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Wind Power?

Comment comment by VnutZ on 30 January 2008

What I find amusing about wind power is that to make it really effective you need to blanket an area with turbines. How long will it take environmentalists to complain about their installation on uninhabited land? How long will it take homeowners to whine about their installation within eyesight of their property?

Wind energy turbines work for particular groups in particular areas ... it's not a nationally scalable technology. Furthermore, I wonder what impact a national swath of turbines would have on the jet stream. After all, each one of them would be removing a little bit of energy from the wind. Could you imagine if it altered the jet stream in such a way as to plunge Europe into an veritable meat locker?

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RE: Wind Power? by ldsudduth :: NR6

Wind has a demonstratable negative effect on the environment; both from the construction aspect, as well as post construction issues.

Here is one source listing issues. I first ran into this issue, however, with a study on Wind Turbines in California and the issues with raptor populations and rat infestations in an article here, and the article actually advocates nuclear and hydroelectric power.

A crowd of people showed up to voice opposition to putting wind turbines in MD state parks in the Western side of the state. Strangely, there were no environmentalists at the first meeting. Perhaps at the second meeting on Jan 31, 2008?

Posted 31 January 2008, Hide, Parent, Reply
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RE: Wind Power? by NomadSoul :: NR6

I think as we move into the future, we'll find that there's no one source of power that will work for all areas at all times. Instead, a mix of power sources will reduce environmental impacts as well as add redundancy in case one source fails.

The big problem is when we try to apply a single solution in a large-scale, centralized way. Instead of huge wind-farms, we could put a small windmill and a solar panel on every house, with perhaps smaller centralized facilities to take advantage of favorable environments for wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal power. If we mix that with energy-efficient architecture, we could gradually ween ourselves away from non-renewable fuels.

Posted 31 January 2008, Hide, Parent, Reply