Application For Reservation Of Name - Colorado Secretary: Fill & Download for Free

The legal age of majority in Colorado is twenty-one. However, the state grants most legal privileges to individuals once they turn 18. You must be 18 years old or older to form an LLC in Colorado or serve as an LLC’s registered agent.There are two requirements you must satisfy to form an LLC in Colorado. First, you must file articles of incorporation with the Colorado State Secretary. This document must include the LLC’s name, the class of shares and number of shares the LLC can issue, the legal rights that come with the shares, the LLC’s registered agent information, the name of each founder and her or his mailing address, and the address of the company’s principal office. There is a onetime fifty dollar filing fee for registering the LLC and the application becomes effective after the state secretary’s office approves them. Second, every Colorado corporation must choose a name that is distinguishable and different from the names of pre-existing corporations in the state. The name must contain one of the following terms: “company,” “corporation,” “incorporated,” or “limited.” If you want to reserve a name without filing out an application immediately, you can submit an online application through the Colorado State Secretary’s website for twenty-five dollars. Finally, your LLC should adopt corporate bylaws, an operating agreement, and obtain an Employer Identification Number for future tax filings. I hope this helps.Need assistance forming your LLC? The corporate attorneys on LawTrades can walk you through the process at an affordable flat rate. Our marketplace offers things like quick & easy price quotes, a satisfaction guarantee, and quick turnarounds. Hope you check us out!

Hello!Absolutely! Let me just show you based on facts and numbers!Military and Overseas Voting: Donald Trump’s trade war with China has already victimized many American farmers and businesses, but a new group of citizens could soon pay an unexpected price: Voters who cast ballots from overseas—including members of the military—may have to pay $60 or more to send their ballots back to the U.S. in order to be counted.​What does overseas voting have to do with trade policy? The Trump administration is seeking to punish China by withdrawing from the 192-member Universal Postal Union, which for a century and a half has set international postal rates. The UPU allows China to ship packages to the U.S. at a discounted rate, a policy designed to help developing countries that Trump wants to see changed.To get its way, the administration has placed the U.S. on track to leave the UPU in October, just a month before critical elections in many states. If that withdrawal comes to pass, normal mail service could be disrupted for Americans living abroad. As Tierney Sneed noted in a detailed analysis in June, such voters already “face tight—and sometimes impossible—turnaround times between when they receive ballots and when they must send them out to meet their state’s absentee voting deadlines.”Shipping services like FedEx or UPS offer the only alternative, but they’re prohibitively expensive. According to Jared Dearing, the executive director of Kentucky’s Board of Elections, it could cost “upward of $60” just to send in a ballot, prices that would be paid by both civilians and service members living overseas.Making matters worse, Sneed now reports that many election officials are preparing to send out absentee ballots just before the UPU meets in late September to discuss Trump’s demands. These administrators therefore don’t know whether “to tell overseas voters to proceed as usual or to expect new issues” in terms of the cost and time it will take to send back ballots.Turnout is already quite low among Americans abroad: A study published last year by the Federal Voting Assistance Program found that just 7% of voting-age civilians participated in the 2016 elections. The expense and uncertainty surrounding Trump’s conflict with the UPU are only likely to send those numbers even lower.And while overseas voters may appear to be unintentional victims rather than deliberate targets of Trump’s wrecking-ball approach to negotiations with foreign nations, Democrats are likely to suffer more. Overseas civilian voters are some of the strongest Democratic constituencies, and they well outnumber overseas military voters.” That fact can only make it more likely that Trump proceeds on his current course.REDISTRICTING● Michigan: In their ongoing efforts to preserve their ability to gerrymander, Republicans have now filed a second lawsuit in federal court arguing that Michigan's new independent redistricting commission is unconstitutional.This latest suit contends that the process for selecting commissioners violates the GOP's First Amendment rights to freedom of association by preventing political parties from picking their own commissioners. Republicans claim that, since Michigan has no party registration, Democrats could try to apply for the commission as Republicans, even though the process allows each party’s legislative leaders to strike a certain number of applicants from the pool of prospective commissioners.This newest lawsuit follows another one that Republicans filed last month, which also targeted the commissioner selection process by arguing that it's unconstitutional to prevent political candidates, officeholders, lobbyists, and their relatives from serving on the commission. Both lawsuits seek to stop the voter-approved commission from taking effect, and this latest challenge is asking for a preliminary injunction that would leave redistricting in the hands of the Republican-run legislature while litigation remains ongoing.As we wrote when Republicans filed their first lawsuit, it's unclear just exactly what they hope to gain from this litigation in the near term, since even if they succeed in striking down the commission and returning redistricting to lawmakers, they'd still be facing a veto of any new gerrymanders by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. That would likely yield maps drawn by a court, which would adhere to nonpartisan standards similar to those the commission would rely on.However, it could be that Republicans plan a future lawsuit seeking to remove the governor's veto power over new maps, though it's unclear what mechanism such a frontal assault on the separation of powers would rely on. Their counterparts in Wisconsin nonetheless appear to be plotting just such a maneuver, creating a new front for reformers to monitor.