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If you wish to support our efforts, please make an online payment to Rangitikei Guardians Inc., BNZ account number 02-0760-0008304-83 or send a cheque made out to Rangitikei Guardians Inc. to our secretary:
Gill Duncan, Hiwera, RD3,
Taihape 4793
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Recommended Reading
Sound, Noise, Flicker and the Human Perception of Wind Farm Activity - Atkinson and Rapley.
The explosion of wind farms worldwide has brought with it a rising tide of resistance from residents near them. Complaints about noise and flicker, as well as health problems such as sleep disturbance, headaches, dizziness, anxiety and depression, are all strikingly similar. Developers are advised by experts that the noise levels are virtually undetectable and so low that sound cannot directly cause these symptoms and that these people are naturally anxious.
Why is there such a disparity between the perception of the issue from the two groups? Part of the problem is that the physics of sound and the human perception of noise are still not well understood by many. There is a great difference between being able to measure something and a person's perception of it and the variation between individuals is never well accounted for by a statistical mean. This can split communities into the affected and the unaffected, the latter group who, due to no fault of their own, cannot understand the views of those who complain. Yet, for those adversely affected by the wind farm placement, there is no doubt about the intrusion into their lives.
This Review brings together the many threads that are needed to explain these issues as a series of Papers from experts dealing with issues of human perception of wind farm noise and flicker. The intent is to make this material accessible to the layman, so many of the papers have extended introductions to the subject areas.
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"Huge amounts of tax payers money for scant environmental and electrical benefit make them a scam.
Wind-farms are inefficient, destroy the landscape and far more could be achieved through energy efficiency. If you lagged the roofs of 500 homes it would have the effect of putting up one turbine.
They can only work 30% of the time at very best, in Denmark it is only 17%.
We have to keep other stations running, spinning in reserve, inefficiently pouring out carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide.
These turbines are 22 storeys high put on hills where everyone can see them.
They kill bats and birds and need 1,000 tonnes of concrete as well as a road infrastructure.
It beggars belief that some environmental groups can say they are 'green'."
__Professor David Bellamy
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With the right incentives, New Zealand could lead the world in microgeneration and self-sufficiency.
We could champion renewable schemes which do not depend on fickle Nature, but utilise dependable base-load resources.
We could retain the unspoiled landscapes as we know and admire them for generations ahead.
We could learn lessons from the ugly mistakes of other countries, not repeat them; and we should reclaim the energy industry as an essential service, like health and education, and dissolve the present subdivided, competitive format which has failed so spectacularly, to the detriment of all consumers.
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| Sunday, August 29 | | · | International Symposium on the health effects of industrial wind turbines. |
| Thursday, August 19 | | · | Revisit noise standards - academics |
| Tuesday, August 17 | | · | Rangitikei Guardians Annual Meeting |
| Monday, August 09 | | · | Family displaced by wind turbine noise |
| Sunday, August 08 | | · | Wind turbines, flicker, and photosensitive epilepsy |
| Thursday, August 05 | | · | Vulture struck by wind turbine |
| · | Sound, noise, flicker and the human perception of wind farm activity |
| · | Our life with DeKalb wind turbines |
| Monday, August 02 | | · | The IPCC consensus on climate change was phoney, says IPCC insider |
| · | The Dean Report |
| Friday, July 30 | | · | LAYING TEN GLOBAL WARMING MYTHS TO REST |
| Sunday, July 25 | | · | Displaced families evidence enough to warrant halt to wind turbines |
| Monday, July 19 | | · | Turbines do more than produce power |
| Friday, July 09 | | · | What the Aussies are saying about our ETS |
| Sunday, July 04 | | · | Meridian launches wind farm appeal. |
| Saturday, July 03 | | · | ETS could be a funny comedy theatre play if it wasn’t so serious! |
| Thursday, July 01 | | · | GLOBAL WARMING – THE SIGN OF A HEALTHY PLANET DOING WHAT IT HAS ALWAYS DONE! |
| Tuesday, June 08 | | · | Sick residents claim wind farm 'torture' |
| Friday, June 04 | | · | Emissions Trading Scheme |
| Thursday, May 20 | | · | Referred to an Institute for Sleep Disorders because of wind turbine noise |
Older Articles
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The wind energy business is the electric sectors equivalent of the corn ethanol scam: it is an over-subsidized industry that depends wholly on taxpayer dollars to remain solvent while providing an inferior product to consumers that does little, if anything, to reduce our need for hydrocarbons or cut carbon dioxide emissions. The latest Bentek study should be required reading for policymakers. It is a much-needed reminder of how the pesky facts about wind energy have been obscured by the tsunami of hype about green energy.
-- Forbes Magazine (http://www.forbes.com/2011/07/19/wind-energy-carbon.html)
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Incredibly, no mechanism was ever envisaged actually to measure emissions cuts: renewables suppliers receive financial rewards whether their technology increases or decreases emissions and whether or not targets are met. Aggressive marketing has since made "wind power" all but synonymous with "renewables".
There are serious doubts about its ability significantly to reduce emissions. Claims are often made that every megawatt hour (MWh) of electricity generated from the wind cuts the equivalent CO2 pollution created by generating a MWh from a coal– or gas-fired power station. This is a fallacy.
-- Sir Donald Miller, former Chairman of Scottish Power
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Meridian refuses to conduct adequate pre-construction noise monitoring over every season and a range of times during the day, so that baseline noise is known. You can understand why not, particularly when in the hearing decision for Central Wind they acknowledge that profit, not the national interest, is driving this project.
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Wind farms dont live up to the hype that they are an environmental saviour and a serious alternate energy source, and the effects they can have on their neighbours are so serious it means they should not be allowed to get away with the exaggerated claims. Their claims are fraudulent.
__ Peter McGauran, Australian Federal Agriculture Minister, former Minister for Science
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With the right subsidies, wind could become a viable energy source. And, with the right subsidies, gasoline could be made free, and 2-carat diamonds could be given away in cereal boxes. How is it that wind, with a 4000-year head start, is such a small player in the energy scene? Could it be — just possibly — that the answer has something to do with physics instead of economics and politics?
__ Dr. Howard Hayden, Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of Connecticut
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The dream of environmentally friendly energy has turned into highly subsidised destruction of the countryside.
__Germany magazine Der Spiegel
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Wind farms are "environmentally damaging money wasters whose large scale use increases power demand. The New Age dream of a world operated by wind farms will remain a dream because the laws of physics do not allow it in an industrialised world. If wind power were economic then oil tankers would be sailing ships".
__Dr. Richard Courtney, internationally recognised expert on Energy and climate change
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Comparing 425 ft. tall wind turbines to power line poles demonstrates the utter stupidity and arrogance of the speaker. I have never seen a power pole move. They just stand there. The turbines have blades that look like knives slashing at the sky (and at whatever hapless creature that may be in the air space). A video with several in motion in the same scene gives the impression of violent chaos. They are not like serene, graceful ballerinas. At the very least, your eye is naturally drawn to them by their motion that resembles something waving its arms to get your attention. We do not want to see them. We do not want to look at them; but it is impossible to ignore them.
__Joan Kalso
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We are doing whatever we feel we can to stop development until such time as the medical concerns are (studied). We also have concerns with minimum distance separations-- we are aware some of the units could fail and cases where the blades turn so fast they hit the base of the tower and cause it to lose structural integrity. Weve also heard about ice chunks falling off the blades in winter. We didnt initially support the (not-in-my-backyard) people, but maybe theres a valid reason why they do not want it in their backyards.
__ John Van Dorp, President Oxford County Federation of Agriculture, Ontario Canada
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Yesterday the Te Apiti wind farm had peak generation of approximately 30 MW. Installed wind turbine capacity at Te Apiti is 90 MW. Average wind generation for the whole day from Te Apiti was approximately 12 MW. Just when we need as much supply as possible to cover known outages and hence put pressure on spot prices, wind has been missing.
__Ralph Matthes, Executive Director of the Major Electricity Users Group (MEUG)
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A single 555-megawatt gas-fired power plant in California generates more electricity in a year than do all 13,000 of the states wind turbines. The gas-fired plant sits atop a mere 15 acres. The 300-foot-tall windmills impact over a hundred thousand acres to provide expensive, intermittent, insufficient energy
__L. M. Schwartz
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I have studied the debate, arguments and statistics and come to the personal conclusion that wind farms divide communities, ruin landscapes, affect tourism, make a minimal contribution to our energy needs and a negligible contribution towards reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The landowner and developer are enriched, while the consumer is impoverished by higher energy costs. Turbines are ugly, noisy and completely out of place in our beautiful, historic landscape.
-- Duke of Northumberland
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If wind power is the answer, then the question must be "How can we do the most environmental damage, with the least results and for the most cost"?
-- Sheri Kimbrough
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In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
-- George Orwell
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The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than a small one.
-- Adolf Hitler
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Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got til it's gone.
-- Joni Mitchell
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INDUSTRIAL WIND ENERGY: GREEN OR JUST GREED?
Rangitikei Guardians Inc - a group of concerned New Zealanders and residents of the North Island’s Central Plateau - has developed this website to inform and help educate the wider community about the impact of industrial wind schemes and the need to balance energy generation developments from renewable sources with NZ’s most valuable resource: landscape and natural beauty.
Through extensive research the fallacy of industrial wind generation being a carbon neutral renewable resource has become clearly evident. Our aim is to help protect further iconic rural landscapes of New Zealand from the despoilation of the countryside which we now face. The decision to allow a 52 x 135m turbine industrial wind complex on the Hihitahi Plateau, east of Taihape and Waiouru will see a 47 square kilometer industrial eyesore overlooking the dual World Heritage Tongariro National Park. It will be seen from the gateways to this important tourism and ecological area of New Zealand, as well as from Mt Ruapehu itself.
Meridian Energy Ltd, a state owned enterprise of the NZ Government had to get discretionary approval under the Resource Management Act to build Project Central Wind, because it’s consent applications did not meet the planning requirements of the two local authorities and the regional authority.
Part of the proposed wind project is in the Department of Conservation''s Moawhango Ecological District. It is home to a number of endangered and threatened flora and fauna including the native falcon, which is nationally vulnerable and internationally acknowledged as being endangered. Kaka and native bats will also be under threat. Meridian''s own bird experts admit that up to 30% of falcons'' hunting flights within the wind farm site, will be amongst the rotor arcs of 156 turbine blades. It is also an area of national geological interest, containing the Moawhango Iti limestone karst. It is crisscrossed by ancient pre European track ways and contains sacred Urupa (Maori burial sites). Meridian seems to have chosen this site largely because it is close to the national electricity grid. It’s own engineering experts deemed that the site is not an ideal wind resource, due to the distance from the coast and the surface roughness of the surrounding area. It’s capacity factor is only 36%.
The Guardians as a society, submitted against the consent application along with individual members, other locals of the Taihape area, and others from afar.
Of all the submissions received 85% of local submitters opposed the application. Submitters from afar, mainly from dense urban areas submitted 85% in support! Typical of the responses from afar was that the project would be sited “not in the face of urban NZ.” In other words, not in my back yard, even though it is the urban areas that most need the electricity.
The Guardians are a relatively small group in a small rurally based community. Our appeal against the decision to to allow Project Central Wind in the NZ Environment Court, could never win against the legislative might and unlimited financial resources of the state and its agencies. Sadly we lost the initial objections of the Department of Conservation, the Ministry of Defence and local Iwi (Maori tribes) because financial treating is allowed in New Zealand, and government organisations can buy off opposition to projects that their masters claim are in the "national interest". In some countries such treating would be considered a corrupt practice.
The New Zealand Government has recently changed the rules on those ‘renewable energy’ projects, which they decide are in "the national interest". The Minister for the Environment can now refer such projects directly to the Environment Court, with no local government hearing stage. Many new applications for wind generation projects will go ahead now without any opposition, because the cost is just too high for ordinary folk to fight them in the Environment Court. Lawyers and Barristers will be the biggest winners in this new scenario; Democracy and New Zealand''s clean green image will be the biggest losers. The fact that humans are also part of the environment is overlooked in this draconian approach.
New Zealand households have amongst the highest use of electricity in the world. Despite this we have no integrated power policy. The government pays only lip service to energy efficiency and conservation. It has muzzled dissent on emissions trading schemes and climate change through its state owned media, and now has given itself the legislative power to develop four times more wind farms than we currently need, even without reducing our electricity use. And sadly, where local authorities in New Zealand have boldly asserted “no wind farms on our patch” they now know they cannot prevent the might of the state from overriding them, in the supposed “national interest”. Ratepayers in small financially struggling local bodies like ours simply cannot fight this scourge.
