Lake Superior ARC Action Alerts 1

ACTION Nominate Dalton McGuinty for the Teddy Award! RNAO Update: Backgrounder 2012 RNAO AGM Resolution Frequently asked questions Ontario PC Party wants your concerns Debate rages over wind power at RNAO Please help Hamish Cumming, of New Zealand, who is investigating the effects of IWT on animals. SIGN THE PETITION TO STOP IWT ON THE D-DAY BEACHES! EVENTS LETTERS LSARC Critique of Bow Lake Heritage and Tourism Impact Assessment Ross McKitrick letter to Ontario Energy Board, February 2013 Location, Location, Location - Migration, Migration, Migration Pete Lomath: An apology to children living on properties leased for wind generation Anishinabek peoples of Fort William First Nation - "We will not give another inch" Letter to the Editor from the Wiki Elders Bob Moore on DP Energy's Avian Bird Assessment Letter from David Grey Eagle Sanford Letter from Al Errington to Linda Jeffries DOWNLOADS Download map of proposed wind projects between Sault Ste Marie & Montreal River Harbour Download Fowl Wind poster Download Infrasound poster Download Swindle: the Cons of Industrial Wind (PDF 139 Kb)	NEWS LSARC Sault Ste Marie FIT protest April 3, 2013 Toronto 2nd Annual FIT Conference protest, “Ontario’s Future is in Ashes” April 3, 2013 The Passing of a Wind Warrior Free Wind – Smoke, Mirrors and a Flawed Economic Assessment Manvers Township protests WPD Sumac Ridge Wind Development M'Cheeging Protest June 15, 2012 Great Lakes Need Great Friends- Once bitten twice shy Pat Swords Progress From Ireland! First Nations and Non First Nations Walking Together: Protest Hosted by Wikwemikong Elders Community Members and Youth and Supported by MCSEA March 31st, 2012 Prince Township calls on Legislature to strike a select committee on energy Health research on turbine noise: not what we’d hoped? Nurses Denounce Sussex Group The Drummond Report:less money for health care, plenty for wind power developers Nurses disappointed RNAO new policy looks a lot like the old one David Suzuki and Company Coal plants and respiratory health in Ontario Closing Ontario’s coal power plants: no measurable difference to environment More on respiratory disease: let’s look at the facts Wind power: the “greenest” of power sources? (No) Prince council wants to knock wind out of Green Energy Act While the band plays on Wind farm perks hot air: opponents Encourage your Council to walk out on McGuinty LSARC & Prince Twp meet with MPP Mantha INVISIBLE CHILDREN MEET BIG WIND: Ontario's Non-compliance with the UN Conventions Not FIT To Be Stewards Of The Land UK abuse of power against anti-windfarm movement Occupy Falcon Poland blocks imports of German wind and solar energy Health: Danish government to treat Danes as guinea pigs? LSARC.CA has a new blog! which focuses on renewable energy, climate change and environmental issues (though we may may get side-tracked by other interesting topics from time to time). Check it out, leave us your comments. AUDITOR'S LOOK AT THE PROVINCE'S BOOKS: Part 2 Sucker Punched! AUDITOR'S LOOK AT THE PROVINCE'S BOOKS: Part 1 - Hardly a glancing blow! EXCERPTS FROM THE ONTARIO AUDITOR GENERAL'S 2011 REPORT Prince Township votes for moratorium on Wind Power Development LSARC whistles McGuinty on his way Many thanks to all that participated in the meeting with John Laforet and the PC & NDP MPP candidates for Algoma-Manitoulin & Sault Ste Marie. Our thanks to all those that showed up for the canvassing clinic at Haviland Shores and took part in the FLOAT-illa which garnered many honks and waves of support from passing motorists. Read about it here Australian Convoy of No Confidence: up to 600 vehicles converge on Canberra, see here & here ATI (American Tradition Institute) sues the State of Colorado over Renewable Energy Policy Bentek releases second study on IWT - findings confirm results of first study: IWT costly, wasteful & don't reduce CO2! Blockade against Danish test centre for giant wind turbines: support the protesters opposing the destruction of the Thy forest in northern Jutland to allow the construction of 250m tall IWT Can chickens provide early warning of IWT health dangers? Many thanks to all those that turned out on a beautiful sunny Saturday to take part in the Last Chance Tour. Our special thanks to all the residents of Montreal River Harbour who turned out in such numbers and with such enthusiasm to welcome John Laforet and the Last Chance Tour. View pictures & more here. Compliance Commission rules against EU on Energy Policy Wikwemikong present petition after drum ceremony Madness in Britain, Wind Power just as useless as here Mining mineral for windmill magnets causes environmental disaster Spring is here, the sap is rising – and Ontario is giving away electricity. BPA, wind developers argue over looming problem of too much power from renewables Revealed: scandal of carbon credit firm Facts About ‘Green Job’ Creation Elusive as the Wind REAL HEALTH: THUNDER IN THUNDER BAY!
NEWSLETTERS	CAMPAIGNS John Muir Trust Wild Lands Campaign Save The Eagles International Press Release 29 March 2011
Bow Lake Geophysical and Road Work notices, April 2012	OPINION George Jonas: The environmentalists need to stop crying wolf Jon Boone: Let’s examine the evidence.

Please spread the following press release to all your contacts. This is a very important issue and needs our support.

Thank you

Action at LSarc

Windfarms threaten many bird species with extinction

Save the Eagles International (STEI) wishes to warn the international community about the threat that windfarms and their power lines represent for biodiversity. Unlike cars, buildings, and domestic cats, wind turbine blades and high tension lines often kill protected or endangered birds like eagles, cranes, storks, etc. Cumulatively and over the long term, 3.5 million wind turbines to be installed worldwide will cause the extinction of many bird species, some of them emblematic.

John Muir Trust Wild Lands Campaign

Please visit and support The John Muir Trust Wild Lands Campaign! While this campaign is focused on British issues, the underlying concerns are global. We must think locally and act globally and support efforts everywhere to protect biodiversity through the protection of wild lands. Protected wild lands will provide the refugia species at risk require in the face of a changing climate. There aren't many Environmental organizations which haven't succumbed to the Iron Law of Oligarchy, this is one of them and well worth our support!

Letter to the Editor from the Wiki Elders

http://www.manitoulin.ca/ Letters to the Editor April 27, 2011

Wiky Elders group does not support wind turbines on Mnidoo Mnising

To the Expositor:

From: Wikwemikong First Nation Elders, Community, Members and Youth

We, the Elders, community members and youth of Wikwemikong Unceded Indian
Reserve, do not support the Industrial Wind Development on our sacred
traditional land of Mnidoo Mnising. The ecological and environmental
effects on our eagles, birds and animals as well as bees that pollinate
all of our plants, fruit trees, berries and the like, putting our
traditional practices and medicines at risk would be too great. We have
concerns over the traditional food for Aanishnabek such as the deer and
fowl relocating elsewhere or not returning.

The loss of our land would not recover for generations. We have been
entrusted by the Creator to be carekeepers of this land for the next
seven generations. We intend to keep and honour our ancestors, by
fulfilling this goal.

We cannot afford the leisure for time spent to find out what the effect
is on an infant in the womb by the constant illimitable overflow of
vibration from an industrial wind turbine.

The Chief and Council have not done their homework on an issue so grave
with an element as powerful as the wind which is "The Breath Of God."

Our leaders have no right to authorize these turbines without proper
consultation with the band membership.

We recommend that we have a moratorium to ascertain if the windmills are
appropriate here on Mnidoo Mnising. Shame on you, Chief and council, for
authorizing these windmills on this sacred land called "Great Spirit
Island."

Signed by Elders,

Josephine Eshkibok		Georgina Enosse
Ida Embry		Mary Lou Shawana
Rosemary Wakegijig		Dorothy Mishibinijima
Rose Peltier		Bernard Osawamick
Annie Jackson		Maxie Trudeau
Mary Stacey		Cheryl Peltier

Wikwemikong

The lights may go out sooner than we thought

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/8470256/New-figures-show-the-lights-may-go-out-sooner-than-we-thought.html

Sunday Telegraph 24 April 2011

New figures show the lights may go out sooner than we thought
Our coal-fired power stations are closer to extinction than predicted, and wind power stubbornly refuses to fill the gap, says Christopher Booker.

Figures published last week reveal that the moment when Britain’s lights start going out may be much closer than previously predicted. Thanks in part to the hammering they took in the abnormal cold of last winter, six large coal-fired power stations which supply a fifth of Britain’s average electricity needs have now used up more than half of the 20,000 running hours they are each allowed under the EU’s Large Combustion Plants directive. When they reach that limit they will have to shut down.

Furthermore, in two years’ time, the Government’s new “carbon tax” will make them £600 million a year more expensive to run. Their mainly German owners will therefore want to use up as many of those hours as possible before a charge of £16 for every ton of CO2 they emit comes into force in 2013.

George Jonas: The environmentalists need to stop crying wolf

A Frontier Centre study showed that each green job cost Spain $791,597.

A study released this week concludes that government “green-job” programs aren’t the yellow-brick road to happiness in Europe. “Green programs in Spain destroyed 2.2 jobs for every job created,” write Kenneth P. Green and Ben Eisen in their paper for the Winnipeg-based think-tank, Frontier Centre, “while the capital needed for one green job in Italy could create five new jobs in the general economy.”
Pity the Greens, here and around the globe. Things haven’t been going their way in the last couple of years, ever since those pesky e-mails surfaced in Britain — the ones showing that Green-tinged scientists at the climatic-research unit of the University of East Anglia got carried away with the nobility of their global-warming mantras. All in a good cause, of course, but still, “it’s no use pretending this isn’t a major blow,” as George Monbiot wrote in Britain’s The Guardian in the fall of 2009.

Actually, 2009 may have been the first year of serious reversal for the Green movement that has gone from triumph to triumph for the past 50 years. The astrologers and alchemists of ecology have been merrily reading tea leaves and crying wolf for almost half a century.

Mining mineral for windmill magnets causes environmental disaster

By Christina Blizzard ,QMI Agency
First posted: Saturday, February 26, 2011 7:48:09 EST PM

What's the fastest growing cash crop in rural Ontario - after pot, that is?

Try wind turbines.

These ugly eyesores are sprouting like weeds and are being foisted on unwilling hosts in rural Ontario.
Two weeks ago, Energy Minister Brad Duguid scrapped plans to put offshore turbines in Lake Ontario - close to his riding.

On Thursday, though, he announced a fresh crop in rural Ontario - this time for Smithville, in Tory Leader Tim Hudak's Niagara riding.

While the Liberals insist it's all about clean energy, a recent article in a British newspaper shows wind turbines are anything but green.
A story by Simon Parry and Ed Douglas in the Daily Mail, Jan. 29, describes a horrific toxic stew brewing in China as a result of our search for the great, green holy grail. The toxic lake left behind after mining for "rare earth metals" needed for the turbines' magnets is creating an environmental boondoggle of epic proportions.

(There are 17 rare earth metals, so called not because they're scarce, but because they occur in scattered deposits of minerals and are not concentrated. According to the article, one of those, Neodymium, is commonly used to make the most powerful magnets in the world.)

The city of Baotou, in Inner Mongolia, is home to more than 90% of the world's rare earth metals.

"On the outskirts of one of China's most polluted cities, an old farmer stares despairingly out across an immense lake of bubbling toxic waste covered in black dust. He remembers it as fields of wheat and corn," says the lead paragraph. It continues.

The process used to extract the element from the ground and processing it, "has an appalling environmental impact that raises serious questions over the credibility of so-called green technology.

"Hidden out of sight behind smoke-shrouded factory complexes in the city of Baotou, and patrolled by platoons of security guards, lies a five-mile wide 'tailing' lake. It has killed farmland for miles around, made thousands of people ill and put one of China's key waterways in jeopardy," says the article.

"This vast, hissing cauldron of chemicals is the dumping ground for seven million tons a year of mined rare earth after it has been doused in acid and chemicals and processed through red-hot furnaces to extract its components."

So, you're still convinced this is the clean, green energy of the future? This makes the oil sands look pristine.

"Rusting pipelines meander for miles from factories processing rare earths in Baotou out to the man-made lake where, mixed with water, the foul-smelling radioactive waste from this industrial process is pumped day after day. No signposts and no paved roads lead here, and as we approach security guards shoo us away and tail us. When we finally break through the cordon and climb sand dunes to reach its brim, an apocalyptic sight greets us: A giant, secret toxic dump, made bigger by every wind turbine we build."

And here in Ontario, we're building them by the thousand. What's our share of this mess?

The story quotes retired farmer Su Bairen, 69: "'At first it was just a hole in the ground,' he says. 'When it dried in the winter and summer, it turned into a black crust and children would play on it. Then one or two of them fell through and drowned in the sludge below. Since then, children have stayed away.'"

Plants withered. Livestock died.

"Villagers say their teeth began to fall out, their hair turned white at unusually young ages, and they suffered from severe skin and respiratory diseases. Children were born with soft bones and cancer rates rocketed," says the Mail.

Still gung-ho to go green?

Every time I see a new turbine I'll think of those children dying horrific deaths. And I'll hang my head in shame at the environmental disaster we've created.
christina.blizzard@sunmedia.ca Twitter: @ChrizBlizz

Delicate talks are currently under way with wind generators to see if there are ways to limit the flow of wind power onto the grid during periods of surplus.

John Spears Business Reporter, Toronto Star

Spring is here, the sap is rising – and Ontario is giving away electricity.

That may come as news to householders, who had watched bills crawl steadily higher until the province took the edge off by awarding a 10 per cent discount starting Jan. 1.But the combination of low demand and gushing rivers has driven prices lower than zero at certain times of day over the past week.

For example:
On Monday, prices dipped below zero for five hours during the night, going as low as minus 12.2 cents a kilowatt hour.
On Sunday, prices were also negative for five hours, dipping to minus 12.8 cents a kilowatt hour at the lowest.
The price fell to minus 2.2 cents a kilowatt hour for an hour on Saturday.

The negative prices, unfortunately, do not mean that householders will get a refund or a credit on their next bill. Residents are generally locked in to regulated prices, or time of use rates. Others are committed to fixed prices under retail contracts, which don’t vary as market prices rise and fall. But larger users, generally businesses, who are charged the market rate for electricity, can actually receive a
credit for the power they use when prices are below zero. So can neighbouring states and provinces, which trade power back and forth with Ontario.

Low prices are common at this time of year, says Terry Young, vice president of the Independent Electricity System Operator, which runs the province’s power market. Temperatures are moderate, so there’s low demand for heating and air conditioning. Demand on Monday was a low as 11,746 megawatts – less than half what it would be on a hot summer day or a cold winter night.
At the same time, the spring run-off has filled rivers and reservoirs so hydro-electric production is high. Nuclear plants run close to full capacity all the time and can’t be scaled back, so surpluses can develop.Surplus power and negative prices can be an opportunity for businesses that can boost production when the price plummets, said Young.

“There are customers who can respond to this,” he said.

Wind is also increasingly a wild card in Ontario’s power system. It wasn’t a huge factor over the weekend, but windy weather did help push Ontario into a surplus position in January.A report has warned that if no action is taken Ontario could have surplus power on its hands one day out of every seven by 2013. (The surpluses would likely disappear within a few years, as the province starts shutting down nuclear reactors for major overhauls.)

Delicate talks are currently under way with wind generators to see if there are ways to limit the flow of wind power onto the grid during periods of surplus.

Currently, all wind power flows onto the system and most generators receive a fixed price of 13.5 cents a kilowatt hour. Other generators with contracts are also paid the contract price, despite the zero market price. To make up the difference, customers pay “global adjustment,” a surcharge on the energy portion of their bill.

Surplus caseload generation has been consistently forecast for about 30% of the time this spring.
http://ieso.ca/imoweb/marketdata/sbg.asp

Put wind project on hold until reliable bird survey is done:

Ireland’s Vortex Wind and DP Energy intend to construct a 36 turbine, 60 megawatt project east of Montreal River on the Lake Superior highlands. Peter Harte, president of Vortex Wind Power, said in a news interview (Calming the windy worries, Sault Star, April 2) that the developers had spent three years studying the area under Ontario’s stringent environmental assessment requirements, concluding that no significant bird flyway exists in the area of their site.

What did the study reveal? During the 2007 fall and 2008 spring raptor migrations one environmentalist counted birds on 10 partial days for a few hours each day. The report outlined that he accumulated a total of 34 hours of observation. Based on this limited count frequency we are asked to believe the wind proponents’conclusion that no significant migration route exists here.

Thirty-seven species of birds were identified in the fall migration season. Of 739 birds observed, 108 were raptors. During spring migration, 38 species numbered 180 birds of which 48 were raptors. Based on an average of counting birds for 3? hours over only 10 days in two years, Mr. Harte concludes that birds will not be impacted by the project.

Three of the raptors identified in the count were peregrine falcons, a species at risk. Only seven peregrine falcon nesting locations exist in Lake Superior Provincial Park that borders the wind project. Can citizens trust the proponents that the few peregrine falcons that nest here will not be impacted by their project? Since peregrine falcons can forage within 20 kilometres from their nest sites, this creates a concern that individual falcons could die at the wind turbine site. A few losses may compromise the genetic diversity within this small population, jeopardizing their survival in the park.

There are serious questions as to whether the Phase One Avian Assessment met all of the protocols which the Canadian Wildlife Service, (CWS) Environment Canada sets out in The Recommended Protocols for Monitoring Impacts of Wind Turbines on Birds.

The following CWS protocols appear to have been overlooked in the avian impact report. Why?

* Recommended “area searches” in different habitats to determine an accurate species list.
* A night radar survey to count migrating songbirds and raptors.
* A minimum daily bird count period of six hours.
* Intensive count studies over several days per week.
* Interviewing permanent and seasonal area residents to determine their traditional knowledge of bird nesting locations.

As citizens, we are encouraged by our provincial politicians to blindly trust industrial wind companies to do the proper studies and to trust that our government agencies will verify that these studies are scientifically sound. But how can we trust reports that have not met the scientific criteria before being released to the public?

What is required is that the Bow Lake Wind Project be put on hold, monitoring protocols adhered to, and a realistic avian study be conducted with an unbiased, independent, scientific peer review.

Bob Moore, Batchawana Bay

BPA, wind developers argue over looming problem of too much power from renewables

Credit: By Ted Sickinger, The Oregonian,

14 April 2011

Under pressure from wind developers and investor-owned utilities around the region, the Bonneville Power Administration this week backed away from a plan to start pulling the plug on wind turbines when it has too much water and wind energy at the same time.

BPA Administrator Steve Wright is still reviewing a controversial plan to occasionally “curtail” wind farms in the region, a move the federal power-marketing agency has said is necessary to maintain grid reliability, protect migrating salmon and avoid passing big costs onto its public utility customers.

Wind developers and utilities who buy their output say such shutdowns are discriminatory, will breach transmission agreements and compromise wind-farm economics because the projects rely on lucrative production tax credits and the sale of renewable energy credits that are generated only when turbine blades are spinning.

They also maintain the plan is simply unnecessary, a sop to public utility customers that can be solved by other means.

In one sense, the debate is simply the latest wrinkle in the perennial debate over who should bear the costs and benefits of operating the federal hydroelectric dams and transmission system. But it illustrates the growing complexity of integrating into the grid intermittent sources of renewable energy.

“This is going to be a major issue for the region,” said John Saven, chief executive of the Northwest Requirements Utilities, a trade group representing 50 public utilities that buy their power from the BPA. “We’re in the first inning.”

The capacity of wind farms connected to the BPA’s transmission network has ballooned from 250 megawatts in 2005 to more than 3,500 today and is expected to double again in the next two years. That outstrips demand growth in the region and is being driven in large part by California utilities, which are required to meet a third of their customers’ electricity needs with renewables by 2020.
Oregon and Washington have their own mandates, but more than half the wind power generated in the Northwest is sold under long-term contact to California. Congested transmission often means the only things exported are the associated renewable energy certificates that buyers use to comply with state mandates. The electricity often stays in the region, dumped into this region’s wholesale market, depressing prices for electricity from all sources.

Grid balance
The BPA, which operates 75 percent of the high-voltage transmission grid in the region, is responsible for balancing the minute-to-minute variations in supply and demand on the grid. The agency says growing wind capacity requires it to reserve more of its hydro generation as backup reserves, either to fill in for scheduled electricity when the wind isn’t blowing or back off hydro production when wind-farm output is higher than scheduled.

The BPA charges wind farms for that flexibility. But it says there’s only so much it can absorb before those reserves start to compromise regular operations.
Over generation typically occurs in the spring and early summer, when snow runoff and heavy rains combine to increase hydro generation and the same storm fronts rapidly ramp wind turbines. The BPA says the dam operators have only limited flexibility to dial back hydro generation to accommodate wind surges because dumping water through the dams’ spillways raises dissolved nitrogen levels in the river, which can harm migrating fish.

The result, BPA officials say, is that the agency is left with more power than regional customers need or that an already congested transmission system can ship out of the region.
“Eventually, you just run out of places to put it,” said Doug Johnson, a BPA spokesman.
Long-term fixes

The BPA has worked during the past two years — some say been pushed and dragged — to accommodate more wind by improving forecasting and transmission scheduling. Adding transmission or new storage is a potential solution, as is transferring the responsibility for balancing some of the variable supply and demand to other utilities. But those are expensive, long-term fixes.
Meanwhile, new wind farms keep mushrooming on the Columbia Plateau, exacerbating the problem. Last June, high wind and water nearly forced the BPA into “negative pricing,” when it is forced to pay utilities and independent power producers in the region to shut down their plants and take BPA power instead.

That’s expensive for wind farms, where the cost of curtailment is not just replacement power, but the loss of production tax credits and renewable energy tags they generate when operating. The BPA recently estimated the combined impact at $37 a megawatt hour.

That’s not a price the BPA or its public utility customers want to pay.

Wind producers are the Johnny-come-lately to the Northwest’s energy scene. But they argue that any move to single them out and curtail their production is discriminatory and violates the equal-access provisions of the laws governing the federal transmission system.

They have the support of Oregon’s Rep. Earl Blumenauer and Sen. Jeff Merkley, two Democrats who have criticized the agency in the past for dragging its feet on wind issues.

The BPA has backed away from formally implementing the wind-curtailment plan, a move that renewables advocates applauded. But it hasn’t come up with an alternative.

Revealed: scandal of carbon credit firm

Sydney Morning Herald smh.com.au
Ben Cubby April 8, 2011

Global headquarters ... Brett Goldsworthy outside his modest office for shift2neutral in Westleigh. Photo: Wolter Peeters

A SYDNEY carbon credits company thought to have been running some of the world's biggest offsets deals appears to be a fake, shifting paper certificates instead of saving forests and cutting greenhouse emissions.

Shift2neutral says it has made high-profile events such as the Australian PGA golf championship and the Sydney Turf Club's world-first ''green race day'' carbon neutral.

But deals to generate more than $1 billion worth of carbon credits by saving jungles from logging in the Philippines, the Congo and across south-east Asia do not seem to exist.
Advertisement: Story continues below

The global network of investors and carbon offset certifiers supposed to be brokering deals with foreign presidents and the World Bank can be traced to a modest office in a shopping village in Westleigh, staffed by shift2neutral's founder, Brett Goldsworthy.

Mr Goldsworthy insists every certificate for carbon offsets he issues has value and represents a real reduction in greenhouse emissions somewhere in the world. That is what he has told puzzled investors and companies who have unwittingly sought to reduce their carbon footprint.

But when pressed for examples of any specific project that has cut emissions to generate the carbon credits the company offers for sale, he was unable to provide even one.

''I just don't have that information in front of me right now - there are all sorts of projects, it is all legit, I just am not in a position to tell you what they are at short notice,'' said Mr Goldsworthy, who had been provided with written questions 24 hours before.

''There was a waste-to-energy plant in Korea, it would have been in about 2008. I don't have a name for you right now, but given time I can get all the information.''

He said none of his clients had ever raised concerns about where his carbon credits were coming from. But the Herald has spoken to many former investors and businesses who have dealt with shift2neutral.

''I realized there was something strange about Brett when we were negotiating with the tribes in the Philippines and he said he had a boatload of commandos waiting offshore in case he needed a 'hot extraction','' said Robert Hick, who invested in shift2neutral.

The deal, supposedly to preserve $1 billion worth of tribal jungle in Mindanao with financial support from the World

Bank, fell through. Mr Hick is still waiting to see a return.

Mr Goldsworthy, who is in a dispute with Mr Hick, claims delicate negotiations with the president of the Philippines are still under way. He said an arrest warrant had been issued for Mr Hick. But court papers make it clear there is no warrant for Mr Hick.

Redd monitor, a website that examines global implementation of the UN's reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation program, said shift 2neutral is not generating any carbon credits.
''If these deals were genuine, shift2neutral would be one of the biggest companies in the REDD world,'' said a spokesman, Chris Lang. ''Yet he seems to be a one-man band running his company from an office over a shopping centre in a suburb of Sydney.

''Mr Goldsworthy has no experience whatsoever in carrying out forest conservation projects in the tropics."

In fact he has provided no details about how he intends to reduce deforestation in the areas where he has projects. Vic Vidal, chairman of the Tribal Coalition of Mindanao, points out the destruction of the forests continued regardless of what shift2neutral was doing.

The Sydney Turf Club - now the Australian Turf Club - said shift2neutral provided carbon credits to offset its ''Green Day at the Gardens'' at Rosehill racecourse in January 2009.

''STC used the carbon credits it received to offset the carbon emissions deemed necessary to produce the day, thus allowing the event to be certified as carbon neutral," the then chief executive, Michael Kenny, said.

The Australian PGA Championship was alerted to problems with its carbon neutral events when contacted this week by the Herald. It confirmed carbon emissions from the 2008 and 2009 championships were offset by certificates from shift2neutral.

Let’s examine the evidence.
by Jon Boone

Despite more than 100,000 huge wind turbines in operation around the world, with about 35,000 in North America, no coal plants have been closed because of wind technology.

In fact, many more coal plants are in the offing, both in the US and throughout the world. Moreover, a Colorado energetics company, Bentek, recently published a study about wind in Texas and Colorado showing, in its study areas, that wind volatility caused coal plants to perform more inefficiently, “often resulting in greater SO2, NOx, and CO2 emissions than would have occurred if less wind energy were generated and coal generation was not cycled.” Further examination of fuel use for electricity in both states during the time of inquiry suggested that wind caused no reduction in coal consumption.

Unpredictable, undispatchable, volatile wind can provide for neither baseload nor peak load situations. It can only be an occasional supplement that itself requires much supplementation. Consequently, as Australian engineer Peter Lang once wrote, since “wind cannot contribute to the capital investment in generating plants… [it] simply is an additional capital investment.”

Wind technology does NOT represent alternate energy. Since wind cannot provide controllable power and has no capacity value, it cannot be an alternative for machines that do provide controllable power and high capacity value. Wind therefore is incapable of entering into a zero-sum relationship with fossil-fired capacity—that is, more wind, less coal. All other conditions being equal (demand, supply, weather, etc), more wind generally means more coal.

None of the considerable public subsidies for wind, indeed, not even state renewable portfolio standard (RPS) laws, are indexed to measured reductions in carbon dioxide emissions and fossil fuel consumption. Consequently, there is no transparency or accountability for how wind technology will achieve the goals set forth by those policy initiatives. This means that corporations with a lot of fossil-fired marketshare to protect have no obligation to replace it with wind. And they don’t. Because they can’t. Freedom from responsibility is a child’s fairy tale dream come true.

The work of a number of independent engineers—Hawkins, Lang, Oswald, Le Pair and De Groot—suggests that even the most effective fossil fuel pairing with wind, natural gas, will very marginally reduce overall natural gas consumption beyond what would occur using only natural gas generators, without any wind whatsoever.

Facts About ‘Green Job’ Creation Elusive as the Wind
by Bill Osmulski

MacIver News Service Investigative Reporter MacIver News Service | September 1, 2010
[Madison, Wisc...]

Although they are touted and promoted by policy makers and opinion leaders across the state, accurately defining and keeping track of ‘green jobs’ has proven nearly impossible in Wisconsin.

Take, for example, ‘green jobs’ associated with the wind industry. Wisc. Governor Jim Doyle (D)

“Clean energy technology and high-end manufacturing are Wisconsin’s future,” Governor Jim Doyle said in his final State of the State address. “We have more than 300 companies and thousands of jobs in the wind industry.”

That statistic is impossible to verify.

The State of Wisconsin does not track those companies nor the jobs within the industry. When contacted, the Office of Energy Independence (an agency created by Governor Doyle in 2007) directed MacIver News to Wisconsin Wind Works, a self-described “consortium of manufacturers representing the wind manufacturing supply chain within Wisconsin.”

The advocacy group maintains an online wind energy-related supply chain database, although a routine examination of the data proved just how unreliable the figures are.

When the online, searchable database was utilized earlier this summer, it listed 340 companies in Wisconsin connected to the wind industry, a fact which, without additional investigation would appear to be in line with the Governor’s statement. However, further examination showed many of those companies were not currently serving the wind industry and were only listed because they someday could serve the wind industry.

For example, the database listed 38 manufacturers, but only 24 of them have anything to actually do with the wind energy sector presently.

Of those 24 Wisconsin manufacturers, only eight were categorized as primary suppliers. Another four companies were listed as both primary and secondary suppliers. A MacIver News Service reporter contacted all eight primary suppliers and the four companies listed as primary/secondary suppliers in our initial query and what we found further eroded the credibility of Governor Doyle’s claims.
When contacted, the companies listed as both primary and secondary suppliers all described themselves merely as secondary suppliers. That means they produce products that are not exclusive to the wind energy. For example, Bushman Equipment manufactures lifts that move heavy pieces of equipment, which, among many other uses, can be used to handle wind turbines.

Wisconsin Wind Works’ database is not only generous with the number of companies within their supply chain it associates as being primary suppliers, there are issues with the actual job numbers listed for each company as well. Many of the figures are either inflated, the jobs are not located in Wisconsin, or they cannot be tied to wind energy.

