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Google plans to corner the wind energy market in New Jersey.
It's a first-of-its kind venture that could cost Google and its partners $1.3 billion, but one Google believes fits its core mission: You can make money without doing evil.
Chatham-Kent was fertile ground for the Liberals when rolling out their plans to populate rural Ontario with turbines ...Would eight wind turbines have been erected as close to a municipal airport in rural Ontario had the local municipality been allowed to be more involved in the turbines' location?
Germany and Spain are waking up to the inevitable truth about renewable energy, especially offshore wind. They are now realizing the projects cannot survive without subsidies and that they make energy much more expensive to households and businesses. In an age of austerity, they are a luxury even Germany, Europe's economic powerhouse, cannot fully afford any more.
What's at stake here? For Wrightman and other anti-wind activists, the issue is freedom of speech and their right to fight to protect themselves and the value of their homes from the noise and other issues that come with having 500-foot-tall turbines in their neighborhoods. Regardless of your feelings about wind energy, NextEra's SLAPP suit against Wrightman should be condemned. She is simply exercising her rights.
New Hampshire's forests, lakes and scenic landscapes are central to our state's identity. ...But recent land purchases by Northern Pass project developers suggest that a potential route for transmission towers and lines may attempt to cross land protected by the Connecticut Headwaters easement.
That would unnecessarily jeopardize some our state's most treasured land.
Also filed under [
Transmission|
New Hampshire]
Legal bullies: Wind turbine corporation picks ridiculous excuse to go after environmentalist
June 8, 2013 in Edmonton Sun
June 8, 2013 in Edmonton Sun
A $32 billion energy corporation has filed a massive lawsuit against an Ontario environmentalist named Esther Wrightman.
It's a SLAPP suit: Strategic litigation against public participation.
It's not really about legal arguments. It's about crushing Wrightman with legal bills and burning up her time, so she can't spend time campaigning against them.
Most worrying was that while promising to give municipalities more say over where turbines are constructed, that power won't be bestowed until hundreds, perhaps thousands, more industrial wind turbines are erected on Ontario's skyline. This is because projects already navigating the approvals process are unlikely to be subjected to the province's new process.
The U-turn on wind turbines won't stop their march over every hill and valley
June 6, 2013 in The Guardian
June 6, 2013 in The Guardian
In my experience most supporters of turbines change their mind when they actually see them. I cannot believe Cameron would be happy if the villagers of Ellesborough took his bribe and put turbines on the Chilterns above Chequers. These things are not just in someone's "back yard", they are in the back yards of all Britain. The gulf has never been so wide between the rural landscape and the perception of it by ministers and commentators, who mostly live in London and holiday abroad.
The government and its cheerleaders wrap the drive to zero CO2 emissions in the language of growth, jobs, investment and innovation. ...and claims the energy bill will create 250,000 jobs. Even if that is achievable, it's the product of the single-entry bookkeeping so common in political green-energy projections. You can create any number of jobs putting up subsidized windmills or installing solar panels. But if in the process you drive up energy costs or taxes throughout the economy, you're bound to destroy more work than you create.
The turbines have been on most days and nights for just over a year. The DEP tested only nine nights out of 365.
On four out of those nine nights, the turbines were found to produce sound levels 10 decibels above ambient. Almost half.
If residents were so unhappy with the Select Board's handling of a peripheral $40,000 payment from the developer, how can they be confident their input on a multi-million dollar PILOT will be taken seriously? And how plausible is it that the public hearings would end with a PILOT that differs substantially from the one that was recently voided? The concern for us, and for many others, is that any hearing would be a mere formality.
Also filed under [
General|
New Hampshire]
Because wind power is a preferred pet of the green movement, the government is allowing it to get away with things that other companies cannot. The effective result is that the White House is creating two sets of laws: a harsh one for the oil and electricity plants that provide the majority of energy in the nation, and a loving one for its preferred class of wind-energy farms.
The death of these beautiful birds is a great loss to nature but it is against the law. So how is it that no one will be punished?
Blame the Obama administration. The Interior Department has never prosecuted or fined a wind energy company.
It is now evident there has been a failure to prepare for this additional supply from new areas by providing extra capacity on the grid. The constraint periods are becoming longer and the payments larger, undermining the progress from fossil fuels towards green energy. Wind farm operators in Scotland have received almost £6 million in payments to stop producing electricity over 33 days between mid-April and mid-May.
In 2012, taxpayers contributed $13.5 billion in addition to $5.8 billion in grants, for a mere 3.6 percent of the energy produced nationwide. And how much of that money goes to manufacturers in Europe? We then pay again for the energy produced and for the cost of backup energy.
This power cost taxpayers $135 per megawatt, totalling $7,852,276.
At the same time, because wind power has priority over cheaper forms of electricity production, Ontario had to export 127,361 megawatt hours at $20.40 per megawatt.
But by far the worst fact about that weekend is that OPG spilled (or wasted) clean renewable hydro power because of wind priority on the grid.
Also filed under [
Impact on Economy|
Canada]
LePage needs stiffer wind requirements before he supports energy compromise
May 23, 2013 in Bangor Daily News
May 23, 2013 in Bangor Daily News
Gov. Paul LePage is withholding support for a compromise bill being worked out by the Legislature's Energy Committee that's aimed at expanding Maine's natural gas infrastructure, boosting funding for energy efficiency, directly lowering businesses' electricity costs and making it more affordable for residents to abandon oil heat.
Also filed under [
Energy Policy|
Maine]
State testing shows that the two industrial turbines on Arsene Street in Fairhaven at times violate state noise regulations.
It doesn't happen all the time and testing is not finished, but this news is certainly enough for town officials to take notice — and to take action.
As federal wildlife officials turn a blind eye to the wind industry's slaughter, they exercise strict enforcement when others run afoul of the law.
This opinion piece by a recently retired endangered raptor specialist at New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation does not make specific mention of wind energy, but the message directly applies.
Also filed under [
Impact on Wildlife|
New York]