2-km Wind Turbine Setbacks for Health and Safety

PETITION

We, the undersigned, request, for reasons of safety and health regarding onshore wind energy facilities, that:

1. No large wind turbine generator shall be erected closer than 1,600 meters (1 mile) or 12 times its total height (hub height plus rotor radius), whichever is greater, from a neighboring property line or public road or path; and

2. No large wind turbine generator shall be erected closer than 2,000 meters (1-1/4 miles) or 15 times its total height, whichever is greater, from a residence, school, place of business, or health care facility.

Go here to sign.

BACKGROUND

Large wind energy turbines

• Are subject to stresses that often cause catastrophic blade failure, collapse, and fire.


• May shed and throw large pieces of ice over a great distance.


• Create intrusive shadow flicker over a long distance when the sun is behind the turning blades.


• Raise noise levels to a degree that is incompatible with the rural or wild environment in which they are typically sited.


• Generate a wide range of noises and vibration, day and night, that cause loss of sleep, headaches, tinnitus, irritability, dizziness, nausea, and other symptoms in people who live near them.

Large wind turbines therefore need adequate setbacks to protect the health and safety of nearby residents. A minimum distance of 2 kilometers (or 1-1/4 miles) between homes and the turbines is recommended by a number of noise and health experts.

In certain terrains, such as rolling hills, in quiet rural areas, and under some climatic conditions, greater distances of 3-5 km (~2-3 mi) are required to protect the health and welfare of neighbors. Any specified setback, however, must be part of a robust set of regulations to limit noise and protect the environment and landscape.

For more information, see

• "Noise and Health Effects of Large Wind Turbines"


• "Safe setbacks: How far should wind turbines be from homes?"

How to use this petition

Show it to your legislators and government officials in discussing regulation of the wind industry. Use it as a starting point for local zoning. Use it as a model for local petitions.

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms

Wind power is a cynical game

Monique Aniel writes in the Bangor Daily News:

Wind power in Maine is a chess game, a chess game for those protected by multinational companies and allies in the current administration.

It is a game that took 20 years to design, a game that redefined new rules for state and federal agencies, reshaping their mandates of protecting America’s citizens and majestic lands into doing the exact opposite.

A game that puts people’s rights and public health behind those of the wind industry and simply ignored the complaints of those disturbed by the maddening whoosh of turbines.

Wind power is a game that turns electricity, which is already expensive, into a thrice absurdly expensive commodity hurting the pocketbook of residential and business customers alike. First in the purchasing cost, second in the cost of subsidies necessary to support the inefficiency and unreliability of this industry and third in the ratepayer-funded new electrical transmission structures required to accommodate the thermal stresses of spurting wind generation.

Wind power is a game that sacrifices America’s natural heritage for the profits of parasitic corporations adept at exploiting government policies, political correctness, guilty consciences of environmental organizations and fears about our environment.


wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, human rights

Where are the environmentalists?

[You know things are bad when you have to depend on conservative lobbyists to sound the alarm about threats to the environment.]

Like a tsunami, the politics of global warming has washed over the State House this past month. As the water recedes, the enormity of the problem has begun to sink in. Everybody is pumped up and ready to do something, anything, to solve the problem. The hard fact remains that in the short term there is not much the tiny State of Vermont can substantially accomplish. This is not to say there's not a problem that should be addressed and that all of us should be more responsible for our planet. Caution and thoughtfulness should be the rule that guides the legislature as they move to answer this problem. Let's be sure the solution doesn't lead to a whole new set of problems. Attempting to place huge 400 foot wind turbines on Vermont's mountain tops is a perfect example.

For almost 40 years, Vermont has carefully created a set of land use laws specifically designed to protect the state's beautiful landscape. From the banning of billboards on Vermont's highways in the early 1970's to the development and implementation of Act 250, an entire generation of Vermont politicos, lawmakers, environmentalists and lawyers has made it next to impossible to build any new structures above 2,500 feet. It is so difficult to build in this state that many believe that had the ski areas not been in existence before Act 250, they would never have been developed. ...

Where are all the environmental organizations that helped develop our land use legacy?  In one fell swoop, behind the cloak of global warming, 40 years of Vermont development control policies are being threatened. The placement of huge wind turbines on Vermont's ridgelines flies in the face of Vermont's land use policies. How can this happen? One legislator put it best, "How can we be seen as leaders in the fight against global warming if we don't have industrial wind farms in the state? We would be no different that any other state."

Arguably the cleanest energy user and one of the most beautiful states in the union, Vermont is very different from any other state. Precisely because of things like Act 250 and related policies, Vermont is a national leader on environmental and land use issues. How can this state turn away from its environmental roots by defacing its ridgelines for a marginal generating technology? Wind turbines perform at only 35% of their potential capacity and require a 100% backup generating system for when wind conditions are less than ideal. Is this about feeling good? There is no compelling reason to promote the construction of industrial wind farms in Vermont. Global warming needs to be addressed, but that should not come at the expense of Vermont's land use policies. Simply put, industrial wind farms that destroy Vermont's picturesque ridgelines are not the solution to global warming.

MacLean, Meehan & Rice, Montpelier, Vt.
Monday Briefing, February 12, 2007

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

Wind projected to produce 0.89% of U.S. electricity in 2030

According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) of the Dept. of Energy, in their Annual Energy Outlook 2007, wind produced 0.36% (14.6 billion kWh) of the total electricity (4,036 billion kWh) generated in the U.S. in 2005. Wind provided 0.05% of all of the energy consumed (only 99.95% to go!).

According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) the installed wind capacity was 6,725 MW at the beginning of 2005 and 9,149 MW at the end, an average installed capacity for 2005 of 7,937 MW. If we divide the EIA-reported generation by the 8,760 hours in a year, we find that the average rate of production was only 21% of capacity.

The EIA generously projects that wind will produce 0.89% of the total electricity generated in 2030. This is 22% lower than their previous year's projection. Of course even that ignores the fact that other sources have to burn extra fuel in the effort of balancing wind's intermittent and highly variable infeed.

See the comments in this space about AWEA's recent announcement of wind's 27% growth in 2006 (from 0.36% "penetration" to perhaps 0.45%).

((((+))))
AWEA recently noted that the 2,454 MW of wind "capacity" added in 2006 cost "approximately $4 billion." That's $1.63 million per megawatt.

According to budding energy giant AES Corporation, in its annual "Wind Generation Review" (Dec. 11, 2006) from Ned Hall, vice president for renewable generation, capital costs of installing wind have risen to $1.75 million per megawatt.

But AES also points out that "U.S. equity structures" (i.e., the Production Tax Credit, 5-year double-declining balance accelerated depreciation, sale of renewable energy credits, and other federal, state, and local subsidies) "provide return of all capital and development fees within five years." Not, of course, to the taxpayers: rather a hefty and swift transfer of public funds to private accounts.

For no benefit, but only harm to the environment, wildlife, people, and communities.

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, ecoanarchism, animal rights

Folly dressed up as science

The Burlington Free Press describes the final presentations of "The Energy Project Vermont," a celebration of wind power by the ECHO museum and Burlington City Arts:

Bringing in the science behind wind power, Thomas Tailer, co-director of UVM's Engineering Institute, ... has worked in alternative energy and education since 1979. Tailer's passion for seeing engineering and environment at work together was clear throughout his presentation. ... Tailer said just as the iconic Quixote jousted windmills to fight the Industrial Revolution, people today are in denial of our changing climate and are fighting alternative energy sources. ... "The image of an angel is an icon, and to me the windmill is that kind of icon, an icon of a sustainable future for this planet."

First, Miquel Cervantes published the first volume of his history of Don Quixote 1605 (the same year William Shakespeare produced King Lear), long before the industrial revolution. Tailer may be thinking of William Blake's "dark Satanic Mills" (preface to Milton, 1804).

Second, if Don Quixote were nonetheless a proto-Luddite, then he has (like the English Luddites of Blake's time) been vindicated by the environmental and social devastation wrought by centralized industry, and his battle was not madness but prescience. To equate that with denial of the devastation thus foreseen therefore doesn't fly. It is Tailer who denies the devastation wrought by industrial windmills, and Don Quixote who is right to tilt against them.

Third, Tailer evokes angels only to denigrate them as mere icons. But so it must be with windmills. Their agency doesn't really exist. They serve only as symbols.

So let's get real. If large-scale wind actually worked, it wouldn't need all these twisted rationalizations to justify it. Tailer not only mocks Don Quixote and angels, he also makes a mockery of science.

