LET'S HAVE MORE OF THAT!!

Something rather odd going on.

"Wind of Change" understands that Mr Jeremy Vine was discussing the plans for the new generation of nuclear power stations in the UK on his BBC Radio 2 lunchtime programme. Our sources inform us that Mr Vine received a number of phonecalls from people living in proximity to the planned reactors.

Overall, everybody seemed rather enthusiastic about the new power stations. Fukushima hadn't bothered them? Oh no - you see, the thing about nuclear is that it's clean!

That's right. 'Clean'. Nuclear is the new renewable.

Meanwhile, any mention of windfarms in the media or on the 'net sets off a mini-Fukushima of its own. Windfarms, it seems, are the new nuclear.

Read a right-wing newspaper or read up online and you'd be forgiven for thinking that windfarms are pretty toxic. They are awful, inexcusable, utterly worthless eyesores that ruin your health. They stop people sleeping at nights, produce absolutely no electricity (except when they produce too much), they catch fire, fall over, frighten the horses and massacre bats by blowing their lungs to pieces.

By one recent estimate, snarled by someone on a website, wind energy is 3 - 15 times as expensive as nuclear. Yes, somebody actually made that claim. Because wind turbines are made out of precious metals and cost money. Nuclear, of course, is practically free.

Unless you count half a million years of hazardous waste. And the massive subsidies. And presumably the uranium doesn't come cheap.

But it's odd, isn't it? Even people who claim to be living near proposed nuclear power stations just can't get enough of them (nuclear's so clean, you see? It's like the new renewable) while anyone mentions windfarms and - whoosh! - there's an army of 'experts' out there ready to pounce.

The world, dear friends, has turned upside down.

This, it turns out, is a rather English thing. Scotland has decided on no more nuclear power stations. Fukushima went slightly pop, there was a meltdown and we're still not quite sure how bad the problem is. In Germany, this prompted a government decision to listen to the public and wind down the whole nuclear power thing. Switzerland came to a similar decision and Italy voted in a referendum to put a stop to their nuclear power industry.

A serious drought and rampant wildfires in the southern United States have caused a few jitters. The Los Alamos nuclear power facility is surrounded by wildfires and many people have been evacuated from the region.

Today, we hear that a nuclear power station in Scotland has had to close down because jellyfish have clogged up its water intake (without water, a nuclear power station is basically the world's biggest dirty bomb waiting to go of: think of your car engine running out of water and overheating, then think of the Apocalypse - that's the idea).

But the thing about nuclear is that it's so reliable. Which is why Britain's newest power station spent most of last year generating absolutely nothing. Nada.

When nuclear power stations suddenly go off-grid - happens quite a lot - then the Grid really has to deal with a sudden loss of electricity input. And then the buggers can be off-line for months.

At least the wind is fairly predictable, and windfarms produce electricity most of the time. And we don't all have to run for the hells in terror if a fire breaks out nearby. And if one does go pop, 80,000 people don't have to move away, possibly forever.

Bringing a nuclear power station back online a few months ago caused a sudden rush in the Grid's input and it a few turbines had to stop turning for a while to compensate for the overload. What happened? The right-wing press tried to make out that it was all the turbines' fault!! That was the occasion when they went from producing 'nothing' to producing 'too much' in one fell swoop. But if you think about it, it was actually the nuclear power station that went straight from producing nothing to producing too much. The wind turbines were just carrying on as normal. So who gets the blame?

There is a serious propaganda war going on out there at the moment. A huge number of lies are being spread about windpower. An enormous stinking great landfill of lies.

At the same time, there's a great deal of subtle and not-so subtle pro-nuclear lobbying going on. Can this really be unconnected to the anti-windfarm gobbledegook that is seemingly everywhere at the moment.

The nuclear industry is in this to win - there's a lot of money at stake here. There's also a completely fake and phoney line being spun out there that wind power relies entirely on government subsidies. Without all those huge and tasty subsidies being thrown about by HMG no one would even think of putting up a wind turbine. It's not true. But there is one industry which has always relied on MASSIVE government subsidies and is eagerly hoping for more. The nuclear industry.

It's so clean, you see? Nuclear, that is. Except that there's nothing much cleaner than the wind (though not around in Fukushima at the moment), and barely any waste at all at the end of the day - a concrete plinth, if that. Instead, say, of an environment of life-threatening danger which will last longer than any human civilisation. Funny - our local raving nimbies claimed that a windfarm of five turbines would KILL THE COUNTRYSIDE and CHANGE THE LANDSCAPE FOR EVER. A windfarm couldn't do that if it tried. A nuclear reactor could.

