Blowing Away the Windmill Lies
The residents of rural Meredith, New York, are worried about global warming, dependence on foreign oil, and fossil-fuel pollution. So when a windmill company came to town and started offering cash-strapped residents checks in exchange for installing on their land wind turbines that would feed clean, renewable energy into the grid, the people were more than willing to listen. “We were helping the world,” says one resident. But when the townsfolk of this economically dozy area started to do a little research into this poster child for the new economy, they became worried, then horrified. The new documentary Windfall is about what they learned.
Windfall is that rare documentary that casts a skeptical gaze on claims made by the left, though in this case the environmental lobby’s interests line up neatly with those of the Wall Street investment banks that bankroll this supposed miracle cure to our alleged greenhouse-gas problem.
It turns out that the wind turbines are 400 feet tall — the height of a good-sized Manhattan skyscraper placed incongruously in the sprawling countryside. A single blade weighs seven tons. The diameter of the cement base of the windmills can be 250 feet. Once erected, they spoil the natural beauty of the nearby mountains, they cast giant shadows, they throw off dangerous quantities of ice. People living under them complain of health problems, difficulty sleeping, and strange pressure in their ears, and the low, intense thudding noises of the turbines are compared to the effect of living next door to a disco that never closes, or being under a plane that never lands. Another citizen says that living near a windmill is like having “your vacuum cleaner running beside your bed all night.”
Well, nobody else has posted here, so I will, with a not-so-conservative comment:
Watch the video. Everything you hear there could be said about nuclear. Or Oil. Or a coal mine or whatever.
The author says, “But Windfall makes it clear that large-scale industrial wind turbines are simply inappropriate for populated areas,. . .”
That’s probably true for ANY method of getting or creating energy.
I agree that energy production should be paid for by its own merits – not with government subsidies. But the video excerpt of “Windfall” seems to be just folks complaining about their local stuff.
Look, at someplace, at some time, you can’t complain about, “not in my back yard,” anymore. The world is your back yard. And if you don’t believe it, then just keep hoping the economics keep passing you by.
There are serious problems with wind and other green technologies for producing power. Look at Spain’s disaster. But you can’t just photograph a bunch of over-30 folks complaining about noise. That’s not the point.
The point is, it doesn’t produce enough energy, and the real $ cost will kill our economy.
“That’s probably true for ANY method of getting or creating energy.”
Actually, not true. From my house on a clear day I can see steam rising from both the Limerick and Salem nuclear plants. To the west are Peach Bottom and Three Mile Island. Yes, THAT Three mile Island. Just outside SW Philadelphia are a pair of massive generating plants, one coal and one gas fired. Thousands of people live a stone’s throw from these plants without even thinking about them. They are producing enough power to run a large city and a huge suburban area. In contrast, a large windmill farm is quite noticeable, while producing enough power for a few hundred or thousand homes – when the wind is blowing.
BTW, The over 30′s and their complaints are a valid point! They are the canaries in the coal mine. Not having the political clout of a certain New England family, they have the windmills forced on them. Today, it is their backyard. Perhaps tomorrow it will be your backyard.
Not to start a bad arguement but the people affected by the Three Mile Island leak, the Chernobyl meltdown, the Fukushima disaster, and the radiation leak in California will probably disagree with you. There is a reason why the US has just approved its first new nuclear power plant in over 30 years.
I have seen the windmill farm near Lowville, NY. Its a series of very large, very slow turning windmills on a hill (which didnt have anything on it before). Its one of the few things in an area of hills, trees, more hills, and even more trees (seriously to the enviro-nuts: A few windmills or cell towers in a trillion plus trees is a “problem” then YOU have a problem, other then the windmills or cell towers). I honestly dont see building them within a community like a 7-11 (but they dont do that with oil, coal, or nuclear plants either), but on a hill nearby can provide a rather interesting site (they are kind of hypnotic moving slowely in the wind).
And like furball stated: leave it to the free, capitalist market to determine where and how much are developed. it is a waste of resources otherwise (and the “pressure” will cause windmill developers to produce a better product).
How many people were killed at Three Mile Island? That’s right, none. How about Fukoshima? That’s right, none. Large numbers of people are killed every year on an average beltway or any given stretch of interstate highway. Should we do away highways and automobiles because they’re just too dangerous?
As for Chernobyl, that was a dangerous reactor design and didn’t have even the most basic safety systems, like a concrete containment building. The IAEA repeatedly told the USSR those were dangerous designs. Reactors are like dams, we know how to build them safely, but it’s also possible to build them in an unsafe way. That doesn’t mean dams are inherently unsafe. It only means that, like dams, you have to build them properly, maintain them, and operate them properly.
So you are telling me that not a single person has died due to the radiation leaks caused by Three Mile Island, Fukushima, or Chernobyl (or will in the future)? To think that would be the same as saying no one died from cigarette smoke prior to the numerous studies done. Prior to those studies not a single person was listed as having died due to effects of cigarettes. Why is this important? Do you know the number of (accurate) studies that been done on the number of deaths due to radiation exposure from Three Mile Island, Fukushima, and Chernobyl (we can even include the Hiroshima and Nagisaki bombings)? None. Not a single one. There are studies of how many died due to direct effects like burns, concussive force, and other physical trauma, but not any research on later deaths (ie ones that would be the result of radiation exposure). There are studies on mutagenic effects by Chernobyl (sheep in the UK are still under strict oversight due to mutations linked to Chernobyl). Yet no one has done a (credible) study on the effect of the radiation exposure and health and mortality effects (from these events).
Technically all nuclear disasters have been atleast partially due to human error. Chernobyl due to overall poor design, Three Mile Island due to poor back up systems (design) and bad decisions, Fukushima due to being placed too close to the ocean with no tsunami protection (design), and the Californian plant due to poor oversight. Nuclear power (and coal, oil, wind, solar, ect) is far from fool proof, is not always a good choice for all locations and has its own inherent problems. Ie: once a reactor has been started the site is considered to be “contaminated” and cannot be reused for a diffeent purpose for a considerable time (years to decades). There are several sites in the US that currently have non-operating reactors and cannot be reused.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/uploadedFiles/org/WNA_Personal_Perspectives/jaworowski_chernobyl.pdf
Chernobyl was a catastrophic nuclear accident. Little doubt that poor engineering and was responsible for this occurrence. Yes, people died, 31 early on not the thousands that you are led to believe. It is the most studied and reported nuclear incident during our time. The report above in scrupulous detail reveals that the hysteria that we are led to believe in regards to nuclear energy is unfounded. Just the numbers from follow on studies of a huge population for 30+ years show that some solid cancer rates were LESS in affected zones. Why do cancer patients get radiation treatment?
Three mile Island hurt nobody.
Nobody.
It was HUGELY overblown. The only thing that escaped was some steam. No big deal.
Chernobyl was a disaster because of the Soviet system and values. They simply don’t care much about human life. The design of that reactor was considered unacceptable anywhere else in the world, with one exception. We had a similar reactor for research purposes (I don’t recall the location), which had FAR more safety systems in place. The world is as likely to see another Chernobyl as we are to be hit by a comet shaped like Daffy Duck.
The extent of the the Fukushima disaster has yet to be seen, but it’s certainly going to be bad. Lessons have already been learned, and perhaps you forget that this was a one-in-a-million set of circumstances?
Yes, that that reason is leftist propaganda, not science.
The French have for many years relied on more than 75% of their energy generated by Nuclear plants.
What did they do right that others could not copy?
Assumes facts contrary to existing evidence, with assertion as proof.
Try again.
Nope. Reread the key line, the dirty little secret theb windbags don’t want widely known: “Moreover, due to the intermittent nature of wind energy, nearby fossil-fuel power plants still have to be kept running in order to cover for the down times.”
At some point we’ll simply be told there will be no lights when the wind isn’t blowing.
Problem solved – at least from the eco-nazis point of view. After the fossil fuel plants are finally gotten rid of they’ll start complaining about the bird and bat kills. Bottom line – no lights for you and me.
There are already complaints in agriculture that the death of so many bats is going require more pesticides and therefore more money.
Pa. wind turbines deadly to bats, costly to farmers
I agree that with wind energy, backup conventional power sources must be available for windless days. But the amount of fuel consumed by such conventional power sources can be very small compared to the wind-generated output. You must build the backup plants but you don’t have to operate them when there’s enough wind.
Furthermore energy can be stored for use on a windless day. Any surplus energy generated by a wind farm can be used to pump water from a low-lying reservoir to a reservoir located higher up. On windless days the water is released from the upper reservoir and drives turbines.
Unless you actually reckon the numbers involved, there’s no way of telling whether a wind farm is efficient or not.
Morevover shipping energy is cheap. You can put wind farms on deserts, shallow seas and other unproductive areas and ship the energy to were it’s needed.
What energy storage are we talking about I havent heard of any for the windmills, oh thats right more government subsidies for windmill energy storage systems, thats the ticket quick call Goldman Sachs.
What do you have against over 30 folks? If it weren’t for some over 30 folk gagging up a furball, you wouldn’t be here.
The thing is, what the community wants has everything to do with it(those over 30 folk), not the cost.
Were they foolish to buy into it in the first place?
They bought a box of rocks, but they must have had rocks in their heads to go for it. The officials that sold this to the community were probably very honest looking and sounding…Having there best interests in mind.
Well, Furball, I think you misread the article in its entirety or are not able to make distinctions in your thinking process.
You cannot “say the same” for all types of energy. Nuclear power stations don’t locate in the middle of housing districts and they don’t generate anything like the noise or other invasive characteristics of these mammoth windmills. Same for mining operations and other forms of energy production. The only energy production process that might have similar impacts is fracking and that is one that I’d have to look into. But even in that instance, the noise ends. it does not go on and on like mammoth windmills do.
Do some research.
Pickering and Darlington nuclear power plants are located just east of Toronto Canada, millions of people live within a few miles radius of these plants with no ill effects whatsoever.
Another example of a part of energy production that many of the locals don’t even know about would be the oil drilling in Los Angeles.
http://hiddenlosangeles.com/video-the-hidden-oil-rigs-of-l-a/
My favorite is the oil rig at the Farmer’s Market.
The same is true, except the part about taxpayer’s money being used to CREATE the solar and wind power industries. Where did you think the money came from? Oh, yeah, the Government prints it. My bad. We can keep doing this forever. Oh happy day!
There’s no hard scientific evidence that windmills affect public health.
Put a power plant or a factory next to a neighborhood and you’ll get people complaining that it makes them sick.
Sometimes they’re right.
Other times it’s just psychosomatic.
Other times it’s just some folks are emotionally sensitive. This is a farm community. Someone who has no trouble sleeping when animals are squawking or thunder is crashing, may be sensitive to the sound of the windmill because it’s a new sound.
That’s why we have public health scientists and epidemiologists to investigate those things. And they’ve been investigated. You can find studies on these issues by reputable scientists. Windmills are NOT as noisy as a “vacuum cleaner next to your bed.”
And that’s how you decide whether a certain type of power plant or factory should be sited in a given area. NOT by anecdotes from worried citizens. That’s just NIMBY stuff. And American industrial progress–of all types–is being throttled by NIMBYism.
I know I’d go crazy with that never-ending sound. The loudness of it wouldn’t be the problem, but the continual-ness of it. Know what I mean?
Please provide your address and the size of your property. If it is over 40 acres, maybe we can fit up to four windmills on it. It appears you wouldn’t mind.
There is no free lunch when it comes to energy. It sounds like a great solution: harness the wind to produce electric power. But there are great costs, both economic and aesthetic. Plus, these windmills or wind turbines would have to be as common as dandylions to meet a significant share of our energy needs.
Common as dandelions … exactly. To put it in more professional terms, the problem with wind as a source of energy – on the scale needed – is that the source is diffuse. Like solar, it’s simply too spread out to be used efficiently – on the scale necessary. I think the US passed the four Terrawatts per year threshold a year or two ago.
The engineering problem here isn’t hard to understand. Just ask yourself this. Which would you rather be responsible for building, maintaining and utilizing: the 22 turbines of the Dalles Dam on the Columbia River, or the thousands – in fact, tens of thousands of windmills, when you consider the intermittancy problem – it would take to equal what the Dalles Dam produces without interruption. (I won’t even bring up the collection, storage and dispersion grid needed for wind.) Just use your head for a minute. Which is going to cost more? Which will be easier to utilize?
In the video, I loved that one guy who looked at all the wind and wondered why we weren’t using this for power. He said it like he was the first person in history to have such a thought, like he was the first person smart enough to notice that the wind blows and could possibly be used as a motive power.
The wind mill has been around since at least the Roman empire and likely earlier. If it was only way to generate electricity we’d be using it. If it was the most efficient, or at least efficient enough, ditto. It wasn’t even the best way to generate electricity when the electrical age began, or we’d already be using it.
Here’s the rub: fossil fuels, Hydro, and Nuclear have incredible amounts of energy and power (those two are not exactly the same thing; power is energy over time) in a very concentrated form that’s easy to collect, or in the case of hydro, harness, and then utilize efficiently.
The alternative soruces are very unappealing and likely to remain so for quite a while yet. In order to make these “alternative sources” less unappealing you pretty much have to kneecap the four sources we use now: oil, coal, hyrdo and nuclear. And given the current disparity in energy, power, concentration and efficiency of use, you have to *really* kneecap them. In fact, the degree to which the Gov’t tries to kneecap these source should give even the most inattentive observe a pretty good idea of how much better they are.
Of course, that may change. No one can say what we can come up with in the future. Moore’s Law gives us a reasonable, and sometimes false, hope that we can overcome the difficulties. (Moore’s Law is great for technology, but it’s never going to be able to do anything about the laws of thermodynamics.) Some engineering problems really are “nontrivial.” “And then a miracle occurs …” is not a good basis for public policy, at least until the miracle does occur.
The best course of action is to let the market decide. Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. The one way to make sure we don’t ever get there is to let the Gov’t decide. Where Moore’s Law rules, costs come down; where Gov’t rules, they go up. And up. And ever up.
Well writ. The only exception I take is about the better mouse trap. That market space is quite small. Only those with an insatiable urge to kill mice will show up. B^)
Surprise surprise another dishonest scheme from the kingdom of lies. The Leftwing Obama is all about making money for its Wall Street cronies and spreading the environmentalist religion; salvation through green energy. Once more the evil empire of the American Left is at it again destroying everything around it and claiming virtue. Let us also give credit to the American school teachers who act as the devotees and prosleytists for the new religion of Al Gore and other American fatcat boys.
