If wind power is the answer, then the question must be "How can we do the most environmental damage, with the least results and for the most cost"? ...The problem with wind is the same as it was 30 years ago. Wind can generate power but that power cannot be stored. Modern society relies on power being available at the flip of a switch.
If wind power is the answer, then the question must be "How can we do the most environmental damage, with the least results and for the most cost"? ...The problem with wind is the same as it was 30 years ago. Wind can generate power but that power cannot be stored. Modern society relies on power being available at the flip of a switch.
Re: "Wind farms waste tax dollars," Letters/Dec. 24.
While Sam Fleetwood had an excellent response to Jack' Walts wind letter, there are a few additional points to consider.
First, if wind power is the answer, then the question must be "How can we do the most environmental damage, with the least results and for the most cost"?
Mr. Walts says he drives by the industrial wind electrical generation site (they are not farms and bear no resemblance to agriculture -- "farm" is a spin term) each day. Has he ever driven over to the site? Has he seen the very nice house with the giant turbine in its side yard? Driving down Cole Creek or other area roads really does not give you a true picture of what living next to a turbine is like. I …
... more [truncated due to possible copyright]Re: "Wind farms waste tax dollars," Letters/Dec. 24.
While Sam Fleetwood had an excellent response to Jack' Walts wind letter, there are a few additional points to consider.
First, if wind power is the answer, then the question must be "How can we do the most environmental damage, with the least results and for the most cost"?
Mr. Walts says he drives by the industrial wind electrical generation site (they are not farms and bear no resemblance to agriculture -- "farm" is a spin term) each day. Has he ever driven over to the site? Has he seen the very nice house with the giant turbine in its side yard? Driving down Cole Creek or other area roads really does not give you a true picture of what living next to a turbine is like. I suggest that all of you who love turbines drive out on a windy day and park near the turbines with the windows down.
The problem with wind is the same as it was 30 years ago. Wind can generate power but that power cannot be stored. Modern society relies on power being available at the flip of a switch. "Backup" coal power plants cannot rev up and rev down at will to match the fluctuations in the wind. Think of sailboats versus power boats. One does not move products using a sailboat when a power boat is available.
Currently, there are few, if any regulations on wind turbines in Wyoming. I would guess that in 20 years or so there will be government money to deal with abandoned wind turbines. Even where there are regulations, they are very general and often leave decommissioning agreements up to land owners and turbine owners. This worked so well in the past for mining, right?
If CO2 and greenhouse gases are such a threats, I would expect people to be lobbying for electricity rationing, gas rationing, much smaller homes, outlawing big screen TVs (as suggested in California), closing "dirty" factories, and no importing from any country not following the same rules. If global warming is as serious as we are being told it is, drastic action must be taken. If it's not that serious, then we are losing open spaces, cutting virgin forests and covering offshore ocean areas in a rush to install highly subsidized wind turbines from which we get nothing but a bigger tax bill.