2018 A Likely Scenario During a Future Winter i New England.   Examining a new report on Maine's power grid performance  from December 24, 2017 to January 8, 2018. 2017 OPINION:The story of a windmill. By Dale Landrith Sr. | Jun 29, 2017 2015 AUDIO September 22, 2015 selectboard discussion  .  Is Camden Energy Committee being revived? 22 min mp3 July 28, 2015. Appointing new energy committee 11min mp3 July 14, 2015 Wind supporters critique opposition 18min mp3 VIDEOJuly 14, 2015 *&*July 28, 2015 Camden Selectboard meetings where forming a new Energy Committee came up: WHO WE ARE ***MEETINGS & EVENTS Want to get involved? Write us! ** Attend an Energy Committee meeting. Reports *** Archive *** Ragged Mountain news Ragged Mountain on the Web *** LINKS *** PHOTOS EXISTING WIND ORDINANCES IN MAINE

Maine: The wind energy plantation, Part I OP-ED

From Camden Herald/Knox Village Soup

Maine: The wind energy plantation, Part I

By Paul Ackerman | Jan 29, 2015

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The advertising flyer supplementing many electric bills in Maine presents the smiling visage of a hardy-looking, flannel-clad “lineman” extolling the virtues of the electric utility upgrading the grid to improve reliability for Maine consumers.

Approximately $1.56 billion has been spent on electric grid upgrades and improvements. If this were all spent to benefit Maine electric customers (even in a long-term view), that would be a credible plus for the power companies. We’d be happy not to have major power failures for days or weeks on end — as some experienced earlier this winter due to storm damage — and that is the preventive rationale implied by the utility companies' advertising and press releases.

However, when one begins to unravel the tangled web of Maine’s energy policies, and looks at who actually writes them and promotes the passage of legislation, and for whose benefit they exist, a very different reality begins to intrude. Wind developers have enormous financial resources, and will utilize them to legislatively force their agenda on Maine. It is not about generating “green power” for Maine, it is about money and political clout, involving a maze of federal money, grants, tax breaks and sweetheart deals.

Recently an article in the Bangor Daily News headlined, “CMP, Emera team up for wind project — Aroostook County farm would be state’s largest.” The article goes on to state, “the transmission plan to connect the planned 250 megawatt wind farm to New England’s grid would allow developer EDP Renewables to move ahead with requesting permits for the project from the Dept. of Environmental Protection in the coming weeks.” The report also reveals that EDPR, the wind developer, has “already secured power purchase agreements in Connecticut.”

So, they get an agreement to sell the power in another state before they even have a permit in place to build the wind turbines, or even more significantly, before the Maine ratepayers of CMP and Emera (without knowing it) pay for the transmission lines to get the power to the grid out of state! By the way, until last year Connecticut law prohibited the construction of wind turbines within Connecticut. Only because of the expiration of federal tax credits in 2015 did it lift its ban on construction in-state. Money talks.

Another industry giant, First Wind, after being denied permits for a third time (by DEP and BEP) for its Bowers Mountain project, arrogantly went ahead nine days later and signed a 15-year agreement with National Grid, a utility that supplies electricity to customers in Rhode Island and surrounding states. This agreement promises to have the Bowers Mountain project up, running and sending power to Rhode Island by March 2017. How did Maine become the “green energy plantation” for outside interests? Read on.

The Wind Energy Act of 2008, promoted as an emergency measure by Gov. John Baldacci, effectively allowed the wind industry lobbyists to write their own law. Suppress competition from hydropower, fine. Eliminate local controls such as zoning and regional impact, fine. Don’t want to be held to an industry code of ethics, fine. Included in this law was a restriction on the import to or production of hydropower in Maine of more than 100 Megawatts.

So even though we could be importing cheaper hydropower from Hydro Quebec, certainly a renewable energy source, we are prohibited from doing so in order to benefit the uneconomical wind industry. Famed investor Warren Buffet has been quoted as saying, “I will do anything that is covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate… For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”

Recently, the industry representatives came back to then-Maine Senate President Justin Alfond with a way to maneuver around the LePage administration’s opposition to industrial wind. Modestly titled L.D.1750, “An act to amend the Maine Administrative Procedure Act and clarify wind energy laws,” it is a textbook example of how an industry runs the legislative process for its interests. Mr. Alfond was very accommodating to the wind industry attorneys and lobbyists, as the many pages of emails reviewed by the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting clearly showed. The lobbyists and lawyers for the wind industry wrote the bill, and coordinated with Alfond and staff to maneuver it through the legislative process.

