Windmill Fiasco
New Green Deal proponents, please make notes.
Falmouth spent $10 Million on Wind Turbines. Now it’s shut down for an amusing (to outsiders) reason.
Democrats are pushing a Green New Deal to end the use of fossil fuels and rely entirely on renewable energy. The Cape Cod town of Falmouth, Mass., offers a cold gust of reality on such ambitions with its experience on a $10 million wind-energy investment.
In 2009 and 2011, Falmouth broke ground on two wind turbines on 314 acres of city land next to the wastewater-treatment facility and dog pound. It paid for the first turbine with a $5 million, 20-year municipal bond, and it received $5 million in federal stimulus money to build the second. Falmouth planned to sell some of the energy it generated to the electrical grid of utility company Eversource, formerly known as NStar, so the city anticipated the turbines would generate $1 million to $2 million in annual profit.
Residents quickly grew disillusioned. The turbines rose nearly 400 feet, and light flickered eerily through the blades, which whirled in a circle big enough for a 747. Barry and Diane Funfar, who lived fewer than 1,700 feet away, began suffering from headaches.
Ms. Funfar struggled to sleep, and her husband’s heart started to pound. “The problems were unbelievable,” Ms. Funfar says. “Barry couldn’t live with them. He was bothered every minute [the turbines] were running. I was bothered, too.”
Shut Down as a Public Nuisance
Here’s the incredible bottom line kicker to this story.
- In 2015 the Massachusetts Appeals Court ordered Falmouth to turn off one of its turbines, ruling that it lacked proper permitting.
- In 2017 Barnstable County Judge Cornelius Moriarty ordered both turbines shut down as a public nuisance.
- It will cost between $1 million and $2 million to dismantle and remove them.
- Since that violated the deal, the town of 32,000 is on the hook for another $5 million
Death of a California Dream
Next on the list, (AOC please take notes), Jerry Brown’s Bullet-Train Fiasco Shatters a California Dream.
A decade ago California voters approved a $10 billion bond measure to build a 520-mile high-speed train that would supposedly take riders from San Francisco to Los Angeles in two hours and 40 minutes.
The Obama Administration chipped in $3.5 billion on the condition the first 160-mile segment be built in the San Joaquin Valley district of Democratic Rep. Jim Costa, a longtime bullet-train supporter who provided a critical vote for ObamaCare.
Former Gov. Jerry Brown made the train his special legacy project, his contribution at taxpayer expense to the illusion of stopping climate change. His people sent letter after letter claiming that our editorials were mistaken.
Cost projections for the train have soared to around $80 billion amid litigation, engineering challenges and ordinary government morass. Private investors have run the other way. The state rail authority has spent more than $5 billion acquiring and destroying hundreds of properties but not yet laid tracks. Taxpayers have lost patience, and [Governor] Newsom stated the obvious on Tuesday that “there simply isn’t a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to LA.”
Liberals envision that the bullet train will someday turn Fresno and Merced into Silicon Valley suburbs and ease the Bay Area’s housing shortage. But this too is a dream. As economic consultants William Grindley and Bill Warren document in a recent study, a worker who lives in Fresno would spend 10 hours and 20 minutes each day commuting to San Jose at a cost of $154 round trip—assuming no subsidies.
Two New Green Deals Flushed Down the Toilet
There you have it, two absurd “new green deals”, before AOC even coined the term, both flushed down the toilet. This will be the norm.
Unfortunately, If you believe such failures will stop anybody, you are mistaken.
Expect this battle cry: If only we spent $100 trillion, these projects would have been successful.
Not Joking
I am not joking about $100 trillion.
AOC “New Green Deal” is Stunningly Absurd, Far More Ridiculous Than Expected.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
I know that Judges in the US have strange ideas, but I just don’t get the idea that a judge could: “Barnstable County Judge Cornelius Moriarty ordered both turbines shut down as a public nuisance”. What would he do about high tension powerlines or a chemical plant? The issue here is NIMBY, and little else. Now one thing for sure is that when a local government “decides” to do something little of the normal zoning rules will stand in the way. However, for someone who is 1,700 feet from a turbine to get headache — I guess from…the noise, the electrostatic build-up; 1,700 feet is not close (its not very far either). I suspect that the local government did something illegal and no wants to own up to it. I guess somebody will soon buy a slightly used windmill.
Bad news. The California high-speed corruption project is still alive.
The state has scaled back the project so that it will only connect Bakersfield and Merced. These two towns are fairly rural, and so is the entire area in between. I doubt that a rail link for Sacramento, San Francisco, and Los Angeles would have found a significant number of customers. Yet attractiveness of the link between Bakersfield and Merced is much, much lower. To the extent that anyone would want to take a trip from one to the other (unlikely), he would almost certainly prefer to hop in his pickup truck for that purpose.
California politics is strictly pay-to-play. I cannot understand why the voters continue to support this sort of nonsense.
I don’t think folks would been keen to have an oil refinery built in their neighborhood, either.
