The Counter Cape Wind Blog

by Peter Hitchens, Daily Mail, UK

If visitors from another galaxy really are going round destroying wind turbines, then it is the proof we have been waiting for that aliens are more intelligent than we are.

The swivel-eyed, intolerant cult, which endlessly shrieks – without proof – that global warming is man-made, has produced many sad effects. The collapse of proper education has made two whole generations vulnerable to rubbishy fads.

But the disfiguring of the country with useless windmills, and the insane plan to ban proper light bulbs, are supreme triumphs of this dimwit pseudo-religion.

Both schemes override facts and logic. During the current cold spell, observant persons will have noticed that there has been very little wind, a rather common combination. Thus, at a time of great need for power, wind turbines would be almost entirely useless for producing electricity.

They’re pretty feeble anyway. Even when they are working, sensible power stations have to be kept spinning, so that they can be flung into gear at short notice if the wind drops.

Yet, over the objections of reasonable protesters fearing for the ruined landscape, or dreading the annoying whine and whirr, the authorities have marched over the once-lovely hills and moors of Britain, planting grotesque and futile engines.

In intervals between erecting these daft objects, the Government (influenced by the awful EU) has also colluded in a plan to stop the sale of traditional light bulbs.

This is even though the supposed replacements are expensive, don’t reduce electricity use anything like as much as claimed, won’t fit many existing lamps, won’t work with dimmers, in many cases give off a light as cheery and bright as the baleful glow emitted by a decomposing dingo, won’t work in fridges, don’t last as long as claimed, and when they do go phut, must be disposed of with tongs because they contain deadly mercury vapour.

This is the price we pay for fanaticism, and for a low-grade political class without the courage to stand up against it. True, it takes a little nerve to oppose this lobby. But if you don’t have that sort of nerve, you shouldn’t be in politics in the first place.

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Counter Cape Wind Blog

# posted by NMG @ 5:10 PM

by David Frum in National Post

Must we destroy the environment in order to save it? In the province of Ontario, the answer seems to be "yes."

This month, the Liberal provincial government of Dalton McGuinty will finish drafting its proposed Green Energy Act. The Act's early drafts call for a big increase in renewable energy production in Ontario. Sounds nice! How do we get there?

The plan contains two big elements: (1) a huge cash giveaway and (2) a brusque slap-down of local democracy.

Let's talk about local democracy first. Communities often resist wind and solar power for the simple reason that they ruin the beauty of local landscapes. When you think of wind power, for example, don't think of the solitary turbine that overtops the CNE grounds in Toronto. To meet the goals set out in the Green Energy Act, Ontario will have to build tens of thousands of these massive turbines, linked by a vast network of electrical transmission wires. Many hundreds of these turbines are proposed for my own beloved Prince Edward County.

When people in places such as Prince Edward County hear about "the environment," they think of their environment. They think responsible stewardship means protecting what is lovely and natural. To them, it seems perverse to ruin the landscape in the name of preserving the environment.

So they resist.

To deal with this resistance, the Green Energy Act proposes to strip local governments of their zoning powers. (In the draft's own words, the province will propose: "Streamlined regulatory and approvals processes that enable the rapid but prudent development of green energy projects across the province, reducing uncertainty and transaction costs to all involved.")

It is important to realize that local scrutiny is often the only scrutiny a wind project gets. Unless a project uses federal money or land, there is no federal environmental assessment. Smaller projects are exempt from provincial assessment as well, and bigger projects can count on a very friendly hearing. Not all localities will be ignored. There will be special consultation with First Nations/Métis communities (and a special piece of the action for them as well). But for everybody else, Ontario's message is: Shut up and eat your peas.

It's not only local landowners and vacationers who are expected to shut up. It's taxpayers as well.

Here we come to item (1), the huge cash giveaway.

The big inconvenient truth about "green power" is that it is hugely costly - triple the cost of coal power, almost double the cost of nuclear. Advocates of green power insist that the price will soon decline. This promise never comes to pass, for reasons that should be obvious after a moment's thought.

The big costs involved in a wind and solar projects are not the turbines and solar panels, although they are very expensive in their own right. The big costs are (i) acquisition of the vast amounts of land required to site the turbines and panels and (ii) the stringing of wires from thousands of small-scale power generators to the power distribution grid. These costs are more likely to rise than to fall.

Wind and solar suffer from inherent diseconomies of scale that can never be corrected. Unable to correct these costs, the province has decided instead to conceal them.

In the United States, wind power has been incentivized with lucrative tax credits: 2 US cents per kilowatt hour. (To put that subsidy in perspective, electricity from coal costs about 3 US cents per kilowatt hour.) America's lavish wind subsidy has been in place since 1992, yet even so, wind cannot compete: In 2007, wind provided less than 5% of America's electricity supply.

Ontario, however, has no need of tax credits. In Ontario, power generation is monopolized by a government owned corporation. Ontario can simply order its power generation company to buy wind power at a price profitable to the producer - and then average that cost invisibly into Hydro bills.

The new act will offer producers even more. Not only will the province buy their power at a guaranteed profit - not only will it index that profit for inflation - but it will guarantee producers the financing necessary to build the wind turbines in the first place!

Good deal? It gets better. The dreary part about borrowing money, even from the government, is that you do sooner or later have to repay it. Or do you? The explanatory language treats repayment as more a suggestion or guideline than an obligation: "The intent is that over time the market and community will meet all financial requirements for these projects."

In the name of the environment, the McGuinty government proposes to despoil the province's beauty and pillage the province's power consumers.

That's not green. That's dumb.
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Counter Cape Wind Blog

# posted by NMG @ 11:06 AM

by Chris England,

Cookstown, Ontario


If my research into wind power provided me with the facts that turbines were a viable form of energy that reduced green house gas emissions, or would not raise my taxes or my energy bills, then I would be fighting to have them installed.

But the research that I have done points elsewhere. I'm a big fan of data, compiling, analyzing and extrapolating it. I did a lot of this in school for engineering technology and in my work in quality engineering.

Data from impartial sources is the best, it is not skewed to get the results you want.

Opinions are great, everyone has one, but impartial data is better, and it doesn't lie or provide doubts.

Here's data you might find interesting. A report issued by the Canadian Energy Research Institute in September 2006 demonstrates the cost associated with the different types of electricity production available in Ontario.

The cost is measured in cents per kilowatt hour. Nuclear costs six cents per hour, coal is 5.5 cents, gas runs at eight cents and wind costs 12 cents.

If that isn't enough, in a December 2007 booklet, the organization that regulates Ontario's power generation systems and infrastructure, called the Independent Electricity System Operator, stated that wind generation has a dependable contribution of 10 per cent of the listed installed capacity of the project.

For more information, visit www.theimo.com. Hard data beats opinion any day of the week.

If anyone wants copies of these publications, e-mail england_chris@hotmail.com.

Chris England,

Cookstown, Ontario
======================

Counter Cape Wind Blog

# posted by NMG @ 9:25 AM

The Kingston Whig-Standard, Canada

Barrie K. Gilbert Wolfe Island
Brian L. Horejsi Calgary, Alberta
George Wuerthner Richmond, Vermont


North Americans are barking up the wrong tree by promoting wind turbine construction, regardless of where it is proposed to build the turbines.

Many people have tunnel vision, believing that wind turbine-generated energy is somehow linked to reversing the growth in, and impact of, greenhouse gas emissions.

There is no evidence anywhere that wind turbine energy is displacing fossil fuel dependence, or slowing the rate of greenhouse gas emissions growth. Wind turbine energy is a non-factor in the endless growth agenda of the fossil fuel industry, and likewise for gover nments promoting growth in, and dependence on, oil and gas consumption.

There can be no better example than North America of the failure of wind turbine energy to slow growth in anything. Wind turbine energy generation is fuelling growth in the human population and energy consumption. It is not doing the opposite.

Accompanying the myth that wind turbine energy will replace fossil fuel energy is denial of the ecological impacts and health effects of wind turbines by governments and promoters. The ugly reality is that wind turbines are a serious addition to the industrialization of quiet rural landscapes, places that people have long valued for quality of life, retirement and recreation.

The environmental costs imposed on wildlife and people have been systematically ignored by a political and regulatory system that has corrupted individual and societal freedom and environmental integrity by relegating these values to some distant offshoot of economic growth. The costs, and those who talk about them, are treated with contempt. How dare they influence a decision to give some landowner a chance to make a buck by carving his backyard and space into fragments with giant chopping machines?

Wind turbines are an assault on human well-being and act to degrade the human "gestalt." Promotion of wind turbine energy is a case of "greenwash" used to serve its proponents' commercial aspirations.

Wind turbines are today's version of a threatening monster being jammed down the throats of neighbours and localities. Nothing delivers a more intrusive and intense visual picture than the tower and blades of wind turbines. Turbines erode freedom of the human mind hour after hour, night after day, virtually forever, like a cellphone ringing incessantly that no one can turn off. To many people, this intrusion into their physical and physiological space has a mental effect analogous to the physical effects of a heavy smoker sitting next to you -essentially for life.

