“Revise or withdraw your plans that support the expansion of wind and a wind build-out in rural areas to support the urban areas. Start evaluating and fixing the problems that have been created by your policies.”

Dear New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers:

As you gather for your invitation-only, 37th Annual Conference in La Malbaie this weekend, we, the undersigned groups, individuals and victims, appeal to you to take clear, compelling, and compassionate steps to solve the problems you have created by supporting the deployment of “big wind” in our region.

These generation projects create serious, often intractable problems. Those of us who have been forced to live near the utility-scale wind projects you have promoted, and the individuals and groups we are working with, have learned through direct experience the consequences of these projects which include:

Stressing Grid Interconnections and Transmission Lines

New England’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) obligations for 2010 were about 14% of demand – an amount satisfied through a combination of existing, qualified resources in New England and renewable energy imported from neighboring New York and Canada.

“We don’t have ramping plants, so these [wind power] projects can increase, not decrease, our region’s greenhouse gas emissions. Why aren’t we talking about that? … Let’s have a conversation that addresses what is happening now.”

The press release and testimonials below were sent to the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers who are currently meeting in Quebec to discuss energy issues. At last year’s conference, a commitment was made for more renewables in New England. This year, the grass roots is urging them to back off. Part I today reprints the press release; the letter will follow tomorrow as Part II of this series.

The press release follows:

Hundreds of individuals, victims and groups sent a letter [tomorrow’s post] to the Northeast region’s governor and premiers asking for an end to utility-scale wind development until those projects’ impacts have been addressed.…

“Wind is almost a pure subsidy play, which means that Enron will be at odds with the market and must continually intervene into the political processes to extend subsides and/or create new ones. This is an expensive process and may trade away what we are lobbying for elsewhere.”

In my last seven (of 16) years at Enron, my title was Director of Public Policy Analysis. In this role, I was Enron’s libertarian, balancing, I suppose, Enron’s Left environmentalist John Palmisano, author of the infamous Kyoto memo of December 1997.

Enron had multiple profit centers around the global warming issue, which made my internal case for rejecting climate alarmism/policy activism an uphill one. But I got my licks in, including with some ‘e-mail wars’ with Palmisano. I have written numerous posts at MasterResource on Enron’s rent-seeking business strategy and will further set the historical record straight with a forthcoming book in Enron-inspired trilogy.…

(See part 1.) To identify optimum tactics, we need to start with a clear idea of who  the opposition is–and what are their strengths and weaknesses. A careful assessment of this situation will reveal the reality that citizen groups fighting alternative energy promoters are the underdogs.

Briefly, the opponents are:

1 – The Wind Industry [lobbyists (e.g. AWEA), manufactures (e.g. Vesta), developers (e.g. Iberdrola), installers (e.g. Horizon), investors (e.g. Goldman Sachs), and some utilities].

2 – Most large mainstream environmental organizations (e.g. Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Union of Concerned Scientists).

3 – Some labor unions and businesses.

4 – Many Academics (e.g. at Pace, Stanford).

5 – Many of our representatives and agencies: Federal (e.g. Congress, DOE, FERC); State (e.g. legislators, PSC, DEC); Local (e.g. county, town board, planning board).