas.” Say what?

It seems that people who are in the business of estimating real estate prices tend to fall into one of two camps. First are those who make their living providing services to the people who actually own the properties, with real estate brokers being the most obvious examples. These people tend to focus on one property at a time and generally use comps or repeat sales to obtain their estimates. Second are those who make their living providing services to people who don’t actually own the property. Academics and mass appraisers (like MPAC) are the most obvious examples. These people tend to focus on many properties at a time and generally use statistical techniques like multiple regression analysis to obtain their estimates. The second class tends to think in terms of rejecting the null hypothesis – you assume there is no difference between two sets (in this case close-in prices and far-away prices) unless you have “statistical significance”. As a snarky aside, getting to statistical significance in real estate can be quite a challenge, given the wide variance among prices, and can be even more difficult when your sponsor/boss doesn’t want you to do so.

So of course MPAC used their main tool, regression equations that run multiple regression analyses. They created three new variables based on distance from an IWT and entered these into regression equations to see if the new variables were statistically significant. If they aren’t statistically significant they don’t “enter” into the regression equations. As for the exceptions (which we’ll get to shortly), out of 30 possibly significant variables, only 4 were significant and 3 of them were positive! Whew!

So right off the bat MPAC is using a tool that doesn’t provide the answers the actual owners of potentially affected properties really care about. A binary statistical significance indicator does not provide an answer to the “how much” and “how likely” questions a homeowner is going to have. In this case, MPAC has skipped through the study so opaquely that I can’t even have much confidence in my critique. There’s just too many omissions, too many unexplained leaps, too many dangling statements.

There are just 5 pages in Study 2. The first of these (page 25 of the study) lists the three new distance variables and sets their criteria for statistical significance at either 5% or 10%. For those unfamiliar with that concept, the significance is a measure of the odds two populations are in fact just randomly part of the same larger population. In this case, a 5% significance means that there is only a 5% chance that the prices of the close-in homes are the same as the far-away home prices. In other words, there’s a 95% chance that the close-in prices are different from the far-away prices. What if there’s only an 80% chance your home value will drop? Not significant, from MPAC’s perspective.

The second page (page 26) is dominated by Table 9. For MPAC’s purposes Ontario is divided into 130 “market areas”. These areas presumably have some common basis that allows them to be treated as a unit for their regression equations. Unfortunately I couldn’t find where the areas were or how many homes were in each. Of the 130 MPAC found 15 that had large enough turbines in them to be of interest. These 15 are listed in Table 9, along with the numbers of sales within each of the 3 distance variables for both pre-construction and post-construction. MPAC didn’t bother adding them up either horizontally or in total, but I did. The numbers inside the grid add up to 3136, which would be the total sales within 5 km in all the areas. But if you add up their numbers along the bottom you come up with 3143. It turns out that their 142 should be 139 and their 1584 should be 1580. Now this isn’t much of an error, except that any pre-teen with a spreadsheet and 10 minutes wouldn’t have made it.

At the bottom of page 26 they introduce pre-construction and post-construction periods, and that only two of the 15 have enough sales to test both distances and periods. Most of the remaining 13 have “sufficient sales within 1 KM to test the value impact within that distance”. Also that the “sales period to develop valuation ranges from December 2008 to December 2011&”. And that Table 10 provides a summary.

The third page (page 27) is dominated by Table 10. It lists the remaining 10 market areas that presumably have “sufficient sales within 1 KM to test the value impact within that distance”. 2 of these have enough sales to test both distance and periods while the other 8 have enough sales to test just the distance. For each of the 10 areas MPAC list square footage etc and median adjusted prices. Are these the prices for the entire area or just within 1 km? MPAC doesn’t say. What is the criterion for “sufficient”? MPAC doesn’t say. Nor does MPAC include what should obviously be included – both tables. I suspect they are for the entire area, in which case they are useless for our purposes, at least without the close-in comparison.

Presuming the criteria for inclusion into Table 10 is the 1 km test mentioned on page 26, one has to wonder how 26RR010 and 31RR010 got into it, as Table 9 shows they had zero sales within 1 km. Snark alert – maybe the missing 7 sales from Table 9 took place in these areas? And if 1 km isn’t the criterion, what is? MPAC never says.

At the bottom of page 27 they mention that some sales at the 5 km distance were in urban as opposed to rural market areas and thus were eliminated. They don’t say how many, nor what their effects on the regressions might be. They also reiterate their statistical significance levels.

On the fourth page (page 28) they present two more tables, 11 and 12. Table 11 lists the 8 market areas that had sufficient sales (within 1 km?) to test the distance variables while Table 12 lists the 2 market areas that had sufficient sales to test both distance and periods. These tables made absolutely no sense to me until I noticed Appendix F.