By closing down debate about facts surrounding Kyoto (an Enron initiative by Ken Lay, et al); supposed global warming (based on readings from only about 100 weather stations which show areas of warming); and the despoilation of New Zealand’s iconic landscapes (international tourists don’t come here to see wind farms), a misinformed New Zealand public believes what the State and other lazy media feeds it about renewable energy from wind. As you will find if you read more from Disturbines, the only renewable part of an industrial wind complex is the wind itself.
Our aim is to provide other sides to this story. Here you will find professional data and informed opinions about why wind is the most unreliable and expensive source of electricity; why industrial scale wind energy plants simply aren''t green, and can be bad for your health; and what the real renewable alternatives are.
We are continuing our fight by investigating pre-construction noise testing – something that Meridian Energy and the other power companies refuse to undertake – giving them the upper hand when local residents subsequently complain about the noise pollution from wind generators. We still need your financial help with this. See the red panel on the left for how you can donate.
Thank you.
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New Zealand wind farms – a public policy failure.
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Source: Paul Stichbury, Wordpress.Com. April 13, 2012
The Turitea and Puketoi Wind Farms. A Case Study.
New Zealand prides itself on its clean green image and it truly is a beautiful country with friendly people, but there is a dark side. Global warming hysterics have successfully infiltrated government and their presence is leading to dramatic effects on unsuspecting citizens. Rent seekers and carpet baggers have been quick to spot the opportunities on offer. A recent NZ Wind Energy conference predicts approximately .4% of the country will be covered in wind farms. The bulk of these wind farms will be located in the lower third of the North Island. No public discussion about this has ever taken place. Our city, Palmerston North, was the first victim. Mighty River Power, a state owned electricity generator, which in a few months time will be offered for sale to the public to shore up government finances, has taken a key role in this, but there are serious problems.
The 60 (125metre high) turbine Turitea wind farm, after an exhausting process, has been approved in an urban area right on two major fault lines, this despite the series of devastating earthquakes in Christchurch, NZ’s second city, which have resulted in huge damage and an exodus to Australia. The now retired judge, Shonagh Kenderdine, who chaired and authored the Final Decision approving the wind farm, ignored evidence of the danger posed by these fault lines, the Wellington and Northern Ohariu faults, Link ,refused to examine the once secret contract between Palmerston North city and Mighty River Power, which imposes a $3 million penalty on the city if any help is given to affected residents, Link , refused to reveal the contents of a Memorandum of Understanding with a local Maori group, which is rumoured to include a multimillion dollar pay off, gave a geographical location for the wind farm in the Final Decision which places it inside the neighbouring town of Pahiatua, reinstated turbines right over property which had previously been deleted, ignored evidence that the noise standard applied was fraudulently developed, Link, refused to deal with perjury and internet espionage by the applicant, Link and ignored the legal requirement to protect the endangered NZ native falcon. One local family in particular has very serious complaints about Kenderdine’s conduct. Link
Now that is a damning list of failures from an Environment Court judge, but there’s more from this woman who in her bio listed her interest in global warming. Kenderdine has landed the cushy, if not snobby, job of chairing the NZ Historic Places Trust. Link Under her tutelage the Trust has recently successfully demanded that 200 buildings just downwind from the Turitea Wind Farm be strengthened because of the severe earthquake risk. Movement on the Wellington fault is in the region of 4 to 5 metres horizontally and 1 metre vertically. Shutter ridges under the Tararua Ranges are said to be more pronounced than those on the San Andreas Fault.
Is there more? Well yes there is, Kenderdine has discarded all pretence that she was not in the pocket of the wind industry and on the 3rd of April addressed the NZ Wind Energy Conference as a key note speaker on how to put wind turbines as close as possible to human habitation. Link She also chaired a panel discussion on this issue. NZ law prohibits going after a retired judge for a faulty or corrupt decision. So that lets her off the hook, doesn’t it?
The stupidity doesn’t stop there, though. Mighty River Power has at this very moment a neighbouring wind farm, Puketoi, with 53 turbines 160 metres high, before a three man commission. This wind farm is also in an earthquake zone and like Turitea the severe earthquake risk has been deliberately downplayed. a href="http://turiteadocuments.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/oral-presentation-in-support-of-written-submissions-to-the-puketoi-wind-farm-hearing-3-march-2012.pdf" target="_new">Link The Company has also removed all details of the Puketoi application from its website. Link to screencap
So won’t the uninsurable wind farms, proposed and consented in the Wairarapa and which are planned to feed their power through the Turitea wind farm into the grid in Manawatu, be a boon to the country’s electricity supply? Well, not quite. The grid in the Manawatu can only cope with 450MW from the currently operating Te Apiti and Tararua wind farms. The line through Turitea will bring a further 1300MW. This means much of this intermittent electricity cannot be dispatched and if it were it would cause substation failures and blackouts. The green euphoria by the oligarchy running NZ will blow up in our faces. Transpower, which manages the grid, has no credible answer to this problem. Link
Failure to bring these matters to the investing public’s notice with the selloff of this state owned asset is, in our opinion, fraudulent.
Finally, you may ask why none of this has been reported in the media. The answer is simple. NZ has huge liabilities under Kyoto, if it ever revives. Link The local paper, the Manawatu Standard, is like most papers in NZ, owned by Fairfax, which has a vested interest in climate alarmism and a one third ownership of Earth Hour. Link The Standard knows about the earthquake risk, the corrupt contract disenfranchising their own readers and devaluing hundreds of properties and the problems relating to dispatching wind generated electricity, but has chosen to remain silent. On the earthquake risk to Palmerston North, however, it has had plenty to say. Link
All this is happening at the same time as electricity use in NZ is static and even dropping due to more efficient appliances and prevailing economic conditions. Link
Let’s hope commonsense prevails.
Link to a range of documents
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Wind Turbine Syndrome affects more people than previously thought
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A survey was conducted on wind farm noise as part of a Master’s dissertation by Zhenhua Wang, a graduate student in Geography, Environment and Population at the University of Adelaide, Australia. The results show that 70% of respondents living up to 5km away report being negatively affected by wind turbine noise, with more than 50% of them "very or moderately negatively affected". This is considerably higher than what was found in previous studies conducted in Europe.
The survey was made in the vicinity of the Waterloo wind farm, South Australia, which is composed of 37 Vestas V90 3 MW turbines stretching over 18 km (1). These mega turbines are reported to be emitting more low frequency noise (LFN) than smaller models, and this causes more people to be affected, and over greater distances, by the usual symptoms of the Wind Turbine Syndrome (WTS): insomnia, headaches, nausea, stress, poor ability to concentrate, irritability, etc, leading to poorer health and a reduced immunity to illness.
The Danish government recognised recently that LFN is an aggravating component in the noise that affects wind farm neighbours. This prompted their issuing regulations that limit low-frequency noise levels inside homes to 20 dB(A). Unfortunately, as denounced by Professor Henrik Moller, they manipulated the calculation parameters so as to allow LFN inside homes to actually reach 30 dB(A) in 30% of cases. “Hardly anyone would accept 30 dB(A) in their homes at night”, wrote the Professor last month (2).
A summary of the Australian survey has been published (3), but the full Masters dissertation has not been made available to the public. In the interest of public health, the European Platform against Windfarms (EPAW) and the North-American Platform against Windpower (NA-PAW), have asked the University of Adelaide to release this important document.
A neighbour of the Waterloo wind farm, Mr Andreas Marciniak, wrote to a local newspaper last week: "Do you think it''''s funny that at my age I had to move to Adelaide into my Mother’s shed and my brother had to move to Hamilton into a caravan with no water or electricity?" (4) Both Mr Marciniak and his brother have been advised by their treating doctors, including a cardiologist, to leave their homes and not return when the wind turbines are turning.
How many people will be forced to abandon their homes before governments pay attention, wonder the thousands of windfarm victims represented by EPAW and NAPAW. "It''ll take time to gather enough money for a big lawsuit", says Sherri Lange, of NAPAW, "but time is on our side: victim numbers are increasing steadily."
Source: EPAW, NAPAW - 7 March 2012
References:
(1) - http://ecogeneration.com.au/news/waterloo_wind_farm_officially_opened/054715/
(2) - http://www.epaw.org/press/EPAW_NA-PAW_media_release_10Feb2012.pdf
(3) - http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/evaluation-of-wind-farm-noise-policies-in-south-australia/
(4) - Letter sent to the Editor of the Burra Broadcaster by Mr. Andreas Marciniak, windfarm victim.
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Energy strategy ignores modern science, wastes money
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Tuesday, 30 August 2011, 5:08 pm
Press Release: New Zealand Climate Science Coalition
The New Zealand Energy Strategy 2011-2021 announced by the government today ignores recent climate evidence and portends a huge waste of money at a time when the country can least afford it. This comment today from energy analyst, Bryan Leyland, spokesman for the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition.
“The target of 90% renewable energy is both unrealistic and unnecessary,” says Mr Leyland. “The huge amounts of money on expensive and largely ineffective new renewable energy technologies cannot succeed in controlling the climate.
“First, all the major temperature records tell us the world has not warmed for between 10 and 15 years. The climate models that predicted rapid warming over this period, have proved to be wrong.
“Second, more and more independent climate scientists around the world are in agreement that emissions of carbon dioxide have little or no influence on whether the Earth warms, so the burning of fossil fuels will have no measurable effect on our climate. New Zealand has enough coal and lignite to provide low cost electricity for more than 1000 years, so there is absolutely no need to waste time and money on costly generation methods such as wind turbines and solar panels. Plus, we still have low cost renewable resources such as hydro and geothermal which have not yet been fully exploited.
“It is now well accepted that sunspots are declining and that we may be heading for a period when there will be no sunspots. Past history tells us that, when this happens, the world cools quite severely. So the sunspots tell us that the world is likely to cool while the climate modelers ignore the evidence and still predict warming, “Mr Leyland continued.
“Recent evidence from an experiment carried out at CERN in Geneva, tends to confirm previous research that cosmic rays trigger the formation of clouds. A 1% change in cloud cover can account for all the temperature variations we have experienced over the last century. Climate models still cannot model cloud formation accurately.
“Given all these uncertainties and the continued failure of the world to warm, the only rational strategy is to put our Emissions Trading Scheme on hold, by zero rating it to remove the costs being imposed on all New Zealanders, but leaving the legislation in place until the rest of the world decides whether such impositions are either effective or justified.
“Meantime, our government should continue to encourage research into all available forms of energy, with special emphasis on those that have a good chance of being economically viable in the near future,” Mr Leyland concluded.
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The Social and Economic Impact of Rural Wind Farms
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The report from the Australian Federal Senate Inquiry into the impacts of wind farms has been released.
While falling short of calling for a moratorium on wind farm development, the committee has furnished a number of recommendations.
The committee acknowledged that there is a significant ultra-low frequency (infrasound) component in the noise and vibration generated by a wind turbine and that current sound measuring methods are failing to identify this emanation.
The results of an Italian study were presented which showed that infrasound in the region of 1.7Hz can be detected as far as 11kms from a windfarm.
Regarding the NZ Standard 6808 - Wind Farm Noise, the report says "It is concluded that wind farm noise prediction, as implemented under NZS6808 (the New Zealand wind farm standard) is not adequate in assessing potential adverse effect and implementation of the standard does not and will not provide an acceptable level of amenity. Application of the standard does not provide a conservative assessment of sound levels that may be experienced under different meteorological conditions."
To read the full report, please click here.
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Doctor’s call: stop wind farm construction
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By ALAN DICK 06 May, 2011 (farmonline.com.au)
A doctor campaigning on the claimed health impacts of wind farms has called for a halt to construction of wind turbines within 10 kilometres of housing until independent research is conducted.
She said research was needed, particularly on the impact of infrasound – sound below the level of normal human hearing.
Dr Sarah Laurie, medical director at the Waubra Foundation, made the call in her submission to the inquiry by the Senate Community Affairs Committee into the social and economic impact of rural wind farms.
(The Waubra Foundation was formed to generate independent research on the health effects of wind farms, in response to reported problems associated with the Waubra wind farm near Ballarat, Victoria.)
The inquiry has received almost 900 submissions and become a battleground of competing views on the value of and need for wind farms and on health impacts.
Many submissions from landholders speak of negative health effects.
But other landholders, wind farm developers and “green” organisations have talked up the need for wind farms as alternatives to burning of fossil fuels in electricity generation, and some landholders hosting wind turbines have emphasised their benign nature and the importance of the guaranteed income they provide.
Dr Laurie told the committee numerous doctors around the world who had conducted studies on their patient populations had reported health problems since wind farms started operating near their homes.
“There is absolutely no doubt these turbines, particularly at some developments, are making nearby residents very sick, and that their symptoms worsen over time.”
“This is resulting in people abandoning their homes and farms, if they can afford to.”
