Wind Turbines?

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mountaindogs
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Wind Turbines?

Post by mountaindogs » Sat Nov 27, 2010 6:38 pm

I know a lot of you live in the midwest and I was wondering what the opionions are if anyone lives near or has been near the large wind turbines. A company is proposing them in our area and talking with land owners about leases.

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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by ROTTnBRITT » Sat Nov 27, 2010 7:26 pm

We just had a wind farm put on the mountain near us. The first group that we can see is of I think 65 turbines. I don't see them as much of eye sore from a distance. At night you can see the red light that flashes on them. It looks kinda neat. But I would rather not have them there. They are quite loud. There is a cabin we ride snowmobiles to when you stand outside now it sound like an airport. They made a mess of the road while the construction was going on. Haven't been up there in a while to see how things are now. we also have the while natural gas industry in our area too. It's crazy around here now. Used to be a quiet small town.

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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by mountaindogs » Sat Nov 27, 2010 8:05 pm

Yeah, my mom's side of the family has land in Sullivan Co. PA, and the natural gas comp, has been talking with them and the land owners nearby. :(
How far away would you say the noise travels? The company of course says you won't hear them, but we are pretty rural. I tend to believe any noise would be more noticable than you'd think. Comparable to jake breaking logging trucks, maybe?

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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by tro182 » Sat Nov 27, 2010 8:15 pm

I work at a natural gas compressor station with 8 2000 hp v10s. The muffler are quit large and take care of most of the sound. I live 2 blocks from the train yard and they are 3 time louder than the compressor station. All new station will have even higher restriction on noise. You may notice it once in a while but not bad.
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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by snips » Sat Nov 27, 2010 8:28 pm

I would fight it with tooth and toenail! They are AWFUL!!!!!!!
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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by Kmack » Sat Nov 27, 2010 9:11 pm

Image

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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by mountaindogs » Sun Nov 28, 2010 7:41 am

I am all for renewable energy, but must we have these monstrous turbines? why must they be so huge? Bigger is not always better :roll:

The surrounding neighbors are ready to sign on, so now it's an issue of -- we might get the noise no matter what, and none of the money if we turn them down.

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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by Karen » Sun Nov 28, 2010 9:09 am

We have a wind farm less than 2 miles from us. We never hear a thing from them. My trainer lives on the top of a hill on about 6 acres about 60 miles from here. His next door neighbor has a single wind turbine on his property. They don't like having to look at it, but I've never heard a thing while there.

We've actually talked about having one put on our property.
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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by Ryman Gun Dog » Sun Nov 28, 2010 9:57 am

Karen,
We have one of these sights in Somerset county, Pa. Most of the time the blades are not turning and it seems there is an expense for cleaning up dead birds that off sets, what little energy is made from them. Can't say they make a lot of noise, but they are sure ugly, on top of that once beautiful mountain.
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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by Karen » Sun Nov 28, 2010 10:31 am

We're in Bear Creek,PA. We can't see the wind farm from our property as we're deed restricted from clearing more than a third of our property (and we live in a forest), although we can see the turbines from tbe other side of the development.
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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by Ryman Gun Dog » Sun Nov 28, 2010 10:47 am

Karen,
Do you have a summer home in Bear Creek, or did you move out of NJ. We are definitely talking about the same ugly blads, on a once beautiful mountain.
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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by Karen » Sun Nov 28, 2010 11:05 am

NJ house is for sale. The Bear Creek house is my BF's. He's full time there with the dogs so my NJ house can be shown more easily. I stay in NJ during the week with my son, who is a high school senior. We'll be full time in Bear Creek as soon as he graduates.
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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by ezzy333 » Sun Nov 28, 2010 6:33 pm

We have somewhere around 2 to 3 hundred here in the county. I just drove by today and rolled the window down but couldn't hear a thing. I'm yet to hear anything real negative about them. We used to hear a few years ago when they started putting them in that they killed a lot of birds but no one could ever find where it was happening. Can't imagine how you could hit a bird in the daylight with one but suppose a couple could be at night but they normally are not turning fast enough to hit one or kill it if they did. Have not heard that mentioned in the past year at least. I don't think I would want to live under one but where they set them back almost a 1/4 mile from the residence I think there is little real problem with them and I know they are producing one heck of a lot of tax money for the county and schools.

