Letters to the Editor
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Save our sound (SOS)!!!
I am not rich, but I am definitely against the wind farm destroying Nantucket Sound. This isn't about a bunch of richies riches protecting their ocean views. It's about ALL people in the area wanting to protect something beautiful...a part of nature that SHOULDN'T be for sale.
Let's be honest. The wind farm won't produce a substantial amount of energy (about 1% -- woo hoo, not!) or savings (10 cents for the average resident), but it will line the pockets of those at Cape Wind who put it in place (over $70M). The wind farm will also have a serious impact on the fishing and tourism industries. Has anyone even thought about the ecological effects?
I am sick of corporations like Cape Wind pretending they care about people and the environment when they don't. This is a corproate takeover of Horseshoe Shoal. Environmentalists, don't be fooled by these jerks! For the truth, visit www.saveoursound.org. There are better alternatives than Cape Wind!!!
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Say yes to wind energy
In central Oregon, wind farms are dotting the landscape and helping local farmers stay on their land. The leases for turbine pads provide income for farmers in this area of extremely low rainfall, and the rural counties in windy areas have gotten an improved tax base out of the deal.
The windmills themselves are not unsightly at all. Against a big sky, they aren't really visible until one is quite close. The sleek windmill designs and slow-moving blades don't rest heavily on the landscape. The first impression is that they are part of an art installation. You can't say that about a coal-burning plant. And they are silent, unless you stand directly beneath one, and then all you hear is a slight "whoosh" as the blade sweeps by.
The blades would have to wipe out whole species of birds to come close to the impact of pollution from fossil-fuel derived energy.
With sensitive siting, wind power has most of the pluses, and none of the minuses, of petroleum-based energy production.
mlw
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Wind Power not covering the whole of our energy needs.
One of the things that gets to me about the whole energy mess in this country is the atitude that for an energy source to be worthwhile it needs to solve the entire problem.
Wind should be a part of the whole mix of energy sources. We should use solar, wind, tides, and anything else that can help reduce the reliance on just one source, especially if that energy source will also help with global warming.
And to those that have issues with the aesthetic damage of windfarms: get over it. I bet the coast will be really pretty when it is all underwater. Polishing the china in the Titanic is not going to stop it from sinking.
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Alternatives
A very timely article - thanks. It never ceases to amaze me that people would oppose clean energy - I understand the entrenched oil and coal companies and their fearful attacks, but not rational citizens. How is seeing a soaring turbine far out to sea a "blight"? As opposed to a black smoke-emitting, aging hulk of a coal plant, or gas refineries? We should have wind farms lining the east and west coastlines, and solar and other alternative energy sources inland. I have seen the wind farms in Europe and off the coast of Denmark, and I find them quite attractive. Folks on Cape Code are worried about their views now - just wait until your land is under water from greenhouse gases.
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South Cape Douchebags - including my beloved Ted Kennedy
The "not in my backyard" misanthropes who live along the south of Cape Cod who so vehemently object to their precious ocean views being tarnished by these graceful, functional, wind sculptures bring great shame to the people of Massachusetts. In case you haven't noticed - TED KENNEDY - the world is being turned upside-down because of the energy trends we face. Wake up - and leave Hyannisport if you're worried that the windmills are going to make your yachting adventures and sailboat paintings less pretty.
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Wind Farms Rock!
How many soldiers are dead because we have to protect the oil?
And the chief complaint -- the main objection! -- to developing a new energy source that is reliable and cheap (and doesn't cause cancer by emitting toxins) is that it "might" obscure the view?
Please tell that to the parents of a soldier killed in Iraq.
"I'm sorry for your loss, but he died protecting my view of the coast."
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Sandwich
P.S. Where were Ted Kennedy, et al when that oil-fired industrial abomination of an electrical plant was built along the canal in Sandwich? I'll take a hundred graceful windmills over a dirty concrete smokestack any day. You should, too.
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Weird but Wonderful
The first time I encountered a wind farm was in California a few years ago. My first impression was Salvador Dali had slipped something in my coffee on the way inland. I was positively freaked out by the otherwordly fanscape.
But I'm better now, thank you. I got over it even as the car passed through the I began to sense the possibilities. Yes, even the possibility that some large birds could get nailed by the quiet, slow-moving blades. Probably not nearly as many as are taken out by avian COPD our outright poisoned by our vast, ongoing industrial fart, but a few. Very few. OK, I'm a monster. Still, somehow the notion of these passive, quiet, eminently simple machines supporting a portion of our energy needs began to appeal to me more and more, dead birds and blighted views (gimme a freakin' break!) notwithstanding.
The thing works. When one considers the incredibly vast amount of undeveloped land in the nation and the relative unobtrusiveness of the wind turbine (as opposed, say, to oil derricks or coal mines or timber taking operations) they become quite lovely to me. As a part of a comprehensive package of alternative energy sources, they could make an enormous contribution and even add a welcome touch surrealism to the landscape which, if left to the Nova Mob, will be under water or turned to desert anyway by the time our grandchildren are big enough to don their breathing apparatus to go outside.
As for Cape Cod, it figures.