We do not subscribe to the managerial/market approach to democracy or conservation, with its deeply entrenched bias against human values such as an unadulterated horizon. This largely corporate view denigrates the value of freedom of the human spirit -the pedestal upon which human dignity, character and strength are built.

In an honest and fair regulatory and political environment, communities would bury wind turbine projects long before they got to the implementation stage. However, once forced on us by some corporate-created market economy, wind turbines, which wear on the human psyche, constitute "taking" from people by corporate promoters and their biased government collaborators.

We propose that each person impacted by a wind turbine receive, as a starting point for negotiations, $3,000 annually, to be paid by the developer, for the loss of private and citizen rights. The concept is simple: If the developer and some uncaring landowners want to destroy your rights and those of other citizens, and inflict on you suffering and mental distress, the good old "free" enterprise system that developers and local governments love to hide behind comes into play. Developers should pay for destroying part of your life.

The recent proliferation of wind turbine farms is just one more example of the aggression and destruction caused by the continuing expansion of an extremist private property and commercialism agenda. This is not freedom and it is not democracy. It is vandalism and oppression in the name of commercialism.

As citizens, we have the right and the obligation to reject wind turbine invasions as a corruption of our well-being, and we must marshal the courage to do so.

The Counter Cape Wind Blog

# posted by NMG @ 8:37 AM

Just go for nuclear power

www.TimesonLine- London

YOUR article “Twisting in the wind” last week attempted to describe the fiasco that is the government’s approach to solving the energy needs of Britain.

Without a reasonably priced, reliable supply of electricity, government priorities such as the National Health Service, schools, employment and addressing the problems of climate change will all run into serious difficulties. All developed countries depend on a reliable electricity supply and Britain is no exception.

The UK government is set on a strategy that seems to be the result of little more than a panic decision. Who, after all, would even contemplate covering Britain’s wild and beautiful places with wind turbines and the associated pylons and cables, to end up with a system that will require even more generating capacity to provide electricity when the wind isn’t blowing? Is it any wonder that planning applications for wind turbines have run into opposition from the people whose lives are going to be blighted by these huge structures?

Offshore wind farms seem equally insane, given the difficulty in construction and the problems of access during bad weather. To install generating equipment in our stormy seas flies in the face of common sense.

As your article points out, the cost of electricity derived from wind power is very high. Who wants expensive, unreliable electricity?

The only technology that is currently capable of supplying our electrical needs is nuclear. France generates at least 80% of its electricity from nuclear power stations and provides both domestic and industrial customers with reasonably priced and secure supplies. Why on earth can’t our government simply get on with providing Britain with a similar system?

John Ryden
Wigton, Cumbria

The Counter Cape Wind Blog

# posted by NMG @ 10:44 AM

by George Topp

Hamilton Advertiser, Scotland

A LEADING Lanarkshire archaeologist has added his voice to those expressing concern that Europe’s largest windfarm is now to be built in Clydesdale.

Ed Archer, from Lanark, said this week that both Dr David Bellamy and local MP David Mundell were correct in pointing out that the creation of the windfarm at Abington was a “disaster.”

“It was a pity that the Scottish Government had disregarded their protests and South Lanarkshire Council’s opposition to the erection of the turbines,” he said this week.

Mr Archer went on to say: “I have also been involved in opposing this development alongside the West of Scotland Archaeological Service.

“Both Dr Carole Swanston and myself have indicated that the building of these turbines in an area of high archaeological importance is irresponsible.

“Work over the past decade has shown that the area earmarked for development was the birthplace of Scottish history.

“It was in this area that the earliest evidence of Man appearing in Scotland has been located, dating back 9500 years.

“If that is not enough, the area contains an extraordinary collection of prehistoric monuments varying from Standing Stones to henges to a complete Bronze Age village complete with its own cemetery.

“The setting of these monuments will be affected.

“But what is of great concern are the areas earmarked for development and what will be discovered and, subsequently, destroyed.”

He said that monuments of later periods were also to be found in the area.

These include Iron Age forts/Roman forts and roads and, finally, medieval settlements.

“The reason for this is that the area was an important north/south route leading from England to Scotland.

“In essence, this particular area of Lanarkshire was a cultural crossroads. To destroy it would be an act of vandalism for which future generations will not forgive us,” stressed Mr Archer.

The Counter Cape Wind Blog

# posted by NMG @ 9:23 AM

by Paul Carpenter
The Morning Call
Allentown, PA

August 6, 2008

In 1979, a math teacher in Roseville, Calif., fretted over a nephew named after him and two nieces.

News coverage about the accident at Three Mile Island had reached hysterical levels in California, and the three youngsters lived only seven miles from the plant.

When Neal Carpenter finally reached me -- I had spent 36 straight hours at the accident site -- he demanded that I get my family far away from TMI.

I was not worried because our house was upwind and I knew enough about nuclear dangers to know that everything depended on the wind. As for me spending time at the TMI plant, I was then employed by The Associated Press and I was covering the biggest news story of my life. You could not have pried me away from that story with a crowbar.

I could think of only one thing to say to my brother, which he recalled when we were talking this week.

''You were delighted to inform me that there was a twin to the Three Mile Island plant -- and it was Rancho Seco,'' Neal said.

The Rancho Seco plant had one of only a few operational reactors that were identical to the reactor that was melting at TMI, and it was near Neal's house and his children. So there.

Actually, Rancho Seco was safe because it was not being operated with criminal ineptitude. That is not hyperbole; the corporation that ran TMI was convicted of criminal charges for the misconduct that preceded the accident. No corporate officer, alas, was ever required to do any time in prison, but TMI was one of two grotesque anomalies, the other being Chernobyl.

Other nuclear power plants are run skillfully and safely. I have heaped praise on PPL for the way it operates its reactors, although I have bashed PPL for its transmission line proposals.

In any case, Rancho Seco's distinction as a TMI twin was not lost on California's hysterical voters, so a state referendum, 10 years after TMI, shut it down when it still had nearly 20 years to go on its license.

On energy issues, I often discuss California, which, for Pennsylvania, is the best example of what not to do.

And that brings up another, even older, memory.

As a boy, I traveled with my family (Neal was not yet born) on fabled Route 66 past the world's most spectacular scenery, including San Gorgonio Pass, with the San Bernardino Mountains on one side and the San Jacintos on the other.

Much of that beauty has been destroyed. Thousands of wind turbines, some 200 feet high, corrupt the San Gorgonio mountainsides. They cover 70 square miles in that section alone, and San Gorgonio is only the third largest wind turbine field in California, which has 200,000 acres devoted to the monstrosities.

Rancho Seco? It had room for a second reactor (PPL has two reactors on 115 acres), which could have produced more electricity than all of California's wind turbines combined .

Now, there are people who think it may be a good idea to build wind turbines on the Kittatinny Ridge (Blue Mountain). On Monday, a letter to the editor from Donald Heintzelman of Zionsville talked about the first such proposal.

Lower Towamensing Township, he noted, is considering a request to put windmills around the Blue Mountain Ski Area. Heintzelman said that would place them in the path of America's most spectacular migratory route for eagles, hawks and other raptors.

''As an ornithologist involved in raptor migrations... I am unconditionally opposed to the installation of all wind turbines on this internationally famous... migration corridor,'' he wrote.

I am unconditionally opposed to it for other reasons, as well.

To make as much electricity as a single 115-acre nuke plant, they'd have to denude a mile-wide swath on Kittatinny Ridge for its entire 250-mile stretch through Pennsylvania.

Think of it. All the beauty and wildlife of our Blue Mountain ruined when the same amount of juice could be generated from a site the size of a ball field. You can grasp the potential ugliness of it only by visiting San Gorgonio Pass today.

It will be beautiful only to those who make billions by building windmills.

The Counter Cape Wind Blog

# posted by NMG @ 8:59 AM

It's increasingly obvious why Gore, Hansen and Reid are becoming more hysterical by the day. People are catching on that the hot air they're trying to blow up our shorts is no basis for economy-killing cap-and-trade rules or ecology-killing forests of unreliable wind turbines.

by Paul Driessen

T. Boone Pickens is being lionized for his efforts to legislate a transformation to "eco-friendly" wind energy.

We're "the Saudi Arabia of wind," he argues. We need to "overcome our addiction to foreign oil," by harnessing wind to replace natural gas in electricity generation, and using that gas to power more cars and buses. If Congress would simply "mandate the formation" of wind and solar corridors," provide eminent domain authority to seize rights-of-way for transmission lines, and "renew the subsidies" for this energy, America can make the switch in a decade, he insists.

Pickens' $58-million media pitch makes good ad copy, especially in league with Senator Harry Reid's absurd claim that oil and coal "make us sick." However, his policy prescriptions would bring new energy, economic, legal and environmental problems – and a price tag of over $1.2 trillion.

Hydrocarbon fuels built modern America, gave us the technologies and living standards we enjoy today, helped us eradicate diseases that plagued earlier generations, and boosted US life expectancy from 50 in 1900 to nearly 80 today. They still provide 85 percent of our total energy, and we could greatly reduce our reliance on oil imports if we would simply end the outrageous policies that keep our nation's abundant energy resources locked up.