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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by Mountaineer » Sun Nov 28, 2010 6:56 pm

WVa has several wind fields...I have not been at the base of one but have been moderately close and heard nothing to note as a problem.
Birds can be an issue but mostly only in the approval stages of a project.
Many eco groups are betwixt and between as wind turbines are relatively clean in the environment and raise an issue almost solely with the idea of a viewshed.
Locals may well see a benefit of varying degrees....and dependent upon sensitivities.
Personally, I would rather not see them on the ridges of the mountains but I prefer them to ski resorts, flocks of the woods rats they call deer, forests left to age to death from mismanagement for age class diversity, and summer/hunting cabins built in every pull-off of a mountain road.

On a small scale, I do know a farmer in Iowa who put in a small 20 foot span turbine for his place...he banks energy when making more than that used.
He loves it..so far.

As with paper plants and oil & gas development, wind turbines often smell, sound, look and feel like butter & eggs.
There are far worse black hats out there.

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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by snips » Sun Nov 28, 2010 7:43 pm

Our good friends in W Tx have them across from their beautiful 26,000 acre ranch...It is sickening to drive in from a hunt and see hundreds of these things all over the horizen...He won't let them touch his beautiful ranch, but the money talks to most, so they give in...
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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by Redfishkilla » Mon Nov 29, 2010 11:19 am

In addition to being ugly, they cost you tons of money. First, the energy they produce is expensive to transport and produce. And they need a huge federal subsidy to make them profitable in the first place. Yes, land owners will make money through lease bonuses and royalty but they will cost other average Americans by forcing them to buy more expensive electricity and cause higher federal deficits and/or taxes because of the subsidy. I hate those stupid windmills, a testament to stupid government programs. When we finally realize these things aren't helping I guess we can bungee jump or zip line from them. If you want to get us off foreign oil, create natural gas consuming transportation. All mail cars and school buses should be run on American produced natural gas and any other fleet type vehicles that stay the night at a central place where refueling can be done easily. Once you allow those wind companies on your land, you might as well sell out fee simple. Get a good lawyer and read the lease carefully. I know Pickens here in Texas on some of his wind lease (now expired thank goodness) had a first right on refusal on all new oil and gas leases and he also restricted hunting, which is a big money maker for various ranches. Be careful, the days of knowing who is on your ranch are over the minute you sign one of those leases.

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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by ezzy333 » Mon Nov 29, 2010 1:35 pm

Isn't the truth is the lease is almost identical to an oil or gas lease? I agree they aren't going to replace our need for oil but they are a step in that direction. Probably a good thing in using a renewable energy source. They sure aren't real pretty but it seems everyone is for reducing our need for oil as long as they put the pumps, windmills, or whatever else it takes in someone else's back yard and not ours. I am not a big proponent of the windmills but I also know a lot of the rumored problems are just that, rumors to keep them away from us.

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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by dan v » Mon Nov 29, 2010 2:37 pm

Why do they have to be a blight on the landscape of rural America? Why not on every building more than 20 stories tall? And all up, down, and across the coasts?

If they planned a wind farm near me, I'd move. That's not a sight I'd prefer to look at, much less hear, everyday.
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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by mountaindogs » Mon Nov 29, 2010 3:41 pm

"moderation" is something we just can't seem to do. Smaller would be an easier sell for me because I am all for renewable energy. Been thinking about a small turbine for power at the kennels. It's so windy I have a had a tough time keeping roofs on them, and might as well use it, but the small ones are a whole different thing...

