The errors in Switzer's RN segment on renewable energy

Last week, on Tom Switzer's 'Between the Lines', there was a story on renewables. There was some interesting discussion around global energy policy, but there were also some very significant misunderstandings of energy policy, which went unchallenged by the host and remain uncorrected online. I've made a summary below.

There's a lot to go through. Stick with it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the introduction, Switzer says that:

"Both [Abbott and Turnbull] have been committed to the goal of generating at least 20% of our electricity from renewable sources within the next decade"

...What? No. The current Renewable Energy Target is 33,000 gigawatt hours. The target under Labor was 41,000 gigawatt hours. The Coalition's original desire was for an upper limit of renewable energy of 20% of total demand, but this was blocked in the senate.

After the target was reduced from 41,000 to 33,000, ex-PM Tony Abbott admitted that he wanted it  reduced further, and explicitly stated he wished the RET had never been created.

"I would frankly have liked to reduce the number a lot more but we got the best deal we could out of the Senate, and if we hadn't had a deal, Alan, we would have been stuck with even more of these things."

Switzer continues, in his introduction:

"Bill Gates, among others, reflects this thinking. Speaking with the Financial Times a few months ago, Gates argued that the current renewables are dead-end technologies. Here's Gates: They are unreliable. Battery storage is inadequate. Wind and solar output depends on the weather. The cost of decarbonisation using today’s technology, this is Gates' argument, is beyond astronomical"

First of all, this all sounds a little familiar. Here's an extract from a July 2015 opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, written by Rupert Darwall:

"Recently Bill Gates explained in an interview with the Financial Times why current renewables are dead-end technologies. They are unreliable. Battery storage is inadequate. Wind and solar output depends on the weather. The cost of decarbonization using today’s technology is “beyond astronomical,” Mr. Gates concluded"

Switzer seems to be reciting the work of a guest on his show, without making it clear that he's doing so. So, did Bill Gates say renewables are "dead-end technologies"?

Well....no. The Financial Times article, headlined "Gates to double investment in renewable energy projects" (seriously) quotes Gates:

"Solar is only during the day, solar only works best in places where it's warm. We don't have perfect grids. We don't have storage. there's no battery technology that's even close to allowing us to take all of our energy from renewables and be able to use battery storage in order to deal not only with the 23-hour cycle but also with long periods of time where it's cloudy and you don't have sun or you don't have wind"

Of course, Gates has a point - demand levels don't always match the availability of flow resources like sunlight and wind, and there is still work to be done is finding a way to decarbonise the entire energy system effectively. But his remarks have been badly misrepresented by both Switzer and Darwall, whose logic is confused, completely weird, but very familiar.

Gates is arguing for greater research into renewable technology that can fully replace carbon-intensive fuels - he is not arguing against the deployment of current wind and solar. Our current RET policy won't encounter any of problems cited by Gates, Darwall and Switzer, yet they present these statements as if they're an argument against a 33,000 GWh RET scheme.

Gates is personally investing in solar  and battery storage innovation - a sneaky, dishonest dichotomy that's being used to suggest Gates is an anti-wind, anti-solar ideologue, to the extent that Darwall's word are presented unattributed and undeclared in the introduction to the program.

@KetanJ0 Thanks. If you love science, you gotta hate wind and solar. They're like what Larkin said about parents. @RNswitzerlines

— Rupert Darwall (@RupertDarwall) September 25, 2015

Darwall manages some monumental distortions of Germany energy policy. First, he claims:

"I was talking to Fritz Varenholt, who ran RWE's renewable division, RWE is one of Germany's biggest electricity utilities, I said do you have a message for people abroad about Germany's renewables, and he said 'Don't follow Germany down this dead end"

From this, it sounds like renewable energy executives are burying their heads in their hands, regretting ever having gone down the path of clean energy. What Darwall fails to declare is that Varenholt also spent time on the board of Shell, a mining company, and that Varenholt is also deeply involved in the climate change denial community.

Darwall continues:

"...and if you look at German electricity prices, they are four times the European average"

Er. Wow. So, this is way off. Eurostat reports the 2014 average electricity price, in Euros per KWh, was 0.208. Germany, for the same time period, was 0.297. Depending on how you define 'prices', this ratio can change, but even the most generous interpretations are nowhere near 'four times' the European average.

