Report on Kyoto — Enron wins — At what price?

"On the business front: During the next year there will be intense positioning of organizations to capture an early lead in a variety of carbon trading businesses.

"The endorsement of joint implementation within Annex-1 is exactly what I have been lobbying for and it seems like we won.

"The clean development will be a mechanism for funding renewable projects. Again, we won. (We need to push for natural gas firing to be included among the technologies that get preferential treatment from the fund.)

"The endorsement of emissions trading was another victory for us. ...

"Through our involvement with the climate change initiatives, Enron now has excellent credentials with many “green” interests including Greenpeace, WWF, NRDC, GermanWatch, the US Climate Action Network, the European Climate Action Network, Ozone Action, WRI, and Worldwatch. This position should be increasingly cultivated and capitalized on (monetized). ...

"This agreement will be good for Enron stock!!"

—John Palmisano, Senior Director for Environmental Policy and Compliance, Enron, Dec. 12, 2997  [see below]

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http://www.masterresource.org/2012/12/enron-kyoto-memo-15/

To: Terry Thorn, Joe Hillings, Cynthia Sandherr, Jeff Keeler, Fiona Grant, Hap Boyd, Bill Shoff, Dan Badger, Tom Kearney, Lynda Clemmons, Bruce Stram, Mike Terraso, Rob Bradley, Jim O’Neill, John Hardy
From: John Palmisano
Date: December 12, 1997
Subject: Implications of the Climate Change Agreement in Kyoto & What Transpired

This memo summarizes the implications of the agreement reached in Kyoto and also describes what I was doing and provides some observations.

Implications

If implemented, this agreement will do more to promote Enron’s business than will almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring of the energy and natural gas industries in Europe and the United States. The potential to add incremental gas sales, and additional demand for renewable technology is enormous. In addition, a carbon emissions trading system will be developed. While the trading system will be implemented by 2008, I am sure that reductions will begin to trade with 1-2 years. Finally, Enron has immediate business opportunities which derive directly from this agreement.

On the policy-front: There will be a great number of country-specific and international meetings related to every aspect of this agreement. I do not think it is possible to overestimate the importance of this year in shaping every aspect of the agreement.

Three issues of specific importance to Enron are: (1) the rules governing emissions trading, (2) the rules governing joint implementation within Annex-1, and (3) the rules governing the proposed clean energy fund (which promises to dwarf the GEF as a fund for wind, solar, and power plant conversions.)

On the business front: During the next year there will be intense positioning of organizations to capture an early lead in a variety of carbon trading businesses.

The endorsement of joint implementation within Annex-1 is exactly what I have been lobbying for and it seems like we won.

The clean development will be a mechanism for funding renewable projects. Again, we won. (We need to push for natural gas firing to be included among the technologies that get preferential treatment from the fund.)

The endorsement of emissions trading was another victory for us.

Highlights of the Agreement

38 developed countries are required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to or below 1990 levels by 2012.

The U.S. reduction objective is 7%, the European Union is 8%, and Japan is 6%; therefore, it is not possible (or at least credible) that Congress can say the United States is at a comparative disadvantage vis-à-vis its main trading partners or competitors since the EU and Japan have higher control targets and are more “carbon-lean” than are we.

Six gases are included (CO2, CH4, N2O, HFCs, PFCs, and SF6).

Emissions trading is included. Details of an international system are to be worked out in 1998.

A “clean development fund” is included. The fund would allow for emission offsets from projects in developing countries.

Joint implementation for Annex-1, developed countries and the transitional economies, is included. This means that Enron projects in Russia, Bulgaria, Romania or other eastern countries can be monetized, in part, by capturing carbon reductions for sale back in the US or other Western countries.

While I do not have the final version of the agreement, I do have the first and second versions. The latest version is not on the world-wide web.

What I Was Involved In

I gave three speeches and received an award on behalf of Enron. The speeches dealt with emissions trading, energy efficiency/renewable, and the role of business in promoting clean energy outcomes. The award came from the Climate Institute and was for Ken Lay and Enron for our work promoting clean-energy solutions to climate change. The other recipients were Sven Auken, MP and Minister for Energy and Environment in Denmark, and MP and former Environment Minister for the UK, John Gummer.

I have met Gummer and Auken several times before and it was nice for them to hear Enron praised so much. (I gave a speech with Gummer last Saturday and it was the third time we have been on the podium together. He is someone who still retains considerable influence in the UK and Europe and someone Enron might want to cultivate.)

I was also involved in a press conference.

Observations

I believe that it will be impossible to separate electricity restructuring from climate change as a domestic political issue. The administration has signaled its view that the two issues are intertwined.

At yesterday’s White House press conference, this connection was underlined by the comments from Tom Kasten, President of Trigen Corporation who spoke in favor of the climate change agreement and its linkage to restructuring. His remarks had to be cleared by the White House.

These remarks are entirely consistent with every other signal from the Administration’s climate change team.

Through our involvement with the climate change initiatives, Enron now has excellent credentials with many “green” interests including Greenpeace, WWF, NRDC, GermanWatch, the US Climate Action Network, the European Climate Action Network, Ozone Action, WRI, and Worldwatch. This position should be increasingly cultivated and capitalized on (monetized).

(Parenthetically, I heard many times people refer to Enron in glowing terms. Such praise went like this: “Other companies should be like Enron, seeking out 21st century business opportunities” or “Progressive companies like Enron are….” Or “Proof of the viability of market-based energy and environmental programs is Enron’s success in power and SO2 trading.”)

Developing countries have acquired substantial negotiating power. The shift in negotiating power to India, Brazil, China, and the G-77 has been gradual and pronounced.

The EU negotiated as a group. Until two years ago, they negotiated as individual countries. While there are still individual country interests, the EU retains substantial power when working together. It was this cohesiveness that lead to a more stringent agreement.

EU delegates asked for my input into the agreement to oppose some of the positions espoused by some US delegates. In particular, the US was advocating no rules governing the trading of carbon emissions because rules would “inhibit trading.” My position is that rules defining who owns what reductions, how reductions are traded, how they are tracked, and liability rules will help promote trading since rules give both buyers and sellers more confidence in the commodity.

While some companies and trade associations continue to criticize developing countries for not doing more, no company wants to be specific on this issue. To the extent any company does, they will hide under the shield of a trade association. I think that shield will soon be pierced. I believe that some companies will soon break from the line that developing countries should do more. It is a weak position in terms of equity and suicidal in terms of their commercial interests in these countries.

An increasingly ugly trend has become evident to the environmental NGO community and the delegates from developing countries. They see the argument about developing country participation as a thinly disguised recycling of the early twentieth century fear-mongering characterized by the so-called “yellow-peril” or invasion of the US by Asian peoples.

The developing country delegates see the argument of the carbon lobby that the US will lose markets to developing countries as empty and racist — they see energy-intensive imports to the US coming from Japan and Germany in terms of automobiles (and these are high cost energy areas), while economic growth in developing countries is fueled by local growth or Western industries requiring low cost of labor, low cost for land, or permitting flexibility for new plants.

Enron should not participate in any argument like this because it hurts our credibility with developing countries, NGOs, and developed country governments.

I should have a copy of the agreement today.

The next year will be very intensive because the structure of the agreement exists, business opportunities are being defined, the rules governing emissions trading will be developed, and identifying, financing, and managing JI projects will be important.

One final point, Terry, if you remember, I predicted an agreement that would yield a 5% reduction by 2010; we got 7% by 2012. I now predict ratification within 3 years. I predict business opportunities within 18 months. I predict this agreement will have very significant influences on the energy sector within OECD and transitional economies and will accelerate renewable markets in developing countries.

This agreement will be good for Enron stock!!

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Enron’s Ken Lay asks for Texas Gov. Bush’s help in securing tax credits for wind [letter, Aug. 10, 1998]

How the White House Energy Plan Benefitted Enron [U.S. House of Representatives report, Jan. 16, 2001]

"The gap between wind and combined-cycle gas is substantial when subtle factors such as tax preferences, reliability/dispatchability, and transmission are taken into account.

"My estimate is that the all-in economic cost of wind is double the cost of gas and triple the cost of surplus power. Accelerated depreciation may be an even bigger component of this underlying competitive gap than the federal tax credit. Gas would have to stop improving or get worse as wind gets better to reach near-parity – not a likely scenario.

"Wind needs storage if not another fuel backup, yet storage is estimated to cost between $400 and $1,000 per kilowatt (DOE/EPRI, 1997). If wind can’t compete today with the double tax benefit and upstream DOE subsidies that have averaged over 3 cents per produced kWh in the last 20 years, when will it compete?"

—Robert Bradley, Corporate Director of Public Policy Analysis, Enron, Oct. 28, 1998  [see below]

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http://www.masterresource.org/2013/08/enron-wind-memo-1998/

Author: Rob Bradley at CORP_1_PO
Date: 10/28/98 4:13 PM
Priority: Normal
TO: Kenneth Lay at ENRON
Subject: Enron Wind Decision

Please see the attached on reasons to sell the wind subsidiary. I hope this memo contributes to the right decision.

---

Some Reasons for Enron to Sell the Wind Subsidiary

On the presumption that you are mulling over the sale of the wind subsidiary and are getting lobbied to not do so within the company, allow me to make some arguments in favor of exiting.

I do not know the economics of our wind investment or its potential selling price. There are also issues of core competency that I defer on. I do know that the purchase was more of an image play for our mass retail electricity effort than natural marketplace economics. Natural gas technology has made wind (and solar outside of its distributed uses) unnecessary for the foreseeable future in the U.S. and other methane-rich areas of the world.

With Enron’s niche as a “green” energy provider for the masses in doubt, the image component is less compelling. Otherwise, our image is helped and hurt by the investment. We get accolades from the environmental community but criticism from the free-market and conservative community for our subsidy appetite and Kyoto leadership.

Here are my reasons to exit:

1. You mentioned in our December meeting that if I could prove that wind could not compete with gas in the long run, you would sell the subsidiary. The gap between wind and combined-cycle gas is substantial when subtle factors such as tax preferences, reliability/dispatchability, and transmission are taken into account.

My estimate is that the all-in economic cost of wind is double the cost of gas and triple the cost of surplus power. Accelerated depreciation may be an even bigger component of this underlying competitive gap than the federal tax credit. Gas would have to stop improving or get worse as wind gets better to reach near-parity – not a likely scenario.

Wind needs storage if not another fuel backup, yet storage is estimated to cost between $400 and $1,000 per kilowatt (DOE/EPRI, 1997). If wind can’t compete today with the double tax benefit and upstream DOE subsidies that have averaged over 3 cents per produced kWh in the last 20 years, when will it compete?

2. Enron with wind is really competing against Enron with natural gas. New wind capacity displaces output from existing gas-fired plants in locals such as California where gas is the marginal fuel most of the time. Wind also (incrementally) postpones the need for new gas-fired capacity. Renewable mandates will hurt the gas market in this regard.

3. Wind is almost a pure subsidy play, which means that Enron will be at odds with the market and must continually intervene into the political processes to extend subsides and/or create new ones. This is an expensive process and may trade away what we are lobbying for elsewhere.

4. Fundamental tax reform would severely limit wind by removing the federal tax credit and accelerated depreciation. Fundamental tax reform will have political life with a Republican president in the post-2000 period. Green pricing could collapse with the end of tax preferences since the “green” premium would be too high. (This is why quotas are the only solution to make uneconomic renewable really stick.) It would be opportune to sell out before this “political risk” gets factored into the equation.

5. Wind has a negative dynamic at work. The more wind construction, the more prime sites are utilized and the more its economic and environmental drawbacks will become transparent. The Energy Information Administration is finding that its cost estimates for wind are too optimistic given that the best wind sites often have higher up-front and operating costs.

