December 7, 2011
Letters, Virginia

Clear Stadium Woods for wind turbines

The Roanoke Times, www.roanoke.com 7 December 2011

Amid public concern for the future of Virginia Tech’s Stadium Woods (“Effort to spare Tech’s old trees is sprouting,” Nov. 14), there is a solution that has escaped media coverage.

Since this is a political issue masquerading as an environmental one, perhaps this political solution will restore calm: Clear-cut the trees to make room for industrial-scale wind turbines.

After all, the Tech sustainability crowd insists it makes good sense to re-engineer Bent Mountain and that community.

A sense of fairness would recommend the same for Tech, right?

At three acres of clear-cut land per turbine, there is room for seven turbines if packed in there like any responsible wind turbine advocate would want.

At an average 1.5 MW rating each, multiplied by 365 days per year and 24 hours a day, then multiplied again by a 25 percent capacity factor, the output comes to 3,285 megawatt hours per year.

This could completely negate the need for despoiling the greater Bent Mountain area and place a brand new wind farm in a location where it would be more fully appreciated.

And since “windustry” is only in this for the publicly funded tax incentive dollars anyway, there is, as always, no concern for real output.

Problem solved.

BILL VAN VELZER
TROUTVILLE


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/12/07/clear-stadium-woods-for-wind-turbines/