For all 10 areas they entered the 3 distances and ran their regressions. In Appendix F they list all the “excluded” variables, in this case all the distance-related variables that didn’t get to statistical significance. They apparently are called “excluded” since, being “insignificant” they don’t enter into MPAC’s final pricing calculations. If you look at the “sig” column you will not see any value less than .100, or the 10% significance level MPAC mentioned on pages 25 and 27. I assume by omission (and that’s all I can do here) that any of the 3 distance variables that are NOT listed in Appendix F are in fact significant.

On my first pass through Appendix F I came up with 6 omitted, and thus assumed significant, variables. Two of the omissions were for zero sales, for areas that shouldn’t even be there by the <1 km criterion. But, maybe the < 1 km variable was never even entered on the exclusion listing in Appendix F, so maybe I had erroneously assumed it was not excluded when in fact it didn’t exist in the first place. So maybe the criterion for inclusion in Table 10 wasn’t significant sales less than 1 km, but rather significant sales less than 5 km out. Just a typo, right? At least Table 11 now is consistent with Tables 9 and 10.

Finally! Out of the 30 tests (10 areas times 3 tests) I count 4 that are significant. Those 4 make up the “non-DNE” entries in Tables 11. MPAC provided absolutely no guidance or explanation about any of this, apparently writing for a very small audience.

Table 12 shows the 2 areas that had enough sales to test both distance and periods. You’d think that they’d be creating 6 variables for each of them instead of the 3 variables the other 8 areas received. Looking at Appendix F all you see is the same 3 as everyone else got. And all of those variables were excluded. But Table 12 shows 2 of the variables being significant for 26RR010. Perhaps Appendix F was based on a 5% significance level and Table 12 was based on 10%. Who knows?

I can only guess that the dollar amounts in Tables 11 and 12 are the effects of being in those areas upon the prices. So, in the Kingston area (05RR030), if you live within 1 km of an IWT, you can expect the value of your home to increase by $36,435! Very impressive – 5 digit accuracy, especially with a sample size of 7.

Finally, thank goodness, we come to the fifth page (page 29). It is the Summary of Findings and contains more words than the rest of the Study put together. This section mostly lists the significant variables and adds some fairly cryptic commentary.

Some Commentary

As I read through and dissected this Study I couldn’t escape the sense that MPAC didn’t want to put much effort into it. Any narrative or explanations or even public-friendly conclusions are absent. The tables that are included are ok, once you take the time to figure them out, but what about all the stuff they should have included but didn’t? Things like the median prices in the areas represented by the 30 variables. Or an Appendix F1 that shows the included variables, allowing us to see the t-scores etc for ourselves. Etc., etc.

These missing items cause this Study to be terribly opaque. I hope my explanation above is accurate, but I can’t be sure due to all the missing items. Maybe the Study reaches valid conclusions, but I sure can’t verify that. Perhaps MPAC thinks we should just trust them to be an honest pursuer of the truth. Sorry, that no longer flies, if it ever did. You have to wonder, is there some reason other than laziness or stinginess that this Study seems so empty? In addition to the opacity the Study includes several cryptic items that MPAC never explains. For example, from the summary, what do these sentences actually mean?

“Upon review of the sales database, it was determined that the IWT variables created for this study were highly correlated with the neighbourhood locational identifier. This strong correlation resulted in coefficients that did not make appraisal sense, and thus have been negated for the purposes of this study.”

If you look at the excluded variables in Appendix F you notice that most of them are named “NBxxxx”. Probably those are neighborhood identifiers the somehow overlay the market areas. MPAC never mentions how many there are or what the criteria are for forming one. But pretty obviously the areas around an IWT could easily coincide with their neighborhoods. So what gets negated? Some of the coefficients? All of them? MPAC provides no further information.

As an aside, I found it interesting to scan over the other excluded variables to see what sorts of things MPAC puts into their regressions. Many of them make no sense and they seem to vary greatly from market to market. I can’t help but think of a bunch of regression-heads sitting at their desks hurriedly making up variables and desperately running regressions in an effort to get the ASRs closer to one (ASRs are covered in Study 1).

I’ll leave (thankfully, believe me) this Study behind with the final thought that it seems so slapped together, so opaque, so disjointed that perhaps even MPAC themselves weren’t sure what significance it holds. Unfortunately, the wind industry won’t care about any of that, and will use this study to continue harming Ontario residents.

