The most likely candidate for becoming the U.S.'s first offshore wind farm reached another permitting milestone by filing its Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) on February 15 with the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) Office. It's now available, and it's meaty.
It makes two important points to the Marine Mineral Service, which now oversees the process. If the permit is denied, it will a) result in higher costs to Massachusetts citizens, since the state likely wouldn't meet its requirements for producing more power renewably; but more importantly, b.) it would have a chilling effect on the U.S.'s nascent offshore wind industry in general.
Turbine-haters and unspoiled-view lovers would cheer the latter, of course. But as grassroots group Clean Power Now (the swell Mass. citizen lobby pushing for Cape Wind) puts it so well: "It's not the view. It's the vision."
‘Heretic’ battles straw man
The Wind Kids: How high school students helped bring a wind farm to Milford, Utah
One doctor’s quest to sound the alarm on ‘wind turbine syndrome’
Comments
View as Flat
Sam Wells Posted 9:36 am
25 Feb 2007
The facts are that the project WILL have environmental impacts. If there were indeed none, one would have simply issued a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI). Birds WILL hit the pylons. Marine impacts such as on scallops and stripers WILL be there. The question is whether these impacts are consistent with the wording and intent of the environmental statutes, which yes do allow for a certain amount of environmental degradation as long as this is mitigated, contained, or otherwise controlled to the maximum extent practicable. /sammie
Onward through the fog
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donatracy Posted 9:58 pm
25 Feb 2007
Cape Wind has jumped the gun on this one. Their submitted FEIR is full of flaws that even they acknowledge.
There is a public comment period of only 30 days and the clock has been ticking. Who could possibly read, other than a huge study group, over 4,000 pages, digest and comment?
But aside from that there are huge gaps, misrepresentations and holes in vital information. I would urge anyone who cares to go on line and take a look at the FEIR which looks like a Cape Wind infomercial and then write to the permitting authorities requesting an additional 60 days of public comment and the inclusion of missing information.
For one, there is no stated method of removing these 130 turbines at the end of the project. That information is missing because they frankly admit they can't supply it until they have further information from the Federal reviewing agency, which alone makes this document premature. "Because the MMS has not determined the specific nature of such obligations at this time, the Proponent cannot provide further description."
Additionally, The FEIR does not yet have results of new aeronautical studies by FAA as a result of new footprint, taller structures and new lighting guidelines. "As a result of the new reconfiguration of the WTG's, anticipated design changes that would increase rotor height, and the release of new lighting guidelines by the FAA, Cape Wind has initiated new Aeronautical surveys by the FAA for each of the proposed turbine locations and is awaiting results."
And finally, among other things, it dismisses the impact it will have on commercial fishing,
radar interference and threat to national security and it precedes Coast Guard findings on navigational safety.
This document is premature, obviously needs to go back to the drawing board and should be resubmitted by Cape Wind when they are able to complete it.
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amazingdrx Posted 11:29 pm
25 Feb 2007
Wouldn't want to block any commercial fishing,while there are still a few fish left.
Fishing shouldn't be hampered until there are no fish left, right? That is a benefit of offshore wind, it could prevent huge commercial fishing and preserve life in the ocean.
And do you know of any nuke-u-ler power plants that have plans for removal? I bet that never crossed your mind did it? Nukes, what's dangerous about them? Pathetic NIMBYism at its worst.
I see you didn't mention bird kills, The Audobon Society put the lie to that nonsense. You all could have called for locating this wind farm farther offshore on floating platforms to spare the view, but were too busy trying to stop any wind offshore at any cost.
I see you even mentioned this!?!
threat to national security...
What do you think continued reliance on fossil and nuclear power is? Is there a bigger threat to national security than war and terrorism over oil and war over nuclear proliferation? Yes, global climate disaster! Wake up!
Thanks so much RFK jr, for leading the shameful power brokering against this project. Your tactics may get all offshore wind/wave power banned.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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wesuwi Posted 11:44 pm
25 Feb 2007
I can say with great confidence that this project has been thoroughly researched, both by the project proponent, and by a variety of outside groups. They have studied a number of scientific, environmental, social and historic concerns.
Not one of the issues raised has been shown to have any substance. Birds are present on Horseshoe Shoal only in very low numbers. And while birds are sometimes harmed by wind turbines -- when they are displaying while breeding for example -- scientific evidence shows that these activities do not occur where the Cape Wind turbines will be built.
Moreover, the European science on offshore wind -- and it is considerable -- shows that, in general, birds notice and avoid offshore turbines. If you think about it, you will see that this makes sense. Birds are able to fly through very thick forests at night when the wind is blowing, and not fly into trees. It's only logical that they should be able to do so with wind turbines as well.
The ocean environment will be affected temporarily while the project is being built. After constructions, scientists expect the environment to return to its current state, save for the presence of the turbines themselves. This has been the European experience, and there's no reason to believe it will be any different on Nantucket Sound.
As someone who has written extensively about the degraded health of the oceans, I wholeheartedly support the need to be as careful as possible about what happens in the saltwater. However, there is no evidence whatsoever that this particular project will cause damage. What has severely affected the health of Nantucket Sound is the number of very large houses built on Cape Cod's shorelines and at the edges of the wetlands are causing much more damage than a wind farm ever would. When I first arrived on Cape Cod more than 20 years ago, the beaches were never closed to swimming. Nowadays, beach closings because of fecal coliform and other matter are almost routine.
When this project was first proposed, a number of regular folk on Cape Cod were quite concerned. I don't blame them. I myself found the project to be large and ambitious. But as the science has unfolded -- and believe me, the science has been plentiful and expensive -- my concerns have been alleviated. The same is true for many local people here on Cape Cod.
While there are still some local folk who remain concerned, the current opposition is funded mostly by the wealthy folk who own the large coastal homes. I know this for a fact, because I was present at the strategy meeting when a Washington lobbyist outlined his plan for creating a "grassroots" group that would keep the project from being built.
Very early on I visited a modern commercial-sized turbine built in the nearby town of Hull, Massachusetts. An older gentleman who identified himself as a retired engineer was there when I arrived. "The engineering's all be done; the politics have just begun," he said.
And herein lies the larger and deeper issue surrounding Cape Wind: The nature of our democracy in the 21st century.
Lobbyists and big money have so affected our discussions -- in this particular instance, in energy matters in general, and indeed throughout our whole political system -- that it is difficult, if not impossible, for our government to function in the way the founding fathers intended.
The good news is that, in the case of Cape Wind at least, the little people have stood up and made their voices heard.
As a journalist, this has been thrilling for me to watch, because when regular folk decide to stand up and be counted, all the money in the world cannot control the public discussion.
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donatracy Posted 12:43 am
26 Feb 2007
As to threats to birds, they are very real. For the past twenty-five years I have devoted myself to advocacy for wildlife and am a member of a community of people who are increasingly alarmed about the threat wind turbines pose to bird life. Beyond the killing fields of Altamont pass in which thousands upon thousands of raptors have been killed there are new wind farms emerging that have the potential for doing the same. The most recent of which was publicized by the BBS. The Smola Wind Farm (a new instillation) off the coast of Norway has single-handedly wiped out the endangered population of White-tailed (Sea) Eagles.
Do check your facts before you repeat such rubbish, please.
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caniscandida Posted 12:45 am
26 Feb 2007
But our excellent Amazing DrX remains our faithful watchdog, in this matter, as in so many others.
On bird casualties: We may be satisfied to think of bird populations in the manner of accountants, reckoning that global warming will surely kill so many more birds than are killed by the whirring fins of wind turbines. Therefore, on balance, so far as the accountants reckon it, wind turbines are not a problem for birds.
Well, OK, maybe that is so. Nevertheless, the death of each individual bird on account of a wind turbine means something, morally.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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amazingdrx Posted 12:49 am
26 Feb 2007
Any action on that by RFK jr or any of the other Cape wind opponents?
Pretty pathetic.
Meanwhile the last of the fish are being exploited to harvest a few dollars from fishing industry lobbyists and a few votes from families going broke still trying to fish.
And foreign factory ships with 40 mile nets mop up all remaining life in the ocean. That's fine governance.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 12:57 am
26 Feb 2007
Save all the wildlife, stop GHG global climate disaster! I think we can trust The Audobon Society in this.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2006/12/26 ...
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 1:08 am
26 Feb 2007
Any links to the "facts" you presented?
Check this:
In the November-December installment of the magazine, Flicker wrote a column stating that Audubon "strongly supports wind power as a clean alternative energy source," pointing to the link between global warming and the birds and other wildlife that scientist say it will kill. The venerable environmental organization and avian champion was now on record as embracing wind power.
http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story;jsess ...
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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donatracy Posted 1:20 am
26 Feb 2007
Link to BBC article on Smola Wind Farm coming next.
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donatracy Posted 1:22 am
26 Feb 2007
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amazingdrx Posted 1:44 am
26 Feb 2007
RSPB conservation director Mark Avery told BBC News more care needed to be taken when choosing a site for wind farms. He said: "The problem is if wind farms are put in stupid places where there are lots of vulnerable birds and lots of vulnerable rare birds."
I am in favor of floating platforms for wind/wave power offshore. That would mean they could be located in more non-threatening areas. And even moved if a problem arose.
I noticed that even though many of us called for relocation on floating platforms further offshore, the head lawyer at NRDC continued his political power brokering against Cape Wind. He could have supported the floating platform compromise.
By using his political connections to bring in powerful bureaucracies like the Coast Guard and powerful lobbying by coal and nuclear behind the scenes, this corruption threatens to kill the chance for all offshore wind/wave power.
Why does NRDC support "clean" coal now? Part of a deal to get lobbying by big coal against Cape Wind? Would that surprise anyone?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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donatracy Posted 1:58 am
26 Feb 2007
I am not a fan of wind power, as it is intermittent, expensive and requires back up with fossil fuel burning plants in order to work but the floating platforms are intriguing.
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barbaradurkin Posted 2:08 am
26 Feb 2007
"Senator Pete Domenici R NC had undermined long standing legitimate state rights by introduction of a revision into the Energy Policy Act. According to Senator Elizabeth Dole R NC, and Barbara Boxer, D-CA, the actions of Domenici caused "potential significant harm to ocean and coastal environments."
Cape Wind has landed by way of this favorable treatment in an ad hoc review. We are making up the rules as the process of the review is being conducted due to bad policy.
I provide these facts so that citizens can refer to them and understand the need for an unbiased scientific environmental review of this project.
Unfortunately, all appearances indicate that this process is tainted as a reviewing agency, self appointed, refuses to disclose if they have a multi-million dollar interest in the permitting of Cape Wind.
Enter:
Mass Audubon is a self-appointed reviewing agency involved in the Cape Wind review process.
The federal regulatory reviewing agency for this project is the USFWS. They are far from satified by the recalcitrant applicant. Here is what they have to say to the lead agency, Marine Minerals Management Service:
USFWS and NE Regional Director, Michael Bartlett's scoping comments on the Cape Wind project to Marine Minerals Management Service agency of the Department of the Interior of July 11, 2006:
"Had the applicant conducted the three year radar study to identify the spatial and temporal use of the airspace by avian species and the other supporting studies recommended in Service scoping comments, the information needs for those resources would be largely satisfied. However, they have not, and it will now take three additional years to collect the necessary baseline information identified in our previous scoping comments and in our comments on the Corps DEIS. Accordingly, we recommended that MMS devise a schedule for the NEPA process based on the time it will take the applicant to collect the data necessary to address scoping comments dating back to 2002 and data deficiencies identified in comments on the Corps DEIS in 2005."
https:/ocsconnect.mms.gov/pcs-public/do/CommentDownloadPDF?objectId=09011f80800d5264
Why would we ignore wind towers siting guidelines established by the federal regulators, and these environmental organizations? Nantucket Sound is a documented endangered species habitat.
The Sierra Club:
"opposes development in protected areas such as national and state parks, national monuments, wilderness areas, wildlife refuges, designated roadless areas, critical habitat and designated habitat recovery areas for wildlife, and areas of cultural significance, sacred lands, and other areas that have special scenic, natural or environmental value. In these areas, it is inappropriate to build wind turbines, roads, transmission lines, or any other structure related to wind development."
