"No Clean Power For Us!"
<rant>
What plonkers. Seriously. Of all the methods of power generation, Wind is one of the least intrusive on nature. Sure, you're slowing the wind down a bit. Sure, there will be bird strikes. The WORST a wind generator itself can pollute is if it overspeeds, disintegrates, and spreads shrapnel and a small quantity of lubrication oil on the ground. Shrapnel can be picked up. The small oil mess can be cleaned up. A new tower can be put up. Let's compare that to the oil tankers that have run up onto stuff and leaked. If we'd spend the money & time to learn how to make them quickly and efficiently, the pollution involved in making, transporting, and erecting them would drop, same as it has with our conventional methods of power generation.
I don't agree with the secrecy, but it was probably necessary to keep the residents from pulling a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) and squealing to the point where the politicians think about saving their own skin come election time vs helping everybody further on down the line. I'm willing to bet that most of the "complaints" about the wind farm are due to being able to see it.
Lemme see... silently spinning blades and a few dead birds.... vs a silent plume of dirty brown smoke, smog, asthma, pollution warnings....
I'll take the windmills, Bob.
Damn NIMBY people are so narrow minded they can look through a keyhole with both eyes.
I bet if the only way they could watch that "American Idol" crap was with electricity generated by windmills, there'd be a national push to put up windmills everywhere. Want to see your weeknight s#!tcoms? You gotta run on a treadmill for an hour to generate the 'leccy to watch it.
Hmm... perhaps I AM cynical..........
Nah.
</rant>
Seriously, though. I've read about that, and other than the secrecy with which it was done, I can't find any real valid argument against it. I mean, it's a very low petroleum demand to generate lots of energy. Sure, wind is more expensive right now. What happens when oil hits $350 a barrel? The price for petroleum generated power will climb, as surely as gas prices has climbed. Wind power will be expensive, sure, but cheaper than petroleum-fueled electricity.
It just amazes me how flippant people are about wasting resources, and resisting anything that requires them to change that behavior. After all, a resource is only "plentiful" until we figure out how to utilize it....
