I have been concerned about the environment for as long as I can remember (to the extent that I once almost voted for the Green Party, before they became obsessed with climate change). I have been perplexed for some time by the state of environmentalism, where concern about “carbon” (as they insist on calling CO2) seems to trump any real concern for the environment. Any environmental degradation is acceptable, even welcome, it seems, if it’s “renewable”. The end justifies the means.
In August 2017 Paul Kingsnorth published “Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist”, and there are aspects of Paul’s book that resonate with me. This passage says it all for me, and sums up the current state of environmentalism nicely:
“This reductive approach to the human-environmental challenge leads to an obvious conclusion: if carbon is the problem, then ‘zero carbon’ is the solution…
To do this will require the large-scale harvesting of the planet’s ambient energy: sunlight, wind, water power. This means that vast new conglomerations of human industry are going to appear in places where the energy is most abundant. Unfortunately, these places coincide with some of the world’s wildest, most beautiful and most untouched landscapes. The sort of places that environmentalism came into being to protect.
And so the deserts, perhaps the landscape always most resistant to permanent human conquest, are to be colonised by vast ‘solar arrays’, glass and steel and aluminium, the size of small countries. The mountains and moors, the wild uplands, are to be staked out like vampires in the sun, their chests pierced with rows of 500′ wind turbines and associated access roads, masts, pylons and wires.”
He continues with a catalogue of environments, each doomed to destruction through the introduction of large scale industrialisation, all in the pursuit of ‘net zero’: open oceans, coastlines, estuaries, rivers, croplands, and even the rainforest. All are to be sacrificed for a ‘greater good’. He finishes with:
“So here I was again: a Luddite, a nimby, a reactionary, a romantic; standing in the way of progress. I realised that I was dealing with environmentalists with no attachment to any actual environment. Their talk was of parts per million of carbon, peer-reviewed papers, sustainable technologies, renewable supergrids, green growth and the fifteenth conference of the parties. There were campaigns about ‘ the planet’ and ‘the Earth’, but there was no specificity: no sign of any real, felt attachment to any small part of that Earth.”
It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one scratching my head over the willingness, even apparent desire, to destroy the environment, on the part of people who call themselves environmentalists.
One tenth of the contiguous US states to be blanketed in turbines and solar panels
Paul Kingsnorth’s words turned out to be remarkably prescient. On 15th March 2021, the Guardian published an article headed “The race to zero: can America reach net-zero emissions by 2050?” and sub-headed “Joe Biden wants zero emissions by 2050, but time is ticking. So how will the country have to change over the next 30 years?”
It commences:
“If America finally weans itself off planet-heating emissions, the country will look and feel very different.
Landscapes from coast to coast would be transformed, carpeted in wind turbines and solar panels, with enough new transmission lines to wrap around Earth 19 times. The populace would whiz past in their electric cars, to and from homes equipped with induction stoves and heat pumps. Hundreds of thousands of people who would have prematurely died from the toxic fossil-fuel age would still be alive.
It’s an appealing vision, according to Eric Larson, senior research engineer at Princeton University…”
An appealing vision? Well, an absence of premature deaths would be good news, but there must be other ways to achieve that. As for the rest of it…really?
Further on, the article tells us that as the use of coal, oil and gas is scaled back,
“A gargantuan effort [will be required] to erect solar panels and wind turbines – first an extra 300GW of wind and 300GW of solar by 2030, before supply soars further to five times today’s transmission capacity by 2050.
This endeavor [sic] will require around 590,000 sq km (or 227,800 sq miles) of America to be blanketed in turbines and panels, around a tenth of all the land in the contiguous US. If you took a stroll along an Atlantic-facing beach there would be a good chance you’d see renewable energy in all directions, with an expanse of ocean the size of Belgium dotted with towering offshore wind turbines.
… As solar and wind are intermittent, moving clean energy to all corners of the country will require the current electricity transmission system to triple in size, an extraordinary roll-out of new poles, wires and substations.”
To my mind, this is a Dantean vision of hell, a sign of the world going mad. Yet to some people, this is “an appealing vision“. It ought to be an environmentalist’s worst nightmare.
“A very significant pollution event”
The environmental damage caused by the new breed of environmentalists is increasing all over the world. And it’s all too evident in the British Isles. An incident that has received little publicity, but which was reported on the BBC website in November 2020 was described as “peat slide devastation” at Meenbog Wind Farm, under construction in Donegal. It caused damage on both sides of the Donegal/Tyrone border, as thousands of tonnes of peat were washed into an internationally protected salmon spawning river, the Derg. An Ulster Angling Federation spokesman said:
“…this is a very significant pollution event, one of the largest in the history of Northern Ireland and Ireland and involving large acreages of bogland. It is one that will be difficult to reinstate.”
Interestingly, the report also suggests that there had been opposition to the wind farm development with anglers and others claiming it could lead to instability in the bog where the 19 turbines are going in, but planners had decided it was not a risk.
Ironically, a 2014 report for the Northern Ireland Environment Agency noted that siting wind turbines on peatland could release considerable carbon dioxide from the peat, and also damage the peatland contributions to flood control and water quality:
“The potential knock-on effects of using the peatland resource for wind turbines are considerable and it is arguable that the impacts on this facet of biodiversity will have the most noticeable and greatest financial implications for Northern Ireland.”
This wind farm, though, was built just over the border.
Even more ironically, Northern Irish politicians are currently falling over themselves to introduce a Climate Change Act, to the extent that two bills to this end are currently before the Stormont Assembly. Given that Northern Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions are utterly insignificant in the global scheme of things, perhaps they would do better to concentrate on looking after the environment?
120,000 square metre artificial island
On 4th February 2021 the Guardian reported on plans by Denmark to build a “clean energy hub” by building a new artificial island 50 miles offshore in the North Sea. The island is to be the size of 18 football pitches. Despite that, we are warned that:
“…the North Sea island might be difficult to complete before 2033, meaning it might not help Denmark reach its ambitious 2030 target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 70% from 1990 levels.”
The tone of the whole article is rather breathless and very enthusiastic, and we are told:
“’This is truly a great moment for Denmark and for the global green transition,’ Denmark’s climate minister, Dan Jørgensen, said in a statement. ‘The energy hub in the North Sea will be the largest construction project in Danish history’.”
Apparently this sort of thing is “green”. Nowhere does the article discuss the possible environmental problems that might be associated with this plan. The article contains only the briefest reference, near the end, to the need to carry out environmental impact assessments on the sea bed.
Double standards
It seems that we are back in Paul Kingsnorth’s world, where he wryly observes, “Container port wiping out estuary mudflats: bad. Renewable hydro-power barrage wiping out estuary mudflats: good.”
For example, in 2009, the greenprophet website complained that Dubai’s artificial islands project was causing environmental damage. As recently as March 2019, the Guardian reported in critical terms on the Hong Kong government’s plans to build one of the world’s largest artificial islands, discussing claims that the island could damage the environment and marine life. In 2016 the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague, as well as rejecting China’s sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, ruled that China’s building of artificial islands there had caused environmental damage.
But you’ll look in vain for environmental criticism of any artificial islands constructed for the purposes of supplying “renewable” energy. The BBC’s article on the subject of Denmark’s “energy island”, published on its website on 4th February 2021 made no mention of possible environmental issues, and (like the Guardian) is gushing in its general tone. The Euronews online article (which invited me to sign up for its green newsletter) was similar in tone and content. The same is true of Forbes, DW (Deutsche Welle), the Independent, and pretty much any news website that has reported on the story.
Minimising, but not avoiding, bird deaths is a victory
On 1st March 2021 a report appeared in the Guardian with this heading:
“Wind power company vows to help save critically endangered California condor”
and this sub-heading:
“The condor, a vulture threatened by giant wind turbines, may be helped by energy company’s breeding project “
The report advises that:
“The threat to wildlife from renewable energy turbines has been a growing concern for environmentalists. In 2013, a study by the Wildlife Society into bird and bat fatalities at California’s Altamont Pass wind resource area projected 573,000 bird deaths a year nationally, including 83,000 raptors, and 888,000 bat fatalities.”
With no apparent sense of irony, the turbine company’s operations wildlife compliance manager said:
“Our goal is to minimize the risk of mortalities. We see this as a win for condors”.
In fairness, the company in question is trying to do something positive, but it’s a strange world when minimising condor deaths (i.e. killing condors, just not so many of them) is regarded as “a win” – especially for the condors in question.
Solar power – more bird deaths
What of solar power? On 1st January 2017, an article appeared on the Black & Veatch website with the heading:
“Impact of Solar Energy on Wildlife Is an Emerging Environmental Issue”
It reported on how large concentrating solar plants use “power towers” that consist of hundreds of thousands of computer-controlled mirrors to track the sun throughout the day, reflecting the sunlight to boilers at the tops of towers several hundred feet high. The concentrated sunlight heats the water in the boiler pipes to create superheated steam, which is then piped to a turbine to generate power.
Birds, insects, and bats that fly through the highly concentrated, high-temperature solar beams they are ignited in mid-air. The report says that they may be killed by the heat, by the force of falling to the ground, or by a waiting predator…
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) law enforcement personnel at a large concentrated solar project in California observed this happening every couple of minutes.
The article claims that it’s also possible that the brightness and intensity of the light from large solar fields could be attracting insects even during the daytime, which in turn attracts their predators, birds and bats. Night lighting of these facilities consists of security lighting, which also attracts insects and their predators from the surrounding darker desert. The USFWS Office of Law Enforcement in a report released in April 2014 refers to the types of large-scale solar projects that cause these impacts as “mega-traps.”
Pollution at end of useful life
On 14th December 2020, Conor Prendergast wrote an article for the website of Discover Magazine, which summarised the problems that we face when solar panels reach the end of their useful life (after maybe 20-30 years). He pointed out that to improve the efficiency of solar panels, cadmium and lead are often added. These are difficult to extract when it’s time to dispose of defunct solar panels, to the extent that if done properly, it can cost more to recycle a solar panel than to manufacture it in the first place. It’s not uncommon for solar recycling plants to extract valuable silver and copper, and then simply burn what’s left, dumping the residue in landfill, whence there is a danger of leaching into groundwater. Cadmium is a carcinogen. China and the USA are the largest users of solar power, and neither country has required solar companies to collect and recycle properly. Maybe the USA will follow the EU’s lead here, but what of China and poor developing countries? It’s not a small problem – the International Renewable Energy Agency has suggested that by 2050 up to 78 million metric tons of solar panels will have reached the end of their life, and that the world will be generating about 6 million metric tons of new solar e-waste annually.
And the problem isn’t just with solar panels. On 7th February 2020, the BBC website published an article under the heading “What happens to all the old wind turbines?”. The opening paragraphs make for stark reading:
“Welcome to the wind turbine graveyard. It stretches a hundred metres from a bend in the North Platte River in Casper, Wyoming.
Between last September and this March, it will become the final resting place for 1,000 fibreglass turbine blades.
These blades, which have reached the end of their 25-year working lives, come from three wind farms in the north-western US state. Each will be cut into three, then the pieces will be stacked and buried.”
It pointed out that the first wave of wind turbines from the 1990s are now reaching the end of their useful lives, and that disposing of them in an environmentally-friendly way is not easy. The materials that they are made from – glass fibre in the case of older blades, carbon fibre in the newer ones – are very difficult to recycle. Pyrolysis is – in theory – one option, involving breaking up the composite fibres in ovens at temperatures of up to 700C. This can recover the materials for alternative uses, but vast amounts of energy are required.
Turbines, of course, are popping up everywhere, and are only getting bigger. And so is the size of the headache of what to do with them at the end of their useful lives. Liu and Barlow’s paper, “Wind turbine blade waste in 2050” estimates that there will be 43 million tonnes of blade waste worldwide by 2050, with China possessing 40% of the waste, Europe 25%, the United States 16% and the rest of the world 19%. Not so renewable after all, then.
Rare earth minerals
Rare earth minerals are vital for many aspects of modern life, including smartphones and flat screen TVs. They are also essential for magnets in wind turbines, and are used in the batteries required for electric cars. They are therefore, as technology currently stands, vital to the “net zero” agenda. However, there is a problem, a problem that the BBC brought to our notice in April 2015 when Tim Maughan wrote an article for the BBC website headed “The dystopian lake filled by the world’s tech lust“. China has a substantial proportion of the planet’s rare earth minerals and so, apart from the danger to the developed world’s plans, if China decided not to co-operate in this area, there is a serious environmental problem associated with this issue too.
The industry associated with China’s extraction and use of rare earth minerals is centred on Baotou in Inner Mongolia, about which the article tells us:
“Even before getting to the toxic lake, the environmental impact the rare earth industry has had on the city is painfully clear. At times it’s impossible to tell where the vast structure of the Baogang refineries complex ends and the city begins. Massive pipes erupt from the ground and run along roadways and sidewalks, arching into the air to cross roads like bridges. The streets here are wide, built to accommodate the constant stream of huge diesel-belching coal trucks that dwarf all other traffic.”
“Diesel-belching coal trucks”, eh? There’s an irony.
I’ve mentioned elsewhere that the western world is exporting its CO2 emissions (and jobs) to countries with poorer environmental standards, such as China. It seems that it’s more than just CO2 that we’re exporting to China – we’re exporting environmental degradation too, thanks to the apparent lack of concern of China’s authorities with regard to such matters:
“For example, cerium is extracted by crushing mineral mixtures and dissolving them in sulphuric and nitric acid, and this has to be done on a huge industrial scale, resulting in a vast amount of poisonous waste as a by-product. It could be argued that China’s dominance of the rare earth market is less about geology and far more about the country’s willingness to take an environmental hit that other nations shy away from.
And there’s no better place to understand China’s true sacrifice than the shores of Baotou toxic lake. Apparently created by damming a river and flooding what was once farm land, the lake is a “tailings pond”: a dumping ground for waste by products.”
And here’s the final irony:
“It’s a truly alien environment, dystopian and horrifying. The thought that it is man-made depressed and terrified me, as did the realisation that this was the by-product not just of the consumer electronics in my pocket, but also green technologies like wind turbines and electric cars that we get so smugly excited about in the West.”
Quite.
Climate Scepticism 
Hot on the heels of my thoughts in this piece comes this:
“Deep sea mining to help make electric vehicles”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-56678976
“As the world begins to move away from petrol and diesel-power cars, there are questions over how the metals needed for batteries in electric vehicles will be sourced.
One possibility is to mine the deep ocean floor. A number of companies are lining up to exploit the minerals found there, but campaigners warn it could have a disastrous impact on the marine environment.”
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And on the same subject, there’s this too:
“New deep-sea mining operation of rare earth minerals will be catastrophic for our oceans”
https://www.climate.news/2020-02-01-deep-sea-mining-operation-of-rare-earth-minerals-catastrophic-oceans.html
Maybe the powers-that-be at COP 26 should worry a little less about climate and a lot more about this sort of thing:
“The next great frontier in resource extraction is located deep beneath the waters of our world’s great oceans. But experts warn that the reckless dredging of our delicate, underwater ecosystems could be the straw that finally breaks the camel’s back, environmentally speaking.
In an in-depth piece he wrote for The Atlantic, Wil S. Hylton warns about the impending launch of “history’s largest mining operation,” which threatens to deliver what could potentially amount to a type of final death blow for the health of our saltwater terrain.
While it’s been known since at least 1868 that our underwater sea beds are loaded with many of the same precious metals, gems, and minerals as what exists here on land, the technology to dig it all up is only just now making its debut.
According to Hylton’s research, oceanographers have identified copper, nickel, silver, platinum, gold and even gemstones hiding within the vast networks of rock and dirt that comprise the varied ocean floor terrain. And very soon, massive mining enterprises will begin to hoover it up all without prejudice, and with minimal government oversight.
That’s because most of these mining operations will take place in international waters where there are few restrictions on methods of extraction”
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I love the Guardian quote: “Joe Biden wants zero emissions by 2050, but time is ticking.” Mistaking a clock for “time” is like mistaking a thermometer for heat.
Good to see Paul Kingsnorth is on our side. Do you have his book in a copy-and-pastable form? In which case perhaps we could serialise it for him.
Back in 2009 Paul and George Monbiot had a memorable conversation at the Guardian reproduced here:
https://www.monbiot.com/2009/08/18/should-we-seek-to-save-industrial-civilisation/
in which each tried to out-doom the other.
The odd thing is that they are the ones worrying, when they have every government and the whole of the capitalist world they hate on their side, while we continue to always look on the bright side.
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Untamed cultures are blind to the consequences of their expansion, whether in iconic infra-structure, the victims of missionary zeal or merely the burden in millions of minds. They make those millions of minds blind to the consequences too. The deployment of renewables (solar + wind turbines) across 35 nations with major amounts of both, correlates to a cultural attitude (r=0.73). And because of the interaction of old and new culture, anti-correlates with national religiosities (any Faith) too (r=0.65). So deployment cannot be a matter of the the climate or climate exposure of nations, nor climate-science nor any rational policy (religion is a purely cultural phenomenon). But this suggests limits to penetration. The vast majority of all publics are not believers, they are merely accommodating the culture because a) their elites typically are, and b) outside of some nimbyism they’re not aware of the massive downsides. In principle, should they become familiar with said downsides, their permission, ‘stolen’ in their name as it is, would nevertheless still be withdrawn. That’s why Planet of the Humans faced so much heavy censorship. It’s unfortunate that carpeting countries with renewables is so much more damaging than carpeting them with cathedrals and churches (or mosques, whatever). It’s a pity they didn’t stick with tree-hugging. I could cope with vast stands of giant redwoods outside of every town where the populace goes to be in awe of tree-ness and share in the spirit of their slow but mighty growth. We’d still have to sacrifice something of course, on principle. But as long as it isn’t maiden’s blood to fertilize the roots and just a 5% redwood maintenance tax, it’d still be a good deal.
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Geoff
Don’t assume that Paul Kingsnorth is “on our side” – he is very concerned about climate change, for instance. However, he is IMO a deeper thinker than the average climate-concerned person. He at least recognises the damage caused to the planet by those who would “save it”, and he objects to that. Wikipedia summarises the book here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_a_Recovering_Environmentalist
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the Guardian wasn’t much impressed!
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/12/confessions-of-a-recovering-environmentalist-by-paul-kingsnorth-review
“Hope finds very little room in this enjoyable, sometimes annoying and mystical collection of essays. Kingsnorth despises the word’s false promise; it comforts us with a lie, when the truth is that we have created an “all-consuming global industrial system” which is “effectively unstoppable; it will run on until it runs out”. To imagine otherwise – to believe that our actions can make the future less dire, even ever so slightly – means that we probably belong to the group of “highly politicised people, whose values and self-image are predicated on being activists”.
According to Kingsnorth, such people find it hard to be honest with themselves. He was once one of them.”
The book is worth a read, IMO, for a different perspective. Regrettably, I have never seen it for sale, and when I read it I did so by borrowing it from my local library.
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With due apologies for the epic comment…
The UK’s next great offshore windfarm, Hornsea 3, was mentioned a while back on Cliscep re: the killing of kittiwakes. This rather cute gull is red-listed in Birds of Conservation Concern 4 because of an estimated breeding population decline of 74% over 25 years. Sounds pretty serious. And individuals have a habit of flying into wind turbines (well, you can’t really call it a habit, since they only do it once each). It does not take a great toll on the long-lived adults, where breeding success is hit or miss, to easily erode the population.
So bearing in mind it is acknowledged that Hornsea 3 is going to take an annual toll on kittiwakes, and quoting my earlier survey of the Environmental Statement, “about 60 different numbers for potentially slain kittiwakes are given, from 13 to 395 per year,” saying no to it might be what we walking dead call a “no brainer.”
But the Secretary of State said Yes to the windfarm and No to the hapless kittiwakes. I quote his “reasoning” below.
KEY to acronyms:
AEoI = Adverse Effect on Integrity
IROPI = Imperative Reasons of Overriding Public Interest
SPA = Special Protection Area (formerly European level site designation for birds)
SAC = Special Area for Conservation (formerly European level site designation for things other than birds)
No doubt the following paragraphs provide data to support the conclusion that there is an acceptable trade-off here between the climate change damages abated by the windfarm and the acknowledged ongoing killing of a red-listed bird? Nope. Reducing everything in conservation onto a single axis (carbon dioxide) means that as long as we’re rowing in what seems to be the right direction in carbon dioxide emissions (I’m not convinced of that for wind farms), we can just kind of shrug about the collateral damage.
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JIT, the final paragraph in the “justification” you quote demonstrated just how crazy these people are. Perhaps a future article might look at the CO2 emissions associated with producing, installing and finally scrapping wind turbines, including the associated ongoing maintenance (NB lots of concrete in those foundations, and we know that concrete manufacture is a process that produces lots of CO2).
It is also rather ludicrous to suggest that a single wind farm (however big) makes “a significant contribution to limiting the extent of climate change”. We are here dealing with religious fervour, where logic has no part to play.
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And now we have this:
“Cumulative effects of offshore wind farms: loss of habitat for seabirds”
https://research.wur.nl/en/publications/cumulatieve-effecten-van-offshore-wind-parken-habitatverlies-zeev
“This report updates ‘A first approach to deal with cumulative effects on birds and bats of offshore wind farms and other human activities in the Southern North Sea’ (Leopold et al. 2014) in response to the ‘2030 Roadmap for Offshore Wind Energy’1. In addition to assessing the wind farms that will be built in the period leading up to 2023, it also describes the construction schedule and locations for the offshore wind farms due for construction in the period leading up to 2030.
The assignment includes the updating of seabird density maps for a total of ten seabird species (Table 2) using the approach from the Leopold et al. (2014) report, supplemented with survey data that have become available for the years 2013-2017. There are concerns for the selected species about the risks of collision (with offshore wind turbines) or habitat loss, which can affect the population (possibly significantly). Five of the ten selected seabird species are considered to be at particular risk of habitat loss; these five species are discussed in this report against the background of the planned roll-out of offshore wind until 2030.
The knowledge question to be addressed relates to the habitat loss that may occur for five seabird species (divers, i.e. Red-throated and Black-throated Divers (studied in conjunction), Northern Gannet, Sandwich Tern, Common Guillemot and Razorbill) as a result of the ongoing development of offshore wind farms in the southern and central North Sea, both in a national context (the Dutch EEZ or DCS: national scenario) and an international context (international scenario). Using the Relative Displacement Score from the extended Bradbury method as elaborated in Leopold et al. (2014), the step is made from affected seabirds to expected additional mortality as a result of habitat loss. These modelled mortalities are compared with the reference measure Potential Biological Removal (PBR).”
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And now this:
“Portugal to scrap lithium mining project
Locals spent years fighting to halt the project, a cornerstone of Lisbon’s raw materials policy.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/portugal-lithium-mining-project-scrap/
“Lisbon is set to cancel a contentious lithium mining project in the northern Montalegre region, Portugal’s environment minister told POLITICO.
“At this moment I see the possibility of having a lithium mine in Montalegre as very unlikely,” João Pedro Matos Fernandes said Tuesday.
The EU is trying to set up an independent stream of crucial raw materials to ensure it’s not dependent on third countries. It imports almost all of its lithium — a key ingredient in the batteries used to power electric vehicles. The European Commission estimates that demand for lithium will grow 18 times by 2030 and 60 times by 2050. That’s set off a race to open mines in Europe, with projects being eyed in Finland, Spain, Serbia, the Czech Republic and Austria, as well as Portugal.
The Montalegre project’s concession license will be “rejected due to a lack of professionalism” on the part of LusoRecursos, the company awarded a government exploration contract in 2019, Matos Fernandes said. He said the company submitted a “clearly insufficient” environmental impact study, and added that it won’t be long before “that license is completely canceled.”
Informed about the scheme’s impending cancellation, an incredulous LusoRecursos CEO Ricardo Pinheiro said his company would bring a “nice lawsuit in the courts.”
The minister’s comments signal the end of one of Lisbon’s signature raw material schemes, just one week before the Portuguese presidency of the Council of the EU hosts a conference on green mining.
The €500 million project aimed to build a massive mining and industrial processing complex in a bucolic corner of northern Portugal bordering the Gerês-Xurés biosphere reserve. It had been strongly opposed by locals for environmental concerns.
The scheme involved leveling a mountainous, 825-hectare site, with parts of the new project located just meters from residents’ properties.
LusoRecursos claimed that up to 30 million tons of lithium petalite could be extracted from the site and potentially used to make everything from e-vehicle batteries to storage infrastructure for renewable energy. The company’s bid to survey the area was greenlit over a decade ago, but the idea only started to move in 2019, when the government signed a contract giving LusoRecursos exploration rights.
“The mining project would have destroyed the landscape and made farming here impossible,” said Armando Pinto, coordinator of Montalegre com Vida, the community group that spearheaded opposition to the project.
The region’s traditional farming economy has earned it recognition as a United Nations Globally Important Agricultural Heritage site. Locals like farmer Justino Dias credit this mode of farming — along with a burgeoning rural tourism sector — with stemming the exodus of young people from the area, a serious problem in much of Portugal’s interior.
The mining complex “would threaten all of that,” said Dias. The project’s impact on the agricultural sector would also jeopardize local access to the EU farming subsidies that are key to the area’s survival, he added.”
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A final takeaway quote from that Politico article:
“Green mining doesn’t exist,” he said. “Politicians need to stop trying to get rid of pollution in cities by polluting our villages instead.”
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Tomo, a commenter at Bishop Hill, has drawn attention to a website that looks like some sort of parody/spoof, but it does usefully contain this:
“DIRTY SECRETS OF RENEWABLE ENERGY REVEALED AS ‘BRIGHT GREEN LIES’”
https://www.euronews.com/living/2021/04/22/dirty-secrets-of-renewable-energy-revealed-as-bright-green-lies
“A shocking expose on the truth behind green technology is being released this Earth Day.
Bright Green Lies will “peek behind the green curtain” to show the true cost of many environmental solutions such as electric cars, solar panels and wind turbines.
Julia Barnes’ film sets out to dispel the myth that climate change and environmental destruction can be offset by buying green.
Hoping to redirect the contemporary eco movement from sustaining run away consumption to protecting the natural world, the film intends to lift the lid on the real extent of greenwashing….
…Bright Green Lies shows that over the last three decades the environmental movement has been co-opted by lobbyists for the renewable industry, which it is claimed will be the number one cause of habitat destruction by the middle of the century.
Award winning director, Julia Barnes says words like “clean”, “free”, “safe”, and “sustainable” are often thrown around by “bright green” environmentalists.
“They act as if solar panels and wind turbines grow on trees,” she says. “There are a lot of us who are there for the right reasons and I think we can turn it back to the good side again.”
…Barnes claims there is fear among eco warriors over lifting the lid on renewables when they have been promoting them for so long.
“To me it seemed like the most important thing I could make another film about.”
The mass production of materials for renewables requires increased mining, industrial manufacturing, habitat destruction, greenhouse gas emissions, and the creation of toxic waste, according to research in the film.
“I was amazed and there’s this whole side of these technologies that we don’t hear about in the mainstream environmental movement and it’s so important.
“We have this huge movement but no matter how impassioned a movement it is, if it’s pushing for the wrong solutions it’s not going to work,” she adds….”
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Mark, about the lithium project, was there any accounting for the opportunity costs? Would the potential value of the lithium project be greater or lesser than the value of traditional farming? Could some of the value of the “move” be held for the local community by taxes! Would it create more jobs for the community? Would there be a scheme to clean up the damage afterwards? Just shutting down the scheme is a recipe for disaster, especially if, in a few years, the government is going to insist on battery powered vehicles. In Spain, the former Río Tinto copper mines eventually got reopened about 10 years ago, after a colossal amount of bargaining around environmental controls and clean up. At current prices, production is profitable but the reopening costs were enormous and….. Largely funded by Chinese interests
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MiaB, I honestly don’t know the answer to your question. My point really is that “green” initiatives are often, in reality, the exact opposite of “green”.
There’s loads on the internet about Portuguese lithium. Just type “Portugal” and “lithium” into a search engine, and you’ll be spoilt for choice. My quick search just now produced this as a top story:
“Matos Fernandes says Portugal will not exploit lithium “at all costs””
https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/matos-fernandes-says-portugal-will-not-exploit-lithium-at-all-costs/56026
“Environment Minister Matos Fernandes has said that Portugal would not exploit lithium “at all costs,” but that it was “absolutely fundamental” for decarbonisation, which is why the government will proceed with a strategic assessment.
“Lithium is absolutely fundamental for decarbonisation. Europe has so few resources of its own, and the [Covid-19] pandemic has shown that. With Portugal having lithium, we must exploit it,” said João Pedro Matos Fernandes, who was speaking to journalists in Porto on the sidelines of a conference on strategic challenges in climate action.
The environment minister said that “there are people who are committed not to exploit lithium in Portugal at all costs,” guaranteeing that Portugal will not make unbridled exploitation without rules.
“We do not have the prospect of exploiting lithium in Portugal at all costs, but we want to do it. Once lithium gained such a strategic dimension, the state stopped granting licenses and we wanted to design a competition for a number of sites where there is great potential for lithium exploration,” he said.
That study, he said, is being prepared by the National Laboratory of Civil Engineering (LNEC).
“There are several sites, we feel that we should make a strategic assessment. We are in a hurry to explore the lithium, but everything will be done according to the characteristics of the territories and always taking into account the environmental values”, he stressed.
Jornal de Notícias reports that the government will proceed with a strategic environmental assessment before opening a tender for mining and lithium exploration in Portugal.”
That article is 6 months old, but still fairly topical.
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“UK plastic waste being dumped and burned in Turkey, says Greenpeace”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57139474
“UK plastic waste is being exported to Turkey and then illegally dumped and burned, according to a new report.
Greenpeace said about 40% – or 210,000 tonnes – of the UK’s plastic waste exports were sent to Turkey last year.
But rather than being recycled, investigators saw some of it dumped by roads, in fields and in waterways.
The UK is a “global leader in tackling plastic pollution”, the government said – after Greenpeace called for it to “take control” of the problem.
Greenpeace’s report warned Turkey was becoming Europe’s “largest plastic waste dump”.
The charity said it had investigated 10 sites across southern Turkey and found plastic bags and packaging from UK supermarkets and retailers at all of them.
Packaging for a coronavirus antigen test was also found, indicating the waste was less than a year old, the report said….
…The UK generates more plastic waste per person than any other country apart from the US, the report added.
Turkey, Malaysia and Poland received the largest amounts of plastic waste exports from the UK in 2020…
…Turkey received nearly 40% of the UK’s plastic waste exports in 2020 – an increase by a factor of 18 since 2016, when 12,000 tonnes were sent.
European Union member states also sent 20 times more plastic waste to Turkey last year compared to 2016….”
Yet another example of “green” ideology leading to damaging unintended consequences. If only they’d let us burn it. Then it wouldn’t become an ecological problem, and it generate some reliable energy too.
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Mark, the video report at that page dates to a couple of years ago if I remember correctly. The sequences with the schoolchildren are particularly interesting.
Let me be PM and I will ban exports of plastic waste with the first stroke of my pen. Where are your green credentials Boris? Come on. Do something useful.
Yes, we could burn it, but not many would want to be downwind from the plant. There are EFW plants now – I think the difficulty comes in defining “non-recyclable” waste.
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“Move to net-zero ‘inevitably means more mining'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57234610
“The public will need to accept greater mining activity if the world is to meet the challenge of going green.
Resource experts say the current supply of various metals and minerals cannot support a global economy producing net-zero carbon emissions.
Extraction rates have to be raised, the scientists argue, if only in the short term.
Eventually, large-scale recycling should be able to satisfy the demand for key commodities such as lithium.
New mining initiatives are often met with resistance because of the negative impacts they can have on the wider environment and on health. And some activities have drawn particular ire because they’ve become associated with labour abuses.
But Prof Richard Herrington and colleagues believe an urgent conversation needs to get going on where and how the inevitable new extraction is practised.
“The public are not in this space at the moment; I don’t think they understand yet the full implications of the green revolution,” the head of Earth sciences at London’s Natural History Museum told BBC News.”
Oh dear, oh dear.
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“How to protect birds and bats from wind turbines”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57176807
“South Africa’s Verreaux’s eagles have a problem. The very landscapes they favour, where the air currents along vast ridges carry them as they soar, are prime locations for wind farm developers – who want to make use of exactly the same resource.
“At least 24 carcasses have been picked up under wind turbines,” says Dr Megan Murgatroyd, from Hawkwatch International. “For this species in particular, it seems to be quite a conflict.”
Sometimes the birds die when they collide with the swiftly spinning blades of the turbines, which are difficult for them to see. Or, they get electrocuted by power lines at the wind farms.
Dr Murgatroyd is on a mission to stop this happening and she’s decided to work with wind energy companies in order to find ways of reducing fatalities.
Around the world, wind energy on and offshore is gathering momentum. In May, the International Energy Agency announced that the amount of wind energy capacity added worldwide in 2020, 114 GW, was nearly double the additions made in 2019.
But many worry that not enough is being done to prevent the deaths of thousands of animals, even though the rise of renewables is generally seen as good news in the fight against climate change.
That was underlined just days ago when a bearded vulture, released into the wild last year in southern France, was killed by a wind turbine after it ranged north into the Netherlands.
“
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“Denmark parliament approves giant artificial island off Copenhagen”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57348415
“Plans for an artificial island to house 35,000 people and protect the port of Copenhagen from rising sea levels have been approved by Danish MPs.
The giant island, named Lynetteholm, would be connected to the mainland via a ring road, tunnels and a metro line.
The approval by Denmark’s parliament paves the way for the 1 sq mile (2.6 sq km) project to begin later this year.
But it faces opposition from environmentalists who have concerns over the impact of its construction….
…A case against the development of Lynetteholm has been brought before the European Court of Justice by environmental groups.
Concerns include the transportation of materials by road involving large numbers of vehicles. One environmental assessment suggested that up to 350 lorry journeys a day through Copenhagen would be required to deliver the raw materials once construction had begun.
Building the artificial island, the size of about 400 football pitches, would require some 80 million tonnes of soil to be delivered to the area to create the peninsula alone, local media report.
There are also concerns among environmentalists about the movement of sediment at sea and the possible impact on ecosystems and water quality….”
And yet, as I said in the article:
“But you’ll look in vain for environmental criticism of any artificial islands constructed for the purposes of supplying “renewable” energy. The BBC’s article on the subject of Denmark’s “energy island”, published on its website on 4th February 2021 made no mention of possible environmental issues, and (like the Guardian) is gushing in its general tone. ”
I haven’t seen Danish environmental groups bringing any cases or expressing concern about the “renewable” energy islands, either.
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Mark: how to protect birds from wind turbines? Easy answer. Pull them all down. There is no viable alternative that I can see. Placing a tariff on birds killed relies on finding their carcasses, which would be impossible at sea, and would likely lead to shenanigans on land (e.g. employing people to go out with dogs to collect the corpses and dispose of them secretly).
Sooner or later public opinion is going to swing against these things. Rather than building more, we should be spending money burying power lines and investing in electricity generators that score on reliability and low wildlife impact. I have no doubt that we will reach population-level effects on quite a few species of birds pretty soon if things go on as they are.
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Next up:
“Where mining meets rainforest: the battle for Tasmania’s Tarkine
Campaigners say plans for a new tailings dam threatens wilderness that should be declared a heritage area”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/06/where-mining-meets-rainforest-the-battle-for-tasmanias-tarkine
This sounds pretty horrendous:
“Four days before the Morrison government was due to decide the future of a mining development in the takayna/Tarkine, 77-year-old Frits Harmsen planted a camping chair in front of trucks on an unsealed road snaking through Australia’s largest temperate rainforest.
Harmsen, a former French horn player with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, was part of a small band of Bob Brown-endorsed protesters who on Friday began a 19th day attempting to block work by MMG, a majority Chinese-owned minerals company, in Tasmania’s remote north-west.
Up the road, the mining giant was attempting to carry out drilling and other testing for what it hopes will become a much larger project – a new pipeline and waste storage facility near the town of Rosebery.
MMG says a new tailings dam is needed to extend the life of an 85-year-old zinc, copper and lead mine that employs about 500 staff and contractors. If the dam is approved, the company expects to clear up to 285 hectares – roughly equivalent to 350 football pitches – of rainforest and other terrain for both the South Marionoak dam and a 3.5km pipe that would carry toxic waste from the mine across the Pieman River.”
Among the products mentioned is copper. What is copper used for?
“Because copper is a highly efficient conductor of electricity and heat, it is used in renewable energy systems to generate power from solar, hydro, thermal and wind energy across the world. Copper helps reduce CO2 emissions and lowers the amount energy needed to produce electricity. In many renewable energy systems, there is 12-times more copper being used than in traditional systems to ensure efficiency.”
https://copperalliance.org.uk/about-copper/applications/energy-and-renewables/
And by the way, who owns MMG?
“MMG’s major shareholder is China Minmetals Corporation (CMC). Founded in 1950, CMC is one of China’s major multinational state-owned enterprises. It is a major international conglomerate that involved in the development, production, trading and integration services of metals and minerals, in addition to its finance, real estate and logistics divisions/businesses.
CMC’s subsidiary China Minmetals Non-ferrous Metals Co. Ltd. (CMN) was formed in 2001 and currently owns approximately 74% of the total shares of MMG, with the remaining 26% owned by public shareholders including global resources and investment funds.”
https://www.mmg.com/who-we-are/company-overview/
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UN priorities?
“We are running out of time to reach deal to save natural world, says UN talks chair
Warning comes amid fears of further delays to Kunming summit, which aims to agree on curbing destruction of ecosystems”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/07/age-of-extinction-running-out-of-time-to-reach-deal-to-save-natural-world-says-un-talks-chair
“The world is running out of time to reach an ambitious deal to stem the destruction of the natural world, the co-chair of negotiations for a crucial UN wildlife summit has warned, amid fears of a third delay to the talks.
Negotiators are scheduled to meet in Kunming, China, in October for Cop15, the biggest biodiversity summit in a decade, to reach a hoped-for Paris-style agreement on preventing wildlife extinctions and the human-driven destruction of the planet’s ecosystems.
The summit was meant to take place in October last year but has been delayed twice due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Basile van Havre, a co-chair for the UN convention on biological diversity (CBD) negotiations, has raised the prospect of a third delay to the Kunming summit, which he fears would threaten the ambition of the biodiversity targets for this decade.
Van Havre said countries must meet in person for preparatory talks for at least two weeks if the biodiversity summit is to go ahead in China. He warned the talks were unlikely without a major push on vaccinations for delegates in developing countries and, given China’s restrictive travel policy, also called for another country to step up and host preparatory talks to help the process stick to the current schedule.
“In my view, the time has come to roll up our sleeves and put a practical plan on the table or face another delay. We need a proper plan,” Van Havre said. “If we need to delay by a few months, fine – everyone can understand that. But let’s give ourselves a full plan that enables us to meet the deadline and not wait for things to magically happen.
“If we’re not going to get together in the short term, we cannot have an ambitious agreement.””
How much lower priority this all seems to be, even though the destruction of the natural world (fuelled in part by all the net-zero targets) goes on apace, than the fanfare surrounding COP 26 and climate change.
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Speaking of China:
“Chinese banks urged to divest from firms linked to deforestation
China funnelling billions into harmful production of beef, soy and palm oil, says campaign group”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/07/chinese-banks-urged-to-divest-from-firms-linked-to-deforestation
“Campaigners have called on Chinese banks to stop funding overseas agribusinesses that accelerate deforestation and biodiversity loss and have a negative impact on regional water cycles and climate.
In a new report, the campaign group Global Witness said Chinese banks were funnelling billions into global agribusinesses, becoming some of the biggest global financiers of deforestation.
The report found that, between January 2013 and April 2020, Chinese financial institutions provided more than $22.5bn to major companies that produce and trade commodities at high risk of driving deforestation. They include beef, soy, palm oil, paper, pulp, rubber and timber.
Five of China’s biggest commercial banks have provided $10.25bn, according to the report. The research shows they constitute 45% of all the financing provided by China’s financial institutions. Global Witness has urged Chinese financiers to undertake more rigorous checks on companies they engage with overseas.
The analysis is based on publicly available data produced by Forests & Finance, a coalition of non-governmental organisations. In April, the consortium wrote in a separate report that since the Paris Agreement, from January 2016 to April 2020, Chinese banks have become the second largest financier of commodities related to tropical rainforest deforestation.”
The (IMO) naivety shown in writing the above, then saying this at the end of the article, is a big part of the ongoing problem in coming to terms with the problems caused worldwide by China. Whatever the western world does, China’s actions (whether ecological or climate-related) will, IMO, ensure they are futile, yet still people can write things like this:
“Recent reports highlighting the role of Chinese banks came amid president Xi Jinping’s push to show China’s leadership in tackling climate change. Beijing has pledged for its emission to peak by 2030, and to be carbon neutral by 2060. Campaigners urge Beijing to match its rhetoric with action.
“With President Xi’s bold commitment on climate, China needs to put its money where its mouth is by ensuring that Chinese banks are not financing agribusiness that fuels deforestation, the climate crisis and biodiversity loss,” said Yin.”
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Perhaps there’s a sign of waking up to the damage caused by climate worriers and their short-term and ignorant fixes, but there’s no sign yet of humility or reducing the shrillness of net zero demands:
“‘Quick fixes’ to the climate crisis risk harming nature”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57425311
“Climate change and nature loss are interlinked and must be tackled together.
That’s the finding of a key report by 50 leading scientists searching for combined solutions to the climate and biodiversity crises.
“Quick fixes” for climate change risk harming nature, say the experts.
Potential “climate and biodiversity fails” include misguided tree planting and large-scale bioenergy crops.
The report is the first collaboration between two groups of influential scientists advising international governments on tackling climate change and extinction.
Prof Camille Parmesan of Plymouth University, a co-author of the report, said smarter tree planting strategies are needed.
For example, plantations of a single species of non-native tree “are a disaster”, she said, as these forests will be vulnerable to extreme weather or outbreaks of plant pests.
…The authors highlighted areas where efforts to tackle climate change could be harmful to nature, including:
Planting bioenergy crops in monoculture over a very large share of land
Planting trees in ecosystems that have not historically been forested or reforestation with a single tree species, particularly exotic trees
Renewable energy technology, such as electric car batteries, that causes a surge in mining activity
Building dams and sea walls that pose a barrier to wildlife.
Commenting on the report, Dr Will Pearse of Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment, said only by treating climate, biodiversity, and human society as coupled systems can we address “the current catastrophes”.
He said “simple ‘quick fixes'”, such as tree planting or technological innovations, are shown to be ineffective (and sometimes actively harmful) when implemented without a holistic approach.
“Taking examples from the report, large-scale tree-planting can be harmful to biodiversity or food production, while reliance on rare-earth metals in technological solutions need safe disposal at the end of their lifecycle. ”
The report has been released in the run up to two key global summits later this year….”
I am delighted to read this, because it echoes what some of us (dismissed as deniers) have been saying for years. I’m delighted to see that the Guardian has a report (though rather low-key, it seems to me) too:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/10/climate-and-nature-crises-solve-both-or-solve-neither-say-experts
The BBC report didn’t provide any links, so far as I can see, but the Guardian offers this:
https://www.ipbes.net/events/launch-ipbes-ipcc-co-sponsored-workshop-report-biodiversity-and-climate-change
I need to read the report in full before commenting further, but recognition of the problem is a start, I suppose, and I should be grateful for that. Now if only they’d stop dismissing those of us who have been pointing this out for long before they worked it out for themselves….
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“The rush to ‘go electric’ comes with a hidden cost: destructive lithium mining
Thea Riofrancos
As the world moves towards electric cars and renewable grids, demand for lithium is wreaking havoc in northern Chile”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/14/electric-cost-lithium-mining-decarbonasation-salt-flats-chile
“I had come to the salt flat to research an emerging environmental dilemma. In order to stave off the worst of the accelerating climate crisis, we need to rapidly reduce carbon emissions. To do so, energy systems around the world must transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Lithium batteries play a key role in this transition: they power electric vehicles and store energy on renewable grids, helping to cut emissions from transportation and energy sectors. Underneath the Atacama salt flat lies most of the world’s lithium reserves; Chile currently supplies almost a quarter of the global market. But extracting lithium from this unique landscape comes at a grave environmental and social cost.
In the mining installations, which occupy more than 78 sq km (30 sq miles) and are operated by multinationals SQM and Albemarle, brine is pumped to the surface and arrayed in evaporation ponds resulting in a lithium-rich concentrate; viewed from above, the pools are shades of chartreuse. The entire process uses enormous quantities of water in an already parched environment. As a result, freshwater is less accessible to the 18 indigenous Atacameño communities that live on the flat’s perimeter, and the habitats of species such as Andean flamingoes have been disrupted. This situation is exacerbated by climate breakdown-induced drought and the effects of extracting and processing copper, of which Chile is the world’s top producer. Compounding these environmental harms, the Chilean state has not always enforced indigenous people’s right to prior consent.”
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“Mining’s new frontier: Pacific nations caught in the rush for deep-sea riches”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/23/minings-new-frontier-pacific-nations-caught-in-the-rush-for-deep-sea-riches
“Miners are pushing hard to extract metals from the ocean floor, but there is mounting concern about what it might do to the marine environment”
“…companies have their eyes on polymetallic nodules – bundles of ore that resemble potatoes, which litter the surface of the deep sea and are rich in manganese, nickel, cobalt and rare earth metals. The nodules are up to 10cm in diameter and are thought to form at the staggeringly slow rate of just a few centimetres every one million years.
“A battery in a rock,” is how DeepGreen, one of the big players in the nascent industry describes the polymetallic nodules. It touts deep-sea mining as a less environmentally and socially damaging alternative to terrestrial mining, and says it is crucial for affecting a transition to a greener economy, with the nodules containing the minerals needed for the batteries used in electric vehicles.
“Society has an urgent, growing need for battery metals to enable a full transition to clean energy and electric vehicles. We believe that polymetallic nodules are the cleanest source of these metals, with by far the lightest planetary touch,” says the company on its website.
Its proposal is to dispatch ships to the CCZ and suck up the nodules through long pipes that stretch to the seabed. The nodules would be processed on the ship, with excess sediment pumped back into the sea….”.
“Green”?
“There are concerns about the environmental impact deep sea mining could have on marine ecosystems, particularly given how little is known about them and the very slow pace of reproduction and growth at those depths.”
““You are talking about the destruction of the habitat on the seafloor. Any area you are mining will be destroyed,” says Duncan Currie, an international lawyer who has worked in oceans law for 30 years. He represents the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition which is calling for a moratorium on deep sea mining.
Amon was part of a project that conducted baseline surveys in the area of the CCZ that the UK has a licence to explore for potential mining.
“As part of the work we were doing out there, we found that of the megafauna, the larger animals, more than half of them were completely new to science, and more than half of them relied on the nodules as a surface to attach to. Things like corals, sponges, anemones – they actually need the nodules. So potentially mining in that area could have quite a drastic impact.”
“It’s also our largest ecosystem so it provides about 96% of all habitable space on earth,” says Amon. “I think most people still assume that that space is just sort of empty or there’s not a lot happening. But actually, it couldn’t be further from the truth, the deep ocean is a vast reservoir of biodiversity.””
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“A billion new trees might not turn Ukraine green”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57566701
“It was an ambitious signal of green intent when Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky declared this month that a billion extra trees would be planted within three years, and a million hectares would be reforested in a decade.
The EU’s 27 member states have set a much more modest goal of at least three billion new trees by 2030.
But green experts fear that, far from improving Ukraine’s environment, the pledge could have a detrimental impact on biodiversity and natural ecosystems.”
Now, “green experts” are not top of my list of people to turn to. However, it’s another example of the unthinking “green” religion potentially causing more harm than good to the environment.
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“Farmers swap crops for energy as east of England solar farm proposals double
Applications on sites in Herts, Cambridgeshire and Essex climb to 840 megawatts in last five months”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/28/solar-farm-proposals-for-east-of-england-more-than-double
“The number of new solar farms planned for the east of England has more than doubled in recent months as farmers decide to swap crops for clean energy.
New solar farm applications for sites across Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Essex in the last five months have climbed to 840 megawatts, or the same as 2m household solar panels.
The solar boom is expected to yield more than double the solar energy capacity that came forward for the east of England in the same months last year, and would be enough to power the equivalent of 400,000 homes with clean energy.
Dr Nina Skorupska, the chief executive of the Association for Renewable Energy, said it was “crucial that this momentum is maintained” to help meet the UK’s climate targets and “also help stimulate much-needed new investment in the region”.
Most of these new solar farms will be built on former agricultural land as landowners begin to swap growing crops for generating clean electricity, according to UK Power Networks, which manages the local electricity grid.”
But it’s not really very “green”, is it?
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MARK HODGSON
I once read a novel about solar panels while staying in rural Cambridgeshire, which is flat, pretty, and ideal country for replacing uneconomic orchards and fruit fields with acres of heavy metal-heavy silicon. It’s called “Solar,” it’s by Ian McEwan and I recommend it as an introduction to everything that’s wrong with climate hysteria and English literature.
There’s this washed up Nobel prize-winning scientist who’s financed by the government to invent a new improved solar panel which will save the planet. While screwing his friend’s wife he has an altercation with someone (possibly the husband, or a rival, I can’t remember) who slips up on a polar bearskin rug, bumps his head and dies. To escape a manslaughter charge he frames the plumber, who gets fifteen years.
There’s not a lot about climate or “the science” – in fact so bored is McEwan by his subject that the other scientists in the story are anonymous, being referred to collectively as “the pony tails.” (See Jonathan Jones’s Josh-drawn avatar.) 200 pages and several philanders later he’s demonstrating his planet-saving panels in the Nevada desert when the newly released plumber turns up and smashes his panels, dooming the planet to extinction.
Well, at least it does make you think about radical solutions, which was McEwan’s aim, I think.
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East of England solar farm proposals double. Applications on sites in Herts, Cambridgeshire and Essex climb to 840 megawatts in last five months
So… the Barley Barons are all losing their EU subsidies, and looking for something to take their place?
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“Deep sea mining may be step closer to reality”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57687129
“Are the first mines on the ocean floor getting closer to being a reality?
The tiny Pacific nation of Nauru has created shockwaves by demanding that the rules for deep sea mining are agreed in the next two years.
Environmental groups warn that this will lead to a destructive rush on the mineral-rich seabed “nodules” that are sought by the mining companies.
But United Nations officials overseeing deep sea mining say no venture underwater can start for years.
It’s all about a letter that refers to the small print of an international treaty which has far-reaching implications.
Nauru, an island state in the Pacific Ocean, has called on the International Seabed Authority – a UN body that oversees the ocean floor – to speed up the regulations that will govern deep sea mining.
It’s activated a seemingly obscure sub-clause in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea that allows countries to pull a ‘two-year trigger’ if they feel negotiations are going too slowly.
Nauru, which is partnered with a mining company, DeepGreen, argues that it has “a duty to the international community” to make this move to help achieve “regulatory certainty”.
It says that it stands to lose most from climate change so it wants to encourage access to the small rocks known as nodules that lie on the sea bed.
That’s because they’re rich in cobalt and other valuable metals that could be useful for batteries and renewable energy systems in the transition away from fossil fuels.”
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“Wokingham farmer forced to make way for solar farm”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-57692891
“A tenant cattle farmer fears he will have to sell his herd after he was told to leave to make way for a solar farm.
Andrew Lake, 58, has been given notice by Wokingham Borough Council to leave High Barn Farm in Berkshire where he has worked for nearly 15 years.
He has so far been unable to find another farm and says agricultural land should not be used for solar farms.
The council said “tough decisions” had to be made to achieve its climate emergency action plan.
Mr Lake keeps more than 360 cows on the farm in Barkham that he rents from the council.
But permission has already been granted to install 72,000 panels on the pasture, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.”
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“Construction of offshore wind farms could have ‘severe impact’ on marine life”
https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/construction-of-offshore-wind-farms-could-have-severe-impact-on-marine-life/
“The construction of new offshore wind farms in EU seas could have “severe negative impact on marine life and fisheries”, MEPs have alerted in a report.
The text stresses that fishers and stakeholders must have a “fair participation” in the decision process related to the construction of offshore wind farms in European waters….
…According to the European Commission’s estimate, 30% of the EU’s electricity demand in 2050 will be met by offshore wind, corresponding to an increase from the current 12GW offshore wind capacity in the EU-27 to a target of 300GW in 2050.
The European marine space already counts 110 offshore wind farms with more than 5,000 wind turbines….”
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“‘Enough with the burning’: EU executive accused of sacrificing forests
Campaigners criticise European Commission strategy that allows continued burning of trees for fuel”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/16/enough-with-the-burning-eu-executive-accused-of-sacrificing-forests
“The EU executive has been accused of “sacrificing forests” after it published proposals that would allow trees to continue to be burned for fuel.
The charges of “accelerating climate breakdown” through wood-burning were made on Friday as the European Commission unveiled its forest strategy, which includes a goal to plant 3bn trees across the EU by 2030.
The forest strategy is part of a broader plan to confront the climate and nature emergencies and put the EU on track to cut emissions by 55% by the end of the decade, a mammoth bundle of legal proposals known as “Fit for 55”.
Campaigners said the commission had not gone far enough to tighten the rules on wood that can be burned for fuel. A draft update to the EU’s renewable energy directive proposes banning the biomass industry from taking wood from “primary forests” – virtually untouched ancient woodlands, which account for just 3% of all EU forests.
In the next tier of “highly biodiverse forests”, wood for biomass would be limited “to ensure no interference with nature protection purposes”, the commission said. Overall “the use of whole trees for energy production, whether from the EU or imported, should be minimised”, while subsidies for biomass from tree stumps and roots will be phased out.
Lina Burnelius, project leader at Protect the Forest Sweden, said the commission had failed to address one of the key drivers of forest degradation – counting forest biomass as renewable energy. “Fit for 55 is harmful to forests and insufficient to tackle climate change. We are in desperate need of honest policies that include all our emissions in the statistics.”
The European Commission had chosen “to sacrifice forests rather than admit that current EU bioenergy policy is making the climate crisis worse”, she said. “Enough with the burning. We cannot just switch from burning one climate disastrous fuel to another”.”
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“Bryn wind farm: Calls to withdraw 250m-high turbines plan”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-wales-57944180
“Opponents to a proposed wind farm in south Wales have urged the Welsh government to dismiss the plans.
If approved, Y Bryn Onshore Wind Farm in Neath Port Talbot would be the largest onshore wind farm in the UK.
Residents are opposed to the planned size of the 26 turbines – 250m high – and the potential risks they pose to wildlife, property values, as well as people’s physical health and mental wellbeing.
The company behind the proposal, Coriolis, said the wind farm would provide energy to 125,000 homes, and that technical surveys and studies were under way.”
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“Millions of electric car batteries will retire in the next decade. What happens to them?
The quest to prevent batteries – rich in raw materials such as cobalt, lithium and nickel – ending up as a mountain of waste”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/20/electric-car-batteries-what-happens-to-them
“A tsunami of electric vehicles is expected in rich countries, as car companies and governments pledge to ramp up their numbers – there are predicted be 145m on the roads by 2030. But while electric vehicles can play an important role in reducing emissions, they also contain a potential environmental timebomb: their batteries.
By one estimate, more than 12m tons of lithium-ion batteries are expected to retire between now and 2030.
Not only do these batteries require large amounts of raw materials, including lithium, nickel and cobalt – mining for which has climate, environmental and human rights impacts – they also threaten to leave a mountain of electronic waste as they reach the end of their lives….
…Only about 60% of lead-acid batteries are used in cars, said Richard Fuller, who leads the non-profit Pure Earth, another 20% are used for storing excess solar power, particularly in African countries.
Lead-acid batteries typically last only about two years in warmer climates, said Fuller, as heat causes them to degrade more quickly, meaning they need to be recycled frequently. However, there are few facilities that can safely do this in Africa.
Instead, these batteries are often cracked open and melted down in back yards. The process exposes the recyclers and their surroundings to lead, a potent neurotoxin that has no known safe level and can damage brain development in children….
…Yet, as recycling becomes more mainstream, big technical challenges remain.
One of which is the complex designs that recyclers must navigate to get to the valuable components. Lithium-ion batteries are rarely designed with recyclability in mind, said Carlton Cummins, co-founder of Aceleron, a UK battery manufacturing startup. “This is why the recycler struggles. They want to do the job, but they only get introduced to the product when it reaches their door.”
Cummins and co-founder Amrit Chandan have targeted one design flaw: the way components are connected. Most components are welded together, which is good for electrical connection, but bad for recycling, Cummins said….”
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“Is deep-sea mining a cure for the climate crisis or a curse?
Trillions of metallic nodules on the sea floor could help stop global heating, but mining them may damage ocean ecology”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/29/is-deep-sea-mining-a-cure-for-the-climate-crisis-or-a-curse
“…The nugget is a polymetallic nodule and oceanographers have discovered trillions of them litter Earth’s ocean floors. Each is rich in manganese, nickel, cobalt and copper, some of the most important ingredients for making the electric cars, wind turbines and solar panels that we need to replace the carbon-emitting lorries, power plants and factories now wrecking our climate.
These metallic morsels could therefore help humanity save itself from the ravages of global warming, argue mining companies who say their extraction should be rated an international priority. By dredging up nodules from the deep we can slow the scorching of our planet’s ravaged surface.
“We desperately need substantial amounts of manganese, nickel, cobalt and copper to build electric cars and power plants,” says Hans Smit, chief executive of Florida’s Oceans Minerals, which has announced plans to mine for nodules. “We cannot increase land supplies of these metals without having a significant environmental impact. The only alternative lies in the ocean.”
Other researchers disagree – vehemently. They say mining deep-sea nodules would be catastrophic for our already stressed, plastic-ridden, overheated oceans. Delicate, long-living denizens of the deep – polychaete worms, sea cucumbers, corals and squid – would be obliterated by dredging. At the same time, plumes of sediments, laced with toxic metals, would be sent spiralling upwards to poison marine food-chains.
“It is hard to imagine how seabed mines could feasibly operate without devastating species and ecosystems,” says UK marine biologist Helen Scales – a view shared by David Attenborough, who has called for a moratorium on all deep-sea mining plans. “Mining means destruction and in this case it means the destruction of an ecosystem about which we know pathetically little,” he says.
It is a highly polarised dispute. On one side, proponents of nodule extraction claim it could save the world, while opponents warn it could unleash fresh ecological mayhem. For better or worse, these mineral spheres are going to play a critical role in determining our future – either by extricating us from our current ecological woes or by triggering even more calamitous outcomes….”.
The whole article is well worth a read, IMO.
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Mark, I admire your fortitude, but reading more of this is likely to make me sick. In fact, an effective torture for me would be to strap me in a chair, sit me in front of a screen, and show me a slideshow of Guardian environment articles.
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I hope this is good news, but it does shine a light on the inherent conflict between those international bodies which actually care about ecology and those who obsess only about reducing greenhouse gas emissions:
“Conservationists call for urgent ban on deep-sea mining
Motion at Marseille summit wins global support for warning of permanent biodiversity loss and unknown effect on ecosystem”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/09/marseille-biodiversity-summit-adopts-motion-to-ban-deep-sea-mining
“A motion calling for a ban on deep-sea mining has been adopted in Marseille at the world’s biggest biodiversity summit since the pandemic, after an overwhelmingly supportive vote by governments and civil society groups.
The world congress of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature recognised scientists’ concerns that biodiversity loss will be inevitable, is likely to be permanent and the consequences for the ocean’s ecosystem unknown if deep-sea mining is permitted.
Conservationists say the motion sends a strong message to governments about the global opposition to the mining of the seabed at vast depths for valuable minerals and metals.”
It’s just a pity that nowhere in the article does the Guardian even mention that the pressure for precisely this sort of deep-sea mining is coming from those who promote the “renewables” that rely on the “valuable minerals and metals” that are in short supply.
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“Scotland’s fastest-flowing river ‘devastated’ by hydro schemes”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-58462914
“Hydro-electric schemes have had a “devastating impact” on a river dubbed the “fastest flowing in Scotland”, it has been claimed.
The 109-mile (175km) Spey – Scotland’s second longest river after the Tay – flows through the Highlands and Moray.
A Spey Fishery Board-commissioned study said too much water was being diverted away from the Spey for use in generating electricity.
It said water flow and levels on the river had dropped as a result.
Energy giant SSE Renewables, one of the UK’s leading developers of hydro-electricity, said it prided itself in being “a responsible operator”, and was working closely with regulators and fishery boards while generating “clean and flexible” hydro power.”
Despite the fact that this is about the environmental damage caused by anti-climate change “environmental” energy schemes, they still have to work climate change in to it:
“Spey Fishery Board (SFB), which manages the river’s wild salmon and sea trout fisheries, said hydro, along with other land uses and a lack of snow melt, had affected water levels.
It said this had left the Spey, and its wildlife, at greater risk to the effects of climate change.”
It’s pretty damning, nevertheless:
“SFB said the new research showed the renewable energy projects could significantly reduce the natural flow in the Spey – by up to 24% at Boat o’ Brig, near Fochabers in Moray, and by up to a 61% at Kingussie in the Highlands.”
“SFB director Roger Knight said: “It is now abundantly clear that the scale of water transferred out of the Spey valley to generate hydro-electricity is having a devastating impact on the river.
“It has denuded the groundwater storage supplies and has drastically reduced the Spey’s ability to cope with hotter, drier summers which are predicted to occur more frequently under climate change.”