We have enough oil, natural gas, oil shale, coal and uranium to provide power for centuries. We have a growing consensus that we need to drill, onshore and off. But partisan intransigence and ridiculous environmental claims prevent us from utilizing these American resources.

Wind contributes more every year to our energy mix. But it still provides only 1 percent of our electricity – compared to 49 percent for coal, 22 percent for natural gas, 19 percent for nuclear and 7 percent for hydroelectric. Moreover, we will need 135 gigawatts of new electricity generation by 2020, but only 57 GW are planned.

We can and should harness the wind. But 22 percent by 2020 is far-fetched.

Wind power is intermittent, unreliable and expensive (even with subsidies). Many modern turbines are 400 feet tall and carry 130-foot, 7-ton, bird-slicing blades. They operate at only 20-30 percent of rated capacity – compared to 85 percent for coal, gas and nuclear plants – and provide little power during summer daytime hours, when air-conditioning demand is highest, but winds are at low ebb.

Using wind to replace all gas-fired power plants would require over 300,000 1.5-MW turbines, covering Midwestern "wind belt" agricultural and wildlife acreage equivalent to South Carolina.

Building and installing these turbines requires 5 to 10 times more steel and concrete than is needed to build far more reliable coal or nuclear plants to generate the same amount of electricity, says Berkeley engineer Per Peterson. Add in steel and cement needed to build transmission lines from distant wind farms to urban consumers, and the costs multiply.

It also means many more quarries, mines, cement plants and steel mills to supply those materials. But radical greens oppose such facilities. So the Pickens proposal would mean letting existing power plants rust, and importing steel and cement, instead of oil.

Since adequate wind is available only 3-8 hours a day, we would also need expensive gas-fired generating plants that mostly run at idle, kicking in whenever the wind dies down. That means still more money, cement and steel – and still higher electricity prices.

A successful speculator and corporate raider, who critics say never actually found oil, Pickens has large natural gas holdings that position him to make billions from selling gas for backup electricity generation – especially if drilling bans remain in effect, keeping gas prices in the stratosphere. Launching the enterprise with the backing of federal mandates and subsidies minimizes his financial risk and attracts semi-free-market investors, by putting the risks

Pickens says we can't drill our way out of dependence on foreign oil. But that's true only if we keep our best prospects off limits to drilling. Open ANWR and the OCS, and the situation changes dramatically.

Unfortunately, greens and Democrats refuse to budge on these options – no matter how soaring energy prices batter poor families, workers, small businesses, Meals on Wheels and the automobile, airline, tourism, chemical and manufacturing industries. They're equally opposed to oil shale, coal and nuclear.

A single 1000-MW nuclear power plant would reliably generate more electricity than 2,800 1.5-MW intermittent wind turbines on 175,000 acres. Permitting more nukes would meet increasing electricity demand for a growing population and millions of plug-in hybrid cars.

Coal too offers affordable, reliable fuel for electricity and synthetic gas and oil, with steadily diminishing emissions. With 27 percent of the world's total coal, America is the Saudi Arabia of this vital resource, too. America needs more coal-fired plants, to avoid the widespread brownouts that analyst Mark Mills says will be commonplace if we don't build them.

Between 1970 and 2006, coal-fired electricity generation nearly tripled – while NOX emissions remained at 1970 levels, sulfur dioxide pollution fell nearly 40 percent below 1970 emissions, and fine particulates declined to 90 percent below 1970 levels. In a few years, power plants will emit only water and carbon dioxide, the two dominant greenhouse gases of Climate Armageddon hypotheses.

Al Gore, James Hansen and various legislators claim fossil fuels are destroying the planet. But they are increasingly on the fringes, whereas countless experts point out that we have far higher priorities than speculative climate monsters; the economic costs of climate bills like Warner-Lieberman would be staggering; and the global CO2 and climate benefits of US economic suicide would be imperceptible.

32,000 scientists have signed the consensus-busting Oregon Petition, saying they see "no convincing scientific evidence" that humans are causing catastrophic climate change. The American Physical Society reopened its debate, because many of its 50,000 physicist members disagree that evidence for global warming is "incontrovertible." The Manhattan Declaration has been signed by 200 skeptics "highly trained" in climate science. And Lawrence Solomon's book The Deniers makes a compelling case against climate hysteria.

China is building two new coal-fired power plants every month, to power electricity-hungry homes and businesses. India too is charging ahead with hydrocarbon-based energy. Its new National Action Plan on Climate Change disputes manmade global warming fears and says the nation is more concerned about saving people from poverty than from climate change. Oil-rich Arab countries are also looking at coal.

"Political leaders," says journalist Barun Mitra, "can no longer afford to sacrifice the poor today for the sake of the rich tomorrow." Neither in India, nor in China, Europe, Africa or the United States.

It's increasingly obvious why Gore, Hansen and Reid are becoming more hysterical by the day. People are catching on that the hot air they're trying to blow up our shorts is no basis for economy-killing cap-and-trade rules or ecology-killing forests of unreliable wind turbines.

We need to safeguard access to the opportunities created by abundant, reliable, affordable energy – as a fundamental right of people the world over.

2008 © Paul Driessen, senior policy advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality and Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise and author of 'Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death"

The Counter Cape Wind Blog

# posted by NMG @ 2:17 PM

by Scott Brooks
Mountain View Telegraph

From what research I have done, wind energy looks to be more of a euphemism, like ethanol, then a viable energy source. The problems of wind energy are as such:

Much has been written about Denmark's success as the world's wind power pioneer. But the regularly repeated claim that Denmark generates 20 percent of its electricity demand from wind sources is highly misleading. That 20 percent of electricity is not supplied continuously from wind power. Denmark's wind supply is so variable that it relies heavily on neighbors Norway and Sweden, taking their excess production.

In 2003, its export figure for wind power electricity production was as high as 84 percent, as Denmark found it could not absorb its own highly variable wind output capacity into its domestic system. The scale of Denmark's subsidies was such that in 2006-07, the government increasingly came under scrutiny from the Danish media, which claimed the subsidies were out of control. Overall, Denmark, a small, flat, windy country of about 5.5 million souls cannot be a model for the U.S. to follow.

Researchers in Denmark have gone a step further and put a value on this effect. They say that wind power shaved 1 billion kroner ($167 million) off Danish electricity bills in 2005. On the other hand, Danish consumers also paid 1.4 billion kroner in subsidies for wind power. The Danish government cut wind power subsidies that year. The result:

The building of wind turbines has virtually ground to a halt since subsidies were cut back. Meanwhile, compared with others in the European Union, Danes remain above-average emitters of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. For all its wind turbines, a large proportion of the rest of Denmark's power is generated by plants that burn imported coal. Moreover, because you cannot store any wind power that is generated when no one wants to use it, Denmark has to sell excess wind power to Sweden.

So the main problem of wind power is you don't have it when you need it and you have excess generation when don't need it. So without a cost-effective way of storing the energy derived from wind, this is like throwing money into the wind. And companies and individuals who promote wind do it mainly for the subsidies. Currently, wind receives 14 times and more the subsidy paid for nuclear and a whopping 53 times that of coal.

The current method of compensating for wind brownout is to build gas turbine power stations which parallel the wind energy facility and just add to the costs. They also increase natural gas and gas prices. But the real question when computing cost doesn't lie just with the turbines themselves, but rather how to get that electricity onto the grid.

Texans were already disturbed last month by wind power-induced brownouts. Now, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports, Texans "could be on the hook for $3 billion to $6.4 billion to build new transmission lines" to connect the state's rapidly-growing wind farms to the grid. And Texas already had an ambitious program to link wind development with new transmission lines the construction of which faces many of the same NIMBY obstacles as wind farms themselves.

So, directly connecting wind farms to the grid is not as cost effective as the "envirohawkers" would have you believe without adequate storage facilities. But then there's the problem of erecting a grid network.

That won't happen in the near future. The only reason energy producers would gravitate toward wind is if carbon taxing and subsidies force them to, and that would lead to consumers holding a big bag of costs. Under that plan, energy production would see a big drop, and it would severely impact the economy for decades.

Solar has somewhat better cost ratios, but it, too, only produces as long as the sun shines, and without an energy storage scheme would require gas turbine power backup, too. Mainline power facilities are not really capable of ramping up and down to compensate for energy variations. They are running at near full capacity except for maintenance downtime, if their reserves are down also.

It looks like the alternative energy folks are counting unhatched chickens that will come home to roost one day as vultures of prophesy. Unfortunately, it will be on consumers' bank accounts.
==============================

Counter Cape Wind Blog

# posted by NMG @ 6:41 PM

by Neil Reynolds

theglobeandmail.com


Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain travelled to Oregon in mid-May to deliver the definitive climate change speech of his campaign. He spoke in Portland, at the U.S. headquarters of Vestas Wind Systems AS, a Danish company that markets wind turbines around the world. He started on a self-deprecating note. “Today is a kind of test run for this company,” he said. “They’ve got wind technicians here, wind studies and all these wind turbines. But there’s no wind. So now I know why they asked me to come and give a speech.”

It was perhaps his most perceptive statement of the day. Five sentences later, Mr. McCain made perhaps his least perceptive. “Wind,” he said, “is a predictable source of energy.”

Really? Define predictable. Wind turbines operate occasionally with remarkable efficiency at 100 per cent capacity. More often, they operate with 20 per cent capacity. Once in a while, they operate with subzero capacity — taking electricity from the grid to keep themselves running until they get hit again by a restless wind.

British energy consultant Hugh Sharman, based in Denmark, documented wind power’s capacity for subzero performance in a report published by Civil Engineering magazine in 2005. With more wind power per capita than any other country, Denmark (population 5.4 million) is the world’s showroom nation for this highly fashionable form of renewable energy.

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion (who used Earth Day to champion wind power this year) and legendary U.S. oilman T. Boone Pickens (who called this week for massive U.S. investment in wind power) illustrate the widespread popularity of wind power.

Although the United States and Germany generate more wind power in absolute terms, Denmark boasts the world’s greatest “wind density” — wind power per capita. With 19 per cent of its electricity now generated by more than 6,000 wind turbines, Denmark produces 80 times as much wind power per capita as Britain.

Why, then, does Denmark export almost all of its wind power — at a revenue loss? Why, then, does Denmark still operate all of its conventional coal-fired power plants? In a phrase, Mr. Sharman says, the reason is Denmark’s “wildly fluctuating wind power.”

It turns out that Denmark’s vast array of turbines often produce minimal electricity when demand is high, maximum electricity when demand is low. Basing his analysis on data from a single year (2002), Mr. Sharman reported that wind power produced less than 1 per cent of the country’s electricity supply on 54 different days. On one of these 54 days, the wind turbines took more power from the grid than they produced. (Wind turbines consume considerable electricity whether winds are blowing or not blowing.)

British author and energy analyst Tony Lodge makes the same point in a report by the Centre for Policy Studies, a London think tank. “Not a single conventional power plant has been closed in the period that Danish wind farms have been developed,” he says. “Because of the intermittency and variability of the wind, conventional power plants have had to be kept running at full capacity to meet the actual demand for electricity and to provide backup.”

Mr. Lodge says it is not practical to turn coal-fired plants off and on as winds rise and fall — because ramping them up consumes more fuel (and emits more carbon dioxide) than running them at a constant rate. Thus Denmark relies almost exclusively on coal-fired plants for its own consumption and exports its wind power at whatever off-peak price it can get.

Only 3.3 per cent of Denmark’s wind power gets “accepted” on the grid for domestic consumption. In 2003, Denmark exported 84 per cent of its wind-generated electricity at money-losing rates. And CO{-2}? In 2006, Denmark produced 36 per cent more carbon emissions than the year before.

Denmark has provided generous subsidies for wind power developments since the 1970s and now has a sophisticated wind-dependent industry that — think Vestas — flogs subsidized turbines to naive U.S. presidential candidates. The industry’s reliance on subsidies has apparently not lessened in the past 30 years. Mr. Lodge says Danish consumers paid $517-million (U.S.) in wind power subsidies in the first six months of 2007 alone.

Messrs. McCain, Dion and Pickens notwithstanding, winds do not blow predictably. Without an energy storage battery the size of Mount Everest, most wind-powered electricity will be wasted and will almost certainly increase a country’s carbon emissions — albeit inadvertently. When your power plant operates at only 20 per cent capacity (or less), you have to build four or five times as many plants as you need. For reliable backup, you still need either coal, gas or nuclear power — all of which are cheaper than wind.

The conclusion seems self-evident. Apparently it isn’t. Fortunately, you can test wind power for yourself. Go outside on a hot and humid day. Feel the breeze. Or don’t.

Counter Cape Wind Blog

# posted by NMG @ 11:03 AM

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Providence Journal

by PETER KENNEY

YARMOUTH, Mass.

THE FARTHER one travels from Cape Cod the better the Cape Wind project looks - 130 turbines rising 440 feet above the waters of Nantucket Sound in one the East Coast's busiest recreational boating and ground fishing areas, generating clean electricity when the wind blows or does not blow too hard at double the cost of other electricity, and all this for a mere quarter of a billion in tax- payer dollars as a subsidy; this is Nobel Prize-level innovation.

Seen from Boston or Providence those of us who support offshore wind but oppose this project in this location appear a bit odd. By the time that one reaches, say, Chicago, we are seen as deranged, sociopathic and really stupid. After all, opposition to the Cape Wind project comes only from wealthy waterfront property owners, Bunny Mellon being a prime example. And these cowards, these people who glory in their oversized carbon footprints only opposed Cape Wind by holding fundraisers at a wealthy Cape Cod private club. Really?

The man behind the Cape Wind project is Jim Gordon. I have heard him say publicly that he grew up on the Cape spending summers in Yarmouth. A recent Harvard Business School case on Cape Wind written by Prof. Richard H. K. Vietor tells us that Gordon spent Labor Day weekend of 2007 in his home in Yarmouth "two blocks from the Bass River." I spent Sunday afternoon of that weekend at a cookout at the Portuguese American Club in Falmouth, 28 miles and two blocks from the Bass River. Jim Gordon was there to talk about his clean-energy mission.

Gordon spoke of the rolling blackouts to come during the winter of 2007-2008, the ones that never happened. And he told the crowd how there will be no more gas-fired power plants built because of a dwindling supply of natural gas. He neglected to tell them that within months he would sign a deal to build a $400 million gas-fired plant in western Massachusetts, a plant that will burn oil when gas supplies run short in winter. His new plant will be in the Pioneer Valley Energy Park. Pioneer indeed.

But the real lie in this whole debate is the one characterizing opposition to Cape Wind. The people who started the Alliance to protect Nantucket Sound, originally an ad-hoc group of ordinary folks calling themselves SOS, Save Our Sound, preceded Bunny Mellon and Bill Koch and the other wealthy supporters of the Alliance by one year. My first gathering to raise money and awareness took place in a decrepit former food market-turned-art gallery on Main Street in Hyannis. Trades people, artists, musicians, teachers, town officials, small-business owners and folks from all walks of life came together to show their opposition to Cape Wind, throwing everything from coins to $20 bills into plastic beach pails as they were passed around.

Ordinary citizens created the Alliance and for a while the Alliance was hard pressed to pay its rent and its staff. Then, after the Alliance made enough noise, the wealthy summer folks took notice and pitched in. Is it hard to understand why the Alliance has had to spend millions of dollars fighting a man who has spent $30 million promoting his scheme? We who tossed a ten or a twenty into those pails welcome those who can afford to throw thousands, even tens of thousands into the battle. That is the value we all place on Nantucket Sound. Think about that in Chicago before telling us we are stupid or just NIMBY. Nantucket Sound is a backyard worth protecting.

Vestas, the world's largest maker of wind turbines, has recently gone on the record saying that shallow water wind power is twice as expensive as conventional power. They also say that a "tiny minority" are driving the debate and they urge the press and governments everywhere to place their emphasis on land-based wind power until technology lowers costs and improves reliability for offshore wind.

Jim Gordon has never owned property on Cape Cod. In March 1973 his mother bought the 1,000-square-foot house she still owns in Yarmouth. Jim would graduate from Boston University two years later. How to describe this man who wants to pillage Nantucket Sound? Is he a mythical figure, a legendary figure, or just another snake-oil salesman?

Jim Gordon does remind me of Hillary and Bill Clinton. Hillary told of being shot at by snipers and Bill declared "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." Hmmm.... Most people would say the Clintons lied. What else in Gordon's own words should we hold up for closer examination? Example: General Electric no longer makes the turbines Gordon says he will use and Siemens will not sell them for the U.S. They were the only two sources for these turbines. One hundred thirty towers with no turbines?

Jim Gordon's economics do not work, his site is unacceptable and his word is not worth much here on Cape Cod, where he has never lived.

Peter Kenney lives in Yarmouth, MA. He is a writer and television producer.

# posted by NMG @ 2:05 PM

by Audra Parker


The Barnstable Patriot

The federal Minerals Management Service (MMS) has received an unprecedented 40,000+ public comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the “stalled” Cape Wind project - as described by one media outlet. Dozens of key groups and government agencies criticized the draft document which glossed over many of the serious threats the Cape Wind project would pose to public safety, marine wildlife and habitats, tribal and historic resources, commercial fisheries, and the local economy.

As U.S. Fish and Wildlife, a peer agency to MMS in the Department of Interior, judiciously noted in its comments, “We collectively have an opportunity before us to ‘do this right.’ Unfortunately, we have failed to do so."

Following an overwhelming display of project opposition at the March public hearings, Cape Wind is now attempting to spin a batch of seriously-critical comments into good news. Cape Wind's Mark Rodgers recently claimed that the vast majority of the public comments supported the project. But an MMS spokesperson has since confirmed that Cape Wind's claim is merely "their interpretation” of the comments available for review on the MMS website.

“If a respondent replied that he or she ‘favored the project,’ that has little use to us for analytical purposes,” wrote Drew Malcomb, MMS Chief of Public Affairs. “If the respondent replied that additional information or data exists on commercial fishing runs, for example, that would be of great interest to us and useful as we develop our final EIS.”

Interested in quality, not quantity, MMS will assign little value to the extensive national postcard campaigns - launched by Greenpeace and others - that make up a significant portion of the pro-Cape Wind comments.

In contrast, the critical comments of New England Fishery Management Council, National Marine Fisheries Service, Mass Division of Marine Fisheries, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which scrutinize understated negative impacts to fisheries and wildlife, will carry tremendous weight in the federal review of Cape Wind. For example, the New England Fisheries Management Council stated, “The Council remains concerned with the potential impacts this project may have on the habitat necessary to maintain healthy fish stocks and the impact the project may have on commercial fisheries.”
The Passenger Vessel Association, the national trade group of U.S. flagged passenger vessels, described the DEIS as “woefully inadequate in addressing the threat that the wind energy facility poses to the ferries and their passengers.” Concerns for public safety were echoed by the Steamship Authority, Hy-Line Cruises, Barnstable Airport Commission, and the Mass Marine Trades Association.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation and Mass Historic Commission expressed strong concern for Cape Wind’s adverse impacts to historic resources as well as MMS’ failure to follow the historic consultation process. They also reminded MMS that the National Trust for Historic Preservation included Nantucket on its list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2000, and Cape Cod on its 1994 list to address the threat of incompatible development to the historic character of these areas.

The local Aquinnah and Mashpee Wampanoag Tribes condemned an inadequate DEIS that failed to acknowledge religious and cultural tribal interests. The Aquinnah tribe reiterated its opposition to Cape Wind on Horseshoe Shoal and stated that the “clear, unobstructed view across Nantucket Sound is of paramount importance to the ‘People of the First Light’ – the Wampanoag people…” And according to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, another peer agency to MMS, the DEIS “does not appear to give any weight to the cultural concerns of the [Wampanoag] Tribe…”

MMS will continue its review of the Cape Wind project - incorporating all of the comments it received before issuing a final EIS and ultimately, a Record of Decision on the project.

In the meantime, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound has called upon MMS to initiate a process known as "community-consensus management” to resolve the seven-year Cape Wind controversy. In that process, local stakeholders would work to identify a community-supported alternative to Cape Wind. State Senator Rob O'Leary and State Representative Demetrius Atsalis have made similar requests to MMS.

The DEIS has been harshly criticized, promising offshore alternatives have emerged, and the hope of achieving a community-supported alternative now seems possible. The time has come for Cape Wind to go from a “stalled” project to denied project.

The writer is director of strategic planning for the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound.

# posted by NMG @ 9:19 AM

"...wind power doesn't work,"


by Save Central in Scoop Indpendent News
New Zealand

The failure of the 400 megawatt Otahuhu B gas-fired power station today has highlighted the foolishness of looking to industrial-scale wind farms for backstop solutions, says Save Central spokesperson Grahame Sydney.

A boiler tube fault means Otahuhu B will be out of action for at least four days, just as hydro storage levels reach lows not seen since 1992 and winter begins to bite.

The Government backs Meridian's 176-turbine Project Hayes as a solution to such energy shortages, having made an All-Of-Government submission in support of the Central Otago wind farm proposal currently before the Environment Court.

"Yet we are being provided with a graphic illustration here and now that reliance on wind power doesn't work," said Sydney, speaking from a becalmed Central Otago.

"It has been a calm few months nationwide - especially so in Central - so the contribution of the country's eight existing wind farms in averting an imminent energy crisis has been very poor. And with winter consistently calmer than other seasons, this is a scenario that is unlikely to change. The turbines simply don't turn often enough."

In the week ending 25 May, wind contributed just 30 megawatts, or 0.6% of the total energy consumed in New Zealand, from a potential 321.8 megawatts of installed capacity.

Sydney says the latest hydro and wind figures make a mockery of Energy Minister David Parker's insistence that we must rely more heavily on renewables as our energy consumption grows.

"The range of reliable base-load options available is considerable, yet Government still appears to prefer Think Big solutions which, dependent on fickle Mother Nature, can never provide security.

"But the bigger the scheme, the bigger the vacuum it leaves when nature refuses to comply with power company hopes."

Sydney added that he thought it "highly imprudent" of Parker to continue stalling on introducing energy-saving measures, not just in the face of looming shortages.

"Long-term, the sooner encouragement emphasises localised and smaller-scale solutions, and self-sufficiency, the better for all consumers - and the better we'll look to international eyes.

"We cannot afford to head down a bigger and bigger renewables trail at the expense of things which cannot be renewed - like our unspoiled and beautiful natural landscapes."

KEY FACTS
• If it proceeds, Project Hayes will be one of the world's largest wind farms.
• It will physically occupy 92 square kilometres of the Central Otago landscape with 176 turbines and 150 kilometres of oversize roading.
• Each turbine will be as high as the observation deck of Auckland's Sky Tower.
• Construction alone will cost $2 billion of taxpayers' money. This figure does not include transmission upgrades.

The Counter Cape Wind Blog

Power Engineering International

The construction of offshore wind farms is becoming more costly, creating further problems for the European Union in meeting its renewable energy target, reports the Financial Times.

An analysis from Cambridge Energy Research Associates (Cera) has found that the capital cost of offshore turbines is likely to increase by a fifth in the next two to three years, from €2,300 ($4600) per kilowatt to €2800.

Turbine prices have already risen by about 30 per cent in recent years, so the extra costs will be hard to bear.

"The sector could be at risk, given ongoing increases in capital costs, especially if government subsidies do not keep pace," said Matt Brown, senior director and head of European power at Cera. This would make it "more challenging" to meet the target proposed by the European Commission of generating 20 per cent of the bloc's energy from renewable sources by 2020.

Europe had about 1.1 GW of offshore wind generation capacity at the end of last year.
Shell recently highlighted problems in the sector when it pulled out of what was designed as the world's biggest offshore wind farm - the London Array in the Thames estuary. The company said it could get more value by investing in onshore wind farms in the US, where the wind market is growing rapidly after a slow start compared with Europe.

Paul Golby, chief executive of the electricity company Eon which, along with Shell and Denmark's DONG Energy, was a partner in the London Array consortium, called the economics of the project "marginal at best" because of such issues.

Mr Brown said rising prices could encourage other companies to reconsider proposed investments. "If [the offshore wind farm developers] face a squeeze, they could move their investment to other opportunities."

Offshore wind farms are seen as essential to meeting the EU target. Turbines sited off the coast benefit from stronger winds and are often bigger than land-based turbines, and can therefore generate more electricity.

But they are more expensive than onshore developments, as the turbines need to be
more robust, and because of the difficulties of siting them, particularly in deeper water, and of connecting them to the electricity grid.

Mr Brown said rising raw material costs, and demand outstripping turbine supply, had led to higher prices.

The offshore sector has to contend with another problem: competing with each other and with oil and gas companies for the specialised vessels needed to install turbines and other heavy equipment at sea.

Matthew Melville, chief underwriting officer at GCube, an insurance company specialising in renewable energy, said that smaller companies, relying on project finance to set up wind farms, would find conditions most difficult.

The Counter Cape Wind Blog

# posted by NMG @ 7:20 AM

by Chances Varson
Pound, VA


Change is inevitable. Sometimes the winds of change bring fresh air, sometimes polluted air. We welcome fresh air; we fight polluted air.

Some of us remember outhouses and we welcomed indoor plumbing, but that brought about river and stream pollution. Rather than going back to outhouses, we devised controls, such as sewer plants, and in rural areas, septic tanks.

In the area of fossil fuel emissions, emotions seem to have obliterated logic. Pollution control laws have brought about necessary changes, much like that of sewage control laws.

Virginia and California are the only two states that must buy electricity from other states at the present time. Therefore, when the crunch of limited supply comes, as it will, these two states will be the first to suffer.

The experts looking into alternate energy sources are coming up with dismal solutions. The land requirement for alternate electricity production is astounding. The amount of wood required to produce 1,000 megawatts of electricity would require a forest of 1,000 square miles.

The Glen Canyon Dam that can produce 1,000 megawatts of electricity is backed up by a reservoir 250 miles square. That's why we stopped building dams in the 1960s - because they were drowning scenic canyons and displacing populations.

Those 30-story windmills produce 1.5 megawatts apiece. Getting 1,000 megawatts would require a wind farm 75 miles square. Research into organic biofuels is also dismal, resulting in a consumption of food grain contributing to the world food shortage with little or no energy results. We must conserve and use the energy sources we now have, while keeping a vigilant control through the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Environmental Quality. Otherwise, we may soon join California and regress to the energy equivalent of the outhouse.

The Counter Cape Wind Blog

# posted by NMG @ 9:03 AM

Senate panel's unreleased draft says Bluewater plan is too costly

April 10, 2008 by Jeff Montgomery in The News Journal

Delaware should kill a 25-year purchase proposal for offshore wind energy, according to a draft report prepared for a legislative committee reviewing the state's energy supply.

Democrats pulled back from releasing the report Wednesday to wait for a final review by the full Senate Energy and Transit Committee, but four lawmakers agreed to discuss various details with The News Journal.

The draft -- written by committee Chairman Harris B. McDowell III, D-Wilmington North -- says that Bluewater Wind's offshore energy venture in Delaware could be jump-started with public aid. However, if approved as is, the report could be the death knell for a state-mandated offshore wind contract between Bluewater Wind and Delmarva Power.

"Probably the report will determine what will be done" on the wind vote in the Senate, said Senate President Pro Tem Thurman Adams Jr., D-Bridgeville.

"I knew that this report would not be favorable to Bluewater," said William Zak, a member of Citizens for Clean Power and a supporter of the wind project. "I don't have any doubt this will wind up in court. Delmarva has fought this so tooth-and-nail that I'm sure they won't stop until they exhaust their last chance."

The draft was written after a series of public hearings before the Senate Energy and Transit Committee. McDowell said the hearings had been fairly conducted to provide lawmakers with more information about the complex wind deal, but some critics of the process said the hearings were a sham.

"What I think we have now is a question of how broadly supported Harris McDowell is in the General Assembly," Zak said.

Delmarva Power recently released details on a competing plan to buy land-based, wind-generated electricity that would cost roughly one-third to one-half less than the 300 megawatts that Bluewater wants Delmarva to buy under the 25-year contract.

Three state agencies and the controller general voted to table that proposal in December, to avoid a split vote that would have killed the plan outright.

Billions in corporate revenues hang in the balance. The debate over the Bluewater project has spread to other energy issues, jeopardizing a pollution-control plan that could generate tens of millions of dollars in aid for low-income electricity users.

The political struggle also has clouded the future of the newly formed Sustainable Energy Utility, a conservation and renewable energy program backed by McDowell. The report by McDowell's committee is expected to shape the General Assembly's position.

Sen. Karen Peterson, D-Elsmere, said the report was critical of the Bluewater plan.

"If they adopt this report, it's shaping up exactly as I said it was going to," said Peterson, who described the Senate hearings as an attempt to make sure Bluewater's project was "dead."

Senate Minority Leader Charles L. Copeland, R-West Farms, said the draft version concluded the Bluewater plan is "not a cost-effective solution."

Copeland added that the draft report by McDowell's committee recommended Delmarva Power purchase onshore wind power and Delaware offer Bluewater a one-time incentive to build the project without other state-imposed guarantees.

The aid, Copeland said, would be similar to New Jersey's recent offer of up to $19 million to support private offshore wind ventures. New Jersey's approach obliges developers to find their own buyers for electricity generated by Garden State turbines.

Bluewater submitted a proposal to New Jersey, but has not released details. The company did say that it did not believe offshore ventures are feasible without a long-term power purchase contract.

McDowell said late Wednesday he might schedule a closed Senate Energy and Transit Committee meeting as early as this week for a final review of the report and a decision on its release.

A resolution in the House of Representatives, where there is greater support for the Bluewater proposal, would order the controller general to support Bluewater. Rep. John Kowalko, D-Newark South, said he was "cautiously optimistic" the House would take up a resolution today. Although the PSC and state agencies supported the project, rules adopted for the Bluewater review required a unanimous approval, and Controller General Russell T. Larson said there was no consensus among the Legislature's four party caucuses.

The resolution, however, would require approval in the Senate, where opinion is divided. No energy plan can be approved without approval of both houses.

"I don't think you're going to see the General Assembly go through the year without some sort of resolution," Copeland said.

Sen. Bruce Ennis, D-Clayton, said Bluewater's project offers clear economic benefits to Delaware.

Lawmakers ordered Delmarva in 2006 to review its energy needs and to seek new, in-state sources of electricity to stabilize rates and improve system reliability. That vote followed deregulation of the state's utility industry and a six-year freeze on rates, followed by a 59 percent hike.

Delmarva has said it supports renewable energy and wind power but considers Bluewater's contract too expensive. The company recently sought bids from land-based wind suppliers in other states.

A summary the utility distributed to lawmakers on Wednesday said it had received bids for up to 1,697 megawatts of wind power from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Illinois and Indiana -- "more than enough" to meet the company's needs. Prices ranged from $47 to $61 per megawatt less than Bluewater's, or 51 percent to 63 percent of the offshore rate, Delmarva said.

Jim Lanard, a Bluewater spokesman, on Wednesday described Delmarva's comparisons as stretched, noting Delmarva had failed to use a "hybrid" proposal for the offshore rate that benefited from lower-cost backup electricity from a conventional gas plant. He said Delmarva's prices for onshore wind also failed to account for all costs, and benefited from better terms than Bluewater was required to meet under state-supervised negotiations.

"We're concerned that the delaying tactics of Delmarva Power are designed to try to get past the end of the legislative session," Lanard said. "And we are concerned that at some point our bid may become stale." The session ends June 30.

Lanard said Delmarva had failed to take into account jobs, environmental benefits and other gains offered by Bluewater's proposal. Sen. George H. Bunting Jr., D-Bethany Beach, said that large numbers of residents in his district support Bluewater, but added that the project could have a downside.

"A lot of them who support it, push come to shove, can afford it, but I have got a lot of people who I represent who don't know anything about this," Bunting said. If Bluewater's project pushes local electricity rates higher "there are going to be a lot of people who live pretty close to the edge who are going to have to have some kind of assistance."

The wind dispute already has snarled efforts by Gov. Ruth Ann Minner's administration to win approval for a new surcharge on carbon dioxide emissions from large state power plants. Delaware committed to the surcharge under a regional agreement to reduce emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases blamed for climate change.

But talks on the timing of the new charges and state use of proceeds that could top $100 million by 2014 bogged down when environmental groups supporting the wind project attacked a plan to earmark much of the money for low-income energy assistance programs through the Sustainable Energy Utility.

"We're working very hard to stop that," said Chad Tolman, a Sierra Club Delaware member who has actively opposed McDowell's hearings that led to the report.

"These things do get linked," Tolman said.
-----------------------------------------------

The Counter Cape Wind Blog

# posted by NMG @ 6:54 AM

by Michael R. Fox Ph.D. in Hawaii Reporter

While wind energy is being wildly supported by many in the U.S., there have always been drawbacks to the performance and costs of these machines. The U.S. has had a heavily subsidized romance with them for nearly 40 years and too few of the state and federal policy makers have taken a close look at what the tens of billions in subsidies have actually done for the taxpayers.
These wind energy programs have made many companies such as Florida Power and Light very wealthy because of the heavy subsidies, tax credits, and accelerated depreciation allowance. Additional benefits come from local taxing authorities. This source of energy remains very unreliable and limited, having produced only about 1% of the nation's energy for decades.

Such companies are far less interested in windmills than in the legalized tax evasion programs at their disposal. There is little promise that this will improve in the future, for the simple reason that the wind remain unpredictable, unreliable, and intermittent. For example, during the years of 2002 and 2003, Florida Power and light owner of the majority of windmills in the US did not pay any taxes on revenues of more than $2 billion dollars. It was estimated that FPL took more than $1.2 billion in deductions during those two years, avoiding payments of hundreds of millions in taxes. You and I paid those for them.

Remarkably, even after all this time such tax evasion programs are wildly supported by state legislatures, Congress, the media, the greens, and too many state and federal agencies. Many states now have the onerous Renewable Portfolio Standards which require utilities to have a sizable fraction (often 20%) of their energy sales to be from "renewable" energy sources such as wind energy. That is, state legislators require that its citizens to pay the taxes for large corporations. We are not being protected from our own government's costly edicts.

In a sophisticated computerized electrified world the demand for highly reliable electrical voltages and frequencies are paramount. These are features which wind energy cannot provide. Variable wind energy provides notoriously unstable voltages and frequencies. Wind mills normally require very reliable backup energy from non-wind sources. The backup systems need to be operating in what is called "spinning reserve" so they can be available very quickly should the wind die down.

Simultaneously the European countries have indulged their weaknesses for politically correct wind energy as well. After many decades a number of them are beginning to get the whiff of something going wrong with this failed energy strategy. (http://tinyurl.com/4yfh7k).

The Brits seemingly have headed down this road even further than the US, with plans to expand their wind capacity 3-fold to around 25 GW(e). A large Columbia River dam in Washington can be of 1-3 GW(e) capacity for comparison. British utilities and companies won't build them unless those same massive subsidies are in place. The unspoken message here is that after 4 decades of windmills, they are still impressively uneconomical. They don't make enough energy and sales revenue to be economically viable. Currently just 2% of England's energy comes from renewables, with just 0.5 GW(e) coming from windmills. Just one turbine (of many) at Washington State's Grand Coulee Dam produces that much.

