Tag Archives: renewable energy

An Ill Wind Blows For Wind Farms

22 Nov

With so many other frauds driving ever-increasing debt to occupy our attention, criticising the fraud of “wind farming” has not been our raison d’être here at barnabyisright.com

Although, we have turned our attention to it once or twice.

Most memorably, we turned our guns on University of Adelaide nutritionist, Professor Gary Wittert, over his ludicrously insulting “science” in support of wind farms … and his next government grant application ( see TurbineGate: More #JAFA Fraud Posing As “Science” ).

And during our lengthy research for the exclusive exposé, The “500 Biggest Polluters” Exposed – Everything The Government Is Not Telling You, we uncovered two classic examples of the abject financial failure … and taxpayer ripoff … that is wind farming.

First there was Infigen Energy – the central figure in the Government’s TV propaganda campaign for its Clean Energy Future scam. In Ka Ching! Here Comes Australia’s Carbon-Baggers, we even made a little video to celebrate Infigen’s blatant rent-seeking to stave off imminent financial collapse:

We also uncovered Hydro Tasmania’s “Roaring Forties” we-can-sell-wind-farms-to-China disaster ( see Carbon Pricing Sounds Death Knell For Wind Farms? ).

Today, we again turn our attention to this symbol of the green religion’s caring for the planet.

Because it would appear that an ill wind is blowing upon it.

And it is coming from within the ranks of the eco-elite themselves:

Wind farms are useless, says Duke

The Duke of Edinburgh has made a fierce attack on wind farms, describing them as “absolutely useless”.

In a withering assault on the onshore wind turbine industry, the Duke said the farms were “a disgrace”.

He also criticised the industry’s reliance on subsidies from electricity customers, claimed wind farms would “never work” and accused people who support them of believing in a “fairy tale”.

The Duke’s comments will be seized upon by the burgeoning lobby who say wind farms are ruining the countryside and forcing up energy bills.

Criticism of their effect on the environment has mounted, with The Sunday Telegraph disclosing today that turbines are being switched off during strong winds following complaints about their noise.

The Duke’s views are politically charged, as they put him at odds with the Government’s policy significantly to increase the amount of electricity generated by wind turbines…

When Esbjorn Wilmar, of Infinergy, which builds and operates turbines, introduced himself to the Duke at a reception in London, he found himself on the end of an outspoken attack on his industry.

“He said they were absolutely useless, completely reliant on subsidies and an absolute disgrace,” said Mr Wilmar. “I was surprised by his very frank views.”

Mr Wilmar said his attempts to argue that onshore wind farms were one of the most cost-effective forms of renewable energy received a fierce response from the Duke.

“He said, ‘You don’t believe in fairy tales do you?’” said Mr Wilmar. “He said that they would never work as they need back-up capacity.”

Bravo!

However, let’s not get too excited.

While agreeing wholeheartedly with the above, your humble blogger is immediately prompted to even greater scepticism.

WHY would one of the eco-elite, a man who purportedly said that he wishes to be reincarnated as a human-killing virus, only now make these comments that are so apparently at odds with his fellow eco-elite’s religion?

What is the motive? What is there to gain, from ruffling feathers like this? (sorry, poor taste pun)

Some might say that the motive for this outburst is purely profit. And indeed, the same article does appear to imply this possibility:

While they are opposed to onshore wind farms, the Royal family stands to earn millions of pounds from those placed offshore.

Last year, the Crown Estate, the £7billion land and property portfolio, approved an increase in the number of sites around the coast of England. The Crown Estate owns almost all of the seabed off Britain’s 7,700-mile coastline.

But I don’t buy it.

If the Duke were simply wanting to influence opinion away from onshore wind farms, in favour of offshore wind farms, then bollocking wind farms full stop would seem a pretty stupid way to go about it.

And I doubt the Duke is that stupid.

