Bloomberg: “German Wind Farm Growth Threatens Power Grid, Handelsblatt Says “

Posted on January 8, 2010 by morgan

(Image courtesy of Windtoons)

Bloomberg Article By Nicholas Comfort

Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) — The expansion of wind farms in Germany is threatening the country’s power grid with unpredictable output, Handelsblatt reported, citing data supplied to the Federal Network Agency.

Vattenfall AB’s German power grid unit told the regulator that the number of days when its network was in a “critical” situation rose to 197 last year from 175 in 2008, the newspaper said, citing the company.

Last Updated: January 8, 2010 02:33 EST

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From the Spending Too Much Time in DC File: Congressman “taken by surprise by the proposal for a 100-square-mile wind farm”

Posted on January 7, 2010 by morgan

“C’mon in Congressman, nice to see you dropping by home.  Sit a spell, have a little coffee and let me catch you up on the news.  Yep, kids are all fine, thanks for asking.  By the way, did you know they’re putting up a 100 square mile wind farm on the lake?”

From the Ludington Daily News:  Hoekstra wants time to study offshore wind farm proposed for Lake Michigan

Steve Begnoche – Managing Editor

Thursday, January 7, 2010

By STEVE BEGNOCHE

Managing Editor

U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, like many others, was taken by surprise by the proposal for a 100-square-mile wind farm offshore from Ludington south to Silver Lake State Park.

“This came out of the blue,” he said noting he had some heads up on the B.P. White Pine Wind Farm proposed for in the Manistee National Forest north of Ludington before those meetings.

He said his office isn’t getting much comment on it, perhaps because constituents see it as a state issue.

His sense from constituents so far?

“The people I’ve talked to are overwhelmingly against it,” he told the Ludington Daily News editorial board in an interview Wednesday.

Hoekstra, a candidate for the nomination for governor of Michigan in this year’s Republican primary, was asked what trumps economy and jobs in Michigan at this difficult time.

“There are a couple of things that are sacred in this state,” Hoekstra said. “One of those on this side of the state is Lake Michigan.”

He said Michigan residents on the shorelines of other Great Lakes probably feel the same way about their lakes.

Another trump issue, he said, is national security, thus he opposes moving Gitmo — the Cuba-based American prison housing enemy combatants captured in the war on terror — to U.S. soil, including a once-proposed facility in Standish.

Yet, he said, he wasn’t ready to state a stance on the offshore wind farm proposal

saying he hasn’t studied it enough, hasn’t seen enough of the facts to make a determination.

“I’m open to sitting down with the folks involved and the citizens in the district to determine where they’re at,” he said.

He said the number of potential new jobs and amount of investment will be important factors, too, as he and west Michigan residents as a whole make their decisions about whether it would be beneficial for the area.

In principle, he said he isn’t opposed to wind energy development in the lake, noting he successfully earmarked funding for Grand Valley State University to test the practicability of wind turbines placed in the lake.

Lake Michigan winds have potential, he said, but there’s also a question that needs to be answered about the cost differential between building turbines close to shore as in the current proposal 2 to 4 miles off the shoreline vs. placing them farther out where they are less visually distracting.

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Cape Wind – “It’s still double the price – and the ratepayers will be picking up the tab for it for 20 years”

Posted on January 7, 2010 by morgan

From the Boston Herald’s Business and Market Blog:

“Cape Wind’s big secret – Power will cost millions extra”

By Jay Fitzgerald
Thursday, January 7, 2010

National Grid customers will experience sticker shock after the giant utility negotiates a long-term electric contract with Cape Wind developers, energy experts warn.

Business groups worry that a National Grid contract with Cape Wind, which needs a long-term deal to secure funds to build a giant wind farm off Cape Cod, could add tens of millions of dollars per year to electric bills.

They point to a recent price agreement between National Grid and a Rhode Island wind-farm developer as cause for alarm.

The Rhode Island deal calls for National Grid to pay an eye-popping 24 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity from Deepwater Wind’s proposed wind farm off Block Island for 20 years. That’s three times higher than the current price of natural-gas generated electricty – and the Rhode Island deal includes a 3.5 percent annual price increase over the life of the contract.

