European Tribune - Comments - The future of power generation

The future of power generation | 46 comments (46 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: US outlook good, but oh, our politicians! (none / 1)

I know a couple people on the cape. Their environmentalist credentials are not in doubt, and they are opposed to the wind farm on the cape for a list of reasons.

It is using public money and public land for the enrichment of the private corporation building the wind turbines.
The company never consulted with any of the locals (towns, etc) in asking for input on the wind farms.
The company would use out-of-area people to build and maintain the turbines, instead of local people (unemployment is relatively high on the cape). The turbines wouldn't bring very much money to the cape either.
The placement of the turbines will harm local fisheries. The wind company has refused to place the wind turbines further off shore where they would not interfere with fish due to the higher cost, despite public financing.
Apparantly the turbines will need a several thousand gallon petroleum tank, which, if it spilled, would be an ecological disaster.

I don't consider myself well-enough informed on this particular wind farm; this is what my two friends have said. They are strongly for wind-farms in general and also acknowledge that they're in the minority in opposing the turbines.

I read 'dinosaur blogs'.

by a517dogg (adrian [dot] r [dot] martin [at] gmail [dot] com) on Mon Jul 11th, 2005 at 02:27:58 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: US outlook good, but oh, our politicians! (none / 1)

I used to live on Cape Cod, and understand these arguments. But they basically boil down to Not In My Backyard.

Electric power generation in Massachusetts is all done by private companies; why should this be any different?
Sure they did.
It is true that the very powerful Massachusetts labor lobby likes to try to get all projects to use a local unionized workforce. This is an ongoing issue in Mass in general and not specifically related to wind power.
The fish don't care about the turbine foundations.
I don't know anything about the turbines needing fuel oil, but every single boat out there has an oil tank and they spill stuff all the time. I would think it pretty easy, in comparison, to put a double-walled oil tank on a fixed platform...

All you really need to know is that the REALLY rich folks live on Nantucket (or, actually, have "cottages" there), and the view of the towers from Nantucket is not too bad. So they'll support it, from their winter houses in L.A. and NYC. ;-)
http://www.capewind.org/index.php

by asdf on Mon Jul 11th, 2005 at 02:43:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: US outlook good, but oh, our politicians! (none / 0)

asdf addressed all points, I just add that off-shore wind farms built in Europe actually led to an increase in fish stocks - presumably, due to new habitat on the foundations, and less harrassment from boats.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Mon Jul 11th, 2005 at 04:05:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]

The future of power generation | 46 comments (46 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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