Another US Representative fed up with stimulus funds for industrial wind going oversees!

Posted on February 17, 2010 by morgan

From Congressman Eric Massa:, representing New York’s 29th District

February 15, 2010

President Barack Obama
President of the United States of America
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500-0005

Dear Mr. President:

In recent months, I have learned of some very troubling news regarding the use of stimulus funds for supporting wind industry jobs abroad. I do not believe this use of U.S. taxpayer dollars is in accordance with the purposes of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and I request that your Administration refrain from giving any awards to wind companies tunneling money to foreign corporations. Sending money abroad to support jobs in other countries while continuing to ignore problems facing the American wind industry is simply bad policy.

To date, I do not believe the use of stimulus funds to support wind projects in the U.S. has met the promises of substantial job creation and clean renewable energy. With these and other federal funds, we must make wise investments in the American people by weighing the job and energy creation prospects of each proposal. Quite simply, the potential benefits offered by a project should be commensurate with the size of the investment. I am not convinced that this is the case right now.

While it is true that these funds are used only to support American-based projects, the development corporations and the suppliers involved are, more often than not, headquartered outside of the U.S. This means that ultimately, a large portion of the nearly $2 billion invested in wind projects through the ARRA will go directly to supporting foreign businesses that compete with American workers. The stimulus package was meant to bolster American productivity, not hand over control of an entire industry to other countries, including China.

Instead of dumping billions of dollars into so many wind projects that support very few domestic jobs and produce limited energy benefits, while propping-up foreign industries at the expense of U.S. taxpayers, I believe your Administration should focus on addressing the underlying problems of the American wind industry. If we are to have successful American wind energy development, we must have an industry built by American workers that supply real energy to American homes and reduce our dependence on dirty fossil fuels. I believe it is necessary to slow down the wildly haphazard “progress” in wind power development which is having a destructive impact on many small communities. We need to address these and many other concerns because frankly, the current policy is not working.

As it stands now and as it has been proven by stimulus investments in wind power, our nation is dangerously reliant on foreign wind corporations. As with so many other industries, we have been surpassed by our foreign competitors in the wind sector. Even worse, now we are funding them. This is entirely wrong.

Moving forward, we must take a critical look into the American wind industry that we see today and develop comprehensive, long-term plans that address the many serious issues facing wind power in this country. The goal must be to use wise investments in this energy source to safely, responsibly, and effectively create clean energy while also establishing strong manufacturing and construction sectors that will build a truly American industry supported by American jobs.

Eric JJ. Massa Member of Congress

Cc: Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy

AT Note:  Have you contacted your Representative????

Posted in Wind Energy Shenanigans, Wind Power subsidies | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Thoughts on the Allegheny Front Alliance appeal of the Pinnacle industrial wind project.

Posted on February 17, 2010 by morgan

As mentioned in a previous post, the Allegheny Front Alliance has filed a “petition for reconsideration” in the matter of the WV Public Service Commission action granting a citing certificate for the purpose of constructing an industrial wind installation on Green Mountain in Mineral County, on the high ridge above Keyser, WV.

AFA representative Frank O’Hara has chosen to let the appeal stand on its own merit, rather than interpret further what is stated in the formal submittal.  Mr. O’Hara has encouraged citizens to go to the document for their information.  Allegheny Treasures has posted, for reader’s convenience, the formal appeal at the link post above and again at the end of this post.

The Mineral Daily-News Tribune (WV) also published an article yesterday, linked here for your convenience.  Mr. Richard Kerns, author of the article, points to several items of interest.  Allegheny Treasures would like to use the opportunity offered by the article to discuss a few related issues.

The Mineral Daily article opens with, “The Allegheny Front Alliance has appealed the West Virginia Public Service Commission’s approval of the Pinnacle Wind Farm, delaying construction of the 23-turbine project atop Green Mountain.”  Since some folks stop there, the phrase “has the potential to delay,” might have better expressed the circumstance, especially since later in the article David Friend, representative for the developer stated that “the company will use the time to identify potential contractors, create bid packages and work to finalize its power-purchase agreement with the University of Maryland.”  Mr. Kerns confirms, near the end of the article, that “Ongoing negotiation of the power purchase agreement (with the University of Maryland) had already delayed the expected spring start of the project, so that the appeal – if it is not granted by the PSC — may have little actual impact on the timeline.”  This statement confirms a January 19 Mineral Daily article, also written by Mr. Kerns, titled, “WindForce officials happy with PSC approval, but push construction start to fall,” which states “those negotiations (U of MD) should wrap up within a month or so, but he pushed the anticipated spring construction start-up back to the fall of 2010, with the turbines being “hung” by summer of 2011.”  “We have our permit now,” Friend noted. “That’s the big deal.”

This may seem a silly quibble on my part, but it’s important that people understand that the appeal process is a legal and necessary one and not necessarily the delaying factor.  The AFA appeal was submitted within 10 days of the WV PSC ruling and as stated in the article, “WindForce officials had anticipated the appeal, saying such motions are part of the application process.”  Also, it doesn’t seem that the developer is prepared to move forward were there no appeal and, as Mr. Friend said, “We have our permit now … that’s the big deal.”

That being said, Allegheny Treasures has posted on items mentioned in the Mineral Daily article which we’d like to include here for the benefit of any new readers:

1 – AFA “noted that cultural sites in Maryland which would also be impacted by the view of the 400-foot turbines, were not included in the maps and other information provided as part of WindForce’s application.”  Beyond what is included in the formal appeal process, Allegheny Treasures has posted extensively on the actions of the WVSHPO (West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office of the West Virginia Division of Culture and History).  We have confronted the potential impact of what we feel was an error in judgment by the WVSHPO in ignoring the historic sites impacted by the Pinnacle project in Maryland, and the resulting squabble at Camp Allegheny Civil War Battlefield bordering Virginia.  The mitigation of numerous historic sites in Mineral County for a pittance is disgraceful.  We have contacted Governor Manchin’s office for a review of the actions of the WVSHPO and have been assured of a response.

