Wind Farms?

[routestep]

Evergreen company put in about 30 windmills just up the mountain from me maybe 1/2 or 3/4 miles away. I can heard them a little. The faint noise is repetitive, not a hum. From ground to tip they stand 400ft in the air. They are in the next county, just across the line, so my county doesn't get any money from them. We get the view.

[SwampDonkey]

Don't seem to bother the moose none. :D

Three more just out of frame.



I'll have to start tying cow bells on my private herd. :D :D :D

[mr T]

Nice pics I dont think anything bothers moose How do people there like wind mills ? I havent figured out how to post pics but if you google in friends of the highland mountains youll see the view from my frt porch Picture it with wind mills

[SwampDonkey]

People come to take pictures, ask the locals and they don't pay any attention to them. I can't here them at the house, I can when I walk up the road within a couple miles if there is a stiff breeze. There isn't a day that those mills aren't running. When there is no wind down in the low country it blows up there. Once in awhile one or two will stop. There are 28 up there and like others said they are about 400 feet high when a blade is vertical, actually 389 feet. The towers are 250 feet and the blades 139 feet long. I have some pictures of them erecting them in a Wind Mill thread here on the forum.

[Patty]

I hate the windmills near us. They are such a blight on what used to be rolling hills of farmland. We have about 200 of them 10 miles west of us, with another 200 or so in the works. You see them on the horizon. At night, instead of seeing a beautiful sky of stars, you see 200+ blinking red lights obliterating any view of nighttime skies. They are ugly.

One small nuke (or coal for that matter) plant would be far more welcome than 400 windmills stretching on for miles in my opinion.

[Tom]

I wish they would put stuff like that on top of Urban buildings.  The planning is all done by city folks, sitting behind big shiny desks and they look on Urban property as the valuable stuff and what's outside as wasteland.

Our County got rid of an RC model airplane field that was located next to one of the civilian airports because the land around about was to be developed and the people didn't like the noise.  They moved it to an old pasture at the Prison Farm about a mile and a half down the road.  Folks are right, RC fields are noisy.  Our quiet, peaceful swamp, along the primitive creek, in the wilds of Florida has not been the same since.  There were promises of muffled engines and only midday use, but that was just politicians talking.  After spending a quarter million dollars, or more, on the site, it was turned over to the RC club.  The club means well, but their trying to control a public field is like trying to corral a herd of lizards with a switch.  The News article, touting the City's benevolence quoted the powers-that-be as saying that the field was now located where no one lived, so there would not be anyone to bother.   Needless to say, that stuck in our craw out here, where we moved to get away from the city's noice pollution.

Now we have a National Cemetery in that same pasture.  The RC Planes are supposed to go away sometime and the folks in the Cemetery are a lot quieter.  The problem now is that they are closing our access road for funerals. I respect the right to die and be buried and will stop and show respect when the  bereaved pass, but I sure wish the City had thought of giving us another way out of here.

It sure makes one despise city folks.

[SwampDonkey]

The windmills that are on Mars Hill have blinking lights to, but there have been blinking lights up there for 60 years from towers erected all along it's ridge. Used to it I guess. But, I can still enjoy the stars, as from my vantage point they are to the north and most of my star gazing is over head, to the south, to the east a setting moon to the west or an occasional glimpse of Venus just after sunset or before sunrise.  Can even view the international space station, but surprisingly I have never actually gone out to see it during the viewing times, it's up there someplace different each time they say. ;)

The worst thing I hate is town folk coming up the end of our road and dumping off appliances in the woods. The scorge of the country when the province closed all the municipal dumps for regional land fills. Every ones woods roads is a potential target for spring trash cleanout in towns. And fall hunting excursions, take the old fridge along to dump off. >:( It's senseless ignoramic behaviour because they take them for nothing at scrap yards. Someone is deathly afraid they might have to pay a small toll to rid of their junk.

[stonebroke]

I hate the windmills near us. They are such a blight on what used to be rolling hills of farmland. We have about 200 of them 10 miles west of us, with another 200 or so in the works. You see them on the horizon. At night, instead of seeing a beautiful sky of stars, you see 200+ blinking red lights obliterating any view of nighttime skies. They are ugly.

One small nuke (or coal for that matter) plant would be far more welcome than 400 windmills stretching on for miles in my opinion.

Blame the FAA for that. Honestly, if a airplane is within four hundred feet of the ground it is in trouble already and blinking lights probably won't save it.

Stonebroke

[forest.c]

they dump scrap junk here to realy pi%&& me off we have a camp on st croix lake and sombody dumped a stove just up the road !

[John Mc]

One small nuke (or coal for that matter) plant would be far more welcome than 400 windmills stretching on for miles in my opinion.

Of course, when you are downwind of all those coal plants, and the acid rain is leaching the calcium from your soils, destroying the productivity of our forests and lakes, you may tend to have a different view. Likewise, when the only Nuke plant in our state has a partial collapse of their cooling tower (supposedly due to rotting timbers in the support structure) months after the NRC gave it a clean bill of health as they were inspecting it for a requested uprate of 20% from the designed power output,  and you find that same Nuke plant is leaking tritium from their underground pipes (pipes which they denied having not too long ago when they were appearing before the state legislature asking to have the operating license extended beyond it's planned expiration in 2012)... you again tend to look at things differently.

I'm not saying wind power is the answer to all our problems... every power source seems to have it's drawbacks. Just that it has its place.

John Mc

[stonebroke]

Or maybe she would like to live next to a strip mine.

Stonebroke

[tractormanNwv]

I'm still a little Stunned by it all, if the Power Company"s can produce electric by coal or etc for 6 cents per kw  and then buy the power from the windmill at 9 cents per kw...Who is really saving? We all Know that water runs downhill and We"re at the Bottom. And if it"s about the GREEN....Well please Help Me Understand why I Work with NOT FOR, but with CSX Railroad and I See v-12 and V-16 Engines just Pouring the Black Smoke, and When I Take a Truck into the Mines I See raw Diesel just Pouring from every Piece of Machinery on the Mtn I Wonder why thier so hard on the Truckers?

[gunman63]

the way i see it, its  just like if u think gas  prices are high, and complain about it, dont use it, dont use electric, or gas, show them  whos boss.  Me i dont mind paying my $150 a month for  power i think i get a lot of  use for  my $5 a day, same with fuel, I think i can get a lot of use of $3-5 a gal, fuel, better than not using it. some people are just goin to complain no matter  what

[Patty]

Of course, when you are downwind of all those coal plants, and the acid rain is leaching the calcium from your soils, destroying the productivity of our forests and lakes, you may tend to have a different view.

I live next to a pig factory, so coal seems pretty unobtrusive in comparison

[ely]

nothing wrong with wind as a suppliment to the already existing electric grid. i just get a little preturbed when the good folk seem to think they can use wind power or solar power the same as they do for there house. they expect lights to come on when the switch is flipped.

[John Mc]

nothing wrong with wind as a suppliment to the already existing electric grid. i just get a little preturbed when the good folk seem to think they can use wind power or solar power the same as they do for there house. they expect lights to come on when the switch is flipped.

Well, my neighbors, who are of grid solar, expect just that... and they get it. They do have a propane generator as backup, but it rarely runs. They heat with wood (propane backup there too... but it only runs when they are away on vacation).

But their lifestyle isn't for everyone.

[pappy]

The local farmers/landowners all like the extra money even if the view isn't so good.

They sure did spend a bunch of money to cut in the roads thru the woods along these mtn tops so they could build them .

Maybe ya should read what this farmer went through...

Wisconsin Farmer Has Regrets ;
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/wisconsin-farmer-has-regrets

Our little N. Maine town of Wallagrass is voting on an ordnance this coming Thursday evening,, I hit a couple of the informational meetings,, Big wind ain't gonna like it to much...

