Windmills on Ice Mountain - Gamesa Wind Turbines

[Ice Man]

Pickens gives new meaning to ‘Self-Government'

July 31, 2008 by Steven Milloy in Fox News

The more you learn about T. Boone Pickens' plan to switch America to wind power, the more you realize that he seems willing to say and do just about anything to make another billion or two.

This column previously discussed the plan's technical and economic shortcomings and marketing ruses. Today, we'll look into the diabolical machinations behind it.

Simply put, Pickens' pitch is "embrace wind power to help break our ‘addiction' to foreign oil." There is, however, another intriguing component to Pickens' plan that goes unmentioned in his TV commercials, media interviews and web site -- water rights, which he owns more of than any other American.

Pickens hopes that his recent $100 million investment in 200,000 acres worth of groundwater rights in Roberts County, Texas, located over the Ogallala Aquifer, will earn him $1 billion. But there's more to earning such a profit than simply acquiring the water. Rights-of-way must be purchased to install pipelines, and opposition from anti-development environmental groups must be overcome. Here's where it gets interesting, according to information compiled by the Water Research Group, a small grassroots group focusing on local water issues in Texas.

Purchasing rights-of-way is often expensive and time-consuming -- and what if landowners won't sell? While private entities may be frustrated, governments can exercise eminent domain to compel sales. This is Pickens' route of choice. But wait, you say, Pickens is not a government entity. How can he use eminent domain? Are you sitting down?

At Pickens' behest, the Texas legislature changed state law to allow the two residents of an 8-acre parcel of land in Roberts County to vote to create a municipal water district, a government agency with eminent domain powers. Who were the voters? They were Pickens' wife and the manager of Pickens' nearby ranch. And who sits on the board of directors of this water district? They are the parcel's three other non-resident landowners, all Pickens' employees.

A member of a local water conservation board told Bloomberg News that, "[Pickens has] obtained the right of eminent domain like he was a big city. It's supposed to be for the public good, not a private company."

What's this got to do with Pickens' wind-power plan? Just as he needs pipelines to sell his water, he also needs transmission lines to sell his wind-generated power. Rights of way for transmission lines are also acquired through eminent domain -- and, once again, the Texas legislature has come to Pickens' aid.

Earlier this year, Texas changed its law to allow renewable energy projects (like Pickens' wind farm) to obtain rights-of-way by piggybacking on a water district's eminent domain power. So Pickens can now use his water district's authority to also condemn land for his future wind farm's transmission lines.

Who will pay for the rights-of-way and the transmission lines and pipelines? Thanks to another gift from Texas politicians, Pickens' water district can sell tax-free, taxpayer-guaranteed municipal bonds to finance the $2.2 billion cost of the water pipeline. And then earlier this month, the Texas legislature voted to spend $4.93 billion for wind farm transmission lines. While Pickens has denied that this money is earmarked for him, he nevertheless is building the largest wind farm in the world.

Despite this legislative largesse, a fly in the ointment remains.

Although Pickens hopes to sell as much as $165 million worth of water annually to Dallas alone, no city in Texas has signed up yet -- partly because they don't yet need the water and partly because of resentment against water profiteering.

Enter the Sierra Club.

While Green groups support wind power, "the privatization of water is an entirely different thing," says the Sierra Club. Moreover, the activist group has long opposed further exploitation of the very groundwater Pickens wants to use -- the Ogallala Aquifer.

"The source of drinking water and irrigation for Plains residents from Nebraska to Texas, the Ogallala Aquifer is one of the world's largest -- as well as one of the most rapidly dissipating... If current irrigation practices continue, agribusiness will deplete the Ogallala Aquifer in the next century," says the Sierra Club.

In March 2002, the Sierra Club opposed the construction of a slaughterhouse in Pampa, Texas, because it would require a mere 275 million gallons per year from the Ogallala Aquifer. Yet Pickens wants to sell 65 billion gallons of water per year -- to Dallas alone. In a 2004 lamentation about local government facilitation of Pickens' plan for the Ogallala, the Sierra Club slammed Pickens as a "junk bond dealer" who wanted to make "Blue Gold" from the Ogallala.

But while the Sierra Club can't seem to do anything about Pickens' influence with state legislators, they do have enough influence to make his water politically unpotable. This opposition may soon abate, however, now that Pickens has buddied up with Sierra Club president Carl Pope.

As noted last week, Pope now flies in Pickens' private jet and publicly lauds him. The two are newly-minted "friends," since Pope needs the famous Republican oilman to lend propaganda value to the Sierra Club's anti-oil agenda and Pickens needs Pope to ease up on the Ogallala water opposition.

This alliance isn't sitting well with everyone on the Left.

A TreeHugger.com writer recently observed, "... I am left asking myself why the green media have neglected [the water] aspect of Pickens' wind-farm plans? Have we been so distracted by the prospect of Texas' renewable energy portfolio growing by 4000 megawatts that we are willing to overlook some potentially dodgy aspects to the project?"

It shouldn't sit well with the rest of us either. Pickens has gamed Texas for his own ends, and now he's trying to game the rest of us, too. Worse, his gamesmanship includes lending his billionaire resources, prominent stature and feudal powers bestowed upon him by the Texas legislature to help the Greens gain control over the U.S. energy supply.

Web link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,395304,00.html

[Ice Man]

Wind Turbines; Offensive industrialization of human space

July 27, 2008 by Dr. Brian L. Horejsi, Dr. Barrie K. Gilbert, George Wuerthner in Canada Free Press

People are barking up the wrong tree by promoting, or succumbing to, wind turbine construction regardless of where it is proposed and how many there might be. Many North Americans are infected with tunnel vision and erroneously appear to believe that turbine generated energy is somehow linked to reversing the growth in and impact of Green House Gas (GHG) emissions.

There exists NO evidence anywhere that Turbine energy is substituting for or displacing fossil fuel dependence, nor is there any evidence that it is in any material way slowing the rate of GHG emission growth. Turbine energy is a non factor in the never ending growth agenda of the fossil fuel industry, and it is not a factor in the agenda of governments promoting growth in and dependence on oil and gas consumption. There can be no better example than North America of the failure of turbine energy to slow growth in anything.

People have been hoodwinked into promoting wind turbine energy as some sort of Nirvana all while human population growth and per capita energy consumption continue to spiral upward. Turbine energy generation is fueling growth in human population and energy consumption and growth in a false "economy". It is NOT doing the opposite.

Matching the folly of the energy replacement misunderstanding is denial by governments and promoters of the ecological impacts and health effects of turbines; the ugly reality is that they are a serious addition to the industrialization of quiet rural landscapes that people have long valued for quality of life, retirement, and recreation.

The list of environmental costs imposed on wildlife and people are now being recognized; they are far from meaningless, but they have been trivialized by turbine promoters and politicians that have systematically tilted the deck sharply in the developers favor. Environmental costs have been systematically ignored by a political and regulatory system that has corrupted individual and societal freedom and environmental integrity by relegating these values to some distant offshoot of economic growth. These costs, and those who stand by them, are treated with contempt; how dare they influence the decision to grant some landowner a chance to make a buck by carving your backyard and your space into fragments with giant chopping machines?

Wind turbines are an assault on human well being and act to degrade the human "gestalt". Promotion of wind turbine energy is a case of serious misjudgment by those who fraudulently use green wash to promote their commercial aspirations.

Buried deep within the human genome is an innate recognition and suspicion of monsters - large objects - looming on the horizon. Wind turbines are todays versions of a threatening monster, jammed down the throats of neighbors and localities. 30% of the human cortex occupies itself with processing visual information, far more than any other sense, and nothing delivers a more intrusive and intense visual picture than the tower and blades of wind turbines. Turbines erode freedom of the human mind hour after hour, night after day, virtually forever, like a cell phone ringing incessantly and yet no one is able to turn it off. To many people this intrusion into their physical and physiological space is an insidious form of torment. The mental effect is analogous to the physical effects of a heavy smoker sitting next to you essentially for life!

We do not subscribe to the managerial / market approach to democracy or conservation with its deeply entrenched bias against human values such as an unadulterated horizon. This largely corporate view denigrates the value of freedom of the human spirit - the very pedestal upon which human dignity, character and strength are built.

In an honest and fair regulatory and political environment, local citizens and communities would bury turbine projects long before they get to the serious implementation stage. Once again, however, citizens are being forced to try and employ the very tools that degrade our quality of life and humiliate us as mere pawns of some corporate created market economy. That being the case, it occurs to us that wind turbines wearing eternally on the human psyche, constituting a "taking" by corporate promoters and biased government collaborators; a taking that damages the well being of all residents. We asked ourselves if $1000 payment per person would compensate for the damages imposed on the ever day life of hundreds and thousands of affected citizens? Not even close. Perhaps then, $3000, or $8000? Would that kind of money make up for the forced collapse of part of your quality of life, your loss of right to space, loss of privacy, loss of political power, curbs on your freedom, and the mental and physical costs imposed on you by stress associated with constant angst, irritation and distraction? For some, we suspect yes would be the answer. For others, like those who have lost a child to negligent corporate behavior, been strangled slowly by nicotine, or been poisoned by toxic emissions or effluent, no amount of money can compensate for the deprivation and harm they have and will suffer. Regardless of the compensatory damages you might place on that part of your life lost because of turbine industrialization, should you not be compensated for this taking?

The commercial private sector is forcing itself into your life, and that constitutes a taking of your rights, benefits and well being. We propose that each person impacted by a turbine receive, as a starting point for negotiations, $3000 annually, to be paid by the developer for the loss of private and citizen rights, a very large portion of which includes peace and satisfaction, a critical part of your state of mind. We all know that is a significant part of personal, social and democratic well being. The concept is simple; if the developer and some uncaring land owners want to destroy your rights and those of other citizens, inflicting on you suffering and mental distress, the good old "free" enterprise system developers and local governments love to hide behind, comes into play; they pay to destroy part of your life. There has to be pain and resistance in the system for those who knowingly exploit the public and individual vulnerability, a now institutionalized vulnerability which commercial and private sector interests worked hard to establish.

The recent proliferation of wind turbine farms is just one more case of the serious aggression and destruction that reflects the continuing expansion of an extremist private property and commercialism agenda. This socially, legally and politically defective agenda and process is being exploited by corporations, some local residents, and local governments. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not freedom and it is not democracy; it is vandalism and oppression in the name of commercialism. As citizens we have the right, and we say the obligation, and we must marshal the courage, to reject wind turbine invasions as a corruption of our well being that is cached "in our spirit rather than in our wallet".

Dr. Brian L. Horejsi
Behavioral scientist and citizen advocate for democratic process
Box 84006, PO Market Mall
Calgary, Alberta, T3A 5C4
403-246-9328

And

Dr. Barrie K. Gilbert
Wildlife Ecologist and conservation activist
Box 252
Wolfe Island, Ontario KOH 2HO
613-385-2289

And

George Wuerthner,
Ecologist and writer.
POB 719, Richmond,
Vermont 05477
802-434-3948
28 July 2008


Web link: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/4163

http://www.windaction.org/opinions/17108

[My2Cents]

An old site, but, worth a repeat. I'm sure more has been added since it's beginning.
http://ricks-bricks.com/boone2.pdf

[Ice Man]

From the Harrisburg Patriot News


http://www.pennlive.com/editorials/patr ... xml&coll=1


Municipalities best be prepared for onslaught of power proposals

Thursday, August 07, 2008

It's not clear how many mu nicipalities have approved or dinances or taken other steps to govern windmills. It doesn't appear to be many.

But the reality is that there could be a windmill -- or windmill farm of 20 or more towering wind machines -- coming to a field near you in the not-too-distant future. Thus, at least the possibility of such should be on the radar screen of every municipal governing body in the state.

Dauphin County's Middle Paxton Twp. took steps Monday night to ensure that any windmills which might go up in the township would first have to be approved by the board of supervisors. Windmill projects also require a permit from the state Depart ment of Environmental Protection, although the associated scrutiny is decidedly limited.

The township's ordinance isn't likely to pre ent a wind mill project that residents might deem inappropriate by reason of location. It would allow windmills in all zoning districts, so long as they met other restrictions regarding setbacks and noise levels.

We would urge every community to consider the possibility of waking up one morning to discover that someone decided their locale is the ideal place to put up a windmill farm. Part of this consideration should involve deciding where such projects would be appropriate and where they would not be.

There are, of course, factors involved that likely are beyond the expertise of local officials, such as determining which sites offer the best wind conditions. But we look at this need to move to alternative sources of energy in the long term. Right now, there essentially is a race on to build on the commonwealth's wind-swept ridge tops, which has understandably generated considerable opposition, based on visual impairment, loss of forests and habitat, and threats to migratory birds and bats.

Sooner or later, and facilitated by improved wind technology and lower costs, windmill firms will seek to build on sites with less than optimum wind conditions, but sites which are people- and environment-friendly.

Our advocacy of local ordinances to address windmill projects does not in any way change our view that the state needs to adopt a wind-siting protocol to guide this emerging energy technology, to avoid adverse environmental consequences. The Rendell administration is supposedly working on wind-power guidelines, but the process seems to be dragging on forever.

One important lesson to be learned from the recent historic drop in gasoline prices is that many small actions can produce big results -- in this case, people slowing down and cutting back on driving. Lower consumption sent gas prices tumbling. This is much more than the government could deliver from its bag of tricks, and a lot faster.

The same applies to windmills. Many modest-sized windmills in acceptable locations near where the power is to be consumed could well generate much more energy than the current approach of building large, even massive, wind farms.

In either instance, municipal leaders would be well advised not to be caught flat-footed when the windmill builders come knocking on the door.

[My2Cents]

Thanks for the above info Ice Man. Scary to think if someone selling wind farms comes knocking at some of doors around here. A few weeks ago I over heard the word "windmill" being mention during a casual conversation of about 4 or 5 people.... naturally, my ears perked up and I just had to join in. As I joined the conversation, I learned a few things... One said, "Oh, I thought they had already voted on that." Not knowing, and/or caring, if they did or not, or, if the vote went yah or nay. Secondly, I learned that there are still some, including these few, who think the windmills, we have been talking about all this time, are the ones that one can see behind the shed, house, or barn. Some still have no concept of these monstrosities or what we are in for around here if a lease is signed.

[Ice Man]

In the Allentown Morning Call editorial below, just substitute Ice Mountain for Blue Mountain, and you get the idea:


Windmill profits portend an atrocity for Blue Mountain

Paul Carpenter

August 6, 2008

In 1979, a math teacher in Roseville, Calif., fretted over a nephew named after him and two nieces.

News coverage about the accident at Three Mile Island had reached hysterical levels in California, and the three youngsters lived only seven miles from the plant.

When Neal Carpenter finally reached me -- I had spent 36 straight hours at the accident site -- he demanded that I get my family far away from TMI.

I was not worried because our house was upwind and I knew enough about nuclear dangers to know that everything depended on the wind. As for me spending time at the TMI plant, I was then employed by The Associated Press and I was covering the biggest news story of my life. You could not have pried me away from that story with a crowbar.

I could think of only one thing to say to my brother, which he recalled when we were talking this week.

''You were delighted to inform me that there was a twin to the Three Mile Island plant -- and it was Rancho Seco,'' Neal said.

The Rancho Seco plant had one of only a few operational reactors that were identical to the reactor that was melting at TMI, and it was near Neal's house and his children. So there.

Actually, Rancho Seco was safe because it was not being operated with criminal ineptitude. That is not hyperbole; the corporation that ran TMI was convicted of criminal charges for the misconduct that preceded the accident. No corporate officer, alas, was ever required to do any time in prison, but TMI was one of two grotesque anomalies, the other being Chernobyl.

Other nuclear power plants are run skillfully and safely. I have heaped praise on PPL for the way it operates its reactors, although I have bashed PPL for its transmission line proposals.

In any case, Rancho Seco's distinction as a TMI twin was not lost on California's hysterical voters, so a state referendum, 10 years after TMI, shut it down when it still had nearly 20 years to go on its license.

On energy issues, I often discuss California, which, for Pennsylvania, is the best example of what not to do.

And that brings up another, even older, memory.

As a boy, I traveled with my family (Neal was not yet born) on fabled Route 66 past the world's most spectacular scenery, including San Gorgonio Pass, with the San Bernardino Mountains on one side and the San Jacintos on the other.

Much of that beauty has been destroyed. Thousands of wind turbines, some 200 feet high, corrupt the San Gorgonio mountainsides. They cover 70 square miles in that section alone, and San Gorgonio is only the third largest wind turbine field in California, which has 200,000 acres devoted to the monstrosities.

Rancho Seco? It had room for a second reactor (PPL has two reactors on 115 acres), which could have produced more electricity than all of California's wind turbines combined .

Now, there are people who think it may be a good idea to build wind turbines on the Kittatinny Ridge (Blue Mountain). On Monday, a letter to the editor from Donald Heintzelman of Zionsville talked about the first such proposal.

Lower Towamensing Township, he noted, is considering a request to put windmills around the Blue Mountain Ski Area. Heintzelman said that would place them in the path of America's most spectacular migratory route for eagles, hawks and other raptors.

''As an ornithologist involved in raptor migrations I am unconditionally opposed to the installation of all wind turbines on this internationally famous migration corridor,'' he wrote.

I am unconditionally opposed to it for other reasons, as well.

To make as much electricity as a single 115-acre nuke plant, they'd have to denude a mile-wide swath on Kittatinny Ridge for its entire 250-mile stretch through Pennsylvania.

Think of it. All the beauty and wildlife of our Blue Mountain ruined when the same amount of juice could be generated from a site the size of a ball field. You can grasp the potential ugliness of it only by visiting San Gorgonio Pass today.

It will be beautiful only to those who make billions by building windmills.paul.carpenter@mcall.com 610-820-6176


http://www.mcall.com/news/columnists/al ... 616.column

[sammie]

A little off subject here, but did any of you hear about the 100 acre solar facility that's going to be built in Carbon County on a "pristine mountainside not far the [old] antracite fields...? Lots of familiar corporate speak going on in this article. And, $65 million dollars for 10.6 megawatts (wonder what the capacity factor of this place really is) and they make it sound like the town will be getting the power.

