Elk Wind Farm $45 million upgrade unethical
From Terry McGovern 197th Street, Earlville, Iowa | Telegraph Herald | www.telegraphherald.com
From Terry McGovern 197th Street, Earlville, Iowa | Telegraph Herald | www.telegraphherald.com
Greenbacker Renewable Energy, the New York investment firm that now owns the industrial wind energy system near Greeley suggests “repowering” all 17 wind turbines at a cost of $45 million. According to Greenback’s representative, “While the project is perfectly functional and capable of running 20 to 30 more years, there is also a lot of benefit of a repower in the eight-to-12-year range.”
There is nothing wrong with the turbines, the only one’s benefiting in this case are the New York bankers. Iowans who care about the environment should be outraged at the blatant corporate greed. This “repowering” will result in over 900,000 pounds of turbine blades being dumped into a landfill where they will slowly leech their toxic chemicals into the earth for the next 1,000 years.
The cost is a good example of how middle-class taxpayer money is transferred to the wealthy. The $45 million they quote will almost entirely be covered by federal and state renewable energy grants and tax credits and the bankers will enjoy 11% guaranteed profits for an energy source that has been criticized by Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Michael Moore, and climate expert professor Michael Shellenberger as being inefficient, grossly expensive, with minimal impact on carbon reduction. Please contact the Delaware County Supervisors (supervisors@co.delaware.ia.us) and encourage them to disapprove this wasteful and ecologically damaging project as it clearly does not represent the economic and environmental values of Iowans.
Terry McGovern 197th Street, Earlville, Iowa
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2020/12/04/elk-wind-farm-45-million-upgrade-unethical/