Category Archives: Wind
The Mother of All Hoaxes
By Alan Caruba
There was a brief flurry of stories in the media at the beginning of what has become a historic summer of hot weather across the U.S. that global warming was to blame. They faded swiftly because the public has concluded that global warming is the mother of all hoaxes, because we are in the midst of a failing economy and the political campaigns that will decide if the nation literally lives or dies.
This has not stopped the Public Broadcast System’s News Hour from airing a new series “on how climate change in the Pacific Northwest is affecting the region’s Native American Indian tribes—flooding their reservations and threatening the region’s salmon fisheries.” Climate change is shorthand for global warming.
While the nation’s media continues to propagate the hoax, what hope is there for the TRUTH?
Significantly “the NewsHour’s year-long Coping with Climate Change series is funded by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.” The nation’s leading foundations have been funding the global warming hoax for decades and continue to do so.
So one more article about the deception and duplicity of global warming may seem superfluous and it would be if the U.S. Air Force wasn’t spending $59 per gallon of “green biofuel” and the U.S. Navy wasn’t doing the same for its Great Green Fleet. The justification for this is the utterly false assertion that “alternatives” are needed in the event we can’t produce or import petroleum.
The U.S. is floating on an ocean of oil, but for now it can only be extracted from lands owned privately because the Obama administration has done everything in its power to restrict access to it on federally owned lands and, of course, the billions of barrels locked up off-shore.
In exactly the same way that the Obama administration has presided over the loss of billions in subsidies and loan guarantees for the solar panel companies or the ridiculous costs of wind power industry compared to a single coal-burning plant, at the heart of it all has been the claim the global warming is caused by “greenhouse gas” emissions, carbon dioxide, that imperil the Earth.
Recently, my friend Joseph L. Bast, the president of The Heartland Institute, wrote an article, “IPCC Admits Its Past Reports Were Junk”, posted on AmericanThinker.com.
It struck me that very few people even know that IPCC is the acronym for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Few people know that the entire global warming hoax was generated by the IPCC, let alone know what it is.
Most people associate global warming with Al Gore who has been among its most prominent advocates, warning that “the Earth has a fever” and that we were doomed if we didn’t stop generating carbon dioxide. Gore and his collaborators wanted to sell “carbon credits” in exchanges around the world and for a while he greatly enriched himself.
In Australia, the government has imposed a tax on carbon dioxide which it likely to destroy its manufacturing base along with the extraction of coal and other minerals.
Here in the U.S. the Environmental Protection Agency continues to assert that carbon dioxide must be regulated as a “pollutant” under the Clean Air Act and, if successful, will likewise destroy what is left of our manufacturing base and all other industries that generate or use energy to function.
And the man in the street remains completely clueless about the impending ruin of the nation based on the reports of the IPCC which the Inter-Academy Council (IAC), a group created by the world’s science academies to provide advice to international bodies, has long since concluded were utterly false and baseless.
On June 27, the IPCC issued a statement saying it had completed the process of implementation of the recommendations that an August 2010 IAC analysis had made after examining who was contributing to their reports, who was reviewing their content (the same people!), and the astonishing, utterly false, claim of “a consensus” that global warming was happening.
As Bast points out, “It means that all of the ‘endorsements’ of the climate consensus made by the world’s national academies of science—which invariably refer to the reports of the IPCC as their scientific basis—were based on false or unreliable data and therefore should be disregarded or revised.”
“It means that the EPA’s ‘endangerment finding’—with its claim that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and threat to human health—was wrong and should be overturned.”
It is a terrible thing to live in a nation governed by falsehoods, spending the public wealth on useless technologies, living under the tyranny of government departments and agencies pursuing those lies for their own agendas and political masters.
Unless the harm perpetrated in the name of global warming is reversed, we shall all remain the victims of the United Nations IPCC, the EPA, and all other entities seeking to control every aspect of our lives.
The poles are not melting, the glaciers are growing, the oceans rise mere millimeters over centuries, and right now planet Earth is cooling.
Related articles
- By its actions, the IPCC Admits Its Past Reports Were Unreliable (wattsupwiththat.com)
- IPCC Admits Its Past Reports Were Junk (americanthinker.com)
- Joseph L. Bast: IPCC Admits Its Past Reports Were Junk (junkscience.com)
- CLIMATE SCAM: IPCC Admits Its Past Reports Were Junk (sgtreport.com)
- You Knew That: IPCC Admits Its Past Reports Were Junk (tarpon.wordpress.com)
- Hockey Schtick: New paper shows IPCC models exaggerate water vapor feedback (junkscience.com)
- PBS NewsHour global warming coverage: IPCC/NOAA Scientists – 18; Skeptic Scientists – 0 (junkscience.com)
Bundler of Sunshine
Obama bundler’s husband has received more than a billion in DOE solar loans
New disclosures show that one of President Obama’s bundlers is the wife of an executive at an energy company that received a more-than-$1.2 billion Department of Energy (DOE) loan guarantee for a solar power plant.
Arvia Few is a bundler for the Obama re-election campaign who has promised to raise between $50,000 and $100,000. She began bundling for Obama in the first quarter of 2012. Her husband, Jason Few, is an executive at a company that has benefited handsomely from the Obama administration’s clean energy spending, records show.
The U.S. Department of Energy granted NRG Solar a $1.237-billion loan in September 2011 to help build NRG’s California Valley Solar Ranch, which is described as “a 250 MW alternating current PV solar generating facility” by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Few became senior vice president of Houston-based Reliant Energy in 2008. He was named President of Reliant in May 2009 when NRG Energy acquired Reliant for $287.5 million. He currently serves as executive vice president and chief customer officer of NRG Energy.
“This investment and its outcome represent a pattern in which the Obama Department of Energy took promises of technological development with an undue amount of credence,” says energy expert Kenneth P. Green, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
“On any given day, there are hucksters who say they can power the world. Unfortunately, there was also an administration that wanted to believe their claims,” Green said. “One has to assume that the administration was more likely to believe the people it knew.”
Other financial interests tied to the Obama administration have also invested in NRG Solar.
Warren Buffett’s MidAmerican Energy holds a stake in another NRG project that received a $967 million Department of Energy loan guarantee.
DOE announced a $967 million loan guarantee to NRG in August 2011 for its $1.8 billion Agua Caliente Solar Project. Agua Caliente will be one of the largest photovoltaic plants in the world upon its completion in 2014.
NRG acquired the Agua Caliente Solar Project from First Solar on August 5, 2011, as DOE announced the loan.
Buffett’s MidAmerican Energy bought a 49 percent stake in NRG’s Agua Caliente project in December 2011.
The multiple DOE loans did not stop NRG Energy from reporting a first-quarter 2012 loss of $206 million.
Even so, NRG has recently expanded its operations.
Since acquiring Reliant in May 2009, NRG Energy has also acquired the offshore wind development company Bluewater Wind, thermal energy company Northwind Phoenix, Texas-based South Trent Wind Farm, Green Mountain Energy Company, Texas-based Cottonwood Generating Station, and Energy Plus Holdings.
In November 2011, NRG Solar further expanded by acquiring the San Francisco-based developer Solar Power Partners.
“When you talk to a lot of people on the environmental left, there’s a deep desire to believe that wind and solar power can help us replace fossil fuels,” Green said. “It’s a naiveté that permeated the administration.”
Jason Few was named to TheGrio’s 100 list honoring “history-makers in the making” in February 2011 despite NRG’s multi-million dollar losses. Few was “turning a profit by greening Texas,” theGrio wrote. The article did not mention the Department of Energy loan program and its relationship with NRG Energy.
Jason Few and NRG Energy did not return calls for comment.
Related articles
- First Solar CEO Admits the Majority of Jobs, Created by $3.1 Billion Taxpayer-Backed DOE Loan, Were Overseas (genomega1.wordpress.com)
- Republicans Grill BrightSource CEO Over Energy Loans (theepochtimes.com)
USA: Eight Firms Plan to Develop Wind Farms Offshore Virginia
As reported by the Associated Press, the potential of the project, aimed at developing wind turbines in the U.S., situated off the Virginia cost and encompassing circa 113,000 acres in the Atlantic Ocean, has been recognized by numerous investors including European ones.
The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, in charge of supervising offshore wind development, published the names of companies that submitted the necessary documentation in order to be eligible for project implementation, those being:
Arcadia Offshore Virginia LLC, New Jersey based branch of Arcadia Windpower, Cirrus Wind Energy Inc., based in Nevada; enXco Development Corp., based in California; Fishermen’s Energy LLC, based in New Jersey; Iberdrola Renewables Inc., an American subsidiary of a Spanish company with offices on the West and East coasts; Orisol Energy US Inc., another Spanish offshoot with American offices in Michigan; Apex Virginia; and Dominion Resources.
The paperwork will be scrutinized by the government regulators, in order to determine what company meets the technical and economic prerequisites in order to be able to push forward with the project implementation.
On March 27, Virginia regulators gave their consent to what might be the first offshore wind turbine built in the United States. Even though the prototype turbine still awaits approval of the U.S. Coast Guard and Army Corps of Engineers, it is said that it will be located in Chesapeake Bay and be able to meet the power needs of 1,250 households. The capacity of the wind turbine will equal to 5 megawatts of electricity and it should be ready for production by the end of 2013.
Related articles
- Virginia Offshore Wind Turbine (jeceblog.com)
- Virginia Offshore Wind Turbine Positioned to be First in U.S. (renewableenergyworld.com)
- Virginia Approves First Offshore Wind-Energy Turbine For US Waters (hardware.slashdot.org)
- Dominion interested in Va offshore wind generation (mysanantonio.com)
Germany: Siemens to Convert Wind Energy into Gas
Siemens AG (SIE) has revealed its intention to introduce technology in 2015 that will enable conversion of wind-turbine electricity into gas, providing wind farms with an alternative revenue stream when the grid is fully charged.
Michael Weinhold, Chief Technology Officer of Siemens’ Energy Businesses, says the electrolyser, a soccer-field sized plant that converts power into storable hydrogen, is in the testing phase, reports Bloomberg. It offers a promising capacity necessary for overcoming the challenge of how to harness fluctuating electricity output from wind farms, especially at night when demand is the lowest.
Munich-based Siemens allocates 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) on annual bases to devising new technology for the energy industry. Wind farms have faced hardship in commercial terms because power cannot be stored on a large scale, however the converted hydrogen can be stored by feeding it into the gas grid.
“The main problem today is the mismatch of renewable power generation and demand,” Weinhold said in an interview. “If we can offer solutions to solve that, we have a business case.”
Related articles
- Siemens Wind Power Parts Hub Opens In Oklahoma (earthtechling.com)
- West Texas Wind Farms (txu.com)
- Wind farms: even worse than we thought… (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
Let consumers, not bureaucrats decide our country’s energy future
While President Obama is trying futilely to convince the American people he supports an “all of the above” energy policy, he has remained stubbornly committed to vast subsidies for unproven, expensive technologies like wind.
Obama has repeatedly described his intention to increase wind subsidies “doubling down,” an appropriate use of gambling terminology.
The U.S. Senate will likely be put on record soon on amendment votes to extend wasteful, expensive subsidies for windmills and to create vast new subsidies for natural gas vehicles. These votes will tell us which senators, like the president, want to double down on a losing hand and which think it might be time to try a free market energy policy.
Sadly, it is hardly a given that Republicans will oppose massive taxpayer-funded giveaways to favored energy players. The clearest evidence of that comes from New Jersey, where Governor Chris Christie has led the way on a disastrous proposed offshore wind scheme.
New Jersey’s offshore wind boondoggle was authorized by the Offshore Wind Economic Development Act, signed into law by Gov. Christie in 2010. A cost analysis of the act conducted by the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University concluded that the wind project would cost the state as much as $4.1 billion, drive up electricity rates up as much as 4.2% and cost up to 4,440 jobs. More recently a consulting firm hired by state officials to analyze the bid from Fishermen’s Atlantic, LLC to construct the project found that it would result in the loss of almost 30,000 jobs, and drive up electricity rates by $286 million.
With hefty federal subsidies for wind in place, such boondoggles will continue to spring up around the country. Fortunately, the principal federal subsidy for wind, the so-called Production Tax Credit (PTC) is scheduled to expire at the end of this year. Unfortunately, the Senate will soon vote on extending this giveaway, despite the fact that wind is second only to solar in subsidies and is highly suspect both economically and environmentally.
While Obama tells us it’s time to end the outrageous subsidies for fossil fuels, the facts are the vast majority of subsidies go to wind and solar. — In 2010, subsidies per megawatt-hour were $0.63 for natural gas, $0.64 for coal, $52 for wind, and $968 for solar.
Instead of looking at those numbers and concluding it’s time to pull the plug on wind subsidies and even more scandalous solar subsidies, some Washington politicians look at them and conclude we need to massively increase subsidies for natural gas.
The Senate is poised to vote on doing just that, on an amendment that would add the provisions of the so-called Nat Gas Act to the surface transportation bill. This amendment, sponsored by New Jersey’s Senator Robert Menendez, would provide hefty subsidies – up to $64,000 per truck – to subsidize the conversion of vehicles to natural gas.
The bill, sadly, has bipartisan support, including from Republicans like Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, who apparently believes that the only difference between Republicans and Democrats is which industries they prefer to choose to lavish with special giveaways.
The consequences of huge subsidies to shift natural gas into the transportation sector are easy to foresee. If we artificially boost demand at taxpayer expense, prices will go up. That means higher natural gas bills for home heating bills, and it means higher prices for all the industries that use natural gas as a feedstock.
Just as ethanol subsidies rippled through corn prices to higher food prices, natural gas subsidies would have economy-wide effects through higher prices for chemicals, plastics, and fertilizers.
Moreover, with natural gas prices collapsing thanks to the fracking revolution, these subsidies are wholly unnecessary.
As long as the EPA and overzealous state regulators can be kept at bay, natural gas vehicles will come to market without subsidies. In fact, this week Chrysler and General Motors announced duel-fuel pick-up trucks that run on both compressed natural gas and gasoline.
Why not let consumers decide if they want these vehicles, instead of putting a government thumb on the scale at a cost of billions of dollars?
In the aftermath of Solyndra, politicians should recognize that its time to pull the plug on energy subsidies, scale back on onerous regulations, and let consumers, not bureaucrats, decide our country’s energy future. The U.S. Senate should therefore reject both on the PTC and Nat Gas amendments.
Phil Kerpen is vice president for policy at Americans for Prosperity and the author of “Democracy Denied” (BenBella Books, 2011). Steve Lonegan is executive director of Americans for Prosperity – New Jersey.
Read more: Fox News
Related articles
- Subsidized Windmills: Symbols of Corruption and Incompetence (tarpon.wordpress.com)
- Removing the disconnect between talk and action on energy policy (mb50.wordpress.com)
- Sen. Alexander seeks end to wind energy tax credit (knoxnews.com)
- Action Alert: Oppose the Wind Energy Production Tax Credit (junkscience.com)
CAGW Names Energy Sec. Steven Chu 2011 Porker of the Year
(Washington, D.C.) – Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) announced the results of its online poll for the 2011 Porker of the Year. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu won with 43 percent of the vote. Second place went to Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) with 27 percent, and third-place honors were awarded to Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon with 16 percent. Honorable mentions go out to Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), and National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis.