Rhode Island officials have estimated the small Deepwater contract will add about $1.35 per month in the first year to an average residental customer’s bill – and it will add far more to the bills of big energy-using companies.

Analysts say a Cape Wind contract could come in at about 15 cents per kilowatt hour – about twice as high as current prices for natural-gas generated electricity.

“It’s still double the price – and the ratepayers will be picking up the tab for it for 20 years,” said Robert Rio, a senior vice president at Associated Industries of Massachusetts.

One source, who supports the Cape Wind project, said officials are hoping National Grid can negotiate a price at about 12 to 14 cents per kilowatt hour in the first year – but that’s still far above today’s 6 to 8 cents for natural-gas generated electricity.

Dennis Duffy, a vice president at Cape Wind, cautioned that the price of natural gas is volatile and was much higher only a few years ago, before the global recession dramatically reduced energy prices.

Cape Wind stands by its assertion that it will eventually save customers an average $25 million a year, when the long-term advantage of free wind starts to exert competitive pressure on other power generators, Duffy said.

The $1 billion-plus price of building and installing Cape Wind’s 130 giant turbines on Nantucket Sound will have to be paid for, he said. But the long-term price and environmental benefits of wind farms will a huge plus, he said.

Peter Beutel, an analyst with Cameron Hanover, said he agrees wind farms are “worthwhile in the long run” for energy markets.

“But can I justify (wind energy) financially today? No I can’t,” he said.

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Wonderful West Virginia Magazine challenged for promotion of industrial wind.

Posted on January 6, 2010 by morgan

Embedded for your convenience are letters to the Editor of the Wonderful West Virginia Magazine.  Mr. Dave Umling, author of the letters, took strong exception to the promotion of industrial wind in the 2009 Special Edition of the magazine, which is published by the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources.

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The political friends of industrial wind hamper state and federal agencies.

Posted on January 6, 2010 by morgan

An article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette provides another example of ill-prepared and vote driven politicians ignoring advice offered by state and federal agencies.  The opening statement in article titled “Somerset wind turbines seen as aviation hazard” declares, “The Federal Aviation Administration says that half of the 30 windmills proposed by Gamesa Energy USA for a controversial wind power project on an ecologically sensitive ridge area in Somerset County are a hazard to aviation.”

Think that matters?  Check out the next paragraph:  “Opponents of the wind turbine project hope the FAA’s preliminary finding will shut it down, but FAA officials say even a final determination would not stop the development.”

Why would the FAA let this happen?  “It should be the end of the project, but I think Gamesa will call in some of its political clout to get the FAA to back off,” said Jack Buchan, a member of Sensible Wind Solutions, which opposes the development.”

But Mr. Buchan is probably some NIMBY wack job concerned that “The project would be located in the watershed of two of the state’s highest quality trout streams and along the Allegheny Front ridge, a major bird and bat migratory route, of Shaffer Mountain in the northeastern part of the county.”  You know how those crazy folks trying to protect the environment get carried away sometimes, and after all, if the wind actually does spin one of these tinker toys at exactly the right time, the grid might be able to accommodate the burp and fire up a table lamp in Philadelphia!

So, what about the whole FAA and potential for aviation danger thing?  You know these FAA folks have some real clout and, after all, “The FAA said that 15 of the 404-foot-tall wind turbines exceed “obstruction standards and/or would have an adverse physical or electromagnetic interference effect” on the airspace above ridge or nearby airports and flight routes.”

Pennsylvania is not alone.  No state in the Appalachians seems to have a handle on this renewable energy juggernaut.  Weakened regulators controlled or ignored by misguided legislators, who themselves are persuaded by the heavily funded lobbyists to give preference to the taxpayer subsidized renewable energy industry, is not my idea of the ideal formula necessary to produce a good outcome for the citizens.  As Jon Boone put it so well when asked about the industrial wind’s “adaptive management” strategy to mitigate environmental concerns, “who is really going to shut down a plant that costs hundreds of millions of dollars? No one. And who is even going to monitor bird or bat mortality? On private lands? In remote mountain habitat? Why, ah, the wind developer…. People who believe this twaddle about “responsible enforcement” remain clueless about these realities. As I’ve said many times, recommending siting guidelines for wind is akin to giving a second story burglary ring a ladder and an alibi.”  Seems to me that one day, someone will be needing an alibi!
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Coal is 24/7/365 – Wind is ???

