The letter from the Horizon Wind official contains false and misleading claims. Contrary to assertions in that letter:

1. More wind turbines will NOT reduce US or NY dependence on imported oil.

According to official US Energy Information Administration (EIA) data for 2007, (a) only 1.2% of the electricity generated in the US was produced from oil, and (b) only 5.35% of the electricity produced in New York was produced from oil. The Horizon official’s claim of 14% for NY is FALSE.

He is also wrong in claiming that wind could replace oil-fired electric generation in NY. Having previously worked for the NY PSC and NYSERDA, the writer must know that the reliability of NY electric service depends on the electric grid being kept in balance at all times (supply & demand, frequency, and voltage). He should also know that electricity being generated from oil in NY cannot be replaced by electricity from wind turbines for three key reasons: (i) most of that electricity is generated by large oil burning generating units in the NYC-Long Island area, (ii) until replaced by other reliable generating capacity, those units must be run to meet electricity demand and maintain grid voltage in the NYC-LI area, and (iii) most of the other oil-fired electric generation in NY comes from units that are used only when necessary to meet peak electricity demand.

2. Wind turbines cannot be counted on to produce electricity at the time of peak electricity demand — which usually occurs on hot weekday late afternoons in July and August — because wind speeds at the time of peak demand are not adequate to produce much, if any, electricity from wind turbines.

That’s why wind turbines have little or no real “capacity value” — as that term is used in the electric industry. The Horizon official’s comparison of wind turbines to “peaking units” appears designed to mislead readers. “Peaking units” are designed to run (i.e., produce electricity) when needed to meet peak electricity demand. Unlike wind turbines, they can be relied on to produce electricity when it is needed – not just when the wind is blowing within the right speed range.

3. Claims of local and state economic benefit from “wind farms” are typically exaggerated by the wind industry and its lobbyists, and they are exaggerated in the letter published in the Batavia Daily News.

First, very few of the jobs during “wind farm” construction are filled by local workers. Instead, most jobs (often as many as 80%) are filled by specialized workers brought in from other areas. These workers often live and pay taxes elsewhere and probably go home on many weekends. Jobs that are filled locally during the construction period (perhaps 6 – 9 months) may include transit-mix drivers, laborers, and some heavy equipment operators. Few permanent jobs are created and many of these will be filled by technicians brought in temporarily for maintenance work.

Second, the overwhelming share of the capital cost of a “wind farm” is for turbines, blades, towers electronics, cables, etc. that are manufactured elsewhere (often imported from other countries). Very little money is spent locally for supplies and services and even with these local purchases only the local value added portion (not the whole cost) provides local economic benefit.

Third, any income received by landowners has local economic benefit only if that money is spent or saved locally. Money received by absentee landowners or that is spent or invested elsewhere doesn’t help the local economy.

Fourth, there is no longer any serious doubt that the key reason why “wind farms” are being constructed is due to the extraordinary generous federal and state tax breaks and subsidies available to “wind farm” owners – not because of environmental or energy benefits. Because of the tax breaks, companies owning “wind farms” are able to avoid paying millions of dollars in federal and state corporate income tax – and, in NY, they may also avoiding paying any property tax. Tax burden avoided by “wind farm” owners is shifted to ordinary taxpayers who do not enjoy such tax shelters.

Fifth, if the “wind farm” owner is a foreign company – as in the case of Horizon Wind – most profits (paid for out of NY electric customers’ monthly bills) probably flow out of NY and out of the US.

For more than a decade, the wind industry and other wind advocates have been greatly overstating the environmental, energy and economic benefits of wind energy and understating or ignoring the adverse environmental, economic, scenic and property value impacts. They have misled the public, media, and government officials. The letter from the Horizon Wind official is a perfect example.

Glenn R. Schleede

August 17, 2008

[i] According to its web site, Horizon Wind Energy is owned by the Portuguese firm, Energias de Portugal (EDP), which purchased the company from Goldman Sachs in 2007. Prior to its purchase by Goldman Sachs in 2005, the company was known as Zilkha Renewable Energy.

Download “False Claims by Horizon Wind Energy”

“Wind is catching fire,” said L. Preston Bryant Jr. Virginia’s secretary of natural resources. “It is literally all the rage.”

Although the Washington Post article highlights the “conflict within the environmental community” concerning this development push, it fails to provide much in the way of details concerning the basis for the objections. It also repeats a number of the industry’s deceptive talking points without offering any analysis.

For example:

The article repeats misleading claims that wind energy in Virginia has the potential to produce as much as 20 percent of the state’s electricity needs.

More than 90% of that potential is offshore, where wind energy development is not considered economically viable at present. Yet wind energy proponents cite the offshore-based estimate to support the current push for development on our forested mountain ridges. (www.vawind.org/Assets/Docs/Onshore-Offshore.pdf)

The article repeats exaggerated claims concerning the number of households that would be served by two proposed ridgeline projects in western Virginia. It states that the proposed Highland New Wind project is expected to produce enough electricity to power 15,000 homes, and that the proposed FreedomWorks project will produce enough electricity to power 86,000 homes.

These estimates are based on the unrealistic assumptions that all electricity produced will be for residential use, that electricity is not needed on days when there is no wind, and that the two projects will dramatically exceed the performance of existing Appalachian wind projects. (www.vawind.org/Assets/Docs/RESIDENCES-PER-TURBINE.pdf)

The article repeats the uniformed claim that wind power provides an alternative to new coal-burning power plants, a claim made both by FreedomWorks, Inc., on its company website, and by some environmental groups opposing Dominion’s Wise County power plant.

Although concerns about the mining and burning of coal are well founded, promotion of wind energy as an alternative is not an effective argument. It would require 2,260 2-megawatt turbines to match the output of the proposed Wise County coal-fired generating plan in August (the peak demand period of the year). That would require about 323 miles of ridgeline, about the length of the Blue Ridge Mountain chain in Virginia. (www.vawind.org/Assets/Docs/FreedomWorks.pdf)

Despite these shortcomings, the Washington Post article should be given credit for at least acknowledging that the environmental community is conflicted over the ridgeline development issue.

Also, there is ironic truth in the included statement by Randall Swisher, executive director of the American Wind Energy Association, who acknowledges that wind power “… is no longer an alternative energy source … it’s mainstream.”

The push for wind energy development is now driven by multi-national business interests, and along with that goes the usual investment in the manipulation of public perception.

In this context it will be difficult to achieve the informed public debate that is clearly needed if we are to achieve real solutions to our energy and environmental problems.

But that is not the case.

The Government repeatedly states that they want to see 25 to 33 gigawatts of electricity generated from wind. That is about half of the UK’s total electricity requirements. If this amount were ever achieved, it would have to have at least 33 GW of coal or gas back-up. That is because there will be a few days every year when there is no wind — i.e., we would be 33GW short of national demand.

Of course at the moment there exists about 10GW of ’spare’ back-up capacity which is used if a major power station breaks down. This is enough to back up the current wind carpet without any extra. However, as the installed wind carpet grows, more and more back-up is needed. In a House of Lords Select Committee Inquiry into the EU’s 20% Renewable Energy Target on Monday 17th March 2008, Mr Christopher Barton (Director of the UK Renewable Energy Strategy Project at BERR) said, ‘the intermittency issue is not an insurmountable problem, albeit that surmounting the problem comes with a cost so, for example, there will need to be greater overall generating capacity in the uk as you introduce more intermitent generation.’

So there you have it. Wind power requires that further back-up capacity is constructed and that can only be coal or gas fired.

So much for CO2 savings!

– FELLS newsletter no. 16, Spring 2008

I called my insurance agent and asked if my farm liability policy would defend me against a nuisance lawsuit by a neighbor related to wind turbines. The answer is no. Two other insurance companies returned the same answer. The wind contracts have carefully written hold-harmless clauses that do not commit the turbine owner to pay landowner legal costs or judgements for this. The landowner is ultimately liable if the turbine owner defaults. I raised this question with the leasing agent too. None of the insurance agents or the leasing agent had heard this question raised before. The leasing agent is checking with his legal department — no response after a week. I guess he doesn’t want my business if he has to address this question.

The District Council undertook a period of monitoring at our home last October. They came to measure the noise for an hour a night on 26 nights. On the basis of this they decided that there was no statutory noise nuisance, and although there were three minor breaches of the planning permission they did not feel it appropriate to prosecute. This “result” then went into the public domain and was published widely as a result of being incorporated in a BWEA release to its members. (Although no mention was made of the three minor breaches.) Statements based on this release were then submitted as proofs of evidence to several planning Inquiries across the UK. Some other statements, based on this information — but going further and attacking us personally for having hypersensitive hearing have also been sent to Development Control Council members in various Local Authorities, who were due to discuss planning applications in their own areas!

We complained to the Ombudsman about the way the whole noise complaint has been handled, and she has yet to report on this. However more information came to light last week when it became obvious, that for whatever reason, the turbines were only operating for a third to a half of their normal output last October. Thus all statements etc are based on flawed information and as no other month in the whole of the wind farm’s operation has ever been so quiet it is no wonder that the Council were able to decide that there was not a statutory nuisance … and yet there were still 3 breaches of condition.

As I said you really couldn’t make it up could you?

And we still have lost our home.

Jane Davis

Few laws currently govern regulation of wind farms. That is slowly changing and wind developers are in a big rush to build facilities before new laws are enacted.

Developers claim this is a “community based” project. That might sound good at first but just how good is it? A few landowners would financially benefit. Labor force for construction of turbines would be short lived (3-5 yrs) and probably done with outside interests. Monitoring of turbines shouldn’t require employment of many people.

Wind developers usually target less populated rural areas because of less people to oppose their projects.

With the huge number of turbines proposed and the transmission lines needed to support the project, impacts on wildlife could be significant. This area is a primary migration route for the endangered Whooping Crane. It is also home to Lostwood National Wildlife Refuge and the unique coteau prairie ecosystem that is comprised of wetland inventories as high as 100 per square mile.

This project would transform our natural prairie landscape in exchange for the financial gain of primarily out of state developers.

www.savecoteauprairielandscape.com

I don’t want to spoil your day but you probably should be aware of a relatively new (February 2008) document issued by the National Renewable Energy “Laboratory” (NREL) and DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (DOE-EERE). The title is “Wind Powering America FY07 Activities Summary” and you can find it at www.nrel.gov/docs/fy08osti/42345.pdf.

This “document” illustrates several things:

1. It shows how far government officials and contractors — using their positions and your tax dollars — will go in imposing their views and biases on ordinary citizens, taxpayers and electric customers; for example, in:
   1. Presenting only one side of an important public policy issue and totally ignoring opposing views and evidence.
   2. Supporting favored special interests — in this case the wind industry, including foreign “wind farm” owners and financial institutions that are profiting at the expense of taxpayers and electric customers due to enormous tax breaks and subsidies.
   3. Distorting a once-meaningful term, “stakeholder,” so that it includes people and organizations that share their goals while ignoring the interests of everyone else who is affected.

 

2. It demonstrates once again that the National Renewable Energy “Laboratory” is flying under false colors when it is referred to as a “laboratory.” Instead, many of its activities — as the new document shows — are like those of a trade association which everyone expects to present only one side of an issue.

   For those not yet familiar with the organization, N REL is one of DOE’s government-owned, contractor-operated national “laboratories.” These organizations undertake a variety of research, development and analytical activities. Virtually all of their activity is financed with tax dollars. Quite likely, the work in the “hard” sciences is reasonably objective, conducted in accordance with accepted scientific methods and engineering principles, and undergoes credible peer-review.

   However, some of these so-called national “laboratories,” such as the National Renewable Energy “Laboratory” (NREL), also engage in activities and analyses involving public policies, programs and regulations that clearly are not credibly objective, scientific or peer reviewed. Instead, these activities are biased and designed to promote a particular technology, policy, program, regulatory requirement, special interest, or perhaps even a personal philosophy.

 

3. It details how state “Wind Energy Working Groups” (described in the document), supported by DOE-EERE and NREL officials — using tax dollars — support the wind industry at the expense of those who are adversely affected by “wind farms.”

   State “wind working groups” may be “headed” by academics or “headquartered” in academic institutions to give them a patina of objectivity but their activities are clearly promotional of wind industry objectives. Representatives of these groups write biased “analyses,” articles and op-eds and/or engage in lobbying of state regulators, legislators and other government officials. Some seem readily available to provide comments favorable to the wind industry to the media.

   Apparently there is no effort made by DOE-EERE to assure that the groups have balanced representation, and DOE-EERE has constructed the program in a way that permits escaping the requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (which requires balanced representation) or the federal Data Quality Act (which is intended to promote balanced information and data from federal agency and contractor activities).

   Ordinary consumers, taxpayers and, certainly, citizens who are trying to protect themselves and their property from the adverse impacts of “wind farms” are unlikely to be represented in the groups. In fact, citizens who oppose the building of “wind farms” in the areas where they live are generally forced to pay from their own pockets for their opposition efforts, while wind energy developers are able to enjoy the support of wind energy “work groups” at taxpayer expense.

   If there is a “wind working group” in your state, you may want to learn more about its activities.

In case you don’t have time to review the new document, here is how it is described on NREL’s web site:

“This summary reflects the accomplishments of state wind working groups, programs at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and our partner organizations. The national Wind Powering America (WPA) team remains a leading force for moving wind energy forward in the United States. WPA continues to work with its national, regional, and state partners to communicate the opportunities and benefits of wind energy to a diverse set of stakeholders.”

Regards,

Glenn R. Schleede
18220 Turnberry Drive
Round Hill, VA 20141-2574
540-338-9958

Why is she spending her time and treasure interviewing the physician beside himself from the Wind Turbine Syndrome he suffers living on the farm he and his wife labored over for years? (When I say “suffering,” I mean suffering.) This evening she interviews a family that raises prize horses, the other day it was farmers in Norway, last week families in Ireland. Before that, England & Wales. And don’t forget the people she interviews throughout Canada, the American Midwest, the Northeast, and so forth. It’s endless. It’s only beginning.

They all have the symptoms. They all wish to leave their homes, or have left them (read: abandoned them or been bought out at absurdly low prices by the wind developers). I am not a clinician, as you know. I took the call last evening from the desperate father who sent this email:

The noise is overwhelming.

The shadows are more than annoying.

Our equity has been destroyed.

Our dreams of building a new home have been crushed.

We have attorneys working on a settlement, and/or a lawsuit.

Can you all help us ?

Do you have any suggestions ?

I did a preliminary interview, to see if he was a candidate for Nina’s study. It was amazing how I could go down the checklist of symptoms and know what he had before he told me. He seemed surprised, relieved, and somewhat embarrassed (when it gets to the part about feeling their guts vibrating, people think they might be making it up: they’re not). I didn’t press him on memory loss; that’s always the most painful revelation, Nina tells me.

Again, why is it a country doctor in upstate New York doing this? On no budget. In her “spare” time. (Reminder: country doctors don’t have spare time.)

The wind developers hire a man named Geoff Leventhall, PhD (physics, University of London), who presumes to pronounce judgment on Nina’s handling of clinical medicine. (She’s a Johns Hopkins-trained physician, not to mention a Princeton PhD in population biology.) He writes in a recent, widely circulated email, “If there is such a thing as a clever fool, she is one!” The man with no training (we are aware of) in anything clinical. The paid consultant to wind developers.

Nina Pierpont, the “clever fool” who stands up to the multi-billion-dollar global wind industry. Why? Where’s the support?

Op-Ed, Evansville Observer, March 7, 2008

If you click here you can listen in as the Town of Union Board discuss the current situation of the Wind Turbine draft ordinance and the possible options for moving to enactment in consideration of the possiblity of the State of Wisconsin moving to make the Public Utility Commission the key entity in reviewing permits.

The irony: As you will recall the study committee had found in its research that the State of Wisconsin had literally conducted zero legislative inquiry into the health and safety effects of set backs of wind turbines despite the fact that the WHO and the world community had plentiful data on these matters.

Responding to that egg on the face, the state moved quickly last week in meetings that were called on short notice and as described by Kendell Schneider, Town of Union board chair, the lobby representatives were given ample time to speak and then with the time expiring in the open hearings, the public was given a few minutes — most left unheard and in disgust.

The conclusion made by the folks from Union who had endured the week of meetings: Why would the towns bend over backwards to give extensive public input, when the State acts in such disregard.

At the end of the day nobody gets it. The problem was that in haste errors were made. Now to compound the error, more haste and closed decision making is embraced by the state … and now possibly by the towns.

How will these matters all be decided? By the PUC over a three martini lunch?

You make the call.

Reply by Tom Alisankus

When the wind energy proponents realized that the proposed Union Twsp. large wind turbine ordinance was supported by unimpeachable scientific and medical research — and thus completely defensible in court–they took their well financed lobby to the Wisconsin Legislature to stop us. They realized that our ordinance — the product of hundreds of hours of hard work–would likely become the REAL ‘model’ ordinance for local communities around the state, which would mean that the wind companies would not be able to put these turbines where ever they wanted, thus losing thousands of dollars. And you’ve already detailed the rest. Funny how fast the Legislature can move when it wants to.

This is government at its worst. It highlights how morally bankrupt some of our representatives in government actually are. And it all has to do with money. In other facets of society, they have a name for people who trade something immoral for money.

I have discovered that I cannot go anywhere near them or even go past them to get to a destination. Life is planning a route around the monsters so I can travel pain free and not go as white as a sheet and dizzy. The visual impact is frightening to say the least as I start to go dizzy. Not very good if you’re driving. Seeing as I live in the middle of the beautiful hills How am I supposed to go shopping. The situation all over the world has got so seriously alarming it is unbelievable. There are so many of us suffering and what is being done about it? Very little. The powers that be need to stand up and take notice. How are they going to find the money for health care when we all start dropping like flies. The hospitals are over stretched as it is.

The wind companies say they create jobs. They’re right. They do. BUT we have to pay for those extra jobs they create: Doctors, Opticians, etc. Is there no end to this madness.

A very upset traveller,

Yvonne Sheehan.