What I do find very interesting … and strikingly “coincidental” … is that on the very same weekend as the Duke is reported as making these comments, and on the eve of the IPCC’s 2012 Durban conference, the updated and revised bible of the Global Warming Faith also appears to subtly cast doubt on its own core beliefs:

Climate change effects unknown: IPCC report

GREAT uncertainty remains about how much of an impact climate change will have on future extreme weather events, the world’s leading climate scientists have found.

While there has been an increase in warm days and a decrease in cold nights, the likely impact on future weather events would not be evident for decades because of natural variability, the scientists say in a key review prepared for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…

IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri said it was “very likely” there had been an overall decrease in cold days and nights and an increase in warm days and nights. He said there had clearly been “statistically significant” trends in heavy rain events in some regions.

However, Dr Pachauri said there had been “strong variations to the trend”…

Global Warming Policy Foundation director Benny Peiser said the overall message was “there was not a strong empirical link between anthropogenic climate change and weather events”.

“It is unlikely there will be one for 20 to 30 years,” he said.

He said any suggestion that recent weather events could be directly linked to climate change went directly against the general scientific consensus.

Kathy McInnes, lead author of chapter three – Changes in Climate Extremes and their Impacts on the Natural Physical Environment – said a lot of uncertainty remained.

“Extreme events are by nature very rare so we don’t have a lot of data that we can assess for a climate change signal,” Dr McInnes said. “Depending on the type of extreme, there can be a lot of different contributing factors, some naturally occurring and other human activity that is not necessarily climate change.”

Your humble blogger warns AGW-sceptic readers not to be naïve.

We are being “played”.

The eco-elite are not “waking up”.

They are not trying to slowly and gently “weasel out” of their long-held pro-AGW position.

Far more likely, is that they are deliberately sowing the seeds of confusion.

With the result? Anger and distrust.

Want to rule the world?

Want the peoples of the world to willingly and happily abandon the idea of national governance, and embrace the idea of supranational (ie, World) Government?

This is how to do it.

A carefully planned, far-sighted program of dividing the people’s of the world into For and Against the green religion.

Create lots … and lots … and LOTS … of fear.

(Throw in “terrorism”, “flu” outbreaks, a few wars, and a global financial crisis or two for good measure)

Get the national governments’ politicians on board the Great Global Warming Hoax.

Then … begin to pull the intellectual rug out from under them. All of them. Our leaders. Our authorities. Our “experts”. Our (more or less) trusted, familiar institutions.

(Recall the ClimateGate email “hack”, pre-Copenhagen)

Slowly but surely leaving the masses confused, angry, strongly distrusting of all “sides” in their national governments … and looking for a Saviour.

Perhaps one who will clean up all the expensive, taxpayer-financed litter of a planned-to-fail Green Religion?

14000 Abandoned Wind Turbines In The USA

The symbol of Green renewable energy, our saviour from the non existent problem of Global Warming, abandoned wind farms are starting to litter the planet as globally governments cut the subsidies taxes that consumers pay for the privilege of having a very expensive power source that does not work every day for various reasons like it’s too cold or  the wind speed is too high.

The US experience with wind farms has left over 14,000 wind turbines abandoned and slowly decaying, in most instances the turbines are just left as symbols of a dying Climate Religion, nowhere have the Green Environmentalists appeared to clear up their mess or even complain about the abandoned wind farms…

…

Imagine the outraged Green chorus if those turbines were abandoned oil drilling rigs.

It took nearly a decade from the time the first flimsy wind turbines were installed before the performance of California wind projects could dispel the widespread belief among the public and investors that wind energy was just a tax scam.

Ben Lieberman, a senior policy analyst focusing on energy and environmental issues for the Heritage Foundation, is not surprised. He asks:

“If wind power made sense, why would it need a government subsidy in the first place? It’s a bubble which bursts as soon as the government subsidies end.”

“It’s a bubble which bursts as soon as the government subsidies end” therein lies a lesson that is going be learnt by those that sought to make fortunes out of tax payer subsidies, the whole renewables industry of solar, wind and biomass is just an artificial bubble incapable of surviving without subsides from governments and tax payers which many businesses and NGO’s like WWF, FoE and Greenpeace now think is their god given right, as the money is going on Green Climate Religion approved clean energy.

