NIMBY

[Art Eatman]

Alternative energy is wonderful, as long as it's in somebody else's view.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2995334&page=1

An update on the offshore windfarm off Martha's Vineyard.

[Sindawe]

NIMBYism indeed.  Here are some simulations of what they will look like from the surrounding area:

http://www.capewind.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=9&page=1

Freaking Kennedy.  Pity he did not remain in that car rather than Mary Jo.

[mtnbkr]

I spent this week down in Mobile, Al and was amazed at the number of offshore rigs visible from the coastline.  Down in Fort Morgan, I could see 4-5 from one spot.  I'm used to the beach views of OBX and have never seen anything like it.  I'm torn on it.  I know we need the energy, but it felt like I was vacationing in an industrial park. 

I'd take platforms, windmills, etc if it means more energy independence.

Chris

[Sergeant Bob]

Freaking Kennedy.  Pity he did not remain in that car rather than Mary Jo.

Freakin hypocrite libs! He doesn't want to see them but he'd eminent domain your gramma's house to put one up!

Pity indeed.

[charby]

already in my back yard



every stick you see the photo is a wind turbine, they seem to be popping up faster than corn here.

[Tallpine]

They would prefer smokestacks ... 

Windfarms have come to Montana also.  Too soon to tell whether they will be a burden or a boon to the landowners who have leased the space (their cows can still graze around the towers).  Around here, we're looking for anything that can turn a patch of brown grass and sagebrush and prickly pear and yucca into a few spendable dollars

[El Tejon]

Tough toenails, Teddy!  A socialist poltroon who wishes to tell everyone else how to live and even how to use the bathroom is upset that others are going to impact his property?

I hope the engineers make them extra, extra loud.

[MattC]

impact his property

Not even his property.  It will be his view of the water several miles out from the shore.  The article also said that he enjoys sailing in the area, so he might also be upset that his hobby would be impacted.  Or maybe he's afraid that the turbines will steal the wind out of his sails?

[Fly320s]

Or maybe he's afraid that the turbines will steal the wind out of his sails?

Don't be silly.  It's a wind farm.  Wind farms produce wind.  Teddy will have all the wind his toupee can stand.

[AJ Dual]

impact his property

Not even his property.  It will be his view of the water several miles out from the shore.  The article also said that he enjoys sailing in the area, so he might also be upset that his hobby would be impacted.  Or maybe he's afraid that the turbines will steal the wind out of his sails?

I think we've cut to the heart of the matter. Teddy's worrying about running into one when he's drunk...

[Art Eatman]

mtnbkr, the best fishing in the Gulf is nearby an oil or gas rig.  The legs of the platform provide one acre of habitat per 100 feet of water.  A whole food-chain begins, from barnacles and algae on up to seriously yummy-tasty fish.

Art

[mtnbkr]

mtnbkr, the best fishing in the Gulf is nearby an oil or gas rig.  The legs of the platform provide one acre of habitat per 100 feet of water.  A whole food-chain begins, from barnacles and algae on up to seriously yummy-tasty fish.

Art

Yup, I'm aware of that.  Unfortunately, we didn't have a boat and precious little information about the "shore fishing" prospects.  We were just tossing bait and lures into the water blindly.

I've tasked my dad with learning the fishing scene there so we will be more successful next time.

Chris

[CAnnoneer]

"Rules for you and thee,
but not for meeeeee!"

Why does he care about what is over the waterline? I thought he liked submarines...

[Art Eatman]

I'm somewhat sympathetic toward Kennedy's opinion against messing up his view; I don't find them appealing, either.  But I don't have any history of "let's you and him conserve energy" or calling on others to bear burdens I won't bear.

There are some 500 units along I-10 in west Texas.  I find them to be ugly.  I don't like the transmission lines, either. 

There is a weather phenomenon that occasionally hits Texas:  The "Marfa High".  It's a stationary high-pressure system that hits during the summer.  The whole state heats up; temperatures well over a hundred, all around the state.  And the whole state is practically dead calm.  No wind, for a week or three.

People get on bandwagons, and to hell with common sense, or to hell with double-checking for Unintended Consequences.  (Ain't that a book title? D: ) 

We want environmental purity in our energy sources, so we demand products whose manufacture creates very dangerous chemical pollutants.  Solar panels; batteries.  We say that the emission of particulates is bad-nasty, but we don't replace coal-fiored plants with nukes.  We say that CO2 emissions are bad, but we build gas-fired turbine generating plants--and we have a seven-year proven reserve in the U.S. 

We have gone on a gasahol craze--which has tripled tortilla prices in Mexico and generated food riots.  It has raised the price of hen scratch from $7 for 50 pounds, to $10.  This will also affect your morning Post Toasties, etc.  And bringing more land into cultivation will impact on wildlife in a conversion from open pasture to plowed field.

