April 25, 2016
Letters, Ohio

Addressing the wind energy issue

Addressing the wind energy issue - Letter to Editor | Times Bulletin | April 23, 2016 | timesbulletin.com

I want to know what the “Harvest the Wind” group truly knows about the dynamics of the entire wind industry.

Are they aware of the metrics called Effective Load Carrying Capability, Capacity Value, and Loss of Load Probability/Loss of Load Expectancy when it comes to wind energy?

All of these metrics prove wind energy is not capable of providing the grid significant energy, especially at peak demands. Wind is significantly unreliable in times of need and the irony is, wind makes it impossible to shift away from conventional technologies due to intermittent availability and it does very little to reduce emissions.

The true crime is what wind does to the national debt.

Due to enormous amounts of subsidies, the national debt increases by the day. How can a conservative minded person support that?

The hypocrisy is wind preys upon schools yet saddles those very students with a bigger national debt burden. The fallacy is we are not leaving behind a cleaner environment AND we are adding debt to our children.

Finally, the most crooked issue of wind is the granting of a PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes). Consider this, where the author of a previous letter lives (Union Township), the approximate tax rate is 6 percent. If every turbine in Union were taxed at 6 percent of the capital invested, Van Wert County would stand to gain tens of millions of dollars annually over the puny 2.1-2.7 million granted in PILOT. What a SWEET deal for the Spanish owned wind company besides all of the other breaks and subsidies.

Sounds to me that folks better do more research because the “facts” mentioned in the recent letter are 100 percent from the wind developer considering the authors’ daughter works for Apex Clean Energy.

If you want both sides attend Citizens for Clear Skies meetings as well.

JoAnne Simmerman

Van Wert

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2016/04/25/addressing-the-wind-energy-issue/