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Wind energy still isn’t green
Credit: Casper Star-Tribune | trib.com ~~
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I was delighted to see a response to my “Wind is not green” in the June 29 paper titled, “Letter didn’t quite get wind power right.”
My conclusion from this response was from John Anderson’s comment “hosting the facility provides significant land lease payments to the ranchers or other landowners.” Seems the wind power plan for Wyoming is OK because the landowners get lots of the government subsidy for the use of their land. That’s nice. I am happy for them. Really. Nothing like a few federal dollars to sweeten the local economy.
Anderson, the author goes on to describe how operating a wind farm is very clean, not polluting the air or using water or discharging bad waste. I agree that is all true, but he failed to address the killing of birds, the blight on the view, the miles and miles of transmission lines, nor, most importantly, the need for backup by conventional plants. Without backup the reliability of the electrical power system fails. Further research has shown that the cycling of conventional power plants to make up for the variations in wind power is even dirtier from a carbon dioxide stance than just running them on an even output.
The AWEA is a Washington lobby group promoting wind energy, so wind is green for them, as it is for AWWI, which is concerned with wind’s impact on wildlife.
In reading their paper on eagle killings it seems the focus is to set the allowable limit for birds to be killed by windmills and to extend kill permits from five to 30 years. It seems the focus is on legalizing the killing of eagles rather than protecting them, which they can’t do. It was just reported that a rare bird, thought to be extinct, was recently killed by a windmill in the United Kingdom.
Several people watched in horror as it was killed.
Thanks John Anderson for the opportunity to further clarify wind is not green.
JERRY STALICK, Casper
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