"Look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants rise up, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes."
-- from "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes
To my eye, they are lovely: Graceful, delicate, white against green grass and a blue sky. Last summer my children and I stopped specially to watch a group of them, wheels turning in the breeze.
But to those who dislike them, the modern wind turbine is worse than ugly. It is an aesthetic blight, a source of noise pollution, a murderer of birds and bats. As for the still-young wind industry, it is "an environmental plunderer, with its hirelings and parasites using a few truths and the politics of wishful thinking to frame a house of lies." Far from being clean and green, "corporate wind is yet another extraction industry relying on false promises," a "poster child for irresponsible development."
Such attacks -- those come from http://www.stopillwind.org/ , the Web site of Maryland anti-wind activist Jon Boone -- are not atypical. Similar language turns up on http://www.windwatch.org/ , on http://www.windstop.org/ , and on a dozen other anti-wind sites, most started by local groups opposed to a particular project. Their recent, rapid proliferation is not an accident: After languishing for years on the eco-fringe, wind energy has suddenly become mainstream. High oil prices, natural gas shortages, better technology, fear of global warming, state renewable-energy mandates and, yes, tax breaks have finally made wind farms commercially viable as well as clean. Traditional utility companies want to build them -- and thus the traditional environmental movement (which supports wind energy) has produced a handful of untraditional splinter groups that are trying to stop them.
They may succeed. Already, activists and real estate developers have stalled projects across Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York. In Western Maryland, a proposal to build wind turbines alongside a coal mine, on a heavily logged mountaintop next to a transmission line, has just been nixed by state officials who called it too environmentally damaging. Along the coast of Nantucket, Mass. -- the only sufficiently shallow spot on the New England coast -- a coalition of anti-wind groups and summer homeowners, among them the Kennedy family, also seems set to block Cape Wind, a planned offshore wind farm. Their well-funded lobbying last month won them the attentions of Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), who, though normally an advocate of a state's right to its own resources, has made an exception for Massachusetts and helped pass an amendment designed to kill the project altogether.
The groups do have some arguments, ranging from the aesthetic -- if you are bothered by the sight of wind turbines on a mountaintop, which I am not (or, anyway, not when compared with the sight of a strip mine) -- to the economic. They are right to note that wind will not soon replace coal or gas, that wind isn't always as effective as supporters claim, and that some people are going to make a lot of money out of it (though some people make a lot of money out of coal, and indeed Nantucket summer homes as well).
But they also reflect a deeper American malady. The problem plaguing new energy developments is no longer NIMBYism, the "Not-In-My-Back-Yard" movement. The problem now, as one wind-power executive puts it, is BANANAism: "Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything." The anti-wind brigade, fierce though it is, pales beside the opposition to liquid natural gas terminals, and would fade entirely beside the mass movement that will oppose a new nuclear power plant. Indeed, the founders of Cape Wind say they embarked on the project in part because public antipathy prevents most other utility investments in New England.
Still, energy projects don't even have to be viable to spark opposition: Already, there are activists gearing up to fight the nascent biofuel industry, on the grounds that fields of switch grass or cornstalks needed to produce ethanol will replace rainforests and bucolic country landscapes. Soon the nonexistent "hydrogen economy" will doubtless be under attack as well. There's a lot of earnest, even bipartisan talk nowadays about the need for clean, emissions-free energy. But are we really ready, politically, to build any new energy sources at all?
a simmilar thing has just happened here. the federal ebviroment minister (generaly called the minister against the environment), used an environmental report on the impact to a rare parrot (with a estimate that 1 parrot will be hit by the turbine every 1000yrs) to ban a new wind power development, not it seems for any altruistic reasons, but as usual in these things, the area is in a marginal seat and the conservative candidate is running on an anti-wind platform.
ironicaly the usually friendly coal lobby is not happy with the minister, who in using the fairly tenuous case of the parrot, has established an extremely high standard of environmental impact, and its been kinda funny watching the number of mining developments allover the country run into trouble getting approval as the department now has to consider the impact to small endangered animals, who 2 weeks ago they couldnt have given a shit about.
the concern over the loss of biodiveristy to the biodesiel industry is well founded i believe, and a differnet argument to the resistence of wind famr. the ratio of landuse to energy recovered is not great, and would only conpound on the damage done to soil quality, an in west aus, salinity of the soil, by single crop intenive agriculture. we are at the stage here where the government is having to reclaim marginal land and plant it with trees in an attempt to lower the water table, the local evironment cannot sustain the current level of agriculture, let alone enought crops to supply biodeisel
good link, curtclay. i've been trying to keep up with these discussions and figuring out where i fall. it's true that those who campaign against fast food/strip mall development on greenfield sites will have a hard time getting on-board for development of windfarms on those same sites.
there have been some experimentations with wind power in urban areas where it's less likely to impact wildlife patterns and become an 'eyesore' ( >though i'm one of those who thinks turbines can be incredibly beautiful.) urban development of wind power is fluky at best, not nearly as efficient/effective as windfarms in an open landscape, but networks of urban turbines may be - politically - a good way to pursue wind as an option.
