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If, as Illiberals outside and inside /. are explaining, the government must not only declare various facilities — like monuments and parks — closed, but actively enforce the closures of not just the federal facilities themselves, but also of anything remotely connected (such as private motels and other concessions located on Federal land), why should any facility, that is required to be actively supervised by Federal employees remain open?

And I don't mean just the power plants — no meat should be sold, because Department of Agriculture can't inspect it, for example...

Do I want it to happen? No... But, for me to accept the infamous closures of parks and memorials (which always remained open during all previous shutdowns) as anything other than capricious, it must happen.

It has already become quite noticeable around where I live.

http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100316/NEWS/3160306

1) Apparently you failed to comprehend that Bluefin tuna is the type most commonly used in sushi/sashimi. That, by its very definition, means that yes, most people obviously are willing to pay for it

2) $300/lbs? What? Where the fuck did you make up that bullshit from? Here's a 60 minutes article from just over a year ago.:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/11/60minutes/main3700644.shtml

In that article, a guy whose "family has been bidding on top quality bluefin for seven generations" bought a "450 pounder for $8,500". Thats only $20 a pound (minus whatever inedible parts there are), which is only a bit higher than a good steak. And that's only for a "top quality" bluefin.

And remember, even with a high price, sushi/sashimi is often an indulgence food, and it is usually sold in very small portions. If you put an ounce of bluefin on it (which is probably around a typical portion) and then charge $5 for it (not a ridiculous price in that market), that's $80 from a $20 pound of the tuna (plus a small cost for the other ingredients) which is a pretty respectable markup.

Again, that was high end bluefin. Looking at average bluefin, here's an article from last week quoting bluefin at $6-9/lb

http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091112/NEWS/911120322/-1/NEWSMAP

The Cape Cod case is a classic example of rich people adopting an "environmental" try to justify opposition that's almost solely based on the dropping of their property values. It's almost always groups created solely to oppose a particular wind farm, whose members are almost exclusively wealthy property owners.

Seriously, read your own article. Kennedy (a wealthy landowner whose the spokeman of the "environmental" group founded specifically to stop the wind farm, "Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound", because he's one of the only people in the group with any sort of green cred. Yet, as the article notes, he's constantly being protested by real environmentalist groups and famous environmentalists. Greenpeace, 150 environmental advocates -- including global-warming authors and activists Bill McKibben and Ross Gelbspan, Bluewater Network founder Russell Long, and youth leader Billy Parish, and so on. I mean, check out this para:

"Signers of the letter also included "Death of Environmentalism" authors Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, who made the quarrel far more personal -- and nasty -- in an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle last month. They called on Kennedy to step down from his position at NRDC, and took a swipe at his famous family by criticizing "the privileged patricians of a generation for whom building mansions by the sea was indistinguishable from advocating for the preservation of national parks or big game hunting in the wilds of Africa."

The article notes that there are a "handful" of local and state groups who "have raised concerns", but "a number of major national environmental groups have been supportive". And when you start investigating, you find that this is exactly the case. In fact, the situation is even more biased in favor of Cape Wind than they make it sound. Let's look at the named groups. The Massachusetts Audobon Society is now supporting Cape Wind. The Humane Society's stance "call(s) on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Cape
Wind Associates to act responsibly by ensuring that possible environmental and wildlife impacts are adequately
addressed through the Environmental Impact Statement process. At the same time, we affirm that wind power is
an important source of renewable energy that will contribute increasingly to the production of energy in the
United States and therefore has the potential to significantly reduce carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen
oxide emissions, which are harmful to both human health and the environment." The last group they mentioned, the Humane Society, says, "The HSUS is also a vocal advocate for using the information garnered through this process to choose sites carefully to minimize harm to wildlife. This proactive approach would have minimized the controversy over Cape Wind's proposal, and it can still ensure that future sites are selected with an eye toward gaining the most energy with the smallest cost possible to wild animals and their habitats. We want wind energyand we owe it to our wild neighbors to make sure it's done right."

The environment is how the opponents sell the case, and it's really transparent. Example: a local regulatory commission blocked them/A> from running the cables from the turbines near a patch of eel grass. All of this panic about how they were going to destroy the ecosystem on this thin stretch of sea bottom by just going at the closest 70 feet away. Meanwhile, they didn't raise a squeak just a couple years earlier when a coal plant ran cables right *through* a big patch of the same e

Wind farm foe cites risk to radar

It doesn't matter who you elect anymore. I'm almost begging Osama bin Ladin to attack the U.S. again, but suspect he's just as bad. The media lies to us. I'd move to a different country, but the U.S. cripples people like me to make that impossible, not to mention the logistics of getting real information on other countries. You think China censors information? The thing is that the U.S. pulls the wool over people's eyes so that they think that it doesn't. http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/webreporterzx s11.htm http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22a+partisan +question

It seems that some of the biggest obstacles to these alternatives are political. The proposed wind farm in Nantucket Sound, for instance, has to deal with powerful senators who have waterfront property on Nantucket Island.

