Punters – who kills the wind power fraud first: the UK, Germany or Australia?

Discussion in 'News from around the damp planet' started by Earth's Internet, Jun 23, 2013.

  1. Earth's Internet

    Earth's Internet Junior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 21, 2012
    Messages:
    280
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    This was an interesting bit of News.

    Punters – who kills the wind power fraud first: the UK, Germany or Australia?


     
  2. annette

    annette Junior Member

    Joined:
    Jul 8, 2010
    Messages:
    889
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    16
    Interesting article EI. Even in my little neck of the woods, there is much discussion about the "cost" of solar on those that don't have it. Trying to cut through the spin, lies, vested interests and furphies about it all leaves the person in the street confused about the true value of solar. Replacement costs of systems installed combined with less generous subsidies in feed in tariffs (because it costs too much says the relevant governments) will impact on the overall use of solar in the future.

    I'm more for community energy, little hubs that are off grid. Technology needs to come a long way and government regulations need to allow it before that happens.
     
  3. Grasshopper

    Grasshopper Senior Member

    Joined:
    Nov 19, 2010
    Messages:
    1,016
    Likes Received:
    9
    Trophy Points:
    38
    I smell astro turfing
     
  4. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

    Joined:
    Nov 9, 2005
    Messages:
    2,922
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    0
  5. Earth's Internet

    Earth's Internet Junior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 21, 2012
    Messages:
    280
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Except that Peer Review has brought our present Natural World into the Crapper, hence the birth of philosophical movements like "PERMACULTURE".

    Rational Critical Thinking which is supposed to be a more enlightened form of modern understanding has also brought about a global circumstance of 'Critical Times Hard to Deal With'. Folks grasping at any newer movement forget that the people behind this new leadership push are just as imperfect and flawed as anyone else from the past. There is a big difference between the neutral discipline of original Science and the bastardized version of Corporate Science.

    -
     
  6. Grasshopper

    Grasshopper Senior Member

    Joined:
    Nov 19, 2010
    Messages:
    1,016
    Likes Received:
    9
    Trophy Points:
    38
    The web site you posted is the epitome of bastardised corporate science without peer review and part of the of philosophical movement of business as usual that has brought our present Natural World into the Crapper
     
  7. Earth's Internet

    Earth's Internet Junior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 21, 2012
    Messages:
    280
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Isn't that the point ?
     
  8. Grasshopper

    Grasshopper Senior Member

    Joined:
    Nov 19, 2010
    Messages:
    1,016
    Likes Received:
    9
    Trophy Points:
    38
    What point ?
     
  9. annette

    annette Junior Member

    Joined:
    Jul 8, 2010
    Messages:
    889
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    16
    From my point of view, I am finding that most supposed "truths" (conclusions arrived at whether they be peer reviewed or not) may be compromised by vested interests. Too many lies have been exposed over the years to believe something just because some scientific paper is peer reviewed etc. Everything is in question. For example, they say get the flu injection to prevent flu. Turns out 20 percent more people got the injection yet 80 percent more have gotten the flu. Statistics damn statistics?

    I don't think you can trust too much these days. If money is involved, all bets are off.
     
  10. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

    Joined:
    Nov 9, 2005
    Messages:
    2,922
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Annette, I appreciate your scepticism. Yes, 'everything is in question'. Nothing stands completely still in the scientific world. Even the peer-review process itself is up for review. No longer is there just the 'single-blind' peer-review. Now we can opt for 'double-blind', or even go for the fully 'transparent'.

    Concerning the concepts of 'belief' and 'trust': Personally, I 'believe' nothing. I support many positions, but I'm open to withdrawing that support at any time should scientific advances demand it. As for trust, I trust the peer-review system... up to a point. As is stated at the prestigious journal website, Nature:

    Mistakes are made, but peer review, through conscientious effort on the part of referees, helps to protect the literature, promote good science and select the best. Until a truly viable alternative is provided, we wouldn't have it any other way.
     
