Many problems with wind
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J. PETER COSGROVE - Published: June 25, 2009
Well over 80 residents filled Ira's Town Hall recently to discuss updating the town plan and the proposed wind turbine project by Vermont Community Wind Farm. This meeting followed the submission to the Select Board of a petition signed by over 100 townspeople opposing the wind turbine project. A newsletter had also been mailed prior to this meeting to every property owner explaining and commenting on industrial wind turbines.
Most people's understanding of wind turbines, as those gathering signatures for the petition realized, is that of "closed" systems promoted decades ago. You had wind or sun; it collected the energy and stored it in batteries in your basement to be used as needed. Industrial wind turbines are, comparatively speaking, an "open" system whereby the energy is distributed immediately. This sounds wonderful except for one significant issue.
The industrial wind turbine process is intermittent. When there is no wind, they don't run. Where there is too much wind, they don't run. When they do run, the base-load operators — those who provide a constant source of power — must continue to operate to prevent brownouts or degradation in the quality of power by fluctuation or sudden cessation of wind.
Nationwide, two-thirds of the base-load operators use natural gas or coal-fired generating plants. The net result, therefore, is that there is no reduction in greenhouse gases and no contribution to the fight on global warming. And while two-thirds of Vermont's base-load power is from nuclear and hydropower, wind power will never replace it as a base-load supplier.
Also, add the fact that they only run, at best, at 30 percent capacity, and you have to wonder what's driving this industry. It is the tax breaks, tax credits, the caps and trades, the grants, the subsidies and Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards that are driving this phenomenon. If these incentives did not exist, we would not have industrial wind turbines. What other energy-producing technology could be considered successful operating at only 30 percent efficiency?
One of the many issues discussed that evening was who owned all the land involved. The majority of land involved is owned by Yankee Forest LLC. And who is Yankee Forest? Yale University, or more precisely, Yale Endowment. In 2002, in a controversy regarding an easement on 600,000 acres of forestland between the state of Maine and Yankee Forest, it was revealed through federal tax records that Yankee Forest is a "for-profit entity of Yale University's endowment fund."
Back then, Yale University, which has a Forestry and Environmental Studies program and which is also a member of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, as well as the Forest Stewardship Council, found students upset by the seeming contradiction that the university was practicing.
Yale, on one hand, professed the sustainable forest, but on the other hand, on land it owned, cash replaced theory. To mollify the students, Forestry School dean Gus Speth sent a memo stating that "people should distinguish between our school's forests, where we are responsible for management, and lands owned by the Yale Endowment where we are not." If you accept this apparent partitioning of logic, you would probably do well in a course in ethics at Yale.
Other issues that arose that evening included a woman, who donated hundreds of acres of development rights on farmland to preserve the beauty of the valley, wondering why she bothered if these wind turbines were to dominate the landscape. A gentleman announced he had just donated the peak and land surrounding Birdseye Mountain to the state. Peregrine falcons, recently removed from the endangered species list, would not survive wind turbines, he said, quoting a biologist.
The sudden and dramatic development of wind turbine construction has suddenly motivated politicians, particularly those on the local level closest to the people, to begin to listen to the litany of complaints. Issues run the gamut from property depreciation, noise, light flickering, animal deaths, human health concerns such as hypertension and more that clamor for further study. Many governments, particularly local and county, are placing moratoriums on wind turbine development or proposing setback regulation, for example, of placement of towers from 1.5 to 3 miles from homes.
The proposed wind turbines will not contribute to reducing our carbon footprint. They will not replace Vermont Yankee or Hydro-Quebec as our base-load generating system. They will not contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gases. Their construction will provide a brief employment spike while retaining only a few maintenance positions year-round. This issue, whether industrial wind turbines are this nation's answer to domestic energy production, while at the same time professing carbon reduction and global warming sanctity, can only be answered emphatically, no.
J. Peter Cosgrove is a resident of Ira.
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