Do you know what component of the electric grid harms more people in Meredith, New York than windmills?
Don’t even need to look it up. It’s obvious.
Telephone poles. I guarantee you that more people have been injured or killed wrapping their cars around phone poles than have been harmed by wind turbines.
And being made entirely of wood, telephone poles constitute a renewable and organic green component to our infrastructure, too. How about that? And talk about ruining the aesthetics of a community? These poles with their wires are down right ugly. At least with turbines, there is an elegance to their dance across the sky.
Why do the residents of Meredith, New York not complain about telephone poles?
Ubiquity.
They don’t give it a second thought because they have been around since before all the residents were born.
People need to use a little common sense about these things. If you don’t want a 400′ wind turbine on your property then don’t make an agreement to allow one to be built there.
Municipalities need to guard against having turbines too close to residential areas to guard against shadowing and the effects of air turbulence. That’s pretty simple. Just draw a circle around the proposed site at the appropriate distance from the tower. Any residences within that circle? Have to move the turbine elsewhere. Learn from the mistakes of others.
As to the economics, government should not be throwing money down the hole in an effort to push turbines on the free market. If turbines can’t compete on a level playing field with fossil fuels – sorry, they shouldn’t be built.
But technology advances constantly. Competition will drive out the weaker manufacturers of turbines, leaving the most profitable and the most productive. The cost of turbines will come down just like the price of HDTV’s came down precipitously as they saturated the marketplace.
There are a number of these turbines near where I live. Have you ever walked up to the base of one to find out for yourself what they are like?
There is most certainly a swooshing sound each time a blade passes and a shadow, too. No doubt. But at a reasonable distance, there are no effects other than being able to see it on the horizon.
“But technology advances constantly. Competition will drive out the weaker manufacturers of turbines, leaving the most profitable and the most productive. The cost of turbines will come down just like the price of HDTV’s came down precipitously as they saturated the marketplace.”
The ignorance revealed by this statement is breathtaking.
Aye, there’s the problem: ignorance.
The price of windmills ain’t never coming down. 200 tons of steel will only get more expensive over time, and the amount of energy in wind is a given. No amount of pixie dust will magically make it greater than it already is. This is the primary problem with green stupidity. There is only a certain density of power available from any natural source. You can’t ever get more than 100% efficient, by definition. There’s just not enough “there”, there.
Now, if we’re talking hydro-electric, now you’ve got my attention. Why don’t we use the tides to power generators? There is no greater force in the world than the perfectly predictable rhythm of the sea. Before you start imagining a dam across the Chesapeake, how about an underground tunnel running across the Delmarva penninsula, wih generators along the way? It would be no more visible or disruptive than a series of water well stations, and an inlet and outlet station, like a marina. Very little disruption of anything. Plenty of nicely distributed generating power that will continue until the Moon somehow disappears. Talk about renewable!
Know why it can’t be built? The environmentalists would have a field day! Lawyers would get rich, and nothing would ever get done. Which is just what they want. ‘Cause they just hate people.
It’s that simple.
One problem with using the tides is the corrosive nature of saltwater. It’s tough on maintenance, though there are “surfacing companies” who have some decent though not permanent fixes. Another is “intermittancy.” The tides are predictable as you say, that is, they occur at regular intervals, but that changes relative to the time of day. So the efficiency problem comes into play as the tides will rarely be timed to demand usage. But the main problem with the idea is that turbines work better the more pressure is put through them. Example: The Dalles Dam uses 81 feet of “head” -the term for how much water is above the turbines. Is there anywhere in the world that has tides like that?
So:
The turbines won’t have much head to work with, and thus won’t be used very efficiently.
You’re going to need a lot of turbines and the saltwater is going to be very tough on them creating all sorts of logistical and maintenance problem. Possibly “nontrivial” – which translated means fuggedaboudit!
They won’t be timed to usage.
That’s why we aren’t doing it already. We are not the first people to come up with this idea. It just doesn’t make sense once you hammer out the details.
In addition to the salt water corrision problem you mentioned, there’s other issues such as barnacles and other organisms that will degrade efficiency over time. Just ask ship owners about keeping their hulls clean from barnacles.
IIRC, the Bay of Fundy has the highest tides on Earth, somewhere around a 30 foot difference between high and low tides. They’ve already got a tidal power installation there that has been operating for years. It’d be interesting to know what lessons they’ve learned about harnessing tidal power.
When you mess with the tides, you’re also likely to have some environmental impact on the local area. Nothing is free or without consequence.
LOL. Did you even bother to read your post before you hit the submit key? You call me ignorant, then embrace the exact same theory as mine – except bathed in salt water.
Brilliant.
“The cost of turbines will come down just like the price of HDTV’s came down precipitously as they saturated the marketplace.” The subsidies and misguided policies that require a certain percentage of power to be generated by “renewables” are the only reasons they exist. Without government mandates, the least expensive alternative would rule the market. As long as the government is forcing these giant bird shredders on the people and subsidizing them, market forces cannot act. So the above comment is wrong.
Pffft… Sure, like there has never been an example of that phenomenon before.
I wonder how many of you wind farm proponents have ever spent anytime in the outdoors when you make observations like the commenter does when he states “There are a number of these turbines near where I live. Have you ever walked up to the base of one to find out for yourself what they are like?” I can tell you what the area was like pre-windmill along the stretch north of Lafayette, IN since that is the area where we used to hunt pheasants in years past. Now, with hundreds of windmills in place there is no discernable wildlife presence of any kind. For the city dweller to say that “there was nothing there before” is a display of ignorance, pure and simple. There was much there before in the way of wildlife that you never saw as you sped toward Chicago on I-65 at near 80 mph. Each one of those repulsive windmills represent thousands of cubic yards of concrete poured into the ground that will remain there 10,000 years from now, noise pollution, a complete wipe-out of the fauna, but most importantly to some at least, a tax write-off and a sop to mostly liberal sensibilities and the general public’s ignorance. After all, “there was nothing there before” so now let’s turn thousands of acres into a roaring, wind thumping, wildlife devoid wasteland that is nothing more than a higher altitude strip-mine that has charm and makes me feel so “green”. And think of the tax write-off!
Allow me to add an addendum to my comment above. Here’s a little primer on what you are actually seeing as you speed toward Chicago on I-65 north of Lafayette. Not simply a windmill wasteland but at least two major boondoggles at work. That highly productive corn acreage has yielded a major windfall by way of huge increases in the price of corn caused almost exclusively by another government sponsored fraud. Ethanol production. So now you have you have at least a “threefer”. Enormous increases in the valuation of land, inflated corn prices (reflected in the cost of goods to the consumer), and nice income and tax write-offs via the windmill boondoggle. In that position you’re almost better off than GE’s CEO and Obama pal Jeffery Immelt. (Disclosure: I own acreage in the Michigan natural gas basin. The difference being that natural gas isn’t a fraud and I can hunt deer on my property. That puts me 180 degrees away from the windmill farmer). Oh, those charming windmills on land where there was nothing before.
“The cost of turbines will come down just like the price of HDTV’s came down precipitously as they saturated the marketplace.”
One problem: There aren’t hundreds of millions of people worldwide who want a gigantic windmill in their front yards.
Econ 101. Take it.
Unlike the HDTV you compared, Moore’s Law has very little effect on 400′ steel structures mounted on large concrete pads; or on dam construction either.
Moore’s Law obliquely describes “demassivication,” making stuff smaller and smarter by removing the mass. Using bits instead of atoms. Just shows the inefficiency your taxes can be forced to subsidize.
The volume discount you allude to only applies when you procure large numbers of units over a fixed period. I doubt wind turbines will be bought in quantity 10,000, as are Sharp 50 inchers by Costco, Walmart, et al. I fervently hope not.
Well, until they treat them with creosote or arsenic or some other preservative.
Yeah, I know, the copper-based preservatives turn them green.
That’s about the only ‘green’ thing about them.
Stop this CO2 fraud now. Don’t waste one more second talking about it. CO2 is not having any major affect on the planet period. It is just the trace gas associated with the driving energy force for mankind. Stop all the apocalyptic boogie man crap. The earth has been cooling for the past 15 years. The Ice caps are GROWING not shrinking. The sea level is not rising. Take the trillions wasted worldwide on green scams and lies and use the money to build safe nuke, oil, natural gas and coal energy systems. Stop supporting this scam. Speak up, stop the lies.
I am with you! I wish some politicians could stand up and bang a fist on a podeum with this news! But they always hedge their bets and play it safe with “I think there’s warming, but I don’t think there’s as much man-made warming as some people seem to think.”
Cowards! Scream it! There is no warming! Stop this scam!
Forget about the noise, dead birds, exploding bats and the potential 7-ton projectiles and consider the true economics of wind turbines…
If I need to install a 1000 MW power plant then I can install a conventional 1000 MW power plant or I can install 1000 MW of wind turbines and a 1000 MW conventional power plant. With wind turbines and earth-based solar generating capacity I need 100% standby generating capacity for those days the wind doesn’t blow and the periodic episodes of darkness called “night”. And that standby generating capacity must be idling, ready to ramp-up to full power at a moments notice if the wind dies or cloud cover moves in. So if I’m “environmentally conscious” I build duplicate power plants and waste power as the conventional plants “standby”.
None of that is new. We’ve known for at least 5 years that episodic darkness occurs and that wind patterns are variable. Yet we still spend billions on “Monument to Stupidity” for technology that can never be economically efficient. Wind turbines and earth-based solar are niche applications. They work well in remote locations where access to the power grid is prohibitively expensive. But, as I must duplicate the installed generating capacity and run that standby generating capacity 24/7, they can never be cost effective for large scale power generation.
“If I need to install a 1000 MW power plant then I can install a conventional 1000 MW power plant or I can install 1000 MW of wind turbines and a 1000 MW conventional power plant. With wind turbines and earth-based solar generating capacity I need 100% standby generating capacity”
Bingo. This can’t be stated often or emphatically enough
Unfortunately, the general public is so ignorant about power generation, and brainwashed with green thinking in the schools, that they will only reject wind power and solar power when they suddenly realize they are paying 3x normal market rates for electricity and the voltage spikes and brownouts knock their computers offline.
We were very pro wind until negotiating with various wind companies for turbine placement on farmland. Ultimately it ended up being FPL as the actual power company, not the three or four fronts they employed to secure rights to build. We never did reach a contract, mainly due to their refusal to negotiate in good faith.
A few salient points:
1- The costs of building transmission lines to industrial scale wind farms is substantial, and usually borne by taxpayers via the utility.
2- The turbines on top of these towers are the size of small houses. They make a lot of noise.
3- The access roads are treated with full spectrum herbicides to keep weeds and crops from intruding. That herbicide itself leaches into food crops.
4- There is substantial gearing needing regular replacement of gear lubricants. Power companies have yet to explain that process in detail.
5- The area of soil spoliation around the towers, access roads, and transmission lines is much wider than the tower pads and roads themselves. Power companies are not interested in buying the land spoiled, or compensating for reduced yields. Try putting class A soils back together once subsoil has been mixed.
6- Contract provisions for decommissioning and restoration were deficient.
Renewable energy is good. Industrial scale wind is not the answer. Power companies like it because of it’s high cost barriers that keep energy in the hands of large investment entities. Small scale distributed power accomplishes the same goals with a significantly smaller footprint, and with no need for transmission line upgrades; it actually reduces the need by moving generation to the use location.
The problem with distributed generation is the power companies can’t act as gatekeepers and the big investment groups aren’t needed. In response, power companies have lobbied to sponsor bills limiting the ability of small scale commercial and residential to sell power back to the grid, to profit from distributed power installations.
You hit the nail on the head–distributed power production is Federalist, hence anathema. It decentralizes power, and anything that decentralizes power is BAD. Just ask any Dem or big-gov RINO. For them the flow of power goes only one way: from its natural state of diffusion to a state of concentration. The problem is that people, all people, and every single individual, can never have the capacity to know enough to handle concentration of power. That is why power corrupts, because those who lust for it cannot admit their inadequacy and so surround themselves with illusions, Potemkin village to the max everywhere they turn.
If and when I ever buy another house, I plan on making it as close to self-sufficient as possible. I even came up with a nifty business plan to do that all over the country, but none of the powers that be are interested. After all, what good is it to them to make common folks independent?
No killer argument here. Just the usual, weak, anti-technology stuff. Cell phones cause cancer, power lines cause cancer, oil field drilling kills cattle, I get strange nightmares when the windmills turn.
This article is pretty unimpressive.
Don’t mix this kind of argument, which Luddites and hypochondriacs always raise against any technology, with real economic argument or an argument that gov should stay out of the field.
Put your money where your mouth is: Go buy a house under a windmill in Meredith. Live there a couple years and then tell us just how innocuous it is.
I cordially invite you and everybody else here to take a look at what environmental hazards are in your own neighborhood.
The website scorecard.goodguide.com lists the air and water pollution levels in every Zip code in the U.S. Just enter your Zip Code and get a full report: Who the big polluters in your community are; where they are; and what pollution they’ve put into your air and water.
http://scorecard.goodguide.com/
Believe me, the effect of that stuff dwarfs the noise from windmills.
I used to live next door to Woburn MA, the town made famous by the documentary “A Civil Action.”
The one definite negative about windmills is that they spoil the natural beauty of the countryside. But guess what, just about all large-scale industrial development does. If a town rejects all industrial development, then it will stay a farming community and/or a tourist trap.
Don’t these turbines cost 3.5 MILLION each installed each? Each turbine has substantial down time for high dollar maintenance as well. In some or most cases aren’t the power companies FORCED to buy the power from private suppliers at a higher rate than they sell it for?
Texas is an interesting experiment in the feasibility of wind farms, because outside of the western three counties in the state, Texas is not on the national power grid, meaning that the major wind farms built along Interstates 10 and 20 in the western part of the state are designed strictly for in-state use, making the viability easier to gauge.
As of now, one of the things noted above as a major problem is the transmission lines — you can build the world’s largest wind farm around Sweetwater, but the electricity is needed in Dallas and Austin, and residents there aren’t all that hyped up about having new high voltage lines run through their neighborhoods. So a lot of the windmills may be spinning, but the power isn’t going anywhere.
