“We’re going to get rich off of these hicks”

'Chasing after the wind' a net loser

Posted: Thursday, August 29, 2013 5:30 pm

As we witness another Wyoming County town being turned into an industrial wind factory, the Wyoming County Board of Supervisors has informed us that “Wyoming Co. has ‘little choice’ but to waive NY’s property tax cap.”  (Story, Aug. 14.)

This confirms what state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli pointed out in a May 2, 2012, news article: Giving multi-billion dollar corporations Payment-In-Lieu-Of-Taxes agreements (PILOTs), “effectively shifts the burden of taxation onto local residents and small businesses.” (See more at:http://www.masterresource.org/2012/08/local-wind-subsidies-more-was...)

Mr. DiNapoli was exactly right. Invenergy and their ilk are smiling all the way to the bank, while the rest of us get to pick up their share of the tab.

If that wasn’t bad enough, state Comptroller DiNapoli also pointed out that these multi-millions of dollars in “tax breaks have not been effective in creating jobs.”

No new jobs. Higher property taxes. No sense of community due to the “Hurray me — tough luck for you” mentality evident in the wind debacle. Is it any wonder many people are leaving New York state?

When one of the Big Wind salesmen was overheard to say in a local restaurant in Wyoming County years ago, “We’re going to get rich off of these hicks,” they were right. Big Wind is getting richer, while we are all getting poorer — thanks to the help they’ve received from elected officials at every level who are selling out our towns and their residents from within.

Perhaps it’s time citizens demanded their local officials first pass a math and reading comprehension test before being allowed to run for office. “Public servants” in charge of spending our money first need to know how to morally and competently run a successful business — which means knowing how to balance the books without having to sell the entire town out for what amounts to a complete fraud!

The Reality of New York Wind

Consider the readily available information we’ve been sharing for years:

The actual output (capacity factor) of New York state’s 16 wind factories in 2012 was 23.5 percent. Any other piece of equipment that had such an abysmal performance record would have been dubbed a lemon and relegated to the trash heap a long time ago.

Consider the fact that one single 450 MW gas-fired combined cycle generating unit located near New York City (where the power is needed in NYS), operating at only a 60 percent capacity factor, could have supplied more electricity than all of NYS’s wind factories combined — at approximately 1/4 of the capital cost of the wind factories, and without the added costs of transmission lines to NYC.

 Furthermore, that ONE single 450 MW gas-fired combined cycle generating unit would have significantly reduced CO2 emissions and created far more permanent jobs in New York State -- WITHOUT all the civil discord, environmental degradation, negative human health impacts, massive bird and bat mortality caused by these giant “Bird Cuisinarts,” and the property value losses that sprawling wind factories create - both at the ‘wind farm’ sites, and due to all the added transmission lines that must be added to NYC.

Wind’s unreliable, diffuse energy provides no modern power — period. As William Tucker explained in his essay, “Understanding E = mc2,”

“The release of energy from splitting a uranium atom turns out to be 2 million times greater than breaking the carbon-hydrogen bond in coal, oil or wood. Compared to all the forms of energy ever employed by humanity, nuclear power is off the scale. Wind has less than 1/10th the energy density of wood, wood half the density of coal and coal half the density of octane. Altogether they differ by a factor of about 50. Nuclear has 2 million times the energy density of gasoline ... Our energy future largely depends on grasping the significance of this differential.”

(See more at: http://www.energytribune.com/2771/understanding-e-mc2#sthash.5sNBbd...)

If our state and local “representatives” goal is to chase more people and businesses out of New York state by:

1. destroying the natural beauty and wildlife of rural NYS;

2. ignoring the health, safety and welfare of area citizens;

3 devaluing NYS citizens’ most expensive life investments — their homes; and

4. “skyrocketing” our tax and electricity rates ...

Pursuing the “green” energy boondoggle of wind power is a sure means to that end. Consider your mission accomplished. Such a senseless, crying shame!

As wise old Solomon told us in Ecclesiastes, “Surely this also is vanity and chasing after the wind.”

Mary Kay Barton lives in Silver Lake.

http://thedailynewsonline.com/opinion/article_53d1bfe6-101c-11e3-99...

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Comment by Donna Amrita Davidge on August 30, 2013 at 6:05am

this is so true and why it can not be on the front page of all major newspapers can only reflect the depth of the corruption..

Comment by Pam Arborio on August 29, 2013 at 11:46pm
Mary Kay,
Well written but sadly, you are not alone. Those of us in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont have had two Industrial Wind projects crammed down our throats and the Public Service Board just approved met towers for a third. Our grid cannot gamble on the intermittent wind produced by the already regularly curtailed turbines, so 23.5% production may be much higher than we will see.
The towns in the viewshed are all sustained by tourism, what will happen when they blow the tops off the Seneca's narrow ridge lines? Tourists travel from all over the world to this area National Geographic called one of the top Geotourism spots in the world. Those travelers hoping to glimpse a bear or moose or perhaps add to their list of bird watching "firsts" will find a new wilderness-our pristine mountains and solitude will be destroyed forever.
As you reach out with a voice trying to spread the true facts of "wind" remember many of us across the Northeast are repeating the same message.

 

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.

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 -- Mahatma Gandhi

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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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