First, apologies for having an opinion different to some. I think the safety zone around airports (or however it's worded) should be maintained. Gary asked why these proposed turbines weren't going closer to the grid, in an area where there are few of us pesky residents:
A good question! Er, I dunno! Following stories like this overseas may help prepare for the same thing at home. Caveat: Personal opinion, obviously that of a wanker if I read the response below correctly. Good thing he doesn't sell anything I'd be interested in buying. Jim ________________________________ From: Mike Borgelt <[email protected]> To: Jim Staniforth <[email protected]>; Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia. <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 4:32 PM Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] Easements in the air 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." - 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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