Sudden shutdowns. Crippling expense. Everlasting lethal waste. Radioactive leaks. Half a million years. Plutonium. Weapons. Terrorism. Natural catastrophe. Jellyfish. Three Mile Island. Chernobyl. Leukemia. Meltdown. Shortages. Yeah, let's have lots more of that.

People who campaign against windfarms are absolute tossers.

THREE CHEERS FOR FINTRY!!!

There are times when one can get a little weary of hearing all the familiar, nonsensical anti-windfarm blather from self-appointed experts who take their so-called "facts" from nimby groups and the grotesquely misnamed Renewable Energy Foundation.

And then there are those moments when the clouds part and a golden ray of truth shines down.

One of those moments is mentioned here:-

http://www.greenenergynet.com/blog/community-energy-film-wind-change-released

Basically, those wonderfully far-sighted, community-minded people in Fintry have made a video about all the brilliant things they've been able to do because they welcomed their local windfarm and even arranged for one of the turbines to be owned by the community itself.

And the title they've come up with for their video is just superb. Best title ever. We're sure you'll agree.

The sad thing is that anti-windfarm videos spread round nimby groups like a particularly nasty virus, whereas a fantastic pro-windfarm video - based on the experiences of those who actually know what they're talking about - is unlikely to be seen by the majority of people whose heads have been messed with by groups like VVASP and REF. Which really doesn't help matters very much.

But still, always good to know that some real information, and not just the usual nimby lies, is out there.

Meanwhile, here's a two-minute video you might appreciate, if only to prove that, unlike our anti-wind friends, supporters of wind power have a sense of humour:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mTLO2F_ERY

Enjoy!!

THE PRICE OF FREEDOM

is eternal vigilance, or so we're told. It's also a matter of understanding what we mean by freedom. In the wrong circumstances, one person's "freedom" is another's enslavement, in which case it isn't freedom at all.

We currently face an epic crisis in this country. It's not just the looming "perfect storm" of peak oil, climate change and ever-decreasing natural resources. It's the crisis of democracy.

In the BBC's "Windfarm Wars" documentary, protesters against the Den Brook Windfarm plans met the news that their legal appeal had failed with the suggestion that democracy had somehow been overruled, and "people power" had counted for nothing.

Of course, that phoney argument depends on a very narrow interpretation of the word "democracy". Such a flexible notion of what democracy might be is typical of the nimby movement. VVASP, for example, proclaimed a triumph for "democracy" when planning permission was refused for the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm. And yet various surveys have shown that the majority of Worcestershire residents want windfarms. So Wychavon's rejection of the windfarm plans was in reality an undemocratic triumph for a very small number of biased, bigoted and brainwashed protesters.

Even at the local level, VVASP had to "reinterpret" the outcome of local polls in order to claim a majority of opinion on their side. Parish council polls showed that a clear minority of local residents were prepared to express opposition to the windfarm plans. The practised liars of VVASP managed to convert the results into an "overwhelming majority" of opposition, and because the new MP for Redditch is so craven and dim it was VVASP's doctored and grossly inaccurate figures that were read out at the planning meeting.

The Den Brook Windfarm saga is even more alarming. There, one man is effectively standing in the way of progress, the common good, the nation's need and the will of the vast majority. Mike Hulme's continued attempts to stall the development have developed into a fanatical obsession. Egged on by the propagandists of the Renewable Energy Foundation (motto: "What's Renewables Got To Do With It?"), Mr Hulme has repeatedly proven that democracy can be totally overturned by a handful of single-minded obsessives.

In such an atmosphere, lies become currency. Real freedom has no need to tell lies. The artificial, right-wing "freedom" of the nimby movement is based on and sustained by lies. It cannot therefore be freedom, except in the narrowest definition of the word. And the hypocritical "freedom" desired by such selfish people is, in reality, the destruction of Britain's best interests.

Elsewhere, democracy is working rather well. Germany, responding to the democratic will of the people, is winding down its nuclear industry. Italy looks set to follow suit - once again, the love of right-wing politicians for the nuclear nightmare has not been shared by the majority of voters.

But in Britain, where a dangerously out-of-control right-wing press continually makes up stupid stories about windfarms, and nutty rural immigrants try their hardest to believe these obviously stupid stories, democracy hangs in the balance.

The majority of Britons want renewables, and windfarms score very highly in most surveys. But a tiny minority, fed on misleading and inaccurate propaganda, don't want them. Which means that the UK is lagging behind (or, at least, England is - Scotland has been infinitely more sensible in this matter).

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. It behoves every single one of us to keep a watchful lookout for the sort of lies regularly published by the Murdoch press and the Daily Heil. As the "Windfarm Wars" documentary proved, if just one man relaxes his guard and begins to believe the lies spun by groups like REF, the outcome is a disaster for true democracy, and the entire country is effectively held to ransom by fanatics.

