AUGUSTA, Maine — Towers are beginning to take form as construction progresses at Maine’s newest wind farm.
All of the tower sections have arrived by ship from Denmark and will be delivered over a matter of weeks to the site of the $76 million Bull Hill project in central Hancock County, about 18 miles northeast of Ellsworth.
The builder, First Wind, said 16 of the 19 turbine pads were built by last week. The first base section of a tower was set into place Friday and more are expected to take form in the weeks ahead. Wind blades and generators, shipped by rail from Colorado, are also expected to be attached to the towers in early July. The construction project involves about 200 jobs.
“Right now, we’re on target for the project to be completed, operating and online by November,” said First Wind spokesman John Lamontagne.
When completed, the 34-megawatt Bull Hill will bring First Wind’s total capacity in Maine to 185 megawatts, or enough to supply the energy needs for 85,000 homes, according to First Wind, which has built four other projects in Maine and additional projects in northeastern and western states.
First Wind’s other Maine wind farms include the Mars Hill in Aroostook County, Rollins Wind project in Penobscot County and the Stetson I and II projects in Washington County. TransCanada’s Kibby Wind project in Franklin County, which generates enough power for about 50,000 homes, is the largest project in New England.
According to the Natural Resources Council of Maine, which was neutral on the Bull Hill project in comments filed with regulators, the project will avoid emissions of more than 45,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide.
In June, Massachusetts-based First Wind and Emera Inc. announced the closing of their transaction to jointly own and operate wind energy projects in the Northeast through a new company called Northeast Wind Partners. Emera, based in Nova Scotia, is the parent company of a number of electric utilities, including Bangor Hydro-Electric Co.
Challenges to the state Public Utilities Commission’s approval of the Emera-First Wind joint venture transaction have been filed by Houlton Water Co., the state public advocate and industrial energy consumers, which claimed, among other issues, that the proposal would violate Maine’s electricity restructuring law.
Still under regulatory review is a proposed 14-turbine wind farm atop Passadumkeag Ridge in Grand Falls Township, Penobscot County. The state Department of Environmental Protection has scheduled a second public meeting for July 12 in Greenbush to get feedback on its review of the 42-megawatt project, which is proposed by Quantum Utility Generation, an alternative energy company from Texas.
Some local residents and business owners have expressed reservations about the project, saying it could detract from the region’s beauty and deter visitors from coming to local camps and lodges.
Meanwhile, efforts are continuing in Maine to develop offshore wind-power generation.
The Norwegian company Statoil North America has applied for permits to place as many as four test turbines on leased ocean grounds starting in 2016. Statoil held a series of open houses last week in Boothbay, Rockland and Portland.
The University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center had planned to deploy a one-third scale prototype wind turbine this summer off Monhegan Island. The launch is now rescheduled for next year, however, because the federal permits have not been filed.
Permits for the federally funded project have not yet been issued, but an environmental assessment has concluded the project would have no significant impact.
Fantastic. I can’t wait to see the reduction in my electricity bill. Maine is getting “greener” as each hour passes.(sarcasm alert!!!)
CMP transmission rates just went up 19.6% today due to transmission upgrades caused 100% by these remote sprawling wind complexes and nary a word was written in the major newspapers.
http://www.maine.gov/tools/whatsnew/index.php?topic=puc-pressreleases&id=403393&v=article08
Note that the Maine PUC’s official announcement disingenuously tries to lay the blame on the Feds when in fact it was the MPUC’s approval of this crap that has raised our bills. One of the three MPUC commisioners, David Littell chairs RGGI, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. His job there requires he shove expensive wind down our throats and his job on the MPUC requires he gets us reasonable rates.
As long as the media are in the tank for the wind industry keeping the people in the dark, these rent seeking thieves will keep increasing our electric costs and driving away businesses, to say nothing of draining the U.S. Treasury with their imaginary green BS, destroying Maine and tormenting Mainers with noise.
Where is the outrage folks?
Outrage is an understatement.
Deliberations took so long in Mass., there was time for the truth to come out on Cape Wind. Electricity would go up 300%. Even Wal Mart didn’t want an off shore wind farm.
Notice that the legislature , DEP and LURC are always in a great big hurry to pass wind farm legislation and wind farm approvals? Keeps the propaganda going strong.
Enron folded for being criminals. A lot of their assets were bought by First Wind. A lot of their executives went to First Wind. California was left with over a billion of their debt.
Their business model:
1) Close down power suppliers
2) Export energy
3) Hike rates
That is happening here in ME. Thought LaPage didn’t like them, but it is business as usual. The head of DEP was replaced by a wind farm friendly. Vinylhaven caught DEP’s attn. Guess it was because there are people on that island who have money. First Wind likes to pick locations for their wind farms where the people are poor, elderly and uneducated. There are exceptions, but the general population for wind farms works out better if they are poor.
LOL. Ask Angus King how much money he made off these boondoogles.
At least he didnt chop up companies and American jobs for fun and profit,
at most he chopped up birds!
Hey bigkid1950..don’t sell yourself short by labeling your skepticism “sarcasm”..many with much more expertise than you or me are questioning what the real bottom line return is on our huge tax subsidy of wind . It isn’t clear what our huge public investment is actually buying for us.
We do need to understand the bottom line and if it isn’t translating into lower costs or at least long term price stability we have to figure that end of it out. Maybe our subsidies have to come not only with a tie to actual demonstrated net benefit and with rate guarantees to protect consumers. The Emera/First Wind Joint Venture and King’s candidacy for Senate are both very scary prospects in that regard. Consumers will get absurdly high rates as private investors chase the profits and subsidies of wind.
We all should get used to wind and solar power… The Big Oil companies have cursed wind and solar by owning the GOP political stooges like LePage… In 10 years, big oil will be charging us $10 to $20 for a gallon of gas or fuel oil… More efficient electric cars will be available, hopefully more wind and solar generated power…
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Big oil has been making record profits, if they were concerned or threatend by wind and solar they would pull the spare change from their pocket and buy it. It’s really not political, people off both party’s with money invest in the same things. They use “green” as a way to sell it to a “green” state. I’m a green person but I’m not jumping from the frying pan to the fire in desperation. Big wind is no different than big oil. A hydro plant in Aroostic County–it can’t get any greener or better than that for Maine.
Why destroy the mountains of Maine or any river in Aroostook for power than we do not need? For every $4+ million for a wind turbine that will put out 25% of its capacity, think how many sensors, switches, and energy efficient applications that would buy to more wisely use what is already generated. If you were thinking of the Dickey-Lincoln dam on the upper St. John River, that will never happen, as the cost is too large for the output due to low summer flow volume. Unless, of course, 25% output for a hydro project is deemed as acceptable as it is for wind.
No, I do not want to destroy mountians in maine. My thinking is altering a river would be better then this windmill mess. It would be concentrated in one area, rather than sprawling chaos. Agreed 25% is not enough. Personaly I’m fine without either, but it not about me, its a world starving for green energy and maine could do well if it could compete with Quebec hydro,that has real electricity, at competitive prices. If Maine could offer below average electricity prices to its residents and businesses that could become a real draw for alot of people. You know, the way life should be, open for business. I think this has been very carelessly thought out.
My standard response to posts like this is – “has an industrial wind facility been built in your town, township or plantation?” No? Nuff said……
The next time you read some bald faced pro-wind lies in an online post, consider that the blogger may be employed by an organization that has made this commenting part of his or her job. The employer could be a wind company but also a wind industry law firm, engineering firm, a paid off so called environmental group, an ornithologist who rigs bird studies, etc.
It is now established fact that many of the pro-wind comments we see in online reader comments are the result of paid bloggers or bloggers otherwise employed by the wind industry or their mercenaries in the paid off environmental organizations.
