This letter is about the recent wind plants projected for the area. The people of Maine need to get on their computers and read some of the studies done over the years on existing wind projects. We can not just believe the claims being made by those who want to build them. They say the wind plants will stop this many pounds of emissions, light this many homes and shut down this many coal power plants.
The fact is most wind plants operate at less that 30 percent of their rated capacity. In a Review of Wind Power Results in Ontario from May to October 2006, three wind plants with an installed capacity of 206 MW produced only 24 percent of their rated capacity. Worldwide less that one half of one percent is able to meet or exceed 30 percent. So all those “it will do this and thats” can have 70 percent of the numbers subtracted.
It is also the truth that wind plants will have little or no effect in on carbon emissions. Wind power is so unreliable and uncontrollable. Conventional power plants have to stay online for backup. The truth is when coal-fired turbines are frequently and rapidly ramped up and down to compensate for wind variations they emit more CO2. The Electric Power Research Institute in California says, “It is technically incorrect to assume that wind energy will displace fossil generated power and decrease CO2 emissions on a kWh for kWh basis.”
There is one good reason to build wind plants, MONEY. These companies will have you believe they are here to save the world. In fact Mission Energy (Harley Lee’s Partner) is in the process of building several coal-fired power stations with Chevron. They make millions more of our tax dollars in subsidies. Guess what? No subsidy no wind plants. It costs a lot of money to make power with wind.
I see now too that Trans Canada is going to pay off Stratton. It can take off 70 percent of their money too. And for this they blast our mountains to bits. So they can make more money.
Because these things are not going to do anything else. Please do some research folks.
Keep our mountains protected.
Terry Tesseo
Coplin Plantation
23 May 2007
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2007/06/02/keep-our-mountains-protected/