SOSS Editor Notes: In a week of shocking actions by the current administration...sadly this is just one of many! This is appalling! And clearly shows they fully expect to kill one of the worlds rarest birds with Wind Turbines! Industrialization of our open spaces accelrates!
In a reversal that has outraged environmentalists, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced it will not penalize a Southern California wind operator if its turbines kill or injure one California condor. One of the world's most critically endangered animals with fewer than 250 birds in the wild, the condor's range in the Tehachapi Mountains is being encroached on by intensive wind turbine development.
FWS biologist Ray Bransfield told ReWire that FWS has completed its Biological Opinion (BiOp) on condors for Google and Citicorp's Alta East project, which would be built and operated by wind developer Terra-Gen. Occupying 2,592 acres, mostly on public lands, near the intersection of state routes 14 and 58 in Kern County, Alta East would generate a maximum of 318 megawatts of electrical power with 106 wind turbines, each with 190-foot-long blades.
FWS's BiOp for Alta East includes an "incidental take statement" that in effect allows one "lethal take" of a California condor. "Incidental take" of a protected species is a term of art covering any kind of injury, harassment or disturbance, or even habitat damage that a project causes inadvertently. "Lethal take" is when the species in question dies. If the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) approves the project, FWS would require formal re-review of the project's impact on condors if a single condor is killed over the 30-year operating life of the facility.
According to FWS, other wind developers are welcome to apply for similar permits. "This is the first time we've authorized incidental takes of California condors -- and we're approaching them very cautiously," said FWS Director Dan Ashe in an interview with Louis Sahagun of the Los Angeles Times.
According to FWS press spokesperson Stephanie Weagley, the BiOp was issued approximately a week ago and delivered to the BLM, which is in the process of determining whether to approve Alta East. Standard practice dictates that BiOps for a project are made public when the lead agency -- the BLM, in this case -- issues a Record Of Decision on the project. Attempts by ReWire to obtain an advance copy of the Alta East condor BiOp have so far been unsuccessful.
Condors are especially threatened by the new generation of wind turbines because they fly slowly, their 9-foot wingspans making them somewhat slow to maneuver. They tend to soar while watching the ground, searching for activity of other scavengers. This habit makes them vulnerable to injury from blade tips approaching from above, often at speeds exceeding 150 miles per hour.
Alta East has come under heavy scrutiny for its threat to condors in the east Tehachapis. It's far from the only wind facility that poses such a threat: the area has seen startling growth in wind installations in the last four years, many of those installations every bit as much a threat to California's largest bird. According to Bransfield, the Alta East facility is the first to come up for incidental take consideration because it occupies BLM land. Asked in email whether this pending incidental take permit offered a precedent for neighboring facilities, Bransfield told ReWire:
Our biological opinion (and the incidental take statement included in the biological opinion) are specific to this project. We would need to evaluate any future projects on their own merits; therefore, I do not have an answer to that question. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that numerous wind projects are already in operation in this area; none of them applied for an incidental take permit from the Service; also, none of them are on Federal land, so this is the first to undergo consultation.
Of the 132 free-flying condors in California as of March 2013, nearly half -- 65 birds -- live in the Tehachapis, well within an easy day's flight of the burgeoning wind developments in the vicinity of Alta East. And according to telemetry from the transmitters worn by many of the birds, they're moving right up against the Tehachapi Wind Energy Area -- and in many cases flying across it.
Recent condor GPS locations mapped near wind development areas in the Western Mojave | Map: FWS
The revelation of the pending take permit caught many wildlife protection activists by surprise, and several told ReWire that it was difficult to offer a measured response on behalf of their organizations without access to the text of the BiOp. But the reaction of Center for Biological Diversity attorney Adam Keats quoted in Friday's Times article aptly summarized most of the sentiment ReWire found among activists: "This is a sad day for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service," Keats told the Times. "We're talking about perhaps one of the most endangered species on the planet, let alone in this country."
"It's premature and inappropriate," said condor expert Sophie Osborn, wildlife program director for the Wyoming Outdoor Council and author of "Condors in Canyon Country: The Return of the California Condor to the Grand Canyon Region." Osborn, who managed the Peregrine Fund's involvement with the Grand Canyon condor reintroduction for many years, told ReWire that the incidental take permit flies in the face of what we know about how to help birds survive wind energy development. "Proper siting means finding out which areas pose less threat to birds. It means not putting turbines in high use areas, not allowing development in places that have heavy wildlife traffic."
"This just seems like a recipe for losing condors," she added.
Osborn also took issue with a statement by Dan Ashe quoted in Louis Sahagun's Los Angeles Times piece, in which the FWS chief said "The good news is that we have an expanding population of condors, which are also expanding their range."
"The reason we have an expanding population is that we're breeding and releasing condors," said Osborn. "That doesn't offer an accurate picture of how they're doing once they're released."
If a condor is killed at Alta East during that 30-year period, the BLM will have to do what's known in the endangered species business as "reinitiating formal consultation" -- essentially restarting the process by which FWS determines whether a project will jeopardize the existence of an endangered species.
That's a reassuring-sounding prospect: FWS will assess whether a project that has killed an endangered animal poses further threat to the species. The process is often less reassuring in practice than it is in theory. Endangered species advocates were hoping for a "jeopardy" finding when solar developer BrightSource started finding hundreds more federally threatened desert tortoises on the site of its Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System than were forecast in that project's BiOp. The original BiOp and take permit allowed BrightSource to kill, harm, harass, or disturb no more than 40 tortoises. Once it was clear there were a lot more tortoises than that onsite, BLM estimated as many as 2,862 tortoises (including eggs) could be harmed by the project. Despite the 70-fold increase in potential "takes," FWS merely required a few changes to the project's tortoise relocation plan and issued a revised BiOp that allowed construction to proceed.
Reviewing a project's impact on condors after a single death may seem fairly stringent by comparison to the Ivanpah tortoise example, but compared to a year in prison and a fine of $100,000 -- the existing penalties under the Endangered Species Act for killing a condor -- it's definitely getting off easy. And the number of remaining tortoises in the Ivanpah Valley, as beleaguered as they are, is many times higher than the entire population of California condors worldwide.
This is an abrupt about-face for FWS, whose representatives were stating as recently as last year that issuing lethal take permits for the California condor to wind developers -- or anyone -- was out of the question. In a 2011 letter regarding Alta East sent to Jacqueline Kitchen of the Kern County Planning and Community Development Department -- and included as a public comment in the project's Final Environmental Impact Statement -- FWS's Assistant Field Supervisor Carl Benz said that "we consider avoidance of mortality of California condors to be the only acceptable conservation strategy at this point in time." That was the same point in time in which FWS was rebuking Kern County for downplaying the existence of condors on the site of a different proposed wind project. In a letter to the county's Board of Supervisors, Diane Noda -- Field Supervisor of the FWS Ventura office -- warned the county that careless approval of enXco's 350-megawatt Catalina wind project could land the county in hot water with regard to illegal take of condors, adding "We cannot envision a situation where we would permit the lethal take of California condors."
The decision also marks a change from policy stated recently in the behemoth Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP), an overarching Habitat Conservation Plan in the works for the California Desert, being prepared by FWS in cooperation with the California Energy Commission (CEC), the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). As recently as this past January, this is what the DRECP's planning documents had to say about the idea that wind developers would be granted permission to "take" condors:
Based on best available information for the California condor, it is anticipated that no lethal take would be authorized for condor, but that the DRECP would promote conservation of the species.
So what prompted this volte-face on FWS's part? It's hard to tell without looking at the Biological Opinion, which has not so far been made publicly accessible. Stephanie Weagley told ReWire that a commitment by Terra-Gen to implement a condor warning system played a role in FWS writing the first-ever incidental take statement for California condors.
"These measures include... a system to detect condors flying in the vicinity of the project [and] curtailment of operation prior to any bird entering the area of the wind turbines," Weagley told ReWire.
What this likely means, given the flaws inherent in standard detection tech such as bird radar, is that Terra-Gen has agreed to use a system that will detect the radio transmitters worn by many condors and slow their turbines when the alarm signals the birds' approach.
Those transmitters are worn by many condors. They are not worn by every condor. A double-digit percentage of condors in California may be without transmitters, and those with them may stop signaling due to equipment failure. "Transmitters often have failed batteries," Sophie Osborn points out. "They fall off. It's a hell of a lot of work to capture condors to attach new transmitters, especially if the condors in question aren't habituated to food subsidies. It can take weeks or months to recapture a condor whose transmitter has failed, or to capture a fledgling that's never had one attached. It takes a big commitment of people on the ground to do the work."
Condors' social behavior may offer some level of "herd immunity" to windmill strikes in that radio-silent condors will often be accompanying those with transmitters. But that's not by any means a certainty. Eventually, Terra-Gen will have to find some other way of detecting condors, and no reliable way other than constant live observation really exists.
FWS's Stephanie Weagley points out that this reality is in part what drove the Alta East BiOp's findings. "Because the detection system is not fool-proof," said Weagley, "the Service's biological opinion on the proposed action anticipates the lethal take of a single condor over the 30 year life of the project."
If condors do move into the area in increasing numbers, that poses another problem with mitigation through detection. Wind turbine operators are in business to sell power. If they're obliged to cut their output drastically every time a condor flies by, and if condors start flying by more than a few days a year, that cuts into profits, and into investors' income, and into the creditworthiness of the operator. The temptation to err on the side of threat to condors will grow with the local condor population.
And that threat may involve a single condor only rarely. Condors are intensely social animals -- one biologist has called them "primates with feathers." The birds tend to gather in huge flocks at a carcass, and they can assemble those huge flocks quickly, as shown in these camera trap images caught just a few moments apart:
Photo: FWS
Photo: FWS
It may turn out to be hard to kill only one California condor by accident.
Fish and Wildlife Director Daniel Ashe said the decision reflects a difficult reality. The threat of prosecution jeopardized the construction of large-scale alternative energy facilities... in the wild and windy places preferred by condors.
Which observation prompted one commenter on social media to point out in exasperated all-caps: "YES THAT IS WHAT IT IS SUPPOSED TO DO."
Obama administration allows wind farms to kill eagles, birds, despite federal laws
The Associated Press
Wind farms in this corner of Wyoming have killed more than four dozen golden eagles since 2009, one of the deadliest places in the country of its kind.
But so far, the companies operating industrial-sized turbines here and elsewhere that are killing eagles and other protected birds have yet to be fined or prosecuted - even though every death is a criminal violation.
The Obama administration has charged oil companies for drowning birds in their waste pits, and power companies for electrocuting birds on power lines.
But the administration has never fined or prosecuted a wind-energy company, even those that flout the law repeatedly.
"What it boils down to is this: If you electrocute an eagle, that is bad, but if you chop it to pieces, that is OK," said Tim Eicher, a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service enforcement agent based in Cody.
It's a double standard that some Republicans in Congress said Tuesday they would examine after an Associated Press investigation revealed that the Obama administration has shielded the wind power industry from liability and helped keep the scope of the deaths secret.
"We obviously don't want to see indiscriminate killing of birds from any sort of energy production, yet the administration's ridiculous inconsistencies begs questioning and clarity— clarity on why wind energy producers are let off the hook," said Sen. David Vitter, R-La.
The House Natural Resources Committee, which was at the beginning stages of an investigation, vowed to dig deeper Tuesday.
"There are serious concerns that the Obama administration is not implementing this law fairly and equally," said Jill Strait, a spokeswoman for the committee's chairman, Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash.
Wind power, a pollution-free energy intended to ease global warming, is a cornerstone of President Barack Obama's energy plan. His administration has championed a $1 billion-a-year tax break to the industry that has nearly doubled the amount of wind power in his first term.
"Climate change is really greatest threat that we see to species conservation in long run," said Fish and Wildlife Service director Dan Ashe in an interview with the AP on Monday. "We have an obligation to support well-designed renewable energy."
But like the oil industry under President George W. Bush, lobbyists and executives have used their favored status to help steer U.S. energy policy.
The result is a green industry that's allowed to do not-so-green things.
More than 573,000 birds are killed by the country's wind farms each year, including 83,000 hunting birds such as hawks, falcons and eagles, according to an estimate published in March in the peer-reviewed Wildlife Society Bulletin.
Getting precise figures is impossible because many companies aren't required to disclose how many birds they kill. And when they do, experts say, the data can be unreliable.
When companies voluntarily report deaths, the Obama administration in many cases refuses to make the information public, saying it belongs to the energy companies or that revealing it would expose trade secrets or implicate ongoing enforcement investigations.
Nearly all the birds being killed are protected under federal environmental laws, which prosecutors have used to generate tens of millions of dollars in fines and settlements from businesses, including oil and gas companies, over the past five years.
"We are all responsible for protecting our wildlife, even the largest of corporations," Colorado U.S. Attorney David M. Gaouette said in 2009 when announcing Exxon Mobil had pleaded guilty and would pay $600,000 for killing 85 birds in five states, including Wyoming.
The large death toll at wind farms shows how the renewable energy rush comes with its own environmental consequences, trade-offs the Obama administration is willing to make in the name of cleaner energy.
"It is the rationale that we have to get off of carbon, we have to get off of fossil fuels, that allows them to justify this," said Tom Dougherty, a long-time environmentalist who worked for nearly 20 years for the National Wildlife Federation in the West, until his retirement in 2008. "But at what cost? In this case, the cost is too high."
The Obama administration has refused to accept that cost when the fossil-fuel industry is to blame. The BP oil company was fined $100 million for killing and harming migratory birds during the 2010 Gulf oil spill. And PacifiCorp, which operates coal plants in Wyoming, paid more than $10.5 million in 2009 for electrocuting 232 eagles along power lines and at its substations.
But PacifiCorp also operates wind farms in the state, where at least 20 eagles have been found dead in recent years, according to corporate surveys submitted to the federal government and obtained by the AP. They've neither been fined nor prosecuted. A spokesman for PacifiCorp, which is a subsidiary of MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. of Des Moines, Iowa, said that's because its turbines may not be to blame.
By not enforcing the law, the administration provides little incentive for companies to build wind farms where there are fewer birds. And while companies already operating turbines are supposed to avoid killing birds, in reality there's little they can do once the windmills are spinning.
Wind farms are clusters of turbines as tall as 30-story buildings, with spinning rotors as wide as a passenger jet's wingspan. Though the blades appear to move slowly, they can reach speeds up to 170 mph at the tips, creating tornado-like vortexes.
Flying eagles behave like drivers texting on their cellphones; they don't look up. As they scan for food, they don't notice the industrial turbine blades until it's too late.
The rehabilitation coordinator for the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program, Michael Tincher, said he euthanized two golden eagles found starving and near death near wind farms. Both had injuries he'd never seen before: One of their wings appeared to be twisted off.
"There is nothing in the evolution of eagles that would come near to describing a wind turbine. There has never been an opportunity to adapt to that sort of threat," said Grainger Hunt, an eagle expert who researches the U.S. wind-power industry's deadliest location, a northern California area known as Altamont Pass. Wind farms built there decades ago kill more than 60 per year.
Eagle deaths have forced the Obama administration into a difficult choice between its unbridled support for wind energy and enforcing environmental laws that could slow the industry's growth.
Former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, in an interview with the AP before his departure, denied any preferential treatment for wind. Interior Department officials said that criminal prosecution, regardless of the industry, is always a "last resort."
"There's still additional work to be done with eagles and other avian species, but we are working on it very hard," Salazar said. "We will get to the right balance."
Meanwhile, the Obama administration has proposed a rule that would give wind-energy companies potentially decades of shelter from prosecution for killing eagles. The regulation is currently under review at the White House.
The proposal, made at the urging of the wind-energy industry, would allow companies to apply for 30-year permits to kill a set number of bald or golden eagles. Previously, companies were only eligible for five-year permits.
In exchange for the longer timetable, companies agree that if they kill more eagles than allowed, the government could require them to make changes. But the administration recently said it would cap how much a company could be forced to spend on finding ways to reduce the number of eagles its facility is killing.
The Obama administration said the longer permit was needed to "facilitate responsible development of renewable energy" while "continuing to protect eagles."
A similar explanation was given when the Fish and Wildlife Service recently authorized the killing of a single California condor, an endangered species, by a proposed wind farm in California. It also authorized a real estate developer to disturb four birds for its project.
That's because without a long-term authorization to kill eagles, investors are less likely to finance an industry that's violating the law.
Typically, the government would be forced to study the environmental effects of such a regulation before implementing it. In this case, though, the Obama administration avoided a full review, saying the policy was nothing more than an "administrative change."
"It's basically guaranteeing a black box for 30 years, and they're saying 'trust us for oversight.' This is not the path forward," said Katie Umekubo, a renewable energy attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council and a former lawyer for the Fish and Wildlife Service. In private meetings with industry and government leaders in recent months, environmental groups have argued that the 30-year permit needed an in-depth environmental review.
The tactics have created an unexpected rift between the administration and major environmental groups favoring green energy that, until the eagle rule, had often been on the same side as the wind industry.
