Two letters: Rent-seeking wind firms / Mount Waldo — is wind worth it? (Bangor Daily News)
Rent-seeking wind firmsIn recent years politicians have spent billions on subsidies and grants to encourage the development of wind power. The result is that rent-seeking entrepreneurs have jumped on the wind power bandwagon to cash in the subsidies. One such firm is Eolian Renewable Energy.
Eolian’s business strategy: Find a small rural community with some terrain suitable for industrial wind turbines. Form a subsidiary to develop wind turbines. Convince the community to allow the turbines with exaggerated promises of tax revenues and work for local contractors. Build the turbines with free money (grants) from the federal and state governments. Monetize the subsidies by selling off the future power generation to Wall Street. Walk away from the project laughing all the way to the bank.
I love to see folks honestly make lots and lots of money. I do not share that admiration for rent-seekers who use false hopes to line their pockets with our taxes. These schemes always collapse and always leave a trail of economic wreckage behind them. Enron, Lehman Brothers and AIG were all examples of rent-seekers using government subsidies or guarantees to make a short-term profit.
Eolian is now seeking to push its wind power rent-seeking scheme in Frankfort, a town whose existing zoning does not address grid-scale wind generators. Residents will soon have a chance to place a moratorium on wind turbines so that they can update the zoning ordinance. Frankfort residents would be wise to adopt this measure and slow down Eolian’s rent-seeking scheme.
R. Kenneth Lindell
Bangor
AND
Consider the costMount Waldo — is wind worth it?
While many important questions surround wind development, I think one is not being asked, especially in the case of Mount Waldo. Is it worth it?
I mean worth the resources; yes, it will cost a lot of money. But more important, is it worth forever altering the mountain?
Eolian likes to refer to Mount Waldo as “impacted,” and yes, there are three radio and cell towers there. But no one who has been on Mount Waldo would label it impacted. Except for a small one-lane access road, foot trails are the only pathways crisscrossing through the forest on the mountain.
Putting turbines on the mountain would greatly impact it. Just think about getting those things up there. Large roads would have to be built. This means clear-cutting and blasting, run-off and erosion.
So now Eolian is saying it would install four turbines (or maybe four; like most of their information it changes often). Knowing that these will generate power between 18 percent and 30 percent of the time (FERC statistic, you can look it up), is it worth it? Really?
Cynthia Sousa
Frankfort
|
**************************************
Fair Use Notice: This website may reproduce or have links to copyrighted material the use of which has not been expressly authorized by the copyright owner. We make such material available, without profit, as part of our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, economic, scientific, and related issues. It is our understanding that this constitutes a "fair use" of any such copyrighted material as provided by law. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes that go beyond "fair use," you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Views: 74
Comment
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/
Not yet a member?
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
Task Force membership is free. Please sign up today!
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/
© 2024 Created by Webmaster.
Powered by
You need to be a member of Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine to add comments!
Join Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine