60 Replies to “We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans”

  2. May I ask a stupid question?
    What is the surface area footprint of all these windmills compared to the “virgin” land of the ANWAR oil fields in Alaska nobody wants to let us drill in?

  3. Welcome to the FANcraptic State of Vermonty! Where the women are ugly and the men are in Washstinkton Lobbying the Obummer!

  4. I’d like to see someone follow up on this one, to find out who is the recipient of all the taxpayer’s money from THIS boondoggle.
    In B.C., the companies were all friends and business associates of the former Premier,same situation undoubtedly exists in this one (Vermont) too.

  5. If that’s just the pad, how big is this monster? What’s the expected “bird kill” coefficient?

  8. People very often forget that it is not just leveling the terrain for the bird whacker, but also the route for the power lines to tap into the grid.

  11. Comment to Captain Capitalism:
    > What is the surface area footprint of all these windmills compared to the “virgin” land of the ANWAR oil fields in Alaska nobody wants to let us drill in?
    well add in the footprint on the power lines to connect to the grid using agent orange (or it’s latest variant) to kill vegetation along the power line paths probably less than ANWAR. Tundra by definition does not grow vegetation high enough to interfere with the pipeline.

  12. PO’d
    That pup will be all of 1,000 ft high.
    The turbine will contain 100 liters of oil.
    Image what will happen should it catch fire or explode. No fire service outside of large urban areas has the equipment to fight a fire that high.
    One incident and Peter Shumlin State Park will cease to exist.

  13. Looks like a sweet gig for aggregate suppliers, and easy to retrieve and resell when it goes bust.

  14. I forgot to mention, the bird whackers kill more birds than any downtown tower in any major city or the tailing ponds in Ft. McMurray — funny that never made the press, but despite the negativity to former Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach, he pointed out quite correctly, that out to the enviro-nazis. He was referencing the bird whackers in Pincher Creek.
    Bird whackers are positioned to match the best wind paths which the migratory birds also figured out. Hey if you had to flap your wings 2-5 thousand km wouldn’t you want to find an easier route?

  15. The power line for an electricity supplied from Hydro-Quebec is the best deal. It is unbeatable both money wise and environmentally for Vermont and the northeastern states.
    Soon they’ll end paying their taxes directly to China. If they’re lucky they’ll just be able to pay the interest on the loan. The loan that financed these religious icons to Gaia.

  16. Starting to see the same thing repeated all over the place.
    -a single straight run of HVDC lines from hydro electric dams passing though a forest = bad
    -a couple dozen spinning noisy 450ft turbines on massive foundations with a zigzag of lines and access roads between each spanning across a mountain top = good
    It’s not about the environment at all.

  19. Yes… but the Alaska pipeline would help middle class people; the middle class could afford to cook and heat their houses! Not good for Pinkos! The left must eradicate independent citizens; they are cogs in the wheel of control.
    The ugly bird/bat grinders are mars on the landscape, they slaughter birds/bats, disorientate bees, animals and people (the dreadful noise is high pitched) make the climate change (as via The Captain)….dangerous, ugly, killers that cost lots of money and line the pockets of Friends of the Fed (contacts to people who build the Turbines).
    What is not to like?
    Force Brad Wall and ALL M.P.s backing the Wind Farms to put a turbine in their frount yards just to show solidarity with the ‘the program’ and to show ‘leadership’.

  21. Captain, I can’t give you the footprint, but I can give you this.
    Per MW of installed capacity, wind uses about double the amount of concrete and three times the amount of steel compared to a nuclear power plant.
    Compared to a coal-fired plant, it uses about three times the amount of concrete and double the amount of steel.
    If you work it out on a basis of actual electricity production, it’s about four times the above amount, given the respective capacity factors. If you want the reference I can probably find it for you. I posted it once here, I think, years ago.

  22. This is just insanity! It must be costing hundreds of millions of dollars to do this. The amount of intermittent energy from 21 windmills is nothing, you will never pay for this debacle in a million years.

  23. What dave said. To just get this monstrosity up and working has to be a few million.

  24. On the upside, wind turbines will give enemy pilots endless hours of entertainment if war ever breaks out.

  25. I don’t know how valid this is, but there is a new study that shows that windmill farms do have an influence on the local climate — seems everybody forgot newton’s 3rd law (not theory as the greenhouse effect is at present) “Third law: The mutual forces of action and reaction between two bodies are equal, opposite and collinear.” thus by definition, the windmills are affecting climate locally. Plus they whack birds in great numbers.

  26. Somebody has to be benefiting from this. It sure as hell isn’t the wildlife, the residents or the environment. Hmmm… Wonder where the special interest groups and the politicians fit into the equation? And McSquinty is hell bent to destroy the Lake Superior shoreline in the same manner.

  27. I love that the green argument is falling apart, day after day. There will be another example tomorrow, and the next day, etc. The pendulum is swinging back to economic sanity and the green movement is dying a horrible death.

  29. All energy production has a footprint. If the government didn’t have to subsidize the high cost of wind power and the cost of the increased base load to balance the messed up grids caused from their unreliability, the footprint wouldn’t be that much of an issue.

  32. Here’s a comparison of land footprint for wind vs. solar vs. nuclear.
    As well, if we continue to use the 119 square meters/GWh land use for nuclear, other studies cited in the Lovins paper also show nuclear uses much less land than wind and solar. Below is a chart from the source the Lovins study uses for its solar number (pdf). Even using the lowest range of land needed per year from the last column shows that solar needs at least 42 times and wind needs more than 1,100 times the amount of land as a nuclear plant.
    Talk about a no brainer.

  34. Captain, it’s not “nobody wants us to drill”. It’s only watermelons and socialists seeking a modesty napkin that want us to not drill.

  36. Do these greenies care nothing of the environment. If people in cities want windmills, build them in the cities. Don’t screw up the countryside. One of my ancestors was a Green Mountain boy and they took up arms against anyone who ticked em off. Today they must have got their privates tangled up in a wind mill.

  38. This picture is misleading. Somewhere a hillside has been scraped and dug up provide the gravel for this thing. The insanity of it all.

  40. No doubt when metal fatigue and vibration harmonics get together windmill wise
    and do their thing, the results will be “spectacular”.
    Hope they have plans to install recording CCTV setups to capture the great events.
    .

  41. Some numbers I remember from “Energy for 300 Years”, Nathwani, Siddall and Lind. Assuming that the Province of Ontario gets all of its electricitiy from a single source, what land area is required.
    Nuclear = approx. 30 sq.km.
    Solar = approx. 6,000 sq.km.
    Wind = approx. 50,000 sq.km.
    Total available rooftop space (all building types)
    = approx. 300 sq.km.
    Total available agricultural land:
    = approx. 15,000 sq.km. under cultivation, plus
    = approx. 20,000 sq.km not under cultivation.
    These figures assume that no backup is required for renewables and that infinite electricity storage is available.
    Note that the total urban footprint of Ontario is approximately 4,000 sq.km.
    Of this, approximately half is roads or road allowances. 300 sq.km. is the entire footprint of all building structures, and the rest is urban greenspace.

  42. I can’t wait to see these things out my back window. But remember, we have to shut down Vermont Yankee because that electricity is too cheap and as Obama has said, “electricity rates must necessarily skyrocket.”

  43. I do wonder why they never consider building these wind farms in downtown Chicago. It is known as the ‘Windy City’ for a reason.

  44. this link will provide hours of interest – a kinda sorta “variation on a theme.” (circa 1852)
    Title: Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
    Author: Charles Mackay
    http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24518
    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org
    ***
    i am particularly amused by the scottish economist who became an advisor to the king of france and his louisana scheme. funny and sad beyond belief.

  45. How come we’re not hearing, “This unique and fragile ecosystem is the last of the delicate Wookahoozy forest, and only known habitat of the endangered, Northern Appalachian Swamp Midge.” ?

  46. From wind farms to Solor power. The green movement manages to cause ever more damage to that which they say they revere. Just like the Wildlife federation or PETA groups.Better management through death or derangement.

  47. “I’d like to see someone follow up on this one, to find out who is the recipient of all the taxpayer’s money from THIS boondoggle.”
    Quarry operator?

  48. While converting wind’s kinetic energy into electricity, wind turbines modify surface–atmosphere exchanges and the transfer of energy, momentum, mass and moisture within the atmosphere4, 5, 6. These changes, if spatially large enough, may have noticeable impacts on local to regional weather and climate.
    Wind turbines don’t cause global warming, they cause climate change. The difference is significant. Wind turbines create turbulence which disturbs the normally cold still air near the ground at night, and mixes it with warmer air aloft, so the air near the ground is warmer. So do trees.

  49. Imagine the amount of fossil fuel that was burnt by heavy equipment to crush all that rock and spread it on the mountaintop; mind numbing.

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