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Archive for November 27th, 2012

Nov 27

Green Mountain, Vermont wind farm

Ruth Farquhar: Turbines will endanger Manitoulin Island tourism

The Sudbury Star — November 26, 2012

Manitoulin Island will never be the same. When I read the headline in the local press that the McLean’s Mountain wind turbine project has been given approval, my heart sank a little.

The provincial government has given the project the green light.

The Green Energy portfolio is turning out to be a huge mistake. Gas plants are costing taxpayers millions of dollars and the wind and solar companies are being hugely subsidized. Wind companies like Northland Power are being promised 15 cents/kilowatt and the province still decided that Manitoulin Island is prime land to be exploited.

Of course, we don’t have the votes to stop it, unlike the gas plants being stopped before the last election, so why would the Liberals care? They seem to think that if they keep giving Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci money to hand out in Sudbury, that makes up for all the crap they have loaded on the people of the North. You can bet when everyone starts adding up all of the costs, both financially and emotionally, the Green Energy Act has inflicted on the tax payers, those politicians will be long gone and no one will be held accountable.

All I see in our future if more turbines get built is tourism being destroyed and the rest of the Island suffering so a few people can make money. I don’t see any more jobs other then the initial ones when they are tearing up the trees on McLean’s Mountain and after they are built. The farmers who signed over their land to make some bucks, and of course Northland Power, will benefit, but you are fooling yourselves if you think this will benefit the rest of the Island.

(To continue reading, click here)

Nov 27

Wind Power

Backlash Against Big Wind Continues — The Left, Greens and MSM ignore growing health and environmental concerns

Robert Bryce — The National Review — November 26, 2012

Last month, 60 residents of New York’s Herkimer County filed a lawsuit in Albany that provides yet another example of the growing backlash against the wind-energy sector. It also exposes the double standard that exists in both the mainstream media and among environmental groups when it comes to “green” energy.

The main defendant in the lawsuit is the Spanish electric utility Iberdrola, which is the second-largest wind-energy operator in the U.S. The Herkimer County residents — all of whom live within a mile or so of the $200 million Hardscrabble Wind Power Project — are suing Iberdrola and a group of other companies because of the noise and disruption caused by the wind project.

The lawsuit comes at a touchy time for the wind industry, which is desperately trying to convince Congress to extend the industry’s production tax credit that expires at the end of this year. The subsidy gives wind-energy companies 2.2 cents for every kilowatt-hour of electricity that they produce.

Wind-energy proponents claim that an elimination of this tax credit could result in the loss of 37,000 jobs, but they have not been able to silence the dozens upon dozens of groups that have sprung up to fight expansion of the wind sector. And few places in the U.S. have seen a bigger backlash than New York State. About two dozen New York towns have passed rules banning or restricting wind-energy development, and many rural residents have expressed ongoing concerns about turbine noise.

(To continue reading, click here)

Nov 27

Wind-turbines_Mike-Parr

U.S. — Wind Intermittency and the Production Tax Credit: A High Cost Subsidy for Low Value Power

Jonathan A. Lesser, PHD — Continental Economics — October 2012

To read extensive and thorough report on why subsidies for wind energy should end, click here