Freedom includes energy security. For future generations, it will also mean freedom from the worst ravages of climate change.

Which is why anti-windfarm nutcases and their cheerleaders in the fascist press must be recognised as the enemies of freedom. The view from their spare bedroom window is all that matters to these maniacs. And to protect their precious views, all of us must surrender our freedoms. We must accept a twisted form of democracy in which the minority dictates. We must fall for every myth and lie about windpower going, even when the stories don't make sense. We must ignore our consciences, along with scientific evidence and the testimonies of thousands who know what windfarms really are, and campaign against the greater good on behalf of a tiny fringe and their warped fixations.

Basically, we must do as we're told by a crazy bunch of liars, fools and frauds.

Is that what we really want?

THE FAIL STRIKES AGAIN

A lifetime ago, that august periodical known as the Daily Mail openly declared its admiration for a certain German Chancellor who went on to murder millions, simply because they were Jewish, black, gay, gypsies or disapproved somewhat of his fondness for invading other people's countries.

Treachery seems to run through the sclerotic arteries of the Daily Heil. That's why it regularly pays thirty pieces of silver to a deranged and slavering mutt known as Richard Littlejohn (we think the surname is really a nickname), so that he can unleash his peculiar brand of right-wing drivel on the British public from his home in Florida.

Given the immense problems we face - climate change, peak oil, energy security, etc, etc - it must be considered an act of treason not just to oppose sensible and urgent renewable developments but to shriek gormless lies about them just to keep the nimby readership of the Heil in full tut-tut mode. Which makes Littledick one of the biggest traitors of them all.

His barking rant in today's hate-Mail is typical. First of all, he wants to blame the rising costs of gas and electricity to the consumer entirely on the renewables industry. Forget wholesale prices and global shortages in natural resources, or the fact that Japan, embarrassed over its nuclear catastrophe, is now competing for natural gas imports - let's just pretend shall we that the real problem is windfarms. That's right. Don't attack the problem - blame the solution!

To begin with, this article questions whether Littlehampton and his pack of mongrel journalists are even right about the scale of the price increases:

http://fullfact.org/factchecks/energy_bills_prices_climate_change_taxes-2758

Now, we don't expect Littlebrain to get his facts right. After all, why break the habit of a lifetime? And, of course, his fatuous 'opinion' was instantly flagged up by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a group of nutters, led by Nigel Lawson, which exists to deny climate change, rather as the Renewable Energy Foundation exists to promote the use of fossil fuels.

Even so, Littlehope's grotesque excuse for a journalistic article does what all the right-wing papers do: trots out every false fact and disproven myth it can. Reading that sort of gibberish is very much like being at a nimby meeting, or one of VVASP's notorious rallies. Science and sense go out of the window. Lies are the currency.

Of course Littleman trots out the usual hogwash about windfarms never actually generating electricity (this usually comes in the same breath as the one about them being built only to generate subsidies, but since the Renewables Obligation Certificates are only awarded on the basis of the amount of electricity generated that argument doesn't really stand up). And then he gets all hot under the collar because some windfarm owners were paid money earlier this year to shut down their turbines.

This, said Littlewilly, was because it was an 'especially gusty night' - the windfarms 'were producing too much electricity and there was no capacity to store it.' In other words, in the mad, mad world of Littletwat and his barking believers, windfarms don't produce electricity, except on the one occasion when they produced too much.

You couldn't make it up, could you? Well, actually you could. Or rather, if you were Richard Littlecapacityforrationalthought, you did.

The problem was not that it was an 'especially gusty night' on 5/6 April 2011. The problem was that a thermo-nuclear power plant was being brought online after a rather typical period of outage (the myth that nuclear is reliable simply doesn't stand up, either).

It was not an 'especially gusty night', but it had rained heavily in Scotland, so that the hydroelectric facilities were all working at full pelt. Now, Scotland is a net exporter of electricity (all those windfarms, see?), but that night the main power lines to England went down.

Put simply, Scotland had more electricity on hand than it knew what to do with, couldn't sell it to England because the lines had gone down, and couldn't power down the nuclear reactors because that's a huge palaver.

The simplest, easiest and safest solution was to shut down a few turbines till the problem was over. As ever, the turbines proved to be more reliable than other sources (as with Japan - a nuclear meltdown, but the turbines stayed working as usual). Obviously, having gone to the trouble of installing the turbines, the windfarm owners were due compensation for the electricity that they would not be producing while everyone else flapped about like Keystone Kops.

What Littlewit and his fellow morons in Heil-land and elsewhere keep trying to hide is the fact that, once again, wind turbines saved the day.

But then, with an idiot like Littlejohn, working for a paper of traitors, what do you really expect?