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Living near a number of wind farms: - They are noisy in a very annoying way - Swoosh Swoosh Swoosh. I don't know about you, but clocks ticking drive me up the
by monk_e_boy 11y ago
Living near a number of wind farms:
- They are noisy in a very annoying way - Swoosh Swoosh Swoosh. I don't know about you, but clocks ticking drive me up the wall. Now I can add wind turbine blades swooshing do the same. It's not really a noise so much as a pressure wave.
- They strobe. Sometimes reflecting the sun. Sometimes the blade shadows fall over you. Blink, blink, blink, blink.
- They are efficient bird murdering machines.
I like the idea of wind turbines. Reality is not nice. Bring on solar!
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoIts true solar is easier to live with. But regarding the last - solar is efficient everything-under-them murdering machines. They sterilize the land, similar to strip-mining but without the poison. So not really eco-friendly, which is ironic.
- summerdown2 11y agoThere's still a lot of area available for solar power that doesn't involve getting rid of plants, though. Deserts, house and car roofs, for example.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoEverybody says 'desert' as if it isn't the most delicate ecosystem on earth. yes, solar panels covering up desert destroys that ecosystem too. Living things there are totally dependent on the large amounts of sunlight. As for houses and car roofs - that amounts to almost zero in the big scheme of things.
- monk_e_boy 11y agoThe moon!
- monk_e_boy 11y agoIf they weren't covering 100% of the land and some light still fell between them, wouldn't low light plants thrive under them? A little mini ecosystem of flowers and insects, like under the canopy of a forest?
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoNow that sounds like a coal power spokesperson, defending their total disruption of an ecosystem. Sure, some balance may be found under the solar panels, after everything that was there is killed and replaced by something else that finds its way in. But I doubt that. I grew up in Iowa. Under the canopy of the cornfields, absolutely nothing lives. The almost total lack of sunlight leaves very little energy to support an ecosystem. Its like the surface of the moon. Not even insects.
- kbart 11y agoTransparent solar panels are being developed by MIT startup[1]. It's still in pretty much experimental state (and thus expensive to make), but future looks bright. 1. http://ubiquitous.energy/ http://ubiquitous.energy/
- kbart 11y agoIt was strange for me too that environmental concerns were not taken into account in this article. At least in some European countries, it's the limiting factor as new laws are being passed to regulate wind farm building near populated areas or bird breading places.
- jacquesm 11y agoNjummy, breaded chicken. My house is in the middle of a bird sanctuary and there are giant 3MW windmills within a stones throw of the nesting grounds. I'm sure they occasionally swat a bird but it's not exactly as if the ground is littered with corpses, definitely not worse than alongside any major highway. And with 100K+ birds nesting there you'd expect to see at least some significant evidence of that theory.