What a great company... /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif John Deere Invests In Rural Wind Harvesting Project
JOHN DEERE INVESTS IN RURAL WIND HARVESTING
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Robert_in_NY
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The problem is to get the people to allow these farms. There are a couple people trying to set up wind farms in our area as Lake Erie tosses a lot of wind our way but the local people keep fighting and complaining just like when they started putting up cell towers. Hopefully someone will step in and just push it thru.
hazmat
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NIMBY NIMBY NIMBY - (Not In My Back Yard). They've been trying to build one offshore between Cape Cod & the Islands cape wind . It has been years in the making. It is being fought tooth and nail. I'd love to see more wind power - it appears that it is cost competative today. Seems as though capewind has spent millions trying to get their project approved.
SnowRidge
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Hmmm. Not so fast folks, unless you like giving away your hard earned cash in the form of yet another tax credit for an industry with political connections. The following is a quote from GlobalWarming.org:
<font color="blue"> "What is not clear is why taxpayers should be funding an industry that cannot survive without their help, or why wind power should receive special treatment over its competitors. Wind power subsidies are so extensive that their value sometimes exceeds the wind farm's revenues from selling electricity." </font>
From Business Week:
<font color="blue"> "The renewable industry is largely the creation of government policies, and there's always a chance that the political winds could shift. But given environmental pressures and more competitive green energy prices, it's a good bet that the boom in renewables will continue." </font>
Those policies mostly consist of giving away the taxpayers dollars to an industry that can't stand on its own two feet. It sounds to me like John Deere intends to provide the financing for wind farms as its way of getting on the gravy train. Not much risk in financing that which is virtually guaranteed a government subsidy big enough to preclude failure, even if it otherwise would not make economic sense.
<font color="blue"> "What is not clear is why taxpayers should be funding an industry that cannot survive without their help, or why wind power should receive special treatment over its competitors. Wind power subsidies are so extensive that their value sometimes exceeds the wind farm's revenues from selling electricity." </font>
From Business Week:
<font color="blue"> "The renewable industry is largely the creation of government policies, and there's always a chance that the political winds could shift. But given environmental pressures and more competitive green energy prices, it's a good bet that the boom in renewables will continue." </font>
Those policies mostly consist of giving away the taxpayers dollars to an industry that can't stand on its own two feet. It sounds to me like John Deere intends to provide the financing for wind farms as its way of getting on the gravy train. Not much risk in financing that which is virtually guaranteed a government subsidy big enough to preclude failure, even if it otherwise would not make economic sense.
MikePA
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It's not unusual for the government to subsidize start up industries via tax credits, low interest loans, etc. Same thing is true about ethanol. Plus I don't see how a farmer defaulting on a loan from John Deere would be covered by the government. Obviously, John Deere isn't getting into this business to lose money. I imagine JD has many large customers with land where wind harvesting makes sense, but the farmer doesn't have the skillset or the time to manage the project. So, JD has seen a need, e.g., 'project development', and decided to provide the service. Nothing wrong with that.
_RaT_
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Here is some quick info about wind generation in the world. Caution, this site is addictive. You will find yourself hoping from one link to another. They don't have a picture of the Altamont Pass here in California, but at that location are wind generators as far as the eye can see, thousands upon thousands. Nation Master
PS there is a great article in the recent National Geographic about wind power.
PS there is a great article in the recent National Geographic about wind power.
ronjhall
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The first link under the "Wind farms in the United States" is for a Altamont Pass picture.
Somewhere I saw a report on some environmental group suing Oregon or other western state over birds getting chopped up in the blades. Hard to believe that could happen when you see how slow they turn. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
Somewhere I saw a report on some environmental group suing Oregon or other western state over birds getting chopped up in the blades. Hard to believe that could happen when you see how slow they turn. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
RoyJackson
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</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Somewhere I saw a report on some environmental group suing Oregon or other western state over birds getting chopped up in the blades. Hard to believe that could happen when you see how slow they turn. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif )</font>
I'd read that too. It's tough to understand some environmental groups' thought processes... They want clean energy, but when that happens, they complain about birds (how many birds?) being killed. Well, birds get hit by aircraft and vehicles all the time...
