I'm excited as hell about the alternative energy development around the country, but the photographer in me is already tired of windmills sprouting on prominent landscape features. Heck, I recently spent a day in the Columbia River Gorge on the Washington/Oregon border and could scarcely find a view without long rows of big white windmills on at least one ridge, if not several. Now we've got three here on Kodiak, with three more under consideration. Great. I'm all for it in terms of energy, but what's the landscape going to look like in ten years?
I've got a shot of one under construction in the Environmental Photojournalism gallery here. Les Barstow has another in the EPJ gallery here.
Posted by Mitch Erwin on July 14, 2009 at 11:56 AM
Hank, I agree with you 110 % on your views as this is happening all over the US. Makes you want to see the proposed projects of installing them miles offshore of the coasts put into affect soon. You may know this already, but many companies out there have come out with vertical model windmills which are just as efficient and more bird friendly. Last summer while sea kayaking at Isle Royale in the middle of Lake Superior, I stopped at Rolf and Candy Peterson's cabin who have been on the island since the mid to late 70's doing wolf / moose research and had a long talk with them about different topics. One included their vertical bladed windmill which they use to power their cabin. Before they mentioned it, I thought it was a radio transceiver of some sort. While there, Candy brought up the point of how many thousands of birds are killed each year by flying into the behemoth windmills and their outstretched blades while they turn. Never thought of that before she brought that up either. Everything has it's drawbacks it seems!
Windmills good? Oh heck, they are a LOT better than nuclear power, for sure. The waste of windmills doesn't stay radioactive for 4.5 billion years (as long as from the formation of Earth until today!) for example and there are countless other reasons why windmills are better than nuclear. There are fewer reasons why windmills are better than coal and oil, but there are still a few.
But then, I wouldn't want to call windmills "better" than those other options. I'd want to call them "less destructive". It is frustrating to see how easily people contend themselves with just a piece of the puzzle and ignore the larger picture. Windmills emission free? Yep, once they're established and running, they are (until the maintenance crew has to drive or sail towards the mills of course). And that's where most people stop looking. Ah, the birds... yes, the birds. Many birds get killed by windmills, but that is so easily shrugged off. First, they're only birds, and if you have to choose between the life of a few birds (well ok... many many MANY birds) and sustainable energy (assuming almost as a law of nature that we need that energy like we need water and air, and actually ever more of it), that's an easy choice, right? Even better if you can develop mills that take less birdlife.
Yes.... that would maybe be true IF windmills were a sustainable source of energy. And that's the point, isn't it? That's where most of us stop thinking. Because windmills are not sustainable. They are less destructive than nuclear energy and coal and oil, but they are still very destructive! Why? Well, for the larger picture you will have to consider everything that's necessary to get the mills up and running and to keep on functioning after that. And all that is just as important for the ultimate sustainability of the windmills.
Windmills are made for a large part out of aluminum. Aluminum comes from mines. The people working in these mines are not seldom indigenous people, robbed off their land and way of life. If not, they are still very poor people. The mines are one of very few options for these people to make money, but you wouldn't let your pet dog do that work! It's terribly hard, it's dirty, it makes you sick and eventually it kills you. People die to get the aluminum out of the ground to make your sustainable windmills. And the amount of energy needed to get the aluminum out of the ground is enormous too. Consider all the digging machinery and the transport vehicles. But that's probably nothing compared to the energy needed to form the raw material into usable aluminum, and then into the shape of the windmill! And then it all has to be shipped somehow to where the mills are to be erected. Of course it's not just aluminum, but also other metals and plastics (directly made out of oil). Until that time, the emissions per windmill are already horrendously high.
And then what? Then you only have a mill standing somewhere. For it to function, you need a whole infrastructure. In comes the copper and the whole mining story starts all over again. The wires are coated in plastics (oil) and all the production and the digging to get everything in place is pumping enormous amounts of new emissions into the sky, and polluting water, land and sky in many other ways too.
But then, by then perhaps it's finally emission free? Well.... ehm, yes, more or less perhaps, apart from those maintenance trucks or boats (I've seen windmill forests in the North Sea between the Netherlands and the UK and they look terrible). But what is done with the energy? It powers stuff like your computer, your camera, your cell phone, your fridge, your electric kitchen knife, all stuff mainly made out of metals and plastics (mines, oil), many of them made by the poorest in the poorest regions of the world (often also the places where the mining and drilling is done in the first place), all extorted for the welfare of a few more wealthy people far away.
I have believed in sustainable energy for many years. I have cheered when I saw windmills being erected. I have paid fair sums of proceeds of my photography to a company investing in sustainable energy. But I will do no such thing again. Windmills kill and destroy just as surely as coal, oil and nuclear energy. It kills slower, but it kills all the same.
It is with energy as it is with food. Eventually we will have to go back to just using what is in our direct surroundings, taking only what can be replaced by the natural system there and not relying on the theft (getting something for just a tiny bit of money instead of what it's really worth (as far as bits of green paper, or imaginary numbers on hard drives are worth anything to begin with [I'd say the answer is a resounding NO] is theft too) of "resources" from people and from the land far far away so that they have nothing left to live on. Anything else will keep on depleting the land, the sea and the sky of good stuff and life and filling it up with pollution, poison and death instead, and it will keep on killing people and land without us knowing and/or caring.
I'm right there with you Hank! The problem I see goes for many things that are happening right now. Certain people in control of (well lets just say things) want to cram all the changes down our throats with absolutely no regard or even common sense of what the future ramifications of such actions are. But hey it is change. And of course we all "know" change is good. Hey have you bought up your carbon credits yet? I hear they are a heck of a deal, no more worries about the future of our lands. And the cost, don't let that stop ya, heck it's just money all one has to do is hit the print button. Happy times are here again.
I agree with the unspoken premise that any measure of "environmental friendliness" must be based on the life cycle costs, not just the operation costs. Viewed from that perspective, it's really a choice among evils.
As Arthur points out, there are environmental costs associated with creating windmills, and energy costs he doesn't mention -- aluminum refining is an energy pig, for example. The same basic argument can be made against solar panel-based generation, hydroelectric power (all that concrete) and even wild-eyed ideas like satellite-based microwave systems. There are indirect effects as well: dams compromise fish migration and downstream water resource management; windmills kill birds and create noise and visual pollution.
Technology doesn't give us a free ride; only a choice among different kinds of damage and degradation. I'm undecided where nuclear power fits into this spectrum of poor choices.
But as you consider that spectrum of impacts, keep in mind that, on the best evidence, consuming fossil fuels is among the very worst. We know what CO2 emissions are going to do; we know it's going to be bad, even if there is some uncertainty as to exactly how bad. The question is not whether we are going to warm the atmosphere, or raise ocean levels; the question is how far.
The best thing we can do in the short and middle term is what Arthur alludes to: reduce our energy consumption to the extent we can. For the last 100 years, energy has been viewed as so inexpensive that we didn't really need to focus on its direct cost, let alone its life cycle costs. I've read estimates that we can reduce national energy consumption by as much as half through retro-fitting, higher fuel economies and forcing planning for true life cycles of products.
As ugly as windmills are, and when poorly planned - placed in migration flyways, for example - as devastating as they can be to avifauna, they may be the best of the poor energy generation choices.
Yeah, it's all so situational, whether on an individual or societal scale. There are trade-offs and personal adjustments required wherever you go. With three more windmills for a total of six, Kodiak technically will be entirely switched to renewable energy. We were 80% hydro and 20% diesel, and three windmills replaces half our diesel. With three more, diesel will only be used for emergency backup. That's a pretty hot accomplishment for a remote Alaska island where diesel has reined supreme for a century.
But no one is used to looking at the things yet. Kinda fun to photograph them, but pre-windmill shots of that particular skyline are already historical documents.
Technology doesn't give us a free ride; only a choice among different kinds of damage and degradation. I'm undecided where nuclear power fits into this spectrum of poor choices.
You could argue that nuclear power is on a whole different level than all the rest, and infinitely worse in almost any aspect. "Why Nuclear Energy is not the Answer" by Helen Caldicott is a true eye-opener if you're curious about all the damage already done for nuclear development, the disasters that happened, the disasters that very nearly happened, the disasters that are likely to happen and the disasters that will undoubtedly happen during the coming decades, centuries, millennia and millions and billions of years.
You also wrote:
The best thing we can do in the short and middle term is what Arthur alludes to: reduce our energy consumption to the extent we can. For the last 100 years, energy has been viewed as so inexpensive that we didn't really need to focus on its direct cost, let alone its life cycle costs. I've read estimates that we can reduce national energy consumption by as much as half through retro-fitting, higher fuel economies and forcing planning for true life cycles of products.
As ugly as windmills are, and when poorly planned - placed in migration flyways, for example - as devastating as they can be to avifauna, they may be the best of the poor energy generation choices.
I agreed with that until about a year ago, but no longer. Compare this with the Jews in the German concentration camps during the 2nd World War. The Nazis played a rather clever game by giving the Jews choices. For example, they could choose to take this train, or that one. One would go to this camp, and the other to another. Or, once in the camps, they could choose to stand in the right line or the left, knowing that something terrible would happen to one of the lines and that the other would be spared for the next moment of choice at least. Of course they wouldn't know which line would meet its fate earlier. Some of the doctors in the camps tried to make the prisoners as comfortable as possible under the circumstances (some did the opposite of course), letting them lick an aspirin, or even allowing them to have a day off if they were really sick. The Jews and the doctors both had choices. They of course tried to make the best possible choice. But most of them missed one option: to refuse to play by the rules that the Nazis made up! The doctors tried to make comfortable those they knew would die horribly anyway. The net effect of their care was merely that the human destruction would take a little longer. The Jews had a choice between evils. The mere fact that they had a choice gave them some sense of having power over their fates, while in the end of course they didn't. However, it kept them quiet and easy to subdue. If they would all be put in line for the gas rooms, the chance of rebellion would have been so much bigger than when you let them choose between two lines, timidly hoping for the best, knowing that if they provoke at all, they will almost certainly find themselves in the worst line.
The premise here of course is that Jews are the scum of the earth and deserve to be tortured and/or worked to death. In the whole question about energy, the premise is that we absolutely need (ever more) energy. It's a great trick of propaganda to not mention your premises and just slide them past people so that they're automatically accepted and people perceive that they can only act within those premises. So it was that the Jews mostly made the choice between evils. But not all of them. Some resisted, some fought for freedom, for escape or for not getting caught in the first place. Interestingly, the survival rate for the resisting Jews was higher than for those who went along and acted within the premises.
