Interior Department Approves Construction of Controversial Offshore Wind Farm

[Alpha Mare]

Can you say "SCAM?" I knew you could.

http://www.nkpw.nl/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=439(2008)

Nato has begun an investigation into British findings that wind farms make overflying planes invisible to radar as military
chiefs fear a security threat from the rapid spread of the turbines.
The US has been attending tests by Britain’s Air Warfare Centre after it made the surprise discovery that the energy
plants create blind spots in air defences.
President Bush’s Administration was so anxious initially that it introduced an immediate moratorium on all wind farms in
line of sight of its own military radars. Since then the stance has been softened and each new US wind farm is now
considered on a case-by-case basis. There is still no sign of a solution to the British impasse caused by the MoD’s
objections to wind farms in line of sight of its radar stations. Although Britain refuses to say how far the line of sight
extends, a Pentagon report suggests a 60-mile radius.

March 21, 2010
THE first detailed study of Britain’s onshore wind farms suggests some treasured landscapes may have been blighted for only small gains in green energy.
The analysis reveals that more than 20 wind farms produce less than a fifth of their potential maximum power output.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7069938.ece

Wind Energy's Ghosts

Some say that Ka Le is haunted -- and it is. But it's haunted not by Hawaii's legendary night marchers. The mysterious sounds are "Na leo o Kamaoa"-- the disembodied voices of 37 skeletal wind turbines abandoned to rust on the hundred-acre site of the former Kamaoa Wind Farm.

The voices of Kamaoa cry out their warning as a new batch of colonists, having looted the taxpayers of Spain, Portugal, and Greece, seeks to expand upon their multi-billion-dollar foothold half a world away on the shores of the distant Potomac River. European wind developers are fleeing the EU's expiring wind subsidies, shuttering factories, laying off workers, and leaving billions of Euros of sovereign debt and a continent-wide financial crisis in their wake. But their game is not over. Already they are tapping a new vein of lucre from the taxpayers and ratepayers of the United States.

California's wind farms -- then comprising about 80% of the world's wind generation capacity -- ceased to generate much more quickly than Kamaoa.  In the best wind spots on earth, over 14,000 turbines were simply abandoned.  Spinning, post-industrial junk which generates nothing but bird kills.

From 1981 through 1985 federal and state tax subsidies in California were so great that wealthy investors could recover up to 50 percent of a wind turbine's cost. The lure of quick riches resulted in a flood of development using new and mostly untested wind turbines. By the end of 1986, when projects already underway in 1985 were completed, developers had installed nearly 15,000 wind turbines. These machines represented 1,200 MW of capacity worth US$2.4 billion in 1986 dollars.

It took nearly a decade from the time the first flimsy wind turbines were installed before the performance of California wind projects could dispel the widespread belief among the public and investors that wind energy was just a tax scam.

Ben Lieberman, a senior policy analyst focusing on energy and environmental issues for the Heritage Foundation, is not surprised.  He asks:
"If wind power made sense, why would it need a government subsidy in the first place?  It's a bubble which bursts as soon as the government subsidies end."

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/wind_energys_ghosts_1.html

Tehachapi wind turbines

In early 2009 the Socialist government of Spain reduced alternative energy subsidies by 30%.  Calzada continues:
"At that point the whole pyramid collapsed.  They are firing thousands of people.  BP closed down the two largest solar production plants in Europe.  They are firing between 25,000 and 40,000 people...."

"What do we do with all this industry that we have been creating with subsidies that now is collapsing?  The bubble is too big.  We cannot continue pumping enough money.  ...The President of the Renewable Industry in Spain (wrote a column arguing that) ...the only way is finding other countries that will give taxpayers' money away to our industry to take it and continue maintaining these jobs."
That "other country" is the United States of America.
But the wind-subsidy proposals being floated in Congress suggest that American political leaders have yet to understand that "green power" means generating electricity by burning dollars.

EMI is Big Oil

Jim Gordon: Cape Wind Developer Swings Both Ways
While he and his thirty something year old company hide behind the development of America's first and largest off-shore wind farm saying it will lessen our dependence on fossil fuels, they are in the process of developing a fossil fuel dependent peaker power plant.

Loop-holes abound
To date, there are no regulations and standards (they are only, now, being developed by the Federal Government and are just in the draft stages) governing off-shore wind. How convenient for him and his company. As to diesel burning peaker plants, they escape most regulation and standards because they are intended for emergency use. Again, this loop-hole did not escape Gordon and EMI.

Cape Wind is attempting to take advantage of a loop-hole in the Nantucket Sound which has been designated a marine sanctuary by the State of MA, off limits to industrial development. But right in the middle of the Sound, in the Horseshoe Shoal area, we find a donut hole of Federal waters. And that is, of course, where Gordon has decided to place his 24 square mile industrial wind power plant complete with 130 440' high turbines along with a 100' tall oil filled electrical platform (would house over 40,000 gallons of transformer oil) thus avoiding any State regulation and taking advantage of the fact that there are no Federal regulations in place. In fact, when these regulations are in place Cape Wind will simply be 'grand-fathered in' something that, also, has not missed the calculated eye of this developer.
Meanwhile, this diesel peaker power plant will spew 37 tons of particulate matter per year to the atmosphere of a community already suffering among the highest hospitalized asthma rates in the State of MA. This plant is slated to be built within 100 yards of an elementary school. Diesel peaker plants emit small particles of soot and dust that can lodge in the lungs of those living in that community and increase the cancer rate.

