This past Earth Day, President Barack Obama, speaking at an Iowa wind-turbine factory, delivered a gusty peroration. "The nation that leads the world in creating new energy sources will be the nation that leads the 21st-century global economy," he said. "America can be that nation. America must be that nation."
Earlier this month, speaking at Harvard, Energy Secretary Steven Chu lamented that we're not that nation. Not yet. Even as the cost of creating wind power "has come down by more than a factor of 10" in recent years, he said, we've so far nonetheless "fundamentally surrendered" the development of green-energy technology to Europe and Asia. "We have an opportunity to be an innovation leader," he added, calling for a "new industrial revolution."
New England may be used to being the birthplace of revolutions, but in the case of wind power, that ship has sailed. States out West are far outproducing us, and will likely continue to. That said, we still could be a player in the nascent wind industry; we've just got some catching up to do.
The president has called for wind energy to contribute 20 percent of America's electricity needs and create as many as 250,000 jobs within the next two decades. So far, Texas is far and away the national leader, with more than 8000 megawatts worth of turbines churning the air. (One megawatt, or one million watts, is enough to power 400 to 500 homes.) But here in New England, more and more towers are going up among trees and atop mountains as we start to take advantage of the most viable green-energy source the area has to offer.
Development of renewable resources "has the potential to skyrocket," says Vamsi Chadalavada, senior vice-president and chief operating officer for ISO New England, which runs the six states' electrical grid. And wind, he says, "makes up about 85 percent of [the] proposed renewable projects in the region."
Maine, the most oil-dependent state in the country, has set out to establish itself as the wind-power leader in the region. At this point, Maine produces more than 100 megawatts, compared with just a quarter of that in New Hampshire, and six or so megawatts each for Massachusetts and Vermont. (Connecticut produces no wind energy, and Rhode Island has just two turbines— although more are planned.)
It's probably an overstatement to say, as Democratic representative Chellie Pingree did on The Colbert Report last week, that "Maine is going to be the wind capital of the world."
But with ample open space and an elected leadership intent on embracing the state's potential there's plenty of room to grow. With Maine — like all New England states — mandating that an increased percentage of its energy come from renewable sources, there's plenty of incentive to do so: Governor John Baldacci has pledged to see 3000 megawatts of wind power installed statewide by 2020.
Earlier this year, at a ribbon cutting for Stetson Wind farm in Washington County, Maine — at the thickly forested, sparsely populated eastern edge of the state — Baldacci threw down a green gauntlet: "They talk about it in Washington, DC. But they're delivering on it in Washington County."
This past July, I headed north to Township 8, Range 3, outside the town of Danforth, just miles from the New Brunswick border, to visit Stetson Wind and see what it does up close.
Run by Newton, Massachusetts–based First Wind, Stetson is the largest operational wind farm in New England — at least, that is, until TransCanada's 132 megawatt Kibby Mountain project in the northwest corner of Maine goes online, potentially later this year. One can expect to see more like them sprout up across the region as New England realizes its green-energy potential.
Down on the farm "Put down 'cooing of a dove.' "
Mike Cianchette, Stetson's burly, bald, lushly mustached operations manager, is offering a helpful descriptor for the soft, susurrous sound that's drifting down from the 80-meter-tall turbine towering above us.
In fact, for such a giant structure — the tips of whose 77-meter-diameter blades are cleaving the air at about 100 miles per hour — that gentle metaphor isn't too far off the mark. Granted, the wind is only blowing seven or eight miles per hour; with heavier gusts the turbines would be louder.
Comprised of 38 1.5-megawatt turbines and situated along a five-mile former logging road atop 1100-foot-tall Stetson Ridge, it has just five full-time employees, and cost about $140 million to build. Its rated output (a measure of wattage produced per hour if every turbine was running at maximum capacity) is 57 megawatts, enough to power 23,500 homes — roughly five percent of the state's households.
The turbines can withstand wind speeds up to 58 mph (at which time they'd automatically shut down). But this gentle breeze is enough to move the blades at a fairly impressive clip. In turn, the tower is generating 112 kilowatts of electricity. (The faster and longer the turbine is spun by the wind, the more power it generates. It's basically that simple.)
That energy then travels downstate over 38 miles of newly installed transmission lines to the Keene Road substation in Chester, where Bangor Hydro-Electric feeds it into the grid.
Pure Maine electrons, flowing fresh as a mountain stream.
Wind energy isn't perfect. First and most obviously, the wind doesn't always blow.
"We cannot maintain 100 percent availability, 100 percent of the time," concedes Cianchette. "We have yet to control Mother Nature, and until such time as that happens, we're at the whim of what the weather's gonna do for us."
Then there are questions about reliable transmission into the grid. Some opponents question wind farms' impact on wildlife. There are aesthetic concerns, and complaints about noise. Some have even fretted about a nebulous, newly coined affliction called "wind-turbine syndrome."
Most critical, on the development front, wind is a capital-intensive industry that's trying to grow at a time when capital is in short supply.
WIND MINERS: Workers sit atop one of Stetson Wind’s 38 turbines, 80 meters high, in eastern Maine.
