I rather liked this letter in yesterday’s UK Daily Mail, so I thought I would share it:
Red alert on Greenpeace
IS GREENPEACE more powerful than UK voters? Its lawyers are demanding a judicial review of the Government’s decision to reconsider its attitude towards nuclear power.
Would that we could do the same about Greenpeace’s undemocratic decision to cover the world with useless and damaging windfarms, a course of action which almost all governments are following.
I know why we can’t: it would take too much money. How democratic is a democracy which allows rich lobby groups to influence its policy? Greenpeace seems to be awash with money: how much of it comes from the wind industry (i.e. taxpayers’ money)?
Greenpeace’s co-founder Patrick Moore was right: ‘They (Greenpeace’ s new management) have become far more extreme, their politics little more than neo-Marxism in green garb.’
As he points out, much of the environmental movement today tends to be strongly anti-human, anti-science, anti-business and anti-civilisation – as well as highly misleading. Greenpeace isn’t green and doesn’t want peace. It’s red and it wants power.
I don’t particularly care for nuclear power myself, but I don’t like an organisation that pretends to be green while destroying our natural surroundings for cialis its own gain – financial and political.
MARK DUCHAMP,
Pedreguer, Spain.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
But they mean well. Cut Greenpeas some slack.
You’re joking, right?
To Travis, don’t be angry now , but the same dolfin guy posted this on a whale hugging site , that is on topic with Paul’s post:
“Greenpeace Promotes Deadly Hazard to Whales and Dolphins.
Greenpeace, once considered a savior of whales and dolphins, has launched a $40,000 ad campaign that may prove to cause permanent and irreparable harm to these endangered marine mammals.
There was a time when Greenpeace would throw itself in front of whaling boats to protect whales from harm but, now, this same organization, funded by tax deductible contributions from whale lovers, is throwing itself and its money, $40,000, behind a two week political ad campaign to promote an industrial development, Cape Wind (a 130 440 foot tall wind turbine project slated for 25 square miles of the Nantucket Sound off the coast of Cape Cod, MA), that can cause serious effects to those same endangered marine mammals.
According to The Whale and Dolphin Society new studies show off shore wind farms pose potentially devastating threats to whales and dolphins during and after construction.
The acoustic impact of pile driving, can be heard by marine creatures in shallow water up to 80km (50 miles) away, permanently damaging their hearing at close range and causing dramatic changes to their behavior at distances of 20km (approximately 12.5 miles).
Additionally, the laying of cables and disturbance from service vessels will mean the damage will continue long after construction is over.”
Source: http://www.huliq.com/31199/
Paul,
Yeah, but attention shouldn’t be paid to Greenpeas by anyone who is actually serious (waste of resources).
Check out GP’s bumblebee dresses:
http://www.greenpeace.org/sweden/kampanjer/gmo/gmo-i-sverige/Odling-av-gmo
Ann,
I knew those wind farms were bad news from the start – they just look evil. Like praying mantises in the landscape – the chances of anything coming from Mars are a thousand to one they say. Having actually tried to light a single bulb by pedalling, I suspect that a windmill will run a couple of hair-dryers whilst charging a mobile phone. Not much more. What is their pay-off time? A century? Is it true that they are being removed in Sweden and Denmark? I’ll bet the Norwegians are laughing.
Hi Davey,
I’m not especially up to date with windfarms , but among many NGOs they are not especially popular. The ornithologists seem to be mostly negative about wind farms.
It seems as well that off shore wind farms seems to be the BIG thingy for the future, which of course will affect both birds, marine mammals , fish, spawning areas and so….
No, I don’t know Davey if they have removed wind mills here in Scandinavia , but I know they have banned wind farms up in the mountain area ( national parks) in the north.( People thought they ruined the landscape)
Thanks Ann,
Good news that Swedes are sensitive to aesthetic matters too.
It is a pity that Greenpeace is not forced to publish its financial accounts like other multinationals.
Ahhh Ann,
I’m afraid you just don’t geddit 🙂 Yes, wind turbines have been found to have negative effects on marine mammals, but wait till we use wave generators. Hundreds of hapless harbour porpoises mangled in the machinery, inshore dolphins deafened by the constant drone and Greenpeace, the only root of all evil in this world, secretly setting up a processing plant for these hapless creatures and selling them as pet food to European house wives who just don’t know better but will continue to fund their cause.
MB,
Greenpeace International *does* publish its financials. However, its independent public accountants refuse to endorse the accuracy of its reports. Part of that has to do with Greenpeace’ large cash reserves in Switzerland. There’s no way to know if they’re under-reported or not, nor to verify the source(s) of the money.
Interestingly, much of Greenpeace’ money comes from its national subsidiaries–which are required to pay what amount to annual franchise fees to the home office in Amsterdam. The pressure to turn the profit necessary to pay the home office is intense, and nobody knows the source of all these funds–at least, nobody outside of Greenpeace.
Greenpeace USA recently went nearly bankrupt as a result of failure to make franchise payments, and therefore had to participate in a management buyout of a *consumer* organization headed by John Passacantando to stay afloat. With the buyout, the “members” of the consumer organizations found themselves members of Greenpeace.
However, problems continue with Greenpeace USA. It’s actually two different entities; a foundation and a corporation. Between the two, there are allegations of money-laundering, i.e., taking tax-exempt money and sending it to the ‘political’ arm, where spending tax-exempt money is prohibited.
This sort of problem led the government of Canada to revoke Greenpeace Canada’s tax-exempt status; it was found that the Canada franchise was a political lobby group, rather than a true charitable organization.
People continue to fund the group largely because they don’t know about Greenpeace’ dodgy dealings. And that’s because the media have rather lopsided notions of what “balance” means in reporting.
“It seems as well that off shore wind farms seems to be the BIG thingy for the future, which of course will affect both birds, marine mammals , fish, spawning areas and so….”
I can’t get over how comments like this seem completely deluded. The the implication is that wind farms pose a greater threat to the environment than an oil refinery with it’s attendant oil field and oil tankers. Really, you must be totally without reason …
cheers
Patrick.
Hi Davey,
Cmon mate, the info is out there, you don’t need pedalling anecdotes to work out how much electricity a wind farm might produce.
The letter can be characterised not so much for its criticism of Greenpeace, but for its value-judgements about wind farms, mis-information about what wind farms can actually achieve in practice, and obvious partisan attitude to wind power.
Wind farms don’t operate all the time. So, like coal power, they are not able to deal with changes in peak demand.
You need fast response gas and hydro generators to do that job.
What wind power can do though, is offset kWh of electricity generation from fossil fuels with kWh from a negligible greenhouse source.
In competitive (in terms of wind speed) locations, such as coastal southern Australia, or anywhere in the UK, especially scotland, a wind speed will have a capacity factor of at least 30% (and that’s conservative A really good location in Oz or UK would be 40% or better). This means that when you average across the years, its output is equivalent to the wind farm operating at its nameplate capacity for 30% of the time.
There are 8760 hours in a year.
So that means a single, 1 megawatt turbine will produce 1 x 8760 x 0.3 = 2,628 MWh of electricity. This is equivalent to the electricity consumed by about 350-400 Australian homes.
According to this site:
http://windpower-monthly.com/wpm:WINDICATOR:107312
Australia has 817 MW of wind energy, or equivalent to the elec needs of around 300,000 Australian homes.
UK has 1958 MW. You can do the math.
NB. countries like Germany have had strong support for wind power for many years. As a result, wind farms are being built in progressively lower wind speed sites, with capacity factors down below 20%. This makes the economics worse, but on the plus side, allows Germany more flexibilty in siting wind farms, so that they can avoid high wind sites that are innappropriate for other reasons.
Davey things wind farms are ugly. I dont. Value judgment. I wonder if he has seen one up close?
PS Davey, wind farms pay off the energy embodied in their construction in a few months.
As to the economic payback, that depends on the price at which they sell their electricity.
In Australia, a wind farm will generate electricity at $75-$80/MWh, roughly double the price of coal. So they need to sell green certificates valued at $35-40 /MWh or so to be economically competitive with coal.
See here to see where Austrlaian wind farms currently are, and where they are proposed:
http://www.auswind.org/projects/
Steve,
Thanks for all the info. I agree my bicycle pedalling metaphor was a bit of journalistic hype – well, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Maybe windmills are economically viable. I still think they are ugly, and I have been close. We will have to agree to disagree.
Hey, wait a minute. Steve, do you work for a windmill company? Aaaah…
Hello Steve,
Can you give me data on the amount of energy required to manufacture and erect an average wing generator?
How much electricity will it produce?
How long does it take to replace the energy consumed in its manufacture and erection?
