http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/kkennedy/another_step_forward_on_offsho.html
NOTE the author - Kit Kennedy’s Blog (She is the lawyer that was confronted in Rochester when Cuomo was AJ)
The strong ocean winds blowing off the Atlantic coast could power more than ten million American homes with clean, renewable power. This electricity would be free of air and water pollution. And, importantly, it would be generated close to where it’s needed—the dense urban corridor that runs from Boston to New York to Philadelphia—all the way to Washington D.C.
While America’s first offshore wind project has yet to be built, a number of states are vying to be first in the water. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s strong renewable energy policies could help bring about, by the end of this year, the start of construction for Cape Wind–the first offshore wind project approved by the federal government. Rhode Island has put policies in place to support the development of a five-turbine demonstration project off Block Island; approvals for this project are near final and construction is slated to begin in 2015. New Jersey has forward-looking legislation to support offshore wind, and a small project proposed there by Fishermen’s Energy could move ahead soon. Maryland enacted similar legislation earlier this year as well, and Virginia and North Carolina are showing interest. New York, though, despite its strong renewable energy program, has been slower to take action to harness the power of offshore wind.
That has begun to change. And today, the New York State Department of State released a long-awaited study that maps out wind, wildlife and environmental conditions in New York’s ocean waters. As my colleague Sarah Chasis writes , this study will allow offshore wind projects to be sited in ways that are “smart from the start”—that avoid potential conflicts with wildlife and other marine uses. Ensuring that these projects are sustainably sited will also speed the process of approving and building them – a very important result.
What are the next steps to make offshore wind a reality off New York City and Long Island?
First, as I explained in January, New York State should commit to move forward on an offshore wind proposal by a public-private collaborative partnership involving the New York Power Authority, the Long Island Power Authority and Con Edison. The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which regulates offshore wind projects in federal waters, is considering whether to grant a lease for this project. The project would be located in federal waters eleven miles south of Long Beach, Long Island, and would generate at least 350 megawatts (MW) of electricity for Long Island and New York City, with the ability to expand to as much as 700 MW. That’s enough electricity to power an estimated 245,000 homes. The proposed lease area is approximately 127 square miles.
BOEM is checking to see if a competitive auction is necessary for the lease for this site. If so, BOEM will hold an auction, in which NYPA should participate. If not, BOEM will offer to lease the site to NYPA. Either way, NYPA and its partners should continue to work to secure the lease, submit a site assessment plan to learn more about wind and environmental conditions and would then propose a specific project and an exact site. A full environmental review process would then follow. Other promising offshore wind projects have also been proposed for New York waters, including two large projects proposed by Deepwater Wind – one north of Montauk on the tip of Long Island and one off New York Harbor. New York State should adopt an ambitious offshore wind goal and put in place the necessary policies to make this goal a reality.
Today’s New York State marine planning study brings New York one step closer to clean, renewable offshore wind. The issuance of a lease to the NYPA project would be another important step. To help bring projects like these all the way to fruition, New York State also needs targeted investment policies that facilitate financing and contain costs. Such policies should be relatively easy to implement. Already, New Jersey and Maryland are putting into practice financial models used successfully overseas. My colleague Doug Sims authored a whitepaper that offers practical guidance on state financial strategies for supporting offshore wind. As Doug reports, New York could “combine the revenue policies outlined in the paper with low-cost financing from Governor Cuomo’s recently announced Green Bank and the BOEM federal lease to deliver exceptional offshore wind value for money.”
In 1881, the Empire State made history by harnessing the majestic power of Niagara Falls to produce renewable hydropower. Let’s make history again, now, by combining smart siting policies with smart financing strategies to harness the power of offshore wind.
Friday, July 12, 2013
Monday, July 08, 2013
An open letter to the Residents of the Town of Orangeville and surrounding Townships and Communities
An
unsolicited multi-national corporation decided that it wanted to use the wind
resource in our Town and turn the township into a platform for profits. For the
past five years a citizens' group has fought hard to preserve the rural and
local nature of Orangeville. Many legitimate issues were raised ...But big
money is now turning Orangeville into a "Company-Owned Town'.
July 7, 2013 by Cathi Orr,
President Clear Skies Over Orangeville in Warsaw Penny Saver
An open letter to the Residents of the
Town of Orangeville and surrounding Townships and Communities
Many readers are aware of the controversy that has gripped the Town of Orangeville for the past 5 years.
An unsolicited multi-national corporation decided that it wanted to use the wind resource in our Town and turn the township into a platform for profits. To add insult to injury, much of the profit will come from our taxes in the form of government subsidies and hand-outs. For the past five years a citizens' group has fought hard to preserve the rural and local nature of Orangeville that attracted many to Orangeville in the first place. Many legitimate issues were raised about the effects of a wind project in the Town both on local residents and on residents of surrounding townships including Warsaw and Attica.
But big money is now turning Orangeville into a "Company-Owned Town': Who can miss the caravan of cement trucks that are busily filling in our special places? Who can miss the caravan of other trucks carrying crushed stone for the access roads that cover once pristine countryside? Just look at the numbers: each foundation for each wind turbine requires over 300 cubic yards of concrete. With nearly 60 turbines, the amount of concrete being poured into Orangeville soil will be well in excess of 18,000 cubic yards of non-native concrete. This requires 1800 round-trips of cement trucks of 10 cubic yard capacity .... And more truckloads still for the access roads. Who is keeping track of the damage to state and county roads as this onslaught continues? Importantly, who will pay for the damage to surrounding townships?
How will we go about repairing the damage to half the towns-peoples' LIVES and PROPERTY LOSSES?
How will we protect our HEALTH, SAFETY AND WELFARE???
Previous actions of the Town Board provide no comfort here. The current and previous Town Board acted more as agents for big business than as civil representatives of the residents who elected them in the first place. Therefore, it is safe to assume that we will receive no help or sympathy from the very people who crafted the zoning laws that brought this Invenergy project into our town.
It is time for Orangeville managers to stand up and take a bow ... Susan May, Tom Schabloski, Andrew Flint, James Hermann, and Hans Boxler (who already has benefited from Invenergy L.L.C:s wind project in Sheldon).