Sec. Chu’s weak oversight of DOE’s loan guarantee program (LGP) resulted in huge losses to taxpayers when solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, the recipient of a $535 million loan guarantee, filed for bankruptcy in September, 2011. Solyndra was granted the $535 million loan through a green energy technology section of the LGP, which received a massive increase in funding on the 2009 stimulus package. The LGP program itself has been the subject of three Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports since its inception, all detailing its management weaknesses, arbitrary selection process, and vulnerabilities to manipulation and politicization.
To make matters worse, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced that Solyndra’s former employees qualify for federal aid packages worth $13,000 each under DOL’s Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, which compensates and retrains American workers who can prove that their jobs were lost as a result of foreign competition. The TAA benefits far exceed normal unemployment benefits. The DOL granted TAA to Solyndra’s employees by accepting the company’s claim that it went belly up as a result of unfair competition by Chinese solar panel manufacturers, rather than from mismanagement by company executives.
Unfortunately, Solyndra was not Sec. Chu’s and DOE’s only ill-fated LGP recipient. Beacon Power and Evergreen, Inc., both of Massachusetts, along with Ener1 of Delaware and SpectraWatt of Oregon, have filed for bankruptcy after receiving DOE loan guarantees. In addition, Fisker Automotive, which was awarded a $529 million loan guarantee, announced layoffs at its Delaware plant after the government halted payments due to “delays” in its production schedule. A July, 2010 GAO report concluded that the LGP lacked clear goals and failed to hold all applicants to the same standards. GAO said that the LGP “has treated applicants inconsistently, favoring some and disadvantaging others,” and that “some applicants … receive conditional commitments before incurring expenses that other applicants had to pay. It is unclear how DOE could have sufficient information to negotiate conditional commitments without such reviews.”
“Sec. Chu dismissed numerous warning signs that the LGP was a ticking time bomb,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. “The dramatic program expansion in 2009 and the continued funneling of taxpayer dollars toward poor investments reeks of poor management and crony capitalism, since Solyndra’s major investors were among the President’s largest campaign donors. If this is the Obama administration’s idea of how America can ‘invest’ in its economic recovery, taxpayers would much rather keep the money and do it themselves.”
For acting as if winning a Nobel Prize in physics also magically confers the title of venture capitalist, and for frittering away taxpayers’ hard-earned money, DOE Sec. Steven Chu is CAGW’s 2011 Porker of the Year.
Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Year is a dubious honor given to a lawmaker, government official, or political candidate who has shown the most blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers throughout the year.
Related articles
- CAGW Names Sec. Chu Porker of the Month (gloucestercitynews.net)
- White House audit finds oversight needed with DOE advanced vehicle loans (green.autoblog.com)
- Porker Of The Month, or The Last Three Years? (onthearizonaborder.wordpress.com)
Why Wind Power Doesn’t Live up to its Environmental Promises
By MasterResource | Wed, 18 January 2012 01:33
“I cannot abide the suggestion that we must sacrifice our environment in order to save it. This is an absurd argument enabling this energy imposter’s invasion of delicate habitat with little return. … Environmentalists must consider the possibility that industrial wind, by its failure to perform to stated goals, does not then qualify for this sacred consideration.”
The heavily funded and admittedly effective U.S. industrial wind lobby portrays its product as descending from old-world windmills. Close your eyes and you’ll surely imagine these magnificent machines gently turning in the breeze … each kilowatt arriving at your reading lamp courtesy of a rosy–cheeked Hummel child.
Existing solely to save the planet by generating clean, affordable and environmentally friendly electricity, you can be sure that any addition to the plant owner’s bank account is purely accidental.
Hogwash!
