Antinuclear

REneweconomy exposes the lies of the anti wind farm lobby

How wrong can a press release for an anti-wind rally be? REeweconomy By Mike Barnard   12 June 2013 It’s time for another installment of Count the Whoppers. You may remember that we started this occasional feature a year ago with Max Rheese of the mischievously-named Australian Environment Foundation and Australian Climate Science Coalition, funded by the IPA and Heartland Institute respectively, and his fourteen whoppers in less than 1,700 words. We continued it in November with Senator John Madigan’s party policy on wind energy (subsequently removed), where he managed only 10 whoppers, but did it in a quarter of the words, 364.

This time the target in our sights is the anonymously written blog stopthesethings.com (STT). This site is setting new lows in the anti-windpower astroturfing arena, featuring new posts daily attacking all aspects of wind energy and the people associated with it with imaginary data and unpleasant prose. The author has been anonymously vilifying members of the wind industry, researchers into wind energy and proponents of wind energy for nearly six months.

It’s become the go-to echo chamber for Australian anti-wind power activists, and attracts regular comments from the few but impressively vocal anti-wind activists in Canada, the USA and the UK. Unsurprisingly, the Internet quality rating service Web of Trust gives STT very poor marks indeed.

STT is trying to mobilise their small but angry readership to rally at Parliament House in Canberra on 18 June and has issued an anonymous media release to publicise it. They’ve lined up a remarkable number of current and retiring politicians who don’t seem to be fazed by the vitriol, lack of facts or the anonymity of the organisers. These include: Senator John Madigan, retiring MP Alby Schultz, retiring Senator Ron Boswell (all of whom are challenged by climate science) and, oddly, Senator Nick Xenophon who used to hold a rather more fact-based view of wind energy. They also have a handful of others, including a barrister and a fact-challenged radio ‘personality’ to round out the slate.

Unsurprisingly, given their website’s quick-and-dirty approach and the track record of anti-wind campaigners on this front, the presser is chock full of whoppers. For those interested in reading the full statement, please see the complete text at the end of this article.

Wind Reality 1: Wind energy is saving Australian consumers money…..

Windpower Reality 2: Wind energy is cheap once fossil fuel subsidies and negative externalities are accounted for….

Windpower Reality 3: RECs aren’t a tax, but a market-based incentive…….

Windpower Reality 4: Wind energy and other incremental renewables are on target to avoid the rarely paid REC penalty price …….

Windpower Reality 5: REC will continue to be a reasonable percentage of the overall electricity cost structure and drive consumer prices down ….

Windpower Reality 6: Jurisdictions with wind farms have the lowest electricity prices in their countries – ……

Windpower Reality 7: A few people have left their homes because of anti-wind activists creating stress and health fears – …..

Windpower Reality 8: Wind farms displace greenhouse gases from fossil fuel generation on almost exactly a 1:1 basis -……

Windpower Reality 9: Wind farms are the best choice of any form of generation for wildlife, the environment and ground water -…..

Windpower Reality 10: Wind energy is the cheapest new form of generation except shale gas, and has virtually no downsides compared to the alternatives…….

– See more at: http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/how-wrong-can-a-press-release-for-an-anti-wind-rally-be-26047#sthash.RdOfbvqK.dpuf

June 13, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, secrets and lies