To the Editor, Vegetarian Times:
In promising an examination of "the most important issues in the debate" about industrial wind power, Caroline Kettlewell proceeded to deliver instead an unbalanced promotion for the wind industry.
Whereas she introduced each objection only to shoot it down with an unexamined riposte from one of the industry trade groups, she presented each of the claims in favor of wind power without question. The only sources suggested for more information were the government's industry-friendly energy department and the wind companies' own lobbying and PR organization.
She even went further, mocking opponents as "otherwise" environmentally sensitive and now "freaking out."
But it is not "ironic" that many opponents come from the environmentalist community (including vegetarian animal rights activists like me). Concern for animal habitat and health is central to much of the opposition. What is ironic is that an article in Vegetarian Times so readily dismisses it.
Nobody claims that giant wind turbine facilities kill anywhere near as many birds as the rest of our industrial society, but that doesn't excuse them. One has to ask if the number of birds and bats they do kill is worth it. Advocates say (and Kittlewell dutifully repeats) that "every megawatt it generates is a megawatt that doesn't have to come from a conventional power plant," and that therefore it will reduce the threat to animal life much more than its own negative effect (like the "destroy the village to save it" argument from the Vietnam war).
A little research, however, quickly reveals that wind does not displace other sources to any significant degree and that even in Denmark it hasn't changed their energy use.
Turbines produce at their full capacity only when the wind is blowing above 25-35 mph. Below that the production rate falls off exponentially. In many regions, the wind is higher at night, but demand is low, so much of the power is not needed. Large base load plants can not be rapidly ramped up and down as the wind fluctuates. Those plants that can be quickly modulated do so at the cost of efficiency, thus causing more pollution.
The statement that Denmark "now gets 20 percent of its power from wind" is both misleading and inaccurate. Misleading, because "electrical power" is meant, which represents only about a fifth of Denmark's total energy use. Inaccurate, because around 84% of the wind-generated power has to be exported as it is produced when they can not turn down their very efficient combined heat and power plants.
Though there is much else in Kettlewell's article to argue, one should at least pause to consider what is required for wind to provide the nearly 2,000 billion kilowatt-hours of new electricity that we are projected to need by 2025. That represents an average load of more than 225,000 megawatts. Because wind turbine output varies with wind speed, their average output is typically a fourth of their maximum capacity, so we would require more than 900,000 megawatts of new wind capacity. Every megawatt of wind capacity requires about 50 acres, so we're talking about more than 70,000 square miles of wind plant -- most of it targeted for our last remaining rural and wild places.
And we'd still have to build an equal amount of conventional plants, because the typical wind facility does not produce any electricity at all about a third of the time and much less than its already low average for another third of the time.
Large-scale wind is clearly not a practical nor an environmentally sound alternative.
categories: wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, animal rights, vegetarianism
October 4, 2005
October 3, 2005
GE study finds huge need for GE products
To no one's surprise except the many newspaper editors who reproduced the "findings," a collaborative sponsored by GE, the only U.S.-based manufacturer of industrial wind turbines, developed a framework for extensive construction of off-shore wind facilities.
Helping GE out with the effort was the U.S. Department of Energy (really?! ) and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (a state agency), who have long been taken for a ride by the wind industry.
categories: wind power, wind energy, anarchism, environment, environmentalism
Helping GE out with the effort was the U.S. Department of Energy (really?! ) and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (a state agency), who have long been taken for a ride by the wind industry.
categories: wind power, wind energy, anarchism, environment, environmentalism
Correction
From Ironic Times:
We erroneously reported that President Bush had appointed a timber company lobbyist to head the National Forest Service, a partner in a law firm most well known for union-busting as Assistant Secretary of Labor, a mining industry lobbyist who believes public lands are unconstitutional to be in charge of public lands, a utility lobbyist who represented the nation's worst polluters as head of the Clean Air Division at the EPA, a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute onto the Council on Environmental Quality and a veteran to head the Women's Health Section of the FDA. In fact, the woman he named to head the Women's Health Section of the FDA is not a veteran. She is a veterinarian. We regret any confusion this may have caused.
We erroneously reported that President Bush had appointed a timber company lobbyist to head the National Forest Service, a partner in a law firm most well known for union-busting as Assistant Secretary of Labor, a mining industry lobbyist who believes public lands are unconstitutional to be in charge of public lands, a utility lobbyist who represented the nation's worst polluters as head of the Clean Air Division at the EPA, a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute onto the Council on Environmental Quality and a veteran to head the Women's Health Section of the FDA. In fact, the woman he named to head the Women's Health Section of the FDA is not a veteran. She is a veterinarian. We regret any confusion this may have caused.
October 2, 2005
"The conmen and the green professor"
No surprise here.
