Better Plan, Wisconsin

HEALTH WOES FORCE FAMILY TO MOVE AWAY FROM TURBINES

SOURCE The Cap Times, host.madison.com

March 8, 2012 

On May 8, 2011, I left my home in Glenmore due to many health problems that are a result from the Shirley wind project built at the end of 2010. Inside my home, I was able to detect when the turbines were turning on and off by the uncharacteristic sensation in my ears. In early 2011, I started noticing extreme headaches, ear pain and sleep deprivation, all three things that had been either a rarity for me, or nonexistent. This caused me to struggle especially with my high school work. After staying away from my home for a week and a half, my symptoms started to subside. The longer I was away, the better I felt.

Due to these health issues, I spent all summer living in a camper with my family away from the turbines, only returning to the Shirley area when necessary. It would take me around three days after being in the area for my ears to drain and for pressure to release from my head. At the end of August, my family reluctantly purchased another small house away from the wind turbines, leaving us paying two mortgages. Through no fault of our own, this has put a financial burden on my family.

I have not been in the Shirley area since Nov. 19 and I do not experience headaches anymore and I can sleep soundly. My ears, however, are still sensitive to the cold and loud noises and they hurt with every cold I get. I wonder if this damage to my ears will ever go away.

The magnitude of this issue is of utmost importance to me and many other citizens living near the Shirley industrial wind turbines.

Alyssa Ashley

De Pere

Second feature

WINDMILLS VS. BIRDS

By Robert Bryce,

SOURCE The Wall Street Journal, wsj.com

March 7, 2012 

For years, the wind energy industry has had a license to kill golden eagles and lots of other migratory birds. It’s not an official license, mind you.

But as the bird carcasses pile up—two more dead golden eagles were recently found at the Pine Tree wind project in Southern California’s Kern County, bringing the number of eagle carcasses at that site to eight—the wind industry’s unofficial license to kill wildlife is finally getting some serious scrutiny.

Some 77 organizations—led by the American Bird Conservancy, Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, Endangered Species Coalition and numerous chapters of the Audubon Society—are petitioning the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to toughen the rules for the siting, permitting and operation of large-scale wind projects.

It’s about time. Over the past two decades, the federal government has prosecuted hundreds of cases against oil and gas producers and electricity producers for violating some of America’s oldest wildlife-protection laws: the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and Eagle Protection Act.

But the Obama administration—like the Bush administration before it—has never prosecuted the wind industry despite myriad examples of widespread, unpermitted bird kills by turbines. A violation of either law can result in a fine of up to $250,000 and imprisonment for two years.

The renewed focus on bird kills is coming at a bad time for the wind industry, which is being hammered by low natural-gas prices and a Congress unwilling to extend the 2.2 cents per-kilowatt-hour production tax credit that has fueled the industry’s growth in recent years.

Last June, the Los Angeles Times reported that about 70 golden eagles are being killed per year by the wind turbines at Altamont Pass, about 20 miles east of Oakland, Calif. A 2008 study funded by the Alameda County Community Development Agency estimated that about 2,400 raptors, including burrowing owls, American kestrels, and red-tailed hawks—as well as about 7,500 other birds, nearly all of which are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act—are being killed every year by the turbines at Altamont.

A pernicious double standard is at work here. And it riles Eric Glitzenstein, a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer who wrote the petition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He told me, “It’s absolutely clear that there’s been a mandate from the top” echelons of the federal government not to prosecute the wind industry for violating wildlife laws.

Mr. Glitzenstein comes to this issue from the left. Before forming his own law firm, he worked for Public Citizen, an organization created by Ralph Nader. When it comes to wind energy, he says, “Many environmental groups have been claiming that too few people are paying attention to the science of climate change, but some of those same groups are ignoring the science that shows wind energy’s negative impacts on bird and bat populations.”

That willful ignorance may be ending. The Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife recently filed a lawsuit against officials in Kern County, Calif., in an effort to block the construction of two proposed wind projects—North Sky River and Jawbone—due to concerns about their impact on local bird populations. The groups oppose the projects because of their proximity to the deadly Pine Tree facility, which the Fish and Wildlife Service believes is killing 1,595 birds, or about 12 birds per megawatt of installed capacity, per year.

The only time a public entity has pressured the wind industry for killing birds occurred in 2010, when California brokered a $2.5 million settlement with NextEra Energy Resources for bird kills at Altamont. The lawyer on that case: former attorney general and current Gov. Jerry Brown, who’s now pushing the state to get 33% of its electricity from renewables by 2020.

Bats are getting whacked, too. The Pennsylvania Game Commission estimates that wind turbines killed more than 10,000 bats in the state in 2010.

Despite the toll that wind turbines are taking on wildlife, the wind industry wants to keep its get-out-of-jail-free card. Last May, the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed new guidelines for wind-turbine installations. But the American Wind Energy Association quickly panned the proposed rules as “unworkable.”

Given that billions of dollars are at stake, the wind industry’s objections don’t surprise Mr. Glitzenstein. And while the lawyer wants more thorough environmental review of proposed wind projects, what he’s really hoping for is a good federal prosecution. So far, he says, the Interior Department has been telling the wind industry: “‘No matter what you do, you need not worry about being prosecuted.’ To me, that’s appalling public policy.”

Video courtesy of The Forest Voice-- Residents speak about life with 500 foot turbines in the Shirley wind project, Brown County, Wisconsin.

AID FOR WIND TURBINE VICTIMS SOUGHT

Brown Co. panel: State should pay medical bills for those near wind farm

by Doug Schneider,

via Green Bay Press-Gazette, www.greenbaypressgazette.com

January 26, 2012 

Supervisor Patrick Evans said the government must do more to protect citizens until more is known about potential dangers, saying at least two local families living near wind farms have abandoned their homes and others lost thousands of dollars because livestock died mysteriously. “This problem is very real,” he said.

Wisconsin should pay the medical bills of Brown County residents who were made ill by industrial wind turbines, some county supervisors say.

Saying the state allowed “irresponsible placement” of industrial wind turbines in the Glenmore area, the Brown County Human Services Committee has approved a measure to ask the state to pay emergency aid to families living near the Shirley Wind Farm.

The request, which seeks an unspecified amount until the “hardships are studied and resolved,” could come before the full County Board next month.

It is the latest attempt by county supervisors and other officials to manage an issue in which some residents began experiencing conditions such as anxiety, depression, weight loss and increased cancer risks since the wind farm was erected in 2010.

“There is a 70-year-old woman who lost 20 pounds from not being able to eat,” said Barbara Vanden Boogart, a member of the Brown County Citizens for Responsible Wind Energy, an advocacy group. “There are two adults who sleep an average of one and a half hours a night.”

Shirley’s operators insist their facility has been built and operated safely.

Wind farms have been a topic of debate in Wisconsin in the past several years. Advocates say wind pollutes less than coal and is less expensive and less potentially dangerous than nuclear energy.

Officials say the facilities’ record isn’t good enough. The County Board resolution says the state was irresponsible in allowing the Shirley Wind Farm to be built without consulting an expert on the medical consequences of living near wind turbines.

Supervisors said they had no indication Wednesday of how the state would respond to their request. They said the answer would be up to officials in Madison to resolve this spring.

Supervisor Patrick Evans said the government must do more to protect citizens until more is known about potential dangers, saying at least two local families living near wind farms have abandoned their homes and others lost thousands of dollars because livestock died mysteriously.

“This problem is very real,” he said. Being upstairs in a house near the Shirley facility, he said, “felt after 10 or 12 minutes like you were getting carbon-monoxide poisoning.”

Lawmakers also are calling on the state to adopt turbine-siting guidelines approved by citizens groups.

State Sen. Frank Lasee, R-Ledgeview, last week introduced a bill to allow cities, villages, towns and counties to establish the minimum distance between a wind turbine and a home — even if those rules are more restrictive than any the state enacts.

Statewide wind-siting rules, more than a year in the making, were suspended last March. Lawmakers sent those rules, which dealt with farms of less than 100 megawatts, back to the state Public Service Commission, where they have stayed as officials worked to reach a compromise.

Lack of regulatory agreement, particularly on the issue of how far a turbine must be from a property line, has tempered enthusiasm about wind farms. A corporation in 2011 scrapped plans for a 100-turbine development in the Morrison-Glenmore area.

On the net

» Wisconsin Citizens Safe Wind-Siting Guidelines: http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wisconsin-citizens-safe-wind-siting-guidelines

NOTE FROM THE BPWI RESEARCH NERD: The families having trouble living with the Brown County turbines are not alone: 

CLICK HERE to see photos and read the daily wind turbine noise log kept by a resident living in the Invenergy wind project near the Town of Byron in Fond du Lac County 

SECOND FEATURE

From Ontario

LOCAL HEALTH EXPERT: LOTS OF ROOM IN CANADA FOR WIND TURBINES

by David Meyer,

Via The Wellington Advertiser, www.wellingtonadvertiser.com

January 27, 2012 

Dr. Jeff Aramini is a public health epidemiologist and former senior scientist with Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada. He and his family live 2.5km from a proposed wind farm near Belwood.

