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!
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.
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.
Wind energy will leave Mainers, the nation, shackled to a heavy weight
March 21, 2010 by J Dwight in Sun Journal
Mainers have been condemned for global warming on circumstantial evidence by a stacked jury and without due process. The jury was stacked with biased legislators, environmental sellouts, state bureaucrat enforcers, and industry insiders. The verdict -- LD 2283 The Expedited Wind Power Law -- was rushed through the Legislature. These jurors then became our self-appointed "judges," "wardens" and "jailers."
Maine is headed to prison. A prison, painted green.
Let me show you the motion picture analogy.
You probably have seen the movie "The Shawshank Redemption" based on Stephen King's novel where Andy Dufree (played by Tim Robbins) is convicted on circumstantial evidence of murdering his wife.
Dufree is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences at Shawshank State Penitentiary, a fictional prison in Maine. After a noble struggle, Andy Dufree breaks out, leaving behind evidence of the warden's corruption and brutality.
In other words, Mainers have been condemned for global warming on circumstantial evidence by a stacked jury and without due process.
The jury was stacked with biased legislators, environmental sellouts, state bureaucrat enforcers, and industry insiders. The verdict -- LD 2283 The Expedited Wind Power Law -- was rushed through the Legislature.
These jurors then became our self-appointed "judges," "wardens" and "jailors."
We are promised freedom and independence, a "green redemption," if we just put in the years and pay.
Only through wind power, they say, will come salvation.
Wind turbines are hailed as "free and clean, bringing green jobs." They will bring "freedom and independence from foreigners who hate us," we are told.
But, they bring decades of torture and servitude, high cost and debt.
Maine is headed to such a prison, it seems to this columnist, replete with sleep deprivation, heavy chains of cost on the "inmates," and strict "jailers and wardens."
Recently, courageous journalists have written news stories about health complaints from the people of Mars Hill, Freedom, and Vinalhaven who say they are victims of sleep deprivation from low-frequency thrumming of the wind turbines.
Our "‘warden-legislators" ignore the "inmates" pleas for mercy. They are literally locked in. They now have difficulty selling their homes because of noise and visual pollution.
Others who decry the betrayal and the destruction of Maine's islands and hills -- beauty that inspires and brings many to our state -- are put down as just NIMBYs.
The "warden-legislators" gave preferential treatment for and excessive compension (through extra-ordinary incentives not granted to any other source of electricity) to developers and investors of massive wind turbine industrial parks.
Permitting is fast. The appeal process is shortened, stifled and silenced.
The current wind power law, and announced offshore wind power law, will lock Maine people into usurious long-term electricity costs. Contracts at almost double the current wholesale cost of electricity have been granted to First Wind's Rollins Project.
Spot prices for electricity from traditional sources average about $46 per megawatt hour, the equivalent of 1,000 kilowatts. Wind energy, which is being sold at long-term contract prices not spot prices, would cost about $80 per mwh hour, or almost twice as much. Wind is the only energy producer which has been recently allowed to sell its electricity on a long-term contract basis rather than at spot prices. This arrangement allows wind producers the advantage of providing investors with the potential for a more stable revenues, buffeted from the ups and downs of the spot market prices, and making their cash flows potentially more attractive to investors, but is more costly for ratepayers.
For every onshore wind turbine installed in Maine $1 million to $2 million is added to the national debt, due in large part to federal subsidies from stimulus money and tax credits granted to wind energy firms; costs and debt our children and grandchildren will be shackled to.
Incentives given to industrial wind developers mean there will be scant additions to state tax revenues.
Local property taxes are promised, but few are delivered. The town of Mars Hill for example, receives a only net $100,000 per year from First Wind, the company that owns the turbines.
No other business is given such favorable treatment in the state of Maine.
Unfortunately, we don't have documents like Andy Dufree to show cronyism.
Just interesting connections for all Mainers to see.
• Former governor and his son: Angus King developer of a $283 million wind project, whose son Angus King III is head of mergers and acquisitions at First Wind.
• Former legal counsel and friend of John Baldacci, Kurt Adams, is now vice president of transmission development at First Wind.
• First Wind's attorney is Juliette Brown. Her husband, Rep. Jon Hinck, (D-Portland) was formerly with the Natural Resources Council of Maine where he worked to promote wind power. He is the current chairman of the Energy and Utilities Committee which overseas the wind industry.
Former defenders of Maine's mountains and water, The Natural Resources Council of Maine, have turned promoters for the wind power industry, after receiving contributions and money for "natural resources protection," in a deal arranged by Juliette Brown.
But, according the "warden-legislators" at the Ethics Commission, there are no problems here.
Hinck has just introduced legislation, LD 1820, to allow expedited permitting for new transmission lines, but only for wind turbines.
The new transmission lines cannot be used to buy cheaper hydro-electric power from Canada. However, that will not stop other ISO New England states from doing so. This will further lock Maine into the wind power prison.
All this for being falsely convicted on circumstantial evidence? Where is the justice in that?
http://www.sunjournal.com/node/815993
Maine Citizens Task Force on Wind Power
- 350 miles of ridgelines blasted away, including many miles of high altitude, sub alpine ecosystems, home to rare flora and fauna
- 50,000+ acres of permanently clearcut forest, with a loss of carbon sequestration from the forest and fragmenting wildlife habitat
- Silt and herbicide residues from ridgeline clearcuts washing into our streams and lakes, contaminating fish and silting spawning areas
- 1800 turbines, each 380 to 400 feet tall, with blinking aviation lights 24/7, industrializing wilderness and ruining extraordinary viewsheds
- 1800 turbines, killing bats and birds (especially raptors like eagles and hawks), disrupting patterns of wildlife, driving them away
- 1800 turbines, sending out annoying audible noise like the never ending sound of low flying jets, shuddering and "whumping" noises
- 1800 turbines, sending out low frequency sound waves, registered on the dBc scale that are unhealthy to humans and wildlife
- 1,000+ miles of connector powerlines that will be like a spiderweb across rural Maine
- An expansion of 345 kv transmission lines (the big ones whose electromagnetic fields cause health problems) to carry the power out of state
- Higher electric rates to pay for mandated use of more expensive, intermittent, unpredictable, unreliable wind power that Maine does not need
- Higher electric rates to pay for the $1.5 billion transmission line expansion, locking us into sharing the future high costs of other NE states
- Ask everyone you know who is concerned about this issue to also join the website, as we need to grow membership to look strong
- Write letters to the editor of the state's three regional dailies and your local weekly newspaper; comment on-line against pro-wind stories
- Contact your local State Rep and State Senator and tell them how this is bad for the state and to support repeal of PL 661
- Use the website as a resource; letters can be written by mining material here, a bit of "cut & paste", some personal tweaking & Voila--a letter!
