Better Plan, Wisconsin

REGULATING THE WIND TURBINES

By Barb Kromphardt,

SOURCE: Bureau County Republican, www.bcrnews.com

November 2, 2011 

WALNUT — What if you held a public meeting and nobody came?

It was a nearly empty house at Tuesday’s second meeting of the Walnut Planning Commission to consider an ordinance to regulate wind turbines outside the village limits.

It was a very different scene three months ago, when about 60 residents, both for and against the wind turbines, crowded the meeting room to make their opinions heard. The planning commission took no action at that August meeting, instead choosing to send the ordinance back to the village board for more work.

After months of special meetings, the board hammered out a new ordinance, and Village President Robert Brasen was at the meeting to explain the ordinance and answer questions.

Brasen read through the 26-page proposed ordinance, highlighting the changes. The new ordinance would prohibit anything within one mile of the village limits, and required approval for anything within the one to one and one-half mile range.

Turbines would be limited to the northwest and southeast corners of the village, which are the business and industrial sections.

Developers must apply for a conditional use permit, with a $5,000 non-refundable fee, for each turbine. Each application must include a commencement and completion date, a decommissioning plan, a plan for addressing complaints, and a property value protection plan, which would guarantee the value of the property of all non-participating property owners within two miles. Turbines would be limited to 450 feet in height.

Brasen said the “stickiest” issue for the board was the distance from the tower to any primary structure. The board set the distance at one-half mile, but allowed for the property owner to request a waiver. The turbines must also be set back from adjacent property of non-participants by at least three times tower tip height.

Brasen said under the current plans for Walnut Ridge, the ordinance would affect two turbines, but there could be more in the future, including some with the proposed Green River Wind Farm on the village’s north edge.

Commission member Gary Sarver said he had heard that if the village passes the ordinance, the developers will simply stay outside the 1.5 mile ring.

Brasen said that after the ordinance is passed, the county can’t override the village and approve any turbines within the 1.5 mile radius. The village can approve the ordinance because it has an existing zoning ordinance, unlike many other small towns.

Planning commission members had several concerns. Chairman Steve Schlumpf wanted a guarantee to restore all roads and other structures within six months to be increased to one year, following a full freeze and thaw cycle.

Committee member Ron VonHolten suggested several changes, including eliminating a section that would have allowed shadow flicker problems to be addressed with plantings or awnings. He also said complaints should include shutting down the turbine from 10 p.m. until 7 a.m. until the problem is fixed.

“If it’s noise issues, you can’t say, ‘Well, in 60 days, I get to sleep,’” he said.

Quoting Dr. Carl Phillips, who recently testified at the Lee County Zoning Board of Appeals, VonHolten said the setback from non-participating property owners should be at least one mile due to health issues affecting 20 percent of residents.

Schlumpf also questioned the property value protection plan. Brasen said no one else currently has the plan, but that it would be binding.

The commission unanimously approved a list of changes to be sent back to the village board for consideration. Brasen said the board would review the changes, and return the final form to the commission at a meeting set for 7 p.m. Nov. 15.

Brasen said the village board can approve the ordinance without the commission’s approval, but it would take a 75 percent vote instead of the usual majority.

STUDY LINKS WIND TURBINE NOISE AND SLEEP DISRUPTION:

Adverse health effects of industrial wind turbines: a preliminary report  

Michael Nissenbaum MD, Northern Maine Medical Center, Fort Kent, Maine, USA, mnissenbaum@att.net 

Jeff Aramini PhD, Intelligent Health Solutions Inc., Fergus, Ontario, Canada, jeff.aramini@gmail.com

Chris Hanning MD, University Hospitals of Leicester, Leicester, UK, chrisdhanning@tiscali.co.uk

PRESENTED AT THE 10th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON NOISE AS A PUBLIC HEALTH PROBLEM (ICBEN) 2011 London, UK

This study, which is the first controlled study of the effects of IWT noise on sleep and health, shows that those living within 1.4 km of IWT have suffered sleep disruption which is sufficiently severe as to affect their daytime functioning and mental health.

Both the ESS and PSQI are averaged measures, i.e. they ask the subject to assess their daytime sleepiness and sleep quality respectively, over a period of several weeks leading up to the present. For the ESS to increase, sleep must have been shortened or fragmented to a sufficient degree on sufficient nights for normal compensatory mechanisms to have been overcome.

The effects of sleep loss and daytime sleepiness on cognitive function, accident rate and mental health are well established (WHO 2009) and it must be concluded that at least some of the residents living near the Vinalhaven and

Mars Hill IWT installations have suffered serious harm to their sleep and health.

