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Critics of movement point to potential toll
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Surprising as it may seem, making the wind work for a living is not without critics.
A simple Google search for anti-wind power sentiment reveals no lack of detractors claiming the effort will result in unreliable power, creation of ruinous mountain access roads, noise levels akin to O’Hare’s jet terminal, mammoth structures that wreck scenic coastal areas and pristine mountain ridges, birds and bats killed by the score and wildlife driven elsewhere in search of peace.
Moreover, according to Eric Rosenbloom of Kirby, Vt., a critic of the budding wind-power industry based upon the sheer number of Internet objections he’s lodged, wind power is, well, overblown.
It just won’t reliably provide power in quantities needed to make a dent in the domestic demand for electricity.
What’s needed?
According to Rosenbloom energy conservation is the more important endeavor and won’t result in the “industrial depredations of yet more roads, power plants, transformers and transmission lines,” as he suggested three years ago in the Internet journal titled: Grist, Environmental News and Commentary.
But thus far wind power appears to be finding more friends than foes, an affection doubtless borne of staggering gasoline and home heating and cooling costs.
That’s why occasional attempts to undercut the infant wind-power movement by smothering it in its cradle have been turned back.
Take the Senate’s 2005 defeat of a bill that would have eliminated the Production Tax Credit, the principal support mechanism for wind power projects. The bill failed 63-32. It would have choked off PTC support for wind farms built within 20 miles of coastlines, military bases, national parks or other highly scenic areas.
The most ardent advocates of wind-power generation are self-described environmentalists. Oddly, perhaps, many of its most vocal opponents are as well.
4 February 2008
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