Hmm, interesting thought, Steven. I wonder if there would even been fewer urban turbines required due to the increased wind in/around dense cities? Not sure how that would work. Is there any issue with noise pollution? Not that cities aren't loud already, but you know what I mean. At night, say, if the turbine's mounted on the top of your apartment tower.
and do you know how you measure the ratio of land use to energy recovered from the wind turbines...
... also to consider would be the amount of resources it would take to complete the construction of such a system.... I'm not sure I follow your relationship to soil problems though?
Congress is voting down the US's first offshore wind farm!"
While you're paying close to $3.00 a gallon at the gas pump, Congress is secretly trying to kill big oil's competition.
e've seen the political influence of big oil before, and even drawn a connection between financial contributions and congressional voting records - before anyone had heard of Jack Abramoff. But this takes the cake.
Oil industry lobbyists negotiated a last-minute backroom deal that could kill Cape Wind - America's first offshore wind farm. Only YOU have the power to stop them.
Even President Bush has admitted that our nation is addicted to oil, and we need alternative energy. But Congress can't seem to get enough of the oil drug, or at least the financial contributions from the oil industry.
This is just the start. We've been working to make Cape Wind a reality for more than two years, and we can't give up now. As soon as Congress comes back, you'll be hearing from us again, and I hope you'll be ready to act quickly.
Sincerely,
Kate Smolski
Clean Energy/Cape Wind Campaigner
If you Call 1-866-200-7070 now and we'll connect you instantly to your senators' offices, and provide you with exactly what you'll need to say to convince them to save the Cape Wind project.
Please, less than five minutes of your time could make a real difference in the future of renewable energy in our country, so take action.
i am now off the grid! and after a weekend of planting landmines and assorted booby traps that i learned from charlie, i will be free. finally i wiill be free of all you ivy league leader wannabe's!!!
According to ARE workshop, there are no Ivy League leaders . . . wait, or was it, . . . hmmmmmm . . . errrrr . . . oh! they're, no . . . errrrr . . . huh, I guess I never did figure that one out.
Apr 21, 06 8:51 pm ·
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BANANAism: "Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything."
Intersting article on the struggle within environmentalists on building wind turbines vs. using land previously unbuilt upon to do it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/18/AR2006041801188.html
Tilting at Windmills
By Anne Applebaum
Wednesday, April 19, 2006; A17
"Look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants rise up, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes."
-- from "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes
To my eye, they are lovely: Graceful, delicate, white against green grass and a blue sky. Last summer my children and I stopped specially to watch a group of them, wheels turning in the breeze.
But to those who dislike them, the modern wind turbine is worse than ugly. It is an aesthetic blight, a source of noise pollution, a murderer of birds and bats. As for the still-young wind industry, it is "an environmental plunderer, with its hirelings and parasites using a few truths and the politics of wishful thinking to frame a house of lies." Far from being clean and green, "corporate wind is yet another extraction industry relying on false promises," a "poster child for irresponsible development."
Such attacks -- those come from http://www.stopillwind.org/ , the Web site of Maryland anti-wind activist Jon Boone -- are not atypical. Similar language turns up on http://www.windwatch.org/ , on http://www.windstop.org/ , and on a dozen other anti-wind sites, most started by local groups opposed to a particular project. Their recent, rapid proliferation is not an accident: After languishing for years on the eco-fringe, wind energy has suddenly become mainstream. High oil prices, natural gas shortages, better technology, fear of global warming, state renewable-energy mandates and, yes, tax breaks have finally made wind farms commercially viable as well as clean. Traditional utility companies want to build them -- and thus the traditional environmental movement (which supports wind energy) has produced a handful of untraditional splinter groups that are trying to stop them.
They may succeed. Already, activists and real estate developers have stalled projects across Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York. In Western Maryland, a proposal to build wind turbines alongside a coal mine, on a heavily logged mountaintop next to a transmission line, has just been nixed by state officials who called it too environmentally damaging. Along the coast of Nantucket, Mass. -- the only sufficiently shallow spot on the New England coast -- a coalition of anti-wind groups and summer homeowners, among them the Kennedy family, also seems set to block Cape Wind, a planned offshore wind farm. Their well-funded lobbying last month won them the attentions of Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), who, though normally an advocate of a state's right to its own resources, has made an exception for Massachusetts and helped pass an amendment designed to kill the project altogether.
The groups do have some arguments, ranging from the aesthetic -- if you are bothered by the sight of wind turbines on a mountaintop, which I am not (or, anyway, not when compared with the sight of a strip mine) -- to the economic. They are right to note that wind will not soon replace coal or gas, that wind isn't always as effective as supporters claim, and that some people are going to make a lot of money out of it (though some people make a lot of money out of coal, and indeed Nantucket summer homes as well).