He added: “It is crucial that licensed abstraction from our upper tributaries is reappraised and appropriately regulated to give this iconic river the sustainability it deserves as the reality of the climate emergency becomes apparent.”
Sepa, the organisation responsible for issuing and reviewing licences to abstract water, said there were a number of projects ongoing to improve the availability of water.
It said abstractions were also under review.”
SEPA, the Scottish version of the EPA, seems to be about as much use as its counterpart south of the border.
There’s quite a level of complacency on display between the hand-in-glove triumvirate of SEPA, SSE and the Scottish government:
“The Scottish government said it would “carefully consider” the Spey Fishery Board’s report and would respond “in due course”.
A spokeswoman said a wild salmon strategy was being developed and an updated River Basin Management Plan was due to be published at the end of this year.
The plan will set out the government’s aims and objectives to improve rivers to “good ecological status” by 2027.
The spokeswoman said: “This will include measures to improve water levels on the River Spey by reviewing abstractions for hydro power, and projects to improve fish passage through our Water Environment Fund.”
An SSE Renewables spokesman said: “We work closely with our regulator, Sepa, and a range of stakeholders, including the district salmon fishery boards to ensure that we minimise our impact on the natural environment, while also maximising the generation of clean and flexible hydro power, which will be increasingly important in meeting Scotland’s net-zero targets.””
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“Land clearing for the Kaban wind farm in North Queensland, Australia.”
Never, ever believe wind farm operators if they tell you they care about the environment.
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“Anglesey: Solar farms ‘no benefit’ to communities”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58552040
“A number of solar projects are being planned on the island, including the-2,000 acre (809 hectare) Môn Solar Farm, on sites near Amlwch, Llannerch-y-medd and Llyn Alaw.
It plans to have a capacity of 350 MW – enough to power more than 130,000 homes a year.
Separate plans, also near Llyn Alaw, could see 750 acres (304 hectares) filled with solar panels.
With the large projects classed as Developments of National Significance (DNS), the Welsh government is responsible for deciding whether they go ahead.
Anglesey councillor Carwyn Jones said the plans would see a loss of “fruitful agricultural land” and have little benefit to local communities.
Mr Jones said while the council was supportive of low-carbon and renewable energy schemes, there were “no economic benefits” for communities, or jobs being generated.
“It’s a balancing measure [but] we don’t see much benefit from these projects as it stands,” he added.
Campaigners against the 135-acre scheme at Bryngwran and Caergeiliog have said the “drowning” of fields in solar panels is similar to the flooding of a Snowdonia village to provide Liverpool with water.
Seventy people were forced to leave their homes as Capel Celyn, with its school, chapel, post office and 12 houses, disappeared under the waters of the new Tryweryn reservoir in 1965.”
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“Sweden’s green dilemma: can cutting down ancient trees be good for the Earth?
The country’s model for managing its trees is bad for biodiversity… and political unity”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/25/swedens-green-dilemma-can-cutting-down-ancient-trees-be-good-for-the-earth
“…The supply of biofuels in Sweden has tripled over the past 40 years and now provides close to 30% of its total energy supply, helping to halve its consumption of petroleum products.
For Le Moine, however, none of this is worth the loss of natural habitat. “They keep telling us we have more forests now than we had before,” she says. “My reply is we have never had this many trees, but never had such a little amount of forest ecosystem.”…”.
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“Race to the bottom: the disastrous blindfolded rush to mine the deep sea
One of the largest mining operations ever seen on Earth aims to despoil an ocean we are only barely beginning to understand”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/27/race-to-the-bottom-the-disastrous-blindfolded-rush-to-mine-the-deep-sea
“In late June, the island republic of Nauru informed the International Seabed Authority (ISA) based in Kingston, Jamaica of its intention to start mining the seabed in two years’ time via a subsidiary of a Canadian firm, The Metals Company (TMC, until recently known as DeepGreen). Innocuous as it sounds, this note was a starting gun for a resource race on the planet’s last vast frontier: the abyssal plains that stretch between continental shelves deep below the oceans.
In the three months since it was fired, the sound of that shot has reverberated through government offices, conservation movements and scientific academies, and is now starting to reach a wider public, who are asking how the fate of the greatest of global commons can be decided by a sponsorship deal between a tiny island and a multinational mining corporation.
The risks are enormous. Oversight is almost impossible. Regulators admit humanity knows more about deep space than the deep ocean. The technology is unproven. Scientists are not even sure what lives in those profound ecosystems. State governments have yet to agree on a rulebook on how deep oceans can be exploited. No national ballot has ever included a vote on excavating the seabed. Conservationists, including David Attenborough and Chris Packham, argue it is reckless to go ahead with so much uncertainty and such potential devastation ahead….
…Mining companies also insist on urgency – to start exploration. They say the minerals – copper, cobalt, nickel and magnesium – are essential for a green transition. If the world wants to decarbonise and reach net-zero emissions by 2050, they say we must start extracting the resources for car batteries and wind turbines soon. They already have exploration permits for an expanse of international seabed as large as France and Germany combined, an area that is likely to expand rapidly. All they need now is a set of internationally agreed operating rules. The rulebook is being drawn up by the ISA, set up in 1994 by the United Nations to oversee sustainable seabed exploration for the benefit of all humanity. But progress is slower than mining companies and their investors would like.
That is why Nauru’s action is pivotal. By triggering the “two-year rule”, the island nation has in effect given regulators 24 months to finish the rulebook. At that point, it says TMC’s subsidiary Nauru Ocean Resources Inc (NORI), intends to apply for approval to begin mining in the Clarion-Clipperton zone, an expanse of the North Pacific between Hawaii and Mexico….”
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“Biomass is promoted as a carbon neutral fuel. But is burning wood a step in the wrong direction?”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/04/biomass-plants-us-south-carbon-neutral
“Many scientists and environmental campaigners question the industry’s claims to offer a clean, renewable energy source that the planet desperately needs
Thick dust has been filling the air and settling on homes in Debra David’s neighborhood of Hamlet, North Carolina, ever since a wood pellet plant started operating nearby in 2019.
The 64-year-old said the pollution is badly affecting the health of the population, which has already been hit hard by Covid.
“More people are having breathing problems and asthma problems than ever before,” David said. She started suffering from asthma for the first time two years ago and other people in Hamlet have been getting nosebleeds, which she also puts down to the dust.
“The older people have it the worst,” she added. “They stay inside most of the time and when they do come out they struggle to breathe. They can’t sit out in their yards like they used to.”
The plant, owned by Maryland-headquartered Enviva, the world’s largest biomass producer, is one of four the company operates in North Carolina, turning trees into wood pellets, most of which are exported to the UK, Europe and Japan to burn for energy.
Biomass has been promoted as a carbon-neutral energy source by industry, some countries and lawmakers on the basis that the emissions released by burning wood can be offset by the carbon dioxide taken up by trees grown to replace those burned.
Yet there remain serious doubts among many scientists about its carbon-neutral credentials, especially when wood pellets are made by cutting down whole trees, rather than using waste wood products. It can take as much as a century for trees to grow enough to offset the carbon released.
Burning wood for energy is also inefficient – biomass has been found to release more carbon dioxide per unit of energy than coal or gas, according to a 2018 study and an open letter to the EU signed by nearly 800 scientists.”
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“Himachal Pradesh: ‘Human greed causing death and destruction in the Himalayas'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-india-58895752
“After two successive landslides killed dozens of people in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, people are still reeling from the shock.
Known for its lush valleys and snow-covered mountains, Kinnaur district in the state is a major contributor to the hydro-power generated in the Himalayan state.
But locals blame the construction of these dams for the disasters that have been unfolding recently. They are now demanding an end to building new dams.
But can dams alone be blamed for disturbing the region’s ecology?”
Can’t be bothered to watch the accompanying video, but suffice to say, it’s greed, not “green” that’s causing the problems, so far as the BBC is concerned. And as regards “But can dams alone be blamed for disturbing the region’s ecology?” my money’s on them putting it all (or mostly) down to climate change and absolving the hydro power works.
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“A fifth of Indonesia’s palm oil sites lie in protected forests, says Greenpeace
Greenpeace says law enforcement failures led to Unesco sites and land mapped for orangutan habitats being turned into palm oil plantations”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/21/indonesia-palm-oil-sites-forests-greenpeace
“Almost one-fifth of the land used for Indonesian oil palm plantations is located in the country’s forest estate, despite a law banning such activity, according to a study by Greenpeace.
The report, produced by Greenpeace and TheTreeMap, describes a catastrophic failure of law enforcement that has allowed swathes of land, including Unesco sites, national parks and areas once mapped as habitat for orangutan and Sumatran tigers, to be turned into oil palm plantations.
Indonesia is the world’s biggest producer of palm oil, which is used in many everyday products and foods, from shampoo and lipstick, to chocolate and frozen pizzas. Demand for palm oil, however, is driving the destruction of carbon-rich forests that are home to indigenous communities and crucial to biodiversity.”
As ever, when these reports are mentioned, they somehow overlook telling us that the drive for new palm oil plantations came about in large part because of the plan (including by the EU) to use palm oil as a bio-fuel. Funny that they never mention that.
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“Ormonde offshore wind farm debris could be widespread”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-59028551
“Debris from an offshore wind farm caused by a “disappointing” maintenance work error could be widespread, an operator has warned.
Swedish energy company Vattenfall said turbine parts fell into the sea at the Ormonde Wind Farm six miles (10km) off the coast at Barrow, Cumbria.
Several members of the public have reported finding pieces on beaches….
..A spokesman said: “An incident during planned maintenance resulted in components falling into the sea.
“No-one was injured, but we alerted the relevant authorities immediately and we have launched a full investigation.”
He added: “We take environmental protection extremely seriously and are very disappointed that this incident occurred.
“We are working as hard as we can to get everything cleaned up.
“The debris is not harmful but it’s best not to touch it, just to make sure everyone stays accident free.”
The farm was built in 2011 and has 30 turbines which could produce enough electricity to power 100,000 homes, the spokesman said.”
The spokesman apparently didn’t say how many homes it actually powers nor how intermittently it does so.
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More intermitttently than Vattenfall had bargained for?
“we alerted the relevant authorities immediately”
But ‘several members of the public’ had to find the debris before we got to hear about it?
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“Debris from Barrow wind farm incident washes up on Maryport shore”
https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/19673635.volunteer-clears-debris-along-maryport-coastline/
“Debris from a wind farm near Barrow has been found washed up on a shore miles up the Cumbrian coast.
John Gorrill, who is a beach clean organiser for Fix the Firth voluntary group, found pieces of green debris on the shore at the northern tip of Maryport golf course.”
That’s rather a long way away from the scene of the incident.
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“green debris”
rejoice, it must mean more green jobs
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Saving the planet, not just by trashing it, but by trashing people’s lives too:
“‘Like slave and master’: DRC miners toil for 30p an hour to fuel electric cars”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/nov/08/cobalt-drc-miners-toil-for-30p-an-hour-to-fuel-electric-cars
“Congolese workers describe a system of abuse, precarious employment and paltry wages – all to power the green vehicle revolution”
Well worth a read.
“As delegates meet at Cop26, the UN climate change conference in Glasgow, the transition from petrol to EVs is being talked about as a key step in reducing carbon emissions. Global sales of passenger EVs – excluding hybrids – are expected to soar from 3.3m in 2021 to 66m in 2040. In the UK, that growth will be driven by the government’s ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2030.
Last year, about 70% of the world’s cobalt came from the DRC and the vast majority of that – 93,000 out of 100,000 tonnes, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence (BMI) – came from large-scale industrial mines.
Although some battery and car manufacturers have reduced the amount of cobalt in their batteries, BMI says the volume of sales of cobalt into the sector will rise four or fivefold over the coming decade. The World Bank estimates that demand for cobalt production will increase 585% by 2050.”
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Mark, I quote once again from Jit quoting the Guardian’s pull-out special for COP26 on Sunday:
My bold. Those most affected I’m sure included a delegation of DRC Cobalt miners working for almost slave wages. Didn’t it?
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Richard, your comment here and on Poll-Axed about the Guardian turning all denialist in view of the articles it has published in the last few days, touches on an interesting point. Even the Guardian seems to be aware that all is not well in the world of climate alarmism, that not everyone is on board with the agenda (far from it) and that the agenda is actually causing a lot of harm. However, so deep runs the religious nature of the fervent belief of its editor and journalists in the dangers of climate chaos, that nothing will move it on the subject, not even the evidence of its own reporting.
That a newspaper/website devoted to left-wing ideology can fail to take up the baton in any meaningful way on the damage caused to poor people by the political response to climate change – a response which it advocates – leaves me increasingly perplexed. But I’ve been here before – the terms left and right no longer seem to mean much, and certainly traditional Labour supporters from the 20th century (like me) must be as bemused as I am by what is happening in the 3rd decade of the 21st century. “Left”-wingers actively seeking to damage the lives of the poor is something I am never going to understand or get used to.
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In the interests of balance (a subject we at CliScep are more committed to than is the BBC) I should put this story here:
“Cambo oil field project ‘could jeopardise deep sea life'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-59210899
“The proposed Cambo oil field project could jeopardise hundreds of species and contribute to the climate crisis, environmental groups have warned.
Environmentalists said pipelines would cut through the Faroe-Shetland Sponge Belt, a UK Marine Protected Area.
The warning comes amid controversy over whether the project, thought to contain hundreds of millions of barrels of oil, should get the go-ahead.
The UK government said an environmental impact assessment would be carried out.
The Cambo oil field is situated approximately 125km (75 miles) to the west of the Shetland Islands in water depths of between 1,050m (3,445ft) and 1,100m (3,609ft).
Five different water masses meet in the area, bringing nutrients that help deep-living cold water species to thrive, including sponges known as “cheese-bottoms”, worms, and long-lived molluscs called ocean quahog.
A review from the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide warned that the project “could jeopardise hundreds of species over several decades, as well as livelihoods”.
Sixteen marine protection and climate groups – including Greenpeace UK, WWF UK, the Marine Conservation Society and Friends of the Earth Scotland – have written to the offshore oil and gas environmental regulator, Opred, asking it to include marine impacts when assessing the Cambo drilling application.
They raised concerns about the likely impacts the pipelines would have on the seabed, on hundreds of marine species and on the local fishing industry, and underline the devastation that an oil spill in the area would cause.”
If true, they might well be good reasons to prevent it going ahead. It’s odd, though, that the same concern for marine species and local fishing industries never seems to be visible when it comes to proposed off-shore wind turbines.
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Mark (8:15am): It reflects well on the editors that they do print such stories. I prefer to think of them not as religious fundamentalists but like Menno Simons who didn’t give up on the essentials but jettisoned loads of the inessentials and contradictions. (The founder of the Mennonites. The point is, he moved radically.)
The next stage? As they print such stories they start to say “We have to admit the sceptics were right about this point.”
You may say I’m a dreamer, as John Lennon would put it (founder of the Lennonites).
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This is an old story, presumably regurgitated for COP 26, but still….
“Climate change: Corporate mass tree planting ‘damaging’ nature”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-59220669
“Large firms buying up farms in rural Wales to plant trees have been accused of using the land to “offset their guilt” over emissions.
Thomas Crowther, an Earthshot Prize finalist, also warned mass planting of the same type of tree on swathes of land could be “dangerous” for nature.
Recently a number of west Wales’ farms have been bought by investment companies for tree planting schemes.
The scientist has urged companies to be socially and ecologically responsible.
Greater effort to conserve a wide variety of ecosystems is needed to meet climate change goals, and people from the areas had to be involved, he said.
Moves by large-scale investment companies to buy up family farms – in an attempt to offset carbon emissions – have led to fears whole communities could be “destroyed”….”.
Ah, the Law of Unintended Consequences.
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And on the same theme:
“Cape Town’s Day Zero: ‘We are axing trees to save water'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-59221823
“Cutting down trees to save a city from drought might seem like an unlikely plan, but that’s exactly what the South African city of Cape Town has started doing, after becoming the first global city to come close to running out of water.
It is three years since it edged dangerously towards what was described as “Day Zero” – the moment when some four million inhabitants would be left without water.
Its existential crisis was triggered by a severe and unanticipated drought that turned all the local reservoirs into dustbowls.
Today, dozens of teams armed with chainsaws are seeking to protect those reservoirs in an unusual manner – by chopping down tens of thousands of trees on the mountains surrounding them.
It is a furiously ambitious, and oddly counter-intuitive battle to limit the impact of climate change.
On a recent morning, high above a thick layer of mist, two workers abseiled down a steep ravine to remove several isolated pine trees in an area that was littered with stumps.
“The pines are not indigenous to this area. They use up so much water – much more water than indigenous plants. This is the green infrastructure that we need to fix,” explained Nkosinathi Nama, who is co-ordinating the work on behalf of the Greater Cape Town Water Fund.
The non-indigenous pine trees, initially brought into the region for the timber industry, have spread fast across the mountains, crowding out the local, far more resilient, and less thirsty fauna in Cape Town’s catchment areas.
The pines, and other alien species like the eucalyptus, are now responsible for consuming an estimated 55 billion litres of water per year – equivalent to two to three months of the city’s annual consumption.
“One of the lessons of Day Zero is that our water catchment areas need to be rehabilitated and restored so that they are resilient,” he said.”
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Trees seem to be becoming more controversial at Cliscep. It used to be the “wrong sort of leaf” but now it’s “the wrong sort of tree”: around Cape Town it’s tree apartheid; in central Wales tree ghettos. Elsewhere trees are anathema and are removed with extreme prejudice to keep heaths pristine. Around chez Kendall we are planting saplings to add to the beautiful fall colours, but curse the seemingly endless supply of leaves arriving on our lawn.
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“Rio Tinto’s past casts a shadow over Serbia’s hopes of a lithium revolution”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/nov/19/rio-tintos-past-casts-a-shadow-over-serbias-hopes-of-a-lithium-revolution
“People in the Jadar valley fear environmental catastrophe as Europe presses for self-sufficiency in battery technology”
“Abattery sign, flashing dangerously low, appears superimposed over a view of the globe as seen from space. “Green technologies, electric cars, clean air – all of these depend on one of the most significant lithium deposits in the world, which is located right here in Jadar, Serbia,” a gravel-voiced narrator announces. “We completely understand your concerns about the environment. Rio Tinto is carrying out detailed analyses, so as to make all of us sure that we develop the Jadar project in line with the highest environmental, security and health standards.”
Beamed into the country’s living rooms on the public service channel RTS, the slick television ad, shown just after the evening news, finishes with images of reassuring scientists and a comforted young couple walking into the sunset: “Rio Tinto: Together we have the chance to save the planet.”
The pivot to ecological saviour and bastion of transparency is perhaps an unlikely one for Rio Tinto, the world’s second-largest metals and mining corporation.
Throughout its almost 150-year history, the Anglo-Australian multinational, which posted profits after tax of $10.4bn (£7.3bn) in 2020, has faced accusations of corruption, environmental degradation and human rights abuses.
It is currently fighting a civil lawsuit by the US Securities and Exchange Commission that accuses the company of fraud at its Mozambique coal business. That follows a £27.4m fine in 2017 from the UK’s financial watchdog for breaching disclosure and transparency rules….
…In July, Rio Tinto announced that it would invest $2.4bn in a project in the Jadar valley, in western Serbia, overlooked by the Cer and Gučevo mountains, building what it says will be Europe’s biggest lithium mine, and one of the world’s largest on a greenfield site.
The company estimates that over the expected 40-year life of the mine, it will produce 2.3m tonnes of battery-grade lithium carbonate, a mineral critical for large-scale batteries for electric vehicles and storing renewable energy, and 160,000 tonnes of boric acid annually, necessary for the renewable energy equipment such as solar panels and wind turbines.
Rio Tinto boasts the mine will make it one of the top 10 lithium producers in the world, and could produce enough for more than 1m electric cars a year, of which annual sales are expected to jump from 1.2m vehicles in 2017 to at least 23m in 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.
The EU, with which Serbia has an association agreement facilitating trade and regional funding, imports all its battery-grade lithium from outside Europe. Talks about supplying leading German car manufacturers have begun. Four 40ft shipping containers carrying the infrastructure for a lithium processing plant have set sail for Serbia from Australia.
The project is gathering momentum. But anxious and angry campaigners, including the thousands of protesters who have taken to the streets of the Serbian cities of Loznica and Belgrade over recent months, say they are witnessing an unfolding disaster in the country’s “breadbasket”, responsible for around a fifth of total agricultural production, raising questions about the strange bedfellows being made in the maelstrom of the green revolution, and whether lessons have been learned about consumption and production that has made the transition to a decarbonised world so urgent.
Shortcomings in Serbian democracy further raise concerns over whether the voices of those on the frontline are being heard…
…Over the following years, donations started to be made by Rio Tinto to local causes. Gornje Nedeljice’s school received funds for classroom renovations. The football team’s clubhouse got a new roof and farmers were offered vouchers for expensive agricultural equipment. There was even cash for the Christmas bazaar among the 107 donations dished out since 2003, of a total value of $608,807 (£451,034).
“After a year or two, the mine was suddenly going to be 80 hectares,” said Petkovic. “Then in September last year, we received letters telling us that our land had been rezoned from being agricultural to building land. I remember a friend invited me to her house where a group of us women were asked by a lady from Rio Tinto about what we wanted from the mine, what opportunities might interest us … We were idiots. We weren’t paying attention.”
Rio Tinto said it did not recognise the figures cited by Petkovic but conceded that plans had evolved. According to the spatial plan published by the Serbian government in March, the zone at risk of subsidence will be spread across 850 hectares, the size of more than 1,000 football pitches….”.
It sounds a bit like the modus operandi of wind farm developers in Scotland.
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“‘Like putting a lithium mine on Arlington cemetery’: the fight to save sacred land in Nevada
Thacker Pass is rich in lithium deposits but is also a place of historical and cultural significance to the Paiute people”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/02/thacker-pass-lithium-mine-fight-save-sacred-land-nevada
“On a windy afternoon in northern Nevada, where her family has lived for generations, Daranda Hinkey stood before one of the largest lithium deposits in the world – the place where, as she puts it, “there’s so much lithium it makes people foam at the mouth,” she says.
The area is known as Peehee Mu’huh – or Thacker Pass – and while it could be a lucrative resource for companies hoping to cash in on the electric vehicle revolution (lithium can be used to power rechargeable batteries), Hinkey and her peers say large-scale mining operations could irreversibly damage one of her community’s most sacred sites.
“It’s like putting a lithium mine on Arlington cemetery. It’s just not fair,” she said….”.
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Some of us have been saying this for a very long time. It’s good to see the BBC catching up, eventually:
“Indonesia’s biodiesel drive is leading to deforestation”
“Indonesia pledged at the recent COP26 climate summit that its greenhouse gas emissions would peak by 2030 and then start to fall.
It’s also said that it will end deforestation by that same date.
But to reduce emissions from its transport sector, it’s relying on using more biofuels – production of which can lead to the loss of forested land.
So how can it both curb its emissions using biofuels and end deforestation by 2030?
Indonesia is now the third largest producer of biofuels in the world, behind Brazil and the US, and the world’s largest producer of biodiesel – a biofuel alternative to regular diesel fuel.
Biofuels come from plant material and animal waste, and can be used to power vehicles or for heating and electricity.
They are considered a renewable alternative to traditional fossil fuels (coal, petrol and diesel) as they can be replenished quicker and release fewer greenhouse gases.
Indonesia produces biodiesel from crops, primarily palm oil, and government policy stipulates that all diesel fuel must contain a mix of at least 30% biodiesel – to rise to 50% by 2025.
The transport sector accounts for 13.6% of the country’s emissions and 45% of its energy consumption. The government believes this policy could reduce their transport emissions by 36 million tonnes of CO2 by 2040.
But taken along with an expected 6% annual growth in its vehicle fleet, it means biofuel production will need to increase by nearly 50% over the next three years to meet demand.
This would require a substantial increase in land used for biofuel production, perhaps by as much as 1.2 million hectares – to about a quarter of all palm oil cultivation in the country.”
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“Kilgallioch wind farm cleared to pass 100-turbine mark”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-59578141
“A wind farm in southern Scotland has been given the all clear to pass the 100-turbine mark.
The Kilgallioch development straddles the border between Dumfries and Galloway and South Ayrshire.
It currently has 96 turbines but the Scottish government has now approved the construction of a further 11.
It said the environmental impact of expansion would be “acceptable”….”.
This is how they get away with massive environmental damage – mission creep. Build a few, then a few more are OK< even if the final total would have been unacceptable when first mooted.
Objections count for nought:
"The Royal Society for Protection of Birds (RSPB) raised an objection to the plans due to concerns over their effect on a nearby hen harrier roost.
However, the Scottish government decided that any impact was acceptable – subject to a number of conditions."
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“Hydroelectric dams linked to tiger and jaguar losses”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59595962
“The global expansion of hydroelectric dams has had a destructive impact on the habitats of tigers and jaguars, according to a new study.
Researchers found that dam construction, particularly in Asia, has affected more than one-fifth of the world’s remaining tigers.
In some local forest areas, the dams are said to have precipitated tiger extinction.
Jaguars face a growing threat with dams on their ranges expected to quadruple.”
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“Deep-sea mining may push hundreds of species to extinction, researchers warn
New research sees two-thirds of mollusc types only found living by hydrothermal vents added to IUCN’s red list of endangered species”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/09/mining-may-push-hundreds-of-deep-sea-mollusc-species-to-extinction
“Almost two-thirds of the hundreds of mollusc species that live in the deep sea are at risk of extinction, according to a new study that rings another alarm bell over the impact on biodiversity of mining the seabed.”
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“Concern over impact of Norfolk Boreas offshore windfarm on seabirds
Project backed by Boris Johnson likely to get go-ahead but is on site that rare birds travel though, campaigners say”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/09/concern-over-impact-of-norfolk-boreas-offshore-windfarm-on-seabirds
“A major new windfarm project that will power millions of homes is likely to be approved on Friday, but conservationists fear for the safety of endangered birds in the area.
The Norfolk Boreas offshore windfarm is due to get the green light from the government, the Guardian can reveal.
The windfarm is said to be being backed by Boris Johnson who, government sources claim, is so keen on the project that he refers to himself as “Boreas Johnson” in meetings about it. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) source claimed that Johnson was extra keen on the project because of his love of Greek mythology – Boreas was the ancient Greek god of the north wind. It is said the prime minister hopes this can be a flagship green energy project that could make Britain the “Saudi Arabia of wind power”….
…However, the north Norfolk coast is home to some of Britain’s most significant colonies of endangered sea birds including kittiwakes, gannets and lesser black-backed gulls. There are concerns from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds that the blades could kill the birds. On top of this the project involves disrupting the area where the birds feed, and making it more difficult to travel from the ocean to their nests. If it takes the birds too long to fly back to their young, the chicks can starve to death.
An RSPB source said the site has difficulties because of the number of rare birds that feed, travel through and nest in the area. “Ultimately we need to get away from sites with unavoidable problems. Which is in the gift of the Crown Estate, as the seabed belongs to the Queen,” he said.
“We are very concerned about the cumulative impact of all these turbines in one space. The secretary of state has ‘accepted’ other windfarms will impact on seabirds in this area (some globally important colonies for kittiwakes and others) – and the mitigation methods being proposed are untried and untested, so it could well be over a decade before we know if they will be successful, by which time the damage will have been done to the colony.”…”
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“Almost two-thirds of the hundreds of mollusc species that live in the deep sea are at risk of extinction, according to a new study that rings another alarm bell over the impact on biodiversity of mining the seabed.”
So why do they not die off every time there is an underwater earthquake?
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Bill, for the very same reasons humans don’t become extinct every time there is an earthquake.
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That’s what I thought…
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“Letters / Reality check”
https://www.shetnews.co.uk/2021/12/11/reality-check/
I haven’t verified/can’t verify the statistics contained in the letter, but I certainly agree with the general sentiment:
“In our headlong rush to ‘save the planet’ perhaps a sobering reality check for the deluded Greens is long overdue?
A small, ever-so-green, 100-megawatt wind farm needs 30,000 tons of iron ore; 50,000 tons of concrete and 900 tons of non-recyclable plastic.
For the same power from an ever-so-green solar farm you need to increase that by 150 per cent.
An electric car battery weighs half a ton, making just one requires shifting 250 tons of earth somewhere else on the planet.
All require what are called ‘rare earths’, so a phenomenal 200 to 2,000 per cent increase in toxic mining, processing and shipping is required somewhere else on the planet, usually from unregulated regimes with very lax environmental standards.
Solar and wind have weather-dependant limits, but we need energy ALL the time, so we have to have permanent back-up. The giant Tesla factory in Nevada would take 500 years to make enough batteries to supply the USA with electricity for 1 day!
After 30 years and countless billions in subsidies wind and solar supply less than 3 per cent of the world’s energy. On top of that, like all machines ‘renewables’ are built from non-renewable materials – and have to be replaced time and time again, so definitely NOT a one-off cost.
The International Renewable Energy Agency calculates that solar energy goals for 2050 to meet the Paris Accord will result in old-panel disposal constituting more than double the tonnage of all today’s global plastic waste!
The environmental cost?
To accommodate 2,000 MW of gas or nuclear power generation requires the same area of two 18-hole golf courses. Whereas, accommodating 2,000 MW of wind power requires an area the size of Belgium!
Then, of course, you still need 2,000 MW of gas or nuclear power to accommodate those hundreds of occasions each year when wind and solar power is producing absolutely nothing.
Renewables will undoubtedly cause far more environmental damage to wildlife.
Instead of ‘saving the planet’ rampaging renewables are actually devouring it!
George Herraghty
Elgin
Moray”
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“2021 was the year clean energy finally faced its mining problem
A clean energy revolution will hinge on getting mining right”
https://www.theverge.com/22858437/2021-mining-critical-minerals-clean-energy-renewables-climate-change
“This year, the clean energy sector finally started grappling in earnest with one of its biggest challenges: how to get enough minerals to build solar panels, wind turbines, and big batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage. Figuring that out will be critical for escaping fossil-fueled ecological disaster. It’ll also be crucial for policymakers and industry to move forward without throwing certain communities under the bus in the transition to clean energy.
Instead of cutting through landscapes with oil and gas wells and pipelines, clean energy industries and their suppliers will open up the Earth to hunt for critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, and copper. Compared to a gas-fired power plant, an onshore wind turbine requires nine times more mineral resources, according to the International Energy Agency. Building an EV requires six times more minerals than a gas-powered car.
It’s about time to scrutinize what that hunger for minerals might cause, given the recent boom in pledges from countries and companies alike to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions. Digging up the necessary minerals is already proving to be a minefield. Protests are popping up at proposed mines that no one really wants in their backyard. The conflicts that cropped up in 2021 are just the beginning of a challenging road ahead.
