Wind Farms

[HamsterStyle]

I remember when we were in Hawaii (The Big Island) down near the south tip and seeing a huge wind farm in the distance.
I asked our tour guide about it and he told us that it was not running anymore.
Even though they had a constant wind there, they were not feasible money wise to keep running.
He said that once the gov't got out of it and stopped paying the bill, it was expensive to keep up with the repairs.
Found this article and looks like he was telling the truth.
Broken promises: The rusting wind turbines of Hawaii > Hawaii Free Press

Good read. Man, that's brutal.

 

[wagyu52]

One downside of these that never occurred to me is - after dark. I don't live anywhere near these things. One night we were driving across Illinois and I started seeing this vast sea of red flashing lights. I'm thinking, WTH is going on up ahead. It was who knows how many wind turbines - with their lights synchronized to flash together. Then I started wondering...would it be worse if they flashed all at once, or a hundred of them randomly flashing. It looked bad to me either way. I'm glad I could drive away from that site before I went mad.

I can see hundreds of towers at night from my house, all the way from Champaign ILL. to White county IN. all the different farms flash as one but separate from each other. Thank goodness they have the ability to flash together, I remember one farm tried a random flash pattern it was dizzying. Said they had lots of complaints from the small aircraft flying at night, was almost like vertigo.

 

[Doug]

Meh.
As soon as they increase the efficiency by a factor of ten, develop a design that never breaks and needs no maintenance, and find a way to store high-voltage AC, the wind turbines will great.
When government regulators were told their electric car performance requirements violated the laws of physics, they wanted to know who passed those laws and said they could get them repealed.

 

[BigMatt]

If your county has an ordinance regulating wind farms, it is likely that they need no special approval as long as what they propose meets the terms of the ordinance. If there is no ordinance, it is likely the Board of Zoning Appeals that would conduct a public hearing and give final approval or denial of the permit application. If there is an ordinance and what they propose does not meet the terms of it, then the BZA would again conduct a public hearing to consider a variance to allow the changes. I would start by asking the planning commission if they have an ordinance and, if they do, get a copy of it so you know what is allowed. The ordinances may be online where you can view them without even going there. If your county has a web site, I would start there and look under planning and zoning ordinances.

Here is what I think I understand...

Each application is on its own. There is no blanket ordinance for the whole county. There are also several hearings - one of which is a tax abatement hearing. If they can't get a tax abatement, they don't go in because there are plenty of areas that will give them tax abatements.

We had a good rally outside the courthouse yesterday and I think several of the planning commission took notice. We also had a potential County Councilman come and talk to people.

 

[rhino]

I remember when we were in Hawaii (The Big Island) down near the south tip and seeing a huge wind farm in the distance.
I asked our tour guide about it and he told us that it was not running anymore.
Even though they had a constant wind there, they were not feasible money wise to keep running.
He said that once the gov't got out of it and stopped paying the bill, it was expensive to keep up with the repairs.
Found this article and looks like he was telling the truth.
Broken promises: The rusting wind turbines of Hawaii > Hawaii Free Press

Indeed. I do not make my comments re: maintenance and decommissioning costs idly. Most wind farms become junkyards far sooner than most would expect.

Until a way to store the power on a sufficient scale becomes a reality, implementing wind turbines on that scale is a vanity-fueled burden that taxpayers can ill afford.

Cut those eyesores down and scrap them out.

Very expensive, which is one of the many reasons it's so foolhardy to build them.

Meh.
As soon as they increase the efficiency by a factor of ten, develop a design that never breaks and needs no maintenance, and find a way to store high-voltage AC, the wind turbines will great.
When government regulators were told their electric car performance requirements violated the laws of physics, they wanted to know who passed those laws and said they could get them repealed.

I'm often amused by the exuberance of true believers in what they describe as reality-shattering improvements in battery technology, which really are only small incremental improvements at best. Batteries that are twice as good as yesterday's equivalents, but are still only a tiny fraction of what is necessary to make these endeavors viable are pushed forward by emotion on one side and the government's gravy train on the other.

 

[IndyDave1776]

Meh.
As soon as they increase the efficiency by a factor of ten, develop a design that never breaks and needs no maintenance, and find a way to store high-voltage AC, the wind turbines will great.
When government regulators were told their electric car performance requirements violated the laws of physics, they wanted to know who passed those laws and said they could get them repealed.

In other words, if a toad had wings, he wouldn't bump his ass.

 

[mom45]

Here is what I think I understand...

Each application is on its own. There is no blanket ordinance for the whole county. There are also several hearings - one of which is a tax abatement hearing. If they can't get a tax abatement, they don't go in because there are plenty of areas that will give them tax abatements.

We had a good rally outside the courthouse yesterday and I think several of the planning commission took notice. We also had a potential County Councilman come and talk to people.

That sounds right to me as far as the process goes. Our county has a wind ordinance, but I am told it would be very hard for one to go here based on the restrictions in place and the fact that most of our county is apparently not deemed to be windy enough.