What the heck do they expect?
I'd read that too. It's tough to understand some environmental groups' thought processes... They want clean energy, but when that happens, they complain about birds (how many birds?) being killed. Well, birds get hit by aircraft and vehicles all the time...
What the heck do they expect?
Bob_Skurka
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Our local newspaper ran an artical about two homemade wind generators operating on 2 farms in my county. With energy prices as high as they are, the wind farms don't seem like a real good option for a single generator unit, but from John Deere's standpoint it might be different.
If you have a few hundred, or possibly a few thousand acres, it would very likely be much easier to get approval to put up a couple, or even a couple dozen wind generators on your own land, than it would be for an outside company to come in and put up a couple dozen and build a true commercial wind farm. JD may be looking at it from the standpoint that it will be a low risk service in terms of minimal red tape since the local farmer likely has been there for a couple generations, the local farmer is likely well invested in the community and the community may look at is as a way to help keep the farm active and going in an age when profits are often tough to come by on farms? Many state laws now require "net metering" by utility companies so consumers who backfeed power in the appropriate way no longer buy at retail and sell at wholesale in quite a few states.
As far as the enviornmentalists go, I never understood them. As Roy points out it seems like you can't have it both ways.
Snow, good point about the government spending, I still wonder why the government funds PBS.
If you have a few hundred, or possibly a few thousand acres, it would very likely be much easier to get approval to put up a couple, or even a couple dozen wind generators on your own land, than it would be for an outside company to come in and put up a couple dozen and build a true commercial wind farm. JD may be looking at it from the standpoint that it will be a low risk service in terms of minimal red tape since the local farmer likely has been there for a couple generations, the local farmer is likely well invested in the community and the community may look at is as a way to help keep the farm active and going in an age when profits are often tough to come by on farms? Many state laws now require "net metering" by utility companies so consumers who backfeed power in the appropriate way no longer buy at retail and sell at wholesale in quite a few states.
As far as the enviornmentalists go, I never understood them. As Roy points out it seems like you can't have it both ways.
Snow, good point about the government spending, I still wonder why the government funds PBS.
SnowRidge
Elite Member
Wind power is excellent for certain things. Pumping well water into tanks is one of them, and no subsidies are needed. Generating electricity for attachment to the grid is far less beneficial--and far less certain. The wind is extremely flukey, although it may be not be apparent to someone who has never watched a wind generator in action. Horizontal axis generators spend a lot of time 'hunting.' Vertical generators wouldn't seem to have that problem, but there may be other issues with them that I am unaware of.
As visual polluters, wind farms are monstrous eyesores. Altamont pass is a good example.
I don't see the tax credits that are coming out of our pockets going into basic research that can develop new technology, but into subsidizing the construction of something that isn't cost effective. I would rather the money be spent on something that has enormous potential, such as fusion research, rather than wasting it on something with clearly limited value.
The current fad to subsidize anything supposedly 'green' reminds me of the investment tax credits of years gone by. Much of that money was wasted on people investing in business activities that had no sound economic basis, some of which weren't even in the US. We subsidized every thing from charter yachts in the Caribbean to Donny Osmond record masters, and yes, I know people who did both and received tax credits for doing so.
My own wind generator is packed away, along with the solar panel, waiting for the day I need a little more power than TVA can supply. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
As visual polluters, wind farms are monstrous eyesores. Altamont pass is a good example.
I don't see the tax credits that are coming out of our pockets going into basic research that can develop new technology, but into subsidizing the construction of something that isn't cost effective. I would rather the money be spent on something that has enormous potential, such as fusion research, rather than wasting it on something with clearly limited value.
The current fad to subsidize anything supposedly 'green' reminds me of the investment tax credits of years gone by. Much of that money was wasted on people investing in business activities that had no sound economic basis, some of which weren't even in the US. We subsidized every thing from charter yachts in the Caribbean to Donny Osmond record masters, and yes, I know people who did both and received tax credits for doing so.
My own wind generator is packed away, along with the solar panel, waiting for the day I need a little more power than TVA can supply. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
