There is an excellent letter in today's local paper about the everyday atrocities that humans commit against other animals. The writer includes a quote that "Hunting is a variant of mental illness." [Click the title of this post to read it.]
category: animal rights
March 23, 2005
Wake up and smell the coffee
A letter in the March 22 [Burlington, Vt.] Free Press asks if "selfish" worries about aesthetics, safety, and threats to wildlife are all (!) that opponents to industrial wind power have to weigh against the promise of a clean energy source. The writer makes a couple of errors, however, in his enthusiasm for that as yet unproven (despite decades of experience) promise.
First, he raises the specter of terrorists supported by our purchases of oil. Only 3% of our oil use is for generating electricity. Transportation uses 88%, and we export 7%. Windmills, even if they performed as well as the sales brochures promise, would have pretty much no effect at all on our use of oil.
Second, he is mistaken that the turbines and towers can just be torn down when no longer needed and the trees can grown back. Unfortunately, the wide straight strong roads that are necessary for installing the facilities will have already permanently altered the landscape, including water flow. And each tower is set in a 2,000-square-foot foundation containing hundreds, even thousands, of yards of concrete and tons of steel. On most mountaintops in Vermont, the bedrock will have been blasted to make that huge hole. Removal of these facilities will not be easy (or cheap), and it would certainly not leave the site anywhere near as it was before.
It's true that our current energy use threatens the mountains as well. But that does not excuse industrializing them instead, particularly with a technology that does little, if anything, towards actually changing our energy use.
First, he raises the specter of terrorists supported by our purchases of oil. Only 3% of our oil use is for generating electricity. Transportation uses 88%, and we export 7%. Windmills, even if they performed as well as the sales brochures promise, would have pretty much no effect at all on our use of oil.
Second, he is mistaken that the turbines and towers can just be torn down when no longer needed and the trees can grown back. Unfortunately, the wide straight strong roads that are necessary for installing the facilities will have already permanently altered the landscape, including water flow. And each tower is set in a 2,000-square-foot foundation containing hundreds, even thousands, of yards of concrete and tons of steel. On most mountaintops in Vermont, the bedrock will have been blasted to make that huge hole. Removal of these facilities will not be easy (or cheap), and it would certainly not leave the site anywhere near as it was before.
It's true that our current energy use threatens the mountains as well. But that does not excuse industrializing them instead, particularly with a technology that does little, if anything, towards actually changing our energy use.
-- letter published in the Burlington Free Press, March 29, 2005
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines
March 22, 2005
"Patriotism, a Menace to Liberty"
Here is an excerpt from Emma Goldman's 1911 still dismayingly relevant essay, available at the Emma Goldman Reference Archive.
The powers that have for centuries been engaged in enslaving the masses have made a thorough study of their psychology. They know that the people at large are like children whose despair, sorrow, and tears can be turned into joy with a little toy. And the more gorgeously the toy is dressed, the louder the colors, the more it will appeal to the million-headed child.category: anarchism
An army and navy represents the people's toys. To make them more attractive and acceptable, hundreds and thousands of dollars are being spent for the display of these toys. That was the purpose of the American government in equipping a fleet and sending it along the Pacific coast, that every American citizen should be made to feel the pride and glory of the United States. The city of San Francisco spent one hundred thousand dollars for the entertainment of the fleet; Los Angeles, sixty thousand; Seattle and Tacoma, about one hundred thousand. To entertain the fleet, did I say? To dine and wine a few superior officers, while the "brave boys" had to mutiny to get sufficient food. Yes, two hundred and sixty thousand dollars were spent on fireworks, theatre parties, and revelries, at a time when men, women, and child}en through the breadth and length of the country were starving in the streets; when thousands of unemployed were ready to sell their labor at any price.
Two hundred and sixty thousand dollars! What could not have been accomplished with such an enormous sum ? But instead of bread and shelter, the children of those cities were taken to see the fleet, that it may remain, as one of the newspapers said, "a lasting memory for the child."