● North Carolina: State Rep. Kelly Alexander and fellow Democrats have filed a lawsuit in state court arguing that Republicans' gerrymandering of the districts used to elect trial court judges in Mecklenburg County violates the U.S. and state constitutions, along with the federal Voting Rights Act.Mecklenburg County is a Democratic stronghold that's home to Charlotte and more than 1 million residents. Last year, Republicans in the state legislature changed Mecklenburg's procedures for judicial elections from a countywide system to one in which the county is split into separate judicial districts, even though all of the elected judges still retain countywide jurisdiction.The GOP's new law gerrymandered the districts in an attempt to elect more white Republicans in place of several black Democrats. Plaintiffs contend that this violated the U.S. Constitution's provisions guaranteeing equal protection and freedom of association, as well as the 15th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act for discriminating against black voters. They furthermore charge that the GOP's judicial redistricting violated the state constitution by creating a new court system without a constitutional amendment. Consequently, they're seeking a preliminary injunction to block the new law.● OH Supreme Court: On Monday, The Columbus Dispatch reported that former Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and state Judge John O'Donnell will run as Democrats for the two Ohio Supreme Court seats up for election in November 2020, which could have a major impact on redistricting. Ohio Supreme Court candidates run in party primaries but face off in a nonpartisan general election. Brunner indicated that she plans to run against Republican Justice Judith French, and O'Donnell will challenge GOP Justice Sharon Kennedy.Brunner had previously won the 2006 election for secretary of state but later lost the 2010 primary for U.S. Senate. However, she has since been elected to the state's 10th District Court of Appeals, serving since 2014. O'Donnell has been running for some time and is making his third attempt at Ohio's high court: He previously lost by just 50.3-49.7 against GOP Justice Patrick Fisher in 2016 even as Trump was winning Ohio by 51-43. In 2014, he lost to French by a wider 56-44 as the Republican wave hit Ohio especially hard, although that was still a narrower margin than every Democrat running statewide for partisan office.If Democrats win both of these 2020 races, they would gain a 4-3 majority on the state Supreme Court for the first time since the 1980s. Such a majority would have profound consequences for the upcoming post-2020 redistricting cycle. As I’ve explained in detail, Ohio's new systems for congressional and legislative redistricting passed since the last round of redistricting still give the Republicans who dominate state government the power to gerrymander again. However, a Democratic state court majority could use state constitutional protections tostrike down unfair maps in a way that may be insulated from federal review.ELECTION SECURITY● Georgia: The plaintiffs challenging Georgia's paperless voting machines have now asked the federal court that just banned those machines for use in 2020 to also prohibit the state from deploying new voting machines that print a paper ballot with a bar code record, which voters can't verify themselves. Instead, the plaintiffs are urging the court to require paper ballots filled in with pens, which would be fed into optical scanners.FELONY DISENFRANCHISEMENT● Illinois: Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed a new law that aims to ensure everyone in jail who is awaiting trial and has not been convicted of a felony can exercise their right to vote. In Cook County, home to Chicago and roughly 3.5 million eligible voters, this law will require the county jail to operate an in-person polling place. Jails in every other county will be required to provide absentee ballots for eligible detainees.Illinois disenfranchises incarcerated citizens who have been convicted of a felony, but it automatically restores their voting rights upon release from prison. However, many individuals don't realize they regain their right to vote upon release, so this law also seeks to remedy that problem by requiring officials to inform citizens upon releasethat they have regained the right to vote and to provide them with a voter registration form.VOTER REGISTRATION AND VOTING ACCESS● New Jersey: Democratic state senators have scheduled a legislative session for next week to debate legislation to fix New Jersey's vote-by-mail law to ensure that voters who cast an absentee ballot in 2017 or 2018 will automatically receive a new mail ballot for this November's state Assembly elections, and Assembly Democrats may soon do the same.Democrats are mounting this effort after the secretary of state's office decided that voters who requested absentee ballots in those elections would have to make new requests for this year. Supporters of the new mail voting system say that decision runs contrary to the intent of the law, which was passed last year. Jonathan Lai at The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that an estimated 172,000 voters requested mail ballots in 2017 or 2018 but wouldn't automatically receive a ballot this year without a new request unless lawmakers act.Writing at the New Jersey Globe, David Wildstein reports that Democrats are adamant about fixing the vote-by-mail law because of the major absentee ballot campaign operations they mounted in 2017 and 2018, which led to absentee votes heavily favoring the party in those elections. Since the Assembly elections are at the top of the ticket this year (neither the state Senate nor the governor is up for election), turnout would typically be very low. However, voters would likely be more inclined to cast a ballot if they automatically get one in the mail.● Ohio: Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose and state senators from both parties have introduced a new bill that would make it easier to register to vote at Ohio's Bureau of Motor Vehicles. While the bill would not establish a true automatic voter registration system, it would let eligible voters who are conducting business with the BMV register for the first time or to update an existing registrations electronically rather than with cumbersome paper forms.VOTER SUPPRESSION● North Carolina: State House Republicans have given preliminary approval to a billthat would use lists of people excused from jury duty to try to find noncitizens who are on the voter registration rolls, but reporting from local NBC affiliate WRAL indicates that such an effort could risk removing eligible voters thanks to widespread false matches. Furthermore, WRAL reports that the exact process for removing flagged registrants isn't spelled out in the bill and would be left up to election officials, raising further questions about the risks of removing eligible voters, such as recently naturalized citizens.Republicans passed a procedural hurdle last week with the support of a handful of Democrats, but unclear if they could muster enough support to override a potential veto by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, since the GOP doesn't have enough votes to do so on its own.