Renewable energy, also known as greed energy, is a wealth redistribution scheme, according to a recent article in the telegraph. Money is taken from the taxpayers and squandered, the author contends, for an industry created by subsidies and almost solely subsisting on subsidies as company after company goes bust.
Green jobs are not jobs. The industry raises the price of energy destroying jobs elsewhere. Green jobs only exist because of subsidies and at the expense of every producer.
For all the expense related to subsidizing wind turbines, there are fewer jobs being created.
Kenneth Green of American Enterprise Institute found that an equal amount of capital would create one job in the green sector and 4.8 – 6.9 jobs in industry or the economy in general.
Researchers have also found that the vast majority of green jobs created were temporary. Most of the jobs created (60%) end up being for installers or temporary work such as construction and disappear once the panel or wind tower is operative.
In Europe, according to the same article, “the anti-carbon and renewable agenda is not only killing jobs by closing steel mills, aluminum smelters and power stations, but preventing the creation of new jobs at hairdressers, restaurants and electricians by putting up their costs and taking money from their customers’ pockets.”
According to the Renewable Energy Foundation, the cost of the subsidies in the UK will in a few years equal 1% of the GDP, more than the EU economy grew this year.
By contrast, in the US, according to a report from IHS Global Insight, the gas revolution has created 148,000 jobs directly and 450,000 indirectly. By 2015, there will be 870,000 new jobs thanks to gas production.
The author of the telegraph article said this: “Let me explain, once more for their benefit, in very simple language why I have a problem with the man-made global warming industry: on the basis of little hard scientific evidence (only computer projections), trillions of pounds, dollars and euros are being pumped into projects which make energy needlessly more expensive, cause tremendous environmental damage, slow down economic growth, stifle liberty and destroy jobs.”
If a product is good, it doesn’t need outlandish subsidies, the free market will take care of it. Simply put, subsidies amount to increased socialism and less freedom.
The wind and solar farms are growing throughout the world, not because of their effectiveness, but because of the subsidies.
Some people are fighting back.
In a village in Orston, UK, the villagers are fighting plans for four wind farm developments. It’s a battle being fought throughout Britain.
Applications for these farms come at the rate of about one a month in the summer. The first was for a wind turbine five times higher than the tower of the local church, which would loom over the cricket pitch. It was taller than Nelson’s Column at 242ft.
The next was the same height and then came a solar farm with 50,000 panels. They are burying the town and the subsidies come at a great price.
Last year, the subsidies for wind turbine owners in the UK alone came to £1.2 billion.
In the UK, energy prices are skyrocketing with no end in sight. Taxpayers are seen as ‘green energy cash cows.’ Some are calling for the green energy taxes to be rolled back.
Wind farm corruption is rampant in the US.
In windy Wyoming, NY, wind developers moved in to the tune of $655 million with three projects. It was so lucrative that landowners received $8000 a year for each turbine and towns received direct payments, allowing three of them to give up collecting property taxes according to the Buffalo News.
This comes at a price. Everyone else has to subsidize Buffalo.
An investigation into whether the companies bribed or intimidated municipal officials to approve the projects compelled Andrew Cuomo to put a code of conduct in place. One local official voted for the project even though his brother-in-law had five turbines on his property.
While no one was prosecuted, the companies agreed not to hire town officials responsible for approving wind projects or pay off official’s relatives. There are fines of $50,000 to $100,000 if this is violated, according to Green Energy.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo investigated First Wind of Massachusetts and Noble Environmental Power of Connecticut because of accusations that they attempted to acquire land permit approvals for several projects in NY by bribing officials and using anti-competitive business practices.
The NY Times reported corruption in 12 counties in NY.
The corruption is worldwide, however, and it is rife throughout the EU, thanks to the overzealous demands of the Kyoto treaty, which Presidents Bush, Clinton and Obama have supported in part or in whole, and thanks to the subsidies.
Brussels has ordered all 27 EU nations to ensure that 1/5th of their energy is renewable by 2020 and has given out an average of 5 billion Euros in subsidies annually. Wind farmers can then claim generous premiums for every watt of electricity they generate. Italy sells power from wind farms for 180 Euros per kwh, the highest rate in the world.