The Green evangelists who push so hard for these wind farms, as usual have not thought the whole idea through, no surprises for a left agenda like Climate Change, which like all things Green and socialist is just a knee jerk reaction:

Altamont’s turbines have since 2008 been tethered four months of every year in an effort to protect migrating birds after environmentalists filed suit. According to the Golden Gate Audubon Society, 75 to 110 Golden Eagles, 380 Burrowing Owls, 300 Red-tailed Hawks, and 333 American Kestrels (falcons) are killed by Altamont turbines annually. A July, 2008 study by the Alameda County Community Development Agency points to 10,000 annual bird deaths from Altamont Pass wind turbines. Audubon calls Altamont, “probably the worst site ever chosen for a wind energy project.”

The same areas that are good for siting wind farms are also good for birds of prey and migrating birds to pass through, shame for the birds that none of the Green mental midgets who care so much about everything in nature, thought that one through when pushing their anti fossil fuel agenda.

(h/t ToryAardvark.com)

Tags: , , , , , ,

Barnaby Exposes Labor’s Renewable Energy Fraud

10 Nov

Media release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 9 November 2011:

Clean energy and the affect of yesterday’s vote

Prior to the passage of the carbon tax, the amount of renewable (or as the government likes to describe it ‘clean’) energy that would be generated by our nation by 2020 was 50 terawatt hours, according to a report for the government by SKM MMA.

Yesterday, the Senate passed over 1000 pages worth of law, titled the Clean Energy bills. On the passage of these clean energy bills, the amount of clean energy generated in Australia by 2020 will be 50 terawatt hours.

That’s right it is exactly the same amount. The clean energy bills will encourage exactly zero additional supply of electricity generation from clean energy sources.

So, now not only do you have the pleasure of being poorer, noting that it will have exactly zero affect on the climate, you will also have the pleasure of the clean energy bills producing absolutely no additional clean energy by 2020.

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that a clean energy bill doesn’t actually produce any new clean energy. It’s like all the democracy that existed in the Democratic Republic of Germany prior to the fall of the Berlin wall, or exists now in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

As the consultants SKM MMA put it to the government in their report:

The level of renewable generation by 2020 is significantly higher only for the high price scenario, which suggests that in the absence of the LRET the carbon prices for the low price and core policy cases at that point ($13/t CO2e and $29.5/t CO2Figure 7e respectively) are not high enough to support widespread new entrant renewable generation.

(click here to download the SKM MMA extracts in pdf format)

Barnaby Joyce is an experienced accountant.

Meaning that, unlike World’s Greatest Finance Minister Wayne Swan, he can add up:

From Senator Joyce's office | click to enlarge

And as we have seen many times here on barnabyisright.com, when it comes to picking up on the important little details that reveal a fraud, Barnaby is the only one on the ball.

Oh yes, lest we forget to remind readers that in order to achieve this zero contribution of additional electricity from renewables, the government intends to set up Greens Senator Milne’s baby – the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

$10 billion of borrowed money.

To pour down the toilet of renewable energy “projects” that no sane investor will touch with a barge pole.

That’s why the government subsidy.

Because real business people (not rent-seekers) already know what Senator Joyce points out.

That “clean energy” cannot generate enough electricity to break even financially.

Unless propped up by the taxpayer.

“Clean” “renewable” energy is just another arm tentacle of the Great Global Warming Hoax.

A quasi-religious movement to enrich (1) bankers, (2) myriad rent-seekers, and (3) politicians (on retirement).

At the expense of (1) developed world citizens’ standard of living, and ultimately (2) national sovereignty (via government debt owed to foreign interests).

UPDATE:

Cough!

The Greens face widespread accusations of hypocrisy after demanding Australia abandon non-renewable energy sources, a day after voting for a carbon tax package underwritten by the continuing long-term use of gas.

The minor party, which helped design the carbon tax package, was unabashed last night, insisting Australia could be 100 per cent reliant on renewable energy sources such as solar and wind energy within a decade if only its politicians mustered the “political will” to do it.

A picture says it all, where words fail me –

Tags: , , ,

TurbineGate – More #JAFA Fraud Posing As “Science”

27 Jul

On Monday evening, ABC’s Four Corners ran a story about wind farms and alleged adverse health effects.

I didn’t see it.

But I did see this story from Yahoo!7 referencing the Four Corners program.

And reading the last part immediately elevated my blood pressure (emphasis added):

Electrical engineer Graeme Hood from the University of Ballarat used audio equipment to check sound levels near the turbines.

He said although the turbines don’t sound very loud, they’re actually producing sound at a frequency too low to hear.

“The brain thinks it’s quiet, but the ears may be telling you something else or the body may be telling you something else, it’s much louder,” he said.

Anti-wind farm campaigner Dr Sarah Laurie said people within a 10km radius of turbines could be at risk of health problems such as elevated blood pressure and headaches.

But University of Adelaide professor Gary Wittert, who has conducted one of the first independent studies into wind farm health issues, denies there’s any link.

He used data from the the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to compare medical prescriptions of people living in areas with and without turbines.

His study involved 12,000 people living within a 10km radius around wind farms in South Australia and Victoria.

“There is no hint of any effect on a population basis for an increased use of sleeping pills or blood pressure or cardiovascular medications whatsoever,” he said.

Oh!

Right.

So that’s how a scientific “study” into possible adverse health effects is conducted is it?

Just scan the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme database, for purchases of certain kinds of prescription medication. 

And if people in areas near wind farms have not been running off to the doctor-thence-chemist to drug themselves up with prescription medicine at a demonstrably higher average rate than in other (unnamed) populated areas, then you come out singing for your politically-correct Clean Energy Future funding supper by claiming your “independent study” finds that there are no adverse health effects from wind farms.

A couple of really basic questions, Professor.

1. Were the comparative sample regions (wind farm vs no wind farm) identical geographically, and more importantly, topographically?

After all, we are talking about possible health effects that, if present, it is only logical to first hypothesise will be health effects most likely caused by physical forces (ie, “sound” or compression waves).  And thus, the “lay of the land” (ie, the topography), % ground cover, vegetation type and coverage, variant resonant effects of differing soil types, air temperature and density, even the prevailing wind direction and strength relative to both the compression wave source and the population centre/s, are all critically relevant factors, and thus must all be as nearly identical as possible between the sample sets, in order for a so-called “study” based solely on prescription medication purchases to have even a shred of relevance or credibility.

2. Were the sample subjects (the people) 100% commensurable in terms of their socio-demographs? In all respects?!

Like … were you comparing, say, areas of predominantly hard-working tough-‘n-hardy rural folk living near said wind farms (and miles by car-only from the nearest doctor), with areas of predominantly obese TV-addicted couch potato welfare bogans living in non wind farm areas with half a dozen GP’s within a 10 minute taxpayer-subsidised bus ride?

In other words, were you comparing subjects who, in a socio-demographic context, are equally predisposed socially, psychologically, and financially, to run off to the doctor for prescription meds every time they feel a bit of a headache?  In a world where the standard societal “prescription” response to a headache – paracetamol and/or codeine – are readily available over-the-counter?

Here’s an idea, Professor Wittert.

Show us your raw data.

All of it.

Sheesh.

Galileo, Copernicus, Nicolas of Cusa, Newton, Einstein, and Feynman must be turning in their graves.

Oh … and just one other, tiny little thing.

Could Professor Wittert’s pathetic, insult-to-intelligence foray into the world of bullshit “science” studies that just happen to come out in support of a Big Dollar, financially-important sub-area of the Great Global Warming Hoax, have anything at all to do with the fact that his last funding grant runs out this year?

From the University Of Adelaide’s website (emphasis added):

Professor Gary Wittert, MBBch, MD, FRACP

Current Funded Research

2003-2006    Florey Foundation: A study of health and ageing in north-west Adelaide men           $450,000
2003 – 2007  University of Adelaide: Healthy Aging Research Cluster  $300,000
2004-2006    ARC linkage Grant: Obesity, Health, Social Disadvantage and Environment in Australia:   Relationships and Policy Implications    $1.4 Million
2005-2006    Brailsford Roberston Grant (CSIRO & Uni.Adelaide Trust for the Centre for International Nutrition Collaborative Research): Dietary interventions for overweight/ obese women prior to pregnancy–safety & efficacy of low calorie & low carbohydrate diets.         $200,000
2006-2008    Premiers Science Research Council: Florey Adelaide Male Ageing Study                  $300,000
2007     Medical Benefits Foundation: Effects of obesity and rapid weight-loss induced using a modified very low calorie diet on cardiovascular risk factors, vascular and ventricular structure and function in obesity.  $146,955
2007-2008      NH&MRC equipment grant: Automated image analysis systems for the    high- throughput  immunohistochemical analysis of clinical and experimental samples.  $150,000
2007-2009    ARC Discovery: Declining mental efficiency, cognitive performance and individual differences in aged function  $450,000. 
2007-2011    NH&MRC Centre for Clinical Research in Nutritional Physiology  $2.0 Million

Oh crap!

My big funding grant for the centre for research into “nutritional physiology” runs out this year.

Better find a new intellectual wank area of “study”, wherein to hoist aloft my medically-credentialled #JAFA flag, and land myself some more funding for the next X years.

Hey … what about that Clean Energy Future racket?

Hasn’t the government proposed a $10 billion “picking winners” Clean Energy Finance fund to be administered by the Greens?

There’s got to be a way that a medical researcher can get some of that moolah.

Hmmmmm … thinking, thinking.

Ah ha!! Of course!

I’ll just do a totally BS, from-the-comfort-of-my-office, behind-a-computer, without-ever-actually-studying-or-physically-examining-any-of-the-comparative-sample-area-subjects-or-their-respective-environments “study” into the claims of adverse health affects from wind farms.

I’ll say – as a medical “expert” – that there is no evidence of any.

Hope that no one points out that my entire study conclusion rests on the logical fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantium.

And the movers and shakers in the Clean Energy Future regime will all love me, and throw some of that lovely green money my way.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

This “science” funding game is too easy.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Carbon Pricing Sounds Death Knell For Wind Farms?

21 Jul

Regular readers know that I am researching the full 775 corporation NGER Register of “polluters” – which contains only names and ABN #’s (and sometimes only ABN #’s) – in order to debunk what is manifestly a litany of lies in the government’s “500 biggest polluting companies” page on its new cleanenergyfuture.gov.au website.

We’re getting there – on writing this post I’m up to #423 of 775 listed “companies”.

The NGER Register is truly a model of probity, by the way.

Yes, I am being deeply sarcastic.

And not just due to the fact that the NGER Register is stuffed full of foreign-owned “holding” companies, and unnamed ACN numbers.

There’s also double counting.

Defunct companies.

A gold miner with registered HQ in Queensland, but with operations exclusively in Indonesia.

That sort of thing.

The research keeps yielding up other interesting facts too.

Like this one.

Infigen Energy, allegedly Australia’s largest renewable energy company – specialising in wind farms, those ugly, bird-killing blights on our landscape – was actually in rather a lot of financial trouble leading up to the government’s unveiling of its “carbon pricing mechanism”.

And still is.

That is, unless the government can come through with its the Greens’ planned $10 billion taxpayer-funded Clean Energy Finance slush fund, for picking winners in the gurgling and gasping renewable energy sector.

You know.

The same economically-unviable, has-never-stood-on-its-own-two-feet-anywhere-on-the-planet-without-huge-taxpayer-subsidies sector that made Climate Commissar Tim Flannery a quick 25.37% spike profit on his plummeting Geodynamics “hot rocks” shares the day after the carbon pricing “mechanism” was announced.

