By Jo Nova
There’s nothing like a few belligerent trade spats, and miscreant dragged anchors to ruin a brand’s reputation
After six separate incidents of underwater cables being sabotaged in the Baltic Sea, the German Defense Ministry is wondering if it is wise to buy Chinese wind turbines with all their electronic parts. A new report commissioned for the department not only suggests the government should restrict new turbines, it advises them to call a halt to an existing project.
Hypothetically, China might remotely shut down wind turbines at a key moment, creating crazy price spikes, and industrial havoc (although wind turbines seem quite good at that on their own). But seriously, if wind turbines got a bit more random, or a bit less efficient, would anyone know for sure? And if a market player had that information in advance, they could make out like a bandit — bidding at the right moment, and collecting on all the price spikes. It would be just another way to bleed a country, raise electricity prices, and reduce it’s competitiveness. (But good for business back home, eh? )
Oddly, the Defense analysts seem to worry more that China might delay projects on purpose, which sounds like an act of kindness to me. But if the electricity managers had already blown up the coal plants, then it might leave a vulnerable gigawatt gap.
Some thing has to charge the big batteries and pumped hydro, after all or they won’t be there for the dinner time peak. Likewise with the EVs.
But they were also concerned China could harvest data from hundreds of radars, and be able to spy on military training sites.
Part of the danger also comes from the access that manufacturers get to turbines, according to the study. Beijing’s suppliers would have access to computer programs that control active turbines and collect data from hundreds of radars built into farms, it states — a significant issue given that wind produced a third of Germany’s electricity last year and a fifth of the EU’s power.
In sum, the report argues, that would hand China “considerable blackmail potential in the future.”
The report warns that the “first time use of Chinese wind turbines must be prevented” on “public safety” grounds, since it risks creating a reliance on Beijing’s expertise and giving it access to “essential elements of German critical infrastructure” near militarily relevant training areas.
The Defence team also suspect the Chinese projects are being subsidized by China to beat out European competitors. It’s almost a case of China-would-be-crazy if they weren’t. The more renewables they supply, the more incapacitated and deindustrialized Europe gets, and the easier it is for the rest of China’s factories to drive competitors out of business.
Think of renewables as loss-leaders for a whole civilization.
Says the country that embraced being blackmailed over the Nordstream pipeline.
Wow, I’m so impressed with these guys. The ones promising to back Ukraine,
and other fantasies.
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I wonder whether our Defence Dept. is listening/watching.
‘UpGrade Albo’ and Blackout Bowen would not have a clue.
Heads in the Sand stuff.
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They are all asleep at the wheel and/or don’t care.
Our Department of Defence weren’t even aware of Chinese live firing exercises off the coast of Sydney until it was reported by a commercial pilot. And the Admiral couldn’t say if there was a Chinese submarine in the area. Back in the day, P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft would drop Australian-made sonobuoys to try to detect enemy subs.
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I’ve been warning that toxic W & S are disasters waiting to happen and as an addition they destroy the environment and have to be replaced every 15 to 20 years. What don’t they understand?
And they only generate for 3.6-(W ) months and 1.8-(S) months every year so why would any sane country choose these unreliable toxic junk heaps in the first place?
Why would competent engineers even consider this lunacy at all?
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Of course the mad Labor, Greens and Teals alliance can’t wait to WASTE TRILLIONs of $ on this nonsense and wreck our economy and security.
So why do people still want to vote for these clueless fools according to some of the polls?
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“Why would competent engineers even consider this lunacy at all?”
Jobs.
Pensions.
Prestige.
And bragging rights at the local watering hole.
Human, just like the rest of us.
Auto
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If they had morals and professional standards , they would speak out against this insanity.
It’s no different to participating in the building of a bridge or aircraft etc. with a known structural defect and remaining silent.
People also die from energy starvation and economic collapse caused by lack of energy.
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“Why would competent engineers even consider this lunacy at all?”
They are probably graduates from the School of Environmental Engineering, just as geologists these days are an inconsequential sideline in the Schools of Environmental Science.
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” German military report finds that Chinese wind turbines are a blackmail and security risk.”
Surely Australia would have looked into this ??, wouldn’t we.
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Nope. Look how many of our politicians are Chicomm loyalists.
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Albo banned Tik Tok being used on government issued devices last year, so he probably thinks he has already done enough on dealing with Chinese tech threats.
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Waking up from a deep slumber is always difficult especially if it happens with a pretty dream. The West is waking up very slowly and the pretty dream is just that, a dream. The dream that man can control the weather when we can’t even predict what it will do. We can only be bystanders to crashing waves, howling winds and sunny days. We can only watch in awe as a mountain explodes and causes rain for the next three years. Meanwhile, ignorant pygmies like Bowen believe a few windmills will control the majesty of nature. he and his advisors are nuts but they are making us poorer with their ridiculous policies. Gradually reality is making a comeback. Hopefully the slumber is over.
