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A Mighty Wind
DoraLives writes "Fascinating New York Times piece regarding a proposed wind farm for Nantucket Sound. Suddenly, all the environmentally friendly locals are going ballistic over the prospects of seeing an 'industrial energy complex' in their backyard. Walter Cronkite decries it, as do many other local checkbook environmentalists. Greenpeace says 'Jim Gordon (the developer) is the real thing, there aren't many entrepreneurs out there willing to take risks to clean up the environment.' Who's right?"
This is just unbeleivable! Nantucket island is filled with greener than thou environmentalists.
Apparently, windfarms are only acceptable in places where they don't offend the rich and the green. The middle of the dessert or the middle of a farmer's field is ok... but ruining they're prestine ocean view? Unacceptable! That ruins the environment for.... umm.... seabirds... thats it, it kills seabirds.
This is rediculous, those people make me sick.
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
...who thinks these windmills look cool? A similar controversy is taking place near where I live (except not in the water), and I don't see the problem. I wouldn't mind having one of these in my yard. Plus I could mount my DirecTV dish on top of it for great reception. :-)
I live in the midwest, where it's really flat and windy pretty much all the time. I bet wind power would really take off here,
It's the "Not In My Back Yard" syndrome. Everyone thinks these ideas are great... as long as it's not where they live. If you want the benefits though, someone has to live with the negatives.
So, I've actually wondered why we don't just build a huge nucelar power complex in Nevada someplace on land already owned by the federal government and then ship that power nationwide. All of the nuclear waste could be shipped fairly locally on (again) federally owned and operated land, the environmental impacts would be minimal (relatively), the federal government could sell the power and thus balance out this huge $44Trillion debt that is going to bite us in the ass in the next few years especially with these tax cuts, and we could stimulate the economy. No more wind farms crowding the views of hill tops and no more coal burning power plants that put out significant radiation into the atmosphere, no more dams to block up water ways and impede fish migration etc...etc...etc....
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Negatives? Windfarms are, in my experience, very beautiful, quiet, aesthetically pleasing things.
You are talking about some of the richest, most pompous, uptight, annoying people in the world. If you put a poster in your window, that doesn't conform to what they think you should have, you get dragged before the local council, and possibly fined. It's stupid.
As is, Nantucket is one of the most expensive areas to live in. Everything is brough over by ferry: gas, oil, food, everything. It's a place to have a home for Trophy purposes only.
That said, BUILD IT. That's a LOT of power for an area that needs it. And, i'd say build twice that. Hey, i'd live by one of those mills. They look cool, are safe, and are environmentally friendly.
I have a friend who is an attorney who had been litigating a case down there. A person bought an empty lot, and one of the neighbors been fighting in court to prevent him from building the house because it interfered with his view of the beach.
If the person was really concerned about the view of the beach, he could have bought the lot.
Fight Spammers!
Someone proposed (sorry, don't remember who) that there should be an energy discount for people living near power plants. The further away you live, the more you pay for you electricity. Seems reasonable.
On a side note, I drive past the Livermore windmills every day. I think they're pretty cool. I refer to the area as the "propeller farm".
-- Will program for bandwidth
Just put a nuclear power plant there instead. That should make them satisfied.
If it doesn't, say, hey, what's the problem? It isn't blocking your precious view...
The "renewable" energy sources such as Wind, Solar, and Geothermal energy don't have a lot of chance of being particularly useful. However, if they're going to be useful at ALL, people have to recognize that they're only going to be useful in *very specific places*. If "renewable" energy is to go anywhere at all, we need to recognize the places where they can run continuously and effectively, and install them there, *no* exceptions. Installing a bunch of wind farms in Houston isn't going to power anything. Installing a bunch of wind farms in a constant high-wind area like an island like Nantucket Sound could potentially power a decent area larger than Nantucket. If we don't recognize these choice spots for renewable energy and take advantage of *all* of them, and only pick and choose well, where would be convenient for the locals, Wind power is going to continue to be NOTHING more than a gimmick.
-super ugly ultraman
More efficient omnidirectional prototypes were tested in the 1980's but they were banned because they tended to attract and kill birds.
Ok, theres an obvious solution to this... build a damn mesh cage around the propeller blades.
I guess this is too much of a duh solution for people to accept though, without getting a five million grant from the government to "study" it.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
They're going to use public land (term used loosely, as it's actually water covered land) for a private, for-profit organization. Either a government venture (which I'm not that interested in), or a non-profit organization would be better suited for using public land.
The NIMBY factor is obviously huge here. The part of the article that really stated everything right on the nose was on the last page (did you get there? I did)
To them, the national illusion that you can have electricity, clean air, a stable climate and independence from foreign oil without paying a steep price is ludicrous.
Where "them" are the local residents screaming NIMBY!
There's another great example discussing a local oil tanker that leaked oil into the sound. It basically did far more damage than any wind farm could ever do.
Many of the complaints are rediculous.. The oil lubrication oil will leak from the wind mills and pollute the sound. Birds will die. Arguments that just aren't thought through.
Personally, I'm with some other people here that say windmills aren't particularly ugly, and to me it's like coffee or beer. I didn't like the taste of either initially, but once I realized what they did, they became much more pallitable. Even if I don't really like looking at a siteline spattered with windmills, I know that they're creating electricity in an environmentally friendly way.. and that makes them much more acceptable to me.
Do we really want 'em running the country? Yes, if the alternative is the current administration. In case you hadn't noticed, the world is getting smaller. We're going to have to learn to live with the rest of that world.
I'm not exactly a liberal (more all over the place, issue to issue), but I'll defend them against some really bewildering claims. Your rant, point by point:
Saving nature - I'll have to disagree with you and say this is a good thing.
