October 1, 2013
Letters, Massachusetts

Wind power is being shoved down our throats

The Boston Globe | October 01, 2013 | www.bostonglobe.com

Once the high-fiving is completed by all concerned parties, I’m wondering whether taxpayers in Massachusetts and across the country will be receiving a big thank-you for the massive amounts we are forced to pay to enable wind power to suddenly be available at below-market rates (“Mass. utilities go for wind power,” Page A1, Sept. 23). I doubt it.

While wind power can be useful in smaller applications, it is out of its league when it comes to providing consistent energy in large quantities to the grid. The only reason it even gets the chance is because it is being shoved down our throats by opportunistic politicians and crony capitalists eager for subsidies, a guaranteed market, and all that delicious green PR.

There are many good reasons to oppose the proliferation of wind farms, starting with their hideous “War of the Worlds”-meets-Leni-Riefenstahl aesthetic, the carnage they inflict on birds, the fact that they have made people who live near them sick, and the fact that they are noisy and expensive to maintain.

We happen to live a few hundred miles from the Marcellus Shale, which contains enough natural gas to supply the huge amounts of electricity we’ll need for our high-tech economy for the next 100 years or more. We’re already despoiling Nantucket Sound at huge, unnecessary cost. Let’s stop there.

Jerry Velona

Arlington

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/10/01/wind-power-is-being-shoved-down-our-throats/