Even if Darwall was right, and German electricity prices are inflated four times due solely to renewable energy schemes, one would then expect the percentage component of renewable energy cost to logically be around three quarters, or 75%, of a single German electricity bill. Except, it's less than 21%, according to March 2015 data.

The chart below illustrates the contribution of renewable energy to bill increases, and it shows the scale of Darwall's exaggeration quite clearly.

Clean Energy Wire explains why, despite this increase in 'cents per kwh', support for clean energy remains strong:

"Despite years of rising prices, a stable majority of the populace remains in favour of the Energiewende. This may be in part due to the fact that electricity consumed only 2.5 percent of households’ disposable income in 2013, up from 1.78 percent in 1998 and back to mid-1980s levels, before the liberalisation of the power market in 1998 lowered prices. German household electricity bills consume a smaller share of disposable income than the European average"

Craig Morris from Renewables International demonstrates how tiny this component is, in terms of total household bills:

Darwall continues:

"When this project started in Germany, the 'energy transition', the German environment minister said it would cost the equivalent of a 'scoop of ice cream' a month. Well that scoop of 'ice cream' turns out to be costing over 300 euros, that's over $400 Australian per household per month. That is a very expensive ice cream"

On average, Germans households consume around 3,500 kilowatt hours, annually. At 30 Euro cents per kilowatt hour, that's a yearly bill of €1,050. The renewables tariff is 21% of this: €220.50, annually, or €18.38 per month.

This is still a particularly luxurious scoop of ice cream, but Darwall's figure is insanely off the mark - he's inflated it by a factor of sixteen. And again, Germans continue to strongly support the transition away from carbon-intensive fuels.



And, as you might expect, the environment minister never actually stated that the costs would be limited to an 'ice cream scoop'. In 2004, he used to the analogy to describe costs to date - he says in a press release that "Es bleibt dabei, dass die Förderung erneuerbarer Energien einen durchschnittlichen Haushalt nur rund 1 Euro im Monat kostet - so viel wie eine Kugel Eis". Using Google Translate and my own terrible skills, this translates to "It remains the case that the promotion of renewable energy sources an average household costs only about 1 euro per month -. As much as a scoop of ice cream". Present tense, not future tense. All translations are open to interpretation but this one's pretty solid.

Search this myth and you'll find it everywhere - the only person who actually fact-checked the claim was Craig Morris from Renewables International. It's been repeated, verbatim, for years now.

"When you look at what's been happening in Germany, carbon emissions have been rising, because what's been happening is the gas-fired power stations, which are some of the lowest emitting forms of fossil fuel electricity production being closed, and Germany is burning more lignite,which is a very highly polluting form of coal, and the result is that German  emissions are going up, so you have these very perverse outcomes when you intervene in electricity markets there are massive unintended unexpected consequences, and that is the road Australia will travel down. There will be massive unintended and unexpected consequences"

This is completely false, but it's probably the least wrong out of all the examples so far. Germany's emissions are not rising, but they're certainly not on a clean downward trajectory. Craig Morris from Renewables International tells me this is due largely to a very low carbon price - this means coal isn't priced according to its environmental impact, the public pays for pollution impacts through health and habitat, and renewables can't cut into their share.

The chart below shows the fluctuations in German emissions over the past few years, again from Clean Energy Wire:

Annett Meiritz' article on Vox is a great, detailed explainer of why German emissions have leveled off, rather than trending downwards. In short, good incentives for clean energy haven't been paired with strong emissions regulations, alongside Germany's nuclear shutdown. Darwall's arguments for inaction and ignorance are flawed in more ways than I can possibly describe, here.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Germany's energy transition will necessarily attract misrepresentation and deception, or in this case, statistics that seem to have no relation to reality, in any way, at all. But this isn't really new. It happens in Australia, too - we're told that making our energy system safer and cleaner will result in an economic apocalypse.

Our memories are short, too. When the carbon pricing mechanism failed to have any impact on the Australian economy, we'd forgotten by then that Abbott had promised entire cities would be wiped off the map. Those telling us we ought to feel fear, anxiety and trepidation about progressive energy policy get away with it, because no one holds them to account for their errors and misrepresentations.

Presumably, Darwall's hoping the same applies to his efforts to induce paranoia around the modernisation of energy technology.

