US Government: Large Wind Farms Won’t Harm Environment
Here’s a widely reported AP newswire story saying the federal government doesn’t see major lasting effects from large wind farms.
While I recognize that wind is not without some problems (inlcuding bird hazards and sometimes noise), I welcome this development. Wind is far more benign than any fossil or nuclear technology.
And I’ve been close to operating wind farms in Denmark, Spain, and the US (Vermont), and quite frankly, I never heard noise from any of these.
However, to my mind, centralized power of any sort is a bit of a step backward. The more of our energy we can generate at the place where it’s needed, the less is lost by transmission friction, the lower the cost of installation, the less vulnerable the power grid, etc. etc. Rather than huge installations of dozens of turbines, wouldn’t it be great to have one small one ever city block?