Those conservation groups that have been critical of the administration's stance from the start, such as the American Bird Conservancy, have often been cut out of the behind-the-scenes discussions and struggled to obtain information on bird deaths at wind farms.
"There are no seats at the exclusive decision-making table for groups that want the wind industry to be held accountable for the birds it kills," said Kelly Fuller, who works on wind issues for the group.
The eagle rule is not the first time the administration has made concessions for the wind-energy industry.
Last year, over objections from some of its own wildlife investigators and biologists, the Interior Department updated its guidelines and provided more cover for wind companies that violate the law.
The administration and some environmentalists say that was the only way to exact some oversight over an industry that operates almost exclusively on private land and generates no pollution, and therefore is exposed to little environmental regulation.
Under both the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, the death of a single bird without a permit is illegal.
But under the Obama administration's new guidelines, wind-energy companies — and only wind-energy companies — are held to a different standard. Their facilities don't face additional scrutiny until they have a "significant adverse impact" on wildlife or habitat. But under both bird protection laws, any impact has to be addressed.
The rare exception for one industry substantially weakened the government's ability to enforce the law and ignited controversy inside the Interior Department.
"U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service does not do this for the electric utility industry or other industries," Kevin Kritz, a government wildlife biologist in the Rocky Mountain region wrote in government records in September 2011. "Other industries will want to be judged on a similar standard."
Experts working for the agency in California and Nevada wrote in government records in June 2011 that the new federal guidelines should be considered as though they were put together by corporations, since they "accommodate the renewable energy industry's proposals, without due accountability."
The Obama administration, however, repeatedly overruled its experts at the Fish and Wildlife Service. In the end, the wind-energy industry, which was part of the committee that drafted and edited the guidelines, got almost everything it wanted.
"Clearly, there was a bias to wind energy in their favor because they are a renewable source of energy, and justifiably so," said Rob Manes, who runs the Kansas office for The Nature Conservancy and who served on the committee. "We need renewable energy in this country."
The government also declared that senior officials in Washington, many of whom are political appointees, must approve any wind-farm prosecution. Normally, law-enforcement agents in the field have the authority to file charges with federal attorneys.
While all big cases are typically cleared through headquarters, such a blanket policy has never been applied to an entire industry, former officials said.
"It's over," Eicher said. "You'll never see a prosecution now."
Not so, says the Fish and Wildlife Service. It said it is investigating 18 bird-death cases involving wind-power facilities, and seven have been referred to the Justice Department. A spokesman for the Justice Department declined to discuss the status of those cases.
Ashe said his agency always made it clear to wind companies that if they kill birds they could still be liable.
"We are not allowing them to do it. They do it," he said of the bird deaths. "And we will successfully prosecute wind companies if they are in significant noncompliance."
But officials acknowledge that their priority is cooperating with companies before wind farms are built to encourage them to be put where they won't harm birds. Once they are built, there is little companies can do except shut down turbines or remove them — and that means reducing the amount of electricity they generate and violating deals struck with companies purchasing their electricity.
By contrast, there are easy fixes for oil companies and companies operating power lines to stop killing birds. The government often requests companies take such steps before it decides to prosecute.
"We just can't be bringing a criminal case against a company that is up and running if there is not a solution," said Jill Birchell, head of the Fish and Wildlife Service law enforcement office in California and Nevada. "We can fine them, but that doesn't help eagles."
In the meantime, birds continue to die. The golden eagle population in the West, prior to the wind energy boom, was declining so much that the government's conservation goal in 2009 was not to allow the eagle population to decrease by a single bird.
The reason boils down to biology. Eagles take five years to reach the age when they can reproduce, and often they only produce one chick a year.
In its defense, the wind-energy industry points out that more eagles are killed each year by cars, electrocutions and poisoning than by turbines.
Ashe noted that the government doesn't require other industrial facilities to disclose the numbers of birds they kill.
Documents and emails obtained by the AP offer glimpses of the problem: 14 deaths at seven facilities in California, five each in New Mexico and Oregon, one in Washington state and another in Nevada, where an eagle was found with a hole in its neck, exposing the bone.
Unlike the estimates, these are hard numbers, proof of deaths, the beginnings of a mosaic revealing the problem.
One of the deadliest places in the country for golden eagles is Wyoming, where federal officials said wind farms have killed more than 50 golden eagles since 2009, predominantly in the southeastern part of the state. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the figures.
At a different facility, Duke Energy's Top of the World wind farm, a 17,000-acre site with 110 turbines located about 35 miles east of Casper, 10 eagles have been killed in the first two years of operation. It is the deadliest of Duke's 15 wind power plants for eagles.
The company's environmental director for renewable energy, Tim Hayes, said Duke is doing all it can, not only because it wants to fix the problem but because it could reduce the company's liability. Two of the company's wind farms in Wyoming — Top of the World and Campbell Hill — are under investigation by the federal government for the deaths of golden eagles and other birds, according to a report the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week. The report was filed after the AP visited a Duke facility in Wyoming and asked senior executives about the deaths.
Duke encourages workers to drive slower so as not to scare eagles from their roosts. They remove dead animals that eagles eat. And they've removed rock piles where the bird's prey lives. They also keep internal data on every dead bird in order to determine whether these efforts are working. The company is also testing radar technology to detect eagles and is considering blaring loud noises to prevent the birds from flying into danger.
The only other option is shutting off the turbines when eagles approach. And even that method hasn't been scientifically proven to work.
At Top of the World, Duke shut down 13 turbines for a week in March, often the deadliest time for eagles. The experiment, the company says, paid off. Not a single eagle was killed that month.
Hayes says the company has repeatedly sought a permit from the federal government to kill eagles legally, but was told it was killing too many to qualify.
When an eagle is killed, Duke employees are also prohibited by law from removing the carcass.
Each death is a tiny crime scene. So workers walk out underneath the spinning rotors and cover the dead bird with a tarp. It lies there, protected from scavengers but decaying underneath its shroud, until someone from the government comes to get it.
If you had told environmentalists on Election Day 2008 that four years later there’d be no successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, that a Democratic Congress would not have enacted any meaningful climate legislation, that domestic oil production would be soaring even after a catastrophic offshore oil spill, and that the environmental community would be having a lively internal debate about whether it should support reviving nuclear power, most might have marched into the ocean to drown themselves. Yet that’s the state of play four months into President Obama’s second term.
Start with climate change. Early in March, the hacker or leaker of the two email caches from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia that rocked the climate science world in 2009 and again in 2011 released the remaining batch of material. The news produced barely a shrug even among climate skeptics, partly because the file contains 220,000 emails and documents (as opposed to about 1,000 in round one, and 5,000 in round two), making it impossible to review comprehensively. But it also appears unnecessary, as the climate change story has been overtaken by facts on the ground. Most significant: The pause in global warming—now going on 15 years—has become so obvious that many of the leading climate scientists are grudgingly admitting that global warming has stopped. James Hansen, who recently stepped down as NASA’s chief climate scientist to become a full-time private sector alarmist, is among those admitting that the recent temperature record has flatlined.
After two decades of steady and substantial global temperature increase from 1980 to 1998, the pause in warming is causing a crisis for the climate crusade. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. The recent temperature record is falling distinctly to the very low end of the range predicted by the climate models and may soon fall out of it, which means the models are wrong, or, at the very least, something is going on that supposedly “settled” science hasn’t been able to settle. Equally problematic for the theory, one place where the warmth might be hiding—the oceans—is not cooperating with the story line. Recent data show that ocean warming has noticeably slowed, too.
These inconvenient data are causing the climate science community to reconsider the issue of climate sensitivity—that is, how much warming greenhouse gases actually cause—as I predicted would happen in these pages three years ago: “Eventually the climate modeling community is going to have to reconsider the central question: Have the models the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] uses for its predictions of catastrophic warming overestimated the climate’s sensitivity to greenhouse gases?”
A steady stream of scientific studies (often government-funded) published in peer-reviewed scientific journals that conclude climate sensitivity is overestimated were ignored by the media, with the notable exception of New York Timesscience blogger Andrew Revkin. But the media blackout was broken in dramatic fashion by the Economist in its March 30 edition, with a long feature about the growing doubts over the catastrophic warming projections that have been the lifeblood of the climate campaign. The Economist reviewed a number of new findings that conclude the likely range of future warming will be much more modest—and manageable—than the Al Gores of the world have been claiming.
That the Economist would break with the pack is significant because the august British newsweekly had been among the most prominent media voices beating the drum for climate catastrophe and radical action to suppress hydrocarbon energy. Now it offers this zinger: “If climate scientists were credit-rating agencies, climate sensitivity would be on negative watch.” A Reuters story last week notes that scientists are “struggling” to explain the pause in warming. Expect other media to follow—if they continue to give the issue much coverage at all. The New York Times shut down its environment news desk in January and discontinued its Green Blog in March, concessions to the fact that readers are thoroughly bored with the issue. Recent opinion surveys find that public concern about climate change is at 20-year lows, not just in the United States but almost everywhere.
But it may not have mattered whether these troubles came to the climate campaign. Even if the full-monty doom and gloom case still looked persuasive, the massive and unexpected resurgence of hydrocarbon energy over the last few years has made the green dream of hydrocarbon energy suppression more implausible than ever, chiefly because the “renewable” alternatives are still so much more expensive, inferior in performance, and inadequate to our energy needs. The boom in natural gas production is being accompanied by an equally substantial boom in domestic oil production for the same reason—advances in directional drilling technology and hydraulic fracturing.
Domestic oil production has reversed its long slow decline—heretofore thought irreversible by every public and private forecast—and is at its highest level in more than 20 years. The International Energy Agency forecasts that the United States is on its way to becoming the world’s top oil producer, without, it is worth noting, opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or large new areas of offshore reserves that have been the center of contention for the last 30 years. Barack Obama has done what any clever politician would do: claim credit for the boom, even though most of the new activity has occurred on private and state land. Obama’s regulators are still slow-walking permit applications for drilling on federal land. It has to be awfully discouraging for environmentalists to have won most of those access fights but still find U.S. oil production soaring.
The consequences for the U.S. energy picture are staggering. Oil imports have fallen by one-third over the last five years; the sour economy accounts for less than half of this decline. The United States is within striking distance of doing without Middle Eastern oil if it wishes. Although Europe and Asia have lagged the United States in deploying new technology to unlock oil and gas, they are catching up quickly. The “peak oil” hypothesis looks more and more like the population bomb, imminent resource exhaustion, and other busted Malthusian forecasts of the 1970s.
Meanwhile, renewable energy—wind, solar, and biofuels—is sputtering everywhere, as one would expect of any product wholly dependent on subsidies in a time of budgetary constraints. Tax credits and subsidies for wind and solar power survived the fiscal cliff deal on January 1, the result of some fancy footwork by renewable lobbyists months before, but aren’t likely to survive much longer. In Europe, subsidies for renewable energy are being cut just about everywhere. Britain, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, the Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, and Poland have all announced cuts in renewable energy subsidies; South Africa, India, and China, too. At the same time, Europe’s carbon emissions trading scheme—the cornerstone of its climate policy—is near collapse. On April 16, the European parliament narrowly voted down a last-minute attempt to rescue the sagging carbon-trading system. Most investment banks that jumped on the carbon-trading bandwagon have closed their carbon desks. It may yet survive, but it has almost no enthusiastic support. On top of everything else, coal use in Europe is actually on the rise, some of it imported from the United States.
Despite these relentless setbacks for the climate campaign, environmentalists are not going gentle into this well-lit night, nor will they abandon their decades-old crusade to kill off hydrocarbon energy. The movement is too well funded, and has established ample footholds in the policy machinery stretching down to the local level in the United States. Having a “climate action policy” is de rigueur for just about every self-respecting city council and county commission in the country, typically raising numerous regulatory hurdles for new development. Moreover, the fallback position for the climateers—Environmental Protection Agency regulation under the Clean Air Act—is just getting into high gear, though “high gear” for the EPA is an excruciatingly slow process.
And that process just got a bit slower. Last year the EPA announced a draft of “new performance standards” for power plant greenhouse gas emissions that would have the practical effect of making it impossible to build new coal-fired power plants, except with unproven and uneconomical carbon sequestration technology. Only natural gas plants could meet the new standard. The EPA was supposed to finalize the rule a week ago, but withdrew it at the last minute, probably because the proposed rule was unlikely to survive a legal challenge. The EPA has solid legal ground to develop greenhouse gas regulations (unfortunately), but an arbitrary anti-coal rule might have been tossed out in court just about the time a new president arrives in town four years from now—perhaps a Republican who would scupper the whole thing. The EPA has not announced a timetable for a revised rule, but the new EPA administrator-designate, the true-believing Gina McCarthy, will no doubt push hard for aggressive regulations. The EPA is already talking about tough new performance standards for existing coal plants over the next 18 months.
The most high profile energy controversy remains the Keystone XL pipeline. Obama punted on a decision before the election, and now that the State Department’s latest environmental review gave the project a thumbs up, he’s in a difficult political spot. If he okays the pipeline, his vocal environmental supporters, such as Tom Steyer, the anti-Keystone San Francisco billionaire who hosted a fundraiser for the president two weeks ago, will go berserk. But the business community, organized labor, a solid Senate majority, and, according to polls, a solid majority of the public, favor Keystone. The Canadian government, after observing a cautious stance of staying out of domestic American politics, has started making unusual public noises that a denial of Keystone will strain relations. Obama can’t vote “present” on Keystone forever.
What he may do is tentatively approve Keystone along with a major policy shift that will please environmentalists and subject Keystone to further and perhaps fatal delays. There is talk that the administration may expand the scope of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to require that proposed projects like Keystone document their impact on global warming in the permit approval process. It would be a bonanza for environmental lawyers, who would have new grounds for filing lawsuits to challenge the adequacy of environmental impact statements. Activists have implicated global warming in everything from AIDS to zoonotic diseases (see The Warmlist, www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm, for a complete dossier), so environmental impact statements could become multivolume affairs with endless court challenges and costly “mitigation” steps required for permits.
While this might thrill environmentalists, it risks a major backlash. The problem with environmental statutes such as NEPA, the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act is that taken literally they could prohibit almost all human activity. Environmental regulation has always been subject to realistic political constraints, though regulators strain at the leash to see how much they can get away with. This slow, insidious process tends to go on regardless of which party occupies the White House. But an overreach by Obama could finally prompt Congress to consider revising the basic statutes that give regulators so much leeway. The landmark environmental statutes of the 1970s have been politically sacrosanct, but red state Democrats would surely not be fond of a dramatic expansion of environmental regulation.
The final unexpected aspect of the global hydrocarbon renaissance is that it is starting to cause a few environmentalists to have second thoughts about . . . nuclear power. For nearly 30 years nuclear power was the only form of energy environmentalists despised more than hydrocarbons. But even with Japan’s nuclear power plant disaster of 2011, some environmentalists have come to see a positive tradeoff of nuclear power over coal and natural gas. James Hansen recently co-authored a paper concluding that nuclear power has saved 1.8 million lives over coal and gas-fired alternative electricity sources since 1970, and will prevent 7 million deaths by midcentury if it supplants a significant portion of fossil fuel electricity. In June a new documentary film, Pandora’s Promise, will feature prominent environmentalists, such as Stewart Brand, who have changed their mind on nuclear power. The film was screened to good reviews at the most recent Sundance Film Festival; apparently the resolutely anti-nuke host, Robert Redford, hadn’t noticed it on the program. But there’s a lot the old fossils of environmentalism don’t notice these days, starting with the dead-end road they’ve hit.
Steven F. Hayward is the Thomas Smith fellow at the Ashbrook Center, and the William Simon distinguished visiting professor at Pepperdine University’s Graduate School of Public Policy.
Posted April 23, 2013, at 11:38 a.m.
Last modified April 23, 2013, at 4:30 p.m.
Jim Anderberg
A fire on Jan. 16, 2013, destroyed this turbine at TransCanada's Kibby Mountain wind farm. A cause of the fire is still unknown, according to a company spokesman.
Jim Anderberg
A fire on Jan. 16, 2013, destroyed this turbine -- one of 44 at TransCanada's Kibby Mountain wind farm in northern Franklin County.
A fire destroyed a multimillion-dollar wind turbine at the Kibby Mountain wind farm in northern Franklin County, which has generated concern about the safety and reliability of turbines, and the process by which these fires are reported to government officials and the public.
Companies that operate wind farms in Maine are not currently required to report turbine fires to any state agency.
TransCanada, the Calgary-based energy company that built the 44-turbine Kibby Mountain wind farm in 2010, confirmed for the Bangor Daily News that a fire in the early morning hours of Jan. 16 destroyed one of its wind turbines — primarily the nacelle, which is the rectangular structure behind the blades that holds the gearbox and electrical components. With the capacity to generate 132 megawatts of electricity, Kibby Mountain is the largest wind farm in New England. (TransCanada is also the company behind the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline proposal.)
The fire’s aftermath troubles Bob Weingarten, president of the Friends of the Boundary Mountains, an organization that has fought against the Kibby Mountain project since the beginning. He calls the company’s handling of the event a “cover-up” and believes there should be an official notification system to inform all stakeholders, including the public, when such an incident occurs.
“The permitting agencies haven’t done anything to establish a system of responsibility,” he said. “If there was a tragedy, everyone would say, ‘Why didn’t everybody know about this?’ To me, that’s irresponsible.”
The turbine fire did not affect other nearby turbines or spread to the surrounding forest, according to Grady Semmens, a TransCanada spokesman.
“The Kibby turbines have built-in fire detection systems,” Semmens wrote in an email to the BDN. “In the event of a fire, a smoke alarm detects this and automatically shuts off the turbine. That is what happened in this case. Our power system operators identified a problem at the facility and when TransCanada’s employees arrived at the site the following morning, the fire was out.”
Whether the company will replace the turbine depends on the results of the insurance claim and other economic considerations, according to Semmens.
This is the first reported case of a turbine fire at a Maine wind farm, according to Samantha Warren, a Maine Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman.
The threat of turbine fires to the surrounding forest has received cursory attention during past public hearings on Maine wind farms, but never much serious scrutiny, Warren told the BDN.
That could change.
Are turbines more dangerous than logging equipment?
The DEP has looked into the issue “quickly as a formality,” Warren said. “Given this latest incident, we’ll look into it more seriously in the future.”
But advocates for Maine’s wind farm industry argue turbine fires are extremely rare, and that the Kibby Mountain fire should not cause a knee-jerk reaction from state regulators.
“Applications for wind projects in Maine are already highly scrutinized,” said Jeremy Payne, executive director of the Maine Renewable Energy Association. “Every wind development in Maine has to develop a preparedness plan, which includes public safety setbacks. … In addition, the clearing done to build the turbines and the pads that they are built upon limit the ability of fire to spread.”
Maine law already requires a licensed civil engineer’s recommendations be considered when determining setbacks and gives the siting authority, whether the DEP or the Land Use Planning Commission, the chance to ask for additional information as part of any application process, Payne said.
Paul Williamson, director of the Maine Ocean & Wind Industry Initiative, points out that wind turbines are not the only pieces of machinery operating in Maine’s woods.
“Where is the concern for fires in logging operations? Where is the concern for fires in machinery operated at ski areas? These are all common uses that require machinery in a forested area,” Williamson said. “This is really not dramatically different than those other uses.”
The cause of the Kibby Mountain fire is not yet known, Semmens said. Vestas, the turbine manufacturer, is leading an investigation, which also involves an independent third party, to determine the cause. Semmens said the third party is an “approved fire investigator,” but wouldn’t disclose a name. The investigation is anticipated to be complete by June, he said.
Andrew Longeteig, a Vestas spokesman, would not comment on the potential causes of the fire.
“Until the root-cause analysis is complete, we cannot speculate on the cause of the incident,” Longeteig wrote in an email to the BDN.
When asked whether the investigation’s findings will be made public, Longeteig wrote: “We can’t determine who will receive the results of the investigation until the root cause is found.”
Turbine fires rare, but expensive
The turbines installed at Kibby Mountain are the Vestas V90-3.0 MW model. Immediately after the Kibby Mountain fire, the company reviewed 1,000 turbines of the same model that are deployed in the United States and Canada, according to Longeteig. All were found to be operating normally.
Vestas has nearly 50,000 installed turbines worldwide, including nearly 14,000 in North America, “and fires are a rare occurrence,” Longeteig said.
Turbine fires are rare, agreed Paul Veers, chief engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s National Wind Technology Center. “But when they do happen, it’s a big deal,” he said.
TransCanada wouldn’t reveal the cost of the damage, but Veers estimates that a single turbine costs in the vicinity of $4 million.
“These are capital-intensive investments,” Veers said. “You pay for everything upfront except for minor maintenance costs and expect to get revenue to pay for that over 20 years, so the loss of a turbine is a big deal for the industry.”
There are no incident reporting requirements for wind farm operators, so no reliable data exist on just how rare these fires are or what causes them, Veers said. He believes the most likely causes of turbine fires are lightning strikes and electrical shorts, but no matter the cause, figuring out a way to help prevent them should be given more attention, he said.
“The objective of these machines is to make them operate flawlessly for their lifetime, and a failure in a system or a couple of systems that allows a fire to begin is a huge deal,” Veers said. “It hasn’t risen as an important element across the industry because they’re so rare, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not important.”
On April 2, just two weeks after Longeteig’s comments to the BDN, another Vestas turbine, though of a different model from those installed at Kibby Mountain, caught fire at a wind farm in Ontario. In October 2012, another Vestas turbine — again, a different make than the ones at Kibby — caught fire at a wind farm in Nebraska. While the cause of the Ontario fire is still unknown, an investigation discovered the source of the Nebraska fire, but Longeteig wouldn’t disclose its findings.
Following the disclosure, Vestas identified 10 turbines at Kibby Mountain that needed new gearboxes. Longeteig said five were replaced last year, with five more scheduled for replacement this summer. When asked whether the turbine that caught fire was identified as having a gearbox with faulty bearings, he replied in an email: “I don’t know.”
In December 2011, high winds caused a turbine fire in Scotland. The incident was caught on video and the images have been used by anti-wind activists as evidence of the threat wind farms pose.
Clyde MacDonald of Hampden is one such activist who has testified at public hearings on Maine wind farms several times — and wrote opinion pieces for the BDN — about the threat turbine fires pose to Maine’s wilderness. He maintains regulators weren’t aware of turbine fires when he first raised the issue. He hopes this incident will bring the issue to the forefront.
“I’m not castigating them for not knowing, but once I showed them the evidence, I got hot under the collar because they didn’t take it seriously,” MacDonald said.
While TransCanada is not required to report a fire to state officials, companies are required to report any potential spills of oil or other hazardous materials to the DEP. Because a wind turbine contains some oil and other potentially hazardous materials, TransCanada did file an oil and hazardous material spill report with the DEP on Jan. 23, seven days after the fire. The DEP determined the fire did not cause enough of a hazardous material spill that required a response, Warren said.
“There were follow-up communications with the department and the [Land Use Planning Commission] in early February as we got more details on the event, not because it is mandatory that they be reported to us, but because we think it is important to track these incidents so we can develop regulations in the future that mitigate their environmental impact,” Warren wrote in a follow-up email.
Other state agencies reported being told of the fire, but possessed no authority over the event or its aftermath.
The Office of the State Fire Marshal wouldn’t get involved in a wind turbine fire unless criminal activity were suspected, according to Stephen McCausland, spokesman for Maine’s Department of Public Safety, which includes the fire marshal’s office.
Bill Hamilton, chief forest ranger for the Maine Forest Service, the state agency tasked with fighting forest fires, didn’t hear about the fire until several days after the fact. And he learned about it not from TransCanada, but because he was copied on a complaint about the fire that was emailed to the fire marshal’s office.
But Hamilton wasn’t worried that the company didn’t immediately notify the Maine Forest Service about the fire because, he said, there was never any danger that it would spread to the nearby forest.
“In mid-January, I don’t think — or, I know — it’s not possible for a fire to spread to nearby forests when there’s 3 feet of snow up there,” he said.
However, a different season would be a different story.
“In the summertime, if there was a windmill that burned and spread to nearby timber, we’d certainly need to be notified about it.”
There are no specific laws that require a company such as TransCanada to notify the Maine Forest Service if its turbine is on fire, just like a timber company wouldn’t be required to call the forest service if a piece of its machinery caught fire. However, if that fire spread to the forest, then law would kick in, Hamilton said.
“The law that would be most appropriate is Title 17-A, Section 804, Failure to Report or Control a Dangerous Fire,” Hamilton said after looking through statutes.
This law wouldn’t apply to the Kibby Mountain turbine fire, he pointed out, because there was no risk of it spreading. He added also there’s no evidence TransCanada would not have contacted the Maine Forest Service if the fire had spread.
Nevertheless, having a more structured notification system in place would make sense, he said.
“I think it would be a good idea for — and we probably should have done this before — but it would probably be a good idea to have a mechanism for them to notify us of any fire in what I would call the summer-fire season,” Hamilton said. “It would make good business practice to let us know.”
Even though the January fire doesn’t worry him, Hamilton did take a helicopter to Kibby Mountain to get a closer look at the burned-out turbine and to learn what he could do to help prepare the forest service and himself in the event of a future turbine fire.
“My concern is not elevated dramatically, but I do think it’s a good opportunity to look at it and improve our communication network with the windmill company and get an on-the-ground look around and increase our situational awareness of what may happen,” he said. “I’m not expecting problems, but it’s not a bad idea to take a look around and understand what’s going on.”
Regulators have asked the Maine Forest Service about the risk of turbine fires in the past, but it has always regarded the risk as very low, according to Doug Denico, the agency’s director.
“We haven’t seen anything there that is inordinately risky that we can’t take care of with the equipment we’ve got and the policies and procedures in place,” Denico said.
Denico said he wasn’t aware of the forest service participating in any joint training exercises with TransCanada on handling a turbine fire that spreads to the surrounding woods. TransCanada said it has emergency procedures in place, but wouldn’t offer details on them.
Turbine fires have been known to start forest fires, according to the Confederation of Fire Protection Associations in Europe, which in September 2012 released a document of best practices and guidelines of how to handle fires at wind farms. A search for a similar document among the codes and standards issued by the U.S. National Fire Protection Association produces no results.
The European document warns that these type of forest fires can be difficult to extinguish. “Very often long distance between the wind energy plant and the fire station, and the strong wind prevailing in these places, are both factors that can promote the quick spreading of forest fires,” the document reads.
Sprague Wise, fire chief in Eustis, the closest town to the Kibby Mountain wind farm, said he heard about the fire “maybe a week or two after it happened.” Even if his fire department had been notified, there’s not much it could have done, Wise said. Not only does it lack firefighting equipment that could reach the turbines, which are 260 feet above the ground, but the roads to the wind farm weren’t plowed, he said.
TransCanada doesn’t expect local fire departments to fight blazes at the wind farm, Semmens said.
“We do not expect local fire departments to risk the safety of their firefighters by going up a tall turbine tower in the event of a fire that does not pose a risk to people,” he wrote. “Most fire equipment is not designed to manage fires at such a height, and common industry practice is to allow wind turbine fires to burn out on their own.”
Warren at the DEP said it’s possible the expedited pace of past wind farm approvals could have led to the issue of turbine fires receiving less attention than it deserved. While Gov. John Baldacci was a strong supporter of wind energy and helped put in place an expedited permitting process, Gov. Paul LePage has criticized wind energy for being too expensive and preventing job creation.
“These are things we’re learning as we go along,” she said. “This industry is evolving and so is our regulatory review of it as a result. Previous administrations were really gung-ho about wind and put in place expedited permitting processes. That came at the expense of review sometimes, perhaps like this fire suppression issue. So we’re trying to not put on the brakes, but subject this sort of industrial project to the same review as other industrial development in the state.”
SOSS Editor Note: Town to Fight State over Misrepresented Wind Energy.
By Scott A. Giordano THE BULLETIN Posted Apr 04, 2013 @ 07:57 PM
The Falmouth Board of Selectmen and the Falmouth Finance Committee held a joint April 4 meeting and unanimously stood by the selectmen’s prior vote to remove the town’s wind turbines, despite receiving none of their requested financial assistance from the state to do so. The latest estimate is that it will cost the town about $14 million to remove both Wind 1 and Wind 2 at the Falmouth Wastewater Treatment Facility.
Selectmen voted to support removing the industrial-sized turbines, which have been a source of division in the community, in January. They since have tried to secure a financial commitment from state officials to help them do so, prior to drafting final language for warrant articles in the April 9 special Town Meeting.
Wind 1 was funded by a mix of general obligation bonds, grants and advanced payments on renewable energy credits (RECs), which are generated when carbon-neutral electricity is produced and then sold on the market. On April 2, the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) asked its board of directors to authorize the board chairman to appoint a subcommittee that will potentially modify the existing REC purchase agreement with Falmouth. However, the MassCEC staff memorandum that makes this request also states that Falmouth will not receive a contract waiver if Wind 1 is decommissioned and removed.
Wind 2 was funded entirely by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 through the state’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund grant/ loan program. Town Manager Julian Suso stated April 4 that he received electronic communication from Susan Perez, executive director of the Massachusetts Water Pollution Abatement Trust (MWPAT), which is the state's "pass-through" agency for the federal stimulus funds. Perez stated the MWPAT is requiring the town enter into an agreement to operate Wind 2 at a level that qualifies as an ‘energy efficient' project, or it will reinstate the town’s obligation to pay principle and interest on the loan and “take such other actions as it deems necessary and appropriate.”
Selectmen Chairman Kevin Murphy said he believes the state is being punitive. "I think it’s fair to say that the state does not want to see what the Board of Selectmen wanted to see happen," Murphy said.
Despite this, the selectmen and Finance Committee stood firm and united in requesting an indefinite postponement of Article 21 and supporting Articles 22 and 23 at special Town Meeting.
Article 21 was postponed because its content is now addressed in the proposed Article 22, as an attempt to vote on everything together at the special Town Meeting. "I took considerable effort with Town Counsel to develop a recommendation on one article so the town can take one vote and one motion to represent the town’s goals," said Heather Harper, Falmouth's assistant town manager on April 4.
Article 22 will require a 2/3 majority of Town Meeting voters for Falmouth to borrow money to pay for costs related to dismantling and decommissioning the wind turbines. Special legislation is also required to both remove an asset like the wind turbines, and to potentially resell the turbines to a non-government entity. The total estimated obligation to remove Wind 1 and Wind 2 is now listed as about $14 million in this warrant article.
Article 23 will not require a 2/3 majority vote, since it does not borrow money. Instead, this article would transfer $140,000 from the town's free cash fund to supplement the FY 13 and FY 14 operating budgets necessitated by the curtailment or shutdown of both turbines.
Murphy said he is resolute that the issue be brought to voters. "Sometimes you have to take a step back in order to take two steps forward. We have a lot of things facing this community in dollars and cents. But it’s important we gain the trust of the entire community," he said.
More details to come in the April 11 issue of The Bulletin.
SOSS Editor note: Once again a Wind Energy promises to do better is found to be UNTRUE! Once again the federal government fails to enforce the Eagle Protection Act!!!! This death is a window onto the thousands that die and aren't found! Whole colonies are being killed off. Thousands of Burrowing Owls are being annihilated! US Fish and Wildlife is being subjugated to the renewable lobby for MONEY!
"the wind farm was applauded for its “groundbreaking mitigation measures,” including “ an advanced radar system designed to protect birds and bats."
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is investigating a groundbreaking Nevada wind farm after finding a dead golden eagle on its premises last month. The Las Vegas Review-Journalreports that the Spring Valley Wind Farm may face a $200,000 fine because it does not have a federal permit that allows for incidental deaths of the bird. Wind-energy facilities are not required to have the permits, but without one, the FWS can investigate and persecute them for eagle deaths, leveling a fine of up to $200,000. This is the only eagle Spring Valley has killed since the farm’s opening last August.
The eagle’s death comes a few months after the installation was recognized for its “environmental leadership.” It won the award at an international conference in December, where the wind farm was applauded for its “groundbreaking mitigation measures,” including “an advanced radar system designed to protect birds and bats.” Environmental groups opposed the farm’s construction over concerns about the impact it might have on wildlife.
Representatives from the FWS said the wind farm “did all the things they were supposed to” following an eagle’s death, but that they “really prefers that wind developers work with the service early on in the process” and secure a permit.
Spring Valley is not actually a breeding ground for golden eagles, but they do migrate through the region, as bald eagles do occasionally, too. Both species are given specific protections by a 1940 federal law, and both have been easy prey for the increasing number of wind farms across the U.S. Deroy Murdock wrote about the issue for NRO last May — as many as 500 golden eagles a year may be killed in the western U.S. by wind turbines.
An education and advocacy session for the greater Scituate MA community, was held on Saturday, March 23, 2013, hosted by the neighbors affected by the Scituate Industrial Wind Turbine.
Topics Included: The South Shore / Scituate Experience
- Acoustics 101: (Rick James, Principal Consultant at E-Coustic Solutions) Min 13.11
- Light Strobe: A Real Life Experience (Mark McKeever) Min: 48:42
- Health and safety: (Dr. Jeffry Silver, MD. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Certified by American Board of Internal Medicine- subspecialty- Sleep Medicine.)
Min: 1.07:29
- Green Community Legislation: Leaving Communities Black and blue
- Reasons for and request for support of Town Meeting Warrant # 28 -rescind special permit granted to Scituate Wind. Min: 1.42:20
Background:
Organizers hoped to draw residents from other areas of the Town who are not directly impacted by the noise and strobing light emanating from the industrial wind turbine. The event's goal was to shed light on the real health and safety impacts being experienced by folks living too close to this inappropriately sited industrial wind turbine, and with accurate information in hand, encourage our friends and neighbors to understand, support and advocate on behalf of the negatively impacted residents.
