Wind Power Restrictions

In the early 1960s, Rachael Carson wrote a book entitled "Silent Spring" which chronicled how the use of DDT in particular was endangering the population of raptors, such as eagles, hawks and others because of potential genetic mutation of their eggs and campaigned for the ban of DDT.  DDT up until that point had been (and still is) the most efficient, effective and safe means of destroying mosquitoes that are responsible for a host of diseases for many hundreds of years.  The US and the Western Europe had wiped out malaria and yellow fever in the 1940s and 1950s.  In 1973, DDT was banned.  The UN banned its use in Africa.  Many of the populous countries in Asia did not go along with the ban and eliminated malaria using DDT.  The result of that ban in the last 40 years had been the untimely deaths of 50 million African babies due to malaria.  DDT substitutes had not been effective at all.  Years of research have proven that DDT is quite harmless to humans and its connection to mutation of eggs of the raptors could not be proved scientifically.

In 2013, the Obama administration has provided a 30-year approval to operate the giant windmills even though there is incontrovertible evidence that those windmills kill eagles, hawks, falcons, bats by the hundreds.  The windmills represent the most backward thinking technology that can never be viable because they require gathering energy from a diffused source which is unpredictable.  Windmills produce less than 1% of US energy while depleting the populations of some of the protected species of the birds.  So, where are the Audubon Society, World Wild Life Foundation people and the Sierra Club?  Where are their lawyers filing law suits in courts to save the eagles, our national symbol?  Their disgusting silence reveals their true colors.

How about criminalizing the coal power plants by those same groups because they emit immeasurably small quantities of mercury?  While they are busy shutting down the coal fired plants because of immeasurable mercury, they are applauding the use of the same mercury at 100 times the level of coal emissions in each of the CFL bulbs which contain 0.3 grams of the toxic substance. They are all in favor of the stupid law enacted to ban the safe incandescent bulbs.  Imagine that.  In America, in the land of the free, we can not even choose our own light bulbs.  FDA even warned us a few years ago not to eat tuna fish because of comparatively very low dosage of mercury.  Where are the self proclaimed guardians of environments protesting the introduction of millions of mercury laden bulbs in our homes?

By the way, the Sierra Club tried to shut down the huge coal-fired power plants operating on the tribal lands of the Hopi people in Arizona by sending demonstrators and agitators there.  The Native people threw them all out.  They can not stand to see poor Native American people wanting to prosper using their lands and resources. 

The so called environmental activists such as Sierra Club, WWF and Audubon Society are all hypocrites.  They all serve to promote the anti-capitalistic agenda.  They don't really care about environment and elevation of people all over the world from famine and disease.  Their goal, it appears judging from their actions, is to advance collectivism and invalidate individual property rights.

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The recently posted article about licensing issues with the wind farms in New Hampshire bemoans how siting delays are affecting the deployment of wind power.

It highlights aesthetics as the central issue in licensing. That may be at the level of bureaucracy deciding on approval.  However, the article failed to mention all the birds the wind farms are killing. It mentions about the California wind farm set up by those pioneers from UMass operating in New Hampshire. It fails to mention the hundreds of eagles being destroyed by wind farms there. All of a sudden, we don't hear a peep out of the environmental organizations who don't seem to be reluctant to be unruly at every other energy source! Imagine that in a state that reduced irrigation water in the most productive San Joaquin valley because of small fish called Delta smelt being threatened.

In addition to killing birds by the hundreds, being unsightly and producing unacceptable sound and vibrations, wind power produces when it can (and not 24/7) measly amounts of usable power. All that for so little power produced!!!. 

Wind power can never be viable because it is not in concentrated form and available whenever needed. Think about it.  We used to use sailing ships (wind power) to get to England and it used to take anywhere from four to six weeks or longer. Steam power replaced sailing ships and cut the time to one week.

Ability to control the energy and to have power any time at any level is the advancement that cannot be duplicated with the wind power. Electrical energy produced by wind turbines is no different. 

Wind operates a generator instead of providing motive power through sails.  There is no way to store electrical energy in massive quantities. When the wind dies (and it is often) that energy delivery to the grid goes down with it requiring another form of generator to pick up the slack.

You need an equivalent generating source that is reliable, available and on line, waiting.  In fact, Scottish Wind farms have reported about only about 15% of nameplate rating delivery sustainable in the years they have been in operation.  So, you need to install turbines over-sized by about seven times making it capital inefficient. Those fundamental facts of physics can not be overcome no matter which politician and environmental group favors wind power.

The government steps in and subsidizes (through tax payers or rate payers) not only the construction but also the cost of the electricity to make wind power a political choice.  People have to pay for it one way or another. Without government subsidy throughout its life at every stage of its installation and operation wind power can never make it.

The state of New Hampshire must get out of the power generation business. 

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As a resident near Plymouth, I continued to feel sad and frustrated by the present of the Wind Turbines that scar our beautiful landscape. I know this is old news to most and do not want to repeat what others have already commented on. I do feel it is important to express my thoughts as we as taxpayers and residents have the right and duty to others in our community to live in the best environment possible. I have so often walked the back roads, hiked through the woods, floated down the river or on one of the pristine lakes while gazing out at the beautiful mountains. I have climbed to the top of rattlesnake mountain and looked out over what used to be a spectacular view. 

Now I am saddened and depressed to see the scarred mountainside that the Wind Turbines dominate. What used to help me relax, feel calm and at peace now have the effect of a sick feeling inside. Two of my children have majored and minored in environmental studies, and both have stated the negatives of the wind turbines far outweigh the positives. The emotional effect of looking at the extensive damage to our beautiful mountains is bad enough, but that fact that they destroy our wildlife, have minimal impact on our carbon footprint, and potentially can cause extensive fires, to name a few of the negatives, brings me to the conclusion the only path is to remove the turbines before more damage is done.

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I work for a man who owns 109 acres high up on a mountain side in New Hampshire. I can assure you it is constantly windy at this location. It got us to debating what we could do with that land. I had the idea to lease a portion of the land for a wind farm. I have heard from local firefighters that the town and towns people would not support it, that the neighbors do not want to hear the whooshing of turbines and it infringes on their peace. In my life experience almost every person I talk seems not to be in favor of wind farms.

 

I am a Libertarian. I believe property rights are one of the most sacred and important rights we have in this country. The American dream is owning your own land, building your own home and raising your family there. We all pay property taxes and this is where it ends. Your privately owned land is just that, your land. The man I am speaking about bought the land within the last few years. I advised him that if his neighbors wanted any say about what goes on, within his 109 acres that they should have bought the property. They did not, he did. It is his right to develop his land and not be bothered by the back seat drivers who were not ambitious enough to buy the land for themselves. I am currently waiting to hear back from potential companies to gauge is there is an interest in building turbines at this location.

 

Oil is a fossil fuel. Oil is finite and will run out. At some point we are going to have to begin invest in alternative energies for the future of this country. I am of the mind we need to begin actively doing this sooner than later. In 2014, Germany has successfully adapted 40% of its power supply to renewable weather powered energy. If bureaucrats refuse to let us frack and drill our own reserves than we can not be dependent on international resources. If fracking, drilling and offshore drilling are removed from the table, investment in domestic alternative energies is our only solution.

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I am just returned from New Mexico, where a discussion with persons involved in some development projects led me to understand that New Mexico has some very wise legislation regarding mountain summits and ridge lines: nothing may be erected upon them. When we consider what we are doing to our once lovely state with wind power’s monster towers, and to our once dark country nights with lines of red blinking lights, and that we are doing this for a power source that is uneconomical and inefficient—save for the money it earns some well-to-do landowners, through subsidies paid by us—we must ask what legacy we intend in our names?

 

The corruption that is the inevitable metastasis of subsidy now extends beyond the pockets of wealthy landowners to the towns they have bought off in pursuit of their object: the lower taxes offered by the payments from the wind power installations all but assure the perpetuation of the racket, until the people themselves are suborned. But let us make no mistake, for the source of the ill is the subsidy, and that is firmly on the heads of our legislators: knaves if they know what they do, and fools if they do not. For our once lovely countryside and mountains, a tear.

 

Claude Roessiger

Wolfeboro, NH

 

#scenicNH  #windpower  #preserveNH  #nhenergy

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I am amazed at how many intelligent people have been conned by windpower. Here is an energy source that makes no economic sense without huge government (taxpayer) subsidies, produces tiny amounts of unreliable energy, and destroys our environment.

We willingly sacrifice the beauty of our mountains, the pride of NH, as we skin our mountain tops to replace trees with 400 foot high industrial propellers (do people realize how tall that is?). Suddenly, we don't seem to mind killing birds, and making such a noisy racket that people can't live near these power plants, and certainly hiking in their area will end. Moreover, since they are mechanical monsters, they will require lots of maintenance, i.e., truck traffic running around our mountain tops, adding to their lack of long term competitiveness. Since they consist of a large number of small power plants, they require tons of wires to connect them all together and into the grid, the production and installation of which are all negative to the environment. And most importantly, they do not replace power plants using other fuels. Since the wind is so unreliable other power plants have to be built anyway, and turning them on and off to jibe with the fickle wind has a more negative impact on the environment than running them continuously.

Everyone in the state seemed to rise up against Northern Pass, which was all about towers ruining our natural land, but the poor people of Groton who object to this fiasco have been thrown overboard.

Finally, in an economic era when we endlessly complain about taxes, deficits, and family incomes, we support an energy source that eats away at our income, causes higher taxes, and adds to our fiscal deficits, at home, here in NH and in our national governement.

If it is the 150 jobs that caught your interest, there are plenty of way to create uneconmic taxpayer funded jobs, let's just start hiring people to sweep the streets. They would be better jobs that burdening our citizens with the long term economic and environmental devastation of wind power.

Where are our economists, where are our environmentalists, where are our home rule advocates? What am I missing Granite Staters?

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