But as headlines turn from green profits to big banking losses, questions are being raised about whether an economic slowdown will depress rapid growth in low-carbon business. There was a nervy response to Shell's decision this month to pull out of the giant London Array wind farm, although the company insisted it was a business decision and not down to dwindling interest in renewable energy. The risk that a recession will hold back environmental investment trends seems obvious, as consumers and companies look to save costs and become more risk-averse, especially since many corporate commitments are voluntary.

Any approach to determining economic policy for climate change should take into account the possibility that the current understanding of the atmosphere may not be translatable into reliable forecasts with a precision that allows the design of an economic response. Further, any economic forecasts that are used to construct models of future carbon use and carbon dioxide emissions will be unable to deal with technical innovations. Their success cannot be predicted. This impacts on policy in two ways, first the obvious uncertainty in estimating economic development but more immediately the desire of governments to stimulate technical solutions. The need to be seen to be taking action frequently descends to picking winners and creating classes of rent seekers. ...As an example the present subsidies for wind farms are a response to demands for action from Green groups and green politicians. The result is a new rent seeking group. There is little cost benefit analysis to guide policy development. Rather policy is set to subsidise non-competitive technologies that may produce unquantified benefits. A simple comparison with the more conventional alternative of natural gas shows the use of gas to be more cost effective and useful as gas turbine generators produce electricity on demand. General encouragement of innovation should be the limit of government policy. It is hard enough in business to develop innovations and well beyond the reach of general government.

The wind rush is on. Plans to erect sweeping wind farms are being unfurled at a rate of knots. But is this really clean green energy, or just another case of greedy corporates trashing our landscapes for profit? Anton Oliver argues it's about time New Zealanders woke up to the dark side of wind power.

A dozen wind power projects generating close to 2700MW at full capacity are on the drawing board or have planning approval. The first of the big ones is not due for completion until early next decade, if it is not held up by objectors concerned about the visual impact and noise pollution. ...But just as there are high costs and climate constraints with hydro power, so there are with wind. The worldwide shortage of wind turbines is driving up price and generators are looking outside traditional suppliers in Denmark and Germany to other manufacturers in China and India.

There is a painfully inconvenient truth for many Australian politicians and climate change activists facing the 2007 federal election. It is that international scientific opinion and technical experience clearly indicate that the pivotal solution to both energy security and climate change is the increasing use of nuclear power technology. ...In Australia, the Labor Party's proposal to have a mandatory renewable energy target of 20 per cent of electrical energy to be provided from wind, solar and geothermal sources by the year 2020 is far more impractical and ambitious than the targets of the European model. It could become a huge financial burden on energy users unless massively subsidised by an incumbent government. Typically, wind power with an average capacity factor of say 25 per cent will need back-up generators prior to grid connection.

Presumably the reserve generating capacity will be set lower to encourage more renewable generation but we shall see; political safety was the Government's priority at that time and there is no reason to believe it would be braver now. Sustainable energy and secure energy are "not mutually exclusive goals", the Prime Minister maintains. But the fact is oil- and gas-fired stations are the country's security against low hydro levels and it's hard to see that any weather-dependent power plant could pick up the slack in a dry season.

Wind power is a problematic energy source, requiring constant back-up from conventional generation as fluctuating winds vary output by up to 70 per cent. It produces a third of installed capacity at best. The loss of the 79-megawatt Dollar wind farm adds to the challenge of offsetting the 100 megawatts needed for a desalination plant - that calls for a 300-megawatt wind farm. In addition to the wider inconsistencies of state policy on climate change, there are questions about wind farms' reliability, cost, siting and commercial viability. The state is offering few answers, only vague assurances that all is well even as its targets recede into the future.

The "inconvenient truth" is out on wind farms. Under-performing around the world, our local line-up at Toora and Wonthaggi are no exception. With average output levels 10 to 15 per cent below the stated 30 to 35 per cent of installed capacity (and that is when all turbines are operational - rarely the case), investors must be getting a little anxious. It is a pity. We all wish for a reliable alternative to the burning of fossil fuels and hoped that wind generators, sensitively placed, may have been part of the solution. They don't pass muster. It is time for the wind industry to come clean and accept that it is promoting a lemon. With the focus now on creative development of radical new technologies, the wind farms currently industrialising our beautiful coastlines will soon stand motionless and abandoned, dripping with gearbox oil. White elephants. The wind power industry and the State Government should make the real performance figures on wind farms public. To not do so is pure "greenwash".

