April 29, 2011
Illinois, Letters

Comments on commercial wind energy

www.oglecountynews.com 29 April 2011www.oglecountynews.com 29 April 2011

Commercial wind energy is much less efficient than other sources of energy and it is an unreliable, unpredictable, and uncontrollable energy source.

It is the only commercial energy source that must have a back-up energy source for 70 – 80 percent of the time when the wind doesn’t blow hard enough, or when it blows too hard and industrial wind turbines have to be shut down.

Therefore the cost of energy to the customers (us) is driven substantially higher by adding commercial wind energy.

So you might ask, “Isn’t the extra cost worth cleaner energy?” My reply is, “No.” Because the wind doesn’t always blow, it requires a back-up with conventional gas or coal-fired generators to offset wind’s unreliability.

Wind energy does not substantially reduce CO2 emissions. The reduction is in the 2 percent range.

I think we could obtain greater reductions while spending less money by putting resources into making our conventional energy sources less polluting.

Billions and billions of taxpayer dollars is being spent on wind energy and we’re not getting much of a bang for our bucks.

When you consider the side effects on people, livestock, and wildlife that are caused by the commercial wind energy systems, wind energy is even less attractive and not an efficient use of our dollars.

Quality of life and health are significantly impacted by the environmental and landscape changes, by noise, sound, shadow flicker, and by interference with television and communication systems.

In our area, large amounts of precious tillable farmland are taken out of production and that drives up the cost of food to consumers and decreases our bounty for export.

The huge wind turbine towers interfere with the ability to apply treatments to fields by airplane that can result in crop loss.

In its present form, commercial wind energy systems do not make good sense.

I think that the public and our legislators have been sold a bill of goods by the wind industry lobbyists and big financial bankers who benefit by raking in huge profits, and who receive enormous taxpayer subsidies that are free money to them.

I can’t find the benefit to the taxpayer, citizen, and resident that’s worth the cost of commercial wind energy systems.

Jim Milligan

Kings

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