Mr. John J. Fialka Wall Street Journal 200 Liberty Street New York, New York 10281 Dear Mr. Fialka: You owe Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) an apology for the lack of objectivity in your article, “Senator is Running Against the Wind,” in the June 21, 2005, Wall Street Journal (on the eve of the negative Senate vote on his bill, “Environmentally Responsible Windpower Act of 2005”). It’s clear from your story and the Senate vote that the facts about wind energy have not yet penetrated the Congress, the Bush Administration or the “main stream” media. Instead, many of you apparently have tacitly accepted the false and misleading information that has been distributed during the past decade by the wind industry and other wind energy advocates. In fact, the Wind industry and other advocates have greatly overstated the environmental and energy benefits of wind energy, and greatly understated or ignored its adverse economic, environmental, ecological, scenic and property value impacts. Fortunately, during the past 3 years, citizen-led groups in the US and other countries where “wind farms” have been proposed or built have learned the facts about wind energy. Progress is being made in bringing those facts to the public but it’s clear from your story that there is much work to be done. The key, documented facts are as follows: 1. Tax avoidance – not environmental and energy benefits – has become the primary motivation for building “wind farms.” One expert recently pointed out that two-thirds of the economic value of wind projects comes from tax benefits.[1] FPL Group, parent of FPL Energy, LLC (largest owner of “wind farms” in the US) apparently paid no income tax in 2002 or 2003, despite reporting over $2 billion in profits,[2] due heavily to “wind farm” tax benefits. 2. Huge windmills – often taller than the US Capitol -- produce very little electricity. If all the 12,000+ windmills (totaling 6,740 megawatts) now scattered across thousands of acres in 30 states in the US averaged a capacity factor of 25%, they would produce 14,760,600,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity annually.[3] That may sound like a lot of electricity, but its equal to ¾ of 1% of the electricity produced in the US in 2003 (1,970,300,000,000 kWh). You referred to TVA’s “wind farm.” If TVA’s 18 wind turbines, with capacity of 28,800 kW achieve a 30% capacity factor, they will produce 75,686,400 kWh of electricity annually. That would be equal to 05/100 of 1% of the 155,000,000,000 kWh of electricity produced by TVA during 2004 3. Electricity from wind turbines has less real value than electricity from reliable generating units. Wind turbines detract from electric system reliability, because the output is intermittent, highly volatile and largely unpredictable. No matter how many windmills are built in the US, enough reliable, dispatchable generating capacity will have to be built to satisfy peak demands for electricity. Electricity from windmills cannot be counted on to be available when electricity demand is highest. Wind turbines are most likely to produce at night and in winter months when wind is strongest. In most areas of the US, electricity demand is highest during hot summer afternoons when wind is least likely to be available. 4. The true cost of electricity from wind energy is much higher than wind advocates admit. Advocates ignore the huge costs of subsidies and fail to acknowledge that reliable generating units must be kept available and running to balance and “back up” the intermittent, volatile output from wind turbines so that electricity always will be available when required by electric customers. They also fail to acknowledge that electricity from wind uses transmission capacity inefficiently, adding to the true cost of electricity from wind. 5. Claims of environmental benefits of wind energy are exaggerated. They tend to ignore the fact that backup generating units must be immediately available and running at less than their peak efficiency or in spinning reserve mode, and that backup units continue to emit while in these modes. Also, the generation that may be offset may not be powered by fossil fuels. Further, under “cap and trade” programs, credits for sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxides emissions that are displaced by wind could be sold to other emitters, with NO reduction in those emissions. 6. “Wind farms” have significant adverse environmental, scenic and property value impacts that wind advocates like to ignore. Citizens in various states (and other countries) where “wind farms” have been constructed have become painfully aware that – in addition to the high true cost of the electricity -- “wind farms” impair environmental, ecological, scenic and property values. Among the adverse impacts are noise, bird kills, interference with bird migration paths and animal habitat, destruction of scenic mountain vistas and ecological rarities, distracting blade “flicker” and aircraft warning lights, and lowering the value of properties located near the huge structures. 