He has just taken part in a study of the alleged effects of wind turbines on health in two communities in Maine, in the United States, and the results indicate the closer wind turbines are to people’s home, the higher their chance of sleep disruption and their chances of suffering depression.

C. WELLINGTON TWP. – Opponents of industrial wind turbines have been telling the provincial government for several years it needs to do some health studies before approving such machines close to homes.

Some of those opponents did not wait for the province. Dr. Jeff Aramini is a public health epidemiologist and former senior scientist with Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada. He and his family live 2.5km from a proposed wind farm near Belwood.

He has just taken part in a study of the alleged effects of wind turbines on health in two communities in Maine, in the United States, and the results indicate the closer wind turbines are to people’s home, the higher their chance of sleep disruption and their chances of suffering depression.

Aramini said in an interview on Monday people opposed to wind farms in the Belwood area asked him to check health effects because of his expertise in that field.

His partners were Dr. Michael Nissenbaum of the Northern Maine Medical Center in Fort Kent, and Dr. Chris Hanning, of University Hospitals of Leicester, in the United Kingdom.

Aramini said in an interview the two communities studied are “not unlike anything here.”

He said it was “a little surprising the health effect that came across the strongest was depression.”

The study was peer reviewed, which means experts from around the world had an opportunity to comment on it. The study was published last year in the 10th International Congress on Noise as a public health problem in Great Britain.

The peer review is important for those opposing wind turbines.

Janet Vallery, a spokesman for Oppose Belwood Windfarm, highlighted a difference between the study Aramini was involved in and the studies being cited by the provincial government.

“The Ontario provincial government used literature reviews as a basis for determining setbacks,” she said. “This new research deems setbacks less than 1.5km must be regarded as unsafe.”

Aramini said the questionnaire tool used for the research “has been used millions of times around the world.”

The researchers found, “It wasn’t simply close and far … It was, the closer you get, the [more] progressively your risk rises.”

He noted, too, that only adults were considered in the study, and wondered what effects sleep disruption would have on children.

“Losing sleep is a big deal. In kids, it affects their learning,” said Aramini.

There were about 80 adults involved in the Maine study, with about half living 2 to 3km away from a turbine, and others lived farther away than 3km.

The Ontario setbacks from human habitation is 550 metres and Aramini said that increases chances of people suffering from clinical depression by 369%.

“It’s doubling to tripling the chance of you being at risk if living that close,” he said, adding if just one person is affected badly, it is too many. “We’re talking about real people.”

Aramini said people ask him regularly about how close they can live to turbines, and if he would buy a home close to one.

“If you’re within 2km, I’d think twice,” he said about purchasing a home, adding he suggests people talk to their physician prior to turbines going in if they live near where the machines are proposed.

Aramini said it is vexing the provincial government is forcing people to endure turbines when there is plenty of land available that is not anywhere near human habitation.

“The thing that disappoints me is Canada is a big place. Surely we can put them in a place away … For God’s sake, put them out in the middle of nowhere, away from people.”

Unfortunately, he said of the issue, “Clearly there’s a lot of politics and money involved.”

Despite the study’s claims to the contrary, the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) maintains there is no “conclusive” correlation between turbines and health issues.

From Kansas:

A TRANSMISSION PROBLEM

READ THE ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE Salina Journal, www.salina.co

July 4, 2011

By MICHAEL STRAND

“Most of us found out about it when we started seeing stakes in our front yards,”

ELLSWORTH — The first time many property owners heard of plans to build a high-voltage transmission line along their street was when the marker flags and stakes showed up.

And by then, the decision had already been made.

“Most of us found out about it when we started seeing stakes in our front yards,” said Caleb Schultz, one of about 100 people who live along 10th and 11th roads in western Ellsworth County, where Wind Capital Group is planning to build a line to connect a wind farm in the northern part of the county to a power substation in Rice County. Construction is scheduled to start in September.

The 134 turbines will generate 201 megawatts of power, and “one of the necessary parts of the project is getting the power to market,” explained Dean Baumgardner, executive vice president of Wind Capital.

Baumgardner said the 31-mile route was chosen as the most direct route between the wind farm and the substation.

“Given federal regulatory agencies, environmental concerns and the effect on landowners, we want as direct a route as possible,” he said. “Fish and wildlife and the Corps of Engineers prefer we use areas that are already developed — rather than go through pristine areas.”

This doesn’t seem right

Kent Janssen said he first found out about the proposed transmission line by reading about it in the minutes of an Ellsworth County Commission meeting.

“But I had no clue about the size, that it was going to be a main transmission line, with 75-foot poles,” he said. “Just to have stakes start showing up, and being told this is going to happen just doesn’t seem right.”

Janssen said the line will run within 100 yards of some homes, and predicts the line will lower property values.