- Use the website as a resource; feel free to go viral by sending our material or links to our material to everyone---help spread the word!
- Attend public hearings and speak out! Get your local community to pass an ordinance to control wind development (See Dixmont's ordinance)
- Arm yourself with the truth about industrial wind and counter in every way the propaganda that the iconic wind turbine will save the world
Camp Edwards Get a 389 Ft Wind Turbine
CAMP EDWARDS — Rose Forbes, the woman who spearheaded a wind turbine project for the Air Force, said recently it made little sense for the base to clean up groundwater using energy that fouled the air through fossil-fuel emissions.
Yesterday, federal, state, local and military officials gathered to celebrate her vision.
More than 200 people huddled under a tent at the base of the 389-foot turbine as the wind whipped outside. They were invited to celebrate the completion of the $4.6 million, 1.5-megawatt turbine and a milestone in the massive cleanup of pollution at the Massachusetts Military Reservation.
"The Air Force can now say all environmental cleanup decisions and remedies are now in place," said Doug Karson, a spokesman for the Air Force Center of Engineering and the Environment and yesterday's master of ceremonies.
The last two decisions on how to treat two chemical spills were signed within the past few weeks, Karson said.
"Today is the culmination of a long and, at times, arduous saga," U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., said. There were times when it was difficult to see the "end of the cleanup tunnel," he said.
The end is still several decades away, but the wind turbine is expected to make the effort less expensive.
The Air Force expects its turbine to generate 30 percent of the electricity needed to operate the water treatment plants on the base, a savings of about $600,000.
It is located outside one of the nine treatment systems that pump and treat 15 million gallons of water polluted by training and weapons testing on the Upper Cape base.
Several speakers, including Ira Leighton, acting regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, noted the role community activists played in holding the military accountable for pollution.
The community was angry and distrustful of the military, Delahunt said.
They and other speakers pointed out that the wind turbine represents the change that's taken place at the base over the past three decades.
"This one turbine represents just the beginning of (Massachusetts Military Reservation's) energy independence," Maj. Gen. Joseph Carter, adjutant general of the Massachusetts National Guard, said.
The Guard has filed plans to add as many as 17 wind turbines on the 22,000-acre base and is working with the Federal Aviation Administration to make sure they won't interfere with the base airfield.
"We will not only have the greenest cleanup," Delahunt said, "but we are setting this base up to be the first energy-independent military installation in the United States."
With all the parts finally in place, the Air Force is eager to take its new wind turbine for a spin but has to finalize some agreements with NStar and finish some electrical work before flipping the switch, Forbes said.
That could happen any day, she said.
The turbine stands as a testament to the state's commitment to alternative-energy sources and to eliminating roadblocks to getting them built, Ian Bowles, secretary of the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, said.
"It's a symbol of clean energy," he said.
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091103/NEWS/911030317
What’s bad about wind power? More than just noise
Bangor Daily News
By Monique Aniel and Steve Thurston 3/6/2010
Recently Gov. John Baldacci scoffed at the Citizens’ Task Force on Wind Power when we asked him to issue a moratorium on industrial wind power projects until adequate noise regulations are implemented. The Bangor Daily News backed Baldacci in an editorial titled “Wind Ban Wrong.” The Feb. 25 piece did acknowledge how right we are on several wind power issues, yet it still concluded that giving the state time would be wrong. We disagree with this, with the conclusion that noise is our primary consideration and with the common assumption that wind power’s supposed benefits outweigh its costs.
In characterizing us, the editorial asserts: “That opposition centers on one key concern — noise.” It also said: “At the heart of the debate is sound.” This is wrong.
While sound is obviously the central issue in our call for noise regulations and one of many wind power deficiencies, it is not the heart of our refusal to pawn away Maine’s landscape and mountain ridges for dubious compensation. There are negative impacts with any electric generating source. But those negatives must be weighed against positives.
If after careful examination of noise issues and after a public process to design and apply rules protecting the public, perhaps then low-frequency noise could be deemed an acceptable cost of creating electricity. Maybe then we could agree that we did all we could to responsibly regulate this health threat. But the state has not done such an analysis and it has not written rules. Meanwhile we are rolling out red carpet for the wind industry, using the unsubstantiated justification.
The people around the world describing their misery are not lying. The residents of Mars Hill, Freedom and Vinalhaven (many of whom wanted wind projects) are not fabricating stories. While the state writes and enforces thousands of rules on everything from livestock to insurance to education, it has declined to address an imminent threat barreling like a July thunderstorm into Maine’s mountains.
Some two dozen mammoth, sprawling wind energy projects are now prospecting sites in some of Maine’s most cherished places. The speculators’ urgency is heightened by the 2010 availability of gratuitous government handouts which make the projects temporarily viable.
Public protection should be no less urgent. We suggest starting with a review of the concerns expressed by leading physicians, including the World Health Organization and the Maine Medical Association.
The BDN says “state regulators need not call a timeout” because they can work on the issues. Yes, they can. But they won’t. The Citizens’ Task Force has civilly engaged the Legislature, regulators and the administration. But they all backhanded us because, as you correctly observe, “state government is so bullish on wind that it is turning a blind eye to problems.”
Maine has made a value assumption based on sentiment rather than a value judgment based on careful consideration of wind’s benefits and costs. This is how houses of cards are built.
The editorial referred to wind as “the next energy wave.” Waves rise and fall like fads. The wind industry has thus far exploited a disconnect between fact and perception. Hence it has ridden a wave of green idealism to gain a toehold. Alas, even the press can get caught on a wave, as shown in the editorial where the BDN tacitly accepts myths about wind replacing some oil and coal.