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, Vermont, anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism

The Green Masquerade

[excerpts -- click on title for complete interview at Counterpunch]

Alan Maass: Among a number of politicians, including Democrats, the concerns about global warming seem to have become an excuse for talk about resurrecting nuclear power.

Jeffrey St. Clair: That comes out of the Gore shop. Anyone who has the slightest familiarity with Gore's political biography will know that he's his father's son, and his father was one of the prime movers behind the Tennessee Valley Authority, behind nuclear power in Appalachia, and the Oak Ridge nuclear lab. Gore Junior was their congressional protector as a congressman and as a senator.

If you go back to Gore's book, Earth in the Balance, behind the scenes of that book is a cooling tower. That's Gore's solution to the global warming crisis -- a world that is clotted with nuclear power plants. If you look at his advisers on global warming while he was vice president, that was their message, too.

Those had been lean times for the nuclear power industry. I think that the Clinton administration could have sealed the nuclear power industry's fate in the U.S. if it had wanted to. But of course, it didn't. They sort of kept them on life support, with a lot of research funding and renewing all the protections.

So is there a renewed faith in nuclear power from the Democrats? Yes. And they now have a justification for it. If you scare yourself into believing that we're going to be having a runaway greenhouse effect, and the only way to stop it is to take immediate action in reducing the burning of fossil fuels, then you're going to be confronted with the argument that a proliferation of nuclear power plants is the fastest way to do that.

Alan Maass: Can you talk about the attitude of the environmental movement toward this corporate greenwashing?

Jeffrey St. Clair: The environmental movement made its deal with the devil at least a decade ago, when they essentially became neoliberal lobby shops. The idea was that if we can't defeat capitalism, if we can't change capitalism, then let's just give in and see if we can use some of the mechanics of the free market in order to tweak the damage done to the environment.

These kinds of seeds were sown in green groups in the early 1980s, but really reached an apogee in Clinton Times.

I don't even think the term greenwashing even applies any more. That was the industry response to the great environmental tragedies of the 1970s, and '80s -- Love Canal, Three Mile Island, Bhopal, the Exxon Valdez. But they don't have to do that any more, because essentially, corporations like BP and environmental groups like the World Wildlife Fund and the Environmental Defense Fund share the same basic mindset.

You can't distinguish between, for example, Ikea, one of the world's great predators of rain forests, and the World Wildlife Fund, which is in a joint venture with Ikea -- so Ikea gets a little panda stamp on the lumber cut from primary forests in Indonesia. So greenwashing seems to me to be very passé.

Environmental politics are largely controlled by the foundations -- they control what's discussed and what the major issues are. The foundations are shackled at the hip to the Democratic Party, and the dominant ones are all children of big oil companies. Pew, the Rockefeller Family Fund, W. Alton Jones -- their endowments were the fortunes of big oil.

I was talking to an environmentalist who said that if you want a grant from any of those foundations, you have to have global warming in your agenda.

Now, let's say you're working on fighting chemical companies in Cancer Alley. How do you work global warming into your agenda? Or if you're fighting factory trawlers, which are creating dead zones off the Pacific coast, how do you work global warming into that? But if you can't, then the money dries up.

What it creates is a kind of inchoate state of environmental politics, because I don't think you can build a mass political movement around global warming.

environment, environmentalism, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism

Stand with the People!

Human needs, not corporate greed
Tax the rich and corporations
End the wars, bring the troops home
Health care for all
End corporate welfare
Protect the planet
Put workers before profits
Get money out of politics
Fifteen Core Issues The Country Must Face

1. Corporatism– firmly establish that money is not speech, corporations are not people, only people have Constitutional rights, end corporate influence over the political process, protect people and the environment from damage by corporations.

2. Wars and Militarism – end wars and occupations, end private for-profit military contractors, reduce the national security state and end the weapons export industry. War crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace must be addressed and those responsible held accountable under international law.

3. Human Rights – end exploitation of people in the US and abroad, end discrimination in all forms, equal civil rights and due process for all people.

4. Worker Rights and jobs – all working-age people have the right to safe, just, non-discriminatory and dignified working conditions, a sustainable living wage, paid leave and economic protection.

5. Government – all processes of the three branches of government should be accountable to international law, transparent and follow the rule of law, people have the right to participate in decisions which affect them.

6. Elections – all citizens 18 and older have the right to vote without barriers, all candidates have the right to be heard and to run and all votes should be counted.

7. Criminal justice and prisons – end private for-profit prisons, adopt evidence-based drug policy, prisoners have the right to humane and just conditions with a focus on rehabilitation and reintegration into society, abolish the death penalty.

8. Healthcare – create a national, universal and publicly financed comprehensive health system.

9. Education – all people have the right to a high quality, publicly-funded and broad education from pre-school through vocational training or university.

10. Housing – all people have the right to affordable and safe housing.

11. Environment – adopt policies which effectively create a carbon-free and radio-active free energy economy.

12. Finance and the economy – end policies which foster a wealth divide and move to a localized and democratic financial system, reform taxes so that they are progressive and provide goods, monetary gain and services for the people.

13. Media – airwaves and the internet are public goods, require that media be honest, accurate and accountable to the people.

14. Food and water – create systems that protect the land and water, create local and sustainable food networks and practices.

15. Transportation – provide affordable, clean and convenient public transportation and safe spaces for pedestrian and non-automobile travel.

Going green

We use a lot of energy. This has been possible because of the energy density of fossil fuels — coal, oil, methane (natural gas). But the consequence has been a continuing decimation of the environment, not only due to extracting and burning these fuels, but also because of the massive human population they have been able to support, which simply crowds out other life, flora as well as fauna.

And now oil is running out. Obviously, extraction of the other fossil fuels also can not go on forever.

Hence the clamor for biofuels (plant-derived ethanol and diesel, even jet fuel) and renewable energy (wind and solar). We would have to ramp these up dramatically if we are to meet our future energy needs without depending on fossil fuels (or nuclear, with its own set of limitations and consequences).

But biofuels require taking crop land away from growing food, or mowing down new swathes of forest for temporarily lucrative monocultures. And the energy in the wind and sun is extremely diffuse, requiring massive plants (measured in square miles rather than acres) to collect any significant amount. Even then the sun sets each night, and the wind is intermittent and highly variable, requiring more build-up for storage and for tying together very widely separated facilities with the hope of providing some measure of steady power.

This is madness.

Just as more humans simply means fewer other species, our use of more green energy means even less for other life on the planet. At least fossil fuels aren't being used by others; "green" fuels are. The more we take, the less other lives have.

On a large scale, renewable energy is more harmful to life on earth than fossil fuels. It is madness to think that the wind and the sun can replace coal and oil and nuclear.

The only way to minimize the impacts of our energy use is to minimize our energy use.

Instead of ramping up large-scale wind and solar to meet our energy needs, we need to ramp down our energy needs to meet reality.

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism

Toronto Star attacks citizens, shills for industrial development

In an article in today's Toronto Star ("Noise protesters howling about windfarms"), Tyler Hamilton reports:

At the moment, however, there's no convincing evidence that wind turbines located a few hundred metres from a dwelling negatively effect health, [Energy and Infrastructure Minister George] Smitherman said. A 2008 epidemiological study and survey, financed by the European Union, generally supports that view.

Researchers from Holland's University of Groningen and Gothenburg University in Sweden conducted a mail-in survey of 725 rural Dutch residents living 17 metres to 2.1 kilometres from the nearest wind turbine.

The survey received 268 responses and, while most acknowledged hearing the "swishing" sound that wind turbines make, the vast majority – 92 per cent – said they were "satisfied" with their living environment.

That survey is available here. Only 26% of the nearby turbines were 1.5 MW or above, and 66% of them were smaller than 1 MW -- whereas the turbines being built now are typically 2-2.5 MW. Furthermore, only 9% of the respondents lived with an estimated noise level from the turbines of more than 45 dB, which is the maximum level recommended by the World Health Organization to ensure that the inside level is 30 dB as required for sleeping.

In other words, the survey does not in fact support the view that the turbines being built in Ontario should not be farther from people's homes.

Small wind energy expert Paul Gipe writes in the comments to the article:

There are 74,000 wind turbines in Europe, some 5,600 in Denmark alone. And contrary to many myths, the Danes, German, French, Spanish and others are continue to install thousands more every year.

Again, most of the turbines in Denmark are half the size of those being installed today. And it is a simple fact that Denmark has not added any new wind capacity since 2003. (See Danish Wind Energy Association.) Meanwhile the Spanish industry ministry just last week issued changes to limit the expansion of wind energy. Germany's wind still represents less than 10% of production, and France is just starting to push big wind. People are pushing back in all of these places: see the European Platform Against Windpower.

