Ladies & Gentlemen:
Those of you who have been following "renewable" energy issues for some time probably are already familiar with the organization known as the National Renewable Energy "Laboratory" (NREL) which is located, primarily, in Golden, Colorado, USA.
As the forwarded email indicates, NREL apparently has decided to publish another electronic "newsletter." I doubt that it will be any more objective than its other publications but you may want to sign up for it and make your own judgments.
For those not familiar with NREL, it's one of the US Department of Energy's National "Laboratories." The organization's activities are fully paid for by taxpayers. Some who work for NREL and for organizations that receive tax dollars that flow through NREL probably engage in objective R&D activity, applying scientific methods and engineering principles. However, many of the "studies," "analyses," and "reports" issued by NREL and its contractors and grantees are decidedly NOT objective. Instead, many are highly biased and are properly regarded as "propaganda."
Many of NREL's activities are similar to those of an industrial trade association or other lobbyist organization that presents only one side of controversial matters while playing down or ignoring the "other side." Such activities are expected of privately funded associations but, ideally, they would not be performed or supported by organizations getting funds from tax dollars and operating under a name , i.e., "laboratory" that suggests objectivity. However, NREL activities are condoned and probably even encouraged by officials of the US Department of Energy (DOE) and its Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (DOE-EERE), which is the organization through which tax dollars flow from the US Treasury to NREL.
A classic example of NREL's highly biased propaganda is the "Job and Economic Development Impact (JEDI) Model," which can be found on the NREL web site at: (Click to read)
The JEDI "model" allegedly permits entering various data about a proposed "wind farm" and than spits out information about state or local economic benefits. Unfortunately, the data that is produced significantly overstates potential economic benefits. This is demonstrating in a paper entitled, "Errors and Excesses in the NREL's JEDI-WIM Model that Provides Estimates of the State or Local Economic Impact of "Wind Farms." That paper can be found at (Click to read) and (Click to read) The "model" apparently was developed for NREL by a "consultant" who often testifies before regulatory bodies in favor of wind energy projects.
A few years ago, the US Congress passed a law called the "Data Quality Act" that was intended to limit the amount of false and misleading data issued by US government agencies and their contractors. Apparently, the US DOE manages to avoid the spirit of this law with a few carefully crafted "disclaimers."
Glenn R. Schleede
Round Hill, VA, USA
No comments:
Post a Comment