Posted on 12/04/2012 11:49:15 AM PST by matt04
The Bay State’s largest wind energy farm is nearing completion.
Gov. Deval Patrick and state Energy and state energy officials on Monday visited the 19-turbine Hoosac Wind Power project in the western Massachusetts towns of Florida and Monroe.
Officials say the wind farm on track to be completed by year’s end will produce enough power for more than 10,000 homes a year and offset about 64 million pounds of carbon dioxide released by traditional electrical generation.
The project is also expected to generate about $6.8 million in tax revenue for the towns.
But not all local residents are happy. Opponents who formed a group called Friends of Florida and Monroe say they worry the turbines will bring noise and possible adverse health effects, and lower the property values of nearby residents.
Can anyone post the cartoon that Santa did not make it through the wind farm?
This one?
http://blogs.capecodonline.com/cape-cod-politics/2009/12/09/the-wind-farm-might-change-the-holidays/
Thanks
LOL! What a Patrick joke. I fly all the time. These windmills usually stand motionless. Occasionally they turn at a turgid rate, maybe 15-20 rpm. I don’t know how fast they need to turn to make a profit, but I’ll be this isn’t it. In the next few years, as they suck-up millions in repairs and generate nothing but angry locals, Patrick and his Bacon Hill cronies will suddenly stop mentioning them and the Boston Globe Workers Circle will forget they ever existed.
However these wind turbines will only produce that amount of power when the wind is blowing just right. No wind or winds that are too high and the turbines must be shut down to prevent damage means no power being produced for these homes and fossil fuel back up generators will be needed to meet demand. Fossil fuel generators will also be needed when those 10,000 homes are at peak demand and the winds are blowing inadequately to meet all of that demand. Basically wind is too fickle to be practical source of electric power.
This is bad. Recent climate data indicates global cooling, we need more carbon to offset this trend. I'm going to buy another large SUV to do my part.
Don’t sell this benefit short.
Shredded poultry can be useful for the starving victims of the Baraqqi Depression.
Holy crap, run for cover! /s
In the real world, that's appr. 30k metric tons, or 3x10^7 kg. All the while there's appr. 3x10^15 kg of CO2 in the atmosphere alone (and FIFTY times that much dissolved in the oceans).
Anyway, that heroic saving of CO2 emmisions amounts to appr. 1x10^(-8), or 0.0000001 percent!!!! of atmospheric content. Quick, someone award a Nobel prize to these heroes! In only 100 million years they will have offset ONE PERCENT of atmospheric CO2!
Heck, sometimes I'm in the 'every little bit counts' camp - but never in the 'a fraction of a miniscule' camp...
Of course, all the great, unwashed masses see is the number '64 million' so they think it's really, really significant.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the math-challenged will surely destroy us long before that comes about.
And I should add to the above that the total mass content of CO2 in the atmosphere is in the order of less than 0.04 percent (app. 390 ppm)... so multiply the above numbers by that fraction for total effect...
Of course they don't reach those higher levels very often
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