An ill wind

Did some research on wind power. Before you install it in your backyard, please check out this website:

http://www.betterplan.squarespace.com/

It's about the experiences of citizens in Mars Hill, Aroostook County, Maine, and in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, who live in the shadow of wind farms -- literally in their shadows.

I never knew those wind mills made noise. At least one manufacturer claims that they make maybe 50 db noise on a windy day. He says that's about the same level of sound you hear coming from your refrigerator when you're in the other room. Well, go to that web site and see if that's true.

One woman in Maine says the windmills sound like "gym shoes in a clothes dryer," and this is documented on several tapes at that web site and in other videos on YouTube. The noise has been best recorded by the people in Fond du Lac. In one taped interview, you can definitely hear the "gym shoes in the dryer" effect -- from a wind turbine 1,100 feet away. It's louder than a car passing by on the highway 800 feet away. You can't even hear the car.

The same man, Larry Wunsch, who taped the Wisconsin noise, adds that when the wind is blowing really hard, the mill sounds "like a jet on the runway." While listening for noise on one tape (that I think is also from Mr. Wunsch) on YouTube, I found myself waiting for the jet to fly over so I could hear the windmill... But that was the windmill.

Then there's Shadow Flicker. Sounds almost pretty, doesn't it? This occurs when the sun is directly behind the windmill so that it casts a shadow -- a really big shadow that flickers over many acres. If I recall correctly, both the people from Maine and Wisconsin likened this to someone switching the lights on and off in your house... continuously, steadily, and for several hours at a time. That could get a little annoying.

In all cases, the people living under the shadow of the wind farms still like the idea of wind power. However, they believe that either the manufacturer of the mills or the seller-installers didn't reveal the whole truth about their downside. In Maine, the town council (or local authority, anyway) saw wind farm installation as a revenue source for the town, which is in a relatively poor area of Maine. The officials accepted the deal with no real discussion with the citizens. And here I thought New England was just over-brimming with town hall meetings.

In Wisconsin, it seems that a couple people did some research and tried to raise their concerns before they signed onto the project, but the seller-installer and/or local officials either explained away their worries or didn't let the naysayers speak.

Don't know if Mr. Wunsch was one of those blown off for doubting the magnificence of the wind farm project, but in one tape, he does reveal that he's done some research. He said that one wind turbine generates 1.2 kw of electricity when the wind is blowing 30 mph. I live not too far from Fond du Lac, and I can testify, 30 mph is a good stiff wind, usually heralding a pretty hefty storm. A bed sheet hanging on a clothesline would be pretty much horizontal. Anyway, Mr. Wunsch has this nice way of putting this in context -- stating that one of the largest businesses in Fond du Lac would need at least 20 kw to operate. So that one single business would require something like 15 windmills churning out peak kw's to get up and running. Mr. Wunsch concludes that wind power is pretty much a scam.

Can't say I blame him.

I looked all this up because of a news report I heard on the radio in the middle of the night last week. In California, one wind turbine had "run away", so the cops stopped all the traffic on the highway -- one of the major highways running between L.A. and Las Vegas. They were afraid the blades would fly off the mill and maybe kill somebody. I was looking to find out what happened. It was in a Bakersfield newspaper.

The "brakes" on the turbine had burned out, so the blades were spinning uncontrolled and couldn't be stopped until the wind stopped. I guess no one was killed; they didn't say.

Then I came across a brief video taken by someone driving past that same wind farm at a different time. She pulled over and videoed one of the turbines that seemed to be on fire, smoke coming out the tail end of it. Don't know what happened with that, but that sounds like a kind of dodgy situation in California, doesn't it? I mean, doesn't California burn down periodically? Didn't think anyone would want to encourage that.

And remember, these things are huge. They're 400-foot towers. The blades are probably at least 100 feet long. Having one of those flying through your windshield might leave a mark.

How I hate this b.s. I don't believe in so-called "Anthropological Global Warming" or, I guess they've changed it now to fit reality more appropriately: "Climate Change." I tend to go with Mr. Wunsch and his scam theory.

You know, Abe Lincoln once said that government should do the projects that are too big for individual citizens to do by themselves. He was talking about building railroads and bridges over the Mississippi, things like that.

Well, there's not much that citizens can't do on their own, amassing capital through corporations and so forth. The USA has proven that. Prior to the Great Depression, not much was built in America unless it was built privately -- including cars, electrical power plants, steel mills, air transportation, etc. Often the government was only a purchaser of these products, and its purchasing power might have boosted private investment, but never entirely replaced it. In fact, if you want to wreck an organization and/or guarantee fraud and inefficiency, invite the government to participate. That's been the true story throughout history, in the US and elsewhere.

So the government had to invent, or least embrace, Anthropological Global Warming (where it's manmade) to justify seizing privately-owned corporations and imposing their will arbitrarily on the entire population. The rationale behind that is that one individual can't change the planet, but the government can.

Not sure how that works, though. Do granite and palm trees recognize the majesty of government and kneel to obey it? Does wind?

But hell, ol' Barry knows so much better than any other person who's ever walked on the face of the earth, doesn't he? He believes his press; he seriously suspects he just might be the new Messiah.

I'm just hoping that in 2012 there will be something left of the USA to salvage, though I doubt it.

Also on YouTube, looking up wind farms, came across a video of a couple teenage girls driving around in Wisconsin near the wind farms. One of them said the very sight of the mills brought tears to her eyes and she started humming "The Star-Spangled Banner" or some rot. So the future isn't looking too bright.