The significant relationship between the symptoms and distance from the IWTs, the subjects’ report that their symptoms followed the start of IWT operations, the congruence of the symptoms reported here with previous research and reports and the clear mechanism is strong evidence that IWT noise is the cause of the observed effects.

IWT noise has an impulsive character and is several times more annoying than other sources of noise for the same sound pressure level (Pedersen & Persson Waye 2004).

It can prevent the onset of sleep and the return to sleep after a spontaneous or induced awakening. Road, rail and aircraft noise causes arousals, brief lightening of sleep which are not recalled. While not proven, it is highly likely that IWT noise will cause arousals which may prove to be the major mechanism for sleep disruption.

 It is possible that the low frequency and infrasound components of IWT noise might contribute to the sleep disruption and health effects by other mechanisms but this remains to be determined and further research is needed.

Attitudes to IWT and visual impact have been shown to be factors in annoyance to IWT noise (Pedersen et al. 2009) but have not been demonstrated for sleep disturbance. Most respondents in the present study welcomed the IWT installations as offering economic benefits. The visual impact of IWT decreases with distance, as does the noise impact making separation of these factors impossible.

We conclude that IWT noise at these two sites disrupts the sleep and adversely affects the health of those living nearby. The current ordinances determining setback are inadequate to protect the residents and setbacks of less than 1.5 km must be regarded as unsafe. Further research is needed to determine a safe setback distance and to investigate the mechanisms of causation.

From Illinois

WIND FARM BACKERS STILL NEGOTIATING ROAD DEALS

SOURCE: The News Gazette

September 11, 2011

By Nora Maberry

"Deanne Sims of Penfield expressed concern with the noise studies that were done to prove the project would follow county ordinances.

Sims also said she had contacted her insurance company and was told that any damage done to her home by the project, such as cracks in her basement walls, would not be covered by her homeowner's insurance. Her insurance agency instructed her to document the status of her home via video and purchase a sound meter.

Sims also expressed concern regarding the times of construction. Invenergy said that construction would take place mainly between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. Sims said several people in the area work third shift and it would interfere with their sleep patterns.

Sims also asked the board who would be in charge of making sure the noise ordinances were followed. The board told her that, currently, there is no one specified to do that."

URBANA — The developers of a 134-turbine wind farm for Champaign and Vermilion counties are still discussing road agreements with Compromise and Ogden townships.

At Thursday's Champaign County Zoning Board of Appeals meeting, Greg Leuchtmann, business development manager for Invenergy LLC, said the county road agreement was almost complete.

The agreement will then be sent to the state's attorney's office for review.

Invenergy asked that it be allowed to negotiate road agreements beyond the time the case would be before the county zoning board of appeals. Leuchtmann said that the county road agreement must be approved by the Champaign County Board at its Oct. 20 meeting before the agreement is finalized.

Invenergy is asking the zoning board to move forward with approving the project if the road commissioner and the state's attorney both sign off on the agreement before the county board votes on it.

The project, which would include 30 turbines in Compromise and Ogden Townships, would be just north of Royal. The entire wind farm, known as the California Ridge project, includes 134 turbines, 104 of them in western Vermilion County.

It was also announced that the company has entered into a deal with a utility to buy the output of the project. Attorney Michael Blazer declined to name the company because negotiations are ongoing.

Darrell Cambron, who lives near Rankin and has opposed wind farms in Vermilion County, urged the zoning board to follow the ordinances already in place and not approve any waivers for the project.

"We have certain rules and regulations that should be followed," he said. "They should follow all rules as written."

Deanne Sims of Penfield expressed concern with the noise studies that were done to prove the project would follow county ordinances.

Sims also said she had contacted her insurance company and was told that any damage done to her home by the project, such as cracks in her basement walls, would not be covered by her homeowner's insurance. Her insurance agency instructed her to document the status of her home via video and purchase a sound meter.

Sims also expressed concern regarding the times of construction. Invenergy said that construction would take place mainly between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. Sims said several people in the area work third shift and it would interfere with their sleep patterns.

Sims also asked the board who would be in charge of making sure the noise ordinances were followed. The board told her that, currently, there is no one specified to do that.

The next hearing will be at 6 p.m. Sept. 29. The board changed the time from 7 p.m. due to the amount of testimony that has taken place at previous meetings.

The turbine project could go to the county board as soon as Oct. 20. In addition to the zoning board of appeals, the project would be reviewed by the county board at a committee of the whole meeting in October.

Construction could begin in early 2012 and be completed by December, according to Invenergy's special-use application.

Construction would take nine to 12 months with the peak period lasting four to six months, the company said.

During peak construction there would be 75 large truck trips per day and up to 200 small vehicle trips in the area. Of the 75 large truck trips, 20 would be wind turbine component deliveries.

The special-use permit application says that properly maintained wind turbines have a minimum life of 20 years, and can either be decommissioned and removed, or re-powered with new components.

From Minnesota:

GOODHUE COUNTY WILL ASK PUC TO RECONSIDER WIND PERMIT

By Regan Carstensen

SOURCE: The Republican Eagle, www.republican-eagle.com

September 10, 2011 ~~

By a 4-1 vote, Goodhue County commissioners decided Tuesday that the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission should be asked to reconsider the wind permit it approved for AWA Goodhue Wind in June.

AWA Goodhue Wind received a certificate of need and site permit from the PUC for a 48-turbine wind farm that would be located near Goodhue and Zumbrota, but some citizens have fought the creation of the wind farm from the start.

The permitting process has been drawn out for more than a year and a half, while many wind farms are approved in six to 12 months in Minnesota.

While county commissioners contemplated at their meeting Tuesday the need for reconsideration, they wondered how much more cost this would incur for the county.

“Most of the efforts have already been invested in this. It is a long-term effort,” Goodhue County Attorney Stephen Betcher replied, adding that asking for reconsideration would require filing a document. The rest is in the hands of the PUC, including whether the county is granted another opportunity to present an oral argument.

But the county attorney won’t be alone in filing for reconsideration. Those who previously filed as interveners — the Coalition for Sensible Siting, Belle Creek Township and Goodhue Wind Truth — also have the opportunity to ask for reconsideration, and all three groups are taking advantage of it.

“We are filing a reconsideration with the PUC,” Belle Creek Township Board Chair Chad Ryan confirmed. “That is complete and it will be filed on Monday.”

Against the rest

Commissioner Dan Rechtzigel was the only one of five commissioners who preferred not to ask for reconsideration.

“I just see this as round two of a battle that’s not going to end and is going to get continually more expensive,” Rechtzigel said.

He also said that the county needs to recognize that the state legislators are the ones who put the requirement in place that says utility companies need to provide 25 percent of their total electrical generation from renewable sources by 2025.

“Maybe I don’t like the 55 mph speed limit either, but the fact is it’s there,” he explained. “Whether we like it or not, the state of Minnesota has been given the authority to regulate these. The state is going to do what they want to do.”

Although he voted in favor of reconsideration, Commissioner Richard Samuelson hesitated to continue the fight. He said he doesn’t think Betcher should go to the PUC with a long list of things to reconsider, but instead simply focus on the 10-rotor diameter setback that the county wants to enforce but which was decreased by the PUC to 6 RD.

Even with narrowing the field of reconsideration, Samuelson was skeptical of how much success the county will have this time around.

“I’m sure that you’re going to come back with some news that will require an appeal,” Samuelson told Betcher.

If the PUC rejects Betcher’s request for reconsideration, he said he will bring the issue back to the County Board and see if it would like to appeal, though that route could get lengthy and expensive.

“It would be a new process as opposed to a continuation of the existing process,” the county attorney noted.

Asking for an appeal would include filing a new court case with the Minnesota Appellate Court, providing every document that will be part of the record in that case and being at any hearings the appellate court wanted to have.

From the U.S.

TEXAS WIND ENERGY FAILS AGAIN

Source: National Review Online, www.nationalreview.com

August 29, 2011

Robert Bryce

Wednesday brought yet another unspeakably hot day to Texas and, alas, it was yet another day when wind energy failed the state’s consumers.

Indeed, as record heat and drought continue to hammer the Lone Star State, the inanity of the state’s multi-billion-dollar spending spree on wind energy becomes ever more apparent. On Wednesday afternoon, ERCOT, the state’s grid operator, declared a power emergency as some of the state’s generation units began to falter under the soaring demand for electricity. Electricity demand hit 66,552 megawatts, about 1,700 megawatts shy of the record set on August 3.

As I wrote in these pages earlier this month, Texas has 10,135 megawatts of installed wind-generation capacity, which is nearly three times as much as any other state. And yet, on Wednesday, all of the state’s wind turbines mustered just 880 megawatts of power when electricity was needed the most. Put another way, even though wind turbines account for about 10 percent of Texas’s 103,000 megawatts of summer electricity-generation capacity, wind energy was able to provide just 1.3 percent of the juice the state needed on Wednesday afternoon to keep the lights on and the air conditioners humming.

None of this should be surprising. For years, ERCOT has counted just 8.7 percent of the state’s installed wind-generation capacity as “dependable capacity at peak.” What happened on Wednesday? Just 880 megawatts out of 10,135 megawatts of wind capacity — 8.68 percent — was actually moving electrons when consumers needed those electrons the most.

