Wind Article

Windmills?

Why are enviromentalists against windmills for energy. I live in maine and they're trying to get it approved to get them put up here but there's a big debate about it messing up the scenery. Isn't this what the enviromentalists have been fighting for all along, alternative energy?

Public Comments

1. yes, but "not that way" we've got to find a better way......until eveything is gone...
2. I haven't heard of any environmentalists who are against wind energy. I suspect the people who are concerned about the scenery are not real environmentalists. Personally I'm an environmenalist and think we should have a lot more windmills than we do.
3. I dont think it is the environmentalist that are against the windmills. It is the land owners of land from which the windmill is visible. Nobody wants it in their backyard. Those windmills have a negative effect on your land value. especially if your land value derives from the beauty of the area.
4. WIND MILLS DO NOT GENERATE ELECTRICITY WIND GENERATORS DO that is a new one on me wind mills for energy, do they mill energy perhaps wind mills are mills that work with the wind to mill wheat or corn and the miller operates them they are mostly found in the Netherlands of the past and Spain ,and today most of them have gone .the few that are left have become tourist atractions ,restaurants or even homes I think you are talking about Wind generators ,they kill a lot of birds and are an eye sore on the horizon for many people ,BUT they supply cheap energy ,we cannot always have everything dandy for everybody at the same time
5. What a lot of people don't understand is that depending on where your at wind energy can be pretty expensive.
6. They’re not as long as they can’t see them and they are not in their neighborhood. Just ask old Ted Kennedy. For a lot “environmentalists” the rules apply to you and me not them. You have to reduce the amount of energy you consume, you have to reduce the amount of CO2, but look at their front man, Al Gore, and see if he practices what he preaches. Really if we were to put windmills in places where they make the most energy, and if the electricity can’t be used at that time turn it into hydrogen and burn that later to heat our home or make electricity when the wind isn’t blowing, but then again old Ted might have to look at them if he take his yacht out or visit one of his rich friends out on Cape Cod, but I’d be willing to bet if was going up in your backyard he wouldn’t have a problem with it. I’d even take that one step further, I’d be willing to bet Ted would be saying that it un-America of you to protest a wind farm in your backyard, after all he just wants us to be less dependent on foreign oil. But then again the true environmentalists have long been push out of the environmentalist organizations. And the political activists have taken over, sad.
7. I've heard people on both sides. Done right they can supply needed electricity to an existing power grid or power a farm or something like that. Many farmers in my area rent or lease land to people who build wind towers on it. The electricity just feeds right back into the grid. In our case, the grid id never that far from brownout. The other argument is that they can mar the view. I think that depends a lot on where you put them, doesn't it? I don't know about other States, but Missouri has always been one of the least picky about treating the landscape view as a shared resource (witness our billboards). I think those who are totally opposed represent an extreme view, not the majority.
8. As an environmentalist, I personally find "wind farms" interesting to look at. And they are great sources for alternative energy. Are you sure that the people trying to block the construction aren't just the rich homeowners in the area? The only good reason I can think of for true environmentalists to NOT want a wind farm to go up in a certain area is if it were to obstruct a migratory bird path, because the typical style of wind generator can kill birds. But there are many designs coming out now that would not be dangerous for flying creatures. Either way, please don't use this one incident to put a bad stamp on ALL environmentalists... even within a group, people greatly vary in their opinions of how things should be.
9. Alternate energy is good, but wind farms do kill hundreds and thousands of birds. They increase fire danger (sometimes they start fires), the dominate the skyline and are often more than 150 ft tall. They also need to have transmission lines and power centers to move the power that also dominate the scenery. Any plants and animals have to adjust or die.
10. There is wind power that is not as obtrusive or dangerous to animals too: http://www.ecorazzi.com/?p=2665 This would definitely be the one for me.
11. There's environmentalists, and then there's "Environmentalists". "Environmentalists" want people to go green because it's trendy and they can make money off of it, but don't want to make any real changes to their way of life. These people are usually in the minority of environmental communities, but they can also be the most vocal.