Dr Laurie said the “strong hypothesis” among concerned doctors, acousticians, physiologists, physicists, psychologists and others around the world was that one of the mechanisms causing ill health was low frequency sound and infrasound.
She said episodes of sleep disturbance and waking in a panicked state were being experienced by people living up to 10 kilometres from existing wind developments in South Australia and NSW.
She said research was needed to measure infrasound concurrent with indices such as sleep and blood pressure in affected residents when turbines were operating, and to compare results when the turbines were not operating.
However, wind farm companies and others, including the Australian Psychological Society, have dismissed suggestions of negative health effects from wind farms.
The latter in its submission said the Senate committee should take into consideration the “robust evidence base” which suggested wind farms did not present any major health risk,
The APS said local opposition to wind farms could be understood in terms of “place protective action”, and recommended use of “psychological principles” to explain and promote the benefits of wind farms.
The NSW Government in its submission said the World Health organisation had concluded there was no reliable evidence that sounds beneath the hearing threshold produced physiological or psychological effects.
Note: The last paragraph seems highly dubious considering the fact that the physiological effects of subsonic noise have been well known for many decades.
A recent experiment:
British scientists have shown in a controlled experiment that the extreme bass sound known as infrasound produces a range of bizarre effects in people, including anxiety, extreme sorrow and chills - supporting popular suggestions of a link between infrasound and strange sensations.
"Normally you can''t hear it," said Richard Lord, an acoustic scientist at the National Physical Laboratory in England who worked on the project.
Dr Lord and his colleagues, who produced infrasound with a seven-metre pipe and tested its impact on 750 people at a concert, said infrasound was also generated by natural phenomena.
Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire in southern England, said: "Some scientists have suggested that this level of sound may be present at some allegedly haunted sites and so cause people to have odd sensations that they attribute to a ghost - our findings support these ideas."
In the first controlled experiment of infrasound, Dr Lord and Professor Wiseman played four contemporary pieces of live music, including some laced with infrasound, at a London concert hall and asked the audience to describe their reactions to the music.
The audience did not know which pieces included infrasound but 22 per cent reported more unusual experiences when it was present in the music.
Their unusual experiences included feeling uneasy or sorrowful, getting chills down the spine or nervous feelings of revulsion or fear.
"These results suggest that low frequency sound can cause people to have unusual experiences even though they cannot consciously detect infrasound," said Professor Wiseman, who presented his findings to the British Association science conference.
Infrasound is also produced by storms, seasonal winds and weather patterns and some types of earthquakes. Animals such as elephants also use infrasound to communicate over long distances or as weapons to repel foes.
"So much has been said about infrasound - it''s been associated with just about everything from beam weapons to bad driving. It''s wonderful to be able to examine the evidence," said Sarah Angliss, a composer and engineer who worked on the project.
Reuters
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Wind turbines threaten Wisconsin bats
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Areas near blades can rupture animals'' lungs
Source: Tony Walter, writing for GreenBayPressGazette.Com (May 20 2011)
Wind turbine industry reports filed with the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin indicate that a significant number of bats fall victim to the turbine blades every night, which could mean crop losses.
The rate of bat mortality has a major impact on the agricultural industry, according to a U.S. Geological study recently published in Science Magazine.
The study, conducted by Boston University''s biology department, estimated that insect-eating bats save the agricultural industry at least $3 billion a year.
"Because the agricultural value of bats in the Northeast is small compared with other parts of the country, such losses could be even more substantial in the extensive agricultural regions in the Midwest and the Great Plains where wind-energy development is booming and the fungus responsible for white-nose syndrome was recently detected," said Tom Kunz, an ecology professor at Boston University and co-author of the study.
White nose syndrome is a disease believed to kill and sicken bats, which first was noticed in Albany, N.Y., in 2006, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The source of the condition remains unclear, the agency said.
According to studies by Current Biology, National Geographic and Science Daily, bats can be killed without being struck by a turbine blade. The studies concluded that air in low-pressure areas near the tips of the blades ruptures the bats'' lungs and causes internal hemorrhaging.
In PSC reports obtained by the Green Bay Press-Gazette, a post-construction bat mortality study of the Wisconsin Power and Light Company''s Cedar Ridge Wind Farm in Fond du Lac County, conducted by the power company, showed that 50 bats are killed annually by each of the project''s 41 turbines — about 2,050 each year.
Similarly, reports show that the 88 turbines in the Blue Sky Green Field Wind Energy Center in Fond du Lac County each kill an estimated 41 bats per year, which is a little more than 3,600 each year, according to the Wind Energy Center''s post-construction study.
Each turbine in the state kills about 41 bats each year, according to estimates compiled by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
"I can verify that bats are good natural predators of insects and definitely benefit agriculture," said Mark Hagedorn, agricultural agent for the UW-Extension.
The largest known area for hibernating bats in Wisconsin is the Neda Mine State Natural Area in Dodge County, where a census found 143,000 bats, according to the DNR.
The construction of wind turbines in Brown County has been a controversial subject for years, but most of the complaints focused on the safety and health impact on humans. The impact on bats has not been part of the debate over wind turbine construction in Brown County.
Recently, Invenergy Inc. abandoned its plans to build a 100-turbine wind farm in four southern Brown County municipalities. The town of Glenmore last month approved permits for Cenergy to build eight turbines in the town.
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House votes 244-179 to kill U.S. funding of IPCC
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Posted on February 19, 2011 by Rick Piltz
Excerpts:
Just before 2 a.m. on February 19, the war on climate science showed its grip on the U.S. House of Representatives as it voted to eliminate U.S. funding for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Republican majority, on a mostly party-line vote of 244-179, went on record as essentially saying that it no longer wishes to have the IPCC prepare its comprehensive international climate science assessments.
The amendment was sponsored by second-term Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Missouri)... Leading off with a reference to the stolen climate scientists emails (‘climategate’), he said:
Luetkemeyer: Scientists manipulated climate data, suppressed legitimate arguments in peer-reviewed journals, and researchers were asked to destroy emails, so that a small number of climate alarmists could continue to advance their environmental agenda.
Since then, more than 700 acclaimed international scientists have challenged the claims made by the IPCC, in this comprehensive 740-page report. These 700 scientists represent some of the most respected institutions at home and around the world, including the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense, U.S. Air Force and Navy, and even the Environmental Protection Agency.
For example, famed Princeton University physicist Dr. Robert Austin, who has published 170 scientific papers and was elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Austin told a congressional committee that, unfortunately, climate has become a political science. It is tragic the some perhaps well-meaning but politically motivated scientists who should know better have whipped up a global frenzy about a phenomenon which is statistically questionable at best.
Mr. Chairman, if the families in my district have been able to tighten their belts, surely the federal government can do the same and stop funding an organization that is fraught with waste and abuse. My amendment simply says that no funds in this bill can go to the IPCC. This would save taxpayers millions of dollars this year and millions of dollars in years to come. In fact, the President has requested an additional $13 million in his fiscal 2012 budget request.
My constituents should not have to continue to foot the bill for an organization to keep producing corrupt findings that can be used as justification to impose a massive new energy tax on every American.
http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2011/02/19/house-votes-244-179-to-kill-u-s-funding-of-ipcc/
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Waubra resident tells court of wind farm "hell"
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The Courier - thecourier.com.au
18 Jan, 2011 12:00 AM
Former Waubra resident Trish Godfrey yesterday told an Adelaide court how her dream home became “hell on earth” after wind farm turbines were turned on.
Ms Godfrey said she suffered sleep deprivation, headaches and nausea before moving out in April 2010 when Acciona purchased her property.
“It was like you had a hat on that’s too tight and you have a pain that just gets worse and worse, and you can’t take it off,” Ms Godfrey said. “There was pain most of the time.”
Ms Godfrey broke down in tears as she gave evidence at the Environment Resources and Development Court.
Dairy farmer Richard Paltridge is appealing a decision to grant Acciona approval to build a 46-turbine wind farm near his property, south of Mt Gambier.
Ms Godfrey said her symptoms began about a month after turbines were turned on, then got progressively worse.
“I said to my husband I’m not sick but I don’t feel well,” she said.
“It felt like I had a cold coming on all the time.
“My sleep patterns were changing. I was waking up two, three, four times a night. I couldn’t explain it. I couldn’t get my head around what was going on.
“You put it down to everything but what it is.”
Ms Godfrey said she and her husband Victor, a dental surgeon, went on holiday to Darwin and the symptoms stopped, then resumed when she returned home.
“You get back and it starts all over again,” she said. “It all came back with gusto.”
Under questioning by George Manos for Mr Paltridge, Ms Godfrey said the 10-acre property was her “dream” home, where she and her husband intended to retire.
She said she planted 750 to 1000 boundary trees, about 30 fruit trees and 17 vegetable beds in the 10 years they lived there.
Ms Godfrey said she had been led into a false sense of security in a meeting with David Shapiro of Wind Power, the company that set up the Waubra project and sold it to Acciona.
“He told us there would be a couple of turbines on Quoin Hill, a couple on Big Hill and a few behind us,” Ms Godfrey said.
“He said there would be no lights, no wires and no noise.”
Ms Godfrey said 63 turbines could be seen from her property and it became “hell” to live there.
She said the noise “pressed in” on their home. “It was anywhere from a low whooshing sound, a sweeping swoosh some days, and when the wind was coming from the north it was like a jumbo jet in the back paddock,” she said.
Former Waubra resident Carl Stepnell told the court yesterday he and his wife’s symptoms of chest pains, heart palpitations and sleep deprivation ceased after the couple moved away from the family farm to Ballarat in November.
“We feel as though we’ve got our health back,” Mr Stepnell said.
Mt Stepnell said his wife also suffered depression while living close to the turbines.
“Her whole appearance ... it was scary to see how bad she was,” he said. “She was really down, depressed ... shocking.”
Mr Stepnell said his five-year-old son attended Waubra Primary School until the family moved.
“I see a big difference in his behaviour,” he said.
“He is nowhere near as emotional ... he was pale. (Now) he’s like a normal five-year-old.”
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Todd to build $100m power station in Taranaki
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Source: NZ Herald Dec 21, 2010
Todd Energy is to build a $100 million gas-fired power station alongside its McKee oil and gas production station near Waitara in Taranaki.
Todd managing director Richard Tweedie said the new station would be capable of generating up to 100 megawatts (MW) of electricity, enough to power up to 100,000 homes.
A gas-fired power station at Huntly, similar to that which will be developed by Todd Energy near Waitara. Photo / NZ Herald
"We''re signing the contracts this week. We''ve already made the necessary arrangements with GE for the supply of two 50MW gas-fired turbines, and we''re planning for the construction work to begin fairly early next year," he told the Taranaki Daily News.
The project will include the erection of about 17km of power lines that will feed electricity to the Transpower network.
Tweedie said Todd Energy planned to have the station fully-commissioned by 2012, in time to meet winter''s peak demands for power.
"A hundred megawatts will be significant peaking capacity, but we intend running base load as well. It''ll allow us to use a considerable amount of gas each year from our own resources."
Todd confirmed that the decision to build the new power station was the result of growing confidence that its Mangahewa onshore field contains substantial amounts of gas.
"We know there''s more gas down there," said Tweedie.
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Time to Topple the Pyramid of Frauds
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By Viv Forbes 20th December 2010
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/pyramid-of-frauds.pdf
One of the fastest growing industries in the world is based on a pyramid of frauds and its inevitable collapse will be worse than the sub-prime crash.
The Global Warming Industry is now fed by billions of dollars from western taxpayers and consumers. It is based on the unproven and now discredited claim that man''s production of carbon dioxide causes dangerous global warming.
The basic fraud is this:
There is no evidence that carbon dioxide controls world temperature – just a theory and the manipulated results from a handful of giant computer models that very few people have checked or understand.
But there is clear evidence from historical records of atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature that carbon dioxide does not control temperature. Rather the reverse – as solar or volcanic heat warms the oceans, the waters expel carbon dioxide. Global warming causes an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, not the reverse.
Moreover, every day provides more evidence that current temperatures are not unusually high. Over the past 2000 years there have been two previous eras of warming ("the golden ages") separated by two mini ice ages ("the dark ages"). Both the Roman Warming and the Medieval Warming were warmer than today and there was no human industry causing that warming.
The next fraud, invoked as the first fraud started to falter, is the claim that carbon dioxide is a pollutant in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is the food for all plants and thus the food source for all life on earth. It is not poisonous at any level likely to be experienced in the atmosphere and there is clear evidence that more carbon dioxide makes plants grow faster and bigger, and makes them more tolerant of drought, heat and salinity. Current levels are below those optimal for life.
A related scientific fraud is the claim that grazing animals increase atmospheric carbon. Any competent biologist can debunk this fraud by explaining the carbon food cycle.