Finally, the reporter of the Star article, while readily questioning the direct testimony of dozens of individuals about the health effects of wind turbine noise, mentions without question "the positive environmental role that wind power plays in the battle against climate change and air pollution". Where is the data showing this? Where is this reporter's skepticism about that side of the story?

Wind industry advocates like to note, for example, that from 1990 to 2006, Germany's CO2 emissions decreased 13.7% (click here for the latest international data from the Energy Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy). Most of that, however, appears to be due to cleaning things up after the unification of east and west. From 1998, when industrial wind energy began to be installed in earnest, CO2 emissions decreased only 1.6%. Considering just Germany's extensive effort to insulate roofs, that figure doesn't suggest much benefit coming from big wind.

In part 2 of this article, published the next day, Hamilton writes about Denmark, "In some years, when CO2 emissions rise slightly, it has little to do with wind." Yet without embarrassment, he presents any drop in emissions as having everything to do with wind! In fact, Danish energy trade, and thus domestic CO2 emissions, varies dramatically year to year. In the same table cited in the preceding paragraph, we see that emissions decreased 16.3% from 2003 to 2005, although no new wind capacity was added in that period. From 2002 to 2003, the last year that wind capacity was added, emissions increased 16.2%.

Again, it is hardly courageous to avoid questioning those with power and to only attack those without.

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights

Veganism & the Environment: By the Numbers

GREENHOUSE GASES

• 1 calorie from animal protein requires 11 times as much fossil fuel as one calorie of plant protein.
• The diets of meat eaters create 7× the greenhouse emissions as the diets of vegans.

Carbon Dioxide (CO₂)

• If one person exchanges a "regular" car for a hybrid, they'll reduce CO₂ emissions by 1 ton per year.
• If one person exchanges eating meat for a vegan diet, they'll reduce CO₂ emissions by 1.5 tons per year.
• If every American dropped one serving of chicken per week from their diet, it would save the same amount of CO₂ emissions as taking 500,000 cars of the road.

Methane (CH₄)

• Methane is 20× more powerful at trapping heat in the earth's atmosphere than CO₂.
• Chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows are collectively the largest producer of methane in the U.S.

Nitrous Oxide (N₂O)

• Nitrous oxide is 300× more powerful at trapping heat in the earth's atmosphere than CO₂.
• The meat, egg, and dairy industries produce 65% of worldwide nitrous oxide emissions.

WATER

• Nearly half of all water used in the United States goes to raising animals for food.
• It takes more than 2,400 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat vs. 25 gallons to produce 1 pound of wheat.
• You'd save more water by not eating 1 pound of meat than you would by not showering for 6 months.
• A meat-eating diet requires 4,000 gallons per day vs. a vegan diet which requires 300 gallons of water per day.
• Animals raised for food create 89,000 pounds of excrement per second, none of which benefits from the waste-treatment facilities for human excrement. This creates massive amounts of groundwater pollution.
• Chicken, hog, and cattle excrement has polluted 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 American states.

LAND

• Raising animals for food uses 30% of the earth's land mass, or 17 million square miles. That's about the same size as Asia! The moon (at 14.6 million square miles) has less area than that.
• More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to create cropland to grow grain to feed farmed animals.
• The equivalent of 7 football fields of land are bulldozed every minute to create more room for farmed animals.
• Livestock grazing is the number one cause of plant species becoming threatened or going
• extinct in the U.S.

FOOD

• Animals eat large quantities of grain, soybeans, oats, and corn; however, they only produce a comparatively small amount of meat, dairy products, or eggs in return.
• It requires 16 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of meat.
• It requires 5 pounds of wild-caught fish to produce 1 pound of farmed fish.

Source (with references):  http://www.culinaryschools.org/yum/vegetables/

environment, environmentalism, vegetarianism, veganism

Wind industry wants to silence inquiry

Editor of the Reformer:

Charlene Ellis and Fred Taylor (letter, April 6) write that "Only with a concerned effort by all of us to formulate renewable energy policies based on science, rather than propaganda, will be able to protect the Vermont landscape we cherish." Yet they ignore that call and only defend their smearing of those fighting to protect Vermont's ridgelines from energy development with smearing them some more.

