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:
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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
Comment
U.S. Sen Angus King
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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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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