John Droz writes in with this today:
Anthony:
A US federal agency, the Fish & Wildlife Service, is currently debating whether or not there will be national wildlife rules for industrial wind energy, and if yes, what they will be at stake is this: if they adopt strict mandatory rules, it could severely restrict wind energy in every state in the country.
For the first time, this agency is asking for public input. If you want to wade through the technical details look at <<http://www.fws.gov/windenergy/>>.
Send your comments in a simple email to “windenergy@fws.gov“. They will only be accepted until August 4, 2011.
The gist of the debate is that AWEA and the wind industry want loose, voluntary, guidelines. Citizens concerned about the environment are asking for tight, mandatory, rules.
We are also advocating that a wind developer make a substantial upfront payment ($5000± per turbine) for the state/federal government to hire independent experts to assess wildlife impacts. (Right now the developer hires his own experts, so you can guess what they conclude.)
Please submit something to the USF&W on this most important issue — and pass this request on to your [readers].
So this is something free, simple, and could be influential in your community. Please do it today!
regards,
john droz, jr.
physicist & environmental advocate
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Snow paralyzes South Africa
Totally off topic, but Durban, where the November climate talks are to be held:
“Major routes between Johannesburg, Africa’s richest city, and Durban, Africa’s busiest port, were closed.”
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/Snow+paralyzes+South+Africa/5163902/story.html#ixzz1TSbgOZ76
Weather Werner – not climate.
Also off topic
“We are also advocating that a wind developer make a substantial upfront payment”
Doe the author actually think the money will be coming from the wind developer.
Truth in advertising would dictate it read like this :
“We are also advocating that consumers make a substantial upfront payment, even if they never get any electric power from any turbine.”
BTW – why a per turbine cost ? Makes no sense unless you want to raise money for the government. Perhaps a per square mile cost would make more sense, unless you really want the revenue.
While walking around with my beagle near these bird slicers I’ve only seen one golden eagle that had been killed. Several crows. Coyotes and fox often carry carcasses into nearby and not so nearby brush, depending on if they’re feeding pups. Often all that is left is a modest pile of feathers. I only get a chance to do this about once every couple of months or so. I would do it more often but for the trespass on private land.
Michelhouse, the school I attended from 1951-1955, was right on the main road and rail links between Johannesburg and Durban – and although we were promised a holiday if it ever snowed, it never did then. If only there had been more atmospheric CO2 in those days!
Werner,
Reinforces my belief in God!!! 8>)
I’m in favour of vertical wind turbines, if wind turbines must be built. My main reason is that the generator is on the ground, and easily replaced or repaired, and the cage-blade design is inherently stronger than the “airplane prop” type.
Oh, and vertical wind turbines are not bird or bat killers.
The local wind farm of 50 units just South of Concordia, Kansas would cost $250,000 in fees to do the study that would be 3X more than the local county property tax that was waived, to get the field installed. After it has been on line for a year now my local cost of electricity has gone up $.02/kwh or about 22%. Although the string of red flashing lights just 8 miles South of my farm is cool looking, but not worth the cost.
I have a friend who is a field biologist for the NFWS he is convinced that the truth should be told about the bird shredders. He has been documenting every strike and kill. It is not good…
Split atoms, not birds…
I am employed in a start-up that is building a kite-based Airborne Wind Energy (Acronym: AWE) system. We have a prototype flying. The intent is to deploy these units in remote areas where electrical energy is required but is unavailable via the grid. As such, our units are portable and re-deployable. I wonder what the ‘fee’ to deploy would be? Would the unit have to be ‘re-certified’ each time it moved to new location?
I have worked on IPP Hydro installations here in BC, and there is a substantial upfront cost in environmental research prior to licensing for construction. Of course, the cost of an IPP is several orders of magnitude higher than a kite-based system.
I suspect that the industry will, once again, move ahead faster than the legislation or the understanding of the science and technology.
What on earth are we talking about. Surely (don’t call me Shirley) killing birds and bats by the thousands is not a problem with those pushing green technology…
Did I say thousands, um perhaps millions with the global push for such bird/batomatics. Sad that ten years from now when the AGW is a distant memory we will have to explain to the young how we let it get sooooooo out of control and soooooo obviously wrong.
Do they have the same for open cast mining? Or are birds more important than worms?
