wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

There is an application in to build three wind turbines about a mile outside the village and a public meeting was held a couple of days ago.

There was a cabaret involving a very agitated local woman who shouted at the representatives and blew a whistle repeatedly, apparently indicating that she was blowing the whistle on their lies. Another man shouted incoherently then many people joined in. The shouters had no evidence to back up their worries about 'waves coming through their houses', about excess noise, health damage, effects on house prices.

I went along to ask about the possible danger to the local osprey population and other wild life and came away reasonably satisfied. Now I have looked for real evidence of health hazards but all the articles seem to hinge on secret documents that various authorities are withholding.

What are your opinions, knowledge, experiences? I know dbd hates them with a passion. I quite like the look of them and hate seeing fields of solar panels, or even those individual ones stuck in back yards. Anyway , here I am wanting to knowmore

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

I hate them.

Complete waste of time, money and totally screw up the landscape and views.

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

If any other form of power generation killed as many birds and bats per watt as wind turbines, the Greens would be marching in the streets demanding it be shut down.

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

How many birds and bats per watt do they kill?

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

I think I read something about the bats. ...

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

When I lived In Ireland there were several turbines put up about a mile, mile and a half away. They were at the top end of the hills that eventually went down to Bantry Bay and you could see the bay from the turbine site. We would often take a walk through the woods to get up close to the turbines. They were actually quite amazing to stand beneath, and nowhere near as noisy as some would have us believe. We could sit out on our patio and see the tops of about 4 or 5 turbines spin, and found it quite relaxing to do so. I also had a small turbine at home, linked in with some solar too.
As for my opinions on views, they are more pleasing to the eye than open pit mines, nuclear reactors and the oil sands. We also have to move on from the reliance on oil for some of it's uses, it will run out one day and we need to plan ahead.
As for the bird/bat issue, we heard the same arguments when the turbines were proposed. I can't say with any authority that they do, or don't kill, large numbers of birds but we never saw any evidence of any kills around the site. I think there would be more birds killed flying into windows across towns, or from cat predation.

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

Well, she did start this thread.

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

According to this site not many birds. http://www.sibleyguides.com/conserva...ird-mortality/

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

Quite. I knew that. To be fair that data is from 2003 and wind turbines are at least 5 times more common today. So the bird-kill by wind turbines is on course to rival cars but has no chance of ever rivalling cats or windows. Perhaps MarkG would getting the ball rolling by taking out all the windows in his house and walking to work? I hope he's not a cat lover.

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

So let me get this right Ince, you powered your whole house with that small fan and one solar panel.:blink:

Impressive....:thumbsup:

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

I was amused that there were many gas guzzlers parked outside the meeting. The protestors were very earnest and emtional but didn't present anyone evidence to support their claims. I asked questions and was shown charts, papers, graphs. I did feel as if I was proposing mass murder when I said I quite liked the look of them. The turbines that is.

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

No, not that good :) It produce a good portion of our needs though. We would often lose power up on the hill there, but "turbine power", as we termed it, allowed us to have lights, watch tv, read, use the computer and boil up the kettle for tea or coffee. The panels on the roof gave us more hot water than we'd use in a day from about May-September, and for the rest of the year raised the temperature of the hot water tank enough so that the electric immersion heater was just topping up the heat.
We also had no central heating system as I built the place close to passivhaus standards,ie. very high levels of insulation, triple paned windows etc,etc.
If we had stayed there I think we'd have added to the system and practically got off the grid.

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

I'm impressed. Good for you.

Total worldwide wind turbines now produce an annual power output of about 50 billion KWh (and increasing very quickly year over year). The coal needed for power equivalent output is more than 100 million tonnes of coal per year, or about 300 million tonnes of CO2.

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

I have. I problem with them aesthetically
I just think they are fairly useless in generating large amounts of electricity
I think they are a cop out to pretend that we are reducing our reliance on fossil fuels
Money spent on them should be used to research ways to make nuclear fusion a
Viable option

I've heard that they screw with radar for ATC but haven't really read any conclusive studies

Re: wind farms, pros and cons, love or hate?
 

I would like to see their response had you stood up and shouted no turbines build a coal fired or nuclear generating station instead.... :rofl:

I want to see many many more renewable sources of energy used and tax the living SHHHHHHHt out of Gas Guzzling and mostly pointless vehicles. Esp those makes and models where the manufacturer offers better choices in other markets. :amen: