Wind’s dark promise
Bangor Daily News, www.bangordailynews.com 21 August 2010
I wish to thank Naomi Schalit and the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting for the excellent investigative reporting on the dark side of Maine’s Wind Energy Act.
The deliberate deception taking place by companies that stand to make millions on our tax dollars, and by our own government, should have every Mainer questioning Gov. Baldacci’s scheme to industrialize our mountains and ridge lines into a man-made landscape of transmission lines and roads, thumping blades and flashing strobe lights while sacrificing tourism dollars, degrading property values and diminishing the quality of life of its rural citizens, who seem to matter least of all.
Industrial wind farms are 400-foot tokens of a flawed government hand out. Wind is intermittent and inefficient, cannot be stored or called upon in times of high demand and won’t produce a fraction of our energy needs.
Wind power won’t shut down any existing power plants or wean us off foreign oil.
Most of us don’t heat with electricity or drive electric cars. By 2030, an estimated 5 trillion kilowatt hours will be needed in the U.S., of which an estimated 2.6 percent will be supplied by wind, but at what cost to our natural environment?
Sacrificing our mountains and ridge lines for the promise of a few short-lived tax dollars and the benefit of a handful of corporations and government appointees is wrong. Protecting and preserving the unique beauty of Maine should be our lasting legacy to future generations.
Penny Gray
Fort Kent
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2010/08/21/winds-dark-promise/