On Local residents concerned wind bill would wipe out their work
Posted on April 19 at 8:31 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
I want to thank the Gazette for keeping our community informed regarding the shenannigans South Milwaukee Senator Plale has been up to again. It is sad to think that in this day and age that self profit through bad legislation can even be tolerated by an elected state government. How soon we forget the stories of Enron and the state of California. How soon we forget about predatory and sub-prime mortgage loans, hedge funds, and banks and businesses too big to fail, but so worthy of our bailouts. But, here comes some of most corporate welfare laden, Tamminy Hall style, trust enableling legislation we've seen since the railroads came through. Call Senator Robson, Senator Erpenbach, and Represenatives Davis, Hixson, Sheridan, & Benedict and let them know local control over renewable energy industries is best decided at a local level where people and the community are directly effected. Please remember the PSC has less to say over the necessity and environmentally beneficial effectiveness of private merchant LLCs like "EcoEnergy" than our publicly regulated utilities. Wind developers want Enron sized profits and don't care about health and safety, or the fact that industrial wind power can't stop or slow the burning of coal. My wife and I have cut our electrical consumption by 20-25% just by unplugging what were not using and turning off switches. It is not that big of a deal to do one's part with out handing over the state to greedy worthless wind developers. Keep local control Rock County!
On Economy slows wind projects
Posted on March 14 at 9 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Thanks to the Gazette for keeping the people informed on what is happening in our community! Ecoenergy's information is suspicious at best, or a lot of pig lipstick looking for a sap market at worst. Please go and google (search) 'wisconsin wind maps',then go to the images section and start clicking on all the maps of Wisconsin. The first map is from the Focus on Energy website. There one can find the AWS True- wind Report, wind resource maps from different meter heights (look for the 60meter wind resource map), and the - Wisconsin Wind Resource Assessment Program - or WRAP, Final Report.The WRAP Report had a wind tower study done from '99-'01. Ecoenergy's numbers sound 'better' than almost anyplace in the state hmmm? There are maps from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory ,NREL, that shows our area (Rock County) as "marginal Class 2 wind" 14.3 -15.7 mph at 50meters (that is at 50 meters, not 80 meters like Slaymaker stretches to). Anyone can extrapolate to whatever height they would like and it will still be "Marginal Class 2" as far as a wind resource goes. The NREL maps show the better wind 'resource' blows extensively to the west(the dakotas), and an area of "Fair" resource could be in the east northeast of the state, but it only ranks as "Fair". The Slaymakers of this world are not fair, or even marginal. They are predatory. When they have enough people on the hook with their bad contracts, they'll start crawling again. Please contact Rep.Brett Davis, Sen. Erpenbach, Rep. Hixson, Sen. Robson, and Governor Doyle, and let them know you want local control over where the corparazzi try to put these worthless harmful machines.
On Wind developer continues plans for Magnolia
Posted on July 24 at 7:24 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Oh no, attacking the Magnolia Town Board again? The Magnolia 4H had $200 donated to it by the Town Board to clean the Town Hall at the last annual meeting. Better start there. Better volunteer to fill some cracks, or stop the straying from the issue. Let's stick with the Wind Developers who threatened legal action to put up their Met Tower, who threatened legal action to keep the Board from adopting an ordinance, and who threaten legal/state action to keep their project going now. Let's have the wind developers show a map of where the project will take place, the consenting land owners who have signed on, and review the contracts on how the Wind Developers intend to conduct business within and outside of the Township. Property rights are lost when people sign contracts with wind developers. Bathrooms are cleaned, basements dryout, but industrial scale wind facilities have binding legal control over an area for 30-40 years and change the landscape and community forever.
On Wind developer continues plans for Magnolia
Posted on July 23 at 9:05 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
EcoEnergy is a farce. A vicious land grabbing property rights stealing farce, but a farce all the same. Bjurlin, Slaymaker, DePellis, and Haltaufderheidi of EcoEnergy/EcoMagnolia LLC have been slinking around rural Rock County for more than a year, and they don't have a map of the project area? They want the state to come in and give them control over 8000 acres, but no map? The original EcoEnergy/EcoMagnolia LLC map included 3 square miles of Spring Valley Township, because of Spring Valley's powerlines, but not any more?So who is next... Center Township, Plymouth Township, or will it be Union Township? For the Nimby callers out there, are any of you planning to live or move to a house that has a 40 story tall wind turbine 1000 feet from it's door? There are better ways for rural Wisconsin to get us off of coal, they are called Solar Energy, and Biomass. Search out " Cellulose Prairie" By: Brett Hulsey, out of Madison. The report covers everything from manure to prairie grasses and how they can replace our fossil fuel consumption. Solar is also on the web from solar radiation maps for the U.S., and the world (Wisconsin has better sun energy than Germany), and all kinds of solar products available now and solar breakthroughs that bigwind doesn't want anyone to know about. EcoEnergy wants to profit at our expense, and keep us all grid dependent. Farce.
On Magnolia adopts ordinance regulating wind turbines
Posted on July 5 at 7:59 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Congrats to the Magnolia Town Board for adopting an ordinance that protects ALL area citizens, and not just those seeking to benifit financially from the aggressive tactics of the bubbling wind industry. The wind developers plan for Magnolia Township would cover 8000 acres, or 12.5 square miles. Their plan would also gobble up at least 3 square miles of neighboring Spring Valley Township. Wind developers get control of this land through shifty super-secret contracts that they refuse to share with local governments or concerned citizens who would like to know how business is being conducted in their community. The wind turbines proposed for Magnolia/Spring Valley according to the developer would only generate 25% of the turbines nameplate capacity. The 100 MW industrial wind facility planned would only generate 25 MW of intermittant generation, and would not reduce the burning of coal at all, but the wind developer would have legal control over the 8000 acres for 30-40 years. The adopted ordinance does not prevent individuals farmers or business owners from purchasing and installing smaller personal wind generation systems for their home or business use. This is the responsible use of a wind resource that reduces grid dependency, and reduces coal use. Wind developers don't want you to know that. For the record, Jeff Mitchell grew up in Magnolia Township, and his parents have lived in the township for 35 years. We, all of us taxpayers, will be shouldering the bill for all industrial wind turbines as the wind industry has a tailored federal double depriciating tax structure, that allows them to write-off the cost of thier wind turbines in 6 years. The Magnolia project would cost the taxpayers $210.1 million, for smoke and mirrors and loss of local control. We deserve better, and the Magnolia Town Board is seeing that we get it.
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On Do you support a statewide standard for wind energy that would negate standards set by local municipalities?
Posted on April 22 at 11:17 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
The devil is in the details, and there are a lot of details with industrial wind energy. Industrial wind turbines are extremely bad at reducing emissions from coal fired power plants is the main detail left out by wind developers' lobbying rhetoric.Wind lobbyists paint rosey, ideal wind generation situations using limited/selective information to paint wind energy as the chosen green energy panacea. This is false. It is the utilities' choice of green energy because it keeps us all grid dependent. A better solution would be to take the public tax dollars thrown at wind energy ($10,000 per household) and invest it in county and local solar and biomass electrical generating options. Solar is security against grid failure and biomass conversion can be done using local renewable resources. No corporate wind overlords with their bad legislation required.