At 08:26 PM 22/03/2012, you wrote:
Hello from Zurich:
The proposed wind turbines near KTSP and KL94 are above the FAA
obstruction-free zone for both airports. Those on the ridge would
put a line of obstructions between the normal glider release point
and the airport, above the glide angle for any glider. There's no
safe landing option on the other side of the ridge. The usual
thermal triggers would in fact host some turbines.
Power pilots like the route that would be blocked by the
installation. It'll really be a headache in the winter when the clouds are low.
Probably the best support is coming from local residents. Unlike
the existing windmill ridge, this ridge is highly visible from most
of the valley.
This is not the only project in the works. There is another plan
to put a solar generating plant in a nearby valley that has good
soil. Meanwhile there is plenty of desert to the East which is not
as good for agriculture, receives more sun and as much wind, is not
near homes, and being adjacent to the grid would require the
installation of fewer transmission lines.
What was the Honda test track down in the desert is being
purchased by a solar power company. A bit of a waste of a 5-mile
oval and several road race tracks, but a very good location. The
manager of the test track maintained their access road in landable
condition (cleared and graded over 200' wide) and is planning to
work at the new plant.
Until the recent proposals, the more than five thousand local
wind turbines have not presented such a problem.
Incidentally, the wind turbine and PV array at home are not
placed in optimal positions, as that would have not looked good to
the neighbours. The wind turbine is much smaller than I would have
liked, for the same reason.
Jim
So what? There are plenty of wind turbines built where nearby
residents don't like them for reasons of visual pollution, noise
effects on wildlife etc. let alone for the sheer aesthetic offence of
useless engineering devices built at great expense, producing
expensive electricity sold to the unwilling by force of the State. If
wind turbines and solar were any good they would have been installed
on their own merits. (I've been to Tehachapi a few times, the 5000
other turbines are the very definition of despoiling of the landscape.)
Now you don't like these proposed turbines because a favorite
activity is impacted and it is a case of NIMBY. Seriously, you
couldn't see that wind energy was going to impact soaring and
aviation at some point? I thought it was obvious. What *were* you thinking?
"To the nearest whole number, the percentage of the world's energy
that comes from wind turbines today is: zero. Despite the regressive
subsidy (pushing pensioners into fuel poverty while improving the
wine cellars of grand estates), despite tearing rural communities
apart, killing jobs, despoiling views, erecting pylons, felling
forests, killing bats and eagles, causing industrial accidents,
clogging motorways, polluting lakes in Inner Mongolia with the toxic
and radioactive tailings from refining neodymium, a ton of which is
in the average turbine - despite all this, the total energy generated
each day by wind has yet to reach half a per cent worldwide."
-
<http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-wind.aspx>Matt
Ridley
He's talking total energy use not just electricity. Wind might make
1% of that. To the nearest whole percent. After years of subsidies
and coercion. As a way of running a technic civilization it is a bust.
Mike
Borgelt Instruments - design & manufacture of quality soaring
instrumentation since 1978
www.borgeltinstruments.com
tel: 07 4635 5784 overseas: int+61-7-4635 5784
mob: 042835 5784 : int+61-42835 5784
P O Box 4607, Toowoomba East, QLD 4350, Australia
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