Posted on 11/28/2010 12:55:47 PM PST by Graybeard58
It turns out the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., was right in opposing a wind-energy project in Nantucket Sound, but for all the wrong reasons. There's a lot of that going around — so much, in fact, that it increasingly appears there is no wrong reason for opposing wind-energy projects.
Sen. Kennedy, a lifelong Hyannisport, Mass., resident, professed to be a supporter of so-called green energy. But when a 130-turbine wind-power proposal turned up in his watery playground off the Kennedy family's Cape Cod compound, he balked.
With Sen. Kennedy safely in his grave and the remaining Kennedys apparently a spent force, the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities quietly approved Cape Wind on Nov. 22. Only now are Cape Cod and Nantucket residents beginning to discern the dimensions of this boondoggle.
According to a Bloomberg News account, the British company National Grid Plc will pay 18.7 cents per kilowatt-hour for half of the wind farm's output. Under terms of the 15-year contract, the price will increase 3.5 percent a year, to a staggering 30.27 cents per kilowatt-hour. The initial rate "is more than three times the average wholesale power price in the region," Bloomberg reported.
A group called the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound estimates the project will cost ratepayers $4 billion more over the next 15 years than they would pay if the wind farm were never built. Of course, it could be argued Massachusetts voters inflicted this wound on themselves by electing a governor and legislature that enacted a mandate that 15 percent of the state's energy come from renewable sources by 2020.
It also could be argued that placing windmills in shallow offshore waters makes more sense than attempting to build them on land, since Nantucket Sound and other offshore sites are uninhabitable. That distinguishes them from sites such as 178 New Haven Road in Prospect, where BNE Energy Inc. of West Hartford wants to build a pair of 328-foot-tall wind turbines. More than 200 residents attended a rally this month in opposition to the project.
They warned of the effect noise and "shadow flicker" from the spinning turbine blades would have on property values and quality of life of nearby residents. An East Falmouth, Mass., resident who lives near a windmill told The Sunday Republican, "The sound that it puts out, it's as though a plane is going overhead continuously." Land-based windmills also have been known to kill large numbers of wild birds, and even have been called "Cuisinarts of the air."
Rep. Vickie Nardello, D-Prospect, and Mayor Robert J. Chatfield asked the state Siting Council to stage a hearing on the windmills in town. They expect the request to be accommodated.
Wind power can be environmentally damaging, wildly expensive to consumers, and harmful to quality of life in residential and commercial districts. It even causes pollution by forcing fossil-fuel plants to cycle up and down more radically and more often, reducing their efficiency. One can only wonder why so many in government are so invested in a strategy that increasingly is giving the term "renewable energy" a black eye.
You’re right about the bird canard. Here are some bird death numbers from Lomborg.
Some 300,000 birds are killed by mammals, mostly cats, in Great Britain every 48 hours, and 250,000 birds die from striking plate glass in homes and offices in the United States every 24 hours.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A12789-2001Oct18
The article: "Wind Energy's Ghosts" by Andrew Walden of The American Thinker validates your post, IMO Parmy...
I recall pulling off the autobahn in Germany to roadside parks they had near their windmills and to be honest with you, they must be using an entirely different design. I recall no noise and saw no dead birds.
Wonder what they're doing differently???
I just drove back from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Saw hundreds of them, not spinning despite lots of wind. This explains why! However, I saw a lot of traditional power plants, and off-shore oil platforms, all working perfectly fine.
The reason for all this - so that they can take nice, natural-friendly-looking photographs.
And then there’s the corn for ethanol scam....
Don’t forget the CFL lightbulbs. Every landfill will be a potential superfund toxic waste cleanup site and the advantages seem to be greatly exaggerated.
We have a windmill forest “near” us. Replacement parts, propellers and such come through town on big oversize trailers. They must be, guessing, 150ft long...
Construction and maintenance of windfarms are a major contributor to diesel fuel consumption. During the construction of the windfarm huge construction vehicle are needed to clear access roads, move subassemblies from ports to the job, move workers to the job (no, windfarms aren't built in big cities and cranes are needed to lift all of the subassemblies for each windmill. All of the equipment that does those jobs consumes huge quantities of diesel fuel. I watched as they built the Maple Ridge Windfarm in Upstate New York and was amazed at the heavy equipment that was needed for that job. Every 50 foot section of the windmill tower was transported from the Port of Oswego (70 miles from the windfarm) to the site near Lowville, NY on a flatbed truck with an SUV before and after it carrying signs that informed other vehicles of the "wide load".
