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LOOKING AT DEVELOPER AND WIND ADVOCATE CLAIMS

Wind projects will cut dependence on foreign oil.  Not True.  This mixes electric energy production
and fuel consumption.  Less than 1% of oil of any kind is used
in electric production in Vermont (2% nationally). Cars and trucks use
oil and that is where our dependence comes from.  89% of oil use
in the US comes from transportation and heating. 1





Wind will help cut CO2 emissions. NOT SIGNIFICNATLY.   In Germany, which is twice
the size of NE, there are 15,387 turbines.  The MW capacity has
doubled since 2000.  Yet greenhouse gases rose 2.3% since 2002. 
Wind energy accounts for about 4% of consumption.2 
In Denmark, the size of Vermont and MA, there were 4300 onshore turbines
accounting for 24% of electric energy generation.  However, less
than 4% was consumed, and greenhouse gasses rose 5% from 2002 to 2003.3




Wind could replace nuclear when the contract expires.  Not true.  These claims by VPIRG and CLF (stating
which would you prefer) are irresponsible and untrue.  Wind cannot
replace any conventional electric source. In fact, with all the wind
turbines in Germany and Denmark, not one conventional power source has
been shut down. To put this in perspective, the existing Searsburg facility
produced in one year the same amount of electricity produced by Yankee
Nuclear in one day.  We would need 365 wind farms the size of Searsburg
to equal the output of YN, but you would still get NO electricity when
the wind wasnt blowing.4


Wind power can supply enough energ</span><span class="Normal--Char" style=" font-weight: bold;
color: #FF0000;">y for ___ average households.   NOT TRUE.  It is supplemental.  Unless
you want to only have power when the wind is blowing, you must rely
on other sources.  According to Department of Energy, average electric
consumption in the US is 906 kwh<span class="Endnote-0020Reference--Char"><sup>5
per month.6
A 50 MW wind facility with a 30% capacity factor can service the equivalent
of 12,167 households.7
However, if each household in Vermont replaced one regular bulb with
a condensed fluorescent bulb (saving both money and the equivalent of
500 pounds of coal for the life of the bulb) the state would save enough
to supply electricity for 14,500 homes a year.8



Wind will help Vermont lessen acid rain and help stop emissions from
dirty coal plants.  NOT TRUE.  Acid rain is produced by emissions mainly
from coal plants in Ohio that blow in our direction.  Because coal
is a cheap source of energy, like nuclear, it will not generally be
displaced by wind, which will tend to displace natural gas, the cleanest
but most costly of the fossil fuels.  Polluting plants in RPS states
(MA and CT) will be forced to buy green credits that will allow then
to continue
to pollute since they will want to keep their cheapest sources of electricity
(coal, for instance) producing.


The wind industry will provide jobs for Vermonters.  HARDLY. 
Temporary construction and road jobs will be for a few months. 
There are usually 1-2 equivalent full-time maintenance jobs per 20 turbines.


We will lose 2/3rds of our power when Yankee Nuclear and Hydro Quebec
contracts expire in ten to fifteen years.  NOT TRUE.  We are part of the NE grid (currently
we use only 4% from the NE grid) and would never run out of power. 
Canada is especially poised to offer Vermont continued renewable energy. 
Wind development in Canada has boomed, and it is much less controversial
because the government, hence the people, owns these facilities, getting
both the financial benefit and impacts. They could supply a good deal
of our supplemental energy needs and we should be negotiating with them
now for future needs.


Wind projects in Vermont will benefit the local economy with tax and
other payments to local host tow</span><span class="Normal--Char" style=" font-weight: bold;
color: #FF0000;">ns.  Wind developers have generally exaggerated benefits
to local towns with talk of their projects becoming tourist attractions,
producing jobs, and indirect benefits to restaurants and shops. The
small amount of property taxes the town gets (since for many towns much
of it goes to Montpelier) is not worth the great sacrifice in peace
and quiet, quality of life, and environmental costs. A simple cost /
benefit analysis would demonstrate that, in Vermont the costs and impacts
to not only the host town but to all towns in a ten-mile radius would
be greater than any potential benefit.  This is a very profitable
business. The people who will benefit are the developers and their investors
(now more often Wall Street banking and private equity firms), and the
landowners (on private land) that get lease income.


Wind Power in the state will lower electric rates. NOT TRUE.  It is highly unlikely that the addition of
commercial wind-generated electricity in the state, owned by out-of-state
corporations, will have any impact one way or the other on your monthly
electric bill. In Searsburg, neither property taxes nor electric rates
went down.  If, instead of unregulated private developers, the
state owned all the wind plants, and passed the cost savings on to Vermont
ratepayers, electric rates would more likely decline.


Wind Energy Is Clean. In the Environmental Impact Summary of the Wild Horse Wind
Project in Washington State, a 3 MW turbine would use 110 gallons lubricating
oil, 85 gallons hydraulic fluid, and 55 gallons glycol-water mix. Each
substation transformer would use 500 gallons, and each pad-mounted transformer
would use between 12,000-24,000 gallons of mineral oil.  Mineral
oil is simply a bi-product in the distillation of crude oil. These
hazardous materials can leak and contaminate ground water in the area.9


New
turbine technology is better for birds and bats, and has less noise.  Catamount is proposing using 2.5
MW turbines. In comparison to the Searsburg turbines,  these are
over twice as tall (420 feet as compared with 197 feet), the blades
are 2.5 times the diameter, and the swept area six times greater (1.8
acres). With 17 revolutions per minute, tip speed is 191 mph.10 
The noise is in a lower register and low-frequency vibration has been
a serious problem up to a mile and a half away.  Mountains can
magnify the sound and carry it in unpredictable ways.  It is unknown
how this would affect wildlife and birds, let alone people in a two-mile
or more radius.  In fact the new Government Accountability Office
study of the wind industrys impact on wildlife speaks about the lack
of scientific data, and the lack of accountability in general.11

 

Where are wind projects NOT controversial? In the US, on flat or slightly rolling farm or ranch lands,
where several owners get both the financial benefits and the impacts,
and where non-benefiting neighbors are not impacted. The areas in the
Midwest and Texas with significant privately held lands by farmers and
ranchers, and significant wind resources have economies of scale that
New England simply does not have.


Wind energy will help make Vermont energy independent.  NO Vermont
will never be energy independent any more than Florida will be maple
syrup independent.  If the State wanted energy independence, they
would have bought the dams on the CT river.  People in Vermont
like to think of themselves as self-sufficient.  This quality can play an important part
when we will all need to come up with creative solutions to higher energy
costs.


Vermonters are accustomed to a working landscape and
can farm the wind.  Vermont farmers dont farm Vermont ridgelines
and owners of ridgelines in general in Vermont are not local farmers. 
In Londonderry, the owners of the Glebe Mountain ridgeline consist of
a group from New Jersey (owners of Magic Mt) and a large landowner who
i