Why an Increase in Renewable Energies is a Bad Bet

Why further percentage increases in renewable energy is neither economical, environmentally/conservation-wise, or grid stability, to the nation’s advantage, nor conducive to our national strategic interest

Dear Pres. Obama,
I’ve taken the liberty of jotting down some notes from various experts on energy and related topics, to try and show you why any further increases in renewable energy percentage is neither cost-effective nor good for our national interest.

Regarding the cost for renewable energy:

“The authors find that ratepayers are paying an extra $8.5 billion to $10 billion per year for using wind energy, which generates 3.5 percent of our electricity, rather than other cost effective forms of generation. This is in addition to the tax credits, which the Obama Administration insisted be extended as part of the tax agreement. “

Why renewable energies are a bad investment for jobs

“Unlike in 2008, when Barack Obama pledged to create 5 million jobs over 10 years by directing taxpayer funds toward renewable energy projects, there were no press conferences or stump speeches. But the data are nonetheless revealing: for the over $26 billion committed since 2009, DOE Section 1703 and 1705 loan guarantees have created only 2,298 permanent jobs –that’s $11.45 million per job.”

“…AWEA claims that the wind industry supports 73,000 jobs. But how much do those jobs cost taxpayers?
Earlier this year, Susan Combs, the Texas comptroller of public accounts, came up with an estimate. She reported that each wind-related job in the Lone Star State (which has more wind-energy capacity than any other state) costs the state’s taxpayers about $1.7 million.”

Why wind energy is destined to leave abandoned hulks across the country
“On February 17, 2012, the wind industry itself warned of more abandoned projects: “The wind power industry is predicting massive layoffs and stalled or abandoned projects after a deal to renew a taxcredit failed Thursday in Washington.”

Why renewable energies are NOT a good replacement for fossil fuels

“On a large scale, a coal mine or oil field, for instance, yields five to 50 times more power per square meter than a solar facility, 10 to 100 times more than a wind farm, and 100 to 1,000 times more than a biomass plant like corn.
The utmost defeating point for the ethanol argument is that oil yields 50 times more energy than ethanol from corn and 10 times more than ethanol from sugar cane, according to ecological economist Cutler Cleveland. “
This power density of fossil fuels cannot be manipulated to one’s advantage when arguing for renewable energies, they are simply too great. I have heard one commentator say that if we hadn’t discovered oil and gasoline, we would’ve had to invent it, like the Germans were trying to do in World War II to keep their war machine moving.

“Let me explain the issues as I see them.
1. Not a good enough energy return.
3. Concern about damage to the environment.
Other “

“Those who demonize fossil-fuel usage do not understand or appreciate the great economic technical and human advances which fossil-fuels have brought to society. Our modern society with its higher living standards and increased lifespan would not have been possible without the large amounts of cheap energy which fossil-fuels have provided over the last century-and-a-half. “
Mr. Pres., although you and Ms.Gina McCarthy, EPA , would like to blame fossil fuels for every unfortunate situation that man has encountered, this research shows that poverty is the primary reason for asthma in inner-city youth “In fully adjusted models black race, Puerto Rican ethnicity, and lower household income but not residence in poor or urban areas were independent risk factors for current asthma. “, This study of more than 23,000 youth proves otherwise, so why do you promote policies which force poor people to spend more money on ridiculously high-priced renewable energy, when it neither helps their economic situation nor their health?

“The section concludes with an examination of what the EIA data really show for those states for 2007 versus 2008—and what the official Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports say about causal factors for any CO2 reductions.
The Bentek study showed that wind volatility in the sampled regions of Colorado and Texas caused more CO2 emissions than would have been the case with less wind and more efficient coal plants. Using mostly sub-hourly performance data, Bentek was able to “examine in detail how coal, gas and wind interact and the resulting emissions implications.”
As noted in Part I of this series, Bentek then recommended that better results for carbon emissions offsets could be produced by introducing more responsive natural gas units on the system, in part replacing the coal plants with machines that burned 50% cleaner …
If anything, accounting for imports confirms the Bentek findings, reinforcing the view that increasing wind volatility imposes thermal inefficiencies throughout the system, ultimately saving no conventional fuels and, in the case Bentek studied, increasing CO2 emissions. AWEA, in short, has confused correlation with causation. Simply because there was a decrease in in-state fossil fuel use does not mean increased wind generation was responsible. …
AWEA’s contention that there exists “overwhelming evidence, “indisputable data,” and “uncontestable benefits” to support its belief that wind is a potent offsetter of emissions is, at best, disingenuous and probably spurious. It is definitely not derived from scientifically vetted evidence. Whatever claims are made for wind should not ignore a grid’s requirement for capacity, in most cases in the form fossil-fuel plant operation inefficiently used to balance unreliable and erratic wind production.

“Just as the grid must reduce supply in precise increments to keep pace with specific reductions in demand—or increase supply in just the right increments to keep pace with increasing demand, the grid must respond to increased wind penetration, which, to a grid operator, looks much like a reduction in demand. Since wind plants are continuously generating between zero and 100% of their rated capacity in flux, providing who-knows-what for any future time, conventional generation must infill any reduction in wind energy at the precise increment of that reduction and, conversely, it must be withdrawn in increments that match any wind increases. …
However, in areas like Texas, where there is no day-ahead spot market, wind is responsible for eroding natural gas prices, as the Wall Street Journal reported last March. Suffice it to say, as Lisa Linowes once did:
“Since the price paid for 90% of the generation is established twenty-four hours in advance of the power day, any low-cost participation from wind will have only a marginal impact on prices limited to those resources operating within the real-time market.[5]
Government projections, particularly those from the National Renewable Energy Lab, that show wind can provide a substantial percentage of electricity in the United States while substantially reducing CO2 emissions are uncontaminated by reality; they have no more credibility than college football polls. Simulations based upon even hourly dispatch models without considering the gustiness of the wind and the corresponding heat rate penalties yield incomplete, if not duplicitous, information about a complex process—while assumptions about wind’s ability to replace generation one-to-one are cartoonish misrepresentations of reality.
The NREL projections do not even try to account for the impact of thermal cycling events in response to wind volatility. …
Measurement of greenhouse gas emissions is imprecise and statistical. …
Here’s what Robert Bryce had reported in his Wall Street Journal article: “The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has estimated the potential savings from a nationwide 25% renewable electricity standard…. Best-case scenario: about 306 million tons less CO2 by 2030. Given that the agency expects annual U.S. carbon emissions to be about 6.2 billion tons in 2030, that expected reduction will only equal about 4.9% of emissions nationwide.” There is a worst-case scenario: all that wind will produce virtually no reductions, a conclusion of the National Academy of Science.[6]
Bryce also reported that the NREL believes that if 20% of the electricity in the eastern U.S. came from wind, “the likely reduction in carbon emissions would be less than 200 million tons per year,” not even a drop in the bucket, as we will see.
In discussing 2009 CO2 reductions, the EIA does state wind was responsible for avoiding 39 mmt. This was 19% of the total claimed CO2 emissions drop for the year—205 mmt— which also factored reduced demand and improved nuclear (26 mmt) and natural gas (82mmt) efficiency. However, since the total CO2 emissions tied to electricity production for the year was 2295 mmt, the 39 mmt from wind contributed only 1.6% of the total—a thimbleful, despite the presence of over 35000MW of installed wind capacity. And even this may have substantially overstated the case for wind, given the margin for error inherent in the EIA’s emission savings projection from wind, which also did not account for wind-induced emissions from inefficient cycling.

“Any explanation about causation must honestly and transparently account for all variables at play. It should not consist of cherry picked items favorable to a particular agenda while ignoring other, less favorable factors. …
With over 100,000 massive wind turbines around the world—35,000 plus in North America—not one coal plant has closed due to the installation of any wind projects. Nor is there empirical evidence that there is less coal burned per unit of electricity produced as a specific consequence of wind. Ontario has long promised to retire (but has never been able to do so) all its coal plants. Officials tout that they will be replaced by wind. To hedge its renewable energy bet, the Ontario government is building natural-gas facilities as insurance against new wind projects.
In other words, the province expects to replace coal with natural gas, not wind. The latter could not exist without either hydro, which presently provides the province about 25% of total generation (wind is about one percent) or flexible natural gas generators.
Wind technology is NOT universally recognized for its ability to reduce CO2 emissions, for many have contested that presumption. And, in the wake of Bryce’s article, many more will soon join the fray. …
The Bentek study is supported by the work of engineers like Kent Hawkins in Canada (here and here), Peter Lang in Australia (here and here), Bryan Leyland in New Zealand, Jim Oswald in Britain, C. le Pair and Kees de Groot in The Netherlands, and several studies in Germany, Spain and Denmark, some of which are summarized in Bryce’s latest book. …
Lang, Le Pair/De Groot, Oswald, and Hawkins have independently developed differing methodologies for assessing wind’s potential to engage greenhouse gas emissions, and they are in remarkable agreement about their conclusion: that the higher wind penetration on virtually any grid system, the greater potential for more CO2 emissions than would be the case without any wind at all. …
Consider just a few of the questions that must be answered and the issues that must be properly accounted for, at minimum:
The amount of conventional generation necessary when wind is producing nothing?
The amount of conventional generation necessary to infill the gap between when a 100MW wind project is producing, say, 50MW in one minute and, minutes later, only 40MW?
The amount and pace of conventional generation that must be withdrawn when that wind project increases its yield quickly, moving, say, from producing 10MW in one minute and, 15 minutes later, 80MW? This may not be consequential for any grid in terms of security, particularly large grids like the PJM with over 140,000MW of peak demand generation. But even this relatively trifling flux has cost and emissions consequences, which should be properly assessed. …
Logic also dictates, in answer to these questions, that any grid must be able to support the entire range of wind flux–from zero to the highest installed wind capacity. Therefore, a grid must have a 1:1 compensatory generation for wind available at all times. …
Looking at the evidence provided on behalf of wind technology, which is at best equivocal, and critical analyses like Bentek’s that expose the technology’s limitations, perhaps it’s fair to conclude by extending AWEA’s distasteful analogy. Those who claim that wind technology can abate meaningful levels of CO2 emissions would admire the three-pack a day guy who decides to improve his health by smoking four packs of filtered cigarettes instead.

