As a writer and photographer, my mission is to promote knowledge and understanding about the earth and its natural history through words, images and ideas that convey a passion for nature and a sense of wonder about our planet. My most recent book is Wild New England, a Celebration of Our Region’s Natural Beauty. My next book, to be released this spring, is Thoreau’s New England. That’s the Thoreau of Walden fame, who wrote: “In wildness is the preservation of the world.”
Notice that he didn’t say, “In transforming the last scattered remnants of wildness into giant corporate industrial wind factories for the sole benefit of General Electric, Goldman Sachs, NRG Systems, Catamount Energy, etc. and their investors is the preservation of the world.”
Like many Vermonters I am an avid skier, hiker, snowshoer, paddler, hunter, fisherman, and road and mountain biker. And, like many of my fellow outdoor recreationalists who are adamantly opposed to giant corporate industrial wind, but who don’t dare speak out, I was hesitant when this magazine’s editor, Kate Carter, asked me to write this. Like meek lambs we have been silenced by an industry that has cynically but effectively co-opted the “green” mantle, portraying itself as “eco-friendly.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. As one Northeast Kingdom resident put it recently, the wind industrialists are “venture capitalists masquerading as environmentalists. There is only one reason these projects are planned in Vermont and that is financial gain. I might add at our pain.”
Right on. There is one reason these corporations exist, and only one reason: to make money for their investors. Period. Despite their rhetoric, they are not in business to make the world a better place. They are in business to make a profit. The only “green” thing about giant corporate industrial wind is the money flowing into their coffers (largely thanks to lavish government subsidies, i.e. your taxes and mine). No wonder the Catamount Energy website proclaims, “Business is brisk.”
And what do we get out of it? The usual benefits of corporate colonialism: a wrecked landscape. Ruined communities. State and local economies in tatters. Slaughtered wildlife. A special place destroyed.
A friend who is actually a wind developer in Idaho told me recently, “We expect to lose the first two or three rounds when communities resist us. But by the fourth or fifth round we wear out the opposition and we end up winning.” This is the same friend who jokes, “Money is the answer. Now, what was the question?”
Please see here to learn about the catastrophic costs of giant corporate industrial wind. The giant corporate industrial wind lobby wants you to think that by turning our mountaintops into industrial parks we will cut greenhouse emissions. That is not true. Giant wind turbines produce an occasional trickle of electricity, something Vermont currently obtains from non-greenhouse-gas-producing sources. Vermont produces the least CO2 of any state in the union. What CO2 you and I do produce mainly comes out of the tailpipes of our cars—something we can address without destroying our mountains.
Vermont currently obtains about 75 percent of its electricity from non-CO2-emitting Vermont Yankee and Hydro Quebec. The remainder comes from a variety of non-CO2-producing sources, such as local hydro and wood. Another 20-30 percent of our electricity could come from existing non-CO2-producing hydro plants on the Connecticut River that are currently sending the power to Massachusetts. However, this surplus is likely unnecessary as Vermont officials estimate that we can easily reduce our current electric usage by 30 percent through efficiency programs.
So any additional electricity that giant corporate industrial wind managed to squeeze out of our mountaintops would merely be excess power added to the New England grid, where it would end up fueling the wretched excess of our consumer culture: big box stores, suburban sprawl, the ghastly concrete and glass auto-centric wastelands in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Another thing that giant corporate industrial wind doesn’t want you to know is that even if you covered the Green Mountains with Boeing 747-sized turbines from Massachusetts to Quebec, or the entire Appalachians from Alabama to Newfoundland, you would not replace a single conventional power plant because wind power is so intermittent, unreliable, inefficient, and has no base-load capacity. You can’t store it, and you can’t depend upon it. Every kilowatt generated by wind must be backed up by a conventional source. In Germany, where there are no fewer than 14,500 industrial wind turbines, not a single fossil-fuel power station has been decommissioned.
The biggest energy source we can tap in Vermont is conservation. We do not need more electric energy sources. We do need to use all our resources more efficiently. We do not need to adopt giant corporate industrial wind’s attitude that we live in disposable communities in disposable landscapes. We do need to: Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Restore. It’s an old-fashioned idea that still works.
Vermont was recently ranked by the National Geographic Society as 6th among the world’s most desirable destinations, selected for its unspoiled attractiveness, distinctive cultural character, and environmental stewardship. If those of us who live, work, and recreate here want to keep it this way, we need to speak out loudly against the powerful interests that threaten to destroy our home for absolutely no environmental or social benefit.
“In wildness is the preservation of the world.”
Stephen Gorman
No comments:
Post a Comment