Despite their call for science, they simply ignore the possibility, let alone the clear evidence, that giant wind turbines erected on sensitive ridgelines do more harm than good. Instead, they accuse anyone who questions such industrial development as dupes of fossil fuel, as if the biggest wind developer in the U.S. isn't coal giant Florida Power and Light (aka Nextera), as if the biggest turbine manufacturer isn't nuclear and gas plant (and military weaponry) giant General Electric, as if Enron and George W. Bush weren't the ones who more than anyone created the modern U.S. wind industry.

Science rather than propaganda seems to be precisely what Ellis and Taylor do not want, as they cite only pro-wind hype and demonize all who disagree with them. One is reminded of Joseph McCarthy more than Rachel Carson, of an enthusiasm for censorship and slander more than honest discussion.

Their need to explain it as an "ultra-conservative" plot hatched last year in Washington also apparently prevents them from learning much about their neighbors fighting big wind in Vermont, particularly that the fight goes back more than 10 years, from the seeds planted with the erection of 11 Zond turbines (bought by Enron the next year, then by GE in 2002) in Searsburg in 1996. The statewide advocacy group Energize Vermont arose from the fight to protect the ridges west of Rutland which began at least 5 years ago. They build on the work of the Kingdom Commons Group, the Glebe Mountain Group, Ridge Protectors, and many others that have brought Vermonters of every political leaning together in common cause. And there are countless other such groups around the world, from Oaxaca (where Reporters Without Borders last week condemned international companies and the state for the harassment, arrests, and physical abuse of journalists covering wind energy development on Zapoteca land) to Denmark (where virtually no new onshore wind capacity has been added since 2002), New Zealand to Germany, India to Ireland.

The fight to protect our landscapes from poorly considered, profit-driven, big energy development that does such clear harm to the environment, to human and other animal habitats, has always represented — and does so still — a concerted effort by informed citizens to use science guided by the heart rather than profit or tribal dogma.

The provision of S.30 that most scared industry was for greater involvement of host and affected neighboring communities in the permitting process. Informed citizens thinking for themselves seem to be exactly what they don't want, or more cynically, can't afford.

• Opinion piece: What's the origin of Vermont's anti-wind sentiment? Fred Taylor and Charlene Ellis, Brattleboro Reformer, March 15, 2013.
• Response letter: Not a Koch Bros. flack. Sally Warren, Brattleboro Reformer, March 18, 2013.
• Response to response: Beware of 'wind warriors'. Charlene Ellis and Fred Taylor, April 6, 2013.
• Two responses to that response: April 16, 2013

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, Vermont

Murðer Denmark

Cartoon by Jens Hage:

"As long as it's green — it doesn't hurt!"
"Nice mounds!"

(This is about the Danish government plan to cut down the forest in the Østerild Klitplantage (dunes park) in Thy to erect giant wind turbines for a "test center". The victim is "Mother [Mor] Denmark". The title in Danish is "Mord [Murder] Danmark". Since 2002, almost no new wind capacity on land has been erected in Denmark. From left to right are: Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Prime Minister, Ditlev Engel, Vestas President and CEO, Anders Eldrup, DONG Energy CEO, and Karen Ellemann, Environment Minister.)

(Similarly, a resident of Vermont in the USA wrote in 2005 about “blasting vermont's lovely ridgelines to ram monstrous turbine assemblies into the earth” [link])

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism

Screw the environment and communities for wind industry

Here's a couple more examples of industrial wind developers convincing lawmakers that the law is not necessary for them (which only proves that it is especially necessary -- why does the wind industry find it so hard to pass environmental muster?!).

In Massachusetts, governor Deval Patrick wants to restrict citizens' right to appeal wetlands decisions. This is in response to the successful challenge by Green Berkshires of the permit for a wind energy facility on the Hoosac Range.

In Sweden, the industry minister wants permitting laws changed to ignore local objections. The government has already relaxed environmental regulations for industrial wind facilities.

wind power, wind energy, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights

Green Development?

To the Editor, New York Times:

By painting as "Nimby" all who question development plans, Elisabeth Rosenthal does a disservice to community participation in decision-making ["Green Development? Not in My (Liberal) Backyard", Week in Review, Mar. 13]. Such pejorative name-calling serves only to quash serious and open discussion.