Thermodynamics of the Corn-Ethanol Biofuel Cycle
“In 2004, ethanol production from corn will generate 8 million tons of incremental CO2, over and above the amount of CO2 generated by burning gasoline with 115% of the calorific value of this ethanol. It next calculates the cumulative energy (available free energy) consumed in corn farming and ethanol production, and estimates the minimum amount of work necessary to restore the key non-renewable resources consumed by the industrial corn-ethanol cycle. This amount of work is compared with the maximum useful work obtained from the industrial corn-ethanol cycle. It appears that if the corn-ethanol energy is used to power a car engine, the minimum restoration work is about 6 times the maximum useful work from the cycle. This ratio drops down to 2 if an ideal fuel cell is used to process the ethanol. The article estimates the U.S. taxpayer subsidies of the industrial corn-ethanol cycle at $3.8 billion in 2004. The parallel subsidies by the environment are estimated at $1.8 billion in 2004. “

“David Pimental from Cornell claimed that making a gallon of ethanol used 29 percent more energy than it provided. Moreover, it was alleged that ethanol increased evaporation of volatile organic compounds in the summer thus increasing, not reducing smog. Finally, life cycle analysis revealed that overall, allowing for how ethanol is produced from corn, e.g. diesel fuel used to drive tractors and harvesters, and fossil fuels burned to produce fertilizers and as feedstocks, and as feedstocks and energy to produce pesticides, ethanol actually increased air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed, a Duke University study found that “to avoid creating greenhouse gases, it is better to leave land unfarmed in conservation reserves than to plow it up for corn to make biofuel.” …
A recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looking at the total climate change and health costs from fuels found that corn-based ethanol equaled or exceeded the costs of gasoline; the combined climate-change and health costs were $469 million for gasoline, $472 million to $952 million for corn ethanol, and $123 million to $208 million for cellulosic ethanol. Cellulosic ethanol is less costly because its production emits fewer greenhouse gases than corn production and has minimal impacts on carbon sinks, air pollution and food prices.”

What a huge reversal of fate for the German renewables sector, as the German government was forced to bring in massive Coal Diggers (or as this story labels for picture “BRING ON THE DIRTY COAL MINING MONSTERS”).

“The truth is that under all aspects, we have underestimated the complexity of the “Energiewende”
“The noble aspiration of a decentralized energy supply, of self-sufficiency! This is of course utter madness”in
“Anyway, most other countries in Europe think we are crazy”…
This grid instability problem only occurs when the percentage of renewables one is attempting to employ in the grid climbs higher and higher.

“But even if ethanol costs a lot, doesn’t it at least benefit the environment? Not necessarily. Because it’s an oxygenate, ethanol increases levels of nitrous oxides in the atmosphere and causes smog. Researchers are debating the extent to which it reduces greenhouse gases, with some estimates as low as 5%. Also, ethanol lags gasoline in fuel efficiency, and it requires fossil fuels like coal or gas to refine and transport it.

Mr. Pres.,if you one of those who believe that greenhouse gases are the reason for temperature increases, that should concern you, but I think it’s irrelevant because, of these links http://bit.ly/113CqGk, http://bit.ly/15KjDTg, http://bit.ly/1Jahv99, http://bit.ly/1SiOxpm , http://bit.ly/1GIglBH , and http://bit.ly/1KByEYL. For those who think that man-made CO2 is the scourge of the earth, you should watch this video regarding seats in the Dallas Cowboys Stadium as evidenced of how little man’s Anthropogenic Global Warming (ACW) influences climate, http://bit.ly/1xNPedR.
The below link the addresses the quoted text above.

“Thus, within the critical time frame for avoiding a climate catastrophe—the next couple of decades, according to the February 2007 United Nations report Confronting Climate Change: Avoiding the Unmanageable and Managing the Unavoidable—biofuel crops will only aggravate global climate disruption.
For those of us with even a smattering of economics training, this called the“opportunity cost”, and is the fault of most simple economic analyses, that proclaim to show increased jobs, like those that your administration has bragged about far too often.
“Moreover, ethanol burned in an engine produces more than twice as much ozone as the equivalent amount of petrol. Ground-level ozone is a big cause of smog. And, while good at boosting a fuel’s octane rating, ethanol packs only two-thirds the energy per gallon of petrol. As a result, motorists get fewer miles per gallon using fuel blended with ethanol than with undiluted petrol. So, even if blended fuel is cheaper per gallon than petrol (thanks to ethanol’s subsidies), the overall cost of using it tends to be higher.
So, thank you Presidents Bush and Obama for giving the American public this wonderful treat of an inefficient fuel!

“Although, or because, wind provides only 0.2% of US electricity, the idol of wind evokes much worship. The basic fact of wind is that it provides about 1.2 watts per square metre or 12,000 watts per hectare of year-round average electric power. Consider, for example, the $212 million wind farm about 30 kilometres south of Lamar, CO, where 108 1.5 MWe wind turbines stand 80 metres tall, their blades sweeping to 115 metres.
The wind farm spreads over 4800 hectares. At 30% capacity, peak power density is the typical 1.2 watts per square metre.”…”Perhaps three to ten times more compact than biomass, a wind farm occupying about 770 square kilometres could produce as much energy as one 1000 MWe nuclear plant. To meet 2005 US electricity demand of about four million MWhr with around-the-clock-wind would have required wind farms covering over 780,000 square kilometres, about Texas plus Louisiana, or about 1.2 times the area of Alberta. Canada’s demand is about 10% of the USA and corresponds to about the area of New Brunswick.

The dangers of having a must-take energy source in one’s portfolio.
But wind power is allowed to ignore this cost.
…State renewable portfolio standards (RPS) mandate that wind energy be considered a “must take” resource. As such, when wind blows, generation from coal and natural gas must be adjusted to accommodate wind generation. This adjustment, called cycling, is defined as the sudden increase or decrease in generation.
Most coal plants are not designed to be cycled, and doing so makes their operations inefficient, increasing SO2, NOx and CO2 emissions.
Contrary to their stated goals, implementation of RPS in Colorado and Texas appear to be adding to the air pollution problem, especially in areas where older plants are cycled more frequently. This is particularly problematic when cycled coal facilities are located near major urban centers. …
This report, which examines four years of Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCO) hourly operational history, illustrates how coal cycling, which in part results from wind generation, negates the emission benefits of wind energy. Integrating an intermittent, must take resource, such as wind energy, requires PSCO to cycle its coal and natural gas-fired plants. The incidents of coal cycling have risen markedly with the introduction of 775 MW of wind capacity since 2007. …
The results of this study help explain why PSCO’s coal-fired plants located in the Denver non-attainment area have experienced an increase in SO2, NOX and CO2 over the past few years. Four of the five most frequently cycled coal plants are located in proximity to Denver. The results also suggest that this problem will worsen over time unless more gas generation is utilized to absorb wind generation variability. …
Effective wind energy requires sufficient flexible natural gas generation in order to avoid cycling coal facilities. Enacting RPS’s that require more than 5-10% of wind energy for electricity generation will significantly add to emissions unless more flexible natural gas generation is utilized. The report recommends:
1. Short term. (1-2 years)
Limit the utilization of wind generation to that which can be offset by cycling existing natural gas facilities.
2. Long term (Beyond 2012)
Utilities operating under RPS should consider adding significantly more combined cycle and combustion turbine gas plants to their generation mix. Adding more natural gas plants will reduce the need to cycle coal facilities in all but the most extreme situations.

