“Obviously, nobody wants dirty air, but the American Lung Association’s knee-jerk renewables advocacy is mainly emotional and not grounded in fact.”

Last month, New Hampshire’s Site Evaluation Committee (SEC)[1] disapproved Antrim Wind, a 30-megawatt wind energy facility proposed along a remote and environmentally sensitive ridgeline in rural Antrim, NH. After eleven days of evidentiary hearings and three days of public deliberations, the Committee ruled that the ten monster turbines, each standing 492-feet tall, would pose a significant impact on aesthetics with no satisfactory means of mitigating the effect.

The Committee’s ruling surprised New England wind proponents who wasted no time calling the decision a serious setback for clean energy and urging the SEC to reconsider its decision.

Among those objecting was the American Lung Association. In a letter to the SEC, Edward Miller, Senior Vice President of Public Policy for the American Lung Association in the Northeast, wrote:…

“Contrast West Virginia’s ridgeline wind turbines to a single fracking site hosting a dozen or more underground wells. Those wellheads produce ’round the clock, something that wind proponents cannot honestly claim. Not even all those the  lawyers of the Southern Environmental Law Center can make the wind turbines regularly spin.”

The City of Charlottesville, VA is home to some notable landmarks, which include Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, and his university, the University of Virginia. It is also home to the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), whose mission is “to use the power of the law to protect the environment of the Southeast.”

Under the Case Summary for “Fracking in the Southwest,” the SELC notes:

The drilling technique known as “fracking” is widely used around the country to extract natural gas from deep shale deposits.

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Issue: 2013-06-15

News

“Feel-good politics and a desperate wind industry are driving Massachusetts and Connecticut policies, but at some point energy policies have to be grounded in reality. Opposition to wind energy in the northern New England states has settled in, and the residents are beginning to argue enough-is-enough. … As is typical in areas around the world, wind energy will once again bring division.”

New England state Renewable Portfolio Standard (‘RPS’) policies represent some of the most aggressive and costly programs in the country. By 2021, over 20% of the electricity sold retail in the region must come from renewables. Given a robust mix of natural resources, particularly wood biomass, and some hydroelectric, meeting the state mandates, while tough, is possible. But recent legislative and regulatory proposals altering the Massachusetts and Connecticut RPS programs now threaten the balance in favor of building new wind power facilities which could lead to an energy policy war between the states.…