...to think that wind turbines are going to offer a long-term stimulus for tourism revenue is foolish. These giant wind turbines are a novelty to Michiganders right now. But as time goes by, the novelty will wear off. And as more and more wind turbines are built, there will be more and more people living here and paying the price for this "green" energy. ...and those living in the Thumb with these wind turbines towering over their homes will pay again in loss of property value and quality of life.

The phrase "green-collar" jobs is now de rigeur for any candidate or activist seeking to justify renewable-energy mandates and other environmental regulations. Such mandates, they claim, will lead to a revolution (or "envirolution") in our economy, creating new jobs and making us all more prosperous. They understand that people are justifiably nervous about the costs of such rules, especially in a time of economic uncertainty. The problem is that claims about new jobs are simply false. Two recent critiques of our work demonstrate clearly how advocates of green jobs mistake more jobs in one sector for more jobs overall.

With the current threat of some 725 industrial-scale wind turbines proposed for the Municipality of Chatham-Kent many local residents have begun to alter their plans for the future. These altered plans will have a serious economic spin-off for our municipality. The following is a list of some economic opportunities that are being lost due to the threat of industrializing the countryside with wind turbines: ...Wind farms will reduce any infill housing in rural Chatham-Kent and preclude many lifestyle developments and economic opportunities. Existing housing located next to wind farms will deteriorate and become abandoned. Is this the vision we have for our municipality?

High costs aren't the only problem facing New Yorkers. They also must worry whether the lights will stay on. Recently, the state's power-grid operator predicted looming shortages unless the state builds more power plants over the next decade to meet rising demand. That's no easy feat. With the 2003 expiration of Article X of the Public Service Law, which streamlined the permitting process for building large power plants, it now can take more than five years for a proposed plant to get built. Consequently, few investors are lining up to build the plants New York needs. The Spitzer administration favored an extension of Article X but with a green twist. The law, Spitzer said, must exclude nuclear and coal-fired plants. Such provisions may please environmental groups, but it won't do anything to help add the 2,750 megawatts needed to maintain the reliability of the New York grid by 2017.

The Bluewater Wind offshore wind farm proposal exploits the Delaware Renewable Portfolio Standard Act intended to foster the use of renewable energy sources. ...To qualify as an electricity supplier, BWW has to offer a supply that meets customer needs all the time, not just to the extent the wind blows. The BWW proposal drafts Delmarva as its supply partner, reducing supplier competition. Further, Delmarva's SOS customers may lose the right to choose another supplier if the BWW take-or-pay wind and Delmarva backup power partnership proves expensive. They could be locked in for 25 years.

A centerpiece of the recent Roth Capital investment conference in California was an "Investing in Green tech" expert panel. Its goal was ostensibly to reveal how to make obscene profits by investing in green tech stocks. But it did the exact opposite. As the panel went on, it became clear that even these experts -- people who now devote their careers to advancing "green" technologies -- weren't quite sure what the perfect green tech policy, incentive, initiative, or technology looked like. But who could blame them?

The long-awaited Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) on the Cape Wind application to place 130 wind turbines in the waters of Nantucket Sound is finally out. ...Although the MMS DEIS seems to clear the way for Cape Wind to build its Nantucket Sound wind farm, CapeCodToday.com will be printing remarks made by experts in the wind-energy/finance fields that identify many serious flaws in the DEIS and in the methods and information used to paint a healthy picture of the Cape Wind project. MMS's own peer review raises serious questions about how MMS arrived at the conclusions their report contains.

Democratic presidential candidates have been stumping for "green collar jobs," contending that workers need federally-funded training to help build the new energy economy and fill the avalanche of work coming to the burgeoning domestic clean-tech and alternative energy sectors. ...There is plenty of enthusiasm about the prospects of work in green industries, though everyone seems to have their own optimistic ideas about the types of work that will arise. ...But low-wage earners and unskilled laborers deserve some honest clarity about how much additional green they can expect to receive in their paychecks when they take those so-called green collar jobs with the lowest barriers to entry. Many of these positions are unlikely to afford them a bridge to high-paying, skilled work. Cleaning a house or hotel room with chemical free products is still working in the hospitality sector.

At the end of 2007, the WilderHill New Energy Global Innovations Index (NEX), a composite of 86 new energy companies covering wind, solar, biofuels, efficiency, and hydrogen, was up by 58%, year-on-year. As of yesterday, however, it was off almost 20% for 2008 so far, compared to a drop of about 8% for the S&P 500. Why would a sector so favored by politicians, environmentalists, and socially-conscious investors suddenly appear to have diminished prospects, just when it seemed perfectly geared for growth? Unfortunately, renewables and the entire alternative energy sector are vulnerable to two of the same principal factors undermining confidence in the economy as a whole: the availability of credit and higher inflation at the wholesale level.

About "getting used to the turbines," I live under the existing eyesores. I have not, nor will I, get used to them. They are noisy, with constant whirring and intermittent clunks that I first mistook for gunshots. I can hear this inside my house with the windows shut. The proposed expansion will, by the developers' estimates, put the average noise level at my house at 44.9 dBA. The World Health Organization defines 45 dBA as unfit for human habitation. Several acres of my property, and that of dozens of neighbors, will be above this limit. I doubt that I would get used to that. Would you? ...There are better alternatives for electricity production. One is located right in Somerset. Vermont leads the nation (by a large margin) in percent of energy consumption from renewable sources. Adding more wind turbines would not alter that ratio, for reasons stated above. The turbines will not help our energy needs and don't belong in the National Forest. Let's keep it a forest.

Evidence is everywhere, though, that the population of California is growing and will continue to grow into the foreseeable future. If we do not create more energy, the per capita amount available will decline. ...Proposed alternate sources of energy - wind, solar or bio-sourced - have their virtues and their shortcomings. To imagine that they would somehow supplant current sources of energy or might be sufficient to supply future demand, is the product of a fervent puerile imagination. (The technical term for this kind of thinking is "scientific sciolism,") ... To date, the execution of the alternate energy resource program has distorted market realities, causing consumer prices to go up directly and indirectly.

Regulators recently dealt a serious blow to a proposed offshore wind farm in Delaware, criticizing the plan as too financially risky to consumers. ...what's significant about the news from Delaware is that the Public Service Commission used a team of independent consultants to determine the project's costs and their effect on consumers. That's not the case with the Cape Wind project. So far, the developer has refused to provide financial data that would help the public consider the definition of economic viability. As a result, how can the public fully consider the project if it does not have the appropriate economic information on which to judge it? The point at which the project becomes economically viable is critical to the public's consideration of the project as this private venture seeks to use public lands. ..."After six years of 'exhaustive' review of Cape Wind, we are still getting stonewalled," said Mark Forest, Delahunt's chief of staff.

Wind power is not the answer to global warming. Do we have alternatives? We certainly do have alternatives to windmills but they would disrupt the lifestyle of electors and consumers. In Paris, an article in the September 2007 issue of the medical journal, The Lancet, shows with supporting calculations that it would be better to minimize human consumption of meat, for 80% of agriculturally produced methane comes from farm animals. Wind turbines won't even alter the greenhouse gas equation but by a mere .03%, as mentioned above. The way to reduce CO2 emissions and other greenhouse gases is to use less energy. Governments must massively invest in energy conservation measures rather than in these wind machines. According to another research, if every English household switched for one single low energy light bulb, a fossil fuel-burning electrical plant could be shut down! Wind power would only be interesting if energy produced can be stored. It has been proposed to fill reservoirs of large hydroelectric dams, for example. An Australian method has just offered in September 2007 to store electricity in liquid accumulators. Quebec would thus be able to utilize wind energy because the major part of our electricity comes from hydroelectric dams, which is not the case for Ontario or New York where, as almost everywhere else in the world, wind power must be backed up by carbon-based generating stations.

Why should these massive, noisy and ugly industrial monsters be allowed to be sited so close to our homes? ... Little, if any, consideration is given to local people's views. Occasionally the companies involved might offer a presentation, staffed by slick professional salespeople, or they try to sweeten the locals with perhaps a new community centre or maybe a playground, when actually this money has already come out of our pockets in electricity bills or via our taxes in the form of subsidies. They are frankly little more than latter-day carpetbaggers, mainly from the south, coming to rape our countryside.

Yet another wind energy mirage evaporates as Vestas Wind Energy announced today the closure of their Portland (Victoria) blade manufacturing plant with an estimated 140 job losses........"Premier Brumby has an opportunity to wipe the slate clean on wind energy as well as save some of Victorias' most treasured landscapes. Former planning minister, Mary Delahunty, approved wind turbines at Cape Bridgewater in 2002 but with the caveat "I also stated that planning approvals will not be granted for the four sites until satisfactory evidence is provided that the wind turbine manufacturing facility associated with the proposal will proceed in Victoria.""

Add to this the damage to the tourism industry, and the whole concept of ranks of wind turbines across the roof and shores of Wales, producing intermittently and unpredictably amounts of electricity far less than developers lead us to expect, seems utterly foolish, especially when there are much less damaging ways to produce electricity (in which Wales is self-sufficient, in any case).

The ski industry is the "lifeblood" of northern New England precisely because it draws visitors eager to appreciate the rural splendor - and spend their money. While Cape Wind supporters often make hasty, anecdotal references to wind farm-related tourism in obscure European enclaves, the Cape's fickle, tourist-based economy relies on loyal return visitors - not curious one-timers. Just a small dip in tourist-related spending would result in thousands of lost jobs and millions of lost dollars.

Given two identical houses at the same price, one with wind turbines on the horizon, which would you buy? No prizes for guessing that the twirling monsters would be a deterrent. But the British Wind Energy Association dismisses this as a "myth about windfarms - their impact on house prices". It is hardly surprising that a trade organisation uses "spin" to sell its windmills, but I wonder how it will react to the news in Denmark's Copenhagen Post (July 30) that its government is drafting a proposal suggesting that "homeowners living in the shadow of the 150-metre giants be compensated for lost property value where values have been brought down by the presence of nearby wind turbines".

Tiny turbines on short towers may make people feel good about generating "green energy," but they make no sense economically. The fact that the real cost may be hidden or spread out over millions of payers does not change the basic economics.

There is a person near here who has had most everything done to his house to try to keep the noise out. The power company, from what I understand, is paying for trying to keep the noise out in his home. Nothing has worked. He still has the constant noise in his home. Unfortunately, the tower is on the neighbor's land. He is just going to have to put up with it. I had two couples come out looking at lots and both of them wanted front lots or lots at the top of the hill. When the women got here and looked around, they looked at the view to the north and to the south. No way, they said. We are not going to look at those towers the rest of our lives and both couples left. One of the couples bought 40 acres. The other couple would not buy around the wind charger area.