INSURING SUBMARINE CABLES
It is important to know whether or not MAV will seek to insure their submarine cable. This is the one clear indicator of whether or not they care about cable longevity. Insurance underwriters will, one, not insure a cable unless they’ve seen evidence of due diligence in tabletop surveys and planning and, two, evidence that the best cable-laying contractors are used rather than the ones who come in with the lowest bid. Cable longevity is a direct function of both of these factors. Underwriters will refuse to insure a project if the project manager hasn't worked on at least one project with success before. Normally, the commercial life of a submarine cable is defined by the manufacturer’s warranty, but there is really no reason they cannot work well for decades beyond 20 years if they are not disturbed. Whether or not they are disturbed is directly related to how well they are installed.
Whenever insurance for offshore wind is mentioned, the much-quoted statistic is that 80% of claims in the sector relate to problems with cables. Most incidents occur during installation, half of them due to human error. Cables account for 90% of the number of offshore wind claims and 70% of the actual cost of all offshore wind claims. The 80% figure comes from the average split between these two numbers.
Insurers generally draw a distinction between projects built by utilities as their own generating assets - which they are likely to own for 20 to 25 years - and those built by consortia with a view to selling them once the construction is complete. Insurers believe the latter are built with a focus on the short-term construction, rather than the long-term operation.
The main problem is the lack of experience among many sea and cable contractors. Many vessels used by contractors are more suitable for near-shore operations rather than the high seas making it more difficult to effectively install cables in deeper waters.
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SUSTAINABILITY/VIABILITY/CRITICAL MASS
Dear Eva,
Thank you for your two excellent articles in The Free Press 1/8 and 2/5, 2014 and for permission from both you and the editor to reproduce them here. You could be writing about Monhegan. The drop from 300 to 15 year-round inhabited islands is even more dramatic when you consider that the first five are bedroom communities for Portland with frequent year-round ferry service via Casco Bay Lines. The discussion of 'viability' and 'sustainability' in the second article is also very much to the point.
In recent discussions of the pros and cons of wind power one of the more frequently asked questions is "Why Monhegan?" As we continue to think about this question your thoughts and observations are most helpful.
If you're interested in some of the studies there is a collaborative website entitled MonheganEnergy.info.
Best regards,
Jim
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The Free Press
FROM OFFSHORE: CRITICAL MASS
By Eva Murray
1/8/2014
One of the smallest numbers in "The Free Press Index" last week was "15 islands inhabited year-round." I can name them all quickly, and tell you which ones have schools, and describe how you get to each one, those being Cliff, Long, Peaks, Great Diamond, Chebeague, Monhegan, Matinicus, Vinalhaven, North Haven, Islesboro, Isle au Haut, Frenchboro, Swan's, Great Cranberry and Little Cranberry, also known as Islesford.
There used to be 300.
This time of year, here on Matinicus, we are down to the bottom of our annual population sine curve. We are way below critical mass in terms of this feeling like a "town," but I don't mind.
I count about 37 people here at the moment, my sorry lack of precision being because, despite the common myth that "all of us know what our neighbors are doing," people do not actually check in every time they cross the water.
I do my part by way of cheerleading. I fill my columns with attempts at rah-rah boosterism, hooray for us, this beauty, this fierce independence and who needs Starbucks anyway? We have mudslide parties and community spirit and real Christmas trees, we dare to defy the culture of fear to rush into any fire or storm, and we stroll the sand beaches with free-ranging dogs and a scavenger's eye as though we owned the place. Why doesn't everybody move here? I am not unrealistic. I type away wearing rosy-colored glasses because it is sometimes wise not to get too somber. Why are we shrinking? Why are there only three kids in school? Why is there nowhere to buy a hamburger?
There is this constant problem of making a living. Lobstermen make a living. People here only part of the year make their livings elsewhere. Those remaining, you can count on your fingers. We aren't enough of a customer base just among ourselves for the grocers and cafes we'd all love, or for the carpenters we wish for. Economic realities are not easily overcome by nice scenery and a sentimental affection for the old days.
A few realities:
I count about 12 adult natives here this week (not counting my kids, who will be leaving shortly), all but one male and 100 percent lobster fishermen. None of them intends to take up organic farming or boiler repair. I count three homeowners here now who are under the age of 50, all lobstermen.
Most of the people doing the work that keeps this place operating are in their fifties and sixties. They run the town office, the power company, the passenger boat, the post office and the only B&B; they respond to emergencies, plow snow, climb poles, collect taxes, clean the school, deliver propane, pound nails, write grant applications, fix phones, and repair automobiles. They dress up as Santa Claus, re-glaze the church windows, attend to injured dogs, attempt to diagnose Internet failures, and strive to maintain old fire trucks. They keep the lights on. Sometimes their knees hurt.
The more people leave for the winters, the more other people will and do leave. People get lonely, and most parents are inclined to feel that children do better when there are other children around. A population decrease is a snowball rolling down hill.
There are only two full-time benefitted jobs here, the teacher and the postmaster, and nobody has a crystal ball for that one.
A young fellow can't buy a house for $40,000 anymore. That's how this place got an electrician, back in the 1980s. Mostly it's lobstermen and folks desiring second homes who buy houses here. None of them really want to spend the winter stoking fires, drinking coffee, and being the on-call roofer for when somebody's losing shingles in a storm. Those who would enjoy such a life can't generally afford it.
The reality is that most young guys who come here are sternmen, because that is the only decent living to be made here, but it proves rare that a sternman without existing island connections gets involved in much else around town. They haven't chosen to move to this community for its own sake; they were offered a job with a specific captain and it may be his shop, his kitchen table and his boat that are all that young working person sees. A sternman's time is not his own anyway. A few of them never see the middle of the island and sure as hell don't know that we have a recycling system.
Everybody's got an opinion about how we should keep the wolf from the door on this island. My opinion is that unless you are standing here in this gale holding a wrench, a chainsaw, a ledger, a bushel of potatoes, a stethoscope, a multi-meter or somebody else's child you may as well keep your opinion.
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The Free Press
FROM OFFSHORE: SUSTAINABLE, VIABLE AND HOPEFUL
By Eva Murray
2/5/2014
I sit on a lot of committees. All of these advisory boards and assemblies of like-minded do-gooders meet on the mainland, of course. There aren't many on Matinicus who can claim to be a year-round, working-grunt islander yet have the freedom to cross the bay so frequently. The teacher and the postmaster and the fellow who keeps the lights on certainly cannot leave at will, and the fishermen must go to haul when the weather is fit regardless of what day some committee has planned to convene.
So I go to "dump school" and I go to the State House. I work on emergency preparedness and I compare notes with schoolteachers from other islands and I harangue the Maine Department of Transportation on our behalf. I learn all I can about health care and solid waste and telecommunications and elementary education and options for the generating of electricity. One hopes that bringing knowledge back to the island - even if it doesn't immediately result in some monetary or structural benefit - is a good thing. Not all would agree.
I also do a lot of cheerleading, remaining gamely public-spirited and arguing for islands as normal, legitimate Maine communities. I work to remind anybody in authority who can be made to listen that islanders have the same rights and needs as rural Mainers anywhere. The myth is still out there that island residents are of only two sorts: wealthy summer people whose "real world" is elsewhere, and antisocial cranks with criminal tendencies who have deliberately given up the privileges of human civilization in exchange for the freedom to shoot at seagulls.
I understand how people might think so.
In the Jargon of the Day, we strive to be "viable." We struggle to remain (and be acknowledged as) a "viable" community in the face of an attrition rate and some logistics problems that might make a decent argument that we are no such thing. I do not love that word "viable"; it sounds too clinical, like something cultivated in a Petrie dish. We already resent being considered an oddity, something to be studied like an isolated tribe or a speck on a microscope slide; now we have our "viability" debated by academics from elsewhere. Still, I am guilty of doing some of that observing myself. I have been an armchair anthropologist about this place for years, basically because it's hard to resist, and make no claim that ours is not an interesting case. It's just that I do so with the desire to see our studied subject happy, and well-fed - not poked at with sticks like some funny-looking new specimen in the tank.
"Sustainability" is the other word we hear a lot these days. There are people on every one of Maine's 15 remaining "year-round-inhabited, unbridged" islands working on sustainability, meaning they look for ways to encourage young working families to stay, or come to the island, to offset the inevitability of children who grow up, leave, and don't return because they cannot afford to. The hard part of year-round island life, as I have explained before, is not going without Starbucks; it's making a living.