"NOT APPROPRIATE SITES The Sierra Club will usually oppose wind development in areas that are Not Appropriate (all the categories below include prior-designated or prior-proposed areas):
National parks, Marine preserves or parks, State parks, National monuments,Wilderness areas,
Wildlife refuges, Federally-designated roadless areas, Critical habitat for Rare, Threatened or Endangered Species or habitat for indigenous species critical to a region or state's biodiversity"
American Bird Conservancy, ABC: "Sites requiring special scrutiny include sites that are frequented by federally listed endangered species of birds and bats, in known bird migration pathways, areas where birds are highly concentrated, and areas that have landscape features known to attract large numbers of raptors."
Greenpeace: "Greenpeace opposes building wind farms on sensitive bird habitat, however, properly sited modern wind turbines in Australia carry a very low risk to birds."
The Department of the Interior and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, lead federal regulatory reviewing agencies for Cape Wind, issued guidelines for siting wind towers in 2003:
"--Avoid placing turbines in documented locations of any species of wildlife, fish, or plant protected under the ESA.
-- Avoid locating turbines in known local bird-migration pathways or in areas where birds are highly concentrated, unless mortality risk is low (e.g., birds rarely enter the rotor-swept area). Examples of high-concentration areas for birds are wetlands, state or federal refuges, private duck clubs, staging areas, rookeries, roosts, riparian areas along streams, and landfills.
-- Avoid known daily-movement flyways (e.g., between roosting and feeding areas) and areas with a high incidence of fog, mist, low cloud ceilings, and low visibility."
Mass Audubon has influenced environmental organizations to endorse Cape Wind.
Web Search:
Letter from Chris Miller of Greenpeace: ... "The Massachusetts Audubon
Society gave its preliminary blessing yesterday
to a large-scale wind power project ...
http://www.climatecrisiscoalition.org - 60k - Cached - Similar pages
Sierra Club leaders were also encouraged by recent findings of the
Massachusetts Audubon Society that the turbines would not likely threaten
birds,
said James McCaffrey, director of the 28,000-member Massachusetts Sierra
Club...."
"Following a preliminary assessment by the Mass Audubon Society, the Sierra Club cautiously concluded that the project does not pose a significant threat to birds, marine animals and marine habitat." Press Release contact: James McCaffrey, Massachusetts Director Sierra Club May 19, 2006
MA Audubon Roseate Tern:
"In 2001, 1,826 pairs of Roseate Tern, representing half of the entire North American Population of this species, nested in Buzzard's Bay. During the breeding season the adults of this species are known to forage heavily between Wood's Hole and Nantucket. From July to September even a higher percentage, perhaps as much as 75% of the entire North American population stages at the following beaches in Nantucket Sound--South Beach, Chatham; Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge, Chatham; Great Point, Nantucket, Cape Pogue, on Martha's Vineyard, and a variety of smaller beaches between Hyannis and Mashpee." http://www.massaudubon.org/PDF/
advocacy/editorial/MEPA_windfarm.pdf
Mass Audubon comment to the USACE on the DEIS Cape Wind:
"This area of Nantucket Sound is within the eastern U.S. migratory bird flyway and hosts high concentrations of wintering waterfowl, and is in close proximity to nesting, foraging and staging areas for federally endangered roseate terns and threatened piping plovers. Substantial numbers of federally endangered sea turtles and protected marine mammal species frequent the proposed project site. In addition, the proposed site provides habitat for federally regulated finfish and shellfish populations." http://www.massaudubon.org/PDF/CapeWindDEIS.pdf
MA Audubon:
http://www.massaudubon.org/news/index.php?id=92&type= ...) "Unless it can be shown that the construction and operation of wind turbines would not significantly lower the habitat value or pose undue mortality risks for wildlife at a proposed site, we recommend, that wind energy facilities avoid...[among other locations] "Sites documented as important habitat for state and federally listed endangered species...")
Bald Eagle:
"In New England, however, the states of Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Connecticut still list the species as Endangered due to the low numbers of breeding pairs in their respective states (MA Division of Fisheries and Wildlife 2000)..."
"The Bald Eagle is presently protected by the Endangered Species Act of 1973, Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940, Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 and the Lacey Act. It is listed as a "threatened" species in the lower 48 states. Although Bald Eagles have made an encouraging comeback throughout the U.S.A. since the early 60s, they continue to be harassed, injured and killed by guns, traps, power lines, windmills, poisons, contaminants and destruction of habitat. Public awareness about their plight, strict enforcement of protective laws, preservation of their habitat, and support for environmental conservation programs can assure a healthy and secure future for the U.S.A.'s majestic and symbolic national bird."
http://www.eagles.org/moreabout.html
Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program of the Commonwealth of MA Division of Fisheries & Wildlife; the Haliaeetus leucocephalus (bird, sea eagle, white head) or the Massachusetts' Endangered Bald Eagle range is:
"In Massachusetts, Bald Eagles utilize the Quabbin Reservior, part of the Connecticut River, and the "Assawompsett Pond system throughout the year as both nesting and wintering habitat. Bald Eagles also overwinter along the Merrimack River and along the coast of Cape Cod, Buzzard's Bay and the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. Historically, the Bald Eagle bred throughout most of North America. Today, it is recolonizing much of its historic range where suitable habitat still exists."
Mass Audubon does not reference Bald Eagles present in Nantucket Sound in their testimony to USACE, or to the Department of the Interior Marine Minerals Management Service, (lead agency); while this reference to Bald Eagles is on their website, the Bald Eagle is an endangered species in Massachusetts. There is no incidental taking allowed for this endangered species:
Mass Audubon Tours | Sanctuaries and Nature Connection | Mass Audubon
During our two crossings of Nantucket Sound, we have a good chance of seeing ... and the largest concentration of overwintering bald eagles in New England. ...
http://www.massaudubon.org/NH_Travel/template_new.php?id=North%20America - 44k - Cached - Similar pages
The President of MA Audubon, Laura A. Johnson, submitted MA Audubon's comments on the Cape Wind DEIS on February 23, 2005; to Ms. Karen Kirk Adams, the Cape Wind Energy Project Manager U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England District
Reference File No. NAE-2004-338-1
EOEA No. 12643
"By utilizing other bird mortality data provided in the DEIS, Mass Audubon staff scientists arrived at avian mortalities that ranged from 2,300 to 6,600 collision deaths per year."
http://www.massaudubon.org/PDF/CapeWindDEIS.pdf
Jack Clarke of Mass Audubon has raised concerns about wildlife in his recent commentary, 'We're turning up the heat on wildlife." Mass Audubon should be raising eyebrows.
By all appearances, Mass Audubon is marketing Cape Wind. And, Dr. Taber Allison of Mass Audubon has denied their testimony to the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers on the impact of Cape Wind on bird life:
"Mass Audubon scientists have never concluded that up to 6,600 birds, or any number of birds, would be killed if this project is permitted," 8/03/06 South Coast Today.
However; MA Audubon's testimony is public record.
Few are aware of the staggering profit by way of contracts payable to avian specialists in an industry born from wind towers that kill birds. This fledgling industry is referred to as "Adaptive Management," and/or "long term environmental monitoring." It is a service industry that represents $2 to $3 million first year startup for a wind project; based on the value of Altamont, California wind tower monitoring contracts. These contracts represent $1 million per year paid to the monitor during construction phase; and impose terms as Mass Audubon has in their "Challenge" press release: "We also propose adoption of an Adaptive Management Plan that includes a rigorous monitoring program beginning at the construction phase and continuing for at least three years post-construction."
When a permit reviewing agency stands to financially benefit by the outcome of permit review process, bias is a component of the critical environmental review of a project. By all appearances, Mass Audubon is marketing Cape Wind--that would kill up to 6,600 birds per year by Mass Audubon's staff scientists' testimony.
How does one "mitigate" the deaths of up to 6,600 birds, annually, in this flyway, Nantucket Sound, with documented and federally protected endangered species present? California courts have established the fine for the death of one endangered Golden Eagle by a wind tower as $500,000.
Cape Wind, according to the federal regulatory reviewing agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, has not produced the "baseline" information that NE FWS has been seeking regarding bird life in Nantucket Sound since 2002.
Mass Audubon must disclose if they, or any of their fledgling agencies, have a multi million dollar financial interest in the outcome of the Cape Wind permit application process if they are to be considered objective in this environmental impact review of Cape Wind. Mass Audubon is presently in a position to profit by counting bird carcasses, "monitoring," while attempting to "solve" this problem; the industry term for this is "mitigation," if Cape Wind is permitted and construction begins in this flyway, with endangered species present.
Thank You,
Barbara Durkin
PS: I am also in the process of writing a book about the ad hoc review of one of the world's largest proposed construction projects. It will be fact based, and relate my personal involvement with the NIMBYS who challenge this developer.
I am a tourist of the Cape and Islands' whose initial concern was about the negative aesthetic impact. I have been conducting research on this project's potential impact for four years. I have no property or financial interest in the outcome of the Cape Wind application process.
Barbara Durkin
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amazingdrx Posted 2:23 am
26 Feb 2007
Did you miss this link that contends:
A while back I claimed that an all-dispatchable grid would require 75 hours of storage. I have been definitively proven wrong. Nothing like that is required.
In fact, tiny amounts of storage may do the trick if the grid is large enough -- and making the grid large enough is not that expensive. We may already have in place what we need for a completely renewable grid.
Imagine a wind powered grid that spreads offshore, over the great planes, on the great lakes, that would spread the intermittency out even more.
With a 500,000 volt grid that could store energy as well as transport it, distributed storage in plugin vehicles, biogas fuel cell backup,and storage of heat/cold in buildings and plants like those that use heat/cold for food processing and storage, renewables can be a stable baseload power source.
I wondered if you were a fan of wind. Do you believe GHG global climate change is not an urgent problem?
I only ask because I have encountered a number of people lately who tout nuclear power as a soltion to GHGs, but when pressed they reveal they do not believe that GHGs are a real concern. But rather that the whole issue is liberal propaganda.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 2:29 am
26 Feb 2007
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12/17/212637/60
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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donatracy Posted 2:33 am
26 Feb 2007
Carter's 10 principles
We can have an effective and comprehensive energy policy only if the government takes responsibility for it and if the people understand the seriousness of the challenge and are willing to make sacrifices.
Healthy economic growth must continue. Only by saving energy can we maintain our standard of living and keep our people at work. An effective conservation program will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
We must protect the environment. Our energy problems have the same cause as our environmental problems --wasteful use of resources. Conservation helps us solve both at once.
We must reduce our vulnerability to potentially devastating embargoes. We can protect ourselves from uncertain supplies by reducing our demand for oil, making the most of our abundant resources such as coal, and developing a strategic petroleum reserve.
We must be fair. Our solutions must ask equal sacrifices from every region, every class of people, every interest group. Industry will have to do its part to conserve, just as the consumers will. The energy producers deserve fair treatment, but we will not let the oil companies profiteer.
Reduce the demand through conservation. Our emphasis on conservation is a clear difference between this plan and others which merely encouraged crash production efforts. Conservation is the quickest, cheapest, most practical source of energy. Conservation is the only way we can buy a barrel of oil for a few dollars. It costs about $13 to waste it.
He called #6 the cornerstone of the policy
Prices should generally reflect the true replacement costs of energy. We are only cheating ourselves if we make energy artificially cheap and use more than we can really afford.
Government policies must be predictable and certain. Both consumers and producers need policies they can count on so they can plan ahead. This is one reason I am working with the Congress to create a new Department of Energy, to replace more than 50 different agencies that now have some control over energy.
We must conserve the fuels that are scarcest and make the most of those that are more plentiful. We can't continue to use oil and gas for 75 percent of our consumption when they make up seven percent of our domestic reserves. We need to shift to plentiful coal while taking care to protect the environment, and to apply stricter safety standards to nuclear energy.
We must start now to develop the new, unconventional sources of energy we will rely on in the next century.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:39 am
26 Feb 2007
Admitting your problem is the first step to recovery. "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt" (Al Franken as "Stuart Smalley").
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Sam Wells Posted 2:44 am
26 Feb 2007
Every year we get a few dozen ducks that run into the high electric power pylons, typically during a cold norther and a full gale, when the birds are already stressed and weakened. The birds hit the metal structure and the impact breaks their necks and they die.
Radar and other methods are currently required although radar is not sufficient to count individual birds - only large flocks of them that can make a "blip" on a radar echo. But that seems to be the standard these days.
Possibly the worst time for the birds - and maybe the best for wind generation - is during the spring migration north along the Atlantic Flyway. Sometines during this time a hard norther will hit, resulting in a fall-out, occassionally spectacular events of thousands of birds being swept out to sea. Many die and fall into the ocean. In deed, some birds can be blown off track all the way to Block Island. The question is whether this is an issue for the DEIS ... I would hesitate to "pooh-pooh" any preliminary conclusions on this subject.
I do support wind energy, by the way. It just needs to be done intelligently and with the best science available.
/sammie
Onward through the fog
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donatracy Posted 2:45 am
26 Feb 2007
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donatracy Posted 2:57 am
26 Feb 2007
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amazingdrx Posted 3:24 am
26 Feb 2007
How about banning GHG power generation, that could kill much of the birds and wildlife on the planet.
Or at least ban raw sewage flowing onto the beaches from the wonderful new, federally flood insured (N.Orlean's poor can't get that)McMansions there in your environmental paradise. Wonder if that is good for wildlife?
So many better things to ban in order to save birds and wildlife than wind. Maybe you chose wind because you don't believe in GHG "hysteria".
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Sam Wells Posted 3:25 am
26 Feb 2007
This reminds me of a large bank tower in Sarasota, FL where the windows were tinted sky-blue. After about 30 endangered Brown Pelicans smashed into the building, they changed the tint to orange. It worked. /sammie
Onward through the fog
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Jason D Scorse Posted 3:26 am
26 Feb 2007
J.S. teaches environmental economics and blogs at http://www.voicesofreason.info.
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atreyger Posted 3:43 am
26 Feb 2007
How about banning stupid birds?
I'm kidding of course, but there are several issues with Durkin's chiming in: that letter by MA Audubon was written as a response to DEIS/DEIR, and this is in fact the FEIR, which by law had to consider those comments. Two years later, they came out with the same conclusion, and actually lowered the number to ~260.
I'm not particularly keen on that letter's reliance on 'staff scientists', who are they and what are their credentials. I would think that a careful read-through of the technical attachment and full findings for FEIR would provide a much better picture. Also, there is obviously an obligatory thirty day period where interested parties can review the document and make necessary adjustments.
Anyway, BAN BUILDINGS!!! They kill a lot more birds.
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donatracy Posted 3:48 am
26 Feb 2007
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barbaradurkin Posted 3:50 am
26 Feb 2007
"What lessons have we learned in planning the Horns Rev project, Henning?"
"I think the most important lesson is that if there are concerns about bird restrictions from the European Commission, for instance, they should be taken seriously because they will not go away. I have seen some international projects failing to make progress because the warnings were not taken seriously."
Shutdowns of wind facilities result when unacceptable bird kill occurs due to poorly sited wind towers. Shutdowns adversely impact the economic viability of poorly sited wind projects, where bird warnings are ignored as Henning Gastrup states.
Nantucket Sound is part of the North Atlantic flyway, and an area of documented endangered species. We are being told by a seasoned wind power proponent to take bird concerns seriously.
Wind tower siting guidelines, as provided above, have been established to protect wildlife, and provide the assurance of the economic viability of wind energy projects.
Another expert responds to poorly sited wind towers that kill birds. He is another renewable energy proponent:
Editor USA Today:
"Cape wind is about the blood of eagles not politics as usual with Senator Edward M. Kennedy and Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly as the USA Today's recent coverage seems to suggest. Siting wind turbines in a major bird fly way chops large hawks and eagles up like large birdy blenders. I know about this because my organization is suing the County of Alameda California over its approval of Conditional Use Permits for thousands wind turbines located in the Altamont Pass Wind Resources Area that are killing thousands of these birds every year. My organization CAlifornians for Renewable Energy, Inc. (CARE) is taking on the wind industry because the blood of eagles gives wind energy a black eye. Wind energy is all about location. Don't forget Enron got started in the wind industry."
Mike Boyd-President-CARE Californians for Renewable Energy
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/PRESS/altamont-0 ...
California A.G. Bill Locklear has also responded regarding the legal implications of the deaths of thousands of birds in a flyway with endangered species present at the Altamont Pass, CA. wind resource area:
Bill Lockyer, A.G. of CA to the Almeda County Board of Supervisors in his letter of July 6, 2005:
"The ongoing harm to protected bird species at the APWRA is serious and unacceptable." "Because the APWA is the largest of its kind in the world, what happens here could set an important precedent for how these issues are addressed elsewhere in California and the United States."
Hopefully, we will heed the experts advice, and not allow Cape Wind to be constructed in an endangered species habitat, and major flyway, Nantucket Sound, (a site selected by the developer as we have not yet zoned the Outer Continental Shelf). All we need to do is to observe wind tower siting guidelines to avoid another Atamont, CA. Cape Wind as proposed for Nantucket Sound would give the wind industry in the U.S. a black eye. Location, location, location must be considered. Wind industry experience must also be considered.
Audubon Papers Essay 8:
"We have even been offered free trips to foreign countries just to talk about projects to be done locally. People troll for us all the time. One wimpy local board member and one persuasive state office official is all it often takes to get a local chapter to pass on opposing a project. And developers know that."
From the 'Audubon Papers Essay 5:
"Any fight against development, sprawl and commercialization anywhere is a legitimate Audubon activity because it helps birds everywhere. Any Audubon activity - regardless of motivation - that discourages us from stopping developers, is bad for birds and an anti-Audubon activity."
Barbara Durkin
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donatracy Posted 3:51 am
26 Feb 2007
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Erik Hoffner Posted 4:25 am
26 Feb 2007
The Orion Grassroots Network is a meeting place for 1000+ great grassroots organizations working for conservation and more: http://www.orionsociety.org/ogn
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Delay And Deny Posted 4:39 am
26 Feb 2007
Wind farms and hydrogen-wind generation are proceeding apace under the Bush Administration.
Does Grist give credit?
Nope.
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services.
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donatracy Posted 4:55 am
26 Feb 2007
Your comments on Carter's 10 principles please?!
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barbaradurkin Posted 11:25 am
26 Feb 2007
The Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR); much like the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS); is inherently flawed as produced, directed, paid for, and delivered by Cape Wind. Cape Wind has a financial interest in the outcome of this application process. Cape Wind cannot be considered as an objective source of information in their own project evaluation process.
Cape Wind is hardly an independent, disinterested party, which is essential for science.
We need an objective, unbiased, and impartial studies and reports to form the basis of our decision making regarding the potential impacts of Cape Wind -if we are to expect a good outcome.
Consider the disclaimer:
"This is a paid advertisement."
Flawed policy encourages the developer to produce the DEIS, and the FEIR.
What about precautionary principle; and the objective science that should form the basis of our sound decisions?
In testimony regarding Cape Wind to the USACE at MIT, a Cape Cod environmental educator hit this nail squarely:
"Like children grading their own papers, having industry respond to the research for this environmental report is a complete conflict of interest. Like children giving themselves an A, much of the information in the DEIS was written by those with a vested interest in this wind farm."
What we do know from the EPA is that Cape Wind was issued a unsatisfactory category 3 level rating. This is the lowest possible grade given by the EPA.
Conflict of Interest: Wikipedia:
"More generally, conflict of interest can be defined as any situation in which an individual or corporation (either private or governmental) is in a position to exploit a professional or official capacity in some way for their personal or corporate benefit."
The following quotations on the DEIS are very relevant to the FEIR. The underlying principle is that objectivity of the environmental, economic, safety, etc., impact statements is repeatedly challenged.
As both the DEIS and the FEIR have been produced, written, directed by, and star Cape Wind; it should come as no surprise to anyone that the information they provide is favorable, while the reaction to the Cape Wind DEIS was very unfavorable.
The FEIR process ignores the flaws revealed in the DEIS process. We can, therefore, again expect the kind of reaction generated by the DEIS, to be generated by the FEIR:
U.S. Department of the Interior "In many cases `conclusory statements' regarding environmental impacts of the Cape Wind Energy Project (CWEP) cannot be supported by the data collected and analyses done. While some sections appear to have been done reasonably well, others are not and in certain regards the DEIS is at best incomplete, and too often inaccurate and/or misleading,"
Dr. Rodney E. Cluck of the Mineral Management Service's Environmental Assessment Branch. "NEPA analysis should remain objective and avoid taking an advocacy position," wrote Dr. Cluck on the EIS, "This document often presents arguments in support of the project that should be removed. A more unbiased approach is needed to assess the impacts - both the pros and cons of development
The Cape Cod Commission: staff has released a report that details a number of concerns it has with the inadequacy of the project's review, and requests further study. The staff said that the draft environmental impact report, a 3,800-page largely favorable document produced by the U.S Army Corps of Engineers, uses "flawed assumptions," has a "lack of quantitative information," and the information was not independently verified. The CCC also states that when detrimental impacts are mentioned they are "downplayed," and that a supplemental impact statement is needed to address key areas where the current report "fails to adequately and accurately identify the impacts" of the proposed project.
The Association to Preserve Cape Cod (APCC) regarding the DEIS ... "The document does not provide a thorough and balanced analysis of the proposed project and does not put forward reasonable and responsible alternatives,'' wrote Maggie Geist, executive director of the APCC.
The Environmental Protection Agency, Department of the Interior, U.S. Coast Guard, New England Fisheries Management Council, Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, and the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. Regard the draft environmental impact statement as ''at best incomplete, and too often inaccurate and/or misleading.''
Maria Burks, superintendent of the National Park Service's Cape Cod National Seashore: "In general, the document often reads as if promoting a predetermined decision, which is contrary to the nature and goals of the NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] process."
US Fish and Wildlife "Cape Wind has not presented enough information on alternative analysis, and "a lack of important site-specific information on natural resources in, on, or in the airspace above Nantucket Sound that would be affected by the proposed project." "It appears that many of the issues addressed in our prior correspondence and cooperating agency meetings are still unresolved and likely to foster differences among various parties as the EIS process moves forward," wrote Mr. Lang of the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Mrs. Burks of the National Park Service noted that the section about wind was written differently than the sections about other energy options. "It makes the DEIS sound like a promotional brochure for wind energy development rather than a balanced analysis of benefits and impacts," she wrote, adding that a line in the section's summary of findings was taken directly from an industry-sponsored organization, the Electric Power Research Institute. Mrs. Burkes noted that the Cape Wind project, which developers say will have an average output of 170 megawatts, would itself not fall into the Corps' threshold of 200 to 1,500 megawatts.
"This unjustified threshold, at least per documents reviewed, provides the perception that the Corps is automatically eliminating further discussion or balanced analysis of potential alternatives and sites other than what the project proponent is offering," Mrs. Burks continued:
"The broad statement declaring `. . . there will be no significant and long-term improvements to regional air quality conditions as described in the Proposed Alternative under the No Action Alternative' is presumptive at best and knowingly misleading at worst," said Mrs. Burks of the National Park Service. "By making misleading statements and inappropriately characterizing the level of air pollution averted, the Corps is potentially damaging the success of other wind energy projects in the U.S.," Mrs. Burks added.
Barbara Durkin
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atreyger Posted 11:47 am
26 Feb 2007
I have no opinion on the final analysis of avian impacts in this particular project, except to say that we can either wait for an extra twenty years for better assesment techniques to come out and the data to be collected, or we can do our best with currently available data and technology. I say we use the second option, because development of renewable resources cannot wait for that long. Plus, I have seen opposition to wind farms anywhere where they may be sited. I think it says that people either don't like them or that they are inherently much worse than nuclear reactors and coal plants, although I'm pretty sure every time one of those was built there was plenty of opposition also.
I guess if some of the members of the rich person club on Cape Cod wanted to, they could pay for a separate avian study that would show that there is an impact on avian populations. But that would also be biased, because it's paid for by the opponents of the study. Too bad NSF mostly worries about water strider genital size.
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barbaradurkin Posted 2:04 pm
26 Feb 2007
No, I'm hardly a Banana, I'm a licensed general contractor. I work within the limitations of zoning and use regulations on land. The purpose of zoning is to provide for the safety of our citizens. We have not done the job of zoning the Outer Continental Shelf, and so we are inviting haphazard development.
If we were to eliminate the zoning we have created on land, I could build anything anywhere I like. I might make more profit, but would you like me to build an industrial plant next to your residence?
The cart is before the horse regarding the opening of the Outer Continental Shelf to alternative use developers. This developer, Cape Wind, has selected this site because we have abdicated our responsibility to zone our waterway first. We should be directing development offshore by policy. But, we have this developer directing development, (based on his costs).
If we had zoned the OCS as our first order of business, Nantucket Sound would likely be deemed too environmentally sensitive, and declared off limits to industrialization.
The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy:
"User conflicts can and do arise when incompatible activities take place in the same area. A comprehensive offshore management regime is needed for the balanced coordination of all offshore uses."
Pew Oceans Commission and the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy:
"The oceans and its resources are too valuable a resource to continue to manage in an ad hoc and reactive manner."
Barbara Durkin
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amazingdrx Posted 3:05 pm
26 Feb 2007
But I know you are really opposing the project to protect birds, right?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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donatracy Posted 9:29 pm
26 Feb 2007
Why not respond to the ideas and information rather than make something up about a person in an attempt to discredit his/her point of view? Barbara brings valid arguments to the table. Just as you did.
Attacking people rather than their ideas only polarizes them and contributes nothing to an important debate.
I believe we all care about the environment or we wouldn't be here on this blog. So why not be respectful?
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barbaradurkin Posted 10:55 pm
26 Feb 2007
As I have stated earlier, I have no financial interest in this debate; and I do not own any property on the Cape and Islands. I have never owned property there, and I do not build anything at the Cape and Islands. I prefer not bring my work to my favorite vacation destination spot.
I lend my voice to the so-called NIMBYs because this a raw deal for them. I pay my own way, and stay at a hotels to be present at hearings. I have declined offers to be paid to voice my personal strenous multiple objections to this project. I have declined work in my own marketplace to dedicate my time to this issue. It's important to me not to have my voice marginalized as I understand that Cape Wind proponents, like you, would prefer that my voice be marginalized. In essence, you are barking up the wrong tree.
The developer has set his sights on $1 billion dollars of ratepayer and taxpayer subsidies; and an irreplaceable cultural marine resource, in a no-bid deal. His is the tree that you should be barking under.
Your suggestion that this is a bird issue for me suggests that this is a one issue per Cape Wind opponent maximum arrangement.
I can recite objections from A to Z, three times over, that I have against the Cape Wind proposal.
Cape Wind is the proposed Big Dig of Nantucket Sound, on a greater scale, with far greater predicted negative consequences.
I'll gladly share my research with you regarding the multiple public safety risks presented by Cape Wind. Consider that one fatality, that I am aware of, has resulted from the Big Dig. We have predictions that Cape Wind would be "lethal" and a "significant hazard to safe navigation" in testimony, provided by those who are responsible for the safe transportation of over 3 million ferry passengers, annually; and the passengers of 400,000 annual flights in this airspace.
I will share the details on public safety threats posed by Cape Wind as soon as my time permits.
Barbara Durkin
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atreyger Posted 11:58 pm
26 Feb 2007
I guess if the area is big for paragliding and kiteboarding and is a major cessna route, I can see an issue with this. However, I also believe that recreational preferences should take a backseat to public good. Beglad to hear your responses.
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donatracy Posted 12:36 am
27 Feb 2007
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donatracy Posted 12:40 am
27 Feb 2007
Cape Wind's Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) does not yet have results of new aeronautical studies by FAA as a result of new footprint, taller structures and new lighting guidelines.
This from Cape Wind's FEIR: "As a result of the new reconfiguration of the WTG's, anticipated design changes that would increase rotor height, and the release of new lighting guidelines by the FAA, Cape Wind has initiated new Aeronautical surveys by the FAA for each of the proposed turbine locations and is awaiting results."
How can their results be Final if they are still awaiting vital studies concerning air safety??
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amazingdrx Posted 12:51 am
27 Feb 2007
How much does the fight against climate change "hysteria" come into it?
I think The Audobon Society is taking care of the birds. The commercial fishing interests don't deserve any consideration, after they have nearly destroyed the fishery. An obstacle to huge factory ships might just save ocean life.
As far as the view goes, I'm with the Cape Wind citizens' group. The future of offshore wind and the climate trumps the view. If climate change keeps going as you deniers would like,the ocean conveyor will stop,and the view from the McMansions on this costly ocean front real estate will be of ice.
This is a case of political and financial elitism. Powerful figures like RFK jr turning on the environmental movement that gives them part of that power to say Not In My Back Yard. Lets use "clean" coal instead. But we'll site the coal plants well away from our McMansions.
I don't think either of you have any valid argument left.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 1:12 am
27 Feb 2007
And aren't there plenty of taller obstructions in the area?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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donatracy Posted 1:26 am
27 Feb 2007
Should we attempt to cut the pollution on our planet? Yes. But how we go about that is the question. We will not save the earth by destroying her, her wildlife, her wildlife habitats and open spaces in the process while we rush ahead with more industry.
You still don't comment on Carter's 10 principles, I see. Why? Simply to practical and doable for you? That is environmental elitism!
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donatracy Posted 1:55 am
27 Feb 2007
Are you serious?
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donatracy Posted 2:01 am
27 Feb 2007
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Gar Lipow Posted 2:52 am
27 Feb 2007
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donatracy Posted 2:59 am
27 Feb 2007
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donatracy Posted 3:02 am
27 Feb 2007
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caniscandida Posted 3:04 am
27 Feb 2007
(To BD: No matter how interesting your researches may be, if public discourse is to be conducted civilly, respectfully and effectively, it requires more than just throwing your box of index cards at your adversary.)
I agree that there are real arguments to be made against the Cape Wind project. These arguments are of several, very different kinds. It behooves the opponents of Cape Wind to distinguish those arguments very carefully, so that readers can evaluate them, separately -- and not to throw them at us higgledy-piggledy.
It also behooves the opponents of Cape Wind, when writing to Gristmill, to make clear their general position on the development of alternative sources of energy, especially of renewable sources, such as wind power.
Donatracy, why do you make so much of these mostly unobjectionable and bland "principles," attributed to somebody named Carter? Who is that?: Jimmy Carter? When, and in what context did he publish these principles? Would it have been too onerous to provide us with that basic information?
<<
Healthy economic growth must continue. Only by saving energy can we maintain our standard of living and keep our people at work. An effective conservation program will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
>>
Ummm, well, I mistrust the sound of "growth": it has the ominous deep-throated growl of bulldozers rumbling across the landscape, flattening everything that tries to stand up. Perhaps "healthy" makes it OK, but then again, perhaps not; so I remain undecided on that point.
"Keeping our people at work" is the phrasing of a plutocratic oligarch. "Maintaining our standard of living" is nonsense, because, first, in the US at least, we have several classes, with quite different standards of living; and secondly, the "standard of living" of the wealthier classes involves excessive consumption and an irresponsible sense of entitlement, which most certainly does not deserve to be maintained.
<<
We must protect the environment. Our energy problems have the same cause as our environmental problems --wasteful use of resources. Conservation helps us solve both at once.
>>
There is no problem with complaining about the wasteful use of resources, and with promoting conservation. Everybody can join in that cause, except maybe Dick Cheney and his crowd.
But I am not sure it is altogether correct that "our energy problems have the same cause as our environmental problems." I think some more careful distinction is in order.
<<
We must reduce our vulnerability to potentially devastating embargoes. We can protect ourselves from uncertain supplies by reducing our demand for oil, making the most of our abundant resources such as coal, and developing a strategic petroleum reserve.
>>
Ummm. OK, if we realize that the "our" of "our vulnerability" refers to the whole world, not just the US. "Making the most of coal" is highly controversial, and many Gristmill readers will not be able to agree.
<<
Reduce the demand through conservation. Our emphasis on conservation is a clear difference between this plan and others which merely encouraged crash production efforts. Conservation is the quickest, cheapest, most practical source of energy. Conservation is the only way we can buy a barrel of oil for a few dollars. It costs about $13 to waste it.
He ["Carter"?] called #6 the cornerstone of the policy.
>>
"Conservation" here means "fuel efficiency," apparently? Sure, great. But how in the world can cheap oil be considered in itself a "cornerstone" of a reasonable energy policy?
<<
Prices should generally reflect the true replacement costs of energy. We are only cheating ourselves if we make energy artificially cheap and use more than we can really afford.
>>
OK; but why does that not contradict the "cornerstone"?
<<
Government policies must be predictable and certain. Both consumers and producers need policies they can count on so they can plan ahead. This is one reason I [who?; Jimmy Carter, back during his administration?] am working with the Congress to create a new Department of Energy, to replace more than 50 different agencies that now have some control over energy.
>>
Fine. In the current political climate, we should add -- indeed, what clearly called out for being added already in early 2001 -- that government decision-making on energy policies must be transparent, and it must involve truly all-inclusive consultation and input.
<<
We must conserve the fuels that are scarcest and make the most of those that are more plentiful. We can't continue to use oil and gas for 75 percent of our consumption when they make up seven percent of our domestic reserves. We need to shift to plentiful coal while taking care to protect the environment, and to apply stricter safety standards to nuclear energy.
>>
Again, nothing wrong with conservation of petroleum. But hopes for developing coal and nuclear look obsolete.
<<
We must start now to develop the new, unconventional sources of energy we will rely on in the next century.
>>
Right; and if this suggestion was uttered in 1980, we see how far it got, subsequently. But does this not translate into a preferential option for developers of wind energy?
You challenge Amazing with this:
<<
We will not save the earth by destroying her, her wildlife, her wildlife habitats and open spaces in the process while we rush ahead with more industry.
>>
Is it fair to call wind turbines "more industry"? Is it fair to refer to the careful researches done in connexion with the Cape Wind project over several years "rushing ahead"?
<<
You still don't comment on Carter's 10 principles, I see. Why? Simply to [sic!] practical and doable for you? That is environmental elitism!
>>
What a non sequitur! Who in the world is being elitist? The principles are truisms, vaguely quaint, here and there obsolete. They can hardly strike most readers of Gristmill as new and radical challenges.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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donatracy Posted 3:26 am
27 Feb 2007
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Gar Lipow Posted 3:43 am
27 Feb 2007
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200304/ldselec ...
1998 figures 1.1 year payback
National Renewable energy Lab - not a direct time payback but an emissions contrast - less than 2% of the emissions of natural gas generators
http://www.nrel.gov/research_review/pdfs/2003/36178d.pdf
I'm going to include a wind industry study just so you can see it
Danish Study 3 month payback!
http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/env/enpaybk.htm
For an excellent meta-analysis of all the wind energy EROI (energy return on investment studies)
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/10/17/18478/085
By the way anyone claiming that wind is not a net energy generator, or that net emissions are comparable to fossil fuels at this late date has either not studied the subject seriously or is trying to poison the well of argument by making allegations they know are false to waste opponents time answering them. I challenge you in turn to offer a serious EROI, time to payback or other net energy analysis that seriously claims wind generators don't have drastically fewer net emissions than than fossil fuels per unit of electricity.
Unsupported allegations quote from other wind opponents don't count.
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atreyger Posted 3:47 am
27 Feb 2007
Further, the opponents in this case, Durkin and Tracy, seem to invoke several drastically unrelated arguments and use them to back up their position without merit or weighing the issues.
And finally, EIRs and EISs are required to provide an alternative, which this one did, and the reviewers and decision-makers are very capable of making their own choices regarding that.
Transmission over.
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wiscidea Posted 3:57 am
27 Feb 2007
I'm becoming a bit paranoid... like it's the elephant -- or whale -- in the room that no one wants to discuss. Why?
There is a lot of traffic in this thread. Perhaps someone can direct me to the definitive study... do off-shore wind farms contribute to the noise pollution interfering with marine mammal communication (at best) or damaging the their ability to communicate, navigate, and hunt (at worst)?
But perhaps energy for improving the human condition is more important than preserving marine mammals? Once everyone has a big-screen TV, then we can worry about other animals?
Forward!
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ericr Posted 4:14 am
27 Feb 2007
It reviews the literature on how noise affects animals, both wild and domestic, on land and in water, and notes that industrial wind turbines must be tested more rigorously as a source of disturbing noise.
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barbaradurkin Posted 5:03 am
27 Feb 2007
You have your style of communication and I have mine. I am a researcher who enjoys providing my research. You may find that my writing lacks panache, and that the "index cards" I offer are not an entertaining read.
I provide information that can be substantiated.
I agree with your on topic point, and I try to observe that.
I regret that you're allowing yourself to be influenced by a self appointed Cape Wind reviewing agency, MA Audubon, and not by the testimony of the federal regulators, USFWS, in this process of avian/environmental impact determination and missing data.
Would you like to be my editor?
Amazingdrx:
I have many objections to Cape Wind as I've stated.
Regarding your thoughts on public safety, you should be very concerned about public safety risk presented by Cape Wind. In fact, if we are not all concerned about repeated public safety warnings, something is drastically wrong here.
The Senate passed a defense bill that calls for our government to study whether these wind towers will interfere with military radar. The Ministry of Defense in Britain evaluates each wind farm proposal on a case-by-case basis. The MOD states that the rotation of some wind turbine blades can mask the signal of small aircraft flying above a wind farm, and could pose a flight hazard.
The Department of Homeland Security, The Department of Defense, the Pentagon, and Congress continue to evaluate the issue of moving rotors of wind turbines that create clutter and produce false returns on radar screens that impairs air traffic controllers ability to detect aircraft.
And, the potential impact of this problem on Military Readiness.
MOD trials have shown that a Hawk jet flying at heights between 2000 and 24,000 feet, (max altitude of the study conducted), disappears from primary radar when flying over a wind facility. As it stands...Choose to fly over wind towers placed in Nantucket Sound, and your assumed risk will be that you are indistinguishable and undetectable on the radar screen by the air traffic controllers located at Cape Air Approach.
Consider that if you are among the passengers on any of the 400,000 approximate average flights annually in this airspace that you're no longer under the directional guidance of the air traffic controllers in charge of this airspace.
What's more is that this is only one type of radar as the kind that is used by air traffic controllers.
Side-lobe interference caused by wind turbines also effects the navigators in the waterway, and their ability to be detected, which as it stands, they can't be as wind towers also interefere with this type of radar...more on this later.
How many annual air travelers should be placed at risk? 400,000? How many annual ferry passengers should be placed at risk? Three million?
The aforementioned results of these test trails were published by the Washington Post as a letter to the editor. The Washington Post required substantiating documents with letterhead with statements from the Air Traffic Controllers' Union Representatives of Cape Air Approach as well as the Ministry of Defense in Britain's statement and seal that I provided to them.
This topic of radar interference caused by wind turbines is addressed by the DOD in their Report to the Congressional Defense Committee The Effect of Wind Turbines on Military Readiness produced at the end of October 2006. The research on this problem identified by the MOD, and accepted by our DOD continues to be investigated by these agencies of our government.
Now, on to another of the many elements of public safety; Should I consider your opinion as lIL;a,j, or the testimony of the navigators given to the federal regulator, MMS, when MMS held the scoping hearing on the Cape Wind project, and I was present, listening and testifying on project focus issues?
"My name is Captain Charles Gifford, I am the Port Captain for the Wood's Hole, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket Steamship Authority. I'm a U.S. Coast Guard licensed Master Mariner and an approved instructor at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy."
"The Steamship Authority annually makes 22,000 trips transporting close to three million passengers and over 600,000 cars and trucks to the Islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. It is our opinion that the 130 wind turbines planned for Horeshoe Shoals and Nantucket Sound has a potential for creating a significant hazard to safe navigation for our vessels and other users of the waterways."
This, my friends, is only the beginning of public safety current events and testimony.
I'll provide more on this as opportunity permits.
Barbara Durkin
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Neil Good Posted 5:27 am
27 Feb 2007
"Humankind in the 21st century is suffering from environmental
pollution and ecological destruction caused by unchecked
industrialization around the globe. It is our obligation to do our
best to minimize development and investment which would neglect the
protection of natural resources remembering the Dutch philosopher
Benedict de Spinoza who once said "even if the world comes to the end
tomorrow, I will plant an apple tree today." Accordingly, the
environmental activists in Korea and abroad participating in the 2006
International Workshop on the Landscape Ecology and the Problem with
Wind farms, declare the following three points which should guide our
activities in the years to come."
1] The construction of and governmental support to those huge-size
commercial wind farms must be reconsidered with prudence and
deliberation, because they are the main source of various
environmental problems including the destruction of natural landscape
and the lives of inhabitants in local communities.
2] With a definite purpose to correct those prevailing fantasy-like
views on wind energy, national governments and international
organizations are sincerely advised to provide financial and
institutional support to those scientific efforts to reveal the facts
of environmental destruction by the massive proliferation of wind
energy, as well as its low efficiency.
3] In order to prevent the reckless expansion of those inefficient
and destructive wind farm complexes into our precious and beautiful
countryside, we must enhance public awareness and education by way of
a global network media campaign which could help enlighten citizens,
developers, public servants, and political leaders.
October 23, 2006
Follow this link for more on the above;
Country Guardian
"Soon we "celebrate " the 20.000th wind plant, without replacing even one single small plant of conventional energy."
Ferdinand Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Bartenstein, Chairman BLS, Germany.
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donatracy Posted 5:35 am
27 Feb 2007
"Soon we "celebrate " the 20.000th wind plant, without replacing even one single small plant of conventional energy."
from:
Ferdinand Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Bartenstein, Chairman BLS, Germany
is sobering, isn't it?
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trailhiker Posted 5:57 am
27 Feb 2007
Recently, Denmark came out with 8 years of study of two offshore wind farms at Horns Rev and Nysted, they studied birds and marine mammals - in the case of marine mammals underwater noise and vibrations was what was studied most closely. Operating conditions are not considered a real problem, the bigger risk is from installation and the associated pile driving, though they have found mitigation that seems to work in driving the marine mammals away during those activities.
The report is 144 pages, in PDF form, it is 7MB in size, here is a link to that report:
http://www.ens.dk/graphics/Publikationer/Havvindmoeller/h ...
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Nucbuddy Posted 6:16 am
27 Feb 2007
Please name one of those people.
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barbaradurkin Posted 6:48 am
27 Feb 2007
Thank you for the Green Manifesto contribution.
I have a question about your "Ferdinand Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Bartenstein, Chairman BLS, of Germany", quotation.
What does "BLS" stand for?
Do you think that we should impliment policy that ties taxpayers' and ratepayers' subsidy of wind tower projects, estimated as $1 Billion dollars for the Cape Wind project, by index to reduction in carbon emissions? How would we know otherwise if we are getting what we are "paying" for?
If the purpose of wind energy is to help to reduce carbon emissions, doesn't it make sense to you that we should be able to determine that the energy source has produced these desired results?
Has this prescribed "solution", wind towers, produced positive results elsewhere in the world in terms of air quality?
Unless we index our subsidies to reduction in harmful emissions, I don't understand how we will ever know that we are getting what we are considering paying very dearly for.
The footprint is massive, and the impacts are wide ranging. These impacts should be taken very seriously, especially when they pertain to threats posed to the public safety.
Barbara Durkin
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barbaradurkin Posted 7:18 am
27 Feb 2007
It is produced by wind energy interests.
The Dane's have $1.5 reasons to trumpet "no impact." They want us to buy their wind towers.
An analogy...If you walk into a camera store and ask the clerk, "Do your cameras work?" You're like to hear the clerk respond, "Why, of course our cameras work."
I have a report from the federal regulatory reviewing agengy whose purview is the mammals that are threatened by the wind tower project right here in Nantucket Sound.
The request for the noise studies was made by a person who wishes to obtain information that suggests "no harm" to aquatic life. The U.S. federal regulatory agency, the Marine Mammal Commission's has provided a study to me regarding wind towers and noise impact. It covers construction, that can cause hearing damage, and it predicts that marine mammals will be greatly impacted as will their breeding be, as well as their colonies, and that some of them are endangered species in Nantucket Sound:
David Cottingham, Executive Director of the Marine Mammal Commission, the federal agency established under the Marine Mammal Protection Act:
"There is little doubt that activities associated with the proposed action, particularly the use of pile drivers for tower construction will result in the taking of marine mammals by harassment."
Letter of February 23,2005 to Col. Koning of the USACE
Barbara Durkin
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donatracy Posted 7:33 am
27 Feb 2007
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caniscandida Posted 7:36 am
27 Feb 2007
Das ist, auf englisch: something like Federal Association for the Defense of Landscape/Countryside/Scenery. N.b., "Landschaft" seems to mean something specifically aesthetic. It does NOT mean "environment," for example, which would be "Umgebung" or "Umwelt."
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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Neil Good Posted 7:56 am
27 Feb 2007
See quote [and others] here-
http://www.wind-watch.org/quotes.php
Link to BLS may be here- scroll down and see photos.
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/un ...
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donatracy Posted 8:00 am
27 Feb 2007
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Neil Good Posted 8:10 am
27 Feb 2007
When I was in school carbon dioxide was considered a good thing- it still is an important aerial borne plant fertilizer as far as I know. But today carbon dioxide has been branded a 'pollutant', without any clear and convincing evidence it is responsible for the slight rise in global temperature.
Any honest scientist will admit the natural variability in climate can not be distinguished from the so-called 'human influence'.
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donatracy Posted 8:13 am
27 Feb 2007
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donatracy Posted 8:19 am
27 Feb 2007
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Nucbuddy Posted 9:47 am
27 Feb 2007
What Danes say in the Danish press about the practicality of wind-mining machinery is different from what they say about same to the rest of the world:
cphpost.dk/get/100188.html
The Copenhagen Post - January 29, 2007
Overproduction and price guarantees for wind turbine owners add up to a costly electric bill for consumers
The government's plan to increase the nation's reliance on green power could expand a black hole that already sucks nearly two billion kroner out of consumers' pockets annually.
[...]
By 2025, the government expects to increase renewables' share of the power supply to 30 percent. By then wind turbines are projected to contribute three times as much energy as they do now, accounting for 60 percent of all power generated in Denmark.
Relying more on renewables will help the nation to meet its' CO2 emission obligations, but the green ambitions could prove costly, with some calculations putting the economic costs of the package at DKK 5.2 billion annually.
During the presentation of the plan earlier this month the energy minister, Flemming Hansen, said the price was one the government was willing to pay: 'We don't know how much this is going to add up to, but we are willing to pay it, no matter how much it costs.'
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Neil Good Posted 10:23 am
27 Feb 2007
"Energy Giants Think Wind Power is Just Hot Air"
Copenhagen Post, 1/25/07
"The country's energy companies are not convinced that wind power is the way of the future."
"Management at Denmark's energy companies, DONG Energy and Vattenfall, do not subscribe to the current mindset that wind energy will be especially prominent in the future, national broadcaster DR has reported."
"The companies believe that coal will still be the largest supplier of the nation's energy, despite the trend toward environmentally friendly sources."
"Wind energy can't solve the energy problem in the near future because it's too unstable, said A. Eldrup, CEO of DONG."
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amazingdrx Posted 10:24 am
27 Feb 2007
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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barbaradurkin Posted 12:37 pm
27 Feb 2007
I'm glad to see that you're reading the information provided on the radar issue. Cape Wind would prefer to keep you in the dark regarding the many serious issues, and the many serious risks presented by this proposal.
It's more like you've been mislead as the developer, GE, the AWEA, and even the Department of Energy have much at stake here, (money).
If our state and federal regulators ignore public safety warnings presented by Cape Wind, they will be putting citizens and wildlife at risk of bodily injury, and death by their permitting of Cape Wind, by the construction, and placement of these towers in Nantucket Sound. I believe that it was the high speed ferry, Flying Cloud, Captain Bruce Malenfant, who said that he is "horrified" at the close proximity of these turbines to his Barnstable Nantucket route.
We'll be right behind You on the Airport tarmac.
As we know that the Barnstable Airport airport officials call Cape Wind, "lethal." And, because Cape Wind opponents prefer to fly when they know that they can be detected on a radar screen by the air traffic controllers at Cape Air Approach.
We'll be right behind you on the dock, too. As the ferry boat Captain makes this announcement:
"This is your Captain. Welcome aboard the Woods Hole, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Steamship Authority vessel bound for Nantucket. Due to the presence of wind towers in Nantucket Sound, there is a "significant hazard to safe navigation." Passengers wishing to disembark, for personal safety reasons, may do so at this time."
This quote is a satire based on actual testimony of the Steamship Authority Port Captain, representing the Steamship Authority, Charles Gifford, as delivered to MMS.
