Falmouth Massachusetts Wind Turbine Clunkers

In the 1980s the federal government built megawatt wind turbines all around the country. The largest 2-megawatt wind turbine was built by NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy in Boone, North Carolina. After several years of operation, numerous bolts in the engine’s drive train failed, beginning the project’s rapid descent into closure. (A clunker)

Scientist Neil Kelley and his team in the mid-1980s thoroughly documented significant adverse health effects resulting from the inaudible, very-low-frequency sound produced by a large wind turbine in Boone, N.C.

The turbines were sold for scrap.

In the 1990s Neg Micron a former Danish wind turbine manufacturer designed gear-box driven 1.65-megawatt wind turbines. They were bought out by Vestas of America and the turbines became known as the Vestas V-82.

By the early 2000s, Vestas manufactured and sold these types of turbines to the state of Massachusetts and the Town of Falmouth.

The Vestas wind turbines were in operation by 2010 and 2012. Neighbors complained of noise immediately as did the same residents living around the Boone North Carolina wind turbine in the 1980s.

These types of turbines also like the Boone North Carolina turbines require gearbox changes as soon as every five years.

Vestas of America warned the Town of Falmouth and state in their specifications that these turbines generate 110 decibels of noise.

By 2011 nine years ago the Town of Falmouth contract engineering company had valued the turbines at $300,000.00 each. (Note 1)

Commercial wind turbines built and designed from the 1980s and 1990s are all gear driven dinosaurs.

Falmouth Town Meeting Members forget the old saying Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Indeed, shame on all of them for buying into the omission of facts over the past twenty years.

In November of 2019, Falmouth Town Meeting Members voted 2.5 million dollars to take down and store the two gear-driven wind turbines.

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(Note 1)

Town of Falmouth, Massachusetts Falmouth Renewable Energy Facilities FALMOUTH RENEWABLE ENERGY FACILITIES MITIGATION STRATEGIES

Page 17 of 80 on the PDF reader

2.2 Costs to Remove Turbines and Abandon Facility

Based on the warranty and service agreement with Vestas, no warranty would likely be available to a new Owner.

Therefore, a value for each turbine of $300,000 should be used for planning level budgeting purposes.

http://www.falmouthmass.us/Doc...

(Note 2)

In order to build the town of Falmouth second wind turbine called Falmouth Wind II the federal EPA working with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection brokered a loan between the Town of Falmouth and the Massachusetts Clean Water Trust using funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 that had been deposited in the Massachusetts State Revolving Fund.

Under Federal Law and the PRA, project regulatory agreement loan agreement, the Town must maintain Wind II as an "energy efficiency" project, as described in EPA guidelines dated March 2, 2009, in order to benefit from the financial subsidy provided by the Trust under ARRA and the Trust's Clean Water State Revolving Fund program.

(Note 3)

The Massachusetts court system shut down both Falmouth town owned wind turbines in June of 2017. They are a nuisance and no longer energy efficient.

Falmouth Select Board Member Susan Moran Owes Answers on how they arrived at 2.5 million to ask Falmouth Town Meeting in November of 2019 to take down wind turbines that the town engineering firm said in 2011 were worth only $300,000.00 each.

Did Susan read the report ? Why are the turbines still standing against Falmouth zoning laws?