Montanans in particular seem in better shape to weather the pitfalls of previous black-gold rushes in petroleum and coal, she notes. However, in the fledgling Big Sky Country wind business, it’s unlikely there will be any rush or quick-hit boom at all.

She explained that wind companies get paid per unit of energy minus so-called “wheeling charges” for transmitting the electricity from Montana to light up Las Vegas and Southern California.

“It all goes through NorthWestern Energy Corp., and there’s not enough transmission capacity” for any big boost in production, Lund says.

The wind lease is a new legality completely foreign to mineral rights, oil and gas leases, or other centuries-old court documents.

“What is a wind lease? It’s not like an oil and gas lease where you have split estates and one estate (mineral) has dominance over another … A wind lease is not a property right. A wind lease is a contract for a term lease. It’s a lease with an easement,” Lund explained.
It’s also a long lease – a minimum of 30 years – so it’s incumbent on a landowner to get all the required documents in a row or face disaster and rip-off over the long haul.
Which all sounds fairly scary, given what two other panelists said Nov. 17 at the Northern Plains Resource Council’s 38th annual meeting in Billings.
North Dakotan Danny Nelson said that in half a century of negotiating with petroleum companies, his family never has signed an ideal agreement. “You just do the best you can and learn and move on,” he said. “As far as surface rights, you have none.”
In the case of wind leases, any mistakes stay with you for at least 30 years and then you can move on. Each turbine cost about $2 million, and most wind projects have about 150 turbines, which may justify such a long-term commitment with all of its promises and pitfalls.
“The property value of the personal property of the (wind-farm) infrastructure dwarfs the value of the real property, the land,” Lund said.
As in other energy businesses, said Wyoming lawyer Dennis Kervin, before signing anything, “It’s important to talk to your neighbors. Be organized and share information.”
Kervin said that when the coal-bed methane craze hit northeastern Wyoming in 1998 and “the courthouses were packed with people looking at land titles,” it resembled an Old West free-for-all.
Coal-bed methane was a different animal with its impacts on water rights and legal and environmental issues, and few non-corporate lawyers, let alone ranchers, were trained, equipped or experienced to deal with it, he noted.
“It’s all small print with a lot of words you would never use in your business,” Kervin said, and what is omitted often can be the bane of the landowner later on. Power line and pipeline easements, for example, can become perpetual if not spelled out otherwise.
If there are not surface-use agreements that limit activities such as roads and buildings and require restoration or weed spraying, Kervin said the oil industry will run roughshod over the land.
“With coal-bed methane, the number of subcontractors, the traffic – it’s enormous. There’s a maze of traffic, roads, dirt moving, dust … You can’t even remember what it looked like five or six years ago,” he said.
Although projects such as the wind farm in the Judith Gap area seem aesthetically pleasing and politically correct today, they don’t start out that way, Kervin said.
“They build the turbines with cranes that are so big they have to be assembled on the spot. The turbines are as big as a 747. They have to build a substation, service roads, transmission lines …,” he said, adding that there’s potential for disturbing not just the surface area but streams and aquifers.
Whatever the energy resource, Kervin said, it’s important that landowners get on the ground and with a qualified lawyer before starting anything. Paperwork should include a survey access just for driving out to check the stakes and corners.
Lund said that wind companies, like their petroleum industry counterparts, “try to get more than they need” such as water or mineral rights or passing off the indemnity to the landowner and making them liable for any problems that may occur.
If ranchers are stuck with such indemnity, they might be held responsible if they allow hunters on the property and they end up shooting the turbines instead of the antelope. A more likely scenario would be a windmill worker accidentally touching off a blaze that spreads to neighboring land and leaves the landowner holding the wet gunny sack of blame – and the neighbor the deed to the ranch. That’s why contracts Lund writes routinely include a “no smoking on the property” clause.
Among other advice for would-be wind farmers:
•Ensuring rights to check the books, as payment are based on the amount of energy produced and sold.
•Checking with lawyers and bankers to ensure that the mortgage does not become subservient to the wind lease.
•Doing baseline surveys of the environment to have ongoing projects such as weed spraying and erosion mitigation in legal form.
•Including restoration provisions so that the wind companies don’t just leave behind rusting towers and drooping power lines.

CLICK HERE TO READ WHY A FARMER REGRETS SIGNING ON WITH A WIND OUTFIT

CLICK HERE TO READ WHAT YOU SHOULD CONSIDER BEFORE SIGNING A LEASE WITH A WIND DEVELOPER

Click on the image above to watch a news segment about high bird mortality in the Altamont wind farm.

[Read the full story at the source by clicking here]

LAND LOCKED

Written by Rick Conroy

Wellington Times

(Click here to read at source)

11 November 2009

About 150 properties that make up the Byran wind energy project, part of the failed Skypower Corporation in the northeast corner of Prince Edward County, have had construction liens placed upon their land and registered on title by a creditor to whom Skypower owes a quarter million dollars. Construction liens are legal claims on a project to ensure a builder, tradesperson or consultant gets paid for his or her work.

Worse for the property owners, these construction liens have been perfected through a special court order that was granted last Thursday.

At best this means the property owners will be limited, until the liens are discharged, as to what they can do with their encumbered property. It may be difficult or impossible to refinance mortgages, borrow money using the land as collateral, finance new buildings on the property or even purchase seed and fertilizer for the property as long as the liens remain in place.

At worst the landowners could be on the hook to pay Skypower’s creditor, Jacques Whitford Stantec, the $265,000 it says it is owed by Skypower.

The liens offer a cautionary lesson to those who choose to enter land agreements with developers. But, perhaps the most surprising information to come to light in court docuemnts obtained by the Times is that one of the landowner that appears to be caught up in the bankruptcy of Skypower is the County of Prince Edward. Three properties registered to the municipality are included in the list of properties covered by the construction liens.

