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'Green' Debacle: Tens of Thousands of Abandoned Wind Turbines Now Litter America's Landscape
Natural News ^ | November 24th, 2011 | Jonathan Benson, staff writer Naturral News

Posted on 11/24/2011 10:21:06 AM PST by LRoggy

(NaturalNews) Literal beacons of the "green" energy movement, giant wind turbines have been one of the renewable energy sources of choice for the US government, which has spent billions of taxpayer dollars subsidizing their construction and use across the country. But high maintenance costs, high rates of failure, and fluctuating weather conditions that affect energy production render wind turbines expensive and inefficient, which is why more than 14,000 of them have since been abandoned.

Before government subsidies for the giant metals were cut or eliminated in many areas, wind farms were an energy boom business. But in the post-tax subsidy era, the costs of maintaining and operating wind turbines far outweighs the minimal power they generate in many areas, which has left a patchwork of wind turbine graveyards in many of the most popular wind farming areas of the US.

"Thousands of abandoned wind turbines littered the landscape of wind energy's California 'big three' locations which include Altamont Pass, Tehachapin and San Gorgonio, considered among the world's best wind sites," writes Andrew Walden of the American Thinker. "In the best wind spots on earth, over 14,000 turbines were simply abandoned. Spinning, post-industrial junk which generates nothing but bird kills."

Walden speaks, of course, about the birds, bats, and other air creatures that routinely get tangled in and killed by wind turbine propellers. And as far as the "post-industrial junk" language, well, if it costs too much to run the machines in the first place, then it definitely costs too much to uproot and remove them post-construction.

This whole wind energy mess just further illustrates how the American people have been played by their elected officials who bought into the "global warming" hysteria that spawned the push for wind energy in the first place. And now that the renewable energy tax subsidies are gradually coming to an end in some places, the true financial and economic viability, or lack of wind energy, is on display for the world to see.

"It is all about the tax subsidies," writes Don Surber of the Charleston Daily Mail. "The blades churn until the money runs out. If an honest history is written about the turn of the 21st century, it will include a large, harsh chapter on how fears about global warming were overplayed for profit by corporations."

Sources for this article include:

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurbe...

http://toryaardvark.com/2011/11/17/...

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034234_wind_turbines_abandoned.html#ixzz1eeDXyzva


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Front Page News; Government; US: California
KEYWORDS: agw; bhoenergy; boondoggle; climatechange; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax; green; greenenergy; greens; miserablefailure; windenergy
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To: stickywillie

“just like sister ethanol”
No I was thinking more along the lines of mtbe. The gas companies were forced by the epa to use this. Now the America taxpayer is picking up the cost for the clean up. Of this very dangerous substance. All in the name of saving the planet.


61 posted on 11/24/2011 6:40:14 PM PST by DMG2FUN
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To: stylin19a

All you’d need is a gas axe to severe the bolts at the base on the tower on a calm day.

Then wait for a windy day to push it over. Whammo, jackpot!


62 posted on 11/24/2011 6:51:42 PM PST by NVDave
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To: DMG2FUN

Send the old blades to the islands. They will build hurrican proof shacks.


63 posted on 11/24/2011 6:55:55 PM PST by AGreatPer (Obama has NEVER given a speech where he did not lie!!!)
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To: digger48

Yes many farmers earn some good money by leasing the land.


64 posted on 11/24/2011 7:41:01 PM PST by Maine Mariner
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; ColdOne; Convert from ECUSA; ...

Thanks LRoggy.


65 posted on 11/24/2011 7:44:58 PM PST by SunkenCiv (It's never a bad time to FReep this link -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: LRoggy
This place may be busy with scrap metal =
66 posted on 11/24/2011 8:14:29 PM PST by doug from upland (Just in case, it has been reserved: www.TheBitchIsBack2012.com)
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To: LRoggy
Artificial markets only live as long as they are propped up.

Take away the gubbermint cheese, and they implode, like most of the nations recycling or public transit programs would were it not for a government using the tax collector to take from the productive to keep the dead alive.

However, Margret Thatcher put it best. “Eventually you run out of other peoples money,” and then like the Soviet Union, Greece, or the US eventually (even if we ignore it now the day of reckoning will come) the tower of BullShit will implode on itself.