 

[CBR1000rr]

The problem isn't the wind farms but where they put them and who they affect. These companies come in and pay upwards of $7,000/year for each windmill they put on your property and don't give two ****s about the surrounding property owners. Furthermore, the electricity doesn't stay local. Not a single home in the area will benefit from theses windmills.

I know several people caught up in the Randolph county windfarm. I know one individual making $21,000/year for having 3 on his property and one of them is smack dab in the middle of a close friends view. It has drastically lowered his property value while the neighboring farm is bringing in big money. Additionally, his home sits at the back of his property and these windmills are supposed to be a minimum distance from the home. Instead of measuring from the center of his home, they measured from the center of his property.

Also, don't let them tell you they are silent. They aren't. The hum will drive you mad. So will the constant shadows from three blades blocking out the sun.

 

[BugI02]

You know Fracking uses the same 'business model', right. Get one property owner on board to serve as the collection hub and slant drill under the surrounding properties. The one 'farmer' who got in bed with them early derives the lion's share of the income and everyone else get's to deal with the consequences.

So I hope you considered the little people when you formed your opinion of fracking, because in the breech environmentalism too often seems to be all about whose ox is being gored

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

Finally, ask them why they don't install a nuclear plant instead, which would be superior in virtually every relevant way.

In all fairness, if the windmill brakes, they don't generally have to evacuate the county.

 

[IndyDave1776]

I just had an idea...Find an area not generally windy enough to support windmills, build them there, set up a lectern at the west end of the wind farm, and force the Kenyan to spend his post-presidency delivering constant speeches. That much hot air/wind should be adequate to generate many terawatts of free power!

 

[rhino]

The problem isn't the wind farms but where they put them and who they affect. These companies come in and pay upwards of $7,000/year for each windmill they put on your property and don't give two ****s about the surrounding property owners. Furthermore, the electricity doesn't stay local. Not a single home in the area will benefit from theses windmills.

Actually, the problem really is with the wind farms. That it also adversely affects the property owners and nearby residents is additional evidence why they're a bad idea.

The benefit (in useable electrical power) does not and cannot match the actual costs with current technology, much less exceed those costs. Maybe someday when we can store the power, it might work, but to allocate that level of resources at the taxpayers' expense is both foolish and and evil.

 

[AtTheMurph]

A windmill, as currently constructed, will never produce enough electricity to compensate for the costs of manufacturing, erecting, maintaining and leasing the land to put it on.

It is a money losing proposition. That's a mathematical fact.

So the question should be who benefits from their production and forced use? That's pretty easy. And who loses. That's easy too.

 

[Thor]

I have not read all 6 pages...however. They are now calling them wind ghettos as they destroy property values and drive the people who have to live under them nuts.

My biggest problem with them is government subsidies are they only reason they are being built. Cut the subsidies and the production drops off to those foreign countries want to build in or near our military installations...like the Chinese wanting to put three in the Boardman bombing complex. Gee, wonder why they would want to do that?

They are a hazard to flight, and problematic to radars. They have actually put up arrays that have shut down long range surveillance radars and additionally create the exact same signature as a birthing tornado making it difficult for NEXRAD radars to predict actual tornadoes birthing. Lots of false signatures.

I'd rather have a nuclear plant next door. At least they don't kill off all the birds and bats in the area.

 

[dwagner3701]

Just to add fuel to the fire. I know an engineer that works for one of the big windmill producers. He told me that they operate at a 17% efficiency level. Meaning that only 17% of the energy produced goes out to the grid. The other 83% is used up in operation of the windmill.
Fairly typical of a government backed program.

 

[BigMatt]

I think we are making a difference. We had a rally outside the Courthouse on Thursday and a lot of people went into the hearing with their signs.

We will know on Tuesday if it made a difference. The county council is voting on the tax abatement for the one going in in Southern Henry County. I think that one is more palatable since the area is less populated.

Calpine put off their meteorological tower for the northern one. I consider that a small victory.

 

[Thor]

It was fought in Marshall County and after looking at the set back requirements they decided to zone commercial pinwheels out. No permits will be issued.

 

[DeadeyeChrista'sdad]

Boys and girls, go to Farmland Indiana, take state road 1 south, and then jump over to the next parallel road on either side. Our county roads are decimated, we've had collection companies going after landowners for the bills the construction company didn't pay, and now I have to listen to that damn fwoop fwoop fwoop anytime I'm in my own damn back yard. Just say no.

 

[BogWalker]

Boys and girls, go to Farmland Indiana, take state road 1 south, and then jump over to the next parallel road on either side. Our county roads are decimated, we've had collection companies going after landowners for the bills the construction company didn't pay, and now I have to listen to that damn fwoop fwoop fwoop anytime I'm in my own damn back yard. Just say no.

Tell us more about the debt collectors. A lot of the people that are pushing them in my area are doing so because they've been promised a big paycheck by the company. If there's potential to be on the hook for payments they'll drop their support.

 

[BigMatt]

One last thing about this particular company. This will be the first wind farm Calpine has ever built. As recent as 2 years ago, they were completely against federal production credits for wind generated energy.