Wind Farms - Before pictures

[Steve M Hostetter]

Maybe it sounds like someone talking if your Mother-in-Law moans on endlessly.... To me the most similar feeling is sitting in coach near the engine of a commuter jet.

But $20K per tower, per year makes it sound quieter, amazing....

being out in the middle of corn fields who but the grasshoppers will notice.?

[Steve M Hostetter]

I guess smog doesn't effect the scenery,, or roads, highways, houses, buildings, cell phone towers, ships(oil tankers spilling oil),factories,billowing smoke stacks,jet streams,gravel pits,open earth coal mines,train tracks,flag poles,power lines,dams,oil rigs(land) oil rigs off shore(spilling oil),acid rain,diminishing old growth forests,etc.?

reminds me of nazi germany,, in the end all they could say was, " we were lied to"!

[Drew Wiley]

Here the controversy is that low passes between the coast and inland generate the
most predictable winds, which unfortunately, is exactly the migratory path of many
species of songbirds and raptors. Some of them don't notice the blades when they're
whirling, hence the nickname, "bird choppers". Some of our hills have plenty of wind
turbines, but lots of other areas are off limits. But park boundaries aren't what birds pay attention to (though I shouldn't speak too loudly since I have eight cats!)

[Steve M Hostetter]

I guess birds don't die in oil spills

[jp]

Smoggy haze ruins a lot of summer photo opportunities for me in Maine. We get lots of pollution from all over the country blow our way.

We've got a few windmills too. A local island has three full sized ones; their costs for electricity were exceeding 28c/kwh, so they took power generation into their own hands and now are mostly power exporters instead of consumers, and hope to reduce power rates as they pay down their investment. Offshore wind has a future indeed as more land-based people complain about the noise/looks/lights. The higher wind energy found near the ocean adds to the worthwhileness of it.

I think a couple here and there on land are fine; If they were sufficiently distributed and grid connected, it's always windy somewhere, so it should all average out, negating the gripes about needing coal or natural gas to supplement their not-constant output. We don't complain about ubiquitous utility poles in our images; we have grown up with them and know how to avoid showing them in photos or using them for elements of the photo.

Wind or solar doesn't make sense where electric rates are low; but it does make sense in states where power costs are high. I have the misfortune of doing business in a 15c/kwh state. Conservation is the first priority and best investment, then wind or solar could be worthwhile. The only good byproducts of our expensive power is our interest in conservation and support of wind and solar. I expect the rest of the country to see increasing rates eventually as nuke plants retire, oil prices keep going up, etc...

As solar panel prices keep falling (they are now half the cost of just a few years ago), it will be affordable to own a useful quantity of them for your own houses. LED light when their prices get more reasonable, might be a catalyst for people who don't need air conditioning to get off the grid and be done with the power "system" and all it's political faults and old fashioned ways. Sorta like the cord-cutters of today who don't have phone lines anymore. I'd do it right now, but don't wish to incur the debt from purchasing the system and aren't yet thrilled with LED lights.

[Steve Smith]

I would like to see more direct use of wind (or water) power - just like it was done 100 years ago. i.e. rather than generate electricity to run an electric motor, just harness the rotation of the windmill directly.

Worked fine for grinding corn and running weaving looms.


Steve.

[Drew Wiley]

If the winds are predictable, there's no question that the technology works and is even profitable to investors who have rigs in the better locations. Several mid-sized cities in Calif are powered entirely by wind, but that's still a small percent of the overall
demand. I find them photogenic at times, but certainly wouldn't want to see them
everywhere. There's a big controversy over in Marin county right now about a single
windmill being put up in a otherwise scenic vally. The farmer finally compromised and
agreed to install it where it isn't easily seen. But it set a precedent. This is one county
where being "green" places the priority on scenery itself. Most of us dread the thought of oil rigs being placed offshore from our marine sanctuaries here, which can produce a lot more havoc in short order than wind turbines. But once the turbines are there, so is the infrastructure of lots of little roads all over the farmland. We are lucky to live in an area which significant tracts of land were already previously set aside as official open space and off-limits to development of any kind.

[photobymike]

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.

Most people do not want to live near them because of the noise, and they kill birds, lots of them...

[Steve M Hostetter]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD0v9_zV2uk

I guess it ain't no daisy

I spent a week on the largest wind farms in the country up in Fowler Indiana and I didn't see any sign of dead birds under or around the turbines, no blood on the blades,nothing.

I'd be inclind to think that with the noise the birds would avoid them even at night ,, like they must do in the case of avoiding high tension power lines

[Heroique]

I say forget the birds – industrial energy is what matters, and silly animals shouldn’t get in the way of our higher species. Plus, no law forces a free people to live near noise pollution – or any other kind of pollution. Migrate! ;^)