The following directives are taken from the Board of Directors of the American Wind Energy Association 11/2/11 meeting materials.
“Respond quickly to unfavorable articles by posting comments online, using the AWEA blog and twitter, and putting out press releases”.
” • Work with Grassroots team to recruit and activate a “Wind Army,” identifying state, member and third-party surrogates to spread AWEA messages. Results: • Quadrupled size of online community from February to October,building online advocacy list from 25,000 to 113,000; plus LinkedIn at 8,000, Twitter at 12,500, Facebook at 37,000, for a total online community of more than 172,000 and still rapidly growing”.
” We all should get used to wind and solar power”. No thanks. Maybe you’d be satisfied only having power on sunny and/or windy days, but not me.
There’s no escaping the fact that electricity can not be stored in the amounts we need. If you want to rely on wind and solar, you’d better not complain about the frequent brownouts and blackouts. They will be inevitable.
Boo….
Disgusting. Our diesel methane gas landfill generator puts out more electricity than 50 of those butt ugly bird grinders. Only a matter of time before they come down…. They are 100 times better than solar but that’s not saying much.
It is unfortunate that by the time Mainers realize why Maine is so attractive to so many other people (tourists, sportsmen and women, sporting camps and lodges, retirees, vacationers, etc), it will be gone. There will be hundreds of these turbines lining the ridges and mountain tops. The only people getting rich on these projects are the developers, and they are doing so at taxpayer and rate-payer’s expense. Gov. Baldy gave away your state to the wind scammers with the Expedited Wind Permitting Law. Have you ever wondered exactly how the expedited wind map was created? By the lobbyists, in a “backroom.” The state is proposing to build/upgrade the high power transmission lines down to Orono–why? So all of the wind power can be sent down and sold to states further south. So, Maine is destroying its natural beauty to put up these turbines, paying for the transmission line upgrades so folks down south can meet their green energy requirements. Gee, isn’t wind power great?
It’s actually even worse that BB62..there are major issues about the efficacy and efficiency of windpower..we are not sure “net” what we are actually getting as output and it looks most likely, especially for onshore projects like this one, that is is actually a hugely expensive in terms of net grid performance. At least that is what Europe is concluding after their many years of investment in wind power.
We all need to look more closely at the myth of wind power. They make claims of households served based on an output that so far has not been possible any where in the world.. Globally wind seems to be sub performing and not coming anywhere near its projected levels of performance. I think 28% efficiency is the number I have most often seen
reported as well..28% of what is promised..that is for every 1,000 promised the maximum output only serves the equivalent of 280
Windpower so far is simply not living up to its output claims or its smoothe interface with the grid or price reductions in electric service .
I am just getting started on the truth about wind, but I believe it is true as well that that 28% isn’t “net”..it doesn’t take account of what has to come off the grid to keep the wind farm operating and it doesn’t factor in the reduced efficiency of the power plant into which it feeds.
No one knows through documentation what that real net efficiency number might be. but it seems certain it is well well below 28%. Europeans are calling for a
review before further expanding and subsidizing wind, especially onshore wind.
It is a major reason Angus King ‘s candidacy and presumptive ownership of Snowe’s Senate seat is very disturbing. His mission will clearly be to further industrial wind subsidy and allow further breakdowns that
will adversely impact competitive pricing as in he Emera/First Wind Joint Venture. You can bet Angus King is all for that ( in addition to being against fair wages and citizens’ initiatives).
We are making the same mistakes in natural gas chasing willy nilly into gas fracking in a desperate panicked plunge towards energy security and energy independence. Of course we need that and of course seeking that
is wise national policy but not the way we are doing it investing so much with no real understanding of true return on our massive tax dollar investment.
A more balanced national policy would include an aggressive and comprehensive thrust to reducing our habits of consumption especially of non renewable resources instead of racing to produce enough energy to
sustain an unsustainable unthriveable growth rate.
What tiny amt. of power that is produced from wind farms goes to Canada first. Mars Hill thought the wind farm was being built just for them. After it was erected, they found out the power went to Canada. First Wind was caught. Their website posted where all the power from their wind farms went. Mars Hill, on their webpage, they just stated “trade secret”. There is a bottleneck in Orrington; no power goes further south. We are not being told the truth by the wind farms or ME state govt.
Sue,
Thanks for this. You sound very well informed too.
I think Maine legislators and the Joint Committee on Energy simply don’t know the truth..no one is telling them the truth and they aren’t researching it for themselves. The industry owns the PUC,apparently.
Here is an excellent article by Pinetree Watchdog on a study that our legislators and the PUC have chosen to ignore
http://pinetreewatchdog.org/2012/03/29/meeting-land-based-wind-goals-not-likely-say-two-state-studies/
Through this blog here today, as confirmed by you and other well informed bloggers, I am getting the impression that all of this intrusion onto Maine land is serving Canadian power interests and not having any effect on reducing rates for Maine consumers. John Baldacci put that legislation in place which clearly need s another look.
And of course this whole adventure serves the interests of the land speculators that have large speculative holdings of timberland like Plum Creek and Kennebec West Forest LLC. Taxed as timberland they can generate huge revenue from leases and both Kennebec West Forest LLC and Plum Creek have been active in pursuing those arrangements.
Ultimately that’s what Peter Vigue’s E/W highway is all about to. With the utility corridor it represents about $1 billion in leasing fees on land that is valued and taxed as timberland.
Several of the big corporate interest pushes in the Maine legislature this year were about that..Regulatory Takings, LURC Reform two examples and also a failed bill that attempted to not allow a municipality to enact regulations or laws more restrictive than State Laws..just shows the kind of thinking and culture in the legislature that is letting this happen.
Would be so great to see all you experts on the truth about Maine wind power somehow get together and do a white paper for the Energy Committee and start a blog where you can share what you know ( very easy & free with posterous for example)
I think all of you who know about the real Wind Power experience should demand hearings before the energy committee and present all this.
I find that Committee and its key members smug and insular. You guys could really shake things up.
And I am so grateful that you are here sharing what you know.
Maine should not be a welfare and vacation state. But that is what its known for. We need jobs. Baldy did help with the windmills and former govenor King made million off power when he was govenor and still is. Good deal for Augus Beef up your wallet King. Do the people that tour Maine in the summer and fall months pay our high taxes. Nope George W Bush lives here about 6 and a half to 7months a year and claims Texas has his home state so he does not have to pay state income tax. Now thats a great deal. Maybe Lepage could shead some light on that one he is going after everything else.
We do need jobs – full-time, full-benefit, long-term jobs and lots of them; other than in the construction phase (which is not long-term) these projects do not provide those types of jobs.
I like to drive by them and don’t mind them in Maine’s mauled commercial forest lands. Kibby is getting too close to the 4000 ft chain of mountains along Maine’s backbone, I don’t want to ever see those ridges lit up at night. This is high tourism/outdoorsman country and is very sensitive to 100′ roads blasted out of the steep mountain soils, changing water courses and eroding the heck out of mountains.
NW Aroostook Cty is another area that would be great to develop, a lot of 1500′ ridgelines miles from anything but cut-over woodlands.
And according to all the wind maps, that area’s ‘wind resource” is poor to marginal at best.
So because Maine has given the logging industry lax regs it is OK to let industrial wind screw things up even worse? That is like saying the earth will be burned up in 5 billion years so why save anything. Your logic needs fine tuning.
Forests re-grow. Wood is a renewable resource. Cut a tree, plant a replacement. Do it wisely and it is a healthy, sustainable forest. It is ironic that you use poor wood harvesting practices in your example, as two companies that have the worst forestry practices, HC Haynes and WT Gardner & Sons are the two large landowners who are in cahoots with First Wind.
