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7. “Which project manager from Ratch Australia stood in my backyard, neighbouring the proposed 75 turbine Mt Emerald Wind Farm and said, ‘You will be severely impacted’?”
– submitted by Jennifer
Jennifer, we are sorry to hear you are living next to yet another proposed wind farm.
So what the Ratch man was saying was “We’re going to wreck your life, make you and your family extremely sick, devalue your home and divide your community – but at least we’ll be upfront about it.”
We’re not sure whether to be impressed by his honesty – or appalled by your situation. Actually, we’re appalled.
6. Anyone care to give us the good oil on why Origin Energy left the Clean Energy Council? And interesting to see the CEC no longer has wind farms on the opening page of its website. Quite right. We’d be distancing ourselves too if we were them. (Maybe this point is connected to point 4?)
5. Which bank touts its expertise in funding renewable energy projects, including Macarthur Wind Farm? No, not that bank. It’s ANZ. Here’s the link.
If you don’t like wind farms, don’t bank with ANZ.
4. A senior Origin energy person told one of us in a private conversation: “We know turbines can make people sick. We know that.”
3. We’re grateful for assistance from a senior source in AGL with the post “Wind farm noise? It’s the sound of lawyers going to court”.
2. Thanks to a friend in the South Australian renewable energy sector for their help with our post 2/12/13, “Yer feel me, Holmes”.
1. Thanks to ******** for your information 1/1/13 on a Victorian wind farm. We are currently making further investigations.
STOP THESE THINGS 
I wrote the following some years ago re the proposed wind farms in the Snowy Mountains. I support alternate energy but not from wind farms. Yes it can benefit the community but you need to weigh that up against the huge environmental damage and the division it will bring to a once friendly community – it will pit brother against brother and father against son.
…………………………..
– Re the energy debate and the hard sell on alternate energy.
AUSTRALIA will need to spend a further $30 billion on wind farms by 2020 – about four times the capital investment in power stations in the national energy market during the past decade – to comply with the government’s enforceable targets for renewable energy generation.
A SINGLE 555-MEGAWATT GAS FIRED PLANT IN CALIFORNIA GENERATES MORE ELECTRICITY IN A YEAR THAN DO ALL 14,000 OF THE STATES WIND TURBINES.
So called environmentalists are planning to introduce 125 metre (410 feet) wind turbines in to the high country of the magnificent pristine Snowy Mountains and the Monaro Plains.
The “environmentalists” believe that it makes sense to visually and environmentally degrade and pollute this beautiful eco-sensitive mountain landscapes with heavy industry while also causing a very heavy impact on wildlife mortality, for a supposed “big benefit to the community”, for power that will be more expensive and will not shut down a single gas or coal-fired plant anywhere in the world and never will.
Yes these environmentalists are determined to destroy some of the most beautiful landscapes in Australia in the cause of “renewable” energy, while it divides the community, turns brother against brother, and father against son, and disadvantages neighboring properties by turning these mountain areas into industrial and commercial developments.
Will wind farms save on CO2 emissions? It would require about 833 square kilometers (300 square miles or 192,000 acres ) of wind turbines to equal one conventional 1,000 MW gas fired plant. That’s the area, of a mile-wide swath of land extending from Sydney to Mount Kosciusko via Cooma, plus another 50 kms. These wind farms would require around 16 million tonnes of steel-reinforced concrete (a major source of CO2) plus around 2,640,000, tonnes of steel – just for the turbine towers. (Talk about environmental disasters!) And at the end of their lifespan, usually only 20 years, who would pay for the removal of 2,640,000 tons of steel and 16 million tons of concrete plus thousands of kilometers of cable?
By clearing trees and plants for wind farm sites and access roads, substations etc. (on mountain ridges and many other locations, it would be necessary to blast into the bedrock, possibly disrupting the water sources for wells downhill) we have just eliminated the major cleanser of carbon dioxide from our atmosphere. So we clear out our life-giving plants and trees to build wind farms which will have disastrous effects on our landscapes, to save on CO2 emissions, which helps the trees do far better, and the trees even throw in oxygen to boot. How stupid is that? Especially when a modern gas-fired plant could be built on an existing industrial site of around 12-15 acres with little impact on the surrounding environment.
