Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Thank you Gov. Walker, Renewable Energy...Gone with the Wind.

On the way to creating 250,000 jobs, Gov. Scott Walker appears to be going in the opposite direction, with radical policies many companies feel UNCERTAIN about. The really bad news below doesn't even point out the number of jobs lost, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out it would be quite a few.  

According to Mike Ivy at the Cap Times:
The executive director of a statewide renewable energy group is blasting Gov. Walker and the Legislature after Chicago-based wind developer dropped plans to install up to 100 wind turbines in southern Brown County. 
Invenergy LLC told the Public Service Commission Monday it was canceling its 150-megawatt Ledge Wind energy center because of the uncertain regulatory climate here.
The decision came a month after Walker proposed making it more difficult to site wind turbines in Wisconsin and a legislative committee prevented new statewide wind rules from taking effect.
 
In a March 21 letter to the PSC, Invenergy says there were too many obstacles to proceed with the project. "The absence of regulatory stability has made it imprudent for Invenergy to proceed with investments in a project which unknown regulations might make infeasible to construct."   
How much money will the state and private landowners lose with the cancellation?
The project, according to developers, would have generated $600,000 annually in municipal revenues to Brown County and four host townships and more than $600,000 annually to host landowners and their neighbors. 
According to Boldt Construction, installing one turbine requires 1,325 hours of labor. A 100-turbine project would support a payroll of over $10 million. 
Wisconsin isn't a top 10 wind state but has suitable conditions and enough population density to make it a viable utility scale electricity source. 

1 comment:

  1. Perhaps the governor doesn't want these wind turbines to spread the millions of pounds of toxic poisons Koch industries spews into Wisconsin's air each year.....

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