The Citizens’ Task Force has thoughtfully compared the positives — such as wind is free — and negatives — such as turbine noise syndrome — and we conclude that wind power is unnecessary, unreliable, unaffordable and unsustainable. Despite being temporarily fashionable, its negatives far outweigh its positives, especially in Maine.
Because we so value our environment, we might be more inclined to embrace industrial wind power if it made sense for Maine. If there were a shortage of electricity, if Maine weren’t already a leader in renewables, if wind actually did anything to reduce oil usage, if 1,800 mountain-marring turbines on 360 miles of blasted ridge could contribute more than 5 percent of the grid’s electric needs, and yes, if turbine noise did not cause harm, then maybe we’d think the benefits are worth the costs. Noise-induced illness is one of many costs that, in total, are too high.
http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/138366.html
Wood fueled biomass energy worse for carbon dioxide emissions than fossil fuels
I have included the following press release to show that the State of Massachusetts is putting in place other harmful directives with regards to energy policy. The state funded Massachusetts Technology Collaborative is the "brains" behind placing a wind turbines in a NATIONAL PARK and cutting down STATE FORESTS to burn, while giving towns and companies money to wreak this destructions. We are strong believers in the environment and are confounded to understand MA's Renewable Energy Policy of siting Wind Turbines in pristine protected forest and clearing state forest for BIOMASS. We need to speak up and tell our governments to FIRST DO NO HARM when it comes to protecting the environment. GET INFORMED! These things are really happening. State and National lands are being destroyed while your tax and utility money are going to greed people who are feeding on your good intentions!
| Wood fueled biomass energy worse for carbon dioxide emissions than fossil fuels
Massachusetts Forest Watch released a report today (www.maforests.org/MFWCarb.pdf) stating that contrary to the belief that wood fueled biomass burning would help lower carbon dioxide emissions, it would instead dramatically increase them. According to the group, wood fueled biomass burning is typically touted as a carbon neutral fuel by biomass proponents, but the key assumption about carbon neutrality is unsubstantiated and impossible when using existing forests as fuel. In the report, wood fueled biomass power plants are shown to be worse than all fossil fuel power plants, including coal, for carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy produced. Calculations provided show wood fueled biomass power plants emit about 50% more CO2 per MWh than existing coal plants, 150% more than existing natural gas plants and 330% more than new power plants. Forest Watch spokesperson Chris Matera said, “It really is crazy. Hundreds of millions of dollars in public so-called “green” energy subsidies are being wasted on dirty wood biomass burning of forests instead of going to genuinely clean energy sources such as solar, geothermal, appropriate wind and hydro and importantly conservation and efficiency. At a time when budgets are being slashed, we are throwing away scarce taxpayer money on a caveman technology that will worsen our problems, not help solve them.” Last Wednesday, a hearing was held in Boston by the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy on House Bill 4458 that would create into law the citizen’s referendum that recently collected over 78,000 certified signatures, which is enough to put the measure on the ballot in November. The ballot measure would put a limit on carbon dioxide emissions in order for renewable energy sources to be eligible to receive taxpayer subsidies and other benefits and would effectively ban taxpayer subsidies from being directed toward wood fueled biomass plants since their carbon dioxide emissions are so high. "We find that people are willing to support truly clean energy but do not want to pay extra on their electricity bills and tax bills to build these dirty biomass incinerators," said Jana Chicoine of the Concerned Citizens of Russell, "Everyone knows that the proposed biomass incinerators would add to air pollution and make carbon emissions worse, yet the Patrick administration is still forcing us to pay for it. It's a tragic situation, but we have a chance to fix it in the legislature over the next couple of weeks." Meg Sheehan, chair of the Stop Spewing Carbon ballot question committee commenting about the hearing added, “last week the Massachusetts legislature received un-rebutted testimony from medical professionals that particulate emissions from wood burning biomass plants increase human mortality. A broad coalition of medical and citizen groups are urging our elected officials to support House Bill 4458 to address this public health threat. Action is needed now," she added. |
URGENT Cape Cod Commission Planning Meeting to determine rules for near shore waters
Wind energy planning district hearings
- Feb 23 6 p.m. Assembly of Delegates Chamber, Barnstable District Courthouse, Barnstable
- Feb 24 6 p.m. Bourne High School library
- Feb 25 6 p.m. Provincetown High School library
EASTHAM — Even in the chilly world of winter on the Outer Cape, talk of offshore wind turbines can generate some heat.
"I just don't think that wind energy is economically feasible for people of Cape Cod," Mary Allen Bradley of East Orleans said during a hearing yesterday at Eastham Town Hall on a proposed wind energy planning district for Cape waters.
The true cost of energy from wind should be examined more closely before any projects are approved, Bradley said.
"I find that to be just outrageous, as a ratepayer and a taxpayer at the federal and the state level," she said of subsidies and premiums that wind energy needs to compete with fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas.
The hearing was the second of five being held by the Cape Cod Commission on the designation of a so-called Capewide District of Critical Planning Concern, or DCPC, for renewable-energy projects such as wind turbines. The designated area would begin about 1,500 feet out from mean high water and extend to three miles offshore, covering 521,552 acres of open water.
A DCPC protects designated areas from specific types of development. There have been nine such planning districts established in seven Cape towns since 1990.
Martha's Vineyard, which is also moving forward with plans to establish a wind energy planning district, has 26 of the protected planning areas for various resources and uses, including four that are islandwide.
Full range of views
The Cape Cod Ocean Sanctuary off the Cape Cod National Seashore is already protected under the Massachusetts Ocean Management Plan, which was finalized at the end of last year. The state plan leaves areas in the waters around Cape Cod open to the possibility of as many as 24 community-sponsored wind turbines but gives authority to the Cape Cod Commission and the Martha's Vineyard Commission to determine the appropriate scale of the projects and the rules developers must follow in each agency's jurisdiction.
Despite a turnout of fewer than a dozen people, many of the viewpoints argued by those for and against offshore wind turbines during the debate that has raged for nine years over the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm were represented.
The planning district would not affect Cape Wind's plan for offshore turbines, as the site envisioned is in federal waters.
If nothing is done, climate change could have devastating impacts, especially for a place like Cape Cod, said Eastham Selectman David Schropfer.