2 – “Regarding the Indiana bat specifically, an endangered species,” the article fails to mention the recent ruling by United States District Judge Roger Titus regarding the Beech Ridge industrial wind plant in West Virginia.  Judge Titus found that the partially constructed wind plant would, in fact, put the endangered Indiana Bat at risk.  As a result of the ruling an agreement was reached including these key elements:

  • The developers will permanently abandoned 31 turbines nearest the Indiana bat hibernacula (about 25% of the overall project);
  • The developers committed to getting an incidental take permits and habitat conservation plan;
  • Until the incidental take permit is granted (which will likely take about two years), no turbines may operate during nighttime except during winter when Indiana bats are hibernating;
  • Bat and bird searches will occur regularly to ensure that no stray bats are being killed during daytime operation prior to issuance of an incidental take permit;
  • Plaintiffs will play a role in the incidental take permit process, but will play a much more productive role than is typical because they will be involved from the beginning;
  • If the Fish and Wildlife Service requests any further layout changes that could reduce the size of the project, the developer has agreed to live with the Service’s decision;
  • The developers have given up all appeal rights to the 4th Circuit; and
  • The developers have given up their motion for reconsideration that was pending before Judge Titus.

3 – The Mineral Daily article states, “on the question of energy, WindForce maintains that the project will contribute power to the electrical grid, and enhance reliability. Again, the Alliance takes issue with that contention, saying Pinnacle will actually be disruptive to the grid.”  Performance is a welcome debate playing out across the country with renewed interest by lawmakers in several states.  We encourage US WindForce to “open the books” on actual v capacity because, at risk of repeating, our sense is that industrial wind just doesn’t cut it!  The claim that industrial wind will replace fossil fuel power plants and reduce CO2is challenged by some of the best minds in the country and, when called upon to produce evidence of power plants shut down or evidence (not estimates from industry sources) of CO2 reduction, the reality is this, “With nearly 100,000 huge wind turbines now in operation throughout the world—35,000 in the USA—no coal plants have been closed anywhere because of wind technology. And there is no empirical evidence that there is less coal burned per unit of electricity produced as a specific consequence of wind.”  Even wind developers, when pressed about the CO2 issue tend to minimize industrial wind’s contribution.

The LA Times, in a surprisingly candid piece about the lack of job growth as promised by the wind industry, noted that “even though a record 10,000 megawatts of new generating capacity came on line, few jobs were created overall and wind power manufacturing employment, in particular, fell…”

So, when folks start to realize that industrial wind costs more, provides few jobs, very little and infrequent electricity to the grid and all the while sacrifices our environment and wildlife in the process, there’s bound to be a shift.  The industrial wind folks fight back with their propaganda and call doubters NIMBY (not in my back yard).  Well, as we said here in a previous post, Industrial wind calls it NIMBY. Perhaps! But “this problem runs from the arctic to the tip of South America — and that is one helluva big backyard!”

Let me end with this, it is unfortunate that, among the many issues that can be considered by the WV PSC in granting a siting certificate, two of the most important claims of the wind developer are off the table.  The WV PSC has no power to require that the developer actually produce electricity at the rated level or, in fact, any minimum percentage of the generator nameplate capacity as specified by the project under consideration.  Similarly, the WV PSC cannot require evidence that the project under consideration or any active project for that matter has, or will reduce greenhouse gas emissions – a significant benefit listed by wind developers in their promotional materials.

Think of that! With all the consumption of land and air; negative impact on wildlife the environment; incredible benefits as a result of subsidies, tax incentives and higher prices to consumers and there is little or no accountability required of industrial wind.  At least Ontario provides a real time report of its industrial wind performance.  But then, perhaps that’s why US industrial wind does not!

As mentioned, a full text of the Allegheny Front Alliance appeal is provided here for your convenience:

We make every effort to be accurate.  If you note any errors, omissions or broken links please contact us via the comment section at this post.  We appreciate you coming by and encourage your review of our material and appreciate any respectful comments.

Posted in Allegheny Front Alliance, Archives, Beech Ridge, US WindForce, WVSHPO | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Business Week: UK energy prices must reflect the cost of backup energy supply for renewable sources..

Posted on February 16, 2010 by morgan

From Business Week:  “E.ON AG, the second-largest power producer in Britain, said U.K. energy prices must reflect the cost of backup supply as the country boosts output from renewable sources.”

Utilities need to keep running gas-fired plants because sources of alternative generation such as wind can fluctuate, E.ON’s Director of Regulation and Energy Policy Sara Vaughan said in a telephone interview. The battery technology that’s used to store power from wind remains in its infancy, she said.

Vaughn stated that “It’s not necessarily a case of building new capacity, it is also a case of having sufficient incentives to keep existing plants on the system,” she said.

Over the next decade, Britain is preparing to replace as much as 30 percent of its aging power-station capacity with a new fleet of nuclear reactors, gas-fueled plants and generators driven by renewable sources such as wind.

On days when wind is weak, wind farms can only be relied upon to generate about 10 percent of their total capacity, Vaughan said, adding that there are “very few days” when other generators need to provide the full 90 percent backup. Developing interconnections with Europe would only increase wind farms’ peak reliability to 12 percent, she said.

