The Vermont ideologues are changing their tune! Stay Tuned .

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Comment by Jim Wiegand on October 24, 2015 at 12:00pm

Found this messianic selling pitch today on a wind company website. Powerworks is one  of the original wind companies from Altamont.                                                                                                                                                                    Clean renewable energy..............Saving the planet!

Comment by Eskutassis on October 23, 2015 at 6:36pm

Excellent comments by Eric Tuttle and Jim Wiegand.

Comment by Eric A. Tuttle on October 23, 2015 at 4:50pm

This appeared locally in one of Maine's Hollow Middle publications
Hopefully an awakening.....

Valiant New Englanders battle industrial wind

By Paul Ackerman

Last Thursday night Irasburg, Vermont, the town's voters cast ballots to determine if the eco-bullying of Big Wind would ruin the local vistas with wind turbines. Later as the count concluded, they had voted resoundingly "NO" to the industrial wind development, 274 No to 9 Yes.

In this truly grassroots effort, a very courageous group of locals, The Irasburg Ridgeline Alliance, had faced off against the PR campaign of industrial wind developer, David Blittersdorf (Kidder Hill Community Wind Company, so called) and the vested interests of the Vermont state government, in what might be typically derided as another "not-in-my-backyard" squabble. Do these "progress deniers" really matter? Don't they see the "big picture"?

Of course, when one understands the amount of money involved (1,603 tax breaks and payoffs to politicians), and the superficial urgency of political correctness in Vermont, it is hard to ignore the long odds that the 421 sensible Vermonters who signed a petition in Irasburg opposing this paltry 5-megawatt project will conclusively prevail against the developer and his political allies.

One hopes they do win, and that it sparks an all-out fight against every one of these corrupting crony-capitalist ventures nationally. It ought to.

Mainers should learn a lesson from Irasburg's citizens. No one will rebuild your ridgelines and mountaintops after they blast them to flats for wind turbines, and the taxpayer slush funds are used up. Not First Wind, not Sun Edison, not Iberdrola, not Uncle Sam. And certainly not the supposed environmental groups supporting these "green energy" projects. Many of them have taken donations from, or reached friendly agreements with, the companies and their allies involved in promoting Big Wind.

Recently, a well organized informational meeting at Rockland City Hall regarding a somewhat vague proposal to build a LNG-powered electrical generating facility in Rockland highlighted both the irrational NIMBY attitudes about such a plant, along with a remarkably cogent analysis of Maine's electrical grid and our electrical needs vs. capacity.

One of the experts speaking on this subject outlined that Maine has excess generating capacity to our in-state needs, and in particular that there was no economic reason for the Big Wind projects here other than to sell the power and attendant renewable energy credits to Connecticut and New York.

If this excess is accurate, then one might well question why Maine prevents excess hydro from Quebec sources from flowing into northern Maine to relieve the purportedly high cost of electricity to our paper industry. Maybe so we can bankrupt every major employer in northern Maine and create another big government land holding for nothing.

While the different experts opined on what they thought about the factors that might affect Rockland residents and the local economy, it seemed obvious that the timeline for such a project was, given regulatory hurdles and 36-plus miles of pipeline needed, more likely in the 5-year range. Considering the current price for LNG and oil, and the improved availability of same from American resources within 5-plus years, only a fool determined to ignore the corruption of Big Wind and its cronies would opt for that false promise of "cheaper, greener, power".

Plantation Maine, that's us.  The  NIMBY's in Connecticut and New York want the "green credits"; they just do not want to ruin their state's landscape. Moreover, they have more money behind them than we do.

I suggest Maine's (and national too) environmental groups have essentially sold out to Big Wind and Big Solar. Probably they'd call them palatable trade-offs, or even good deals, because they believe they know better than the rest of us what our country should look like.

I'll bet the citizens of Irasburg would beg to differ with that view.

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Paul Ackerman is a member of a group of concerned Mid-coast citizens who meet to discuss issues of public interest. Their weekly column "Another View" has been awarded by the Maine Press Association.

Comment by Jim Wiegand on October 23, 2015 at 4:09pm

The first big lie from this scumbag industry started in the late 1970's with claims that wind energy would get us off Middle Eastern oil. Of course looking back with 20/20 hindsight we now know that wind energy has a zero impact on our consumption of this oil. This first big lie then evolved over time to the lie of wind energy being able help to save mankind by fixing climate change.                                                                                                                                                                 In the end when corruption rules,  the lies do not matter as long as these turbines get sold to the public.  Just like a used care salesman that once confessed to me........... "Promise them anything just make the deal."

Here is a May 1980, a quote from a report made for the "green" Nazis......."It is now well recognized that wind will make a major contribution to the energy needs of the population only through the installation of sizeable "wind farms" that supply energy to the utility grid. This may not help individuals to "unplug" from the utility company but it will aid the utility company to reduce the negative impacts associated with dependence on foreign oil."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                THE POTENTIAL OF WIND ENERGY
Wind energy is one of the four basic renewable resources: solar radiation, wind, tides, and precipitation. The driving forces are the sun, gravity, and the earth's rotation. Biomass, ocean currents, and waves are derivations of the above resources. Solar radiation can be focused by solar collectors. Wind, tides, and precipitation are focused by terrain. Two recent independent studies of the potential energy production (as reported by Metz, 1978) of various technologies list wind energy ahead of the other solar technologies. The SRI (1978) study ranking the total benefits by 2020 of solar technologies on the basis of 100 possible points gives wind 90 points, solar heating and cooling 73, photovo1taics 65, and biomass 48. The Mitre (1978) study projects that by 2020 the quads of energy produced in the Unites States by these technologies will be 6.6 by wind, 3 to 5 by solar heating and cooling, and 4.4 by biomass.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Six point six quads is 1/12 of the total energy used in the United States in 1977, which was 77.7 quads. It is equal to 1/3 of the energy imported into the United States in the form of oil in 1977, or 17.4 quads. It is equal to 1/2 the coal energy mined in the United States in 1977, or 13.0 quads. It is 2 1/2 times the total nuclear energy produced in the United States in 1977, or 2.7 quads. (Data is from Hayes, 1979.)

A footnote............ My PHD mother did research and worked for SRI International Stanford Research Institute during the late 1970's early 1980's.  

 

 

 

Another early quote that applies directly to the rigging and collusion we see taking place today with this industry.  "The phenomenal development of wind energy in CA is a prime example of what a government-private industry partnership can accomplish."

 

 

It is very fair for everyone to ask ..............

Besides profits and environmental destruction what has really been accomplished by wind energy over this 35 year period?