Stopping business - absurd. I thought the 8 years before Bush were going pretty damn well.
Building big government - again, absurd. Bush is building big government - and huge deficits. He's setting the all-time deficit record, beating the high water mark set by his father.
Clean energy - lots of people pay extra for environmentally friendly products and services. If some of them are arguing against a certain project, they may still be better than the environmentally unconscious.
Women's rights - not sure what you're getting at there. Care to expound on that claim?
Freedom of choice - good for them, representing the majority of their constituency instead of caving to a vocal minority.
School vouchers - I'm for school vouchers. Are liberals (democrats?) against them?
Do we really care what they have to say about anything? - Sure do. The thought of a country run by the old guard of the GOP without anyone even trying to keep them honest is a frightening thought.
GO FUCK YOURSELVES.
Sincerely,
The rational libertarian, moderate and liberal people of the United States who want to see clean, cheap energy so as to save our environment and power our lives at the same time
We have the same people living here in SoCal - who don't want to widen freeways - or build rail systems for that matter, and prevent all forms of growth. They would rather increase the pollution by having cars running in their least-efficent mode (stop and go traffic) instead of them zipping around at 60 MPH (when cars are by far the most efficient).
Here in Los Angeles, the number of hybrids are growing exponentially, with next year's hybrid SUVs on the way (Ford Escape Hybrid), Near-Zero Emmission Vehicles (NZEV's) like the Prius, the Insight, and Escape are going to be the rage of Los Angeles. SoCal car dealers cant keep hybrids in stock here!
We are the largest buyers of NZEV's and with increasing numbers of NZEV's, freeways are the cheapest, least-polluting form of transportation. Rail systems cost far more to build, upkeep and power (central power plants). NZEV's lose near zero energy in transportation (unlike electricity), and they do not require polluting central-plants to produce electricity, they simply use the jouels in gasoline extremely efficiently, and easily can be converted to hydrogen thereafter (hydrogen burning ICE + electrcity storage may be cheapest, most effective means of vehicle power instead of fuel cells which are very expensive to make and power)
The same NIMBY's are crushing the addition of an Orange County airport which would take the load off of LAX, which is 60 miles from Orange County - causeing all those people to DRIVE their cars (read: clog the freeways), and increase current poolution and congestion - not to mention watsting about 2 hours every time you want to fly out of SoCal.
I swear, i just want to put you fscking NIBMY's on a boat and sink the ship sometimes. YOU ALL SUCK!
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
The bird issue is a standard one brought up by anti-wind people. In at least one instance, a study proved that the turbines did not contribute to bird deaths. In the report linked, decoys were used in an attempt to draw eiders in close to the turbines, but the ducks overcame their normal social nature, and stayed at least 100m away from the turbines.
There's a wind farm at South Point on Hawaii's Big Island.
The look really cool from far away but when you get get close to
them, they're pretty nasty. These are big Mitsubishi units. Granted
these mills have not been maintained as well as they could but they're
rusty and leaking lots of oil all over. Many are not working, with pieces
missing; blades, access panels and such, which looks like they are just
scavenging the broken ones for parts. Politics played a large part in getting
them built but the farm has changed hands and they are dying from neglect.
They do sound very cool when you're under them, a big stereoscopic whirr.
I think at one time people though Power Lines looked cool. They were a novelty when they were new and not a lot of people had seen one. Now they are about the worst of a city's common eyesores. The same thing applies to Wind Turbines. At some point they will be viewed just like power lines. Ugggg-LY!
And these windmills won't in fact make a dent in the big picture. People want the people near Cape Cod to suck it up for the greater good. But this project would not improve the greater good as defined by green house gas production. The article said they would handle 75% of local power needs but that was only 1.8% of New England. And the damaged view would be permanent.
Now if the people of New England really wanted to (as the article says) produce power "without emitting a single microgram of greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide or mercury and without burning a single barrel of Middle Eastern oil" AND in addition do so with an absolute minimum use of land and shoreline, they would build a typical modern Nuke plant in the multi-GW range. That would impact much more than 1.8% of the region's power needs.
The only downside to Nukes is a Chernobyl-like operating mess. But that has proved extremely rare (one such event in the history of Nuclear Power, 50+ years) and probably even less likely by an order of magnitude given the plant designs and operating policies in Europe, Japan, and the US vs. the former Soviet Union. I'd rather live with that risk than the risk presented by thousands of trolling supertankers in the world's oceans.
Say what you want about the French, these folks know Nuclear power. Imagine if the US were 70% emission free power like they are. Electric cars would suddenly make sense, hydrogen economy would make sense... because the ultimate source of the juice was emission free.
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I recall seeing Cronkite on tv complaining about this and that he was worried that the whales were going to run into the pilinings for the windmills. Of course I thought whales had echo navigation like dolphins, so im confused how they are gonna run headlong into them.
Until the baby boomers retire, and then we're totally screwed.
The heavily subsidized typical cost for U.S. nuclear power is around $0.12/kwh. That doesn't include the blanket insurance policy courtesy of the Price-Anderson Act, nor the cost of waste disposal and other externalites like terrorism and natural disaster vulnerability, which can not be measured until it's too late.
The unsubsidized, fully amortized cost of wind power is about $0.04/kwh. Most jurisdictions also apply a subsidy to wind.
The entire United States of America can be converted to wind powered electricity using only 14,000 acres of turbine footprint area on existing farmland, pasture, and prarie. That's about twice the area of the Stanford University campus, or about as much oak forest lost in California each year.
There is no reason that wind should not be the major U.S. source of electricity in 2018.
Please tell Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Based on his Energy Committee testimony last week, nobody has explained this to him yet. Please phone +1.202.452.3204 and ask for Michelle Smith or Andrew Williams.