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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by Redfishkilla » Tue Nov 30, 2010 9:28 am

Now a days, oil and gas lease are not at all the same. Big landowners have a lot more pull and create leases people wouldn't believe. One lady had in her lease that if an oil company truck got off the road they owned her 10 bucks a foot. She would fly around in a helicopter and take pictures of trucks off the road and send the oil company a bill, no joke. These wind leases are not all the same either. They have a primary term and royalty rate but after that they aren't even close to being the same. I know there’s a whole other world of issues lawyers will get rich litigating as they figure out wind issues. As for getting us off foreign oil, in a world without talking points and politics we would build modern nuke plants. One section of land with a nuke plant will produce how many windmills worth of energy? Tons, I don't know the number off my head, Google it. And the nuke plant doesn’t have to rob the tax payers like the windmills do. Heck, even France has tons of nuke electricity, that’s when you really realize how dumb our politicians can be. Immet at GE plays both parties tons of money to pass laws that force these wind turbines on the public so GE can build em earning taxpayer dollars taken with the threat of imprisonment. Typical government BS. I hope people resist these windmills and instead lobby for common sense energy policy like natural gas cars and nuke plants. Those two things would lower the price of oil by making alternatives economically viable. Clean coal will help too. Windmills are a waste of money, a produce of a rigged system to help GE and not the consumer or the planet for that matter.

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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by snips » Tue Nov 30, 2010 10:27 am

Sounds like they are going to petition them down on Lookout MT.... We do not have enough wind here to make them benificial IMO...Not like the west...Pretty ridiculas to even think about them here...
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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by SD Pheasant Slayer » Tue Nov 30, 2010 10:36 am

Just a couple points to make:

Mountaindogs - they make the turbines big because they can generate more electricity. If you're putting the cost into the land and tower, obviously you want to maximize your return. Capture more wind and create more electricity - bigger IS better. Not trying to be snarky, just thought an explanation might help.

For those concerned with the noise, take a trip to a wind farm. I won't disagree that they're kinda ungly, but the "noise pollution" argument is a stretch.

Redfishkilla - The development of wind energy is expensive. If we ever want to make it efficient, it's gonna cost a lot of money to develop a more complete grid, but that doesn't mean it's a bad investment. Our interstate system wasn't cheap either. Second, Nuclear energy has A LOT of potential... but it's not the politicians that are going to hold it up. There are way too many people out there that are terrified of anything nuclear. You think resistance to wind farms is tough, try finding a city that's going to be excited to have a nuclear plant move in. The advances we've made in safely harnessing nuclear energy are completely irrelevant until the public is educated enough to understand them. There's a reason doctors dropped the "nuclear" that used to precede "magnetic resonance imaging."

I guess I don't really have a beef with the wind farms. We have a lot of them not far from my home and they've never really bothered me. To each their own, but we have to remember that no alternative form of energy is perfect. There are going to be unhappy people regardless of what direction the country inevitably goes.
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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by Redfishkilla » Tue Nov 30, 2010 10:53 am

Windmills suck. If you want to pay for them fine, but don't force me to shell out my hard earned cash so some rich wind developer and GE can make money putting up huge wastes of money.

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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by ROTTnBRITT » Tue Nov 30, 2010 11:06 am

He are some pics I have of the wind turbines that were put up on Armenia Mnt.

A local took these while flying his hand glider. Pretty cool pics.
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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by ROTTnBRITT » Tue Nov 30, 2010 11:07 am

Sorry. they are kind of big.

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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by prairiefirepointers » Tue Nov 30, 2010 11:18 am

I can't say much about the big turbines, although they do blot up the landscape when I travel out west (KS) from time to time. We have a smaller turbine which is used for part of the High School here in Pretty Prairie. I live about 3 blocks from it and never, ever hear a thing out of it from here.. However, when its running to capacity you can most definitely hear it. If you're walking down main street, or driving by it with the window down, its quite obvious.
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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by proudag08 » Tue Nov 30, 2010 11:28 am

My .02...

Here in Texas, most of the wind farms are in the west. I dont know many people that have complained about the noise, but then again, I know very few people in west Texas. Ha!

My beef with these things comes in the lack of future planning. What are we going to do with them when they become obsolete, when they break, when they rust, when they are detroyed by natural disasters? What then? Its like all the pumpjacks around here. At least those can be removed with relative ease if desired. I actually think they are cool looking. But the wind turbines will not be like that. these monstrocities would take forever to bring down safely.