That very same thing goes for the energy question. We are only pondering how to get ever more energy and what the best (or least bad) option is to get it. The question whether or not we need (ever more) energy at all usually doesn't enter our mind. But the resisting Jews found that they did not have to be confined within the Nazi premises. And it is necessary for us to also acknowledge that we do not have to confine ourselves within the premises that those in power (corporations and their servants (governments) and slaves (us and those even worse of often in far away places)) have erected either. There IS another choice. There is the option that (ever more) energy isn't necessary. You may or may not agree with that option, but at least acknowledge that it is an option. And once you've done that, think about what the possible effects of choosing the path of this option could be. I grant you that they would be huge, but I think nothing nearly as huge as continuing our deadly quest for (ever more) energy at gigantic costs to the world around us, to all we depend on, to those we love and to our own bodies.
A last thought. You could compare the truly bad Nazis to coal, oil and nuclear energy. Their (unspoken and sometimes even forgotten) goal is or directly coincides with the destruction of the world and life on it. Windmills, hydroelectric energy, tidal energy, solar energy, and all other forms of energy that are called sustainable or green or renewable but really aren't if you just look at the larger picture, then can be compared a little bit with the Nazi doctors. They try to make the road to oblivion marginally more comfortable and even try to slow it down a little bit. But they still act within the premises that (ever more) energy is needed and that killing and destroying to achieve that is acceptable, and so will still eventually work towards the very same oblivion. The mere fact that we can sort of choose between different sources of energy merely gives us the illusion that we have some power over our fates. We fail to see that there is one other choice: to opt out and to stop destroying and killing!
Posted by Mark Stahlke on July 14, 2009 at 8:58 PM
Well, Godwin's law notwithstanding, I agree with Arthur completely. As a meteorologist, windmills are especially annoying since they cannot be detected as clutter, and interfere with storm detection.
Posted by Ross Warner on July 15, 2009 at 10:43 AM
Two dead ends and you've still got to choose - Tom Waits - Fumblin' With The Blues
Hitler and Nazi Germany a bad example just because they fit as an example so very often? Oh well, fortunately (or terribly unfortunately really) there are plenty of other examples to choose from. How about work.
The premise is that working for money is necessary. You do it because you have to, not because it's fun. Sometimes it is even frowned upon to enjoy your work. Extremely few people really thoroughly enjoy the work they do. Extremely few people directly benefit from the work they do. Extremely few people would carry on doing the work they do if they'd win the jackpot and would never have to work again for money. People work because bills need to be paid and because food has to be put on the table. It's a necessary evil. If you're lucky, you can choose work that you enjoy to a certain extent. If you're damned lucky, you will truly enjoy the work you do and would indeed continue doing it if you'd win that jackpot. If you're one of those in the largest group of people worldwide, you really don't enjoy your work much at all and wish your time away until every next weekend or free day. If you're really terribly unlucky, you do work that is not only no fun to do, but that will make you very sick or even kill you sooner or later. But oh well, it's the way it is, isn't it? You need that money to pay for being alive. It's a necessary evil and the best you can do, unless you are truly lucky enough find work that you really like very much, is to pick the job that you dislike least.
The premise is pure nonsense. Not only are we the only species that works in this way, we are even the only culture (which, Jim, is why I don't agree with your statement that we have to get rid of humans; instead we need to get rid of this culture) doing it. For all other species, and for all other cultures (by which I mean non-civilized or indigenous cultures, because all civilized cultures are basically the same, safe some relatively rather insubstantial differences), work doesn't exist.
Of course, all these species and all these cultures invest energy and time into finding food, shelter, mates and trying to stay alive as well as possible, but they don't see it as a job. As for indigenous people, most of them spent (or spend) much less time on what we might call work than we do. The amount of time they have for "Real Life", for the things that really matter, like family bonding, telling stories, art and simply being alive and learning about the larger picture, far exceeds the free time we have, and many modern civilized humans spend that time watching tv, doing stuff on a computer (guilty!), or spending money on nonsense shopping. The butterfly going from flower to flower doesn't get up at 6 am in the morning, sighing about having to rush to work and wishing all that flying to be over soon again so that she can do what she likes again. No, the butterfly goes from flower to flower first of all because that is the way to stay alive, and secondly because it is the thing (or one of the things really) that butterfly behaviour has evolved into. It is what comes naturally to butterflies. It doesn't feel bad for the butterfly to fly from flower to flower. In fact, I bet that a butterfly that wouldn't be allowed to fly from flower to flower, even if it would be kept alive somehow, would not be a very happy butterfly at all. The same principle goes for lions, sharks, worms, elephants, mackerels and... for indigenous people! They all do what comes naturally to them. They "work" to get their food, to make shelter and everything that is directly necessary to survive. If they don't acquire their food in some way, they won't eat. If they don't build shelter, they won't be sheltered. But when they "work", all their efforts directly benefit them, their loved ones, or at least the group they are part of. And all the stuff they need for their survival usually is there for the taking. It may take effort to take it, but not money.
The big difference? We generally work for a monetary reward; an abstract kind of thing, green bits of paper, round bits of metal, or even digital numbers on a hard drive. None of which is directly usable for us (although you could use the bits of green paper to start a fire, the coins as screwdrivers and hard drives to... eh... error). With that stuff, the value of which is of course established by those in power to get maximum profit, we can buy food and shelter and everything else we (think we) need. You of course pay tax from your wages, and you pay tax when you buy something, virtually all of which flows up towards the mightier and wealthier above you in the pyramid. In a way you could say that you work to produce something or to provide a service, and then get paid so that you can then pay for products and services, including the one you work on yourself! It's an extra step. An extra step that doesn't make any sense. An extra step that only makes sense for those in power; those higher up in the pyramid. Your work (generally) doesn't directly benefit you, your loved ones and the group you are most intimately part of, it benefits your "betters". Only the money coming from it benefits you, but generally the wages are such that those above you in the pyramid lose as little as they can by paying you, while reaping as much as they possibly can for themselves. If you live in one of the richer nations on the planet, chances are you're doing relatively well compared to the billions living on next to nothing in poor nations. The very sour thing for them is that they are mostly working for our benefit. After all, almost all of us are above them in the pyramid.
And really what are you selling while you work? Your time and your energy. Time that will never ever come back and which, along with your energy, you could have used for your personal benefit and that of your loved ones instead of benefiting mostly those above you in the pyramid. It's not a noble thing to make the rich richer, while you neglect your own self and the ones you purport to love.. It is a terrible thing to keep wishing away your time.. to keep wishing that the working day would end, to keep wishing that the week will end, to keep wishing that the holidays would come faster. You're wishing away one of the most valuable things you are given on this planet: your time!
The link with windmills of course is that it is perceived that you have no choice but to choose between evils. The different jobs that you can choose from, if you're lucky, are all (almost all..?) evil, but some are less evil and those are the ones to go for. The different kinds of making energy are all evil, but some are less evil and those are the ones to go for. The fact that in both of these things you have some choice (or you are given the illusion of choice in case of the energy question, because I think that mainly the large corporations will do whatever they please anyway), gives you the illusion of having control over what happens. It can also make you feel that you ought to be content with what you have, for you have managed to choose the least evil under your personal circumstances. It is almost an achievement, but all the same you're still selling your personal Life Time to benefit another (in a non-reciprocal way!)! It also makes you feel an odd kind of responsibility. It makes you feel as if you're part of the team and that you have to do your utmost to keep the System up and running. You are to sacrifice yourself and your loved ones (what could be more important in life than those?) for the sake of The System, to support those already rich and already in power -people you don't know and who don't care about you at all- to acquire more and more of what they already have. What you get back is just a token reward.
Again, the premise is pure nonsense. All species and all other cultures around you show you that you do not have to work. At least that you should not have to work for money! Many people see humanity (or at least civilized people) as the top of creation/evolution. What a terribly sad (ironic) thing than that we have to waste most of our waking time doing things we don't like while all those lowly animals, plants and savages get to do what they like all the time!
The other premise is pure nonsense too. We do not need (ever more) energy. In fact, if we keep on extracting more and more energy, it will kill us and lots of life around us too. It already does. The way we make energy is extractive, just like the way we make almost all products we use today. We use material that is (next to) non-renewable as if it's there in infinite amounts. Sure, wind is unlimited, but that's looking only at a tiny piece of the puzzle: conveniently at the most positive part of the puzzle. But aluminum, oil, plastic and all things used for transport aren't unlimited at all. The larger picture is that all kinds of modern energy are ultimately unsustainable. And when you see that, the most important thing you can do is to recognise that your choice is not limited to different evils and that your responsibility is too choose the least evil, but that there is also a choice of not accepting the limits imposed upon you by those in power. There is a possibility of choosing no evil whatsoever. There is an option away from unsustainability, just like there is an option away from work, just like there is an option away from the Nazi Death Camps. We have been trained all our lives to live with and within these limits though and we know full well that those last options are not easy and not without risk either. Those in power have huge interests in keeping us limited to the choices they give us. All they have and all they are is based upon that very thing. They will not like it when people opt out and choose options that they do not want them to choose. The Nazis (what the heck, it is TOO good an example) shot a hundred other prisoners if one tried to escape, but that is not the responsibility of the one trying to escape: it is the responsibility of those ordering the killing. Our economy will take away all the financial support it usually gives to keep people alive and able to buy what is free for all other species and cultures (food, shelter, etc.) and has laws in place to even take away what is left of your freedom (and sometimes even life) if you refuse to be part of the money-making machine and if you don't support (or even try to take apart) that very system.
I think I've ranted enough for tonight. I will shut down the computer and spend time with my loved ones and have a walk with my canine companion to enjoy the sounds and smells of the plants, animals and the ocean nearby. I've had to work all day... such is the strength of the bars of our prison.
Amen! I say we all quit our jobs tomorrow and form a big NPN commune, preferably on a nice tropical island somewhere. But we need to get at least 10X as many women to join NPN first
"The only way to get rid of all this undesirable human impact on the environment, is to get rid of the humans". I think that about sums it up! It's all about money, power and greed, in one form or another. Oh, and let's not forget about control. As long as someone in a powerful position has an opportunity to prosper further, or influence more control over the masses, we will have what we have.
I am also all for alternative sources of energy. But I have a few inland seas of windmills not far from my home. Has anyone travelled highway 58 over the Tehachapi Mountains lately? I was thouroughly discusted with what I saw there. Windmills everywhere! The thing that makes me the most frustrated about the windmills is, that most of the time many of them are not turning. Anyway, I wish we could somehow limit the installation of the windmills to some more remote, or obscure locations.
