MPBN Winds of Change - 2 parts
10th year anniversary
of the expedited wind law
These videos are posted as a look back through the lens of elapsed time and experience.
MPBN Winds of Change Documentary Pt 1 of 2
Part 1 - Link type 1
Part 1 - Link type 2
MPBN Winds of Change Documentary Pt 2 of 2
Part 2 - Link type 1
Part 2 - Link type 2
Unlisted, only accessible via these links
Collaborative Effort with [ LI ]
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Comment
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Comment by Long Islander on January 21, 2018 at 11:31pm
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Thank you Eric. I just watched part I at the MPBN link below. I've listed some approximate times for this version and paraphrased some of those interviewed.
MAINE WATCH WITH JENNIFER ROOKSWinds of Change: Part OneAired: 11/10/201026:46Rating: NRWind power projects are popping up all over Maine. Advocates say this is reducing Maine's dependence on fossil fuels while opponents say the industrial-size mountaintop wind farms are destroying delicate alpine wilderness forever. Jobs and boosting the economy seem to be pitted against environmentalists in this on-going story about Maine's energy future.Approximate times and paraphrased quotes (italicized text represents my comments) The approximate times reference the video at http://video.mainepublic.org/video/1641658515/?_ga=2.199893870.1941...5:20 Governor Baldacci: “We import all our energy” (What about our hydro Governor?)
7:15 NRCM’s Dylan Voorhees: “There is enormous economic and national security harm being done in Maine because of our use of fossil fuels”
12:20 NRCM’s Dylan Voorhees: “Wind power’s far better than other choices”……”But there are some specific locations where the tradeoff between wind energy and the environment just doesn’t work” (Who made you God Dylan?)
13:40 Gordon Weill (former Director of Maine PUC and former Maine Public Advocate): “First off, wind has been oversold….Nobody has looked at the cost of 3,000 MW of Maine wind power….I think we need to look at things that are too good to bed true because they are too good to be true”
14:38 Moderator Jennifer Rooks: Wind turbines are subsidized at 1.5 cents per KwH (In 2018 it’s 2.3 cents and the wind industry also gets plenty of other government giveaways)
15:20 Smooth operator Angus King: “Are we going to roll the dice and put our eggs in the natural gas basket and take what comes?” (What about the other electricity sources Angus, and how about some natural gas pipeline or are you against that because it would hurt your wind investments? The heck with the unwashed commoners who need low cost electricity, right?)
16:00 Gordon Weill (former Director of Maine PUC and former Maine Public Advocate): “I think it’s very difficult to tell people you should pay more for electricity now because you’ll save money later. That’s government saying to people pay med more now and it will be better for you later but somehow later never seems to come….it just isn’t true”.
16:30 Governor Baldacci: “How much is it costing us to have our troops over in the Gulf….they give our oil money to Al Qaeda” (But Mr. Baldacci, we don’t use oil to make electricity in Maine, except when there’s not enough natural gas to meet peak needs because your friends in the environmental community fight new natural gas pipelines that would bring us abundant low cost natural gas from Pennsylvania. You’re killing the poor people with your policies).
21:25 Dr. Michael Nissenbaum (MD in Fort Kent): “This evidences why wind turbine noise is more annoying than road noise or railroad noise – you can’t block it out…between 80% and 90% experience sleep disturbance….these people also have increased depression, anxiety and cardio vascular disease…..wind turbines should not be allowed within 7,000 feet of homes” (And today’s wind turbines are much bigger, so perhaps Dr. Nissenbaum would call for closer to two miles).
23:55 Dr, Dora Ann Mills, head of the Maine CDC under Gov Baldacci: “People living too close to wind turbines say it causes disease and syndromes but there’s a lot of junk science frankly out there on it”….Mills believes we should continue to study it and maybe adjust Maine’s regulations on this in the future”. (IT’S HIGH TIME we do what Dr. Mills suggested)
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Winds of Change: Part Two
Aired: 11/17/201026:38Rating: NR
Part two of this Maine Watch special report on wind power projects in Maine focuses on community wind projects including Vinalhaven, UMPI, Saco, and Chewonki. Also, the new deepwater ocean wind lab at UMaine. Learn about the revolutionary goals for the project.
http://video.mainepublic.org/video/1652940404/
Approximate times and paraphrased quotes (italicized text represents my comments) The approximate times reference the video at http://video.mainepublic.org/video/1652940404/
7:45 Don Zillman, UMPI president: “On a scale of 1-10 I’d rate this turbine an 11” (This despite the fact Mr. Zillman you absolutely knew by the time of the Jennifer Rooks interview the turbine was at an embarrassing 11% capacity factor, grossly underperforming your promises)
11:40 Charles Bonin, UMPI VP Finance: “It’s going to take three years to basically make sure we have met our goal but $100,000 in annual savings is a minimum – I think we will exceed that substantially” (Well MPBN ran this piece on 11/17/10 and Charles Bonin retired in October 2013, just under those three years. Coincidence? At the three year mark the turbine was failing miserably and has failed miserably all of the first 8.5 years)
12:55 Eric Cote, Chair of Saco Energy Committee: “Think about the Gulf oil spill. How can civilization be so stupid that we put all those oil drilling rigs in the ocean – what happens if you have an earth quake. If we’re serious about getting away from that stuff, we’ve got to do some stuff and be serious about it. And three of us in Saco are serious about keeping this turbine going and we’ll get the other vote” (Sorry Mr. Cote, but we don’t use oil to make electricity so what the heck are you talking about?)
15:15 Peter Arnold, Chewonki “Sustainability Director”: “It involves thinking about how we can do our energy so that the ecology of the area is not changed by climate change” (Mr. Arnold – what if we were to tell you that your wind power is scarring the views in over half the state and electricity generation accounts for only 9% of Maine’s CO2 emissions and at best, maxing out on wind blight would at the very best reduce only 1% of Maine’s CO2 emissions?)
20:05 Pete Jumars, University of Maine Director of School of Marine Sciences: “Because these waters off of Monhegan is a possible route for Atlantic salmon and sturgeon, both of which are radio tagged, we will see if this is a route they use for migration” (I’d be curious to know what percentage of those that use the Gulf of Maine have been tagged. If you’ve tagged only 1% and only few are picked up by your tracking buoy, can you really conclude it’s not a migration route. Also, do the routes vary over time?)
22:20 Habib Dagher, Executive Director of the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures & Composites Center: “After we develop the technology it will have to stand on its own in the marketplace” (Yes it will Dr. Dagher, but why do I think that you and the wind industry will be doing everything in your power to secure perpetual subsidies? You know that temporary Production Tax Credit passed in 1992 is 26 years old and they’ve increased the amount).
24:45 NRCM’s Dylan Voorhees: New England can achieve 10-20% of its energy from wind power in THE NEXT COUPLE OF YEARS. (Note he said that in 2010, so two years off would have been 2012, six years ago.)
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 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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