A summary from LD 1750:

“This bill amends the Maine Administrative Procedure Act by amending the definition of 'rule' and requiring that every agency decision be based on the best evidence available to the agency. The bill also amends the laws governing expedited wind energy developments to provide that in determining the tangible benefits of an expedited wind energy development, the primary siting authority may not require the submission of evidence of the energy and emissions-related benefits or make specific findings related to energy and emissions-related benefits. Those benefits are presumed.

"The bill also provides that in determining whether a proposed expedited wind energy development will have an unreasonable adverse effect on scenic character or existing uses and whether an applicant must provide a visual impact assessment, the primary siting authority is required to consider the energy and emissions-related benefits of the expedited wind energy development, the policy objectives of the Maine Wind Energy Act and the energy, environmental and economic benefits associated with the expedited wind energy development.”

Apparently, political agendas trump factual evidence or citizen input in these situations. If the proponents say there are benefits, but are not required to provide credible proof, you have to believe them anyway. Their policy objectives clearly override any of your concerns. Thankfully, Gov. Paul LePage vetoed the bill and the Senate failed to override, but don’t get too complacent. They’ll be back.

Part 2 will delve into other aspects of Big Wind, including the contradiction of Maine environmental organizations' taking donations from First Wind and other industry interests to soften their views of industrial wind.

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Comments (5)

POSTED BY: RONALD HORVATH | Jan 31, 2015 09:37

Mr. Landrith:  Forever?  Really.  And what great edifice built in the last half century has lasted forever?  Sports stadiums are hardly lasting twenty years before some city, or sports franchise owner, decides they need a new one.  No, I repeat that taking down windmills will be a great deal easier than repairing our air and water that’s been subject to pollutants from fossil fuels for decades.   And maybe you should ask the residents along the Yellowstone River how “nonexistent” was the pipeline that burst and dumped thousands of barrels of crude into their drinking water, only last week, a repeat of a burst pipeline back in 2011 that dumped 42,000 barrels into the environment.  And those private funds probably belong to the Koch brothers who hold the leases on 1.1 million acres of tar sands oil land, an area the size of the state of Delaware.  You might also be interested in knowing that John Boehner invested $10,000 to $50,000 each in seven firms that have a stake in those oil sands.  This is nothing new for Mr. Boehner who has always attempted to profit politically and personally from selling votes and influence and who now courts the Koch brothers for both.  I'm sure that eminent domain to push any American landowner out of their way is tucked into the deal.

Yes, Mr. Landrith, the subject is wind, and, I might add, all the hot air expelled by the right to stop it from threatening their patron’s profits.  But the political shenanigans of the “wind” industry pale in comparison to the nefarious double dealings of the oil industry giants, and their minions.

POSTED BY: DALE LANDRITH | Jan 31, 2015 07:56

Mr. Horvath

The subject is wind.  The Keystone is to be built with private funds by the pipeline company not taxpayer or oil driller funds. Once the pipeline is constructed it will be almost nonexistent as an eyesore.  The wind farms destroy Maine's landscape for generations or forever.

POSTED BY: RONALD HORVATH | Jan 30, 2015 11:08

Well, some might say that there’s nothing wrong with producing an exportable commodity.  After all the new congress wants to build another pipeline simply to transport tar sands oil to foreign countries.  Is being an energy exporter such a bad thing especially after decades of complaining about the US being an energy importer?

And the oil and gas industry gets plenty of federal subsidies despite being immensely profitable.  Why would we want to provide tax breaks for them?  On the other hand it makes sense in terms of climate change to support a form of energy that doesn’t fill the atmosphere with pollutants or poison our groundwater.  Do you realize that every pollutant you come into contact with stays in your body tissues till the day you die?  Who knows, when fossil fuels are finally phased out, what the cost will be to clean up the damage, if it’s even possible.  Wind mills should be a great deal easier to dismantle with no nasty, lasting side effects.  That’s why it’s called “clean” energy.

