Opinions
For an industry all puffed up about its supposed environmental virtue, green energy sure is attracting a dirty crowd. Witness its latest entrant, Italy's Mafia. The mob knows a good fraud when it sees one. Mafia soldiers have moved in on the something-for-nothing world of green energy.
I realized I had a story that was bigger than just the effectiveness of wind energy. You can like it or you can hate it-that isn't the point. What this is about is government and business rushing ahead with new technology without ever making sure it's safe. A car manufacturer would never get away with releasing a new model without extensive safety tests. Same goes for food, appliances-anything. And yet these machines just kept going up, and up, and up.
Wind energy continues to flunk the market test. Ontario buys wind energy at a price 50% higher than it would have to pay for electricity from natural gas. (A new natural gas facility can make money selling electricity at 7-8 cents a kilowatt-hour. Ontario buys newly installed windpower at prices of about 11 cents per kilowatt-hour.)
Also filed under [
Energy Policy|
Canada]
Blowin' in the wind; Liberals' green energy plan is all smoke and mirrors
January 26, 2013 in Lorrie Goldstein ,Toronto Sun
January 26, 2013 in Lorrie Goldstein ,Toronto Sun
When Ontario's auditor general looked at the Liberals' renewable energy policies in 2011, he found they (a) rushed into the field without knowing what they were doing (b) failed to develop a business plan (c) did no internal audit work ...(f) grossly over-estimated the number of jobs they would create.
As a result they have added billions of dollars to the cost of electricity Ontarians will be paying for years to come.
Also filed under [
Energy Policy|
Canada]
Biodiversity that takes centuries to evolve cannot be reinvented overnight, neither can the bald eagles that nested in a 100 year old cottonwood tree at Fisherville be expected to accept a Tupperware nest platform on a pole somewhere, when their instinct tells them they should be in a natural tree somewhere else. Legislation is purportedly in place to protect species at risk - that's why it is there. Legislation that can be bought, and then twisted to serve the needs of development is not legislation. It smacks of a corrupt system of the worst possible kind perpetuated by money and greed.
Also filed under [
Impact on Wildlife|
Canada]
While society said "enough" when it comes to smoking, especially as it pertains to public spaces and second-hand smoke, the wind industry unapologetically continues to force its harmful product on Wisconsin families - not just intruding on public spaces, but primarily invading people's homes with devastating effects.
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Impact on People|
Wisconsin]
Instead of pouring money into subsidies and direct production support of existing, inefficient green energy, President Obama should focus on dramatically ramping up investments into the research and development of green energy.
Just as we blame the poor for their poverty, we seem compelled to blame the victims of Big Wind for their own illness. Apostles of the wind industry, like Dr. Dora Mills, Dr. Robert McCunney and Australia's Professor Simon Chapman, are only too happy to furnish the tacit explanations needed to justify blaming these victims for their own plight. These typically include psychosomatic causes, hypochondria, delusions, and other forms of mental illness.
Also filed under [
Noise|
Massachusetts]
Ostrander Wind granted REA from Ministry of Natural Resources
January 22, 2013 in Wind Concerns Ontario
January 22, 2013 in Wind Concerns Ontario
This home to nature is shortly to be under attack, not from hunters or foragers but from a Government approved industrial wind developer. Those of us throughout the province who admire and want to protect nature stand in disbelief at the carnage that will unfold and that is a result of the Green Energy and Economy Act (GEA) passed by the GTA centric Liberal Party.
By using mathematical formulas derived from these studies, the average distance of a large bird carcass found under the 2.3 MW turbines at Wolf Island would be 101 meters from their towers. This average is far outside the search areas used. The Wolf Island mortality studies used search areas of only 60 and 50 meters. These studies clearly missed most of the carcasses. It also does not account for wandering cripples and wind personal interference.
Even before they threatened my property, I was opposed to wind farms. They fail on all counts. They are grossly inefficient, extremely expensive, socially inequitable, a danger to human health, environmentally harmful, divisive for communities, a blot on the landscape, and don't even achieve the purpose for which they were designed, namely the reliable generation of electricity and the reduction of CO2 emissions.
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Impact on People|
Australia / New Zealand]
This gut wrenching poem tells a true story.
The impetus for the escalation of health concern is born from inadequacies of zoning regulations recommended by wind energy promoters. The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, a quasi-state agency focused on renewable energy development, has authored a state supported Wind Turbine Model Bylaw for municipalities considering wind energy projects. This is heralded as the state standard, yet more and more local boards of health are in a quandary.
Also filed under [
General|
Massachusetts]
Tax dollars fund large portions of these projects in several ways (through grants and loans, subsidies, and tax credits), so in essence WE THE PEOPLE are paying to destroy the natural beauty that not only we enjoy, but we're throwing away the income generated by the tourists who CHOOSE to come here because of our scenic lakes and mountains.
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Impact on People|
New Hampshire]
In July and August wind generation is minimal because hot air is not dense, and it takes even more wind to turn the blades when it is hot. Those in the industry call this the summer doldrums.
A coal or nuclear power plant cannot scale down their production on a windy day. They are fined if they don’t produce enough power to meet the demand.
Therefore, most (if not all) wind power is wasted.
Harnessing the wind ...Yet more bad news. Miliband (again) presided over the issuing of contracts for the building of offshore windmills so biased in favour of the profiteers that even Labour's Margret Hodge, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, calls them a licence to print money ...that will cost taxpayers seventeen billions pounds in exchange for pathetic amounts of electricity.
Also filed under [
Energy Policy|
UK]
'Monstrous' Deerfield wind project requires re-thinking and relocation
January 18, 2013 in Brattleboro Reforme
January 18, 2013 in Brattleboro Reforme
The Forest Service has compromised the integrity of the National Environmental Protection Act by selecting a person to draft its environmental impact statement (EIS) who was also working for the project developer, Iberdrola. Those who read the project's applications will find six relatively lengthy instances of plagiarism where the words of the developer's agent were used again verbatim for the EIS. This is a disturbing conflict of interest.
Also filed under [
Impact on Landscape|
Vermont]
It was inevitable of course, when you pit feather and bone against a turbine blade 45-metres long, the blade wins. And if the blade belongs to big energy the deal is cinched.
It doesn't take a master's in quantum physics to predict the grim result of anchoring a mega-fan in the path of migrating birds.
Also filed under [
Impact on Birds|
Canada]
The exit of Spanish wind developer Iberdrola Renewables from the town of Hammond will create a feeling of relief for the majority of residents who have felt the intrusion of this foreign conglomerate into the affairs of this small rural community was unwelcome.
Wind energy lobby ignoring real concerns of families, children
January 17, 2013 in Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter
January 17, 2013 in Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter
The wind energy lobby doesn't care about families and children currently being harmed or about future families that will be harmed by 500- foot industrial wind turbines. They are not listening, they are either uninformed or are deliberately misrepresenting the facts; it appears they don't care.