The truth is nobody knows how long we'll continue to be "sustainable." Let us agree that sustainable means self-supporting. "Sustainable" is another loaded term, used of late so often to mean clean, green, and organic -which is fine, but that is not enough. To talk about an isolated community being sustainable, we must address the truly difficult problems, not simply whether or not anybody's growing kale or running solar panels in the neighborhood. We have to acknowledge that sustainability means "economically and psychologically stable, at least more often than not." It means "can survive without regular and substantial grant funding, charity, or unreciprocated subsidization." I made that last term up.
Some will say that what I do is a waste of time. There are those who are in denial of our need to interact at all with the rest of the world and its bureaucracies. In the past, isolated Matinicus prided itself in an ability to both fly under Augusta's radar and turn a blind eye to things like trash piling up and wear-and-tear on infrastructure. School board members didn't have to care about educational best practices or know any school law; town officials could simply toss any paperwork they didn't feel like responding to. Others may see my participation in these meetings and training sessions and public hearings as a fool's errand because we don't always "get something" tangible in direct exchange for each airplane flight or boat ride I charge to the municipal account.
As for me, I just go on cheerleading. Deep down I sort of enjoy how quiet this island becomes in the winter, but I'm not supposed to admit that.
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Eva Murray has lived on Matinicus year-round for 26 years. Her first year on Matinicus was as the teacher. Her husband Paul has been on the island for 30 years and keeps the lights on.
The title of her first article, "Critical Mass", is an important concept as is the analogy to population loss as a snowball rolling down hill. It is a geometric progression from which there is no return. That balance may be more delicate than most people realize – like the Newfoundland cod fishery which is now below critical mass and may never recover.
Doubtless there are some who care little for a school, a post office, electricity, phones, internet, vehicles and ferries just as there will always be someone who thinks Blackhead would be a great place for time share condos. There is always that range from Pol Pot to Donald Trump. We need balance, reflection and a willingness to recognize that as individuals, we are frequently wrong. Harry T was fond of saying that matters are often decided by the loudest voices who are frequently wrong but never in doubt.
I too feel nostalgia for a golden age in the sixties and seventies when most people had kerosene lamps and used the few public pay phones. There were memorable parties and memorable people. There were no computers. There was no internet or Google. There was no texting, Facebook, DirectTV or Netflix. I recall that people spoke to each other more. I forget that I was twenty something and immortal. I forget that I didn't feel the cold and my joints didn't ache all the time. I remember that I didn't have to mortgage my house for a cup of coffee.
So, what about the question, "Why Monhegan?" One quick answer from the point of view of wind power advocates is condensed below by Doug Boynton.
"Why Monhegan? The test site has to be in state water, i.e. within 3 nautical miles. State waters include islands, so by going 3 miles from an island the site is a greater distance from mainland and in an area with much higher winds. Turbine output has a geometric relationship with wind speed so even a little more wind makes a huge difference. The test site needs very deep water to mimic conditions of eventual site further off shore and Monhegan is among the few areas with the right depth etc. Any test site would disrupt fishing interests. Monhegan has the lowest density fishing activity of any place in state waters. A major reason commercial development will be much further offshore is that is where the best wind resource is. To make an economically viable wind farm as opposed to a test site maximum wind resource is essential. There are legitimate concerns about a 20 year test project, but there should be no fear or confusion that the test site would be useful for a large commercial project."
To this I would add that the proposed cable will not support a commercial project. An economically feasible commercial project would require a much more robust cable as well as one or more twenty to thirty million dollar sub stations. This limits the project to what has always been described as a research project with a defined end.
Eva's articles point to the broader but no less practical answer to the question, "Why Monhegan?" It's not a trick question and the answer is fairly mundane. Monhegan is a tough place to make a living and anything that makes that easier is a big help including less expensive and more reliable electricity, telephone and internet. It has to do with connectivity to the power grid via a cable. It has to do with getting the cost of maintaining a year-round community on Monhegan closer to inshore costs. It is part of a wider effort that includes affordable housing. It has to do with attracting young, hard-working people with children who will take up places in the community being vacated by an aging population. It is understandable that people who have not slogged through at least one winter on the island might not see this. It is harder to understand how people who have lived here year-round might not see this. It has to do with taking the long view. Yes! Monhegan is a very special place. But it is also part of a world that has shrunken to such a small size that it can no longer be seen in isolation and cannot be exempt from the bigger issues by simply hiding. There's no place left to hide.
It's a slippery slope. The people who do all the work and keep the lights on are getting older with no one to take their place. The small number of people who open and close all the cottages are not being replaced. For the most part they are the same ones who do all the building and repair. There's only one person with the technical expertise to keep the power company running. Everyone in town does three or four jobs having to do with keeping the town going. If we lose the school and the post office, the road back is almost impossible. If we lose our year-round post office we lose our three day a week winter mail boat. The mail contract is the only thing that makes it economically feasible. Small remote post offices are closing all over the country. Unlike Matinicus and some of the Penobscot Bay Islands, we have no air strip. These things are taken for granted without the realization of just how fragile Monhegan has become.
When the new generators go on line they will have to burn ULSD (ultra low sulfur diesel) instead of #2 heating oil. The specs have not been received so we don't know if increased efficiency will offset the increase in fuel prices.
We have eight fishermen of which three now have year-round houses on the mainland. After next fishing season we may be down to seven and the same number with firm roots inshore. That would leave four fully committed Monhegan fishermen without an exit strategy. Two of the eight take up around Christmas and leave for several months. How long will it be before Friendship mounts another challenge to Monhegan's exclusive conservation zone by quite rightfully asking the question of why four or five individuals should have the exclusive right to fish in an area that should sustain seventeen fishermen. Why shouldn't they be allowed to commute to Monhegan to fish if that's what islanders themselves are doing. As it is they already fish up to thirty miles offshore from Friendship and circle Monhegan. They would happily include the arc around the island as part of their fishing grounds. This could pose a much more serious threat to Monhegan fishermen than the lost bottom near the floating wind generators. Experience elsewhere tells us that the platforms and mooring equipment will act as habitat and a source of food. All it takes is an act of the legislature. Given the current climate in Augusta the sentiment could easily shift against Monhegan. If Monhegan becomes just another part of Zone D, we will have lost one of the key elements that defines Monhegan and made it special since the early nineteen hundreds. We should embrace this project and do everything in our power to make it work. We should focus on contractual guarantees having to do with rates and cable maintenance. It is a once-in-a-hundred-years opportunity for Monhegan, for Maine, and quite possibly for a world that is choking on carbon.
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One more thing on the question of noise. While in the process of gathering information I've been talking with an old classmate who partnered with Angus King and others on commercial wind projects in Maine. He ran Maine Public Broadcasting for years and I can think of no one more honest or straight forward. I've known him since we were thirteen. I'm sure anyone who has lived in the state will remember getting a call from Rob Gardiner asking for support. Wind energy has gotten a lot of bad press from the Vinalhaven project which has benefitted lobbyists for the energy status quo. The Vinalhaven project was poorly conceived and poorly executed. This is what Rob wrote regarding the noise:
Jim,
We reviewed the Vinalhaven plans when they became public--after the ideal time to raise concerns while changes could be made readily. Angus called George Baker and expressed the belief that having houses within 1000' would create a problem. Because I did not have that conversation myself, I am not sure just how Angus expressed it. But from our work in mountainous conditions, we had concluded that any house downwind within 2500' would be a risk. Because there are about five to ten houses in that range (not sure of this number any more), we felt that a sound easement would be advisable for these people. This could be structured in various ways--an agreement to purchase the house at a fair price, an annual payment, or some other arrangement--to allow someone who was bothered by the noise to be treated fairly. After the turbines are up and running is too late. By then people are pissed and they exaggerate the noise effects, the lawyers become involved, and it is too late to move a turbine. A sound easement would probably have cost far less than the lost electrical production and legal fees to handle the problem.
With Aquaventus, the problem of having winds at the nacelle level strong enough to turn the machine while having people in a lee-effect situation downwind does not exist. Therefore, I would say there is no chance that there will be any turbine blade noise problem. It is amazing how the sound of ambient wind wipes out other noises.
Call if this is not enough of a response.
Best,
Rob
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Lee-effect refers to wind turbines on a mountain ridge. The whoosh of blades cannot be heard on the windward side because of ambient wind noise. In the valley on the lee side of the ridge there is no ambient wind noise so the sound of blades can be heard. On the flat ocean there is no ridge to provide a lee. Upwind and downwind are equally windy. There is no lee-effect and all you hear is the ambient wind on all sides. If there is no wind the blades aren't turning. In the case of floating turbines there is also the ambient sound of the sea and surf. A nautical mile is 6,000 feet. Two and a half nautical miles is 15,000 feet or six times the 2,500 feet recommended downwind distance. As Rob said, there will be no noise.
