Tag: wind turbines

Osage Nation’s Victorious War Cry After Judge Rules Wind Farm on Tribal Land Must Be Dismantled: ‘This Is Our Homeland’

The Osage Nation in Oklahoma won a great victory for American property rights last week after a judge ordered the dismantling of a renewable energy wind farm that was erected without permission on their tribal lands.

One of the main reasons the Native American council opposed the wind farm was to protect their mineral rights, not to mention their ability to control their own ancestral homeland.

But the battle has been raging in court for a decade already, as the Osage Nation and its Mineral Council worked to eliminate the facilitates of Osage Wind LLC, Enel Kansas LLC and Enel Green Power North America Inc.

The victory was total. U.S. Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves ruled in the case in Tulsa last week that the Osage Nation was awarded injunctive relief via “ejectment of the wind turbine farm for continuing trespass,” according to Tulsa World.

The judge ruled that the wind turbine facility constituted “mining” and required a lease from the Osage Nation’s Minerals Council, something the wind farm companies neglected to do when erecting their turbines.

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Federal Agency Says Offshore Wind Farm Will Likely “adversely affect” Whales and Other Marine Mammals

Opposition to offshore wind projects is increasing worldwide and not only because dead whales and other marine life keep washing up on beaches (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).  While some still don’t believe that whales and other marine life are being affected by offshore wind development, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently confirmed that they are – just not that badly.

The lone remaining offshore wind project in New Jersey with preliminary approval is likely to “adversely affect” whales and other marine mammals, but its construction, operation and eventual dismantling will not seriously harm or kill them, a federal scientific agency said.

In a biological opinion issued Monday night, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the Atlantic Shores project, to be built off the state’s southern coast, is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any species of endangered whales, sea turtles, or fish.

Nor is it anticipated to destroy or adversely modify any designated critical habitat, the agency said.

Jennifer Daniels, the company’s development director, called NOAA’s decision “the next step forward” for the project.

It’s “a testament to the five years and 40-plus environmental assessments completed to ensure we are delivering safe, reliable, renewable power in a way that prioritizes responsible ocean development,” Daniels wrote.

The ruling is nearly identical to one the agency issued in April for the now-canceled Ocean Wind I and II projects, which would have been built in the same general area.

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Internal Docs Show Biden Admin Waived Taxpayer Safeguards to Boost Offshore Wind Project

The Biden administration quietly granted a request from an energy firm developing an offshore wind project off the coast of Massachusetts to waive development fees designed to safeguard taxpayers, according to internal documents reviewed by Fox News Digital.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) informed Vineyard Wind that it had waived a financial assurance for decommissioning costs fee in a June 15, 2021, letter obtained by watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT). Federal statute mandates that developers pay that fee prior to construction on their lease, a potentially hefty fee designed to guarantee federal property is returned to its original state after a lessee departs its lease.

“At the same time the Department of the Interior was looking at forcing greater and more expensive bonding requirements on holders of long-standing oil and gas leases, they were relaxing these requirements on the nation’s first utility-scale offshore wind energy producer, one that just coincidentally happened to be a client of their incoming #2,” PPT Director Michael Chamberlain told Fox News Digital.

“If you want to talk about bad optics, I don’t see how they could be any worse than right here,” he said. “For an administration touting itself as the most ethical in history, this represents yet another incident in which Secretary Haaland’s Interior appears to have a tough time living up to that standard.”

Chamberlain noted that former Deputy Interior Secretary Tommy Beadreau, the second-highest ranked official at the Department of the Interior (DOI) which houses BOEM, had, according to his 2021 financial disclosure form, previously represented Vineyard Wind on legal matters while serving as a partner at the firm Latham & Watkins.

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New documentary ‘proves’ building offshore wind farms does kill whales

The increase in whale, dolphin, and other cetacean deaths off the East Coast of the United States since 2016 is not due to the construction of large industrial wind turbines, U.S. government officials say.

Their scientists have done the research, they say, to prove that whatever is killing the whales is completely unrelated to the wind industry. 

But now, a new documentary, “Thrown To The Wind,” by director and producer Jonah Markowitz, which I executive produced, proves that the US government officials have been lying.

The film documents surprisingly loud, high-decibel sonar emitted by wind industry vessels when measured with state-of-the-art hydrophones. And it shows that the wind industry’s increased boat traffic is correlated directly with specific whale deaths

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Scotland cut down 14 million trees to make way for wind turbines

Scotland, site of the recent United Nations 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) climate summit, has cut down 14 million trees to make room for new wind power installations.

As reported in The Herald, the tree removal was for 21 wind turbine projects.

“The Scottish Government has moved to reassure that more trees have been planted, but it is unknown what proportion of these are mature plants that play a bigger role in turning carbon into oxygen.

“A Scottish conservation charity, which has planted almost two million trees across the Highlands, believes that both wind farms and trees are key to reducing carbon levels.”

The tree removal seems especially ironic given that world leaders supposedly agreed to end deforestation by 2030 at the recent COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.

The Herald further reports that: “A spokesman for Forestry and Land Scotland, said: ‘Renewable energy and forests are key to Scotland’s contribution to mitigating climate change and FLS is successfully managing both elements.

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Wind Turbine Blades Can’t Be Recycled, So They’re Piling Up in Landfills

A wind turbine’s blades can be longer than a Boeing 747 wing, so at the end of their lifespan they can’t just be hauled away. First, you need to saw through the lissome fiberglass using a diamond-encrusted industrial saw to create three pieces small enough to be strapped to a tractor-trailer.

The municipal landfill in Casper, Wyoming, is the final resting place of 870 blades whose days making renewable energy have come to end. The severed fragments look like bleached whale bones nestled against one another.

“That’s the end of it for this winter,” said waste technician Michael Bratvold, watching a bulldozer bury them forever in sand. “We’ll get the rest when the weather breaks this spring.”

Tens of thousands of aging blades are coming down from steel towers around the world and most have nowhere to go but landfills. In the U.S. alone, about 8,000 will be removed in each of the next four years. Europe, which has been dealing with the problem longer, has about 3,800 coming down annually through at least 2022, according to BloombergNEF. It’s going to get worse: Most were built more than a decade ago, when installations were less than a fifth of what they are now.

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