Additionally, these Town board members passed a resolution that raises a hurdle and a barrier to any taxpayer who wishes to have a complaint heard ... even problems of health and noise damage. We will have to pay a sizable amount to an arbitrator to even have our complaints heard. Conflicts of interest used to be illegal. ... .for these reasons - and more - we all must vote in mass numbers against these people during elections later this year.
So where do we go from here???
What is happening in Orangeville is not limited to Orangeville. Pilots and airfields in the neighboring townships of Attica and Warsaw are being adversely affected. The integrity of the Wyoming County emergency broadcast tower is being affected. Local wells and the Attica Reservoir may be at risk of becoming polluted. Roadways are deteriorating in surrounding townships. The view of the night sky is being reduced to an industrial complex of blinking red lights.
But inaction of the Wyoming County Board of Supervisors aside, many residents are not "rolling over and playing dead" in response to this destruction of our town of Orangeville and our lives. A group of citizens have already contacted Richard Lippes (winning attorney of Love Canal fame, and currently defending homeowners against corporate greed in the Town of Attica). This group of thoughtful individuals is growing by leaps and bounds and has already formally put landowners on notice of their intent to seek legal remedies for any damages caused by the corning 43-story high industrial turbines.
The current Town Board is an accomplice in setting the stage for these potential lawsuits by minimizing the required distance between citizens and these behemoth machines. The corning turbines will sweep an area nearly 50% larger than anything that we have seen to date in neighboring Sheldon, Bliss or Wethersfield.
As the destruction and damage to Orangeville continues to unfold, it is important that we take back the leadership of any township that would willingly destroy itself for short-term profit. ... Profit for the Few at the Expense of the Many.
If the current situation distresses you, a good next move is to contact:
Where to go from Here,
P.O.Box 308, Warsaw, NY 14569,
or phone 786-2733 and we'll get your message to those concerned.
See Page 33 at the web link:
Look carefully at wind-farm windfalls
I can’t help but be amused at periodic news stories about some New York representative gushing about a wind energy deal. As they regurgitate the sales pitch they’ve been fed, it’s clear that the developer has succeeded in appealing to the second oldest human frailty: greed. “We will be getting $10 million over 10 years” is a frequent rationale. Since they have been easily duped by the allure of money, they believe that most of their constituents should be likewise susceptible.
How many of our legislators convey the true picture to citizens? Haven’t they ever heard that there’s no free lunch? Yes, they have been offered a financial deal, but the rest of the story includes numerous other aspects like:
— The “windfall” money is coming from taxpayers and ratepayers.
— The deal is premised on an enormous property tax giveaway that no other citizen gets.
— None of the figures conveyed to the public are net.
— Property values near this development will depreciate: Who compensates those citizens for their loss?
— Some proximate residents will experience negative health effects: Who compensates them for their illnesses?
— It’s proven that there will be agricultural losses up to 15 miles away: Who pays for those?
— There are several major adverse environmental impacts, yet this is marketed as helping the environment.
— The claim that this project “will power 10,000 homes” is totally dishonest.
— The claims that this project will replace imported oil, or some polluting coal facility, are also false.
— Fact: There are zero scientifically-proven net societal benefits for wind energy. Zero.
So listen carefully when representatives explain about a proposed wind project. In many instances they are assuming that you are too dumb to understand the details, that you don’t care anyway, and that the inducement of some unguaranteed future payoffs will insure that you start drooling (so you won’t pay attention to the realities).
On the other hand, real representatives will give you an honest, complete, and objective explanation about the whole situation. You decide which is acceptable.
John Droz Jr.
Brantingham Lake
Source
How many of our legislators convey the true picture to citizens? Haven’t they ever heard that there’s no free lunch? Yes, they have been offered a financial deal, but the rest of the story includes numerous other aspects like:
— The “windfall” money is coming from taxpayers and ratepayers.
— The deal is premised on an enormous property tax giveaway that no other citizen gets.
— None of the figures conveyed to the public are net.
— Property values near this development will depreciate: Who compensates those citizens for their loss?
— Some proximate residents will experience negative health effects: Who compensates them for their illnesses?
— It’s proven that there will be agricultural losses up to 15 miles away: Who pays for those?
— There are several major adverse environmental impacts, yet this is marketed as helping the environment.
— The claim that this project “will power 10,000 homes” is totally dishonest.
— The claims that this project will replace imported oil, or some polluting coal facility, are also false.
— Fact: There are zero scientifically-proven net societal benefits for wind energy. Zero.
So listen carefully when representatives explain about a proposed wind project. In many instances they are assuming that you are too dumb to understand the details, that you don’t care anyway, and that the inducement of some unguaranteed future payoffs will insure that you start drooling (so you won’t pay attention to the realities).
On the other hand, real representatives will give you an honest, complete, and objective explanation about the whole situation. You decide which is acceptable.
John Droz Jr.
Brantingham Lake
Source
Sunday, July 07, 2013
Fears over 'widespread' EU fraud involving the Mafia
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blog/show?id=4401701%3ABlogPost%3A49190&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_post
'A gift'
The Structural Fund money is given out by the European Commission in Brussels. The EU-wide budget for Structural Funds is 350bn euros (£295bn) for the latest seven-year period (2007-2013), distributed across 650,000 programmes in 27 countries.
Nicholas Ilett says Olaf has no powers to prosecute if it discovers fraud
The Commission itself estimates that across the EU's 27 member stat..., which represents a 100% rise on the previous year.
On the Italian island of Sicily, one recently-defected Mafia boss revealed just how some of this money was channelled into Mafia hands.
Not wanting to be seen speaking to the BBC in public, Antonio Birrittella agreed to a meeting in a private room in a backstreet hotel in the island's capital Palermo.
"All these funds from the EU were seen as a gift to the Mafia, easy pickings, especially the development of wind farms and renewable energy," he said.
Although now co-operating with the police and other Italian authorities, Birrittella admits to being a former key player in the infamous local Mafia, the Cosa Nostra.
With previous "responsibility" for extortion in neighbouring Trapani, he claims the modern Mafia has reinvented itself as a "white collar" organisation which has siphoned off millions in EU funds, through a combination of shell companies and the infiltration of regional bodies which distribute the subsidies.
He claims to have detailed knowledge of how the scams worked:
"It started with arson on their premises or building sites, burning their trucks and machinery. That was followed up with threatening phone calls. At that point they usually got what they wanted."
Money-laundering
With Sicily due to receive a further 6.5bn euros in European structural funding over the next seven-year financial period, there is growing concern about a lack of safeguards to protect the additional money if the region's renewable energy sector continues to attract sizeable subsidies.
Some of the wind farms which dominate the hills in the farming region of Camporeale
Forty kilometres (25 miles) from Palermo, the farming region of Camporeale is dominated by rows of large wind turbines which dot the surrounding volcanic ridges.
According to the regional anti-Mafia prosecutor Roberto Scarpinato, some of the wind farms here were developed by the Mafia using EU subsidies, which were then used to fund a money-laundering empire.
By rotating the millions in EU funds through different front companies, the organisations appeared to be operating legitimately and so attracted further EU grants.
"They took the same amount of money, and they moved it around as if each company had access to its own existing capital. They performed this same trick many times, and every time they received public funds," he said.
Many of the wind farms have since been sold on to genuine energy companies completely unconnected to the Mafia.
Details of the sums involved are slowly starting to emerge. The Italian authorities recently seized a record 1.5bn euros' worth..., which included 43 wind and solar energy companies.
'Tolerate criminality'
Back in Brussels, Olaf's director general Nicholas Ilett says the structural funds do have built-in checks and balances.
Bill Newton Dunn, Liberal Democrat MEP for the East Midlands who served on the EU's Budgetary Control Committee, praises Olaf for some of its work, but complains that the "tiny and under-resourced" service has no power to prosecute when it finds evidence of fraud.
And with just 18 investigators looking at the distribution of the entire Structural Fund budget, Nicholas Ilett says the ultimate responsibility for preventing fraud lies with each member state:
"We have done a lot of detailed work on areas subject to Mafia influence, but fighting serious organised crime is not a matter for an administrative service based in Brussels, but for the police and judiciary in the country in question."
However, German MEP Inge Grassle argues the member states are themselves part of the problem:
"We have member states which actively block Olaf and have no interest in really having fraud cases detected.
"At the moment, I'm sorry to say only 7% of cases [highlighted by Olaf] are picked up by the member states. This means that 93% of cases are thrown in the paper basket.
"Therefore we have an investigation unit which is not really effective because after the investigation nothing happens. This means we tolerate criminality. I think that this is really bad news."
'A gift'
The Structural Fund money is given out by the European Commission in Brussels. The EU-wide budget for Structural Funds is 350bn euros (£295bn) for the latest seven-year period (2007-2013), distributed across 650,000 programmes in 27 countries.
Nicholas Ilett says Olaf has no powers to prosecute if it discovers fraud
The Commission itself estimates that across the EU's 27 member stat..., which represents a 100% rise on the previous year.
On the Italian island of Sicily, one recently-defected Mafia boss revealed just how some of this money was channelled into Mafia hands.
Not wanting to be seen speaking to the BBC in public, Antonio Birrittella agreed to a meeting in a private room in a backstreet hotel in the island's capital Palermo.
"All these funds from the EU were seen as a gift to the Mafia, easy pickings, especially the development of wind farms and renewable energy," he said.
Although now co-operating with the police and other Italian authorities, Birrittella admits to being a former key player in the infamous local Mafia, the Cosa Nostra.
With previous "responsibility" for extortion in neighbouring Trapani, he claims the modern Mafia has reinvented itself as a "white collar" organisation which has siphoned off millions in EU funds, through a combination of shell companies and the infiltration of regional bodies which distribute the subsidies.
He claims to have detailed knowledge of how the scams worked:
Listen to the Programme
File on 4 is on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday 30 November at 2000 GMT
"First the Mafia had an interest in many of the companies which obtained public funds, and they owned many of the companies which won the contracts to build wind farms, and finally they claimed fake transactions and issued double payment invoices."
He says the organisation used intimidation to obtain the plots of land it needed to build the wind farms, and threatened any construction firms who refused to pay its extortion fees."It started with arson on their premises or building sites, burning their trucks and machinery. That was followed up with threatening phone calls. At that point they usually got what they wanted."
Money-laundering
With Sicily due to receive a further 6.5bn euros in European structural funding over the next seven-year financial period, there is growing concern about a lack of safeguards to protect the additional money if the region's renewable energy sector continues to attract sizeable subsidies.
Some of the wind farms which dominate the hills in the farming region of Camporeale
Forty kilometres (25 miles) from Palermo, the farming region of Camporeale is dominated by rows of large wind turbines which dot the surrounding volcanic ridges.
According to the regional anti-Mafia prosecutor Roberto Scarpinato, some of the wind farms here were developed by the Mafia using EU subsidies, which were then used to fund a money-laundering empire.
By rotating the millions in EU funds through different front companies, the organisations appeared to be operating legitimately and so attracted further EU grants.
"They took the same amount of money, and they moved it around as if each company had access to its own existing capital. They performed this same trick many times, and every time they received public funds," he said.
Many of the wind farms have since been sold on to genuine energy companies completely unconnected to the Mafia.
Details of the sums involved are slowly starting to emerge. The Italian authorities recently seized a record 1.5bn euros' worth..., which included 43 wind and solar energy companies.
'Tolerate criminality'
Back in Brussels, Olaf's director general Nicholas Ilett says the structural funds do have built-in checks and balances.
Bill Newton Dunn, Liberal Democrat MEP for the East Midlands who served on the EU's Budgetary Control Committee, praises Olaf for some of its work, but complains that the "tiny and under-resourced" service has no power to prosecute when it finds evidence of fraud.
And with just 18 investigators looking at the distribution of the entire Structural Fund budget, Nicholas Ilett says the ultimate responsibility for preventing fraud lies with each member state:
"We have done a lot of detailed work on areas subject to Mafia influence, but fighting serious organised crime is not a matter for an administrative service based in Brussels, but for the police and judiciary in the country in question."
However, German MEP Inge Grassle argues the member states are themselves part of the problem:
"We have member states which actively block Olaf and have no interest in really having fraud cases detected.
