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Mar 6, 2010

Nearshore wind proponents, skeptics at Maine Fishermen's Forum 3/6/10

Listen to the offshore wind proponents  at the 2010 Maine Fishermen's Forum roll out  LD 1810 a new bill that could open up all of Maine's fishing grounds to windfarms.  A skeptical crowd of fishermen listened gave NOBODY any applause. The Q&A  was cut short. Photos from the seminar

Introduction Dierdre Gilbert Maine DMR  2min

Beth Nagusky, MDEP Office of Innovation 13 min

George Lapointe, Department of Marine Resources  5 minutes

Des Fitzgerald, Principle Power 10 Minutes

Peter Hughes, Fishermen's Energy, New Jersey 12 minutes

Neal Pettigrew, University of Maine  on Monhegan R&D site 11 minutes

Addison Ames, Vinalhaven Electric Coop 10 min

Rob Snyder, Island Institute  10 minutes

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:40 PM

    Good lord. The wind mafia is not satisfied with destroying the tourist industry on land and sea, it now wants to take the lifeblood from fishermen and women whose whole way of life is centered around the sea. It is up to every one of us to educate our friends and neighbors about their devastating plans for this state. Time is running out.

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  2. Anonymous12:17 PM

    Wind energy will one day prove to be a very important component of our renewable energy portfolio. However, that does not mean Maine should embrace near shore shallow water wind farms that interfere with all our traditional useage and ruin the view. Offshore, out of sight, out of earshot, and away from the majority of local lobstering seems a reasonable approach...unless you would prefer to keep burning fossil fuels and melting the polar ice cap.

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  3. Good points, but starting with your last point: the polar meltdown train has left the station and already tumbled off the bridge.

    Shut every coal burner on earth tomorrow and you will not slow the global warming smash one microsecond (though you will perhaps decrease the length of the weather instability interregnum that is upon us by a few centuries. If every windfarm start-up was accompanied by closure of a coal plant, there might be a difference; otherwise, all windfarming does is make power cheaper -cheaper power = more power use. Arrrrrgh that's what's happening. Let's heat Maine homes with electricity, the windies say...Huh?!?!

    Offshore. Its neither a biological desert nor is that area unimportant in how its energy is distributed. Yank those tera-watts of energy from the open sea, then watch the shifts in global currents from the mega "upwellings" that these energy extractors cause from the air pressure differential on either side ofthe wind farm. as bottom waters are pulled up to the surface along hundreds of miles long strips offshore parallel to the coast. Those lines of upwellings may as well be walls as far as the Gulf Stream and Labrador current are concerned. Ditto for migrating swordfish and tuna: they follow the edge of the Gulf Stream; when the Stream is washing up against the power corporations' upwelling walls, they've find no herring have crossed from the inner Gulf of Maine and split.

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  4. Gary Libby7:48 PM

    This will end near shore fishing around Port Clyde!If anyone thinks it will stop only commercial mobile gear they have their heads in the sand.The danger of these things will interfere with sea birds, recreational fishing and boating. I don't think its a benefit for our state to choose a new industry over one that has been around for 400 years, and displace whole communities to create jobs for out of state businesses that are not obligated to sell their products in the state where it is produced. The people that we trust in Augusta have failed in my opinion.

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