Dana Herrick wrote an interesting piece in the Irregular of Feb 10. I’d like to shed some light on things left in the shadows.
Wind generation that actually produces the amount of power proponents claim is an attractive alternative! If a complex of 1.5 or 3-megawatt turbines actually cranks out 1.4 or 2.8 megawatts of juice each year in and year out it could be a useful part of our electricity plan.
The giant question is… do they? Thus far the operators of these complexes are not flaunting their success and backing their bragging with actual hard data. The average industrial unit in the northeast operates at a paltry 25 percent of its rated capacity! This means that a wind turbine is, over the course of a given year of operation, cranking out one quarter of the energy it is advertised as able to produce! Either they actually generate power for only part of the time, or when in operation they fail to produce the amount of juice they are designed to make, or they are so far from customers that a significant amount of the power is lost in transit or all of the above!
Dana suggests that these windmills are durable. This word means that the machines last.
I recently learned that these turbines have a working life of 25 years, plus or minus. Like any machine they will wear out with time. So we are turning our mountains over to the wind energy companies to do with as they will for a series of machines that will be worn out in just 25 years. Well, brakes wear out and we don’t junk the car. We replace the worn out bits and drive on.
One wind energy company leader commented that as the turbines reach their end of life the decision would be made whether or not to ‘renacelle’ the complexes. In plain terms, if the complex is not making money, if state and federal subsidies have been removed, if maintenance efforts and costs are too high, the actual generators will not be replaced, and the complex will be shut down!
25 years! Unless the government subsidies (from your and my tax dollars) get stripped away sooner, unless our cheerful Maine winter weather strips the blades away, or slaps the transmission lines about so badly that the complex has to be shut off, or unless Mainers decide that we just can’t pay for the massive transmission line upgrades necessary to carry this new part time power to markets… so if things don’t pan out these complexes may not even see service through their first 25 years.
How about the time line of our mountains and the lands beneath them?
The construction of a wind generation complex results in the actual removal of an enormous portion of the ridge top, the tips of the summits themselves. It also results in the digging away or filling in of huge parts of the mountain’s sides and the narrow valleys that must be modified to build the access roads necessary for the construction and maintenance of a wind complex. We are talking about over 1 MILLION cubic yards of material blasted out, dug away and dumped elsewhere at the Kibby complex! In exchange for a generation complex that might not even produce electricity for its estimated 25 year life span, unless renacelled, we are doing things to our mountains that will not be stabilized and recovered from for thousands of years.
When I hike on Bigalow, Sugarloaf, Katahdin or Kibby Mountain I see trees of enormous age, well over a hundred years in come cases, which stand no more than 20 feet high. I see seeps and springs that filter and pass on rain and melt water slowly, managing erosion and minimizing subsequent siltation of the Dead River, the Carrabassett, the Swift, Alder Stream, Sandy Stream in Highland, and countless more water ways beneath these ridges and mountains. How long will it take these trees to come back? How long will it take these seeps and pools and forest ground cover to come back after miles of ridge are blasted and dozed into submission and roads between 30 and 100 feet in width are created?
Please understand, engineering controls, the work done to mitigate runaway erosion, is only done while a logging operation or a camp ground or a wind generation complex is in operation. Once the user is out of business the protective maintenance stops and the culverts plug and wash out, the ditches fill or are breached and the rain (remember last summer?) and snow melt begins tearing the exposed mountains DOWN! And down they come. Each bit of dirt, tiny rock chip and dropped leaf or needle or twig that used to lodge in the forest floor now is washed down and away and into the streams and rivers and ponds. And our fish choke, and our clear rivers turn brown, and weeds and algae and mud fill every available space.
My uneducated estimation is that there will never be a full recovery, especially in the highest elevations. Mountains just don’t regrow when you remove their tops with explosives and dozers and excavators.
Dana Herrick calls the construction being done at Kibby and Record Hill “harmless dirt roads.”
Still believe that? Go look at Kibby for yourself. Go look at Record Hill for yourself!
Dana commented on ‘loud windmills.’ Can we hear these machines from the neighboring communities? Maybe, maybe not. Do they annoy us as we drive by? Perhaps, and perhaps not. But the folks that live under the machines in Freedom, Vinalhaven and Mars Hill certainly can hear them! Until we have all lived under one for a couple of months I don’t think we have any right to comment upon how “loud” or anything else a wind turbine might be. We just can’t know! In place of personal experience I am forced to take the word of Ethan Hall, Wendy Todd and Steve Bennett. These people and their families live under the machines, day in and day out. And they most certainly DO call them LOUD, INTRUSIVE, and MADDENING!
Let’s not get crazy and ban wind generation complexes. We don’t know enough. At the same time, let’s stop the rush to spend our resources, both money and the mountains, on an unproven industry. Let’s freeze all projects not already completed and operating and give the complexes already up and running time to provide real data. How much ‘juice’ is really being produced? How dependable is the flow of electricity? Do these really lead to the shutting down of coal or gas fired plants? Do they actually sustain lower local taxes? Do they actually create long term jobs in the host communities? Can the mountains survive the construction process? Can the deer survive the noise, the vibration? Can we humans live near them?
Remember, if this locally new form of electricity generation is proven to be effective and the things that appear to be unbearable are corrected over the next five to 10 years the mountains and ridges will still be there! We can permit the construction of a wind complex up on the ridges over Rangeley, over Bingham, over Camden or anywhere else the wind blows… once we know that the immediate neighbors and the mountains themselves can endure them. The mountains will still be there!