About the work thing. I agree that work pretty much sucks! My month off from work this spring kind of opened my eyes to the fact that I am a workaholic. I went and celebrated my unemployed status for a week in Yosemite. It was the most relaxing, and fulfilling time I have spent in a long time. But then reality comes knocking, and tells you about the mortgage, and of course we all have to eat, right. If everything we needed was there for us at no cost, we wouldn't have to work for it. But then that "Human" factor comes into the equation. People are greedy, and would take more than they need. That would result in deprivation for others who were not strong enough to compete. Survival of the fittest, right. So would our compassion overide this nasty part of human nature?
We work for the things we need to survive. And then we work more for the other things we think we need. Personally, I don't think anyone needs a four, five, seven or even twenty plus thousand dollar camera! But most of us have to admit that we spent some extra bucks on something better than we needed.
If I would have realized what my priorities would be today, I would not have made a lot of the decisions I made in the past. Some of those choices have put me in a position that I have to work more, and harder than I prefer to now. All I really want today is a simpler life, and more time to do what gives me fulfillment. That happens to be spending time out in nature. But I take the opportunities that I do have, and I cherish them.
Chris
Posted by Kent Staubus on August 4, 2009 at 11:16 AM
I have hundreds if not thousands of the big windmills around me. I've talked to the people that run the places, and have also read extensive articles on them in my local paper. The deal is they seem to just be "symbolic" and don't really produce all that much power. The ones that they are putting up now will never even break even economically, according to the people in charge. They are mainly for show. One article I read said that even in a windy state like South Dakota, they would have to place a windmill every 200 yards across the whole state to provide the same power that our two hydro dams do. There are reasons they can't really work, starting with the physics.
I'm not crazy about the coal plants either, mainly because of the mercury that's being spread just about everywhere by them. SO, that leaves just one real option for clean electricity, and that's nuclear. I'm all for it. It's the only clean source we will have available for the next 30+ years and probably longer. We need more & more electricity, especially if we start using electric cars at some time in the future. Windmills will never do that. Solar is for dreamers. The choice comes down to coal or nuclear, and I'm choosing nuclear. I'm a practical Midwest guy.
Kent in SD
Posted by Ross Warner on August 8, 2009 at 11:01 AM
Kent, I'll second that. A few nuclear plants around Lake Oahe in SD and a few around Lake Sakakawea here in ND would produce large amounts of electricity with minimal impact. Also clean coal is not impossible. Clean coal is being developed as we speak. With all those windmills around there must be vast amounts of free meat from the dead birds every day. Easier pickin's than hunting for morel mushrooms.
Ross
Posted by Kent Staubus on August 17, 2009 at 11:47 PM
Ross--
We used to have a nuclear plant about 6 miles from my house. I'd like to see them build a couple out here. We could use the jobs.
Nuclear plants produce large amounts of electricity with minimal impact? Clean coal is not impossible? Can you argue this while keeping the larger picture in mind? Can you argue that while considering each and every step - from the very first to the very last - in the processes of both? I bet you you can't. I bet you that only tiny pieces of the larger picture of these can be made to look positive.
Discussion
23 repliesI've got a shot of one under construction in the Environmental Photojournalism gallery here. Les Barstow has another in the EPJ gallery here.
But then, I wouldn't want to call windmills "better" than those other options. I'd want to call them "less destructive". It is frustrating to see how easily people contend themselves with just a piece of the puzzle and ignore the larger picture. Windmills emission free? Yep, once they're established and running, they are (until the maintenance crew has to drive or sail towards the mills of course). And that's where most people stop looking. Ah, the birds... yes, the birds. Many birds get killed by windmills, but that is so easily shrugged off. First, they're only birds, and if you have to choose between the life of a few birds (well ok... many many MANY birds) and sustainable energy (assuming almost as a law of nature that we need that energy like we need water and air, and actually ever more of it), that's an easy choice, right? Even better if you can develop mills that take less birdlife.
Yes.... that would maybe be true IF windmills were a sustainable source of energy. And that's the point, isn't it? That's where most of us stop thinking. Because windmills are not sustainable. They are less destructive than nuclear energy and coal and oil, but they are still very destructive! Why? Well, for the larger picture you will have to consider everything that's necessary to get the mills up and running and to keep on functioning after that. And all that is just as important for the ultimate sustainability of the windmills.
Windmills are made for a large part out of aluminum. Aluminum comes from mines. The people working in these mines are not seldom indigenous people, robbed off their land and way of life. If not, they are still very poor people. The mines are one of very few options for these people to make money, but you wouldn't let your pet dog do that work! It's terribly hard, it's dirty, it makes you sick and eventually it kills you. People die to get the aluminum out of the ground to make your sustainable windmills. And the amount of energy needed to get the aluminum out of the ground is enormous too. Consider all the digging machinery and the transport vehicles. But that's probably nothing compared to the energy needed to form the raw material into usable aluminum, and then into the shape of the windmill! And then it all has to be shipped somehow to where the mills are to be erected. Of course it's not just aluminum, but also other metals and plastics (directly made out of oil). Until that time, the emissions per windmill are already horrendously high.
And then what? Then you only have a mill standing somewhere. For it to function, you need a whole infrastructure. In comes the copper and the whole mining story starts all over again. The wires are coated in plastics (oil) and all the production and the digging to get everything in place is pumping enormous amounts of new emissions into the sky, and polluting water, land and sky in many other ways too.
