Denmark’s State Owned Electric Company gives up Land based Wind Turbines!
Mass protests mean the energy firm will look offshore
State-owned energy firm Dong Energy has given up building more wind farms on Danish land, following protests from residents complaining about the noise the turbines make.
It had been Dong and the government’s plan that 500 large turbines be built on land over the coming 10 years, as part of a large-scale national energy plan. This plan has hit a serious stumbling block, though, due to many protests, and the firm has now given up building any more wind farms on land.
Anders Eldrup, the CEO of Dong Energy, told TV2 News: ‘It is very difficult to get the public’s acceptance if the turbines are built close to residential buildings, and therefore we are now looking at maritime options.'
The move has met resistance from parliament, where amongst others Anne Grete Holmgaard, the chairperson of the Parliamentary Environmental Committee, said, ‘It is rather unacceptable that Dong - which is our large, state-owned energy firm - says goodbye to an investment in wind on land, and that they are doing so after we have cleared the way for a test centre where new types of turbines can be tested.’
URGENT STOP The Wind Energy Siting Reform Act
URGENT!
The MA Speaker of the House wants a vote on the Wind Energy Siting Reform Act next week. This allows to override local decision on Wind Turbines!
Contact your representative now to oppose the Act, S.2260. Ask your representative to oppose the Act and to speak about it with his/her colleagues and the House leadership.
TAKE ACTION NOW --
To contact your representative, call the House switchboard (617) 722-2000, or find his/her direct-dial phone number and email address below.
To find the name of your representative, visit http://www.wheredoivotema.com/bal/myelectioninfo.php
Even if you are not a voter but pay taxes in MA, you have a right to be heard on this issue. HERE'S HOW TO BE MOST EFFECTIVE --
Call your representative's office and ask to speak with him/her; if unavailable, ask for a return call, leaving your phone number with the staffer, OR; Call your representative's office and speak with the staffer who answers, saying you strongly oppose S.2260, the Wind Energy Siting Reform Act, AND / OR; Email your representative with the subject line: I strongly oppose S.2260 Wind Energy Siting Reform Act (email is less effective than a conversation, but far better than doing nothing), AND; Copy your email to the Speaker of the House Robert DeLeo Robert.DeLeo@state.ma.us and Chairman of the House Ways & Means Charles Murphy Rep.CharlesMurphy@hwm.state.ma.us FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW, POST IT ON FACEBOOK, TWITTER - WE NEED AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE CONTACTING LEGISLATORS RIGHT AWAY!
TALKING POINTS ON S.2260 -- THE WIND ENERGY SITING REFORM ACT ENDS ALL LOCAL CONTROL OF WIND DEVELOPMENT Opposing the Wind Energy Siting Reform Act has nothing to do with your opinion about the benefits of wind power, it's about objecting to the state's brazen attempt to undermine Home Rule, gut environmental laws, and strip communities and citizens of their rights to appeal bad decisions of a state agency. NO COMMUNITY IS EXEMPT If the Wind Energy Siting Reform Act is adopted, we will be the only state in the nation that exempts the wind industry from compliance with local laws, state environmental laws, and the traditional rights of participation and appeal by communities and citizen groups. No other industry in MA - including the power plant industry - gets this triumvirate of special privileges. FAST-TRACK PERMITTING MEANS DEVELOPERS COULD BUILD ANYWHERE THEY CHOOSE IN YOUR TOWN The Act will shift authority for permitting wind projects, along with their associated transmission lines, roads, and other impacts, from town boards and state environmental agencies to an unelected state agency, the Energy Facilities Siting Board, which has a mission to permit power plants not protect the environment, and which has never turned down a power plant application. YOU AND YOUR TOWN WILL LOSE YOUR RIGHT TO YOUR DAY IN COURT The Act will allow the EFSB to disregard a community's zoning bylaw and to override its denial of a permit for a wind facility along with its associated infrastructure. The Act replaces environmental laws with "standards" that can be applied or waived at the discretion of the EFSB. This means a wind project that does not comply with the "standards" can still be approved under even lower thresholds, putting ecologically fragile areas and species at risk, and exposing neighbors to the negative health effects of noise and shadow strobing. THIS ACT SENDS THE WRONG MESSAGE ABOUT 'GREEN ENERGY' If the wind industry needs a pass from the environmental laws that everyone else must follow, how can it be considered environmentally friendly? Green energy projects should be able to meet all the state's environmental laws, thus setting an example for all other industries to follow. If the wind industry secures these special exemptions, every other industry will seek the same privileges, with the broad effect of gutting environmental laws that have been in force for decades. Since, under the Act, cost and necessity cannot be factors considered by the EFSB in its decisions to permit wind projects, marginal areas will be vulnerable to development without any brakes on bad projects by local boards and state environmental laws. ELECTRICITY COSTS AND JOB GROWTH WILL BE NEGATIVELY AFFECTED The subsidies for these wind projects will be hugely expensive to ratepayers and taxpayers. We already have among the highest electricity rates in the country, and this Act will increase electricity prices through the higher cost of wind-generated electricity, subsidies, and new transmission lines - affecting homeowners and businesses alike. FOR MORE INFORMATION -- To read the text of the Act, visit http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/senate/186/st02/st02260.htm
HERE'S THE CONTACT INFORMATION FOR YOUR REPRESENTATIVE --
Thank You!
SaveOurSeaShore’s Response to the National Parks Conservation Association’s Letter
National Parks Conservation Association Letter of Support!!!
We are overjoyed to receive the support of the National Parks Conservation Association the leading voice in protecting and enhancing America's National Parks with more than 340,000 members. We are humbled by their words of encouragement and support in our effort to protect Cape Cod National Seashore from industrial wind turbines.
Five myths about green energy
Americans are being inundated with claims about renewable and alternative energy. Advocates for these technologies say that if we jettison fossil fuels, we'll breathe easier, stop global warming and revolutionize our economy. Yes, "green" energy has great emotional and political appeal. But before we wrap all our hopes -- and subsidies -- in it, let's take a hard look at some common misconceptions about what "green" means.
The Washington Post By Robert Bryce Sunday, April 25, 2010
1. Solar and wind power are the greenest of them all.
Unfortunately, solar and wind technologies require huge amounts of land to deliver relatively small amounts of energy, disrupting natural habitats. Even an aging natural gas well producing 60,000 cubic feet per day generates more than 20 times the watts per square meter of a wind turbine. A nuclear power plant cranks out about 56 watts per square meter, eight times as much as is derived from solar photovoltaic installations. The real estate that wind and solar energy demand led the Nature Conservancy to issue a report last year critical of "energy sprawl," including tens of thousands of miles of high-voltage transmission lines needed to carry electricity from wind and solar installations to distant cities.
Nor does wind energy substantially reduce CO2 emissions. Since the wind doesn't always blow, utilities must use gas- or coal-fired generators to offset wind's unreliability. The result is minimal -- or no -- carbon dioxide reduction.
Denmark, the poster child for wind energy boosters, more than doubled its production of wind energy between 1999 and 2007. Yet data fromEnerginet.dk, the operator of Denmark's natural gas and electricity grids, show that carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation in 2007 were at about the same level as they were back in 1990, before the country began its frenzied construction of turbines. Denmark has done a good job of keeping its overall carbon dioxide emissions flat, but that is in large part because of near-zero population growth and exorbitant energy taxes, not wind energy. And through 2017, the Danes foresee no decrease in carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation.
2. Going green will reduce our dependence on imports from unsavory regimes.
In the new green economy, batteries are not included. Neither are many of the "rare earth" elements that are essential ingredients in most alternative energy technologies. Instead of relying on the diversity of the global oil market -- about 20 countries each produce at least 1 million barrels of crude per day -- the United States will be increasingly reliant on just one supplier, China, for elements known as lanthanides. Lanthanum, neodymium, dysprosium and other rare earth elements are used in products from high-capacity batteries and hybrid-electric vehicles to wind turbines and oil refinery catalysts.
China controls between 95 and 100 percent of the global market in these elements. And the Chinese government is reducing its exports of lanthanides to ensure an adequate supply for its domestic manufacturers. Politicians love to demonize oil-exporting countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, but adopting the technologies needed to drastically cut U.S. oil consumption will dramatically increase America's dependence on China.
3. A green American economy will create green American jobs.
In a global market, American wind turbine manufacturers face the same problem as American shoe manufacturers: high domestic labor costs. If U.S. companies want to make turbines, they will have to compete with China, which not only controls the market for neodymium, a critical ingredient in turbine magnets, but has access to very cheap employees.
