Wind farm projects are 'teetering on the brink,' despite soaring electricity demand

Wind power is being blown over by opposition from local residents, who don't like the look of turbines, and the Trump administration, which ended federal tax credits and has worked to stall federal permitting approvals. Without robust growth in wind power, experts are doubtful the U.S. will be able to meet future electricity demand.

In states that were once turbine-friendly, "new wind project developments are teetering on the brink, despite growing power demand," report Dan Gearino and Anika Jane Beamer of Inside Climate News. "Even Iowa, the nation’s most wind-powered state, is 'closed for business,' experts say."

Graph by Paul Horn, ICN, from Energy Information 
Administration data 

Although the Trump administration's resistance to offshore wind farms may be more familiar to Americans, the administration's weakening of land-based or 'onshore' wind development will have a much larger impact on the nation's power grid. Gearino and Beamer write, "In 2024, the most recent full year for which data is available, wind energy produced 7.7% of the nation’s electricity, more than any other renewable source."

Atin Jain, an energy analyst for the research firm BloombergNEF, told ICN, "U.S. onshore wind is in its weakest shape in about a decade, not because the technology has stopped being competitive, but because the policy and, to an extent, the macro-environment have turned sharply against it."

During the early to mid-2010s, many Iowa landowners and local governments welcomed wind farm developments and the significant revenue they generated. Opposition from residents was sporadic and generally ineffective, but "in the late 2010s, something changed," Gearino and Beamer explain. "In both Iowa and nationwide, wind energy projects began to face local opposition that was more aggressive and better organized than before."

The era of growth in Iowa’s wind industry "is almost certainly nearing its end," ICN reports. "The resistance comes almost entirely from the local level. . . . Roughly 58 of Iowa’s 99 counties now have rules designed to limit wind power development, including many of the counties with the strongest wind resources."

When smartly planned, windfarms can be adaptable, efficient and incorporate crops, a new study says

Wind turbines take up only 5% of the land.
(Adobe Stock photo)

Instead of hogging up large expanses of usable land, wind farms can "grow" among crops or infrastructure needs. "The huge structures topped with massive rotating blades only take up five percent of the land where they've been built," reports Allyson Chiu of The Washington Post. "The rest of the space can be used for other purposes, such as agriculture, according to a study published recently in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science and Technology. . . . .This means developers could fit turbines in places that are often perceived as unsuitable for a wind farm."

Intelligent planning can help wind turbines work with the land and regional needs. Sarah Jordaan, the study's principal investigator, told Chiu, "Use of existing infrastructure, multiple use of landscapes — all these things. . . can really contribute to solutions in areas where wind power is acceptable to the local people."

The study highlighted best practices for wind farm builds. Chiu reports, "Wind farms that piggybacked on existing infrastructure, such as roads, disrupted less land and were about seven times more efficient than projects constructed from the ground up, according to the study."

While many experts agree that improving wind turbine placement and integration into surrounding land needs is helpful, wind farms will still face opposition for other reasons, including visual impact on landscapes, noise, and bird and bat deaths.

Despite challenges, many U.S. citizens "appear to support renewable energy projects, including wind turbines," Chiu writes. "A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll conducted last year reported that large and bipartisan majorities of Americans said they wouldn't mind fields of solar panels and wind turbines being built in their community."

Wildfire smoke takes a physical and mental health toll on rural residents, and can be linked to suicides, study shows

Lingering wildfire smoke from Oregon's Archie Creek fire  
(Photo by Jan Pytalski, The Daily Yonder)

Wildfire smoke travels wherever the wind flow takes it, and lingering fires can be physically and emotionally exhausting for residents along the path.

As wildfires become more common, many rural residents struggle to deal with the effects of pervasive air pollution, reports Claire Carlson of The Daily Yonder with John Upton and Kaitlyn Trudeau of Climate Central. "The smoke harms farms and recreation-based businesses, can be psychologically triggering for wildfire survivors, frequently drives residents indoors, and recent research showed it's associated with increases in rural suicides."

