The day before the AWEA Regional Conference was to begin, I sent the following to all Maine media to let them know that we, the citizens, wanted to be included in the reporting on the AWEA regional conference. I provided plenty of facts as well as our common positions of opposition to wind power development in Maine.
RE: AWEA Regional Conference
September 5, 6, 2012
South Portland, Maine
Request that coverage include perspective of state-wide wind coalition.
Contact: Brad Blake, Communications Director, Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power
Telephone: 207-773-4252 (home); 207-575-8553 (direct line during business hours)
The Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power (CTFWP) is the state-wide coalition of local groups and concerned individuals who oppose the development of utility scale (also referred to as "industrial") wind power in Maine. CTFWP is very much aware that the choice of South Portland, Maine for a regional conference is intended to continue the wind industry's efforts to promote further development of sprawling, environmentally damaging industrial wind power projects in areas of Maine that have poor to marginal wind potential in order to qualify for various taxpayer subsidies. Because CTFWP is also aware that professional public relations efforts will enlist your media to distribute their carefully crafted message, the CTFWP respectfully request that the citizens of Maine be consulted in order to bring balance and important critique to your coverage of the AWEA event.
The position of Citizens Task Force on Wind Power is that wind power is a scam that depends on a multiplicity of financial manipulations (PTC, ARRA SEC.1603, 5 year ddb depreciation, TIF, etc) and heinous mandates (RPS, RGGI, Maine PL 551) to even exist. AWEA, in its efforts to keep the PTC from expiring, has essentially stated that wind power development would not exist without this taxpayer-funded income stream. Thus threatened, AWEA and its supporters have turned in desperation to netting the argument down to jobs.
The positions espoused by AWEA and the wind industry and their supporters in two decades of promoting the wind industry have largely been refuted in recent years. There is no demonstrable offset of carbon or other pollutants that can be validated. Nor is there any evidence that wind power is cost effective in the open market.
Further, the proliferation of utility scale wind sites in Maine is not supported by the poor to marginal wind potential (NREL). Utility scale wind turbines are a blight on the land, totally out of scale and out of place, degrading Maine's vaunted "Quality of Place" (Brookings Institute 2007), with a negative impact on tourism and property values. Utility scale wind sites have a sprawling footprint and the blasting, leveling and scalping of Maine's ridges is environmental degradation on a massive scale which would never be allowed for any other industry.
Wind turbines built too close to people results in health degrading annoyance from audible noise as well as more serious sickness from low frequency sound waves (something I personally have experienced). A lawsuit based on this was settled by First Wind in Mars Hill but other potential lawsuits from individuals are pending. Right here in Maine, people have moved and abandoned homes to get away from deleterious effects of wind turbines.
As you see, there are multiple issues relating to wind power development in Maine. Perhaps foremost is the cumulative impact of the proliferation of industrial wind projects, especially given the state's goal set out in PL 661. There are currently six large scale wind projects operational in Maine: Mars Hill, Stetson I & II, Rollins, Kibby, Record Hill, and Spruce Mt., as well as two smaller projects in Freedom and Vinalhaven. Under construction this year, Bull Hill in Hancock County is yet another in a series of disasters for Maine's mountains, perpetrated by developer First Wind.
Consider the impact of Bull Hill. The Vestas V100 turbines are 476 ft. tall. This is more than twice the height of the tallest building in Maine, Portland's Franklin Towers, which are 204 ft. tall. These turbines are more than half as tall as the tallest building in New England, Boston's John Hancock tower at 790 ft. tall. These towers will be clearly seen from Cadillac Mt. in Acadia National Park. Do the nearly 3 million visitors to this grand place want to see industrial wind turbines? Impacted even more closely will be the view from the top of Schoodic Mt., which is preserved as part of the Donnell Pond Public Reserved Land. This incredible place was protected by the taxpayers' money from bonding for the Fund for Land for Maine's Future.
Schoodic Mt. and Acadia are not the only places where industrial wind turbines have ruined the viewscape. Record Hill in Roxbury is highly visible from Baldpate Mt. on the Appalachian Trail as well as Tumbledown Mt., another of Maine's treasures purchased for preservation with taxpayer money. Mars Hill, Stetson, and Rollins are all visible from Mt. Katahdin. While those sights are a bit distant from Maine's iconic landmark, the wind industry is planning wind power sites with the larger turbines closer to the boundaries of Baxter State Park. Kibby and Record Hill both loom over designated state "Scenic Byways". Should there be a build out of just the wind sites currently in some stage of planning/development, there will soon come a day when there will be no vista in Maine's mountains that does not include wind turbines.
But what about all that "clean", "green", "free" electricity that is promised by the wind industry? When is it acceptable to have on average less than 25% output? No industry would survive on that. Nobody would buy an appliance for their home that works only 25% of the time. Yet that is what we are buying with taxpayers money. That and, together with mandates, guaranteed higher electricity costs.
Here are some statistics to consider. The following is a report on the first and second quarter output of six Maine utility scale wind projects. While First quarter output is impressive, the percentages plummet in the second quarter. Fourth quarter is likely to be close to the second, and the yet to be concluded third quarter, the summer months of July/August/Sept will be the lowest output of all the quarters, the low offsetting the high of the winter months. In the spreadsheet below, derived from the FERC website, the capacity factor is the % output compared to it's design capacity and this is not steady, predictable output as we get from power plants; rather, it is unpredictable, unreliable, dispatchable power. This is the track record of similar projects, so how can we expect any different from future projects that will, no doubt, be discussed at the AWEA Regional Conference?
The other set of figures I draw your attention to below particularly helped the cash flow of heavily in debt First Wind. The first three listed projects are LLCs developed by First Wind. ARRA is Obama's economic stimulus program which has put the nation trillions of dollars further in debt. Part of ARRA was Section 1603 which awarded cash grants equal to 30% of the construction cost of a qualifying utility scale wind project. That is Taxpayer money, lump sum, in cash, no strings attached except that the developer agrees to forgo the 2.2 cents per kwh PTC in exchange. A great deal for cash-strapped developers who may flip or abandon a project in future years. Here is the chart of Section 1603 awards to Maine wind projects:
Please note that since this chart was created, Record Hill Wind (Independence Wind) received an ARRA Section 1603 grant in the amount of $33, 736,709 on June 8, 2012.
I end with a personal anecdote. I am originally from Lincoln. I spent July 11 to July 16 at camp on Silver Lake in Lee, one of the areas impacted by First Wind's Rollins Project. It was a perfect stretch of summer weather and Saturday, July 14 was the hottest day of the year in New England thus far. On July 12, 13, 14, ISO-New England experienced it's greatest electricity demand (a function of massive demand for air conditioning). The wind hardly blew and certainly did not reach the threshold (about 12 mph) to produce usable electricity from wind turbines. At 5 PM on Saturday, it was 92 degrees at the farm on Winn Rd in Lee where 13 of the 18 turbines on Rollins Mt. can be seen. Not a single turbine was spinning. When we could have used wind the most, it failed and the inverse correlation demonstrated here is well known. Yet the taxpayers gave First Wind $53.2 million for this failure. More wind power sites in Maine? It is just going to be more of the same, a blight on the land, a failure to produce, surviving on taxpayer money, schemes, and scams.
Brad Blake
Home: 207-773-4252
Work: 207-575-8553 (direct line)
Comment by Hart Daley on September 7, 2012 at 7:36am
Comment by Long Islander on September 6, 2012 at 1:51pm
Comment by alice mckay barnett on September 6, 2012 at 1:35pm
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