Pics of wind turbines jsut down the road from me...

[coopy]

I have learned that people are going to complain no matter what.
I live in the country up on a hill so I wouldn't have to worry about that part. I think they are neat looking. I saw them in Canada and Montana a couple years ago.

 

[RLAZ]

Very nice pics! Thanks for sharing

 

[Big Daddy]

I don't really understand the bird concern. Those blades are so huge that even in high winds they don't spin that fast. Seems like birds should be able to avoid them. Where I've scene them they actually improve the view. Texas panhandle as an example. Gives you something to look at. If T. Boone Pickens guy wants to get into it it has to be a big money maker. Of course he's looking to make money on the power generation and selling natural gas for mostly big rigs.

 

[patandchickens]

I don't really understand the bird concern. Those blades are so huge that even in high winds they don't spin that fast. Seems like birds should be able to avoid them.

Except that the blades do not spin as slowly as they look to be spinning (remember they are realllly big ) and many birds migrate at night and the towers themselves cause a lot of mortality just like cell phone towers and suchlike do. It really IS an issue. The question is mainly, how can they be made safer for birds (safe is probably not possible, but safER probably is), and is the cost to bird populations worth the benefit in it being pretty 'clean' electricity.

There was a big ol' knock down drag out fight over wind turbines in our town, for about a year or year and a half, recently. Some city nitwits moved to a country farm and without even mentioning it to the neighbors decided they wanted to have a 5- (later revised to 3-)turbine mini wind farm on the property. Neighbors were Not Amused, but I think there was probably quite a lot of subtext to it, beyond the wind turbines themselves. The nitwits had some company come in and put up a test turbine for a year to see if the wind regime was suitable. It sat there fanning the flames for a year. The local paper greatly appreciated having something to write about for a change Then, mysteriously the test turbine was taken down and a small announcement was made that they decided the wind was not suitable to support a facility, and no more was ever said about it. <rolling of eyes>

It was really quite amusing

I refused several times to sign petitions against the wind farm. OTOH I think it was all approached in sort of a maximally buttheaded notgonnawork kind of fashion and serves 'em right it didn't work out

I agree with Big Daddy though that they are pretty, at least in limited number (like up to a few dozen). I would be ok with living next to small numbers like that, except possibly for the property-value issue since *other* people aren't necessarily so thrilled with the idea.

Pat

 

[ams3651]

just yesterday I went over the mountan next to my house, usually go in the other direction, and on the next mountain (yes lots of them here, right in the mountain range) there were at least 8 of them, Id never been so close to them before. Really neat to see. They had to go up this past summer or fall.

 

[dacjohns]

I cannot think of any type of energy (electricity) producing system that does not have some sort of draw back. Even the cleanest and most environmentally friendly system has hidden costs in the mining of raw materials used for producing the system and in the manufacturing process.

 

[PamsPride]

My DH worked for a cell phone company for 13 years. The towers killing birds was NOT an issue!! Part of his job was actually documenting if he found dead birds within the fence and it was VERY RARE for him to actually find one dead! They had more of an issue with large birds and eagles building nests ON the tower and then they could not service the towers.

 

[Farmer Kitty]

There are many of the windturbine farms going up by my SIL and her husband. They haven't started them yet but, they are wondering how the noise level will be. They have them on all sides of them. Here's some pics I took last fall when we were down there.
Right across the road from the house.

Out one side.

One laying on the ground to go up.

Close up on the body of the turbine.

They can standup in there to do the maintance on them. It is amazing to see those bodies up close. They don't look so big in the air. And the amount of concret underneath one is just unreal, although I can't remember the figures right now.

 

[TanksHill]

I just saw this thread and I thought I would post a couple pics. I took these last Feb when we were headed to the desert. We had a snow storm that came down to lie 2000 ft elev. Anyways this is Palm Desert. They have a million of these turbines. They have been there as long as I can remember. And yes they are huge!!!

 

[Big Daddy]

Well look at this way. When the occasional bird gets hit, it becomes a food source for scavengers. They won't go to waste.