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• Anonymous

  I’m glad he’s doing it in his first year, because there are only 88 or so years left in the 21st century.

• Anonymous

  Just a thought that some colleges might want to research how to bring the manufacturing strength back to America. Theorizing really doesn’t put food on most peoples tables.

• Patten_Pete

  “The only sustainable financial model is going to be a very diverse entrepreneurial
  approach,” he said. UMaine is well on its way, Ferguson said, with facilities
  such as the $17.5 million Offshore Wind Laboratory expansion at the Advanced Structures and CompositesCenter”.

  I couldn’t disagree more.

  The university’s headlong rush into offshore wind relies on massive unsustainable subsidies. We re presently $14 trillion in debt and counting as a nation. These subsidies will be on the chopping block very shortly at which time the offshore wind project is a dead duck — along with all the dead ducks caused by any small test turbines they get to put up.

  A sustainable financial model cannot be dependent on unsustainable subsidies.

  Forgetting subsidies for a minute, there is also efficacy to be considered. The efficaciousness of wind power is virtually non-existent as it is an unreliable and extremely low density power source. Doctor Ferguson need look no further than the campus at Presque Isle where the $ 2 million investment in their industrial turbine has been a complete failure with respect to electricity production.

  Let’s hope that the university under the new leadership never forgets the basics of empirical research and ditches the ideologically driven, which was a real problem under Kennedy and I suspect still chancellor, Pattenaude. When the UMS board includes a wind company executive (Kurt Adams), you know there are problems that need to be fixed.

• AionNV

  Yet, those “unsustainable subsidies” seem to have worked just fine for the petrochem industry !

• Anonymous

  That and getting that nice hardwood floor put down in my new free home! These guys are all the same, they feather their nest at taxpayers expense first and foremost. If he hasn’t done it yet, an office remodel is sure to follow. Then new furniture. If the people of Maine knew about what really goes on at UM, there would be hell to pay.

• Anonymous

  Does this guy get paid by the platitude?

• Diogenes

  Translation:   You young whippersnappers will never replace the horse!

• Diogenes

  Translation:   You young whippersnappers will never replace the horse!

• Diogenes

  Gee, you think it may have had something to do with all those lousy “free” trade deals we’ve made?  Now GE is going to relocate their x-ray machine manufacturing to China.  It’s not just the tractor factory jobs that we’re bleeding off; it’s high-tech manufacturing too.
   
  Trade deals with countries that pay slave wages don’t lift them up, they pull us down.

• Diogenes

  Gee, you think it may have had something to do with all those lousy “free” trade deals we’ve made?  Now GE is going to relocate their x-ray machine manufacturing to China.  It’s not just the tractor factory jobs that we’re bleeding off; it’s high-tech manufacturing too.
   
  Trade deals with countries that pay slave wages don’t lift them up, they pull us down.

• Patten_Pete

  What has worked for oil and gas is they are “energy dense”. Stand next to an oil or gas fire and you will wilt. Stand in a raging river used for hydro and you will drown. Stand in a 15 mph wind and nothing happens.

  Not only is wind not at all powerful, but it is unpredictable, a problem given grid-scale electricity storage is 20-30 years off at a minimum. When you can’t predict it, you must have backup running, e.g., natural gas generated electricity. What happens in the real world outside of Habib Dagher/Richard Pattenaude’s “Grantsville”, is that the next fay’s electricity demands are anticipated the day before and the grid is required by law to line up sufficient generation to meet the need. Wind cannot be applied towards this as it cannot be relied on. Thus, in the day ahead electricity market, baseload is augmented with “peaking power” to meet expected demand and then some, as a buffer. In Maine this is usually accomplished with natural gas. Thus, if and when the wind blows the next day, it is always too little too late. More specifically, it is never needed and when one buys something they don’t need, they are throwing away money.

  This dog won’t hunt folks.

• http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1165255103 Ron Huber

  “Headlong rush…”  C’mon Patten, if you were  offered $20 million+ if you did something under a short deadline, no doubt you’d be in a headlong rush, too.  This being a subsidized research project, all these future power economics issues don’t mean squat here, except that the DeepCwindies now realize – if they didn’t already -that a major chunk of their research is applying their collective crania on making deepwater windpower extraction cheaper and non-harmful to the Gulf of Maine’s economically and ecologically important marine nature as possible. How, unless they try? We need to keep a tight rein on’em of course. A little litigation here, some political pressure there… On that nature impact question, see  http://tinyurl.com/lobsterlarvae-lost  for the biggest hurdle they must cross. Completely doable