● Voter Suppression: The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected an appeal by the right-wing American Civil Rights Union and conservative activist J. Christian Adams, who sought to overturn a 2018 district court ruling that blocked Adams' ham-fisted plot to get populous Broward County, Florida, to aggressively prune its voter rolls in a way that would have ensnared eligible voters.Adams is one of the foremost Republican peddlers of lies about voter fraud and is also a former member of Trump's bogus voter fraud commission. As explained last year, his courtroom defeat only came as the culmination of his years-long effort to bully local governments into purging eligible voters through legal action. Adams had largely been successful because he’d mostly targeted poor, rural counties with predominantly black populations that had little choice but to settle out of court to avoid costly litigation, but populous Broward was able to fight back—and win.This isn't the only legal setback that Adams has faced this year. In July, Adams and another group he's affiliated with called the Public Interest Legal Foundation settled a lawsuit brought by registered voters in Virginia whom Adams had defamed and intimidated by falsely claiming they were not citizens and exposing their personal information online.SECRETARY OF STATE ELECTIONS● Secretaries of State: The Democratic Association of Secretaries of State has unveiled the races it plans to target next year, which will determine who runs elections in several states. Democrats hope to flip Republican-held offices in Missouri, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and West Virginia, and they aim to defend Democratic incumbents in North Carolina and Vermont. (In North Carolina, elections are administered by an appointee of the governor rather than the secretary of state.)The Pacific Northwest in particular offers top pickup opportunities for Democrats. Oregon will host an open-seat race after Republican Bev Clarno agreed not to seek a full term in exchange for getting appointed by Democratic Gov. Kate Brown following the death of Republican incumbent Dennis Richardson earlier this year. (Oregon law requires appointees to be members of the same party as the deceased office-holder.) Meanwhile, in Washington, Democrats are trying to unseat Republican Secretary of State Kim Wyman.The position of secretary of state is singularly important for guaranteeing fair elections and equal access to the ballot box. Missouri's Republican incumbent Jay Ashcroft recently demonstrated just how vital it is to have a pro-democracy secretary of state after he crafted deceptive ballot language for several proposed ballot initiatives that would expand voting access. Supporters of those measures responded with a lawsuit earlier this month to block Ashcroft's misleading language and substitute in fairer descriptions.BALLOT MEASURES● Colorado: On Tuesday, a panel of judges on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district court decision in a 2-1 ruling that upheld Colorado's requirement that those seeking to put amendments to the state constitution on the ballot must gather signatures from at least 2% of registered voters in each of the 35 state Senate districts.Even though some districts have up to 60% more registered voters than others, the judges held that the provision doesn't violate the U.S. Constitution's "one person, one vote" principle because the districts were drawn to be roughly equal in terms of total population based on the 2010 census. It is unclear whether the plaintiffs will seek a further appeal, which could include petitioning the entire 10th Circuit to review the case or appealing to the Supreme Court.Prior to 2016, initiatives only needed signatures equivalent to 5% of the votes cast statewide in the last election for secretary of state. However, a measure passed that year, supported by business interests and then-Gov. John Hickenlooper, established the state's new geographic distribution requirement and also increased the threshold for passage from 50% to 55%.But even though it was backed by Hickenlooper, a Democrat who is now running for Senate, the new distribution requirement makes it disproportionately harder to place progressive initiatives on the ballot than conservative ones. That's because liberals must gather petition signatures in conservative rural districts where Democratic voters are spread out across significant distances, making it costly and time-consuming to canvass for petition signers.By contrast, while conservatives would need to gather signatures in left-leaning strongholds like Denver, districts in urban areas are much more densely populated. Therefore, even though Republicans may be few in number in major cities, they're much easier to reach because they live more closely together.ELECTORAL COLLEGE● Colorado: In a 2-1 decision, a panel of judges on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a district court ruling that rejected a challenge by a Colorado elector for Hillary Clinton who was removed from office and replaced after he tried to vote for John Kasich.The majority held that it was unconstitutional for the state of Colorado, which has a law on the books that allows for the replacement of electors who don't vote for the candidate by whom they were nominated, to remove elector Michael Baca, who had unsuccessfully attempted to convince Republican electors to write in Kasich's name in order to deny Donald Trump an electoral majority and throw the election to the House.The 10th Circuit's ruling, however, may not stand on appeal. As election law expert Derek Muller notes, this decision failed to take notice of a similar case out of Minnesota that the 8th Circuit rejected last year, deeming the issue moot. Should the Colorado case be reviewed by the entire 10th Circuit or the Supreme Court, Muller says "it could well be tossed on procedural grounds" much like the Minnesota challenge.But if the Colorado ruling were to be upheld by the Supreme Court and set