[Editor note: The Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation (LEEDCo) has proposed to erect between six and nine industrial wind turbines just off the shore of Cleveland. The so-called INCUBATOR project is currently before the Ohio Power Siting Board.]

“We are thrilled to have the strong support of the environmental community in Ohio,” said LEEDCo President Lorry Wagner, citing letters from the Ohio Environmental Council, Nature Conservancy, Environment Ohio, Sierra Club, Mom’s Clean Air Force, Ohio Interfaith Power & Light, and Earth Day Coalition.

Barely were those words spoken, when a damning letter arrived (Part 2 tomorrow) from a much broader, bigger, and sophisticated group of environmentalists and consumerists.

The letter provided brutally clear information and frank talk about one of the wind industry’s leading carnival barkers, Dr. Paul Kerlinger and Associates, whose environmental testimony is universally controversial and corrupted by industry money.…

“Policies that force use of more expensive, less reliable energy push costs throughout the economy and place the heaviest burden on the world’s poor and low-income citizens. We need all forms of energy to address global needs, and we must recognize the strengths and limitations of each choice.  Advanced coal is the sustainable fuel at scale that can meet these needs.”

– Gregory Boyce, CEO, Peabody Energy, April 3, 2014.

Peabody Energy–“the world’s largest private-sector coal company and a global leader in sustainable mining and clean coal solutions … in more than 25 countries on six continents”—has started a good conversation. Lifting countless millions out of energy poverty into energy modernism is worth our best thinking and debate.

Peabody’s call to reduce energy inequality between the haves and have nots challenges the “Let them eat cake” conceit of so many energy statists/elitists. …

“Projections show that wind generation will increase rapidly to approximately 6,250 MW by 2013.  This vast amount of wind power interconnected to the Bonneville Power Administration’s transmission grid will likely overwhelm the existing federal hydropower system’s ability to provide sufficient integration services in the future….

As the percentage of wind generation grows, the risk of having a major system event from an unpredicted change of the wind energy level increases.”

– Technical Analysis of Pumped Storage Integration with Wind Power in the Pacific Northwest – Final Report, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (August 2009).

The magnitude and location of the current unfolding story of a large crack in the hydro-rich Wanapum Dam on the Columbia River in Central Washington became known only a week after the Grant County Public Utility District declared a potential emergency. …

“It is simply dishonest to state that very high levels of renewables can be accommodated with little problem, while NERC states that until we figure out who pays for all the substantial operational and reliability challenges those VERs bring to the system, higher penetrations (above 20%) become problematic.”

Last fall I entered into a debate in the comment section of a post on The Energy Collective with AWEA’s Michael Goggin. As is his style, Mr. Goggin posted a long series of statements about wind energy suggesting that it is neither more difficult to integrate high percentages of wind into the grid than conventional generators nor does it create significant additional expense for grid operators or ratepayers.

I responded with a post stating that a recent paper by NERC entitled “Maintaining Bulk Power System Reliability While Integrating Variable Energy Resources – CAISO Approach” contradicted nearly everything he stated in his post.…