“There’s plenty of room to run this and not get within a quarter or a half-mile of a house,” he said, noting that such transmission lines usually cut cross country, rather than following a road.

Susan Thorton is also “disappointed” with both Wind Capital and the county commission.

“I really was disappointed that we found out through neighbors,” she said. “They should have gotten our opinions before decisions were made. We at least would have felt like we had our say — and if they’d listened to our concerns, it might not have turned out that way.”

It’s out of our hands

Ellsworth County Commissioner Kermit Rush said the discussion now needs to be between Wind Capital and people along the proposed route.

“It’s kind of out of our hands,” he said. “We have an agreement to let them use the right of way.”

Rush said that in the past, the county has worked with two other wind farm projects, “and those were never a problem.”

“As commissioners, we make a lot of decisions,” Rush said. “If we had to call the public each time, I’m not sure we’d get anything done.”

We all like wind power

None of those interviewed said they oppose wind power in general, or the Wind Capital project.

“I have no problem with wind power, or with transmission lines,” Thorton said. “Just not right on top of our homes.”

“I want to stress, I am for wind energy, and I’m for the transmission line,” Janssen said. “I’m happy for the guys up north that are getting the towers — we just want the line run in a responsible way.”

Janssen added that he’d been neutral on wind power up to 2006 — when the first wind company to build in Ellsworth County hosted a meeting with county commissioners to outline its plans to the public.

Done

As for not talking to people along the route first, Baumgardner said he’s been involved in projects like this for years, and “No matter who you talk to first, the other one always thinks you should have talked with them first,” he said. “We approached the county and township people first. We’ve met with every landowner along the route, now — but hadn’t when we first met with the local governments.”

NOISY WIND FARM DROVE COUPLE OUT OF THEIR HOME

READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE The Telegraph, www.telegraph.co.uk

July 4, 2011

A couple who say they were driven out of their family farm by the “nightmare” hum of wind turbines have mounted a ground-breaking £2.5 million compensation bid in London’s High Court.

Jane and Julian Davis, moved out of Grays Farm, Deeping St Nicholas, near Spalding, Lincs, four years ago because of the strain of living with the incessant noise.

And now they are taking on a local windfarm and other defendants in a pioneering case which will test the law on whether the sound created by the turbines amounts to a noise nuisance.

Mrs Davis, whose husband’s family cultivated Grays Farm for over 20 years before they were uprooted by the noise, said it had been a “nightmare living there”, and that they had no option but to leave.

Speaking before today’s High Court hearing, she added: “The noise is unpredictable and mainly occurs at night, you can never get to bed with the assurance that you will stay asleep.

“It’s incredibly unpredictable.”

In a bid to recreate the effect, she mimicked a sound she said was “something between a whirr and a hum”, adding that it was the peculiar, insidious “character” of the noise which made it so unsettling.

“You can’t even have a barbeque,” she said.

The couple are suing local landowners – RC Tinsley Ltd and Nicholas Watts, on whose land some of the turbines have been sited – as well as Fenland Windfarms Ltd and Fenland Green Power Cooperative Ltd, who own and operate the turbines.

Their lawyers are seeking either a permanent injunction to shut down the turbines or damages of up to £2.5 million to compensate the couple for the disruptive effects on their lives.

They have not returned to their home since 2007, and are now living in Spalding.

Mrs Davis said before the hearing she had no quarrel with the appearance of the turbines – only with the unsettling effects of the noise.

“We want them to stop the noise so we can move back in,” she said, adding: “We want them to recognise that the noise is a nuisance so we can go back and get some rest and sleep like we did five years ago. ”

The couple’s QC, Peter Harrison, said that, for his clients, windfarms “have emphatically not been the source of trouble-free, green and renewable energy which the firms promoting and profiting from wind energy would have the general public believe”.

The Davis’ had, instead, faced an operator which “has refused to acknowledge the noise their turbines make and the effect that that has had on the lives of these claimants”.

“Their lives have been wholly disrupted by that noise”, he told the court, also alleging that the main operator had tried to “impose a code of silence on those examining or recording the noise that these turbines in this location have caused”.

They had, he claimed, tried to “attack the credibility and reasonableness of the claimants rather than examine what they were actually being told”.

“From the defendants’ witness statements, and the material they wish to put before the court, it seems that those attempts to undermine the claimants, to say they are over-sensitive, that they are exaggerating and over-reacting, will continue during the trial,” the barrister added.

He claimed the defendants had been irked by Mrs Davis’ eagerness to “speak publicly about her experiences” and that she was being attacked for simply refusing to “put up with the noise”.

“To not quietly accept your fate, it appears, is the ultimate provocation,” he said.

The QC said the case was not a test of the Governement’s Green policies, but concerned the Davis’ wish to “get on with their lives and get back into their house”.

Although the case will hinge on technical arguments about measuring the “Amplitude Modulation” (AM) given off by the turbines, there are also vexed issues about the extent to which the defendants were given a fair opportunity to monitor the noise levels.

The hearing before Mr Justice Hickinbottom continues.

FROM HAWAII

BIG WIND PROJECT HAS TO BE KILLED BEFORE IT KILLS OUR POCKETBOOKS

READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: Honolulu Star-Advertiser, www.staradvertiser.com

July 3, 2011

By Mike Bond,

Like some bizarre weapon of the former Soviet Union, Big Wind is finally being revealed for what it is: an engineering and financial tsunami that will enrich its backers and leave the rest of us far worse than before.

Its promised 400 mega-watts (MW), at the outrageous cost of $3 billion to $4 billion, makes no economic sense, but the full story is even worse.

Because wind is so inconsistent, Big Wind will produce only about 20 percent of that fictional 400 MW, or 80 MW (the Bonneville Power Administration, with 12 percent of America’s wind generation in one of its windiest locations, gets only 19 percent of its installed capacity).

And because most wind power is produced in non-peak hours when it can’t be used, turbines must then be shut down (curtailed). This “curtailment factor” lowers Big Wind’s potential 80 MW to about 48 MW. An additional 2-3 MW will be lost across the cable, bringing Big Wind down to 45 MW.

Moreover, wind requires backup fossil generation to run parallel offline for when the wind fluctuates or stops.

Called spinning reserve, this backup generation wastes millions of kilowatts and brings the Big Wind’s net generation down to about 40 MW.

And it’s why countries with extensive wind power like the United Kingdom, Denmark and Germany are finding wind power doesn’t reduce their dependence on fossil fuels.

Hawaiian Electric Co. could build a new 40 MW power plant on 30 acres of Oahu rather than 22,000 acres of Molokai and Lanai, and with no billion-dollar cable, for a fraction of Big Wind’s costs and carbon dioxide emissions. Or for Big Wind’s $3 billion, HECO could install rooftop solar on 165,000 homes, generate more power than Big Wind, and create 1,000 Hawaiian jobs, whereas Big Wind will create only a handful.

With rooftop solar, customers need only HECO for load-balancing and low-demand night use, thereby depriving HECO of its cash cow, the captive consumer. That’s why HECO has limited rooftop solar to 15 percent on its circuits. It’s as if we’re told we can’t grow vegetables in our own gardens; we have to buy Mexican vegetables from a supermarket chain.

Conservation is even easier, since 2008 state agencies have cut electricity use 8.6 percent at almost no cost. This could easily be implemented throughout Oahu, twice Big Wind’s net generation and saving $3 billion to $4 billion.

In fact, no developer will even touch Big Wind unless the entire $1 billion for the undersea cable can be charged to HECO customers, raising our electricity bills by 30 percent.

Contrary to the governor and HECO et al., Big Wind should be in public scrutiny. This is known as democracy.

And they should admit other potential tragic costs of this project, including the desecration of 35 square miles of beautiful coastal wilderness, possible damage to archaeological sites and endangered birds, a reduction in neighboring property values, and dynamiting in America’s finest coral reef and the Hawaiian National Whale Sanctuary.

No wonder that opposition to Big Wind is 98 percent on Molokai and nearly that on Lanai.

And when our nation is suffering the worst financial crisis in its history, a pork-barrel project adding billions more to our deficits seems nearly treasonous.

“The truth shall make us free” is a maxim of democracy. The opposite is also true: Cover-ups steal our freedom.

The governor, HECO et al. should realize that Maui, Lanai and Molokai are not colonies, nor part of the former Soviet Union. It’s time we were given the truth about Big Wind, so this ridiculous project can be quickly killed before it eats us all out of house and home.

Molokai resident Mike Bond is a former CEO of an international energy company, adviser to more than 70 utilities and energy companies, and author of studies on electricity transmission, cable operations and power generation alternatives.

When Water Overpowers, Wind Farms Get Steamed.

 SOURCE: National Public Radio, www.npr.org

July 3, 2011

by Martin Kaste

The Pacific Northwest is suffering from too much of a good thing — electricity. It was a snowy winter and a wet spring, and there’s lots of water behind the dams on the Columbia River, creating an oversupply of hydropower. As a result, the region’s new wind farms are being ordered to throttle back — and they’re not happy.

It seems like a simple problem to fix: if there’s too much water behind the dams, why not just dump some of it? Just bypass the power generators and spill it? Would that we could, says Doug Johnson, spokesman for the Bonneville Power Authority. When you spill water over a dam, he says, it gets mixed with nitrogen from the air — and that’s not good for the salmon.

“What it can do is give the juvenile fish a condition similar to the bends, similar to what scuba divers experience,” he says.

So Bonneville — a federal agency that runs the power transmission system in the region — has been ordering wind farms offline, usually in the middle of the night when demand is lowest. Wind farm companies are crying foul.

Another Option

“This is not about fish protection, this is strictly about economics,” says Jan Johnson, a spokeswoman for Iberdrola Renewables, which has 722 wind turbines in the Pacific Northwest.

“There’s options,” she says. “In other parts of the country — in fact in every other region — these types of transmission providers will just go into a negative pricing situation.”

Negative pricing means paying people to take your surplus power. The wind farm companies say the dams could run at full tilt and Bonneville could pay customers in other regions — like California or British Columbia — to take the surplus.

Five wind power companies have filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to force Bonneville to start doing so. Bonneville would prefer not to have to pay to get rid of power, Johnson says, because that cost would be a burden to power customers in the Northwest.

“What we’ve said is no. We’re willing to give away energy — we give away energy to a whole lot of people when we’re faced with the situation — but if we were going to just pay negative prices, and incorporate that into our wholesale power rate, and this is the only set of customers that are affected, we just aren’t prepared to do that,” he says.

A Challenge For Wind Power

Complicating matters is the fact that wind farm generators make much of their income from federal tax credits. The government pays them per megawatt hour, so they really don’t like it when those blades stop turning.

They also say Bonneville is forcing them to break contracts with utilities in places like California, which are required to buy a certain amount of renewable energy. Wind farms have encountered similar problems around the country. Mark Bolinger studies renewable energy markets for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

“Transmission is probably one of the largest issues facing wind development in the U.S.,” he says. “In 2010, roughly 5 percent of all wind generation that could have happened was actually curtailed due to transmission constraints.”

Sometimes the reason is infrastructure — lack of room in the grid — and sometimes it’s financial, as in the case of Bonneville’s reluctance to pay other regions to take the surplus. Finally, there’s the economy. Until customer demand for power picks up some more, the tricky problem of too much power isn’t likely to go away.

FROM WISCONSIN:

WE ENERGIES CANCELS RENEWABLE AID PROGRAM

READ ENTIRE STORY HERE: Journal Sentinel, www.jsonline.com

May 13, 2011

By Thomas Content

We Energies is canceling a program that funded small-scale renewable energy development, including projects that resulted in solar power being generated at GE Healthcare and smaller projects at churches and nonprofits such as the Urban Ecology Center.

The utility announced on its website Friday that it has decided to terminate its Renewable Energy Development programs.

The utility had committed in 2002 to spending $6 million a year on renewable energy development initiatives but has decided to end that program, utility spokesman Brian Manthey said.

The company is no longer offering grants for nonprofits and will continue education and training programs “until committed funds are depleted,” the utility’s message said.

The announcement came weeks after the company reported record quarterly earnings and the same month that the utility plans to file a plan to increase rates for its electricity customers next year. The utility’s customers have seen bills rise by more than 5% this year, with a typical residential customer now paying $105 a month for electricity.

The power company said its decision is based on its increased investment in building renewable energy projects to meet the state’s 10% renewable energy target. Total spending in renewable energy, including two large wind farms and a portion of its investment in a $255 million biomass power plant in north-central Wisconsin, will exceed $800 million by the end of this year, Manthey said.

“There’s an awful lot going from customers to pay for renewable energy both for the projects as well as funds for the Focus on Energy program,” he said.

Focus on Energy is a statewide initiative funded by utility ratepayers that provides incentives for energy efficiency and renewable energy.

The utility’s $800 million estimate includes $120 million that would be spent this year on the biomass project the utility has proposed to build in north-central Wisconsin. As of Friday, however, the utility had not decided whether to build that project because it and Domtar Corp. were still reviewing whether they can accept conditions imposed by the state Public Service Commission that aim to bring down the overall cost of the project to customers.

A leading state renewable energy advocate said Friday that We Energies was backing away from a $60 million commitment with only about half of the money collected.

Renew Wisconsin, a group that worked with We Energies and other groups on a renewable energy collaborative, agreed not to object to the utility’s plan to build new coal and natural gas-fired power plants as part of that commitment, said Michael Vickerman, executive director.

“We looked at it as a commitment. They looked at it as a commitment, until a couple days ago,” Vickerman said of We Energies. “Now that the coal plant is up and running, it appears that the program has outlived its usefulness to We Energies.”

