Sep 7 – McClatchy-Tribune Regional News – Chris Casteel The Oklahoman, Oklahoma City

Original source: http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=16896264

The Obama administration’s emphasis on clean energy and the fight in Congress over energy legislation is creating some tension among certain sectors, including the natural gas and wind power industries.

The American Wind Energy Association has been fighting to counter a recent column in The Wall Street Journal that challenged a key selling point of wind — that it reduces carbon emissions. The industry also is defending its federal subsidies, arguing that they are actually less than those received by oil and gas companies.

“We’ve been under attack by the fossil fuel industry for the last six months,” Denise Bode, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association, told reporters in July.

Bode is a former Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner, but she’s also a former head of the Washington-based trade group for independent oil and gas producers and was a highly visible advocate for the natural gas industry when she worked for the American Clean Skies Foundation.

Now, her organization is claiming that an oil and gas company trade group and think tanks financed in part with energy money are spreading misinformation to discredit wind as a renewable energy source. Read more

Sep 5 – McClatchy-Tribune Regional News – Dave Choate Portsmouth Herald, N.H.

Original source: http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=16868863

The wind energy movement for local residents doesn’t have much wind behind it.

Several Seacoast towns have ordinances that permit residential wind turbines, and on paper, it’s an idea worth mulling. It’s an opportunity to save money over the long haul while doing something environmentally friendly. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, enough power is produced in the country by wind turbines to provide electricity for 9.7 million homes and has been around for decades, so it’s not an unknown technology.

But with only a handful of exceptions, the ordinances and the state law that spawned them has not yielded returns. The reasons are myriad, but many people interviewed last week said a combination of startup costs and lack of viable land and wind speeds made it difficult for towns like Portsmouth, Greenland and Rye, none of which have seen residential applications.

Suzanne Sayer, a member of the Governor’s Task Force on Wind Power in Maine, has extensive experience working with wind turbines. She gave two reasons why it hasn’t caught on for residents.

“It’s not cost effective, and there’s no wind,” she said. Read more

Nell Newman,Graham Chisholm  Friday, September 3, 2010

Original source: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/03/EDEG1F70QV.DTL

If we told you that a poorly regulated energy facility killed thousands of birds this year, you could assume we were talking about BP’s Deepwater Horizon platform in the Gulf of Mexico. But we also could be talking about the Altamont Pass wind farm east of San Francisco, which has been killing thousands of migratory birds and protected raptors since the 1980s.

Michael Macor / The Chronicle

Wind turbines like these near Altamont Pass have been blamed for the deaths of thousands of birds.

Despite being one of the nation’s earliest renewable-energy facilities and being built with good intentions, the thousands of wind turbines have long ceased being a source of pride for environmentalists and are an embarrassment to the wind energy industry.

Not only have the bird kills at Altamont split environmentalists, but they’ve also made it more difficult to get much-needed alternative energy projects approved. Every impact study now includes a cautionary tale about avian mortality at Altamont. Moreover, supporters of the oil and gas industries enjoy shedding crocodile tears about the dangers to birds that wind energy present.

But in the coming weeks, Alameda County officials will have the opportunity to finally address the problems at Altamont by approving a new plan to reduce bird deaths.

The same things that make the Altamont Pass good for wind turbines also make it good for birds. The breezes blowing over these 50,000 acres make it a perfect migratory pathway, and grasslands under the turbines are full of small mammals that attract birds of prey.  Read more

Bill Opalka | Sep 03, 2010

Original source: http://www.renewablesbiz.com/article/10/09/teapot-revisited

Remember that tempest in a teapot a few months ago when it was widely reported that U.S.-taxpayer-funded stimulus money for renewable energy projects was being shipped to overseas companies, with little benefit to American workers?

And that buy-American provisions had to be added, lest the flow of American Recovery and Reinvestment Acts cash grants be stopped?

As I wrote at the time, the reality was a little more complicated than that and that the timing of such a demand was problematic.

Well, a routine project announcement came out this week, which included some facts to demonstrate my point.

The nearly $200 million 74-megawatt Hardscrabble wind project in upstate New York is under construction, meaning it will qualify for about $65 million in stimulus cash grants.

The project is being built by Iberdrola Renewables, using turbines built by Gamesa – two suspiciously Spanish names. Iberdrola is headquartered in Spain but has one of the largest project portfolios in the United States. Gamesa will manufacture the turbines and blades in Pennsylvania. And the towers will come from Wisconsin. Read more

Original source: http://www.renewablesbiz.com/article/10/09/wind-solar-farms-ok-some-williams-act-lands

Sep 1 – McClatchy-Tribune Regional News – Jenna Chandler The Porterville Recorder, Calif.

On Tulare County’s fertile agricultural swaths, solar panels are sprouting in place of citrus-bearing trees and dry grass grown to feed for livestock. Energy developers are harnessing the sun’s rays, adding a new public benefit in the form of alternative energy, and they want to receive property tax breaks traditionally given to farmers and ranchers while doing it.

On Tuesday, after months of debate and consideration given to the opinions of agricultural advisory groups, the Tulare County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to allow them to do so if they meet certain criteria: they are located near an electrical grid, would not result in the loss of future agricultural production, include developer agreements that include financial incentives for the county upon the loss of crop production and the use complies with the principles of Williamson Act compatibility laid out in state law.

Each application for a special use permit to build the solar and wind “farms” on lands under Williamson Act contracts — entered into voluntarily by ranchers and farmers who restrict their land for agricultural production to preserve viable open space in exchange for reduced property tax assessments — will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

In doing so county supervisors have gone, at least temporarily, against the opinions of the California Farm Bureau and the Tulare County Agricultural Advisory Committee, which urged the Board to enact a policy that would require the cancellation of Williamson Act contracts when solar and wind farms are developed on the land.

“There’s an ideological battle here,” Executive Director of the Tulare County Farm Bureau Tricia Stever said. “The Farm Bureau’s contention is that it’s not an appropriate and compatible use … we’re not trying to keep these farmers from going forward from pursuing these uses, we’re just asking that the intent of the Williamson Act not be eroded.”

Board Chairman Steve Worthley said that in the future, the supervisors may consider blanket compatibility. Read more

Bill Opalka | Sep 01, 2010

Original source: http://www.renewablesbiz.com/article/10/09/wisconsin-serves-mixed-bag

Wisconsin lawmakers tackled the thorny issue of siting standards for wind projects by directing state regulators to draft rules. Those regulators have just signed off on their final document.

The Public Service Commission (PSC) of Wisconsin finished administrative rules governing the siting of wind turbines, which considered the work by a task force of utilities, wind developers, environmentalists, realtors and others in response to a state law. The rules apply to wind sites of less than 100 megawatts of nameplate capacity.

I recently spoke to task force member Michael Vickerman when the commission was still holding hearings on the rule. I caught up with him this week after its work was completed. Read more

Bill Opalka | Sep 01, 2010

Original source:   http://www.renewablesbiz.com/article/10/09/cape-wind-advances-again

Cape Wind Associates this week beat back another in a series of seemingly endless challenges to its plans to build an offshore wind farm.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld the ruling of the state Energy Facility Siting Board (EFSB) that had granted all state and local permits to Cape Wind. The court split 4-2 in favor of Cape Wind.

The court’s decision affirmed a May 2009 decision of the EFSB that had granted Cape Wind the first-ever “composite certificate.” Cape Wind had been denied a local permit from the Cape Cod Commission and thus applied to the board for a single permit that would consist of all state and local permits for the Cape Wind project.

While the project is in federal waters, without permission to connect to land-based transmission the wind farm would be killed.

As often is the case, the local commission was the last, best hope for opponents to stop the permitting process. Cape Wind proponents would argue that that would be to the detriment of the state’s overall energy needs. The siting board agreed.

People may not like it, but that’s why state siting boards exist, and why legislatures gave them authority. Read more

Sep 1 – McClatchy-Tribune Regional News – Jay Fitzgerald Boston Herald

Original source: http://www.renewablesbiz.com/article/10/09/cape-wind-dissent-rocks-environmentalists

Environmentalists were thrown on the defensive yesterday after the chief justice of the Masachusetts Supreme Judicial Court warned that a pro-Cape Wind ruling opens the door for future nuclear power plants and oil rigs along the state’s shoreline.

The state’s high court, in a 4-2 ruling, upheld the power of the state’s Energy Facilities Siting Board to overrule local opposition to transmission lines coming in from the planned offshore Cape Wind project on Nantucket Sound.

The ruling was seen as one of the last major legal hurdles facing the controversial offshore wind turbine project.

But outgoing Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, who was in the minority, warned that the ruling set a dangerous precedent. Read more

Bill Opalka | Aug 31, 2010

Original source:   http://www.renewablesbiz.com/article/10/08/wind-blows-back

A think tank fellow and editor has gotten under the skin of wind.

The AWEA webinar, “The Facts about Wind Energy’s Emission Savings,” is a direct response to the media blitz that has been gaining steam in recent weeks. AWEA said the webinar “will discuss facts about wind energy’s emission savings and show how data and studies from grid operators and government sources directly contradict recent false attacks on wind energy.”

Robert Bryce, whose provocatively titled books, the most recent one, “Power Hungry: The Myths of `Green’ Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future,” challenge the underpinnings of renewable energy. Power Hungry advocates reliance on natural gas and eventually, nuclear power.

Bryce is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and editor of the online magazine Energy Tribune. He sometimes favorably cites studies funded by the fossil fuel industry. His reliance on a study of emissions in Colorado and Texas that was supported by Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States (IPAMS) makes him an easy target in the green press as an industry shill. It also gets him plaudits in the conservative media.

The main points of his argument are that hydrocarbons are an essential and extensive part of the United States’ energy present and future, renewable energy has been vastly oversold to and expensive for U.S. taxpayers. But the part that seems to have been the most irksome is the allegation that increased wind energy generation really doesn’t impact CO2 emissions all that much. For a more extensive review of his views, you can check out Bryce’s blog here.

He has made the media rounds this year, most famously in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last week, but I’ve previously read his thesis in the Washington Post and other publications. I haven’t read the book, so I’m not qualified to comment in-depth. Read more

By REBECCA SMITH AUGUST 31, 2010, 6:20 P.M. ET

Original source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704421104575463831686249888.html?mod=WSJ_Energy_leftHeadlines

Exelon Corp. shut its Zion nuclear power plant 12 years ago rather than make costly repairs. Now, after spending more than $132 million babysitting it on the shore of Lake Michigan, the big nuclear operator is ready to have it torn down.

On Wednesday, Chicago-based Exelon, the nation’s largest owner of nuclear plants, is expected to transfer its Zion nuclear licenses to EnergySolutions Inc., a nuclear waste storage and services firm in Salt Lake City, Utah, giving it full control of the Illinois site so it can oversee the demolition.

Both companies say the arrangement could provide utilities with a template for disposing of nuclear plants past their useful lives. It lets a utility focus on its business and puts a contractor in charge of demolition. The contractor receives government-mandated funds set aside years ago for plant closures.

Most of the recent focus on nuclear energy has concerned the cost of building new plants. But there’s anxiety about dealing with old plants, too. Plant demolition poses a challenge because some equipment is radioactive and requires special handling. Radioactive waste must be sent to licensed sites or put in special storage, at the site.

Currently, eight other nuclear plants are shut down and awaiting eventual demolition. Three others are being taken apart currently, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has approved the Exelon-EnergySolutions arrangement.  Read more

By MARK PETERS AUGUST 31, 2010, 2:50 P.M. ET

Original source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703467004575463273452620794.html?mod=loomia&loomia_si=t0:a16:g12:r1:c0.36883:b36972274

Exelon Corp. Tuesday agreed to acquire Deere & Co.’s wind energy unit for about $900 million, giving the nation’s largest nuclear generator an entrance into the wind generation business.

The deal ends a foray by the world’s largest manufacturer of farm machinery into wind farms as Deere sells a unit with limited connection to its core business. The sale comes as deals continue to pick up in the U.S. power sector with companies repositioning themselves amid a prolonged slump in electricity prices and uncertainty over federal regulations.

Under the deal, Exelon will pick up 36 wind farms mostly in the Midwest and Texas able to produce 735 megawatts, or enough to power 160,000 to 220,000 homes, plus a pipeline of projects in development. The acquisition is valued at $860 million with a provision for Deere to get an additional $40 million once construction begins on planned projects. Exelon said it will fund the acquisition with debt.

“We are looking for that intersection of economics and environment,” Sonny Garg, president of Exelon Power, said in an interview.

The deal continues Exelon’s bet on the future of emissions-free generation, which the company sees as growing in value as pollution regulations tighten and climate change rules advance. That strategy has stumbled as proposed federal legislation that put a price on carbon dioxide emission collapsed this year.

Yet Mr. Garg said Exelon sees demand for renewable energy growing, while the economics of the Deere deal means it will add to earnings starting in 2012.   Read more

By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD  The Associated Press Tuesday, August 31, 2010; 5:21 PM

Original source:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/31/AR2010083101771.html

ST. LOUIS — Energy company Exelon Corp. said Tuesday it will pay $900 million for the wind energy assets of manufacturer Deere & Co., potentially signaling an active merger and acquisition period ahead for the power industry.

With energy prices persistently low due to a grinding economic recovery, stakes in the power industry have begun to shift. Power generation facilities like Deere’s massive wind farms are a bargain for big firms like Exelon who have cash on hand.

“Now is a very good time to buy wind assets in general because prices are so low,” said Matthew Kaplan, senior analyst with IHS Emerging Energy Research. “John Deere at one point said they were going to hold off on the sale because they weren’t seeing the proper prices.”

Exelon’s purchase comes on the heels of other big acquisitions in the power industry, as companies look to lock in good deals before an expected recovery starts to boost prices. Earlier this month, Blackstone Group paid $542.7 million to take Houston’s Dynegy Inc. private. In a three-way deal, Dynegy also sold four power plants to NRG Energy Inc. for $1.36 billion in cash.

On Tuesday, Deere said the sale will let it focus on what it does best: building farm equipment. It once saw the wind business as an extension of its agricultural work, with projects located in rural areas.   Read more