"If anyplace is vulnerable to rising sea levels it is certainly this peninsula," he said. He noted that the high point of land in Eastham is between 16 and 18 feet above sea level, and a parking lot near his home has lost more than half of its parking spaces to the sea over the years.
He also told the Cape Cod Commission representatives that on a recent trip to Alaska he took his wife to see a glacier he had last visited about 15 years earlier.
"It was 100 miles away," from where it had been during his previous visit, he said.
Still, the need for renewable energy must be balanced by its impacts on tourism and the local economy, he said.
"How do we protect this area and how do we use it at the same time?" he asked.
Scaring off developers
Susan Kadar, a former Cape Cod Commission representative from Truro, outlined three reasons she opposes the planning district.
She said it appears the county is wresting power from municipalities over projects off their coast rather than delivering more control to local towns, as county officials have argued. The Cape Cod Commission also seems to be encroaching on towns' control over their "community character," she said.
Finally, Kadar argued, the involvement of the Cape Cod Commission could scare off wind-energy developers who do not want to go through the expense and process of appearing before the agency.
"There are occasions where businesses say, 'I would rather not'" appear before the commission, she said.
For others in the audience the hearing was a chance to learn more about the proposal.
Regulatory authorities need to catch up to changes in what is now possible, Dennis Clark of Truro said after the hearing.
"It's a lot better to have the regulations in place than no regs," he said.
The commission is scheduled to make a recommendation March 11 to the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates on whether to designate the planning district. The assembly then has 60 days to decide whether to move forward.
If the district is designated, the towns and the Cape Cod Commission would have one year to adopt regulations for the district.
For more information go to www.capecodcommission.org
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100223/NEWS/2230308/-1/NEWS01
WELLFLEET OFFICE HOURS WITH REPRESENTATIVE PEAKE
State Representative Sarah K. Peake has scheduled office hours in the Town of
Wellfleet, on Friday, March 5, 2010 2:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m
Please stop by to meet with Rep Sarah Peake to discuss issues that are important to you.
If these office hours aren’t convenient, Sarah is also always available to meet with people
anywhere in the District by appointment. Please call Dottie Smith at 617.722.2090 if you
would like to schedule a specific time for an appointment.
The scheduled office hours are: 2:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
.
Wellfleet Council on Aging/Senior Center
Long Pond Room
715 Old King’s Highway
Wellfleet, MA 02667
Representative Peake is making a series of stops, to hold office hours up and down the Cape, over the next week. A copy of her entire schedule appears below. Conceivably, you can try to catch her in Wellfleet, in Orleans, in P'Town, in Harwich, or points in between, at your convenience.
OFFICE HOURS WITH REPRESENTATIVE PEAKE
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2010
HARWICH
Hours: 10:00 a.m. – Noon
Harwich Town Hall
Library Room
732 Main Street
Harwich, MA 02645
MONDAY, MARCH 1, 2010
CHATHAM
Hours: 10:00 a.m. – Noon
Chatham Town Hall
Conference Room A
549 Main Street
Chatham, MA 02633
ORLEANS
Hours: 2:30 p.m. – 4;30 p.m.
Orleans Town Hall
Nauset Meeting Room
19 School House Road
Orleans, Ma 02653
FRIDAY, MARCH 5, 2010
EASTHAM
Hours: 10:00 a.m. – Noon
Eastham Town Hall
Selectmen’s Meeting Room
2500 State Highway
Eastham, Ma 02642
WELLFLEET
Hours: 2:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Wellfleet council on Aging/Senior Center
Long Pond Room
715 Old King’s Highway
Wellfleet, MA 02667
MONDAY, MARCH 8, 2010
PROVINCETOWN
Hours: 10:00 a.m. - Noon
Provincetown Council on Aging
Room 10 (Downstairs)
26 Alden Street
Provincetown, MA 02657
TRURO
Hours: 2:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Truro Town Hall
Selectmen’s Meeting Room (Upstairs)
24 Town Hall Road
Truro, MA 02666
Office Hours with Rep. Sarah Peake
State Rep. Sarah K. Peake (4th Barnstable District) will hold office hours at Harwich Town Hall on Friday, Feb. 26. No appointment is necessary.
Please let her know how you feel about wind turbines closer than 1 miles to houses?
Citizens’ task force calls for wind power moratorium
AUGUSTA — For Ethan Hall, who lives 3,500 feet from a wind turbine on Vinalhaven, being subjected to the turbine's sound is like listening to a drippy faucet -- "torture."
"I wouldn't be here if it was easy to get used to," Hall said at a Feb. 19 press conference at the Statehouse Hall of Flags. "The sound is different from anything I have ever heard. It is an intense pulsing. It is impossible to block or mask this noise."
Hall wasn't the only person voicing his opinion at the press conference held by the Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power -- a coalition of citizens advocating responsible, science based, economically and environmentally sound approaches to Maine’s energy policy -- that is calling for a statewide moratorium on wind power.
Doctors, lawyers and other citizens affected by the noise from the turbines spoke in an attempt to mandate better noise regulations before Maine goes any further with installing wind turbines around the state.
Explaining that the noise of the turbine in his back yard is very noticeable and not like a background hum, such as a refrigerator makes, Hall said he can't read, work, or get good rest in his own home. In fact, there was nowhere on his property where he can escape the din. He also said state noise regulations are "outdated."
To make a point to those in attendance, a recording of a wind turbine was turned on during task force member Steve Thurston's opening remarks at the press conference. Later, when TV news crews tried to conduct interviews with the speakers, the recording was turned on again, forcing the news crews to ask that the noise be turned off so they could finish the interviews.
According to some, turbine noise doesn't just bother humans. Jonathan Carter, director of Forest Ecology Network, spoke about the effect on animals. He said the turbines could have a profound negative impact, causing predatory problems, affecting reproductive success, and creating other issues.
"They are going to damage the wildlife of Maine," said Carter. "We need a moratorium until we can get it right."
Several media members asked Thurston at the end of the press conference if he thought Gov. John Baldacci would ever change his mind for this cause. Thurston replied that he could not speak for the governor.
Another man in attendance suggested that they play the turbine noise outside the Blaine House.