Best wishes,
PP
Hi Davey, I don’t work for a wind company, I work for the gummint.
That is a thing about wind power – it tends to polarise debate on the visual aesthetics front. Then again, I imagine any form of industrial development would be thought to look ugly if put in the countryside. We both need to take care though in arguing the visual appeal – you arguing too hard on this is potentially a NIMBY argument against private property rights, while me arguing too hard is ignoring the obvious impact a wind farm might have on nearby properties.
Pete, Admittedly the numbers i gave are what I remember from looking at it a while ago. Will track down some refs for you later on.
Okay Steve,
Neatly getting back on topic (almost), how about an invisible windmill competition, run by Greenpeace? I remember seeing how effective a screen of outward facing mirrors could be around a camera filming wildlife. They made it nearly invisible. Factor that into the windmill costs, Greenpeace to pay, to show they are sincere. But that won’t help Ann’s whales.
What about using Bernouilli’s Principle to build convergent wind tunnels, which look like Notre Dame, with discreet little propellors on the gargoyles? No blots on ye landscape please. Remember, I died at Agincourt in 1415.
Harry Potter might have some ideas on invisibility. Are you there, Harry?
Make the gargoyles look like famous eco-warriors – Al Gore f’rinstance? Shut up Davey … exit gibbering.
hahaha. yup, wind turbines in the city would be good.
The main problem would be turbulence – it can really add to wear and tear.
I did see a design for a whacky wind turbine that would be suspended between skyscrapers, with a funnelling array to help channel even more wind towards the blades. CAn’t find a link quickly, sorry!
But found a different one found while quickly looking for a pic, this one even more way out:
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/wind/windscraper-buildings-generate-power-260400.php
Crap(!) and an actual implementation for the Bahrain World Trade Center, featuring 3 wind turbines suspended between towers:
http://bahrainwtc.com/
There are also smaller, domestic or light industrial scale designs thare are designed to look more aesthetic:
http://www.mag-wind.com/
but what they gain in appearance they lose in efficency – not really appropriate for large scale power generation trying to compete with coal etc.
An invisible wind mill competition. Hmmm. And would they also be invisible to aircraft?
Eeep!
Let’s turn an equal dose of scrutiny on privately funded lobby groups. I await a balanced story on other activitist groups Paul
Privately funded lobby groups aren’t funded by the tax payer, which is the issue here.
The original post is about the influence of rich lobby groups, and about the bias that may be inherent in Greenpeace’s apparently altruistic posturing due to them potentially receiving wind industry funding.
You can certainly apply the same views/criticisms to privately funded lobby groups.
The post was about undue influence carrying a hidden bias, not mis-use of taxpayer monies.
Just change the goal posts why don’t you Paul?
What influence do privately funded lobby groups have compared to public funded groups?
I don’t think that question can be answered without focussing on specific groups Paul. In some spheres of policy and countries, maybe private have more influence, in others, public.
I know that most of the skeptics on this blog would be of the view that greenie groups in Australia like ACF, WWF and Greenpeace have enormous influence over govt policy on climate change.
In my view, such views are wrong.
I think it should be quite clear that John Howard and co don’t give a flying proverbial what Greenpeace or any other green group thinks, and don’t look to them for policy advice, EVER. They have approximately zero influence with the federal govt. And plenty of the Labor State govts would only pay them lip service, give them a meeting every now and then to keep them happy, as well.
The pressure for cliamte change policy that govts feel comes from voters. As JWH is now finding – ignore climate change and you lose popularity. Now he is resorting to all sorts of knee-jerk quickly and sloppily implemented climate change policies to appear like he is doing something.
One might argue that green groups exert significant pressure on govts indirectly, via the influence they have on the general public.
However, I’m not a subscriber to this argument. I think it is common on *both* sides of the political fence to view the general public as incredibly stupid and easily led. But I think that the general public (not individual people, I mean voters as a bloc) are pretty good at picking the spin and incompetence from the substance. You’d want to be in today’s world, otherwise you would be buying every product in sight after the constant battering of advertising we receive.
I think that environmental awareness is something that has been growing over 4 decades, and to try and sheet home current widespread public concern on climate change to the undue influence of a handful of NGOs is absurd.
In Australia, I’d say that industry lobby groups such as the Energy Supply Association of Australia, the Business Council of Australia, the Property Council of Australia, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry etc, have FAR FAR FAR more direct influence on energy policy with both State and Federal governments than any of the green groups.