Driving the desire for industrial wind power is the conviction that its development is necessary to reduce the effects of fossil and/or nuclear fuel use. Thus the local impacts of large wind turbine installations are justified by a greater good of healthier air and water, reduction of global warming, and moving away from harmful mining and fuel wars. These are all without question important goals.
While the wind power industry tends to downplay its negative effects, many conservation groups call for careful siting and ongoing study to minimize them. There is debate, therefore, about the actual impacts, but there is none about the actual benefits. Even the most cautious of advocates do not doubt, for example, that "every kilowatt-hour generated by wind is a kilowatt-hour not generated by a dirty fuel."
That may be true for a small home turbine with substantial battery storage, but such a formula is, at best, overly simplistic for large turbines meant to supply the grid. The evidence from countries that already have a large proportion of wind power suggests that it has no effect on the use of other sources. This is not surprising when one learns how the grid works: A rise in wind power simply causes a thermal plant to switch from generation to standby, in which mode it continues to burn fuel.
Read the rest of the paper at: www.aweo.org/LowBenefit.pdf.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism
October 30, 2005
October 23, 2005
Lying about bat kills
From the Winona (Minn.) Daily News, Oct. 23:
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism
During a tour last month of Carleton College's 1.65 megawatt turbine in Northfield, Minn., project director Rob Lampa told a group of about 30 Winona County residents that the college had found no evidence of bird or bat kills in the first year of operating the 230-foot turbine [plus 135-foot blade radius], situated in a cornfield about 1 1/2 miles east of town.Lampa will have to make sure the clean-up crew does a better job before he gives the next tour!
As the group was leaving, Winona resident Marijo Reinhard pulled County Commissioner Dwayne Voegeli aside.
"Look," she said, pointing at the ground, where she had spotted a small, brown bat dead on the gravel below the slowly spinning turbine. A few feet away, she spotted another, also dead.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism
October 22, 2005
Desire for wind turbines justifies killing
To the Editor, Providence (R.I.) Journal:
Jack Coleman (Opinion, Oct. 20), in citing two caveats from the Desholm and Kahlert study (Biology Letters, 2005) of geese and ducks flying around the off-shore wind facility near Nysted, Denmark, did not notice the most obvious limitations of the research: Monitoring was done only during fair weather and not during twilight. That is, it found a favorable outcome by restricting observation to favorable conditions.
Coleman then goes on to describe the toll of buildings, towers, cats, oil spills, soot, mercury, global warming, and habitat destruction on bird populations, as if that justifies the new mode of death he is advocating.
Of course he admits, apparently believing that opponents have never thought of it, that the new death toll "must be measured against the cost of failure to reverse climate change."
There he ends his opinion piece, simply implying that industrial wind turbines help mitigate global warming and thus save more birds that they kill, that they save more wildlife habitat than they degrade.
But that is precisely where the debate begins. Do large wind power facilities actually reduce the effects of fossil fuel use? Opponents look at the evidence -- instead of the industry's sales material -- and find that they do not. Therefore even the most downplayed impact is not justified.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism
Jack Coleman (Opinion, Oct. 20), in citing two caveats from the Desholm and Kahlert study (Biology Letters, 2005) of geese and ducks flying around the off-shore wind facility near Nysted, Denmark, did not notice the most obvious limitations of the research: Monitoring was done only during fair weather and not during twilight. That is, it found a favorable outcome by restricting observation to favorable conditions.
Coleman then goes on to describe the toll of buildings, towers, cats, oil spills, soot, mercury, global warming, and habitat destruction on bird populations, as if that justifies the new mode of death he is advocating.
Of course he admits, apparently believing that opponents have never thought of it, that the new death toll "must be measured against the cost of failure to reverse climate change."
There he ends his opinion piece, simply implying that industrial wind turbines help mitigate global warming and thus save more birds that they kill, that they save more wildlife habitat than they degrade.
But that is precisely where the debate begins. Do large wind power facilities actually reduce the effects of fossil fuel use? Opponents look at the evidence -- instead of the industry's sales material -- and find that they do not. Therefore even the most downplayed impact is not justified.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism
October 21, 2005
RPS makes it cheaper to pollute
An interesting analysis of the effects of a "renewable portfolio standard" (RPS) in New Jersey that would require 20% of the electricity sold in the state by 2020 to be from renewable sources was brought to our (National Wind Watch's) attention by Dan Boone, Conservation Chair of the Maryland Sierra Club.
The 206-page report was prepared in December 2004 by the Center for Energy, Economic, and Environmental Policy, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, State University of New Jersey, for the Office of Clean Energy, New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, and is available as a 2-MB PDF at www.bpu.state.nj.us/reports/EIAreport.pdf.
One of the things it found, which is hidden deep inside the paper and completely absent from the summary, is that the RPS would have no effect on sulfur and nitrogen emissions except to make it cheaper to exceed current limits. The report notes that the Energy Information Agency of the U.S. Department of Energy came to the same conclusion about a national RPS. That is, the RPS would not reduce emissions and would benefit only the polluters, who would enjoy lower prices because of the greater supply of "green credits."
Only with correspondingly stricter caps on noxious emissions would this ironic effect be avoided. But then the RPS wouldn't be necessary. Politicians and their once-environmentalist supporters evidently prefer the easier path of imposing an RPS -- especially easy as it benefits polluter-donors more than our health and ecology, as long as the public believes we're all doing something grand to save the planet.
And so the market triumphs. Bad money drives out good.
categories: wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, anarchism
The 206-page report was prepared in December 2004 by the Center for Energy, Economic, and Environmental Policy, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, State University of New Jersey, for the Office of Clean Energy, New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, and is available as a 2-MB PDF at www.bpu.state.nj.us/reports/EIAreport.pdf.
One of the things it found, which is hidden deep inside the paper and completely absent from the summary, is that the RPS would have no effect on sulfur and nitrogen emissions except to make it cheaper to exceed current limits. The report notes that the Energy Information Agency of the U.S. Department of Energy came to the same conclusion about a national RPS. That is, the RPS would not reduce emissions and would benefit only the polluters, who would enjoy lower prices because of the greater supply of "green credits."
Only with correspondingly stricter caps on noxious emissions would this ironic effect be avoided. But then the RPS wouldn't be necessary. Politicians and their once-environmentalist supporters evidently prefer the easier path of imposing an RPS -- especially easy as it benefits polluter-donors more than our health and ecology, as long as the public believes we're all doing something grand to save the planet.
And so the market triumphs. Bad money drives out good.
categories: wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, anarchism
October 20, 2005
Chinese herbs effective for asthma
As published in the September issue of Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology and being widely reported this week, researchers who had previously found a traditional Chinese 14-herb combination to be an effective treatment for allergic asthma tried a formulation of just 3 of the herbs. The simpler combination was also effective. Unlike steroids and another herbal treatment, ephedra, these herbs have no side effects.
The full article is available at the link in the title of this post, and excerpts can be seen at www.kirbymountain.com/rosenlake/asthmanotes.html#wen.
The dosage, divided into 3 doses daily, was
categories: asthma, herbal medicine
The full article is available at the link in the title of this post, and excerpts can be seen at www.kirbymountain.com/rosenlake/asthmanotes.html#wen.
The dosage, divided into 3 doses daily, was
- Ling-Zhi 20 g, Ganoderma lucidum -- Reishi mushroom
- Ku-Shen 9 g, Radix Sophora flavescentis -- root of S. flavescens or S. angustifolia, yellow mountain laurel
- Gan-Cao 3 g, Radix Glycyrrhiza uralensis -- root of G. uralensis or G. glabra, licorice
categories: asthma, herbal medicine
October 14, 2005
Wacky windfarm math
"Lee anticipates that the five turbines would provide four times as much energy as Searsburg's 11 smaller turbines."
That's Harley Lee of Endless Energy, who wants to erect five 1.8-MW turbines on Little Equinox Mountain in Manchester, Vt., as reported in the North Adams (Mass.) Advocate Weekly.
The existing wind facility in Searsburg, Vt., consists of eleven 555-KW turbines for a total capacity of 6 MW. Four times that capacity is 24 MW. Lee's proposed project has a total capacity of 9 MW.
Nine megawatts is quite a bit short of four times six megawatts.
Even if he expected a better capacity factor (actual output as a fraction of capacity) than Searsburg's 21%, it would have to be an impossible 56% to so produce four times as much as Searsburg. When Searsburg was erected, they too expected output about twice what they actually get.
It is not surprising that these salesmen exaggerate the prospects for their product so brazenly, while downplaying their negative impact. What is so troubling is that so many people just smile and nod and enthusiastically eat it all up, ignoring the actual record for this technology.
categories: wind power, wind energy, Vermont
That's Harley Lee of Endless Energy, who wants to erect five 1.8-MW turbines on Little Equinox Mountain in Manchester, Vt., as reported in the North Adams (Mass.) Advocate Weekly.
The existing wind facility in Searsburg, Vt., consists of eleven 555-KW turbines for a total capacity of 6 MW. Four times that capacity is 24 MW. Lee's proposed project has a total capacity of 9 MW.
Nine megawatts is quite a bit short of four times six megawatts.
Even if he expected a better capacity factor (actual output as a fraction of capacity) than Searsburg's 21%, it would have to be an impossible 56% to so produce four times as much as Searsburg. When Searsburg was erected, they too expected output about twice what they actually get.
It is not surprising that these salesmen exaggerate the prospects for their product so brazenly, while downplaying their negative impact. What is so troubling is that so many people just smile and nod and enthusiastically eat it all up, ignoring the actual record for this technology.
categories: wind power, wind energy, Vermont
October 13, 2005
The end of empire
Sam Smith of the Progressive Review has a new essay about cultural decay in the U S of A. He goes on a bit long about music, but it is nonetheless an essential read. Here are some excerpts.
categories: anarchism
Thomas Jefferson saw it coming. He warned, "From the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights." ...This is good place to mention the Vermont Independence Convention next Friday, Oct. 28. See the Second Vermont Republic for more information.
Instead of being outsiders, critics and moral observers, the American intelligentsia have become players accepting many of the values of the system they should be scorning. ...
It is particularly telling that in the past thirty years, America has passed more laws than it did in its first two centuries, a sign of a country that has lost its way and trying desperately to compensate by making the results of its failures illegal.
[A few contributing factors to our cultural decay:]
ABUSE OF MYTHOLOGY -- ... the culture that accepts such a redefinition of its own myths becomes a prisoner of the myth twisters, causing it to turn - as in the present case - not to Christ but to a Karl Rove or George Bush for an understanding of what faith means. While plenty of cultures have thrived on mythological faith, it is impossible to do so when faith becomes a massive fraud.
TELEVISION -- ... has become the means by which leaders have escaped their own culture, and their culture has lost contact with them.
THE CORPORATIZATION OF CULTURE -- ... Inherent in this bizarre value system is the inference that those who make or create things are less important than those who manage or sell them. In other words, as a matter of government, economic, and intellectual policy, the content of our culture is no longer as important as how well it can be marketed. Any culture with such priorities does not have a long life expectancy.
FAILED COMMUNITIES AND FORGOTTEN STORIES -- ... "Where we are is a world dominated by a global economy that places no value whatsoever on community or community coherence. In this economy, whose business is to set in contention things that belong together, you can no nothing more divisive than to assert the claims of community. This puts you immediately at odds with powerful people to whom the claims of community mean nothing, who ignore the issues of locality, who recognize no neighbors and are loyal to no place." [Wendell Berry]
... it is long past time to drop the pretense. As I was walking through one of our frightened airports I heard the real motto of our land repeated over and over: "Caution, the moving walkway is about to end." It's true. We're on our own now.
categories: anarchism
Hydra power
Greenpeace's Hallie Caplan is at it again, this time in a couple of Pennsylvania newspapers (the State College Centre Daily Times and the Philadelphia Daily News), railing against the high price and filthiness of natural gas, the even worse pollution and greenhouse gas emissions of coal, and the radioactive waste and water pollution of nuclear power. These are valid and serious issues. But she then insists that wind power could provide 20% of our electricity, replacing all of our nuclear power or a third of our coal burning.
Interestingly, 20% wind power penetration is exactly what is claimed for Denmark, which still burns as much coal, natural gas, and oil as ever.
(By that paragraph, she had apparently already forgotten that her letter was about natural gas. It doesn't make for a very coherent piece, but perhaps she noticed that unlike coal and nuclear, only a quarter of the natural gas we use is for generating electricity. And, after all, it is better than coal and nuclear, which is why it was promoted in the first place.)
As mentioned before, it is very difficult to respond to these letters -- which may be deliberate -- because the incoherence seems to feed on itself and multiply into a writhing quagmire, a hydra.
The main concern of her letter is global warming (or was it the price of natural gas?), caused by the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. Then she throws in the dangers of nuclear power, the traditional focus of Greenpeace's activism. But nuclear fission doesn't emit any greenhouse gases, so what is the focus now? The doomsday approach to global warming seems to be driving people to support more nuclear power. Maybe more nuke plants is actually what Greenpeace wants, so they can stay in business opposing them.
Or if the price of natural gas is the concern, then coal is cheap and plentiful.
Or if the pollution from coal is the concern, then natural gas is much cleaner. And its expense might stimulate conservation and efficiency efforts.
Or if we should move away from all fossil fuels, then why the exclusive obsession with electricity, which is only two-fifths of our total energy use? Although nearly 90% of our coal and all of our nuclear power are used for electricity, 75% of our natural gas and 98% of our oil are used for other energy needs (such as heating and transport). Where's that in Hallie Caplan's urgent concern?
Or maybe Greenpeace is just a shill for big wind, and it doesn't matter what they say as long as they keep talking enthusiastically enough to shut out dissent and query. That seems to be the only conclusion that can explain letters like Caplan's.
categories: wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
Interestingly, 20% wind power penetration is exactly what is claimed for Denmark, which still burns as much coal, natural gas, and oil as ever.
(By that paragraph, she had apparently already forgotten that her letter was about natural gas. It doesn't make for a very coherent piece, but perhaps she noticed that unlike coal and nuclear, only a quarter of the natural gas we use is for generating electricity. And, after all, it is better than coal and nuclear, which is why it was promoted in the first place.)
As mentioned before, it is very difficult to respond to these letters -- which may be deliberate -- because the incoherence seems to feed on itself and multiply into a writhing quagmire, a hydra.
The main concern of her letter is global warming (or was it the price of natural gas?), caused by the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. Then she throws in the dangers of nuclear power, the traditional focus of Greenpeace's activism. But nuclear fission doesn't emit any greenhouse gases, so what is the focus now? The doomsday approach to global warming seems to be driving people to support more nuclear power. Maybe more nuke plants is actually what Greenpeace wants, so they can stay in business opposing them.
Or if the price of natural gas is the concern, then coal is cheap and plentiful.
Or if the pollution from coal is the concern, then natural gas is much cleaner. And its expense might stimulate conservation and efficiency efforts.
Or if we should move away from all fossil fuels, then why the exclusive obsession with electricity, which is only two-fifths of our total energy use? Although nearly 90% of our coal and all of our nuclear power are used for electricity, 75% of our natural gas and 98% of our oil are used for other energy needs (such as heating and transport). Where's that in Hallie Caplan's urgent concern?
Or maybe Greenpeace is just a shill for big wind, and it doesn't matter what they say as long as they keep talking enthusiastically enough to shut out dissent and query. That seems to be the only conclusion that can explain letters like Caplan's.
categories: wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
October 10, 2005
"Suitable" sites for industrial wind turbines
The Rutland Herald dismisses concern about the blight of industrial wind turbines on the Vermont's ridgeline, repeating the line that "only a half-dozen or so" sites are "suitable," i.e., strictly in terms of the developers' desires.
In fact, there are currently seven proposed new locations, and at least two others have been mentioned. There is no indication that it would stop there, either. With VPIRG calling for 20% of our electricity to be from wind, development would have to march onward, especially as power demand continues to grow. And success in taking "a half-dozen or so" mountaintops would hardly suggest to the developers that they should stop. After all, concerned citizens will have already made it clear that they consider sprawling power plants on the ridgelines to be a good thing, a wise and sustainable choice. And so their misplaced energy will destroy Vermont.
In addition to the existing 6-MW facility in Searsburg, here are the currently active projects in Vermont:
The companies involved are Enxco (aka Deerfield Wind in Readsboro) and its reps John Zimmerman and Martha Staskus of Vermont Environmental Research, Green Mountain Power, Vermont Public Power Supply Authority, EMDC (i.e., Mathew Rubin and Dave Rapaport), UPC Wind Partners (Timothy Caffyn, Brian Caffyn, and Peter Gish), Endless Energy (Harley Lee), and Catamount Energy (Rob Charlebois). They are supported by the efforts of trade group Renewable Energy Vermont and its head Andrew Perchlik, Vermonter and communications director for national trade group AWEA Tom Gray, as well as local utilities, self-important architects, and numerous public interest and environmental groups, such as Vermont Public Interest Research Group and the Conservation Law Foundation.
If this juggernaut is not stopped at the gate, it certainly will not stop after "only a half-dozen or so" projects.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism, Vermont
In fact, there are currently seven proposed new locations, and at least two others have been mentioned. There is no indication that it would stop there, either. With VPIRG calling for 20% of our electricity to be from wind, development would have to march onward, especially as power demand continues to grow. And success in taking "a half-dozen or so" mountaintops would hardly suggest to the developers that they should stop. After all, concerned citizens will have already made it clear that they consider sprawling power plants on the ridgelines to be a good thing, a wise and sustainable choice. And so their misplaced energy will destroy Vermont.
In addition to the existing 6-MW facility in Searsburg, here are the currently active projects in Vermont:
- Searsburg, Readsboro (two possible directions, 30-45 MW each)
- East Mountain in East Haven (4 MW currently awaiting permit, 46 MW planned)
- East Haven, Ferdinand, Brighton
- Sheffield, Sutton (52-70 MB, applying for permit Dec. 2005)
- Mt. Equinox in Manchester (9 MB, applying for permit Oct. 17, 2005)
- Glebe Mountain in Londonderry (49 MW)
- Lowell (18-39 MW)
- Kirby
- Umpire Mountain in Victory
The companies involved are Enxco (aka Deerfield Wind in Readsboro) and its reps John Zimmerman and Martha Staskus of Vermont Environmental Research, Green Mountain Power, Vermont Public Power Supply Authority, EMDC (i.e., Mathew Rubin and Dave Rapaport), UPC Wind Partners (Timothy Caffyn, Brian Caffyn, and Peter Gish), Endless Energy (Harley Lee), and Catamount Energy (Rob Charlebois). They are supported by the efforts of trade group Renewable Energy Vermont and its head Andrew Perchlik, Vermonter and communications director for national trade group AWEA Tom Gray, as well as local utilities, self-important architects, and numerous public interest and environmental groups, such as Vermont Public Interest Research Group and the Conservation Law Foundation.
If this juggernaut is not stopped at the gate, it certainly will not stop after "only a half-dozen or so" projects.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism, Vermont
Wind turbines do not produce heating oil
The Rutland (Vt.) Herald says in an Oct. 3 editorial that "the rules of the energy game have changed." They evidently mean that the rules of logic have changed.
After expressing concern about the cost of heating fuels this winter, they call for the blighting of "only a half-dozen or so" ridgelines in Vermont with strings of giant wind turbines as a necessary solution.
An Oct. 5 editorial in the Old Colony Memorial of Plymouth, Mass., expresses the same concern and makes the same call for giant wind turbines as an urgent necessity.
Dear editors: Wind turbines produce electricity, not heating oil. And less than 2.5% of our oil use is for generating electricity, so even if wind turbines displaced other sources (the evidence is doubtful) they wouldn't affect the oil supply.
categories: wind power, wind energy
After expressing concern about the cost of heating fuels this winter, they call for the blighting of "only a half-dozen or so" ridgelines in Vermont with strings of giant wind turbines as a necessary solution.
An Oct. 5 editorial in the Old Colony Memorial of Plymouth, Mass., expresses the same concern and makes the same call for giant wind turbines as an urgent necessity.
Dear editors: Wind turbines produce electricity, not heating oil. And less than 2.5% of our oil use is for generating electricity, so even if wind turbines displaced other sources (the evidence is doubtful) they wouldn't affect the oil supply.
categories: wind power, wind energy
October 8, 2005
Environmentalists falter in gale of wind power propaganda
To the Editor, Vermont Guardian: Shay Totten ("Political winds: Vermont falters in a gale of opposition to wind power," Oct. 7) reports that wind power could easily produce the base, or average, load of electricity used in Vermont, which he gives as 600 MW. His calculation of how many turbines that would require is, however, quite wrong.
He apparently considered only a turbine's nameplate, or rated, capacity, which is very different from its actual output. For example, the existing 6-MW Searsburg facility generated power at an average rate of only 1.25 MW last year. Despite industry claims otherwise, output less than 25% of capacity remains typical for modern wind turbines. Totten's figure has therefore to be multipled by four.
Current proposals in Vermont involve 330-ft-high 1.5-MW turbines from GE and 410-ft-high 1.8-MW turbines from Vestas, so we would require 1,600 of the GE or 1,333 of the Vestas turbines to provide our average load. On a ridgeline oriented exactly perpendicular to the prevailing wind, a turbine needs 3 rotor diameters of clearance in each direction. For the GE, that's 37 acres or 7.5 turbines to a mile, and 1,600 of them would require -- at the very least -- almost 60,000 acres. For the Vestas, it's 60 acres, 6 to a mile, and 80,000 acres for 1,333 of them. Both would use well over 200 miles of ridgeline. If they are expected to perform at all well when the wind is not exactly perpendicular to the line, they need even more space. And that does not account for new and widened roads, substations, and power lines.
