Some tips to help you navigate the renewable energy jungle
Some tips
To help you navigate the renewable energy jungle
Be aware that going with wind-powered electricity could add 10 to 15 percent to your annual bill, costing an additional $50 to $100 for typical Maine households. Interestingly, a Yale study last fall found the average American is willing to spend $177 more per year on energy bills in order to reduce global warming.
Two-thirds of Americans want to “prioritize clean energy sources,” the Pew Research Center reports. But for energy consumers, deciphering the jargon of electricity generation can be disempowering.
The federal Department of Energy website used to offer helpful guidance on green power choices. No more. Look to the Maine Public Utilities Commission (PUC) website for advice on choosing an electricity supplier and you’ll find just 88 words.
Maine could offer a website like the “Energy Switch” one in Massachusetts, where consumers can review a list of electricity suppliers that specifies percentage of renewable energy provided and whether that power comes from new projects like wind. That’s a key distinction: not all renewable power is equal in terms of pollution and climate change. Most of the power marketed as green and renewable here – including the Maine Green Power Program sponsored by the Maine PUC – relies predominantly on power generated from aging biomass plants or hydropower dams.
These suppliers do not expand clean energy markets with new projects that replace oil- and coal-burning sources. And there’s growing scientific controversy over whether biomass even qualifies as carbon-neutral, as reported recently by Yale’s e360.
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Comment
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Comment by Deborah Andrew on February 4, 2018 at 5:47pm
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People's desire to have 'clean' energy is based on a reality: climate change/evidence of impact f CO2 ... and the illusion they've been sold that solar arrays/panels and industrial wind turbines are sources of "clean, free energy" when nothing could be further from the truth. People, in general, also have bought into the idea of perpetual growth as a sustainable goal. Absence of accurate information and fact-based investigative journalism adds to the problems.
This may seem absurd, but I have begun to wonder if giving multiple cc of 'Green Illusions, The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism' (by scholar/researcher, Ozzie Zehner) to all our local libraries ... and starting study/reading groups using this book would begin to create the necessary skeptacism and fact-based thinking that is sorely missing.
Here in Massachusetts it is an uphill battle that so-far has only met with derision and/or a more vigorous support of the so-called 'renewables' ... even by those who fight the pipelines and helped shut down Vermont Yankee.
The illusion that all we have to do is convert is so tempting, and so much easier than taking a cold hard look at the military contribution, factory farming, the political system that is corrupt and so easily corrupted. The really hard work can be avoided, if we just switch. If only!
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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