Thanks to Mr. Jon Boone for granting permission to post, in its entirety, his stinging assessment of the Sierra Club’s position on industrial wind, embedded here for your convenience:
Mr. Boone’s writings are published worldwide and can be found at his very informative web site – Stop Ill Wind. Mr. Boone is a frequent contributor to Allegheny Treasures.
From the Christopher Booker – London Telegraph – Wind turbines: ‘Eco-friendly’ – but not to eagles
(A red kite killed by colliding with a turbine in Spain, where up to a million birds a year may be dying in this way)
Mr. Booker writes, “In all my scores of items over the years on why the obsession with wind turbines will be seen as one of the major follies of our age, there is one issue I haven’t touched on. The main practical objection to turbines, of course, is that they are useless, producing derisory amounts of electricity at colossal cost. (Yet the Government wants us to spend £100 billion on building thousands more of them which, even were it technically possible, would do virtually nothing to fill the fast-looming 40 per cent gap in our electricity supply.)
A feature of these supposedly environment-friendly machines that I haven’t mentioned, however, is their devastating effect on wildlife, notably on large birds of prey, such as eagles and red kites. Particularly disturbing is the extent to which the disaster has been downplayed by professional bodies, such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Britain and the Audubon Society in the US, which should be at the forefront of exposing this outrage, but which have often been drawn into a conflict of interest by the large sums of money they derive from the wind industry itself.
There is plenty of evidence for the worldwide scale of this tragedy. The world’s largest and most carefully monitored wind farm, Altamont Pass in California, is estimated to have killed between 2,000 and 3,000 golden eagles alone in the past 20 years. Since turbines were erected on the isle of Smola, off Norway, home to an important population of white-tailed sea eagles, destruction is so great that last year only one chick survived. Thanks to wind farms in Tasmania, a unique sub-species of wedge-tailed eagles faces extinction. And here in Britain, plans to build eight wind farms on the Hebridean islands, among Scotland’s largest concentration of golden eagles, now pose a major threat to the species’ survival in the UK.”
Read his entire article here: Wind turbines: ‘Eco-friendly’ – but not to eagles
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu “pushes bio-refineries and windmills to oil executives at an energy conference as the administration announces a three-year offshore drilling ban. This is a policy for economic suicide!”
The editorial at Investors.com notes that despite huge subsidies, it has proved to be neither cost-effective nor a reliable, significant contributor to our national power grid. Yet we keep subsidizing it, expecting a different result.
Want further proof of insanity? Interior Secretary Ken Salazar quietly told reporters on Friday that the administration’s six-month delay in approving new offshore drilling leases in federal waters will morph into a three-year total ban. We are forbidden from finding more oil and gas even though a December 2009 Rasmussen poll showed as many Americans want offshore drilling — roughly two-thirds — as oppose administration plans for health care.
Read the entire IBD editorial here: Chortling At Chu
Mr. Green, writing for the American Enterprise Institute makes this observation: “Anyone who knows that China’s labor rate is under $1.00 per hour, and that China holds 95% of the rare earth elements needed to produce most renewable energy systems could have told you that manufacturing of renewable equipment is going to happen mostly in China.”
One can only hope that this suggestion is correct: “The wind industry is showing increasing signs of desperation as some unpleasant realities are emerging despite the unending propaganda storm from the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).”
Read the complete post here: U.S. Wind Industry: Turbine Construction Won’t be Domestic
Thanks to Mr. Glenn Schleede for providing the following excellent information, beginning with his Key Electric Industry Terms provided here for your convenience:
Mr. Schleede also credits Eric Rosenbloom for pointing to this “excellent article from PowerGen Worldwide that explains how fast starting gas-fired generating units are being built in the US for the specific purpose of providing backup generation and grid balancing in areas where “wind farms” are built. The article is especially good because it explains the differences between spinning reserve generating units, generating units that on line and producing at less than full capacity, and units that are in “standby” that can be started up and begin producing in about 10 minutes.”
Mr. Schleede says that, “if you have been struggling to understand the differences in the above generating unit functions and operating modes, this article at Power-Gen Worldwide should help: Gas Fired Back-up Power – Back-up power for wind: Striking the right balance.
Mr. Schleede notes that “the manufacturer of the generating units described in the article, Wärtsilä, is a Finnish manufacturer of large diesel and gas engines for use in powering ships and electricity generation.” He suggests that “this is just one more way in which US electric customers’ dollars are flowing out of the country when electricity from wind is adopted.”
AT Notes:
Mr. Schleede is semi-retired after spending more than 30 years dealing with energy matters in the federal government and private sector. He writes frequently about energy issues, particularly about government policies that adversely affect consumers and taxpayers.
