At Camden Energy Meeting, Ragged Mountain turbine plan twists slowly in the wind.

Hah...Went to the August 2nd meeting of the Camden Energy Committee...Listen to podcast of meeting here. Plans for a Ragged Mountain turbine complex twist slowly in the wind: See below....

If it is to be community wind, the residents of Rockport, Hope and Camden must cough up many tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to even get out the starting gate of preliminary feasibility study and public outreach.

Not one of the three towns Camden, Rockport, Hope, have shown any interest in providing that $$$$.

If it's a private developer, then large amounts of public land owned by Camden have to be leased or sold to the private developer as well as more public land denuded for access. Private landowners in Hope will have to be convinced to allow access roads to be run through their land. Else no reasonable access to the proposed site. And then, who benefits? The investor willahave to be content with the much lesser profits accruing to "Community Wind" development. Otherwise an absentee corporation which will sell extracted windpower to the New England grid, while Camdenites get to listen to the throaty roar of windturbines forever in the background?Something the people of the area are highly unlikely to accept.

Excerpts:
"We're trying to tap the public will," Committee chair Des Fitzgerald said "to see if there's a way to figure out if people out there are willing to give money toward this early assessment. We're trying to figure out that structure that poses that question."

Q: "Is it the will of the EC they want to continue exploring feasibility?"

Response 1: "No."
Response 2. What we ( Camden energy Committee] would really like to do, is we would like make some suggestions for next steps [to the Camden Selectboard ]and then stand back and watch it happen. We feel like we've done our job. "

Des Fitzgerald : Its got to be formal; either its an RFP and you let the market place respond to it or put out a press release to the community have an open meeting, let people come and shake it out..

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Comment by Ron Huber on August 3, 2010 at 1:01pm
More excerpts:

Town official: "The rub is mixing community wind with finding a private developer. We have lots of interested developers, until you put the coin to community wind."

Podolsky: (scratching his forehead in exasperation in photo) "There is a pot of money out there. Most of the massachusetts community Wind RFPS camefrom the renewable energy trust administered by Mass Tech. It is a collaborative can flow anywhere in New England. They draw on large sum of funds collected from ratepayers.
Most community wind feasibility projects I have worked on been funded by MTC fund. "

Several object that this fund has already been used several times in Maine That well is dried up.

Podolsky: "That's one pot. There may be others."

Stimulus funds in Maine not specific to wind. Efficiency Maine. The Maine energy trust requires matching funds; you can't play unless until you bring your check first.

There's wisdom in having a municipal relationship to whatever this is. In connection to grantmaking.

So lets make suggestions and send them off to the select board.

We're sitting here year after year. Nothing is happening. Its time to move on.

The next action of the energy comittee is to do research into potential sources of funding, find out if the MTC funds sre depleted or not. It about money. We need to get more feasibility information.

"We're trying to tap the public will" Des Fitzgerald said "to see if there's a way to figure out if people out there are willing to give money toward this early assessment. We're trying to figure out that structure that poses that question

Town official (only woman on Committee: Part of the original question to the new committee you were to give the selectboard was to explore grants other sources of funding along with that community will. Not to be this comittee to do it. But the new committee

Des: Energy committee could put out a press release that announces the conclusions; where we're at; what the next steps are that need to be done. The will of the committee

Q: Is it the will of the EC they want to continue exploring feasibility?

Answer: woman No.

A 2 What we would really like to do, is we would like make some suggestions for next steps and then stand back and watch it happen. We feel like we've done our job. Were'e very close to having don our just but we're stuck

Des: Its got to be formal either its an RFP and you let themarket place respond to it or put out a press release to thecommunity have an open meeting, let peole come and shake it out.

Make that a

Municipal or not?

We're already decided. If a municiapality appoints a municipal committee to ob

You are recommending to the Samden select to form that committee and invite rockport and hope to appoint representatives.
Differncve between ricks view aaubject tot he amount of acreage on the moutrain top of equal membership

Suggest nine members 4 camden 3 rockport two hope Gives some power to camden. If you look at the map the town of comden the 3town of camden dwarf weveryone elsewse
On rockport side within a mile can count property owners on two hands within a mile on the camden side there are dozens of property owners. In hope there are a couple of key people who live in hope that are going to make or break access up to the wind. So they need to play.

 

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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