The other problem that has cropped up is the propellers themselves, and how they affect radar — the U.S. military already is trying to come up with a system that can eliminate the false signals the wind farms generate on radars, since that same wind farm near Sweetwater is causing problems for the screens at the nearby Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene. Put more wind farms closer to urban areas where commercial airports are and see how much support you’ll get from the public when they find out they’re screwing up the air traffic controllers.
The mitigating circumstances of course are the most militant environmentalists already are irked about the windmills due to the bird deaths, and it was fun to watch the Kennedys and the late Walter Cronkite rail about having one of those wonderful green energy farms offshore spoil their pristine view of Martha’s Vineyard. Still not a reason to support abandoning more reliable and cheaper forms of energy for this, but the comedy of seeing the left attack their own creation when it negatively affects them is good for a few cents of subsidies.
That is a problem for the military, but civilian air traffic uses ID transponders on the planes themselves, which, if I understand this correctly, means radar is not how civilian air traffic is controlled. If I’m wrong about that, I welcome correction.
You’re incorrect. Civilian aircraft carry a transponder (Mode C or Mode S) that returns a coded signal when the aircraft is illuminated by a radar. The coded signal is typically a 4 digit octal identification code assigned to the aircraft by air traffic control and an altitude value. If something interferes with the radar signal reaching the aircraft, it will cause problems in tracking the plane.
Got it, thanks. I had thought the transponder amounted to a broadcasted ID signal from each plane that gave its altitude, location and all relevant data (which military jets naturally don’t have, or at least use much, as in hostile situations they prefer to have their presence unnoticed for as long as possible.)
Airliners carry collision avoidance systems called TCAS that do broadcast position information so planes can avoid one another. The next generation air traffic control system (NextGen, naturally) is based on planes broadcasting their GPS derived positions via a system called ADS-B. That system is up and running in parts of the US today and will be fully operational within a few years. It requires planes to update their avionics. By 2010, all planes flying over 10,000 feet above sea level will be required to transmit ADS-B signals. Since I live in Colorado where flying over 10,000 feet is fairly common (we have tall rocks here), I don’t know if I’ll be able to continue to fly. It’ll cost many thousand dollars to upgrade the avionics in my 1967 Cherokee to support ADS-B and that’s money I just don’t have to spare.
Wind turbines should only be in areas where people are none to non-existent. Instead, these people were sold on turbines in their back yards, practically, and now they have to put up with this noise. Perhaps there’s another reason for why the turbine people came their area and sold them on the wonders of being turbine owners. Perhaps these ‘providers’ are trying to drive these people off their land. Perhaps we should call what has happened there by another name: neighborhood-busting.
In other words, put those units in thinly populated Western states and send the electricity to the cities in our hell holes back East. This attitude really pisses off Western Americans. Half of the West is already owned by the Federal Government, thanks to 200 years of these NIMBY policies coming from our little sisters to the East. Maybe the Western states should just secede and leave all of you to your own vices. That would be fun to watch. The point is, once upon a time the East was very thinly populated, but there was respect for private property when it was theirs. You savvy?
The answer my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,
The answer is blowin’ in the wind . . .
“Windfall, which has been praised by the New York Times (“urgent, artfully assembled”), the Huffington Post (“profound”) and other liberal media outlets, is a vital and bracing blast of truth.”
I’m surprised that left-wing publications would like something like “Windfall.” Well, I guess after the Solyndra mess and all of the failed solar power panel companies, it’s starting to look like these “green energy” savings are about as elusive as Bigfoot. These huge windmills will only work on a small basis and it also does NOT work if you have to transport the energy over long distances. And if there is no wind on a few days, that’s not good either. In short, this is a scam. With all this government money sloshing around and handed out like Monopoly money, no wonder so many people want to get into the act. Just shows you that whenever the Government gets involved in the energy business, it usually fails. Leave this to the private market. The private market would never give up on a good idea, especially if it makes money. Seems like our government only invests in uneconomical projects. I’m still waiting for the Chevy Volt to die, and soon.
There’s a company in Oklahoma already preparing the most efficient way to dismantle/sell these units. Got $5 the Government pays for their removal as well
Boone Pickens launched an IPO at $20.00 to build these farms and the last I read it was trading below 1 dollar. And Boone can turn a buck on almost anything
By the way; Boone doesn’t have a single unit on his personal property
Why don’t we see the piles of dead birds/bats on the news ?
How about the giant holes left from mining the aluminum ?
The only real “Green” is the expenditure of our tax dollars to GE – Morgan etc
Carbon Trading ? Goldman Morgan etc ….Hum… I see a pattern here
“Absurdly, the state of New York announced in 2004 a goal that 25 percent of its energy would come from renewable resources by 2013.” Indeed, the *mandate* is the core element of the green energy push. For if by law, X% of energy must be “green”, how does one incentivize what is not market competitive? By two mechanisms: drive up the cost of “conventional” energy or pay more for “green” energy through tax subsidies, loan guarantees, and high-cost tariffs.
I was at a recent conference dealing with “Greentech” innovations. One of the speakers represents a solar company now in its second life. They started in the early 1980s, but eventually went bankrupt because they were competing against oil and natural gas. When they went down in price, they were no longer competitive. Ah, but they’re back, albeit with different vulnerabilities, because today they’re at the mercy of government loan guarantees, mandated “green” quotas, and above-market tariff contracts. Because what it comes down to is that they are NOT COMPETITIVE outside of a rigged market.
The only question should be; “can a wind turbine ever create/produce enough energy to pay for itself”? At the current price of about 0.10-.12 cents per KW,,, that’s not likely. Thus we are looking at a permanent government subsidy. Therefore we are creating a permanent group of government paid employee base to maintain these monstrosities.
It never ends.
There is nothing wrong with coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear and hydro-electric power plants. They are wonderful inventions that make modern life possible. Geez, these 1960 Leftists are dangerous–every damn stupid idea they came up is nonsense and causes disaster.
Every time I drive to Palm Desert from LA I go through the San Gorgonio Pass ‘Windfarm’. And when I do, my blood pressure imitates the notorious Michael Mann hockey stick curve.
These grotesque structures are the quintessence of green stupidity and hypocrisy. You take thousands of acres of beautiful desert landscape and pollute it with giant unnatural structures within daily view of hundreds of thousands of people. And for what ?– a miniscule amount of energy.
But holy crap ! Let’s not destroy ANWR with a drilling set up that will have a tiny fraction of the footprint of any ‘wind farm’ and produce immeasurably more energy and not be an eyesore to anyone (I suspect I would rather see the oil set up in the San Gorgonio Pass than the hideous turbines).
And…have you ever seen one o’ them giant b*stards catch fire?