But then, by then perhaps it's finally emission free? Well.... ehm, yes, more or less perhaps, apart from those maintenance trucks or boats (I've seen windmill forests in the North Sea between the Netherlands and the UK and they look terrible). But what is done with the energy? It powers stuff like your computer, your camera, your cell phone, your fridge, your electric kitchen knife, all stuff mainly made out of metals and plastics (mines, oil), many of them made by the poorest in the poorest regions of the world (often also the places where the mining and drilling is done in the first place), all extorted for the welfare of a few more wealthy people far away.
I have believed in sustainable energy for many years. I have cheered when I saw windmills being erected. I have paid fair sums of proceeds of my photography to a company investing in sustainable energy. But I will do no such thing again. Windmills kill and destroy just as surely as coal, oil and nuclear energy. It kills slower, but it kills all the same.
It is with energy as it is with food. Eventually we will have to go back to just using what is in our direct surroundings, taking only what can be replaced by the natural system there and not relying on the theft (getting something for just a tiny bit of money instead of what it's really worth (as far as bits of green paper, or imaginary numbers on hard drives are worth anything to begin with [I'd say the answer is a resounding NO] is theft too) of "resources" from people and from the land far far away so that they have nothing left to live on. Anything else will keep on depleting the land, the sea and the sky of good stuff and life and filling it up with pollution, poison and death instead, and it will keep on killing people and land without us knowing and/or caring.
As Arthur points out, there are environmental costs associated with creating windmills, and energy costs he doesn't mention -- aluminum refining is an energy pig, for example. The same basic argument can be made against solar panel-based generation, hydroelectric power (all that concrete) and even wild-eyed ideas like satellite-based microwave systems. There are indirect effects as well: dams compromise fish migration and downstream water resource management; windmills kill birds and create noise and visual pollution.
Technology doesn't give us a free ride; only a choice among different kinds of damage and degradation. I'm undecided where nuclear power fits into this spectrum of poor choices.
But as you consider that spectrum of impacts, keep in mind that, on the best evidence, consuming fossil fuels is among the very worst. We know what CO2 emissions are going to do; we know it's going to be bad, even if there is some uncertainty as to exactly how bad. The question is not whether we are going to warm the atmosphere, or raise ocean levels; the question is how far.
The best thing we can do in the short and middle term is what Arthur alludes to: reduce our energy consumption to the extent we can. For the last 100 years, energy has been viewed as so inexpensive that we didn't really need to focus on its direct cost, let alone its life cycle costs. I've read estimates that we can reduce national energy consumption by as much as half through retro-fitting, higher fuel economies and forcing planning for true life cycles of products.
As ugly as windmills are, and when poorly planned - placed in migration flyways, for example - as devastating as they can be to avifauna, they may be the best of the poor energy generation choices.
But no one is used to looking at the things yet. Kinda fun to photograph them, but pre-windmill shots of that particular skyline are already historical documents.
You could argue that nuclear power is on a whole different level than all the rest, and infinitely worse in almost any aspect. "Why Nuclear Energy is not the Answer" by Helen Caldicott is a true eye-opener if you're curious about all the damage already done for nuclear development, the disasters that happened, the disasters that very nearly happened, the disasters that are likely to happen and the disasters that will undoubtedly happen during the coming decades, centuries, millennia and millions and billions of years.
You also wrote:
I agreed with that until about a year ago, but no longer. Compare this with the Jews in the German concentration camps during the 2nd World War. The Nazis played a rather clever game by giving the Jews choices. For example, they could choose to take this train, or that one. One would go to this camp, and the other to another. Or, once in the camps, they could choose to stand in the right line or the left, knowing that something terrible would happen to one of the lines and that the other would be spared for the next moment of choice at least. Of course they wouldn't know which line would meet its fate earlier. Some of the doctors in the camps tried to make the prisoners as comfortable as possible under the circumstances (some did the opposite of course), letting them lick an aspirin, or even allowing them to have a day off if they were really sick. The Jews and the doctors both had choices. They of course tried to make the best possible choice. But most of them missed one option: to refuse to play by the rules that the Nazis made up! The doctors tried to make comfortable those they knew would die horribly anyway. The net effect of their care was merely that the human destruction would take a little longer. The Jews had a choice between evils. The mere fact that they had a choice gave them some sense of having power over their fates, while in the end of course they didn't. However, it kept them quiet and easy to subdue. If they would all be put in line for the gas rooms, the chance of rebellion would have been so much bigger than when you let them choose between two lines, timidly hoping for the best, knowing that if they provoke at all, they will almost certainly find themselves in the worst line.
The premise here of course is that Jews are the scum of the earth and deserve to be tortured and/or worked to death. In the whole question about energy, the premise is that we absolutely need (ever more) energy. It's a great trick of propaganda to not mention your premises and just slide them past people so that they're automatically accepted and people perceive that they can only act within those premises. So it was that the Jews mostly made the choice between evils. But not all of them. Some resisted, some fought for freedom, for escape or for not getting caught in the first place. Interestingly, the survival rate for the resisting Jews was higher than for those who went along and acted within the premises.
