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<\/a>By Michael Fumento<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nDespite massive subsidies, wind power still only provides about two percent of U.S. energy. Part of the problem is inherent. It takes a lot of turbines to produce the power that a single coal-fired or nuke plant can produce. So wind farms are going to comprise a lot of turbines. And that causes problems, as we\u2019ve been seeing in a 10-year fight over constructing a 130-turbine offshore wind farm near Martha\u2019s Vineyard.<\/p>\n
It would be the first offshore wind project in the country and furnish about 75 percent of Cape Cod\u2019s energy.<\/p>\n
Ian Bowles, the Massachusetts energy and environmental affairs secretary, has called the project \u201csymbolic of America\u2019s struggle with clean energy. Its symbolism has risen above the number of megawatts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although some protests have been dealt with, including potential hindrance to navigation and fishing and harm to birds, Indians are still against it. (I used to say \u201cnative Americans\u201d until once when I was interviewing two of them and I kept saying \u201cnative Americans\u201d and they kept referring to themselves as \u201cIndians.\u201d)<\/p>\n
The Indians in the area practice a sunrise ritual on the sound and also say they may have artifacts buried beneath the seabed, according to the Washington Post<\/em><\/a><\/em>. They\u2019ve gotten the sound qualified for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, which could restrict its commercial use.<\/p>\n <\/span>Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says that although his department is trying to broker a deal between the tribes and Energy Management, the company seeking to build the farm, \u201cI\u2019m not holding my breath for a consensus.\u201d If both sides can\u2019t settle on a compromise by April, he says, he\u2019s going to just lay down the law himself in April and probably tick off everybody.<\/p>\n Michael Moynihan, director of the Green Project at NDN, a centrist think tank, told the Post<\/em>, \u201cIt is emblematic of the difficulty of getting wind online, anywhere in America, with a system designed a century ago that is frankly hostile to renewable energy.\u201d<\/p>\n Right. If it were just a few tightly-bunched turbines, it wouldn\u2019t be a problem. But these farms, in addition to things like chopping up birds and bats have a big and obvious footprint.<\/p>\n Compare that with the nearest power plant to my home, which I often pass on my bike rides. It\u2019s small, but probably provides more power than hundreds of turbines. Nonetheless, being coal-powered it drew the ire of a number of local residents. So the owners did something really smart. They built a wooden wall around the plant, then painted a very nice mural on it depicting local history.<\/p>\n This being the land of George Washington, the murals include such as Washington\u2019s crossing of the Delaware. The wall isn\u2019t that high, yet it\u2019s enough so that if you didn\u2019t already know the plant was there you wouldn\u2019t know it was there. It has smokestacks, but you never see anything come out of them. The only ugly aspect was the coal pile, and it\u2019s now obscured.<\/p>\n Out of sight, out of mind. But you can\u2019t do that with wind. Solar has its own problem, also based on inefficiency, in that it requires huge tracts of land for all the panels needed.<\/p>\n But if you\u2019re looking for new facilities that don\u2019t produce greenhouse gas emissions there is a fourth solution. Nuclear power. A natural gas-burning power plant under construction has just exploded<\/a>, killing five people. Every year, American coal miners die violently in mines or slowly from exposure to coal dust. Nuclear power in this country has never killed anybody. No birds, no bats, and most importantly no humans. That\u2019s also true in France, where 70 percent of their power comes from nukes.<\/p>\n And today\u2019s nuke plant designs are less prone to accidents than ever.<\/p>\n The writing is on the wall. Go nuclear.<\/p>\n TonyfromOz adds …..<\/span><\/p>\n Secretary Of The Interior Ken Salazar gets a mention here. For more detail on his ‘perceptions’ with respect to Wind Power Generation, take this link<\/a>, and for even more detail on aspects regarding Wind Power generation, take this link<\/a>, these just two posts of many at our site on this Wind Power topic.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Michael Fumento<\/a> is a<\/em> director of the Independent Journalism Project, is an investigative reporter, author, attorney and photographer specializing in science and health issues. He contributes posts at <\/em>the Competitive Enterprise Institute<\/a> at their Open Market.org<\/a> site.<\/em><\/p>\n Read more Great Articles at cei.org<\/a><\/p>\n Filed under: 111th Congress<\/a>, America (USA)<\/a>, Blundering Bureaucrats<\/a>, Climate Alarmists<\/a>, Climate Change<\/a>, Conniving Politicians<\/a>, Democrats<\/a>, Environment<\/a>, Environmental activists<\/a>, Fraud\/Waste<\/a>, Global Warming<\/a>, Infrastructure Problems<\/a>, Liberals<\/a>, Lily-Livered Liberals<\/a>, Limp-Wrist Liberals<\/a>, Political Prostitutes<\/a>, Politics<\/a>, Power Hungry<\/a>, Propaganda<\/a>, Public Opinion<\/a>, Spine Donor Politicians<\/a> Tagged: Cape Wind<\/a>, CEI (Competitive Enterprise Institute)<\/a>, Climate Change Religion<\/a>, Global Warming Hype<\/a>, Nuclear power Generation<\/a>, Open Market<\/a>, Renewable Power Plants<\/a>, Secretary Of The Interior Ken Salazar<\/a>, Tony<\/a>, Wind Power Generation<\/a> By Michael Fumento Despite massive subsidies, wind power still only provides about two percent of U.S. energy. Part of the problem is inherent. It takes a lot of turbines to produce the power that a single coal-fired or nuke plant can produce. So wind farms are going to comprise a lot of turbines. And that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4200,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-301755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4200"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301755\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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