while on his visit to the Wethersfield Wind Project
9/04/2008
If you had to choose one, which method of offshore energy production would you support?
| All the horse expletives being tossed around, it brings to mind the potential of biomass conversion and capturing of methane for energy instead of continuing to have it contribute to greenhouse gases. As for wind turbines, I live in the midst of one of the many vast new 'wind farms' that produce profits for investors due to myriad of consumer and tax payer funded subsidies and tax breaks and NOT because they produce significant quantities of electricity, power when it is needed, or have ever been shown to reduce demand for fossil fuel or the size of our carbon footprint. Off-shore, on-shore, the problem is that the current industrial wind technology is immature. Production Tax Credit extension or not, unless and until we bring accountability into the process we will continue to avoid dealing effectively with reducing global warming, greenhouse gases, fossil fuel consumption, acid rain, and the tradition of corporate greed trumping real solutions to our problems. While there are promising technologies on the drawing board, wishing and hoping don't make it so. Some of these technologies begin to address the most glaring of off-shore wind's problems, such as what to do about hurricanes. So, on the question of oil drilling or wind turbines, I vote for support for small scale wind, solar, geothermal support so farmers, homeowners, small businesses can afford to install effective and efficient systems that will reduce demand upon the grid: a grid that, as your article points out, can't handle wheeling of the decentralized production that wind farms, like those in my area (Northern NY) will destabilize. But the WSJ does us all a disservice but not examining the complexities of the issues surrounding the industrial wind juggernaut. The NY Times has recently begun to examine, in a front page story, the corruption involved in the newest scam being run by the robber barons. They have scratched the surface on the investigation of two wind developers launched by NY AG Cuomo. One of those companies, Noble Environmental, is in the process of launching an IPO with all the promise of the boom/bust tech offerings of the '90's. This JPMorgan offshoot seems to be representative of this dirty 'clean energy' business and honors the sentiment once expressed by Mr. Morgan himself: "I owe the public nothing." |
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