We came close to vilifying climate scientists, based on bad journalism

Australia's conservative climate skeptic community is watching, with a now familiar sense of discomfort, as one of ex-PM Tony Abbott's policies collides awkwardly with actual public sentiment. It's a familiar pattern, now. Abbott's reputation is dominated by his fondness for 'captains calls' - ideas that (sometimes) appealed to his conservative base, but alienated everyone else, including many in his own party.

This particular instance of retrospective awkwardness relates to the obsession of a notably precise demographic segment with conspiracy theories around the Bureau of Meteorology faking climate science. During Abbott's administration, MPs, his business advisor and a slew of climate skeptic bloggers focused intensively on the Bureau of Meteorology's climate data.

"Mr Christensen said the bureau has been involved in a process of "homogenisation" — changing raw data so the past appears cooler than the present. He will be seeking an inquiry into the bureau's conduct and the homogenisation process this week. "We have a scientific process being tainted at the source," he said"

On Thursday the ABC revealed, in documents obtained through Freedom of Information laws, that this wasn't merely wishful thinking at the fringes of the government. Abbott's office pushed to see an inquiry into the Bureau's climate data become a reality, based almost exclusively on articles in The Australian, most of which were penned by environment editor Graham Lloyd.

"A 2011 review found the Bureau's data and analysis methods met world's best practice but recommended a group be set up to review progress on the development and operation of the temperature data. The 2015 panel included eminent statisticians and members have told the ABC they were in no doubt that it was set up in response to the newspaper articles"

The Australian's campaign against the Bureau of Meteorology, based on their unfamilarity with the science of data homogenisation, ran for months. I made the table below by searching The Australian, with the term * "Bureau of Meteorology" homogenisation *. It gives you an idea of the column inches dedicated to this issue within the oz.



The articles came thick and fast from August to October last year, and from March to June this year. The majority were written by Graham Lloyd, the rest were op-eds by Maurice Newman, letters pages and editorials:

The articles present a flurry of claims issued by a collection of non-experts, each presented as authoritative sources on climate science. This quote, from an article in February 2015, illustrates this well:

"Almost half of the 20th-century warming for Australia’s nation­al average surface temperatures could be due to changes in the weather stations chosen for analysis, rather than changes in the climate, according to a submission to an independent review of the Bureau of Meteorology’s national records. 

Merrick Thomson, a retired certified practising accountant, has asked the independent panel to investigate how and why stations were selected for inclusion to make up the national trend"

See if you can spot what's wrong with those paragraphs.

The brief prepared  for the Prime Minister in September 2014, reported by the ABC, wanted to append a Bureau review to a UN climate conference taskforce - this was knocked back by Hunt's office, and as has been said elsewhere, the Minister deserves credit for this.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt: I have full confidence in their (Bureau of Meteorology) data and the idea was killed at that point. #BOM

— Lateline (@Lateline) September 24, 2015

As has also been stated elsewhere, the crusade was largely meaningless and symbolic - the BoM's data science is solid. It's the BoM's conclusions, not their methodology, that are the real motivation of this campaign.

What really freaks me out about this particular instance is the fact that Tony Abbott saw the flurry of articles and was fully convinced of the need for an inquisition into organisations that accept climate science. Perhaps the logic was simple - "I know climate change isn't real. Therefore, this organisation has erred, and we need to know how".

Okay, yes, it's not exactly unprecedented that media organisations can exert pressure on politicians. But this wasn't a campaign supported by the public. It was a faux crusade, and our then-PM accepted it without a single question.

Our leaders are happy when they think about making foreigners suffer

There's a lot going on, in the image above.

Australian flags stand tall and proud, towering above our leaders. Immigration Minister Dutton smiles, his posture confident and tall. Prime Minister Abbott, relaxed with his hands in his pockets, lets out a genuinely jubilant staccato laugh. Social Affairs Minister Morrison shrinks back, his hands nervously clasped, with an unambiguous sheen of worry on his face. This moment lingers for a couple of seconds - Dutton and Abbott are happy, and Morrison is not. Then, Morrison nervously mutters that there's a boom microphone above their heads.

This exchange is remarkable - you can watch it below.



In short, Federal Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, presuming the enormous boom mic directly above his head is either not on, or is not a microphone, quips joyfully about the Pacific Islands losing all sense of the passage of time, due to rising sea levels - "time doesn't mean anything when you're about to have water lapping at your door". The microphone is quite large:

Boom microphone pic.twitter.com/ERtAn3fsrC

— ellinghausen (@ellinghausen) September 11, 2015

Yesterday, Abbott was in Port Moresby, meeting with Pacific Islands leaders, who directly expressed  concern about their lives, and livelihoods, being threatened by rising sea levels.