• http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1165255103 Ron Huber

  “Headlong rush…”  C’mon Patten, if you were  offered $20 million+ if you did something under a short deadline, no doubt you’d be in a headlong rush, too.  This being a subsidized research project, all these future power economics issues don’t mean squat here, except that the DeepCwindies now realize – if they didn’t already -that a major chunk of their research is applying their collective crania on making deepwater windpower extraction cheaper and non-harmful to the Gulf of Maine’s economically and ecologically important marine nature as possible. How, unless they try? We need to keep a tight rein on’em of course. A little litigation here, some political pressure there… On that nature impact question, see  http://tinyurl.com/lobsterlarvae-lost  for the biggest hurdle they must cross. Completely doable

• Anonymous

  Stand next to an oil spill, and you will see thousands of dead birds, fish, and other wounded wildlife.  Eat fish in a Maine lake used for hydro, and you will get sick due to mercury contamination caused by coal-fired power plants to our west.  The time has come to try a new way when it comes to our energy needs, and wind is part of that new way.

  “Wind is not at all powerful,” eh?  Pete, the wind can rip a tree up by the roots and smash your house with it as if the tree were a twig.  Where do you get your silly “facts?”  The key is harnessing the energy of the wind, and that is precisely what Professor Dagher and his learned colleagues at the University of Maine are working to achieve.  I say, “more power to them!”  I’d much rather that my taxpayer dollars go to that endeavor than to the nearly trillion dollar wars in the Mid-east to protect the oil supply, or to pay royalties for access to foreign fossil fuel reserves.

  You say grid scale electricity storage is 30 years off.  That is true only if naysayers like you have your way.  Meanwhile, scientists are currently making great strides in storage technologies, including advancements in battery designs, and mechanical-style storage systems such as pumping water into specially designed reservoirs and releasing the water through generators when electricity is needed.

  The march of technology is moving away from fossil fuels for a myriad of good reasons, including the dirtiness of the fuel, the control of fossil fuel supplies by foreign powers, and the mere fact that fossil fuels are finite.  It’s time for the naysayers to wake up.  If civilization had lived by the word of the naysayer, we would all still be living in caves and rubbing sticks together for heat.

• Anonymous

  Stand next to an oil spill, and you will see thousands of dead birds, fish, and other wounded wildlife.  Eat fish in a Maine lake used for hydro, and you will get sick due to mercury contamination caused by coal-fired power plants to our west.  The time has come to try a new way when it comes to our energy needs, and wind is part of that new way.

  “Wind is not at all powerful,” eh?  Pete, the wind can rip a tree up by the roots and smash your house with it as if the tree were a twig.  Where do you get your silly “facts?”  The key is harnessing the energy of the wind, and that is precisely what Professor Dagher and his learned colleagues at the University of Maine are working to achieve.  I say, “more power to them!”  I’d much rather that my taxpayer dollars go to that endeavor than to the nearly trillion dollar wars in the Mid-east to protect the oil supply, or to pay royalties for access to foreign fossil fuel reserves.

  You say grid scale electricity storage is 30 years off.  That is true only if naysayers like you have your way.  Meanwhile, scientists are currently making great strides in storage technologies, including advancements in battery designs, and mechanical-style storage systems such as pumping water into specially designed reservoirs and releasing the water through generators when electricity is needed.

  The march of technology is moving away from fossil fuels for a myriad of good reasons, including the dirtiness of the fuel, the control of fossil fuel supplies by foreign powers, and the mere fact that fossil fuels are finite.  It’s time for the naysayers to wake up.  If civilization had lived by the word of the naysayer, we would all still be living in caves and rubbing sticks together for heat.

• Anonymous

  A major reason that we are $14 trillion in debt is because we’ve spent nearly $1 trillion on wars in the Middle East to protect the fossil fuel supply in the last decade.  University of Maine scientists say we don’t need to be so dependent on fossil fuels… but it will take American Ingenuity to harness the power of the wind, which blows to the tune of 5 gigawatts worth of potential power off the Maine coast.  Why not give our scientists a chance?

  By the way, you tell us not to forget the basics of empirical research, and then you pooh pooh the usefulness of the UMPI turbine, which exists in large measure to provide empirical data.  The turbine is not meant to be an example of the ideal… otherwise, the researchers would have put the turbine in a more ideal wind zone.  For some reason, some naysayers can’t grasp the concept of useful empirical research, even as they extoll the virtues of such research.

  Lastly, wind turbines across the globe have killed birds at a rate that is several millions of times less than cars, cats, and windows.  Yet, we don’t hear Pete berating car owners, cat owners and window owners… probably because he is likely to be a member of all three categories of bird killers.

