Gag order

As noted before in this space (here and here), leases from wind power developers are extreme documents. A correspondent has recently informed us that several people who have given up their land for the huge (120 390-ft turbines so far, many more planned) "Maple Ridge Wind Farm" on the Tug Hill Plateau in Lewis County, N.Y., have been complaining privately about the noise. But they signed away their right to mention it to anyone but the company. Thus as far as the company is concerned there is no noise problem! Cute, huh?

tags:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms

Blowing out the fire

Jaon Vennochi writes in today's Boston Globe about the danger of censuring the criminal acts of the President:

Is Feingold's resolution motivated by pure political self-interest? He is a probable Democratic presidential candidate trying to stake his claim to the political left. Or is it principle? Feingold is the only US senator who opposed the original Patriot Act, and he voted against authorizing war with Iraq.

Either way, it creates a dilemma for Democrats.

A dilemma? Both political interest and principle are to be avoided? What's left for these ghosts that stalk the halls of Congress?

Current polls and surveys show people think as little of Bush as they do of Congress. Democrats in Congress should be thinking of ways to change that political reality. They need to increase their own favorability ratings at the expense of the opposition. Handing the opposition a weapon to use against Democrats is counterproductive, to say the least. But censure, and even impeachment, are seductive.

Keeping silent about illegal actions of the President will win respect? Refusing to act because of fear of the opposition will win votes?

In the House, 29 of 201 Democrats have signed on to a resolution from Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan, that demands a special committee to investigate the Bush administration's "manipulation of prewar intelligence," among other things, and advise whether there are "grounds for possible impeachment." ...

Representative James P. McGovern of Worcester called the resolution "tempting," but concluded that it distracts from the party's goals of winning House and Senate races in the fall. Representative Barney Frank says, "This is an understandable emotional response from people who are very angry. But why do we want to energize George Bush's people?"

A fine plan: Defeat Republicans by not opposing them. Bore the Republican base into an apathy matching that of the Democrats. But there again, the Republicans are way ahead: They don't need votes, because they own the ballot boxes.

A political survey done by American Research Group is helping the left make its case. It is based on 1,100 telephone interviews among a random sample of adults nationwide from March 13-15. Of those surveyed, 46 percent said they favored censuring Bush for authorizing wiretaps of Americans without obtaining court orders; 44 percent opposed and 10 percent were undecided. On impeachment, 42 percent favored a vote to impeach; 29 percent opposed and 9 percent were undecided.

The survey is particularly interesting when responses from independents are analyzed. On the censure question, 42 percent said they favored it; 47 percent opposed. On the impeachment question, 47 percent favored it; 40 percent opposed.

So it isn't just for the left, as it turns out! Censure, even impeachment, is a mainstream no-brainer. The percentage opposed to impeachment is less than two-thirds the percentage of voters that are supposed to have elected the bastard. And the all-important "swing" voter remains just as uninteresting and irrelevant as ever.

It all adds fuel to the flames swirling around the White House. There is danger for the GOP, but also for Democrats: Will those flames consume those who fan them, too?

The Joan Vennochi solution: Sit in the dark and pretend that Bush won't do anything else bad and that it will all be like a bad dream when a new president is elected in 2008. That is, if Bush allows a new election. Who would dare stop him, since both political interest and principle are so risky?

Alternatives:
Second Vermont Republic
Green Party
Labor Party

tags: anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, Vermont

Vermont legislators propose throwing out hearing results

State representatives Keenan of St. Albans City, Shand of Weathersfield, and Young of Orwell introduced a resolution yesterday to recommend that the Public Service Board reject its hearing officer's recommendation to deny a permit for the East Haven Wind Farm and grant it anyway.

Whereas, notwithstanding the hearing officer's recommendations, a close review of his findings reveals many conclusions which in combination argue convincingly for the PSB to act contrary to the hearing officer's overall recommendation, ...

