I don't understand how anyone in their right mind could think that the sight of 70 gigantic propellors, spinning gracefully in perfect synchronised unison, turning the movement of air into pure clean electricity, could consider it an eyesore.
The windfarm in Albany, on the south western corner of Australia, is a fairly major tourist draw for the city- the turbines are dotted along a ridgeline of native bush right near the sea, and this will probably sound a little fruity, but I was amazed at how beautiful and peaceful it was to look at- a real sense of 'connectedness' with the planet, and all that malarky... honestly, it was way cool. The sound in particular was something I'll always remember fondly, a gentle swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, as propellor blades the size of 5 storey buildings move gently through their cycle. It certainly wasn't an intrusive sound in the slightest, not a lot louder than the noise of the wind itself.
So what's with all you Makara residents then, huh? Bloody hell! Do you have a clue? I can't believe that you're attempting to stop one of the cleanest, safest, and most beautiful & picturesque ways of generating energy?! Something that will only enhance & add value to the beautiful, natural surroundings of Makara?!
Help me understand!
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nice! - it's cos the rich people would ...
nice! - it's cos the rich people would rather dam rivers and change ecologies in areas which they cannot see. they'd also rather get a nuclear power station and chuck the waste into the sea.
most people are selfish and lazy...
I think their main (non-subjective) ...
I think their main (non-subjective) concern is the noise.
The list of 'negative' effects, as culled from the Makara Guardians website is...
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1.Visual impact/loss of amenity as evidenced by the unanimous stance of all countryside environmental entities in the UK and that government's countryside advisers - The Countryside Agency.
2. Noise. On overseas experiences, especially in rugged terrain, noise prediction methods are not reliable, and are often incorrect.
The wind turbine installed at Geebes Pass was shut down in 2003, shortly after installation, due to noise pollution.
3. Birds - loss of diversity of bird life/loss of birds. Not just mortality rates/avoidance of areas with large sweeping turbines/upsets breeding patterns. Overseas studies.
Lawsuits against wind turbine developers have now been filed in California, USA, and several are now pending in the UK.
4. Construction/extensive road widening - to bring materials to site. Wear and tear on roading.
5. Large concrete foundations. Each Hau Nui turbine took 270 tonnes of concrete and 10 tonnes of reinforcing steel. Those turbines are smaller than the ones mooted for Quartz Hill. There is an environmental cost in cement production, and CO2 is produced by such process. For Te Apiti, massive concrete foundations are required plus a concrete pad next to each foundation to take a 400 tonne crane. This crane is so vast it takes a 100 tonne crane to erect it on site. 10 metre wide roads must be built to move the crane around the wind power station site. A quarry has been built on the land and a batching plant for concrete is being made on site.
6. Land "locked up" no access - Occupational Safety and Health (OSH). Many safety issues previously ignored by wind power developers have now been identified.
7. Possible TV/radio, video interference
8. More lines/poles to transmit power generated.
9. Possible negative health effects - low frequency noise, now well documented overseas, with studies in 2003 and 2004.
10. Prevents forestry developments, which provide carbon sinks, nearby.
11. Increased traffic - initially while visitors call to view "technopark", and during construction and maintenance.
12. If rural land is involved then the environment is changed from one of rural to one of industrial.
13. The loss of a future eco-tourism potential. Certain parts of Wellington have this quality. There has been a 30% reduction in tourism in North Germany, attributed to the plethora of wind turbines.
14. Property values drop. The economic well-being of communities or people affected is compromised. This will not happen if wind power stations are built well away from housing. We have the space in New Zealand to do this.
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A lot of those points are, to my mind, 'gee, well, duh' kinda points. I mean, really, they're going to have to build power lines?
And on the one hand they claim that there'll be an increase in people visiting the site to look at the turbines, but then also claim that there'll be a drop in eco-tourism in the area, as the 'pristine' nature of the countryside has been lost.
some relevant links:
http://www.windenergy.org.nz/FAQ/noise.htm
http://www.makaraguardians.orcon.net.nz/Negeffects.htm
the funny thing is that they have lots ...
the funny thing is that they have lots of wind turbines in specific areas of Crete. there's not much protest about them as historically Cretan farmers have been hugely into windmills, as it's mostly seen as a logical progression from wooden irrigation-driving ones, especially so as the windmills have been coming down over the last 50 years in favour of smelly VERY LOUD petrol/gas generators (mostly to run their irrigation up in the Lassithi plateau) - most people say they would rather have wind turbines and their electricity than petrol generators. kinda off the point, but aesthetically speaking Cretan people are used to blades spinning on hills, and have been for yonks, pretty much hundreds of years.
(even more off-topic, the Lassithi plateau is smack bang in the centre of Crete, and its bigness and flatness has makes it an official emergency landing strip for the Space Shuttle.)
well, you live and learn....
well, you live and learn.
Mmmm. It's probably healthy for any ...
Mmmm. It's probably healthy for any major endeavour like this to have some opposition. That list of negative effects is filled with holes though. It'd be exhausting to attack it point by point, so Point 1 re %30 less tourism in Germany attributed to prolification of windfarms. What nonsense, honestly! I grabbed some text from the Meridian energy website re tourism impact (http://www.windenergy.org.nz/documents/2005/050825-NZWEA-FactSheet4Touri...):
"Germany has the highest number of wind turbines in the world and generates approximately five per cent of their electricity from the wind. At the end of December 2002, the northern state of Schleswig Holstein had 1,800 MW of wind turbines that generated nearly 30% of that regions electricity. A 2002 study (Gunther 2002) to assess the effects of onshore and offshore wind parks on tourism was undertaken by the Schleswig Holstein tourist board. It concluded that the wind industry does not affect tourism in the region. Visitors are aware of the increasing number of turbines in the landscape but they do not infl uence visitors behaviour.
"In a Scottish study(Mori Summary Report September 2002. Tourist attitudes towards wind
farms) 43 per cent of responding visitors said the presence of wind farms had had a positive effect on their impressions of Argyll as a place to visit. The same number said that the presence of a wind farm would not make a difference to their impression. Surveys in the UK show that for 94 per cent of visitors to North Cornwall (the birthplace of the modern British wind industry) believe the presence of wind farms has had no adverse impact on the likelihood of them visiting North Cornwall again. The majority of the remaining six per cent said that the presence of the wind farms would actually encourage them to make another visit.
"Such public interest has led to a steady increase in the use of serviced accommodation in the area of the Delabole Wind Farm (which has been in operation since 1991)."
I tried digging up their cited references- I think the Gunther report is written in German, but the Mori report is available online here:
[ http://www.bwea.com/pdf/mori.pdf ]
Would NZers honeslty prefer Nuclear? ...
Would NZers honeslty prefer Nuclear? I've heard whisperings...
...oooh and the 30% thing was point 13 ...
...oooh and the 30% thing was point 13 not point one, and alledgedly for Northern Germany specifically.
//prefer Nuclear? i was listening to ...
//prefer Nuclear?
i was listening to a BBC Radio podcast about that - UK govt is considering heavy investment in nuclear power, but recognised there was a similar problem as there is with petroleum/gas/oil - there is a limited supply of uranium apparently, or plutonium? i can't remember - but it meant there would be a peak-uranium consumption/supply issue in the near future, not really solving any peak-oil problem to any real extent.