GOP Lawmakers Look to Revive Defunct Property Tax Stabilization Program for Maine’s Senior Citizens
To fund this badly needed tax relief, cut spending and start with eviscerating all the green nonsense. The insiders have put way too much of the green in their pockets. Gravy train must end for these scoundrels.
Public hearing on proposal to double homestead exemption set for Wednesday morning
By Libby Palanza
March 19, 2025
GOP lawmakers are looking to reinstate the property tax stabilization program for Maine’s older homeowners that previously had been repealed after just one year.
Referred to the Taxation Committee Tuesday, LD 1144 was sponsored by Sen. Jim Libby (R-Cumberland) and cosponsored by Sen. Bruce Bickford (R-Androscoggin) and Sen. Trey Stewart (R-Aroostook).
Originally introduced in 2022, this program allows eligible seniors to stop their property tax bills from increasing year over year, locking in the cost as of the preceding tax year.
Should this law be approved, seniors would be able to apply for the program starting with the 2026 property tax year, meaning that their taxes would be frozen at 2025 levels.
In addition to simply reviving the program, the language proposed by Sen. Libby also introduces two key changes to the law.
This new bill would limit the stabilized value of a senior’s home to $900,000, meaning that for homes assessed above this threshold would only receive stabilization benefits on the value up to $900,000.
It also specifies that municipalities may recover administrative costs from the state, in addition to the lost revenue accrued as a result of the stabilization.
A public hearing has not yet been scheduled for this bill, but one can be expected at some point in the near future.
Click Here for More Information on LD 1144
When this program was first introduced, it was estimated that stabilization would cost taxpayers statewide millions of dollars, with costs increasing substantially with each passing year.
Although municipalities were to be fully reimbursed for revenue lost as a result of this program, critics pointed out that the design simply shifted costs from municipalities to taxpayers statewide.
The fiscal note attached to the final version of the Stabilization Program indicated that roughly $2 million was initially allocated from the General Fund to cover the cost of municipal reimbursements for fiscal year 2023-24.
Democrats in Augusta have also sought this year to bring back a version of the defunct property tax stabilization program for Maine’s senior citizens, albeit with significant changes.
Unlike LD 1144, their bill would allow municipalities to impose a one percent sales tax on prepared food and living quarter rentals to offset the cost of stabilization.
The rest can be read at the following weblink:
https://www.themainewire.com/2025/03/gop-lawmakers-look-to-revive-d...
IMPORTANT ARTICLE FOR THESE TIMES
The Judicial Insurrection Is Worse Than You Think
By: John Daniel Davidson
March 20, 2025
The point of all the injunctions and restraining orders is to preserve the supreme rule of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats.
At this point it’s not too much to say that the federal judiciary has plunged us into a constitutional crisis. The fusillade of injunctions and temporary restraining orders issued by district court judges in recent weeks against the Trump administration — on everything from foreign aid to immigration enforcement to Defense Department enlistment policy to climate change grants for Citibank — boggles the mind.
More nationwide injunctions and restraining orders have been issued against Trump in the past month that were issued against the Biden administration in four years. On Wednesday alone, four different federal judges ordered Elon Musk to reinstate USAID workers (something he and DOGE have no authority to do), ordered President Trump to disclose sensitive operational details about the deportation flights of alleged terrorists, ordered the Department of Defense to admit individuals suffering from gender dysphoria to the military, and ordered the Department of Education to issue $600 million in DEI grants to schools.
On one level, what all this amounts to is an attempted takeover of the Executive Branch by the Judicial Branch — a judicial coup d’état. These judges are usurping President Trump’s valid exercise of his Executive Branch powers through sheer judicial fiat — a raw assertion of power by one branch of the federal government against another.
But on another, deeper level, this is an attempt by the judiciary to prevent the duly elected president from reclaiming control of the Executive Branch from the federal bureaucracy — the deep state, which has long functioned as an unelected and unaccountable fourth branch of the government. This unconstitutional fourth branch has always been controlled by Democrats and leftist ideologues who, under the guise of being nonpartisan experts neutrally administering the functions of government, have effectively supplanted the political branches. Unfortunately, to large extent the political branches have acquiesced in the usurpation of their authority.
Trump, with a strong mandate from the American electorate, has resolved to wrest control of the government from the deep state. The deep state in turn has been forced to fall back on its last line of defense: the courts.
What we’re seeing, in other words, is the return of the political (in the classical sense) to American governance. The political never really went away, of course. The idea of a neutral, nonpartisan class of experts and bureaucrats was always a fiction, a thinly-veiled scheme for implementing the Democrats’ agenda and neutralizing the effect of elections on actual governance. The voters could elect whomever they liked, but it would not much change what the bureaucracy did. This scheme has been the greatest scandal of modern American government, and the crisis unfolding now is a direct result of Trump’s efforts to dismantle it.
Why are the courts willing to defend the deep state? One reason is simply the unabashed partisan hatred of Trump by specific federal judges, like U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of the D.C. circuit, who this week arrogated to himself the authority to command federal law enforcement and military personnel overseas in a failed attempt to halt the Trump administration’s deportation of hundreds of alleged foreign terrorists.
There is also the encouragement that judges like Boasberg have received not only from the Supreme Court’s refusal to step in and check these abuses of power but also from Chief Justice John Roberts’ unprecedented statement this week attacking the president for suggesting that Boasberg should be impeached (which he should).
The larger cause of this judicial insurrection, however, is structural and historical, going back more than a century to the emergence of the theory of the administrative state. As a practical matter, the modern administrative state was created by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, which in the 1930s established a federal bureaucracy powerful enough to actually govern. But its intellectual and conceptual roots go back to Woodrow Wilson, an academic and unabashed progressive. Long before Wilson’s political career, he studied what he called “the science of administration” and looked to the imperial bureaucracy of Prussia in the 1880s as a template for how to transform American governance.
Wilson’s goal was to overcome what he saw as the needless inefficiencies and limitations of constitutional government. The role of government in society, according to Wilson (and contrary to the Founding Fathers), should adjust to meet the demands of the moment. At the turn of the 19th century, Wilson believed the moment demanded a government not bound by outdated concepts like rule of law or separation of powers. “Government,” he wrote in 1889, “does now whatever experience permits or the times demand.”
To accomplish this, Wilson (along with other pioneers in administrative law and politics at the time, like Frank Goodnow) believed it was necessary to create a realm of neutral administrative authority totally shielded from political influence and the vicissitudes of the ballot box. Above all, Wilson wanted to separate the business of governing from public opinion. “Wherever regard for public opinion is a first principle of government, practical reform must be slow and all reform must be full of compromises,” he wrote in 1886. “For wherever public opinion exists it must rule.” The crucial thing, then, was to separate politics from governance.
But if you take politics out of governance, where does that leave public opinion? How do you maintain a democratic form of government in which the people are supposed to have a say in how they’re governed? You don’t, actually. It would be, and is, impossible. Indeed, the entire point of the administrative state is to render elections largely meaningless. Whether it’s a change of president in the White House or a shift in the congressional majority, the goal is to strip the authority of the political branches to adjudicate political questions and place that authority in the hands of so-called experts inside the bureaucracy.
After generations of this sort of rule, we can see what it produces: a bloated and unaccountable deep state controlled by partisan ideologues who wield massive policymaking power, answerable to neither the president nor the Congress. Whatever you call this system of government, it isn’t the republican constitutionalism that our Founders set up, and it isn’t accountable to the American people. Voters can twice elect a president like Trump, who openly ran on dismantling the deep state, only to find that the deep state is not controlled by the elected president. It is a power unto itself, indifferent to the wishes of the people.
All of this directly relates to the judicial coup now underway. The injunctions and restraining orders coming out of the federal courts are a result of the complete takeover of the administrative state. Indeed, they are one of the deep state’s last lines of defense against the reassertion of actual political power in the person of Trump.
