I didn't write this,just passing it on.

[Wild one]

Right now the average wind farm is about 150 turbines. Each wind turbine needs 80 gallons of oil as lubricant and we're not talking about vegetable oil, this is a PAO synthetic oil based on crude... 12,000 gallons of it. That oil needs to be replaced once a year.
It is estimated that a little over 3,800 turbines would be needed to power a city the size of New York... That's 304,000 gallons of refined oil for just one city.
Now you have to calculate every city across the nation, large and small, to find the grand total of yearly oil consumption from "clean" energy.
Where do you think all that oil is going to come from, the oil fairies?
Not to mention the fact that the large equipment needed to build these wind farms run on petroleum. As well as the equipment required for installation, service, maintenance, and eventual removal.
And just exactly how eco-friendly is wind energy anyway?
Each turbine requires a footprint of 1.5 acres, so a wind farm of 150 turbines needs 225 acres; In order to power a city the size of NYC you'd need 57,000 acres; and who knows the astronomical amount of land you would need to power the entire US. All of which would have to be clear-cut land because trees create a barrier & turbulence that interferes with the 20mph sustained wind velocity necessary for the turbine to work properly (also keep in mind that not all states are suitable for such sustained winds). Boy, cutting down all those trees is gonna **** off a lot of green-loving tree-huggers.
Let's talk about disposal now.
The lifespan of a modern, top quality, highly efficient wind turbine is 20 years.
After that, then what? What happens to those gigantic fiber composite blades?
They cannot economically be reused, refurbished, reduced, repurposed, or recycled so guess what..? It's off to special landfills they go.
And guess what else..? They're already running out of these special landfill spaces for the blades that have already exceeded their usefulness. Seriously! Those blades are anywhere from 120 ft. to over 200 ft. long and there are 3 per turbine. And that's with only 7% of the nation currently being supplied with wind energy. Just imagine if we had the other 93% of the nation on the wind grid... 20 years from now you'd have all those unusable blades with no place to put them... Then 20 years after that, and 20 years after that, and so on.
Golly gee, how green is that?
Oops, I almost forgot about the 500,000 birds that are killed each year from wind turbine blade collisions; most of which are endangered hawks, falcons, owls, geese, ducks, and eagles.
Apparently smaller birds are more agile and able to dart and dodge out of the way of the spinning blades, whereas the larger soaring birds aren't so lucky.
I'm sure the wildlife conservationist folks are just ecstatic about that.
I'm so glad the wind energy people are looking out for the world.

 

[GTyankee]

THe end of the blade does not spin very fast, but out at the tip, the blade spins at 175 MPH plus

nothing dodges it at the tip

Up at the Nacelle, which houses a kind of Transmission
it is mounted directly on top of the Tower


Also in the Nacelle, there is a Braking Unit
If the Wind blow too strong, they lock down the Blades

Nacelle | Advanced Thermal Solutions

just north of Palm Springs California
there are at least 666 Wind Turbines at the Wind Farm in the video.

There are several OLD wind machines that are not operating, they will be disassembled & sold.
New Turbines will be put in the wind field, taking the old ones place.

The video only shows part of this Wind farm

San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm North of Palm Springs, California

San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm North of Palm Springs, California

www.youtube.com

 

[Atcer2018]

I imagine every wind farm has its logistical hurdles. The one closest to me stretches across the horizon and uses leased farmland. I have no idea how that lease works out for the farm owner(s) but the individual wind turbine units really complicate the use of the land. Miles and miles of access roads and compounds surrounding each unit. They also present a dangerous obstacle for agricultural aircraft. Over the past decade they’ve lost four crop dusters to collisions.

 

[huntergreen]

Worked out great in Texas when they had an ice storm.

 

[GTyankee]

Atcer2018

up in your area, little place called Mount Storm
Back in around 2005, i did a job that started in the San Diego area & ended on Mount Storm.
We were delivering Wind Generators.
Those machines were small compared to the replacement Wind Generators that will be going up there soon.
There are 123 wind generators up there now.
There will only be 97 new replacements going up.

The old ones are being disassembled & sold

they must sell load of Power from that area
Wind Energy, Hydro Power, Coal Power, & i think Nuclear Power

 

[Wild one]

I'd have nothing against either wind turbines or solar fields if they were installed on the side of a mountain,but so far they're building alot of them on top of prime farmland,which is what i have issues with. Alberta put a mortorium in place halting construction of either for now,don't know if it'll last or not.