“38. Wind resources tend to be strongest and most predictable at night. During that time period, generation from coal comprises approximately 62% of the generation mix and gas-fired generation falls to 20% within the PSCo system, for example. Later in the night, baseload coal fired generation is often sufficient to meet the demand, and because it is the most cost effective it is used. However, it becomes the only resource available to absorb the “must-take” wind power and thus PSCo has cycled its coal facilities.26
The disaster that is biofuels

“2) An obscure federal law – 40 CFR 600.510-08(c)(2)(iii) et seq. – enables automakers to grossly understate the fuel consumption of an E85-compatible vehicle. The measured fuel economy is divided by a fudge factor of 0.15, resulting in a vehicle which actually achieves, say, 20 miles per gallon of E85 credited with achieving 133 miles per gallon, when the automaker’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) is calculated. The result is that each automaker can manufacture more gas guzzlers while complying with CAFE law.
“New Battles to Fight
And the damage to wildlife due to the major forms of renewable energy.
“By chance (if you believe in coincidences), a timely government study claims wind farms will kill “only” 1.4 million birds yearly by 2030 (1). …
Dr. Shawn Smallwood’s 2004 study, spanning four years, estimated that California’s Altamont Pass wind “farm” killed an average of 116 Golden Eagles annually (2). This adds up to 2,900 dead “goldies” since it was built 25 years ago. …
Smallwood also estimated that Altamont killed an average of 300 red-tailed hawks, 333 American kestrels and 380 burrowing owls annually – plus even more non-raptors, including 2,526 rock doves and 2,557 western meadowlarks. …
the Spanish Ornithological Society (SEO/Birdlife) reviewed actual carcass counts from 136 monitoring studies. They concluded that Spain’s 18,000 wind turbines are killing 6-18 million birds and bats yearly

Extrapolating that and similar (little publicized) German and Swedish studies, 39,000 U.S. wind turbines would not be killing “only” 440,000 birds (USFWS, 2009) or “just” 573,000 birds and 888,000 bats (Smallwood, 2013) (4), but 13-39 million birds and bats every year!

Wildlife expert Jim Wiegand has documented how areas searched under wind turbines are still confined to 200-foot radiuses, even though modern monster turbines catapult 90% of bird and bat carcasses much further. Windfarm owners, operating under voluntary(!) USFWS guidelines, commission studies that search much-too-small areas, look only once every 30-90 days, ensuring that scavengers remove most carcasses, and ignore wounded birds that happen to be found within search perimeters (5)
By 2030, the United States plans to produce 20% of its electricity from wind. That’s nearly six times as much as today, from three or four times as many turbines, striking more flying creatures due to their bigger size (even the mendacious study predicting 1.4 million bird kills recognizes this).
Personally, this is one thing I cannot abide by, killing our Eagles, raptors and bats.
Definitely worth reading!

Problems with solar panels

Solar Energy: Not So Clean After All.
Solar energy turns sunlight into electrical power. What’s not to like? Well, there is that whole process of manufacturing solar panels, which requires a great deal of energy. All that energy requires generation via means other than solar powerusually coal.
“In the case of silicon-based solar panels, which are the most common type, the silicon material requires melting silica rock in roughly 3,000-degree F ovens,” notes The Data Center Journal. “That energy, however, typically comes from coal plants, meaning that although solar panels may produce no emissions when in operation, they indirectly produce a fair amount during manufacturing.”
And what to do with the solar panels when their productive life is over in about 25 years or so? And what about all the waste chemicals generated by the solar panel manufacturing process? The Union of Concerned Scientists write that the photovoltaic (PV) cell manufacturing process “includes a number of hazardous materials,” similar to “those used in the general semiconductor industry,” such as “hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, hydrogen fluoride, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, and acetone.” If we’re talking about thin-film PV cells, it’s worse, as UCS explains, since those have “more toxic materials than those used in traditional silicon photovoltaic cells, including gallium arsenide, copper-indium-gallium-diselenide, and cadmium-telluride.”

And the problems with concentrated solar technology.

“From Nature World News:

“Workers at a state-of-the-art solar plant in the Mojave Desert have a name for birds that fly through the plant’s concentrated sun rays — “streamers,” for the smoke plume from birds that ignite in midair. Federal wildlife investigators who visited the BrightSource Energy plant last year reported an average of one “streamer” every two minutes. They’re urging California officials to halt the operator’s application to build a still-bigger version until the extent of the deaths is assessed. Annual estimates range from a low of about a thousand by BrightSource to 28,000 by an expert for the Center for Biological Diversity environmental group.
Seems like some environmentalists are concerned by this, as I am.

“In 2013, solar accounted for about 0.2 percent of the net electricity produced in the United States, according to the Institute for Energy Research. That same year, solar accounted for 3.1 percent of Spain’s total electricity, according to REE.
Still, Spain’s renewable energy story has not been all roses. The country’s aggressive goals have been heavily subsidized by its government, and the government has fallen into economic distress as a result. Specifically, the New York Times reported in 2013 that Spain’s tariff deficit had built up a cumulative debt of about €26 billion ($35 billion). Since then, however, the country has slashed its subsidies, putting the bulk of costs back on the power utilities themselves. “

In an embarrassing admission, the government said last month that despite past consumer price increases for power and attempts at reform, the tariff deficit this year would reach €2.5 billion to €3 billion. ..
The overall goal of ending the tariff deficit has broad support, including from the renewable energy industry, but nobody is happy with how the government has proposed to split the unavoidable economic pain. “

The benefits of electricity produced from fossil fuels versus wind energy

“It’s not just that coal-fired power plants can be plunked down pretty much wherever we want them. It’s also that watt for watt they are far more compact than their equivalent in wind turbines.

For new wind projects huge 5-megawatt wind generators are just now being deployed. If we take these as typical (and they are not), then using an estimate of the direct land footprint for wind towers of 0.38 acres per tower, we find that we’d need 100 towers covering 38 acres. But wind turbines run at only about 30 percent capacity because the wind doesn’t blow all the time. This compares to about 70 percent capacity for coal-fired power plants. So we need to multiply 100 towers by about 2 1/3 to get the number of towers we’d need to match the operating capacity of one coal-fired plant. That means we’d need about 233 towers with a direct land footprint of 87 acres. That doesn’t seem too bad. And, the land under the turbines is still available for farming and other purposes. The overall direct effects on the land and water are certainly less when compared to the coal plant. …
But we’re not done. The spacing between towers is typically at least five diameters of the rotor. That doesn’t sound like much. But for the 5-megawatt towers in this example, the spacing would be 2,065 feet times 232–we don’t need to separate the last tower from another tower beyond it. Then we’d add the diameter of the rotors–413 feet times 233–and we get a distance equivalent to about 110 miles. So, we’d need a line of 5-megawatt turbines stretching 110 miles. In theory, we’d want to split them up and put them in various locations in which the wind blows hardest at different times. But the total length of the line would still be at least 110 miles.

Lisa Margonelli’s article in the Atlantic regarding Clean Energy’s Dirty Little Secret describes how China controls 70% of the world’s market of rare earth metal oxides, and they recently cut their exports to increase production in-house.
Mr. Irving Mintzer has a very wise thought. indeed.

“Supply challenges for five rare-earth metals – dysprosium, neodymium, terbium, europium and yttrium – may affect clean energy technology deployment in the years ahead, the DOE says. …

Mr. Pres. I can’t imagine you wanting to have China control either our national security nor the nation’s energy production.

“Notably, the United States has a considerable rare earths supply; what it lacks
is an efficient permitting process to attract investment and promote extraction.”

But, this is no different than the permitting process for oil and gas drilling, isn’t that true Mr. Obama?

“…Wind energy turns out to be a lot like solar energy.

In California, there are thousands of such abandoned sites, including Altamont Pass, Techachapin and San Gorgonioall considered perfect spots for wind turbines.
It is unlikely that the Obama Administration will let facts get in the way of their war against fossil fuels and their love affair with solar and wind power. Expect more taxpayer dollars to be flushed down the rathole of solar and wind boondoggles. Expect to see more abandoned wind farms in the future — as long as Obama remains in office and the EPA is run by the climate alarmist zealot Lisa Jackson.

Well,the name is changed to protect the innocent, but their ideology towards renewable energy is still in place under Gina McCarthy

“It is also worth noting that wind farming on an industrial scale has the potential to impact global climate by altering the atmosphere’s ability to transport heat and moisture, critically affecting global weather and precipitation patterns by interrupting the natural circulation of moisture by wind[21]. For wind energy to truly provide a reliable alternative to current power generation techniques, it would have to be implemented at a massive industrial scale, at the risk of disastrous environmental consequence. The speculated far-reaching consequences of this impact range from changing hurricane patterns off the coast of Mexico, to having significant downstream effects on cyclones in the North Atlantic….
Many of the purported benefits of wind energy, such as the lack of harmful emissions associated with conventional power generation techniques, have yet to prove themselves[12]. It is true that wind turbines on their own do not emit carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases in operation, meaning that on the surface, at least, wind energy has a relatively small carbon footprint[24]. They do, however, rely on the use of rare earth metals, which require mining and are, as the name suggests, of limited supply. This poses a problem for a renewable energy technology to remain ‘renewable’ when it is dependent on a finite resource. The magnets integral to the operation of wind turbines include neodymium, terbium and dysprosium, three rare earth metals that, as yet, have no equivalent substitute[20]. Some harmful emission like CO2 are still released in the manufacture, transportation, and maintenance of wind turbines[12], but even at its worst, a wind turbine is likely still minimally damaging to the environment. …

The exorbitant costs involved in developing and maintaining wind farms is increasingly resulting in the abandonment of completed wind farm projects. Approximately 4,500 wind turbines have been built and abandoned just in California, while many others are unable to function at maximum capacity due to previously unforeseen problems. The Altamont Pass Wind Farm of Northern California, for example, was once the largest wind farm on earth, but the turbines must now be shut down during four months of the year to protect migrating birds….

On a broader scale, some sources have even gone so far as to point out that there has been “zero scientific empirical proof provided by the wind industry to support their claims of consequential CO2 reduction,” (Droz, 2012) while others suggest that actual CO2 savings from wind energy have been miniscule, if not actively detrimental. The Colorado energy market, for example, in having to accommodate the use of inefficient and unreliable wind energy into its power grid (and continuously balancing the grid on a second-by-second basis with fossil-fuel-generated electricity), found that forcing the inclusion of wind energy actually resulted in having to operate coal-burning power generators at a lower state of efficiency than they would have otherwise, inadvertently resulting in the release of even more harmful emissions[2].

“…There was a reason wind power went out of fashion historically while other power generation techniques flourished: it just wasn’t as efficient. Truth be told, despite many advancements and a whole lot of funding for wind energy over the last two decades, it is still inefficient. “

“…While it is true solar and wind energy have not yet made themselves a viable, financially sound alternative to coal-fired power plants – without the help of massive government subsidies – their industry has hardly suffered while lawmakers try to do what is right for Ohio. …
If renewable energy advocates are looking for sympathy because they have not experienced the explosive growth to which they believed they were entitled, with the help of government, they should look elsewhere. Ohio lawmakers were correct in attempting to slow the bleeding in the coal industry caused by the war on coal and affordable electricity.
Featured Articles
Wind Energy Controversies: Environment, Health and Community
Read the article in PDF.
Wind energy is widely cited as the fastest-growing source of energy in the world today[24]. For anyone who has witnessed wind turbines sprouting up on the horizon like dandelions over the last ten years or so, this is no surprise. For many others, this development has been less localized to the horizon than to their own backyards, often without community consultation or thoughtful implementation.
Wind energy carries with it an abundance of hopes and expectations: that it will power our vehicles, decentralise and diversify our power grids, replace coal-fired power plants, eliminate our reliance on fossil fuels, and essentially save the world from the catastrophic global warming mess that we’ve gotten it into[21].
That’s a lot to ask of a technology that, despite technically exiting on a small scale for centuries, is actually still in its infancy. There was a reason wind power went out of fashion historically while other power generation techniques flourished: it just wasn’t as efficient. Truth be told, despite many advancements and a whole lot of funding for wind energy over the last two decades, it is still inefficient.
Wind power is dependent on wind speed, turbine size, and air density[8]. The bigger the wind turbine, the more power it is capable of generating, hence the behemoths we see today (which can range from 200 to 400 feet to the tip of the rotor[12]). The theoretical limit of 60% to a windmill’s efficiency[8] is largely necessary (wind must continue past the wind turbine, after all), but this is still a significant limitation that doesn’t even begin to address the additional problem that these turbines are estimated to not function at all in 25% of cases—as many as 1 in 4 wind turbines, whether they appear to be rotating or not, simply do nothing[14].
Many of the purported benefits of wind energy, such as the lack of harmful emissions associated with conventional power generation techniques, have yet to prove themselves[12]. It is true that wind turbines on their own do not emit carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases in operation, meaning that on the surface, at least, wind energy has a relatively small carbon footprint[24]. They do, however, rely on the use of rare earth metals, which require mining and are, as the name suggests, of limited supply. This poses a problem for a renewable energy technology to remain ‘renewable’ when it is dependent on a finite resource. The magnets integral to the operation of wind turbines include neodymium, terbium and dysprosium, three rare earth metals that, as yet, have no equivalent substitute[20]. Some harmful emission like CO2 are still released in the manufacture, transportation, and maintenance of wind turbines[12], but even at its worst, a wind turbine is likely still minimally damaging to the environment. All of this would be understandable, if not laudable, if wind energy were actually efficient and effective as a renewable power source. It certainly has the potential to result in reduced fossil fuel consumption, and less water and air pollution. Whether it will live up to this potential on the scale we need it to, however, remains to be seen.
So far, what we have seen is that wind turbines do not last as long as promised, they require far more maintenance than anyone had anticipated, and they don’t produce as much energy as hoped[14]. In many cases, the cost of repairs to existing turbines has proven to be more expensive than replacement, as was the case with the 37-turbine Kamaoa Wind Farm in Hawaii.
Currently, wind power accounts for about 0.2% of the world’s energy demands[21]. Initial estimates posited that wind power could provide the planet with a total of 68 terawatts of power (to put this into perspective, consider that we currently use an estimated 17 TW per year worldwide), but these estimates have since been downgraded to closer to 18 TW, because wind energy isn’t the easy solution we were all hoping for; and could, in fact, have disastrous environmental consequences of its own if employed at the massive industrial scale that would be needed for wind power to provide energy at significant levels.
In the US, wind power generated about 3.5% of the country’s electricity in 2012[16]. Since 2007, almost 40% of all the new electricity capacity in the states has been in the form of wind energy, though the actual electricity produced by wind power still accounts for a very small percentage of the country’s power generation. Also as of 2012, wind power provided 2.3% of Canada’s electricity demands, with a goal of 25% by 2025[15]. In Ontario alone, wind energy is expected to generate 10% of Ontario’s electricity by 2030[1]. And as a result of Ontario’s 2009 Green Energy Act (an attempt to meet these lofty goals) a proliferation of haphazard wind turbine projects sprouted up throughout the province[13]. In its early years, it was almost taboo to imply that wind energy was in any way faulted. Saying you didn’t like the idea of wind energy was like saying you didn’t like puppies. However, now that wind energy has reached its awkward teenage years, that unquestioning support has dwindled. Ontario is the perfect example of this renewable energy unrest.
The Green Energy Act, with all its good intentions, gave the green energy industry license to install wind, solar and biogas systems wherever they chose[10], and required the serious implementation of wind energy into the infrastructure of the province—without requiring the permission or input of the municipalities that were to host it…because who doesn’t love wind energy? As it turns out, jumping onboard the wind energy train without due consideration of the potential drawbacks did not go over well with many Ontario communities, resulting in protests, outrage, and declining public standing of renewable energy. This wasn’t just because the turbine dandelions were considered a blight on an otherwise idyllic landscape. Wind farms present real problems, ranging from environmental and health concerns, to community unrest.
One of the most commonly cited environmental concerns related to wind energy has to do with avian mortality rates. The American Bird Conservancy estimates that wind turbines kill between 10 and 40 thousand birds per year[5]. This is a huge number of birds, but it is also important to consider this number in context. Estimates in Toronto, for example, suggest that about 10,000 birds die per year between 11:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. due to collisions with brightly lit office towers. Similarly, buildings and windows are estimated to kill up to 980 million birds each year in the United States (with another 80 million dying in vehicle-related collisions). Power lines are cited to be responsible for 130 million avian deaths per year in the US, communications towers contribute to another 4-5 million deaths, pesticides to 67 million, and the innocuous house cat to an estimated 100 million.
That is not to say that the 10-40 thousand deaths by wind turbines are inconsequential, of course. In some ways it is not a fair comparison—the birds colliding with office towers in Toronto are not necessarily the same birds being killed by rural wind turbines.
Ten thousand dead pigeons may not create much of a dent in the overall pigeon population, but 10,000 deaths in a smaller or more fragile avian community could have far more serious and far-reaching impacts. So while it is important to consider wind-turbine-related avian mortality rates in context, and not fall into the trap of overstating the severity of the problem, we still cannot disregard the argument entirely.
Birds are not the only causalities; bat populations are taking a hit as well[10], and while this may not seem like a big problem to city-dwellers who may not have ever seen a bat in their lives, the impact of their deaths has broad consequences, ranging from agricultural losses to significant alterations in the local ecosystem[3] (fewer bats, for example, typically results in more mosquitoes, resulting in the spread of more mosquito-borne diseases—and maybe such a correlation is a touch melodramatic, but it does illustrate the point that anything we do to the environment, even the most well-meaning of alterations, can have vast and detrimental impacts in delicate ecosystems that eventually cycle back to affect us). Estimates suggest that agricultural losses in North America related to current bat mortality rates (due to wind turbines and white-noise syndrome, the two greatest threats bats face today) could cost $3.7 billion per year[3].
The impact of wind turbines on local wildlife has led some facilities (such as those in Searsburg, Vermont) to institute monitoring programs in order to analyse and, theoretically, prevent some of this damage[12]. Others, like Northern California’s Altamont Pass Wind Farm[14], require that the facilities be out of operation during certain times of the year when avian migration activity is at its peak, preventing avian mortality, but at the expense of much of the facility’s efficiency.
“This report, sponsored by the Independent Producers Association of Mountain States, concludes that the emissions        benefits of renewable energy are not being realized as planned based on examination of four years of Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCO) operational history. Integrating erratic and unpredictable wind resources with established coal and natural gas generation resources requires PSCO to cycle its coal and natural gas fired plants. Cycling coal plants to accommodate wind generation makes the plants operate inefficiently, which drives up emissions. Moreover, when they are not operated consistently at their designed temperatures, the variability causes problems with the way they interact with their associated emission control technologies, frequently causing erratic emission behavior that can last for several hours before control is regained. Ironically, using wind to a degree that forces utilities to temporarily reduce their coal generation results in greater SO2, NOX and CO2 than would have occurred if less wind energy were generated and coal generation were not impacted.”
   -Bentek Energy, 2010
It is also worth noting that wind farming on an industrial scale has the potential to impact global climate by altering the atmosphere’s ability to transport heat and moisture, critically affecting global weather and precipitation patterns by interrupting the natural circulation of moisture by wind[21]. For wind energy to truly provide a reliable alternative to current power generation techniques, it would have to be implemented at a massive industrial scale, at the risk of disastrous environmental consequence. The speculated far-reaching consequences of this impact range from changing hurricane patterns off the coast of Mexico, to having significant downstream effects on cyclones in the North Atlantic. Less dire, but still significant findings include a 2012 study by the journal Nature, which found that large wind farms in west-central Texas have already warmed nighttime temperatures over last nine years by one degree.
This is not to say that wind energy does not have the potential to be highly beneficial to the environment, but rather to point out that it is not a cure-all for our environmental problems and should therefore not be treated as such. This is an industry with as much potential for environmental harm as good, and it needs to be regulated accordingly.

