Letter to the Editor:
Wind Towers - Dangerous, Unsightly and Inefficient

Monday, August 11, 2003

If a few corporate developers get their way, hundreds of Goliath wind
turbines will soon loom discordantly in an extended phalanx atop the
most beautiful natural ridges of the Allegheny Mountains, visible for
scores of miles in the valleys below. These — and the many thousands
more projected for the continental United States east of the
Mississippi — represent an intrusive, feckless source of electricity.
Industry experts agree that even if all the wind energy potential in
the East could be harnessed effectively, this would contribute only a
small percentage of the region’s total electricity needs. The rush to
site industrial facilities in the East is therefore unnecessary, given
that the development potential in the upper Midwest alone would dwarf
the total output of all wind energy facilities ever likely to be built
in the eastern United States.

Nonetheless, there is a clamor for wind initiatives in the East, fueled
both by the uninformed wishful thinking of well-intentioned advocates
and by an extraordinary corporate welfare scheme of tax credits and
other means to shelter income. Industrial windpower operations would
simply not be viable without these “incentives.” Moreover, industry
claims that this is an environmentally safe technology are a lot of hot
air. Here are some facts about this industry which do not adorn its
public relations campaigns.

• Demand for energy is expected to increase nationally 2 percent each
year for the next 25 years. Consequently, even if built out completely
across the East, windpower will not displace even one coal-generated
electric facility or reduce the demand for mining of coal.

• Because of the variability in wind energy over time, wind turbines
actually produce only about one-third of their potential electricity
yield. Therefore, they must be supported by fossil fuel or other
consistent power sources.

• The cost of wind-generated electricity is substantially higher than
that for modern fossil fuel plants, affordable only by the rich and
some boutique enterprises willing to pass the increased cost on to the
consumer.

• Local as well as federal tax loopholes will be exploited so that wind
power developers will pay minimal taxes, if any. The handful of jobs
created will earn the minimum wage possible.

• Federal tax credits ensure that a small number of investors will reap
windfall profits. (And these carpetbaggers will typically reside in
their own gated communities, far from the view of their handiwork.) For
example, a rather small wind operation, Clipper, Inc.,, proposes to
build 67 turbines atop Maryland’s Backbone Mountain at a capital cost
of about $100 million. However, it expects to receive $150 million in
federal tax credits over 10 years.

• Huge 350-465 foot-tall, continuously lit wind turbines — with
propeller blades moving at nearly 200 mph at their tips and placed atop
prominent ridges where large numbers of birds concentrate in migration
— kill songbirds. Despite industry insistence this won’t happen, it
already has. When confronted with this reality, the industry argument
morphs into a “10 wrongs make a right” scenario: “Cats and
communication towers kill millions of birds annually, and we won’t kill
that many.” When challenged about the appropriateness of this defense,
the industry shifts gears once more: “The strategic need for clean
energy justifies the tactical loss of wildlife.” Of course, this same
ends-justifies-the-means rationale promoted use of DDT. Such windtowers
also threaten rare high-elevation resident species. And clearing a
swath through the woods to install them will accelerate destructive
forest fragmentation.

Despite the rhetoric, which portrays corporate windpower in terms of
bucolic Dutch “wind farms,” the reality is that the size and scale of
the industry will destroy a number of important natural heritage vistas
while diminishing the quality of life for many people forced to live in
its long shadows. The loss of such spiritual reminders of our heritage
will parallel the loss of property values in the viewshed.

When assessing the claims made for this technology, those who make
public policy should remember that if something seems too good to be
true, it almost always is. Windpower proponents, especially for the
eastern United States, should be required to grip their reality with
hard facts and rigorously validated method, not self-serving wishful
thinking. At a minimum, government should mandate standards for siting
these turbines to reduce the threat to wildlife while protecting
heritage views and property values.

Gargantuan windtower complexes offer only a token response to the very
real threat posed by global warming. A much more meaningful action
would redirect the substantial tax subsidies available for wind energy
to fund conservation and efficiency incentives, for these would have a
far greater impact in reducing the effects of fossil fuel combustion
and toxic emissions responsible for endangering our world.

Jon Boone
Oakland

© Copyright 2003 The Cumberland Times-News