  11. Earth's Internet

    Earth's Internet Junior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 21, 2012
    Messages:
    280
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Agreed, I trusted Peer Review during my younger years of learning with regards forestry and habitat restoration. Let's face it, that's how we are indoctrinated during these modern times. When in my early youth in the late 1970s after graduation, I put to practice every Peer Reviewed concept I was taught with regards Forest rehabilitation and multiple things I practiced failed. The long time conventional thinking failed and the funny thing is, they are still clinging to it back over there in the States. And yet there are other Papers which say pretty much what I have said, and though Peer Reviewed, they are not excepted by mainstream. Nothing has necessarily been practiced other than what are called or labeled as "Pilot Programs", which I find fascinating because what was the point of the pilot program if not to make practical application of superior findings ? You'll find that most of the excepted Peer Review is what caters to Corporate Science. If there is no way to make a Buck off the idea, 'screw it' seems to be the attitude. Yet many things should be done not because there is a profit to be had, but because it's the right thing to do. This world unfortunately doesn't work that way.

    I just resigned from a discussion group last week which dealt with the subject of GMOs. It was headed by 4 pro-gmo Professors from University of British Columbia who were bent on indoctrinating the group on the pros of GMO. They used the same bogus justifications for GMO, like Genetic Modification has been going on for Centuries B.S. They should have known better, and when folks pointed out the obvious cowardly flaws with that comparison, they were deathly silent. The next bogus thing was BT Toxin occurs naturally and is organically certified to be used as a spray. All the while they continued to shove that often religious chant of "Peer Review" Peer Review". Yet when shown Peer Reviewed papers which contradicted their position, they were silent. One of them pointed out an article by a known Monsanto-Dow Chemical and Bayer P.R. Shill, Andy Caghlan @ New Scientist writing about some UK study in 2003 that showed no ill effects on the environment there. And they all ran with it. But what they wouldn't acknowledge was a 2004 UK Government long term study which showed otherwise. In fact some of my posts were deleted, like this one referencing this *cough-cough* "Peer Reviewed" link: https://esciencecentral.org/journals/JHTD/JHTD-1-104.pdf which shows that the BT Cry gene for the toxin in GMO plants is not the same as the natural bacterial toxin form occurs naturally in the environment, but is usually isolated from soil, insects and plant surfaces. Ultimately what they discovered was that Bt Toxins found in Monsanto Crops damage Red Blood Cells. But this two was ignored. What it boils down to is that the religious chant of "Peer Review" is thrown around by anyone wanting to promote an idea or justify a technology. Personally, when I research something and it's peer reviewed, I test it out. Even if it's something I really like and gravitate towards, I TEST IT OUT. Blind faith, which is supposed to have gone out with the advent of today's modern secularism is alive and well. It appears to be the new religion. I'm amazed at how many religious concepts have been incorporated by it's adherents when demonizing an old worldview in favour of the new.


    Swedish citizens are indoctrinated into believing whatever the government says about peer reviewed vaccinations. They spent million$ on that bogus supposedly peer reviewed Swine Flu vaccine in 2009. Now over 800 kids have narcolepsy which is an incurable sleeping disorder. Poland refused to spend any money on that vaccine and no one got sick beyond common ailments & no one die as a result. Ultimately, "Peer Review" is used for whatever purpose someone wants it to be.
     
  12. Grasshopper

    Grasshopper Senior Member

    Joined:
    Nov 19, 2010
    Messages:
    1,016
    Likes Received:
    9
    Trophy Points:
    38
    But the anti wind group is clearly an astro turfing tea partyesque, pro fossil fuel industry, BS feast and easy to pick
     
  13. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

    Joined:
    Feb 27, 2011
    Messages:
    2,984
    Likes Received:
    20
    Trophy Points:
    38
    I wonder if the DNS can be traced back to the Koch Brothers or some other rich idiots with no sense of right & wrong.
     
