By Glen Turner – Special to the Sydenham Current
Does anyone else get at all confused by the ongoing discussions, columns, articles and demonstrations about the wind turbines?
I’m still of two minds about them.
On one hand, I’m impressed with the engineering, the technology and the SIZE of the things.
One day, a few years back, I had to follow a flatbed transport truck, which was carrying a SINGLE BLADE for a turbine. It covered the entire truck.
And, the technological and engineering skills just to build something so incredibly large, yet sensitive enough to react to even a gust of wind… WOW.
On the OTHER hand, I think that, in numbers, they are a blight on the horizon.
On this flat land of ours, you can see them for miles; yet it bothers me most when I’m cruising the rivers in my boat, and reach a beautiful stretch where there is no sign of human activity – no houses, roads, buildings of any sort, just beautiful nature – except for a damned wind turbine! It certainly spoils the moment.
The energy debate is the other side of the coin, so to speak.
On one hand, we should be thrilled that more electricity, generated by wind, means less needs to be produced by coal-fired or nuclear plants.
On the other hand, there is the possible environmental damage to bird migration routes, human health and so on.
Not to mention the loss of farmland, however minimal, to build these turbines.
I’ll be doing a lot more research, of course, to satisfy my own mind and my own curiosity, but it does seem that the lines are already drawn.
So many people are opposed to wind turbines, yet government levels seem to have no difficulty approving
more and more of them around here.
Input would be appreciated.
BALANCED input would be better 🙂
Unfortunate that the community housing the turbines and experiencing the cons of the installations does not benefit as a whole! The land owners are compensated for the loss of revenue from their land involved; however, they have to buy the energy produced the same as all of us, with the profit distributed in many cases internationally as well as a penalty we pay for on our hydro bill for surplus energy produced .Hard to figure what is fair in our battle to save the environment!
I feel strongly that locally owned co-operatves should be the environmental friendly energy producers.
Please research the amount of bird deaths, but especially bat deaths. We need bats to control things like Mosquitos
Wind farms need govt subsidies, cause a rise in your power bills, and don’t always operate when electricity is needed, therefore they need backup power, by coal or hydro or nuclear. China is adding many new coal plants. If climate change was really caused by humans, wind power is not the answer. Look to the pollution caused by building them and the cement platforms. Germany is phasing out more wind power. They are also the biggest eyesore to a once beautiful landscape.