Wind Farms - Before pictures

[Ed Richards]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...,5257706.story

Landscape photographers - time to start taking your before pictures for every place that might support a wind farm. If you do a hybrid process and print digitally, I am sure someone will come up with the Photoshop Wind Turbine Eraser plug in.:-)

[Heroique]

They’re popping up like mushrooms West of the Columbia River, along I-90.

Better than coal plants.

Can’t quite explain it, but from a distance, there's something soothing, graceful about them, as long as they don’t interrupt too much of the beautiful, open desert space.

[Michael Gordon]

I believe that solar is a much bigger threat. There are limited places to profitably cite wind turbines, while panels can be sited just about anywhere in the West. Southern California's deserts are under siege from solar projects:

Desert Protective Council
Mojave Desert Blog

[Frank Petronio]

In twenty years, once this generation of wind turbines become rusting 300' hulks and the corporations charged with maintaining them skip town, let me know how you like them then....

[Drew Wiley]

We call them bird-choppers.

[jayabbas]

In twenty years, once this generation of wind turbines become rusting 300' hulks and the corporations charged with maintaining them skip town, let me know how you like them then....

I imagine them as a sky perch for high angle l'scape shots or ultra brave base jumpers or just as you say, rusting 300' hulks -- we shall see.

[Michael Kadillak]

The wind farms are one thing. The redundant conventional backup infrastructure such as natural gas pipelines and gas fired generation that add tens of million dollars of costs to the consumer is what gets me going. When the wind does not blow, the power is not going down the line. We would be better off with the backup full time from an economic perspective. But I digress.....

[Greg Lockrey]

I don't know why they just don't put them in the islands on the interstates along with the solar panels..

[Gem Singer]

Northern Texas, just south of the Oklahoma border. Note the wind turbines in the distance.

[Steve M Hostetter]

modern wind turbines are made of fiberglass, aluminum, and composite material. life span is 20 yrs with the ability to have lifespan expanded an additional 15 yrs.
After this time the windmill is removed and no legacy of pollution is left for further generations.

Only negative aspect is wind isn't constant leaving them idol for periods of time.

Solar panels work off the suns radiation 100% of the time.