This section will be devoted to timely news items for discussion. While we may not always agree on the right approach to an issue, it is my intent to generate lively debate to determine just how government is affecting your lives.
Today’s featured issue is just below, past issues will be moved to the comment section below, and please remember to keep your contributions fit for print. — Legislator Wayne Horsley
Kessel of LIPA: Take another look at wind power
ISSUE: Current LIPA Chairman Richard Kessel recently wrote, “We should go back to the concept of the offshore wind project and re-bid it to see if there’s a more favorable price to be had.” — Newsday, September 4, 2007
QUESTION: Should LIPA re-bid the wind park for a site off Long Island’s coast line? Should the price of the wind park be the determining factor? – Legislator Wayne Horsley
1 Comment
September 27, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Price of the windfarm is a key factor because Long Islanders are already paying the highest electric rates in the nation. If we are going to bear the cost of projects like this, the costs should be weighed against the benefit gained for Long Island ratepayers.
In that context, let’s look at what Mr. Kessel said in his letter to Newsday (“Take another look at wind power”). There, Mr. Kessel claims “the wind farm project would produce 140 megawatts” which would power 44,000 homes. This claim is false, but it has been repeated so often that everyone accepts it as true, including the news media that seems to have lost the art of fact checking. Here’s the truth: 140 megawatts is the wind farm’s projected “rated capacity”; which is what the wind farm could produce under optimal conditions and wind speed. Because of the variable nature of wind, however, the actual output will be much, much less. As Mark Harrington reported (Newsday, Nov. 1, 2006), LIPA officials conceded that “the average annual generation of the [wind farm] is likely to be around 49 megawatts, well below the peak capacity of 140 megawatts.” Mr. Kessel knows this, yet he continuously misleads us on what the benefits of the windfarm will be. If there was real merit to the project, he wouldn’t have to stoop to such tactics, would he?
And let’s not forget that Mr. Kessel continuously refused to disclose the wind farm’s true costs, even after Kevin Law demanded he do so. The billion-dollar truth was not revealed until Newsday forced it out of LIPA through a Freedom of Information request. Yet Mr. Kessel has the nerve to state in his letter that “Long Islanders are being misled by opponents who simply don’t want to see the windmills and use economics as an excuse to hide their real motives.” Who’s misleading who?
Mr. Kessel also said LIPA can’t give up on this boondoggle because it is under a mandate to produce 25% of its electricity from renewable resources. That’s not true either; it’s the state, not LIPA, that is under that mandate, and it is easily met via the hydroelectric power generated upstate.
Long Islanders have been suckered too many times in the past to put faith in a project where the proponents feel they have to inflate the benefits and hide the costs. If Mr. Law wants to look at new proposals for a wind farm, ratepayers must insist on complete transparency and honesty, and be immediately suspicious if that’s not forthcoming.