Bishop Hill Sounds a bit off
Dec 3, 2013 Bureaucrats DECC Energy: wind 
Last week I discussed the work of Mike Stigwood on windfarm noise and the fact that the windfarm lobby had managed to nobble the Institute of Acoustics inquiry into the issue.
Today, a report in the Telegraph not only provides some confirmation of Stigwood's story, but also reveals that the green lobby's attempts to corrupt the policy process went even further than that. It seems that they also gained access to DECC officials and, a cynic might think, managed to get them to alter the official guidance on windfarm noise.
Internal energy department emails released following a freedom of information request show the lobby group met ministry officials, after which it was assured that “the majority of R-UK’s input” was “reflected in the guidance”.
Both the Government and the report’s author said last night that RenewableUK had not influenced the advice, but the emails raise new questions about the Coalition’s openness over its wind farm policy.
The FOI request on which this story was based is here.
[Update:the FOI reveals that DECC were using a wind-industry acoustician, from RES].
Reader Comments (39)
Big Wind has a creepy way of influencing things.
This is not the first time DECC officials have made sure that noise reports are amended to hide the facts. Mike Hulme of Den Brook fame (the Wind Farm Wars) used FOI to discover that unknown DECC officials had removed evidence from a report concerning the adverse health effects of wind turbine noise.
Mike Stigwood (the Stig) has a new paper out in the Acoustics Bulletin, November/December 2013, pages 18-22, entitled "IOA good practice guide, excess amplitude modulation and the failure of wind farm noise controls"
So what was wrong with the old British Standard that did the job for years? Too difficult to meet? But that means it was doing its job...
Reminds me of football "not interfering with play".
If not to influence the advice, what were Renewable UK there to do? Brew the tea using a solar kettle?
The FOI shows that the legal firm of Eversheds (who do considerable work for the wind industry) and RES (who are wind industry developers and whose main acoustic expert that I am aware of is a Dr Jeremy Bass, the person who has been trying to fool Mike Hulme at Den Brook) have been heavily involved in influencing DECC. This is clear evidence of corruption within Whitehall.
jamesp: If the British Standard for industrial noise in the environment were applied to wind turbines, then no industrial-sized wind turbines would be built in England. The only industries which have their own standards are the mining and quarrying industry (so that they can carry out blasting) and the wind industry (which wrote its own standard in 1996, ETSU-R-97).
"Dr Jeremy Bass" - nominative determinism or what?
Although hardly balanced. Where are doctors Treble and MidRange?
As is so often the case in CAGW-related matters, if they are so convinced that they are right, why the need for secrecy and deletion of data?
@kellydown: There's certainly a tweeter, although he's about to crossover. As for the woofer; well, the rumours are on the toilet doors...
This is not the only recent instance of the renewables industry becoming inveigled in Government business. Some people may have noticed that just this week the Scottish Government has ordered a study on the impact of wind turbines.
It's well known that soapy Salmond is a wind fanatic, and it came as no surprise that he has arranged for the impact study to be carried out by an organisation called Climate-Xchange, which is little better than a front for the renewables industry.
Oxburgh all over again.
The best book on this I've come across is 'Wind Turbine Noise', Bowdler, Leventhall et al. As well as providing good unbiased background info, it also points up the complexities around the issue in reasonably straightforward terms (it is intended for people like EHOs).
'Have a good weekend' - what sort of business relationship is that? Why would a civil servant be on such personal terms with a person who is essentially a lobbyist? Why is the civil servant so stupid that he can't separate his personal life from his business correspondence?
What's a 'catch-up on Monday'? Is there where we meet so you can tell me what I should be doing to ensure I'm doing your bidding correctly?
The fox has got the chickens asking 'when do you want to eat me?'
@ E J Thribb:
"well, the rumours are on the toilet doors..."
------------------------------------
Well, the rumours are on the toilet doors
Laboratory floors
Echoing the sounds
Of silence.
(Apologies to P. Simon)
Why isn't Owen Paterson and DEFRA in charge of this, and what's happened to the report rumoured to be stalled by Ed Davey on wind farm effect on rural house prices?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/10260729/Secret-wind-farm-report-into-house-price-blight.html
Dellingpole has just followed up -
'Wind farm noise: a government cover-up'
Pharos, this is what I received from Defra
The Delingpole article includes work of independent researchers Richard Cox, David Unwin and Trevor Sherman. Last year they produced an article "Wind turbine noise impact assessment - where ETSU is silent". Well worth a read. I have heard many wind industry acousticians at public inquiries and have read hundreds of their reports supporting wind farms and wind turbine applications. I have yet to come across an honest acoustician working for the wind industry. Lying and providing misleading information comes naturally to them, in the same way it does to employees of RenwableUK.
All is well!
UK Demand 51.7 GW
Wind has the awkward 1.7 GW covered!
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
I can see this is another of those circumstances where the class actions for damaged health will come flooding in after a few years and the lawyer's will force full disclosure. It will cost the tax payer millions in damages and fees but Davey et al will be comfortable with their gold plated publicly funded pensions.
I don't know why anyone over the age of ten is surprised. Whole UK establishment is rotten.
