August 2018 Blog Posts (75)

Wind turbines are ugly,…

The wind industry exists for only one reason: the game has been rigged on its behalf. Unfortunately, such rigging is rampant throughout America. Very simply, we've devolved into two types of Americans - insiders and outsiders, with most of us being the latter and most of the wealth going to the former. It's one thing if you earn it but quite another when you steal it. Paying off the government to pass legislation that will make you incredibly rich at the expense of honest hardworking…

SunCommon of Vermont commissioned Synapse-Energy to perform a study that would show the benefits of before-the-meter (BTM) solar. The study shows there were almost $20 million of benefits for all of New England, about $1.3 million for Vermont during the very sunny period of July 1 to July 7; that period had very little wind, and thus almost no wind generation.

That joyous news was released with much fanfare, plus admonitions from SunCommon not to reduce solar…

But the memorandum of understanding request by local officials — which they earlier refused to disclose and kept secret — was released in detail Thursday only after they cried foul, saying the power company had canceled a meeting to discuss the matter.…

August 30, 2018

Settled science nonsense

By Jack Hellner

I thought the science was settled that red meat, cheese and butter were bad for you but now I learn that they are good for you and can reduce your chance of early death by 25%. (I am sure this study won’t be challenged.)

Thank goodness I have continued to eat red meat, cheese and butter over the last several decades as the fear mongers were out.

I remember that eggs…

Does Rep. Janice Cooper not recognize that wherever wind "farms" are built the world over, mammoth new transmission lines must go in? Why are wind transmission lines good but hydro transmission lines bad Ms. Cooper?

While I think Massachusetts should get their electricity without running roughshod on other states, if the hydro line is to go in, I agree that this should be done in a manner that maximizes benefit for Mainers and avoids all possible desecration of Maine's…

One wonders if former Gov Baldacci will soon be giving the former Public Advocate a call. Maybe it would go something like this:

"Hey Gordon, when CMP parent Avangrid made me their vice chairperson back in December 2015, they figured I'd be able to keep stuff like this from happening. As the former governor, this is really embarrassing. Avangrid…

RE proponents want to “electrify” the New England transportation sector. That means:

- Much less consumption of gasoline and much more generation of electricity.

- Internal combustion engines using gasoline, hereafter called E10 (a blend of 90% gasoline/10% ethanol from corn), would be replaced with electric vehicles.

For this article, it is assumed only EVs will be used to replace IC vehicles that currently are using gasoline. Hybrids would not be…

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/27/uk-summer-wind-drought-puts-green-revolution-into-reverse

Rollins Wind: Turbine lights on Rocky Dundee seen from Upper Pond (Rainer Egle)

Thousands of bats are killed by wind turbines every year because they are drawn to red warning light

The mystery of why more than 80,000 bats are killed by wind turbines in the UK each year may finally have been solved.

Scientists found the winged creatures are naturally drawn to sources of red light…

We currently have five wind turbines installed off the coast of Block Island amounting to our entire "offshore" wind generation. There is a "pipeline" to build out 24,564 MW of new offshore wind across 13 states. While this sounds HUGE, let's try and convert some of these outlandish sounding numbers into something we can all understand.…

Baldacci was elected vice chair of the board of Avangrid, then the nation's second largest wind company, in December 2015 and only now --- for the very first time --- does the Portland Press Herald announce this. Why was this never done before. Baldacci is the creator of the state's horrendous 2008 expedited wind law that makes it near impossible to stop a…

The family fund of Google’s former executive chairman Eric Schmidt owns 20 percent of hedge fund D.E. Shaw, Deepwater’s corporate parent. Google has advocated for a continent-scale wind installation called the Atlantic Wind Connection project. COMEO/Frederic Legrand

A Mighty Wind

AUGUST 16, 2018

BY | KEVIN…

Some of the more important articles in this issue are:

A Trove Of New Research Spells Out The Folly Of Renewable Energy

The $2.5 trillion reason we can’t rely on batteries to clean up the grid

What Is The Cost Of Getting To A 100% “Renewable” Electric Grid?

Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

Legal Power List identifies political risks for wind

NY local representative says wind turbine project has…

Dot Kelly, a Sierra Club official in Maine, said she would rather see more emphasis on solar, wind and battery-storage technology.................

Jeremy Payne, executive director of the Maine Renewable Energy Association, said it is has “pretty significant concerns” about whether the plan will stymie the growth of new green power producers in Maine by tying up transmission capacity......................

The project “is going to bisect Maine,”…

Amazon Web Services, the company's cloud computing business, is its fastest-growing and most profitable division, but it comes with a lot of upfront infrastructure costs and ongoing expenses, the biggest of which is electricity. Over the past two years, Amazon has almost doubled the size of its physical footprint worldwide, to 254 million square feet, including dozens of new data centers with vast fields of servers running 24/7. In at least two states, it's also negotiated with utilities and…

Over the past two weeks in two separate public meetings (The Forks and Jackman), CMP stated they would connect wind project to an AC line to accommodate wind development in western Maine/Moosehead Region. They would run a separate AC line in the currently proposed DC trans corridor. The results to the region would be devastating. We must stop the hydro line. If it gets denied, the likelihood of an AC line being approved is seriously diminished.