Community Opposition to Wind Farms Grows Because Wind Power is a Fraud

As community and political opposition to the great wind power fraud rolls and builds across the world, the charge that opponents are red-necked climate change deniers, infected with a dose of Not In My Backyard syndrome, starts to ring hollow.

Surely that charge can’t stick to each and every one of the 1,000 who signed the petition against the Mt Emerald wind farm proposal in Far North QLD – and the 92% of locals there who are bitterly opposed to it (see our post here)?

The same level of opposition arises at the local level – wherever wind power outfits are seeking to spear turbines into closely settled agricultural communities (see our post here).

Communities across the Southern Tablelands of NSW, locals are up in arms at efforts by wind farm outfits and the NSW Planning Department to sack and stack “community consultation committees” to ensure their development applications don’t face any real scrutiny. At Rye Park, 91% of locals are opposed to the wind farm being pitched by Epuron (see our post here). And communities like Tarago have erupted in anger at plans to destroy their lives and livelihoods (see our post here).

A little while back, the usual response from those opposed to wind farms was along the lines of: “we’re all in favour of renewable energy, so long as wind farms are built in the right place”.

But that was before people understood the phenomenal cost of the subsidies directed at wind power through the mandatory RET (see our post here) – and the impact on retail power prices (see our post here).

Fair minded country people are usually ready to give others the benefit of the doubt; and, not used to being lied to, accepted arguments pitched by wind power outfits about the “merits” of wind power: guff like “this wind farm will power 100,000 homes and save 10 million tonnes of CO2 emissions” (see our post here).

Not anymore.

Apart from the very few farmers that stand to profit by hosting turbines, rural communities have woken up to the fact that wind power – which can only ever be delivered at crazy, random intervals – is meaningless as a power source because it cannot and will never replace on-demand sources, such as hydro, gas and coal. And, as a consequence, that wind power cannot and will never reduce CO2 emissions in the electricity sector. The wind industry has never produced a shred of actual evidence to show it has; and the evidence that has been gathered shows intermittent wind power causing CO2 emissions to increase, not decrease (see our post here; this European paper here; this Irish paper here; this English paper here; and this Dutch study here).

The realisation that the wind industry is built on series of unsustainable fictions has local communities angrier than ever and helps explain the remarkable numbers opposed: 90% is what’s fairly called a solid “majority” in anybody’s book.

This extract from the Mt Emerald survey captures some of the changing mood and the reasons for it.

These days, locals fighting wind power outfits are quick to challenge the wild and unsubstantiated environmental benefits touted by the developers; and will launch into them about the massive subsidies (ie the mandatory RET and the REC Tax) upon which the whole rort depends.

And it’s not because these people are “anti-environment” – it’s simply because they’ve woken up to the fact that wind power is pointless: both as a power source; and as a solution to CO2 emissions reduction. Here’s the Business Report with a take on the same tale from Britain and Europe.

Opposing wind generators is not anti-green
Business Report
Keith Bryer
8 August 2014

The intolerance of dissenting views by the Green Lobby is an unpleasant aspect of some of its members. They are perhaps unaware that tolerance of difference is a pillar of democracy and essential to individual freedom. But, whatever the reasons for vitriolic attacks on those against wind generators, environmentalists should take a closer look at Scottish opposition.

The most prominent in Scotland is the Windfarm Action Group. This group firmly states that everyone should take environmental responsibilities seriously. Whatever the causes of global warming and the varying views on what causes it, we must protect our earth and steward it wisely. It accepts a need to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. It wants cleaner, reliable energy. It supports sound scientific solutions with the goal of a cleaner, greener world.

No sane, sensible person can disagree with this. Even the most rabid environmentalist should agree too.

But this green group and 300 others like in Britain, plus another 400 in four EU countries, are against windfarms. They have gone into the subject thoroughly and engineers and scientists back up their conclusions.

To those who accuse them of merely being concerned with their own backyards and not the common good, they say add up our membership and you will find an awful lot of backyards. They are simply against what does not make good sense. They are convinced that wind power:

– Is not a technically legitimate solution.

– Does not meaningfully reduce CO2 emissions.

– Is not a commercially viable source of energy

– Is not environmentally responsible.

They believe there are better solutions to Britain’s energy concerns; solutions that meet scientific, economic, and environmental tests – and they have good reasons.

They point to the massive subsidies that windfarms received initially from the British taxpayer, money that attracts multinational corporations like flies to treacle. These subsidies added to the higher price ordinary British householders pay for their electricity.

This “stealth” tax was considerable. Most consumers were unaware that it was used to make wind-generated economically feasible on the one hand, and to fill the pockets of the manufacturers on the other.

This largess allowed wind-generation companies to make generous payments to landowners for permission to use their land. Such was the temptation that some Welsh farmers trying to raise sheep in arduous and scarcely profitable areas leapt at it.

One told his local newspaper that if it were not for the payments he got, he would have given up farming long ago.

The Wind farm Action Group quotes British government documents that say each wind turbine in Britain still receives an annual subsidy of more than £235,000 (R4.3 million). Britain has about 1,120 turbines in 90 parts of the country.

Among the usual objections to windfarms – they do not work all the time, they are noisy, kill birds and bats, and so on, the group adds a few more. For example, wind generators interfere with radar; dirt and flying insects affect their performance; ice build-up on the propellers affects performance even more; and wind turbulence further reduces their power production.

Finally, there is rust. Britain is a wet place but offshore wind turbines have salt to contend with as well. One Danish offshore wind farm had to be entirely dismantled for repair when it was only 18 months old.

Yes, groups such as these exist almost everywhere there are windfarms. They are often, like this Scottish one, as caring of the environment as anyone, perhaps more so. They are not only concerned with their own backyard; they are concerned about everyone’s backyard.

Yet they say this: “We believe that in time this [windfarms] may well be the greatest environmental disaster that mankind in panic, haste, folly and greed, has ever conceived.”

Britain is an old country and its language is full of folk wisdom like this: “No one ever built a windmill, if he could build a watermill.”

A more modern version of common sense would be: “Using wind power to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is akin to trying to empty the Atlantic Ocean with a teaspoon.”
BusinessReport

The mythical claims of the wind industry and its parasites have all be hinged on a perverse notion of “green” is good. But just what being “green” means these days is a matter of politics, not reason, fact or beneficial environmental outcomes: it’s become little more than a political fashion statement.

Ben Acheson writes for the Huffington Post. He’s also the Energy and Environment Policy Adviser and Parliamentary Assistant to Struan Stevenson MEP at the European Parliament in Brussels. For a taste of Ben’s views on wind power – see our post here.

Here’s Ben taking a swipe at faux “green” politics:

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