Posted in Europe industrial wind | Tagged , | Leave a comment

From IWA – Expert: Flawed Methodologies Used in U.S. DOE Study on Property Values and Wind Power Projects

Posted on February 15, 2010 by morgan

Confirming earlier efforts by the Industrial Wind Action Group comes this:

This is the original report by Albert R. Wilson:

Comment from Mr. Jon Boone:

I’m pasting below the remarks I made in my Maryland PSC Synergics testimony vis a vis another “government sponsored” wind property values assessment document back in 2003, infamously known as the Renewable Energy Policy Project. It too was easily discredited. The effort of government to use public resources as it bends reality to sell its brand of wind soap is truly disgusting–contemptible.

“One of the most validated real estate precepts is the idea that significant natural views have premium value, and intrusions which restrict that view erode value. Realtors doing business near windplants in the western United States and in Europe understand that property will sell for between ten and thirty percent less than previous market value, depending upon how close it is to the windplant. The few “studies” which appear to support the claim that windplants don’t devalue property are extremely flawed in fact and methodology, often surveying people and evaluating property miles away from a wind site, then “averaging” these results with properties adjacent to windplants.

The Renewable Energy Policy Project (May, 2003) study that Synergics offers on behalf of the claim that its project will not diminish property values contains serious methodological flaws:

1. The study covers just ten projects, only one of which comes close to the size and scope of Synergics’ project—and this site (Madison County, NY—the Fenner Site), with 20 turbines situated on farm fields—not atop tall ridgelines– interestingly showed significant decreases in property values.

2. The time frame of the study was so short that even the study’s authors were compelled to state the data was insufficient to offer compelling conclusions.

3. The study did not verify whether individual properties had a direct view of the windplants, making the use of the term “viewshed” something of a misnomer in this context, since the viewshed properties were actually all properties within a five mile radius of the turbines regardless of whether they had a direct line of sight. To mitigate this problem, the researchers conducted phone interviews with tax assessors and other local authorities to get estimates on the number of properties in the defined viewshed that might have had views of the turbines. However, under scrutiny, these interviewees provided inaccurate estimates.

4. The analysis used in this study did not incorporate distance from a wind development as a variable or weighting factor, so that a viewshed property sale five miles away from a development counted the same as one a quarter mile away. It is at least plausible that if wind developments do have an effect on property values, it would be strongest close to the turbines and decline with distance. Simple geometry suggests that the majority of properties in the area of a five mile circle are likely to be fairly distant from the wind development: 64% of the area of this circle is three miles or more from the center – and only 4% lies within the first mile. Though properties are not necessarily distributed evenly about the landscape, and property values conceivably can be affected by other things in the vicinity, the REPP study confuses substantially the proportion of properties that either have only a distant view of wind turbines or no view at all.

5. The study relied on average rates of sale prices before and after the wind development and between viewshed properties and properties in a comparison group. Therefore, if one calculates that sale prices among viewshed properties increased $50/month faster than sale prices in the comparison group, then it makes a difference whether the statistical uncertainty in the point estimate is plus or minus $25/month or $500/month. The former leads to a conclusion that the wind development unlikely had a negative effect on property values while the latter intimates that the data are inconclusive – there could be a large negative impact, a large positive impact or no impact at all. These “smoothed” average sale prices against a very small time variable creates a regression analysis which is, for prediction purposes, almost beside the point, suggestive of nothing.

The REPP “study,” although its basic methodological approach holds considerable promise, is severely flawed. To say, as Synergics does, that the study demonstrates its proposed windplant will have no effect on property values, that it may in fact enhance them, is disingenuous.”

Posted in industrial wind vs. property value | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Allegheny Front Alliance appeals WV Public Service Commission ruling on Pinnacle industrial wind project.

Posted on February 15, 2010 by morgan

Mr. Frank O’Hara has confirmed to AT that the citizen’s group, Allegheny Front Alliance, has appealed the WV PSC ruling granting a citing certificate to Pinnacle Wind Force LLC for the construction of an industrial wind project on Green Mountain above Keyser, WV.

The AFA Petition to Reconsider is consistent with the growing dissatisfaction among citizens facing the potential of industrial wind projects in their community.  Legislators from the states of Maryland, Montana, and New York are feeling pressure from citizens as they learn of the wasted tax money and generous subsidies provided to this remarkably under-performing industry.

As has been discussed here in previous posts, there seems no question that, provided with accurate information, people begin to questionthe high cost and poor performance of these gigantic machines that consume such an enormous chunk of real estate and air relative to their “capacity” to produce electricity.  We use the term “capacity” simply because the historic output of industrial wind ranges at 20-30% of rated nameplate capacity.  As noted in Dennis Avery’s piece, A Chill Hits Wind Power, ”The Texas power grid’s experience is to rely on no more than 9 percent of the wind farm’s rated capacity.”

The claim that industrial wind will replace fossil fuel power plants and reduce CO2 is challenged by some of the best minds in the country and, when called upon to produce evidence of power plants shut down or evidence (not estimates from industry sources) of CO2 reduction, the reality is this, “With nearly 100,000 huge wind turbines now in operation throughout the world—35,000 in the USA—no coal plants have been closed anywhere because of wind technology. And there is no empirical evidence that there is less coal burned per unit of electricity produced as a specific consequence of wind.”  Even wind developers, when pressed about the CO2 issue tend to minimize industrial wind’s contribution.

The LA Times, in a surprisingly candid piece about the lack of job growth as promised by the wind industry, noted that “even though a record 10,000 megawatts of new generating capacity came on line, few jobs were created overall and wind power manufacturing employment, in particular, fell…”

So, when folks start to realize that industrial wind costs more, provides few jobs, very little and infrequent electricity to the grid and all the while sacrifices our environment and wildlife in the process, there’s bound to be a shift.  The industrial wind folks fight back with their propaganda and call doubters NIMBY (not in my back yard).  Well, as we said here in a previous post, Industrial wind calls it NIMBY. Perhaps! But “this problem runs from the arctic to the tip of South America — and that is one helluva big backyard!”