The 12.7% profit the utility earns on its investment in the $2.38 billion coal plant has been a key driver in record profits the utility reported in 2010. With the second unit of the coal plant completed in January, 2011 will be another record year for Wisconsin Energy Corp.

To Vickerman, the announcement is the latest in a string of setbacks for efforts to develop homegrown renewable energy and stem the flow of energy dollars out of the state. That includes Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to make it more difficult to build wind farms in the state and a GOP-sponsored bill to be considered in the Legislature next week that would allow utilities to import hydro power from large dams in Manitoba to meet the state’s renewable energy mandate.

Manthey, of We Energies, says circumstances have changed since its commitment, including the 2006 state law that requires 10% of Wisconsin’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2015.

The utility says its projects are a significant investment in the state’s economy. When completed later this year, the Glacier Hills Wind Park in Columbia County will be the state’s largest wind farm, and its Blue Sky Green Field project is the second biggest renewable project in the state, Manthey said.

A recipient of funding from We Energies was disappointed with the utility’s decision. We Energies provided $30,000 toward a $160,000 solar and energy efficiency project at the Unitarian Universalist church on Milwaukee’s east side, said Tom Brandstetter, who led the project.

Without the utility’s help, completing the project “would have made it much more difficult,” he said.

Plus, he said, the program helped the utility’s image that it was committed to green power at a time when it was building new coal plants. “We’re going in the exact opposite direction that we need to,” Brandstetter said.

Manthey said the utility’s shift on the renewable energy development program would have no impact on its Energy for Tomorrow initiative, a green-pricing program under which certain utility customers agree to pay more on their monthly electric bills to support renewable energy.

By the end of the month, the utility is expected to file a detailed plan with state regulators to raise bills in 2012 and again in 2013. The funding plan would pay for the wind farm now under construction northeast of Madison as well as environmental controls being installed at the original Oak Creek coal plant.

FROM AUSTRALIA:

WIND TURBINE SYNDROME

READ FULL STORY AT THE SOURCE: ABC1, hungrybeast.abc.net.au

May 11, 2011

Wind energy supplies approximately 2% of Australia’s overall electricity needs. The Waubra Wind Farm in rural Victoria is one of Australia’s largest wind farms and home to 128 wind turbines. As farmers Carl and Samantha Stepnell discovered, living near wind turbines can sometimes result in unexpected consequences.

To read more about Carl and Samantha’s story, a full transcript from the Ballarat Public Hearing of the Senate Inquiry into The Social and Economic of Rural Wind Farms can be read and downloaded here: “Health effects of living close to the Waubra wind turbines”.

FROM OKLAHOMA:

GOVERNOR SIGNS EMINENT DOMAIN LAW TO PROTECT LANDOWNERS FROM WIND FARM THREAT

READ FULL STORY AT THE SOURCE: The Oklahoman, www.newsok.com 14 May 2011

“The Southern Great Plains Property Rights Coalition supports any legislation which will help landowners protect their property now and for future generations,” the group said Friday. “We feel this is a step in the right direction since the use of eminent domain for profit is becoming a hot topic.”

Gov. Mary Fallin has signed into law an eminent domain measure that protects rural landowners from the threat of companies looking for locations to build wind turbines.

The bill’s author, Sen. Ron Justice, of Chickasha, said wind power provides a tremendous boost to the state’s economy, but he said it is important to protect landowners’ rights.

The law was heralded by a northwest Oklahoma property owners group.

“The Southern Great Plains Property Rights Coalition supports any legislation which will help landowners protect their property now and for future generations,” the group said Friday. “We feel this is a step in the right direction since the use of eminent domain for profit is becoming a hot topic.”

The law prohibits use of the power of eminent domain for the siting or erection of wind turbines on private land. It says landowners have the right to decide whether they want turbines on their land.

Justice said Senate Bill 124 was requested by landowners who were approached by wind industry representatives who mentioned the possible use of eminent domain.

Jaime McAlpine of Chermac Energy Corp. said wind developers and utility companies helped craft the bill’s language.

FROM ONTARIO:

ONTARIO GREEN ENERGY PROJECT COULD KILL, HARM AND HARASS ENDANGERED SPECIES

READ ENTIRE STORY AT SOURCE: National Post, nationalpost.com

May 13, 2011

By Sarah Boesveld

A Toronto-based wind energy company will have the legal right to “kill, harm and harass” two endangered species if Ontario approves their permit to build over the creatures’ habitat on the shores of Lake Ontario.

Gilead Power Corporation is proposing a green energy project in Prince Edward County, home of the Blanding’s turtle and the whippoorwill. The area where the endangered turtles rest is also considered an “important bird area.”