  14. Earth's Internet

    Earth's Internet Junior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 21, 2012
    Messages:
    280
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Over in the USA, most of the opposition is coming from the Environmental Groups. The government land give away policies for these large corporations have ruined a lot of pristine landscape there and it's not just wind power but also Solar Energy. The problem is that it's energy Corporation who want to continue to run run these energy Grids. They don't want independent or home produced energy. I won't see free because nothing is free. The Ocotillo Wind project in Southern California which has ruined a lot of valuable desert landscape has been shut down because of the flaws in the machinery or brand of Wind Turbines which they are using (Siemans) which I assume is a very well known company globally. Wind Turbine blades have blown off for no apparently logical reason, so most all operations around the country using these have been shut down. The ironic thing is that this particular area for the Turbine choice is a lousy area for constant winds. When I was down there two months ago, the area wind was calm the entire weekend and all Wind Turbine were at a stand still.

    The biggest controversy last year was the Government permission to shoot any endangered Peninsular Bighorn Sheep that got in the way. Also a government allowance of wind farms to be exempt from killing protected Eagles and Condors. So far from ecological, they actually damage the environment in multiple ways.


    -
     
  15. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

    Joined:
    Nov 9, 2005
    Messages:
    2,922
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Not according to the following, a list of the most respected 'environmental groups' in the USA:

    Sierra Club:

    Wind energy is the fastest-growing source of power on the planet. With our tremendous wind resources, the United States can become a world leader in wind energy. Today, there are more than 50 gigawatts of installed wind capacity, enough to provide electricity to 13 million American homes. States like Iowa and South Dakota already get 20 percent of their power from wind, and the Department of Energy says that we can get 20 percent of our power as a nation from wind energy alone by 2030.

    As a growing power source, wind energy provides a major economic development opportunity. Not only do farmers already harness the wind and sell the extra energy they generate for a profit, but wind farm development brings construction jobs, leasing royalties, and increased tax revenues to local communities. If the United States were to produce just 20 percent of its energy from wind, roughly 800,000 jobs would be created, annual property tax revenues would increase to $1.5 billion, and annual payments to rural landowners would increase to $600 million by 2030.


    Earth Policy Institute:

    Global wind power capacity is projected to at least double between 2011 and 2016, as mature players build on a sizable base and as more countries enter the market. The race is on to shift from finite and costly fossil fuels to renewables swiftly enough to avoid the disastrous consequences of runaway climate change. With its long list of attractive attributes—widespread and abundant, quick to scale, climate-benign, and zero fuel cost—wind power is driving the transition to a new energy economy.

    Environmental Working Group:

    Flying in the face of the overwhelming evidence that corn ethanol is causing more environmental damage than good, USDA and EPA have commenced discussions aimed at raising ethanol blending levels in the United States to as high as E15 from the current level of E10. The blend move comes as the ethanol industry faces hard economic realities despite lavish subsidies and tax breaks – federal support that should go to proven and clean renewable energy solutions like wind and solar.

    Natural Resources Defense Council:

    Stand underneath a wind turbine and it's easy to be awestruck.

    Above you is a structure as tall as a 30-story building, with turbines as large as a football field and blades rotating at over 200MPH on the tips. It is an impressive example of energy innovation, and yet one of these mammoth wind towers provides clean, renewable energy by a simple mechanical feat -- the spinning turbines turn a generator that provides power for hundreds of homes.

    Wind works. Over the past four decades, wind has provided an increasing amount of the energy we use. Today, wind farms generate about 50,000 megawatts of clean, renewable energy -- the equivalent of the energy produced by 12 Hoover Dams.

    As this report illustrates, clean, renewable energy is just the start of what we get from growing the number of wind farms across the country. The wind industry now employs 75,000 Americans. U.S. companies and their workers produce approximately 65 percent of every wind turbine part. Wind energy is giving American companies the chance to participate in a new and exciting global industries, American workers the chance to apply existing skills and seek new opportunities in a growing sector, and American communities the chance to prosper from truly clean, renewable energy.


    Energy Foundation:

    Renewable energy technologies such as wind, geothermal, solar, and biomass provide clean, domestic energy, and diversify our energy portfolio. We promote policies that harness market forces to make these technologies commercially competitive, such as state renewable power standards. We also promote policies that remove barriers, develop infrastructure, and drive down costs.

