Sunday, April 15, 2012

WIND POWER SAGGING! ( In N. AZ at Least)

WIND POWER SAGGING!

I referred to this event in an earlier post but our paper here finally reported on it today.

"Wind Power Sagging"  is the Bold type front page headlines of the paper hard copy of the Flagstaff AZ Daily Sun, my home town newspaper.  You can read the whole article at the link below. 

http://azdailysun.com/news/local/wind-power-sagging/article_22a8e94a-65a3-50a6-b973-47638f9b814d.html




Perrin Ranch Wind Complex in  N. AZ
Our County got scammed on this one and the State's
 biggest electric utility esentially told them so after the fact!!!


                        Wind turbine blades being delivered to the Perrin Ranch Wind Complex. 62 turbines.

                                     You see this folks...when you appease people who want
                            wind farms, and the policies that support them ...guess what you get?.
                                              SURPRISE!!! You actually get wind farms!!!!

A couple of years ago this same paper and their editor came out endorsing industrial wind energy in N. AZ, and the Perrin Ranch Wind Complex in our county.  I immediately sent the editor a rather frank detailed email telling them in essence they didn't have clue what they were talking about when it came to this subject.  They had no real world experience with the  industrial  wind scam like we have in Cape Vincent and NNY. It was just one more case of the media jumping on the green hoopla with no evidence to support it. Flagstaff tends to be a liberal island in a rabidly conservative state.  Remember here in AZ  we have Rep. Gov. Jan Brewer who stuck her finger in Pres. Obama's face on his last visit and lectured him about illegal imigration. And we have the famous "Sheriff Joe" from the Phoenix area.

 When I heard this news a couple weeks ago about APS's bombshell on wind, I emailed our paper's editor and told him he had an obligation to look into this and be fair.  Apparently he has had a change of heart...he emailed back and agreed they would look into it...and thus this article.  Thank you AZDS for a fair report on the issue!

When our county was considering the approvals for this Perrin Ranch Wind Complex by Nextera (Florida Light and Power) I spoke at the public hearings of my experiences in NY including the unethical methods of wind developers and my involvement in the NY AG investigation of CV.  The local wind opposition group here had excellent well documented information on why wind energy was a failure and should not be approved in our county.  But green wash won the day, and by a 3-2 vote they approved the wind farm.

The other day our county had a work session and it was about further input on energy development in our county.  We are the 2nd largest county in the nation at 18,600 sq. mi., about 10 X as big as Jefferson County, NY. There is a lot of potential for energy development here of all kinds and mining like uranium.

That is when Arizona Public Service (APS) the largest electric utility in AZ,  dropped the bombshell that they were moving away from wind power because it was unreliable, not cost effective, and would not sync with peak demand in AZ in the summer when desert temps are scorching and everybody is running air conditioning at 115 degrees.  The county was stunned because they finally  had to face the truth and ended up with egg all over their faces because they were dooped into the Perrin Ranch Wind Complex and now the big utility that was buying that wind power was finally telling it like it is about wind. AZ like NY forces utilities to take renewable energy, and in the case of AZ and APS, our corporation commission that regulates electric rates would not allow APS to raise rates without a given amount of renewable power in their portfolio.  A political corporate scam. But APS was at the public hearings as well and kept their mouth shut on the truth about wind even though you can bet they knew then exactly what the truth was. They just needed their rate hikes worse.  For example how did APS know that wind energy would not sync with Phoenix summer demand?  Perrin Ranch Wind has only been operating for about 4 months and hasn't even gone through a summer demand period yet.   They knew because they have been buying wind power from a complex in New Mexico.  They had the real world experince right in their greedy little hands, and in addition probably did the exact same research the opposition and all of us have done.  They knew going into the Perrin Ranch hearings that wind was a scam...which essentially means they lied!!!  Imagine that a big corp. lying to get their money.

Now that they have their quota of wind they are telling the truth on wind and running away from it.  And just as always who gets left holding the bag in this forced wind fiasco...the electric rate payer!!! APS doesn't even want wind but plays along with the scam just far enough to get their money.  We get raised rates and an ugly wind industrial wind complex to look at and APS is even telling us now...it doesn't even work!!!!

Now tell me once again why we want to accommodate and appease NY Article X, the NY Renewable Portfolio Standard and the wind developers in CV?  Maybe some of us should get a clue that we will only stop this political green wind energy disaster if we actually stand up and OPPOSE it...not appease it in some way where we will end removing egg of our faces just like my county is doing now..

In my AZ county if one more county supervisor had had the balls to stand up and OPPOSE this Nextera wind scam, we wouldn't have this mess here either.  But 3 of them sucked right up to the wind developers, and now they look absolutely ridiculous on the issue, as the biggest utility in AZ basically has told them it ran a scam on them, ...TOO LATE!!!  And you couldn't talk to them either, because just like in CV right now, they were convinced they had all the answers and all the expert advice they needed.  Too bad it all came back to bite them real hard right on the ass!!!!

    Some of our pristine N. AZ landscape we are trying to protect.
.  The 12,600 ft. San Francisco Peaks right behind Flagstaff, AZ.

              In the distance is Humphreys Pk., the highest point in AZ.
       These photos are from a winter mountaineering  trip
                                                with a friend to one of the other Peak's summits.



Above and below.  Agassiz Pk. summit 12,300 ft.



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