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B9vQdQSCDfq2MzczODIwZmQtM2M1Ni00N2FkLWEyYmItOWQzZDYwMmQ1Nzll&hl=en_GB
After forty years in energy engineering, a score of nukes, two score fossil fueled power plants and over a decade assessing what is coming, I am certain of a few facts. Wind power will never supply base loaded electricity, due to unsustainable costs. People who try will become poor. I would expand this to all “green” energies. It is the reason they never became killer apps. They all have fatal technical weaknesses. The cheapest way to make electricity, in America, is using coal, and uranium, our plentiful native fuels. The cheapest way to use coal, in general, is to burn it where it comes out of the ground, and run a wire to the load (cities). This was legal in the 1950s; it no longer is. Blame the politicians, lobbyists, and regulators. The last building permit for a nuke was issued 36 years ago. When a profession is idle for 36 years, it does not improve like choice wine. Every engineer; regulator, designer, fabricator, and plant engineer is going to be a green horn. They never built one. And no one knows what they do not know. Stand by for trouble. Our extant grid, when I left grad school, would have been judged scrap iron, due to age. Your computer is powered by machinery built by your grandfathers.
It is my political observation that the reason the NIMBY folks destroyed our grid is a gut hatred of big corporations, ie, I love wind power because I hate GE, or Bechtel. Voters should know that if twisted rubber bands were subsidized by the government, EXXON would create a rubber band division today, Sunday. EXXON does not love oil; it loves money.
There is only one energy subsidy that is ethical, turning nuclear bombs into pruning hooks. Roughly half of the fuel in our nuclear fleet, today, comes from water down USSR bombs. I much prefer this to evaporated US cities; it is money well spent. We subsidized nukes, capped their liability for a disaster, because no one had seen the devil. After the BP well screw up, after the stupidity of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, we now have data points, and capitalists should now carry their own risk. If this occurred, CEOs would be engineers, not politicians, bankers, or lawyers. (Full Disclosure on my part.)
My biggest worry is not green; it is black. A collapsed grid, a five year multi-state black out. I do not know if we have past the point of no return. If it occurs, it means mega deaths. It is a fitting debate topic for our candidates. I do not believe the studies in Washington D. C. issued by men, with manicured nails, who have never walked a power plant, without a gaggle of reporters taking their photo.
So these fine neighborhood residents just assumed that there was no downside to these giant, 24/7-output structures? That’s the kind of uninformed “trust”that elected obama. It’s also what constructs turbine fields (and ethanol plants) and it’s what is sending this country swirling around the drain.
Those whose agenda depends on deception will always find folks willing to be deceived. The folks who were so willing to be deceived are as responsible as the deceivers whether you’re talking about turbines, ethanol or former republics.
“Government provides huge subsidies to wind production…”
You got that right.
Just look at the actual statistics. Every year, thousands of people drown in swimming pools or streams or lakes. Literally hundreds of thousands over a several year period worldwide. You’re far, far safer with a nuclear reactor in your town than a community swimming pool. Do people write hysterical articles on why swimming pools need to be eradicated because they’re too dangerous?
How about bicycles? Hundreds are killed and tens of thousands injured every year in the USA alone. Should bicycling be outlawed because is just too dangerous? Is a bicycle a deadly technology?
Over 45,000 (forty-five thousand!!) people are killed in the USA every in automobile collisions. Are the papers filled with articles saying we need outlaw automobiles and close all roads and highways because driving is too dangerous for us to continue doing it? No, of course not. The benefits of transportation far outweigh its costs to society.
Number of people killed in the last 50 years from nuclear power plant accidents in the USA? None. Carbon emissions? None.
Nuclear power is the safest, most environmentally benign power technology ever invented.
Using copious amounts of ratepayer money, Bayonne’s MUA will be installing one of these abominations. Try to convince people with facts that wind power is bad? Good luck… you will be accused of being in the pocket of ‘big oil’ or worse.
“Hell is like Newark, without the nice people”.
“When on tries to speak reason to a fool, they are called foolish.” And that’s what h-i-l-n is saying, I think. Problem is, again, the fruit-loop left has never grown up and sticks their fingers in their ears and yells at the top of their lungs, “I can’thearyouIcan’thearyou!” or…several of them get together and claim that the one speaking reason “isn’t very cool, is he?”
It’s really as if the whole nation has gone totally sophomoric. From all the bobbleheads on network news to whoever writes the garbage in the NY Slimes and all the rest. The immature, undeveloped minds, many of them academics and professors and “thinkers” espouse the most childish of attitudes and insults toward genuine logic, statistics and reason. They are overly emotional, angry, spoiled, and convinced they are right. You cannot win any argument with them.
just a note to the author: the weight of the blades is meaningless.
Unless the blade cracks and goes flying off.
http://www.windaction.org/news/c48/, see item #3 at http://www.windaction.org/news/34243
Until you take in account the mechanics of the shaft. Wind turbines, when they get big enough have to have their shafts treated like those on huge super-tankers. The shafts have to rotate 24/7 to prevent them from warping.
So when the wind isn’t blowing, the induction generator becomes and induction motor. Add that to dehumidifiers, heaters for the blades (to keep ice from building up) and the turbine could end up pulling more energy from the grid than it delivers.
“Moreover, due to the intermittent nature of wind energy, nearby fossil-fuel power plants still have to be kept running in order to cover for the down times” Not entirely true. The electrical power industry is working on high-capacity energy storage systems that can store power from wind and solar generating systems for production-minimum use. See the January issue of “IEEE Proceedings” (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/tocresult.jsp?isnumber=6132586) for more information. It’s a non-trivial problem, and – of course – if you want to provide 24/7 power just from wind/solar/tidal power (tidal turbines are just now coming online) you have to have a LOT of them in order to meet the total demand.
This may, in fact, be part of the problem. U.S. and European engineers have gotten so good at coming up with solutions that the politicians can make the most ridiculous demands with the expectation that we’ll eventually haul their butts out of the fire. But they don’t realize that some problems are not amenable to engineering solutions, but have to be solved at the source.
Corporatism Is Not Capitalism: 7 Things About The Monolithic Predator Corporations That Dominate Our Economy That Every American Should Know
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/corporatism-is-not-capitalism-7-things-about-the-monolithic-predator-corporations-that-dominate-our-economy-that-every-american-should-know
“Wall Street” is part of the Left. It has been bought and paid for by Washington D.C. Please, it is no “surprise” that Wall Street has bellied up to another government trough.
Wind and solar power are worthless for large scale power generation. Changes in weather patterns and nightfall are problems that CANNOT be overcome and the “energy density” of these power sources is lousy which makes them uneconomical.
Our options are burning carbon (Coal, Oil, Natural Gas) or atoms (Nuclear).
As for Chernobyl, 3 Mile Island and Fukushima. Chernobyl was based on a mid 1950′s reactor design and 3 Mile Island/Fukushima were based on mid 1960′s reactor designs.
It is now 2012, nuclear power plants based on modern designs(late 1990′s onwards) are meltdown proof.
BTW: 3 Mile Island has been running continuously since the early 1970′s, it has not melted down let. The average age of nuclear reactors in the US is around the mid 40′s and we have NOT seen mushroom clouds darkening the skies.
It’s time to use “reality” as a basis of powering the United States as we are all out of rainbow shitting unicorns.
To augment the above excellent comments, in general, there are five basic things to consider about any potential alternative energy source:
1. It has to be huge (in terms of both energy and power) – or scalable up to the level of present demand. There are some things that provide a good amount of power at one scale, but they cannot be scaled up to the level needed.
2. It has to be reliable (not intermittent or unschedulable) – or you need to be able to explain exactly how getting around that will not fail the other tests, esp. #5.
3. It has to be concentrated (not diffuse) – and thus easy to harness / collect or you end up expending more energy than you can afford collecting it.
