Negative numbers
In reply to Emily Cain’s editorial, June 19, she stated that Maine has moved backwards and shrunk, due to the BEA News Release last week. In that report, it showed Maine with a negative 0.4. There were five other states with negative such numbers and 15 states with a one or less.
Also, deregulation has not caused insurance rates to increase, they have been increasing since I can remember. One cannot purchase out-of-state coverage until 2014.
Tammy Rose
Fayette
Support Archie Verow
I was happy to see Archie Verow on the primary ballot last week because I know he would be a strong voice for Brewer in Augusta. I am sure of this because Archie has a long track record that shows his dedication to Brewer. Before running for office, Archie served Brewer as mayor, city clerk and city councilor. People that show this type of care for their community are exactly the type of person we should elect to represent Brewer in the Maine House of Representatives.
Archie is not running for political gain, or to support a single partisan viewpoint. Instead he is running because he wants to help find common-sense solutions to improve life in Brewer. I urge everyone voting in Brewer this November to support Archie Verow.
Paul Davis
Brewer
Support for Rep. Stevens
In the Wednesday, June 20, letters to the editor, I was shocked to read the misrepresentation of Rep. Sara Stevens’ service to District 17. It’s obvious to me that the writer is ill-informed about Rep. Stevens. On more than one occasion I have seen Rep. Stevens answering email questions from residents of District 17 and sending out information cards for the benefit of the good people in her district. I have had the honor and privilege to serve with Rep. Stevens for the last four years, served with her on the Judiciary Committee and watched her take on the herculean task of accepting assignment to the Budget Committee.
Rep. Stevens has served with distinction and honor, she has given innumerable hours above and beyond most legislators to ensure that not only her district benefits from her commitment but that our state as a whole benefits. For Ms. Price to say Rep. Stevens doesn’t represent her district is ludicrous and unfounded. Elections shouldn’t be about character assassination rather they should be about a moral contract between those who wish to lead and those who consent to being led.
Rep. Stevens takes that moral contract very seriously and not a day goes by while serving her constituents that she forgets that.
If I were a resident of District 17 I wouldn’t hesitate to re-elect Rep. Stevens to another term. It would be difficult to find someone who would work any harder than she does when it comes to the betterment of her district and our state.
Rep. Wayne T. Mitchell
Indian Island
Moratorium on wind turbines
In the 1970s, the state of Maine took a stand against sight pollution and toward pristine beauty by banning roadside billboards. Recently, the state precipitously entered into legislation designed to create a worse situation by expediting wind turbine licenses.
Wind power in Maine is bad public policy because: it destroys the natural scenic beauty of an area; it has a negative impact on the health and safety of people and wildlife; it destroys our consistent economic selling point for new business and it reduces property values and reduces by 90 percent the salability of homes, camps and business in the area.
As the entire state of Maine has already been mapped for wind power production by the U.S. Department of Energy National Renewal Energy Laboratory showing that the resource potential for the entire interior of Maine is poor to marginal, we feel that wind towers do not have the potential for producing power and certainly not on the Passadumkeag Mountain.
This state needs to declare a moratorium on wind power projects including the Passadumkeag Mountain wind project. It needs to review existing wind turbine sites for a true assessment of property values, visual impacts, wildlife and soil impacts, noise and other economic factors. Then the state will have real facts to determine good public policy relating to wind power projects.
This state through Gov. Paul LePage must halt this assault on Maine by immediately declaring a moratorium on wind turbines until a more thorough review of the effects can be conducted.
Susan F. Bulay
Old Town
A dedicated man
It was a disheartening experience one early winter morning at the sight of our American flag laying down on the wet and soggy ground. Unfortunately it was later discovered that a truck had backed into it during the night. It got taken away but never got replaced.
It seemed sad observing the void during those several months where our flag once stood with only the lower section of the pole remaining.
Our flag reflects the tribute and acknowledgement of those who have sacrificed their lives for the freedom of our country.
This May, Arthur Brazeau, who originally erected the flag for us, purchased a new pole and the flag, replacing the other with still a better flag set. Arthur is a Troop Greeter and Vietnam veteran who is very dedicated to our country. He doesn’t reside here anymore, but was kind enough to do this for us.