Built on these frauds are the fraud-riddled carbon credit and carbon trading empires. The revelations of massive fraud in European carbon credits and the collapse of carbon trading on the Chicago Climate Exchange are harbingers of crises yet to surface. Carbon credits have no intrinsic value – they are dependent on political support, and this will always evaporate in time.
The next level of fraud is the alternate energy industry. Despite decades of subsidies and tax breaks the wind/solar power industry cannot survive unless the handouts continue, and their coal competitors are taxed heavily. To call these activities "industries" is a fraud – they are corporate mendicants.
Finally, those who waste millions on projects designed to prove the feasibility of burying carbon dioxide are committing a fraud on taxpayers and shareholders. There are no benefits of burying atmospheric plant food from any source. With zero benefits and huge costs CCS can never be "economic" and it is fraudulent to pretend it can ever be otherwise.
The global warming industry is a huge pyramid of financial and political fraud resting on a quasi-scientific foundation of quicksand.
* * * * *
PS If you would like to dig a little deeper on these matters, here are a few starting leads:
A Two Thousand year Temperature History:
http://www.nipccreport.org/articles/2010/dec/15dec2010a4.html
The Lynching of carbon dioxide – the innocent source of all life:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/hertzberg.pdf
Carbon Dioxide feeds the World:
http://carbon-sense.com/2010/12/03/carbon-dioxide-feeds-the-world/
Carbon Trading Fraud:
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/31193
Fraud in the Carbon Markets:
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2010/12/05/lawrence-solomon-the-7-billion-carbon-scam/
Manufacturing Carbon Credits in China:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_great_global_warming_scam_just_got_worse/
Questions on the REDD Scheme (Deforestation) in PNG:
http://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_people/2010/10/is-png-too-risky-for-the-carbon-market.html?cid=6a00d83454f2ec69e20133f50c202d970b
PNG tries for $625M for non-existent carbon trading:
http://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_people/2009/06/talk-to-the-trees-pngs-big-dollar-carbon-trades.html
The Carbon Cargo Cult Club:
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=11150
Mafia Discover Wind Farm credits in Sicily:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/renewableenergy/7981737/Mafia-cash-in-on-lucrative-EU-wind-farm-handouts-especially-in-Sicily.html
http://toodumbtolivearchive.blogspot.com/2009/05/green-mafia.html
Fraud in the Spanish Solar Business:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-12/spanish-solar-panel-trade-group-calls-for-fraud-investigation.html
Rogue Trader recycles Carbon Credits:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7069741.ece
Fraud in the EU Carbon Trade:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/business/energy-environment/08green.html?_r=1
More Carbon Fraud in Australia, Belgium and Norway:
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2010/01/07/australia-belgium-find-more-cases-of-carbon-fraud/
ETS Schemes riven with fraud:
http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2009/12/ets-schemes-riven-with-fraud-breaking-news.html
Germany investigates carbon fraud:
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/1800801/german-carbon-fraud-investigation-moves-uk
Carbon fraudsters arrested in UK:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/7659747/Tax-officers-arrest-22-in-UK-carbon-fraud-probe.html
Prices crash for Emission Permits in Trading Scheme:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-11/u-s-northeast-carbon-permits-draw-record-low-price-update4-.html
Carbon Capture & Burial – How to Blow $150M:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/queenslands-coal-project-turns-to-dust/story-e6frf7l6-1225973323935
CCS – The Carbon Cemeteries are already full:
http://carbon-sense.com/2010/05/10/carbon-capture-2/
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Truck carrying wind turbine blade crashes
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By: NICOLA BRENNAN-TUPARA - Waikato Times
OOPS: A truck carrying a 49-metre long wind turbine crashed in the Waikato this morning. SARAH BROOK/Waikato Times
A worker has escaped injury after a truck carrying a 49-metre long blade for a new wind farm crashed.
The man was sat on a section of the truck''s trailer known as the "dolly'''' when the crash occurred about 9am on State Highway 23, between Hamilton and Raglan.
The crash, which left the small trailer unit controlling the rear of the load lying in a ditch, looked to be the result of emergency braking.
The road was closed while a second truck pulled the trailer back on to the road.
Meridian Energy spokeswoman Claire Shaw said they were still trying to work out what caused the crash.
``The Police Heavy Vehicle Investigation Unit is at the scene working through a process to ascertain exactly what happened and is also conducting safety checks on the vehicle, as per standard practice,`` she said.
She said the company was pleased no one was injured.
They were inspecting the truck, trailer and 49-metre-long, 10 tonne blade, but it appeared so far that none of the equipment was damaged.
She said the truck driver would go back to work, but the worker who was on the dolly would be taken back to Auckland to recover from the shock.
"He is in good health, but someone else will come in to take his place,'''' she said.
Shaw said it was the 54th blade that had been transported from Auckland to the new wind farm at Te Uku, near Raglan.
"The previous 53 have made it to site safely without incident. This has been a well-planned operation.
"We have a total of 84 blades to go to site and will make a decision as to whether the daily transport schedule will resume tomorrow or later today.''''
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by Des Moore (Published in Quadrant Online)
October 7, 2010
The end of scientific consensus
The Royal Society, which is Britain’s top dog in science (indeed many scientists would say the world), has just published a report signalling the end of claims of a consensus by some climate scientists and some governments that the world faces dangerous warming unless governments act quickly to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
The report, Climate Change: a summary of the science, points out that climate change “continues to be the subject of intensive scientific research and public debate” and divides the existing state of knowledge into three categories – science that is well established, where there is wide consensus but continuing debate, and where there remains substantial uncertainty.
In the latter category, for example, the acknowledgment that the uptake of CO2 by the land and oceans is “very poorly understood” is tantamount to saying that it is not possible to predict with any confidence the future concentration levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. It certainly leaves open the possibility that the uptake of CO2 by land and oceans will be considerably higher than the extreme 25% rate projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (it is currently 50%). If that happened it would mean that concentrations of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) would reach supposedly dangerous levels at a significantly later date than the alarmists are predicting - and temperatures would rise less.
Further, while claiming “strong evidence” exists that warming has been caused “largely by human activity”, it acknowledges that the size of future temperature increases and other aspects of climate change are “still subject to uncertainty” and that the attribution of forced climate change to particular causes is “not straight forward”. Remarkably, the report also accepts that since 1910 increases in temperature have occurred in only two periods – from 1910 to 1940 and from 1975 to around 2000 – that is, for only about half of the last century. Although the usual scientific explanation of the warming thesis is that temperature increases are caused by increased concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere, the Royal Society report provides no explanation of why the increase in CO2 concentrations during most of the century did not result in continuing temperature increases.
However, perhaps the most devastating statement for alarmists is that “It is not possible to determine exactly how much the Earth will warm or exactly how the climate will change in the future”. This leaves in doubt what policy should be adopted, and when, to reduce emissions. The report’s acceptance that uncertainty exists about the effect clouds have on temperatures is one important reason for delaying action. Another is the acknowledgement of poor scientific understanding in various other areas, such as the likely extent of reductions in ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica from any further temperature increases. Yet another is the admission that “there is little confidence” in projections by models of climate change in regions, including Western Europe. This also suggests that predictions of worsening drought conditions in the Murray Darling Basin have no scientific basis.
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Wind farm 'kills Taiwanese goats'
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Abnormal noises could affect growth and feeding of the goats, officials say
A large number of goats in Taiwan may have died of exhaustion because of noise from a wind farm.
A farmer on an outlying island told the BBC he had lost more than 400 animals after eight giant wind turbines were installed close to his grazing land.
The Council of Agriculture says it suspects that noise may have caused the goats'' demise through lack of sleep.
The power company, Taipower, has offered to pay for part of the costs of building a new farmhouse elsewhere.
A spokesman for the company said the cause of the goats'' deaths still needed to be investigated, but that it doubted the goats died from the noise.
One night I went out to the farmhouse and the goats were all standing up; they weren''t sleeping
Farmer Kuo Jing-shan
Before the wind farm was built about four years ago, farmer Kuo Jing-shan had about 700 goats.
Shortly after the electricity-generating turbines were installed, the 57-year-old says his animals started to die. He now has just 250 goats left.
Penghu is notorious for its strong howling winds. Mr Kuo said the stronger the wind, the louder the machines became.
"The goats looked skinny and they weren''t eating. One night I went out to the farmhouse and the goats were all standing up; they weren''t sleeping.
"I didn''t know why. If I had known, I would''ve done something to stop the dying," he told the BBC''s Cindy Sui in Taiwan.
Plausible
A local livestock inspector from the agriculture council said that Mr Kuo was the only farmer to have reported such large-scale deaths.
He said his claim was plausible because of all the farmers in the Penghu archipelago, his farm was closest to the wind turbines - only 40m away.
"Abnormal noises could affect the normal growth and feeding intake of animals and cause them to suffer sleep deprivation," Lu Ming-tseng said.
Mr Kuo said the power company had offered to help him move but that there would be no compensation for the loss of his goats.
"It''s a pain to relocate, but what can I do. I can''t survive with the wind turbines," he said.
Source: BBC News, 21 May 2009
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Are wind farms compatible with agriculture?
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The wind farm developers tell us that, once a wind farm is installed on agricultural land, the landowner will not only receive an annual rental of several thousand dollars per turbine, but that the land right up to the turbine tower can still be planted in crops or grazed by livestock. It''s a win-win situation, right?
As with so much that the wind farm developers would have us believe, this would seem to be at best just another half-truth (weasel words).
Consider the enormous earthworks involved: the huge concrete foundations for the turbine towers, the extra-wide roads needed the get the turbine parts to the foundations and to get the gigantic cranes into place to not only assemble the turbines, but also periodically in the future to maintain them.
Consider the quality of the thin veneer of soil put back to cover the foundation. No longer the original topsoil, it is usually a poor-quality amalgam of clay, stones, peat, etc. Not much real goodness in it. Will it grow grass? Probably. Will it grow quality pasture or crops? Doubtful. But that''s okay - nothing a quick bit of aerial topdressing won''t fix.
Sorry - no longer an option.
Farmers with wind generators may lose the option of aerial application of farm protection products, seed, fertilizers, etc. on their farm ground. Possibly more significant is that their neighbor farmers, who have no wind generator(s) and consequently no income from them, stand to lose that option as well.
Some proponents of wind farms tend to dismiss this possibility out of hand, with the explanation that “those guys can fly around them with no problem,” or “just get a helicopter to do it.” Others say that ground application can still be effectively performed so the aerial option is insignificant. Unfortunately, it is just not that simple. Sometimes weather problems and/or timeliness of application dictate an application from the air.
The fact is, it is dangerous to fly within the confines of a wind generator farm. Windmills can cause vertigo sensations, create unstable wind conditions, and extend high enough to seriously affect the way an aircraft can work a field. That is why even a neighboring field without a wind generator may not be a candidate for aerial application: there’s no room to make a turn.
Dangerous even to fly within quite long distances (kilometers) downwind of a wind farm, thanks to the turbulence they create, so many farms in the vicinity may be impacted.
Another often-overlooked aspect of wind turbines is their effect on our only native mammal - the native bat.
For a 2.4 Megawatt wind turbine of say, 50% efficiency (Betz''s law specifies that the maximum theoretical efficiency of a wind turbine is 59%) to reach it full output it needs 6,857 horsepower of wind. This enormous force is being ''chopped'' every time a rotor blade passes the turbine tower resulting in a huge instantaneous change in air pressure - enough to rupture the lungs of any unfortunate bat that happens to be in the vicinity.
What are the bats doing there in the first place? Looking for dinner. The native bat is a natural biological control over moths, grubs, crickets and a host of pests that could otherwise be causing damage to pasture and crops.
That''s okay - we''ll just call in the choppers to spray them instead. Oops, I forgot, we can''t.
The following is an excerpt from a resolution recently passed by the Illinois Agricultural Aviation Association:
"WHEREAS, wind turbine generator farms create uniquely hazardous and unacceptable dangers to pilots flying agricultural aircraft in a ground environment,
WE HEREBY RESOLVE that, in the interest of pilot safety, we will refuse to make an aerial application of any product inside a grouping of wind generators, or to farm land immediately adjacent to a grouping of wind generators, should that proximity be considered hazardous by the pilot of the agricultural aircraft.
Approved by unanimous vote of the Board of Directors of the Illinois Agricultural Aviation Association."
Read this account of one farmers'' personal experience with wind turbines and ask yourself: "Is it really worth it for a paltry few thousand dollars per year?"
