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02 May 2011

THE SNOUTS IN THE TROUGH

This document has been widely reported by the BBC (amazingly!), the Daily Telegraph and the Times. I thought you should see the original document. It makes staggering reading.

As with all crimes, follow the money.

(You can click on each page to make it more easy to read)

Microsoft Word - ref info note 01 05 11.doc

Microsoft Word - ref info note 01 05 11.doc

Microsoft Word - ref info note 01 05 11.doc

Microsoft Word - ref info note 01 05 11.doc

Microsoft Word - ref info note 01 05 11.doc

18 comments:

  1. It looks as if the right-wing SNP/Tory/Green Alliance will be in for another term after Thursday.
    "Lord" Jim Mather is retiring to spend more time with his money.
    It will be interesting to see which directorships he takes up !

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  2. TBH I'm not sure why you're quite so agitated about this. There's nothing underhanded going on, the payments are just how the system is supposed to work.

    Long term, if we use substantial amounts of wind power then we do need to balance it with pumped storage. What this entails has not been made clear to the public or, I suspect, politicians. Most of Scotland's major Lochs would have to be turned into pumped storage reservoirs similar to Dinorwig, seriously affecting wish and wildlife as well as the tourist industry.

    Unfortunately that will not be easy to explain to people.

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  3. OM: I certainly think that Gentleman Jim is one to watch.

    Jamougha: "There's nothing underhanded going on..." Really? It's dead easy to switch a wind farm off (there's a big "OFF" button) but not nearly so easy to switch off nuclear or gas or coal fired station, so it makes sense to turn off the wind turbines first. But no. That way investors would be less keen to invest in wind. Investing in wind is a cannot lose investment as you are paid massively over the odds to produce power and even more massively NOT to produce power. You don't have to guarantee power availability either.

    The system is Deliberately skewed in favour of the wind energy businesses both in terms of planning consents and payments. See my previous post to work out why. It verges on criminality.

    As to "Long term... etc..." there is not one cat's chance in hell of there EVER being enough pumped storage capacity to back up wind - your proposition is laughable. The sheer cost of providing pumped storage back-up dwarfs that of the subsidies provided to wind power generation!

    If the truth behind the monstrous wind energy scam was ever explained "to the people" (as if they cared...) the politicians would be swinging from the lamp-posts as the "people" are being royally ripped off.

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  4. Yes we have royally conned.
    1/ just two or three turbines spring up - not a major problem and not too much of a blot on the landscape. Now the blasted things are everywhere and sprining up like dandelons.
    2/ Joe public was not loudly told about the subsidies.
    3/ No mentionmade about the necessity of now building more pylons to carry the additional power.
    4/ Joe public not told in bold print about paying wind factories NOT to produce power.
    5/ who the hell do we vote for?

    Whilst walking around the Elan Valley last w/e I tried to ignore the whirling things - it was very windy - more money to them?

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  5. The reason that the wind suppliers were reluctant to shut off supply is that they make most of their money by generating and selling Renewables Obligation Certificates, not electricity. Why not pay less money to the gas power stations to cut their supply? It says in the letter you posted: "...these relatively economical offers could not be taken up by NG because the electricity system must always have access sufficient controllable and flexible energy generation sources to ramp up and down in order to maintain system frequency." Gas and hydro power can be increased or decreased very quickly.

    You say the system is skewed in favour of wind power -- yes of course it is! That's the entire point of current policy, to make wind power artificially attractive and leave fossil fuel power stations inactive whenever the wind is blowing. That's not underhand, it's explicitly how the system is designed.

    You seem to think that the rush to renewables is about making money for Big Wind. The wind industry is tiny in comparison to the oil, coal and gas industries, and they are not short on lobbyists.

    Will there be enough pumped storage to back up wind -- at current levels of production it's technically feasible. It's not if we maximise our wind production, and even if it were then wind would still provide a fraction of the energy we need.

    There are good technical arguments like this for not using wind power, and I favour a fairly minimal investment in wind, at least long term. However you are marginalising yourself by throwing around accusations of a 'scam'. That isn't what is happening.

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  6. We are going to have to disagree on this. Wind Power is a scam. Why build the turbines in the first place when they need conventional power stations as back up?

    The only way they can pay is by huge subsidies (ROC's) and that just makes a nonsense of power generation.

    Salmond, by saying that he wants Scotland's energy to be 100% from renewables by 2020 is making himself Europe's laughing stock.

