A proposed Scottish wind farm bites the dust;
The Lewis wind farm – rejected by the Scottish Executive earlier this week – is merely the latest example. The Scotsman reported that “environmental agencies welcomed the news” of the massive wind power project’s demise, thanks to concerns about impacts on rare peat bog and birdlife habitat. Yet according to the developers Lewis Wind Power – a coalition of AMEC and British Energy – the wind farm would have made a substantial contribution to reducing Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions, wiping out a quarter of a million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year. With climate change at the top of the list of political priorities, most now agree that Britain desperately needs to expand its renewables sector. How this can be done without major negative impacts on wildlife and landscape remains one of today’s toughest challenges.
Wildlife groups such as the RSPB have a particularly difficult task in deciding where they stand. The Lewis wind farm’s impact on the landscape would have been substantial – with 181 turbines each standing 140 metres tall, erected on massive concrete bases drilled into the fragile peat surface and connected by dozens of miles of new stone roads, this was unavoidable. And while the developers insisted that strenuous efforts would be made to mitigate the effect on birds, including not putting turbines in areas important to rare species such as merlins and golden eagles, the RSPB objected strongly to the proposal.
[…]
The Lewis project, although supported by the Western Isles Council, received 11,000 objections from members of the public, with only 100 comments in favour.
Got to hand it to those environmentalists – they have the media well trained. A few hundred ducks expire in a Syncrude tailings pond and it’s international news. The tens of thousands sliced and diced each year (in the US alone) by wind generators? Not so much.
h/t
How you going to get the peasants back to horses and buggies if you’ve got all this fancy wind power?
The best solution is nice state sponsored famine, reduce the surplus population by 20 or 30 million, restrict cars and electricity to those who deserve it. That being Green Party members.
Hey, you wanna save Gaia from the Homo Sapiens virus you gotta make arrangements, know what I mean?
“What is clear is that all energy-generation technologies have an impact on the environment – and environmentalists are going to have to think more deeply about what their hierarchy of priorities is.”
The “Enviromentalists” that regularly get MSM attention have not been too careful as to whom they associate with. This ‘thinking deeply’ concept is probably anathema to them.
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=dKxbt2Nshro
This Cop is considered a hero for saving these ducks from traffic in Lakewood Seattle.
Having been around wind farms, I can tell anyone here that the horrible way those windmills mangle birds is criminal, IMO. Especially big birds like Canada Geese, Owls and Eagles. The greenies are not kind and decent – they are control freaks with an agenda – the media are too stupid to understand that they are being used.
One crucial piece of information is missing from this story — how much power would this massive windmill system have produced. Assuming Wikipedia is correct in it’s article on coal fired power stations, a 500 Mw modern coal fired plant uses 6000 tons of coal/day at peak load which works out to about 22,020 tons of CO2 released/day. The windmills are supposed to reduce CO2 emissions by 250000 tons which works out to 11.35 days of operation of a 500 Mw plant or 1.35 x 10(exp9) Kwh. Assuming that the windmills have a steady wind and operate at 100% of capacity, this works out to a capacity of 15.5 Mw or 85.9 Kw/wind turbine. The calculation of the energy cost of smelting the steel used in the construction of the wind turbine is left as an exercise to the reader.
If I lived next to a peat bog like the one mentioned, I too would be opposed to an extremely intrusive very low energy density wind power project. It would be far more environmentally friendly to construct a 500 Mw nuclear power station which would take up a fraction of the land area. Also, a nuclear plant would provide massive amounts of hot water which could be used to heat buildings, an important consideration given that we seem to be slipping into a mini ice-age.
To duplicate the capacity of a 500 Mw plant would require 5838 massive windmills. It would be far cheaper to remove all CO2 from a coal fired plants exhaust than to build that many windmills. The only reason I can see that such idiotic schemes are being pursued is because of massive inumeracy among the population.
And, one of the denominators is of the order of 200,000,000,000 birds.
“With climate change at the top of the list of political priorities”.
Instead of national survival / dhimmiophobia (fear of becoming dhimmis). Warped solutions, warped priorities.
“A few hundred ducks expire in a Syncrude tailings pond and it’s international news.”
I’d like to apologize on behalf of Medicine Hatters for giving the world Mike Hudema, Alberta party chairman, Greenpeace multinational NGO.
I do think wind power would at least help a bit. However… if one needs to find a good location, I would suggest finding out where the teddy kennedy / green politico types live- you know, ‘we need wind power, but not where I can see it’- and THAT is where the windmills should be put up.
I believe the environmental movement really took off in the 90’s after a tape was found of a newspaper editor’s conference featuring said editors and the Vienna Boys Choir. The editors were enjoying themselves like Jim Travers in a room full of Senate offers.
The Greek report Environmental Impacts of Wind Farms: Myth and Reality cites EU research that found people who are favorably disposed to the development of wind energy accept wind turbines much more easily than people who are opposed.
Wish I could have been in on that multi-million euro study…Duh !
My kind of wind turbine !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FZtmlHwcA&eurl
My kind of wind turbine !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FZtmlHwcA&eurl
They don’t call ’em “bird blenders” for nothing.
speaking of screaming greenie Wamrmongers … seems they know they have been diddling the doggie and now have to repeal their “science”. However they just can’t quite admit defeat.
“Global warming may ’stop’, scientists predict
Global warming will stop until at least 2015 because of natural variations in the climate, scientists have said. Researchers studying long-term changes in sea temperatures said they now expect a “lull” for up to a decade while natural variations in climate cancel out the increases caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions”
A “lull” !!
They have to re-program all their Sky–is-Falling Climate Models to program in a “lull” loop.
Suicide is painless, surrender is inevitable.
For all these activist sponge heads it’s the life a spinning top…………eventually they run out of momentum and topple.
He who laughs last laughs best….
It’s only a matter of time until David Suzuki and Al Gore are exposed as frauds and when the money is all gone they will be pushing shopping carts down skid row, looking for empties and newspaper, talking to themselves, yelling at buildings…..
Hey, I can dream, can’t I?
I was going to suggest having the air cannons around the tailing ponds be powered by wind turbines. I had not thought of the chopping power of these machines which would turn the pond into duck soup.
as for Suzuki pushing a shopping cart. his 7 million dollar palace on Kitsalano Beach is a big asset , or he could sell the cedar chalet on Quadra to keep him in beard wax.
If there were no humans, there would be no coal factories. No humans, no wind farms. Human extinction is the environmentalist’s highest ideal. (They just seem weak putting it into personal practice.)
Despite how much the green freans have been pushing them wind turbines are not enviromentaly freindly becuase their bird killers so why dont the greens GO TAKE A HIKE
Re: “tens of thousands sliced and diced each year”
From the same article Kate linked to:
“One study estimates that each year 57 million birds are killed by cars and 97.5 million by collisions with plate glass. Domestic cats are reported to be responsible for the demise of hundreds of millions of songbirds and other species every year.”
The trouble with the air cannons is that the birds get used to the sound.
As far as last night’s newcasts saying the tailings ponds are TOXIC, the word ‘toxic’ might be a little strong. Anything can be toxic. Drink too much water and you can die. But hey, it’s the MSM, anything to show Alberta in a negative light.
‘Toxic’ conjures up images of green sludge that glows in the dark and causes your skin to burn, and fish to sprout a third eyeball, and cute and cuddly lambs and polar bears to be born with extra legs.
The fishing is GREAT out front of any nuclear, or coal burning energy site. .
The water outflow is warm, and is exceptionally good fishing, all year long.
This actually helps diving, wading and shore birds, as well as fish and fishermen.
Wind turbines on the other hand are just some overpriced flying swords that generate tax grabs, minimal energy, and piles of bird parts.
Keep in mind that wind power is secondary energy only. For every MW of potential production, you have to have 1 MW of reliable generation (thermal, nuclear and to a lesser extent, hydro) installed.
The wind energy industry exists only because of subsidies.
I wonder how my neighbours would react if I proposed a 140 m high wind turbine in my backyard.
BTW, the Kennedy Klan protested (successfully, I believe) against an offshore windfarm at Kennebunkport or whereever the f*ck they live
“The death of 500 ducks is a tragedy. The death of 48,000,000 is a statistic.”
The Fanatics in the Environmental movement pushed for dubious power schemes, such as windpower & biofuels, because … because .. well, because we’re in imminent danger of frying. Right ? Well, now they say, maybe in ten years 🙂
With this here Snakeoil, hair growth is imminent ! Not yet ??? Be patient, could take ten years.
Same sh**, different pile.
Shouldn’t the numbers 100 and 11,000 mean something? I guess that’s why we never get asked.
11,000 opposed windpower project. 100 in favour.
99% oppose — anyone over there see the media oppinion polls proclaiming that ?? After all, media polls are real good at revealling what we mere citizens are actually thinking 🙂
500 dead ducks in Alberta
300000 dead in Dafur.
to CBCpravda its the same amount of coverage.
to Jack Layton – more outrage about the ducks.
On more cold year combined with a bad economy will quell the public’s demand for Kyoto.
This thread reminds me of a quote from the late Dr. Petr Beckmann at the height of the goofy nuclear power wars (1976 I think):
“Environmentalists are in fvour of any source of energy as long as it is uneconomic or unavailable”
This thread reminds me of a quote from the late Dr. Petr Beckmann at the height of the goofy nuclear power wars (1976 I think):
“Environmentalists are in fvour of any source of energy as long as it is uneconomic or unavailable”
I swear to God that the Canadian Press report last night on the radio said:
“It wasn’t immediately known if the the five rescued ducks would make a full recovery”.
Like they were going to hold a candle light vigil outside the vet clinic or something. Incredible.
kumbiya , kumbiya , quack ,quack, quack. kumbiyaaaa
ridiculous. Ive taken down five on one load.
oops…posted on wrong thread…
The G&M/Canadian Press reports:
“Three of five birds taken from the sludge were flown to a veterinary rescue centre in Edmonton, but at least one of them has since died.”
I have already sent an email to my MLA asking if any taxpayer money has been used to airlift ducks to Edmonton…idiocy, sheer idiocy.
Since the enviro movement and the former extreme leftist movements are virtually one in the same — same loons, different pond, I suspect it will go through the same divisions as the control freaks attempt to maintain hegemony over ever splintering bands of followers. So instead of the communist international becoming the Marxist-Leninists, Trotskyites, Maoists, international Socialists, National Socialists, Stalinists etc. ad nauseum, we’ll get the Pro Wind anti-Nuclearists; Anti-wind anti-nuclear hydoists, the anti everything freezists, the anti hydro nuclearists, blah, blah, blah. . .
Wackos like PAUL ERHLICH has said GIVING THE WORLD CHEAP ABUNDANT ENERGY IS LIKE GIVING A IDIOT CHILD A MACHINE GUN no what they did was GIVE A IDIOT CHILD PAUL EHRLICH A DEGREE IN FABRICATING AND LYING AND TO WRITE TWO BOOKS THAT HAS TURNED OUT TO BE WRONG
I presume that there will be a State Funeral for the ducks that passed away at Fort McMurray. All the “Poobahs” are expected to attend. Taliban Jack will deliver the eulogy. I can hardly wait. DKT
According to the MSM, our noble Prime Minister referred to the untimely death of a few hundred ducks as a “terrible tragedy”. Where is that idiot’s sense of proportion? Puke, puke, puke.
As a bird i reprisent all the birds and we want to sue the greens for pushing those blasted wind turbines