Noise is the leading complaint from those living near grid-scale wind projects[23]. The impact of this noise is the subject of ongoing scientific and policy debate worldwide.
When it comes to wind turbines specifically, noise can be generated by the wind turbine itself while in operation, the facility’s transformer station (when applicable), as well as the vehicle traffic between turbines necessary for maintenance. The two primary types of noise related to wind turbines include mechanical noise (from the motor and gearbox of the turbine’s nacelle), and the aerodynamic noise produced by wind passing over the blades as well as the passage of the blades in front of the turbine tower[15]. Early designs generated a considerable amount of low frequency vibration because blades were placed downwind of the tower, forcing wind to travel past the tower before striking the blades. Modern wind turbine designs have to some extent been able to overcome these noise challenges, but are also considerably larger than many of their predecessors and continue to generate noise complaints from their host communities.
A review of the current literature on the subject shows that health effects related to wind turbine noise have been found to include a broad range of symptoms. The largest reported concern is sleep disruption, while other symptoms include headaches, migraines, ear pain, and psychological distress[20]. Wind turbines tend to be found in rural communities where ambient noise is typically low, and may therefore have a more pronounced effect on residents unused to noise[15].
The Canadian Journal of Rural Medicine found that turbines located too close to residents can have a negative effect on their physical, mental, and social well-being, and present a potential cause of health problems[20]. The fact that wind turbines produce noise is indisputable, but what is hotly disputed is whether or not the noise produced is actually capable of causing health problems for those exposed to it.
Some wind industry supporters argue that the health concerns reported by individuals living in close proximity to wind farms are merely psychosomatic, resulting from negative media attention around turbines[7]. This argument stems from some intriguing studies that concluded health problems associated with wind turbine noise tended to only be reported after negative media attention began to surround wind turbines, while not occurring prior to this attention in spite of the continuous presence of the wind turbines.
While negative media attention around a particular subject does tend to spur complaints, and these complaints may merely be the result of human suggestibility or hypochondria, it is also possible that such media attention encourages increased awareness of a legitimate, existing problem. Historically, people certainly loved their lead-based household and beauty products, but just because increased public awareness of lead poisoning accompanied the presentation of lead-related health problems does not mean that their symptoms were not real, or that lead exposure was not a real concern.
The province of Ontario requires wind turbines to be a minimum of 550 metres from nearby residences[20], but many have argued that this distance is still too close. In Ontario alone, the Ministry of Environment has been cited to have received over 200 health complaints related to wind turbines, and at least one wind company has been the subject of a 1.5 million dollar lawsuit over alleged health impacts[7]. Exposure to wind turbine noise may not be as problematic as coating one’s face in thick layers of lead-based makeup for years, but to disregard the public’s health concerns is at best short-sighted, and at worst dangerously irresponsible.
Due to the indirect and insidious nature of noise on health, and the youth of the wind industry, there remains limited scientific research in the area of potential health impacts, a problem which will take time to address comprehensively as longitudinal studies will be required to reach any firm conclusions. Until then, sound level limits (for Ontario, at least) currently fall under provincial jurisdiction[15].
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” and, “the extent to which an individual or a group is able, on the one hand, to realize aspirations and to satisfy needs, and on the other, to change or cope with the environment” (WHO, 1999)
One interesting study[4], by the Netherlands’ University of Groningen, found that support for wind turbines in the country was sharply divided between those complaining about the noise and those for whom noise was not an issue. What was interesting about this particular study was that the complaints were shown to have very little correlation with proximity to wind turbines. Contrary to expectations, many of the closest residents did not find the noise to be problematic at all. It turns out that many of these unbothered residents were also the ones receiving direct economic benefits from the power produced by the windmills. The opposite was found to be true for those who did complain (some reporting annoyance even at 30 decibels, while many of those in the other group found no reason to be concerned by 45 decibels of wind turbine noise). This finding suggests that involving the local residents in wind energy projects by providing some direct benefit from the presence of wind turbines in their communities could significantly alleviate some of the unrest that has come to be associated with these projects.

Widespread community discord surrounding wind farms has prompted the development of a variety of anti-wind groups, particularly in Ontario. Wind Concerns Ontario[17], an organization that compiles and maintains a list of municipalities unwilling to host wind farm projects, is one of the more vocal examples of grass-roots protests aimed at the province’s aggressive promotion of wind power. They have called the Liberal government’s seven years of wind power development “a disaster for rural Ontario.”
Anti-wind billboards and driveway signs are increasingly common in many communities, largely due to the resentments bred by the wind industry’s general lack of consultation with host communities[1].
Due to the nature of wind, wind turbines are more suited to particular regions (such as the coast) and require a significant amount of space to operate, meaning that communities in an ideal wind-farm location frequently find themselves the unwilling hosts of large-scale wind energy projects that take over their space. It takes more space for renewables to produce the same amount of energy as fossil-fuel power generation due to lower power density[5].
It has been posited that off-shore wind may be the solution to community concerns and space requirements[1], though many jurisdictions currently maintain a moratorium on off-shore wind farms. Until things change in this regard and more suitable locations are found for wind farm projects, they remain in the public eye, and the public’s backyard.
As a result, the presence of wind turbines (especially the large-scale facilities) has also prompted increased community concern over property devaluation due to the perceived stigma attached to these developments[13].
Various recent studies have been conducted defending both sides of this debate. One study by Ontario’s government-appointed property assessment body, the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC)[19], examined the effects of industrial wind turbines (defined as having a capacity of at least 1.5 megawatts, consistent with Health Canada’s definition), and concluded that there was no statistically significant impact on sale prices of residential properties in these market areas resulting from proximity to turbines. This study was both peer-reviewed and rigorous[13], but directly contradicts other studies and local reports that have found the presence of wind turbines can decrease property values by up to 35% compared to surrounding homes[19].
It remains to be seen which side will win this debate, though both sides have certainly claimed victory already. The fact of the matter is that whether or not wind energy is having real detrimental effects on residents of host communities, there is no question that the perceived detrimental effects are influencing the public’s willingness to embrace wind energy and join in the unquestioning devotion of the Green Energy True Believers.

Including capital and operating costs, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), wind power currently costs 8.2 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh)[16]. This can be compared to advanced clean-coal plants and nuclear power, both of which come in at 11 cents per kWh, and advanced natural gas-burning plants at only 6.3 cents per kWh.”

Forbes magazine indicates that this estimate is grossly inaccurate, as “A fascinating new report by George Taylor and Tom Tanton at the American Tradition Institute called “The Hidden Costs of Wind Electricity” asserts that the cost of wind power is significantly understated by the EIA’s numbers. In fact, says Taylor, generating electricity from wind costs triple what it does from natural gas.

More Health Concerns with Wind Energy

“The study found a correlation between severe sensations experienced by the small group of residents studied and the power output of the turbines at Cape Bridgewater in Victoria.

The Cooper report has been hailed internationally as representing a breakthrough in the study of wind turbines and possible impacts.”