Take for example something like immigration and asylum policy, which is inherently a political question that in a properly functioning republic should be decided by the elected representatives of the people. Instead of passing clear laws that settle the political question of who is allowed into the country and who isn’t, Congress created an elaborate immigration bureaucracy that purported to transcend the political nature of the question in favor of fake process neutralism.
This immigration bureaucracy was housed in the Executive Branch, but as we can see now it was only ceremonially under the control of the president, and only so long as the president did not interfere with the bureaucracy. Presidents and members of Congress would inveigh against illegal immigration and promise to secure the border. But this was just political theater. In practice, the immigration bureaucracy implemented mass immigration by flooding the country with millions of illegal immigrant “asylum-seekers” who had no valid claims to asylum but were nevertheless allowed to remain in the U.S. as their cases wended their way through the system, a process that takes years.
That is to say, a political question was answered with a political decision. But because Congress abdicated its duty to settle that political question, it was settled instead by the unelected bureaucrats of the deep state, who had their own policy preferences.
It wasn’t until Trump came along and attempted to reassert political governance that the reality of administrative rule became so obvious that anyone could see it. Trump wants to change how we run our immigration system, and he has a mandate from the voters to do so. He tried to change it but was immediately challenged by the deep state, which is now relying on the judiciary to uphold its authority over and against the president.
The good news is that by attacking the deep state, Trump has forced it to fight back and expose its true nature, which isn’t that of neutral experts but of politically and ideologically motivated actors. Trump has also exposed the collusion and corruption of the judiciary in upholding the authority of the deep state. Radically partisan judges (who are also supposed to be neutral arbiters of the law) are now resorting to increasingly outlandish injunctions and restraining orders to maintain the deep state’s hold on power.
This state of affairs cannot continue. Thus far, Trump has shown remarkable restraint in how he has responded to judicial usurpation of his legitimate executive authority. But he’s running out of ways to show deference to these federal judges, who have only been emboldened by his restraint.
The plain reality is that this fight with the federal courts is really a fight against the entire progressive scheme of administrative rule, and it’s one that Trump has to win if we ever want to restore the role of politics — that is, of public opinion and the consent of the governed — to its rightful place in America.
https://thefederalist.com/2025/03/20/the-judicial-insurrection-is-w...
Views: 25
Comment
-
Comment by Willem Post on March 20, 2025 at 5:32pm
-
FLOATING OFFSHORE WIND IN NORWAY
Equinor, a Norwegian company, put in operation, 11 Hywind, floating offshore wind turbines, each 8 MW, for a total of 88 MW, in the North Sea. The wind turbines are supplied by Siemens, a German company
Production will be about 88 x 8766 x 0.5, claimed lifetime capacity factor = 385,704 MWh/y, which is about 35% of the electricity used by 2 nearby Norwegian oil rigs, which cost at least $1.0 billion each.
On an annual basis, the existing diesel and gas-turbine generators on the rigs, designed to provide 100% of the rigs electricity requirements, 24/7/365, will provide only 65%, i.e., the wind turbines have 100% back up.
The generators will counteract the up/down output of the wind turbines, on a less-than-minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365
The generators will provide almost all the electricity during low-wind periods, and 100% during high-wind periods, when rotors are feathered and locked.
The capital cost of the entire project was about 8 billion Norwegian Kroner, or about $730 million, as of August 2023, when all 11 units were placed in operation, or $730 million/88 MW = $8,300/kW. See URL
That cost was much higher than the estimated 5 billion NOK in 2019, i.e., 60% higher
The project is located about 70 miles from Norway, which means minimal transport costs of the entire supply to the erection sites
The project produces electricity at about 42 c/kWh, no subsidies, at about 21 c/kWh, with 50% subsidies
Subsidies shift costs from project Owners to ratepayers, taxpayers, government debt
In Norway, all work associated with oil rigs is very expensive.
Three shifts of workers are on the rigs for 6 weeks, work 60 h/week, and get 6 weeks off with pay, and are paid well over $150,000/y, plus benefits.
If Norwegian units were used in Maine, the production costs would be even higher in Maine, because of the additional cost of transport of almost the entire supply, including specialized ships and cranes, across the Atlantic Ocean, plus
A high voltage cable would be hanging from each unit, until it reaches bottom, say about 200 to 500 feet.
The cables would need some type of flexible support system
The cables would be combined into several cables to run horizontally to shore, for at least 25 to 30 miles, to several onshore substations, to the New England high voltage grid.https://www.offshore-mag.com/regional-reports/north-sea-europe/arti...
-
-
NEW ENGLAND ELECTRICITY 100% FROM WIND AND SOLAR by 2050?
New England has Net Zero nut cases. They know nothing about energy systems and fantasize lots of nonsense.“Keep it in the ground”, they say. “All electricity from wind and solar”, they say.
When presented with numbers and facts their eyes glaze overHere is a simple analysis, if no fossil fuels, no nuclear, and minimal other sources of electricity
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/vermont-example-of-ele...
.
It is assumed, 1) all W/S output, based on historic weather data, is loaded into batteries, 2) all demand is drawn from batteries, based on historic load on the grid, as published by ISO-NE.
An annual storage balance was created, which needed to stay well above zero; the batteries are not allowed to "run dry" in bad W/S years. The balance was used to determine the wind and solar capacities needed to achieve it.
.
New England would need a battery system with a capacity of about 10 TWh of DELIVERABLE electricity from batteries to HV grid.
Daily W/S output would be fed to the batteries, 140 TWh/y
Daily demand would be drawn from the batteries, 115 TWh/y in 2024
Battery system roundtrip loss, HV to HV, would be 25 TWh/y, more with aging
Transmission and Distribution to users incur additional losses of about 8%, or 0.08 x 115 = 9.2 TWh
The battery system would cover any multi-day W/S lulls throughout the year
Batteries would supplement W/S output, as needed, 24/7/365
W/S would charge excess output into the batteries, 24/7/365
Tesla recommends not charging to more than 80% full and not discharging to less than 20% full, to achieve normal life of 15 years and normal aging at 1.5%/y.
The INSTALLED battery capacity would need to be about 10 TWh / (0.6, Tesla factor x aging factor x 0.9, outage factor) = 18.5 TWh, delivered as AC at battery outlet.
The turnkey cost would be about $600/installed kWh, delivered as AC at battery outlet, 2024 pricing, or $600/kWh x 18.5 billion kWh = $11.1 trillion, about every 15 years.I did not mention annually increasing insurance costs of risky W/S projects.
If 50% were borrowed from banks, the cost of amortizing $5.5 trillion at 6% over 15 years = $557 billion/y
If 50% were from Owners, the cost of amortizing $5.5 trillion at 10% over 15 years = $708 billion/y
The two items total $1265 billion/y, about the same as the New England GDP.
There are many more cost items
Less 50% subsidies (tax credits, 5-y depreciation, loan interest deduction)
Subsidies shift costs from project Owners to ratepayers, taxpayers, government debt
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital...
.
No banks will finance W/S projects at acceptable interest rates and no insurance companies will insure them at acceptable premiums, no matter what the woke bureaucrats are pronouncing.
The sooner the U-turn, the better for New England, US and Europe.
BATTERY SYSTEM CAPITAL COSTS, OPERATING COSTS, ENERGY LOSSES, AND AGING
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital...by Willem Post
.
Utility-scale, battery system pricing usually is not made public, but for this system it was.
Neoen, in western Australia, has just turned on its 219 MW/ 877 MWh Tesla Megapack battery, the largest in western Australia.
Ultimately, it will be a 560 MW/2,240 MWh battery system, $1,100,000,000/2,240,000 kWh = $491/kWh, delivered as AC, late 2024 pricing. Smaller capacity systems will cost much more than $500/kWh
.
