Wind power...what a joke!

[Jeff]

I was outside a bit ago and noticed a shadow that was continuously dancing across my yard. Shortly before that it was in the neighbors yard. He has never complained about it, so I guess its not a bother to him. It got me to thinking that I suppose any shadow, any noise, any change in ones "space" could potentially set someone off. I suppose no matter how important the cause of that shadow or noise or other resulting "side effect" may be to one, that cause and its effect is probably an annoyance to another somewhere.  Is there a point where that line does not exist? Is there a point where something is equally important to all of us? I hope so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYaPopTP9TU

[Paul_H]

Jeff,

the effect I saw was a strobe effect from the fans.It wouldn't be an issue in these parts because our sky is about half of what the praries or even Southern Ontario would have so we don't get the sun low in the sky like they do.

[Fla._Deadheader]

Anyone ever watch a Nascar race, and hear the cars as they Whoosh by a fixed camera-microphone set up ???  That's how those blades sound. Tip speed is over 200 MPH.

  I find 2 cycle motorcycles or such much more annoying. Jake brakes, I don't like, at all, but, realize they are necessary, in MOST cases.  : :

  It's whatever trips yer trigger.  ;D ;D

[stonebroke]

Jeff

The Flicker Effect occurs when the sun is very low in the sky, At dawn and dusk. It does not occur for very long at any one point. Th performance standards for wind turbines generally restrict Flicker to 25 hours at any one point during the entire year.

Stonebroke

[Bibbyman]

Yea,  a lot of people like to eat pork but don't want a hog operation in their back yard. digin_2

About 40 years ago I worked for a regional planning commission.  We were often part of public hearings.  I came to learn then about how life worked.  The county next to us has a larger population and the state university, etc. It is an island of liberal culture in an otherwise rural Missouri.  They enacted all kinds of zoning laws to protect their community.  Good for them.  But it just pushed everything they didn't want to see – mobile homes, junk yards, etc. - over into the adjacent counties.

One meeting I attended was over a proposed telephone communication tower to be built in their county. (Before cell phones).  The opposition brought in a biologist that had studied the location and had come to the undeniable conclusion that it was unsuitable because bats that lived in a cave some 20 miles away may fly into the structure.  The tower was built in our county.  I guess they didn't care about our bats.   :

[Jeff]

Interesting article I found on wind generator noise.

http://www.awea.org/smallwind/toolbox/windzone/noise.htm

[Mooseherder]

There's a smaller wind mill ( guessing 40' diam blades) in a neighboring town in the center of that town that doesn't turn ever and I'm bettin' it's noise ?? and got shut down, been there for 15 years or so ..

Pappy,
Heard tell that he was being paid by the power company to not run that thing and had never seen it spinning also until last week. :D
I was bringing Momma out to eat and while driving thru Madawaska I got video evidence of her turning. ;D  Maybe they stopped paying him. :D
Holding camera with shaky left hand while driving with right.  You could hear the woosh while driving by.  I'd like to have one on our piece to not have to pay the power man.


<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZViVNE6wCww&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param>

[pappy]

Well there Mooseherder ya guts the proof  ;)

Sent an email to my cousin that lives in the neighboring town of Saint David and this was her reply ...

It does work occasionally.  What I heard was the dude was having trouble getting repair parts from Canada.  But I really don't know. 

Our neighbor across the road just installed two 50 footers to power his house & garage (big rig work).  We  hear absolutely nothing when they're spinning.

But those are the small ones, I'll have to go see the bigger ones in operation though, and there's still the issue of aesthetics I'm having a hard time with... Ya got to remember where we live..

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aroostook_County,_Maine

Very remote with lots a privately owned forest land... Seems sad to have to erect 400 wind mills towering 400 ft. over such a pristine looking land scape and all the juice is earmarked for southern New Eangland... 

The big juice company's are gonna be extending the transmission lines up to the "County" so it can tie the huge wind farms into the N. E. grid ... At present we get our electricity from the Province of Quebec which is produced by hydro...

