Falmouth Turbine Fiasco Threaten Ocean Wind Projects

The reason companies build wind turbines is they get a federal tax credit. The larger the project the larger the profit.

The federal gravy being ladled on ocean wind companies is called the Production Tax Credit.

Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the latest renewal of the production tax credit will cost taxpayers over $3 billion per year and more if ocean wind projects are approved in 2021.

Falmouth, Massachusetts is the capital of crony capitalism when it comes to wasting millions of federal funds on just two town-owned wind turbines. Falmouth borrowed 5 million in federal America Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds from 2009 which created "a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety related to the implementation or use of covered funds.

Falmouth still owes 3.5 million plus 2 percent interest on the federal ARRA loan in which they are using the funds to run the day to day operations in the town.

The Massachusetts courts shut down the two town-owned wind turbines in June of 2017 as they are a nuisance. The town had been warned prior to construction the turbines generate 110 decibels of noise capable of producing infra-sound also known as low-frequency noise. Massachusetts in 2005 had classified two types of turbine noise. The noises from wind turbines are: "human annoyance" and "regulatory measured in decibels. "

Crony capitalism is the favoritism in the distribution to wind-energy companies of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks, and other forms of state interventionism. You the taxpayers end up with the tab.

The Massachusetts land-based wind turbine projects in as many as twenty-one communities have become a health and financial fiasco. The installations of land-based wind turbines ground to a halt as a result of at least eleven litigation actions in Falmouth and other localities.

The Town of Falmouth now looks to lease out the two town-owned wind turbines to a new location spending yet another 2.5 million on old gear-driven wind turbines designed in the 1990s.

This isn't the first time these turbines were sold and resold.

The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative a state agency now called the Massachusetts Clean Water Trust and Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, MassCEC, in 2008 offered for sale the two turbines, made by the highly regarded Danish manufacturer, top blade height of nearly 400 feet, each capable of generating power for about 1,000 homes. Some assembly required. Asking price: $5 million-plus, or best offer.

Anyway, an auction was held and no one bid on the turbines. Massachusetts in 2008 gave the Town of Falmouth one million in Renewable Energy Credits to take the turbines off their hands.

Incidentally, the highly regarded foreign Danish manufacturer had warned the Town of Falmouth prior to construction each turbine generates 110 decibels of noise twice as loud as a 2005 noise study done for the town. The town went forward building the turbines with no permits.

The Falmouth Select Board has boxed itself into a corner asking and getting approved 2.5 million to disassemble and put in storage the two turbines that could not be sold at an auction 12 years ago. The board hopes to lease the turbines to another site out of town.

Congressman Thomas M. McClintock of California took Massachusetts Governor Charles D. Baker Jr. to task regarding the Falmouth wind turbines at a hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday, February 6, 2019.

Federal and state officials are ignoring the facts that the Massachusetts land-based wind projects are a health and financial fiasco and the ocean wind projects are one hundred times the same fiasco.

The ocean industrial wind projects are another bunco scheme of enormous consequence. The citizens who value intellectual honesty should not quietly be fleeced again and again by such mendacity, even from their government officials.

Time to stop the insanity?

Negative impact of Noise pollution on Marine Life