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Does Big Wind even have the money to upgrade its turbines? 

We should be very, very worried that Big Wind, upon which, thanks to a maze of government subsidies and mandates we are increasingly dependent to keep the lights on, isn't as financially sound as we'd like to think.

Credit:  Port: Does Big Wind even have the money to upgrade its turbines? | “The public was promised the skies would be dark,” Commissioner Brian Kroshus said. “It was what people expected, and it’s not going to be occurring in some areas.” | By Rob Port | The Jamestown Sun | Sep. 28, 2021 | www.jamestownsun.com ~~

MINOT, N.D. – I used to live on Minot’s north hill, and there were times when I’d go for a walk in the evening darkness, that I could look across the Souris River Valley and observe what appeared to be an alien invasion south of town.

What I saw marring the prairie night sky wasn’t aliens, but rather the perpetually flashing red lights of a wind farm, one of many scattered across North Dakota’s beautiful landscape.

These lights are an issue. So much so that, back during their 2017 session, lawmakers passed a law requiring mitigation for the lights. Big Wind was to implement technology that shuts the lights off, only turning them on when aircraft are near.

The deadline for newer wind farms was 2019. Older turbine installations, permitted before 2016, are to be retrofitted by the end of this year.

Big Wind has been dragging their feet. The three-member Public Service Commission has fined some companies for the delays and granted temporary exceptions for others. Earlier this year, in their 2021 session, lawmakers created some flexibility in the law, allowing the PSC to allow delays in installations due to economic or technological reasons.

Still, despite this cooperative and encouraging attitude from state government, the wind industry continues to drag their feet.

“I’m not feeling real optimistic that they’re all going to comply,” Public Service Commission Chair Julie Fedorchak told the Bismarck Tribune.

“The public was promised the skies would be dark,” Commissioner Brian Kroshus said. “It was what people expected, and it’s not going to be occurring in some areas.”

The why of this needs some deep scrutiny.

We should be very, very worried that Big Wind, upon which, thanks to a maze of government subsidies and mandates we are increasingly dependent to keep the lights on, isn’t as financially sound as we’d like to think.

There have been some legitimate reasons for delays – around Minot, the military objected to dimming the lights because it might allow keen observers to track helicopters serving nuclear missile installations – but on the whole, it seems like money is often a reason why many of these companies can’t afford the lights.

That’s scary.

Remember that the wind industry insists they no longer need a massive production subsidy from the federal government. I’ve sat at a table with wind industry lobbyists who have told me that very thing. The need for the subsidy has passed, they claim.

And yet, like magic, that subsidy, which has been set to expire for years now, keeps getting quietly renewed by Congress, over and over again. It happened last year.

It happened again this year.

One explanation for this is plain old corporate greed. The hogs rarely object to their troughs getting slopped by the government.

But another is that the wind industry, despite decades worth of runway in the form of subsidies and mandates provided by the American taxpayer, still isn’t ready to take flight on its own.

Maybe that’s the reason Big Wind can’t let go of its subsidies.

Maybe that’s why Big Wind can’t afford to comply with North Dakota’s light mitigation requirements, despite plenty of flexibility and accommodation provided by lawmakers.

The public deserves to know the answers.

Source:  Port: Does Big Wind even have the money to upgrade its turbines? | “The public was promised the skies would be dark,” Commissioner Brian Kroshus said. “It was what people expected, and it’s not going to be occurring in some areas.” | By Rob Port | The Jamestown Sun | Sep. 28, 2021 | www.jamestownsun.com

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

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