    U.S. coal-fired plants pollute our air and water, and are responsible for nearly 30 percent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. To decrease reliance on coal-fired power, we coordinate powerful networks of diverse allies, who have led the charge in states across the country to shut down coal plants and prevent new ones from being built. They help ensure that their communities benefit from clean air and water, and have the opportunity to choose renewable, efficient energy.
     
  16. Earth's Internet

    Earth's Internet Junior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 21, 2012
    Messages:
    280
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    This is hilarious. These organizations are nothing from what they once were. This is why there have been hundreds of fractional Environmental Group break offs because like everything else when it comes to this world's failed leadership(irrelevant which type of Institution example], people who put their FAITH in these promises by the leadership of such organizations feel betrayed when the original core beliefs are trashed in favour of financial gain and political or social status. Take just this well known failed example above. The Sierra Club is not what it once was or what John Muir envisioned it to one day become. This organization has taken $25 million+ from Big Oil organizations and has kept it's mouth shut on the wholesale destruction that are being caused by Industrial Wind and Solar Energy Farms. For example.

    [​IMG]

    Image taken from Environmentalism for the 1%

    They also provide a list of Environmental Groups -not connected to Big Government and Industry - which are actually documenting the destruction presently going on with Industrial Wind and Solar Farms for which Gov Subsidies , tax Breaks and free land grants, all of which are needed or no type of profit will ever generate enough money to pay for all that mess. Many of these Farms have been shut down while I visited because of dangerous malfunctions and environmental hazards. The newest of these which are mostly idle anyway is the Ocotillo site where I personally went to two months ago. No wind and lifeless worthless windmills.
     
  17. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

    Joined:
    Nov 9, 2005
    Messages:
    2,922
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Thanks for the clarification re: 'environmental groups'. I might add, just like no two environmental groups are the same, neither are two wind energy projects. Unfortunately, knowing this does not stop the authors of the website linked to in the OP from going down the same path. For example, take their opposition to Hepburn Wind, Australis first community-owned wind energy facility. Which, I might add, is totally without credible, peer-reviewed scientific merit. This is not to say that I do not personally feel empathic toward the people who state they have become ill because of the facility, for I do. It's just that until such time as credible, peer-reviewed scientific evidence is produced to support the claims made by proponents of the so-called Wind Turbine Syndrome, there is absolutely nothing that I (nor anyone else) can rationally do to help them in their plight. Currently, as the evidenced-based regulation decrees, there is no noise issue. On that point, Hepburn Wind have been subjected to one of the most scrutinised and to their merit, transparent statutory planning processes for of project of this size in Australia that I have ever come across. It's also for this reason why I'm going to use it as a case study in one of the units I teach into.
     
  18. Earth's Internet

    Earth's Internet Junior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 21, 2012
    Messages:
    280
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    -

    Birdwatchers flock to see rare bird, then watch it killed by wind turbine


     
  19. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

    Joined:
    Nov 9, 2005
    Messages:
    2,922
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I didn't bother to watch it, but I'm sure it is very impressive.

    As a general response, I appreciate the concerns some people may hold regarding industrial wind energy facilities. Indeed, I share many of them. Concerning the one of the many as was pointed out above: 'bird strike'. On this particular topic, please allow me to elaborate. Certainly, there will be casualties, and it pains me no-end to witness these. However, the projected rate of bird death as a result of human induced climate change by far pales in comparison to the currently observed rate of death as a result of wind turbines. In simple terms: 'Every wind turbine built means less bird deaths'. This is what, in a very large part, is missing from the wider, popular debate: Clear, concise, non-emotional and evidence-based facts. But I live in hope...

    For those that may be interested, some extremely nuanced discussion pertaining to the topic of bird strike recently occurred here.
     
  20. Earth's Internet

    Earth's Internet Junior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 21, 2012
    Messages:
    280
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    What upset me even more was the early posting of this on a British News site and the stupid asinine comments of readers making fun of it. People disconnected from the reality of the real world are what Industrial Corporate entities count on.

    -
     

Share This Page

-->