Tag: Jo Nova

Shocking Rise in Whale, Dolphin and Porpoise Strandings as Wind Farms Proliferate Around British Coast

Over the last decade as offshore wind farms proliferated around the U.K., there has been a disturbing rise in coastline strandings of whales, dolphins and porpoises. Since the turn of the century, strandings have more than doubled and are now running at over 1,000 animals a year. The slaughter has been largely ignored by the mainstream media that runs with the agreed narrative that offshore wind is environmentally friendly and is the key to achieving Net Zero by 2050.

From The Daily Sceptic

By Chris Morrison

Over the last decade as offshore wind farms proliferated around the U.K., there has been a disturbing rise in coastline strandings of whales, dolphins and porpoises. Since the turn of the century, strandings have more than doubled and are now running at over 1,000 animals a year. The slaughter has been largely ignored by the mainstream media that runs with the agreed narrative that offshore wind is environmentally friendly and is the key to achieving Net Zero by 2050. In fact, wind turbines, whether on or off the shore, are a clear danger to many endangered species and concerns are mounting about their widespread and harmful effects on the natural world. Years ago, the great cause in environmentalism was to save the whales, but these concerns seem to have abated of late, while the slaughter of millions of onshore bats, along with the destruction of many types of large raptors, is simply ignored.

Andrew Montford of Net Zero Watch has updated his graph on the stranding of U.K. cetaceans and compared it to the rise of offshore wind capacity.

Both totals have soared in recent years. Is there a causal link? Perhaps not one that would inconvenience Net Zero fanatics, but Montford says the suggestion of a causal relationship “remains very strong”.

The Daily Sceptic has reported in the past about the mounting casualties of whales stranded off the north eastern coast of the United States in the wake of massive offshore windfarm construction. There have been around 300 fatalities in the last five years, and many suggest the extensive sonar soundings, pile driving and heavy concentrated vessel traffic is causing havoc with aquatic feeding, breeding and migration up and down the coast.

The latest U.K. stranding figures have been reported to Ascobans, a UN environmental conservation body for cetaceans in the NE Atlantic. Commenting on the “shocking” figures, the environmental writer and campaigner Jason Endfield called them “a wake-up call to those planning to further industrialise our seas in the name of renewable energy, and especially offshore wind farms”. In his view, it made no sense to increase ocean noise to levels that are “literally unbearable for marine mammals”.

The great cover-up of this environmental disaster continues with massive industrial parks being erected around the coasts of many countries. In the U.K., the incoming Labour government is committed to a massive expansion with the Mad Miliband spraying around billions of pounds in additional subsidies to boost an industry that would not exist in a free market.

To the fore in blowing smoke over the issue is Greenpeace USA’s senior oceans campaigner Arlo Hemphill who claims there is “no evidence whatsoever” connecting wind turbines to whale deaths. “It’s just a cynical disinformation campaign,” says another Greenpeace spokesman. The mainstream media often goes along with this narrative as shown by recent tweets from Agence France-Presse reporter Manon Jacob. He dismissed the focus on wind farms as a red herring “when offshore wind remains thus far marginal in the U.S. and scientific evidence of large marine mammal deaths is lacking”. This is the same Jacob who wrote a recent ‘fact check’ of the Daily Sceptic that was so bad and misleading it should feature in future journalism schools as an example of how not to criticise well-sourced material.

The investigative science journalist Jo Nova has a different take on the matter: “Researchers have known since at least 2013 that pile drivers were permanently deafening porpoises, leaving them presumably to die miserable deaths wandering blindly through dark or murky seas. Where were all the professors of marine science, paid by the public to know these things, and where was the BBC?” Spread the word, she continued. Fifty years ago, environmentalists would have raised hell about a thousand dead whales and dolphins. Now they are part of the cover-up. “They don’t want to draw attention to the blubber on the beach in case people start asking hard questions,” she observed.

There are however some signs that the ‘nothing to see here, guv’ line is starting to crack. A recent essay in Watts Up With That? suggested that an impact statement from the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) had finally acknowledged the harm caused by offshore wind farms. Examining leases off the New Jersey and New York coast covering over 488,000 acres, the BOEM hints that these developments are not entirely benign “despite being repeatedly framed as environmentally friendly solutions to the climate crisis”. Marine mammals, sea turtles, birds and fish could suffer due to noise, habitat displacement and changes in migration patterns, it is said. Even bats, says WUWT?, which are not typically associated with offshore environments, could be affected.

The essay noted that this latest BOEM work may signal a more cautious approach, “perhaps influenced by increasing legal challenges, public backlash, and even emerging scientific research indicating that wind turbines are not as harmless as once believed”.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.

Net Zero Requires New High-Voltage Power Lines to be Wrapped Around the Earth 2,000 Times Within 17 Years

Achieving Net Zero means building 80 million kilometres of new and refurbished power lines within 17 years, equivalent to wrapping the Earth 2,000 times with new electricity grid capacity. All the high voltage lines built in the last century will need to be built again by 2040 to benefit from all the intermittent power produced by the vast number of wind turbines.

From The Daily Sceptic

BY CHRIS MORRISON

Achieving Net Zero means building 80 million kilometres of new and refurbished power lines within 17 years, equivalent to wrapping the Earth 2,000 times with new electricity grid capacity. All the high voltage lines built in the last century will need to be built again by 2040 to benefit from all the intermittent power produced by the vast number of wind turbines. The ecological costs of all this can only be guessed at. Electricity cables are made of aluminium and copper and strung on giant pylons made of steel and supported by large concrete bases. For their part, wind turbines are a menace to both avian and oceanic wildlife, consume vast quantities of raw materials, have a limited lifespan and are an increasing blight on both inland and offshore landscapes.

If the International Energy Agency (IEA) gets its way, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The roll-out of high voltage lines will be on an unprecedented scale. In a report on global electricity grids issued to coincide with COP28, the IEA states that “an unprecedented level of attention from policymakers and business leaders is needed to ensure grids support clean energy transitions and maintain electricity security”. Major changes in how grids operate and are regulated are said to be essential. Annual investment in grids, which has remained broadly stagnant, needs to double to more than $600 billion a year by 2030.

The Australian science journalist Jo Nova is in no mood to be understanding: “Remember, it’s not their fault that renewables need far more land, more space, more backup and more infrastructure – it’s our fault we didn’t build a world ready for their holy energy.”

The IEA paints a world where electricity grids are becoming a “bottleneck” for transitions to Net Zero emissions. While investment in renewables has been increasing rapidly, global investment in grids “has barely changed”. In Europe, policymakers can speed up progress on grids by “enhancing planning, ensuring regulatory risk assessments allow for anticipatory investment, and streamlining administrative processes”. In plain English this means ripping up local planning laws in over-populated Britain and blanketing the country with millions of giant electricity pylons. These will be required to bring energy to urban areas from power intermittently generated far away in the North Sea and off the Scottish coast.

It is perhaps no coincidence that the British Government recently set out “major plans” to speed up connections and rapidly increase capacity on the electricity grid. The press release cunningly linked it with a £960 million government investment in “green industries”. The new package is “expected” to bring forward £90 billion of investment over the next 10 years. The Government promised that it will “reward” those living closest to new infrastructure with up to £1,000 a year off their electricity bills. In another part of the release, this is downgraded to communities “could” benefit, and the bung is limited to 10 years.

Whatever the money is spent on, it is likely to be chickenfeed compared with the growing £12 billion annual subsidy paid by electricity consumers to the producers of renewable energy. But the next British government will face an empty exchequer and soaring state debt. Lack of finance along with the end of low interest rates and free money printing is likely to kill many of the green fantasises currently being peddled by collectivist Net Zero fanatics. It is becoming clearer by the day, to an increasing number of people, that renewable energy is unreliable and uneconomic, and has an insatiable requirement for financial subsidy.

Emeritus Cambridge Professor Michael Kelly has long been a critic of the blind, un-costed rush to Net Zero. The U.K. electricity grid will require upgrading from top to bottom, he wrote in a recent GWPF essay. Leaving aside the massive roll out of long-distance transmission lines required, he noted the inadequacies of all the local cabling and sub-stations built before the need to charge electric cars and run heat pumps. “The whole distribution system will need to be upgraded… the work will be extraordinarily expensive, but without it there will either be regular brownouts, or drivers will be told where and when they can charge their batteries,” he explained.

Professor Kelly believes it is a failure of the British political machinery, notably the work of the unelected Climate Change Committee. “We have set out to decarbonise the economy without anyone having thought through all the engineering issues, let alone put a cost on the exercise,” he concluded.

But as Jo Nova observes, it is all our fault. “Apparently, we should have paid attention and built the right grid and now due to our laziness we will have to rush in another 80 million kilometres of interconnectors, just like that,” she writes Tell the children they’ve been lied to, she concludes. “The Green future is an industrial wasteland of concrete and steel built to line the pockets of billionaires and bankers.”

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.