Ambient Noise Level (sometimes called background noise level, reference sound level, or room noise level) is the background sound pressure level at a given location, normally specified as a reference level to study a new intrusive sound source. This can be the sound of wind in the trees, surf, a person whispering, traffic, the hum of fluorescent lights, a refrigerator running, etc.
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BAIT AND SWITCH
“BAIT AND SWITCH” is a recurring theme in the Monhegan wind debate. It has a nice ring to it suggestive of carnival hucksters. The history of MAV/NEAV as a changing idea is a fact. Some people let go of this long ago. Others see it as a conspiracy to defraud on the part of "Big Business."
When you look at the reality, an overextended University of Maine employee failed to keep everyone fully informed when the project was in its infancy and changing daily. He never saw himself as a front for evil interests. He got wrapped up in the excitement surrounding the project and assumed that everyone shared in the excitement. One response to this failure has been that it demonstrates ineptitude on the part of the University and their associates. This in turn becomes a reason why the project should not go forward in the hands of the incompetent.
The University has been talking to the chairpersons of METF on a weekly basis for a long time now and lack of communication is not an issue. It’s over three years since the project has changed in any detail. Harping on “Bait and Switch” is becoming tiresome and a distraction.
MAV has still not answered certain questions to everyone’s satisfaction and it is incumbent on them to cross the T’s and dot the I’s. This is only good practice whenever community trust is an issue. I can only assume that more people will be on board to do just that now that the project has moved into a lead position.
It is ironic that a large corporation with buckets of money for public relations and slick lawyers might have been more successful.
Bear in mind that the test site was legislated by a significant majority in state government. These are state waters. On the federal level, Angus King and Susan Collins are huge supporters of offshore wind and are on committees dealing directly with such issues. Susan Collins, in particular, sees this as the capstone of her tenure. Monhegan has had tremendous advantages in the past when she has reached out to government for grants of all types. Everyone loves Monhegan. Now they're asking for something in return. If we slam the door, we alter this friendly relationship and encounter the possibility of cool treatment in the future. The free state of Monhegan is an illusion and sits at the tail end of the grid. As the grid dries up so does Monhegan.
Another question is why have we chosen to obstruct this project at the 11nth hour. The site was chosen quite a few years ago. MAV in its latest incarnation is nearly three years old. Even when MAV failed to make the first cut it was still receiving funding from DOE and was always in a good position to receive the full grant.
The very sad thing is that, if Monhegan decides collectively to form a relationship with this wind project, a few people will always feel hurt even if it turns out to be of enormous value in assuring Monhegan a future as a year round working island. The other tragedy would be that the wind turbines go up in the test site regardless of the general will and Monhegan fails to receive any advantage at all. This would also create a bitter rift.
I just hope Monhegan won't be making a big mistake by not taking advantage of a real boon to its long-term survival as a year-round community. This comes at a time when a lot of people are feeling disenfranchised and I hope this sentiment doesn't extend to the wind power debate. Everything I see and hear tells me these are the "good guys". Emera is a 20 billion dollar corporation that isn’t usually concerned with projects this small. It does so because this may be the future and a brief glance at a nautical chart will demonstrate why the Monhegan test site has more potential wind power than any other location in state waters.
A bigger risk to Monhegan would be oilrigs and underwater fracking. This is not a remote possibility and has been on the table for some time. Anyone who has been in the Gulf of Mexico knows what this brings with it. These wind turbines seem benign in comparison.
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REPLY TO CERTAIN INCORRECT STATEMENTS AND MORE
In response to the argument proposed for overturning legislation for the test area in Monhegan waters, I respectfully submit the following observations.
First we should acknowledge that anyone who bothers to enter the debate is concerned about Monhegan.
Many of the questions being asked by critics and opponents have been answered before and are available on the METF website and the METF Facebook page. Other questions have outcomes in the future and are not answerable in an honest way. To pretend otherwise and make flat statements is to pretend that they've been answered
Other questions demonstrate a lack of understanding. For example, in regard to the cable option, people keep asking what happens when the wind doesn’t blow and what about batteries?
1. Monhegan would be connected by cables to the turbines and to shore/CMP grid.
2. Monhegan’s Primary Power would be from the Turbines (when wind blows).
3. Monhegan’s Back-up would be shore power from CMP (when turbines don't spin).
4. Monhegan Emergency Backup - MPPD generators would be needed if there were an outage in the cable to shore. The turbines would not supply Monhegan if there were a cable outage.
5. Electricity would flow both ways in the cable. Fiber optics would be bundled with the electrical cables to communicate with the wind platform in real time. When the platform generates power in excess of its own load requirements, electricity would flow to Monhegan and the grid.
6. Monhegan could use the fiber optics for its own communication purposes. This would be an enormous improvement over the current microwave system.
Batteries are expensive, have ongoing maintenance needs, require a charging system, have a limited life and need to be replaced, etc. They are not a necessary part of this system. The only batteries we are concerned with are the ones that start our emergency generators when they detect a loss of power in the cable.
Recently a flat statement was made that" a large scale solar array is the best fit for Monhegan". This is not something that Monhegan decided. It is one of numerous options in a document written and presented by MEPC with pros and cons and risks and advantages. To say that it is the best option is to suggest that the Monhegan community is in agreement. It is not. There are people tending toward a variety of options including no option at all. There are quite a few who are indifferent and don’t think about where the power comes from until they don’t have it.
A statement was made that "these two turbines would never be placed this close to a coastal community". This is not true. Five/574-foot wind turbines will be on line by the end of 2016, 2.5 miles off the shores of Block Island with a 21-mile cable to a place near Narragansett and a spur line to their own diesel power station at New Shoreham. These are the same size and distance as the ones proposed off Monhegan.
Another statement addressed the relative costs of offshore wind power. To say that the rates in Oregon from offshore wind would be four times as great as land based is not supportable by any empirical evidence. Any new shift in infrastructure technology will have huge initial costs. The cost savings are in economies of scale. Has anyone calculated the hidden costs of hydrocarbons? The damage to the environment alone is a debt we may never pay. What about the highways, bridges, tunnels, pipelines, railways, port facilities and subsidies not even included in the cost because we the people pay for them at a much greater rate proportional to usage? Try to calculate the real cost of drilling for oil in a thousand feet of water! We’ve already witnessed the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. What is the real cost of fracking and who pays for it and at what time in the future? If the true cost of hydrocarbons were tallied in an honest manner the cost would seem insupportable. And yet we soldier on. Isn’t this why people feel disenfranchised?
There are many of us who feel that the project is worthy and deserves our wholehearted assistance. At the same time the project could benefit the island in ways that add immeasurably to its viability and sustainability as a year-round working community. Monhegan should be a place where young people can come and thrive and raise families so that it continues to be a viable community well into the future instead of following the other 300 islands that no longer have year round populations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_Island_Wind_Farm
http://www.4coffshore.com/windfarms/block-island-wind-farm-united-states-us12.html
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BENEFITS OF A CABLE
1. The cost of electricity on Monhegan is immediately reduced by approximately 40% to 50% based on MPPD estimates and similar estimates on Block Island. This is without any capital outlay from Monhegan. We won't have to construct our own solar array or wind tower with the requisite battery banks for storage. These are costly ventures, which can’t compete with the cable option for reducing diesel consumption and cost of electricity.
2. Via fiber optics, Monhegan acquires advanced broadband communications for the school, businesses and individuals. The fiber optic cable will also handle voice communication. *All the functions of the existing microwave tower could be replaced with the subsea cable via Fairpoint and everyone can retain their existing telephone number. This would allow for the removal of the microwave tower which has always been an eyesore and statistically a much more lethal killer of birds and bats than any wind turbines by a factor of over 176,000. High-speed connections open up a much wider range of occupations for year-round or extended season residents working out of the home. Vital services such as store, school, post office and boat service become less marginal with just a small increase in year-round population. Year-round sustainability fails quickly once a certain critical mass of population is lost. Monhegan could easily follow in the footsteps of the other nearly three hundred islands that were once inhabited year-round.
* See letter from MAV below.