So, do as we and others have and challenge your political leaders to look past the curtain that is the industrial wind scam.  Reach out to your Governors and legislature to challenge their thinking.  Make them aware that you expect them to invest your tax dollars wisely.

The full text of the Allegheny Front Alliance appeal is provided here for your convenience:

Posted in Allegheny Front Alliance, Archives, Friends and Citizens Groups, Wind Energy Legislation | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

From American Thinker: Wind Energy’s Ghosts

Posted on February 15, 2010 by morgan

A must read from Andrew Walden, who suggests that “Bankrupt Europe has a lesson for Congress about wind power.”

Mr. Walden begins his commentary with how “the disembodied voices of 37 skeletal wind turbines abandoned to rust on the hundred-acre site of the former Kamaoa Wind Farm” are crying out to us.”

He suggests “the voices of Kamaoa cry out their warning as a new batch of colonists, having looted the taxpayers of Spain, Portugal, and Greece, seeks to expand upon their multi-billion-dollar foothold half a world away on the shores of the distant Potomac River. European wind developers are fleeing the EU’s expiring wind subsidies, shuttering factories, laying off workers, and leaving billions of Euros of sovereign debt and a continent-wide financial crisis in their wake. But their game is not over. Already they are tapping a new vein of lucre from the taxpayers and ratepayers of theUnited States.”

Read on as Mr. Walden takes us through the history of early wind in this country, weaving the legislative intervention that enabled Enron and continues to bleed the United States treasury to support this poor performing industry still today.

Mr. Walden explains that, as Enron imploded, “the company which gamed a government-crippled artificial marketplace was deconstructed as poster boy for unbridled capitalism.”

“But the tax credits, mandates, and regulations which made Enron possible did not die with it.  Enron Wind’s turbine manufacturing subsidiary was purchased by General Electric.  Many of its wind farms went to Florida Light and Power.  By 2009, the US Department of Energy estimates mandate-and-subsidy-driven wind capacity would rise to 28,635mw.”

“That much coal or nuclear “capacity” would power 28.635 million homes, but wind “capacity” is calculated assuming perfect wind 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year.  At the best wind sites, such as Kamaoa, newly installed turbines generate only 30-40% of “capacity”.  At most sites, the figure is 20% or less.  After 30 years of development, wind produces only 2.3%of California’s electricity.”

Unless our legislators are forced to understand the chaos they are enabling, our current path to industrial wind has the potential to cripple an already suffering economy.  As Mr. Walden states, “Waxman-Markey seems dead, and Europe’s southern periphery is bankrupt.  But the wind-subsidy proposals being floated in Congress suggest that American political leaders have yet to understand that “green power” means generating electricity by burning dollars.”

via American Thinker: Wind Energy’s Ghosts.

Posted in industrial wind failure | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

“The odds of this project moving forward would be a lot worse, if the public understood what a huge scam the wind industry is.”

Posted on February 15, 2010 by morgan

“The odds of this project moving forward would be a lot worse, if the public understood what a huge scam the wind industry is.”  That is an effective statement!  Clear, to the point and not in the least NIMBY!

Thanks to Mr. Jon Boone of Stop Ill Wind for pointing to the recent speech given by Mr. Tom Stacy of Save Western Ohio, to a group of folks facing an imminent industrial wind project.  Seems the two gentlemen are in concert in their approach to discussion of industrial wind – “go after the wind mess where it lives, and not just dither around its margins!”

Contained in his speech, posted in its entirety below, Mr. Stacy has excellent advice for individuals or groups fighting against the industrial wind scam.  We thank Mr. Stacy for his kind permission to post his speech and, as always, your comments are encouraged.

Speech begins:

I want to thank all of you for your brave efforts to halt Buckeye Wind.  It takes more than anger to fight against the political “green tide.” It requires courage — and you have it.

Many people throughout history have taken an unpopular stand. Most have been censored, or worse, but some have been responsible for breakthroughs in our grasp of natural science and other realms of human understanding.  Galileo, Columbus, Paine, Lincoln, Edison, Wright and Deming come to mind.  One historical figure named Reagan even went so far as to tear the solar panels off of the White House roof when he learned how much they cost and how little they produced.  That same week he terminated the Federal Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit.

And the walls came tumbling down.  But we have no such constitutional leader today who, from the top down, would put a stake through the heart of the marauding beast we know as industrial wind — while simultaneously promoting sound policies that promote a genuinely competitive marketplace where contributors thrive and laggards languish.

Wind is a clever parasite, leeching our rural persona, making country people believe that it is one with their way of life, just another wind mill on a wind farm along a wind park—all beloved by peace-loving neighbors. BUT WE KNOW BETTER! We know it’s a sprawling industrial stampede using PR parlor tricks and old-fashioned political bribes to make people think black is white and pigs can fly. We know it’s a greedy tax avoidance scheme for large corporations to increase their bottom lines at our expense.

We know it’s engaged in “imagineering,” pretending to be an effective energy solution when it’s not.  The truth is, it makes our energy situation worse, and our pocket books much lighter. Had our elected representatives remained neutral toward the limited liability wind companies forcing them to offer sound, scientific proof for their many claims, Buckeye Wind would have never been born.

So thank you – for all your hard work.  Ohio Senator Bill Seitz wrote the following to one of our ranks earlier this week:

“I think you all need to continue to be zealous advocates and to realize that your advocacy has been effective and that your community’s prosecutor and his staff are doing a thorough and commendable job.” [END QUOTE]

I agree with much of what the senator says.  But I think our zeal must be exercised more carefully.  It needs far fewer annoyance complaints – and one or two solid blows to the face of the industry itself.  It needs less subjective rhetoric and more call for the facts to back the green movement’s claims. Our collective voice must needs delineate what’s right for America, instead of what’s wrong with placing windmills in my precious neighborhood.

