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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“Birds of Prey Remain at Risk” (Windpower’s ‘avian mortality’ issue today)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 24, 2010 3 Comments

“Citing a dearth of applicable wind-generation modifications, Dick Anderson of the California Energy Commission suspects that current bird fatality levels in the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area (WRA) will mirror those revealed by a 1991 CEC study.  ‘Very little has been done by the wind companies to effectively change the situation,’ Anderson recently said.  Though studies have yielded a ‘better understanding’ of avian causalities, few measures appear to be reducing avian impacts.”

– Staff Article, “Altamont Avian Mortality Continues; Improvements Grounded,” California Energy Markets, January 23, 1998, p. 2.

Last week, my post “Cuisinarts of the Air” (Revisiting an environmentalist term for windpower)” ended with the question and a request for readers:

So what has happened in the last decade regarding industrial wind in bird-sensitive areas? Comments and updates welcome!

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“Cuisinarts of the Air” (Revisiting an environmentalist term for windpower)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 19, 2010 12 Comments

Avian mortality is the scientific term applied in environmental assessments of windpower. But there is another term that has gained currency where industrial wind has impacted local bird activity.

This post documents the historical use of the term, which was coined by the Los Angeles representative of the Sierra Club in the late 1980s. The term came back into use when environmentalists challenged a project of Enron Wind Corporation, now a subsidiary of General Electric.

Looking back, if environmentalists and regulatory authorities had cracked down on industrial wind, this artificial government-dependent industry could have been avoided altogether or shut down.

Instead, with Big Environmentalism leading the way, and anti-energy intellectuals welcoming the high cost-low reliability of wind, this inferior power source has been allowed to grow.

And now, grass-roots environmentalists are leading the charge against industrial wind.…

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Government Gluttony at the American Wind Energy Association (Summers/Browner/ Klain memo indicates growing ‘wind fatigue’)

By -- November 15, 2010 10 Comments

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) is on a mission to keep its members fat and happy as they bloat up at the public trough. The goals are simple:

1) Create a set-aside power market that pays a premium for wind energy and eliminates competition for lower-cost, more reliable fuel options;

2) Encourage policies that pave the way for wind-related transmission development at the expense of rate- and taxpayers; and

3) Make permanent the free-flow of public subsidies for renewables and shield the spigot from changing political and economic tides.

In the last two years, AWEA’s had some success. On the power market front, more than half the States have RPS programs mandating that a percentage of their electricity needs be met with renewable energy. Many states have loose enough standards to avoid the damage that otherwise would be done, but Texas, in particular, has coerced its way into windpower growth (the legacy of Enron, by the way).…

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Bill White: “In These Challenging Times, Enron Deserves Our Thanks”

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 12, 2010 2 Comments Continue Reading

OVERBLOWN: Windpower on the Firing Line (Part I)

By Jon Boone -- September 13, 2010 19 Comments Continue Reading

German Wind Capacity Revisited: High Cost versus Least Cost

By Donald Hertzmark -- September 7, 2010 4 Comments Continue Reading

Remembering When Enron Saved the U.S. Wind Industry (Best of MasterResource)

By -- September 4, 2010 15 Comments Continue Reading

BP Fools the “Socially Responsible” Investors (‘Green’ Enron did too)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 20, 2010 3 Comments Continue Reading

They Loved BP and Enron: Climate Alarmism as the Great Environmental Distraction (Part I: Worldwatch Institute quotations)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 28, 2010 12 Comments Continue Reading