Annual Cost of Megapack Battery Systems; 2023 pricing
Assume a system rated 45.3 MW/181.9 MWh, and an all-in turnkey cost of $104.5 million, per Example 2
Amortize bank loan for 50% of $104.5 million at 6.5%/y for 15 years, $5.484 million/y
Pay Owner return of 50% of $104.5 million at 10%/y for 15 years, $6.765 million/y (10% due to high inflation)
Lifetime (Bank + Owner) payments 15 x (5.484 + 6.765) = $183.7 million
Assume battery daily usage for 15 years at 10%, and loss factor = 1/(0.9 *0.9)
Battery lifetime output = 15 y x 365 d/y x 181.9 MWh x 0.1, usage x 1000 kWh/MWh = 99,590,250 kWh to HV grid; 122,950,926 kWh from HV grid; 233,606,676 kWh loss
(Bank + Owner) payments, $183.7 million / 99,590,250 kWh = 184.5 c/kWh
Less 50% subsidies (tax credits, 5-y depreciation, loan interest deduction) is 92.3c/kWhSubsidies shift costs from project Owners to ratepayers, taxpayers, government debt
At 10% throughput, (Bank + Owner) cost, 92.3 c/kWh
At 40% throughput, (Bank + Owner) cost, 23.1 c/kWh
.
Excluded costs/kWh: 1) O&M; 2) system aging, 1.5%/y, 3) 20% HV grid-to-HV grid loss, 4) grid extension/reinforcement to connect battery systems, 5) downtime of parts of the system, 6) decommissioning in year 15, i.e., disassembly, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites. Excluded costs would add at least 15 c/kWh
COMMENTS ON CALCULATION
Almost all existing battery systems operate at less than 10%, per EIA annual reports i.e., new systems would operate at about 92.4 + 15 = 107.4 c/kWh. They are used to stabilize the grid, i.e., frequency control and counteracting up/down W/S outputs. If 40% throughput, 23.1 + 15 = 38.1 c/kWh.
A 4-h battery system costs 38.1 c/kWh of throughput, if operated at a duty factor of 40%.
That is on top of the cost/kWh of the electricity taken from the HV grid to feed the batteries
Up to 40% could occur by absorbing midday solar peaks and discharging during late-afternoon/early-evening, which occur every day in California and other sunny states. The more solar systems, the greater the peaks.
See URL for Megapacks required for a one-day wind lull in New England
40% throughput is close to Tesla’s recommendation of 60% maximum throughput, i.e., not charge above 80% and not discharge below 20%, to achieve a 15-y life, with normal aging.
Owners of battery systems with fires, likely charged above 80% and discharged below 20% to maximize profits.
Tesla’s recommendation was not heeded by the Owners of the Hornsdale Power Reserve in Australia. They excessively charged/discharged the system. After a few years, they added Megapacks to offset rapid aging of the original system, and added more Megapacks to increase the rating of the expanded system.
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-hornsdale-power-res...
Regarding any project, the bank and Owner have to be paid, no matter what. I amortized the bank loan and Owner’s investment
Divide total payments over 15 years by the throughput during 15 years, you get c/kWh, as shown.
There is about a 20% round-trip loss, from HV grid to 1) step-down transformer, 2) front-end power electronics, 3) into battery, 4) out of battery, 5) back-end power electronics, 6) step-up transformer, to HV grid, i.e., you draw about 50 units from the HV grid to deliver about 40 units to the HV grid, because of A-to-Z system losses. That gets worse with aging.
A lot of people do not like these c/kWh numbers, because they have been repeatedly told by self-serving folks, battery Nirvana is just around the corner.
.
NOTE: Aerial photos of large-scale battery systems with many Megapacks, show many items of equipment, other than the Tesla supply, such as step-down/step-up transformers, switchgear, connections to the grid, land, access roads, fencing, security, site lighting, i.e., the cost of the Tesla supply is only one part of the battery system cost at a site.
.
NOTE: Battery system turnkey capital costs and electricity storage costs likely will be much higher in 2023 and future years, than in 2021 and earlier years, due to: 1) increased inflation rates, 2) increased interest rates, 3) supply chain disruptions, which delay projects and increase costs, 4) increased energy prices, such as of oil, gas, coal, electricity, etc., 5) increased materials prices, such as of tungsten, cobalt, lithium, copper, manganese, etc., 6) increased labor rates.
.
HIGH COST/kWh OF W/S SYSTEMS FOISTED ONTO A BRAINWASHED PUBLIC
What is generally not known, the more weather-dependent W/S systems, the less efficient the other, traditional generators, as they inefficiently counteract the increasingly larger ups and downs of W/S output. See URL
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/fuel-and-co2-reduction...
.
W/S systems add great cost to the overall delivery of electricity to users; the more W/S systems, the higher the cost/kWh, as proven by the UK and Germany, with the highest electricity rates in Europe, and near-zero, real-growth GDPs
At about 30% W/S, the entire system hits an increasingly thicker concrete wall, operationally and cost wise.UK and Germany have hit the wall, more and more hours each day.
The cost of electricity delivered to users increased with each additional W/S/B system.
Base-load nuclear, gas and coal plants are the only rational way forward, plus the additional CO2 is very beneficial for additional flora and fauna growth and increased crop yields to feed hungry people.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/we-are-in-a-co2-famine
.
Subsidies shift costs from project Owners to ratepayers, taxpayers, government debt:
1) Federal and state tax credits, up to 50% (Community tax credit of 10 percent – Federal tax credit of 30 percent - State tax credit and other incentives of up to 10%);
2) 5-y Accelerated Depreciation write off of the entire project;
3) Loan interest deduction
.
Utilities pay 15 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from fixedoffshore wind systems
Utilities pay 18 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from floating offshore wind
Utilities pay 12 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from larger solar systems
.
Excluded costs, at a future 30% W/S annual penetration on the grid, based on UK and German experience:
- Onshore grid expansion/reinforcement to connect distributed W/S systems, about 2 c/kWh
- A fleet of traditional power plants to quickly counteract W/S variable output, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, which leads to more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
- A fleet of traditional power plants to provide electricity during 1) low-wind periods, 2) high-wind periods, when rotors are locked in place, and 3) low solar periods during mornings, evenings, at night, snow/ice on panels, which leads to more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
- Pay W/S system Owners for electricity they could have produced, if not curtailed, about 1 c/kWh
- Importing electricity at high prices, when W/S output is low, 1 c/kWh
- Exporting electricity at low prices, when W/S output is high, 1 c/kWh
- Disassembly on land and at sea, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites, about 2 c/kWh
Some of these values exponentially increase as more W/S systems are added to the grid
.
The economic/financial insanity and environmental damage of it all is off the charts.
No wonder Europe’s near-zero, real-growth economy is in de-growth mode.That economy has been tied into knots by inane people.
YOUR tax dollars are building these projects so YOU will have much higher electric bills.
Remove YOUR tax dollars using your vote, and none of these projects would be built, and YOUR electric bills would be lower.
-
-
THE DYSFUNCTIONAL STATE OF MAINE
The over-taxed, over-regulated, already-impoverished Maine people are super-screwed, trying to make ends meet in a near-zero, real growth Maine economy
The Maine economy has lots of low-tech/low-pay/low-benefit, bs jobs
The Maine economy has lots of woke, leftist bureaucrats
Screwed-over Mainers also have to pay for poverty-stricken, aliens of different cultures from all over, who illegally enter the US, a federal felony
.
Those illegal aliens:
- are the dregs of Third World countries, sent to Maine by their US-hating, leftist, woke governments, in cahoots with Soros/Biden-financed NGOs
- are getting free housing, free food, a never-empty credit card, free healthcare, free education and whatever other goodies they want. They mainly suck from the government tit
- have no skills, no training, no education, no modern industrial experience.
- will take low-tech/low-pay/low-benefit jobs away from screwed-over Mainers.
