Commercial wind power has finally made it to New Hampshire.
Yesterday we reported that the state's first wind farm came online as a small 1.4 megawatt project on Jericho Mountain in Berlin.
Town officials and residents there have embraced the facility as a symbol of the town's future.
But in the second of our two-part series looking at wind power in the Granite State, we shift to the southwestern part of the state, to Lempster.
There a large 24 megawatt wind farm has been proposed for Lempster Mountain.
But, unlike in Berlin, this proposal has sparked a great deal of controversy.
Local officials have not given the final go-ahead yet, but for years Community Energy, Inc, based in Pennsylvania, has been gathering data for its Lempster Mountain Wind Power Project.
SFX
CLIP 1 [ … So this is one of the test towers right here…]
Jeff Keeler is the project manager.
CLIP 2 [This has been up since June of 2003 … We’re sitting in an area that is on top of the ridgeline …you can’t seen anything today, but you’d be able to see Mt. Sunapee up that way to the north and down to the other test towers and down the ridgeline, and the wind comes across here and hits the high points in the ridgeline.]
Keeler says Lempster Mountain meets three initial criteria.
The land is accessible.
It's close to the power grid.
And it's windy.
CLIP 3 [We figured out at a fairly early stage that it was windy up here and it was the right conditions for the project and this is some of the best conditions in Lempster that we’ve seen in the East. The wind is the first driver. The windiness is the first and foremost reason we’re here.]
Residents in Lempster are debating the addition of wind turbines, like these in Berlin. While some see the plan as a way to generate cheap, clean energy for the town, others say the project will "destroy" a scenic ridgeline. (Hilary McQuilkin, NHPR)
With this 24 megawatt project, Community Energy plans to put up 12 400-foot turbines.
The energy produced will be enough to power more than 10,000 homes.
The company wants to lease the land long-term from Lempster residents, Kevin and Debra Onnela.
CLIP 4 [The windmill project look so good to us, it was just, it wasn’t going to affect anyone else, it wasn’t going to affect what they did on our property, on OUR ridge. I want to stress that, a lot of people think it’s THEIR ridge. It didn’t change anything. It made it the way it was. It was good for the town and we thought we were doing the best thing possible for them.]
CLIP [He’s kinda a bully in town, I don’t mind saying that.]
Sheila Drew and her husband – who grew up in Lempster - own property in town.
She's talking about landowner Kevin Onnela.
CLIP [He goes around saying if the windmills don’t go in, he’s going to go and sell out to low cost housing and that is scaring some of the residents, so they’re choosing the better of two evils.]
Drew says she wants to keep Lempster pristine and untouched.
Although she and her husband visit frequently … she lives most of the year in Virginia.
CLIP […. they’re going to destroy a ridgeline that isn’t really going to help anything. Not going to make a difference. They’re going to destroy Lempster Mountain. They’re going to denude it; they’re going to make an industrial site. They’re going to have lights flashing. They’re going to have, what’s it called, subliminal noise.]
Lisa Linowes also opposes the Lempster project.
She too lives out of town--90 miles away--in Lyman, New Hampshire.
Linowes is with the volunteer organization, Industrial Wind Action group.
CLIP [My biggest issue is – electricity generated from wind – does not produce enough energy to justify the impact… The wind companies do their darndest to convince the world that they make no noise, they have no clearing of trees, we have no impact on birds and bats, anecdotally, and the info coming out of Europe and existing facilities in the US is that this is absolute the opposite.]
The proposed Lempster Mountain Wind Power Project may not be generating electricity yet,
but it has created lots of controversy in this small town.
Many residents were unwilling to go on the record either for or against the project.
Ingrid Locker is the administrative assistant for the town of Lempster.
CLIP [Just as a resident, my concern, there were some people sending letters around that it would be loud and noise and vibrations, but our chairman has gone and visited a few windmill sites and he said he didn’t hear any noise, I feel a lot more comfortable now. ]
At a recent public meeting, selectman Bill Murgatory reached into his briefcase and pulled out a stack of papers to illustrate how divided the town has become.
CLIP [How much time do you have? (throws papers down, smack!!!) Hilary: So a lot of debate Bill: I’d say, and I left the rest home tonight. This is basically what’s gone on from both sides. Everett: I hate it, I love it, I like it, I don’t like it, I’m for it, I’m against it. Then you have the middle of the roaders who don’t say anything.]
Selectman Harold Whiting says the board has decided not to take sides.
CLIP [I only vote for the will of the people. If the people want ‘em, then we support them. If the people don’t want ‘em, we support the people.]
