Wind Concerns

For a list of concerns this document Wind Concerns Ontario is a summary of the often misleading information, CanWEA and the wind developers like to claim.

The Government of Ontario has directed municipal governments to permit industrial wind turbine installation that minimize impact on agricultural operations. There needs to be a full environmental assessment and independent scientific studies that address the viability of industrial wind power, the adverse affects on peoples’ health, quality of life and investment in their properties as well as the impact of construction on wildlife and the environment.

It’s important for provincial and local governments to halt potential projects until they are analyzed and all concerns are addressed before construction and operation of wind turbines permanently changes the lives of Ontarians.

Politicians will do anything to save the world except listen to you

From the Editor:  Oct. 27 

I write this while the wind developer has started to erect 24 turbines within 3 to 5 km of my home.

A recent article by Lorrie Goldstein in the Toronto Sun nails how this gov’t perceives their role in adjuticating policy in this province and addressing the general taxpayer’s concerns when it comes the Green Energy Act.   Please read the whole article here.  http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/lorrie_goldstein/2009/10/27/11536651-sun.html
But I found this particular quote interesting:

“On Thursday, the Legislature is scheduled to debate a resolution by Tory MPP Bill Murdoch calling for a moratorium on wind turbine development in Ontario until the province’s medical officer of health and the government assure the public it’s safe.

That’s unlikely to slow McGuinty, who has already dismissed critics as suffering from “Not-In-My-Backyard” syndrome.

Even if Murdoch’s resolution — prompted by concerns from his constituents in his Owen Sound-area riding — is passed, unlikely given the Liberal majority, it won’t be binding on the government.

And yesterday, a health ministry spokesman told me Ontario Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Arlene King, shares the government’s view, following its review of the existing scientific literature, that a moratorium isn’t needed, suggesting Thursday’s debate is moot.”

Have a look at a response to this  from a victim in Norfolk county who is presently suffering from 18 turbines within 3 km of her house.

> To Whom It May Concern:
>
> -to quote Ontario Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Arlene King, “with a review of existing scientific literature, a moratorium isn’t needed, suggesting Thursday’s debate is moot.” 

 -the pain & suffering I have had to endure, I am still enduring, on account of these INDUSTRIAL wind turbines is now ‘moot’? Not even worth arguing? How can a mere ‘review’ constitute a decision this important; a decision that is currently affecting peoples’ health worldwide; will continue to do so; and with the catastrophic onset of thousands more turbines across our province & lakes, a decision that will have an effect  on who knows how many more? Why aren’t we gathering our own ’scientific literature’ from the wind farms already in Ontario? Where are your moral
> values, your ethics? How can you, Dr. Arlene King, possibly be the Medical Officer of Health for our entire province when you don’t even care about the miserable conditions people exposed to low frequency noise live with;
> when you won’t even look into the issue?
> -the inability to sell my property is now moot? Forget about the 10%, 20%,  30% drop in property value – a property is only worth what you actually get when you actually sell it – in my case nothing.
>
> -and to quote our government, “research shows no adverse health effects.” what research? Nobody has contacted me as to how I’m coping with this  wind farm already in my backyard. Why not? 

 -why isn’t our government conducting research on the people already exposed to low frequency noise from existing wind farms?
> -why are they not taking measurements of noise & vibrations from our residences, so they know the exact conditions that can be linked to these wind farms and the severe, debilitating ailments they inflict; so they
> know exactly how close is too close?
> -the MOE tells me they don’t have the necessary equipment, staff, training to measure low frequency noise & vibration. Why not? We can subsidize millions of our tax dollars into wind farm development, yet we can’t come
> up with any way to monitor & record their effects on the environment, including human beings. Why not resolve this issue once and for all? Are you afraid of the outcome???
>
> -the government has yet to approach me as to how the turbines I live with have affected me.; which incidentally, are a perfect example of exactly 550 meters away.
> -with the exception of these wonderful people at Wind Concerns & one government MPP, my appeals have been ignored; with no results from government officials who have responded. A sympathetic response is just not enough. Something needs to be done. Somebody needs to take action, to be held accountable; now and in the future.
> -my neighbours and I have been used; involuntarily mind you, as guinea  pigs in a horrendous experiment that is still ongoing, one that occurs all day & all night, every day & every night; and the government can’t even be bothered to view the result!
> -they are willing to sacrifice our well-being, our lives for exactly what?
> -they have yet to offer us a place of respite when the presence of low frequency sound becomes intolerable.
> -they have yet to rescue us from this constant, debilitating low frequency noise; and relocate us.
> -they have yet to offer us compensation as a result of our pain & suffering from the experiment they have forced upon us.
>
> -just this morning a new symptom associated with continuous, accumulative exposure to low frequency noise; a sharp pain in my right knee, enough to warrant expletives when I bend my knee the wrong way. Will this continue?
> Will I be able to walk? to drive?
> -the more prolonged, the more continuous the exposure; more & more symptoms show up; some of which may never go away.
> -who will be next? Who will be the next guinea pig? Will they come to your rescue? Will they offer you respite? Will they offer you compensation?
> Probably not – it’s a ‘moot’ point, so it doesn’t bear further investigation!
>
> -given my scenario, who would want them in their backyard?
> FYI – as I write this, the concrete floor of my basement is now shuddering  - another ‘moot’ point!