In May, the International Energy Agency (IEA) issued a warning: the world isn’t mining enough of the minerals that are the building blocks of a clean energy future. And supply chains for many critical minerals are vulnerable, according to the IEA’s report. “Left unaddressed, these potential vulnerabilities could make global progress towards a clean energy future slower and more costly – and therefore hamper international efforts to tackle climate change,” Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, said in a statement at the time. “This is what energy security looks like in the 21st century.”…”.
And much more in similar vein. Well worth a read, IMO.
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Mark did you really mean to write “ Digging up the necessary minerals is already proving to be a minefield.”. Priceless.
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Alan, sadly not my words, I was merely reporting what was written in the article. I’ll happy take credit for them, though. 😉
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“Hertfordshire: Plans submitted for solar farm on green belt land”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-59900754
“A solar farm the size of more than 88 football pitches could be built on green belt land, according to plans.
AGR 4 Solar Limited wants to build an 88-hectare (0.8 sq km) solar farm near three villages in Hertfordshire.
Thirteen objections have already been raised, including one describing it as “environmental vandalism”.
The applicant said the proposed solar farm would contribute to the government target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Following the submission of the plans to North Hertfordshire Council on 14 December, residents raised concerns that the development would “create a blight on our landscape” in the villages of Great Wymondley, Graveley and Little Wymondley.
Another said it could make “driving to Great Wymondley from Graveley like driving through a demilitarised zone”, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
The scheme would include around 150,000 solar panels, as well as 22 transformer stations and 22 battery storage containers….
…In a statement submitted to the council, AGR 4 Solar Limited argued the benefits of the scheme would outweigh any concerns about the green belt.
“If North Hertfordshire are serious about their commitment to tackling the climate change emergency action is required now to dramatically alter the current path of future greenhouse gas emissions within the district and nationally,” it said.”
Thanks to the stupidity of political virtue-signalling, the Council is rather hoist on its own petard, methinks:
https://www.north-herts.gov.uk/climate-change
“On 21 May 2019, the council passed a climate emergency motion which pledged to do everything within the council’s power achieve zero carbon emissions in North Herts by 2030.
This declaration asserted the council’s commitment toward climate action beyond current government targets and international agreements.”
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“Norway blows up hydro dam to restore river health and fish stocks
Campaign by local angling club to free fishes’ migratory routes is part of move across Europe to create free-flowing rivers”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/14/norwegians-blow-up-hydro-dam-restore-river-fish-health-aoe
“A dam that has blocked the Tromsa River in Norway for more than 100 years was blown up with dynamite this week, freeing migratory routes for fish.
“It’s a big step,” said Tore Solbakken of Norwegian angling club Gudbrandsdal Sportsfiskeforening, who has campaigned for five years to have the old hydropower plant dam removed. “I’m very happy. It’s all about restoring healthy rivers and fish populations.”…”.
Although hydro power might be the most reliable form of renewable energy, no form of renewable energy avoids damage to ecology.
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“ScotWind could ‘accelerate some seabirds towards extinction’, warns RSPB
A leading charity has expressed concerns about the potentially devastating impact of ScotWind on Scotland’s seabirds.”
https://www.energyvoice.com/renewables-energy-transition/wind/uk-wind/scotwind/380394/scotwind-could-accelerate-some-seabirds-towards-extinction-warns-rspb/“The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) Scotland says the scale of new offshore wind farms could “accelerate some seabird species towards extinction” unless there’s major action.
According to the organisation, the projects already approved in Scotland are forecast to “kill hundreds of seabirds”, ranging from Kittiwakes to Puffins.
And the new raft of developments, which will be greater in size, would “greatly increase” the impact on wildlife.
Crown Estate Scotland announced yesterday that 17 new offshore wind project ad been approved through the ScotWind process.
It means that hundreds of new turbines will be deployed around Scotland’s coast in the coming years.”
Also:
“Kittiwake extinction risk and the death of Environmentalism – The Hornsea 3 offshore wind farm poses an existential threat to bird species at risk of global extinction.”
https://www.netzerowatch.com/kittiwake-extinction-risk-and-the-death-of-environmentalism/
“If a British Secretary of State ignored the advice of his own planning inspectors and over-rode a powerful international protection for a Red-listed species of bird to give consent to a power station development so large it will be visible from space there would of course be a deafening outcry from environmentalists, right? But, anyway, no Secretary of State would do such a thing, right?
Wrong, sadly, wrong on both counts.
On the 31st of December last year, and just before standing down as Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to concentrate on Chairing the 26th UN Climate Conference (COP26), the Rt Hon Alok Sharma MP gave the go-ahead to the Hornsea 3 offshore wind farm in spite of a recommendation by the inspectors to refuse because of the unacceptable impact on Kittiwake populations.”
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“‘We are afraid’: Erin Brockovich pollutant linked to global electric car boom”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/feb/19/we-are-afraid-erin-brockovich-pollutant-linked-to-global-electric-car-boom
“A Guardian investigation into nickel mining and the electric vehicle industry has found evidence that a source of drinking water close to one of Indonesia’s largest nickel mines is contaminated with unsafe levels of hexavalent chromium (Cr6), the cancer-causing chemical more widely known for its role in the Erin Brockovich story and film.
The investigation also found evidence suggesting elevated levels of lung infections among people living close to the mine.
Recent years have seen a race between mining companies to gain control of the world’s largest nickel reserves in Indonesia.
Nickel, an essential component in electric vehicle (EV) batteries, could bring transformational wealth to a country where Covid has pushed the number of people in poverty up to 10.19%.
Yet people living on the remote Obi Island, which has recently become home to one of Indonesia’s largest nickel mines, just want clean and safe water.
Unlike other minerals used to power EVs such as cobalt and lithium – which have been linked to environmental damage and human rights abuses –nickel’s supply chain has so far gone largely unscrutinised….
…The Guardian was told by the village midwife clinic of more than 900 cases of potentially deadly acute respiratory infections (ARI) among the approximately 4,000 residents of Kawasi in 2020. More than half of the cases were reported to be in newborns or toddlers aged four and under.
According to Indonesian health officials, the ARI prevalence in Kawasi was just under 20% in 2020, compared with a national average of 9%. Aside from the midwife clinic there was no active local health centre in the village when the Guardian visited.
“The difference [since the mining started] is enormous. The beach was still clean, the sea was not muddy like this and not red yet. People still fished in front of their houses,” says a nurse who has lived in the village since 2009, before the mine started operating. “The trend of [higher] ARI cases began at the same time as [mining] exploration also began,” adds the nurse.
“I keep thinking: is there any future for the children?” says Maria*, who grew up in the village….”.
The irony in that last sentence is acute. In wondering whether there is any future for the children, Maria isn’t worrying about climate change, but about the measures being taken supposedly to “deal with” climate change. The irony is that the Guardian (which is at its best with sort of investigative journalism) can write what follows without ever toning down its message about climate alarmism and the “need” for net zero:
“The Chinese battery component producer GEM has signed an agreement to purchase nickel from the company, PT Halmahera Persada Lygend. GEM supplies battery components to many of the world’s leading EV battery manufacturers, including Chinese-owned CATL, which controls about 30% of the global battery market.
The ultimate beneficiaries are likely to be many of the most well-known EV brands, with nickel from these mines used to produce batteries that could end up in cars sold by Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen (VW).
Booming nickel prices and a “battery arms race” have seen a rush to develop mines but there are fears that regulatory oversight has failed to keep up with the pace of development.”
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“The Great Green Lie: Wind & Solar Aren’t Saving The Planet, They’re Wrecking It”
https://stopthesethings.com/2022/04/02/the-great-green-lie-wind-solar-arent-saving-the-planet-theyre-wrecking-it/
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I never expected to see this in the Guardian:
“‘Green industry wants to take our land’: the Arctic paradox
Sweden’s ‘green transformation’ promises to help Europe fight the climate crisis. So why is it uniting radical environmentalists, ecologists and Sami reindeer herders in protest?”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/21/green-industry-wants-to-take-our-land-the-new-battle-for-the-arctic
“…Rackete, Litvinov and the others are convinced that to truly defend the Sami way of life, they will need to embrace what seems like a paradox and oppose renewable energy projects, including Arctic wind parks, “green steel” and other parts of the so-called green transition intended to help Europe meet its global climate obligations.
“If we have ambitions to really change things, to enable reindeer herding and Sami life to keep going, we’re going to have to mobilise against all sorts of extraction projects,” says Bowers. This, he adds, should include the “green transformation” of Sweden’s far-north, with its industry-leading plans for coal-free steel, its near-completed EV car battery gigafactory and the vast wind power projects needed to power it all.
The green industrial transformation of northern Sweden is central to the nation’s claims to become a climate world leader. In her inauguration speech in November, the prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, hailed the “ramping up of a green industrial revolution”, with “CO2-free steel production, battery factories … tens of thousands of new jobs” and 700bn kronor (£57bn) invested in green industry in Sweden’s Arctic north. “Sweden must show the outside world how the climate transition creates jobs and growth,” she said.
It’s easy to become enthused by the supposed climate benefits. The state company LKAB’s plans to produce hydrogen-reduced iron instead of iron ore pellets for example, promises to cut a Switzerland-sized chunk from Europe’s total carbon emissions by allowing steel plants to close their blast furnaces.
“All of this is like some sort of promise for the future, but it’s destroying what we actually have right now,” Bowers says. “We know that the Sami people have been able to live with their environment. But with these green projects, there’s no proof that it’s actually going to reduce emissions.”
Bowers falls back on an argument one might expect to hear from a fossil fuels advocate. “If you look at wind power, studies have shown an increase in emissions, because of all the mining and transport infrastructure.”
From the point of view of Henrik Andersson, a Sami reindeer herder, green industrial projects are worse even than the Malmberget iron ore mine, which started on Sami summer herding grounds back in 1735 and then, after a rail link was built in 1888, grew into one of biggest mines in the world….”.
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“Bowers falls back on an argument one might expect to hear from a fossil fuels advocate. “If you look at wind power, studies have shown an increase in emissions, because of all the mining and transport infrastructure.”
so the Guardian are going to be nice & call Bowers “a fossil fuels advocate”. wonder why the change in tone when it’s the “Sami people” ?
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“‘Deep-sea gold rush’ for rare metals could cause irreversible harm
Mining companies are planning to profit from the new industry, but environmental campaigners warn of disastrous consequences”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/29/deep-sea-gold-rush-rare-metals-environmental-harm
“…The hoped-for gold rush lies thousands of miles away on the bed of the Pacific Ocean, where trillions of potato-sized nodules of rare earth elements vital to power the next generation of electric cars have been discovered 4,000m below the surface.
Mining companies are hoping that global rules to allow industrial scale deep-sea mining to collect the haul could be set in place as early as July 2023.
However, environmental campaigners warned that mining for the metals would be “dangerous”, “reckless” and cause “irreversible harm” to little-known ecosystems. One estimate suggests that 90% of the deep-sea species that researchers encounter are new to science.
Louisa Casson, a Greenpeace campaigner, criticised the industry for running the conference and banks for considering investing in the “dangerous and unnecessary” projects to “make a quick profit”.
“This destructive new industry wants to rip up an ecosystem we are only just starting to understand,” she said. “[They are] aiming to make a quick profit while our oceans and the billions of people relying on them bear the costs.”…”.
Well, quite, and it’s the net zero agenda demanded by the likes of Greenpeace that requires the minerals that these companies want to mine so dangerously and recklessly:
“…Eleanor Martin, a partner at law firm Norton Rose Fulbright who advises banks on financing offshore projects, said global banks were “very eager” to invest in deep-sea mining projects as they project the cost of lithium and cobalt needed for electric car batteries will continue to spiral upwards. “To build the number of [electric] cars we will need, we will need much more of these metals.”
“Banks are sitting on pots of green money,” she said in reference to money designated for projects aimed at tackling the climate crisis. …”.
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Mark
mining the deep sea floors and consequent untold environmental and ecological damage have been news since at least the time I was a snotty undergraduate (=eons ago). The only changes are what is being sought. Originally nickel, now rare earths.
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Alan, no doubt. I posted a link to the article here because times have changed – now the environmental vandals claim to be the good guys, claim to be “green”. I beg to differ.
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“The challenge of tracking seals around tidal turbines”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-61508250
“The push for tidal power is bringing a new set of questions for those developing the green energy technology: Are marine mammals such as seals going to be affected?
Tidal energy generation can come in different shapes and sizes but in basic terms, what we are talking about is sinking turbines underwater – some the size of a bus – with rotor blades propelled by the power of the sea to make renewable electricity.
In much the same way that the development of wind turbines brought a concern for birds, experts need to make sure that wildlife is protected from the new green energy technology of tidal power….”.
Hmm. “… the development of wind turbines brought a concern for birds…”? But not enough to stop putting them in places where they kill lots of birds or (as in Shetland) disrupt the locations where ground-nesting birds are now being deliberately scared away so that the work can go on. Is this what they call “green-washing”.
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Oh , reviving an old thread
Thursday ITV local news reporter tweeted that fishermen were doing a big protest against “#GreenEnergy dredging
… https://www.twitter.com/HelenSteelITV/status/1527315867381338112
Yet strangely later the version on the TV said the fishermen were protesting dredging due to the building of a “freeport in Hartlepool”.
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“‘Greens’ Destroying Germany’s Ancient Forests To Make Way For Industrial Wind Turbines”
https://stopthesethings.com/2022/06/03/greens-destroying-germanys-ancient-forests-to-make-way-for-industrial-wind-turbines/
“To make way for over 30,000 of these things, the German wind industry has ruthlessly clear-felled ancient forests, once considered out of bounds.
Provided the wilderness being turned into smouldering ash is used as a platform for hundreds of 260m high/300 tonne industrial juggernauts, it’s all for the greater good.
Trashing thousand-year-old oak trees and carving up pristine woodland is all in a day’s work for those promising to save the planet.
Germany’s Black Forest has already been overrun; chainsaws, bulldozers and blazing torches doing their worst to save us from the horrors of a change in the weather.
The Reinhardswald in the State of Hesse is their next target. A magical place where the Brothers Grimm brought Snow White and Sleeping Beauty to life, both literally and figuratively.
The Greens are determined to wreck even that remnant of German history and culture with a move to rip up the forest to make way for a fleet of whirling wonders.”
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Translated from a Norwegian LinkedIn page, via a private Facebook page I visit:
“Batteries do not create electricity – they store electricity produced elsewhere, especially through coal, uranium, natural-powered power plants or diesel-powered generators. “So the claim that an electric car is a zero-emission vehicle is not true at all.
Since forty percent of the electricity produced in the United States comes from coal power plants, thus forty percent of the electric cars on the road are carbon-based.
But that’s not all of it. Those who are excited about electric cars and a green revolution should take a closer look at the batteries, but also wind turbines and solar panels.
A typical electric car battery weighs a thousand pounds, roughly the size of a suitcase. It contains 25 pounds of lithium, sixty pounds of nickel, 44 pounds of manganese, 30 pounds of cobalt, 200 pounds of copper and 400 pounds of aluminum, steel and plastic. There are over 6,000 individual lithium ion cells inside.
To make each BEV battery, you’ll need to process 25,000 pounds of salt for lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for cobalt, 5,000 pounds of resin for nickel, and 25,000 pounds of ore from copper. In total, you have to dig out 500,000 pounds of dirt for a battery. ”
The biggest problem with solar systems is the chemicals used to turn silicate into the gravel used for the panels. To produce sufficient clean silicon, it must be treated with hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, fluoride, trichlorotane and acetone.
In addition, gallium, arsenide, copper-indium-gallium diselenide and cadmium telluride are needed, which are also highly toxic. Silicone dust poses a danger to the workers and the tiles cannot be recycled.
Wind turbines are non-plusultra in terms of cost and environmental destruction. Each windmill weighs 1,688 tonnes (the equivalent of the weight of 23 houses) and contains 1300 tonnes of concrete, 295 tonnes of steel, 48 tonnes of iron, 24 tonnes of fiberglass and the hard-to-win rare soils Neodym, Praseodym, and Dysprosium. Each of the three blades weighs 81,000 pounds and has a lifespan of 15 to 20 years, after which they must be replaced. We cannot recycle used rotor blades.
Admittedly, these technologies can have their place, but you have to look beyond the myth of emission freedom.
“Going Green” may sound like a utopian ideal, but if you look at the hidden and embedded costs in a realistic and impartial way, you’ll find that “Going Green” does more damage to earth’s environment than it seems.”
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Mark, as discussed at Notalot here: https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2022/06/14/the-realities-of-going-green/
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Some rare realism from the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/18/the-guardian-view-on-rare-earths-mining-them-cant-cost-the-earth
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“The Kintyre wind farm ‘gold rush'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-62766251
Read it all and weep.
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any comment from Mac ?
“Mull of Kintyre, oh mist rolling in from the sea
My desire is always to be here
Oh Mull of Kintyre”
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“EU limits subsidies for burning trees under renewable energy directive
MEPs vote on amendment to phase down share of wood counted as renewable but reject calls for complete phaseout”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/14/eu-limits-subsidies-for-burning-trees-under-renewable-energy-directive
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Mark – just noticed this from your above comment –
“The Scottish government guideline is that power companies should donate £5,000 to local communities for every megawatt of electricity generated. But it is not mandatory…”
have you a link to that not mandatory guideline – my brother might be due a fiver I recon.
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Dfhunter, afraid not – the BBC article does not provide a link to back up the statement.
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Dfhunter,
The following link should take you to another link to download a pdf where the policy is set out.
https://www.gov.scot/publications/draft-onshore-wind-policy-statement-refresh-analysis-responses-consultation/pages/3/
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Mark, thanks for the link – “consultation analysis” or an online questionnaire to most people.
title – “Analysis of the consultation responses received to the draft Onshore Wind Policy Statement between 28 October 2021 and 31 January 2022.”
“Chapter 1: Current Position
When referring to respondents who made particular comments, the terms ‘a small number’, ‘a few’ and so on have been used. While the analysis was qualitative in nature, as a very general rule of thumb it can be assumed that: ‘a very small number’ indicates around 2-3 respondents, ‘a small number’ indicates around 4-6 respondents; ‘a few’ indicates around 7 to 9; and ‘some’ indicates 10 or more but fewer than half of those who commented at any question. Where larger numbers of respondents are referred to, a ‘significant minority’ is 10-25% of respondents, a ‘large minority’ is denoted by 25-50% of respondents, and 50%+ is ‘a majority’.”
“1.38. A large minority, again across all respondent types, requested increases to, or full realisation of, community benefit funds. £5000/MW or less was regarded as too little, as well as benefits claimed to be often falling short of those pledged, though there were also cautions that any increases would impact wind farm financial viability through increased costs or reduced revenue. There were also suggestions that community benefit funds need to be contractually bound and have better standards of governance.”
“1.49. A few individuals and communities’ organisations were adamant that no more financial support or mechanisms should be needed as taxpayers already contribute an environmental subsidy.”
I note the phrase “A small number of mainly renewable energy organisations and communities’ organisations said…” seems to crop up a lot in this survey
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Oh dear, England is to join Scotland in becoming a wind turbine-infested, environmentally damaged and much blighted land, it seems:
“Planning rules for new onshore windfarms likely to be eased in UK
Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng poised to lift de facto ban on new onshore farms as part of his growth plan”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/23/kwasi-kwarteng-poised-to-ease-planning-rules-for-onshore-windfarms
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“Drax: UK power station owner cuts down primary forests in Canada”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63089348
But:
Who do you believe? The BBC or Drax? I trust neither of them. Tricky!
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“The cost to capture carbon? More water and electricity
A Louisiana power company’s plan to capture climate emissions is raising concerns about the state’s water supplies”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/15/emissions-capture-carbon-cost-water-electricity
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“These technologies to mitigate climate change have unintended environmental impacts, like water use and water scarcity,”
well they wood, but at least “IPCC report that cites Rosa’s work” can give a good estimate on increased water withdrawals – “between 25% and 200%”.
so we know they are not just making figures up.
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“Mark Carney’s investment fund accused of deforestation
Former Bank of England Governor’s green credentials questioned by campaigners”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/12/16/mark-carneys-investment-fund-accused-deforestation/
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“Offshore Wind Farms Could Cause ‘Cataclysmic Destruction’ Of Ecosystems
The UK’s plan to rapidly expand industrial wind farms around the coast will be at the expense of the environment and biodiversity”
https://jasonendfield.medium.com/offshore-wind-farms-could-cause-cataclysmic-destruction-of-ecosystems-aa60cc1a494f
Worth a read, IMO.
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“Ten Whale Groups Slam Atlantic Offshore Wind Strategy”
https://principia-scientific.com/ten-whale-groups-slam-atlantic-offshore-wind-strategy/
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“North Kesteven solar farm could power 180,000 homes, say firms”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-64225179
Two thoughts. First, if it goes ahead, it won’t power 180,000 homes, certainly not reliably and not when power is most needed in the dead of winter. Secondly, how much damage will it do to nature and crop production? 1,400 hectares (note the use of hectares to make it sound less) is 3,459.475 acres, and that’s a heck of a lot of land. To put it another way, in a way that can readily be understood, it’s about 2,620 football pitches.
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“Dolphins ‘shout’ to get heard over noise pollution”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64235024
The BBC is at it again, saying that “noise pollution from human activity like shipping and construction have risen dramatically in recent years”, but valiantly failing to mention that pile-driving for offshore wind turbines is one of the fastest-growing (and most damaging to cetaceans) human construction activities at sea.
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“Welsh ‘Amazon forest’ at risk from solar farm plan – campaigners”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-64293363
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“The green revolution is fuelling environmental destruction
Net zero warning as the staggering true cost of going green is revealed”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/01/20/green-revolution-fuelling-environmental-destruction/
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“Why Environmentalists May Make This Whale Species Extinct
On the 50th Anniversary of the Endangered Species Act, green groups throw their once-sacred “precautionary principle” to the wind.”
https://public.substack.com/p/why-environmentalists-may-make-this
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Not everyone is so puzzled – just the BBC and its “green” friends:
“Another whale mysteriously washes ashore on US East Coast”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-64461666
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“Scotland Littered By Tonnes of Toxic Plastics Shed By Thousands of Wind Turbine Blades”
https://stopthesethings.com/2023/01/31/scotland-littered-by-tonnes-of-toxic-plastics-shed-by-thousands-of-wind-turbine-blades/
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On our travels round Scotland we are seeing the plastic plague being replaced by the take away coffee cup plague or is it allowed being made of paper ( got a plastic top ) and eventually degradable ? The hardest to accept are those lying on the ground beside an empty bin.
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Cups littering ground by bins were thrown by the aerodynamically challenged.
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And what about the Ozymandias Litter when these giant turbines themselves fall to the ground?
Plasticks and cups littering the ground…
Something I loved in the Patrick O’Brien”Master and Commander Series’,all 22 volumes, was Captain Jack Aubrey’s appreciation of the simpler life at sea compared to life on land. ..responding to storms at sea, strengthening the mast, bringing in the sails, compared to dastardly conniving on land…(of course,
plotting at sea, too, but it was pretty basic compared to the land manoeuvrings.)
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Bethstheserf. And what would Captain Jack Aubrey have made of todays spread of marine micro plastic pollution even into the lungs of still the unborn?
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Alan. Jack Aubrey, at sea, was a problem solver. On land he was less so.
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“Anger at tree felling at Open championship venue”
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23299512.anger-tree-felling-open-championship-venue/
Whatever the rights and wrongs of this story, that last sentence is shocking.
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“‘A national scandal’: how US climate funding could make water pollution worse”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/08/biden-climate-law-pollution-midwest
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“Deep sea mining noise poses harm to blue whales, scientists warn
Paper calls for assessment of impact of sound pollution on cetaceans before firms allowed to mine sea bed”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/14/deep-sea-mining-noise-poses-harm-blue-whales-scientists-warn
No obvious link between deep sea mining plans and “green” energy etc is made in the article, though in fairness it does say this:
The Greenpeace representative, although no doubt well-meaning, might like to stop and think about the impact that offshore wind turbines might have on, inter alia, cetaceans. Instead we get this:
As for this:
The people of Shetland are already suffering from 7 days a week works and disruption courtesy of SSE and the Viking Wind Farm, and in Weisdale Voe just now they are also suffering overnight from the noise of the boats involved in cabling activities. There is no escape, but I haven’t heard a word of protest from Greenpeace.
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“Towy Valley: Campaign to stop 60 miles of electricity pylons”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-64687575
We support the aim…but…Thanks goodness for NIMBYs; without them nobody would stand in the way of trashing our environment:
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“US protesters turn ire on wind farms to explain whale deaths – but where’s the evidence?
Controversy stirs in New Jersey along political lines as some scientists say wind turbine theory is ‘cynical disinformation’”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/20/us-protesters-wind-turbines-whale-deaths-evidence
I accept that we don’t have proof that wind farms are causing the death of whales, but we don’t have proof that they’re not. And while correlation isn’t causation, at the same time that wind farms are being developed, we also have more whale deaths than usual. Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not. We don’t know. But while the Guardian headline chooses to dismiss concerns as “cynical disinformation” by repeating words to that effect from “some scientists” (which, on reading the article – see below – seems to be one person, namely Greenpeace’s oceans director), it’s interesting to note that Greenpeace seem more concerned to maintain the wind farm programme than they are about the dead whales:
In the Guardian’s world, any doubts about renewable energy seems to be unforgivable:
“Far-right” politicians “parrot” doubts, while nice Greenpeace effectively say there are no doubts (or that expressing doubts constitutes a “cynical disinformation campaign”, so the Guardian knows who it believes. Personally I’m waiting to see if further evidence can cast light on it.
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Where a talking point means something the Guardian doesn’t want anyone to talk about.
I’ve no idea how substantial the problem is, by the way. Can I imagine that Tucker Carlson is overplaying the point? Sure. But guilt-by-association is dripping from this sentence. Why don’t we talk about such ‘talking points’, until the situation is clearer?
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“Flatpack wood turbines could give wind power a green boost”
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23379076.flatpack-wood-turbines-give-wind-power-green-boost/
With almost three weeks to go until 1st April, we are now told this:
Apart from the ongoing problems of bat and bird killing and representing an unsightly blemish on the landscape, it sounds like a theoretical improvement. Will it work? Obviously not offshore. And is making them from wood really “sustainable”.
I’m far from convinced by the final sentence in this quote, but it’s interesting to find an admission regarding the CO2 footprint of current wind turbine technology:
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“Deep-sea mining for rare metals will destroy ecosystems, say scientists
Businesses want to trawl for nickel, manganese and cobalt to build electric cars and windfarms”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/26/deep-sea-mining-for-rare-metals-will-destroy-ecosystems-say-scientists
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“The race for more battery materials could cause ‘irreversible’ damage under the sea”
https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/27/23658352/ev-battery-deep-sea-mining
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“Protesters urge caution over St Ives climate trial amid chemical plans for bay
Campaigners worry about scheme’s impact on marine ecosystem but Planetary Technologies says concerns misplaced”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/17/protesters-urge-caution-over-st-ives-climate-trial-amid-chemical-plans-for-bay-planetary-technologies
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“Larne Lough: Swimmers protest against gas storage caverns plan”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-65314291
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“America’s big shift to green energy has a woolly mammoth problem
Transmission lines in the US need to be increased threefold, but faces pushback from fossil conservation and green groups”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/22/america-green-energy-obstacles-fossils
So it’s not just the UK…:
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“Deep-sea mining hotspot teems with mystery animals”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65708806
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I’ll bet they are all related to great crested newts…
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No young Bill, your last statement is a huge taxonomic inexactitude. Also Amphibia don’t favour salty water.
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Yes, yes, but said newts have a habit of migrating to anywhere people want to dig holes in the ground.
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Rubbish, in all my years working for the oil industry and drilling deep holes, I encountered nary a newt, great crested or otherwise. Nor did I hear of any near Portuguese reservoirs recently. But whatever species are involved, and many will probably be ‘new to science’, almost certainly they will constitute a formidable defence of their home habitat. What a great pity British peatland doesn’t have them.
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Alan,
I suspect Bill’s comment was tongue in cheek. But I am with you about peat land.
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Mark i was aware that Bill’s amphibian comment was tongue-in-cheek and my responses have been in-kind (except for the comment about peatland (added in large part with your viewpoint in mind)).
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“Solar panels – an eco-disaster waiting to happen?”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65602519
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Mark, the idiotic ‘renewables’ fanatics are slowly (painfully slowly) learning that the ‘renewable’ tag applies ONLY to the natural source of the energy (sunlight, wind, which are essentially inexhaustible). It very much does NOT apply to the technology and raw materials needed to ‘harvest’ wind and solar radiation. Oops, they didn’t teach that on the University ‘Environmentalism & Sustainable Technology’ course!
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Jaime,
I suspect that today’s “environmentalists” (I use the term loosely, since so many of them have – until now – seemed happy to trash the environment in order to “deal with” climate change) are simply doom-laden.
To date their mentors at the BBC and the Guardian have obsessed almost entirely about climate change and fossil fuels. Consequently that’s what they lose sleep about. But if the Guardian and the BBC wake up to the environmental devastation they have encouraged, then maybe their acolytes will start agitating about that instead. They have a sufficiently doom-laden mentality.
I was going to say that we can live in hope, but it’s not really hopeful, is it? At that point they will deny us all forms of energy and we really will have to live in mud huts.
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Mark – thanks for the “Solar panels” link above.
a couple of quotes from the BBC post stuck out for me –
“Energy experts are calling for urgent government action to prevent a looming global environmental disaster.
“It’s going to be a waste mountain by 2050, unless we get recycling chains going now,” says Ute Collier, deputy director of the International Renewable Energy Agency.
“We’re producing more and more solar panels – which is great – but how are we going to deal with the waste?” she asks.”
“In many cases, solar units become relatively uneconomical before they reach the end of their expected lifespan (25yrs quoted). New, more efficient designs evolve at regular intervals, meaning it can prove cheaper to replace solar panels that are only 10 or 15 years old with updated versions. If current growth trends are sustained, Ms Collier says, the volume of scrap solar panels could be huge. By 2030, we think we’re going to have four million tonnes [of scrap] – which is still manageable – but by 2050, we could end up with more than 200 million tonnes globally.”
“Moreover, the technology is expensive. In Europe, importers or producers of solar panels are responsible for disposing of them when they become expendable. And many favour crushing or shredding the waste – which is far cheaper.”
so “Saving the Planet by Trashing it” will be the “Solar panel” go to plan I would bet.
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“Norway opens vast ocean area to deep-sea mining”
https://miningdigital.com/articles/norway-opens-vast-ocean-area-to-deep-sea-mining
I agree with the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition. The problem is that many of its members call for renewable energy to replace fossil fuels, and deep sea mining for the minerals required is, very sadly, the inevitable result of their demands. They have no meaningful solutions. They are deep into the Law of Unintended Consequences.
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Deep Sea Conservation Coalition:
“Our official position is that It’s OK to harm natural diversity in the oceans by surveying for, constructing and operating offshore wind turbines – which require huge quantities of rare earth materials – but it’s NOT OK to mine those rare earth materials from the sea floor because that risks harming natural diversity in the oceans.”