The Letter from Mr Nick Wragg suggests that I am making false claims about wind farms, however I don't need to as the data is readily available and most people in South Gippsland are well aware the ones in this region are underperforming. Nick says that on average wind farms produce 30-35% of their maximum capacity which is what the Bracks Government and the wind industry use to calculate the number of households to be supplied with electricity and the amount of greenhouse gas that can be saved. It might have been legitimate to use this capacity factor range four or five years ago when we didn't know any better but data from operating wind farms in Australia now reveals that a much lower range should be used.

Auswind CEO, Dominique La Fontaine, should publish her "facts" about wind energy in a forum where they can be scrutinised by the ACCC for accuracy. The realities of the South Gippsland turbines are there for all to see. Five out of 12 turbines at Toora have been broken down for over six months. One of the six turbines at Wonthaggi has been at a standstill for months and a second is looking pretty ill. Actual production figures from Wonthaggi in June 2006 show capacity factors of less than 20%, not the 33% claimed on the developer's website.

The villagers should have a forum to voice their feelings so they are not left with a nasty taste in their mouth and resentment in their gut. Further, negotiation with local people with local knowledge might even produce better outcomes for the proposed wind farm. If the Government is to achieve its renewable energy targets we know it has few choices. It can dot the crowded coastline or it can fill up the interior with these turbines. I am sure the Government would not allow hundreds of wind turbines around Newcastle, Wollongong or Sydney without very close and careful community consultation. The people of country New South Wales, and particularly the people of Taralga, no matter whose side one is on, deserve the same respect.

If it was calculated exactly how much greenhouse gas savings wind farms would achieve, given that they rely on coal fired power stations, it would clearly fall well below the claims of the wind industry and state governments. But as they say in the government departments it's all about perceptions. No wonder Victoria has a water supply crisis that is drifting toward an economic crisis. Once a wind farm is approved the proponents may step away from the risk of low power output by installing themselves as managers instead of being owners. Rumour has it that fixed annual payments to farmers may be a thing of the past as developers want them to accept payments related to wind farm output. No matter how obvious the wind farm sink hole becomes the industry marches on regardless, making the same outrageous claims about how many houses will be supplied and how much greenhouse gases will be saved. Whatever happened to the Trade Practices Act. It's time the Federal Government put a stop to the scheme they created that they clearly and publicly acknowledge is a fraud.

We are lucky in New Zealand to have one of the best wind energy resources in the world, - the Saudi Arabia of wind, as many call it. There have been concerns over the use of inherently intermittent renewables in a secure energy system. An earlier study by EECA and MED based on the technology we have now, showed wind could provide at least 20% of total electricity generation - so there is plenty of room for growth. The Electricity Commission is currently considering research that will look into improved wind forecasting, increased demand response and more geographically dispersed development of new wind farms.

Editor's Note This opinion piece was submitted to IWA in pdf form and is available in IWA's reference library via the link provided below.

Like most really thoughtful environmentally concerned scientists, I'd rather a tiny amount (in metric tonnes or cubic metres, after decades of use) of stored radioactive waste than the unmitigated disaster of millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. And renewables are not realistically and politically going to fill the gap any time soon.

Is the current drought another sign of climate change? Is renewable energy a real solution? The rainfall record has a few clues, and it is also worth considering how land and water management practices have changed over the last 100 years including in the Murray Darling Basin - the food bowl of Australia.

MISSING from the deluge of more than 300 reports tabled in this last week of parliament before the state election were two key documents the Bracks Government has chosen to keep secret. Both would shed important new light on big government election initiatives and allow voters to make a clearer assessment of them, but it appears that for political reasons they will be kept under wraps. The first report concerns the economic impact of the Government’s wind farms policy and calculates the effect on the average power bill.....Premier Steve Bracks and his ministers claim the increase will be just $10 on the average annual power bill, but they refuse to release the research that underpins this claim. The Opposition claims the increase will be more like $80 a year, but without seeing the research both figures are effectively just unsupported claims of politicians.

Yet, the only solid measure of the warming, the NASA satellite data, shows that over the 27 years that data has been available, warming has been at a negligible rate of 0.13 degrees Celsius per decade. This level is engulfed by the statistical variation for reliability. Although there is an increasing level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant nor does it pose health risks. Its effects, other things being equal, are to raise temperatures, but by how much is highly contentious.

The current hype surrounding wind energy is just that and is a costly distraction from securing clean energy that is also reliable.

But if the nation is going to go nuclear, should we not play a role in developing a better, safer form of this energy?