Pretty poignant stuff! 

It’s pretty clear to me that our gov’t is simply flying by the seat of their pants on this issue and now I fully understand why Duncan Donut has allowed this province to rack up an additional $28 billion deficit. 

 

Not Evil Just Wrong

http://www.politico.com/singletitlevideo.html

This documentary provides some insight concerning the green movement that is awash in this county.  If you can label whatever you are doing as “GREEN”  9 times out of 10 a politican will hand over fists full of money for you to move on your initiative.  One only has to look at the Industrial Wind Development in this country to understand that this statement is true.

As Jon Boone likes to state:  Environmentalist  www.stopillwind.org

Industrial wind technology is a meretricious commodity, attractive in a superficial way but without real value—seemingly plausible, even significant, but actually false and nugatory.  Those who would profit from it either economically or ideologically are engaged in wholesale deception. All adults should know that if something seems too good to be true, it almost always is. And, although the wind itself may be “free,” the cost of converting it to electrical energy is extremely expensive. A 100MW wind project would cost, in today’s market, around $200 million, most of it paid for by taxpayers.

Please join NA-PAW

Thank you for supporting NA-PAW –

In the first week of our private invitation, we already have 19 signatories!

http://www.na-paw.org

One group expressed regret that it was not called something like North
American Platform for /Responsible/ Windpower, believing that would be
more productive for engaging in dialogue. That is a reasonable approach
in many situations, especially in local battles.

It is why NA-PAW is coupled with the petition for a 2-km setback from
homes to protect the health and amenity of neighbors.

http://www.gopetition.com/online/26694.html

But it assumes there is such a thing as “responsible windpower” that can
be the norm on a large scale, when in fact the industry fights every
measure of responsible regulation and derides voices of concern as
“Nimby” and mentally unbalanced. As uncomfortable as it is for some to
just say “no”, that is exactly what we have to say if we hope to stop
irresponsible windpower and demand a reality check and proper oversight.

Finally, though, NA-PAW is an offshoot or echo of EPAW, the European
Platform Against Windpower — which more than 330 groups from 18
countries have signed onto. So the name was already determined.

That aside, thank you again for helping to get NA-PAW started. Please
pass on to other groups and businesses and blogs the suggestion to add
their names to the list of signatories.

  ~~
Eric Rosenbloom
for NA-PAW

Stray voltage victims see progress in OEB’s proposed changes

Found at: Today’s Farmer

Posted By Jeffrey Carter

Posted 8 days ago

The people who’ve been pushing for many years to have stray voltage addressed on Ontario farms are pleased with regulatory changes proposed by the Ontario Energy Board (OEB).

These would set a stray-voltage threshold – as stringent as anywhere else in North America – for dairy animals and other livestock. They would also insist that Hydro One and other electricity distributors fix situations when the distribution system is at fault.

Lee Montgomery is a former Chatham-Kent dairy farmer who’s been struggling with the issue for more than 30 years. Together with Chatham-Kent agriculturalists Lynn Girty, Barry Frazer, Peter Hensel and others, Montgomery played a key role in having stray voltage recognized as a real phenomenon.

“Everything is finally moving in the right direction,” Montgomery says.

“I think they (the OEB) have done a tremendous job, as far as it goes — eventually it will need to go further; there’s human health involved. This thing has gone far enough that they (Ontario Hydro and other distributors) will not be able to back out of it.”

