Italian Wind Fraud Investigation Extends to the Netherlands, UK, Ireland, and Spain. Subsidies Questioned.
Italian Wind Fraud Investigation Extends to the Netherlands, UK, Ireland, and Spain. Subsidies Questioned.For some carbon millionaires, lining their pockets legally through taxpayer subsidies and hand outs is not enough. They choose to cheat even though they’re playing a game that’s already rigged.
The Financial Times reports that:
Oreste Vigorito, head of the IVPC energy company and president of Italy’s National Association of Wind Energy, was arrested on Tuesday in Naples. Vito Nicastri, a Sicilian business associate, was arrested in Alcamo, Sicily.
Two other men were arrested in Sicily and the Naples area, while 11 others were charged but not arrested.
Oreste Vigorito: Arrested Nov. 11
FT reports that these saviors of our planet were building wind farms that were “built with public subsidies but had never functioned.”
Vigorito had ties to Brian Caffyn, founder of the controversial “Cape Wind” project planned for Massachusetts’ Nantucket Sound, which has been criticized as a poor investment for taxpayers for the energy it will produce. Vigorito was not an investor in Cape Wind.
According to the Boston Herald:
“What we found was quite remarkable,” David Tuerck, the institute’s executive director, said at the time. “Cape Wind stands to receive subsidies worth $731 million, or 77 percent of the cost of installing the project and 48 percent of the revenues it would generate. The policy question that this amount of subsidy raises is whether the project’s benefit is worth the huge public subsidies that the developer gets.”
The Herald reports that Mr. Caffyn’s 2007 divorce records reveal that “he amassed an $82 million fortune building wind farms around the world.”
Wind power remains an interesting and potentially useful technology. However, if taxpayers are forced to pay for it they must receive a viable return on their investment. Conservationists should not be forced to endure wind farms spoiling undeveloped places of natural beauty. We should not allow wind farms to ruin the habitats of birds and other wildlife in ways we would never permit to established efficient methods of power generation.
It’s time politicians require the “green” business people who will reap fortunes from wind power to bear the financial costs and risks. It’s time government zoning and environmental regulators ban wind turbines where they threaten wildlife and spoil human enjoyment of natural beauty.
Wind yes, but only when economically viable and only with respect for the quality of life both human and wild.
This article was amended slightly in response to a request from the Cape Wind Project.
Typical government. Passing regulation for big business profits and of course kick backs to politicians. Ripping off taxpayers every time. There is no good government as the Founding Fathers of America detested.
[…] One of those arrested in this scheme, Sicilian Vito Nicastri, has ties to the Nantucket “Cape Wind” project, according to the European Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow. […]
But Al Gore is still on the loose. When is he going to get thrown in jail.
This story illustrates perfectly what is proposed like Al Gore, GE, Goldman Sachs, Nancy Pelosi, etc. Why don’t we call it what it really is? It’s a Ponzi scheme. So let’s stop our President from defrauding all of us! Anyone pushing for this or institutes these cap/trad policies needs to be indicted and jailed.
[…] to the European Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, Oreste Vigorito has ties to an investor in the Cape Wind project, which has been criticized as a […]
This article is factually incorrect and slanderous. Mr. Vigorito, in fact, has no ties whatsoever to the Cape Wind project and a careful read of the Boston Herald article cited as support of this assertion makes it clear that the Herald makes no such assertion.
Since when have the folks at Cape Wind concerned themselves with facts, Mr. Rodgers? By your representation that Cape Wind would consist of 130 GE 3.6 MW wind turbines, the U.S. government directed 17 permit reviewing agencies to conduct hardware-specific studies to determine the cost v benefits and impacts of this “discontinued” wind turbine–for years.
The GE “discontinued” 3.6 MW wind turbine is the entire focus of the federal regulator’s Cape Wind draft EIS 4,000 pages repeated in the 4,000 page final EIS.
At least Mr. Vigorito’s wind projects featured actual wind turbines.
I note in a careful read of the Boston Herald that Cape Wind and Oreste Vigorito had the same investor, Brian Caffyn, isn’t that a tie?
Karma is in play, Mark. Your phantom wind energy project merits your return of the millions of dollars the public has spent on FAA, U.S. Coast Guard, and 15 other agencies vastly expensive studies. It’s time to do the right thing.
You’re phantom solution to the invasion of the jelly fish is wasting our time and money that could be spent investigating a VIABLE energy project.
Thank you, Cfact, for amending the article. Two further clarifications for readers: 1) Energy Management Inc. bought out Mr. Caffyn’s ownership interest in Cape Wind back in 2002 and Mr. Caffyn has had no involvement with Cape Wind since, and, 2) Mr. Caffyn is NOT one of the individuals that has been charged with any wrongdoing by the Italian government.
I think you’re missing the big picture, Mark.
As this article point out:
“However, if taxpayers are forced to pay for it they must receive a viable return on their investment.”
The Final U.S. Outer Continental Shelf rules (page 47) require Cape Wind to demonstrate technical and financial ability to construct in order to be eligible for a federal MMS lease.
U.S. taxpayers have already spent millions for the studies on your project featuring “discontinued” wind turbines.
How does Cape Wind intend to provide a fair return to the nation for the use of our resource (as required under Section 388 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005) when the Cape Wind project features “discontinued” wind turbines?
It’s clear and understandable that you wish to put distance between Cape Wind and persons charged with lining their pockets for wrongdoing.
Yet taxpayers forced to fund studies focused on phantom Cape Wind might be reluctant to give you the benefit of doubt that Cape Wind will ever provide a fair return to us.
An important clarification I neglected to address is that only AFTER Cape Wind project opponents discovered that Cape featured “discontinued” wind turbines did Cape Wind confirm this status.
Once burned, twice shy.
“Global warming” or “climate change”: the greatest scam in nthe history of the world is a result of extreme environmentalists, naive politicians, and corrupt businessmen seeking to cash in on public gullibility.