Having seemingly achieved the dubious goal of bringing the nation's first offshore wind farm to Massachusetts, one might imagine Governor Patrick and the rest of the Wind Culters would be content to take that honorific to the cocktail circuit and bask in the adulation of their like-minded peers. But no. Governor Patrick and the rest of the WCs will not rest until they have imposed over-priced wind power on the whole of the Commonwealth.

Dear citizens of Camden, Rockport and Hope, there are and will be better ways to "go green" than permanently destroying what we have inherited in Ragged Mountain. Maine has a wealth of resources, including water. We encourage you to consider the alternatives before causing irreparable changes.

If you think wind turbines are benign free energy producers, do your homework.
Editor's Note: This also appeared in The American Daily http://americandaily.com/article/13173

The current hype surrounding wind energy is just that and is a costly distraction from securing clean energy that is also reliable.

Good neighbor? It was interesting reading the wind turbine article in the May 6 Tribune, but I have to comment on one part that really caught my attention. Is Ag Wind, one of the developers, saying it will give landowners within a half-mile of the projects $500 per year? A couple things strike as odd. Why landowners within one-half mile? Why not one mile? Why at all? Is there a relationship between wind turbines and the half-mile mark? If turbines are so great, why then does Ag Wind apparently feel the need to pay nearby landowners to be "good neighbors?"

Recently there has been a lot of he said/ she said concerning the wind energy and its attempted foothold in our community. But the most blatant report of ignorance came in the form of a story about council members visiting a working wind farm in Port Burwell. ...unlike the council members that decided to visit Port Burwell, we have made multiple trips there. The day the story was printed in the Chatham Daily News, Greg Foster and I had just returned from a visit to Goderich to talk to various farmers that are living through the hell that we are trying to avoid. We have spoken to them at great length on the phone as well.

The Ellis County Commission should be cognizant by now of the depth and strength of opposition to the wind energy project from those members of the community who would be most affected by it. We continue to educate the community of Hays and collect signatures on our petition for a moratorium, based on the fact that there has been no qualified, independent assessment of either the economic or the environmental impact of this project in its proposed location.

The Eagle's promulgation of the state's misleading representation of the obstacles to industrial/commercial wind generation in Berkshire County is really quite remarkable ("Exploiting Savoy's Wind," Dec. 22). The foremost of these misconceptions is the notion that "local defenders of the mountaintops" have delayed these projects. Secondly, The Eagle's support of the Comprehensive Wind Siting Reform Act is premature for it is still in draft form. For a bill revised three times since May 2009, any pledge of support is premature.

The news that Cape Wind and National Grid, a regional power distributor, will soon negotiate the cost of power from the proposed 130-turbine wind farm in Nantucket Sound sounds like the last act is near. Perhaps, but it's likely to be a dramatic one. Consider, if you will, the difficulties of calculating the costs of producing power over let's say 20 years if you are unsure of the cost and source of capital, the cost and speed of construction, the unknown difficulties of maintaining offshore power production, the uncertainties of the consumer market.

The reason for "little real debate" about wind power is the result of the media's refusal to initiate discussion by supplying the information necessary for a debate ("Maine steps forward, into the wind," Feb. 16). Rather than providing the facts on the issue, we hear and read only the bellowing hype of unsubstantiated promises by the industry and its developers. ... The newspaper would better serve its readers by offering a look at the other side of this coin.

The renewable energy industry is delighted when politicians set ambitious targets. It knows promises later have to be backed up with the regulatory, planning and pricing regimes that ensure they're kept. How realistic is 100% of electricity from renewable sources?

In addition to the issue of scale, there are risks to jobs and the local economy, as well as questions about what a project this size might do to property values. These are reasonable questions that have yet to be answered.

Why a recall election? Concerned taxpayers gathered information from minutes of town, planning and zoning, and Calumet County Board meetings that raised a conflict of interest concerning Supv. Jerry Criter, specifically that he planned to put wind turbines on his property and voted on changing wind turbine ordinances at these meetings. ...His actions, after being warned by the DA to not vote on issues where there might be a conflict of interest, prompted this recall election.

So you take a technology (commercial wind power generation) that generates electricity intermittently/inefficiently, and cannot be stored for use when needed. Next you force consumers to buy it (with the assistance of their tax dollars). Because there is still not enough money there to make it economically viable, due to added grid integration costs, you raise consumer power rates. AND then, after creating this mandated over-priced market for your product, you inform everyone of the need to spend billions of dollars more to transport the product to the consumers. Yeah, I would buy some lobbyists too. The final insult... ...is that the product being force-fed to everyone will not reduce green house gas emissions or reduce dependence on foreign oil. In fact, in some places this has been tried, it has increased it.

The massive wind turbines have at least 15 years and up to 25 years of usefulness, as shown in Germany, Great Britain and other countries with long-time wind-farming experience. A lot can happen in 20 years or so. So it's extremely wise of the state Public Service Commission to think through what should happen if a wind farm ceases to operate. ...As a nation, we covet the energy from oil fields, coal mines and wind farms, but whatever form of energy is yielded, those who produce it for us have an inescapable duty of stewardship of the environment, and that includes the skyline where more and more wind turbines occupy the view.

"Given lead times for project development, it is important to act now to avoid a lull in development post-2012. Business decisions for 2013 are already being made," said Roby Roberts, representing the American Wind Energy Association. And at the pace of legislation in the current stalemated Congress, prospects for quick action are questionable, at best.

....we believe there are places where this type of development is inappropriate, and the proposed location of the Redington Mountain project is one such place. We are concerned about the detrimental effects the project would have on one of the region's wildest mountain environments.

Wind is the least cost effective way to produce power. But all the tax credits make if very profitable. That is the only reason to build wind plants. A project like Redington Black Nubble would mean about $20 million in tax credits over the 10-year period allowed by the production tax legislation. That's not counting what they sell the power for. It's all about the money. It isn't some environmental company here to save us. As far as the Land Use Regulation Commission's denial of the Redington Project, the project did not meet the standards and laws. It's that simple. And we better watch out. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Keep our mountains protected.

Cape Wind CEO Jim Gordon's response to my opinion piece on the economics of his proposed wind farm in Nantucket Sound was "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." The most telling thing about his response was what he did not say. He did not address the economics of the project and has kept them secret. Why?