I agree with Kennedy.  Industrial noise and sound, along with destruction of natural views, are also environmental harms.  Instead of advocating for these harms to reduce the harms caused by overpopulation and overconsumption of energy, we should advocate fixing those two roots of the problem.  Even if you want to attack the symptoms, solar panels on every roof and/or a windmill in every backyard (or on every parking lot if it's a commercial property) would be a far better solution.  Projects that require lots of windmills destroying natural areas, or that require power lines, are not environmentally friendly by any definition.

Also, global warming is not the most pressing environmental issue.  Extinction and destruction of ecosystems are far more urgent.  While global warming could contribute to these, it would not be a major cause.

Jeff Hoffman

The letter to Mr. Kennedy states that:

"According to both the U.S. Department of Energy and a Massachusetts state energy agency, wind power could provide all the electricity used in the United States today. By contrast, the continuing use of coal-generated electricity (since coal is the most carbon-intensive of fuels) will hasten the day when large parts of Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and the outer Cape are submerged by rising sea levels."

This is nonsense.

In order for wind to generate enough power to replace a typical power plant it would take up to 300 square miles of wind turbines. That is the size (and view) of New York City for one replacement wind farm! So lets do the math... Let's say there are approximately 10,000 power plants in the USA and just for the fun of it let's say they are all of typical size... if wind farms were to replace them, they would cover 3,000,000 square miles. The USA itself is 3,537,441 square miles.

Hehey, you know the rest.

The actual figure to replace the 600,000 mw of US generating electric capacity would take around  10% of the land on the high wind speed area of the northern great plains.

And even this would not use much of that area, grazing cattle, wildlife, and farms could use 90% of that space under the wind farm.

Add another 10% percent to recharge all the electric vehicles needed to replace oil burning transportation.

With offshore wind off both coasts even less land area would be needed.  Perhaps one sixth from each region west coast, east coast, gulf coast, northern midwest...then add giant solar installations that generate power and recycle and desalinate water in the desert southwest.

And then the other sixth by putting solar and wind up on about half of the homes and buildings in the USA.

On noise - offshoe wind farms in Europe cannot be heard from shore including ones much closer to land than these would be.  Offshore wind turbines are hard to hear right up close.  Turbine noise has been reduced and its noisy out there from the wind and waves.

On land use.  The shoal area where this wind farm would be located is 24 square miles, of which, over 99.9% will remain open water, where boats (that don't mind shoals) will continue to be able to go, and it will produce power plant type power (170 MW on average, which is nothing to sneeze at).

Humans aren't the only ones living here, HELLOOO!  The birds and fish shouldn't have to put up with noise or ruined views, either.  Again, no wind farms, just local power supplied by solar or wind for each building.

Jeff Hoffman

Well, you've made a heck of a point there, yeah, let's not build the wind farm because we're worried about the view of the fish.  Actually, I think they'll like the look of the stuff growing on the wind turbine foundations!

a perfect example of why some people are misanthropes.  If you don't care about other creatures, I certainly don't care about you!

Jeff Hoffman

I echo the thoughts of Capeguy.  Most of the ocean is underwater desert.  Coral reefs are the true venues of vitality.  To the extent they encourage reef development, such structures as turbine platforms benefit marine life.

Ken Duble

Our priorities are clearly quite different.  I value nature and all life above all else, including humans' selfish and egomaniacal desire to use as much unnatural energy as they want.  I strongly oppose ruining natural areas just so that humans can play with their idiotic toys.

Re kdub's comment about deserts, that's just what those inbred, moronic off roaders say.  The fact is that there's life everywhere - water is a form of life - and that it's all sacred.  The biggest problem in the world, by far, is that most humans don't recognize that sacredness or respect it.

Jeff Hoffman

Those pessemistic projections tend to move us all closer to ...  the ultimate pessimism.  Death.

Human energy is  better invested in hopeless causes, like this green energy revolution, than in really hopeless causes, like living out self fullfilling disasters, one oil war, climate shift, and terror attack after another.

Break the cycle.

Was the idea of producing millions of ships, planes, aircraft, tanks, trucks, guns  ...and the atom bomb (talk about looking impossible!!) in a few short years, to win WW 2, impossible?

We are in a downward spiral, a cold/hot war over energy.  And there are extra WMDs out there that anyone can buy for the right price.

This production of green energy revolutionary "war" machines needs to approached as WW 2 war production was.  This is global survival at stake, not just national.

Build the millions of solar panels and geothernal heat pumps, like duuhbya has at his ranch, and millions of wind machines from home size all the way to 1000 foot industrial scale.  And the millions of electric cars, buses, trucks, trains, and yes even aircraft.  

We can win these series of neverending cycles of oil war with a massive war production effort.

No more need for oil, no more oil wars and climate disaster.

I admire RFK Jr, but must support the cape wind project.  I also am offended that says he cares more about global warming than anybody! Anybody! How could he possibly know this.  Maybe he'd like to speak to environmentalist in south louisiana (I know they are hard to find!) Nantuket Sound is no doubt lovely and historical, but not a protected wilderness area.  Projects such as cape wind should not be the only solution to global warming, but until individuals and corporations world wide are willing to change the status quo, we have to implement reasonable and immediate solutions.  This is one of those solutions.  Mr. Kennedy , with all due respect, discover compromise and acceptance.  Shelley Farrell Louisiana

shelley farrell sulphur, la

It sure would be nice to see thousands of wind and wave generating floating platforms in your region shelley.

Or rather not see them from the coast.  Oil drilling platforms and refineries replaced with perpetual green energy!   Onward!