Apologists for the wind industry point to a single day in February, when, during a record cold snap, the state’s wind turbines were able to produce electricity when the grid was being stressed. Fine. On one day, wind generators produced more than expected. But the wind industry’s lobbyists want consumers to ignore this sun-bleached truth: Texas has far more super-hot days than it does frigid ones. Indeed, here in Austin, where I live, we’ve already had 70 days this summer with temperatures over 100 degrees, and there’s still no relief in sight. And on nearly every one of those hot days, ERCOT’s wind capacity has been AWOL. Each afternoon, as the temperature — and electricity demand — soars, the wind dies down:

This summer’s high demand for electricity has caught ERCOT off guard. In June, the grid operator projected that Texas’s electricity demand would not set any new records this summer. But demand is already exceeding levels that ERCOT didn’t expect to see until 2014. Over the past few weeks, as demand has strained the Texas grid, electricity prices have risen as high as $3,000 per megawatt-hour on the wholesale market, and large industrial users have been forced to curtail consumption in order to avoid blackouts.

And yet — and yet — the state is spending billions on projects that focus on wind energy rather than on conventional generation capacity. As Kate Galbraith of the Texas Tribune reported recently, the Texas Public Utility Commission is preparing the state’s ratepayers for higher prices. Consumers will soon be paying for new transmission lines that are being built solely so that the subsidy-dependent wind-energy profiteers can move electricity from their distant wind projects to consumers in urban areas.

Galbraith reports that “the cost of building thousands of miles of transmission lines to carry wind power across Texas is now estimated at $6.79 billion, a 38 percent increase from the initial projection three years ago.” What will that mean for the state’s ratepayers? Higher electricity bills. Before the end of the year, the companies building the transmission lines are expected to begin applying for “rate recovery.” The result, writes Galbraith, will be charges that “could amount to $4 to $5 per month on Texas electric bills, for years.”

Imagine what the state’s grid might look like if Texas, which produces about 30 percent of America’s gas, had spent its money on natural-gas-fired electricity instead of wind. The latest data from the Energy Information Administration shows that wind-generated electricity costs about 50 percent more than that produced by natural-gas-fired generators. Thus, not only would Texas consumers be saving money on their electric bills, the state government would be earning more royalties from gas produced and consumed in the state.

Further, consider what might be happening had the state kept the $6.79 billion it’s now spending on wind-energy transmission lines and instead allocated it to new natural-gas-fired generators. The latest data from the Energy Information Administration show that building a megawatt of new wind capacity costs $2.43 million — that’s up by 21 percent over the year-earlier costs — while a new megawatt of gas-fired capacity costs a bit less than $1 million, a drop of 3 percent from year-earlier estimates.

Under that scenario, Texas could have built 6,900 megawatts of new gas-fired capacity for what the state is now spending on wind-related transmission lines alone. Even if we assume the new gas-fired units were operating at just 50 percent of their design capacity, those generators would still be capable of providing far more reliable juice to the grid than what is being derived from the state’s wind turbines during times of peak demand.

Unfortunately, none of those scenarios have played out. Instead, Texas ratepayers are being forced to pay billions for wind-generation and transmission capacity that is proving to be ultra-expensive and redundant at a time when the state’s thirst for electricity is breaking records.

A final point: Keep in mind that the Lone Star wind boondoggle is not the result of Democratic rule. Environmentalists have never gained much purchase at the Texas capitol. In fact, the state hasn’t had a Democrat in statewide office since Bob Bullock retired as lieutenant governor, and Garry Mauro retired from the General Land Office, back in 1999. That same year, Gov. George W. Bush signed legislation that created a renewable-energy mandate in the state.

What about Rick Perry, a politico who frequently invokes his support for the free market? In 2005, he signed a mandate requiring the state to have at least 6,000 megawatts of renewable capacity by 2015. Perry’s support has been so strong that a wind-energy lobbyist recently told the New York Times that the governor, who’s now a leading contender for the White House, has “been a stalwart in defense of wind energy in this state, no question about it.”

And during his last election campaign, Sen. John Cornyn, one of the Senate’s most conservative members, ran TV ads showing pretty pictures of — what else? — wind turbines.

NEXT STORY:

THE NEW POLICE SIREN: YOU'LL FEEL IT COMING

SOURCE: The New York Times

February 25, 2011

By Ariel Kaminer

Joe Bader tried setting the two tones of his invention four notes apart on the musical scale, but the result sounded like music, not a siren. Same thing when he played around with a five-note interval. But when he set the two tones apart by two octaves and gave the siren a test run outside the Florida Highway Patrol headquarters in Tallahassee, the effect was so attention-grabbing that people came streaming out of the building to see what the strange sound, with its unfamiliar vibrations, could possibly be.

Which was precisely what Mr. Bader, a vice president at the security firm Federal Signal Corporation, was going for: a siren that would make people sit up and take notice — even people accustomed to hearing sirens all the time. Even people wearing ear buds or talking on the phone. Even people insulated from street noise by a layer of glass and steel. Even New Yorkers.

Rumblers, as Mr. Bader called his invention, achieve their striking effect with a low-frequency tone, in the range of 180 to 360 hertz (between the 33rd and the 46th key on a standard piano keyboard), which penetrates hard surfaces like car doors and windows better than a high tone does. When it is paired with the wail of a standard siren, the effect is hard to ignore — like the combination of a bagpipe’s high chanter and low drone, or perhaps like a train whistle and the caboose that moves that whistle through space.

Following the lead of some other municipalities, the New York Police Department gave the devices two limited test runs beginning in 2007. It liked what it heard, with the result that a Rumbler will be coming soon to a police car near you — perhaps one speeding right at you in a high-speed chase through traffic- and pedestrian-clogged streets. And eventually to about 5,000 of the department’s more than 8,000 vehicles.

Some New Yorkers have already raised concerns that the Rumbler’s low-frequency vibration could be injurious to their health. The Police Department insists that there is nothing to worry about and invited me to experience the effect for myself. But when Officer Joe Gallagher, a department spokesman, considered the fact that I am in what used to be known as “a family way,” he suggested that I not actually ride in a Rumbler-equipped squad car. “I don’t want you sitting in the back and going into childbirth,” he said. “I’m not handy with that.”

I’m not so handy with it either, so I rode in Officer Gallagher’s car while Officers Jeff Donato and Matthew Powlett of the 10th Precinct drove ahead of us, Rumbling as they went.

We zoomed up the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive on what appeared to be the only day in recent history that it was free of traffic. When at last we did encounter at least a few other cars, the officers in the front car flipped on the Rumbler, switching among its sound effects: the wail, the yelp, the hi-lo, the fast stutter.

The Rumbler is no louder than a standard siren. In fact, it’s quieter — 10 decibels lower, which translates to only half the volume. But because low-frequency sound waves penetrate cars better than those at a higher pitch, drivers experience the Rumbler as much louder than a standard siren. That’s good news for pedestrians who might prefer not to be deafened, though not necessarily for the officers in Rumbler-equipped cars. To spare the officers’ ears, the device cuts off after eight seconds.

But the officers who demonstrated it for me said they had used it in repeated intervals for longer durations. And though Federal Signal describes the Rumbler as an “intersection-clearing device,” the officers also recounted using it while zipping up long stretches of highway. “It’s like the Red Sea parting,” Capt. Christopher Ikone said.

Low-frequency sound can have physical effects, like making you feel queasy. Enough, in fact, to be of interest to some weapons manufacturers, but their experiments take place at much lower frequencies and much higher amplification than the Rumbler employs. In fact, despite the siren’s name, the rumbling effect is subtle — far less than what you experience when an Escalade rolls up beside you at a stop light, tinted windows lowered, custom speakers blaring and thunder bass thumping. Hearing a Rumbler while standing on the street, I felt a slight tingle under my ribs; in Officer Gallagher’s car, I felt a gentle reverberation on the seat.

I can faithfully report that the Police Department’s newest and soon-to-be-ubiquitous emergency alert signal does not cause eyeglasses to sprout hairline cracks that branch out across the lens and hang there for one long moment before the entire thing shatters with a delicate “plink,” as in some Bugs Bunny cartoon. Nor does it reprogram the rhythm of your heartbeat, the way a loud song on the radio can make you completely forget what you’d been humming when you heard it. Nor does it induce premature labor in pregnant women. It may, however, have caused an innocent citizen heart palpitations.

As we zoomed back down the F.D.R. Drive, dual-tone sirens blaring so we could see the other cars scatter, the driver of a Toyota RAV4 apparently thought he was being singled out and pulled to a complete halt — in the left lane of the highway. That’s an unwise thing to do in any case; an extremely unwise thing to do when you’ve got a police cruiser right behind you.

If the driver did sustain any coronary distress from the incident, help was nearby: a Fire Department ambulance was driving just a bit farther south. As we passed, its siren let out a few warning bleats. But they were the old variety: one tone, no tingling. Compared with the basso profundo confidence of a Rumbler, it sounded like a jealous whine.

From Australia

WIND FARM NO-GO ZONES TO BE ESTABLISHED

SOURCE:ABC  www.abc.net.au

August 29, 2011

By Anthony Stewart

The State Government is set to introduce new planning rules that will restrict where wind farms can be constructed.

Sweeping changes to the rules governing the construction of wind farms in Victoria will be gazetted today.

The Planning Minister, Matthew Guy, has amended local government planning schemes and state planning provisions that will deliver on a Coalition election promise to create wind farm no-go zones.

Wind farms will be prohibited in areas including along the Great Ocean Road, Mornington Peninsula, Macedon and Yarra Ranges and Wilsons Promontory.

The Government has formalised the set-back policy that stops the construction of wind turbines within two kilometres of houses, without the consent of the owner of the home.

The amendment also blocks the construction of wind turbines within five kilometres of major regional centres, a change that had not previously been flagged by the State Government.

Russell Marsh from the Clean Energy Council says the two kilometre setback policy will result in billions of dollars in lost investment

“The two kilometre setback the Government was talking about would reduce investment in wind energy in Victoria by 50 and 70 per cent,” he said.

“We were forecasting over $3 billion in investment will disappear from Victoria because of the two kilometre setback policy.”

The State Opposition’s planning spokesman, Brian Tee, says the Government has changed planning rules by stealth.

He says the Planning Minister should have introduced legislation if he wanted to block wind farm development.

“He absolutely should have brought this to the Parliament because this is going to have serious consequences,” he said.

“He hasn’t got the balance right and the cost is going to be paid by the environment.”

SECOND STORY:

SOURCE: The Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com

August 28,2011

By Darryl Fears,

Six birds found dead recently in Southern California’s Tehachapi Mountains were majestic golden eagles. But some bird watchers say that in an area where dozens of wind turbines slice the air they were also sitting ducks.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating to determine what killed the big raptors, and declined to divulge the conditions of the remains. But the likely cause of death is no mystery to wildlife biologists who say they were probably clipped by the blades of some of the 80 wind turbines at the three-year-old Pine Tree Wind Farm Project, operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

As the Obama administration pushes to develop enough wind power to provide 20 percent of America’s energy by 2030, some bird advocates worry that the grim discovery of the eagles this month will be a far more common occurrence.

Windmills kill nearly half a million birds a year, according to a Fish and Wildlife estimate. The American Bird Conservancy projected that the number could more than double in 20 years if the administration realizes its goal for wind power.

The American Wind Energy Association, which represents the industry, disputes the conservancy’s projection, and also the current Fish and Wildlife count, saying the current bird kill is about 150,000 annually.

Over nearly 30 years, none of the nation’s 500 wind farms, where 35,000 wind turbines operate mostly on private land, have been prosecuted for killing birds, although long-standing laws protect eagles and a host of migrating birds.

If the ongoing investigation by the Fish and Wildlife Service’s law enforcement division results in a prosecution at Pine Tree, it will be a first. The conservancy wants stronger regulations and penalties for the wind industry, but the government has so far responded only with voluntary guidelines.

“It’s ridiculous. It’s voluntary,” said Robert Johns, a spokesman for the conservancy. “If you had voluntary guidelines for taxes, would you pay them?”

The government should provide more oversight and force operators of wind turbines to select sites where birds don’t often fly or hunt, the conservancy says. It also wants the wind industry to upgrade to energy-efficient turbines with blades that spin slower.

The lack of hard rules has caused some at the conservancy to speculate that federal authorities have decided that the killing of birds — including bald and golden eagles — is a price they are willing to pay to lower the nation’s carbon footprint with cleaner wind energy.

But federal officials, other wildlife groups and a wind-farm industry representative said the conservancy’s views are extreme. Wind farms currently kill far fewer birds than the estimated 100 million that fly into glass buildings, or up to 500 million killed yearly by cats. Power lines kill an estimated 10 million, and nearly 11 million are hit by automobiles, according to studies.

“The reality is that everything we do as human beings has an impact on the natural environment,” said John Anderson, director of siting policy for the wind-energy association.

 Next Story

WIND POWER IS DYING

SOURCE: frontpagemag.com

August 28, 2011

By Tait Trussell,

While the U.S. is dumping billions of dollars into wind farms and onshore and offshore wind turbines, this energy source is being cast aside as a failure elsewhere in the world.

Some 410 federations and associations from 21 European countries, for example, have united against deployment of wind farms charging it is “degrading the quality of life.”

The European Platform Against Wind farms (EPAW) is demanding “a moratorium suspending all wind farm projects and a “complete assessment of the economic, social, and environmental impacts of wind farms in Europe.” The EPAW said it objects to industrial wind farms which “are spreading in a disorderly manner across Europe” under pressure from “financial and ideological lobby groups,” that are “degrading the quality of life living in their vicinity, affecting the health of many, devaluing people’s property and severely harming wildlife.” A petition for a moratorium has been sent to the European Commission and Parliament, said EPAW chairman J.L Butre.

France, earlier his year ran into opposition to its plan to build 3,000 megawatts (MW) of offshore wind turbines by 2020. That year is the target date the European Union set for providing 20 percent of its energy through renewable sources. An organization called the Sustainable Environment Association, opposes wind power, saying the subsidies will “not create a single job in France.”

In Canada, Wind Concerns Ontario (WCO) has launched a province-wide drive against wind power. It said Aug. 8 it wants to ensure that the next government is clear that “there is broad based community support for a moratorium…and stringent environmental protection of natural areas from industrial wind development.” WCO claimed, “The Wind industry is planning a high powered campaign to shut down support” for the WCO’s aims. “Our goal is to store the petition until the next legislative session gets underway in the fall…”

The Netherlands has approximately 2,000 onshore and offshore wind turbines. But even though Holland is synonymous with windmills, the installed capacity of wind turbines in the Netherlands at large has been stagnant for the past three years, according to an article in February in the Energy Collective. It was 2237 megawatts (MW) at the end of 2011. That was said to be about 3.37 percent of total annual electricity production. The principal reason for the stagnant onshore capacity “is the Dutch people’s opposition to the wind turbines.” They are up to 400 feet in height.

The Dutch national wind capacity factor is a dismal 0.186. The German wind capacity factor “is even more dismal at 0.167,” the article said.

Expanding wind power to meet the European Union’s 20 percent renewables target by 2020 meant adding at least another thousand 3 MW, 450-foot wind turbines to the Dutch landscape “at a cost of about $6 billion.” Not surprisingly, the Dutch people found that to be far too costly—“an intrusion into their lives and an unacceptable return on their investment, especially when considering the small quantity of CO2 reduction per invested dollar.”

An added 3,000 MW of offshore turbines also was rejected. The capital cost was figured at $10 to $12 billion. The cost was judged to be too much and the wind energy produced too little. “The energy would have to be sold at very high prices to make the project feasible.” The article added, “The proposed Cape Wind project in Massachusetts is a perfect example of such a project.” Environmental Lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in July wrote an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal blasting the project off Cape Cod as “a rip-off.” Recently, the Netherlands became the first country to abandon the European Union target of producing 20 percent of its domestic power from renewables by 2020.

In Denmark, the Danes became aware that the poor economics of their heavily-subsidized wind energy is a major reason for the nation’s high residential electric rates. Opposition to the gigantic onshore turbines was so great that the state-owned utility finally announced last year that it would abandon plans for any new onshore wind facilities.

The Energy Collective article also reported that a CEPOS (Center for Political Studies) study found that 90 percent of wind energy sector jobs were transferred from other technology industries and that only 10 percent of the wind industry jobs were newly created jobs. As a result, the study said, Danish GDP is $270 million lower than it would have been without wind industry subsidies.

The Australian government, like the U.S., has placed a major emphasis on deploying renewable sources of energy, especially wind energy. As in the U.S., Australia set a target of 20 percent of its energy to come from renewal sources by 2020. The government provides generous subsidies and tax breaks to wind energy developers. But medical studies on farmer families living within 5 miles of wind farms found health problems ranging from sleep deprivation to nausea. Similar health effects have been discovered in other locations, including in the U.S.

Because wind blows only intermittently, Britain has determined that it will have to construct an additional 17 natural gas-powered plants as back-ups to wind to keep the lights on by 2020. These plants will cost 10 billion pounds, according to a posting by the Institute for Energy Research. One analyst was quoted as saying, “Government’s obsession with wind turbines is one of the greatest blunders of our time.”

Onshore wind power today costs about $0.13 per kWh. That’s nowhere near either the objective of the U.S. Department of Energy or the cost of competing power sources. The wind turbines jutting into the sky all across the country exist only because of the massive federal subsidies. Is this considered a failure by Obama officials? No way. Obama’s 2012 budget proposal increases renewables spending by 33 percent.

Wind farms in Texas that will cost $400 million over the next two years produce, incredibly, an average of only one job for every $1.6 million of capital investment. So the state’s comptroller general figured, according to a December 20, 2010 story in the Austin American-Statesman.

As long ago as 1973, then-President Nixon called for “Project Independence” in reaction to the OPEC oil embargo. The project was to achieve energy independence through development of alternative energy sources, such as wind, solar and geothermal power. So, there’s nothing new about renewable energy.

The Obama 2012 budget asks for $8 billion for “clean” energy, mainly wind power subsidies. As recently as Feb. 7, the secretaries of Energy and Interior announced plans to launch dozens of offshore turbines miles out at sea, while admitting the expense would be unknown. Despite generous subsidies, wind power is expected to provide no more than 8 percent of electric power in the U.S. by 2030.

The American Wind Industry Energy Association, the wind lobby group, said the top five states for wind energy were Texas, Iowa, California, Minnesota, and Washington. It said the second quarter of 2011 saw over 1,033 megawatts of capacity installed. It also maintained that wind is second only to natural gas and U.S. wind power represents more than 20 percent of the world’s wind power.

Over the next half century, say, it’s possible some new technologies will revolutionize energy. But, if so, they surely will come from the private sector — not government.

NOTE FROM THE BPWI RESEARCH NERD: This story could have been written about any Wisconsin community targeted by wind developers: Sneak into a community and offer the big landowners big money to agree to host turbines and most importantly keep their mouths shut about the plan. These moves are straight from the wind developers playbook.

PUTTING THE WIND UP THEM

SOURCE: Goulburn Post, www.goulburnpost.com.au

March 30, 2011

by Alby Schultz

There was a public meeting in the small town of Boorowa in my federal electorate of Hume a short while ago.

A good percentage of the population packed the ex-services club to hear first-hand about the rumours swirling through the community that this area was to be the site of a massive wind generation project.

There were audible gasps from the audience as it was revealed that the project was indeed real, that it would span some 35 kilometres and involve the construction of more than 100 turbines.

There were more gasps when it became apparent that the wind energy developer had actually been in negotiations with some of their neighbours for many months.

The meeting heard that the farmers who had been quietly persuaded to host the turbines would reap tens of thousands of dollars in rental a year.

They heard about pilots who wouldn’t fight fires or dust crops if they had to fly in the vicinity of the giant swirling blades.

They heard about possible health effects for those on neighbouring land ranging from heart palpitations to migraine headaches.

But this is not an argument against wind power. It is also not a criticism of farmers who have struggled through a decade of drought and see the way clear to make some alternative income.

There may indeed be areas where wind turbines can be built and where the impact is minimal. But there are many areas where they should not be constructed. As things stand though I truly fear our rural social capital – as fragile as our topsoils – is in places being chopped to pieces by turbine blades.

We need to start by calling a spade a spade. These turbines are not ‘farming’. That is Orwellian nonsense. This is industrial scale power production in green clothing. These are major commercial developments and should be considered in the same way as any major development.

A decade ago wind turbines were almost human in scale. But the turbines which some of the Boorowa farmers will have built near their homes (the closest will be just over a 1000 metres away) are truly gargantuan. If one of these turbines was standing on Sydney Harbour, its blades would be well clear of the top of the Harbour Bridge.

I warrant that should a neighbour decide to build a two storey extension overlooking the backyard of one of these Sydney bureaucrats there would be an immediate cry of “you can’t destroy my amenity and land value like that!”

And yet when a farming community raises concerns about mega turbines they are labelled ‘nimbys’ (not in my backyard).

Local decision making must be put back into prime place. At present it is hopelessly biased towards the developer. The state government boasts that large wind developments are considered ‘critical infrastructure’ and given the red carpet treatment with a guaranteed four month approval processes.

Communities are provided just 30 days to digest and provide comment before the Minister gives the project a tick. Better still the states should all revisit the National Wind Code which the Howard Government proposed in 2006 and which they rejected.

The code would have seen legislation eventually produced right around the country better protecting local community rights.

Wherever large wind generation projects arrive the plot is predictable. A wind company identifies an area with good wind resources and reasonably close to the national grid. They begin quiet negotiations with landowners.

In my view, these power companies preying on landholders who in most case have had no cash-flow as a result of nine years of heartbreaking drought. Well down the track others in the community find out.

Those who have done the deals face bitterness and anger. Those who missed out feel betrayed and angry. Sydney based bureaucrats need to understand the impact this has in small rural communities.

There is precious little interaction when you live on a property an hour or more from your rural centre – perhaps just at special events or football or cricket matches. Wind turbine money in my electorate has poisoned those relationships.

Families stop talking to each other. Animosity and bitterness run deep. Whole rural farming communities are fractured and it lasts for years. The NSW Industry Department’s website says that whilst planned or operating wind power installations in NSW will deliver 960 megawatts at present there is potential to grow that to 3000 megawatts (a 300 per cent increase)!

The implication of that for rural communities in Hume, and elsewhere, are truly frightening unless we give local communities far more say over whether or not they want wind turbines of this scale in their area.