Wind energy

Had anyone other than the land owners where wind generates have been put up benifitted from wind energy? Have any community benifitted? I've heard nothing good about them,mostly a lot of negative. School's are suppose to benifitt but I haven't heard any success story's. What do you all think?

I would like to see if they survive without federal subsidies.

I didn't realize we were funding them are they not self sufficient?

Not self sufficient. Even if they were...…...when the wind isn't blowing, you have no electricity. With solar, if the sun doesn't shine, you have no electricity. With either or both, there are times you will still need coal or natural gas or hydro power.

The only time I think the local community benefits is when they’re building them by the influx of people into the community.

I live in a community where they are shutting down two coal fired units before the new year. 320 jobs will be lost due to this. The windfarms are wanting to ruin the beautiful Montana landscape here now. The initial construction will employ 400 - 600 temporary jobs. Once the wind towers have been built there will be about 30 jobs relating to them. Not much of a trade off for the loss of families that will be affected.

Personally, I could care less if Seattle has power or not as those people need a slap of reality. They are responsible for every anti-hunt/trap bill to ever hit Washington state as well as all the recent stupid gun laws they have come up with. They have not one care for anyone else in the state of Washington or other states but their own agenda.

This seems to be what I hear over and over seems crazy how they keep poping up everywhere. Don't seem to matter who's in office, whose running this country anyway?

Without Federal $$$$'s ++ you wouldn't have wind or solar. Neither produce enough energy to pay for themselves. You can also say that about ethanol in your tank.

Solar panels only pencil out if costs are spread out over 30 years. No one bothers to point out that they have a useful life of about TEN years.

Wind is similar. Between initial installation costs and maintenance they would be big losers without Government handouts. Let alone that at some point they'll be scrap with no plan or money to rip them down.

Ethanol in your gas reduces your fuel mileage by about the same as your (at the pump) savings. Those savings are subsidized by tax dollars. Otherwise corn ethanol would cost more than straight gas and produce less energy per gallon.

and Cathouse Jim is right. Seattle and it's wacked out environmental mindset is strangling Mid West coal. I personally know a lot of them. They vote to rip out the hydroelectric dams that have provided affordable energy for decades. Then complain when their electric bill takes a leap as scheduled (directly by those same voters) every few years. The idiocracy and disconnect is astounding.

Its a joke.We have a "Wind farm" in back of our property that's been there now for about 5+years now.Somehow people have the idea that we're all getting some kind of cut rate on our electric bill.The electricity generated here is sent down below the bridge to lower Michigan,150+miles away.We don't see one dime of savings from them being in our backyard.

Those wind generation companies pay a lot of taxes to state and county/townships they are sitting on. The windfall is huge to those small communities. The landowner is paid yearly/monthly for the rent of the land and roads etc..

I'm not saying I'm for wind or solar energy just pointing that out.

Read they will never recoup the energy it takes to make one so it's a loss from the start.

I guided quite a few windmill guys. I was told around 75% subsidized and in 20 years they wouldn’t make the 75% back. I think they tear up more dollars worth of roads hauling them, then they will ever make back. Federal government at its finest

We are dealing with some wind energy issues in my county here in SE Nebraska. We kinda have a good area for the towers as a ridge on the west half of the county seems to have plenty wind most of the time that would make the wind towers profitable, or so the developers have said. Also that area has no ground water so center pivots and irrigation are a non issue. I am on the county P & Z board so I hear both sides. Most land owners (probably over 50 to 60%) in that area have signed up their acres and have been told they will receive a payment just for putting their land in . If they get a tower a number in the $8000 per tower per year range is what I hear. No tower, but your land in the project footprint, could have the landowners receiving a payment that as of right now could equal about a 1/3rd of their taxes. Also we have given a company a permit for a 300 megawatt wind farm and the county has been told that could generate $1,000,000.00 per year in taxes. A lot of money will change hands. Is it a good deal?? Time will tell. There have been some who just does not want them at all. Put them somewhere else. Just like a feedlot. There are always those who don't want their nice peaceful country life ruined. Which is what will happen according to them. Are they right? As far as the electricity generated being sold somewhere else, it was explained to me the electricity is like water being added to a big tank. Somebody somewhere is pulling water out but with more going in the level will stay constant. Power on the grid is the same way. I do ask everyone who comes to me to "comment" on this issue that we have a huge demand for electricity and that hunger is growing every day. Just think what you use compared to 30 or 40 years ago. Where do you propose we get it from. Would you be happy with a nuclear plant by your home. What about a mega giant coal or gas plant. Would you be happy if they built a huge dam and flooded your valley for hydro electric. They don't want any thing like that around their place. Put it somewhere else, and take the livestock feedlots too. Trouble is somewhere else is always someone's backyard. I have a lot to consider when I vote!!

make sure if you approve them in your county that you make them put the money in BOND with the to remove them when their time is up get some estimates on what a tower removal would cost ask that that much be placed in bond.

if they are legit it should be no issue for them to do that.

