Opinions
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General or Utah
Since this down time is unpredictable, Chateaugay can supply reliable electricity to ZERO homes. The low average value of NNY wind speeds coupled with a very high degree of variability means Northern NY is NOT suitable for economically viable nor dependable industrial wind installations.
Because wind power drains money from our economy, it doesn't, and won't in the future, create jobs. It will actually cost jobs. The money, much of which will go overseas, will no longer be available to spend on food, clothing, shelter and medical care in Rhode Island.
Where does the money go?
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General|
Rhode Island]
Few commercial enterprises could stay in business if they only managed to sell 50 percent of their inventory at well-above-market rates.
The difference with Cape Wind, of course, is that it's propped up by its powerful political cheerleaders, who are pulling out all the stops to make sure their pet project is a success.
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General|
Massachusetts]
EverPower's good-neighbor agreement requires residents not only to accept the noise (for an annual payment of $1,500), they must also allow EverPower to record a noise easement on their land with the county clerk. This will be a burden on the land for all subsequent buyers. If a landowner finds the noise is intolerable, it will be difficult to sell and move.
The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), which is responsible for managing the regional transmission system, has indicated that it will likely limit wind power to handle a surge in hydro-power production resulting from the melt-off of a large mountain snowpack this year.
Nothing illustrates the distance between the political culture and reality in modern governments so much as the billions invested in wind power. Presumably the purpose of such investments is to a) reduce greenhouse emissions and b) reduce dependence on fossil fuels. The plain fact that it increases both seems not to have bothered anyone.
While appropriately sited wind farms have a contribution to make both to our energy security and to our low carbon goals as part of a mix of renewable sources, they should not be imposed on unwilling communities outside of a full and proper democratic process.
What's totally out of place is a monstrous pillar of white steel rising from the countryside, topped with its whirling three-bladed rotor. However, proving that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, one local told a National Public Radio reporter the turbine is "quite majestic."
But as soon as her majesty was switched on, residents began to complain: Wind One was as loud as an old Soviet helicopter.
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General|
Massachusetts]
The committee was dissolved prematurely. None of the most important issues, including noise, setbacks, shadow flicker, property values and decommissioning, were given due consideration. The fact that the committee spent about 10 minutes out of the entire eight meetings on setbacks speaks to the inadequacy of the entire process.
Painful to the ears, and especially painful to the birds, the painful lesson environmentalists need to learn is that the answer to America’s growing energy needs is not blowing in the wind.
Also filed under [
General|
Massachusetts]
Our quality of place is being attacked one mountain at a time. Our natural resources are our future and our economy, way beyond the 20 years the turbines will be there. I want our state agencies to represent OUR best interest, not the developer's. ...Is the Department of Environmental Protection in existence to pave the way for corporate industrial development or to protect the State of Maine through sound science and good judgment? Be scientists, not politicians!
Despite the bullish statements, the wind industry remains vulnerable on Government kindness, in the shape of feed-in tariffs (FITs). If consumers' desire for cheap energy was allowed to be met by the market, it would lift millions of poor people out of fuel poverty.
When that wind generation component increases, the temperatures of fossil-fueled boilers must be dropped to maintain demand-supply equality. This involves wasteful shedding of heat for cooling ...And since the spinning reserves don't stop consuming fuel when wind generation is occurring, claims of energy savings or CO2 emission reductions are largely mythological.
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General]
The prospect of windmills standing 440 feet above Poor Mountain, visible from distant mountain outlooks and the Roanoke Valley below, should make one thing clear to advocates and foes alike: A wind farm would have a big impact.
The Department of Environmental Protection's public meeting on the proposed 12-turbine industrial wind project for Saddleback Ridge in Carthage will take place at 6 p.m. on Thursday, March 10, at Dirigo High School in Dixfield.
Virginians know that "Virginia is for Lovers." We also know the adage that love is blind. Such blindness is exemplified by Gov. Bob McDonnell's and Sen. Frank Wagner's love affair with renewable energy.
Why "fast track," this huge scar in an untouched landscape?
What is the hurry? My experience has shown the correlation between speed and quality is poor at best. Does the current administration want to be blaming poor forethought later because we "fast tracked" for a tax credit for Canadian Gaz Metro?
Simply put, the wind might be free, when it blows. But the rest of the “renewable, green, eco-friendly” wind energy system is anything but.
It might be far better all around to simply build the most efficient, lowest-polluting coal, gas and nuclear generating plants possible, let them run at full capacity 24/7/365 – and just skip the wind power.
Life-cycle studies would be a positive development – for all energy sources.
This project has split the community. Neighbors don't talk to one another, families have developed rifts and at times it's hard to know who to trust. All for 60 megawatts of power that will be going off Manitoulin Island into the big grid. ...This project is not about being green -- unless that green everyone keeps referring to is money.
But wind power isn't "green" just because it's non-polluting. It takes on that hue from the many greenbacks that are required to bring it on line. Wind's power source is free, but it's expensive to turn it into electricity and get it where it's needed.
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General]