I understand the need for renewable energy just like the next guy but I dont think we need to ambush what little undeveloped land we have left for the sake of a wind farm that will be obsolete in 20 years (and thats generous).

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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by wems2371 » Tue Nov 30, 2010 11:32 am

When we went to NW Iowa last year, there were a lot of them around the public grounds. Don't really remember hearing anything. The blades weren't moving all that fast, even with the windier days we were out. However my husband was at a jobsite near Newton Iowa, and he said there was what appeared to be an older one, that was noisy. They didn't ruin the view for me, but then I don't have to look at them everyday. Actually wish I could afford a residential model. It would be working like crazy today! :x

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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by Ditch__Parrot » Tue Nov 30, 2010 11:57 am

When the wind farms started coming to Kansas I was pretty open minded about it and really still am. Taking a drive down I-70 I can't help but get a sour taste in my mouth though. The Smoky Hills Wind Farm alone takes up 20,000 acres of some of the formerly finest landscape in Kansas. It produces a 250 Megawatts of energy. Comparing that to 1,200 Megawatts that Wolf Creek Nuclear Power Plant is producing seems pretty sad considering how much land is taken up by it and how much of an eye sore the wind farm is. At least Wolf Creek also generates some of the best Duck Hunting around from what I understand. Probably what makes it worse in my mind and probably produces much of the sour taste is that it is owned and operated by a foreign entity and most if not all of the energy produced is sold out of state.

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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by mountaindogs » Tue Nov 30, 2010 12:31 pm

We actually do get a phenominal amount of wind up here. I know I have tried many ways to put up shade cloth on my kennels but it is always ripped off.
Rottnbritt, I imagine ours would be closer to your pics than the other "farms." I believe they have proposed a maximum of 10 over about 1000 acres and as I undertsand it kind of zigzaged along the ridge and then on to another 5 across others properties.
I am glad to see those pics. The company said they would not clear more than 2 acres per turbine and I wondered. Actually there are several companies trying to outbid each other :roll:
I am going to have to make it a point to go hear some.

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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by Mountaineer » Tue Nov 30, 2010 12:54 pm

WVa ridge line wind turbines:

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Canaan Valley, WVa development in once prime ruffed grouse/woodcock cover:

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:idea: I'll take the wind turbines over condos/timeshares for skiers and leaf peepers any day. :idea:



All wind turbine fields are not created equal...nor are the locations in which they are found...or the alternative land uses possible.

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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by AHGSP » Wed Dec 01, 2010 9:34 pm

Mountaineer,

I can't quite tell from your photo, though I suspect I know which turbines these are; Are these the turbines between Thomas and Parsons, or as I suspect, the turbines between Mt. Storm and Bismarck along Allegheny Front?

Lots of questionable opinion and mis-information here and as someone who has actually worked on these things, instead of forming opinions based on what I've heard, read or otherwise, perhaps I can shed some light.

As far as noise goes....the wind that is making them turn is louder than they are. If you stand directly under them, you can hear the slight whooshing sound of the blades cutting air. Anyone that can hear them further, is either around much older technology, or turbines that are in poor repair.

The reason they are so high is because that is where they can catch constant wind currents from the jetstream, as well as thermals rising and falling in the morn and evening particularly on mountain ridges; which is also a large part of the reason at least here in the east, they put them right at the ridge faces where they can gain the greatest influence/advantage from the thermal drafts.

ALL turbine projects, like coal or gas extraction, have decommissioning plans that have to be submitted/accepted PRIOR to permits being awarded or construction beginning. Decommissioning means taking them ALL the way down, to include the concrete base protruding from the ground to some accepted level below grade, leaving nothing of the actual tower site visible. They are also required to submit plans for storm water management and a host of other environmental effects, including sometimes being required to submit for permits for potential bird/bat kills. These can and do kill birds, particularly Migratory Raptors, when careful planning of their placement is not strictly studied and adhered too. I believe there are a few of these sites that are quite notorious for high raptor kills and some have had to shut down a number of the turbines and remove them to allow for somewhat safer travel for Migrating Raptors.

