Moloka’i residents opposed to Big Wind took over Pattern Energy’s meeting on Moloka’i last night (June 21, 2011). According to one vehement I Aloha Moloka’i (IAM) participant:
“Last night we had the first of 3 meetings with Pattern and Bio-Logical Capital. Maunaloa residents and IAM members took over a packed meeting in Maunaloa Town and told the Big Wind hustlers to go home.
“For two hours person after person told them their project is shameful, full of lies, a crime against Moloka’i and Lana’i, and that the people of Moloka’i will never let it happen.
“We refused to let them speak, took down their posters, handed out bumper stickers and signed up new members. When we were finished we closed the meeting and went home. No one in the entire meeting room spoke in favor of the windmills.
“Tonight we will do it again in Kaunakakai and tell Pattern and Bio-Logical Capital what you think and why they are wasting their time and disrespecting Moloka’i and Lana’i and our beautiful ocean. Points to make:
- Honolulu is an energy vampire. They can’t wreck Moloka’i to feed their addiction.
- 90 windmills on Moloka’i will destroy our island, ruin our property values, and take away our hunting and our island’s beauty.
- Rooftop solar is much cheaper, better for people, and doesn’t despoil the environment.
- They don’t have the right to increase our electricity bills 30% so they can make millions of dollars.
- Moloka’i people are not interested in their bribes (“community benefits”). We don’t even want to listen to them.
- Moloka’i people will do whatever it takes to stop this. If they try to bring in windmills we will block the port and the roads and we will never give up.”
Karen Chun
On aspect of wind generation which is poorly understood is that power (MW) designations are virtually meaningless.
Wind generates ENERGY (what you get charged for on your bill in kwh) but in current utility operating practices contributes nothing to offsetting the amount POWER generation a utility is required to install to meet peak demand.
But that is because utility practices were decided in an era of unlimited oil and the expectation that nuclear power would be limitless and inexpensive (nuclear is not inexpensive – its costs are just hidden in taxpayer subsidies)
So one can change the operating policies. Rather than installing capacity to meet peak demand, one can shed load (shutting off nonessential users such as air conditioning) or having rolling blackouts and so on.
Under operating principles which allow for this, wind energy is a valuable source of generation.
Under current operating policy, wind generation can still save the utility money as it displaces fossil fuel generation. The utility has to install the diesel generators but it doesn’t have to run them to generate electricity (although it may have to run to at a lower level to supply “spinning reserves” to cover fluctuations in wind generation)
So although opponents of Big Wind have many valid criticisms, wind generation’s lack of usefulness is not one that I can go along with.
Anonymous
This whole Big Wind project is an amazing way to turn something good (wind energy) into a rip-off of the Hawai’i taxpayers and utility customers.
With the same amount of State money, we could put solar on most of the Oahu homes, save each Oahu resident beaucoup bucks on their utility bill and not turn the neighbor islands into industrial power lots.
Seems like every time big corporations get involved in “green energy” they turn it into a scheme to siphon off money from the residents into their own pockets.
We have limited financial resources and it simply does not make sense to use them creating a huge project that will mean higher bills for us and money being sucked out of Hawai’i into foreign corporate pockets.
There are so many better ideas to become more energy sustainable that will be CHEAPER for residents.