Glenn R. Schleede Response to Marlyn Bacon Pro-Wind Advocate

Dear Ms. Bacon:

I saw your email (quoted below) to one of the growing number of grassroots organizations that is working to protect its area and its people from a proposed "wind farm" and concluded that you need some help in understanding complex issues raised by "wind energy."

Please understand that you are not the only one who is not up to date on the facts about wind energy and, therefore, have opinions that are not well founded. There are a many federal, state and local officials who are in a similarly situation.

There are several points that you should consider:

1. You indicate that you are "all for Windmills to eliminate our dependence on oil or other fuels." In fact, very little electricity in the US is produced from oil. As explained in the attached paper, adding wind turbines will not reduce US oil dependence.

2. You suggest that NOT building "windmills" will lead to a situation where electricity is not available. This simply isn't true. Wind turbines are not a reliable source of electricity. Their output is intermittent, volatile and largely unpredictable. Wind turbines produce electricity only when the wind is blowing in the right speed range (between about 8 and 56 mph). Many times they produce no electricity at all. Most of their electricity is produced at night and in cold months -- not on hot summer late afternoons when electricity demand reaches peak levels.

3. Like many state and local government officials, you apparently do not recognize that RELIABLE generating units (those that can be counted on to produce electricity whenever needed) will have to be built to satisfy growing electricity demand and to replace old generating units. Neither wind turbines nor solar photovoltaics can fulfill this need because their output is intermittent, volatile and unreliable.

4. Wind energy will never make any significant contribution in supplying US electricity needs. In fact, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects wind energy to supply only 89/100 of 1% of US electricity by 2030 (Reference: EIA's Annual Energy Outlook 2007).

5. Your email makes an important point that has been totally overlooked by NY Governor Spitzer, NYSERDA, the NY PSC, County economic development agencies, and local government officials. You indicate that you live in PA but that you own land in NY where a wind project that you favor would be located. Therefore, you apparently are an "absentee landlord" who would receive rental payments if the project is approved. New York officials, when making claims about local economic benefits, have erred badly by assuming that landowners receiving rental payments live in the immediate area of a wind farm and that all those rental payment would be spent or invested in the immediate area. They have made a fundamental error and your situation confirms that error. They have grossly overestimated the potential favorable local or state economic and job impacts that might be expected from a "wind farm." (Similar mistakes are being made in PA.

6. You criticize opponents of wind projects because they don't want wind turbines "in your backyard." This is an interesting criticism since your would live many miles from the wind farm that you favor. Please consider what it would be like to have (a) a huge (40+ story) wind turbine (with a blades that cover an area slightly larger than the length and wing span of a 747 aircraft) in YOUR back yard, and/or (b) several of such turbines desecrating a mountain ridge or other scenic areas that you cherished.

7. Finally, you command that wind turbine opponents "Get with progress because you know this is the way we must go." You are mistaken. In fact, more and more people across the US and in other countries where "wind farms" have been proposed or built have learned that:

a. The wind industry and other wind energy advocates have greatly overstated the environmental, energy and economic benefits of wind energy and greatly understated its adverse environmental, ecological, economic, scenic and property value impacts. They have misled the public, media and government officials.

b. The primary reason that "wind farms" are being built is for a few large corporations to take advantage of very generous tax benefits (i.e., tax shelters) and not for environmental reasons. Tax burden escaped by these corporations (some have avoided paying any federal corporate income tax) is shifted to ordinary taxpayer who do not have such tax shelters.

c. Electricity form wind energy is very expensive, particularly when all its true costs (including tax breaks and subsidies, backup power costs, transmission costs) are taken into account. This pushes up the cost of electricity for ordinary electric customers -- all for the benefit of a few large corporations, many of them foreign owned.

d. Yes, you and other landowners would receive additional income, however you would do so at the expense of neighbors -- who would be left to live with the noise and other adverse environmental impacts.

Since you apparently are interested in a proposed "wind farm" in NY, I'm attaching a second paper that you may find useful. It evaluates the "energy plan" announced on April 19, 2007, by NY officials.

I do hope you will reconsider your position on wind energy. Your email is shown below.

Respectfully,

Glenn R. Schleede
18220 Turnberry Drive
Round Hill, VA 20141-2574
540-338-9958