"At the moment, I'm sorry to say only 7% of cases [highlighted by Olaf] are picked up by the member states. This means that 93% of cases are thrown in the paper basket.
"Therefore we have an investigation unit which is not really effective because after the investigation nothing happens. This means we tolerate criminality. I think that this is really bad news."
File on 4 was produced in conjunction with The Bureau for Investigative Journalism and is on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday 30 November at 2000 GMT. Or listen via the BBC iPlayer or download the podcast.
Friday, July 05, 2013
It's Official: Jasper To Have Wind Project
JASPER, NY - Industrial Development Agency officials say that wind company In-venergy is going forward with their wind project for Jasper.
It's called the Marsh Hill Wind Farm.
Source
Wednesday, July 03, 2013
Jim Griffin: For Wind To Happen In Hornellsville, It Has To Happen In Hartsville First
HORNELLSVILLE, NY - Industrial Development Agency Leaders Jamie Johnson and Jim Griffin met with Hornellsville Town officials at a special meeting held Tuesday evening. Johnson said that the best wind is in Hartsville and Hornellsville, but that several wind companies were discouraged from moving forward.
Johnson also stated that the main focus now for Everpower Wind, is Cohocton and Wayland. The SCIDA Director said that wind companies will focus their efforts in the path of least resistance.
Jim Griffin explained to the officials present that the Town of Hartsville has to come on board or nothing would happen for a Hornellsville wind project. "They're going to gravitate to towns that want them, they won't go to the enemy," Griffin said.
Monday, July 01, 2013
Is Wind Coming to Hornellsville?
HORNELLSVILLE, NY - Town Supervisor Ken Isaman says that wind energy will be discussed at Tuesday night's Hornellsville meeting.
According to Isaman, the Steuben County Industrial Development agency will discuss wind and other matters with the town board and planning board.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
EverPower trying to work big developers’ playbook
Kevin Sheen of EverPower continues to willfully disobey the wishes of the Allegany Town Board in what Judge Michael L. Nenno called “contumacious” conduct.
His company brought not one but two lawsuits against the town, one against the planning board that Judge Nenno threw out, the other against the town board, which EverPower has now scheduled for a hearing before Judge Nenno in December. The company and its principle, Mr. Sheen, want to stretch this out so the town and the Carrollton Town Board will believe there is some sort of sword hanging over their heads.
The reality is, EverPower will likely get thrown out of court again and this story will be over. But by delaying judgment, EverPower hopes to line up a road-use agreement and maybe a few more landowners through whose land it needs to haul its 400-ton crane and some very long wind turbine blades, and make the town boards think this is a done deal. This page out of the big developers’ playbook is classic.
Let's not talk this time about how intrusive wind farms are for the communities asked to host them. Let's talk instead about why wind farms don't achieve their only mission: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. We are well on the way to achieving fossil-fuel independence, and now we are focused on addressing climate change.
The first thing to note is that despite hundreds of thousands of wind turbines installed all over the world, there appears to be no affect on climate change. Whether climate is our fault or not, wind farms were supposed to slow down the pace of extreme storms and global warming, but that hasn't happened.
Most power plants are designed to generate about 100 megawatts (MW) of electricity, and most operate at 90 percent or better of their design capacity. Wind farms are designed to generate 50 MW 0r less, and, according to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, they operate at 10 percent of that.
Wind farms are not viable without lots of money from taxpayers. The price paid for electricity fluctuates widely during the day, and season by season, according to demand. When demand for electricity is high, during the daytime and during the summer months, the grid operator calls up quick ramp-up power plants like Indeck in Olean and pays about $90 per MW hour.
Conventional power plants that operate all the time get the same price. Wind farms generate intermittently, mostly during the winter and at night. That's when the wholesale market price for electricity averages about $25 per MWh, and can dip below $1. A generous federal tax credit makes up the difference for wind farms, paying another $25 or so per MWh for 10 years.
Wind farms operating in New York are now getting in the range of $5 million to $10 million in federal tax credits per year. These tax credits force consumers and taxpayers to pay billions of dollars each year for electricity that has little economic value and, in many hours, has negative value.
Because they have so little taxable income because they generate so much less electricity than conventional power plants, wind farms sell the credits to other companies, often oil and gas companies.
In addition to tax credits, most of the monthly "SBC" item on your electric bill (system benefit charge) goes to wind farms in the form of outright grants by NYSERDA.
Wind farms also benefit from selling "renewable energy credits," which are suppose to represent one ton of carbon emissions avoided. But there is no way to determine whether carbon emissions were avoided by the electricity generated by a wind farm. Wind farms often bid negative prices for power generated in the winter, when the wholesale price can be less than a penny per kilowatt hour, just to qualify for the production tax credit. That electricity then gets generated and connected to the grid, regardless of whether the power is needed.
Where in all this is the displacement of greenhouse gas emissions from conventional power plants? No conventional power plant has ever been shut down because of the availability of wind power, because we rely on 24/7 electricity generators. Maybe someday most us will be driving all-electric cars, and we'll all agree to charge them only at night; and maybe someday massive flywheels or water storage reservoirs will be utilized to capture wind power generated during the winter and at night so it can be released during the daytime and in summer.
But that's not today, nor in our lifetime.
Until then we keep throwing public money at a technology that still hasn't proved very useful. Maybe we should return all that public money to households and businesses, to make their own choices about how to reduce their electricity usage.
(Mr. Abraham, an attorney, lives in Allegany.)
Source
His company brought not one but two lawsuits against the town, one against the planning board that Judge Nenno threw out, the other against the town board, which EverPower has now scheduled for a hearing before Judge Nenno in December. The company and its principle, Mr. Sheen, want to stretch this out so the town and the Carrollton Town Board will believe there is some sort of sword hanging over their heads.
Let's not talk this time about how intrusive wind farms are for the communities asked to host them. Let's talk instead about why wind farms don't achieve their only mission: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. We are well on the way to achieving fossil-fuel independence, and now we are focused on addressing climate change.
The first thing to note is that despite hundreds of thousands of wind turbines installed all over the world, there appears to be no affect on climate change. Whether climate is our fault or not, wind farms were supposed to slow down the pace of extreme storms and global warming, but that hasn't happened.