We must also keep in mind that all megawatts and gigawatts are not equal. They refer only to the capacity of the generators, not to the amount of energy they produce. The energy produced depends upon the availability of energy from the generator which in the case of windmills is usually 30% of the time or less. Today's nuclear plants, for example, are available about 90% of the time on an annual basis.

The new British plans call for the installation of more than 7000 wind turbines, which as Glover and Economides point out, is one every half mile around Britain's entire coastline. Talk about environmental eyesores and desecration.

More realistic wind groups in Britain are expressing serious doubts about this new program. Some of the problems include the warning that private capital will not be forthcoming, since the windmills are not economically viable and poor generators of revenues.

Another Brit, Dan Lewis of the British Economic Research Council, warns that the"British government is deluding itself on a grand scale". Jim Oswald, a British consulting engineer, advises that over-reliance on wind energy will result in major power failures across the nation and an increase of up to 50% in electrical bills. Also see this website (www.windaction.org) for a broader picture of wind problems.

The people of Germany are also expressing their own concerns about wind energy, for the same reason, unreliability. Additionally, the windmills are also proving to be unreliable due to mechanical failures. Windmill manufacturers' claims that they will last for 20 years is proving inaccurate. This unreliability is proving to be a deterrent to investors if not to the policy makers in Germany. Investing one's own money in these machines rather than millions in other people's money (OPM) called subsidies, clears the mind wonderfully.

The earthly heaven on Earth, as far as the windmill lobby is concerned, is Denmark. They manufacture a sizeable share of the world's wind turbines. We are also told that Denmark gets 20% of its energy from wind power. That is misleading. Because of the well known variability of wind, the Danes are heavily dependent upon Sweden and Norway who take much of the Danes excess production. In 2003 Denmark exported 84% of its wind production because it could not handle the highly variable energy in its own transmission system. The variabilities introduce voltage and frequency instabilities which can not be easily handled in Denmark.

As is the case in most parts of the world there are huge subsidies there, too. The subsidies in Denmark are so heavy that even the media are beginning to scrutinize the costs and subsidies of wind turbines. We can only dream of "what might have been" if we had had such a professionally vigilant media in our own nation for these past 30 years. Billions of dollars in subsidized wind powered boondoggles and the resulting legalized tax evasions might have been avoided. The many false promises would have been discovered sooner as well.

Click here for other reports by Dr. Fox.

The Counter Cape Wind Blog

# posted by NMG @ 9:21 AM

by Celty Kearney in Abilene Reporter News

The opportunity to leave a lovely legacy of untouched mesas and unscarred precious land lies in the hands of our government and local commissioners.

This mind-boggling decision is being foisted on Texans because of a crass lack of legislation regulating what could result in more destruction than an atomic bomb. Every ridge in our beloved land will soon be covered by Godzilla-like machines replacing every bit of nature with industry. What will be left for our future generations?

Wind energy is a feel-good scam. It does nothing to eliminate our dependence on fossil fuel. Do not be hoodwinked into thinking we are helping the environment here. What we are helping are the foreign-owned wind companies pad their pockets with our billions.

Energy expert H. Douglas Lightfoot of Nobodysfuel.com has announced evidence that wind power is simply not green. He says, "The public is not aware that when any wind power is being delivered to a fossil fuel powered grid, the fossil fuel plant does not shut down because it takes too long to start up again when wind power stops. Thus, when wind electricity is being delivered, fossil fuel is being burned and carbon dioxide is emitted. This is known as 'spinning reserve mode.'"

Spinning reserve mode is like having your foot on the gas and brake at the same time. It burns energy!

For 25 years, the folks in Palm Springs were told what a significant contribution wind energy could and is making to their energy supply. Since most people have little knowledge of how the electrical systems work, they are being misled as to the benefits, merits and capabilities of wind power. Unfortunately, most have believed what they have been told. But the truth was that the wind industries' actual production records were so dismal and at variance with what they projected, they lobbied the California Energy Commission into not having to reveal their production records anymore. After one resident's research, he discovered that if you take their average annual production of about 93.5 MW and subtract the 60 percent off peak generation (energy generated in the middle of the night), this leaves a minuscule amount of about 2.8 tenths of 1 percent that is meaningful -- if you can call it that -- that is generated when they really need it, after billions and billions of ratepayer and taxpayer dollars in subsidization.

"Unfortunately, the powers that be chose to believe the developers, without ever checking out their veracity or production records. Because of this hysteria for 'green,' it appears that they would rather put our power supply at risk and have the ratepayers pay triple than what is necessary for an illusion. While they have scraped miles and miles of desert, obliterated our views, rendered adjacent property valueless and impacted us with noise and dust for this minuscule amount of useless energy is beyond belief ... and have so far gotten away with it. The only transmission has been the dollars from our pockets to theirs," said a resident from Palm Springs.

Most are also unaware that wind power cannot be stored and cannot be called upon at will. When we need it, it does not match the "time of need profile." So, then exactly what good is it? Except to feel good!

Another sad fact is that there have been several wind farms across North America that have been documented to have killed thousands and thousands of birds and bats annually. However, in view of the strong political support bought by lobbyists hired by the wind farm companies, there currently is insufficient data to stop the construction of wind farms on a biological basis. Hopefully, our state elected officials will address this issue ASAP in the upcoming Legislative session along with finding a real solution for our energy needs instead of being "Al Gored" into this frenzy for being "fake green."
===============
The Counter Cape Wind Blog

# posted by NMG @ 7:20 AM

Response to opinion piece by Chuck Kleekamp published in the Cape Cod Times, March 4th, 2008.

by: Peter Kenney

Chuck Kleekamp is actually a fairly pleasant guy. At no point should any of what I say be taken as an argument against his decency or his character. But his statements in support of Cape Wind make me wonder where he received his engineering training. Chuck is always careful to point out that he is an engineer. Significant accomplishment, that... being an engineer. Does it make anyone infallible? No.

I would remind Chuck and others that Glenn Wattley, CEO of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, is also an engineer and a graduate of the Harvard Business School and has nearly three decades of experience in the fields of energy and energy management/consulting, including a stint in management at a renewable energy venture. He is a mechanical engineer with a degree from the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Wattley was the 'Energy Guy' at Arthur D. Little (the global consulting firm) and a partner at Anderson, another brand name in the consulting world. Besides all that, Glenn Wattley has appeared as an 'energy expert' on national network television news programs and has been used as an energy expert by the federal government in complex tax cases involving various types of energy companies and investments. Wattley is usually identified by supporters of Cape Wind as a 'Coal Guy'. Presumably this makes him evil and untrustworthy. It also neatly avoids admitting the man's formidable experience and overall expertise in matters relating to all aspects of energy.

Let’s say we all had to choose from the following list for an unbiased and technically sound forecast of what Cape Wind's wholesale cost for a kilowatt hour of electricity will be........

1. Jim Gordon (head of Cape Wind)

2. U. S. Minerals Management Service and/or the Army Corps of Engineers

3. Chuck Kleekamp

4. Glenn Wattley


TIME IS UP! My answer is… GLENN WATTLEY! And my prize, a prize shared by us all, is Nantucket Sound, without those 130 wind towers and their lights, bells, foghorns and whirling blades.

Now, who wants to go double-or-nothing? Gee, this is better than casino gambling: Will Cape Wind's electricity cost....

1. Less than conventional electricity?

2. The same?

3. More?

You guessed it.....MORE! Of course, we don't know how much more because Jim Gordon’s costs continue to rise and he does not know what his capital costs will be plus a lot of other things such as his charges for doing the retrofit work needed for him to stream his electricity into the grid (sub station in Barnstable and the Mirant plant in Sandwich). These are things guys such as Chuck Kleekamp- engineers- are paid to figure out.

In today's Cape Cod Times Chuck holds forth yet again about the virtues and savings of Cape Wind. I will give the man credit for perseverance. He is going to ride this boat right onto the shoals and no amount of evidence will get him to jump off. Kleekamp writes in the Times, "The first offshore project will replace electricity from fossil-fueled plants, avoiding consumption of some 100 million gallons of oil, equivalent to 20 Bouchard barges like the one that ran aground in Buzzards Bay or five liquefied natural gas tankers like the one disabled off Chatham, all delivering fuel to generate electricity."

Nice try, Chuck. Not one conventional plant will be shut down due to Cape Wind's production. Increasing demand for electricity plus the need for reliable backup power to compensate for the times when the turbines will not be turning mean that this claim is whole cloth, wrong. And, although I have asked dozens of times, no one has identified which plants will shut down according to the GORDON/ KLEEKAMP theory of reality. Not even Jim Gordon has answered this and I have asked him, personally.

Kleekamp ends his piece by saying, Likewise, it will avoid the emission of about a million tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to taking 175,000 cars off the road each year. These are real savings."

No, Chuck, these are real mistakes...real unrealistic claims...and real nonsense. This last claim is bad science at its best. Cape Wind will not displace any CO2 emissions until it causes at least one conventional plant to shut down. Anyway, increasing demand for electricity will probably compensate for any CO2 reductions Cape Wind causes. And by the way, Jim's (Gordon) actual claim to the Minerals Management Service was for 880,000 tons of CO2, not about "...a million..."