a national precedent, it would unbind every elector from any state law prohibiting faithless electors. Such an outcome could alter the result of a close Electoral College vote, adding uncertainty as to whether a candidate who appeared to have won a narrow victory would in fact prevail in the Electoral College. While faithless electors have been infrequent in modern history, removing any limits could embolden electors to defect and consequently risk chaos if electors were to randomly overturn the expected results…Edit: I would like on Susan Normand’s request add this link: Many Native IDs Won't Be Accepted At North Dakota Polling Places.The Supreme Court declined to overturn North Dakota's controversial voter ID law, which requires residents to show identification with a current street address. A P.O. box does not qualify.Many Native American reservations, however, do not use physical street addresses. Native Americans are also overrepresented in the homeless population, according to the Urban Institute. As a result, Native residents often use P.O. boxes for their mailing addresses and may rely on tribal identification that doesn't list an address.Those IDs used to be accepted at polling places — including in this year's primary election — but will not be valid for the general election. And that decision became final less than a month before Election Day, after years of confusing court battles and alterations to the requirements.

"An Yll Wynde That Blowth No Man To Good"“America has the best wind resources in the world. Not harvesting America’s wind would be like going to Saudi Arabia and not drilling for oil.” Ditlev Engel, Chief Executive of Vestas Wind SystemsOf all renewable energy, the most contentious is wind. Wind stirs most passion and documentaries are made of suffering communities at war with each other lying in the shadow of the big blades. ‘Big wind’ companies are made to sound as evil as ‘big oil’ in their calculated pursuit of profits. I know people living north of London in the UK, who are actively moving to cancel wind farm installations on the grounds of fears of wind turbine syndrome (WTS)[i] a serious health problem described by people who live close to the towering structures.The Caithness Windfarm Information Forum (CWIF)[ii] produces a list of the frequency of all wind turbine related accidents globally confirmed by press reports. Renewable UK[iii] also follow such data with reports on such topics as:Radar and aviation securityScenery despoliationProperty pricesHealth Impacts from aerodynamic noise and shadow flickerThe CWIF reports find that blade failure is the most common problem that causes accidents with fire a close second and poor maintenance coming third. They found that globally, total accidents since the 1970’s numbered 1,549, a level that is growing each year along with the number of installed wind turbines. Fatal accidents also are rising but at a much lower level with a total of 146 deaths in 108 accidents since 1970, with 14 in 2011 but more in 2012.Blade Failure – Up to 2012 there are 289 incidents with some cases of parts of blades being thrown up to a mile away from the turbine hub. In Germany, parts of blades have penetrated roofs and walls of nearby buildings. ‘Renewable UK’ reported 1,500 accidents in the UK alone over the five years up to 2011 with some deaths and serious injuries. Unless there is an injury, there is no requirement for an incident to be reported. The Wind industry plays down the incidents. In 2006 part of a wind turbine blade snapped off its hub and crashed into a field in high winds. The operator, Cumbria Wind Farms said, “Nothing like this has happened there before”, but they forgot to mention that in fact one month after the park opened in 1993, a similar accident had occurred. A similar situation occurred with Scottish Power with a blade separation event in Whitelee. Three bladed wind turbine blades are secured only on one end, unlike many vertical and arguably safer VAWT wind turbine designs. The Risø National Laboratory[iv] in Denmark reported 15 turbine collapses in the three years from 2005 to 2008.Fire – can occur due to gearbox lubrication failure or friction within the nacelle or when bearings fail. 231 incidents of fire have been reported. Most fire is restricted to the turbine nacelle but out of reach of firemen on the ground. In dry weather there is a danger of wildfire. Wind turbines are also a magnet for lightning strikes which can ignite flammable blade resins. In October 2013 a crew of 4 mechanics were working for a service company that was charged with maintaining the 13 turbines at Deltawind’s Piet de Wit wind farm in the Netherlands. They were in a gondola next to the nacelle of a Vestas V-66, 1.75 MW turbine, when a fire likely caused by a short circuit blocked the only escape to the stairs in the shaft. Two men jumped through flames to reach the stairs and saved themselves, while the two remaining men, only 19 and 21 years of age were trapped and died. One jumped from the tower and the other was burned.[v]Structural failure – 148 instances mainly of collapsing turbines in storms but also including component failure. This is a very expensive form of failure but mostly at arm’s length from human beings.Ice Throw – In icing conditions, wind turbines can fling a loose piece of ice a considerable distance, but as with aircraft wings, the performance of the turbine blade deteriorates as ice builds up. Turbines are equipped to detect imbalances caused by ice and normally shut down. The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) agency, established by President Nixon in 1970, detailed requirements for wind turbine workers to observe when in icing conditions. Complaints about ice are common and the fear is that rotating blades in melting conditions will fling heavy chunks of damaging and lethal ice long distances. This is alleged to have happened in Whittlesey in England, where lumps of ice two feet long were flung from a 410 foot wind turbine, through the air, finally colliding with a carpet showroom and car park. Residents had the offending turbine shut down. A report by GE’s wind turbine division[vi] did alert users that ice chunks can indeed be flung several hundred yards. A Swiss study[vii] made in a ski resort in 2007 showed that up to 5% of the ice on a turbine was able to travel 260 feet from the turbine. As experience grows with wind farms the ability to protect the community that lives near them improves. Ice is thrown a maximum of 400 feet and this is the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. A 2003 report cited 880 events between 1990 and 2003 alone and another report published in 2005 described 94 incidents. Further reports in 2006 reported 27 further incidents.Transportation of wind turbine components to the installation site – 147 incidents since 1970 including a house being rammed through by a turbine tower section in Germany, a utility pole being knocked through a restaurant and a turbine section falling off in a tunnel. In one case a $75 million barge was lost at sea with expensive turbine sections. Transportation is the largest cause of public fatalities including the Brazilian bus disaster mentioned above. In a single incident in Brazil in March of 2012, a bus driver was behind a slow truck, hoping to overtake. He was indicating and thought the truck ahead of him was moving over to let him pass. He gunned the accelerator to overtake only to suddenly find himself faced with a 40 ton wind tower section being transported in the oncoming lane. It sheared off the left side of the bus, driver included. 