This weirdly suggests that Janson himself did not make a close review of his own findings -- and that these legislators somehow have a better knowledge of the evidence than the man who presided over weeks of hearings and has read thousands of pages of testimony.

Whereas, the 329-foot wind turbines would produce electricity that would be sold entirely to a local municipal electric company, the Lyndonville Electric Department (LED), and

Whereas, the power will be sold to LED at five percent below market cost and will decrease slightly the market price for electricity with the greatest economic benefit for individuals in the Northeast Kingdom who reside nearer the project, and ...

Whereas, not only is this newly available electric power being sold locally and at five percent below market cost, it would also help meet the regional need for electric power derived from renewable resources, ...

In fact, the electricity will be sold to grid operator ISO New England, who will send the check to LED who will take out 5% and then send it on to EMDC. LED is not buying the electricity; they are taking a cut of the sales to ISO New England. As for helping meet the regional need for renewable energy sources, the turbines would have a likely average output of around 1.5 MW, or less than 0.005% of the current capacity of the New England grid.

Whereas, opponents of the project have stated that demand-side lifestyle changes could substitute for the need for renewable power, and this is an argument the hearing officer rejected, ...

In Vermont, 1.5 MW represents 0.25% of our peak load. Certainly in this case, demand-side changes could easily substitute.

Whereas, increased local employment would occur both from short-term construction jobs and longer-term system operation, ...

EMDC has contracted with a Burlington firm for construction. GE would supply the workers experienced in turbine assembly. Almost all local employment would be for land clearing, excavating, and hauling cement. The national average for full-time (essentially custodial) jobs after the facility is operational is 1-2 per 20 MW rated capacity: not many prospects are likely from a 6-MW facility.

Whereas, this small a wind farm is unlikely to impact significantly the migratory bird population, and the hearing officer acknowledged the Agency of Natural Resources, statement that a project containing only four turbines will probably not result in a large number of bat deaths, ...

Janson singled out the lack of information about the impact on birds and bats and the reluctance of EMDC to undertake proper studies.

Whereas, the portions of the former Champion Lands from which viewers would have a prominent view of the turbines used for snowmobiling, logging, and other activities inconsistent with true wilderness areas, ...

None of these involves 330-ft machines, none of them is active at night, and none of them violates the dark sky of that area with strobe lights.

Whereas, the public investment in these lands was to purchase a public access easement, and the presence of a commercial wind farm on nearby private property will not significantly diminish the easement, ...

Janson, despite what I consider many seriously wrong assumptions of the value of wind power, clearly determined that it will.

tags:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, Vermont, environment, environmentalism

Get serious about wind

In today's Burlington (Vt.) Free Press, in an article about the recommendation from the hearing officer that the Public Service Board deny Mathew Rubin and Dave Rapaport a "certificate of public good" for their proposal of 4 wind turbines in East Haven  . . .

At the Conservation Law Foundation in Montpelier, Vermont Director Chris Kilian was highly critical of Janson's recommendation, saying it was discouraging "since we have to build thousands of windmills if we are serious about global warming and decommissioning nuclear plants."

Yes, indeed: thousands. The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant has a capacity of 510 MW and annual output around 85% of that (due to down times). The wind turbines proposed in East Haven have a rating of 1.5 MW each but are likely to average only 25% of that (due to variable winds). So it would take 1,156 of them to equal the output of Vermont Yankee.

When Vermont Yankee is not shut down for refueling or any of its many problems, i.e, 85% of the time, its output is a steady 100% of capacity. In contrast, because of the cubic relation of power output to wind speed, wind turbines would be producing at much less than their average rate about two-thirds of the time. That means that even more are needed. Government agency analyses from New York, Ireland, Britain, and Germany have all determined that wind power's effective capacity, or its ability to replace other sources is only about a third of its average capacity.

So it would take 3,468 1.5-MW wind turbines to provide the energy currently generated by Vermont Yankee. That's not just "a few carefully selected ridge lines" but would require the industrialization of well over a hundred. It would require stringing turbines along the entire spine of the Green Mountains like a barbed wire fence separating east from west.