Today's Times (U.K.) has two articles about a company of excons setting up shop to take advantage of the free flow of wind-energy subsidies and the gullibility of people who are sure they have the answers. From "'Green' adviser takes cash for access to ministers":
Today's Times (U.K.) has two articles about a company of excons setting up shop to take advantage of the free flow of wind-energy subsidies and the gullibility of people who are sure they have the answers. From "'Green' adviser takes cash for access to ministers":
An investigation by The Sunday Times has found that Professor Ian Fells, one of Britain’s foremost academic experts on energy and an adviser to the cabinet, is trading on his connections to help clients lobby government. Last week Fells negotiated a fee of £600 to broker a meeting between a reporter, posing as a businessman, and a senior civil servant. Fells said the official was writing the forthcoming energy white paper.And from "The conmen and the green professor":
Like thousands of other modern entrepreneurs, they hoped to turn a quick profit from trading in wind power and other forms of green energy.categories: wind power, wind energy, anarchism
Labour’s push to generate 10% of Britain's energy from green sources by the end of the decade has created a boom time likened by one expert last week to the South Sea Bubble.
Nathan and Rees hoped that their new company, Pure Energy & Power, would take advantage of generous government subsidies, European grants and an eagerness by the City and banks to invest without doing proper due diligence.
For they had a dirty secret. Nathan was not the respectable lawyer with a PhD in economics that he made himself out to be. Fellow inmates at Wandsworth prison had known him as Ronnie, a serial fraudster who could not resist a con. It was in prison that he met Rees, a disgraced private detective, who was serving a seven-year sentence for attempting to plant drugs on a client’s wife.
Given their dubious backgrounds, they needed someone who could give them credibility and open the door to the corridors of power. Enter Professor Ian Fells.
The emeritus professor at Newcastle University is one of Britain’s foremost experts on green energy. ... His expertise is much sought after. He was the science adviser to the World Energy Council for 11 years until 1998 and is also an energy adviser to the European Union.
He is particularly close to senior British government officials after acting as an adviser for cabinet and select committees. This week he will be in London to advise officials engaged in rewriting the energy white paper.
Despite his many commitments, he is still available for hire.
October 1, 2005
Immaturity is in the wind
Rob Roy Macgregor writes in this week's Manchester (Vt.) Journal to admonish the effort by Londonderry citizens to prohibit giant wind turbines. He points out that such a law will not make the developer happy, and since the state decides such utility matters it is "immature" to take this stand for local zoning control.
In a revealing parenthetical paragraph, Macgregor berates those trying to preserve the ridgeline -- that it is not "theirs," that it is not "pristine," and that if it is "ours" metaphorically or spiritually (duh), then he has a right to see turbines there if he wants. As he admits, "there is no substance to this logic." That is because he equates installing the power plant with not installing the power plant, insisting that it is simply an aesthetic preference. His preference, however, would impose on everyone else. To claim that preventing the installation infringes his aesthetics is simply ridiculous. Not installing the power plant would not change his life, aesthetically or otherwise.
His conclusion, following logically from false premises, is that the town should make it easier on themselves by doing everything they can to accommodate the developer. Democracy (let alone reason) has no place in the desperate world of Rob Roy Macgregor's aesthetics.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, Vermont
In a revealing parenthetical paragraph, Macgregor berates those trying to preserve the ridgeline -- that it is not "theirs," that it is not "pristine," and that if it is "ours" metaphorically or spiritually (duh), then he has a right to see turbines there if he wants. As he admits, "there is no substance to this logic." That is because he equates installing the power plant with not installing the power plant, insisting that it is simply an aesthetic preference. His preference, however, would impose on everyone else. To claim that preventing the installation infringes his aesthetics is simply ridiculous. Not installing the power plant would not change his life, aesthetically or otherwise.
His conclusion, following logically from false premises, is that the town should make it easier on themselves by doing everything they can to accommodate the developer. Democracy (let alone reason) has no place in the desperate world of Rob Roy Macgregor's aesthetics.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, Vermont
September 30, 2005
The wind energy way
Like the Republican gangsters (and their Democratic molls) that have taken over our government, Greenpeace appears to believe that an effective way to silence the opposition is to throw out so many lies and non sequiturs that a concise response is impossible.
A staffer from Greenpeace's Washington office, Hallie Caplan, has been firing off letters to local newspapers where wind power battles are being fought. One of them appeared Wednesday in the Caledonian-Record of St. Johnsbury, Vt., beginning, "I am so excited about the windmill that will be erected this week."
As far as I know, there is no "windmill" erection planned in the area.
Then she gushes that "wind energy could supply 20 percent of the U.S.'s electricity from non-renewable hydro sources by 2020."
