The Danish think tank CEPOS published the controversial report last September and went “on tour” with the report in the US. The report is highly critical of the Danish model on wind power and indicates that the Danish wind turbines industry model is ineffective.
The validity of these conclusions has been contested by numerous experts challenging not only the figures but also the method by which these figures were drawn up.
”We are not to judge on CEPOS’ professional standards or the quality of their reports. However, we think it is open to criticism that CEPOS is touring one of the wind industry’s most important markets with misleading and undocumented messages on Danish wind power,” says Jan Hylleberg, Managing Director, Danish Wind Industry Association.
Recently, a group of fourteen independent researchers, scientists, and analytics joined in extensive criticism of the CEPOS report.
”You need to ask yourself what CEPOS’ motive is? Why are they compromising Danish companies’ business opportunities in the US?” underlines Jan Hylleberg.
The Danish Wind Industry Association has just sent a letter to CEPOS’ chairman, Bernt Johan Collet, requesting a response to the massive critique of CEPOS touring the US.
”I think it is quite fair to ask why CEPOS has acted this way. Is it owed to a general opposition to the Danish wind industry? Or has CEPOS willingly been the American oil lobby’s mouthpiece?” Jan Hylleberg asks.
In a response to the Danish Parliament, the Danish Minister for Climate and Energy, Lykke Friis, recently stated her opinion that “CEPOS’ report “Wind Energy – The Case of Denmark” gives a distorted picture of wind power.”
The Institute for Energy Research (IER) has been described by conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh as "the energy equivalent of the Heritage Foundation". It positions include opposition to energy efficiency and other demand side management programs, opposition to renewable energy, and denial of climate change science.
Oil Industry Behind Critical Wind Energy Report
Conservative think tank admits that report critical of Denmark’s wind power industry was commissioned by US think tank A controversial report critical of the wind energy industry from conservative think tank CEPOS was commissioned and paid for by an American think tank.
A controversial report critical of the wind energy industry from conservative think tank CEPOS was commissioned and paid for by an American think tank with close ties to the coal and oil industries, according to trade journal Ingeniøren.
The report, which was published last September and concluded that Danish wind energy figures were misleading, was taken by CEPOS members to the US media in the months leading up to the COP15 climate summit in Copenhagen. The message behind the report indicated that the Danish wind turbine industry model was not effective.
Numerous experts have since strongly criticised the report’s conclusions, challenging many of the figures and the means in which those figures were obtained.
But now it appears that the report was indirectly commissioned and paid for by the American coal and oil lobby.
A press release from the Institute for Energy Research (IPR) indicated that it had commissioned the report from CEPOS.
IPR reportedly receives funding from the American oil and coal lobby. The think tank has posted a summary of the CEPOS report on its website which includes the claims that ‘in 2006 scarcely 5 percent of the nation’s electricity demand was met by wind. And over the past five years, the average is less than 10 percent — despite Denmark having carpeted its land with [wind turbines]’.
CEPOS CEO Martin Ågerup admitted to Ingeniøren that the report was both commissioned and paid for by IPR. But he said he was not aware of IPR receiving funding from the coal and oil industry.
‘I don’t know who supports them. That doesn’t interest me. They contacted me and so we did the report,’ Ågerup said.
Ågerup admitted, however, that during his company’s tour of the US last autumn, he and one of the report’s authors, Hugh Sharman, were made aware of the relationship between IPR and the American coal and oil industries.
‘I was told that IPR was supported by coal and oil interests, but I don’t know the specific sponsors,’ he said. But then it’s common for people to have sponsors for a project – just as we have also had, for example, for reports dealing with integration and the school system.’
‘The only condition we impose is that we are allowed to be fully independent in our conclusions and the assessments we make,’ said Ågerup. ‘And IPR has fully lived up to that condition.’
Anti-wind study funded by…surprise!…U.S. fossil group By Chris Madison (AWEA)
Last year, a research company in Denmark produced a controversial report that questioned the credibility of the Danish wind industry, particularly claims that wind energy reduces carbon emissions.
The report raised eyebrows because the Danes are really good at wind energy–for example, they have come up with a system of power shifting and trading with their neighbors that can be a model for the United States when it gets serious about integrating wind into the utility system. At the time, Danish energy experts rebutted the study’s major conclusions.
Now the Danish organization has publicly acknowledged that the report was funded by the Institute for Energy Research, a U.S. organization with close ties to the U.S. fossil fuel industry.
The Danish research firm also acknowledged that it was told that IER is funded by elements of the U.S. fossil fuel industry.
IER, a small organization staffed largely by former Congressional aides, has been conducting a vigorous anti-wind campaign based on poorly sourced assertions that wind energy is bad for the environment and is subsidized by the government to mask its true cost.
In addition to the Danish study, IER was tied to a Spanish wind study whose conclusions were subsequently undercut by Spanish energy officials.
www.cphpost.dk/business/119-business/48553-oil-industry-behind-critical-wind-energy-report.html