Ongoing exposure to wildfire smoke can lead to a litany of health issues. "It exacerbates asthma and worsens infections," the Yonder reports. "Tiny smoke particles move from lungs into bloodstreams and can directly affect brain health, with research out of the University of Montana connecting smoke exposure to the development of dementia."

A study published last fall in the science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences "linked smoke exposure with increases in suicides among rural populations, though not among urban ones," Carlson, Upton and Trudeau write. David Molitor, a health economist at the University of Illinois, who led the research, which drew on 13 years of smoke and federal suicide data to track mental health effects, told reporters, "In rural areas, we find that smoke days are significantly associated with increases in suicide rates."

But the very nature of wildfire smoke as a smelly, hazy, lingering environment leaves rural residents with an inescapable mental hazard. Colleen Reid, a health geographer and environmental epidemiologist at the University of Colorado, who studies the health effects of wildfire smoke, told the Yonder: "In rural areas, there's likely more people whose livelihoods are based on the land and working outside. We're increasingly seeing mental health impacts. . . . There are some more recent studies where even individuals who were just affected by the smoke could have mental health impacts."

Every hurricane gets a number, but what does it mean? Hurricane winds aren't the only extreme danger.

A graphic within the Post's story shows how wind defines each hurricane category.
(Digital art, The Washington Post)

Every hurricane gets a category number designed to guide response efforts, and while most people are used to hurricane weather jargon including the category number, what the number represents is somewhat mysterious. The five categories are based on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, report Amudalat Ajasa, Aaron Steckelberg and Julie Vitkovskaya of The Washington Post. "The scale only measures one component of a hurricane: the wind. Each category is divided by a range of wind speeds, estimating potential damage and impacts on properties . . .The numbers categorize hurricanes based on maximum sustained wind speeds ranging from 74 mph to 157 mph and above." Each category is describer here:

Category 1: Wind speeds range from 74-95 mph. Dangerous winds will produce some damage. Metal roof coverings, shingles and gutters will sustain damage. Shallow-rooted trees can be uprooted, and power lines can fall.

Category 2: Wind speeds range from 96-110 mph. Extremely dangerous winds will cause extensive damage. Major roof and siding, commercial signage, fences and canopies will be damaged or destroyed. Shallow-rooted trees will probably be snapped or uprooted, along with close to total power loss.

Category 3: Wind speeds range from 111-129 mph. Devastating damage will occur. Homes may experience roof failure and wall collapse. Windows will be blown out of high-rise buildings. Commercial signage, fences and canopies will face destruction. Trees will be snapped or uprooted. Power and water will be lost.

Category 4: Wind speeds range from 130-156 mph. Catastrophic damage will occur, including the destruction of most homes with the collapse of all walls and roof structure. Commercial signage, fences and canopies will be destroyed. Trees and power poles will be downed or snapped. Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks or months.

Category 5: Wind speeds range from 157 mph or higher. Almost complete destruction of all homes. Many industrial buildings and low-rise buildings will be destroyed. Nearly all the windows from high-rise buildings will be blown out. Near-total destruction of all commercial signage, fences and canopies. Nearly all trees and power poles will be downed or snapped. Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks or months.

The scale isn't a perfect measurement, and emergency responders, government officials and the public need to remember that wind isn't the only consideration with hurricanes. Storm surges can be equally deadly. The Post reports, "As a hurricane barrels across the open ocean, strong winds drive the water forward. Once the water reaches the shore, it combines with normal tides and creates the storm surge.

Storm surge is the leading cause of hurricane-related deaths in the United States, according to the National Weather Service."

In 2008, Hurricane Ike was designated a Category 2 hurricane. "But the wind wasn’t what caused the most damage," the Post reports. "The storm had a surge of more than 20 feet, the largest storm surge on record for a Category 2 hurricane. Imagine rushing water the height of two basketball hoops stacked on top of each other barreling toward homes, cars and buildings. . . . The storm claimed 195 lives and resulted in $30 billion in damage. It wasn’t even considered a major hurricane."

Dry, loose dirt at corn-planting time can lead to dust storms; 'erratic winds' and zero visibility make driving impossible

Stranded vehicles after Illinois' dust storm on May 1
(Photo by Thomas DeVore, TMX, via Reuters)

Dust storms are not unique to desert regions; with the right conditions, they can even happen in the Corn Belt, as the dust storm that closed part of Interstate 55 in Illinois this week proved.

