In order to use wind to make electricity, it is necessary to:

• Build huge turbines which cost millions of dollars . These turbines are placed on concrete pads, 30 feet deep, and they are connected by a road.
  
• Build high capacity transmission lines to be used when the turbines are generating electricity
  
• Maintain all conventional power generating plants so they will provide the needed power when the wind factory can't produce electricity - because the wind is not blowing or because the wind is blowing so hard that the turbines must be shut down.

One of the most disappointing aspects of wind development is that wind factories won't replace existing old polluting power plants, nor will they prevent the construction of new power plants as demand for electricity increases.

Wind turbines are huge but they produce very little electricity. To displace energy from New England 's smallest coal unit ( Somerset ) would require 167 turbines spanning 22 miles of mountain ridge line. (Hewson, 5/05) The coal plant still would be needed to make power when there is no wind.

Because the construction of turbines is so expensive, developers are being given incentives – federal accelerated depreciation, federal production tax credit, and Renewable Portfolio Standard laws that require utilities to purchase green (wind) energy, regardless of its cost. According to a paper at the American Bar Association Renewable Energy Committee, 2/3rds of the value of a wind project was derived from its federal tax incentives.

Ordinary taxpayers must pay increased taxes to make up for the tax breaks and other incentives that wind developers are given. Consumers must pay for the wind factories and their transmission lines in addition to the conventional power plants.

Industrial wind will do little to halt climate change

• There will be no reduction on the dependence on foreign oil because in VT very little electricity is generated from oil.
• There will be little reduction of CO2 or noxious emissions. In Vermont , wind will replace very little fossil fuel. According to the GMP web, VT already has the lowest CO2 emissions in the U.S.
• When VT sells green credits it enables utilities in other states to avoid cleaning up their polluting power plants.
• In spite of this massive investment in wind factories, the U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts in its Annual Energy Outlook that wind energy will still be producing less than 1% of US electricity by 2025. (Schleede, 5/05) Currently wind energy supplies less than 1% (actually 0.36%) of U.S. electricity.

This push for wind distracts us from making investments in technology to clean up coal plants, which would significantly improve air quality, or from finding ways to reduce nuclear waste – yet, in 2025, nuclear and coal plants still will produce most of the electricity in the US.

Industrial wind development will bring, at most, 4 – 6 permanent jobs to the Glebe area and a small amount of tax revenue. This must be balanced against the risk of

• lowering property values (and loss of taxes that are collected from property)
• threatening local businesses that are dependent upon a vibrant tourist industry.

Compiled by Linda Bly, June, 2005