Forests re-generate, but you can’t put a mountain ridge back together after it has been blasted, leveled, and scalped. It is permanently disfigured and the underlying hydrology changed as well. Wind turbines are not good anywhere in Maine !
So sad to see this arrival. I would have no problem if they would first install one on Munjoy Hill and Beacon Hill because that’s where whatever little bit of electricity generated will be consumed. Why bespoil the virgin landscape with this optical clutter?
Every turn of a turbine is a screwing of our enemies/friends in the Mideast. So is conservation but Americans just don’t understand conservation. Let the turbines turn!
Hey geo-political expert, do you mind explaining how turbines are screwing people in the Mideast? (In the U.S. we virtually don’t use oil to make electricity and we don’t use electricity for what we do use oil for – heating and driving).
Correct! We blast mountains in West Virginia, then push the tailings into the adjoining valleys to access Clean Coal. But that’s OK, you don’t live there, so why should you worry? your light switch turns on when you flick it, right?
We burn virtually no coal in Maine and none that comes from mountaintop removal. So keep spreading fear and mistruths and be sure to show up for your job at the wind company on time.
The electric grid is a national system of power generation plant all tied into the grid across the country. Any claim you make that only the power generated in Maine is used in Maine is completely untrue, and you are aware of that fact.
I wrote we burn virtually no coal in Maine. I can explain that for you but I cannot understand that for you.
So you think all of the electricity used in Maine is generated in the state? You may be fooling yourself, but your not fooling the rest of us!
Maine is a net electricity exporter by far. Wake up.
This is about Maine, not West Virginia. Destroying Maine’s mountains for wind turbines will do absolutely nothing to reduce the use of coal or curtail open pit mining of coal. That is such a red herring that is is crimson!
Not sure where you’re getting your information, but ISO New England says that the little bit of wind turbine generated electricity in Maine would almost exclusively displace natural gas generated electricity. Most of our natural gas is domestically sourced. Virtually all of it comes from North America. So, how does that impact anyone in the Middle East? Perhaps you could give more details.
Isn’t Vestas going backrupt? Wasn’t First Wind going bankrupt until this last minute, illegal!!!! and not yet finalized merger with Emera? Aren’t Maine’s electricty rates about to hike up considerably because of the transmission costs of upgrading CMP’s lines for all these tax payer subsidized projects, and why aren’t the newspapers covering THAT story? Wake up, people. This isn’t a warm, fuzzy feel good green dream, this is a nightmare of incredible deception and lies perpetuated by a handful of carpetbaggers. Don’t sacrifice Maine’s mountains for this. Keep Maine beautiful!
Let me clue you in to reality!
I “live” on a Mountaintop!
I don’t want these Monstrosities in MY back yard!
However, I cant see the View though the Ozone “HAZE” in the Summer!
And it has been getting worse every year!
Wind farms will not help with the Ozone Haze. Read further down in the comments for the truth.
The reality is, industrial wind can’t cut it as far as supplying energy. I’ve lived off grid for over twenty eight years and there’s just no way renewables like solar and wind are going to “wean” us off of foreign oil. For real solutions we need to look elsewhere. Seven billion humans all hungry for power need really powerful and reliable energy sources. Small thorium reactors would be the real “green” solution. Hydro where appropriate. And by all means. solar and wind for point of source off grid applications. Industrial wind is useless without storage capacity. Residentially, in favorable areas, small scale wind turbines can provide as much as ten percent of back-up power in a solar off grid home with battery storage capabilites.
Sorry Penny, who ever said that we could be (Weened) off from oil, the best hope is and will be to “prolong ” the inevitable depletion. It’s to bad that we didn’t start sooner.
Every kw produced by wind today is a kw that isn’t produced by fossil fuels, when oil and coal stay in the ground its the same as storing the equivelant. (There is your { Energy Storage } Mother Earth!
Stretching the use of oil / coal over a longer duration also helps mitigate the effects of pollution of time.
Thats why you hear the Democrats touting ( All of the above ) in their energy plan!
