The Wind Turbine Debate

Dear U.S. News Editor:

Regarding the article titled "Ill Winds Blowing" in the August 7 issue, there is more to the objection to industrial wind turbines than problems with the FAA and Defense Department. Here in Perry, a small town in Western NY, we are being overrun by wind turbine companies who push government subsidized economics and scare tactic ecology that just does not stand up to careful examination.

Imagine a 410' tower (the size of a 40 story building) with three 160' blades rotating at almost 200 mph that sounds like a loud washing machine planted in your "front yard" for somewhere between 20 and 40 years into the future. Now imagine 60 of these machines within a few square miles of relatively heavily populated pristine dairy country in the eastern migratory flyway of the US. This is what we are facing here throughout Western NY State.

Imagine an industry that cannot produce cost competitive electric power without huge state and federal government subsidies, producing tax-sheltered profits in the tens of millions of dollars for Wall Street giants like Goldman Sachs. This is money that the American public will pay out of their pockets for wind energy, through a program that amounts to a huge system of transfer payments- transferred from our pockets to theirs with government endorsement.

Imagine the well-meaning public whipped up by a continual bombardment through the media about a "global warming catastrophe" that has yet to be directly linked to human activity. A challenge to almost anyone on this point usually brings the response that "we have to do something" to improve the environment and cut our dependence on foreign oil (even if its wrong).

Imagine ignoring these facts:

1. 30% = the average wind turbine efficiency in this region, compared to about 85-95% for traditional power production methods
2. 0 = the number of coal fired power plants that will be shutdown due to wind turbine energy production
3. 0 = the amount of imported oil that will be reduced because of wind turbine production
4. 0 = the amount of electrical power that we will get in our town as a result of wind turbines
5. $69 per year = the estimated income per household in our town due to payments in lieu of taxes from the wind companies (this amount can be cut from homeowners' electric bills by replacing 3 incandescent light bulbs with fluorescents)

If you can imagine all this you may begin to envision the mess we are facing here. Wind power is not the magic bullet many hope will slay the energy dragon, and the problems created by these projects will be paid for by tax payers not just for decades into the future, but for generations.

Where are energy conservation programs that our governments should be promoting? Where are the programs to clean up our coal-fired plants to reduce greenhouse gases? Where are programs to construct nuclear plants that have almost no emissions? Where are programs to encourage small, safe wind turbine development for residential and industrial applications? Where is the thinking needed to reverse the US power grid from centralized production to decentralized production?

Warren Rudman said "The American people have the right to be wrong". Or if one wishes to feel better in the midst of increasing fear about energy problems, here are the words of an educated man who told me recently that "he just feels better seeing wind turbines, because they are clean".

Sincerely,

Richard Barth
62 Covington Street
Perry, NY 14530