Nor neighbors. Much nicer, less traffic and less noise and pollution, to have Malibu to oneself.
“Humans. It’s the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste it and every time I do, I fear that I’ve somehow been infected by it.”
The cost of wind energy keeps going down, exponentially. The same is true of solar. Many utilities are investing because it’s cheaper in the long run. Wind and solar have no fuel costs, and incremental gains in technology, manufacturing, and scale will keep making them cheaper, while the costs of additional fossil fuel can only increase at the margin (we’ve gotten to the easiest reserves first). There’s nothing wrong with the public sector giving a boost to bump up the acceptance curve. We wouldn’t have had nuclear or telephone without a boost either. Not to mention that direct subsidies for fossil fuels top $500 billion globally, more than 4× as much as renewables. And according to the World Bank (all leftists, you think?) the total subsidy to the fossil fuel sector tops $5Tr if you include the health costs and environmental degradation, which are externalized on the public at large.
There is something wrong with “the public sector giving a boost to bump up the acceptance curve”. The problem is that it usually chooses the wrong thing, and one reason it does is corruption. It’s more important to the public sector to line the pockets of donors than to choose the right thing.
A better approach is to tax the dying sectors, and let the free market work on the new ones.
Nonsense. You’ve obviously never been through the DOE grant application process.
Yeah, I’m going solar — because the cost of electricity is going UP every year thanks to CT state mandates and interference. Suddenly, impractical green energy is looking good.
Good heavens, say something with enough authority and people will start believing you. I don’t believe a word you’ve stated and many of what you have said is patently false. For example, just look at what is at the bottom of every wind turbine, and that is what the industry calls an electrical transformer. If you don’t have an electrical connection to start up your turbine, you have no turbine.
Do you think the transformer is a start motor?
Yes, it is required for start up and control.
I did not know that. Thanks.
If you just make up arbitrary items like “degradation” and assign arbitrary costs to them, they yes; anything can cost whatever you want it to cost.
And, do you really believe that absent some government employee meddling with a chuck of other people’s money; that for all of posterity, noone would ever have put together a telephone, had the meddling not occurred? Do you also believe the same holds for the wheel?
Even nukes. The only reason people didn’t invent it outside of government, is because, by the time the tech was ready, government had already monopolized war fighting. Up until that happened, people somehow invented and improved weapons all by themselves. Ditto communication devices.
Your blind faith in the all-encompassing power of markets is touching, but addled.
Everyone laughed at solar and wind saying it would never be affordable. While some still think it isn’t, new solar or wind in appropriate areas is cheaper than coal. Bullet type trains make sense if the population is large and the distances aren’t to great.
People always find something to b*tch about. Try and open a new refinery or chemical plant any where near a populated area or water tributary. You can’t build pipelines now without someone complaining. Our city inspectors worried about noise from solar panels – until someone pointed out the millions of photons screaming down on the panels didn’t make much of a noise when they bounced.
A list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies at
*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.
Of course, the dirty little secret is that all of these were SUPPOSED to fail. Everyone who started these companies knew they would. They got free grants and easy loans, took a fat salary, charged personal items to the company credit card, lived high and mighty at the best resort hotels, flew first class, leased Rolls-Royces as company cars – and then walked away from the burning mess to the comfort of their McMansions, all paid for by the all-caring U.S. Treasury Department.
Yeah, the Rolls-Royce part is a lot of drivel. And of course some were expected to fail, this was early investment in new technologies, something that the market needs help from government from risk perspective.
Why is it that the people who don’t understand risk seem to expect perfection in government but not anywhere else.
Boring.
You’re right. Only one of the accused actually leased a Rolls-Royce. But its a nice touch.
I don’t expect perfection, and its nice that the article mentioned how many investigations were underway to expose the fraud. The fact is, ALL of the startups were Obama campaign donors (typically $10,000 for the loan winners, $20,000+ for the grant winners). What are we to make of this except that it is pure corruption?
“What are we to make of this except that it is pure corruption?”
Some proof, rather than speculation, would help.
And do you really think that this is unique to the Obama administration (if there is evidence to back up the claim “The fact is, ALL of the startups were Obama campaign donors (typically $10,000 for the loan winners, $20,000+ for the grant winners).”)?
The guy who invented the wheel, was really lucky that there was a government there to help him inventing it, “from a risk perspective.”
But, of course, thiiingz aaaaare aaaalwayyys diiiiferent, nooow in Progresivestan. And, conveniently, always diiiiiifferent in a way that necessitates ever greater overreach by those who happen to be the best connected at any given time.
So, how much of your pension savings portfolio is invested in high risk leading edge technologies such as new power sources, materials research, battery technologies, etc.?
Let’s take Sunpower. The funding for them was started before Obama was in power:
And it looks like the Johnson Control situation is far more complex than is made out:
And, of course you know, those great supporters of Obama, the Walton Family, were the primary shareholders in First Solar.
You might not want to believe everything you read from the Heritage Foundation’s rag The Daily Signal (Heritage is funded partially by Betty DeVos, and Trump relied on Heritage lists to staff his government, if you want to talk about corruption).
In order for these companies to survive they need to double there prices. It could happen when you end the fossil fuel industry.
Oh hey, the exchange rate for old Marks to the dollar in June 1924 was set at 4.2 trillion to one. I predict a similar exchange rate for Federal Reserve Notes to the Neuvo-Dollar some time after the New Green Deal works its magic. So basically, AOC’s dream will end up costing $23.81, a small price to pay for our childrens’ future, I think you’ll agree.
No worries, CA can finally get rid of the proposition that halted raising personal property real estate taxes and finish it. If the fed had unlimited digital zeros like AOC plans on having it wouldn’t have been a problem. Is Obamaland in Chicago still going forward?
I met if CA had unlimited digital zeros. Im still blown away AOC thought NYC was giving Amazon 3billion upfront what an idiot!! Libtards will elect anyone!
I have friends who live in the Valley, very Republican friends. The central valley of California is one of the last reliable Republican areas in CA, but they have no money. Thus cities as far from LA as Bakersfield in the valley (and even beyond) had been speculating that the high speed train would make them commuter cities for LA (I believe there was also speculation in the north of the valley about SF commuting).
They are gutted at this decision because all their dreams of participating in the housing bubble in SF and LA has just blown up.
Most of the people I know in SF and LA couldn’t care less – it isn’t like they commute between the two cities on any regular basis – the driving force moving people between NY (finance) and DC (power) doesn’t exist between SF and LA.
However the tax base is in the cities, so the liberal cities are thanking Newsom and the Republican valley is upset – he is playing to his base.
Once upon a time … when real men thought a railroad would turn big profits, they sold bonds and built it. (Pay no attention to the fact that the real profits were made by those who bought the line out of bankruptcy at 10cents on the dollar because the original speculators paid too much.)
If there was real money to be made running commuter trains to Silley Valley suburbs, there are plenty of Billionaire$ out there to invest. Unless their real intent is to just strip mine this place.
“Brown’s Folly”. Britain had a “Brown’s Bottom”, so why not?
Let’s see.
$3.5 billion of Federal Funds to build something cause a president just wanted it…
To build something straight, long, continuous, going over private property…and barely even made the news.
Now, Governor Newson won’t give the money back after canceling the project.
But a wall is racist and is a constitutional crisis. Maybe because it is not a bribe to get a critical vote?
++++
The Obama Administration chipped in $3.5 billion on the condition the first 160-mile segment be built in the San Joaquin Valley district of Democratic Rep. Jim Costa, a longtime bullet-train supporter who provided a critical vote for ObamaCare.
The valley is still going to get their high speed train – but it is useless to them – 5 and 99 are operational freeways and there isn’t much demand to go faster between Stockton and Bakersfield (or where ever the new termini are). The real fight over land was going to be in San Jose through the Peninsula in the north, and the northern LA suburbs in the south – all liberal bastions.
If you think this is one in the eye for liberals you don’t understand CA politics or geography – let alone the excitement in the (very Republican) Central Valley over the chance of becoming commuter cities (and thus increased property values).
There are many wind turbines on farms in N Dakota where I hunt pheasant. They provide a very nice annuity for a farmer who has some higher ground that might not produce the equivalent in wheat. To the farmer, the pulsing cycle wave is the sound of money. And no city folks to bitch and complain to the county commisssion.
But, but… no useless politician or “activist” gets to grandstand and take credit for those. Hence, in dystopia, they don’t count.
Let’s not forget solar panels cause global warming. Of the 1200 watts of sunshine striking the panel, ~200 watts is converted to electricity, ~200 watts is reflected, and ~800 watts is converted to heat. Of the 1000 watts absorbed 20% is useful. Then there are transmission losses from the solar farm through the power grid. Gas turbines are at least 25% efficient, even with carbon scrubbers on the smokestacks. Plants and trees need the carbon dioxide anyway.
One of the things that they dont take account of, is when you want to buy something like a train set, all the prices go up. Then factor in the huge corruption and it isnt so difficult to see how these projects can fall apart.
I personally reckon that a high speed line from San Francisco to LA is a good idea. To make it happen, you would either need to fund it privately with a ruthless yet engineer minded businessman running it, or get the US Army engineers to build it.
The problem is buying up the private property. This makes laying new tracks almost impossible in the USA.
Exactly! If you need to acquire specific plots of land for your project, the last thing you should do is announce the plan to the world.
I guess Jerry isn’t a poker player.
Get rid of zoning and land use laws of any kind. Tax property, rather than income. Done.
The Chinese could build it quickly and under budget.
When they retire those turbines at the end of the 20 year life cycle, they remove the generators and blades and they leave that 400 foot tall steel monstrosity sticking up in the landscape and abandon it. BTW, we have some of those things south of us about 20 miles and if you stand near them for a while they are turning, that low frequency cycle sound wave pulsing will get to you. Your ear drums feel it actually feel it rather than hearing it as a normal noise.