Clean-up payments
Bangor Daily News | Posted April 16, 2013 | bangordailynews.comBangor Daily News | Posted April 16, 2013 | bangordailynews.com
Bangor Daily News | Posted April 16, 2013 | bangordailynews.comBangor Daily News | Posted April 16, 2013 | bangordailynews.com
Oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens started the world’s largest wind farm in Texas. In October 2012 he dumped it – all 500 turbines – due to the declining price of natural gas. Energy giant BP is now looking to sell its entire U.S. wind operation. They do not see sustainable growth.
Wind companies almost never buy the land but rather lease it, enabling them to simply walk away and wash their hands if the project does not sustain a profit. They can simply abandon the turbines, leaving the town stuck with 500-foot tall, rusting and leaking hulks.
Falmouth, Mass., has considered removing the town’s two wind turbines. What is most notable about this? The state would have no obligation to bail Falmouth out, and it would cost $14 million to remove them.
As stated in “Wind Turbines & ‘Green’ Subsidies Under Fire,” in “The New American,” “Despite billions in taxpayer subsidies pumped into the ‘green-energy’ industry, 15,000 windmills have been left to rot across America.”
The wind industry is artificially propped up with taxpayer subsidies; it is not a profitable business. First Wind tried to sell stock in its company. No one wanted it. If First Wind falls by the wayside and abandons Maine two, five, 10 years out, will the $300 a year it has paid Carroll Plantation residents for ruining their landscape be worth it?
They might want to save those payments for the clean-up.
Jack Gagnon
Lakeville
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/04/17/clean-up-payments/