from Ironic Times:
A recent article on hunger issues noted that on the same day the Department of Agriculture reported that 500,000 more Americans went hungry last year, the House Agriculture Committee addressed the crisis by passing a bill adding 300,000 Americans to the Food Stamp Program and $850,000 to the program's budget. In fact the Agriculture Committee passed a bill removing 300,000 from Food Stamp eligibility and cutting the program's budget by $850,000. We regret any confusion caused by our mistake.
December 29, 2005
Onshore wind in New York a bust
"Capacity factors of inland wind sites in New York are on the order of 30% of their rated capacity. Their effective capacities, however, are about 10%, due to both the seasonal and [the] daily patterns of the wind generation being largely 'out of phase' with the NYISO load patterns."
-- from: "The effects of integrating wind power on transmission system planning, reliability, and operations," New York State Energy Research & Development Authority, March 4, 2005, p. 7.16 (2-MB PDF)
categories: wind power, wind energy
-- from: "The effects of integrating wind power on transmission system planning, reliability, and operations," New York State Energy Research & Development Authority, March 4, 2005, p. 7.16 (2-MB PDF)
categories: wind power, wind energy
December 24, 2005
Vermonters of the Year
To the Editor, Vermont Guardian:
All of the currently proposed wind power projects in Vermont (up to 312 MW) would provide only 10% of our current needs. They are practically irrelevant to the unlikely loss, desired or otherwise, of Hydro Quebec and/or Vermont Yankee.
Wind power does not respond to demand. It may or may not be there when needed. The Searsburg facility, for example, generates no power at all almost 40% of the time. With widely distributed installations on a system, as in Germany, their average infeed is reached only a third of the time. Even when the wind is blowing well, the system must be ready (i.e., burning fuel in "spinning reserve") to provide power when the wind drops again at any time.
We will therefore need as much other electricity sources with wind as we would without. If we come to depend on the small amount of power the wind turbines will provide, we will, like the Danes, be using the expensive spot market even more.
It is not just unnecessary but offensive to entertain industrial-scale development of the ridgelines, with strobe lights and noise and ecological degradation that far surpasses anything now on the mountains, for such obvious nonsense.
While annual honors are being given out, Vermont Guardian, in unquestioningly presenting the sales pitch of Dave Rapaport and other developers as news, has clearly earned "dupe of the year."
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, Vermont
All of the currently proposed wind power projects in Vermont (up to 312 MW) would provide only 10% of our current needs. They are practically irrelevant to the unlikely loss, desired or otherwise, of Hydro Quebec and/or Vermont Yankee.
Wind power does not respond to demand. It may or may not be there when needed. The Searsburg facility, for example, generates no power at all almost 40% of the time. With widely distributed installations on a system, as in Germany, their average infeed is reached only a third of the time. Even when the wind is blowing well, the system must be ready (i.e., burning fuel in "spinning reserve") to provide power when the wind drops again at any time.
We will therefore need as much other electricity sources with wind as we would without. If we come to depend on the small amount of power the wind turbines will provide, we will, like the Danes, be using the expensive spot market even more.
It is not just unnecessary but offensive to entertain industrial-scale development of the ridgelines, with strobe lights and noise and ecological degradation that far surpasses anything now on the mountains, for such obvious nonsense.
While annual honors are being given out, Vermont Guardian, in unquestioningly presenting the sales pitch of Dave Rapaport and other developers as news, has clearly earned "dupe of the year."
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, Vermont
December 22, 2005
Whichever way the wind blows
A team from the School of Geography and Geosciences at the University of St Andrews (Scotland) surveyed residents around two sites each in Ireland and Scotland and found higher approval of existing than of proposed wind facilities. They also found that many people approving of the existing facilities had indeed changed their minds from opposing them when proposed.
Have they also changed their whole worldview? According to the BBC ("Residents air views on wind farms," Dec. 12),
[A letter in the Dec. 28 Scotsman points out that the study was done in collaboration with the Macaulay Institute of Aberdeen, which runs a consultancy business, Macaulay Enterprises, for the renewables industry. The links on its web site are all pro-industry.]
