Maine Governor claims U of M wind turbine is rigged with "a little motor that turns the blades"

[FBaggins]

9. I'd bet he made a stupid assumption

You can watch the data feed in live...

http://www.umpi.edu/wind/live

and sometimes it shows negative kW. He (or some flunky) probably figured "hey... it's spinning... but it's not producing energy, it's using it... that must be a motor"

Which doesn't follow... but he wouldn't know it.


OTOH, the university's take isn't remarkably less entertaining. They continue to insist that they're getting a good deal and are saving money. The turbine was originally billed as $1.5Million and expected to produce one million KWh/year (saving them just over $100,000/year)

The reality was that it cost $2 million (not so far off for government work)... and has never come close to producing the amount expected. From thier website it's about 435,000 since last July and a comparable amount in the ten-month period between Nov2011 and Sept2012.

They continue to claim the $100k/year in savings (though that would be a pretty high price compared to most of Maine)... but ever were it true - $2million to save $100k per year is not a very smart move. You wouldn't buy an investment that paid out that amount if it depleted your principal over 15/20/25 years.