“But once bitten – twice shy – the Waterloo residents also brought in acousticians from the University of Adelaide to run the sound studies at Waterloo in parallel with the disgraceful EPA work. This Channel Seven news story covers it. “
“When travelling throughout Southern Ontario this summer one can’t help but notice the proliferation of wind turbines. After the Green Energy Act and the Feed-In Tariff (FIT) program were enacted in 2009, large scale wind farms sprang up across the province driven by a desire to increase clean, renewable energy in the supply mix. You may also notice the growing discontent in communities near turbines. Anti-wind billboards and driveway signs are becoming increasingly common in many towns located near energy projects.
As noted in Thomas Walkom’s recent article in the Toronto Star, municipal anger has boiled over and the provincial Liberals’ rural support has dwindled to virtual non-existence. The government belatedly decided to change the rules in late May, granting municipalities the ability to comment on proposed wind farms and receive tax revenue from them. However, the damage has been done, and many town councils, such as Kincardine, have passed motions declaring their communities unwilling hosts for additional wind farms. Looking ahead to 2014, the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) has 26 large-scale wind farms scheduled to come online without feedback from the host municipalities. Opposition efforts to take the matter to the Environmental Review Tribunal have been met with defeat, further inflaming rural residents.
This summer the Ministry of Energy will begin public consultations for its Long-Term Energy Plan, but given that many Ontarians are vacationing the timing is questionable. Under the 2010 plan, wind energy was expected to generate 10 per cent of Ontario’s electricity by 2030, about 19.6 terawatt hours. Given the current political climate and anti-wind sentiments, it will be difficult for the government to move ahead with its proposals.

“Just think, in South Carolina, power company Scana and its partners are investing about $11 billion to construct two 1,100 mw nuclear reactors on roughly 1,000 acres. To get the same amount of electricity out of wind (remember that turbines operate at an average of less than 50% capacity because of wind’s intermittancy) and you’d need more than 1,700 turbines stretched across 200,000 acres, for an upfront investment of $8.8 billion.The nukes might cost more upfront, but they last longer, they provide reliable base load power and they emit zero carbon.

And the nukes will be there when the turbines are down,  being maintained or replaced.

Given all of these negatives for renewable energies, why on earth would you continue to push for yet more of these renewable energy projects, when doing so will force poor families to spend more on this energy needs, costs tons of money per job created, cause more damage the environment, if not here, then certainly in China?
Mr. Pres., why in heavens name do you continue to attempt to fool around with the energy mix that were currently using? Have you learned nothing from other governments that try to control their economies with central planning, like the Soviet Union, Cuba, or North Korea? Our liquid fossil fuel supply has a great job of providing fuel for transportation needs which will always be with us. Slowly but surely, natural gas is displacing coal as a primary energy source for stationary power-plants, for economic, rather than ideological reasons. Rather than continuously push for more energy from renewable sources, why don’t you let the marketplace decide what new sources of energy will be suitable for most businesses and residential units. Rather than renewables, alternative energy forms include nuclear fusion (as discussed in this link), advanced nuclear fission technologies such as Small Modular Reactors (SMR), lithium fluoride thorium reactors,and Cold Fusion . Also, were you aware, Mr.Pres. that a new source of power has been developed, which although using natural gas or other kinds of flammable gas, can supply most of our home and business energy needs very efficiently and compactly without combustion. This product is currently being tested in several large businesses and is known as Bloom Energy’s fuel-cell. This fuel cell has proven to be much more efficient than solar panels and wind farms,and has the potential to replace most of the electrical grid.If you were to adopt this philosophy, you would surely be a president  for the people, but somehow I doubt your ideology would allow you to.

Dear Pres. Obama,

*First CO2 levels increase, thus
       *Atmospheric warming increases, thus
       *Earth’s surface warms, thus
       *Earth surface water evaporates, thus
       *Atmosphere humidity increases, thus
       *Atmosphere warms further, thus
       *Earth’s surface warms even more, thus
       *More Earth’s water evaporates into atmosphere, thus
       *A positive feedback loop established, and continues

In fact, as seen, the atmospheric humidity is decreasing over time while CO2 levels increase – the exact opposite of all climate model and “consensus” expert predictions.” Extracted from: http://bit.ly/1tHUr5V

Sir,the second major issue I think you are likely to go wrong on is the proposed EPA ozone rules, http://1.usa.gov/1xExBTD . Not only has the state of Texas disagreed with these proposed rules, http://bit.ly/1xWL5bY , but Texas has strongly questioned the need for more stringent ozone standards, “We think that the EPA’s process of setting ozone standards has not scientifically proven this, and that further lowering of the ozone standard will fail to provide any measurable increase in human health protection.

Texas is not the only state to disagree with EPA rules regarding ozone, as New Jersey sent a letter to Ms. McCarthy, the head of the EPA, opposing adoption of the EPA’s Proposed Rule on Carbon Pollution Emissions for existing stationary sources, http://bit.ly/1tUkd76 . Also, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity produced a document showing the Six Major Myths About EPA Proposal Carbon Regulations, http://bit.ly/1AZX5ul . This not the first time that Congress has heard nonsensical things regarding this program, as in 2011, Mr. Peter Valberg, a principal in Gradient Corporation, testified, http://1.usa.gov/1BRnU3V that EPA’s analysis on air pollution standards for ozone and asthma were inaccurate. Mr. Valberg specifically called into question the data presented by EPA and said that the EPA could not justify the lives saved from asthma and hospitalizations by their numbers. Please have your science adviser read this article and direct the EPA to straighten up and fly right, and quit making up stuff! If you think that the EPA is correct in what they’re doing, please read Mr. Valberg’s bio, http://bit.ly/1IBbvS1 . Personally, I would think twice about challenging his knowledge/expertise.

The third thing I think you’re making a mistake on is planning to veto legislation which would authorize construction of the XL pipeline, H.R. 3, the Keystone XL pipeline Act, http://1.usa.gov/1yaGBOM. The State Department has already blessed this project, and there is virtually no environmental emissions. More importantly, these Tar Sands will be sold to someone, most likely China, if we don’t build the Keystone Pipeline and refine the product ourselves. Mr. Pres., whom would you trust to do it better than the US, with fewer emissions?

Finely, the fourth area of concern is your attempt to control methane gases in the oil and gas industry. Quoting from an article on this, http://bit.ly/1DPeRTeMethane is the second biggest driver of climate change, after carbon dioxide. On a 20-year timescale, it is 87 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas. (emphasis added) Well, Mr. Pres., do you recognize that the entire greenhouse gas issue is blown out of proportion to its relationship on climate. This webpage will show you how little greenhouse gases effects climate, “Just how much of the “Greenhouse Effect” is caused by human activity? It is about 0.28%, if water vapor is taken into account– about 5.53%, if not.”, http://bit.ly/1g4uy9Z Those are some awfully small contributions toward global warming,and maybe not worth pursuing, given the destruction to the economy it would cause to do so.


Why do we do it?

People sometimes ask why we keep coming back to the school. Apart from the hope that we can make a tiny difference in the lives of the children at the school, it makes us a lot more grateful for the things we take for granted back home.

For example, at the end of the day volunteers each have half a bucket of solar-heated hot water for our “bucket bath”; that’s assuming there’s been some sunshine. We wash ourselves, and then our clothes in it, and then the bathroom floor. If there is any water left we tip it on the garden.

I congratulate myself for being so Spartan and environmentally friendly, but yesterday I passed two girls struggling towards their dorm with a huge bucket of water. Apparently the power had gone off (again!) and their water requires a pump. That day, and many days like it, they had to ferry the water from some distance away. “Does that mean you have to have a cold bucket bath today?” I innocently asked. They laughed and explained that they have cold bucket baths every day, summer and winter.

TWo girls carry water for their bucket bath

Two girls carry water for their bucket bath

The situation with mattresses is similar. The volunteers sometimes remark on the hardness of Indian mattresses. Once in an English class, I asked students to write about their first day at Shanti Bhavan. One child wrote about the difficult parting from her mother (at the age of four) but she said that, after her mother had gone, her new auntie-house-mother had given her a big hug, a yummy snack and put her to bed. She wrote, “it was wonderful. I had never slept in a bed before; it was like sleeping on a cloud.”

Typical day

Someone asked me about our schedule as volunteers. Because it’s a residential school the days are long. We all have different rosters and commitments but, for me, it’s up at 6am for a 6.30 start. I volunteered to help the four students select and prepare news items to present in assembly each day (more about this another time). Other volunteers might be rostered to supervise sport or prep. Breakfast is at 7.30, then we rush back to the house to change into Indian clothes for teaching.

School starts at 8.30 and I teach an average of 4 out of 8 periods a day. Those preparing 10th and 12th Graders for their external exams have a more demanding schedule. The rest of our time is spent in preparation and marking, or chatting with other volunteers.

Classes end at around 3.30 with Snack, and then I might teach public speaking from 4 until 5, while other volunteers take optional classes in PT, computing, dance, photography, etc. Barney and I try very hard to fit in our Chi Gong at 5pm each day for relaxation and exercise, and two other volunteers have joined us. Afterwards we take a quick walk around the school compound and have our bucket shower and do our laundry while there is still some light. We might have a Prep roster from 6-7.30pm or free time. Thankfully the Indian teachers supervise the post-dinner preps.

A typical dinner... or lunch... or breakfast! Always slightly different and invariably yummy.

A typical dinner… or lunch… or breakfast! Always slightly different and invariably yummy.