As per my video yesterday, Intelligent Investor had this to say about carbon-bagging wind farm peddlers (and now government TV propagandists), Infigen Energy, on May 26 2011:

Infigen’s Lenders Should Be Restless

Credit Suisse set the geese amongst the turbines this week with a research note suggesting Infigen Energy’s lenders were getting restless. The share price has fallen from $0.50 just a month ago to $0.33 today – it’s back trading near the value of its unencumbered assets.

Infigen’s lenders should be restless; they signed up to a very stupid loan at the height of the credit bubble…

… It’s no surprise the lenders are looking for a way out. If it were on my balance sheet I’d be looking in every nook and cranny to find a way to get my money back.

The current price assumes the existing wind farms are almost worthless*.

*For an explanation of Infigen’s structure and how the debt and existing wind farms are separate from the substantial cash balance, read the March Quarterly Report.

And this is Infigen’s share price chart as of yesterday, courtesy of the ASX:

Click to enlarge

So even with the “bump” from the announcement of the “carbon pricing mechanism”, Infigen Energy is still trading barely above that $0.33 level identified as the “wind farms almost worthless” mark, by Intelligent Investor.

Sounds promising for Australia’s biggest renewable energy company, doesn’t it. No wonder Infigen’s Managing Director and two of their reps feature the most prominently (and repeatedly) in the Government’s $12m TV propaganda campaign.

The last cry of a drowning man?

Not if Dear Julia (and the taxpayers’ purse) has anything to do with it. As we saw only yesterday, in this video of her visit to open a new wind farm in NSW.

Here’s another interesting example of the local “success” of wind farming ventures.

It is one that turned up during my NGER Register research.

Hydro-Electric Corporation.

Otherwise known as Hydro Tasmania:

Hydro Tasmania is Australia’s leading renewable energy business. We generate hydropower and wind power in Tasmania and trade electricity and energy-related environmental products (such as Renewable Energy Certificates) in the Australian market.

It seems that their wind farming joint venture scheme called Roaring 40’s fell apart in April 2011:

Hydro Tasmania and the CLP Group today announced an agreement to bring to a close the six-year old Roaring 40s wind farm development joint venture.

The decision has been approved by the Tasmanian shareholder Ministers while the boards of both businesses have agreed on the provisional terms to conclude the joint venture. Formal execution of the deal is targeted for the end of June 2011 when the assets will be transferred.

The joint venture was established in 2005 to pursue renewable energy developments in Australia and overseas, particularly in China.

‘Roaring 40s, with the support of its shareholders, has become one of the leading wind farm developers in Australia,’ [Hydro Tasmania CEO] Mr Adair said. ‘However, the strategic goals of the joint venture partners have changed as well as the model for managing capital investment and operating costs. Therefore the time is right for us both to go our separate ways.

Mr Adair said Hydro Tasmania remains committed to wind development.

Hmmm.

That joint venture wasn’t exactly a roaring success, by the sounds of it.

Because “The strategic goals of the joint venture partners have changed as well as the model for managing capital investment and operating costs” is really just newspeak / unspeak for, “We’ve changed our minds because it’s a dud, so now we want to have a go at something else, but not together because we blame each other, and neither of us can openly admit that the idea of Aussies selling wind farms to China was always destined to be nothing more than a financially unviable, blue-sky dreaming eco-wank”.

Oh … by the way.

You may be wondering why Hydro Tasmania – a hydro-electric and wind energy generator – appears in the NGER Register of evil “polluters”.

My guess is that it’s because they just happen to operate two (2) diesel power stations on Bass Strait islands as well.

You know, out there in the Roaring 40’s.

Where you’d kinda think that maybe, just maybe, a wind farm might even get enough breeze to power up the odd light bulb or two.

Naughty naughty.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Ka Ching! Here Comes Australia’s Carbon-Baggers

20 Jul

My truth-in-advertising take on our government’s Clean Energy Future advertising campaign –

Tags: , , , , , ,

%d bloggers like this: