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Tilting At Windmills
GreedyCapitalist writes "Anne Applebaum writes in the Washington Post about environmentalists who are opposing renewable energy sources." From the article: "Already, activists and real estate developers have stalled projects across Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York. In Western Maryland, a proposal to build wind turbines alongside a coal mine, on a heavily logged mountaintop next to a transmission line, has just been nixed by state officials who called it too environmentally damaging. Along the coast of Nantucket, Mass. -- the only sufficiently shallow spot on the New England coast -- a coalition of anti-wind groups and summer homeowners, among them the Kennedy family, also seems set to block Cape Wind, a planned offshore wind farm. Their well-funded lobbying last month won them the attentions of Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), who, though normally an advocate of a state's right to its own resources, has made an exception for Massachusetts and helped pass an amendment designed to kill the project altogether."
The problem plaguing new energy developments is no longer NIMBYism, the "Not-In-My-Back-Yard" movement. The problem now, as one wind-power executive puts it, is BANANAism: "Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything."
:-P
If it wasn't so true, it would be hilarious. Instead, we're currently faced with a no-win scenario. Don't want Power Plant technology X in your back yard? Fine, we'll move it to the middle of the desert. You don't like that because there's a fault there that *might* cause a teeny Earthquake 500 years from now? Fine, we'll move it to the swamp land. What's that? We'd be destroying the natural habitat of mosquitoes? Why do you want to keep mosquitoes around? FINE! Then we'll move it to the ocean where we can... what? You don't want it there, EITHER? Why the hell not? Because it might damage a coral reef? What if we build an artifical one? That will change the ocean currents?
NNNGNGGNNGGGG!! HUMANS #$!@@!# CHANGE #@$!#!@! THINGS !@#!#!!!! IT'S !@#!@# WHAT @!#@!# WE @#$!@#$ DO!
Call us when you don't have power and really, really want some. Good-bye!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
..and it's the paper one that holds the final say.
...are full of hot air.
Perhaps we could use them to power turbines.
This is impossible - everyone knows that it is the republicans and big business that are against the environment and that all liberals and environmental groups are for it...
*bangs head into wall*
Their major complaint, from previous coverage that I've seen on the issue, is that the turbines will be visible from shore and may interfere with fishing and pleasure boating (i.e. tourism) in the area - which is just about the *only* local industry aside from domestic labor (housecleaning, cooking, etc for the filthy rich).
These are anti-capitolists!! They HATE the human race. In fact, they would rather wish all human beings die. They see us as a virus, and not a natural part of Earths evolution.
Fuck em!!! Time they are made irrelevant by the worlds population. Just fucking burry them.
Life is not for the lazy.
...to calling aestheticians environmentalists.
a proposal to build wind turbines alongside a coal mine, on a heavily logged mountaintop next to a transmission line, has just been nixed by state officials who called it too environmentally damaging.
Yeah, because in 2 or 3 decades, when the sea rises and countless disaster stories that will make the LA flooding look like a joke will occur every year, the weather will turn hot and sterile, or brutally cold where it was mild before,... I'm sure we'll all be happy that the mountaintop's view has been preserved...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Why's that Don? Are you going to help us build a 35-mile bridge from Hyannis to Nantucket instead?
Fine. If they want to opt-out of the other solutions, then cut the power lines to the houses along the coast and let them figure out a solution to the problem that they will find satisfactory.
Massachusetts may be liberal, but it's also money. That goes triple for Cape Cod. The problem you're encountering here is people who are liberal in the sense that they don't care what the poor do in their bedrooms, but they sure as hell don't want their precious view spoiled.
This may come as a shock, but the left does not have a monopoly on overly wealthy hypocritical asshats who will be the death of us all.
--Ryvar
Whoever you are, you owe me a new keyboard...
They are just thinking longer term than us. Running out of oil, we can deal with. But running out of wind would be a true ecological disaster.
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I am agianst wind power, the cumulative effect of removing that much wind energy from the environment will reduce the total air movement around the world. With the reducion in wind currents the earth will be unable to cool itself, causing global warming. ;)
Republicans advocate states rights up to the point your state goes medical marijuana, pro gay marriage, physican-assisted suicide or anything else they don't like.
I agree. These people aren't environmentalists. They're too wrapped up in their property values to sacrifice for the greater good by allowing pollution free power that might be visible from their backyard.
Calling these people environmentalists is an smear attack against actual environmentalists.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Let's convene a conference about birds being killed by paned glass.
