Impact of Cape Wind on vote

[auburnblu]

I wonder if the stance on Cape Wind will have any impact. I was stunned when I read that Coakley favors it.

[zulchzulu]

1. Just for poops and giggles, please state why one would be against the Cape wind vote

I love this NIMBY excuse shit... it's Luddite Loserdom with a little cluelessness on the side...

[auburnblu]

2. Kennedy didn't want it

And I dont think Kirk is a fan either.

[zulchzulu]

3. So why would one be against wind farms?

I don't give a shit if Teddy was against it.

Tell me why YOU would be against wind farms.

Fuck. That. Shit.

Go here:
http://www.capewind.org/

[oxymoron]

4. Big piles of dead birds.

That's why I oppose it.

[zulchzulu]

6. What a bunch of mealy-mouthed fucking horseshit

Have you ever been to a fucking wind farm? If a bird is too fucking stupid as to fly into a wind farm propeller, they are as equally as fucking stupid as to to fly into a telephone line.

It's embarrassing as hell that the Kennedys would be against the Cape Wind Project. Fucking silly and selfish... I've been at that site and know it's absolute nonsense. The wind farm would supply those islands with more than enough power off the coal-burning grid.

And if a stupid goddamn bird can't figure out how to fly away from a wind farm that has noise devices that would alarm it to fly away, it should provide a meal to other creatures that would gladly eat its dumbass carcass.

[malakai2]

15. I've been to a wind farm

Have you ever been to one? Watch your head when conditions are icy.

Okay, birds first. Soaring birds and bats have the biggest problem with turbines. Lots of birds have problems with the associated transmission lines, especially the ground cable. It's typically about as visible as guy wires you see on radio and tv towers. Know how most new towers have flashing white aviation lights on them rather than pulsing red lights? That's because the pulsing red lights have this tendency to attract birds in low light conditions, they circle the tower, and kill themselves running into the guy wires they can't see. Transmission lines themselves are big enough for the birds to see, so the species for which this is a problem tend to increase altitude to avoid the transmission line, and smack the narrower ground cable. Has nothing to do with being stupid. For a human analogue, imagine being the guy riding a 4-wheeler down a gravel road and running into a cable somebody has strung across the road. At even modest speed, you are not likely to be aware of the wire until it's too late to avoid hitting it. If you're going fast enough, it might kill you. Now imagine doing that up in the sky, where you have no reason to expect a cable in your path.

Okay, now for the electrical generation. How much will this generate? Not the nameplate capacity, I'm talking about the actual instantaneous generation, the energy in the grid. If it's not a stable number, baseload generation will still be required to keep people's appliances running. Unless they're splitting atoms, that means they're going to continue burning coal, and lots of it. They'd generate a lot more CO2 savings if they just scrapped the plan and slapped a progressive tax on electrical use. Putting in an insignificant wind capacity just allows a lot of people to rationalize that the electrons they're burning are clean, so they use more electrons, putting us right back where we are now with regard to CO2 generation.

[Ian David]

11. Less dead birds than are killed by pollution from coal plants. n/t

[midnight armadillo]

13. That is, in a word, HORSESHIT

I'll quote Treehugger:http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/04/common_misconce.php
which cites the study everyone seems to consider to be authoritative:

In the United States, cars and trucks wipe out millions of birds each year, while 100 million to 1 billion birds collide with windows. According to the 2001 National Wind Coordinating Committee study, “Avian Collisions with Wind Turbines: A Summary of Existing Studies and Comparisons to Other Sources of Avian Collision Mortality in the United States," these non-wind mortalities compare with 2.19 bird deaths per turbine per year. That's a long way from the sum mortality caused by the other sources.

and the PDF of the study:
http://www.west-inc.com/reports/avian_collisions.pdf

and here's another summary:
http://www.focusonenergy.com/.../windturbinesandbirds_factsheet.pdf

[malakai2]

14. okay, I'll bite

Yeah, that's a lot of birds. It's also pooled mortality, lumping house sparrows and rock doves in with whooping cranes and golden eagles. Two of those species are a LOT more likely to die flying into your picture window than flying into a turbine or powerline, and two of them are a LOT more likely to die flying into a turbine or powerline than flying into your picture window. Of course, none of those four species is likely to be found offshore, where an entirely different species assemblage quite unused to large vertical structures awaits. This is a major blind spot in that report, and it doesn't look good when people wave it around like it's the final word in the discussion.

Now, as for this particular project...how will it tie into the grid? Are the developers going to be paying for the new lines and connections, or is that something that's going to be tossed over to the public? What's the lifespan of the individual turbines? What will be the nameplate capacity, and what will be the actual generation, the capacity factor? How much baseload capacity will need to be retained on the grid? Will additional peaker plants need to stay in standby to run people's homes when the turbines are generating at less than nameplate capacity, or not at all? Does this do anything to lower electrical consumption? Does this actually lower CO2 generation rates, or would we be pissing into the wind?

[ElmoBlatz]

5. It ruins the view of some prime waterfront property

Period.

[Ian David]

12. Boo fucking hoo.

Besides, I think wind farms are cool to look at.


"I'm building an explosive space modulator to blow-up the wind farm. It obstructs my view of Venus."

[zulchzulu]

7. Graphic warning! Imagine this awful scene!

You would be scared out of your mind and crying for fear of all the little birdies that would die a horrible death!




:sarcasm:

[Larkspur]

9. You'll be crying harder when the ocean swallows more of the New England coast line

[zulchzulu]

8. Mother Jones article skewers anti-wind NIMBY nonsense

First it was that dumb birds would die when they flew haplessly into wind farm blades. Then it was that some historic burial grounds would be intruded on if some wind farms were made miles from those locations... Or perhaps it's coal and dirty energy interests that don't want a clean energy source to take away money in their pockets...

The New York Times gave a good rundown on this latest roadblock, which was spurred by a request from two local tribes that claim the turbines would impede their religious practice by blocking the view of the sunrise and intrude on historic burial grounds. But what the Times fails to mention is that the bulk of the opposition to Cape Wind over the years has come from a multimillion-dollar campaign backed by oil and gas money—not Native Americans trying to protect territory they regard as sacred. At the forefront of the effort has been William Koch, who alone has spent more than a million to oppose the farm via a group called the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound.

Koch is the founder and president of the Oxbow Group, and has made his fortune off mining and marketing coal, natural gas, petroleum, and petroleum coke products. He's the son of Fred Koch, founder of oil and gas giant Koch Industries, and brother of David and Charles Koch—who have supported conservative groups like Citizens for a Sound Economy (which later merged with another group to form FreedomWorks) and Americans for Prosperity, which has campaigned against both climate legislation and health care reform. Bill Koch used to work for the family business, but split off in the early '80s, prompting a nasty feud with his brothers business that dragged on for nearly two decades. In that time, however, he built a dirty energy empire all his own, which has helped fund his Cape Wind crusade.

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/01/cape-wind-delay-big-win-dirty-energy-interests

[Ian David]

10. I sure hope Coakley favors it. n/t