Wind Power - Love it or Hate it?

[Arrowwind]

I just finished watching the film called Windfall that exposes the issues regarding wind farms and how the corporations that set them up interact with local communities. It is quite a revealing tale that should not be missed if you are concerned about environmental issues.

Its available on netflix and a trailer here: http://windfallthemovie.com/index_1.html

[Lifebringer]

Thanks always wanted to know the pros and cons of wind, I always thought the oceanic tides were better for electricity production, but have fallen in love with the potential for our desert areas to do something besides cook the planet, and power the homes. Cable wires that can hold the current should be placed in the ground or in spiral tubing pipe to allow for shaking or jarring of the earth and it can be made from recycled plastic in a color that is visible both night and day/glo. Thinking outside the box, we could even make concrete tunnels to run the power to stations in cities and rural areas.

Like I said I love solar, because the Sun won't go out for another billion or so years and it is silent in its production. Power Cell storage below ground in or at the stations can run power at night, until the sun comes back up the next day and then recharge again the storage cells as well as if wind + solar liinked, power would be continuous.

Solution:[/B]

Cylidrical wind capture, made with sheets of lighter fabric like recycled plastic encasing styrofoam so the whooshing sound, doesn't desturb residents while powering. It also catches wind in any direction, and reduces shadow distraction disturbance to end sleep deprivation. Think of the spherical ones on the roof of buildings, only in rectangles x's 100. The blade design which is 9 tons, would be reduced and a defrost wire or two can be added to keep ice off the sheets catching the wind. Stand the cylinder up/tall attach sheets of fabric like a sail catches the wind, but it turns in any direction the wind blows. A back up of natural gas or storage cells powered/charged by Solar, and WE the people can really go green.

[Lazlo]

I haven't seen the whole movie, but the trailer suggests that some people are now unhappy that they are receiving lease payments for turbines. Additionally...shocker...wind farms are big money.

I suppose that they would prefer coal seam strip mines or hydrofracking natural gas rigs were keeping their lights on. If you don't like that you can always have nuclear.

Modern society runs on electricity and you can make it in the traditional dirty fashion or you can get clean energy. Regardless, it has to come from somewhere or else we can all go back to the 19th century.

I will try to watch in full, but I have the sense that it is going to be the complaints of NIMBY's (Not In My Back Yard)

[Arrowwind]

It seems that close proximity to wind turbines causes severe mental and physical distress. It needs to be controlled locally, not by corporations who come into a community and tries to turn people against each other. Millions go into the pockets of the corporations and only relative pennies into those who host the windmills on their lands and only pennies to the community. This film brings to point some very serious issues.
Not in my back yard. So how about yours?

This film merits a full viewing

There are places where windfarms are appropriate, away from homes, schools and out of hearing range, and flickering shadow rannge, out of flinging ice range. there also needs to be solid contracts to disamble the windmills when they become obsolete or malfunctioning... not left to the small farmer who rented or leased land to the companies.

[treeman]

Wind farms....as oppose to, uhm, 'A nuclear power station', No brain'er !
If only we could have the opportunity to research + develop Tesla's incredible works.

[Lazlo]

Disclosure: I work for a company that develops, owns, and maintains wind and solar farms. I have access to reams of data, and documentaries like this only tell one side of the story.

For example, there are letters of credit and holdback accounts in place for decommissioning windfarms.

My favorite story explains it fabulously, and it is 100% true.

An avian group sued to shut down windfarms in the Altamont wind area of Northern California. The group got access to the sites in order to conduct scientific studies on bird mortality. Every feather they found counted as an individual bird, and further deaths were estimated on the reasoning that there must be many more deaths that go uncounted.

So the lawyer for the avian group made his case before the jury. Lots of pictures of evil wind turbines and poor helpless birds.

The defense attorney simply stood up when it was time for rebuttal and made a motion to dismiss. The judge asked why he should dismiss. What came next was priceless.

"Your honor, according to their own numbers resulting from scientific studies, these couple of hundred wind turbines kill more birds yearly than they claim even exist. We can all see that there are still birds, therefore the only conclusion can be that wind turbines actually make birds."

The judge asked to see the study again, and after a quick check to confirm the numbers, dismissed the case.

Another time, there was a big to do because turbines were definitely killing golden eagles, everyone was just sure of it and articles were all over the media. It turned out that poachers had decided that they could use wind turbines as cover and were killing the eagles and dumping them under the turbines to avoid detection. When the truth was discovered, not one of the media sources that blamed the deaths on the turbines ever corrected the stories.

Wind farms spend big money on environmental compliance, and the leases and permits run into the hundreds of pages. I read the studies and follow the claims because I have to, it is a part of my job, and I have yet to see an instance where the more damning claims have been backed up by the evidence.

I will admit that there are some turbines out there that were not sited well, but that is a thing of the past. There are setbacks as part of the permitting process.

I will take spinning turbines over belching smokestacks any day.

[Lifebringer]

The engineer should be charged for not presenting a better design for smaller and rural quiet community consideration. That is the 1st thing you do in green design, is the consideration of the owners/PEOPLE who are paying for it. You must take their vision, consider the community culture and environment, and build the design for them according to stats. You have chirette/meetings with all the crew, because from beginning to end, the project is green. The livestock and habitats must be considered. That is the reason to give all the crew a chance to think "outside the box" in the design and plans so everyone is on the same page. This company was through T. Boone Pickens/aka BP natural gas back up more important to keep his energy company and mining for gas thriving as back up for "design flaw for the community."
I wrote to him and gave him a tweet on the solution for free, because the dots have to connect if WE are to become clean and renewable energy at a lower cost, to free the tax payer's dollars for other things/NEEDS to survive.

Just think if all our substidized housing had renewable energy source systems, the tax payer programs like LAHEAP every year can be safely cut where the elderly don't freeze in winter, nor cook inside during the summers which get progressively hotter each year.

Also OUR welfare system, should not be disconnected from the unemployed system as they too are unemployed and need skill training. Therefore, instead of telling them to find a job or get off in 2 years. Manditory skill training or school continuance should be applied to these less fortunate souls who may think the system a lifetime safety net of bad decisions while seeking a mate, or during divorce. Some women were stay at home and after a divorce barely have High School diploma. So let's make the system efficient and effective, to lessen the chances of them returning when they lose a job, because they are educated and or skilled for the economic future. They speak english, you can tell that by all the texting, so let's get them in their proper places in our economy, and end the poverty, by arming these unfortunate souls who fell on hard times, with boots and straps to survive and take care of their families and become progressive citizens contributing to the success of America's future. If China can educate out the billion, so can America's millions.

Time to move the country forward.

[Lifebringer]

T Boone was so anxious to go green as an "environmentalist" he hired the wrong engineer to do those rural projects . Even the poll height was incorrect.

However Standing cylindrical lightweight plastic sheeting, can capture wind in any directions silently like the windmills of Holland, only less shadow. A cylinder from the same distance, casts no more hypnotic shadows, and look no different than a power pole without lines.

When doing green projects you must consider the design and culture. In this case peoplr retire for quiet, not the dulling palpating rythm of whoosing wind. Quiet country side green energy requires solar and cylindrical and Lithium battery storage with shut off conversion when charged or city power outages. You can't have them on during repairs or the linemen will get zapped. That is why it is important to follow the energy to the letter of detail, and WE have the people who do this because they enjoy the change and independent satisfaction, the owners give them when done right. When the peorject doesn't come out right, someone wasn't on the same page as the owners. ONE good thing about it is, they "still" want green energy, but NOT the bladed design. T. Boone Pickens should either refund them or convert them into cylindrical. He can have someone go directly there, get the complaints listed and take them to the engineer and after scolding them, tell them to covert the design to cylindrical one a time or all at once. The town would probably think they lost their hearing when the noise of whooshing stops. Imagine them waking up after a good nights sleep finally and give testamony to the cylindrical differences for rural areas of quiet.

Thinking outside the box don't cost you nothing.

[Lifebringer]

It was pretty good, and I'm glad I went to IMAGO GREEN LLC for training to become a LEED Green Associate. I've done construction for 20 years and needed to have a energy completion course that gave green options during the building. WE build self sustaining homes and Canada has whole communities that run off their own waste and use waterless toilet system that dries the waste, collects the methane gas, also recycling water from rain capture to feed the gardens after filtration. They never use toilet or kitchen food water, but bath water and runoff during storms for those who still wish to flush a toilet. They have many designs and if you look up LEED SUSTAINABLE PROJECTS IN ANY NATION, IT'S WORLDWIDE.

I get goose pimples when I remember one building saved million gallons of water per year.

[Arrowwind]

My state has several large windfarms. They are placed quite out of the way, not hovering over residential areas. Someone in the site selection process made some better judgements that what happened to these poor people in New York State. Some companies surely are more ethical than others when it comes to full disclosure and in proper administration and location of these wind farms.

I use to spend time on T Boone Pickens wind site. There seemed to be many people there with quite a bit of knowledge. Personally I'd rather see communities own and manage their own wind projects rather than mainlining electricity in from remote deserts or mountains by large corporate wind industries. Id rather see the profits go to communities, but I guess that is my bias as right now my electiricty comes from a small rural co-op that provides excellent service and we pay only 7.5 cents a kilowatt hour... big companies demand big payoff. We have a board dedicated to keep our electricity from being taken over and every year profits that come in are returned to the co-op members by a nice reduction in their electric bills or even outright cash.

In my state you will see private windmills, small ones, on farms here and there both to pump water and to make electricity. Since our state has many small rural communites only one large windmill could do them great service to some of them and its easy to place one windmill in a populated area instead of over 30 or 60. More needs to be done to promote smaller privately owned windmills, community owned windmills and in reducing their price and make them more user friendly for low tech people.

On Pickens site I saw plans for a windmill made out of large blue plastic water barrels. They were cut in half the long way and one was fitted into the other to make 4 cups to catch the wind. It was suspended under a house deck that served the second floor. Due to its light design it rotated more than heavier metal ones and they said it was very quite. The design was simple and lots of folks could construct it. All parts aside from the water barrels came from home depot. I wish I had the plans for it for we have a 15 foot high deck at our home, and lots of wind, but when I went back to find the design I couldnt locate it.

[M6*]

Thanks Arrowwind,

I watched this yesterday and then got so busy I forgot to thank you for the post.
This is certainly a cause I can subscribe to. Pollution is Pollution....whether it be Visual, Audio,
Bacterial, or Whatever.

I also watched a fascinating debate with Donald Trump concerning his consternation over
the windmills in close proximity to his holdings in Scotland.

Thanks again. M6*

[Lazlo]

Arrowwind,

A small DC turbine can be made from a low RPM, high output alternator from a police cruiser and bicycle parts. Getting the blade design is important, but the real key is in gearing it right.

http://www.ehow.com/how_4895635_buil...lternator.html

http://www.mdpub.com/Wind_Turbine/

http://www.mademan.com/mm/how-build-...lternator.html

http://www.windynation.com/articles/...ind-generators