Long Islander's Blog (2,994)

This is a list of met towers from the Land Use Planning Commission (LUPC) as of December 2016. Met towers outside of their jurisdiction (the UT), would be in municipalities and thus likely under local planning board jurisdiction.

From FMM:

FMM%20LIST%20of%20Met%20Towers%20December%202016%20-%20Copy.pdf

McLean’s bill isn’t the only proposal to re-imagine Maine’s highway funding. A proposal from Sen. Ronald Collins, R-Wells, L.D. 1226, would impose a $250 annual registration fee on hybrid vehicles and a $350 fee on all-electric vehicles.......…

But for wind energy to be successful, a way past the grid bottlenecks that have stymied development in the US north-east will be key.

There are a number of transmission projects on the books designed to bring wind output from projects in northern Maine and upper New York state to market, But with large hydro in play, the Massachusetts RFP could also open up opportunities for wind energy exports from Canada.…

A bill now awaiting a hearing in the Legislature would ban any offshore wind energy project within 10 nautical miles of the Monhegan Lobster Conservation Area. The wind project site is located at the southern edge of the lobster zone.......responsible for the crisis by changing the scope of the project. What started in 2009 as a scaled-down, temporary experiment has grown to a 20-year, full-scale project with blades that would reach 576 feet above the waterline and an undersea cable to…

The governor cited talking points from the Natural Resources Council of Maine. NRCM maintains that Maine does not produce enough energy from renewable resources. LePage countered that claim by saying that while Maine uses only about 10 percent of the electricity in New England, we produce nearly half of the total renewable resource-generated energy in New England. Seventy percent of the electricity produced in Maine, according to the governor, comes from renewable…

Massachusetts on Friday issued a massive request for clean power proposals that could help the state meet its goal of reducing its electrical system’s impact on global warming. By 2020, the state aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation to 25 percent below 1990 levels.

The long-expected solicitation has wind opponents in Maine again gearing up for a fight, as Maine is host to the vast majority of pending land-based wind power projects in New…

McDonald said he’s concerned about the scenic impacts of turbines and those transmission projects, including a line from Chester to Pittsfield for which Emera Maine and Central Maine Power are buying up land.…

Allison Gray Doughty, a spokeswoman for Emera Maine, said the project “will relieve congestion, reduce line losses, boost reliability and accommodate new generation from renewable resources.”

http://bangordailynews.com/2017/03/31/business/power-company-scooping-up-land-for-new-chester-pittsfield-line/…

“Our main concern with IMAPP is that it will result in New Hampshire (and Maine and Vermont) ratepayers picking up the tab for the environmental policies of (mainly) Massachusetts and Connecticut,” said NERA President Marc Brown.

This article appears in the March 31 2017 issue of New Hampshire Business Review.…

March 30, 2017

In this document (attached), the ISO is acknowledging as a state of common and shared knowledge that low-frequency oscillatory motion produces (a) human body mechanical resonance phenomena above 1 Hz (such as the chest vibratory phenomena that are a prominent part of Wind Turbine Syndrome) and (b) motion sensitivity (vertigo, nausea, and related mental components) below 1 Hz. (Hz stands for Hertz.)

With this being common…

Excerpted from the Maine Tourism Association's recent testimony on LD 901 An Act To Amend the Laws Governing the Determination of a Wind Energy Development's Effect on the Scenic Character of Maine's Special Places:

This testimony also speaks to the economic importance of tourism.

The reality of course is that beauty is in the…

Please see Eric Tuttle's comment below regarding upcoming worksession.

An Act To Amend the Laws Governing the Determination of a Wind Energy Development's Effect on the Scenic Character of Maine's Special Places

Written testimony (Mar 23, 2017) can be viewed here:…

If people look at a wind turbine and BELIEVE that it is saving the planet, they think the turbine is beautiful.  But it people KNOW that the turbine is merely a useless and unnecessary feel-good scam to line the pockets of speculators, their VIEW of Big Wind is changed. …

"State plans to buy wind power from Maine have been stalled by insufficient transmission capacity to get it here.......And importantly – you probably won’t be able to see the turbines from land........Also nothing we are talking about here involves wind power in Long Island Sound. The waters of the Sound are controlled by Connecticut and New York state, not the federal government. For multiple reasons, not the least of which is that it’s not windy enough, the Sound is not suited to…

MAINE CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEREST REPORTING | March 29, 2017

An examination by the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting of recent legislative fundraising, including reviews of invitations, campaign finance reports and state law, reveals that lobbyists and legislators have found ways to legally undermine the spirit of those reforms, giving private interests continued opportunities to spread their money around the statehouse.

How they do it: by scheduling events on…

PPH - The order will mandate a review of the Clean Power Plan

President Donald Trump on Tuesday took the most significant step yet in obliterating his predecessor’s environmental record, instructing federal regulators to rewrite key rules curbing U.S. carbon emissions.......“This rule was an unlawful attempt to radically transform the nation’s power grid, destroying valuable energy assets and leaving our economy more vulnerable…

A total of 39 Unorganized Territory communities from western Maine to Down East have taken back the ability to nix wind power projects they don’t like.

And a fight is still brewing over what could be the 40th, in Milton Township, where developer EverPower has proposed a wind farm.

The moves were a response to the 2008 Maine Wind Energy Act, which gave blanket zoning approval to wind power projects in the Unorganized Territory without review by a regional…

Excerpt from PPH Tux Turkel article today describing Maine PUC Commissioner Bruce Williamson's take on the potential (or lack thereof) of offshore wind in Maine:

Traveling with officials from Massachusetts and Maryland, he also came to understand how they were preparing for offshore wind in their backyards. It will be an uphill climb, he said, for Maine businesses.

“Maine has to compete with states that are just as…