Wind turbines no help to Vermonters

Today's Burlington (Vt.) Free Press includes an opinion piece by Barbara Grimes, general manager of Burlington Electric Dept.

As it stands now, Vermont imports electricity worth about $200 million each year. These are hard-earned Vermont dollars that go out of the state's economy and benefit wealthy people far away.

Turbine manufacturer GE is not local and Vestas is in Denmark, Enxco (Searsburg expansion, Readsboro, Lowell) is based in France, UPC (Hardscrabble in Sheffield) in Italy, Endless Energy (Equinox in Manchester) is from Maine, and the local companies behind industrial wind development are already in the power business, already raking in plenty of our electricity dollars. Their desire for more is not a compelling argument.

(Grimes mocks the mention of Halliburton as an "interesting little scare tactic" -- it must have touched a nerve. The fact is. Halliburton's subsidiary KBR, the division which is also profiteering shamelessly in Iraq, is "in the vanguard of the development of offshore wind power in the UK" (according to their web site), working in close partnership with the above-mentioned Vestas.)

Wind turbines properly placed in ideal wind spots so that we can produce our own energy in an environmentally and economically sound manner while providing good jobs for Vermonters is about as close to Vermont values as anything I can imagine. We believe in appropriately sited wind generation, which does not mean a continuous row from one end of the state to the other. That's just another ridiculous scare tactic designed to frighten the general public.

David Blittersdorf of anemometer company NRG wants to see 50% of the state's electricity generated by wind. That would require precisely the endless string of towers that Grimes dismisses as "scare tactic." Even VPIRG's goal of 20% would require hundreds of turbines (see below). It would also require violating a lot of heretofore protected land. The facts and goals of the industry itself are quite enough to scare the public.

The reality is Vermont already has wind energy and the view is not ruined and tourism hasn't suffered. I really wish people who say they are opposed to any and all wind turbines in the mountains would go and take a look at the wind farm at Searsburg, owned and operated by Green Mountain Power. Though the new ones would be taller, people would still get a sense of how turbines really do fit into the landscape. The wind power from Searsburg enters the grid and provides electricity for Vermonters in a clean and renewable manner.

Searsburg's towers are indeed much smaller. Significantly, they don't require safety lighting. Each tower in new developments is a couple stories higher than the whole assembly of one of Searsburg's machines. The blades reach 1 2/3 higher and chop through an acre of air -- more than 3 times those of Searsburg and correspondingly more noisy. Searsburg's 11 turbines, with a capacity equivalent to the 4 turbines proposed for East Haven, produce power equal to 0.2% of Vermont's electricity use, and it is less every year. To get to 20% would therefore require at least 400 giant new turbine assemblies; 50% would require 1,000 of them, costing about $2 million each and requiring new roads, substations, and high-voltage transmission lines. This is hardly a sustainable solution. It certainly does not protect the environment (each foundation, for example, would likely have to be blasted into the mountain rock and then requires many tons of concrete and steel). And because wind-based production doesn't coincide with demand, it wouldn't even provide much electricity that we would actually use (e.g., western Denmark had to dump 84% of its wind production in 2003).

Wind energy cuts our need of having to import power from outside the state. It cuts our reliance on others, and clearly puts the reliance back on ourselves, while supporting our economy and protecting our environment. If this doesn't reflect Vermont values, I'm not sure what does.

So, with little more argument than that she wants to see more wind turbines built, she closes with the old values bullying. She had laid the groundwork earlier by mentioning she's a "native" Vermonter, implying that all "real" Vermonters think exactly as she does and everyone else ought to shut the hell up. She evokes the "working landscape" unique to Vermont, though it is a feature of all places where humans dwell. New Jersey has a working landscape. What is unique to Vermont are the wild mountain tops for which Vermonters old and new have worked for a hundred years to restore and preserve. The desire to violate that with not manured hay fields but collections of 330-foot-high steel and composite wind turbines -- for very little benefit other than profits for a few -- reveals an appalling set of values, wherever they come from.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines

The hole gets bigger

One problem with ever-larger industrial wind turbines is the size of the foundation they require. In Bureau County, Illinois, 19 of the 33 turbines of the Crescent Ridge wind power facility near Tiskilwa have started to lean since the first was noticed last December. The holes dug for the foundations were already 30 feet deep, filled mostly with sand and topped with 6 feet of concrete and steel. Now they're injecting 16 5-foot-diameter columns of soil and grout into the hole to interlock under each existing concrete slab. The article (linked in the title of this post) mentions that in the west dynamite is used to blast out the holes for wind towers, as John Zimmerman, Enxco representative, has said would be required on the mountain ridges of the northeast U.S. as well. Many advocates claim that when wind turbines are no longer needed (or proved to be useless) they can be removed to leave the sites exactly as they were (ignoring the new or widened and strengthened roads, the clearcutting of forest, and new substations and transmission lines). That is obviously not so.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines

Tit bits

"Wind Energy an Important Contributor to Kyoto Plan" (news release):

"The installation of a minimum of 4,000 megawatts (MW) of wind energy
capacity in Canada over the next five years would produce enough electricity
to meet at least 15% of the projected increase in Canada's electricity demand
for the entire period between 2000 and 2010", says Robert Hornung, Canadian
Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) President.

That's about 4 billion dollars to (in theory only) cover 15% of only the increase in electricity use. In the U.S. that increase is generally assumed to be 2% a year, so assuming a similar rate in Canada electricity demand in 2010 would be 122% of what it was in 2000. 15% of that 22% increase is 3.3%. And electricity is only a fraction of total energy use, so industrial wind's contribution to the Kyoto plan is even further diminished. Even that very little something (based on the CanWEA's rosy assumptions of turbine performance) would require 3,000 turbines, each over 300 feet high, covering a total of 200-300 or more square miles. Besides the 4 billion dollars US for their construction, they would also require very expensive new high-voltage transmission lines. It seems obvious that conservation and efficiency would be a much more effective route. Of course, there's no profit for the energy companies in actually cutting back.

"Wind turbine on Tower Hill would be a beacon of hope" (letter):

Not only will the wind turbine become a major tourist attraction, but because of its proximity to our new hospital, it can also act as backup emergency power.

It can also act as emergency power for old-age homes and seniors' apartments in the case of blackouts, supplying power for elevators and respirators.

It should just be noted here that industrial wind turbines can not work without power from the grid. In a blackout, they are dead, too.

"Windmill Deemed Not Tall Enough" (news item):

[John Zimmerman, northeast U.S. Enxco representative,] said it will take time to perfect windmill technology ...

So far, Rapoza said, the windmill has produced a total of about 3,800 kilowatt hours [over 18 months], and makes enough electricity to power a small house.

The average residential customer in Vermont uses about 7,500 KW-h/year, so that's an awfully small house he's talking about: a third of the average. How many ever-larger turbines will industrialize ever more landscapes while the kinks of the technology (such as its dismal output) are still getting worked out?

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines

Another wind turbine couldn't take it

Up in the Lammermuirs of Scotland, a blade on one of the 2.5-MW wind turbines in the Crystal Rig wind power facility "flew apart" last Thursday morning. The news is just now being reported (click the title of this post), and the BBC story that appeared today has already been removed from their web site (update: it has returned). The damaged turbine assembly was installed only 8 months ago. These giant propellers don't seem to be able to withstand much wind.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines

"The beauty of wind farms"

To the editor, New Scientist:

David Suzuki ("The beauty of wind farms," Opinion, 16 April) reminds us of the importance of solving the problem of global warming. But the issue at hand was the charge that industrial wind farms make little significant difference to carbon emissions, which he doesn't even try to refute. Further, his illustration that beauty is in the eye of the beholder -- that factory smokestacks once filled people with pride -- underscores the lack of objective evidence in favor of "windmills."

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines

Wind hearings end

Excerpt from today's Burlington (Vt.) Free Press editorial, concerning the proposed East Haven Windfarm:

When Champion Paper Co. sold its 132,000-acre holdings in the Northeast Kingdom, the land was split into three parcels: 22,000 acres on West Mountain went to the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources; 84,000 acres with conservation easements went to the Essex Timber Co.; and 26,000 acres went to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Vermont Legislature appropriated $4.5 million for the project in 1999 with a matching grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation. The federal government invested another $6.5 million in the lands.

"This area is truly exceptional," Decker wrote in his pre-filed testimony. "There are few places like it, if any, in Vermont or the Northeast. ... And it did not happen by chance. The so-called Champion Lands deal was a culmination of years of hard work, negotiation, collaboration and expense. ... The mountain peaks are the fundamental cornerstone to the remote nature and rugged character."

East Haven Windfarm's proposed "demonstration project," on an island of private property in the middle of the Champion Lands, would generate about 0.3 percent [more likely 0.2%] of the state's annual electricity needs. This small amount of power does not justify putting 30-story-tall, strobe-lighted turbines right in the middle of land that the state explicitly protected as wilderness. Industrial wind turbines do not fit into the vision for these conserved lands nor could they possibly be considered "very little" development.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, conservation

Which side are you on?

M. David Stirling, in the Washington Times today, criticizes opponents of drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). In contrast, he praises Dear Leader's "common-sense approach and balancing of environmental concerns with real human needs." He dismisses environmental concerns, describing how environmentally friendly oil drilling has become, and reminds us that we need the energy and it will create jobs and local revenue.

Critics of course also point out that it will do little to affect our energy picture. The U.S. currently consumes about 20 million barrels of oil every day, and according to the U.S. Geological Survey any ANWR production would peak at about 1 million barrels/day in 2025, or 5% of today's consumption. It will obviously not replace any current or future sources, and more importantly it is not enough to risk cutting back contracts for imports. We will still be buying as much foreign oil as before. (In fact, about 7% of the oil used by the U.S. is currently exported.) It is definitely not worth violating a nominally protected wilderness area.

These arguments and reaction are not surprising, however. I write because Stirling sounds just like those who support industrial wind power: "We need to construct this expensive tiny source of power on previously undeveloped sites, even in protected wilderness areas, because -- well, anyway it creates jobs and local revenue." Stirling should be comforted that even environmentalists are pro-industrial capitalists now.

Related to this mix-up is recent news about Richard Pombo, U.S. Representative from California and promoter of industrial wind power. The Los Angeles Times found out that his parents own a good part of the land on which the Altamont wind power fiasco is situated. Pombo has earlier proposed (as noted here) that federal environmental review not be required for "alternative" energy projects. The L.A. Times now reports that he also requested the Department of the Interior directly to suspend Fish & Wildlife guidelines for the Altamont sites. His parents received $125,000 in 2001 for the use of their land by wind energy companies.

Altamont is an embarrassing showcase for the industry because large numbers of raptors have been killed there. A lawsuit is going forward on behalf of the birds. A current compromise (noted here) proposal is to shut the wind turbines down for the portion of the year when a majority of the deaths occur. That might cut Pombo's parents' wind income by a third. Pombo denies any interest in his parent's affairs and even denies knowledge of his signed letter to Interior secretary Gale Norton.

The anti-environment Pombo echos another argument from advocates for industrial wind: "We don't need environmental regulations -- by definition we're environmentally friendly."

It's all business. The industrial wind crowd is no better than the arctic drilling crowd.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, environment