Posted on January 6, 2010 by morgan

(courtesy of Windtoons)

Interesting read from the Credit Herald – a Financial blog:  New coal-fired power plant fuels debate

Key thought from the article – “While burning coal releases CO2, the fuel has advantages over renewable forms of electricity. At least for now, there’s a cost advantage compared with wind and solar. And a coal-fueled power plant can produce reliable electricity 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, he said.

“With all due respect to the (global warming) debate and potential for green jobs, if you look at the fundamentals, the country needs affordable base load electric power,” DeQuattro said. “It’s the basis for any type of significant employment base and for us as a country to enjoy the economic standards that we do.”

Now, when reading the article, keep this thought in mind:  How many wind turbines, consuming how much land and air space – (operating at 30 % of nameplate capacity, when the wind blows, of course) – would be required to match the output of the single coal fired installation described in the following article?

Here are a couple of hints for you at these links:  “… the total amount of power produced by all the 2,300 turbines so far built in Britain amounts on average to a mere 900 megawatts, barely the output of a single medium-size conventional power station” and The Windpower Industry’s “top ten” false and misleading claims … Number 6 – Windplants will reduce the mining/burning of fossil fuels and lessen dependence on foreign oil.

Full article follows:

Written on January 5, 2010

MARISSA, Ill. — On a clear December morning, drivers traveling south on state Route 4 in southwest Illinois can see the Prairie State Energy Campus’ stack rising 700 feet above the surrounding corn fields — 70 feet taller than the Gateway Arch.

The scope of project is even more striking once on site. The hulking plant will consume more than 50,000 tons of structural steel, 15,000 tons of steel rebar and 160,000 cubic yards of concrete. It is surrounded by more than a dozen tower cranes, their jibs reaching skyward.

What’s more, the $4 billion project stands as a tangible symbol of the polarizing debate over climate change and the use of coal as an energy source.

Critics argue the plant, which will be the second-largest coal-fired power plant in Illinois, will pump an estimated 10 million tons of carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the atmosphere each year for decades to come at the very time many scientists are urging immediate action to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases.

On the other hand, the project is providing jobs for 2,500 people — a fact that’s evident by the sea of cars and pickups sprawled across two massive parking lots on site.

The 1,600-megawatt plant will employ an additional 500 people when it’s complete, and provide electricity to as many as 2.5 million people across nine states, including parts of Illinois and Missouri. There are indirect jobs created too, with restaurants, hotels and shops getting a pick-me-up — a point not lost on those who live in the area.

In nearby Marissa, a small town just southwest of the plant site, the surge of construction workers has been a boon for restaurants and retailers as they coped with the recession, said Ray Macke, township supervisor. And most rental property owners have had an easy time finding tenants.

“It’s had a very positive impact, business-wise,” Macke said. “We’re not taking nearly the hit the other places are.”

Macke is sensitive to the widely differing views on global warming and the use of coal as an electricity fuel. But, most of the town’s 2,000 or so residents are happy to see the project, save for some aggravation with the increase in truck traffic.

After all, Marissa’s heritage is linked with the local mining industry and still hosts the Coal Fest every summer.

“This town wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for coal mining,” he said.

GREEN CONCERNS

Prairie State was announced in 2001 and was supposed to be generating electricity by 2007. But the legal battle surrounding the plant’s air permit wasn’t resolved until late 2006 when the Environmental Appeals Board affirmed an Illinois EPA decision to approve the project.

Prairie State officials say the plant is cleaner than comparable coal power stations and includes the best available environmental controls, including massive scrubbers that will remove most sulfur dioxide from the emissions. Using coal conveyed from an adjacent mine instead of fuel hauled 1,000 miles by train from northeastern Wyoming will also cut CO2 emissions by 200,000 tons a year, CEO Peter DeQuattro said.

While burning coal releases CO2, the fuel has advantages over renewable forms of electricity. At least for now, there’s a cost advantage compared with wind and solar. And a coal-fueled power plant can produce reliable electricity 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, he said.