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VESTAS attempt to avoid recommended Low Frequency Noise measurement
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Source: EPAW, NAPAW 29 March 2012
Acronyms
EPAW: European Platform Against Windfarms
NA-PAW: North American Platform Against Windpower
NSW: New South Wales
LFN: low frequency noise
ILFN: infrasound and low frequency noise
In a submission to the government of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, world-leading wind turbine manufacturer Vestas asked to drop the requirement for measuring emissions of low frequency noise (LFN), despite scientific studies indicating that they have adverse effects on the health of neighbours. This flies in the face of a new Danish policy, announced March 26th, aiming at improving the ethics of exporting companies, e.g. on human rights. Denmark''''''''s Wind Turbine regulations recognise that LFN can be a health problem.
The draft windfarm guidelines proposed by concerned officials in NSW require that LFN emitted by wind turbines be measured. But in a letter to them dated March 14th, Vestas Australian Wind Technology Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of Danish multinational Vestas, "suggests the removal of the requirement to measure low frequency noise from the Draft Guidelines". Actually, they go as far as proposing the removal of the whole section on health: "Ideally, the entirety of Section 1.3 (e) should be deleted" (1).
Furthermore, the letter''''''''s author Mr McAlpine admits that "the existing and well validated industry standard models for acoustic propagation are NOT designed to deal with frequencies at the low end of the audible spectrum". For the Waubra Foundation, this is a smoking gun: "to date, infrasound and LFN (ILFN) have been ignored altogether, and Vestas obviously wants to keep the issue buried".
Dr Sarah Laurie, the Foundation''''''''s CEO, explains: "Why are Vestas suggesting to remove the requirement to measure low frequency noise, when there is evidence that wind turbines emit ILFN which correlate with people''''''''s serious health problems (2,3), and that larger turbines emit even more at these frequencies (4)? Why is this technology being imposed upon the global community while ignoring the health effects of long term exposure to ILFN emitted by these machines?" She adds: "Vestas claim their turbines are safe, but where is the data that proves it? - There is none. Yet, all the actual clinical data collected by physicians and reported by windfarm neighbours shows that there are some very serious impacts on health, which worsen over time (5)."
Dr Laurie further points out that, at a windfarm in Waterloo, South Australia, consisting of 37 x 3MW Vestas wind turbines, a study revealed that 70% of the population living within 5km reported being "negatively affected" by the noise (6). The Waubra Foundation knows residents living up to 5km away from wind farms who have had to leave their homes because of growing health problems. "Residents at Waterloo living out to 10km report awakening in the middle of the night ''''''''in a panicked state'''''''', a symptom experienced by many windfarm neighbours worldwide, apparently linked to inaudible noise, ear pressure, and body vibrations related to wind turbine exposure."
Vestas are trying to hide other impacts as well, notes Mark Duchamp of EPAW. "Their letter proposes to eliminate the NSW 2 km setback, as well as compensation for losses in property values, and the whole section on blade throw".
People’s health and well-being is in serious danger when industrial lobbies are imposing their conditions to elected officials, opines Sherri Lange, of NA-PAW. “Much the same is happening in North America, where the health issue has been pushed under the carpet. This will cost taxpayers dearly, for ultimately they will have to pay for all the damage done. Criminal charges may even be laid against decision-makers, for knowingly doing harm to health and life."
Contact:
Dr Sarah Laurie + 61 439 865 914 (Australia)
CEO, Waubra Foundation
sarah@waubrafoundation.com.au
Mark Duchamp +34 693 643 736 (Spain) Skype: mark.duchamp
Executive Director, EPAW
www.epaw.org
save.the.eagles@gmail.com
Sherri Lange +1 416 567 5115 (Canada)
CEO, NA-PAW
www.na-paw.org
kodaisl@rogers.com
References:
1) - Vestas submission to NSW Dept of Planning: http://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=pl0fPPM1-18%3D&tabid=205&mid=1081&language=en-US
2) - Stephen Ambrose and Robert Rand “The Bruce McPherson Infrasound and Low Frequency Noise Study” Falmouth, December, 2011 http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/bruce-mcpherson-infrasound-and-low-frequency-noise-study/
3) - Steven Cooper, "Review of Draft NSW guidelines" http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/review-of-nsw-draft-wind-farm-guidelines/
4) - Moller & Pedersen, renowned acousticians from the University of Aarlborg “Low Frequency Noise from Large Turbines” J Acoustical Society America 2011 129: 3727 - 3744: http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/low-frequency-noise-from-large-wind-turbines-2/
5) - Physicians include Dr Amanda Harry (UK 2003), Dr David Iser (Australia, 2004) , Dr Nina Pierpont (USA, 2009), Professor Robert McMurtry (Canada, 2010), Dr Michael Nissenbaum (USA 2010), Dr Sarah Laurie (Australia, 2011), material is available from the following websites: http://www.windturbinesyndrome.com/wind-turbine-syndrome/article-archive/, www.windvigilance.com, www.waubrafoundation.com.au, and www.wind-watch.org
(6) - Zhenhua Wang, survey conducted on wind farm noise at the Waterloo wind farm
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/evaluation-of-wind-farm-noise-policies-in-south-australia/
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Smart Meter Removal has begun in California!
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Source: Canada Free Press
California’s Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs) has quietly begun replacing Smart Meters with analog meters for citizens reporting adverse health effects. Consumer rights and other groups demanded immediately that their wireless devices be removed from their homes.
Joshua Hart of stopsmartmeters.org reported the good news just as PG&E deploys the last phase of its smart meters in California. The Department of Energy’s promise that the smart grid and smart meters will lower electricity costs has proven incorrect; on the contrary, the utility costs have skyrocketed.
Millions of customers were unhappy with their Smart Meters. They are surveillance devices in homes, without a search warrant, which is a violation of privacy. Fires, explosions, and health issues ranging from nausea, dizziness, heart palpitations, headaches, tinnitus, insomnia, and radiation exposure associated with powerful wireless devices that transmit information 6-8 per minute constantly, have plagued the stealthy and deceptive installation.
California’s counties and cities have demanded a stop to smart meter installation and some local governments passed laws prohibiting wireless meters. Nevada’s Pacific Utilities Company (PUC) called for investigation into the adverse health effects and other smart meter issues.
Recently, the California Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey assured customers that the utility “will provide for you to go back to the analog meter if that’s your choice.” The problem is that most Americans have no idea how damaging these smart meters are and an even larger group of Americans have never heard of it or see it as a contribution to “save” the planet because that is how these meters were sold to the public.
The tired rhetoric said that the smart grid and smart meters save the planet from doom and gloom, reduce waste by cutting your electricity at peak usage, eliminates the reader who must go to each home to calculate their monthly consumption, reduces your carbon footprint, and it will make the planet “green.” The reality is very far from the disingenuous promises.
Californians’ electric bills have almost tripled and lawsuits ensued. Marylanders swelter without electricity six hours at the peak of summer and almost freeze six hours in the dead of winter. An analog meter user who insisted on keeping it has to pay $35 each month to have his meter read by the power company. Thousands of customers across the country are having severe health issues from radiation that are not being addressed.
Millions are having issues with the power company selling wireless data collected from their homes via smart meters to third parties. Anybody with a handheld device can capture information from your home and sell it to a third party. The utility company knows if you are home, if you are away, if you are on vacation, which lights are turned on, which appliances, which computers, TVs, and other devices in your home.
Caitlin Phillips of Santa Cruz, Ca, who had suffered severe headaches and other symptoms from her smart meter, became the first person for whom PG&E re-installed on October 28, 2011 the classic analog meter. Caitlin Phillips had told the Wellington Energy installer, a subcontractor of PG&E, that she did not want a smart meter. “When I returned home later, I discovered a smart meter on my house. That night I awoke to severe anxiety, headache, and buzzing in my teeth, and realized the new smart meter was on the other side of the wall from my bed.”
Caitlin received help from “Stop Smart Meters” group who referred her to sources to obtain an analog meter and a person to install it. Her symptoms disappeared immediately after the analog meter was installed.
Caitlin spoke to a commission meeting in San Francisco about her ordeal and, a week later PG&E crews replaced her temporary analog meter with an official PG&E analog meter. Her frustration, pain, and suffering were finally over.
An “opt-out” proceeding is currently overseen by an Administrative Law Judge at the California Public Utilities Commission. “There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people suffering in their homes from forced ‘smart’ meter radiation,” said Joshua Hart, Director of the grassroots organization Stop Smart Meters!
PG&E and other utilities have responded to health complaints by replacing wireless ‘smart’ meters with digital meters that are “wireless-ready.” These digital meters have been associated with health problems from “dirty electricity” frequencies that pass into a home via the electrical wiring. Digital meters have been rejected by customers who still report health issues after installation. (Joshua Hart)
Susan Brinchman, Director of the San Diego based Center for Electrosmog Prevention, said, “At this point, the burden of responsibility is on the utilities to demonstrate that any new meter they want to install on our homes is safe. Communities have the right to retain analog meters at no extra charge.”
While California is pushing back the not so smart wireless technology, places like northern Virginia are going full steam ahead with the installation. Dominion Power has completed placing 100,000 smart meters in a pilot phase in three counties.
“There are hundreds of thousands- if not millions- of people suffering in their homes from forced ‘smart’ meter radiation,” said Joshua Hart, Director of the grassroots organization Stop Smart Meters! “The utilities must respond promptly to all requests that analogs be returned. The alternative is that people will increasingly turn to independent professionals to remove unwanted ‘smart’ meters from their homes, a reasonable action we assert is within our legal rights. Protecting your family’s health is not tampering.”
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By: Tony Elliott writing for The Cypress Times
Published 26/06/2011
The duping of Americans by the environmentalist movement continues, as wind farms use as much electricity from the fossil fuel grid as they produce. This article comes from reliable research derived for what I call the Wind Farm Swindle. The proof that it is a swindle, has been gathered from the very annals of the wind farm movement and from the companies involved in Turbine produced electricity itself.
If you''ve ever driven close to the huge wind turbine, I''m sure some of you have wondered how long it must take for the wind to start turning such large blades on some of these windmills and how they are stopped, when the wind gets too high for them to operate.
You won''t hear anybody in the environmental movement or the renewable energy business tell you this, but as it turns out, all wind turbines use about the same amount of grid electricity as they produce. Large wind turbines require huge amounts of fossil fuel grid electricity to operate. Wind farms have to use electricity from the grid and of course, this large amount of grid electricity is never accounted for in relation to output figures.
Wind turbine functions that use fueled derived electricity are as follows:
yaw mechanism (to keep the blade assembly perpendicular to the wind; also to untwist the electrical cables in the tower when necessary) -- the nacelle (turbine housing) and blades together, weigh 92 tons on a GE 1.5-MW turbine
blade-pitch control (to keep the rotors spinning at a regular rate)
lights, controllers, communication, sensors, metering, data collection, etc.
heating the blades -- this may require 10%-20% of the turbine''s nominal (rated) power
heating and dehumidifying the nacelle -- according to Danish manufacturer Vestas, "power consumption for heating and dehumidification of the nacelle, must be expected during periods with increased humidity, low temperatures and low wind speeds"
oil heater, pump, cooler, and filtering system in gearbox
hydraulic brake (to lock the blades in very high wind)
thyristors (to graduate the connection and disconnection between generator and grid) -- 1%-2% of the energy passing through is lost
magnetizing the stator -- the induction generators used in most large grid-connected turbines require a "large" amount of continuous electricity from the grid to actively power the magnetic coils around the asynchronous "cage rotor" that encloses the generator shaft. At the rated wind speeds, it helps keep the rotor speed constant, and as the wind starts blowing it helps start the rotor turning (see next item); in the rated wind speeds, the stator may use power equal to 10% of the turbine''s rated capacity in slower winds, possibly much more.
Using the generator as a motor (to help the blades start to turn when the wind speed is low or, as many suspect, to maintain the illusion that the facility is producing electricity when it is not, particularly during important site tours.) It surely seems possible that the grid-magnetized stator must work to help keep the 40-ton blade assembly spinning. Along with the gears which increase the blade rpm some 50 times for the generator, not just at cut-in (or for show in even less wind) but at least some of the way up towards the full rated wind speed; it may also be spinning the blades and rotor shaft to prevent warping when there is no wind. (1)
What all this amounts to is, each wind turbine actually uses more than 60% of its rated capacity in its own operation. Thus, each wind farm as a whole, produces only less than 25% of its annual rated capacity. This means that wind farms use twice the amount of grid electricity for every amount of wind-generated electricity produced.
I''m sure this is news to most Americans, who thought and naturally assumed that wind turbines only produced electricity and it never occurred to a normal person that these devices would actually require Fossil Fueled electricity to operate. Since no records of electricity usage is ever kept at these wind farms, this alarming fact has never become public knowledge.
Since it is admitted by everyone that wind generated electricity only amounts to around 1% of our total produced electricity, these hidden facts bring that figure down to a negative percentage at best. Using more electricity than it produces, green electricity is the reason for Cap and Trade, since green credits can be bought and sold to the highest bidder.