POSTED BY: DALE LANDRITH | Jan 30, 2015 10:51

Why not focus on what is important.  Maine does not provide tax credits to the oil and gas industry.  Maine does provide breaks for wind.  Why support wind for the benefit of transporting the electricity out of state?

POSTED BY: RONALD HORVATH | Jan 29, 2015 15:34

“Big Wind?”  I understand your objection to any industry having undo influence in our government, state or national, but aren’t you being just a tad selective(or naive.)  Do you also object to the tens of billions of dollars that “Big Oil” takes out of taxpayer pockets in spite of being profitable to a fault?  Did you find the prescription drug program added to Medicare during the bush administration objectionable simply because it was unfunded and written by the lobbyists of “Big Pharmco?”  And do you object to the new banking regulations put forward by the new Republican congress –and written by “Big Banking”(Citigroup no less)- that guarantees their automatic bailout with taxpayer dollars the next time they gamble with the national economy?

“It's worth noting that the deal would also mean the expiration, in 2017, of tax credits that support the development of wind power because…  the oil and gas industry thinks they are unfair. (Doesn't the oil and gas industry receive billions in tax breaks? Er, well, hey, look over there!”)

And this should really tick you off.

“According to a report out today from the Sunlight Foundation, America’s most politically active 200 corporations spent $5.8 billion on federallobbying and campaign contributions between 2007 and 2012. Over this same period they received $4.4 trillion in federal business and support (or $760 for every dollar they spent). That $4.4 trillion represented two-thirds of the $6.5 trillion that individual taxpayers paid into the federal treasury in taxes. It included bailouts, price supports, a third of the value of all government contracts, and special tax breaks (these companies’ average effective tax rate was 17.7 percent although federal law sets the corporate tax rate at 35 percent). Wall Street was the largest source of campaign funds and the biggest beneficiary.” –Robert Reich, 11/17/2014

Make’s “big wind” sound like small potatoes, doesn’t it.

Ragged Mountain Friends speak out at Camden Selectboard meeting

Camden's Town Hall was filled to overflowing Tuesday night as members of the newly-formed Friends of Ragged Mountain turned out in force to show and express the widespread displeasure  and opposition that a proposal  to site windmills on one of the Camden Hills is getting from area residents.

( Read local media coverage here))

Listen to the speakers at links below:

* Introduction &  statement by Dorie Klein 14minutes

* Discussion of issues by Dana Strout 15 minutes

* More speakers and questions to and from the Camden Selectboard 15 minutes

* Additional speakers and questions to and from the Camden Selectboard 24 minutes

* Complete recording of Friends of Ragged Mountain presentations as a single 70 minute long podcast

The more than four dozen local  windfarm opponents waited patiently through two hours of other municipal business before they came up on the agenda.

But finally, beginning with presentations by Friends' spokespersons Dorie Klein and Dana Strout, a long line of people spoke up.

At one point Klein asked the members of her group to stand, impressing the selectboard when nearly the entire room stood.

Speakers emphatically challenged the validity of the process that had led up to the present situation, where the town of Camden was being  pressured by persons or companies unknown, fronted by the Island Institute, to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a windpower feasibility study, that, while it might lead to small reductions in energy costs, would certainly lead to pressure to move ahead with the logging bulldozing and blasting of the natural mountain environment that would ahve to happen to set up a utliity complex on Ragged Mountain.

Selectboard members responded, sometimes defending actions taken to date, mostly favorably as the residents made their cases.

For more information on Friends of Ragged Mountain, contact them by email or call Dorie Klein at 207-236-2347.

Earth First! Blockades Maine's Kibby Mountain Wind Turbine wannabes

Earth First! Blockades Giant Industrial Wind Turbines in Pristine Wilderness

Stratton, Maine.  At about 8 a.m., Tuesday July 6, at least fifty Earth First! activists blockaded Goldbrook Rd,  the access point to the Kibby Mountain wind project  outside the town of Stratton, halting the construction of 22 industrial wind turbines on the delicate Alpine ecosystems of Maine’s western boundary mountains.

