Wind farm a proven bad bet for Hoosiers
The Journal Gazette, www.journalgazette.net 3 November 2011
This letter is in response to a letter written Sept. 14 by Joe Malfait in regard to industrial wind turbines. Malfait mentioned that he had a great experience placing 43-story wind turbines on his property. However, when I started researching these energy facilities ,I found out a couple interesting points.
First, these are primarily made overseas in China and Spain and millions are spent on transporting – so why are we, yet again, sending jobs to foreign countries?
Secondly, there are 60 trucks full of cement per wind turbine, plus steel and rebar. That is an incredible amount of carbon dioxide.
Thirdly, when I spoke to engineers and learned the actual return of electricity on a wind farm, I was quite startled. When it is quoted that a wind farm will supply electricity to 14,000 homes, what you aren’t being told is that is only enough electricity to run a few very basic needs such as a water heater or a light or two. Keep in mind, the technology does not exist to store electricity, so if it is not blowing there is no electricity. If it is blowing in the middle of the night, you better start doing laundry then!
Fourth and lastly, Indiana was not ever in the top 20 windiest states, and there are firm facts that many wind turbine farms, once they are built, are being sold to foreign countries. We not only are selling out our cities but now our cropland as well.
Please please please: Research this, ask questions, because once this is signed into people’s small communities there is nothing we can do except what California and Hawaii did in the mid-1980s when their wind farms went bankrupt – stare at decrepit dripping abandoned energy facilities for the next 50 years.
STACEY SHERMAN
Columbia City
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/11/03/wind-farm-a-proven-bad-bet-for-hoosiers/