However, as distressing as the turbine noise is to Hall, he was able to concede that there was hope for solutions that would make the turbines quieter in the future. And he acknowledged that the large wind farms are "where there aren't any people."
"It’s a matter of new technology," Hall diplomatically said. "Maybe it isn't quite right yet."
Gov. asked to halt all wind project in Maine
Speakers at a press conference this morning in Augusta organized by a group called the "Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power," expressed concerns about low-frequency noise produced by wind turbines, which they say have caused adverse health impacts worldwide.
TaskForce Co-chair Steve Thurston says, "around the world the deployment of wind turbines has been accompanied by reports of serious health impacts which mirror the symptoms described by residents of mars hill, freedom and, most recently, vinalhaven."
The task force wants the moratorium to begin immediately and not expire until the state adopts revised noise regulations. The governor has been promoting wind power development as a way to reduce Maine's dependency on fossil fuels. The governor's spokesman says Baldacci is not inclined to issue the moratorium.
http://www.mpbn.net/Home/tabid/36/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3483/ItemId/11107/Default.aspx
Concern Over Potential High Costs of Cape Wind
Yesterday, Ian Bowles, the state’s environmental and energy chief and an outspoken backer of Cape Wind, addressed the growing concern over the potential high costs of Cape Wind to ratepayers in the Commonwealth. In a February 17th letter to Cape Wind and National Grid, he urged them to consider consumer costs: “Let me be clear: Our expectation is that the Cape wind project must produce electricity at a substantial discount to the Rhode Island offshore wind project.” This concern was precipitated by “suggestions in the media” that the project could end up costing ratepayers as much as a wind pilot program off Rhode Island, quoted as 30 cents per kilowatt hour versus an average current cost of only 9 cents per kilowatt hour.
Read articles discussing the high cost of Cape Wind:
APNS Press Release: Cape Wind Cost Claims Misleading, Developer's Study Advances Myth of Offshore Wind Savings
Audra Parker’s My View- “Ratepayers will regret Cape Wind”: Link to Article
Boston Herald: Official to Grid: Curb Wind Costs
Cape Cod Times: Bowles Warns Cape Wind on Electric Rates
Please let Ian Bowles know that MA ratepayers are not willing to pay higher electric bills for this irresponsibly sited project. Send your letters, emails, and faxes to Ian Bowles at:
Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs
100 Cambridge Street, Suite 900
Boston, MA 02114
Telephone: 617.626.1000
Fax: 617.626.1181
Email: env.internet@state.ma.us
Let your voice be heard –
Letters to the Editor:
Cape Cod Times, 319 Main Street, Hyannis MA 02601, letters@capecodonline.com
The New York Times, 229 West 43rd Street, New York, New York 10036, Fax: (212) 556-3622, letters@nytimes.com
The Wall Street Journal, 200 Liberty Street, New York, New York 10281, Fax: (212) 416-2255, Wsj.ltrs@wsj.com
The Providence Journal, 75 Fountain Street, Providence, RI 02902, letters@projo.com
The Boston Globe, Letters to the Editor, P.O. Box 2378, Boston, MA 02107-2378, Fax: (617) 929-2098, letter@globe.com
The Boston Herald, One Herald Square, P.O. Box 2096, Boston MA 02106 letterstotheeditor@bostonherald.com
Washington Post, Letters to the Editor, 1150 15 Street NW, Washington, DC 20071, letters@washpost.com
Maine residents push back against wind power farms
By GLENN ADAMS
The Associated Press
Thursday, February 18, 2010; 2:43 AM
AUGUSTA, Maine -- As wind power expands in Maine, the industry is feeling a gust of push back from those who worry about the turbines' noise and impact on scenery and about whether too many towers are going up too fast.
"The wind industry has had a decade head start working behind the scenes, working below the radar and positioning itself to have a favored status," said Brad Blake, of Cape Elizabeth, spokesman for the Citizens Task Force on Wind Power, an umbrella group of residents fighting wind projects around the state. "It's been a stealth attack on rural Maine, and the citizens of Maine are catching up."
State officials acknowledge heightened awareness across the state to wind power as it transforms "from the theoretical to the practical," said Karin Tilberg, senior policy adviser to Gov. John Baldacci. But the administration remains committed to wind and other forms of renewable energy to help wean the oil-dependent state from fossil fuels, she said.
"It is important that people have a discussion based on science and good information," Tilberg said Wednesday.
In 2008, the Legislature streamlined the permitting process for wind farms. With a regulatory welcome mat out, five commercial-grade wind farms are online or under construction, and more are on the drawing boards. In the meantime, the state has moved aggressively toward making offshore wind power a reality.
But as the windmills have risen on the mainland, so have concerns over their impact. Some critics, including Blake, question the very economics of the renewable energy source. Others, including some who live near the state's first major wind farm in Mars Hill, dislike windmills' looks and say they're too noisy.
In Penobscot County, Dixmont passed a one-mile setback ordinance. Just south in Jackson, Waldo County, a moratorium was imposed before passage of an ordinance stipulating that any 400-foot-tall turbines erected must be at least a mile from any houses, largely out of noise concerns.
In Oakfield, where the state Department of Environmental Protection has approved Massachusetts-based FirstWind's application for a wind farm, a family trust that owns land near the Aroostook County site said it would appeal the DEP's action, citing visual concerns.
Union, which has two small wind farms, has drafted for public review a measure aimed at addressing noise and light reflection from spinning windmill blades. Fort Kent is considering an ordinance limiting noise even though no large-scale wind project has been proposed in the northern Maine border town.
New Vineyard, in Franklin County, is asking voters to put a moratorium on commercial wind power development until it can pass an ordinance regulating the industry.
Noise has become an issue on Vinalhaven island, where New England's largest community-owned wind farm has begun generating power. Opposition has organized in western Maine to the project under construction in Roxbury near Rumford. And a proposal to build a wind farm along the ridgelines of five mountains in Highland Plantation in Somerset County has already generated vocal opposition from people who say the area's scenery would be marred.
The Highland group's chairman, Alan Michka, said there's good reason why towns have taken those actions and why people are complaining about turbines that have already gone up in Mars Hill, Freedom and Vinalhaven.
"It's not a good track record for a state trying to accelerate its development of wind power," Michka said.