And the Republicans CRY — Drill Baby Drill!
I never did pay much attention to anything and everything that has been written about the windmills. But last weekend we drove through Clifton and Chateauguay in northern New York state and saw first-hand what those monstrosities look like. As far as the eye could see, those big blades were turning and not even synchronized. Although that would not have improved the sight one bit. These things were so close to the road, you could almost reach out and touch them. These things are UGLY! Will we see reductions in our electric bills when these things are paid for? I don’t think so because once that is so then the investors will want to get a return on their investments, right? We are screwed, folks.
Try driving thru West Virginia where mountaintop mining has destroyed the landscape so you can turn the lights on.
This is about Maine, not West Virginia. Destroying Maine’s mountains for wind turbines will do absolutely nothing to reduce the use of coal or curtail open pit mining of coal. That is such a red herring that is is crimson!
So how do you plan to turn the lights on?? Nuclear-gone, Hydro-dams are being removed, LNG-facility denied. This is NOT about Maine, the power grid is a nation wide system of power generation station all tied together. Any claim that Maine only uses power generated in the state is completely UNtrue.
ISO New England says that New England’s few coal plants will likely be replaced by natural gas fueled generators, not wind turbines.. So, what do mountaintop wind turbines in Maine have to do with coal mining in West Virginia – NRCM propaganda notwithstanding?
NRCM = New Religion Conning Mainers
Pay attention to what is happening in Maine. The state’s heinous “Wind Law”, PL 661 has a goal of 2700 MW of installed capacity by 2020. That will mean over 300 miles of mountain ridges blasted, leveled, and scalped to put up 1800 turnines, all as tall as a Boston skyscraper. More than 50,000 acres of carbon-sequestering forest will be permanently clear cut and more than 1,000 miles of new powerlines will criss cross the state to connect these sprawling industrial sites to the grid. We are destroying our state!
The transmission lines for wind farms are much bigger than what we are used to. Living under them has been proven to cause Leukemia in children. Our land can be taken by eminent domain if a person did not want them. Read this link for proof that no power is going past Orrington produced by wind farms. Our state govt and wind farms are not telling us the truth.
http://www.maine.gov/mpuc/electricity/docs/MPUCMotiontoInterveneER08-190-000PDF Please, no more censoring.
Sue, the $1.4 billion MPRP is all about trying to get wind power to southern New England. The local upgrades for reliability and modernization should have been part of Iberdrola/CMP’s on-going capital improvement budget. $1 billion of this is to expand 115kv lines to 345 kv lines, the ones of which you express concern. Where is the outrage from people having this expansion built on top of them?
The “spin” we get is that ISO-New England has “socialized” the cost throughout the region, so Maine is on the hook for only 8% of that. But that also means Maine is on the hook for 8% of an estimated $35 billion of expansion, upgrades, and grid modifications to accommodate wind that will be thrust upon us due to the ridiculous & arbitrary Renewable Portfolio Standards mandates that dumb pandering politicians have put in place.
Even this MPRP will not be enough capacity to carry surges of wind power and ISO-New England told FERC that in January. Look for even more powerlines and spiraling electricity costs ahead unless we can stop wind power proliferation.
whoever made the comment about NW Aroostook and the other person about getting used to electric cars PLEASE do your homework..the wind turbines do not reduce CO2 emissions and if you start to get informed you will hear of sad stories like the recent one from Scotland where monks had to put a monastery up for sale because 5 MILES AWAY from turbines they were getting very ill..there are SO many economic and environmental facts that support that wind is not only a scam but damaging to animals and humans..I DO NOT want to see them in any other part of Aroostook or our State.
and this just out in the London Sunday Times today- time our journalism start revealing the truth of this industrial monster..
THE world’s biggest maker of wind turbines is considering putting itself up for sale as concerns mount over its giant debt pile. Vestas is studying the drastic move after entering debt restructuring talks with its lenders.
