Ludington Wind Farm

[EdB]

What do you think about this? I'm oppossed!

http://michiganmessenger.com/32073/lake-michigan-wind-farm-proposed-near-ludington

Lake Michigan wind farm proposed near Ludington

By Eartha Jane Melzer 12/17/09 3:38 PM The first public presentation of a plan to build as many as 200 windmills in a 100 square mile stretch of Lake Michigan off the coast of Ludington generated numerous concerns among locals this week.

The Ludington Daily News reports that representatives of Havgul Energy and Scandia Wind told locals that the wind turbines would stand 300 feet above the water, 3.7 miles off shore and would produce 1,000 megawatts of electricity.

Company representatives said that the Lake Michigan location would allow for connection to existing transmission lines and position it well to serve power markets in Milwaukee and Chicago.

They said they were seeking local support for the project before applying for permits.

Many attendees of the presentation at Westshore Community College were reportedly disturbed by images of the proposed windmills, and many expressed concerns about their potential effects on birds, boating, fishing, airplane and noise pollution.

The project also faces regulatory hurdles.

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have joint jurisdiction over granting permits for offshore projects and they have not yet developed criteria for use in reviewing applications for offshore wind energy facilities. That means it may take time for them to create the criteria and have it approved by the state and federal government before the DEQ and Corps can even begin to consider looking at a proposal.

The Lower Peninsula’s west coast has been recognized by the state Public Service Commission as a place with good potential for wind development.

[bluedevil]

I am all for Wind farms. I've been on one of those projects in the thumb a few years ago and they create alot of jobs. But I dont agree they need to be offshore. There is plenty of wind onshore and it seems to me that it would be way cheaper to keep them on land rather offshore.

Just my .02

[Nailer]

Putting them up on the hill of the project is ok, but not in the lake.

A few shots of what they will look like.

[ALLEYES]

Structure.....May be good for the fishing........

[Rob]

I am for almost anything that will create good paying jobs. But it would be nice if they could get them on shore. I think we have bigger issues like the carp.

[EdB]

Putting them up on the hill of the project is ok, but not in the lake.

That's a good idea.

Structure.....May be good for the fishing........

Yes, but we already have plenty of natural structure at Ludington and then a whole lot more from the indian nets.

[Adam Bomb]

I think its a great idea, but i dont want them on the lake. Have enough issues dodging nets, boats without lights and then theirs the people running into piers, imagine these things scattered around out there...No, ill pass.

[mattmishler]

i was waiting for someone to put somthing on here. Man looks liek the south fishery will be shot and i wonder how many people will run there boats in to these. Yeah short turn jobs and that will bring some people in to the city for work but have you been in the city on any weekend in the summer theres no shortage of people in ludington. I bet the people with the 1.1 millon dollar house will like that view in that back ground of the sun set. just JMO

[1mainiac]

And if power is for Milwaukee and Chitcago why do we have to look at it? The issue to me we have plenty of power and resources here why should we mess up our lake to power a city that wants to distroy our fishery to divert their sewage. If Chitcago needs the power put em in their section of the lake. Also consider none of these wind power ideas are cost effective which means they require very high electric bills or Gov subsidies to survive. How much extra do you want to pay to help power other cities and states? CA is a fine example of a stupid state they buy 90% of their electricty from other states because they don't want power plants. All of these huge liberal areas want someone else to provide for them while they vote away our rights. Personally if the dog I am feeding bites me I tend to take em on a one way hunting trip. If you choose to live in a place with no resources or choose not to use your resources how is that my problem? We have all but wiped the American farmer off the planet with price controls and over taxing their land till they can't afford to feed us anymore or keep their land to farm.

[Just Hook'n]

Guys, I am an Environmental Engineer by trade, so I know a little about why they want to put them where they do. Wind studies rate wind areas 1-5, 5 being the best. Most inland areas in Michigan (even coastal) are 1-2. The thumb has some wind farms as that area (between the lakes) is a 3-4. The middle of the pond is 4 consistently. The idea of having them in the middle of the pond is that is where the wind is right for them to be profitable (or at least a shorter payback). Certainly it will change the look of the lake. Ken's picutres are very telling. I do think they would create structure to fish however. If you have ever watched fishing in the ocean, they often try to fish around cell towers, oil rigs, etc. The algae that grows on the bases attracts small fish, which attracts little fish, which attracts medium fish . . . . I am all for them if they help get us away from dependence on oil.

[1mainiac]

I also understand why they want them there as well Mark that however does not change my point. We live in a state with a lot to offer the sad part is most of the rest of the country wants us to give it to them we bottle millions of gallons of water a day a great deal for the owners of the bottling plant and a few workers not so great for people in the surronding area who have seen their wells go dry. Importing apples from overseas has seen MI go from the worlds largest apple producer to somewhere around 5th. There is a long list of states that want to suck the Great Lakes dry and pipe the water to them. Altanta GA is a good example of a area that out grew it's water resources 2 years ago as they sucked the local lakes dry. This is another socialist policy take from a few and give to many we are losing all individual rights. It has come down to a simple idea and consider it this way. If you don't like Yougart but the rest of the group around does should you be told to eat it and learn to like it because you lost the election. That is the attitude of our current government. At what point do we actually have rights to keep what is ours ours and not have to share our resources with the world. What if we get a one world Government like some of these loons want imagine them deciding to tap into the Great Lakes and shipping the water overseas or having Japan bring their fishing fleet in for a few weeks a year. That is how this plays out maybe not today but it is coming we just gave Interpol full rights recently so you could be arrested by them and have no rights whatsoever as a american citizen. Not likely to happen but it now could.

Also back on subject most of the winds studies have to do with reducing the loss of money and shortening the time to a break even point and still require much higher electric bills. If not for the fact many of the engineers are young my bet would be that few if any of the people designing these would still be alive when they actually begin making money. and at current electric rates none of them will ever make a penny.

[Nailer]

I do think they would create structure to fish however. The algae that grows on the bases attracts small fish' date=' which attracts little fish, which attracts medium fish . [/quote']

How much algae will grow on them once there covered with mussels?

I am all for them if they help get us away from dependence on oil.

Mark will you explain how this will happen. I've seen this reply before, but I fail to see how. If our energy is produced by Coal, Natural Gas, and Nuclear, where dose the oil come in?

[LongLine]

Do you guys honestly think you’ll be allowed to fish anywhere’s near them? There’s a fairly new gov’t agency called “homeland security†that will see to that you don’t. That newly created fish structure means nothing.

Turbines themselves aren’t the problem unless of course they’re built like the one at Fenner that just fell a few weeks ago. (on land – and for no apparent reason)

Jobs? – what a joke! All they do is displace workers. Maple Ridge (Lowville) in NYS which is the largest windfarm E of the Miss River was just declared a “shirt-changer by NYS & lost it Empire tax zoning because it didn’t create the jobs it promised. Lewis County is going to receive less than 25% of the revenue it was promised from the windfarm in its 2010 budget. BTW, Maple Ridge turbines were all imported from Denmark and not made in USA where it would have put people to work.

Solid Technology based upon unpredictable weather. That’s more great thinking. Turbine companies brag about wattage, yet they don’t tell you that the best turbines in the world (Dane & German) only deliver 25- 30% of the nameplate ratings at best. I.E. Rating for 100 Megs only delivers 25-30 megs. Lowville's website reports actual voltages that were much less that those promised. Turbine companies look at yearly averages and will only admit behind closed doors that turbines don’t produce electricity when the wind isn’t blowing such as on those hot muggy summer days when electric demand is greatest or when the gales of November are blowing and the wind is too strong. (When they’re shut down as they’ll burn out as they’ll overload the grid) Climate change people tell us that storms are going to become even more violent. They have to have backup power generation just as they found out in Denmark, Norway and Germany….oops, they still have to build conventional power plants.

Maple Ridge/Lowville killed over 2000 bats last year & their mitigation is to put more lights on the blades. That’s more of their brilliant thinking. (Bats are blind…) Should be quite a sight for property owners to look out over the water at night and see all the Ferris wheels.

But the biggest issues I see are in the transmission lines & construction. The Transmission lines will be under water that connect the turbines together and multiple lines will need to be run to shore. (0.5 to 2 Hz at over 30Kv) Didn’t anyone tell these people that the Corps of Engineers is trying to stop fish movement with Electricity? (Asian Carp) They certainly didn’t tell them about the “Black boxes†that some fishermen swear by. OSHA has a regulation that says a worker can't come within 27 ft of a live Trans line without being properly attired. Yet the turbine company expects a naked fish, whose only instinct is survival to not be affected by it? There goes the nearshore fishery.

Secondly – Didn’t anyone tell the electric companies that there are 12 USEPA Areas of Concern on Lake Michigan with heavily polluted sediments as the reason? Much of the pollution of 150 years has been buried by just a few years of somewhat cleaner sediments. When they dig up the bottom for foundations (to reach solid bedrock) or to bury parts of the transmission lines, where are they sediments going? They don’t appear to care if they pollute the entire lake as the natural movement of water (currents) will carry the sediments all over the place.

Yes, the electric companies are in favor of green. Unfortunately the only green they are looking at is the color of money and has nothing to do with the environment. They just want the easiest way to rake in the bucks, making us subsidize them, not pay easements and if they can ride the environmental movement with their own spin and false promises, to do it, they will.