4. It has to be possible to utilize it efficiently – otherwise you’re going to lose a lot of power before it gets to the end user. With every step you add, like for example battery storage, you will lose a lot of power – a la the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
5. The capital investment and operating cost to utilize it has to be comparable to existing energy sources. I would say it cannot be more than three times as expensive *once the all-in cost has been assessed*. All-in cost is important because a boondoggle succeeds only by hiding the real cost.
If the potential source cannot pass all five, then it’s problematic at best, non-trivial at worst.
HI Everyone. I’ve read through most of the great comments, and I could have missed it, but I didn’t see one comment about an ROI for a windmill.
So I ask all of you knowledgeable people to point me to “What is the Return On Investment of a Wind Mill, or Wind Mill Farm”?
I know how to search and have never found one anyplace. You don’t do a project if the ROI is not known. The only ROI has to be in tax rebates and government[liberal give away]rebates and such.
Point me to one would you please, I would feel so much better if the ROI is great, I mean like it is for an ethanol plant!, I’m only kidding without government funds it doesn’t work!
Thanks
“Larry J: In addition to the salt water corrosion problem you mentioned, there’s other issues such as barnacles and other organisms that will degrade efficiency over time. Just ask ship owners about keeping their hulls clean from barnacles.”
Langehbahn: Ah, yes, I’d forgotten about that.
“LJ: IIRC, the Bay of Fundy has the highest tides on Earth, somewhere around a 30 foot difference between high and low tides. They’ve already got a tidal power installation there that has been operating for years. It’d be interesting to know what lessons they’ve learned about harnessing tidal power.”
LG: Indeed. Ungava Bay to the north of Fundy also has tides that high, but the weather makes that a very difficult place to try. In very specific places, the Bay of Fundy has had highs in the 55 foot range, and a record around 70. That latter was a highly singular situation though. And that’s pretty much the point. It’s just too intermittent, especially compared to the constant feet of head at a powersite dam. I too would like to know what they’ve learned. My guess is, if it worked really well at a commercial level, we’d see more of it.
I did a little poking around the net and various countries, especially in light of recent advances, are going to give commercial scale tidal power a try. Let’s let them do the scud work and see how it goes. If it works we can always copy it.
“LJ: When you mess with the tides, you’re also likely to have some environmental impact on the local area. Nothing is free or without consequence.”
LG: As Mister Sowell has so concisely pointed out, there are no solutions; only trade-offs. We make those kinds of trade-offs every day.
LG: As Mister Sowell has so concisely pointed out, there are no solutions; only trade-offs. We make those kinds of trade-offs every day.
We as rational people make these decisions every day. However, the enviromental impact process isn’t rational. Do you remember the SuperFund projects where billions were allocated to clean up the nation’s worst toxic waste dumps? I recall reading that over 80% of the money ended up going to lawyers. The environmental lobby is a racket that should be prosecuted under the RICO statutes. Even making a simple decision can be dragged out for years once the enviromental lawyers get involved. Frequently, a sizeable “donation” can make th complaints go away. How is that any different from the old mob insurance racket? “Nice business you have here. It’d be a shame if anything bad happened to it.”
“Windfall, which has been praised by the New York Times (“urgent, artfully assembled”), the Huffington Post (“profound”) and other liberal media outlets, is a vital and bracing blast of truth.”
Don’t get too exicited when you read that the reviews by the NYT, Huffo, and other liberal media are skepitical. Their reviews lay the blame for this debacle on “capitalist greed” and not a glove on the government subsidies and government promotion and crony capitalism. Read their reviews. If you think that even liberals are seeing that this is a boondoggle, forget it. They are simply, and as usual, turning a negative into a positive for their liberal anti-capitalist views.
Unfortunately, like most documentaries, Windfall does tend to exaggerate some issues with wind turbines to make their point. Yes, wind energy power delivery is intermittent. Yes, commercial wind energy currently costs more than coal energy. But while large wind turbines can be noisy, they are not normally put up close to residential areas. And regarding their cost-of-energy, utility scale wind turbine designs are currently improving at a very rapid rate each year. The newest utility scale on-shore wind turbine designs can produce power at an unsubsidized rate below natural gas in some areas of the US.
At the rate wind turbine technology is progressing, it should be cost competitive with traditional sources within a decade. However, wind energy won’t be able to replace traditional sources until a practical, large scale, cost effective method is devised for storing electricity.
While green energy sources like solar are far too costly, and will likely remain so for a long time, wind energy might actually be practical in a few years. Hopefully without any subsidies.
T’won’t.
I think you have way too much hope for it. It’s a propeller attached to a generator. How much more advancement can be squeezed out of that combo? If you can devise a better generator, attach it to a nuclear plant or something else that gets more bang for the buck.
Any “advancement” is merely a matter of taking up more land with more of these dreadful things.
AAAH – SAY THERE FRIENDS —Beukendaal Mason LERTS TAKE THESE IN ORDER.
But the people affected by the—————
Three Mile Island leak, A SMALL AMOUNT OF RADIOACTIVE GAS EMITTED-A MUCH MUCH BIGGER FART BLAST LET GO BY THE DUMB MEDIA AND THEIR EVER PRESENT HELPERS!
The Chernobyl meltdown, COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND, RUSSIAN TECHNICIANS AND SCIENTISTS ENGAGED IN NON AUTHORIZED AND NON APPROVED PROTOCOL TEST!
ALSO IN A FOREIGN LAND NOT GIVEN TO CAUTIOUS EXAMINATION OF ALL ASPECTS OF CUTTING EDGE SCIENCE, TO SAY NOTHING OF THE VARIOUS WARNING GIVEN ON AND OFF THE RECOND PRIOR TO THE PLANTS CONSTRUCTION- SO — how many monkeys with two sticks of dynamite Zippos! until -well you get the picture.
Now my favorite The Fukushima disaster, race amounts of radiation, including iodine-131 and caesium-134/137, around the world, please folks lets understand first the Physics guys and gals understand this really well.
The media and folks with agendas do not care to understand it. No danger to folks in the U.S. from the Fukushima mess This is an old American General Electric Design was kept on line for economic purposes beyonds its life span. WHY WAS IT STILL OPERATING you ask or you should ask! -major reason— because the arrogant idiots the so called “INTELLIGENTSIA” they THINK THEY KNOW BEST-IN JAPAN ALSO! –WE FOLKS IN THE “OIL BIZNEZZ” KNOW FULL WELL WHAT THE INTELLIGENTSIA WANTS –They say guys” go drill in 5 thousand feet of water because we don’t want our beaches spoiled OR they will not allow further exploration along coastal waters — WHERE FOLKS HOPEFULLY YOU REALIZE ITS MUCH EASIER TO FIX A PROBLEM IN 500, OR 1500 FEEL As opposed to 5000 ft.