Maybe the UN can get hold of the issue and negotiate a deal with glassmakers that would see them manage a fund dedicated to supporting the abandoned chicks of deceased winged parents cut-down by clear glass panes.
Then they could siphon a little off for themselves and their immediate relatives and remain beyond the reach of the law, even as they grandstand as the judges of right and wrong in the world.
Birds are also being killed by the avian flu. Those concerned should be developing and distributing an innoculation for birds everywhere, but they're not, are they?
Perhaps those claiming to be avian rights supporters should be placed on trial by the UN after the UN has first secured the aforementioned sweet deal over the glass panes, at which point it might accuse the world's chief bird rights organization of fraud, misrepresentation, malfeasance and the mismanagement of the public trust.
This organization might become the subject of various resolutions, after which it might be accused of developing weapons of mass destruction, preparing the way for sanctions, an economic embargo and eventual invasion.
If you're going to go around claiming to care for birds, you'd g*ddam*ed well better be caring for birds, and not just pretending to while you pursue your hidden, nefarious anti-windmill agenda.
Whatever happened with the idea of building a giant pipeline to generate power? It would be 100 miles or so long, and 10 feet wide. The last half-mile at each end it would taper out to about 20 feet. As weather fronts passed over it, the pressure difference would push air through the pipe, where it would achieve supersonic speed (due to the tapering).
In the middle was a turbine that would work in both directions (as the pressure difference could go either way).
Bigtime Consulting - "We're the best because we cost the most"
In western WI, a private company is looking at building a wind farm in my county.
I thought people would be happy about it, usually anything renewable is looked well upon, hell 5 miles away there is a manure digester that was praised for being "forward-looking".
But this project is facing major opposition from the local residents because of supposedly lower property value.
Funny thing about it, they don't want a windfarm ruining thier view, but they have no problem building a $500,000 house on a previously wooded hillside, and running the nice road up the side of the hill to drive there.
They can kiss my ass, as least i am getting something from the windmill.
Folks are in denial of the seriousness of the energy crisis, and the realities of energy production. They assume that some miracle, somehow, will provide them with the energy to drive out and live in in their beautiful second homes, free of any aesthetic and environmental problems. They want to be close to some idyllic nature, free of stress. And the reason they can be in denial is that energy production - through the magic of long distance ac/dc wires - shifts production burdens to some poor sap somewhere else.
Consider the opposition to wind: why build a wind farm near some lovely guest home on the Cape when you can build a coal plant in West Virginia? The poor folks (and WV is a very poor state), will take the coal plant and see their homes turn grey, their mountains cut to shreds, their lungs turn black. And Cape Cod will be sunny, pretty, free from harm, at the cost of someone else's life.
I realize this sounds extreme, but look at the coal / oil / hydrocarbon executives who lobby Congress for tax breaks for gas and coal production, freedom from pollution controls, etc. and then spend the weekends in Bozeman, Montana. They don't see the effects of the damage they're doing, as, well - they get to live in an idyllic mountain valley.
Until we can develop fusion, energy production will be ugly. Sad, but true. Windmills are not at all perfect, but are hell of a lot better, IMHO, than some coal plant choking the lungs of those folks who cannot afford a second home in luxury land. I wish those who always say NIMBY! would accept some responsibility for their own choices, and recognize the need to share the burden of energy production.
This is an economic case of externalities being allocated to those with the least political power, the least influence, the least chance of fighting back. Putting the plant on the cheapest land may be accounting wise efficient, but may be bad policy. We either have the windmills, or the coal plant, or the nuke, but somewhere power must be generated.
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
Live with that 24/7/365 and tell me how great it is!
Fill my lungs with soot but don't make me hear a Whispering Homer!
Irradiate my nuts into useless glowing rasins but don't make me crosseyed staring at PinWheels!
Besides aren't there poor people somewhere with wind?
This
There is a bank of windmills visible from the PA Turnpike, somewhere in the western half of the state. I would suggest that such areas - those adjacent to major traffic arteries - would be excellent locations for wind-based power generation. Quite often the land surrounding the turnpikes and interstates isn't exactly prime residential land, so the NIMBYism might be kept to a minimum.
From The Fine Article: They are right to note that wind will not soon replace coal or gas, that wind isn't always as effective as supporters claim
I find this viewpoint frustrating: "it won't solve all of our problems at once so it is not worth pursuing". We might actually need a combination of solutions to the energy problem - imagine that.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Actually, no. Most of Cape Cod's residents are pretty poor, relatively speaking. Living costs are insane. Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard both have huge problems with drug and alcohol abuse because there's nothing to do on the islands, and life is pretty rough. Outside of the tourist seaason, practically nobody is around.
The Cape isn't dominated by million dollar homes; to a large extent it's "middle class" people who have a small summer place.
These issues are largely being driven (read: funded) by a very small minority that doesn't even live there.
Please help metamoderate.
Nowadays, there's no way to legally replicate such marvellous accomplishments as our fathers bequeathed to us. No more Hoover Dams, no more offshore drilling, no more drilling in the wilderness. Mind you, I hold nature worthy of preservation but I also hold technology worthy of furtherance. There must be a balancing point somewhere; we seem to have missed it.
You ever think that our grandparents are only dieing of old age because their progeny is embarassing them? Just sayin', is all.
This is just another example of a larger trend. Enviornmentalists and Enviornmental groups sabatoging enviornmental progress by insisting on perfection. By refusing to comprimise or to throw their weight behind the less damaging projects/praise those who implement them enviornmentalists sabatoge their own cause.
I mean consider this from the perspective of a company, or even country thinking of implementing some measures to minimize the enviornmental harm of their actions. If they know that they will still get bad press from the enviornmental lobby for the damage/harm they are still doing rather than praise for improving their act they have little incentive to improve. In fact making small steps which will be met with criticisms that they don't go far enough can actually make for worse publicity than doing nothing at all.
This is part of a greater refusal on the part of enviornmentalists to prioritize and to admit that enviornmental values, while important, need to trade off with human values. For instance by refusing to even consider (maybe it won't turn out to be worth it but it should be considered) nuclear power enviornmentalists guarantee that we will continue to use coal fired power plants and risk global warming. Sure it might be possible in theory to acheive this goal by all using our own solar panels and other solutions in practice this has a great deal of problems and people are resistant to this level of change. Only by favoring comprimise and slight improvement where politically possible can we get real progress.
Worse, by refusing to prioritize the enviornmental movement makes sure many people don't take them seriously. Go look at the pages of major enviornmental groups or read their newsletters. You see articles about the extinction of some fuzzy forest creature written in the same alarmist tone and message of impending disastor as the warnings about global warming. No wonder people don't take global warming as seriously as they should when implicitly the enviornmental groups put it at the same level as the sort of species extinction that has been occuring for years with limited impact.
If we want to get anything done the enviornmentalists groups need to buckle down and make some hard choices. They need to stop appearing to favor the enviornment over people and instead tell people why saving the enviornment is in people's best interest. Also they need to clearly prioritize and tell us that globabl warming is far more serious than threats to habitate and wildlife and praise projects that help prevent global warming EVEN IF THEY DESTROY HABITAT OR HARM SOME ANIMALS.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
I don't doubt that there are those who think that windmills would ruin their property values. To them I say, gee, windmills didn't seem to hurt Holland too much that way. On a nasty thought, I think that the utilities trying to build the windfarm should have first proposed a garbage or coal-powered plant that would belch thick black soot all over their mansions, and then backed off to a wind farm saying, "OK, OK, FINE! We'll build a wind farm instead."
However, my suspicious side wonders if this isn't a subtle and carefully orchestrated case of Big Oil FUD. Who better to benefit in times of astronomic oil prices when the public is screaming to politicians then to point to these anti-wind groups and say, see, they're no better.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
People really need to differentiate between environmentalists (ie, people who have a sincere concern about the air we breath, the water we drink, the land we cultivate, and everything inbetween) and NIMBY rich people who don't want an eyesore in their costly scenic view.
Sure, NIMBY rich people might claim that what they want is to save the environment, but really, all they want is to maintain their property values.
I've seen no end of moronic arguments about this stuff. Some of the "better examples":
I hate this crap. They're terrified of their property values dropping, so they are desperately trying to fight it any way they can, digging up any idea they can come up with for why this is stupid. Wind power works great in a lot of european countries, without any nasty "ecological impacts".
Maybe they'd like a nuclear power plant on Nantucket instead? How about a coal-fired electric plant? Maybe they'd like their electric bill to quadruple to pay for solar panels that won't last more than 15 years?
Please help metamoderate.
You know these people aren't environmentalists when they get Don Young on their side. Let's look at some Don Young quotes:
Yeah, Don, it's the environmentalists that are leading us into environmental disaster. Riiiiiight....
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Fusion will lead to thermal pollution. Most of our problems can be reduced by (a) birth control and (b) energy conservation.