So now we have to give up our "aesthetics" for southern N.E. ... To me it just ain't right...  :-\  >:(   

Just maybe we can cut a deal for a better rate ? Knot !!   :

[SwampDonkey]

When you come down to Mars Hill on Route 1 turn up toward the Fort and make a right toward the mountain and when you get up to it swing left and you'll get closer to the windmills as the line of windmills comes down the hill and crosses that road. That's what we call the Mars Hill road on our side. There is a closed customs crossing there ahead on the border. Can't get much closer than a few feet by car.  ;D


I doubt you'll find it too noisy. I think most those folks are retired around there and get irritated more as they age. :D

[Mooseherder]

When you come down to Mars Hill on Route 1 turn up toward the Fort and make a right toward the mountain and when you get up to it swing left and you'll get closer to the windmills as the line of windmills comes down the hill and crosses that road. That's what we call the Mars Hill road on our side. There is a closed customs crossing there ahead on the border. Can't get much closer than a few feet by car.  ;D
I doubt you'll find it too noisy. I think most those folks are retired around there and get irritated more as they age. :D

We drove by there Sunday Morning at 5:30 on the way out.  Wish I had video taped the Mountain and Mars Hill but I musta been feeling lazy.  It is quite the spectacle.  A well known photographer from that area has a Picture of 2 Men sittin' in the Diner in Mars Hill with the Mountain and Windmills in the Background right before sun up.  I drove past the Diner and those same 2 fellars was sittin' there having their breakfast.  I coulda taken the same picture. :
Wish I'da done it now.

[SwampDonkey]

Yeah, you can take a spin around that Hill and come right out at the Irving on Route 1 south of Mars Hill or over by the Bridgewater crossing if you stick to the dirt. The guy that runs that store, his father lives over home, just down the road. He went to school over here for a few years, he and an older brother and two sisters. There are so many cross roads around there you won't know where your at.  :D :D I forget the name of that little village out in there along the creek with the old pond on it. There are a couple streams that merge there. Isn't that the Dang'est.

[moonhill]

There was a letter to the editor or a commentary in the Bangor Daily News written by a local Mars Hill resident, in which they were complaining about the noise these mill were making.  The part that got me was they could not hear the wildlife and in the list of wildlife was "bears".  I have lived in the Maine woods my whole life and if there is one animal out there that just doesn't make noise to hear it's a bear.  So they must have quite the bear population up in the county. 

I just checked out the Maine Atlas and that's some road going in a box around Mars Hill.    Tim

[Sprucegum]

I have heard bears walk past me in the woods - it aint that pleasant, makes me Dang nervous in fact.  ;)

[SwampDonkey]

I hear a lot of moose, they are as common as cows around here. I have one bear on my lot that I scare once or twice a year. He is always busy rolling logs for grubs and eating raspberries.  ;D

We have found 3 bear dens this year in our hardwood thinnings. Makes the boys nervous.  ;D

[moonhill]

When I was younger, about 8 years old, I had one come out from a hole in the ground.  It was in a hurry and didn't hang out.  My older brother had found the den and we all came back to investigate.  There was some growling and snarling coming from the steering wheel size hole, I was standing right at the edge when my brothers foot went through the ground and out the bear came, just a black flash.    I will never forget it.  Tim

[Chuck White]

We have windmill power generators here in NY.

I've never seen them turn fast enough as to be dangerous to birds and bats as I've heard in the media.

A bird dumb enough to be killed by one of these windmills would be just as likely to fly into a tree or utility pole as one of the blades of the windmill.

I feel that wind is the answer to a lot of our power problems.

I also feel that there should be an offset here as to where... If you have a "commercial" windmill installed on your property, you should receive a substantial break on your power bill each month.

[TexasTimbers]

Chuck, my understanding is most states require for-profit electric companies to buy any excess energy that windmills (or any other power generation source) have developed in any billing cycle.

But you are saying if a person has a commercial size mill, perhaps they are not even getting power from, they should get a break on their bill. I think they do. It's called a lease agreement to the tune of $500 to $1500 per year per turbine!

8)

For me having one in earshot would save me money on my bill, just because i would be able to unplug my fan at night. I have slept with one since I was a baby. I love the noise!

[TexasTimbers]

I just heard where Bloomberg wants to put a wind turbine on top of the Empire State building. i doubt that would ever come to pass. I am all for wind power no doubt, but if I were a New Yorker I might have a problem with someone wanting to deface such a historic landmark as that. Heck I am a Texan but I can't like the idea.

