Midwest Wind Farms Pick Up Steam – Wait! Is That A Mixed Metaphor?

The twin spectres of reduced property values, and piles of dead birds and bats have long plagued developeers of proposed wind turbine farms in Midwestern states. Now, however, two victories for wind farm development may be the twittering birds of a new spring for wind power development in the region. In Wisconsin, it appears Senate Republicans failed to muster enough votes to rescind a Public Service Commission wind siting rule. The uncertainty about the fate of the rule has held up wind farm development in Wisconsin since 2010.

In Ohio, the state Supreme Court issued a ruling March 6, 2012, upholding the decision of the Ohio Power Siting Board to permit construction of a 9,000 acre wind farm by Buckeye Wind LLC. Opponents of the project contended befire the Board and the lower courts that the 541 foot required setback of wind turbines from neighboring property was insufficient to protect against damage by turbine blades breakig loose and flying through the air onto a neighbor’s land.

While neither of these decisions settles the issues once and for all time, both of them give some hope to the proposals of beleagured wind power developers in the Midwestern United States.

Power Grid "Cybersecurity" Measures Facing Congressional Turf Battles

Competing and conflicting bills aimed at beefing up the safety of our mostly computer controlled power generation and distribution facilities in the United States is being discussed in the House Homeland Security Committee, the Senate Homeland Security Committee, the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the Senate Commerce Committee, and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Unless Representatives Bennie Thompson, Peter King, Henry Waxman, Edward Markey and John Barrow can quickly resolve their differences with Senators Joseph Lieberman, Jay Rockefeller and Thomas Carpenter, in the jurisdictional turf battle over which Committee has the drafting authority over this legislation, any new construction of power plants and transmission lines is like to be delayed even further than it is already being held up by disputes respecting authority over power transmission line routing.

Stewart Baker, a Bush administration bureaucrat who served in both the Homeland Security Department and NSA, fears that executive branch turf wars are spilling over into Congressional committees regarding the power grid cybersecurity issue. Baker4 commented: "Devoting all of our attention to fighting about the arrangement of the seats at the table is not going to be productive."