Cracking New Website Launched: Wind Aware Ireland

Wind Aware Ireland get to work.

Wind Aware Ireland is the group responsible for the Irish Uprising against the Great Wind Power Fraud – where thousands hit the streets of Dublin to call their government to account (as covered in our last post) – and – in order to educate those who have yet to catch on to depth and seriousness of greatest government sponsored rort in history – the group have launched a cracking new website loaded with information, facts and evidence.

That these people are on the money jumps straight off the front page:

Wind Aware Ireland’s aim is to reform the Irish Government’s unsustainable wind energy policy. Our objective is to ensure that energy policies and developments fulfil the three pillars of sustainability; environmental, economic and social.

Our role is to hold policy makers to account to ensure that they act on evidence and to provide a counter balance to business influence on the political process.

STT can’t argue with any of that – but common sense is always a tough case to beat. Energy policy that favours wind power at the expense of on-demand renewables and regardless of the cost is the result of gullible and naive policy makers – captured by a slick bunch of rent-seekers who managed to set up ludicrously generous subsidy streams that roll-on to the horizon and beyond. The result – noted above – are energy policies that are simply unsustainable.

The website can be found here: http://www.windawareireland.com

To access the pages click on the 3 horizontal bars on the top-right of the page. The site has only just been launched and there are one or two bugs, but overall it’s a ripper.

The site hammers the environmental and economic aspect of the fraud  – setting out the insane cost of attempting to rely on an intermittent, unreliable and unpredictable generation source and – flowing on from that – the FACT that wind power cannot and will never reduce CO2 emissions. For the economic case against wind power check out this page: http://www.windawareireland.com/economic-issues/#economic-issues-top-nav

Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page as it contains all of the key points on just what a con-job wind power is. The site also covers the adverse environmental and social impacts caused by giant fans – again – backed up with a raft of facts and evidence. One of the bugs is that the link to the Irish study by Fred Udo – concluding: that building wind turbines without constructing adequate storage of energy is futile. It only leads to high extra costs and hardly any fuel or [CO2] emission saving.” – goes to another page in Dutch. Here’s the link to Fred Udo’s paper: http://www.clepair.net/IerlandUdo.html

STT recommends it as another brilliant resource to be used to challenge the bare-faced lies tossed up by the wind industry and its parasites and to help educate those paid to protect and serve us.

Here’s a video (transcript follows) of Wind Aware Ireland’s Henry Fingleton launching the site and delivering a brilliant assault on the wind industry into the bargain.

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HENRY FINGLETON: Who Are Wind Aware Ireland and what do we hope to achieve?

Now it is accepted by the majority of climate scientists that CO2 emissions need to be reduced to ensure the long-term sustainability of our planet. And Wind Aware Ireland encourage and supports actions that to reduce CO2 in a sustainable manner.

So what is the problem with wind energy? There is a large body of evidence which says that wind energy is ineffective at reducing CO2 emissions. And that it is a very expensive and it makes electricity very expensive.

And a little bit of detail. Because the devil is in the detail.

Electricity is difficult to store and supply is constantly being adjusted to meet demand. Wind is intermittent. It produces little or no electricity for about 70% of the time. For the 30% of the time when it is producing electricity, coal and gas plants continue to run in the background to provide support that can come in on short notice. And this is called spinning reserve or plant cycling. Wind forecasting does help. But many of the backup appliance run at 50% efficiency so, burns twice as much fuel, per unit of electricity produced.

So the key question is, what is the net saving in CO2 and fuel burned from using wind energy? That’s the question. And remember, the only reason that we are developing wind turbines, or the primary reason is to reduce CO2. So if wind is not effective at reducing CO2, that raises a big question.

The Fred Udo study that examined the Irish grid in 2011 found that spinning reserve could quarter claimed fuel savings. Quarter them. Sustainable Energy Ireland produced a report in February of this year which was an overview of 2012 and it looked at the energy mix in 2012.