3. Monhegan's power plant immediately becomes an emergency backup system. This means it runs only when cable power is lost or when operated for monthly tests. The ecological impact of this is tremendous. We would cut diesel consumption to a fraction of what we now use and reduce maintenance requirements by the same fraction. For the moment ultra low sulfur diesel is relatively cheap. We all know how quickly this can change. The cost of a 100-gallon oil spill in the single source aquifer could be catastrophic requiring costly cleanup and importation of drinking water to the island. SGC Engineering estimates that Monhegan would have to store no more than a one-week supply of diesel at any given time. It would make no sense to store a larger quantity than required because diesel fuel deteriorates over time.
4. A big problem with hybrid systems beyond the initial cost is that they require storage. This means banks of batteries. Battery technology hasn’t kept pace with other advances. Batteries are expensive, have ongoing maintenance needs, require a charging system, have a limited life and need to be replaced. They are also highly toxic and pose an expensive disposal problem. With a grid-connected cable this problem is eliminated and the only batteries we care about are the ones that start our MPPD backup emergency generators.
5. Monhegan buys 20 years worth of research and development time to decide what systems best suit our needs. Energy technology is changing rapidly. If offshore wind is successful, the developer may want an ongoing relationship with the island and may be open to maintaining a cable. Even after they move far offshore, they may want to ‘piggyback’ on existing cable areas designated on nautical charts thus eliminating new permitting problems.
6. Monhegan would set an example. Rather than saying we don't want this in our back yard because we're so special, we would say we are special because we understand what’s at stake. If Monhegan can do it, no one else has an excuse not to. People would come to see the island that gets its power from the wind. Monhegan could become a place where people come to learn about sustainability and a green planet. Monhegan could host conferences on the future of energy which could fill hotel and inn rooms during the slower periods of the tourist seson.
7. The University is lending their 1/8 model, floating turbine to an experiment growing mussels, kelp and scallops on ropes. If successful it could develop into an off-season source of income for the island fishery. Already we have the equipment and skills to take advantage of potential platform leases 2.5 or 30 miles from the island. We would still be closer than anyone else and it would be income when boats are mostly idle. Monhegan can continue to harvest the ocean even if lobstering follows the fate of so many other wild fisheries.
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HOW DOES THE CABLE SYSTEM WORK?
Jake Ward
University of Maine
Research, Economic Development and Government Relations 5717 Corbett Hall
Orono, Maine 04469
RE: Monhegan Island Task Force Question
May 18, 2016
Dear Jake,
SGC Engineering is pleased to respond to the question posed by the task force. Below is a summary, with details following.
Summary:
1) When no wind generation is available - power flows to the platform to support load.
2) when wind generation exceeds local (platform) load, power flows to the CMP system for distribution.
If Monhegan Public Power District (MPPD) is connected to the off shore project, it will have similar access to CMP shore power that the platform has – power is available whenever the cable and the CMP system are energized, with no dependency on wind or wind generators. MPPD should consider the two possibilities for outages:
1) – Shore power outage. 2) – Subsea cable issues.
Shore power outages are few and generally of limited duration. With that said, SGC suspects that they are probably more frequent than what the island currently experiences. Cable issues should be infrequent, but when one does occur, it could be days or longer to get addressed. We understand that the Task Force is aware that there is a 20 year life projected for the cable. After 20 years, funding to repair or replace the cable may not be available.
Can the turbines supply power, if not connected to CMP?
SGC does not believe it is feasible for the wind turbines to regulate adequately to power just the island and platform loads (or one or the other). Even if this were possible, it could not work if the issue was a cable outage.
Batteries:
Batteries are expensive, have ongoing maintenance needs, require a charging system, have a limited life and need to be replaced, etc. If the island were to add a battery system to their present configuration, it may make sense. That would allow running the local generators in their most efficient mode (instead of following the load), turning them off at times when the batteries are charged adequately to meet the needs, and improving efficiency to the entire system. Diesel is now cheap, and batteries are still expensive, so it may not make economic sense right now. The future is likely to change both of these factors.
Batteries as a backup to loss of shore power – Shore power is likely to be out hours a year (possibly 1- 10 hrs/year, but this is just a suggested range), and it may occur at multiple times. Batteries are pretty expensive for this short duration of use. If the outage is beyond the capability of the batteries, then MPPD will still go out or need to fire up the diesels. If the intent is a backup to subsea cable issues, batteries are not practical as the duration of outage could be extensive and diesel would still be required to back up the batteries.
SGC Recommendation – If the island elects to connect to shore power, then they retain the existing generation in operating condition with a weeks’ worth of fuel on site. Batteries may be of value as part of the present island system, but are of little value as part of a shore power connection.
Thank you for this continued opportunity to work with you and the University of Maine on this exciting project. If you have any questions or need additional information, please feel free to contact me on my direct line 207-749-9186.
Very truly yours,
SGC ENGINEERING, LLC
A Lloyd’s Register Company
Richard D. Hall, P.E. Senior Project Manager
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Why Does It Have To Be Monhegan?
Wind power is a measure of the energy available in the wind. It is a function of the cube (third power) of the wind speed. If the wind speed is doubled, power in the wind increases by a factor of eight. This relationship means that small differences in wind speed lead to large differences in power. For example, assume that one person takes a speed measurement of 10 mph and another person, at the same time but at a neighboring site, gets a reading of 12.6 mph. For this difference of 2.6 mph, there is a 100% difference in the available wind power (103 = 1000 vs. 12.63 = 2000)! This example points out that minor differences in wind speed due either to site selection or measurement errors can have a major bearing on a decision to invest in a wind turbine.
Look at Monhegan on a nautical chart that includes the mid coast from the Kennebec River to Penobscot Bay. A compass arc of three nautical miles* drawn from east to south to west around Monhegan delineates the boundary between state and federal waters. A ruler tangent to the coast shows you that the test site south of Monhegan is further out to sea by several miles than any other location within state waters anywhere to the west.
Anyone who has spent a life at sea knows that wind speed and power drop dramatically as you approach land from the ocean.
A site even a few miles away is not a valid comparison. Monhegan wasn’t chosen as a test site on a whim.
(* 1 Nautical Mile = 6000 feet. 1 Statute Mile = 5280 feet)
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WIND TURBINES AND TOURISM
Conclusions:
Our results showed that the proposed wind turbines would have little negative impact on visitation patterns to Monhegan Island. Over 90% of those surveyed would continue visiting the island at current or increased levels if offshore wind turbines are established; only 1% stated they would no longer visit the island. Most respondents were indifferent. People felt that wind power would not affect their visit at all.
Excerpt from a June 2016 study by:
a. School of Economics, University of Maine
b. Virtual Environment and Multimodal Interaction (VEMI) Laboratory, University of Maine
Entitled
POTENTIAL TOURISM IMPACTS OF AN OFFSHORE WIND FARM NEAR MONHEGAN ISLAND Technical Report
See the link below for the full report:
http://www.monheganenergy.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Summer-2014-Monhegan-Island-Tourism-Tech-Report-6-3-16.pdf
On a less dry note, one humorist was heard to say, “If the wind turbines don’t keep the tourists away, what good are they?”
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CAN FIBER OPTIC CABLE REPLACE MICROWAVE TOWER???
Laura,
Please see response below from MAV team.
Background:
Currently Monhegan has a telephone link to shore via microwave, for both landlines and cell tower. Internet service is provided via DSL. Microwave provides the link to shore for the DSL service.
We understand the questions to be:
1. Can the fiber optic replace the microwave link for landline and cell phone service?
2. Will this be limited to VOIP phones (with new numbers) or can they be connected to the Fairpoint system, and maintain all their own phone numbers and have the cell tower work?
3. Can the fiber optic replace the link for internet service?
4. Can the microwave tower be removed, with fiber replacing all functions?
Answer:
1. Given the number of fibers being installed in the cable by MAV, we believe there should be sufficient fiber available to achieve these items from a technology point of view. Fairpoint and the University would need to discuss it first, but we are sure something could be arranged so that Fairpoint could move the communications link from the existing microwave backbone to the new fiber backbone. This would allow the residents to maintain the same numbers and infrastructure. The same would apply to whoever carries the cell phone service out on the island.
2. Technically, all on the island can retain their phone numbers. Final confirmation of this must come from the provider, Fairpoint.
3. Yes, fiber can provide broadband Internet service, and will improve service.
4. Yes, after all services are commissioned, the tower can be removed.
As with any engineering, we will need to finalize the needs of all parties before we spec the fiber to be included in the subsea cable. Increasing fiber count will have a very minimal impact of the cable cost.
Best, Nate J.
