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Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
10,202 posts, read 7,957,319 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 509
In Washington and Oregon we have destroyed over 500,000 acres by Industrial Wind areas. That is as large as some of the National Parks in those states!!
There are plans to wipe out ANOTHER million acres in the next decade.
... Destroying our mountains and killing endangered species is not a green solution
A dirt road and high tension power lines that follow along the ridge peak, from wind tower to wind tower, is NOT 'destroying' a mountain, nor is it 'endangering' a species.
Land parcels are commonly some shape of rectangle. Ridge peaks run from knoll to knoll and are generally jagged line in the middle of a big rectangle of land.
In such a parcel of land at least 95% of the land should remain undisturbed
In Washington and Oregon we have destroyed over 500,000 acres by Industrial Wind areas.
Destroyed ?
The base around the bottom of a tower is like 50' in diameter. If you have 20 towers, that gives you 20 of these circles of cleared land, plus the dirt road the power lines that connect between them.
Otherwise the remaining 95%+ of the land remains as it was before.
I went to the various wind projects in Washington and Oregon and added the acres. Some of the information is hard to find, but it is there if your willing to do some digging.
Here is an example of proposed projects and their scale:
I suspect very few people even suspect the scale of wind projects in Oregon and Washington since so many of them are in the "endangered shrub-steppe" habitat which is seldom visited except by hunters.
Everybody should visit a Industrial Wind Area. Of course, the areas directly under the turbines are off limits. Is this due to bird deaths?? But even with that, the roads and pads cover an amazing area.
For those that think there is no wildlife impact.....check studies on habitat fragmentation. Industrial Wind Areas convert wildlife habitat into biological deserts.
A dirt road and high tension power lines that follow along the ridge peak, from wind tower to wind tower, is NOT 'destroying' a mountain, nor is it 'endangering' a species.
Land parcels are commonly some shape of rectangle. Ridge peaks run from knoll to knoll and are generally jagged line in the middle of a big rectangle of land.
In such a parcel of land at least 95% of the land should remain undisturbed
It all remains as wildlife habitat.
If you zoom in on the google map I linked to, that's a paved road as large as many of our highways here. Those are 450 foot towers along a paved road blasted into the top of a mountain.
You are completely wrong here. There is a distinct difference ecologically between high and low elevation areas. Species that exist at higher elevations don't live on lower elevations. Species like Bicknell's thrush, which only exists on scattered mountains in the northeast. Clear and develop those areas and that bird is gone. Period. Extinct. And that is but one example. We also have others. We have plants at high elevations here that you would only see otherwise by going hundreds of mile north to Arctic tundra. Moose climb the mountains here in hot weather to escape the heat. Bears frequent beech trees there. In the southern Appalachians, spruce can only occur at high elevations as it is intolerant of the high heat in the lowlands there. These ecological issues are why we put in place protections for our high elevation areas decades ago, which the energy companies lobbied for and won an exemption to. You couldn't put a road in and a small house on top of that mountain with a difficult permit above a certain elevation in Vermont, but an energy company came in and was exempt from the same requirement.
Many wildlife species will not cross that highway equivalent or tolerate the development. American marten has serious trouble when the habitat becomes fragmented with large openings and not enough connectivity of cover.
The mountain you see at a place like Lowell, Vermont is not the mountain that was once there. They've blasted that to level it on top for those towers and to put the road up it. Putting a large paved road like that and those clearings on top causes a change in runoff and flow of water, leading to erosion, silting of nearby streams, etc.
Landscapes look better for sure ........See the dawn of the wind turbine wind farms , is proof of that this is the end of the industrial revolution which lasted 3 hundred years , which was the smoky chimney coming out of the factories for many years ......... I don`t know it the wind turbine age will be better or just short lived , and I probably will never know ..........One question I see is the steel and metals and glass foundries which were coal and natural gas will now have to make their own electricity to melt the iron and process it , ..as the price of electricity today will close these business , and the jet plane will eventually be completely grounded as the fuel will be outlawed
One question I see is the steel and metals and glass foundries which were coal and natural gas will now have to make their own electricity to melt the iron and process it , ..as the price of electricity today will close these business . . . .
That is likely some extreme projection and extrapolation.
For Heat, Solar Thermal works fine, and is among the Cheapest option there is.
But Aluminum is the more likely desired metal, over steel.
Presently there are periods of time where Electricity Generation (in particular from Big Wind) is so surplus, the Producers have to pay the Grid Operators just to take the surplus. Really, no joke.
Quote:
and the jet plane will eventually be completely grounded as the fuel will be outlawed
Jet plane is more likely to be grounded due to lack of demand. The Ground-Based Hyper-Loop is faster, cleaner, cheaper and can be easily operated from existing Renewable.
Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
10,202 posts, read 7,957,319 times
Reputation: 4561
Quote:
Originally Posted by 509
I went to the various wind projects in Washington and Oregon and added the acres. Some of the information is hard to find, but it is there if your willing to do some digging.
Here is an example of proposed projects and their scale:
I suspect very few people even suspect the scale of wind projects in Oregon and Washington since so many of them are in the "endangered shrub-steppe" habitat which is seldom visited except by hunters.
Everybody should visit a Industrial Wind Area. Of course, the areas directly under the turbines are off limits. Is this due to bird deaths?? But even with that, the roads and pads cover an amazing area.
For those that think there is no wildlife impact.....check studies on habitat fragmentation. Industrial Wind Areas convert wildlife habitat into biological deserts.
I cannot see how they, and you, come up with the huge acreage you are quoting, unless you are taking the outside perimeter, and suggesting everything inside is used. That is not being realistic at all. I have a number of wind farms in my area, mostly on Hutterite land. I can guarantee you if the Hutterites thought it would impact their farming income, those wind farms would not exist.
I cannot see how they, and you, come up with the huge acreage you are quoting, unless you are taking the outside perimeter, and suggesting everything inside is used. That is not being realistic at all. I have a number of wind farms in my area, mostly on Hutterite land. I can guarantee you if the Hutterites thought it would impact their farming income, those wind farms would not exist.
It is about destruction of habitat.
TEN THOUSAND years from now those wind projects will still be around from all the habitat destruction. Remember those pads and roads remove soil and leave rock in place.
I have NO PROBLEM with Industrial Wind Areas in farm or urban areas. But I draw the line at Wild Places. Do you support damming the National Parks as well??? This was a real mistake and that environmental city of San Francisco thinks it just fine!!!
BUT do we really have to destroy our remaining wild lands to generate electricity that does not make economic sense?? Generates little power and destroys the planet??
Here is the chart for power generation in the northwest. Do we really need wind except as a government subsidy for rich folks??
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