But they also reflect a deeper American malady. The problem plaguing new energy developments is no longer NIMBYism, the "Not-In-My-Back-Yard" movement. The problem now, as one wind-power executive puts it, is BANANAism: "Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything." The anti-wind brigade, fierce though it is, pales beside the opposition to liquid natural gas terminals, and would fade entirely beside the mass movement that will oppose a new nuclear power plant. Indeed, the founders of Cape Wind say they embarked on the project in part because public antipathy prevents most other utility investments in New England.
Still, energy projects don't even have to be viable to spark opposition: Already, there are activists gearing up to fight the nascent biofuel industry, on the grounds that fields of switch grass or cornstalks needed to produce ethanol will replace rainforests and bucolic country landscapes. Soon the nonexistent "hydrogen economy" will doubtless be under attack as well. There's a lot of earnest, even bipartisan talk nowadays about the need for clean, emissions-free energy. But are we really ready, politically, to build any new energy sources at all?
a simmilar thing has just happened here. the federal ebviroment minister (generaly called the minister against the environment), used an environmental report on the impact to a rare parrot (with a estimate that 1 parrot will be hit by the turbine every 1000yrs) to ban a new wind power development, not it seems for any altruistic reasons, but as usual in these things, the area is in a marginal seat and the conservative candidate is running on an anti-wind platform.
ironicaly the usually friendly coal lobby is not happy with the minister, who in using the fairly tenuous case of the parrot, has established an extremely high standard of environmental impact, and its been kinda funny watching the number of mining developments allover the country run into trouble getting approval as the department now has to consider the impact to small endangered animals, who 2 weeks ago they couldnt have given a shit about.
the concern over the loss of biodiveristy to the biodesiel industry is well founded i believe, and a differnet argument to the resistence of wind famr. the ratio of landuse to energy recovered is not great, and would only conpound on the damage done to soil quality, an in west aus, salinity of the soil, by single crop intenive agriculture. we are at the stage here where the government is having to reclaim marginal land and plant it with trees in an attempt to lower the water table, the local evironment cannot sustain the current level of agriculture, let alone enought crops to supply biodeisel
good link, curtclay. i've been trying to keep up with these discussions and figuring out where i fall. it's true that those who campaign against fast food/strip mall development on greenfield sites will have a hard time getting on-board for development of windfarms on those same sites.
there have been some experimentations with wind power in urban areas where it's less likely to impact wildlife patterns and become an 'eyesore' ( >though i'm one of those who thinks turbines can be incredibly beautiful.) urban development of wind power is fluky at best, not nearly as efficient/effective as windfarms in an open landscape, but networks of urban turbines may be - politically - a good way to pursue wind as an option.
Hmm, interesting thought, Steven. I wonder if there would even been fewer urban turbines required due to the increased wind in/around dense cities? Not sure how that would work. Is there any issue with noise pollution? Not that cities aren't loud already, but you know what I mean. At night, say, if the turbine's mounted on the top of your apartment tower.
upside down, you're in Australia?
and do you know how you measure the ratio of land use to energy recovered from the wind turbines...
... also to consider would be the amount of resources it would take to complete the construction of such a system.... I'm not sure I follow your relationship to soil problems though?
MVRDV's solution for the "urban turbine" from Hannover 2000...
I'm seriously looking into putting up a Jacobs system on my property.
Off the grid, baby...
... just came across this on another board..
-------------
Congress is voting down the US's first offshore wind farm!"
While you're paying close to $3.00 a gallon at the gas pump, Congress is secretly trying to kill big oil's competition.
e've seen the political influence of big oil before, and even drawn a connection between financial contributions and congressional voting records - before anyone had heard of Jack Abramoff. But this takes the cake.
Oil industry lobbyists negotiated a last-minute backroom deal that could kill Cape Wind - America's first offshore wind farm. Only YOU have the power to stop them.
Even President Bush has admitted that our nation is addicted to oil, and we need alternative energy. But Congress can't seem to get enough of the oil drug, or at least the financial contributions from the oil industry.
This is just the start. We've been working to make Cape Wind a reality for more than two years, and we can't give up now. As soon as Congress comes back, you'll be hearing from us again, and I hope you'll be ready to act quickly.
Sincerely,
Kate Smolski
Clean Energy/Cape Wind Campaigner
If you Call 1-866-200-7070 now and we'll connect you instantly to your senators' offices, and provide you with exactly what you'll need to say to convince them to save the Cape Wind project.
Please, less than five minutes of your time could make a real difference in the future of renewable energy in our country, so take action.
Watch this video: http://projectthinice.org/flash/whackamill_senators_lg.mov
Ah, geez...
i am now off the grid! and after a weekend of planting landmines and assorted booby traps that i learned from charlie, i will be free. finally i wiill be free of all you ivy league leader wannabe's!!!
.jpg)
According to ARE workshop, there are no Ivy League leaders . . . wait, or was it, . . . hmmmmmm . . . errrrr . . . oh! they're, no . . . errrrr . . . huh, I guess I never did figure that one out.
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