No matter where it’s sited, industrial wind is a net loser
Editor:
I am writing in regard to Gary Kent’s letter on Dec. 15 regarding the industrial wind issue currently plaguing the area. With all due respect to Mr. Kent, ‘green’ energy is NOT a partisan issue. Frankly, I do not know a single person (Republican, Democrat, Independent, or otherwise) who is not all FOR protecting our environment.
According to Mr. Kent’s reasoning, wind turbines are OK sited elsewhere, blighting someone else’s horizons – just not ours. Those who support this kind of ‘NIMBY’ (Not In My Back Yard) reasoning unintentionally give undue credibility to the scam of industrial wind.
Fact is: Industrial wind is a NET LOSER: economically, technically, environmentally, and civilly – no matter where it is sited. Let’s consider how.
Economically:
New York State already has one of the highest electricity rates in the nation, in large part due to throwing $Billions of ratepayer dollars into the wind.
Why destroy entire towns when just one 450 MW gas-fired Combined Cycle Generating Unit, operating at a 60% Capacity Factor, located at New York City – where the power is needed in New York State (NYS), would provide more power than all of NYS’s installed wind factories combined, at about 1/4 of the capital costs – and would significantly reduce CO2 emissions and create far more jobs than all those wind factories – without all the negative civil, economic, environmental, human health and property value impacts that are a result of industrial wind factories, or all the additional transmission lines to New York City.
The Institute for Energy Research tallied the numbers and found that each wind job costs $11.45 million, plus more than four jobs lost elsewhere in the economy; and all while wind is subsidized over 52 times more than conventional fossil fuels on a unit of production basis.
Consider multi-Billionaire wind developer, Warren Buffett’s candid admission, “We get tax credits if we build ‘wind farms.’ That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credits.”
Technically:
Due to the unreliable, erratic, and volatile nature of wind, industrial wind turbines (IWTs) provide virtually NO Capacity Value, or firm capacity (specified amounts of power on demand). Therefore, wind needs constant “shadow capacity” from our reliable, dispatchable generators – that is, if you want to be sure the lights will come on when you flick the switch. Thus, as Big Wind CEO, Patrick Jenevein candidly admitted, “Consumers end up paying twice for the same product.”
The list of accidents, blade failures (throwing debris over ½ mile), fires (10X more than previous wind industry claims), and more, is updated quarterly at this website (click here).
This lengthy and growing list is evidence of why these giant, moving machines do not belong anywhere near where people live.
The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA – the wind industry’s lobbying group) admits that the life of IWTs is only 10 – 13 years (January, 2006, North American Wind Power) – substantiated by studies of these short-lived lemons.
Adding insult to injury, NYS’s wind factories have been averaging approximately 24% Capacity Factors (actual outputs) – many days providing nothing at all. Physicist and Malone Town Board member Jack Sullivan figures that NY wind factories are not even producing enough power to pay for themselves over their short life-spans.
Environmentally:
According to AWEA there are approximately 45,100 industrial wind turbines in the U.S. today. Most IWTs are remotely sited, far removed from urban centers where the power is needed. This necessitates the addition of a spider web of new transmission lines (at ratepayers’ expense), which exponentially adds to the needless bird deaths being caused by the IWTs themselves.
Studies show there are MILLIONS of birds and bats being slaughtered annually by these giant “Cuisinarts of the sky” (as a Sierra official dubbed wind turbines in a moment of candor), necessitating the passing of special 30-Year Eagle-KILL permits by President Obama for his favored wind industry.
Sprawling industrial wind factories cause massive habitat fragmentation, which is cited as one of the main reasons for species decline worldwide.
Civilly:
The only thing that has ever been reliably generated by industrial wind is complete and utter civil discord. Neighbor is pitted against neighbor, and even family member against family member, totally dividing communities (already apparent in Orleans and Niagara counties). It is the job of good government to foresee and prevent this kind of civil discord, not to promote it.
Don’t be a NIMBY! This partial list of the destructive NON-SOLUTION that is industrial wind energy is reason enough not to support the scam of industrial wind – no matter where it is sited.
Mary Kay Barton
Silver Lake, Wyoming County