14 passengers and the driver died on the spot and two more died later[viii].Bird Deaths –"When you look at a wind turbine, you can find the bird carcasses and count them. With a coal-fired power plant, you can't count the carcasses, but it's going to kill a lot more birds." - John Flicker, National Audubon Society, president.Sibley and Monroe estimated that there are about 9,703 species of birds[ix]. They are found on all major land masses and over the oceans. Total populations are difficult to estimate due to seasonal fluctuations in populations but Sibley & Monroe accepted that there are between 100 and 200 billion adult birds in the world. Kevin Gaston and Tim Blackburn[x] doubled that estimate with 200 to 400 billion. Birds are killed by wind turbines and solar installations, but it turns out that the numbers of birds already killed by buildings, high tension lines, vehicles, cats and pesticides are so much greater that there is clearly a perception twist, which is likely deliberate, going on here. This is not to say that we should be complacent about bird deaths. It’s a universally accepted fact that all parties are against any kind of animal mortality as a result of our energy activities. The presentation of it though, ought to be based on the factual wider context of bird deaths from other causes. The Altamont pass was one of the first locations in the US preserved for wind power due to the excellent winds funneled by the hills there. At the time bird deaths were not on the minds of the responsible individuals who created this wind resource.Even institutions who are protective of birds, the National Audubon Society, the US Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Wildlife Society all have commissioned studies that result in the same conclusions afforded by the following chart. Bird deaths by wind turbines do not remotely compare with the impact of cats, cars, power lines or buildings. As wind power increases its penetration however, its currently small impact on birds will grow less than proportionately as operators learn how to avoid avian mortality by siting, colors on blades, kick in speeds and other methods.BIRD DEATHS FROM DIFFERENT CAUSESFigure 9: Bird deaths from different causes, showing that wind turbines are the least of threats among many. Source Bloomberg New Energy Finance, US Forestry Service.Perception of bird deaths can halt wind turbine installations during the public planning phase and then effective resistance can scuttle installation plans. It turns out though, that wind turbines are responsible for only 1 in every 10,000 causes of bird deaths.Small birds are killed in the billions by housecats while wind turbine casualties tend to be relatively larger bird species. Bigger birds, normally not the direct target of a housecat, like the protected Bald Eagles and other birds of prey, are more likely to be killed by a wind turbine than by a cat. Balanced against this has to be the effect of coal and oil on birds mentioned in the earlier solar report. Many energy technologies apparently are bad for birds, but wind and solar are far from being the worst culprits. In 2013 a study by Smallwood indicated that the estimates of wind turbine bird deaths may be understated for three reasons. Estimates of bird deaths by wind turbines depended on counting carcasses found under the turbines. It was entirely possible that searches were done in less than efficient ways and in inadequate search radiuses. Additionally carcasses could easily be removed by predators and his bird death estimate was 573,000, slightly higher than others.[xi]A 2005 study by the USDA Forest Service, was an early indication that wind turbines were a very small impact on overall bird populations.[xii] Then the National Audubon Society produced a study[xiii], funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in September, 2014 which took seven years to finish and which looked closely at 588 of the total 800 species of bird found in North America. 314 of these species are threatened in some way with a loss of environment by the end of the century. Climate change (therefore CONG) is blamed for effectively potentially destroying the ecosystem for 28 species. This data is not included in the chart above in Figure 9. The Bald Eagle and state mascots are at serious risk due to climate change which reduces the bird’s range and alters the lifecycle of their food sources. Bird mortality from fossil fuel pollution and climate change represents a far higher risk than wind turbines as far as the Audubon Society is concerned.In 1918, the US Congress passed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), a legislation aimed at protecting populations of over 1,000 species of birds from hunting or other forms of harm. It put in place penalties for causing damage to this part of the US environment. This may have been partly in response to the extinction by humans of the passenger pigeon, which had been the commonest bird in America, ranging in flocks of billions of individuals, but which had become completely extinct by 1914 after being exhaustively hunted for its meat and feathers. Martha, the world’s last passenger pigeon died at the age of 29, on September 1, 1914 at the Cincinnati Zoo. She had been there all her life. She was named after President Washington’s wife and within minutes of her death she was on the way to the Smithsonian museum in Washington inside a 300lb block of ice, where Nelson Wood, the Smithsonian taxidermist preserved her. Twice she left the Smithsonian, once to attend a conservation event in San Diego in 1974 and then a return visit to Cincinnatti Zoo to name a building in her honor. For both trips she travelled by plane in a box in first class with her own flight attendant.