Now to proudly view our flag waving once again is truly inspiring to us here at Bangor Housing.
Carolyn D. Coleman
Bangor
Thanking senators
Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins should be commended for standing up for clean air and our kids’ health when they voted against a measure that would have prevented the Environmental Protection Agency’s mercury pollution protections from enactment. Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe unsuccessfully tried to institute the obscure Congressional Review Act to kill the proposed EPA rule. Snowe and Collins were two of five Republicans who crossed party lines to oppose the CRA. Now this lifesaving rule will take effect!
The Mercury and Air Toxics Standard will cut emissions of mercury and prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths, nearly 5,000 heart attacks, 130,000 asthma attacks, and 5,700 hospital and emergency room visits nationwide each year, according to the EPA.
Coal-fired power plants are the largest single source of mercury in the United States. With the Mercury and Air Toxics Standard in place, Maine children, families and communities will be enjoying air free from dangerous air pollution.
Thank you Sens. Snowe and Collins for sticking up for the health of all American families.
Siri Beckman
Stonington
Tammy RoseEmily Cain cannot rely on her or her party’s accomplishments so must therefore resort to distortion of facts. The reality is the Emily and her party had their chance. Gov LePage is doing his best reverse the ill suited policies that Emily championed and put in place; last in business friendliness. high taxes, high illiteracy, high government dependency etc etc etc
Rightwing hogwash talking points troll.
ex, your screen name says it all: “from the claw of the lion.” This phrase is generally used to mean “from a part we may judge the whole.” I doubt you’re referring to statistical analysis and probably rely on anecdotal evidence. Sounds impressive, but it’s a pretty ignorant way to form conclusions.
Susan, great article! This is so imperative for Maine that the importance of all other current political issues pale in comparison.
Susan F. Bulay
Please remember the biggest perpetrators of wind technology, Liberal Democrats and Angus King. Its the time industry tries to stand on its own instead of raping our view shed and wallets
Hows that air you are breathing doing?
{instead of raping our view shed and wallets}
He must believe in waiting until it is so dirty that you cant see the windmills !
And you believe that mountaintop wind turbines in Maine will deliver significant improvements to Maine’s air quality? If so, I’d like to see your evidence. As far as I know, no one has shown that to be true anywhere beyond speculation. Perhaps you can be the first to demonstrate this with numbers.
Here are some numbers!
Two
( Eyes)
Thats all it takes to see the reduced visibility on days of high ozone levels!
But, you didn’t answer the question. The mainstream environmental groups have dodged this question all along with answers similar to yours. How about a more scientific answer?
Wind power in Maine will replace primarily natural gas, by far the cleanest burning fossil fuel we have (exponentially cleaner than oil or coal). So, what will be the air quality improvement (pollutants and amounts) that results from replacing a little bit of natural gas with wind power? What will be the cost (financially and socially) of that improvement?
Can you deliver those numbers?
I say lets keep the help for the wind technology for the same number of years that we do for the oil and gas companies.
I say let’s end the help for all energy sources and see which ones disappear.
That doesn’t seem fair, one gets it for many, many years and the other for just a few. Now when the oil and gas wells run dry lets see which ones disappear.
First of all, wind power has been receiving federal aid for 20 years now. Second, fossil fuel subsidies exist because of successful lobbying, not because they’re needed to keep those industries viable. Fossil fuels could have survived on their own many decades ago, we just never had the will power to end the taxpayer gifts to them. Additionally, some of the so-called “subsidies” paid to the fossil fuel industry are just the same tax breaks given to all businesses, including wind power.
Wind power receives special treatment and financial aid because it simply doesn’t have the capacity to deliver energy the way conventional fuels do. In short, on energy capacity alone, it’s an inferior source of energy and cannot compete on a level playing field. If it could deliver massive amounts of energy on demand – like conventional fuels – I think more people could get on board with some federal support.
9:26 p.m. CLOSED with no comments allowed???
Baldacci seeks wind power cooperation
By Kevin Miller,
BDN Staff
Posted Feb. 19, 2010,
at 9:26 p.m.
