Wind energy far from a panacea
www.htrnews.com 28 September 2011
The Herald Times Reporter on Sept. 21 reported that the Manitowoc County Board voted 14-8 not to stop construction of electrical energy supplying wind turbine towers. I hope the voters were not allowed to vote if they owned stock in Broadwind Power, which manufactures the steel towers at the old shipyards site.
Wind turbines or solar panels do not replace coal or natural gas power plants, so why would anyone support them? Only because the U.S. government is subsidizing the cost with our tax dollars.
The local politicians think they are getting something free. Wind power is not reliable and must have standard natural gas, coal or nuclear power plants to back them up. These power plants cannot be shut off but must be kept running because it takes hours or maybe days to get up to the temperatures to function. You cannot store electric power but power grids are spread all over the country.
Wind power advocates become very defensive when they are reminded of the noise produced by the turbines or low frequency thumping noise that may be caused when the blades pass the structural support. In France and England the turbines are required to be built about a mile from homes. The killing of large numbers of birds have also been reported, especially hawks, owls and eagles. Bats also fall victim to the blades.
Dick Schleis
Kiel
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/09/28/wind-energy-far-from-a-panacea/