I wonder if Chuck knows how federal RENEWABLE ENERGY CREDITS work? Be sure to read the next installment on this matter...it will be enlightening, so to speak.

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PART TWO- Renewable Energy Credits

Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) sound like a great idea to encourage the production of green energy. They were intended to help provide what is essentially investment capital for green energy ventures. In fact, the opposite may be true. For example, recently a major ski resort in Colorado scrapped its plans to build two wind turbines and opted instead to by RECs from other green energy producers to meet their green energy quota.

What is a Renewable Energy Credit? It is a credit issued by the federal government on a one-to-one basis for every kilowatt hour of renewable energy produced by any generator. This could mean wind, biomass, solar, etc. RECs may be sold or traded separately from the electricity for which they are issued. And, anyone in any industry can buy them. There are even companies who specialize in the sale and brokering of RECs. One such company is Element Markets of Sugar Land, Texas. Element Markets' web site says in part, "Producers of 'green' power can sell RECs as well as the power itself, increasing their profits, while other interests can buy or trade RECs for reasons ranging from improving corporate image to satisfying regulatory compliance." When RECs are traded the entity purchasing the RECs gains the right to claim environmental benefits.

Auden Schendler, executive director for community and responsibility at Aspen Skiing Company was quoted in the Aspen Times Weekly (Feb. 26, 2008) saying that lately he has been dubious of the legitimacy of the wind energy credits. He is having a hard time finding evidence that the purchases are actually causing new wind farms to be built. In 2006 Aspen bought RECs equal to its entire annual energy needs but remains on the grid buying whatever power its wholesaler delivers.

Even the American Wind Energy Association says on its own web site, "Those who are most efficient at generating renewable power will end up producing it, and those who are cannot efficiently produce it will purchase Credits on the competitive market." (The American Wind Energy association uses the word Credits to mean RECs.)

Twenty-five states plus the District of Columbia have federally approved Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPSs). Massachusetts is among those states. Each state having a portfolio mandates that an energy wholesaler as well as certain private institutions must be able to demonstrate that 3.5% of its total energy sales/use for the year 2007 is green. This requirement will rise by .05% per year until the maximum mandate of 5% is reached. But, what if there is simply not enough green energy being produced to satisfy this requirement? The American Wind Energy Association has the answer posted on its web site: "RENEWABLE ENERGY CREDITS, OR 'CREDITS', ARE CENTRAL TO THE RPS." They go on to say very clearly, "The Credit system provides compliance flexibility and avoids the need to "track electrons".

This is a chilling comment and it’s made by the American Wind Energy association. Let's follow one renewable energy credit from, say...Nantucket Sound to the bottom line of an annual report:

A kilowatt hour of electricity travels through a marine cable to the Barnstable sub station of NSTAR on Cape Cod. From there it travels to the Mirant power plant in Sandwich, also on Cape Cod and then into the grid. It is presumably purchased by ISO New England, a wholesaler providing power for the New England Grid. This kilowatt hour was produced by a wind turbine, part of a 130 - unit wind farm located on twenty-five square miles of Nantucket Sound, well within site of shore of within one of the east Coast’s most active recreational boating areas as well as within a significant local fishery and hard by shipping lanes. Also, its 440' tall structures are under the flight paths that take small aircraft between Cape Cod and Nantucket island. Now this one kilowatt provides an hour of electricity on the grid. It also gains its producer one REC. He needs as many RECs as he can get because the capital costs for his wind farm rose from $650 million as first projected to around $1.5 billion at actual time of construction.

This clean kilowatt actually has intrinsic value and add-on value also as the REC it produces becomes a valuable commodity. Hypothetically, since there is no cap yet on CO2 emissions, if Massachusetts does place a cap on emissions and, realizing that there is not enough green energy production available to stay under that cap allows payments in-lieu of compliance (penalty payments), the REC will rise to a value equal to the penalty payment. So, if the penalty payment is pegged at $50(x) of CO2 emitted. X would be stated as weight (pounds, tons, etc.). This means that each REC will be enormously valuable on the spot market....considerably more valuable than the kilowatt hour that gives birth to each REC.


Our green kilowatt hour from Nantucket Sound becomes an important player in New England's energy sweepstakes. What this means for Cape Wind, for example, and for Cape Cod is remarkable:

1. Cape Wind claims in its most recent federal review (MMS, January 2008) that it will displace 880,000 tons of CO2 emissions.

2. Cape Wind also says that it will use RECs as an offset against its costs: it will sell its earned RECs.

3. Electric wholesalers buy the cheapest power first, then buy a mix of other powers.

4. Electric wholesalers will buy some wind power, because there is only some available.

5. Cape Wind, if approved, financed and built, will be the only offshore wind producer in the United States, far from a major player in the overall energy market.

6. Any wholesaler who purchases Cape Wind's RECs will be able to use them to achieve compliance with their Renewable Portfolio Standards, regardless of how much actual green energy they buy and resell.

7. Cape Wind's RECs will be used by energy wholesalers to allow the cheapest producers in their power mix to continue in operation. Typically this will mean that the final benefit of the Cape Wind RECs will fall to the
worst polluters...old, non-conforming, obsolete coal-fired plants belching CO2 into our air.

Here is one local example of a massive purchase of RECs: Two years ago Harvard University signed a ten year contract with the Town of Hull on the Massachusetts coast south of Boston. Hull owns and operates two wind turbines for its municipal energy needs. In addition Harvard is known to have purchased as much as $2 million worth of RECs on the spot market. the Hull purchase alone is for $1.8 million. All this money is in addition to the University's estimated $40 million annual electric bill. This means that ISO New England will not have to "track" hundreds of millions of kilowatts of electricity and that they can continue buying huge amounts of electricity from CO2 emitting coal plants. So much for green. (Harvard University is subject to the requirements of the Massachusetts RPS.)

The inescapable facts are that Cape Wind will not only not displace any CO2 emissions, it will actually subsidize and guarantee them. Cape Wind will help the great polluters such as the coal plants at Brayton Point and Salem harbor to continue their profitable but toxic operations. The Cape Wind claim about displacing CO2 emissions is a cruelly ironic hoax, yet Cape Wind enjoys strong support among environmentalists. Most cruelly of all, Cape Wind continues to make what are now generally discredited claims that they can save our air while giving us cheap power. Reliable estimates by energy industry experts place Cape Wind's cost for electricity at between two and three times the average for other electricity sold in Massachusetts. Offshore wind power is much more costly land onshore wind power. Worst of all, Cape Cod is downwind of two of the worst sources of stack emissions causing air pollution in New England, two of the very coal-fired plants who will be protected by Cape Wind's profit making RECs. While Cape Wind supporters point to the fact that our air in summer conditions is often among the most polluted in New England they ignore the factual consequences of Cape Wind's proposed use of what is in fact merely an elaborate tax and compliance dodge- Renewable Energy Credits.

All Cape Cod has to do to reap this curious environmental windfall is turn over the center of Nantucket sound to a private developer. Have those in the environmental community who so ardently support Cape Wind's proposal actually thought this out to its several and frightening logical conclusions?

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Counter Cape Wind Blog

by Jeffrey Ball in the Wall Street Journal

Dow Jones Newswires' Matthew Dalton reports:

Texas, a model of wind power's potential, now is a model of wind power's pitfalls too.

Minders of the Lone Star State's electricity grid had to cut power to some offices and factories Wednesday evening when the wind dropped-and with it, electricity produced from the state's many wind farms. The green juice slowed from 1,700 megawatts to the trickle of 300 megawatts.

"A cold front moved through, and the wind died out," said Dottie Roark, spokeswoman for the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which runs most of the state's power grid. "That happens."

Oh, well. Now that wind is big enough to be a real part of Texas' electricity mix, the state is coming to grips with one of wind power's biggest problems: the power flows only when the wind blows.

Maybe it's just a coincidence, but this glitch for wind power occurred the night before the House voted on a renewable-energy bill - a vote in which the Texas delegation mostly voted against more renewable-energy subsidies.

Nuclear, coal- and gas-fired plants run almost all the time. As efficient as wind turbines have become in recent years, they still need the wind to work. And reliably predicting just when the wind will blow is still tough, despite plenty of fancy technological advances.

Wind usually falls off with rising temperatures. But a sudden gust of cool weather can do the same. The people running the electricity grid need to stay on their toes to throw other forms of power on line when wind falters.

"Renewables are a very intermittent source of electric supply," says Larry Makovich, managing director at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a Boston-based energy consultancy that recently published a bullish report on the prospects for renewable energy. "What you saw in Texas is a very dramatic example as to why that is the case."

This problem is only going to get bigger for Texas. The state has 4,600 megawatts of wind power. If wind blew all the time, that would be the equivalent of more than three nuclear plants. The state now is considering additional wind farms that could boost that figure ten-fold, say Texas' grid operators. That is, when there's a breeze.

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The Counter Cape Wind Blog

# posted by NMG @ 7:05 PM