Posted on 02/05/2023 8:39:54 PM PST by SeekAndFind
I drove down the Columbia River Gorge on Saturday on the north side of the gorge on WA-14. There were hundreds of wind turbines on the Oregon side of the river and NOT ONE was turning. The weird thing is the turbines on the north side of the river (the Washington side) WERE turning, albeit rather slowly.
There will be no money to remove them.
I've been making that point for a few years. When any surface mine is opened, the owners have to post a reclamation bond to ensure that the site will be restored to its original condition when mining ends. There are NO such bonds for "wind farms." As you say, the land will be covered with millions of these monstrosities, dead blades dangling down. That will happen in the next 20 to 40 years, too -- not that far away.
I predict that there will be a "Superfund III" down the road to spend trillions of tax dollars removing these things.
Many 100 foot wide roads have to be built
= = =
Are the Maine citizens allowed to drive on those roads, like for exploring or sight seeing or hunting?
There are NO such bonds for “wind farms.”
to a depth of 10 inches if I remember the contract right.
not same as posted bond.
My wife notes that clearing that forest in Maine is kind of like clearing the Amazon.
Lots of good those contracts will do when the companies declare Chapter 7 Bankruptcy – Liquidation Under the Bankruptcy Code. Nobody will assume those liabilities and they won’t have any assets. The federal government won’t prevent them from using Chapter 7.
Taxpayers will be on the hook and it will take decades to remove them.
It’s amazing that the same people who went apoplectic over a few oil rigs in the Santa Barbara Channel ruining the view are happy with millions of these monstrosities ruining all the vistas across America. I am glad I was born before that a happened and got to travel all across the land.
“sound produced by an air gun (222.6 dB which is 10% louder than the noise produced by pile-driving)”
222.6 dB vs 200.0 dB is not “10% louder” in a physical sense. (And as far as a perceptual sense goes, they can both deafen you.)
Difference is 22.6 dB or 2.26 B. That means the *power* of the sound is 10**2.26 or over 14 times as much (14.45+).
An article that sounds scientific should realize that dB is logarithmic in the power ratio.
In the Columbia Gorge those calm air periods are more the exception than the rule, and you generally see them only in the winter between fronts. In the summer the wind is needed for windsurfing! :).
I use to drive to Portland frequently (not any more) and would cuss out the headwind as it would steal gas mileage. But coming home was great — 50 mpg once in a V8 Camaro. Occasionally, high pressure on the east side of the Cascades will reverse the wind direction.
In the Tri-Cities we have the one remaining PNW nuclear power plant so we get by. And the hydroelectric turbines are close enough you can almost hear them.
Agree with the rest of your comment.
You fire an air gun a few times, then you stop. Wind mills churn 24/7/365. The dBs never cease. So it does not matter about the accuracy - marine life either dies or leaves the area.
Take up the accuracy with the authors not me. I have no way of knowing who is right or wrong, but when in doubt, I’ll take the author’s words over some anonymous poster.
I drive the gorge two to four times a year. But, to my eye, those slack periods seem to be the rule rather than the norm.
My dad was the Program Manager at General Electric for the first big multi-megawatt wind turbines. His team installed the first prototype units at the San Gorgonio Pass in CA, in Hawaii, and in Goldendale, Washington. I was in the fossil fuel power industry in those years and kept telling him those wind turbines were never going to succeed commercially. We used to have fun jousting about wind vs fossil way back around 1980!
No, I don’t think too many people would agree with you that the Columbia Gorge isn’t windy. It is the freshwater wind surfing and kite board capital of the world! I lost a 50’ spruce to those winds in November, and a friend lost a tied-down C-182 in about 2000.
The overall all-year average wind speed is 10 mph, but that is taken from points all through the gorge, not at the high wind locations where the turbines are sited.
The wind surfers know the situation best:
“The Columbia River Gorge offers a full range of riding conditions and wind speeds typically from 10-25mph however, some days it can blow strong 25-35+mph. The predominate riding conditions during the summer months of May to September are westerly winds, opposite of the Columbia River current.”
Yep, I remember those early turbines near Goldendale. My dad was involved in the war effort; was relocated from Los Alamos to Hanford in 1943, I think it was.
My uncle (dad’s brother) worked at Los Alamos for quite a while before becoming a medical doctor and landing at Twin Falls, ID.
Have you visited Los Alamos? Interesting museum... Also, the huge, shallow, ancient volcanic crater/caldera (Jemez), and the forest....
DIS-ASSED-HER
that blows...
“Are the Maine citizens allowed to drive on those roads, like for exploring or sight seeing or hunting?”
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Most of Maine is wilderness.
On those 100 foot wide access roads, there is nothing to see but trees and ugly windmills. No sights to see.
One can see all the trees he wants just driving along the Maine Turnpike.
I don’t know if those roads are posted. If not, people will use them for hunting and no one will stop them.
Most of the summer tourists stay close to the coast.
The Maine lobstermen have squawked loudly about putting those windmills offshore, fearing a Nor’Easter could send the blades crashing to the ocean floor where the lobster live. So far, they have blocked huge numbers of them from being built.
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