The apparent participation of the County in Skypower’s project raises many serious questions: What deal was made between the municipality and Skypower? Why wasn’t this arrangement made public? Who knew about this? When did they know it? What were the financial terms? Are there other deals with other wind energy developers?

And if the municipality is a stakeholder in the Byran project, even in a marginal way, how can it be objective as to the appropriateness of industrial wind energy development in this County? Most County residents believed their municipality to be acting in good faith when it a held a public meeting into wind energy development at the end of September.

Councillor Peter Mertens said he has no knowledge that any municipal property had been optioned, leased or sold to Skypower or to any wind developer. Mayor Leo Finnegan was unavailable for comment. Chief Administrative Officer Dick Shannon did not respond to the Times inquiries by deadline.

THE PROMISE Skypower first came to local prominence in the summer of 2007. They had been busy for months earlier acquiring options and leases on land primarily north of Picton up to Big Island, as well as around Milford. Until then, much of the wind energy interest had been focused in South Marysburgh. But Skypower’s strategy was to attempt to lock up the electricity transmission capacity by locating close to the largest transmission station in the County. Skypower had high-powered partners including an investment arm of Lehman Brothers, a large U.S. investment bank. When Lehman’s collapsed last fall, Skypower had not only lost a critical financial backer. The subsequent freeze on credit worldwide left the Toronto wind energy prospector in the same boat as its competitors—no capital, no credit but burning cash at a rapid rate.

THE FAILURE Pretending otherwise, Skypower continued to contract services from Jacques Whitford, an engineering consultancy that would soon merge with Edmonton-based Stantec, to advance the status of the Byran project in Prince Edward County. It had hoped to get the project to such a state of preparedness that it could either be sold or possibly financed.

So it was that on Aug. 11, Skypower public relations representatives were in Picton pitching their project to the local community. They gave no hint as to the company’s troubles. Meanwhile, back in Toronto, Skypower management was busy preparing documents to file for creditor protection. The next morning a court granted them an initial order putting creditors on hold until the business could be refinanced or sold.

}THE FALLOUT

Since then a sales process has been underway, dismantling the company into bits and pieces. Skypower’s half-share of the Stone Mills solar array north of Napanee has been sold to a real estate developer, CIM Group, based in Los Angeles.

Twenty-two bids were received for various parts of Skypower’s development business including its leases and options that comprise the Byran project. But none of the bids received are for all of Skypower’s development projects.

So in September Jacques Whitford Stantec registered construction liens against Skypower’s interest in 150 properties in Prince Edward County to ensure it will get paid.

Last week those liens were perfected to establish its priority claim. This is required to validate and extend the claim. Aperfected lien is valid against bona fide purchasers of property, and even against a trustee in bankruptcy.

In effect, these manoeuvres make the purchase price for Skypower’s Byran project higher than it might fetch otherwise. This raises the prospect that Jacques Whitford Stantec may end up as owners of the County wind energy prospect.

Most troubling for landowners is that they may not know their land is encumbered with a lien until they try to sell part or all of it, or erect a new building or use it for collateral on a loan. Even renewing a mortgage may be made more complicated by the presence of the lien. At least one landowner with an agreement with Skypower was unaware of the lien on his property until contacted by the Times last week. Planning Commissioner Gerry Murphy was also unaware of the liens placed on County properties.

If you suspect your land may be encumbered by a Jacques Whitford Stantec lien you can check your property title at the Land Registry Office, 1 Pitt Street, Picton. Online you may visit the Wellington Times website www.wellingtontimes.ca for a link to the list of Stantec Construction Lien Properties.

Lawmakers Oppose Financing for China Wind Projects

Wall Street Journal [CLICK HERE TO READ AT SOURCE]

A proposal to use federal stimulus dollars to finance a Chinese-backed wind project in Texas is under attack from some members of Congress, the latest sign of tension in Washington over foreign-owned firms' efforts to secure U.S. money for alternative-energy projects.   

In a letter Thursday to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) urged the department not to use any federal stimulus money to support a $1.5 billion wind project in Texas, unless the project relies on U.S.-built turbines and other components. The project -- which involves a Chinese manufacturer of wind turbines, Shenyang Power Group -- calls for the installation of 240 Chinese-made wind turbines across 36,000 acres in West Texas, in a partnership with Cielo Wind Power LP of Austin, Texas.

"The purpose of the Recovery Act was to jump-start the economy to create and save jobs—American jobs," Mr. Schumer wrote in his letter to Dr. Chu. Mr. Schumer added that he fears most of the jobs created by the project will be in China. "American taxpayer dollars should not be used to finance those Chinese jobs," he wrote.

Shortly after Mr. Schumer released his letter, Rep. Brad Sherman (D., Calif.) said in an interview that he intended to send a similar letter to the Obama administration. "We have a stimulus bill, and we seem to be oblivious as to whether we're stimulating our economy or" China's, Mr. Sherman said.

The lawmakers' jabs at the project come as President Barack Obama is preparing to travel with Dr. Chu to China this month for talks aimed partly at promoting cooperation on technology to fight climate change. It also comes just weeks after the U.S. helped persuade China to drop a 2007 law that required 70% of the technology used in local wind projects be Chinese made.

The U.S. Renewable Energy Group, a private-equity firm involved in the 600-megawatt Texas project, said last week that the partnership would seek tax credits and support from the federal stimulus package. The company said the project should create 300 U.S. construction jobs and 30 permanent maintenance jobs. The project also would support 800 jobs in China at a new factory built by Shenyang Power.

