Last week in Michele Bachmann & Glenn Gruenhagen only MN lawmakers to sign AFP No Climate Tax Pledge, Bluestem closed by noting a campaign against a Sibley County wind farm that representative Glenn Gruenhagen (R-Glencoe) and senator Scott Newman (R-Hutchinson) were promoting because of their opposition to the state's laws promoting renewable energy standards. In a letter to area papers, they wrote:
Minnesotans deserve energy solutions that make sense for their pocketbooks, which is why we, as your elected representatives, oppose alternative wind energy mandates that drive up electricity costs by as much as 20 percent or more. Higher electricity costs hurt families and businesses.
They then repeated a litany of data that had been "provided by local co-ops," although the local co-op itself does obtain power from the Chandler Hills Wind Farm near Chandler, Minnesota. The wind farm is part of the power generation co-op Great River Energy, of which the McLeod Cooperative Power Association is a member. There's little on either co-op's website condemning wind power.
Not surprisingly, a representative of the wind industry has responded. In Tuesday's Belle Plaine Herald, Shanelle Evens Montana, Regulatory & Legislative Affairs Associate for EDF Renewable Energy, North America, writes:
Minnesota investor owned utilities reporting to the PUC indicate little or no negative impact on customer electric rates resulting from the Renewable Energy Standard. In fact, Xcel Energy, who supplies about 50% of the state’s electricity, reported that energy prices were about 1% lower with wind than without. A May 2012 Synapse Energy Economics, Inc., report says adding more wind power in the Midwest would lower overall energy costs for consumers, saving each ratepayer $63 to $200 per year. And, a July 11, 2013 article in Amarillo Globe News reports that, “Xcel Energy expects to save customers [in New Mexico and Texas] about $590 million in fuel costs over the next 20 years” with three new wind energy contracts it just announced. “These are very good deals for our customers. The prices we locked in are for the most part below the cost of generating with natural gas,” Xcel spokesman Wes Reeves said in the article. “It’s a decision based entirely on economics … .”
It’s wise for readers to look for specific reports or studies to substantiate such claims as those made regarding federal investment in energy production. The fact is, oil and gas companies have received more than 75 times the total cumulative dollar amount of federal subsidies that renewables have ($446.96 billion vs. $5.93 billion through 2009, according to a recent study from the venture capital firm DBL Investors).
Communities in Minnesota have benefited greatly from wind development. Residents in Jackson County, for example, have seen their property taxes go down and roads improved since wind development came to town. A restaurant on the brink of closing has paid off debt and considered expanding due to the influx of workers from wind development. Mortenson Construction, a Minneapolis construction firm, spent $30.9 million on supplies and services from Minnesota small businesses for the Lakefield Wind project. Wind developers in Minnesota pay nearly $8 million, annually, in property tax payments alone, which are used for roads, schools and other priorities identified by the community. Furthermore, there have been no complaints about adverse health effects. . . .
And she asks a good question:
It seems the real question to debate is why your own state representatives and senators would buy in to this fear-mongering rhetoric and deprive you of energy cost savings, jobs, and the economic development opportunities that come along with wind development.
UFO Digest and Speculation: bees and turbines
Gruenhagen and Newman's letter suggests getting in touch with " Kevin and Barb Wenninger, who are residents in Cornish Township" in order to "get more involved" the Sibley Wind Substation, LLC. Barb Wenninger has sent four comments to the PUC about the farm--which is already permitted. Her letters contain typical anti-wind complaints, about flicker, human health, setbacks--and there's one we hadn't seen before, about the danger turbines allegedly pose to bees. She writes:
Our town Winthrop sits in close proximity of the Sibley Wind project and is host to a bee keeping business. This leads me to the question :
Do these wind turbines give cause for concern to the welfare of these bees and this bee keeping business? We understand that bees hold a very key role in the foundation of our very delicate Eco system, including the pollination of agricultural vegetation.
Please see the attached map, as there seems to be a correlation between the massive loss of bees and the drastic increase in the number of wind farms in the U.S.
Well then: that would be pretty awful then, wouldn't it, if the construction of wind farms--not the use of pesticides, not the destruction of bee habitat and fodder that comes with monocropping, not the stress colonies face as they as they're hauled, north and south, without a chance to hibernate, not the advance of invasive flora species that crowd out pollinators' rich and varied diet--no, but vibrations from wind turbines were responsible for the decline of pollinators.
And the "studies" she touts? Well then: one was published originally published by that definative source, UFODigest, while the other was pure speculation on a Portuguese firm trolling for business. That blog text, tacked on to the UFODigest along with the company's long, self-congratulatory "about" description, forms the "studies" to which Barb Wenninger (who probably fancies she's a critical thinker whose submissions constitute evidence) refers. While the Portuguese blog post claims that American beekeepers report bees declining near wind farms, chatter on beekeeper forums (here and here) says quite the opposite.
But, it's not just the sources; it's the confusion of correlation and causality.
Bluestem hopes that she's at least genuinely concerned about bees, that this isn't merely an exercise in throwing words to see what sticks. After all, on May 16, CBS Minnesota reported--even though construction has yet to commence and not a single tower has been erected--that Winthrop's beeman faced a devastating wave of dead bees. In Minn. Farmer Blames Pesticides For Big Bee Die Off, the station reported that the keeper fingered farm chemicals as the culprit.
We can't say the same for Gruenhagen. He joined in the chorus--thought so brilliant by minority caucus communications head and social media maven Susan Closmore--of mocking spending on bee habitat, legislative language backed up by genuine scholarship at the University of Minnesota.
Check out his Facebook post.
Now he promotes the anti-wind organizing of a woman who purports to worry about the decline of bees. Not that he cares about bees, but because he seeks to undermine a law he doesn't agree with.
As this seems to be the situation (and Gruenhagen signed that Americans for Prosperity climate change pledge, after all), Bluestem thinks Montana's question bears repeating:
It seems the real question to debate is why your own state representatives and senators would buy in to this fear-mongering rhetoric and deprive you of energy cost savings, jobs, and the economic development opportunities that come along with wind development.
Here's the Wenninger comment, one of four filed since May 20, 2013. Public hearings for the project were held in 2008. The bee concern:
Barb Wenninger's bee and wind turbine concern
Images: Shanelle Evens Montana, via the Albert Lea Tribune (above); Glenn Gruenhagen posted this pollinator shaming image to his Facebook page on April 18, 2013 (below).
If you appreciate reading posts like this one on Bluestem Prairie, consider making a donation via paypal:
Comments