FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT INDUSTRIAL WIND TECHNOLOGY by Jon Boone

On May 3, 2007, the National Research Council of the National Academy of Science, at the behest of Congress, published its conclusions after a year of study about the Environmental Effects of Wind Energy Projects in the nation’s Mid-Atlantic region
(www.vawind.org/Assets/NRC/NRC_Wind.htm). It comprehensively evaluates the problems and limitations of the wind industry over a range of issues. See especially Chapter 2 for a Context for Analysis of Effects of Wind-Powered Electricity Generation in the United States and the Mid-Atlantic Highlands.

Jesse Ausubel, noted conservation biologist and climate change researcher, and Director for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University, recently published a brief essay, Renewable and Nuclear Heresies in the International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology, Vol. 1, No.3, 2007 (http://phe.rockefeller.edu/docs/HeresiesFinal.pdf). He discusses the importance of conserving important natural habitats on land and the oceans, shows the intrusive nature of renewable energy projects, and summarizes the continuing per capita decline in the use of carbon for energy.

Britain’s David White wrote Reduction in Carbon Dioxide Emissions: Estimating the Potential Contribution from Wind-Power, commissioned and published by the Renewable Energy Foundation, December 2004: www.windaction.org/documents/225 . It is a thorough, beautifully reasoned analysis of the limitations of industrial wind as a source of energy and as a method of reducing CO2 emissions.

Tom Adam’s Review of Wind Power Results in Ontario: May to October 2006 published in Energy Probe, November 15, 2006: . Adams is executive director of Energy Probe, an independent consumer and environmental research team in Canada. He provides a detailed analysis that reports accurately about the subject, despite Energy Probe’s active support of industrial wind development.

E.ON Netz GmbH Wind Report, 2004: www.ref.org.uk/pages/press/061004.html...REPORT.

E.ON Netz GmbH Wind Report, 2005: www.ref.org.uk/images/pdfs/eon.2005. These reports provide the most comprehensive summary of the way in which extensive wind facilities affect grid operations in Germany.

National Wind Watch: (www.wind-watch.org) was the first nation-wide organization dedicated to understanding industrial wind issues, in the process gathering thousands of articles and news stories about the industry, and then providing informed interpretations for the public’s edification and education. Many newer organizations stand on NWW’s shoulders. Now the president of National Wind Watch, Eric Rosenbloom is a science writer who lives in Vermont. He also maintains perhaps the nation’s best wind blog: http://kirbymtn.blogspot.com, as well as the website, Industrial Wind Energy Opposition: www.aweo.org, which contains a cornucopia of facts and research about the subject.

Industrial Wind Action Group: www.windaction.org is dedicated to providing educational material to communities and government officials in order to enable better public policy. The site contains over 6,500 items comprised of news articles, opinion pieces, research, photos and quotes pertinent to industrial wind energy. The organization’s executive director is Lisa Linowes, a New Hampshire resident concerned about providing, among other issues, the best consumer value for alternate energy sources.

Jon Boone wrote three major essays over the last two years that appear on his website: www.stopillwind.org, one of the first websites to feature the problems with industrial wind in the eastern United States. Start with The Aesthetic Dissonance of Industrial Wind Machines (www.stopillwind.org/lowerlevel.php?content=Downloads), which was published in Contemporary Aesthetics on September 28, 2005. The Wayward Wind (www.stopillwind.org/lowerlevel.php?content=WaywardWind), a speech delivered in June, 2006 to the citizens of Wyoming County, New York, and, in January, 2007, Less for More: The Rube Goldberg Nature of Industrial Wind Development (www.stopillwind.org/lowerlevel.php?content=WaywardWind) will be published next Spring by McGraw-Hill in an anthology of essays entitled, Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Environmental Issues, edited by Thomas Easton.

Also note the Top Ten False and Misleading Claims the Wind Industry Makes for Projects in the Eastern United States: www.stopillwind.org/lowerlevel.php?content=topten_intro. Detailed debunking follows.

For those interested in a comprehensive analysis of the issue vis a vis a regulatory wind hearing, consult Jon Boone’s Maryland Public Service Commission testimony (www.stopillwind.org/lowerlevel.php?content=Downloads) as an intervenor in the Synergic Wind case, including his Responses to a variety of Data Requests and his Appeal to the Proposed Order of the Hearing Examiner.

Both his speech tonight in Westfield, Industrial Wind: A Bill of Goods and his introductory remarks at the League of Women’s Voters wind debate in Fredonia, will also soon appear on stopillwind.

Life Under a Windplant, Jon Boone’s documentary about the Meyersdale, PA wind facility, which he produced and directed with David Beaudoin, can now be seen in three parts on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNxvkrgoPLo&mode=related&search= . It features how the wind plant affects the lives of the people in the community and shows the sights and sounds that emanate from 375-foot tall wind turbines sited atop surrounding ridgetops.