Wind Power Is Energy for Optimists

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

By Charles Komanoff, Orion Magazine

http://alternet.org/envirohealth/41426/

It was a place I had often visited in memory but feared might no longer exist. Orange slabs of calcified sandstone teetered overhead, while before me, purple buttes and burnt mesas stretched over the desert floor. In the distance I could make out southeast Utah's three snowcapped ranges -- the Henrys, the Abajos, and, eighty miles to the east, the La Sals, shimmering into the blue horizon.

No cars, no roads, no buildings. Two crows floating on the late-winter thermals. Otherwise, stillness.

Abbey's country. But my country, too. Almost forty years after Desert Solitaire, 35 since I first came to love this Colorado River plateau, I was back with my two sons, eleven and eight. We had spent four sun-filled days clambering across slickrock in Arches National Park and crawling through the slot canyons of the San Rafael Reef. Now, perched on a precipice above Goblin Valley, stoked on endorphins and elated by the beauty before me, I had what might seem a strange, irrelevant thought: I didn't want windmills here.

Reprint Notice:

This article appears in the September-October 2006 issue of Orion magazine, 187 Main Street, Great Barrington, MA 01230, 888/909-6568, ($35/year for 6 issues). A free copy of the magazine can be obtained through Orion's website at oriononline.org.

Not that any windmills are planned for this Connecticut-sized expanse -- the winds are too fickle. But wind energy is never far from my mind these days. As Earth's climate begins to warp under the accumulating effluent from fossil fuels, the increasing viability of commercial-scale wind power is one of the few encouraging developments...

[oblivious]

1. Thanks for posting this. I found it very interesting. Example:

...just six square miles of land -- less than the area of a single big Wyoming strip mine -- could house the bases for all of the windmills needed to banish coal, oil, and gas from the U.S. electricity sector.

Not one parcel of 6 square miles of course.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

2. I'm an optimist on wind and solar...

We've ALL got to start pushing for these kinds of alternatives and divorce ourselves from fossil fuels. It may be the single most important thing we can do for our children.

[oblivious]

3. Me too, I find developments in both wind and solar very exciting.

And many of the objections to wind turbines don't hold water, as he points out.

But increased efficiency and other methods of conservation are even more important of course. I'm thinking of stats like this:

...a single jumbo jet, flying from London to Miami and back every day, releases the climate change equivalent of 520,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.(7) One daily connection between Britain and Florida costs three giant wind farms.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x66586

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

4. Right. Conservation absolutely is the cornerstone...

...of the alternative energy movement.

[muesa]

5. The word "conservation" is a turn off for many

"Energy Conscious Engineering" or "Energy Cost Engineering" sound more "red meat."

[bhikkhu]

7. I am considering optimism, but...

does anyone have an EROI figure for the new wind power plants? I only ask this because some time back I read an a paper on an older plant, breaking down the energy required to mine, transport, smelt and form the steel, copper, etc, and to produce the concrete, and all things considered - which found that over the expected working life of the windmill in question it would not produce as much energy as went into building it.

Any figures at all? I have been unable to find anything myself, which is aggravating as this should all be available up front.

[Marrak]

6. Think of the many parcels...

of surface mining operations and reclaimation in West Virginia alone...

Mine the wind, sea and sun...stay above ground!

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