It's good to learn someone derives direct benefit from a windmill on their property--this is not the case here. The power generated goes on the grid and is sold/supplied everywhere else--even to some northern states. So we locals see the towers, their blinking red lights, hear their noise, devalued property and will have to learn to live with all of it without appreciable benefit to us. Were this power for local use I might feel differently. It's no fun when multinationals mess around with your life and there's not a darn thing you can do about it.
Industrial Wind Farm Experience
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Woodbutcher
Well-known member
It's SO shallow minded to be anti Wind turbines ! Harnessing the Earths natural resources has got to be the way to go, surely ? Look at the alternatives, Oil, coal or nuclear ? Oil and coal are fossil fuels that are not only running out but also the cause of massive global unrest (you can't tell me that the problems in Iran and Iraq aren't oil related?) and Nuclear, well that's just plain dumb, it might be ok right now but there's still no way of dealing with the medium and high level radioactive waste ? Except just sweeping it under the carpet for the gran children to deal with ? Or of course dumping off the coast of lawless countries like Somalia, and look where that's got us !
We use so much electricity these days, everything is getting bigger and greedier. Take a look at your house for a moment and consider how many things actually stop when you turn the mains power off ? I bet there are quite a few of you that only use a tumble dryer for laundry and cant even remember the last time you had a washing line ?
So, I say harness the wind, the sun, the waves and even the rivers. The structures used to capture the energy may not be too easy on everyone’s eyes but sure beats the twisted, limping deformed children born to the thousands of men and women who got a lung full of Chernobyl high level fall out !?
My great great great Uncle Isaac once said that "every action has an equal and opposite reaction", which I recon could mean that for you to switch on your Laptop, dish washer, TV, hot water etc then you also need to be more tolerant of things like wind farms ?! Oil wells, gas pipe lines and Nuclear reactors may be out of sight but they're not out of the minds of the thousands that are killed, maimed, tortured and displaced each year from the relentless quest to secure and trade the stuff !?
The wind is free ! The technology is still in it's infancy but improving all the time. It knows nothing of boundaries, it's boundless ! If we fall out with Russia they can turn our Gas off but they can't turn off our wind !?
So they whirl and whoosh a bit, stick up like sore thumbs on the horizon, kill some Geese and Bats ... All of these points have varying degrees of regret depending on your view point but none of them can trigger wars or even the end of the world ?
Looking out of my window here I can see fourteen 400 kw turbines, they're huge and the landscape was prettier without them but they power my laptop which is charging right now at with 90watts ... Lets see, that means between 14 of them they could charge a staggering 2.2 million laptops !!
We use so much electricity these days, everything is getting bigger and greedier. Take a look at your house for a moment and consider how many things actually stop when you turn the mains power off ? I bet there are quite a few of you that only use a tumble dryer for laundry and cant even remember the last time you had a washing line ?
So, I say harness the wind, the sun, the waves and even the rivers. The structures used to capture the energy may not be too easy on everyone’s eyes but sure beats the twisted, limping deformed children born to the thousands of men and women who got a lung full of Chernobyl high level fall out !?
My great great great Uncle Isaac once said that "every action has an equal and opposite reaction", which I recon could mean that for you to switch on your Laptop, dish washer, TV, hot water etc then you also need to be more tolerant of things like wind farms ?! Oil wells, gas pipe lines and Nuclear reactors may be out of sight but they're not out of the minds of the thousands that are killed, maimed, tortured and displaced each year from the relentless quest to secure and trade the stuff !?
The wind is free ! The technology is still in it's infancy but improving all the time. It knows nothing of boundaries, it's boundless ! If we fall out with Russia they can turn our Gas off but they can't turn off our wind !?
So they whirl and whoosh a bit, stick up like sore thumbs on the horizon, kill some Geese and Bats ... All of these points have varying degrees of regret depending on your view point but none of them can trigger wars or even the end of the world ?
Looking out of my window here I can see fourteen 400 kw turbines, they're huge and the landscape was prettier without them but they power my laptop which is charging right now at with 90watts ... Lets see, that means between 14 of them they could charge a staggering 2.2 million laptops !!
Woodbutcher
Well-known member
Blimey, what a rant..... Sorry, I seem to have killed that thread stone dead !?
G
Guest
I've seen several wind farms, most-recently one in Illinois, during one of my 2009 road trips. This pic was taken near Dwight IL, 11/29/09, Sunday, ~3p, along IL RT 47:
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"I'm burning up this blacktop" ... Mark Collie ... 'Even The Man In The Moon Is Crying'
Cort | 36swm.IL | "Mr Monte Carlo"."Mr Road Trip" | pig valve.pacemaker * NoreastrTrek.Aug2010 *
WRMNshowcase.legos.HO.models.MCs.RTs.CHD = http://www.chevyasylum.com/cort
"I'm burning up this blacktop" ... Mark Collie ... 'Even The Man In The Moon Is Crying'
It's not at all shallow-minded to be against the use of any kind of hardware in inappropriate places. And it would be small-minded to think that all places are appropriate.
The point is, you don't block a small trout stream to produce hydroelectric power. It doesn't generate enough electricity to make it worth more than the trout. Same thing with putting up wind turbines in an area that causes great ecological damage, where the output is rated marginal at best. Put hydroelectric dams on large rivers or lake systems. Put wind turbines where there is unimpeded wind flow.
We have a large hydroelectric dam at the end of our lake system, where it drains into a river toward the ocean, and we deal with water level changes in fall, when the saw and pulp mills are working full tilt and the dam runs water day and night. We do contribute to ecological power solutions - ones that make sense for the ecology in which they exist.
One answer does not fit all situations best. Sometimes not even well. Disapproval of one method for a particular area doesn't imply that the people there are blocking other methods, or that they're not even already in use. Maine has a lot of water, and is using some of it very well.
The problem here is that federal government subsidies are making a semi-lucrative business out of raping the relatively inexpensive wilderness for turbines that would not be buildable or sustainable on the money they produce from generating power alone. That's not the point of wind power. The wind farms you see growing in the Plains and elsewhere may need some startup help, but they have good airflow and pay for themselves and more over time. These never will. They're just short-term, blindly-applied government subsidy cash cows that certain businesses have learned to cash in on.
Be well,
The point is, you don't block a small trout stream to produce hydroelectric power. It doesn't generate enough electricity to make it worth more than the trout. Same thing with putting up wind turbines in an area that causes great ecological damage, where the output is rated marginal at best. Put hydroelectric dams on large rivers or lake systems. Put wind turbines where there is unimpeded wind flow.
We have a large hydroelectric dam at the end of our lake system, where it drains into a river toward the ocean, and we deal with water level changes in fall, when the saw and pulp mills are working full tilt and the dam runs water day and night. We do contribute to ecological power solutions - ones that make sense for the ecology in which they exist.
One answer does not fit all situations best. Sometimes not even well. Disapproval of one method for a particular area doesn't imply that the people there are blocking other methods, or that they're not even already in use. Maine has a lot of water, and is using some of it very well.
The problem here is that federal government subsidies are making a semi-lucrative business out of raping the relatively inexpensive wilderness for turbines that would not be buildable or sustainable on the money they produce from generating power alone. That's not the point of wind power. The wind farms you see growing in the Plains and elsewhere may need some startup help, but they have good airflow and pay for themselves and more over time. These never will. They're just short-term, blindly-applied government subsidy cash cows that certain businesses have learned to cash in on.
Be well,
