A public meeting was held on Monday, December 10, 2018, at the Martin Activity Center to discuss plans for Pass Creek Wind, a utility-scale wind energy project planned for Bennett County north of Martin. Approximately 35 people attended the meeting including Bennett County Commissioners, local ranchers and members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. 

General South Dakota

The federal government later joined the legal battle on behalf of the tribe, claiming the excavation work was mining and therefore required a lease. It lost its original case but won in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which found Osage Wind was engaged in mining without a lease.

General Oklahoma

The developers of three proposed wind farms in Ford County warned the county board Tuesday that they may not be able to proceed with construction under even the least restrictive of proposed regulations being considered by the board.

General Illinois

“It’s my impression, that something was done wrong, incorrectly, illegally, inappropriately, that’s what this is saying. We had a beautiful place to live, now we’re looking at 12, 500-foot tall industrial wind turbine towers on one side of our house and on the other side there’s 100-foot tall transmission line towers — we were never notified of any of this. When the surveyors came onto our property they wouldn’t tell me who they were or what they were doing there. I found out from one town employee, they were from the wind project, we never received a thing about this. What the project was, the scope, implications, impacts. That’s what I’m saying, this is my impression.”

General Texas

“We should always prioritize the needs of North Dakota citizens over arbitrary political preferences of regulators from outside jurisdictions. Like an out-of-control Black Friday shopper, the only justification for this massive additional spending spree is that the price is right" -- Randy Christmann, Public Service Commission Chairman 

General North Dakota

The Laborers’ union, representing several construction unions, asserted that the socio-economic benefits of Bitter Root would be “substantially diminished” by a lack of Minnesota workers. RES has used nonunion trades workers on other wind farms in Minnesota, and the Laborers’ union says those workers were mostly from out of state. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) decided the unions’ claims need a closer look.

General Minnesota

The Burleigh County Planning and Zoning Commission voted 5-3 late Wednesday to deny a permit for the proposed Burleigh-Emmons Wind Farm, following a four-hour meeting with passionate testimony from both sides. More than 500 citizens attended the rescheduled public hearing, with more than half wearing a shade of red, representing opposition to the project.

General North Dakota

“We all have one enemy in common, and it’s wind,” said Chris Zeman, one of the founders of the anti-wind group, to a packed room. Zeman claimed people are left with land they can’t use after neighbors agreed to have a turbine placed on the edge of their property, away from their home. “Now they are reaping all the money while you’re stuck with land you can’t do anything with,” Zeman said. “I’m all for property rights, but if it takes away my right for what I want to do with my land, then that becomes a property rights issue.”

General Ohio

Van Wert resident Jeremy Kitson lives in the Blue Creek Project area ...Van Wert is home to the largest industrial wind project in the entire state, Avangrid's Blue Creek Wind Farm. Anyone (who) is saying that our community is positive when it comes to wind development is being blatantly dishonest,” he said, referring to claims made by the supporting side of the matter, who have said school stand to benefit the most from the project, especially monetarily. 

General Ohio

Locations for sites that could host solar and wind turbine installations are severely limited. Parkland located in the Sleeping Bar Dunes National Lakeshore or township parks are out because regulations do not allow solar or wind installations in those places. And off-shore wind installations are also off the table. The group of graduate students said they removed that option at that outset, knowing that including it would generate strong opposition to their work.

General Michigan

In a case which could have implications for the provincial government’s ambitious targets for renewable energy generation, the Municipal Planning Commission for the MD of Pincher Creek, which has one of the largest densities of wind farms in southern Alberta, rejected the proposed Windy Point Wind Project earlier this month after about 80 local landowners said enough was enough.

General Alberta

LUPC approval is required because some of the project, which is spread between Eastbrook, Osborn, Aurora and Township 16, is in unorganized territory, where land use planning is governed by the state. The plans also will have to be approved by the Maine Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

General Maine

Federal regulators have knocked the wind out of another renewable energy project planned for the desert west of Searchlight. The Bureau of Land Management has decided to reject a Sweden-based energy company’s application to build more than 200 turbines, each the height of a skyscraper, along a 22-mile stretch of the Nevada-California border.

General Nevada

The wind turbine was purchased from and installed by Entegrity Wind Systems in February 2008 for about $200,000. ...Entegrity guaranteed that for five years the turbine would produce 90,000 kilowatt-hours a year and the promise for five years of free maintenance. Unfortunately, Entegrity went bankrupt in 2009, and when the company dissolved so did the guarantee.

General Maine

The 300 megawatt Sage Draw Wind farm — which is selling electricity to Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) under a power purchase agreement with the farm’s owner, Denmark-based Ørsted — is set to draw $22.56 million in tax incentives over the course of 10 years.

General Texas

“There will be no project as long as Hydro-Québec is in a surplus position,” Legault told a news conference, where he was joined by Minister of Energy Jonatan Julien and Minister of Aboriginal Affairs Sylvie D’Amours. The premier said the Apuiat contract would have represented a “potential cost” of $1.6 billion for Hydro-Québec, which estimates it has about 20 years’ worth of surplus energy.

General Quebec

One critic of the Obama administration’s approach is retired Army Co. Paul Roege, who played an early, instrumental role in the military’s energy renaissance. He said the Pentagon seized on Obama’s green initiative and charged ahead with solar projects, as well as scattered wind turbines and trash-eating biomass plants on or near military bases, without really knowing how to make the energy of value. By the end of Obama’s tenure, he said, everyone understood that dotting the nation’s military bases with solar projects would do nothing to boost military readiness without microgrid technology.

General USA

NextEra could meet a minimum 2,000-foot setback from any occupied residences ...It could not, however, meet a proposed 2,500 foot or nearly half-mile setback requirement within the existing proposed footprint ...Requiring a 2,500-foot setback “could jeopardize the project,” because several proposed turbine sites involve smaller – just 5 or 10 acre – pieces of ground.

General Kansas

While people like the idea of wind power, few are eager to have wind farms near their homes. This is true not only in conservative rural Oklahoma, but locations across the nation. Writing at City Journal, Robert Bryce notes that the Republican and Democratic gubernatorial candidates this year in “deep-blue Vermont” favored renewable energy “in principle” but opposed new wind energy development. 

General USA Oklahoma

Since 2005, wind turbine projects have been proposed by other developers in Southwest Virginia, including the counties of Highland, Roanoke and Tazewell. All of the plans eventually stalled. ...to some degree, all of them ran into opposition from nearby residents, who said giant turbines on ridgelines would mar scenic landscapes, make too much noise and produce harmful shadow flickers.

General Virginia