This paper:
• Lists key reasons why political leaders and regulators are facing problems when attempting to deal with wind energy.
• Provides more information on the effort in Kansas to evaluate wind energy.
• Identifies facts about wind energy that are often not taken into account by political leaders and regulators.
• Comments on the efforts in Kansas to promote greater use of wind energy.
• Outlines lessons for all government officials that can be learned from the efforts in Kansas.

This is a comprehensive, well documented and thoughtful presentation on a wide range of industrial wind issues by Dan Boone, Consulting Conservation Biologist, at the public meeting held by Save Our Allegheny Ridges in Bedford, PA on September 18, 2006

This report examines the factors underlying the recent increases in electricity prices and the potential impact of these factors on the industry's financial condition. It focuses primarily on cost changes experienced over the past five years and the projected trends in these costs over the next ten years.

In November 2001, Cape Wind Associates, filed an application with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for permission to construct the nation’s first offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound. The project would consist of 130 wind turbines, each approximately 420 feet tall, arrayed over a 24 square mile area of the Sound known as Horseshoe Shoals. The wind farm would be sited five miles off the coast, in federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) waters. From there, undersea cables would transmit power through state waters to an onshore distribution grid. The project, according to Cape Wind, would have an installed nameplate capacity of approximately 468 megawatts (MW) of electricity.

National Wind Watch does not oppose funding of research and development for wind energy, but stresses that any increases in monies allocated be correctly focused. Most of any future research and development should now be focused on the detrimental impacts and mitigation techniques of wind development including, but not limited to: actual impacts on property values in areas where wind development occurs; actual net impacts on employment; life cycle analysis of environmental impacts (positive and negative); grid system stability and reliability under increasing penetration of wind, and within lower quality wind sites. Given the inherent and perceived conflict of interest, National Wind Watch recommends that the National Renewable Energy Laboratory NOT hold responsibility for such analysis but only be permitted to participate.

The natural foods grocery chain, Whole Foods, failed to do its homework when it agreed to buy “wind energy” and, thereby, launch the nation’s largest demonstration to date of “ green energy” pseudo-environmentalism!

Three of the interesting conclusions from the analysis:

• “109 huge (32+ story, 350+ foot), low electricity producing wind turbines will be needed to produce the 458,000,000 kWh of “wind generated” electricity that Whole Foods has (in theory) purchased.”

• “$1 million spent for energy efficient light bulbs would avoid the use of 171,550,000 kWh of electricity over 5 years -- which is more than 3 times the 56,064,000 kWh of electricity that a $1,000,000 wind turbine might be able to produce over 20 years!”

• “Like the leaders in other organizations that have undertaken similar pseudo-environmental actions, it appears that Whole Foods executives thought only about the favorable PR benefits they would enjoy, while failing to consider the adverse impacts of their action.”

Editor's Note: According to the World Resources Institute and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency the top 10 purchasers of 'wind energy' are:

Whole Foods Market Inc. 458,000 megawatts (a year)
Johnson & Johnson 295,000 MW
DuPont & Co. 170,000 MW
Starbucks Corp. 150,000 MW
IBM Corp. 110,000 MW
Safeway Inc. 78,000 MW
HSBC 66,000 MW
NatureWorks LLC 59,000 MW
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. 52,500 MW
WhiteWave Foods 49,500 MW

BBC Research & Consulting's 2005 report for the National Wind Coordinating Committee that studies 9 wind plant sitings in an effort to identify circumstances that distinguish welcomed projects from projects that were not accepted by communities.

Glenn Schleede examines the financial incentives available to owners of industrial wind energy and how taxpayers and utility customers are picking up the tab.