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-n-l ... 2967.story

State's largest energy generation center earmarked for Carbon

The Morning Call
4:46 PM EDT, August 7, 2008

A pristine mountainside not far from the anthracite fields that fueled the nation's industrial past now will help provide the energy for its future -- as the site of a 100-acre, $65 million solar panel field that will be the largest in Pennsylvania and the second largest in the country, officials announced today.

And more may follow.

When it begins operation in May, the 10.6-megawatt PA Solar Park will produce enough electricity to power 1,450 homes -- almost all of its host borough of Nequehoning -- and by doing so eliminate more than 320,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions in its first 30 years.

That's equal to planting more than 25,000 acres of trees, officials said.

"Carbon County has always been at the center of America's energy generation and innovation -- from the anthracite coal that still heats our homes and fuels many of our existing plants to this new solar farm that will generate clean, green energy while creating jobs and helping reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources,'' state Rep. Keith McCall said at a news conference to announce the project.

Carbon County businessman John "Sonny" Kovatch, on whose land Green Energy Capital Partners will build the facility next to Green Acres Industrial Park, said it's only the beginning. He said he hopes to talk with Green Energy about more fields and look at other alternative power projects.

-- Reporting by John J. Moser, The Morning Call

[Ice Man]

Hi folks,

Why not get a little exercise and support sane wind energy siting in PA at the same time? Mark your calendar for this special event at Shawnee St. Park, just a few miles north of Bedford on scenic Rt. 30.

Laura


Your support would be greatly appreciated for the first annual walk/bike or run -a-thon to benefit Sensible Wind Solutions. It will be held at Shawnee State Park on September 14th. Deadline is approaching. We have made very nice T-shirts to be given out for each registration. Our July fundraiser was a huge success thanks to all of the support from the community. Let's make this a fun and successful day as well.

Thank You for your continued support,

Kim Moore

SHAWNEE LAKESHORE TRAIL

3 MILE WALK/BIKE or RUN SEPTEMBER 14, 2008@ 2:00 Don’t feel like walking??? How about running or biking… You can even bring your dog…and get a very cool T-Shirt which will show your support for preserving Pennsylvania’s pristine mountains.

START TIME
Registration will take place from 1-2:00. We will be selling baked goods, listening to music and face painting for kids. The walk will begin at 2:00.

COURSE
Start and finish at pavilion #7 at Shawnee State Park. This is a relatively flat, beautiful 3.2 mile trail around Shawnee Lake. There will be a water station halfway.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT KIM MOORE AT 814-418-3964.

[sandstone]

I agree with ex-councilman Bill Fink that the threat that an industrial windplant poses to Tyrone's water supply is being downplayed by Gamesa and underestimated by many people. This threat includes many additional miles of roadway; clearing of forest for transmission lines; additional clearcuts for the turbines; bulldozing for substations; increased traffic on miles of new heavy-duty roadway; increased access to sensitive watershed areas, especially springs and seeps; increased illegal activity in the watershed, particularly by ATVs and 4x4s; increased risk of timber theft due to increased access; increased dumping due to increased access to formerly remote areas; risk of oil spills and coolant spills from the turbines; increased risk of fire due to lightning strikes to the turbines; and increased sedimentation due to runoff from miles of new roadway.

"CAN ANYONE REALLY OWN WATER?"
The World Water Crisis

"Water is the sleeping giant issue of the 21st Century and we all need to wake up about it. FLOW opens our eyes about the greatest threat of our time - the global water crisis. It is a compelling and passionate film. Its engaging narrative will grip the viewer." Robert Redford

A powerful movie is coming to a theater near you – September 26, 2008 at the Bourse Theater in Philadelphia is a new and powerful movie about the future of water in our country and around the world. To change things for the better we need to know what we are facing and what we can do about it.

"FLOW ", Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water Crisis.

Come out on September 26th to learn what you need to know about the future of water so you can help shape the future for all.

View Movie Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGd9D4J0lag.

Visit Movie website http://www.flowthefilm.com < http://www.flowthefilm.com> .

[Ice Man]

http://www.batcon.org/wind/BWEC2004finalreport.pdf

From the above study: "Our estimates of bat fatality are among the highest ever reported and support the
contention that forested ridges are locations of especially high risk for bat fatality at wind
facilities."

[My2Cents]

http://www.batcon.org/wind/BWEC2004finalreport.pdf

From the above study: "Our estimates of bat fatality are among the highest ever reported and support the
contention that forested ridges are locations of especially high risk for bat fatality at wind
facilities."

I just had a chance to read thru the above study. It's amazing... all the thorough research and documentation that is presented there. I can not see how any of this can be ignored, including the other links above concerning our precious water.

[sandstone]

DATE: Tuesday, August 19, 2008
TIME: 6:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
LOCATION: Bloomsburg University's Kehr Union Ballroom
ADDRESS: 400 East Second Street, Bloomsburg PA 17815

This is the first public meeting about the new nuclear reactor
proposal in PA - part of the new wave of reactor proposals that're
sweeping the country. This reactor will be added to the existing nuclear plant at Berwick.

Nuclear power is an indispensible solution for climate change. This proposal needs to be
supported early in the process.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is holding the public meeting
in Bloomsburg PA (exit 236 off of I-80, about 15 miles west of the
existing Berwick reactor) about the upcoming application from
Pennsylvania Power & Light (PPL) for a Construction/Operating License
for a new atomic reactor to be added to the existing Berwick nuclear plant.

Their purpose is to discuss the role that the NRC will play in the
anticipated review of the application, including details of the
safety and environmental reviews. A key topic is how and when the
public may participate in NRC processes.

Please let PPL and the NRC know that Pennsylvanians support new reactors!

SCHEDULE:
6:00 pm - Open House (poster session in lobby)
7:00 pm Public Outreach Meeting Begins.
Introductions/Opening Remarks by NRC
7:15 pm NC Staff Presentations
. NRC: Who We Are And What We Do
. Overview of COLA Review Process
o Safety Review
o Environmental Review
o How the public may participate
. Construction Inspection
7:45 pm Open forum for public questions and comments on NRC processes
9:30 pm Adjourn

Global warming is now advancing so swiftly that only a massive expansion of nuclear power as the world's main energy source can prevent it overwhelming civilisation, the scientist and celebrated Green guru, James Lovelock, says.

The environmental movement has long considered the 84-year-old thinker among its greatest heroes, and sees climate change as the most important issue facing the world, but it has always regarded opposition to nuclear power as an article of faith. Professor Lovelock, who achieved international fame as the author of the Gaia hypothesis, the theory that the Earth keeps itself fit for life by the actions of living things themselves, was among the first researchers to sound the alarm about the threat from the greenhouse effect.

He now believes recent climatic events have shown the warming of the atmosphere is proceeding even more rapidly than the scientists of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) thought it would, in their last report.

On that basis, he says, there is simply not enough time for renewable energy, such as wind, wave and solar power - the favoured solution of the Green movement - to take the place of the coal, gas and oil-fired power stations whose waste gas, carbon dioxide (CO2), is causing the atmosphere to warm.

He believes only a massive expansion of nuclear power, which produces almost no CO2, can now check a runaway warming which would raise sea levels disastrously around the world, cause climatic turbulence and make agriculture unviable over large areas. He says fears about the safety of nuclear energy are irrational and exaggerated, and urges the Green movement to drop its opposition.

Professor Lovelock says he is concerned by two climatic events in particular: the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which will raise global sea levels significantly, and the episode of extreme heat in western central Europe last August, accepted by many scientists as unprecedented and a direct result of global warming.

These are ominous warning signs, he says, that climate change is speeding, but many people are still in ignorance of this. Important among the reasons is "the denial of climate change in the US, where governments have failed to give their climate scientists the support they needed".

He compares the situation to that in Europe in 1938, with the Second World War looming, and nobody knowing what to do. The attachment of the Greens to renewables is "well-intentioned but misguided", he says, like the Left's 1938 attachment to disarmament when he too was a left-winger.

He writes today: "I am a Green, and I entreat my friends in the movement to drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 400073.ece

The nuclear plant near Berwick, PA, with the addition of this new reactor, will provide electricity to more than 3,000,000 homes.

[Rick]

I tend to stay impartial on our board for obvious reasons, but did come across a national news story that relates to our local situation...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflif ... topstories

Wind power brings prosperity, anger

* Story Highlights
* Maple Ridge wind project, New York state's largest, has brought area money, jobs
* But project has pitted "neighbor against neighbor, father against son," resident says
* Project includes 195 turbines at 400 feet high with 130-foot-long blades
* Residents disagree over turbine noise and size, developer deals, effect on wildlife

LOWVILLE, New York (AP) -- John Yancey leans against his truck in a field outside his home, his face contorted in anger and pain.

"Listen," he says.

The rhythmic whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of wind turbines echoes through the air. Sleek and white, their long propeller blades rotate in formation, like some otherworldly dance of spindly-armed aliens swaying across the land.

Yancey knows the towers are pumping clean electricity into the grid, knows they have been largely embraced by his community

But Yancey hates them.

He hates the sight and he hates the sound. He can't stand the gigantic flickering shadows the blades cast at certain points in the day.

But what this brawny 48-year-old farmer's son hates most about the wind turbines is that his father signed a deal with the wind company to allow seven of them on Yancey land.

Yancey lives with his wife and children on Yancey Road, on the edge of the Tug Hill plateau, half a mile from the old white farmhouse in which he and his seven siblings were raised.

Horses graze in a lower field. Amish buggies clatter down a nearby road. From the back porch are sweeping views of the distant Adirondacks.

But the view changed dramatically in 2006. Now, Yancey Road is surrounded by wind turbines.

Yancey and some of his brothers begged Ed Yancey to leave the family land untouched. But the elder Yancey pointed to the money -- a minimum of $6,600 a year for every turbine. This is your legacy, he told them.

John Yancey doesn't care.

"I just want to be able to get a good night's sleep and to live in my home without these monstrosities hovering over me," he says.

For a long time, he didn't speak to his father. He thought about leaving Yancey Road for good.

The price of power, prosperity

The Tug Hill plateau sits high above this village of about 4,000, a remote wilderness where steady winds whip down from Lake Ontario and winter snowfalls are the heaviest in the state.

For decades, dairy farmers have wrested a living from the Tug -- accepting lives of wind-swept hardship with little prospect of much change.

Then, a few years ago, change roared onto Tug Hill. Overnight, it seemed, caravans of trucks trundled onto the plateau, and for a couple of years, the village was ablaze with activity.

Today, 195 turbines soar above Tug Hill, 400 feet high, their 130-foot-long blades spinning at 14 revolutions per minute.

The $400 million Maple Ridge wind project, the largest in New York state, brought money and jobs and a wondrous sense of prosperity. But the wind turbines also came with a price -- and not just the visual impact.

"Is it worth destroying families, pitting neighbor against neighbor, father against son?" asks John Yancey, whose family has farmed Tug Hill for generations. "Is it worth destroying a whole way of life?"

Similar questions are being asked across the country as more small towns grapple with big money and big wind. For many, the changes are worth it. With rising oil and gas prices and growing concerns about global warming, wind is becoming an attractive alternative.

The Maple Ridge project produces enough electricity to power about 100,000 homes. Other wind projects are going up all over the state. T. Boone Pickens is talking about building a $10 billion wind project in the Texas panhandle. Everyone, it seems, is talking about wind.

Yancey understands its seduction. An electrician, he knows as much about the turbines as anyone. He helped build and install the ones on Tug Hill.

Turbines have their place, Yancey says, just not where people live.

And he accuses the wind company of preying on vulnerable old-timers like his father.

Family friction

In the front room of the little house where he moved after retiring from farming, Ed Yancey, 92, says he doesn't feel preyed upon. He feels lucky.

"It's better than a nuclear plant," he says. "And it brings in good money."

Ben Byer, a 75-year-old retired dairy farmer, feels the same way.

"It sure beats milking cows," he says of the seven turbines on his land.

But Byer, who is John Yancey's uncle, understands the lingering resentments the wind turbines fuel between those who profit and those who don't. The wind company signed lease agreements with just 74 landowners and "good neighbor" agreements with several dozen more, offering $500 to $1,000 for the inconvenience of living close to the turbines.

Byer's 47-year-old son, Rick, lives higher up on the plateau in a small white house with a two-seat glider parked in a shed. The glider is Rick Byer's passion. He flies on weekends when he's not working at the pallet-making company.

In order to launch, the glider has to be towed by truck down a long rolling meadow across the road. When the wind company began negotiating with his father to put turbines on his "runway," Rick Byer delivered a furious ultimatum.

"I told him if he allowed turbines in that field, he would lose a son."

The son's rage won out, but Rick Byer still seethes at the forest of turbines that sprouted across from his home. Now he speaks out in other area towns where wind turbines are proposed.

Opportunity blows into town

Like most of their neighbors, the Yanceys and Byers had a hard time believing the wind salesman when he first rolled into town in 1999.

"No one thought it would happen," John Yancey says.

At first, local officials were skeptical too. But they listened, and learned, and they started hammering out agreements with the wind company, Atlantic Renewable Corp., and its partner, Zilka Renewable Energy. (The companies have changed names and ownership several times, and the Maple Ridge Wind project is now jointly owned by PPM Energy of Portland, Oregon, which is part of the Spanish company Iberdrola SA, and Houston, Texas-based Horizon Wind Energy LLC, which is owned by the Portuguese conglomerate Energias de Portugal.)

Eventually, officials from Lowville, Martinsburg and Harrisburg, along with Lewis County legislators, negotiated a 15-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement that gave the three jurisdictions $8.1 million in the first year.

Martinsburg, with a population of 1,249, got the biggest municipal cut because it hosts the largest number of wind turbines -- a total of 102. Martinsburg supervisor Terry Thiesse, who has a wind turbine on his land, says the municipal budget went from just under $400,000 to more than $1.2 million with the first wind payment in 2006.

The school district, which serves all jurisdictions, received $2.8 million in 2006 and $3.5 million in 2007.

Wind finances are a source of great confusion for many locals, who assumed they would get free electricity once the turbines were installed. In fact, the energy is sold to utility companies and piped into the grid.

Though the wind itself is free, companies have enormous startup costs: A single industrial wind turbine costs about $3 million. In New York, companies benefit from the fact that the state requires 25 percent of all electricity to be supplied from renewable sources by 2013. They also get federal production tax credits in addition to "green" renewable energy credits, which can be sold in the energy market.

In this context, the annual payments of about $6,600 per turbine are relatively small. But for some cash-strapped farmers, they're a big help.

"It's the best cash cow we ever had," booms retired dairy farmer Bill Burke, who has six turbines on his land. Burke, 60, is a school board member and county legislator, who also works part-time for the wind company.

Burke sold the last of his herd in 2004. Without the income from the turbines, he says, he might have had to sell his 100-year-old farm, too. He has no regrets about grabbing his "once-in-a-lifetime chance at prosperity."

'The cost ... was too high'

For many, the realities of living with wind turbines are more complicated than clean energy and easy money. People have mixed feelings about the enormous scale of the project. They question what will happen when the 15-year agreements expire. There are concerns about the impact of turbines on bird and bat populations. Some accuse lawmakers of getting too cozy with wind developers -- allegations that prompted New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to launch an investigation into two wind companies and their dealings with upstate municipalities. (The investigation does not involve Maple Ridge.)

Such concerns have prompted some towns to pass moratoria on industrial turbines in order to learn more. Malone and Brandon recently banned them completely.

"It seemed like the cost, in terms of how it changed the community, was too high," Malone supervisor Howard Maneely said after visiting Lowville.

On Nefsey Road, which runs parallel to Yancey Road, Dawn Sweredoski, a sixth-grade teacher, finds a certain beauty in the wind turbines.

But she is sympathetic to her neighbors' concerns. The Amish farmer across the road hates how the towers have disrupted the sense of tranquility that lured his family from Maryland in the first place. And Sweredoski, who sees the wind turbines only in the distance, understands John Yancey's annoyance at living with them up close.

"It's hard when change is for the common good but some people suffer more than others," she says.

No one understands that better than the Yanceys, struggling to patch fractured family relationships, even as they struggle to come to terms with the turbines.

High on Tug Hill sits the Flat Rock Inn, a popular gathering point for snowmobilers and all-terrain vehicle riders. Twenty years ago, Gordon Yancey carved out this chunk of land with the help of his father, creating miles of forest trails and camping areas, set around a six-acre pond and a small rustic inn and bar.

All around stretch wind turbines, miles and miles of them. Yancey chokes up just looking at them.

"Dad taught us such respect for the land. For my father to be part of this ..." His voice trails off and he shakes his head and walks away.

This particular weekend is a busy one for Yancey's inn, which is hosting a huge watercross event -- in which snowmobiles roar across the pond, their speed keeping them from sinking. People come from all over to race their machines across the pond. Campers roll in to watch. There are campfires and barbecues, screaming engines and squealing children.

In the distance, Rick Byer's glider floats above the turbines. On the ground, Gordon Yancey bellows race results through a loudspeaker. Patriarch Ed Yancey talks about the old days -- before snowmobiles and turbines. John Yancey works an enormous gas grill turning 50 sizzling chickens on spits.

All around, the wind turbines spin. John Yancey looks up from the grill occasionally and grimaces. Right now, no one else seems to care.

[Ice Man]

I tend to stay impartial on our board for obvious reasons, but did come across a national news story that relates to our local situation...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflif ... topstories

Thanks, Rick. The same story is in the "Nation" section of today's Altoona Mirror. However, it's not on the Mirror's website.

[Ice Man]

The nuclear plant near Berwick, PA, with the addition of this new reactor, will provide electricity to more than 3,000,000 homes.

10,000 industrial-scale wind turbines would be required to produce the same amount of electricity as will the expanded Berwick nuclear plant. Since industrial wind turbines are spaced 5 per mile, that would require the sacrifice of 2,000 miles of ridgetop. There's no way that sacrificing 2,000 miles of Pennsylvania ridge is less environmentally harmful than one nuclear plant!