By definition, a dust storm is a "massive wall of sand, dust and grit — often a mile or higher and as much as several hundred miles long. . . . The storms can be accompanied by 60-mph winds, visibilities of barely a few feet and a suffocating concentration of dust particles that can pose a respiratory risk to virtually anybody," reports Matthew Cappucci of The Washington Post. "They can lead to deadly pileups on interstates and can render airports inoperable until conditions improve."

Farming and meterology are involved. Discussing the May 1 storm with USA Today, meteorologist Chuck Schaffer said, "It's been very dry across this area really for the last three weeks. The farmers are out there tilling their fields and planting. The top layer of soil is quite loose." Cappucci explains: "Dust storms form when strong winds loft dust into the air. Those strong winds are usually the result of thunderstorm outflow or exhaust — the cool, dense and dry air exiting a thunderstorm and surging ahead of it that kicks up dust along the storm's outflow boundary.' The dust acts as a tracer marking the wind-shift line. Anyone in the dust storm's path will spy a massive shelf of dust, which will race toward them with 40- to 60-plus-mph wind gusts and a drop in temperatures. Behind that initial outflow boundary, heavy rains within the thunderstorm can combine with remnant dust in the air to form muddy raindrops."

The impact can be great. "If a person is caught outdoors, the dust can be very problematic from a respiratory standpoint," Capucci reports. "The biggest threat from dust storms comes on the roadways. Erratic winds and abrupt drops in visibility can happen in seconds. The National Weather Service recommends drivers' pull to the side and stay alive' if they're passing through an affected area when a dust storm hits."

Where do most U.S. dust storms take place? "They're relatively frequent occurrences in the Desert Southwest, mainly in Arizona and New Mexico," Cappucci adds. "They also can make appearances on the Plains if there are existing drought conditions. The soil is more earthen over the central United States and less sandy, so lofting granules is more challenging. The drier the topsoil, though, the easier it is to lift. . . . Sometimes derechos, or extremely windy thunderstorm complexes that track long distances, can induce their own dust storms. That was the case on May 12, 2022, in Iowa, Minnesota and the Dakotas."

Democrats strip from Covid relief bill derecho aid for farmers, help for seafood processors

The House passed the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief and stimulus package this weekend but took out a few provisions aimed at helping farmers and the seafood industry first.

"Democratic committee leaders quietly stripped out language in the bill that would have authorized federal payments to farmers who lost crops to natural disasters including 'high winds or derechos,' like the powerful wind storm that flattened Midwestern cornfields last August," Ryan McCrimmon reports for Politico's Weekly Agriculture. The winds in last summer's derecho were as strong as a Level 2 hurricane and did billions of dollars of damage to farms and homes.

"In another late change, Democrats on Friday cut out references to seafood processing facilities and vessels in the agricultural aid section," McCrimmon reports. "They also removed “'seafood' from a provision directing the Agriculture Department to purchase and redistribute various farm goods to needy families."

Series examines transition of coal country economy as coal declines

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Energy News Network and WyoFile chart.
Click the image to enlarge it or click here to view the interactive version.

"Transition in Coal Country", a three-part collaboration of the Energy News Network and WyoFile "examines how the declining coal industry presents immediate and long-term changes for coal communities in Wyoming and Appalachia, how those communities are coping with change, and what they might learn from each other in charting a path to a sustainable future beyond coal," Mason Adams and Dustin Bleizeffer report.

The first part, "What's next for coal country?" discusses the overall state of coal communities' economies and the coal industry, and how market and policy forces have contributed to that, as well as predictions for the future.

The second installment, "Coal country faces a healthcare crisis," shows how the pandemic has hurt rural coal communities already struggling with lack of healthcare resources.

The third part, "Coal communities increasingly rely on federal health programs," explores how the decline of coal has forced conservative politicians to reconsider Medicaid expansion and obliged rural communities to depend more on such programs as well as telehealth care. 

Proposal for what would be largest U.S. wind farm, already under construction, is dealt a potentially fatal blow

The Texas Public Utility Commission last week unanimously rejected a proposal for American Electric Power Co. to supply its customers with energy from what would be the nation's largest wind farm, saying it doesn't offer enough benefits for utility customers as currently structured, Jim Efstathiou Jr. and Chris Martin report for Bloomberg News.

The Wind Catcher facility is already under construction in the Oklahoma panhandle and is scheduled to be completed in late 2020. AEP invested $4.5 billion transmission lines from Wind Catcher to customers in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana. The company, which plans to eventually buy the wind farm outright, planned to pay for the lines with a strategy often used by coal, nuclear, and natural gas power plants: by passing on costs and some profit onto customers' bills.

But the Texas commission argued that the project might not be as profitable as AEP is projecting. DeAnn Walker, chairman of the Texas commission, said last week at the hearing that "The costs are known, but the benefits are based on a lot of assumptions that are questionable."

Meanwhile, "Oklahoma’s attorney general and a state administrative law judge concluded in February the company failed to prove there was an economic need for the project and that it left customers shouldering too much of the risk," Efstathiou and Martin report.

GateHouse Media package on the downsides of living near wind farms up for Scripps Howard multimedia award

GateHouse Media photo by Lucille Sherman

A GateHouse Media Inc. package on wind farms is a finalist in the Scripps Howard Awards competition, in the Multimedia Journalism category. "In the Shadow of Wind Farms" is about the downsides of living near a wind turbine and features a neat choose-your-own-adventure introduction that puts you in the shoes of disgruntled homeowners.

During the six-month investigation, "reporters interviewed more than 70 families living near three dozen current or proposed wind farms. They also spoke to 10 state and local lawmakers, read hundreds of pages of public-service-commission records about wind projects, reviewed court filings in seven wind-related lawsuits and inspected lease agreements from at least eight wind farms," Emily Le Coz and Lucille Sherman report.

The other two finalists in the Multimedia Journalism category are "Why Cops Shoot" by the Tampa Bay Times and "Sin Luz: Life Without Power" by The Washington Post. All Scripps Howard winners will be announced Tuesday, March 6 at 2 p.m.

Rural schools may have been hurt by state tax incentives for wind farms in Kansas

The wind industry is booming in Kansas, but tax incentives that state officials used to lure foreign wind-farm investors may have hurt rural schools. The incentives sparked a decade-long wind boom in the state, which is one of only five that gets more than 20 percent of its power from wind (the others are Iowa, Oklahoma, and the Dakotas).

But because of those exemptions, almost $630 million of wind-farm equipment will never be taxed. If it were, it would generate around $82 million a year for the 24 rural counties with wind farms. "Of that amount, more than $32 million a year would go to rural school districts in those counties, according to revenue-department estimates. And that doesn’t include five wind farms that have yet to be evaluated," Mike McGraw and Ryan Hennessy report for Flatland, the digital magazine of Kansas City PBS. The report was done in collaboration with the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, an independent nonprofit news outlet based in Illinois.

Flatland graphic; click on the image to enlarge it.

Kansas' largest wind farm, the $1 billion Flat Ridge project, spans 70,000 acres near the Oklahoma border. It's owned partly by British Petroleum, and it doesn't pay any property taxes on its generators that could fund local schools and services. The lost revenue is partly made up by state subsidies.

"That lost revenue has far-reaching consequences for a state with more than its share of financially struggling rural school districts and a shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars in constitutionally required school funding, at least according to a Kansas Supreme Court ruling in October," McGraw and Hennessy report. Rural school districts are having a harder time hiring and keeping good teachers, partly because they pay teachers the lowest salaries in the country.

Kansas wind farms have agreed to make small "payments in lieu of taxes" in those counties, but it's only a fraction of what the taxes would be, Flatland reports. Wind industry officials say the lost taxes are worth it because of the thousands of jobs created and the more than $16 million a year paid to Kansas land owners each year for land leases. 

