- A halt was placed to Big Wind’s bullying ways in one county in Iowa
- PR flatulence continues though
- The Paper (liberal) Iowa Depend(s) on won’t stop the excrement
- Says “the state gets 37 percent of its electricity from wind energy generation” which is a bogus figure
Des Moines register article: (excerpt) (items in red we will respond to) (Image not part of article)
Neighbors in eastern Iowa fight to bring down turbines — and win
FAIRBANK, Ia. — Developers who invested $11 million to install three wind turbines in eastern Iowa are tearing them down, after losing a legal battle waged by nearby residents.
It’s only the second time nationally a judge has ordered wind turbines to be torn down and a first in Iowa.
“It’s great. We love it,” said Cheyney Hershey, whose young family lives near the turbines. “You can’t sit outside on the deck and have a conversation without the constant thumping of the blades going round.”
The noise can even be heard inside his home, Hershey said: “There was nowhere to get away from them.”
. . .
Opponents to the 450-foot turbines believe the legal battle will empower other rural landowners and small towns to take on wind.
Residents in Palo Alto, Black Hawk and other counties are challenging wind projects as well.
“It was a shock that the neighbors and Fairbank could say we didn’t want them” and win, said Ted Vorwald, a Fairbank city council member.
In 2015, the Fayette County Zoning Board provided permits that allowed the wind developers to build the turbines.
Nearby landowners challenged the permits in district court, where a judge agreed with them, saying the permits were “illegal and void.”
Developers appealed the decision, and decided to move ahead with construction.
But the Iowa Court of Appeals this year ruled in the city and residents’ favor. And the Iowa Supreme Court declined to consider the case, forcing the developers to tear down the turbines.
“The system worked,” Vorwald said. “They were put up without the zoning … and the courts upheld the ruling.”
Wind energy supporters say the order could hurt new investment, jeopardizing jobs, landowner payments and tax revenue that come with the projects.
Court records indicate taking down the turbines will cost about $450,000 — or $150,000 each.
. . .
Flickers are like a ’70s strobe light
Kerns said she grew up on a farm near where the turbines are now located.
She said the wind developers have been “bullies,” moving ahead with building the turbines knowing local landowners had filed a lawsuit against the project.
“They just weren’t considerate of the townspeople,” said Kerns, who is concerned about the impact of the turbines on the health of neighbors.
MORE: Six common complaints about wind turbines
She said some residents have complained about nausea and sleep deprivation from the turbines. Flickers from the turbines create an effect “like being back in the ’70s with the strobe lights,” she said.
“In the short-term it’s not bad. But over time, it’s not good for your body,” she said.
“Unless you live under a turbine, you don’t understand what it’s like,” said Kerns, who built a home near her family’s farm.
She said the turbines encroach on a nearby woods, where she played as a child. Since the turbines have stopped turning, “I can hear the birds chirping again,” Kerns said.
. . .
Iowa has embraced wind energy since adopting a renewable energy portfolio in 1983.
The state gets 37 percent of its electricity from wind energy generation, the largest share in the nation. Wind energy generation is second only to coal.
The American Wind Energy Association says utility and wind developers have invested $14.2 billion in Iowa over nearly three decades.
MidAmerican Energy, Iowa’s largest utility, is betting heavily on wind. With its proposed $922 million wind expansion, it will have invested $12.3 billion in wind energy since 2004.
MidAmerican, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, expects to generate as much renewable energy as its customers use annually.
. . .
Dublinske said the legal challenges so far have been limited.
“There are a lot of wind developments going on across Iowa, and there are a lot of supportive communities, a lot of very supportive landowners,” he said.
“There are always some not-in-my-backyard objections, especially for people who are not hosting the turbines and getting the revenue,” Dublinske said.
Swanson said rural Iowa families shouldn’t have to suffer wind turbines — which compact soil during construction and hurt crop yields — to satisfy urban residents’ need to feel good about the environment.
Utilities say farmers are compensated for any short-term damage, and they use deep-tillage machines to help reverse compaction.
“A lot of places say we’re against renewable energy,” Swanson said. “That has nothing to do with it.
“What we care about is our homes, our health, our land, our wildlife and our economy,” which are jeopardized by wind projects, said Swanson, a board member of the Coalition for Rural Property Rights, along with Youngblut.
She questions whether wind energy is really a good public taxpayer investment, given that MidAmerican will get about $10 billion in federal production tax credits for its $12 billion investment.
So some wind development company thought ~~ screw the lack of zoning authorization in this hick county, we got the land and we will do with it what we want, maybe we will even hire a few of these hayseeds for a few months. The county yokels will come around particularly after a little of the booty we get from other taxpayers lands in their coffers. We will put them up and dare them to make us take them down. Easier to say sorry then go through the proper drills, especially if we had not convinced enough people of the grand merits. Whadda they know.~~
But then some folks called the bums-rush bullies out. Zoning regulations are meant to protect adjacent property owners as well as property owners seeking peculiar interests. Rent seeking farmers and absentee corporate owners can be hypocritical about property use. And those monstrosities are ugly and they damage/ disrupt peoples well-being. And they are built on deception, tax-payer subsidized to start, and kept alive with mandated markets that would not otherwise economically exist.
100% BS
Here is our challenge to the Des Moines Register and other wind energy proponents — prove that the state gets 37 percent of its electricity from wind energy. Shut down one third of fossil and nuclear generation in this state and see how many lights go out. If the state truly gets 37 percent of its electricity from wind energy then not a flicker should be seen. Is 37% of fossil and nuclear electricity generation now superfluous, are they now running at 63% or less of capacity such that whole stations or turbines in this state can be shut down and torn out?
As we have explained before, back when the claim was a mere 20%, the figure is bogus, unreal, unusable, unreliable moniker about something that will not dependably heat or cool your home or run your toothbrush. All they have done is produced “energy” to sell or arguably commingle to other states producing “credits” to satisfy “green mandates” that those states are stupid enough to buy for artificial reasons while just like Iowa having to keep their dependable production online. It is all so artificial — the need, the business and with no net environmental benefit, just the opposite.
Does Iowa Really Get 20% of Its Electricity Needs From Wind?
The amount of wind farms necessary nationwide to produce reliable energy ought to put true environmentalists on the political warpath against them (as they are coming around to understand about corn ethanol). They would need to be in everyone’s backyard and networked. Like ethanol, wind power is now driven by rent seekers, people at the public trough, the Buffet type opportunists and lobbyists, the naive — not sound environmentalism and not those concerned for abundant energy to benefit mankind.
It is basically toy energy, feel good energy but not very useful here except to sell to other unicorn believers. It is shysters taking advantage of environmental ignorance “selling” to people constrained by unicorn rules and greased-palm rules, not economic rules.
Politicians and accountants obscure and make wind energy into a salable commodity, but funny, not one fossil fuel or nuclear plant can be replaced with wind energy without endangering lives and commerce, in this state or practically any state. All dependable capacity here, which means fossil fuel and nuclear derived, must be kept on line and producing.
Wind energy “achievement” is like communist regime production goals of yore, a self-pat on the back for producing something that in reality nobody needs or that is superfluous, or is about chasing a stupid rule. The production exists because the government says it is good for you and then makes you pay for it.
MidAmerca’s sure bet – (of course the legislature is dealing them aces)
So “MidAmerica is betting heavily “ on wind. What the DMR article does not mention in its own analysis is the prerequisites in place — not market needs — but dealers (legislators) making winners. Warren Buffets infamous criterion for the “investment”
At the 2014 Berkshire-Hathaway Investors meeting Warren Buffet made the following statement:
“I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate,” Buffet told an audience in Omaha, Nebraska recently. “For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”
And finally we wish wind lawyer Mr Dublinske a hardy ‘up yours’ for reducing the complainants — the other property owners and the townspeople — to merely NIMBY types. These are people whose peace and quiet and whose property values and preferences are adversely impacted by who you shill for.
Besides, you are grubbing and pimping for a product that if it could economically stand on its own would not need tax subsidies and mandates after decades of just that.
Other wind energy related critiques we have posted include these:
Take note Iowa greenies with your hands out and smug on
Ethanol and Wind — Impose Blights In More Ways Than One
Time For Big Wind To Stop Sucking Tax Dollars
Lady Bird Johnson – Needed More Than Ever – To Fight Wind Farms
Does Iowa Really Get 20% of Its Electricity Needs From Wind?