A wonderful thing to remember, is it not? The implements of civilized slaughter. If the mind of the child is to be poisoned with such memories, what hope is there for a true realization of human brotherhood?
We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that it will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations.
Such is the logic of patriotism.
They see a good thing -- profits and tax evasion in one
The New York Times notes today that "[a] spate of takeovers in the wind-energy business this year shows that large energy companies and investment banks are seeking to increase their holdings in wind power."
Scottish Power's American subsidiary, PPM Energy, has been buying up developers, most recently Atlantic Renewable Energy. As has AES Corporation (most recently Sea West Holdings). Today's news was that Goldman Sachs (yes, an investment banker, not an energy company) is buying Zilkha Renewable Energy. Another outfit, Noble Environmental Power, is owned by another banker, J.P. Morgan Chase. Britain's Airtricity is also getting active in the U.S., following France's Enxco, a subsidiary of nuclear powerhouse EDF.
According to Citizens for Tax Justice (340-KB PDF), FPL [Florida Power & Light] Group, parent of FPL Energy, the largest owner of wind energy in the U.S., paid no federal income taxes for 2002 and 2003 profits of $2.243 billion. In fact, they got tax refunds totaling $252 million. They were able to claim $1.276 billion just in accelerated depreciation.
Thar's gold in thim thar hills!
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms
Scottish Power's American subsidiary, PPM Energy, has been buying up developers, most recently Atlantic Renewable Energy. As has AES Corporation (most recently Sea West Holdings). Today's news was that Goldman Sachs (yes, an investment banker, not an energy company) is buying Zilkha Renewable Energy. Another outfit, Noble Environmental Power, is owned by another banker, J.P. Morgan Chase. Britain's Airtricity is also getting active in the U.S., following France's Enxco, a subsidiary of nuclear powerhouse EDF.
According to Citizens for Tax Justice (340-KB PDF), FPL [Florida Power & Light] Group, parent of FPL Energy, the largest owner of wind energy in the U.S., paid no federal income taxes for 2002 and 2003 profits of $2.243 billion. In fact, they got tax refunds totaling $252 million. They were able to claim $1.276 billion just in accelerated depreciation.
Thar's gold in thim thar hills!
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms
March 21, 2005
The future in wind resistance
I must comment on a couple of recent pieces about industrial wind power, one by Doug Hufnagel of Maine and one by the editorial staff of the Boston Globe.
While the writer's heart is in the right place, he exaggerates wind power's potential contribution towards more sustainable energy use. The 11,000 wind turbines of Altamont and Tehachapi in California produce only 1% of the state's electricity use. At that rate, Maine would need almost 38,000 turbines to produce the amount of electricity people in the state use (not just in their homes). Most of the California turbines are smaller than the ones now proposed, but new ones require the same space, 30-60 acres per megawatt. At a capacity factor of 20%-25% (the record of facilities in similar areas), Maine's electricity use would require 132,000-330,000 acres of wind plant, 100-260 square miles.
But the wind doesn't blow at a constant rate, much less in response to actual demand for electricity. In fact, the wind turbines would produce at or above their average level only one third of the time. So Maine will have turned hundreds of square miles over to industrial development and still need the old sources of electricity most of the time.
The Boston Globe editorial not only exaggerates Cape Wind's possible contribution but also downplays the significant impact so many giant turbines, along with the necessary substations and cables, would obviously have. I just want to address the uncritically repeated claim from the developer that the project will provide 3/4 of the electricity used by Cape Cod and the Islands. First, that represents a 40% capacity factor, which is quite exaggerated -- it should be 20%-30% (in theory, off-shore wind is more steady, but 20%-30% is the record of existing facilities), so the figure should be revised to less than half. But, as above, average or more output of a wind plant is seen only one third of the time. Most of the time, the Cape Wind facility will not be providing much electricity at all, making a mockery of the huge investment and desecration of the seascape.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines
While the writer's heart is in the right place, he exaggerates wind power's potential contribution towards more sustainable energy use. The 11,000 wind turbines of Altamont and Tehachapi in California produce only 1% of the state's electricity use. At that rate, Maine would need almost 38,000 turbines to produce the amount of electricity people in the state use (not just in their homes). Most of the California turbines are smaller than the ones now proposed, but new ones require the same space, 30-60 acres per megawatt. At a capacity factor of 20%-25% (the record of facilities in similar areas), Maine's electricity use would require 132,000-330,000 acres of wind plant, 100-260 square miles.
