Wind does not displace coal, or any other fuel in today's grid.

Wind power is a false promise. Its easy to put a turbine on a mountain top. The hard part is getting the grid to try to regulate fossil fuel generators in response to the erratic, unpredictable and uncontrollable output of wind turbines. The ISO-NE grid has been studying wind integration for several years. It has outlined a number of issues that must be solved for wind to be effectively used as capacity. Storage, massive new transmission projects, dependable wind forecasts, smart grid, automatic regulation are all problems without current solutions. Wind power is, if anything, premature. Until these issues are resolved wind power simply adds to the excess capacity the grid maintains as a safety buffer and does not reduce fossil fuel consumption at all. It is neither useful or valuable, but we pay a high price for it.

The ISO-NE wind integration study says that to build all the infrastructure required for 20% wind power will require a tax on carbon of $100 per ton. In the most recent RGGI auction, carbon sold for $1.89 per ton, which is the floor price set by RGGI. On the Chicago exchange carbon recently sold for 10 cents per ton. Wind power is ridiculously expensive compared to cheap and plentiful coal. One of the "unintended consequences" of building a massive transmission system so that wind power generation can find a home somewhere is that midwest coal plants are chomping at the bit to sell power over these same lines to the energy hungry east coast. They will even absorb the cost of transmission. Wind power will not make a dent in coal mining, and may in fact give the coal industry a huge new market.

Mountain top coal removal is dirty business, just like the extraction of any of the raw materials the worlds economy runs on. I'm glad the mountains of Maine do not contain coal, or uranium, or bauxite, or iron ore, because they would be exploited if they did. What Maine's mountains contain is one of the last unspoiled places that people can come to to enjoy the absence of man's heavy hand. Wind power will industrialize this landscape and scar it for all future generations.

Views: 89

Comment

You need to be a member of Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine to add comments!

Join Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine

 

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/

Not yet a member?

Sign up today and lend your voice and presence to the steadily rising tide that will soon sweep the scourge of useless and wretched turbines from our beloved Maine countryside. For many of us, our little pieces of paradise have been hard won. Did the carpetbaggers think they could simply steal them from us?

We have the facts on our side. We have the truth on our side. All we need now is YOU.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

 -- Mahatma Gandhi

"It's not whether you get knocked down: it's whether you get up."
Vince Lombardi 

Task Force membership is free. Please sign up today!

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/

© 2024   Created by Webmaster.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service