August 2, 2015
Letters, South Dakota

Costs relating to wind power are too great

Letter: Costs relating to wind power are too great | Argus Leader | August 2, 2015 | www.argusleader.com

In reference to Jim Burg’s July 16 letter to the editor bloviating on the ‘wonders of wind power”: Where, oh where, does he get his information? Wind power is not cheap, not clean, and not good for the environment.

Wind turbines are put up solely for the Production Tax Credit given to the multinational organizations who end up owning them. Those who make a minuscule percentage of the profit are the few farmers who have the wind towers on their land, the real profits go to those corporations. Wind turbines have nothing to do with wind, green energy or more cost efficient electricity. It is big government giving tax breaks to big corporations. Two-thirds of the wind farms in our country are owned by foreign companies. The Beethoven project just completed in Bon Homme County, is now owned by a company from Germany. It’s all about the money. Whenever the tax credit has been removed, wind tower development has fallen by up to 93 percent.

He says they are good for the local economy.

1. Energy rates are guaranteed to increase.

2. Land and homes are devalued.

3. Small communities are bitterly divided.

4. There are adverse health effects from infrasound on humans and animals.

5. The visible pollution of a Wind Tower Wasteland will never be reversed.

6. The community shrinks, people move away from wind farms, they do not move into them to live or build new homes.

7. Wildlife is destroyed or chased away

They are a pilots nightmare as we all saw when one of the lights was not working and we lost four young men near Highmore last year.

This is the price he is asking all in this community and others across South Dakota to pay; so that the multinational corporation owning the wind farms can market their power to the East Coast.

Whoever said they wanted renewable energy at any time any place and at any cost? The efforts to shame us by saying we should is repulsive. To say nothing of waving tax dollars in our face as if what is listed above can be bought.

Marsha Hubner, Avon

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2015/08/02/costs-relating-to-wind-power-are-too-great/