The government is trying to reel in the red tape that is keeping offshore wind farms, like this one, from being built in the US. (Photo by Les Salty, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
The biggest obstacle to putting wind turbines offshore – out of sight of the shoreline – is not technology. It’s not money. It’s government red tape.
Now, the federal government says it wants to streamline the permitting process. Mark Brush reports the goal is to get offshore wind turbines off the drawing boards and into the oceans:
Transcript
The biggest obstacle to putting wind turbines offshore – out of sight of the shoreline – is not technology. It’s not money. It’s government red tape.
Now, the federal government says it wants to streamline the permitting process. Mark Brush reports the goal is to get offshore wind turbines off the drawing boards and into the oceans:
There are several states that are hoping to build the country’s first big offshore wind farm.
The government says sighting wind farms in the ocean is a great idea. It’s windy. And the giant wind turbines could provide power in places where it’s needed most – to the big cities off the nation’s coasts.
But there’s some fighting going on between government agencies. And that’s been tripping up permits for these wind farms.
Ken Salazar is the Secretary of the Interior. He recently spoke to a Senate committee about the infighting:
“There has been a jurisdictional feud that has gone on for quite awhile – unresolved – between FERC and the Department of Interior relative to the sighting of renewable energy facilities in the Outer Continental Shelf.”
Salazar says the agencies have now reached an agreement. So there shouldn’t be any more delays at the federal level.
But offshore wind farms face a lot of hoops at the state level as well. So it still could be awhile before the country’s first big offshore wind farm goes up.
In his last days, President Bush changed rules that made it easier to blow off the tops of mountains to mine for coal. (Photo by Sandra Sleight-Brennan)
One of the last things the Bush administration did was change a rule to allow coal mining companies to dump debris into streams. That means one mining company will be able to remove one of the last mountaintops in a West Virginia county. Sandra Sleight-Brennan reports:
Transcript
One of the last things the Bush administration did was change a rule to allow coal mining companies to dump debris into streams. That means one mining company will be able to remove one of the last mountaintops in a West Virginia county. Sandra Sleight-Brennan reports:
Gary Anderson takes me out on his back porch and all you can see is Coal River Mountain. Even on a cold, gray winter day, it’s beautiful.
“All of that mountain range of there, that is Coal River Mountain– that mountain runs for about 3 miles up there.”
When he retired, Gary and his wife Barbara moved from Connecticut back to her family home in Colcord, West Virginia.
“That’s basically what brought us back. Is the mountains and the beauty. We grew up here and we came back to spend the rest of our days here. We thought were coming back to what we remember– the beautiful mountains. And really they just started doing the mountaintop removal over here in the past couple years.”
Other mountains in the area– Cherry Pond Mountinan and Kayford Mountain have been flattened so energy companies could get to the coal inside them.
Over one million acres in West Virginia, Virginia, and Kentucky have already been leveled to mine the thin vein of coal.
The mining companies dynamite the tops off to get to the coal underneath.
“Once in awhile you’ll see a big puff of dust go up in the air like a bomb has been dropped and in awhile it will settle down and then it will happen again the next day.”
Mountains are shorted and flattened–- often by 100’s of feet to get to a 14-inch seam of coal. What the dynamite loosens is dumped in the valleys. Thousands of miles of streams have been covered over and nature destroyed.
It’s pretty simple. They put dynamite in the mountain and blow it up.
Joe Lovett is the Executive Director of the Appalachian Center on the Economy and the Environment. He’s been fighting mountaintop removal for the past 10 years.
It’s like a layer cake. The mountain is like a layer cake and that coal is the icing. The dirt and rock in between is the cake. There is a lot more dirt and rock and mining waste than there is coal. And when they blow up the mountain the dirt and rock swell. So they have even a bigger problem because they have more material than they know what to do with. So, as they blow the mountain up they need to find something to do with the dirt and rock and they dump it into the streams and the valleys.
Dumping into streams was stopped. The Surface Mining Act’s Stream Buffer rule protected the streams. But the new Bush administration rule changes that.
Joe Lovett says that Coal River Mountain fair game for Massey Energy to blow the top off and fill the valleys.