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Theodore Roosevelt IV, the grandson or great grandson of Teddy, is a significant backer of the Nantucket project, and is no friend of the Kennedys.  The leaders of this project are not liberals.

Living near many windfarms, I wouldn't wish them on anyone or anything. They have destroyed some of the most beautiful canyons and ancient vistas of the San Gorgonio Pass near Palm Springs. Big wide roads have been constructed for huge industrial windmills on once pristine, beautiful mountaintops. Those roads get regraded after every rainstorm sending clouds of dust over the  desert. Most of the towers leak oil, some have broken propellers and many are poorly maintained. Acres of what was once beautiful, open desert are now windmill salvage yards.  They go haywire and catch fire causing brush fires every summer in our high risk fire area. The local politicians love windmill developers (they actually own power plants!) and their ready supply of campaign cash for any candidate who will support their underhanded land grabs. Then those politicians get elected and, you guessed it, approve that developers next big windmill project. It works every time. Worst of all, windmills don't just blight the area they occupy, they render all the surrounding land useless for any other purpose. The windmill developers certainly don't live near windmills, because no one wants to. So eventually all the surrounding landowners have no other choice but sell out to windmill developers. All these wind energy cheerleaders who write about how great windmills are should go live in the Painted Hills neighborhood near Palm Springs in White Water Ca. High on a hill, it was once one of the Palm Springs areas most beautiful neighborhoods with spectacular mountain views that encompassed the San Jacinto Mountains, the entire Coachella Valley and the Salton Sea shimmering in the  distance. But in the 1980's and 90's the Riverside County Board of Supervisors and the Bureau of Land Management gave the place away to windmill developers who have turned it into an industrial slum, overrun by rats because all the birds and bats that were once prevelant in the area are now dead or realize the inevitable threat. The desert tortise, once abundant in the area has been completely eradicated. Starry night skies are now dominated by pulsating red and white air traffic control lights a that illuminate the interiors of Painted Hills homes.
For all the thousands of acres occupied by windmills on California they produce a ridiculous 1.5 percent of the state's power. Do we want to live among countless massive machines higher than the length of a football field and allow them to occupy some of the planet's most beautiful areas like Nantucket Sound just because that's where the wind sometimes blows? I hope not. Let's do something realistic first, that could be done because its been done before, like getting electric cars on the road. Wouldn't it be better to increase incentives on solar panels for individual homeowners than give our tax money to windmill developers?

windmills don't just blight the area they occupy, they render all the surrounding land useless for any other purpose.

My utility purchases a portion of the output of a wind facility constructed on leased agricultural land.

The fields are still cultivated and grow crops to within a few feet of the access roads and tower foundations.  I think less than 1% of the actual leased area was taken out of production for the access roads, tower foundations and O&M building for the facility.

Unless you consider farming useless?

Being on a ridge top, they also share space with microwave communication and cell phone towers.  The microwave towers predated the wind turbines and are also required to have aircraft navigation lights.

Which qualify as 'other uses'.

Aesthetics are in the eye of the beholder, as a geeky, techie type, I like the looks of wind turbines.  

Common sense is an oxymoron...

jdhlax wrote...

"Humans aren't the only ones living here, HELLOOO!  The birds and fish shouldn't have to put up with noise ... either."

Someone might have fun ridiculing this statement, but it raises a very interesting question in my opinion. We already know that sound pollution is a problem for marine wildlife, especially marine mammals. Has anyone looked into how wind turbines floating at sea affect marine mammals? What frequencies are generated underwater, how intense is the noise, how far does it travel? I assume the structure will vibrate somewhat. Does anyone know about how the sound affects mammals and fish, their navigation, their feeding, their breeding?

I originally thought offshore wind platforms were a good idea in that they create very valuable "reef" habitat that could counter some of the human created problems. But I did not think about underwater noise pollution.

And the thought of submerged generators raises even more concerns. More concerns about underwater noise pollutions. And more concerned about wildlife affected by large moving structures.

What is the status of research covering these potential problems?

I apologize for my naivete if this was discussed elsewhere on the Grist website.

Forward!

Newcomer Les adds these interesting observations, about wind turbines in the San Gorgonio Pass near Palm Springs, CA:
<<
Big wide roads have been constructed for huge industrial windmills on once pristine, beautiful mountaintops. Those roads get regraded after every rainstorm sending clouds of dust over the  desert. Most of the towers leak oil, some have broken propellers and many are poorly maintained. Acres of what was once beautiful, open desert are now windmill salvage yards.  They go haywire and catch fire causing brush fires every summer in our high risk fire area.
>>

What a cinematic imagination!  This is almost a screenplay.  Thankfully, Les has left out the part about the doomed migratory birds.

In the same message, there is this evocative passage: "it was once one of the Palm Springs areas most beautiful neighborhoods with spectacular mountain views that encompassed the San Jacinto Mountains, the entire Coachella Valley and the Salton Sea shimmering in the  distance."  Astounding!  Write, Les, write!

The impression I get is, Southern Californians were the pioneers with wind farms, and they naturally made their mistakes.  But we can learn from those mistakes, and do better next time.

Curiously, the original conversation took place over a year ago.  It just goes to show, O ye Gristmill editors, that some issues do not go away, and need to be revisited from time to time.

WiscIdea has got Jdhlax, aka Jeff Hoffman, out of his cryogenic stasis chamber, and is so inspired by that voice out of a long-forgotten past as to ask some interesting questions.  In fact I have never read anything about underwater noise generated by wind turbines placed in ocean waters.  It would be worthwhile to pursue the subject.

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!