Well, if Kerry can't be trusted (Jun 2003) to promote renewable energy, how can we trust him to promote anything nuclear? No, wait a second, this year (Apr 2004) he's conditionally going to wait it out on the results of an environmental report... on a windfarm ... no pollutants, no fuel burning, possible bird hazard...

Honestly, how can we predict how he's going to act? If he wants to wait it out on a windfarm of all things, the odds are he's not promoting anything nuclear based...

Whenever anyone raises the idea of solving US energy problems with nuclear power, I just point out the amount of resistance that wind gets. Whatever the (non-economic) negatives of wind power are, they are less than those of nuclear. yet look at the amount of resistance that any proposal generates.

My take is that we have a lot of people who do not want to solve problems, they want to be problems.

Got curious and browsed that images (images directory. Some odd stuff, but there's also a small map showing (at least vaguely) the intended journey.

Got curious and browsed that images (images directory. Some odd stuff, but there's also a small map showing (at least vaguely) the intended journey.

In other words, 6% of the contiguous US land area would have to be covered with windmill farms.

I'm don't claim to be an expert, but that's what it sounds like. Here's a reference within the paper itself that references the 6% figure again:

The amount of windy land available for power class 4 and above is approximately 460,000 square kilometers, or about 6% of the total land area in the contiguous United States. The potential average power from areas with class 4 and higher, which are suitable for development with advanced wind turbine technology, is estimated at 500,000 MW.

(The sizing assumptions fromt he study: 50-m hub height, 10 D x 5 D spacing, 25% efficiency, and 25% power losses.)

Another interesting figure:

Figure 4 shows the contribution that the wind energy of each state could make to meet the total electrical needs of the nation, assuming a moderate land exclusion scenario. North Dakota alone has enough potential energy from windy areas of class 4 and higher to supply 36% of the total 1990 electricity consumption of the 48 contiguous states.

How much does each windmill cost? (I don't know.) How much would a million of them cost?

The AWEA document includes basic information on cost. One of the charts tables shows a 1.65mW rated 71m diameter turbine to cost $1.3M in 2000. They give a capital cost estimate of building a class 4 50MW wind farm at about $1M/MW, with an annual power production (assuming 35% capacity factor) of 150M kWh.

Here's a 2001 study of Comparative Cost Of Wind And Other Energy Sources [PDF]. Citing a table from the California Energy Commission's 1996 Energy Technology Status Report (CEC calculations do not include subsidies or environmental costs), Wind is about even w/ coal (4.0-6.0c/kWh) and *much* cheaper than nuclear (not sure why the CEC's number differs so much from those floated by the Uranium Information Centre). Once externalities [PDF] are figured in of course, wind power is much cheaper than coal.

What would be the effect of taking that much energy out of wind patterns? Would rainfall in the region be affected? Regional temperatures? Flowering plant pollination rates?

I agree, the most common environmental problems seem to those affecting birds and aesthetic, etc. While I don't think that larger climactic changes are a significant concern at the scales we're talking about, it would be nice to see some numbers/empirical research. I haven't, however seen any such portential issues cited it anywhere, from the ANL's Wind EIS's concerns, the UCS, or any of the various reports I've read (I've done searching on Google and Citeseer), which you might expect to see if there were problems. What I have seen shows local net-positive effects in wildlife from reduced emissions in states implementing large-scale wind power. It might be worth doing more research on how Denmark is doing (they're at over 10%+ of their power being generated vy windmills, and aiming for 40-50% by 2030).

I haven't done enough research to actually nail down the numbers of whether it would be able to completely replace coal, but from the research I've done, wind power is actually something that is pretty close to viable in the US (unlike solar) and certainly very viable in other countries.

Of course getting rid of burning coal is great, but our oil consumption problem is really a totally different can of worms (w/ about 45% of the 20.0MMBD last year being gasoline).

It begs the question of what else could have been done with the same money

The "tresspasser" was acquitted though

'The real crime is that Massachusetts residents have been robbed of their rights to the coast. Our rights of access to beaches have been sold off to the highest bidders," he said. "I was just a guy who went for a walk and ended up in court. It can happen to anybody."'

I *wish* this were true ... here is Massachuttes (also applies in Maine, possibly CT and RI) people can own property down to the *low* water mark. This means that you can be ordered off a "private" beach.

Jim Belushi did exactly this at his Martha's Vineyard home