AUGUSTA, Maine — Gov. John Baldacci was in
Washington, D.C., on Friday to discuss opportunities for more regional cooperation
between Atlantic Coast states and the federal government for developing
offshore wind energy facilities.
The same day in Augusta, a group of critics of
Maine’s wind power policies held a press conference just outside of Baldacci’s
office calling for a statewide moratorium on new permits for land-based wind
farms. Baldacci, a strong proponent of wind power in Maine, promptly rejected
the idea of a moratorium.
In Washington, Baldacci joined the governors
from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia for a
discussion with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar about a more regional approach
to offshore wind.
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Mafia Today
http://tinyurl.com/6o3pwco
We can pretend to be oblivious to the real costs tied to dirty imported energy for just so long. It’s high time Maine pursued a course of clean alternative energy development of any available types. Fossil fuels are not the answer for future generations as their cost will go up as surely as alternative energy costs are (already) coming down.
Get the facts, pizanos. Wind energy is neither a clean or a renewable resource for electricity without perpetually subsidies. It is a deceitful hoax. And, it won’t effect our dependence on oil.
Absolutely correct. What I’d like to see is the subsidies for wind eliminated, then see how long it would take the wind industry to disappear. Because without the subsidies, wind is a money-losing proposition.
why subsidize any business? If the market can bear it, it will succeed without goverment money.
The problem with the “any available types” approach (also know as the “all of the above” approach) is that it includes using sources that might not necessarily be of much real value. In these approaches, there is no attempt to determine whether any particular energy source makes sense – or can survive a cost/benefit analysis. This is ultimately how we end up using artificial means to prop up inefficient or uncompetitive energy sources.
Ms. Bulay – What’s really sad is after the beauty of Maine is ruined by these 400 foot monstrosities, and the subsidies run out, they’ll be abandoned to waste away where they stand. Anyone that actually believes that these things are the wave of the future and that they pay for themselves is living with their head in the proverbial sands of ignorance. People of Maine, wise up and rise up against these inefficient and expensive wastes.
I recently drove through southern Ontario, near Windsor, and was struck by the graceful beauty of the hundreds of windmills I saw there in some of Canada’s best farm country.
Grace and beauty to some are eyesores to others. Especially those of us that know what the future holds for the wind industry. The subsidies won’t last forever, and neither will these graceful and beautiful eyesores.
Eyesores to you, graceful and beautiful to me — like hundreds of synchronized swimmers.
The guy who delivers two cords of cut, split and delivered wood isn’t subsidized — except for the fact that he drives his truck on “socialist” highways. But it seems to me that most other forms of energy are subsidized in one way or another. The true cost of coal and oil — including black lung, sink holes, sludge in streams, mountaintop removal, CO2 emissions, oil spill cleanup, etc. — doesn’t always get figured into some types of energy. I think we need to keep developing alternatives, and that may require some government investment in terms of subsidies for newer forms of energy.
When government subsidies serve to hide the weaknesses and shortcomings of an energy source, they’re not an investment. We have a good example of that with ethanol. Generating electricity with wind turbines is not a new technology that’s unable to compete because it’s still developing. It simply doesn’t have qualities that allow it to be competitive with most conventional fuels on a large scale. It’s intermittent, non-dispatchable, and largely restricted to nibbling at the margins of electricity demand. It will be at a competitive disadvantage for the foreseeable future.
If you want to spend money on wind power, spend it finding ways to store the energy and otherwise make it more useful – i.e. overcome its shortcomings. Do that before just handing out money to build more turbines that will be of limited use.
Windpower actually does store energy!
Every Kilowatt of wind energy used today is a Kilowatt of Fossil Fuel Energy that stays in the ground for use on a later date.
Reducing fossil fuel consumption is, no doubt, a good thing. But, there’s an endless number of inefficient and overpriced ways we can do that if we’re not going to consider the weaknesses of some energy sources. I’m not making a blanket argument against wind power. I’m saying that wind power’s shortcomings mean that we shouldn’t treat it as though it has more potential to reduce fossil fuel consumption than it actually does.