- are often good at crime, murder, rape, drug and human trafficking, and driving vehicles into merrymakers.- the tens of millions of incompatible, subversive, walk-ins would rather undermine, instead of fight for traditional European and US values and culture.
.
Many millions of illegal aliens have to be shipped back where they came from, before they forever ruin the US, as they ruined Europe.
.
Down-trodden Mainers often have to put up with the visual ugliness and noise of hundreds of windmills, that are often idle, because of too little wind year-round, and many thousands of acres of solar panels, that are often covered with snow and ice in winter; there is no solar at night.
.
MAGA may lead to higher CO2 ppm to 1) increase growth of flora and fauna all over the world, and 2) increase crop yields to feed hungry people. What is not to like?.
FLOATING OFFSHORE WINDMILLS IN IMPOVERISHED STATE OF MAINE
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/floating-offshore-wind...
Despite the meager floating offshore MW in the world, pro-wind politicians, bureaucrats, etc., aided and abetted by the lapdog Main Media and "academia/think tanks", in the impoverished State of Maine, continue to fantasize about building 850-ft-tall floating offshore windmills, each mounted on a 50% submerged, steel platform at least 250 ft x 250 ft x 75 ft tall to maintain the windmill in upright position in all conditions.
.
Maine government bureaucrats, etc., in a world of their own climate-fighting fantasies, want to have about 3,000 MW of floating wind turbines by 2040; a most expensive, totally unrealistic goal, that would further impoverish the already-poor State of Maine for many decades.
Those bureaucrats, etc., would help fatten the lucrative, 20-y, tax-shelters of mostly out-of-state, multi-millionaire, wind-subsidy chasers, who likely have minimal regard for: 1) Impacts on the environment and the fishing and tourist industries of Maine, and 2) Already-overstressed, over-taxed, over-regulated Maine ratepayers and taxpayers, who are trying to make ends meet in a near-zero, real-growth economy.
.
Those fishery-destroying, 850-ft-tall floaters, with 24/7/365 strobe lights, visible 30 miles from any shore, would cost at least $7,500/ installed kW, or at least $22.5 billion, if built in 2023 (more after 2023)
.
Almost the entire supply of the Maine projects would be designed and made in Europe, then transported across the Atlantic Ocean, in European specialized ships, then unloaded at a new, $500-million Maine storage/pre-assembly/staging/barge-loading area, then barged to European specialized erection ships for erection of the floating turbines. The financing will be mostly by European pension funds.
.
About 500 Maine people would have jobs during the erection phase
The other erection jobs would be by specialized European people, mostly on cranes and ships
About 200 Maine people would have long-term O&M jobs, using European spare parts, during the 20-y electricity production phase.
https://www.maine.gov/governor/mills/news/governor-mills-signs-bill...
.
The Maine people have much greater burdens to look forward to for the next 20 years, courtesy of the Governor Mills incompetent, woke bureaucracy that has infested the state government
The Maine people need to finally wake up, and put an end to the climate scare-mongering, which aims to subjugate and further impoverish them, by voting the entire Democrat woke cabal out and replace it with rational Republicans in 2024
The present course leads to financial disaster for the impoverished State of Maine and its people.
The purposely-kept-ignorant Maine people do not deserve such maltreatment
.
Electricity Cost: Assume a $750 million, 100 MW project consists of foundations, wind turbines, cabling to shore, and installation at $7,500/kW.
Production 100 MW x 8766 h/y x 0.40, CF = 350,640,000 kWh/y
Amortize bank loan for $525 million, 70% of project, at 6.5%/y for 20 years, 13.396 c/kWh.
Owner return on $225 million, 30% of project, at 10%/y for 20 years, 7.431 c/kWh
Offshore O&M, about 30 miles out to sea, 8 c/kWh.
Supply chain, special ships, and ocean transport, 3 c/kWh
All other items, 4 c/kWh
Total cost 13.396 + 7.431 + 8 + 3 + 4 = 35.827 c/kWh
Less 50% subsidies (tax credits, 5-y depreciation, loan interest deduction) 17.913 c/kWh
Owner sells to utility at 17.913 c/kWh
Subsidies shift costs from project Owners to ratepayers, taxpayers, government debt
.