SFX
Jeff Keeler says some towns, especially in the Midwest, have embraced wind power.
But not in New England.
Here the windiest locations tend to be either on ridgelines or on the seacoast.
And Keeler says, that's where opposition runs strong.
CLIP [A lot of NE states have passed incentives for renewable energy, but it’s been the slowest region to get issues going, they’ve been tied up in litigation and Nimby issues and we hope that we can get this online in 2007]
Nimby is an acronym for Not it My Backyard.
Those feelings could be at play in Lempster.
But some locals just seem overwhelmed by the size of the proposed project.
More than 100 concerned residents have signed a petition asking State utility officials to step in to review the project because of its size.
If the state does decide to intervene, Jeff Keeler says their target completion date could be delayed 12 to 18 months, if it the project goes ahead at all.
For NHPR News, I’m Hilary McQuilkin
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I'm curious as to which method of conventional energy creation Lisa Linowes believes is a "good" return on environmental impact; coal, nuclear, hydro? The fact is that almost all of the currently available methods of energy creation have definitive impacts to the environment, whereas wind, as Lisa mentions, has mainly anecdotal evidence. There is no reason to disregard anecdotal evidence, but an empirical claim, such as the one that Lisa made, requires empirical evidence.
I'm sure that Lisa would agree that conservation of resources is the ideal energy creation technique. However this stance would befuddle the rest of your guest who are symbols of the wealthy's continued exploitation of the environment. Increasing one's personal space by owning a second home more or less doubles each person's impact on the environment; twice as many trees cut to build the homes, twice as much energy used on upkeep, twice as much stuff purchased to furnish each abode, energy use at both residences - the impacts go far beyond the footprint of the houses alone.
When are we, as a society, going to start lessening our environmental impact? If we lessened our impact - we may not have an issue like: Where are we going to put the next wind farm?
Justin McCabe
I think you have to be careful in assuming that those who visit Lempster or have homes New England are exploiting the environment. Right now most of the homes in town were built before 1860.
Pictures and postcards of the town in the 1800's and 1900s show open fields. These fields are now large forests so the recyling have definitly taken place!
There is much evidence that major wind projects impact the environment with no benefit in terms of energy savings. Read the Country Guardian with its reports of the negative impacts in the UK. Many who now oppose windfarms were once the leading advocates.
Windpower is a green symbol that makes people "think" they are doing something to combat C02. In effect, the windfarms only produce power 28% of the time (at the highest). They still need backup from the power grid,and are not a realistic solution to our energy needs.
I meant no disrespect to the year round inhabitants of Lempster, however, assuming that those with second homes are exploiting environmental resources is not something I will second guess. Statistics from the US Census Bureau show that in 2003 there were approximately 120.8 million housing units in the United States. 11.4 million of these homes were unused either by their owners or renters. 3.4 million of the 120.8 million were summer homes only. Some quick math shows that over 10% of homes in the U.S. are vacant more often than not.
It is probably a safe assumption that these unused and summer homes average approximately 1200 sq. ft. and contain a variety of furniture, appliances, septic systems, carpeting, vinyl flooring, plastic baths and showers, not to mention energy needs for air conditioning, lighting, etc. These homes add tremendously to the waste of our environmental resources and only build upon the growing consumerism that has overwhelmed American culture.
Secondly, the Country Gaurdian has some good points, but nonetheless it is a biased website and has its own agenda. As an alternative viewpoint, The American Wind Energy Association, www.awea.org, or the U.S. Department of Energy both provide a rosier outlook on wind-power usefulness. The truth is probably somewhere in-between. However, in terms of energy value, wind-power undoubtedly has some use. Tens of thousands of people in the U.S. have been able to “go off the grid†as a result of a combination of solar panels, personal wind-turbines and geothermal power. While this is a drop in the bucket compared to overall energy needs, it’s a start and just a sign of things to come.
Interestingly, a wind-turbine being in use about 30% of the time with approximately 90% efficiency, roughly equals a typical coal fired energy plant that runs about 90% of the time at 33% efficiency. However, contrary to your opinion, the wind-turbine creates no SO2 (acid rain) or CO2, whereas coal power plants account for 66% of the SO2 produced in the United States and 36% of the total man-made carbon dioxide.
Lastly, as a former analyst and consultant for the petroleum industry who has visited many energy facilities around the globe – I would rather see, hear and smell a wind-farm rather than an oil refinery, NGL plant or coal fired power plant. And at the end of the day, when the wind-farm’s useful life has ended it can be recycled into Honda Civics or washing machines, whereas a typical oil refinery or power plant becomes a superfund site, whose mess we get to live with forever.