Many people already consider the state to be under siege by the less than 200 MW currently proposed at 6 sites.

With so much overbuilding and redundancy, most of it would have to be shut down when the wind is strong or it would overload the system -- thus further diminishing its effective capacity.

This is not to voice support for Vermont Yankee, whose decommissioning I support. I have to clarify that, because it is an assumption wind promoters generally cling to rather than face the inadequacy, much less the madness, of their alternative. Ditto for coal and any other obviously greater evil they would raise to avoid scrutiny of their own depredations.

Three and half thousand giant wind turbines would still require back-up stations both to balance their variable power and to generate energy when the wind is weak. Each turbine, 330-430 feet high, sweeping a vertical air space of 1-1.5 acres, requires at least 50 acres of clear land around it. (That means it would require more than 270 square miles of wind plant to equal the output of Vermont Yankee.) Wide strong roads are required for access. New high-capacity transmission lines and substations would be built. Most of the turbines must be lit by flashing strobes day and night. The blades turn, ensuring their dominance of the landscape. Noise generated by the blades, gears, motors, and generators are intrusive as well, its low-frequency aspect a threat to health and well-being. Wildlife habitat is fragmented and forest diminished. Birds and bats are particularly threatened.

And we would still need the same amount of generating power from other plants (which would be run less efficiently, i.e., with more emissions) to keep the system running when the wind isn't perfect. With this pathetic outlook, and considering as well the fact that electricity is only a fraction of our energy use, wind looks about as far from a "serious" solution to global warming or decommissioning nuclear plants as one could get.

tags:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, Vermont

Animal labs are anti-science

To the Editor, The Guardian (U.K.) [published Mar. 15, 2006]:

I would like to add to Sharon Howe's reponse (Mar. 10) to Timothy Garton Ash that antivivisectionists are not anti-science. Garton Ash makes a fetish of science but ignores the fact that it is science that makes it impossible to deny that the sentience of other animals is not very different from our own, and it is science that has, as Howe describes, developed better means of research and testing for human medicine than the Victorian barbarism of animal labs.

tags:  animal rights

American Communism

"In heaven there is only Communism; and why should it not be our aim to prepare ourselves in this world for the society we are sure to enter there? ... All distinctions of rich and poor are abolished. The members have no care except for their own spiritual culture. Communism provides for the sick, the weak, the unfortunate, all alike, which makes their life comparatively easy and pleasant. In case of great loss by fire or flood or other cause, the burden which would be ruinous to one is easily borne by the many. Charity and genuine love one to another, which are the foundations of true Christianity, can be more readily cultivated and practiced in Communism than in common, isolated society." --Schoolteacher, Zoar, Ohio

"There is a freedom from the frivolities of fashion, from arbitrary restricitions, and from the frenzy of competition; we meet our fellow-men in more sincere, hearty and genial relations; kindred spirits are not separated by artificial, conventional barriers; the soul is warmed in the sunshine of a true social equality." --On the Community of Bethel, Missouri

from American Communities, by William Alfred Hinds, 1878

tags:  anarchism

Finnegans Wind

I, but a poor mimic, dedicate this peace to Stan Moore, RIP

-- Its a criime shem, our Shun emits. Yore no is us goot ass a yass. Mimountin loons larch end immoovabull, ond yur edifyce shaks in sham. Thy wryot of nays 'll here r reitchus aye un timble to arth.

-- Shant, his Shim reparts. Hiss win dys up. Hiss hedd hass croktt ass hiss towrinkss pinn. Hee well nutt phall fo hee hatt nott riss. Hat shut! Oun mus born!

Issy, shunned and shemmed, combed her feathers and powndered her meathers and she lupt hem all. For she wood soar what the fusses. But shee cood knowt soar so fasses the wind turnd them ill. The sheman herd and will aveher weep. The shunnon just fload in his muddeyed bink.

tags:  wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism