Something is Fishy 'Upstate' ...

In The New York Times recently have been a spate of stories on controversy surrounding wind turbines. First there is this sort of 'I told you so' column by Stanley Fish, basically reiterating a bunch of complaints that people in 'upstate' New York (the lower Hudson Valley and foothills of the Catskills is hours away from 'upstate') have made about the installation of wind turbines near their bucolic communities. Fish opposed the installation of turbines in the town where he has a summer home and seems to think that reiterating his complaints makes them persuasive. Today there is this story about an island in Maine where some residents articulate claims much like Fish's.

As I have made reasonable clear here in the past, I am a pretty confirmed supporter of wind energy. It seems to have a lot going for it. (For instance, unlike Nukes, it generates no lethal waste that needs - and lacks - safe storage for centuries; unlike the 'fracking' process for extracting natural gas that Fish disingenuously mentions as analogous to wind power, it will not poison the water table; unlike oil, it is unlikely to draw us into wars or to despoil beaches and pretty much everything else.) I am not a blind supporter, though. Turbines make noise. The physics of the things pushes us in the direction of large installations, but not inevitably. And the process for planning them (or any large scale technological project) ought to be transparent and not dominated by corporate interests. That said, I think Fish is pretty much wholly off the mark. My plan is to write a separate post on why. I figured this one can serve as background.

Wind Farms & Western New York

The town where I now live recently had a rather robust political-legal controversy regarding one farmer's proposal to install a 'wind farm.' It seems to me (although I am not familiar with all the details) that the whole episode was a mess, with the wrong outcome emerging from the ham-fisted attempt by local officials to push the project through over significant (but not terribly persuasive) opposition. The prospects of wind power continue, however, to make their way into local politics. [Look here and here.]

Currently there also is trouble brewing nearby over the proposal to install an off shore wind farm - I live on the shore of Lake Ontario - with people complaining, mostly about spoiled vistas and so forth. [Look here.] Given the option I've heard it said, the opponents would prefer more nuke's along the lake shore. That seems daft to me (think of the still unresolved and probably unresolvable matter of what to do with the waste that such plants generate). And the aesthetic argument strikes me as wacky too. So, this slide show at The Guardian is an especially timely contribution.