wind power

out in Illinois, along i39 and IL ST 30, wind turbines amongst the corn and soybean fields are a glorious sight to see.

  
The turbine at St Mary's Abbey stands alone. These turbines are amongst dozens.

Franklin, MA

In the News - Laviolette, power lines

Franklin's favorite son Peter Laviolette on wrong side of rink

from The Milford Daily News News RSS by Krista Perry/Daily News staff

Winds knock down power lines, sparking fires

from Wicked Local Franklin News RSS by Ashley Studley/Daily News staff

Franklin, MA

Abbey Wind Turbine

I got out to Mount St Mary's Abbey in Wrentham to record this brief video of the wind turbine in action:



One advantage of wind over solar, the wind sometimes doesn't stop when the sun goes down. It can continue to generate power during the night as long as there is sufficient wind.

Earlier posts/photos of the wind turbine can be found here

http://franklinmatters.blogspot.com/2009/12/abbey-turbine-gets-wings.html

http://franklinmatters.blogspot.com/2008/11/whoosh-whoosh.html


Note: email subscribers will need to click through to Franklin Matters to view this video

Abbey turbine gets wings

The wind turbine at Mount St Mary's Abbey in Wrentham was installed this week. It is quite impressive even from a distance against a gray sky with the blades not turning.

It looks like a giant bird

or a funky hang glider

coming over the trees

until you get closer and the white tower appears.



It will be tested before turning on to generate power for the Abbey.

Note: email subscribers will need to click through to the website to view the slide show.

In the News - affordable housing, Abbey wind power

A good use for the money that has accumulated in the Housing Trust Fund. This creates affordable housing for folks wanting to live in Franklin by using houses already on the market rather than creating new housing.

Franklin to offer grants to first-time homebuyers

from The Milford Daily News News RSS by Ashley Studley/Daily News staff

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The Abbey gets its wind turbine installed finally. I'll get out to get some pictures this weekend. I have photos of the concrete platform it was mounted on but they are not very exciting.

Abbey has wind turbine installed

from The Milford Daily News Homepage RSS by Ashley Studley/Daily News staff

Let's go fly a kite

One fun summer and spring activity of youth was to fly a kite. Here is a brief 5 minute video on how the next generation of kites can provide electricity.

Ben, are you listening?



Enjoy!

ENERGY BOARD VOTES TO APPROVE CAPE WIND ‘COMPOSITE CERTIFICATE’

On the renewable energy front, we find this press release:

MASSACHUSETTS ENERGY BOARD VOTES TO APPROVE CAPE WIND ‘COMPOSITE CERTIFICATE’
Friday, March 13, 2009

Cape Wind News Release

MASSACHUSETTS ENERGY BOARD VOTES TO APPROVE CAPE WIND ‘COMPOSITE CERTIFICATE’

MARCH 13, 2009, BOSTON, MA – In a unanimous vote, the Massachusetts Energy Facilities Siting Board (Siting Board), the agency created by the Legislature to ensure the siting of needed and least environmental impact energy facilities, voted yesterday to grant Cape Wind a Certificate of Environmental Impact and Public Interest (Certificate) that effectively rolls up all nine state and local permits related to the electric cables into one ‘composite certificate’.

Note: The official transcript of the Siting Board's Hearing yesterday is available for download at:
http://www.capewind.org/transcript.pdf

Cape Wind President Jim Gordon said, “This decision represents a major victory for the people of Massachusetts who are waiting for the clean energy jobs from Cape Wind which will help us become more energy independent and make Massachusetts a global leader in clean offshore wind energy production.” “I am grateful for the assistance that the attorneys representing Clean Power Now and the Conservation Law Foundation provided as participants in the Siting Board process”, Gordon continued.

The Siting Board instructed Cape Wind to work with the Towns of Yarmouth and Barnstable to reach an agreement on reasonable and customary conditions for town permits related to Cape Wind’s buried electric cables and to present this agreement to the Siting Board. In the event parties cannot agree on conditions, the Siting Board will decide on what conditions are reasonable to include. The Siting Board expects to complete this process and take its final vote within 60-days which will conclude Cape Wind’s permitting at the state and local level.

Cape Wind was compelled to file for this Certificate following a denial by the Cape Cod Commission in 2007. The Siting Board also has the statutory authority to grant a comprehensive approval to an energy facility it has previously approved, where that facility has been denied a permit by any other state or local agency in the Commonwealth.

In 2005, the Siting Board approved Cape Wind’s electrical interconnection at the conclusion of a 32-month review of unprecedented length that included 2,900 pages of transcripts, 923 exhibits and 50,000 pages of documentary evidence. The Siting Board found that Cape Wind would meet an identified need for electricity and would provide a reliable energy supply for Massachusetts, with a minimum impact on the environment. The Siting Board’s approval of Cape Wind’s electrical interconnection was upheld by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Cape Wind’s proposal to build America’s first offshore wind farm on Horseshoe Shoal would provide three-quarters of the electricity used on Cape Cod and the Islands from clean, renewable energy - reducing this region’s need to import oil, coal and gas. Cape Wind will create new jobs, stable electric costs, contribute to a healthier environment, increase energy independence and establish Massachusetts as a leader in offshore wind power. For more information visit www.capewind.org.

Cape Wind: Record of Decision Request

The following is a Letter to the Editor submitted by Jim Liedell summarizing the Cape Wind decision points and requesting that the Record of Decision be released.

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Despite unemployment rising precipitously, U.S. wind industry jobs jumped to 85,000 in 2008, a 70% increase from 2007. Wind made up 42% of all added 2008 electricity capacity. We can soon start benefiting locally by Cape Wind joining this explosive growth, giving us health, economic, security and other benefits.

Major conclusions in the federal Minerals Management Services’ (MMS) mid-January very favorable Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) on Cape Wind’s proposed project included:

1. of negative operation impacts, 3.2% are No Impact, 50% are Negligible, 38.9% are Minor, 6.3% are Moderate, and 1.6% (slightly rerouting the annual Figawi sailboat race) is Major;
2. impact to tourism will be negligible and there will be no decrease in beach activity;
3. floating wind turbine technology (recently pushed by the Alliance opposing Cape Wind) won’t be commercially available for 10 to 15 years;
4. Cape Wind will lower our electricity prices;
5. negligible to minor impact on fisheries;
6. fossil-fueled plants’ global-warming and other harmful emissions will be reduced;
7. no Cape Wind emissions to sea or air;
8. world-wide data (including local MMA turbine) showed very few birds will be killed colliding with Cape Wind’s turbines
9. no injuries caused to marine mammals;
10. nine alternate locations were evaluated - they would all produce more costly (1 to 17.7 cents/kilowatt hour) electricity than Cape Wind; and
11. three site-layout alternatives and four types of generation facilities were all found to be less desirable than Cape Wind’s proposal.

With this favorable FEIS expanding on and confirming many previous evaluations, it is sure that we will significantly benefit from Cape Wind.

To support this project, write a brief letter to

Kenneth Salazar

Secretary, US Department of the Interior

1849 C Street N.W.

Washington, DC 20240

and ask them to issue their Record Of Decision promptly.


Jim Liedell
Yarmouth Port


Note: Addressee for letter updated 2/26/09 per email request from Jim Liedell

"We have to be faithful to our basics"

An earsplitting clanging echoed from the stone bell tower of Mount St. Mary's Abbey in Wrentham, calling to prayer about a dozen nuns ending their morning shift in the convent's Candy House.

The sisters, wrapped in work clothes and aprons, walked down a wooded path and through a clearing as they made their silent way home. By noon, they were wearing the crisp, white robes of their contemplative Cistercian order, and had joined 40 others to chant and pray inside the abbey's airy church.

Up at 3, pray and work all day, retire at 8.

So it goes for these nuns and others in the order that for 900 years has emulated St. Benedict in relying on one's hands for daily sustenance.

Here in Wrentham, off a country lane not far from Interstate 495, that means tending a flock of sheep for wool to make blankets and growing a bounty of fresh vegetables in the summer, and, for these sisters who are rarely seen in public, making Trappistine Quality Candy - and lots of it.

Read the full article in the Boston Sunday Globe West section here

The Abbey web site can be found here

You can order candy via their online web store or make a donation via PayPal.

Postings about the Abbey's wind turbine can be found here

Whoosh Whoosh

Image via Wikipedia

What if some nuns in Wrentham decided to put up a wind turbine? And then high school officials in Worcester? And a Canton bank chairman? And pretty soon, the question wasn't where do wind farms belong, but how many windmills can we squeeze in to every last available space? That day is coming.

.....

"Wind power is part of that," Schulte says. "It seems to be peppered all over society right now: green, green, green. Well, this is green. This is clean energy. This is 20 years of energy with no emissions. Twenty years of energy with no pollution you have to bury in the ground. I think that's all right."

.....

Remember the nuns? Their turbine -- another SED project -- is scheduled to be built this winter. And Sister Mariann Garrity, for one, can't wait for the moment she sees those pearly white blades spinning. "The wind is just something that we've let caress our faces," she says. "It was not something, up until now, that we had learned how to harness. And when we see that turbine go up, we'll know that we are using a gift of creation in a much more effective way."

It's just like the nuns pray on Sundays. Gathered together, all 50 of them, they thank the Lord for the rain and the dew, for the heat of summer and the cold of winter. They give thanks for the seas and the rivers and the beasts, wild and tame. And they give thanks, of course, for the wind blowing outside the abbey, just waiting for a turbine to spin. "All you winds," they say together, quoting from the book of Daniel, "bless the Lord."

Read the full article in the Boston Globe Magazine here

Previous posting about the Abbey's wind project can be found here and here