"Pacific island nations had said the meeting was their last chance to highlight the threat they face from climate change, before the UN Climate Conference in Paris. 

The Australian response disappointed leaders who say some people are already being forced out of their homes by rising salinity, lack of water, or damage from severe storms or high tides"

Kirabati President Anote Tong pleads with Australia to reduce its emissions, and lessen the threat faced by his nation:

"I understand what's being said, that if they agree to those reductions in emissions, then it would hurt their industries and it would hurt their life, standard of living. But what I'm perhaps failing to communicate across is that while it will affect their standard of living, for us, it will affect the future of our people"

Perhaps he's being diplomatic, but our efforts to reduce carbon emissions will have close to zero impact on our lives, and our standards of living. The carbon price, while it lasted, had no impact on the economy, and the renewable energy target, had it remained unchanged or been expanded, would have lowered electricity prices. Breaking our addiction to coal will help us more than it hurts us.

These pleas were spoken barely hours prior to the awkward exchange. Dutton's own bumbling incompetence at not seeing the enormous boom mic aside, it's shocking to see the openly rapturous laughter that spawns on Abbott's face when he hears the quip. It's one thing to deny climate science, or to propose an ineffective solution.

But to sarcastically acknowledge the reality of the problem, and revel in the suffering caused by our own active contribution to climate change, is something else entirely. It's a sliver of insight into what seems to be an actively sinister mindset.

It might just be some inherent incapacity for empathy. During that famous moment when Abbott winked at a talkback host during a call from a pensioner who's working at a sex line to pay bills, he winks, grins, and then glances at the camera - you can see the precise moment when he realises he's being watched.



Dutton, who emitted the joke, and Abbott, whose cackle was immediate and totally real, have inadvertently revealed their default setting: open enjoyment of the suffering of foreign nations. This isn't just about a looming threat: people are already suffering as a consequence of global atmospheric and oceanic shifts.

In Australia, we can currently afford to feel a roaring rush of elation, when we think about how our chosen technologies result in the direct suffering of other people. Racism probably plays a part in this - Dutton and Abbott wouldn't share scoffed lols about a predominately white nation suffering due to our own inaction. When the outcome of unchecked reliance on carbon-intensive fuels come back to bite, we won't have time to dwell on irony, or introspection, or historical revision.

This clip goes far beyond ideology, politics or the realities and perception of science. It simply felt like watching two men derive authentic delight, merely thinking about the suffering of foreigners.

This is creates a third option around climate politics: not that the government denies climate science, nor that they advocate inaction. This tells us they might accept climate change is real, and that they rejoice at the thought of foreigners suffering as a consequence of our addiction to fossil fuels.

Coal's problem isn't PR, it's coal

Another day, another hashtag. It's trending right now. The lobby group for Australian extractive industries, the Minerals Council, yesterday launched another PR campaign to encourage a love for coal.

Coal powers 71% of all electricity on the grid - http://t.co/i5x3YOY7dd #coal pic.twitter.com/bSkuFQ3Plr

— MineralsCouncilAust (@MineralsCouncil) September 6, 2015

The 'Little black rock' campaign follows the awkwardly misfired 'Australians for coal' campaign last year. That effort, largely derided by the rather large number of Australians who are not for coal, highlighted something important: we don't like being told what to like. It also highlighted something confirmed by a raft of polling - we don't like coal, and we're keen to shift to an alternative:

1/5 - Personal views on gov't support for clean tech overwhelmingly prioritise RE over coal http://t.co/TiLWzA1sXX pic.twitter.com/Oa6h5lnsQU

— Ketan Joshi (@KetanJ0) July 21, 2015

3/5 A comparison shows the enormous disconnect b/w public support for RE and gov't love for coal. Gov't's on its own. pic.twitter.com/bR8gR4uxej

— Ketan Joshi (@KetanJ0) July 21, 2015

So, what's the argument behind the 'little black rock' campaign? To summarise the website's logic, it simply reasserts coal's current dominance, highlighting national and global statistics showing that we're currently deeply reliant on the outputs of this fuel type, and that shaking coal from its current position is going to be incredibly difficult. In the minds of those behind the campaign, we're enchanted by the thought of glancing upwards and seeing a light literally made of coal:

Energy blogger Keith Orchison is excited and impressed with the campaign. He writes that:

"The Minerals Council has produced another two-page spread in its book that really should get some exposure.
“What,” it asks, “would it take to replace fossil fuels in the global power business?”
The answer, it asserts, is 95,900 square kilometres of solar technology projects (ie South Korea) or just over a million square kilometres of wind farm sites (eg South Australia) with 3.46 million turbines"
And, it points out, there 16 mined metals and minerals in a solar panel while “there is more than 220 tonnes of coal in every wind turbine” because every part of the structure depends on steel (including the steel-reinforced concrete in its base)."