"This project will not take place without the planned benefits of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act," Cielo's president, Walt Hornaday, said Thursday. "Any characterization of this planned project as anything other than an economic development lifeline to the wind industry during tough economic times is just inaccurate."

Congressional Democrats have cited China's growing investment in wind projects as a reason for the U.S. government to redouble its efforts on the same front. Critics of proposals to control carbon emissions in the U.S. often point to China's role as a polluter, saying that Beijing must do more to promote renewable energy.

The Energy Department, in a statement responding to Mr. Schumer's letter, said the government hasn't received an application for a tax credit from the wind-project developers. But if the developers do apply, they are entitled to receive the credit if they meet the eligibility requirements, the department said.

China has been expanding its production of wind and solar equipment and, until recently, many experts in the U.S. assumed most equipment would be installed in China's fast-growing home market. But the move by five-month-old Shenyang, backed by Chinese-arranged financing, shakes that assumption.

"This is just the beginning," Lu Jinxiang, chief executive of A-Power Energy Generation Systems Ltd., which controls Shenyang, said in an interview last week. He said that the "the U.S. is an ideal target" for his sector.

"China and the U.S. enhancing cooperation on clean energy serves the common interests of the two countries, which is also significant for commonly facing and tackling the challenges posed by climate change," a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said in response to Mr. Schumer's letter. "We hope that people in question will do more to help facilitate the joint effort other than the contrary."

Complaints about stimulus money flowing to foreign-owned companies have cropped up in several areas since Congress passed the $787 billion package. In August, after the Energy Department awarded $2.4 billion in stimulus grants to jump-start electric vehicles, some lawmakers complained that much of the money would benefit a significant number of foreign-owned companies, either directly or because they are joint-venture partners with the U.S.-based firms.

Many foreign turbine makers have built U.S. factories recently, focusing primarily on blades and towers. The federal government has offered $2.3 billion in tax credits to firms that build or expand their factories here. Oct. 16 was the deadline for application and no awards have yet been announced.

—Rebecca Smith contributed to this article.

by Edward Luce in Washington

Financial Times  www.ft.com

30 October 2009

 More than eight out of 10 US stimulus dollars spent on wind energy farms have gone to foreign companies, according to a report by the Washington-based Investigative Report Workshop, a non-profit journalist group.

Of the $1.05bn handed out in grants so far – the majority since August – 84 per cent has gone to European companies, with the US subsidiary of Iberdrola Renewables, the Spanish company, taking the largest share.

Officials in Barack Obama’s administration say the $22bn set aside in the $787bn stimulus for alternative energy funding is designed to create or retain jobs and stimulate economic activity. But the report, shared with the Financial Times, shows the majority of jobs are likely to have been created overseas.

The 11 US-based wind farms that received cash grants from the US Treasury have imported 695 of the 982 wind turbines that are to be installed. Since the manufacture of turbines is by far the largest employment generator in wind energy, it is estimated to have created 4,500 jobs overseas – far in excess of the jobs created in the US from these grants.

The IRW report comes amid a broader controversy over the jobs impact of the economic stimulus, with the White House today set to provide an estimate of how many jobs the stimulus has created or saved so far. On Wednesday, the White House strongly rejected claims by the Associated Press that the administration had overstated by a sixth the number of jobs created by the stimulus.

AP cited several examples, including that of a company working with the Federal Communications Commission, which the Obama administration said created 4,231 jobs, but that AP said had only resulted in 1,000 new positions. The White House said the agency had exaggerated its findings and had analysed only 2 per cent of stimulus spending. “This story draws misleading conclusions from a handful of examples,” said the White House.

The IRW’s findings on the results of stimulus spending on wind energy, which could exceed $3bn when the next round of grants are disbursed, highlights the weak condition of the private US alternative energy sector. The administration may face similar public relations problems when it announces awards to other sectors, including solar power, in the coming months. Even though US companies invented solar photovoltaic technology, the US accounts for only 10 per cent of the global solar component market.

During the election campaign, Mr Obama said that investments in alternative energy would create a new generation of green jobs.

But the IRW report, which can be found at investigativereportingworkshop.org, illustrates how difficult this may be to achieve. It also reveals the tensions with the stimulus which was designed primarily to create jobs and revive the US economy.

OVERSEAS FIRMS COLLECTING MOST GREEN ENERGY MONEY

By Russ Choma

American University School of Communication

CLICK HERE to read at source

Thursday, October 29th, 2009  

One of the major selling points of President Barack Obama’s $787 billion stimulus plan was that it would put the economy back on track partly by investing in renewable energy industries, like wind and solar.

The president and many other advocates of alternative energy argue that an investment in green energy would lessen the nation’s reliance on foreign oil, cut greenhouse gases, and most importantly, create thousands of new job s for out-of-work Americans.

But of the $1.05 billion in clean-energy grants handed out by the government since Sept. 1, 84 percent – a total of $849 million – has gone to foreign wind companies. Spanish utility company, Iberdrola S.A., alone has collected $545 million through its American subsidiary.

 Even more striking is the fact that there are few restrictions on the how the grants can be used, according to a transcript of a Treasury Department briefing. In fact, more than $800 million has been given to firms for wind farms that were already producing electricity before they received the grants, according to a review of the records by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University.

"There are no restrictions on the use of the funds," Dan Tangherlini, an assistant secretary for management at the Department of Treasury, said, during a Sept. 1 conference call to announce the grants.

Could the money be used to pay shareholders?

"You know, that's possible," Tangherlini said, when a reporter asked that question during the call.

Foreign wind companies, however, say that their U.S. subsidiaries are creating jobs.

“This is a company that employs people all over the United States that builds projects all over the United States and is employing American companies to create American jobs,” said Paul Copleman, communications manager for Iberdrola Renewables, the American subsidiary of Iberdrola S.A..

