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Old 05-08-2014, 06:53 PM
 
947 posts, read 1,454,724 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mack Knife View Post
Ever lived near a wind farm? Most people that have want desperately to get away from them or have the wind farms move away. Yes, in those European countries too. You bring up an interesting point though, obsolete wind turbines. By the time a wind turbine pays for itself it is old and in need of replacement. Basically, wind turbines are little more than a subsidy consuming prospect.

That misleading angle? How can that be? Think about it.
Actually wind turbines pay for themselves in about five years. Farmers love wind farms.

Does Wind Power Pay Off? Malcolm Brown and the Hull Experiment - Global Business Hub - Boston.com


They have to turn off the turbines in stormy weather because so much power is generated by the turbines it can fire the electrical grid. Tell me have you ever heard of a coal or nuclear power plant generating so much power that it had to be turned off in order to prevent the electrical grid from frying? Nope thought not!

Wind farms paid £30m to shut down during high winds - Telegraph

Last edited by d from birmingham; 05-08-2014 at 07:07 PM..
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Old 05-08-2014, 07:00 PM
 
947 posts, read 1,454,724 times
Reputation: 788
Quote:
Originally Posted by plwhit View Post
Yeah far fewer then other causes.

The problem with Altamont is that the wind turbines are 30 years old. More modern designs wouldn't kill the birds. Also they wouldn't have placed in the migration paths like they were at Altamont.
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Old 05-08-2014, 07:35 PM
 
15,913 posts, read 20,113,661 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by d from birmingham View Post
Yeah far fewer then other causes.

The problem with Altamont is that the wind turbines are 30 years old. More modern designs wouldn't kill the birds. Also they wouldn't have placed in the migration paths like they were at Altamont.
Hmmm, then why are so many people against wind turbines if they are so safe?

It's apparent that you didn't bother to go to the link I posted in #20...

So far wind turbines that don't kill birds are still on the drawing boards:

Quote:
Wind turbines overall kill some 573,000 birds per year including 83,000 birds of prey.

Bats also suffer. Wind turbines killed almost 900,000 bats last year alone.
Some designs are on the boards but far far from going into production:

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php...birds-and-bats

BTW, the top killer of birds is not nuclear, not wind turbines or solar power, it's domestic and feral cats (not that facts matter to you)...

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/10/31/...ven-close-top/

Last edited by plwhit; 05-08-2014 at 07:44 PM..
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Old 05-08-2014, 07:39 PM
 
Location: Minnysoda
10,659 posts, read 10,672,355 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by d from birmingham View Post
Actually wind turbines pay for themselves in about five years. Farmers love wind farms.

Does Wind Power Pay Off? Malcolm Brown and the Hull Experiment - Global Business Hub - Boston.com


They have to turn off the turbines in stormy weather because so much power is generated by the turbines it can fire the electrical grid. Tell me have you ever heard of a coal or nuclear power plant generating so much power that it had to be turned off in order to prevent the electrical grid from frying? Nope thought not!

Wind farms paid £30m to shut down during high winds - Telegraph
Do you happen to live in Colorado?
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Old 05-09-2014, 01:13 AM
 
Location: Volcano
12,969 posts, read 28,257,915 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by plwhit View Post
All we have to do with wind farms is keep on repeating this over and over:
They look like trees, they look like trees...
What a deceptive and misleading post, starting with the selection of misleading old photographs, featuring long obsolete designs, visually compressed by a long telephoto lens to seem like they're on top of each other, when they're really at some distance from each other... and most of that generation have since been replaced. Those look nothing at all like the current generation of wind turbines.

Quote:
And lets not forget that wind farms kills numerous types of birds/endangered species and destroys the natural landscape...
And lets not forget that coal mining and coal burning and coal ash spills and oil drilling and oil spills etc. etc. all kill numerous types of birds/endangered species and destroy the natural landscape AND they pour pollution into the air and water and ground, which wind turbines don't do.