    And, in the process, he will devastate Scotland's tourism industry by erecting literally thousands of turbines on Scotland's wild land, thus destroying the very character of the land and the reason we go there.

    Add to this the jobs he will be destroying (3.7 for every "green" job created) and the whole wind energy policy is seen to be totally ridiculous.

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  7. The point of wind power is to reduce carbon emissions: when the wind blows a bunch of gas power stations shut down, consuming no fuel and therefore emitting no carbon.

    It's obviously a limited approach and it doesn't work at all without the switchability provided by gas, which is why wind doesn't make much sense in a zero carbon economy unless you also have lots of hydro. Sadly we're unlikely to get rid of gas within the lifetime of the current generation of turbines, though I'd rather see more money spent on longer-term solutions.

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  8. Jamougha, you are pretending to know what you are talking about but clearly you haven't got a clue.

    You say the wind industry is 'tiny' compared to gas and coal.

    Bollocks.

    The wind industry IS THE SAME THING as nuclear, gas and coal. It's the same grey suits, only they've spotted the easiest way to make money out of gullible people like yourself.

    To give but one example, EoN owns bulds and operates both conventional and 'renewable' (a misnomer if ever there was one: is steel renewable? is the rare earth minerals that go into the nacelles renewable? is the thousands of tonnes of concrete that you need for the foundations renewables? No other form of energy production requires as many tonnes of concrete per MW produced) power stations.

    So, please drop the pretence that wind is a small industry compared to the nasty guys. They ARE the nasty guys with a different badge.

    CO2 emissions: have you taken a look at what's happening at the Griffin Wind Farm? You can check some youtube videos in case you're not familiar with that. To commission that wind farm, they've had to fell thousands of trees, widen miles of country road and build new tracks in the hills. Emissions saved? Aye right.

    And if you think gas power stations can be 'switched off' just like that, then you're even more ignorant than you already appear to be (my guess: you're a member of Greenpeace, FOE, or WWF).

    Gas power stations produce a lot more emissions when turned on and off all the time. It's well known, and well documented. So do your homework before coming on here all 'reasonable'.

    Read this report in today's BBC Scotland website. The writer is an ardent supporter of renewables and finally admits we'll need THREE TIMES as many onshore turbines as we have at the moment (that means we'll end up having 4/5,000 turbines on our hills---we have 1,367 operational turbines, 450 being installed (most of them affecting NEW areas in Scotland). That makes 1817 of them. Times 3 gives us 5451 turbines by 2020. Isn't it loverly).

    You want to see every glen filled up with pumped storage reservoirs.

    Great.

    We have shale gas, we have got nuclear, we could power this country twice over with just 4/6 power stations with negligible emissions (you make sound it as if gas is a major polluter: it ain't), but no, you want to defend those who are going to turn every hill and every glen into an inefficient, window dressing folly.

    And you love the hills???

    As for Jim Mather, no prizes for guessing which directory he'll get. Some 'tiny' renewables company no doubt...

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  9. Well said Andy B. I was just getting fired up to post something very similar - this isn't good for my blood pressure. Is this Jamougha for real? You may be right about GP, FOE or WWW - but I am always suspicious that some of these people are from that wonderful organisation Yes2Wind or similar - a PR company that wheel out paid 'eco-warriers' from just about anywhere to demonstrate opposite local wind farm action groups.
    And to you Jamougha - you really don't know what you are talking about. Many of us here have taken the time and trouble to research before we post about the scam that is wind power. It is incredibly polluting and as for reducing carbon emissions that is laughable. You ought to read a 2000page Evironmental Statement produced by developers and see what they don't include in their calculations when they say how long it will take before a wind farm is carbon neutral. Connection to the grid, possibly miles away - nothing. Use of rare earth minerals mined in China causing toxic waste & pollution - nothing. Decommissioning of wind farm in 25 years when subsidies end - nothing. I could go on but I won't!

    Those of you in Scotland think about a tactical vote on Thursday for the only party that is calling for a moratorium on wind farms - they will never rule us but they could cause the 'smug one' a headache!

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  10. Could I get a constraint payment if I put up a fan and threated to let in blow in the wind ? Or is it only fans that are big enough to blight the landscape.