The Chinese have also signaled their willingness to lose money on solar panels in order to gain market share. China's share of the world's solar module business has grown from about 7 percent in 2005 to about 25 percent in 2009.
Meanwhile, the very concept of a green job is not well defined. Is a job still green if it's created not by the market, but by subsidy or mandate? Consider the claims being made by the subsidy-dependent corn ethanol industry. Growth Energy, an industry lobby group, says increasing the percentage of ethanol blended into the U.S. gasoline supply would create 136,000 jobs. But an analysis by the Environmental Working Group found that no more than 27,000 jobs would be created, and each one could cost taxpayers as much as $446,000 per year. Sure, the government can create more green jobs. But at what cost?
4. Electric cars will substantially reduce demand for oil.
Nissan and Tesla are just two of the manufacturers that are increasing production of all-electric cars. But in the electric car's century-long history, failure tailgates failure. In 1911, the New York Times declared that the electric car "has long been recognized as the ideal" because it "is cleaner and quieter" and "much more economical" than its gasoline-fueled cousins. But the same unreliability of electric car batteries that flummoxed Thomas Edison persists today.
Those who believe that Detroit unplugged the electric car are mistaken. Electric cars haven't been sidelined by a cabal to sell internal combustion engines or a lack of political will, but by physics and math. Gasoline contains about 80 times as much energy, by weight, as the best lithium-ion battery. Sure, the electric motor is more efficient than the internal combustion engine, but can we depend on batteries that are notoriously finicky, short-lived and take hours to recharge? Speaking of recharging, last June, the Government Accountability Office reported that about 40 percent of consumers do not have access to an outlet near their vehicle at home. The electric car is the next big thing -- and it always will be.
5. The United States lags behind other rich countries in going green.
Over the past three decades, the United States has improved its energy efficiency as much as or more than other developed countries. According to data from the Energy Information Administration, average per capita energy consumption in the United States fell by 2.5 percent from 1980 through 2006. That reduction was greater than in any other developed country except Switzerland and Denmark, and the United States achieved it without participating in the Kyoto Protocol or creating an emissions trading system like the one employed in Europe. EIA data also show that the United States has been among the best at reducing the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per $1 of GDP and the amount of energy consumed per $1 of GDP.
America's move toward a more service-based economy that is less dependent on heavy industry and manufacturing is driving this improvement. In addition, the proliferation of computer chips in everything from automobiles to programmable thermostats is wringing more useful work out of each unit of energy consumed. The United States will continue going green by simply allowing engineers and entrepreneurs to do what they do best: make products that are faster, cheaper and more efficient than the ones they made the year before.
Robert Bryce is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His fourth book, "Power Hungry: The Myths of 'Green' Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future," will be out Tuesday, April 27.
Concern for birds
Although the turbine industry claims that turbines kill less than 1% of the bird population, the majority of these birds would comprise of the species related to birds of prey. And since prey creatures are usually only 10% of any animal population, this 1% claim suddenly becomes more of a concern. ...There's nothing wrong with green initiatives, but it's important to put wind turbines in locations that are logical for people, wildlife and the environment and not just because of a convenient power supply.
April 23, 2010 by Andres Hoag in The Lindsay Post
I read the article on the success the osprey is having here in the City of Kawartha Lakes and it certainly is a good news story.
But with the possible allocation of wind turbines throughout our municipality, I have real concern for the future of our birds of prey. It would be difficult for anyone to argue this area seems to be a hot spot for birds. I've counted 10 species of hawk, falcon and eagle including osprey and the bald eagle just off the top of my head and there could be possibly more.
Although the turbine industry claims that turbines kill less than 1% of the bird population, the majority of these birds would comprise of the species related to birds of prey. And since prey creatures are usually only 10% of any animal population, this 1% claim suddenly becomes more of a concern. We also have to hope that 1% is the truth and not a doctored number. Birds of prey are attracted to the up drafts the turbines produce and tend to circle the turbines until they get too close and get struck by one of the blades. A bald eagle has already been found dead in southern Ontario only 40 metres from a wind turbine.
I feel the City of Kawartha Lakes is part of a natural migration route and the wind turbines will have a significant toll on our birds of prey simply because of the numbers of prey birds that live in this area.
Once the turbines are up they will not be moved, so we need to ask ourselves if this is a logical place for them. In California which is also another part of the migratory route of birds of prey, 2,000 to 5,000 birds are killed each year.
According to a web site called the Heartland Institute, quote, "A study conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that Altamont Pass bird deaths are more prevalent than previously thought. According to the Jan. 30Oakland Tribune, previous studies conducted by wind farm operators had underestimated Altamont Pass bird kills by 25 to 300%. Moreover, new technologies designed to reduce the number of bird deaths will actually have the effect of increasing turbine bird kills.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory determined that new technology that would reduce the number of turbines by increasing the size of each tower's blades would kill more birds than the preexisting turbines. The larger turbines would increase the area of "swept" air and would have more lethal blades and components than their smaller cousins.
There's nothing wrong with green initiatives, but it's important to put wind turbines in locations that are logical for people, wildlife and the environment and not just because of a convenient power supply.
Remember, we're supposed to be making the world a better place, not a more dangerous one.
This Nuclear Option Is Nuclear; The costs of fads and superstition
Meanwhile, America, which pioneered nuclear power, is squandering money on wind power, which provides 1.3 percent of the nation's electricity: it is slurping up $30 billion of tax breaks and other subsidies amounting to $18.82 per megawatt-hour, 25 times as much per megawatt-hour as the combined subsidies for all other forms of electricity production. Wind power involves gargantuan "energy sprawl."
April 19, 2010 by George Will in Newsweek
The 29 people killed last week in the West Virginia coal-mine explosion will soon be as forgotten by the nation as are the 362 miners who were killed in a 1907 explosion in that state, the worst mining disaster in American history. The costs of producing the coal that generates approximately half of America's electricity also include the hundreds of other miners who have suffered violent death in that dangerous profession, not to mention those who have suffered debilitating illnesses and premature death from ailments acquired toiling underground.
Which makes particularly pertinent the fact that the number of Americans killed by accidents in 55 years of generating electricity by nuclear power is: 0. That is the same number of Navy submariners and surface sailors injured during six decades of living in very close proximity to reactors.
America's 250-year supply of coal will be an important source of energy. But even people not much worried about the supposed climate damage done by carbon emissions should see the wisdom-cheaper electricity, less dependence on foreign sources of energy-of Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander's campaign to commit the country to building 100 more nuclear power plants in 20 years.
Today, 20 percent of America's electricity, and 69 percent of its carbon-free generation of electricity, is from nuclear plants. But it has been 30 years since America began construction on a new nuclear reactor.
France gets 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power; China is starting construction of a new reactor every three months. Meanwhile, America, which pioneered nuclear power, is squandering money on wind power, which provides 1.3 percent of the nation's electricity: it is slurping up $30 billion of tax breaks and other subsidies amounting to $18.82 per megawatt-hour, 25 times as much per megawatt-hour as the combined subsidies for all other forms of electricity production.
Wind power involves gargantuan "energy sprawl." To produce 20 percent of America's power by wind, which the Obama administration dreamily proposes, would require 186,000 tall turbines-40 stories tall, their flashing lights can be seen for 20 miles-covering an area the size of West Virginia. The amount of electricity that would be produced by wind turbines extending the entire 2,178 miles of the Appalachian Trail can be produced by four reactors occupying four square miles of land. And birds beware: the American Bird Conservancy estimates that the existing 25,000 turbines kill between 75,000 and 275,000 birds a year. Imagine the toll that 186,000 turbines would take.
Solar power? It produces less than a tenth of a percent of our electricity. And panels and mirrors mean more sprawl. Biomass? It is not so green when you factor in trucks to haul the stuff to the plants that burn it. Meanwhile, demand for electricity soars. Five percent of America's electricity powers gadgets no one had 30 years ago-computers.
America's nuclear industry was a casualty of the 1979 meltdown of the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania, which was and is referred to as a "catastrophe" even though there were no measurable health effects. Chernobyl was a disaster because Russians built the reactor in a way no one builds today-without a containment vessel.
Since the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority, Alexander's state has played a special role in U.S. energy policy. The last commercial reactor opened in America is Watts Bar, Unit 1 in Tennessee. And, in a sense, all uses of nuclear power began in that state.
