Zach LarkinsWINDMILLS
Anyone who has been reading my blogs knows that I've recently been on vacation. We travelled to northern Ontario and saw some pretty awesome sights. More than one of these were windmills, or I suppose the correct term today is wind turbines.
These seem to be wondrous things and my jaw dropped every time I saw one. No one wants to use coal, gas or nuclear power to provide us with electricity anymore, so what could be better than using an easily renewable source, the wind?
These turbines stand proud and almost majestic in the fields, 100 metres high with three blades lazily rotating in the breeze. They are a sight to behold. But there is a controversy brewing between the lovers and the haters of these things.
The lovers of them say they are a viable answer to our energy crisis, for our homes anyway. I have to agree. If I owned a chunk of property, I'd have one installed forthwith just so I could tell the hydro companies to jump in the lake. And the nice thing is, if I generate more than I can use, I can sell the excess to the hydro company and pick up some spare change. They don't take up a lot of room and they wouldn't fit into an urban environment, but that is what wind farms are for. If you form a co-op and everyone chips in to pay installation costs, everyone gets the benefit of cheap electricity. We've seen our electric power hacked to death and put in the hands of private companies. The rates came down as the privateers knew you could only charge what the market would bear. However, when the initial source of the generation found out its shareholders weren't receiving the return on investment they had hoped for, the government allowed them to raise their rates to make up for the decline in profits. The same government that told us to conserve energy and not overload the system was now saying you're going to have to pay more for all this conservation. Go figure.
The detractors say the turbines are noisy. Nonsense. I didn't go up to one and stand beneath it to hear all this ‘noise', but I did stop on the roadside one day (same distance as the detractors) and listened. I heard nothing. My wife says I'm deaf, but she didn't hear a thing either and she can hear a fly fart at 50 yards. Others say they are dangerous to birds. Birds will fly into the props and get killed. Let me tell you, if a bird is dumb enough to fly into one of these slow moving props, it deserves to die. On the windiest day the props were still going at a rather sedate speed. They don't start spinning at the same rate your kitchen fan does when it's on low.
I suppose the big objection is really in the setting up of a wind farm. I see no problem with this. You take a chunk of ground and dedicate it to setting up turbines. If you can grow corn in this field, wheat in that one and graze cattle in the next, what's so wrong with having a wind farm in that last field? Some farmers object on the grounds it ruins the look of the landscape. Farms use a lot of power so I would suggest they revisit their objection to wind farms. They would be great beneficiaries of such a scheme.
I'm not a tree hugger by any means, but on this one, I'd have to give them the nod. Now if we could only figure out how I can get 50 miles per gallon out of my SUV.
These seem to be wondrous things and my jaw dropped every time I saw one. No one wants to use coal, gas or nuclear power to provide us with electricity anymore, so what could be better than using an easily renewable source, the wind?
These turbines stand proud and almost majestic in the fields, 100 metres high with three blades lazily rotating in the breeze. They are a sight to behold. But there is a controversy brewing between the lovers and the haters of these things.
The lovers of them say they are a viable answer to our energy crisis, for our homes anyway. I have to agree. If I owned a chunk of property, I'd have one installed forthwith just so I could tell the hydro companies to jump in the lake. And the nice thing is, if I generate more than I can use, I can sell the excess to the hydro company and pick up some spare change. They don't take up a lot of room and they wouldn't fit into an urban environment, but that is what wind farms are for. If you form a co-op and everyone chips in to pay installation costs, everyone gets the benefit of cheap electricity. We've seen our electric power hacked to death and put in the hands of private companies. The rates came down as the privateers knew you could only charge what the market would bear. However, when the initial source of the generation found out its shareholders weren't receiving the return on investment they had hoped for, the government allowed them to raise their rates to make up for the decline in profits. The same government that told us to conserve energy and not overload the system was now saying you're going to have to pay more for all this conservation. Go figure.
The detractors say the turbines are noisy. Nonsense. I didn't go up to one and stand beneath it to hear all this ‘noise', but I did stop on the roadside one day (same distance as the detractors) and listened. I heard nothing. My wife says I'm deaf, but she didn't hear a thing either and she can hear a fly fart at 50 yards. Others say they are dangerous to birds. Birds will fly into the props and get killed. Let me tell you, if a bird is dumb enough to fly into one of these slow moving props, it deserves to die. On the windiest day the props were still going at a rather sedate speed. They don't start spinning at the same rate your kitchen fan does when it's on low.
I suppose the big objection is really in the setting up of a wind farm. I see no problem with this. You take a chunk of ground and dedicate it to setting up turbines. If you can grow corn in this field, wheat in that one and graze cattle in the next, what's so wrong with having a wind farm in that last field? Some farmers object on the grounds it ruins the look of the landscape. Farms use a lot of power so I would suggest they revisit their objection to wind farms. They would be great beneficiaries of such a scheme.
I'm not a tree hugger by any means, but on this one, I'd have to give them the nod. Now if we could only figure out how I can get 50 miles per gallon out of my SUV.
clean quiet non-polluting energy...gee what a concept eh>
The powers that be will never go for it though, they wanna kill us all off with fossil fuel contamination...And we even have a wind farm right out here in the desert...had a wonderful visit there when I first got here...
Clean, silent and efficient...and this would be bad why?
Windmills are great things...we have on back home that irrigates the entire property...
Fabulous read buddy!
Take care,
Nick
Small Thoughts on Big Questions
I have to say, I'm coming around to the idea of re-exploring nuclear power. With the advances we've made, nuclear power could provide cheap energy with almost zero atmospheric emissions. Opening up a bunch of new nuclear power plants could make a huge dent in our reliance on foreign oil.
Wind energy is a good idea, and I do think it has its place. But it's never going to solve our problems. I think we'll need to embrace some atom splitting for that....
Good post ranter.
Youranter, if you ever get a big enough place for one, you should give it a try. I'm sure it'll be interesting! On the other hand, if it really cuts costs and helps the environment (as it should) you can count on Gore, Suzuki, etc. to come after you! They'll find a reason to object!!
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Windmills sound like a reasonable alternative energy source, far better than buying our oil from places where we are hated! While Gore and his friends will applaud, another great thing is that it might take the Bushies and Chaney a while to figure out how to screw us.
There are a number of possible sources for fuel that would not compete with the food chain, be renewable and would cause little or no pollution We should be researching them and investing in them.
And Youranter, the vacation sounded fantastic..
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Hmmm, a windmill in the backyard....
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