But roughly a third of the time they aren't producing power at all, and another third of the time they're producing below their average. Periods of high production may come suddenly and fall away again just as suddenly. Base load would still have to come from other sources almost all of the time. Even at the rare moments when rising wind corresponds to rising demand, backup sources still have to be ramped up as "spinning standby" because the wind may drop out at any moment. This is critical: Wind does not significantly displace other sources of electricity.
Apart from these technical issues, it is amusing that Rob Charlebois of Catamount Energy characterizes the diverse concern of Vermont citizens as "very vocal and well-funded." This is from a company imposing wind facilities around the world, in an article that doesn't seek out a single dissenting view to his and other developers' complaints. Totten only mentions two groups in passing to dismiss their concerns as "mainly aesthetic," as if fighting to preserve rural landscapes, wild habitats, and bird flyways from chains of 400-ft-high steel-and-composite strobe-lit and grinding giants that provide negligible benefit is somehow distastefully effete.
Totten also seems to be unaware that opposition to this industrial sprawl is not unique to Vermont but nationwide and worldwide, from Washington to Maryland, Kansas to Wisconsin, the Basque country of Spain to Zapotecas land in Chiapas, from Norway to New Zealand. It is not "schizophrenic," as Charlebois says, to hold an environmental ethic and oppose this obviously impractical, destructive, and wasteful scheme. Any environmental ethic worth the name requires such opposition.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism, Vermont
He apparently considered only a turbine's nameplate, or rated, capacity, which is very different from its actual output. For example, the existing 6-MW Searsburg facility generated power at an average rate of only 1.25 MW last year. Despite industry claims otherwise, output less than 25% of capacity remains typical for modern wind turbines. Totten's figure has therefore to be multipled by four.
Current proposals in Vermont involve 330-ft-high 1.5-MW turbines from GE and 410-ft-high 1.8-MW turbines from Vestas, so we would require 1,600 of the GE or 1,333 of the Vestas turbines to provide our average load. On a ridgeline oriented exactly perpendicular to the prevailing wind, a turbine needs 3 rotor diameters of clearance in each direction. For the GE, that's 37 acres or 7.5 turbines to a mile, and 1,600 of them would require -- at the very least -- almost 60,000 acres. For the Vestas, it's 60 acres, 6 to a mile, and 80,000 acres for 1,333 of them. Both would use well over 200 miles of ridgeline. If they are expected to perform at all well when the wind is not exactly perpendicular to the line, they need even more space. And that does not account for new and widened roads, substations, and power lines.
But roughly a third of the time they aren't producing power at all, and another third of the time they're producing below their average. Periods of high production may come suddenly and fall away again just as suddenly. Base load would still have to come from other sources almost all of the time. Even at the rare moments when rising wind corresponds to rising demand, backup sources still have to be ramped up as "spinning standby" because the wind may drop out at any moment. This is critical: Wind does not significantly displace other sources of electricity.
Apart from these technical issues, it is amusing that Rob Charlebois of Catamount Energy characterizes the diverse concern of Vermont citizens as "very vocal and well-funded." This is from a company imposing wind facilities around the world, in an article that doesn't seek out a single dissenting view to his and other developers' complaints. Totten only mentions two groups in passing to dismiss their concerns as "mainly aesthetic," as if fighting to preserve rural landscapes, wild habitats, and bird flyways from chains of 400-ft-high steel-and-composite strobe-lit and grinding giants that provide negligible benefit is somehow distastefully effete.
Totten also seems to be unaware that opposition to this industrial sprawl is not unique to Vermont but nationwide and worldwide, from Washington to Maryland, Kansas to Wisconsin, the Basque country of Spain to Zapotecas land in Chiapas, from Norway to New Zealand. It is not "schizophrenic," as Charlebois says, to hold an environmental ethic and oppose this obviously impractical, destructive, and wasteful scheme. Any environmental ethic worth the name requires such opposition.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism, Vermont
October 7, 2005
Big wind steals Peter Freyne's brain!
Peter Freyne flakking for Enxco and GE? He certainly follows their line that Free Press editorials opposed only to industrial-size turbines on Vermont's ridgelines are obstructing all progress on energy issues ["Freep Wins Award!," Inside Track, October 5].
Even as evidence shows that giant wind turbines will contribute very little to our energy future, and as big wind's supporters nonetheless insist they are essential to any solution, Freyne says it is the Free Press that has made them a "fetish."
If anyone has been "dogmatic in its approach to Vermont's energy future," as Lawrence Mott is quoted, it is he and others determined to plant their 400-foot-high erections across otherwise undeveloped land -- despite their many negative impacts, negligible benefit, and diverse local opposition.
Freyne also quoted Mott referring to "changing times" and "the latest information." Where is Freyne's usual journalistic instinct? What has changed about multinational corporations swindling landowners and paying off politicians to take over land and resources? What is the latest information other than more PR from the industry about sales projections?
Freyne is almost always more insightful and witty, but here he resorts to lame terms like "boneheaded," "shortsighted," and "blanket idiocy," as if blind to the possibility of a reasonable alternative. It is not just the Free Press but a wide range of individuals throughout Vermont -- and the world -- who question the wisdom of large-scale wind power. Anyone who looks beyond the sales material quickly discovers that industrial wind power is little more than a shameful boondoggle. (It is not surprising to learn that the modern large-scale wind industry was pioneered by Enron.)
Many members of Renewable Energy Vermont are working for real change in energy use -- small-scale and more sustainable alternatives to the centralized utility structure that giant wind turbines from GE (which acquired Enron's wind division) only reinforce. But Enxco, a part of the French nuclear power consortium EDF, and other pushers of large-scale wind power also are members and have clearly skewed REV's vision.
Like George Bush blaming Osama bin Laden for the violence in Iraq, REV's "Energy Ostrich Award" to the Free Press for opposing big wind only underscores their own "head-in-the-sand" viewpoint.
categories: wind power, wind energy, Vermont
Even as evidence shows that giant wind turbines will contribute very little to our energy future, and as big wind's supporters nonetheless insist they are essential to any solution, Freyne says it is the Free Press that has made them a "fetish."
If anyone has been "dogmatic in its approach to Vermont's energy future," as Lawrence Mott is quoted, it is he and others determined to plant their 400-foot-high erections across otherwise undeveloped land -- despite their many negative impacts, negligible benefit, and diverse local opposition.
Freyne also quoted Mott referring to "changing times" and "the latest information." Where is Freyne's usual journalistic instinct? What has changed about multinational corporations swindling landowners and paying off politicians to take over land and resources? What is the latest information other than more PR from the industry about sales projections?
Freyne is almost always more insightful and witty, but here he resorts to lame terms like "boneheaded," "shortsighted," and "blanket idiocy," as if blind to the possibility of a reasonable alternative. It is not just the Free Press but a wide range of individuals throughout Vermont -- and the world -- who question the wisdom of large-scale wind power. Anyone who looks beyond the sales material quickly discovers that industrial wind power is little more than a shameful boondoggle. (It is not surprising to learn that the modern large-scale wind industry was pioneered by Enron.)
Many members of Renewable Energy Vermont are working for real change in energy use -- small-scale and more sustainable alternatives to the centralized utility structure that giant wind turbines from GE (which acquired Enron's wind division) only reinforce. But Enxco, a part of the French nuclear power consortium EDF, and other pushers of large-scale wind power also are members and have clearly skewed REV's vision.
Like George Bush blaming Osama bin Laden for the violence in Iraq, REV's "Energy Ostrich Award" to the Free Press for opposing big wind only underscores their own "head-in-the-sand" viewpoint.
categories: wind power, wind energy, Vermont
October 5, 2005
Wind power and foreign oil
To the Editor, Watertown (N.Y.) Daily Times:
In the Oct. 4 article, "Clinton offers help on border," the senator is quoted after visiting the Maple Ridge Wind Farm that such a project "is so profoundly important" because "we have to end our addiction to foreign oil."
If the concern is our dependency on foreign oil, then wind farms are irrelevant. Less than 2.5% of our electricity is generated by oil. In fact, as we connect large wind plants to the grid -- with their unpredictable fluctuating output -- we become more dependent on oil-fired plants, which generally provide the necessary quick-response backup.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines
In the Oct. 4 article, "Clinton offers help on border," the senator is quoted after visiting the Maple Ridge Wind Farm that such a project "is so profoundly important" because "we have to end our addiction to foreign oil."
If the concern is our dependency on foreign oil, then wind farms are irrelevant. Less than 2.5% of our electricity is generated by oil. In fact, as we connect large wind plants to the grid -- with their unpredictable fluctuating output -- we become more dependent on oil-fired plants, which generally provide the necessary quick-response backup.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines
October 4, 2005
Vegetarian Times swallows bull about wind
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
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 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.
September 28, 2005
Nine days and seven wind farms
Sue Sliwinski of Sardinia, N.Y., writes:
Over the past nine days and 3,000 miles and seven wind farms, Sandy Swanson and I took many still shots, reams of video, and copious notes and conducted numerous interviews. What's happening is an absolute crime. Every single impact that is denied by developers has been confirmed again and again in wind farm after wind farm. Lovely rural communities are being turned into industrial freak shows. In some places people have just accepted their fate and live with it, not understanding how empowered they actually are by their situations . . . meaning that all they'd have to do is get noisy enough and the developers would stop ignoring them. One told us she's learned how to go outside in her garden and block everything from her mind . . . so as not to be disturbed and frustrated. She said once, on a quiet day (the turbines weren't moving), she heard what sounded like gunshots. She had been blocking everything as she had taught herself to do and suddenly realized the gunshot noises were really coming from the nearest turbine . . . probably contracting as the sun went down.
Scott Srnka from Lincoln Township, Wisconsin, is enduring such awful atrocities, it's very hard to believe they're true. I've even steered clear from his information over the past three years for fear of being accused of using scare tactics. But the guy is rock solid, and anyone who meets him and actually goes to his beautiful farm and sees his beautiful family knows he's the real deal. His neighbors know he's honorable and credible and that his troubles are real . . . it's those of us who hear about his dilemma long distance that doubt the truthfulness when we hear about his deformed cows, his family's health problems, etc. due to severe stray voltage.
Most farmers experience some levels of stray voltage on their farms. But the extenuating circumstances on Scott's farm include a combination of surface rock, no substation for this particular wind farm, and the nearness of the turbines. He and one other dairy farm are being severely impacted, but the other one, right next door, won't admit it because they own the leases for about 10 or 15 of the turbines and don't want to jeopardize that easy money.
Scott is a young man and the farm was his father's and grandfather's before him, but after hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses to try to remedy the problems caused by the wind farm across the street, he's calling it quits and may be moved out by spring. His wife is pregnant with their third child and they are nervous wrecks, though they have gone through every imaginable test to ensure that the baby's been fine right along. He says with the equipment he's installed he knows when it's bad, and when it is they leave the home for a week, maybe two . . . however long it takes to get back to more tolerable levels. Scott says that under the current conditions, he's losing about a thousand dollars a day from what his farm should and would otherwise normally produce.