6. Wind as a Kyoto play will be burdened by all the Kyoto controversies – the growing questions about the science, the economics of meeting just one Kyoto, and political forces that will work to cheapen compliance in a Kyoto case (early-credit inflation). Even with subsidies, increased profitability is not assured given that competition grows with the subsidies.

7. With the sale of our solar and wind businesses, Enron can get off of a hardcore Kyoto line. This issue is turning our government affairs department into rent seekers. (Latest example: how do we fashion an early crediting program where it helps us at the expense of other businesses.) The more Enron pushes early implementation to give Kyoto life, the more we will be setting up a regulatory regime (“climatism”) with a life of its own that will cut both ways for our many business interests.

8. With uneconomic renewables off of Enron’s plate, your speeches can get away from spin and more toward underlying energy economics to maximize your credibility. For example, instead of showing the slide about the falling cost of renewables (which begs the question of how much the cost of other technologies including gas have fallen), you can get into the relative economics of different renewables versus natural gas.

As an economics Ph.D. and visionary, you have a leadership responsibility to promote good thinking and economic energy strategies in place of energy faddism (such as wind). The corporation should be positioned to reflect sound underlying economics (consumer demand) and not short-term political plays as much as possible – or at least the corporation should be taken out of political plays as soon as changing conditions permit.

9. Good corporate citizenship should include not only an environmental ethic but a market ethic of not seeking discretionary government subsidies. Enron can set an example that could result in accolades from the other side of the political spectrum.

Democracy according to the CEO of the free world

The people don't support this action, so the congress should vote their conscience, that is, support this action against the will of the people, because if they don't I'll do it anyway.

You see? Conscience is the prerogative of the leader. The people don't have it. Their disagreement with this action is a failure of marketing. Their disagreement is thus testimony to the righteousness of this action, because it is so important that we couldn't be bothered with trying to make a credible case for it. Consequently, until the people demonstrate the full benefit of our sales pitch, that is by supporting this action, there is no reason to consider their views.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/running-transcript-president-obamas-press-conference-in-russia/2013/09/06/7d1a39e0-16fd-11e3-804b-d3a1a3a18f2c_story_4.html]

Also:  Such a blatant violation of international law must be punished to discourage others, even if we have to violate international law to do so. And it would compromise the power of international law if we had to show irrefutable evidence to justify this action, because nobody else cares about international law as much as we do.

More:  11 years ago today: "From a marketing point of view," said Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff who is coordinating the effort to persuade the public, the Congress and the allies of the need to confront the threat from Saddam Hussein, "you don't introduce new products in August."

And:  “Right makes Might makes Right.” (circular logic of imperial prerogative)

tags:  human rights, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism

The basic physics of wind energy

In accordance with the 2nd law of thermodynamics, energy must flow from a concentrated form to a more diffuse form in order to do work.

Wind (and solar) is already diffuse, so it must first be concentrated (requiring a very large collection area, i.e., adverse impacts) to be useful, and second, because it is also intermittent and variable, be stored so it can be called upon as needed.

Both of these are substantial barriers to — and the basis of arguments against — practical large-scale use of wind (and solar) to provide electrical energy.

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism

A circle closes

Deutsches Bundesarchiv: Presidential elections, Nazi public address van at Berlin-Pankow, 10 April 1932

“Ground was broken [Tuesday, Aug. 13] for a wind farm that will have five turbines located on 1,500 acres east of the Pantex [nuclear fuel fabrication] Plant, about 18 miles northeast of Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle. The project is expected to be completed by July 2014.”

The 11.5-MW facility of five 2.3-MW turbines is being built by Siemens Government Technologies. It will be paid for by energy savings guaranteed by Siemens, that is to say, by the generous tax breaks paid for by you and me.

But the actual facility being built is far less than the one originally planned.

“In fiscal year 2010, the plant spent $2.7 million on electricity usage from Xcel Energy and uses about 7 megawatts of energy daily, according to federal data. Bidders must commit to producing at least 10 megawatts a day, a federal proposal said.”

The facility “will generate approximately 47 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, which is more than 60 percent of the annual electricity need for Pantex, or enough electricity to power nearly 3,500 homes.”