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It is important to know whether or not MAV will seek to insure their submarine cable. This is the one clear indicator of whether or not they care about cable longevity. Insurance underwriters will, one, not insure a cable unless they’ve seen evidence of due diligence in tabletop surveys and planning and, two, evidence that the best cable-laying contractors are used rather than the ones who come in with the lowest bid. Cable longevity is a direct function of both of these factors. Underwriters will refuse to insure a project if the project manager hasn't worked on at least one project with success before. Normally, the commercial life of a submarine cable is defined by the manufacturer’s warranty, but there is really no reason they cannot work well for decades beyond 20 years if they are not disturbed. Whether or not they are disturbed is directly related to how well they are installed.
Whenever insurance for offshore wind is mentioned, the much-quoted statistic is that 80% of claims in the sector relate to problems with cables. Most incidents occur during installation, half of them due to human error. Cables account for 90% of the number of offshore wind claims and 70% of the actual cost of all offshore wind claims. The 80% figure comes from the average split between these two numbers.
Insurers generally draw a distinction between projects built by utilities as their own generating assets - which they are likely to own for 20 to 25 years - and those built by consortia with a view to selling them once the construction is complete. Insurers believe the latter are built with a focus on the short-term construction, rather than the long-term operation.
The main problem is the lack of experience among many sea and cable contractors. Many vessels used by contractors are more suitable for near-shore operations rather than the high seas making it more difficult to effectively install cables in deeper waters.
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SUSTAINABILITY/VIABILITY/CRITICAL MASS
Dear Eva,
Thank you for your two excellent articles in The Free Press 1/8 and 2/5, 2014 and for permission from both you and the editor to reproduce them here. You could be writing about Monhegan. The drop from 300 to 15 year-round inhabited islands is even more dramatic when you consider that the first five are bedroom communities for Portland with frequent year-round ferry service via Casco Bay Lines. The discussion of 'viability' and 'sustainability' in the second article is also very much to the point.
In recent discussions of the pros and cons of wind power one of the more frequently asked questions is "Why Monhegan?" As we continue to think about this question your thoughts and observations are most helpful.
If you're interested in some of the studies there is a collaborative website entitled MonheganEnergy.info.
Best regards,
Jim
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The Free Press
FROM OFFSHORE: CRITICAL MASS
By Eva Murray
1/8/2014
One of the smallest numbers in "The Free Press Index" last week was "15 islands inhabited year-round." I can name them all quickly, and tell you which ones have schools, and describe how you get to each one, those being Cliff, Long, Peaks, Great Diamond, Chebeague, Monhegan, Matinicus, Vinalhaven, North Haven, Islesboro, Isle au Haut, Frenchboro, Swan's, Great Cranberry and Little Cranberry, also known as Islesford.
There used to be 300.
This time of year, here on Matinicus, we are down to the bottom of our annual population sine curve. We are way below critical mass in terms of this feeling like a "town," but I don't mind.
I count about 37 people here at the moment, my sorry lack of precision being because, despite the common myth that "all of us know what our neighbors are doing," people do not actually check in every time they cross the water.
I do my part by way of cheerleading. I fill my columns with attempts at rah-rah boosterism, hooray for us, this beauty, this fierce independence and who needs Starbucks anyway? We have mudslide parties and community spirit and real Christmas trees, we dare to defy the culture of fear to rush into any fire or storm, and we stroll the sand beaches with free-ranging dogs and a scavenger's eye as though we owned the place. Why doesn't everybody move here? I am not unrealistic. I type away wearing rosy-colored glasses because it is sometimes wise not to get too somber. Why are we shrinking? Why are there only three kids in school? Why is there nowhere to buy a hamburger?
There is this constant problem of making a living. Lobstermen make a living. People here only part of the year make their livings elsewhere. Those remaining, you can count on your fingers. We aren't enough of a customer base just among ourselves for the grocers and cafes we'd all love, or for the carpenters we wish for. Economic realities are not easily overcome by nice scenery and a sentimental affection for the old days.
A few realities:
I count about 12 adult natives here this week (not counting my kids, who will be leaving shortly), all but one male and 100 percent lobster fishermen. None of them intends to take up organic farming or boiler repair. I count three homeowners here now who are under the age of 50, all lobstermen.
Most of the people doing the work that keeps this place operating are in their fifties and sixties. They run the town office, the power company, the passenger boat, the post office and the only B&B; they respond to emergencies, plow snow, climb poles, collect taxes, clean the school, deliver propane, pound nails, write grant applications, fix phones, and repair automobiles. They dress up as Santa Claus, re-glaze the church windows, attend to injured dogs, attempt to diagnose Internet failures, and strive to maintain old fire trucks. They keep the lights on. Sometimes their knees hurt.
The more people leave for the winters, the more other people will and do leave. People get lonely, and most parents are inclined to feel that children do better when there are other children around. A population decrease is a snowball rolling down hill.
There are only two full-time benefitted jobs here, the teacher and the postmaster, and nobody has a crystal ball for that one.
A young fellow can't buy a house for $40,000 anymore. That's how this place got an electrician, back in the 1980s. Mostly it's lobstermen and folks desiring second homes who buy houses here. None of them really want to spend the winter stoking fires, drinking coffee, and being the on-call roofer for when somebody's losing shingles in a storm. Those who would enjoy such a life can't generally afford it.
The reality is that most young guys who come here are sternmen, because that is the only decent living to be made here, but it proves rare that a sternman without existing island connections gets involved in much else around town. They haven't chosen to move to this community for its own sake; they were offered a job with a specific captain and it may be his shop, his kitchen table and his boat that are all that young working person sees. A sternman's time is not his own anyway. A few of them never see the middle of the island and sure as hell don't know that we have a recycling system.
Everybody's got an opinion about how we should keep the wolf from the door on this island. My opinion is that unless you are standing here in this gale holding a wrench, a chainsaw, a ledger, a bushel of potatoes, a stethoscope, a multi-meter or somebody else's child you may as well keep your opinion.
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The Free Press
FROM OFFSHORE: SUSTAINABLE, VIABLE AND HOPEFUL
By Eva Murray
2/5/2014
I sit on a lot of committees. All of these advisory boards and assemblies of like-minded do-gooders meet on the mainland, of course. There aren't many on Matinicus who can claim to be a year-round, working-grunt islander yet have the freedom to cross the bay so frequently. The teacher and the postmaster and the fellow who keeps the lights on certainly cannot leave at will, and the fishermen must go to haul when the weather is fit regardless of what day some committee has planned to convene.
So I go to "dump school" and I go to the State House. I work on emergency preparedness and I compare notes with schoolteachers from other islands and I harangue the Maine Department of Transportation on our behalf. I learn all I can about health care and solid waste and telecommunications and elementary education and options for the generating of electricity. One hopes that bringing knowledge back to the island - even if it doesn't immediately result in some monetary or structural benefit - is a good thing. Not all would agree.
I also do a lot of cheerleading, remaining gamely public-spirited and arguing for islands as normal, legitimate Maine communities. I work to remind anybody in authority who can be made to listen that islanders have the same rights and needs as rural Mainers anywhere. The myth is still out there that island residents are of only two sorts: wealthy summer people whose "real world" is elsewhere, and antisocial cranks with criminal tendencies who have deliberately given up the privileges of human civilization in exchange for the freedom to shoot at seagulls.
I understand how people might think so.
In the Jargon of the Day, we strive to be "viable." We struggle to remain (and be acknowledged as) a "viable" community in the face of an attrition rate and some logistics problems that might make a decent argument that we are no such thing. I do not love that word "viable"; it sounds too clinical, like something cultivated in a Petrie dish. We already resent being considered an oddity, something to be studied like an isolated tribe or a speck on a microscope slide; now we have our "viability" debated by academics from elsewhere. Still, I am guilty of doing some of that observing myself. I have been an armchair anthropologist about this place for years, basically because it's hard to resist, and make no claim that ours is not an interesting case. It's just that I do so with the desire to see our studied subject happy, and well-fed - not poked at with sticks like some funny-looking new specimen in the tank.
"Sustainability" is the other word we hear a lot these days. There are people on every one of Maine's 15 remaining "year-round-inhabited, unbridged" islands working on sustainability, meaning they look for ways to encourage young working families to stay, or come to the island, to offset the inevitability of children who grow up, leave, and don't return because they cannot afford to. The hard part of year-round island life, as I have explained before, is not going without Starbucks; it's making a living.
The truth is nobody knows how long we'll continue to be "sustainable." Let us agree that sustainable means self-supporting. "Sustainable" is another loaded term, used of late so often to mean clean, green, and organic -which is fine, but that is not enough. To talk about an isolated community being sustainable, we must address the truly difficult problems, not simply whether or not anybody's growing kale or running solar panels in the neighborhood. We have to acknowledge that sustainability means "economically and psychologically stable, at least more often than not." It means "can survive without regular and substantial grant funding, charity, or unreciprocated subsidization." I made that last term up.