• Anonymous

  A major reason that we are $14 trillion in debt is because we’ve spent nearly $1 trillion on wars in the Middle East to protect the fossil fuel supply in the last decade.  University of Maine scientists say we don’t need to be so dependent on fossil fuels… but it will take American Ingenuity to harness the power of the wind, which blows to the tune of 5 gigawatts worth of potential power off the Maine coast.  Why not give our scientists a chance?

  By the way, you tell us not to forget the basics of empirical research, and then you pooh pooh the usefulness of the UMPI turbine, which exists in large measure to provide empirical data.  The turbine is not meant to be an example of the ideal… otherwise, the researchers would have put the turbine in a more ideal wind zone.  For some reason, some naysayers can’t grasp the concept of useful empirical research, even as they extoll the virtues of such research.

  Lastly, wind turbines across the globe have killed birds at a rate that is several millions of times less than cars, cats, and windows.  Yet, we don’t hear Pete berating car owners, cat owners and window owners… probably because he is likely to be a member of all three categories of bird killers.

• Penny Gray

  I’ve lived off grid for over twenty five years.  Wind power won’t cut it, not for  power hungry Americans.  Thorium reactors and hydro might keep them happy.  And honestly, when was the last time you had a raptor smash into your window pane, or a cat pounce on it and kill it?  We’re fast moving toward Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring with these forty story cuisinarts.

• http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7ARBFNYJAE23QMOBALXD7FM4W4 gempaint

  Wind = 75% DOES NOT BLOW, 10-30% loss in transmission.
  WIND gets RECs based on nameplate capacity 100%.  WIND sells these RECs to coal fired plants to the west so they can keep on spewing yet claim they are green.
  $500 will buy a kilowatt of solar panels today.
  Red lights on the offf shore wind turbines will ensure target practice by our enemies. No National security there.

• Patten_Pete

  Dead Birds Unintended Consequence of Wind Power DevelopmentBy William La JeunessePublished August 16, 2011
  http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/16/energy-in-america-dead-birds-unintended-consequence-wind-power-development/

• Patten_Pete

  Dead Birds Unintended Consequence of Wind Power DevelopmentBy William La JeunessePublished August 16, 2011
  http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/16/energy-in-america-dead-birds-unintended-consequence-wind-power-development/

• Anonymous

  Why do you think raptors are immune from traffic collisions, yet are easily blind-sided by turbine blades?  Also, how many raptors do you suppose have died due to consumption of wildlife, especially fish, which are polluted with mercury from coal-fired power plants?

  Penny, you say wind power won’t cut it.  But who am I to believe…an untrained observer like you?  Or do I go with the team of scientists at the University of Maine, and those European scientists and national leaders who say that wind power is viable and an essential part of the formula for reducing our reliance on the negatives of fossil fuels and nukes?

• Anonymous

  Fox News has a right-wing bias, which means the information you quote is likely to have an anti-renewable slant.

• Anonymous

  Fox News has a right-wing bias, which means the information you quote is likely to have an anti-renewable slant.

• Anonymous

  Fox News has a right-wing bias, which means the information you quote is likely to have an anti-renewable slant.

• Anonymous

  Fox News has a right-wing bias, which means the information you quote is likely to have an anti-renewable slant.

• Anonymous

  Fox News has a right-wing bias, which means the information you quote is likely to have an anti-renewable slant.

• Anonymous

  Fox News has a right-wing bias, which means the information you quote is likely to have an anti-renewable slant.

• Anonymous

  Fox News has a right-wing bias, which means the information you quote is likely to have an anti-renewable slant.

• Patten_Pete

  “A right wing slant” is a pretty poor defense.

  The bird themselves have a wrong wing defense.

• Patten_Pete

  “A right wing slant” is a pretty poor defense.

  The bird themselves have a wrong wing defense.

• Patten_Pete

  “A right wing slant” is a pretty poor defense.

  The bird themselves have a wrong wing defense.

• Patten_Pete

  “A right wing slant” is a pretty poor defense.

  The bird themselves have a wrong wing defense.

• Patten_Pete

  “A right wing slant” is a pretty poor defense.

  The bird themselves have a wrong wing defense.

• Patten_Pete

  “A right wing slant” is a pretty poor defense.

  The bird themselves have a wrong wing defense.

• Anonymous

  It is not unreasonable to assume that any “news” organization owned by Rupert Murdoch will have a very hefty personal agenda attached to its information, which can, and often does, slant the so-called “facts.”

• Penny Gray

  Don’t believe ANYONE.  Do your homework.  The information is out there.

• Anonymous

  There is a myriad of information out there.  A point presented against wind power is countered by an array of points presented for wind power, and vice versa.  Trust me, I AM doing my homework, and what I see is that the wholesale condemnation of wind power that you profess is not necessarily justified by the facts.