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  • From: tom <tom AT honeychrome.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] The answer, my friend, may not be blowing in the wind.
  • Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 07:26:55 -0400

The industrial wind development debate is one that has seriously damaged some communities near us, and there is much more to it than the easy to dismiss issue of NIMBYism. How could anyone reasonably object to harnessing a 'clean,' renewable energy source like wind? Seems like a no-brainer... until you look into the details. In my part of the country many of these proposed industrial-scale developments are a scam to grab generous subsidy money, with payouts formulated on calculations of 'potential' energy generation based on ideal (ie. nonexistent) conditions, the maximum output specs of the turbine and regional wind densities rather than site-specific ones. Situations exist where a developer may never produce any useable energy and will still see a profit through subsidy income. Where I live the developers have targeted poor communities with struggling land-owners, with fast talking representatives and lawyers swooping in with promises of fast, easy money and clean power, but the fine print of the contracts 'externalizes' long-term access maintenance, accident liability, decommissioning, runoff management, etc. etc. onto local services. Often the turbines being installed are older, discontinued models from Europe (ie. cheap). And why, when a lease is signed on a 100, 200, whatever acre plot of land are turbines located close to neighbors' houses? Not because the wind density is ideal there, but because it is nearest the road and the developer spends less on infrastructure and access. And as for 'oil' companies- while oil may yet be the flagship product of BP, ExxonMobil, etc. etc., these corporations position themselves as 'energy' companies and have their fingers in everything- including industrial wind development. I'm not anti-wind- on a homestead scale, even a community scale with locally owned generation for local usage, surplus, if any, going to the grid at large, I think it makes great sense. Eventually I'd like to have a small turbine at my place. But large scale, destructive industrial developments built largely as either greenwashing PR stunts by a subsidiary of a 'dirty' energy company or as a 'financially innovative' means of funneling tax money to corporate coffers via subsidies with nothing real to show for it... no thanks.

Wind is not the answer. Solar isn't the answer. Nuclear isn't the answer, biofuels aren't, hydrogen isn't. Combined, these sources of energy don't come close to replacing the bang-for-buck (otherwise known as EROEI) oil has provided and we've become accustomed to. Nothing does, and the idea that something will come along, some nerdy genius will come up with something clever or that it is all just a matter of tinkering with 'efficiency' and business as usual can continue is a desperate fantasy. The odds are far, far more likely that nothing to replace oil will be found- not as a single source of energy or any combination of sources. Less- less of everything is the only answer that adds up, and it will be imposed upon us whether we want it or not. There is no free lunch when it comes to energy. Oil was the planet's energy savings account, accrued over a couple billion years, and we've been spending out of it like there is no tomorrow, and now maybe there won't be.




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