In September 1942, the federal government purchased 59,000 acres of wilderness in eastern Tennessee and built an instant city-streets, housing, schools, shops, and the world's most sophisticated scientific facilities. This was-is-Oak Ridge. Just 34 months later, a blinding flash illuminating the New Mexico desert announced the dawn of the atomic age. That is what Americans can do when motivated.
Today, a mini-Manhattan Project could find ways to recycle used nuclear fuel in a way that reduces its mass 97 percent and radioactive lifetime 98 percent. Today, Alexander says, 10 percent of America's lightbulbs are lit with electricity generated by nuclear material recycled from old Soviet weapons stocks. This is, as Alexander says, "one of the greatest swords-into-plowshares efforts in world history, although few people seem to know about it." It is a travesty that the nation that first harnessed nuclear energy has neglected it so long because of fads about supposed "green energy" and superstitions about nuclear power's dangers.
Open Letter to the Citizens & Voters of the Town of Wellfleet from Selectman Beebe
On March 30, the Board of Selectmen of the Town of Wellfleet voted unanimously to suspend work on the proposed wind turbine project. It grieved me to make the decision and to have to disappoint so many people, especially those members of the Wellfleet Energy Committee (WEC) who gave literally years of their time, effort, and energy to this project. The vote has caused confusion and some controversy. I am writing to clarify why I chose to vote against the project, and why that evening and not at or after the Annual Town Meeting.
As a selectman I have been discussing the possibility of a wind project for Wellfleet for at least three years now. Like so many of you, I was very open to the possibility of a wind turbine for Wellfleet. I traveled across the country two years ago and saw turbine farms in Arizona. I did not stand at the base of one, nor did I hear one. In retrospect, I was probably 100 miles away, but I thought they were beautiful and decorative, and in no way marred the landscape. I was present when the MET tower was erected in the rear of the parking lot at White Crest Beach, and when we received the data from the met tower, and decided to move forward with a formal study. I voted in favor of all these steps, including the article at town meeting to authorize the board to spend money for the necessary studies. At each juncture, although very excited and hopeful, I realized that at any time in the process we could come across information that would be a deal breaker for the town. We were cautiously optimistic, and for me, it was all still conceptual.
Like all towns, we are facing many difficult decisions, quite a few of them are financial, even if they do not appear to be on the surface. Each year we face increasing challenges to balance the budget with the needs of citizens. We need to pay for our employees, keep our schools educating children, and continue to provide the town services that people rely on. Add to this mix that no one wants to pay more taxes, and many residents can not afford to. Paradoxically, as a town, we are conservation minded and really care about our land. We actively pursue placing more and more land into conservation and have worked to limit new building growth via zoning rules, both of which will continue to place more tax burden on existing property owners. In other words, it is all complicated, and never just about one thing. We are all struggling to find and keep a quality of life, and it is different for all of us. Our values are often not the same, and this leads to conflict, debate, and many tough decisions.
This winter I began to look more closely at the progress of the wind turbine project. Like most people, I had made assumptions regarding the siting and other issues, and the WEC had moved well beyond where I was. One of the changes was that the turbine could not be sited at White Crest (site 1) where the met tower was erected and the wind testing was done, so the WEC moved to the alternative site back into the forest of Wellfleet by the Sea (site 2) approximately 1/2 mile into the woods. Two other factors entered into the mix: the Board began to get more regular updates from the WEC (as they had new and important data and many time constraints and decisions to make) and there was a growing and active opposition to the project, raising concerns and demanding answers to questions. I read all of the studies that had been completed to date (available on the town’s website) in order to be more ready to respond. I started to do my research, ask questions, and discuss the project. I walked to the proposed site (site 2), from both directions, and started to take a look at both the east and west entry road proposals. I spent many hours trying to understand sound modeling data, and trying to understand the scale and measurements of the turbine. I admit that it was very difficult for me to wrap my brain around the scale of the turbine. I had envisioned something like what is at country gardens in Hyannis: what I perceive as a benign, beautiful, slim structure, propelled by the wind and soundlessly somehow converting wind to electricity, maybe with batteries. (It is a blonde wind vision). What I began to see and read and conceptualize, was very different. At first, it gave me pause, and I wanted to study more, but then I received two more updates from the WEC (3/23 & 3/30) and my growing concerns became solidified. My concerns centered around: the appropriateness of Site 2, the need to build major road access and what that would do to the land approaching from either east (White Crest) or west (Duck Pond Road), the financial projections and reliance on many assumptions, noise issues and the short distance between the turbine and residential homes, and insurance issues. I thought at the time, that any one of these could be deal-breaker issues for me in analyzing the benefits vs. risks of this project.
On 3/23, the Board received an update from the WEC which provided negative data regarding the financial projections, insurance concerns, and site access issues. The following week, the town would be signing a contract to engage consultants in what would be one of the longest and most expensive studies to date, the environmental/migratory bird study which would continue for 6 months, and would give us data on an entire nesting season. There was now a time element introduced, and a decision needed to be made.
On 3/30, the WEC presented a more positive presentation to the board, but even then, tossed the responsibility and liability for possible unanswerable questions squarely in our domain, where I admit, they belonged. While the citizens present heard only the positive presentation, we, as board members had two written updates prior to the meeting, so at that point, barring any new information, I was ready to make a decision.
These were and remain my concerns:
The issue of noise: A turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from airflow and converts it to electricity. Turbine engines create most of our electrical power, and also power everything from refrigerators to jet engines and even the powerful space shuttle. The process of energy conversion is not just the wind turning the blades as I thought, it is an engine that is converting wind to electricity, and it makes noise. At times, the noise can be a mechanical whooshing sound, and at other times much louder, anywhere from a refrigerator to an airplane engine.
The models available to predict sound and the standards available to regulate levels of sound, were inadequate in predicting what close neighbors would hear, and at what levels they would hear sound. I read the sound data presented by our consultants, but also did research on several models available for predicting sound from the turbines. The best one was a UMASS study which took into effect: groundcover, height of turbine, length of blades or “tip height”, and projected “adequate” distances. The truth is, turbines do make noise, and it is constant. It changes in different wind speeds and at different wind directions, but 24 hours per day, as long as the turbine is turning, there will be noise. The National Park Service Natural Program Sounds Group evaluated the sound study completed by our consultants, and NPS scientists found problems with the report, including that there was insufficient data, based on the fact that our study collected data in a single day. Their other concerns were: that the estimation of ambient noise in the area was too high, that the data was measured at inappropriate locations, and they believed they would need much more comprehensive information to perform a reasonable evaluation, including a minimum of 30 days worth of sound data. The WEC recommended that we study the sound issue more, but the turbine chosen is fairly new, and since wind direction, wind speed, and the characteristics of site are so variable, the truth is, we can’t really “know” what the neighbors will hear until after it is built and operating. From site 2, we have 38 homes ¼ mile away, and many more up to ½ mile away. At these distances it is likely that residences will be impacted by noise, and experience in other locations tells us that some will be truly negatively impacted. Shouldn’t we learn from other people’s mistakes? I would prefer to have at a site with a larger radius of no homes, at least ½ mile, so we could be more confident that residents would not be adversely affected. The WEC was very clear in the presentation of 3/30 that while they were confident that the project could meet the state standard, they could make no other assurances that the problems that have occurred in other communities would not happen here in Wellfleet. In fact, with our wind speeds and directions, the model suggested there would probably be the most noise in the summer months and up-wind of the turbine, the precise area where we have the most density of private residences. In my mind, this was a guarantee of problems.
Financial risk: Black & Veatch, the engineering consultant that did the feasibility study, judged this project to be not attractive for any private developer, which was the reason we initiated a municipal study. In order to make it financially feasible, lots of complex issues needed to be resolved and agreements honored by other government entities. The initial cost of the turbine would be 5.3 million dollars. All proforma budgets are based on certain assumptions and ours was no different. The wind turbine at Site 2 was expected to generate a revenue stream that was over four times the current wholesale rate of electricity. This was due to two sources (“net metering” and “renewable energy certificates”), both of which are supported by legislative subsidies and/or consumer surcharges. Our financial proforma assumed that these subsidies would be available in the future. The “net metering” subsidies are subject to an aggregate “cap” for all renewable energy projects statewide that is equal to 1% of peak electricity production. The WEC predicted that this “cap” would be reached in 2011 and would require a legislative decision to continue the subsidy by raising the cap to accommodate new electric producers, or the “race” was on to see who could erect a turbine the fastest in order to qualify for the better rates. The numbers in the proforma depended on meeting the goal of completion by 2011. Any project delays would have possible dire financial implications. Going in, we knew there was no definite assurance, but we explored anyway, in the hope that other information would assist us in calculating the risk.