According to the US Forest Service, bird and animals death caused by human activity have been recorded since 1860, when telegraph wires were first observed to kill birds. Since then overhead power lines and power towers and transformers have also been observed to kill birds and animals. But anti-windfarm and anti solar activists have latched onto deaths of birds as if it's a huge bad thing about these energy sources in particular, when its not. Annual bird deaths at windfarms in the US are currently counted in the 100,000s total, while perhaps a million birds a year are killed in oil and gas well west pits, 6.6 million die from running into cell phone and radio and TV towers, 175 million die from flying into power lines, domestic cats and automobiles kill 100s of millions. But wait... what then is the single largest killer of birds in the US?

Buildings are the number 1 killer of birds in the US, estimated to be around a billion a year. We build building, birds fly into them and die.

At least with windfarms researchers are trying to find ways to reduce the bird deaths, including various sonar and radar technologies to detect incoming birds and automatically shut the turbine down momentarily, to trying different techniques to guide them away from the blades, to having human observers watch for birds and shut them down. And in the future sites will be more carefully chosen to avoid sites that are particularly eco-sensitive, such as migratory bird routes and eagle habitats.

When you know all the facts, it should become obvious that the whole bird issue is wildly overblown.

Wind Energy Threat to Birds Is Overblown | EcoWatch

Furthermore, addressing other points raised in the thread, the 30 year old wind turbines at Altamont are being replaced by larger, more powerful, and more bird friendly Second Generation wind turbines. Most of the criticisms raised by others are actually obsolete, and based on old articles. None of this criticism really matters in the least, because as the article I quoted in the opening post to this thread said, wind power is flourishing in the US, and the deployment trend is accelerating. Wind power is clean, renewable energy which can provide a good, healthy portion of our energy portfolio going forward.
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Old 05-09-2014, 01:27 AM
 
Location: Volcano
12,969 posts, read 28,257,915 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by d from birmingham View Post
The problem with Altamont is that the wind turbines are 30 years old.
Were. They're being replaced by modern equipment and many of the old ones are already gone. In the true spirit of REUSE, there is a Bay Area company that is rebuilding them... replacing worn gears and generators... recycling old materials they can't reuse... and then selling the rebuilt turbines at bargain prices to developing countries, which get badly needed generating capacity at half the price that new equipment sells for.

Quote:
More modern designs wouldn't kill the birds. Also they wouldn't have placed in the migration paths like they were at Altamont.
Yes, and yes as far as new installations are concerned. Yes and no as far as Altamont is concerned. The new towers are larger, taller, farther apart, and safer for birds, but are basically at the same sites. The energy potential there is too big to abandon, and the permits are still valid.
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Old 05-09-2014, 02:18 AM
 
Location: Pennsylvania
30,216 posts, read 15,980,059 times
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I've asked a few people who live near these about noise or any other bothers.

They all said if you don't see them, you don't know they're there. I have stood under one while it was going around. Could hardly hear it, and then only after the car engine was turned off.

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Old 05-09-2014, 07:46 AM
 
Location: DC
6,848 posts, read 7,945,147 times
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The people who "hate" wind turbines are the neighbors who don't get royalties.
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Old 05-09-2014, 10:56 AM
509
 
6,272 posts, read 6,920,576 times
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I looked up the NEW energy California brought on-line. 30% was wind and solar....but they needed 70% primarily natural gas to back up the new wind production.

Industrial wind areas do NOT make sense in rural areas.

IF they are so quiet and environmentally safe, put them in our cities and suburbs.
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Old 05-09-2014, 11:39 AM
 
Location: DC
6,848 posts, read 7,945,147 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 509 View Post
I looked up the NEW energy California brought on-line. 30% was wind and solar....but they needed 70% primarily natural gas to back up the new wind production.

Industrial wind areas do NOT make sense in rural areas.

IF they are so quiet and environmentally safe, put them in our cities and suburbs.
The farmers love wind farms. Don't they have a right to lease wind easements on their land?

Last edited by DCforever; 05-09-2014 at 12:17 PM..
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