No, not quite. The best and most effective solution is: HAVE NO CHILDREN. I love it when environmentalists try to preach to me, while towing 6 kids behind them. Humans, by far and away, have the largest impact on the environment. Fuck "Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle". How about "Get a vasectomy"?
It seems wildly inaccurate to call these guys environmentalists...
s _1_13/ai_82352618 ...
Don Young in particular is one of the guys trying to get us to drill in ANWR (alaska national wildlife reserve). He receives a lot of money from the oil industry, and in the past suggested that the world trade center attacks might have been carried out by "eco-terrorists"...
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1594/i
>Young told a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News that responsibility could lie with groups other than
>Islamic fundamentalists. "If you watched what happened in Genoa, in Italy, and even in Seattle, there's
>some expertise in that field," said Young. "I'm not sure they're that dedicated, but ecoterrorists
>there's a strong possibility that could be one of the groups."
Its surprising how often oil industry figures and others are able to hijack environmentalist sentaments in this country...
Back in the 1980ies here in Denmark, a left-lunatic-fringe school built the first windmill and published a report titled "Let a thousand windmills bloom"
They were ridiculed and everybody were adamant that windmills would spoil the landscape and do things to the cows milk etc.
Then the government introduced a subsidy on electricity from windmills and suddenly all the farmers could see a good business case and today we have most of the country plastered with windmills.
As a result Denmark gets around 20% of its electricity from wind nowadays.
Once energy prices get high enough, windmills will stop ruining USA and become "a sensible economic investment".
BTW: The trend here is to put new windmills off the coast because water disturbs the wind less than land.
Poul-Henning
Poul-Henning Kamp -- FreeBSD since before it was called that...
Aluminum doesn't get used just once. Running a windmill doesn't cause the Aluminum to degrade back to Bauxite. When you build something out of Aluminum, a large percentage of your raw material is recycled. When the windmill wears out and is torn down, the metal will be worth a lot and will be reclaimed. Recycling Aluminum is highly profitable, and large chunks of aluminum always efficiently salvaged.
I'm related to an anti-wind activist and I'll tell you what they think. First off, they complain that there is far too much population on the planet. They think people should stop having children, etc. Think euthanasia is a good thing, etc. They are the basically lower the population at any and all costs and don't go creating any more energy or else it will encourage people to have more babies. They think that since they have lots of money they'll be the last ones kicked out of the lifeboat when the difficult times come. Really, they are living so damned well that a huge drop in their standard of living wouldn't really mean that much to them if it meant that all the less desirable inhabitants of the planet were eliminated. This position has actually become quite popular in recent years and I hear it more often and more vehemently. I just wish people would come right out and say it. Instead they take positions on various issues that they think will promote their aims and just pay lip service to whatever window dressing makes the rest of the coalition they're with happy.
Where I live in Vermont there is a proposal to place a industrial wind farm along the rigde line of the local mountain .The energy generated from the wind farm was going to be sold off to out of state energy producers for "Green Credits" so they could continue to to pollute while adhearing to regulatory reqirements by purchsing green energy from the wind farm project .
.The local utility did not offer any reduced energy rates to the local residents either and is one of the main reason Im opposed to the wind project and the fact the project is a scam for polluters to aviod their regulatory requirements .
The locals where railroaded and the proposed size of the project was increased and their where no concessions provided to rate payers by the town or state for taxpayers
More Info here http://www.glebemountaingroup.org/
We just need to put windmills in Congress, along with heat exchangers.
InThane
The question we face as a nation and as a world is, are we going to allow the few to dictate to the many? Are we going to allow people to suffer, in some areas of the world opposition does lead to suffering or furthering of it, because of a few?
Too many times those opposing any development live no where near it. They travel to the sites to protest or wage dissent from afar.
What it comes down to is that there are groups that feel as if they are above us. They think it is their place to tell others what is good for them and that these "others" must do without because it is for "the best".
Power is a valuable resource. With it we can bring the standards of living up for those it is provided too. With renewable resources we can accomplish this with very little impact on future generations except for perhaps a better environment. Keeping development of alternative and renewable resources only furthers the negative impact currently "dirty" methods cause.
What is ever so appalling is that many of these elites are politically connected, well off, and imposing on those who cannot afford alternatives to live a lesser life. They would rather sacrifice the comfort of others just so they can feel righteous in their position. Sure some are truly out to help the environment but they are misguided as nothing will ever meet their standards. As soon as their standard is met they will update it or another group will step in with more stringent requirements.