On Oct. 20, Iberdrola Renewables, announced a $247.4 million profit through the first nine months of 2009 and said the company, which employs 800 people in the U.S., understands it will receive at least $30 million more from the U.S. government. The money received from the government will be reinvested in this country, the company’s press release said.

European companies see a 'gold rush'

Money distributed through the stimulus needs to have oversight and accountability to make sure the dollars are actually returned to the American economy in a way that creates American jobs, said Stephen Ellis, vice-president of Taxpayers for Common Sense , a non-partisan budget watchdog group.

“Funds under this program have virtually no strings attached,” he told the Investigative Reporting Workshop. “These stimulus dollars could just pad the bottom line of companies and the majority of the funding is going to the subsidiaries of foreign firms. Simply paying shareholders is not going to bring the multiple benefit bang-for-the-buck that sold the stimulus. And overseas firms raking in precious taxpayer cash is not going to have the big returns domestically that we were promised.”

The reliance on foreign companies for development of wind energy appears to be at least partially tied to the U.S. government’s resistance to subsidize a home-grown wind energy industry until now. With so few U.S. companies in the business, the door was open for foreign companies to walk away with the bulk of the grants. European companies, in particular, are well positioned to collect stimulus benefits for clean energy.

Photo by Joel Page
A crane loads a section of tower for a wind turbine onto a truck in Searsport, Maine. The turbine parts, which were transported this past summer, were bound for the Kirby Mountain Wind Farm in western Maine. The farm is being developed by TransCanada, a utility company based in Calgary, Alberta, in Canada.

 “Europe was light years ahead of us, in terms of developing these alternative resources,” said Gregory Jenner, a tax attorney and former acting and deputy assistant secretary of the treasury for tax policy, who co-authored a guide for energy companies hoping to collect stimulus money. “The fact that a lot of the European companies are coming over to the U.S., they just see this as an untapped market. Now that the incentives are starting to work out ... it's going to be just like a gold rush for them.”

While the U.S. has dithered with temporary tax incentives for producers, European governments have awarded permanent tax breaks and large subsidies to wind energy companies and poured vast sums into research and technology.

Even as billions in stimulus dollars for clean energy are starting to flow, Congress is still hammering out an agreement to mandate that up to 20 percent of the nation’s energy come from renewable sources by 2020 (a Senate proposal currently calls for 15 percent.) Denmark, by comparison, has already achieved that goal – and in the process became the most dominant wind turbine manufacturer in the world.

The U.S. currently has the most installed wind power capacity (25,369 MW at the end of 2008, less than 2 percent of the nation’s energy supply, passing Germany with 23,902 MW), but is far from a leader in the manufacturing of turbines and other components worldwide. European turbine-manufacturers have dominated the world market and continue to do so in the U.S. Indian-manufactured turbines are swiftly moving into the U.S. market as well, complementing Japanese manufacturers who have long been here.

A promise of American jobs

Obama has consistently made the creation of green jobs a priority for his administration.

At a gathering of the AFL-CIO on Sept. 15, he pledged to create a “clean energy economy that will free America from the grip of foreign oil and create millions of new green jobs that can't be outsourced.” The president pledged to make ‘made in America’ not just a slogan but “a reality.” (Transcript .)

Obama is well aware of America’s role as an energy innovator slipping while foreign competitors have taken the lead. At a campaign event in Portsmouth, N.H. in October 2007, the president noted that technologies invented in America – like wind turbines, solar panels, and compact fluorescent bulbs – are being developed overseas and sold back to American consumers.

“This will change when I am president,” he said .

The U.S. has supported the wind industry in the past by offering a small tax credit for each kilowatt hour (kw/h) of energy produced. The most recent iteration offers a credit of 2.1 cents per kw/h, which in effect makes generating wind power under optimal conditions competitive with coal and other carbon-based fuel sources.

The tax credit, however, has only been approved for short periods and every time Congress allows it to lapse the industry takes a nose dive. The stimulus package included a long-term extension of the production tax credit – through 2012, but at a tough time. Many wind companies lacked the income that made a tax credit worthwhile, and after last year’s financial collapse, many of the financial firms who traditionally invested in wind projects to collect the tax credit were no longer looking for places to put their money..

The stimulus package does offer more help for domestic production. It will allow wind companies to collect a tax credit on actual investment, not just production. The credit can be taken in the form of a cash grant – up to 30 percent of a facility’s development cost if it is brought online in 2009 or 2010.

"Particularly when you only had the (production tax credit), people used to go through all sorts of gyrations to get investors with tax liability to come in," Jenner said. "But what happened at the end of 2008, as the recession hit in full force -- that pool of capital, those investors just went away, for the most part. So there was a real shortage of tax equity, investors who had tax lliabliity and were willing to invest in these projects.

"And so, what the grant in lieu of the ITC does is it eliminates the need for tax liability," Jenner told the Workshop. "It just gives you cash."

The White House referred inquiries on the program to the Department of Treasury. A spokesperson did not return multiple phone calls and emails on the subject.

Spanish company dominates

 Companies began applying for the grants, outlined in Section 1603 of the stimulus bill, at the end of July. The Energy Department and the Treasury Department, who are jointly administering the program, began announcing grant winners on Sept. 1.

In the first round , $502 million was awarded with $499.9 million going to wind developers. Of that, $342.6 million went to two foreign companies – the renewable energy subsidiary of Spanish utility Iberdrola ($294.8 million) and the American subsidiary of Portugese utility EDP Renováveis ($47.7 million). On Aug. 26, six days before the first grants were given, British private equity firm Terra Firma bought Everpower Wind Holdings, one of two American companies that would receive grants on Sept. 1. The newly British-owned company received $42.2 million in cash.

In the second round , announced Sept. 22, an additional $550 million was awarded with $464.2 million dedicated to wind. All of it went to the subsidiaries of foreign companies – Iberdrola ($250.9 million), Japanese utility Eurus Energy's American subsidiary ($91.3 million) and German utility E.on Climate and Renewables ' American subsidiary ($121.9 million).

The government says $3 billion has been set aside for the program, but there is no cap – if it is deemed a success, more money can be allocated.

All told, the 11 wind farms that received grants have the capacity to generate 1.5 gigawatts of electricity – theoretically enough to power roughly 450,000 American homes. As required by the law, all started operating after Jan. 1, 2009 but before the grants were made.

The most important figure, however, may be the number of turbines that were installed by these four companies. According to Iberdrola Renewables, the company only employs 800 people in all of their U.S. operations. It’s the production of turbines that matters most economically. In fact, as much as 70 percent of the economic activity generated by investing in wind comes from the manufacture of the modern, highly sophisticated turbines – but this is where foreign companies actually have their strongest grip on the market.

In the case of these 11 wind farms, according to data provided by the companies themselves in regulatory filings and collected by the American Wind Energy Association, 982 turbines were installed – 695 of them were manufactured by a foreign company.

A study by the Renewable Energy Policy Project , a think-tank that advocates renewable energy technology research, estimates that for every 1,000 megawatts of wind energy that is developed, 4,300 jobs are created: 600 for operation and maintenance of the wind farms; 700 for the installation of new turbines; and 3,000 for manufacturing.

The cash grants were given for the installation of 1,763 megawatts of capacity – 1,566 installed by foreign companies. Using the Renewable Energy Policy Project’s own numbers, as many as 4,500 manufacturing jobs may have been created overseas

Turbine Manufacturing Dominated by Foreign Competitors

It is hoped the Recovery Act will encourage investment in the U.S. wind industry and develop a new carbon-neutral energy source. But even some of the strongest supporters of American renewable energy have pointed out that unless U.S. manufacturing is supported more specifically, the country might cede the good, permanent jobs to foreign competitors.

The manufacturing market is thoroughly dominated by foreign companies – mainly European, but more recently Asian manufacturers as well. The U.S. market for wind turbines and components is growing rapidly, but the import/export numbers offer a grim picture of who is winning the battle.

According to U.S. Customs data for 2008 and the U.S. Trade Commission, the U.S. imported $2.5 billion worth of wind turbines last year – up from $365 million in 2003.  

According to information compiled by the American Wind Energy Association, 2008 was actually a banner year for American turbine manufacturers. They accounted for an all-time high of 49.6 percent of installed capacity.

But the American market is narrow – GE Energy accounted for 42.7 percent alone; Clipper Wind is a distant second among American companies with just 6.9 percent.

GE and Clipper’s market share of installed capacity so far this year has slipped to a combined 43 percent. The prospects for the market share improving, at least this year, are not good. There is at least 5,200 megawatts of wind power capacity currently under development – only 32.6 percent is currently planned to be American made.

Photo by Joel Page
A truck carrying a turbine blade manufactured by Danish company Vestas, weaves its way through the town of Searsport, Maine this summer. Part of a 3-megawatt turbine unit sold by Vestas, the blade is 132 feet long.

The complex nature and sheer size of turbine components encourages manufacturers to try and build near where the turbines will be installed, which would seem to give the American companies an advantage, but foreign owned manufacturers are making the strongest inroads.

Vestas Americas , a unit of a Danish company, is the largest foreign-owned competitor to U.S. manufacturers, responsible for roughly 16.3 percent of the turbines under construction.

Company spokesman Roby Roberts, estimates the company has invested $1 billion in developing U.S. facilities over the past two years. This includes opening several plants in Colorado to build wind blades and plans to open more plants that will manufacture towers and the nacelles which house thousands of components that control the generation.

By the end of 2010, the company hopes to employ 4,000 people in America – including sales, service and manufacturing. A smaller Danish company that supplies Vestas recently announced plans to open shop near the turbine maker’s Colorado facilities and eventually employ 100 to 150 American workers.

“Our idea is by 2011 to have the ability to manufacture a complete North American-manufactured turbine,” Roberts said.

For now, Vestas continues to import all of the nacelles for its turbines and many of the blades.

The cash grants that were handed out in September theoretically will trickle down to American workers when the market demands locally built turbines – but that’s not guaranteed to happen.

“There is a larger concern that turbines might be coming from China,” said Xihou Zhou, an analyst at IHS Cambridge, a global energy advisory firm, pointing to other industries where cheaper costs have allowed Chinese manufactured goods to replace American-made products.

Although Vestas Americas said it plans to establish an American supply chain, other manufacturers, even American-owned ones, have begun building supply chains in countries with cheaper labor costs to provide the thousands of parts that may finally be assembled in the United States. Zhou cited three facilities GE owns in China to produce turbine components, and the company recently began work on a wind turbine components factory in Vietnam that will employ 500 local workers and export 10,000 tons of components to GE Energy assembly plants around the world.

Job creation will be major factor in debate over climate and energy bill

In the coming weeks the discussion of how to best support a domestic wind industry – as  a carbon-free alternative to foreign oil and an economic engine – returns to Capitol Hill as the Senate takes up a climate and energy bill. Once again, the administration and wind backers are chiming in with a familiar refrain

In a speech Tuesday, President Obama once again acknowledged the United States is not the global leader in clean energy that it once was. But, he said, a comprehensive climate and energy bill will restore America to its rightful place.

“That's going to finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America,” he said noting that the Senate’s Environment and Public Works committee began hearings on a bill (S. 1733 Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act ). “The creation of a clean energy economy has to be made as swiftly and carefully as possible, to ensure that what it takes to grow this economy in the short, medium, and long term is no longer delayed.”

Testifying in support of a climate bill before the Senate committee, Energy Secretary Steven Chu was more direct.

“When the starting gun sounded on the clean energy race, the United States stumbled,” he said in his written testimony (pdf ), urging the passage of the bill. “But I remain confident that we can make up the ground. When we gear up our research and production of clean energy technologies, we can still surpass any other country.”

By Robert Gammon

East Bay Express

www.eastbayexpress.com

29 September 2009

The dirty little secret about the windmill farm at Altamont Pass is that it slaughters thousands of birds every year while politicians turn a blind eye.

Four years ago, environmental groups filed suit after the Alameda County Board of Supervisors effectively allowed the farm’s several owners to keep killing birds despite evidence that the deaths could be greatly lessened.

A resulting legal settlement was supposed to cut in half the number of annual deaths. But according to a recent scientific report, Altamont wind turbines are shredding raptors at an increasing rate. The total number of birds killed each year may now top 5,000.

The report, authored by Shawn Smallwood, a respected scientist who has been studying bird deaths east of Livermore since the late 1990s, shows that the number of overall bird deaths in 2005 to 2007 jumped 23 percent compared to the last major study, which looked at bird mortality from 1998 to 2003.

The fatality rate for large raptors, including golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, American kestrel falcons, and burrowing owls, has increased 10 percent. Overall, the report estimates that the number of birds killed each year by Altamont wind turbines is between 1,072 and 5,125. The report was published earlier this year in the peer-reviewed Journal of Wildlife Management.

The Smallwood report and the lack of progress in slowing the slaughter has prompted one of the groups that sued the companies and the county in 2005 to head back to court. Californians for Renewable Energy, a Santa Cruz-based grassroots group, is asking a judge to order the wind farm to close on October 1. The request also asks that it remain shuttered until the county completes an environmental impact report and the wind companies start abiding by the previous legal settlement. “They didn’t remove the old, derelict turbines, the lethal turbines,” said Michael Boyd, president of the group. “So the birds are still getting slaughtered.”

Altamont is ground zero for bird deaths because it’s one of the world’s oldest large wind farms. Built in the 1980s with what is now inferior technology, the farm is covered with small turbines that have blades that rotate too close to the ground. These turbines are lethal for low-flying birds, especially raptors hunting for prey. Newer, taller turbines, by contrast, are not only safer, but more energy efficient. “There are bird kills at other wind farms, but none to the degree of Altamont,” explained Jeff Miller of the Center for Biological Diversity, who has closely followed the problem for the past decade.

So why don’t the wind companies just replace their old turbines? For one, state-of-the-art turbines are expensive, so it’s more profitable to let the old machines keep spinning, even if they’re less efficient. And second, little political pressure is applied to the wind companies because they generate tax revenues for the county and because wind power is considered “green.” The wind companies have benefitted from a double standard. Imagine the public outcry if Chevron was slaughtering more than 5,000 birds a year, including nearly 100 federally protected golden eagles.

In fact, the Center for Biological Diversity took a beating in the press several years ago for criticizing the companies and suing them and the county. As a result, Miller was reluctant to speak about the issue. But the center appears to have been right all along. It opposed the settlement reached by Boyd’s organization and by Audubon, the bird conservation group, which also had sued. Back then, the center argued that the settlement included no mechanisms to make the wind companies replace the old turbines with new ones, and so a 50 percent reduction in deaths would likely never be reached.

But Boyd argues that the problem wouldn’t be so bad now if the wind companies and the county had lived up to the agreement. “The lesson here is settlements don’t always work out,” he said. He also alleged that Audubon has undermined the agreement by not taking a stronger stance. “They’ve been more pro-wind than pro-birds as far as I can tell,” he said.

William Yeates, an attorney for Audubon, said that while the group has been “disappointed” in the number of deaths and “dissatisfied” with the wind companies settlement compliance, it plans to neither support nor oppose Boyd’s request for a shutdown. Audubon, he said, is waiting for a new report based on updated data from Smallwood, which will show whether the companies have made progress since 2007. “If they haven’t reduced the bird fatalities by 50 percent, then they’ll have to do more,” he said.

A representative from one of the companies declined to be interviewed, saying it does not comment on pending litigation. But Alameda County Counsel Richard Winnie said the county will oppose Boyd’s motion, which is scheduled for a hearing on September 30, because he believes it’s premature.

Smallwood and the scientific review committee met last week at a three-day workshop to sift through his latest data and attempt to determine whether the measures taken by the wind companies have had any affect. One of the measures included a county-required three-month shut-down of the wind turbines during the winter, when more raptors are in the Altamont area. Smallwood had recommended a four-month shutdown, but the companies resisted. During a break in the workshop, Smallwood told Eco Watch that it was too early to tell whether any of the wind companies’ efforts had worked. He said it could be several months before the committee’s report is done.

He and a team of researchers estimate bird deaths at Altamont by scouring the wind farm for avian carcasses. The researchers, however, can’t be sure that they have found all of the dead birds, because many will be eaten or carried off by scavengers. So they multiply the actual number of carcasses they find by a factor that estimates how many they missed. Historically, the wind companies have contended that Smallwood and his research team overestimate the missed-bird factor, even though his method has been accepted by peer-reviewed scientific journals and the California Energy Commission.