For example, Rexnord Industries was one of the eight Wisconsin manufacturers listed in our query as directly serving the wind energy industry. The database shows the company has 6,000 employees. Yet a Rexnord official told the MacIver News Service that the company only has 1,500 employees in Wisconsin, and only five of those have jobs which are directly tied to the wind industry.

Wisconsin Wind Works’ database says Orchid International has 600 employees, but a company spokesperson told MacIver it only has 150. Amsoil Inc. in Superior has 236 employees listed in the Wisconsin Wind Works database, but a company representative told the MacIver News Service that only 6 of them work on wind energy-related products.

In all, at the time of our search, the database claimed 7,632 jobs among the eight manufacturers that were current primary suppliers to the wind industry. Yet, the MacIver News Service was only able to identify 31 jobs at those companies which were specifically tied to wind energy related products.

Manufacturers told MacIver News that other employees might work on wind-related products occasionally, but it does not represent the bulk of their workload.

Another 1,077 workers are listed among the secondary suppliers and we did not investigate that claim.

VAL-FAB, one of the companies listed as both a primary and secondary supplier, explained to MacIver News that it initially had high hopes for the wind energy industry that never materialized. The company specializes in fabrication for the energy sector.

William Capelle, Director of Business Development at VAL-FAB, said “At first we thought we might be able to manufacture the actual towers, but it turns out 90 percent of those are imported from Spain.”
Since the MacIver News Service first examined the Wisconsin Wind Works database, the number of companies listed has increased to 360. A reporter attempted to contact the organization for comment about the veracity of their data, but Wisconsin wind Works, which solicits members by selling itself as the “preferred partner of wind energy professionals,” did not respond.

Meanwhile the Office of Energy Independence continues to pursue the Doyle Administration’s green energy policies. As Doyle said during his final State of the State address, “anyone who says there aren’t jobs in the clean energy economy had better open their eyes.”

There is no doubt that some jobs in the wind industry exist in Wisconsin. The accurate number of these ‘green jobs’ is proving to be, at best, elusive

Representatives of Doyle’s office did not respond to repeated request for comments regarding the information contained within this article.

Letter from David Grey Eagle Sanford

My name is David Grey Eagle Sanford.

I am a Mohawk who did not grow up on a reserve. I grew up in the Rouge
Valley in Scarborough, when Scarborough was a wilderness, and this has
nourished me throughout my entire life. Ten years ago when the valley and
wetlands were threatened with intensive inappropriate development and
First Nations had not been consulted, my wife Kim and I felt it was our
duty to stand up for Mother Earth when none of the government ministries
which had been mandated to protect our resources were speaking for us.
For five years we reclaimed the land in the name of our ancestors, in
peaceful protest, put up our teepee, started our fire and with the
constant guidance of our ancestors, were able to save 24 acres of an
historical village site dating back to the 1300s.

I know that Manitoulin Island is the largest island in a freshwater lake
in the world. First Nations have lived on the island and nearby mainland
for more than 10,000 years. This proposed wind factory has caused a lot
of division in communities; between various Aboriginal tribes, some who
wish the project to proceed and hope to gain financially and those who
wish to see the lands and air remain untouched.

I need to share with you my knowledge of industrial wind turbine
factories. They are not green. They are produced from oil and gas,
transported using oil and gas, plasticized using oil and gas, transported
thousands of miles again, then supported in two Olympic size pools of
cement, which causes more CO2, 7 percent worldwide, and then they are
left to rot in the sun, still spinning and killing birds and bats. For
about 10-15 years, not the 25 years that the industry tells us. It is a
highly subsidized industry, and energy rates go up 3-4 times, drive
industry away, drive other jobs away, and that increase in hydro rates
comes out of your pocket and mine goes directly into the developerʼs.

An economist in Spain estimates that 2.2 jobs are lost due to intensive
renewables,and some say it is even 5.4 ordinary jobs lost per so-called
green job gained.

Even more problematic is the loss of community, the loss of our sense of
solidarity against an invasion. Because our birds are being killed at an
unimaginable rate: eight million birds per year and sixteen million bats
per year worldwide. There will soon be no eagles, no bats, and no chance
to recover our lost promises to nature. For all of the sacred medicine
people: our elders our traditional people, our chiefs, and for all of
those eagle feathers that we carry in honour of freedom and the truth,
how do we justify the killing of hundreds and hundreds of bald eagles
that represent who we are? For those of you who are the carriers of the
sacred eagle feathers, I can assure you that you would never feel good
about carrying another feather if you witnessed the massacre of our
sacred birds.
Part two next week

Comments and letters are welcome
info@mcsea.ca

Real Health: Thunder in Thunder Bay!

Take one ancient, pristine mountain range looming over a magnificent Great Lake...

Clear-cut old growth forests of rare sugar maples and other special trees...

Get a permit to "Kill, harm or harass" any wildlife, including endangered species...

Erect over a dozen wind turbines, despite known health hazards to all living things, and environmental impact on protected, pure aquifers...

EU Commission and Legitimacy of Wind Policy

“The Wheels of Justice Grind Slow..."

Justice has however caught up with the EU and "Green Energy" is next on the docket - In May 2011 the UNECE Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee ruled¹ that the EU needed to review its measures, to provide better access to justice, in order that citizens can challenge decisions, acts and omissions by EU institutions and bodies in environmental matters.

Clearly there is growing anger in Europe about the democratic deficit, with decisions being taken at EU and National level, without consultation with the public at local level. Nowhere is this more visible than with the official obsession with renewable energy, wind farms in particular, which are radically altering Europe’s landscape at huge financial costs. The EU set mandatory targets by diktat. National policies have also been set by diktat and the planning process is then a ‘rubber stamp’, in which the citizen has no access to justice to contest the decision in a legal court – as it is too expensive. If you are unfortunate enough to live in a rural area, you will have to live with these giants. The number of turbines installed to date, is only a taste of what is required to fulfill EU targets.

Yet the citizen has Rights - the United Nations Rio Declaration of 1992 on Environment and Development stated: “Environmental issues are best handled with participation of all concerned citizens, at the relevant level”. These Rights were then developed into the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s (UNECE) Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters. The EU ratified it in 2005, as did the Member States (excluding Ireland). However, these Human and Environmental Rights are only the text of an international agreement, which is not being observed, particularly when matters of wind energy are concerned.

Wikwemikong present petition after drum ceremony

The Wikwemikong Elders and youth presented two similar petitions with a total of the two petitions was 658 names presented to Northeastern Manitoulin and the Islands council last evening in opposition to the Northland Power UCCMM wind project Development on McLeans Mountain and any location elsewhere on Manitoulin Island.

Elder Rosemary Wakegijig did a powerful and moving presentation to NEMI Council and stands firm in their resolve to halt industrial wind turbine development on Mnidoo Minis (Manitoulin Island). She also stated she has done her own research along with others sources to come to this conclusion and stands with the other groups in walking side by side against this exploitation of Mother Earth for profit and other environmental concerns.

Furthermore she stated that the petitions are still out circulating and many more names will be added.They will be attending other meetings to express their concerns so the people can be heard. This is only the beginning she informed the council. Applause erupted as she concluded
from the representatives of Wikwemikong and other First Nation and non First Nations that were attending.

NEMI mayor Joe Chapman who is also the PC Party candidate for the Ontario October election expressed his gratitude through an embrace and thanked the Elders and youth and stated though others in council do not, he fully supports them in their opposition to industrial wind farm development on Manitoulin Island.The council did not vote on this at the meeting though
it was stated that their concerns will be addressed in the future.

Upon leaving the council chambers a Wikwemikong drum group held a healing song where the drum beat resonated throughout the building that was to resemble the heartbeat of Mother Earth. A powerful and moving ceremony.

We would like to thank the Elders and Youth for their message and their statement of walking together to raise awareness on this issue.

For MCSEA members and supporters
Raymond Beaudry

“We will not give another inch” – Eugene Bannon

Thunder Bay – Special to NNL – We, the Anishinabek peoples of Fort William First Nation, have had most of their lands and much of our way of life taken from us by settler society. Indeed, more than 8,600 acres of land has been taken by settler society for settler projects since we established our reserve – we are literally surrounded by lands that have been destroyed by settler projects. Because of this, we live with all the problems consistent with colonial oppression, including social, psychological, environmental and political pathologies. Due to this legacy, WE WILL NOT GIVE ANOTHER INCH.

The legacy of settler society feeling a sense of entitlement to our lands continues today in the form of Horizon Wind Inc.’s planned encroachment onto our traditional territory and within our reserve lands. Horizon Wind Inc.’s “Big Thunder Wind Park” threatens the Anishinabek of Fort William First Nation in at least the following three ways:
The proposed location for the Wind Park is in prime moose habitat. Our reliance on moose for physical and spiritual sustenance depends on healthy moose habitat surrounding Loch Lomond lake. We have seen time and again that settler projects that meet provincial and/or federal standards do little to protect our sacred relationship to moose and other animals. We gain our identity from relationships to our lands and our animal relatives; though this relationship is hard for settler society to understand, we are ready to protect it. We will not let another settler project compromise moose habitat in our traditional territory.

In addition to the Wind Park’s direct impact on moose habitat (through construction and land-use during the life of the project), the Wind Park will make our traditional territory even more accessible to settlers. We know well that settlers do not respect Anishinabek land (as evidenced by the current state of environmental racism we face today); we expect that this project will increase the number of settlers misusing our traditional territory, as the project will increase road access to sites we hold as sacred, such as Loch Lomond lake and our mountains, among others. Horizon Wind Inc.‘s project impacts statement fails to understand or include an articulation of how the Big Thunder Wind Park project will contribute to the entrenchment of colonialism in our territory.

Finally, the proposed power line “Electrical Tapline Phase 2 Option 1” is planned to transect Fort William First Nation lands. In addition to the direct habitat destruction the would result from this “Option” in the form of cleared land and on-going maintenance throughout the life of the project, we expect the tapline to, again, facilitate settler use of our land, which can only bring more habitat degradation. For example, a 2006 mapping project conducted by the Anishinabek of the Gitchi Gami Environmental Programs (a community-based group in Fort William First Nation), found that all roads/trails accessible by motorized vehicles facilitated environmental impacts in the form of garbage and toxic waste dumping. In addition to this, we expect that settlers would use such access ways to penetrate our lands further. Horizon Wind Inc. cannot guarantee that settlers would not use such taplines, and therefor we will not permit a project with such little accountability. Again, we are concerned with how this project would serve to entrench colonialism in our community.

Given these concerns, we will not give another inch to settler projects in our reserve lands or our traditional territory. The colonial encroachment and occupation of Anishinabek lands must stop now if we, the Anishinabek of Fort William First Nation, are to live our lives in a way that respects our own teachings and values.
Eugene Bannon

Blockade against Danish test centre for giant wind turbines

Credit: Peter Skeel Hjorth, Donnerstag, den 21. Juli 2011, windwahn.de

Appeal for support from activists in Denmark

Thursday morning, the local Danish police gave up removing the activists who since Friday, 15 July 2011, have prevented the cutting down of forest to make room for the planned national test centre for 250 metres high windmills in Thy, Northern Jutland.

Ten police officers turned up to end the blockade but withdrew when it turned out that there were more activists than expected. They are camping in the forest area where the authorities intend to cut down the forest to create the right wind conditions in the test centre. We shall be back in great numbers, the police said.

The test centre will be situated right between a protected birds area, a so- called Ramsa area, and a Natura 2000 area. The Danish Society for Nature Conservation finds that the law regarding the test centre violates the EU habitat directive and has brought the case before the EU Commission who has requested a detailed statement from the Danish government. Furthermore, a local association has filed a case against the Danish State.

ATI Environmental Law Center v. State of Colorado Renewables Mandate – 3 videos

The American Tradition Institute has posted a three-part series of videos that explain why its Environmental Law Center sued the State of Colorado in federal court, claiming that the state’s Renewable Energy Standard violates the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. In Part 1, Dr. David Schnare discussed why forcing wind energy on the electrical grid produces more carbon dioxide emissions and pollutants (like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide) than does electricity just generated by fossil fuels.

In Part 2 Dr. Schnare, director of ATI’s Environmental Law Center, explains why Colorado’s Renewable Energy Standard is a violation of the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

“Under the Commerce Clause, a state cannot set up a boundary at the state line — some kind of a hurdle for out-of-state people to get involved and to be in their marketplace,” Dr. Schnare says.

In the first video Dr. Schnare explained the lawsuit’s premise: How wind power is not clean or free, as many environmental groups claim, and therefore does not provide a local benefit to Coloradans.

“We believe that if people knew how variable wind was, and how dirty it was, if they knew the wind was neither free nor clean, then they may not have government demand its use,” Dr. Schnare said inPart 1.

Part 3 explains what the possible outcomes might be when ATI wins its case.

To watch Part 1, please click here
To watch Part 2, please click here
To watch Part 3, please click here

See ATI’s first video, “What is the American Tradition Institute Environmental Law Center?”

For an interview with American Tradition Institute Environmental Law Center director David Schnare, email paul.chesser@atinstitute.org or call (202)670-2680.

Follow ATI on Twitter: http://twitter.atinstitute.org
Facebook: http://facebook.atinstitute.org

Second Bentek Report - The Wind Power Paradox

Government tax breaks and state renewable power mandates support wind generation with a goal of reducing CO2 and other air emissions. However, actual EPA emissions data indicates that in the Bonneville Power Authority (BPA), CAISO and ERCOT, wind energy saves very little CO2 and has only minimal impact on other air emissions. In the Midwest ISO, wind energy is currently more effective as an emission control strategy. In none of these areas, however, are the savings sufficient to justify the federal tax credit that underpins the technology.

BENTEK’s new Market Alert, The Wind Power Paradox, is the first to systematically assess the emission reduction performance of wind generation based on hourly generation and emissions data. This Market Alert presents findings that show proponent’s claims to be significantly overstated and that actual CO2 reductions are either so small as to be insignificant or too expensive to be practical.

Key findings from The Wind Power Paradox:

·         In the BPA, CAISO, ERCOT and MISO, state and federal programs that support wind generation with a goal of substantially reducing pollution instead result in slight or effectively no emissions savings, along with increased costs for utilities and ultimately ratepayers.

·         The relatively small savings per megawatt of wind generation makes using production tax credits to subsidize wind energy a very expensive form of emission control.

·         CO2 reductions are lower than the assumptions used by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and others in traditional analysis based on dispatch models.

·         Equal or greater emissions reductions could be achieved at lower cost and with greater reliability by replacing existing coal-fired power generation with natural gas-fired generation.

To learn more, please contact your BENTEK sales representative, call BENTEK Sales at 303-988-1320, click here.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Follow Bentek on Twitter!

Debt-Deal Warnings for Energy Subsidies

by Gary Hunt
August 9, 2011

[Gary Hunt, President of Scalable Growth Strategy Advisors, posts on energy issues at his website, Zap! Crackle! Pop! Disruptive Technology, Global Competition and our Energy Future.]