Also not widely know is how costly (in $ and diesel fuel) it is to maintain windfarms. In a nuclear, coal or natural gas fired power plant, all of the maintenance work is done by a staff within the confines of the power plant building (usually never more than 1 square mile). On a windfarm, maintenance workers must be transported to every windmill in the farm. Often times windfarms cover 70 square miles and the fuel (gas or diesel) used to transport those workers/tools/parts is significant.
Thank you!
You’re welcome...I like reading posts like yours, because it shows you are in command of the topic...there are a lot of Freepers that fill that description, which is why I like coming here...
If the wind is blowing too hard, it will damage the windmills so they are shut down. If the windmill company sells their monthly allottment to the utilities within the first week or two, the windmills will sit idle the remainder of the month. Windpower has, and always will be, a variable, unpredictable and unstable source of power.
15,000 wind turbines in California currently supply 1% of the state’s electrical needs. One percent is enough to light one single city the size of San Francisco. With a goal of 20% of Calif’s electricity from windfarms by 2020, we would need 15,000x20 windmills built in the next 8 years, and the transmission lines/grid built out at enormous, and ongoing, taxpayer expense.
The California Energy Commission estimates that newer technologies can reduce the cost of wind energy to 3.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. Britain willing to pay 30 cents per kilowatt shows just where our electricity pricing is headed, windmills or not.
Denmark, where windmill power blossomed, has the largest energy costs in Europe, and is pretty much out of the windmill subsidizing business. Throughout Europe, they must still keep conventional sources running full steam, since wind energy is so unpredictable. Germany estimated in 2005 that windmills would increase energy costs by a factor of over 3, and installing filters on fossil fuel generated electric plants would be much more cost efficient. In short, windfarm subsidies have been largely wiped out in Europe and the technology dumped on the Americans. For a more complete picture of the bamboozling being forced on American consumers, the paper linked below, authored by Eric Rosenbloom, is revealing:
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/ProblemWithWind.pdf
There's a Freeper that knows eastern NM. He was posting the amount of concrete in the bases and what's needed to remove them!
At least 25% loss of energy by the time power is cabled to wherever.
Wonder if all this is driving up the price of diesel.
Every aspect of this project is colossal, and a colossal waste.
We can't go on doing this. (I really like learning about it,all the same.)
bump
Here’s some info about the Fenner Windfarm here in Central New York. As you can see it doesn’t take much to get them “shut down” and it takes quite a bit to get them going again. What a waste
By the way, here is the link to the Fenner Windfarm. You might want to check out some of the photos. Each tower requires over 600,000 pounds of steel reinforced concrete as a foundation:
To get to the photos, click on Overview” the “Photographs”.
I love windmills just for the reason that they are liberal, environmentally-friendly bird grinders.
I’d love to see a ton of endangered species die out at the hands of the enviro-nuts.
Yeah, because wikipedia is a neutral source.
Good for you.
No Green Energy would be cost effective if it had to stand on its own two legs -— without government subsidies/tax incentives!
When not turning at the appropriate speed, these wind turbines are a “pile of junk”. The wind must be blowing at
least 7 to 10 miles per hour and they must shut off at
about 40 miles per hour or they will tear themselves apart.
It's the closest thing we have to a neutral source because we can all contribute to it. I've contributed a few articles to Wikipedia, and have learned quite a bit about their process for vetting information. It's not perfect, but I trust it enough for simple referential quotes like the above.
It's not a great primary source, but it gives excellent references to primary sources.
If you think there's a factual error or omission on it, fix it, and be prepared to substantiate and defend your changes, like anybody else.
Or, if you prefer not doing that much work, stick to making sarcastic posts on FR. Fine with me either way. :)
I too have contributed, and in the process have become very aware that Wikipedia is not a neutral source. Nor is it reliable.
It’s only purpose is to provide a gateway for which reliable primary sources can be found relatively easily.
Ah, you have; excellent, and I withdraw my tweak.
We agree about Wikipedia not being neutral. I guess my position is that I doubt the existence of a truly neutral source for any information that has political, social, religious, or other highly-argued content. So I'm happy to have a reasonable gateway, as you describe it.
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