Portland's Desire to be 100% Green driven
By Brad Blake
A few weeks ago idealist/leftist Mayor of Portland, Maine made a goal of the city being 100% renewable energy and one of his acolytes had a letter to the editor of the Portland Press Herald praising such a cockamamie idea. I submitted this reply, because Portlanders seem to love wind power so much. Of course, it was never published, so I share it here.
To the Editor: Andrew LaVogue’s letter of 1/13/17 enthusiastically endorsed Mayor Strimling’s goal of Portland being 100% renewable power driven city expressed in his State of the City address. For years, this has been a steady idealist drumbeat for Portlanders to be “green”. Fine. I believe Portland should do this--by replicating the wind power project in Oakfield, Maine. After all, according to NREL publications, there is a far greater wind resource along the coast than in the distant hills 200 miles north. Oakfield’s owners boast the project can produce enough electricity for 50,000 households. Portland has 30,000 households plus all the commercial, industrial, city lighting, etc. Want to have renewable energy provide Portland’s electricity needs? Build a project similar to the 148 MW Oakfield project right in Portland. The Oakfield turbines are 479 ft high, 275 ft taller than Maine’s tallest building, Franklin Towers. Well, a city where everyone freaks out over any proposed building being greater than 100 ft tall must make sacrifices for being “green”! Due to spacing, the monstrous machines would line Back Cove, Eastern and Western Prom, dominate Deering Oaks, Capisic Preserve, Payson Park, Baxter’s Woods, Riverside Park and Presumpscot Preserve. Not enough room for all 48 of the Oakfield turbines? No problem, add the rest to Bug Light, Mill Creek and Hinckley parks in SoPo and Ft. Williams in Cape Elizabeth. What a grand addition to the Portland skyline, especially with the aviation lights, the shadow flicker, and the noise that sounds like the airplanes at Portland Jetport as the blades turn. Wind power is an unpredictable, unreliable, source of electricity that cannot be dispatched when needed. Wind projects in Maine destroy miles of natural and scenic resources. If Portland wants to be 100% renewable, let the wind turbines be built there. How many Portlanders want 479 ft turbines in their backyard?
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Maine as Third World Country:
CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power
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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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