"The atheist"

An interview in Salon with Richard Dawkins:

'Bush and bin Laden are really on the same side: the side of faith and violence against the side of reason and discussion. Both have implacable faith that they are right and the other is evil. Each believes that when he dies he is going to heaven. Each believes that if he could kill the other, his path to paradise in the next world would be even swifter. The delusional "next world" is welcome to both of them. This world would be a much better place without either of them.'

"Cornell halts planning for wind project"

'ITHACA -- Cornell University decided not to proceed with its wind energy project on Mount Pleasant after more than four months of preparing to study the feasibility of eight 400-foot wind turbines. ...

'"They thought things over carefully, listened to community concerns and decided in favor of environmental policies and being a good neighbor."'

No-impact construction?

Here is a picture from the construction of a relatively small industrial wind turbine in Moorhead, Minn., a 750-KW NEG Micon. The tower is 180 feet high, and each blade extends another 83 feet. Newer turbines are at least 1.5 MW, around 330 feet high total, and they are getting bigger (see "Giants of the Amazon"). Nonetheless, this 750-KW model required a foundation hole 44.5 × 44.5 × 10 feet deep filled with 24 tons of steel rebar and 300 cubic yards of concrete. A new road had to be built that was able to carry not only the usual heavy equipment and dumptrucks but especially the 500-ton crane used to assemble the turbine. Whenever anyone says they can just be removed when something better comes along, you can see that rolling your eyeballs and scoffing is the mildest appropriate response. In fact, when a decommissioning agreement is required, the company generally agrees only to remove the top few feet of cement from the platform.


categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines

"No EISs for Vic wind farms"

"The Victorian Planning Minister has decided that an environmental impacts statement (EIS) will not be needed for proposed wind farms near Warrnambool at Drysdale [30-40 2-3 MW turbines] and Woolsthorpe [25-30 2-3 MW turbines] in the state's south-west."

Somehow, industrialists have convinced planners that these 400-feet-high power plants -- along with their roads, power lines, and substations -- are by definition environmentally friendly and therefore require no such scrutiny as they are constructed in relatively (or even totally) undeveloped areas.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environmentalism

"An ugly face of ecology"

George Monbiot has written an incisive critique of industrial wind power and its "green" supporters. It is in the Guardian (click the title of this post) as well as on his own site, where it includes notes.

The people fighting the new wind farm in Cumbria have cheated and exaggerated. They appear to possess little understanding of the dangers of global warming. They are supported by an unsavoury coalition of nuclear-power lobbyists and climate-change deniers. But it would still be wrong to dismiss them. ...

Wind farms, while necessary, are a classic example of what environmentalists call an "end-of-the-pipe solution". Instead of tackling the problem - our massive demand for energy - at source, they provide less damaging means of accommodating it. Or part of it. The Whinash project, by replacing energy generation from power stations burning fossil fuel, will reduce carbon dioxide emission by 178,000 tonnes a year. This is impressive, until you discover that a single jumbo jet, flying from London to Miami and back every day, releases the climate-change equivalent of 520,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. One daily connection between Britain and Florida costs three giant wind farms.

Alternative technology permits us to imagine that we can build our way out of trouble. By responding to one form of overdevelopment with another, we can, we believe, continue to expand our total energy demands without destroying the planetary systems required to sustain human life. This might, for a while, be true. But it would soon require the use of the entire land surface of the UK. ...

I believe the Whinash wind farm should be built. But I also believe that those who defend it should be a good deal more sensitive towards local objectors. Why? Because in any other circumstances they would find themselves fighting on the same side.

Monbiot is right to express discomfort with the pro-nuclear and climate-change-denying tendencies of many wind energy opponents. Yet ultimately they are defending the landscape against needless industrialization. Many opponents are indeed conservationists and defenders of wildlife without the baggage Monbiot decries. Even Greenpeace, adamantly pro-wind, has balked at the extent of the proposed facilities on the island of Lewis, as has almost every wildlife and natural heritage group. Many opponents recognize the problem exactly as Monbiot describes it and agree with his assessment of the futility of building ever more giant wind farms. How he concludes from this forthright analysis that industrial wind facilities are "necessary" is a mystery.

Monbiot argues from the need to reduce carbon emissions, pointing out that wind turbines currently provide only 0.32% of the U.K.'s electricity. That represents the output from 888.8 MW of wind power, according to the British Wind Energy Association. The addition of the 67.5-MW Whinash Wind Farm would increase that to 0.34%. To get to the target of 10% would require the addition of 26,576 MW after Whinash (using the less-rounded figures from Monbiot's notes). No wonder capital is so excited. No wonder sensible people resist.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environmentalism

Voices from Chernobyl

As so many in the U.K. and elsewhere are clamoring for nuclear power, the Guardian has published excerpts from Voices from Chernobyl, by Svetlana Alexievich (click on the title of this post). The stories are truly haunting. Even when working normally, a nuclear reactor is contaminating the air and water and producing an unresolvable waste problem. People point to the example of France, where 80% of their electricity is produced -- apparently safely -- by nuclear fission. Yet the extremely dangerous waste has yet to be dealt with, as it continues to accumulate at each of the 58 reactors. The ultimate plan is simply to bury it, as the Chernobyl "liquidators" did. Where, of course, is a big problem. And as France's nuclear plants age, many are questioning the huge expense of just maintaining them, let alone upgrading or building more.

categories:  environment, environmentalism, nuclear energy, nuclear power

Giants of the Amazon

Last night's Nature program featured "the giant of the Amazon," the Brazil nut tree, which can live for hundreds of years and reach a height of 160 feet. That's less than half the height of most modern wind turbine assemblies. And because even those giant wind turbines don't appear to have any positive effect on electricity use, manufacturers are making them even bigger. GE has recently come out with its "2x" series, ranging from 367 to 548 feet high, the blades chopping through 1.4 to 1.7 acres of air. These are the models planned for Gore Mountain in the Adirondacks and which environmentalists like Bill McKibben think would be a fine addition to the park's wilderness.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environmentalism