It would seem, largely, that the campaign is simply a rehash of a collection of tired, contradictory memes being constantly published and republished by the rapidly shrinking climate denial community. I think this is interesting.

The argument that we should love coal because it's hard to replace all coal with renewable energy right now makes absolutely no sense, but it does highlight their thinking quite well: "You might hate me, but you can't get rid of me, so you better learn to love that your lights are made of coal".

The same argument buttresses the 'wind turbines are made of coal' thing', despite the fact wind turbines pay back the emissions created in their manufacture many times over. "You can't get rid of us. See? Even your beloved wind turbines can't rid themselves of our constant dominance". As it happens, the net impact of a wind turbine, including coal used for production, is the removal of 2,500 tonnes of coal, for each year of operation (62,500 tonnes over the lifespan of the machine).

Similar confusion surrounds 'carbon capture and storage' (CCS). The brains behind the campaign  dismiss renewable energy because it doesn't yet provide a significant percentage of total global electricity production. But the Guardian reports that CCS is still a pipedream:

"However, there is only one CCS-enabled plant operational in the world, in Canada. In Australia, there is just one CCS project aimed at coal emissions in the pipeline, which may arrive at some point in the 2020s"

The message behind the campaign, that we should ignore the promise of clean technology and credulously accept the promise of low-carbon coal, is conflicted, muddled and only operational inside the minds of people who already believe coal is the sole saviour of humanity.

This isn't really a PR campaign. It's just a repetition of the self-assuring memes that dominate Australia's fossil fuel lobbies, climate change deniers, and the vast overlap between these two groups. The only people who don't recognise the contradictions and fallacies are those already convinced of the message.

It won't shift public opinion because people care about electricity, not about coal.  The watt-hours surging through their iPhones aren't branded. We won't manufacture some novel affection for coal, based solely on its market dominance or an extremely confused message about hating renewable technology but loving CCS technology. Campaigns in the US have taken precisely this format, and they've failed just as badly.

The more I think about the logical heart of this campaign, that we ought to love something that is both dominant and harmful, the creepier it sounds, and I think the public recognise this, too. I wonder if this actually works against their cause. But again, that's not really the point, here. This campaign isn't designed by communicators or thinkers or PR professionals - it's designed by the industry, for the industry. It's therapeutic.

Coal's problem is that when you burn it, you damage human habitats and economies and societies, through the emission and subsequent atmospheric lingering of greenhouse gases. The thin film of atmosphere on Earth is finely balanced, and it's violently skewed by the big numbers the Minerals Council stamp proudly on a lump of coal. We burn a lot of it, and that is a cause for concern, not celebration. PR campaigns might soothe the nervousness inherent in those championing the unending, eternal burning of coal to power humanity, but it won't fix coal's fatal flaw: it's a dangerous fuel, and we've got better alternatives ready to go.

You can now get 'wind turbine syndrome' from solar panels and batteries

As I've expected for some time, there's a new effort to create and propagate health fears around solar power, given the rapid decrease in costs, and the rising threat it poses to incumbent generators like coal and gas. It's going to take precisely the same shape as the campaign around wind farms, and unless we think deeply about the necessary ingredients for this type of techno-panic to flourish, it's going to last just as long, and cause just as much harm.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There's a looming and embryonic anti-solar campaign brewing. There's already an established industry of fear around electromagnetism, so I thought the campaign would centre around this. But, as always, the ceiling of ludicrousness sits higher than I thought: there are now 'concerns' about noise emissions, specifically infrasound and low-frequency noise, from.........solar panels.

Two proposed American solar projects, Tierra del Sol and Rugged Solar, have received expressions of 'concern' during the planning process, around the impacts of infrasound - very low frequency noise, inaudible to humans, allegedly the primary cause of 'wind turbine syndrome'.