Let’s give ourselves some time to learn these answers before we dig and borrow and blast and irreversibly destroy our high ground for the sake of ‘GREEN ($$$/muddy brown water) ENERGY.’
Lauri Sibulkin
Phillips, ME
Nice article Lorrie,
Your thought’s all sound good, but remember, The Federal Government wants to give away money and we both know that as long as it’s avaliable, someone is going to be there to spend it. I think your energy should be spent in convincing the Federal Government and our Representives to stop giving away our money and the problem,(if it really is a problem), will take care of itself. Federal Stimulis packages have never worked in this country and they never will. Like them or not, I will maintain that the road network which has been built for these giants are much better constructed than any woods road you’ll ever see in the State of Maine, including the Golden Road in ther north woods. The drainage is good and the restablization of ditches and plunge pools are much better than most. I would also encourage you to work on Our members of Congress in correcting to problems with NAFTA. We should stop giving away our naturan Resources period. Look at the hillside of all the mts you mention and ask wher all that wood wound up. We should grow it, harvest it and keep it here to manufacture with our own people. The same can be said for developing and retaining wind energy. If the numbers work, we don’t need the Federal Government to help.
You have certainly given us all a lot to think about, Lauri. The run off along steep, destabilized slopes, such as are created with the construction of mountain roads can carry away a tremendous amount of material. The velocities attained with this movement of water are enough to erode large sections of land. Our mountains are full of springs which surge under and along the ground during high intensity rainfalls. All these mountain wind projects will require remedial actions due to unforeseen consequences not realized by the engineers and construction crews. I have seen many earthwork projects where man made erosion control devices have failed. The soil of the earth can move slow and it can move fast. Mountain slopes are perfect areas where soil, with the aid of gravity and fast moving water, will move and move quickly. Slicing into the slopes to lessen the road gradient weakens the uphill soil structure. Water saturation magnifies this weakening. I wish a geologist would step forward and bring light to these problems before it is too late.
As to the endurance characteristics of these turbines. Weather conditions on the mountain tops can get pretty severe which will have a detrimental effect on these structures. Combine this with the additional dynamic stresses imparted by the moving parts of the turbines, rapid than normal wear is logically to take place. Vibrations occur throughout all parts of the turbines, including the towers. these vibrations, over time, create stress cracks in the steel. A NASA study reveals these stress cracks can appear within 10 years, but, I wonder if it couldn’t happen sooner with Maine’s extreme temperature ranges. Severe temperature ranges are a another enemy of steel.
You are absolutely right in advocating immediate freeze to any more projects until conclusive proof of their sustainability or proof of folly is evident.
Yes, Lauri. I ask myself daily, “Exactly what is the emergency?” Well, it’s all about the money, of course, none of which will benefit you and me. What happened to the study done regarding the value of Maine’s rural character and maintaining its integrity? Why did the governor want to preserve the peace and quiet of western Maine’s mountains by opposing the changes to the low-flight zone yet he is *rushing* through countless wind projects which will require the blasting of mountain ridge/top, one after another? Why are we being told that there are no noise or vibration issues related to these enormous, 400 foot turbines when we have scientific evidence plus the suffering of some of our own fellow Mainers?
Things are changing and rapidly. The people of Maine are waking up to this potential disaster but we must work quickly as some projects such as the one in Carthage are only months away.
ok lets stop the wind mills an dam the river up in livermorefalls and flood the whole valley, the paper mills gonna shutdown anyway, wait a minute it is shutdown, the water could back up clear to rumford, then there could liltle picnic areas on the shore, whoops you cannt do that either, how about camping sites for the maine homeless people, thats it !
gee if maine only had any jobs,,,,
Ron, you have a great idea. Hydro dams served us well for years and years but that was to simple and rather than putting in fishways to allow for spawning to take place, we had to breach most of the dams and lose the use of productive power supplys. Another example of eliminating something that worked.
i thought i put up a post but it appears to be missing, bulldog censorship again i assume.
I am have the answer to the energy needs of this area, and i am willing to start an investment group for the residents of this area we can become energy independent and keep our electric bills low for the next 7 to 10 years! no wind, no hydro, efficient, cheaper, non-polluting with no greenhouse gas emissions. and i will volunteer it be put in my back yard!
the link i post may have been deleted but if you google Hyperion Power Generation you will find the answer.
Ask some people around how the windmill at Mt. Abram is working — every time I go by the flags are right out straight but the blades aren’t turning at all…..
Bill, that was an unscrupulous decision and a bad investment to purchase that pinwheel from the first salesman that came knocking. Do some research and see the deal taxpayers received.
Did anyone notice that the leaders of this district have not released any information as to the amount of money the taxpayers have saved since this generator was installed?
If there is any cost effective data collected, it’s time to publish the up to date information.
I have been to the Mt. Abram School many times to watch basketball and soccer games, and I have yet to see the wind tower working even though the wind was always whipping right along. Why did we waste taxpayer money on that tower if no generation of power is taking place? Can we send it back and get our money back? I thought a guarantee came with it. Is it broken down? If so, why hasn’t it been repaired? (at no cost of course) . How much money can be made from a tower that does not generate? What kind of scam is going on here against the taxpayers? Come on superintendent and board of directors, give us some answers!