CBC DROPS THE BALL ON WIND POWER

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-----Original Message-----
From: Wayne Wegner
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2008 9:05 PM
To: ombudsman@cbc.ca; national@cbc.ca
Subject: CBC Green Rush Segment March 12th National News


Hooey!

I've never seen such pandering propaganda by the CBC as the segment that I saw regarding the wind energy invasion of Wolfe Island by John Keating and his cronies at Canadian Hydro Developers Inc. What a crock of horse feathers about him and his company only going into communities that want them. Absolute nonsense!

Here's how it really works: The companies identify where the wind power is the strongest and then weasel their way in the back door by targeting cash-starved municipalities and farmers -- many of whom are fighting a losing game and are in dire financial straits. Does a lease fee of $5,000 per turbine per year sound like heaven to a near bankrupt landowner? You betcha. The municipalities also look at the easy tax dollars that will come their way from the wind industry. These back-door allies are made and then the grandiose plan is foisted onto the rest of the community which gets nothing for their troubles -- except the shaft. That's exactly what went on at Wolfe Island. The majority of residents were not even aware of where the turbines were going to be located -- that secret information was kept to the three stakeholders with visions of cash dangling before their eyes: Canadian Hydro Developers, the tax-collecting municipality and the cash-starved farmers who were easily bribed.

That's a great way to divide a community and that's exactly what's happened. Those who get the cash are happy and the rest have to put up with the industrial intrusion into their rural landscape. If you don't believe me, get it from the horse's mouth: www.wolfeislandresidents.ca/ This same scenario is being played out across southern Ontario. As for following all provincial protocols when siting those 400-foot high industrial giants, John Keating may be perfectly correct with his admission of compliance but he also knows that none of the guidelines or official checks amount to a hill of beans. That's why it's okay to dump a throbbing turbine 300 metres from a rural residence when medical evidence shows this is a major health concern. (Perhaps the CBC could dig into its own files about the D'Entremont family of Nova Scotia for the gory details. R emember them? www.dangerwind.org/ ) Nor is there a coordinated plan by any level of government to examine the cumulative effect of thousands of turbines spread along the Great Lakes shorelines from Lake Ontario down to Essex County -- a corridor that holds one of the greatest migration flyways on the planet.

Although the wind energy lobby group likes to pooh-pooh its impact on wildlife, including rare and endangered large birds like golden eagles and cranes, it's a well known fact that transmission lines and spinning blades can knock down flying migrants. A mere 38 turbines in the Summerview Wind Farm in southern Alberta slice and dice as many as 600 bats each year. And that array is not even on a known migration route. Now imagine if 3800 turbines are placed in the southern Ontario migration funnel. Do the math for a spinning gauntlet of that magnitude: That's potentially 60,000 bat deaths in a SINGLE year. Should people be worried, or should they believe the wind energy lobby group that says all is fine and dandy and going according to government regulations? (I suggest you look in the CBC files for the segment you did on the bat deaths in southern Alberta as well. If that isn't enough, dig up the U.S. congressional testimony given by Bat Conservation International last year at the hearing on the impact of wind turbines on wildlife.)

Not all of us are as gullible as Peter Mansbridge was made to appear. Yes, John Keating may write us off as old fuddy duddies who can't handle change but in reality a few of us are blessed with a bit more grey matter between our ears than he and his fellow propagandists would like. I and many others are the "vocal minority" that he speaks of. Why weren't we given a chance to rebut his nonsense? Maybe someone would like to point out that much of southern Ontario is soon to be transformed from a rural landscape into a continuous industrial zone -- because that's what's happening. Or do any of you at the CBC notice such things?

If you're interested in facts instead of fiction, you might like to peruse the following:

www.ieso.ca/imoweb/pubs/marketReports/OPA-Report-200610-1.pdf
See page 7 of 102 with Key Findings: In the smoggy summer months when power is most needed, wind energy is a flop. 10,000 MW of installed nameplate wind capacity amounts to all of 1,700 MW of actual generation capacity (or 17% of what is normally claimed). Wind has to be backed up with muscle -- ie a reliable power source that can be ramped up and down to balance the grid. That usually translates into coal-fired generation plants. Will wind power replace that reliable muscle? Nope. Germany, a country slathered in wind turbines, is on track to add dozens of coal-fired plants to its grid because it prefers them over nuclear plants. The more wind energy that's added to the grid, the more reliable muscle you need backing it up. That's a fact.

www.airqualityontario.com/science/transboundary.cfm
Okay, so wind energy isn't reliable and doesn't produce as much power as the industry claims. But surely all those turbines will clean up the air? Nope. See the prevailing wind direction in the link and hold your breath. You could take all the vehicles off the road in Ontario and shut down all of province's coal plants and the air quality improvement would range from 1 to 16%. Won't all those spinning turbines measurably reduce greenhouse gases and CO2? Nope again. What do you think backs up that on-again, off-again wind? It's called instant-on coal power. And those coal plants run constantly at either full power or on idle mode (which is less efficient and pollutes more). The overall improvement in air quality using wind energy alone -- if that were possible -- would not even be noticeable to the average person.

There are plenty of community groups being formed to deal with the human health concerns related to wind turbines and the "green rush" (this is just one unpaid and overworked organization; use its links for more):
http://essexcountywind.wordpress.com/
The Chatham-Kent Wind Action Group at www.ckwag.org recently hosted wind-turbine-illness specialist Dr Nina Pierpont on a radio health feature: http://handmaidenxstitch.ca/pierpont.mp3 (this may take a minute or so to load). According to John Keating's self-serving viewpoint, she's an old fuddy duddy who isn't in favour of change, either.

I believe the CBC would be doing its listening and viewing audiences an enormous service by pointing out the real culprit behind the so-called crisis facing the planet, and it certainly isn't CO2 and other greenhouse gases: It's a minor little thing called overpopulation. As Pogo once so solemnly declared: "I have seen the enemy and it is us!" Truer words were never spoken. Factoid: The number of immigrants that enter our country in any given month effectively wipes out all of the energy gained by a grandiose plan like the proposed 900 acre solar generating facility near Sarnia.

Follow the trail to the source of the real problem and you end up knocking at the door of ever-increasing human population.

If the CBC wants to do something constructive, why not do a series on the "Population Rush"? Or is that subject too hot to handle? All of the earth's problems are directly tied to human population. That's another fact. Perhaps you can add that in a follow up story about the effect the "Green Rush" has on rural residents. While John Keating and the rest of the wind energy industry is counting its cash, rural communities are being divided and landscapes transformed -- and not for the better.

Sincerely,

Wayne Wegner