England to Halt On-shore Wind
This is great news out of England, as a re-shuffling of the Energy Ministry has placed the leadership in the hands of a leader who acknowledges that wind is not a good deal, that subsidies should be curtailed, and people do not want the beautiful and historic countryside destroyed. This should be helpful in the coming battle over ending the USA's Production Tax Credit. Maine and the rest of "New" England should learn from "Old" England and end this folly.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/9644558/Death-knell-for-win...
Death knell for wind farms: 'Enough is Enough' says minister
Wind farms have been “peppered” across Britain without enough consideration for the countryside and people’s homes, a senior Conservative energy minister admitted last night as he warned “enough is enough”.
The energy minister indicated that only a minority of the thousands of wind turbines currently put forward for planning permission are likely to be given the go-ahead Photo: Danny Lawson/PA
By Robert Winnett, Political Editor
10:25PM GMT 30 Oct 2012
John Hayes said that we can “no longer have wind turbines imposed on communities” and added that it “seems extraordinary” they have allowed to spread so much throughout the country.
The energy minister said he had ordered a new analysis of the case for onshore wind power which would form the basis of future government policy, rather than “a bourgeois Left article of faith based on some academic perspective”. The comments sparked speculation that Conservative ministers are planning to drop their support for wind farms — a move which would trigger a major Coalition rift.
Mr Hayes, who was appointed energy minister in last month’s reshuffle, is understood to believe that there should be a moratorium on new onshore wind farms. Almost 4,000 turbines are set to be built across Britain in the coming years.
Several senior Tories, including Owen Paterson, the new Environment Secretary, also believe the wind farm “blight” has not been properly considered before allowing development. Mr Paterson will formally respond to a government review on the community benefit of wind farms shortly and is expected to warn about their impact on rural areas.
Last night, Mr Hayes said: “We can no longer have wind turbines imposed on communities. I can’t single-handedly build a new Jerusalem but I can protect our green and pleasant land.
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“We have issued a call for evidence on wind. That is about cost but also about community buy-in. We need to understand communities’ genuine desires. We will form our policy in the future on the basis of that, not on a bourgeois Left article of faith based on some academic perspective.”
The energy minister indicated that only a minority of the thousands of wind turbines currently put forward for planning permission are likely to be given the go-ahead. He said that this would be enough to fulfil green targets set by the Government.
“If you look at what has been built, what has consent and what is in the planning system, much of it will not get through and will be rejected. Even if a minority of what’s in the system is built we are going to reach our 2020 target,” Mr Hayes said. “I’m saying enough is enough.”
The minister has commissioned research on wind turbines which will take a far more wide-reaching assessment of their impact on the rural landscape and house prices. “I have asked the planning minister to look again at the relationship between these turbines and the landscape,” he said. “It seems extraordinary to have allowed them to be peppered around the country without due regard for the interests of the local community or their wishes.”
Mr Hayes said the impact of onshore wind farms on environments had been “neglected” as he warned that renewable energy must be in the “right places” with “genuine community support”. “The salience of aesthetics to discussions about renewables has often been neglected,” he added. “All that we do must be sensitive to local environments.”
Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative MP and green campaigner, said last night that the “Tory retreat on climate change is senseless”. It is not clear whether Mr Hayes’s repositioning on wind farms was sanctioned by Downing Street or the Treasury. George Osborne, the Chancellor, is understood to be increasingly sceptical about green energy sources.
The remarks are likely to anger Liberal Democrats. Ed Davey, the Energy Secretary, has already tried to strip Mr Hayes of part of his brief in the department.
Earlier this year, more than 100 Conservative MPs urged David Cameron to block the further expansion of onshore wind power. Mr Hayes’s intervention comes as the Government prepares to publish its new plans for Britain’s future energy needs.
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Comment
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Comment by JAMES DYLAN RIVIS on October 31, 2012 at 6:22pm
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Jim and Brad bring up good points. Europe IS far ahead of us in the development of wind farms, especially Germany. So, given this, why is the US not willing to look at their (and Australia and New Zealands') long experience, following which they have realized that (in the case of Germany) their employing 10s of thousands of turbines is not going to solve the stated problem. Absolutely NO COAL OR GAS FIRED ELECTRICAL PLANTS have ever been mothballed. This is due to the fact that wind, as those of us who see tjhe fallacy of wind power as a solution, always have stated, is such an unreliable source of power that other forms of generation must be kept both available and running to counteract low output. Coimpounding this problem is the fact that even a momentary interruption in the supply (as recently was experienced by a large Aluminum plant in N.Germany) can result in severe damage to equipment and production.
The US demonstrates an extreme type of myopic, self indulgent and arrogant approach, ignoring the experience of other nations at our peril and massive expense. The only beneficiaries are the venture capitalist companies who are not slow to raid the public purse..
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Comment by alice mckay barnett on October 31, 2012 at 6:11pm
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e-mail michaud..
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Don't get too excited about this development as the UK Government is working on a deal with Eire (The Republic of Ireland) to place hundreds of turbines in bog areas of central Ireland and to run cables under the Irish Sea to Holyhead, thereby avoiding having to negotiate or face the increasing public clamour to stop windfarms from completely ruining the UK's beautiful, natural landscape.Eire, being that it has high unemployment is perhaps unwilling to refuse such an offer.This is no different from moving from one state to another in N.America, where one State refuses to allow construction and another is willing to do so. Stay tuned.
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Comment by Brad Blake on October 31, 2012 at 5:55pm
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Jim, you are correct. This development should give us leverage with the elimination of the Production Tax Credit, which must be part of budget cuts Congress needs to make when they re-convene to deal with the looming "fiscal cliff" situation. Folks, be sure to read this as well: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/9597461/Soviet-style-wind-f...
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Comment by Jim Lutz on October 31, 2012 at 4:13pm
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This is a remarkable development. We can finally deal with the environmentalists that keep telling us that "Europe is way ahead of us" and we are going to fall behind. We have all known these wind farms are a bad investment, and bad science. Spain has shut down their development too, and that is why Iberdrola is here trying to get our money. There is only one thing to do, and that is cut off the money supply. Without it, they will wither and die.
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Comment by Penny Gray on October 31, 2012 at 3:41pm
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People are waking up. There is hope!
Maine as Third World Country:
CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power
Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.
Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT
******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********
(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/
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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law
Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future
"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."
https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/
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