[NYTr] About that Storm of Protest from anti-Wind Farm "Activists"

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Bill Koehnlein - Oct 25,2007

About that Storm of Protest from anti-Wind Farm "Activists"

Regarding: 

"Giant wind turbines face a storm of protest" (The Guardian, 10/25)
http://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/Week-of-Mon-20071022/070808.html

There are proposals all over the place, including Vermont, for wind
farms/mills/turbines. The "activists" who oppose them typically trumpet
the same argument: a blot on the landscape; they will destroy the scenic
view. This generally means that they will destroy *their* scenic views.

Actually, these wind turbines can look "positively elegant", as one wind
power engineer (sorry, I forgot who) once said. One standing alone looks
quaint and is totally unintrusive; several in symmetry look quite
impressive, sometimes even spectacular, like a series of sculptures.
When there is a strong wind and they are spinning maximally it is truly
an exciting, almost surreal, sight.

Interesting that the same people (who are most often property owners)
have never raised any concerted outcry against massive swatches of
mountains that have been clear-cut to make way for ski runs or power
lines. Those are ugly things that truly deface nature.

Wind power is renewable, it's cheap. The start-up costs are
significantly less than for coal or nuclear plants, and once they are
in place and on-line there is minimal cost and minimal maintenance.
They don't pollute, unlike coal or nuclear, and they're much less apt
than nuclear (and to a lesser extent, coal) to go off-line because of
either safety considerations or mechanical malfunctions or failures.

If energy costs can be lowered for low- and moderate-income working
people (and wind power can accomplish this) I say go fuck the affluent
owners of mountain-side a-frames and custom-built vacation homes. And
in addition to lower energy costs, a lot of farmers, and others of
modest means, stand to make a small bit of extra money by hosting wind
turbines on their land. Wind power is an energy form that can easily be
localized and community controlled. It's just too bad that the projects
noted in this article will be spearheaded by GE. Perhaps the best
ecology-activism strategy is to take wind energy away from
profit-driven corporations and put it where it belongs: in the hands of
people and their communities.

--Bill Koehnlein