We need to not cling to too many things of the past, but there are also some things you just shouldn't do. Yeah it's only a building and all but Michael, pick a different building.

He wants to build offshore wind farms and put them on bridges too. Is this election year for him up there ???

[DanG]

Is this election year for him up there ???

Nahhh, he's still hoping Al Gore will pick him to be his running mate. : :D :D

[logwalker]

Now wait a gol DanG minute. If they are plastering the West Texas hills with these things it is only appropriate that the people that use the most power have to look at them too.

[SwampDonkey]

 :D :D :D :D

[Chuck White]

TT;
Most of the power generated in "Up State New York" is sent to New York City!

The worst part of that is: Most of the people in NYC have no idea where their power comes from!

[TexasTimbers]

Now wait a gol DanG minute. If they are plastering the West Texas hills with these things it is only appropriate that the people that use the most power have to look at them too.

:D :D  Thanks for putting that into perspective for me I never thought about it that way.


Chuck you are right too. Most peeps have no idea. My kids would roll their eyes if you asked them. "Oh yeah. We know where it comes from alright. Savoy Texas. Would you like to know how they generate it?"

I have drawn them plenty of diagrams over the years and given them the basics of AC electrical generation 101 anytime the subject came up, explaining the whole process. My daughter about leaped out of her chair when we were watching a movie one time recently when the actor casually mentioned how Nikola Tesla got the shaft of electrical history.

And I thought they were never listening all those years.  8)

[Brad_S.]

As some here already know, I closed up my sawmill business and accepted a job with a major wind energy company, thanks to another forum member who is now my bossman. I work on a MET team (meteorological), meaning I am on sort of an advance reconnaissance team. We erect the towers or place the sound/laser equipment that will monitor wind activity at a potential site and determine whether it has the necessary winds to justify placing turbines there. I haven't been on the job long enough to have insightful input and I don't want to risk saying things that would not sit well with my new employer. This job is much easier and profitable than the sawmill business was. But I think I can say a little.
I can understand the resistance to these machines, they do command attention towering over the landscape. Personally, long before taking this job, I thought they were an inspiring sight.
Because of resistance, we travel as a team in unmarked trucks to avoid attention for our safety and that of the company's equipment. I've been on the job for a little over 2 months and have spent most of that time in Maine, (mere miles from Swampdonkey) which has huge wind potentials. Depending on the prevailing attitudes in the area we are in, when questioned about what we do/why we are in town (small towns, everyone knows when someone new is there), we will either be up front and tell them or, if we are sensing hostility from the questioner, we will tell them we are on a survey team. (Semantics. It's not a lie, we are surveying the wind.)
Again, I have nothing insightful other than to say we are slammed with work for the foreseeable future, and new competitors are jumping on board daily. The fact is, these things will be going up all over and will probably stay up until we can wean ourselves off of oil and into a new energy source.
I finally got to see one of these sites up close just as it is about to go on line. I still don't know my Maine geography well, but this site is refered to as Stetson (http://www.stetsonwind.com/stetson/), whether that is the nearby town or the mountain name, I am unsure.







This guy popped out of a top hatch to take a smoke break. When he saw us taking pictures, he did a handstand for us up there. Of course, that's when my auto focus spazzed out. This guy is about 275' up.

[Mooseherder]

Sounds like you're enjoying your new endeavor.  Quite the change from your Sawmilling business.   Those are some nice people up there.  You won't have any problems.  I think the Industry could help itself out by supplying/selling locals with some electricity.  I don't know this to be 100% fact but heard the Wind Farm on Mars Hill by Swampdonkey produces enough energy for 60,000 homes.   We heard all of it goes to other states.  If that is true, that doesn't sit well with locals who have to look at it.   I think it would go a real long way for Maine to be one of the first States to become self sufficient when it comes to energy needs.   Maine has had outward migration for way too long, probably 40 years.  Heck, I became an economic refugee twenty five years back myself.   Alot of the energy North of there is coming from Canadian Hydro now.  Some of the little towns have electric co-ops and electricity has been relatively inexpensive up until a year ago.