Focusing on the local issues generally leads to a flash judgment in the mind of the American television viewer. It goes like this:  American progress depends on wind energy’s success.  A few selfish land owners want to stand in the way of progress.  End of analysis.

And local news media seldom, if ever, offer us the opportunity to add big picture perspective.  Wouldn’t we prefer television media deliver a message that a greater audience can relate to?  The first step in that direction is for us to provide that message, so every viewer can connect with it.

Before I offer my suggestions, let’s survey the range of messages we might consider.

Should our message convey: “FOUL!  I PERSONALLY AM GOING TO SUFFER AT THE HANDS OF WIND ENERGY!”

No. I believe this is fruitless.  In fact, I contend many viewers may enjoy seeing a few suffer at the hands of what is assumed to be “progress,”  as long as it’s not them. They love to shout back at their big plasma screen, “Come on! Suck it up, people!  How lame!”

Then they’d mutter something about “Those are just the kind of people who complain about their world constantly but never have a better answer. What nuisance could be more annoying than the sound of their constant complaining?”

Pretty brutal, I know.  But I and my buddies have been on the front side of the TV before, and had similar retorts to other complaints aired on the news. And I submit that the NIMBY cry is the easiest thing for our opposition to contest. Whether or not we are NIMBY’s at heart is immaterial. Without showing how the end fails to justify the means – beyond our back yards, we have reduced ourselves to the common toddler tactic of trying to get our way by throwing a tantrum.  Even if we go on to show that the benefits of wind aren’t substantial or proven, it’s too late.  By then our message has already been tainted with personal bias  – for wouldn’t we say almost anything to protect our back yard?

Let’s continue this line of thought. Here are the most common NIMBY cries we offer in fighting wind projects:

Noise

Shadow Flicker

Physical Illness

Mental Stress

Loss of Sleep

Loss of Bats

Loss of the character of this precious landscape

Lost property rights

Diminished property value

Slaughtered songbirds and raptors

Lost business revenue to my neighboring business

Lost options for future development of my land near the project, personal or corporate

But without the crucial punch line, each offers weak and scattered ammunition.  I am coming to see them as no more effective than soon to be former Ohio Governor Strickland’s famous energy sound bite, which goes something like this – “Since there is no silver bullet to solve our energy crisis, what we need is silver buckshot.”

His words imply that regardless of how expensive or inconsequential an energy technology, it is worth funding into deployment and profitability.  In fact, the less effective it is, the more support it should receive!  Let me tell you, big government arrogance doesn’t get any more ignorant than that.

No, I believe our punch line would have more punch without the local issues even being raised.

Imagine with me, as do the imagineers at GE, that wind energy is truly the answer for our dependence on foreign oil. And that…

* it eliminates our need to mine and burn coal;

* negatively affects only a few rural homesteaders because it is so compact and produces so much energy on its modest parcels;

* it helps reduce our unemployment woes and soon our electricity rates will stabilize, or even fall.

Imagine that!  Just pretend all of that is true for a moment.

Running through our list of complaints again, how do they stack up to this list of bona fide benefits to society?  We wouldn’t stand a chance.

Now you begin to understand how blessedwe are that these massive wind machines are powerless as a meaningful source of power. They can’t put a dent in our energy problems. They just don’t work as advertised.

But, most Americans don’t know this.  Most Americans have never heard the argument that the wind energy industry is a behemoth bunko scheme that is robbing their very own tax dollars.

A bunko scheme is a swindle whereby the perpetrator promises much, charges a lot, and delivers virtually nothing. And this is precisely what wind developers are doing.

When we have a chance to tell them this, we just can’t afford to slip into a tantrum about our property rights!  The people have guzzled the wind Kool-Aid, and believe that if a few rural families have to suffer, so be it.  As a chaser to our steady diet of “reality TV”, the wind flavored Kool-Aid goes down even more easily.

Such incessant fantasy pounds us through our HDTVs, and opens up the viewer to the Yellow Brick Road of Windpower that we imagined a few moments ago.

However misled, the tin man, the scarecrow, the lion, Dorothy, and the American television viewer, —all skip merrily along “because, because, because, because BECAUSE — because of the wonderful things it does!”

Viewers hardly notice as they acquiesce to a wish that only the Wizard of Wind can grant.  Few of them ever suspect that the whole enterprise – especially the Wizard himself – is only a tail wag and a curtain tug away from being exposed. Both in Oz and here in Ohio. So commiserate with each other, but please don’t do it in front of the media!

We have to choose between trumpeting our personally valid issues, and stopping the monster in its tracks.  You must agree that we’d be a lot further along if every television audience would take our side.  But if they see us as impeding the march of progress, and bitching about it every step of the way, they won’t be inclined to join us, will they?  So what do we do?

Let me ask you this.  When a news anchor busts a story about a clerk defrauding the townspeople – stealing from the town’s kitty, say—doesn’t that get to you?  What if it’s your tax dollars being swindled away? Wouldn’t you agree that the clerk should be arrested and tried for his crimes? Subsidies for industrial wind have long since passed the

$100 billion dollar mark—all from our tax dollars. That’s $333.00 from you and you and you and each one of us, even our elders and infants.  For my family, it’s over $1,500. All raised from deficits to the federal treasury, which means services must be cut or else we all must pay more.

This money is supposed to go toward reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and closing coal plants, but has no proof it can do so. Point blank, the industry should be tried on charges of fraud.

It has already created a great amount of adjustment by our grid system operators and the load balancing resources that support them. All that money. For nothing. It’s more than a risky proposition – it’s classic bunko.

Our lawmakers chase the votes. They too, not immune to greed.  Polls tell them to be green or be replaced in the next election.  “Live to fight another day” seems the prudent, if not the fiscally efficient, choice.  Meanwhile our tax dollars are being thrown down the rat hole of wind, closing off opportunities for funding more effective ways and means of being cleaner and greener.