Mr. Rosenbloom is a science editor and writer living in Vermont. His web side is here.
Industrial wind doesn’t work! Chances are the legislators representing you either don’t know that, or they receive so much money or so many promises from the wind lobby they don’t care. Ignorance or greed, there’s not much in between.
That leaves citizens who oppose wind power with two options: educate your lawmakers or replace them. You’ll find out soon enough if your representative is a candidate for the education option and if not … toss them out.
Here are a couple of points to consider:
Conveniently, the source for both is the person you elect. And happily, you have the power to hire and fire them.
This is a hard task to take on alone. There are citizen’s groups forming throughout the country to take on the wind lobby. As we find them we link them here for your convenience. Find one near you and join. If you can’t find one, form one. The folks linked here will help.
The real danger is that as each case is decided, precedent is building in favor of the heavily funded wind companies and their enablers. To have any real chance of turning the industrial wind juggernaut around, you need to arm yourselves with facts from the many resources available, many of which are linked at this site.
For the specifics on the Friends of Lincoln Lakes ruling read the Bangor Daily News online article: Friends group loses Rollins project appeal – By Nick Sambides Jr.
Now, spend some time reading the court’s ruling in the Maine based Friends of Lincoln Lakes v Board of Environmental Protection, et al. The ruling language is boilerplate – repeated over and over in case after case. Reading it will point you to some of the issues that need your attention:
Oh, and by the way … if you think you haven’t yet been impacted by industrial wind, you have! You’re already paying higher taxes to subsidize them and higher electricity rates if they’re hooked to your grid. And if they’re not in your neighborhood, they will be. There’s far too much money available to the wind developers to leave a patch of land empty.
So I suggest you take this issue seriously.
From the Chattanooga Times Free Press: Taxes and ‘fairness’
Friday, March 12, 2010
Defenders of federal subsidies for inefficient alternative energy such as wind and solar power say the subsidies are justified because of tax breaks that oil companies get. Wind and solar need special treatment, they say, to make things “fair.”
But when the state of Wyoming tried to be “fair” to all of its energy companies, supporters of wind energy were upset.
Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal proposed a 5 percent tax on wind energy production. While no tax is desirable, that one is at least reasonable because the state taxes coal and natural gas production. (Remember “fairness”?)
But the plan to levy the tax on wind power caused an uproar. Wind energy activists condemned it, pointing to the generous tax treatment other states offer to wind companies.
Gov. Freudenthal was not impressed by those arguments. He rejected the suggestion that wind energy has no downside.
“I appreciate the fact that people can say it has great environmental benefits, but that’s people who don’t live next to them, or whose wildlife habitat isn’t being disrupted, or the bird population isn’t being affected, or whose view isn’t being altered,” he told The Associated Press.
And as for taxes, he said wind companies “are not entitled to a free ride.”
Unfortunately, many seem to think costly, inefficient alternative energy should get a “free ride” rather than be subject to the rules of the “free market.”
Thanks to Jon Boone of Stop Ill Wind for pointing us to this excellent commentary at Energy Tribune.
The author, Mr. Jonathan Lester suggests California is an excellent contestant in his “renewable energy jeopardy” game and that the answer is “renewable energy mandates.” What’s the correct question? Supposedly, California’s new mandate answers four questions: How can the US achieve energy independence? How can we reduce consumers’ exposure to volatile electricity prices? How can we reduce greenhouse gas emissions? And how can we create “green” jobs?
For an excellent and interesting review of the questions go here: Renewable Energy Jeopardy: An Answer Searching for the Right Question
(Mr. Lester is President of Continental Economics, Inc., an energy and economics consulting firm with offices in New Mexico and Washington, DC.)
C’mon, you folks didn’t think there was any chance the American Wind Energy Association would agree to cut off the free flow of gimmies, did you?
What has the Canadian Wind Energy Association, our neighbor’s equivalent of the US lobby group American Wind Energy Association, all upset is the fact that their government made a “decision not to expand or extend the so-called ecoEnergy program — which delivered subsidies to renewable energy developers — in its new budget.”
They claim losing the cash will hurt their ability to compete for financing and jobs with their American competition.
Gee! Makes you wonder, with the sudden increase of investment seekers rolling down from the Canadian market, maybe the AWEA members will tell the US Congress to cut back on the generosity a bit to save the taxpayers some money.
Let me know … I’ll be over here holding my breath.
Here’s the New York Times article: Developers Lament Loss of Federal Wind Subsidies in Canada
Allegheny Treasures 