The much-touted UK Whinash wind farm project, will reduce carbon dioxide emission by 178,000 tonnes a year. This is impressive, until you discover that a single jumbo jet, flying from Sydney to Perth and back every day, releases the climate-change equivalent of 520,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. One daily connection between Sydney and Perth costs three giant wind farms.
The NSW Labor government paid Capital Wind Farm double the price of ”dirty energy” for buying green power from the wind farm, so it can advertise its desalination plant as environmentally friendly.
Two years ago, wind farms were removed from the list of scheduled industrial premises monitored by the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water http://www.smh.com.au/environment/energy-smart/tilting-at-windmills-why-families-are-at-war-20100401-ri4p
Oh and I believe that the Cooma Council NSW, gateway to the magnificent Snowies, is contemplating bringing these accursed things to the iconic picturesque Monaro Plains, despite the objections of many land owners. Also the local paper, the Summit Sun, has been bombarded by pro-turbine activists, who I suspect are either Greens or those paid by the turbine industry.
How about sending the Summit Sun and Cooma Council an email advising them on the pitfalls and how they will blight this beautiful region. I wonder if they are prepared to remove the thousands of tonnes of cement after 20 years if the turbine owners go broke?
Summit Sun newspaper.
chris.reeves@fairfaxmedia.com.au
Cooma Shire Council.
council@cooma.nsw.gov.au
We think that a good link to send them would be the 250,000 post as this covers the issues
https://stopthesethings.com/2013/08/11/250000-hits-and-still-going-strong/
Mail Online story about wind farm and rare birds
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2350267/Rare-bird-white-throated-needletail-killed-wind-turbine-crowd-twitchers.html
I note in the latest edition of the renewable industry’s “recharge” enewsletter that turbine manufacturer Vestas is about to launch a massive PR campaign in Australia. Let’s make sure we’re ready for it!
Watts Up With That? posts a piece from The Washington Times about the new offshore wind farms planned off the coasts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, USA. The article raises questions about the economic sense of the proposed subsidised project.
Coincidence or sly deception? Recently in the thumb of Michigan, Gilford townships newly erected turbines started spinning the end of December 2012.
In the last few weeks I have noticed on t.v. a commercial to ask your doctor for a new prescription for ringing of the ears?
Am I nuts ? or is this a deception to stop the people from realizing they have Wind Turbine Symptoms.
I have also thought recently that I am nuts ! in the last few months, I have ringing in my ears and awake in the morning to nausea. I know for definite positivity that I am not pregnant ! I have headaches which I have never had before. I just got my eyes checked and there is no problems there. These turbines are north of me approximately 6 miles. I have a clear path looking north ( no more viewing the northern lights, just a lovely view of the prostituted red light district ) and it sure seems like they are closer than that. Now I understand why a 10 km distance from these things is recommended. I thought I was going to be relatively safe from my distance.
( Not that I think these things are safe for anywhere on the planet).
Published in the Bluehourmagazine
The area this is happening is 3 hours east of me, Mason County Michigan, USA. Five Miles north of me now has 75 IWT operating since the end of 2012. They have sought out 5 acres of land to bury birds. Of course, I can not prove that because the wind company didn’t advertise in the paper or send flyers out to the public to rent acreage to bury birds, but hopefully you’ll trust me, it’s true. I did change one letter in one word to keep it clean………. *smile*
Birds
I’m an Animal Control Specialist
a special kind
I don’t capture feral cats
or snarling dogs
don’t deal with skunks
or live critters of any kind
I pick up dead birds at the base of wind turbines
and put them in plastic sacks
I sometimes see the
moment of impact
when flight and life simultaneously cease
Once I caught an eagle as it plummeted to earth
I didn’t know what to do with it
On impulse I hugged and kissed it goodbye
then felt stupid
was glad no one was there to see
I never knew birds were so intent on their destinations
so obsessive-compulsive and unaware
I’ve seen them swerve mid-air to avoid my car’s bumper
but up in the sky five-hundred feet
they don’t expect cars
They get into a rhythm of flight
in which their blood assumes
that the elevations are free of
obstacles’ strife
but blades express their evil intent
by spinning
I live within the perimeters of this “wind farm”
in my old family farmhouse
Many of these farmhouses have tumbled down
More will tumble as people escape
the noise and flicker
and the weird unexpected symptoms they bring
the pressure in the ears
dizziness and nausea
the inability to concentrate
I can go on
but part of my contract is that I can’t talk about it
can’t even mention it
So just forget it
You didn’t hear it from me
No one will buy these f-cking houses
They are as damned as if they’d been erected
in a Stephen King novel
My grandfather used to sit on the front porch
and listen to birdsong
and he’d say to me: Did you hear that?