Don’t you think it’s time to demand accountability for our tax dollars, starting with the politicians who enable such rat holes? It’s time to change those poll results that have been scaring elected officials into going green at any price.  Every media opportunity must be used to that end. We must expose and stop wind power across this nation, and our back yards will be defended incidentally.

Thank you.

Speech ends!

Mr. Stacy’s Biography:

Posted in Jon Boone, Save Western Ohio | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Jon Boone challenges “Maryland’s wind power potential”

Posted on February 14, 2010 by morgan

In the Baltimore Sun’s Second Opinion Blog of February 10, 2010 Mr. Andrew Green writes of “Maryland’s wind power potential.”

Mr. Jon Boone of Oakland, Maryland takes exception to Mr. Green’s post suggesting:  “The Sun’s paean to wind technology … cannot withstand even casual scrutiny, since it is so little contaminated by reality.”

As you might suspect, this sets up an excellent point/counterpoint that Allegheny Treasures hopes will continue beyond this post.  It is only in open debate of these critical issues that we learn.  Perhaps the Baltimore Sun will sponsor such an ongoing exchange of opposing ideas.

In order to provide background to Mr. Boone’s reply, we first provide Mr. Green’s original post in it’s entirety for your convenience, followed by Mr. Boone’s full response.  Enjoy!

Mr. Green’s post begins:

Maryland isn’t going to have two-thirds of its electrical energy needs supplied by wind anytime soon, but it’s useful to know that the potential is there. As a study released this week by the Abell Foundation demonstrates, the state’s capacity for off-shore wind-powered energy is both vast and untapped.

What the report, prepared by the University of Delaware’s Center for Carbon-free Power Integration, demonstrates is that existing technology is available to produce a huge amount of electricity from 24 to 48 miles off the Atlantic Coast from Ocean City. Maryland has already pledged to use renewable energy to meet about one-quarter of its power needs in 12 years. Off-shore wind could do the job.

There are numerous challenges involved. It’s not clear what the impact thousands of turbines could have on local marine ecology. Shipping lanes would have to be protected. Transmission lines (so often opposed by communities in a right-of-way) would have to be built. Wind power would have to be balanced with other sources of electricity to supply the grid when the weather proves too tranquil for turbines.

But the point is that the state lacks neither the wind nor the technology to make it happen. Denmark set a similar course a decade ago, and today the wind supplies one-fifth of that country’s energy needs. Delaware’s planned Bluewater Wind project could have more than 70 turbines producing electricity in several years.

What Maryland must avoid, however, is the kind of NIMBY battle that has paralyzed the similar Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound for the past decade. There are few, if any, locations on the East Coast where birds would not be harmed by turbine blades. And while it’s appropriate to respect Native American traditions and artifacts, should such concerns drive the nation’s energy policy future?

The biggest hurdle for Maryland wind, however, is surely going to be the same challenge that all renewable energy sources face: The willingness of the state and the nation to commit to it. Public financing and tax incentives must be available. Most important, carbon emissions must be addressed either through a system of cap-and-trade as President Obama has proposed or through a direct tax on greenhouse gases.

Until other forms of energy production are charged for the pollution they create and the contribution they make toward climate change, renewable forms of power will be seen as impractical. Our global competitors aren’t likely to make that mistake. China is already making substantial investments in renewable power.

The sooner Maryland can take the wind power plunge, the better. Denmark’s early commitment to wind power has allowed the country to be a global leader in the field — with thousands of jobs in designing, engineering, and supplying the technology to others. Maryland could be in the same position within the U.S. — but only if the general public is willing to support this unique opportunity.

Admittedly, that is likely to mean consumers will have to pay more for cleaner forms of energy in the short term. But in the long-run, the savings are bound to be substantial — not just in dollars but in jobs, a cleaner environment, energy independence and future economic growth.

Mr. Green’s post ends!

Mr. Jon Boone’s response begins:

The Sun’s paean to wind technology–in the wake of the recent Abell Foundation report on the “potential” of offshore wind development–cannot withstand even casual scrutiny, since it is so little contaminated by reality. With about 100,000 industrial wind turbines in operation around the world–35,000 in the US alone–there is not a shred of empirical evidence that wind has been responsible for offsetting significant (or any) greenhouse gas emissions in the production of electricity–or that it has contributed to any reductions in fossil fuel use.

Although 20 percent of Denmark’s installed electricity capacity consists of wind energy, much more than half (for grid security reasons) of its actual generation (which is about one-fourth of its rated capacity) is exported to Scandinavia, where it displaces highly flexible hydro generation–at no savings in CO2 emissions but with substantial cost to Danish ratepayers. Moreover, imported hydro from Scandinavia is used to balance most of the wind volatility that remains in Denmark, so that any CO2 offset there is due to hydro, not wind. If Denmark did not have the Scandinavian “sink” in which to dump its considerable excess wind, and if that sink did not have hydro as its principle source of power, Denmark would be awash in both carbon dioxide emissions and wind turbines in the production of electricity. As the journalist Robert Bryce has written, “In 1999, Denmark’s daily coal consumption was the equivalent of about 94,400 barrels of oil per day. By 2007, despite a 136 percent increase in the amount of electricity produced from wind, Denmark’s coal consumption was exactly the same as it was back in 1999.”

The apotheosis of wind technology was literally embodied in the wonderful Clipper ships of the nineteenth century. There’s a good reason they are now consigned to museums. The energy requirements of 2010 insist upon precision, controllable machine performance that passes stern tests for reliability standards. Wind technology is completely inimical to reliable performance standards. Our modern system of power insists on capacity value–getting a specific amount of energy on demand and controlling it whenever desired.

