rootube said:

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If my daughter asked I would tell her that although there are tax incentives and deferments for wind energy there are similar incentives for all utilities regardless of the energy source, and that we are fortunate enough to live in a capitalist society that generates an ongoing economic benefit to the landowner, the utility ratepayer in Texas, and the regional utility company from that turbine. Additionally there is a security benefit to our country having a diversified energy portfolio. So despite the environmental impact there is a net positive overall. My daughter would say what's wrong with you, I just asked if we can go to "ChicK-Fil-A".

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Less than 10% of the energy production in this country comes from wind and solar. The US has enough energy/oil reserves at current consumption to last another 250 years. Our energy "security" is just fine with out tax payer funded boondoggles.

Eminent Domain cannot be used to force a landowner to put turbines on their property, the landowner must agree to the contract, same goes for the transmission lines WITHIN the project. The only time ED comes into play is on the big 345kv towers that are owned by the electrical company, they get to use ED. At least in my experience.

Gunny, they are building some wind farms on federal/blm lands. There is a farm on top of some mountains in Vermont, the land is designated as national forest.

This is all a balancing act, zealots on both sides will never be happy, but if you want green energy to slow down, vote for candidates that are pro nuclear power.

Good post. Very informative. And yes on the candidates.

This all reminds me of an apocryphal story.

A town wanted to put in a new sewage treatment plant. Citizens were deeply divided. There was a raucous town meeting, with lots of yelling and anger. Tempers flared, friendships ended.

Finally someone yelled out, "What does Old Ben think?"

Old Ben was an elder statesman of the community, a leader for years, now retired. His fairness and wisdom were respected by all sides. The crowd quieted down to a whisper as all eyes turned to Ben, and the leader of the meeting asked,

"Ben, what do you think we should do?" Ben sat quietly, gathering his thoughts. Then in a low voice, he said:

"I guess we could all stop sh*tting."




Personally, I just yesterday got a set of highline poles run out to my farm, and will have electricity to my barn by this weekend. As excited as I am that the usefulness of my barn is now double or triple what it was, I still hated to see the poles spoil the view.

It's always a compromise.

We all love unspoiled spaces. But as long as we eat, poop, travel, use energy, create trash, etc., it's going to screw up somebody's land, some place.

Another good post.... typical of CA77. A sane voice in the storm.
I just ran 1300 ft of buriable cable to my barn. Power company wanted $17,000 to run poles and $22,000 to bury.
Decided I could dig a ditch myself.

Transmission lines have to be built out for any generation project, no matter what the source is.

I've also worked on several ED transmission projects in the last few years where the sole purpose was to provide power to the oilfield when the Permian/Delaware was booming.

Don't act like that only happens for wind farms.

Gunny456 said:

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Another good post.... typical of CA77. A sane voice in the storm.
I just ran 1300 ft of buriable cable to my barn. Power company wanted $17,000 to run poles and $22,000 to bury.
Decided I could dig a ditch myself.

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Thanks

That's about the price I was quoted. But I have a new neighbor building a house, so basically I clipped onto his line for free, and he got a reduced rate because there is a second customer on his line.

So I was getting the poles, regardless of whether I hooked on. Buried is great...until lightning strikes and blows out the line. Have had it happen multiple times on Center pivots.

Plus, I didn't own the land between me and the existing lines. The guy who did has had two murder for hire plots against him, so he's a little grumpy and hard to work with. I decided not to ask him.

CanyonAg77 said:

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Gunny456 said:

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Another good post.... typical of CA77. A sane voice in the storm.
I just ran 1300 ft of buriable cable to my barn. Power company wanted $17,000 to run poles and $22,000 to bury.
Decided I could dig a ditch myself.

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Thanks

That's about the price I was quoted. But I have a new neighbor building a house, so basically I clipped onto his line for free, and he got a reduced rate because there is a second customer on his line.

So I was getting the poles, regardless of whether I hooked on. Buried is great...until lightning strikes and blows out the line. Have had it happen multiple times on Center pivots.

Plus, I didn't own the land between me and the existing lines. The guy who did has had two murder for hire plots against him, so he's a little grumpy and hard to work with. I decided not to ask him.

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This thread might take an interesting turn. Please share more about the not 1 but 2 murder for hire plots...

Sorry, I have some work to do. Short story is that the first time I met the new neighbor a few months ago, he was not neighborly at all.

I found out just yesterday, that he was the subject of two plots from the same guy. Said guy thought my current neighbor was sleeping with guy's wife.

Also found out that my neighbor was on an episode of HGTV House Hunters

I decided that maybe I'd be a bit defensive of strangers, if two of them had been hired to kill me.

Google Billy Glenn Ivy Jr. (the perp) from Amarillo. That anal orifice died in jail, and good riddance.

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One of the last thing Obama did before leaving office.... like the day before ....was make an Executive Order exemption that the wind turbine companies had a take permit of 500 Bald Eagles per year that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would give them a pass on finding them for killing the eagles.

If they don't bother the eagles what was the need and purpose of his executive order?

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Any industry can apply for an Eagle Take Permit. Most of them are wind related though. Also, the way it is structured (mitigation requirements) is designed to result in a net positive on the local eagle population. The mitigation requires old power poles to be retrofitted to prevent electrocutions, which is a big killer of large raptors.

Not a free pass, an Eagle Take Permit costs millions of dollars.

Bald eagles are pretty disgusting birds anyways. Once you see a flock of bald eagles digging through garbage in a landfill, they kind of lose that majestic quality. Maybe it's a metaphor, though.

My dad used to say the only difference between a bald eagle and turkey buzzard was the hair cut.

I think you're seeing adding turbines to existing farms.

The tax credits are over and done with, which leaves the ROI for investors as a much longer term thing than what it was. Not a whole bunch of folks shelling out 10s of millions on a long term ROI when it was quick comparably a few years ago.

Last I looked the credit have or are about to end. But I am pretty sure the way the tax credits were set up was that you got the 2017 credit if you spent X% of the estimated project in that year. So if spend 10% (WAG) on land acquisition that year but don't complete until 2022 you still get the 2017 tax credit rate. There is a limit to how long you can sit on a project before you loose the credit. Maybe I am remembering that wrong though.

I didn't think it extended that long, but I'm in an adjacent industry not specifically wind.

I agree that the deal was spend X by Y date to get Z rebate.

Cromagnum said:

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There is a ton of energy and raw materials (including petrochemical products) that go into constructing those things so they are hardly "free". They also often fail before breaking even on actual cost.

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This. Plus - 20 years from now all the ones that crap out wont be fixed because the initial investors pocketed all the subsidy money on the front end.

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This. Plus - 20 years from now all the ones that crap out wont be fixed because the initial investors pocketed all the subsidy money on the front end.

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Most counties require a decommissioning plan/bond up front. These are operated by huge corporations. They are not going to let them fall into disarray or they are losing money. Many have long term PPA's to deliver X amount of power to a utility or other user.

Hell, NextEra, the biggest owner/operator of renewables in North America, had a higher market cap than Exxon last week.

I think everyone's misconceptions and perceptions of the wind industry come from hearsay and or one or two sale companies that no longer exist. I don't really know of any major companies playing with wind that are as you said going to let their asset devolved into trash. It just doesn't make sense and with their bond set up in advance it prevents that for the most part.