This Article strikes me as a bunch of crap.
I'd like to write a letter to the editor, refuting most of the points covered.
Anyone in the know willing to help?
The article was overwhelmingly negative, and I'll include their points below the fold.
Are any of the benefits from wind farm energy worth the risks?
Is it worth it for what this piddly amount of electricity will do to the landscape, property values (which I suspect is their real objection), quality of life, health (?), birds , bats, and so on?
Dr Calvin Martin, and Nina Pierpont say they only need to point to research done by scientists in US and Europe about detrimental effects of wind turbines pose for neighbors and the environment to determine that clean energy has a price that might be to high to bear for rural areas.
They also point to a 2001 survey of residents in Lincoln township in Wisconsin.
Complaints of noise from neighbors living a quarter mile away. (This sounds legit??)
52% living up to 1/2 mile away complained of noise. Claim was that more people complained living 1/2 mile or more than those living 800 feet to 1/4 mile away. (a statiscal fluke?)
They compare the noise to a gravel pit crushing rocks.
They say that fire ladders won't reach to the turbines and fire fighters won't be able to put out a fire in a gear box.
Ice build up and flinging onto neighboring property.
Brake failure in high winds resulting in catastrophic failure. For instance a propeller detatching from the structure.
One in Oklahoma recently fell over.
They don't produce much electricity, funtioning at 25 to 30%, 70% of the time they are idle.
Test towers are irrelevent because they have yet to find one time that a company put up a test and then failed to site there.
