Standard windmills work just fine, this is a silly idea.
"Not in my neighborhood!" ;') The oxymoron for this week is, "the integrity of the environmental movement".Windmills Sow Dissent for EnvironmentalistsSoaring above the treetops are 44 sleek white steel cylinders, 228 feet high. Churning on each tower are three glinting fiberglass blades, 115 feet long. Like quills on a porcupine, they spike the emerald spine of Backbone Mountain for six miles along the Allegheny Front. They have also generated huge turbulence within the environmental movement. Proponents of wind farms view those who oppose them as heretics, obstructing the promise of clean renewable energy, while opponents decry them as producing insufficient power to warrant their blight on the landscape... The growing industry has caused a kind of identity crisis among people who think of themselves as pro-environment, forcing them to choose between the promise of clean, endlessly renewable energy and the perils of imposing giant man-made structures on nature. To some environmentalists, the opposition to wind power from within their ranks not only stifles the growth of a new source of energy but also calls into question the integrity of the environmental movement itself... Windmill farms must be large to be financially viable... Another complaint is that wind farms can do little to reduce overall dependence on fossil fuels, because of the unreliability of constant wind and the inability to store its power... Similar complaints, coming from prominent environmentalists like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have stalled installation of the nation's first off-shore wind farm, proposed for the waters of Nantucket Sound off Cape Cod. And they have forced the Long Island Power Authority to scrap its plan for wind turbines off the eastern tip of Long Island. But the utility has now proposed putting up to 50 turbines, each 488 feet high, off Long Island's south shore between Fire Island and Jones Beach, two immensely popular summer resort areas... Jerome Niessen, president of NedPower, which has received permission from the West Virginia Public Service Commission for a 200-turbine wind farm near here in Grant County, said he expected to generate 800 million kilowatt hours per year, for a tax savings of $16 million a year for 10 years, or $160 million — on a wind farm that will cost $300 million to build.
by Katharine Q. Seelye
June 5, 2003