McHenry County Blog

As the Illinois House passed legislation to define the burning of tires in the poverty-stricken Ford Heights as green, renewable energy, an incinerator in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, defaulted on a bond payment of $425,000.

The legislative action on Senate Bill 380 will take subsidies away from wind mills, geothermal and solar power projects.

Here are some windmills we saw in Idaho last summer.

The incinerator is apparently already operating, but needs state taxpayer subsidies to stay afloat.

The incinerator not only has money problems, it pollutes the air.

If the facility closes, 17 jobs will be lost.

The bill passed 61-45.  I should have said “barely passed,” because bills need sixty votes to pass the House.

Locally, State Reps. Mark Beaubien and Jack Franks voted against the bill.  Mike Tryon was excused from voting on the bill.

Earlier all Illinois Senators supported the bill, which had no content.  It was what legislators call “a shell bill.”

I wonder how Pam Althoff and Dan Duffy will votes when there is substance to the bill, which, I would point out did not surface until the supposed last week of the legislative session, a time really sneaky ideas surface.

(That brings up the subject of what anyone would vote for such an obvious shell bill, knowing that you have no idea how it will end up.)

The Chicago Tribune article was written by Michael Hawthorne and Michelle Manchir.

This sounds like a similar bill I opposed in the 1990′s. It was one of those strange years when environmental and economic priorities merged. Voting against the ill-conceived idea of a South Suburban incinerator to burn shredded tires was a “two-for” for those rating systems. I think I ended up with the highest ranking from the Illinois Environmental Council that year.

My windmill watcher has reminded me of the following fact:

Commonwealth Edison gets less than 1% of its electricity from wind.

In fact, the twelve-month summary from Com Ed shows ZERO from wind. (Click to enlarge the table or the pie chart below.)

Here’s a pie chart that tells the tale:

According to a ICC resolution adopted in Jul 2007 “…Renewable Portfolio Standard should be set as follows:

• 2% of the bundled retail load should be obtained from renewable energy resources as defined below in 2007,
• 3% in 2008
• 4% in 2009
• 5% in 2010
• 6% in 2011
• 7% in 2012
• 8% in 2013

Looks like Com Ed is at 2%–1% biomass and 1% hydro.

The law says Illinois wind first. There isn’t enough to meet that criteria of 4%. They have to make up the difference by purchasing

An article in Springfield’s State Journal-Register about a new wind farm on I-55 near Lincoln says,

“Illinois gets less than 2 percent of its electricity from wind.”

Does this sound like something our new governor, Pat Quinn will promote or what?

My windmill watcher has reminded me of the following fact:

Commonwealth Edison gets less than 1% of its electricity from wind.

In fact, the twelve-month summary from Com Ed shows ZERO from wind. (Click to enlarge the table or the pie chart below.)

Here’s a pie chart that tells the tale:

According to a ICC resolution adopted in Jul 2007 “…Renewable Portfolio Standard should be set as follows:

• 2% of the bundled retail load should be obtained from renewable energy resources as defined below in 2007,
• 3% in 2008
• 4% in 2009
• 5% in 2010
• 6% in 2011
• 7% in 2012
• 8% in 2013

Looks like Com Ed is at 2%–1% biomass and 1% hydro.

The law says Illinois wind first. There isn’t enough to meet that criteria of 4%. They have to make up the difference by purchasing

An article in Springfield’s State Journal-Register about a new wind farm on I-55 near Lincoln says,

“Illinois gets less than 2 percent of its electricity from wind.”

Does this sound like something our new governor, Pat Quinn will promote or what?