Note how misleading it is to characterize the generation in terms of "homes", when these five giant wind turbines are intended to provide only three-fifths of a single factory's needs.

Also note that the hoped-for 47 million kWh represents an average production rate of 5.37 MW* (which is 77%, not 60%, of the plants apparent load of 7 MW), quite a bit less than the initially sought guarantee of 10 MW. That 47 million kWh represents a capacity factor of 47%. In both 2011 and 2012, however, the average capacity factors for wind turbines were 34% in Texas and 41% in Oklahoma.

The federal government expects the wind facility to "save" $2.8 million annually, that is, to pay for itself. At a 40% capacity factor (i.e., 40.3 million kWh annually), that would require a cost difference of 14.4 cents per kWh from what they are now paying.

Presumably, this crucial plant is not actually going to rely on the intermittent and highly variable power from the wind turbines and instead it will be sold to the grid from which the plant will buy its more reliable electricity just as before. So add the generosity of ratepayers to meet the inflated price the grid is expected to pay for this merely symbolic boondoggle.

[Siemens' use of slave labor from, even in, work/death camps during World War II was publicized in 2002 when its Bosch division sought to register the trademark "Zyklon" for a range of home appliances, including gas ovens. Siemens already marketed a "Zyklon" vacuum cleaner. The insecticide Zyklon B, of course, was used to kill large numbers of the Nazis' prisoners in camp showers, after which their bodies were burned in ovens. Siemens helped to build V2 rockets (again, with SS-provided slave labor). And here they are still, now generating income from a nuclear weapons plant.]

*47 million kWh = 47,000 MWh; ÷ 8,760 hours in a year = 5.365 MW

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, human rights, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism

Gramma’s Grammar

But all is her inbourne. Intend. From gramma’s grammar ... (Finnegans Wake, page 268)

‘The Giantess, or Guardian of the Egg’ by Leonora Carrington

‘The last word in stolentelling!’ Magpies and the collage aesthetic in Finnegans Wake
‘lov’d latakia’: Patterns of Gynemorphic Geography in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake
‘the scheme is like your rumba round me garden’: New Orcadian Neolithic rock art discoveries
“Till the Cows Come Home” (Part One): Towards a Natural History of Megaliths
“Till the Cows Come Home” (Part Two): The Social Life of Megaliths
A World in Your Shell-Like

—essays by Simon Crook, at The Grammar of Matter

19 reviews of the research literature on wind farms and health

As of 24 May 2013 and today, pro–industrial wind sociologist Simon Chapman has provided his “summary of main conclusions reached in 19 reviews of the research literature on wind farms and health”, increased from its earlier edition of 17 reviews.

As noted previously, he transparently cherry-picks and misinterprets the actual findings of almost all of them. The previous note also discusses now 28 reviews, almost unanimously recognizing the need for more research into the adverse health effects of large wind turbines and the need for adequate setback distances between turbines and homes to avoid such health effects.

Key to Chapman’s misrepresentation on behalf of the wind industry is his characterization of “annoyance”. Chapman would have us understand “annoyance” as nothing more than a mild distraction. Hence, he blames the sufferers of ill health from wind turbines as bringing it on themselves for being annoyed and, not content to get over it, literally making themselves sick. He thus attempts to present a measurable physical disturbance with documented physical effects as mere political grandstanding (classic projection of his own, obviously).

In medicine, however, particularly in the field of public health, Chapman's own playground, “annoyance” means a significant degradation of quality of life. It is not used lightly. It means a real level of external stressors that can cause ill health. Thus, when a review concludes that wind turbines may cause annoyance, which can lead to health effects, that is a direct physical effect, not a product of self-victimization as Chapman insists (and for which he should probably be removed from his position at the University of Sydney School of Public Health).

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, human rights

12 important things to know about wind farms, health and nocebo effects, by Simon Chapman

Simon Chapman, the Australian misocapnist, has just posted a video lecture outlining his thoughts about wind turbines and health, titled "12 things you need to know about wind farms and health". It's more than 26 minutes long, and seemingly designed to bore the viewer so much that they will give up and take his thesis on faith. Your editor, however, sat through the whole thing and here raises some issues with Professor Chapman's presentation.

