N.B. Renewable energy and a dose of reality.
March 8, 2014, for the archives:
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Wind tax credit is good for ten (10) years.
Renewable electricity production tax credit.
When I first linked the "wind site," it was a very useful and free site. I see now that AWEA.org
has now gone commercial. The "education" stuff is all free, but if you
want any data, you need a paid subscription (or a password from a
friend). It is quite disappointing. The organization describes itself as
a "lobbying force for wind development and voice for
wind manufacturers in the United States. Includes wind energy
information." But when it charges for access to its data it speaks
volumes. Sad. Noted September 20, 2011.
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March 5, 2021: wind worked until it didn't, the Texas February Freeze experience.
April 5, 2015: biggest wind energy operator in Germany goes bust.
March 8, 2014: random update on wind farms in North Dakota.
December 17, 2013: another wind project scrapped; Inner Hebrides, Scotland.
December 10, 2013: President Obama signs bill to provide 30-year immunity to wind industry for killing birds.
November 23, 2013: a first. Wind farm found guilty of slicing and dicing 14 eagles plus 149 other birds.
November 18, 2013: the picture says it all. The French have just realized what their future (view) looks like.
Plans to dot France with wind farms are facing fierce opposition from
critics worried they will blight a landscape that has helped make the
country the world's top tourist destination.
France relies heavily on nuclear power but is
working to shift to renewable energy sources and triple by 2020 its
number of wind turbines, from the current 4,000 that are spread across
1,127 sites.
But opponents are urging the government to tread
carefully so as not to damage France's thousands of kilometres (miles)
of stunningly beautiful countryside -- which range from Europe's longest
strip of beaches to the peaks of the Alps.
November 8, 2013:
new wind energy projects in southwest North Dakota, data points --
- Basin Electric
- Infinity Wind Power of Santa Barbara, CA (note: not putting them in their own backyard)
- two new projects: a) Sunflower Wind Project, 106 MW, Hebron, Morton County; b) Antelope Hills Wind Project, 172 MW, Golden Valley, Mercer County
- to be operational by the end of 2015
No one better complain about the view.
October 26, 2013: Finally, the bats win one ...
Minnesota PUC kills a wind farm. Good riddance.
After years of delays and strong opposition by area residents, a
controversial Goodhue County wind farm project has reached its end.
The
Minnesota Public Utilities Commission accepted a request by developer
New Era Wind to withdraw a certificate of need extension for the
proposed 78-megawatt installation north of Zumbrota, according to an
order released Wednesday.
The PUC further voted to revoke New Era’s site permit and close all related dockets.
Originally
slated for operation at the end of 2011, the proposed $180 project
encountered numerous safety and environmental concerns raised by the
public.
October 12, 2013:
CarpeDiem continues to fight the good fight, reminding folks that the wind industry has
carte blanche to slaughter golden eagles, bald eagles, whooping cranes, and migratory ducks while the oil and gas industry is fined millions for a handful of lost birds.
I don't have a dog in this fight; if the environmentalists don't care, why should I? The lawyers and politicians will sort it out.
October 10, 2013:
another unneeded wind farm in North Dakota approved; this one near Hettinger.
August 22, 2013: after cutting 9,000 jobs in the wind-turbine manufacturing business, the industry is starting to show signs of life.
Vestas will report a small profit for the first time since 2010.
June 28, 2013: another wind turbine manufacturing plant is closing its doors.
June 6, 2013: Italian green jobs. Where's the spaghetti?
February 26, 2013: Falmouth, Cape Cod, MA, planning to
take down its two wind turbines due to sickness secondary to loud noise. Erected in 2010 at cost of $15 million. Cost to take them down, $5 to $10 million. City fathers want to bring them down; probably take it to a community vote.
Falmouth is nears Woods Hole.
[ Update, May 25, 2013: the citizens voted.
The wind turbines in Falmouth will continue to turn for now.]
February 12, 2013: GE #1 in wind -- first time in history -- Vestas drops to 2nd place in wind turbine manufacturing; GE takes first place; CEO was President Obama's economic adviser; to the victor, go the spoils.
January 6, 2013: Vestas, the world's largest wind turbine manufacturer, has
reduced the number of hours in the work week for its Colorado employees to 24 hours. This is below the "official" Federal work week defined as 30 hours.
November 30, 2012: South Dakota wind industry headed for a crash.
November 21, 2012: 32 more turbines, Lakeswind wind farm, Clay, Becker, and Otter Tail counties. I'm absolutely convinced Minnesotans will someday rue the wind farms as the turbines fall into disrepair, remain an eyesore, and do not lower utility rates. By that time, global warming will be long forgotten as a late 20th century/early 21st century fad with no redeeming features. Foxes and rats will have had a field day feasting on the carcasses of migratory birds sliced and diced by these monstrosities.
October 10, 2012: from
Fox 31 in Denver, Colorado:
wind farm continues to lay off workers.
Vestas, the largest manufacturer of wind turbines in the world, laid off another 80 Colorado employees from its plant in Brighton Friday, just four weeks before Election Day.
A Vestas spokesman says it’s a direct result of Congress’s failure to extend the Production Tax Credit for the wind energy, which is due to expire at year’s end, and a subsequent drop in orders for the wind turbines built at plants across Colorado.
Vestas has no laid off about 200 workers in Colorado and more layoffs are likely later this week at the company’s facility in Windsor, according to a report in the Greeley Tribune Tuesday.
Vestas has announced plans to lay off some 3,700 workers worldwide by the end of the year.
My hunch: the lame-duck Congress will extend the Production Tax Credit for wind energy as part of a "grand" energy compromise.
October 9, 2012: picking winners and losers (usually losers);
IntSec Salazar has approved a Wyoming wind farm with up to 1,000 turbines; if built, could be largest wind farm in the US; 1,000 turbines --> 1 million homes; Chokecherry and Sierra Madre Wind Energy Project;
September 28, 2012: the president blocks Chinese from owning wind farm in Oregon; cites national security;
September 20, 2012: wind energy industry withering without windfall tax credits;
September 11, 2012: Exelon kicked off advocacy board because it wanted to level the playing field.
September 9, 2012: Is the UK re-thinking wind energy?
August 29, 2012: North Dakota continues to issue more wind farm permits; Allete Clean Energy has another permit; currently building two other wind farms in southwest North Dakota. I am on the losing side of this issue; so are the whooping cranes. Allete is the new name for Minnesota Power and Light.
May 21, 2012: Massachusetts looking at turbine wind abatement regulations.
May 6, 2012: Minnesota's wind mandates look pretty ridiculous right about now -- the
Wall Street Journal.
April 17, 2012: Reuters reports 10,000 wind energy jobs lost under Obama.
April 9, 2012: North Dakota slice and dice farm is on hold one year after permit approved.
... the site for a sprawling 200-megawatt wind farm six miles north of here [Ashley] — one of 20 wind projects that have been permitted or are in the regulatory pipeline in North Dakota.
But more than a year after the Ashley Wind Energy Project was approved, not a single turbine has been erected, and landowners who signed leases with the developer were told in December that the project is on hold.
North Dakota's once-booming wind energy sector is waning because of the sluggish economy, continued transmission bottlenecks and the prospect that federal tax credits will expire at the end of the year.
Can't slice and dice without tax breaks.
April 9, 2012: Wind turbine energy has no redeeming features -- none, but as long as it is here and everyone else likes it, North Dakota might as well claim some braggin' rights.
North Dakota is now third in the nation for wind energy. Soon, North Dakota will be third in the nation for whooping crane deaths by blender/rotor.
March 27, 2012: Trump on CNBC, 7:45 a.m. -- no redeeming reason for wind energy; not one good thing about wind farms.
March 21, 2012: not one redeeming reason for wind energy, in a format that those with an 8th grade education can understand.
March 20, 2012: I guess a few folks are finally realizing that acquiring federal permits to allow unlimited killing of eagles and whooping cranes is not palatable. There are now
90 entities asking the Federal government to stop this madness. There is no redeeming reason for wind turbines. None.
March 13, 2012: Red Wing, MN, wind farm will apply for federal permit to kill unlimited number of eagles. Wind farms have not one single redeeming reason for existing, especially when natural gas is at all time lows. By the time the whooping crane census starts dropping, it will be too late. Truly a sad day in history of conservation that energy companies get licenses to kill unlimited number of eagles, whooping cranes.
March 8, 2012: not one redeeming reason for wind farms. Period. Dot. Unless you want to eradicate whooping cranes, eagles, and migratory birds in general.
February 20, 2012: wind projects in Wyoming slowing down, on hold; starting to use the word "abandoned."
February 9, 2012: the Dutch pull the plug on off-shore wind energy.
January 12, 2012: world's biggest wind turbine maker,
Vestas Wind Systems, Denmark, cutting jobs in Europe; probably in US; can't compete with Chinese manufacturers
Chief Executive Officer Ditlev Engel has reduced sales forecasts twice since October and pared staff three times in the past three years as Sinovel Wind Group (SINOVZ) Co. and Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co. grabbed market share. Vestas also suffered from a delay in ramping up production at a generator factory and from downward pressure on turbine prices.
Meanwhile, natural gas keeps getting less expensive.
December 19, 2011: Incredible. The state that refuses to use coal-generated electricity from North Dakota has
no qualms about destroying a habitat for eagles and other raptors in the land of 10,000 lakes, soon to be known as the land of 10,000 wind turbines. Truly incredible. What a sad state of affairs. As mentioned earlier, I have yet to find one redeeming feature about wind.
December 6, 2011:
Wyoming wind project put on hold; uncertainty about tax credits likely "to blame."
October 4, 2011: State regulators have been studying whether to approve a merger between NStar and Northeast for almost a year.
Cape Wind proponents want regulators to require that such a merger would require the new company to buy 50 percent of of the power generated by Cape Wind . National Grid agreed to purchase half of the power generated by Cape Wind more than a year ago. Regulators and residents all know the price of electricity will increase substantially if they are required to purchase wind energy. At this rate, all but the rich will soon qualify for state grants to pay for their electricity. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to guess what the regulators have been doing for the past year while studying the merger request.
The Dutch are losing their infatuation with wind; the math and science doesn't work.
Duke of Edinburgh: people who "believe" in wind, believe in fairy tales.
In a withering assault on the onshore wind turbine industry, the Duke said the farms were “a disgrace."
He also criticised the industry’s reliance on subsidies from electricity customers, claimed wind farms would “never work” and accused people who support them of believing in a “fairy tale."
The Duke’s comments will be seized upon by the burgeoning lobby who say wind farms are ruining the countryside and forcing up energy bills.
Criticism of their effect on the environment has mounted, with The Sunday Telegraph disclosing today that turbines are being switched off during strong winds following complaints about their noise.
Zero margins for wind; boom and bust -- and this, at a time, when government is providing "unlimited" moral support and financial support for renewable energy.
Minnesota's wind power initiative, September 20, 2011.
