Addington Heights pressures placed on municipal affairs for wind power projects and the records of inducement are revealed in documents obtained through FOI requests.

http://www.bearat.org/news/2016/2/27/freedom-of-information-requests

“NextEra and RES Canada officials are seen repeatedly in emails to leverage the community vibrancy funds as inducements to cause municipal officials to undertake official acts with their power under the Municipal Act in exchange for those inducements.”

DONATE HERE http://www.wait-pw.ca/

WAIT-PW members and Supporters Update:

We are scheduled to go to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on April 19th in London, Ontario.

Our lawyers at Falconers represent one of the top law firms in Canada on defending Human Rights. We are presenting a unique legal argument with the potential to affect the operations of the Suncor/Nextera industrial wind project, past industrial wind project approvals and future project approvals. We do not know if we will be successful; however, if we do nothing, we are accepting the status quo and sending the message to wind developers and our provincial government that we are ok the decisions they make on behalf of our local communities. The provincial government is set to release more industrial wind project approvals in March. Suncor and Nextera have submitted bids to the provincial government for additional wind projects in our County. We have an opportunity to make a difference on April 19th in London.   Continue reading Defending Human Rights to Ensure Wind Turbines DO NOT CAUSE HARM. WAIT-PW Heading to Ontario Superior Court of Justice on April 19th 2016 →

APPLICATION FOR JUDICIAL REVIEW – AN EXPLANATION.

YOU CAN HELP!

CCSAGE NATURALLY GREEN has commenced an Application for Judicial Review (JR) of the process by which a Renewable Energy Approval (REA) was issued in Prince Edward County. The Application is for the purpose of asking the Supreme Court of Ontario the following questions:

(A) Is the REA issued to White Pines (wpd Canada) to construct an industrial wind turbine factory of 27 turbines and associated transmission and collector lines the result of institutional bias in the Green Energy Act (GEA) and/or operational bias by the various Ministries?

(B) If the GEA is essential, is it fair to place the burden entirely on the minority who live in rural areas in Ontario?

Two other important issues that will be raised in the process are:

(C) Is the GEA necessary or even desirable?

(D) What will Ontario be like after IWTs cover rural areas and will it be worth saving? Continue reading Application for Judicial Review – An Explanation →

https://mothersagainstturbines.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/accidents.pdf

These accident statistics are copyright Caithness Windfarm Information Forum 2015. The data may be used or referred to by groups or individuals, provided that the source (Caithness Windfarm Information Forum) is acknowledged and our URL http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk quoted at the same time. Caithness Windfarm Information Forum is not responsible for the accuracy of Third Party material or references. The detailed table includes all documented cases of wind turbine related accidents and incidents which could be found and confirmed through press reports or official information releases up to 31 December 2015. CWIF believe that this compendium of accident information may be the most comprehensive available anywhere. Data in the detailed table is by no means fully comprehensive – CWIF believe that it may only be the “tip of the iceberg” in terms of numbers of accidents and their frequency. Indeed on 11 December 2011 the Daily Telegraph reported that RenewableUK confirmed that there had been 1500 wind turbine accidents and incidents in the UK alone in the past 5 years. Data here reports only 142 UK accidents from 2006-2010 and so the figures here may only represent 9% of actual accidents. The data does however give an excellent cross-section of the types of accidents which can and do occur, and their consequences. With few exceptions, before about 1997 only data on fatal accidents has been found. The trend is as expected – as more turbines are built, more accidents occur. Numbers of recorded accidents reflect this, with an average of 21 accidents per year from 1996-2000 inclusive; 57 accidents per year from 2001-2005 inclusive; 118 accidents per year from 2006-10 inclusive, and 163 accidents per year from 2011-15 inclusive.

read more: https://mothersagainstturbines.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/accidents.pdf

VICTORY!  White Pines Wind Power Renewable Energy Approval Revoked by Tribunal!!

We just received word that the decision has been released in the White Pines wind power project appeal in Prince Edward County.

The appellants WON the appeal, for the environment and their community.

The Tribunal found there would be serious and irreversible harm to Blandings turtle and little brown bats.

This is a major victory for the Save the South Shore coalition of community groups, the community, everyone who supports this fight, and lawyers Eric Gillespie and Chris Paliare.

Bravo!!!

Ontario premiers have a weak spot for pithy little slogans they can use to brush away troublesome matters.

“There’s never a wrong time to do the right thing,” Dalton McGuinty loved to say whenever stuck for an explanation for some horrific mistake. Why did his government spend $1.2 billion to not build two power plants after repeatedly insisting the projects would go ahead come hell or high water? Well, “there’s never the wrong time to do the right thing.” Smile. Next question.

His successor, Kathleen Wynne, has adopted a catchphrase of her own. “The cost of doing nothing is much, much higher than the cost of going forward ,” she’ll say when confronted with questions about some expenditure that has heads exploding across the province.

She deployed it Wednesday while seeking to justify the new tax on Ontarians that will accompany her cap and trade plan. Gasoline prices are expected to rise 4.3 cents a litre, while natural gas bills will increase about $5 a month.

Just in case the increases annoy Ontarians, Wynne came prepared: “The cost of doing nothing is much, much higher than the cost of going forward and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions,” she declared.

Kathleen Wynne has it backwards. ‘Doing nothing’ would have saved Ontario billions in electricity boondoggles

WHICH source of renewable energy is most important to the European Union? Solar power, perhaps? (Europe has three-quarters of the world’s total installed capacity of solar photovoltaic energy.) Or wind? (Germany trebled its wind-power capacity in the past decade.) The answer is neither. By far the largest so-called renewable fuel used in Europe is wood.

In its various forms, from sticks to pellets to sawdust, wood (or to use its fashionable name, biomass) accounts for about half of Europe’s renewable-energy consumption. In some countries, such as Poland and Finland, wood meets more than 80% of renewable-energy demand. Even in Germany, home of the Energiewende (energy transformation) which has poured huge subsidies into wind and solar power, 38% of non-fossil fuel consumption comes from the stuff. After years in which European governments have boasted about their high-tech, low-carbon energy revolution, the main beneficiary seems to be the favoured fuel of pre-industrial societies.

The idea that wood is low in carbon sounds bizarre. But the original argument for including it in the EU’s list of renewable-energy supplies was respectable. If wood used in a power station comes from properly managed forests, then the carbon that billows out of the chimney can be offset by the carbon that is captured and stored in newly planted trees. Wood can be carbon-neutral. Whether it actually turns out to be is a different matter. But once the decision had been taken to call it a renewable, its usage soared.

read more: Environmental lunacy in Europe Apr 6th 2013 | From the print edition

Thunder Bay power plant fires up on biomass

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) announced Feb. 8 that its former coal-burning Thunder Bay Generating Station is officially fuelled on “advanced biomass.”

The fuel, also known as a black wood pellet, has similar handling and storage characteristics to coal. It’s made from lumber mill sawdust and is imported from Norway.

The OPG release said it contains 75 less nitrogen oxide than coal emissions and virtually no sulphur dioxide.

The cost of the conversion was $5 million.

Provincial Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli said this new fuel technology makes Ontario “a leader” in building clean energy systems.

read more: Northern Ontario Business, Published on: 2/12/2015 By: Northern Ontario Business staff

UK power stations are burning wood from US forests—to meet renewables targets

Trucking wood pellets to a port and transporting them by ship isn’t a deal-breaker.

Last year, 6 million tonnes of “wood pellets” harvested from forests in Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Virginia were shipped across the Atlantic, to be burnt in renewable “biomass” power plants. This was almost double the 2013 figure—the US “wood pellet” industry is booming.

Demand is largely driven by European countries wanting to meet targets set out in the EU’sRenewable Energy Directive. Half of the pellets exported from the US were used to generate electricity in Britain’s massive Drax power station, which is slowly converting from coal to biomass in order to reduce carbon emissions and claim valuable “Renewable Obligation certificates” for green electricity. So can it really be sustainable to transport wood halfway round the world to burn in a power station?

Many environmentalists don’t think so. A consortium of NGOs recently argued that the EU should exclude wood from its renewable energy targets. They claim the industry is felling large areas ofhardwood wetland forests across the south-eastern US, causing a loss of biodiversity and a net increase in carbon emissions. Even when the forest regrows it does not store as much carbon in biomass and soils as the original—and it’s certainly not as good for wildlife.

read more: by David Styles – Feb 23, 2016, Ars Technica UK

Engineer questions government wind turbine sound testing methods

24/02/2016, 03:11

By Barb McKay

An acoustics engineer is questioning the Ontario government’s methods for setting baseline sound limits for wind turbines after field testing was recently conducted in Kincardine.

Todd Busch, project manager for Swallow Acoustic Consultants Ltd., was in front of the Municipality of Kincardine council during its meeting last Wednesday to go over data from a study conducted within the boundaries of the Armow Wind Project last fall. Swallow was contracted by the municipality to study baseline acoustic and infrasound levels prior to the 92-turbine, 180-megawatt project becoming operational.

Engineers conducted interior and exterior sound testing at five homes within the project area between Oct. 30 and Nov. 14, 2015, using special microphones designed specifically to record infrasound (sound not picked up by the human ear). The sound measurements account for sound levels from wind in exterior testing.

Busch said when a noise impact study was conducted with audible sound testing for Armow Wind in 2013, engineers who did the study declared that the project would comply with Ontario Ministry of the Environment noise limits for industrial wind turbines. He said the study was done using an average wind speed at a particularly quiet site and a measurement of seven decibels was added to factor in sound levels at a higher wind speed. In the noise impact assessment summary, Busch said sound levels were calculated at between 37 and 39.8 decibels. The noise level limit set by the province is 40 decibels. Infrasound levels were not tested.

read more: http://www.independent.on.ca/site/?q=node/5732

http://tvo.org/video/documentaries/big-wind

About this Video

Earlier this month Poland’s Commissioner for Human Rights (CHR) addressed this question to three competent Ministers, for the Environment, Infrastructure and Construction, and Health, demanding that the rights of people residing in the vicinity of wind farms be adequately protected.

The official website of Poland’s CHR explains (in English) that:

“The Commissioner’s Office receives more and more letters from citizens complaining about a deterioration of their health due to the wind turbines’ influence, as well as about the wind farm locating and building procedures. During a meeting with dr. Bodnar, the residents of the Suwałki Region also expressed their concern about the safe placement of wind farms. The Commissioner has contacted the Minister of Environment, the Minister of Health and the Minister of Infrastructure and Construction on that matter.”
(https://www.rpo.gov.pl/en/content/rights-residents-living-near-wind-farms).

The page also includes links to a report on dr. Bodnar’s meeting with residents of the Suwalki region and to the three official intervention letters addressed to the Ministers for the Environment, Infrastructure and Construction, and Health.

read  more: http://en.friends-against-wind.org/news/poland-s-ombudsman-stands-up-for-the-rights-of-residents