The projections assumed two other facts that were variable: that the proposed turbine would have a “capacity factor” of 30%, and that the price that Wellfleet is paid for its new electricity would increase each year. (The price of electricity declined by about 50% between 2008 and 2009.) Cape & Vineyard Electric Cooperative for the town of Harwich estimated capacity for a wind turbine similar to Wellfleet’s at 24.3% and a wind turbine of almost identical height at Hull (Hull II) has a capacity factor of 24%. If a capacity factor of 25% was assumed and energy prices did not rise every year, then the project would have produced much less revenue than predicted. If the price of electricity fell, or we did not qualify for the net metering, or the capacity of the turbine was less than anticipated, or any combination occurred, annual financial losses would occur and the project would become a disaster for the town.
Weather related risk. In the memo from the WEC dated 3/23, I learned that the proposed turbine is guaranteed to survive only up to 95 MPH winds, certainly a great wind speed, but one that we see here at least once each winter. I think it is likely that in the life of the turbine we will have wind far in excess of this. We are a coastal New England town that commonly deals with winter storms and high winds, and what about a hurricane? It seems likely that we may have periods of non-functioning, and possibly a collapse. The WEC actively investigated the current insurance market, and there is insurance for weather related issues up to a limit of $500,000. Replacing parts every once in awhile after a winter storm is possible, but will be expensive, replacing the whole turbine, even once in its 20 year life span, will make the project financially unfeasible. At the time of our 3/30 meeting, we had just sent the financial proforma out to an independent consultant for review, but the financial and insurance issues were racking up, with so many potential pitfalls. I had to ask myself what our current tolerance for financial risk was. Should we, the Board of Selectmen be prepared to support the project in light of the knowledge that incorporating more modest expectations for the performance of the turbine, coupled with real insurance issues, indicates a possibility of substantial losses to the Town of Wellfleet? It seemed like gambling to me, and truly, we cannot afford to gamble right now.
Site 2: The turbine itself grew in proportion from a small enterprise to an industrial size turbine with a "hub" of 264 feet (the size of the Pilgrim Monument) with blades at 420 feet long (a football field is 360 feet long). It does not arrive in pieces, but is brought in on huge trucks that need to have wide, flat roads on which to travel. It would have required major destruction to create the site and get the turbine in: including cutting and filling a 30 foot-wide, 1/2 mile long road, and building an immense concrete slab to support the structure. Site 2 is located in the forest 1/2 mile behind site 1. It is difficult to walk from site 1 to site 2 as there are no paths, but easy to go from Old County Road or Duck Pond Road through the forest to the site. From a few hundred yards past the new site, there, you can see the “east route” or clear through to the low brush near site 1. If you walk either route, you will clearly be able to see the kind of immense project that clearing and filling the land to make a road would be. This part of the woods has some of the most dramatic grade changes in Wellfleet. The road option (west) was a long run starting at the now narrow, dirt Duck Pond Road, crossing woodlots owned by the town, the housing authority development, the power line and thru the woods to the site. The road option (east) is from Ocean View Drive, across dramatic grades, into the forest and to the site. In the memo from the WEC dated 3/23, both options were discussed in detail, also citing that NHESP and MESA review may cause additional delays in the project due to environmental issues. In the report on 3/30, the WEC stated that a decision was made to use the east route (the original route) despite the grade changes. I agreed the east access was better, because I had grave concerns re: the Duck Pond access, but even with the east access, there is no doubt in my mind the site work would be very expensive and extremely intrusive to the area. It wouldn’t be just a quick fire road, it would completely change the landscape of an area we have successfully protected from development for over 50 years and that many residents and visitors use and cherish. This is the single largest parcel of conservation land the town has left, and resides in the heart of the National Seashore Park.
I had to weigh the benefits to the community that would balance this level of environmental destruction, aside from financial risk and resident dissatisfaction, and I didn’t see those benefits. I began to see the incalculable risks instead.
Ultimately, from the remarks of the other Selectmen as well as my own, I think we all decided that while we need to pursue forms of alternative energy for the town, Wellfleet really is not the place for a power plant, however benign it may be compared to other power plants. We would still be taking great financial risk and destroying a precious part of our rural environment to sell energy to the grid. I hope, as a community, we will aggressively pursue smaller, more beneficial alternative energy sources: hydropower (the new herring run tide gate, perhaps), solar panels (town buildings) and possibly smaller wind projects, but most importantly, energy conservation efforts, using less rather than creating more. We have not given up on alternative energy; we just need to do things more suited to our rural scale. The Vesta (maker of the turbine) tagline is, “a more efficient way to more power”, I would suggest that our motto should be,” a more efficient and environmentally friendly way to responsibly use our existing power.
Sincerely,
Jacqui Wildes Beebe
Wellfleet Selectman
Spanish Solar-Panel Trade Group Calls for Fraud Investigation
I highlight this news article to show the possibility of renewable energy sources that are funded purely by government fiat to be ripe for fraud and abuse!
April 12 (Bloomberg) -- A Spanish trade group called on authorities to investigate possible fraud among solar-power generators after a news report said that some were getting paid for producing power at night.
ASIF wants the “identification, charges and rigorous application of the law” applied to any power producer guilty of such practices, the Madrid-based association for Spain’s photovoltaic-panel industry said today in a statement.
An audit of solar-power generation from November 2009 to January 2010 found that some panel operators were paid for doing the “impossible” -- producing electricity from sunlight during the night, El Mundo reported today, citing a letter from Secretary of State for Energy Pedro Marin.
Officials at Marin’s office in Madrid weren’t immediately available for comment.
“ASIF regrets that, with relative frequency, supposed photovoltaic fraud is leaked to the press -- with harmful consequences for the public image of the sector -- which later don’t translate into any public case that identifies the guilty,” the group said.
Preliminary evidence shows some solar stations may have run diesel-burning generators and sold the output as solar power, which earns several times more than electricity from fossil fuels, El Mundo said, citing unidentified people from the energy industry. The power grid received 4,500 megawatt-hours of power from midnight to 7 a.m. in the months audited, El Mundo said.
--Editors: Stephen Cunningham, Mike Anderson.
Cape Wind rejection recommended
WASHINGTON - A federal agency on historic preservation has recommended that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar reject a proposed massive wind energy project in Nantucket Sound - an area that is sacred to the Wampanoag nations and qualifies for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
On April 2, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation issued a seven-page report of its findings and recommendation to deny permits to Cape Wind Associates to construct a wind energy plant consisting of 130 wind turbine generators that would tower 440 feet above water level in a 24-square-mile area on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound, which lies between Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. The proposal includes plans for a 66.5-mile buried submarine transmission cable system, a centrally located electric service platform and two 115-kilovolt lines totaling 25 miles connecting to the mainland power grid.
"The historical properties affected by the project are significant and closely interrelated," ACHP wrote. "The project will adversely affect 34 historic properties, including 16 historic districts and 12 individually significant historic properties on Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Island, and six properties of religious and cultural significance to tribes, including Nantucket Sound itself. These districts and standing structures reflect the broad array of properties that represent the rich and unique architectural, social and cultural history of Cape Cod and the island."
The project would also destroy, damage and alter part of the seabed of Nantucket Sound, potentially destroying archeological resources.
"The ACHP recommends that the secretary not approve the project," the report says.
The report stressed that the development of renewable energy projects "is not inherently incompatible with protection of historic resources so long as full consideration is given to historic properties early in the identification of potential locations." It suggests that the Cape Wind project could be relocated to an alternative site "in the vicinity of the current project area."
Salazar had turned the Cape Wind proposal over to ACHP for comments March 1 after the developer failed to convince the Aquinnah and Mashpee Wampanoag nations, on Martha's Vineyard and Cape Cod, respectively, to abandon their opposition to the project. The nations rejected a $1 million incentive offer from Cape Wind to give up their opposition.
Nantucket Sound is a sacred area to the Wampanoag nations - the People of the First Light. The wind energy plant would obscure their view of the rising sun in ceremony, and the Sound, which was once dry land, is where their ancestors lived and were buried.
The Wampanoag leaders welcomed the ACHP recommendation.
