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North East Wind Speeds – Enough for Electricity or Just Enough to Collect Wind Welfare?

July 11, 2013 by Paul Crowe

A wind map of North East and the surrounding area

A wind map of North East and the surrounding area

We want to pick up on a point we’ve raised before, how much wind does North East really have and is it enough to run an efficient and productive wind energy plant or is it just a project to qualify for government handouts, sort of a “wind welfare” project.

Way back on June 15th of 2011, an article in the Erie Times by Valerie Myers titled Property Owners Sign on for Wind Farm, said this:

Other wind development companies have looked at the area — and then looked away after measuring wind capacity, township Supervisor Dennis Culver said.

“Two of them have come in since I’ve been here, one out of Canada and another out of New York state, ” Culver said. “They did their studies, and that was the end of it. What they found in the past is that, while the wind blows like hell sometimes, it’s not steady, ” Culver said.

Let’s see some numbers

Wind map speed reference that describes color coding

Wind map speed reference that describes color coding

Well, that’s fine, but wouldn’t you like to see something a little more specific? We did, so how about looking at a map of actual wind speeds in the area, in this map (shown above at the beginning of this article) and drawn up by the National Renewable Energy Lab for the Department of Energy. The map (from here) shows wind speeds of “marginal” to “fair” or 12.5 to 15.7 mph. Marginal to fair? That doesn’t sound so good, but what do wind energy companies think?

Wind Energy America, “a publicly traded energy company that is focused solely on the renewable resource of wind energy,” says this on their FAQ page:

Modern turbines typically begin generating power at wind speeds of 9 miles per hour (mph) and output increases up to 28 mph. Utility scale wind farms need average wind speeds of at least 14 mph to economically convert wind energy into electricity.

So it looks like North East just squeaks in at the bottom end of the scale in the areas where they want to build these turbines, which goes along with what Dennis Culver said above about those other energy companies who looked at this area and left.

Hmm, … couldn’t be money could it? Say it ain’t so …

So why would they want to build them here if the wind isn’t very good? Could it be those government incentives? Well, remember this post a few months back? Both the CEO of a wind energy company and the Department of Energy agreed, that government incentives were encouraging developers to build in places where it didn’t make a lot of sense.

After the 2009 subsidy became available, wind farms were increasingly built in less-windy locations, according to the Department of Energy’s “2011 Wind Technologies Market Report.” The average wind-power project built in 2011 was located in an area with wind conditions 16% worse than those of the average project in 1998-99.

The Department of Energy admits that this trend is due at least in part to the 2009 federal subsidy: Because the grants that companies receive aren’t based on how much power they produce, “it is possible that developers have seized this limited opportunity to build out the less-energetic sites.” Meanwhile, wind-power prices have increased to an average $54 per megawatt-hour, compared with $37 in 2005.

This is certainly beginning to look like someone is after the “wind welfare” money, wind or no wind, which is what we’ve thought all along, but you are free to form your own conclusions.

Filed Under: Wind Turbine Community Involvement Tagged With: taxpayers, wind welfare

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.
  • Tell your neighbors about the wind turbines, point them to this website so they can learn more.

Comments

  1. Richard Batchelder says

    August 6, 2013 at 2:20 pm

    I am NOT a fan of wind energy…..Obama and his green cronies are DESTROYING
    Americas Landscape and Skyline…These Ugly MONSTERS will be Obama’s Legacy.
    Not a pretty picture !!!

    • S. Nunn says

      August 21, 2013 at 2:33 pm

      It isn’t just Obama, Republicans support them, too. G.W. Bush was a big supporter of wind as governor of TX.

      • S. Nunn says

        August 21, 2013 at 2:34 pm

        I just want to add, for clarification, that I am NOT a supporter of wind energy, and oppose the government funding.

      • Paul Crowe says

        August 21, 2013 at 2:58 pm

        Wind turbines are definitely supported on both sides of the aisle. Lots of democrats and republicans are out there waving the green flag, hoping to win votes from someone and hoping to get campaign contributions from wind turbine companies and wind developers.

        A republican congressman from Pennsylvania introduced a bill to extend the production tax credit, and our republican state representative, Curt Sonney is trying to put wind turbines in the lake. Obama and the democrats are pushing “green jobs” and politicians from both parties are happy to jump on board, they seem to like giving away our tax dollars on boondoggles like wind energy.

        • Tammy C Truitt says

          August 25, 2013 at 10:26 pm

          The media is playing a vital role by promoting wind energy without informing the public of the consequences. Wind energy is not environmentally friendly, it is the opposite. Habitat and wildlife are not renewable.

          Setback to residents in most regions in the US are based on project needs rather than science. In Europe, where industrial wind has been in place for a decade or longer, setbacks from residences are based on science. Most exceed 3000 feet and many are in excess of a kilometer. Larger setbacks reduce the health impacts to nearby residents. In Europe, the biggest complaints regarding wind energy are the increased electricity prices, decreased property values, and the blight industrial wind turbines has on their once pastoral landscape.

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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