7. “Wind farms” produce few local economic benefits, which are overwhelmed by the higher costs imposed on electric customers through their monthly bills. This is particularly true when the “wind farm” owner and/or owner of the land lives elsewhere or spends the income from the “wind farm” elsewhere. 8. Wind energy has NOT been the great success in other countries that the wind industry and other wind advocates often claim. A growing body of literature describes problems and huge costs resulting from wind energy in Denmark and Germany.[4] Both countries have residential electricity prices that are among the highest in the world, thanks in part to wind energy subsidies. Opposition to wind turbines is also growing in the UK, Spain, Italy, Australia, New Zealand and other countries. Further, claims that wind energy will make significant contributions toward meeting European countries’ Kyoto goals have been discredited.[5] Your claim (parroting the wind industry), that “wind power is a giant, growing about 25% each year” would serve well as an example in the classic book, “How to Lie with Statistics.” (A percent of increase looks large when starting from a tiny base.) According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), wind provided about 1/10 of 1% of US energy in 2002 and EIA forecasts that wind will provide 27/100 of 1% of US energy by 2025.[6] Please do not be misled about the alleged benefits of “Renewable Portfolio Standards” (RPS). If you analyze the impact of state RPS will find that they are an insidious device that would enrich a few “renewable energy” producers at the expense of many ordinary electric customers. It’s not surprising that the “environmental groups” that you talked to were “shocked” by Senator Alexander’s proposed “Windpower Act.” Such groups may be even more shocked once they grasp the fact that the wind industry has greatly overstated the environmental benefits of wind energy and grossly understated the environmental, ecological, and scenic costs. They will be less “shocked” once they understand the impact of proposed “wind farms” on, for example, the ecologically unique Tallgrass Prairie in Kansas, the Horicon Marsh in Wisconsin, or the scenic Kittitas Valley in Washington and the mountain ridges in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia or West Virginia. Mr. Fialka, I urge you to take advantage of the growing body of information that provides truths about wind energy. Do not rely on misinformation from wind industry lobbyists. Perhaps critically important for readers of the Wall Street Journal are the facts that as a direct result of unwise federal and state tax breaks and other subsidies for wind energy: · Hundreds of millions of dollars are being transferred annually to “wind farm” owners from the pockets of ordinary taxpayers and electric customers; and · Billions of capital investment dollars are being wasted on wind energy projects that produce very little electricity -- and the electricity that is produced is low in value. I’m attaching a paper, “Misplaced State Government Faith in Wind Energy,” that will give you a start in understanding the truths about “wind energy.” Rather than implying that Senator Alexander is naïve or conflicted, you should have commend him for being among the first in the Washington establishment to grasp the facts about wind energy. Sincerely, Glenn R. Schleede P.S. If you wonder why I spend time on self-financed, analysis and writing about wind energy, you will find the answer on page 34 of the attachment. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Presentation on December 15, 2004, by Mr. Ed Feo to the Renewable Energy Resources Committee of the American Bar Association: http://www.abanet.org/environ/committees/renewableenergy/teleconarchives/121504/ [2] Citizens for Tax Justice, September 22, 2004, 68 pp. http://www.ctj.org/corpfed04an.pdf. [3] That is, 6,740,000 x.8,760 hours x 25%. [4] See, for example: (1) Nordel’s Grid Group, Non Dispatchable Production in the Nordel System, May 2000, (2) Sharman, Hugh (Hals, Denmark), Letter to Financial Times (London), May 24, 2005, explaining that electric customers in Denmark get about 4% of their electricity from wind, not the 20% often claimed, and (3) E.ON Netz, Wind Report 2004. http://www.eon- netz.com/frameset_reloader_homepage.phtml?top=Ressources /frame_head_eng.jsp&bottom=frameset_english/energy_eng/ene_windenergy_eng/ene_windenergy_eng.jsp [5] Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, Oxford Energy Comment, February 2005, “CO2 emissions Reduction: Time for a Reality Check,” p.3. [6] US Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlook 2005, tables A2 and A17.