Bob Bittner [Illinois], a long-time and dedicated opponent who we recently haven't heard much from, was not at home when we visited his lovely farm house . . . also once his father's, now surrounded with 10 turbines within 4,000 ft of his home, with one only 1,300 ft away. His neighbors told Sandy and I that they believe he spent over $250,000 in court battles and ended up signing a deal with the developers that basically said he would quit interfering in exchange for not being sued for all the lost income the company incurred over the 3 or 4 years of legal wrangling he brought.
I left a note in his door, and when I got home there was an e-mail from him for the first time in a very long while saying that since the turbines went up, he and his wife, Sharon, for their peace of mind bought a cabin in the woods about seven miles away to escape the impacts . . . noise, lights shadows . . . . People everywhere are being driven from their homes.
In the Mendota Hills wind farm [Illinois], it's like the twilight zone. There is no life. Almost every home within the boundaries of the wind farm is kept to look as if someone lives there . . . but on close inspection it's clear that no one does. All the lawns are mowed perfectly . . . but most often no flowers are tended. Every house seems to have a chair or two outside in the front yards creating the appearance that people actually plunk their butts down in them to relax once in a while, but they're dirty and unused. Every window and door is closed, with drapes and shades drawn at eye level. There are cars and trucks with current licence plates parked outside of garages or with garage doors open so you can see them. We didn't check for cobwebs in the mailboxes, we wish we had, but they looked rusty and old. Even dogs were kept on leashes in many of the side yards . . . animals that are evidently being visited once a day to be given food and water. I know this all sounds crazy, but to prove it to ourselves, we went back after dark . . . thinking, well maybe everyone was just at work. But inside these houses, only one light burned, shining through greasy grimy windows in spots where curtains were left slightly open to reveal the condition of the glass, and revealing absolutely no movement whatsoever.
We heard about connectors that were not supposed to be used, but were indeed and have since blown holes -- small craters -- in roads and fields. The stories we've been told all echo each other. There are many children involved. Some, such as in Lincoln Township, have grown up knowing nothing but life with wind turbines. People have been bought off where they're fighting. A family's teenage daughter totaled her car in an accident with wind equipment on a foggy day and then had to fight to get reimbursed! Another says that her little kids are terrified by the noise and can't fall asleep when conditions are bad, such as on rainy nights. Their nearest turbine is 1,000 feet from the bedroom window. Another older woman says, through tears, that her town, where she was born and raised and where her family farm still exists, has been ruined.
Story after story after story . . . .
Lights, shadows, noise, TV and phone interruption, gawkers, accidents, lost views and plummeting property values, and more . . . all on tape, video, and still shots. We felt sick at the end of every day . . . like we had to get away and take a break from the twirling blades and the surreal atmosphere and our sadness for all these families.
It felt so good to get home and step out of the car into this beautiful environment that Sardinia still is and hopefully will stay for years to come. So . . . now we have to figure out how best to use all this information, and not let a smidgen go to waste, because all these families living in these inconceivable conditions deserve no less.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines
Over the past nine days and 3,000 miles and seven wind farms, Sandy Swanson and I took many still shots, reams of video, and copious notes and conducted numerous interviews. What's happening is an absolute crime. Every single impact that is denied by developers has been confirmed again and again in wind farm after wind farm. Lovely rural communities are being turned into industrial freak shows. In some places people have just accepted their fate and live with it, not understanding how empowered they actually are by their situations . . . meaning that all they'd have to do is get noisy enough and the developers would stop ignoring them. One told us she's learned how to go outside in her garden and block everything from her mind . . . so as not to be disturbed and frustrated. She said once, on a quiet day (the turbines weren't moving), she heard what sounded like gunshots. She had been blocking everything as she had taught herself to do and suddenly realized the gunshot noises were really coming from the nearest turbine . . . probably contracting as the sun went down.
Scott Srnka from Lincoln Township, Wisconsin, is enduring such awful atrocities, it's very hard to believe they're true. I've even steered clear from his information over the past three years for fear of being accused of using scare tactics. But the guy is rock solid, and anyone who meets him and actually goes to his beautiful farm and sees his beautiful family knows he's the real deal. His neighbors know he's honorable and credible and that his troubles are real . . . it's those of us who hear about his dilemma long distance that doubt the truthfulness when we hear about his deformed cows, his family's health problems, etc. due to severe stray voltage.
Most farmers experience some levels of stray voltage on their farms. But the extenuating circumstances on Scott's farm include a combination of surface rock, no substation for this particular wind farm, and the nearness of the turbines. He and one other dairy farm are being severely impacted, but the other one, right next door, won't admit it because they own the leases for about 10 or 15 of the turbines and don't want to jeopardize that easy money.
Scott is a young man and the farm was his father's and grandfather's before him, but after hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses to try to remedy the problems caused by the wind farm across the street, he's calling it quits and may be moved out by spring. His wife is pregnant with their third child and they are nervous wrecks, though they have gone through every imaginable test to ensure that the baby's been fine right along. He says with the equipment he's installed he knows when it's bad, and when it is they leave the home for a week, maybe two . . . however long it takes to get back to more tolerable levels. Scott says that under the current conditions, he's losing about a thousand dollars a day from what his farm should and would otherwise normally produce.
Bob Bittner [Illinois], a long-time and dedicated opponent who we recently haven't heard much from, was not at home when we visited his lovely farm house . . . also once his father's, now surrounded with 10 turbines within 4,000 ft of his home, with one only 1,300 ft away. His neighbors told Sandy and I that they believe he spent over $250,000 in court battles and ended up signing a deal with the developers that basically said he would quit interfering in exchange for not being sued for all the lost income the company incurred over the 3 or 4 years of legal wrangling he brought.
I left a note in his door, and when I got home there was an e-mail from him for the first time in a very long while saying that since the turbines went up, he and his wife, Sharon, for their peace of mind bought a cabin in the woods about seven miles away to escape the impacts . . . noise, lights shadows . . . . People everywhere are being driven from their homes.
In the Mendota Hills wind farm [Illinois], it's like the twilight zone. There is no life. Almost every home within the boundaries of the wind farm is kept to look as if someone lives there . . . but on close inspection it's clear that no one does. All the lawns are mowed perfectly . . . but most often no flowers are tended. Every house seems to have a chair or two outside in the front yards creating the appearance that people actually plunk their butts down in them to relax once in a while, but they're dirty and unused. Every window and door is closed, with drapes and shades drawn at eye level. There are cars and trucks with current licence plates parked outside of garages or with garage doors open so you can see them. We didn't check for cobwebs in the mailboxes, we wish we had, but they looked rusty and old. Even dogs were kept on leashes in many of the side yards . . . animals that are evidently being visited once a day to be given food and water. I know this all sounds crazy, but to prove it to ourselves, we went back after dark . . . thinking, well maybe everyone was just at work. But inside these houses, only one light burned, shining through greasy grimy windows in spots where curtains were left slightly open to reveal the condition of the glass, and revealing absolutely no movement whatsoever.
We heard about connectors that were not supposed to be used, but were indeed and have since blown holes -- small craters -- in roads and fields. The stories we've been told all echo each other. There are many children involved. Some, such as in Lincoln Township, have grown up knowing nothing but life with wind turbines. People have been bought off where they're fighting. A family's teenage daughter totaled her car in an accident with wind equipment on a foggy day and then had to fight to get reimbursed! Another says that her little kids are terrified by the noise and can't fall asleep when conditions are bad, such as on rainy nights. Their nearest turbine is 1,000 feet from the bedroom window. Another older woman says, through tears, that her town, where she was born and raised and where her family farm still exists, has been ruined.
Story after story after story . . . .
Lights, shadows, noise, TV and phone interruption, gawkers, accidents, lost views and plummeting property values, and more . . . all on tape, video, and still shots. We felt sick at the end of every day . . . like we had to get away and take a break from the twirling blades and the surreal atmosphere and our sadness for all these families.
It felt so good to get home and step out of the car into this beautiful environment that Sardinia still is and hopefully will stay for years to come. So . . . now we have to figure out how best to use all this information, and not let a smidgen go to waste, because all these families living in these inconceivable conditions deserve no less.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines
September 27, 2005
Some errors concerning Danish energy
To the Editor, Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.):
Tapan Munroe is right that we have much to learn from Denmark about efficient energy use, but a couple of statements in his Sept. 25 piece are incorrect.
Where he writes, "Nearly 20 percent of the country's energy comes from wind power," it should be noted that wind turbines produce only electricity, which represents only 18.3% of Denmark's total energy use according to an energy flow chart for 2003 from the Danish Energy Authority. Twenty percent of the electricity therefore represents less than 4% of the total energy.
But because the turbines produce power in response to the wind rather than actual demand, much of it -- 84% of western Denmark's wind production in 2003, by one analysis -- has to be exported (i.e., dumped) because it is not needed. Despite a landscape already saturated with turbines, it appears therefore that they produce only about 3% of the electricity Denmark uses.
Munroe also implies that Denmark's economy is not fossil fuel based. In fact, they are more fossil fuel based than the U.S. According to the Danish energy flow chart, 93.6% of their energy supply is from oil, natural gas, and coal. Much of the oil and natural gas is exported, and all of the coal is imported. In balance, fossil fuels (primarily coal) supply 89.1% of the total energy Denmark uses and 88.3% of its electricity.
In comparison, an energy flow chart from the U.S. Department of Energy for 2002 shows that fossil fuels are the source of 88.0% of our total energy and 69.6% of our electricity.
The Danes use their energy much more wisely and don't have domestic nuclear power, but they are nonetheless very much reliant on fossil fuels, and large-scale wind power has hardly changed a thing other than ruining the countryside.
categories: wind power, wind energy
Tapan Munroe is right that we have much to learn from Denmark about efficient energy use, but a couple of statements in his Sept. 25 piece are incorrect.
Where he writes, "Nearly 20 percent of the country's energy comes from wind power," it should be noted that wind turbines produce only electricity, which represents only 18.3% of Denmark's total energy use according to an energy flow chart for 2003 from the Danish Energy Authority. Twenty percent of the electricity therefore represents less than 4% of the total energy.
But because the turbines produce power in response to the wind rather than actual demand, much of it -- 84% of western Denmark's wind production in 2003, by one analysis -- has to be exported (i.e., dumped) because it is not needed. Despite a landscape already saturated with turbines, it appears therefore that they produce only about 3% of the electricity Denmark uses.
Munroe also implies that Denmark's economy is not fossil fuel based. In fact, they are more fossil fuel based than the U.S. According to the Danish energy flow chart, 93.6% of their energy supply is from oil, natural gas, and coal. Much of the oil and natural gas is exported, and all of the coal is imported. In balance, fossil fuels (primarily coal) supply 89.1% of the total energy Denmark uses and 88.3% of its electricity.
In comparison, an energy flow chart from the U.S. Department of Energy for 2002 shows that fossil fuels are the source of 88.0% of our total energy and 69.6% of our electricity.
The Danes use their energy much more wisely and don't have domestic nuclear power, but they are nonetheless very much reliant on fossil fuels, and large-scale wind power has hardly changed a thing other than ruining the countryside.
categories: wind power, wind energy
September 25, 2005
Must. Stay. The. Course.
Phil Donahue recently made Bill O'Reilly flinch during his Fox show, The O'Reilly Factor, as transcribed at Counterpunch.
O'Reilly has admitted that the occupation of Iraq has not gone well. But he clings to the idea that it is necessary to "the war on terror." That is, since we turned Iraq into a terrorist free-for-all, we have to stay the course -- which will obviously have the effect of keeping it a terrorist free-for-all. This failure, this making things worse, in O'Reilly's mind, as in so many others, is the reason we can't just leave.
I am uncomfortable conflating the Bush's murderous wars with wind power developers (though Bush himself is tight with former wind pioneer Enron (making Texas a "showcase" for a while) and off-shore wind facility builder and war profiteer Halliburton), but both of them worry me (to put it mildly) and both of them are supported by a wide range of fellow citizens despite negative evidence.
I recently read in the comment section of an article at In These Times the same illogic for continuing wind development as Bill O'Reilly's for staying in Iraq. Namely, evidence that it has not worked is precisely the reason it must be expanded.
O'Reilly et al. chant "war on terror" to fend off reality, and the supporters of industrial wind chant "climate change." They understandably need to believe that we are doing something about a real problem. The need appears to be stronger than any desire to honestly assess the effects of what they support.
Few people easily switch from belief in an idea to realization of its sham (the rise and fall of celebrities provides a redirection of that need). So they more strongly assert the belief, as if to convince themselves, as if to make the doubt, and even the evidence, go away.
War on terror! Climate change! Must. Stay. The. Course.
Meanwhile, nothing changes except for the worse. The sham continues. (The "neocons" rationalize such policies of lies as "creative destruction"!)
By the way, Donahue brought up a chilling parallel, saying that two things related to Iraq have doubled in the past year: the number of Americans killed, and Halliburton's stock price.
categories: wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, anarchism
O'Reilly has admitted that the occupation of Iraq has not gone well. But he clings to the idea that it is necessary to "the war on terror." That is, since we turned Iraq into a terrorist free-for-all, we have to stay the course -- which will obviously have the effect of keeping it a terrorist free-for-all. This failure, this making things worse, in O'Reilly's mind, as in so many others, is the reason we can't just leave.
I am uncomfortable conflating the Bush's murderous wars with wind power developers (though Bush himself is tight with former wind pioneer Enron (making Texas a "showcase" for a while) and off-shore wind facility builder and war profiteer Halliburton), but both of them worry me (to put it mildly) and both of them are supported by a wide range of fellow citizens despite negative evidence.
I recently read in the comment section of an article at In These Times the same illogic for continuing wind development as Bill O'Reilly's for staying in Iraq. Namely, evidence that it has not worked is precisely the reason it must be expanded.
O'Reilly et al. chant "war on terror" to fend off reality, and the supporters of industrial wind chant "climate change." They understandably need to believe that we are doing something about a real problem. The need appears to be stronger than any desire to honestly assess the effects of what they support.
Few people easily switch from belief in an idea to realization of its sham (the rise and fall of celebrities provides a redirection of that need). So they more strongly assert the belief, as if to convince themselves, as if to make the doubt, and even the evidence, go away.
War on terror! Climate change! Must. Stay. The. Course.
Meanwhile, nothing changes except for the worse. The sham continues. (The "neocons" rationalize such policies of lies as "creative destruction"!)
By the way, Donahue brought up a chilling parallel, saying that two things related to Iraq have doubled in the past year: the number of Americans killed, and Halliburton's stock price.
categories: wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, anarchism
September 22, 2005
"We have made enough mess there already"
"They told you Britain must invade Iraq because of its weapons of mass destruction. They were wrong. Now they say British troops must stay in Iraq because otherwise it will collapse into chaos. ... America left Vietnam and Lebanon to their fate. They survived. We left Aden and other colonies. Some, such as Malaya and Cyprus, saw bloodshed and partition. We said rightly that this was their business. So too is Iraq for the Iraqis. We have made enough mess there already."
--Simon Jenkins, The Guardian (U.K.), Sept. 21, 2005
Join a demonstration this Saturday, Sept. 24, to raise your voice in the U.S. (while it's still allowed) against continuing our ridiculous and deadly escapade in Iraq and for the impeachment and conviction of George W. Bush for crimes against humanity (or at least grave dishonesty and incompetence and destruction of our nation if not others).
September 21, 2005
Senators not worried about John Roberts
Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont has announced his support of John Roberts for the Supreme Court, saying, "I can only take him at his word that he does not have an ideological agenda."
Yet Roberts' whole career has involved crafting words for an extreme ideological agenda. He has found Robert Bork, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and William Rehnquist too soft in his efforts in the Reagan and Bush I administrations to prevent the implementation of civil rights laws. He is opposed to the most important role of the Court: protection of the equal rights of minorities.
See the article by William Taylor in the current New York Review of Books for a summary of what a monster John Roberts really is. Of course, the Senators can live with him on the Court. His actions don't affect them, so why not collaborate?
categories: civil rights, supreme court
Yet Roberts' whole career has involved crafting words for an extreme ideological agenda. He has found Robert Bork, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and William Rehnquist too soft in his efforts in the Reagan and Bush I administrations to prevent the implementation of civil rights laws. He is opposed to the most important role of the Court: protection of the equal rights of minorities.
See the article by William Taylor in the current New York Review of Books for a summary of what a monster John Roberts really is. Of course, the Senators can live with him on the Court. His actions don't affect them, so why not collaborate?
categories: civil rights, supreme court
GAO calls for more oversight of wind facilities
As reported by the Associated Press, Congress's Government Accountability Office has determined that local and state regulators sometimes lack expertise in weighing the impact of wind power facilities on birds and bats and other wildlife, so that "no one is considering the impacts of wind power on a regional or 'ecosystem' scale -- a scale that often spans governmental jurisdictions."
The trade group American Wind Energy Association has responded, saying that "such problems remain limited to two project areas." This is a little like the deluded Mr Deasy in James Joyce's Ulysses boasting that Ireland has never persecuted the Jews -- "because she never let them in," he adds, trying to remain solemn as a phlegmy laugh nearly chokes him.
Just so, the wind companies don't allow independent researchers in, so they can claim whatever results they want. The two projects where they admit problems are precisely the two projects where independent observers have managed to work: Altamont Pass in California (raptor deaths) and Mountaineer facility on the Allegheny ridge in West Virginia (bat deaths). At the latter, research was cut off as the brutal facts became too hard to spin.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, environment, environmentalism
The trade group American Wind Energy Association has responded, saying that "such problems remain limited to two project areas." This is a little like the deluded Mr Deasy in James Joyce's Ulysses boasting that Ireland has never persecuted the Jews -- "because she never let them in," he adds, trying to remain solemn as a phlegmy laugh nearly chokes him.
Just so, the wind companies don't allow independent researchers in, so they can claim whatever results they want. The two projects where they admit problems are precisely the two projects where independent observers have managed to work: Altamont Pass in California (raptor deaths) and Mountaineer facility on the Allegheny ridge in West Virginia (bat deaths). At the latter, research was cut off as the brutal facts became too hard to spin.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, environment, environmentalism
"Henry County will be home of up to 100 wind towers"
Dear Mr. Elliott, Rock Island (Ill.) Argus:
I read your Sept. 21 story, "Henry County will be home of up to 100 wind towers" on the web and thought I should point out the inaccurate title of the sidebar, "Wind energy facts."
It is a stretch to call the wind industry trade group's claims for 2020 "facts." The language itself betrays them: "wind energy is expected to ..." and "wind energy could provide ...."
These are self-serving sales projections, not facts.
categories: wind power, wind energy
I read your Sept. 21 story, "Henry County will be home of up to 100 wind towers" on the web and thought I should point out the inaccurate title of the sidebar, "Wind energy facts."
It is a stretch to call the wind industry trade group's claims for 2020 "facts." The language itself betrays them: "wind energy is expected to ..." and "wind energy could provide ...."
These are self-serving sales projections, not facts.
categories: wind power, wind energy
September 20, 2005
Signing it all away for crumbs from the table
A copy of a boilerplate easement agreement between a windfarm developer and a landowner has crossed my desk. Those who have already seen such contracts have remarked on the irony of landowners defending their right to do what they want with their own land against the considerations of their neighbors but signing away that very right to the wind company.
The main grant in the contract is an "exclusive easement" that includes the flow of air across the land. Besides the exclusive right to all wind energy on the property and to install and operate anmeometers, turbines, towers, and foundations, the developer is also free to install transmission facilities, utility lines, roads, bridges, culverts, staging areas, storage buildings, signs, fences, gates, etc. -- in fact, anything they want, anywhere they want, with access any time they want.
The contract also allows wind power facilities not only on the owner's property but also anywhere else to affect the property without limitation, including visual, audible, and any other effects.
Although the contract specifies that the developer will consult with the owner in placing the turbines and infrastructure, elsewhere it specifies that the owner will consent to the developer's decision of location, including on other properties.
It is further clarified that the owner waives all setback restrictions, whether legal or by private agreement, and has no right to complain about the consequences.
Similarly, it is specified that the developer may "enjoy" the property without any interference by the owner or anyone else, and that the owner must in fact actively "protect and defend" the developer's right to "enjoy" the owner's property.
The owner and anyone who might live on the property can of course enjoy it as well, as long as the developer doesn't think they're in the way or costing it anything. The developer can require the owner to take measures to keep people out.
The developer also retains the right to transfer this taking to anyone it wants.
The contract is for 2 years, and then 20 years once a turbine is installed, with the developer retaining the option to extend it another 30 years after that. Of course, the developer can terminate the deal at any time. The owner can't.
When it's over, the developer has to remove its mess only to a depth of 4 feet (the tower foundations are much deeper concrete and steel slabs) and simply cover it with dirt. There's no word about restoring the land to its former state. Nor is there any mention of removing material that the developer may not own itself, such as transmission facilities and utility lines.
It's boggling that anyone willingly signs these things, especially in the name of saving the family farm.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms
The main grant in the contract is an "exclusive easement" that includes the flow of air across the land. Besides the exclusive right to all wind energy on the property and to install and operate anmeometers, turbines, towers, and foundations, the developer is also free to install transmission facilities, utility lines, roads, bridges, culverts, staging areas, storage buildings, signs, fences, gates, etc. -- in fact, anything they want, anywhere they want, with access any time they want.
The contract also allows wind power facilities not only on the owner's property but also anywhere else to affect the property without limitation, including visual, audible, and any other effects.
Although the contract specifies that the developer will consult with the owner in placing the turbines and infrastructure, elsewhere it specifies that the owner will consent to the developer's decision of location, including on other properties.
It is further clarified that the owner waives all setback restrictions, whether legal or by private agreement, and has no right to complain about the consequences.
Similarly, it is specified that the developer may "enjoy" the property without any interference by the owner or anyone else, and that the owner must in fact actively "protect and defend" the developer's right to "enjoy" the owner's property.
The owner and anyone who might live on the property can of course enjoy it as well, as long as the developer doesn't think they're in the way or costing it anything. The developer can require the owner to take measures to keep people out.
The developer also retains the right to transfer this taking to anyone it wants.
The contract is for 2 years, and then 20 years once a turbine is installed, with the developer retaining the option to extend it another 30 years after that. Of course, the developer can terminate the deal at any time. The owner can't.
When it's over, the developer has to remove its mess only to a depth of 4 feet (the tower foundations are much deeper concrete and steel slabs) and simply cover it with dirt. There's no word about restoring the land to its former state. Nor is there any mention of removing material that the developer may not own itself, such as transmission facilities and utility lines.
It's boggling that anyone willingly signs these things, especially in the name of saving the family farm.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms
September 19, 2005
More madness
And Charles Komanoff writes in Sunday's Times Union (Albany, N.Y.) that all who cherish wildness should support installing huge industrial wind turbines on Gore Mountain in the Adirondack State Park.
He channels the late David Brower to claim the "stature to synthesize, if not reconcile, the opposing positions." He swallows whole, of course, the belief that wind turbines actually displace output from coal plants, and thus he can argue that the benefit can be weighed against the impact.
But opponents also look at the benefit. They find it insignificant, if not utterly absent. That is the argument Komanoff and other "environmentalist" supporters of industrial wind avoid. They trot out the sales brochures as sacred writ and dismiss those of us who demand real evidence or point out the poor record of large-scale wind in, for example, Denmark as unrealistic aesthetes.
Who is defending nature, the "wildness" Komanoff claims to cherish? When everyone who should be opposing development wants to be the mediator instead, there remain only the developers' options. Komanoff, along with the tediously self-righteous Bill McKibben, who also thinks that in the industrial wind boondoggle is the preservation of wildness, thus makes a mockery of concern for the environment.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism
He channels the late David Brower to claim the "stature to synthesize, if not reconcile, the opposing positions." He swallows whole, of course, the belief that wind turbines actually displace output from coal plants, and thus he can argue that the benefit can be weighed against the impact.
But opponents also look at the benefit. They find it insignificant, if not utterly absent. That is the argument Komanoff and other "environmentalist" supporters of industrial wind avoid. They trot out the sales brochures as sacred writ and dismiss those of us who demand real evidence or point out the poor record of large-scale wind in, for example, Denmark as unrealistic aesthetes.
Who is defending nature, the "wildness" Komanoff claims to cherish? When everyone who should be opposing development wants to be the mediator instead, there remain only the developers' options. Komanoff, along with the tediously self-righteous Bill McKibben, who also thinks that in the industrial wind boondoggle is the preservation of wildness, thus makes a mockery of concern for the environment.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism
Bewildered
In "A tilt at the Don Quixotes" (The Times (London), Sept. 15, 2005), Roy Hattersley insists how beautiful wind turbines are. Indeed, he says that is reason enough to build them. He compares their giant rotating blades to leaves reflecting the sun and their gravelly noise to the "gentle hum of swarming bees." Seeing them off shore at Tintagel, he imagines that "a dozen Ladies of the Lake were reaching out from the water to catch the discarded Excalibur."
So he does not agree that they desecrate the countryside, that they in fact affirm our natural place in it. Their oily rusty remains and concrete pads will be seen in the future as charming relics of an earlier age. Nature-lover that he claims to be, he thinks the escarpment ("the Edge") overlooking his own Derbyshire house would be vastly improved by a line of the "elegant" erections.
This is the same Roy Hattersley who, as Angela Kelly of Country Guardian has pointed out, wrote about the desecration of the Derbyshire Peak National Park and the Edge on Jubilee Day, 2002. As she quotes:
The "splendours of the English countryside" mean different things to different people. But it is outrageous to argue that strings of 100-meter-high spinning turbines are "natural," no matter how much one likes them. And because so many people don't like them, or question their utility, the wise course is to err on the side of nature and avoid building them in otherwise unindustrialized landscapes.
What is "romantic" about ruined farmhouses and abandoned quarries is that nature is reclaiming them. It reminds us not that our impositions on the natural world are right but that they are at best temporary vanity and at worst destructive folly. The jagged remains of Hattersley's beloved erections are more likely to be in the latter category.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism
So he does not agree that they desecrate the countryside, that they in fact affirm our natural place in it. Their oily rusty remains and concrete pads will be seen in the future as charming relics of an earlier age. Nature-lover that he claims to be, he thinks the escarpment ("the Edge") overlooking his own Derbyshire house would be vastly improved by a line of the "elegant" erections.
This is the same Roy Hattersley who, as Angela Kelly of Country Guardian has pointed out, wrote about the desecration of the Derbyshire Peak National Park and the Edge on Jubilee Day, 2002. As she quotes:
... somebody somewhere looks out each morning at what should be a miracle of nature and sees only the brutality of commerce.There is an obvious contradiction here. Hattersley's divine judgement considers only the passing commerce of promoting the monarchy to be a violation of the landscape, not the commerce of industrializing that landscape with giant turbine towers of doubtful value except to the speculators taking swift advantage of the naïveté of people like Roy Hattersley.
Tomorrow, as I walk up toward the sight of desecration, I shall consider who -- in the judgment of the gods -- are the true patriots, the people who endorse whatever it costs to finance the four-day jubilee celebration or the men and women who would rather spend the money on preserving the splendours of the English countryside. God save the Edge.
The "splendours of the English countryside" mean different things to different people. But it is outrageous to argue that strings of 100-meter-high spinning turbines are "natural," no matter how much one likes them. And because so many people don't like them, or question their utility, the wise course is to err on the side of nature and avoid building them in otherwise unindustrialized landscapes.
What is "romantic" about ruined farmhouses and abandoned quarries is that nature is reclaiming them. It reminds us not that our impositions on the natural world are right but that they are at best temporary vanity and at worst destructive folly. The jagged remains of Hattersley's beloved erections are more likely to be in the latter category.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism
September 14, 2005
A mere $3 billion
Froma Harrop writes in today's Providence (R.I.) Journal: "Of the $14.5 billion in tax breaks to energy producers [in the recent energy bill], about $9 billion goes for oil, gas and coal -- and at a time of soaring oil profits. A mere $3 billion was set aside for incentives to produce electricity from renewable sources."
Mere? Over 21% of the subsidies go to renewables, which produce about 6% of our energy. That doesn't sound like an arrangement to complain about. And the soaring profits, the efficient movement of large amounts of public money into private hands, at least in wind, are there, too -- that's why Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase are in the business.
categories: wind power, wind energy
Mere? Over 21% of the subsidies go to renewables, which produce about 6% of our energy. That doesn't sound like an arrangement to complain about. And the soaring profits, the efficient movement of large amounts of public money into private hands, at least in wind, are there, too -- that's why Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase are in the business.
categories: wind power, wind energy
September 11, 2005
Some data on blade failure and throw
At the 2004 California Wind Energy Collaborative Forum (click the title of this post for proceedings, both PowerPoint PDFs and audio MP3s), Scott Larwood of the California Wind Energy Collaborative, University of California, Davis, presented "Permitting setbacks for wind turbines and the blade throw hazard."
His research concludes that a reasonable expectation for blade failure is 1 per 100 turbines per year. Thus setbacks in consideration of blade or fragment throw are indeed important to establish.
His calculations (or his reporting of a Danish study) establishes, first of all, how far a blade or fragment could be thrown at tip speeds at and above the normal operation maximum, expressed as multiples of the total turbine height, using data for 1.5–2.0-MW turbines. At the normal maximum, a blade could be thrown to a distance almost 1.5 times the turbine height and a hazardous fragment over 3.5 times. At twice the normal tip speed, a complete blade could be thrown over 2.5 times the turbine height and a hazardous fragment almost 6.5 times. The maximum fragment distance is 6.5 times the turbine height.
Second, Larwood calculates blade and fragment thrown as a function of turbine height, finding that as height increases, the absolute distance they might be thrown increases, but as a multiple of turbine height it decreases. For example, a 50-m (164-ft) turbine (height to blade tip) could throw a whole blade about 120 m (2.4 × ht) and a fragment over 250 m (5 × ht); a 100-m (328-ft) turbine could throw a blade about 125 m (1.25 × ht) and a fragment about 375 m (3.75 × ht).
Larwood does not recommend specific setbacks, presumably because they involve other considerations as well, such as noise, high voltage, and visual intrusion.
On another note, he cites the distance the turbines should be from each other for minimal wind interference: three rotor diameters when aligned perpendicular to the wind and 10 rotor diameters when parallel to the wind. Thus, the GE 1.5-MW turbine, with a 70.5-m rotor span, requires 37-123 acres per tower. Each Vestas V90 1.8-MW turbine, with a 90-m rotor, requires 60-200 acres.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind turbines
His research concludes that a reasonable expectation for blade failure is 1 per 100 turbines per year. Thus setbacks in consideration of blade or fragment throw are indeed important to establish.
His calculations (or his reporting of a Danish study) establishes, first of all, how far a blade or fragment could be thrown at tip speeds at and above the normal operation maximum, expressed as multiples of the total turbine height, using data for 1.5–2.0-MW turbines. At the normal maximum, a blade could be thrown to a distance almost 1.5 times the turbine height and a hazardous fragment over 3.5 times. At twice the normal tip speed, a complete blade could be thrown over 2.5 times the turbine height and a hazardous fragment almost 6.5 times. The maximum fragment distance is 6.5 times the turbine height.
Second, Larwood calculates blade and fragment thrown as a function of turbine height, finding that as height increases, the absolute distance they might be thrown increases, but as a multiple of turbine height it decreases. For example, a 50-m (164-ft) turbine (height to blade tip) could throw a whole blade about 120 m (2.4 × ht) and a fragment over 250 m (5 × ht); a 100-m (328-ft) turbine could throw a blade about 125 m (1.25 × ht) and a fragment about 375 m (3.75 × ht).
Larwood does not recommend specific setbacks, presumably because they involve other considerations as well, such as noise, high voltage, and visual intrusion.
On another note, he cites the distance the turbines should be from each other for minimal wind interference: three rotor diameters when aligned perpendicular to the wind and 10 rotor diameters when parallel to the wind. Thus, the GE 1.5-MW turbine, with a 70.5-m rotor span, requires 37-123 acres per tower. Each Vestas V90 1.8-MW turbine, with a 90-m rotor, requires 60-200 acres.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind turbines
September 10, 2005
Local zoning for wind turbines
The Ludington (Mich.) Daily News reported yesterday on a new ordinance in Hamlin Township governing the construction of wind turbine towers. It seems like good clear zoning.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism
The ordinance ... allows individual wind energy conversion systems (WECS) in all parts of the township, such that the power is only generated for non-commercial purposes with a rated capacity of 300 kilowatts or less.As the leader of the research team that drafted the ordinance pointed out, variances are possible to loosen the restrictions but not to tighten them, so they need to be tight to start with.
Setbacks for the individual systems must be, at a minimum, twice the height of the total structure (tower and blade combined) on all sides of the site boundary. The generated noise of the WECS cannot be more than 5 decibels above the ambient noise at the site of any neigboring dwelling.
The ordinance limits commercial, industrial-sized wind energy generating stations to agriculturally-zoned and industrial areas. They must adhere to the same restrictions as the non-commerical turbines.
Also, the commercial wind turbines, among many things must be surfaced in a uniform, neutral, non-reflective color; have signage to warn of high voltage and other dangers; be equipped with both a manual and an automatic braking device capable of stopping the turbine operation in high winds; and adhere to guidelines set forth by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service "Guideline to Avoid and Minimize Wildlife Impacts from Wind Turbines."
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism
September 9, 2005
Paper tiger vs. hard facts
To the editor:
The Bennington Banner (editorial, Sept. 8) appears to think that those who oppose industrial wind power plants on the ridgelines prefer nuclear radiation, coal smoke, and mercury poisoning. They have created a paper tiger and missed the real argument.
Most opponents would readily accept the need for large wind turbines if in fact they reduced the use of nuclear and fossil fuels. Their argument, based on the experience of Denmark and Germany and research elsewhere, is that they don't -- certainly not to any degree that justifies industrializing the ridgelines.
The Banner cites Searsburg as supplying electricity for 2,000 homes. Actually, Searsburg produces an annual average (11,000 MWh) equivalent to that used by less than 1,500 Vermont homes (average 7.5 MWh/year). According to a study sponsored by the Department of Energy, however, almost 40% of the time the turbines are not producing any power at all. That study also reveals that power drawn from the grid by the turbines themselves is not metered and the actual net production is unknown. The bottom line is that it would take an awful lot of turbines to make even a dent in our need for more reliable sources.
To equal the electricity we use from Vermont Yankee (almost 2 million MWh/yr) would require 700 MW of wind turbines, or about 390 of the 1.8-MW 400-feet-high models now being proposed. That probably exceeds even the Banner's opinion of how much more development we should tolerate.
That figure is based on the industry's own self-projections. Based on the actual experience of Searsburg, more than 1,100 MW of wind turbines would be needed.
But because of the cubic relation of energy output to wind speed, two-thirds of the time the turbines would be producing at a rate below their already low average. More than a third of the time, as we have learned at Searsburg, they would not be producing at all. That is, fossil-fueled plants and Vermont Yankee would still be needed to provide electricity when we need it.
To point this out is not to prefer nuclear and fossil fuels, as the Banner implies. Most of us would love to see renewables instead. But we have come to realize that wind power will not significantly reduce our need for "dirty" power any more than taking a walk in the morning will reduce the amount of gas I use to drive to the grocery store in the afternoon.
The Bennington Banner (editorial, Sept. 8) appears to think that those who oppose industrial wind power plants on the ridgelines prefer nuclear radiation, coal smoke, and mercury poisoning. They have created a paper tiger and missed the real argument.
Most opponents would readily accept the need for large wind turbines if in fact they reduced the use of nuclear and fossil fuels. Their argument, based on the experience of Denmark and Germany and research elsewhere, is that they don't -- certainly not to any degree that justifies industrializing the ridgelines.
The Banner cites Searsburg as supplying electricity for 2,000 homes. Actually, Searsburg produces an annual average (11,000 MWh) equivalent to that used by less than 1,500 Vermont homes (average 7.5 MWh/year). According to a study sponsored by the Department of Energy, however, almost 40% of the time the turbines are not producing any power at all. That study also reveals that power drawn from the grid by the turbines themselves is not metered and the actual net production is unknown. The bottom line is that it would take an awful lot of turbines to make even a dent in our need for more reliable sources.
To equal the electricity we use from Vermont Yankee (almost 2 million MWh/yr) would require 700 MW of wind turbines, or about 390 of the 1.8-MW 400-feet-high models now being proposed. That probably exceeds even the Banner's opinion of how much more development we should tolerate.
That figure is based on the industry's own self-projections. Based on the actual experience of Searsburg, more than 1,100 MW of wind turbines would be needed.
But because of the cubic relation of energy output to wind speed, two-thirds of the time the turbines would be producing at a rate below their already low average. More than a third of the time, as we have learned at Searsburg, they would not be producing at all. That is, fossil-fueled plants and Vermont Yankee would still be needed to provide electricity when we need it.
To point this out is not to prefer nuclear and fossil fuels, as the Banner implies. Most of us would love to see renewables instead. But we have come to realize that wind power will not significantly reduce our need for "dirty" power any more than taking a walk in the morning will reduce the amount of gas I use to drive to the grocery store in the afternoon.
September 7, 2005
Gas vs. wind
From the Miller (S.D.) Press, "Wind power development faces many challenges," Sept. 6, 2005: '"When the wind isn't blowing, it's not serving anyone," [Ron Rebenitsch of Basin Electric Power Cooperative] commented. "I think wind will become a partner with gas energy," meaning when the wind isn't producing, the gas will take up the slack.'
And Renewable Energy Access, "Wind, Natural Gas Hybrid Project Moves Ahead," Aug. 3, 2005, described an 108-MW wind facility proposed off the coast of Cumbria (U.K.) with its own back-up 98-MW natural gas–powered generator.
As noted previously, many advocates of industrial wind power argue that it will help stabilize or offset rising natural gas prices. (Natural gas is used to generate about 15% of the electricity in the U.S.) It has been frequently noted recently that wind power is now economically competitive with natural gas.
The use of natural gas has increased because it is so much cleaner than coal, which still provides over 50% of the electricity in the U.S. (Oil is not a significant source, providing only 2.4%; nuclear fission provides over 20%.) Now it appears that industrial wind power will only displace natural gas.
At best, expansion of industrial wind will fuel an expansion of natural gas, necessary to provide quickly responsive back-up to the unpredictably variable wind production. Increased use of natural gas may then further reduce the use of coal. The presence of wind turbines, with their fluctuating production, however, would require the gas plants to run less efficiently and with more pollution (and more expensively) than if they could run steadily. Obviously, rather than mitigating the demand for gas, wind turbines will be increasing it.
But rather than contributing to an albeit imperfect system of reduced emissions, wind power will be reducing the positive effects of natural gas vs. coal. If new gas plants are going to built anyway, it would be better if wind turbines weren't.
Summary: Wind power requires gas power back-up but reduces its efficiency, thus increasing the emissions of the cleanest fossil-fuel alternative to coal.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind turbines
And Renewable Energy Access, "Wind, Natural Gas Hybrid Project Moves Ahead," Aug. 3, 2005, described an 108-MW wind facility proposed off the coast of Cumbria (U.K.) with its own back-up 98-MW natural gas–powered generator.
As noted previously, many advocates of industrial wind power argue that it will help stabilize or offset rising natural gas prices. (Natural gas is used to generate about 15% of the electricity in the U.S.) It has been frequently noted recently that wind power is now economically competitive with natural gas.
The use of natural gas has increased because it is so much cleaner than coal, which still provides over 50% of the electricity in the U.S. (Oil is not a significant source, providing only 2.4%; nuclear fission provides over 20%.) Now it appears that industrial wind power will only displace natural gas.
At best, expansion of industrial wind will fuel an expansion of natural gas, necessary to provide quickly responsive back-up to the unpredictably variable wind production. Increased use of natural gas may then further reduce the use of coal. The presence of wind turbines, with their fluctuating production, however, would require the gas plants to run less efficiently and with more pollution (and more expensively) than if they could run steadily. Obviously, rather than mitigating the demand for gas, wind turbines will be increasing it.
But rather than contributing to an albeit imperfect system of reduced emissions, wind power will be reducing the positive effects of natural gas vs. coal. If new gas plants are going to built anyway, it would be better if wind turbines weren't.
Summary: Wind power requires gas power back-up but reduces its efficiency, thus increasing the emissions of the cleanest fossil-fuel alternative to coal.
categories: wind power, wind energy, wind turbines
September 6, 2005
Wind behind expansion of coal power
This just in:
“Wind energy in Germany is still backed up by coal. For every 1 megawatt of wind capacity, German power companies will install 0.6 megawatts of coal generation as a backup source, said [Bernhard] Hartmann [a vice president at global management consulting firm AT Kearney].”
categories: wind power, wind energy
“Wind energy in Germany is still backed up by coal. For every 1 megawatt of wind capacity, German power companies will install 0.6 megawatts of coal generation as a backup source, said [Bernhard] Hartmann [a vice president at global management consulting firm AT Kearney].”
--Interfax China, Sept. 6, 2005
That is to say, wind power is actually driving an expansion of coal plant.categories: wind power, wind energy
September 4, 2005
Confusion
Christine Vanderlan, Global Warming Program Director for Environmental Advocates of New York, Albany, writes in today's Elmira (N.Y.) Star-Gazette ("More renewable energy offsets natural gas hikes," letter), citing the Union of Concerned Scientists, that "increasing the use of wind, solar and other renewable sources for electricity production would help solve the problem of rising natural gas prices."
But the goal of using renewable energy is to move away from coal first, not natural gas which is a much cleaner fossil fuel. So much for the kids with asthma (let alone the dire predictions of global warming) -- these environmental advocates just want to keep their energy cheap! Welcome to the house of mirrors.
categories: wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
But the goal of using renewable energy is to move away from coal first, not natural gas which is a much cleaner fossil fuel. So much for the kids with asthma (let alone the dire predictions of global warming) -- these environmental advocates just want to keep their energy cheap! Welcome to the house of mirrors.
categories: wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
September 1, 2005
Stupidity
The alarming rise in gasoline prices in the U.S. (still a fraction of what they are in most of the world) is addling people's brains. At least two recent news articles have cited gas prices as a reason to support building giant wind turbines, as if an erratic supply of expensive electricity will help power your car or heat your home. (It won't even help you keep the lights on!)
As gas skyrockets, Lenox considers alternatives, The Advocate (North Adams, Mass.), Sept. 1, 2005:
As gas skyrockets, Lenox considers alternatives, The Advocate (North Adams, Mass.), Sept. 1, 2005:
Town Manager Gregory Federspiel is alerting residents to a possible reduction in services this winter with the prospect of oil and natural gas shortages and sky-high prices. ...Regular gas in Harwich is $3.50 a gallon already, Sept. 1, 2005:
Federspiel said that this is the time for people to start talking seriously about alternatives to fossil fuel energy such as wind towers and solar panels.
At noon today the gas station on Main Street (Route 39 at Bank St.) in Harwich Center posted a price for regular gas at $3.50.categories: wind power, wind energy
Ironically the station in the West End of Hyannis nearest Ted Kennedy's home is charging the same, and some Boston suburbs now pay over $4 a gallon while pundits predict we'll be paying $6 a gallon within weeks if not days.
