What a load of pure bunk. You don't want this bill. It will cripple the state of Maine and the country. Just an example of a couple of things in this bill: 1) If you want to sell your home, before you can put it on the market, it has to meet or exceed California energy and building standards. As is, there might be 1 or 2 percent of the homes in Maine that can pass this test. 2) Retrofits of certain parts of your home will be mandated depending on the age of the people living in your home. 3) Renovations or additions to your home will require upgrade to California standards. Besides that, there will be massive tax hikes, job losses, and the eventual elimination of fossil fuel heating systems and wood burning furnaces. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

What everyone needs to get up in arms about is the Copenhagen meeting in December. If Obama signs this agreement, it lays the groudwork for a one world government and lays waste to the US Constitution. Wake up, people.

key word here is "bipartisan", Democrats do not need one GOP vote to pass Cap and Trade, the only reason it is so important to have Snowe and Collins on board is so the bill can be labeled as "bipartisan". Scapegoats is what the Dems really want .

DRILL, BABY. DRILL !!!

EJParsons....I agree with you. JDwight in the Sun Journal opinion:

"Maine already pays 40% more than the national average for electricity. The policies being pursued by our legislators and the governor will only make them worse.

1) Sources of electrical power in ME exceed the statuary 30% renewable and efficiency standard by 140%.

2) Maine has an excess of power supply. Can produce over 3200 megawatts, but uses only 900 on an average day.

Any and all costs incurred by a grid operator are passed onto consumers in higher electrcity rates."

The Ferderal Energy Regulatory Council ..FERC...can mandate the number of power plants a state has." States rights?

In ME, property can be taken by emminent domain for transmission lines. The transmission lines are needed so wind power can be sent to Mass. 1.4 billion dollars worth will be tacked onto our electricity bills. No newspaper will tell the truth. No newspaper will tell the truth about the New England Grid being at capacity beore the Stetson Mt windfarm was built. It is still not online.

This is not democracy. It is the old soviet style of controlling the news.

Hey! Where are all the left wing liberal progressives that support this anarchy? Oh, they must be on their Obama prayer mats. Quiet everyone.

The tax dollars and stimulus funds (about $4.5 billion) being directed toward subsidizing wind power in Maine would provide thousands of long term jobs insulating homes and improving the efficiency of heating systems. Building turbines to create a few jobs in specialized sectors ignores the huge number of under-employed or unemployed people throughout the state who would benefit from a well funded program to reduce heating oil consumption.

More importantly, wind turbines are a poor investment in the first place because wind power in Maine will only hurt existing renewable generators like biomass and hydro, and further curtail the operation of highly efficient natural gas plants, like the 265 MW state of the art combined heat and power plant in Rumford that already operates on spinning reserve 90% of the time, burning natural gas, but producing no electricity because Maine has plenty of renewable generation that earns renewable energy credits and therefore can underbid fossil fuel plants.

If the Governor's Task Force on Wind Power has studied the issues in 2007, instead of acceding to the governor's desire to plaster Maine's mountains with thousands of wind turbines, we would be following a much more sensible approach to Maine's energy future and would be leading the country in energy efficiency and conservation, and not destroying Maine's scenic mountain heritage and the future of the tourism economy with the false promise of wind power.

EJParsons...this is not a political party issue. The damage to the state of ME is being done by democrats and republicans in the gov,'s office and the legislature. Getting worked up about party politics is a good way to allow those in the back rooms to make policy benefitting multi national corporations and govt reps. with a hand out....and totally leaving Mainers and the US citizens hanging out to dry.

HuffingtonPost has a post up...Obama giving tax payer money for a new smart grid. A comment on the article states that in Ca. , the smart meters for the smart grid continues to spin even when homeowner was out of town.

ME is getting Enroned. ...just like California. 1) close power plants 2) export energy 3) hike prices. Many of the same people work for First Wind who worked for Enron. BDN...please print the truth before ME is criss crossed with gigantic transmission lines...with huge industrial wind farms everywhere.

noname - 10:03 AM - Unfortunately, you're right. There are idiots on the right that are backing this bunk. One of them ran for President last year and lost. This is all based on the junk science of global warming. It's just too bad that there are so many in America that are so stupid that they can't see through the smoke and mirrors to the grim truth of this whole issue. Ignorance breeds ignorance, and the breeding has gone wild. But, then, when there is no longer a God to guide the heart and mind, anything goes.

Send them all home in 2010. And I mean ALL of them. Then get Obama and his Chicago gang out in 2012. It's time to clean up the government before they reinstate a slave nation or put us under a world flag and we lose everything. It's that serious.

Obama's new smart grid will pay 3.4 billion for the new smart grid(transmission lines). Consumers will pay for the rest. Seems like policy of this magnitude should have to be voted on like the Energy bill...or should be legislated along with it.

So if 3.4 billion is allocated for the whole country....and we have 1.2 billion or more here in ME. Seems very audacious of this administration. And have you pay for the transmission lines in your electricity bill.....the smart grid meter will spin when you are not at home? Wow Al Capone / First Wind/ bladaci / obama gang.

And we all expect the SMART GRID to be managed by the Dumb PUC...Fairpoint anyone?

And we expect a Smart Grid to be powered by Dumb Wind Turbines, everywhere in Maine.

King and King, and the very 'financially viable' Firstwind company selling their debt to Iberdrola,

Buying King(s) for profit. Yes, Kings can be bought and sold!

and Mainers paying the price with a monopoly charging .30kwh. to CMP(owned by Iberdrola)

And we don't think that Maine will cease to exist, and be "The State of Iberdrola"?

"Adding wind instability to a grid may be an engineer's idea of job security. But for rate and taxpayers, and a better environment, it's criminal. For the grid is then forced to extend itself. As the wind bounces randomly around the system, operators must continuously balance it to match supply precisely with demand, compensating for the ebb and flow much in the way flippers keep the steel ball in play during a game of pinball. Windball expends a lot of energy. In real life on the most American grids, more than 70% of any wind project's rated capacity must come from the flippers of reliable, flexible, fossil-fired generation, constantly turned up and back inefficiently to compensate for wind fluctuations. These inefficiencies will result in substantial carbon emissions. And increased consumer costs.

Yes, engineers can make-work by adding wind flux to the system. They can lead a horse to water; but they can't make it change its spots.... By its nature, wind will require lots of whips and whistles, even at small levels of penetration, in ways that will negate the very reason for its being. This is why people quickly switched to steam 200 years ago. Retrofitting modern technology to meet the needs of ancient wind flutter is monumentally backasswards, a sure sign that pundits and politicians, not scientists, are now in charge. It would take more than a smart grid to incorporate such a dumb idea successfully. " Boone

"From converting manufacturing plants to produce wind turbines"

I would respectfully ask the authors to give some more thought to the idea of wind turbines. Quite frankly, if one looks at the various locations in Maine where industrial wind complexes have been installed, they will find that the wind resource is relatively poor. Poor is not a term I use lightly, but rather the specific classification given to almost all of interior Maine by the Department of Energy. This can be seen on their wind resource map, available at:

http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/wind_maps.asp

Before you click on Maine, look at where the strong inland wind areas are in the U.S. the Northern Plains, areas near the Texas panhandle and the Rockies. Maine's inland resource is POOR to MARGINAL, except in the western mountains. This is otherwise known as Class 1 and Class 2 wind. And that is where you see almost all of the sprawling complexes that are planned.

Please do not take my word for it but rather consult the official "Wind Resource Assessment Handbook" published by the National Renewable Energy Lab and available in pdf at http://www.nrel.gov/wind/pdfs/22223.pdf I refer you to page 3-2 where it states: "Class 3 areas are suitable for wind energy development using tall (e.g., 50 m hub height) turbines. Class 2 areas are marginal and Class 1 areas are unsuitable for wind energy development.

The reason that turbines sites have been chosen in these areas has nothing to do with available wind resource, but rather two things:

1. The wind companies believe the areas selected, such as small towns do not have the resources to fight them off or frankly the knowledge to know that wind is full of empty promises

2. The government provides subsidies and other incentives for electricity produced by wind, such as preferential selection.

The wind companies come into town and in total secrecy, invoking "proprietary information" have secret meetings with town officials. By the time the plans are made public, the officials are already on board. In fact, we've seen this in NY State and presently, Attornet General Andrew Cuomo is investigating two companies for bribery and intimidation. One of these companies is First Wind, which is the company that in Maine is behind Mars Hill, Stetson I, Stetson II, Oakfield and Rollins.

Recently, First Wind received $115 million in stimulus funds as a pure gift. In reaction to this, Congressman Eric Mass (D-NY) wrote a scathing letter to President Obama wherin he termed this company's business model one of lie, cheat and corrupt. The congressman points out that First Wind has been collecting production rewards foir non-existent energy and calls for a revocation of the stimulus gift (not a loan - it was an outright gift) and an investigation by the GAO. The letter may be re3ad in pdf form at:

http://batr.net/cohoctonwindwatch/CohoctonWindmillsTOObama.pdf

Where this gets particularly interesting and why we have not heard the last of this, is that First Wind is backed in large part by hedge fund D.E. Shaw, who employed the director of President Obama's National Economic Council, Larry Summers, up until February and in fact paid Summers $5,000,000 a year in salary for a job that was only one day a week. That's not $5,000 or eben $50,000. That is Five Million for 50 days of work, meaning $100,000 a day. And shortly after leaving this position for his current post at the White House, $115 million is given to First Wind, again, backed primarily by his former employer.

I was telling this to a friend of mine the other day and he related to me that he was sitting on the train in NJ and overheard a conversation between a couple of Wall Strret types and they were openingly talking about what a racket wind was and how they couldn't miss because the government was asuringt their success.

OK, now if you are still reading you may be saying, OK, it sounds as though there's a bit of a scam here. But it gets worse when you think about what the scam means. Between the subsidies and stimulus funds we are talking about millions of dollars being granted to an ostensibly green and therefore good thing. And since there are finite funds for this and all things, it comes at the expense of other things.