Most power plants are designed to generate about 100 megawatts (MW) of electricity, and most operate at 90 percent or better of their design capacity. Wind farms are designed to generate 50 MW 0r less, and, according to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, they operate at 10 percent of that.
Wind farms are not viable without lots of money from taxpayers. The price paid for electricity fluctuates widely during the day, and season by season, according to demand. When demand for electricity is high, during the daytime and during the summer months, the grid operator calls up quick ramp-up power plants like Indeck in Olean and pays about $90 per MW hour.
Conventional power plants that operate all the time get the same price. Wind farms generate intermittently, mostly during the winter and at night. That's when the wholesale market price for electricity averages about $25 per MWh, and can dip below $1. A generous federal tax credit makes up the difference for wind farms, paying another $25 or so per MWh for 10 years.
Wind farms operating in New York are now getting in the range of $5 million to $10 million in federal tax credits per year. These tax credits force consumers and taxpayers to pay billions of dollars each year for electricity that has little economic value and, in many hours, has negative value.
Because they have so little taxable income because they generate so much less electricity than conventional power plants, wind farms sell the credits to other companies, often oil and gas companies.
In addition to tax credits, most of the monthly "SBC" item on your electric bill (system benefit charge) goes to wind farms in the form of outright grants by NYSERDA.
Wind farms also benefit from selling "renewable energy credits," which are suppose to represent one ton of carbon emissions avoided. But there is no way to determine whether carbon emissions were avoided by the electricity generated by a wind farm. Wind farms often bid negative prices for power generated in the winter, when the wholesale price can be less than a penny per kilowatt hour, just to qualify for the production tax credit. That electricity then gets generated and connected to the grid, regardless of whether the power is needed.
Where in all this is the displacement of greenhouse gas emissions from conventional power plants? No conventional power plant has ever been shut down because of the availability of wind power, because we rely on 24/7 electricity generators. Maybe someday most us will be driving all-electric cars, and we'll all agree to charge them only at night; and maybe someday massive flywheels or water storage reservoirs will be utilized to capture wind power generated during the winter and at night so it can be released during the daytime and in summer.
But that's not today, nor in our lifetime.
Until then we keep throwing public money at a technology that still hasn't proved very useful. Maybe we should return all that public money to households and businesses, to make their own choices about how to reduce their electricity usage.
(Mr. Abraham, an attorney, lives in Allegany.)
Source
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Take a hard look at wind-farm windfalls
I can’t help but be amused at periodic news stories of some Northern New York town representatives gushing about a proposed wind energy deal. As they regurgitate the sales pitch they’ve been fed, it’s clear that the developer has succeeded in appealing to the second oldest human frailty: greed. “We will be getting $10 million over 10 years” is a frequent rationale. Their tactic is clear, since they have been easily duped by the allure of money, they believe that most of their constituents should be likewise susceptible.
How many of our legislators convey the true picture to citizens? Haven’t they ever heard that there’s no free lunch? Yes, they have been offered a financial deal, but the rest of the story includes numerous other aspects like:
■ The “windfall” money is coming from local taxpayers and ratepayers.
■ The deal is premised on an enormous property tax giveaway that no other citizen gets.
■ None of the figures conveyed to the public are net — why not?
■ Property values near this development will depreciate: who will compensate those citizens for their loss?
■ Some proximate residents will experience negative health effects: who will compensate them for their illnesses?
■ It’s proven that there will be agricultural losses up to 15 miles away: who will pay for those?
■ There are several adverse environmental impacts, yet these people say they are helping the environment.
■ The claim that this project “will power 10,000 homes” is a totally dishonest statement.
■ The claims that this project will replace imported oil, or some polluting coal facility, are also false.
■ In fact there are zero scientifically proven NET societal benefits for wind energy. Zero.
So listen carefully when your town representatives explain the pros and cons of a proposed wind project. In many instances they are assuming that you are too dumb to understand the details, that you don’t care anyway, and that the inducement of some unguaranteed future payoffs will insure that you start drooling (so you won’t pay attention to the big picture).
On the other hand, real representatives will give you an honest, complete, and objective explanation about the whole situation. You decide which is acceptable.
John Droz Jr.
Brantingham Lake
Source
Wednesday, June 05, 2013
Kibby Mountain turbine fire prompts DEP to scrutinize wind farm proposals
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection is raising more questions about fire safety standards at wind farms proposed in the state.
The increased scrutiny is in part a reaction to a fire in January that destroyed a $4-million turbine at TransCanada’s wind farm on Kibby Mountain in northern Franklin County, according to Mark Bergeron, director of the DEP’s Division of Land Resource Regulation.
The blaze, which was first reported in the Bangor Daily News on April 23, has raised questions about fire safety standards at wind farms and whether sufficient response plans have been coordinated between wind farm developers and local and state emergency responders.
“Certainly since the Kibby fire we have taken a second look at the issue and that’s what’s raised some of these questions,” Bergeron said Monday.
On May 29, the DEP reopened the public record on the Bowers Wind farm project so that it could ask the developer, Boston-based First Wind, for additional details on proposed fire safety standards. Bowers is a 16-turbine, 48-megawatt wind power farm that First Wind wants to build in eastern Penobscot County.
The DEP held a public hearing on the Bowers project on April 30 and May 1, just a few days after the BDN published the story about the Kibby Mountain turbine fire.
Bergeron said emails requesting similar information were sent to other developers with wind farm proposals under consideration by the DEP.
The DEP’s additional questions for First Wind on the Bowers project concern the lack of a fire suppression system in one of the turbines being considered by the company, how “regular maintenance and inspection … reduces fire risk in wind turbines,” and how fire safety standards for wind farms developed by the National Fire Protection Association apply to the project.
In addition, the DEP has asked for a copy of the project’s fire protection plan, which First Wind references in its Bowers application, but was not required to provide. The department also wants the company to “provide written notification to the project manager or appropriate Bureau of Land and Water Quality staff within 48 hours of any fire event that causes one or more turbines to not generate electricity,” according to the email.
The DEP doesn’t currently have the ability to require developers to make such a 48-hour notification, Bergeron said, but it’s requesting it. In the case of the Kibby Mountain fire, a DEP spokeswoman said the department wasn’t notified about the fire until seven days after the incident, and even then the department only learned about the fire from an oil and hazardous spill report that the company filed because turbines contain lubricating oil.
John Lamontagne, a spokesman for First Wind, declined to respond to the DEP’s questions in detail before the company filed its official response, which it plans to do later this week.
“First Wind takes safety at our projects incredibly seriously,” Lamontagne said in an email. “Fires in wind turbines are extremely rare in the industry.”
He said the company is considering two turbines — one from Vestas and one from Siemens — at its proposed wind farms in Maine, including the Bowers project, the Bingham Wind Project, and the Hancock Wind Project.
“The turbines each have sophisticated systems in place designed to prevent malfunctions, overheating and fires,” he wrote. “In our response to the DEP, we will provide detail on how those systems work.”
He said once the company decides which turbines would be used at each location, “we will develop an extensive emergency response plan for each site and provide trainings with project staff and local fire responders.”
Applicants such as First Wind have been “fairly receptive” to the DEP’s additional scrutiny of fire safety issues, Bergeron said.
“We haven’t received a lot of negative comments from applicants at this point,” Bergeron said. “They’ve certainly been open to describing how the design, operation and maintenance of these turbines in general keep the risk of fire safety low.”
Gary Campbell, president of the Partnership for the Preservation of the Downeast Lakes Watershed, the main opponent of First Wind’s Bowers project, said his group’s chief concern had been with the turbines blocking scenic views. But after the BDN article about the Kibby turbine fire came out, fire safety issues, which surfaced at public hearing on April 30 and in filings with the DEP, came on the radar.
Campbell admits turbine fires may be rare, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an important issue that deserves more attention.
“The opportunity is there for a catastrophic forest fire,” he said. “I’m not saying it’s likely. I have no way of knowing how likely a fire is to begin, but I’m fairly confident that if it started under the right conditions it would be a catastrophe.”
To ensure that consistent fire safety standards are adhered by Maine’s wind farms, Campbell requested in a DEP filing May 17 that the Maine Forest Service’s Forest Protection Branch be required to review the fire safety standards for all wind farms in Maine, and certify that they are adequate and meet a predetermined set of standards.
“That’s certainly something the Forest Protection Branch could review, just like the Army Corps of Engineers and Inland Fisheries and Wildlife review certain sections of the application,” Campbell said. “So why we haven’t we done that with fire danger that can directly impact the lives of Maine citizens?”
Campbell is glad the DEP is asking more questions concerning fire prevention, but whether the increased scrutiny will lead to stiffer regulations governing wind farm proposals remains to be seen, he said.
“It’s gratifying they’re doing this, but as to how they’ll handle this information, I don’t have an inside track on that,” he said. “It’s nice they’re listening, though.”
Source
The increased scrutiny is in part a reaction to a fire in January that destroyed a $4-million turbine at TransCanada’s wind farm on Kibby Mountain in northern Franklin County, according to Mark Bergeron, director of the DEP’s Division of Land Resource Regulation.
The blaze, which was first reported in the Bangor Daily News on April 23, has raised questions about fire safety standards at wind farms and whether sufficient response plans have been coordinated between wind farm developers and local and state emergency responders.
“Certainly since the Kibby fire we have taken a second look at the issue and that’s what’s raised some of these questions,” Bergeron said Monday.
On May 29, the DEP reopened the public record on the Bowers Wind farm project so that it could ask the developer, Boston-based First Wind, for additional details on proposed fire safety standards. Bowers is a 16-turbine, 48-megawatt wind power farm that First Wind wants to build in eastern Penobscot County.
The DEP held a public hearing on the Bowers project on April 30 and May 1, just a few days after the BDN published the story about the Kibby Mountain turbine fire.
Bergeron said emails requesting similar information were sent to other developers with wind farm proposals under consideration by the DEP.
The DEP’s additional questions for First Wind on the Bowers project concern the lack of a fire suppression system in one of the turbines being considered by the company, how “regular maintenance and inspection … reduces fire risk in wind turbines,” and how fire safety standards for wind farms developed by the National Fire Protection Association apply to the project.
In addition, the DEP has asked for a copy of the project’s fire protection plan, which First Wind references in its Bowers application, but was not required to provide. The department also wants the company to “provide written notification to the project manager or appropriate Bureau of Land and Water Quality staff within 48 hours of any fire event that causes one or more turbines to not generate electricity,” according to the email.
The DEP doesn’t currently have the ability to require developers to make such a 48-hour notification, Bergeron said, but it’s requesting it. In the case of the Kibby Mountain fire, a DEP spokeswoman said the department wasn’t notified about the fire until seven days after the incident, and even then the department only learned about the fire from an oil and hazardous spill report that the company filed because turbines contain lubricating oil.
John Lamontagne, a spokesman for First Wind, declined to respond to the DEP’s questions in detail before the company filed its official response, which it plans to do later this week.
“First Wind takes safety at our projects incredibly seriously,” Lamontagne said in an email. “Fires in wind turbines are extremely rare in the industry.”
He said the company is considering two turbines — one from Vestas and one from Siemens — at its proposed wind farms in Maine, including the Bowers project, the Bingham Wind Project, and the Hancock Wind Project.
“The turbines each have sophisticated systems in place designed to prevent malfunctions, overheating and fires,” he wrote. “In our response to the DEP, we will provide detail on how those systems work.”
He said once the company decides which turbines would be used at each location, “we will develop an extensive emergency response plan for each site and provide trainings with project staff and local fire responders.”
Applicants such as First Wind have been “fairly receptive” to the DEP’s additional scrutiny of fire safety issues, Bergeron said.
“We haven’t received a lot of negative comments from applicants at this point,” Bergeron said. “They’ve certainly been open to describing how the design, operation and maintenance of these turbines in general keep the risk of fire safety low.”
Gary Campbell, president of the Partnership for the Preservation of the Downeast Lakes Watershed, the main opponent of First Wind’s Bowers project, said his group’s chief concern had been with the turbines blocking scenic views. But after the BDN article about the Kibby turbine fire came out, fire safety issues, which surfaced at public hearing on April 30 and in filings with the DEP, came on the radar.
Campbell admits turbine fires may be rare, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an important issue that deserves more attention.
“The opportunity is there for a catastrophic forest fire,” he said. “I’m not saying it’s likely. I have no way of knowing how likely a fire is to begin, but I’m fairly confident that if it started under the right conditions it would be a catastrophe.”
To ensure that consistent fire safety standards are adhered by Maine’s wind farms, Campbell requested in a DEP filing May 17 that the Maine Forest Service’s Forest Protection Branch be required to review the fire safety standards for all wind farms in Maine, and certify that they are adequate and meet a predetermined set of standards.
“That’s certainly something the Forest Protection Branch could review, just like the Army Corps of Engineers and Inland Fisheries and Wildlife review certain sections of the application,” Campbell said. “So why we haven’t we done that with fire danger that can directly impact the lives of Maine citizens?”
Campbell is glad the DEP is asking more questions concerning fire prevention, but whether the increased scrutiny will lead to stiffer regulations governing wind farm proposals remains to be seen, he said.
“It’s gratifying they’re doing this, but as to how they’ll handle this information, I don’t have an inside track on that,” he said. “It’s nice they’re listening, though.”
Source
Saturday, June 01, 2013
Turbine blade blown into daycare center
Shocking images of tornado damage in the Oklahoma City area. ABC News meteorologist Ginger Zee reports a wind turbine blade slammed into the child care facility at Canadian Valley Technology Center. No one was hurt.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Noble ready to take down unfinished wind towers
While work was stalled at the Noble Environmental Power wind park in Bellmont back in 2008, landowners with unfinished remnants of it may soon be able to breathe a sigh of relief.
The company has applied for a decommissioning, which essentially means it will be required to remove all 14 of the concrete bases and service pads and restore the land to the way it was before officials stepped foot on it, according to Bellmont Supervisor Bruce Russell on Wednesday.
"It's a very involved process," he said.
The concrete - above and below the ground - has to be removed as part of what's involved with decommissioning.
"All of that has to be disposed of in a safe manner," Russell said.
He added that the holes where the bases and pads were have to be filled in with the same subsoil that currently exists on the land along with the top soil.
Anyone concerned about the process or who has questions can attend an informational meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. on June 3 at the Bellmont town offices in Brainardsville. Russell said Bellmont officials will be there along with ones from Noble as well.
Work on the proposed wind park came to a halt about five years ago, according to past reports. Russell said Wednesday that it had to do with finances for the project.
What was going to happen with the unfinished park has been up in the air since 2008. In 2010, Chateaugay officials received a letter from Noble that said while it would not be building an additional 13-tower park there to add to the existing 71 turbines, it did plan to continue with the Bellmont park after "the economy improves," according to past reports.
Had the wind park been successfully installed, the town of Bellmont would have received around $125,000 to $140,000 annually for a certain number of years, according to Russell, who said it could have been used for town improvements, such as road work or other projects.
Russell said nearby municipalities have had multiple benefits from collecting funds from completed wind parks within their borders.
He noted that Chateaugay has been able to use some of that money for town hall improvements, including revitalizing the theater there.
Chateaugay Supervisor Don Bilow said Friday that the town will receive about $400,000 each year for 20 years from Noble, which started around five years ago.
He said that with the money, the town has been able to reduce property taxes and eliminate town general fund taxes all together.
"We built a salt and sand building at the [town] garage," Bilow said, adding that new equipment was purchased for the town garage and fund upgrades for the Chateaugay Recreation Park.
"It has been a great benefit," Bilow said.
Bilow added that he's surprised that Noble would spend the money to begin working on a wind turbine farm considering the cost it takes to build one.
Past reports indicate that Noble spent $212 million to build the 71-turbine Chateaugay wind farm.
Source
Source
First Wind Proposes 62-Turbine Farm in Western Maine
First Wind has proposed building what could become the largest wind farm of its kind in New England. If the project is approved, 62 turbines would span Bingham, Mayfield Township and Kingsbury Plantation in Somerset and Piscataquis Counties. In its application, the developer says it spent four years analyzing the potential effects on wildlife habitat and the environment. And while the company says the impacts will be minimal, environmental and conservation organizations say they're still doing their own assessments. Jay Field reports.
The turbines would be built on the ridges and hills around Route 16 and Johnson Mountain.
"We've been measuring the wind there for over three years now, and have found it to be a very viable resource in that area," says David Fowler, who heads up New England development for First Wind.
Fowler says the project would generate 186 megawatts of electrcity - enough to power as many as 87,000 homes. Earlier this month, the company filed an application with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, triggering a 180-day review period. The project also needs local permits and the blessing of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Fowler says the company needs to get state approval by the end of December to take advantege of the federal wind power tax credit. "It did get extended for another year," he says. "So that is a subsidy that we are eligible for - if, in fact, we can qualify within that time period. It is a 30 percent tax credit."
But the project is not likely to be approved without a fight.
"People talk about responsibly-located projects - we really don't think that there's a whole lot of any place good in Maine for these things," says Chris O'Neil, who is with the group Friends of Maine's Mountains.
O'Neil says the Bingham Project is in an especially bad spot, near one of the most beautiful stretches of the entire Applachian Trail, near Monson. O'Neil worries the development would harm the quality of place in the region. He says there's little economic evidence that the energy benefits are worth the potential environmental costs.
"We've addressed all of the concerns," Fowler says, "the local environmental concerns, at least, with wetlands, birds and bats, lynx and all the other aspects we've spent a couple years studying now."
Fowler says the Bingham application lays out all the reseach the company has done, showing that the project won't harm the surrounding environment.
In e-mails to MPBN, the Natural Resources Council of Maine and the state chapter of the Sierra Club say they're still reviewing the First Wind's application.
"We've been measuring the wind there for over three years now, and have found it to be a very viable resource in that area," says David Fowler, who heads up New England development for First Wind.
Fowler says the project would generate 186 megawatts of electrcity - enough to power as many as 87,000 homes. Earlier this month, the company filed an application with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, triggering a 180-day review period. The project also needs local permits and the blessing of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Fowler says the company needs to get state approval by the end of December to take advantege of the federal wind power tax credit. "It did get extended for another year," he says. "So that is a subsidy that we are eligible for - if, in fact, we can qualify within that time period. It is a 30 percent tax credit."