We could cover our entire state with wind turbines and the amount of fossil fuel left in the ground would be negligible on a global scale. So, if we have the option of saving valuable state or community assets, as opposed to sacrificing them for fossil fuel savings that are largely insignificant in the great scheme of things, I’ll take the former and look for a better way to reduce fossil fuel consumption.
Windpower by nature requires a stable power source to back it up because of its variability. Oil and coal and biomass are great backups because you can throttle steam turbines to match the load. Oil and coal wont last forever and when they are gone what will we use to stabilise the load?
Knowing full well that one day fossil fuels will be depleted and that wind will always be ther e, prudence demands that we treat every kilowatt of power from wind today as a kilowatt of power by oil tommorrow.
You can store oil in the ground for the future, But , you cant save “todays” wind!
Saw the same site in Minnesota with cows grazing peacefully beneath them. It went on for miles and after a while, not even noticed.
If they were not even noticed, how did you know they were there?
So you believe the 40 to 50 story towers are an aesthetic improvement to Maine’s mountains?
I’m surprised at the number of conservatives here who seem to want us to continue our reliance on foreign oil while blaming the liberals for wanting to be more energy independent. Crazy!
Nobody wants to rely on foreign oil.
The question should be why are we ripping out out hydro dams which produce more clean energy more efficiently than windmills? To satisfy a couple of Indians?
I was with you until you wrote that last sentence. The groups pushing for removal of the dams are not limited to Native Americans.
But you are exactly right about the hydro dams; they are cleaner and more efficient. A cost/benefit analysis should have been completed before we abandoned hydro-power for the sinkhole of mountaintop wind power.
Bigot.
Yea…whatever.
Is that the best you’ve got?
Why should we rely on foreign oil when we have trillions of barrels under our own waters and soil? We should drill for our own and start selling processed fuels to other countries, just like they’ve done in Brazil and several other nations.
As for wind, who in their right mind would tear down a power producing, profitable dam and replace it with inefficient and expensive wind turbines? I’ll tell you who: the companies that are receiving massive subsidies from the government, knowing all the while that the wind industry is not nor ever will be profitable, and will die a quick death when the subsidies run out. Then the people of Maine will have to look at these ugly monstrosities as they rot in place.
Wake up and rise up. It’s time to stop the wind scam.
Yea – more dams so we can send more of our electricity production out of state!
We don’t have any oil! When will you people realize that we don’t have any oil.
The US Gov’t sells oil leases to oil exploration companies which drill exploratory wells to ascertain the volume of oil (if any) there is on that lease. Once the company extracts the crude from the lease it belongs to the COMPANY not the US people. If the company decides to sell the crude to China, because they will pay more, than the oil goes to China, Period.
If we had a National oil company, like Norway (Statoil), Russia (Gasprom), Brazil (Petrobras) etc, etc, That would be SOCIALISM! Evil of all evils. The very idea that the minerals under US soil belongs to all the people of the US is truly absurd.
“Wind Turbines”: “reduces the salability of homes, camps and business in the area.” Yes, the main reason that’s important is that people are selling their homes, camps and business and moving out of the state of Maine due to the poor business climate and lack of jobs in this state. Perhaps we should rethink this “not-in-my-backyard” syndrome.
Burn oil and coal, baby, burn!
Good letter, Susan Bulay. The only thing industrial wind has the power to do in this state is destroy its most powerful economic engine, which is tourism. Industrial wind certainly won’t wean us off of foreign oil. Anyone who thinks so needs to live off grid for a few years and try pumping wind into their vehicle’s gas tank and heating their homes with it. We’re squandering tax payers monies promoting an energy source that will never wean us off of foreign oil. We need to be looking for real solutions, not tilting at windmills. Hydropower and small thorium reactors are the REAL green energy sources.
Susan Bulay, I agree 100%. Regarding the Passadumkeag wind project, the Visual Impact study shows that turbines will be visible from Porter Pond. That’s classified as a “Remote Trout Pond”. And yet the developer’s application doesn’t address it as far as I can tell. I thought the statutes require that Remote Trout Ponds be preserved in their pristine state. Just one more example of how all laws go out the window when the CO2 mafia comes to town.