“We have always believed that the rule prevented these fills, that and I guess so did the coal industry and the Office of Surface Mining because this has been the main thing that the coal industry has wanted from the Bush administration for a long time is that change in this rule.”
Lovett says its not good for the environment and it’s not good for the local economy.
“We are taking mountains that could support sustainable timber jobs for generations and, in a few short years, destroying them forever and mining them in such a way that those forests will never come back.”
The mining industry argues that we need this inexpensive energy source in order to be energy independent. But, says Lovett and other environmentalists, if valley fills were outlawed tomorrow the cost of coal for our electric rates would only go up by pennies.
I’ll also talk to an official of the mining industry about why this type of mining needs to continue. The fact it provides American energy and jobs and that West Virginia’s economy depends upon it.
Back at Gary Anderson’s home, he wonders how it came to this.
Who gave them the right to blow the tops of mountains off to get the coal? I mean, that’s what gets me. Where, back in time, did they get the permission to come in and just below the mountains up? It’s really unbelievable. You can’t go back and reconstruct a mountain that’s been here for hundreds of millions of years. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.”
But, the mining companies now have the legal right to level the top of Coal River Mountain and fill up the valleys and streams above Anderson’s home.
For The Environment Report, I’m Sandra Sleight-Brennan.
Gary Anderson in Front of Coal River Mountain (Photo by Sandra Sleight-Brennan)
Mountaintop removal coal mining blows off the tops of mountains to get to a thin layer of coal. Environmentalists say there’s a better way to extract energy from mountain tops. They want to put up wind turbines. Sandra Sleight-Brennan reports they believe it will mean more energy in the long term and less environmental destruction:
Transcript
Mountaintop removal coal mining blows off the tops of mountains to get to a thin layer of coal. Environmentalists say there’s a better way to extract energy from mountain tops. They want to put up wind turbines. Sandra Sleight-Brennan reports they believe it will mean more energy in the long term and less environmental destruction:
Coal River Mountain is one of the last in Raleigh County West Virginia, and it’s next in line for mountaintop removal mining. A local group, the Coal River Wind Project, wants to build a wind farm along the mountain’s ridges.
Lorelei Scarbro has lived most of her life in the West Virginia coal fields. She’s the daughter, granddaughter and widow of coal miners. She knows her opposition to coal mining is seen by her neighbors as a direct threat to their jobs.
“It has been difficult. But people begin to understand that we’re not trying to take something away from them. You’re trying to add something to the area.”
She says mountaintop removal coal mining is short-term gain with long-term damage.
“The pace we’re going; it will be nothing left. I have a five-year-old granddaughter, and I can’t imagine what the air and water will be like when she is at childbearing age if we continue at this pace, because they’re covering headwaters streams, they’re starving off the water supply, they are destroying the air.”
And the next mountain in Scarbro’s home area to be mined is likely Coal River Mountain.
That’s why Coal River Wind Project commissioned a study to see if wind turbines would work. It turns out, the mountain has industrial strength wind. Enough to power 164 turbines. The project would create 200 local jobs during construction, and 40 permanent jobs. Rory McIlmoir is the project coordinator.
“The wind farm would generate an average of $1.74 million a year for the first 20 years. In year one it would generate over three million dollars. That’s the property tax. Blowing up the mountain for coal, on the other hand, would only bring $36,000 back to the county.”
That’s just the property taxes. The wind farm would make about $1.75 million dollars a year in revenue according to the study.
But the wind project has hit a stumbling block. A recent Bush administration rule change allows mining waste to be dumped into streams. That’s cleared the way for the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to approve a permit for Massey Energy to do mountaintop removal mining here. If the mining occurs, the mountains would be lowered by several hundred feet. That would scrap the wind turbine project.
Activist Lorelei Scarbro thinks the wind project is the one thing that can stop the destruction of Coal River Mountain and others targeted for mountain top removal coal mining.
“It will save the mountains, it will save the wildlife and the hardwood forests and the vegetation and the water. It’s something that is desperately needed. Of course, our biggest obstacle is the fact that that the land is leased to the coal company.”
But the people who own the land say, if coal mining were stopped by the government, they’d consider the wind farm. The wind farm project coordinator, Rory McIlmoir, says they’d benefit for a lot longer if they did.