Some will say that what I do is a waste of time. There are those who are in denial of our need to interact at all with the rest of the world and its bureaucracies. In the past, isolated Matinicus prided itself in an ability to both fly under Augusta's radar and turn a blind eye to things like trash piling up and wear-and-tear on infrastructure. School board members didn't have to care about educational best practices or know any school law; town officials could simply toss any paperwork they didn't feel like responding to. Others may see my participation in these meetings and training sessions and public hearings as a fool's errand because we don't always "get something" tangible in direct exchange for each airplane flight or boat ride I charge to the municipal account.
As for me, I just go on cheerleading. Deep down I sort of enjoy how quiet this island becomes in the winter, but I'm not supposed to admit that.
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Eva Murray has lived on Matinicus year-round for 26 years. Her first year on Matinicus was as the teacher. Her husband Paul has been on the island for 30 years and keeps the lights on.
The title of her first article, "Critical Mass", is an important concept as is the analogy to population loss as a snowball rolling down hill. It is a geometric progression from which there is no return. That balance may be more delicate than most people realize – like the Newfoundland cod fishery which is now below critical mass and may never recover.
Doubtless there are some who care little for a school, a post office, electricity, phones, internet, vehicles and ferries just as there will always be someone who thinks Blackhead would be a great place for time share condos. There is always that range from Pol Pot to Donald Trump. We need balance, reflection and a willingness to recognize that as individuals, we are frequently wrong. Harry T was fond of saying that matters are often decided by the loudest voices who are frequently wrong but never in doubt.
I too feel nostalgia for a golden age in the sixties and seventies when most people had kerosene lamps and used the few public pay phones. There were memorable parties and memorable people. There were no computers. There was no internet or Google. There was no texting, Facebook, DirectTV or Netflix. I recall that people spoke to each other more. I forget that I was twenty something and immortal. I forget that I didn't feel the cold and my joints didn't ache all the time. I remember that I didn't have to mortgage my house for a cup of coffee.
So, what about the question, "Why Monhegan?" One quick answer from the point of view of wind power advocates is condensed below by Doug Boynton.
"Why Monhegan? The test site has to be in state water, i.e. within 3 nautical miles. State waters include islands, so by going 3 miles from an island the site is a greater distance from mainland and in an area with much higher winds. Turbine output has a geometric relationship with wind speed so even a little more wind makes a huge difference. The test site needs very deep water to mimic conditions of eventual site further off shore and Monhegan is among the few areas with the right depth etc. Any test site would disrupt fishing interests. Monhegan has the lowest density fishing activity of any place in state waters. A major reason commercial development will be much further offshore is that is where the best wind resource is. To make an economically viable wind farm as opposed to a test site maximum wind resource is essential. There are legitimate concerns about a 20 year test project, but there should be no fear or confusion that the test site would be useful for a large commercial project."
To this I would add that the proposed cable will not support a commercial project. An economically feasible commercial project would require a much more robust cable as well as one or more twenty to thirty million dollar sub stations. This limits the project to what has always been described as a research project with a defined end.
Eva's articles point to the broader but no less practical answer to the question, "Why Monhegan?" It's not a trick question and the answer is fairly mundane. Monhegan is a tough place to make a living and anything that makes that easier is a big help including less expensive and more reliable electricity, telephone and internet. It has to do with connectivity to the power grid via a cable. It has to do with getting the cost of maintaining a year-round community on Monhegan closer to inshore costs. It is part of a wider effort that includes affordable housing. It has to do with attracting young, hard-working people with children who will take up places in the community being vacated by an aging population. It is understandable that people who have not slogged through at least one winter on the island might not see this. It is harder to understand how people who have lived here year-round might not see this. It has to do with taking the long view. Yes! Monhegan is a very special place. But it is also part of a world that has shrunken to such a small size that it can no longer be seen in isolation and cannot be exempt from the bigger issues by simply hiding. There's no place left to hide.
It's a slippery slope. The people who do all the work and keep the lights on are getting older with no one to take their place. The small number of people who open and close all the cottages are not being replaced. For the most part they are the same ones who do all the building and repair. There's only one person with the technical expertise to keep the power company running. Everyone in town does three or four jobs having to do with keeping the town going. If we lose the school and the post office, the road back is almost impossible. If we lose our year-round post office we lose our three day a week winter mail boat. The mail contract is the only thing that makes it economically feasible. Small remote post offices are closing all over the country. Unlike Matinicus and some of the Penobscot Bay Islands, we have no air strip. These things are taken for granted without the realization of just how fragile Monhegan has become.
When the new generators go on line they will have to burn ULSD (ultra low sulfur diesel) instead of #2 heating oil. The specs have not been received so we don't know if increased efficiency will offset the increase in fuel prices.
We have eight fishermen of which three now have year-round houses on the mainland. After next fishing season we may be down to seven and the same number with firm roots inshore. That would leave four fully committed Monhegan fishermen without an exit strategy. Two of the eight take up around Christmas and leave for several months. How long will it be before Friendship mounts another challenge to Monhegan's exclusive conservation zone by quite rightfully asking the question of why four or five individuals should have the exclusive right to fish in an area that should sustain seventeen fishermen. Why shouldn't they be allowed to commute to Monhegan to fish if that's what islanders themselves are doing. As it is they already fish up to thirty miles offshore from Friendship and circle Monhegan. They would happily include the arc around the island as part of their fishing grounds. This could pose a much more serious threat to Monhegan fishermen than the lost bottom near the floating wind generators. Experience elsewhere tells us that the platforms and mooring equipment will act as habitat and a source of food. All it takes is an act of the legislature. Given the current climate in Augusta the sentiment could easily shift against Monhegan. If Monhegan becomes just another part of Zone D, we will have lost one of the key elements that defines Monhegan and made it special since the early nineteen hundreds. We should embrace this project and do everything in our power to make it work. We should focus on contractual guarantees having to do with rates and cable maintenance. It is a once-in-a-hundred-years opportunity for Monhegan, for Maine, and quite possibly for a world that is choking on carbon.
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One more thing on the question of noise. While in the process of gathering information I've been talking with an old classmate who partnered with Angus King and others on commercial wind projects in Maine. He ran Maine Public Broadcasting for years and I can think of no one more honest or straight forward. I've known him since we were thirteen. I'm sure anyone who has lived in the state will remember getting a call from Rob Gardiner asking for support. Wind energy has gotten a lot of bad press from the Vinalhaven project which has benefitted lobbyists for the energy status quo. The Vinalhaven project was poorly conceived and poorly executed. This is what Rob wrote regarding the noise:
Jim,
We reviewed the Vinalhaven plans when they became public--after the ideal time to raise concerns while changes could be made readily. Angus called George Baker and expressed the belief that having houses within 1000' would create a problem. Because I did not have that conversation myself, I am not sure just how Angus expressed it. But from our work in mountainous conditions, we had concluded that any house downwind within 2500' would be a risk. Because there are about five to ten houses in that range (not sure of this number any more), we felt that a sound easement would be advisable for these people. This could be structured in various ways--an agreement to purchase the house at a fair price, an annual payment, or some other arrangement--to allow someone who was bothered by the noise to be treated fairly. After the turbines are up and running is too late. By then people are pissed and they exaggerate the noise effects, the lawyers become involved, and it is too late to move a turbine. A sound easement would probably have cost far less than the lost electrical production and legal fees to handle the problem.
With Aquaventus, the problem of having winds at the nacelle level strong enough to turn the machine while having people in a lee-effect situation downwind does not exist. Therefore, I would say there is no chance that there will be any turbine blade noise problem. It is amazing how the sound of ambient wind wipes out other noises.
Call if this is not enough of a response.
Best,
Rob
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Lee-effect refers to wind turbines on a mountain ridge. The whoosh of blades cannot be heard on the windward side because of ambient wind noise. In the valley on the lee side of the ridge there is no ambient wind noise so the sound of blades can be heard. On the flat ocean there is no ridge to provide a lee. Upwind and downwind are equally windy. There is no lee-effect and all you hear is the ambient wind on all sides. If there is no wind the blades aren't turning. In the case of floating turbines there is also the ambient sound of the sea and surf. A nautical mile is 6,000 feet. Two and a half nautical miles is 15,000 feet or six times the 2,500 feet recommended downwind distance. As Rob said, there will be no noise.
Ambient Noise Level (sometimes called background noise level, reference sound level, or room noise level) is the background sound pressure level at a given location, normally specified as a reference level to study a new intrusive sound source. This can be the sound of wind in the trees, surf, a person whispering, traffic, the hum of fluorescent lights, a refrigerator running, etc.
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BAIT AND SWITCH
“BAIT AND SWITCH” is a recurring theme in the Monhegan wind debate. It has a nice ring to it suggestive of carnival hucksters. The history of MAV/NEAV as a changing idea is a fact. Some people let go of this long ago. Others see it as a conspiracy to defraud on the part of "Big Business."
When you look at the reality, an overextended University of Maine employee failed to keep everyone fully informed when the project was in its infancy and changing daily. He never saw himself as a front for evil interests. He got wrapped up in the excitement surrounding the project and assumed that everyone shared in the excitement. One response to this failure has been that it demonstrates ineptitude on the part of the University and their associates. This in turn becomes a reason why the project should not go forward in the hands of the incompetent.
The University has been talking to the chairpersons of METF on a weekly basis for a long time now and lack of communication is not an issue. It’s over three years since the project has changed in any detail. Harping on “Bait and Switch” is becoming tiresome and a distraction.
MAV has still not answered certain questions to everyone’s satisfaction and it is incumbent on them to cross the T’s and dot the I’s. This is only good practice whenever community trust is an issue. I can only assume that more people will be on board to do just that now that the project has moved into a lead position.
It is ironic that a large corporation with buckets of money for public relations and slick lawyers might have been more successful.
Bear in mind that the test site was legislated by a significant majority in state government. These are state waters. On the federal level, Angus King and Susan Collins are huge supporters of offshore wind and are on committees dealing directly with such issues. Susan Collins, in particular, sees this as the capstone of her tenure. Monhegan has had tremendous advantages in the past when she has reached out to government for grants of all types. Everyone loves Monhegan. Now they're asking for something in return. If we slam the door, we alter this friendly relationship and encounter the possibility of cool treatment in the future. The free state of Monhegan is an illusion and sits at the tail end of the grid. As the grid dries up so does Monhegan.
Another question is why have we chosen to obstruct this project at the 11nth hour. The site was chosen quite a few years ago. MAV in its latest incarnation is nearly three years old. Even when MAV failed to make the first cut it was still receiving funding from DOE and was always in a good position to receive the full grant.
The very sad thing is that, if Monhegan decides collectively to form a relationship with this wind project, a few people will always feel hurt even if it turns out to be of enormous value in assuring Monhegan a future as a year round working island. The other tragedy would be that the wind turbines go up in the test site regardless of the general will and Monhegan fails to receive any advantage at all. This would also create a bitter rift.
I just hope Monhegan won't be making a big mistake by not taking advantage of a real boon to its long-term survival as a year-round community. This comes at a time when a lot of people are feeling disenfranchised and I hope this sentiment doesn't extend to the wind power debate. Everything I see and hear tells me these are the "good guys". Emera is a 20 billion dollar corporation that isn’t usually concerned with projects this small. It does so because this may be the future and a brief glance at a nautical chart will demonstrate why the Monhegan test site has more potential wind power than any other location in state waters.
A bigger risk to Monhegan would be oilrigs and underwater fracking. This is not a remote possibility and has been on the table for some time. Anyone who has been in the Gulf of Mexico knows what this brings with it. These wind turbines seem benign in comparison.
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REPLY TO CERTAIN INCORRECT STATEMENTS AND MORE
In response to the argument proposed for overturning legislation for the test area in Monhegan waters, I respectfully submit the following observations.
First we should acknowledge that anyone who bothers to enter the debate is concerned about Monhegan.
Many of the questions being asked by critics and opponents have been answered before and are available on the METF website and the METF Facebook page. Other questions have outcomes in the future and are not answerable in an honest way. To pretend otherwise and make flat statements is to pretend that they've been answered
Other questions demonstrate a lack of understanding. For example, in regard to the cable option, people keep asking what happens when the wind doesn’t blow and what about batteries?
1. Monhegan would be connected by cables to the turbines and to shore/CMP grid.
2. Monhegan’s Primary Power would be from the Turbines (when wind blows).
3. Monhegan’s Back-up would be shore power from CMP (when turbines don't spin).
4. Monhegan Emergency Backup - MPPD generators would be needed if there were an outage in the cable to shore. The turbines would not supply Monhegan if there were a cable outage.
5. Electricity would flow both ways in the cable. Fiber optics would be bundled with the electrical cables to communicate with the wind platform in real time. When the platform generates power in excess of its own load requirements, electricity would flow to Monhegan and the grid.
6. Monhegan could use the fiber optics for its own communication purposes. This would be an enormous improvement over the current microwave system.
Batteries are expensive, have ongoing maintenance needs, require a charging system, have a limited life and need to be replaced, etc. They are not a necessary part of this system. The only batteries we are concerned with are the ones that start our emergency generators when they detect a loss of power in the cable.
Recently a flat statement was made that" a large scale solar array is the best fit for Monhegan". This is not something that Monhegan decided. It is one of numerous options in a document written and presented by MEPC with pros and cons and risks and advantages. To say that it is the best option is to suggest that the Monhegan community is in agreement. It is not. There are people tending toward a variety of options including no option at all. There are quite a few who are indifferent and don’t think about where the power comes from until they don’t have it.
A statement was made that "these two turbines would never be placed this close to a coastal community". This is not true. Five/574-foot wind turbines will be on line by the end of 2016, 2.5 miles off the shores of Block Island with a 21-mile cable to a place near Narragansett and a spur line to their own diesel power station at New Shoreham. These are the same size and distance as the ones proposed off Monhegan.
Another statement addressed the relative costs of offshore wind power. To say that the rates in Oregon from offshore wind would be four times as great as land based is not supportable by any empirical evidence. Any new shift in infrastructure technology will have huge initial costs. The cost savings are in economies of scale. Has anyone calculated the hidden costs of hydrocarbons? The damage to the environment alone is a debt we may never pay. What about the highways, bridges, tunnels, pipelines, railways, port facilities and subsidies not even included in the cost because we the people pay for them at a much greater rate proportional to usage? Try to calculate the real cost of drilling for oil in a thousand feet of water! We’ve already witnessed the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. What is the real cost of fracking and who pays for it and at what time in the future? If the true cost of hydrocarbons were tallied in an honest manner the cost would seem insupportable. And yet we soldier on. Isn’t this why people feel disenfranchised?
There are many of us who feel that the project is worthy and deserves our wholehearted assistance. At the same time the project could benefit the island in ways that add immeasurably to its viability and sustainability as a year-round working community. Monhegan should be a place where young people can come and thrive and raise families so that it continues to be a viable community well into the future instead of following the other 300 islands that no longer have year round populations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_Island_Wind_Farm
http://www.4coffshore.com/windfarms/block-island-wind-farm-united-states-us12.html
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BENEFITS OF A CABLE
1. The cost of electricity on Monhegan is immediately reduced by approximately 40% to 50% based on MPPD estimates and similar estimates on Block Island. This is without any capital outlay from Monhegan. We won't have to construct our own solar array or wind tower with the requisite battery banks for storage. These are costly ventures, which can’t compete with the cable option for reducing diesel consumption and cost of electricity.
2. Via fiber optics, Monhegan acquires advanced broadband communications for the school, businesses and individuals. The fiber optic cable will also handle voice communication. *All the functions of the existing microwave tower could be replaced with the subsea cable via Fairpoint and everyone can retain their existing telephone number. This would allow for the removal of the microwave tower which has always been an eyesore and statistically a much more lethal killer of birds and bats than any wind turbines by a factor of over 176,000. High-speed connections open up a much wider range of occupations for year-round or extended season residents working out of the home. Vital services such as store, school, post office and boat service become less marginal with just a small increase in year-round population. Year-round sustainability fails quickly once a certain critical mass of population is lost. Monhegan could easily follow in the footsteps of the other nearly three hundred islands that were once inhabited year-round.
* See letter from MAV below.
3. Monhegan's power plant immediately becomes an emergency backup system. This means it runs only when cable power is lost or when operated for monthly tests. The ecological impact of this is tremendous. We would cut diesel consumption to a fraction of what we now use and reduce maintenance requirements by the same fraction. For the moment ultra low sulfur diesel is relatively cheap. We all know how quickly this can change. The cost of a 100-gallon oil spill in the single source aquifer could be catastrophic requiring costly cleanup and importation of drinking water to the island. SGC Engineering estimates that Monhegan would have to store no more than a one-week supply of diesel at any given time. It would make no sense to store a larger quantity than required because diesel fuel deteriorates over time.
4. A big problem with hybrid systems beyond the initial cost is that they require storage. This means banks of batteries. Battery technology hasn’t kept pace with other advances. Batteries are expensive, have ongoing maintenance needs, require a charging system, have a limited life and need to be replaced. They are also highly toxic and pose an expensive disposal problem. With a grid-connected cable this problem is eliminated and the only batteries we care about are the ones that start our MPPD backup emergency generators.
5. Monhegan buys 20 years worth of research and development time to decide what systems best suit our needs. Energy technology is changing rapidly. If offshore wind is successful, the developer may want an ongoing relationship with the island and may be open to maintaining a cable. Even after they move far offshore, they may want to ‘piggyback’ on existing cable areas designated on nautical charts thus eliminating new permitting problems.
6. Monhegan would set an example. Rather than saying we don't want this in our back yard because we're so special, we would say we are special because we understand what’s at stake. If Monhegan can do it, no one else has an excuse not to. People would come to see the island that gets its power from the wind. Monhegan could become a place where people come to learn about sustainability and a green planet. Monhegan could host conferences on the future of energy which could fill hotel and inn rooms during the slower periods of the tourist seson.
7. The University is lending their 1/8 model, floating turbine to an experiment growing mussels, kelp and scallops on ropes. If successful it could develop into an off-season source of income for the island fishery. Already we have the equipment and skills to take advantage of potential platform leases 2.5 or 30 miles from the island. We would still be closer than anyone else and it would be income when boats are mostly idle. Monhegan can continue to harvest the ocean even if lobstering follows the fate of so many other wild fisheries.
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HOW DOES THE CABLE SYSTEM WORK?
Jake Ward
University of Maine
Research, Economic Development and Government Relations 5717 Corbett Hall
Orono, Maine 04469
RE: Monhegan Island Task Force Question
May 18, 2016
Dear Jake,
SGC Engineering is pleased to respond to the question posed by the task force. Below is a summary, with details following.
Summary:
- Monhegan is connected by cables to the turbines and to shore/CMP grid.
- Monhegan’s Primary Power is from the Turbines (when wind blows).
- Monhegan’s Back-up is shore power from CMP (when turbines don't spin).
- Monhegan Emergency Backup - MPPD generators are needed if there is an outage in the cable to shore. The turbines cannot supply Monhegan if there is any cable outage.
Question: I understand that wind power is intermittent. What would the cost of storage on Monhegan be? Is there a battery option we could implement?
1) When no wind generation is available - power flows to the platform to support load.
2) when wind generation exceeds local (platform) load, power flows to the CMP system for distribution.
If Monhegan Public Power District (MPPD) is connected to the off shore project, it will have similar access to CMP shore power that the platform has – power is available whenever the cable and the CMP system are energized, with no dependency on wind or wind generators. MPPD should consider the two possibilities for outages:
1) – Shore power outage. 2) – Subsea cable issues.
Shore power outages are few and generally of limited duration. With that said, SGC suspects that they are probably more frequent than what the island currently experiences. Cable issues should be infrequent, but when one does occur, it could be days or longer to get addressed. We understand that the Task Force is aware that there is a 20 year life projected for the cable. After 20 years, funding to repair or replace the cable may not be available.
Can the turbines supply power, if not connected to CMP?
SGC does not believe it is feasible for the wind turbines to regulate adequately to power just the island and platform loads (or one or the other). Even if this were possible, it could not work if the issue was a cable outage.
Batteries:
Batteries are expensive, have ongoing maintenance needs, require a charging system, have a limited life and need to be replaced, etc. If the island were to add a battery system to their present configuration, it may make sense. That would allow running the local generators in their most efficient mode (instead of following the load), turning them off at times when the batteries are charged adequately to meet the needs, and improving efficiency to the entire system. Diesel is now cheap, and batteries are still expensive, so it may not make economic sense right now. The future is likely to change both of these factors.
Batteries as a backup to loss of shore power – Shore power is likely to be out hours a year (possibly 1- 10 hrs/year, but this is just a suggested range), and it may occur at multiple times. Batteries are pretty expensive for this short duration of use. If the outage is beyond the capability of the batteries, then MPPD will still go out or need to fire up the diesels. If the intent is a backup to subsea cable issues, batteries are not practical as the duration of outage could be extensive and diesel would still be required to back up the batteries.
SGC Recommendation – If the island elects to connect to shore power, then they retain the existing generation in operating condition with a weeks’ worth of fuel on site. Batteries may be of value as part of the present island system, but are of little value as part of a shore power connection.
Thank you for this continued opportunity to work with you and the University of Maine on this exciting project. If you have any questions or need additional information, please feel free to contact me on my direct line 207-749-9186.
Very truly yours,
SGC ENGINEERING, LLC
A Lloyd’s Register Company
Richard D. Hall, P.E. Senior Project Manager
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Why Does It Have To Be Monhegan?
Wind power is a measure of the energy available in the wind. It is a function of the cube (third power) of the wind speed. If the wind speed is doubled, power in the wind increases by a factor of eight. This relationship means that small differences in wind speed lead to large differences in power. For example, assume that one person takes a speed measurement of 10 mph and another person, at the same time but at a neighboring site, gets a reading of 12.6 mph. For this difference of 2.6 mph, there is a 100% difference in the available wind power (103 = 1000 vs. 12.63 = 2000)! This example points out that minor differences in wind speed due either to site selection or measurement errors can have a major bearing on a decision to invest in a wind turbine.
Look at Monhegan on a nautical chart that includes the mid coast from the Kennebec River to Penobscot Bay. A compass arc of three nautical miles* drawn from east to south to west around Monhegan delineates the boundary between state and federal waters. A ruler tangent to the coast shows you that the test site south of Monhegan is further out to sea by several miles than any other location within state waters anywhere to the west.
Anyone who has spent a life at sea knows that wind speed and power drop dramatically as you approach land from the ocean.
A site even a few miles away is not a valid comparison. Monhegan wasn’t chosen as a test site on a whim.
(* 1 Nautical Mile = 6000 feet. 1 Statute Mile = 5280 feet)
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WIND TURBINES AND TOURISM
Conclusions:
Our results showed that the proposed wind turbines would have little negative impact on visitation patterns to Monhegan Island. Over 90% of those surveyed would continue visiting the island at current or increased levels if offshore wind turbines are established; only 1% stated they would no longer visit the island. Most respondents were indifferent. People felt that wind power would not affect their visit at all.
Excerpt from a June 2016 study by:
a. School of Economics, University of Maine
b. Virtual Environment and Multimodal Interaction (VEMI) Laboratory, University of Maine
Entitled
POTENTIAL TOURISM IMPACTS OF AN OFFSHORE WIND FARM NEAR MONHEGAN ISLAND Technical Report
See the link below for the full report:
http://www.monheganenergy.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Summer-2014-Monhegan-Island-Tourism-Tech-Report-6-3-16.pdf
On a less dry note, one humorist was heard to say, “If the wind turbines don’t keep the tourists away, what good are they?”
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CAN FIBER OPTIC CABLE REPLACE MICROWAVE TOWER???
Laura,
Please see response below from MAV team.
Background:
Currently Monhegan has a telephone link to shore via microwave, for both landlines and cell tower. Internet service is provided via DSL. Microwave provides the link to shore for the DSL service.
We understand the questions to be:
1. Can the fiber optic replace the microwave link for landline and cell phone service?
2. Will this be limited to VOIP phones (with new numbers) or can they be connected to the Fairpoint system, and maintain all their own phone numbers and have the cell tower work?
3. Can the fiber optic replace the link for internet service?
4. Can the microwave tower be removed, with fiber replacing all functions?
Answer:
1. Given the number of fibers being installed in the cable by MAV, we believe there should be sufficient fiber available to achieve these items from a technology point of view. Fairpoint and the University would need to discuss it first, but we are sure something could be arranged so that Fairpoint could move the communications link from the existing microwave backbone to the new fiber backbone. This would allow the residents to maintain the same numbers and infrastructure. The same would apply to whoever carries the cell phone service out on the island.
2. Technically, all on the island can retain their phone numbers. Final confirmation of this must come from the provider, Fairpoint.
3. Yes, fiber can provide broadband Internet service, and will improve service.
4. Yes, after all services are commissioned, the tower can be removed.
As with any engineering, we will need to finalize the needs of all parties before we spec the fiber to be included in the subsea cable. Increasing fiber count will have a very minimal impact of the cable cost.
Best, Nate J.
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