10 more wind energy myths debunked: Madigan claims put to the test by Mike Barnard

Thank you all for your kind words and attention to the first installment of Whoppers of the Anti-wind Brigade, where Max Rheese's perplexingly a-factual views were subject to some scrutiny.  As you may remember, Mr Rheese managed 14 whoopers in a mere 17 minute radio interview covering some 1,685 words.

Our subject today is Senator John Madigan, the first elected federal representative of the Democratic Labour Party in Australia since 1974 and Victoria’s replacement for the entertaining Senator Steve Fielding.

Senator Madigan has been stirring up a name for himself in recent months attacking wind energy. Our goal is to see if he can achieve in a single web-page policy statement of 364 words what Max Rheese took a full radio interview and many more words to achieve. If you would like to play along at home, I would encourage you to review Senator Madigan'sposition on his party’s website (copied as of 31 October  2012 at the bottom of this article).

Those following the issue will remember that just this year Madigan called the wind industry sinister, powerful and dangerous. He’s called wind energy a scandal and he has described his wind campaign as a fight. But just to be clear, we’ll let straight talking John put it in his own words: “I am not and never have been against wind farms, wind energy or green technology.” Okay...

Now on to the show.

Wind Reality 1:  Wind is not heavily subsidized in Australia or the rest of the world

The claim: The Democratic Labor Party (DLP) opposes this highly subsidised method of generating electricity

The data:  Let's define terms. I am going to use the term subsidy imprecisely to mean imbalances in the market that can be quantified in dollar terms.  Direct subsidies are only one kind of market imbalance, so it is important to try to compare apples-to-apples in this conversation.

In those terms, what subsidies do wind farms receive? Well, they actually get no subsidies for construction and certainly nothing from the government. Instead wind farms are issued a renewable energy certificate (now called an LGC) for every megawatt hour of clean energy generated. Energy retailers are required to buy certificates to ‘green up’ their power. In 2012 only 9.15% of the retailers output must be matched, growing to a target of 20% by 2020.

So yes, the Renewable Energy Target, introduced by the Liberals, supported by Labor and endorsed by the Greens, has created an indirect subsidy to encourage the transition to non-polluting energy sources. (The DLP, which told the senate inquiry into the Clean Energy Future package that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, presumably doesn’t understand why anyone would want to transition to clean energy.)