But the wind farms keep going up. And Stetson, which has been online for just seven months and is already slated to expand with another 17 turbines later this year, is an impressive example of the kind of projects that could proliferate around New England. Relatively quickly, too — bringing with them jobs and diffuse other economic benefits to parts of the region that badly need it.
With the Obama administration pledging support for green energy, and this winter's stimulus package helping to unstick sluggish credit markets, the best could be yet to come.
First Wind also has wind farms, either in operation or various stages of development, in Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, California, Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming, New York, Vermont, and New Brunswick, making Massachusetts a key player in the green-energy revolution. Maine, which ranks 19th in the country for wind resources, is a cornerstone to First Wind's growth strategy. (Its farms currently produce 274 megawatts nationwide, with 203 more under construction, and anywhere from 4000 to 5000 in development behind that.)
"We're very bullish on New England," says First Wind's CEO Paul Gaynor, noting that, in addition to its Newton headquarters, the firm has development offices in Portland, Maine, and Montpelier, Vermont.
"Maine has abundant wind resources," he explains. "And it's a big state, so there's a fair amount of room to put up wind farms. Maine has also done a very admirable job of making wind-power development a key part of their policy. The rules of the road are very clear in Maine, in terms of permitting and so forth. That clarity, quite frankly, is appealing compared to other states where there's not a whole lot of clarity."
First Wind also operates Maine's first wind farm, the 42-megawatt Mars Hill Wind, which opened in 2006. And, in addition to the Stetson expansion, which will add another 25.5 megawatts to the New England grid (it's been approved; the parts have been delivered; and now it's just a matter of wrangling a bit more capital), it also has two other Maine projects in the pipeline. Rollins Wind would be a 60-megawatt farm, in the eastern part of the state, in the Penobscot County town of Lincoln (a permit was granted by the Maine DEP in April) and Oakfield Wind (permit-application pending) would produce 50 megawatts, in eastern Aroostook County.
"There's no question," says Matt Kearns, First Wind's president of development in New England, "that if wind is going to take hold, and if New England is going to have a prayer of meeting its requirements for renewable energy" — under the mandates of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and various states' renewable portfolio standards— "Maine is going to have to have a key role."
As that role continues to evolve, Gaynor can't quite believe how fast things are moving since he joined First Wind — which was founded in 1995 as UPC Wind Partners— back in 2004. "It was a much different business back then, a much smaller industry. I wouldn't have imagined how quickly it's grown over the last five years."
The sound of money Driving along sparsely trafficked Route 169, coming over a rise in the road, I first see those sleek white towers looming over the tree line, lapping lazily at the air. To these eyes, at least, they look beautiful.
There are photos and videos of wind turbines all over the Web. But until you've seen a wind farm in person, it's hard to describe the breathtaking size.
Each tower is topped by an engine house of sorts called a nacelle, which in turn is attached to those massive adjustable turbines, each able to yaw in the direction of the wind. From the ground, the nacelle seems like it should be the size of a coffee table— they're actually as big as a small plane.
Initially, the plan was for me to sign a release form, strap a hardhat on, get harnessed in, and make the 15-minute ladder climb to the top. I'll admit: when thunderheads roll through and the threat of lightning makes that idea untenable, I am as much relieved as I am disappointed.
Sitting in Stetson's sparely furnished control building — a few PCs that closely monitor and control each tower, a fire-retardant library with scrupulous logs of every tower inspection — Cianchette explains what makes eastern Washington County a great place for a wind farm.
For one thing, it's sparsely populated. The closest year-round home to Stetson is a mile and a half away, and much of the traffic in Township 8, Range 3, comes in the way of snowmobiles.
And Stetson Ridge, while hardly Mount Washington, is tall(ish) — as Maine's eastern region goes. It's highest at its mid-point, where tower numbers 19 and 20 stand basking in the breeze, says Cianchette, who notes that the output of the turbines pretty much follows the topography of the mountain: "The higher the turbine, the better the generation."
Each turbine costs a bit more than $2.5 million and is designed for a 20-year life-span. Once their foundations are poured, even despite their gargantuan size, each takes barely two days to put up. In a best-case scenario, says Cianchette, it could take just seven months between breaking ground on a wind farm and it producing power.
"We're producing, but not close to what we could," says Cianchette ruefully of the day's moderate winds. "Some days we're at 50 percent capacity, some days we're at zero. I don't like those days. A calm, sunny day? I don't like that at all." In this job, he says, "You kind of change the way you look at the weather. The wild weather we get through here — I love it. My wife says she hates the wind, but I tell her, 'Honey, it sounds like money.' "
Washington delivers Thanks to taxes, capital expenditure, and job creation, that money travels both ways. And for that reason — despite some complaints about noise from Mars Hill Wind (a lawsuit about which was filed last week) and small but vocal opposition to the proposed Rollins Wind project — in Washington County, at least, it seems most locals are happy Stetson Wind is there.
"People here, from what I can tell, have been very welcoming to the windmills," says Francis Grey, town manager for Danforth, the town (population 629) that abuts Township 8, Range 3. "We're so small that any additional employment opportunities in our area is significant."