Some ten or so years back, as a sweet young thing only into her eighties, my mother was fulminating about politics and politicians:  "We used to have statesmen.  Where are the statesmen?"  My rejoinder was, "Mama, I've given up on statesmen.  What I'm looking for is a mature adult."

Ain't seen many, lately.

Art

[CAnnoneer]

Art, you are right that the environmental impact is inevitable. We can modify the results a bit to our liking, but the essential basic truth is that human activity will always generate negative environmental consequences.

Thus, for me, the long-term solution has to include (along with advanced technologies) the cultural realization that population numbers have to go down and stabilize at some reasonable level. If societies switch essentially to replacement levels, the ecological problems will be far more tractable. By contrast, the ridiculous increase in population, especially in the third world, when coupled with the understandable desire to reach first-world living standards, is a recipe of guaranteed time-bomb disaster of global proportions, be it by shortages or wars or both.

[French G.]

Why not be a NIMBY? For me it is cost vs. benefit. Wind turbines are going into my backyard and we the local residents get nothing except city people telling us we are NIMBYs. My area has two resources, land and unspoiled beauty and everyone makes their living off of one or both. The wind turbines have reduced property value and they are not even built yet. The promised payoff is $200K per year of tax revenue, a figure based, like every rosy estimate of the wind industry, on nameplate generation capacity. $200K a year is nothing when you consider that tourist revenue and land tax revenue will both drop as the land devalues.
 
So what is the benefit? Green energy right? Well, not so much. How long does a turbine take to recoup the energy it took to make it? Conventional energy use is not reduced as the wind power is not dispatchable to the grid, that is it is not reliable so you still have to keep the conventional source online. The most rosy of wind advocates forsee wind making 5-10% of our total national ehergy. Our energy use increases by 1.5% a year, so what would thousands of turbines across the country get us? Nothing.
 
   I would welcome a nuclear plant in my county. Not some do-nothing crap that a vast majority of the county opposed.

[Gewehr98]

I'm really not too worried about the cost of tortillas in Mexico.  Maybe they should plant corn down there, it would give them something to do besides crossing the Rio Grande and sapping benefits on this side.

As for tilling arable land for ethanol, I have mixed feelings on that, too.

I watched for years as farmers let their fields up here grow fallow under the PIK program, getting paid by the government to NOT plant crops.  It kept the price of a bushel of corn from falling too far, as well as other costs associated via ripple effect. 

Now I understand the price of a bushel of corn here in Wisconsin is up over $3.00.  That'll keep the banks from foreclosing on the remaining farms, and they can use their PIK acreage for something productive again.

Ethanol isn't THE solution.  It never was, nor will it be.  It will, however, make a goodly dent in that big sucking sound of U.S. dependency on foreign crude, assuming that the petroleum saved doesn't go into some fat-asses' Hummer H2 in Hollywood, or John Travolta's 707.  All the fuel savings in the world doesn't help if your neighbor decides he's going to use even more.  I got my electric bill down to about $125/month, but that pales in comparison to Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth of $1,400/month.

BTW, corn isn't the last word as the feedstock for ethanol production, either. Cellulosic ethanol, made from sawgrass, corn stalks, and even municipal waste, appears to have a 9x yield compared to the current corn distillation techniques.  Expect the first cellulosic ethanol plants to start producing around 2009.  Many of the current corn-fed ethanol plants here in Cheeseland were built to be able to convert to cellulosic ethanol extraction at a later date.  The corn farmers may want to pay attention to that, and maximize the temporary higher profits from their crops for the time being. 

NIMBY people are why some locations suffer with homeowner's associations these days.  They're a relatively new invention, based on the premise that "I like what's in my driveway, but not yours, and you're dropping my property values!" 

I'd park another Allis Chalmers in my front yard and prominently display a sign that reads,"4Q!" 

[Art Eatman]

High cost of tortillas in Mexico has already led to more social unrest.  That tends toward even more destabilization.  In turn, that means more wetbacks.   So, more social problems here.  Social problems suck up tax dollars.  More crime = more problems with the emergency room needs after violence, and a rise in insurance premiums.

As far as corn, though, and alternatives, there's what can be done and there's what is being done.  ADM, Inc., likes corn; therefore, Congress likes corn.  And if it takes high corn prices to make life rosy for a farmer, one might ask what he's been doing in the past to have a financial problem.  I've been either in it or watching farming/ranching since way, way back.  There's an awful lot of, "Don't tell me how to farm.  I ain't farming, now, half as good as I know how."

The price of hen scratch for my quail is up 50%.  Corn flakes for breakfast have/will cost more.  Milk is expected to go up at least 30¢ a gallon.  Beef and pork prices will go up.  Egg prices, too.

Wanna tell me more about the wonders of higher corn prices?

, Art

[roo_ster]

Higher corn prices get candidates nominated by bribing corn-producing states...and that rest of us wonder how higher corn prices and burning our foodstuffs will benefit us.