Wind-energy growth could stall under tax proposals

The renewable-energy industry is booming across the U.S., but it could face challenges, depending on what the final tax-reform bill looks like after the House and Senate reconcile their differences. CBS MoneyWatch reports that 86 percent of the nation's wind capacity was in Republican congressional districts in 2016, and much of the job growth is happening in rural areas.

CBS MoneyWatch map; click on the image to enlarge it.

The Senate bill would retain the tax credits that have spurred huge growth in renewable energy, but would impose the alternative minimum tax on these companies’ foreign transactions. "If they have to pay a minimum tax, they may no longer have any need for the credits acquired through tax-equity deals," Brian Eckhouse reports for Bloomberg. That could cripple the industry, because a critical source of investment comes from multinational corporations that invest in tax equity for solar and wind farms.

Ken Silverstein writes for Forbes, "The Senate bill would treat the investment tax credits provided to the wind and solar industries as income. Right now, projects are eligible to receive 30 percent tax credits — incentives that have led to the development of $50 billion in renewable energy facilities, say advocates, and something that could come to a screeching halt if the bankers and financiers that are backing them stop doing so."
 
The House bill would retroactively change the rules that dictate how wind developers qualify for production and investment tax credits, meaning that developers depending on the credits would have to eat the costs or abandon the project. "The Texas wind industry supported upwards of 22,000 direct and indirect jobs and accounted for annual lease payments to landowners of more than $60 million in 2016, according to AWEA," the American Wind Energy Association, John Austin reports for Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. in Texas, where "wind-generation capacity for the first time exceeded installed coal-fired generation capacity" in October.

Wind companies offer job training to former oil, gas and coal workers in Wyoming

Turbines at a wind farm in Wyoming
(Wyoming Public Media photo)

Wind-energy companies are offering job training in Wyoming, a state known more for fossil fuels, and will expand to coal country next, Heather Richards reports for the Casper Star-Tribune. Wind-turbine manufacturer Goldwind Americas has partnered with wind-energy developer Viridis Eolia to offer three seminars in the state to see if Wyoming workers are interested in becoming wind technicians.

The wind companies are looking to snap up oil-and-gas workers who are looking for jobs, figuring that those workers "have skills that are transferrable to the wind industry," such as working in hazardous conditions with heavy machinery, Goldwind Americas CEO David Halligan told Richards.

At the first meeting in Rawlins, more than 100 people showed up. In Casper, 40 came. The final seminar will be in Gillette, the "center of the nation's coal industry." The companies will offer free training for wind technicians, and hope to employ many of them on a planned 600- to 800-turbine farm near Medicine Bow. Wind technician is the fastest-growing occupation in the U.S., and is expected to grow another 108 percent over the next 10 years. And though Wyoming has been a coal powerhouse for the past 40 years, the industry is increasingly changing to other sources of power such as natural gas and renewable energy.

Some local politicians acknowledge that wind farms could be good for the economy of Wyoming. "I'm a former, probably, wind hater," Rep. Steve Harshman, R-Casper, told Richards. "I was raised in Midwest, [where] it's all about oil and gas and coal. But I think I've kind of jumped over that fence in the last year because of these realities coming at us."

Iowa Republican senator slams energy secretary for study that undermines wind energy

Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, one of the nation's leaders in generating electricity from wind energy, slammed an Energy Department study that Grassley said was "pre-determined" and created to show that renewable sources such as wind "will not be viewed as credible," Valerie Volcovici reports for Reuters.

Grassley wrote in a letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry: “I’m concerned that a hastily developed study, which appears to pre-determine that variable, renewable sources such as wind have undermined grid reliability, will not be viewed as credible, relevant or worthy of valuable taxpayer resources . . . Not only is Iowa's wind energy resource reliable, it's also affordable." (American Wind Energy Association graphic: Wind energy in the U.S., state production totals by megawatt)

Grassley said Iowa's electric rates, which have only increased twice since 1998, are frozen until 2029, and are the ninth lowest nationally. He also said any study reviewing the impacts of wind energy on grid reliability and security should look at Iowa as proof of wind energy's success. He noted that the state gets 36 percent of its electricity from wind, and that its largest utility, MidAmerican Energy Co., generates 55 percent of its electricity from wind and expects to raise that to 90 percent in the next few years.

