Never Mind the Bollocks – here’s Vestas

Struggling Danish turbine outfit Vestas went on the rampage after the National Rally with a campaign to counteract known and obvious facts (to anyone with half-a-brain – that is) with crackers such as the wind is NOT intermittent; families with young children can’t wait to have a swag of V112s go up in their back yard to help their young ones sleep; power consumers are delighted with paying 4 times the cost of conventional power for wind power; and are even happier to be paying $2,000 per MW/h and over the Moon to be paying $12,500 per MW/h for peaking power when wind power goes AWOL 100s of times a year – instead of the usual $40.

One other “fact” trotted out to excuse the criminal harm caused by Vestas and Co is that wind turbines are quieter than a fridge at 500m.  In the Clean Energy Council version – the furphy asserts that the noise measured at ANY distance from a turbine is the same as that being measured at a distance of 500m FROM an operating refrigerator.  Here’s Matt Warren – formerly of Wind Energy Australia (aka the Clean Energy Council) making it very clear he’s comparing the noise of a giant industrial wind turbine at ANY distance with the noise FROM a fridge at 500m. The Clean Energy Council’s website says the same thing.

It seems that Vestas pulls back on the spin in its home territory and claims that the noise from a turbine at a distance of 500m is the same as a fridge (presumably with measurements taken right next to the fridge).

In any event – and on any version you choose – as Johnny Rotten would have put it: “what a complete load of bollocks”.

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Wind Waffle
Jyllands-Posten
16 July 2013

“Act on Facts” is the name of a global campaign that the wind turbine manufacturer Vestas Wind Systems has launched against what the company describes as ‘a small but well-organized and influential minority that has succeeded in launching some outrageous claims about wind power’.

“We now take of the gloves and will provide quality rebuttals to our often unscrupulous opponents,” declared Communications and Marketing Director Morten Albaek.

But their campaign was hardly launched before Professor Henrik Moller, civil engineer Steffen Pedersen and Associate Professor Christian Victory Pedersen from Aalborg University sent a letter to the editor of this newspaper on 28 June sharply criticizing Vestas’ attempt to monopolize the truth about wind energy that would be biased in favor of the company.

Not surprisingly, noise is a central issue in “Act on Facts,” and where Vestas argues, among other things, that the noise of a wind turbine from 400 meters away is less than the noise of an average refrigerator.

With sober scientific clarity, the three experts from Aalborg University counter-claim that wind turbines make noise 10 decibels more than an average refrigerator.  Let us point out that a difference of 10 decibels is considerable.

Vestas has had to recognize that there is “some confusion” about their claim.  It has its origins in Australia’, where there is a requirement for a minimum distance of 800 meters between turbines and residences, and at this distance figures fit very well, said a press officer and spokesperson for Vestas on 1 July.

But this claim is also untrue, replied the three noise experts from Aalborg University. Even at 800 meters noise from a 3 MW wind turbines is six to seven decibels more than an average refrigerator.

What Vestas has never sought to understand is that the resistance to wind turbines is caused by the unscrupulous – to use Vestas’ own expression – behavior by politicians and wind turbine owners.

Politicians, because they unilaterally imposed billions in expenses on families and businesses by favoring one form of energy over others, namely wind turbines.  They did so, notwithstanding the fact that, after many years of experimentation, wind turbines are still unable to compete in the free market and must be subsidized.

And wind turbine owners: because in their pursuit of tax credits and state-guaranteed minimum prices, they have ignored the interests of the people who – unlike most of themselves – have suffered a greatly reduced quality of life because of the imposition of wind turbines near their homes.

Many people are positive about renewable energy, but when their favourable disposition meets with political arrogance and extravagant public spending, as well as careless handling of the truth by the wind industry, the backlash is bound to be strong.

Rather than invest energy in meeting “outrageous claims” with outrageous untruths, Vestas could usefully focus its research on making wind turbines noticeably quieter than refrigerators, as well as make them so competitive that any form of direct and indirect state aid would become redundant.

It would be real progress, and the task is by no means impossible.

In addition, it would be far more constructive than Vestas’ attempt to present arguments which can be taken apart with scientific elegance by the experts from Aalborg University.
Jyllands-Posten

Morten Albaek – chief spin doctor for Vestas – reckons it’s time to “take the gloves off” – STT’s not sure what a grown man and an executive officer is doing with GLOVES ON – but who are we to judge – each to their own – as they say….

STT looks forward to a “quality rebuttal” to the following two part poser: (1) “how many homes have been abandoned due to refrigerators?”  And: (2) “how does that number compare to the 40 or more – perfectly good – Australian homes abandoned due to turbine noise – with many of them bought and bulldozed by developers?”

Gloves on or off – STT thinks the answers to the posers above will be the same: (1) NONE.  (2) Which compares pretty favourably with a growing – but perfectly avoidable – National and International tragedy.