In the evenings we each join a different table of children for dinner and, if we can hear above the noise, we have a chance for some kind of meaningful interaction according to the age level. I think I know most of the riddles by now and I have re-trained a group of children to pronounce ‘emu’ as ‘ee –mew’, not ‘em-moo’… just doing my bit to improve international understanding. My most interesting question so far is, “why do you have short hair?” I’d never really noticed that most Indian women have long hair. The other good one is, “did you and Dr Barney have an arranged marriage?” Older students will ask us about university, our career choices, etc. After dinner we might be rostered for storytelling in the younger kids’ dorms until 8.30 pm, then it’s back for more marking and preparation. It’s a long day but it’s rewarding and there are breaks so it is not too arduous.

Barney reads to the 5th Grade after dinner

Barney reads to the 5th Grade after dinner

Kandy reads to the 4-year-olds.

The 4-year-olds listen attentively as Kandy reads a story.

Movie night

It’s not all hard work at Shanti Bhavan and our first Saturday night was the fortnightly outdoor movie in the quadrangle. This is a new activity since our last visit. There is a big screen made out of sheets which senior students project onto from behind, using a laptop and data projector. Now I wouldn’t have picked Spiderman as an R-rated movie so we were a little confused the first time that a hand shot in front of the projector to black out the screen. Apparently the teen hero was kissing his girlfriend. This process was repeated several times. When the school family extends from 4-18 year-olds, even seemingly tame movies require some judicious censorship.

I wrote last week that I love to travel because of the exposure to different cultures. After about the age of six, reflecting the wider culture of India, older boys of all ages, regularly walk with their arms around each other and hold hands with other boys, as do the girls with girls. Out of respect for the norms, volunteers, even married ones, and other staff on campus, are asked not to show any kind of public displays of affection towards each other. It takes a conscious effort to break habits that come naturally.

But back to Spiderman… The highlight of the evening was that half way through the movie we were each treated to a paper cone full of hot popcorn. I was surprised that the popcorn was wrapped, as I know there is an acute shortage of paper at the school. When the lights came on we were amused to find that we were eating out of children’s past schoolwork. Nothing is ever wasted here.

We’ll leave you on that note for now. Thanks for the feedback on the previous blog. I will try to get some recipes and include more photos of ourselves, as requested.

VGA_Prep in dark Cropped

A huge thank you to Robert and Bonnie Jenkins of Adelaide for your surprise but wonderful offer to donate $500 yearly to the school. I can guarantee it will go a long way and be greatly appreciated. This year’s donation will provide an additional solar panel and battery storage to prolong the power to the main school building after hours. No more prep in the dark!


In the Shelter of Each Other: Growing Up in Liverpool in the 1930s and '40s

In the Shelter of Each Other is a wonderful collection of childhood reminiscences of Liverpool from the 1930s and '40s. In 1932 England was out of work. The mills were silent and the river ships were rusting at anchor. The king was ageing and his successor remained unmarried. In Germany Adolf Hitler was coming to power and had begun claiming lost territories. Everything was uncertain and shadows of war appeared on the horizon. Where would it all end? This was probably the wrong time and place to arrive in the world, but Jack Maddox appeared all the same. His childhood was spent in a dockside pub in the roughest, toughest part of the great city and he was introduced at an early age to the school of hard knocks. Brought together by their joint poverty, the people who inhabited this area shared what little they had and a strong community spirit was in evidence. Few had much, but nobody died alone.


Why OkCupid’s Trump Filter is Bad for Romance

By Andrew Stiles

To celebrate Valentine’s Day this year, the online dating website OkCupid introduced new features designed to help users “connect on a deeper level.” The changes include a new category of questions for users to answer, which in turn gives potential matches a better understanding of their personalities and — most crucially — their political beliefs.

OkCupid users can voice their opinions — and investigate the opinions of others — on a host of “topical” issues tied to current events. The new question will allow users to find out where a potential match stands on buzzworthy dating trends such as “ghosting,” but will mostly provide a broader platform for users to advertise their familiarity with politics, the correctness of their opinions, and their passion for good things.

President Donald Trump, as you can probably guess, will feature prominently among what the website describes as “things you want to know a person’s stance on before you meet them” — also, climate change and student loan debt.

I have previously written about why politicized dating apps are bad, but mostly because of the broader cultural trends they represent. These new OkCupid features seem designed to further inject politics into the process of finding a mate. The problem is that, evidently, that’s precisely what an increasing number of young people want.

In many ways, this is understandable. The Wall Street Journal described the new OkCupid questions as something that “might keep you from getting into an awkward political conversation on date night.” Fair enough. The online dating experience is awkward enough, and there’s no shortage of reasons why a date can go poorly, even if two people seem like a match on paper. What’s the harm in trying to eliminate one of them?

Of course, another way of achieving this goal would be to simply not get into political discussion on first dates. In the Trump era, this is easier said than done. An even simpler solution would be to downgrade the importance we place on political views when it comes to finding a partner. (Or anything else, while we’re at it.)

A survey of OkCupid users published last year found that roughly half of the site’s users, the majority of whom are liberal, would not date someone whose political views differed from their own. Again, that’s understandable, but it’s also a worrying sign in the context of broader trends.

On a societal level, we are increasingly unable to argue — and to disagree — about politics in a non-hysterical fashion. Having the “wrong” opinion is often seen as a hideous moral defect. In some cases, simply having no opinion on the latest outrage is just as bad. Fits are thrown, boycotts are launched, and friendships are terminated with the click of a mouse.

That same survey of OkCupid users also found that one quarter of respondents who were “looking for love” on the site said having similar political views was a more important factor that having physical chemistry with a potential match. This is deranged, and if nothing changes, this is our future.

Consider that, in 1960, a survey found that 5 percent of Americans would be “displeased” if their child married someone who belonged to a different political party. A similar poll conducted in 2010 found that 40 percent expressed displeasure at the thought of their children intermarrying politically.

These trends, the increasing polarization of our nation’s politics, and the increasing politicization of our everyday lives, predate Donald Trump. They certainly aren’t going to abate on his watch, and Hillary Clinton wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it either. We are all complicit. We are all Hitler, depending on whom you ask.

The rise of social media, and the increasing tabloidization of the internet, has transformed the national discourse into a giant comments section, a cesspool of anonymous trolls and constant outrage where the worst of human tendencies are nurtured and amplified.

We hunker down in our respective tribes, or hashtags (#Deplorables, #NastyWomen, etc.), and never miss a chance to proclaim affiliation with the “right” side, even if that just means checking a box on an online dating website, retweeting a snarky meme, or declaring “no Trump supporters” in an ad for roommates, which is enough to get you an interview on network television these days.

Where does it end? Nowhere good, probably, until enough people realize that being logged on, perpetually outraged, and agreeing with everyone you interact with is no way to go through life.

Originally published at acculturated.com on February 21, 2017.

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Elves are one of the most common races on Castrovel, and are known throughout the star system. They generally look like less-attractive versions of female lashunta.

The elves of this world consider the formians to be the greatest threat to their civilization. One continent of Castrovel has already been completely conquered by the antfolk, it is no secret that the formian matriarchs have allied to strategize about conquering the rest of the world. Monstrous Humanoid is consequently their most common favoured enemy.

Racial Traits

Medium: Elves are Medium creatures and receive no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Normal Speed: Elves have a base speed of 30 feet.
Weapon Familiarity: Elves are proficient with longbows (including composite longbows), longswords, rapiers, and shortbows (including composite shortbows), and treat any weapon with the word “elvish” or “elven” in its name as a martial weapon.
Languages: Elves begin play speaking Elvish and Lashunta. Elves with high Intelligence scores can choose from the following: Azlanti, Akitonian, Celestial, Draconic, Sylvan, Triaxian, and Vercite.

Elf PCs have 17 points to spend on ability scores. They enter university with one class level.

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Practice Mindfulness

Mindfulness the practice of living in the present moment, and mindfulness meditation is a practice from the Buddhist tradition that uses focusing on the breath to calm the mind and body. The primary focus is your breathing. However, the primary goal is maintaining a calm, non-judging awareness, allowing thoughts and feelings to come and go without getting enmeshed in them.

Here are the basic steps of mindfulness meditation:

  1. Sit or lay comfortably, with your eyes closed and, if possible, your spine reasonably straight.
  2. Clear your mind and direct your attention to your breathing. Observe your natural breath without trying to change it.
  3. When thoughts, emotions, physical feelings, or external sounds occur, simply acknowledge them, and let them go without judging or getting involved with them.
  4. When you notice that your attention has drifted off and become engaged in thoughts or feelings, simply bring it back to your breathing and continue.

Start by trying to meditate for 3-5 minutes, and gradually try to progress to 20-30 minutes. Remember, it's natural for thoughts to arise and for your attention to follow them. No matter how many times this happens, keep bringing your attention back to your breathing.