US Executive order 13340 declared the Great Lakes a Natural Treasure; A treaty was signed with Canada to protect the Great lakes; Agencies and sportsmen have been trying to restore the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes never had windfarms and they should not be allowed out there now.

[Nailer]

A few stats.

This proposed project takes up 100 square miles of lake, and will produce 1000 megawatts (or according to longline 300 mw) of electricity during peek performance.

A new nuclear plant produces 1200-1500 megawatts at peek, and requires a footprint of less than one square mile. The only waist/pollution a nuclear plant has is, spent rods. The spent rods are kept on site, and take up an area of less than most peoples back yard.

On the down side a Nuclear plant cost in the 4-5 billion range. (now that would be a lot of jobs)

100sm v 1sm. Which is greener?

My electric bill last month had a charge of $2.50 for "Renewable Energy Surcharge". This surcharge we are all paying, is what funds these projects.

How do they plan to maintain these towers in the winter when the lake is froze up?

The other issue they have is, in the cold months the wings freeze up, with huge ice chunks flying off.

I read in the local paper that Caledonia School System wanted to put up a windmill for power. The project was to cost $120,000. The tower was capable of producing $2,000 worth of electricity each year. That's a 60 year payoff without maintenance or interest. Tell me that makes sense?

.

[1mainiac]

Very well put and to the point as I said none of us will ever see any good come from it it is just a new way to make us look left while being screwed on the right. Here is a interesting read that might make you understand what most likely is happening in our country. http://frontpage.americandaughter.com/?p=1878

It basicly comes down to no good deed goes unpunsihed. For those who remember General Ho thanked the American hippies for him winning in Veitnam and many of them same hippies are now in charge of our government.

[1mainiac]

I have not done any price checks recently but honestly 3 years ago the cost to provide power for my house and be able to sell some back to the power company when completely done or so they said at the time was 250,000 dollars roughly. This included everything clearing the ground putting in the tower and foundation running the power lines to my house installing the transformers and transfer switchs. I threw all the papers away but could do a new cost and see if the price has gotten any better. Oh and I would have to get permission from my neighbors as well since on 7.4 acres there was no place to put the tower that came within easement specs. Also I had to get FAA clearance since I live a few miles from a airport this required a study from them that added to the overall cost. I have a friend who lives off the grid and gets all of his power via solar and wind and maintaining all the power sources is a part time job to live slightly better than a cave man. On the other hand since this BS will get shoved down our throats anyhow now would be a good time to sell all that electronic crap you won't be able to afford to turn on when the new electric bills start coming. With Cap and Trade and all the new crap electricty ideas expect to multiply your current electric bill by 4 and that is just a start.

[LongLine]

Here's an interesting site that proves the 30% figure. Its the actual power output monitoring site for the Ontario (Canada) wind farms which have an installed capacity of 1,100 megawatts. At 11:28 this morning it was producing 387 megs.

http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/marketdata/windpower.asp

If you go over to the right & click on a link, you'll get a sheet that shows their hourly output since inception. I'd say they are are having a very good day today. (scroll throught he last month or so and see the variation and how many zero's there are)

Power output is directly proportional to wind velocity. However it is not linear. This sheet shows how the output is affected by the velocity.

http://www.ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/WindmillFormula.htm

Output at 1 m/s is 1/1000th that of 10m/s. There are no batteries large enough to store excess electricity from turbines. All that "juice" or lack of "juice" does diretly into the grid. As we become more & more dependent upon the wind, what kind of sudden Brownouts & surges are we going to experience? How many computers, TVs or refrigerators am I going to have to buy before I die?

It's interesting that the 1st site in that it says the current 387 megs can power 70,000 clothes dryers. My dryer runs on natural gas.

[1mainiac]

http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/pubs/marketReports/download/HourlyWindFarmGen_20100108.csv

If you read this page it shows only once during a 2 day period has it acheived 90% of rated capacity. The chart goes back to Mar 06 so only on a couple days in the last 4 years has everyone promised power from this actually got power from it.

Yea baby thats what we want all of the power none of the time but some of the power most of the time. Imagine sitting at work waiting for a wind report so you can turn on your machine and do something. Or explaining to the boss it's not your fault the wind didn't blow hard enough to run your machine today. I guess this will add new meaning to the term " That Blows"

[LongLine]

At 6:49PM on 1/11/2010, (a few minutes ago) the website reading was 38 Mw. (thirty-eight) I wonder what happened to the other 1,062 Mw?

[1mainiac]

since they were part of a fairy tale to begin with they never really existed. When the government subsidies dissappear these will becaom rusting hulks all over the land scape. In low winds they produce nothing and in high winds they have to feather the blades to protect themselves. I really like the fact they are adding lights to the blades to protect bats that is class A thinking there. GE stands to make billions off this crap them and a few other companies will suck up all the Government money they can before it dries up.