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, anarchism, ecoanarchism
Have they also changed their whole worldview? According to the BBC ("Residents air views on wind farms," Dec. 12),
The survey also found that opponents and advocates of wind farms saw the world through "different lenses".What this illustrates is the amazing coping ability of humans, who are able to rationalize and disregard personal misfortune or local injustice by referring it to a "greater good," however delusional. It is no wonder that people thus resign themselves to what they must now live with.
Dr [Charles] Warren said: "We focused on people's general environmental attitudes before homing in on the wind farm issue.
"We found that people in favour of wind farms generally viewed environmental issues as global and justified their support on that basis.
"Opponents tended to view the environment as locally conceived and about protecting their local surroundings."
[A letter in the Dec. 28 Scotsman points out that the study was done in collaboration with the Macaulay Institute of Aberdeen, which runs a consultancy business, Macaulay Enterprises, for the renewables industry. The links on its web site are all pro-industry.]
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, anarchism, ecoanarchism
December 17, 2005
Plenty of nothin'
From a Joplin (Mo.) Globe editorial, Dec. 17:
categories: wind power, wind energy
Before long, as more companies see the advantage of investing in wind farms, thousands of windmills will be harvesting Kansas’ breezes daily to provide energy to communities large and small. ... Wind farms may never generate a huge portion of our energy requirements, but they will have an expanding role to play in meeting the nation’s power needs.Thousands of giant (400 feet high) spinning strobe-lit noisy machines, yet "never a huge portion" of our electricity. To not acknowledge or even see that lack of proportion is truly a sign of madness.
categories: wind power, wind energy
December 13, 2005
National coalition to spotlight windpower's harmful impacts, ineffectiveness
[press release]
www.wind-watch.org adds balance to the industrial wind energy debate
Rowe, MA (December 14, 2005). National Wind Watch, Inc., non-profit organization promoting awareness of the risks and related impacts of industrial wind energy development launched its new website today. The site, www.wind-watch.org, has been under development for months and provides industry news, opinion pieces, researched documents, and a photo gallery.
Industry related news articles, posted daily on the site, are hand-selected from major media sources as well as local press in various regions throughout the country and worldwide.
A growing resource library already contains hundreds of carefully selected documents, opinion pieces, photos and other materials, categorized by geographic location and over two dozen topics which include "Impact on wildlife", "Energy policy", "Noise", and "Zoning/Planning".
The website was developed by Parkerhill Technology Group of New Hampshire. Visitors to the site are invited to subscribe to the mailing list, to receive periodic announcements from National Wind Watch and notifications of major updates to the web site. National Wind Watch also welcomes submissions of additional materials to its resource library; please contact us via the web site or by emailing to info@wind-watch.org.
categories: wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
www.wind-watch.org adds balance to the industrial wind energy debate
Rowe, MA (December 14, 2005). National Wind Watch, Inc., non-profit organization promoting awareness of the risks and related impacts of industrial wind energy development launched its new website today. The site, www.wind-watch.org, has been under development for months and provides industry news, opinion pieces, researched documents, and a photo gallery.
Industry related news articles, posted daily on the site, are hand-selected from major media sources as well as local press in various regions throughout the country and worldwide.
A growing resource library already contains hundreds of carefully selected documents, opinion pieces, photos and other materials, categorized by geographic location and over two dozen topics which include "Impact on wildlife", "Energy policy", "Noise", and "Zoning/Planning".
The website was developed by Parkerhill Technology Group of New Hampshire. Visitors to the site are invited to subscribe to the mailing list, to receive periodic announcements from National Wind Watch and notifications of major updates to the web site. National Wind Watch also welcomes submissions of additional materials to its resource library; please contact us via the web site or by emailing to info@wind-watch.org.
categories: wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
A kinder gentler piracy
"Wind Energy" Promoters in the US Have NOT Resorted to the Chinese Tactic of Shooting Opponents
by Glenn Schleede, December 12, 2005
The news story of Chinese riot police shooting "wind farm" opponents demonstrates that aggressive "wind farm" promoters, developers and owners in the US are more subtle and humane.