AND WHILE YOUR SNIPING AT THE NUKE FOLKS, REMEMBER A 1 MEGAWATT COAL FIRED PLANT CAN PUt OUT AS MUCH AS 85 TONS OF FLY ASH PER DAY. WHATS IN FLY ASH YOU ASK – OK HERES YOUR SIGN—-arsenic, beryllium, boron, cadmium, chromium, chromium VI, cobalt, lead, manganese, mercury, molybdenum, selenium, strontium, thallium, and vanadium, along with dioxins and PAH compounds. COAL PLANTS ARE MUCH BETTER NOW THAN IN THE 60-80 BUT ITS STILL A PROBLEM. SO NAME YOUR POISON OR FREEZ IN THE DARK, STAY IN YOUR HOUSE AND PUT THE COVERS OVER YOUR HEAD-AND PRAY, 00PS NO WAIT YORU LIBERALS- SO “THE END IS NEAR”
CHECK YOUR “6″
Calling wind turbines “windmills” is like calling the Democratic Party the “Democrat Party”. It is just sort of silly and adolescent. A “windmill” is used directly for milling or pumping, a wind turbine generates power. Not that much power, but that’s another story…!
And you store your plates and bowls in a cupboard, which is “a place for the boarding of cups.” We call a commode a “toilet,” which is also incorrect. Go figure. It’s called the evolution of language. Get used to it, because it’s everywhere.
In fact, you used the word “silly,” which didn’t originally mean “ridiculous”; it meant “rustic.” To use it as a synonym for “stupid” was an elitist city dweller’s slam against country folk. (Same for the word “rude.”) I’m rather fond of this sort of thing. By the way, “fond” originally meant “dimwitted,” and evolved into a description of being in love, for obvious reasons.
A “mill” can be a thing for grinding grain, but it was also used to describe a factory for the manufacture of textiles. Then it grew to mean “an apparatus for shaping materials or performing various mechanical duties.”
So, actually, yeah, a “wind turbine” IS a “windmill.”
Yeah, if it were not for all the money pissed away doing “earth sciences” by NASA and combating climate change we could be on mars by now, or at least the moon, building that shovel ready infrastructure into the solar system, the New Frontier. Ah well, Camelot’s over, JFK was a pantry raiding sex fiend, and the New Left hated him anyway, except when they could pimp him to get the Great Society going.
For the record, since there seems to be a dearth of real knowledge on this subject… the only turbines capable of being used in populated areas are the type at http://www.aerotecture.com
Small vertical axis turbines that have a limiting speed that is visible to birds and does not have the noise.. it is just proof that the public, here included, are thoroughly ignorant and have no logic skills. Why not ask WHY THOSE PEOPLE DID SUCH A STUPID THING AS TO AUTHORIZE THE MONSTROSITIES.
As for deaths from radiation, the research on death rates in areas where the radiation has reached have shown rather amazing peaks, about 14,000 unexpected deaths of newborns and prematures after Fukushima. And we have just begun to learn where to look.
As for winds’ fickleness, gee, I guess you never thought about the idea that maybe the wind turbine is only half the solution.. another one of those public school engineering blindspots. There are several ways to create suitable BATTERIES for capturing the energy from the turbines, including pumping water up to a reservoir, and other methods.
Unbelievable that the people who supposedly did the research on the stupid movie never woke up to the real story.
Re: 14,000 deaths
Drs. Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman, writing in the International Journal of Health Services, proposed that there were 14,000 “excess” deaths in the U.S. following the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, due to the release of a plume of radioisotopes over 5000 miles away. This theory is preposterous on so many levels that I don’t know where to start.
The “study” found that during the 14 weeks following the accident, death rates in 104 U.S. cities were about 2 percent higher than those for the 14 weeks before the accident, constituting about 3,300 “extra” deaths. Applied to the entire country, this number rose to 14,000. Right away this smelled fishy. But that didn’t stop Mangano, as quoted in MedPage Today, from concluding that the finding is “a clarion call for more extensive research.” No it’s not—it’s a clarion call for some common sense.
The only two (barely) conceivable ways that such a plume could kill anyone are cancer or radiation poisoning. Cancer can be ruled out immediately, since there is no way it could even begin to develop in such a short period of time, let alone kill anyone. Cancers take years, or even decades, to grow—not weeks. And, almost all of the radioactive material released was iodine-131, associated with thyroid cancer, which is one of the slowest growing and least deadly cancers.
I live in the middle of wind turbine country. The big developments send power to the grid that supplies the Los Angeles area, more than 100 miles to the south. I am so tired of hearing from my urban friends that the 500-foot-high industrial power plants are “for the greater good” or hear them snort “NIMBY.” They are clueless. The environmental impact of the wind and solar developments is enormous (the Sierra Club finally woke up — still proclaiming how much they love renewable energy — and is suing one development because of the danger to birds. Humans don’t factor into the California Environmental Quality Act — CEQA).
I have seen the carpetbaggers and the sharks and the out-of-state, out-of-country investors who have jumped on the government subsidy bandwagon. I have seen rugged rural people in mountain communities walked all over and torn apart by turbine development. The public land (Bureau of Land Management) that was public for hunting and hiking and camping is now fenced off.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, in order to fulfill the state mandate to provide 33 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2020, is raping the Kern County mountains just like they killed Owens Valley in 1913.
The city of Vernon bought 30,000 acres of pristine mountains so they could carve it up with roads and turbines.
Here’s the kicker: the utilities and cities just have to install the POTENTIAL renewable energy, the potential from running a wind turbine 24/7. It doesn’t matter if the blades never turn. The utility or city has fulfilled its marching orders from the state of California to install the turbines. The industrial city of Vernon had to promise to build a huge wind farm so they could expand their gas-fired plant. They don’t need wind and they probably don’t want it.
Our electric bills are going through the roof and the companies have come up with a million ways for us to cut down on usage. People are actually suffering because they can’t afford heat.
We are not a nation of scarcity.
Please send a politician who will be brave enough to fight for abundant and cheap energy. No wonder so many young people are depressed. They are told there’s not enough of anything and that they are just messing up the planet.
I have stood under the wind mills in the old east germany. . . they are interesting sights to behold. The people here need to contact the Germans and find out just how much energy is actually generated by wind. I know it takes a long time to break even on the investment. . IF THE WIND BLOWS. . or not. The last thing ON GLOBAL WARMING. . we have had no global warming in the last 10 years. . now the fear is global cooling and how are we going to get enough energy to keep warm if we go through a solar cycle like in the 1600s when the canals in Holland froze over thick enough to skate. . and no one is talking about the shifting of magnetic north. . now moving at the rate of 40 miles a year in the direction of Siberia. . . what kind of spin can FAT ALBERT put on that phenomenon? . .and how much taxes will fix that. . Talk more to God who made the earth instead of the earthgod. . pagan gia
Wake up people!!! Nuclear power is clean, efficient, and cost effective. Wind power is unsightly, noisy, and takes 20 to 25 years to ever think about recouping any money from it. The only reason …. I say again .. the only reason we have not taken the nuclear road is “COAL”!!! It’s “BIG” business and the lobby hard for the use of it. Europe has had an energy crisis since the 70’s. They have tried everything from wind, geothermal, to solar. Nothing produces the energy needed at the cost effective rate that nuclear power does. “THAT’S WHY THEY WENT TO IT” ! Wind and solar power is just a gimmick so that big Gov’t contracts can be awarded and politicians can get their hands on your tax dollars !! Oh yeah ! Back in the seventies and eighties when they halted all of the nuclear power plants here in the U.S. …….. the newly appointed Secretary of Energy at that time was a “former” CEO and owner of four coal mines! Think about it !!! Wind power …. What a concept !!! We are not even close yet !!!