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Let's look at Bird Island off the coast of Marion in the center of Buzzards Bay, and what towns around the bay have plans for commercial wind turbines. ...In several years, Bird Island, the largest nesting area of roseate terns in North America, will be surrounded by commercial wind turbines.
A Gamesa representative recently claimed that its industrial wind plant sites are selected with ecological concerns in mind.
If this is true, why was Gamesa not aware of the golden eagle transmitter study in the Alleghenies on going for more than a year? ...I believe that Gamesa uses research that only benefits its projects, not comprehensive studies.
Also filed under [
Impact on Wildlife|
Pennsylvania]
The US Fish and Wildlife Service just completed a 97-page "biological opinion" that the 130-wind turbine project off Cape Cod will not harm the Roseate Terns. ...In several years Bird Island, the largest nesting area of Rosate Terns in North America in Buzzards Bay, will be surrounded by commercial wind turbines.
It is time for Ontario to work with citizens and environmental specialists to establish guidelines for the careful development of wind energy (Who Could Object To Wind Power? - Nov. 25). There are some places where wind turbines simply don't belong. ...Build wind developments in the wrong places and the environment will be collateral damage.
Minister fails to grasp the impact wind farms will have on tourism
November 5, 2008 in Barry's Bay This Week
November 5, 2008 in Barry's Bay This Week
When debating wind energy, there is one point we can all agree on: there are sites suited for wind energy and sites that are not.
Our beautiful township is not suitable. The moratorium passed unanimously by our Township Council reflects this.
One visit here and it will be clear to you. ...The point is, Mr. Smitherman, our main industry is tourism and recreation. Visitors drive for several hours to enjoy the sense of wilderness our beautiful township offers. They come here to get away from industry.
Please understand, this township's livelihood and way of life depends largely on the natural beauty of this land.
I had always favored building wind farms. The burden of coal mining-and particularly mountaintop removal coal mining-is so great that anything would be better. If wind farms diminish that then they are worth it. ...Now there is a new twist to the argument, something that makes thinking about wind power even more difficult. In the article that begins on page 14 of this issue, Ms. Collins argues that building more wind farms will not reduce the use of coal. She argues that because wind farms only make electricity when the wind blows, they are inefficient and unreliable. ...If it true that wind farms do not diminish the use of coal, then we do have some rethinking to do. If they do not replace any coal, then what is the point? Why should a single bat die, a single hiker be inconvenienced, a single tree be cut if wind power is not going to reduce the use of coal or some other source of electricity?
This afternoon, the Shasta County Board of Supervisors will have a hearing concerning the Hatchet Ridge Wind project. The board's decision will have a significant impact on birds living in and migrating through the West. The Board of Supervisors has not been given the knowledge to make a proper decision on the project. ...The wind power industry learned a lesson from the astounding number of bird kills at Altamont Pass. Instead of pursuing better wind turbine designs that would limit bird kills, it chose a path of cover-up and lies. Today many wind turbine sites have limited access and workers will lose their jobs if they disclose the truth.
That predatory wind operatives, who provide no meaningful product or service, would sacrifice these mountains for their narrow self-interest is outrageous. ...Synergics Wind LLC has clear-cut and bulldozed hundreds of acres around Roth Rock, without securing grading permits beforehand and in areas well-known for harboring state-endangered species. Synergics has not applied for or received any construction permit from the Maryland Public Service Commission, as required.
Wind power is one of the solutions to our energy needs both here in Oklahoma and beyond, as well as providing a new industry and the jobs that support it. ...Also noteworthy is the potential for wind energy to be not so green after all. Wind farms, like any type of development, built on the wrong site can have a negative impact on the environment. Strides toward solving one conservation problem should not inadvertently cause another.
Of the proposals under consideration, at least one would be off the coast of Ocean County, 18 miles from Long Beach Island. Although a study prepared for the BPU noted the impact of wind farms off the Jersey coast on the fishing and tourism industries would be temporary and relatively minimal, it indicated there was far greater sensitivity to the visual impact of wind farms in Ocean County than in Cape May and Atlantic counties. The BPU should take that into account. ...The projected loss of tourism revenue would drop off dramatically if wind farms were located 6 miles or more off the coast.