1. Modern wind farms have existed since early 1980s.

2. Health objections to wind farms are relatively recent [since 2002].

The obvious question is, has anything in the nature of wind farms changed?

The numbers of wind turbines have increased steadily over the past decade, so it is not surprising to find that they have affected more people.

(source: Garrad Hassan, 2008)

(source: National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 2012)

Furthermore, the size of wind turbines made a distinctive leap around the year 2000. Larger sizes and higher towers mean more noise travelling farther, and particularly more low-frequency noise, which travels even farther and does not stop at — in fact, often resonates with — walls and windows.

3. Opponents claim there are immediate and long-term health impacts.

Chapman illogically presents examples of no effects reported as proof that instances of reported effects are false and again dodges the obvious question of mechanism: size and number of turbines, distance from homes, nature of noise that affects some people and not others. Nina Pierpont suggested an inner ear disturbance (like motion sickness) caused by low-frequency noise from large (post-2000) wind turbines sited within 1-2 km from homes. Before then, low frequencies were not considered in noise measurements. Since then, low-frequency noise has indeed been measured in the homes of affected individuals. See, e.g.:

"Dynamic measurements of wind turbine acoustic signals"
"The Bruce McPherson Infrasound and Low Frequency Noise Study"
"Cooperative Measurement Survey and Analysis of Low-Frequency and Infrasound at the Shirley Wind Farm"

4. Even a majority of wind farms with large turbines have zero complaint history.

This claim has been critiqued elsewhere.

5. The number of people complaining about health or noise is very small.

There is no actual registry of such complaints. Chapman is making it up. Companies do not report such complaints. Leases and easements typically prevent public disclosure of complaints if the person wants payments to continue. Chapman's "study" relies on parliamentary testimony, which would represent a very small fraction of affected people (he makes no attempt to estimate the degree of such sampling), media coverage, which of course varies tremendously in interest and bias and can not be comprehensive, and records of the wind companies themselves, apparently accepted without question or verification.

6. The "susceptibility" analogy with motion sickness does not stack up.

Actually, it does, but such nuance doesn't fit Chapman's neat theories. Update, August 4: This just in!

7. You name it ... they say wind farms cause it: 223 and growing!!

Since the primary vectors are stress and disturbed sleep, the broad range of effects — on all animals, not just humans — is not surprising. Chapman then picks out a few of the most extreme, ignoring exacerbation, to discount all reported effects. He also (in typical fashion) misreports them: for example, the "sudden death of 400 goats" he mocks as "seriously a report that was on the web attributed to wind turbines"; in fact, the story from Taiwan was the death of 400 goats over 3 years, beginning when a neighboring wind farm started operation, as reported by the Taiwan Council of Agriculture.

8. Many of the most commonly named problems are very common in any community.

And are more common after wind turbines start operating.

9. Complainants have refused to provide their medical records.

This charge is based on one appeal of a project approval in Ontario — Zephyr Farms in the township of Brooke-Alvinston, Lambton County — where the appellant was told to hand over the complete private health records of 20 individuals, despite their existing sworn testimony, within 1 week — which would then be considered only for "serious" harm to human health. Faced with this impossibility (not to mention the invasiveness), the appellant withdrew (the case was not "thrown out" as Chapman says). Since that project was erected, the adverse health effects warned of by the appellant have indeed occurred. Later such requests in Ontario for medical records have been met (e.g., at the hearing for Ostrander Point), as appellants know what to expect and have time to collect them.

10. Most complaints occur at wind farms targeted by anti-wind farm groups, mostly post 2009.

Duh. The groups provide a medium for publicizing complaints that are otherwise ignored or mocked. And the groups can not be active everywhere at once.

11. There have been 19 reviews of the evidence on wind farms, noise and health since 2003.

Actually, there seem to have been 28 so far, almost all of them, even some of those sponsored by the industry itself, recognizing the need for more research. Update, November 13, 2013:  Make that 35. But only 10 non-industry, non-government reviews.

12. Money may be a magic antidote to complaints.

With the use of the word "magic", Chapman shatters his whole charade of objective inquiry. It must be again noted that the receipt of money from wind companies typically requires silence about problems, a kind of inverse extortion. Chapman has been reassured by wind companies that there are no such gag clauses (which of course are illegal). Nevertheless, many individuals who lease their land for wind turbines do in fact complain of ill effects.

Conclusion:  "What we're seeing is what we call ah um an incidence of psych psychogenic illness." (nervous artifacts transcribed to indicate possible deliberate dishonesty)

Chapman defines psychogenic illness as "a constellation of symptoms suggestive of organic illness, but without an identifiable cause, that occurs between two or more people who share beliefs about those symptoms".

But adverse health effects from wind turbines are not "suggestive" of illness, they are illness. And nearby wind turbines are the easily identifiable cause. As for "shared beliefs", that applies to any illness, but in the case of wind turbines it is well documented that just as many people with a prior favorable view of them get sick as those with a previously more skeptical view. (An early example [2007] is Jane Davis of Deeping St Nicholas, England, and similar testimony of prior support and subsequent distress is indeed common.)

Chapman's suggested cure is apparently to suppress the issue in public and professional discourse, because the only real solution is to keep giant wind turbines an adequate distance from homes, workplaces, and recreational areas.

He quotes Francis Bacon (the alchemist): "Infections ... if you fear them, you call them upon you." The germ theory of infection has long proven that to be nonsense, just as continuing research in the physiological effects of low-frequency noise is validating the connection between giant wind turbines and adverse health effects.

(Chapman also takes the Bacon quote far out of context. It is from an essay on envy published in 1625:

Now, to speak of Public Envy :  There is yet some good in Public Envy, whereas in Private, there is none.  For Public Envy is as an ostracism, that eclipseth Men when they grow too great :  and therefore it is a bridle also to Great Ones, to keep them within Bounds.

This Envy, being in the Latin word Invidia, goeth in the Modern Languages by the name of Discontentment ;  of which we shall speak in handling Sedition.  It is a Disease in a State like to Infection ;  For as Infection spreadeth upon that which is sound, and tainteth it ;  so when Envy is gotten once into a State, it traduceth even the best Actions thereof, and turneth them into an ill Odour.  And therefore there is little won by intermingling of plausible Actions :  for that doth argue but a Weakness and Fear of Envy ;  which hurteth so much the more, as it is likewise usual in Infections, which, if you fear them, you call them upon you.

(Bacon seems to be saying that if you act in fear of envy, you invite it; but also that if you fear not envy, it will find you out anyway. His use of infection is clumsy as a metaphor, especially as he considers public envy a worthwhile check on power.)

Chapman goes on to present his "nocebo" thesis, despite the fact that people are not barraged with "fear mongering", but rather the opposite, with government, media, nonprofits, and educational institutions pitching industrial wind turbines as utterly benign. If he insists on the existence of a nocebo effect, then he has to explain the failure of this "placebo" innoculation against ill effects.

Chapman then moves on to attack Nina Pierpont, who described the consistent set of symptoms that she called "wind turbine syndrome", and proposed a mechanism that elegantly fits the facts, as mentioned above.

After a bit more mockery of complaints and advocates, he explains why this issue is so serious. No, it's not because the effect of low-frequency and pulsating noise from industrial wind turbines on public health needs to be more seriously studied. Simon Chapman, of the University of Sydney School of Public Health, is concerned instead that developers can not erect wind turbines anywhere they want. For example, he inaccurately describes the state of Victoria's designation of a 2-km buffer zone around wind turbines as a ban on erecting them closer to homes. In fact, Victoria simply allows a resident within that distance to say "no, thank you". These are not "no go zones", as Chapman claims. If he and his industry cronies were convincing about the lack of adverse health effects, they would have no worries. But unfortunately for their (publicly subsidized) business, the facts speak louder than their denial of them.

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights