Wind Capital Group, the company of Tom Carnahan, brother of Democrat Rep. Russ Carnahan, is getting $90 million dollars of the stimulus package that Russ voted for – and it’s not creating a single job in Carnahan’s 3rd District.
Wind Capital Group, led by President Tom Carnahan, said Monday it has closed on financing for Missouri’s largest wind energy development.
The lenders, led by Nord/LB,Bayern LB, Rabobank,Santander and Union Bank, are providing $240 million in debt facilities to support the construction and operation of the proposed Lost Creek Wind Project in DeKalb County, Mo. The debt facilities consist of a construction loan, term loan and letter of credit.
The project also is seeking $90 million in aid through the federal stimulus package.
The project, which is expected to cost more than $300 million and create more than 2,500 jobs, is believed to be the largest investment by the private sector in the state of Missouri this year, Wind Capital said.
It’s a shame that such an impractical (not to mention unsightly) market must rely on taxpayer financing in order to compete in the marketplace, as opposed to allowing the market to dictate its own trajectory. But then again, that’s the government nanny state for you.
Get acquainted with the myths of wind energy:
Electricity only is generated when the wind blows. Moreover, turbines are designed to operate in a range of relatively narrow wind speeds. Unless the tower is in an ideal wind area, the turbine will provide power only about 25-30 percent of the time.
Another way to look at the practical problem of locating wind turbines is given in a Department of Energy report from last May. It concluded that to produce enough wind power to satisfy only 20 percent of U.S. demand (less than half of what coal plants fulfill) would require land-based turbines and related infrastructure that would take up an area “slightly less than the area of Rhode Island.”
Hydrocarbon fuels built modern America, gave us the technologies and living standards we enjoy today, helped us eradicate diseases that plagued earlier generations, and boosted US life expectancy from 50 in 1900 to nearly 80 today. They still provide 85% of our total energy, and we could greatly reduce our reliance on oil imports if we would simply end the outrageous policies that keep our nation’s abundant energy resources locked up.
We have enough oil, natural gas, oil shale, coal and uranium to provide power for centuries. We have a growing consensus that we need to drill, onshore and off. But partisan intransigence and ridiculous environmental claims prevent us from utilizing these American resources.
Wind contributes more every year to our energy mix. But it still provides only 1% of our electricity – compared to 49% for coal, 22% for natural gas, 19% for nuclear and 7% for hydroelectric. Moreover, we will need 135 gigawatts of new electricity generation by 2020, whereas only 57 GW are planned.
We can and should harness the wind. But 22% by 2020 is far-fetched.
Wind power is expensive (even with subsidies), intermittent and unreliable. Many turbines are 400 feet tall and carry 130-foot, 7-ton, bird-slicing blades. They operate at only 20-30% of rated capacity – compared to 85% for coal, gas and nuclear plants – and provide little power during summer daytime hours, when air-conditioning demand is highest, but winds are at low ebb.
[…]
uilding and installing these turbines requires 5 to 10 times more steel and concrete than is needed to build far more reliable nuclear plants to generate the same amount of electricity, says Berkeley engineer Per Peterson. Add in steel and cement needed to build transmission lines from distant wind farms to urban consumers, and the costs multiply.
It also means many more quarries, mines, cement plants and steel mills to supply those materials. But radical greens oppose such facilities.
[…]
Since adequate wind is available only 3-8 hours a day, we would also need expensive gas-fired generating plants that mostly run at idle, kicking in whenever the wind dies down. That means still more money, cement and steel – and still higher electricity prices.
If wind power was so great, Teddy Kennedy wouldn’t have opposed the construction of a wind farm that would have compromised his view in Hyannis Port.
As a constituent of the third district, I’m furious that Carnahan would vote to support to add to the deficit for the sake of his own family’s bottom line – a vote that’s piddling away $90 million and doesn’t create a single job in our district.
24thstate also reports: Carnahan Family Gets Big Windfall :
Here’s what they don’t tell you. Without the stimulus or other government funds building new power lines, this project is a dead end. Russ Carnahan voted for the stimulus.
To date it has been a success, but, for this state, all the potential sites with enough wind to be useful are up in the Rockport area. The company was able to tie into existing distribution lines to use the power it generated, but getting much power further into the state will require that new power lines be run, and there are a number of different forms of cost and delay in getting that accomplished. He did note the potential of the stimulus package to help.
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