Yes they are ugly.

They currently are not truly profitable without Government Tax Subsidies and in many ways, are just a feel good answer to our need for Coal, Oil and Gas. On the other side of the coin, the average Coal fired power generating station will consume in the neighborhood of 15,000 TONS of Coal every single day, for a total of 5,475,000 TONS of Coal annually. That's a lot of earth......

There seems to be a larger difficulty for folks living near them, from the "strobe effect" caused when the sun is shining through the blades upon residential areas as they are spinning. I hope I explained that in an understandable fashion.

As for GE, they are at least American made.
Windmill MFR.s by Market share in order, most all are foreign made:
1. Vestas (Denmark) 12.5%
2. GE Wind Energy (United States) 12.4%
3. Sinovel (China) 9.2%
4. Enercon (Germany) 8.5%
5. Goldwind (China) 7.2%
6. Gamesa (Spain) 6.7%
7. Dongfang (China) 6.5%
8. Suzlon (India) 6.4%
9. Siemens Wind Power (Denmark / Germany) 5.9%
10. REpower (Germany) 3.4%

I think I covered a good bit, but will be happy to answer any questions I may, IF I know the answer. If I don't know, I am sure I can ask a few people that do.

I'd much prefer Nukes, but like wind turbines, water turbines, Solar Farms and a host of other alternatives, the biggest difficulty seems to be NIMBY....

There are large scale plans in the future for offshore wind farms along coast lines that will be far enough off shore to be out of sight and out of mind, but the biggest hurdle that needs to be overcome on that front is the cabling infrastructure to get the power back to the mainlands and make distribution not just economically feasable, but efficient as well.

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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by Mountaineer » Wed Dec 01, 2010 11:30 pm

That photo was taken, looking north, from the gravel road right hand turn South, or East(?) toward the Fairfax Stone...about a mile+ east of 219....North of Thomas, of course.
I'm guessing they are in the Backbone Mountain field, running SW-NE, maybe....I may have the mountain wrong???

Mt Storm and The Front would be farther East...as I recall that is also a considerably larger turbine field.

Best keep the raptor killing quiet or RGD/Dave/Buehner will change his stance on wind turbines in the mountains.
I believe I have heard of more issues along the hawk migration corridors at certain times of the year which makes perfect sense.
The bat decline is likely the strongest argument as many bats appear endangered for other reasons as well...such as white-nose.

Seems those Backbone turbines were a concern shortly after 2000 or so...the Highlands Conservancy was kinda betwixt and between over granting grudging approval or not.
Likely still are.
Last I heard, Greenbrier was on the list....were those turbines built or in the planning stages?
I have lost track on that issue.

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Re: Wind Turbines?

Post by mountaindogs » Thu Dec 02, 2010 7:12 am

Thanks!

I guess the look really doesn't much bother me on the ridgline. Prettier than cell towers, anyway. And not like the huge wind farms. Living in TN, we have hydroelectric and nuclear both and I feel fairly certain most of the power would be outsourced. The thing is sound carries very oddly here. I can here cattle from several miles away, but it bounces of the ridge and sounds like it is coming from the other side. But the guy 1/4 mile away has many roosters and I never hear them at all. Anyway it does worry me, since we are otherwise very very quiet out here ecept for the logging trucks occasionally. But thanks for all the thoughts and experience!

Any of you hear about the possible PONZI scheme involving carbon diversion plants in TN? It made NPR for about 2 days several months ago. It's still in litigation. Well that was across the street from us literally, and I guess the whole community is a bit skeptical right now. They came in with big talk about how green their plant would be and had a development planned around it supposedly and all kinds of strangeness. :evil: They had a town meeting and basically said this is what we are already doing and this is how great it is. Then they never paid most of the local contractors that helped build it, and now we will see what pans out. At least the development side is on hold.

Now with this.... let's just say we are wary.

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