Accelerating Research & Inspiring Hope


Mobile Robot Behavior Controller Based on Genetic Diagonal Recurrent Neural Network

It is crucial that a robot should have both learning and evolutionary ability to adapt to dynamic environments. This paper proposes a new mobile robot behavior controller based on genetic algorithm (GA) and diagonal recurrent neural network (DRNN). The DRNN has the advantages of time series prediction capability because of its memory nodes, as well as local… (More)

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Ontology for SEAM Service Models

A service system is a popular concept in academia and industry. At the same time, it is a challenging concept to represent, due to its recursive nature and difficulty to relate it to entities in reality. In this paper we present an ontology for modeling service systems using the SEAM systemic method. Our ontology represents an updated and minimalistic… (More)
DOI: 10.5220/0006711502900298

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Fill in the blanks is a very important topic from Vocabulary section of English language. English Fill in the blanks questions do get featured in different competitive exams but if we talk about IBPS or SBI Bank exams, the pattern of Fill in the blanks questions change almost every year. Keeping the same in mind, has prepared different Fill in the blanks Quizzes based on new pattern. Here's a 10 question set of new pattern Fill in the blanks questions important for upcoming Bank exams like - IBPS SO Pre, IBPS Clerk Mains, SBI PO 2018, etc. Practise all the questions of Fill in the blanks exercise and see how much you can score at it.

Directions: In questions below, there are two statements, with each statement consisting of two blanks. You have to choose the option which provides the correct set of words that fits both the blanks in both the statements appropriately and in the same order making them meaningful and grammatically correct.
I. An erstwhile ___________ department in the ministry of commerce, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), was put in ___________ of this transformation.
II. A ___________ driver was arrested yesterday on a drunk driving __________ on the Delhi-Chandigarh Highway.
» Explain it
Option A: Both blanks do not make sense in any of the sentences.

Option B: lazy may have made sense but impeach is incorrect for both the blanks.

Option C: Inactive is a good fit in the first sentence but not in the second sentence. Headlong does not fit in anywhere.

Option D: Both blanks do not fit in anywhere.

Option E: Both blanks are a perfect match with the resulting sentences making sense.

Hence, Option E is correct.

I. Economic growth, which had been ___________ down for some time but had been given a boost by strong governance reforms was given a demand boost to facilitate ___________ acceleration.
II. Forced __________ is when political parties hire PR agencies which ___________ employ social media ‘influencers’ who release the same tweets with the hashtag at a high intensity.
» Explain it
Option B: Trading is not a good fit in either of the sentences. More is not a good fit in the second blank.

Option C: Hover would have been a good fit but incorrect grammatically. More is a good fit for both. However, this option is incorrect.

Option D: Both blanks do not make any sense.

Option E: Going is a good fit for the first sentence but not second. Reduce is incorrect for both blanks.

Option A: Both are a perfect fit for both sentences.

Hence, Option A is correct.
I. India did not have _________ targeting then and so was able to deal with the shocks _________ than many countries.
II. _________ remains below targets for many Central Bank; and is generally set to stay that way in the year ahead even though the world economy in general is set to do much _________ in 2018.
» Explain it
Option A: Consumed is incorrect for both sentences. More is a misfit for the second sentence.

Option C: Both blanks do not fit in both sentences.

Option D: Deflation may be a good fit but good does not go with either of the blanks.

Option E: Both blanks are absurd.

Option B: Both are a great fit and the resulting sentence meaningful.

Hence, option B is correct.
I. U.S. consumer confidence jumped to a near 17-year high in October, with households _________ about the labor market and business _________ , which could underpin consumer spending and boost the economy.
II. The services sector was the most _________ about business prospects in over three years with about 9 per cent of firms expecting more favourable business _________ in the October to March period.
» Explain it
Option A: downtrodden conveys the opposite meaning to the one depicted in the sentences and is incorrect.

Option B: vulnerable does not suit the context of the sentences and this is incorrect.

Option C: placid is absurd in both sentences.

Option D: both blanks are perfect

Option E: both blanks are incorrect for both.

Hence, option D is correct.
I. Should quarterly growth _________ and BJP make gains in serial state elections it would salvage lost _________ , indicating a positive shift in perceptions.
II. We expect crude oil to _________ to USD 65 per barrel alongwith commodities standing their _________ against the temporary headwinds.
» Explain it
Option A: decline is correct for both grammatically but does not agree logically with the sentence. Space is absurd for both.

Option B: Increase is correct for both blanks. But, floor does not make sense in either.

Option C: Both words are a perfect fit.

Option D: Slip is correct grammatically but does not make sense. Also, grip is incorrect in both sentences.

Option E: both words are absurd.

Hence, option C is correct.


Uzbekistan is located between the two great Asian rivers the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, in the heart of Central Asia - a recognized geographical region in the south-west of the Asian continent and a natural bridge between Europe and the countries of Eastern Asia. This central position allows the country to be in both the northern and eastern hemispheres.

A look at the Uzbekistan map gives a clear idea about its immediate neighbors: Uzbekistan shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and Kyrgyzstan to the north and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south.

Being one of the largest Central Asian states Uzbekistan covers an area of 447,400 square kilometers. It is the 56th largest country in the world by area and the 42nd by population (with population of more than 28 million people it is the most populous country in Central Asia).

Uzbekistan is divided into twelve provinces, one autonomous republic - Karakalpakstan, 162 districts. The country has 120 towns with major urban centres being Tashkent – the capital of the republic, Samarkand, Bukhara, Ferghana, and Khiva.


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Dmitri shostakovich - evgeni svetlanov - симфония n7 до мажор соч. 60 "посвящается городу ленинграду"

Christmas-tide Bob Chilcott Download 'Christmas-tide' on iTunes

Shostakovich returned to the traditional four-movement form and a normal-sized orchestra. More tellingly, he organized each movement along clear lines, having concluded that a symphony cannot be a viable work without firm architecture. The harmonic idiom in the Fifth is less astringent, more tonal than previously, and the thematic material is more accessible. Nevertheless, every bar bears its composer's personal imprint. It has been said that, in the Fifth Symphony, the best qualities of Shostakovich's music, such as meditation, humor and grandeur, blend in perfect balance and self-fulfillment. [17]

At first Shostakovich looked set to fight it out. “Sometimes the struggle for a simple language is understood somewhat superficially,” he explained in a newspaper article in April 1935. “But to speak simply doesn’t mean that one should speak as they spoke 50 to 100 years ago. This is a trap that many [Russian] composers fall into.”

The second movement of Symphony No. 5 is drawn from the same goofy, ironic material as his film scores. The movement is a spoof on waltzes. Shostakovich draws a musical picture of a dance floor. There are peasants in their heavy boots, a wise guy on his squeaky clarinet, and a deluxe dance master with his little kit violin.

Dmitri Shostakovich - Evgeni Svetlanov - Симфония N7 до мажор соч. 60 Dmitri Shostakovich - Evgeni Svetlanov - Симфония N7 до мажор соч. 60 Dmitri Shostakovich - Evgeni Svetlanov - Симфония N7 до мажор соч. 60 Dmitri Shostakovich - Evgeni Svetlanov - Симфония N7 до мажор соч. 60


Ben is passionate about the quality of fresh local produce. He believes that these high quality ingredients enable Wild Oak to create a unique and exquisite culinary experience.

Specialising in modern Australian cuisine with strong classical French accents, Ben strives to use localised seasonal produce and sustainable food primarily from the rich soils of the neighbouring Yarra Valley and the Ranges.

Expect foods that are flavour driven that excite the palate. Foods that are complemented by many hard to find wines and vintages from local boutique vineyards.

Relax in the picturesque surroundings with good food and wine and be served by the casual, attentive and educated young team at Wild Oak.


From the moment you set eyes on the Baleno, you’ll know that everything is different now. A new, refined excitement that grabs your heart and won’t let go - a sense of delight that changes your preconception of what a car can be. When you take off in a Baleno, you ride at the vanguard of a thrilling new life.

Key Features

The Baleno instrument panel follows the low and wide design concept of the exterior, creating an expansive interior space. The innovative design of the instrument panel centre, with easily operated audio and automatic air conditioning controls, accentuates the cockpit. When you slip into the driver’s seat, the first thing you notice is the information display at the centre of the instrument cluster, which gives a clear picture of the state of the car. This advanced multi-information display has a 4.2-inch colour LCD screen (GLX) that intuitively conveys a range of information such as fuel efficiency, engine output, average vehicle speed and driving results.


Explain the procedure of rock formation metamorphic rocks, Science

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Photography Tips Made Simple And Easy To Understand

You should take photographs that really show off your subject matter. This is where you can benefit from some helpful hints. You will increase the quality of your photographs and your reputation. Use the tips that you will learn from this article to make your pictures stand out from the pack.

Choose what to focus on and what elements to include in your composition. Imagine a window through which you see only a selected portion of the subject. Do not try showing too much. To give an overview of a subject, take multiple pictures, instead of a single shot that may not have all of the details.

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Drop the background focus when you are photographing people. A heavy focus on the background may draw your viewer’s attention away from your subject. Make sure you place the background further away than normal when you are shooting your subject.

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The tips from above will help you capture your special moments wonderfully. It takes homework and a bit of practice, but you will get better photographs.