Fighting the Windpower Industrial Complex: The Eric Bibler Letter (A Grassroots Environmentalist Speaks to Power)

By Kent Hawkins -- November 16, 2010 7 Comments

The unequal contest about the implementation of utility-scale wind plants between a number of ordinary citizens, on one hand, and the system of government intransigence, environmentalist narrowness, strong industry lobby groups, and uninformed public opinion, on the other, is a difficult but necessary one.

In Europe alone, which has the most experience with the wind plants, the number of such groups is approaching 450 in 21 countries. In Ontario Canada, one of the North American extremist jurisdictions in support of wind, the number is 35.

Unfortunately, compared to the wind proponent side, the relatively small number of people fighting wind plants comes from those who are faced with the reality of the prospect of wind plants in close proximity to their communities. However, others who for various reasons have done the necessary research to see past the misconceptions to the reality of the total folly of pursuing such policies have also joined them.…

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Road to Nowhere: Lomborg’s $250 Billion Throw for Renewables a Step Back for the ‘Skeptical Environmentalist’

By Jon Boone -- November 11, 2010 10 Comments

At a time when energy realists need to take the high ground, corporations are bringing us low. Some of this is old fashioned rent-seeking; some greenwashing; and some just political correctness (as if California was the world).

For weeks, Siemens has been running full-page ads for wind technology. Last week Chevron and Weyerhauser, in full-page ads, agree “IT’S TIME OIL COMPANIES GET BEHIND THE DEVELOPMENT OF RENEWABLE ENERGY.

The same slush is coming from GE, AES, BP, Shell, NRG, and a legion of corporations whose fundamental commodity is fossil fuel.

Do these multinationals really believe that wind and solar will put a dent in their fossil fuel market share? Or is something else afoot? One should note that nowhere does this renewable ballyhoo from today’s energy goliaths mention a word about saving the world from the devastation of climate change wrought by the consequences of fossil fuel use, although this was the tack Ken Lay took to steer Enron’s aggressive renewables course.…

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“The Miserable Hum of Clean Energy” (Noise is an emission too, AWEA and D.C. environmentalists)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 11, 2010 9 Comments

“The people who build wind farms are not environmentalists. . . . Business is a delicate balancing act, and chief executives are always walking a tightrope between the needs of the community, their employees, and the marketplace.”

– Paul Gipe, Wind Energy Comes of Age (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995), p. 454.

The front page exposé in the New York Times of another problem of industrial wind—coming on top of Robert Bryce’s eye-opening Wall Street Journal piece on air emissions relating to firming wind energy—presents another problem for Big Wind and Big Environmentalism.

Windpower’s noise problem is nothing new–it has just been swept under the rug by the industrial wind complex. The oft photoshoped pictures of wind turbines skip the sound–that would ruin the idyllic facade of the energy source that is radically uneconomic and an inferior energy source compared to conventional electricity generation.…

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Dear Virginia: Beware of a Windpower Racket in Your State

By Glenn Schleede -- July 14, 2010 3 Comments

[Editor note: This was sent as a July 12, 2010, letter from Mr. Schleede to Virginia’s Governor Robert McDonnell and  Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling]

SUBJECT: Federal and State Tax Breaks and Subsidies for Wind Energy

Introduction:

Both of you have made statements indicating that you favor greater use of wind energy in Virginia and you have used our tax dollars[i] to promote wind energy. However, if you consider objectively the true costs and benefits of electricity from wind, you will conclude that greater use of wind energy is NOT in the best interests of Virginia’s taxpayers or electric customers.

Recently, I have sent you several emails demonstrating that:

· Electricity from wind is very high in true cost and very low in true value.

· The wind industry and other wind energy advocates greatly overstate its benefits and understate its adverse environmental, economic, energy, scenic, and property value impacts.

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John Browne’s 1997 Stanford University Speech: The “Beyond Petroleum” Beginning (and beginning of the end of BP?)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 19, 2010 22 Comments Continue Reading

Economics and Performance – The Primary Deficiencies of Wind Power

By Jerry Graf -- June 17, 2010 9 Comments Continue Reading

Eric Bibler to The Grassroots: Go for the Jugular, Windpower Simply Does Not Work

By -- June 15, 2010 9 Comments Continue Reading

Beyond NIMBY: A Grassroots Strategy to Defeat Windpower

By Thomas Stacy II -- May 29, 2010 16 Comments Continue Reading

The Sierra Club: How Support for Industrial Wind Technology Subverts Its History, Betrays Its Mission, and Erodes Commitment to the Scientific Method (Part II)

By Jon Boone -- April 18, 2010 5 Comments Continue Reading

“Cap-and-Trade” Is Dead–Will the “Federal Renewables Mandate” Be Next? (An “environmental tea party” may be brewing against industrial windpower)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 20, 2010 9 Comments Continue Reading