As stated before, our government at its finest. Wind here in Iowa is heavily subsidized, it can NOT survive without our government propping it up. There are parts of Iowa that is overrun with wind turbines. Iowa has its own unique beauty, but I can’t imagine these in the beautiful state of Montana!!!

I worked with a farmer this week who I’ve known for a number of years, he has 5 turbines on his personal property, he signed a 40 year contact, $15K per year, per turbine, yes that’s $75K annually just from the turbines. The 40 years sounds like a lengthy contract, to me anyway.

One topic that was raised in the last few years was the dismantling of these turbines, once they’re worn out. WHO would pay for this. My farmer friend said the company who owns them are required to put a % of $$ aside for maintaining and dismantling them, so there finds available to address this.

Another farmer told me a couple years ago he was getting $4K per turbine , annually. This farmer has had these on his place for a number of years already. The first farmer I mentioned, his turbines are all less than a year old.

Wind and solar both are subsidized. It is why the Europeans owned a large portion of this "green" looting of America in the Obama years. For the facts, I was told that our rural electric was mandated to purchase 40% green energy from Obama regulations, which are still on the books, and is why all of our energy prices have tripled and will keep rising.
If people would raise enough protest about this, in shutting off subsidies, and demanding that the 40% be removed, it would release funds for maintaining coal and progress to thorium. For those who are not aware, America had working thorium power plants in the 1960's. Richard Nixon shut it down, because America needed nuclear weapons from nuclear plants.
Thorium is clean nuclear power, the earth has billions of tons of it, and the United States is loaded with it by God's good Grace. We could power the world literally.

Wind power requires a great deal of cost maintenance. It is the worst of the green energies, as costs are overwhelming. I have read stories that Europe is dumping their wind power and trying to unload it on Africa.

American energy policy is controlled by the insiders. Our natural gas is being used to run power plants in the east, which is driving up our home heating costs. States like Minnesota are insane in getting rid of all energy production, and expecting North and South Dakota to generate coal electricity for them. That is liberalism. North Dakota has stated that they are at max in green energy as it is not dependable. You can not power a grid with a system where the wind does not blow half the year, and the sun is not in they sky for half the day.

I have a love, hate relationship with wind energy. The hate part is that the economics part of the equation really does not work.

We own a piece of ground that gets wind company payments. We do not have a turbine on it, they have 3 utility poles that are on our property line. They pay about 5600 dollars a year for this. Not too bad. The taxes in that town are significantly lower than they were before the wind company came in, since they pour so much money into the local tax system. I personally don't find them to be the eyesore that many do. I actually find them to be visually appealing. You do however want regulations on their lighting as they often will put strobe lights on them, thats horrible. In our area they regulated them to only have a red blinking light on top. That hasn't been to bad, everyone seemed to get used to that rather quickly.

In reality the worst thing about them coming here has been the fighting between the people who want them and those that don't.

Turbine blades ready to be buried at Casper WY landfill.

Coal, gas, and nuclear plant operators pay huge tax dollar amounts to the counties in which the plants reside. The local communities benefit greatly from the non-green power sources also.

^ true.
Fed Gov subsidies oil/gas and electric generation through out the US. Almost everything that is a necessity for life is subsidies including the farmer. There again the towers may never pay for it worth but does add the cause, is really no different then subsidies the oil/gas companies and that industry.

There is the loss of landscape view. But am wondering what impact is to wildlife. Most of the farms I see these put up on say in Iowa for instance, do you still see deer, or trap anything around these things? What do the easements do to access of the property?
Just curious...
Jim

Never been a fan of the wind turbines even from day 1. They eat too much space up for too little return. They are making them bigger every time they put them up it seems. That helps to make the recently put up obsolete quicker. Once obsolete the production of spare parts dries up. The old towers can't be reused as they can't support the newer bigger units.

Thorium salt reactors seems to be the most promising and can even be fueled with the spent fuel of the current plants. That sounds like a win win deal to me. They can even be made mobile. By design no way to have a run away either.

Those wind generation companies pay a lot of taxes to state and county/townships they are sitting on. The windfall is huge to those small communities. The landowner is paid yearly/monthly for the rent of the land and roads etc..

I'm not saying I'm for wind or solar energy just pointing that out. [/quote]

One probelm at least here in Iowa they gave most of them have around 20 year tax abatements thanks to our supervisors.

Gary, I’m surprised that they are burying them they said the ones here when they come down they take and grind them for reuse of the fiberglass.

Those taxes are not going to amount to a hill of beans for the loss of 320 plus jobs here. Local businesses, the schools need people, when they start feeling the pinch in loss even more jobs will be at risk.

When the wind turbine wears out and taken down. Are they being replaced with new ones on the same location? If not. What happens to the foundation? Surely they are quite deep in the ground? Had a updated transmission line near my place about 8 years ago. Those footings each pole are 11’ diameter and 48’ deep. Solid concrete and rebar cage structures.

Our county was littered with these a few years ago. My personally opinion is there Loud and ugly. The only benefit I have seen so far is I can look up and which way to play the wind for setting traps. These turbines truly divided our community. They put approximately 100 towers up with 3 or 4 big farmers/land owners getting atleast 1/4 of them. I agree that it’s brought a lot of tax dollars to the county but with it all being government subsidized that’s kind of silly, like taking money from one hand and putting it in the other. And to the best of my knowledge no one around here gets any money if they don’t have a tower or the power lines running through them

I've never heard of recycling fiberglass. Supposedly these are buried because they are not recyclable.

.

I have asked this question al around. I know one man who has asked this from our state reps and got not one answer back.

Liars incarnate!

Very interesting, I've never heard of Thorium before.

They told us that when they break down nothing is done. They are left standing.

I can't back this for a fact but I stumbled upon it reading about the disposal of old turbine blades at the City Landfill at Casper Wyoming.

Wind farms don't stop mining
A Single 3MW Wind Turbine Needs:
335 tons of steel,
4.7 tons of copper,
1,200 tons of concrete (cement & aggregates),
3 tons of aluminum,
2 tons of rare earth elements including Zinc, Molybdenum, Nickel, Cobalt, Platinum.

There is no “thorium reactor.” There is a proposal to use thorium as a fuel in various reactor designs including light-water reactors–as well as fast breeder reactors.You still need uranium – or even plutonium - in a reactor using thorium. Thorium is not a fissile material and cannot either start or sustain a chain reaction. Therefore, a reactor using thorium would also need either enriched uranium or plutonium to initiate the chain reaction and sustain it until enough of the thorium has converted to fissile uranium (U-233) to sustain it.Using plutonium sets up proliferation risks. To make a "thorium reactor" work, one must (a) mix the thorium with plutonium that has been stripped of the highly radioactive fission products; (b) use the mixed-oxide thorium-plutonium fuel in a reactor, whereby the plutonium atoms fission and produce power while the thorium atoms absorb neutrons and are turned into uranium-233 (a man-made isotope of uranium that has never existed in nature); (c) strip the fission products from the uranium-233 and mix THAT with thorium in order to continue the "cycle". In this phase, the U-233 atoms fission and produce power while the thorium atoms absorb neutrons and generate MORE uranium-233. And so the cycle continues, generating more and more fission product wastes.

They said they can grind them and use the fiberglass in other products, and possibly cement, but that doesn’t mean the guy didn’t lie to me.

See, this is where I miss BuckNE.

Bob_Iowa - According to the City of Casper, they are nonrecyclable.
Here is a link for you

https://www.casperwy.gov/news/news/city_newsroom/wind_turbine_disposal

Well I guess the guy did lie to me, thank you the link, and now I can say I learned two things today.

X2

Definitely ! But there was someone else on here in the same line of work as Buck !

It's funny this topic came up. Just tonight on the news the city of Zeeland, on the shore of Lake Michigan, just scrapped one of theirs. Here's a link -

https://wwmt.com/news/local/zeeland-brings-down-its-wind-turbines-for-safety-and-performance-issues

I've been told oil is the only one still subsidized, not wind or ethanol now

Subsidies are given to the fossil fuel interests too. I believe most solar energy subsidies are set to end in 2021.

That would be Finster, but I haven't seen him on for awhile. I believe he must be working a turn around at a nukey plant somewhere!

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned on this thread yet is, Everytime I go by a wind farm, there are always some dead in the water. Anywhere from two or three, up to as many as ten percent that are sitting there not running. I have heard from guys that work on installing them that the gear drives on them are the first thing to break down, but they don't seem to get the parts to repair them. Just another gov boondoggle as far as I'm concerned, and yet they just keep putting them up everywhere!

The government gave a local native reserve near me 4 billlion dollars to set up a wind farm. They now have about 120 windmills, and not like small ones, like 400 foot tall monsters. So far, the wind farm has caused the largest forest fire in our area in recent history last summer, took months to put out..., destroyed the look of the georgian bay coast, and they were set to turn them on this spring. They also put in 40 miles of hydro line to get the power to the grid...issue is, the power lines and windmills disrupt communication. Cell phone, VHF, etc cant be used. Now they are trying to figure out what to do, and the windmills are not turning and haven't been in months..

When will the government give me a few million so I can sell power back to the government and make money on the governments dime?

Oh..wait, I am not Native, so I am not eligible. Does that sound right to anyone?

I seen hundreds of them near the water in Kingston.It was windy day when I was there and none of them were spinning.
Just another make work project I guess.

They need to figure out how to make the earth spin faster.That would create more wind and maybe they would then be feasible.
That said,the Dutch have been making windmills work for centuries.