What is "non-renewable hydro"? Hydropower is generally considered a renewable source. Perhaps she meant "non-hydro renewables" but got jumbled in her excitement about the nonexisting new turbine. (Although the same phrase appears in a letter by her in Tuesday's Miller (S.D.) Press.)
If she meant hydro, then 20% of its 2002 contribution to our electricity is only 1.3%. For this she advocates industrializing Vermont's mountaintops? This is essential to combatting greenhouse gas emissions -- displacing nonpolluting hydro and causing new ecosystem damage?
If she meant non-hydro renewables, it's even more pathetic: 20% of that contribution is less than 0.5% of our electricity.
Despite this weak start, the letter goes on with the usual exaggerated claims of wind's potential, lumps it with other renewables, implies that it does not require 200 acres for every megawatt of output, lumps it with efficiency programs, insists we will save money (Greenpeace the cheap-energy advocate!), and even closes with the promise that the destruction of health and the environment by dirty energy sources "would be eliminated." (Actually Caplan specifies "health care" as one of the externalities to be eliminated, again making response difficult.)
In a similar letter in Monday's Greenfield (Mass.) Recorder, Caplan says, "The wind industry will provide a valuable source of highly skilled manufacturing jobs at a time when outsourcing has become a household word and a serious threat to people across the country." Apparently she hasn't heard about the turbine parts coming to this country from Vietnam, China, Brazil, Mexico, and Korea.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism
A staffer from Greenpeace's Washington office, Hallie Caplan, has been firing off letters to local newspapers where wind power battles are being fought. One of them appeared Wednesday in the Caledonian-Record of St. Johnsbury, Vt., beginning, "I am so excited about the windmill that will be erected this week."
As far as I know, there is no "windmill" erection planned in the area.
Then she gushes that "wind energy could supply 20 percent of the U.S.'s electricity from non-renewable hydro sources by 2020."
What is "non-renewable hydro"? Hydropower is generally considered a renewable source. Perhaps she meant "non-hydro renewables" but got jumbled in her excitement about the nonexisting new turbine. (Although the same phrase appears in a letter by her in Tuesday's Miller (S.D.) Press.)
If she meant hydro, then 20% of its 2002 contribution to our electricity is only 1.3%. For this she advocates industrializing Vermont's mountaintops? This is essential to combatting greenhouse gas emissions -- displacing nonpolluting hydro and causing new ecosystem damage?
If she meant non-hydro renewables, it's even more pathetic: 20% of that contribution is less than 0.5% of our electricity.
Despite this weak start, the letter goes on with the usual exaggerated claims of wind's potential, lumps it with other renewables, implies that it does not require 200 acres for every megawatt of output, lumps it with efficiency programs, insists we will save money (Greenpeace the cheap-energy advocate!), and even closes with the promise that the destruction of health and the environment by dirty energy sources "would be eliminated." (Actually Caplan specifies "health care" as one of the externalities to be eliminated, again making response difficult.)
In a similar letter in Monday's Greenfield (Mass.) Recorder, Caplan says, "The wind industry will provide a valuable source of highly skilled manufacturing jobs at a time when outsourcing has become a household word and a serious threat to people across the country." Apparently she hasn't heard about the turbine parts coming to this country from Vietnam, China, Brazil, Mexico, and Korea.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism
National Wind Watch
National Wind Watch was founded as a nonprofit corporation in August 2005. The organization will seek to promote knowledge and raise awareness of the risks and damaging environmental impacts of industrial wind turbine development, and will make information and analysis on the subject available through its website, www.wind-watch.org.
Here is the press release announcing the new group:
Here is the press release announcing the new group:
NATIONAL COALITION TO SPOTLIGHT WIND POWER’S HARMFUL IMPACTS, INEFFECTIVENESScategories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism
Rowe, MA (September 27, 2005). In response to the accelerating development of industrial wind power plants in the U.S., a coalition of groups and individuals has established a nonprofit organization, National Wind Watch, to better educate the public.
Growing opposition to wind power plants is raising important questions about whether their construction is justified. Significant wildlife and other environmental impacts of wind turbine proliferation are also becoming evident. National Wind Watch aims to disseminate information about the questions and problems associated with wind power, and to provide support to concerned individuals and communities.
NWW President David Roberson states: “Much of the information on wind power plants currently available to the public is propagated by the wind energy industry and associated organizations. It’s onesided, and frequently misleading. Industrial wind has powerful backers, and small communities are often ill equipped to deal with the issues. National Wind Watch will help to remedy that by providing a central resource of information people can use to make more informed decisions.”
The new organization arose from a May 2005 conference of community planners, wildlife biologists, energy experts, and concerned citizens from across the United States. The group identified many widespread misconceptions about the supposed benefits of wind plant development, and also examined the marketing efforts and other strategies of wind energy proponents.
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