Newberry solar farm 

A generic anti-renewable energy group (curiously named "Backcountry Against Dumps and Donna Tisdale") wield a broad array of documents explaining the dangers of solar power, and the Tierra del Sol project. This letter, penned in thick legalese, states that:

"The FPEIR’s amended discussion of the Project’s low-frequency noise and infrasound (“ILFN”) emissions still fails. FPEIR 2.6-59 to 2.6-60; FPEIR Response to Comments O10_63 35 to O10_65. The conclusion that “no health effects are anticipated to occur due to low frequency noise associated with the Proposed Project” is based entirely on a court decision that is currently being appealed and is therefore not final, and subject to change. FPEIR 2.6-60. The County’s reliance on this non-scientific conclusion ignores the growing body of evidence that ILFN impacts human health. 

Furthermore, the FPEIR completely fails to analyze the ILFN impacts from the newly added energy storage system that was not discussed in the DPEIR. FPEIR AIS.0-1, AIS.0-12 to AIS.0-14; FPEIR AIS 3 (Addendum: Acoustical Assessment Report), pp. 1-13. Acoustical engineer Rick James details additional County failures to analyze noise impacts from the energy storage system in his January 15, 2015 “Comments on Soitec Solar Acoustical Assessment Reports for Tierra del Sol and Rugged Solar Related to Proposed Energy Storage Facility,” which comments are incorporated fully by reference herein. In order to foster informed decision making, as CEQA requires, these impacts must be analyzed in detail, and the EIR recirculated for public review. CEQA Guidelines §§ 15088.5, 15144; Vineyard, 40 Cal.4th at 428"

These 'concerns' are included in the standard shotgun-scatter of complaints about noise, fire risk, visual impact, cost, and a vast array of other complaints. Donna Tisdale, of that same group, has a generic powerpoint presentation, which includes ominous warnings about electromagnetic radiation from solar farms:

So, there you have it. Concerns, and a response to concerns. A technical consultant was hired to measure infrasound and low-frequency noise at a comparable solar facility - the Newberry solar project, pictured earlier. The technical addendum can be read here, and the full report can be read here.

I made their infrasound measurements into two charts - the first is 'weighted' - ie, put through a formula to properly reflect the response of the human ear, and the second is 'unweighted' - just the raw measurements of sound pressure:

So, should anyone near a solar farm be quaking in fear? Well, no. The threshold of perception for infrasound is around 85 dBG (remember, that doesn't apply to the 'linear' version). As you can see in the first chart, no noise measurements go anywhere near that level. The report says:

"The G-weighted noise measurement data in Table 1 indicates that measured ILFN equipment noise levels ranged from 55 dBG (Xantrex GT500 Inverter measurement 9, at 50 feet) to 62 dBG (transformer and cooling cabinet at 25 feet). When normalized to a distance of 50 feet assuming an attenuation rate of 6 dB per doubling of distance, however, the expected sound pressure level would be approximately 56 dBG. Thus, even at a relatively near distance (far nearer than a resident or other noise-sensitive receiver would be located), the G-weighted noise levels were found to be well under the audibility threshold of 85 dBG used by environmental protection agencies in Australia and Denmark"

There's also the same exasperated, almost despairing repetition of the point that infrasound is basically everywhere:

"Virtually every piece of mechanical equipment emits infrasound, including traffic, air
conditioners, refrigerators, surf, our own hearts and wind. Typical infrasound exposure levels for people who live in cities are approximately 50-65 dBG most of the time due to traffic, air conditioning, heating fans, subways and air traffic"

And, despite the report, an acoustician (who's previously expressed concern about infrasound from wind turbines, and testified on behalf of wind farm opponents) has criticised the report, and is attempting to raise further concerns about infrasound from this solar project.

So why is the 'wind turbine syndrome' myth being applied to large-scale solar projects? The root cause is the same as with wind farms, and it has nothing to do with the technology, or actual measurements of noise. No quantity of measurements will ever be sufficient to convince solar farm opponents that the noise levels aren't a threat, and those who add a pseudoscientific sheen to the rhetoric of fear won't ever be required to bring forward evidence to support their claims.

Essentially, it's about sentiment, and involvement, and control, and psychology. We're complex, but in this regard, it's fairly easy to predict how we're going to respond to big projects that we feel left out of. What worries me here is that we let this pattern repeat, and that dedicated anti-renewable energy groups travel to projects, and fill them with fear and anxiety about renewable energy, whatever the type. If large-scale clean energy projects aren't build in a different way, we'll end up with a decade of 'solar power syndrome', filled with senate inquiries, stern and concerned health authorities, and a raft of public voices calling for more research.

Climate Denial and Wind Turbine Syndrome: The Inquisition's Rejection of Science

There's plenty of time to dive into the variety of curiosities (and astonishing mistakes) served up in the final Senate Select Committee into Wind Turbines report, and the excellent and comprehensive dissenting report from the sole Labor senator on the committee.

For now, there's a bigger story at work here, and it ought to freak us out a bit. There are reasons normally-rational people will angrily reject good science, and credulously believe bad science. We twist ourselves into awkward, dissonant ideological formations, and it seems people who wield the most power are most likely to engage in this proud rejection of reality.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't think I coined the 'inquisition' pun on the name of the Senate Wind Farm inquiry - curiously, it turned up in the only news outlet that's reported the findings of the senate committee in a positive light - The Australian:

It's interesting to note that the term 'inquisition' turns up a less positive context in The Australian, a few years in the past, around the topic of climate science: 

The clips critique those who accept climate science, and demonises those skeptical of 'wind turbine syndrome'. These aren't contradictory position. Hypocritical, perhaps, but within the worldview that's held so closely by the outlet, both positions are perfectly rational.

"Shouldn't we wait until the science is in on climate change, before we act?"

*pause*

"We shouldn't wait until the science is in, before we act on 'wind turbine syndrome'"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Professor Simon Chapman, a public health professor at Sydney University, has taken a keen interest in the wind farms health issue, and managed to score a dedicated section in the final senate report, decrying his attitude and assertions. His responses to 'questions on notice' got some media attention, prompting the chair of the committee, Senator John Madigan, to respond: 

"Senator Madigan said Professor Chapman’s answers to his questions on notice, including whether he knew Ararat Wind Farm would be near a prison, were also ideologically based.  

“Professor Chapman’s responses to questions on notice put to him by the Committee reflect his broader attitude to the Committee’s work,” he said.  

“This appears to be informed more by his ideological position on the question of human induced climate change than a serious consideration of the questions the committee was formed to consider.”"

This seems to be a neat summary of the two presentations of the word 'inquisition' that we've seen presented above. Madigan consider's Chapman's views to be a symptom of his acceptance of the science of climate change. To accept the science of climate change is an ideological stance, and consequently, supporting technological solution to the threat of climate change is similarly tainted.

-------------------------------------------------------

It would seem, then, that those who base their rejection and acceptance of scientific evidence on ideological drivers are bound to see other people as operating the same way, even when they're not.

This goes some way to explaining why the report also dedicates many, many words to criticising the Australian Medical Association, and the National Health and Medical Research Council, whose respective scientists and medical professionals have both failed to find any evidence for 'wind turbine syndrome'.

In the minds of the senators, this happens not because there is no evidence, but because the scientists are forever compromised by the acceptance of climate science. Their solution is simply to pick their own scientists, presumably ones who they feel haven't been compromised by the acceptance of scientific evidence around climate change.

"The Federal Government has been urged to sideline the nation’s peak medical research body and set up a stand-alone scientific committee to investigate the health effects of wind farm noise."

We seem desensitised to this dichotomy, in which hyper-skepticism and hyper-credulity happily sit side by side. There's no evidence that could convince the senators that climate science is real, and no evidence is required to convince them that wind turbines cause harm. 

This is the proud rejection of a technique we normally consider to be useful, in understanding the real world. It's anti-scientific only in the sense that evidence contradicting ideology is rejected. But it's the same cognitive machinery that causes people to rejection the science of vaccination, or the science of fluoridation, or to believe in chemtrails, or homeopathy. These beliefs actually hurt people.

We allow the rejection of scientific evidence to flourish in politics. This is why our PM happily rejects climate science, and furrows his brow with concern about wind turbine syndrome. We're only one ideological twist away from a fresh torrent of preventable harms, spawned by this puerile attitude. 

Please stop making things up about renewable energy

Some people have a big platform, and they use it to criticise renewable energy. Opinion writers, shock jocks, journalists, senators - they've all got full-time access to a huge number of ears and eyes, and they use that to full advantage.

The thing is, when they say things they claim to be true things supported by numbers and evidence, they're often just.......not. I think it's weird, and interesting.

Alan Jones 

On rare occasions, those who loudly proclaim the children of their imagination as facts are questioned. During a debate on climate change, radio host Alan Jones nearly implodes with sheer outrage after he's asked if a paper he's brought up has been published in a peer-reviewed journal, below:



Last Monday, Alan Jones claimed on the ABC's Q and A panel show that:

"Eighty per cent of Australian energy comes from coal, coal-fired power, and it’s about $79 a kilowatt hour,” he said. “Wind power is about $1502 a kilowatt hour"

Mike Seccombe wrote a good explanation of precisely how wrong this in The Saturday Paper, as did Dylan Mcconnell in The Conversation, in which Jones admits to the error. To summarise, in a simple chart:

Terry McCrann

McCrann, a News Corp columnist, is growing more unique, as his level-headed colleagues quietly step back from angry dismissal of climate science. At some point, he'll be screaming his unintentionally comical diatribes at shoppers in Pitt St mall, but for now, he writes in The Australian:

"For the dirty little secret which nah-nah-nah denying Climate Change true believers refuse to face is that all renewable capacity has to be backed by continuing power stations which actually work: carbon-based coal or gas, or nuclear. Because when the wind don’t blow, and the sun don’t shine, the power don’t flow. Even across the vast span of southern Australia there are hours on end when we get not a single megawatt out of “all” those wind turbines"

He's usually more wrong than this, as I've written here before. Some remnant spark of self-awareness was forcing him to be not too specific about exactly which time periods he means. Even then, we can actually check his claim that there are 'hours on end' when the total output of South Australian wind farms is at zero. Let's first compare the total number of hours, in the past 1.5 years, where SA wind has been greater than zero, and compare it to the total number of hours it's been at zero:

Oh dear. In the past 1.5 years, about 0.12% of the time has been comprised of a total wind output of zero in South Australia, or about sixteen hours out of thirteen thousand, one hundred and four. Sure, some of those hours were 'on end' - the longest stretch of zero output was 2.5 hours in April 2014 - but these incidents are absurdly rare, and McCrann seems to genuinely hold the belief they're representative of normal operation.

Graham Lloyd

Lloyd's featured a lot on this blog, because much of his coverage of renewable energy sways towards misunderstandings, cherry-picking and factual errors. His piece from the weekend has several, but one caught my eye:

"In addition to guaranteed above-markets rates, intermittency helps explain why the addition of large scale renewables can lead to higher prices for electricity consumers. 

“When you study the states of Australia that have had dramatic increases in their household power bills in recent years you will find a direct correlation to the number of wind turbines that have been connected to the grid in those states,” independent senator John Maddigan told the Senate last month. “You will find the same correlation in European countries. 

This is irrespective of whether wholesale electricity prices fall as a result of additional renewable energy forcing its way into an already oversupplied market.
Indeed, Germany has some of the lowest wholesale electricity prices in Europe but some of the highest retail prices.

There's rather a lot to break down, even in this small section of Lloyd's article. The whole thing has an incredibly high concentration of misunderstanding and outright falsehoods - it would take weeks to debunk it. Simply, is there a 'direct correlation' between number of turbines, and high power bills?

----------------------------------------

So why is wrongness so prevalent in content that's churned out to be critical of renewable energy? And, is it just as prevalent in content that's out there to defend it? I can't really answer the second question, mainly because I'm responsible for a fair chunk of it, and so I wouldn't exactly be an impartial judge.

I honestly don't really have any theories. There seems to be an ever-present assumption that if we publicly declare something to be factual - as in, a thing that has been checked thoroughly and is likely to be true - that we won't be asked to support that claim with references or sources. I might just be over-attributing this to renewable energy, because it's my thing.

Sometimes, fact-checkers and wonks (like me, and Media Watch, and The Conversation and ABC Fact Check) tend to dive in and explain the wrongness. These media outlets have a decent platform, so I think they're doing good work. But I wonder if we should be encouraging a more wide-ranging shift in attitude: it's not okay to vomit out some numerical feelings-garbage, without expecting that you're going to be pulled up on it immediately.

Regardless, this is something that really happens quite a lot. For added fun, it's worth casually asking people to justify their claims. Really, it's great. I highly recommend it. Patrick Moore, who features in the video up top, is filmed here during the making of a documentary, being asked to stand behind something he's said. It's...fun. Watch it.