Resource Documents: U.S. (145 items)
Unless indicated otherwise, documents presented here are not the product of nor are they necessarily endorsed by National Wind Watch. These resource documents are provided to assist anyone wishing to research the issue of industrial wind power and the impacts of its development. The information should be evaluated by each reader to come to their own conclusions about the many areas of debate. The copyrights belong to the sources indicated, and they are reproduced here according to “fair use” and “fair dealing” provisions of copyright law.
Agreement Regarding Easements
Author: Diamond Trail Wind Energy
Purpose of Easement. The easements and grant of rents, royalties, credits and profits created by this Agreement (collectively, the “Easement”) are solely and exclusively for wind energy purposes, and not for any other purpose, and Grantee shall have the exclusive right to use the Property for wind energy purposes and to derive all profits therefrom. For purposes of this Agreement, wind energy purposes means converting wind energy into electrical energy, and collecting and transmitting the electrical energy so converted, together with any and all activities related thereto (“Development Activities”), including, without limitation, (a) determining the feasibility of wind energy conversion and other power generation on the Property, including studies of wind speed, wind direction and other meteorological data, and extracting soil samples; (b) constructing, laying down, installing, using, replacing, relocating and removing from time to time, and maintaining and operating, wind turbines, overhead and underground electrical and communications lines (“Collection/Transmission Facilities”), electric transformers, energy storage facilities, telecommunications equipment, power generation facilities to be operated in conjunction with large wind turbine installations, roads, meteorological towers and wind measurement equipment, and related facilities and equipment (collectively “Wind power Facilities”) on the Property; (c) overhanging rotors of wind turbines installed on adjacent land; (d) capturing, using, and converting unobstructed wind resources over and across the Property; (e) wind turbine operations, including electromagnetic, audio, flicker, visual, view, light, noise, vibration, air turbulence, wake, electrical, radio interference, shadow and other effects attributable to wind turbines; and (f) undertaking any other activities, whether accomplished by Grantee or a third party authorized by Grantee, that Grantee reasonably determines are necessary, useful or appropriate to accomplish any of the foregoing, including without limitation, exercising the right of ingress to and egress from Windpower Facilities (whether located on the Property, on adjacent property or elsewhere) over and across the Property by means of roads and lanes thereon if existing, or otherwise by such route or routes as Grantee may construct from time to time (“Access Rights”).
Project. The Parties acknowledge and agree that the Property, together with the other property included in the Project, will be interrelated and integrated in the operation of one or more larger wind energy conversion projects. The easements and other rights granted herein are an integral part of each Project. So long as any Windpower Facilities in a Project are in commercial operation, the Property shall be deemed to be in commercial operation, notwithstanding whether Windpower Facilities are actually installed upon the Property. Grantee may determine whether any particular group of Windpower Facilities constitutes a single Project or multiple Projects for purposes of this Agreement, and in the case of multiple Projects, which portion of the Property shall be included within each Project.
Download original document: “Agreement Regarding Easements – Diamond Trail Wind Energy”
Industrial wind turbines and adverse health effects: A cardiologist’s view of the data
Author: Johnson, Ben
Download original document: “Industrial wind turbines and adverse health effects: A cardiologist’s view of the data”
Do Renewable Portfolio Standards Deliver?
Author: Greenstone, Michael; McDowell, Richard; and Nath, Ishan
[Abstract] Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) are the largest and perhaps most popular climate policy in the US, having been enacted by 29 states and the District of Columbia. Using the most comprehensive panel data set ever compiled on program characteristics and key outcomes, we compare states that did and did not adopt RPS policies, exploiting the substantial differences in timing of adoption. The estimates indicate that 7 years after passage of an RPS program, the required renewable share of generation is 1.8 percentage points higher and average retail electricity prices are 1.3 cents per kWh, or 11% higher; the comparable figures for 12 years after adoption are a 4.2 percentage point increase in renewables’ share and a price increase of 2.0 cents per kWh or 17%. These cost estimates significantly exceed the marginal operational costs of renewables and likely reflect costs that renewables impose on the generation system, including those associated with their intermittency, higher transmission costs, and any stranded asset costs assigned to ratepayers. The estimated reduction in carbon emissions is imprecise, but, together with the price results, indicates that the cost per metric ton of CO₂ abated exceeds $130 in all specifications and ranges up to $460, making it least several times larger than conventional estimates of the social cost of carbon. These results do not rule out the possibility that RPS policies could dynamically reduce the cost of abatement in the future by causing improvements in renewable technology.
Energy Policy Institute, Becker Friedman Institute for Economics, University of Chicago, April 2019
Michael Greenstone, University of Chicago and National Bureau of Economic Research
Richard McDowell, Amazon
Ishan Nath, University of Chicago
Download original document: “Do Renewable Portfolio Standards Deliver?”
Comments on proposed amended habitat mitigation plan
Author: Smallwood, Shawn
On behalf of Friends of the Columbia Gorge, Oregon Wild, the Oregon Natural Desert Association, Central Oregon LandWatch, the Audubon Society of Portland, and East Cascades Audubon Society, I write to comment on the Request for Amendment 4 for the Summit Ridge Wind Farm, which requests a postponement of construction start and end dates for the project and which proposes an amended Habitat Mitigation Plan (January 2019). I primarily wish to comment on (1) the suitability of the habitat assessment underlying the amended Habitat Mitigation Plan, and (2) the need to update baseline surveys, project impact predictions, mitigation measures, and post-construction monitoring protocols. Updated surveys and analyses are needed in part because over the near-decade that has passed since the primary baseline study (Northwest Wildlife Consultants 2010), science has made vast improvements in field survey methods and in our understanding of wind turbine collision factors, displacement effects, and cumulative impacts related to wind projects. Methodology has vastly improved in preconstruction studies needed to predict project-scale and wind turbine-scale impacts, to measure post-construction impacts, and to assess whether and to what degree specific mitigation measures can be tested for efficacy. …
ATTACHMENT 1
Skilled Dog Detections of Bat and Small Bird Carcasses in Wind Turbine Fatality Monitoring. K. Shawn Smallwood, Doug Bell, Skye Standish. 16 February 2018
ATTACHMENT 2
Comparison of Wind Turbine Collision Hazard Model Performance Prepared for Repowering Projects in the Altamont Pass Wind Resources Area. K. Shawn Smallwood and Lee Neher. 7 January 2017 (Updated 5 April 2018)
ATTACHMENT 3
Addendum to Comparison of Wind Turbine Collision Hazard Model Performance: One-year Post-construction Assessment of Golden Eagle Fatalities at Golden Hills. K. Shawn Smallwood. 10 April 2018
Download original document: “Smallwood – Re: Summit Ridge Wind Farm – Request for Amendment 4”