Critics who say the state's been moving too fast have taken their case to the state Supreme Court, which last week heard arguments from a Penobscot County group called Friends of Lincoln Lake. The residents, who oppose a 40-turbine project on Rollins Mountain, are challenging the state law that expedites the permitting process for setting up a wind farm, saying it's technically flawed.
Tilberg said those and other concerns have drawn the Baldacci administration's attention. She said the 2008 law doesn't pre-empt local control to regulate windmills and even includes a model ordinance towns can adopt.
The state also is continuing to review technical information on setbacks, noise, health implications and other aspects of wind power to see whether regulations should be revisited.
FirstWind spokesman John LeMontagne said the company has sought to work closely with communities such as Oakfield to make sure they understand all the implications of their developments. He said people should not lose sight of the benefits of wind power, including clean energy, jobs and spinoff economic activity.
While it may seem as though the flurry of wind worries is new, the matter has long been a subject of public debate in Maine, observed state Rep. Jon Hinck, House chair of the Utilities and Energy Committee, who was an environmental advocate before being elected to the Legislature.
Hinck, D-Portland, noted that the issue has been debated in Maine at least since the mid-1990s, when a proposal to rezone areas in western Maine's Boundary Mountains for wind development prompted opponents to organize. Now, with turbines up and turning, people have developed a variety of perspectives on wind power, he said.
"In terms of opposition in Maine, I don't think it has too many consistent threads," said Hinck, whose attorney wife represents the wind power industry in Maine. "There is not, as far as I know, a perfect source of power."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/18/AR2010021800309_pf.html
Protecting wetlands in wind turbine siting bill
Legislation adopted last week by the state Senate that streamlines the permitting process for large-scale wind turbine projects includes language proposed by Sen. Robert L. Hedlund that preserves local control over wetlands and other environmentally sensitive areas. ...Hedlund also included language requiring that siting standards developed by the state Energy Facilities Siting Board are crafted to reflect the unique characteristics of the different regions of the Commonwealth.
Weymouth - Legislation adopted last week by the state Senate that streamlines the permitting process for large-scale wind turbine projects includes language proposed by Sen. Robert L. Hedlund that preserves local control over wetlands and other environmentally sensitive areas.
"The state, especially under the current administration, has a track record of choosing invasive development over the protection of environmentally sensitive areas," Hedlund said. "Too much power was taken away from our communities by the state and handed over to for-profit developers in chapter 40B. This language makes sure we don't repeat the same mistake in our efforts to develop additional clean, sustainable energy sources."
The bill, S2245, An Act Relative to Comprehensive Siting Reform for Land Based Wind Projects, attempts to expedite the permitting process for wind turbine projects capable of producing 2 megawatts or energy or greater. In many cases, the permitting process can take several years, due to hearings before multiple local, state and regional boards, and a lengthy appeals process.
Under the bill, large-scale wind turbine projects will apply for a single local permit before a municipal Wind Energy Permitting Board consisting of members of the local zoning, planning and conservation boards. Projects will be measured against a set of criteria spelled out by the state Energy Facilities Siting Board. A turbine such as Hull 2, a 1.8 megawatt turbine, would not qualify for the expedited permitting process.
All state permits will be issued by the Energy Facilities Siting Board.
Appeals from abutters will first go to the Energy Facilities Siting Board and then directly to the Supreme Judicial Court. Appeals are currently first heard at the Superior Court level, then by the State Appeals Court, before reaching the Supreme Judicial Court.
Concerned that, like with projects proposed under chapter 40B, wind turbine developers would be able to ignore local wetlands rules, Sen. Hedlund included specific language in the bill that allows the local Wind Energy Permitting Board to consider a project's impact on wetlands and other environmentally-sensitive areas. Only this local board would have the power to waive local wetlands bylaws.
"Many of the communities I represent have thoughtfully and deliberately extended additional protections to critical resource areas not covered under state laws. These areas include barrier beaches, vernal pools, and the watersheds around well fields," Sen. Hedlund said. "The decision to allow construction in these critical areas should be left up to those who serve on the local level and best understand the importance of these areas.
"We shouldn't destroy or compromise wetlands in the name of generating green energy."
Hedlund also included language in the bill requiring that the siting standards developed by the state Energy Facilities Siting Board are crafted to reflect the unique characteristics of the different regions of the Commonwealth.
"As we have seen with Chapter 40B, a one-size-fits all approach to the regulation of development doesn't work, especially when it comes to a state as geographically varied like Massachusetts," Hedlund said. "What is appropriate for Cape Cod is different than what is appropriate for the South Shore, just like what is appropriate for the Berkshires is different than what is appropriate for Boston."
An amendment proposed by Sen. Hedlund allowing the local Wind Energy Permitting Board to reject a project if it casts shadows on homes, schools, and health care facilities was rejected by the Senate.
Under state law, by 2015, 10% of all energy usage in the Commonwealth must come from renewable energy sources, such as the wind, sun, rivers or tides.
U.S. Congressman overwhelmed by wind turbine noise complaints
Transcript of AM 1480 WLEA (Hornell, NY) interview with U. S. Congressman Eric Massa (D, NY) on April 25, 2009, talking about the “virtual flood of constituents,” and even non-constituents, complaining about wind turbine noise.
Brian: Hi, and welcome to Connections with Brian O’Neil, on the phone today with Congressman Eric Massa. Congressman, good morning.
Congressman Massa: Good morning, and thank you for having me with you today.
Brian: Well, it’s always great to be on the line with you Eric.
Congressman Massa: How can I help?
Brian: Well, Congressman, one of the big stories lately on AM 1480 WLEA and, of course, the Corning Leader is what’s been going on in Prattsburgh. On Friday, you met with two Prattsburgh town board members Steve Kula and Chuck Schick. Now, having attended the last few Prattsburgh meetings myself, I’m guessing your meeting had something to do with the controversy over wind energy in Prattsburgh?
