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FAA Denies Pioneer Green Energy Extension for Wind Turbine Construction

October 15, 2014 by Paul Crowe

Pioneer Green Energy was just handed a pretty serious setback in their attempts to keep their proposed Erie County, PA wind turbine project alive. Any structure over 200 feet tall must receive approval from the FAA before construction can begin. Originally, approvals for the 67 turbine locations were issued on September 9th, 2012 and were scheduled to expire on May 27th, 2014. Since no turbines have been built and no construction has started, Pioneer applied for an extension of the project. Just last week, October 9th, 2014, the FAA denied the extension requests due to objections from air traffic control at Erie.

Due to age of this study and/or ongoing changes to airspace usage, we have determined that an extension to the determination would not be in the best interests of aviation. Therefore, the determination issued under the above cited aeronautical study number will expire on 05/27/2014.

After further evaluation, Air Traffic Control at Erie Tower/TRACON has objected to the wind turbine project extension due to significant radar impacts.

The analysis done by FAA Technical Operations indicates that all of the wind turbines would be in the radar line of sight (RLOS) for the Erie ASR-11 radar and would create unwanted primary returns (clutter) and dropped primary targets in the vicinity of the wind turbines. Beacon would be unaffected.

The wind turbine project will create many unwanted false targets. There is a method to reduce this impact; however it diminishes the capability of air traffic control to provide a safe environment for the aviation community. Therefore, all potential mitigations have been rejected by air traffic control since they would cause additional unwanted radar coverage loss impacts.

Approximately 61 aircraft per day would be impacted.

There is not a No Effect Height (NEH) for the wind turbines to eliminate the radar effects.

The FAA has been able to study the actual radar interference caused by wind turbines in the vicinity of local air traffic at many locations. There are installations around the country where these effects can be observed and, though wind developers try to dismiss these problems, they are serious and easily verified.

It would seem at this point that Pioneer has a pretty significant hurdle to clear should they try to move forward with this project any time in the future.

This is great news for the residents of Erie County and especially for the residents of North East Township.

Filed Under: Wind Energy Disadvantages Tagged With: complex technical issues

What can you do?

  • Be informed! Read as many articles on this website as you have time for, so you can understand the issue. Do your own research. Check us out.
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Comments

  1. Laura Jackson says

    October 16, 2014 at 8:43 am

    What is the PJM queue # for this project? I’d like to see what the grid studies show.

    • Abby Lynn says

      October 16, 2014 at 10:24 am

      The PJM number is Y3-062 and the project is called North East Wind.

Unfortunately

The less you know about wind energy,
the more you'll like it.

Why wind developers never understand …

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

~ Upton Sinclair

Don’t know – Don’t care

Is willful ignorance necessary
to promote wind energy?

No, but it helps.

Climate Change

Another thing I must point out is that you cannot prove a vague theory wrong. … Also, if the process of computing the consequences is indefinite, then with a little skill any experimental results can be made to look like the expected consequences.

~ Richard Feynman, 1964

It’s not on-demand, it’s no-demand

Wind energy is "no-demand" electricity. If the wind isn't blowing and you demand electricity, the answer is no.

Wind – expensive, inefficient, unreliable



December 1923 Popular Science cover dreaming about generating electricity from windmills, and though the dream never dies, the dream doesn't work, didn't then, doesn't now and without huge government giveaways of your money, no wind farms would get built anywhere. The government forces utilities to buy wind power so payments to landowners are simply wind welfare.


Wind energy runs on tax credits

"I will do anything that is basically 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."
~ Warren Buffett - from interview with Fortune magazine

Wind investments and high cost green energy

“I’m in the wind business … I’ve lost my ass in the business. ... Hey, we can get on everything green. We can get on everything renewable. Then the cost of power will go up ten times."
~ T. Boone Pickens - on Morning Joe on MSNBC

Wind Turbine Map

Information you'll only see here.

The complete map of all of the wind turbines proposed by Pioneer Green Energy in Erie County, PA and filed with the FAA. Plans not yet filed are not shown.

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