[xiv]Birds are famously victims of the huge wind turbine blades. This is certainly true and although bird fatalities from the house cat, vehicles and building windows account for literally millions or billions more, it doesn’t excuse the wind turbine’s effects impact. At least lip service is done to relocate turbines out of birds’ migration paths. Also, most song birds migrate flying at a height of 2,000 to 4,000 feet, well above the tallest wind turbines, at least so far. There is a very disturbing YouTube video of a large, elegant bird of prey being struck down by such a rotating blade[xv]. In an awful European case there was the death of a rare swift, the White-throated Needletail, the world’s fastest flying bird. The poor exhausted creature was spotted by a group of 30 birdwatchers who had made a special trip to the isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The sighting was only the 9time that the bird had been seen since 1846, in Essex. The last time it had been seen at all was 1991. The assembled enthusiasts assembled in the appropriate location and waited for hours before being rewarded by sighting the bird. They were summarily horrified to see the rare bird, which had flown all the way from Australia, knocked down and killed by the rotating blade of a wind turbine.[xvi]The MBTA has been invoked several times to improve conditions for migratory bird species. Between 2004 and 2009 in Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, just 85, unprotected, migratory birds were deemed to have died due to exposure to oil and gas facilities owned by Exxon Mobil. The Justice Department fined the company $600,000 or about $7,000 for each bird killed. Exxon pleaded guilty and cooperated with the department spending a further $2.5 million to clean up the sites. It turned out that the fine was equal to twenty minutes of Exxon’s profits, based on $8.6 billion earnings for the first half of 2009[xvii]. Other fossil fuel companies have been fined. BP paid $100 million for the impact of its 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill on migratory birds. Pacificorp, which operates coal fired power stations, paid $500,000 in 2009 after 232 eagles along power distribution lines between its substations were found to have been electrocuted.[xviii]Wind farms started to kill birds on a regular basis although the MBTA was rarely invoked, prompting calls of hypocrisy against those claiming that wind was an environmental solution. Wind farms have been fined for killing birds too, however. Duke Energy was fined $1 million for the deaths of 14 eagles and 149 other birds, including hawks, blackbirds, wrens and sparrows, between 2009 and 2013. Duke were also called upon to restore and do community service (how do you ask a large utility to do that!) and were placed on 5 years of probation while they put together an environmental compliance plan to prevent bird deaths. Interestingly, Duke then applied for a permit to kill eagles, to help provide a context within which the system can absorb the inevitability of bird deaths. Another group, the Wind Capital Group applied for such a license only to be embroiled in an argument over its granting, by the Osage Nation in opposition. Many applications for this license have been filed. Environmentalists complain bitterly when President Obama’s administration, eager for non-polluting wind power, announced a new federal rule that allows wind farms to lawfully kill birds of prey.There is some evidence that birds change their behavior when in the presence of wind farms. Lowther in 1998 discovered that studying a 22 turbine wind farm in Wales, UK, no birds were killed by the turbine and in fact they were seen to have shifted their activity to a different location. Some wind farms have no bird fatalities at all. A study[xix] published in the Journal of Applied Ecology by Pawel Plonczkier and Ian Simms monitored migrating flocks of pink-footed geese using radar as they returned during migration to the shores of Lincolnshire, UK. Monitoring the movement of the birds over 4 years from 2007 to 2010, established that two new wind farms effectively caused the geese to change their flight paths. The proportion of goose flocks flying outside the wind farm locations climbed from 52% to 81% in this time and even geese flying through the windfarm area had increased their altitude to climb above the turbines.An Australian online group called RenewEconomy had an article which summarizes the whole bird situation quite nicely called “Want to save 70 million birds a year? Build more wind farms”, drawing attention to the impact of CONG on birds. Replacing all fossil fuel worldwide, it says, would save about 70 million birds a year establishing wind farms as a strong net benefit for birds. Author Mike Bernard[xx] explains that wind farms kill less than 0.0001 percent of birds killed by human activities annually out of a total 1.5% of human caused mortality.Bats and BarotraumaThe other species which more recently became synonymous with death by wind turbine blade is bats. Most of the damage is done to migratory bat species in the autumn. Bats are famously known for their ability to echo locate hard objects in their local environment, such as tree branches or cave walls, and even insects on the wing while they are feeding. They can actually detect moving objects better than stationary objects so the high death rate from wind turbine blades was puzzling. Several explanations were proposed but 90% of the bat fatalities involved internal hemorrhaging just as might be expected with damage caused by sudden air pressure changes. Birds have a more resistant respiratory anatomy and are killed by being hit by the blades, whereas the bats do avoid the blades, but come so close that pressure changes around the blades cause the damage to their lungs. The mammals have larger, flexible lungs and hearts. Birds have compact, rigid lungs with very strong pulmonary capillaries which can resist the higher pressure changes, even though the blood/gas barriers are thinner than the bats. Wind turbine blades are moved by the wind. An airfoil on a plane pushes against the wind but a wind turbine blade is moved by the wind. In either case, the airfoil cross section causes significant differences in air pressure. The greatest area of low pressure exists at the fast moving (approximately 180 mph) tip of the blade and cascades downwind from the moving blade. A zone of low pressure can cause a bat’s lungs to expand causing tissue damage, or barotrauma. A study[xxi] was paid for by