huckle's story links

In Vermont, VPIRG and the CLF decry both the governor's lackluster protection of the landscape and his lackluster support for giant wind energy facilities in those same landscapes.

Simplify, simplify, simplify. -- Henry David Thoreau

1. They do not do what they claim, i.e., reduce the use of thermal fuels or their emissions. 2. They have significant negative impacts -- on people, wildlife, landscape -- which are currently ignored, belittled, or denied. 3. They are very expensive, even for their claimed benefit, let alone their actual benefit (which is virtually nil). That money should be spent for real solutions, not dramatic but fruitless symbols.

But the real flaw in the Pickensplan is the idea that wind would replace natural gas in the production of electricity. In fact, the addition of substantial wind energy plant would require the addition of a similar amount of natural gas plants, because those are the only ones that are flexible enough to start quickly and operate over a wide range of loads to balance the fluctuating and largely unpredictable infeed from wind turbines.

The biggest industrial project being approved, by LURC, which will change the western Maine mountains forever. A project so huge it’s difficult to sum up the total environmental impact.

DOE call for 20% wind would industrialize 39,000 square miles -- for no real benefit.

Letters to the NY Times: "We can treasure the cultural and historical bond between animals and domesticated animals only by ignoring the emotional bond. ... There is no happy ending for even the most humanely raised animal." "If domesticated animals 'exist only because of the uses we have found for them,' let me ask you: Would you have recommended 150 years ago that we preserve and treasure the bond between whites and their black slaves — and develop a more humane slave trade?"

'Opening a UN forum on the global impact of climate change on indigenous peoples, [Evo] Morales said that capitalism should be scrapped if the planet is to be saved from the effects of climate change. "If we want to save our planet earth, we have a duty to put an end to the capitalist system," he said. Bolivia's president said unbridled industrial development was responsible for the pillaging of natural resources.'

Ton van de Wekken, of KEMA Nederland, an energy systems consultancy, writes in the April 1 Renewable Energy World.

"If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals."

North American Windpower editorial about Cohocton, NY, area development, with comments.

You have to use other sources to guarantee capacity, because the wind doesn't always blow when you need it.In addition, there is a need of new capacity because of adding a significant amount of wind to the system.

"Industrial technology has been the cleverest means so far of siphoning the wealth of the countryside -- not to the cities, for urban poverty is inextricably related to rural poverty -- but to the corporations. Industries that are "brought in" convey the local wealth out; otherwise they would not come. And what makes it likely that "green technology" would be an exception?

A fact finding report revealing the state machinery that persistently ignores Adivasis’ lawful demands but bends backward to facilitate the business interests of a multi-national corporate at the expense of justice.

ERCOT, the Texas grid manager, has determined that 8.7% of the installed wind capability can be counted as dependable capacity, as noted in a letter to U.S. Rep. Joe Barton.

Hosting giant wind turbines is no more farming than turning your fields into a NASCAR track. The caricature of opponents, useful as it is to the developers and the landowners salivating for the developers' crumbs, ignores environmentalist opposition ...

On Nov. 5, NBC Nightly News, 80% of which is owned by General Electric, the leading U.S. manufacturer of wind turbines, sang the praises of wind energy in Denmark, saying the Danes lead the way that we should follow. The piece included many errors of fact.

AWEA calls for new giant turbine every hour for the next 25 years (allowing 3 years to get up to that rate). In addition to 15,000 miles of new high-capacity transmission lines, 400,000 MW of new wind turbines would require the 20,000,000 acres (31,250 square miles!) of newly industrialized land.

The Collectif du 6 octobre notes that they are succeeding in turning environmentalists against industrial wind turbines in rural and wild areas, as evidenced by Nicolas Hulot writing in Le Figaro, October 20, 2007.

Denise Como is running for a seat on the Stark (N.Y.) Town Board. Her barn was set fire to and burned to the ground last night.

The output of the Searsburg wind energy facility in Vermont is only around 21% of its capacity. A new facility in the same area, in the Green Mountain National Forest, should not be expected to perform much better.

Forest land and habitat should not be sacrificed for such a negligible potential benefit that will not measurably alter our energy use.

Wind energy development has destroyed their habitat, and new roads have encouraged poaching.

Demonstration this Friday, October 6, in front of the Environment Ministry in Paris at 2:00 in the afternoon • Community and environmental groups from all over France will be demonstrating against the madness of industrial wind turbine development. They will be demanding that the Environment Ministry protect the environment instead of wreck it. • For details, go to the Collectif 6 Octobre web site.

Excerpts from some of the abstracts of papers presented at the 2nd annual international conference on wind turbine noise, Lyon, France, Sept. 20-21.

To members of the Save the Rupert coalition: I am in complete solidarity with your opposition to yet more destruction of the James Bay region by Hydro-Québec. I must, however, note that wind power, although it certainly should have been mentioned in the EIA, is not a viable or desirable alternative. ... Wind is not an alternative to the Rupert River project but the reason for it.

India: Vultures hounded by windmills; California: Riverside County supervisors doubt necessity of bird-safety rules; Illinois: Study puts focus on bird deaths by wind turbines; Scotland: Council accused of ripping up rulebook over windmills plan; Iowa: Wind turbines raise some legal questions for landowners; India: Maharashtra ignoring tribal rights over forest land.

"The calculation of displacement has to account for: 1) the preference of hydro to balance wind; 2) switching thermal plants to standby, in which they still burn fuel to stay warmed up and ready to switch back to generation; 3) the extra fuel necessary for more frequent ramping or less efficient operation of those plants that are able to switch more quickly; and 4) the likelihood that the addition of wind energy is simply absorbed as a tolerable rise in line voltage."

The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society has warned of the sonic threat to whales from giant offshore wind turbines. Greenpeace used to protect whales, too, but now they promote offshore wind turbines instead.