“With all due respect to the (global warming) debate and potential for green jobs, if you look at the fundamentals, the country needs affordable base load electric power,” DeQuattro said. “It’s the basis for any type of significant employment base and for us as a country to enjoy the economic standards that we do.”

The end of the legal and permitting battles did nothing to change feelings and perceptions about the project business card. Surrounding communities and elected officials mostly embraced it. Meanwhile, the project remains anathema to environmental groups, who still believe regulators should have required technology to capture CO2 emissions.

“Peabody built a plant with early 20th century technology while claiming it to be ‘advanced,’” said Kathy Andria, director of the American Bottom Conservancy, one of the groups that battled developer Peabody Energy Corp. over the air permit. She noted that the EPA recently declared that CO2 poses a danger to public health, a step toward federal regulation of greenhouse gases.

JOBS GROWING

The plant and adjacent mine are more than a third complete. Electrons are set to begin flowing in August 2011 when the first 800-megawatt unit is done. The second 800 megawatt unit is scheduled to be complete by June 2012.

The work site swarms with steelworkers, pipefitters and laborers. Another 170 people are at work at the adjacent mine. Virtually overnight, the project site has become one of the larger towns in rural Washington County, just smaller than Nashville, the county seat.

The plant sits on more than 600 acres of 2,400 acres owned by Prairie State Generating LLC. Over the course of a year, it will burn 6.3 million tons of coal from the adjacent mine, which reaches 230 feet underground. The black rock will be transported across County Road 12 by a system of conveyors and delivered to the plant’s boilers.

While the plant won’t begin producing electricity for almost two years, efforts to staff it are well under way.

“We are just getting going” on hiring, DeQuattro said. “We have an initial staff of 14 people at the plant for operations. Construction management staff is over 40.”

He said they plan to add this year 75 to 100 jobs this year in operations and over 100 in the mine.

Prairie State partnered with Southwest Illinois College and Illinois Eastern Community Colleges for the mine and co-developed training programs offered by the schools to help prospective employees be able to pass tests that are part of the hiring process. The classes, which began last year, were oversubscribed, so additional times and dates were offered.

“We need to salt the work force with experienced people like we have, but for the nonexempt ranks,” DeQuattro said. “We also want to try to hire local people where possible.”

St. Louis-based Peabody, the world’s largest private-sector coal company, today owns just a 5 percent stake in Prairie State, having sold the rest of its interest to eight public power systems, each of which not only owns a piece of the plant but also a share of the 200 million tons of coal buried 230 feet below ground (effectively a 45-square mile block of coal).

The ownership group has vocally opposed climate legislation debated by Congress. Meanwhile, Prairie State has hired consultants to study the cost to fit the plant with equipment to capture CO2 emissions, DeQuattro said.

For now, CO2 capture technology hasn’t been installed on coal-fired power plants as large as Prairie State. And the economics of doing so probably don’t make sense right now.

But groups such as the Clean Air Task Force, a Massachusetts-based environmental advocacy group, have become increasingly optimistic that the nation’s existing coal fleet can be fitted with CO2 controls.

“(Prairie State) is the last of the line of these large coal plants,” said John Thompson of Carbondale, director of the group’s coal transition program. “My hope is that it will be among the first to retrofit.”

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“Well, We have to do something!!!”

Posted on January 4, 2010 by morgan

While the great debate about energy is centered around developing new, and improving existing sources, it’s easy to forget that, with a little effort, individuals can contribute greatly to the conservation of energy and the reduction of emissions.  The gem provided below arrived in my mail courtesy of Art and Pam Dodds, designers of the piece.

Thanks to Art and Pam for thinking of us and for their continuing efforts to make our world a little better.

Pass it on!

Posted in Art & Pam Dodds | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Industrial wind “Scarecrows” drive off rare birds.

Posted on January 3, 2010 by morgan

AT:  Another cause for serious concern is in this statement from the article: “The impact is small now because there are few wind farms but researchers warn that, with hundreds more planned, plus an increase in the size of turbines, the effect could become much worse.”  The cumulative effect of industrial wind installations is a an environmental disaster waiting to happen.

Now the article from the Times (UK) Online:  ‘Scarecrow’ wind farms put rare birds to flight

Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor

January 3, 2010

Britain’s upland birds are in danger of being driven off hills and mountains by onshore wind farms.