I’m a pilot and I HATE seeing these flying the coast. If you like turbines and haven’t had the chance to see them from the air then I hope you will consider doing so.
Too bad your carbon footprint SUCKS in your airplane!
Wind turbines have a huge carbon footprint. Add up starting with the extraction of rare earth all the way to the dozens of bulldozers, backhoes, and dump trucks working on the construction site belching diesel fumes and it adds up to so much carbon put out that the fickle trickle of electricity put out in the lifetime of a wind turbine will never offset it. These things are not green & clean–far from it!
I wish everyone could see these sprawling industrial sites from the air, too. Here is the link to a series of photos I took from the air of the Rollins Wind project in Lincoln Lakes, with captions. https://picasaweb.google.com/101554457531034815464/RollinsWindProjectFromTheAirMay12011# Sadly, my pilot that day said, “we lucked out and got the small units (GE 1.5 MW @ 389 ft. tall); all the newer proposed projects will have much bigger ones.” Bull Hill will have Vestas 1.8 MW turbines that are 90 ft. taller than the ones in these photos. It will be a very sad day when I take photos of the Bull Hill project with the mountains of Acadia as a background, just as it is sad to see Mt. Katahdin in these Rollins photos. We are ruining our beautiful state!
On another note, Angus King just purchased another new Mercedes…
King has a house in Brunswick, a place in the Caribbean and a very large place on Indian Point Road on Georgetown Island. He also toured the U.S. in a gas guzzling 40′ RV. Yet he has the gall to admonish the unwashed masses for their carbon footprints in his pitch to sell us his utterly useless subsidy harvesting wind turbines.
Hah! Statoil is the Norwegian National oil company! (we can’t have that here it would be Socialist!). You have to appreciate the irony, one oif the worlds largest oil companies putting up windmills in Maine, and we are just sitting here with our thumbs up our collective as*es!
Companies build wind turbines wherever the people are gullible enough to believe they’ll be saved by wind power and enact laws making it easy for them. That’s why so many foreign and out of state companies have landed in Maine – to exploit our naiveté.
Federal bailouts are not supported by citizens of all parties, but the wind industry goes one step further and receives “bailouts” before the projects even fail in a free market economy. What a scam. What do we do now that the protected areas near the Bull Hill project have been compromised by the industrial turbines? The purpose was to conserve these areas for future generations, not spread turbine litter so a few developers can get rich quick then retire to the Bahamas and burn diesel fuel in their motor yachts. The Haynes cartel can pocket millions while continuing their demolition of the forests. They are worse than the wind developing flatlanders from Mass because they are from here and should know better. I hereby proclaim the Haynes cartel honorary Mass-holes.
Once again, Glenn Adams is the stooge for the wind industry. Geez, Glenn, have you ever looked into this issue beyond getting press releases from the likes of John Lamontagne, the PR guy of First Wind? Your constant praising of anything the wind industry does with no critique and no representation whatsoever from people opposed to wind is disgustingly one sided journalism and should never be published.
Where are the critiques of Eastbrook Wind, the group of local people opposed to First Wind’s destruction of these ridges, or their attorney, Lynne Williams. Where is analysis from Citizens Task Force on Wind Power and Friends of Maine’s Mountains? You are a lazy, one-sided poor excuse for a journalist. It takes no skill to regurgitate propaganda; it takes intellect and courage to analyze and critically report a controversial, multi-faceted issue such as wind power in Maine.
“will supply the energy needs of 85,ooo homes”…if the wind keeps blowing and the parasitic loss is not tallied. This is a PR tactic to always include false claims about how many homes will be supplied. It is theory and the power is mixed, wind is never alone, so such a claim is irrelevant and untrue.
The NRCM did not approve Bull Hill but was too chicken to claim an outright disapproval. They claim 45,000 tons of Co2 will be avoided. That is not true . If the generator turned down is nat gas, the most likely source , the emissions would be about half. If hydro was turned down, no C02 savings because there are no C02 emissions from hydro. The NRCM needs to protect Maine, not cater to developers with the hope of protecting their favorite places.