fossil fuel companies like Suncor and Shell, but also from wind turbine companies such as TransAlta Wind and Alberta Wind Energy Corporation as well as academic institutions. They found bat bodies from hoary and silver-haired bats killed at a wind farm in south western Alberta, Canada and examined them for internal injuries. Of 188 bat bodies collected, 87 had no external physical injury. Very few bats had external injuries without internal bleeding.In 2012, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory conducted pressure studies[xxii] on mice, which were used because they are a close approximation to bats and discovered that pressures of only 1.4 kilopascals (kPa) were experienced by the bats at the blade tips in 11 mph winds but that it took 30 kPa to cause fatality in mice. There was no suggestion by NREL for an alternative cause of death however. At low windspeeds the pressures are even lower and yet it is at the low speeds that the bats fly which further confuses the issue.Intermittency – When the wind calms, electricity production needs to be backed up by a non-intermittent power source. On May 13th, 2014, Germany experienced 74% of their electricity grid, an astonishing 43.5 gigawatts, successfully supplied by renewable capacity[xxiii]. The world’s fourth largest economy not having to pay for fuel! However, the wind, solar, hydro and biomass generation activities needed to be backed up by over 10 gigawatts of ‘spinning reserve’. While there is no reason why a fossil fuel needs to be chosen to back up the wind, it just happens to be the current case that CONG are the bulk methods most available to make wind and solar intermittency more palatable. The short sighted criticism is that wind doesn’t cut pollution after all but it all depends on which non-intermittent power source is used. Since wind intermittency is mostly offset by the use of fast reacting gas turbines, instead of coal as back-up power or spinning reserve, the impact on emissions can be minor. In the future, sustainable base-load renewable energy can act as spinning reserve. Almost every type of renewable energy can become base load with some tweaks. Solar can go into space. Wind can harvest the energy from almost permanent fast winds at high altitude. Almost all other renewable energy types are already base load anyway, biomass, biofuels, geothermal, hydroelectric etc.Noise – like a propeller, wind turbine blades make a noise in contact with the air. Not surprisingly this particular complaint turns out to be very much less annoying than it at first appears. It turns out that noise from other sources is louder and more persistent. Traffic, aircraft, wind itself, household noises, industry, farming etc. When windfarms are going through the public planning stage, it’s quite likely that the developer will ask local residents to sign a waiver for any noise irritation and give them an incentive to do so. They suggest local people accept this $5,000 check and if the turbines happen to be noisy, they have no recourse. One of many states that has addressed this issue is Oregon where a state noise ordinance reflects a specific regulation restricting noise from wind turbines. The law here, allows for noise to exceed what is considered an area’s ambient noise level by a given amount, often the subject of controversy itself. Interestingly in Oregon’s case the law that limits turbine noise is an evolution from one that once enforced industrial noise conditions and was part of the Department of Environmental Quality which was closed down in 1991, before wind power became a state priority.An 85 page study was conducted on the subject in 2009 for the Canadian Wind Energy Association and the American Wind Energy Association. The selected panel concluded that wind turbines do not make people ill because of noise. They did say the swooshing sound of blades could be irritating. Such a conclusion from such a source is hardly surprising, although the study panel members, a doctor, a vibration and acoustics expert from the UK, a professor of audiology and a biological engineer, all claimed to have been at arm’s length and totally able to design the study themselves.Eighteen studies were done between 2003 and 2014, not one of them saying there was any evidence that wind turbines did any harm at all. In 1918 there was a medical condition that at the time was not acknowledged to be real. It was a reaction to the hell of fighting on the First World War front often caused by the close impact of exploding shells. In fact it was called ‘shellshock’. The military term for it was cowardice or desertion and many otherwise perfectly good people were shot at dawn for supposedly letting the side down. In August of 2006, the UK Defense Secretary published posthumous pardons for 306 soldiers, four of whom were only 17, who were executed this way.[xxiv] I don’t think that wind turbine syndrome will one day be recognized as a real complaint, but I wouldn’t like to live close enough to a turbine to experience long term noise effects either.In February of 2015, the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) completed a comprehensive study[xxv] on the effects of wind turbines and farms on people who live further than 1,500 meters from the closest turbine. The study identified over 4,000 international papers on the subject of which only 13 suggested a possible relationship between the wind turbine and human health. They determined that the body of direct evidence was small and of poor quality but admitted it was a complex subject as much of it is subjective opinion. NHMRC concluded there is no consistent evidence that wind farms cause adverse health effects in humans. The concern over the topic led them to recommend specific research to produce a body of high quality observations of those who live within 1,500 meters of wind farms.Resistance to Offshore WindFarmsCape Wind is the name of an offshore windfarm project that has been moving forward at a glacial pace and while it appeared positive for the start of construction as of the end of 2014, just a few months later, the cycle of delays has begun once again. There has been no offshore wind in the Americas, while many large installations have been completed in Europe. The UK has staked part of its energy future on very large offshore wind farms because of the huge reserve of energy there. It hopes to generate 18 gigawatts by 2020 and double that again by 2030.