MPAC 2012 and Lansink

Ben Lansink is a professional real estate appraiser based in Ontario. In February 2013 he published a study of two areas (Melancthon and Clear Creek, Ontario) where 12 homes all within 1 km of an IWT were sold on the open market. He used previous sales and MPAC assessments to establish what the prices were before the IWTs arrived and then compared that with the open market prices after they went into operation. The declines were enormous, averaging above 30%. The following (thankfully clickable) spreadsheet snapshot gives a good summary of his results.

 

lansink-spreadsheet 

In quite a departure from MPAC’s style, Lansink lists every sale, every price, every time-related area price increase rate and every source. Lansink establishes an initial price at some time before the IWTs were installed, applies a local-area inflation rate over the period between the sales, and compares the “should-have-been” price with what the actual sales prices was after the IWTs were installed. In all 12 cases the final price was lower than the initial price, leading to an actual loss on the property. When the surrounding real estate price increases were factored in, the resulting adjusted losses are even greater. The compulsive reader might notice that the numbers above vary slightly from Lansink’s. In order to check his numbers I reran all his calculations in the above chart and there are some rounding errors – like on the order of < $10. I posted on Lansink’s study when it came out, along with a second posting on a previous version of his study.

These numbers are pretty easy to understand, and for most actual property owners are a hard-to-refute indication of what awaits us should we be unfortunate enough to own property within 1 km of an IWT. It is powerful enough and inconvenient enough that MPAC felt the need to single it out for a hatchet job, which is contained in the 7 pages of Appendix G. The first couple of pages are introductory stuff. Starting in the middle of page 2 they start their critique with, by my count, 7 issues with Lansink’s methodology. The 7 are:

    1. Lansink uses the local area MLS price index in calculating the inflation rate. MPAC points out, correctly I guess, that within the MLS local area there could be neighborhood variances that could differ from MLS’s area average. MPAC has lots of neighborhoods defined (see Appendix F for a sampling) and it would be more accurate to use them. While more discrete data is generally a good thing, I think most people are quite willing to accept the local area MLS price index as a reasonable proxy. Besides – how would Lansink obtain MPAC’s neighborhood data? He used the best that he had, and that best is no doubt good enough for everyone besides MPAC. As you increase the number of neighborhoods you necessarily decrease the number of homes in each, increasing the chances of distortion by a single transaction. Issue #5 below will mention this as a problem from the opposite direction. No doubt if Lansink would have used neighborhoods MPAC would be criticizing him for not using the more reliable area average. Additionally – how far apart could a neighborhood be from the local area average? Does MPAC provide any indication that this caused an error in Lansink’s conclusions? Of course not.

 

    1. Lansink used just two points to “develop a trend”. I have no idea what they are talking about. Lansink is not developing any trends. As with neighborhoods, MPAC has more discrete timing adjustments than what Lansink used. In theory, more discrete data might be more accurate. In practice, maybe not, due to outliers. A monthly MLS area average is good enough for, again, everybody but MPAC. Additionally – how far apart could a their timeline be from the local area average? Does MPAC provide any indication that this caused an error in Lansink’s conclusions? Of course not.

 

    1. Two homes in Clear Creek have their initial and final sales 8 and 15 years apart and there was likely something changed in the interim, affecting the price. People are always doing things to change the value of their homes – does MPAC have any indication that something substantial changed in one of these properties? If not, this is simply idle speculation, designed to instill confusion. Does MPAC provide any indication that this caused an error in Lansink’s conclusions? Of course not.

 

    1. For the other 5 home in Clear Creek Lansink used MPAC’s 2008 evaluations as the initial price, and MPAC is complaining about that. MPAC is apparently unaware of how ironic this sounds. They just finished, in this very study, bragging about how close their ASR’s were to one. Does MPAC provide any indication that this caused an error in Lansink’s conclusions? Of course not.

 

    1. For the properties in Melancthon Lansink used the buyout prices from CHD (the wind project developer) as the initial prices. To confirm these prices were at least in the ballpark of local market prices he obtained a local per square foot average price and it compared favorably with the prices paid per square foot by CHD. Since there was only 4 samples in this part of his study, even one outlier becomes a possible source of distortion and this is one of MPAC’s “major concerns”. This seems an odd criticism, coming from someone who relied upon the data in Table 9, with its fair share of single-digit samples. Does MPAC provide any indication that this caused an error in Lansink’s conclusions? Of course not.

 

    1. MPAC found one house with a basement and since footage in basements is treated differently from footage above ground, this would have changed the square footage price used by Lansink in his comparison with the local average. Since there are only 4 houses in this sample, it would have moved the average up. MPAC spends the bottom of page 2, all of page 3 and part of page 4 discussing basements and whether they are finished or not. Does MPAC provide any indication that this caused an error in Lansink’s conclusions? Of course not.