One such thing is weatherization of Maine's housing stock and other buildings. It is a proven fact that weatherization provides huge recuctions in energy usage - often in the area of about 40%.

Wind in interior Maine produces almost no electricity to speak of. When you see a figure cited such as "Stetson will produce 57 MW enough to power 23,500 homes for a year, please know that this is total exaggeration. The 57 MW is the "nameplate" megawatts, or the theoretical yield if the wind blwe all year. The reality is that Maine is not a terribly windy place as previously noted and the turbines won't even begin to turn unless there is a steady 12 mph wind. Additionally, the turbines must be locked down for hours as a precaution if there is even a single gust of 50 mph, lest they break or catch fire.

Typically, the real yield is about 25%. In other words, 57 MW is really about 14 MW.

Then there is the inconvenient fact that wind complexes use significant amounts of electricity which they source from the outside grid. This has been reported as higth as 50% of their actual yield. Please see: http://www.aweo.org/windconsumption.html

If a wind farm produces only 14 MW of electricity but in the process consumes say 5 MW from the grid (produced by natural gas fired generating plants), then the wind plants should not be able to claim 14 MW of clean energy. It should only have the right to nine. And it should only collect subsidies on nine, but it gets the subsidies on the full 14.

Next is "spinning reserve". Because wind is an intermittent power source that realistically cannot be stored, the moment the wind stops blowing, the conventional power plants have to kick into operation. This is called spinning reserve or warm standby. Think of it as expecting company for dinner and you have to throw the lobsters into boiling water as soon as they arrive. But since you don't know when they are going to arrive, you must keep the water just below a boil. Well, those plants are kept just below a boil meaning that when the wind turbines are producing, tremendous fuel is used keeping the fossil fuel plants on simmer, but there is zero electrical production as they are not boiling.

At this point, the aforementioned nine MW of net electricity output from the wind plant is reduced to basically zero.

So for the production of essentially no electricity we get, no reduction in carbon, diversion of taxpayer funds from true carbon reducing methods such as weatherization, truly terrible noise levels for several miles from each complex, massive tree clearing, loss of the trees' carbon sequestration, more trees cleared for roads and powerlines, more lost tree carbon sequestration and the scarring of the beutiful Maine landscape. Additionally, ridgetops are blasted and massive amounts of concrete (a most energy dependent material) are poured into the ground and perpetual herbicide programs are put into place in the claered areas. Additionally wildlife habitat is interfered with and for hunters, there is distinctly less game.

The Maine Medical Association announced last month that it was adopting a new posture with respect to wind turbines, i.e., "work with health

organizations and regulatory agencies to provide scientific information of known and suspected medical consequences of wind development in order to help safeguard human health and the environment.

http://www.mainemed.com/annual/2009/2009_Proposed_Resolutions.pdf

Additionally, Health Canda, (Canad's FDA) on August 6th stipulated that it be known that "here are peer reviewed scientific articles indicating that wind turbines may have an adverse impact on human health.

We are of course very happy to see this sort of official recognition coming in, but it is something that is almost instantly learned by the many families whose lives have been forever changed by these industrial complexes setting up there subsidy stealing towers in town. Please go to You Tube and serach for "Welcome to Mars Hill". It will likely make you cry.

And yet the wind companies still claim there is no peer reviewed literature about the deleterious effects of turbine noise and they repeatedly lace their Powerpoint presentations with prevarications like "No louder than the hum of a refrigerator". They are allowed to lie and unfortunately, they are not stopped by government and up until reecently have been aided and abetted by a winking press - although thankfully, that is starting to change.

Maine makes much of its "Quality of Place" and rightfully so. I don't think we needed the Brookings Institute to tell us this, but I'm glad they did. I'd like to know what Brookings would say about how thousands of 400' tall turbines producing deleterious noise, killing thousands of mosquito eating helpless bats and bringing roads and new transmission lines everywhere fits into "Quality of Place".

I'd like to know what the environmental groups think about all of these scars when in fact, not only is no carbon reduced, but funds siphoned from weatherization by these scoundrels actually causes, in effect, an INCREASE in carbon. All under the cover of green.

I forgot about the tansmission lines, Southern Mainers have been hearing of late that Iberdroal needs anew $1.4 Billion transmission line and it has caused unrest all along the proposed line's path, given the huge upsizing of the transmission structures. Well, the reason and only reason this upgrade is requested is so that northern Maine wind "farms" can ship their electricity to Massachussetts, a state that the wind industry leaves alone for the most part because the people would revolt. And who pays for this? Well the rate payer of course. You see, tyhe grid cannot take any more electricity so all of this highly erratic intermiitent wind needs new power lines. Add $1.4 billion borne by ratepayers (the common man) to the subsidies borne by taxpayers and wind in Maine is off the charts in cost.

We really cannot afford this folly du jour to enrich a small power elite on the common man's back under the cover of false green. These shameful predatory companies need to be driven from Maine and good old Yankee ingenuity and respect for a buck must prevail.

We restpectfully ask for you to reconsider your inclusion of Wind in your vision and ask you for your help.

Thank you.

Pete

This bill should be carefully inserted into one or more of Algore's orifices. Back to loony toons.