Killing perhaps millions of endangered bird species per year, degrading human health in the same manner as is experienced with people living near high voltage power lines. Ruining many of the earth''s most scenic spots, with these huge steel monstrosities and above all, doing nothing in alleviating any fossil fuel electricity usage is the reason these expensive and dangerous eyesores must go.
In today''s economy, we cannot afford to spend billions of dollars on a Nigerian like fraud, such as the wind farm swindle.
(1) In large rotating power trains such as this, if allowed to stand motionless for any period of time, the unit will experience "bowing" of shafts and rotors under the tremendous weight. Therefore, frequent rotating of the unit is necessary to prevent this. As an example, even in port Navy ships keep their propeller shafts and turbine power trains slowly rotating. It is referred to as "jacking the shaft" to prevent any tendency to bow. Any bowing would throw the whole train out of balance with potentially very serious damage when bringing the power train back on line.
''In addition to just protecting the gear box and generator shafts and bearings, the blades on a large wind turbine would offer a special challenge with respect to preventing warping and bowing when not in use. For example, on a sunny, windless day, idle wind turbine blades would experience uneven heating from the sun, something that would certainly cause bowing and warping. The only way to prevent this would be to keep the blades moving to even out the sun exposure to all parts of the blade.
''So, the point that major amounts of incoming electrical power is used to turn the power train and blades when the wind is not blowing is very accurate, and it is not something the operators of large wind turbines can avoid.
Note: The manufacturers of large turbines -- for example, Vestas, GE, and NEG Micon -- do not include electricity consumption in the specifications they provide.
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In the line at the supermarket, the cashier told the older woman that she should bring her own grocery bag because plastic bags weren''t good for the environment. The woman apologized to her and explained, "We didn''t have the green thing back in my day."
The clerk responded, "That''s our problem today. The former generation did not care enough to save our environment."
She was right, that generation didn''t have the green thing in its day.
Back then, they returned their milk bottles, soft drink bottles and beer bottles to the shop.. The shop sent them back to the factory to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. They were recycled.
But they didn''t have the green thing back in that customer''s day.
In her day, they walked up stairs, because they didn''t have an escalator in every store and office building. They walked to the grocery store and didn''t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time they had to go two blocks.
But she was right. They didn''t have the green thing in her day.
Back then, they washed the baby''s nappies because they didn''t have the throw-away kind. They dried clothes on a line, not in a 220 volt energy gobbling machine - wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.
But that old lady is right; they didn''t have the green thing back in her day.
Back then, they had one TV, or radio, in the house - not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief, not a screen the size of a cricket pitch. In the kitchen, they blended and stirred by hand because they didn''t have electric machines to do everything for you. When they packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, they used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. They didn''t have air conditioning or electric stoves with self cleaning ovens. They didn''t have battery operated toys, computers, or telephones.
Back then, they didn''t fire up an engine and burn fuel just to cut the lawn. They used a push mower that ran on human power. They used hand operated clippers to trim the shrubs. They exercised by working so they didn''t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.
But she''s right; they didn''t have the green thing back then.
They drank from a glass filled from the tap when they were thirsty instead of using a plastic bottle every time they had a drink of water. They refilled their writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and they replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.
But they didn''t have the green thing back then.
Back then, people walked or took the bus and kids rode their bikes to school or rode the school bus instead of turning their mums into a 24-hour taxi service. They had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And they didn''t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.
But isn''t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful the old folks were just because they didn''t have the green thing back then?
(Forwarded to us by Climate Realists - www.climaterealists.org.nz)
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By Janine Rankin writing for the Manawatu Standard.
Mighty River Power has reignited the battle over the Turitea Wind Farm with a push to add 12 extra turbines to make the project viable – despite a draft decision already being issued capping the number at 60.
The power company has asked the board of inquiry that heard its application for resource consent last year to reconvene to hear its revised plans.
Opponents who have made what they thought were final submissions on the board''s draft decision are aghast at the prospect.
Submitter Detlef Klein said Mighty River Power''s last-minute plea was "unbelievable". Another, Helen Harker, called it a travesty.
The board heard 10 weeks of evidence over nine months on the original proposal, ending in March last year.
It released a draft decision almost a year later, in February, that cut the number of turbines it would allow from 104 to 60.
Concerns about the wind farm''s impact on the view of the skyline from Palmerston North led to the board''s imposition of a clear path through the middle of it, with turbines allowed to the north and south.
Mighty River Power said the board had effectively cut its wind farm in two, and had made "unsupported and uninformed assumptions" that the changes it had imposed would allow an economically sustainable development.
It is asking the board to rectify that "serious deficiency".
It said the board gave no warning about the scale of changes the draft decision would demand, and said it was only fair that Mighty River Power and the other parties to the process should have a chance to meet again.
None of the 36 other submitters have had a chance to comment on Mighty River Power''s counter-proposal.
The board never formally closed its hearing in March last year, but only adjourned, which left the option open to reconvene, the energy company said.
But some of the other submitters are dazed at the prospect of the process dragging on for longer.
Mighty River Power has already significantly revised its proposal once, in 2009.
Mr Klein said the expense and the energy required to participate in the drawn-out process made it difficult, if not impossible, for "Joe Bloggs" to keep up.
"This is clearly designed to see if they can wear us down.
"Everybody is tired, and I understand some people don''t want to hear about it any more. But in the end this will affect everyone in New Zealand. It''s about how the Resource Management Act is being used, and how taxpayers are able to take part in the process."
Palmerston North City Council chief executive Paddy Clifford said he was not surprised that Mighty River Power wanted to include extra turbines and had asked for another hearing.
The process had already been a lengthy one, despite the "call-in" process in which the Government deemed a board of inquiry should hear the application, rather than the council. Part of the rationale was to speed up the process.
Mr Clifford had no indication how much extra time the request for another hearing extension would take to consider. An Environment Ministry spokesperson would not say when the board would release a final decision or resume the hearing.
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David Evans, Carbon Accounting Modeler, Says It’s a Scam
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Source: http://joannenova.com.au/2011/03/david-evans-carbon-modeler-says-its-a-scam/
Dr David Evans’ address to the Anti-Carbon-Tax rally, Perth Australia, 23 March 2011.
Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen.
The debate about global warming has reached ridiculous proportions and is full of micro thin half-truths and misunderstandings. I am a scientist who was on the carbon gravy train, understands the evidence, was once an alarmist, but am now a skeptic. Watching this issue unfold has been amusing but, lately, worrying. This issue is tearing society apart, making fools and liars out of our politicians.
Let’s set a few things straight.
The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s. But the gravy train was too big, with too many jobs, industries, trading profits, political careers, and the possibility of world government and total control riding on the outcome. So rather than admit they were wrong, the governments, and their tame climate scientists, now cheat and lie outrageously to maintain the fiction that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant.
Let’s be perfectly clear. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and other things being equal, the more carbon dioxide in the air, the warmer the planet. Every bit of carbon dioxide that we emit warms the planet. But the issue is not whether carbon dioxide warms the planet, but how much.
Most scientists, on both sides, also agree on how much a given increase in the level of carbon dioxide raises the planet’s temperature, if just the extra carbon dioxide is considered. These calculations come from laboratory experiments; the basic physics have been well known for a century.
The disagreement comes about what happens next.
The planet reacts to that extra carbon dioxide, which changes everything. Most critically, the extra warmth causes more water to evaporate from the oceans.. But does the water hang around and increase the height of moist air in the atmosphere, or does it simply create more clouds and rain? Back in 1980, when the carbon dioxide theory started, no one knew. The alarmists guessed that it would increase the height of moist air around the planet, which would warm the planet even further, because the moist air is also a greenhouse gas.
This is the core idea of every official climate model: for each bit of warming due to carbon dioxide, they claim it ends up causing three bits of warming due to the extra moist air. The climate models amplify the carbon dioxide warming by a factor of three – so two thirds of their projected warming is due to extra moist air (and other factors), only one third is due to extra carbon dioxide.
I’ll bet you didn’t know that. Hardly anyone in the public does, but it’s the core of the issue. All the disagreements, lies, and misunderstanding spring from this. The alarmist case is based on this guess about moisture in the atmosphere, and there is simply no evidence for the amplification that is at the core of their alarmism. Which is why the alarmists keep so quiet about it and you’ve never heard of it before. And it tells you what a poor job the media have done in covering this issue.
Weather balloons had been measuring the atmosphere since the 1960s, many thousands of them every year. The climate models all predict that as the planet warms, a hot-spot of moist air will develop over the tropics about 10km up, as the layer of moist air expands upwards into the cool dry air above. During the warming of the late 1970s, 80s, and 90s, the weather balloons found no hot-spot. None at all. Not even a small one. This evidence proves that the climate models are fundamentally flawed, that they greatly overestimate the temperature increases due to carbon dioxide.
This evidence first became clear around the mid 1990s.
At this point official “climate science” stopped being a science. You see, in science empirical evidence always trumps theory, no matter how much you are in love with the theory. If theory and evidence disagree, real scientists scrap the theory. But official climate science ignored the crucial weather balloon evidence, and other subsequent evidence that backs it up, and instead clung to their carbon dioxide theory — that just happens to keep them in well-paying jobs with lavish research grants, and gives great political power to their government masters.
There are now several independent pieces of evidence showing that the earth responds to the warming due to extra carbon dioxide by dampening the warming. Every long-lived natural system behaves this way, counteracting any disturbance, otherwise the system would be unstable. The climate system is no exception, and now we can prove it.
But the alarmists say the exact opposite, that the climate system amplifies any warming due to extra carbon dioxide, and is potentially unstable. Surprise surprise, their predictions of planetary temperature made in 1988 to the US Congress, and again in 1990, 1995, and 2001, have all proved much higher than reality.
They keep lowering the temperature increases they expect, from 0.30C per decade in 1990, to 0.20C per decade in 2001, and now 0.15C per decade – yet they have the gall to tell us “it’s worse than expected”. These people are not scientists. They over-estimate the temperature increases due to carbon dioxide, selectively deny evidence, and now they cheat and lie to conceal the truth.
One way they cheat is in the way they measure temperature.
The official thermometers are often located in the warm exhaust of air conditioning outlets, over hot tarmac at airports where they get blasts of hot air from jet engines, at wastewater plants where they get warmth from decomposing sewage, or in hot cities choked with cars and buildings. Global warming is measured in tenths of a degree, so any extra heating nudge is important. In the US, nearly 90% of official thermometers surveyed by volunteers violate official siting requirements that they not be too close to an artificial heating source. Nearly 90%! The photos of these thermometers are on the Internet; you can get to them via the corruption paper at my site, sciencespeak..com. Look at the photos, and you’ll never trust a government climate scientist again.
They place their thermometers in warm localities, and call the results “global” warming. Anyone can understand that this is cheating. They say that 2010 is the warmest recent year, but it was only the warmest at various airports, selected air conditioners, and certain car parks.
Global temperature is also measured by satellites, which measure nearly the whole planet 24/7without bias. The satellites say the hottest recent year was 1998, and that since 2001 the global temperature has leveled off.
So it’s a question of trust.
If it really is warming up as the government climate scientists say, why do they present only the surface thermometer results and not mention the satellite results? And why do they put their thermometers near artificial heating sources? This is so obviously a scam now.
So what is really going on with the climate?
The earth has been in a warming trend since the depth of the Little Ice Age around 1680. Human emissions of carbon dioxide were negligible before 1850 and have nearly all come after WWII, so human carbon dioxide cannot possibly have caused the trend. Within the trend, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation causes alternating global warming and cooling for 25 – 30 years at a go in each direction. We have just finished a warming phase, so expect mild global cooling for the next two decades.
We are now at an extraordinary juncture.
Official climate science, which is funded and directed entirely by government, promotes a theory that is based on a guess about moist air that is now a known falsehood. Governments gleefully accept their advice, because the only way to curb emissions are to impose taxes and extend government control over all energy use. And to curb emissions on a world scale might even lead to world government — how exciting for the political class!
A carbon tax?
Even if Australia stopped emitting all carbon dioxide tomorrow, completely shut up shop and went back to the stone age, according to the official government climate models it would be cooler in 2050 by about 0.015 degrees. But their models exaggerate tenfold – in fact our sacrifices would make the planet in 2050 a mere 0.0015 degrees cooler!
Sorry, but you’ve been had.
Finally, to those of you who still believe the planet is in danger from our carbon dioxide emissions: sorry, but you’ve been had. Yes carbon dioxide a cause of global warming, but it’s so minor it’s not worth doing much about.
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Dr David Evans consulted full-time for the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) from 1999 to 2005, and part-time 2008 to 2010, modeling Australia’s carbon in plants, debris, mulch, soils, and forestry and agricultural products. Evans is a mathematician and engineer, with six university degrees including a PhD from Stanford University in electrical engineering. The area of human endeavor with the most experience and sophistication in dealing with feedbacks and analyzing complex systems is electrical engineering, and the most crucial and disputed aspects of understanding the climate system are the feedbacks. The evidence supporting the idea that CO2 emissions were the main cause of global warming reversed itself from 1998 to 2006, causing Evans to move from being a warmist to a skeptic.
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In the decision to grant consent to Meridian’s Project Central Wind, near Taihape, Meridian’s environmental noise expert is reported as saying that the major risk associated with a development such as this is anxiety caused through ‘misunderstanding’ and ‘misinformation’ which has the effect of sensitising some individuals. He claimed there was no evidence to support existence of any physical risk to neighbours.’ (Page 21 para 9.1.11)
What the decision didn’t report was his verbal victim blaming comment that such people are “psychotic”. As he appeared to be asleep through much of the time he was present at the hearing it doesn’t surprise me that his review of the science failed to find the increasing documentation on the negative effects on people and animals of constant noise, such as that of wind turbines. Low frequency and infrasound effects in particular have been studied for 27 years. Check out: http://www.windaction.org/?module=uploads&func=download&fileId=1396 for the science on this aspect of noise pollution.
The World Health Organisation is unequivocal on community noise pollution. http://www.who.int/docstore/peh/noise/Commnoise4.htm
“people should have the right to decide for themselves the quality of the acoustical environment they live in.” Further, “Some populations may be at greater risk for the harmful effects of noise. Young children (especially during language acquisition), the blind, and perhaps fetuses are examples of such populations.”
And further “Electrophysiological and behavioral methods have demonstrated that both continuous and intermittent noise indoors lead to sleep disturbance… Measurable effects on sleep start at background noise levels of about 30 dB LAeq. Physiological effects include changes in the pattern of sleep stages, especially a reduction in the proportion of REM sleep….Sensitive groups mainly include elderly persons, shift workers and persons with physical or mental disorders.”
But wait, there’s more: “When the noise is composed of a large proportion of low-frequency sounds a still lower guideline value is recommended.” Makara people and we in Taihape are expected to live with 40 dBA, approximately three times the WHO guidelines. And what’s more that is still legal in New Zealand!
The Wind industry frequently quote that the noise from a wind turbine is no higher than that of a domestic fridge, but we don’t sleep with a fridge under our bed, or with a fridge beside our desk at school. Nor does the fridge follow us around all day everyday, and everywhere we go, inside and out.
Meridian refuses to conduct adequate pre-construction noise monitoring over every season and a range of times during the day, so that baseline noise is known. You can understand why not, particularly when in the hearing decision for Central Wind they acknowledge that profit, not the national interest, is driving this project.
M Frost, Pukeokahu.
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Bryan Leyland: Wind farms not everything they're cranked up to be
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Windpower is not necessarily the anti-climate change weapon that many, from politicians to lay people, mistakenly believe it is.
Virtually all the main electricity generators in New Zealand have wind farms in operation, under construction or going through the Resource Management Act approvals process.
The primary driver seems to be that we need more renewable energy to "fight climate change" and that wind power is a very good way of doing this. It isn''t.
The fundamental problem with wind power is that it is intermittent and unpredictable. This means that the system operator must take a pessimistic view and assume that no wind power will be available over critical periods.
In other words, he has to make sure that there are sufficient conventional power stations available to meet peak demands. It is often claimed that New Zealand has ample hydropower that can easily back up wind. While this tends to be true during a normal rainfall year, it is most definitely not true during a dry year. Dry years, not normal years, dictate the need for new power stations.
The wind blows least during the autumn-early winter period when the lakes are low and at a maximum in the springtime when the snow is melting and, usually, it is raining.
So windpower generates most when it isn''t needed and least when it is most needed. As a result its contribution is less than it would be if the wind blew hardest in the autumn.
Windpower is expensive. According to my calculations, its true cost is between 11c and 17c/kWh. This is between 50 per cent and 100 per cent more expensive than conventional power. As an expert witness in the wind farm debate, I have put forward my evidence and my calculations on a number of occasions. No one has refuted them.
Windpower is a totally ineffective way of "fighting climate change". Firstly, it is widely accepted that a 20 per cent contribution by wind is about as much as our system can accept without running into excessive costs and serious problems with system operation.
So even if it were a good idea, there is a definite limit to what can be achieved.
This leads us to a paradox: if wind power is so bad, why are generators still pursuing wind farms with great enthusiasm? I believe there are a number of reasons.
First, and in spite of the evidence, the Government and many people believe that wind power can make a substantial contribution to generating capacity and to mitigating "climate change".
So, for a generator there are a lot of "greenie points" to be won by securing rights to wind resources.
Secondly, there is quite a large difference between the wind resources in one place compared with another. Places with high, steady winds will always be better and are in short supply. So get in quick!
Thirdly, having secured a resource, they have created an asset which they can place on their books and make it appear that the money expended in getting a resource consent is a real investment.
All these reasons apply whether or not there is an expectation that the farm will be built in the near - or even the distant - future. So, from the point of view of the generators, there is virtually no downside in securing a resource.
From the point of view of the people who will be affected by the wind farm, the downside is very large. All over New Zealand groups of local residents have spent millions of dollars on opposing wind farms in their area. This imposes a lot of stress on the people involved and represents an enormous waste of time and effort.
Yet, in most cases, there is no real intention of building the wind farm within the next five years - if at all.
From the point of view of the country, the situation is also quite serious. The long list of wind farms with approvals or going through the process leads people to believe that there is no problem with the security of supply. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Bryan Leyland is a power industry consultant.
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Source: Nature (www.nature.com), 23 December 2010
Some legitimate questions have been raised over the green credentials of wind turbines. Politics must not block research where it is needed.
Will wind turbines wreck the environment? Last month, the South China Morning Post published a news story that contained a thinly veiled attack on China''s wind industry. The article cited herdsmen in a village in Inner Mongolia who say rain stopped falling after the establishment of a nearby wind farm, and meteorologists who backed up the observation with a few years'' data that show low precipitation. The article also quoted an engineer in the government''s renewable-energy department who hastily dismissed concern over the effect of wind farms, refused to acknowledge the need for research, and asserted the overarching necessity for China to develop wind energy. The article concludes that “wind power is not completely green”. There have been similar attacks on wind energy in Texas and elsewhere.
Clouds forming in the wakes of the front row of wind turbines of the Horns Rev wind farm off the coast of Denmark. The downstream wind turbines lose 20% or 30% of their power, and sometimes even more, relative to the front row.
It is good to see that the newspaper, Hong Kong''s most prominent English-language daily, retains a critical stance towards the Chinese government under the ''one country, two systems'' policy, and is willing to put Chinese officials on the spot. But in this case, the dismissive official quoted probably has a point. There is no solid scientific evidence that wind turbines can trigger major changes in rainfall. And given Nature''s conversations with atmospheric modellers outside China, people are not likely to find any. One expert said the idea that a wind farm could have such a dramatic and demonstrable effect was “silly”.
Wind farms, however, may affect regional or global environmental systems — although to suggest this can draw rapid scorn from wind-power proponents. In 2004, the environmental engineer and atmospheric modeller Somnath Baidya Roy, then at Princeton University in New Jersey, published work showing turbulence created by turbines would, among other effects, lead to vertical mixing of energy and heat in atmospheric layers that would affect local temperatures, and possibly change evaporation patterns (S. B. Roy et al. J. Geophys. Res. 109, D19101; 2004). Some took his study as an attack on the wind industry, and he was besieged with nasty e-mails. They questioned his sanity, threatened to get him fired from his post at Princeton, and accused him of being a pawn of the coal or oil industries. (He has never had nor sought any industrial ties.) The president of one US-based wind-farm firm told Roy to consider “how much heat is your head turning out, while you consider such thoughts?” and to ponder many other factors “while checking your navel for lint”. (We know this because Roy considered the comments humorous enough to post on his webpage.)
At around the same time, other scientists used models to suggest that wind turbines could have effects on climate change and suggested that estimates of these effects should be balanced against their green benefits. Although these researchers are seen by some in the industry as overly critical, they concluded with no stronger recommendation than a call for more research.
In October, Roy, now at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, published data to back up his theoretical work (S. B. Roy and J. J. Traiteur Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 107, 17899–17904; 2010). A 25-year data set showed a significant effect of wind farms on near-surface temperatures. Roy suggested in the paper that those constructing wind farms should consider low-turbulence turbines or use the results to help find the most suitable sites. It hardly constituted an attack on wind energy. In fact, he says, the main impact — a raising of surface temperatures at night and lowering during the day — could benefit agriculture by decreasing frost damage and extending the growing season. Many farmers already do this with air circulators.
Roy''s study was on wind farms with some 20 turbines. Local effects will be more marked in much larger farms. Roy hopes to start a field campaign that can monitor energy fluxes, evaporation, humidity and temperature on a variety of farms as they scale up.
China, developing huge wind farms and planning more, should take a prominent role in such studies. As its facilities expand, it can make solid scientific assessments, which could contribute to a more rational and beneficial use of wind. Although the Chinese official may have been right to dismiss the suggested effect on rainfall, his government should not ignore the need for wider research on the impact of its wind revolution.
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Wind-farm health fears grow
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By: BRENDAN GULLIFER, The Courier (courier.com.au)
02 Dec, 2010 12:10 AM
Self-testing by a small group of Waubra residents could reveal a link between wind turbines and health.
South Australian doctor Sarah Laurie, director of the Waubra Foundation, says early indications suggest a possible link between turbine operation and early-morning blood pressure problems.
"It appears for some people that their blood pressure first thing in the morning is elevated if the turbines are going, and is not elevated if the turbine have been off overnight and early in the morning," Dr Laurie said.
Dr Laurie said early-morning blood pressure elevation was a known risk factor for heart attacks.
She said eight people were checking their blood pressure north of the Waubra wind farm, within four kilometres of the nearest turbine, and some in the group had no knowledge of when the turbines were operating. All test participants were between one and four kilometres from the nearest turbine. Dr Laurie said not all in the test group had been affected.
"It''s very early days but there does appear to be something going on," Dr Laurie said.
Dr Laurie urged anyone living within five kilometres of a wind farm to purchase their own blood-pressure monitoring equipment and see a doctor if their blood pressure was over 140/80.
The Waubra Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation formed to foster independent research into wind farms and health. Earlier this year the National Health and Medical Research Council concluded there was no published scientific evidence to link turbines with adverse health effects.
The Clean Energy Council - representing 400 companies with clean-energy interests - released a report last month indicating that there was no evidence that noise levels as allowed under planning guidelines have an adverse effect on health.
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$400m wind farm not viable, says consultant
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By: JAMES WEIR - BusinessDay.co.nz
Contact Energy is not expected to build a $400 million wind farm near Dannevirke because it is not commercially viable, according to an independent energy consultant.
Contact this week won an appeal to build the wind farm with 58 turbines up to 125 metres high, or 52 turbines 150m high. Contact''s consent is for five years and it is not saying when the project might get built other than "when market conditions allow".
But energy consultant Bryan Leyland says the numbers do not stack up for the Dannevirke wind farm. "My guess is that they [Contact] have no intention of building it."
There was also a "reasonable chance" Contact''s other proposed wind farm between Port Waikato and Raglan would never get built.
On Tuesday, local opponents said they were "deeply disappointed" after losing a $150,000 legal battle against Contact.
Christchurch businessman Mark Stewart said yesterday the Government needed to take urgent action to protect the rights of landowners in the wake of Contact''s victory. Mr Stewart is fighting Contact''s other wind farm proposal in Waikato and has spent $600,000 on it so far.
Australian-controlled Contact had been able to "out-muscle" local landowners who did not have the means to keep up the fight.
Mr Stewart said landowners would have to live with five years of uncertainty while Contact made up its mind, while "property prices are blighted" and he wanted to see a fairer process for compensation and greater access to information from privately-owned companies like Contact.
Mr Leyland said power companies were locking up the wind resource so nobody else could get it, while making themselves look good to the Government and those who believed in wind power. Mr Leyland has been an expert witness in four wind farm consent hearings and attacked all of them on their economics. "It is not a good use of the nation''s resource."
It would cost $3000 to $3500 a kilowatt to build a wind farm, with 80 per cent of the cost in the turbines themselves.
That would equate to a cost of production of about 12 cents a kilowatt hour. By comparison, coal or geothermal stations would cost between 8c and 10c, which did not need back up for when the wind did not blow.
A Contact spokeswoman said the Dannevirke wind farm would only go ahead when "market conditions allowed" and work on its commercial viability needed to be done.
Contact said the most attractive option for new generation was geothermal power followed by wind.