Barbara Durkin
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amazingdrx Posted 3:16 pm
27 Feb 2007
Ships and planes will crash. Radar will not work. Can't put 'em on land either, they might fall on trains, buses, or cars.
This just in! Al Gore is behind it all, he is even using 20 times the power of normal patriotic 'mericans as a plot to get the terrorist wind mills erected. Erected! Haaalp, it's a satanic sexual ritual too!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Neil Good Posted 9:32 pm
27 Feb 2007
Renewable Power; Unreliable Now and Always.
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donatracy Posted 9:46 pm
27 Feb 2007
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barbaradurkin Posted 9:50 pm
27 Feb 2007
Thank you for your answer regarding BLS.
I ask that you consider that Cape Wind opponents are presenting testimony and verifiable facts regarding the many public safety issues presented by Cape Wind.
If you think that the DOD should be ignored; along with the National Air Traffic Controllers Union representatives; Barnstable, Tisbury, and Martha's Vineyard Airport officials; and the Port Captain of the Steamship Authority; the Captain of Hy-Line Ferries; and the Massachusetts Fishermen's Partnership MFP representing over 18 commercial fishing organizations, who all cite public safety risks posed by Cape Wind; I'll have to conclude that the public safety of over three million ferry passengers, and the travelers in 400,000 flights, each, annually, is not important to you.
Gore Takes The Prize
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, February 09, 2007 4:20 PM PST
"Politics: So the canonization of Al Gore continues. Not that he hasn't reached sainthood already, having endured the theft of his presidential entitlement and then leading us to salvation through the valley of hot air.
Never mind that month of uncertainty he put the nation through, in which he cast the election results into the federal courts. And never mind the dubious standing of a once-mediocre college student who, having been denied his childhood White House dream, has emerged as the political world's No. 1 environmental expert.
His fawning public keeps searching for consolation prizes. If the ex-vice president can accumulate enough of them, just maybe he can find his way back into the electorate's graces and plant his feet on the Oval Office rug at long last.
Later this month we'll learn whether Gore has won an Oscar -- yes, an Academy Award for documentary film-making -- for the propaganda flick "An Inconvenient Truth," inflicted on us last year. Documentaries once were honest-to-goodness journalism; this one should be studied as an exquisite specimen of agitprop.
If he does win as predicted, prepare for yet more political hectoring, perhaps by a tux-clad Gore himself, on Tinseltown's biggest night of the year. It will be a rehearsal for another major address, this one in a majestic room in Norway when he receives the Nobel Peace Prize.
Two Norwegian parliamentarians -- one from the Conservative Party, the other from the Socialist Left Party -- saw Gore as the most fitting nominee. As bipartisan as their collaboration seems, be advised that, in the language of Europolitik, conservative politicians occupy a place well to the left of the American center.
"Climate change can lead to enormous flows of refugees on a scale the world has never seen before," the socialist told a Norwegian newspaper. "Fighting climate change is immensely important work for global peace."
As we anticipate the surge in migration to the world's northern climes, producing a global economic boom, we also contemplate the enormous refugee flows when terrorists activate weapons of mass destruction. But no worries: Al Gore has told us that global warming poses the vastly more dangerous threat.
There must be a prize for that kind of thinking. We suppose that the Nobel Peace Prize, already conferred on the likes of Le Duc Tho, Yasser Arafat and Jimmy Carter, is it."
Barbara Durkin
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amazingdrx Posted 9:51 pm
27 Feb 2007
You mean "environmentalists" like Limbaugh, Drudge, and Coulter? Who think GHG climate change is liberal "hysterics".
When losing an argument, try changing the meaning of the words used. Redefine what the meaning of "is" is. Hehehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 9:54 pm
27 Feb 2007
Many of us environmentalists...
You mean "environmentalists" like Limbaugh, Drudge, and Coulter? Who think GHG climate change is liberal "hysterics".
When losing an argument, try changing the meaning of the words used. Redefine what the meaning of "is" is. Hehehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 10:06 pm
27 Feb 2007
http://www.capecodtoday.com/blogs/index.php/letters/2006/ ...
Seems as though you might be at odds with Ma Audobon?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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donatracy Posted 10:07 pm
27 Feb 2007
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amazingdrx Posted 10:11 pm
27 Feb 2007
http://www.blog.thesietch.org/2007/02/13/cape-wind-will-n ...
The air force is once again saying that the wind farm will NOT interfere with the PAVE PAWS radar station at Otis National Air Force Base.
Try this:
http://zapatopi.net/afdb/
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 10:16 pm
27 Feb 2007
When environmental groups like NRDC are used by political insiders like RFK jr to wheel and deal with anti-wind lobbyists for coal and nuclear power. And NRDC ends up endorsing "clean" coal.
Evidently Ma Audobon did not fall for your attempts to co-opt them.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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donatracy Posted 10:28 pm
27 Feb 2007
"You are attempting to co-opt the word environmentalist? On what basis? I have been working for the good of the environment for over twenty-five years as a wildlife advocate. And, in fact, you have benefited from my work in the area of pesticides in our environment. Tell me where I have benefited from your work in the environment please."
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caniscandida Posted 11:17 pm
27 Feb 2007
Do not think that you have collected points of respectability, on account of something in the past. You must earn them all along. And your conduct on this thread looks too obsessed and dogged and uncivil to earn you many points in that regard.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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donatracy Posted 11:42 pm
27 Feb 2007
What have you done and what are you doing to earn your points for the environment? I have contributed what I have contributed not to earn points but to help. And have every right to call myself an environmental activist along with others. Because our points of view differ does not exclude one from the discussion. In fact if we all had the same point of view there would be no need for a discussion at all.
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trailhiker Posted 12:03 am
28 Feb 2007
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donatracy Posted 12:29 am
28 Feb 2007
I would also suggest that answering blog posts (particularly my own) and comments is not dominating them. It is simply being engaged with other and furthermore, polite.
Many people read but do not comment on the blogs as we all know, lurking is common. But that by no means people are not getting something out of them. The whole point is to provide an alternative point of view and on that count I believe we.
Attacking the messenger is a tactic to silence the opposing point of view. Why do that?
And so I would say again, if we all had the same point of view there would be no need for a discussion at all.
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wiscidea Posted 1:38 am
28 Feb 2007
I've been reading your comments with great interest. I know very little about the issue of off-shore wind farms. I cannot comment on whether they are environmentally friendly, but I can ask questions. I'm trying to maintain an open mind. That's what "enviromentalists" should be doing.
I originally objected to wind farms because of their effect on birds, but it seems the designers are working on this problem. Now I want to learn more about their effect on the marine environment. Some effort was made to discuss this in the thread... thank you, everyone, for the information.
But then you had to type...
"I have been working for the good of the environment for over twenty-five years as a wildlife advocate. And, in fact, you [refering to one of the folks commenting] have benefited from my work in the area of pesticides in our environment. Tell me where I have benefited from your work in the environment please."
Sorry. You destroyed your credibility. I'm really weary of this strange competition to lay claim to the title "true environmentalist". It is apparently a game for some people... and not at all helpful. The fellow going by the name amazingdrx clearly cares very much for the environment... which you would learn if you visited his website. He appears to be a strong advocate for wind energy on the North American prairie.
Whether I have or have not benefited from your work is irrelevant to the discussion here. Your facts are most important. You could have decades of experience eliminating pesticides, but it does not mean your facts regarding wind farms are accurate.
Whether you have or have not benefited from amzingdrx's work is irrelevant to the discussion. If he asks a question, it deserves an answer. Indeed, the less a person knows, the more important it is to answer their questions, experience can prevent a person from seeing the obvious, excess confidence can kill a person.
Forward!
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wiscidea Posted 1:44 am
28 Feb 2007
During my undergraduate and graduate work at the University of Wisconsin, intstructors never failed to point out that all of the knowledge one gathers during their research is useless if they cannot communicate with their fellow human beings.
Incidentally, I really have to work on this, so don't waste time criticizing me on this issue.
You could be a genius. You could have the key to solving all of the world's problems. But you have to be able to share that information with others. Not only with your fellow scientists, but but with politicians, business people, voters, Joe Six-Pack, et cetera. Even if you feel superior to them, you need their help. You are not expected to created a comic book or transform your ideas into a prime-time drama, but you do have to make an effort to explain your work to the interested non-scientist.
Forward!
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amazingdrx Posted 3:09 am
28 Feb 2007
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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caniscandida Posted 4:20 am
28 Feb 2007
On the subject of style, one of our anti-Cape-Wind friends, Barbara Durkin, writes:
<<
CasiCandita:
You have your style of communication and I have mine. I am a researcher who enjoys providing my research. You may find that my writing lacks panache, and that the "index cards" I offer are not an entertaining read.
I provide information that can be substantiated.
>>
Well, in the very simple typographical challenge of spelling my name correctly, she fails miserably. If she cannot get her head to make her eyes and her fingers work together, a rather basic and early-learned task of mental/physical co-ordination, then one may wonder why we should trust any of her other claims regarding how well substantiated her information is.
The problem that she unfortunately has still to deal with is far more elementary than a failure to deliver "panache," or to be "entertaining." She needs to be clear, and coherent. She needs to learn to walk, before she can fly.
Of course there is no justice in singling her out. A number of writers in Gristmill are as verbally and graphically klutzy. The most noteworthy example is Jason Scorse, who prides himself on his rationalism, and yet pours forth lots of poorly spelled, poorly punctuated, poorly capitalized text, which hardly sends out the message that he wants his readers to be his friends.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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donatracy Posted 6:16 am
28 Feb 2007
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donatracy Posted 7:31 am
28 Feb 2007
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Engineer Posted 8:54 am
28 Feb 2007
(BTW, since credentials were asked for previously, mine are 32+ years in the electric utility industry, split about 50/50 between engineering and management and have been on the energy supply side - including conservation and alternative energy sources since the late 80's)
Yes, wind power is intermittant. The 30% capacity factor figure is an annual average. It can vary from month to month. We have had months with a CF of 17%, others with 54%. That being said, over the course of a year, the projects can displace a significant amount of energy otherwise generated from other resources.
We purchase a portion of the output from three wind projects (I spent most of today in a meeting trying to get another project out of the planning stages into construction, now in my hotel on my laptop).
Thermal plants have CF's in the 80 to 90%, so the delta comparison on 'up-time' is not from 100%. Reserves, including spinning reserves are a 'grid' requirement for any type of generation, not just wind. Typically, the operating reserve (available, but needing startup time - for planned unit outages) is 5 to 7% of the total system generating capacity, with approximately 1/2 of that being spinning reserve (online, running for instantaneous outages).
The studies I have reviewed (the most recent one from Minnesota) show that for small amounts of wind, no change in the reserve level is required. So, while there are emissions from the spinning reserves, they are not incremental to adding the wind resource, but part and parcel of the way the system operates.
As the wind generation reaches 15 to 20% of the system, the studies show a need to increase the reserve level (Minnesota showed an increase in reserves from 5% to 7.5%, studies by PacifiCorp and BPA in the Northwest indicated a possible doubling of the reserve levels, from 7% to 14%).
If these estimates hold true, at that point you would have an incremental increase in the spinning reserve requirement of 1 to 3.5% attributable to wind. The emissions profile from that would depend on the specific resource, but due to the required 'ramp rate' would probably be a gas CT.
There are some alternative proposals to provide reserves that have been debated here before. One utility (the name and region escape me right now) is starting a pilot program to test the system - using the batteries from PHEV's. I've been skeptical, but the pilot program could prove me wrong, which could allow for greater penetration of wind without requiring increased emissions from the spinning reserves.
Common sense is an oxymoron...
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donatracy Posted 9:54 am
28 Feb 2007
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Neil Good Posted 11:36 am
28 Feb 2007
I'd be grateful if you could study and maybe make a few comments here about the 51 page report-
Wind Energy: Facts and Fiction, A Half Truth is a Whole Lie
-written by Dutch electrical engineer J.A.Halkema-
From page 1-
"Over the past several years, dozens of newspaper and online articles have recorded the author's activities and his stance against the misleading information regarding the characteristics and capabilities of wind turbines as producers of electricity for national use. He maintains that wind energy advocates with hidden political and monetary agendas intentionally withhold vital information from the public."
Thank you.
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barbaradurkin Posted 1:23 pm
28 Feb 2007
I reject a website editorial as a source of information on the matter of radar issues with regard to wind towers.
The source, in my opinion, is the Department of Defense on issues related to radar. They will report their findings and determination as to the Cape Wind projects' wind towers' placement.
It is important to understand that safety concerns presented by Cape Wind preexist the MOD Hawk jet test trail results.
The Department of Defense involvement over radar interference came well after the safety concerns expressed by Barnstable, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard airport officials; and the National Air Traffic Controllers' Union officials at Cape Air Approach.
Barbara Durkin
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Gar Lipow Posted 3:12 pm
28 Feb 2007
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amazingdrx Posted 3:28 pm
28 Feb 2007
Reject this Feb 13 article from the "Cape Cod Times" citing the Air force as the source.
Air Force officials are standing behind their initial findings that the proposed 130-turbine Cape Wind project would not interfere with the Air Force's PAVE PAWS radar station in Sagamore.
http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/airforce13.htm
Do you not usually check links that backup blog articles, or did you just miss that one? It was in the blog article I linked to.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 3:35 pm
28 Feb 2007
Aircraft carriers would be shrouded in a radar mist maintained by floating wind platforms.
Answer that, if you dare!!! (Hehehey)
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 3:43 pm
28 Feb 2007
Some edits were made for security reasons: Vice President Dick Cheney's residence at 1 Observatory Circle in Washington, D.C., is an undisclosed location...
Now that's pure evil!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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barbaradurkin Posted 9:44 pm
28 Feb 2007
Wind towers create clutter and shadowing on the radar screen, so you won't be seen on radar if you're a passenger on any of the 400,000 flights in the airspace above Nantucket Sound--IF Cape Wind is permitted.
Barbara Durkin
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amazingdrx Posted 11:40 pm
28 Feb 2007
What a joker!!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Engineer Posted 11:51 pm
28 Feb 2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron#Early_history
Ken Lay backed Pat Wood for a position on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) which then promulgated rules for the deregulation of the electric industry (FERC Orders 888 & 2000) which led to Enron's involvement there.
Wading through the other report. There is some factual information there, but with the emphasis on the 'terrible, horrible, no good, very bad' adjectives (from a book my kids loved) it takes a while to sort out the actual semantic content.
As far as the predictability, the projects we're involved in use this company http://www.3tiergroup.com/faq.htm , which has been able to predict the wind speeds at the day and hour ahead level fairly accurately. Hour ahead is the critical number, as the power schedulers have to provide the transmission system Control Area operator with a day ahead schedule of projected generator output, which can then be modified on an hour ahead basis.
Deviations outside of the schedule result in $100/MWHr system imbalance charges. At full output (or rather, if you scheduled full output, then didn't deliver), this could cost the project(s) $6,700 per hour in penalties.
There is a temporary wavier in effect for renewable projects, but the imbalance amount has been tracked anyway. Over the last two years, IF imbalance charges had been applied, they would have totaled around $2,000.
Also note that loads vary continually as well as homes and businesses start up in the morning and turn on lights, computers, etc., so the power system is already ramping generation up and down on a real time basis to match generation to load (and has been since the 30's).
That's why at lower penetrations, wind has no discernable negative effect, and that at higher penetrations, a slight increase in spinning reserve levels can accomodate the variability.
I disagree with some here on what the ultimate penetration number might be, but we are no where near that level yet and the problem should become noticable as wind generation increases.
Common sense is an oxymoron...
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donatracy Posted 12:24 am
01 Mar 2007
It is akin to a local humane society coming out with preliminary support for experimentation on shelter dogs to help dogs in the future.
For a discussion on bird mortality and wind turbines visit my site on http://donatracy.gather.com/
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amazingdrx Posted 12:28 am
01 Mar 2007
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/02/wind_en ...
And this: Cold Storage for Wind Power
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/02/cold_st ...
Pretty encouraging on the energy storage front.
How would these methods work at reducing the need for spinning reserves?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 12:41 am
01 Mar 2007
And The Audobon Society is doing that, by endorsing wind power. Wind will help slow GHG climate change and save thousands of species of birds and other wildlife threatened by it.
Penguins will be wiped out by melting icecaps and glaciers. That grouping alone is a huge population of birds that can be saved if NIMBY opposition to Cape Wind and hundreds of projects like it can be overcome.
The insider political corruption being used to fight against Cape Wind is threatening all wind projects. Institutional investors have an excuse not to back wind power as long as this underhanded political wheeling and dealing with coal and nuclear industry lobbyists and corrupt legislators and regulators continues.
You are being used as a tool of The Evil Lord Cheney of Halliburton! And his ally of convenience RFK jr.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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donatracy Posted 12:53 am
01 Mar 2007
As to corruption... the citizen's of Cape Cod have been completely divided over this issue and many are fighting this project tooth and nail. Your calling them corrupt is offensive and ignorant. Shame on you.
The Mashpee Wampanoag Nation have just come out against Cape Wind and voiced their tribal concerns. Are you calling them corrupt too?
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amazingdrx Posted 1:10 am
01 Mar 2007
Tribal government interest in wind power and renewable energy investment is actually very high in the US and Canada.
Got a link to the opposition by the tribal government?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 1:14 am
01 Mar 2007
Has anyone seen the three of you all in the same place at trhe same time? One troll or three? Hehehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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donatracy Posted 1:21 am
01 Mar 2007
Yes, most tribal governments are for renewable energy but not at the sacrifice of ancestral ground.
They, too, have asked that this project be moved.
In a follow up letter on 8/24/06 to the MMS (who requested their input) they wrote:
''The Tribe's economic health and cultural heritage are virtually defined by our reliance on our coastal resources. ''The Cape Wind project would disrupt the fragile habitat of these aboriginal fishing grounds and pose new navigational hazards to our fleet. The consequences would be devastating, in terms of both economic development and public safety.''
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donatracy Posted 1:28 am
01 Mar 2007
http://www.unfoundation.org/media_center/press/2007/pr_22 ...
Not even a mention of wind power.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:40 am
01 Mar 2007
Sorry for the teasing. But you know you really are oblivious to every argument or any evidence presented in opposition to your point of view here.
Wanting the wind farm moved further offshore on floating platforms does not constitute the same sort of opposition to wind power that you are espousing.
I want it moved further offshore as well and had emailed the leader of the project that suggestion years ago.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 1:48 am
01 Mar 2007
"Two starkly different futures diverge from this time forward," the report cautions. "Society's current path leads to increasingly serious climate-change impacts... The other path ... will reduce dangerous emissions, create economic opportunity, help to reduce global poverty, reduce degradation and carbon emissions from ecosystems, and contribute to sustainability. Humanity must act collectively and urgently to change course through leadership at all levels of society. There is no more time for delay."
"This report defines the seriousness and urgency that must characterize global efforts to respond to the unfolding and far-reaching challenge of climate change. Confronting Climate Change makes clear that we must start immediately to stabilize and then substantially reverse the trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions," said Timothy E. Wirth, President of the United Nations Foundation.
No? You don't want to explain that? Somehow I'm not surprised.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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donatracy Posted 1:57 am
01 Mar 2007
If you were only teasing... I can also accept that. Here is the link:
http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/tribegets1.htm
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ffletcher Posted 2:00 am
01 Mar 2007
When Bush became President he installed Pat Wood as FERC Chairman in 2001. I do not think Clinton would have put a person like Pat Wood in charge.
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donatracy Posted 2:08 am
01 Mar 2007
I am, and you are correct, anti-industrial wind power. But I am perfectly capable of seeing other people's point of view. I simply don't share it. And am passionate and strong in my opposition. Freedom of thought and speech which you also believe in?
The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound has also asked for alternative sites but then they are accused of being rich NIMBYs. You just can't win can you?
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amazingdrx Posted 2:47 am
01 Mar 2007
We'll see how they come down on this.
Archaeologists of the future (maybe from another planet) may have plenty of underwater artifacts in your area to examine if you GHG climate deniers get your way. But again, the developers moved siting away from those areas.
I prefer floating platforms because they are easier on the ocean floor environment as well.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 2:57 am
01 Mar 2007
High tech sonar fishing by sportsmen needs to be outlawed to get a recovery here. The other alternative is sonar jammers dropped into the lakes and rivers by environmental activists. It maybe necessary if legislators and regulators don't act soon.
Any obstacle to industrial fishing in your area, like these wind machines, would certainly help the resource. As it is now there will be no fisheree left in a few short years, there or here.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 3:01 am
01 Mar 2007
Deniers are using their blinders to facilitate the death of this living planet. Does that make you feel good donatracy?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 3:01 am
01 Mar 2007
Deniers are using their blinders to facilitate the death of this living planet. Does that make you feel good donatracy?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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caniscandida Posted 3:54 am
01 Mar 2007
<<
My problem with MA Audubon's preliminary endorsement of Cape Wind is, in a nutshell, their mission is to protect birds. And turbines kill them
It is akin to a local humane society coming out with preliminary support for experimentation on shelter dogs to help dogs in the future.
>>
No, this is a totally false "kinship." And no reasonable person can follow it.
I mourn every individual death of a bird on account of human architecture and technology. But I understand that it is highly undesirable to drag down into what may look like sentimentality the much more scientific and disciplined discussion of bird mortality, in connexion with tall anthropotectonic structures.
Those readers of Gristmill will remember to read carefully the reports and considerations of the ornithologist and ecologist Paul Kerlinger, e.g.:
http://www.windaction.org/news/7476
I strongly dislike the manner in which "Barbara Durkin" and "Don A. Tracy" (?) are contributing to this thread. Not that I very much care about what is going on within their hearts, but do they honestly, truthfully, unabashedly believe that they are convincing anybody of anything? If so, what fools they are.
My general recommendation is that these people should be ignored henceforth, until they present a clear analysis of what might be considered the very different and variously estimable arguments against a development of wind energy south of Cape Cod.
Or, more clearly: I do not like having spaghetti thrown in my face. Is that how you want to be remembered, as a spaghetti-flinger?
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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Nucbuddy Posted 4:24 am
01 Mar 2007
Dona Tracy.
gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/2/25/65336/7434/#comment105
donatracy.gather.com
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donatracy Posted 4:27 am
01 Mar 2007
Their website is out of date and filled with misinformation (for one the Europeans DO believe there is a problem)... and they ignore requests to they update their site to reflect the reality and data underpinning the situation.. This request has also been made by Bat Conservation International whose on-=going data has been made available to them but ignored.
There is new evidence from the prairies of Alberta that is rather alarming as well and a wind facility in open prairie and agricultural habitats near the Rocky Mountain front is killing large numbers of bats.
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amazingdrx Posted 8:22 am
01 Mar 2007
But you have to think this through. Do you really want global climate change to kill the natural world as we know it?
Check the data out. It IS a real problem , and far more serious than most people understand. The feedback mechanisms of sea floor methane hydrate ice, ice caps, glaciers, and methane entrapping glacier all melting at exponentially increasing rates makes it extremly urgent to get moving on energy policy reform.
Trust Audobon to protect birds and bats. The rest of your concerns are merely rhetorical sophistry. Join us real environmentalists and come on in for the win.
I think we could get enough people onboard to relocate the project further offshore on floating platforms if everyone who is sincere about protecting wildlife from human degradation spoke with one voice.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 8:25 am
01 Mar 2007
methane entrapping tundra
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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barbaradurkin Posted 9:31 pm
04 Mar 2007
I like your idea about moving the Cape Wind project further offshore. Particularly, because of the navigational issues that Cape Wind presents in Nantucket Sound. While, I am very concerned about avian life, "a significant hazard to safe navigation" would exist if Cape Wind was constructed in Nantucket Sound according to the Port Captain of the Nantucket Steamship Authority, and many other users of the Sound.
You deserve a thoughtful and comprehensive explanation regarding my comments about Mass Audubon.
I once just assumed that Mass Audubon was acting in the interest of avian life. I was in weekly contact with Taber Allison of Mass Audubon providing my research to him regarding bird kill by wind turbines and policy information. During February of 2006, I was informed that Mass Audubon was interested in "the contract." I abruptly ended my information feed to Mass Audubon as my source is impeccable, and this information alarmed me.
I sought information about "environmental monitoring" contracts-and my quest for information led me to a party in the Altamont California case against wind developers. I wanted to understand the value of "adaptive management plans" value associated with wind towers.
The value of the Altamont contracts for environmental monitoring has been established as $2-3 million first year start-up, $1 million per year during operation.