But the project is not likely to be approved without a fight.
"People talk about responsibly-located projects - we really don't think that there's a whole lot of any place good in Maine for these things," says Chris O'Neil, who is with the group Friends of Maine's Mountains.
O'Neil says the Bingham Project is in an especially bad spot, near one of the most beautiful stretches of the entire Applachian Trail, near Monson. O'Neil worries the development would harm the quality of place in the region. He says there's little economic evidence that the energy benefits are worth the potential environmental costs.
"We've addressed all of the concerns," Fowler says, "the local environmental concerns, at least, with wetlands, birds and bats, lynx and all the other aspects we've spent a couple years studying now."
Fowler says the Bingham application lays out all the reseach the company has done, showing that the project won't harm the surrounding environment.
In e-mails to MPBN, the Natural Resources Council of Maine and the state chapter of the Sierra Club say they're still reviewing the First Wind's application.
Friday, May 24, 2013
Saturday, May 11, 2013
They’re not “wind farms, they’re “tax farms”
Dear Editor,
In the interest of making sure the voting public has all the facts, I am writing in regard to the article in last week’s newspaper, “High Sheldon Wind Farm draws out-of-state visitors.”
Since Sheldon is a town that did sign on to turn itself into an industrial wind factory, it is not surprising that a Big Wind LLC would pay Sheldon Supervisor John Knab to do a speaking tour to try and sell their product in other areas of the country. No doubt the wind industry has a list of their “go-to” guys that includes all such towns.
Neither is it surprising that these folks did not visit any of the other numerous towns in the area that decided against turning their towns into a wind factory. They certainly would not want their visitors to get the whole story of what a devastatingly divisive issue this has been in Wyoming County over the past decade. I truly found it quite sad, however, that the article read as a wind industry advertisement might — as if this whole past decade of conflict had never happened.
The explanation that these folks’ visit was triggered because Sheldon is written up as “one of the most efficient and well-built farms the country has,” highlights was a boatload of pure bunk American citizens have been fed when it comes to industrial wind.
Sheldon’s wind farm again produced a pitiful 25% last year. And that’s the sorry excuse for “the most efficient and well-built wind farm the country has”? Any other piece of equipment, be it a machine, person or animal, that only operates 25% of the time would have been dubbed a “lemon” and put out to pasture a long time ago. Which one of you would buy a vehicle that only operated 25% of the time? You wouldn’t. You couldn’t afford to. It’s just that simple. But when the state and federal government are in charge of spending our money, economic reality doesn’t seem to matter.
Physicist and Malone Town Board member Jack Sullivan recently reported on the reality of wind’s failure to produce in his article “Some Lessons from New York,” that appeared in the Rutland Herald (www.rutlandherald.com online).
He explained, “Both Vesta and GE turbines have a manufacturer’s life expectancy rating of 20 years, yet no New York wind project is on track to sell enough electricity in 20 years to pay for itself.”
Mr. Sullivan used the wind industry’s 20-year life expectancy claim when equating that these giant, property-value-trashing, bird Cuisinarts can never pay for themselves. The inconvenient truth exposed in another report, however, says that, “turbines last only half of what the wind industry originally claimed,” making the fact that they can never pay for themselves even more evident.
(www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/9770837).
These things aren’t “wind farms,” they’re “tax farms” — in the business of harvesting our taxpayer and ratepayer dollars, and transferring them into the pockets of rich, multi-national corporations. All of this enabled because of cronyism in high places, and short-sightedness, willful ignorance, and greed of those willing to suck on the teat of wind welfare at the rest of our expense.
For the sake of all American taxpayers and ratepayers — and our rural communities and the environment — let’s hope those currently being baited by wind salesmen across the nation are wise enough to know better.
Mary Kay Barton, Silver Lake
Source
In the interest of making sure the voting public has all the facts, I am writing in regard to the article in last week’s newspaper, “High Sheldon Wind Farm draws out-of-state visitors.”
Neither is it surprising that these folks did not visit any of the other numerous towns in the area that decided against turning their towns into a wind factory. They certainly would not want their visitors to get the whole story of what a devastatingly divisive issue this has been in Wyoming County over the past decade. I truly found it quite sad, however, that the article read as a wind industry advertisement might — as if this whole past decade of conflict had never happened.
The explanation that these folks’ visit was triggered because Sheldon is written up as “one of the most efficient and well-built farms the country has,” highlights was a boatload of pure bunk American citizens have been fed when it comes to industrial wind.
Sheldon’s wind farm again produced a pitiful 25% last year. And that’s the sorry excuse for “the most efficient and well-built wind farm the country has”? Any other piece of equipment, be it a machine, person or animal, that only operates 25% of the time would have been dubbed a “lemon” and put out to pasture a long time ago. Which one of you would buy a vehicle that only operated 25% of the time? You wouldn’t. You couldn’t afford to. It’s just that simple. But when the state and federal government are in charge of spending our money, economic reality doesn’t seem to matter.
Physicist and Malone Town Board member Jack Sullivan recently reported on the reality of wind’s failure to produce in his article “Some Lessons from New York,” that appeared in the Rutland Herald (www.rutlandherald.com online).
He explained, “Both Vesta and GE turbines have a manufacturer’s life expectancy rating of 20 years, yet no New York wind project is on track to sell enough electricity in 20 years to pay for itself.”
Mr. Sullivan used the wind industry’s 20-year life expectancy claim when equating that these giant, property-value-trashing, bird Cuisinarts can never pay for themselves. The inconvenient truth exposed in another report, however, says that, “turbines last only half of what the wind industry originally claimed,” making the fact that they can never pay for themselves even more evident.
(www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/9770837).
These things aren’t “wind farms,” they’re “tax farms” — in the business of harvesting our taxpayer and ratepayer dollars, and transferring them into the pockets of rich, multi-national corporations. All of this enabled because of cronyism in high places, and short-sightedness, willful ignorance, and greed of those willing to suck on the teat of wind welfare at the rest of our expense.
For the sake of all American taxpayers and ratepayers — and our rural communities and the environment — let’s hope those currently being baited by wind salesmen across the nation are wise enough to know better.
Mary Kay Barton, Silver Lake
Source
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