And they estimated that wind energy was saving 2.3% of overall fuel used and CO2 saved. We import 6 1/2 billion Euros worth of fuel every year, and that report estimated the saving was 152 million and that was the 2.3 %. However this 2.3% did not include spinning reserve, and they state that quite clearly in the report.

So if you included spinning reserve, it is possible and likely that this saving would likely go to below 2% and possibly below 1%, if Fred Udo’s study is accurate.

This small saving of between 1 and 2% has come at the back of 20 years investment in wind energy – billions of Euros, 1200 turbines and the substantial investment in our grid. And it is also likely that future wind developments will yield zero or very little carbon savings into the future.

All energy projects must fulfil the three pillars of sustainability. They must prove that they are environmentally sustainable, economically sustainable and socially sustainable. The current debate that has raged for the last year or two has largely focused on social sustainability, on community concerns about noisy turbines, reduced property values, damaged landscapes, affected sleep and the health impacts of living close to turbines or pylons. In fact, over 200 groups have formed in almost, in a little over a year, in response to these issues.

Their fears are relevant. They are genuine and they should be addressed properly. However, we believe the debate on wind energy and the National Grid must be widened. If wind energy is ineffective at reducing CO2, why we having a conversation about the location of turbines and pylons?

The environmental and economic case must be proven first. The effectiveness of wind energy in reducing CO2 and the need for such an extensive grid must be examined, challenged and debated.

So our group, Wind Aware Ireland have come to 3 conclusions.

That wind energy is incapable of having a meaningful impact on CO2 emissions, as it is currently construed.

That wind energy makes electricity expensive, which will impact national competitiveness, that will impact fuel poverty, and it will impact urban dwellers because everybody pays – this is not just of rural issue.

And finally, we believe that current government policy is shoddy. It is flawed and it has carried out no proper analysis or appraisal of this wind energy policy. The government has no idea if these plans represent a net benefit or net cost to Irish society. No strategic environmental assessment has been carried out. So no proper overarching assessment of our environment to see what the impact of all this cumulative infrastructure of turbines, pylons and cables will be.

And I think it’s important to remember our environment is particularly important to us as an island nation. We use our environment to sell our food. We use it for our tourism we use it for our thoroughbred industry. Foreign direct investors, when they come here, and want to bring in employees, they want a pristine environment. And we have one now.

And finally, we are alarmed at the influence that the wind industry seems to have on government policy. An industry which includes many large utilities and many key state companies like Bord na Móna.

So who are Wind Aware Ireland? Wind Aware Ireland were set up in autumn 2013 by seven groups from three counties. We’re voluntary. We’re non-political. We’ve no vested interests. We have very little money – you’ll notice there’s no croissants down the back. We have committed blood sweat and tears to build what we believe is a compelling and credible website which references 110 reports. It can and should inform part of this energy debate.

We are not prepared to be sidelined as community groups whose only concern is location of infrastructure.

And finally what do we hope to achieve?

Wind Aware Ireland’s aim is to reform this Irish Government’s unsustainable and flawed wind energy policy. Our objective is to ensure that all energy projects fulfil the three pillars of sustainability: environmental, economic and social.

If we are serious about reducing CO2, I mean really serious about it, we need to find out what is the most effective way to do that. The current policy which seems to be largely developer driven, with strong evidence that it is not working. Colin McCarthy said recently, and I quote “The wind energy lobby has been remarkably successful in Ireland, where government has been persuaded to pursue high targets for wind penetration, regardless of costs”.

Our government must be held to account to ensure that they have evidence. No more wind farms or associated grid extensions should be developed until a comprehensive and independent, and I stress independent, cost benefit analysis, and a proper strategic environmental assessment are carried out.

This energy policy is flawed – deeply flawed. It is a lame duck.

Thank you very much.
Henry Fingleton, Wind Aware Ireland

Wind Aware Ireland’s Henry Fingleton telling it like it is.