"We're extremely gratified that the council has heard our voice and agrees that Nantucket Sound is an inappropriate location for Cape Wind. We hope that Secretary Salazar will make the right decision and deny the project in its present location. As we've said all along, we're not opposed to wind energy or the specific project, but to the location, and we stand ready to work with all of the agencies on determining an appropriate site for Cape Wind," Aquinnah Chairwoman Cheryl Andrews-Maltais said.
"With today's recommendation by the ACHP, every historic preservation agency at both the state and federal level has come to the same conclusion - that Nantucket Sound is a place of deep historical, spiritual and cultural significance," said Mashpee Chairman Cedric Cromwell. "We are gratified that the ACHP has validated our concerns related to the proposed Cape Wind project, and we hope that Secretary Salazar will agree with their conclusion that Nantucket Sound is an inappropriate site for the project."
The council is the last agency to be consulted on the project before Salazar renders his decision in mid-April.
It joins the Massachusetts' Office of the State Historical Preservation Officer, who determined that the proposed Cape Wind site is a traditional cultural property that should be preserved, and the National Park Service, which said in January that Nantucket Sound is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places as a significant traditional, cultural, historic and archaeological property. A designation on the National Register would place Nantucket Sound under a number of federal laws providing protection and preservation of historical and sacred sites.
The ACHP report also recommended that improvements be made in the process for evaluating offshore energy projects.
"The ACHP's review of this project has highlighted the need for broader coordination among federal agencies, states, Indian tribes, industry, consulting parties and the public to address these challenges," the council wrote.
Green glitches in Germany; Energy angst abroad and confusion at home
April 12, 2010 by Charles C. Johnson in City Journal
In Germany, Weltschmerz is the sadness one feels when comparing the way the world is to the way it ought to be. German environmentalists must be suffering a profound case of it as not-in-my-backyard protests derail industry- and government-planned alternative-energy projects. Germany's Renewable Energy Sources Act (Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz, or EEG) was supposed to help the German Ministry for the Environment achieve its goal of renewables producing 30 percent of the country's electricity by 2020. Instead, the EEG has met with widespread opposition.
Crucial to the EEG is a "feed-in" scheme, hailed by greens the world over, which encourages ordinary German households to become energy producers. Under the EEG, any German has the right to feed unlimited electricity-from home-based windmills or solar panels, for example-into the country's grid. Government-run utilities are then required to buy this energy from the households at a government-determined price. That price, which includes a profit for the households, is locked in under a 20-year contract. In theory, every individual could run a power plant, and every backyard could produce clean, renewable energy.
But in reality, every individual also has a neighbor who doesn't want a power plant next door. With the help of social-networking websites, Germans-Europe's most litigious people-have been using the country's arcane ballot initiatives to delay or shut down their neighbors' planned energy investments.
Nor is the EEG Germany's only ill-advised energy regulation. Another recent law requires new German homes to meet 10 percent of their heating needs with renewable energy. But the carbon-emission reductions that this measure achieves are effectively nonexistent, according to the journal Energy Policy. Further, the law's incentives to use only certain kinds of renewables wind up freezing technology in an industry that needs to be more dynamic.
The worst obstacle to Germany's grand plans is physics itself. A solar panel converts only 11 percent of the solar energy that it receives into usable energy, while coal and natural gas facilities convert around 40 percent of their fuel into electricity. Vast panel arrays are the only way to make solar economical: a single solar module on a very sunny day in the Sahara can create only enough energy to power one 75-watt lightbulb-and Germany on the brightest of days receives just half the sunlight that the Sahara does.
The government's intentions were good. Germany's foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, had hoped that a diversification of the country's energy portfolio would make it less dependent on Russia, from which Germany buys a third of its oil and gas. And it's true that unless renewables pick up the slack, Germany will become even more dependent on Russia for its fuel. But that's partly Germany's own fault: by 2020, it intends to phase out its 17 nuclear power plants, which now supply about a quarter of the nation's electricity and provide the only form of renewable energy capable of meeting German demand.
Greens had promised that Germany would be a Mecca for energy investment, but instead it has become a Potemkin village-fooling foreign governments into believing that its economy is a model for the future. President Obama seems to be among those taken in. "We invented solar technology, but we've fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in producing it," he told a joint session of Congress in February. The president has indulged in his own brand of environmental fooling, trying to persuade Americans to support his wasteful cap-and-trade bill and as much as $5 billion in tax credits for weatherization schemes like insulating homes for the winter. Obama calls this a "real stimulus." The Germans have another word for it: Volksverdummung, a deliberate deception of the public.
http://www.city-journal.org/2010/eon0412cj.html
Stealing the heat
Here are some more ideas for energy conservation that don't involve destruction of lots of open space.Energy: The idea of recycling paper, glass, metal and plastics has become commonplace. New technologies allow heat to be recycled, too
Mar 4th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
“WATER, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink,” lamented the becalmed Ancient Mariner. Oddly, the same is true of energy. As with the water that surrounds a desert island, there is abundant energy right under people’s noses, in the form of wind, sun, tides and heat. The trouble is that, like saltwater, none of these sources is easily tapped. Wind turbines, solar panels and devices that extract energy from wave and tide have become more common in recent years. But technologists have been slower to exploit the vast amounts of ambient heat available in the atmosphere, or produced by machinery.
True, some simple forms of heat recycling have been around for a while: using heated waste water to warm flooring and melt ice on driveways, for example. Such systems can also reduce the need to heat water in a home. By running pipes that carry outgoing waste hot water alongside those carrying incoming fresh cold water, it is possible to warm the inlet stream and thus reduce the amount of energy needed to heat it up. “Combined heat and power” stations produce electricity while also warming nearby homes using their waste heat. In industrial settings, waste heat from boilers and large refrigeration units is sometimes recycled to reduce heating costs elsewhere. And some green-minded householders are fitting “air-source heat pumps” to keep their homes cosy using heat extracted from outdoor air.
Yet, with the spread of computers, which generate vast amounts of heat and need to be kept cool, tactics for recycling are getting ever more creative. Power and cooling demands grow in tandem and, as machines get more powerful, the world is paying dearly to keep them cool enough to run properly. From 2006 to 2011 the cost of powering and cooling servers in America alone is expected to grow from $4.5 billion to $7.4 billion, according to the country’s Environmental Protection Agency.
Frustrated by seeing ice on his roof at the same time as being told that his computer simulations could not run faster because cooling costs were too high, Paul Brenner, a computer scientist at the University of Notre Dame, in South Bend, Indiana, decided to take action. Dr Brenner and his colleagues explored the idea of using waste heat from computers as part of a thermostat-controlled indoor heating system. In theory, such a system would save on heating and cooling bills by exposing computers to low-temperature offices while exposing office workers to the warmth of the computers.
To try the idea out, the team secured an office and plonked some servers in it, linked to the Notre Dame campus computer pool used for big calculations. A thermometer in the office detected when it was getting too cold and sent a signal to the network requesting that calculations be diverted to the servers in the office. Once the temperature had risen, a second signal suspended work on the servers.
Having proved that their idea worked on campus, Dr Brenner and his team tried it out in the wider world—specifically, at the South Bend Botanical Conservatories and Greenhouse, a botanical garden that was spending $115,000 a year running boilers and propane heaters to keep temperatures high enough for its plants to survive.
By constructing a computer rack similar to that used in the office test, the researchers were able to provide the greenhouse with badly needed heat. A short while later, the rack was joined by three more racks that today provide the greenhouse with enough heat to cut its gas bills by $15,600 a year—while simultaneously saving Notre Dame $38,000 in cooling costs.
More than just hot stuff
Dr Brenner’s system, then, is helpful when heat itself is a valuable commodity, and it is simply a question of delivering it where it is useful. The most transportable form of energy, though, is electricity, so systems that convert waste heat into electricity are also desirable. The usual way to do this is with a thermocouple—a sandwich of two metals that produce a current when one side of the sandwich is hotter than the other. But Steven Novack, Dale Kotter and their colleagues at the Idaho National Laboratory are working on a new approach, using devices called nanoscopic antennae (nantennae), which are built out of gold or a nickel-chromium alloy.
Hot objects emit infrared radiation, and the electrons in these metals vibrate when exposed to such radiation. This vibration creates an alternating current that can be tapped. Though the current in each nantenna is small, an array of them can produce a useful amount of electricity. The nantennae themselves are built with a large-scale stamp that is used to emboss their underlying structure onto slightly heated, thin sheets of plastic. Once these structures are in place, the trenches made by the stamp are filled with metal. Only small amounts of metal are needed, though, so the end result is a cheap and flexible material.