Turbine proposal prompts concern by CareFlight pilot, OSP commander

“How do I determine a turbine from a tower?” [CareFlight pilot] Herbert asked. “Towers are lit at the top and don’t move or create turbulence; turbines are lit 100 feet or more below the actual top and have rotating blades that cannot be seen in a wide area. We are a 12-hour-a-day minimum facility with many 24-hour days, often with flights in the dark. With too many altitude restrictions and too many (turbines) in a small area, where do you go?”

Herbert said the prospect of turbines worries him and other air ambulance pilots.

“Bottom line, helicopter operations in Champaign County will be limited and this could delay critical care needed in assisting victims of accidents to Level 1 trauma centers in Dayton and Columbus,” he said.

CLICK HERE TO READ ENTIRE STORY AT SOURCE

Health check for Waubra Wind Farm

THE Victorian Government will examine claims that Waubra's 128-turbine wind farm is harming the health of nearby residents.

Finance, WorkCover and Transport Accident Commission Minister, Tim Holding, wrote to Western Victoria MLC Peter Kavanagh earlier this week to confirm that three government departments would examine "potential hazards" caused by sub-audible noise emitted by the turbines.

Mr Kavanagh raised the issue in parliament on September 2, after meeting with several Waubra residents who claim the towers have caused headaches, nausea and sleep deprivation since they began operating in June.

"I did a tour of Waubra in late August and people there are very upset about the wind farm," Mr Kavanagh said.

"Most off them were fairly happy to go along with the turbines before they were installed, but now I know of one family who won't live in their house.

"It certainly isn't an isolated incident."

WorkSafe Victoria, the Environmental Protection Authority and the Department of Human Services will work with local government to examine the issue raised by Mr Kavanagh.

But a WorkSafe spokesman denied the move was a formal investigation.

"It's not an investigation. We are looking at specific claims made by a few local residents," he said.

"Questions have been asked of the minister and by getting other relevant departments involved we are trying to answer the questions asked.

"It's in its very early stages and where it goes we don't know."

A spokesman for Acciona Energy, the Spanish company behind the wind farm, said extensive studies of wind farms worldwide were yet to provide conclusive proof that they were harmful.

"Acciona Energy is not aware of any investigation but would willingly participate with confidence, knowing there is no clear, consistent scientific data, nor a peer-reviewed scientific consensus, to confirm a connection between modern wind turbines and health concerns," he said.

"The Waubra wind farm meets the stringent noise levels required by government."

The spokesman said the farm reached full generation capacity for the first time two weeks ago.

By Ron Reimer

Ronald Reimer is an organic farmer in Ettrick, Wis.

Minnesota Public Radio

SOURCE: minnesota.publicradio.org

15 October 2009

Most of what the public knows about wind turbines comes from the media.

Without a grounding in the sciences of thermodynamics and economics, the average person, eager to be politically and environmentally correct, fixates on the concept of “free energy,” and closes his mind to further discussion of how expensive “free” can be.

The public believes, more than it really knows, about wind turbines, and well-meaning advocates of wind as the solution to our climate and energy woes are unknowingly on a crash course with reality.

Citizen watchdogs like myself, who dig a little deeper to learn the whole story, come off in the media as deluded malcontents or NIMBYs, though we back up our warnings with statistics, case studies, laws of physics, comparative research and personal testimonies of real people who suffer from proximity to turbines.

Rural dwellers are “asked” to host wind turbines and to pay for transmission lines to furnish city dwellers with green power from wind. Investors make huge profits while taxpayers and ratepayers get to pay 20 percent more for their power. So who is this technology benefiting? For exactly whom is it “free?”

Financially, wind energy is a losing proposition for most everyone who does not directly profit from the manufacture, siting, servicing, removal, financing or taxing of turbines, or from the disbursal of the electricity produced by them.

The wind boon benefits the turbine industry, not the general public. The industry is a terrible waste of resources: Human, physical, financial, temporal and aesthetic. These finite resources could be better spent transforming the physical infrastructure of our society toward sustainable energy production and use, and toward creating jobs that benefit the entire society.

Is it wise to be placing most of our renewable eggs in a basket that seems to be bottomless?

America may not be able to make cars competitively anymore, but turbines? Subsidized and backed by the government? We could literally cover the countryside with turbines. And to be sure, we will, unless we start talking about who (besides Mother Nature) is paying for them and how.

Wind turbines: Warm, fuzzy and politically correct. On-site solar energy, just as renewable and with far fewer negative consequences: Little press, and no federal stimulus money.

There are plenty of good health and safety reasons to zone huge commercial turbines away from residences, but the primary objections to wind turbines should be:

1) They don’t do what they’re supposed to do, i.e., replace energy generated by fossil fuels; in fact, they encourage more coal plants to be built. Because the power they produce can’t be stored, traditional sources of electricity must remain available to back up the turbines when the wind dies down.

2) Turbine manufacture, siting, operation and their transmission networks are environmental threats, not boons. We would be better off taking the land on which they are sited — plus the energy used and the lands mined to build them, the land used to transmit the energy they produce, and the money spent on investment incentives — and devoting all those resources to planting trees that would sequester carbon, and simply forgo the huge hidden carbon footprint associated with turbines.

3) Turbine technology looks suspiciously like a bailout of the heavy equipment manufacturing industry, and a transfer of taxpayer and ratepayer resources into the hands of investors.

4) In harnessing the wind we are destroying the beauty of local landscapes — worldwide — with mesmerizing icons of technology that distract our consciousness and ignore our need for a natural landscape.

Red flags should go up when we find the Sierra Club and General Electric Corp. coming down on the same side of an issue.

Opinions of genuine environmental advocacy get scant or severely edited coverage, making room for more politically correct positions. What we end up with, rather than information, is misleading public relations campaigns, doublespeak and pep talks for progress.

