Time to learn from mistakes of others
Bluefield Daily Telegraph, bdtonline.com 30 January 2011
The windmill debate goes on and on. Despite the rapidly growing and overwhelming evidence that turbines are inefficient and unreliable, some continue to encourage their introduction here, against the will of a great majority of residents.
A relative who travels widely was last month in the “low countries,” the home of Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates and the windmill. He said that everywhere you go, there are windmills, with one in three standing like a skeleton, leaking oil and not functional. They are not building any more.
Additionally, they act as bat and bird vacuums. If you hate bats and birds, you will like windmills. The other objection, the low frequency noise that travels miles and may cause mental disturbances and extreme annoyance, will not be audible to the folks who leave them here to rot. Will we like this oil used to lubricate them in our water supply? They use a lot.
Does it make sense to pay the Chinese a million dollars for a turbine they produce with coal that they make no effort to burn “cleanly,” and that they quickly lend back to us so that we can spend it on social programs. Meanwhile, our EPA does everything in its unlimited power to keep coal and oil in the ground, where they believe it belongs.
The only people who are promoting these monstrosities are people who expect to profit from renting or selling their land, or those who receive the “stimulus” (i.e., your tax money), to buy and install them. Of course, there are a few who have the magical belief that they are getting “free energy.” Too bad, every place that builds them to lower their power cost ends up with a surprise increase.
Like our attempt to follow the European Union in their failing economic and health care systems, we seem to learn slowly, or not at all, from the mistakes and fads of others.
Stephen DeGray
Bluefield, Va.
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/01/30/time-to-learn-from-mistakes-of-others/