FARMINGTON – People ooh’d and ahh’d, reactions one might expect to find at a fireworks display or concert.
Instead, the focus of their attention was a massive, perfectly-white turbine blade, lashed to a flatbed tractor trailer and escorted by State Police. TransCanada, who is developing a 44-turbine project on Kibby Mountain and Kibby Range in northern Franklin County, held a small gathering for residents outside the courthouse today. Project managers answered questions and handed out ice cream bars as people waited for the turbine blade to arrive.
The blade is part of a shipment of Vestas V-90 turbine parts which arrived at Searsport on March 8. From there, the 150-foot long blades are transported on Route 1 to Belfast, then Route 3 to Augusta, Sidney, Oakland and eventually Norridgewock. They are then taken along Route 2 through downtown Farmington and up Route 27 to the project site, south of Coburn Gore. The state’s public safety departments are warning of possible traffic delays along this route.
TransCanada expects to complete the first half of the project later this year, generating power through 22 turbines on Kibby Mountain. The other half of the project, on Kibby Range, would become operational next year. According to TransCanada representatives, Kibby Wind Power will have the capacity to produce 132 megawatts of power or will meet the needs of 50,000 homes in Maine, once the project is complete.
A similar event to the courthouse greeting of the turbines will be held later today in Stratton, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., at the community building.
The beginning of the end of scenic mountain views in western Maine. We should change form the pine tree state to the spinning metal tower state!
Its not cheaper power, cheaper power would be nuclear power!
Look into it! Remember what Obama said, he wants to bankrupt the coal industry and make your electric rates skyrocket!!!
its a complete failure in Europe, but like everything we think we can do it better, but it won’t be the case!
can you tell me the last time you plugged your car into a windmill!
It will absolutely not lower our foreign oil dependence the only thing that would accomplish that is if we produced our on oil!!!
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/pecss_diagram.html
70 percent of oil goes to transportation!!! 2% percent goes to electrical power!!!!!
Wake up people, the used car salesmen (aka Obama) is selling you a lemon!!!
Hutch
I agree that windmills take away scenic mountain views and the debate on their cost/benefit seems to come down to how much you value the scenic mountain view.
However, it seems to me that nuclear power would only be cheaper in the short term. Don’t we have to ensure against accidents in the construction of new nuclear power plants as well as their safe regulation? Do you trust the government to oversee nuclear safety given their recent track record or should we put our faith in the corporate profit-based systems that run the plants when it comes to nuclear safety? There is also the continuing problem of safe disposal of nuclear waste.
As for our dependance on foreign (as well as domestic) oil, shouldn’t we transition our transportation toward a non-petroleum based engine. I know the technology is not presently available to have cars run on water, sunshine, or exclamation points. I also realize that oil is a finite resource that will eventually run out no matter where we drill. Might speculation on oil’s future availability be a cause in the huge fluctuations in price we have witnessed? This leads me to believe that the increased use and availability in hybrid electric, natural gas or other semi-petroleum based vehicles coupled with increased rail use will help ease the transition from reliance on both foreign or domestic oil to whatever power source is developed to run our vehicles in a postpetroluem future. I’d think twice about coal powered vehicles if you enjoy the sun, but maybe a coalfired flux capacitor vehicle is the wave of the future.
Hutch, this project was in the works, and approved long before Obama was a candidate for president. It would be going forward regardless who was elected last November. And, Obama will be gone in 4 or 8 years…then who will be to blame? Just as people blamed Bush for everything they could, you are already looking to tie Obama to what you see as an inevitable failure of wind power.
The only reason wind power or most alternative energies have failed to prove themselves is because of people with your mentality holding them back. The reason they are expensive is because they are not allowed to grow.
This shouldn’t just be about power becoming cheaper. It is about a business harnessing the wind to SELL power. Obviously, they believe it is a profitable venture in the long term…which means that over time, if people can get over their politically motivated opposition to wind (and solar, nuclear, etc) all of these ambitious businesses will continue to implement new technologies.
The tragedy is that the abrasive business climate created by your type of political opposition to alternative energy has driven business out of Maine, out of the US, and to Canada! This should be a MAINE company…but folks like you have seen to it that the rest of the world will come in, do these projects, and take the profits. People with your mindset let that happen…not the proponents of alternative energy.
Finally, it is not about wind towers instantly reducing our dependence on foreign oil. They are a small piece of a big puzzle. Yes, we should be building more nuclear power plants. But we should also be building more solar plants, wind farms, geothermal plants, tide-hyrdos, and drilling for oil anywhere we can. We need to use ALL our resources, not just those that are politically convenient.
If anyone needs to wake up, it is the people who are still living in the 20th and 19th centuries and oppose anything other than what their political party says is right. Sometimes, I think all their “hot air” would be the best power source of all.
LETS JUST WAIT AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS WITH EVERYTHING
Hutch, the mind of man has never devised a more expensive way to boil a cup of water than nuclear power. Where you come up with the idea that nuclear power is cheap is beyond me, unless you’ve been reading newspapers from the 1950’s. Wind turbines provide inexpensive electricity, they benefit rural communities through jobs and taxes, they’re non-polluting and the fuel is free. Like cross-country transmission towers, people adapt to seeing them very quickly. But it’s change, and some people fear change so they search for something that seems familiar. But consider this-wind turbines can be taken down at any point in their lifespan. A nuclear plant can be decommissioned but not demolished. A nuclear plant is there forever, and I mean f-o-r-e-v-e-r.
J