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Wind turbines; The truth that GE and others refuse to own up to

This article calls out wind turbine generated power for what it is; a disaster for birds of prey, birds, bats and the environment in general. I have personally come across butchered hawks, an eagle and numerous other birds when I have been hiking. The industry that is pushing for wind power farms is often represented and financed by General Electric, who is also the benefactor of millions of dollars in stimulus funds to help establish these wind farms. The destruction of wildlife is just one of the nasty problem that is caused by wind farms.


Another one that is often overlooked, seldom mentioned is the noise that these wind generators produce. When placed to close to people, there are almost always complaints about headaches, ringing in one's ears, and the degradation of the quality of life in general. These wind farms are often located in very remote, scenic areas, sometimes located on the edges of designated wilderness areas or breeding grounds for threatened or endangered species. This is not always the case but it happens too often for my taste. Then there are the wind turbines themselves. towering over the landscape, they are not a pretty sight at all.


These are expensive to build, costly to maintain and this administration has bought into the entire industry, hook line and sinker. The industry is engaging in a massive cover-up to hide the truth about these wind farms and they damages they can cause. Just google GE and wind farms to see how deeply 'involved' they are in this industry.


The only way out of our addiction to fossil fuels is to use every resource we can until solar, nuclear and other sources can be made affordable for the average person. We have an abundance of our own oil, natural gas, COAL plus I feel it is imperative that build new nuclear power plants and then bring solar power to as many people as we can. This is one idea that Europe has done well with, at least much better than the United States has done. Of course with the obama adminsitration, little of this will come about. He is doing all that he can to kill off the coal, natural gas, nuclear and oil industries rather than using these resources to help us bridge ourselves into a future with much less reliance on fossil fuels. Coal can be burned cleanly, it just is more expensive to build these cleaner burning coal plants. Biomass power plants are another excellent idea if the EPA will be reasonable about emissions and not kill off this source before it can grow and expand. Here in Oregon, biomass plants are an excellent idea has this state has plenty of wood waste to power these biomass plants, which can burn very clean and efficiently. Enough of my thoughts for now.


The article was published in The Source Weekly magazine. This is a very far left, progressive rag that I seldom agree with. George Bush was and still is an evil monster, all Conservatives are bad, guns are bad, so is hunting and fishing as it is portrayed in this publication. I have to give the Source credit for a job well done on exposing this harmful source of power for what it.




Take Back the Power: The wind turbines story that the industry doesn’t want you to hear
By Jim Anderson

No matter what you think about individual wind generators, or so-called, "wind farms," one overwhelming fact cannot be denied: they're all bad news for wildlife, especially birds and bats.


Yes, the original idea was a good one: cheap electricity from a renewable resource and a way to generate power while weaning us from fossil fuels. But in the final analysis, all that wind coming from government agencies—and the industry—about how much we need the power, and how little the industry is destroying wildlife populations, is a bunch of hot air. The bottom line now is profit for the investors, not cheap power or concern over wildlife.


If you think that wind generators are docile windmills dotting the landscape that just generate power—think again. No matter where wind turbines are deployed, the damage to the world we live in is beyond the permissible limits.


All the posturing by wind industry big mouths cannot change the fact that the tips of the propellers of wind turbines (when the wind is blowing) spin at more than 200 miles per hour! If you were an eagle or an owl hunting for a meal—or any bird trying to fly over the hill along the Columbia River where wind farms are being built at a terrifying clip—imagine having to navigate these spinning blades every day.


During the last 25 years of operating in California, wind turbines have killed more than 30,000 birds of prey that have tried to fly through the gauntlet of spinning blades. Some estimates done by the University of California at Berkley indicate the mortality higher at 40,000, and about 1,000 of these fatalities have been golden eagles. And scientists are just now beginning to study the damages to bat populations.


This is the ugly secret of the powerful prop-turbine wind industry, a story that you won’t see on the “feel-good” TV commercials or read about in industry-sponsored ads. The bottom line is that today there is serious money invested in wind farms that generate electricity and big profits. As has been proved by the skullduggery of the banking industry, when people have large investments, they do what they need to in order to justify and protect that investment—even if creating wrong and irreversible damages to society, man and wildlife is the result. That, in my way of thinking, is "irresponsible free enterprise."


And don’t think for a moment that this is a problem restricted to Oregon. There is a rising international outcry against these killing machines that are spreading like cancers across fragile habitats and scenic open spaces around the globe. Concern for endangered species in Australia caused the Federal Minister of the Environment to halt two wind farm projects that had been approved by state governments. The battle over the effect of wind farms in Wisconsin led the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to cooperate with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, which countered the assertions of the project’s developer, the Forward Wind Energy Center.


"It is imperative that potential displacement, injury and mortality risks to wildlife be avoided and minimized to the extent possible, and, thus far, it appears that the risks specific to the wildlife onsite have been neither studied nor adequately avoided," states the Nov. 18 letter from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife to the wind industry representatives.


What bird has a chance here?
Recently, the BLM Prineville office asked for comments on the proposed West Butte power project, a 52-turbine farm slated for roughly 30 miles east of Bend and north of Highway 20. I have lived in Central Oregon since 1952, and have been working with golden eagles formally since 1962. So I thought I had some worthwhile comments to make regarding the subject of the impact on raptors.


Given that golden eagles are actively nesting in the vicinity of West Butte and that current studies show that hundreds of eagles are killed annually by wind turbines, I thought a wind farm there wasn't in the best interest of eagle survival. My letter, stating that fact, and other details related to eagles and other raptors on and near West Butte was greeted by a five-page rebuttal by the biologist working for the wind farm industry. Perhaps he was hoping that something in that scientific diatribe would somehow mitigate the indisputable fact that wind turbines kill eagles.


Among some of his points was the disjointed, out-of-context idea that wind developers minimize the risk that turbines pose to birds by pointing out that more birds are killed each year by cars, cats, buildings, and causes other than turbines. What he failed to point out is the fact that there are several million cars, cats and buildings contributing to that total, while there are only few thousand turbines operating in the world. Most importantly, he failed to mention that cats don't kill eagles and bats like wind turbines. With the rush to slap up turbines before the tax credits run out, these statistics will soon change, and more birds and bats will die.


There are alternatives to wind turbines, but America being America—and with the way the pendulum of economics and government projects swings so dramatically from one-side-to-the-other—it will take a very noisy "squeaky wheel" to bring about awareness and change.


Original article is here.

3 Comments - Share Yours!:

HermitLion said...

So, environmentalists have now killed more birds than hunters... ha!

Infidel Task Force said...

good blog!! I should get over here more often. My only question is...how come the Infidel Task Force is not on our blog list?

let me know if you care to swap links?

infideltaskforce@live.com

www.infideltaskforce.com

PatriotUSA said...

Infidel Task Force,
Thanks so much for the compliments!
I try to have as many other sites
linked up here but I am not perfect. My apologies.

I will be adding ITF to
the list and hope you will return the favor. I will be dropping in
to your site late tonight.

Thanks Again!!!