Nevertheless, the tactics listed below that are employed by the wind industry, by federal, state and local government officials, and by other "wind energy" advocates in the US -- relying heavily on false and misleading information -- may be equally effective [and the aim is the same: to manipulate public policy to ensure unfettered personal profit and to discredit and disregard the people who stand in the way --KM], i.e.:
1. Understating adverse environmental, ecological, scenic and property value impacts of "wind farms."
2. Understating the true economic costs of electricity from wind energy.
3. Overstating the environmental benefits of wind energy.
4. Overstating local economic benefits of "wind farms."
5. Ignoring the impact of the intermittent, highly volatile, largely unpredictable and unreliable electricity from wind turbines on electric systems and grids.
6. Ignoring the fact that wind turbines cannot be counted on to produce electricity when electricity demand is high (i.e., little or no "capacity" value) with the result that reliable generating capacity must be provided whether or not "wind turbines" are built.
7. Convincing government officials and regulators to shift millions in costs from "wind farm" owners and hide those costs in the tax bills and electric bills paid by ordinary taxpayers and electric customers.
8. Securing all sorts of tax breaks to shift tax burden to ordinary taxpayers, including: federal and state accelerated depreciation deductions, production tax credits, and exemptions or reductions in sales and property taxes.
9. Convincing governors, state legislators and regulators to enact or decree insidious "Renewable Portfolio Standards" and other voluntary or mandatory "green energy" programs which create artificial, high cost markets for electricity from "wind farms," [as well as a secondary even more potentially lucrative market in "renewables certificates" or "green credits," --KM] with much of the true costs hidden in monthly electric bills.
10. Convincing Federal and state executives to issue "Executive Orders" mandating that federal and state agencies buy electricity generated from "renewable" energy at above market rates, with the extra costs hidden in agency budgets -- diverting money from agencies' (e.g., military services) primary missions to the coffers of "wind farm" owners.
11. Convincing Federal and state regulators to add more subsidies by using their powers to benefit "wind farm" owners, including use of eminent domain powers to build transmission lines to serve "wind farms," and shifting to electric customers the cost associated with transmission capacity serving "wind farms," exempting "wind farms" from penalties for not meeting delivery commitments, and arbitrarily assigning unwarranted "capacity value."
12. When invading yet unexploited areas, quietly entering into contracts with local government officials to lease land for wind turbines, thus producing influential voices to support granting of necessary permits.
13. Employing aggressive negotiation techniques and aggressive contract and easement terms when securing rights from ordinary landowners to build wind turbines on private land (e.g., low rental payments, payments tied to turbine performance without assurance of maintaining performance, rigid control over land use, long options periods, minimal or no secure decommissioning funds, insisting on secrecy of contract terms).
14. Extensive lobbying of politicians and their staffs, generous campaign contributions and, apparently, willingness to ghostwrite speeches and articles for use by politicians.
15. Extensive lobbying of US Congress to provide tax dollars for the US Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (DOE-EERE), which distributes the tax dollars via contracts and grants to hundreds of organizations (profit, nonprofit, colleges and universities, state and local government agencies, industry lobbyists, DOE national "laboratories"), creating a veritable "army" of advocates to (a) prepare biased studies, reports, articles, speeches and letters to editors favorable to wind energy, and (b) lobby federal, state and local government executive, legislative and regulatory officials s to provide even more tax breaks and other subsidies and more tax dollars for DOE-EERE to dispense.
16. Providing a lucrative national wind energy "feed trough" for lawyers, financiers and lobbyists who are able to use federal, state and local tax breaks and subsidies -- at the expense of ordinary citizens, taxpayers and electric customers.
17. Providing a seemingly unlimited supply of false and misleading information to the public and to news media via press releases, speeches, free meals and trips for reporters to "wind energy" conferences and "wind farms."
[18. Dismissing and fostering contempt for citizens defending their homes and natural areas against industrial development, particularly fomenting division between natives and newer or part-time residents, between paid-off property owners and their unlucky neighbors, between environmentalists desperate for symbolic action and environmentalists who keep a clear head. --KM]
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, ecoanarchism
by Glenn Schleede, December 12, 2005
The news story of Chinese riot police shooting "wind farm" opponents demonstrates that aggressive "wind farm" promoters, developers and owners in the US are more subtle and humane.
Nevertheless, the tactics listed below that are employed by the wind industry, by federal, state and local government officials, and by other "wind energy" advocates in the US -- relying heavily on false and misleading information -- may be equally effective [and the aim is the same: to manipulate public policy to ensure unfettered personal profit and to discredit and disregard the people who stand in the way --KM], i.e.:
1. Understating adverse environmental, ecological, scenic and property value impacts of "wind farms."
2. Understating the true economic costs of electricity from wind energy.
3. Overstating the environmental benefits of wind energy.
4. Overstating local economic benefits of "wind farms."
5. Ignoring the impact of the intermittent, highly volatile, largely unpredictable and unreliable electricity from wind turbines on electric systems and grids.
6. Ignoring the fact that wind turbines cannot be counted on to produce electricity when electricity demand is high (i.e., little or no "capacity" value) with the result that reliable generating capacity must be provided whether or not "wind turbines" are built.
7. Convincing government officials and regulators to shift millions in costs from "wind farm" owners and hide those costs in the tax bills and electric bills paid by ordinary taxpayers and electric customers.
8. Securing all sorts of tax breaks to shift tax burden to ordinary taxpayers, including: federal and state accelerated depreciation deductions, production tax credits, and exemptions or reductions in sales and property taxes.
9. Convincing governors, state legislators and regulators to enact or decree insidious "Renewable Portfolio Standards" and other voluntary or mandatory "green energy" programs which create artificial, high cost markets for electricity from "wind farms," [as well as a secondary even more potentially lucrative market in "renewables certificates" or "green credits," --KM] with much of the true costs hidden in monthly electric bills.
10. Convincing Federal and state executives to issue "Executive Orders" mandating that federal and state agencies buy electricity generated from "renewable" energy at above market rates, with the extra costs hidden in agency budgets -- diverting money from agencies' (e.g., military services) primary missions to the coffers of "wind farm" owners.
11. Convincing Federal and state regulators to add more subsidies by using their powers to benefit "wind farm" owners, including use of eminent domain powers to build transmission lines to serve "wind farms," and shifting to electric customers the cost associated with transmission capacity serving "wind farms," exempting "wind farms" from penalties for not meeting delivery commitments, and arbitrarily assigning unwarranted "capacity value."
12. When invading yet unexploited areas, quietly entering into contracts with local government officials to lease land for wind turbines, thus producing influential voices to support granting of necessary permits.
13. Employing aggressive negotiation techniques and aggressive contract and easement terms when securing rights from ordinary landowners to build wind turbines on private land (e.g., low rental payments, payments tied to turbine performance without assurance of maintaining performance, rigid control over land use, long options periods, minimal or no secure decommissioning funds, insisting on secrecy of contract terms).
14. Extensive lobbying of politicians and their staffs, generous campaign contributions and, apparently, willingness to ghostwrite speeches and articles for use by politicians.
15. Extensive lobbying of US Congress to provide tax dollars for the US Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (DOE-EERE), which distributes the tax dollars via contracts and grants to hundreds of organizations (profit, nonprofit, colleges and universities, state and local government agencies, industry lobbyists, DOE national "laboratories"), creating a veritable "army" of advocates to (a) prepare biased studies, reports, articles, speeches and letters to editors favorable to wind energy, and (b) lobby federal, state and local government executive, legislative and regulatory officials s to provide even more tax breaks and other subsidies and more tax dollars for DOE-EERE to dispense.
16. Providing a lucrative national wind energy "feed trough" for lawyers, financiers and lobbyists who are able to use federal, state and local tax breaks and subsidies -- at the expense of ordinary citizens, taxpayers and electric customers.
17. Providing a seemingly unlimited supply of false and misleading information to the public and to news media via press releases, speeches, free meals and trips for reporters to "wind energy" conferences and "wind farms."
[18. Dismissing and fostering contempt for citizens defending their homes and natural areas against industrial development, particularly fomenting division between natives and newer or part-time residents, between paid-off property owners and their unlucky neighbors, between environmentalists desperate for symbolic action and environmentalists who keep a clear head. --KM]
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, ecoanarchism
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