Facing trouble abroad, Siemens ads seek to tap into US taxpayers and wind welfare system
Guest essay by Mary Kay Barton
If you watch much mainstream TV, you’ve probably seen Siemens’ new multi-million-dollar advertising blitz to sell the American public on industrial wind. Why the sudden ad onslaught? Watch the video below.
The wind business abroad has taken a huge hit of late. European countries have begun slashing renewable mandates, due to the ever-broadening realization that renewables cost far more than industrial wind proponents have led people to believe: economically, environmentally, technically, and civilly.
Siemens’ energy business took a €48m hit in the second quarter due to a bearings issue with onshore turbines, and a €23m charge due to ongoing offshore grid issues in Germany – on top of subsidy and feed-in tariff cutbacks, recent articles have pointed out.
As Siemens’ tax-sheltering market dries up in Europe, its U.S. marketing efforts are clearly geared toward increasing its income and profits via wind’s tax sheltering schemes in the United States. The company stands to make millions, so Siemens ad campaign is obviously part of an overall pitch to persuade Congress to extend the hefty wind Production Tax Credit (PTC), more accurately called “Pork-To-Cronies.” As Warren Buffett recently admitted, “We get tax credits if we build lots of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”
Taxpayers and ratepayers, beware!
President Obama often says he intends to “close corporate loopholes,” but his PTC and other policies continue funneling billions of taxpayer dollars to his wealthy corporate insiders and campaign contributors – while we continue to rack up unconscionable debt for our children and grandchildren.
Increasing public awareness of the wind energy scam has led to increased opposition to extending any more corporate welfare to Big Wind via the PTC and energy investment tax credit (ITC). Enter another bureaucratic end-run around once clear statutory language by this Administration.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the increasingly politicized IRS recently relaxed the definition of “commence construction” to the point where the definition bears no resemblance to the actual words. During a hearing by the House Energy Policy, Health Care and Entitlements subcommittee last October, Curtis G. Wilson of the IRS admitted that developers can now game the system to the point where projects built years in the future could still meet the eligibility requirement for “commence” now.
U.S. taxpayers and ratepayers are doomed when, instead of allowing the markets to work, crony-corruptocrats are picking the winners and losers in the energy marketplace, using such nefarious tactics.
Sadly, most people don’t even know the difference between energy and power. This reality has built the framework for the biggest swindle ever perpetrated on citizens worldwide. Many have bought into the alarmist argument that “we have to do something” to stop “dangerous manmade global warming.” Enter the wind industry sales department, primed to capitalize on public fears and alarmist hype.
Siemens also needs to convince the 80% of U.S. citizens who live in suburbia that industrial wind factories are “environment-friendly,” and everyone loves them. Thus, as usual for these disingenuous ad campaigns, a sprawling wind facility is pictured among green fields, with no homes anywhere to be seen, no birds are being slaughtered, while a happy Iowa leaseholder smiles and says she loves wind.
A drive out Route 20A in Wyoming County, western New York State, however, tells a far different story. The western side of Wyoming County – which used to be some of the most beautiful countryside in New York State, has been industrialized with 308 giant, 430-foot-tall towers, and their 11-ton, bird-chopping blades spinning overhead, only hundreds of feet from peoples’ homes and roadways. There’s no doubt that Siemens won’t be showing you this reality in any of their TV ads!
Unfortunately for the residents of Orangeville in Wyoming County, greed at the top in Washington, DC determined their fate. The sole reason Invenergy went ahead with its plan to build its 58-turbine project was that, in the early morning hours of January 1, 2013, the PTC was added as pork for companies sucking at the wind welfare teat.
Ever appreciative of the handouts, Invenergy owner Ukrainian Michael Polsky rewarded President Obama by holding a $35,000 a plate fundraiser at his Chicago mansion. Mr. Obama is so committed to Big Wind that he’s even legalized 30-year eagle kill permits just for the wind industry. Anyone else harming an eagle, or even possessing a single bald eagle feather, is penalized with an iron fist.
There you have it – corporate cronyism in all its glory, with bird murder as its crowning achievement.
Word of impending lawsuits lingers in Orangeville. It remains to be seen if disenchanted leaseholders will end up suing Big Wind, as others have. In the meantime, we’re hoping we don’t have any 11-ton blade breaks that throw shrapnel for thousands of feet, or any airplanes crashing into wind turbines during fog, as occurred in South Dakota earlier this year, killing all four on board. (I’ll bet you won’t be seeing any of these facts in Siemens’ ads, either.)
Our elected officials need energy literacy. Even a small dose would help.
What’s most frustrating, when attempting any kind of correspondence regarding these energy issues with many elected officials, is the kind of response I received from Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) when I wrote him a letter about ending the Wind PTC. Senator Schumer never even mentioned the PTC in his response. Instead, he rambled on about the need to “reduce foreign oil imports,” and increase “efficiency” – neither of which has a thing to do with wind-generated electricity.
Mr. Schumer recently feigned alarm following complaints by citizens about soaring electric rates – demanding answers about it, while simultaneously supporting yet another Wind PTC extension (plus other rate-increasing “renewable” projects). Senator Schumer’s hypocrisy is outrageous, and unacceptable.
Perhaps it’s time for U.S. ratepayers and taxpayers to demand that their elected officials first pass an energy literacy exam, before they pass such cost-exorbitant, “green” boondoggles on to consumers.
Congress is on vacation through Labor Day, which makes this the perfect time to approach your senators and representatives while they’re home. Attend town hall meetings and in-district fundraisers. Remind your representatives that we put them in office, and that we can also vote them out!
Since energy plays a pivotal role in our national economy – impacting the cost of absolutely everything else – candidates should have “energy” listed on their “issues” webpage.
Good candidates will support an “All of the Sensible” energy policy, as opposed to the “All of the Above” energy policy which President Obama has been pushing on behalf of the “green” movement. “Sensible” alternative energy options are those that are backed up by scientific and economic proof that they provide net societal benefits. Industrial wind fails this test miserably!
For more information, refer friends and elected officials to Robert Bryce’s excellent book, Power Hungry: The myths of “green” energy and the real fuels of the future.
Continue to call and write their offices, and encourage them to oppose any extension of the PTC and ITC! Write letters to your local newspapers, copy their district offices, and post information on their social media pages (e.g., Face Book & Twitter).
We must demand accountability from elected officials, or vote them out! Reliable, affordable energy is what has made America great. We need to keep it that way.
Mary Kay Barton is a retired health educator, New York State small business owner, Cornell-certified Master Gardener, and is a tireless advocate for scientifically sound, affordable, and reliable electricity for all Americans.
Those window makers should be taken to task for being bird slaughtering meanies too!
I totally agree with the author about the despoiling of Wyoming County. It is a great place for cycling with lots of nice climbing (cat 3’s and 4’s) so I try to visit every year. Unfortunately as you crest each hill you typically see one of these monstrosity’s and its barely spinning — but they keep building them to provide more “fools power”. Last year I was riding along one of their quiet country roads when a semi pulling the bottom section of one of them passed me. These things are huge and the load was taking up the entire road which I noticed when it was inches from my head. Of course the driver wasn’t going to let a cyclist slow down the “mission from Gore” so I had to bail into the ditch to avoid being sacrificed for the green boondoggle.
I just drove by a wind farm in Idaho. I would guess that only one in three turbines were operational.
History has shown that a windfarm:
1. Will only produce, at most, 22% of faceplate capacity.
2. Will cost 50% more to build and maintain then projected.
3. Will have a lifespan less then half that promised.
It doesn’t even matter if the world converts to 60% wind power farm because the methane will take us all out anyway.
==
‘Widespread methane leakage’ from ocean floor off US coast
24 August 2014 Last updated at 18:04
“… There are concerns that these new seeps could be making a hitherto unnoticed contribution to global warming. … The scientists say there could be about 30,000 of these hidden methane vents worldwide. …”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28898223
There are sound reasons why these things are nonsense even if you accept the FUD from the IPCC. This is a link to Prof. Mike Kelly’s presentation recently . .
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/storage/ECMA.Aberdeen.actual.pdf
It is really worth a look.
***
response I received from Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) when I wrote him a letter about ending the Wind PTC. Senator Schumer never even mentioned the PTC in his response. Instead, he rambled on about the need to “reduce foreign oil imports,” and increase “efficiency” – neither of which has a thing to do with wind-generated electricity.
***
Idiocy from the bureaucrap. There’s negligible electricity generated by “foreign oil imports”. Equally stupid is “efficiency”, if you properly define that by unsubsidized cost/kwhr.
Dear Kit Carruthers,
‘Windows’ do NOT typically KILL eagles, condors, whopping cranes and bats – industrial wind turbines do! Furthermore, windows within homes & buildings have improved the quality of life for literally 100’s of BILLIONS of people over time, while sprawling industrial wind factories have had the exact opposite effect. With over 250,000 industrial wind turbines installed worldwide today, CO2 emissions have NOT been significantly reduced, nor have any coal plants been shuttered thanks to industrial wind energy – anywhere.
Another thing you may wish to consider is that ONE (1) 450 MW Combined Cycle Generating Unit located at New York City (where the power is needed in New York State), would provide more power than all of New York State’s 16 installed wind factories combined, at 1/4 of the capital costs — and would have significantly reduced CO2 emissions and created far more jobs than all those wind farms – without all the added costs (economic, environmental, and civil) of all the transmission lines that must be added across the state to New York City. See:
Beyond Wind Spin: Miami Herald Should Get It Right — MasterResource:
http://www.masterresource.org/2013/08/beyond-wind-spin-miami-herald-rebuttal/
Exposing the wind industry genocide:
http://www.theecoreport.com/green-blogs/technology/energy/windproblems/exposing-the-wind-industry-genocide/
Industrial Wind: The Great American “S-WIND-LE” – Not Clean, Not Green, Not Free!:
http://citizenpowerallianceblog.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-great-american-s-wind-le-not-clean.html
Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future:
http://www.amazon.com/Power-Hungry-Myths-Energy-Future/dp/1586489534
The Green Corruption Files : Clean Energy; Dirty Money:
http://greencorruption.blogspot.com/2014/06/clean-energy-dirty-money-green.html#.U91wm0joWUc
Thank you very much for posting my article on Watts Up With That!
“Our elected officials need energy literacy. Even a small dose would help…”
Elected officials are fully literate regarding energy. They send money to those that are “green” and they receive campaign funds in return. What needs to be done with the elected officials is to put them in fear of not being elected if they continue the corruption.
Bishop Hill has a great article on the folly of “renewables”.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2014/8/25/kelly-on-the-engineering-challenge.html
Siemens the Corruptor, the Bribing… Please deal with it as an invader. As a virus. As the revenge of the Third Reich. No, I am not exaggerating.
“Why the sudden ad onslaught?”
…because most people are incredibly stupid
The biggest problem with the wind subsides is that a lot of the elected Republicans support it because they are getting the “kickbacks” from the corporate cronyism too. We have to fight the Liberals that support it as their green delusions and fantasies, the Liberal that also support the corporate cronyism and the Republicans that get their payouts.
It’s an uphill walk against the wind every day
Mary Kay Barton
August 25, 2014 at 10:26 am
Dear Kit Carruthers,
‘Windows’ do NOT typically KILL eagles…”
====
Me thinks Kit meant “widow maker” not “window maker”.
Criticizing wind farms for sucking on the taxpayer teat is legitimate, but what type of power plant doesn’t use taxpayer money to get built?
I wrote this a few years back for some one elses benifit.
Whenever you here the Democrats talk about reducing the deficit the first priority is tax the rich and eliminate oil company tax credits and subsidies. So let’s look at the reality of Oil Co’s. tax breaks.
A few details on cutting oil industry subsidies: I know it’s an emotional subject, especially every time we fill up at the pump, but bear with me. First, I have to make some assumptions since “cutting subsidies and credits” is meaningless and misleading unless details are presented.
With the current administrations agenda this is how it may play out. It appears the two main tax items are the DA (depletion allowance) and the IDC (intangible drilling cost) tax deduction.
The DA is complicated but the basics are that a company’s assets, its reserves (oil in the ground) decreases as the reserves are extracted. Unlike a manufacturing plant which has the potential to generate revenue indefinitely. An oil company is much like a general contractor and has very few capital assets to amortize. A manufacturing plant’s equipment can depreciate so that’s the closest analogy. DA: Each year, the taxpayer deducts a portion of the original capital investment, less previous deductions, that is equal to the fraction of the estimated remaining recoverable reserves that have been produced and sold that year. The cumulative amount recovered under this method can never exceed the taxpayer’s original capital investment. I don’t have a handle on exactly how much this saves a company but my sense is that it’s not huge. But more importantly, if the DA is eliminated it will only affect future fields…not existing ones. It is difficult to estimate if eliminating the DA will change future drilling activity.
The elimination of the IDC tax credit would have a huge immediate effect. The IDC is a significant incentive to drill. About 40% of the cost to drill a well is IC (intangible costs). The IDC allows a company to deduct that amount from the taxes owed…not from the income earned. So if a company owes the feds $100 million in taxes and spends $100 million in IC it can subtract $35 million (IC X 0.35) from its taxes. Defiantly a huge break. So they only pay $65 million in taxes. But take note: the ICD doesn’t increase the company’s revenue or profits; it allows them to spend more money drilling. If they don’t spend it drilling new wells they lose it. That’s the logic behind the IDC tax credit: instead of letting the government spend the money the oil industry gets to drill more wells. That was once considered a good thing.
The effect on drilling activity: the economics of each project or well is evaluated on its own merits. This evaluation includes utilizing the IDC. Eliminate it and a number of projects become sub-economic and won’t be drilled. This will disappoint many contractors and their employees, but eliminating the IDC won’t diminish Oil Co. profit. Each well must stand on its own profitability. No single well is completed to extraction with subsidies from others. What no IDC will do is eliminate a big chunk of their capex reserve (Capitol expense) used for drilling. The money an oil company saves with the IDC doesn’t go to any owner or stockholder. It has to be spent. And it can’t be spent overseas…the law requires it to be spent domestically. So all of this subsidy goes to the service companies who drill the wells. And the more revenue flowing to these companies the more employees they hire (who then pay more taxes along with their companies). Additional drilling also means more lease bonuses and royalty to landowners (who also pay more taxes). The additional production is also taxed by the local and state authorities. Ideally if the extra capex provided by the IDC results in more production then there is an even greater revenue to tax.
This extra capex and the additional drilling will increase domestic extraction and reduce future imports, however it will have little effect on world extraction or prices, as domestic extraction is only 7% of world extraction. So as I’ve pointed out before any increase in responsible domestic drilling and production has significant benefits to the economy. Lots of jobs, reduced trade deficit, lots of royalty income to individuals and the government, lots of revenue to one of our few remaining profitable industries that employs millions (including many of the folks damaged by the BP spill) and can’t be outsourced.
So if the public wants to eliminate these subsidies so be it. But it won’t lessen the current profits of the oil industry. It will reduce its future revenue but not necessarily its profitability, however it may well actually reduce total Tax revenue Oil Co’s pay in later years . Oil Co profits will continue flowing out to its millions of shareholders (who are dominated by the country’s retirees). It will reduce the amount of money the industry rolls back into the economy. But that’s OK with the Oil Co’s …anything that reduces the competition for the little drilling potential we have left is just fine by them. So all the politicians can do is placate the public’s anger over energy costs, but in the end they’ll have to deal with the results.
So what we have here is either political ignorance or political greed that in the end trades votes for jobs. So what will the end effect be when they raise taxes on the rich…do they Know? Do they care… or could it again be… just trade votes for Jobs.
A large part of the political issues we are currently living through on “green power” mandates stem from voter-approved requirements that date back (and prior) to Climategate days – such as “by the year 2025, will generate of our local power needs from renewable resources”. Back before we all really knew what we were voting for. These mandates were pushed through at a time when CAGW was thought to be a real threat – and the gullible voters dutifully agreed to be subjected to years and years of future folly such as wind turbine installations – and the subsidies to builders/land owners that follow. Right here in the State of Washington – which boasts a high percentage of existing renewable energy sources – hydro-electric power generating dams – we see the fruits of that voter labor. Driving eastbound on Interstate 90 over the Cascade mountain crest one sees multitudes of wind towers plopped down where, just a few years ago nature and farming were king. Looking at my electric bill, it has steadily increased to where with the cost of power and distribution I am now paying over 9 cents per kilowatt hour (before the taxes), and prior to the renewable mandates being instituted we were paying around 4.5 cents per kilowatt hour. There is your “law of (intended?) consequences” for ya!!!
Well played Ms Barton, a very interesting article. Nice to see another example debunking the idea that climate skeptics are old white males.
Why the sudden ad onslaught? Why do robbers rob banks? Same answer. Coincidentally, same ethics, too.
@cedarhill: what needs to be done with politicians is term limits, which would help to reduce the back-scratching effect of campaign money. But that may be off-topic for this board.
OTOH, if methane these leaks aren’t new, but were only recently discovered, or if they a new only because they are cyclic, then that means that released methane doesn’t make it up to the upper atmosphere, where its incidence hasn’t been rising much.
Ahh, mkelly – I should have thought of that — widow makers, not “window makers” — but it is so common for Big Wind Enthusiasts to use the “cars, cats & buildings kill more birds” argument, that I didn’t assume what she wrote to be a mistake.
Unmentionable
August 25, 2014 at 9:57 am
“It doesn’t even matter if the world converts to 60% wind power farm because the methane will take us all out anyway.”
Hey, I think I saw the last Methanophobe during the Macondo accident! I thought you guys went extinct with the Peak Oilers!
The interesting thing about Methane is of course that it is not oxidized .- contrary to CO2. Now, what happens to an unoxidized molecule in the atmosphere…
Also, please enumerate the historic Methane Global Warming events. The vents you mention are natural… so we should have some Catastrophic Methane meltdowns under our belt…
Ms. Barton, another observation to help your crusade. Last year the wind capacity factor for the US was 32% (that is, the wind turbines produced only 32% of nameplate capacity. But when the wind is blowing, they produce 100%. Obviously the wind does not always blow. The grid must be sized for when it does not, which means redundant standby capacity must be in place to a first order approximation equalling installed wind nameplate capacity. (the actual situation is more complicated and covered more precisely in my forthcoming book, but the point is correct.) Older smaller coal spinning reserves forced into retirement by EPA rules, almost all of that is peaking natural gas turbines, which have the highest levelized cost of all generation except solar. So the actual capital and electricity costs of wind are more than twice what the EIA says, or the wind industry says, because of the necessary standby capacity.
It is economically twice as bad as you have made out. Direct wind investment is not viable without the direct PTC subsidy, the grid is forced to take the produced electricity, and somewhere else on the grid the utilities have to install the necessary backup at their expense. A more perverse system could not be imagined.
Fight on. Perhaps you will find the forthcoming essay Tilting at Windmills (honoring Don Quixote for obvious reasons) to be of some help. Should be available before the elections.
Right on Bruce Cobb! They are all crooks! When you have both ends of the economic spectrum in this country bent on living off welfare, sooner or later the whole thing is going to collapse.
The following documentary is an hour and 36 minutes long but well worth the time.
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2014/06/20140601-075938.html
Here is how the writeup starts. (For our international readers, Ontario is a large Canadian province.)
“TORONTO – Anyone who has studied the Ontario Liberal government’s failed experiment with wind power knows what a financial and social catastrophe it has been.
How billions of taxpayers’ and hydro customers’ dollars are being wasted, and will continue to be wasted for decades to come, because of former Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty’s naive blunder into wind energy, now fully supported by Premier Kathleen Wynne.”
David Suzuki comes on very briefly, however Ross McKitrick is interviewed for about 15 minutes.
Thank you for the good information Rud Istvan, but not sure how you came to the conclusion that “it’s twice as bad as I have made out.” I have been crying FRAUD to anyone who will listen when it comes to the industrial wind scam for nearly a decade now. Here are just a few of the articles I have written over the years trying to get people to wake up to this scam:
Industrial Wind: The Great American “S-WIND-LE” – Not Clean, Not Green, Not Free!:
http://citizenpowerallianceblog.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-great-american-s-wind-le-not-clean.html
New York Wind Wars – Hiding the Facts:
http://www.masterresource.org/2013/09/new-york-wind-wars/
Don’t Believe Claims About Wind Power:
http://www.goerie.com/article/20130823/OPINION08/308239986/Guest-Voice%3A-Don%27t-believe-claims-about-wind-power
They’re not ‘wind farms’, they’re ‘tax farms’:
http://www.mywnynews.com/arcade_warsaw/opinion/letters_to_editor/article_d0c4e10c-b9b1-11e2-978e-0019bb2963f4.html
New York’s (Agenda 21) “Sustainability” Planning: What About Wind Power’s Ecological Insults?
http://www.masterresource.org/2013/03/new-york-energy-plannin/
Dear Christian Science Monitor: Wind Is Not Sacred but a Sacrilege:
http://www.masterresource.org/2013/01/dear-christian-science-monitor-wind-is-not-sacred/
New York State Windpower: Enough Business/Government Cronyism:
http://www.masterresource.org/2012/12/new-york-state-wind-debate/
Local Wind Subsidies: New York State’s Money-Road to Nowhere:
http://www.masterresource.org/2012/08/local-wind-subsidies-more-waste-new-york-states-money-road-to-nowhere/
U.S. Public Interest Groups Fighting Windpower:
http://www.masterresource.org/2012/09/us-public-interest-groups-antiwind/
“A tax-funded ‘green’ energy dogma”
http://thedailynewsonline.com/opinion/article_52653104-f120-11e1-a27d-0019bb2963f4.html
“Big subsidies for wind projects are ‘FIT’ for retirement”:
http://wind-watch.org/news/?p=26882
‘PC’ power is not “sustainable”:
http://www.masterresource.org/2012/04/pc-power-not-sustainable/
Corporate Welfare Bar:
http://thedailynewsonline.com/opinion/editorials/article_886768a8-32ea-11e0-a04d-001cc4c002e0.html?mode=story
Wasteful, redundant schemes must stop:
http://thedailynewsonline.com/opinion/editorials/article_e37ec63a-7275-11e0-99c9-001cc4c03286.html
Wind Salesmen still can’t make pigs fly:
http://thedailynewsonline.com/opinion/editorials/article_7fb64f5e-bcb9-11e0-b957-001cc4c03286.html
Nothing embodies Big Government more than Big Wind:
http://thedailynewsonline.com/opinion/editorials/article_4ff07632-da37-11e0-9827-001cc4c03286.html
When government tries to pick winners, everyone loses:
http://thedailynewsonline.com/opinion/editorials/article_ce88b206-e474-11e0-86d7-001cc4c03286.html#user-comment-area
Perry Puts People First:
http://thedailynewsonline.com/opinion/editorials/article_7ec6a2de-92ab-11e0-8004-001cc4c002e0.html
Putting animals, “the love of money” ahead of people:
http://thedailynewsonline.com/opinion/editorials/article_c6669b02-1b24-11e0-a3c2-001cc4c002e0.html
Wind Conference Draws welcome attention (3/6/10 Batavia Daily News):
http://thedailynewsonline.com/articles/2010/03/06/opinion/letters/doc4b915de1e620d540779006.txt
Orangeville: The sad realities of a town divided:
http://thedailynewsonline.com/blogs/commentary_and_letters/article_5ecf2f91-5322-59cf-929e-96c857639af6.html
Critical Thinking vs. ‘standing firm’ (Regarding local 8th graders being given a ‘science’ lesson by wind salespeople at a local wind factory.)
http://thedailynewsonline.com/blogs/commentary_and_letters/article_c1dcdfc6-7c4e-50b6-affd-b7174a1608be.html
NYS’ Two-Billion Dollar Energy Swindle:
http://www.empirepage.com/2009/6/27/nys-two-billion-dollar-energy-swindle
Despite what industry salesmen say, wind is not the future:
http://thedailynewsonline.com/blogs/commentary_and_letters/article_53ac6bcf-d9e3-5cf5-83a8-172bc15cbaf1.html
Sound Specialist Offers Expertise on Industrial Wind Installations:
http://www.windaction.org/news/14054
dpchip:
Your explanation of intangible-drilling-cost treatment makes them sound as though they are a credit rather than a deduction. If that’s true, I’m against them. But I had never heard that before; I’d always assumed they were just an item that could be expensed.
President Obama says a lot of things but he will not say a single negative word about wind energy. Also from what I have seen of him……………..when he “closes one corporate loophole,” he will open up ten others for those that helped to put him in office. The proposed 30 year eagle killing permits are a perfect example of President Obama in action.
For those planning to make comments on the proposed 30 year eagle killing permits for the wind industry, they are due Sept. 22.
Do not beat around the bush with your statements. If you think they are liars, tell them. If you think they have been hiding the bodies of endangered species and thousands of eagles, tell them. If you think they are rigging studies and surveys, tell them. If you believe that having wings or legs chopped off by a turbine blades and then left to die is 1st degree animal cruelty, tell them.
Then make them answer very direct and uncomfortable questions. Do not worry about being polite because they do not deserve it.
Also remember this, the FWS answers to the Interior Department and the Interior Department unfortunately answers to the wind industry and their financial backers. These are the bad guys in this and the corruption taking place flows down in this order.
Lastly I will point out something very obvious…….
The Industry has only reported a handful of bald eagles having been being killed by wind turbines across America . Yet in new projects where their bodies will be found by the public because less isolated of turbine locations, the FWS estimates that 15-43 Bald Eagles will be killed annually by a single project like that planned on Chesapeake Bay.
How could such eagle mortality estimates ever be made when tens of thousands of turbines running for decades across the remote regions of America have reportedly killed just 6 bald eagles?
The reason for this absurdity is that they (FWS and Interior Department) already know how deadly these turbines are to bald eagles. They know this from the unreported bald eagles being killed at wind farms and their carcasses then shipped off to the National Eagle Repository.
Since 1997 approximately 28,600 eagle carcasses have been shipped to Denver, about 18,000 of them were bald eagles. The public only knows what happened to 6 of these bald eagles (Pagel FWS 2013). Last year the parts and bodies from 1795 bald eagles were reported as being shipped to the Repository. .
As I pointed out earlier if you think they are liars tell them.
“ while we continue to rack up unconscionable debt for our children and grandchildren”.
This sort of statement, while not false, is of little import for a couple of reasons and has become a cliché. If the debt is producing or providing something useful then the future payments may be reasonable. For most folks, purchase of a house fits this notion.
Perception is important. If Siemens convinces a majority of people that the tax and higher costs now are providing something important in the future, then they will get the votes and money.
A better argument might be to speak of trade-offs or opportunities lost. Medical research (Alzheimers ?), Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor technology, highways & bridges, water purification, and others could be funded. Current interest groups, such as old folks and their supporting adult children are more interested in dementia than some future debt. Each opportunity lost is of interest to some group. The anti-waste message needs to target each of those and forget about the taxes and inflation that future children and grandchildren will encounter. Many folks have none to worry about anyway so the issue is quite esoteric.
Other than the above, I agree with the author. Climocleptomaniacs all!
I really couldn’t be more grateful to ‘Watts Up With That’ for posting my article as a guest post today. However, and not to be ungrateful, but I really wish the Siemens TV ad was not prominently posted right at the top of the article like it is. I hadn’t even included the link to it when I sent this article in, as I really would rather NOT give Siemens any more free advertising time than they already enjoy all over the place — while we taxpayers and ratepayers have increasingly NO SAY at all.
a very funny Aussie wind farm protest in regional australia:
25 Aug: Goulburn Post: Lloyd Scroope: Pollies hit spot of turbulence
http://www.goulburnpost.com.au/story/2510642/pollies-hit-spot-of-turbulence/?cs=12
How much are oil companies fined for each dead bird fouled by an oil spill?
Where is the ecologist’s rage about the wind choppers?
“The Migratory Bird Treaty Act: 73 bird species harmed by spill are migratory, totaling 18,770 birds, including nearly 5,000 Northern Gannets, 3,000 Royal Terns and 220 Snowy Egrets. @ $500 per bird = $9.4 million. ” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/antonia-juhasz/bp-oil-settlement_b_1583520.html
Rud Istvan
August 25, 2014 at 12:21 pm
Ms. Barton, another observation to help your crusade. Last year the wind capacity factor for the US was 32% (that is, the wind turbines produced only 32% of nameplate capacity. But when the wind is blowing, they produce 100%.
Rud’s comment appears to be at odds with Betz’s Law. Could you explain this discrepancy, please, as nameplate capacities are often used to advertise the thousands of households that wind farms are supposed to be providing with power (rather than energy)?
Are ‘nameplate’ capacities adjusted to allow for Betz’s theoretical limit?
The Cowboy state of Wyoming is pretty conservative and sensible but for some reason has drunk the big wind koolaid.
Great article in The Australian to-day by Nick Cater on renewable energy and the disturbing news that former NSW premier Bob Carr’s mothballed desalination plant was costing $534,246 a day in service charges.
This comes after another period of dam filling rains. (Another completely wrong prediction by the BOM by the way. Looks like the Gore Affect has hit the BOM with historical levels of rain for SE Australia for August).
Particularly loved the comment after Cater’s article which is a parody of the line that Kevin Rudd espoused in his 2008 speech ‘The Children of Gordon Gecko”.
“It is perhaps time now to admit that we did not learn the full lessons of the Green-is-Good ideology. And today we are still cleaning up the mess of the 21st-century children of Kevin Rudd”
Perhaps Oliver Stone could consider a sequel to “Wall Street?” – “Windmill Avenue.”
What have they got against vertical axis turbines?
===================================================================
Here’s a thought. Instead of using taxes/tax-breaks/political-goals/regulations-based-on-politics decide what form of power plants gets built and/or stay open; why not let what economically and practically works decide?
PS Take the politics out of the regulations and the environment will be fine.
@Kit Caruthers
Windows don’t seem to slaughter eagles, hawks, and/or bats. But if they did, would two wrongs make a right? We live in the forest surrounded by birds and lots of windows, and so far no bird deaths. Wind turbines can’t say the same.
=======================================================================
Maybe you know. I don’t. But how many window makers would go out of business if taxpayer subsidies were cut off?
Mary Kay Barton August 25, 2014 at 10:26 am
“Furthermore, windows within homes & buildings have improved the quality of life for literally 100’s of BILLIONS of people over time, while sprawling industrial wind factories have had the exact opposite effect”
etc.
—————————————————————————————-
Mary, if you were to amend that to read “…while sprawling industry has had the exact opposite effect” (note change of “wind factories” to “industry”, then you would have a point. Pollution from industry as a whole has done more to damage ecology and human quality of life than a smattering (by your own admission there aren’t many) of windfarms ever have.
Secondly, the threat to birds is relative. Deaths attributable to wind turbines is minuscule compared with other causes, see here as one of many sources all broadly indicative of the same thing: http://www.sibleyguides.com/conservation/causes-of-bird-mortality/
And thirdly, if you (or any other commentator) wish to make a point about threats to specific species, I’d like to see some referenced sources. e.g. here’s a source saying “We found a minimum of 85 eagle mortalities at 32 wind energy facilities in 10 states during 1997 through 30 June 2012” (http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.3356/JRR-12-00019.1) i.e. an average of 5.67 deaths per year. This compares with 344 bird deaths in Alaska alone over a 14 year period (24.6 deaths per year) (http://raptors.hancockwildlife.org/BEIA/PAGES/Section-17.pdf), none of which were attributable to wind farms at the time. In fact, despite the increase in windfarms in the USA, and including the large numbers of bird deaths at the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area, eagle populations have remained steady in the Western US (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jwmg.588/suppinfo).
So the evidence seems to be that, while turbines do kill birds, in the context of other causes of death (i.e. shooting, electrocutions, windows, predators, poisoning, etc.) they do not appear to be the significant threat that you make out. If you would care to reference some sources of significant and alarming bird death numbers, then I’m all ears.
It is a fact that the FWS routinely covers for the wind industry’s fraudulent research.
Here is a perfect example of the disinformation being given out to the public pertaining to wind turbine related Eagle mortality. This two faced approach not only keeps the public ignorant but also protects the wind industry.
From the July 2014 article “Eagles killed by Palm Springs windmills raise concerns”……………
“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it has received reports of 15 golden eagles killed by windmills in the Palm Springs area since 1999, an average of one eagle a year. That number, however, is most certainly a tiny fraction of the actual number of deaths because monitoring is spotty, reporting is voluntary and enforcement actions are rare.”
“The Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that on average, more than 20 golden eagles are probably killed each year among the wind turbines of San Gorgonio Pass, out of an estimated 120 golden eagle deaths annually at wind farms across California.”
Just one golden eagle death annually has been reported in this area by the wind industry with their voluntary regulations and rigged studies, yet the FWS estimates more than 20 eagles are killed each year by these turbines. What is the real toll for the last 15 years, 15 eagles, 300 eagles or quite possibly far more? This is the fraud facing every community when trying to assess mortality impacts from these wind turbines, because developers will only claim 15 and no one goes after these scumbags.
So how does the FWS arrive at their estimate that over 20 eagles are being killed each year? This information comes from the eagle carcasses shipped to the National Eagle Repository each year. Eagles killed at Wind farms happen to be the primary source for the Repository but FWS personnel can not disclose this. Also keep in mind these are only the eagles found and shipped. Many more eagles perish that are not found more die when nests fail due to the loss of an adult. . It is safe to assume that golden eagle mortality from wind turbines is at least 20 times more than what the industry reports. For bald eagles I believe it is at least 100 times more than what is being reported by the wind industry because they have only reported 6 with their “voluntary regulations”.
This very important data pertaining to eagle mortality from wind turbines has been hidden from the public for decades by the Interior Department. The Interior Department has also made sure that, “monitoring is spotty, reporting is voluntary and enforcement actions are rare.” . Since 1997 approximately 28,600 eagle carcasses have been sent to the National Eagle Repository. The Interior Department and FWS have only accounted for 85 of these carcasses. The carcass totals include thousands of bald eagles and the repository is now taking in about 2500 eagle carcasses a year. Hidden from the public is the fact that wind farms are the primary supplier for the National Repository. The Interior Department has all of this data
I encourage everyone to read about the thousands of eagles being killed by turbines and the blistering comments made by former FWS agents disgusted by this runaway industry. It is all in a recently published three part series on Master Resource ………..”The voice of dead eagles”.
NOTHING presented by the wind industry can be trusted.
A perfect example is their fraudulent mortality data produced by the industry that is being used in mortality estimates.
Decades before wind turbines came on to the scene wildlife biologists used daily searches when looking for carcasses around communication towers. They did this because it was proven to be the most reliable methodology to get accurate mortality data. Periodic searches were also conducted far beyond standard search areas checking for missed carcasses. Generally these standard search areas were as far out from towers as the tower was tall and expanded searches were conducted as far as 1 1/2 times tower height.
Today with this disgusting green industry, carcasses searches are not daily and for 400 -500 ft tall turbines, the industry doesn’t even fully search an area 150 feet out from turbines. Proper search areas for these turbines should be 600 feet out with periodic searches out even further. Anything found beyond their tiny standard search areas are generally dismissed as being incidental. I know of one study that dismissed several hundred carcasses as being incidental. Many of them raptors.
Mortality numbers given out by this industry numbers are off by at least 90 and this estimate is based upon the industry’s own data produced in their rigged studies. But since they are eliminating so much important data, with rigged methodology and employee interference, the true numbers they are covering up are probably closer to 95-98%.
There are also cases when the numbers are even higher. For example with endangered species, if no fatalities are ever reported there is no data. This has been the case of the whooping cranes. The central flyway population was growing steadily each year until about 2006, the beginning of the turbine invasion in their habitat. Today there should be about 450 whooping cranes in this population but the true population numbers are no longer given and they are estimated to be at around 175-350. This low number also includes dozens that have been dumped into the wild populations from breeding facilities.
In one 7 month industry study that I read over, I believe over 25,000 bat fatalities and approximately 7800 bird fatalities were concealed. This represents a death rate of 111 birds/MW and 357 bats per/MW or nearly 468 birds and bats killed per MW per year. This was the mortality of just 28 2.5 MW turbines in Maryland. Their tiny search areas around the huge turbines amounted to about 68% of a 50 meter distance from towers. These turbines had blades 50 meters in length and search areas should have been at least 200 meters out from the turbines. . In the mortality report for these turbines it was claimed that searchers systematically searched along predetermined in transects.
I was told something completely different by an eyewitness (written statement) that he observed on two occasions wind personnel randomly picking up carcasses from around turbines that were at the time, having formal mortality surveys. Two people were seen quickly picking up carcasses from the clear areas (roads and graveled areas) around the turbines. They were seen dumping carcasses in a bucket and driving off to the next turbine. They were not seen with a pen, no hand held devices, a computer, no notebooks, they did nothing but grab bodies and drive off.
The man even talked with them. They did not appear to be professional and barely spoke English. He also said he would be willing to testify to what he saw. This reported activity could have actually been an organized pre-scan for carcasses ahead of formal searches.
This observed activity was nothing close to being scientific and took place when formal searches were being conducted on these turbines in Maryland. These turbines are also located in the known habitat of the endangered Indiana bat. How many of the unreported 25,000 bats were of this species? We will never know and this is by design.
Here is something else this fraudulent industry does not disclose. Communication towers, buildings, and cats kill very few raptors and bats. In fact raptor and bat deaths at communication towers are virtually nonexistent. Yet the public is bombarded with disinformation and lies about these forms of mortality. In the meantime the industry’s turbines are killing millions of raptors and bats.
With the wind industry lies and the Interior Department covering for them, one would think these profiteers are saving the world. With true scientific facts, it can be seen that they are really helping to bankrupt society and are driving species to extinction.
.
A great example of the uphill battle to stop “alternative” energy.
Look at the add in the upper right corner:
We’re fighting both political parties .
One thing I find depressing is that many rural people I know or meet start salivating at the thought of getting rent from having one of these things on their property.
Kit……how much money do you make from wind? Why else would you support them?
I don’t think the complaint the “industrial wind farm” is ugly matters, no more than “dirty coal”, or whatever insult they are doing for any form of nuclear power (including safe forms – e.g. you don’t put the pumps below the reactors so they will be flooded in a tsunami, you make them so that they will fail safe).
I would also note there are tax breaks for fossil fuel exploration too. Should exploration costs be advantaged? Or should there be a STRICT free market?
But it is fun to see the irony in the greens wanting wind power – but only in places where there is no wind, at least no scenery.
There is new work on spray-able photovoltaics. Pave paradise and put up a solar farm, Oooh, bop bop bop. Taxis are yellow, not green.
Reblogged this on Power To The People and commented:
Greens ProFossilFuel http://bit.ly/1vtGMBj For Production Use Disposal Of BIG Carbon Foot Renewables Whack Poor With High Fuel Prices All Pain For Poor Big Bucks For Green Billionaire Crony Capitalists. No Mitigation Of Climate Change. Pure Insanity.
Greens ProFossilFuel http://bit.ly/1vtGMBj For Production Use Disposal Of BIG Carbon Foot Renewables That Whack Poor With High Fuel Prices Are All Pain For Poor Big Bucks For Green Billionaire Crony Capitalists. Results: No Mitigation Of Climate Change = Pure Insanity.
Might this be a double dip into taxpayer dollars? Placing wind towers on “paid not to grow stuff” land? I’ll go check to see if this is allowed and get back to ya.
Yup. It is. With price controls on the products that make food staples and ever increasing gas prices, farmers have to get in that soup line just to feed their families.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCcQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fsa.usda.gov%2FInternet%2FFSA_Image%2Fokcrp_newsletter_0207.pdf&ei=Q-v7U-v9KOXGiwKxv4CgCQ&usg=AFQjCNFo-r2UQSvmlrmEHT98MsqGeZ-Hrw&bvm=bv.73612305,d.cGE
‘Windows’ do NOT typically KILL eagles…”
Correct. The ‘Blue screen of death’ is something else entirely..
“We’re fighting both political parties” – You got that right, @MatthewW.
Many try to lay the blame for Big Wind at Democrats feet, but industrial wind exists because of Republicans, not in spite of them — ie: Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa is one of the biggest pushers of the wind scam for obvious reasons, even though Grassley (obviously playing political games) was 1 of only 5 Republicans who voted NO on the 12/31/12 fiscal cliff deal that contained the extension of the wind PTC (obviously to try and disassociate himself from this corporate welfare disaster. See:
Congressional Bills and Votes: http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/112/senate/2/251
@accordsionsrule – “What have they got against vertical axis turbines?” ~ Nothing, except that wind energy is still volatile, inefficient, unreliable and dependent on taxpayers to shoulder the costs to enable them to exist in the first place. If people want to pay for these experiments themselves (without inflicting 430 – 600 foot moving machines over their neighbors’ heads), fine – go for it. Just don’t expect all the rest of us to pay for your ‘green’ electricity dujuor while the rest of us end up with “skyrocketing” electrcity rates because of it. “Shifting the burden of taxation on to residents and small businesses” is NOT doing any of us any favors. See:
Local Wind Subsidies: New York State’s Money-Road to Nowhere”:
http://www.masterresource.org/2012/08/local-wind-subsidies-more-waste-new-york-states-money-road-to-nowhere/
The Corporate Welfare Bar:
http://thedailynewsonline.com/opinion/editorials/article_886768a8-32ea-11e0-a04d-001cc4c002e0.html?mode=story
Interesting @PamelaGray! Thanks for looking that up – should have known they could “double-dip.” The wind industry typically uses the line that “Wind factories will help small farms stay afloat,” which is total nonsense. Small farms that have pimped out their property to Big Wind have still gone bankrupt despite having wind leases (turns out that if you were already a bad businessman, wind leases don’t change that), and/or, they have stopped farming and moved out of the area, leaving their neighbors to suffer with the after-effects.
@Leo Smith – I assume you mean “The ‘Blue screen of death’” to be pollution from coal. The problem is that industrial wind does NOT do a thing to alleviate emissions, and actually locks us into dependence on fossil fuels. Wind would more accurately be called fossil-wind. It is a complete waste of our resources.
~ With approximately 250,000 industrial wind turbines installed worldwide today (45,100 turbines totaling over 60GW of installed wind projects in the USA, according to AWEA), CO2 emissions have NOT been significantly reduced, nor has a single conventional generation plant – including coal, been decommissioned thanks to industrial wind. (See: Wind Turbines Are Climate-Change Scarecrows, by Robert Bryce)
~ The Brookings Institute reports that “Wind and Solar are the Worst” way to reduce CO2.
~ Due to the unreliable, erratic, and volatile nature of wind, industrial wind turbines need constant “shadow capacity” from our reliable, dispatchable generators – that is, if you want to be sure the lights will come on when you flick the switch. Thus, as Big Wind CEO, Patrick Jenevein candidly admitted, “Consumers end up paying twice for the same product.”
~ All things considered, including demand levels and import/exports – the more wind installations we add, the more we must add fossil-fueled generation.
~ The TRUTH: Wind generation locks us into dependence on fossil fuels.
~ Adding wind as a supplement to our conventional generating system requires so much supplementation that in many areas of the country, adding wind actually causes increased CO2 emissions in the production of electricity than would be the case with no wind at all. Iowa exemplifies this — As Iowa’s installed wind capacity has increased over recent years, so has their coal use and CO2 emissions.
~ ONE (1) 450 MW Combined Cycle Generating Unit located at New York City (where the power is needed in New York State), would provide more power than all of New York State’s 16 installed wind factories combined, at 1/4 of the capital costs — and would have significantly reduced CO2 emissions and created far more jobs than all those wind farms – without all the added costs (economic, environmental, and civil) of all the transmission lines that must be added across the state to New York City.
~ Industrial wind supplies electricity, and therefore, has nothing to do with our “foreign oil dependence” created by gasoline and diesel fuel needs.
~ 4,000 – 6,000 pounds of rare earth elements are required per turbine, producing disastrous ecological results in China, where the rare earth elements are being mined.
~ In many low-wind areas of the country (ie: New York State), Industrial Wind Turbines do NOT produce enough power to pay for themselves over their very short, 5 – 13 year lifespans.
~ The average output of many wind factories is less than 25% – many days, providing nothing at all.
~ Studies from those long-invested in wind power in Spain and elsewhere have shown that 2 – 4 jobs are LOST in the rest of the economy, in large part due to the associated “necessarily skyrocketing” electricity rates President Obama forewarned would accompany his ‘green’ energy policy.
~ Consider GE’s Shepard’s Flat Wind Factory, at which each ‘job created’ was shown to cost taxpayers $16.3 MILLION – exorbitantly expensive jobs for a product which is neither “reliable,” nor “efficient” – two professed requirements of the “sustainability” movement.
~ Wind technology has proven to be effective only as a tax shelter generator for large corporations in need of an increased bottom line – just as it was originally designed to do by ENRON, the trailblazer for industrial wind in the U.S.
~ Two of the largest wind holding corporations – GE and Florida Power & Light – have paid NO federal income taxes in the U.S. in years, in large measure because of their “investment” in wind.
~ The sprawling footprints of industrial wind factories cover vast swaths of land, causing massive Habitat Fragmentation.
~ Mathematically, it would take more than 3000 wind turbines rated at 2 MW each, spread over 800 kilometers (nearly 500 miles), to equal the energy from one 1600 MW coal or nuclear plant. Because these wind turbines can produce no effective (or firm) capacity, they can never replace the need for those conventional generating units.
~ Wind, paired with natural gas (the most flexible generating system), can offset a mere fraction more CO2 emissions than could be achieved with the gas unit alone – without any wind at all. Wind represents redundant generation, although it would generate capital costs more than triple the cost of the gas unit. With wind, the country gets one electricity production system for the cost of two.
~ Wind can neither be a functional alternative, nor additive energy source. Wind energy is so diffuse that no machine can convert it to modern power. (See: Understanding E = mc2 at: Energy Tribune)
See the entire summary at:
Industrial Wind: The Great American “S-WIND-LE” – Not Clean, Not Green, Not Free!:
http://citizenpowerallianceblog.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-great-american-s-wind-le-not-clean.html
@Kit Carruthers, The fact of the matter is – the onset of “industry” and reliable, affordable power in this nation is directly correlated to improved health and greatly increased longevity for all Americans. See:
STANDARD OF LIVING – THE REAL HOCKEY STICK:
http://www.cornwallalliance.org/newsletter/issue/standard-of-living-the-real-hockey-stick/
Mary Kay Barton
August 25, 2014 at 8:18 pm
> @Leo Smith – I assume you mean “The ‘Blue screen of death’” to be pollution from coal.
No, no – Until Microsoft finally made Windows mostly work with Windows XP and 7, system crashes displayed a page of gobbledy-gook on a blue background, hence the Blue Screen of Death, or BSoD for short. People take delight in posting images of BSoDs on ATMs, telephones, and other appliances, but many people’s favorite is the BSoD Bill Gates got during a demo at a major conference with a stage-sized display.
http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/22287-blue-screen-of-death-bsod
BTW, in New Hampshire, two of three wind projects around Newfound Lake have been abandoned (for now). Newfound Lake is one of the most important lakes in the state and people around it and elsewhere have done a very good job mobilizing against the projects. It helped a lot that Groton Wind, a little to the north, did get built so people had a good idea what they were fighting against.
I have in-laws in Alden NY, north of the wind projects out there. Thank you for your tireless work.
You do realize how impossible it would be to park these churning eyesores in the Hamptons, or any other democrat held turf? The blue counties are population centers that by nature are poor hosts to wind power whereas red flyover country is ideal. It might be a tactical scheme to require there be as many wind turbines in blue counties as there are in red. That would be an interesting game changer of the greens actually had to live with the environmental and health problems these bird killers create.
Next point – in many wind power candidate sites space is leased or sold by local ranchers and farmers who tend not to be leftist urbanites. There is a lot of income to be made by converting a corner of a soy bean patch to a wind farm and which has no cost to the land owner until the machinery fails and is removed – restoring the land is left to the land owner. Big wind isn’t old enough for the end of life horror stories the land owners are going to be faced with.
Heed the lesson of the rotting corpses of wind turbine farms that Hawaii is stuck with.
That article linked about confusing energy with power.. It had so many things wrong with it that I don’t know where to start.
Mary Kay Barton:
Thankyou for your article.
If you have not seen it there is an item of mine that may interest you if only for your files.
It is from a few years ago, pertains to the UK situation but includes information from other countries including the US, and can be found here. Among several other things, it says and explains
Richard
Sorry, my link did not work. It is this
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/courtney_2006_lecture.pdf
Richard
I would say build these absurd things. The more there are the larger the group of people who will come to see how useless and disturbing that they are. Every ‘green’ politician should have on in his garden and when they go on vacation it should always be a spot where they can enjoy them. Once they run out of other people’s money it will be over. In Europe we have reached that point and the ‘greens’ have now BIG problems to stay in power and will eventually be wiped out. When the little man can’t afford the energy he needs and has no job and no food there will be revolution. He has nothing to lose.
More expensive energy won’t make the economy grow. Generations of humans understood this concept.
The total number of wind-powered mills in Europe is estimated to have been around 200,000 at its peak, which is modest compared to some 500,000 waterwheels.[22] Windmills were applied in regions where there was too little water, where rivers freeze in winter and in flat lands where the flow of the river was too slow to provide the required power.[22] With the coming of the industrial revolution, the importance of wind and water as primary industrial energy sources declined and were eventually replaced by steam (in steam mills) and internal combustion engines, although windmills continued to be built in large numbers until late in the nineteenth century. More recently, windmills have been preserved for their historic value, in some cases as static exhibits when the antique machinery is too fragile to put in motion, and in other cases as fully working mills.[25]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windmill
John piccirilli August 25, 2014 at 5:22 pm
“Kit……how much money do you make from wind?”
None, My research is funded by a fossil fuel energy company.
Mary Kay Barton August 25, 2014 at 8:32 pm
“@Kit Carruthers, The fact of the matter is – the onset of “industry” and reliable, affordable power in this nation is directly correlated to improved health and greatly increased longevity for all Americans.”
I’m not denying that our current (Western) standard of living is nothing to do with the rise in industrialisation, but you’re kidding yourself if you don’t think that it hasn’t brought about major public health and ecological problems (see: various industrial health disorders, deaths from mining, polluted food and water supplies, ozone hole, acid rain, and more. Wind farms – if at all – barely scratch the surface of that, which was the point I was trying to make.
Jim Wiegand August 25, 2014 at 8:32 pm
“In the meantime the industry’s turbines are killing millions of raptors and bats.
With the wind industry lies and the Interior Department covering for them, one would think these profiteers are saving the world. With true scientific facts, it can be seen that they are really helping to bankrupt society and are driving species to extinction.”
Jim, perhaps you were writing this while I wrote my comment, above, but unless you have some sources for this quote (and the rest of your post) then it has no merit. I have already linked to a study showing stable eagle populations in the Western US, and another showing eagle mortalities to be in the order of <100 over 15 years, yet you claim (without source) that raptor deaths are 10,000 times greater than that and these birds are being driven to extinction! While eagles are not the sum total of raptors, I doubt you can extrapolate so wildly that other species are being massacred in numbers several orders of magnitude higher! But as always, happy to be enlightened with some literature.
DirkH
August 25, 2014 at 12:18 pm
Unmentionable
August 25, 2014 at 9:57 am
“It doesn’t even matter if the world converts to 60% wind power farm because the methane will take us all out anyway.”
—
That was me being especially sarcastic Dirk. 😉
Ki Carruthers — Air & water quality in the United States has greatly improved as we have wised up and imposed better controls over the years. You admit that wind isn’t scratching the surface, so why go from one form of mountain top removal to another – especially one that couldn’t dent a grape in the scheme of things? Reliable, affordable power has greatly improved the quality of life for all Americans. Can we do better? Sure! But not by pushing a switch to unreliable, volatile, antiquated industrial wind energy.
@Jarryd Beck – From the Energy Tribune article, “Understanding E = mc2,” which discusses energy density, and which you say has “so many things wrong with it that you don’t know where to start”:
“The release of energy from splitting a uranium atom turns out to be 2 million times greater than breaking the carbon-hydrogen bond in coal, oil or wood. Compared to all the forms of energy ever employed by humanity, nuclear power is off the scale. Wind has less than 1/10th the energy density of wood, wood half the density of coal and coal half the density of octane. Altogether they differ by a factor of about 50. Nuclear has 2 million times the energy density of gasoline. It is hard to fathom this in light of our previous experience. Yet our energy future largely depends on grasping the significance of this differential.”
See more at: Understanding E = mc2 – Energy Tribune
http://www.energytribune.com/2771/understanding-e-mc2#sthash.5sNBbdf4.kcWnE7Gc.dpuf
Unmentionable
August 26, 2014 at 4:40 am
“That was me being especially sarcastic Dirk. ;-)”
Oh no. And I had hope that there’s a remaining population of the Western Methanophobe.
Dear Ms. Barton:
I hope you are submitting your well-written commentary to newspapers throughout the country. If the majors won’t print it, try the smaller ones. You can submit to most via email to either “editor@[domain name]” or “editorial@[domain name].
DirkH
August 26, 2014 at 7:01 am
Unmentionable
August 26, 2014 at 4:40 am
“That was me being especially sarcastic Dirk. ;-)”
Oh no. And I had hope that there’s a remaining population of the Western Methanophobe
—
There’s a small population of them over at the BBC I hear, they’re so cute.
Here’s the cost of decarbonizing with wind power: $100 trillion:
http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Decarbonizing.html
@Kit Carruthers ……….What expertise do you have in any of these matters? I ask because your statements all reek with ignorance. In fact what do you even bring to this discussion besides ignorance?
Earlier you stated that the wind turbine threat to birds from turbines was relative. Relative to what? The industry’s rigged data? I will remind you the ability to understand what is in front of you are also happens to be related to IQ and one’s character. You were also given sources of important information in the articles I have written. In them are many quoted sources. Look at them, then look at them again. The data was taken from the industry’s own rigged research.
For most people these facts are not hard for most to grasp……………….
Since 1997 approximately 28,600 eagle carcasses have been shipped to Denver, about 18,000 of them were bald eagles. The other 10,600 were golden eagles. The public only knows what happened to 85 of these eagles (Pagel FWS 2013). Last year the parts and bodies from 1795 bald eagles were reported as being shipped to the Repository. How does an eagle end up in pieces? They get chopped up by turbine blades.
The industry has been hiding the bodies of endangered species. In Hawaii 50 have been killed by turbines since 2007 (leaked in 5/14) and far more have gone unreported because of the use of rigged studies. I have read over the studies used and can confirm that they like other industry studies and are not even close to being scientific.
The golden eagle is disappearing from California. Years ago it was confirmed that wind turbines were confirmed to be the number one cause of eagle mortality. You can read about their disappearance in my articles along with sources.
The industry has hidden the slaughter of many millions of birds and bats. Currently the AWEA is claiming they are only killing about an average of 2.9 birds per MW and I expect this fake number will decline along with the increased rigging of wind industry studies taking place. From my research into this industry’s bogus mortality studies, the real number is at least 10-50 times higher depending on locations. Below are some of the ways wind industry studies are being rigged to hide mortality.
(1) By searching turbines that are not operational, ( 2) by searching for bodies in grossly undersized areas around wind turbines, (3) by not searching turbines daily which allows more time for bodies to be consumed by predators, hidden by employees, and picked up by leaseholders wanting to protect their income, (4) By not using trained dogs in searches which could quickly find virtually every carcasses in a large area around each turbine, (5) By not allowing turbines that are known to be killing the most birds at bats at a wind farms to be included in mortality studies (6) By avoiding searches during periods of high usage by migrating birds, (7) By not counting mortality wounded birds that have wandered away from turbines, (8) By not counting birds taken to rehab centers which are later euthanized or permanently placed in captivity, (9) By hiring industry shills to make sure that wind industry protocol is followed, (10) by not conducting mortality searches the first year of wind farm operation 11) By letting farming practices plow carcasses into the ground during surveys, (12) By rigging data calculations and by discarding very important “incidental carcasses” from the data, (12) by outright lying about problematic data such as fatalities to endangered species, and most importantly (13) By restricting search areas to the roads and cleared areas around near turbines which also happen to also be the easiest areas for wind personnel to pre-scan for carcasses ahead of formal searches, and (14 ) Pay very close attention to this one………………by not allowing 24 hour camera surveillance on turbines that would expose the truth regarding mortality.
Camera surveillance on turbines was suggested by well meaning biologists over 25 years ago and to this day it has never happened. Besides exposing the horrific wind industry slaughter taking place these cameras would cost a small fraction of the many millions being given to shill biologist for rigging their studies. They have not been used because the industry is rigging every bit of their mortality research.
Anyway one wants to view any of this, none of the wind industry data is scientific. Wind industry studies clearly demonstrate premeditated FRAUD that is being supported by the Interior Department’s absurd “voluntary regulations” and their deliberate lack of oversight.
Thank you, Jim. The death of so many thousands of birds and bats at wind farms and solar farms is a sore point with me as well. The oil industry spends millions to keep birds away from tailing ponds. The Big Green Machine does nothing. If they succeed in getting the hundreds of thousands of win turbines erected, we will lose millions upon millions of birds and bats and drive some species like the Golden Eagle to extinction.
Jim, I’ve yet to see a single link from you. You talk about your articles, but I haven’t a clue what they are (and you haven’t linked to any of them). It is interesting, however, that you have at least revised your estimate of bird deaths from 10,000 times higher than peer-reviewed studies to “…at least 10-50 times higher depending on locations“. As always, look forward to you providing some sources.