The project is a complicated one that carries a certain kind of irony for environmental activists who largely approve of green energy projects but have a mandate to protect wildlife in their natural habitats. Ontario Nature, an organization that “protects wild species and wild spaces through conservation, education and public engagement,” said sometimes good projects are proposed in areas that compromise the well being of animals. This is a clear example, said director of conservation and education Anne Bell, who stresses Ontario “absolutely needs wind” to help battle climate change.

“We’re totally supportive of wind, but at the same time, you can’t be putting up projects in the middle of areas where you know there’s going to be a significant ecological impact. It doesn’t make sense,” she said. “It’s not green. It’s green that’s not green.”

The organization has been speaking with interested parties about the project “for a long time,” their attention first drawn to it by the local conservation group Prince Edward County Field Naturalists.

The company’s plans are so far at a standstill, as it must first earn the permit from the province that clears the way for construction — construction that would involve clearing away grasslands and marshes in order to build the towers.

“For the most part, we can find ways to mitigate around endangered species reasonably, so that the species continues, and continues to thrive,” said Ontario Natural Resources minister Linda Jeffrey.

The whippoorwill, widely referenced in North American folk songs and literature, was listed as a threatened species by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada in 2009. Blanding’s turtle is protected under the Ontario Provincial Policy Statement of the Planning Act and is also protected federally.

FROM OREGON:

BPA SAYS IT WILL TAMP DOWN WIND FARMS WHEN TOO MUCH POWER FLOODS THE SYSTEM

READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: The Oregonian, www.oregonlive.com

May 13, 2011

By Ted Sickinger,

The Bonneville Power Administration will rein in the wind, and is likely to reap the legal whirlwind.

In a decision that speaks to the region’s ability — or inability — to effectively manage all the simultaneous wind and water energy being generated in the Columbia Gorge, the Bonneville Power Administration said Friday it will pull the plug on wind farms at times when excess generation threatens to swamp the system’s ability to handle it.

That could come early next week, as spring runoff increases hydroelectric generation, the agency said.

BPA’s decision is almost certain to trigger litigation from wind farm operators, including independent producers and utilities — whose projects won’t generate expected financial returns. They depend on turbines running flat out when the wind blows to generate not only power, but the renewable energy and tax credits that make up a sizeable slice of their revenue stream.

Wind operators say BPA’s plan, which would unilaterally override their transmission contracts, is discriminatory and designed to protect the agency’s surplus power sales revenue. That revenue goes to lower the rates of the 140 public utilities who buy their power from the federal agency.

“This is a very loud and unmistakable signal to the wind industry that this might not be the place to do business,” said Robert Kahn, executive director of the Northwest & Intermountain Power Producers Coalition. “This was predictable and preventable. We should never be in a position of having too much of a good thing.”

BPA sells power from 31 hydroelectric dams in the region and operates much of its transmission network. The agency’s administrator, Steve Wright, has been pressured by members of Congress to back away from the plan. He acknowledged Friday that BPA could quickly face litigation, but said he had little choice.

“We wouldn’t do this if we didn’t have a good chance of winning, so we’re ready if folks choose to sue, he said. “What I regret is that we haven’t found a better solution.”

BPA finalized the policy to prepare for what could be the highest runoff in the Columbia Basin since 1999. That could boost power production from its own dams beyond limited spring electricity demands. The agency is also responsible for integrating generation from wind farms connected to its grid, toggling its own production up and down to match power demand and supply and keep the grid humming along in balance.

Under the terms of the plan, the agency will respond to overgeneration by first curtailing as much coal and natural gas generation as possible, then pull the plug on windfarms. BPA will substitute free hydropower to make up the energy deliveries that the wind farms are otherwise scheduled to make.

The agency contends it can’t turn off its own hydroelectric turbines and spill more water to accommodate wind because the resulting turbulence would violate limits on dissolved nitrogen in the water, harming fish. That leaves wind curtailment as the only choice.

BPA is aware that wind farms don’t want free hydropower because power buyers are also after renewable energy credits. Utilities use the RECs to comply with state renewable energy mandates, and they’re generated only when the turbine blades are spinning. RECs and federal production tax credits can make up 50 percent of the revenue stream for a wind farm.

“We feel there are other options,” said Roby Roberts, vice president at Horizon Wind Energy, which operates three wind farms in Oregon and one in Washington. “We’re going to push for a different resolution.”

BPA has worked on a variety if interim solutions to accommodate more wind, but crtitics say it’s been too little too late. Wright said Friday that most of those measures were stopgaps. What the region needs, he said, is more physical assets, either new transmission or storage of some form, both of which are expensive, longer-term solutions.

“We’ll have to explore all these things,” he said. “The other thing that’s clear is that there’s a lot of wind still coming on the system and the problem keeps getting bigger.”