“Because, if they can make a few million each year from royalties then they’re interested in that. But, the choice right now is easily coal.”
The Coal River Wind Project has presented the study to West Virginia’s Governor. And 10,000 people signed a petition asking the state to think beyond coal and think about the future of energy, the economy, the mountains and the people.
For The Environment Report, I’m Sandra Sleight-Brennan.
Many bats are being killed by wind turbines (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
The wind turbine industry has made
changes to reduce the number of birds killed
by the spinning blades. But scientists are
finding that more bats are being killed.
Rebecca Williams reports one research team
thinks it now knows why:
Transcript
The wind turbine industry has made
changes to reduce the number of birds killed
by the spinning blades. But scientists are
finding that more bats are being killed.
Rebecca Williams reports one research team
thinks it now knows why:
It’s been a mystery why bats are getting killed by wind turbines. They’re
usually great at avoiding collisions because they sense moving objects
even better than still ones.
A team from the University of Calgary looked at dead bats near
turbines. They found that 90% of the bats had internal bleeding.
Erin Baerwald is the lead author of the study. She says there’s a sudden
drop in pressure near the tips of the turbine blades. And when bats fly
close enough, the pressure drop makes their lungs over-expand and
burst. She thinks the bats are attracted to the turbines.
“Maybe they see these tall turbines as trees.”
That’s because most of the bats that are getting killed are tree roosting
bats.
Baerwald says researchers are looking at ways to change turbines to
avoid killing bats.
The Tehachapi Wind Farm in California. The turbines produce enough electricity to meet the needs of 350,000 people each year (Photo courtesy of the Department Energy)
Large wind turbines are popping up all over
the United States. But some homeowners are beginning
to put up their own backyard wind turbines. Lester
Graham reports:
Transcript
Large wind turbines are popping up all over
the United States. But some homeowners are beginning
to put up their own backyard wind turbines. Lester
Graham reports:
Dozens of companies are popping up, making these smaller wind generators.
Southwest Windpower is one of the older manufacturers.
Andy Kruse is a Vice President there.
He says these smaller wind turbines can supply power for houses on the grid; maybe
even enough to sell some electricity back to the power company. But some states
haven’t passed the laws necessary to require power companies to allow the turbines to
be hooked up to the grid.
“States that have yet to do that, you know, they have to question it. I mean, some of
them have never even heard something like this either for solar or for wind, so it’s a
learning curve for them.”
Kruse says home-grown wind power is starting to catch on, with thousands of people
asking about getting their own small wind turbine put up in their backyard.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
Wind turbines can be both a blessing for farmers, as a source of extra income... and annoying to the neighbors. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Wind farms of huge turbines are springing up along coastlines,
windy ridges and blustery farmland. Most of us see them from a distance.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Lehman recently visited some
of them up close… and has the first of two reports on wind energy:
Transcript
Wind farms of huge turbines are springing up along coast lines, windy ridges and
blustery
farmland. Most of us see them from a distance. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Chris
Lehman recently visited some of them up close… and has the first of two reports on
wind energy…
If you can imagine the sight… there are 63 wind turbines scattered across the
prairie farmland,
their huge blades sweeping around, capturing energy from the wind. Each turbine is
213 feet
high. You can see them from miles around. But it isn’t until you stand directly
underneath the
80-foot long blades as they rotate in the wind that you begin to appreciate their size…
(sound of wind from underneath turbine)
“This is probably a typical day. They’re probably producing at about 30 percent of
what they are
rated at, and probably on average, for a year, this is what you’d expect.”
Christopher Moore is Director of Development for Navitas Energy. The Minnesota- based
company opened the Mendota Hills Wind Farm in northern Illinois just over a year ago.
Q: “What are some of the highest levels that you’ve reached?”
“Each turbine is capable of producing 800 kw, and there are times when we’ve had the
windfarm
working at about maximum.”
Moore says the Mendota Hills Wind Farm produces enough electricity to power about 15-
thousand homes per year. It’s the first wind farm in the state of Illinois.
