Yesterday LI sent out a blast to respond to the RFP article in the CommonWealth magazine.  I responded to them with a counter article and will see if it is printed in an upcoming issue.  I have included it below.

To the Citizens of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island: Your lust for green power is putting Maine residents and their wilderness land in severe jeopardy.

I spent several weeks this summer going up to my camp, across an idyllic, rustic, wilderness lake from 27 wind turbines on Rollins Mountain. I have been going there for 68 years. (1949) We have no electricity other than our own solar 12 volt system which has been there for 25 years UNSUBSIDISED, as it is miles from a main road.  We like it that way.  It was a particularly hot week, when demand for the energy produced by those generators was truly needed. Do you know how many revolutions those blades made during that hot spell? Not very many!  Most of the time they sat motionless, and only perked up when a few thunderstorms rolled through for a half an hour or so. The states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, where that power was to be sent were sitting even hotter than we were, depending on normally generated electricity.  I rarely stay there overnight anymore as the flashing lights and strobes go from dusk to dawn, impeding what used to be a Bortle 1 Dark Sky, have spoiled the experience.

The wind and grid reliability is so unstable that power is rarely available when really needed. The grid has to rely on gas powered plants that are able to ramp up quickly so there will be no blackouts or brownouts. We have no oil or coal fired plants in Maine. Maine happens to be the second CLEANEST state in the Union with well over 50% of its power from renewables. Wind and solar provide no power to us in Maine.  That clean environment comes from a very small population, very dense CO2 sequestering forestation, and a lack of industrialization caused by the already high energy rates we are being charged by the addition of wind power transmission (to Southern New England) to our grid.  That lack of industrialization has made jobs very hard to come by, and Maine is already a poor job producing state.  The secret they won't tell you is that big hydro, which we have plenty of our own, is excluded from being counted as renewable.  We in Maine have enough power of our own to supply the entire state for the foreseeable next 40 years.  These wind and solar projects are for YOU.

The power companies are not the ones doing the investing in wind and solar. The investors are a few elite businessmen who are taking huge payments from the government in the form of subsidies, forming companies to produce "renewable" power, promising results that are not possible, pocketing the subsidies, bankrupting their companies and leaving the government to pick up the pieces. (Solyndra and recently the biggest of them all, SunEdison)http://www.greentechmedia.com/... Several of our hydro projects could be upgraded and cheap Canadian hydro is available for a lot less money, far more reliable power and transmission over a system that already exists. Maine is a terrible place for onshore wind and solar, despite the quote from John Baldacci who told us that "Maine is the Saudi Arabia of Wind". Look at the national wind charts that show we are in the LOWEST 87th percentile of wind power in the US. 
http://www.nrel.gov/gis/images...
It is a program that was built on lies from day one, and a whole bunch of Governor Baldacci and Angus King's cronies made millions from the government subsidies.  These projects have come to Maine, lowered our property values around the projects, chased manufacturing jobs from the state, raised electricity rates to pay for the transmission of the minimal power they produce, dynamited mountaintops, stripped the land where they sit of CO2 sequestering trees, caused erosion of the land, harmed wildlife (especially birds, bats and raptors), spoiled dark skies, and impacted our wilderness experience for both residents and tourists.  Who wants to hike the iconic Appalachian Trail and have to see and listen to industrial wind?

 

The government needs to stay out of the energy business and let the businesses find the cheapest and cleanest ways to make power. The market can make the right selections.

 

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Comment by Eric A. Tuttle on October 28, 2016 at 12:18pm

832 Mwh stored capacity = approximately 1 Mt Nuke

Comment by Eric A. Tuttle on October 28, 2016 at 11:40am

[More Thoughts]

Since Wind is only available when it blows sufficiently and Solar is only available during daylight hours, be looking to the next phase of Storage of those off production times. Yes Transmission will still be needed for Grid Scale Sales. We tend to think little about storage of power and where these things will need to be located. If they are in the cities, the problems will be worse than if in the Countryside such as Maine.

650 Amps (car battery) at 12V DC  - 7,800 Watts of power....... 7.8 Kw or if something goes wrong 3.75 sticks of Dynamite explosive power. [ ½ of Dynamite has the power of 2.08 Kwh ]

Now imagine this massive amount of energy that is needed to be stored and the potential for disaster in a nearby community, city or forest should some unexpected event happen.

Imagine how much more turmoil for our communities as they bribe to locate these massive EXPLOSIVE potentials. 

We may have failed with preventing some of these projects, but we should be looking ahead in these and future areas of project sitings. 

Comment by Pineo Girl on October 28, 2016 at 10:19am

This would be a great letter to the Boston Globe and other New England newspapers!  We are all being duped and it begins with not being told the truth about climate change - how we got here and  the cause. Second is the thought that we have endless tax wealth to throw to cement someones presidential legacy! But as well all know now - the agenda is to keep Americans dumbed down and stupid!

Comment by Eric A. Tuttle on October 27, 2016 at 1:01pm

Legally, the government is not suppose to be in any business or acting as such. Agencies such as DHHS should be privatized with government oversight. Competition fairly is the extent of government involvement once a system or need has been recognized and established. 

 

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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Sign up today and lend your voice and presence to the steadily rising tide that will soon sweep the scourge of useless and wretched turbines from our beloved Maine countryside. For many of us, our little pieces of paradise have been hard won. Did the carpetbaggers think they could simply steal them from us?

We have the facts on our side. We have the truth on our side. All we need now is YOU.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

 -- Mahatma Gandhi

"It's not whether you get knocked down: it's whether you get up."
Vince Lombardi 

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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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