It’s time we stopped fooling ourselves into thinking that wind turbines are going to save us. We truly cannot afford the resources it would require to seriously make a difference in our energy supply, and there are much greener and more sustainable approaches to caring for our environment.

The false hopes generated by the wind energy industry are giving us the idea that we don’t have to change our lifestyles; technology will allow us to continue to be gluttons of energy and resources.

Sorry to be the messenger of bad news, but as good as they may be for the economy, commercial wind turbines can never be green. I don’t care how much spin we put on them.

Public wants moratorium on wind turbines.

The Walkerton Herald-Times

www.walkerton.com

13 October 2009

The answer is blowing in the wind, at least for the provincial government.

Local residents aren’t so sure, if a meeting held last week in Walkerton is any indication. And now they’re getting backing from MPP Bill Murdoch, who announced he plans to ask for a moratorium on wind turbines until health impacts are looked at.

The province’s Green Energy Act, passed on May 14 of this year, streamlines the approval process for wind turbine projects. The provincial government is committed to eliminating its coal operated electrical generating plants, and promoting green energy projects is a key part of the plan to make that happen.

There are already two large-scale wind turbine projects in Bruce County, one near Underwood and the other near Ripley. Other projects are planned for both Bruce and Grey.

A substantial number of people living in close proximity to the new wind farms popping up across the province are expressing health concerns, prompting the Grey Bruce Health Unit to hold two public meetings on the wind farm issue. One meeting was in Owen Sound and the other in Walkerton.

The Walkerton meeting at the Victoria Jubilee Hall on Tuesday, Oct. 6 was considerably more subdued than the first meeting in Owen Sound, but the frustration level of the people present for the meeting was apparent.

One person in the crowd of over 100 people seemed to echo the general feeling of those present when she told Dr. Hazel Lynn, medical officer of health, “You are the first government-connected person who’s listened to us.” The comment was greeted with applause from the crowd, a number of whom were from well outside the area.

Dr. Lynn told the audience that while health units do not have the power to take action against the wind turbines, the local health unit is prepared to take the issue to the government. “Rural communities are resilient and inventive,” she said. “We need to work together on this problem.”

The purpose of the Walkerton meeting was to provide information about wind turbines to those who wanted it, and to gather information to take to the government. It also gave people an opportunity to vent their frustration. As with the earlier meeting, there was certainly plenty of it.

The first part of the forum consisted of presentations by keynote speaker Dr. Ray Copes, Dr. Lynn, and Ministry of the Environment representative Rick Chappell. Also on hand was Andrew Barton of the MOE.

During the second part of the meeting, people from the audience were given the opportunity to ask questions to the speakers, and to state their concerns. People were asked to state their views on “what they would change with wind industry regulations” under three headings – community, industry and government. Comments were written on flip charts.

Lynn opened by describing the health unit’s involvement in the wind turbine issue. “Legislation obliges the health unit to investigate complaints and take those complaints to the appropriate government office,” she said.

Next to speak was Chappell, district manager for the MOE’s Grey, Bruce and Huron office. He gave a brief overview of the investigation process.

Copes then gave a scaled-down version of the talk he gave in Owen Sound, this time without the slide presentation.
Copes has been with the Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion for three months. Prior to that, he served at the federal level.

The wind turbine issue is new, he said. In 2005-2006, public health units identified water as the key concern, along with food. “There was no mention of wind turbines,” he said. Health units were resurveyed in 2008-2009, and while water and food were still concerns, so were wind turbines.

He noted that the concerns are “10 times higher in Ontario” than elsewhere and suggested the reason was Ontario’s “aggressive” wind turbine program, and the fact that “local processes are not part of the decision making.”

Items looked at in relation to wind turbines were noise (and vibration), electromagnetic fields, shadow flicker as a possible cause of epileptic seizures, mechanical failure and icing, and health and safety.

He noted the most common health complaints are headaches and sleep disturbances. “It’s a well established phenomenon,” Copes said, adding it isn’t just a matter of how loud the noise is, but the quality and nature of the sound, described by one woman in the crowd as a “whump-whump-whump – that’s not a normal sound.”

Among the issues identified as of greatest concern by the speakers and the audience members included:

Is a setback of 550 metres enough? Some areas are looking at setbacks of a kilometre-and-a-half, or two kms. In a rural area, the house may be outside the 550-metre setback, but outbuildings and fields where farmers work all day could be much closer.

Harvey Wrightman, of Kerwood, said people in his area are angry – wind turbines are going to be put up near a school.

Most of those at the meeting seemed to agree that a moratorium on wind turbines is needed until research can be done on the health issues. Carmen Krogh, a retired pharmacist, is part of a group called WindVOICE, a victim support group. There are almost 100 people sick, she said, and some are children.

“They are the canaries in the coal mine,” Krogh said.

Formosa resident Melissa Nichols said she’s in favour of green energy. “But we need to the research first,” she said.
Many of those at the meeting – including the speakers – said they would like to see some sort of third-party investigation done.

The number of wind turbines in an area is one issue that interests Dr. Lynn. Many of the European projects have only two or three in the array, while the wind farms in Ontario have a dozen or more. Also of interest is the size of the turbines.
Gag orders were contentious for a number of people – many complained that those who have wind turbines on their land are not allowed to speak out about any health problems they’re having.

Dr. Lynn said the cost of the turbines compared to the electricity produced and the health risks associated with them, make this a “very expensive way to generate energy. I’d like a review of the cost effectiveness of wind turbines.”

Lack of local input was a common complaint.

“It’s nice of you to hold this meeting, but Dalton McGuinty isn’t listening. People don’t want the darned things,” said Arran-Elderslie Coun. Mark Davis.

Lack of government and wind turbine industry response seemed to be a common complaint. Most of those in the room want answers, and they aren’t getting them they said.