And so the issue is how to make people believe that a source of energy, which relentlessly, continuously, destabilizes the essential match between supply and demand, is highly variable and unresponsive, and provides no capacity value while inimical to demand cycles, can effectively provide two-third of Maryland’s electricity. This claim is particularly egregious given that wind does not even provide modern power performance–only desultory energy. Although there is indeed vast stores of energy in the ocean’s winds, the trick is to convert them to useful power. Since energy is the ability to do work and power is the rate work is done, wind technology delivers fluctuating energy at a rate appropriate for 1810–even with a flotilla of wind rigs anchored offshore.

Imagine that Maryland had 500 skyscraper-sized wind turbines–say 100 in the mountains, 200 in and around the Chesapeake Bay (by far the best wind resource within the state’s interior), and another 200 offshore–with a total installed capacity of 1250MW. Odds are that the capacity factor for all that installed wind would not exceed 30 percent (for a variety of reasons). Consequently, the area’s grid, the PJM, which generates over 140,000MW at peak demand times, would get an average yield of only 375MW from all that wind. Sixty percent of the time, it would generate less than 375MW and 20 percent of the time, especially at peak demand, it would produce virtually nothing. All this wind wouldn’t dent a grape in the scheme of things. What must happen when, for example, 1000MW of wind energy drops in an hour to less than 50MW, as it sometimes would? Tripling the number of wind turbines would magnify the problem.

More than 70 percent of any wind project’s installed capacity must come from conventional generation that performs inefficiently as it quickly ramps up and back to balance wind’s relentless volatility. This is not “supporting” or back-up generation, but rather proactive reliable power that must be actively entangled with wind to make it work. Given the dearth of hydro in the PJM, this means the inefficient use of fossil fuels, particularly coal units.

Yes, any grid can “integrate” wind volatility, at least up to certain levels of penetration. But not without substantial increased costs, both in dollars and CO2 emissions. Wind behaves much like a drunken driver. Imagine what must happen to integrate a substantial number of drunk drivers on our highways, and you get some idea of what is necessary to incorporate wind as it staggers its way around the grid. On the whole, Maryland wind would play a dysfunctional role in terms of improving the state’s grid security and reducing its greenhouse gasses.

Industrial wind is perhaps the silliest modern energy idea imaginable. In the final analysis, it’s a faith-based proposition, requiring people to close their minds and clap their hands to revive it from a life and death struggle against unbelief, bringing the technology back from the oblivion that the steam engine consigned it to hundreds of years ago.

Throwing vast amounts of the public’s treasure down the rathole of wind is to deny investment in infinitely more effective technologies that will preserve the energy requirements of modernity. It is incredibly irresponsible. Such dystopian cognitive dissonance has more than a totalitarian patina, both in regards to community well-being and its potential to corrupt the political process. Wind may seem like cutting edge and progressive technology. In reality, it’s antediluvian and uncivil. Only authoritarian government would force such nonsense on anyone’s backyard.

Even governments, along with newspaper editors, should not pretend to know what they do not.

Jon Boone

Oakland, MD

Mr. Boone’s response ends!

Biographies:

Andrew Green, according to the Baltimore Sun, “has taken the “know a little bit about everything” approach in his time at The Sun. He was the city/state editor before coming to the editorial board, and prior to that he covered the State House and Baltimore County government. His reporting has taken him to every county in Maryland as he’s tracked issues ranging from slot machine gambling to electric rates. As an editor, he oversaw coverage of crime, education, the environment, health, science and more.”

Jon Boone has been a formal intervenor in two Maryland Public Service Commission hearings. He produced and directed the documentary, Life Under a Windplant, which has been freely distributed within the United States and many countries throughout the world.

Mr. Boone also developed the website Stop Ill Wind, where anyone can read his complete direct testimony, with many related documents, in the Synergics wind case before the Maryland Public Service Commission.

His essay, The Aesthetic Dissonance of Industrial Wind Machines, was published in the journal, Contemporary Aesthetics. A revised copy of his June, 2006 speech given in Wyoming County, The Wayward Wind, was published last year by McGraw Hill. His paper, Less for More: The Rube Goldberg Nature of Industrial Wind, is pending publication.

A lifelong environmentalist, Mr. Boone helped found the North American Bluebird Society and has been a consultant with the Roger Tory Peterson Institute in New York.

He is a former university academic administrator and now a painter who receives no income from his work on wind technology and resides miles from any proposed wind project. .

Mr. Boone seeks only informed, effective public policy–and an environmentalism that eschews wishful thinking because it is aware of the unintended adverse consequences flowing from uninformed, unscientific decisions.

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Andrew Watts: “wind industry will be financed entirely by your tax dollars”

Posted on February 14, 2010 by morgan

From The Tribune of Canada:

Heading towards a tax-funded disaster of monumental proportions

Posted By ANDREW WATTS

The American and Canadian Wind Energy Association was created by the wind energy industry.

The association recently sponsored a report, to be conducted by independent experts, into the adverse health effects from industrial wind turbines.

That report,An Expert Panel Review, 2009,acknowledged that people are experiencing adverse physiological and psychological symptoms from exposure to industrial turbines. The expert panel acknowledged that wind turbine noise, including low frequency noise, may cause annoyance, stress and sleep disturbance.

The World Health Organization lists annoyance and sleep disturbance as adverse health effects. Health Canada recognizes annoyance, stress and sleep disturbance lead to other adverse health effects.

One of the experts on the expert panel, Geoff Leventhall, PhD (U. K.) has stated, “The claim that their ‘lives have been ruined’ by the noise is not an exaggeration.”

Since receiving this report the American and Canadian Wind Industry Association have said they will “not advocate for funding further studies.” Why?