Scientists have found that birds, including buzzards, golden plovers, curlews and red grouse, are abandoning countryside around wind farms because the turbines act as giant scarecrows, frightening them away.

The impact is small now because there are few wind farms but researchers warn that, with hundreds more planned, plus an increase in the size of turbines, the effect could become much worse.

“We found evidence for localised reductions in bird breeding density around upland wind farms. Importantly, for the first time, we have quantified such effects across a wide range of species,” said James Pearce-Higgins, an ecologist with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Scotland.

His research was conducted with scientists from Scottish Natural Heritage and the Scottish government’s environment research directorate. It is one of the first scientific analyses of how the wind-farm construction programme might affect wildlife.

The UK has 259 onshore wind farms, of which 108 are in England, 91 in Scotland, 33 in Wales and 27 in Northern Ireland. Planning permission has been granted for a further 222 and there are plans for another 270 after that.

In the study Pearce-Higgins surveyed the populations of 12 bird species around a dozen upland wind farms in Scotland and northern England.

These were compared with a similar number of control sites that had no turbines, but which had similar topography and vegetation.

Upland areas were chosen because they have the strongest winds and so are preferred by wind-farm developers. They are also favoured, however, by some of Britain’s most vulnerable bird species.

Writing in the Journal of Applied Ecology, Pearce-Higgins and his colleagues said birds tended to stop nesting within half a mile of any turbine. Since the effect extends around each machine, up to two square miles could be affected by one turbine.

Pearce-Higgins said: “Our results highlight significant avoidance of otherwise apparently suitable habitat close to turbines in at least seven of the 12 species studied, with equivocal evidence for avoidance in a further two species.”

The RSPB does not oppose wind farms but wants them sited away from areas where birds feed or breed and from migration routes. Pearce- Higgins said: “This work lets us assess prospective sites more accurately.”

It follows planning failures in America, Spain and Germany where the wind-farm boom has seen them built in prime bird areas. The danger is that the birds will be caught in the blades of a turbine: one wind farm in Altamont, northern California, has been blamed for killing 1,300 migratory birds of prey a year.

The British Wind Energy Association has said the idea that UK wind farms affect birds is a “myth” and warns that climate change is a far greater threat.

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Highland Citizens suggest Highland County (VA) Supervisors Liable for Non-compliance with Endangered Species Act.

Posted on January 3, 2010 by morgan

From VAWind:  Highland County Supervisors Liable for Non-compliance with Endangered Species Act

Wood Rogers PLC, the Roanoke law firm representing Highland Citizens, has advised the Highland County Board of Supervisors that allowing Highland New Wind Development to proceed without the Incidental Take Permit (ITP) required by the Endangered Species Act will place the county in legal jeopardy. The Highland supervisors have ignored previous warnings on the advice of the county’s attorney.

The new warning follows the recent federal court ruling requiring Chicago-based Invenergy Inc., to stop further construction of its Beech Ridge Project in nearby Greenbrier County, WV and to dramatically curtail operation of 40 completed turbines until the required ITP permit is obtained.

As outlined in the Woods Rogers letter, the issues related to Highland New Wind Development, which has started site preparation without an ITP, are even-more compelling.

Whereas the Beech Ridge project threatens one endangered bat species, the Highland project threatens two endangered bat species and both bald and golden eagles. Moreover, unlike the the Beech Ridge case where only the developer was responsible for compliance, in the Highland case both the developer and the authorizing local officials are responsible for compliance.

Both the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF) have advised Highland New Wind to obtain an ITP before proceeding. Based on the importance of the site as a migratory pathway for birds and bats, the VDGIF contended in testimony presented to the State Corporation Commission that the project may result in the highest mortality rates for any wind energy project in the eastern U.S.

Letter to the Highland Board of Supervisors:

Posted in Camp Allegheny, Environmental Protection Agency, Wind Energy Shenanigans | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Virginia DHR claims industrial wind developer “deliberately misstated” and “deliberately misrepresented” facts.

