Monday, April 26, 2010

Wind power is not needed

Due to the recession, conservation and efficiency, and people using less to save money, there is lower demand and an oversupply of electrical generation.

In March GMP and CVPS and Hydro Quebec announced agreement on new 26-year contracts to provide Vermont with clean renewable hydroelectric power.

TransCanada is asking for a reappraisal of its hydro dams on the Connecticut River. Cleve Kapala of TransCanada said, "I mean the plants are obviously worth less today than they were pre-recession and pre-oversupply of electricity."

Even without Vermont Yankee there is a glut of power in New England. The price of natural gas and wholesale price of electricity are lower than they've been in years and are predicted to remain low for the foreseeable future. So why destroy Vermont's mountains with inefficient, unreliable wind turbines?

To fulfill arbitrary renewable energy use mandates, unachievable without reclassifying hydro as renewable.

And to allow wind developers to collect subsidies, tax credits, accelerated depreciation, RECs and direct grants, paid with our grandchildren's tax dollars.

Without these mandates and incentives, no one would consider building these useless monuments to gullibility and greed.

Wind turbines are unreliable and intermittent and nowhere have they have resulted in the decommissioning of an existing fossil fuel facility.

Wind projects divide communities, lower property values, will harm Vermonters' health, wildlife, tourist and second-home economy, and kill birds and now endangered bats.

Vermont has always promoted itself as a place to enjoy the beauty and serenity of our Green Mountains and clear night sky. A place people live and visit to escape urbanized sprawl.

We don't need to industrialize our mountains with 430 to 500 foot, loud, strobe-lit, environmentally destructive, quality of life-destroying industrial scale wind turbines.

How many of you would buy property or live near an industrial wind facility?

ROB PFORZHEIMER

Sutton

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