The national web site which audits gas prices around the country shows the lowest and highest prices locally in the last 24 hours. That site reveals a jump of $1 a gallon in one day!
It is finally time for our Senior United States Senator to change his mind about whether he will tolerate a renewable energy wind farm on the distant horizon in front of his waterfront home.
August 31, 2005
Progress report
From the Progress Report, via Sam Smith's Undernews:
Last year, 37 million Americans -- 12.7 percent of the population -- lived in poverty. The figures represent "the fourth straight year that the report found an increase in the U.S. poverty rate." In 2000, there were 5.5 million fewer people below the poverty line. Nevertheless, the Bush administration spun the poverty rates as "good news," noting that there were other times in American history when the poverty rate was higher.
The median income in 2004 was unchanged from the previous year. It's the fifth straight year median income failed to increase, the first time that's happened since the government began collecting the data in 1967. Many people saw their earnings decrease. For example, the median income for all non-elderly households decreased by $600 as compared to 2003.
As millions of Americans struggled, corporate CEOs enjoyed another banner year. In 2004, the average CEO made 430 times as much as the average worker, up from a ratio of 301-to-1 in 2003. If the minimum wage had grown at the same rate as CEO pay since 1990, "the lowest paid workers in the US would be earning $23.03 an hour today."
Last year, 37 million Americans -- 12.7 percent of the population -- lived in poverty. The figures represent "the fourth straight year that the report found an increase in the U.S. poverty rate." In 2000, there were 5.5 million fewer people below the poverty line. Nevertheless, the Bush administration spun the poverty rates as "good news," noting that there were other times in American history when the poverty rate was higher.
The median income in 2004 was unchanged from the previous year. It's the fifth straight year median income failed to increase, the first time that's happened since the government began collecting the data in 1967. Many people saw their earnings decrease. For example, the median income for all non-elderly households decreased by $600 as compared to 2003.
As millions of Americans struggled, corporate CEOs enjoyed another banner year. In 2004, the average CEO made 430 times as much as the average worker, up from a ratio of 301-to-1 in 2003. If the minimum wage had grown at the same rate as CEO pay since 1990, "the lowest paid workers in the US would be earning $23.03 an hour today."
A letter against the wind pirates
A powerful letter by Kaye Johnson appeared in the Malone (N.Y.) Telegram, August 30, 2005:
Why is it that we are supposed to believe everything the wind salesmen say and write, yet evidence about their constant misrepresentations of the myriad problems being created by their industry is 'propaganda'?categories: wind power, wind energy, wind farms
Noble's out-of-state lawyer recently used exactly that word in a letter to this paper. He also attempted to again ridicule a scientist who is a part of our community by, again, taking her comments out of context. No matter how many times he repeats his phony charges, they won't become true. But 'the big lie' can be an effective weapon against the truth. It may overwhelm the facts, especially when we all wish that wind turbines were a magic bullet to fix the nation's energy problems and our local economy at the same time. Then the developers can have their way with our money and our landscape and be long gone before we unravel their deception.
The developers are trying to frame the debate in such a way that it's their critics who have to prove beyond a resonable doubt that lining up hundreds and hundreds of wind turbines across our region is a bad idea. I say the shoe should be on the other foot. They should have to prove what's right about their plan before they so drastically change our environment, community, and economy.
I have heard their inflated claims about how many jobs they will create, but their industry's record shows almost no job creation in host communities. They claim their development of our ridgelines will help the environment, but the testimony from other sites contradicts that. The evidence coming in from other countries shows that littering the countryside with giant turbines has little net impact on greenhouse gases.
In town after state after country, the story is the same. We can expect that they will come in to our community, extract millions, and leave us to clean up their mess. That is why the developers are the ones who should have their 'propaganda' examined by impartial experts.
The developers are the ones who have been caught misrepresenting the results of research. Then they tried to discredit the very same research when their deception was exposed. The developers said they would answer all questions and make all their information available to anyone. Now they refuse to disclose their plans to those who don't sing their praises. And it's the developers who have a pattern of silencing their critics by buying them off.
... Noble, a wholly owned subsidiary of J.P. Morgan, is part of one of the world's largest financial organizations. They know they will have to spend a little money to get the millions and millions from our pockets in the form of higher utility bills and taxes.
So don't be fooled by the 'just plain folks' gimmicks. It will take more than giving our kids a pinwheel at the fair to compensate for the mess they'll have to clean up if these things are brought in. And don't think that a few well placed and highly publicized donations to worthy local causes make Noble's employees wonderful new members of our community. Their motivation in raping our countryside is not green power. It's greed power. And once they've had their way with us, they'll be gone with the wind.
August 30, 2005
Real emissions reduction caused by wind generators
From "Estimation of real emissions reduction caused by wind generators," Olev Liik, Rein Oidram, Matti Keel -- Tallin Technical University, Tallin, Estonia. International Energy Workshop, 24-26 June 2003, IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria.
Problem of balancing of wind power fluctuations [slides 5-8]
Conclusions [slide 21]
Problem of balancing of wind power fluctuations [slides 5-8]
- Wind power plants are almost uncontrollable.
- Integration of windmills with the existing power system depends on the size and structure of concrete power system and on the capacity of links with neighbouring systems.
- Until all the fluctuations of wind power can be compensated with the hydro power plants, the integration of windmills does not trouble the existing system too much and the environmental gain is linearly proportional to the produced amount of electricity.
- If the power systems contains only thermal power plants or if the installed capacity of windmills exceeds the regulation capacity of hydro plants:
- As the CHP plants usually follow the thermal load, the condensing power plants must participate in the compensation of wind power fluctuations.
- Large condensing units cannot be switched on and off frequently and for a short period and their speed of increasing and decreasing of power is limited.
- Most suitable thermal plants for the load regulation and fast reserve capacity are the gas turbines.
- If someone wants to introduce large amount of wind power then the power regulating range and speed of the existing plants must be also extensive.
- Operating a thermal plant with and without the need to compensate the fluctuations of wind power is similar to the running of a car in the city and on the highway, respectively. Fuel consumption of a car can be even double in the city comparing with the highway.
- The thermal power production without wind generators is equal to the load and it is distributed among the thermal power plants according to the optimality criterion and using static input-output characteristics.
- When the wind power appears in the system, thermal power stations have to keep constantly additional spinning reserve capacity equal to the maximum total power of windmills. This makes the thermal plants run inefficiently and increases fuel consumption (emissions).
- Under the fast changes of wind power, the real fuel consumption will increase even higher. The actual operation points of thermal plant will form a curve that is similar to a hysteresis loop. This is the dynamic fuel consumption curve.
Conclusions [slide 21]
- Participation of thermal power plants in keeping the reserve capacity for wind turbines and in compensation of the fluctuations of wind power increases the fuel consumption and emissions substantially.
- Linear methods of calculation of emission reductions from wind energy use cannot consider this increase and therefore special methods for correct accounting of environmental gain have to be elaborated.
Low-frequency noise and vibrations from windfarms
Eleanor Tillinghast of Green Berkshires recently brought to my attention the paper from which the following excerpts are taken.
P. Styles, I. Stimpson, S. Toon, R. England, and M. Wright. Microseismic and infrasound monitoring of low frequency noise and vibrations from windfarms. Applied and Environmental Geophysics Research Group, School of Physical and Geographical Sciences, Keele University, 18 July 2005:
P. Styles, I. Stimpson, S. Toon, R. England, and M. Wright. Microseismic and infrasound monitoring of low frequency noise and vibrations from windfarms. Applied and Environmental Geophysics Research Group, School of Physical and Geographical Sciences, Keele University, 18 July 2005:
- Wind turbines are large vibrating cylindrical towers, strongly coupled to the ground with massive concrete foundation, through which vibrations are transmitted to the surroundings and with rotating turbine blades generating low-frequency acoustic signals which may couple acoustically into the ground. (p. 8)
- Additionally, the blade-tower interaction is a source of pulses at a low repetition rate, which contain components in the infrasound region. The local and surrounding geology, especially layering, may play an important part in determining vibration transmission. (p. 8)
- [W]ind farms do produce discernible harmonic signals which can be detected over considerable distances. (p. 44)
- When the windfarm starts to generate at low wind speeds, considerable infrasound signals can be detected at all stations out to c. 10 km. (p. 66)
- [T]he vibrations experienced on seismometers situated at considerable distances from farms propagate through the ground as high frequency Rayleigh waves and not through the air, and as such must obey the propagation modes and attenuation and absorption laws for geological materials and not air. (p. 67)
- We have clearly shown that both fixed-speed and variable-speed wind turbines generate low-frequency vibrations which are multiples of blade-passing frequencies and which can be detected ... at considerable distances (many kilometres) from wind farms on infrasound detectors and on low-frequency microphones. (p. 76)
- At present there are no current, routinely implemented vibration mitigation technological solutions which can reduce the vibration from wind turbines. (p. 90)
August 29, 2005
A NIMBY wind is a-blowin' my mind
David Bauman writes in yesterday's Berkshire Eagle:
[He is correct to call many of the opponents of the Cape Wind project NIMBY when they support wind power elsewhere. But most opponents of industrial wind have looked seriously into it and determined that it is not worth sacrificing their or anyone else's backyard, rural landscape, or wild mountaintop for its dubious claims. These people can not therefore be called NIMBY.]
Bauman's answer is pretty much, "might [or more usually mere bluster] makes right" -- hardly a compelling alternative:
categories: wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
The appropriate term for opposition to big ugly projects, which could benefit many but harms few, is NIMBY (not in my backyard). Our reluctance to invoke NIMBY has caused us to make laws that give legal power to frogs and roots but none to ourselves. Human's wants and needs always take a back seat to those fussy plants and animals. In generations past the plants and animals were clear-cut, slaughtered, eaten and worn. Now they have it better than ever and all they do is complain.So it's NIMBY to act as a steward of the land against unquestioned industrial development. And it's fear of challenging said NIMBY that has made weighing the natural environment, the ecosystem that sustains us, against unquestioned industrial development a normal procedure. And, like free speech, it's apparently enough to have the right -- but to actually use it is obstructionist whining.
[He is correct to call many of the opponents of the Cape Wind project NIMBY when they support wind power elsewhere. But most opponents of industrial wind have looked seriously into it and determined that it is not worth sacrificing their or anyone else's backyard, rural landscape, or wild mountaintop for its dubious claims. These people can not therefore be called NIMBY.]
Bauman's answer is pretty much, "might [or more usually mere bluster] makes right" -- hardly a compelling alternative:
As everyone knows West Virginia is the perfect place for windmill farms because the plants and animals there are friendly, poor, a little slow and don't give a hoot 'bout much.He thinks he's mocking those who have driven out the wind pirates, but he reveals his own contempt for not only plants and animals but also his fellow humans. And typical of the misinformed or disingenuous, he invokes oil, which has almost nothing to do with electricity. If anything, more wind power would mean more oil, because that's what often powers the quick-response plants that would be be needed to cover for wind's erratic production.
categories: wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
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