From the Energy Tribune: “According to the US corporate security consultancy, Kroll, the Mafia and organized crime generally, have been skimming millions of Euros from the EU’s €6 billion ($8.7 billion) clean energy budget since 2007. Originally set up to fund green projects between 2000 and 2013, Kroll has detected increasing fraud and criminal activity, especially over wind subsidies in Italy, Spain, Romania, Bulgaria, as well as other parts of central and eastern Europe.”
Jason Wright, a Kroll senior director who is responsible for monitoring projects by legitimate clients, says, ‘The energy sector has always had a higher level of corruption issues, but EU pressure to meet lower carbon targets has undoubtedly created a gold rush mentality towards EC alternative energy subsidies.’”
Scams range from building wind turbines that stand idle to some left derelict.
The Mafia loves wind energy.
Italian police froze $1.9 billion in Marfia-linked assets of a Sicilian businessman Nicastri, called “Lord of the Wind,” who holds numerous wind and solar farms which he has allegedly used to launder money. He has direct links to the boss of bosses, Matteo Messine Denaro,” according to the Energy Tribune
Police wiretaps show extensive Mafia infiltration in the industry because the subsidies are seen as a windfall when money is tight. One Mafioso said, “Not one turbine blade will be built in Mazara unless I agree to it.”
One Mafia investigator, Eduardo Zanchini, says, “Anything that creates wealth interests the Mafia…Nothing earns more than a wind farm.”
Similar scandals are emerging in Corsica, the Canary Islands, Greece, Pakistan, Britain, and so on.
In one scandal in Greece, eight people were arrested in Operation Eolo, for bribing officials in the coastal town of Mazara del Vallo with gifts of luxury cars and bribes of 30,000-70,000 Euros. Another fifteen people were arrested on embezzling and fraud charges amounting to 30 million Euros in EU funds. This is the tip of the iceberg.
There might be health issues related to wind farms, most caused by distress according to one report.
A number of new studies describe “wind turbine syndrome,” health problems caused by those living near the giant, twirling machines. The research found that living close to wind turbines can cause sleep disorders, difficulty with equilibrium, headaches, childhood “night terrors” and other health problems.
The theory is that low-frequency noise and vibration generated by wind machines can affect the inner ear, triggering headaches; difficulty sleeping; tinnitus, or ringing in the ears; learning and mood disorders; panic attacks; irritability; disruption of equilibrium, concentration and memory; and childhood behavior problems.”
A British physician, Amanda Harry, describes a similar phenomenon. She studied ten families living close to turbines and eight eventually moved out of their homes. “All these problems were resolved as soon as these people got away from the turbines, got in the car and drove away from the house,” Harry said.
However, NHS (Britain’s Government Health agency) reported that health impacts are limited to annoyance and distress.
In Meredith, NY, some residents were bought off and allowed their property to be used for a wind farm in exchange for subsidies while other residents were saddled with the noise and the visual obstruction. The intent was not to disrupt neighbors – they just didn’t know better.
A filmographer, Laura Israel, produced a film about Meredith’s win farms that was received enthusiastically by audiences and panned by the wind farm producers.
The film, Windfall, features a colorful interview with Carol Spinelli, a fiery real-estate agent in Bovina, a town of about 600 people located a few miles southeast of Meredith. Bovina passed a ban on wind turbines in March 2007. Spinelli helped lead the opposition, and she nails the controversy over wind by explaining that it’s about “big money, big companies, big politics.” And she angrily denounces wind-energy developers “as modern-day carpetbaggers.”
The trailer from Windfall:
Wind farms are ‘green vandalism driven by greed,’ wrote one author in the telegraph recently.
In our frenzied unnatural pace towards renewables, we have improperly investigated the possible consequences. Bill Bishop, reporting on the dark side of wind energy, says that there are two sides to the benefits of the wind energy coin. It’s not all rosy and it’s not all clean.
If that isn’t enough, China is targeting GE’s wind turbine market. With $15.5 billion, China’s windmill maker, Sinovel Wind Group Co. and Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co. have won major business orders. They are the main competition to EU and US manufacturers who can’t compete because China uses slave labor.
These companies are the Chinese communist government’s companies and we are in business with them to squeeze out EU and US competitors.
While this is going on, Mr. Obama prepares to unleash his dictatorial pen-and-phone green energy fiats on a hapless nation.
http://www.independentsentinel.com/green-energy-is-green-vandalism-driven-by-greed/