Comment

Comment by freemont tibbetts on August 22, 2012 at 1:08pm

    Good reading on the facts on our wind scam in the state of Maine.       I thank you. 

Comment by Long Islander on August 22, 2012 at 11:00am

James - whether one believes in global warming or simply regards CO2 as mere plant food, wind "farms" make almost no dent in emissions. There are several studies that show this. These are of course all vigorously discredited by the wind industry and their paid off shills.

 

But there is one set of data that the likes of Angus King and the wind cheerleaders like NRCM cannot argue with - because NRCM is the source of the figures. NRCM used these figures for the purpose of dimensionalizing how much CO2 wind "farms" avoid. Yet in doing so they have unwittingly handed over to us information which when put in proper perspective demonstrates that the 360 miles of ridgeline destruction they envision for Maine via wind turbines will have an effect on global warming/cooling equal to that produced by a mere 1% of the Maine woods. In other words, the wholesale transmogrification of Maine's core essence, its natural beauty and tranquility, is being done in exchange for virtually nothing. 

Our analysis of NRCM's CO2 figures and this most lopsided ill conceived tradeoff may be read here:

NRCM_CO2_From_a_Different_Point_of_View.pdf

Comment by Jim Lutz on August 21, 2012 at 10:03pm

 

Exclusive: Christopher Monckton of Brenchley on economics of fighting 'global warming'

ERICE, Sicily – The capture of the once-pure environmental movement by the hard left is far from cheap for the rest of us. I have just told the annual planetary-emergencies conference of the World Federation of Scientists that on the basis of the lunatic anti-CO2 policies now fashionable among scientifically illiterate governments, it would cost $6 quadrillion to prevent the 6 degrees Fahrenheit of predicted “global warming” that will not happen anyway.

Professor Antonino Zichichi, one of the world’s top six particle physicists (he discovered a form of anti-matter 40 years before the multi-billion-dollar Large Hadron Collider did), is the most famous Italian scientist since his hero Galileo. He founded the Federation half a century ago and, at the age of 83, is its president to this day.

Nino looks like a proper scientist. Imagine giving his friend Albert Einstein an electric shock, and that is what his hair looks like. He is fitter than me and attributes his good health to walking an hour every day, not drinking alcohol and not eating lunch (that’s for wimps). He lives in a medieval stone house in the unspoiled, monastic village of Erice, Sicily, perched high on a 2,500-foot crag overlooking the blue Mediterranean.

He is an angry man. Angry because he, like me, was brought up in the Classical tradition, which insists that the duty of every “seeker after truth” (Al-Haytham’s beautiful phrase for the scientist) is to be logical and rational. He founded the Federation at the height of the Cold War to remind scientists of their moral responsibility to use their craft for good, not for ill, and of their intellectual obligation to adhere rigorously to the scientific method.

Nino is furious at the politicization of climate science. Science these days is a monopsony. There is only one paying customer: the State. Scientists increasingly produce the results their political paymasters want rather than seeking after truth.

Nowhere is the buying of desired results by governments clearer than in Nick Stern’s now-discredited report of 2006 on climate economics. The U.N.’s absurd climate panel had already at least tripled the true (and harmless) rate of warming to be expected from our adding CO2 to the air. Stern, to please his socialist paymasters, tripled it again without the slightest justification. Then he divided by 10 the true cost of making global warming go away and multiplied by 10 the true cost of not acting to Save The Planet (memo to Old Nick: The planet was triumphantly saved 2,000 years ago and doesn’t need saving again).

Tony Blair, the shifty socialist prime minister of the day, was so delighted with this nonsense that he gave Stern a peerage and installed him as head of the Grantham Institute, a lavishly funded propaganda institution promoting fear of climatic Armageddon and hatred of the West.

Using Old Nick’s report as a pretext, Blair (with the near-unanimous support of all parties, including Call-Me-Dave Cameron’s Not-The-Conservative-Party) introduced the biggest tax increase in human history. With only three votes against, the Climate Change and National Economic Hara-Kiri Act was passed on the very night when the first October snow for 74 years was falling outside in Parliament Square.

With the help of the Italian Government, which takes an intelligent interest in science, Nino Zichichi bought three redundant monasteries in Erice and turned them into a center of scientific excellence, where the world’s finest minds come throughout the year to attend courses and seminars and to exchange ideas.

The crème da la crème come to the annual seminars on planetary emergencies every August. This year, at my suggestion, the Federation’s climate panel organized a discussion on climate economics. None of the distinguished speakers had a kind word for Old Nick and his silly report. In particular, he was criticized for his wild exaggeration of the supposed threat. After 15 years without any global warming at all, his conclusion that there is a 10 percent chance the world will end this century because of global warming now looks sad and dated.

President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic gave the keynote lecture. At the U.N.’s Save-The-Planet climate conference in 2007, he had been the only leader to speak out publicly against the climate scam. A dozen other world leaders told him privately that they agreed with him but did not dare say anything publicly.