Along with a growing number of other Ontario communities, Chatham, Mapleton, County of Grey and the City of Kawartha Lakes have asked the provincial government to impose a moratorium on any further wind turbine construction until independent research into these already well documented adverse health effects are initiated by provincial government and the results analyzed fully and made public.

To date the Ontario government has refused to either impose a moratorium or initiate any serious investigation into the adverse health effects on their own citizens.

Instead they have introduced a Green Energy Act that will effectively allow the wind industry and its contractors to bypass already inadequate safeguards and legislation in order to develop more and more wind farms and as soon as possible regardless of any negative side effects.

The wind industry will be financed entirely by your tax dollars.

The facts?

Wind turbines produce low frequency noise that is proven to adversely affect the health of many living in the vicinity. Not only humans but also animals including farm livestock.

Wind farms have been shown to exponentially increase energy costs rather than be cost effective.

Wind farms can do absolutely nothing towards reducing carbon emissions.

The fantasy?

Provincial government and the wind industry claims that reports of adverse health effects aren’t true and don’t pose any problems.

And from the same people, that wind farms are a genuine alternative and renewable energy source without producing any credible evidence to support their claims.

The Australian government chose to withdraw all support from any future wind turbine projects. Its studies suggest that not just wind power, but also solar power, do not have the capability to be cost effective, can contribute little if anything to reducing carbon emissions and cannot justify the expenditure of billions of dollars of their taxpayers’ money. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Annual Energy Outlook 2006 concluded wind power supplied just 0.4% of U.S. energy requirements.

That same body, forecasting the period 2004 to 2030, concludes that by 2030 wind power will supply no more than 1.2% of U.S. energy and only if the “current incentives and subsidies remain in place.” That will mean billions more of yet to be collected taxes. It will be no different in Canada.

When there is no wind, wind turbines produce zero energy. They are 100% unproductive.

Studies carried out with regard to likely wind effects vary from geographical area to geographical area. Even generous results conclude wind turbines at their most efficient and effective will only produce less than 10% of their rated output.

Industrial wind technology is old technology. Windmills probably reached the peak of any industrial efficiency many decades ago when they ground the grains from harvested crops to increase the supply of flour. To pretend they can produce any viable alternate source of energy in the 21st century is something the wind energy lobby has never even attempted to substantiate.

What is not in doubt is, regardless of the billions governments are planning to spend on wind power and the thousands, if not millions of wind turbines it will mean, wind energy can only exist totally dependent on all the current energy sources — fossil fuels, bio fuels, nuclear fuels — being there to produce the overwhelming percentage, probably in excess of 90%, of the energy the world still demands.

There is a Fox Island Wind Project in Maine on the East Coast of the U.S. This community showed almost 100% support for the wind turbines that now produce their power.

The following are two quotes from one resident who supported the project: “As neighbours of the wind turbines we find ourselves in the midst of an unexpected, unwanted life crisis. When G.E. flipped the switch and the turbines began to turn, island life as we knew it evaporated.”

“As I watched the first rotation of the giant blades from our deck, my sense of wonder was replaced by disbelief and utter shock as the turbine noise revved up and up, past the sound of our babbling brook, to levels unimaginable.”

This was a community project. Schools were closed on the day “they flipped the switch” so the whole community could celebrate together. This community believed their state and local governments. They believed energy companies and wind industry salesmen, welcomed contractors and construction crews into their community. They will pay for those mistakes.

Once the scam is exposed and governments withdraw support the wind farm legacy will be hordes of these tall monstrosities, inert and useless, ugly towers of rotting junk, striding across the landscape from horizon to horizon, spanning what had been productive agricultural lands and natural and wilderness environments. There will be no one to take responsibility or bear the cost for their removal, except the taxpayer.

Andrew Watts is a member of The Tribune’s community editorial board.

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GE and Mitsubishi at it again over wind turbine patents.

Posted on February 12, 2010 by morgan

Here we go again!

From the Wall Street Journal –

FEBRUARY 11, 2010, 5:50 P.M. ET

GE Sues Over Wind Turbine Patent

General Electric Co. is taking a new legal route in accusing Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. of violating GE’s patent rights on wind turbines.

GE, in a complaint filed in a U.S. District Court in Dallas, said the Japanese company is infringing on some of its 148 U.S. patents related to wind energy.

The complaint argues that Mitsubishi’s wind-turbine products violate GE’s patent for technology that helps wind turbines stay connected to the electricity grid when grid voltage drops to zero. The Fairfield, Conn.,-based conglomerate also cited its patent for a bed frame that supports the weight of the rotor, gearbox and drive shaft of a wind turbine.

GE is asking for a trial by jury and wants to be awarded compensation for the infringements.

The civil lawsuit comes a month after the U.S. International Trade Commission determined Mitsubishi’s 2.4 megawatt variable-speed wind turbines don’t infringe on GE’s wind-turbine patents. GE Energy spokesman Daniel Nelson said the company is appealing that ruling.

Tom Aiyama, a spokesman for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in New York, said the two patents at issue in the Dallas suit are different from the three patents involved in the ITC dispute.

He said the company has received the latest complaint and will decide how to respond. Regarding the ITC dispute, Mr. Aiyama said, “We believe there is no patent infringement,” .

Mitsubishi has made wind-turbine parts in Japan and Mexico and shipped them to the U.S. where the machines are assembled. But Mr. Aiyama confirmed the company might build a $100 million turbine plant in western Arkansas in 2011. Mitsubishi had roughly 10% of the U.S. market for wind turbines in 2008.

GE has the largest installed base for wind turbines in the U.S., with 43% of the newly installed capacity in 2008 according to the American Wind Energy Institute in Washington D.C. GE had 48% of the more than 5,000 wind turbines installed in 2008 and was followed by Denmark’s Vestas Wind Systems A/S and Germany’s Siemens AG in the rankings.

Write to Paul Glader at paul.glader@wsj.com

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