Into the Wind - the AWEA Blog

Wind energy fared well in Tuesday’s elections, with voters returning wind champions in both parties to Congress, and allowing the current administration’s support for wind energy to continue uninterrupted.

“We’re pleased to see the popular support we’ve always seen in polling validated by the election of so many champions of wind energy who’ve stepped out on our behalf, Republicans and Democrats,” said AWEA CEO Denise Bode. “We heard a lot about wind energy in this election, and it proved to be a winning issue because it is so popular with the American people. As just one measure, an overwhelming majority of the members supported by our political action committee, WindPAC, won their races.”

Among the dozens of Republican wind champions reelected to Congress ...

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Laying off hundreds of workers because of Congress's delay in extending the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC) has been painful, one wind company spokesman said today on a segment aired on Minnesota Public Radio.

Bill Burga, who heads manufacturing in North and South America for LM Wind Power, a company that operates a turbine blade plant in Grand Forks, N.D., and employs many Minnesotans, commented, "This is not good. This is not a happy experience for us. Not a happy experience for our people ... When you take it down like this, it's like stopping and starting a freight train. It can take a long time to wind it down and a very, very long time to bring it ...

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Wind energy in Colorado each year saves a billion gallons of water while avoiding emissions of air pollutants equivalent to that produced by half a million cars, according to a recent report from Environment Colorado. Between 2000 and 2011, production of electricity from wind energy in Colorado grew from zero to 4.7 million megawatt-hours (MWh), and is now producing nearly 10 percent of the state’s electricity.

The group released the report, "Cool Breeze: Less Pollution and More Water Savings from Wind Energy in Colorado, during a press conference at National Jewish Health, a Denver-based hospital that specializes in respiratory and heart ailments. In addition to the billion gallons of water saved, wind energy avoided emissions of more than 1,700 metric tons of smog-causing ...

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Speaking on the nationally syndicated radio program AgriTalk recently, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said that if the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC) is not extended, "that's going to cost a lot of jobs in rural America. We need to not only continue focusing on biofuels, but renewable energy as well."
 
Mr. Vilsack made the statement as part of a Obama-vs.-Romney special on AgriTalk. In a response in support of Gov. Romney, Farmers for Romney Co-Chair Bill Northey said in part, "Many of us in Iowa are still very supportive of the wind energy tax credit. We’ll have lots of discussion with him as we look at the overall picture.”

There's little question that wind ...

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A so-called economic study on wind power being circulated by Exelon Corp. contains some serious errors.
 
The report, prepared by Jonathan Lesser of Continental Economics, says wind integration costs are five times higher than they actually are.  The real total integration cost for wind is under $100 million, which works out to about 3 cents/month on the average electric bill, versus the savings of $5-15/month for wind indicated in a recent Synapse Energy Economics report looking at the effects of adding large amounts of wind to the Midwest utility system, so consumers ...

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As power infrastructure was in the path of Hurricane Sandy this past week, AWEA connected with wind project owners and operators to assess the impact on wind power projects in the Northeast.  It appears that Hurricane Sandy has had some, but minimal, impact on the wind turbines in its path, according to early reports this week from several operators of East Coast wind farms and manufacturers and owners of smaller turbines, most of which started generating electricity again after the storm passed.
 
Initial reports were received by e-mail from a number of wind farm operators accounting for 68 percent of the total 3,700 MW of wind generating capacity in the states located in the path of Sandy.
 
Some companies have yet to inspect all their turbines. The operator of ...

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Voice of America carried an article on wind, birds and bats recently that unfortunately veered toward the sensational, focusing on lawsuits by environmental groups and failing to provide balance and factual context.

What was missing?

Wind farms are not a major source of bird fatalities. The wind power industry regrets the fact that birds occasionally collide with wind turbines, and strives to minimize such events. However, wind power has modest impacts on wildlife compared to other forms of energy generation and causes of mortality, such as buildings or communication towers.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that anywhere from 97 million to 976 million birds are killed by building collisions, 60 million or more may be ...

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The American Energy Alliance (AEA), a fossil-fuel funded organization, has released a new document attacking wind energy.  The document purports to be a “study” based on “research,” but contains no new information or analysis—it is simply an advocacy piece that is entirely subjective, funded by an organization with a particular point of view.

The AEA document contains a number of errors and misrepresentations concerning the U.S. wind energy industry. Specific highlights:

While the U.S. wind industry is no longer an infant industry, it is not fully mature.  The industry has grown dramatically during the past decade, and currently employs 75,000 Americans, with nearly 500 factories from coast to coast producing wind turbines and components.  One ...

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An interesting paper has appeared on ScienceDirect, discussing the results of psychological testing and sound measurements conducted at households near 10 small wind turbines in the United Kingdom.

According to the abstract of "The influence of negative oriented personality traits on the effects of wind turbine noise," the goal of the research was to "[assess] the effect of negative orientated personality (NOP) traits (Neuroticism, Negative Affectivity and Frustration Intolerance) on the relationship between both actual and perceived noise on NSS [non-specific medical symptoms, such as those often reported by individuals concerned about the effect of various ...

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U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) singled out the federal wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC) for praise Monday at a wind farm ribbon-cutting event, saying, ""Wind energy harnessed in Colorado and across the country has to be part of any true 'all of the above' strategy that moves us closer to energy independence. That is why we should extend the production tax credit to promote wind energy that leads to private sector investment like this one, new manufacturing jobs and a clean source of domestic energy. I'm proud to be part of the effort to continue Colorado's rapid expansion into energy production and clean ...

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