That very same thing goes for the energy question. We are only pondering how to get ever more energy and what the best (or least bad) option is to get it. The question whether or not we need (ever more) energy at all usually doesn't enter our mind. But the resisting Jews found that they did not have to be confined within the Nazi premises. And it is necessary for us to also acknowledge that we do not have to confine ourselves within the premises that those in power (corporations and their servants (governments) and slaves (us and those even worse of often in far away places)) have erected either. There IS another choice. There is the option that (ever more) energy isn't necessary. You may or may not agree with that option, but at least acknowledge that it is an option. And once you've done that, think about what the possible effects of choosing the path of this option could be. I grant you that they would be huge, but I think nothing nearly as huge as continuing our deadly quest for (ever more) energy at gigantic costs to the world around us, to all we depend on, to those we love and to our own bodies.
A last thought. You could compare the truly bad Nazis to coal, oil and nuclear energy. Their (unspoken and sometimes even forgotten) goal is or directly coincides with the destruction of the world and life on it. Windmills, hydroelectric energy, tidal energy, solar energy, and all other forms of energy that are called sustainable or green or renewable but really aren't if you just look at the larger picture, then can be compared a little bit with the Nazi doctors. They try to make the road to oblivion marginally more comfortable and even try to slow it down a little bit. But they still act within the premises that (ever more) energy is needed and that killing and destroying to achieve that is acceptable, and so will still eventually work towards the very same oblivion. The mere fact that we can sort of choose between different sources of energy merely gives us the illusion that we have some power over our fates. We fail to see that there is one other choice: to opt out and to stop destroying and killing!
Game over.
Tom is Da Man!
The premise is that working for money is necessary. You do it because you have to, not because it's fun. Sometimes it is even frowned upon to enjoy your work. Extremely few people really thoroughly enjoy the work they do. Extremely few people directly benefit from the work they do. Extremely few people would carry on doing the work they do if they'd win the jackpot and would never have to work again for money. People work because bills need to be paid and because food has to be put on the table. It's a necessary evil. If you're lucky, you can choose work that you enjoy to a certain extent. If you're damned lucky, you will truly enjoy the work you do and would indeed continue doing it if you'd win that jackpot. If you're one of those in the largest group of people worldwide, you really don't enjoy your work much at all and wish your time away until every next weekend or free day. If you're really terribly unlucky, you do work that is not only no fun to do, but that will make you very sick or even kill you sooner or later. But oh well, it's the way it is, isn't it? You need that money to pay for being alive. It's a necessary evil and the best you can do, unless you are truly lucky enough find work that you really like very much, is to pick the job that you dislike least.
The premise is pure nonsense. Not only are we the only species that works in this way, we are even the only culture (which, Jim, is why I don't agree with your statement that we have to get rid of humans; instead we need to get rid of this culture) doing it. For all other species, and for all other cultures (by which I mean non-civilized or indigenous cultures, because all civilized cultures are basically the same, safe some relatively rather insubstantial differences), work doesn't exist.
Of course, all these species and all these cultures invest energy and time into finding food, shelter, mates and trying to stay alive as well as possible, but they don't see it as a job. As for indigenous people, most of them spent (or spend) much less time on what we might call work than we do. The amount of time they have for "Real Life", for the things that really matter, like family bonding, telling stories, art and simply being alive and learning about the larger picture, far exceeds the free time we have, and many modern civilized humans spend that time watching tv, doing stuff on a computer (guilty!), or spending money on nonsense shopping. The butterfly going from flower to flower doesn't get up at 6 am in the morning, sighing about having to rush to work and wishing all that flying to be over soon again so that she can do what she likes again. No, the butterfly goes from flower to flower first of all because that is the way to stay alive, and secondly because it is the thing (or one of the things really) that butterfly behaviour has evolved into. It is what comes naturally to butterflies. It doesn't feel bad for the butterfly to fly from flower to flower. In fact, I bet that a butterfly that wouldn't be allowed to fly from flower to flower, even if it would be kept alive somehow, would not be a very happy butterfly at all. The same principle goes for lions, sharks, worms, elephants, mackerels and... for indigenous people! They all do what comes naturally to them. They "work" to get their food, to make shelter and everything that is directly necessary to survive. If they don't acquire their food in some way, they won't eat. If they don't build shelter, they won't be sheltered. But when they "work", all their efforts directly benefit them, their loved ones, or at least the group they are part of. And all the stuff they need for their survival usually is there for the taking. It may take effort to take it, but not money.
The big difference? We generally work for a monetary reward; an abstract kind of thing, green bits of paper, round bits of metal, or even digital numbers on a hard drive. None of which is directly usable for us (although you could use the bits of green paper to start a fire, the coins as screwdrivers and hard drives to... eh... error). With that stuff, the value of which is of course established by those in power to get maximum profit, we can buy food and shelter and everything else we (think we) need. You of course pay tax from your wages, and you pay tax when you buy something, virtually all of which flows up towards the mightier and wealthier above you in the pyramid. In a way you could say that you work to produce something or to provide a service, and then get paid so that you can then pay for products and services, including the one you work on yourself! It's an extra step. An extra step that doesn't make any sense. An extra step that only makes sense for those in power; those higher up in the pyramid. Your work (generally) doesn't directly benefit you, your loved ones and the group you are most intimately part of, it benefits your "betters". Only the money coming from it benefits you, but generally the wages are such that those above you in the pyramid lose as little as they can by paying you, while reaping as much as they possibly can for themselves. If you live in one of the richer nations on the planet, chances are you're doing relatively well compared to the billions living on next to nothing in poor nations. The very sour thing for them is that they are mostly working for our benefit. After all, almost all of us are above them in the pyramid.
And really what are you selling while you work? Your time and your energy. Time that will never ever come back and which, along with your energy, you could have used for your personal benefit and that of your loved ones instead of benefiting mostly those above you in the pyramid. It's not a noble thing to make the rich richer, while you neglect your own self and the ones you purport to love.. It is a terrible thing to keep wishing away your time.. to keep wishing that the working day would end, to keep wishing that the week will end, to keep wishing that the holidays would come faster. You're wishing away one of the most valuable things you are given on this planet: your time!
The link with windmills of course is that it is perceived that you have no choice but to choose between evils. The different jobs that you can choose from, if you're lucky, are all (almost all..?) evil, but some are less evil and those are the ones to go for. The different kinds of making energy are all evil, but some are less evil and those are the ones to go for. The fact that in both of these things you have some choice (or you are given the illusion of choice in case of the energy question, because I think that mainly the large corporations will do whatever they please anyway), gives you the illusion of having control over what happens. It can also make you feel that you ought to be content with what you have, for you have managed to choose the least evil under your personal circumstances. It is almost an achievement, but all the same you're still selling your personal Life Time to benefit another (in a non-reciprocal way!)! It also makes you feel an odd kind of responsibility. It makes you feel as if you're part of the team and that you have to do your utmost to keep the System up and running. You are to sacrifice yourself and your loved ones (what could be more important in life than those?) for the sake of The System, to support those already rich and already in power -people you don't know and who don't care about you at all- to acquire more and more of what they already have. What you get back is just a token reward.
Again, the premise is pure nonsense. All species and all other cultures around you show you that you do not have to work. At least that you should not have to work for money! Many people see humanity (or at least civilized people) as the top of creation/evolution. What a terribly sad (ironic) thing than that we have to waste most of our waking time doing things we don't like while all those lowly animals, plants and savages get to do what they like all the time!
The other premise is pure nonsense too. We do not need (ever more) energy. In fact, if we keep on extracting more and more energy, it will kill us and lots of life around us too. It already does. The way we make energy is extractive, just like the way we make almost all products we use today. We use material that is (next to) non-renewable as if it's there in infinite amounts. Sure, wind is unlimited, but that's looking only at a tiny piece of the puzzle: conveniently at the most positive part of the puzzle. But aluminum, oil, plastic and all things used for transport aren't unlimited at all. The larger picture is that all kinds of modern energy are ultimately unsustainable. And when you see that, the most important thing you can do is to recognise that your choice is not limited to different evils and that your responsibility is too choose the least evil, but that there is also a choice of not accepting the limits imposed upon you by those in power. There is a possibility of choosing no evil whatsoever. There is an option away from unsustainability, just like there is an option away from work, just like there is an option away from the Nazi Death Camps. We have been trained all our lives to live with and within these limits though and we know full well that those last options are not easy and not without risk either. Those in power have huge interests in keeping us limited to the choices they give us. All they have and all they are is based upon that very thing. They will not like it when people opt out and choose options that they do not want them to choose. The Nazis (what the heck, it is TOO good an example) shot a hundred other prisoners if one tried to escape, but that is not the responsibility of the one trying to escape: it is the responsibility of those ordering the killing. Our economy will take away all the financial support it usually gives to keep people alive and able to buy what is free for all other species and cultures (food, shelter, etc.) and has laws in place to even take away what is left of your freedom (and sometimes even life) if you refuse to be part of the money-making machine and if you don't support (or even try to take apart) that very system.
I think I've ranted enough for tonight. I will shut down the computer and spend time with my loved ones and have a walk with my canine companion to enjoy the sounds and smells of the plants, animals and the ocean nearby. I've had to work all day... such is the strength of the bars of our prison.
Now, I'm off to work, even though there are 100 other things I'd rather be doing!
I am also all for alternative sources of energy. But I have a few inland seas of windmills not far from my home. Has anyone travelled highway 58 over the Tehachapi Mountains lately? I was thouroughly discusted with what I saw there. Windmills everywhere! The thing that makes me the most frustrated about the windmills is, that most of the time many of them are not turning. Anyway, I wish we could somehow limit the installation of the windmills to some more remote, or obscure locations.
Chris
We work for the things we need to survive. And then we work more for the other things we think we need. Personally, I don't think anyone needs a four, five, seven or even twenty plus thousand dollar camera! But most of us have to admit that we spent some extra bucks on something better than we needed.
If I would have realized what my priorities would be today, I would not have made a lot of the decisions I made in the past. Some of those choices have put me in a position that I have to work more, and harder than I prefer to now. All I really want today is a simpler life, and more time to do what gives me fulfillment. That happens to be spending time out in nature. But I take the opportunities that I do have, and I cherish them.
Chris
I'm not crazy about the coal plants either, mainly because of the mercury that's being spread just about everywhere by them. SO, that leaves just one real option for clean electricity, and that's nuclear. I'm all for it. It's the only clean source we will have available for the next 30+ years and probably longer. We need more & more electricity, especially if we start using electric cars at some time in the future. Windmills will never do that. Solar is for dreamers. The choice comes down to coal or nuclear, and I'm choosing nuclear. I'm a practical Midwest guy.
Kent in SD
Ross
We used to have a nuclear plant about 6 miles from my house. I'd like to see them build a couple out here. We could use the jobs.
Kent in SD
Looks like you need to start your own threads, Arthur.