In reality, the U.S. industrial wind business was rescued by Ken Lay and Enron with quick, low-risk profit as its core goal. As Gabriel Alonso, chief executive of Horizon Wind Energy LLC – one of America’s biggest wind developers, often reminds his employees … their goal isn’t to stage a renewable-energy revolution … “This is about making money!”
Once a Believer
I was not always this cynical. I wanted to believe that industrial wind would replace fossil fuelled power plants and, until two years ago, defended its arrival here. Like many West Virginians, I wanted the destruction of our mountains by those who profit from the blue diamond stopped … NOW!
I believed industrial wind offered the best opportunity to accomplish that goal and, even recognizing industrial wind also consumes our forest lands, it seemed an excellent alternative to the coal industry’s horribly destructive mountaintop removal mining process.
Sadly, once the layers of woulds, coulds and shoulds were peeled back, I found industrial wind failed to keep its environmental promises. Save the canned boilerplate responses to criticisms, the wind industry offered nothing conclusive to demonstrate it would significantly reduce emissions or close fossil fuelled plants. There is no conclusive evidence that one coal plant has been closed as a direct result of the installation of tens of thousands of wind turbines. Not one! I’ve asked advocates to name one facility. Answer … zippo!
I fully expect advocates to point to many studies which validate their woulds and shoulds. But the studies they point to carry their own fair share of woulds and shoulds as well.
We’re even asked to disregard the increased emissions generated by fossil fueled plants as they inefficiently try to compensate for wind’s constant variability and accept that, on their word alone, when the wind is blowing, a coal plant, somewhere, is not running. That’s equivalent to some self-appointed Giraffe Control Officer bragging that not one has been spotted in Charleston during his watch.
Consider this measure instead. US industrial wind capacity at the end of 2010 exceeded 40,000 MW. The U.S. has some 490 coal power plants with an average size of 667 MW. A direct one-to-one trade would have closed some 60 coal plants. Again … name one!
Bringing this closer to home … Edison Mission Energy is heavily invested in Appalachian coal-fired power plants even as it grows its Appalachian wind plants. Can we expect Edison to replace its fossil plants as it opens wind plants with equivalent MW capacity? Will any of the major players holding significant interest in both fossil fueled plants and wind plants make this commitment? I suggest they will not, as long as there is profit to be made from each.
The sad truth is that industrial wind does not replace fossil-fueled electricity generators. It does not reduce emissions. It does not provide affordable, on-demand electricity. The relatively miniscule amount of electricity generated typically arrives when it’s not needed and cannot effectively be stored. Industrial wind, true to Ken Lay’s intent, is a profit center founded on favorable legislation, mandated renewable energy goals and funded by taxpayer subsidies.
Conversion Experience
I did not come to the “dark side” willingly. At the suggestion of a friend, I attended a presentation on industrial wind at which the speaker systematically destroyed any notion that industrial wind has earned a seat at the US energy table.
Expecting yet another NIMBY rant, the presenter [ed. note: John Droz Jr.] instead based his case that industrial wind is a failed technology on science alone. There was little mention of view-shed, bat/bird kills, noise or health issues, all of which I’ve since learned are serious issues in their own right. The presenter focused primarily on the poor performance and high cost of industrial wind and the fact that it could never replace current generators, my main reason for initially supporting industrial wind.
Knowing that the two key representatives of our proposed wind plant were introduced as being in the audience, I could hardly wait for the question-and-answer session. This was going to be a knock down for the ages! Just wait until they set this clown straight!
Then, the presenter wrapped up and said the magic words I’d been waiting for … Any Questions? My gladiators stood up and walked out! Not a word! No defense! How could they let this brutal attack stand?
That was my turning point. Suspicion drove me to read any article I could find about industrial wind, and the more I learned the more I disliked these monstrous contraptions which were scheduled to invade my Appalachian Mountains by the tens of thousands.
What I Have Learned
Before this event, I was willing, like many of my friends, to sacrifice a mountain view, some bats and birds and even the hard earned tax dollars these wind folks would pick from my pocket if it meant the greater good would be served.
What I learned, however, lead me to the conclusion that there is no trade.
• Coal plants will continue to exist at pre-wind levels and the mines will remain open in order to supply them.
• Emissions will not be reduced as a result of industrial wind. When asked if wind power was reducing carbon emissions, Deb Malin, a Bonneville Power Authority Representative, answered, “No. They are, in fact, creating emissions.”
• Not only will the surface destruction brought about by mountain top removal mining not be reduced as a result of wind plants, industrial wind will bring destruction well above the ground in areas not previously impacted by mountain top removal.
• The cumulative impact of long stretches of deadly 450 foot tall whirlybirds along our fragile mountain ridges will set a deadly gauntlet for many migratory species with no real benefit to show for the sacrifice.
• The arguably unnecessary remote wind installations require long runs of forest fragmenting high power lines required to bring the occasional electricity generated to a point of use.
• My picked pocket only serves to benefit the wind developers.
I cannot abide the suggestion that we must sacrifice our environment in order to save it. This is an absurd argument enabling this energy imposter’s invasion of delicate habitat with little return. Sacrifice is, after all, a forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of something one considered to have a greater value or claim. Environmentalists must consider the possibility that industrial wind, by its failure to perform to stated goals, does not then qualify for this sacred consideration.
Affiliations
My comments here are my own. I am a member of the Board of Directors for the Allegheny Highlands Alliance, but do not speak for the organization in this commentary. I serve as editor of the Allegheny Treasures blog, an amateur site intended not to answer questions, but instead to stimulate discussion of industrial wind among readers, as I hope to do in this piece.
I arrived at my opinions after all consideration to the argument presented by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and other industrial wind support groups. I’ll be the first to admit I could be wrong, as I was when I supported industrial wind just two years ago. If a persuasive argument can be made to sway me back, I assure you I’ll happily move.
But I should warn you, the argument must begin with a list of coal- plant closings and not easily manipulated speculative “data.” Empty promises will not justify consuming even one more square inch of Appalachian forest.
Oh, before I’m criticized on the property rights issue … I firmly believe that you should be allowed to do anything you wish with your property as long as it brings no harm to others. But whatever you choose, don’t ask me to underwrite your adventure with my tax money in the form of subsidies, grants, or any other considerations from which you profit.
Beyond NIMBY
I am not insulted at the NIMBY (not-in-my-back-yard) moniker the wind advocates apply to me. I would take it one step further and suggest they call me a NOPE (not-on-planet-earth)!
I believe we are all responsible for our environment and must challenge every intrusion. We cannot accept, without question, the possibility that what has been portrayed as a solution may, in fact, create additional ills, no matter how much we want to believe.
Moving the country away from fossil fuels is one thing; choosing an alternative with no proven track record in accomplishing this effort, especially one with industrial wind’s potential for serious environmental destruction is quite another.
By. Michael Morgan
Michael Morgan is a “no party” West Virginian with a self-described “nose for nonsense.” A semi-retired Project Management and Transportation Consultant, he worked as Transportation/Materials Manager for an international manufacturer of large hydro turbine equipment and, before that, as Materials Manager with a Fortune 500 company.
“While I can’t claim to be an environmentalist,” Morgan adds, “growing up along the Allegheny Front dictates a respect for the environment and demands scrutiny of any intrusion.”
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- (MONITOR) Ruth Lea: Wind power is one of the great follies of our age. #windfarms (dreadnoughtuk.wordpress.com)
- Wind power is expensive and ineffective at cutting CO2 say Civitas (telegraph.co.uk)
- Encouraging Investment Is Key To U.S. Offshore Wind Development (earthtechling.com)
- Scheme to finance onshore wind farms (premierlinedirect.co.uk)
Continents of the World
Mb50's "Liquid Mud" Rant 