The action comes just before the Land Use Regulation Commission’s (LURC) meeting July 7 to  consider a proposal for a similar project on neighboring Sisk Mountain, and on the heels  of the
national Earth First! Round River Rendezvous, hosted this year by Maine Earth First!

TransCanada, the transnational corporation responsible for the devastating practice of tar sands oil extraction in Alberta, Canada, has already built 24 mammoth turbines on Kibby Mountain, and has begun construction of an additional 22 turbines, a process that includes significant road building and wide transmission line corridors.

These projects are part of a trend that shifts from forest management to development in Maine,
which threatens to permanently change the face of Maine’s North Woods, the largest undeveloped wilderness east of the Mississippi river. Both Sisk and Kibby Mountain projects will reap huge benefits for TransCanada and the landowner Plum Creek.


“In the face of the Gulf Oil Disaster, and massively destructive coal mining, we  recognize the value of developing alternative energy systems,” said Meg Gilmartin of Earth First! “But these projects are a perfect example of how corporations and  investors are taking advantage of the climate and energy crises to make profits while  avoiding accountability. We don’t view projects on this industrial scale as being the solution to our problems.”

“If we really want to look at how the North Woods can mitigate climate change, we should restore our forest and protect sensitive ecosystems, like those on Sisk  and Kibby Mountain,” said Ryan Clark of Earth First! “These unique high altitude areas are breeding grounds for the endangered Bicknell Thrush, nesting sites for the federally protected Golden Eagle and critical habitat for endangered Canadian  Lynx.”

The project is also being protested for moving forward without public hearings.

Earth First is a network of activists that focuses on grassroots organizing and direct  actions in defense of the earth’s natural systems, and maintains a no-compromise stance.

LD 1810 ocean wind bill's Thursday slugfest. Windies driven10 miles offshore?

On March 18, 2010, Maine Legislature's Utility and Energy Committee held a 2 hour work session on LD 1810, the bill to implement the recommendations of the Governor's Ocean Energy Task Force. 

Listen to speakers at the March 18, 2010 Hearing (
* Introduction to the Worksession 4min
* MDEP's Beth Nagusky describes proposed changes to Bill Part A 17 minutes
* MDEP's Nagusky Q&A session 11 minutes
* Patrice Farrell, Maine Lobstermen's Association 3 & 1/2 minutes
* MDEP's Beth Nagusky describes proposed changes to Part B of LD 1811
* Suzanne Sayre 2 minutes
* John Ferland Ocean Renewable Energy Corp 1 minutes

* Dianne Messer, advocate, Liberty Maine 2 minutes
* Chris O'Neill, Friends of Maine Mountains 1 minutes
* Todd Rousette (sp?) Preti Flaherty lawfirm 2 minutes
* MDEP's Beth Nagusky describes more changes to Part B
* MDEPs Beth Nagusky on changes to Part C of bill
* MDEP's Beth Nagusky on changes to Part D of bill
* MDEP Beth Nagusky on Changed to Part E of Bill
* MDEP Beth Nagusky questioned on Part E 7 min
Some speakers audio lost

The War of 1810 - Maine's fishermen move to repel Big Wind invaders from their home waters.

A good day for fishermen at Maine's State Legislature concerning LD 1810, An Act To Implement the Recommendations of the Governor's Ocean Energy Task Force.  

Listen to testimony at the March 11 hearing

Prelude to battle. In the 36 hours before the hearing, members of the Utility and Energy Committee  heard loud and clear from Maine fishermen about their extreme displeasure with the notion of this bill opening up Maine state waters to nearshore commercial windfarms, pushing scallopers shrimpers & groundfishermen out.  

A war of words.  At the hearing, not only fishery activists, but Representative Leila Percy, co-chair of the Marine Resources Committee, let them know both that the bill  threatened Maine fishermen and was not acceptable, and that she spoke for Speaker of the House Hannah Pingree (who couldn't be there)  on this as well.  Listen to Representative Percy here (2 minute mp3)  Other legislators too, chimed in that their constituents weren't having any part of it.. Listen to them all  (7 recordings so far; more being added. Keep checking back)

Shock and awe. As the TV cameras rolled, and energy lobbyists reeled in dismay,  the Utility and Energy Committee switched from unqualified support for LD 1810, to acknowledging two alternatives: either 

(1) turning LD 1810 into a Resolve, and shipping it round  to other legislative committees and commercial fishing communities next year before taking any action, or 

(2)  removing from the bill all wording related to anything that would facilitate  commercial windfarm operations in Maine state waters.