Meanwhile, Mr Stewart said his wife''s parents, who are in their 60s, face uncertainty for years because of Contact''s plan to run pylons through their Waikato land from the wind turbines to the national grid.
That meant there were no buyers for the farm, because nobody would want it with the risk of pylons and 158 wind turbines starting only 3kms away.
The land value had fallen as much as 30 per cent but the compensation for running the transmission lines through the land was "less than 5 per cent" of the value of the land as a one-off payment.
In contrast, landowners with turbines on them would get between $20,000 and $30,000 for each turbine, each year.
"Some people have won Lotto, yet their neighbour ends up with a 30 per cent drop in the value of their land and nowhere to go," he said.
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On 4 October 2010 the Mayor of Rangitikei District, Chalky Leary stated in the Wanganui Chronicle that “…whatever consent decision was made [in relation to wind farm applications], someone was likely to appeal against the decision and that was a great waste of money for ratepayers.” He then went on to say “Defending the appeal by Rangitikei Guardians in the High Court had cost the council "a lot of money" and it was not the council''s job to spend ratepayers'' money on fighting in court.”
As a member of Rangitikei Guardians I resent the anti-democratic views expressed by Mayor Leary - that an appeal against council’s decision to grant Meridian Energy the right to develop Project Central Wind by Rangitikei Guardians Inc “was a great waste of money for ratepayers. “
It was a cost to ratepayers, but hey, democracy always comes at a cost. If we lived in communist China dissent could be subdued under the tracks of military tanks. Perhaps Mayor Leary would prefer such a regime over which he could rule and express his anti-democratic diatribe with impunity?
And considering that the appellants are also ratepayers and incurred considerable personal cost as well as their contribution as ratepayers to try to protect “Rangitikei Unspoilt”, whom has this appeal cost most?
The Hihitahi Plateau, on which Project Central Wind will be built, includes the Moawhango-Iti limestone Karst area, which is listed on the National Geo-preservation Inventory. It contains one of the northern most remnants of the internationally listed (CERES) native falcon, plus both endangered species of native bats. It lies adjacent to and can be seen from the Tongariro dual World Heritage National Park.
The folk of Rangitikei Guardians, who spent not only lots of money but also an awful lot of time to try to protect this valuable North Rangitikei landscape, are not the villains Mayor Leary makes us out to be. If you can’t stand the heat of democracy Mayor Leary, why did you bother to put yourself up for re-election?
Madalene Frost
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The following is an excerpt from the evidence of Murray Martin presented in the case against the Motorimu wind farm.
Read the full affidavit.
I was amazed at how it appeared that the human factor did not appear to come into the calculations of the Commissioners when making the decision of wind farm consent. Individuals without the financial backing to be able to seek advice or have representation from the legal world appeared to carry very little weight with the hearing, yet when it came to commercial enterprises, ie in this particular case, the airport company, who had legal backing, it appeared they carried all the weight in the world, when we the people who live closest to the existing wind farm who knew what it was like to live with the noise and vibrations of a wind farm appeared to be totally ignored, we weren’t even asked if we could hear the turbines.
We lived in hope that the new, bigger, and closer turbines will some how miraculously be quieter than the older smaller and further away turbines, if we didn’t have this hope we would probably have been nervous wrecks thinking that our life long dreams and aspirations of living in the peace and quiet of our paradise would be shattered.
Talking about being true, we were, during the process given a montage drawn up by Boffa Miskell (experts in their field we were told ) which showed what the new turbines would look like on the landscape once erected, it is apparent that they are not be quite accurate.
Also during the consent process we were given a map on what and where the noise affects would be, drawn up by Marshall Day Acoustics, (also experts in their field ) absolutely useless to the affected lay people of this area and possibly the hearing commissioners as we were not experts in reading them and did not have the money to employ such experts, these experts did not even ask the people who lived next to stage 1 and 2 if there was any noise, if they did they would have found out that there are people in certain weather conditions that when they put their head on the pillow at night they can hear the turbines and feel the vibrations, maybe that is exactly why they didn’t ask, they then would have had to put that in their submissions, so better not to ask, instead, be scared of the truth.
Despite our inability to interpret the expert evidence accurately, we were assured by Trust Power that the “new technology” turbines would be quieter. Trustpower also said that its noise prediction report showed that my home would not be adversely impacted by any noise. I was also verbally assured by Dion Campbell of Trust power that there would be no noise issues at my home and as I was 3 kilometres from the turbines I believed Trustpower. As a backstop, it was suggested by Dion Campbell that if there was a problem once the wind farm was complete, double glazing was an option.
However, I was aware that noise problems have occurred at Te Apiti and Ashhurst, and I was concerned about what would happen during Southeasterly wind conditions when winds would blow over the T3 development and towards my home.
We lived in hope that adverse noise impacts would not arise and that we could all live in peace and harmony with the wind farm.
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Allen Haas, a farmer the Town of Malone, Fond du Lac County filed these comments with the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, docket # 1-AC-231 24th August, 2010.
I have three wind turbines on my property and get $4,000 for each one. It`s been 2 years now with the turbines and everyone in the community is irritable and short, they snap back. The best of friends for 35 years, but everyone just snaps. People are not really mad directly at the wind turbines or even know what they are mad about, they`re just mad, aggressive.
The closest one to my house is 3,000 feet away - way too close. You don''t get sleep at night because they roar like at an airport. I get shadow flicker in my house, but down in the village of Johnsburg where those are about another 1,500 feet away from the turbines - oh probably 4,500 feet total those blades are throwing shadows right over all the house roof tops in entire village .....that`s really bad. All of our tv''s got knocked out too. I can only get local channels when the turbine is turned in a certain direction. 97% of the time, we got no reception. There is no mitigation either.
I go to the doctor and now I`m on a lot of different medications. I`ve been to the hospital a couple of times in the past two years with chest pains. And they just can''t figure out what it is, but now we`re all being diagnosed with wind turbine syndrome. And I sure got it.. It definitely causes depression. Memory loss is the worse issue. I see it so bad in myself and especially my parents who are older. But they at the point where they just don`t care anymore because there`s nothing they can do anyhow. My dad is a totally different person since these things went up. He stays in bed all day now. Even if he does get up to eat, he just goes back to bed. There is no will anymore. I ask the doctor- how are they doing this to us? He just says he doesn''t know..
WE energies called today and they are going to be spraying for weeds, so I asked if there were any more plans for windmills? They said, they don''t know. I told em... "This area is completely destroyed, it would make more sense to just put a few up around here as opposed to destroying the rest of the state."
I got turbines and the money doesn''t pay off in the end. I`ve gotta spend more on cutting around those things and all them cables. It has destroyed my farmland.
I feel really bad for the folks who don`t have contracts cause they`re still all stuck. Even if a realtor wants to sell a place, the first question a buyer asks is if there are windmills in the area. They just hang up.
They should be paying everyone around who is affected, that way - everyone who wants to move could get out and move. So many want to move and leave, but they can''t sell their property. The developers deny devaluation, but it`s real... the ones without contracts lost half the value of their property and can''t move because they have no money, still trying to pay off their homes. At least if you got contracts and enough windmills, you can move out.
It turned out to be a real shocker. This whole thing is not right, it should not be done in small communities, but you know, these are just simple country folk who do just don`t say anything. Even if it`s bad, they just go along with it cause what else are they supposed to do? If I could write out a check from all the money they gave me and give it back, wake up tomorrow morning and all the turbines be gone, that''d be the best thing that ever happened to me.
I affirm that these comments are true and correct to the best of my knowledge and belief.
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October 25, 2007
Summary:
This compelling message appeared in an advertisement run in the October 25, 2007 issue of the Times-Journal newspaper in Wisconsin. A .pdf copy of the ad can be accessed by clicking here. IWA has authenticated this ad. It was written by Don Bangart of Chilton, Wisconsin following a 2 hour interview with a landowner in Northeast Fond du Lac County. The landowner, who wishes to remain anonymous, approved the text for publication.
Now each morning when I awake, I pray and then ask myself, "What have I done?"
I am involved with the BlueSky/Greenfield wind turbine project in N.E. Fond du Lac County. I am also a successful farmer who cherishes his land. My father taught me how to farm, to be a steward of my fields, and by doing so, produce far better crop production. As I view this year''s crops, my eyes feast on a most bountiful supply of corn and soybeans. And then my eyes focus again on the trenches and road scars leading to the turbine foundations. What have I done?
In 2003, the wind energy company made their first contacts with us. A $2000 "incentive" started the process of winning us over, a few of us at a time. The city salesman would throw out their nets, like fishermen trawling for fish. Their incentive "gift" lured some of us in at first. Then the salesmen would leave and let us talk with other farmers. When the corporate salesmen returned, there would be more of us ready to sign up; farmers had heard about the money to be made. Perhaps because we were successful farmers, we were the leaders and their best salesman. What have I done?
Sometime in 2004 or 2005, we signed $4000.00 turbine contracts allowing them to "lease" our land for their needs. Our leases favored the company, but what did we know back then? Nobody knew what we were doing. Nobody realized all the changes that would occur over which we would have no control. How often my friends and I have made that statement! What have I done?
I watched stakes being driven in the fields and men using GPS monitors to place markers here and there. When the cats and graders started tearing 22 foot wide roads into my fields, the physical changes started to impact not only me and my family, but unfortunately, my dear friends and neighbors. Later, a 4 foot deep by 2 foot wide trench started diagonally across my field. A field already divided by their road was now being divided again by the cables running to a substation. It was now making one large field into 4 smaller, irregularly shaped plots. Other turbine hosts also complained about their fields being subdivided or multi cable trenches requiring more lands. Roads were cut in using anywhere from 1000 feet to over a ½ mile of land to connect necessary locations. We soon realized that the company places roads and trenches where they will benefit the company most, not the land owner. One neighbor''s access road is right next to some of his out buildings. Another right next to his fence line. What have I done?
At a wind company dinner presented for the farmers hosting the turbines, we were repeatedly told - nicely and indirectly - to stay away from the company work sites once they start. I watch as my friends faces showed the same concern as I had, but none of us spoke out. Months later, when I approached a crew putting in lines where they promised me they definitely would not go, a representative told me I could not be here. He insisted that I leave. The line went in. The company had the right. I had signed the lease. What have I done?
Grumbling started almost immediately after we agreed to a 2% yearly increase on our 30 year lease contracts. Some felt we should have held out for 10%. What farmer would lock in the price of corn over the next 5 years, yet alone lock one in at 2% yearly for 30 years? Then rumors leaked that other farmers had received higher yearly rates, so now contracts varied. The fast talking city sales folk had successfully delivered their plan. Without regard for our land, we were allowing them to come in and spoil it. All of the rocks we labored so hard to pick in our youth were replaced in a few hours by miles of roads packed hard with 10 inches of large breaker rock. Costly tiling we installed to improve drainage had now been cut into pieces by company trenching machines. What have I done?
Each night, a security team rides down our roads checking the foundation sites. They are checking for vandals and thieves. Once, when I had ventured with guests to show them foundation work, security stopped us and asked me, standing on my own property, what I was doing there. What have I done?
Now, at social functions, we can clearly see the huge division this has created among community members. Suddenly, there are strong-sided discussions and heated words between friends and, yes, between relatives about wind turbines. Perhaps this is a greater consequence than the harm caused to my land! Life is short and my friendships precious. What have I done?
I tried, as did some of the other farmers, to get out of our contracts, but we had signed a binding contract and a contract is a contract. If you are considering placing wind turbines on your property, I strongly recommend that you please reconsider. Study the issues. Think of all the harm versus benefits to your land and, in the future, to your children''s land by allowing companies to lease your land for turbines.
WHAT HAVE I DONE?
PLEASE DO NOT DO WHAT I HAVE DONE!
Courtesy of Windaction.Org
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Recommended reading
Acclaimed author Ian Wishart asks in Air Con: 1. Is global warming actually happening? 2. Is it caused by human activities? 3. Is there really anything we can do to prevent it? 4. Are climate scientists and the United Nations telling the truth? 5. What is really behind the push for the Copenhagen Treaty? The answers to these questions may shock you. Air Con is a must-read for every New Zealander, and is the most up-to-date book on global warming available in the world. With chapters like, "What Cars Did The Dinosaurs Drive?", and "Fancy A Cold Bear?" , this is an easy to read title using everyday language to explain the growing evidence against human-caused global warming.
In this engagingly written report by
Nina Pierpont, a Johns Hopkins University School of
Medicine trained M.D. and Princeton Ph.D.,
we discover wind energy’s dirty
little secret.
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Climate Change/ Global Warming
Disturbines News
Energy Related
Humour
Impact on Agriculture
Impact on livestock
Impact on Wildlife
Personal Experiences with Wind Turbines
Rangitikei Guardians
Turbine Health and Safety Aspects
Wind Turbine Accidents
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