That’s all clear then. Perfectly straightforward.
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It appears that many of the metallic nodules attract uranium from the surrounding water and can become dangerously radion active.
https://phys.org/news/2023-05-high-natural-radioactivity-manganese-nodules.html
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“The hole story of the Green New Deal”
https://www.wnd.com/2023/06/hole-story-green-new-deal/
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“Cook Islands PM ‘proceeds with caution’ on deep-sea mining as critics warn over risks
Deadline tied to the regulation of controversial plans to extract seabed minerals looms amid division over the practice”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/07/cook-islands-deep-sea-mining
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“The rush for nickel: ‘They are destroying our future'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-66131451
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The Guardian presents this story as a good thing, whereas the reality is that the ongoing environmental desecration will be much bigger, and the local residents, who might have hoped for an end to this blight on their lives almost 30 years after it was first imposed on them, will now suffer much greater intrusion into their lives and landscape.
“Scottish windfarm built in 1995 to be ‘repowered’ with new turbines
ScottishPower expects Hagshaw Hill to produce five times as much energy with half the turbines by early 2025”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/13/scottish-windfarm-built-in-1995-to-be-repowered-with-new-turbines
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Mark,
I’m sure that’s a ‘win’ for the environment and for technological progress: 14 massive wind turbines standing over 3 and a half times higher than the originals, plus (I imagine) a 5 or 6 acre battery storage industrial facility and no doubt more transmission infrastructure to support the increase in energy generation. We have some ageing windfarms here; they must be nearing the end of their useful life. They’re old and noisy and only about 180 feet high. If they were to be replaced by fewer ginormous skyscraper turbines, the effect on the visual landscape would be even more hideous than it is already.
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“Wind Farms In All The Wrong Places – The Desecration of Nature in Pursuit of ‘Green’ Energy.”
https://jasonendfield.medium.com/wind-farms-in-all-the-wrong-places-the-desecration-of-nature-in-pursuit-of-green-energy-86f732ecdb75
Well worth a read, IMO.
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Worth reading Mark, but it makes my blood boil how these wind companies are literally being given a licence to kill marine animals (which they dishonestly refer to as ‘harassment’) and industrialise pristine natural environments – all in the name of saving the damn planet from a fictitious climate crisis. It’s insane and it’s obscene. The wider public need to be made aware of what’s happening before it’s too late.
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On Arran staying in a house overlooking Blackwaterfoot so can see across to Kintyre. Every evening the sun sets behind Kintyre illuminating the mountain tops and the TURBINES sticking up like grotesque reminders of man’s technical achievements. Why did they put them right on the summit’s ? There are paintings in the house of the same views , look out the window for the real world image.
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JamesS,
Very sad. I stayed at Blackwater foot a few years ago, for a long hill walking weekend. The beautiful sunsets weren’t spoiled then.
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“Climate change: Claim wind and solar may industrialise rural Wales”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-66442822
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https://public.substack.com/p/save-the-whales-again
This time, Greenpiss are on the side of the whale-killers.
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Another dead whale. More from Michael Shellenberger. Shame it’s behind a paywall.
https://public.substack.com/p/the-biggest-environmental-scandal
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Jaime,
Thanks for the link. I can see enough (paywall or not) to get the gist, which starts with the heading:
“The Biggest Environmental Scandal In The World
Scientists, journalists, and the wind industry are behind the imminent extinction of the North Atlantic Right Whales. They should be ashamed of themselves.”
As I wrote on another thread, correlation isn’t necessarily causation. However, the sudden increase in whale/dolphin/porpoise deaths and strandings and the coincidence of these occurring in areas where either there are wind farms or exploratory works are taking place in connection with planned wind farms, suggests to me that the possible link should be investigated as a matter of urgency. The “nothing to see here” response from soi-disant greens and environmentalists is nothing short of appalling, IMO. Needless to say, I’m not surprised to see the Guardian leading the charge away from any danger of making a link:
“Energy industry uses whale activists to aid anti-wind farm strategy, experts say
Unwitting whale advocates and rightwing thinktanks create the impression that offshore wind energy projects endanger cetaceans”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/17/anti-wind-farm-whale-defenders-fossil-fuel-industry
That article is a neat summary of much of what is wrong with the Guardian these days. All the lazy tropes and smear labelling of people it doesn’t like or agree with are there. Contemptible, IMO.
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‘Whale activists who are being used by the fossil fuel energy industry’ is a particularly shitty and dishonest description of genuine environmentalists who genuinely care for the environment and the creatures which inhabit that environment, especially iconic cetaceans, which are some of the most intelligent and least understood species on earth, which are now in danger of being made extinct by some of the least intelligent, ignorant and utterly deluded and selfish members of the allegedly most intelligent species on earth. Makes me want to spit with anger, quite frankly. I am so sick of these virtue-signalling freaks pretending to ‘save the planet’ whilst they line their pockets with filthy green lucre.
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“The increase in whale, dolphin, and other cetacean deaths off the East Coast of the United States since 2016 is not due to the construction of large industrial wind turbines, U.S. government officials say. Their scientists have done the research, they say, to prove that whatever is killing the whales is completely unrelated to the wind industry.
But now, a new documentary, “Thrown To The Wind,” by Director and Producer Jonah Markowitz, proves that the US government officials have been lying. The full film, which is at the bottom of this article, documents surprisingly loud, high-decibel sonar emitted by wind industry vessels when measured with state-of-the-art hydrophones. And it shows that the wind industry’s increased boat traffic is correlated directly with specific whale deaths.”
https://public.substack.com/p/why-this-documentary-may-save-the
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Michael Shellenberger on Rising on the doco:
I have begun to read about the effect of noise on cetaceans, but cannot opine authoritatively on it yet!
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“Great Lakes gets its first wind farm – but some fear environmental fallout
Icebreaker would be North America’s first ever freshwater offshore wind project – but locals express concerns over wildlife and potential oil leaks”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/16/lake-erie-icebreaker-great-lakes-wind-farm
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“The indigenous groups fighting against the quest for ‘white gold'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-66520097
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“BESS: The charged debate over battery energy storage systems”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-66584335
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Windmills are con-siderable land-scape and sea-scape destroyers
and they don’t deliver the Energy promised or required.
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A call to all activists, Save the Whales and Save the Eagles!
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“The hypocrisy of Australia’s Net Zero policy
Rainforests are dying for the sake of renewable energy”
https://unherd.com/2023/08/the-hypocrisy-of-australias-net-zero-policy/
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“Blades from Scotland’s first wind farm sent into storage
Wind turbine blades are difficult to recycle and campaigners fear they could end up in landfill”
https://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/blades-from-scotlands-first-wind-farm-sent-into-storage-4287220
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Are they hollow? They could be stacked on top of one another and converted to Blade-based eco hobbit homes reserved exclusively for wind supporters and enthusiasts of course, who I’m sure would be overjoyed that they were making good use of the non recyclable products of their ‘sustainable’ industry.
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Do you think that the blades, stuck vertically in the ground and suitably inscribed, could act as gravestones for all the flying creatures that they have decimated?
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From Google Earth – you can visit the same location if you copy the coordinates at bottom.
Described here: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/sweetwater-wind-turbine-blades-dump/
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Jaime – think it was covered here one way or another, but a quick link –
https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2021/01/30/the-wind-power-boom-set-off-a-scramble-for-balsa-wood-in-ecuador
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Dougie,
That just illustrates the Big Lie which lies at the heart of the entire ‘clean energy’ industry. There IS such a thing as ‘clean energy’ – it is the unharnessed energy stored within the blowing wind and within the electromagnetic radiation received from the Sun. It is the gravitational potential energy stored within a mass of water which is situated above sea level. It is the chemical energy stored within coal, gas and oil, buried deep in the ground or beneath the sea bed. The ultimate source of ALL this clean energy (including fossil fuels) is our nearby star, the Sun, which generates more than enough ‘clean energy’ (via fusion reactions deep below its surface) to power all human and natural activity on planet earth (probably a large proportion of the stored thermal energy in the earth’s molten core ultimately derives from the Sun). Even hydro power comes from the Sun, which evaporates the water necessary to create the lakes which sit above sea level and form the rivers which constantly feed those lakes – via the hydrological cycle. all of this is genuinely ‘clean’. But to access this energy and convert it to a useful form (electricity), humans must intervene by constructing physical technology whereby the stored energy is captured and then released in a controlled manner such that it can be converted to an electric current or (in the case of fossil fuels used directly) combusted such that the chemical energy is released. That’s when ‘clean energy’ no longer becomes ‘clean’, because, necessarily, it ALWAYS involves the release of undesirable chemicals into the environment plus the environmentally destructive acquisition of raw materials needed to construct the physical technology required to harness the genuinely clean energy. Then you have all those other environmentally unfriendly impacts associated with the exploration, development and operation of the technology which harnesses that genuinely clean source of energy. This is why it drives me nuts when I hear wind and solar energy enthusiasts talking about how they support ‘clean’ energy versus ‘dirty’ coal, oil and gas. They think their disgusting, ugly, environmentally destructive, 200 feet high steel towers supporting huge non-recyclable turbine blades, blighting pristine wilderness areas, are actually CLEAN!
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Jaime,
You forgot to mention all of that foul injustice that burning coal has released into the atmosphere 🙂
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Oh yes John, of course. The physical combustion of coal is not only physically unclean, but it is also morally unclean and unjust, because the British slave -trading, empire-building, white supremacist colonialists did it first, at scale, thus instigating the hateful Industrial Revolution, which plunged millions of people OUT of extreme poverty.
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Dougie,
While I agree with Jaime, I think she has been too kind to the completely misnamed “renewables” as becomes clear when you study their EROEI (or energy return on energy invested). This parameter is shown in Figure 1 of David Turver’s article here:-
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/why-eroei-matters?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
“Renewables” as currently designed are the antithesis of renewable.
Regards,
John.
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Jaime,
Das ist eine ‘moral hygiene’, jawohl?
Why is it some things sound better in German?
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John Cullen – thanks for the “EROEI” reminder, but sadly those in power plow on regardless.
John – nine
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english-german/nine
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I may well be adding 2 + 2 and making 5, correlation is not causation and all that, but still…
“Probe after dozens of dead fish found in River Spey”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-66842224
Two years ago…
“Scotland’s fastest-flowing river ‘devastated’ by hydro schemes”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-58462914
Aware of the concerns, maybe, but have they done anything about it?
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“Brazil’s Big Cats Under Threat From Wind Farms
Jaguars and pumas face extinction in Brazil’s northeast as the fast-growing wind power industry frightens them off their land”
https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/brazils-big-cats-under-threat-from-wind-farms-1e7494f3
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The science and the data are there, to be examined and interrogated, but the wind industry and its supporters don’t want to look at the data and the science, because they just might find something which is highly inconvenient, politically, but rather costly too, for those who have invested huge financial capital in offshore wind projects.
“Dear Dr. Spinrad: We are writing to alert your attention to urgent and credible information involving offshore sonar activity occurring within wind lease areas in the Atlantic. Specifically, our data show that the sonar is producing Level B harassment noise levels at distances that exceed those set by NOAA Fisheries (NMFS). Consequently, the protective distances adopted in NMFS issued Incidental Harassment Authorizations (IHAs) for offshore wind sonar work are not protective at all. Rather, marine mammals are likely getting much closer to the sonar than should be allowed. We believe this is a major factor behind the recent spate of whale deaths in the Atlantic Ocean since December 1, 2022 and the ongoing Unusual Mortality Events (UMEs) dating back to 2017-18. The only mitigation for noise is distance. The shortened Level B the IHAs have, in effect, rendered any expected mitigations useless.”
“A 5-page summary of these disturbing findings follows. See https://static1.squarespace.com/static/61132164df0a2c56cfb0ffbd/t/64fddae8728fa92c0064459c/1694358248598/SRWC+-+NOAA+Letter+2023-09-08+FINAL.pdf
This is by no means the first time NOAA has been given technical information regarding the threat of excessive noise from offshore wind development. Such noise can easily cause deadly behavior by whales, including ship strikes, entanglements, and reproductive decline.”
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“Metal-mining pollution impacts 23 million people worldwide”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66880697
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“Spinning Wind Turbines Kill Nearly a Million Bats a Year. Researchers Aim to Find Out Why.”
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/wind-turbines-bats-tech
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There is no dispute that underwater sonar activities disturb (harass) marine life, potentially with fatal consequences, and that wind farm developers are undertaking extensive underwater surveys. The ‘no evidence that wind development harms marine life’ argument is total BS. With that fact now evident, NOAA have issued developers with incidental harassment authorisations in order for them to carry out necessary surveys (as they do with the oil industry). The big news here is that wind farm developers are using equipment which EXCEEDS the noise level limits imposed by NOAA and NOAA MUST ALMOST CERTAINLY KNOW THIS:
“SRWC noticed that the recent IHA calculations were using sonar noise levels that were much lower than those specified by the equipment manufacturer. So they did what NOAA should have been doing from the beginning; they measured the noise from a sonar in action doing a survey. They found that the noise level was comparable to the manufacturer’s specs, hence much louder than what the IHA assumed.
Here is how SRWC co-founder Lisa Linowes explained it to me (somewhat technically):
“Thirteen of the 13 IHAs now active for OSW sonar activity show all of the applications were approved based on a sonar level with a source sound level of 211 dB,pk and 203 dB,rms. Had the developers used the correct sound levels using manufacturer’s data of 226 dB,pk and 219 dB,rms (per NOAA’s own guidance), NOAA’s spreadsheet for determining Level B threshold for impulsive sound levels would be 890 meters from the survey boat. But instead, the quieter sonar value submitted to NOAA placed the threshold distance at just 141 meters and that’s what NOAA approved. Using the same calculation for impact area that the developers used but applying the 890 meter radius results in an area that is significantly larger.”
For more see https://saverightwhales.org/
If the local population scales with area, which seems likely, then the number of harassments will be about 6.3 times higher than authorized. That is 890 divided by 141. For simplicity call it 6 times higher.
Thus the number of unauthorized harassments will be roughly 5 times higher than the number authorized. All of these unauthorized harassments are illegal violations of the MMPA. The number of violations is huge. Note that these low-ball numbers come from the offshore developer not NOAA. The harassment calculations are in the developer’s application.”
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An excellent article here (p12 onwards, under the title “Wind energy – A reality check”):
Click to access wln103.pdf
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Next time you read some propaganda from the IEA, remember this:
“Big critical raw materials meeting has no space for indigenous groups
Indigenous leaders say they should be taking part in the International Energy Agency’s summit on critical raw materials and the energy transition.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/iea-critical-raw-materials-meeting-indigenous-groups/
“Horrendous Number of Eagle Deaths From Wind Farms”
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/10/01/horrendous-number-of-eagle-deaths-from-wind-farms/
As for Tasmanian wind farms, and their pointlessness, may I shamelessly recommend this?
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“Tree-planting schemes threaten tropical biodiversity, ecologists say
Paper reveals scientists’ concerns that single-species carbon plantations threaten native flora and fauna, while delivering negligible benefits”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/03/carbon-tree-planting-schemes-threaten-tropical-biodiversity-aoe
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“Nevada lithium mine leads to ‘green colonialism’ accusations”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67028209
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“Demonstration in Oslo seeks removal of windfarms in Indigenous region
Campaigners use traditional Sámi tents to block roads in Norwegian capital in protest against turbines on reindeer pastures”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/11/demonstration-in-oslo-seeks-removal-of-windfarms-in-indigenous-region
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“Global electricity grid must be upgraded urgently to hit climate goals, says IEA
Investment needs to double to more than $600bn a year by 2030 after ‘decade of stagnation’, says agency”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/17/global-electricity-grid-climate-iea
A decade of stagnation, eh? I thought they told us the other day we were full steam (or should that be wind?) ahead, and everything was looking great regarding reaching peak fossil fuels.
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“The Borders villages on the energy storage frontline”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-67064511
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“Portugal’s Barroso lithium mine project faces villagers’ ire”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67135047
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“The toxic wings – Damage and casualty of wind turbine blades”
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/371599607_The_toxic_wings_-_Damage_and_casualty_of_wind_turbine_blades
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“Thermal Reaction: Neighbours Demand Protection From Raging Wind Turbine Fires”
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“Blown Away: World Waking Up To The Big ‘Green’ Energy Lie”
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“‘Net zero power station next to our home is so loud we can’t even go for a walk’
Britain’s electricity demands turn unspoiled countryside into infrastructure hotspots”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/net-zero/net-zero-power-station-noise-scotland-sse/
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The headline is totally misleading. One of the residents claimed that when the substation was being built, the noise and disruption was so bad he was not even inclined to go out for a walk. The noise from the actual substation can be heard on quiet nights and is described as a “low howling” – which probably is not enough to discourage anyone from going for a walk. But what I find most disturbing is the outright lies being told in order to sell the construction of these monstrosities to locals:
“Julia Prescot, deputy chair of the National Infrastructure Commission, says: “Communities hosting such infrastructure get some clearer direct benefits in return such as funding for local amenities, though of course, they will benefit alongside everyone else from cheaper energy bills in future as a result of moving off gas onto cheaper renewable energy sources.”
Sickening.
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Jaime,
I’m ashamed to say I posted based on the headline alone – I couldn’t get past the paywall. Thanks for the extra info.
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Mark, you can usually beat the Telegraph’s ridiculous paywall by copying and pasting the headline into your browser search box, then going to one of the search results which will give you the full text of the article.
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“Kenya’s Ogiek people being evicted for carbon credits – lawyers”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-67352067
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“Bexley: Carbon capture plant raises concerns about wildlife”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-67369677
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Bexley has long been known for its mental home; it would seem the crazies are all out in the community now, destroying local nature reserves in order to ‘save the planet’.
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I never thought I’d see something like this in The Conversation. Even if it is essentially an anti-SUV article, it does at least finally recognise quite a few home truths:
“Why surging sales of large electric vehicles raises environmental red flags”
https://theconversation.com/why-surging-sales-of-large-electric-vehicles-raises-environmental-red-flags-214808
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“Kent campaigners fear wildlife impact of planned electricity line”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-67415457
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I don’t condemn the vandalism at the heart of this story, but I do wonder who are the bigger vandals?
“Vandals target Hawick wind turbine blade delivery”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-67425557
Perhaps the tyres were nobbled by that mob of SUV attackers, Tyre Deflators. The vehicle carrying the blade must be one heck of a lot bigger than a SUV, after all….
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This BBC article works hard to insert climate change in to the narrative, but has to admit that over-fishing and dam-building are serious issues, regarding the Mekong River. As for the highly problematic and ecosystem ruining dams (most of which are in China – part of the much-vaunted Chinese pivot to renewables that Greens who won’t bash Chinese fossil fuel use are forever going on about), we are told this:
The whole article is here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/3s2qsuikpf/mekong-the-last-chance-to-save-a-mighty-river
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Mark,
If Police Scotland ever catch those vandals and they are charged, then their defence in court should be ‘belief in consent’ – that they believed the community affected by the environmental vandalism of these massive industrial white elephants would implicitly or explicitly give their consent to the modest damage done to the tyres, the cost of repair being tiny in relation to the profits to be enjoyed by the wind farm developer, which profits are largely subsidised by taxpayers and energy consumers anyway, including members of the local community.
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Jaime,
I would give that comment two likes if I could!
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The dreaded predictive text did for my earlier comment. I wrote “I don’t condone…” but predictive text changed it to “I don’t condem…”
We need to keep an eye on AI!
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“It’s one of Europe’s last pristine rivers. Can scientists save it from 50 dams?”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/17/its-one-of-europes-last-pristine-rivers-can-scientists-save-it-from-50-dams-aoe
Sod the environment, we’re reducing CO2 emissions…..
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“Robbins Island wind farm green-lit after threat to endangered orange-bellied parrot species dismissed on appeal”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-27/tascat-ruling-robbins-island-wind-farm-orange-bellied-parrot/103154044
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77 parrots – the last of their species. 100 bird mincing wind turbines stuck right in the middle of their traditional migratory path and yet shutting down the turbines during the migratory season was deemed “not proportionate to the risk and not reasonable or necessary.” Go figure.
‘Planet saving’ Big Wind trumps all REAL environmental concerns. The need for ‘cheap, renewable energy’ – and big fat Green profits – is far more important than the lives of a few stinking parrots . . . . . . or whales, or bats, or any other wildlife which gets in the way of the progress towards Net Zero.
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“Golden eagle disappearance in the Borders investigated by police”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-67543674
May I humbly suggest that the police might visit any one of the numerous wind farms that are within a few miles of Fountainhall?
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Mark, I don’t know how many golden eagles are killed by turbines in Scotland (not zero for sure) but a large number of satellite tagged birds have disappeared in suspicious circumstances in recent years and it is quite likely that many of them are being illegally shot or poisoned by grouse gamekeepers. This bird’s tag, for instance, made a strange journey from Scotland to the North Sea, almost certainly in a vehicle.
Lothian MSP Andy Wightman concluded: “The evidence uncovered from Fred’s satellite tag is sufficient to convince me that he died in suspicious circumstances. Further details may never be known, but it is beyond contempt that protected species such as Golden Eagles continue to be persecuted across Scotland.
“I urge all those who use the Pentlands Regional Park on a regular basis to remain vigilant and am extremely grateful to Dr Ruth Tingay and Police Scotland for their diligence and perseverance in a very difficult case.”
Last year a Scottish government-commissioned report showed that 41 of 131 satellite-tagged Golden Eagles had disappeared (presumed dead) in suspicious circumstances in Scotland, predominantly on or near driven grouse moors. In response to that report’s findings, Cabinet Secretary for the Environment Roseanna Cunningham MSP ordered a review of grouse moor management practices with a view to introducing a licensing scheme for game-shooting estates.
https://www.birdguides.com/news/new-evidence-suggests-foul-play-in-golden-eagle-disappearance/
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An interesting and poignant read. The damage being caused by the “green energy” “revolution” runs deep:
“The green energy revolution’s first casualties: Sweden’s reindeer herders
The benefits of fighting climate change are shared broadly.
The costs are borne locally.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/ronnback-mine-sweden-reindeer-herders-sami-green-energy-revolution-first-casualties/
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This appalling nonsense really has to stop:
“Wind farm power line requires major tree felling”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6pd2eqnv1go
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I find that last claim (about clubbing koalas to death) so outrageous as to be very dubious in its provenance. Surely even these money-grubbing ecology-destroying parasites couldn’t be so cruel? Reading on, it seems the claim is that koalas are being injured by the clearance, and if so are then being killed. I would like to know more to try to make sense of it – if any sense is to be had.
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Mark, according to ABC the clubbing claims ‘lack context’, i.e. they don’t deny them.
“As for euthanasia, this is far from the developer’s first option when dealing with koalas who “get in the way” of building wind turbines.
According to the biodiversity plan, the project will build around threatened species habitat WHERE POSSIBLE [my emphasis] (via “micro-siting”), and its performance indicators include a target of “no mortality or injury to … threatened species”.
Animals must be identified via “pre-clearance surveys”, and would be encouraged out of clearance zones through the use of “sensitive clearing techniques” such as tapping hollow-bearing trees, the plan states.
Where a koala is identified, site developers must: avoid felling any trees that might fall near it; move clearance activities away from any koala that appears “visibly distressed”; leave both a 30-metre “buffer” of vegetation around any tree housing a koala and a vegetation “corridor” to the nearest vegetated area; allow the koala to self-relocate; and not interfere with it unless it has been injured.
“Injured koalas are to be taken immediately to the nearest vet with wildlife capabilities or to an experienced koala carer and only handled by experienced personnel,” the document adds.”
Are we really expected to believe that the clear-fellers are going to go to such extreme lengths to ensure that no koalas get in the way of their commercial operations and that, if they do, they are going to airlift them to a vet hundreds of miles away for them to be treated or humanely euthanised? It’s bollocks. There is no legal requirement for them to make 100% sure that there are no koalas in the way of their operations. That would be impossible anyway in dense Eucalyptus forest stretching for miles. They are just going to bulldoze first and then if they find any seriously injured animals, they will get ‘humanely’ dispatched via blunt force trauma.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-10/fact-check-euthanasing-koalas-clarke-creek-queensland-wind-farm/103085452
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Sad news, but let’s hope they’ve found a solution:
“Diverters installed at Hexham farm after rare bird fatalities”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-67726959
But note the disingenuous headline from the BBC – the diverters were used at a farm, not (if one only reads the headline) at power lines. No analysis of how much worse the situation could get with all the new power lines by net zero and the new wind farms. And indeed, no mention of bird deaths at wind farms either.
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“Golden Eagle’s Death Sparks Shutdown of Wind Farm”
https://www.newsweek.com/france-renewable-energy-wind-farm-golden-eagle-killed-shutdown-1855080
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“Impact of wind turbines on wildlife: Significant displacement in bird and mammal populations”
https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2023/12/19/impact-of-wind-turbines-on-wildlife-significant-displacement-in-bird-and-mammal-populations/
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“Renewable energy drive for indigenous groups in Colombia”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-67825466
And wind and solar projects won’t have a significant impact on the environment?
A very strange story all round. Needless to say, at the BBC it’s tagged “climate”,
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“Norway doubles down on deep-sea mining bet despite green fears
Critics worry plans to exploit the precious resources will cause havoc on marine environment.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/norway-deep-sea-mining-critical-raw-materials-sustainability/
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“Loch Ness hydro power ‘gold rush’ branded a disaster”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-67875061
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“‘Wind farms disrupt the growth of plankton and thus the food chain in the North Sea’
Wind turbines appear to disrupt plankton growth in certain areas of the North Sea. This poses a risk to the marine food chain. Researchers expressed this warning on Saturday evening in a broadcast of the science program Focus on NPO 2.”
https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/windparken-verstoren-groei-plankton-en-daarmee-voedselketen-op-de-noordzee~a448de67/
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Mark. I am dubious of this. Wind turbines are widely spaced in order that air disturbance from one turbine does not interfere with the air flow across a neighbour. Disturbance of a much more viscous fluid (sea water) should be much, much less. Combining this small effect with the admittedly large impacts of noise during construction would seem to be inappropriate.
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“What do Saudi developers know of Heathcliff?’ Brontë country up in arms over windfarm plan
Mooted project in West Yorkshire could cause ‘heartbreaking’ disruption for wildlife and harm local tourist industry, say critics”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/07/saudi-developers-heathcliff-bronte-lancashire-calderdale-windfarm-plan
Has someone at the Guardian not got the definitive message of article-writing for the Guardian? This piece says many of the things we at Cliscep have been saying for years.
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“https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c51zvpvvxmpo”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c51zvpvvxmpo
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“Norway to approve controversial deep-sea mining”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67893808
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“Wind farm application in County Antrim recommended for refusal”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-67936199
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“Australia’s renewable energy goals can’t come at the cost of biodiversity – we need a strategic approach”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/12/australias-renewable-energy-goals-cant-come-at-the-cost-of-biodiversity-we-need-a-strategic-approach
Fair play to the Guardian for printing this. However, it’s a shame that its message won’t inform the Guardian’s editorial stance generally:
Yes, I suspect you are.
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“Glens, lochs and isles battle to be Scotland’s next national park
Glen Affric in the Highlands has joined more than 10 rivals in bidding to gain the new status – and the benefits that go with it”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/27/glens-lochs-and-isles-battle-to-be-scotlands-next-national-park
The sad thing is that all are areas constantly struggling to fight off the rapacious wind farm developers. National Park status might just help them in their fight. It makes all the more ironic this statement from Lorna Slater:
It is my considered opinion that she really hasn’t got a clue.
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“Extraction of raw materials to rise by 60% by 2060, says UN report
Exclusive: Report proposes action to reduce overall demand rather than simply increasing ‘green’ production”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/31/raw-materials-extraction-2060-un-report
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“Tanya Plibersek urged to block ‘climate-wrecking’ Queensland coalmine that would raze koala habitat
Environmentalists say Vulcan South mine would be an ‘absolute disaster’ for animals including koalas, greater gliders and glossy black cockatoos”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/01/vulcan-south-coalmine-queensland-koala-habitat-tanya-plibersek
Such hypocrisy, both from the protestors and from the Guardian. Not a word about the damage done to similar habitats by Australian wind farm developments. For the record, I oppose all environmentally damaging developments, and if what is said about this one is true, then I agree with the protests. It does sound rather odd though – presumably it is to be an open-cast mine; such things are always a dreadful blight.
But it’s OK if it’s a wind farm? I suspect the real issue here so far as the protestors are concerned is their dislike of fossil fuels rather than their concern for endangered species.
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Including another very good letter from Euan Mearns, who is very busy writing letters to the Scottish press these days:
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“Fears Over Massive Expansion in Electric Cables Due to Renewables as Great Indian Bustard Heads for Electrocution Extinction”
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/02/20/fears-over-massive-expansion-in-electric-cables-due-to-renewables-as-great-indian-bustard-heads-for-electrocution-extinction/
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More hazards in the sky should not be permitted, and the existing hazards should be moved below ground – as a priority. Poor bustards. My heart goes out to the ecologists, who have to go to the location of the corpses to find out what happened.
“Anthropogenic mortality threatens the survival of Canarian houbara bustards”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-52641-z
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I wish the Great Green Bastards would go extinct.
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Chris Morrison has some excellent examples this morning:
Germany Begins Felling 120,000 Trees From ‘Fairy Tale’ Forest to Make Way for Wind Turbines
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/03/08/germany-begins-felling-120000-trees-from-fairy-tale-forest-to-make-way-for-wind-turbines/
A quote from Pierre Gosselin of No Tricks Zone:
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Robin, thanks for Pierre’s quote – telling it exactly as it is.
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This is over four months old, but relevant nevertheless:
“Portugal’s Barroso lithium mine project faces villagers’ ire”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67135047
“An ancient farming village in the Portuguese mountains is fighting plans for an opencast lithium mine right on its doorstep.
The lithium would be used for electric car batteries and is described by the mining company as critical for Europe’s transition to green energy.
Portugal’s lithium reserves are considered central to Europe’s increasing demand for electric cars, but the villagers say it doesn’t justify ruining their way of life.
“It would destroy everything,” says Aida Fernandes, as she looks across the valley where four opencast pits would border the village of Covas do Barroso in northern Portugal.
Aida, like generations before her, farms cattle in this lush, unspoilt region which has UN Food and Agricultural Heritage status for its landscape and farming traditions…
…Common land is key to a dispute over plans for a new opencast mine – the Barroso Lithium Project – which would produce enough lithium for 500,000 electric car batteries a year over its 14-year operational life.
But three quarters of the mine depends on accessing lithium deposits found in rocks on common land in the area, with the majority owned by the village.
Aida is president of the Baldios – or common land association – which has rejected international mining company Savannah Resource’s financial offer to lease the land currently used for forestry and pasture.
The European Union is keen to reduce its dependence on mines in China, Africa and South America for lithium and other raw materials needed for the green energy transition.
The Barroso mine could be one of the first large-scale mines to supply battery grade lithium within Europe and in May Portugal’s Environment Agency gave Savannah Resources, which is based in London, the conditional go-ahead…
…But opposition is still strong and Aida says that at the meetings they’ve had, “There isn’t anyone who’s in favour.” She says that in spite of the changes, “this is not good for us or for the environment” and they will fight on.
If an agreement isn’t reached the Portuguese government could expropriate the land…”
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“India in undersea race to mine world’s battery metal”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-68613351
“India is taking another step in its quest to find valuable minerals hidden in the depths of the ocean which could hold the key to a cleaner future.
The country, which already has two deep-sea exploration licences in the Indian Ocean, has applied for two more amid increasing competition between major global powers to secure critical minerals.
Countries including China, Russia and India are vying to reach the huge deposits of mineral resources – cobalt, nickel, copper, manganese – that lie thousands of metres below the surface of oceans. These are used to produce renewable energy such as solar and wind power, electric vehicles and battery technology needed to battle against climate change.”
The “the key to a cleaner future” is a very dirty one, apparently.
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“Boom in mining for renewable energy minerals threatens Africa’s great apes
Researchers applaud move away from fossil fuels but say more must be done to mitigate effects on endangered species”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/03/boom-in-mining-for-renewable-energy-minerals-threatens-africas-great-apes-aoe
“Up to a third of Africa’s great apes are threatened by a boom in mining projects for minerals required for the renewable energy transition, new research shows.
An estimated 180,000 gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees are at risk due to an increase in demand for critical minerals such as copper, lithium, nickel and cobalt, a study has found. Many of those minerals are required for clean energy technologies such as wind turbines and electric cars. Researchers say the boom in demand is driving destruction of tropical rainforests which are critical habitats for Africa’s great apes.
“Africa is experiencing an unprecedented mining boom threatening wildlife populations and whole ecosystems,” researchers wrote in the paper, published in Science Advances. Africa is home to an estimated 30% of the world’s mineral resources, and substantial production increases in renewable energy are expected to drive up demand.
Mining harms apes through habitat loss, pollution and disease. It can also make habitats more accessible to hunters and farmers, as roads are carved into forest. More than two-thirds of primate species are already threatened with extinction...”
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Nickel is used in batteries, and is supposedly part of the green transition. Green?
“Cheap coal, cheap workers, Chinese money: Indonesia’s nickel success comes at a price
Jakarta hopes the industry is the ticket to becoming a developed nation. But there are fears the toll on the environment – and people’s lives – will be too high”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/11/cheap-coal-cheap-workers-chinese-money-indonesias-nickel-success-comes-at-a-price
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“Clean energy’s dirty secret: the trail of waste left by India’s solar power Boom
As vast solar plants multiply, so does the scrap, set to reach 19m tonnes by 2050. But disposing of the waste often falls to informal traders who risk injury when dismantling broken panels”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/apr/18/india-clean-energy-solar-power-plant-panel-waste-recycling-pollution-regulation
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“Brazil Iron: UK court case launched over mining project in Bahia”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-68772590
“In a small community deep in the remote, lush mountains of Bahia, Brazil, Catarina Oliveira de Silva points down at what used to be a lake.
“After the mine started extracting there, waste came down. It fell into the spring. It buried this entire lake. Three metres of silt and ore sludge.“
Catarina says dust from this mine covered crops she owned, including coffee bushes and banana trees, until she could not produce them anymore.
She and her husband had also taken out a loan in 2015 for a business where people could pay to go angling in the lake.
“Our project went down the drain,” she says.
Catarina and her family live in a traditional Quilombola community, descendants of Afro-Brazilian slaves whose rights to their land and way of life are protected under Brazilian law.
Now, their fight against a UK-owned mining company is set to move to a top court in London.
But here’s the rub:
“Brazil Iron, a self-described “sustainable” mining company, is accused of damaging the environment, health, crops and water supplies of local communities near its Brazilian mine.
The company strongly refutes the claims. It says its project to produce greener steel could save millions of tonnes of carbon emissions annually and create thousands of local jobs if it is given a full licence to mine.“
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“UN-led panel aims to tackle abuses linked to mining for ‘critical minerals’
Panel of nearly 100 countries to draw up guidelines for industries that mine raw materials used in low-carbon technology”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/26/un-led-panel-tackle-abuses-mining-critical-minerals
“A UN-led panel of nearly 100 countries is to draw up new guidelines to prevent some of the environmental damage and human rights abuses associated with mining for “critical minerals”.
Mining for some of the key raw materials used in low-carbon technology, such as solar panels and electric vehicles, has been associated with human rights abuses, child labour and violence, as well as grave environmental damage.
Cobalt mining, for instance, has led to an upsurge in illegal labour and human rights violations, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Copper mining has also led to severe pollution and environmental damage in some regions….
...Addressing concerns that the scramble for raw materials had been disastrous for some, he said: “The race to net zero cannot trample over the poor. The renewables revolution is happening, but we must guide it towards justice.”
The guidelines drawn up by the panel will only be voluntary and are likely to rely heavily on big companies policing their own supply chains….“
Yeah, right, that will do it – just as non-legally binding agreements drawn up at sundry COPs have reduced greenhouse gas emissions [sarc].
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Mark – seems like the “chickens come home to roost” maxim.
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“Horse riding centre says it will have to ‘close doors for good’ amid wind farm plans
The centre has been open for more than 40 years, but Chris Pollit says they will be forced to shut down in order to protect the horses”
https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire-news/horse-riding-centre-says-close-29086424
A Fylde Coast equitation centre has said it will be forced to close its doors after more than four decades over controversial plans for new offshore wind farms set to disrupt life in the area….
...This includes a cable corridor that will “rip through” greenbelt areas of land in the Fylde Coast – destroying farmland and wildlife habitats and disrupting tourism, as well as causing dust and noise pollution and an increase in heavy goods vehicle traffic. …
…Whilst locals are not opposed to this alternative form of energy, they are concerned with the onshore cables and substations, particularly as these are planned to effect greenbelt land. The cable corridor is set to be “wider than the M55 motorway” and one of two substations will be the size of 13 football pitches and over 23 metres in height.
Greenbelt land will be lost in Kirkham, Clifton, Newton and Freckleton and will cause disruption to local roads and railway. The substations are set to be built in close proximity to homes, schools and businesses and noise pollution from the “constant buzzing” will have an impact here...
…A Lancashire County Council spokesman said: “A consultation relating to a forthcoming application by a private company to develop a new offshore windfarm across the Fylde Coast was carried out towards the end of 2023.
“During the consultation, we raised concerns about the impacts on ecology, particularly near the internationally protected areas of the Ribble estuary and the impact on the local highway network and other concerns.
“Our planning and transport officers highlighted that the proposal has the potential to cause significant disruption to residents during construction and any roadworks are likely to have significant knock-on effects to the wider network resulting in congestion. They also advised that information in the Lancashire Environmental Records Network should be taken into account, such as irreplaceable habitats, habitats of principal importance and protected and priority species that may be affected.
“As the proposal is classed as a ‘nationally significant infrastructure project,’ the application will be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate, who will review the application and make recommendations to the Secretary of State, who has the powers to grant or refuse development consent....
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“Neom: Forces ‘told to kill’ to clear land for eco-city”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68945445
Saudi authorities have permitted the use of lethal force to clear land for a futuristic desert city being built by dozens of Western companies, an ex-intelligence officer has told the BBC.
Col Rabih Alenezi says he was ordered to evict villagers from a tribe in the Gulf state to make way for The Line, part of the Neom eco-project.
One of them was subsequently shot and killed for protesting against eviction.
The Saudi government and Neom management refused to comment.
Neom, Saudi Arabia’s $500bn (£399bn) eco-region, is part of its Saudi Vision 2030 strategy which aims to diversify the kingdom’s economy away from oil.
Its flagship project, The Line, has been pitched as a car-free city, just 200m (656ft) wide and 170km (106 miles) long – though only 2.4km of the project is reportedly expected to be completed by 2030.
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“New plans for windfarm cabling to be unveiled”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmm3dq4l4ypo
Updated plans for controversial cabling work to connect a windfarm off the north Devon coast are to be shared by developers.
White Cross Offshore Windfarm Ltd want to build the 100MW site 50km (31 miles) out to sea, with cabling work taking place at Saunton Sands.
The company’s initial plans resulted in 500 objections and concerns…
Opponents say the work would damage important wildlife habitats for rare bats and birds in the North Devon Coast National Landscape and several sites of special scientific interest (SSSI)…
…The Local Democracy Reporting Service, external said at a public meeting last October the community heard that 40 per cent of the Saunton Sands beach car park would become a ‘work hub’ for up to two years, and as many as 90 lorries per day were expected through the village’s streets.
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“Opposition over England’s biggest wind farm plan”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0344pq9melo
Plans for the largest onshore wind farm in England have been met with opposition from wildlife campaigners.
In late 2023, Calderdale Wind Farm Ltd said it was exploring options for the installation of 65 turbines on Walshaw Moor in Calderdale.
The company said the scheme, near Hebden Bridge, would generate enough electricity to power more than 286,000 homes a year.
A public meeting is set to take place on Wednesday, with campaigners concerned about the impact on the moorland and ground-nesting birds.
Penny Price, of the Upper Calderdale Wildlife Group, said: “What you’re doing is creating this huge impermeable landscape that water can’t soak into.
“If you’re doing that above a valley with a huge flood problem, is that a good idea?”
She added: “It’s also one of the most important areas for curlews, they’re greatly under threat and if you put 65 turbines up they will not come back.”
The Stop Calderdale Wind Farm group also spoke out against the potential development, calling it an “environmental destruction and de-wilding of Walshaw Moor”.…
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“How could they mine here?’ New Zealand grapples with new push for resource riches
Plan to double mineral exports by 2035 and proposed law to fast-track major projects stir fears over environmental impact”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/06/how-could-they-mine-here-new-zealand-grapples-with-new-push-for-resource-riches
The area may soon be home to a large, open cut mine that will extract minerals including garnet, zircon and gold from beneath the flats. The project is one example of a renewed push by New Zealand’s government towards mining – which comes amid a gradual rollback of Jacinda Ardern-era environmental policies, and alongside fears new legislation could see mining projects fast-tracked for approval across the country.
Ah yes, fast-tracking projects. Sound familiar? It should. The Infrastructure Commission in the UK, National Grid, wind farm developers etc are calling for projects they approve of, supposedly essential to achieve net zero, to receive special fast-tracking through the planning process. Shut down those pesky campaigners who care about the local environment! I can’t remember the Guardian being upset about that, yet in New Zealand it seems the Guardian smells a rat. But guess what? The rat it smells is all about supporting the rush to renewables and net zero policies so ardently promoted by the Guardian:
Globally, the mining sector is growing rapidly to meet demand for the minerals that power electric vehicles, wind turbines and other clean energy technologies, Jones said. New Zealand has a rich deposit of these critical resources, and the government will develop a plan for extracting them, he said.
Wake up, Guardian. The policies you advocate to “save the planet” are trashing it everywhere.
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“Green energy plan ‘won’t benefit’ Welsh valley residents”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxwwdpgdjeyo
From the end of Dina Smith’s driveway, there is green as far as the eye can see. Sunlight touches the rolling hills and moorland peaks.
“Just look at it,” she says as we take it all in. “This is beautiful, untouched Mid Wales.”
But this could all change if plans for a huge wind turbine project get the go-ahead...
…In the run-up to the general election, she contacted the BBC through the Your Voice Your Vote portal with her concerns: “I just don’t want my grandchildren looking around this valley with industrial views of turbines and pylons and roads, and ask: ‘What did you do about it nanna?'”
The Towy Usk project is being proposed by the renewable energy firm Green GEN Cymru and would take power from 31 giant turbines on a 60-mile pylon “pathway” spanning almost the width of Wales, in order to connect to the national grid.…
…But some local residents I have been speaking to have said the turbine construction would damage an existing forest, removing ancient trees along the pylon construction route.
“It’s destroying the environment in an attempt to save the environment” is the refrain that I keep hearing.…
People are cottoning on.
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“Revealed: The landscapes in Ed Miliband’s sights as he plots onshore wind revolution
New turbine developments threaten to change England’s countryside for good”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/07/15/revealed-landscapes-ed-miliband-onshore-wind-revolution/
Big wind is about to hit little England. A survey of local authorities has revealed those most willing to welcome the development of new turbines across the countryside that will herald Ed Miliband’s planned wind farm revolution.
Lumify Energy, a leading wind power consultancy, has examined the local plans of dozens of English local authorities to see which are most likely to welcome wind farm developments – potentially making them the first to be targeted for new turbines.
It has found 44 authorities that positively favour wind farm developments, covering three national parks, several cities and thousands of square miles of English farmland and countryside.
They include the Lake District National Park, North Norfolk, County Durham, Mid Sussex, Stroud and Teignbridge.…
National Parks – another achievement of the great 1945 Labour government being trashed by this pygmy successor government. What is the point of a National Park if its countryside is open to this sort of industrial abuse?
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Mark,
They’re even planning to put them in the Lake District – but only 100ft high so that’s OK.
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Jaime,
Nothing is sacred to these wretched people. They will happily sacrifice anything and everything on the altar of net zero.
The turbines they are possibly going to approve in the Lake District national park might “only” be 100′ for now, but I fear it will be the thin end of the wedge. Watch the lobbying start for 150′, then 200′ and so on.
What is the point of designating anywhere a national park if this industrial desecration is permitted within its boundaries?
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Mark,
Local byelaws in the Lake District prohibit you from pulling over beside the road and quietly overnighting in a motorhome. But it’s now OK to litter the hills with 100 foot high industrial monstrosities because . . . . nationally important infrastructure.
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“Feds halt Vineyard Wind operations after weekend turbine ‘incident’”
https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2024-07-16/feds-halt-vineyard-wind-operations-after-weekend-turbine-incident
Operations at Vineyard Wind, the first offshore installation to provide clean power to Massachusetts and the region, are suspended after an incident over the weekend spread wind blade debris across Nantucket beaches.…
…Nantucket’s harbormaster closed the island’s southern beaches to swimming late Tuesday morning, warning in a social media post about “large floating debris and sharp fiberglass shards.”
“You can walk on the beaches, however we strongly recommend you wear footwear due to sharp, fiberglass shards and debris on the beaches,” the harbormaster’s office tweeted around 12:15 p.m.
Photos published by local residents and media, including the Nantucket Current, showed a high volume of green and white pieces of fiberglass and foam washed onto shore....
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A reminder – Nantucket isn’t the first place where this happened:
“Ormonde offshore wind farm debris could be widespread”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-59028551
Debris from an offshore wind farm caused by a “disappointing” maintenance work error could be widespread, an operator has warned.
Swedish energy company Vattenfall said turbine parts fell into the sea at the Ormonde Wind Farm six miles (10km) off the coast at Barrow, Cumbria.
Several members of the public have reported finding pieces on beaches.…
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“Berlin inks lithium deal with Belgrade despite environmental concerns
The agreement would benefit carmakers like Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis, but is deeply unpopular in the country.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/olaf-scholz-maros-sefcovic-lithium-deal-serbia-environmental-concerns/
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Commission Vice President Maroš Šefčovič locked down a series of deals on Friday granting the EU and European carmakers exclusive access to Serbian lithium and paving the way for the construction of one of the largest lithium mines on the Continent.
“This is an important European project and contributes to Europe remaining sovereign and independent in the supply of raw materials in a changing world,” Scholz told journalists in the Serbian capital.
Šefčovič and Dubravka Đedović Handanović, Serbia’s mining and energy minister, signed a deal to formalize the EU supply chain and value-added processing for lithium mined by Rio Tinto, a British-Australian mining consortium….
…Yet despite the potential it holds for the EU, the project is unpopular in Serbia….
…The project is particularly unwelcome due to the perception that electric cars produced with its lithium would solely benefit EU citizens, leaving Serbia, a candidate country with uncertain prospects of full membership and severe pollution problems, without the benefits yet bearing the brunt of the environmental consequences.
Viktor Berishaj, a senior policy officer at the German EuroNatur foundation, said that, despite EU regulation mandating that mining activities in third countries undergo thorough inspections to minimize their environmental impacts, “Serbia currently lacks the necessary legislative and regulatory framework to meet these stringent requirements.”
“The Draft Law on Environmental Impact Assessment, though submitted to the Serbian parliament in October 2023, remains unadopted and contains critical gaps, such as not preventing the issuance of construction permits before the completion of the EIA,” Berishaj explained...
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“Colonial hydrogen
In the name of climate protection, Germany is continuing colonial crimes. Green hydrogen from Namibia should not mean suffering and destruction.”
https://taz.de/Deutsches-Exportgeschaeft-in-Namibia/!6022790/
...After Berlin gradually wanted to move away from cheap Russian natural gas in the wake of tensions with Russia over Ukraine in 2014, Germany looked for new energy sources and, among other things, set its sights on hydrogen-based “green energy”. Germany proclaimed the goal of climate neutrality – a nice word that the Germans like.Industrial area instead of national park
But the architects of this climate policy did not tell their voters that green energy also comes with costs and that a climate-neutral economy in Europe can lead to ecological disasters on the other side of the planet.
The first project in Namibia – by the company “Hyphen Hydrogen Energy” – envisages investments of 9.4 billion dollars for solar and wind power plants with a capacity of five gigawatts and a hydrogen plant with around three gigawatts. The first phase, costing around 4.4 billion dollars, is to be completed by 2026. The rest will follow by the end of the 2020s. Hydrogen will be extracted from water in this plant by electrolysis and will be shipped to Europe in the form of ammonia.
Two million tons of this highly toxic substance are to be produced every year in one of the most valuable nature reserves in southwest Africa, which will thereby be transformed into an industrial desert.
The destruction of a unique national park may not be the only crime threatening to be committed by German investors. A large port is to be built on the Shark Island peninsula for the export of ammonia to Europe – according to human rights activists, on the site of a long-destroyed former German concentration camp, where the bones of 1,000 to 3,000 Africans are still buried today…
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“Disturbing Wind Farm Debris Washes Up, Locals Told to Wear Shoes on Sand Now”
https://www.westernjournal.com/disturbing-wind-farm-debris-washes-locals-told-wear-shoes-sand-now/
It’s a story that environmental groups would ordinarily be all over: a greedy energy-producer has an accident, and a beach is strewn with debris. The habitat is spoiled. The company’s local operations are shut down.
But they’re not — and it’s because it’s not an oil spill. It’s debris from a broken wind turbine that washed up on the south shore of Nantucket in Massachusetts.
Now, the water is closed to swimmer and the offshore wind farm it came from is being shut down by the feds “until further notice.”
Where’s Greenpeace when you really need them?...
And also, where are the BBC and the Guardian? Missing in Action, so far as I can see. Tumbleweed. Nothing to see here.
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“Net Zero Mining Boom Fuels Destruction of Rainforests and Coral Reefs”
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/08/07/net-zero-mining-boom-fuels-destruction-of-rainforests-and-coral-reefs/
Conclusion:
Of course, modern civilisation is built on industry so we mustn’t be overly precious about the natural world. But such extensive mining and industrial activities connected with the drive to Net Zero gives the lie to the oft-repeated claim that battery and electric technologies are ‘green’ and ‘good for the planet’.
The intense environmental destruction also highlights the double standards of those who make a big fuss about rainforest and coral reef degradation when they think they can blame ‘greenhouse gases’, but go very quiet when ‘green’ technologies are to blame.
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“Campaigners want public’s view on Sea Link power line”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8nl81znylo
…The Sea Link project has been described by the Campaign to Protect Rural England as “a disaster”….
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“Wind Turbines Taller Than Skyscrapers to March Across British Countryside”
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/08/11/wind-turbines-taller-than-skyscrapers-to-march-across-british-countryside/
…A spokesman for the Energy Department also made clear last week that there will be no height restrictions imposed on new turbines, opening the way for massive models being developed by Chinese and other manufacturers to be erected around the U.K….
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Mark, this comment from a Renfrewshire resident in the Telegraph article really brings it home how awful things could get in the English countryside with this mad man in control:
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a few days ago I noted a newspaper article (almost certainly the print Guardian) about the ruination of Scottish wild landscapes by the erection of hundreds of very tall phone masts. Taller than the tallest buildings it lamented.
l felt sure someone here with vested interests in keeping their walking holidays pristine would comment, but so far I haven’t seen one.
The writer asked the question “why do we need such phone coverage across Scotland?” I would ask “why object to phone masts, when pylons cover the land?*
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Alan,
I haven’t commented on the article you mention because I haven’t seen it. I am concerned about all damage caused to our wild places, and yes, I do have a particular interest in the hills in both Scotland and the north of England, since they are where I spend much of my leisure time.
It is true that phone masts are intruding into our wild places. They can be intrusive, and I am unhappy about that. However, they are usually small compared to wind turbines, they don’t involve killing birds and bats, chopping down millions of trees and disturbing acres of pristine peat. Also, they are useful to modern society and their existence might save lives (someone in a remote location in need of the emergency services who is thereby enabled to contact them).
Wind farms, by contrast, aren’t just environmentally damaging, they are hugely destructive. They represent a very poor solution to a non-existent problem, and their promoters claim they are necessary to “save the planet” – hypocrisy on stilts.
The Guardian supports covering the UK’s wild places in thousands of hectares of wind farms, while lamenting the spread of phone masts. I am sad about both, but the issues aren’t remotely comparable.
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Rather than express surprise that the matter of the spreading of phone masts over the wilder areas of Scotland had not been discussed, I have now done my own investigations.
Mark, I am somewhat surprised by your responses. Firstly it’s not a question of comparing the impact of windmills and phone masts, they both will constitute blights on the landscape. Furthermore, plans to erect the phone masts will be deliberately targeting the most isolated and remote parts of the highlands where they will constitute a major intrusion. Secondly each phone mast will require construction of its own roadway, need a source of fuel and other equipment, so exacerbating its impact over and above the visual effect of the masts themselves. Lastly in my reading I was surprised to find support for the view that installation of masts would deprive areas of their wildness.
in contrast I found much support for the spread of phone coverage as an aid to mountain rescue. On the other hand, others argued that mountain rescue had other means of communication, presumably radio.
I found it rather odd that Cliscep had not (to my knowledge) covered this issue.
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Alan, I don’t have much to add. I am not happy about any intrusion in our wild places, but having been among both wind turbines and phone masts, wind turbines seem to me to be much more damaging and intrusive.
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Here is the Scottish Sun on the phone mast issue. EE coverage is already good in the Highlands, but they’re arguing that they have to put more masts up to improve coverage for other operators, because they can’t use the existing EE masts as EE want too much money for their use and they can’t site them at the same location because it has to be an area which is not covered to qualify for a mast to be put up. This is insane.
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/money/13330769/highland-torridon-caroline-hamilton-kinlochewe-mobile-phone-masts/
“They told us it’s not fair if you have to be on EE to call 999 if you have an accident.”
She added: “We asked why they couldn’t share the existing masts and they said EE was charging too much.
“We asked why they couldn’t stick their masts up in the same locations as the EE ones, and they said, ‘No, it needs to be where there aren’t any masts to qualify’.”
However, that aside, most of the masts are no more than 100 feet high. They are static structures, they’re dull metallic grey, not glaring white. Turbines are 350 feet high quite often. Soon they will be 700 feet high, and will be sited in groups, not singularly. So the visual intrusion (and noise pollution) due to wind turbines is far greater than that of phone masts. The necessity argument for both wind turbines and more phone masts in the Scottish highlands is very dubious. Looks like it boils down to companies wanting to make profits as far as I can see. But the necessity argument for turbines consists of ‘saving the planet’ from an imaginary Thermageddon, which is why turbines get top billing here and phone masts not so much I guess.
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“Wind turbine fire in Mechanicsville could cost farmer millions”
https://www.kcrg.com/2024/08/17/wind-turbine-fire-mechanicsville-could-cost-farmer-millions/
MECHANICSVILLE, Iowa (KCRG) – A farm in Mechanicsville must clean up its third wind turbine fire in less than a year and a half.
Lightning strikes caused all three.
Now the farm’s owners are trying to figure out what’s next.
A Cedar County ordinance requires wind turbines that aren’t producing energy must be taken down within the year.
While the turbine’s owners have to take care of that, the damage left behind is the responsibility of the land owner.
After the wind turbine’s blade fell to the ground, debris from the turbine coated the surrounding farmland.
“I don’t really know how you ever clean it up, especially since the longer you wait the harder it is to cleanup. And since there’s so much still here I don’t know what we’re gonna do with it,” said Sally Freeman, the farm’s owner.
Freeman is now dealing with her third turbine fire, and she’s learned from experience that cleanup takes forever.
“We don’t really have a timeline yet, and we don’t really know the method by which they want to take it down,” Freeman said.
She also learned the cleanup the wind energy companies do isn’t perfect.
Previous cleanups left Freeman’s cornfield littered with wires and fiberglass, and the industrial equipment used to remove the last turbine is still taking up space.
All the fiberglass and waste in the field means she can’t use the land, a loss that loss costs a lot of money.
“So between like additional costs to us… additional costs to and damages to our soil, I would say it’s in the millions,” Freeman said.
Days after the fire, the fallen blade is still smoldering and chunks of the structure are still blowing off in the wind.
Freeman’s worried those pieces of fiberglass could break the farm’s equipment. She already knows she won’t be able to sell any corn from the affected area.
“Because of the storms that followed the fire and the fact that there’s now been two fires on the same turbine, three fires in the same field, I mean there’s probably at least 1000 acres that have been affected by these two turbines,” Freeman said.
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“The fight for iron sands: the bitter battle to protect New Zealand’s sea-floor riches
Government’s push to fast-track projects in NZ stirs fears deep-sea mining off Taranaki, long opposed by the community, could go ahead”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/19/deep-sea-mining-new-zealand-south-taranaki-bight-ocean-seabed-patea-beach-ntwnfb
...Over the past 11 years the region’s seafloor has generated global interest and become a bitter battleground between a mining company and the locals who live and work along the coast.
Since 2013, Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR) has been trying to gain consent to mine the iron sands between 19 and 42 metres below the surface. Iron sands are rich in rare earth minerals used in the production of steel, batteries and space craft – and increasingly sought-after for renewable energy. [My emphasis]
TTR’s proposal to mine up to 50m tonnes a year for 35 years has touched off a years-long legal dispute with the community, which fears the sediment discharged back into the sea will smother marine life, impact fishing and endanger rare marine mammals….
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From the New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/18/world/europe/serbia-lithium-mine.html
Andrew Higgins talked to residents of Gornje Nedeljice, Serbia, the site of a planned lithium mine, and protesters in Belgrade, the capital, who are opposed to the project
Their windows broken and roofs smashed, the abandoned homes in an otherwise bucolic valley carpeted with cornfields and orchards near Serbia’s border with Bosnia look like the wreckage of the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
But the houses are actually the casualties of a current struggle freighted with geopolitics: where and how Europe can get the materials it needs to make electric car batteries and break its dependence on sources like China.
The houses, in the Jadar Valley in the west of Serbia, were bought up years ago by the minerals behemoth Rio Tinto, which planned to tear them down and start mining and processing lithium, a crucial element for electric car batteries. Its plans stalled by vociferous opposition, the company left the properties to crumble.
The project has been supported by the United States and the European Union, which is in desperate need of lithium to meet its climate goals. But it has generated a wave of public fury in Serbia, where fears that the mine will poison the air and water have set off huge street protests against President Aleksandar Vucic…………
A report by The Hague Center for Strategic Studies estimates that if it is to reach its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, Europe will need 60 times more lithium by that year than what it imported in 2020 from China and elsewhere.
Michael Schmidt, a lithium expert at Germany’s Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, said Europe might be able to reach its targets without supplies from Serbia. But, he said, “the Serbian project is one of the largest, and that is why it is so significant.” He added, “We need each and every project to reach targets.”
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Potentilla,
The great green God is devouring its own. Its adherents don’t care how much harm is caused to people, flora, fauna, places. The end apparently justifies the means.
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“About 500,000 trees cut down at site of Tesla gigafactory near Berlin
Satellite image analysis shows 329 hectares of forest cleared during development of factory in Germany”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/aug/22/trees-cut-down-site-tesla-gigafactory-germany-deforestation
The development of a Tesla gigafactory near Berlin has resulted in about 500,000 trees being felled, according to satellite analysis.
The building of the German factory has been highly controversial and attracted significant protests, as well as prompting a debate about the trade-offs involved in developing a green economy...
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“Activist opposed to Rio Tinto lithium mine receives anonymous death threats
Serbian green campaigner who co-drafted declaration against lithium exploitation now fears for his safety”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/aug/22/activist-serbia-rio-tinto-lithium-mining-environment-death-threats
…“Since 14 August my days have been a volatile mix of routine and complete chaos,” he said. “How it can be that any of this is part and parcel of our climate change mitigation strategy? What sort of a green transition is it that we want if we have to kill people to achieve it?”
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Death threats now. Perhaps we need to classify misanthropic Greens as terrorists?
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Kennedy is pivoting away from climate crisis doomerism and fake Net Zero policies to focus on real environmental concerns. After supporting Trump and presumably being offered a role in a future Trump administration, this is a significant and hopeful development.
https://x.com/JamesMelville/status/1828328447489241118
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“The people working to help Scotland’s bats bounce back”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj629jrd6edo
...Their numbers have been declining for decades but Beth has been looking at how to plant native trees on agricultural land so they can provide new homes for their roosts in 50 to 100 years time.
It’s an important step in preparing for a potential influx of bats from southern Europe as climate change pushes species north to cooler regions.
Bats love to set up home in the holes and crevices which appear when ancient woodlands begin to decay.
Those habitats have been disappearing for a host of reasons including agricultural intensification as well as road and house building….
The BBC report includes the obligatory mention of climate change, but makes no mention of wind farms. Yet the Bat Conservation Trust tells us:
Bats are directly impacted by onshore wind turbines through collision with the turbine blades or injuries from air pressure changes around the blades. Indirectly, bats are impacted by onshore wind farm development through loss and fragmentation of their habitats. The impacts of offshore wind on bats foraging offshore or migrating across the sea are less well known; further research is a high priority.
https://www.bats.org.uk/about-bats/threats-to-bats/wind-farms-and-wind-turbines
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Here we go: the final assault upon the iconic Scottish landscape – coming soon to the Lake District no doubt.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/09/16/highland-backlash-against-net-zero-plans-dam-scottish-glens/
‘Gold rush’. I’m sure it is for some. But the cost to wildlife and the natural landscape will be immeasurable. The eco-terrorists strike again.
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Jaime, I have walked in many of the places you mention, and I am both distraught and extremely angry about the ongoing destruction of our beautiful wild places. Net zero is looking increasingly like something that urgently needs to be stopped, for so many reasons.