Congressman Massa: Well ,yes, and as some listeners may remember and certainly you might remember, for almost three years of my candidacy, and certainly since I have become an incumbent, I have been very focused on the challenges this area faces as foreign-owned industrial wind turbine corporations attempt to build thousands of these 450 foot tall towers on virtually every hill in western New York State, despite the fact that the United States Meteorological Service has stated very clearly we simply don’t have the wind in this area of the world to economically justify this. We have seen a consistent effort by these foreign companies to subvert local governments who are ill prepared to deal with these million-dollar industrial systems, to back out of commitments they’ve made through the industrial development agencies, not to pay their contributions to the local schools that they promised, not to create new jobs. So, this is, unfortunately, what we’ve been talking about, and I wish I was wrong, but everything I said for the last three years has come true. But nowhere is that more apparent than now, with the fact that these wind turbines generate so much noise that the very homes on the properties that leased agreements to the wind turbines now can’t be occupied. Now I’m not making this up. I have been in my office with a virtual flood of constituents who have come to me, both on and off properties that were leased to the wind companies, saying that they can’t live in the houses anymore, yet they can’t sell them, and in fact the town supervisor of Cohocton, a man that would not even shake my hand at a parade because he was so upset that I dared challenge this issue, has written a letter to the very company that he invited into his community, saying – we can’t have these wind turbines here because they’re too noisy. Well, you know, three years too late, and I am meeting with the folks in Prattsburgh so that they get – first off, they requested to meet with me, because they’re asking for help, to make sure that what was rammed down Cohocton does not get rammed down Prattsburgh. And it’s very disconcerting that everyone has such a wonderful opinion of these 450 foot towers that frankly don’t even produce electricity, and I don’t say that comically, I say that realistically. It’s a huge local issue.
Brian: Now, Congressman, are more wind farmers besides Hal Graham stepping forward to you and telling you that the wind turbines are driving them nuts?
Congressman Massa: Its – I have been, I would say, every weekend a different family in the office, talking with me.
Brian: Wow. And they’re wind farmers, some of them?
Congressman Massa: Yes. In fact one is the, one owns a home and he agreed to have a lease on his property and now he is saying – I have to move out of my property. It’s quite amazing. Not to mention the fact that as we talked about, hunters are now coming up and telling me that there’s no wildlife anywhere within distance, and I’m talking three to four miles, of any of these wind turbines because these wind turbines emit low frequency vibrations that drive the deer away. So if some foreign companies have their way you’ll never be able to hunt in the southern tier again because we won’t have any deer. And that’s, again, I know that sounds like an exaggeration.
Brian: Right.
Congressman Massa: But it’s not an exaggeration. Anybody who can tell you about animals in the wild will tell you they hear frequencies that humans cannot. And the low frequency vibrations from these industrial wind turbines drive the deer away. It’ll be the end of hunting for us.
Brian: Now, Congressmen Massa, back to what you said just a moment ago – you said these things don’t generate electricity at all?
Congressman Massa: Bingo. So, if the winds not blowing, they’re not generating. But if the wind is blowing, the electricity they’re generating, even now, is not going to come to New York it’s being shipped to other states like Massachusetts. And even now, we have a very limited capability technologically with the Independent System Operator, that’s the technical name of the individuals that oversee the incorporation of all electrical production into our New York Grid, a very limited ability to actually absorb the very unpredictable and highly variable nature of the electricity driven by wind turbines. Period.
Brian: Congressman Massa, when you met with those Prattsburgh officials on Friday afternoon, or Friday morning I think it was, what sort of impression did you walk away with when you left the meeting with those two Prattsburgh board members on Friday.
Congressman Massa: Well, first off, that they were very serious and concerned, that they were local officials of what I call gravitas. In other words, they’ve thought this through, they’ve asked the tough questions, they’ve asked for help from every, anyone and they told me that I was the only local, state or federal official that would sit down and talk to them.
Brian: I can believe that.
Congressman Massa: Now, this is an issue that I have been dealing with for years because I refuse to take the side of these very powerful foreign companies who are willing to do all kinds of things to get me to spout the party line for them. By the way, speaking of party lines, just about everybody that’s come up to me and asked me for this help is not of the same political party I am, because this, like every other issue that I deal with, cuts across party lines. This is about the future of this area. One of the last things we have, after everything else has been taken from us, is our environment, and now they want to take that too, and I will not rush willy-nilly down a road, a road by the way that has been torn up by the heavy tractors transporting these windmills and then we have to pay to repave them, I won’t go down that road without a fight, and that’s what I am trying to make happen.
Brian: We’re talking with Congressman Eric Massa on Connections here on AM 1480 WLEA. Congressman Massa, it seems to me that the two big issues right now in regards to wind energy are the problems with noise and the problem with corruption, with politicians having conflicts of interest. Some of these politicians out there, it seems like they’re just being out and out agents for wind companies in more than one way. One way would be bullying around anyone at these meetings who asks any, who questions at all, anything at all that the wind company wants. Another way would be for them to vote just down the line in every way that the wind company wants them to. As a matter of fact, at the last Prattsburgh meeting I attended, a man stepped forward and complained that one of the Prattsburgh Town Board members had given his name to a wind company person and this wind company person showed up at this Prattsburgh man’s house. And the Prattsburgh man was furious that his address and name had been given out to a wind company official by a Prattsburgh Town Board member for purposes of solicitation. Congressman, what’s going on here?
Congressman Massa: I think it’s a combination of opportunism and short- sightedness. I have been to these meetings. I have seen the bullying. You can’t – I am not easy to bully.
Brian: Right.
Congressman Massa: Many people will tell me they don’t like me because I’m too outspoken.
Brian: And you’re fast on your feet, yeah, I’ve seen you in a debate.
Congressman Massa: But on the other hand, I think that the voices of the people that have no voice need to be represented. Now, if in a free and fair and open and informed decision a town decides they want to do this, then great, that’s a local issue. But I want it to be free, fair and informed and when the information actually gets out there, people say – well, we don’t want that. Nobody, including me, is against the clean production of wind energy where it makes economic and technical sense, at all. It doesn’t here. We are being taken advantage of because we ‘re being treated like a bunch of country bumpkins by these foreign folks from European capitals, and it’s got to stop.
Brian: Congressman, one person said to me recently that you seem to be way ahead of most of your political colleagues on this subject of wind energy because most leaders at the federal level that we’ve seen are just acting like, basically, public relations guys for wind companies. Do you think that someday that wind will be looked on in some areas like ours as a fad and a phase that just didn’t work out?