The changes are to be implemented through an amendment to the Distribution System Code under Ontario’s Energy Board Act and the Electricity Act. Interested parties have until Dec. 5 to submit a written comment. Details are available on the OEB’s website.

Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP Maria Van Bommel, like Montgomery, is pleased with the progress. Barring any unforeseen hitches, she says the code changes should be implemStray voltage investigations will be made by the distributor when a livestock farm customer provides the distributor with reasonable information indicating a stray-voltage problem is adversely affecting their operation. (The proposed procedure for this is to be set out in Appendix H which will be released later.)

An investigation by the distributor will be conducted when animal contact current exceeds two milliamperes or when that animal contact voltage exceeds one volt.

If the distributor’s distribution system is contributing more than one milliampere or 0.5 volts to a problem, the distributor will take the necessary steps to reduce their contribution to less than one milliampere or 0.5 volts.

The distributor will assure that the person investigating a stray voltage complaint has the necessary recognized qualifications.

Steps taken to address a stray voltage complaint by a distributor are to be made available to the public.

Continued After Advertisement Below

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The distributor will provide to OEB, upon request, details concerning stray voltage complaints and investigations.

There were 18 different written comments received by the OEB last summer from individual and groups including the Dairy Farmers of Ontario, OFA, Electrical Safety Authority, Hydro One and Electricity Distributors Association.

The Electricity Distributors’ Association wanted threshold levels being used elsewhere to be validated before being introduced in Ontario.

Hydro One argued that the regulatory changes only be applied to dairy operations since, “…it would not be economical to enforce the same voltage threshold for other livestock.”

Others argued for more stringent measures.

Back in Chatham-Kent, Fraser says he and others working with Montgomery will be following up on the wording of Appendix H.

Threat to humans

Fraser also says that the stray voltage issue concerns more than just livestock operations. If animals can be affected, so might people, and when distribution systems are overloaded energy is being wasted.

Fraser, the former agriculture representative for Kent County, says Montgomery’s was the first recognized case of stray voltage in Ontario, if not Canada. He’s been working with the Chatham-Kent farmer for more than 30 years.

Montgomery knew he had a problem in 1975 but it wasn’t until December 12, 1980 that he began to understand the source. It was Jack Rodenburg, dairy specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, who made the connection.

From there, Montgomery hired a topnotch electrician and former Ontario Hydro Employee, the late Jim Crow, to assess the extent of his problem. The source was eventually identified as electricity flowing along an underground aquifer to Montgomery’s farm from a nearby substation.

Montgomery says he was compensated in 1988 with an out-of-court settlement but the problem continued until the substation was decommissioned four years later.

He remembers the day: “I had equipment set up in my barn to do tests. The day they took it out, the problems on my farm ended.”

According to Cowan, stray voltage is probably present in most dairy farms but at a level that it doesn’t impact the animals.

Larger animals are affected by the phenomena to a greater extent because of their mass. A stray-voltage shock felt by a cow might be 170 to 200 times greater than the shock felt by a barefooted adult.

Affected cows show signs of agitation or stress, Cowan says. Typically, they’ll receive a shock when they attempt to drink in the barn, the shock being felt through their tongue or nose and exiting from the animal through their front or rear legs.

Farmers who suspect they have a problem should first contact a qualified electrician to check their own electrical system for voltage losses and to correct the flaws.ented sometime next year.

Van Bommel, working closely with Montgomery and other members of the agricultural community, introduced a private member’s bill in 2005 to address the stray voltage issue. That led to an order-in-council issued by then Energy Minister Dwight Duncan in 2007 giving the OEB a mandate to act.

Montgomery’s prize dairy herd failed due to stray voltage originating from outside his farm. He says the hydro distributor was reluctant to recognize the problem and even more reluctant to act.

According to Ted Cowan, a researcher and policy advisor with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, that reluctance may be connected to potential costs for fixing distribution flaws. The OFA has been advocating for farmers affected by stray voltage for several years.

Cowan estimates about close 10% of Ontario’s 5,500 dairy herds are negatively affected by stray voltage and the problem for perhaps 100 herds might be described as severe.

In addition, there have been reports of pigs and horses being affected.

“There is one group of customers who for years and years and years have been getting third-rate electricity but have been paying a full-rate price for it,” Cowan says.

According to the OEB, “the board believes that the incremental costs accruing to distributors from implementing the proposed Amendments will be offset by the benefits associated with enhanced assurance that distributor responses to farm stray voltage requests are efficient, consistent and effective.”

Cowan says Hydro One and other distributors will bear responsibility for only those incidences of stray voltage caused by their distribution systems.

“If you were to ask farmers when they last had a qualified electrician in to look at their system, there would be a lot of them scratching their heads. My impression is as follows: 70% to 75% of the problem originates on the farm or the property and usually can be fixed by the farmer at a moderate cost.”

Aging distribution system

Of the problems originating from outside the farm, Cowan attributes most to the aging distribution system.

In this, he has some sympathy for the electricity distributors. Had they realized 50 years ago the kind of load that would be carried today, they would likely have built to higher, load-bearing standards.

What Ontario Hydro and other distributors most fear, Cowan suggests, is a mandate forcing them to make widespread system upgrades in rural Ontario. Conceivably, that could run into billions of dollars.

As it stands, however, the problem is to be addressed on a case-by-case basis according to the OEB code amendments. Most situations that distributors will need to resolve will cost less than $10,000, Cowan suspects. A handful might cost $100,000.

Cowan suspects a small number of stray voltage cases would not be addressed by proposed OEB code amendments. These might involve things like the anti-galvanic currents flowing along pipelines and currents associated with telephone lines.

Following is the synopsis of the proposed Distribution Code amendments:

Article ID# 1313129

Prince Edward County makes efforts to listen to it’s residents

COMMENT – Written by Rick Conroy on Wednesday, October 7, 2009 15:20 – 1 Comment

Nature defeated

It is often said there are always two sides to any story. And generally I believe this to be true. But after five years in this chair I continue to strain to hear or comprehend the argument for wind energy—I have failed to hear a persuasive argument that explains why we had to ruin Wolfe Island and why we must do the same to Prince Edward County. I am still waiting.

I am in the business of listening. I’d like to believe I remain open-minded and I am prepared to change my mind if presented with evidence that windmills do anything more than appease those who insist “we must do something.”

A five hour public meeting, though a valuable bit of public process, offered no such evidence. Instead the proponents for wind energy simply want something done. And done now. Before it is too late. Because we are at the tipping point. The planet is in crisis. Our species must fix it. (The other organisms on this rock must surely be looking at each other nervously, thinking “this could work. The humans have done a great job so far.”)

The prowind energy arguments presented last Wednesday fall into one of essentially three categories. First is the landowner/farmer seeking to get a share of the money being spilled by a government intoxicated by its compulsion to appear green. I get this argument. If the government is bent on throwing away money, I don’t begrudge anyone putting out their hands. But doling out taxpayer’s dollars to landowners through large development companies isn’t an argument for the necessity of wind energy.

The other arguments heard last week revolved mostly around the prevailing view that climate change/global warming is bad, and that coal and nuclear generated electricity pose a risk to society in terms of health and sustainability. And therefore something must be done.

The massive hole in the argument is that no one bothers to show how 40-storey industrial wind turbines do anything to diminish or mitigate these perceived threats. No one draws the link between the giant fans obliterating the natural horizon, and how they will fix climate change or reduce the planet’s dependence on coal or nuclear energy. For nowhere in the world has wind energy displaced coal or nuclear or made a measurable impact on reducing carbon emissions.

Though they’ve been indulging in the ‘doing something’ delusion of wind for more than two decades Europe is just as dependent on coal and nuclear as it ever was—perhaps more so. For Europe is building 50 new coal plants in the next decade. France has recently introduced a new carbon tax, hailing itself as green in advance of a December conference on climate change in Copenhagen. But France’s carbon tax won’t apply to electricity because 80 per cent of its electricity is generated by nuclear power.

The bottom line is that despite two decades of outrageously subsidized and expensive wind energy, Europe has not reduced carbon emissions by a single gram.

So the job for those who insist on compromising the quality of place in Prince Edward County, or for those who feel that this successful economic engine must be extinguished for the sake of the planet, is to draw the link. You must show us where wind energy is working to reduce dependence on coal and nuclear energy. You must point us to the jurisdiction that has successfully and unambiguously reduced its carbon emissions due to wind energy. It is simply not enough to point to problems and insist we do something. A lot of bad things happen in the name of expediency. Ask the 8 million folks in the Indian subcontinent who were coerced into being sterilized in 1976 by their government, seeking to appease the world consensus that population growth would soon mean the end life as we know it.