 

  1. I’ll quote issue #7 in its entirety so you can fully appreciate it. “One final issue with the sales used in the Lansink study was that the second sale price was consistently lower than the first sale price despite the fact the time frame being analyzed was one of inflation. The absence of variability in the study make them suspect.” Suspect? THESE ARE PUBLIC RECORDS. There’s nothing suspect about them. These are facts. They won’t change. If they don’t fit your narrative perhaps your narrative needs to change, eh? Does MPAC provide any indication that this caused an error in Lansink’s conclusions? Of course not.

These 7 issues are an excellent example of spreading confusion, hoping that some of it will stick, saying whatever you can come up with to discredit an opponent. When you’re reduced to spending over a page discussing basements it provides an idea of just how desperate you are.

The second part of MPAC’s critique involves them running their own study of resales to see how it compares with Lansink’s. They find 2051 re-sales that were part of this same study’s ASR calculations (in Study 1). They use their more discrete time variables in place of Lansink’s MLS local area averages. They use multiple regression analysis because “Paired sales methods and re-sale analysis methods are generally limited to fee appraisal and often too tedious for mass appraisal work.” Their conclusion: “Using 2,051 properties and generally accepted time adjustment techniques, MPAC cannot conclude any loss in price due to the proximity of an IWT.”

In spite of the voluminous tables and examples, MPAC leaves some very basic questions unanswered. Like where were these 2,051 properties located and how were they selected? There’s no mention of them in the body of the 2012 study. Over what period were the resales captured? What were the prices of the close-in re-sales vs the far-away re-sales? Lansink has documented 7 losing resales within 1 km – why does your summary say zero?

MPAC has this habit of expecting us to be impressed with large amounts of data, without divulging where it came from and what filters might have been employed. Same with throwing all these numbers into a computer and expecting us to uncritically accept the output. In short, MPAC expects us to trust them to be fully honest, fully competent and fully independent. I hate to be the bearer of bad news to the fine folks at MPAC, but that trust is no longer automatic for increasing segments of Ontario’s population. Lansink’s numbers are out in the open and are processed in a way that anyone can verify. Your numbers suddenly appear and rely upon computers with undocumented processes that always support the agendas of your bosses. Your methods may be satisfactory to some media, some politicians, some courts and all trough-feeders, but please don’t be surprised that they are not satisfactory to those of us living in the trenches.

Climate Alarmists Don’t Tell The True Story….Just The Scary Part! LOL!

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Climate burnout is fast approaching

Posted on June 24, 2014 by 

Ben Webster in The Times writes:

Alarmist claims about the impact of global warming are contributing to a loss of trust in climate scientists, an inquiry has found.

Apocalyptic language has been used about greenhouse gas emissions as “a deliberate strategy by some to engage public interest”. However, trying to make people reduce emissions by frightening them has “harmful consequences” because they often respond suspiciously or decide the issue is “too scary to think about”.

 

The inquiry, by a team of senior scientists from a range of disciplines, was commissioned by University College London to find better ways of informing the public about climate science.

Public interest in climate change has fallen sharply in the past few years, according to a survey last month which found the number of Google searches for the phrase “global warming” had fallen by 84 per cent since the peak in 2007.

Confidence in climate science was undermined in 2010 by the revelation that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN scientific body which advises governments, had falsely claimed that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035.
Scientists have also been accused of exaggerating the rate of loss of Arctic sea ice by claiming the North Pole could be ice-free in summer by 2020. Other scientists say this is unlikely before 2050.

Claims were made a decade ago, and later retracted, that the snows of Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain, could disappear by 2015.

The inquiry, led by Professor Chris Rapley, former director of the Science Museum, concludes: “Alarmist messages that fail to materialise contribute to the loss of trust in the science community.”

The report says climate scientists have difficulty “delivering messages that are alarming without slipping into alarmism”.

It says the media is partly to blame for seeking “a striking headline”.

However, the report says there was also a “preconception that communicating threatening information is a necessary and effective catalyst for individual behaviour change”.
It says the “climate science community” is quick to challenge those who downplay climate change but less willing to question “alarmist misrepresentations” of climate research.
Doom-laden reports may make people feel anxious but their concern does not last.
“Over time this worry changes to numbness, desensitisation and disengagement from the issue altogether.

“The failure of specific predictions of climate change to materialise creates the impression that the climate science community as a whole resorts to raising false alarms. When apparent failures are not adequately explained, future threats become less believable.”
The report says the 30,000 climate scientists worldwide are at the centre of an intense public debate about key questions, such as how we should obtain our energy, but are “ill-prepared” to engage in it.

It adds that this difficulty in communicating their work is “proving unhelpful to evidence-based policy formulation, and is damaging their public standing”.