I am familiar with permitting process, and understand the absolute need for objectivity on the part of reviewing agencies.
I am also familiar with Mass Audubon's testimony on bird kill by Cape Wind.
Then came Mass Audubon's "Challenge" press release in March of 2006 that confirmed my worst fears. The terms of Mass Audubon's "Challenge" included the adoption of the Adaptive Management Plan that my source had alerted me to, and that I had researched, and that is valued at multi-millions of dollars by a party in the Altamont law suits against wind plant operators for bird kill.
My immediate concern was that the testimony provided by Mass Audubon on bird kill by Cape Wind, in this endangered species habitat, would vanish. I wrote letters to the editor citing Mass Audubon staff scientists' mortality figures by Cape Wind as up to 6,600 birds per year. My reason for doing so, is that Mass Audubon was eluding to minimum casualties, in conflict with their testimony, to the press. I understand that it puts them in conflict with the Endangered Species Act as well as other species protection laws to advocate for Cape Wind when up to 6,600 birds will die per year by this project according to their testimony. I also wrote in my letters to the editors, and editorials, that Mass Audubon needed to disclose, as a self-appointed Cape Wind permit reviewing agency, if they have a finacial interest in the outcome of the permitting process of this project as a reviewing agency.
Taber Allison of Mass Audubon responded to my letter to the editor of South Coast Today. He denied Mass Audubon's testimony, public record, and said that he didn't understand my question regarding the need for Mass Audubon to disclose any financial interest as a reviewing agency involved in the permitting process.
I continue to appear where Mass Audubon appears to promote Cape Wind at various forums as I want them to disclose their financial interest in the Cape Wind project--IF this project is approved.
By all appearances, Mass Audubon is marketing Cape Wind. By all appearances, they are in line for a multi-million dollar contract if Cape Wind is permitted as a self-appointed permit reviewing agency.
We need objective and unbiased science to form the basis of our decision making regarding the enviromental impacts of this project.
As an animal and bird lover, I find it to be perverse that bird "advocates" can handsomely profit by counting bird carcasses via the "Adaptive Management Plan" the condition of Mass Audubon's preliminary approval of Cape Wind.
The President of MA Audubon, Laura A. Johnson, submitted MA Audubon's comments on the Cape Wind DEIS on February 23, 2005; to Ms. Karen Kirk Adams, the Cape Wind Energy Project Manager U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England District
Reference File No. NAE-2004-338-1
EOEA No. 12643
http://www.massaudubon.org/PDF/CapeWindDEIS.pdf
"By utilizing other bird mortality data provided in the DEIS, Mass Audubon staff scientists arrived at avian mortalities that ranged from 2,300 to 6,600 collision deaths per year."
"SouthCoastToday: 8/03/06 Letter writer gets bird facts wrong
Letter writer gets bird facts wrong
Barbara Durkin repeatedly misquotes our public comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Study for the proposed Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound as she does most recently in her July 26 Letter to the Editor. Mass Audubon scientists have never concluded that up to 6,600 birds, or any number of birds, would be killed if this project is permitted."
The good news is that USFWS is not on the same page as Mass Audubon according to Vernon Lang of USFWS NE Region, the federal regulatory reviewing agency for the Cape Wind project.
I plan to continue to follow Mass Audubon on their campaign trail for this project, and to continue to demand that they disclose financial interest in the "Adaptive Management Plan" their condition of their preliminary approval of Cape Wind.
A wrap up on the Greenpeace, Clean Power Now, and Mass Audubon, and a Danish wind industry representative speakers symposium held on August 30, 2006 at Cape Cod Community College:
My question posed to Jack Clarke during public question and answer period:
"My question is in regard to the long term environmental monitoring contract that is a condition imposed by Mass Audubon in their "Challenge offering "preliminary" approval of Cape Wind. Mass Audubon has testified to the USACE: "Mass Audubon staff scientists arrived at avian mortalities that ranged from 2,300 to 6.600 collision deaths per year." However; Taber Allison of Mass Audubon, in his August 3, 2006 letter to South Coast Today, has stated: "Mass Audubon scientists have never concluded that up to 6,600 birds, or any number of birds, would be killed if this project is permitted.
Will Mass Audubon, or a fledgling agency, or anyone now associated with it, benefit financially by the long term monitoring contract if Cape Wind is approved? Please declare your financial interest in the outcome of this process, Mr. Clarke, and share the reason attributed to Dr. Allison's denial of Mass Audubon's testimony to the USACE. Moreover, since Mass Audubon is advocating the Cape Wind project, how can it consider itself a party that is disinterested in the outcome of any studies related to the project, independent of any financial considerations? In any other appropriate scientific inquiry, the presumption of bias from such advocacy would disqualify you as a participant."
Jack Clarke responded that he did not know what I meant by, "contract." I did press him responding his reluctance to answer, "Tell us why, Mr. Clarke, Mass Audubon as reviewing agency, self appointed, is publicly denying your testimony to the USACE about bird mortality. The long term environmental monitoring contract is worth multi millions of dollars, in fact $3 million dollars in the first year potential based on Altamont figures. Will you and Mass Audubon walk away, Mr. Clarke, from the contract as a reviewing agency?"
Jack Clarke repeated "I don't know what you mean by "contract".
Upper Cape Codder: 4/20/06
Allison & Clarke: Challenge to Cape Wind: Get it right
By Taber Allison and Jack Clarke
"Mass. Audubon challenges the developer of Cape Wind and its permitting agencies to accept comprehensive and rigorous monitoring and mitigation conditions that will reduce the risk to birds and other wildlife. If these conditions are adopted, and remaining significant data gaps are addressed, Mass. Audubon will support Cape Wind, the largest, clean, renewable-energy project in the Northeast."
"We also propose adoption of an Adaptive Management Plan that includes a rigorous monitoring program beginning at the construction phase and continuing for at least three years post-construction, mitigation measures in the event that the project results in significant adverse environmental impacts, compensation for the use of public lands and waters and enforceable procedures for decommissioning any abandoned turbines."
P.S. Curry and Kerlinger work for the wind industry as Dona states.
I trust Dr. Smallwood, USFWS, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Humane Society of the United States, HSUS. They are all familiar with the "long term adaptive management plan" AKA enviromental monitoring contracts that have converted bird advocates to profiteers counting their carcasses.
There are many true bird advocates associated with Mass Audubon. I've identified management as posing the threat to avian life by name.
Barbara Durkin
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amazingdrx Posted 10:04 pm
10 Mar 2007
Is there any proof that they will get a contract? Other than the assumption based upon the Altamont project? If funding for a monitering project went to individual scientists rather than Mass Audobon, would that cure any conflict of interest?
If not, how could monitering ever be acomplished without a conflict?
With modern GPS navigation and radar, why would Cape Wind be a navigational hazard?
Anyway, I remain in favor of moving wind power offshore out of sight and mind of NIMBYs and adding wave power to the floating platforms. planting them in the sea floor is just not a great idea. And as we have seen, it has delayed this project for a decade already.
We don't have time to litigate each offshore wind project for decades. The longer this environmental infighting continues the stronger the forces of the evil lord cheney of halliburton become.
They are assembling bribed legislators and officials to stop all offshore wind/wave power.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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lmc035 Posted 4:46 am
16 Mar 2007
AIS - Automated Identification System is required by law on all 300 ton vessels with overnight accomodations. Commercial vessels can detect other commercial vessels within a 20+ nautical mile range, which is effective in avoiding collisions, especially at night or in fog.
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lmc035 Posted 4:51 am
16 Mar 2007
You've probably seen this before, but other countries (Portugal specifically) are well ahead when it comes to trying out new technology.
Much better than dealing with oil spills such as:
1967 Liberian tanker Torrey Canyon spills 120.000 ton oil near Cornwall
1968 Witwater tanker spills 14.000 barrels of oil near Panama coast
1969 tanker Hamilton trader spills 4.000 barrels of oil in Liverpool Bay, England
1970 tanker Arrow spills 77.000 barrels of oil near Nova Scotia, Canada
1971 tanker Wafra spills 20.000 barrels of oil near Cape Agulhas, Africa
1972 tanker Sea Star catches fire after collision in Gulf of Mexico
1974 Dutch tanker Metulla spills 53.000 ton crude oil near South-Chilli
1976 Liberian tanker Argo Merchant spilled 29.000 square meters of oil near the Massachusetts coast
1976 Spanish tanker Urquillo spills more than 100.000 ton oil near Spain
1977 tanker Al Rawdatain spills 7.350 barrels of oil near Genoa, Italy
1977 tanker Borug spills 213.692 barrels of oil near the coast of Taiwan
1978 Brazilian Marina spills 73.600 barrels of oil near Sao Sebastiao, Brazil
1979 Betegeuse spills 14.720 barrels of oil near Bantry Bay, Ireland
1979 Ixtoc I exploratory well in Mexico blows out and spills 600.000 tons of oil
1984 Alvenus tanker grounds southeast of Cameron, Louisiana and spills 65.000 barrels of oil
1985 ARCO Anchorage spills 5.690 barrels of oil near the coast of Washington
1986 unknown oil spill reaches the coast of Georgia and is later appointed to the Amazon Vulture tanker
1989 Aragon tanker spills 175.000 barrels of oil near Madeira, Portugal
1990 tanker American Trader grounds near Huntington Beach, California and spills 9458 barrels of oil
1990 Cibro Savannah tanker catches fire and spills 481 square meters of oil
1990 Jupiter tanker catches fire in Bay City, Mexico and causes oil spill
1990 Mega Borg tanker catches fire and spills 19.000 square meters of oil near Galveston, Texas
1991 tanker Bahia Paraiso spills 3.774 barrels of oil near Palmer Station, Antarctica
1992 Greek tanker Aegean Sea spills 70.000 ton oil near Galicia
1993 Bouchard B155 tanker spills 1.270 square meters of fuel oil after collision with 2 ships
1996 Liberian tanker Sea Empress spills 147.000 ton oil near Wales
1999 Maltese tanker Erika spills 30.000 ton oil near Brittany
2001 tanker Jessica spills 900 ton oil near the Galapagos Isles
2002 Bahamese Prestige spills oil near Galicia
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Engineer Posted 5:12 am
16 Mar 2007
I had gone through the report, then looked at how long my response was and decided not to post it.
Now that this has popped back to the top, I'll pick out a few comments.
"Hence, it is misleading to assert that every year wind turbines in a certain region will produce about the same average number of kWh during a particular period or season... It would be irresponsible to design a system...based only upon an assertion that the wind speed on average will behave as one hopes."
I can't speak to how they perform `due diligence' on wind projects in Europe, but in the US, typically at least two years of meteorological data (wind speed, direction, air temperature, etc.) is required to develop a design for a wind project.
Each WTG (Wind Turbine Generator) has a specific `power curve', which states how it will perform at various wind speeds. By combining the met tower data average wind data with the WTG power curve, a reasonably accurate annual forecast CAN be made.
We now have three production years worth of actual output data. The first year, the wind was below average and the actual output was 11% less than projected. The next two years, the output was approximately 1% greater than estimated. I would say that actual output being within 1% of projected is fairly accurate, regardless of the generating resource.
"This means that traditional power stations will remain essential simply because of considerable wind power. Approximately 90% of the installed wind power is needed as a reserve capacity."
I don't disagree with him that some conventional (or at least higher capacity factor) generation will be required as reserves, but current transmission interconnects (`grids') operate with 5-7% reserves and have performed studies that show that with wind comprising up to 25% of the total generation, the reserves only need to be increased 1-3% above current levels.
A 3% increase above what the reserve levels would otherwise be isn't even close to 90%. Other wind threads have discussed different proposed technologies for non-fossil fuel reserve capacity.
Common sense is an oxymoron...
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GreyFlcn Posted 9:14 am
16 Mar 2007
hydrogen-wind generation is proceeding apace under the Bush Administration.
Does Grist give credit?
Hydrogen is rather silly.
Here's why:
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog1/wp-content/uploads/2006/ ...
And for more a more detailed explaination:
http://www.teslamotors.com/display_data/21stCentElectricC ...
We'd be better off if we just took all the funding for hydrogen and put it toward UltraCapacitor research.
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/03/10/nanotech-strikes- ...
http://uanews.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/UANews.woa/3/wa/SRSt ...
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