[xxvi]There is a paradox attached to the location of one of America’s most affluent playgrounds, Cape Cod. White warriors of the US clean energy army, people who in any other circumstance would do their best for renewable energy, are here arrayed against the installation of the first offshore wind turbine farm in America because of a fierce determination not to despoil their little plot of nature. This resistance to installation of something new is called “Not in My Back Yard” (NIMBY). Cape Wind Associates has tenaciously hung on to the goal of installing 130, 400 foot tall turbines, which were originally supposed to be up and running by 2006. Opposition has been fierce. An entity called ‘The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound’ has raised millions and paid staff members and a public relations firm in Washington. It has purchased radio, newspaper and TV time and has distributed flyers. It has also engaged the support of wealthy landowners in the region such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Walter Cronkite who lent his distinctive, patriarchal, trusted voice to a radio advertisements for the group.Many Cape Cod beach homes are as much as 7 miles from the proposed site, Horseshoe Shoal. At that distance the relative size of the giant turbines is less than that of a dime held at arm’s length. The indigenous hold-outs were being marginalized and the project was closer than ever to going ahead as of the end of 2014. Today though it is tied down again in delaying lawsuits which seem to never end. The site is in federal waters not subject to the same zoning laws as land based projects. Private money is ready to be put up to pay the expected $750 million equity money. Complainants like these are well funded, whereas the Cape would benefit hugely over two decades at least of clean energy supply for a very reasonable cost. Any foundations placed offshore additionally act as a wildlife magnet, creating the equivalent of an artificial reef teeming with life. There are artificial reef projects achieving this in many locations along the world’s coastlines using old ships, planes and other relics.[xxvii][i] Wind energy is considered a disaster responding to the hoax of climate change in this vociferous website which of course also discusses wind turbine syndrome. Available at: http://www.windturbinesyndrome.com/wind-turbine-syndrome/what-is-wind-turbine-syndrome/[ii] The Caithness Windfarm Information Forum. Available at: http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/[iii] RenewableUK. A leading renewable energy trade association. Available at: http://www.renewableuk.com/en/events/conferences-and-exhibitions/renewableuk-2015/[iv] Risø National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy. Available at: http://orbit.dtu.dk/en/organisations/risoe-national-laboratory-for-sustainable-energy%2869f3623e-9f3f-48aa-8b46-4b4fb2abab7f%29.html[v] Available at: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3cd_1383772851#Opj3eWpLL6Co282t.99[vi] David Wahl, Philippe Giguere. Ice Shedding and Ice Throw – Risk and Mitigation. Wind Application Engineering. GE Energy. Available at: http://www.cbuilding.org/sites/cbi.drupalconnect.com/files/ger4262.pdf[vii] Cattin et al. Wind Turbine Ice Throw Studies in the Swiss Alps. EWEC 2007. Based on studies of a 600 kW Enercon E-40 at 2,300 mASL in Swiss Alps[viii] Summary of Wind Turbine Accident Data to 30 September 2014. PDF. Caithness Windfarm Information Forum.[ix] Sibley and Monroe. 1992.[x] Kevin J. Gaston and Tim M. Blackburn. April 1997. How many birds are there? Available at: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1018341530497[xi] K. Shawn Smallwood, “Comparing bird and bat fatality-rate estimates among North American wind-energy projects”, Wildlife Society Bulletin, 26 Mar. 2013. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wsb.260/pdf[xii] Wallace P. Erickson, Gregory D. Johnson and David P. Young Jr. A Summary and Comparison of Bird Mortality from Anthropogenic Causes with an Emphasis on Collisions. USDA Forest Service. PSW-GTR-191. 2005. Available at: http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/documents/psw_gtr191/Asilomar/pdfs/1029-1042.pdf[xiii] Erickson WP, Wolfe MM, Bay KJ, Johnson DH, Gehring JL (2014) A Comprehensive Analysis of Small-Passerine Fatalities from Collision with Turbines at Wind Energy Facilities. PLoS ONE 9(9): e107491. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0107491[xiv] Smithsonian article on Martha, the last passenger pidgeon. Available at: http://www.mnh.si.edu/onehundredyears/featured_objects/martha2.html[xv] Bald Eagle seriously injured by wind turbine. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwVz5hdAMGU[xvi] Rare swift killed by Scottish wind turbine. Available at: http://www.scotsman.com/news/scotland/top-stories/birdwatchers-see-rare-bird-killed-by-wind-turbine-1-2980240[xvii] Exxon Mobil pleads guilty to bird deaths. Available at: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=8322081[xviii] BP and Pacificorp pay fines for killing birds. Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-eagle-death-wind-farm-oil-energy-epa-2013-5[xix] Pawel Plonczkier and Ian C. Simms. Journal of Applied Ecology. 2012. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2012.02181.x/epdf[xx] Mike Barnard. 10 August, 2012. Want to save 70 million birds a year? Build more wind farms. RenewEconomy. Available at: http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/want-to-save-70-million-birds-a-year-build-more-wind-farms-18274[xxi] Erin F. Baerwald, Genevieve H. D’Amours, Brandon J. Klug and Robert M.R. Barclay. Barotrauma is a significant cause of bat fatalities at wind turbines.[xxii] “NREL Study Finds Barotrauma Not Guilty”, November 27, 2012. Available at: http://www.nrel.gov/wind/news/2013/2149.html[xxiii] Germany has 74% of its power supplied by renewable energy. 2014. Available at: http://gas2.org/2014/05/27/for-one-hour-germany-was-powered-by-74-renewables/[xxiv] Posthumous pardons of First World War shellshock victims. Available on: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1526437/Pardoned-the-306-soldiers-shot-at-dawn-for-cowardice.html[xxv] Information Paper: Evidence on Wind Farms and Human Health. February 2015. PDF. National Health and Medical Research Council. Available at: http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/_files_nhmrc/publications/attachments/eh57a_information_paper.pdf[xxvi] UK Renewable Energy Roadmap. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/48128/2167-uk-renewable-energy-roadmap.pdf[xxvii] Positive environmental impacts of offshore wind farms. European Wind Energy Association. Available at: http://www.ewea.org/fileadmin/files/members-area/information-services/offshore/research-notes/120801_Positive_environmental_impacts.pdf