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474976937584

[thundley4]

Can you say "SCAM?" I knew you could.

http://www.nkpw.nl/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=439(2008)http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7069938.ecehttp://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/wind_energys_ghosts_1.html

Tehachapi wind turbines
EMI is Big Oilhttp://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474976937584

Dayum. Someone sure pulled a fast one on some politicians.  Too bad it's the voters that end up paying. A couple of congress critters have already raised a stink about much of the stimulus money going to China for the wind mill projects out west.

[Alpha Mare]

There are only two homegrown American turbine manufacturers of any significance – General Electric and Clipper Wind . Both also import some parts from factories overseas.
GE Energy has three turbine manufacturing facilities in the United States. – in Greenville, S.C., Pensacola, Fla., and Tehachapi, Calif. GE also operates at least three wind turbine component manufacturing facilities in China. The company is also working to open another plant in Vietnam with the announced purpose of manufacturing up to 10,000 tons of components for use by GE in other countries.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection records, GE frequently imports a wide variety of components from all over the globe.

Clipper has a plant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, but a review of customs records indicates the company has imported major components from a variety of countries.

The reality is that Gamesa is the only foreign wind manufacturer that makes all three major components in the United States. Out of the seven foreign-owned manufacturers that made turbines installed on wind farms that received grant money, only Gamesa and Danish turbine giant Vestas have any significant investment in America.
Both companies have recently experienced slowdowns.  Gamesa employed over 1,000 workers but more than 300 were laid off in 2009. Vestas Americas announced a total production shutdown of its one open plant.

Of the remaining five foreign-owned companies that installed turbines under the grant program:
continue here:http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/investigations/wind-energy-funds-going-overseas/story/foreign-companies-control-wind-manufacturing/

In ObamaWorld, Americans don't need jobs. 

[Wineslob]

Windmill farms have been known as "losers" for a long time. Why (other than to satiate the enviro-whackos) we bother is beyond me.
Like I explained to a coworker, imagine 100 turbines that need constant maintenance compared to one Hydro electric plant that needs some every 10 years or so and puts out the same kilowattage.

[artracer]

wind farms are only popular because of all the wind and hot air coming forth from those idiots in DC. These things are virtually a waste of time, money and resources, not to mention an environmental eye sore and hazard. Did they see the farm in California that sits there rotting away, polluting the land? It's all a con. We would need more wind farms than there is available land in the USA to turn on the lights in Tampa.

[NHSparky]

Windmill farms have been known as "losers" for a long time. Why (other than to satiate the enviro-whackos) we bother is beyond me.
Like I explained to a coworker, imagine 100 turbines that need constant maintenance compared to one Hydro electric plant that needs some every 10 years or so and puts out the same kilowattage.

Try about 4-5 times more, Wineslob.  The AVAILABILITY of a wind turbine is right around the 15-20 percent range.  IOW, it doesn't matter if you build 1, 100, or 1000 windmills that (typically in the case of Palm Springs or Tehachapi) generate 750 KW each, it's the total power (KwH) that you get out of them that really counts.

For an area the size of Palo Verde, a windfarm generates less than 1 percent of the power that Palo Verde generates, and not on a consistent basis.  Whoops.

[Wineslob]

Try about 4-5 times more, Wineslob.  The AVAILABILITY of a wind turbine is right around the 15-20 percent range.  IOW, it doesn't matter if you build 1, 100, or 1000 windmills that (typically in the case of Palm Springs or Tehachapi) generate 750 KW each, it's the total power (KwH) that you get out of them that really counts.

For an area the size of Palo Verde, a windfarm generates less than 1 percent of the power that Palo Verde generates, and not on a consistent basis.  Whoops.

Sparky, if I remember right the best any "farm" has done, efficiency wise, is about 25%.....................with subsidies.

Wind power is a joke.

[NHSparky]

Sparky, if I remember right the best any "farm" has done, efficiency wise, is about 25%.....................with subsidies.

Wind power is a joke.

Even less.

[Lacarnut]

Sparky, if I remember right the best any "farm" has done, efficiency wise, is about 25%.....................with subsidies.

Wind power is a joke.

Even the Euro weenies have stated that it is boondoggle and a waste.

[The Village Idiot]

A couple months back the UK got hit with a great blizzard and the windmills failed to deliver, badly.

[PatriotGame]

Snark on the decaying body of the fat-Teddy Bostonian drunkard!

[Peter3_1]

here's an idea....all Wash. D. C. must be wind and siolar powered 100% and rates charged/paid must be ADEQUATE to cover all costs AND DELIVER 2.5% PROFIT on sales without substities! ONLY after that can the programs be continued at STATE CAPITALS only until the same conditions are met!

OR they may have compact nuclear, ONLY if the same are made available to the nation, generally, and so called enviornmental groups are denied, by law, standing to object and denied the ability to file suit.

Then we'll know the pols are starting to take things sereously.