But the wind doesn't blow at a constant rate, much less in response to actual demand for electricity. In fact, the wind turbines would produce at or above their average level only one third of the time. So Maine will have turned hundreds of square miles over to industrial development and still need the old sources of electricity most of the time.
The Boston Globe editorial not only exaggerates Cape Wind's possible contribution but also downplays the significant impact so many giant turbines, along with the necessary substations and cables, would obviously have. I just want to address the uncritically repeated claim from the developer that the project will provide 3/4 of the electricity used by Cape Cod and the Islands. First, that represents a 40% capacity factor, which is quite exaggerated -- it should be 20%-30% (in theory, off-shore wind is more steady, but 20%-30% is the record of existing facilities), so the figure should be revised to less than half. But, as above, average or more output of a wind plant is seen only one third of the time. Most of the time, the Cape Wind facility will not be providing much electricity at all, making a mockery of the huge investment and desecration of the seascape.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines
March 18, 2005
Greenpeace lobbies for wind farms in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
No, they aren't, of course. That would be absurd -- an environmental group promoting the industrial development of wild places. Oh, wait, but they do. Just call it green and urgently necessary, and formerly inaccessible ridgelines and prairies are yours to exploit.
While I completely share Greenpeace's concerns and the goals of their "Clean Energy Now" campaign, they say that wind could supply 10% of the world's electricity by 2025. To supply 10% the world's use in 2001 (13,934 TW-h) would have required an average output of 159,064 MW, representing an installed wind capacity of 636,256 (25% capacity factor) to 795,320 (20% c.f.) MW, or 424,171-530,213 1.5-MW turbines. Greenpeace urges aggressive use of off-shore sites, which can use larger-capacity turbines and might initially show better capacity factors, but the number required is still outrageous. In 2025, projected electricity demand will require 1.75 times more than the numbers just calculated: 750,000-1,000,000 turbine towers to provide just 10% of our electricity.
Besides being so much and doing so little, it does nothing at all about other energy use besides that for generating electricity. Ten percent reduction in all energy use could more easily, more cheaply, and -- most significantly for environmentalists -- without adding more industry to our already so diminished landscapes be achieved by implementing simple conservation and efficiency measures.
categories: energy, environment, wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines
While I completely share Greenpeace's concerns and the goals of their "Clean Energy Now" campaign, they say that wind could supply 10% of the world's electricity by 2025. To supply 10% the world's use in 2001 (13,934 TW-h) would have required an average output of 159,064 MW, representing an installed wind capacity of 636,256 (25% capacity factor) to 795,320 (20% c.f.) MW, or 424,171-530,213 1.5-MW turbines. Greenpeace urges aggressive use of off-shore sites, which can use larger-capacity turbines and might initially show better capacity factors, but the number required is still outrageous. In 2025, projected electricity demand will require 1.75 times more than the numbers just calculated: 750,000-1,000,000 turbine towers to provide just 10% of our electricity.
Besides being so much and doing so little, it does nothing at all about other energy use besides that for generating electricity. Ten percent reduction in all energy use could more easily, more cheaply, and -- most significantly for environmentalists -- without adding more industry to our already so diminished landscapes be achieved by implementing simple conservation and efficiency measures.
categories: energy, environment, wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines
March 17, 2005
Spring!
There's still 3 feet of snow on the ground, but the road's a treacherous mudslick and sugaring is expected to begin at any day now. Most dramatically on this feast of St Patrick was when we went outside this morning for taking the wee one to what they euphemistically call a school and the sun was already above the ridge and shining down on us.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)