The unsettling bit in both the population scare of the ‘70s and the climate change angst of today is the presumption that humans have triumphed over nature. That we’ve won. Our species has evolved to the point where we now have the wherewithal, the wisdom and the might to overcome nature—all that’s missing is the collective will.

There is something astonishingly arrogant and naïve, and a bit frightening, in this belief. The folks in Rednersville can’t get the potholes in their road fixed but somehow our government is going to fix the weather?

Well, maybe. But first you need a better argument than: we must do something.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca

 

Which one is Better? The Devil you know or the one you don’t.

I hope readers understand what the following represents  – the loss of democracy in this province.   A former East German resident, now living within an Industrial Wind project, suffering from continual disruption of restorative sleep, describe for me his experience as similar to what he lived with in East Germany.  ie. Large corporate interest takes precedence over the ordinary taxpayer.

 

Green Energy Act

  

http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=86092

By: Mark Piel

Renewable energy infrastructure projects are a top policy priority of the current Provincial government as both the political and economic climate suggest the early part of the 21st century will be the time government and industry reconsider the sustainability of existing energy infrastructure. Infrastructure projects which use wind, water, biomass, biogas and biofuel, solar energy, geothermal energy, and tidal forces for the production of energy may one day replace what are presently considered more conventional sources of energy. Renewable energy infrastructure projects, like all infrastructure projects, involve a number of legal considerations, from securing project financing through to managing labour relationships during post-construction management of the infrastructure asset. Acquiring the necessary land use approvals in order to begin construction is a key part of planning most infrastructure projects. Privately funded infrastructure development typically require municipal land use approvals through the land use planning process provided by the Planning Act.¹ However, with the Green Energy and Green Economy Act, 2009 ² the Province has set in motion significant changes to the existing land use approval process for renewable energy infrastructure projects. Chief among these changes is removing from municipal jurisdiction the approval of renewable energy infrastructure projects in favour of a Provincial approval process.

The Green Energy and Green Economy Act, 2009 enacts the Green Energy Act, 2009 ³ and amends the Planning Act. While these amendments have yet to come into force, they significantly change the applicability of the Planning Act to renewable energy infrastructure projects. “Renewable energy undertakings” will be defined in the Planning Act and means a “renewable energy generation facility, a renewable energy project, a renewable energy testing facility or a renewable energy testing project.”⁴ The Green Energy and Green Economy Act, 2009 also incorporates into the Planning Act the meaning of the “renewable energy generation facility,” “renewable energy project,” “renewable energy testing facility” and “renewable energy testing project” as they are defined in the Green Energy Act, 2009.⁵

Under the Green Energy Act, 2009, the lieutenant-governor-in-council has the broad authority to make regulations that remove barriers to and promote opportunities for the use of renewable energy.⁶ Based on a review of the amendments to the Planning Act, those “barriers” include the municipal government decision-making process; the Green Energy Act, 2009 effectively removes renewable energy developments from municipal jurisdiction with the intention of replacing the municipal approval process with a provincial approval process.

“Renewable energy undertakings” will no longer be subject to the following land use planning instruments:

• Provincial policies;⁷
• Provincial plans, with the exception of the Niagara Escarpment Plan;⁸
• Municipal official plans;⁹
• By-laws and orders under Part V of the Planning Act, including demolition control by-laws, zoning by-laws, interim control by-laws, minor variances, and Minister’s zoning orders, and zoning by-laws under the City of Toronto Act, 2006;¹⁰ the site plan approval process under both the Planning Act and the City of Toronto Act, 2006.¹¹

In addition, “renewable energy undertakings” are now exempt from the subdivision control and part lot control provisions of the Planning Act. Lands outside a registered plan of subdivision or a part or block of lands within a registered plan of subdivision may now be acquired for the purpose of a “renewable energy generation facility” or a “renewable energy project” provided the acquiring party provides a declaration that the land will be used for the purpose of a “renewable energy generation facility” or “renewable energy project.”¹²

The extent to which the Green Energy and Green Economy Act, 2009 exempts “renewable energy undertakings” from the municipal approval process raises questions regarding two of purposes of the Planning Act, namely, to provide for a land use planning system led by provincial policy and to provide for a planning process that is fair, open, accessible, timely and efficient.¹³ For example, under the Planning Act, planning decisions at all levels of government must be consistent with provincial policy statements and conform with provincial plans.¹⁴ The Green Energy Act, 2009 includes no such requirement.