The windmills Windforce LLC are proposing to put on Dan's Mountain are over 400 feet tall the blades are 150 feet long. You will be able to see the windmills from almost everywhere in Allegany County. There are currently only two buildings in Baltimore larger, one in Pittsburgh and one in Cleveland.
Do you want our Western Maryland Mountain side destroyed only to bring a profit to an out of town company?
This is the first breeding success at this site in 11 years. The parent eagles must have been pampered with plenty of live rabbits to make sure this would happen. All in all, two million pounds have been spent to produce a "success story" at Beinn an Tuirc. So much money is at stake here: the approval of hundreds of wind farms where eagles fly, in Scotland and in the world, hinge upon this kind of favourable publicity.
Death, destruction and insomnia are marketed as "renewable electricity" to urban consumers. The federal production tax credit drives it all, with additional subsidies on national forest, where no property taxes are levied. ...We'd have to replace nearly every tree with a turbine to offset even a small amount of coal's impact, devastating the forest in the process. Without a national policy on energy conservation and efficiency, we're whistling in the wind anyway.
Also filed under [
Impact on Wildlife|
Impact on Landscape|
Impact on People|
Virginia|
West Virginia]
Wind power has been proposed in letters to the editor as a good option to LNG, but there is no silver bullet solution to our energy needs, as far as I can see.
Because wind power depends on the wind, it is an unreliable source of electrical power. Wind power must be backed up by a more reliable conventional power source. That power source is LNG.
As wind power develops out, more LNG power plants will be built to back up wind power. Wind power cannot replace LNG; it will, instead, make LNG more necessary.
I am extremely concerned at the detrimental impact the construction of wind turbines on the land adjacent to High Elms Lane, Benington could have on wildlife.
It is well known locally that this site supports a large and varied wildlife and many of the species are of national and international importance.
It has taken a long time and sympathetic farming to encourage so many species to thrive in this area. A total of 26 mammal species (not counting bats) and 75 bird species have been recorded around the proposed wind farm, along with various amphibians and reptiles.
There is a face-off brewing between two federal agencies over the fate of birds in Nantucket Sound, centering on the Cape Wind energy project. At issue is whether the U.S. Minerals Management Service defers to the cautionary advice of its expert peer, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, or will it ramrod the Cape Wind project forward, driven by political considerations? ...In the apparent hurry to permit the Cape Wind project this year, Minerals Management seems poised to ignore the Fish & Wildlife Service. Citizen action is needed to get the message across to Minerals Management: "Proceed with caution. Do not play 'wind turbine Russian Roulette' with endangered species. Move Cape Wind elsewhere, out of harm's way!"
A series of events on bats look set to be overshadowed by problems affecting the mammals' chances of survival, according to an expert.
Anne Youngman, the Bat Conservation Trust's Scottish officer, said wet weather may have hit the breeding season for a second year running. ...On the agenda is a presentation on wind farms in mountain areas of Portugal.
Ms Youngman said: "Wind farms were a hot topic at the last symposium.
"In Germany, there are turbines above forests and the mortality rate of bats has been found to be high.
The "Birds, fish may like wind farm" article on Monday 11 was poorly researched.
It has been well-documented that thousands of birds (from large raptors to small warblers) are killed by land-based wind turbines in the western U.S. each year. And many species of migrating birds using the Atlantic Flyway cross Delaware Bay between southern New Jersey and Delaware every fall and spring. Neither of these facts was mentioned in the article.
It is the very magnitude of this power that has begun to raise some questions about the weather-related implications of harnessing wind. The laws of thermodynamics tell us that if energy is produced by a turbine, the wind passing over it must be slowed. While the effect today is negligible, a crash program to harvest wind power might have serious climatic consequences. ...Evidence also suggests that turbines amplify desiccation in fragile desert areas, where American wind farms are typically located. A study of ground squirrels by the University of California at Davis found those living near wind turbines exhibited signs of increased stress.
Also filed under [
Impact on Wildlife|
Impact on Landscape]
Accompanying the myth that wind turbine energy will replace fossil fuel energy is denial of the ecological impacts and health effects of wind turbines by governments and promoters. The ugly reality is that wind turbines are a serious addition to the industrialization of quiet rural landscapes, places that people have long valued for quality of life, retirement and recreation.
The environmental costs imposed on wildlife and people have been systematically ignored by a political and regulatory system that has corrupted individual and societal freedom and environmental integrity by relegating these values to some distant offshoot of economic growth.