by jboullion | May 21, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an article by Judy Newman in the Wisconsin State Journal:
Alliant Energy is giving up on the idea of building more coal-fired power plants “for the time being,” Alliant chairman, president and chief executive Bill Harvey said Thursday.
In an interview after the Madison utility holding company’s annual shareholders meeting, Harvey said Alliant subsidiary Wisconsin Power & Light will not ask for a new coal-fueled power plant to replace one proposed for Cassville that state regulators rejected in late 2008.
“I think it’s politically … too risky to think about building coal plants until climate legislation gets in place,” Harvey said. “There’s got to be substantial technological improvements before the country returns to building coal plants. That’s certainly true for us,” he said.
Thanks to adequate power available to buy on the electric transmission grid, Harvey said it will likely be two or three years before Alliant proposes building another natural-gas-fired power plant. That could happen sooner, though, if the economy recovers quickly or if climate change rules force the company to abandon its older coal-fired power plants sooner than expected.
As for nuclear power, Harvey said Alliant is not big enough to consider spending up to $10 billion to build a nuclear plant but it might buy part of a new one, if one is built. “We have to consider that. We have to consider all possibilities,” he said.
by jboullion | May 12, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an editorial in the La Crosse Tribune:
A study by a team of business students at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse found a great deal of enthusiasm for high-speed rail among La Crosse area business people.
Megan Louwagie, Brianna Murray, Bryant Poss and Chelsey Wagner conducted the study, sponsored by the La Crosse Area High-Speed Rail Coalition, for their Business 230 class, using 545 e-mail surveys returned by area business people.
The respondents were well aware of La Crosse’s position as a possible stop on a proposed high-speed rail line between Chicago and the Twin Cities (an average of 4.41 on a five-point scale, on which one is “not aware” and 5 is “very aware”), and 83 percent said they would use high-speed rail to travel to destinations along the proposed La Crosse route.
Business people are generally news-savvy, and their awareness of the high-speed rail issue wasn’t surprising. But the
students’ original premise was that area business people wouldn’t be all that interested in actually using a passenger rail system.
The data the students compiled proved their assumption incorrect, both for business and leisure travel.
The average respondent was quite interested in using such a system (4.33 on a five-point scale), and high-frequency departures and arrivals (six trains per day in each direction) would increase their use of passenger rail (4.72 on a five-point scale).
Fourteen percent of respondents reported they presently use Amtrak.
On average, business people rated the importance of bringing a high-speed rail route through the city to be a 4.01 on a five-point scale (again one being “not important” and five being “very important”).
by jboullion | May 10, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an story by on WXOW-TV, La Crosse:
Onalaska, Wisconsin (WXOW)- How would you like to save three hundred dollars on your home energy bill?
That’s how much one Onalaska man is saving after having his home weatherized for free, thanks to Couleecap.
The private, nonprofit agency will be spending between 6500 dollars and 8500 dollars to weatherize homes that meet eligibility requirements.
With the assistance, the Burkhardt’s were able to re-insulate their home, replace their water heater, and put in a new furnace for free.
In turn, he is able to save money on his energy bills.
In total, Burkhardt is now saving about three hundred dollars.
Burkhardt isn’t the only that stands to see savings.
More than a thousand other homes will also be weatherized like Burkhardt’s was under the Couleecap program.
Executive Director Grace Jones says, “It’s part of the overall energy conservation movement trying to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and non-renewable.
Which also means less dependence on foreign fuel.
Although the program is free for the recipients, the money is coming from somewhere.
Couleecap has a little more than 8.3 million dollars in its budget for the weatherization program thanks to state and federal dollars, including about 3.6 million dollars coming from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act or stimulus package. . . .
If you think you might be eligible for the weatherization program, go to Couleecap.org.
Or call, Couleecap their in La Crosse in 608-782-4877 or 1-866-717-9490.
by jboullion | May 7, 2010 | Uncategorized
The Wind Siting Advisory Committee, created to advise the Public Service Commission on statewide wind siting standards, toured Blue Sky Green Field Wind Energy Center and Forward Wind Center on May 4, 2010, to gain first hand knowledge of turbine impacts.
Michael Vickerman, RENEW Wisconsin’s executive director, prepared the following commentary on his impressions of the tour:
Impressions of the Wind Siting Council’s Tour of Wind Development in Fond du Lac County
Stop 1 – Home of Larry Wunsch, council member, pilot, and wind project opponent
A member of the Wind Siting Council and a critic of windpower, Larry lives on a 60-acre parcel located on the northern edge of the Forward project along Hwy F. On his 60 acres you’ll find a six-year-old 2,200 square-foot house, a hangar, a airplane, an airstrip, and 50 acres of rentable ag land, all zoned agricultural. The property is for sale; the asking price is $600,000. You can take a digital tour of his property by visiting http://www.fdlairstrip.com. Observe that not a single turbine shows up in any of the images on his web site. As you will appreciate later on in this document, editing out the wind turbines was not an easy feat to pull off.
Fourteen of the 15 council members were present at Larry Wunsch’s house. Also gathering there were PSC staff, a film crew from WI Public Television, Bill Rakocy’s partners at Emerging Energies (Tim Osterberg and Jay Mundinger) a smattering of local wind critics (Gerry Meyer and Curt Kindschuh), two WINDCOWS representatives from Manitowoc County (Dave and Lynn Korinek), Lynda Barry from Rock County, furiously taking notes, and a few others whom I didn’t recognize.
I came a few minutes late, and missed some of Larry’s opening remarks. From what I gleaned from others, Larry mentioned that he poured much if not all of his personal savings into acquiring this property some 11 years ago. Between the appearance of his property and the tidbits of information he provided yesterday, I would characterize Larry’s parcel as investment property on which he built his dream house, which is set back about 100 yards from the road. The property tax levy on his 60-acre parcel is quite modest — $5,400 per year. At some point in the future, his plan was to subdivide the ag land into residential properties.
The wind was blowing from the west-southwest. My educated guess is that the winds were clocking in about 10 – 14 miles/hour.
The closest turbine to Larry’s house is located practically due west at a distance of 1,100 feet. I honestly could not hear the wind turbine from where I stood, about 50 feet east of the house. I was surprised by this, because I had stopped at the Blue Sky Green Field operations center on the way to Larry’s house, and there I could clearly hear the Vestas V-82 turbine that is 1,100 feet away from the building entrance.
There was no shadow flicker to experience, due to the generally cloudy conditions at Forward as well as the time of day. 
There was no missing the visual impact of the Forward project looking south from where we gathered, which was in front of Larry’s hangar. There were easily 50 turbines viewable from that vantage point. Moreover, off in the eastern horizon, the Cedar Ridge turbines were plainly visible, although their visual impact was slight compared to the panorama of Forward turbines from east to west. Since he owned the property before the wind turbines were constructed, the change in his south-facing viewshed must have been dramatic, to say the least.
No one had any difficulty hearing Larry or any other speaker during the tour stop. Maybe others were able to perceive sound coming from the turbines, but I certainly wasn’t. We were able to make out a plethora of other sounds while we were there, including a very loud plane flying overhead, occasional bird chatter, random mooing of cows and, at one point, a helicopter buzzing over the turbines. The bucolic sounds of the countryside were in no way disturbed or distorted by whooshing noise. . . .
Stop 2 – Blue Sky Green Field Operations Center
On the way to the operations center, the clouds broke up and the sun shone through. We assembled at the operations center, where We Energies’ Andy Hesselbach delivered a brief presentation on WE’s generation profile and the construction of the Blue Sky Green Field in 2007-2008, and its performance since. The turbines were achieving availability ratings of 99% or better. According to Andy, wind farm production was tracking close to preconstruction estimates, and that April had been a good month for wind. (An aside: it was a hell of a good month for solar too. . . .)
The overall impression conveyed by the We Energies-Vestas team is that Blue Sky Green Field is a well-managed project and that We Energies is a responsible project owner, effectively balancing the objective of maximizing facility output with the obligation to be a good neighbor to area residents.
After the presentations were concluded, the group walked to the turbine closest to the operations center. As we approached the turbine we spotted two red-tailed hawks wheeling above the turbine, looking not the least bit alarmed. The wind started to pick up then.
The turbine door was opened and a few Council members and PSC staff stepped inside. Others gathered about 200 feet from the turbine to talk. Even though everyone was quite conscious of the whooshing blades (and an audible chirping sound with each revolution), we were able to converse with each other without having to raise our voices or cup our ears. Not far away, one of the Council members, a wind opponent, was listening to messages on his mobile. No one, including the opponents, seemed troubled by our proximity to the turbine. Given how quick they are to misrepresent the contents of the Vestas safety manual, they seemed not at all worried about what harm might befall them being only 200 feet from a spinning industrial monster. The two WINDCOWS representatives were tagging along and they didn’t seem the least bit fazed either.
by jboullion | May 6, 2010 | Uncategorized
A commentary
by Michael Vickerman, RENEW Wisconsin
May 4, 2010
Renewable energy businesses and activists entered the month of April with high hopes of seeing the State Legislature pass the Clean Energy Jobs Act (CEJA), a comprehensive bill designed to propel Wisconsin toward energy independence, along the way creating thousands of new jobs and strengthening the sustainable energy marketplace. This comprehensive bill would have raised the renewable energy content of electricity sold in Wisconsin, while stepping up ratepayer support for smaller-scale renewable energy installations throughout the state.
Unfortunately, on April 22, the State Senate adjourned for the year without taking action on the Clean Energy Jobs Act bill, effectively killing the measure and leaving hundreds of businesses and individuals who campaigned for the bill empty-handed.
If life imitates poetry, then the line that opens T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land—“April is the cruelest month”—aptly encapsulates the evolution of a campaign that overcame many obstacles in the final weeks only to be undermined by the unwillingness of Senate leaders to schedule a vote on the bill. The sense of anticipation that began the month was swept away by a combination of personal feuds, extreme partisanship, and increasingly polarized public attitudes toward climate change. That the bill’s demise coincided with the 40th anniversary of Earth Day was seen by supporters as an especially cruel twist of fate.
It certainly didn’t help matters that the some of the state’s most politically entrenched constituencies banded together to fight CEJA at every stage of the process. Among the hard-core opponents were Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the Paper Council and the Farm Bureau. Their vociferous opposition scuttled bipartisanship, eliminating the possibility that a Republican legislator would vote for the bill.
Working hand-in-glove with vitriolic right-wing radio talk show hosts, the opposition supplied their grassroots faithful with a smorgasbord of exaggerated claims, hyperbole, outright fantasy, and pseudoscience. Though the analysis purporting to document the opposition’s assertions set a new low in academic rigor, it succeeded in its aim, which was to plant the seeds of fear among certain legislators about the ultimate cost of this legislation before the bill was even introduced.
Working just as vigorously for the Clean Energy Jobs Act, a broad spectrum of interests answered the requests for help. Whether they were one-person solar installation businesses or Fortune 500 corporations like Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls, CEJA supporters wrote letters, made phone calls, and corralled their legislators at the Capitol on several days during March and April.
In dozens of face-to-face meetings with their representatives, CEJA supporters made the case for this bill by bringing out their own experiences as business owners, farmers, educators, builders, and skilled tradesmen. They presented a local and highly personal angle to the clean energy policy debate that many legislators had not appreciated before. Their passion and energy were instrumental in giving this bill a fighting chance for passage at the end of the session. Unfortunately, the campaign could not overcome the pique of the Senate Democrats.
One legislator who kept pushing this ambitious bill up the legislative hill until the very last day was Assembly representative Spencer Black, who was one of the four principal authors of the measure. CEJA supporters are indebted to Rep. Black for his vigorous leadership and his determined efforts to round up support among his compatriots for passing this bill.
Two rays of sunlight did manage to pierce through the heavy clouds at the close of April, prompted by the dedication of the two largest wind turbines owned by Wisconsin schools. In each case, the school erected a 100-kilowatt Northwind turbine manufactured by Vermont-based Northern Power Systems. One serves Wausau East High School while the other feeds power to the Madison Area Technical College’s Fort Atkinson branch. The turbines will offset a significant fraction of the electricity consumed at each school.
Located well within the city limits of Wausau and Fort Atkinson, these 155-foot-tall wind generators eloquently testify to the breadth and depth of public support for renewable energy across Wisconsin. Next January, the Legislature will witness the return of clean energy supporters with similar legislation for strengthening Wisconsin’s renewable energy marketplace. In the meantime, we will be working hard to achieve a very different outcome.
END
Michael Vickerman is the executive director of RENEW Wisconsin, a sustainable energy advocacy organization headquartered in Madison. For more information on Wisconsin renewable energy policy, visit RENEW’s web site at: www.renewwisconsin.org.