The drama that raised the national debt ceiling without increasing taxes is sending warning shots across the bow for many industries. The message for energy subsidies, including the tax credits and treasury tax grants for wind and solar, as well as tax credits for oil and gas companies, could not be clearer. The gravy train is ending because the Government cannot afford it, and political realities won’t tolerate it much longer.

The debt deal did not cut renewable energy subsidies. But it set up a super committee of Congress that must produce $1.3 trillion in spending cuts by Thanksgiving. This sets up a ruthless competition between all the special interest causes that now get subsidies or tax supported benefits.

Mothers and grandmothers will be sacrificed by the lobbyists on K Street to keep their subsidies. But which ones might survive, and to what extent?

EIA Study of Energy Subsidies

In November 2010, several members of Congress asked U.S. Energy Information Service to update the study of direct Federal support and subsidies for energy done back in 2008. The request specified that the study include only energy-specific benefits with measurable budget impact.

That updated study found that direct Federal intervention and subsidies for energy have doubled from 2007 to 2010 from $17.9 billion to $37.2 billion.

But the political game played by that narrow definition was to exclude oil and gas tax benefits the President has sought unsuccessfully to cut in the debt deal. In May 2011, Congress rejected Democrat proposals to cut $21 billion in oil and gas industry subsidies. Crying foul, Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups filed a Freedom of Information Act request with EIA demanding an update of the subsidies for oil and natural gas that had been excluded from the updated 2010 report.

The result of this dueling studies dust-up is to make energy subsidies across the board much more visible, much more controversial and thus much more vulnerable in the next round of spending cuts.We can see the set-up taking place. If oil and gas subsidies are cut one side says, then renewable energy subsidies must also be cut. But this time, the reality is that both might have to be cut to get to the spending reduction target that avoids even more draconian triggering of across the board cuts that include defense and Medicare.

This pick-me-not-grandma choice is not the place energy subsidy advocates want to be.

The New Dynamic

Many sacred cows could be sacrifices at the altar of spending reduction, if not in the Thanksgiving round of spending cuts in 2011 then surely in the subsequent rounds needed to bring Federal spending back down to sustainable levels to enable economic growth. The reserve fund is exhausted. Surviving an early round of cuts will make each surviving subsidy more vulnerable in the next round.

At a time when every industry needs more certainty, the energy industry can expect more uncertainty and volatility. This will almost certainly quicken the consolidation process as weaker players and their investors decide not to tempt fate and sell out to bigger, stronger players with deeper pockets.

There is one certainty in all of this—the sacrifices will be enforced by the political realities that choices about cuts must be made many times before the 2012 elections. There is no escaping accountability for politicians—and voting present is not going to be acceptable to voters.

In the overall trillions at stake in the Federal budget deficit scheme of things the roughly $60 billion ($37.2 billion for renewables, ethanol, nuclear and other energy subsidies + $21 billion in oil and gas tax credits) is not a lot of money. But it makes for good political point scoring and headlines.

What Does This Mean?

Get Renewables to Grid Parity Fast. Sustainability is taking on an entirely new meaning in the energy industry that goes well beyond the political correctness that created it. Sustainability today means getting to grid parity for renewable energy or else get state regulators to raise utility rates.

States will declare RPS Victory rather than Raise Rates.Raising utility rates even more than they are going up now will be high risk so I predict state regulators will declare RPS victory at current levels and stop as business flees onerous regulatory environments taking jobs to more competitive markets. Loss of Federal subsidies for states will force all of them to get serious about enabling growth, competition between states for jobs and the loss of tax revenue from business flight.

From Ethanol back to Corn Flakes. It is tough to rationalize subsidies for corn-based ethanol even in good times and even tougher to imagine their survival in these bad times. If producers can make ethanol cost effectively from waste products without subsidies good luck to them, if not—toast.

Trade Subsidies for Pro-growth Domestic Energy Production Regulatory Streamlining. It means trading tax credits and subsidies for the oil and gas industry for less regulation and easier E&P development of unconventional resources to scale growth, create jobs and put revenues in the tax mans’ account. Arguing for regulatory certainty in exchange for tax subsidies is likely to be a very attractive alternative.

Unconventional Domestic Natural Gas is the Yellow Brick Road to Lower Emissions. Giving up subsidies to get more domestic energy production relief from regulation built into law is a deal worth doing for both the energy industry and politicians. EPA is killing growth with an endless stream of new regulations. But low cost natural gas produced domestically is an even more powerful and politically palatable way of making the transition away from coal while achieving 50% emissions reductions as a byproduct. What’s not to like about that? Environmental groups will want more renewable energy band they can achieve it with no subsidy grid parity competition between resources. This is the way out for politicians burned by picking winners and losers—and becoming losers themselves in the process of unsustainable subsidies.

Coal Exports grow as Natural Gas Takes Market Share Lead. It means a head to head competition between coal and gas for market share for power generation where coal not burned will be exported. Natural gas is the fuel of choice and will rapidly displace coal to help achieve emissions reductions.

Baby Nukes or Bye Bye Nukes. It means the looming risk of inflation driving up costs and uncertainties over nuclear safety after Fukashima puts nuclear energy back in its first generation “Groundhog Day” movie. The only escape is to abandon large nukes in favor of small, modular, safer designs while continuing to run the plants we have for as long as we can.

Gary Hunt has more than 30 years experience in the energy, software and information technology industries. His past positions have included VP-Global Analytics & Data at IHS/CERA; Division President, Ventyx/Global Energy Advisors (now an ABB Company); CEO, MMWEC, a New England-based wholesale power producer; and manager of Austin Energy and Austin Water as Assistant City Manager for Utilities & Finance for Austin, Texas.

Mr. Hunt can be reached at ghunt94526@gmail.com.

Winds of change stimulate grassroots democracy

Lake Superior Action Research Conservation (LSARC.ca) hosted John Laforet the President of Wind Concerns Ontario for a holiday weekend agenda of events to raise awareness of the importance of the October 6 Provincial election to the health, economy, and environment of Ontario and Algoma.

Friday evening (Sept2) the gathering of concerned citizens, which filled the Searchmont Community Centre meeting room with some rather intense discussion of the many threats that industrial wind developments pose for Ontario, had a chance to directly challenge the NDP and PC candidates for Algoma Manitoulin and Sault Ste Marie ridings.

Responding to concerns about more industrial wind turbine penetration into the minimally impacted and intact ecosystems of Algoma voiced by Bob Moore, local ornithology buff and all round devotee of Lake Superior, PC Algoma Manitoulin candidate Joe Chapman said, "Over my dead body!" He wanted to make it very clear where he stood and had left himself as he said adamantly, "No wiggle room there!".

Whistle STOP on McGuinty campaign.
Outside ESSAR Steel's Gate 2 property limits, LSarc members joined in the Wind Concerns Ontario "whistle-blowers" campaign which has dogged the heels of the Premier as he dashes about Ontario trying to buy votes with borrowed money and imaginary green jobs. The determined group braved chilly temperatures, rain showers, and blustery policing to blow the whistle on the great wind scam which has already sucked enough wealth out of the economies of Europe to cost Spain 2.2 conventional jobs for every temporary "green" one. In Italy the subsidies required to create one "green" job could create almost 5 jobs in the general economy. In Germany subsidies required to create "green" jobs amount to $240,000 per job per year and in the UK, for every "green" job created, 3.7 jobs are lost in the rest of the economy. Furthermore the subsidies to "green" energy in the UK costs electricity ratepayers an additional $1.75 billion per year.

Congratulations Prince Township

In Prince Township Industrial Wind development has had many years to live up to the sales pitch. "We were the guinea pigs" said Councilor Amy Zucatto as she brought to the November 8 2011 Prince Township meeting a request on behalf of Lake Superior Action Research Conservation (lsarc.ca) that the Wind Concerns Ontario petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario for a moratorium be endorsed by Council.

Auditor's look at the Province's books: Part 1 - Hardly a glancing blow

"Wind farms don’t live up to the hype that they are an environmental saviour and a serious alternate energy source, and the effects they can have on their neighbours are so serious it means they should not be allowed to get away with the exaggerated claims. Their claims are fraudulent." —Peter McGauran, Australian Senate

In tough economic times the public is interested in close scrutiny of the ways in which our tax dollars are spent. The Ontario Auditor General's 2011 report enumerates the myriad ways our tax dollars have been misspent, and proper regulatory oversight ignored by the Liberal government. Despite the dispassionate language typical of those who deal in the hard realities of balance sheets and factual constraints, this report is a scathing indictment of the electricity sector.

There was a lot of heavy lifting to do, "We did not rely on the Ministry’s internal audit service team to reduce the extent of our audit work because it had not recently conducted any audit work on renewable energy initiatives."

Since the Ministry's original estimate of 1% annual increase to ratepayers is now is more likely be 7.9% a year for the next five years who would trust them to get the numbers right anyway!

Electricity Sector-Renewable Energy Initiatives (Chapter 3 Section 3.03 of the Auditor's Report) is a worthwhile read for those interested in the machinations of power and unflattering truths revealed.

While the Electricity Restructuring Act in December 2004 created the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) to ensure the adequacy and reliability of
Ontario’s electricity supply through planning and procurement the Minister essentially had the authority to direct the OPA. By doing so the Ministry dodged the requirement for analysis of different policy options and an assessment of the cost-effectiveness of alternative approaches. The OPA, though tasked with the statutory responsibility to develop an Integrated Power System Plan (IPSP) and procurement processes for electricity representing the Province's 20-year energy goals and submission of the IPSP every three years to the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) for cost/benefit approval, has been so assailed with policy changes that it has yet to have their first IPSP approved.

In November 2010, the Ministry released the Long-Term Energy Plan (LTEP) that specified Ontario’s energy goals and supply-mix to 2030 along with a February 2011 supply-mix directive which were supposed to adequately guide the OPA in planning and developing a revised IPSP. One would reasonably conclude that the OPA has only limited authority as an energy planner and that the Ministry bears the responsibility for the mad travesty which has resulted.

The Auditor found:

Although the Ministry consulted with stakeholders in developing the supply-mix directives, the LTEP, and the Green Energy and Green Economy Act, billions of dollars were committed to renewable energy without fully evaluating the impact, the trade-offs, and the alternatives through a comprehensive business-case analysis. Specifically, the OPA, the OEB, and the IESO acknowledged that:
• no independent, objective, expert investigation had been done to examine the potential effects of renewable-energy policies on prices, job creation, and greenhouse gas emissions; and
• no thorough and professional cost/benefit analysis had been conducted to identify potentially cleaner, more economically productive, and cost-effective alternatives to renewable energy, such as energy imports and increased conservation.

This, at last, is the answer to the question posed by Lake Superior Action Research Conservation members who attended the Soo Sustainable Electricity Workshop this summer...WHERE, IS THE COST/BENEFIT ANALYSIS UPON WHICH THE RENEWABLE ENERGY POLICY IS BASED? Short answer: There is none!

Neither is there a complete environmental valuation to justify the destruction of minimally impacted ecosystems such as the ecologically vital transition forest of Lake Superior's watershed.

Excerpts from the Auditor's report

“...the first long- term energy plan put forward by the OPA since its creation in December 2004 has not been approved by the OEB. Although the OPA did spend $10.7 million to develop its first energy plan, which it submitted to the OEB for review in 2007, the government suspended the OEB’s review of the plan in 2008.

Although continuing the successful RESOP initiative was one option, the Minister directed the OPA to replace RESOP with a new Feed-in Tariff (FIT) program that was wider in scope, required made-in-Ontario components, and provided renewable energy generators with significantly more attractive contract prices than RESOP. These higher prices added about $4.4 billion in costs over the 20-year contract terms as compared to what would have been incurred had RESOP prices for wind and solar power been maintained.

In March 2009, before the passage of the Green Energy and Green Economy Act, the OPA proposed a reduction of 9% to FIT prices for electricity generated from ground-mounted solar projects, in line with similar practices in some other jurisdictions. This could have reduced the cost of the program by about $2.6 billion over the 20-year contract terms.

In February 2010, the OPA recommended cutting the FIT price paid for power from microFIT ground-mounted solar projects after the unexpected popularity of these projects.
We estimated that, had the revised price been implemented when first recommended by the OPA, the cost of the program could have been reduced by about $950 million over the 20-year contract terms.

The Ministry negotiated a contract with a consortium of Korean companies to build renewable energy projects. The consortium will receive two additional incentives over the life of the contract if it meets its job-creation targets: a payment of $437 million (reduced to $110 million, as announced by the Ministry in July 2011 after the completion of our audit fieldwork) in addition to the already attractive FIT prices; and priority access to Ontario’s electricity transmission system, whose capacity to connect renewable energy projects is already limited. However, no economic analysis or business case was done to determine whether the agreement with the consortium was economically prudent and cost-effective, and neither the OEB nor the OPA was consulted about the agreement.”

“Given that demand growth for electricity is expected to remain modest at the same time as more renewable energy is being added to the system, electricity ratepayers may have to pay renewable energy generators under the FIT program between $150 million and $225 million a year not to generate electricity.

As of April 1, 2011, about 10,400 MW, representing more than 3,000 FIT applications, cannot be accommodated into the existing power grid.”

The entire Auditor General of Ontario's 2011 Report is here (4.9MB PDF)
Section 3.02: Electricity Sector - Regulatory Oversight can be found here (831KB PDF)
Section 3.03: Electricity Sector - Renewable Energy Initiatives can be found here (610KB PDF)
Section 3.04: Electricity Sector - Stranded Debt can be found here (188KB PDF)

Auditor's look at the Province's books: Part 2 - Sucker Punched!

Since 2007 the Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF) has been funded through general revenue, not, as many still believe, through windfall profits from gambling. It is therefore more insulting to hard-working people who would never consider throwing their money away at gaming to have government throwing their money away for them, and as the Auditor reported earlier this week, not even getting proper receipts...

As outlined in the memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Tourism and Culture , the OTF's mandate is to “provide funds in a fair and cost-efficient manner, with community involvement in decision-making, and by way of supplementing rather than replacing regular sources of income, to eligible charitable and not-for-profit organizations in Ontario [...] to help finance through time-limited, results-oriented grants, programs undertaken by such organizations; and to help finance initiatives that increase organizational and/ or community capacity and self-reliance.” Yet the Internal Audit Division of the Ministry of Tourism and Culture had not conducted any recent audits of the Foundation’s operations.

In the 2010/11 fiscal year, the OTF from total funding of about $124 million paid out about $111 million in grants to charitable and not-for-profit organizations working in the areas of human and social services, arts and culture, environment, and sports and recreation. Most of the grant money went to pay the salaries and wages of people working in these organizations, the remainder covered program administration.

The Auditor set out methodically with the reasonable objective of assessing whether adequate policies and procedures were in place at the OTF to ensure that:

• approved grants were consistent with the Foundation’s mandate, in amounts that were commensurate with the value of the goods and services provided by the grant recipients, and that they were spent for their intended purpose; and

• costs were incurred and managed with due regard for economy and efficiency, and the effectiveness of the Foundation was appropriately evaluated and reported on.”

