Heavy Redactions in Energy Bids Questioned
Willett Kempton, Jermey Firestone, the News Journal, Green Delaware and possibly other parties, are petitioning the Public Service Commission (PSC) today for rights to see the entire bids for a Coal Power Plant, Offshore Windfarm, and a Natural Gas Power Plant.
The group will also ask for justification for each part that is redacted. This challenge follows on the heals of a charge that the PSC was using illegal criteria for judging the new projects.
“The law did not include a “lowest price” criteria, but lowest expected price has been assigned the greatest weight in the analysis process, with a point value of 33 out of 100, making it “the main legal issue,” according to Firestone.”
For more on the “criteria” question see this January 31st NJ story
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Is it me or does it seem that the PSC is using the redactions and the skewed criteria to favor one of the bidders?
To learn more, come to the Progressive Demcorats for Delaware Meeting this Wednesday (2/7/07) at 7:00 PM at DelDems Headquarters, (19 East Commons Blvd, New Castle, DE.
Willet Kempton from the University of Delaware’s College of Marine and Earth Sciences will be talking about the wind power bid.
Regarding wind power, Ellen Liebovitz of Green Delaware writes:
Wind power generates electricity with:
-No air emissions
-No impacts or energy consumption from mining, transporting, or storing fuel.
-No cooling water impacts
-No water pollution
-No wastes
The PDD meeting will have letters to the DPS Commissioners and other government leaders for you to sign if you wish, or a take-home kit so you can write your own letter.
Come on out to get the facts about wind power in Delaware.
There are a few, addressable issues with wind power. First, it creates these little micro climates that could have an impact on the area surrounding the wind farm.
Second, the impact on migratory birds is lethal. The number of bird kills because of wind turbines is tremendous. This is extra important if we put these thins off-shore, since DE is a major migratory path for birds. There has been some progress on this, but I don’t believe that we have answers yet.
When is the PDD meeting? There is a time listed, but no date.
It is tomorrow. Sorry about that.
RE: Windpower
I’ve done a bit of reading on this and it seesm like Windfarms got very bad PR early on due to some poorly placed installations in Califorina.
These early windmills had fast turning blades placed directly in the migration paths of a great number of bird species.
The current windmills turn much slower and more care is taken to not placed them where they might do maximum damage.
Prof. Kempton will have more on this tomorrow night, but it is my understanding that the College of Marine and Earth Science has studied the migratory flights of birds through Delaware and the wind farm does not pose a threat. Bring your questions and we’ll see if we don’t all come out a lot wiser about this.
build all three projects!
the increase in supply will hold down power prices.
I thought the con in “Happycon” stood for conservationist.
Present wind powered generators do have slower turnng blades, slow enough that most migratory birds can easily avoid them. The foundations of wind powered generators placed off-shore in bay or ocean will increase small fish and crustacean habitat.
That said, wind power and tidal flow generators are not constant. Wind power varies as to season and weather conditions. Tidal flow will have two high output periods each 24 hours with lesser output thru the rest of the day.
Electricity generation is closely balanced against demand. AC power is not easily stored in massive amounts. In times of low output from wind or tide that does not meet consumer demand, generation must come from other sources. Those sources would be coal or natural gas fired steam generators. Presently gas fired generators are used for rapid response to increased demand.
Guess what? We are running out of natural gas.
nope, it’s “conversationalist”
coal is a base load suplier, the NRG proposal is to replace two old dirtier units with the new cleaner on. (sounds like an environmental win to me)
the gas turbines are peakload units to provide power during temprature extremes and when the wind isnt turning the windmills.
The number of bird kills because of wind turbines is tremendous.
On the positive side, the fishing underneath the turbines is excellent.
It is sad and disturbing that there is even a debate over this issue. Wind power is being embraced the world over and holds enormous potential for solving both environmental and energy challenges in Delaware.
Meanwhile, the self-serving fossil fuel dinosaurs and their sociopathic political toties would have us believe that coal is clean, coal is the answer, coal is in the public’s best interest. What a steaming load of crap.
If wind power is rejected this state’s cronyistic lobbyist-driven political establishment will have proven not only that they are not progressive but they are unflinchingly REGRESSIVE.
I am sickened.
I think if the bird kill thing was a problem we wouldn’t be seeing such strong support for the wind farm from the Delaware Audubon Society. For more reasons why we should support this see http://www.delawareaudubon.org