Arctic Wind Farm?
Whoa, says I, a 3,000 Megawatt wind farm, now that’s some serious blowin’. Where the heck is this place? Banks Island, hmmmm, wait a minute! That’s in the Arctic!!! Granted, this is not a small island, it’s about two thirds the size of Portugal – but about half of that is a National Park. According to good ‘ol Wikipedia (I use good ‘ol answers.com to do a lot of research):
It is part of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, and had a population of 114 in 2001, all in Sachs Harbour. Banks Island is home to two thirds the worlds population of lesser snow geese,…
Ok, what are a couple of hundred people (I’m presuming the population went up since 2001, I could be wrong and it actually went down) and a slew of geese going to do with three billion watts of electricity?
Well, aside from seeing if snow geese can learn to dodge rotating blades, it turns out there’s over 4 million people in British Columbia. Just under half of those people are customers of BC Hydro to which the builder of this wind farm is hoping to sell the power. Those customers (1.7 million) are already gobbling up 52,440 gigawatt hours of electricity now, so getting rid of another billion or two isn’t such a strech. Kinda shows how difficult it is for renewable energy to fill our appetite – but 80% of these people’s power already comes from water so they’re not doing too badly.
Still, one has to pause sometimes at the amazing places they are finding to plant wind farms. Well, they should be able to test the equipment in what they call “harsh conditions” :)
- Posted in : Environment, Renewable Energy
- Author :Rt
Comments»
you do sort of defeat your own argument when you say “Kinda shows how difficult it is for renewable energy to fill our appetite – but 80% of these people’s power already comes from water” Large scale hydro power while not the best for the local environment is a renewable source. So renewable energy already supplies 80% of these peoples power, and they are going to try and push for more. You could have said “renewable energy has already proven to be an effective supplier of 80% of these peoples power”
If we want to change the world, we have to change peoples point of view, if we want to change their point of view we have to not be tricked into framing our arguments in old flawed terms.
As for birds and blades you should check out the 8 year study with danish off shore wind farms , they found using radar, that birds to in fact simply fly around the turbines.
I always figured birds were smart enough to fly around wind farms, but I do have personal experince with one flying into the window of my house so there is always the odd individual.
The statement was poorly constructed, if I had left out the hydro part it would have made my point more clear. I was going to go on a tirade about needing to go on an energy diet but I just ran out of steam. I’m still in shock that they are going to put a wind farm in the Arctic – amazing.
Actually, depending on how many people need the water up-stream hydro may not be as reliable as one would wish.
In any case, what we don’t need is an artificially created bubble of investment to derail the momentum of the move to renewable energy. RE has to stand on its own as an alternative to fossil – and I firmly believe it can, if you keep the snake oil people out of the picture.
You raise a good point, windows (birds cant avoid what they cant see), house cats and automobiles are the three largest source of bird kill in America.
I have never seen an activist group trying to kill house cats, board up all windows, and stop people from driving cars to “save the birds”, you will however often see the bird death argument used as a reason why wind farms can not work.
The bird argument against wind farms has always been weak. I suspect ulterior motives at work.
In my case this wasn’t some big clear window like on the commercials. I think the little bird was being chased by a big bird, but I wasn’t outside to see all of this – I just heard the thud (and a loud thud it was, that sucker must have been moving).
Rt:
I think before you write and have opinions on the Banks Island Wind farm and the ramifications of bird deaths; the first thing you need to do is conduct more research to get your facts straight. I’m not talking about birds; but the location of the wind farm. This site is actually located near Prince Rupert off the coast of northern British Columbia (look it up). If you are going to “blog” you need to at least have a clue what you’re talking about first.
GW needs to learn how to use semicolons, instead of using them just to try to look smart. Retard…