Any of this going on in Maine? - Some Choice Excerpts from "Wind Energy's Ghosts"
- European wind developers are fleeing the EU's expiring wind subsidies, shuttering factories, laying off workers, and leaving billions of Euros of sovereign debt and a continent-wide financial crisis in their wake. But their game is not over. Already they are tapping a new vein of lucre from the taxpayers and ratepayers of the United States.
- Thousands of abandoned wind turbines littered the landscape of wind energy's California "big three" locations -- Altamont Pass, Tehachapi, and San Gorgonio -- considered among the world's best wind sites.
- Public opinion surveys have consistently found that inoperative wind turbines tarnish the public's perception of wind energy's efficacy."
- "Our research and that of others show that turbines' non-operation and public fear of wind farm abandonment is still a critical issue, and it therefore behooves the wind industry to return to the 'big three' wind farm sites (Altamont, San Gorgonio, and Tehachapi) and to ensure that these areas are operating as efficiently as possible, and all turbine arrays which do not contribute significantly and conspicuously to power production are either replaced or, if necessary, removed."
- Altamont's turbines have since 2008 been tethered four months of every year in an effort to protect migrating birds after environmentalists filed suit. According to the Golden Gate Audubon Society, 75 to 110 Golden Eagles, 380 Burrowing Owls, 300 Red-tailed Hawks, and 333 American Kestrels (falcons) are killed by Altamont turbines annually.
- Wind's erratic power feed destabilizes power grids and forces engineers to stand by, always ready to fire up traditional generators. Wind does not fit into an electric supply model made up of steady massive low cost "base load" coal or nuclear plants backed up by on-call natural gas powered "peaker" units which kick in during high demand. No coal or nuclear power plant has ever been replaced by wind energy.
- Although carbon credit schemes often assign profitable carbon credits to wind farm operators based on a theoretical displacement of carbon emitted by coal or natural gas producers, in reality these plants must keep burning to be able to quickly add supply every time the wind drops off. The formulae do not take into account carbon emitted by idling coal and natural gas plants nor the excess carbon generated by constant fire-up and shut down cycles necessitated to balance fluctuating wind supplies.
- Then Enron got involved: Designed to create a renewable energy trading market, EPAct -- much of which took effect in 1997 -- created a combination of mandates, incentives, and tax credits. These included:
- laws requiring large wind producers to be allowed to tie into the existing utility grid
- "Renewable Portfolio Standards" forcing utilities to buy intermittent wind generated electricity.
- "Renewable Energy Certificates" tradable separately from the electricity itself to sell to companies needing to meet the portfolio standards.
- A 10-year "Production Tax Credit" that now equals $.019/kWh
- Accelerated depreciation allowing tax write-off using an accelerated 5-year double-declining-balance method (40% per year).
- "The feed-in tariff... would make (utility) companies go bankrupt eventually. So...the government guarantees...to give back the money in the future -- when (they) are not going to be in the office any more.
- "What do we do with all this industry that we have been creating with subsidies that now is collapsing? The bubble is too big. We cannot continue pumping enough money. ...The President of the Renewable Industry in Spain (wrote a column arguing that) ...the only way is finding other countries that will give taxpayers' money away to our industry to take it and continue maintaining these jobs."
- That "other country" is the United States of America.Waxman-Markey seems dead, and Europe's southern periphery is bankrupt. But the wind-subsidy proposals being floated in Congress suggest that American political leaders have yet to understand that "green power" means generating electricity by burning dollars.
Read the entire article at: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/wind_energys_ghosts_1.html
Views: 128
Comment
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Comment by Art Brigades on February 16, 2010 at 10:42am
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The state's new tourism slogan: "Visit the Ancient Ruins of Turbineland"
Three years ago the governor commissioned his Quality of Place Council. In the introduction to their report back to him, the wrote the following (he obviously didn't read it):
We all love Maine. It is why we live here. It is the reason we want to protect our
unbroken forests, wild rivers, picturesque downtowns, village greens, and historic houses
and grange halls and libraries.
It turns out there is another reason to safeguard all these things. It is Maine’s economy.
The things we enjoy are things that people around the country and the world value. As
the rest of the country becomes more crowded and homogenous and polluted, what sets
Maine apart ― what makes Maine distinctive ― our Quality of Place ― becomes an
ever-more important economic asset.
In 2006, The Brookings Institution, a
national research organization that
has studied the economies of many
states, issued a report asserting that
Maine’s Quality of Place is an
economic asset of increasing value
for Maine. Not just an asset, but
Maine’s chief economic asset. Our
own research confirms this finding.
The reason is that in the new economy, the
greatest competition worldwide is for people.
People looking for a place to retire, or to visit
awhile. People with energy and skills, who can
start and sustain businesses in the new
innovative sectors that Maine has targeted for
future growth – biomedicine, composite
materials manufacturing, computer
programming, advanced technologies for boatbuilding,
the new “local” agriculture, and the
like.
People with skills in these areas can live anywhere. Our research shows they are most
interested in living somewhere with a high Quality of Place. This is our most powerful
advantage in the global marketplace for people.
Yet, we are careless with this powerful economic asset today. We let our open spaces get
fenced off. We let our downtowns and historic buildings deteriorate. We let our scenic
landscapes get cluttered. We let our best and most unique asset lose its special quality.
Preserving and enhancing our Quality of Place is a new kind of economic development
challenge. We need new economic development tools to respond.
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Comment by arthur qwenk on February 16, 2010 at 8:36am
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Mainers are too polite. The results of the battle against this wholesale SCAM are evident.
The onslaught continues......unabated....
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Comment by Whetstone_Willy on February 15, 2010 at 5:50pm
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She's a nightbird, flyin' through the night (choppa chop!)
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"I stand up next to a windmill, and chop it down with the edge of my hand "
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"Repleted Leeches" performing "The Wind cries Money". ( Jimi stirring, indignant, in his grave)
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Ron - I think your phrase "Repleted Leeches" would be a good name for a band. I can see John Baldacci on fiddle, while Maine burns.
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That is rather precisely what is going on in Maine. That is, the snake oil peddlers, draped in American and state flags, money in their hands, promising fame, fortune and right livelihood, if Maine's gov't would just open its wallet and subsidize 'em.
That is the green energy they are there for - the Long Green. For the fistful of dollars they need to expend to buy support from 'turned' eco-yup outfits and credulous politicians, they stand to squeeze vault-filling subsidies from Maine's coffers, as long as possible, then, gorged, to drop away like repleted leeches, to later turn to another unwitting victim-state once Maine's subsidies are digested.
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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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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Vince Lombardi
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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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