The case for wind farms

[DanG 1]

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Sure as long as you make everyone who got any money from the government over the last century pay it back.

That would be a level playing field.

Logic class was many years ago, but I think your using reductum ad absurdum or something like that.

In other words, your argument is silly.

- Dan G

[billvon 2,991]

>So, you're saying that they'll no longer have to abide by the EPA regs, since they'll be
>paying directly for those "epidemiological problems"?

Good question actually, since EPA is intended primarily to prevent those problems.

Overall, yes. If everyone met the same pollution standards then the 'external costs' that make coal more expensive would be accounted for - and the problems caused by pollution would be reduced below the noise level. Unfortunately, coal is currently allowed to pollute far more than other fossil fuel power plants, and thus that external cost is not accounted for. But I agree that both ways would work in terms of equal competition.

[mnealtx 0]

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Sure as long as you make everyone who got any money from the government over the last century pay it back.

That would be a level playing field.

Logic class was many years ago, but I think your using reductum ad absurdum or something like that.

In other words, your argument is silly.

How is it any more silly than yours?

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[lawrocket 3]

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it is unfair to complain about subsidies for emerging technologies but be okay with past subsidies (and continuing, completely ridiculous subsidies) to established technologies.

Sure. Let's go back to the 1940's, which is when the Federal government took over research and science. Before then you had basement tinkerers and inventors and coal power was well known, as was gas, etc. Nuclear power came in and the first reactor was Fermi. Of course, these come well after windmills were used to mill wheat and pump water.

One thing to note: "subsidies" are ways of picking winners and losers. It's political. Who gets a subsidy?

Note, of course, that electricity is a different matter. Electricity is a utility and is regulated on state and federal levels. The governments have TAKEN electricity out of the private realm and made the generation and distribution of it quasi-governmental.

Thus, the government has picked and chosen winners throughout. I myself think that 70 years of wrongs doesn't mean that we keep doing it. I also think that cutting the companies loose and seeing how they do without taxpayers covering their sorry asses would also be worthwhile.

Pay it back? No. But on your own now? Yep.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[Trafficdiver 8]

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Sure as long as you make everyone who got any money from the government over the last century pay it back.

That would be a level playing field.

Logic class was many years ago, but I think your using reductum ad absurdum or something like that.

In other words, your argument is silly.

I was using it to show the absurdity of your argument.

[billvon 2,991]

>I myself think that 70 years of wrongs doesn't mean that we keep doing it.

Hmm. I wouldn't consider nuclear power, spaceflight, the Internet and solar power to be "70 years of wrongs."

[ryoder 1,590]

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Wind energy is awesome!

No it's not ... iit's an eye sore (on land)

I guess you've never driven across Kansas, Texas or Nebraska.

I did.
It was part of a sensory deprivation experiment.

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[masterrig 1]

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Wind energy is awesome!

No it's not ... it's an expensive waste of time (at the moment) - it's an eye sore (on land) and a blight.

I totally agree! I just love driving across West Texas and have to look at those damned things!
Myquestion is, with all those windmills... how many are really producing power?


Chuck

[brenthutch 444]

About half as much as they would be if they were not slaughtering endangered species.

http://www.centredaily.com/2011/10/18/2954539/w-pa-windmills-stopped-at-night.html

[brenthutch 444]

Make that twice as much.

[masterrig 1]

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About half as much as they would be if they were not slaughtering endangered species.

http://www.centredaily.com/2011/10/18/2954539/w-pa-windmills-stopped-at-night.html

That mentions just one member of an endangered species. With all the 'wind farms', I wonder how many more species are killed that we don't hear about because someone really, really wants those contraptions out there?


Chuck

[shropshire 0]

In the U,K the land owners want them - because they get paid BIG 'BUCKS' (£) - but the rest of us have to pay a premium for 'GREEN' energy and the people who live near by have to put up with their property prices being wrecked because they are ugly, noisy PoS.

Someone should blow a few of these fucker up and start a trend.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[billvon 2,991]

>Someone should blow a few of these fucker up and start a trend.

Cool. First they ignore you, then they mock you, then they attack you, then you win. Wind has definitely moved into the third stage of that.

[mnealtx 0]

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>Someone should blow a few of these fucker up and start a trend.

Cool. First they ignore you, then they mock you, then they attack you, then you win. Wind has definitely moved into the third stage of that.

So has skepticism.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[lawrocket 3]

Well, he makes a valid point. The same thing was said about nuisance from coal, which required remediation. Now nuisances are commended because they don't pollute the way coal does.

This is where I come back to values and subjective importance. Better to kills bats and birds than have a reef bleach. Better to cause sound pollution than to add CO2 to the air. Better to affect the scenery where people are than to have ice melting in the arctic. Better to distribute money to energy companies and the landed from the consumer because it's green.

Those are but some of the choices. And if a person views those as matters of importance than good on them. But it's not a matter of being anti-environment or an AGW denier if the neighbors object. Maybe they just want to sleep better at night because they are the big losers in the deal.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[masterrig 1]

It's probably similar here... some folks will do anything for a buck. Here, it's kinda depressing to see what were once open mesas are now covered with wind turbines. Supposedly, they are there to bring us citizens cheaper electric power yet, our rates just keep going up.


Chuck

[kallend 2,027]

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it is unfair to complain about subsidies for emerging technologies but be okay with past subsidies (and continuing, completely ridiculous subsidies) to established technologies.

Sure. Let's go back to the 1940's, which is when the Federal government took over research and science. Before then you had basement tinkerers and inventors and coal power was well known, as was gas, etc. Nuclear power came in and the first reactor was Fermi. Of course, these come well after windmills were used to mill wheat and pump water.

Do you refer to Enrico Fermi's experimental (non power generating) reactor built in the heart of a major city - a stupid idea if ever there was one -
or the "Fermi 1" nuke plant near Detroit that suffered a partial melt down in 1966?

BTW, the first nuclear power reactor wasn't Fermi - it was Experimental Breeder Reactor EBR-I in Arco, Idaho, USA, which illuminated four light bulbs!


The nuclear power plant APS-1 with a net electrical output of 5 MW was connected to the Russian power grid in 1954.

The first commercial nuclear power plant was Calder Hall 1, England, with a net electrical output of 50 MW, which went online in 1956.

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One thing to note: "subsidies" are ways of picking winners and losers. It's political. Who gets a subsidy?

Note, of course, that electricity is a different matter. Electricity is a utility and is regulated on state and federal levels. The governments have TAKEN electricity out of the private realm and made the generation and distribution of it quasi-governmental.

Thus, the government has picked and chosen winners throughout. I myself think that 70 years of wrongs doesn't mean that we keep doing it. I also think that cutting the companies loose and seeing how they do without taxpayers covering their sorry asses would also be worthwhile.

Pay it back? No. But on your own now? Yep.

If a power utility screws up it's not just the stockholders who lose. Our society doesn't function well when the power goes out.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[lawrocket 3]

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Do you refer to Enrico Fermi's experimental (non power generating) reactor built in the heart of a major city - a stupid idea if ever there was one -
or the "Fermi 1" nuke plant near Detroit that suffered a partial melt down in 1966?

BTW, the first nuclear power reactor wasn't Fermi - it was Experimental Breeder Reactor EBR-I in Arco, Idaho, USA, which illuminated four light bulbs!


The nuclear power plant APS-1 with a net electrical output of 5 MW was connected to the Russian power grid in 1954.

The first commercial nuclear power plant was Calder Hall 1, England, with a net electrical output of 50 MW, which went online in 1956.

I did not know that. Thanks!

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If a power utility screws up it's not just the stockholders who lose. Our society doesn't function well when the power goes out.

I agree. I'm not saying that there is no reason for government intervention. My point was that government intervention and utilities are inextricable. Saying that utilities benefited from government is true. It can also be argued that they suffered from government due to controls on prices and profits, etc.

That was my point.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[rushmc 23]

This thread is about wind farms

(you want a thread about solar talk about the one Obama backed)

Anyway
You can trade one pollution for another I guess

When I was looking to buy an ackerage in NW Iowa I refused to look at any that were within a half mile of a turbine
The noise is extremely irritating.
Then, as I helped my brother in law farm as I was driving away from one of these beasts, with the sun behind me, the shadow flicker made me nauseous.

Clean and wonder fuckers huh

Just ask those who have property for sale here (who still have it for sale and have law suits against the owners of the beasts because of the same reason I did not look) think of them

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[kallend 2,027]

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This thread is about wind farms

(you want a thread about solar talk about the one Obama backed)

Anyway
You can trade one pollution for another I guess

When I was looking to buy an ackerage in NW Iowa I refused to look at any that were within a half mile of a turbine
The noise is extremely irritating.
Then, as I helped my brother in law farm as I was driving away from one of these beasts, with the sun behind me, the shadow flicker made me nauseous.

Clean and wonder fuckers huh

Just ask those who have property for sale here (who still have it for sale and have law suits against the owners of the beasts because of the same reason I did not look) think of them

I wonder how many people living downwind of a wind turbine have DIED of emphysema. How many miners have died obtaining the fuel?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[billvon 2,991]

>You can trade one pollution for another I guess

Yes, you can. The smart money is on the technology that pollutes the least.

>When I was looking to buy an ackerage in NW Iowa I refused to look at any that
>were within a half mile of a turbine . . .

Cool. Drives the price of land down so that some farmer can buy it, graze his cows on it and rent it out to wind turbine companies. He makes out like a bandit.

>Then, as I helped my brother in law farm as I was driving away from one of these
>beasts, with the sun behind me, the shadow flicker made me nauseous.

I'll take a flicker over emphysema any day.

[rushmc 23]

Quote

Quote

This thread is about wind farms

(you want a thread about solar talk about the one Obama backed)

Anyway
You can trade one pollution for another I guess

When I was looking to buy an ackerage in NW Iowa I refused to look at any that were within a half mile of a turbine
The noise is extremely irritating.
Then, as I helped my brother in law farm as I was driving away from one of these beasts, with the sun behind me, the shadow flicker made me nauseous.

Clean and wonder fuckers huh

Just ask those who have property for sale here (who still have it for sale and have law suits against the owners of the beasts because of the same reason I did not look) think of them

I wonder how many people living downwind of a wind turbine have DIED of emphysema. How many miners have died obtaining the fuel?

Still waiting for the obit that shows that power plant emissions killed someone

I have asked you before

You got anecdotal opinion only that can be refuted

Such a shame for someone that claims science to be their forte.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 23]

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>You can trade one pollution for another I guess

Yes, you can. The smart money is on the technology that pollutes the least.

>When I was looking to buy an ackerage in NW Iowa I refused to look at any that
>were within a half mile of a turbine . . .

Cool. Drives the price of land down so that some farmer can buy it, graze his cows on it and rent it out to wind turbine companies. He makes out like a bandit.

>Then, as I helped my brother in law farm as I was driving away from one of these
>beasts, with the sun behind me, the shadow flicker made me nauseous.

I'll take a flicker over emphysema any day.

See my reply to kallend and keep your self righteousness for your mirror

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[Southern_Man 0]

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I totally agree! I just love driving across West Texas and have to look at those damned things!
Myquestion is, with all those windmills... how many are really producing power?


Chuck

Yeah, because oil wells are so attractive...

"What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

[Amazon 7]

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I totally agree! I just love driving across West Texas and have to look at those damned things!
Myquestion is, with all those windmills... how many are really producing power?


Chuck

Yeah, because oil wells are so attractive...

Not to mention the stench of them either... I wonder how many thousands of cases of cancer... all that wonderful effluent from all that smell of oil and its components everywhere out there. Polluted air... polluted water... oh thats ok.. it's just business.