We have to face one thing, whether or not we do something to free our dependance on dirty sources of power and dependance on others for power, other countries will move forward. They will do what is necessary to improve their lives while we forever come up with excuses to sit back and do nothing.
Civilizations do not advance by sitting still. They do not advance by listening to every naysayer who pops out of the woodwork. But they do decline when they do sit still and become hamstrung by the naysayers into doing nothing. It is no different on the political front in the world as it is in the environmental front. Both will go from bad to worse if we reason ourself into a corner.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
In the desert, you'd probably be better off going solar.
Hmm.. just how much do those rich folks pay in property taxes on their compounds anyways? Now how much would a wind farm have to pay? I thik this would be an excellent use of the Kelo decision to sieze the property of the anti-wind protestors and build the wind farms so the local authorities would reap the benefits of the overal economic improvement.
Yes I know the protestors are not sitting on the prime site for the windfarms, but obviously they constitute a "blight" preventing economic development.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
The Nantucket fight is not typical and had cogent arguments on both sides.
I agree that most the time it comes down to property values; having seen how people react where I live to low income housing, white castle, or when the black family moved in down the street -- property values can bring out the worst in people. More amazing is how they try to cling to any reason except the actual one.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The fact I can use it to haul stuff is secondary.
Being able to make a left turn when you want is also nice (as opposed to only when they put a break in the 'crete islands in the road).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I have really strong feelings about this, so excuse me if I rant a bit.
The so-called Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, i.e. those people trying to stop wind turbines in the water off of cape cod, is headed by William I. Koch, who is a billionaire by way of his family's Oil & Gas fortune. The Alaska congressmen are just trying to protect the value of the what Alaska is worth - which is a lot of money when the US can get oil from nowhere else -- of course they don't want competition from states who would rather generate the power at home without expensive Alaskan oil. Ted Kennedy is opposed for an unknown reason - but the other Massachusetts senator, the famous John Kerry, is a supporter of Wind Power.
There was a document leaked a while back showing the fund raising strategy of the professional fund raising company from new york who was hired by this Alliance - and the strategy biols down to "Don't bother with the poor or middle class - raise money from the ultra-rich" -- the rich who don't have to suffer from energy crisis that we are going through, or some who even get richer because of it.
I am going to stop now, before I burst an artery...
Down the road from where I live (Wellington, New Zealand), there are a group of local residents trying to block the impending wind turbines. The complaints are a combination of property values, living aesthetics, and so on, as usually happens when this sort if thing happens. There's also a handful of trampers (that's a NZ word for hiking) who think it should be left undeveloped for recreational reasons. Fortunately (I think), it doesn't look like they're going to stop it from going ahead. The power companies aren't exactly helping, though. They've been doing the standard corporate marketing thing of trying to get consents for twice as much as what they could possibly get, simply so they can then tone it down and look like they're making a compromise from the original plan.
All that said, I do have some sympathy for the property values crowd. I like going on long walks, and as much as I dislike the way that a lot of land with great views, etc, gets divided up, sold and fenced off so that only a single person can access it, that's effectively the way that capitalist society is arranged. The incentives everywhere tell people that they have to own property and look after their finances for the future. Otherwise someone else will push in and take the money and land anyway, and you'll end up with nothing for the future.
I'm unlikely to build a million dollar summer house in a remote area with an expensive driveway and fence it off, because I don't agree with that way of doing things. That said, if I bought a $250,000 house in the city and someone decided to build a prison next door (severly lowering the property value), I'd be seriously annoyed... because a $250,000 home dropping to a $150,000 value means that I suddenly have $100,000 less towards whatever's in my retirement fund. And that's huge. This isn't even going into the possibility that a property might have a much higher value to me than anyone else. Perhaps I developed a property near the sea because I had a critical need to get a boat in and out, and it might simply not be possible to find something that meets the same needs elsewhere.
If people buy and develop properties with full knowledge of what's likely to happen, I have little sympathy for them. But we also really need systems to make sure that people can't do this sort of thing without being made clearly aware of it beforehand. If that's not possible, then I personally think that governments should arrange ways that residents can get properly compensated for the value of their property that they're likely to be losing. This might be by requiring that companies applying for consents to develop land pay out a pre-determined "fair" rate of compensation to surrounding property owners, or through some other means.
The current generation of wind turbines are huge machines in the 1MW to 3MW range. They're up higher and more visible to birds, and there are fewer of them per unit area. The older turbines at Altamont are being replaced by bigger machines, which apparently kill fewer birds.
But nobody is happy with the current arrangement.