With respect to the public consultation process under the Planning Act, landowners looking to develop renewable energy undertakings may be pleased to hear their projects will be exempt from a local consultation process that often becomes mired in “NIMBY” politics. As to what the Provincial approval process will look like, time will only tell as the lieutenant-governor-in-council has yet to enact the necessary regulations. The Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Natural Resources have made available for public comment proposed content for renewable energy approval regulations¹⁵ and the former Ministry is contemplating requiring private landowners to consult with the public within a 1.5 kilometre radius of the proposed development, the applicable municipality, the Ministry of the Environment, and Aboriginal Peoples on behalf of the Crown.¹⁶ Therefore, the possibility for politics to affect the approval process remains.

These recent amendments are not the first time the Province has exempted energy projects from the reach of the Planning Act.¹⁷ As with most legislative amendments of this kind, there are trade-offs which proponents of renewable energy undertakings should be aware. By removing renewable energy undertakings from the reach of the Planning Act, the Province has withdrawn a proponent’s right to appeal a decision to refuse a development proposal to the Ontario Municipal Board on the basis of land-use planning grounds. Appeals are not entirely absent under the new regime. The Green Energy and Green Economy Act, 2009 also amends the Environmental Protection Act ¹⁸ by providing a right to appeal to the Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) in the event the Director refuses to issue a renewable energy approval.¹⁹ Third party rights of appeal have also been added to the Environmental Protection Act. On such appeals, the ERT must consider whether the renewable energy project under appeal will cause serious harm to human health or serious or irreversible harm to plant life, human life, or the natural environment.²⁰

Municipal councillors may be breathing a sigh of relief now that Provincial Ministries will be the approval authority for “renewable energy undertakings”; the political cost to having the authority to approve the location and site plans for renewable energy infrastructure perhaps outweighs the political benefits, even during a time when the political appetite for renewable energy is high. It remains to be seen whether private developers will breath a similar sigh of relief once the Province enacts the new approval process regulations for “renewable energy undertakings”.

The Great Windmill Scam

The Great Windmill Scam – by Iens Elliot Nyegaard – Environment & Climate News

 

Written By: Iens Elliot Nyegaard

Published In: Environment & Climate News > March 2000

Publication date: 03/01/2000

Publisher: The Heartland Institute

Not all Scandinavians are enamored with wind energy. What follows is an edited version of a stinging indictment by Iens Elliott Nyegaard, originally published in the Swedish journal Elbranchen (June 1999) and due for publication in the Danish Engineering Society weekly Ingenioren.

The emperor’s new machines

by Iens Elliot Nyegaard

The Danish 1968-generation introduced the Great International Windmill Scam. this whirling craze, a luxury-consumption of capital, energy, raw materials, and valuable landscapes. Then it was just a matter of cult objects for pseudo-religious fringe groups.

Costly, unpredictable, unreliable generation of a few kWh is of no importance to windmilling’s political instigators. They want to set up highly visible political symbols. Symbols telling the less knowledgeable, “See, your courageous politicians are saving you” from wholly imaginary dangers! Behind this shameful play-acting they then fleece the populace with new “green taxes.”

The windmill industry is the cuckoo’s chick of Danish industry–totally and fatally dependent upon the subsidies set off for the erection of political symbols. This has been clearly pointed out by the advisor to the Danish government, the Norwegian environmental economist, Professor Finn R. Forsund of Oslo University, in an interview printed in Politiken 2/1/95.

Not one windmill in the world can show accounts–honest accounts–in black. All run on subsides, rather than on wind.

Windmilling rests–unstably–on four basic, false premises:

• “Windmills can replace other forms of electricity generation.” No, never. If you build for a certain effect from windmills, you must, at the same time, build for precisely the same effect from conventional power stations–which you then must keep idling, ready for immediate cut-in when windmills fail. And fail they do. Not even in the very windiest positions does any windmill give more than a third of installed effect–a fourth is the average.

• “The windmill is the decentralized power supply of “the little man.” No. International capital and politically favored investors score the profits.

• “Windmills save us from an energy crisis.” Nonsense. The world has available energy for all future needs. All so-called “energy-crises” are made by politicians.

• “Windmills will help to prevent a climate catastrophe caused by CO2″. Rubbish. In the best case, the CO2-talk is an unproven theory. Increases in the CO2 content of the atmosphere may be seen as beneficial to the world.

