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Archive for March 5th, 2012

Mar 5

Perth-Wellington to Hold Public Meeting on Wind Energy

The Beacon Herald — March 5, 2012

By BRIAN SHYPULA, Beacon Herald Staff

Perth-Wellington MPP Randy Pettapiece is holding a public town hall meeting to give constituents a chance to voice their concerns about wind energy.

The meeting is being held at Elma Memorial Community Centre in Atwood on March 14 at 7p.m.

“When it comes to wind turbines, the McGuinty government has not been serious about consulting the public,” Pettapiece said in a release. “If they won’t, we will.”

Huron-Bruce MPP Lisa Thompson and Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli also plan to be at the gathering to hear from residents of Perth-Wellington. Fedeli is the Progressive Conservative critic for energy. Thompson’s critic responsibilities focus on issues related to the Green Energy Act.

“Industrial wind farms are a very hot topic, and people are concerned,” said Pettapiece.

 Full article

Mar 5

Ken Lewenza’s Radio Interview with Dale Goldhawk

From February 22, 2012

Dale Goldhawk (740 Zoomer Radio) interviews Ken Lewenza about the CAW wind turbine in Port Elgin.

 

I have transcribed the entire 23 minute interview.  It wasn’t easy, because half the time I couldn’t understand what the hell Ken was talking about.  His gibberish often made no sense.   I persevered though and typed it up exactly as he spoke — word for word.

If you can’t make sense of what he was saying either that’s not my fault.  It’s the way he double-talks, spins the truth and generally talks in circles, hoping to confuse the issue as much as possible.

Listen and read along to radio interview here

Mar 5

Affordable Energy Will Power Economy — Tim Hudak

Niagara this Week — March 5, 2012

PC leader to table bill halting FIT program

Tim Hudak will be tabling a private member’s bill Wednesday to address Ontario’s affordable energy needs.

“Average Ontario energy prices could soon be the highest in North America outside Prince Edward Island,” said Hudak, MPP for Niagara West-Glanbrook, citing a recent study. “And at a time when we’re producing a surplus of electricity, we’re continuing to build even more capacity. This is a recipe for waste and inefficiency, costing us billions of dollars.”

The Ontario PC leader said Ontario needs a pro-growth economic plan founded on affordable energy to attract jobs and investment. Hudak said his approach is based on four principles: halting the province’s Feed-in-Tariff program, refocusing energy policies on the principle of competition, dealing with existing infrastructure issues and target investments where they are required and looking at new source of supply “including increased electricity trade – with the best interests of ratepayers as our bottom line.”

Hudak said that the province’s Green Energy Act, which pays energy developers two to 10 times the price of other forms of power, was based on a European model that is rapidly being abandoned. He pointed to the experiences of Spain, Germany, Italy and France where comparable programs have proven to be costly and rapidly scaled back.

Full article

Mar 5

Sweden

Assault on Sweden’s nature and quality of life

Peter Skeel Hjorth - Journalist — August 13, 2010

Having applied for the permission to erect 10 gigantic wind turbines near the little town of Färingtofta in Northern Scania, the world’s second largest energy conglomerate has taken the first step in a process that will ultimately cause the destruction of much of what people like so much about Sweden: its quiet, undisturbed forests and rural landscapes.

The proportions in this model are stritctly correct. Färingtofta Church is 15-metre high and the trees are 25-metre high. The giant machine is 180-metre high.

E.ON’s  machines, reaching 180 meters in the sky, will stand out well above the tree line, creating a visual pollution for many miles around and disturb the nearby habitations with noise, low frequency sounds, shadow flickers and flashing lights.

At Färingtofta E.ON seeks to put to test the legal noise limit, which in Sweden is 40 dBA for the nearest habitations. A concerned resident telephoned Henrik Malmberg, E.ON’s group manager for wind power planning in the Nordic countries. He was told: “we are fully aware that they will create disturbances. However, we want to test if the disturbances are within the legal limits.”

The wind power industry knows very well that wind turbines are noisy and disturbing. The New York Times reported a case in the US where the American company Caithness Energy offered 5,000 dollars to neighbours in the small town of Lone, Oregon, for renouncing their rights to complain or sue the company regarding nuisance caused by the wind turbines.

In the forest around Färingtofta, it is so quiet one can “hear the silence”.  There are very few areas like this in Southern Sweden. The noise disturbance from the ten giant turbines is calculated to be 35-40 dBA spread over about 22 square kilometers. If planning approval is  granted as submitted, the closest habitations will be at the very limit of the 40 dBA zone. In real life, however, they might be subject to sounds exceeding 40 dBA.

Full article at EPAW

Mar 5

Words of Wisdom for Ken Lewenza and the CAW

“No matter how far you’ve travelled down the wrong road…turn back.”  – Turkish proverb

THE WRONG ROAD

Mar 5

1 Comment

Another great Pointman article — “The Climate Wars”

by Pointman on March 2, 2012

If you’ve ever fought someone much bigger and stronger than you, then you learn some lessons quickly or you perish. If you stand your ground, they’ll destroy you, because they’re just so much more powerful than you, so you give ground.

You’ve still got to fight them, so you jab at them as you give ground and go slowly backwards. That’s just tactics. Ground means nothing; it’s pinning and destroying your enemy in the end that’s important. Usually, they’re big bastards not used to people smaller than them standing up to them, so they go after you even harder. It’s a pride thing. You’re going to be made an example of and you know it. They’ve got pretty much everything in terms of advantages but you’ve got heart and mind and you want to survive, not win. That is a big difference. If you can just hang on in there, then you can maybe build from that position.

You have to stop thinking of it as a battle but just a part of a bigger campaign. Bullies do battles very well but campaigns very badly. This particular battle you’ve got no possibility of winning but neither are you going to lose it. The tactical objective is for it to be non-decisive. In strategic terms, you hope to win the campaign by not being exterminated in any particular battle of it. You begin to accept that you are going to have to take some bad beatings but that never means you’re giving up.

Complete article