Volcovici writes, "Perry served as governor of Texas, a leading oil-producing state, from 2000 when he succeeded President George W. Bush until 2015. Under his tenure, Texas became the country's leading wind energy producer. But Perry has also been a strong advocate of the fossil-fuel industry. He told Department of Energy staff that he wanted them to examine whether environmental regulations and tax credit programs that bolster wind and solar energy are forcing coal and nuclear plants to shut down prematurely."

Rise of wind energy in Iowa creating a divide among rural residents

Iowa has become a national leader in wind power, but not everyone is celebrating the state's success, Donnelle Eller and Kevin Hardy report for The Des Moines Register. Clean energy has led to hundreds of jobs, property tax revenues "and $20 million annually that farmers and rural landowners earn in lease payments for hosting the giant turbines." The state's growing amount of green energy—Iowa leads the nation with 37 percent of its annual electricity portfolio—also has helped attract billions of dollars in capital investment from Facebook, Microsoft and Google data centers.

"But Iowa's growing energy harvest has birthed a new wave of opposition from critics who call wind turbines noisy, over-subsidized eyesores that can be dangerous," reports the Register. "And groups have popped up across Iowa seeking to stop local wind development. Opponents elsewhere have raised familiar arguments against wind farms, from the tax credits they receive to the birds and bats they kill. Landowners have long objected to offshore wind development near pricey coastal real estate."

Concern has grown especially in rural areas, notes the Register. The rural debate "has intensified over wind's merits, drawing comparisons to the hotly contested hog confinements that pockmark Iowa's soybean and corn fields—and foul the air and water, detractors say." (Register graphic: Wind energy in the U.S.)

Some say wind energy can revitalize Iowa's rural towns, which since 1969 have lost more than 171,000 residents. During that same time the state's urban areas gained nearly 500,000 people, reports the Register. Daryl Haack, an Iowa farmer who receives about $20,000 annually in lease payments for two turbines, told the Register, "Rural Iowa needs something to put money and people back into the community."

Others "say they feel betrayed by the actions of neighbors and county officials who they believe have sold out to energy firms by allowing an influx of wind turbines across the landscape," reports the Register. Mason Fleenor, a cattle producer who said he and his wife built their dream home seven years ago in Ida County and planned to retire there, told the Register, "They're just greedy. I'd move if I could."

Renewable energy outpacing coal for jobs; industry says wind, solar can boost rural communities

Renewable-energy advocates say wind and solar energy, not coal, can revive rural communities, Chris Martin reports for Bloomberg. Wind-farm developers employed more than 100,000 workers and the solar industry more than 200,000 at the end of 2016, compared to 65,971 coal mining jobs at the beginning of 2016, says U.S. Energy Department data.

"Leaders of the solar and wind industries say the rural areas that missed out on economic growth under President Obama are benefiting from the expansion of clean energy," Martin writes. "And that growth isn’t driving the collapse of coal mining, according to Abigail Hopper, the recently hired chief executive officer of the Solar Energy Industries Association." Hopper told Martin, “These are good paying, local jobs that the solar industry is creating everywhere.”

One problem is that the top 10 congressional districts for wind energy are all in Republican-dominated red states, Martin writes. Trump's victory, and his pledge to revive the coal industry, hasn't helped. "The Bloomberg Global Large Solar Energy index has dropped almost 13 percent since Trump was elected, compared with a 6.7 percent gain in the broader S&P 500 index."

"While Trump criticized wind turbines as bird killers during the campaign, his pick for Energy Secretary, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, helped his state become the largest producer of wind power," Martin writes. "Wind developers expect to attract $60 billion in private investment under existing tax credits over the next few years as installations ramp up, and will double the power sent to the grid to about 10 percent, from about 5 percent today. That, and the built-in sunset provisions that came with the tax-credit extensions, may help preserve the policies as Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress consider changes to the tax system."

Rule allowing 30-year wind farm permits expected to cause more deaths of bald eagles, other birds

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's rule to give 30-year permits to wind farms could result in thousands of bird deaths, including bald eagles, Laura Zuckerman reports for Reuters. "The newly finalized rule, to go into effect on Jan. 15, extends the current five-year term for permits that allow for the accidental deaths of bald and golden eagles. The permits, which are meant for any activity that could disturb or kill eagles but will mostly apply to wind farms, are required under federal law."