Apart from wastage of capital, energy, and raw materials, windmilling wastes a finite resource: valuable landscapes. People who have windmills forced upon them are robbed both of intangible—quiet, views–and tangible possessions. Nothing stops infrasound, which according to topography and air conditions–temperature and humidity–can spread for miles.

Property values are reduced through a de-facto expropriation–to make way for private profits–without legal possibilities of redress. Leading North German property agents went public in the autumn of 1997 to state that the general property value drop in windmill-hit areas is 20 to 30 percent. Similar reports have come in from the UK and Denmark.

Since 1945, there has been a European consensus on an overriding planning principle: Coasts, high ground, and certain valuable landscapes shall be kept free of industry. True industries, on which hinge our welfare, are given special industrial zones. A political need for windmills as political symbols has caused this sound principle to be increasingly disregarded.

Windmills are often placed in areas with a weak electricity distribution net, which then is forced to accept a local, unpredictable electricity generation. Net and transformers must be strengthened–an expensive business. Electricity producers and distributors, who are forced by law to pay for windmill-electricity, have huge extra costs of close onto [$250 million] annually! The loss to Germany is about [$125,000] per windmill per year . . . and there are now over 7,000 windmills in that country. These losses correspond closely to calculations for the UK, Denmark and Sweden.

Non-green, true nature-conservancy groups have taken up the fight against subsidy-windmilling. In Germany, Bundesverband Landschaftsschutz assists more than 300 local “Citizens Initiatives” against the terror. In the UK, Country Guardian, Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales, The National Trust, and many local committees stand up together against the rape of the landscape. Over 80 percent of new applications are stopped by them.

In Denmark, we now have Windmill Neighbors, very active. In Sweden, local initiatives have come together in the Swedish Landscape Protection Society, which had over 5,000 members after its first month of existence, and many more now.

Windmilling turns our best landscapes into ultra-low productivity industrial landscapes–all for the sake of the erection, at our cost, of superfluous political symbols intended to advertise a perverse policy directed against us.

S. Fred Singer is president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project. http://www.sepp.org/weekwas/2000/Jan22.htm.

 

Wind Energy-the case of Denmark

Sept. 2009

You will find that the windies alway like to use Denmark as the exemplerary case study for Industrial Wind Energy.  The following article shows us how wind is a dismal failure.

“Denmark generates the equivalent of about 19% of its electricity demand with wind turbines, but wind power contributes far less than 19% of the Nation’s electricity demand.  The claim that Denmark derives about 20% of its electricity from wind overstates matters. Being  highly intermittent, wind power has recently (2006) met as little as 5% of Denmark’s annual  electricity consumption with an average over the last five years of 9.7%.”

Windenergy-thecaseofDenmark-final11-09-09

Environmental scientist exposes wind farm scam

http://www.wind-watch.org/news/2009/09/15/environmental-scientist-exposes-wind-farm-scam/ 

In The Wind Farm Scam, to be released on 30th September 2009, Dr. John Etherington argues that wind farm technology is a wholly counter-productive and undesirable response to the problems of climate change and electricity generation. Dr. Etherington is a former Reader in Ecology, Thomas Huxley Medallist at the Royal College of Science and former co-editor of the Journal of Ecology. 

The Wind Farm Scam explains that the intermittent nature of wind power cannot generate a steady output, a fact that necessitates back-up systems from coal and gas-powered plants that significantly negate any reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. 
In addition, there are the ecological drawbacks, including damage to habitats and wildlife, and the far from insignificant aesthetic drawback of the assault upon natural beauty which wind turbines entail. 

Moreover, wind power is being excessively financed at the cost of consumers who have been neither consulted nor informed that this subsidy is being paid from their bills to support an industry that cannot be cost-efficient. 

With the recent proliferation of local groups opposing wind farm planning applications (now over 300), and the increasingly frequent and challenging discussions on wind farms in all the media – including a round condemnation by James Lovelock on the BBC’s Hard Talk programme – this meticulously researched and compellingly-argued book could not be more timely. 

