Wind energy is reliable? Clean? Safe?
Jan 11 2013 | www.thespec.com
Eagle nest removed from wind farm site (Jan. 7) and Wind energy is a better deal for Ontario than new nuclear (Opinion, Jan. 4)
The writer of the Jan. 4 article concludes that “wind energy is a reliable, clean and safe energy at a good price.”
Reliable must refer to the unpredictable and intermittent energy that may be produced when it is windy enough rather than when the consumer needs it. Clean must consider the construction and eventual decommission process, the fleets of fossil fuel burning cement trucks, excavators and other heavy equipment, the particulate emissions produced in manufacturing cement or in grinding concrete for reuse as aggregate. Safe must take into account the results of a health study being done by the government that explores the health issues that arise when these industrial contraptions are put up too close to residences. Results should be out in 2014, so shall we keep putting up even bigger turbines and wait and see what happens? The good price? With the FIT priority and subsidy, this is almost legalized monopoly. Oh, and the benefits to rural communities must include the wedge that is being driven between the host landowners and their neighbouring homeowners.
I am still not convinced that wind turbines are the answer to our power generating needs. I guess that places me in that “group of highly motivated anti-wind activists.” Maybe I should find a tree to go and hug, but not the one that NextEra Energy cut a bald eagle’s nest from to make room for a wind turbine.
Nick Haveman, West Lincoln
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/01/11/wind-energy-is-reliable-clean-safe/