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Germany in Siemens led the world in wind turbines and in partnerships in China. No one knows more. The should be able to control this, better than any other country. But Germany can have its own agenda. As can France. Europe is a work in progress, not a country. At least Britain is no longer a world power. Woke Climate Change Britain no longer makes raw steel.
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But Sir Starmer is going to save the world!
Does he know that for every MW output [er … nameplate only!] a Wind Energy Subsidy Catcher needs about 120 tonnes of steel?
Good, reliable steel.
Ideally, virgin steel, not scrap of unknown origin, melted down.
Possibly he does …
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The history of Albanese, Bandt and Starmer is as communist acolytes. Russia is now the enemy they have rejected communism and trying to rebuild a capitalist society. It’s been 33 years since 1992 but you would not know it from the foreign press. Consider that no one has a bad word to say about Communist China. On the front of the Australian today Putin is a ‘murderous dictator’ but not ‘President Xi’. As if Tienamin Square did not happen. Or the concentration camps and organ harvesting of the Uigurs. Nothing to see here. No investigative reporters. It’s as if the Uighurs did not exist.
Except now even the Germans are also getting worried. One broken submarine cable could be an accident if you squint hard. ‘Forgetting’ to lift the anchor chain and dragging it along the bottom of the Baltic for a great distance. Oops? Really, what ship’s captain would notice that? But doing it four times is starting to look like intentional. Not just why, but why now?
Windmills are just the start of Chinese infiltration of their future enemies infrastructure. Everything, from water to sewage to electricity to gas is controlled by electronics and software. And the ability of countries to fight back is being destroyed. Not least by taking control of the Port of Darwin or both ends of the Panama canal. Or fortified islands in the Phillipine sea. Or trying to buy Chagos island in the Indian ocean, grabbing the US airforce base with UK’s Starmer fully in favor of handing it over until Trump objected. Or all the windmills and power distribution world wide. And hoping no one notices. And if they do, just laugh it off.
China says Australia was just being precious, childish objecting to the Chinese navy performing live fire drills off the coast of Australia and New Zealand or sailing through the Timor strait. Without explanation or warming. And dropping flares twenty metres in front of Australian surveillance aircraft. It looks like China is preparing for war with now 500 warships. And warning everyone to stay out of it or face invasion.
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He is an Ex-Environmental mental Lawyer. Need I say more?
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Germany is nuts buying wind turbines from China. They should be using the wind turbines already installed in Germany to make their own wind turbines – if they could. But that would require making something from nothing because wind turbines are energy sinks. They will never be able to produce more energy than they consume in a closed system. The whole illusion of “renewable” energy is maintained by China burning 55% of the world’s annual coal consumption.
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I’m a total cynic these days. This story is a beat up to bolster the importance of wind power. It creates the illusion that wind power is essential for the German economy, so it’s worth protecting. There was a time when I think you could at least trust defence or military types in terms of policy. But even these once dependable people have gone woke.
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It’s a fair bet that virtually all utility infrastructure and even consumer goods and Apps from China like TikTok have backdoors built into them for spying or remote control or shut down.
Recognising the problem, TRUMP banned the import of certain Chinese electrical utility equipment in his first term but Biden reversed the ban.
https://www.powertransformernews.com/2021/04/23/us-department-of-energy-reverses-trump-ban-on-chinese-electrical-equipment/
TRUMP took action against TikTok in his first term as well.
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-tiktok/
If these backdoors are hard coded into chips it’s difficult if not impossible to detect them.
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In Melbournistan in 2021 I saw workers installing a new fixed speed/revenue camera. I noticed the specific camera as it was still in its box. It was a network connected camera with artificial intelligence to recognise both people and vehicle registration numbers.
The brand of camera is Hikvision and governments have banned their use in Australia and the USA as they are capable, and probably do, form a spying network for the Chicomms. See link.
The specific camera was possibly this one:
https://www.hikvision.com/en/products/IP-Products/Network-Cameras/Ultra-Series-SmartIP-/ds-2cd3056g2-is/
The article referring to them being banned is at:
https://www.gadgetguy.com.au/banned-hikvision-cameras-surface-in-australia-as-ezviz/
I wrote to my state “representative” but he didn’t care less and told me to take it elsewhere, even though he was in the opposition fake conservative Liberal Party and could have made political capital out of it.
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Here’s the most difficult question to answer…..how does a country recover from a severe wind and solar deficiency?
We only have a combined W & S CF of about 23%, so what happens when we have combined days of low or no wind and very cloudy weather at the same time?
The batteries would be flat in a few hours and how would we recover? What comes first, would we charge the flat batteries first or would we try to power the grid?
So why would we even consider using unreliable toxic disasters like W & S and at a cost of TRILLIONs of $?
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Well Neville, in theory Snowy 2 might provide battery backup assuming
That it is actually built.
That the upper dam is full and assuming that a good deal of water isn’t flushed out to sea via The Snowy River “resurrection” or other “environmental” scheme dreamt up by politicians, or assuming we have used lots of water to boost agriculture (the original scheme which seems to have been forgotten) and assuming that we have enough rain before any unexpected emergency.
The chances are that the upper dam will be short in which case we will wonder why we ever decided (or our clueless politicians and bureaucrats decided) to rely on variable electricity sources.
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I think SH2 will be a continued drain on the economy for an indefinite period and will likely never be finished or if it is, it won’t work as planned. And both factions of the Uniparty remain fanatically committed to it. The fake conservative Liberal Party Uniparty faction won’t cancel it either as it was their stupid idea in the first place, as has been much of the destruction of Australia’s energy supply, starting with Howard.
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Graeme,
That upper lake is currently used for recreational fishing and boating. That’s all going out the window now.
Imagine sitting in a boat on the lake as it drains down. And then, when it’s near empty and the mud on the banks starts to rot in the sun, what then. Dead fish, deprived of oxygen, (due to the rot). Recreation gone, pristine lake views all gone. And this is inside a national park. What would they do in private land? Windmills? One per farm, whether you like it or not and don’t forget the power lines. All above ground, visible for miles.
You have to love green things. Ugly, barely working and always against the public needs.
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Never fear, good neighbours, little old No Zullin will save your dingoes from Blackout Bowen:
https://taslink.co.nz/
A “2-3GW HVDC submarine extending 2,600km across the Tasman Sea” is proposed to provide you fellas with our excess hydro-generated electricity while, in theory, your excess lunchtime solar buzz can power our afternoon rush-hour traffic & evening meal… or sumpfink™️.
Reciprocation is the name of the game yes? Then once Canberra hooks-up with Singapore (via another ‘submarine’) bingo! we can run the whole world! Or ruin it. Taslink’s illustration has cities with glowing lights in Fiordland, along the length of the Southern Alps and in back-block places where even farmers fear to tread: a future ‘so bright’ no one can see the stars anymore.
NB. I have no monetary interest in this venture.
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The current longest power cable is around 750km long. It would be amazing, (probably not currently possible), to see a power cable at 2,600km.
I think they’ll route it along the mermaid lanes to avoid congestion with the migrating kraken.
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These sort of stupid ideas are spawned from other stupid ideas such as the fantasy Sun Cable between Australia and Singapore at 4300km.
It makes a “mere” 2600km seem reasonable and possible.
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Backdoors in Chinese equipment have been reported since at least 2012 and probably much earlier.
It’s likely that virtually all electronic equipment used in the West, government, commercial or consumer has a Chinese backdoor built into it. Even standalone chips purchased for incorporation into equipment manufactured in the West.
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You don’t need anything more elaborate that a kill switch.
The issue is how to trigger it. You can’t rely on a message encoded in the power grid, (like the older off peak water heaters), any switchmode or regulated power supply between the chip and the grid would render that inoperable.
Maybe wifi, but that could be blocked by a well tuned firewall for any critical infrastructure.
Radio, it would be possible but you would need to have a very small antenna, (within the chip die), this would mean a very high frequency or a very powerful transmitter. Both would be a very big problem for anyone to implement remotely, even the lightest walls appreciably attenuate most very high/GHz frequencies.
So maybe the impacted chips will be the accessible ones, like switches and routers. These are exposed to the internet and can be identified in advance of an attack, primed ready to assure the highest impact. Beyond them, you have GPS receivers, radio decoders and similar but these are often of limited impact. A defective phone chip is prime for hacking but it’s not really going to end the western world.
Maybe it’ll be the little things that knock us over. Like an EM pulse above the city. Hardly covert but likely very effective. Maybe if the bad guys were to float one over your city on a large weather balloon….. now where have we seen one of them before?
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It’s not just a matter of pulling the plug on a suspected compromised item. The idea is that these things are continuously spying, sending out information, disguised in other packets of data. Very hard to spot. Plus, pulling the plug will be too late if they decide to pull the plug on you first and shut down most of your economy. Plus even isolated items can be set up on a timer to be acted upon at a preset time for some hostile action. There are also numerous other methods of attack.
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Maybe they could use the Israeli disabling system, a small smear of something that goes “bang” designed so a very small amount of power can activate it cheap as well
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David Maddison, #13,
____Not so sure it’s just Chinese, and perhaps Israeli made stuff that has back door management built in.
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Noted the international cast of players up to and including *$tuXneT* … where everybody’s spying on everyone else while children throw rocks at each other over the fence and shout rude names.
It’s all fun & games til someone gets hurt.
Whatever happened to ‘saving the planet’?
/s
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Here Dr Michael Kelly tries to wake up the UK about their so called net ZERO fantasy.
And he’s a Physicist, Engineer and Royal Society member, but he has joined the sceptic’s GWPF as well.
This was recorded a week ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWn4bWr5IH4&t=67s
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Michael Kelly also, working with others, showed that the figures used by the climate alarmists for the effect of methane on the climate was overstated by approx. 7 times. They wrote a paper on their work, it was peer reviewed and published. Then they waited until the next IPCC review, where it was considered and accepted as accurate. The IPCC put this in their last report. But the alarmists (along with most Governments) seem to have ignored this and are still pushing farmers to reduce methane emissions in any way they can, to the detriment of their farming businesses.
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So, we can see that it’s not only the fundamentally defective, economically destructive, unreliable and expensive means of generating electricity using windmills that’s bad, the Chinese electronics contained therein, as well as all other Chinese electronics and software, potentially contain a whole additional layer of threats.
And our Uniparty Governments, especially the fanatically woke Sinophile, UN, WEF and WHO compliant ones (and their useful idiot supporters) like Australia’s have no clue and don’t care in any case. And our politicians and ex-politicians and senior public serpents have much to gain. Look how so many go to work for the Chicomms, either as spies while in office or “consultants” after office.
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Strangely, Australia’s Sinophile Foreign Minister Penny Wrong, did do something which is superficially correct, but one wonders if it was just an exercise in pretending to do something while leaving other compromised electronics in place? And what took the Uniparty Government so long after the problem was known since at least 2018?
Actually, this is about the only thing I’ve noticed that Wrong has ever done right, assuming she really went ahead with it.
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Dr Will Happer recorded this interview in FEB 2025 and great to see him and his younger Professor colleague continuing his work on honest, factual climate science.
Dr Happer tells us they are lying to us and we know that the developing NON OECD countries agree with him.
https://www.freedom-research.org/p/exclusive-interview-with-prof-william?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web
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Infrastructure cyber security risks?
Who’d have thunk it…
/yawn
Renewables are “effeŕvescent energy” – all bubbly, nice and high demand early on, but soon they go flat and everyone says “nope, don’t want it”.
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Q. And what do you do?
A. I’m the Shadow cyber security minister.
Tick – tick – tick –
Klaus Schwab’s nickname is ‘Shadow’?
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While on wind farms.
Britain is paying nearly £180,000 an hour to switch off wind farms due to excess power with no place to store it.
In the first two months of 2025, constraint payments totalled £252m, a 60% rise from £158m last year. This costs £4.3m a day, or £178,000 an hour, paid for by energy bills.
https://youtu.be/U-RT-afYPa8?si=7GkW5HBSZI5kuuU5
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They must have plenty of money to burn.
That’s why they gave, supposedly as a loan, another $2 billion to Ukraine, and a 100 year partnership agreement. Probably a commitment to a 100 year war. Just like they had in 1337–1453 (which was longer).
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/uk-ukraine-100-year-partnership-agreement/
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I wonder what the cost of electricity is with a 100% Coal Fired Power Station Electricity Grid is even with expensive coal sourced from underground British Coal Mines.
A lot cheaper than this Windmill Madness.
Even better with 100% Nuclear I bet.
How to run a Nation – Into the ground.
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Germany has had a dreadful influence on international military affairs for the past 120 years.
There is no strong reason to even consider more German military reports, let alone believe them.
Geoff S
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Just as wind power was an idea of the National Socialists, so too was hydrogen.
Today’s socialists are just fulfilling the “dream” (nightmare).
They even use much of the same propaganda claims.
The idea of anthropogenic climate change was also a National Socialist idea:
Note that the proposed 100m diameter windmill mentioned above corresponds to a 2.5MW modern turbine today.
https://www.esig.energy/wiki-main-page/general-electric-2-5-mw-series/
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Has any nation ever laid the groundwork for invasion/war more comprehensively than our Sino friends , potentially everything they have manufactured and sold to the West, mostly on price alone, could be considered spyware or boobytraps.
They have profited handsomely via the UN from the mad climate scare while ignoring the restrictions imposed on the rest of us.
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