It's time for some humans to end themsleves.

armchair_warrior

Subject: It's time for some humans to end themsleves.

fossil fuels aren't good, wind too noisy and ugly, solar destroy desert ecology, horses aren't treated humanely etc.. they might as well go buck naked and shoot themselves.



Like the Lindgrens, many of the people complaining the loudest are reluctant converts to the antiwind movement.

“The quality of life that we came here for was quiet,” Mrs. Lindgren said. “You don’t live in a place where you have to take an hour-and-15-minute ferry ride to live next to an industrial park. And that’s where we are right now.”

The wind industry has long been dogged by a vocal minority bearing all manner of complaints about turbines, from routine claims that they ruin the look of pastoral landscapes to more elaborate allegations that they have direct physiological impacts like rapid heart beat, nausea and blurred vision caused by the machines’ ultra-low-frequency sound and vibrations.

For the most extreme claims, there is little independent backing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/business/energy-environment/06noise.html?_r=1&hp

boygabriel

wind too noisy and ugly,

As opposed to coal power, which is where the US gets 50% of its power?

Wind seems to me to be probably the least of a whole bunch of evils.

The country's #1 priority should be a reduction of energy usage. But after that, wind is also a good idea.

armchair_warrior

per capita Americans use way too much. and disingenuous complain about others national usage not per capita.

whynot_31

Wind energy is interesting in that it must be located in the areas where the wealthy also want to be located:

By the water
On top of the mountain
etc.

.....energy is much easier to produce when we can have most of the externalities borne by the poor.

I can run my A/C all summer longer because I know that the coal plant is surrounded by folks I don't know. (ouch)

[please apply sarcasm before Godwin-ing me. k thx]

boygabriel

Agree with both of you.

booklaw

We recently spent some time in Brittany, France. While we were driving through the insanely beautiful countryside, what did we see? Two separate installations, each of three giant wind turbines. Not on mountains, but on what I'd call high hills.

If the French can deal with the NIMBY problem, why is it so much more difficult for us to do so?

boygabriel

b/c the French don't have a pathological obsession with denying the existence of energy issues?

booklaw

Perhaps the French don't have oil and coal companies as powerful as ours.

whynot_31

How about "all of the above" plus the French don't have a rural underclass that they can effectively dump on?

.....their rural citizens are able to tolerate some noise because they believe that others would do the same for them? The whole belief in a "Social Contract".

Whereas many of our rich (dare I say mostly white?) people think they have the right to be free from any obligations to the larger society as a result of their wealth and (ahem) "birthright" ?

....and, meanwhile many of our country's poor (dare I say non-white?) people feel this windmill is only happening to them because they are poor (non-white, etc) ?

Booklaw-
France sounds nice. I might move to France. I like the big tower in Paris.

vidro3

whynot_31 wrote: "Social Contract".

Rousseau, that's a French name, right?

whynot_31

vidro3 wrote: [quote=whynot_31]"Social Contract".

Rousseau, that's a French name, right?
sounds it.

I've also heard lots of French expressions that describe the situation we are in.

Windmills aren't going to put a dent in the gap between demand and supply, but they are a start. I'm all for starts....

armchair_warrior

since you folks brought up french thinkers. you know Voltaire was inspired by Chinese philosophy and works. he read the translated works from Jesuits. very rarely acknowledge in the west.

eggcream

whynot_31 wrote: How about "all of the above" plus the French don't have a rural underclass that they can effectively dump on?

.....their rural citizens are able to tolerate some noise because they believe that others would do the same for them? The whole belief in a "Social Contract".

Whereas many of our rich (dare I say mostly white?) people think they have the right to be free from any obligations to the larger society as a result of their wealth and (ahem) "birthright" ?

....and, meanwhile many of our country's poor (dare I say non-white?) people feel this windmill is only happening to them because they are poor (non-white, etc) ?

Booklaw-
France sounds nice. I might move to France. I like the big tower in Paris.

Dare you say? I'd be shocked if a lib didn't bring up the rich white versus the po' black folk. I didn't realize there were a lot of po' black folk in Ted Kennedy's backyard when he said no to these useless turbines.

Oh, and France, you might want to rethink your move as they get 75% of their electricity from nuclear power. Pretty much the only smart thing they do.

Just another lib feel good waste of money making the unions and algore rich..

Wind power is a complete disaster

April 08, 2009


There is no evidence that industrial wind power is likely to have a significant impact on carbon emissions. The European experience is instructive. Denmark, the world’s most wind-intensive nation, with more than 6,000 turbines generating 19% of its electricity, has yet to close a single fossil-fuel plant. It requires 50% more coal-generated electricity to cover wind power’s unpredictability, and pollution and carbon dioxide emissions have risen (by 36% in 2006 alone).

Flemming Nissen, the head of development at West Danish generating company ELSAM (one of Denmark’s largest energy utilities) tells us that “wind turbines do not reduce carbon dioxide emissions.” The German experience is no different. Der Spiegel reports that “Germany’s CO2 emissions haven’t been reduced by even a single gram,” and additional coal- and gas-fired plants have been constructed to ensure reliable delivery.

Indeed, recent academic research shows that wind power may actually increase greenhouse gas emissions in some cases, depending on the carbon-intensity of back-up generation required because of its intermittent character. On the negative side of the environmental ledger are adverse impacts of industrial wind turbines on birdlife and other forms of wildlife, farm animals, wetlands and viewsheds.

Industrial wind power is not a viable economic alternative to other energy conservation options. Again, the Danish experience is instructive. Its electricity generation costs are the highest in Europe (15¢/kwh compared to Ontario’s current rate of about 6¢). Niels Gram of the Danish Federation of Industries says, “windmills are a mistake and economically make no sense.” Aase Madsen , the Chair of Energy Policy in the Danish Parliament, calls it “a terribly expensive disaster.”

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported in 2008, on a dollar per MWh basis, the U.S. government subsidizes wind at $23.34 — compared to reliable energy sources: natural gas at 25¢; coal at 44¢; hydro at 67¢; and nuclear at $1.59, leading to what some U.S. commentators call “a huge corporate welfare feeding frenzy.” The Wall Street Journal advises that “wind generation is the prime example of what can go wrong when the government decides to pick winners.”

The Economist magazine notes in a recent editorial, “Wasting Money on Climate Change,” that each tonne of emissions avoided due to subsidies to renewable energy such as wind power would cost somewhere between $69 and $137, whereas under a cap-and-trade scheme the price would be less than $15.

Either a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system creates incentives for consumers and producers on a myriad of margins to reduce energy use and emissions that, as these numbers show, completely overwhelm subsidies to renewables in terms of cost effectiveness.

The Ontario Power Authority advises that wind producers will be paid 13.5¢/kwh (more than twice what consumers are currently paying), even without accounting for the additional costs of interconnection, transmission and back-up generation. As the European experience confirms, this will inevitably lead to a dramatic increase in electricity costs with consequent detrimental effects on business and employment. From this perspective, the government’s promise of 55,000 new jobs is a cruel delusion.

A recent detailed analysis (focusing mainly on Spain) finds that for every job created by state-funded support of renewables, particularly wind energy, 2.2 jobs are lost. Each wind industry job created cost almost $2-million in subsidies. Why will the Ontario experience be different?

In debates over climate change, and in particular subsidies to renewable energy, there are two kinds of green. First there are some environmental greens who view the problem as so urgent that all measures that may have some impact on greenhouse gas emissions, whatever their cost or their impact on the economy and employment, should be undertaken immediately.

Then there are the fiscal greens, who, being cool to carbon taxes and cap-and-trade systems that make polluters pay, favour massive public subsidies to themselves for renewable energy projects, whatever their relative impact on greenhouse gas emissions. These two groups are motivated by different kinds of green. The only point of convergence between them is their support for massive subsidies to renewable energy (such as wind turbines).

This unholy alliance of these two kinds of greens (doomsdayers and rent seekers) makes for very effective, if opportunistic, politics (as reflected in the Ontario government’s Green Energy Act), just as it makes for lousy public policy: Politicians attempt to pick winners at our expense in a fast-moving technological landscape, instead of creating a socially efficient set of incentives to which we can all respond.

Financial Post
Michael J. Trebilcock is Professor of Law and Economics, University of Toronto.

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/04/08/wind-power-is-a-complete-disaster.aspx#ixzz11bUZ92FZ

boygabriel

eggcream wrote: Dare you say? I'd be shocked if a lib didn't bring up the rich white versus the po' black folk. I didn't realize there were a lot of po' black folk in Ted Kennedy's backyard when he said no to these useless turbines.

That was precisely Whynot's point. You have pretty severe reading comprehension issues.

whynot_31

But we are afraid of nuclear power.... And likely have to go thru a period in which we annoy some rich people, and generate a few dinky KWs before we are ready to think about Nuclear.

I'm just annoyed I didn't buy stock in the companies that are benefitting from this.

....what happens when people realize they need power from a convential source when there is no wind? Or sun? (can I discuss solar panels and wind power in the same paragraph?

Let's nuke 'em all

whynot_31

Um, nuke power them all.

whynot_31

Now if the court will please give me imminent domain, I'll proceed to violate the property rights of the nearest suitable site, and then be accused of being a socialist. It'll be great

booklaw

WhyNot, you seem to be talking to yourself, now!

Time for a mental health check?

whynot_31

booklaw wrote: WhyNot, you seem to be talking to yourself, now!

Time for a mental health check?

I look normal to me.

I agree with Boygabriel, it is sad when someone says "all of the above" and is believed by some readers to have only a limited view. Reading comprehension is important.

.....so are real keyboards. Today's Wisdom From Whynot is brought to you largely via iPhone. Hence, lots of short posts as opposed to a few looooooong posts.