Every development project requires a cost-benefit analysis, but the "greater good" is often evoked as a means of shutting out local concerns. The people who will be directly affected are best placed to ensure that the costs -- and the claimed benefits -- are properly assessed. It should not be a surprise that their conclusions are frequently different from those of developers and politicians.

This is certainly the case with wind power, which, when examined with the cold eye of someone facing major industrial development of a rural or even wild area, seems to be primarily a tax avoidance scheme for energy companies and investors. After decades of deployment, its other benefits (e.g., less carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning) have proven to be elusive at best. And its impacts -- on the environment, wildlife, and human neighbors -- far exceed the developers' reassurances.

Rosenthal also describes overseas acquiescence, but the European Platform Against Windfarms includes at last count 473 organizations from 21 countries, including 6 from Denmark and 68 from Germany. In the U.K. (with 78 groups signed on to the EPAW), industrialists regularly complain that a third of proposed wind energy facilities are blocked because of locals having a say on the future of their landscapes and their lives.

Eric Rosenbloom
President, National Wind Watch

wind power, wind energy, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights

Denmark ranks low in 2010 environmental performance index

Agricultural practices and high reliance on coal, oil and gas gives the country a poor environmental ranking

Denmark is ranked a modest 32nd in the ‘Environmental Performance Index 2010’, compiled by researchers from American Ivy League universities Yale and Columbia.

The index ranks 163 countries, measuring factors such as greenhouse gas emissions, protection of habitats for fauna and flora, general pollution, aquatic environments and sanitation.

Although many of the countries that are ranked ahead of Denmark are not industrialised, many others are, including its Scandinavian neighbours Sweden and Norway, which place fourth and fifth respectively. Another Nordic country, Iceland, tops the list as the most environmentally respectful country. [And Finland is 12th. Click here to see all of the rankings.]

Christine Kim, one of the researchers behind the project, said Denmark wasn’t the pioneer it claimed to be when it came to the environment.

‘When it comes to greenhouse gases, Denmark is not much of an environmental leader,’ she said. ‘And it’s mainly due to the way the Danes use and produce energy.’

Click here to read the rest of "Denmark’s environmental standards dismal" at Copenhagen Post (29 January 2010)

The point of calling attention to this is not to beat up on Denmark. It is to note that despite being the world leader by far in wind energy "penetration", they have still to deal with the same problems as other industrialized countries. Wind didn't change things much.

P.S.  Fun facts:  In 2008, the United States got 48% of its electricity from coal. In 2008, Denmark got 48% of its electricity from coal.

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism

Help the Obama transition team understand the negative aspects of industrial wind

Click here (change.gov/page/s/energyenviro) for a form to submit your thoughts to the Obama-Biden Energy and Environment Policy Team.

The Obama team needs to know that it is no longer excusable to pretend that large-scale wind is a meaningful part of our energy and environmental goals. Wind energy is intermittent, variable, and nondispatchable, so it can not replace other more reliable sources without correspondingly large-scale storage methods which don't yet exist and which would add to its cost and further reduce the amount of usable energy extracted. Wind power's ability to meaningfully reduce even slightly the rate of growth of greenhouse gas emissions is thus very limited. The money should be spent much more effectively than this.

Furthermore, big wind is largely incompatible with other environmental interests. It requires giant (400-500 feet high) moving machines spread out over a great expanse (at least 50 acres per rated megawatt), thus severely altering the rural and wild places where it is built, destroying and fragmenting habitat (with heavy-duty roads and high-voltage transmission lines as well) and presenting a direct threat to birds and bats (not just from the blades, but also from the low-pressure vortices created behind the blades). See www.wind-watch.org/documents/category/wildlife/.

Where there are human neighbors, the adverse effects on health from the intrusive rhythmic noise and shadow flicker are increasingly documented (see www.wind-watch.org/documents/category/health/. These people are the victims of the unquestioning support of industrial wind developers by politicians and, sadly, many environmentalists and progressives.

In short, industrial wind fails on many levels. Its potential benefits are at best minimal, and its adverse impacts to the landscape, animals, and people are many and only increase. Large-scale wind is a destructive boondoggle. It should be strictly regulated and certainly not encouraged.

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights

Wind power does not reduce CO₂ emissions.

“In a wind-thermal system, production variations from the intermittent character of wind power results in an increase in system costs and a decrease in the efficiency of wind power as a means to reduce CO₂-emissions from the system. This effect gets increasingly pronounced with increased levels of wind power grid penetration and is due to the adjustment in production pattern of the thermal units to the variations in wind power production. As wind power grid penetration increases, the conventional units will run more at part load and experience more frequent starts and stops. Also, wind power may need to be curtailed in situations where the costs to stop and restart thermal units are higher than the difference in running costs of wind power and the thermal units. Thus, variations in wind power reduce the possibility of the power system to lower CO₂-emissions by adding wind power capacity to the system.”

—“Large scale integration of wind power: moderating thermal power plant cycling” by Lisa Göransson and Filip Johnsson, Wind Energy 2011; 14:91–105

-o-o-o-o-o-
Olaf Errwigge (Facebook) —

There is no argument that burning fossil fuel to generate electricity releases CO₂ into the atmosphere, or that using the wind to generate electricity does not. But it does not follow that adding wind to the grid reduces CO₂ emissions from other sources: Where there is little hydropower (no CO₂ emissions) to balance the highly variable wind, fossil fuel–fired generators are forced to work less efficiently, ie, with more emissions per unit of electricity generated. Furthermore, the best “balancing” plants for wind are open-cycle natural gas–fired turbines (OCGT), which can respond quickly enough to compensate for the continual changes of wind generation. But combined-cycle natural gas–fired turbines (CCGT) are substantially more efficient efficient, such that wind + OCGT may not represent lower emissions than CCGT alone. Thus, wind power’s manufacture, transport, and maintenance would indeed contribute to increased CO₂ emissions. And there is no benefit at all to weigh against its other adverse impacts on the environment, wildlife, and human neighbors.

Result: Wind + fossil fuel generation does not necessarily mean lower CO₂ emissions, particularly in the comparison of wind + open-cycle gas (necessary to quickly respond to wind’s continually variable generation) vs. the much more efficient combined-cycle gas alone.

And, of course, where there’s hydro, that’s the preferred source to ramp back as the wind rises: no CO₂ involved at all.

With virtually no benefits, wind power’s many adverse impacts – on the environment, wildlife, and human neighbors – not to mention its financial cost and the carbon and materials footprint of its manufacture, transport, and maintenance – are impossible to justify.

Also see:  “Why wind power does not substantially reduce emissions”

The Vandals that support industrial wind energy

This is of a piece with the industry they support. (Click on the title of this post.)

Also see:
Pro-wind violence on Skye
Industrial exploitation in Mexico and China
Forest dwellers of India losing their land to wind energy development (like the Zapotecas in Oaxaca, the Maori in New Zealand, the Aborigines in Australia, and rural communities everywhere)

This is a predatory effort of industrial possession of the last peaceful places, all under a "green" cloak, the engines of the juggernaut fanned by hysterical "environmentalists" clamoring for the symbolic triumph of giant erections waving from every hilltop while ignoring their impotence and the real destruction below.

It is a senselessly violent gesture in the name of -- and very much against -- the environment and people.

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, Vermont, anarchism, ecoanarchism

Corrosion grounding off-shore wind

From Environmental Data Services (U.K.), via Friends of the Irish Environment, comes a report of a Sept. 20 article in the Norwegian engineering journal Teknisk Ukeblad about off-shore wind energy facilities being shut down because of corrosion damage to gearboxes, rotor blades, and other mechanical components. Affected sites include Nysted and Horns Rev off the Danish coast, Barrow in the Irish sea, and Kentish Flats in the Thames estuary. Vestas has suspended sales of its 3-MW off-shore turbine.

The Swedish engineering journal Ny Teknik also carried an article on the subject on Sept. 19, confirming Vestas' problems and noting that the technology still needs a lot of work (how much more money will we throw down this dead end?) to withstand the harsh environment off shore.

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines

Vermonters for a Clean Environment

Click the title of this post to download the VCE 2011 midyear report.

Articles include:

Trouble with Snowmobiles, State Stonewalls, by Kate Scarlott and Rob MacLeod (East Hardwick)

Working Together to Save the “Nature of Vermont”, by Steve Wright (Craftsbury Common)

Why Water Quality Matters, by Paul Brouha (Sutton)

Is Anyone Listening? by Candice Shaffer (Waitsfield)

Protecting Water, by Susan Shaw (Florence)

Plus legislative and news updates.

environment, environmentalism, Vermont