Wind energy companies argued that "they needed the longer permits to provide more stability to investors in the growing renewable power industry," Zuckerman writes. In 2013, Fish and Wildlife "approved a similar plan extending 'eagle-take' permits to 30 years, but a U.S. judge overturned it last year. The judge agreed with conservation groups that the agency had failed to properly assess the impact on federally protected eagle populations."

Fish and Wildlife said the current population of 140,000 bald eagles could "withstand the loss of about 2,000 birds annually" and "could sustain as many as 4,200 fatalities a year without endangering the species," Zuckerman writes. The agency estimates that about "545 golden eagles are thought to perish annually from collisions with obstacles ranging from turbines to vehicles."

Wind-farm turbines are killing more bats than previously thought, says United Kingdom study

Bats can confuse wind turbines with trees
(U.S. Geological Survey photo by Paul Cryan)

Wind-energy farms kill more bats than previously thought, says a study by researchers in the United Kingdom, published in Current Biology. Researchers surveyed 46 wind farms in the UK, finding that 97 percent had bat activity—between one to 236 passes per night—and half of the sites had bat casualties, ranging from one to 64 per month from July to October. More than 600,000 bats were killed by wind turbines in 2012 in the U.S., says a study by a researcher at the University of Colorado published in BioScience.

The researchers "found that environmental impact assessments—the main tool used to predict the ecological effects of a new energy development—commonly failed to predict the number of bats that would have fatal collisions with wind turbines’ spinning blades," Brady Dennis reports for The Washington Post. "Even in the few cases where researchers said early assessments accurately predicted the danger to bats, efforts to mitigate those risks often did not succeed."

Researchers "compared their findings from each site to the environmental assessments they were able to access," Dennis writes. "In most cases, the pre-construction assessments had not accurately predicted the risk of bat fatalities. And even where companies had put in place mitigation measures to try to steer bats clear of the turbines, the researchers found that bats were still killed. Researchers say it is uncertain whether the acoustic surveys widely used to estimate bat activity are not precise enough or whether bats’ 'highly variable' activity means they change their patterns too often to predict with accuracy."

Vermont asst. attorney general says cash payments to get residents to vote for wind farm were legal

Area proposed for the wind farm. (Map by
Meadowsend Timberlands Ltd., which owns the land)

Developers have found a legal way to pay Vermont residents to cast votes on Nov. 8 in favor of approving the state's largest wind project, Katharine Seelye reports for The New York Times. "The project would consist of 24 turbines, each nearly 500 feet tall, and generate 82.8 megawatts of power, enough to light 42,000 homes for a year if the wind kept blowing, though the houses could be in Connecticut or Massachusetts."

Concerned that the results of the gubernatorial election could dampen future wind projects in the state, Spanish energy developer Iberdrola Renewables offered to dole out cash to residents of Windham and Grafton to get their votes, Seelye writes. Iberdrola offered to give Windham $1 million a year for 25 years and that "it would also set aside $350,000 each year for direct payments to Windham’s 311 registered voters—$1,125 apiece annually, or $28,135 over 25 years, which a voter could accept or not. In Grafton, the company set aside $215,000 for voter payments. The town’s 504 registered voters would each receive $427 a year, or $10,665 over 25 years."

"Many residents called the offer an attempt at undue influence, if not an outright bribe" and opponents of the project accused the company of buying votes, Seelye writes. "But Michael O. Duane, senior assistant attorney general, said the payments did not violate state law." He said "the proposal 'doesn’t say that the funds go only to those people who signed a sworn statement that they had voted for it.'"

When asked if the company was trying to buy votes, Iberdrola spokesman Paul Copleman said the company "was merely responding to what residents had said they would need to win approval, and that the developer would abide by the result," Seelye writes. In fact, the cash idea came from residents, not the company, said Kathy Scott, a Windham resident who helped negotiate the package.

