Due to the recession, conservation and efficiency, and peo ple using less to save money, there is lower demand and an oversupply of electrical generation.
In March, Green Mountain Power, Central Vermont Public Service Corp and Hydro Quebec announced agreement on new 26-year contracts to provide Vermont with clean renewable hydroelectric power.
Trans Canada is asking for a reappraisal of the hydro dams they own on the Connecticut River. Cleve Kapala of Trans Canada said, "I mean the plants are obviously worth less today than they were prerecession and preoversupply of electricity." In spite of the oversupply and low price of electricity Trans Canada has applied to expand their industrial wind plant on Kibby Mountain in Maine.
Even without Vermont Yankee there is a glut of power in the New England market. 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 do we need to destroy Vermont's mountains with inefficient, unreliable industrial scale wind turbines? The obvious answers are: To attempt to fulfill arbitrary renewable energy use mandates, unachievable without reclassifying hydro as renewable. And to allow First Wind, Iberdrola, Gaz Metro (GMP), Enel, and other wind developers and their investors to collect subsidies, tax credits, double accelerated depreciation, renewable energy certifi- cates, and now direct grants, paid with our and our grandchildren's tax dollars. This is what industrial wind "development" is really all about. Without these mandates and incentives, which we can ill afford, no one would consider building these useless monuments to gullibility and greed.
No matter how much or how little generation we have, industrial scale wind turbines will never make a difference. They are unpredictably intermittent and there has been no circumstance where building wind plants has resulted in the decommissioning of an existing fossil fuel facility.
Industrial wind projects divide communities, lower property values, will harm Vermonters' health, wildlife, tourist and second-home economy, and kill birds and endangered bats.
Vermont has always promoted itself as a place to escape from the industrialized world and 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 430-500 foot, loud, strobe-lit, environmentally destructive, quality of life destroying industrial scale wind turbines in Ira, Sheffield, Lowell, Eden, Milton/Georgia, East Haven, Deerfield, Londonderry/Grafton, Manchester, Waitsfield. Or anywhere else in Vermont.
How many of you would buy property or live near an industrial wind facility?
Rob Pforzheimer lives in Sutton.
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