“Scarlett my Dear, the land is the only thing in the world worth working for, worth fighting for, worth dying for, because it’s the only thing that lasts”.

Unless of course your neighbour whacks up a bunch of giant fans – then you’re left fighting and dying for something that’s worth a whole lot less.

Here’s the Fin Review on what happens to Tara, when the fans go up next door.

Wind farms win few fans
The Australian Financial Review
Matthew Cranston
14 October 2013

Rural landholders across Australia may face a disappearing pool of buyers and plummeting values of up to 60 per cent because of neighbouring wind farms, a new, independent report has established.

Most reports so far, including valuation firm Preston Rowe Paterson’s on behalf of the NSW Valuer General, have not produced evidence that rural land holdings have been impaired by wind turbine development.

However, registered…

In our recent post Miliband off with the pixies as Brits brace for Winter of Discontent we predicted that Brits are ready for another Winter of Discontent as renewable driven power prices leave them freezing in the dark.

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Well, it seems we weren’t far off the mark.

Peaking power piranhas are piling in to the power market in order to cash in when the wind stops blowing and wind power output drops to a doughnut.

In Britain and Australia peaking power operators are using banks of diesel generators to keep the grid from collapsing when wind-watts go missing hundreds of times each year – see our post here.

In Britain the scam is propped up by ludicrously generous subsidies to peaking power operators to ensure that there is sufficient backup capacity to cover the unpredictable, but routine daily collapse in wind power output.

British power punters are rightly…

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Well, Almost Heaven – until the giant fans went up.

West Virginia woman sues wind farm over vibrations, noise
The Associated Press
2 October 2013

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. – A West Virginia woman who says she’s suffered physically and mentally from turbine vibration at a wind farm near Keyser is suing to have the operations shut down.

Anna Bell Saville lives about 1 1/2 miles from the site and contends she’s lost the ability to enjoy her home and property. She sued Pinnacle Wind Farm LLC and its parent company, Rosemead, Calif.-based Edison Mission Group, in U.S. District Court in Martinsburg late Tuesday.

The 23 turbines on Green Mountain create low-frequency pulsation noise and vibration that is irritating, annoying and “at times, severely debilitating, causing core pulsations,” her complaint said.

The sound, vibrations and “light flicker” are so intense that they cause anxiety, tinnitus, and mental and emotional distress that…

Barely a day goes by without the media (particularly the BBC with its desire to air Labour’s current favourite topics) focusing attention on something we are all very acutely aware of, namely energy prices.

In recent days we have had Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) lead off the regular cycle of price rise announcements with an 8.2% hike on gas and electricity bills.  The political response was all too predictable.  Labour – the party which, with Ed Miliband as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, wilfully took ‘green’ measures in the 2008 Climate Change Act it knew and admitted would drive prices upwards and increase the cost of living – described the rise as scandalous.

As an example of rank hypocrisy, this is head and shoulders beyond anything we’ve seen in a long time.

Meanwhile the Tories maintained their mind-numbingly stupid refrain that the energy sector needs more…

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Gone with the wind farm
Australian Financial Review
Paul Comrie-Thomson
4 October 2013

One thousand new wind turbines a week or 52,000 a year would be needed just to keep pace with India and China’s coal burn.

So, where to now in the climate debate?

Dieter Helm, CBE, is eminently qualified to write about climate policy but seriously challenges current climate thinking.  Consider his background.  A professor of energy policy, University of Oxford, and fellow in economics at New College, Oxford, he is also a member of the economic advisory committee to the British Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and chair of the natural capital committee.

Helm was also a special adviser to the European Energy Commissioner.

He is unequivocal that global warming is a serious problem.  He advocates a carbon tax.

But in his 2012 publication The Carbon Crunch Helm details how the global chatter…

Free the Arctic 30. Donate, donate, donate, donate till ya drop.

Try as they might the combined forces of Greenpeace and The Guardian just cannot motivate the civil society they claim to represent to be outraged and indignant, in the Liberal Green way they should be, because 30 self appointed guardians of the Arctic are in assorted Russian prisons.

The lack of support in the now 4 current articles in the Guardian Environment section shows how out of touch Greenpeace are with public opinion here in the west, as well as in Russia.

An opinion poll in Russia on the actions of the Russian authorities gives 66% support for the way the Greenpeace employees were dealt with, though 17% thought the charges were too harsh and 8% deplored them as too lenient. There is a very big message that all the Green NGO’s would be well advised to hear loud…

Prince Harry is the latest Royal to question the impact of wind farms
The Express
Owen Bennett
11 May 2013

PRINCE HARRY has voiced his concerns over the visual impact of wind farms during his tour of America.

The prince apparently raised the issue with the boss of Renewable Energy Systems Americas during a reception at a golf course in Denver.

The company’s chief executive Susan Reilly said she had a similar conversation with Harry’s father, Prince Charles, in the past.

She said: “Prince Harry said he was worried about their visual impact, I told him that I had met his father some years ago and when we discussed windfarms he shared his concerns.

“But as with Prince Charles, I pointed out that we need to strike a balance between their visual impact and the need for renewable energy for future generations.”

The event was hosted by Beverley Simpson, British…

Guest writer, Jackie Rovensky, is renowned on STT for her comments, which stand out for their erudition, composition and unassailable logic.

Here’s Jackie in response to our favourite tobacco advertising guru who – once again – has elected to step well out of his limited area of “expertise”.

Jackie pops him neatly back into his little box in this fine piece.

A response to Simon Chapman’s comment “Money: the ‘cure’ for wind turbine syndrome’.

The Australian film maker he referred to, Neil Barrett is a former energy economist with the State Electricity Commission of Victoria, CEO of Video Education Australasia (VEA) and founding chair of the Mount Alexander Sustainability Group.

It’s important readers are careful not to mistake him for the Fashion Designer nor indeed Neil Barrett the British director of photography and visual anthropologist, who has worked for among others National Geographic, BBC, NBC, ABC and CNN.

I have…