NOVA SCOTIAN SUBSIDIARY OF AUSTRIAN COMPANY TAKES SECOND AIM AT ANOTHER SMALL RURAL TOWN

The current Pisgah Mountain LLC wind energy facility here in Clifton is not enough for the foreign SWEB corporation. Starting in 2016, SWEB has been getting its ducks in a row for another attack on our community. In 2016, it bought out about half of Pisgah's land area, over 100 acres, to add to its 49% ownership of the Pisgah facility and SWEB took out a 5 year option to buy an adjacent large tree growth parcel whose owner had refused to support the Pisgah project. But obviously he could see what was going to happen in the future.

In spring 2017, after the five 1.8 mw turbines were up and running, at a SWEB sponsored open house event at the Pisgah site, a SWEB representative made mention of the 'Silver Maple" project and then said whoops, that isn't ready for public yet. Then in January, 2018, SWEB went to the MPUC who had granted Pisgah LLC a community based contract that would give them a premium price on the electricity sold as a small facility, and asked to be recognized as a 100% SWEB owned entity owning property next to Pisgah and not as a Pisgah related property. Thus assuring that its 49% interest in Pisgah wouldn't be in danger of losing its community benefit. The MPUC granted SWEB's request clearing the decks for developing it's own project on Pisgah Mountain.

In November of 2018, SWEB went to the MDEP for a preapplication meeting and delivered a CES generated sketch of the map for 5 new wind turbines to the east and south of the existing turbines. The turbines in the sketch map are shown larger than the existing turbines and the MPUC listings refer to a 20 mw project. From that I conclude that SWEB is contemplating around five 4 mw turbines for this expansion. Those would likely dwarf those that are there now and cause significantly more visual, noise and other environmental impacts on that area of Clifton and the neighboring town of Otis.

As if this wasn't enough of an assualt, there is also the possibility of a five turbine project to the east of Pisgah on Rebel Hill. A group of Mariabille and Otis landowners on Hopkins Pond and on 180 would be directly affected by that development. One of the landowners in the proposed project area is Bruce Davis who apparently obtained a permit from Clifton in November or December 2018 to erect a met tower to explore the wind potential.

How can you help your friends in Clifton? You can contact Jessica Damon at the DEP and ask to be kept informed as the permit application process proceeds. jessica.damon@maine.gov  You can watch the MPUC site for any further SWEB or Pisgah filings and make comments online or in person. You can continue to use whatver media is available to you to spread the word about this assault on our rural town. As far as I know, no formal applications have been made yet, so there's time to get prepared for this new assault, but we can't afford to wait until then to get started organizing. I will post more information as it becomes available.

Views: 178

Comment

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

Comment by Willem Post on March 28, 2019 at 6:20am

Donna,

It is the lobbying of the multi-millionaires that does the talking.

They have the real access to legislators and bureaucrats.

They are made to feel important by wining and dining them in fancy restaurants, under the table cash payments, and sending them, by CO2 belching airplanes, on all-expenses-paid fact-finding junkets.

I know how that works, as I was intimately involved with that process before I retired.

Comment by Donna Amrita Davidge on March 28, 2019 at 5:59am
We sent over 100 letter to Jessica Damon to no avail on Oakfield wind plus over 700 signed our petition these greed mongers justcdo whatever they want to do the DEP does NOT protect the environment
Comment by Willem Post on March 28, 2019 at 3:04am

Hi Paul,

These are greedy multi-millionaire entities, foreign and domestic, eager to cash in on the extremely high, direct and indirect subsidies for wind.

If these subsidies were backed out of the project spreadsheet numbers, the electricity would have to be sold at AT LEAST TWO TIMES the price per kWh. The same goes for field-mounted solar.

NOTE: I have several spreadsheets, submitted by project developers to the Vermont Public Utilities Commission, obtained through a back channel. The numbers have to be submitted according to a PUC template for easy comparison of bids.

RE proponents claiming wind and solar wholesale prices per kWh are on par with traditional prices is true, only in favorable US wind and solar regions, and only because of the subsidies, per Warren Buffett. Just google.

However, that is far from true in New England, because of poor/mediocre wind and solar conditions, including OFTENTIMES NEAR ZERO WIND AND SOLAR GENERATION.

Wind and solar lulls lasting 4 to 7 days are common in New England THROUHOUT THE YEAR, as shown by ISO-NE minute by minute electricity generation data by source, as posted, in real-time, on its website.

What would provide STEADY electricity to fill the huge gap during these wind and solar lull periods, if wind and solar were the dominant electricity sources on the NE grid?

Without the traditional sources, NE would be « up the creek without a paddle «.

RE proponents dance around with irrelevant information that confuses most people, like so many households served and other such nonsense.

RE proponents refuse to debate the lull issues, because they have, and there are, no plausible, feasible answers. 

Their latest mantra is IT WILL ALL BE SOLVED BY THE GREEN NEW DEAL.

Sure, at a mere $93 TRILLION proposed to be spent by 2030 to save the world.

A recent Senate vote was 57 to zero against the GND, because almost all Democrat Senators voted PRESENT, because the did not want to tarred during upcoming elections with the idiotic, unrealistic GND.

Batteries, even at the HOLY GRAIL price of $100/kWh, would cost several hundred BILLION DOLLARS, just for NE.

They would last at most 15 years.

Any electricity passing through the batteries would have an about 20% loss on an A to Z basis, i.e., high voltage to high voltage basis, requiring additional wind and solar build-outs just to offset that loss.

Any future build-outs of NE wind and solar would be highly lucrative for multi-millionaires, but would, in the end, be paid for by the already-struggling Joe an Jane Workers in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, etc.

Thé build-out burden and expensive electricity would be major future headwinds for the NE economy, which already is burdened by the highest electricity rates in the US, except for Alaska and Hawaii.

 

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

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service