Upstate New York State may end up with some 20,000 wind towers (www.windaction.org/documents/3575).
If this concerns you, keep reading. (FYI: I am a physicist with a 20-year-plus track record of interest in our environment in a variety of areas, such as water quality. I live on a lake in the Adirondack Mountains, as communing with nature is one of my highest priorities.)
Although no wind farm is proposed for my immediate area, I believe that all upstate New Yorkers are part of one community. On this Web page is a map, plus a list of New York towns where wind farms are being targeted (www.savewesternny.org/proposed.html).
To make this complex but profoundly significant issue easier to understand, I have written the following summary about it. Please keep in mind that my comments are about industrial wind power only, as home-based (or boat) systems are usually a good thing.
On the surface, wind power seems to be a potentially good thing: a clean, renewable source of energy, etc. But scientists don't make decisions based on first-glance impressions.
To come to a meaningful understanding of complex matters like industrial wind power, open-minded people need to do a thorough examination of all major components of the issue, plus do a review of accumulated evidence to date (e.g., from wind power experiences in Europe).
Such an analysis will lead to two fundamental conclusions:
1) There is no consequential environmental benefit to industrial wind power, and;
2) It is being promoted because it is an extremely lucrative business opportunity.
Here is a brief explanation as to why these are so.
1) There is no real environmental benefit, as: a) wind is an unpredictable commodity; b) energy generated from industrial wind power cannot be stored; c) due to the complexity of nuclear and coal-fired power plants, they cannot simply be "turned down" when wind power is available.
Hydro power (a clean, green and low-cost energy source) is typically cut back instead. Since nuclear and coal-fired power plants must operate at full capacity 24/7, no emissions are reduced!
2) This is a lucrative business opportunity, as: a) take the cost to build and erect the average industrial wind tower, b) subtract the government-provided financial incentives (your money). c) then the government requires the local utility to buy all of the electricity generated (needed or not) and often to pay a premium rate (again, with your money). d) after taking all of these numbers into account, each turbine turns out to be a government-guaranteed 25-percent (plus or minus)-per-year income generator.
How did this all happen? Basically: Global warming has become a hot political item, so the U.S. Congress decided that they had to do something to show that they were "addressing the problem," and they set up a committee to determine what to do. Accurately sensing an opportunity to tap into some big money, the industrial wind-power special-interest lobby heavily influenced the process (some say they wrote the entire legislation, not that unusual. Very similar to oil companies influencing our energy policies.)
The bottom line is that what was legislated was not about helping the environment and was not about benefiting taxpayers. It was principally designed to enrich large business concerns who wanted to feed at the government trough. Again, (unfortunately) not all that uncommon. (See www.ncpa.org/studies/renew/renew2.html.)
When an industrial wind power developer targets a community, their objective is to put up as many 25-percent income generators as they can get away with.
To achieve this financial goal, developers employ three effective strategies: 1) they not only take advantage of the global-warming concern that is prevalent, they make it into a patriotic matter to support their business, 2) they know that most people do not understand the complexities of the wind-power issue, so they frequently make broad, superficial, unsupportable benefit claims, and 3) they rely on the support they get from local people that they essentially buy off, with taxpayer money! Some reports show that they particularly target areas that are economically depressed to make their "financial incentives" more likely to be accepted.
Since this problem was legislatively created, it must be legislatively fixed. That will only happen when citizens are informed, and when citizens then subsequently speak up.
As a minimum, we need to contact our New York state legislators to get them to enact at least a one-year moratorium on wind farms. Additionally, the state needs to develop a comprehensive Resource Management Plan to deal with this and other resource issues.
To research this topic to your own satisfaction, please consider the findings of independent, environmentally concerned scientists that are spelled out at such sites at www.windwatch.org/ and www.aweo.org/. Please consider making a donation to support their work.
Opinion
October 15, 2007
Wind power: the art of seduction
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