    Good luck on the campaign

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  11. Pumped storage. Someone needs to do their sums. Sounds plausible until you look into it. They are fantastic for peak demand, for which they were designed for, but for relatively short time scales. As for anything else, dream on. Yes, we need Glendoe to cover the overall increase in demand and therefore peak demand. That is when they eventually get it on line! This is the real issue with all renewable. They cannot produce the power in a consistant enough manner at the times that we need it. Therefore they need back up from nuclear, gas, coal or bio-mass. All of which have issues. The real effect of this is that we are paying thrice for the same thing. Wind farms(or alternatives), backup generation(coal, gas or nuclear) and subsidies to equal or exceed that paid to the wind factories for the power itself. And for the cash that is being thrown at it, not only in the UK, it is surely the biggest scam of our lifetime if not ever!

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  12. Well, I seem to have stirred up some emotions.

    I also seem to be being treated as a supporter of wind power, in spite of pointing out the very real disadvantages of wind and stating that I'm in favour of other solutions. I don't "want to see every glen filled up with pumped storage reservoirs": I offered that as a disadvantage of wind, something that Alan could use in his blog.

    Actually I'm a proponent of nuclear power as our main source of energy, and I've argued in favour of nuclear on reddit.com under this name if anyone cares enough to check. My google account, which I'm posting from, probably also has enough history and information to convince someone that I'm not a sockpuppet.

    Andy and Lyndsey, in order to convince people that we shouldn't use wind you will have to, well, convince them. If you can't debate matters of fact with someone who broadly agrees with you without resorting to personal attacks and accusations of being a stool for the wind industry then I doubt very much that you can engage people who actually disagree with well enough to change their minds. I suggest a different attitude would be more productive.

    I doubt my continued participation is going to do much good here, so I guess I will wish you all the best with your campaign and say goodbye.

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  13. Hi Jamougha

    I'm sorry if you were treated roughly on my blog - but Andy B & Lyndsey have been fighting this corner for a long time and, understandably, have become very wary of the tactics used by the pro-wind lobbyists.

    So many half-truths are repeated over and over again by that pro-wind brigade that they are becoming established facts in the minds of the uninformed. As you will have gathered both Andy and Lyndsey (& me!) have heard it all before and are incredibly frustrated that the truth about the economics and engineering feasibility is not getting 'out there'.

    Please excuse them (& my own) abruptness, but we are realising that the battle against wind energy businesses is being hopelessly lost and our wild places will soon be buried under the industrialisation of steel turbines, miles of access roads, huge chains of pylons and the permanent loss of the "wild".

    I will be organising a "Wake for the Wild" shortly - so please do came back & visit - your support would be appreciated.

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  14. Jamougha, a thousand apologies if I misunderstood your points. Your first few posts gave the strong impression that you were defending the system.
    As Alan says, we've been fighting for our hills on lots of other forums where you always get the wind guys coming up with arguments of the kind you were putting forward in your first post.

    Sorry if I misread your position.

    You're right about politeness but it's such a desperate situation for us that it's getting harder and harder to keep one's cool.

    A couple more days to the elections and luckily for me I haven't bumped into Alex Salmond canvassing around here (or I'd ended up under lock and key I fear!).

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  15. Jamougha - sorry if I was a bit prickly before. I'm afraid the thought of being governed by the Smug One for the next five years may have clouded my judgement somewhat. I just get fed up with repeating the same arguments over and over again. The facts are out there for anyone to look at if they care enough. I think the case against commercial wind farms has been clearly posted here many times by many people. The data produced by independent bodies should be enough to convince anyone that wind power is not the way to go - except for the politicians apparently. Someone just told me the Smug One is now saying Scotland can produce 150% power from renewables and export the 50% we don't need. If that's true ........give me strength!

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  16. Some more figures !

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/douglasfraser/2011/05/reality_check_how_many_wind_tu.html

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  17. Many thanks for that link Oh Masterful one... I had spotted it and stuck it up on Face-Wipe earlier today but then promptly forgot to stick it up on here.... doh! Put it down to too much on my plate at the moment or just simple senility... Probably the latter. It is a jolly good article though, eh? And... from the BBC! Interestingly, the Business section, not the totally corrupted Environmental mob at the Beeb...

    In the end, it will be businesses that finally bury wind, as hard-nosed industrialists recognise a donkey dressed up as a Page 3 gurl as a donkey. The trouble is, while governments pour *our* money onto the scam, investors will still carry on investing, until the bubble bursts.

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