Several Washington County businesses, many of which would have shuttered during the colder months, were filled up this past winter as the area swarmed with construction workers. In addition to Danforth "enjoying a benefit in our tax assessment because of temporary storage of [turbine] components during the construction phase," Grey says First Wind also banked some good-will capital by donating "some very expensive equipment to the fire department." (Kearns notes that one of the cranes used to erect the towers also helped right one farmer's old and sagging barn.)
That's all good, but "what we'd really like to see the most is some of these wind mills permanently erected in our boundaries," says Grey frankly. "Then we could see some tax revenue. That's what we'd like the best."
He has reason to say that. In Stetson's case, First Wind's tax payments are distributed among the communities of Washington and Penobscot Counties. But Mars Hill, where the turbines are within the town limits, "gets about half a million dollars a year from us in tax revenues," says John Lamontagne, First Wind's director of corporate communications. "Different towns choose to use those funds in different ways, but Mars Hill has decided to give everyone basically a 20- to 25-percent property-tax cut."
In addition to taxes paid on each farm (and the handful of full-time jobs created for their employees), First Wind estimates $50 million from the construction of the Stetson project went directly into the Maine economy, spent at 130 businesses — brush clearing, steel supply, fiber optics — from Caribou to Kittery.
Most interesting, the wind industry is starting to transform some of Maine's oldest businesses into 21st-century versions of their former selves. Reed and Reed, the Woolwich-based contractors who erected the towers, have been bridge builders since 1928. "They'd never touched a wind turbine until Mars Hill," says Kearns. "We sort of trained them— and they sort of trained us about doing business in Maine, which is significant."
WINDFALL: In addition to tax breaks and job production, First Wind is estimated to have contributed $50 million to the Maine economy.
On my visit, I meet a man from the western Maine mill town of Rumford, who's taking a tour of Stetson in an effort to learn more about the wind industry. For years, he'd worked in the paper industry — another once-robust sector, critical to Maine's economy, that's seen better days. "The only thing I can see that's really moving is wind," he says. "So that's the direction I'm headed."
Plenty of due diligence takes place before ground is broken for a wind farm. "Roughly three to four years, soup to nuts," says Kearns. "We identify areas we think are suitable, we talk to landowners, walking the land with their permission, and, assuming we have a meeting of the minds, we'll put up a meteorological tower. Then we need at least a year of data, figuring out if there's a fit there."
Next, there are environmental issues, says Kearns. "Bird and bat studies. Vernal pool studies — you've got to wait for spring to find those little egg masses. Certain birds only fly by at certain times — like hawk migration occurs in the fall. We use radar equipment to determine which bats are coming by, and at what frequency. They're pretty robust studies."
Cianchette, for his part, is a registered Maine Master Guide and has been hunting these woods his whole life. He flatly rebuts any argument that the towers are adversely affecting the area's fauna. "Moose, deer, bear, bobcat, coyote, rabbits . . . [Since the towers were erected], I've seen more animals on this mountain than any other."
Sure, there were several local residents opposed to dotting the lush canopy of trees with three dozen 155-ton towers. But each of those turbines, remember, also displaces 2500 tons of CO2 from the air each year. That's not insignificant.
"People prize this area for its contiguous forest," says Kearns. "I respect that. This is a beautiful area. But the wind also blows. And using the wind is just like using any other of Maine's resources. We use the trees, we grow potatoes here, we harvest the fish."
False start? Even once environmental and other concerns are allayed, a major stumbling block to full-on wind development remains. "This is a capital-intensive business," says Lamontagne. "It takes a lot to get started without seeing a penny." In case it's escaped your notice, the past year or so hasn't been the best time for anyone looking for lump sums of lucre.
All the same, says Gaynor, "We've had a pretty good run in the last three or four months." The company has secured a total of $567 million in financing so far this year — which obviously says something, in this economy, about investors' confidence in the wind industry's future.
Indeed, despite warnings that "the credit crunch would kneecap wind power this year, it's still a fast-growing sector," as the Wall Street Journal wrote last month, "[i]n the second quarter, the US installed 1210 megawatts of wind power, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Yes, that's a big drop from the 2860 megawatts installed in the first quarter. But it also means that through the first half of the year, the US is ahead of the wind-power pace it set in 2008 — an all-time record year."
The key now is to keep that momentum rolling. And the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (a/k/a the "stimulus package") signed by Obama back in February aims to do just that, offering a series of plans — an extension of the renewable-energy-production tax credit through 2012, grants from the Treasury Department, a loan-guarantee program for renewables — meant to buttress green-power industry and entice private investment.
"The recovery-act funding is absolutely essential," says Gaynor. "It's very important to stimulate the providers of capital so these renewable energy projects can get built. I think the administration has done a great job of making renewable energy part of their agenda, recognizing the reality of the financial markets today, and doing something about trying to fix it."
His only quibble? Speed it up, please. "We have a lot of pent-up demand, and I'm sure other companies do as well."
In other words (to borrow from Bob Dylan) when it comes to New England's energy future, you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. By Mike Miliard of The Boston Phoenix Special Video can be found at: http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1896837835?bctid=34611896001 |
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