We've guts to put money into nuclear  :P  it's what future generations will be using... Our world wide power demands will be much greater than they are now and wind might help some but it's not the answer...  :-\  So why waste all this time and money on "feel good greenie" intermittent power ,, Gooberment boondoggles is gonna bankrupt this great country ,,, Just  MHO


Northern Quebec with it's huge resource of Hydro power is gonna make some big bucks in the not to distant future..  It's needed for the east coast megalopolis and it's on it's way folks.

[stonebroke]

Some thing that people forget or maybe never knew, Nuclear is a non renewable resource.

Stonebroke

[SwampDonkey]

We've already spent $1.2B on Lepreau refurbishment, another $400 M likely. And our premier is selling out NB Power for $3.9B of all assets except transmission. The numbers don't jive.  :

[pappy]

Some thing that people forget or maybe never knew, Nuclear is a non renewable resource.

Stonebroke

Think future,, we haven't learned all there is to know yet.  But time is of the essence.

SD,
With Gooberment the numbers never jive.. Only with big money power behind closed doors does it makes sense.. Big elec money at this very moment is seeing the huge demand / potential for juice along the eastern sea board.. First it's the little purchase of NB Power for $3.9B then they need to bring it through Maine and the state is already looking to lease the right of way down the I 95 to elec and gas right straight into the New England Power grid... Now can you say big bucks... Just glad the Clinton administration isn't in office, there used to be people dieing of weird things in those days.  ;) 

[bill m]

Maybe ya should read what this farmer went through...

Wisconsin Farmer Has Regrets ;
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/wisconsin-farmer-has-regrets

I feel bad for the farmer but what happened with his lawyer?  Isn't that why we hire them to look out for us and our interests.

[isawlogs]

Here in Québec , we have I am guessing it at 90 % of our electricity is from water turbines ,  one or two nuc plants but I really need to look into that as they may be closed , and are now funding those windmills ... It is a shame cause we still have many places that could have turbines put in and produce a whole wack of power for the east coast . Oh ya , we are buying SD power plants .  ;)

[SwampDonkey]

No worries, I'll just build a camp on the back of the woodlot, no road, and run a line up to the top of Mars Hill into one of those windmills. I'll have to camo the roof so the assessor does not up my taxes. Moose meat, beaver, bunch berry, cattails, boiled inner cedar bark and fiddle heads should sustain me. :D





Maybe somewhere handy to where they erected this one. ;)

[pappy]

bill m,
Guess the lawyer and farmer were to trusting with what big wind was promising.  :


It's a new possible source of energy and yup I got land but what they tell ya and what takes place when you give them the power over your rights is two different things in the big world. :(

Don't forget when big money talks,,,,,  well I think we all get the idea... How far can ya throw 'em ??

I think some people were lucky that their NIMBY neighbors were leery about the promises of big money.. Kinda like an insurance company that takes your premiums then when you get sick they dump ya... Yup big money promises..  :

How's it go " wolf in sheep's clothing" ... Some folks up this way are saying big wind is offering $10,000 / crucifix a year for twenty years,, ya right!

Just be very careful folks before sighing on to this... When the subsidies run out it'll just be another feel good / catch faze and on to some other cheap source of feel good energy..


Believe me I'd really like to see them get rid of the coal powered elec plants!! Because with the state of Maine and some of the other northeastern New England states being the tail pipe of the nation our lakes, ponds and rivers have unacceptable levels of mercury that the ME Fish and Wildlife depts tell pregnant women don't eat any fresh water fish and the rest of us no more than two meals a month... When I was a kid we ate trout at least 3 times a week in the summer...

[isawlogs]

Pappy , that tail end you speak of , it goes on beyond Maine. We have to deal with the short comings of it also , thinking of how our lakes and rivers take a beatting from such things we have no control on, sure makes one wish others would take time to see what is really at stake with those coal fired mills.  :-\   
I am cetain there would be a way of filtering them to a point that they would be less harmfull and I am also cetrain it would be cheaper then litering the skies with wind mills .