I was in favor of wind for what I thought was all the right reasons until I actually started looking into the topic. The more closely I look, the more I learn what is driving the intense rush to get these projects in place. It concerns me because I’ll be living close to a proposed project. But the issues I’m going to point out should concern anyone in America today who is following the issue of Industrial Wind:
Economic: All power sources are subsidized. In order to not sound in favor of any one other source, I’ll just say, you can find this information on the web. Just be sure to compare them by the same standard…the dollar amount “per megawatt hour”. The range that you will find is: 25 cents per MWh for Nat. Gas all the way up to the reallity that, no power source is more highly subsidized than wind power at 23.37 per MWh. Also note, the tax breaks are incredible right now, and 30% of the construction costs for the project will be paid for by your and my tax dollars… “stimulus money”. The real reason for building wind farms is to be able to “cash in” on the sale of Renewable Energy Credits. Which they sell to Coal Fired power plants and other folks who will want them if cap and trade regulations take effect. As you might of heard Steve Eisenberg, from the Grampa’s Knob wind project say, and as a spokesman from GMP (Don Rendell) regarding the Lowell mountaintop wind facility has said..THE PROJECT WOULDN’T HAPPEN WITHOUT THEM. In the end, it is the regular person who pays for these REC’s since companies just pass the expense right on to the customer.
Technological: The power produced is so variable that grid managers don’t dare scale back the “baseload” thermal plants that do the heavy lifting in our power production needs. Thermal plants are very slow to ramp up, meaning the grid could be caught short on power if what looks to be a good wind day, doesn’t go as planned. Where to get power from, is a decision made in the “day ahead market” which is very hard to do when your saying, “Hey, lets buy a certain amount of wind power for use tomorrow.” The grid manager is not going to call up Vermont Yankee and tell them to roll back power output for the day. So the wind power, while it might have been sold on that day, ends up not really being needed. It was excess.
Environmental: If we can’t shut down baseload fossil power producers with wind, then we are not helping fix the problem of global warming. Wind feels and sounds good in theory. But when you consider how many thousands of wind turbines we’ll have to build before average people realize that not one coal or nuclear plant has shut down, it’s not worth it. I’m going to simplify this to the bare bones. The ridges around Rutland are pretty pristine. Many towns in America don’t have remote country so close by to enjoy. You can go up there and get away from the reallity that’s far below in the valley. This is in danger of going away.
Health: Some people jump out of their skin from the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard. I’m told there are devices that you can put in your home which will drive mice out with high and or low frequency sound. The lungs of Bats are burst as they fly through the perimeter of the rotating blades of a wind turbine due to the pressure change. These are three things that justify for me the idea that: “There is something to the claims that “some” people make about sleepless nights and physical misery which begins when wind turbines come to your neighborhood. Similar to the “good neighbor agreements” which some of you may be considering, these people also sign agreements when selling their homes to developers…which suddenly makes them very quiet and the health issue VERY hard to prove.
Property values: Mr Eisenberg from Reunion power and Jeff Wennberg have mentioned a study in which the sale value of 7,500 homes were tracked within a 10 mile radius of Industrial Wind facilities. That no drop in value was noted. I have read that study and they specifically say that some of the homes studied were sold before the wind projects were even announced (pg 11), that certain homes might have been affected but that it was a “statisticly insignificant” number. My home would fall in that group since I live 1.7 miles from a proposed wind facility. It doesn’t seem statisticly insignificant to me.
And finally, Jobs: I must say, I think it would be exciting to spend my whole day working on those ridgelines either temporarily building turbines or for the long term, maintaining wind turbines. But…when I see that most of the people who build the projects are the “usual” companies from somewhere else…, and that a 75 turbine facility can be run by only 6 people in Solano, California…not the 25, that the developer is promising for the 45 turbine project on Herrick and Susie Peak. In light of the above facts, 6 or even 25 permanent jobs are not worth it.” It suddenly becomes a game I’m not willing to play, sacrifice or pay for. And one that I encourage others not to sell out to either.
This post was submitted by Justin Robert Turco.
