Wind Power News: Rhode Island
These news and opinion items are gathered by National Wind Watch to help keep readers informed about developments related to industrial wind energy. They are the products of the organizations or individuals noted.
Wave-energy proposal surprises R.I. officials
A company from the state of Washington has surprised local officials by filing an application to construct a vast wave-energy project costing $400 million to $600 million in waters south of Block Island.
Grays Harbor Ocean Energy Co. has filed a permit application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to erect 100 structures similar to offshore oil platforms 12 to 25 miles south of Rhode Island. The structures would use wave energy to pump air through turbines to create electricity.
The . . .
CEO of wind farm project firm is out
PROVIDENCE – The CEO of the company chosen two months ago to develop the state’s first offshore wind farm has either resigned or been removed from his job, Providence Business News has learned.
Chris Brown, who was the public face of Deepwater Wind as it rolled out its plan to build a 100-turbine wind farm off Rhode Island’s coast, has been out of the CEO’s position for a couple of weeks, Andrew Dzykewicz, commissioner of the R.I. Office of Energy . . .
Professor says wind turbines a threat to bats, birds
Wind energy is “brown,” not green, Boston University professor Thomas Kunz told members the Rhode Island Natural History Survey at a November 19 presentation at the University of Rhode Island.
Kunz, an internationally known bat researcher and director of BU’s Center for Ecology and Conservation Biology, said wind turbines annually kill many raptors as well as tens of thousands of bats in the United States. Since these turbines have been promoted as an answer to America’s energy woes, Kunz called . . .
Private meeting over wind turbine in Barrington creates stir
Opposition to project says meeting ‘smacks of backroom dealing’
Members of the Citizens Wind Watch of Barrington, a group opposing the wind turbine project in town, is calling into question a private meeting between two council members, the town manager and the chairman of the Committee for Renewable Energy for Barrington (CREB).
Members of Citizens Wind Watch obtained and circulated copies of two e-mails sent from David Baum, the CREB chairman, to some town officials and other members of . . .
Expert: Expanding wind power could unhinge insects
Last spring, a red tail hawk was hit and killed by Rhode Island’s one functioning wind turbine at Portsmouth Abbey School. Brother Joseph Byron says the bird was the first animal fatality he has seen since the 241-foot-high structure started producing 660 kilowatts in March 2006.
An internationally known bat researcher, however, says tens of thousands of bats are killed annually by wind turbines in the US. Unless researchers are monitoring a site, says Boston University professor Thomas Kunz, bat . . .
The face of the wind turbine opposition in Barrington: Concerns over wind turbine project tie otherwise unrelated residents together
Jill Cuzzone has three children, works a part-time job, and never really felt the need to get involved with local politics or social activism … until last May.
Shortly after the Financial Town Meeting, where residents voted to approve funding for the construction of a wind turbine in town, Ms. Cuzzone started researching wind turbines and attending meetings for the renewable energy committee. She said the project’s initially proposed location — the Barrington High School campus — propelled her to . . .
SAMP feared as threat to fishing
As the state moves forward with the creation of zoning regulations for Rhode Island’s coastal waters, commercial fishermen are worried their interests will not be adequately represented when key decisions are made about where they can fish.
The fishermen expressed their concerns Oct. 29 at the first stakeholder group meeting for the Ocean Special Area Management Plan (SAMP) project, which will define use zones for about 1,547 square miles of state and federal waters off the coast of Rhode Island. . . .
Wind turbine project faces 'paralysis'
BARRINGTON — The chairman of the committee exploring a wind turbine for the town is warning that the project is facing “paralysis by analysis,” and he is calling on Barrington’s “silent majority” to “break the deadlock and move forward on this first-of-many renewable energy solutions.”
David Baum issued the call in response to critics who say the proposal for the peninsula at Brickyard Pond hasn’t been studied enough. They outlined a wide-range of objections during a three-hour hearing Oct. 21. . . .
Wind chairman asks for ’silent majority’ support
BARRINGTON — The chairman of the committee exploring a wind turbine for the town is warning that the project is facing “paralysis by analysis” and he is calling on Barrington’s “silent majority” to “break the deadlock and move forward on this first-of-many renewable energy solutions.”
David Baum issued the call in response to critics who outlined a wide-range of objections to the proposed turbine at Brickyard Pond during a three-hour hearing Oct. 21.
Baum’s Committee for Renewable Energy for Barrington (CREB) did . . .
Developer seeks deals with towns for wind energy
Even though a New York-based wind farm developer has abandoned its plans to build a facility off the coast of Rhode Island, the company is still hoping to get into the wind-energy business here.
Allco Renewable Energy Group Ltd. has approached a half-dozen Rhode Island communities with what some see as an appealing offer. The company will finance, build, operate and own a wind turbine within a town and sell the power at a price that’s at or below what’s . . .