 

[Atcer2018]

Atcer2018

up in your area, little place called Mount Storm
Back in around 2005, i did a job that started in the San Diego area & ended on Mount Storm.
We were delivering Wind Generators.
Those machines were small compared to the replacement Wind Generators that will be going up there soon.
There are 123 wind generators up there now.
There will only be 97 new replacements going up.

The old ones are being disassembled & sold

they must sell load of Power from that area
Wind Energy, Hydro Power, Coal Power, & i think Nuclear Power

I googled it and those things look imposing on that mountain ridge. I love to hike so maybe a spring excursion out to WV will be in the plan.

I live near the Atlantic Ocean in SE Virginia. The wind farm near me is the Desert Wind Farm in Elizabeth City, NC. It’s very rural and flat farmland with a state correctional facility across the street so a good location to build a sprawling facility.

It was financed by Amazon in an effort to offset their carbon footprint and power their mid-atlantic data centers. It’s ugly as heck but the location is appropriate. They are building another one not far from the present one that will have fewer and smaller turbines with a higher output than the current one.

 

[aces-n-eights]

I wonder about the cost to install a wind turbine. A quick search tells me that each commercial turbine is $2.5-$4M to install. Driving between Phoenix and So Cal we see tens of thousands of these things and I wonder how long it will take to amortize that initial cost.

 

[Docwagon1776]

Worked out great in Texas when they had an ice storm.

Which also put down their natural gas generation. Turbines work in the cold, including in Antarctica.

Texas just frequently forgets Texas gets cold and doesn't bother to weatherproof their infrastructure.

 

[oledirteh]

ive camped at the base of these. rather erie at night lol. where i go atv riding they are all over the place. pretty neat to watch them spin then stop as a storm approaches.

 

[js12278]

Common sense is to use all forms of energy.

 

[turkeybird56]

Worked out great in Texas when they had an ice storm.

Not!!!

 

[huntergreen]

Common sense is to use all forms of energy.

Including nuclear power.

 

[CanuckRam1313]

Right now the average wind farm is about 150 turbines. Each wind turbine needs 80 gallons of oil as lubricant and we're not talking about vegetable oil, this is a PAO synthetic oil based on crude... 12,000 gallons of it. That oil needs to be replaced once a year.
It is estimated that a little over 3,800 turbines would be needed to power a city the size of New York... That's 304,000 gallons of refined oil for just one city.
Now you have to calculate every city across the nation, large and small, to find the grand total of yearly oil consumption from "clean" energy.
Where do you think all that oil is going to come from, the oil fairies?
Not to mention the fact that the large equipment needed to build these wind farms run on petroleum. As well as the equipment required for installation, service, maintenance, and eventual removal.
And just exactly how eco-friendly is wind energy anyway?
Each turbine requires a footprint of 1.5 acres, so a wind farm of 150 turbines needs 225 acres; In order to power a city the size of NYC you'd need 57,000 acres; and who knows the astronomical amount of land you would need to power the entire US. All of which would have to be clear-cut land because trees create a barrier & turbulence that interferes with the 20mph sustained wind velocity necessary for the turbine to work properly (also keep in mind that not all states are suitable for such sustained winds). Boy, cutting down all those trees is gonna **** off a lot of green-loving tree-huggers.
Let's talk about disposal now.
The lifespan of a modern, top quality, highly efficient wind turbine is 20 years.
After that, then what? What happens to those gigantic fiber composite blades?
They cannot economically be reused, refurbished, reduced, repurposed, or recycled so guess what..? It's off to special landfills they go.
And guess what else..? They're already running out of these special landfill spaces for the blades that have already exceeded their usefulness. Seriously! Those blades are anywhere from 120 ft. to over 200 ft. long and there are 3 per turbine. And that's with only 7% of the nation currently being supplied with wind energy. Just imagine if we had the other 93% of the nation on the wind grid... 20 years from now you'd have all those unusable blades with no place to put them... Then 20 years after that, and 20 years after that, and so on.
Golly gee, how green is that?
Oops, I almost forgot about the 500,000 birds that are killed each year from wind turbine blade collisions; most of which are endangered hawks, falcons, owls, geese, ducks, and eagles.
Apparently smaller birds are more agile and able to dart and dodge out of the way of the spinning blades, whereas the larger soaring birds aren't so lucky.
I'm sure the wildlife conservationist folks are just ecstatic about that.
I'm so glad the wind energy people are looking out for the world.

View attachment 554952

View attachment 554951

Brother, truer words NEVER spoken!!!

Wind energy, while an initial +++ on the green side of providing clean energy...(lol), have HUGE consequences to what they actually proport as gains to the environment long-term overall.

Wind farms have proven to DESTROY ecology to the point that insects wont even live in these massive wind-farm generating regions because of the subsonic & acoustic frequencies they generate that disturb the ecological state of things, let alone mammals, reptiles, and birds.

The life that is needlessly perished with their usage is astonishingly horrible on an annual basis, and per windmill, too.

They cannot be repurposed after their useable lifecycle has been depleted, and our land cannot handle the refuse deposits, nor are many of their composites able to be broken down to be used as future reusable materials either, much like solar panels after they have served their useable lifecycle.

 

[CanuckRam1313]

Including nuclear power.

Agreed!

While there is a huge stigma regarding nuclear power, it is amongst the cleanest and most useable form of useable power generation we as a human race have today!

My Brother is a Millwright at an Ontario nuclear power plant, and we have discussions on the regular about this. His hands on experience and knowledge is incredible to say the least.

 

[Ram4dmf]

It’s all a BS Money grab

 

[GTyankee]

aces-n-eights:

It may seem strange, but several Wind & Solar Farms are financed by Billionaires from places like Australia.
They Lease the land & pay to have the Energy Sources erected on it.

In Southern California, most of the Land is owned by Corporations, these corporations Pay Ranch Owners to continue running their properties.
The Original Property Owner gets to stay on the Family Land, they get paid a Healthy Amount of money as a Salary.

For the Corporations, that Land is nothing but a Tax write off. The Gov't pays them to grow certain crops, ( the Rancher ), Corporation lets the Gov't know which crop they intend to grow, such as Sweet Corn, the Gov't tells the m that the Corn Crops have already been allotted, & then the Rancher is told that Summer Squash or Wheat Crop is needed,
So the Rancher is Paid to NOT grow Sweet Corn & then paid again for an alternate crop.

An Independant Rancher can't live money wise like that, but a Corporation can.

But they really make money if they can Lease the Property .

I worked for a Rancher that leased his Ranch Land to a Big Oil Company, no Oil Derricks were ever built, but he got nice Monthly Checks, He still planted crops on the Leased Lands.

Sorry for lengthy post.

 

[GTyankee]

San Diego has a Nuclear Power Plant, it is now closed.

We had plenty of electricity, even in the hottest weather.
The Outfit that was running the Power Plant, was Replacing Important Parts with 2nd & 3rd rate parts.
The Nuclear Plant started having Break Downs, small Leaks, etc.
The Gov't shut down the Plant, the Outfit that was running it made every excuse that they come up with for the break downs.
Many Years later, Whistle Blowers told the truth & everything was shut down & WE are stuck with Nuclear Waste in Barrels, that are stored on the Shore line of the Ocean.

 

[Wild one]

Which also put down their natural gas generation. Turbines work in the cold, including in Antarctica.

Texas just frequently forgets Texas gets cold and doesn't bother to weatherproof their infrastructure.

The downside is when it gets to -20C or colder there's usually not enough wind to turn them. I went by the local area that's covered in them last winter a few times when it was below -20C and not one of them was picking up enough wind to turn.
About the time you need them,they're basically useless from the lack of wind that usually goes hand in hand with really cold ambient temperatures

 

[CanuckRam1313]

San Diego has a Nuclear Power Plant, it is now closed.

We had plenty of electricity, even in the hottest weather.
The Outfit that was running the Power Plant, was Replacing Important Parts with 2nd & 3rd rate parts.
The Nuclear Plant started having Break Downs, small Leaks, etc.
The Gov't shut down the Plant, the Outfit that was running it made every excuse that they come up with for the break downs.
Many Years later, Whistle Blowers told the truth & everything was shut down & WE are stuck with Nuclear Waste in Barrels, that are stored on the Shore line of the Ocean.

I hear you, Brother, and I support your opinion fully!

However, while I agree that spent nuclear waste is a BIG thing regarding containment overall, I have personally stood in front of a storage cooling pool at its closest allowable distances where 50 years of currently spent rods have been sitting with zero impact on the environment.

When we look at all the current ideologies that say other green earth saving initiatives can work, there is little to no supporting evidence, in my opinion, that anything beyond nuclear energy is better.

US subs and carriers utilize this technology for a reason, again, in my opinion!