The reporters need to be more careful rehashing the wild claims of a very suspect industry. I know, there is the threat of exclusion from future press releases…
No mention in this puff-piece for the wind industry that this project’s turbines are 476 feet tall (more than half as tall as Boston’s Prudential Building!) and will be highly visible from Acadia National Park. Even worse, this project is just north of the beautiful areas of Schoodic Mt. and the Donnell Pond Public Reserved Land. Are we going to surround and destroy with turbines the very places we have spent taxpayer money (Fund for Land for Maine’s Future bonds) to preserve for their “Quality of Place”? For a farce like wind power? This is despicable!
Be sure to send King Angus and The Bald One a nice thankyou note…How the people of Maine can support The King is beyond me…
I’m sure the people of Massachusetts (including the First Wind executives) sent King Angus and Baldacci thank you notes.
Massachusetts hasn’t been very successful in putting up industrial wind projects. Certainly not as successful as Maine. Thanks to Maine’s moronic Wind Law, its flaccid conflict of interest law, the open collusion in private and public sector, and the inability of Maine citizens to do anything about it, Massachusetts folk don’t need to conserve electricity!
First Wind meeting the energy needs of 85,000 homes with five wind projects???
Well, if the homes NEED unpredictable, intermittent, higher priced electricity, I suppose that First Wind is THE go-to company in New England.
To put the meaningless 85,000 homes figure in better perspective, First Wind’s five mountaintop wind projects would be capable of supplying less than 1% of New England’s annual electricity consumption – about 0.35% – the majority of which would be at times when the demand is lowest, nighttime and winter.
This is a travesty. Clear cutting and levelling of hiltops and mountain tops is not environmentally friendly. This should stop before it gets completely out of control. What ever happened to people caring about our land?
Stetson 1 and 2 run at approx 25 % of capacity. Poor wind resourse in Eastern Maine..When will people wake up and stop this madness..
All of these economicaally detrimental short term subsidy sucking projects will be rusting hulks in a few years.
You will be left with the increased electric rates and noise, decreased real estatre value and scamming politicians unless this scam is stopped.
The Vestas turbines shown here may have no maintenance support shortly.
see http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/business/energy_and_environment/article1071899.ece
Its amazing just how much the Bangor Daily LOVES its industrial wind!! Hardly ever see any oppositions pieces.
It’s never been about the power. It’s about getting their money out up front….
Why does the media continue to report the output and number of homes that will be powered by these projects by using the maximum, NEVER achieved output? In that all the power is sent to the northeast grid (or Canada) , how can we claim a number of Maine homes powered by wind?
To see how inaccurate First Wind’s claim is, go to:
http://www.ppdlw.org/calculator.htm
Have read that power has more likely stayed on in the DC area if the power lines are buried. The new 1.4 billion dollar “upgrades” for Maine and wind farms will be above ground. We will be told that they are needed due to the power outages from violent storms. That is the way propaganda works. Our property can still be taken by eminent domain for the wind farms. Oil wars meet wind wars.
The proof that no power goes further south than Orrington can be found here.
United States Of America Before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Docket No. ER08-190-000
Interesting comments. People want jobs in Maine yet seem to be opposed to the development of private land. People seem to be opposed to the manufacture of a product (electricity) that is sold into a competitive market.
People wonder why their rates are so high… blame wind.. yet never question the fact that natural gas is the lowest it has been in 10 years all the while still setting the price for energy in New England. Want to know who is lining their pockets?
Are those Vestas turbines? With Vestas in bankruptcy, one has to wonder what their warranty is worth! Ah, but who cares? As First Wind admitted in the S-1 they filed with the SEC, their business model does not require them to produce electricity to be profitable!
Wow the NIMBY crowd is out in force today!
It’s happening ALL over Maine.
http://www.keepitgrand.org