Findings indicate disregard for accountability, at every level, such that even where proper policies are in place, procedures are so lax that it becomes impossible to judge the merits of projects or their performance. The devil is in the details the Auditor found:
"The solicitation of applications by staff and the Foundation’s volunteers, including grant-review team members, also raises the issue of potential conflict of interest as the same people who invite certain groups to apply for grants, or who tell them about the program, later review those applications and determine who gets funding.

We noted, for example, that two board members also own consulting businesses that provide service to the not-for-profit sector. We examined one of the businesses and found that of the 11 projects listed on its website, six had received Foundation grants during the time the owner was on the Foundation board. One of the grants included money for consulting services bought from the board member’s business. Although we understand that the consultant’s business got the contract only after a formal bidding process, arrangements of this nature run the risk of being viewed as a conflict of interest.

Based on the available information, we were often unable to determine for ourselves whether the grant amounts were commensurate with the services to be provided because we could not assess either the reasonableness of the specific services or deliverables the organizations proposed to provide, or the work required to meet the objectives".

The response from the OTF, with self-justifying references to "our new on-line grants-management system" which was developed and tested in fiscal year 2008/09 and fully implemented in March 2010, seems more excuse than contrition. This impression is re-enforced by the cherry-picked list of the Auditor's comments on the OTF website which do not add up to the whole sordid truth but instead a deliberate deceit to mask flagrant breaches in accountability such as a grant of $73,000 for air quality testing: $31,000 for salaries and $23,000 for equipment which resulted in records of only 8hrs of visits to two schools over the course of one year and equipment not located at audit.

In the context of government spending is $124 million chump change, or should it be considered slush money for the billions of wasted dollars which the Auditor discovered have disappeared down the slippery slope of renewable energy? Trillium funding has found its way into the coffers of many politically active ENGOs such as Sierra Club, Environmental Defense and the Suzuki Foundation, according to research by Financial Post contributor Parker Gallant. Bruce Lourie, Director of the Ontario Power Authority AND Trillium Foundation has also been listed as Director and past President of Environmental Defense, President of Ivey Foundation and founder of Canadian Grant-makers Network.
http://windconcernsontario.wordpress.com/2011/09/29/sustaining-unsustainable-charities/

If the electricity connection is still not strong enough for you, there is the Ontario Sustainable Electricity Association. Among the group’s funding sources, OSEA lists three government organizations, including the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure and the Ontario Trillium foundation. Kris Stevens, executive director of OSEA said in an interview regarding a $200,000 pre-election advertising campaign “We’re not for or against any party, we’re for a policy.” Nonetheless, locally Lake Superior Action Research Conservation members witnessed OSEA's Harry French exhorting the audience at a Soo Sustainable event, erroneously since the NDP also support the subsidies to renewables, to vote Liberal because they are the only ones who support the FIT.

The Auditor also had something to say about the Liberal's compliance with the Government Advertising Act. Despite the fact that a newspaper advertising campaign using the 10% rebate on electricity bills under the Ontario Clean Energy Benefit was seen to have, contrary to Sect 6(1)5 of the Act, the primary objective of fostering a positive impression of the government party, the Ministry of Energy saw fit to compel utilities, just prior to the election, to include an insert with their bills, which similarly touted the Ontario Clean Energy Benefit. Such inserts are not subject to the Act but since they would not likely have been approved and they arrived in mailboxes less than a month before the election they could reasonably be seen as an attempt to violate the intent of the Act. Such behaviour only adds to the impression that provincial politics is becoming more of a pig wrestle than honest policy debate.

Beware Liberal MPPs bringing back the pork lest they besmirch with grease the good works done by real community groups.

Debate rages over wind power re: out with coal, in with renewable energy,
Nursing in the News, September/ October 2011

Letter to RNAO by Debbie Shubat & Jane Wilson:

We were disappointed to read of nurse practitioner Lel Morrison’s wholehearted endorsement of wind power when the fact is, wind power projects are causing problems due to the environmental noise they produce. Morrison references a report that is quite out of date. We refer readers instead to the findings of the environmental Review Tribunal (July 2011) which, after hearing evidence from more than 20 experts, determined: “this case has successfully shown that the debate should not be simplified to one about whether wind turbines can cause harm to humans. The evidence presented to the tribunal demonstrates that they can, if facilities are placed too close to residents. The debate has now evolved to one of degree.” Last year, a report prepared for the corporate wind industry suggested it recruit health professions and environmental groups to serve as “third party validators” for the industrial wind industry. We implore nurses to look deeper into this issue. There is much the wind industry is not telling you.

Debbie Shubat, Jane Wilson,
St. Joseph’s Island, Ontario North Gower, Ottawa

RNAO Editor's Response:
RNAO believes wind energy, when appropriately cited (sic), is one of several viable, renewable alternatives to coal and nuclear. the board of directors re-affirmed its support at its September board meeting.

LSarc comments:
The RNAO's quasi-religious faith in Wind Power's scientifically unproven ability to be a viable alternative to coal and nuclear is not admirable. As an Association of Scientific Professionals its ability to ignore the empirical reality that Wind Power, in 40 years of use, has never yet resulted in the closure of a single coal or nuclear plant, and the demonstrable fact that Wind Power is not and cannot be a viable replacement for base-load generation, demonstrates a willful blindness which can only be the result of ideology triumphing over reason. As an Association of Medical Professionals its refusal to acknowledge the harm caused by Industrial Wind Power to human health is downright shabby.

Write to the RNAO and express your opinion on their support for Industrial Wind Power. Write to letters@RNAO.ORG

An apology to children living on properties leased for wind generation

Posted on 12/06/2011

by Pete Lomath
I’m a 66 year old Canadian who is partly responsible for allowing the McGuinty government to put in place the Green Energy Act and by so doing removing the protection afforded by the various pieces of legislation to children such as you whose parents have seen fit to place you in danger from the health impacts of wind turbines.

By setting what it deems to be acceptable setbacks and noise figures for those on property adjacent to wind turbine installations the Ontario government has acknowledged that anyone living closer than those setbacks or subject to noise levels higher than those referenced in legislation are at risk of health problems due to the wind turbine noise.

As a child living on land that is leased to a wind project YOU have no such protection from the government acknowledged long term effects of wind turbine noise because there are no setback or noise standards relevant to your residence.

Much has changed since our centennial year of 1967 when Ontario proudly heralded this province as “A Place to Stand, A Place to Grow”. Lately thousands of Ontarians have given of their time and expertise in an attempt to ensure that Ontario remains a place where everyone is protected equally from the potential health impacts of wind noise.

So far your government, the legal system, the organizations listed below and each corporation and individual involved in the implementation of wind energy in Ontario have done nothing to provide any protection to you.

To Premier McGuinty and all who have sided with his government and the various self administering “professional” organizations to ignore the health impacts of wind turbine noise you are just ‘acceptable collateral damage’ from the spread of wind turbines across this province.

The list of those responsible for this sad state of affairs starts with your federal government down through the office of the speaker and all parties of the government of Ontario, the various ministries and allied mandating institutions.

Every single assembly and professional organization that you thought might have a requirement in law to ensure that you are protected has failed you and all in the name of bigger government, bigger business and a greater transfer of Canada’s wealth to the already-rich, mostly resident outside of Canada.

The Offices of Canada at the United Nations who purport, with grandstanding, to support the UN rights of Canadian children at the United Nations and yet have ignored my requests for help in protecting Ontario children living on the lands leased for wind generation left with NO protection under the Green Energy Act and who are discriminated against in relation to the protection afforded to their neighbors on adjoining properties.

The office of the speaker for the Ontario legislature who has failed to require the TRUTH in the form of science supported by the scientific method from members of the legislature in all matters related to the Green Energy Act in the house and by so doing has destroyed the integrity and decorum expected from that institution.

The Ontario Legislature for failing to require as part of the GEA a “standardized” contract for wind leases that was clear, did not include any form of “GAG” component and made the wind generation proponent fully responsible for ALL aspects of damage to health and for the complete remediation to the original for the removal of every component of the wind generation equipment, power line and road systems enforced by means of a bond for an amount determined by an actuary to be sufficient for every potential future claim.For accepting without question the discriminatory report of the Chief Medical Officer of Health (Dr. King) in consultation with the Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion, the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and the Council of Ontario Medical Officers of Health when they failed to investigate or make any recommendations related to those living on leased properties that have no protection in the law for noise levels that the GEA acknowledges are health impacting.

The MPP’s who blindly voted in favor of the Green Energy Act (Notably absent for the vote was Premier Dalton McGuinty) and by so doing removed all protection from mothers and children residing on land that has been leased to wind developers.

The Ministry of the Environment for purporting to have science supporting every facet of the regulations yet fighting every attempt to obtain such supporting science through the freedom of information legislation even going so far as to start charging for the preparation of fee estimates as a way to raise the costs of obtaining information beyond the resources of average Canadians. For refusing to accept the original submission on the GEA sent by registered mail regarding the GEA from the residents of Clearview. For allowing projects to proceed knowing that they had no protocols or test procedures that their own staff could use to validate the noise levels upon which projects were “rubber stamp approved” by the “professional” engineers at the MOE. For issuing contracts to engineering companies with a conflict of duty who are “paid-up” members of CANWEA to define and determine the noise measurement protocols and processes that will be the final determinate of whether projects meet new standards set long after their original approval under the “standards” set down in the GEA. The list goes on and on, and regardless of who is the Minister “responsible” (what a misnomer!) there is absolutely no change by the bureaucracy or its professional Engineers to undertake any honest scientific evaluation of the noise generated by wind turbines having any form of much needed public oversight.

The Ontario Ministry of Health for its failure to perform the most basic due diligence and research towards ascertaining the health impacts from wind turbines, choosing instead to rely on information from selected scientific publications. The report issued by the MOH related to the health impacts of wind turbines on Ontarians was generated simply from a “read” of peer reviewed papers performed by a junior member of staff and failed to even include interviews of “protected” Ontarians (those living on adjacent properties) let alone anyone such as you living on “unprotected” lands and subject to much higher allowable levels of turbine noise.

The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and the Council of Ontario Medical Officers of Health for the support of discrimination and allowing medical officers of health (acting or permanent) under their control or within their organization to accept taxable income from the wind industry to promote the position that there are no health impacts from wind turbines when the legislation itself acknowledges by default that any person living closer than 550 meters or being subjected to noise levels greater than provided for under the GEA is liable for long term health impacting conditions. This lack of action discriminates against every person forced to live without protection of law on lands leased for wind generation.

The “Chair” in renewable energy at the university of Waterloo who has spent (wasted) the last year assembling a cadre of experts in wind related sciences and has yet to produce one single piece of information supporting the $5million of taxpayers money that the government endowed to this process.

The HPARB for refusing to properly investigate the complaints rejected by the College of Physicians and Surgeons thereby giving its tacit permission for physicians to accept taxable income for representing the position of the wind industry and for them to continue making statements in areas’ in which they have no expertise, without fear of repercussions. For issuing final decisions on such complaints 2 months prior to receiving the evidence of complainants thereby reducing the whole process to a humorous exercise in futility by very highly paid civil servants none of whom can be held responsible for their actions.

The office of the Ontario Ombudsman was made aware of your plight three years ago and has failed to issue any report or publication related to the matter of wind turbine noise or health impacts choosing instead to side with the HPARB in allowing medical officers of health to continue receiving taxable income from wind power lobbying organizations and refusing to investigate a situation where the final decision of the HPARB was made two months BEFORE it even received the submissions of the complainant!

The office of the Ontario Privacy Commissioner whose adjudicator, by refusing to deal with the MOE charging arbitrarily assessed fees to SOME Ontarians to prepare fee estimates, have given their tacit permission for the Ontario government to continue making charges not mandated in legislation for the preparation of fee estimates, thereby escalating the costs of obtaining access to noise-related health information held by the MOE to the point where average Ontarians cannot afford to obtain the noise readings affecting their health.

The engineers at the MOE whose rubber stamping of the data files produced by other professional engineers working for wind proponents without requiring that data to be current, measurable or reflecting the error corrections and incorporation of current publicly available test results from working installations required under section 77 of the Professional Engineers Act. IF the MOE conducted field tests and applied the necessary corrections found by international authorities to the computer estimates upon which each project is approved, most wind projects would be shown to be outside of the acceptable levels for approval of those projects.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons for its lack of concern and rejection of complaints over the actions of its members in positions of public trust who are receiving taxable income (as defined by the CRA) from wind industry organizations to disseminate and support the views of the wind industry without being required to produce proof of their qualifications in noise measurement nor provide one verifiable piece of science to support their assertions that the noise from wind turbines will not impact the health of our children over the long term.

The Professional Engineers Association of Ontario for turning a blind eye to the way in which their members are failing to meet the requirements of section 77 of the Ontario PEng act and refusing to properly investigate complaints from even their own members about the actions of other members in regard to the flawed estimates and measurement of wind turbine noise.

The members of the Professional Engineers Association working for wind proponents to produce noise “estimates” who flaunt the requirements of their registration by referencing terms such as “It is our belief” and “It is our understanding” to be the science that their association and the MOE (purportedly) requires to support their work and which their “associates” at the MOE accept to be valid data for the purposes of project approval.

Each Ontario professional engineer who sits on the sidelines while a few of their peers, identified above, place the credibility of their whole profession in question through their failure to use the scientific method and the precautionary principle as the basis for their calculations of noise levels generated by wind turbines.

The lawyers whose crafting of the contracts for leasing land to wind development companies includes “GAG” clauses that prevent your parents from even speaking out about or reporting to your doctor or local heath unit any impacts on your health from wind turbine noise, blade flicker or noise.

Every “LLC” (Limited Liability Corporation) involved in any aspect of the wind industry that can (and almost certainly will) legally walk away from any responsibility for health damages, remediation of abandoned sites and any other form of accountability with the full blessings of the governments that have allowed this form of irresponsible corporate framework to exist.

Every Ontarian who supports discrimination by failing to insist that all levels of government provide the same protection to those without a voice of their own living on land leased for wind projects as those living on properties adjacent to wind projects.

Because of the various forms of protection that governments put in place to look after their own and since there is no accountability for civil servants, almost no one in the above list can be held personally responsible for their actions, you have very few options available to you to require your governments to protect you as they already do for your neighbors on adjoining properties.

Most of us in the wind movement placed our hopes with the Ontario Ombudsman but since the “renewal” of his five year term by Premier McGuinty and the Ontario Legislature it would appear that wind issues have “blown away” and the lack of protection provided to you has fallen out of his focus so even the “bastion of last resort” has joined the rest of your government in ignoring your plight.

As we allow governments to expand and take over control of everything we hold dear, we are certainly leaving one hell of a legacy to our children and grandchildren.

The documentation that I have collected over the past three years supporting every statement that I have made above will be made available to you (upon request) on CD so that when you are old enough to be able to act for yourself you will have evidence of the manner with which your government treated you when you were a child.

Sadly,

Peter Lomath, father of 4 and now retired after 45 years working in sound measurement and audio communications.