Matters of Opinion with Ira Wood (former Wellfleet Selectmen)
Ira Wood, Former Chairman of the Wellfleet BoS, Recalls Wellfleet's "Vastly Unpopular Decision" in 2010 NOT to Install a Wind Turbine; Discusses "the Falmouth Experience"; and Offers "a Modest Proposal" to Alleviate Suffering and Satisfy Skeptics in Falmouth.
In the radio editorial on that originally aired a few weeks ago, Mr. Ira Wood, former Chairman of the Wellfleet Board of Selectmen expresses relief that Wellfleet has been spared "the Falmouth Experience" and contrasts the manner in which Wellfleet approached its own wind turbine proposal -- cautiously -- vs. the hasty approval process in Falmouth in which the Falmouth Board of Selectmen exempted itself from the Special Permit process.
Noting that several residents in Falmouth, quoted in the newspaper and posting on social media like Facebook, seem to doubt the existence of any significant adverse impacts from the Falmouth wind turbines -- or, even worse, seem to be completely devoid of any sympathy, or sense of responsibility, for their suffering -- former selectman Wood offers a facetious "modest proposal": why not adopt a plan to transfer the homes of affected residents to people who actually enjoy
wind turbine noise, or are immune from it?
The point is that all of this could have been avoided had officials in Falmouth, including the Chairman of the Falmouth Energy Committee, had the sense "to look a gift horse in the mouth" with a healthy sense of skepticism, especially since it seemed that this deal (already refused by several towns) seemed almost too good to be true, done their homework and listened to critics who questioned the wisdom of installing wind turbines in a residential area.
The Town of Falmouth is mired in its current difficulties precisely because the town exempted itself from the Special Permit process, an approval process which is specifically designed to provide a robust discovery process for such consequential proposals as Wind I and Wind II; to force the proponents of the project to make their case to the Planning Board for approval by a super-majority; and to provide a full and fair public hearing of the proposal which enables all members of the public and interested parties to bring forth pertinent information for consideration by the Planning Board and to express their views on the potential benefits and detriments of the project.
In the case of Wellfleet, the Board of Selectmen initially endorsed an initial proposal to install a Vestas V90 wind turbine (410 feet high) on town owned land in the heart of the Cape Cod National Seashore -- a proposal that was enthusiastically supported by the Superintendent of the national park. Within six months, after delving into the details of the project and listening to all sides, the Wellfleet BoS voted unanimously to withdraw all funding and to kill the project.
Along the way, the sitting Chairman of the Wellfleet Energy Committee resigned when he was unable to persuade other members to abandon the project because of its divisive effect upon the community. And soon after the project was repudiated by the BoS, another key member of the Wellfleet Energy Committee who had obtained the initial grant funds for the project, publicly stated, to his credit, that he had been wrong and that "Wellfleet is no place for a wind turbine"
because of its proximity to homes.
In 1984 the California Energy Commission said “many institutional, engineering, environmental and economic issues must be resolved before the industry is secure and its growth can be assured.” Though it was not clearly stated, the primary environmental issue alluded to was the extreme hazard that wind turbines posed to raptors.
Since the early 1980s, the industry has known there is no way its propeller-style turbines could ever be safe for raptors. With exposed blade tips spinning in open space at speeds up to 200 mph, it was impossible. Wind developers also knew they would have a public relations nightmare if people ever learned how many eagles are actually being cut in half – or left with a smashed wing, to stumble around for days before dying.
To hide this awful truth, strict wind farm operating guidelines were established – including high security, gag orders in leases and other agreements, and the prevention of accurate, meaningful mortality studies.
For the industry this business plan has succeeded quite well in keeping a lid on the mortality problem. While the public has some understanding that birds are killed by wind turbines, it doesn’t have a clue about the real mortality numbers. And the industry gets rewarded with subsidies, and immunity from endangered species and other wildlife laws.
Early studies identified the extent of the problem
To fully grasp the wind turbine mortality problem, one needs to examine the 2004 report from theAltamont Pass Wind Resource Area (APWRA). The study lasted five years (1998-2003), and researchers did not have full access to all the Altamont turbines.
This careful, honest effort analyzed turbine characteristics in relation to mortality and estimated mortality from body counts compiled in careful searches. Researchers then adjusted mortality numbers by examining statistical data based on searcher efficiency and other factors, such as carcass removal by predators and scavengers. The report even suggested that the mortality estimates probably erred on the low side, due to missed carcasses and other human errors.
This study stands in marked contrast to studies being conducted today, especially the Wildlife Reporting Response System that is currently the only analysis happening or permitted at most wind farms. The WRRS is the power companies’ own fatality reporting system, and allows paid personnel to collect and count carcasses. It explains why mortality numbers are always on the low side and why many high-profile species are disappearing near turbine installations.
Incredibly, the APWRA report actually admitted: “We found one raptor carcass buried under rocks and another stuffed in a ground squirrel burrow. One operator neglected to inform us when a golden eagle was removed as part of the WRRS. Based on these experiences, it is possible that we missed other carcasses that were removed.” (Chap. 3, pg. 52) It’s easy to see how human “errors” keep bird mortality low.
The APWRA study also documented that raptor food sources, turbine sizes and turbine placement all directly affect raptor mortality. It was thus able to identify many of the most dangerous turbines or groups of turbines – those with a history of killing golden eagles, kestrels, burrowing owls and red-tailed hawks.
Studies worsen as turbines proliferate and increase in size
The study also discussed how higher raptor mortality occurred when smaller towers were “upgraded” with larger turbines and proportionally longer blades. These wind turbines offered what raptors perceived as intermediate to very big windows of opportunity to fly through what looked like open spaces between towers, but were actually within the space occupied by much longer, rapidly moving rotor blades.
The result was significantly more fatalities of golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, American kestrels, burrowing owls, mallards, horned larks and western meadowlarks. Turbines with slower rotations per minute actually made it appear that there was more space and “greater windows of time.” This fooled birds, by giving them the illusion that they had open flight space between the rotating blades.
In fact, the illusion fools people, too. The newest turbines move their blades at 10-20 rotations per minute, which appears to be slow – but for their blade tips this translates into 100-200 mph!
All this was very important, because the industry was moving away from smaller turbines and installing much larger turbines, with much longer blades. However, the industry not only ignored the APWRA findings and rapidly installed thousands of these much larger turbines across America, despite their far greater dangers for birds and raptors. It also kept the APWRA out of the public’s awareness, and focused attention on new study results that reflected far less accurate (and honest) searches and surveys.
How the wind industry hides raptor mortality
The APWRA report also looked at the placement of carcasses in relation to turbine types. It documented that the distances carcasses were found from turbine towers increased significantly as turbine megawatt ratings and blade lengths increased. Based on sample of about 800 carcasses, the report revealed that birds were found an average of 94 feet (28.5) meters from 100-Kw turbines on towers 81 feet (24.6 meters) high.
Obviously, taller turbines with longer blades and faster blade tip speeds will catapult stricken birds much further. Figure 1 shows how a turbine 2.5 times larger will result in an average carcass distance of 372 feet (113.5 meters) from the tower. The wind industry is acutely aware of this.
That is why it has restricted search areas to 165 feet (50 meters) around its bigger turbines. This ensures that far fewer bodies will be found – and turbine operators will not need to explain away as many carcasses.
Recent mortality studies like those conducted at the Wolfe Island wind project (2.3-MW turbines) and Criterion project in Maryland (2.5-MW turbines) should have used searches 655 feet (200 meters) from turbines, just to find the bulk (75%-85%) of the fatalities. Of course, they did not do so. Instead, they restricted their searches to 165 feet – ensuring that they missed most raptor carcasses, and could issue statements claiming that their turbines were having minimal or “acceptable” effects on bird populations.
Other methods and biased formulas allow the industry to exclude or explain away carcasses. The latest Altamont Pass studies found far more bird carcasses, but Altamont operators still claim mortality declines by using new adjustment formulas and other exclusionary factors. (Figure 2) For example, industry analysts:
· Exclude certain carcasses. The 2005-2010 WRRS data show that 347 carcasses (primarily raptors) – plus 21 golden eagle carcasses – were excluded from mortality estimates, because industry personnel claimed they were found outside standard search procedures, said the “cause of death was unknown” (even when the birds’ heads had been sliced off), or removed carcasses ahead of a scheduled search.
· Exclude mortally wounded or crippled birds found during searches, even if they display turbine-related injuries. Even though many birds hit by turbine blades die within days, if they are still breathing when found, they are considered mobile – and thus not fatalities.
· Simply avoid searching near some of the most dangerous and lethal turbines. The industry justifies this exclusion by claiming that “the number of turbines monitored was reduced and spatially balanced for a randomized rolling panel design.” That this “reduction and balancing” excluded the most deadly portion of the Altamont facility was presented as coincidental or part of a proper scientific methodology.
The cold reality is that honest, scientific, accurate mortality studies in the Altamont Pass area would result in death tolls that would shock Americans. They would also raise serious questions about wind turbines throughout the United States, especially in major bird habitats like Oregon’s Shepherds Flat wind facility and the whooping cranes’ migratory corridor from Alberta, Canada, to Texas.
The techniques discussed here help ensure that “monitoring” studies match the facility operators’ desired conclusions, and mortality figures are kept at “acceptable” levels.
The bird mortality disaster must no longer be hidden
Not only has the wind industry never solved its environmental problem, it has been hiding at least 90% of this slaughter for decades. In fact, the universal problem of hiding bird (and bat) mortality goes from bad to intolerable beyond the Altamont Pass boundaries, because studies in other areas across North America are far less rigorous, or even nonexistent, and many new turbines are sited in prime bird and bat habitats.
The real death toll, as reported by Paul Driessen and others, is thousands of raptors a year – and up to 39 million birds and bats of all species annually in the United States alone, year after year! This is intolerable, and unsustainable. It is leading to the inevitable extinction of many species, at least in many habitats, and perhaps in the entire Lower 48 States.
Meanwhile, assorted “experts” continue to insist that the greatest threats to golden eagles are other factors like hikers getting too close to their nests, even when most abandoned nests in Southern California are nowhere near any hiking trails and wind turbines continue to slaughter eagles.
It is essential that people realize that no energy source comes anywhere close to killing as many raptors as wind energy does. No other energy companies are allowed to pick up bodies of rare and protected species from around their production sites on a day-to-day basis, year-in and year-out. No other energy producer has a several thousand mile mortality foot print (the highly endangered whooping cranes’ migratory corridor) like what wind energy has.
Once people understand all of this, they will rightfully demand that the wind industry obey the same environmental rules that all other industries must follow. This will require that wind turbines be sited only where the risk of bird deaths is minimal to zero; that turbines be replaced with new designs that birds recognize as obstacles and thus avoid; that fines be levied for every bird death, as is done with other industries; and that industrial wind facilities not be permitted where these requirements cannot be met.
America’s wildlife, and proper application of our environmental laws, require nothing less.
Jim Wiegand is an independent wildlife expert with decades of field observations and analytical work. He is vice president of the U.S. region of Save the Eagles International, an organization devoted to researching, protecting and preserving avian species threatened by human encroachment and development.
SOSS Editor: The following is a response to an article on Cape Cod Online/Cape Cod Times concerning a letter form Megan Amsler.
Chairman of the Falmouth Energy Committee, Megan Amsler, has implored the state energy secretary not to heed Falmouth selectmen's request for assistance in removing Falmouth's wind turbines because "a silent majority" supports their operation, regardless of consequences to their neighbors.
Ms. Amsler declares that she is "ashamed" that the town asked for aid because they "bother 19 people within 1/3 mile" of the wind turbines. Although Ms. Amsler declares that she was a member of the committee that explored various options for dealing with the wind turbines, she appears not to have been paying attention to the number of people who reported experiencing adverse impacts from their operation (over 50) or the severity of their symptoms (including headaches, ringing in the ears, tinnitus, sleep deprivation, soaring blood pressure, anxiety and depression, not to mention intense shadow flicker and severe impact on home values).
Of course, Ms. Amsler was instrumental in bringing the wind turbines to Falmouth in the first place and in encouraging the Town of Falmouth not to bother adhering to the Special Permit process to assess the potential negative impacts of the wind turbines on the community.
Wellfleet residents may also recall that Ms. Amsler appeared at the Wellfleet Forum on March 1, 2010 to extol the virtues of the Falmouth wind turbines (before they had begun operation) and to urge Wellfleet to approve the installation of an even larger wind turbine on town land in the heart of the Cape Cod National Seashore. The Wellfleet Selectmen voted unanimously to kill the project on March 31, 2010 and have repeatedly expressed their gratitude to citizens who alerted them to the detriments of the project and their relief over having avoided the tragic experience of Falmouth.
No doubt Ms. Amsler considers the five selectmen in Wellfleet -- like the selectmen in Falmouth -- to be part of the "vocal minority" who are incapable of hearing the voices of the "silent majority" who secretly wish that Wellfleet had installed its own wind turbines and replicated the Falmouth experience.
Or maybe the reason why no one else can hear the voices of the "silent majority" is because they speak only to Ms. Amsler.
Why Ms. Amsler believes that anyone should listen to the voices of the "silent majority" inside her head, rather than to the voices of the innocent victims who have the misfortune to live in the wrong place or to their neighbors who rightly insist that the town has not right to deprive them of their health and well-being, the quality of their life or the reasonable use and enjoyment of their property, no matter how lucrative to the town, is known only to Ms. Amsler.
The chairman of Falmouth's energy committee has asked the state's energy secretary not to help pay to take down the town's two wind turbines.
In a letter dated March 4, Megan Amsler told state Executive Office of Energy and Environment Secretary Richard Sullivan that a silent majority in town supports the turbines' continued operation.
"I don't think the decision-makers are hearing the voice of people saying, 'Hey, wait a second, we do want these things in the community,'" Amsler said in an interview Friday. "My feelings are pretty clear."
Amsler's letter was sent in reaction to the town's request for state help in taking down the two 1.65-megawatt turbines at Falmouth's wastewater treatment facility. In the three years since the first of the two began operating, Wind 1 and Wind 2 have become a focal point in town because neighbors say they cause health problems.
Selectmen have placed three articles on the April 9 special town meeting warrant that collectively would order the turbines to be decommissioned and removed. If town meeting approves them, the question of whether to remove the turbines will appear on the town election ballot May 21.
Town Manager Julian Suso estimates decommissioning and removing the turbines could cost up to $15.2 million.
Amsler has led the energy committee since its founding in 2002. In her letter, she wrote that the turbines provide clean energy for Falmouth's wastewater treatment plant and stabilize the town's electricity costs. She noted that she served on a panel last year that recommended turbine mitigation options to selectmen and that she is familiar with the neighbors' unwillingness to compromise.
"I am ashamed that the town has even deigned to ask the state for aid in removing the turbines because they bother 19 people within a 1/3 mile," the letter said. "Please do not set a precedent by helping our community remove them."
Selectman Kevin Murphy, board chairman, said that anyone has the right to contact state officials to weigh in on the matter. But he warned that the ongoing outcry against the turbines could jeopardize other renewable projects in town.
In the fall, town meeting will likely be asked to approve a partnership between Falmouth and the air conditioning and heating company Trane to retrofit windows and other sections of town buildings to make them more energy efficient, Murphy said.
The turbine controversy could make the project a more difficult sell to town meeting.
"It's my belief that if the turbines are left up they will continue to be a symbol," Murphy said Friday. "If the symbol remains ... any renewable energy project will be scrutinized to the nth degree."
Todd Drummey, an abutter and outspoken opponent of Wind 1 and Wind 2, said Amsler's letter didn't faze him. In the coming weeks, many people will contact officials about the issue, he predicted.
Sullivan's office already has been contacted by people on both sides of Falmouth's turbine argument, a spokeswoman said. These communications include a petition signed by 96 Falmouth residents in favor of keeping the turbines up and running.
But with the April town meeting vote approaching, many of the financial details surrounding the possible removal of the turbines remain up in the air.
At their last meeting, selectmen endorsed an article that would pay the operating costs of the turbines through fiscal 2014. The board is withholding its stance on the decommissioning and dismantling of the turbines until town meeting.
As of Friday, town officials still don't know if Falmouth will have to pay back nearly $5 million in federal stimulus funds that it received in 2010 to construct Wind 2, Murphy said.
The town could also be on the hook for about $1 million that the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center prepaid for renewable energy credits it expected the turbines would produce. CEC officials will not discuss the issue until their next meeting on April 2.
Richard Koehler, who serves on Falmouth's energy committee, said he agrees with Amsler, and believes the state should not help Falmouth fund the removal of the turbines.
He plans to write a few letters himself. "The only solution they offered was take the turbines down and that puts us $12 million to $18 million in the hole," Koehler said. "That seems like a lot for just a little noise."
Despite many victories, communities around the world are still facing a plague of industrial wind projects that like hideous War of the Worlds steel monsters are destroying communities, mountains, and wildlands, slaughtering birds and bats, sickening people and driving them from their homes.
Even though these wind projects do not reduce greenhouse gases or fossil fuel use, they have dreadful environmental, social and economic impacts on whole regions. But they are a tool for energy companies and investment banks to make billions in taxpayer subsidies that get added to our national debt.
The good news is that communities worldwide are learning how to defeat these dreadful projects. More and more laws and moratoriums are being passed against them, while other projects are defeated on legal grounds or by overwhelming public opposition.
In Hawaii, an industrial wind project that would have constructed ninety 42-story turbine towers across seventeen square miles of Molokai has been defeated by a determined two-year effort of the island’s residents. In the process we learned many tactics, which I’ve tried to summarize below and are further described in Saving Paradise:
Show wind projects for what they are: industrial. Not environmental, not green, not renewable, and cause no reductions in greenhouse gases or fossil fuel use, no long-term jobs and few short-term ones.
Don’t be nice. These wind developers are your enemies: they want to destroy where you live, steal your money (property values), and are quite happy to literally drive you from your homes. They will lie, cheat, bribe, buy politicians, and do whatever else they can to win. They won’t be fair and you can’t trust them.
Create a group and get your community behind you. Point out property value loss, human health issues, environmental destruction, tourism impacts, and all the other dreadful results of industrial wind. If you have a homeowners’ associations, make them aware of the danger so they can join the fight.
Publicize your case. In the newspapers, TV and radio, on blogs and in nationwide petitions. Use videos and good graphics. Go viral, worldwide. Develop a good professional website with lots of information and ways for viewers to participate. Community members should write op-eds and letters to the editor. A very powerful tool is frequent press releases that pass on news reports from National Wind Watch, Industrial Wind Action Group and other organizations about the devastating impacts of industrial wind. These press releases should be sent to all relevant media outlets and local, state and national legislators.
Do mailings to everyone. In Molokai we sent two mailings to all the island’s 2,700 addresses. The first mailer described the dangers of the project and included a survey with a stamped return envelope. We had a massive response, with 97% of responses against the project, and our group gained hundreds of new members. A year later we sent a second mailer with photo mockups showing how the turbines would tower over homes and landscapes. This mailer also included a bumper sticker which many residents then put on their cars.
Be visible. Put up lots of signs, both homemade and professionally done. Put up billboards if you can. Professional signs show you mean business, and are taken more seriously.
Find legislators who will help you. On the state level, Republicans are often more responsive and more concerned about the environment than traditionalist Democrats who have bought the idea that wind is environmental (or who are receiving contributions from wind companies).
Litigate. Find every avenue to impair or slow the wind developers. Once the Washington industrial welfare subsidies are removed, industrial wind companies will vanish overnight.
Get property value loss appraisals. Average losses of 40% or more are being reported; in Molokai, one of the reasons the landowner planning the project cancelled it was they estimated a 75% property value loss on their lands near the project. Publicize the loss of assessed value at county level, and how that will reduce tax revenues. In most cases, property value loss far exceeds any revenue the county might receive from the project.
Civil disobedience. Politicians and energy companies are terrified of this. Don’t be afraid to go to jail to protect the land and homes you love. On Molokai we planned if necessary to start a hunger strike on the island, and there were people ready to starve to death to protect our island. The level of your commitment is equal to the level of your success.
An impressive number of health practitioners, researchers and acousticians around the world are voicing their concern about the effects of wind turbines on people’s health (1). Their list was just published by the Waubra Foundation, the European Platform Against Windfarms (EPAW) and the North-American Platform Against Windpower (NA-PAW), the latter two representing over 600 associations of windfarm victims from 27 countries. These health professionals should be honored, assert the three NGOs: it takes courage to uphold the rights of victims against the powerful coalition of vested interests which supports the wind industry.
In Australia, where the controversy is reaching new heights, a wind industry executive has been singling out Dr Sarah Laurie in a bid to make the public forget the many other health professionals who alert to the dangerous effects of wind turbines: "...the largest public relations issue for the industry at the moment is the theory of an ex-doctor that infrasound or low frequency noise from wind turbines is likely to make anyone within 10 km of a wind turbine sick."
The blog Stopthesethings, which rose to fame denouncing the wind industry, replied: "So, the largest public relations issue for the wind industry is Sarah Laurie? One woman against the deep pockets of the pro-wind lobby. One woman speaking with local communities. One woman gathering data about the other side of your story, the one not covered in your press releases, presentations, websites, newsletters, advertisements, promoted by your highly paid PR consultants, and not covered by the Clean Energy Council with its
army of lobbyists and government access. One woman speaking out, working for two and a half years as a volunteer. What a compliment!" (2)
Sarah Laurie is a physician who has taken time off to fight her own cancer, and look after her family. “She is by no means an `ex-doctor´,”says EPAW’s Mark Duchamp. “She replied to that libelous spin at a Senate hearing on wind turbines” (3).
Dr Nina Pierpoint, PhD, MD, who intensively studied the health problems of 10 windfarm neighbor families, and coined the phrase Wind Turbine Syndrome in the process, has also been attacked and vilified. “Yet her meticulous, scholarly and pioneering work has been used around the world by turbine victims and their physicians, to better understand the reported symptoms and illnesses. The study has been rigorously peer reviewed, translated into multiple languages, and even quoted by health officials”, adds Duchamp. Dr Sarah Laurie, CEO of the Waubra Foundation, fully agrees: “Dr Pierpont used her multidisciplinary skills and academic experience to evaluate the data she collected. Many of her colleagues do not understand why her study is so important, until they start seeing the sick people.”
Acousticians too are involved in the growing controversy (1). Some have published research demonstrating that wind turbines emit infrasound and low frequency noise (ILFN), and that these emissions resonate inside homes to the point where residents sometimes resort to sleeping on the veranda rather than in their bedrooms. An important acoustic study, just published, concludes that "enough evidence and hypotheses have been given herein to classify LFN (low frequency noise) and infrasound as a serious issue, possibly affecting the future of the (wind) industry." (4)
What makes that study special, among all others that collected similar evidence? Sherri Lange of NA-PAW replies: “It was conducted by four different firms of acousticians: two of them have done work for the wind industry, whereas the other two never did. The idea was to ensure objectivity.”
Not least among acousticians speaking up for the victims is Professor Henrik Moeller, Denmark’s most highly regarded acoustician. In spite of the risk for his career, he has severely criticized his government for manipulating the data to allow the siting of wind turbines too close to homes. We know now that this causes chronic sleep deprivation, leading to a debilitated immune system and a variety of diseases.
“This list below reveals some of the true heroes of our times. They will be vindicated,” concludes Lange.
Contacts:
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
Dr Sarah Laurie + 61 439 865 914 (Australia) CEO, Waubra Foundation sarah@waubrafoundation.com.au
LINKS:
To follow the heated battle as it unfolds in Australia: www.stopthesethings.com
Health effects of ILFN can cause death: http://www.epaw.org/documents.php?lang=en&article=ns50
To access Dr Pierpont’s peer reviewed study and other material: www.windturbinesyndrome.com
FOOTNOTES:
(1) - List of health practitioners, researchers and acousticians who have investigated or voiced concern for the health and well-being of wind turbine neighbors: see at the end, or Pdf attached, or go to: http://www.epaw.org/documents.php?lang=en&article=ns53
(2) - http://stopthesethings.com/2013/01/10/wind-energy-and-the-reconstructed-smoking-milk-bottle/
(3) - http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;db=COMMITTEES;id=committees%2Fcommsen%2Fc400af4f-682e-4745-a5c7-a550b12826a2%2F0003;query=Id%3A%22committees%2Fcommsen%2Fc400af4f-682e-4745-a5c7-a550b12826a2%2F0000%22
(4) - Low Frequency and Infrasound at the Shirley Wind Farm in Brown County, Wisconsin http://www.windaction.org/documents/36887 The quote itself is to be found here, just before 5.0 Recommendations: Report Number 122412-1 21-18-12 FINAL (3).pdf
* * *
Below is the list of health practitioners, researchers and acousticians who have investigated or voiced concerns for the health of wind turbine neighbors - apologies to those we forgot to mention, and please advise us of errors and omissions at dmette@epaw.org
In alphabetical order
1 - Professor Mariana Alves Pereira, Biomechanical Engineer (Portugal, 2007)
2 - Dr Ian Arra, Public Health Physician (Canada, 2013)
3 - Mr Stephen Ambrose, Noise Engineer (USA, 2011)
4 - Associate Professor Jeffrey Aramini, Epidemiologist (Canada, 2010)
5 - Dr Huub Bakker, Engineer, (New Zealand, 2010)
6 - Dr Linda Benier, Ear Nose & Throat specialist (Canada, 2011)
7 - Dr Owen Black, Ear Nose & Throat specialist (USA, 2009)
8 - Mr Wade Bray, Noise Engineer (USA, 2011)
9 - Professor Arline Bronzaft, Psychologist & Researcher (US, 2010)
10 - Dr Nuno Castelo Branco, Pathologist (Portugal, 2007)
11 - Dr Christian Buhl, Institute of Biomedicine, Aarhus University (Denmark)
12 - Dr Micheal Cooke, General Practitioner (Ireland, 2012)
13 - Mr Steven Cooper, Acoustician (Australia, 2011)
14 - Dr Herb Coussos, Medical Practitioner (US, 2010)
15 - Dr R Crunkhorne, Ear Nose & Throat specialist (UK, 2013)
16 - Mrs Jane Davis, Nurse (UK, 2010)
17 - Professor Phillip Dickinson, Acoustician (New Zealand, 2009)
18 - Associate Professor Con Doolan, Mechanical Engineer (Australia, 2012)
19 - Mr Chuck Ebbing, Noise Engineer (USA. 2013)
20 - Dr Alun Evans, Epidemiologist (Ireland, 2011)
21 - Dr Amir Farboud, Ear Nose & Throat Specialist (UK, 2013)
22 - Professor Jerome Haller, Neurology and Paediatrics (US, 2008)
23 - Professor Colin Hansen, Mechanical Engineer (Australia, 2010)
24 - Dr Chris Hanning, Sleep Physician (UK, 2010)
25 - Professor John Harrison, Physicist (Canada, 2010)
26 - Dr Amanda Harry, Rural Medical Practitioner (UK, 2003),
27 - Professor Henry Horn, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (US, 2008)
28 - Mr Les Huson, Acoustician (Australia, 2011)
29 - Dr David Iser, Rural Medical Practitioner (Australia, 2004),
30 - Associate Professor Rick James, Noise Engineer (USA, 2009)
31 - Dr Roy Jeffrey, Rural Medical Practitioner (Canada, 2010)
32 - Dr Mauri Johansson, Occupational Physician (Denmark, 2012)
33 - Mr George Kamperman, Noise Engineer (USA, 2009)
34 - Professor Ralph Katz, Epidemiologist (US, 2008)
35 - Dr Noel Kerin, Occupational Physician (Canada, 2010)
36 - Ms Carmen Krogh, Pharmacist, Researcher (Canada, 2009)
37 - Dr Eckhard Kuck, Oral Surgeon (Germany, 2012) 38 - Dr Sarah Laurie, Former Rural Medical Practitioner (Australia, 2010)
39 - Dr David Lawrence, Rural Medical Practitioner (USA, 2012)
40 - Professor Joel Lehrer, Earn Noise & Throat specialist (US, 2008)
41 - Dr Hazel Lynn, Medical Officer of Health, Grey/Bruce County, ON (Canada, 2012)
42 - Dr Robert McMurtry, Former Dean of Medical & Dental School, University of Western Ontario (Canada, 2010)
43 - Dr Andja Mitric Andjic, Rural Medical Practitioner (Australia, 2011)
44 - Dr Sarah Myhill, Rural Medical Practitioner, Wales (UK, 2012)
45 - Professor Henrik Moller, Acoustician, Aalborg University (Denmark, 2011)
46 - Dr Michael Nissenbaum, Medical Practitioner (US, 2010),
47 - Dr Helen Parker, Psychologist (US, 2011)
48 - Dr Robyn Phipps, Researcher (NZ, 2007)
49 - Professor Christian Sejer Pedersen, Acoustician (Denmark, 2011)
50 - Dr Eja Pedersen, Medical Sociologist (Sweden, 2006)
51 - Dr Nina Pierpont, PhD, MD, Specialist Paediatrician, Fellow American Academy of Paediatrics (US, 2009)
52 - Professor Carl Phillips, Epidemiologist (USA, 2010)
53 - Dr Peter Prinds, Physician (Denmark)
54 - Mr Rob Rand, Noise Engineer (USA, 2011)
55 - Mr Bruce Rapley, Scientist (NZ, 2013)
56 - Dr Sandy Reider, Medical Practitioner (USA, 2013)
57 - Professor Alec Salt, Neurophysiologist (USA, 2010)
58 - Dr Paul Schomer, Noise Engineer (USA, 2012)
59 - Norma Schmidt, Retired Nurse (Canada, 2010)
60 - Associate Professor Vivi Schunsslen, Occupational Physician (Denmark, 2012)
61 - Dr Daniel Shepherd, Psychologist, Psychoacoustician (New Zealand, 2010)
62 - Dr Wayne Spring, Sleep Physician (Australia, 2011)
63 - Mr Mike Stigwood, Acoustician (UK)
64 - Dr Scott Taylor, Rural Medical Practitioner (Australia, 2011)
65 - Dr Henning Theorell, Medical Practitioner (Sweden, 2012)
66 - Dr Bob Thorne, Psychoacoustician (Australia, NZ)
67 - Mr Peter Trask, Psychologist (Australia, 2012)
68 - Dr A Trinidade, Ear Nose & Throat specialist (UK, 2013)
69 - Dr Alan Watts, Rural Medical Practitioner (Australia, 2011)
70 - Dr Colleen Watts, Scientist (Australia, 2011)
71 - Associate Professor Libby Wheatley, Medical Sociologist (USA, 2012)
WHO definition of Health
“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”.
Preamble to the Constitution of the World Health Organization as adopted by the International Health Conference, New York, 19-22 June, 1946; signed on 22 July 1946 by the representatives of 61 States (Official Records of the World Health Organization, no. 2, p. 100) and entered into force
on 7 April 1948.
The Definition has not been amended since 1948.
Extract from British Institute of Acoustics Code of Conduct
All members of the Institute shall at all times:
• order their conduct as to uphold the dignity and reputation of the profession and of the Institute and of its members and officers
• safeguard the public interest in matters of safety, health and the environment
• exercise their professional skill and judgement to the best of their ability
discharge their professional responsibilities with integrity, honesty and diligence.
Last week, attorney Rufus Brown filed a brief on behalf of aggrieved neighbors of the Vinalhaven (ME) wind turbines with Maine Superior Court. The filing represents a summation of the case related to noise from the turbines that has turned the lives of nearby residents upside down.
First Incidental Take Permit for Whooping Cranes at an Individual Wind Farm
by Chester McConnell, Whooping Crane Conservation Association
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is considering issuing the first-ever Incidental Take Permit to a wind farm for endangered Whooping Cranes and threatened Piping Plovers. If FWS grants the permit, the Merricourt Wind Power Project in North Dakota would be protected from prosecution under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for killing Whooping Cranes and Piping Plovers.
Whooping Crane Conservation Association contends that: 1) FWS failed to give the public adequate notice on an important endangered species issue, 2) the agency is only preparing an Environmental Assessment for a precedent-setting take permit of significant environmental impact, and 3) there are fewer than 300 individual Whooping Cranes left in the wild Aransas/Wood Buffalo flock which migrates through North Dakota.
The Merricourt Wind Project proposes to build 100 turbines within a 22,400 acre project area and build 33 miles of access roads. FWS has advised the project developer that the wetland stopover habitat in the project area is critical to the survival and recovery of the Whooping Crane. The site is also about two miles from designated critical habitat for Piping Plovers. In addition, FWS has told the developer that three ESA candidate species may be present at the site (Sprague’s Pipit, Dakota skipper, and Powesheik skipperling).
Whooping Crane Conservation Association president Brian Johns recently wrote a letter to the project manager explaining the Association’s position. President Johns wrote: “The Whooping Crane Conservation Association (WCCA) would like to express our concerns over the placement of the proposed Merricourt Wind Power Project in North Dakota. Wind Power projects have been identified in the International Recovery Plan for the Whooping Crane as a potential threat to flying Whooping Cranes. As you know the Whooping Crane is listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN as well as both the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Canadian Wildlife Service. The Aransas/Wood Buffalo population (AWBP) which contains fewer than 300 individuals is the only self-sustaining wild population of whooping cranes. With such a limited population, the genetic contribution of each individual is critical to the survival of the species.”
The Merricourt Wind Project proposes to build 100 turbines within a 22,400 acre project area and build 33 miles of access roads.
John’s letter continues: “The proposed placement of this wind power project directly within the migration corridor of the AWBP seems like an accident waiting to happen. We understand that the USFWS may grant an Incidental Take Permit, which would allow the project to proceed. The WCCA is opposed to locating any wind power projects within the migration corridor. If such a project were to proceed, we would expect the USFWS to ensure that all mitigation measures listed in the Whooping Crane Wind Development Issue Paper are taken to avoid harm to the AWBP of Whooping Cranes.”
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2013 at 7:05 pm and is filed under Association News,Endangered Species, Headline, Migrating Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
A new documentary on wind energy published on Feb 8, 2013 from Canadian Broadcasting
A growing anti-wind movement says giant turbines have gone up without sufficient research into health impacts. In the rush to embrace wind power, have the people who live among the wind farms been forgotten?
The Canadian Broadcasting Company’s DocZone contracted experienced documentary videographer Andrew Gregg to produce a documentary on the recent ‘rush’ of wind energy development in Canada. Gregg was given artistic license. Contrast that with Laurel Israel’s documentary film Windfall about a proposed wind development in a small rural New York town. She was not only unable to get monetary support but had problems even screening her film in film festivals.
Gregg and his crew started out questioning how wind turbines could make people ill. But their film builds a strong case for why wind turbines can cause adverse health impacts by interviewing researchers such as Dr. Michael Nissenbaum and Dr. Alec Salt who discuss their research into wind turbine noise and its health impacts on humans. Professor Warren Mabee discusses the problems with tying in multiple wind turbines into the grid.
In Ontario their Green Energy Act bypasses municipalities and gives siting decisions to the provincial government level. This has set up a conflict between growing cities needing more and more energy and residents of rural farm areas where the turbines are being sited.
The Falmouth Board of Selectmen voted to support removing the town’s two wind turbines, and they will draft language for a warrant article to be presented at their regular meeting on Monday, Feb. 4 – in time to have the issue go before voters in the town’s April 9 special election and then proceed to the general election in May.
Selectmen also voted to request the Massachusetts Clean Energy Commission forgive the town’s debt for renewable energy credits and to send a delegation of state officials to request help with the town's debt for the purchase of Wind 1 at the Falmouth Wastewater Treatment Facility.
At the end of their Jan. 30 meeting, Selectman Doug Jones said he was “very proud of the work we’ve done as a board to come to an agreement,” despite their differences of opinion throughout the process.
“This has been a long process to get us to where we are right now,”added Selectmen Chairman Kevin Murphy. “We’re in the last lap here.”
Wind turbines only last for ‘half as long as previously thought’, according to a new study. But even in their short lifespans, those turbines can do a lot of damage. Wind farms are devastating populations of rare birds and bats across the world, driving some to the point of extinction. Most environmentalists just don’t want to know. Because they’re so desperate to believe in renewable energy, they’re in a state of denial. But the evidence suggests that, this century at least, renewables pose a far greater threat to wildlife than climate change.
I’m a lecturer in biological and human sciences at Oxford university. I trained as a zoologist, I’ve worked as an environmental consultant — conducting impact assessments on projects like the Folkestone-to-London rail link — and I now teach ecology and conservation. Though I started out neutral on renewable energy, I’ve since seen the havoc wreaked on wildlife by wind power, hydro power, biofuels and tidal barrages. The environmentalists who support such projects do so for ideological reasons. What few of them have in their heads, though, is the consolation of science.
My speciality is species extinction. When I was a child, my father used to tell me about all the animals he’d seen growing up in Kent — the grass snakes, the lime hawk moths — and what shocked me when we went looking for them was how few there were left. Species extinction is a serious issue: around the world we’re losing up to 40 a day. Yet environmentalists are urging us to adopt technologies that are hastening this process. Among the most destructive of these is wind power.
Every year in Spain alone — according to research by the conservation group SEO/Birdlife — between 6 and 18 million birds and bats are killed by wind farms. They kill roughly twice as many bats as birds. This breaks down as approximately 110–330 birds per turbine per year and 200–670 bats per year. And these figures may be conservative if you compare them to statistics published in December 2002 by the California Energy Commission: ‘In a summary of avian impacts at wind turbines by Benner et al (1993) bird deaths per turbine per year were as high as 309 in Germany and 895 in Sweden.’
Because wind farms tend to be built on uplands, where there are good thermals, they kill a disproportionate number of raptors. In Australia, the Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle is threatened with global extinction by wind farms. In north America, wind farms are killing tens of thousands of raptors including golden eagles and America’s national bird, the bald eagle. In Spain, the Egyptian vulture is threatened, as too is the Griffon vulture — 400 of which were killed in one year at Navarra alone. Norwegian wind farms kill over ten white-tailed eagles per year and the population of Smøla has been severely impacted by turbines built against the opposition of ornithologists.
Nor are many other avian species safe. In North America, for example, proposed wind farms on the Great Lakes would kill large numbers of migratory songbirds. In the Atlantic, seabirds such as the Manx Shearwater are threatened. Offshore wind farms are just as bad as onshore ones, posing a growing threat to seabirds and migratory birds, and reducing habitat availability for marine birds (such as common scoter and eider ducks).
‘Uh-oh.’
I’ve heard it suggested that birds will soon adapt to avoid turbine blades. But your ability to learn something when you’ve been whacked on the head by an object travelling at 200 mph is limited. And besides, this comes from a complete misconception of how long it takes species to evolve. Birds have been flying, unimpeded, through the skies for millions of years. They’re hardly going to alter their habits in a few months. You hear similar nonsense from environmentalists about so-called habitat ‘mitigation’. There has been talk, for example, during proposals to build a Severn barrage, that all the waders displaced by the destruction of the mud flats can have their inter-tidal habitat replaced elsewhere. It may be what developers and governments want to hear, but recreating such habitats would take centuries not years — even if space were available. The birds wouldn’t move on somewhere else. They’d just starve to death.
Loss of habitat is the single biggest cause of species extinction. Wind farms not only reduce habitat size but create ‘population sinks’ — zones which attract animals and then kill them. My colleague Mark Duchamp suggests birds are lured in because they see the turbines as perching sites and also because wind towers (because of the grass variations underneath) seem to attract more prey. The turbines also attract bats, whose wholesale destruction poses an ever more serious conservation concern.
Bats are what is known as K-selected species: they reproduce very slowly, live a long time and are easy to wipe out. Having evolved with few predators — flying at night helps — bats did very well with this strategy until the modern world. This is why they are so heavily protected by so many conventions and regulations: the biggest threats to their survival are made by us.
And the worst threat of all right now is wind turbines. A recent study in Germany by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research showed that bats killed by German turbines may have come from places 1,000 or more miles away. This would suggest that German turbines — which an earlier study claims kill more than 200,000 bats a year — may be depressing populations across the entire northeastern portion of Europe. Some studies in the US have put the death toll as high as 70 bats per installed megawatt per year: with 40,000 MW of turbines currently installed in the US and Canada. This would give an annual death toll of up to three -million.
Why is the public not more aware of this carnage? First, because the wind industry (with the shameful complicity of some ornithological organisations) has gone to great trouble to cover it up — to the extent of burying the corpses of victims. Second, because the ongoing obsession with climate change means that many environmentalists are turning a blind eye to the ecological costs of renewable energy. What they clearly don’t appreciate — for they know next to nothing about biology — is that most of the species they claim are threatened by ‘climate change’ have already survived 10 to 20 ice ages, and sea-level rises far more dramatic than any we have experienced in recent millennia or expect in the next few centuries. Climate change won’t drive those species to extinction; well-meaning environmentalists might.
The second edition of Clive Hambler’s Conservation (Cambridge University Press) is out now.
“Real estate is the largest source of clean energy in this country, and it’s very inexpensively tapped.”
So said Tony Malkin, the president of Malkin Holdings, owner of the Empire State Building.
Malkin spoke this week at the annual Energy Efficiency Forum in Washington, D.C., and he’s got a point, albeit a controversial one.
If we — or, more to the point, the people who represent us in Washington — have $1 to spend,better that it be spent on energy efficiency than on clean energy. That’s not way things work now. Today, wind and solar power get generous tax breaks and subsidies. Energy efficiency investments do not. The government has it exactly backward.
Why? First, let’s stipulate that money spent on efficiency and on clean energy creates short-term jobs. The efficiency-related jobs are more likely to be US jobs (because most solar panels are made in China) but set that aside for a moment. What matters is what happens after the insulation goes into a building, or the solar panels go up on the roof.
The problem with clean energy is that electricity from wind turbines or solar panel, as a rule, costs more than power generated by burning coal or natural gas. If it didn’t, the wind and solar industries wouldn’t need the investment tax credits and renewable portfolio mandates that are vital to their business. But over time the higher costs of clean energy create a drag on economic growth, whether they are paid by the government or by energy users.
By contrast, money spent on efficiency reduces costs over time. So, whether we are talking about more efficient factories, commercial buildings, homes or even cars, the spending on efficiency makes the economy more productive, driving economic growth and creating jobs in the long run.
Yet the government generously subsidizes wind and solar. Efficiency, not so much.
Actually, it’s a bit worse than that. Since businesses can deduct legitimate expenses on their tax returns, they pay less than the full cost of their electricity bills.
“I get a tax deduction for wasting energy,” Dave Myers, president of the building efficiency business atJohnson Controls, said wryly during the forum.
“It is absolutely insane to me that energy can be expensed on your tax bill,” Malkin agreed.
Let me hasten to add that we need both energy efficiency and clean energy, and in my view, both deserve strong policy support. Remember, scientists say that to avoid risky climate change, the world needs to curb its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. That will require the aggressive deployment of low-carbon energy sources, as well as dramatic gains in efficiency. But we also should be clear about how the costs and benefits work, so we can get the policy right, and especially think about why the government isn’t doing more to promote efficiency.
Next page: Many happy returns
As it happens, markets by themselves are driving some efficiency gains. Johnson Controls, which organizes the energy efficiency forum, just released a global survey called the Energy Efficiency Indicator, which delivered mostly good news on the building efficiency front. JCI’s Dave Myers reported that 83 percent of the 3,500 global respondents said they were planning to spend as much or more money this year as they did last year to make their buildings more efficient. That’s impressive, given the sluggish global economy, and with uncertainties hanging over Europe. “Energy cost savings, and the savings in dollars, continue to be the No. 1 driver of investment,” he said. No surprise there.
The question is, how can building efficiency by driven further and faster? Sometimes, the payback from investments — in lighting, heating, cooling, windows, whatever — takes more than two or three years, or there are split incentives between building owners (who might have to invest the capital in the infrastructure) and tenants (who pay the bills). Other times, building owners can’t come up with the financing to pay for capital improvements, even if they would pay back quickly. That’s where policy, which can take the form of carrots or sticks, comes into play.
In my capacity as a senior writer at GreenBiz.com, I moderated a panel on building efficiency at the forum, where we talked about how to speed up progress. Right now, it struck me that we’re relying on carrots, and mostly non-financial carrots at that. Maria Vargas of the U.S. Department of Energy talked about the Better Buildings Challenge, which she oversees; it’s a program that offers recognition to companies that agree to cut their energy consumption by 20 percent by 2020, and dozens of big companies have signed up. Roger Platt of the nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council described the rapid growth of LEED-certified buildings, and Greg Hale of NRDC’s Center for Market innovation talked about the group’s pioneering efforts to bring building owners, tenants and energy services companies together to retrofit existing buildings, and then share what they’ve learned across the real estate industry.
All of this is laudable, but I wondered whether the efficiency industry needs either more powerful carrots or a few sticks. If we can agree, for example, that the government should provide tax credits or incentives for renewable energy, shouldn’t it do the same for efficiency? Right now, if I put solar panels on my roof, I get a 25 percent federal tax credit. I can’t get the same tax break for insulating my attic or installing windows that will save energy.
Alternatively, building codes could require contractors to meet minimal efficiency standards (such asCalifornia's innovative Title 24). “Having a minimum standard would be really good for this country,” Platt said. Or the government could provide low-cost financing, or underwrite loans for efficiency upgrades. Or, at the local level, cities or states can require building owners to disclose their energy use to potential tenants, bring transparency to a market that is often opaque; San Francisco is doing this. So-called green appraisal standards could also play a role.
Not being expert in any of this, I won’t to venture a guess as to which policy would be best. (Except to restatemy preference for a revenue-neutral carbon tax.) But I do know that policy shouldn’t be guided by the fact that wind turbines and solar panels are sexier, or at least more photogenic, than insulation and HVAC.
“Real estate is the largest source of clean energy in this country, and it’s very inexpensively tapped.”
So said Tony Malkin, the president of Malkin Holdings, owner of the Empire State Building.
Malkin spoke this week at the annual Energy Efficiency Forum in Washington, D.C., and he’s got a point, albeit a controversial one.
If we — or, more to the point, the people who represent us in Washington — have $1 to spend,better that it be spent on energy efficiency than on clean energy. That’s not way things work now. Today, wind and solar power get generous tax breaks and subsidies. Energy efficiency investments do not. The government has it exactly backward.
Why? First, let’s stipulate that money spent on efficiency and on clean energy creates short-term jobs. The efficiency-related jobs are more likely to be US jobs (because most solar panels are made in China) but set that aside for a moment. What matters is what happens after the insulation goes into a building, or the solar panels go up on the roof.
The problem with clean energy is that electricity from wind turbines or solar panel, as a rule, costs more than power generated by burning coal or natural gas. If it didn’t, the wind and solar industries wouldn’t need the investment tax credits and renewable portfolio mandates that are vital to their business. But over time the higher costs of clean energy create a drag on economic growth, whether they are paid by the government or by energy users.
By contrast, money spent on efficiency reduces costs over time. So, whether we are talking about more efficient factories, commercial buildings, homes or even cars, the spending on efficiency makes the economy more productive, driving economic growth and creating jobs in the long run.
Yet the government generously subsidizes wind and solar. Efficiency, not so much.
Actually, it’s a bit worse than that. Since businesses can deduct legitimate expenses on their tax returns, they pay less than the full cost of their electricity bills.
“I get a tax deduction for wasting energy,” Dave Myers, president of the building efficiency business atJohnson Controls, said wryly during the forum.
“It is absolutely insane to me that energy can be expensed on your tax bill,” Malkin agreed.
Let me hasten to add that we need both energy efficiency and clean energy, and in my view, both deserve strong policy support. Remember, scientists say that to avoid risky climate change, the world needs to curb its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. That will require the aggressive deployment of low-carbon energy sources, as well as dramatic gains in efficiency. But we also should be clear about how the costs and benefits work, so we can get the policy right, and especially think about why the government isn’t doing more to promote efficiency.
Next page: Many happy returns
As it happens, markets by themselves are driving some efficiency gains. Johnson Controls, which organizes the energy efficiency forum, just released a global survey called the Energy Efficiency Indicator, which delivered mostly good news on the building efficiency front. JCI’s Dave Myers reported that 83 percent of the 3,500 global respondents said they were planning to spend as much or more money this year as they did last year to make their buildings more efficient. That’s impressive, given the sluggish global economy, and with uncertainties hanging over Europe. “Energy cost savings, and the savings in dollars, continue to be the No. 1 driver of investment,” he said. No surprise there.
The question is, how can building efficiency by driven further and faster? Sometimes, the payback from investments — in lighting, heating, cooling, windows, whatever — takes more than two or three years, or there are split incentives between building owners (who might have to invest the capital in the infrastructure) and tenants (who pay the bills). Other times, building owners can’t come up with the financing to pay for capital improvements, even if they would pay back quickly. That’s where policy, which can take the form of carrots or sticks, comes into play.
In my capacity as a senior writer at GreenBiz.com, I moderated a panel on building efficiency at the forum, where we talked about how to speed up progress. Right now, it struck me that we’re relying on carrots, and mostly non-financial carrots at that. Maria Vargas of the U.S. Department of Energy talked about the Better Buildings Challenge, which she oversees; it’s a program that offers recognition to companies that agree to cut their energy consumption by 20 percent by 2020, and dozens of big companies have signed up. Roger Platt of the nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council described the rapid growth of LEED-certified buildings, and Greg Hale of NRDC’s Center for Market innovation talked about the group’s pioneering efforts to bring building owners, tenants and energy services companies together to retrofit existing buildings, and then share what they’ve learned across the real estate industry.
All of this is laudable, but I wondered whether the efficiency industry needs either more powerful carrots or a few sticks. If we can agree, for example, that the government should provide tax credits or incentives for renewable energy, shouldn’t it do the same for efficiency? Right now, if I put solar panels on my roof, I get a 25 percent federal tax credit. I can’t get the same tax break for insulating my attic or installing windows that will save energy.
Alternatively, building codes could require contractors to meet minimal efficiency standards (such asCalifornia's innovative Title 24). “Having a minimum standard would be really good for this country,” Platt said. Or the government could provide low-cost financing, or underwrite loans for efficiency upgrades. Or, at the local level, cities or states can require building owners to disclose their energy use to potential tenants, bring transparency to a market that is often opaque; San Francisco is doing this. So-called green appraisal standards could also play a role.
Not being expert in any of this, I won’t to venture a guess as to which policy would be best. (Except to restatemy preference for a revenue-neutral carbon tax.) But I do know that policy shouldn’t be guided by the fact that wind turbines and solar panels are sexier, or at least more photogenic, than insulation and HVAC.
Federal subsidies for new wind-power generation will end on Dec. 31 unless they are renewed by Congress. For the sake of our economy and the smooth operation of the energy market, Congress should let the subsidies lapse. They waste taxpayer money, subvert the allocation of capital, and generate a social cost many times the price tag of the subsides themselves.
Since 1992, the federal government has expended almost $24 billion to encourage investment in wind power through direct spending, tax breaks, R&D, loan guarantees and other federal support of electric power. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that a one-year extension of existing federal subsidies for wind power would cost taxpayers almost $12 billion.
The costs of wind subsidies are extraordinarily high—$52.48 per one million watt hours generated, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. By contrast, the subsidies for generating the same amount of electricity from nuclear power are $3.10, from hydropower 84 cents, from coal 64 cents, and from natural gas 63 cents.
In addition, wind power benefits from federal mandates requiring the use of renewable energy by federal agencies along with preferential treatment by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. Many states provide additional tax breaks, subsidies and mandates for wind power. The total value of these additional subsidies has never been calculated.
But the cost to taxpayers is only part of the problem. Subsidized, wind-generated electricity is displacing other, much cheaper sources of power. The subsidies are so high that wind-power producers can pay utilities to take the electricity they produce and still make a profit. Such "negative pricing" has occurred for some time in the Midwest, the Pacific Northwest and in Texas—and, according to the Energy Information Administration, it will likely grow.
In West Texas, where wind power is a larger percentage of total electricity production than in any other part of the country, negative energy-price distortions have occurred 8% or more of the time for the last five years. Donna Nelson, the chairman of the Texas Public Utility Commission, warned in September that the market distortion caused by negative prices "makes it difficult for other generation types to recover their cost and discourages investment in new generation."
The net result is that federal subsidies are triggering an inefficient and costly transformation of grid resources from low-cost megawatts to high-cost "maybe" watts—electricity generated only when the wind blows.
When electricity demand peaked in Chicago on July 6, 2012, wind energy, which comprised 2,700 megawatts of capacity, was able to supply only four megawatts of electricity, a stunning 99.8% failure rate. In Europe, one day this February wind power produced almost a third of Germany's electricity—but four days later it produced none (it was a still day).
Power grids that rely on wind-generated electricity have to maintain redundant, backup generating capacity in case the wind isn't blowing and the demand for electricity is high. Many of these backup sources, such as coal and gas-fired plants, have to be kept up and running to be available when they are needed—even if they are not used. This partially offsets the environmental benefits of wind power.
Wind-power is an ancient technology—a Greek mathematician, Heron of Alexandria, is generally credited with building the first windmill 2,000 years ago. Charles Brush, an industrialist, was the first to generate electricity from a windmill in this country in Cleveland almost 125 years ago. But it never proved to be commercially viable.
In the 1990s, the federal government began subsidizing wind power based on the hope that, with a helping hand, the technology would improve rapidly, costs would decline, and the industry would become economically viable. Congressman Phil Sharp (D., Ind.), the original proponent of the subsidies, argued in 1991 for "a sunset provision to ensure that the temporary incentive does not become a permanent subsidy."
But the sun has never set. Again and again—on seven subsequent occasions in all—federal subsidies for wind were extended.
Yet wind power is less economically viable today than it was when the current subsidies started in 1992. After the expected gains in moving from one-off production to assembly-line production, no major technological breakthrough has occurred that would substantially lower the cost of wind-power electricity generation. The Department of Energy's "2009 Wind Technology Market Report" finds average wind-power costs were higher in 2009 than they were in 1994, two years after the subsidies began. As Energy Secretary Steven Chu has observed on more than one occasion, wind energy is a "mature technology."
Meanwhile, as the production of natural gas has surged in the past few years, the price paid for this energy source has declined dramatically, to $3.29 per million BTUs at last report. This is less than one-fourth the July 2008 price, according to Energy Information Administration data.
Declining costs for electricity will give America a comparative advantage in industrial jobs that entail high levels of energy use, such as aluminum, glass, iron and steel, cement and petrochemical production. It also means, however, that wind-power subsidies will become even more costly and disruptive. As Dieter Helm notes in his important new book, "The Carbon Crunch," wind subsidies make "new gas investment much more risky and . . . gas contracting difficult, since how much gas the power station buys as its fuel depends on factors outside its control: the wind speed."
It is increasingly difficult to make a case that taxpayers should continue to subsidize wind-generated electricity. The end of the subsidy will not induce owners of existing windmills to shut them down, since so much of the cost is fixed in the original construction project and so little of their costs are entailed in operating the windmill once it is constructed. Under current law, billions of dollars in subsidies will continue to be paid out over the next decade on existing projects even if the subsidies for projects built in the future expire.
If unimpeded, the expanded use of cheap natural gas to generate electricity will raise living standards and attract millions of new industrial jobs back to our shores. A vote to stop wind subsidies from being extended is, therefore, a vote for cheaper, more reliable power, higher living standards, reindustrialization and fiscal sanity.
Mr. Gramm, a former Republican U.S. senator from Texas, is a senior partner of US Policy Metrics and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
A version of this article appeared December 26, 2012, on page A13 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Multiple Distortions of Wind Subsidies.
The Wind Turbine Options Analysis Project met for three hours Dec. 18 to prepare its final report to the Falmouth Board of Selectmen, based on a seven-month evaluation by the Wind Turbine Options Analysis Process (WTOP).
Area residents waited nearly three hours before they could offer any public comments and expressed grave concerns that the impact of the turbines on their lives is being overshadowed by the WTOP’s focus on legal and financial implications for the town, and editorial language used in the 36-page draft that is still under revision.
The residents suggested a comprehensive health survey was needed for WTOP to understand the health hazards of the turbines, and they expressed disbelief that some WTOP members would not acknowledge the negative impact of the turbines on the property values of their homes. One resident claimed she has abandoned her home due to its proximity to the turbines and the resulting health complications.
“This problem is not going to go away with testing. This is a medical issue, and not about DEP regulations or about noise. These turbines are not going to save the planet. They are hurting people,” said Sue Hobart, formerly of Blacksmith Shop Road.
Colin Murphy, a Falmouth resident who lives within 1,900 feet of the turbines, said the turbines are impacting his children, ages 6 and 8. He was disturbed by one WTOP option to limit the hours of operation for the turbines and perhaps shut them down at 11 pm, to reduce any potential for sleep deprivation for those living near them.
“I don’t want to have to wait until 11 pm to put my children to sleep. I don’t want to send them to school with an hour of sleep. … I don’t think my two children should have to suffer so the town can make a buck,” Murphy said.
Annie and Mark Cool, who live within 1/3 mile of Turbine 1, called the WTOP a “waste of time” that continues to spin its wheels in endless discussions while they and their neighbors suffer detrimental impacts of the turbines.
For the past 2.5 years, the turbines have been a source of dissention among Falmouth residents and public officials, with those living near the turbines claiming serious sleep disturbances and adverse health effects, and property owners claiming the values of their homes is depreciating. Meanwhile, town officials continue to weigh these concerns with the economic and environmental issues involved with the turbines.
Opinion | The myth of Denmark as a corruption-free country
The Copenhagen Post Peter Rørdam
November 16, 2012 - 09:02
Wind power's future is on the horizon, but people living near wind turbines themselves wish they were over the horizon (Photo: Colourbox)
Public officials, the author aruges, are obsessed with wind
It’s a widely held conception that Denmark is one of the world’s least corrupt countries. The message is always warmly received, but this isn’t the same as saying that Denmark is free of corruption. I’m not qualified to speak about corruption in general, but there is one area in which I do have an in-depth knowledge: wind power – which is an industry that has managed to thoroughly corrupt the political system.
The law approving construction of a test centre of large land-based wind turbines near the Jutland town of Østerild was forced through parliament despite warnings about the effects it would have on the natural environment in the area and its impact on residents. The bill was able to make its way through parliament thanks to a complete manipulation of the facts – both by keeping some information under wraps, and by directly misinforming people.
But it wasn’t parliament that was misled. Members of parliament that voted for the law were fully aware of the truth, yet they turned a blind eye so the law could be passed. It was, in fact, voters who were tricked into thinking that they had been told the whole truth.
The only thing that matters for wind turbine makers is money. You can wonder why law makers would play along with their game, but as soon as they threatened to move jobs abroad they did as they were told.
Laying out all the details of this situation would require more space than is available here, but for those that read Danish, Peter Skeel Hjort’s book ‘Besat af wind’ (Obsessed by the wind) provides a harrowing look into of the industry and the political system.
Collaboration between the industry and lawmakers didn’t stop with the approval of the test centre. Since then, there has been a flood of complaints from people who were unfortunate enough to find themselves living next to large land-based wind turbines elsewhere. The effects, which are well documented, can cause illness and render properties uninhabitable. Their complaints, however, are normally rejected by the authorities, who maintain that living close to wind turbines is not associated with any detrimental effects.
An artist's conceptualisation of how the wind turbines would appear at a distance of 2.6km
On October 9, Berlingske newspaper published an article by three Aalborg University scientists, who proved that the official noise calculations are wrong, and that the manipulated figures tone down the problems associated with living near a wind turbine. The authorities have done nothing to show that they have scientific evidence to base their claims on. Their only reaction has been to say that the Aalborg University study is wrong, because it does not jibe with the wind power industry’s own findings. We heard this most recently from the environment minister, Ida Auken, who is either being led around by the nose of the people whose interests she’s looking out for, or – as was the case with her predecessor – she is taking part in the misinformation. It’s worth noting that the compensation homeowners living near wind turbines are given to make up for lost property value is based on the falsified noise calculations – which means that people are, in fact, being cheated out of the full amount they are actually owed.
Corruption is defined as moral decay, and that is precisely what we are witnessing here. The fear that Denmark could lose jobs and the near religious obsession with wind power has made politicians deaf and blind to objections to wind as a source of energy, and led them to take part in the industry’s fraud. The environmental and human impacts of what they are doing appear to have no effect on them.
It only adds to the embarrassment is that instead of hiring people, the wind industry is eliminating jobs in Denmark. Meanwhile, little has happened at the Østerild test centre. Parliament rushed to approve the establishment of Østerild, because the industry told them it was vital that they could have seven large wind turbines standing in a row. Østerild was chosen because it had the physical characteristics the industry needed. Today, one turbine stands, and it remains to be seen how many more will be built.
There are a lot of people who have plenty to be ashamed of, but we shouldn’t expect that to change much. Moral scruples aren’t what we most associate with Danish politicians.
Nantucket voters raise their hands in favor of a motion to table a controversial warrant article that sought to expand the powers and jurisdiction of the Historic District Commission.
By Jason Graziadei
I&M Senior Writer
(Oct. 22, 2012) Nantucket voters quickly dispatched with proposals to build a wind turbine in Madaket and expand the powers of the Historic District Commission during Monday's Special Town Meeting.
Barbara Gookin's citizen petition to appropriate $620,000 for a 100 kilowatt wind turbine at the Madaket landfill was overwhelmingly defeated, and the HDC petition, which had garnered significant opposition from the island's real estate and building industries over the past week, was tabled with a motion from one of its supporters.
A large crowd (for a Special Town Meeting) of 632 people showed up at the Nantucket High School auditorium for the meeting, with attendance driven by the wind turbine article, which brought out west end residents, and the HDC petition that generated widespread opposition from two of the largest sectors of the island's economy: building and real estate.
A sea of hands rose to defeat Article 5, Gookin's citizen petition to fund a wind turbine similar in size and cost to the one already operating at Nantucket High School, just a few hundred yards away from the auditorium. It marked the second time this year that Nantucket voters have rejected a wind turbine project at the Madaket landfill. Back in March, island residents also shot down an even larger 900 kilowatt turbine proposal put forward by the town's Energy Study Committee by a similarly large margin.
Voters also approved a series of enterprise fund budget amendments Monday night, the largest being a $1.06 million subsidy from the town’s general fund to Nantucket Memorial Airport to cover a shortfall at the island transportation hub. The subsidy is expected to be repaid by the airport at the end of the current fiscal year.
Only several other warrant articles were called for debate, and Monday's Special Town Meeting wrapped up around 7:30 p.m. Tonight's attendance was 632 people, a 7.5 percent turnout of Nantucket's total of 8,389 registered voters.
For more coverage of Monday's Special Town Meeting, pick up Thursday's Inquirer and Mirror
LIVE UPDATES BELOW
7:20 p.m. Article 11, the citizen petition to expand the powers and jurisdiction of the HDC, was tabled with an overwhelming vote to take no action. Linda Williams, who made the motion to table, is a member of the HDC who supported the proposal. But the island's building and real estate sectors had rallied over the past week to defeat the petition - and appeared to be well represented in the auditorium. A potential deal that emerged over the weekend to refer the petition to a study group fell apart in the final day before the Special Town Meeting began.
7:18 p.m. Debate is underway on Article 11, the citizen petition seeking to expand the power
the powers of the HDC, with a motion to table the proposal from HDC member Linda Williams.
7:15 p.m. Article 8, the zoning bylaw amendment dealing with the town's zoning enforcement officer position, was defeated on a hand count vote. The vote was 327 in favor, with 195 opposed. The required two-thirds threshold was 390 votes.
7:10 p.m. Voting is underway on Article 8, a zoning bylaw amendment which would allow the town manager to appoint any employee of the Building Department as a zoning enforcement officer of the town. Town manager Libby Gibson said the article was meant to improve efficiencies at the newly consolidated Planning and Land Use Services department. The article was called by Lucretia Voigt, who said it could result in inconsistent enforcement, have unintended consequences and wouldn't fix the problems it aimed to solve.
7:05 p.m. The Madaket wind turbine citizen petition, Article 5, was overwhelmingly defeated on a voice vote. A hand count was called for, but the sea of hands in the air to vote "no" led moderator Sarah Alger to declare the two-thirds majority against the proposal.
7:00 p.m. David Goodman's motion to table Article 5, or "essentially to kill the article for this town meeting," as moderator Sarah Alger put it, was defeated on a voice vote.
6:45 p.m. Debate began on Article 5, Barbara Gookin's citizen petition to fund the construction of a wind turbine at the Madaket landfill. With the Board of Selectmen and Finance Committee issuing negative recommendations on the article, Gookin introduced a positive motion to appropriate $620,000 through borrowing to fund the project.
6:40 p.m. Article 1, a series of enterprise fund budget amendments, was approved on a declared majority voice vote. Five municipal enterprise funds required budget adjustments, the largest being a $1.06 million subsidy from the town’s general fund to Nantucket Memorial Airport. The airport deficit is being driven, in part, by increased debt-service costs from the terminal expansion project and the construction of the new general administration building (a project currently underway). The other factor necessitating the budget amendments in the enterprise funds is the state Department of Revenue's financial reporting rules that prohibit them from budgeting any anticipated increases in revenue over the prior year. Town and airport officials hope the subsidies will be repaid from the enterprise funds' retained earnings at the 2013 Annual Town Meeting.
6:22 p.m. Only five warrant articles have been called for debate, including the Madaket wind turbine appropriation and the HDC home rule petition.
6:10 p.m. The 2012 Special Town Meeting is now underway. Moderator Sarah Alger is updating a surprisingly large crowd of Special Town Meeting attendees about technical amendments to tonight's warrant.
The island's building and real estate industries rallied over the past week to defeat David Barham's petition that seeks to expand the powers and jurisdiction of the HDC. A potential deal emerged over the weekend to refer the petition to a study group, but appeared to fall apart in the final hours before the Special Town Meeting.
Tonight will mark the second time this year that Nantucket’s legislative body – the island’s citizens – will convene at the high school auditorium to consider an array of municipal government business.
To read the full story, check out the print edition of The Inquirer and Mirror, or register for the I&M's online edition by clicking here.
As austerity bites into European living standards, sparking revolt at the polls, "growth" has become the politician's mantra. But to be competitive, European countries require a secure, plentiful and competitively priced energy supply. Unless Europe radically rethinks its obsession with carbon-dioxide emissions and the anti-fossil fuel energy policies that flow from it, growth is likely to remain elusive.
European Union law mandates that the 27 member countries on average cut their C02 emissions 20% by 2020, compared to 1990 levels. The goal after that is to cut emissions by between 80% and 95% by 2050. In May 2010, a study by the European Commission's energy department estimated the 20% cut would cost 48 billion euros ($66.3 billion) a year. The Commission's draft Energy Roadmap for 2050 is frank: "There is a trade-off between climate change policies and competitiveness."
There is indeed. The consultancy Verso Economics has calculated the opportunity cost of the United Kingdom's subsidy system for renewables to be 10,000 jobs between 2009 and 2010 alone. A report by the Energy Intensive Users Group (which represents energy-intensive British businesses) and the Trades Union Congress cited steel making, ceramics, paper, cement and lime manufacture, aluminum and basic inorganic chemicals as industries facing up to 141% in additional energy costs by 2020 as a result of C02 emissions-reduction schemes. EIUG Director Jeremy Nicholson notes that "the current policies do seem to be angled towards creating a market for overseas competitors."
Emissions-free solar and wind energy, on which the U.K. plans increasingly to rely, are expensive. The government estimates that a planned offshore wind farm project ringing the coast will cost £140 billion, or £5,600 ($8,972) for every household in the country. Conventional energy could provide the same amount of energy at 5% of the cost.
The U.K.'s Department of Energy and Climate Change commissioned a report (led by Prof. John Hills of the London School of Economics) to examine the issue of "fuel poverty," defined as when fuel bills take up more than 10% of household income. It found four million of England's 21.5 million households fall in this category and the number could rise to 9.2 million by 2016, equivalent to 43% of all homes in England. One of the key factors are green taxes and levies expected to add up to £200 ($306) to bills by 2020.
European Pressphoto AgencyWind-powered street lights in Spain.
Spain's experience with subsidizing renewables has been painful. A 2009 study at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos found subsidies required 3.45% of all of Spain's household income tax revenues and had led to a loss of 110,500 jobs. An April 2010 internal assessment by the former Zapatero government was equally bleak. It noted that the price of electricity determined the competitiveness of Spanish industry, and the price had risen to 17% above the European average. The chief reason: government subsidies for renewables, which had increased fivefold between 2004 and 2010.
While Spain has sought to lance its solar investment bubble, others are proceeding with poorly conceived schemes. Denmark already has the highest energy prices in Europe. Yet the recently elected Danish government raised its C02 reduction target to 40% by 2020 and has set a goal of completely phasing out fossil fuels by 2050.
Italy's subsidy system sets the price floor for wind energy at three times the market level. A study at Italy's Instituto Bruno Leoni found the capital necessary to create one green job could have created 6.9 jobs if invested in industry.
Even Germany, Europe's healthiest economy, may be in for some rude surprises. Germany's Renewable Energy Feed-in Act of 2000 requires electric utilities to buy renewables from all producers at fixed, exorbitant rates and feed it into the power grid for 20 years. A German utility executive has observed that solar energy in Germany makes as much sense as growing pineapples in Alaska. Despite this, Germany now has half the world's solar photovoltaic capacity.
Fritz Vahrenholt, the departing head of the renewable energy arm of RWE Innogy and a former hero of the German environmental movement, now says: "We're destroying the foundations of our prosperity. In the end what we are doing is putting the German automotive sector at risk, the steel, copper and chemical sectors, silicon, you name it."
France, because of its heavy reliance on nuclear power, has no emissions problem. But new President Francois Hollande has promised to cut nuclear energy by a third. His defeated Socialist rival, Maxine Aubry, had promised to eliminate nuclear altogether.
If the energy source is cheap and plentiful—even low in C02 emissions—much of Europe wants no part of it. Although Europe has huge shale gas resources, Germany has imposed a moratorium on shale-gas exploration, which France already forbids by law.
Evidence mounts daily that man-made global warming is a phony apocalypse, but its effect in depressing living standards is all too real.
Ms. Isaac's most recent book is "Roosters of the Apocalypse: How the Junk Science of Global Warming Almost Bankrupted the Western World" (Heartland Institute, 2012).
Our proposed national energy slogan is “All of the Sensible” (in contrast to the absurd “All of the Above”). Please pass it on. US citizens should make sure to get up-to-speed with what is on our PTCFacts.Info pages.
I wrote a nine page critique of Bill McKibben, who continues to be a parasite in environmental and energy matters. This is a very good analysis of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring on it’s 50th anniversary. Bill and many other environmentalists are following her lead (sensationalism without science). Make sure to support the upcoming debate.
Quote of the week, from Dr. Gordon Fulks: “Science” by consensus is politics. “Science” by belief is religion. “Science” by programmers code is computer gaming. “Science” by story telling is science fiction. Etc. On the other hand, Science by logic, transparent evidence and empirical proof IS science.
More reports about greed energy economics:
This is the good Pompeo PTC letter we referenced in the last issue. Here is a superb article written by Pompeo about the PTC in a Kansas newspaper.
Please pass this information on to other open-minded, science-oriented people. If anyone would like to be added to or removed from the email list, please let me know.
We, in the town of Forest, St. Croix County,WI have been fighting against an industrial wind project for two years. The Highland Wind Farm--41 towers 497 foot tall 2.5 MW turbines (likely Nordex N100)--is on the map for our small township. We stopped the project on a local level about one year ago when we recalled the town board based on open records that showed evidence of open meeting violations and possible collusion between them and the wind developer, Emerging Energies aka EEW Services, Hubertus, WI. At least two of the three former town board members stand to make financial gain from the wind project. Sound familiar? Our new town board rescinded all permits; however, the wind developer added two more turbines and took their application to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC), which has the power to grant permitting on projects over 100 MW.
Right now, we are in the fight of our lives before the PSC of Wisconsin. When our group, the Forest Voice (www.theforestvoice.org) requested intervenor compensation from the PSC to hire expert witnesses, we were awarded a paltry sum of $20,000.00 for attorney fees only--nothing for expert witnesses. Another intervenor, CLEAN Wisconsin, a pro-wind "environmental" organization, which is also a registered lobby, received $43,000.00 to hire a so-called sound expert, which, of course, is supporting the wind developer. At every turn, we believe our voices of opposition are being suppressed, including from the very agency that should be protecting us. If the people of Forest write a public comment on the docket, we cannot testify in person at the public hearing. Yet, we will keep fighting with everything we have.
On Friday, September 21, 2012, the Wisconsin PSC docket began filling with pro-wind public comments urging the PSC commissioners to permit the wind project. I checked around and found out the CLEAN Wisconsin website, the folks that received $43,000.00 for one expert witness, has a link to the docket and are encouraging people to write public comments in support of Highland Wind. I am asking all of you to please, please go to the PSC Docket and submit a public comment regarding the nasty side of industrial wind that we all understand so well.
The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has deployed an army of paid lobbyists to capture the American government, much in the way King George III sent his hired Hessian troops in their crisp green uniforms, armed with long muskets, tipped with long sharp bayonets, and to kill the life out of the American independence movement.
Big Wind, disguised in “green-mindedness”, has been crushing anyone and everyone who happens to be in its way. Residents in towns and farm areas across this country, Canada, Great Britain, Sweden, Holland, Spain, China, Australia and New Zealand are feeling the boot and suffering the torture and pain of having to either, succumb to the awful illnesses that the spinning wind turbine blades cause, or flee, if they are fortunate enough to be able to afford it, so that their families might simply be well. There are now numerous reported stories of the so-called wind farms having followed the refugees to their new home places.
Schoolchildren are being hammered right in their schools.
In some countries, windpower victims are appealing to their governments for monetary relief for their medical and property costs. As you can imagine, they are being ignored, even being blamed for imagining what they are going through. They are in the throes of a PHYSIOLOGICAL assault. If there is a psychological component, it is the realization that their boards and departments of public health seem to be frozen like deer in Big Wind’s headlights, and unable to carry out their sworn duty to the victims of this man-made plague.
If Big Wind and the legion of captive public officials, from the President of this nation to the humblest Selectman, think that they are safe in hiding behind the “green” curtain, I want to advise them that a little dog is pulling it aside. Here is the way it is happening.
In Falmouth, MA, the Falmouth Committee on Human Rights has just come into being. This infant entity, just like a newborn colt, is already up on its feet and is organizing the First Falmouth Conference on Human Rights. It is now working to bring together in person, or via Skype, the best experts in medicine and epidemiology, acoustics and ecology, physics and engineering, economics and government, the arts and, MOST IMPORTANTLY, the actual victims of the windpower scourge, under one roof, the Main Branch of the Falmouth Public Library, BEFORE THE TOWN AND NATIONAL ELECTIONS.
We envision the birth of committees on human rights IN EVERY TOWN AND CITY IN THIS AND EVERY COUNTRY ACROSS THE WORLD. Power structures, if they refuse to respond to the crucial issues posed by Big Wind, that are being raised with a deafening roar, MUST BE DISMANTLED AND REPLACED BY THOSE WHOSE HEARTS AND BRAINS ARE STILL CONNECTED.
I AM ASKING EVERYONE WHO READS THESE WORDS TO PASS THEM ON TO ANYONE WHO CAN HELP THE LITTLE DOG PULL ASIDE THE CURTAIN!
Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC) is running a poll on whether there should be a moratorium on wind power projects until Health Canada completes its study on the effects which turbine noise may have on human health. Vote here now:
Once the turbines are up, no matter how many people are affected, no matter if the impact is enough to make them abandon their homes, it can take years to correct the situation to allow them to return to their homes. Please help us stop the mushrooming of these industrial machines until we learn more. A health study with results due in 2014 - juxtaposed with continued building - is ...nuts. It's wasteful of resources and the environment; it's fiscal insanity; it's just plain wrong.
OTTAWA - Health Canada, in collaboration with Statistics Canada, will conduct a research study that will explore the relationship between wind turbine noise and health effects reported by, and objectively measured in, people living near wind power developments.
"This study is in response to questions from residents living near wind farms about possible health effects of low frequency noise generated by wind turbines," said the Honourable Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of Health. "As always, our Government is putting the health and safety of Canadians first and this study will do just that by painting a more complete picture of the potential health impacts of wind turbine noise."
Health Canada is aware of health-related complaints from individuals living in close proximity to wind turbine establishments. The study is being designed with support from external experts, specializing in areas including noise, health assessment, clinical medicine and epidemiology.
The proposed research design and methodology was posted on Health Canada's web site today for a 30-day public comment period. Feedback obtained will be reviewed by the design committee, compiled and published to the website, along with the design committee's responses.
The study will be focused on an initially targeted sample size of 2,000 dwellings selected from 8-12 wind turbine installation facilities in Canada. In addition to taking physical measurements from participants, such as blood pressure, investigators will conduct face-to-face interviews and take noise measurements inside and outside of some homes to validate sound modelling.
Health Canada has expertise in measuring noise and assessing the health impacts of noise because of its role in administering the Radiation Emitting Devices Act (REDA). As defined under REDA, noise is a form of radiation.
The study results are expected to be published in 2014.
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Media Enquiries:
Health Canada
(613) 957-2983
Cailin Rodgers
Office of the Honourable Leona Aglukkaq
Federal Minister of Health
(613) 957-0200
Federal Agencies Sued Over Failure to Disclose Correspondence with Wind Industry - Promise of Government Transparency Not Being Met
MEDIA RELEASE
Contact: Robert Johns, 202-234-7181 ext.210, Email click here
Snowy Owl and wind turbine by David A. Krauss
(Washington, D.C., June 26, 2012) In a lawsuitfiled today in Washington D.C. District Court American Bird Conservancy has accused the federal government of suppressing information about wind energy projects and their potential negative impact on America's wildlife. ABC is being represented in the suit by the Washington D.C. public-interest law firm of Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal.
ABC charges that two Interior Department (DOI) agencies flagrantly violated the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by failing to comply with statutory deadlines for disclosure of information, and by failing to provide their correspondence with wind developers and other information related to potential impacts on birds and bats, and bird and bat deaths at controversial wind developments in 10 states.
"It’s ridiculous that Americans have to sue in order to find out what their government is saying to wind companies about our wildlife—a public trust,” said Kelly Fuller, Wind Campaign Coordinator for ABC. “ABC is concerned that many of these projects have the potential to take a devastating toll on songbirds, majestic eagles, and threatened and endangered species,” she added.
ABC filed six requests under FOIA – all of them more than eight months ago. ABC’s FOIA requests asked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s correspondence with wind developers regarding birds and bats, as well as related information about wildlife impacts, such as studies showing which bird and bat species were in the area and how many had been killed by the facilities. ABC’s FOIA requests were to be processed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which subsequently referred one request to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Under FOIA’s strict deadlines, the agencies were required to fulfill the requests or claim exemptions within 20 working days.
“In President Obama’s first month in office, he directed federal agencies to respond to the public’s FOIA requests promptly and in a spirit of cooperation. The President said, ‘A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency.’ With this lawsuit, ABC is asking the Department of the Interior to carry out the President’s promise,” said Fuller. “Some DOI offices have not sent a single document that we asked for, even though the agencies were legally required to do so more than seven months ago.”
Many organizations are concerned about the U.S. government’s management of wind energy’s impacts on wildlife. In May 2012, ABC and 60 other organizations asked committees in the U.S. House and Senate for Congressional oversight of FWS’s implementation of new voluntary guidelines for avoiding, minimizing, and mitigating the impacts of wind energy on wildlife. Ninety-one organizations endorsed an extensive rulemaking petition submitted by ABC requesting that FWS establish mandatory wildlife protection regulations in lieu of the voluntary approach favored by the industry.
In a March 2012 letter rejecting ABC’s petition, FWS Director Daniel Ashe asserted that FWS was being “meticulously transparent” in how the Service was addressing the impact of wind power on wildlife, and asked for ABC’s help in assessing the effectiveness of the voluntary wind guidelines. “But stonewalling FOIA requests is hardly ‘transparency,’ and without timely access to the crucial information held by the Service, evaluating the effectiveness of the guidelines will be impossible. ABC also will not be able to properly fulfill our mission to protect native birds and their habitats throughout the Americas,” said Fuller.
ABC’s FOIA requests were in regard to proposed and existing wind energy developments in Arizona, California, Florida, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Texas. Birds that could potentially be harmed include Bald and Golden Eagles, as well as birds that have been federally designated as threatened and endangered, such as Whooping Cranes, Northern Aplomado Falcons, Least Terns, Piping Plovers, Marbled Murrelets, Snail Kites, Wood Storks, and Northern Crested Caracaras. Other birds that could potentially be harmed include night-migrating songbirds, birds of prey, and candidates for listing under the Endangered Species Act such as Greater Sage-Grouse and Sprague’s Pipit.
ABC supports Bird-Smart Wind Power, which employs careful siting, operation and construction mitigation, bird monitoring, and compensatory mitigation to reduce and redress any unavoidable bird mortality and habitat loss. In May 2012, ABC released an interactive web map to help wind energy development become more Bird-Smart. The map shows more than 2,000 locations in the United States where birds will be particularly vulnerable to the impacts of wind energy development.
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American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit membership organization whose mission is to conserve native birds and their habitats throughout the Americas. ABC acts by safeguarding the rarest species, conserving and restoring habitats, and reducing threats, while building capacity in the bird conservation movement.
I am asking for your help for Forest, WI
Posted by SaveOurSeaShore
Dear Fellow Wind Fighters:
I am asking for your help.
We, in the town of Forest, St. Croix County,WI have been fighting against an industrial wind project for two years. The Highland Wind Farm--41 towers 497 foot tall 2.5 MW turbines (likely Nordex N100)--is on the map for our small township. We stopped the project on a local level about one year ago when we recalled the town board based on open records that showed evidence of open meeting violations and possible collusion between them and the wind developer, Emerging Energies aka EEW Services, Hubertus, WI. At least two of the three former town board members stand to make financial gain from the wind project. Sound familiar? Our new town board rescinded all permits; however, the wind developer added two more turbines and took their application to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC), which has the power to grant permitting on projects over 100 MW.
Right now, we are in the fight of our lives before the PSC of Wisconsin. When our group, the Forest Voice (www.theforestvoice.org) requested intervenor compensation from the PSC to hire expert witnesses, we were awarded a paltry sum of $20,000.00 for attorney fees only--nothing for expert witnesses. Another intervenor, CLEAN Wisconsin, a pro-wind "environmental" organization, which is also a registered lobby, received $43,000.00 to hire a so-called sound expert, which, of course, is supporting the wind developer. At every turn, we believe our voices of opposition are being suppressed, including from the very agency that should be protecting us. If the people of Forest write a public comment on the docket, we cannot testify in person at the public hearing. Yet, we will keep fighting with everything we have.
On Friday, September 21, 2012, the Wisconsin PSC docket began filling with pro-wind public comments urging the PSC commissioners to permit the wind project. I checked around and found out the CLEAN Wisconsin website, the folks that received $43,000.00 for one expert witness, has a link to the docket and are encouraging people to write public comments in support of Highland Wind. I am asking all of you to please, please go to the PSC Docket and submit a public comment regarding the nasty side of industrial wind that we all understand so well.
Directions:
Go to www.psc.wi.gov.
On the left side of the home page is a button to click on "Public Comment."
The Public Comment button will bring you to a page with a list of open cases.
Scroll down a little more than half way and click on "Highland Wind Farm."
A window will open in which you can write a public comment.