Under # 2, the bill would continue with sections that give the wind industry tax breaks and immunizes it from a variety of conservation and environmental laws, also known as  "streamlining"  the laws.  "Streamlining? More like amputating the law," one conservation  activist grumped to the committee,  and the room filled with uneasy laughter.

Also remaining in the altered LD 1810  would be a controversial "Welfare Wind" section, This part of the bill forces Mainers to subsidize the wind industry by requiring electricity utilities to purchase wind-generated power for triple what they pay Bangor Hydro and other  electricity providers,  but then allows the utilities  to pass  the increased cost on to Maine consumers.

The Enemy of my enemy is my Friend. The oil heating industry also showed up in opposition to LD 1810  In particular, they opposed a section that calls for phasing their industry out of the home and commercial heating business and requiring Maine consumers to use electricity for heating.  

While oil and lobsters don't mix well in nature, in Augusta they may together push LD 1810, and the energy industry behind it, far away from its original goals.  


Counteroffensive in the offing?  The Windies will surely strike back and try to retake the conceptual ground , will try to recapture the bill and keep it as they wrote it.  It will be important for those concerned with keeping Maine state waters open for fishing and closed to wind extraction to keep up the pressure on legislators   The work session where the final decision will be made will happen  next week. 


Stay tuned. Stay ready.

The End of Lobstering? Big Wind twisting legislative arms to open ALL Maine saltwater to windmills

The DeepCWind Consortium  is a loose confederation of  entrepeneurs, general contractors, windmill companies, investment bankers, eco-yuppies, engineering firms and others, hunkered down around the multimillion dollar pile of stimulus money that got earmarked to Maine for wind energy R&D.
Listen to Jake Ward of the DeepCwind Consortium visiting Monhegan on Feb 16th describe the newstate  legislation  Click Here (2 minute mp3)

That's right. Representatives of the  DeepCwind Consortium  who came to Monhegan that day  to do a powerpoint presentation on their plans for a brace of R&D windmills off that fair isle, let slip the fact that there is a bill  being bandied about by the Maine legislature - but not yet "released" into public view- that would formally open ALL of Maine's territorial Sea to offshore wind extraction and tide extraction.
But they are restless. The state of Maine has granted them a measly 3,200 acres out of Maine's millions upon millions of  acres of  territorial coastal waters, to snatch wind from.  Filling the view off Monhegan (photo) won't be enough. More Monhegan views at risk . A mere appetizer! They hunger for more.

LOTS MORE

As you read this, the DeepCWind Consortium is busy in Augusta. That unholy choir is singing $weet nothing$ into the ears of  Maine legislative leaders, asking for nothing less than unbridled access to all of Maine's coastal waters.  






Trailing behind them - Canadian salmon farm interests, eager to fill in the spaces between wind turbines and tidecatchers with millions of their genetically engineered little darlings. Following them: feather collectors, for the great number of seabirds that will be attracted by the penned fish and by the wild fishes drawn to the giant floating wind and tide structures will have to fly the gauntlet of those blades as they dive on the fishes, and many shall sadly fail the blade-spotting challenge.

Just as Big Aquaculture tried (and failed, thanks to vigorous defense by small Not In My BaY groups, especially Friends of Blue Hill Bay and East Penobscot Bay Environmental Alliance), the burgeoning windpower industry will try to slowly force lobstering out, square mile by square mile, from wind-suitable Maine state waters. Divide and conquer being their usual tactic, expect Lobster Zone Councils to be pitted against each other. Expect attempts to pit the Down East Lobstermens' Association against the Maine Lobstermen's Association

Towns will be forced to accept "Community Benefit Agreements"  Lobstermen will be put on the PILL : "Payment In Lieu of Lobstering". Forced to give up their heritage "for the greater good" of the investors.  They will be pressured by paid-off ex-politicians, hand in cash-sticky hand with the sold-out "practical" enviros of Sierra Club, NRCM, Island Institute and the ENGO like, who, once the POWER money appeared, seem to have lost any qualms about throwing their friends in the fishing industry under the clean energy bus.

