Re: OT: Gas Prices


"jeff miller" <jmiller110@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:47f17410$0$4058$bbae4d71@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


we just learned that the migratory bird and bat study necessary to satisfy
the bureaucrats will cost in excess of 100k and take almost a year to
complete. the existing reports and literature indicate higher mortality
to the birds because of hunters, cars, planes, and windows. bats are an
unknown, but hard to believe they will have any measurable mortality
rates.

Interesting that a particular proposed project requires its own study. My
recent reentry into the world of birding leaves me in awe of the numbers of
people collecting, collating and interpreting data on virtually every
imaginable aspect of bird life. I have no doubt that a substantial body of
information about migration in whatever area your group is interested in
already exists. Seems like it SHOULD be a simple matter of winnowing.

cost of the turbines has almost doubled with the change in dollar-euro
conversion and the increased demand - takes almost 2 years from order date
to get delivery of the big Mw turbines, with hefty downpayment up front.
this has rapidly moved beyond a project attainable for mere millionaires.

To the best of my knowledge, all of the major projects under way in this
area are the exclusive domain of the existing power companies. A less
sanguine observer than myself might jump to the conclusion that their
previous objections to wind power generation were a smokescreen (if you'll
pardon the ungreen metaphor) designed to stall development long enough to
ensure that they could find a way to monopolize a budding technology.

the honest issue down here is a hurricane.

Yep, legitimate. Designing wind driven generators that would be proof
against the worst imaginable hurricane is a not an especially daunting
engineering challenge.....but at what cost?

setback rules cover most of the fall down/fall apart fears. the bird &
noise things are simply stupid and without merit.

Well, I agree that there doesn't appear to be much merit in the arguments
about risk to our flying friends, but you know how loath I am to use harsh
epithets.

nimby is human nature, but frequently is avoided by honest advance
approaches and a reasonable, conscientious consideration of one's
neighbors. surprisingly, the nimby issue has been a about potential for
consequential damages from hurricane force winds and a legitimate concern
for preserving scenic areas.

As always, de gustibus....

Personally, I find windmills very attractive. They have a certain majestic
stature and sweep that accentuates the very attributes of a landscape that
they are meant to exploit. Just try to imagine a Dutch landscape (
http://www.windmillworld.com/europe/netherlands.htm ) without them.

in any event, it has been a fascinating experience...like much of life.
there are only a few areas in the country with enough constant wind to
make the big projects financially feasible. but, if constructed in
adequate quantity in those areas, a lot of the electricity needs of the
entire country can be met in a clean, renewable form. it may not be as
consistently dependable a power supply as that provided by oil and coal
currently, but, i haven't heard any reports of wind power reaching a
tipping point or gutting mountains.

The matter of consistently strong enough winds is still not completely
settled. Don't remember just where, but I recently came across a
reassessment that suggested today's wind technology can already make use of
lesser winds than had been thought feasible. In any case, with more people
looking at it seriously these days, wind power generation has a huge
potential for design and engineering breakthroughs that will make it ever
more attractive and economical. It's important to bear in mind that
virtually everything available in the market today is variations on a single
theme which, not so incidentally, was proven to be effective (and cost
effective) a couple of centuries ago. Not surprisingly, this has distracted
folks from exploring other potential avenues. As fossil fuels become more
and more scarce and costly, and as their use provokes ever more righteous
indignation, a LOT of people are going to be looking much harder at other
ways to captialize on what's free and inexhaustible.

frankly, i'm told the damn things - though huge - have a mesmerizing
effect and become an accepted part of the landscape after a while.

Power plants, steel mills, dams, smelters, rail yards, stockyards,
junkyards, landfills, gravel pits, quarries, thousand mile long concrete
slabs, thousand foot tall glass, stone and steel monstosities, bomb craters,
smoke stacks, mining scars, clear cuts, oil refineries, slag heaps, tailings
ponds, Disney World, Las Vegas, Pigeon Forge and Wisconsin Dells have all
become accepted parts of the landscape without being mesmerizing......o.k.,
the last four named are stupefying, to be sure, but that's really not the
same thing at all.

Interestingly, oil wells (the old fashioned kind, with their rocking seesaw
motions, of which I saw a bunch again, surprisingly still in operation, on a
just completed week-long tour to the Gulf Coast) have a bit of the same sort
of mesmerizing fascination and dot the landscape in various parts of the
country without raising the same sort of objections......or at least none
that I've heard of in recent decades.

wisconsin is one of the states ahead of the curve on wind power
development.

I wasn't aware of that. I find this particularly interesting because, to
the best of my knowledge, we are nowhere near the top of the curve in
reliable strong winds. As a side note on another ecological issue nearer
and dearer to the hearts of this group's readers (or, OBROFF, if anyone
prefers) we also lead the nation in dam removals.

your experience mimics what i have heard others say about the noise issue.

And my experience suggests very strongly that noise is as bogus a non-issue
as any reasonable person could wish for.

i'll be interested in hearing what other folks in your state report about
wind power once better established.

The interest in wind power that I've shown here will doubtless lead some
people to suppose that I'm watching developments more closely than I really
am. Nevertheless, I do occasionally notice something or other. I'll keep
you posted on what I find out.

Wolfgang


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