Posted on January 3, 2010 by morgan

From The Pocahontas Times via National Wind Watch:  Virginia agency says wind developer “misstating” facts

Credit: Geoff Hamill, Staff Writer, The Pocahontas Times www.pocahontastimes.com, 31 December 2009

The Virginia Department of Historical Resources (DHR) claimed a wind energy developer has “deliberately misstated” and “deliberately misrepresented” facts as part of its continuing effort to build an industrial wind facility on Tamarack Ridge near Camp Allegheny.

DHR and Highland New Wind Development, LLC (HNWD), are engaged in a legal battle to determine the energy company’s responsibilities with regard to historic Camp Allegheny. The parties filed legal briefs to a Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) hearing examiner during the week of December 14, narrowing the issues to be resolved.

HNWD requested summary judgment in the case on December 15 and, the next day, requested a direct hearing before the SCC to resolve the issues.

In response to HNWD’s motion for summary judgment, DHR counsel Senior Assistant Attorney General Steven O. Owens wrote that Highland New Wind Energy, LLC (HNWD), had “deliberately misstated” the DHR’s position on viewshed issues and further claimed that HNWD had “deliberately misrepresented” the DHR’s position on potential mitigation efforts.

With regard to viewshed, Owens wrote, “Defendant fundamentally misunderstands, and even deliberately misstates, the DHR position on the ‘viewshed’ issue.”

DHR claims viewshed analysis must include an analysis of the project’s impact on historic resources, along with mitigation requirements. Otherwise, according to DHR, the viewshed analysis is meaningless. HNWD has “refused to engage in any meaningful or serious discussion regarding the impact of the project on Camp Allegheny,” Owens wrote.

Regarding mitigation, Owens wrote, “Defendant has consistently and, one must again assume, deliberately misrepresented DHR’s request for mitigation as a demand for payment of money to DHR. At best, this must be considered a gross mischaracterization of the facts.”

DHR has never demanded money be paid to the agency for mitigation, the response states.

DHR further claimed that HNWD’s arguments make the wind project appear financially insecure.

“HNWD has gone so far as to say that any amount of money spent on mitigation measures that was not diverted from a previously committed amount would be unacceptable to the projects finances. This statement must necessarily call into question the financial viability of the project as a whole,” Owens wrote.

HNWD counsel argued in their legal briefs that the issue of viewshed was determined by the Highland County Board of Supervisors when it issued a conditional use permit, in July 2005, and by the SCC when it issued a Final Order in July 2007.

Arguing for summary judgment, HNWD’s counsel noted that the SCC Final Order states, “The Hearing Examiner properly found that the following matters were considered by Highland County in issuing Highland New Wind a Conditional Use Permit pursuant to Highland County’s Zoning Ordinance and Comprehensive Plan: property values; tourism; viewshed ; height restrictions ; setbacks; lighting ; color of structures; fencing; security measures; erosion and sediment control; signage; access
roads; and decommissioning.”

DHR countered that the Final Order also required HNWD to “conduct archaeological and architectural surveys, if necessary, by coordinating with DHR for guidance regarding the potential need for archaeological and architectural surveys, recommended studies and field surveys to evaluate the project’s impacts to historic resources.”

DHR claimed authority, by virtue of this condition in the SCC Final Order, to order investigation and implementation of mitigation measures.

HNWD argued DHR does not have authority to order mitigation for historic sites outside of Virginia.

DHR countered that the Final Order states “impact on historic resources,” not “Virginia historic resources only.”

“Although the Camp is in West Virginia, it is within the ‘viewshed’ identified by HNWD and Highland County as being impacted by the project. Logic dictates that exercising jurisdiction over a project in one state that has impacts on historic resources in another is the only way to protect those assets. Officials in West Virginia have no authority to dictate to HNWD how to operate their project in Virginia. The location of the project, not the location of the impacted asset, dictates what local, state or federal entity has jurisdiction,” Owens wrote.

After the parties filed motions during the week of December 14, SCC hearing examiner Alexander Skirpan scheduled a conference call with the parties on December 21. A hearing on the merits, scheduled for December 22, became a five-minute conference, during which the parties agreed to continue to identify the relevant issues to be resolved.

Counsel for HNWD and DHR agreed to submit briefs to Skirpan by January 4, which should contain all of the issues and arguments for the hearing examiner to make a decision.

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