[press release]
Rowe, MA (February 3, 2006). National Wind Watch, Inc., an organization dedicated to providing the facts about wind energy, welcomed President Bush's call this week to become less reliant on foreign oil for America's energy needs. The organization agrees advances in technology are essential, but warns further appropriations for wind energy would be a distraction from Bush's defined energy objectives.
National Wind Watch president, David Roberson, stated, "Wind is not a reliable form of energy and, as such, cannot replace traditional modes of electricity generation. And industrial wind development will not meet the criteria outlined in Bush's 2006 Agenda," referring to the objectives of reducing fuel prices and US dependence on foreign oil. "The simple fact is wind can do little to eliminate our need for foreign oil, because less than 3% of our oil consumption is used in electricity generation," Mr. Roberson noted. He added that rural America is facing an onslaught of wind energy proposals that could result in thousands of industrial towers, many standing over 400-feet high, and thousands of miles of associated transmission lines. At best wind will deliver only small amounts of electricity at a high cost. "In the face of rising energy prices, our federal, state, and local governments are grasping at wind energy as the solution to energy independence, but wind only increases both our economic and environmental costs," Roberson said. "The mission of National Wind Watch is to help educate communities and decision makers on the realities of wind."
tags: wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
February 3, 2006
Hush money from wind company
Here are excerpts from a "forbearance and non-disturbance agreement" being foisted on owners of property neighboring a large wind power facility.
... Company and Owner have determined that it is in their mutual best interest to enter into this forbearance and non-disturbance agreement. The Company is desirous of providing Owner with certain economic benefits to accrue from operation of the Wind Project ... Owner understands and accepts that operation of wind turbine generators may have some impacts on the Wind Project's neighbors, including the Owner's Property.Note that the 40-year "agreement" is so above board that the signer is required to keep it secret!
... Owners irrevocably grant to the Company, its successors and assigns, the right and privilege to operate the Wind Project, which activity may result in visual, television, noise and other impacts and disturbances at the Property. Owners agree, among other things, that during operation of the Wind Project the Company may occasionally generate and maintain audible noise levels in excess of fifty (50) db (A) on and above the Property at certain times of the day or night. Owners also agree to not engage in any activity on the Property that might cause interference with the operation of teh Wind Project. ...
Owners may sell, mortgage, assign or convey the Property without consent of Company, but any conveyance shall be subject to the terms of this Agreement.
... Owners understand and agree that the Easements and agreements granted herein shall run with the Property, and that any assignee or future buyer of the Property will take the Property subject to the obligations herein. The terms of the Easements and forbearance agreements granted hereunder shall commence upon the execution of this Agreement, and shall terminate forty years after ...
Owners agree to keep this Agreement confidential and shall not disclose to any third party any of the terms of this Agreement ...
The Company shall pay Owner an ... operations easement payment in the amount of $--- per year ...
From a later letter to owners still holding out, a "one-time $1,500 payment as a partial offset to some of the visual impacts of [the transmission line]" is offered which the manager of the wind power company says he "may have neglected to mention ... before." He also proposes to keep feeding them money until they sign the "forbearance agreement."
tags: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, Vermont
February 2, 2006
Capitalism or habitable planet -- can't have both
Robert Newman writes in today's Guardian (U.K.):
There is no meaningful response to climate change without massive social change. A cap on this and a quota on the other won't do it. Tinker at the edges as we may, we cannot sustain earth's life-support systems within the present economic system.tags: environment, environmentalism, ecoanarchism
Capitalism is not sustainable by its very nature. It is predicated on infinitely expanding markets, faster consumption and bigger production in a finite planet. And yet this ideological model remains the central organising principle of our lives, and as long as it continues to be so it will automatically undo (with its invisible hand) every single green initiative anybody cares to come up with.
Much discussion of energy, with never a word about power, leads to the fallacy of a low-impact, green capitalism somehow put at the service of environmentalism. In reality, power concentrates around wealth. Private ownership of trade and industry means that the decisive political force in the world is private power. The corporation will outflank every puny law and regulation that seeks to constrain its profitability. It therefore stands in the way of the functioning democracy needed to tackle climate change. Only by breaking up corporate power and bringing it under social control will we be able to overcome the global environmental crisis.
... We have lived in an era of cheap, abundant energy. There never has and never will again be consumption like we have known. The petroleum interval, this one-off historical blip, this freakish bonanza, has led us to believe that the impossible is possible, that people in northern industrial cities can have suntans in winter and eat apples in summer. But much as the petroleum bubble has got us out of the habit of accepting the existence of zero-sum physical realities, it's wise to remember that they never went away. You can either have capitalism or a habitable planet. One or the other, not both.
January 30, 2006
Hi, neighbor!
What puny trees!
(Tug Hill Plateau, N.Y.)
Click here for another view.
tags: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism
Enron -- father of modern windpower
On the occasion of the Enron trials beginning today, it seems apt to bring up the fact that Enron pioneered large-scale wind energy on the grid in the U.S. They bought Zond Wind Systems, which after Enron's fire sale was bought by General Electric. Key to Enron's success was deregulation of the electricity market, so that it could more easily be manipulated by developers and brokers such as Enron without having to worry about the whole expensive package of energy delivery, i.e., infrastructure maintenance.
They also transformed wind power from an experimental alternative in tune with the environment into an industry that mocks environmental concerns.
And it worked, as long as people believed in it. But when California was subject to rolling blackouts which turned out to be caused by Enron's efforts to jack up prices, the project became suspect.
The line of defense for the Enron team today is that they did not know everything was collapsing around them, that the lies they told investors and auditors were not lies, because they really believed everything was great (which it still was, I suppose, for them).
Their heirs in the wind power development business do them proud. The larger public -- and worse, major environmental groups -- still believe, without any evidence to back up the industry's claims and seemingly oblivious to the impact on land and life.
tags: wind power, wind energy
They also transformed wind power from an experimental alternative in tune with the environment into an industry that mocks environmental concerns.
And it worked, as long as people believed in it. But when California was subject to rolling blackouts which turned out to be caused by Enron's efforts to jack up prices, the project became suspect.
The line of defense for the Enron team today is that they did not know everything was collapsing around them, that the lies they told investors and auditors were not lies, because they really believed everything was great (which it still was, I suppose, for them).
Their heirs in the wind power development business do them proud. The larger public -- and worse, major environmental groups -- still believe, without any evidence to back up the industry's claims and seemingly oblivious to the impact on land and life.
tags: wind power, wind energy
January 29, 2006
Yes, folks, modern wind turbines kill birds
I just noticed that comments from Californa campaigner Darryl Mueller on Shea Gunther's supercilious blog have not been deleted. Anything I post to the lad's blog is instantly deleted, of course, since I insisted on seeing the records to back up his claim that "a kilowatt-hour of wind energy means one less kilowatt-hour of conventional fuel burned."
In the face of Herr Gunther's denial that wind turbines kill birds anywhere else than Altamont Pass, I nonetheless posted a reference to one of the recent stories in the U.K. about the very rare white-tailed eagles killed in Smola, Norway, as well as the disruption of their breeding: "Wind farms condemned as eagles fall prey to turbines," The Times, Jan. 28, 2006. (Also see the earlier post on this site, noting 8 more dead eagles found that weren't mentioned in the U.K. reports.)
In his other efforts to distinguish Altamont, he emphasizes how slow the blades turn on new turbines, ignoring the fact that the blades are so long that they're turning at about 170 mph on most models.
He also laughs at birds and bats who aren't "smart enough" to avoid flying into the giant spinning blades, confusing willful violence with natural selection. I suppose he laughs when children are hit by cars?
tags: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism, animal rights
In the face of Herr Gunther's denial that wind turbines kill birds anywhere else than Altamont Pass, I nonetheless posted a reference to one of the recent stories in the U.K. about the very rare white-tailed eagles killed in Smola, Norway, as well as the disruption of their breeding: "Wind farms condemned as eagles fall prey to turbines," The Times, Jan. 28, 2006. (Also see the earlier post on this site, noting 8 more dead eagles found that weren't mentioned in the U.K. reports.)
In his other efforts to distinguish Altamont, he emphasizes how slow the blades turn on new turbines, ignoring the fact that the blades are so long that they're turning at about 170 mph on most models.
He also laughs at birds and bats who aren't "smart enough" to avoid flying into the giant spinning blades, confusing willful violence with natural selection. I suppose he laughs when children are hit by cars?
tags: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism, animal rights
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