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I guessed you would have walked there Mark. I think I ought to, before they disappear forever.
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Jaime,
Yes, do I fear time is short. 😠
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“The flaw at the heart of Ed Miliband’s net zero plan
In the pursuit of decarbonisation, the Energy Secretary appears willing to blight the environment”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2024/10/14/the-flaw-at-the-heart-of-ed-milibands-net-zero-plan/
Not a day passes without the implications of Ed Miliband’s dash to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030 becoming increasingly calamitous for the environment.
The Energy Secretary has lifted the moratorium on building onshore wind farms, which will see more spring up around the country. He has given the go-ahead for giant solar schemes on farmland, overturning previous planning refusals. And he is shortly to give the green light to a network of pylons to bring offshore wind power to the towns and cities of the South East. These will scar hundreds of miles of countryside from Norfolk to London.
Residents in East Anglia have urged the National Grid to put the required cabling underground or along the sea bed to protect the landscape. They have been told this is too expensive and would add to energy bills. Yet a study published by a former subsidiary of the National Grid into the East Anglia project says that if the date was pushed back to 2034 then an underground cabling system would be £600 million cheaper.
The deadline to decarbonise the grid was brought forward by Mr Miliband to a point that many experts believe is unachievable. A few years will make no discernible difference to global carbon emissions yet will have a major impact on the English countryside.
His latest plan is for a string of giant dams across Britain’s mountain landscapes. They will store back-up hydro-electric power when wind and solar farms cannot meet electricity demand instead of using gas. By definition such schemes will be built in remote and wild areas, altering the landscape for the worse. In pursuit of net zero, Mr Miliband appears ready to wreck the environment.
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“Protesters voice fears over waterfall electricity project in north Wales
Plan for Rhaeadr y Cwm receives 1,000 objections, with many worried about impact on habitats and natural beauty”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/oct/17/protesters-voice-fears-over-waterfall-electricity-project-in-north-wales
It is considered one of the most majestic waterfalls in north Wales, a mist-shrouded torrent that has inspired storytellers and artists for centuries.
But a fierce row has broken out over a scheme to harness the force of Rhaeadr y Cwm to generate electricity, with one of Wales’s foremost naturalists, Iolo Williams, the latest to step into a growing row over the project….
…Mabon ap Gwynfor, a Plaid MS, who is backing the project, said: “The climate emergency is the biggest challenge facing humanity and the target of achieving net zero by 2050 is fast approaching. It will be almost impossible to reach the target without schemes like this.”…
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“Pylons rule and rural beauty is up for sale. Why do those in power so hate the countryside?”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/18/pylons-rural-beauty-countryside-ed-miliband-landscape
An excellent piece from one of the few Guardian journalists for whom I still have considerable respect.
…Millions enjoy the British countryside, both by living in it and by visiting it in ever greater numbers. Yet outside national parks, this countryside is effectively defenceless. The Amber Valley has been enjoyed by millions of visitors over the years, as have been the rolling woods and fields of Lincolnshire and East Anglia. Yet Miliband dismisses those fighting to protect them as obstructionists and blockers – and is prepared to pay them off with bribes.
The reality is that these decisions are not about global warming or planetary survival. Plainly renewable energy makes a contribution to relieving climate change and plainly we must play our part. But the contribution that Britons can hope to make in that cause – compared with China and India – is so infinitesimal as to be mere gesture.
That is why some sense of proportion should be applied to the price the country is asked to pay. There are plenty of areas where renewable infrastructure could be allowed to intrude on the scenery. Britain is not short of brownfield land crying out for investment of any sort. But it would be a good idea if some concept of zoning were introduced to suggest where those areas are and where they are not.…
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Regarding the waterfall electricity project in north Wales, a supporter is quoted as saying:
“It will be almost impossible to reach the (Net Zero) target without schemes like this.”…
I would suggest the opposite. It would be impossible to reach the target WITH schemes like this. The amount of electricity produced with this type of run-of river hydro scheme is very small and even then only when there is high stream flow:
“the Cwm Cynfal project will provide power for 700 households and will not harm the landscape but “dissolve into” it.” Well maybe up to 700 households supplied at peak flow.
The brothers say abstraction would happen only when there was enough water in the river to maintain an “adequate flow” and no more than 70% of the extra flow would be taken.
The Welsh waterfalls are spectacular during heavy rain.Take 70% of the “extra” flow and the magnificence would be completely lost.
The quantity of power produced is tiny compared with the environmental and landscape damage. A road would have to be built for access to the top of the waterfall to construct the intake, a trench dug for the penstock unless it runs on the surface and power lines erected to connect to the grid.
And all this in a National Park?
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All excellent points, potentilla. The only good news is that the plan has to go through the planning process, and it might not yet receive approval. On the other hand, it might – it increasingly seems that the “climate crisis” is trumping the status of National Parks, whose very purpose is therefore increasingly questionable: https://cliscep.com/2024/08/20/the-shape-of-things-to-come-2/
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“Offshore wind farm starts generating power”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62dyx2w7w4o
A wind farm off the coast of Fife, opposed by RSPB Scotland because of concerns over migratory birds, has started generating power into the national grid.
Neart na Gaoithe (NnG) wind farm, which is almost 10 miles (15.5km) from the coast, is expected to be completed and fully commissioned by next summer.…
...In 2017 RSPB Scotland lost its long-running legal challenge against the plans, which saw it take the the matter to the Court of Session in Edinburgh.
It had argued the farm put birds such as puffins, gannets and kittiwakes at risk.
Matthias Haag, NnG project director, said the beginning of power generation was “great for the project and… a positive step in achieving the country’s net zero targets.”
He added that over the 25-year lifespan, about 50 high-quality jobs would be created and based there.
Aedan Smith, RSPB Scotland head of policy and advocacy, said he recognised the development of offshore wind projects was crucial to help tackle climate change.
“However, Scotland’s globally important seabirds are already under threat from a range of sources and additional harm from new wind farms could be huge,” he said.
“RSPB Scotland therefore opposed Scottish Minister’s decision to approve the Neart na Gaoithe wind farm in 2014 because the risk to seabirds was just too great….”...
I don’t blame the RSPB for losing the case – at least they tried – but the big mistake is conceding that “the development of offshore wind projects was crucial to help tackle climate change.” It isn’t, and nothing the UK does can affect climate change in any event. Once you concede the principle (we mustn’t) then it’s game over, in my opinion.
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There are two main ways in which you can not concede the principle that offshore wind is vital to help tackle climate change:
The first argument only concedes that further offshore wind development in the UK is not vital to in the ‘fight against climate change’ because greenhouse gas emissions from China, India and the developing world are increasing exponentially and will swamp any modest contribution we make to emissions reductions here in the UK. It leaves the ‘necessity’ argument essentially intact and leaves The Science unmolested.
The second argument, if successful, undermines the ‘necessity’ argument, requiring a whole new level of insane from our opponents to rebut it. They may have such a store of insanity in reserve, but if they play that card, it will ultimately be their downfall, because hard data and science will always triumph eventually, although it’s likely to be a Pyrrhic victory because by that time, we may be living in mud huts and writing on stone tablets again.
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“Nevada lithium mine approved despite possible harm to endangered wildflower
Advocates vow to sue, saying plan, crucial to Biden’s clean energy agenda, will drive Tiehm’s buckwheat to extinction”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/24/nevada-lithium-mine-endangered-wildflower-tiehms-buckwheat
For the first time under Joe Biden, a federal permit for a new lithium mine has been approved for a Nevada project essential to his clean energy agenda, despite conservationists’ vows to sue over the plan, which they say will drive an endangered wildflower to extinction.
Ioneer Ltd’s mine will help expedite production of a key mineral in the manufacturing of batteries for electric vehicles at the center of the president’s push to cut greenhouse gas emissions, administration officials said Thursday in Reno.…
…Environmentalists said Thursday that the mine’s final approval was a politically motivated violation of multiple US laws. The Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement: “Litigation is now the only way [to] stop the Rhyolite Ridge Mine.”
“We need lithium for the energy transition, but it can’t come with a price tag of extinction,” said Patrick Donnelly, the center’s Great Basin director. He said Biden’s administration “is abandoning its duty to protect endangered species like Tiehm’s buckwheat and it’s making a mockery of the Endangered Species Act”.
Fewer than 30,000 of the plants remain in Nevada at the only place they’re known to exist in the world across eight sub-populations that combined cover 10 acres (4 hectares) – an area equal to the size of about eight football fields.
USFWS said the project, including the infrastructure and waste rock dump, will come within 15ft (5 meters) of the buckwheat and result in the loss of some of its designated critical habitat that is home to neighboring bees and other pollinators integral to its reproduction.…
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“Sardinia’s wind farm nightmare – and what it means for Britain
The island has imposed a moratorium to stop 3,000 turbines being constructed, starting a battle that could have an impact far beyond Italy”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/environment/2024/10/27/sardinia-wind-farms-italy-fight-warning-ed-miliband/
…By and large, the locals hate them. Commissioned in 2010, the wind farm disfigured the precious landscape while offering virtually nothing in the way of jobs or compensation, they say. We put this, and Maxia’s claim, to the company registered as the owner of the turbines. They did not respond.
A four-by-four laden with hay bales passes close under one of the turbines, near a sign bidding drivers farewell from San Basilio. It is riddled with bullet holes. The arrhythmic clang of goat bells can be heard in the low shrubbery, but other than that these hills are all but bare. In the 19th century King Victor Emmanuel II pillaged Sardinia’s forests to provide wood for sleepers on the mainland’s railways, leaving much of the island unrecognisable. Now, with wind farms, Sardinians fear such exploitation is happening again.
In July, Alessandra Todde, Sardinia’s newly elected Left-wing president, imposed an emergency 18-month moratorium on construction of wind farms so the region could “decide its destiny”. The plan for approximately 3,000 turbines on top of the existing 780 was simply too many, her administration said, and risked irrevocably damaging the island’s unique way of life, not to mention its agricultural and tourism sectors, the latter of which attracts nearly six million visitors a year.
In doing so she has set herself up for an almighty battle with the government in Rome, which holds ultimate power over planning in rural areas and grants generous subsidies to renewables companies. It is a fight many legal observers believe she will lose. In the meantime, her administration is hurriedly drafting new rules in an attempt to provide Sardinia with some degree of planning protection. As a spokesman phrased it, to put an end to the regulatory “wild west”.
There is a certain irony in the spectacle of a prominent progressive politician, who has long advocated for a move away from fossil fuels, now defying the renewables agenda of Giorgia Meloni’s Right-wing government. Beneath the surface politics, however, there are fundamental questions at play: localism, democracy, capitalism itself. Their answers may determine how this new green industrial revolution unfolds, perhaps whether it will succeed or fail altogether. Why, say Todde’s supporters, should Sardinia suffer the mechanisation of its beautiful landscape to become the “power station” for the rest of Italy for no tangible benefit? What is the point of rescuing the environment in one way only to destroy it in another?
Europe is watching. In Britain, the new Labour Government has promised to double the output of onshore wind farms by 2030, ending a nine-year hiatus on their construction. Announcing a “clean energy sprint” in September, Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, dismissed pleas for a height restriction and vowed to defeat “the blockers, the delayers, the obstructionists” – the NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard), in other words – in pursuit of his goal. If Sardinia is anything to go by, there are bitter times ahead....
Miliband’s language is appallingly reminiscent of Chairman Mao during the Cultural Revolution. That went well…
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By strange coincidence, I watched ‘Wild Italy’ on Amazon last night, which included Sardinia. Absolutely beautiful, rural landscape. They didn’t show the turbines.
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“Eighteen swans found dead under power line”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cew2nzvdyklo.amp
Eighteen whooper swans have been found dead in a field after flying into power lines, a wildlife officer has said.
The birds were discovered on farmland between Chatteris and Somersham in Cambridgeshire on Saturday.
UK Power Networks, which maintains the power lines, said it was aware of the incident and would look to install bird diverters.
Kane Brides, a researcher for the Waterbird Colour-marking Group, who discovered the dead birds, said he was concerned plans to install more pylons in East Anglia posed “further risks of collisions”....
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“The impact of wind energy on plant biomass production in China”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-49650-9
Global wind power expansion raises concerns about its potential impact on plant biomass production (PBP). Using a high-dimensional fixed effects model, this study reveals significant PBP reduction due to wind farm construction based on 2404 wind farms, 108,361 wind turbines, and 7,904,352 PBP observations during 2000–2022 in China. Within a 1–10 km buffer, the normalized differential vegetation and enhanced vegetation indices decrease from 0.0097 to 0.0045 and 0.0075 to 0.0028, respectively. Similarly, absorbed photosynthetically active radiation and gross primary productivity decline from 0.0094 to 0.0034% and 0.0003–0.0002 g*C/m2 within a 1–7 km buffer. Adverse effects last over three years, magnified in summer and autumn, and are more pronounced at lower altitudes and in plains. Forest carbon sinks decrease by 12,034 tons within a 0–20 km radius, causing an average economic loss of $1.81 million per wind farm.….
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“Appeal against wind farm ruling thrown out”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy5l92y4p1zo
A conservation group’s legal bid to stop a wind farm in Aberdeenshire from going ahead has been dismissed for a second time.
In June last year, minsters approved Swedish energy giant Vattenfall’s Clashindarroch II project.
Wildcat Haven challenged the Scottish government’s decision at a judicial review, but a judge threw out the legal challenge, and Wildcat Haven then appealed that decision.
Judges at the Court of Session have now dismissed that resulting appeal….
…Wildcat Haven said in a statement: “Wildcat Haven maintains its position and belief that this is the wrong development at the wrong site and that if it were to go ahead, it would have potentially catastrophic impacts on the critically endangered Scottish Wildcat population...
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“This plant will have 25 million solar panels and 3,000 turbines: It will produce almost unknown energy”
https://www.ecoticias.com/en/the-western-green-energy-hub/8555/
The Western Green Energy Hub (WGEH) in Western Australia is planned to be one of the planet’s most significant green energy projects. Spanning 15,000 km² of Mirning territory, this 75-quadrillion project will comprise 25 million solar panels and 3000 wind turbines to generate a new level of green hydrogen.
Accordingly, WGEH is a technological and environmentally innovative development. As the demand for sustainable energy grows, it has the potential to revolutionize global energy markets and regional economies....
75 quadrillion? I don’t actually know if this is serious or a spoof. The problem is, the world has gone so crazy now, one can no longer tell which is which.
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“Golden eagle dies ‘after flying into wind turbine'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxv0qddqp9o
A golden eagle has died after flying into a wind turbine in Dumfries and Galloway, a conservation group has said.
Three-year-old male Sparky, which was fledged from a nest by the South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project, was found 15 metres (49ft) from a turbine base at the Windy Rig wind farm in August. One of its wings had been detached.
Project leaders say tests carried out on the bird showed its fatal injuries were “typical of those associated with a wind turbine strike”.
They say the death highlights the need to mitigate risks to endangered birds at proposed and existing turbine sites…..
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“Golden eagle dies ‘after flying into wind turbine’” won’t make into the main news though, wonder why given many BBC articles like this – “Golden eagle population still rising in south Scotland” –
Golden eagle population still rising in south Scotland – BBC News
Which links to “Missing golden eagle was shot, police believe” –
Missing golden eagle was shot in southern Scotland, police believe – BBC News
Which has this partial quote – “Dee Ward, chairman of Scottish Land & Estates (SLE) and estate owner, donated Merrick to the project, and has “condemned raptor persecution in the strongest possible terms”.
He said: “This incident makes us all the more passionate about continuing that support and we will do all we can to prevent, detect and condemn anyone who thinks this kind of abhorrent behaviour is acceptable.”
Waiting for Dee to comment on “Golden eagle dies ‘after flying into wind turbine’”, given onshore wind farms are about to multiply.
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1. After all these years designing and building wind turbines, why are we still deploying those with such high blade speeds that they maim and kill birds, bats and insects? To me this seems like wilful slaughter – or am I missing something?
2. Are not birds, bats and insects protected to some degree in UK law and so where are the prosecutions of the predatory owners of said turbines? Regards, John C.
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John, the wind farm owners will have a derogation that immunises them against prosecution for killing birds protected by the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981.
What is your opinion about a vertical axis wind turbine design?
PS. I am incensed by this news, especially coupled as it is with the unjustifiable further expansion of wind farms. The enthusiasts witter about “careful siting,” but they haven’t a clue.
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Hello Jit,
I have limited experience of vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT). However, digging into my reference book [Ref. 1] and into Wiki [Refs. 2, 3] suggests that (i) VAWT have several important disadvantages compared to horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWT), and (ii) the few advantages that VAWT have over HAWT are usually insufficient to make them the preferred design choice. I also note that the world’s tallest VAWT broke over 10 years ago and has NOT been repaired [Ref. 4].
My main concern with wind energy as a primary energy source for major electricity grids (although it can find sensible applications elsewhere) is that it is very variable and has very low energy density that ALWAYS requires back-up by a reliable generation system. This double system is necessarily more expensive than a single system. So why not do away with the unreliable wind system and thereby reduce costs? This argument is “bigly” strengthened when one realises that the EROEI of the wind system is so much poorer than, for example, nuclear and fossil fuel powered systems …
But I am forgetting the huge subsidies that can be farmed by the wind system operators who, aided by the mainstream media, have convinced most of the West’s politicians that wind power is environmentally “green”.
References
1. Andrews & Jelley, “energy science”, 3rd ed., Oxford, page 242.
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical-axis_wind_turbine
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cap-Chat
In haste. Regards, John C.
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“Labour risks ‘powder keg’ clash with environmentalists as it puts growth before going green
As chancellor Rachel Reeves’ plan to expand London airports gains traction, the party is accused of back-pedalling on its green commitments”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/25/labour-risks-powder-keg-clash-with-environmentalists-as-it-puts-growth-before-going-green
The irony is that Labour’s environment-trashing policies will probably do little or nothing to create growth, and in the case of expanding expensive and unreliable renewable energy, will probably set it back. The money would be far better spent elsewhere, or not spent all, thereby not adding to the UK’s public sector debt mountain.
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“‘The last drops of our water’: how a mine left some of Peru’s poorest high and dry
Antamina, in the Andes, makes billions thanks to the green tech boom. But locals say they are being poisoned by arsenic, losing their water and sinking further into poverty”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/feb/04/the-last-drops-of-our-water-how-a-mine-left-some-of-perus-poorest-high-and-dry
…the new zinc boom is fuelled by the surge in demand for green energy technology. Zinc is used to produce batteries, solar panels and windmills as it protects them from corrosion. Demand for it has recently soared, especially in the wind energy sector.
According to the International Energy Agency, the green transition is driving “unprecedented growth” in the minerals market…
…Peruvian zinc imported to Europe to produce low-carbon technology is mined in areas already vulnerable to the climate crisis. In October 2023, the Peruvian congress declared a state of emergency due to drought linked to the El Niño weather fluctuation. The situation was particularly bad in the Andes, where zinc mining is concentrated.
Studies show that mining can exacerbate the climate crisis in glacial areas, as dust pollution can accelerate the melting of glaciers by absorbing more heat. In Chile, mining-waste ponds and road construction have exacerbated the shrinking of glaciers...
…The Peruvian authorities have classified San Marcos as a high-risk area due to its high concentration of heavy metals. Even though it is the district surrounding Antamina, the source of the heavy metals is defined as “unknown”. In January 2024, a health and environmental emergency was declared across the region and several other districts.
Residents say that last year the health authorities measured concentrations of heavy metal in water sources near the mine. The results have not yet been published.
Arsenic is a highly toxic heavy metal released into the environment as a by-product of zinc extraction; exposure to high levels in water can cause cancer and other diseases...
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Mark; iirc that area is also a major source of lithium which is recoverd by flushing with water and then letting the water evaporate in large pans, like salt recovery. So it may be a double hit on water resources.
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Mike H,
I hope that I can trust the Guardian to ensure the photos it uses accurately reflect the situation, aren’t doctored, etc. If they are trustworthy, then it shows a pretty awful situation – the place looks well and truly trashed – all in pursuit of “green” energy.
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Mark & Mike: this ghastly report reads directly across to my comments HERE.
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Robin,
I find interest in two aspects of that Conversation article and your comments on it. First, neither the author nor anyone else has commented or responded to your comments. Is that because they accept that you’re right?
Second is the mind-set of the author, and others like her at the Conversation. In her article, she writes:
...We also argue that the human rights abuses and perils of today’s cobalt mining are new forms of old colonial practices. They strip the land and people of resources without proper pay. They offer green minerals to the global north at the cost of lives in the global south.
Sustainable cities and global decarbonisation are essential if we are to reduce cities’ carbon footprints and decarbonise economies in the face of the climate crisis….
Despite recognising the great damage being caused around the world by “decarbonisation”, which she condemns, she seems to be unshakeable in her faith in the need for said “decarbonisation”. At no point does she ask herself if the agenda is doing more harm than good.
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Mark: I think we must be discussing different TC articles: mine was written by two men. I’ve now posted two more comments (four in all). No other comments by anyone – especially not the authors, although I’ve tried to provoke them into responding. LINK
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No, it’s the same article, but my mistake. As you say in one of your comments there, some conversation!
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“Green activists warn London exchange over possibly ‘criminal’ copper trading
Dealing in metal from Papua could break UK law because of environmental impact of mining it, campaigners argue”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/feb/05/green-activists-warn-london-metal-exchange-over-possibly-criminal-copper-trading
Irony on irony:
...They say that disposing of the mining waste in this way would constitute a serious offence if it took place in the UK, and so copper produced at the mine could be considered to be “criminal property” under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA).
“The London Metal Exchange is the world centre for metals and critical minerals trading,” said Stéphanie Caligara, a lawyer with GLAN.
“As humanity’s reliance on metals like copper intensifies in the pursuit of the ‘green transition’, the exchange has a legal duty to ensure that the metals traded on its exchange are not produced on the backs of environmental crimes….”...
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Robin – they end with – “For decarbonisation to be socially and environmentally just, it must contend with the people, places, and environments on which the future of low-carbon technology is based. Lubumbashi’s history shows how challenging this task will be.”
In the article they link to – Rethinking artisanal cobalt mining in the DRC – SWI swissinfo.ch
Partial quote – “The women recalled the formalisation project, when miners could work in open pits rather than dig tunnels, as the good old days when they could work in safety and make ends meet.
Women are no longer able to mine as much as before. In the absence of mechanical excavators – needed to maintain open-pit operations but too expensive for the local cooperative – dangerous tunnels, some 30 metres deep, are once again the norm. Difficult to breathe in and hard to access, they are used mainly by men. An estimated 300 minors were also working on the site as of December 2022, primarily sorting through the rubble and helping with the transport of cobalt.
“Production has gone down so significantly that even though the price of cobalt is so much higher than in 2019, they earn much less,” Baumann-Pauly says. “They earn too little to send their kids to school.”
And guess where the ore goes –
“They no longer had the opportunity to store ore until prices went up to negotiate a better deal with the company that owns the concession. Instead, they now depend on the terms set by a Chinese middleman firm operating illicitly at the concession and selling to larger cobalt processing companies in China, the world’s largest importer of cobalt.”
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PS – would have posted on the original article, but don’t see the point in joining, given your lack of response.
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oops add “by them”
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I’ve just posted a fifth comment, this time a direct challenge to the authors. Have a look: LINK.
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I would like to add this comment after rereading the posts on wind turbines and bird kill. This area of Perthshire is prolific in golf courses with Gleneagles , Auchterarder and recently a consortium funded course close to Blackford. There are many knock on environmental changes of having such a huge acreage with extremely tight vermin controls i.e. we now have virtually zero rabbits so Buzzards and Red Kites in fact most raptors have all but disappeared. At one time the rabbit population was bordering on uncontrollable but regular outbreaks of disease would knock back the numbers but the birds stayed , we could regularly hear the Buzzards calling as they circled the woods and fields and come upon them pecking at a rabbit while out walking. I think the hard bit is if you walk 100 yards past the golf course boundary the rabbits are back and so are the raptors.
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Robin – you do realise that Brandon and Patrick are busy with “Environment and Sustainability & Urban Planning”. They never expected to answer questions on a cut & paste article.
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The TC article is now closed to further comments. It only attracted five – all from me. Pathetic.
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“Offshore wind farms could cause significant ecosystem, economic and human health risks”
https://phys.org/news/2025-01-offshore-farms-significant-ecosystem-economic.html
The materials used to protect wind turbines from corrosion leach into the surrounding water, which could pose risks to ecosystems, seafood safety and human health, new research from the University of Portsmouth has found.
Offshore wind farms release thousands of tons of metals such as aluminum, zinc and indium each year. This is expected to grow dramatically as wind farms are set to play a major role in reducing the world’s carbon emissions.
The U.K. currently has 13 gigawatts of offshore wind power generating capacity and a government target of reaching 100 gigawatts by 2050.
Professor Gordon Watson, from the University’s School of the Environment and Life Sciences, said, “Offshore wind farms are a vital part of our clean energy future, but at the moment there is limited data on how these metals affect the environment near operational offshore wind farms, so it’s hard to assess the full risks….”…
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“The Devastating Ecological Carnage Wrought by Wind Turbines”
https://dailysceptic.org/2025/02/11/the-devastating-ecological-carnage-wrought-by-wind-turbines/
The research in question will no doubt be dismissed by renewables supporters because it was commissioned by the Heartland Institute. Nevertheless, as Chris MOrrison says:
…With all the learned societies and institutions continuing to turn a blind eye, it is hard to see who will step forward to draw attention to this developing ecological disaster. Who will be the first to suggest that the proper place for a windmill is in a museum?
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“Mine copper without destroying the planet? London-based project gives scientists hope
Experts hope research can create greener methods of extracting the metal vital for renewable energy revolution and boom in electrical devices”
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2025/mar/02/copper-scientists-london-energy-electrical
…We owe a lot to copper.
But the metal now faces an uncertain future as manufacturers prepare to expand its use to make the electric cars, renewable power plants and other devices that will help the planet move towards net zero. Unrestricted extraction could cause widespread ecological devastation, scientists have warned….
...Copper has become essential for powering devices ranging from smartphones to electric vehicles because it transmits electricity with minimal loss of power and is resistant to corrosion. Around 22m tonnes of copper were mined in 2023, a 30% increase from 2010, and annual demand will reach around 50m tonnes by 2050, say analysts.
Such an output will have enormous environmental consequences because copper mining uses acids that poison rivers, contaminate soil and pollute the air. Producers such as Peru, Chile and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have seen natural habitats destroyed, wildlife populations wiped out and human health damaged near mines. Deep-sea mining has been proposed, but the idea horrifies marine biologists, who say such enterprises would devastate sea life….
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“Amazon forest felled to build road for climate summit”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9vy191rgn1o
A new four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest is being built for the COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém.
It aims to ease traffic to the city, which will host more than 50,000 people – including world leaders – at the conference in November….
Truly, these people are insane.
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“Balance of power: Loch Ness hydro storage schemes fuel local anxiety
As energy firms race to meet challenges of storing power, critics worry about fluctuations in the depth of the loch”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/12/loch-ness-hydro-storage-schemes-scotland
...Glen Earrach’s proposals have fuelled anxiety locally. It is the third such plan proposed for Loch Ness but also the largest by far.
More than a dozen agencies, conservation bodies and local businesses have lodged objections or raised questions about Glen Earrach with the Scottish government’s energy consents unit, which oversees power station applications.
Its critics fear that if all four plants are approved, that could significantly affect the loch’s delicate ecology, its migrating salmon and trout, its leisure cruising firms and its archaeological sites, including a prehistoric crannog, or human-made island.
Shaw estimates that if all the plants simultaneously refilled their reservoirs, the surface of Loch Ness could fall by up to 1.2 metres, or by 27m cubic metres. If all that water was suddenly discharged, it would upset the loch’s delicate hydrology and water temperatures, affecting juvenile salmon….
Which is bad enough, but it says nothing about the damage to the environment that will also be caused by the engineering works in the high corries above the Great Glen and elsewhere.
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Well this is a red-letter day – I am in agreement with both Michael Mann and the Guardian:
“The UK’s gamble on solar geoengineering is like using aspirin for cancer
Raymond Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann
Injecting pollutants into the atmosphere to reflect the sun would be extremely dangerous, but the UK is funding field trials”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/12/solar-geoengineering-uk
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So the title is – The UK’s gamble on solar geoengineering is like using aspirin for cancer”.
They just can’t help but add – “That the trials are described as “small scale” is little comfort, because even small-scale trials risk developing the technology somebody else (think Musk, Trump or Putin) might use for a large-scale deployment.”
China, you forgot China in your boggy man/leader large-scale deployment scenario.
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Bien hecho!
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“Green leader Adrian Ramsay: Labour’s ‘growth v nature’ framing is an outrage
Co-leader says deprioritisation of net zero is ‘extremely dangerous’ as he rejects ‘nimby-in-chief’ characterisation”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar/15/green-leader-adrian-ramsay-labour-growth-v-nature-framing-is-an-outrage
I found this article to be fascinating and urge you to read it. It’s a remarkable display of how the Green Party head honchos confuse environmentalism with net zero and “decarbonisation”. Adrian Ramsay’s critique is partly correct:
“And when Labour talks about growth versus nature, it sort of castigates communities who are working to protect their community, protect the environment from being trodden on by a planning system that that should be there to protect them, but the government’s looking at removing those safeguards.”
Labour’s mad drive to slash the planning and other environmental regulations will cause untold environmental problems, but his analysis falls short – very far short – and displays massive confusion IMO:
…Ramsay also questioned whether Boris Johnson was a greener prime minister than Keir Starmer, saying: “[Johnson] did have some understanding of the need to regenerate the natural world, which Labour are very weak on. While there were early signs of some positive moves on renewable energy targets, that’s now being undermined by climate-wrecking decisions around things like airport expansion.”…
Greens completely fail to understand that renewable energy involves the industrialisation of our wild places on a massive scale. They are causing untold environmental damage, and the Greens are determined to double down on that. It’s a bizarre – and extremely annoying – paradox.
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“Miliband to strip councils of powers to block 800ft wind turbines”
Telegraph link. Will someone please think of the birds.
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“Ecologists Question Renewable Energy Sprawl”
WUWT commentary.
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“Biodiversity concerns over proposed Sea Link cable”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn4wm4pdkxro
The proposed location of a major power line development in Kent has been questioned by campaigners after the confirmation of endangered eels on the site.
The National Grid have put forward Minster Marshes in Thanet as the location for a large converter station for Sea Link – a 90-mile undersea electric cable linking the Suffolk coast to Kent.
However, George Cooper, of Save Minster Marshes, raised concerns that the character of the land would be lost if the plans go ahead….
…Nina Jones, a warden at Pegwell Bay, said she was concerned about the potential disruption building work could cause to the seal population and migrating birds.
“Cabling through this wonderful protection area is going to impact the habitats here at the salt marsh and the mud flats,” she said.
“We’re expecting 13.6 hectares of land to be disturbed at Minster Marshes, so we’re really worried about the long-term impact on habitat and wildlife.”...
But the government couldn’t give a t*ss. Apparently it’s too busy saving the planet to notice.
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“Massive Wind Turbine Expansion Puts Golden Eagle on Path to Possible American Extinction as Annual Death Rate Increase Leaps by 50%”
https://dailysceptic.org/2025/04/22/massive-wind-turbine-expansion-puts-golden-eagle-on-path-to-possible-american-extinction-as-annual-death-rate-increase-leaps-up-by-50/
Shocking new statistical evidence has emerged that suggests the golden eagle could be on a wind turbine-induced glide path to extinction in the United States. Eagle deaths due to wind turbines in the western US were increasing by around 9% a year from 2013 to 2020, but this annual increase leapt to 13% from 2020 to 2024, a jump of 49% in the annual increase in death rate. Bird maps are said to show that the relative abundance of golden eagles across much of their western range has declined and areas where declines occurred, “align with areas where the most turbines have been constructed”. There are fewer than 40,000 golden eagles in the US and the recent acceleration of wind infrastructure “could have a significant negative impact on the golden eagle population”….
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Mark: the French are being more proactive on the issue of wind farms killing birds…
Hopefully other countries will follow their example, especially us!
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“Fears Trump’s deep-sea mining order will irreparably harm ecosystems
Environment groups say Thursday order ignores effort to adopt rules to prevent harmful mining of ocean floor”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/26/trump-deep-sea-mining
The irony of this from Trump, who is gung-ho about fossil fuels.
...The world also must ask if it can afford to not mine deep-sea minerals that could help develop low-carbon technologies to fight climate change and whether the impacts can be managed, said Assheton Stewart Carter, chief executive of the global consulting firm TDi Sustainability.
“We face tough choices and the prospect of uncomfortable trade-offs if we are to face and find solutions to serious climate change problems,” he said.…
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Mark – as usual Trump or Assheton Stewart Carter throw a grenade into the Environment groups silo. You want clean energy “low-carbon technologies to fight climate change” well lets get going.
After all your offshore windfarms solutions aren’t exactly kind to ecosystems either.
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“Wind Farm Firm Convicted Over Pollution of Co Leitrim River”
https://afloat.ie/watersport/angling/item/67075-wind-farm-firm-convicted-over-pollution-of-co-leitrim-river
Tullynamoyle Windfarm 5 Ltd was found to have caused silt to flow into a tributary of the River Bonet, and must now pay a fine and costs/expenses amounting to €4,900.…
...Mary Walsh, IFI Western region director (Ballina) said: “The Bonet river is a sensitive habitat and is under environmental pressure.
“The fishery is only open on a catch-and-release basis due to declining salmon stocks there.
“This was a significant pollution incident which potentially impacted the water quality, and posed a serious threat to our natural environment and fish populations.”
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“Plea to block wind farm over thousands of forecast bird deaths”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj68glee30eo
Conservation groups are urging ministers to reject plans for an offshore wind farm which the developer predicts will kill tens of thousands of seabirds.
Five charities, led by RSPB Scotland, have written to the first minister to argue that approving Berwick Bank in the Firth of Forth would undermine efforts to protect nature.
SSE says it has already amended its designs to minimise any potential risks to Scottish seabirds.
The Scottish government, which is considering whether to approve the project, says it cannot comment on live applications.
The proposed development – which would be one of the largest in the world – consists of up to 307 turbines across an area four times the size of Edinburgh.
It is positioned about 23 miles from the important seabird colonies of the St Abb’s Head National Nature Reserve and the Bass Rock…..
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An extraordinary thing to say about a site in sight of Bass Rock.
As I may have mentioned in the past, I have no faith in the collision risk models, which include enough fudge factors to output almost any answer required, depending on how you twiddle the knobs.
And yet again the opposers are in favour of wind farms – just somewhere else. Idiots.
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How can the Guardian publish this and not understand that their concerns about the building of 1.5 million homes should apply at least equally to the unrestrained building of wind farms, solar farms, monster pylons and BESS?
“Destroying our natural wealth makes us poorer in every sense of the word
Partha Dasgupta’s landmark study provided way to put a value on nature – but many fear report has been sidelined”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/03/new-approach-to-gdp-could-help-nature-survive-labours-housebuilding-plans
...as the Labour government moves ahead with a planning and infrastructure bill designed to promote growth, there are understandable fears the landmark report has been sidelined. Nature loss in the UK has been significant over many decades, but Labour’s message in the bill is that the developer knows best, and other considerations can take a back seat.
It’s why the National Trust has warned the bill is a “licence to kill nature” and the Office for Environmental Protection has advised the government that it is a “regression” in environmental law. Housing projects that protect natural habitats, include public transport and divert wastewater from running into local watercourses are deemed too expensive. Current planning rules already allow developers, in almost all cases, to “value engineer” these elements out of the design....
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“Race to mine metals for EV batteries threatens marine paradise”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0k36v50zvro
Stark images, captured from a drone by environmental campaigners and shared with the BBC, appear to show how nickel mining has stripped forests and polluted waters in one of the most biodiverse marine habitats on Earth.
The Raja Ampat archipelago – a group of small islands in Indonesia’s Southwest Papua Province – has been dubbed the “Amazon of the Seas”.
But mining for nickel – an ingredient in electric vehicle batteries and in stainless steel – has ramped up there in recent years...
...Aerial images show forest loss and sediment run-off into waters that are home to biodiverse coral reefs.
Global Witness told the BBC that land use for mining, across multiple small islands in the archipelago, increased by 500 hectares – equivalent to about 700 football pitches – between 2020 and 2024.…
…this ecological controversy is an example of how the demand for the metals needed to power battery technology – for electric cars and other low carbon energy sources – can damage the environment.
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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2025/jun/17/forests-fires-and-footings-earth-photo-award-winners-in-pictures
Scroll down to the fourth picture:
One of the deepest open pit copper mines in the world, this abandoned miners’ town has a cemetery that is gradually being subsumed by mineral ore extraction. We see the vastness of Chuquicamata, and the marks we make on the natural world, telling a story of unsustainable mining practices fuelled by increased global demand for copper ‘driven by its role as a critical primary element in the transition to renewable energy’
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I’m not sure the cemetery is being subsumed. The photographer should get back to us when the mine is actually creeping over the wall.
There are some poor pictures there. The top one, seemingly showcasing the idiocy of the modern environmentalist, about to plant trees in a clear-cut section, which is full of seeds waiting to sprout. Then the pathetic shredded sails of the tarps they threw over the Rhone Glacier. Some wholly unremarkable shots that have hardly been composed, it looks like. My interpretation is that it’s too easy to take photographs these days. When it was done by film, care had to be taken. Now you can take 1,000 frames and pick the best.
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“Lime bikes dumped in rivers ‘posing pollution risk'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8d1528yvy2o
Hundreds of Lime e-bikes have been dumped in rivers and canals since hire schemes were introduced across England – raising concerns about pollution and flooding.
The Canal and River Trust said it was a national problem and was having to spend thousands of pounds retrieving the bikes from waterways.
The charity said Nottingham was a particular hotspot, with eight or nine Lime bikes pulled from the canal each week.
Lime, the US company that runs the hire scheme in Nottingham and other cities, told the BBC it is working with various authorities to tackle the problem.
According to the Environment Agency, electric bikes pose a pollution risk because the batteries contain substances that can enter a watercourse if they remain submerged in water.
The Canal and River Trust said the number of Lime bikes being dumped nationally “could be into the thousands”.
“Whilst the quantities are a concern, and this is a drain on our resources, it’s worth remembering one bike alone can easily cause thousands of pounds worth of damage to a boat, tens of thousands of pounds of damage to canal infrastructure, and an incalculable value of damage to wildlife,” said Dick Vincent, the charity’s national towpath advisor….
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“The ‘sacrifice zone’: villagers resist the EU’s green push for lithium mining
Residents of a Portuguese rural idyll where four vast mines are planned are among those who feel they will pay too high a cost for the energy transition”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/21/lithium-mining-sacrifice-zone-portuguese-villagers-eu-energy-transition
…his rural idyll has been disturbed by miners drilling boreholes as they push to dig four vast lithium mines right beside the village. The prospecting has sparked resistance from residents who fear the mines will foul the soil, drain the water and fill the air with the rumbling thunder of heavy trucks.
“They are destroying everything,” said Gomes, who runs the only cafe in the village with his partner. “They are taking our peace.”
Covas do Barroso is among the first villages caught up in Europe’s efforts to green its economy. As the continent weans itself off fossil fuels that poison the air and heat the planet, demand for lithium is surging, to build batteries that can run electric vehicles and balance renewable-heavy power grids.
Across Europe, people living near lithium deposits appear unconvinced that mines will bring good jobs and are unmoved by pleas to stop a bigger ecological threat. Attempts to push projects through in the face of local resistance have been met with cries of “colonialism”.
In Serbia, broad swathes of society have taken to the streets over the past year to protest against a lithium mine planned for the Jadar valley. In France, a lithium mine planned beneath a kaolin quarry in Allier has alarmed activists and divided residents. In Covas do Barroso, in northern Portugal, people say their village – at the heart of a heritage farming region recognised by the United Nations – has been turned into a “sacrifice zone”.
“You’re talking about destroying an area that has been classified as a globally important agricultural heritage site, an example of sustainability, an area with a system of water management that is at least over 500 years old,” said Catarina Alves Scarrott, a member of the protest group Unidos em Defesa de Covas do Barroso (UDCB). “You’re going to sacrifice all of this for open-pit mines. And then, you start to ask: for what?”
The answer, for EU officials and the Portuguese government, is to obtain a soft white metal that is needed to stop burning fuels that make extreme weather dramatically worse – and do so without relying exclusively on foreign suppliers. Europe produces almost no lithium itself. More than three-quarters of the world’s raw supply comes from just three countries: Australia, Chile and China. The latter dominates the refined supply of lithium too....
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This article was the top story on the BBC website early this morning. When I checked this evening, not only is it not the top story, it isn’t even on the front page of the website at all, being buried under Science & Environment:
“Poisoned water and scarred hills
The price of the rare earth metals the world buys from China”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-66cdf862-5e96-4e6e-90b8-a407b597c8d9
...We found man-made lakes full of radioactive sludge and heard claims of polluted water and contaminated soil, which, in the past, have been linked to clusters of cancer and birth defects. These journeys were challenging.
Beijing appears sensitive to criticism of its environmental record. We were pulled over by police, questioned by them and stuck in a three-hour standoff with an unidentified mining boss who refused to let us leave unless we deleted our footage….
…Further south, in the mining hub of Ganzhou, small, circular concrete ponds full of toxic waste sit on top of steep, eroded hilltops – many of the pools are uncovered and open to the elements...
…Research going back decades has linked the rare earth mines to deforestation, soil erosion and chemical leaks into rivers and farmland.…
…As the demand for pocket gadgets, electric vehicles, solar panels, MRI machines and jet engines surges, there is one worrying statistic to contend with – mining just one tonne of rare earth minerals creates some 2,000 tonnes of toxic waste.…
And much more.
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I have always liked Simon Jenkins, regarding him as a rare voice of reason at the Guardian. This piece leaves me somewhat conflicted, as I think it’s something of a curate’s egg. There is much that I agree with, but bits that I don’t, such as the idea that we need to achieve net zero, or that “The obvious place for them [wind farms] is offshore on the shallow shelf around the British Isles. There they are less intrusive and less controversial. Less intrusive to humans based on land, no doubt, but not to offshore wildlife.
“Ed Miliband would let a turbine farm destroy Brontë country. We need net zero, but at what cost?
Of course the climate crisis must be confronted, but history, tranquility and beauty must also count for something”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/14/ed-miliband-turbine-farm-bronte-country-net-zero-climate-crisis
Here are the good bits:
...I cannot think of any British government for half a century that would have dreamed of destroying this place [Bronte country]. Yet the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, apparently wants to do so, with the largest onshore windfarm in England, the Calderdale Energy Park. He clearly regards this unique landscape as the perfect spot for 41 giant wind turbines, each no less than 200m tall. Their height would top Blackpool Tower by 40m.
This is near unbelievable. The glorious Pennine Way, which traverses the area, would be reduced to a stroll through an industrial park visible for miles around, one of roads, depots and servicing trucks. The Saudi-backed firm behind the scheme, Calderdale Wind Farm Ltd, only recently agreed not also to coat the surface peat in solar panels….
…s soon as the general is reduced to the particular, judgments have to be made and compromises reached. Many argue that the cost of Britain’s net zero – a political ambition rather than a plausible target – contributes towards UK households paying some of the highest energy bills in the world. The basis of these bills, and Miliband’s unrealised pledge to reduce them, is a series of near-incomprehensible algorithms. We pay huge subsidies to renewable companies…
…Clearly a judgment should be made as to where, if anywhere, onshore wind turbines should be located. They are peculiarly intrusive, imposing their presence, their height and their motion on their surroundings. I have seen them sited in industrial zones and brownfield areas, to which it is hard to take exception. I have also seen them wreck rural Northamptonshire and they are about to deface the mountains of mid-Wales.…
...Unless we rediscover a language to discuss the beauty of place, we cannot conduct this debate. Money will always do the talking. When town and country planning was formalised in the 1940s, it was on the basis of a consensus that certain landscapes were beautiful and should enjoy protection. When town conservation areas were introduced in 1967, the same consensus applied. There was an assumption of aesthetic value that has obtained ever since. It is plain that it no longer does so.
I am not aware of the present government having ever deigned to mention beauty with regard to the environment, built or natural. That a foreign conglomerate can honestly expect to be subsidised by the British taxpayer to wreck the Pennine Hills suggests a cabinet with no idea what merits protection and what does not.
I would like to see how Miliband’s Camden neighbours would react if he proposed a field of 200m turbines on the slopes of his local beauty spot, Parliament Hill Fields. He might argue that the turbines should be cheap to build and need few pylons to get to market. He might say Camden has a duty to save the world, and might even knock a hundred quid off local energy bills, as he has suggested elsewhere.
But I imagine Miliband’s Hampstead backyard would erupt as never before. If he then gave way to them, what would be his argument?
I rather wish Miliband would indeed try a turbine park in Parliament Hill Fields. We might learn a lot.
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I’m no more a fan of Musk than is the Guardian, but it’s interesting how (absent the observations on German politics) the complaints and concerns made about his German mega-factory apply, mutatis mutandis, to very many renewable energy developments:
“Musk’s giant Tesla factory casts shadow on lives in a quiet corner of Germany”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/14/musk-giant-tesla-factory-germany
...For Grünheide’s residents who oppose Musk, their preoccupation remains the impact of the factory on their rural community, which is characterised by its woodlands, lakes and rivers.
Existing cycle paths have been diverted, and new roads have required the felling of large swathes of pine forest, threatening the already perilous supplies of drinking water in a region declared a drought zone, the driest anywhere in Germany.
The 300-hectare (740 acre) large factory complex itself is due to be expanded in the near future by a further 100 hectares, under plans signed off by Grünheide’s mayor despite a local referendum in which 62% expressed their opposition.…
…Hoyer, who lives 9km from the factory, said she had not relinquished her dream of one day being able to see a starry sky from her garden again. “Since the factory was built the light pollution from the round-the-clock operation has put paid to that,” she said, showing before and after pictures on her mobile phone.
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“How the rise of green tech is feeding another environmental crisis”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c30741j351go
…this soaring demand has raised the question: is the world’s race to decarbonise unintentionally stoking another environmental problem?…
To which the obvious answer is “yes”.
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“China starts building world’s biggest hydropower dam
1.2tn yuan project has broken ground in Tibet, premier says, despite fears of downstream nations India and Bangladesh”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/21/china-starts-building-world-biggest-hydropower-dam-yarlung-tsangpo-river-tibet
…Environmentalists have also expressed concern about wildlife in the region, as well as the significant tectonic shifting, severe landslides and extreme geography where the dam is expected to go.
The Chinese government rejects the criticism, and says the project will stimulate jobs in the region, increase domestic energy supplies and spur on development in the renewables sector....
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“Large rise in abuse claims at mines that may be vital to EU’s energy transition, report says
Researchers find 270 allegations at mineral projects across 13 countries in Europe and central Asia last year”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/22/large-rise-abuse-claims-mines-vital-eu-energy-transition-report
Mines on the EU’s periphery that could be critical to its energy transition have recorded a large rise in allegations of abuse ranging from workplace deaths to soil pollution, a report has found, with a threefold increase in 2024 from the average of the five previous years.…
…Violations of environmental safety standards accounted for 38% of allegations affecting communities, the report found, followed by air pollution at 27%, and soil and water pollution at 20% each.….
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“Scarborough struggles with ‘gull muggings’ as urban seabird population rises”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/aug/19/scarborough-gull-muggings-urban-seabird-population
Bear with me…:
…It may not be obvious from a walk down Scarborough promenade but herring gulls and kittiwakes – two of the species commonly known as seagulls – are at risk of extinction in Britain.
A combination of overfishing, warmer seas and offshore windfarms have caused such a decline in their numbers that they are now “red listed” as birds of conservation concern.…[my emphasis].
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Does this mean that the facade has cracked? Are we now on the same page as the Guardian re: these disgusting machines?
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“Assessing, monitoring and mitigating the effects of offshore wind farms on biodiversity”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s44358-025-00074-5
Key points
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Quite pathetic to claim any positives, I think. Put it like this: it is very easy to create an artificial reef, without building a windfarm. In fact you can do it for nothing – there are enough floating hulks out there that one could be sacrificed to create such a reef.
There is actually a difference here to oil rigs – which are used for nesting by birds, and yet those nest sites have to be destroyed when the rig is decommissioned.
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“Utter folly. UK’s expansion of wind farms could lead to ecological disaster.”
https://jasonendfield.medium.com/utter-folly-uks-expansion-of-wind-farms-could-lead-to-ecological-disaster-76be5e3b215c
Conclusion:
Pursuing failed solution is insanity
As we witness whales being washed ashore in increasing numbers, and birds being killed by the blades of huge wind turbines sited in the midst of their habitat, even more unseen damage is occurring to essential ecosystems on land and at sea, while at the same time large tracts of pristine natural landscapes and seascapes are desecrated in the name of progress.
Nature has warned us that we are damaging the planet. Now that we are experiencing the very palpable signs of that damage, what should be our course of action? Surely to scale back industrialisation and curb overconsumption? But no, it seems the choice has been made to monetize a failed solution to the energy crisis and pursue it at all costs, making a bad situation much much worse. It is literally insanity. There isn’t sufficient research, and we don’t have nearly enough knowledge to begin to understand the damage we might be doing.
We know that there are many industries that pollute and harm the natural world, and regrettably we know that too many humans just don’t care about it. We are on a road to self destruction, taking with us so many other species as we sink into the depths of an increasingly self indulgent, smug attitude towards life. But why exacerbate the dire situation by knowingly pursuing a plan that will clearly result in yet more destruction and death? Wind farms are little more than a money making exercise on a grand scale, cheered on by those who are either deluded, ignorant or will benefit from the industry in some way.
I cling to the hope that nature will overcome humankind’s folly, though some humans seem hell bent on fighting to the bitter end.
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“Finance for transition mineral mining is driving destruction and abuse, says report
Hundreds of billions of dollars invested in extractive mining for green transition with few safeguards, research finds”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/03/finance-for-transition-mineral-mining-is-driving-destruction-and-abuse-says-report
The financing of transition mineral mining is driving widespread environmental destruction and human rights abuses, according to a report.
Banks and investors have ploughed hundreds of billions of dollars into companies mining for minerals for the manufacture of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, energy grids and electric vehicles in the past decade, according to the research.
But the institutions funding this extraction have “dangerously weak” environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies relating to mineral mining, the report says, with most lacking any meaningful safeguards for communities and ecosystems.
“Without urgent reform, finance will continue to reinforce an extractive, high-risk model that undermines both climate and nature goals, and tramples human rights,” according to the report.
Maurício Angelo, the executive director of Mining Observatory, said: “Mining is one of the main causes of the climate crisis and now presents itself as a central part of the solution to the problem in the energy transition without changing its exploration model and value chain worldwide. This is a glaring contradiction that can no longer be ignored by decision-makers.”…
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“Chinese-linked mining firms sued over ‘ecological catastrophe’ in Zambia”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy7p51l60rro
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“How Chinese rare-earth mining threatens the Mekong River
Rare-earth mining in Myanmar is polluting the Mekong River with toxic metals, threatening ecosystems, food security, and water supplies across mainland Southeast Asia.”
https://www.dw.com/en/is-rare-earth-mining-putting-the-mekong-river-at-risk/a-74026166
Ecologists are warning that mainland Southeast Asia faces a looming ecological disaster unless urgent steps are taken to address the rare-earth mining boom in war-torn Myanmar.
According to Global Witness, a London-based watchdog, Myanmar has become the world’s largest source of heavy rare-earth elements. These minerals are essential for manufacturing high-tech products like wind turbines, electric vehicles and medical devices.
Most of these mines are located in Shan state, where civil war has raged since the 2021 military coup.
Earlier this year, Thailand’s Department of Pollution Control found arsenic levels nearly four times higher than World Health Organization (WHO) limits in parts of the Kok River, a Mekong tributary flowing into Thailand from Myanmar. Other toxic metals were also detected at dangerous levels.…
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“The race to find a way to recycle old turbine blades from windfarms
Made from carbon fibre, they are difficult to break down, but in UK and elsewhere in Europe there are plans to tackle the waste”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/sep/21/recycle-turbine-blades-windfarms-uk-europe
…By 2030 Europe is expected to dismantle about 14,000 wind turbines, creating 40,000-60,000 tonnes of blade waste, according to WindEurope. Germany alone will account for approximately 23,300 tonnes, followed by Spain with 16,000 and Italy with 2,300.
The US wind power industry is expected to follow suit. By 2050 the government expects wind turbine blade waste to range from about 200,000 to 370,000 tonnes a year as windfarms approved under the Biden administration reach the end of their lives….
…the fact that some of the world’s oldest turbines have been dumped in landfill has raised concerns over the industry’s sustainability credentials.…
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“Study finds female crabs drawn to power cables”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2dlkndz9eo
New university research has suggested the behaviour of female crabs could be influenced by underwater electric power cables.
The University of Portsmouth study found the crustaceans were attracted to the electromagnetic fields, similar to those in cables used by offshore wind farms.
Researchers raised concern that this could disrupt where female crabs lay their eggs, as the creatures might stay near underwater cables instead of continuing their natural migrations, which could impact population levels.
PhD student Elizabeth James conducted the study and said we need to think carefully about how offshore energy infrastructure affects marine life….
…Co-author, Prof Alex Ford from the University of Portsmouth’s school of the environment and life sciences, said: “As we rapidly expand offshore renewable energy to meet climate targets, we need to ensure we’re not inadvertently creating new environmental problems while solving others.”
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“Forest turbine plan prompts fears for red squirrels”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwydll738dxo
A wildlife charity is opposing plans to build wind turbines in a forest amid fears it “would increase the chances of local extinction” of red squirrels in mid Wales.
Renewable energy firm Galileo Empower wants to build 19 turbines in a forest east of Lampeter, Ceredigion.
But the Wildlife Trust of South & West Wales (WTSWW) said it would also affect the Bryn Arau Duon Forest in Carmarthenshire which offered a “rare refuge” for red squirrels, free from grey squirrels….
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“Can Colombia embrace clean energy without damaging the Amazon?
At the foot of the Andes, a Canadian firm has plans for one of the country’s biggest copper mines, but many say the carbon-rich forests and clean rivers are too high a price to pay”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/oct/13/colombia-clean-energy-without-damaging-amazon-copper-mining
…the mining concession overlaps with the protective forest reserve of the upper Mocoa River basin, a conservation area that is home to more than 350 species of flora and fauna and serves as a critical water source for local communities. He also warned that the use of explosives and heavy metals in copper extraction endangers the integrity of the protected area and other fragile ecosystems, such as the water-generating páramos (tropical Andean wetland grassland ecosystems), that are located within the mining concessions.…
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“Orange-bellied parrots have swelled back from imminent extinction – but now they face a new threat
Experts warn approving a windfarm in the habitat of one of Australia’s most critically endangered birds could be ‘rolling the dice’ on their survival”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/11/orange-bellied-parrots-have-swelled-back-from-imminent-extinction-but-now-they-face-a-new-threat
...In 2022, the Tasmanian Environment Protection Authority found operating a windfarm on the island while orange-bellied parrots were migrating would be at odds with the species’ national recovery plan that was signed off by the federal and state governments, and ruled the development could go ahead only if it shut for five months each year. That decision was later overturned by the state’s planning appeals tribunal.
In his federal approval, Watt rejected the EPA position, but required Acen to carry out three years of parrot monitoring before construction and develop a bird and bat management plan – a standard requirement for windfarm operators – that could lead to the “curtailment or shutdown of all or some turbines” at certain times. His decision has been has been opposed by Birdlife Australia, which said the island should be a no-go zone, and sharply criticised by some environment groups and Tasmanian Greens MPs.
Holdsworth says the farm’s approval is “deeply troubling”, and believes authorities are “rolling the dice” on the parrot’s survival while also funding its attempted recovery. He believes a monitoring program would need to run for between 10 and 20 years to give a clear picture of the species’ flight path, but agrees with other scientists that there is evidence that orange-bellied parrots cross the island….
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“Indonesian Rainforests Turned Into Open-Cast Mining Pits to Improve Range of High-End Electric Vehicles”
https://dailysceptic.org/2025/10/20/indonesian-rainforests-turned-into-open-cast-mining-pits-to-improve-range-of-high-end-electric-vehicles/
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“Moray Council approves four wind turbines at Caird Wood near Keith”
https://www.grampianonline.co.uk/news/new-wind-turbines-approved-as-woodland-near-keith-to-be-clea-417268/
Councillors have granted permission to clear an area of woodland the size of 26 football pitches to build four wind turbines.…
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“Labour plans to chop down forests for solar farms
Politicians and conservation charities alarmed at changes to Bill opening up England’s forests to massive renewable energy projects”
https://archive.ph/OEQw7#selection-2127.4-2131.135
Woodlands face being cleared to make way for solar farms and wind turbines under Labour’s latest plans to hit net zero targets.
Ministers are spearheading a legal change that would open up England’s forests to host massive new renewable energy projects.
The proposals have sparked alarm among conservation charities, peers and MPs, who fear they will lead to the loss of precious natural spaces.
The proposals are buried in the Government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which is in its final stages in the Lords and is expected to become law soon.
The legislation will grant the Forestry Commission, the quango that manages England’s woodlands, the power to use its lands for green energy.
That will include the construction of solar farms and wind turbines as well as battery storage plants and electricity transmission lines such as pylons….
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“Impacts of onshore wind energy production on biodiversity”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s44358-025-00078-1
…Across the construction, operation and decommissioning stages, wind facilities are associated with wildlife fatality and behavioural change as well as alteration, loss and fragmentation of terrestrial and aerial habitat.…
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“Wind and Solar Farms Set to Take Over Up to 9% of Total UK Land Area”
https://dailysceptic.org/2025/10/29/wind-and-solar-farms-set-to-take-over-up-to-9-of-total-uk-land-area/
Paywalled, unfortunately.
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“‘Drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping’: the lawless rush for rare earth minerals in Venezuela
Guerrilla groups have seized control of mining areas, exploiting Indigenous people and fuelling environmental ruin on the border with Colombia”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/nov/07/drug-trafficking-extortion-kidnapping-the-lawless-rush-for-rare-earth-minerals-in-venezuela
…The rare earth elements and critical minerals are being extracted in areas under the control of guerrilla groups, involving systematic human rights abuses and accelerating environmental destruction in one of Earth’s most vital ecosystems.…
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“‘Will it change the weather? Will wildlife cope?’: Europe’s rush to build energy projects in Chile might not be as green as it seems
The country’s government is upbeat about the economic prospects of the growing number of windfarms, solar parks and industrial complexes but others warn of ‘green colonialism’”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/nov/14/chile-patagonia-green-energy-hydrogen-foreign-companies-pollution-indigenous-people
…European and British firms are investing heavily in green hydrogen megaprojects in Chile, which will convert thousands of square kilometres into windfarms, solar parks and industrial infrastructure. More than 50 green hydrogen projects have been announced by companies across the country, primarily in the southern region of Patagonia and the Atacama desert in northern Chile.
While the developments may seem positive for the world’s transition to clean energy, they have been criticised by Chilean researchers, environmentalists and community leaders, who say they threaten wildlife and jeopardise the livelihoods of farmers and fishing communities.…
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“‘Substations vital for UK energy’ – National Grid”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g711v2p20o
A public consultation opening later will provide further details on plans for two industrial substations to be built on farmland in southern Lincolnshire.
National Grid said the construction of Weston Marsh substations A and B, near Spalding, was “vital” for the future of the UK’s energy supply.
The proposals are part of the 87-mile (140km) Grimsby to Walpole pylon plan, which has drawn objections from Lincolnshire County Council and communities along the route.
Jenny Pennington, who lives close to the proposed substation site, said she was concerned about what her family could soon be living near to and that it was “not good news for the area”...
…In a statement, the company added: “Electricity demand in the UK, and in Lincolnshire, is expected to double by 2050 and the existing network cannot accommodate the growth.”…
Scrap net zero, and the need for this falls away.
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Criminal. I know that area intimately. It is isolated, very rural, very flat, Lincolnshire farmland. For many years I walked my dogs along the raised footpath/flood defences which flank the River Welland, and across public footpaths on the farmland itself. Any industrialisation of that landscape would be seen for miles and would destroy the rural nature, the tranquility and unique beauty of that landscape.
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“Turbine plan unveiled near wild goat cull site”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy47gj343zvo
An 18-turbine wind farm is being planned on hills where wild goats are being culled near Newcastleton in the Borders.
Oxygen Conservation said the goat cull was to preserve habitats – but it has led to campaigners submitting a petition to the Scottish government demanding better protection.
Last week, Low Carbon UK revealed it wanted to erect 720ft (220m) turbines on part of the area now owned by Oxygen Conservation – with the closest turbine being less than two miles (3.2km) from the village….
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“Deep-sea mining tests impact over a third of seabed animals – scientists”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cedx2p8gnx9o
Machines mining minerals in the deep ocean have been found to cause significant damage to life on the seabed, scientists carrying out the largest study of its kind say.
They found that the number of animals found in the tracks of the vehicles was reduced by 37% compared to untouched areas.
The researchers found more than 4,000 animals, 90% of which were new species, living on the seafloor in a remote area of the Pacific Ocean.
Vast amounts of critical minerals needed for green technologies could be locked in the deep ocean, but deep sea mining in international waters is very controversial and currently not permitted until more is known about the environmental impacts.…
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