INDIAN ISLAND, Maine — The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded $1 million to the Penobscot Indian Nation that will help the tribe move forward in its attempt to install a 227-megawatt wind project in Alder Stream Township in Franklin County.
The funding will allow the tribe to develop engineering designs, identify power purchasers, complete permitting requirements and hold negotiations, according to an Energy Department press release. The tribe needs to complete those preconstruction activities before pursuing further funding for the project.
“As President Obama highlighted in the State of the Union, the administration is committed to building an American economy that lasts and leverages our nation’s clean energy resources,” said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. “The awards announced today will help tribes across the country advance a sustainable energy future for their local communities, spur economic development and advance innovative clean energy technologies.”
The energy department awarded $6.5 million nationally to 19 clean energy projects in the works by Native American tribes. The Penobscot Nation received the second-largest award in the country.
Penobscot Nation officials could not be reached for comment Thursday afternoon.
an absolute total joke, more free money given out, that brings nothing in.cut the spending.
I can’t believe the Penobscot Nation would be so committed to killing eagles.
I guess if your bound and determined to throw money down the toilet, this is as good a one as any.
killing of Eagles Penobscots, use the money for something else.
When you read the WIND act you see where Baldacci wanted to help Tribes get funding.
Ah, tribe against tribe. I quess the indians can only hold so long.
Penobscots ought to consider using the money to make non-turbine wind extractors, the ones that LOOK LIKE trees, but aren’t.
On these, every “leaf” or “needle” is a photocell, and every twig and branch coated with a piezoelectric membrane. Power from light, and kinetic energy from the movements of the twigs and branches, gets consolidated in the “trunk” and and cabled away from the “roots” Each “tree” would be much more efficient than a wind turbine of similar size. A grove of these would light up the reservation – on breezy days at least. .
We should have let them have a casino.
Please do not try to create a loser. The only people who should be installing wind towers are the large corpoartions and the very wealthy as wind power is all about subsidies and tax breaks. Do not let them sell you towers based on RATED CAPACITY, as no wind turbine has ever attained 40 percent. The tower at UMPI is at 11%; Germany, the heaviest wind power country, achieved 17 % in the year 2010. There are no markets for wind except those that have been created by state and federal governemnts, a slippery slope as that can change whe the voting public catches on to the fact wind produces almost no power at prohibitively high prices. If you can find a way to keep the money while not spending it on wind, you have my blessing.
More visionary comments here abound. Gas will be $5 a gallon soon at the rate the law of supply and demand propels it. Energy prices will rise accordingly. New strategies never any good. Efforts to adjust to changing times and circumstances always contemptible lunacy. Never any positive efforts, new thinking always derided, always bleating protestations of victimization and abuse by myriad and diverse forces of this world. Professional panhandlers who will always, with surly ill grace, stick out their hands and take the handout. Afraid to try and better themselves by non traditional means but damned if they will let anyone else succeed at the efforts they absolutely reject for themselves. Welcome to Maine “the way life should be.”
Good luck Penobscot Nation. Utilize your opportunities and provide an example for the embitttered failures who would hate to see you succeed at anything.