September 7, 2018
Economics, Impacts, Iowa, Law, Presentations, Safety

Pros and Cons of Industrial Wind – presentation outline

Coalition for Rural Property Rights

Pros

Money – Warren Buffet’s MidAmerican Energy will receive $10 billion in tax credits for building wind turbines (Des Moines Register May 30, 2018}

Avoiding less than 1% of worldwide CO₂ (AWEA, Wind Energy Reduces Greenhouse Gas Emissions; Statista, Global CO₂ emissions)

Cons

Expensive – Wind turbines are not viable without Production Tax Credit and tax abatement.
“Safe Harbor” is the mechanism that allows companies to claim the full PTC no matter when the project is started by having invested 5% of the total project cost in equipment or development. MidAmerican is invoking “safe harbor” for Wind XII.

Wind turbines do not avoid a meaningful amount of CO₂ – far less than 1% of worldwide CO₂ emissions according to the American Wind Energy Association. The following link shows that people’s activities emit 35-40 billion metric tons of CO₂ every year. https://www.statista.com/statistics/276629/global-co2-emissions/ ^[1]

Blades made of non-recyclable toxic materials (70 metric tons according to the specs of a Vestas V110-2.0). 57,000 US turbines will create 8,550,000,000 lbs of waste from blades alone.

Wake
An excerpt from an Invenergy Neighbor Agreement, giving the developer an “exclusive easement on, over, under and across all of the Owner’s Property to permit Generating Units or other wind energy conversion systems on adjacent property or elsewhere to cast shadows or flicker onto the Owner’s Property; impact view or visual effects from the Owner’s Property; and cause or emit noise, vibration, air turbulence, wake, and electromagnetic and frequency interference”

Decline in Property Values – See the studies of Mike McCann, expert appraiser but with number of people fighting to not live next to a wind turbine the decline of property values is almost a given. In counties that are educated on industrial wind only 5-10% of the people in a proposed project area will actually participate.
In Iowa’s Clay/Dickinson Counties only 54 residences out of 244 in the proposed project area signed contracts. In Palo Alto County only 24 residences out of 268 in the proposed area signed contracts. In Sac and Ida Counties only about 5% of the people who signed will live next to a wind turbine. In Kossuth County the wind companies are trying to raise the height limit for turbines because they can get so few people to sign.

Safety Concerns – Fire, ice throw, blade throw, trespass zoning
GE’s ice throw equation is 1.5 X (hub height + rotor diameter)

Turbine manufacturers Vestas and Nordex require a 1650 feet radius to be secured from a turbine in distress. The height of the turbines they are referring to do not exceed 350 feet in total height.

Inadequate decommissioning plans
MidAmerican – $13,000 per turbine
Jonathan Knauth PE – $170,000 per turbine (2011)
ISU’s Tom Wind PE – $200,000 per turbine (2012)

Bird and bat kills
USGS Economic Importance of Bats in Agriculture

Wind companies given the right to kill 4200 Bald Eagles per company.

Hurts community relationships
Clinton County Missouri vs NextEra: https://www.wind-watch.org/video-clintoncounty.php ^[2]

Iowa Code 331.301 General powers and limitations: A county may, except as expressly limited by the Constitution, and if not inconsistent with the laws of the general assembly, exercise any power and perform any function it deems appropriate to protect and preserve the rights, privileges, and property of the county or of its residents, and to preserve and improve the peace, safety, health, welfare, comfort, and convenience of its residents.