Raise the Hammer

Jason's blog comment demonstrates the complete lack of understanding of the true issues surrounding improperly sited industrial wind turbine power plants by those who blindly support them.

While aesthetics is an issue, when turbines are placed too close to homes noise becomes the major issue. This has played out in England, Australia and the US - to the point that residents there have made there own documentaries to warn us. Recently in Nova Scotia, a family had to move out of their home because of noise problems from a project 300 meters away. Instead of learning from these experiences, the Ontario government is repeating them here. There are already noise issues at the few large plants operating in Ontario. Don't believe noise is an issue? Then why was there an Industrial Turbine Noise Conference in Germany last October?

With that said, the floating movable turbines sound like the least intrusive option for industrial wind power. The large onshore installations have a huge footprint, usually thousands of acres, that condemns the residents of that area to live within the boundaries of a power plant for decades. All this for an intermittent and very small amount of electricity. Remember you can't replace baseload power with intermittent power - so wind cannot replace any conventional forms of electricity. As for their impact on CO2 emissions, it will be so small it will be immeasurable. A single transatlantic airline flight could offset any daily CO2 reduction from a 200 turbine installation.

The Ontario government seems hell bent on pushing forward with these projects despite their limited benefits. (Do I smell political oppourtunism?) Perhaps if these offshore floating turbines become a reality, we can avoid sacrificing tens of thousands of acres of land and the quality of life of the residents that live there before it is too late.