CTFWP Press Release: WIND OPPONENTS TO CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION: “FAR MORE JOBS IN CONSERVATION THAN TURBINES”

3/25/10

WIND OPPONENTS TO CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION: “FAR MORE JOBS IN CONSERVATION THAN TURBINES”

(Mexico, Maine) Citizens Task Force on Wind Power sent letters today to U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud, U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe, and U.S. Senator Susan Collins. Full text of the letter appears IMMEDIATELY below, but major highlights include:

• If you want real economic impact and widespread job growth, the lowest hanging fruit is in Conservation and Efficiency.
• 80 percent of Maine people heat with oil and all of us use petroleum for transportation. That’s where we should focus our effort to get off oil and reduce carbon.
• We wouldn’t be in this struggle if it wasn’t for the obscene amounts of our grandchildrens’ money that Washington is throwing at a generating source that cannot survive on its own.
• Wind power is ineffective in general, but Maine’s mountains do not provide ideal wind conditions, so what might work marginally well in the Texas desert just doesn’t do a thing for us.

For more information, visit a href="http://www.windtaskforce.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.windtaskforce.org/>

FULL TEXT OF LETTERS MAILED MARCH 25, 2010

Dear Senator Snowe, Senator Collins, Representative Pingree and Representative Michaud:

We write to suggest that you reconsider the path that Maine is following as it relates to a planned reliance upon wind power. As you know, Citizens’ Task Force on Wind Power is a vocal opponent of the proliferation of wind turbines on Maine’s mountains. This divisive issue dominates the news now. At the expected 25% capacity factor, Maine’s 2700 megawatt goal will require 1800 turbines that produce an average of only 675 megawatts of electricity, which does nothing to reduce our use of oil because Mainers use oil in transportation and heating. This massive rural industrialization would provide less than 5% of the grid’s needs, while forever destroying some of Maine’s signature places, and is a bad deal for Maine. The same amount of power could be produced far more reliably and affordably on one 10 acre industrial park parcel, like the Cal Pine plant in Westbrook.

While we are skeptical about the need for, and the cost effectiveness of offshore wind, we do see it as a worthy ocean research project that might one day provide benefit to Maine, possibly including an industry to build and maintain it. However, in the three years since Maine and the nation decided to proliferate wind power, the game has been radically changed by the discovery of a stable, clean, inexpensive natural gas supply on the East Coast, and by our neighbors in Canada who have begun to penetrate our market with inexpensive green power. If onshore wind power was a risky venture three years ago, it is essentially useless now. Every day, more Maine people are becoming wise to the fundamental deficiencies of wind power.

Our concern is that Maine would not today be embroiled in this heated policy debate if not for Washington’s gratuitous incentives for wind power.

Maine’s delivered electric rates are already among the highest in the nation, and our renewable portfolio standard is the cleanest. Yet states like Iowa, Alabama, and West Virginia enjoy electric rates almost three times lower than ours while they rely heavily on coal and oil to produce electricity. This positions these states to attract business even as their power plants belch out emissions that foul our air. Maine is already doing more than its fair share environmenntally, even as we supply the rest of New England with electricity. Instead of squandering money on windpower in Maine, our delegation ought to be helping the Maine economy by investing in Conservation and Efficiency, while simultaneously pressuring other states to reduce their fossil fuel consumption.

Maine has thousands of carpenters, plumbers, and electricians in every town who are wondering how they are going to survive the downturn in the construction industry. Most of the tax dollars supporting the wind industry never get to Maine. Billions of dollars of subsidies are going toward building wind turbine components in foreign countries which are then shipped here to be installed by a very few specialized crews. A handful of developers plan to leverage this infrastructure investment into handsome profits using the “investment” dollars of ratepayers and taxpayers. If a demand for wind power ever occurs, the jobs created will be short-lived and finite. And we have no assurance that a buildup of wind power will reduce our use of oil.

The money our government is now directing toward unaffordable, unreliable, unnecessary wind power would be much more cost effective if invested on Conservation and Efficiency programs. In Maine two thirds of the $7 billion cost for 2700 wind megawatts ($2 million per MW plus $1.6 billion for concomitant transmission infrastructure) is equal to $10,000 per household. Imagine the multiple benefits of employing Maine tradespeople in every town, making the existing building stock in the state 50% more energy efficient by insulating attics and basements, weatherizing windows, and replacing inefficient heating systems. Not only would this invigorate our economy by putting more money in the pocket of every Mainer, it would also cut into our reliance on oil while protecting Maine’s natural landscape against the senseless destruction of 1800 mountain turbines. Instead, most of the public money is going to a few developers’ pockets while creating so called "green jobs" in 3rd world countries.

We urge you to allow wind power to mature as a technology before blindly investing in it. This would allow support for research, like that ongoing at the University of Maine, but decreased support for premature deployment of a technology whose impacts greatly exceed its benefits. If our need for electricity ever rises, we have far more sensible ways to obtain that electricity, including biomass, Canadian renewables and native natural gas. We also urge you to invest far more heavily in Conservation and Efficiency programs that will provide broader and more immediate economic and environmental benefits. Last, we ask that you be mindful of the uneven energy playing field between Maine and other states.

Sincerely,

Dr. Monique Aniel & Steve Thurston
Co-Chairs
Citizens Task Force on Wind Power