Brian Lammers is a Project Manager for Navitas Energy. He says the location is
ideal since it’s
windy here nearly all year long…
“The wind here is more robust in the fall, winter and spring. So we have more
production during
those months than we do during June, July, August.”
Unfortunately, the summer months are the months that most often experience peak
demand for
electricity. Because of that, and because it takes so many windmills to generate
lower amounts of
power, it’s unlikely that current wind energy will completely replace fossil fuel
generated power.
(sound of turbines)
On the flat prairies of Illinois, the giant turbines are the tallest structures for
miles around. You
begin to wonder about things like lightning strikes…
“We might have experienced one or two last year. The turbines are protected from
lightning. The
entire wind farm is grounded, so if there is a strike typically it will just be
grounded down to the
ground grid. There’s typically no long-term damage associated with a lightning
strike. But as you
can imagine, they’re the tallest structures around so there are periodic lightning
strikes.”
Q “What about a tornado? This is tornado country…what would happen if one came
through
here?”
“I don’t know. These turbines are built to withstand everything but a direct strike
from a tornado,
so I think the same thing would happen to a wind turbine that would happen to any
large
structure if they were struck by a tornado. You’d probably have some significant
damage.”
(fade up sound inside turbine)
Inside the turbine, there’s a distinct hum as the blades whirl away at the top of
the hollow shaft.
It’s about ten feet across at the base, and a metal ladder allows anyone brave
enough to climb all
the way to the top.
Despite the hum of the turbine’s blades up close, the sound fades away just a few
dozen feet from
the tower. But noise isn’t much of a concern for this wind farm. It’s in the
middle of a soybean
field and there are no neighbors nearby.
Noise is just one of the aesthetic concerns for neighbors of wind farms. Appearance
is another.
The Mendota Hills turbines are coated with a special paint that appears white in
bright sunshine.
But when the sun’s not out, the turbines appear grey, and seem to blend in with the
cloud-covered
sky.
Dennis Cradduck has 19 of the turbines on his corn and soybean farm. He says the
wind farm
hasn’t been a problem. Of course, he’s getting paid by Navitas for allowing the
turbines on his
land. But he says the wind farm has led to an unexpected benefit: getting to meet
people from
across the country who pull off the highway for a closer look…
“We get people almost on a daily basis that drive by on the interstate and see them,
and stop and
want to look at them, and they’re amazed at them, and most—about 99 percent of them
have been
positive comments. In fact, one fellow from North Carolina stopped the other day
and said ‘I wish
we’d build more of these around the country because we need renewable energy.'”
The prospect of more renewable energy is appealing to most environmentalists. But
some worry
that wind farms can be deadly to birds. A study by the National Wind Coordinating
Committee
found that wind turbines kill an average of two birds per year.
Another concern is that windmills disrupt the scenery. But the only view around
here is farmland
as far as the eye can see. And on this brisk day, it isn’t just corn and soybeans
being harvested: it’s
the power of wind.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chris Lehman.
Most people think renewable energy is a good idea. It’s better
than burning fossil fuel to create electricity. But “green energy”
alternatives
can be controversial. Windmill farms are springing up all across the
nation.
Some people think the windmills are eyesores. But others say windmill farms
can help preserve the agricultural landscape by supplementing the income of
farmers. In the second of a two-part series on wind energy, the Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Linda Stephan reports:
Transcript
Most people think renewable energy is a good idea. It’s better than burning fossil
fuel to create
electricity. But “green energy” alternatives can be controversial. Windmill farms
are springing
up all across the nation. Some people think the windmills are eyesores. But others
say windmill
farms can help preserve the agricultural landscape by supplementing the income of
farmers.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Linda Stephan reports:
For 30 years, Matt Mauer raised crops and livestock on his farm about 10 miles from
the Lake
Michigan shoreline. Today, he’s in his backyard looking at the land now farmed by
his daughter
and son-in-law. Standing there, he feels a crop they’re not harvesting.
“The good Lord makes it windy all the time for us, so let’s use it, you know.
Because I’m like
everybody else. When I get up in the morning, I want lights.”
Mauer’s hoping to put four wind turbines on his family’s farm near Ludington,
Michigan. That
would power about 24-hundred homes. Nearby, a renewable energy company’s working with
other farmers to build a hundred turbines in the area. Mauer says many of his
neighbors want in
on the deal because they think wind energy could help save their farms.
“It’s hard to make a living just farming right now. And I consider the wind one of
the crops that
we could harvest. It will help keep farmers on the land. Like if, in this place, if
we could get
seven–thousand dollars a year, six-thousand dollars a year for four of them, that’d
make it a hell
of a lot easier to keep the people here and farm.”
The state government’s backing similar projects. It’s training financial advisors
to show farmers
how they can turn a profit with windmills.
But not everyone likes the idea. Some people who live in the area around the
planned windmills
say they’re worried the towers would destroy the region’s charm. That’s linked to
property values
and to tourism. And they don’t like the size of the proposed windmills. Each one
would be four-
hundred feet tall. The blades would have a diameter nearly as long as a football
field.
It’s a story that’s heard in many places. Cape Cod, Massachusetts, the prairies of
Illinois, and
around the Great Lakes. For example, a Michigan couple who wanted large-scale
turbines on
their property ended up losing a court-battle against local government that opposed
the plan. And
two turbines already in place in Mackinaw City – between Lake Michigan and Lake
Huron –
have some unhappy neighbors as well.
Thomas and Virginia Alexander’s home is about 15-hundred feet away from the windmills.
They’re in their eighties and they both wear hearing aids… but even without them,
they say the
windmills are loud…
Tom Alexander: “There’s things about it we don’t appreciate, at times the noise –
not always –
depending upon the wind and the direction.
Virginia Alexander: “Yesterday. Very noisy yesterday. The wind was high and they,
you could
really hear them.”
Tom Alexander: “Just a continual swish, swish, swish, swish, swish.”
Windmill developers say the sound is no louder than normal speech. But this noise is
different. It
goes beyond the frequencies of normal speech. The sound can travel long distances
through both
the ground and the air. They keep Virginia Alexander awake some nights.
Tom and Virginia Alexander’s son Kelly lives next door with his family. He calls
himself a
windmill victim. He has this advice for others:
“Don’t let them go in your backyard. There are places they can go. You don’t just
put those in
somebody’s backyard. I don’t think it’s right.”
A lot of people agree with the Alexanders. Even wind energy boosters concede that
location is
key to successful projects. David Johnson heads up the program for the state of
Michigan that’s
encouraging farmers to allow windmills on their land. He says turbines should be
constructed
where there’s lots of wind and few neighbors. But he says when people say ‘no’ to
windmills,
they should consider the alternative.
“So, does that mean that you should build another big coal-fired plant? Is that the
preferable way
of doing it with the global warming impacts and the mercury pollution and so on that
go with
that? Is that the choice that the public wants to make?
States across the nation are struggling to find the right balance between clean
energy and the
beauty of an uncluttered landscape. Few regulations are in place right now. More
and more,
communities will be facing the decision of whether clean energy and keeping farmers
on the land
is worth the price of adding wind turbines to the scenery.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Linda Stephan.
Environmental groups and attorneys general in six states are suing the Environmental Protection Agency over a new rule that regulates cooling water intake at power plants. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:
Transcript
Environmental groups and attorneys general in six states are suing the Environmental
Protection Agency over a new rule that regulates cooling water intake at power plants.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports.
Power plants take in billions of gallons of water a day from lakes or rivers to keep
their
turbines cool. That process kills fish and other aquatic organisms. The new rule
by the
EPA requires power plants to reduce fish kills by at least 60 percent. But critics
say the
government can easily require a much larger reduction.
Reed Super is an attorney for the environmental group River Keeper. He says a process
called “closed-cycle cooling” can achieve a 95 percent reduction in fish kills. But
he says
power companies don’t want to pay for it.
“Industry gets a good hearing by its representatives in Washington these days, and we
basically have the Office of Management and Budget and the White House and political
appointees at EPA once again caving into industry to give them exactly what they
want.”
Attorneys general of six Northeastern states have also filed suit against the EPA. The
new rule is set to take effect September 7th.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.
The government is trying to reel in the red tape that is keeping offshore wind farms, like this one, from being built in the US. (Photo by Les Salty, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
