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TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND ACRES have been destroyed in Washington state alone by Industrial Wind Areas.
I don't have an accurate estimate for Oregon, but with a new project covering a HUNDRED miles north of Bend, Oregon we are probably looking a half a million acres.
Go on Google earth and see how much land is covered by that amount of acreage.
Do we really want to destroy that much of our natural landscapes??
PS. I have NO objection to placing Industrial Windmill areas INSIDE of urban areas.
TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND ACRES have been destroyed in Washington state alone by Industrial Wind Areas.
I don't have an accurate estimate for Oregon, but with a new project covering a HUNDRED miles north of Bend, Oregon we are probably looking a half a million acres.
Go on Google earth and see how much land is covered by that amount of acreage.
Do we really want to destroy that much of our natural landscapes??
PS. I have NO objection to placing Industrial Windmill areas INSIDE of urban areas.
Yes, let's put a wind turbine on top of the Sears Tower, and the Empire State Building, and the Washington Monument, etc.
When I drive up U.S. 191 from Harlowton to Judith Gap, it seems like much of the time the windmills are idle. The same goes for the massive "wind farm" between Cut Bank and Browning near U.S. 2!
If they are not turning, they are useless!
and, FWIW, many of the coastal areas of the USA have high average annual wind energy densities. So the transmission distance and costs would be substantially lower than bringing electricity a thousand or more miles from it's point of generation to it's point of use with all the transmission losses. But the folk who would be using the electricity can't be bothered with the possibility of having their view spoiled by those ugly wind farms.
Nor do they recognize all the wildlife losses due to the wind farms, nor the downtime due to mechanical failures in this industry.
There was a man named Tesla who did a lot of research on this subject, as a result the nation went with high voltage AC power. It is still working today.
Only reason it is so popular at the Corporate Level is the combination of the Recovery.gov Grants + the 2.2 Centavos per kWh tax credit.
And Wind tends to be a little sorry when it comes to Time of Production v. Time of Use. Wind produces best at night (very little power use then) and Spring and Fall -- which are also low demand as there are much smaller Heating or Cooling loads than Winter or Summer.
Give the Grant Money and Tax Credits to General Purpose (not the Huge Utility Arrays) Solar PV and Solar Thermal (which does produce when power is needed, as it closely matches the Daily Use Peak) and we could already be turning off more Coal and Nukes.
Solar does not even need to take up any land -- as overhead cover for parking lots, roof-tops, and placement overhead along roadways (all near places where power is actually used) could handle all the power the US uses -- including replacing the Oil/Internal Combustion Engine Ground Vehicles.
TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND ACRES have been destroyed in Washington state alone by Industrial Wind Areas.
I don't have an accurate estimate for Oregon, but with a new project covering a HUNDRED miles north of Bend, Oregon we are probably looking a half a million acres.
Go on Google earth and see how much land is covered by that amount of acreage.
Do we really want to destroy that much of our natural landscapes??
PS. I have NO objection to placing Industrial Windmill areas INSIDE of urban areas.
Agree it is silly -- as so little power is used in those areas -- it forces the creation of the Second Blight -- Transmission Towers.
(WE) Engineers -- it seems especially Utility Electrical Engineers -- have a hard or slow time with this . . .
You may be a bit interested in this perspective >>>
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