November 5, 2007
Letters, Vermont

I want my money back

What a bunch of baloney. The state, through a series of workshops, is enlisting opinions for shaping choices of electricity sources. Opinions should not shape policy. Educated, thoughtful planning and research should be operative. Jane and John Q. Public are not qualified to shape policy on such a complex matter. Nor are state-level planners, it would seem, since they are the ones who are asking, “What shall we do?”

I am not qualified to shape state policy, but I have been studying aspects of electrical generation for 5 years. As a result, I am adamantly opposed to industrial-scale wind factories on the Nonrenewable mountains in Vermont. I am qualified to say this. Can I therefore contribute to planning future electrical choices for the state? No. I do not know enough to evaluate all the variables. I simply know that wind – for numerous reasons unrelated to or only indirectly related to aesthetics – is not right for Vermont.

I’ve also heard that the workshop materials are biased toward wind power, citing exaggerated benefits and unrealistic capacity factors. Nationally, the feds have been spending gazillions of dollars on experts and studies to answer this same question for many decades. Has the government found the answer? No. How, therefore, can the average citizen presume to know what is best for the state or the nation? The cost of these useless, wasteful workshops and “deliberative polling” ($500,000) is being passed on to each and every one of us. I want my money back.

CYNTHIA BARBER
Newark

Burlington Free Press

5 November 2007


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2007/11/05/i-want-my-money-back/