As Christopher Booker says in his introduction: 

“Eventually the obsession of our politicians with tower blocks was seen to be one of the greatest follies of the age. In time to come – it may be sooner than we think – the obsession with wind power will likewise come to be seen as an even greater folly” 

The Wind Farm Scam: Isbn 9781905299836, £9.99, published 30th September 2009 by Stacey International 

Please contact David Birkett on 020 7221 7166, 07982 75 4646 or by e-mailing him at marketing@stacey-international.co.uk 

Notes for Editors 

Publication of The Wind Farm Scam comes at a crucial time, as our government appears determined to confront public opposition to deployment of wind power. Just a few months ago Energy Secretary Ed Miliband publicly stated “It is socially unacceptable to be against wind turbines.” And more recently Huw Irranca-Davies, DEFRA minister for marine and natural environment, supported the fast-tracking of wind power through the planning system by allowing developers to finance local projects. Such action is contrary to the government’s own 2007 policy set out in “Delivering Community Benefits from Wind Energy Development: A Toolkit” which contained the categorical statement that: “To put it simply, planning permission cannot be ‘bought’.” 

Despite the government’s statement that 81% of people are in favour of wind power and that 62% would be happy to live within 5 km of a wind power development, media polls have recently shown a consistent 70% to 90% of people opposing local wind farm development. For example, whilst this book was in press, the Scottish “Lochaber News” asked if councilors should approve a plan for wind turbines, to which question the poll gave a resounding “No – 90%”. We are not alone. In Germany, usually presented as a showcase for wind power, the response to the State of Brandenburg’s decision to increase the already large areas covered by wind farms, was a local petition of 27,000 signatures opposing the decision. 

Proponents of wind power repeatedly stress that opposition is based primarily on the impact on landscape, but justify this by the need to “tackle climate change” through reduction of carbon dioxide emission. As this book shows, the saving of CO2 proposed by government’s own 2010 target for electricity generated by renewables is a minute 0.04% of the global total and, by 2020 this will not have grown in any way comparably with the huge increases of emission from the developing world. To achieve the target, installed capacity of wind will have grown to near 50 gigawatts which according to predictions by wind farm operators E.ON UK and Iberdrolla, will necessitate up to 90% of this 50 GW being backed-up by conventional power stations. Paradoxically then, we need to build more CO2-emitting power stations to allow deployment of hugely subsidized wind farms. 

The title of this book expresses the author’s belief that wind power is an institutional confidence trick – succinctly summed-up by Lord David Howell, former Secretary of State for Energy in Mrs. Thatcher’s government: “Extensive wind farm developments will be seen in due course to have taken public opinion for a colossal ride.” It is indeed colossal – electricity compulsorily priced at two or three times its real value, saving a derisory amount of CO2 emission and, as conceded last year by the British Wind Energy Association, mitigating only half the amount of CO2 emission which was claimed for most wind farms already installed. 

14th September 2009 
stacey-international.co.uk

Get a Reality Check Keith Stewart

An interview with Keith Stewart from the World Wildlife Federation.  http://www.tvo.org:80/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda/index.cfm?page_id=3&action=blog&subaction=viewPost&post_id=10950&blog_id=323

Keith never seems to understand the constraints we must deal with when trying to intergrate renewable energies. I swear he doesn’t know how to do math. Large scale renewable are inefficient and cost prohibitive. They cannot respond to the needs of a modern society. The largest Biogas generation technology available right now only provides 10 MW of energy. (Ontario needs over 20,000 MW). Wind turbines and solar need quick responsive backup generation to counter their intermittency and unreliable power therefore will never replace coal or Natural Gas. (Hydro and Nuclear are part of baseload therefore cannot respond to the intermittency) He also doesn’t indicate to the public how much public funding is needed. Renewables will be receiving under the proposed FIT program 3 times the present electricity rates without including all of the transmission upgrades needed to allow renewables onto to the grid. This is coming out of each and every tax payers pocket. This is absolutely ludicrous. To top things off are the restrictions the GEA will impose upon the democratic process in reviewing these kinds of developments. We as citizens will have NO say. Wake up Ontario, this is a scam and WWF are shills to the renewable industry (especially wind). Have a look at the insights about the wind scam by an environmental scientist from the U.K. http://www.wind-watch.org/news/2009/09/15/environmental-scientist-exposes-wind-farm-scam/ ” Proponents of wind power repeatedly stress that opposition is based primarily on the impact on landscape, but justify this by the need to “tackle climate change” through reduction of carbon dioxide emission. As this book shows, the saving of CO2 proposed by government’s own 2010 target for electricity generated by renewables is a minute 0.04% of the global total and, by 2020 this will not have grown in any way comparably with the huge increases of emission from the developing world.”

 

 

posted by Rural Grubby on 16 September 2009 at 1:21 PM