The main problem is that the alternating current created is very high frequency. Mains electricity in America is supplied as alternating current at 60 hertz. The nantennae produce about 30 terahertz, or some 500 billion times that frequency. To make use of such a current, the nantennae require a device called a rectifier that reduces the frequency to something manageable. The trouble is that commercially available rectifiers can only cope with frequencies of up to 100 gigahertz. The frequency of the current from the nantennae is around 300 times higher.
To deal with this problem, Dr Novack and his collaborators are trying to embed a nanoscopic diode into the nantennae. A diode is a device which only allows current to flow in one direction. This would turn the rapid alternating current into a direct current, which is easier to handle. The researchers hope this addition will turn their heat-scavenging technology into a practical reality.
Getting closer
Another way to recycle heat that is being explored is to capture infrared with photovoltaic cells similar to those used in solar panels. Photovoltaic cells depend on packets of light (photons) knocking electrons free from atoms. They then employ the electrons so liberated to create a current. Photovoltaic cells are usually most responsive to photons in the visible and ultraviolet parts of the spectrum, but they can also respond to high-frequency infrared photons. Objects at a temperature of 1,000-1,500ºC produce plenty of such photons.
But only those that are travelling at a near-perfect right-angle to the surface of the hot material can escape and travel outwards. Photons travelling at any other angle within the material are reflected back inside when they reach the surface. As a result, photovoltaic cells placed near hot objects have only been able to generate around 0.02 watts per square centimetre. By contrast, photovoltaic cells absorbing sunlight can produce about 20 watts per square centimetre, provided the light is carefully concentrated using mirrors.
Bob DiMatteo of MTPV, a start-up based in Boston, is working on a way around this problem. He and his colleagues have discovered that the conditions change if a photovoltaic cell is placed a few hundred nanometres (billionths of a metre) from a hot surface made of silicon carbide alloy. When the width of the gap is smaller than the wavelength of the infrared radiation coming off the alloy, the photons are not internally reflected, but continue to travel into the cell. This approach, which is being called micron-gap thermal photovoltaics (hence MTPV), is capable of generating 5-10 watts per square centimetre, a massive increase over what has been possible before. The technology looks most promising for use in industrial facilities near exceedingly hot objects, like the machinery used to manufacture glass, or to reclaim waste heat in power stations.
Peter Hagelstein, an electrical engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is pursuing a related approach that also involves very small gaps between hot objects and photovoltaic cells. As an object heats up it radiates heat, but it also generates an electric field near its surface as a result of the random thermal motion of its atoms. Although this electrical field is exceedingly small, Dr Hagelstein and his colleagues theorised that if they could expose the electrons in a photovoltaic cell to it, those electrons would be knocked free from their atoms just as if they had been struck by photons.
But even the tiny gap involved in Mr DiMatteo’s approach proved to be too wide: the electric field of the hot object was still too far away to interact with the electrons in the photovoltaic cell. The researchers found that they had to close the distance to just 5-20 nanometres. At such close proximity, the electrons in the photovoltaic cell were being liberated by the electric field generated by the hot object, but the usual process of generating a current was going awry. Normally, in a photovoltaic cell, electrons knocked free by photons are then carried away by an electric field within the photovoltaic material to a contact wire. The electrons knocked free at the surface of the cell, however, were not being carried away in this manner. Instead, they were merely shuffling between different atoms at the surface.
So Dr Hagelstein and his colleagues changed the design of the cell, adding tiny metal wires to the usual sandwich of semiconductor materials in order to pick up the liberated electrons and allow them to be carried off to create an electric current. Although the new device is still at an experimental stage, the team’s calculations, published in a paper in theJournal of Applied Physics in November, suggest that it could convert heat to electricity at a rate of 100 watts per square centimetre. Installed on a laptop, it could recycle heat from the microprocessor and extend running time by around 20%. One way or another, it seems likely that the abundant reservoirs of waste heat are about to be tapped.
http://www.economist.com/search/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15582193
Preserve and protect our Seashore
Although there were many reasons to believe the Wellfleet wind turbine project was a terribly ill-conceived idea, it is gratifying to know that, at the end of the day, the town of Wellfleet — the developer of the project — just couldn't bring itself to sacrifice the incomparable natural beauty of the landscape or the pristine upland pine woods in the heart of the National Seashore.
The voters of Wellfleet, and the board of selectmen by unanimous vote, ultimately rejected a project from which they stood to profit, in order "to preserve the character of the Seashore." We applaud their decision.
We hope the management of the National Seashore will take heart from Wellfleet's example and reassess the paramount importance of its primary mission — to preserve the park in its natural, unimpaired condition for all future generations — relative to the other competing interests to which Superintendent George Price has repeatedly and steadfastly insisted that it must be "sensitive," including the interests of the abutting towns and the perceived interests of other organs of the federal government.
All national parks have a very clear mandate from Congress that intentionally includes categorical prohibitions against any encroachment on their core conservation mission: "no commercial or industrial use is permitted within the park." This mandate is fortified by hundreds of pages of detailed director's orders and almost 100 years of tradition.
In addition, with respect to land-based industrial wind turbines, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, responding to an order from the secretary of the Interior and in cooperation with a federal advisory committee especially appointed for that purpose, has spent over two years developing detailed policy prescriptions for "responsible development" of land-based industrial wind energy resources. It is abundantly clear from reading these guidelines that the fundamental concept underlying the recommendations of the wind turbine advisory committee is the urgency of avoiding inappropriate sites for wind energy development — such as fragile habitats, conservation areas and, by extension, national parks.
We hope Price can now finally appreciate that in his mission to safeguard the integrity of the National Seashore and to reject any form of intrusion compromising the core conservation mission of the park, he has the full backing of Congress; the Department of the Interior; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; the Wind Turbine Guidelines Federal Advisory Committee — whose members are drawn from the ranks of both prominent wind energy developers as well as every leading conservation group in the country; the board of selectmen and voters of Wellfleet; and, doubtless, the majority of both the local residents and the citizens of the United States.
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100407/OPINION/4070344
In other words, in considering any projects — including wind turbines — that are incompatible with the fulfillment of the park's mission and threaten the fundamental integrity of the park, the only sense of "balance" that must be applied is to reject them out of hand. The superintendent has Congress, the law, 100 years of tradition, the entire apparatus of the Department of the Interior and popular sentiment on his side. What authority does he lack?
As they consider any other current or future proposals to introduce industrial wind turbines within the National Seashore, we urge the superintendent and the advisory commission to use these tools, without apology, for the continued preservation of the park, and on behalf of all of the park users who place their faith in them and rely upon them to do their duty for the sake of "all future generations."
Eric Bibler of Weston, Conn., a longtime regular visitor to Wellfleet, is president of Save Our Seashore.
Blow dealt to Cape Wind project
of the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm scored a key victory yesterday when a federal panel on historic preservation recommended that U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar kill the project.
The recommendation from the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) is the final piece required in the review of Cape Wind's effects on historic properties, including sites considered sacred by Indian tribes on Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard.
The federal panel joins the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) and the top historic preservation official in Massachusetts in calling the plan to build 130 turbines on Horseshoe Shoal inappropriate and damaging to historic and cultural properties. The National Park Service in January determined the Sound is eligible to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In its seven-page recommendation to Salazar, the advisory council included suggestions for evaluating historic impacts of future offshore alternative energy projects.
"The ACHP's review of this project has highlighted the need for broader coordination among federal agencies, states, Indian tribes, industry, consulting parties and the public to address these challenges," the panel advised.
The review of Cape Wind's effects on historic properties did not occur early enough in the review process and did not allow for adequate consultation with the local Indian tribes, according to the advisory council.
"With today's recommendation by the ACHP, every historic preservation agency at both the state and federal level has come to the same conclusion — that Nantucket Sound is a place of deep historical, spiritual and cultural significance," Mashpee Wampanoag chairman Cedric Cromwell said.
The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) is thrilled with the advisory panel's recommendation and "hopeful that Secretary Salazar will also recognize the significance of the shoal and view shed, support our collective position and deny the permit for that location," tribal chairwoman Cheryl Andrews-Maltais said.
Both tribes have argued their ancestors once lived in the area that is now the Sound and are likely buried there. They also contend the 440-foot-tall turbines would interfere with important sunrise ceremonies, although a small group from the Aquinnah tribe contends the sunrise ceremonies have been overblown.
Salazar has said he would make a decision on whether to approve Cape Wind by the end of April.
