Wind Farms do you think they are ugly?

oh dear Stuart you are opening a can of wriggly worms by declaring that 'they' should get out of the way of the progress of humanity.

But take a hard look around yourself Stuart, look at the mess (I mean progress)we are in. If not for humanity, the earth would be trundling along just fine.

As for 'them' not believing in science, I think that is an unsustainable blanket statement.

I've had my say now. I don't want to heat up this forum.

ClissAT said:

oh dear Stuart you are opening a can of wriggly worms by declaring that 'they' should get out of the way of the progress of humanity.

But take a hard look around yourself Stuart, look at the mess (I mean progress)we are in. If not for humanity, the earth would be trundling along just fine.

As for 'them' not believing in science, I think that is an unsustainable blanket statement.

I've had my say now. I don't want to heat up this forum.

Click to expand...

No, you're fine. You are allowed to state your opinions just as much as I am allowed to state my own. I will never tell you not to. Progress is never made by putting yourself in an echo chamber and listening to people who only share the same opinions as your own. Let's have a civil discussion

You talk about the Earth as if it is sentient, I wonder if you realize that? Just an observation. The Earth doesn't care about anything. You also speak of the mess that we are in being a result of the people of the past knowing this would be the result. I get the feeling that isn't the case. For example, Henry Ford likely did not foresee the damage the automobile would do to the planet - He just wanted to make modern transportation affordable to the common person, and of course make money doing it. Though currently we are battling with climate change deniers. Now, that is a problem. The people who complain about wind turbines fall under the same blanket as those people who don't believe that we have had an impact on the planet's overall temperature. Those people are typically the ones who complain about wind turbines having an impact on their (physiological) health, and in the same breath decry climate change. I say they stand in the way of the progress of humanity because if we don't fix the, and I quote you, "mess" (and I agree it is a mess) that we are in the future generations are in trouble.

I say they don't believe in science because time and time again science and its methods prove that what they say is not the case. I am making a blanket statement because we aren't speaking about any one person in particular, rather a group of hypothetical people who have made such statements. They are allowed to believe whatever they want, but when they start trying to impact everyone else I have an issue with it.

@ClissAT
Sorry if I sound offensive, I'm not meaning to berate you. Your post about living offgrid with that one turbine powering the little shack is pretty hardcore. Respect!

StuartGrows said:

From the Government's standpoint they describe the affect of those emissions as a physiological one, not a psychological one. Indeed , those people who believe they are affected by those things will think they are affected by cell phones and other things. They are affected because they CHOOSE to be affected. There is a key difference. Really the only solutions for situations like that are for a) them to get counseling b) to go on medication or c) to move!

In my opinion they have no right to stifle the progress of humanity as a whole because they have trouble believing in science.

Click to expand...

He heh...I hadn't realised when I first replied that you're from the States, and so probably didn't know who/what I was talking about when I mentioned Tony Abbott...you should look him up. I think you'd be "delighted/entertained" by some of his opinions on climate change, wind farms etc. He was our PM until fairly recently. (And don't get me wrong, I'm a very moderate conservative, though my understanding of US politics is that even our right wing is a lot more left than the American right wing). Anyhow...this forum's not really the right place for politics, which is one if the things I really like about it!

OskarDoLittle said:

He heh...I hadn't realised when I first replied that you're from the States, and so probably didn't know who/what I was talking about when I mentioned Tony Abbott...you should look him up. I think you'd be "delighted/entertained" by some of his opinions on climate change, wind farms etc. He was our PM until fairly recently. (And don't get me wrong, I'm a very moderate conservative, though my understanding of US politics is that even our right wing is a lot more left than the American right wing). Anyhow...this forum's not really the right place for politics, which is one if the things I really like about it!

Click to expand...

I had made a note to google Tony Abbott. I'll dig around and see what I can find. You are right though that even the perception that they negatively affect the health of people is enough to stop progress - which is why I always interject when I see these things spreading. It's simply not true.

The current state that the US political system is in is a joke. I do feel the need to apologize to the rest of the world about it.

In the end my stance is this: There are correct places for wind turbines to generate electricity in a clean and efficient manner. It might not be cost effective initially, but eventually with time, research and development, it will become a viable solution. It already is a cleaner one. Whether or not someone thinks they are ugly or thinks that their health is impacted by a turbine is not a good enough reason to stop them from being built and used. Pollution from coal is much worse, the only good thing about coal is that you can burn it anywhere and slap a coal station where no one can see them. You have to put a wind turbine where there is wind.

Soooo...there's no coal involved in the production of a wind turbine?
The factories that produce the metal towers are clean & green?

ClissAT said:

Soooo...there's no coal involved in the production of a wind turbine?
The factories that produce the metal towers are clean & green?

Click to expand...

Probably, but this goes back to what I said earlier on that you can't get from A to C by skipping B. It's necessary to use what methods we have available to us to make progress. Do you not agree that it is better to use these dirty processes to create something that is not dirty so that we can shed the dirty processes verses just continuing to use the dirty processes?

It is my hope that some day when we have enough clean energy in the grid we can disconnect the coal plants, but I will be honest that I am uncertain if we can ever totally cut ties to coal (if for nothing else than for generating heat in manufacturing processes.) This would still benefit the world greatly as we would still be using less.

I guess I find it hard to get past the word 'progress'.
Why does there have to be progress & expansion for its own sake?
Does the earth need more population? And therefore more 'stuff & things' to support that?
Why not throttle back on the population so the earth can catch up with the vast level of destruction the human race has already caused?
This mantra of 'keep forging ahead' is what will end the human race sooner rather than later.
Why not see that now & deal with the underlying cause?
In the natural world there would be plague, famine, pestilence & natural disasters to keep the population in check.
But we humans see ourselves as being above all of that, to do with this earth as we want, not as we need.
So that is what we will get, nothing in the end, no matter how high our individual ideals might be right now.
Wants, needs, population growth......
Talk about touchy subjects!

ClissAT said:

I guess I find it hard to get past the word 'progress'.
Why does there have to be progress & expansion for its own sake?
Does the earth need more population? And therefore more 'stuff & things' to support that?
Why not throttle back on the population so the earth can catch up with the vast level of destruction the human race has already caused?
This mantra of 'keep forging ahead' is what will end the human race sooner rather than later.
Why not see that now & deal with the underlying cause?
In the natural world there would be plague, famine, pestilence & natural disasters to keep the population in check.
But we humans see ourselves as being above all of that, to do with this earth as we want, not as we need.
So that is what we will get, nothing in the end, no matter how high our individual ideals might be right now.
Wants, needs, population growth......
Talk about touchy subjects!

Click to expand...

Actually! I see exactly what you are saying. This may shock you, but I am on board with you here. This is why my wife and I are not having children (much to the chagrin of our parents, and some friends. "What..30 year olds..no wanting kids?! IMPOSSIBLE!") . There are simply too many people on the planet, for sure. I will not contribute to that. If I want kids, I'll adopt from the huge number of kids that are in the system that are without parents.

That being said, my stance is the unpopular one. Tell people not to have kids and they get entitled and angry. It wont fly, so that's something we have to deal with. Keeping wind power from becoming viable is going to be a mistake, because overpopulation is the fact of the matter and will not be changing any time soon. If we were proactive in the past, we wouldn't have to be reactive about it now. The Earth is definitely suffering for it.

Progress on its own isn't inherently bad. However, when you put it as "progress and expansion" I will agree.

I don't dislike the look of wind turbines. There are lots of them along the coast near KI.
As to whether they cause health problems I tend to think the jury is still out on that one. With a lot of things that may or may not cause health problems it is just too hard to really say. I worked in the radiation industry for 40 + years if I get cancer was it caused by my radiation exposure or was it caused by my age? That is a question that can not be truly answered.
As to whether we should go down the path of replacing coal fired generators with wind farms/renewable energy. Well SA is going that way and at the moment it isn't working. We have the highest prices for power in the country by a very long way, we have power shortages and then we had our whole of state blackout back a month ago. That was a dossie.
I did look into wind generators before we went solar and to my way of thinking, and I don't pretend to be an expert on power, wind is just not the way to go. Wind just seems to be very expensive to set up and not very reliable.
Years ago my sister lived on a houseboat on the Murray where lots of boaties have little wind generators and they are very noisy little things
Personally I think solar and batteries are a much better option. And it can be setup for big power usages not just for one house. An example is Monarto zoo. It runs all its power with a solar array. That's lots of electric fencing to keep lions in plus a large café and visitor centre which of course has lots of air con and cooking etc. They are very happy and proud of their setup

May I just reiterate that SA power is wholly owned by a Singapore company?
Who knows who's behind that investment.

ClissAT said:

May I just reiterate that SA power is wholly owned by a Singapore company?
Who knows who's behind that investment.

Click to expand...

Tom Playford is no doubt rolling over in his grave. Back when he was SA premier (eons ago) he recreated ETSA (Electricity Trust of SA) and it was B good but along came other premiers who thought it would be a good idea to sell it off. That SO worked. Electricity prices went through the roof and the state no longer gets the money it all goes off shore. Privatization is so good for us. YEAH

I see through the media recently they (govt & coys) are preparing us for more large spikes in energy prices.

It's disgusting how much Australians pay for power it just constricts the economy and hurts poor people.

If windfarms contribute to the unreasonable escalating cost of power then whether they look ugly or not is second to the damage they do to families due to affordability.