Health: Danish government to treat Danes as guinea pigs?
(Thanks to NA-PAW www.na-paw.org)

The European Platform Against Windfarms (EPAW) and the North-American Platform Against Windpower (NA-PAW) - representing a total of nearly 600 associations from 26 countries - are pointing at evidence showing that VESTAS, the world’s leading wind-turbine manufacturer, applied pressure on the Danish government in a bid to establish noise regulations favourable to its business. They are also criticizing the Danish authorities for "kowtowing to the interests of the Denmark-based multinational company, as the Danish Environmental Protection Agency (DEPA)subsequently manipulated noise regulations so that wind turbines in Denmark may continue to be installed dangerously close to habitations."

In his letter of 29 June 2011 addressed to Karen Ellemann, then Minister for the Environment, and copied to Lykke Friis, then Minister for Climate and Energy, the Chief Executive of Vestas, Ditlev Engel, complained that the draft of the revised noise regulations applicable to wind turbines would hurt the interests of the industry:

“...low frequency noise (regulations) will ... increase the distance requirements to neighbours for close to half of the projects... In a small country such as Denmark this means that a significant number of projects will not be viable as the increased distance requirements cannot be met whilst maintaining a satisfactory business outcome for the investor.” (1)

Of particular interest are the following words, which could imply that the Danish people are to be treated as guinea pigs for the greater good of the wind industry: “Denmark has a role as a forerunner country and a full scale laboratory for conversion to renewable energy.” (1)

The fact that Vestas would ask the government to protect its interests is neither surprising nor illegal. But EPAW and NA-PAW argue that asking that the Danes be part of a “full scale laboratory” is over the top and unethical. What is downright illegal, they add, and perhaps even criminal, is for the Danish Environmental Protection Agency to "manipulate measurements in the interest of an industry and to the detriment of people's health. The new, revised noise regulations proposed by DEPA earlier this month are so lax that for 33% of neighbours it will feel “as if a truck is idling just outside their homes” (2)."

How did DEPAmanage to do this? – The "PAW" platforms report that Dr Mauri Johansson, a Danish physician specialized in community health and occupational medicine (now retired), denounced that the noise limit of 20 dB was effectively increased by measuring the decibels with the windows closed, which is contrary to norm. (2)

According to the translation of an article published in Politiken, a Danish daily, "the new noise rules will permit the limit of 20 dB to be exceeded in 33 percent of the worst insulated houses. It is a break with normal practice. For example, the dB limit only was allowed to exceed in 10 percent of the coastal houses as the fast ferry Aarhus-Kalundborg some years ago was asked to dampen the low frequency noise." (2)

Joining Dr Mauri Johansson, and according to the same article, a team of researchers from Aalborg University led by Professor Henrik Moeller, an internationally-renowned acoustics specialist, are also critical of the draft noise regulations of the Danish government. They are themselves supported by Kerstin Persson Waye, professor of occupational and environmental medicine at Gothenburg University, Sweden. (2)

Warns Mark Duchamp, CEO of EPAW: “The health-threatening noise, low-frequency noise, and infrasound regulations of the Danish government are likely to be copied by health authorities around the world. Wind industry pioneer and leader, Denmark is often regarded as a model by other countries. But we should be careful: the Danish government is subject to a powerful conflict of interest. As a result the health of a great many people may suffer, and not only in Denmark.”

Coming on top of this warning, a new study was just published which seems to confirm the health risk associated with wind turbines: the Bruce McPherson Infrasound and Low Frequency Noise Study - Adverse Health Effects Produced by Large Industrial Wind Turbines Confirmed, by Stephen E. Ambrose, INCE (Brd. Cert.) and Robert W. Rand, INCE Member. (3)

References:

(1) – Source: Vestas letter, English translation published here (http://www.wind- watch.org/documents/letter-from-vestas-worried-about-regulation-of-low-frequency-noise/)
(2) - Source: article published in Politiken, a Danish daily, 14.11.2011. (http://politiken.dk/indland/ECE1449860/miljoestyrelsen-anklages-for-at-fifle-med- vindmoellestoej/)
Translation available here: (http://www.epaw.org/echoes.php?lang=en&article=n71)
(3) - Bruce McPherson Infrasound and Low Frequency Noise Study - Adverse Health Effects Produced by Large Industrial Wind Turbines Confirmed, by Stephen E. Ambrose, INCE (Brd. Cert.) and Robert W. Rand, INCE Member: http://www.windturbinesyndrome.com/news/2011/acousticians-confirm-wind-turbine- syndrome/

Poland blocks imports of German wind and solar energy as it destabilizes their grid and makes their power stations run inefficiently.

http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/0,1518,801605,00.html

Border blockade for green electricity: Because the Polish network operator fears an overload, he wants to prevent the import of wind and solar power from Germany. The head of the German Energy Agency is now calling on SPIEGEL negotiations with the neighboring country.

Hamburg - On the way to energy policy, Germany has to overcome many hurdles. One of them may soon emerge on the German-Polish border: Poland plans to increase the regulation of green electricity from Germany. The plans have alarmed, according to a report obtained by Der Spiegel, the German energy experts. "When excess wind and solar power can not be discharged abroad, then the German power grid gets destabilized," warns the head of the German Energy Agency (Dena), Mr Stephan Kohler.

The background is that the Polish network operator PSE Operator is planning to add switches on the border. Their task would be meant to prevent the Federal Republic of Germany from exporting excess eco-electricity. Whenever this occurs, the operators of the Polish coal power plants must suddenly shut down the plants to avoid an overload. People in Warsaw are worried that the active high-power stations are not ready for such shutdowns and that an unexpected surplus of energy could even lead to a blackout.

Therefore, in the future, the so-called phase shift will interrupt the current flow between the two countries. Surplus energy would then be distributed in the German network, which would increase the risk of blackouts on the German side of the border.

Dena's Head Mr Kohler is now demanding an accelerated expansion of the power lines from eastern to southern Germany. "The federal government also needs to quickly get in touch with Poland and other neighboring countries and to negotiate about the European energy policy," said Kohler.

Location, Location, Location - Migration, Migration, Migration

An in depth discussion on the McGuinty Liberals irresponsible handling of important bird areas, migration routes and sensitive wildlife areas in siting Industrial Wind Turbines. Mr. Wegner has an Honours BSc in Environmental Science degree and has spent many years as a wildlife photographer, traveling from one coast of Canada to the other, and north to south as well. He has no wind projects anywhere near him.

“This is truly an international problem, one that so many developers and local/state/provincial governments pooh-pooh as a NIMBY issue in order to slide the deals through. This problem runs from the arctic to the tip of South America — and that is one helluva big backyard!”

View online Download the full document (1.6MB PDF)

Occupy falcon

Credit: By Jeff Labine, www.tbnewswatch.com 31 December 2011 ~~

Peregrine falcons have come back from near extinction, but biologists still debate whether or not the birds have made a full recovery.

Not long ago the speedy birds couldn’t be found in Ontario. Scientists in the ‘70s started a capture and release program to help give the peregrine falcons a fighting chance. The bird’s recovery was slow and steady, and in 2006 peregrine falcons were taken off the endangered species list and officially categorized as threatened.

A number of factors led to the falcon’s near extinction. Carrier pigeons, a favourite meal of the peregrine, were used to send messages in the Second World War. So, the falcons were shot to ensure messages didn’t become a casualty of lunchtime.

Habitat loss and pesticide use also contributed to the population decline.

The birds’ status came into question in Thunder Bay recently after Horizon Wind Inc. revealed its plans to build a wind farm in a location believed to be part of the falcons’ nesting area.

Mitch Taylor, a biologist who specialized in studying polar bears, but worked on a number of surveys on the birds, says the peregrine falcons have made a recovery to the point that the wind turbines wouldn’t have a significant impact on the overall population.

“There’s nothing in the historical record that would allow one to say that they have recovered to historical levels or exceeded historical levels,” Taylor says. “Both from the demographic and genetic perspective, populations have increased to the point that they are now independently viable.

“It’s documented that those blades spin around and birds that fly around there get whacked by the blades and are killed or injured and die later. Peregrines will likely be attracted to them and yes, if you build a wind farm in a migratory corridor as we have along the north shore of Lake Superior, then you are probably going to be enticing things like eagles and hawks as well as peregrines.”

Taylor, who is against the wind farm project, says the peregrine falcon population is in the range of 40,000 across North America and increasing. Given the success of the species population recovery, he says the peregrine falcon does not fit the definition of an endangered species.

But Brian Ratcliff, a biologist who has studied peregrine falcons in the Thunder Bay district for the past 16 years, isn’t so sure about the impact wind turbines may have on the bird’s population.

“There are a lot of assumptions,” Ratcliff says. “I’ve been working with this bird for 30 years now in the province. We have no historical records and everyone is assuming what sort of numbers you target for.

“Things are looking good right now. The question becomes ‘is this a recovered population or is it still a recovering population?’ One person is going to tell you one thing and another is going to tell you something different. Who’s right? No one knows.”

Ratcliff first worked with the birds in the ‘80s during the capture and release program.

He says that the initiative helped recover animal’s population, and now the birds are able to survive in urban environments, including areas like downtown Toronto.

In order to set a bar to tell when the birds have made a full recovery, biologists established 40 historical sites that they believe the birds made their nests on. Ratcliff says if those 40 sites are occupied then it’s safe to say the birds have recovered.

The problem is that about 90 per cent of those sites aren’t occupied and only three in the Thunder Bay region have falcons nesting, he says.

“Looking at the data if we have a recovered population why are only the eight per cent of the historical nests sites occupied,” he says.

“If we have a recovered population, I would expect half of the historical nesting sites should be occupied.”

He adds that a graduate student in Quebec is doing research on peregrines living near a wind turbine, and says that’s the kind of research they need to make sure the wind farm doesn’t impact the birds.

Abuse of power against anti-windfarm movement

By Mark Duchamp Tuesday, January 10, 2012
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/43800

Legal Advisor to the European Platform Against Windfarms (EPAW), George Watson is being investigated by the UK government under special powers which are only to apply to criminal/terrorist activities, claims the Platform. A letter, reproduced below, has been sent to Chris Huhne, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, denouncing this improper use of the legislation, and announcing legal proceedings against the UK government. A formal complaint has been made to the Metropolitan Police.

According to EPAW, Mr Watson was also harassed by a police officer who visited his home in a Scottish rural area ... on Christmas Eve!

Mark Duchamp, Executive Director of EPAW, declared that he was respectfully asking UK government Ministers if they intend to investigate and harass other members of the public who oppose the destruction of the British landscape, the killing of protected bird and bat species, and the deterioration of the health of wind farm neighbours. Mr Watson’s only crime, he said, was to have found legal flaws in the way the UK government’s energy policy is being applied.

EPAW claims that wind farms are ineffective, immensely expensive, and destroy jobs in the rest of the economy (1); that they are also seriously harming human health, resulting in home abandonment, or worse (2); and finally that they are killing protected wildlife into extinction (3). In the circumstances, concludes Duchamp, the 514 associations from 23 countries represented by EPAW would like to know why their members deserve to be investigated and harassed by the authorities, using special powers reserved for criminals and terrorists.

George Watson’s letter is appended.

Contact:

Mark Duchamp
tel: + 34 693 643 736
save.the.eagles@gmail.com
http://www.epaw.org

References:

(1) - “EU governments did not do their homework on wind energy. It now appears that wind farms may have no benefits at all.”

(2) - Harming human health: Explicit Cautionary Notice from the Waubra Foundation:

- Home abandonment

- In addition to noise, inaudible noise can make people seriously ill: The Infrasound Smoking Gun

(3) - Wind farms causing the extinction of the Golden Eagle in the US:

- Causing the extinction of the Tasmanian Wedge-tailed Eagle:

REGISTERED LETTER AND FAX

    To: Chris Huhne MP
    Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
    3 Whitehall Place
    London
    SW1A 2AW

    3rd January 2012

    Dear Mr Huhne:

    Reference: Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA)

    I contact you in relation to the above-mentioned legislation.

    It was brought to my attention by another Government Department, quite by accident, that you authorised an investigation into my background/private life under the provisions of RIPA. I require you to provide me with the following information:

    a) It should be noted that it would be negligent administration and an abuse of your position, if you did not have evidence that I was involved in criminal/terrorist activity before authorising such action. Taking this fact into consideration, I require details and copies of ALL instances where I was involved in criminal or terrorist activity. However, I freely admit I have been in constant touch with your office in relation to the idiotic policy of IWT’s* and the danger to Human Health;
        *editor’s note: industrial wind turbines

    b) I advise you that I require a ‘true copy’ of any warrant granted and details of the issuing court. In addition, I require a ‘true copy’ of ALL additional material presented to the court in order to attain any warrant;

    c) I require details/copies of ALL documentary information that was attained by your office through the illegal intrusion into my private life. In addition, I require written confirmation that the documentation provided is a full disclosure of information attained/held;

    d) A ‘true copy’ of the authority signed by yourself for the illegal intrusion into my background/private life.

    I advise you that I have instructed Senior Counsel to begin legal proceedings against the UK Government and you personally as an individual. I further advise you that as you have abused your position, this is actionable. A Petition will be lodged against the UK Government and yourself in the coming weeks, in which I will seek ‘Punitive Damages (Exemplary Damages) at the amount of £2.5 million (pounds sterling) on a 50/50 split between the UK Government and a personal liability by yourself. An apology is not sufficient in this case.

    Yours sincerely

    George Watson

Not FIT To Be Stewards Of The Land

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) representing 37,000 farm families substantially concurs with the 4,200 member Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario (CFFO) christianfarmers.org Jan 12,2012 reassessment of Ontario's renewable energy policy which has unsustainable social, environmental, and economic costs clearly identified in the Auditor General Report 2011.

OFA did its own review of the FIT programs and something remarkable happened. There was free informed commentary from the membership, some of it President Mark Wales deemed unfit for print but the discussion obviously concluded that the OFA's previous expectations for "green energy" could not be met. According to Wales in December 2011, "OFA was opposed to the original price levels offered for wind and solar. As advocates for farms as consumers of energy, we felt the price levels were too high. We continue to advocate for a more sensible price and planned generation system"

The 2012 OFA position statement, available here http://www.ofa.on.ca/media/news/OFA-calls-government-suspend-wind-turbine-development-in-Ontario, "...Strongly recommends that the province of Ontario suspend the award of FIT contracts for industrial wind turbine development projects pending resolution of the following:

Because IWT projects can have a significant and lasting impact on neighboring farm businesses with regards future expansion and succession planning, the Ontario government must enable an acceptable level of planning control for IWT at the municipal level.

Prices paid for IWT power (and indeed, all renewable power) should not exceed the expected price of peak power imports six years in the future, to ensure a long term supply or reasonably priced power.

The province must require IWT developments to secure the capacity to provide dispatchable power using battery or other such environmentally acceptable storage.

Wind turbine developments must be required to use sufficiently gauged service lines and sufficiently high capacity transformers to eliminate current inducement in adjacent lines or buildings by IWT collection lines.

Rural residents’ health and nuisance complaints must be immediately and fairly addressed.

