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Wind Is Given 2nd Look As Energy Needs Grow
WashingtonPost ^ | Sunday, August 3, 2008 | Anita Kumar

Posted on 08/04/2008 2:09:34 PM PDT by BloodOrFreedom

...developers are looking to build more than 100 wind turbines taller than the Statue of Liberty, side by side, on 18 miles of the George Washington National Forest.

FreedomWorks, a company with projects in four states, wants to generate electricity for the power-hungry Washington area and beyond, despite concerns about disturbing wildlife, spoiling untouched lands and creating noise and light pollution.

As the United States searches for ways to lessen its dependency on foreign oil, wind energy is getting a second look in states such as Virginia that had not embraced it.

The national push, along with new state financial incentives for renewable energy, has prompted more interest in wind turbines in Virginia.

...

But the new push for wind energy in Virginia has highlighted a conflict within the environmental community.

Some groups, which have long clamored for more renewable energy sources and encouraged wind power instead of a new coal-burning power plant in southwest Virginia, oppose the FreedomWorks project, the largest wind proposal in the state, because of the potential harm to plants and animals.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: Virginia
KEYWORDS: energy; environment; enviroprofiteering; nationalforests; turbines; wind; windenergy; windfarms; windpower
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Haha...I can't believe these people. You just can't make them happy. I think they just want to cause conflict and make waves...

From the article:

"Today, wind power generates enough electricity in 34 states to power 5 million homes -- slightly more than 1 percent of the U.S. electric supply, according to the American Wind Energy Association in Washington. Maryland officials have approved one wind farm and are considering two others in the western part of the state. None of the projects has been built"

1 posted on 08/04/2008 2:09:34 PM PDT by BloodOrFreedom
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To: BloodOrFreedom

Yes, but wind turbines kill birdies.


2 posted on 08/04/2008 2:12:17 PM PDT by w1andsodidwe (Jimmy Carter(the Godfather of Terror) allowed radical Islam to get a foothold in Iran.)
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To: BloodOrFreedom

The boobs don’t want oil drilling rigs out at sea beyond the horizon where we can’t even see them, but they’re fine with defacing our own forest landscapes with gigantic, noisy, bird-chewing wind turbines that don’t produce a fraction of the electricity they’re supposed to.

I think I hate these wind farms more than anything else the watermelons have come up with. And screw T Boone Pickens too.


3 posted on 08/04/2008 2:14:09 PM PDT by Argus (Obama: All turban and no goats.)
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To: BloodOrFreedom

Somehow, why am NOT surprised, that the government solution to energy problems is “more wind” ....which is about all we’re getting form Capitol Hill....


4 posted on 08/04/2008 2:16:10 PM PDT by mo
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To: Argus

They’ll be nice to look at when they’re all busted and not worth the cost of repair in 10 years or so...

If they were investing in constant tidal energy, I could go for it.


5 posted on 08/04/2008 2:16:32 PM PDT by xcamel (Conservatives start smart, and get rich, liberals start rich, and get stupid.)
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To: mo

haha...we could get them all rounded up in a group, put them on a field in front of the wind turbines and give power to the states for years


6 posted on 08/04/2008 2:18:58 PM PDT by BloodOrFreedom
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To: BloodOrFreedom
"I can't believe these people. You just can't make them happy."

In that case, let's make'em REALLY unhappy and replace the coal plant with a nuke.

7 posted on 08/04/2008 2:19:02 PM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel-NRA)
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To: BloodOrFreedom

I drove by a bunch of wind mills this weekend driving from Boise to Salt Lake City.

Not one of the mills were turning.


8 posted on 08/04/2008 2:19:06 PM PDT by Domandred (McCain's 'R' is a typo that has never been corrected)
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To: Wonder Warthog
haha sure ;-)

I was in a debate with someone over using nuclear power vs alternate sources, and he mentioned the sites not being able to effectively eliminate the waste from the reactors...didn't quite know how to respond. Have any insight into that?

9 posted on 08/04/2008 2:22:54 PM PDT by BloodOrFreedom
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To: BloodOrFreedom

Yeah. Wind farms have to have conventional plants with 90% of the wind plants capacity to back them up when the wind doesn’t blow. Oh, right, this is near DC.


10 posted on 08/04/2008 2:29:14 PM PDT by CPOSharky (Blaming CO2 for global warming is like blaming your thermometer for your kid's fever.)
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To: BloodOrFreedom

Our northern prairies are filled with windmills, but on any given day only about a fraction of them are turning. It seems that wind turbines can only work in a narrow range of wind speeds...too high and the blades will be damaged...too low and there is not enough wind to turn the blades. Windmills are inefficient and highly dependent on government subsidies. Besides would you like to have your majestic views of the prairie spoiled by windmills as far as the eye can see? Along with corn ethanol this is just another feel good government boondoggle.


11 posted on 08/04/2008 2:34:13 PM PDT by The Great RJ ("Mir we bleiwen wat mir sin" or "We want to remain what we are." ..Luxembourg motto)
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To: Argus
And screw T Boone Pickens too.

He's not my type.

12 posted on 08/04/2008 2:34:48 PM PDT by dearolddad (Like $6.00 + gas? Be sure to thank a democrap.)
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To: BloodOrFreedom

There are more informed people than me, but I do know that France has been reprocessing its spent fuels for 20+ years, and the result is a very small footprint, much smaller than the envirowhackos would have you believe.

Also the French attitude has always been “We’ll store unusable waste in underground caverns for now, and when the science and technology is better 25 to 50 years hence, we’ll do that (whatever it is).”

All 56 of France’s nuclear reactors are of one identical design to save costs (and engineering staff), and were built by **Westinghouse** USA.


13 posted on 08/04/2008 2:36:21 PM PDT by angkor (Conservatism is not now and never has been a religious movement.)
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To: xcamel
They’ll be nice to look at when they’re all busted and not worth the cost of repair in 10 years or so...

Should be plenty of scrap copper and other metals to be had there, though. I doubt the copper thieves will wait ten years, though.

14 posted on 08/04/2008 2:39:13 PM PDT by Charles Martel (Liberals are the crab grass in the lawn of life.)
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To: BloodOrFreedom

‘Breaking’ news?


15 posted on 08/04/2008 2:44:21 PM PDT by CowboyJay (There's always 2012...)
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To: BloodOrFreedom; angkor
the sites not being able to effectively eliminate the waste from the reactors

Its a self-inflicted problem. We made it illegal to reprocess the waste, then we made underground storage a political football.

There was a case a few years ago at a government site where they made it impossible to ship their waste to their disposal sites. They were forced to store their waste on site pending a ruling on where to send it, except what do you know, its illegal to store it on site. So the FBI arrested the plant manager, and teams of FBI went through the offices seizing everyone's project files.

Idiocy. Eventually they worked it all out, but can you imagine this level of idiocy.

The French just get on with it. Reprocess what you can, and store the rest. Big deal.

16 posted on 08/04/2008 2:52:07 PM PDT by marron
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To: BloodOrFreedom
There are plenty of ways to "eliminate" the waste. Most of what comes out of the reactor can be recovered and re-used as fuel (un-burnt U-235 and fissionable Pu-238 made by irradiation of the non-fissionable U-238 in the fuel). BUT, James Earl Carter issued an executive order killing spent fuel reprocessing. "IF" spent fuel is re-processed and the fissionable Pu-238 is recycled back into the reactors, what is left decays to a harmless level in about 600 years. It is the Pu-238 which has a very long half-life and necessitates very long secure storage IF fuel is not reprocessed.

Yucca Mountain storage facility has been built and is ready to use, but is being stonewalled by Harry Reid (D-NV) and the rest of the Democrats. It can handle either long-term storage or the shorter-term 600 year storage.

If you REALLY want to get rid of it permanently, take the glass-encapsulated waste, form it into concrete torpedo-shaped containers, and drop it into the deep ocean in a subduction zone. Eventually, it will be pulled down into the "bowels of the earth", where it is safe for millions of years.

17 posted on 08/04/2008 3:12:11 PM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel-NRA)
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To: Argus
Amen, Argus.

The folks opposing wind are typically NOT the left-wing, treehugging, elitist subscribers to sierra club, greenpeace, national audubon etc. I wish FR would get over that false impression and understand that real people who live in rural, conservative states are being overrun by the turbines while all of us watch our politicians fawn over Iberdrola, Gamesa, Vestas, Suzlon and vote to release billions in tax-subsides into their coffers. For what? A resource that cannot get the job done when the electricity is needed and will NEVER result in an existing power plant being decommissioned, nor negate the need to build new generation. If you get a chance to read DOE’s report (20% wind power by 2030) check out what it says about an energy resource in a capacity world!

18 posted on 08/04/2008 3:18:45 PM PDT by LisaS
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To: BloodOrFreedom

Wind power won’t do squat here in Alabama. I just spent several hours cutting my grass, and there was hardly a breeze to be felt. There is just not enough wind to turn the blades when power is most needed here.


19 posted on 08/04/2008 3:53:43 PM PDT by yawningotter
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To: angkor
I also found that conservation in France went way beyond the US. I never saw an incadcenent bulb in the whole country, and light switches were often on timers that would kick out the lights about 2/3 down the stairs.

Not sure what they pay there for electric, but they really knew how to conserve.

20 posted on 08/04/2008 3:54:48 PM PDT by Wiseghy ("You want to break this army? Then break your word to it.")
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