President Klaus demanded a hard-headed rational approach to climate policy-making, as did Lord Lawson, Margaret Thatcher’s former finance minister. Professor Ross McKitrick, who had exposed the U.N.’s fraudulent attempt to abolish the medieval warm period in 2001, said climate models and the policies based on them should be adjusted to take account of the failure of temperature to rise as predicted.

Using Australia’s new carbon dioxide tax as a case study, I demonstrated that it is 48 times more expensive to try to make global warming go away than to let it happen and enjoy the sunshine.

Nino, having heard the arguments, announced a new permanent panel to monitor developments in climate economics. Now hear this, if you are thinking of writing a bogus report like Old Nick’s to please your government paymasters: We are watching.

President Klaus’ lectio magistralis to the Federation is available here. My paper is here.

They demonize capitalism and freedom … and it’s working! Read Brian...

Comment by Robert Moulton on August 21, 2012 at 9:44pm

AMEN !!

Comment by Jim Lutz on August 21, 2012 at 9:38pm

I was recently chastised by several of my liberal friends about the fact that I was making the renewable energy push in the State of Maine, political.  It’s not political?  Please!!!!  Our government, both State and Federal, is on the verge of bankruptcy and they continue to make huge contributions to alternative energy in spite of massive failures and waste.  They have supported companies like Solyndra, Abound and close to 300 more that have all failed to produce jobs, let alone products that can be marketed.  There is not one shining light among them that is close to being solvent . . . NOT ONE!  And they have sucked down more than $10 Billion, that’s right BILLION, in taxpayer dollars.  A lot of these have been solar companies, but if you think it is any better in the wind industry, think again. 

 

Probably the biggest and most well known wind investor is T. Boone Pickens.  In 2006 and 2007 he announced plans to build a huge wind farm in West Texas, and began trying to implement it into the grid.  T. Boone was ready to spend $170 million of his own dollars.  Texas had to pass a $4.5 billion upgrade to go on the backs of ratepayers and did.  (Sound familiar?)  He ordered the first 660 turbines, but after two years of haggling and trying to find investors, he abandoned the project altogether.  NO ONE could see the possibility of profit in the project, and the power produced would be three or four times the cost of gas, coal, oil or hydro power.  They couldn’t sell it. 

 

Enter the Obama Administration and taxpayer money.  This administration has invested us in projects that are just plain BAD economics.  They are making it harder for middle class people and small businesses to buy energy at reasonable prices, and it is only going to get worse.  Throwing money we don’t have at businesses that can’t make profits without the subsidies is just plain stupid.  Or maybe it is the plan.  We have to be SMART, not ideological toward our goal of cheap, reliable long term energy.  Hydro would fall into that SMART category, but we have been told that is not a renewable source.  WHAT????  Our dams have been producing energy 24/7/365 for more than 100 years.  But now they are being dismantled, another ridiculous move by the environmentalists.  Hydro is one of the easiest to manage, reliable and cheapest to produce. 

 

Angus King has had his hands out, too.  After making law while he was Governor that Maine would be at a 30% renewable level by 2016, he left Blair House and promptly put together a group to initiate wind farms in Maine.  He ignored the hydro and called it not renewable.  He sold a bill of goods to the new Governor, Baldacci, and the Democratic House and Senate.  They passed it without even a debate.  And so the desecration and destruction of our wilderness mountaintops began. 

 

This is just bad business, and is bad for the scenic beauty of our state.  We have had rate increases due to the grid upgrade, and have recently been told that these upgrades, $1.4 BILLION, will need to be further upgraded to the tune of $19 to $27 BILLION.  That’s right.  I said BILLION.  What will our electric bills look like if these monstrosities continue to be built?  And what will our mountains look like with another 2,000 of these 450 foot towers lined up every half a mile?  That would be over 900 miles of mountaintops clear cut and blasted away to make way for roads and huge concrete pads to bolt these things down to.  CO2 sequestration is the reason they say we need the wind, but what about the trees that sequester CO2 that are cut down?  What about the hundreds of pieces of heavy equipment to build the roads and the towers?  And what about the fact that wind turbines only produce 20 – 25% of their rated power, and it skitters.  These are all facts that are being reviewed by our current Governor, and he has promised to slow the fast track for wind.  It is also going to be the policy of the challenger to Obama and his administration. 

 

So if you don’t think there is politics involved in these decisions, keep your head in the sand.  We really do have a choice, a serious choice, to make this November.  We have seen how our freedoms have been curtailed and programs have been shoved down our throats without our approval.  We, the landowners and abutters, should have the say as to what is done with our property and our towns.  There have been hundreds of new agencies formed in the last four years, and they are becoming more and more intransigent in meeting our requests and needs.  They say things like, “It is for the greater good” and they think they know best what to do for us.  It’s time we take back making our own decisions and shrink this ballooning bureaucracy.  Politics does matter.      

Comment by Robert Moulton on August 21, 2012 at 9:23pm

They Lie - They Steal - WE THE TAX PAYER AND LAND OWNER PAY !!!

Comment by Rick Conrad on August 21, 2012 at 8:34pm

    There is nothing lower or more dirty rotten than a public official that uses their position of public authority for their own personal gain.