Pajamas media update: There have been some developments since this was published. The short version is that a series of coincidences led Gabriel Calzada to believe a package was a bomb threat. Let’s just review what Calzada was responding to: he received an unsolicited package addressed as from a “green” company. Thermotechnic. When he called to ask about it, he was told: “It’s our response to your study [on green jobs].”
It didn’t look like, or feel like, a letter or report, so at that point Calzada got a security guard to scan it — and what was inside was a cylindrical object with wires attached. At that point, the security guard got an expert to examine it, with others in attendance. The contents were a container for diesel of some sort, and some other parts. The expert saw this as a bomb threat, based on a pattern used by, eg., ETA: “This one is a hoax bomb. The next one might not be.”
So Calzada took this as a threat based on the experts’ opinions. Remember that Calzada has been viciously attacked for having had the temerity to publish a study that questioned the economic effectiveness of “green jobs” in Spain, including having been threatened personally and professionally. It was at that point Horner wrote this piece.
Since then, especially following the controversy becoming public in the Spanish press, the company contacted Calzada; what appears to have happened is this:
- A package containing car parts was swapped for a package containing a report intended for Calzada.
- The Thermotechnic person Calzada contacted said something that was ambiguous.
- Calzada, already the subject of threats and intimidation, relied on expert opinion that it was a bomb threat.
As further information became available, it became clear it was a misunderstanding based on several coincidences. Calzada has written an open letter explaining this in detail, and now agrees there was no threat from Thermotechnic.
======================
The author of a damning study about the failure of Spain’s “green jobs” program — a story broken here at PJM — received the threatening package on Tuesday from solar energy company Thermotechnic.
June 24, 2010 – by Christopher Horner
Spain’s Dr. Gabriel Calzada — the author of a damning study concluding that Spain’s “green jobs” energy program has been a catastrophic economic failure — was mailed a dismantled bomb on Tuesday by solar energy company Thermotechnic.
Says Calzada:
Before opening it, I called [Thermotechnic] to know what was inside … they answered, it was their answer to my energy pieces.
Dr. Calzada contacted a terrorism expert to handle the package. The expert first performed a scan of the package, then opened it in front of a journalist, Dr. Calzada, and a private security expert.
The terrorism consultant said he had seen this before:
This time you receive unconnected pieces. Next time it can explode in your hands.
Dr. Calzada added:
[The terrorism expert] told me that this was a warning.
The bomb threat is just the latest intimidation Dr. Calzada has faced since releasing his report and following up with articles in Expansion (a Spanish paper similar to the Financial Times). A minister from Spain’s Socialist government called the rector of King Juan Carlos University — Dr. Calzada’s employer — seeking Calzada’s ouster. Calzada was not fired, but he was stripped of half of his classes at the university. The school then dropped its accreditation of a summer university program with which Calzada’s think tank — Instituto Juan de Mariana — was associated.
Additionally, the head of Spain’s renewable energy association and the head of its communist trade union wrote opinion pieces in top Spanish newspapers accusing Calzada of being “unpatriotic” — they did not charge him with being incorrect, but of undermining Spain by daring to write the report.
Their reasoning? If the skepticism that Calzada’s revelations prompted were to prevail in the U.S., Spanish industry would face collapse should U.S. subsidies and mandates dry up.
As I have previously reported at PJM (here and here), Spain’s “green jobs” program was repeatedly referenced by President Obama as a model for what he would like to implement in the United States. Following the release of Calzada’s report, Spain’s Socialist government has since acknowledged the debacle — both privately and publicly. This month, Spain’s government instituted massive reductions in subsidies to “renewable” energy sources.
Read the rest of the story here:
Marge says:
June 27, 2010 at 9:52 am
1. The “dismantled bomb parts” consisted of a fuel filter and wire, nothing else. No timer, fuse, explosive, fuel, accelerant. Nada.
2. The courier service, Tourline Express, took responsibility for delivering a package, intended for a garage, to Dr. Calzada.
3. The “security expert” called by Dr. Calzada, was a security guard.
4. An employee of Thermotechnic assumed that the package, mentioned by Dr. Calzada in the phone call, was a written response to his study.
Isn’t a retraction or update indicated, given these facts?
Why issue a retraction? Why did the senders mail the package with the contents to begin with?
You seem to be glossing over the facts here: A package was sent with questionable materials for an express purpose. Are you implying that such an act is quite okay?
Ed Darrell says:
June 27, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Wren (#899), got a study or two on birds hitting wind power generators? Is this more serious than their problems with radio towers, or power lines?
Why wouldn’t a lot of wind power be a good thing? I was in Corpus Christi, Texas, yesterday; from I-37 you can see — how many, 100? — windmills churning away to the north, through the piping and effluent from the oil refineries. Heck of a visual commentary on our energy needs, uses and future.
Why do you think one of Texas’s most promising new industries won’t work? How many thousands of generators have to be in place before your change your mind?
Got a ‘study,’ you say?
Do tell: Compared to the large windmills, how many radio stations are spaced that closely together?
What about power lines? It ~is~ possible to bury those power lines, albeit it would be a bit more expensive, but it is eminently doable, and I reckon that such might be done in the future.
So then, about that cluster of windmills: Who pays them to stay in business when the wind isn’t blowing? And why are they being paid for doing nothing?
I can’t begin to recall the last time I got paid for doing nothing …
899 says: “Why issue a retraction?”
Because it just isn’t true that:
“Green Energy Company Threatens Economics Professor”
and there never was a “Package of Dismantled Bomb Parts”.
The source, PJM, has now issued a retraction. But no, I don’t expect to see one here.
First, I’ll congratulate all those WUWT readers who exercised scepticism on this story, as it just didn’t make much sense.
Second, I wonder if WUWT will feature a follow up, now that it is slowly becoming more clear what happened, and what didn’t happen?
says:
June 27, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Wren (#899)
‘Why do you think one of Texas’s most promising new industries won’t work? How many thousands of generators have to be in place before your change your mind?
If they are so great, they can do it without $.50 on the dollar subsidy.
And, it is still an inefficient way to product energy.
Donwtime for wind at Corpus Christi is less than the down time for maintenance at any coal-fired plant. You’ve never been to Texas, I gather (nor Idaho, California, Oklahoma, Iowa or other windy sites) and no, I’m not surprised that you don’t have any study backing any of your claims. I doubt one exists that would pass the Tenderfoot Scout ethics tests.
carrot eater says:
June 27, 2010 at 4:27 pm
First, I’ll congratulate all those WUWT readers who exercised scepticism on this story, as it just didn’t make much sense.
Second, I wonder if WUWT will feature a follow up, now that it is slowly becoming more clear what happened, and what didn’t happen?
=====
Not yet, but this is still the weekend.
I hope when WUMT does set the record straight, it does better than Pajama’s Media, which kept the article and it’s headline “Green Energy Company Threatens Economics Professor … with Package of Dismantled Bomb Parts,” only adding a note at the end explaining this actually never happened. Readers who do not get to the end of the article would think it did happen.
As they are doing it. Wind is free, you know. No miners have to die to pull it out of the ground. No one’s water table is ruined, no wells made useless, no pools of tar to kill migrating birds. Trees are left standing to hold water in the ground. No waste products to have to bury at the FutureYuccaMountain. No mountain tops are moved, no streams turned to acid.
There are ways to measure efficiency other than miles of land destroyed.
Or, perhaps, calling it “inefficient” was just a silly joke.
899 says:
June 27, 2010 at 1:34 pm Why issue a retraction?
Because the package contained a fuel filter and wire, not bomb parts?
Because the courier service made the error, not Thermotechnic, and publicly acknowledged the error and apologized?
899 “Why did the senders mail the package with the contents to begin with?”
Which contents? The fuel filter / wire were intended for a garage or similar auto related business.
899 “You seem to be glossing over the facts here: A package was sent with questionable materials for an express purpose.”
You’re ignoring the facts which have emerged since Chris Horner posted his now debunked article at Pajamas Media….An update was attached to the end of the article. Of course, they didn’t feel obliged to change the headline so people still may think that dismantled bomb parts were sent to intimidate Dr. Calzada.
899″ Are you implying that such an act is quite okay?”
For auto parts to be sent to businesses via courier? Yes. How else would it be done?
For the courier service to send the package to the wrong address, with the wrong return address? No.
Are you implying that it is okay to falsely accuse someone of sending bomb parts to someone as an act of intimidation?
Me “Isn’t a retraction or update indicated, given these facts?”
Gneiss says:
June 27, 2010 at 11:40 am
“Apparently not on this site. Three days later and they’re still letting it run.”
What’s up with that? Falsely accusing someone of making a threat is cool, if they’re a “greenie”? Very sad, this tribal stuff.
Ed Darrell says:
June 27, 2010 at 9:10 pm
‘As they are doing it. Wind is free, you know. No miners have to die to pull it out of the ground. No one’s water table is ruined, no wells made useless, no pools of tar to kill migrating birds. Trees are left standing to hold water in the ground. No waste products to have to bury at the FutureYuccaMountain. No mountain tops are moved, no streams turned to acid.’
Wind is free, Yes; To harness the wind is not. It take raw materials, which are done either by “evil’ open pit or underground mining, then that raw material has to be turn into the finished product through that “evil” manufacturing process. Oh, I forgot, this is pollution “free”process when it comes to windmills and solar.
‘Or, perhaps, calling it “inefficient” was just a silly joke.’
A typical commercial turbine needs a wind speed of between 6-10mph to start operating – and automatically stops when the wind is more than around 55mph, to protect its mechanisms. Even when the wind is blowing between those speeds, it – and therefore the amount of electricity generated – is variable, and usually below the turbine’s full theoretical capacity.
According to government figures, the average wind turbine operates to just 27 per cent of its capacity – even the industry only claims 30 per cent – and there are some grounds for suggesting that even this is a significant exaggeration. Professor Michael Jefferson, of the London Metropolitan Business School, says that in 2008 less than a fifth of onshore wind farms achieved 30 per cent capacity.
One analysis of the government figures, albeit commissioned by wind farm opponents, suggested that Britain’s biggest wind farm – the 140-turbine installation at Whitelee, near East Kilbride – operated to just 7.3 per cent of its capacity that year.
http://www.telegraph.couk/earth7823681/Does-money-grow-in-wind-farms.html
Ed Darrell says:
June 27, 2010 at 9:10 pm
If they are so great, they can do it without $.50 on the dollar subsidy.
And, it is still an inefficient way to product energy.
As they are doing it. Wind is free, you know. No miners have to die to pull it out of the ground. No one’s water table is ruined, no wells made useless, no pools of tar to kill migrating birds. Trees are left standing to hold water in the ground. No waste products to have to bury at the FutureYuccaMountain. No mountain tops are moved, no streams turned to acid.
There are ways to measure efficiency other than miles of land destroyed.
Or, perhaps, calling it “inefficient” was just a silly joke.
And aren’t you being just a wee bit selective there? What of all the energy and resources that were mined, burned, refined, transported, etc.?
Now again: You haven’t directly answer the question put to you, and that would be why the rest of us have to pay to subsidize a private enterprise operation?
Do you have a vested monetary interest in the matter?
From the prospectus I read, I saw no subsidy. Subsidies aren’t suggested in most of the stories on Texas wind farms. You haven’t offered any evidence there is a subsidy. If you have some evidence there is one, instead of just your S.W.A. assumption, offer it up, will you?
There’s no evidence you’re subsidizing this stuff that I can see.
The most recent updated headline at Pajamas Media is as follows:
“UPDATED: ‘Green’ Energy Company Threatens Economics Professor … with Package of Dismantled Bomb Parts (Updated: No Threat)”
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/breaking-green-energy-company-threatens-economics-professor-with-package-of-dismantled-bomb-parts/
Wren says:
June 28, 2010 at 9:11 pm
The most recent updated headline at Pajamas Media is as follows:
“UPDATED: ‘Green’ Energy Company Threatens Economics Professor … with Package of Dismantled Bomb Parts (Updated: No Threat)”
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/breaking-green-energy-company-threatens-economics-professor-with-package-of-dismantled-bomb-parts/
So do tell, Wren: If this matter had involved a so-called ‘green,’ what are the chances that the ‘green blogs’ would have issued a retraction?
Oh, and how many posts by complaining Skeptics would be summarily removed as ‘unacceptable’ by the ‘green’ blog owner?
I’ve a feeling that over at ‘RealClimate,’ any voice of dissension would have been snuffed out in a heartbeat. But then, that’s SOP for ‘green’ blogs, isn’t it?
899 says:
June 28, 2010 at 10:37 pm
Wren says:
June 28, 2010 at 9:11 pm
The most recent updated headline at Pajamas Media is as follows:
“UPDATED: ‘Green’ Energy Company Threatens Economics Professor … with Package of Dismantled Bomb Parts (Updated: No Threat)”
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/breaking-green-energy-company-threatens-economics-professor-with-package-of-dismantled-bomb-parts/
So do tell, Wren: If this matter had involved a so-called ‘green,’ what are the chances that the ‘green blogs’ would have issued a retraction?
Oh, and how many posts by complaining Skeptics would be summarily removed as ‘unacceptable’ by the ‘green’ blog owner?
I’ve a feeling that over at ‘RealClimate,’ any voice of dissension would have been snuffed out in a heartbeat. But then, that’s SOP for ‘green’ blogs, isn’t it?
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Why speculate about whether “the ‘green blogs’ would have issued a retraction,” if you can cite examples of them not issuing retractions?
All blogs I have seen occasionally snip and delete posts. So what ?
Ed Darrell says:
June 28, 2010 at 8:38 pm
Now again: You haven’t directly answer the question put to you, and that would be why the rest of us have to pay to subsidize a private enterprise operation?
From the prospectus I read, I saw no subsidy. Subsidies aren’t suggested in most of the stories on Texas wind farms. You haven’t offered any evidence there is a subsidy. If you have some evidence there is one, instead of just your S.W.A. assumption, offer it up, will you?
There’s no evidence you’re subsidizing this stuff that I can see.
Maybe you should be looking in the right places?
http://blogs.chron.com/lorensteffy/WindandSchoolsreport_rev_7-08.pdf
http://www.metaefficient.com/renewable-power/the-largest-wind-farm-in-the-world-horse-hollow.html
http://www.texaspolicy.com/commentaries_single.php?report_id=2821