Conversely, perhaps there are now more worms around these turbines hence the biomass has gone up? Perhaps we should be paying them money rather than charging them?
Andy
PS Slightly tongue in cheek here of course :p
If I understand this correctly, pay us a bunch of money, so that we can hire some “experts” to create research to justify shutting you down.
Require the operators to do a daily inventory of all bats and birds killed by species and report weekly in order to gain an idea of the scale of the kills. These inventories should be accompanied by some official unannounced at random intervals at least once per month. This should ensure that the daily inventories are accurate. This should add enough paperwork and administrative overhead to make wind less competitive with nuclear power. Oh, and while we are at it, before the turbines are placed, a 12-month survey must be made of wildlife migration routes in the area and specifically, migration through the proposed site.
Al Gore lied so eagles die. The windmill scam promotes fuel poverty, and human deaths too.
While AGW fanatics spin fairy-tales about future climate refugees,
ethanol-insanity drives up food prices so much that Third-World people are starving now.
Here at home thousands of Americans die every year because of the fraud behind CAFE standards.
AGW is yet another branch of Leftism’s vast worship of death, a branch trying hard to catch up with abortion’s mega-deathcount. Their facile sincerity merits nothing but scorn. They do not mean us well.
We who try to get the climate-truth out are doing more than fighting a scientific mistake. We’re defending civilization against its barbarous enemies, the ones not wearing desert robes but harboring an equally strong hatred of our way of life. They hate our cars, our houses, our very prosperity, and yearn longingly to take them away.
Simple solution: No regulations AND no subsidies. Then there will be very few wind turbines, and let people sue over the rest, but if the ruling is against you, you should be held responsible for both side’s court costs.
I know a lot of people complain about wind power killing birds, but, supporting onerous business restrictions like wildlife assessments because it harms your enemy is just perpetuating the problem. In most places, wind power costs too much and is just not a good fit. Thus, this entire post is off-topic.
EW-3 beat me to it. The suggestion that the mill owner pay anything is crazy thinking. They pay nothing. Not only do they pay nothing, they operate at a profit because they are subsidized and given priority access to the grid.
And anything they do pay will go to whom? Well hell, the government, of course, and that is nothing but a circuitous stealth tax on the consumers heaped on the tax they pay for subsidies that grants this wasteful energy source first nod at the grid.
Then there’s this whole flawed notion that these “bird slicers” deserve death by a thousand tax penalties. The idea of this crazy freaking $5K is to discourage them. Screw that – ban them if they’re so bad. But don’t give the government another stealth tax opportunity.
Does not sound that substantial. The likely capacity of a commercial wind turbine is typically between 1500-2500 kW. So this one time fee amounts to $2.00-$3.33 per installed kW. As the installed capital cost of a wind turbine is over $2,000/kW, the fee looks to be less than 0.2% of the generation capital cost.
Another consideration; The Federal Tax Credit (subtracted against income tax due) for Wind generation is something like $18/MWh, indexed to inflation for the first 10 or so years. A 1500 kW (1.5 MW) turbine at a 30% capacity factor would produce over $70,000 in income tax credits the first year of operation. The fee is less than 10% of the expected first year tax credit for these rich developers.
The wind may require three times the transmission capability to move the power to the electric load centers (30% capacity factor compared to a 90% for a coal plant). Windy sites are often where few people live (Wyoming, North Dakota, etc) while the load centers are Chicago or Los Angeles. Also, the need for backup generation sources needing transmission connections for when the wind does not blow or blows erratically during the hour and more transmission between load centers to move power when all the wind happens to blow (either move the power or start dumping power). I would hope that the rules would be stronger than the rules for transmission rights-of-ways and lines.
Wind power hardly steps lightly on the earth.
You would not believe the scale of new windmill installations in the Mojave, California windfarm area. It’s almost surreal. Sitting on the rail cars next to the jetliner parking area down there is the parts for at least a couple of dozen of the HUGE windmills, and there’s already a lot of new ones installed and operational the other side of the tracks going towards the hills.
Maybe they’re trying to get ’em in place before the new regs take effect?
Eh, sauce for the goose…
Interstellar Bill said:
July 28, 2011 at 9:48 pm
[snippage for brevity; see above]
Well said Bill!
1 Min 55sec in is all I need to say about the bloody windmills!.