"He will fully and carefully consider the information and recommendations provided by the council as he moves forward to make a final decision on the Cape Wind power project," his spokeswoman, Kendra Barkhoff wrote in an e-mail to the Times.
Barkhoff would not say when Salazar's decision would come, but a comment period on an updated environmental review of the project does not end until Wednesday. Despite the advisory council's recommendation, Salazar could still approve the project.
The advisory council's recommendation represents only one of many concerns Salazar will evaluate in making his decision, Cape Wind spokesman Mark Rodgers said.
"The bulk of the record was contained in a very favorable final environmental impact statement issued by the Minerals Management Service of the Department of Interior last year that looked at every benefit and impact of the project," Rodgers said. "The (environmental report) found Horseshoe Shoal to be the optimal site for this project."
The advisory council's recommendation is not surprising but it is disappointing, said Barbara Hill, executive director of the main pro-Cape Wind group, Clean Power Now.
Cape Wind has been a driver for the creation of a regulatory process for offshore wind projects, she said. "It has provided lessons learned for everyone," Hill said. "Given that, I do believe that (the historic review of Cape Wind) has been thorough."
The benefits of Cape Wind far outweigh any of the negative impacts of the project, she said.
But for the main Cape Wind opposition group, the advisory council's recommendation adds to a long list of problems with the project.
"I think it's a major setback for Cape Wind," said Audra Parker, president and CEO of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. "The advisory council has basically said historic preservation and renewable energy are compatible but just not in Nantucket Sound."
Salazar must give considerable weight to the advisory council's recommendation, she said, adding that if he does not, his decision will be open to legal challenges.
In addition to the historic review, there remains the outstanding issue of whether the Federal Aviation Administration will ultimately approve the turbines, Parker said. The FAA has said Cape Wind would have to substantially mitigate the effects of the wind farm on flights over the Sound, something the company has said it can do.
Cape Wind Environmental Assessment (EA)
Help out our friends at Save Our Sound!
Cape Wind Environmental Assessment (EA)
Comment Deadline: Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Dear Stakeholders,
Wednesday, April 7th is the deadline to submit public comments on the EA. The Environmental Assessment (EA) and its conclusion that a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is not required are flawed. Furthermore, Secretary Salazar should deny or relocate the proposed project to another site such as South of Tuckernuck Island, which has already been reviewed in detail by the Minerals Management Service (MMS) as an alternative to Cape Wind’s preferred site at Horseshoe Shoal in the middle of Nantucket Sound.
Comments can be submitted by clicking here.
Or you may email your comments and contact information to bpennick@saveoursound.org and we will forward them for you!
To read the Environmental Assessment in its entirety by clicking here.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. We will be following up with you by phone.
Thank you for your continued support!
Buffy
Buffy Pennick
Development Associate
Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound
4 Barnstable Road
Hyannis, MA 02601
508.775.9767
508.775.9725 (fax)
Key Talking Points (below and also attached):
Process issues
· The Environmental Assessment (EA) was rushed in order to facilitate an arbitrary deadline for political expediency that has nothing to do with complying with the law.
· The resulting document is of poor quality and provides an insufficient level of information.
· The EA is a biased document intended to produce a particular result – a Finding of No Significant Impact and ultimate approval of the project- rather than a thorough and complete evaluation of the impacts.
· 30 days is insufficient time to review this document particularly in light of the fact that there was no advance coordination with cooperating agencies, stakeholder organizations or the public.
Alternatives
· The range of alternatives in the EA is too narrow especially given new offshore wind projects that have been proposed in other states.
· The EA inappropriately dismisses the South of Tuckernuck Island (STI) alternative which has the support of the very same stakeholders that oppose the Horseshoe Shoal location and of local towns that can offer municipal financing that would more than offset any incremental costs of relocating to STI.
· The EA states that the Block Island alternative does not meet MMS’ screening criteria despite the fact that this location has already been supported by the state of Rhode Island as a feasible wind energy site by another developer.
Unresolved issues
· There are still many issues which remain unresolved, and it is premature for the Department of Interior (DOI) to make a decision without this key information.
· The cost of Cape Wind to ratepayers and taxpayers is unknown.
· The FAA still has not made its final hazard determination with respect to aviation safety.
· Despite acknowledgment of radar interference to marine navigation, the Coast Guard has yet to specify mitigation for these impacts
· The effect of developing the project on the New England transmission system and whether it is currently adequate to handle this project is ignored. The EA does not address these transmission requirements nor their costs and impacts.
· This missing information requires a supplemental EIS. Furthermore, Secretary Salazar should not make a final decision on Cape Wind until this basic information is known.
Project impacts
· The EA underestimates the many negative impacts of the project at Horseshoe Shoals to the environment, the local economy, public safety, tribal rights and historic preservation.
· Nantucket Sound has recently been ruled eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. It is sacred tribal land, and is surrounded by two National Historic Landmarks and hundreds of historic properties on its shores. MMS itself has acknowledged that the proposed project would pose adverse impacts to these resources. The Sound is a unique maritime and tribal resource that is worthy of protection and that should be off limits to development.
· The EA states that at the time of publication of the Final EIS, the FAA had not yet issued its final hazard determination and therefore there were no conclusive statements in the FEIS concerning adverse impacts to aviation safety. In fact, however, the FEIS entirely misrepresented the aviation safety issue. While FAA had acknowledged radar interference as an issue for safety to MMS, the FEIS stated that the impacts to aviation safety were negligible to minor.
Ocean zoning
· The Cape Wind decision should be put on hold until President Obama’s national ocean zoning plan is complete. This project is a perfect example of why ocean zoning is necessary. If it were in effect, this project would never have been proposed in this location.
· If Secretary Salazar is to honor commitments for national ocean zoning policy, he needs to defer further action on Cape Wind unless there is a consensus alternative.
Wellfleet selectmen kill turbine plan
By Doug Fraser dfraser@capecodonline.com
March 31, 2010 2:00 AM
WELLFLEET — Five years of work to build a 400-foot-tall wind turbine on town-owned land overlooking White Crest Beach came to a crashing halt last night as selectmen voted unanimously to kill the project.
"I embrace alternative energy and it grieves me to be supporting the end of this project," Selectman Jacqueline Wildes-Beebe said. "There is a lot of risk for too little gain."
The risk, selectmen felt, was primarily to the character of that oceanfront stretch of towering bluffs and wind-stunted vegetation that symbolized the relatively undeveloped beauty that the Cape Cod National Seashore was first created a half century ago to protect.
The idea of placing a large industrial-sized turbine that required a 30-foot wide, paved access road was too much to consider, many said.
"It will change the landscape we have struggled to maintain for 50 years," Wildes-Beebe said. "Many residents and visitors use and cherish it."
Selectman Ira Wood called the turbine "environmentally disruptive" with "dubious economics for a small town." He pointed out that Wellfleet has undertaken many recent capital projects, including a new fire station and municipal water system, and still has to deal with an aging police station. Taxpayers have seen double-digit increases in their property taxes and he didn't think it was the right time for the town to be taking on an expensive project where the economics were still not clearly laid out.
Other concerns included how noise from the blades could affect those people living nearby, and whether the area was just too stormy.
Selectman Michael May, the board's liaison to the town energy committee, which presented the project last night, said wind speeds at the harbormaster's offices were clocked at 75 mph the other night. He wondered if the turbine might suffer damages in the more powerful storms that frequently slam their Atlantic-side beaches with higher wind speeds, possibly in excess of what the turbine can stand.
Despite the fact there appeared to be a lot of momentum among residents toward building the turbine as the project progressed from the formation of a committee in 2005 through town meeting votes, opponents gained traction in recent months. A big cheer went up from the audience when it was unanimously voted down.
"From the start it was obvious to us that it should never be part of this pristine area," said Jim Rogers, a nonresident taxpayer who lives in Sandwich but owns property near the proposed turbine site. Rogers helped spearhead the anti-turbine effort. He said a lot of residents just weren't aware of the size of the structure and of the amount of alteration to the land needed to build and maintain it.
The town has appropriated $290,000 toward design and site preparation work, but has only spent around $29,000 of it. Wood suggested they consider putting that toward municipal conservation efforts.
Selectmen and many in the audience applauded the efforts of the town's energy committee.
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100331/NEWS/3310301
Will Lessons be Learned about National Parks and Wind Turbines? OP-ED SaveOurSeaShore
March 31, 2010
Dear Mr. Price, and Members of the CCNS Advisory Commission,
Although there were many reasons to believe that the Wellfleet Wind Turbine Project was a terribly ill-conceived idea, it is gratifying to know that, at the end of the day, the Town of Wellfleet – the developer of the project – just couldn’t bring itself to sacrifice the incomparable natural beauty of the landscape or the pristine upland pine woods in the heart of the National Seashore. The voters of Wellfleet, and the Board of Selectmen by unanimous vote, ultimately rejected a project from which they stood to profit in order “to preserve the character of the Seashore.” We applaud their decision.
We hope that the management of the National Seashore will take heart from Wellfleet’s example and reassess the paramount importance of its primary mission – to preserve the park in its natural, unimpaired condition for all future generations – relative to the other competing interests to which Superintendent Price has repeatedly and steadfastly insisted that it must be “sensitive,” including the interests of the abutting towns and the perceived interests of other organs of the federal government.
All national parks have a very clear mandate from Congress that intentionally includes categorical prohibitions against any encroachment on their core conservation mission: “no commercial or industrial use is permitted within the park.” This mandate is fortified by hundreds of pages of detailed Director’s Orders and almost one hundred years of tradition.
In addition, with respect to land based industrial wind turbines, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, responding to an Order from the Secretary of the Interior and in cooperation with a Federal Advisory Committee specially appointed for that purpose, has spent over two years developing detailed policy prescriptions for “responsible development” of land-based industrial wind energy resources. I think that you will agree, when you read these Guidelines, that the fundamental concept underlying the final recommendations of the Federal Advisory Committee is the urgency of avoiding inappropriate sites for wind energy development – such as fragile habitats, conservation areas and, by extension, national parks.
It is our hope that the Superintendent will appreciate that he now has the full backing of Congress; the Department of the Interior; the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service; the Federal Advisory Committee – whose members are drawn from the ranks of both prominent wind energy developers as well as every leading conservation group in the country; the Board of Selectmen and the voters of Wellfleet; and, doubtless, the majority of both the local residents and the citizens of the United States; to safeguard the integrity of the National Seashore and to reject any form of intrusion which compromises the core conservation mission of the park.
In other words, the only sense of “balance” that must be applied to the consideration of any projects – including wind turbines -- which are incompatible with the fulfillment of the park’s mission, and which threaten the fundamental integrity of the park, is to reject them out of hand. You have Congress, the law, one hundred years of tradition, the entire apparatus of the Department of the Interior and popular sentiment on your side. What authority do you lack?
We urge the Superintendent and the Advisory Commission to use these tools, without apology, for the benefit and preservation of the National Seashore and on behalf of all of the park users who place their faith in you, and who rely upon you to do your duty.
Sincerely,
Eric Bibler
President
Save Our Seashore
WE STOPPED THE WIND TURBINES IN WELLFLEET, MA
WE STOPPED THE WIND TURBINE!!!! March 30, 2010
The Wellfleet Board of Selectmen wisely voted 5-0 to spend no more money to develop a wind farm.
Thanks to everyone that helped out!
Once you take the time to understand the issues, no other honest judgement could be made!
French Vote in Le Figaro 62% to Stop Building Wind Farms
In the French newspaper Le Figaro 62% of 21,460 people voted to stop the building of wind farms. As many of the negatives have been exposed across the world more and more countries are learning the many negatives out weigh the limited positivies.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/environnement/2010/03/26/01029-20100326QCMWWW00596-faut-il-arreter-de-construire-des-eoliennes-en-france-.php
Wind Turbines Cause More Pollution!
Wind energy is seen as a vital piece of the renewable-energy movement.
But it may be contributing to the pollution problem along the Front Range, according to a draft report sponsored by members of Colorado’s natural gas industry.
The report says that the greatly increased use of wind energy in the past few years may have raised pollution levels from coal and natural gas-fueled power plants owned by Xcel Energy Inc. That’s because the frequent change in output asked of power plants, in response to the availability of wind and solar power, adds to pollution, the report says.
If the report’s conclusions are true, then that challenges beliefs about the connection between renewable wind power and improved air quality.
But representatives of environmental groups and Xcel say they have doubts about its methods and are skeptical about its conclusions. The final report is expected to be completed within weeks.
“We have some questions,” said Roy Palmer, Xcel’s director of state government affairs.
“We think this study has some very serious flaws and doesn’t consider the overall air pollution and public health benefits on an annual or seasonal basis,” said Vickie Patton, the Boulder-based deputy general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund who works on clean-air programs for the advocacy group.
Conventional wisdom says the use of renewable resources, such as wind or solar, to generate electricity cuts pollution levels and improves air quality because they don’t use coal or natural gas to generate power. Fossil fuels have pollutants, such as mercury, sulphur dioxide (SOx), nitrogen oxide (NOx) and carbon dioxide (C02), that are released when the coal or natural gas is burned for heat, which generates the steam needed to turn a turbine and make electricity.
At the end of 2009, Colorado’s wind farms were capable of generating as much as 1,241 megawatts of renewable energy, up nearly 3,800 percent since 2000, according to Interwest Energy Alliance, a Conifer-based trade group for wind power companies in the Rocky Mountains.
But when there’s no wind or sun, conventional power plants that use coal or natural gas supply the energy grid.
In Colorado, the wind typically blows the best — for power-generating purposes — at night, when demand for power is low and has traditionally been met by coal-fired power plants. Through the years, the state has added much more wind power, made necessary due to state laws mandating Xcel get 20 percent of its power supply from renewable resources by 2020. Gov. Bill Ritter is scheduled to sign a bill March 22 that raises that goal to 30 percent by 2020.
But the new report concludes that emissions levels at some coal and natural-gas power plants have increased because they’re throttled up and down to accommodate the fickle nature of renewable energy — particularly the wind, according to the Independent Petroleum Association of the Mountain States (IPAMS), which paid for the report, and Evergreen’s Bentek Energy Inc., which prepared it.
The study found that power output by coal-fired power plants fluctuated as much as 20 percent hour to hour, said Porter Bennett, Bentek president.
The impact on emissions, according to the study, are higher levels ranging between 2 million or 3 million pounds of SOx and NOx, to as much as 10 million pounds of increased emissions, when a power plant is throttled up, Bennett said.
“It’s like running your car in fifth gear, and then slowing to five miles per hour and then trying to speed back up again,” said Marc Smith, executive director of IPAMS. “Coal plants are meant to run only in fifth gear.”
Xcel spokesman Mark Stutz said via email that the utility’s first choice is to throttle back natural gas-fueled power plants, which are better designed to handle quick changes in operations, when the wind picks up. But the utility sometimes is “forced” to cut back coal plants’ output also in response to wind energy — and when it does, Xcel tries to minimize the impact on the plant’s operations and emissions, he said.
The increased emissions stem from two main factors, according to IPAMS and Bentek:
• Inefficiencies occur as power plants are ramped up and down.
• Rapidly increasing plants’ power output — particularly big, coal-fired ones — throws off the operation of air-quality control equipment meant to capture emissions, Bennett said.
It’s like a sudden blast of air tearing a hole in a net. The net still works in some areas, but more emissions get through until the hole is repaired, he said.
It can take up to 20 hours to recalibrate the control equipment, Smith said.
A recent presentation about the draft report was attended by representatives of Xcel; Western Resource Advocates (WRA), a Boulder-based environmental advocacy group that focuses on power issues; and the Environmental Defense Fund, a national advocacy group based in New York City. All three said they plan to study the final report when it’s complete.
“Analyzing system operations is very complex and isolating one specific activity, such as the impact of high wind events on coal operations, in comparison to the operation of the entire generation fleet in Colorado, is even more complex,” Stutz said.
Xcel’s emissions of NOx, and all emissions from Xcel’s fossil-fuel power plants, have dropped nearly 9,000 tons, or about 25 percent, since 2007 due to equipment upgrades that capture more emissions before they leave the plant, Stutz said.
Bennett agreed, but said the upgrades and overall drop in emissions mask increases at some of Xcel’s power plants.
John Nielsen, director of WRA’s energy program, said he thought there were two “serious flaws” in the draft study:
• The analysis didn’t include operations and emissions at power plants that supply power to Xcel, and its customers, in Colorado, but which aren’t owned by Xcel.
• Power plants might be ramped up and down due to a number of issues — such as maintenance at the individual plant or another plant, congestion on transmission lines or other reasons. Also, extrapolating the impact of a few windy days across an entire year could throw off conclusions, he said.
Information in the report came from utilities’ filings with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency about the hourly emissions and operations of individual power plants.