Do you know who that is?
as if the bird were a human being I’d met
an uncle or aunt
whose voice I should recognize
Jays, chickadees, robins, red-winged blackbirds
I don’t hear them anymore
can’t hear them through the constant loud drone
of turbine acoustic pollution
the whirring blades
the grinding gears
But I make my living picking up the dead birds
I pluck the feathers
before I dispose of them
and store them in old shoe boxes
in my grandfather’s office
where he wrote poems and published them in farm journals
under the pen name Al Falfa
I know I’m crazy, but I think maybe my dead grandpa
runs his hands through those loose feathers at night
the loose feathers of dead birds
whose ancestors he lived with
You might think my job is not full-time
but it is
because my boss at Consumer’s Energy
wants the birds gone
pronto!
as soon as they hit the ground
if possible
He doesn’t want them laying around
for the anti-windmill photographers
to document
so all day I’m driving my rattle-trap Mazda pick-up
from one end of the township to the other
I grew up here
lived here all my life
but I never knew the place
“like the back of my hand”
until I followed Death around
—Mitchell Grabois
I was sitting at a VCAT hearing when I heard the following comments,made by a wind farm acoustic expert to Steve Cooper,”You have not had any holidays,you will have to put your rates up,Mr Cooper”. A reply was not forthcoming.
Obviously somebody is very well remunerated,Plenty of money being thrown around in some quarters.
Steve Cooper’s conscience is clean,cant say this for many others.
Why has Tristan Edis(Climate Spectator) well known pro wind farm contributor suddenly produced an independent report conducted Jan 2013 for the SA EPA based on infrasound, when the SA EPA says it is going to carry out investigation into infra sound starting in April 2013 .http://www.epa.sa.gov.au/xstd_files/Noise/Report/infrasound.pdf
Why is Vic EPA excluded from studying anything related to wind farm noise. What Minister had his arm twisted in this case?
EPA Victoria exists as an authority to ensure the protection of beneficial uses of the environment from the adverse impacts of wastes and unwanted noise.Why is Victoria not doing same as SA.
What is going on?
I am amused by the comment by the Managing Director ,Colin Anderson,of the Banks Group regarding proposed 8 turbine development on the Carse of Gowrie,Scotland(World News section Jan 28 )——–
Mr Anderson, however, said that “well-designed windfarms in appropriate areas have the potential to be incredibly positive for the local economy, environment and the lives of local people”.
Turning the Carse of Gowrie into the —- of Gowrie,which hopefully he would disappear up.
I believe Bendigo bank was seduced by Holmes aCourt and the Daylesford windies to enable them to fund their scheme to the detriment of the Leonard’s Hill residents. Bendigo Community Bank were snowed by all of the Hepburn Wind so called local Community shareholders when the vast numbers and money come Melbourne metro and interstate. If Hepburn Wind dispute this then release the number of shareholders to each postcode.I am not interested who owns shares but more in where they live.
Finally, some online tweets and Simon Chapman re-tweeted acknowledgment of this site…
https://mobile.twitter.com/Cam_Walker/status/288235631715442688
Victorian Planning Minister Matthew Guy has blasted the Surf Coast Shire,labelling Mayor Libby Coker gutless and accusing her council of incompetence,over delays in planning for a new private school in Torquay.He demands the Mayor decide today whether to allow Christian College to build Great Ocean Road campus.(Geelong Advertiser 7th January 2013)
Victorian Planning Minister Matthew Guy has said that he will order noisy wind farm turbines to be turned off,regardless of the costs to the operators,if it can be shown that the breach noise limit rules. He made these comments when asked if Waubra Wind Farm complied with the noise guidelines.
Matthew Guy told Steve Martin that so far he has not received any information that shows the facility is breaking the rules.(ABC radio 774 25th May 2012)
Excuse me but who is gutless and incompetent?
ANZ Bank help funded MacArthur Wind Farm? How does this place shareholdes/investors if development runs into problems?Who audits these loans and what knowledge do they have of this industry.