Ragged Mountain could get three to 7 turbines if Camden, other towns take the bait.

How many? That fundamental question nearly went unanswered during the hour long presentation and Q&A session at the June 15th meeting of the Camden Selectboard, by George Baker of the Island Institute's "Maine Community Wind" group, the institute's for-profit subsidiary. Listen to Baker (30 minutes) and to the question and answer session afterward.(24 minutes)

For money really, that is what this meeting was about: how to set up a shell non-profit to incubate a fully for-profit entity within it; this corporation would then hatch out like a cuckoo's egg and take on 99% absentee control of the community's wind turbines operation. All in the warm bosom of wonderful government subsidies just waiting for canny investors to use Maine towns as "mules" to reap subsidies available to towns willing to sacrifice their ecotourism-based economies to do their part fighting climate change, hand in hand (ahem) with the energy investment community. Isn't that wonderful?

The deal for the town or towns: Not only Camden but Lincolnville and Rockport would include (I think) that the absentee corporadoes would be limited to only a small percentage of the <i>profit</i>, with the bulk of the revenue for debt servicing and reduced power rates awarded to the the minority owners: the community itself.
A shell game, but Uncle Sam likes being fooled, one is assured. Now, community being a diaphanous thing, in this day and age, the 'Tute's bagman Baker showed that a select group of industrial operations would be considered a "community".

The variety of financial shenangians the Island Institute's Baker offered up were near unending; one could mix and match Camden with Lincolnville, with Rockport, with this existing utility or that one, as nauseum. But for all the financial scheming, never EVER until pressed did Baker want to talk about the windmills themselves!
How many? one imagines most Camdenites in the room, and watching on cable, wondering. Would it be a line of towers like Mars Hill? A trio like Vinalhaven? But they were to be disappointed.

For despite taking part in months and months of studies and meetings about extracting Ragged Mountain's wind, neither Baker nor co-worker Susan Pude would offer up any visual image of the proposed windfarm, or even of the number of towers.

It was, Baker said smugly, unknowable, thanks to all the possibilities at this stage; in short, he would not speak a number, for fear of the audience at once populating in minds' eyes Ragged Mountain's magnificent ridges with waving shrieking spinners blinking through the nights. Mustn't have that. Let's stick to how much money Camdenites will save on their electric bills! Next question, please.

Short memory: he and Des Fitzgerald of the Camden Energy Committee, who stepped into the discussion now and then, had earlier discussed scenarios of 3,4,5, maybe seven 400+ foot wind turbines filling that gap between Ragged Mountain and Bald Mountain.

But wind wannabes have learned that no good can come of discussing the hideous steel towers. Focus on the money! The savings! The civic joy of owning one's own renewable energy supplier! The green patriotism!

Baker wasn't above stretching the truth at times. He spoke breathlessly about the "bunch of regulators" the Institute had gotten together with in the cause of be-winding Camden. Asked who the bunch consisted of, he said it was actually only one Public Utilities Commission official. Asked which official, Baker said the person had retired! He then declined to name he or she.

As for Nature? Surely the fact that winds blow mightily past that mountaintop means that our area's flying wildlife and passing migrators all use that as part of the great windy bird conveyor belt?

Nary a mention! Nature is something to deal with later, in the permitting process, once things are underway. And yet Island Institute bills itself as a Conservation Organization! Phil Conkling has apparently found that the secret to keeping his $150,000 per year salary flowing is knowing which way the wind blows. Dr Podolsky was at the meeting, too, mulling over how to certify-in-advance that turbines would be bird & bat friendly on Ragged Mountain.

There's something creepy in the hungry fervor of these energy hucksters. Impatient for magnate-dom, and driven to distraction by all these citizen groups and town governments getting between them and their pot of golden wind




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Comment by Brad Blake on June 16, 2010 at 11:07pm
In case people don't know the Camden Hills, one of the most popular viewpoints in Maine is from Mt. Battie in Camden Hills State Park. You can drive to the top o hike it on several trails. It dramatically overlooks Camden and Penobscot Bay, but turning landward, to the southwest across the valley is Ragged Mt.. It has some communications towers and the Camden Snow Bowl ski area, but otherwise fits in with the mountains that are protected within the park. 400 foot industrial machines on the doorstep of the park will ruin the viewshed. Here is a photo I took from Mt. Battie.

Comment by Brad Blake on June 16, 2010 at 10:47pm
Ron, thank you for reporting on this "snake oil" presentation. It shows just how ily arrogant George Baker is, to come into an area of cherished beauty and put lipstick on the pig of wind turbines. If an uproar doesn't ensue in Camden Hills, then we are doomed to have freakin' wind turbines from sea to shing sea in this country and we will all go bankrupt in the process (both morally and economically).

Or, will it take the shock of turbines across from Mt. Battie, Megunticook, and Maiden Cliffs to shock people into realizing this is butt-ugly industrialization of the beauty and ral resources that make Maine so special? God help us all if that is the reality!

 

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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