Because varying conditions and larger generating equipment can create exceptions to a maximum of 40 dba at a minimum setback of 550 meters for an IWT development the province must conduct a comprehensive analysis using local empirical data and international studies on adequate setback distances for IWT based on the technology employed.

The regulation governing participating receptors must be amended to require the appropriate minimum setback, determined through analysis, for all IWT developments.

To directly address the real issue of noise levels and to ensure that the 40 dba guideline is achieved across Ontario, the provincial government must develop and implement a protocol to measure noise from IWT developments, including continuous tone and low frequency noise and that measurement equipment and training be made available to municipalities.

OFA supports green energy but is working to ensure that green energy projects will respect concerns for noise, community involvement and price, balanced against the effective provision of power."
The sad news is that the Minister of Energy, Chris Bentley, continues to ignore the direct message rural voters already sent the Government by giving their Liberal MPPs the ouster in the last election. Bentley has an odd definition of "listening" or "hearing" when, apparently still without full analysis, he says of more than 3,000 FIT review submissions by groups and individuals, many of which were from the farming community:

"We are taking a look at those and we are determined to get clean, renewable energy into the province of Ontario and secure the jobs that help Ontario serve the world with green energy,"

Despite the Auditor's revelation of the gaping lack of proper cost/benefit analysis for the Green Energy Act and renewable energy policy from the outset; his exposure of the BILLIONS wasted in haste; the CFFO astutely pointing out, "...If an honest assessment of the future of the industry indicates it will not be sustainable in the long term, strong consideration must be given to cutting out losses as a province now, rather than later.", and the object lessons of Europe looming ever larger, Ontario seems doomed to less honesty not more.

The true "stewards of the land" should be lauded and supported in asking for what is eminently reasonable.

Ontario PC Party wants your concerns

We have learned that the PC Party of Ontario wishes to increase the amount of discussion concerning wind turbines in the upcoming legislature. Write a short letter outlining your problems, complaints, concerns, etc… to MPP Todd Smith. Also send a copy to Tim Hudak’s office, as well as your MPP's & MP's offices.

If you have a group in your area let them know and get them involved in this letter writing campaign as well.

Contact Todd Smith Prince Edward - Hastings:                 Find your MPP            Find your MP            MPP's email addresses
Unit 3, 81 Millennium Parkway
Belleville, Ontario K8N 4Z5
Tel           613-962-1144
Fax            613-969-6381
todd.smithco@pc.ola.org
Toll Free     1-877-536-6248

Contact Tim Hudak Niagara West – Glanbrook
Unit M1, 4961 King Street East
Beamsville,Ontario L0R 1B0
905-563-1755 or 905-563-1317
tim.hudakco@pc.ola.org

Grassroots action growing

Before he left MPP Mantha answered Jerry Pandzic's hard questions about his own personal willingness to have an industrial wind turbine in his backyard.
Mantha's answer was "No."

Lake Superior Action Research Conservation (LSARC.ca) is pleased to report that Saturday's meeting with Algoma Manitoulin MPP Mike Mantha engendered a refreshingly candid appraisal of renewable energy. Prince Township, sadly also the host to the pre Green Energy Act Prince Wind Farm, graciously provided the venue for a collection of voices raised in determined protest against the folly of continuing down a slippery green slope littered with crippled Democracy, gutted economies, and wounded rural communities.

Mr Mantha's opening oration, which neatly avoided the contentious issue at hand, was followed by a presentation from Debbie Shubat RN under the agenda item, "Destruction of Democracy, economic stability and human rights". Hers was a pointed warning of the malignancy of green politics. Debbie spoke eloquently of her personal search for reasoned discussion and struggle for representation within her professional association. The Registered Nurses Association of Ontario (RNAO) has taken on a role described in the Sussex Strategy Group's leaked PR report as "THIRD PARTY VALIDATORS" for the wind industry.
( Page 9 http://ontariowindresistance.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/sussex_group_renewable_energy_matters_campaign_outline_18_october_20101.pdf )

Municipality calls for walk-out on McGuinty

The Corporation of the Municipality of Araan-Elderslie has passed a resolution calling on all Ontario Municipalities to walk out on the Premier of Ontario, MPP McGuinty, should his Government not impose a moratorium on Industrial Wind Development in the Province before the combined ROMA/OGRA (Rural Ontario Municipal Association/Ontario Good Roads Association) to be held in Toronto this coming February 26^th to 29^th, 2012.

Ontario Municipalities, and especially Rural Ontario Municipalities, have become ever more disenchanted with the social and financial problems created by the McGuinty Government's Green Energy & Economy Act which stripped municipalities of their democratic right to decide upon and control development in their jurisdiction.

A copy of the Arran-Elderslie Resolution is available here

Wind farm perks hot air: opponents

Algoma-Manitoulin MPP Mike Mantha hears worries about impact of industrial wind turbines on Algoma
By Marguerite LaHaye
http://www.saultstar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3466702

Supporters of Lake Superior Action-Research-Conservation, whose aim is to halt the spread of industrial wind farms, recently told Algoma-Manitoulin MPP Mike Mantha that the taxpayer-subsidized wind energy industry is based on deceit.

“You’ve got to stop the spin that wind can replace (fossil fuels). It can’t. It’s too variable,” said group spokesperson Catherine Bayne during a 90-minute public meeting with Mantha at the Prince Township Community Centre, east of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.

“It requires backup all the time,” said Bayne, who argued that the backup generation cannot operate at peak efficiency when it is boosted or scaled back depending on the amount of wind power. “It actually creates more CO2 emissions, and your dependence on fossil fuel is still there.”

She also cited Chapter 3, Section 3.03 of the Ontario Auditor General’s 2011 report as evidence that the province committed billions of dollars to renewable energy without first conducting a cost/benefit analysis.

The LSARC members, joined by 20 area residents, urged Mantha to seek a moratorium on alternative energy projects pending an independent review of their scientific and economic rationale.

LSARC organizer George Browne told Mantha that presently Ontario has a 35 – 60 per cent surplus generating capacity.

“Based on the Long Term Energy Plan, we have at least five years before we need to start putting in new generation,” Browne said. “Why not stop everything now, do the studies, figure out where we’ve gone wrong, and fix the problems?”

Prince residents also sought Mantha’s support in fighting the proposed installation of eight new turbines at Brookfield Renewable Power’s Prince Wind Farm. They feared the Green Energy Act of 2009 would override local opposition to the wind farm’s expansion.

Though Mantha supported a full review of province’s renewable energy plan, he could not promise that his New Democratic Party’s caucus would back the moratorium.

Instead, he contended that low-impact renewable energy projects make sense. “You don’t have to go large industrial,” he said. You can go small-scale where you don’t interfere with your neighbour ... where you can generate some power on a much smaller scale at your home... where it will also create the jobs.”

But most in the audience argued that, minus a moratorium, large energy projects would continue while the review was taking place.

St. Joseph Island resident Debbie Shubat, the Policy and Political Action representative for the Algoma Chapter of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, said she would ask the RNAO membership to seek a moratorium pending an independent epidemiological study aimed at setting safe noise levels for wind turbines and appropriate setbacks from residential zones.

Shubat presented her findings, which suggested that populations living within two km. of wind farms commonly suffer health problems such as headaches, sleep disturbances, poor concentration, and vertigo.

She noted, too, that the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, which formerly touted wind energy, now backs a moratorium.

Prince resident Maralyn Pandzik told Mantha she was “nervous” about his support for small-scale projects, which she feared would morph into large ones.

Marshall said the entire township — including the council that approved the Prince Wind Farm — had been “lied to” about its impact.

“We don’t want to be tricked again,” she told Mantha. “So I would say stop it ... until proper studies are done and everyone is aware of the pros and cons.”

One Goulais River resident said no one there had been consulted about the Prince Wind Farm, and that their property values had dipped because of the highly visible turbines and “a bank of blinking lights all across the horizon at night.”

First-term Prince Coun. Amy Zuccato told the group that before the wind turbines arrived, her family enjoyed visits to her father’s hunting camp in the shield zone.

“Now we hardly go there at all. All you can hear when you’re up there is whoosh, whoosh.”

Zuccato added that the roads her family had once travelled freely had been replaced by private industrial roads, and camp owners were threatened with trespassing charges if they ventured beyond their own properties.

Ironically, the pre-constuction brochures touting the wind farm promised that it would “open up routes to new outdoor recreation opportunities,” Zuccato said.

Prince Lake residents voiced the same complaints as Zuccato, along with the added worry about turbine fires.

Browne displayed a video clip of lakeside resident Tiina Pajos discussing that possibility.

“Those wind generators are quite close, and when they go on fire it’s usually during a very windy day. It’s not when they’re sitting still,” Pajos said. “So you’ve got a dry forest, a high wind, and one access road. That’s scary,” she said. “I’ve got kids.”

Next, Browne showed a clip of a flaming turbine, explaining that the brakes that keep the blades from spinning too fast sometimes fail.

“They can get too hot and lose friction, and then it starts to spin and build up heat and catches fire,” he said.

Yet wind farms, unlike other large industries, are not required by law to have their own fire suppression equipment, Browne noted.

Other residents voiced concerns about the carnage wreaked upon birds and bats, the possibility of a turbine throwing a blade, and the lack of public awareness that the Green Energy Act trumps local decision-making.

The entire group opposed the further creep of turbines along Lake Superior’s north shore, which they said would spoil the wilderness for generations and make a mockery of Sault Ste. Marie’s motto, “Naturally Gifted.”

Toward the meeting’s end, Jerry Pandzik asked Mantha if he would permit a wind turbine to be erected on his property, given the concerns he had heard.

“No, I wouldn’t,” Mantha replied.

The same resident then asked Mantha whether he would toe his party’s line when he returned to Queen’s Park or support the constituents in their wish to halt the turbines. “At the end of the day, I have to answer to my constituents,” Mantha said.

He advised area residents to keep sending their concerns to his office.

“Every single one of these issues I will be taking up with my caucus, and I will be more than happy to come back at a future time — sooner rather than later, before this comes to fruition — on how you can help me get a message across.”

He told the Prince residents fighting the wind farm’s new turbines to have council pass a resolution requesting input into the Ministry of Energy’s decision about the expansion and reflecting their conviction that they had been misled about the impact of the original power project.

While the band plays on…

A cold sun shines on the parade.

Lots of people have yet to grasp the difference between climate and weather, but oddly there seem to be many who can't even tell the difference between truth and lie. While eastern Europe struggles to wrest itself from the icy grip of a particularly fierce winter, Ontario is experiencing an oddly balmy spell and both are just weather. Even those Germans who understand that may be subconsciously more susceptible to the truth put forth in a new book called "Die kalte Sonne" (The Cold Sun); there is just something about freezing one's buns off which banishes the threat of Global Warming from thought.

We are grateful that in Germany the Pied Pipers of Green seem to be changing their tune. Professor Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, a social democrat and green activist, had an epiphany similar to that of many other IPCC report reviewers; the IPCC dismissed his concern over the hundreds of errors he pointed out. Vahrenholt decided to author this climate science skeptical book with geologist/paleontologist Dr. Sebastian Luning. In his 2008 book "The Deniers" Laurence Soloman compiled stories of many reputable scientists who were similarly disenchanted with climate science tampering.

Marching to a different drummer

The fact then that Germany's main stream media seem to have debarked that particular green bandwagon is actually more remarkable than the current "news" itself. Germany’s national tabloid Bild (circulation 16 million) recently published an article entitled, "THE CO2 LIE" prominently placed, half of page 2, and will follow it with a series. Phrases such as, "Renowned team of scientists claim the climate catastrophe is fear-mongering by politics“ and "The phenomenal prognoses of heat from the IPCC are pure fear-mongering”, seem to herald a return to fact-based if not less sensationalist reporting.

Germany’s flagship weekly news magazine Der Spiegel also featured a 4-page exclusive interview with Vahrenholt. When asked why Hoffmann & Campe decided to publish “such a book”, the spokesman for that highly regarded publishing house simply answered that the time is right – and there’s a real audience for the book. Apparently just not in the rarified atmosphere of University of Osnabruck, which dis-invitied Professor Vahrenholt who was scheduled to give a speech there. The University claimed that Vahrenholt’s skeptical views were “provocative”, perhaps oblivious of the fact that the Professor is more a "warmist" than a skeptic.

Wheels fall off the bandwagon

The main stream media seem to be fading from the wind and solar lobbyist chorus at a time when the wheels of industry are falling off the green bandwagon. A recent survey of 1,520 firms by the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce found that 86% were very concerned about energy, and in the industry sector, 10% had shifted capacity out of Germany and 8% had plans in place to do so.

Michael Limburg (translation Pierre Goslin) writes from Germany that:
"We published this very comprehensive study from our author Dr. Gunter Keil (Dr. Keil was a scientific employee at the Technical University of Munich / Fraunhofer Society, as well as Project Support at the Federal Research Ministry) entitled, ”Germany's Green Energy Supply Transformation Has Already Failed”. (http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/news-cache/germanys-green-energy-supply-transformation-has-already-failed/)

Dr. Gunter Keil's report focusses in detail on the amazing absurdities of Germany's Renewable Energy Feed-In Act and the country’s utopian Energy Transformation. The government, through intrusive meddling and ballooning bureaucracy, has maneuvered Germany's energy supply system into a vicious death spiral: the more the government intervenes, the greater the mess becomes. And the greater the mess becomes, the more the government intervenes! Dr. Keil concludes:
“Germany’s energy transformation has already failed. For Germans, the outlook is bleak. …the planned mismanagement is heavily damaging the economy and will fail spectacularly some years later because its economic and social costs will have become unbearable. The question remaining open is how many billions of euros will have to be destroyed before a new energy policy (a new energy transformation?) picks up the shattered pieces.”

Spinning like a Broken record

This all sounds dreadfully familiar to Ontarians, not because our media has kept us fully and accurately informed of the European experience with the 'new' renewables but sadly because we are already, thanks to equally irrational policies and even more insane subsidies, experiencing many of those economic and social costs. Germany's weather-dependent and sporadic energy supply is starting to wreak havoc on Germany’s power grid, threatening to destabilize power grids all across Europe. In desperation, old inefficient coal plants have been brought back into service and not a single coal or gas-fired power plant has been taken offline despite the highest installed renewables capacity in Europe.

Ontario has tried unsuccessfully to build the essential grid-balancing gas plants in urban centres where they are most needed, potentially adding to the inevitable and massive transmission costs which are pending should we continue placing generators out in the hinterlands.

The Ontario Auditor General found that:

"Although the Ministry consulted with stakeholders in developing the supply-mix directives, the LTEP, and the Green Energy and Green Economy Act, billions of dollars were committed to renewable energy without fully evaluating the impact, the trade-offs, and the alternatives through a comprehensive business-case analysis. Specifically, the OPA, the OEB, and the IESO acknowledged that:

• no independent, objective, expert investigation had been done to examine the potential effects of renewable-energy policies on prices, job creation, and greenhouse gas emissions;

and

• no thorough and professional cost/benefit analysis had been conducted to identify potentially cleaner, more economically productive, and cost-effective alternatives to renewable energy, such as energy imports and increased conservation."

Such a scandalous revelation should have had all our media in full voice, clamouring for an immediate halt to the spreading dementia and demanding the striking of a Select Committee on Energy to call witnesses to account for the wasted BILLIONS....

Energy Minister Bentley's reported response to whether the ongoing FIT review will scale back on renewables was a presumptive, "not a chance" that leaves us all dancing closer and closer to the brink, when the music inevitably stops and we all fall down.

Nominate the Green Energy Champion, Dalton McGuinty, for the 14th Annual Teddy Award

From the Canadian Taxpayer's Federation www.taxpayer.com

The CTF’s annual waste recognition event – the Teddy Waste Awards – are approaching and we need your help.

This is the biggest media event of the year that blows the whistle on government waste. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. And nothing will change unless we put wastrels in the spotlight and demand better from those charged with managing our tax dollars.

The worst wrongdoers - the most specious spendthrifts at the local, provincial and federal level - are singled out for a Teddy - the golden sow, a handsome gilded symbol of government waste and extravagance of the highest order.

And that’s where we need your help. Have you heard of a local, provincial or national story of government waste that you think deserves to be nominated for a Teddy?

If you have a great nominee please email us at: research@taxpayer.com

Last year we awarded a Teddy to Ontario’s tax collectors, who collected $56 million in severance payments when the province converted from provincial sales tax to the HST, even though none of them lost their jobs.

The year before, we honoured Nova Scotia MLA Len "The Master of Multitasking" Goucher, who charged his taxpayer-funded expense account for 11 computers, 12 printers, 5 digital cameras, 4 video cameras and the Xbox game Dance Dance Revolution over a three-year period.

We can’t make this stuff up! But we do need you to tell us your favourite waste story – help us give Canada’s money-wasters the recognition they deserve!

Our Teddy awards get tons of attention from newspaper, TV, and radio reporters, bloggers, even foreign wire services, so please provide an internet link, or attach a document, with more information on your Teddy nominee. We need credible, public news sources to back up the information in our Teddy nominations.

Thanks for all you do,

--Gregory, Courtenay, Derek and the rest of the CTF team

Prince council wants to knock wind out of Green Energy Act

Passes resolutions that target negative aspects of wind energy, emphasize urge to regain voice in deciding whether renewable energy projects built within its boundaries

By Marguerite LaHaye
http://www.saultstar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?archive=true&e=3481084

When Prince Township Coun. Amy Zuccato takes aim against the Green Energy Act, her council colleagues don’t joke about tilting at windmills.

At Zuccato’s urging, they agreed at February’s regular meeting to adopt two resolutions that target the negative aspects of wind energy and underline the goal of many municipalities to regain their voice in deciding whether renewable energy projects are built within their boundaries.

Municipalities lost that voice with the passage of the Green Energy Act in 2009, and the first resolution council adopted gives notice to the Ontario government that Prince Township wants it back.

“I think the power should be given back to the municipalities, given all the negativity surrounding the windmills,” said Coun. Ron Amadio.

Copies of the resolution will be forwarded to Algoma-Manitoulin MPP Mike Mantha and to Premier Dalton McGuinty.

Council then passed a companion resolution seeking a municipal voice if Brookfield Renewable Power should ever wish to add new turbines to its Prince Wind Farm.

Under the Green Energy Act, the township need not be consulted.

At a Feb. 4 public meeting on renewable energy, hosted by Prince and attended by Mantha, residents aired concerns that Brookfield planned to build eight new turbines in the shield zone overlooking Jackson Island.

Brookfield subsequently denied having any such plans; however, Zuccato said she wanted a resolution “just in case” the eight new turbines were proposed in future.

Chambers agreed, noting that before the building of the wind farm in 2005, he attended open house meetings, where he was assured he wouldn’t see any turbines from his Prince Lake home.

“I see 17. And we hear them ... Where they’re going to put them, it’s going to affect other people, so I think we should try to do whatever we can and make it known we want to be involved in the process,” Chambers added.

“There’s adverse health effects tied to the windmills, so having more of them isn’t going to be a good thing for the residents of Prince,” Zuccato said.

“And I don’t want to see more trees cut down for putting eight more up.”

“The township does benefit from the tax dollars from the windmills,” said Lamming. “But we don’t benefit if there’s health aspects.”

Zuccato also proposed a change to Prince Township’s new logo, adopted in 2008, which features the silhouettes of three windmills.

But other councillors pointed to the cost and time involved in getting the logo changed, and preferred not to revisit the issue now.

“I think we should start with the rest of our business which is still waiting,” Chambers said. “Maybe we can bring this up again in another year.”

Council also defeated a resolution petitioning the Ontario legislature to strike a Select Committee on Energy to investigate the numerous concerns with renewable energy cited in the Auditor General’s 2011 report.

Council’s objection to the resolution was based not on its intent, but on its language, which included the phrases “impropriety and corruption” and “lacking in contrition.”

“I think the language is very inflammatory and politically biased,” Yanni said

“I don’t think you’re going to gain anything by that.”

Lamming agreed, cautioning his colleagues that it would be unwise to “mean-mouth” officials of the same government that holds the purse strings for municipal grants.

Zuccato said later that the resolution was generic, circulated provincewide by organizations opposed to the growth of taxpayer-subsidized renewable energy projects without any studies into their cost-effectiveness or their adverse health effects.

She speculated that council would adopt the resolution in future if she requested that it be amended to omit the aggressive language.

Support Lisa Thompson's Private member's Bill - send a letter to MPPs

Please support Progressive Conservative MPP Lisa Thompson's (Huron-Bruce) private members motion which she will be debating in the Ontario Legislature on March 8th, 2012. She is calling for a moratorium on further industrial wind turbine development until third party health and environmental studies have been completed.

The Green Energy Act was passed in 2009, without knowing the physical, social and economic health and environmental impacts of industrial wind turbines. It also removed the power from municipal councils to determine the placement of industrial wind turbines in their community.

Last December, Ontario’s Auditor General confirmed that the Liberal approach to renewable energy is flawed, and has lacked the proper oversight. He said that industrial wind farms were constructed in haste, without proper planning, and without the proper science.

It is very easy to support her: send a letter to all Ontario MPPs by going to this page, cut and paste the form letter into the comments box, enter your contact information in the appropriate places and click submit. It is that easy and won't take more than a minute of your time.

For those of you who have the time and inclination to become more involved in this, please also send a letter to our Algoma-Manitoulin MPP Mantha and demand that he support Lisa Thompson's motion and not absent himself from the vote the way he has on other such occasions.

There will be a representative(s) from LSARC and other members of Ontario Wind Resistance and Wind Concerns Ontario at the Legislature on March 8th to express support for and solidarity with Lisa Thompson. This is not a protest, it is a show of support. Signs, buttons, shirts with anti messages will not be allowed in to the legislature. Anyone and everyone is welcome. Our friends in the Hamilton area are well organized and have made this easy, we are still hoping that there is a group thing assembling to the north of TO but anyone who has connections to the west might be advised to take this opportunity to get on board.

"Hello everyone,

Currently we are working on arrangements to attend Lisa Thompson's private members bill debate and vote on March 8. What we know today is that there are approx. 340 seats that are filled on a first come, first served basis. There may be a room available for about 100 more that has a viewing screen so the debate can be seen live. We will not know until Monday of availability for this room. If all available seats are filled, the overflow would have to stand outside the building. The halls are not used for these people as house rules prevent that. Signs and placards are not allowed inside the building but can be displayed outside. The afternoon session starts at 1:00 pm. There are 3 private members bills being reviewed on this date so by 3:00 pm this one will be debated and voted on. We cannot get into the House of Legislation until the start of the afternoon session. We will need to be at Queens Park by 12:30 at the latest to get in line for a seat. We will be using a coach bus from Wills bus lines in Binbrook that would hold 47 people to go to Queens Park to attend this very important day. Our support for this bill is paramount in its success. Cost for the bus would fall between $20-$25 depending on how many folks will join us. We require at least 37 people to allow the $25 fee. We have clearance to use the Fisherville Community Center parking lot to park and board the bus. The bus will leave Fisherville Community Center at 10:30 or sooner to ensure our arrival at Queens Park is timely enough for us tohopefully get a seat. For now we need to know how many people will join us. Final details will follow early next week when we have them.

Please use this email to reserve a seat on the bus asap: tking813@gmail.com .

If you happened to email Betty or the King's previously, stating your interest in going on the bus, please email Tammy asap to confirm your seat reservation as you now have more details. Once all of the seats are taken, we will put extras on a standby list for any cancellations that occur.

Thank you, "
Tammy King, c.o. Haldimand Wind Concerns

Nurses For Safe Renewable Power Denounce Sussex Group

In 2010, a strategy strategy consulting firm was contracted by members of the corporate industrial wind power generation business, to come up with a plan to help the wind power developers gain and strengthen public support for a pro-wind agenda.

The company, the Sussex Strategy Group, recommended in a private report that was leaked to the media, that:

“it will be critical to ‘confuse’ the issue in the politcal/public/media away from just price..”
“there needs to be a rainbow coalition of validators and messengers”
“Industry and the Alliance [the Green Energy Alliance] must come together to grown [sic] the coalition, amongst not only developers and manufacturers but also other third party validators: unions, economists, health care professionals…”
Health care professionals. In Ontario, the largest group of health care professionals is NURSES, and target us they did. The Registered Nurses Association of Ontario accepted the message that wind power generation is essential to government efforts to health the environment and prevent premature deaths due to air pollution.

The problem is, none of that is true. Nurses were used as a “third party validator” for an inaccurate message.

Our goal here will be to bring balance–and dare we say, TRUTH–to this issue. For now, some interesting facts:

1. Ontario’s air quality has been improving steadily over the last 40 years. The source of Ontario’s air pollution now is industry from south of the border and cars.

2. Ontario relies very little on coal-fired power generation, less than 10% in fact. Ontario suspended a multi-million-dollar program to install clean-emission technology on our coal plants. Closing our remaining coal plants will make no difference to Ontario’s air quality.

3. Ontario is spending about 80% of its funding on renewable energy sources on wind power, which is expensive, inefficient (generally about 27% of capacity) and unreliable. It is also being blamed for health problems due to environmental noise.

4. The indirect health effects of exposure to the environmental noise (audible sound and infrasound /low-frequency noise) are extensive. Currently Ontario has received more than 1,000 complaints of excessive noise, hundreds of people are reporting symptoms due to sleep disturbance/deprivation and stress, and dozens have had to leave their homes.

5. Far from being environmentally friendly, industrial scale wind power generation is damaging to the environment. At Wolfe Island, more than 13 birds are being killed each year per turbine…these are chiefly raptors (eagles, owls etc) that are very important to the eco-system. The foundation for ONE turbine structure requires 70 cement truckloads of concrete.

What we ask: read more, learn more. Especially read the Resolution being presented at the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario (RNAO) Annual General Meeting in April 2012.

Thank you.

Nurses for Safe Renewable Power

nurses4safepower@gmail.com

Prince Township calls on Legislature to strike a select committee on energy

The following is an excerpt from an article in the Sault Star by Ms. Marguerite LaHaye:
http://www.saultstar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3502866

• At the request of Coun. Amy Zuccato, council passed a resolution asking the Ontario legislature to strike a select committee on energy to study the accountability concerns with the government’s renewable energy policy as cited in the auditor general’s 2011 report.
The concerns named in the resolution included focused on instances where taxpayers’ dollars were wasted and where the job creation potential of the renewable energy industry was overblown.

Additionally, the resolution called on the government to return decision-making powers on renewable energy projects to the municipalities, which lost their voices in such matters under the Green Energy Act and the Green Economy Act.

If only more councils would pass such a resolution!

Bow Lake 1 & 2 Geophysical and Road Work Notices

Many thanks to Geri for jogging my memory and bringing these two notices to my attention. Comments on either the Geophysical work or the road Work for the proposed Bow Lake Wind Generating Station must be received by April 2, 2012 at 4:45 PM, latest.

Due to the size of the files I have not attached copies of the notices to this email. Copies of the notices can be found here.

Please comment on these notices. Please note that comments must be specific to the work proposed and not about the Wind Generating Station in general. It is OK to make comments about the Wind Generating Station, but only after having commented on the proposed Geophysical or Road work.

The Environmental impact assessments for the proposed Road Work can be found(4.4MB download) here , and further Bow Lake 1 & 2 Environmental Impact assessments can be found here.

Comments and questions regarding the Geophysical and Road work can be addressed to:

The Ministry of Natural Resources
64 Church Street
Sault Ste, Marie, Ontario
P6A 3H3
Attn: Erin Nixon

Please take the time to comments on either or both of these notices. For those of you who wish to cut & paste from a sample letter, wish inspiration or simply want to see what others have written, please click here

Thank you

First Nations and Non First Nations Walking Together

Protest Hosted by Wikwemikong Elders Community Members and Youth and Supported by MCSEA March 31st, 2012

Our sincere thanks to Geri Turchet and her husband who made the drive to Manitoulin and helped us show our support for other grassroots groups that also oppose senseless Industrial Wind developments.

The protest started at 6:00 AM this morning with the erection of a tepee and lighting of a sacred fire. It was quite cold in the early morning with a skim of snow and ice on the site which melted away as the sun came up and warmed the day. It was a glorious bright early spring day and people began arriving around 10:00 AM and after coffee, muffins, socializing and drumming and singing by members of the Wikwemikong First Nation the speeches started shortly after 12:00 and continued until 2:00 when participants organized themselves for the march into and through Little Current. The March was led by a Wikwemikong Warrior carrying the Eagle staff, accompanied by representatives of other First Nations from Manitoulin Island, the Six Nations and from as far away as Saskatchewan. This vanguard was followed by the Wikwemikong Elders and Youth who in turn were followed by the rest of the participants.

There were at least 125 people at the protest, about 50/50 First Nations and Manitoulin residents. Many more joined the protest march as it proceeded through Little Current. Others stopped and offerred their support enroute to prior committments and the First Nation Language Conference. To continue Reading, watch vid clips and see pictures click here…

Pat Swords Progress From Ireland

Pat Swords has tackled government in a big way in calling both Ireland and the European Union to account for their renewable energy policy. His common-man approach has been to steadfastly insist that the laws which are in place to protect citizen's rights actually be made to work. His tools of preference have been Freedom of Information and the Aarhaus Compliance Committee which though they grind exceeding slow seem to be getting the job done.

We have seen so much ugly greed twisting noble motives that it seems hard to believe that the AARHUS CONVENTION ON ACCESS TO INFORMATION, PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN DECISION-MAKING AND ACCESS TO JUSTICE IN ENVIRONMENTAL MATTERS might actually live up to its eloquent rhetoric. Pat has taken pains to document his arduous path so that others may avoid some pitfalls and we all may gain ground where ever we are fighting the imposition of environmentally and economically damaging, unfair and fundamentally illegal energy policies.

LSARC.ca is happy to have Pat in our corner and congratulate him on the fact that the UNECE has ruled that the manner in which the EU is implementing its renewable energy programme (20% renewable energy by 2020) is not in compliance with the Aarhus Convention.

Continue Reading, watch vidclip and download UNECE documents and Q&A click here…