Scott "said her group saw them as a way to 'level the playing field' with second-home owners, many of whose homes have high assessments and who would benefit more from the tax cuts. (Although second-home owners pay 60 percent of the town’s taxes, they cannot vote here, a sore point for them.)," Seelye writes.

Critics of the project fear it will have negative environmental effects, and that "turbines, roadways and infrastructure are destroying habitats, increasing flood risks and scarring the landscape much the way mountaintop mining has scarred West Virginia," Seelye writes. "They also complain about noise, lower property values and blighted views."

Alternative energy in Wyoming doesn't mean alternative jobs for displaced coal miners

Photo: thinkprogress.org

While the coal and wind energy industries are on opposite trajectories, out of work coal miners struggle to find gainful employment in clean energy.

About 66 percent of U.S. electricity is still produced by burning coal and natural gas; just 7 percent comes from renewable sources such as wind and solar, The New York Times reports. But market forces and government regulations are rapidly changing the energy landscape.

President Obama's climate change regulations, the Clean Power Plan, have taken direct aim at coal. The Department of the Interior has halted new mines on public lands. In addition, the international Paris agreement on climate change could make efforts to end the burning of coal a global campaign.

These policies are closing the remaining coal-fired plants and freezing the construction of new ones, but they also aim to aggressively increase the production of renewable power. The Clean Power Plan has a goal for 20 percent of the nation’s electricity to come from wind, solar and other clean sources by 2030. Hillary Clinton, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has pledged to raise that amount to 33 percent by 2027, The Times reports.

In Wyoming, for example, about 600 coal miners have been laid off this year alone, and thousands more job cuts are expected this summer, the Times noted. In with a population of fewer than 600,000 people, those cuts are taking a toll.

Wyoming also offers prime real estate for wind farms. The Anschutz Corp. is set to begin construction later this year or early 2017 on a Carbon County wind farm that will cover some 2,000 acres. When completed, it will be the largest wind power producer in North America, generating enough electricity to power about a million homes, the Times reports. Construction will create about 900 seasonal jobs over the course of the decade it's expected to take to complete and then about 150 full-time jobs to operate and maintain it.

If payroll cuts in Wyoming's coal industry continue as predicted, the number of jobs created by wind farms will not match the number lost in coal, and the vast majority of wind jobs are temporary. Also, the limited number of full-time wind jobs don't pay as well in general as those in coal. A wind turbine technician makes an average of about $51,000 per year, compared to $82,000 for coal miners.

Don't infer from Obama line that wind power is cheaper; only in a few places, and for new power

In his State of the Union speech this week, President Obama said, “In fields from Iowa to Texas, wind power is now cheaper than dirtier, conventional power.” FactCheck.org reports, "That is true in some pockets of the country, but the national average for coal and gas prices is still less" than wind. Coal and gas cost about $65 per megawatt-hour, while solar and onshore wind cost $80/kwh.

Obama's mention of Iowa and Texas was on point. "Wind energy has become increasingly cost competitive compared with fossil fuel-generated energy, and Obama rightly points out that in some areas of states like Iowa and Texas, wind energy is already cheaper than energy produced by coal or natural gas," Robert Farley writes for FactCheck, noting that Texas and Iowa "were among the leading wind-energy producers in 2014."

Ethan Zindler, head of U.S. research at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, told Farley that the main reason for lower prices in the Great Plains states “is that there’s extraordinary wind in these states and developers are finding ways to take greater advantage of this with newer, larger wind turbines.” And if a utility is building new generation, “There’s no question wind is less expensive,” Zindler said.

BNEF says the cost of generating electricity from coal and gas rose in 2015, while the cost of wind and solar power went down, thanks to improved technology and lower financing costs," Farley reports. "If the price trends continue, Bloomberg estimates that wind power will be cheaper than energy produced by fossil fuels, even without government subsidies, in the next 10 years."

Obama also "stretched the facts . . . on jobs, deficits, health care, military spending and carbon emissions," FactCheck reports.

FactCheck, a non-profit founded in 2003, is the oldest of the journalistic fact-checking sites and the one with the most detailed reports. Based in the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, its reports can be published free of charge, with appropriate attribution.