Can this be stopped?  Only if the Legislature's Utilities and Energy Committee sees the light. You can illuminate them by dropping a few words to the committee. Email your words to Kristen Gottlieb, the Committee's hardworking clerk, and ask her to distribute them to committee members.



Be brief and to the point: Opening up any of Maine's coastal waters to commercial wind extraction before any R&D is carried out in the small experimental locations already permitted would be foolishly,  dangerously premature.  


Tell them the industry wants to rush in and take leasehold possession of  100s of square miles of Maine's coastal waters, NOW, so they are grandfathered against responsible regulation is not yet close to completion -  as litigation presently before the court shows. 


Tell them not to allow fast talking energy entrepeneurs, investment bankers, and their surrogates to push through  legislatnio allowing such an outrageous Gulf of Maine-grab to happen

Coastal current chaos coming if wind industry sets up in Gulf of Maine

In Homeric myth the priest Laocoön warns the Trojans against accepting the wooden horse presented them by the suddenly cheerily departing Greeks. Serious FAIL ensues when he is disregarded.

Likewise, Maine fishermen - beleaguered already by a host of corporate and governmental enemies - now find themselves being courted by big energy companies and their hangers-on  consider windmills a sort of "gift" from them. bringing new vertical habitat to marine life to cluster, and causing upwellings, where nutrient-richer seafloor water is pulled to the surface by the energy differential at the surface below where the energy is being extracted frmo the natural environment

But canny fishermen are increasingly wary of the potential for offshore windfarms to put a lasting crimp in Maine's lobster fishery, for these artificial upwellings can wreak havoc by fomenting current-diverting "chaotic excursions" at the interface where the normal lively surface waters of the Gulf of Maine meet the "harmonized" low-energy surface waters that make up  the aquatic 'half-dead zones' found downwind of ocean wind turbine fields.


What could be taking an excursion are the surface currents transporting lobster larvae and other zooplankton down the Gulf of Maine coast from Lubec to well beyond Cape Anne.The so-called "coastal current chaos" may divert larvae-bearing currents AWAY from the coast.

These predictions - and similar dire warnings for the Chesapeake Bay's famed blue crabs - come from an analysis of the results of  the study "Chaotic behavior of coastal currents due to random wind forcing"  by researchers at the National Institute of Standards & Technology in Gaithersburg Maryland, as well as other reports mentioned below.  Those results suggest the possibility that  persistent reduced-energy zone "footprints" could appear downwind of energy-extracting offshore wind removal operations, with implications for current flows. 

Normally, prevailing strong oceanic  winds keep coastal currents close inshore for much of of the Gulf of Maine.  But, diverted even slightly off course by the clash between upwelling  'harmonized' waters surrounding  proposed Gulf of Maine offshore windfarms,  and the normal  Maine Coastal Current, portions of that current may veer offshore many miles prematurely, to expend itself and its luckless planktonic passengers in the deep Wilkinson Basin.  There, a lobster larvae's typical fate is to become prey for the basin's native species.  

But don't worry, the government, the industry and the eco-yuppies are working out "community benefit agreements" in which lobstermen will be paid off for their wandering resource.  The lobster buyers, marketers and retailers, alas, will just have to find new work.


The lobsters, too, will have to fend for themselves.

UPDATE:  Offshore wind power could alter ocean currents This report by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute's Goran Brostrom concurs with the earlier NIST study. 

 "Extracting energy from wind changes regional air currents, which can in turn affect how the nearby ocean circulates", Brostrom told MSNBC. "Generating wind power at sea may disturb ocean currents and marine ecosystems."

Indeed, the upwellings Profesor Brostrom describes as resulting from the removal of energy from  a comparatively small but intensively harmonized  sea surface area in and around a windfarm of the types proposed for the Gulf of Maine are the very chaotic excursions described in the National Institute of Standards study, cited above.