67 posted on 11/24/2011 8:35:35 PM PST by Red6
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To: DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis
LOL. Personifies a picture is worth a thousand words.
68 posted on 11/24/2011 10:32:00 PM PST by lbryce (BHO:The bastard offspring of Satan and Medusa.)
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To: LRoggy; 11B40; A Balrog of Morgoth; A message; ACelt; Aeronaut; AFPhys; AlexW; America_Right; ...
EARTHBOUND SPACE JUNK!

Global Warming PING!

You have been pinged because of your interest in environmentalism, alarmist wackos, mainstream media doomsday hype, and other issues pertaining to global warming.

Freep-mail me to get on or off: Add me / Remove me

Please ping me to all note-worthy threads on global warming.

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69 posted on 11/24/2011 10:37:21 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Occupy DC General Assembly: We are Marxist tools. WE ARE MARXIST TOOLS!)
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To: LRoggy; 3D-JOY; abner; Abundy; AGreatPer; Albion Wilde; AliVeritas; alisasny; ALlRightAllTheTime; ..

Altamont Pass: Detroit for wind turbines.

PING!


70 posted on 11/24/2011 11:52:37 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Occupy DC General Assembly: We are Marxist tools. WE ARE MARXIST TOOLS!)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Having trouble confirming the article. Altamont Pass wind farm, known for killing Golden Eagles is reportedly replacing the turbines.

The govenment subsidy issue would be an interesting story.


71 posted on 11/25/2011 5:09:39 AM PST by Jimmy Valentine's brother (Near term Obamacare 'Unit")
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To: LRoggy

No, it’s a believable story


72 posted on 11/25/2011 5:17:37 AM PST by InvisibleChurch ( go in peace , serve the Lord)
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To: lurk

future giant bird houses?
for the birds that aren’t chopped up


73 posted on 11/25/2011 6:39:44 AM PST by silverleaf (common sense is not so common- voltaire)
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To: JimWayne
This is not the complete picture. Businesses like Solyndra were part of this cabal too. Many of these businesses were funded by venture capitalists like Kleiner Perkins (Al Gore is a partner) whose aim was to feed off the system. This is what is called crony capitalism. There is no need to pretend that businesses do not join the cabal. We should oppose businesses that hate the free-market and prefer crony capitalism. Merely being businesses do not make them virtuous.

I'm appalled at business whose business plan consists solely of manipulating government ignorance, or using government as a club to beat their competitors instead of out-competing them. So I mostly agree with your post with two slight exceptions.

First, we normally want to hold government to a higher standard because they exist off tax dollars as opposed to making their money honestly off willing customers like a business. That distinction obviously doesn't apply in this case, but the instinct is ingrained.

Second, the tone of the statement in the article is that it's corporations that are primarily to blame rather than the only entity that has the ability to fiddle with the tax code, the government. It's as if, if you told the author the government was intimately involved in and bore a large share of the responsibility for this thing he doesn't like, he wouldn't believe you.

74 posted on 11/25/2011 7:30:27 AM PST by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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To: ConjunctionJunction

You’re welcome. Good to hear from you again. Hope your move went well and you’re all settled in. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.


75 posted on 11/25/2011 8:15:42 AM PST by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: JimSEA

Doesn’t GE make wind turbines?


76 posted on 11/25/2011 9:17:57 AM PST by upcountryhorseman (An old fashioned conservative)
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To: LRoggy

On a recent drive down I55 in Illinois, there were fields of windmills as far as the eye could see. I commented that in about 10 years, they will be fields of rusting hulks.....


77 posted on 11/25/2011 9:31:46 AM PST by Fu-fu2
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To: stylin19a
one would think that the metal scavengers would have dismantled and carted them all away....in broad daylight

The cost of dismantling and transporting them to the recycling facility would probably outweigh any profit.

78 posted on 11/25/2011 9:55:30 AM PST by JimRed (Excising a cancer before it kills us waters the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS, NOW AND FOREVER!)
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To: Fu-fu2; Publius; Billthedrill
On a recent drive down I55 in Illinois, there were fields of windmills as far as the eye could see. I commented that in about 10 years, they will be fields of rusting hulks.....

Rusting remains of failed economic meddling. Has sort of a 80's Soviet / Atlas Shrugged feel about it.

79 posted on 11/25/2011 10:13:36 AM PST by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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To: lbryce

Yep! lol. :-)


80 posted on 11/25/2011 10:15:58 AM PST by DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis (Want to make $$$? It's easy! Pimp your blog for hits on Free Republic!)
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