The Delingpole aricle includes a statement to the effect that the new noise standard (ETSU) was developed to get around the long-serving British Standard (BS 4142) with the implication that wind farms would not meet the criteria of BS 4142.
Has this been tested?
If independent tests show that the turbines exceed the limits of BS 4142 that would be strong reinforcement for the argument that ETSU is a put-up job.
All we can truly strive for is to repeat the FACTS over and over and over again to as wide an audience as we can muster. Eventually, the truth will out, and those who have tried to conceal it will pay the price they have tried to inflict upon all of us. Just look back in history to see that this is not the first such event of mass-deception, to eventually fall on the sword of truth; there must be similar stories throughout history… erm, aren’t there?
Perhaps opponents of wind turbines should create a legal fund so that those who feel they have a case, will have their legal fees covered.
Lets hope people take the wind industry to court!
I agree with mikeh (4:49pm)
I can't see how they could argue that noise from turbines is ok if it exceeds conventional noise limits. Is there an explanation somewhere as to why turbine noise is "different".
Schrodinger's -
No, turbines make a much less damaging form of loud noise, just as geothermal will use a much cleaner form of fracking.
BUT seriously, once again I am left wondering if eventually some people are going to prison. The level of corruption stinks. Nothing will be done though at present - too many snouts in the trough. The British Civil Service, which used to be the finest in the world, has been utterly subverted.
Also making a nice pile for the Cameron and Clegg families, Yeo, Deben, etc.
retireddave
"once again I am left wondering if eventually some people are going to prison"
I sincerely hope so and that the con men & liars who run RuinablesUK are first in the dock.
But whilst I vividly remember Tallbloke being raided by Special Branch, it is notable that the fuzz had IT equipment from CRU in their custody but spent their time looking for evidence of mysterious hackers but didn't bother to check for evidence of conspiracy to evade FOIA legislation, even though it was admitted at the time that there was prima facie evidence that the FOIA law had been deliberately broken (albeit was out of time and action could only have been taken on a conspiracy basis.)
None of this augurs well for the RuinablesUK's thieves having their collars felt.
If nationalism is the last refuge of the scoundrel then enviromentalism is the first.
The whole mess seems ripe for an episode of Blackadder- Hugh Laurie could play Ed Davey...
Why would the IoA accept being "nobbled"? What is in it for them? Would they not make a noise about it?
When I asked about why turbine noise was "different" I was trying to understand the technical differences between the DECC approach to wind turbine noise compared with the method and standards for the assessment of all other noises for the purpose of establishing safe limits.
The reason for any difference and the motivation for claiming one could be challenged in the courts.
Chandra, there may be some correlation (not causation, mind) between commercial property prices and demand for acoustics engineers - the former continues to struggle. Other institutes (I of Engineers, for example) have shamefully prostituted themselves at the greenwash door. Just sayin'
SC, Delingpole's article mainly quotes the scientific bit. Sorry, can't do html links, so here:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100248760/wind-farm-noise-a-government-cover-up/
So the new conspiracy theory is that the IoA accepted its inquiry being "nobbled" in order for its members to cash in one the flood of work from... whom? The idea that scientists are lying about climate in order to secure research grants is a denier staple, and as conspiracy theories goes quite batty, but this new one takes the biscuit.
There is a simple and objective way of finding out whether or not wind turbines are a nuisance. Just build them close to the homes of leading Greens, MPs, civil servants, journalists supporting the green agenda, etc.
If, after a few years, they and their families are all completely happy with those Martians from H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds, then there would be not reason for objecting to them being built elsewhere - unless you hold to the old fashioned idea that energy should be produced using reliable and cost-effective technology!
So, Chandra, you have a conspiracy theory that we are all engaged in a conspiracy theory as we have noticed that is considerable dissonance between what “science” is telling us and what the real world is.
Had you actually read many of the e-mails of the “Climategate” era, you will have found that there actually was a degree of lying to ensure funding; there were also plots to destroy the careers of those who did not fully agree with them (Chris de Freitas, University of Auckland, editor of Climate Review, being perhaps the best example).
Ah, but facts have never been your strong point, have they?
So, Chandra, you admit you haven't read any of the e-mails involved. And you call us deniers!
Chandra, what you and your stable-mate, ZDB, do not understand is that simply writing ad hom attacks is not a very good way to conduct an argument. Learn from Euan Mearns, an early challenger to many, who argues with sound, solid, verifiable evidence. Bander FACTS about, and people might actually listen.
The main business of acousticians these days is working for the wind industry, and it is very lucrative, so why would the IoA not want to keep the wind industry in business by keeping in place ETSU-R-97, whose sole purpose is to ensure that the wind industry is not inconvenienced by not being able to erect turbines near peoples' houses?
I quote from the first paragraph of the Executive Summary of ETSU-R-97
So in their own words, when the wind industry drew up the noise limits, their profits were more important than people's health.
Acousticians are working for both sides - the industry and affected members of the public. This has led to some entertaining spats. I suggest looking at Acoustics Australia, probably the first issue of this year or the last of 2012, where the two camps are tearing lumps out of each other. In short, acousticians as stooges of renewable industry, is an unreasonable simplification.
Crony Capitalism in action!!
DECC is an absolute disgrace, riddled with corruption and should be disbanded!!