Oxymoronic Windpower (Part II: Windspeak)

By Jon Boone -- January 19, 2011 17 Comments

Windspeak: Language used by those who profit financially, politically, or ideologically from wind technology that disguises, distorts, or reverses the meanings of words in order to promote the technology. Oxymorons, which combine incongruous or contradictory terms, abound in windspeak—viz, windpower, wind capacity, responsible windpower (double oxymoron), windfarms, windparks, wind jobs, wind reliability workshops, and wind as alternate energy. Generally any claim made for the technology in windspeak produces the virtually opposite effect in reality.

With the right story and no accountability, Madison Avenue can sell fantasy wholesale. Rock Hudson’s ad executive did just this 50 years ago in the charming send-up to our commercial culture, Lover Come Back, when he successfully marketed a non-existent product, VIP.

Nothing illustrates this idea better than the au courant fantasia about wind technology, where public relations legerdemain has deployed the power of windspeak to give wind a complete makeover, transforming a klutzy pretender into a seemingly benevolent superhero unbound by the laws of physics and even its own history.…

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Oxymoronic Windpower (Part I: Howlers)

By Jon Boone -- January 18, 2011 26 Comments

Definitions:

Howler: A ridiculous idea or proposition, one that elicits howling laughter; also, a type of magic spell from the Harry Potter series.

Bellyfeel: A blind, enthusiastic acceptance of an idea, taken from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, where any good Oceanian internalizes Party doctrine such that it becomes gut instinct—a feeling in the belly.

Blackwhite: In Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, a word that has two contradictory meanings, used to convey how people have been propagandized to believe that black is white while never realizing that the reverse might be true. It is the ultimate achievement of newspeak that requires a continuous alteration of the past made possible by a system of controlled thought.

Every major claim made by those who would profit, either financially or ideologically, from wind technology is replete with Owellian doublespeak.…

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China and Wind: What a Waste

By Kent Hawkins -- January 11, 2011 16 Comments

Setting aside the matter that wind turbines are not an effective means to supply utility-scale electricity, the claims of job creation and 21st century industrial development are equally illusory. A New York Times (NYT) article last month spoke volumes on this.

I have frequently claimed that the recently created wind turbine manufacturing industries in Europe (Denmark, Germany and Spain) are in jeopardy from competition by the emerging giants, China, India and the U.S. The Times article reports that China now controls almost half of the global market, having absorbed billions of dollars in government assistance and consumer subidies.

The wind businesses in these European countries have existed for little more than a decade, and having saturated their domestic markets, have enjoyed a brief, and unsustainable, dominance of global markets. I may have been mistaken in including the U.S.…

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2010: The Year that Climate Alarmism Melted

By -- January 3, 2011 5 Comments

[Editor note: Tomorrow’s post looks at Big Science-Big Environmental’s new plan to push climate alarmism at the public. For a look at scientific momentum away from scary climate scenarios, see Chip Knappenberger, “What Does the Last Decade Tell Us About Global Warming? (Hint: the ‘skeptics’ have the momentum).]”

It was the year that climate-change alarmism (aka anthropogenic global-warming alarmism) died, a passing all the more noteworthy because it seemed so unlikely 12–15 months ago.

Few ideas in all of history had the salience and durability that warming alarmism used to have. Higher temperatures and accumulating carbon would bring planetary catastrophe–all our fault by using the dense energy known as oil, gas, and coal.

It became a religious issue, but this time one with science on its side. A consensus of scientists would team up with a consensus of busybodies to bring us an unending stream of penitential sacrifices.…

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Energy at the Speed of Thought (Part I: The Original Alternative Energy Market)

By -- December 20, 2010 16 Comments Continue Reading

“Clean Energy Standards”: The Sky is the (Price) Limit

By -- December 17, 2010 8 Comments Continue Reading

Climate Hearings in the 112th Congress: GOP Chairmen Will Need Talent Like Jim’s

By -- December 14, 2010 6 Comments Continue Reading

Cape Wind: Spreading the Pain

By -- December 13, 2010 8 Comments Continue Reading

Energy and Poverty – What is Really at Stake in Cancun

By Donald Hertzmark -- December 6, 2010 8 Comments Continue Reading

Death to the Chicago Climate Exchange ($7.40 to a nickel per CO2 ton, the market has spoken)

By William Griesinger -- November 18, 2010 8 Comments Continue Reading