Congressman Massa: Yeah, but the problem is when they look at that, we’re going to have hundreds of these industrial wind turbines broken and rusting and spilling oil that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to take down and return those forests to what they were so we can go back to enjoying and attracting people for what they come here for. That’s the problem. So we shouldn’t have to wait to realize that a mistake has been made. If we had wind greater than 33 percent, which means that more than a third of the time the wind blew strong enough to actually turn the blades and make electricity, we could have some hope of having a real contribution to help stop environmental degradation, and yes that’s global warming, and to make inexpensive electricity. But, none of that electricity is staying here and those turbines are not generating electricity, so you can look at this from many different levels. And it’s very sad. And then, of course, I get painted as an out of control you know, aggressive, guy. Well, I’m going to be very aggressive when it comes to fighting for our local interests, because, candidly, nobody else is.
Brian: Congressman, it seems that you have a lot of knowledge about laws regarding wind power. Do you know who would be held responsible if a neighbor of a wind project suffered something like property value loss or their house was vibrating and, you know, they’re living next door to a wind turbine that’s causing their house to shake or the noise is terrible at night. Do you know who’s responsible for that – the wind company, the IDA, the town? Do you know who has to take responsibility?
Congressman Massa: Well, the immediate supposition is that the source of the problem is culpable for the property degradation. That’s generally the rule, but the wind companies then seek protection by saying – well, the town boards and the local towns gave us permission to do that, it’s their problem. The town board says – yeah, but the IDA gave us permission to do this, so it’s their problem. Then all of a sudden, a single family has to go running around, all up and down trying to get someone to help them when they are given the run around. This is exactly what happened in Cohocton. When people went to the town board and complained and said – listen, you guys voted to put these things up here, it exceeds the noise limit. The town board said – well, don’t talk to us, talk to the wind company. They went to the wind company, the wind company said – not our problem, the town board issued us a permit. And this is how you end up going in that circular run around that drives people crazy and they shouldn’t have to. So I’ve said – come see me, it’s my job to help where I can help, and I’m going to do that.
Transcript provided by Helderberg Community Watch
Rolling Black out from Wind Turbines
February 28, 2008 • Texas
Operators of the state power grid scrambled Tuesday night to keep the lights on after a sudden drop in West Texas wind threatened to cause rolling blackouts, officials confirmed Wednesday.
At about 6:41 p.m. Tuesday, grid operators ordered a shutoff of power to so-called interruptible customers, which are industrial electric users who have agreed previously to forgo power in times of crisis. The move ensured continued stability of the grid after power dropped unexpectedly.
Dottie Roark, a spokeswoman for the power grid, said a sudden uptick in electricity use coupled with other factors and a sudden drop in wind power caused the unexpected dip. As a result, grid officials immediately went to the second stage of its emergency blackout prevention plan.
“This situation means that there is a heightened risk of … regular customers being dropped through rotating outages, but that would occur only if further contingencies occur, and only as a last resort to avoid the risk of a complete blackout,” the State Operations Center said in an e-mail notice to municipalities.
Known as the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the quasi-governmental agency that manages the power grid must ensure that power generation and power use remain constantly in balance. Otherwise, the whole grid can go dark, and the result is a systemwide blackout.
According to ERCOT, those interruptible customers who lost power Tuesday night had it restored by 9:40 p.m.. The interruptible customers are generally industrial businesses that pay less for electricity in exchange for an agreement that they will let ERCOT cut their power during shortages.
Some wholesale energy prices also spiked Tuesday evening — especially in West Texas. ERCOT also reported that the drop in wind power led to constraints on the system between the north part of the state and the west.
Kent Saathoff, vice president for system operations at ERCOT, said Tuesday’s event illustrates the inherent challenges associated with using wind power. Because the wind sometimes stops blowing without a moment’s notice, engineers at ERCOT must remain nimble enough to respond to resulting instability on the grid, he said.
“There is a major workshop going on at our office right now to discuss these very issues,” Saathoff said.
Although he said the emergency event was rare, it is not unprecedented. On April 16, 2006, for instance, a much more serious shortage prompted rolling blackouts across much of Texas. ERCOT officials at that time also ordered power curtailments for the state’s interruptible customers.
That 2006 event was prompted largely by scorching heat coupled with a shutdown of several generators for spring maintenance. This time the shortage was prompted largely by a near-total loss of wind generation, as well as a failure of several energy providers to reach scheduled production and the spike in electricity usage.
ERCOT reported that wind power production plummeted Tuesday evening from about 1,700 megawatts to about 300 megawatts. A single megawatt is enough electricity to power 500 to 700 homes under normal conditions.
The emergency procedures Tuesday night added about 1,100 megawatts to the grid over a 10-minute period, according to ERCOT.
Some critics have said that wind power, although providing a source of clean energy, also brings with it plenty of hidden costs and technical challenges. Besides requiring the construction of expensive transmission lines, the fickle nature of wind also means that the state cannot depend on the turbines to replace other sorts of generators.
“This is a warning to all those who think that renewable energy is the sole answer [to the state’s power needs],” said Geoffrey Gay, an attorney representing Fort Worth and other North Texas municipalities in utility issues. “We can’t put all our eggs in one basket when it comes to any form of generation. We need to consider the cost and the reliability issues, in addition to the environmental impact.”
Susan Williams Sloan, a spokeswoman for the American Wind Energy Association, said those technical challenges are not insurmountable. She said part of the solution is to locate turbines in diverse areas of the state. “When the wind is not blowing somewhere, it’s always blowing somewhere else,” she said.
Sloan also said that technological advances will make it easier in the future to forecast wind energy.
About 4,356 megawatts of wind turbines are currently installed in Texas, she said.
By R.A. Dyer
Staff Writer
Turbine is a Danger to Workers, Kids, Riders and Hikers according to Manual
I call on everyone to ask the town of Wellfleet and the Wellfleet Energy Commission why they are building this turbine in a National Park that is enjoyed by hikers, kids and riders when Vestas tells their own workers to stay a 1/4 mile away.
This is from Vestas V90 operator manual a slightly larger wind turbine.
2. Stay and Traffic by the Turbine