NOTE: The above prices compare with the average New England wholesale price of about 5 c/kWh, during the 2009 - 2022 period, 13 years, courtesy of:
.
Gas-fueled CCGT plants, with low-cost, low-CO2, very-low particulate/kWh
Nuclear plants, with low-cost, near-zero CO2, zero particulate/kWh
Hydro plants, with low-cost, near-zero-CO2, zero particulate/kWh
.
Cabling to Shore Plus $Billions for Grid Expansion on Shore
A high voltage cable would be hanging from each unit, until it reaches bottom, say about 200 to 500 feet.
The cables would need some type of flexible support systemThere would be about 5 cables, each connected to sixty, 10 MW wind turbines, making landfall on the Maine shore, for connection to 5 substations (each having a 600 MW capacity, requiring several acres of equipment), then to connect to the New England HV grid, which will need $billions for expansion/reinforcement to transmit electricity to load centers, mostly in southern New England.
.
The whole set-up is s super-expensive nightmare, the extent of which has been clear in Germany for the past 10 years and the UK for the past 5 years.
Both have “achieved” near-zero, real- growth GDP, the highest electricity prices in Europe, and stagnant real wages.
The W/S variable output, or too-little output, or too-much output, creates operational difficulties that become increasingly more challenging and expensive to counteract.
.
Maine Folks Need Lower Energy Bills, Not Higher Energy Bills
The over-taxed, over-regulated, impoverished Maine people would buckle under such a heavy burden, while trying to make ends meet in the near-zero, real-growth Maine economy.
.
THE DYSFUNCTIONAL STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS WITH GIANT BATTERIES
A recent announcement is to install a statewide, 4-h battery system, installed capacity 5000 MW/20,000 MWh.
Tesla recommends not charging to more than 80% full and not discharging to less than 20% full, to achieve normal life of 15 years and normal aging at 1.5%/y.
The delivered capacity would be 20,000 MWh x 0.6, Tesla factor x aging factor x 0.9, outage factor = 10,800 MWhThe batteries would 1) absorb midday solar peaks and deliver the electricity during peak hours of late afternoon/early evening, and 2) stabilize the grid, due to varying W/S output, 24/7/365
The turnkey cost would be about $600/installed kWh, delivered as AC at battery outlet, 2024 pricing, or $600/kWh x 20 million kWh = $12.0 billion, about every 15 years.
I did not mention annually increasing insurance costs of risky W/S projects.
If 50% were borrowed from banks, the cost of amortizing $6 billion at 6% over 15 years = $608 million/y
If 50% were from Owners, the cost of amortizing $6 billion at 10% over 15 years = $774 million/y
The two items total $1,382 million/y; another hell-of-a-big subsidy for W/S systems
There are many more cost items
Less 50% subsidies (tax credits, 5-y depreciation, loan interest deduction)
Subsidies shift costs from project Owners to ratepayers, taxpayers, government debt
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital...
.
No banks will finance W/S projects at acceptable interest rates and no insurance companies will insure them at acceptable premiums, no matter what the woke bureaucrats are announcing.
The sooner the U-turn, the better for the New England, the US and Europe
-
-
Under present leadership, it will never happen in Maine,never happen in Maine because the mindset of many is ,
"What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine"
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/
Not yet a member?
Sign up today and lend your voice and presence to the steadily rising tide that will soon sweep the scourge of useless and wretched turbines from our beloved Maine countryside. For many of us, our little pieces of paradise have been hard won. Did the carpetbaggers think they could simply steal them from us?
We have the facts on our side. We have the truth on our side. All we need now is YOU.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
-- Mahatma Gandhi
"It's not whether you get knocked down: it's whether you get up."
Vince Lombardi
Task Force membership is free. Please sign up today!
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/
© 2025 Created by Webmaster.
Powered by
You need to be a member of Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine to add comments!
Join Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine