We don’t have to “rely” on wind and solar to benefit greatly from them. We can simply do what we are already doing - use them when they are available and use other energy sources when they are not.
Not according to the radical enviro-left, we can’t. The Luddites want to eliminate ALL coal-fired plants regardless of whether we can replace them or not. They also want to eliminate nuclear power and make everyone use solar and wind exclusively. Don’t tell me I’m wrong; I’ve had plenty of arguments with people on exactly this topic.
There is lots of debate over whether fracking does any damage at all, so I’m not sure what you are intending to imply by this comparison. Why not compare it will something whose damage is known? But wind turbines do not do very much damage at all. They do kill a few birds, but cats that we keep as pets and that run wild actually kill 1000 times as many birds as wind turbines. We could add enough wind turbines to meet 100% of our energy needs and still not come close to the damage done by cats.
They also destroy farmland; the vibrations caused by the turbines drive away the earthworms needed to replenish the farm soil, make it difficult for people living nearby to sleep properly, kill hundreds or even thousands of birds (including those ever-so-precious endangered species) and operate at half-efficiency most of the time.
If the left was serious about using wind farms, they would put them where they would actually get wind 100% of the time: off the Atlantic coast and in the lakes. But that would ruin the vacation viewspots for the elitists, and we can’t have that. So instead they shove them in farm country, because the plebs don’t matter.
Not true. Many on the “left” are perfectly willing and in fact encourage the development of safe nuclear energy.
Then why do they fight so hard against any of them actually being built?
On the contrary, the Chinese expect to make a killing in the international market for renewable energy because the US has ceded that market to them.
They aren’t using themselves, though, are they? They’re now buying oil from Canada because Obama nixed the Keystone Pipeline to satisfy his eco-buddies. The Chinese are great at lip-synching the environmental mantras, but they don’t abide by them. If you don’t believe me, take a look of Beijing.
That’s not the fault of the alternative energy technology. That is the fault of poor contract negotiations.
‘Poor’ contract negotiation? Try corrupt contract negotiation. One of the biggest contracts was handed to the future president of the provincial Liberal party. Then he became the president of the federal Liberal party after that, while collecting $85,000/day from Ontario taxpayers on a guaranteed 20-yr contract. That wasn’t poor negotiation; that was political kickbacks to a donor.
Having a small access path to the wind turbines for occasional maintenance does not “ruin” very much croplands. Most of the land around the towers remains productive.
No, it doesn’t, at least not for long. See ‘earthworms’ above. I live in one of those rural areas, and the farmers have been complaining for years about it. The turbines also ruin the water table, which these farmers need to drink. It’s the one topic that appears in every single issue of the weekly local paper, and absolutely nobody outside government wants anything to do with it.
…only for people who are allergic to the far-off “whoosh-whoosh” sounds of the blades.
Yeah, I don’t think so. Again, I live in a wind-farm area.
humanfaceofwindturbines.ca/index.php/health-problems-from-turbines/health-problems
Across rural Ontario, people are suffering from sleep disorders, depression, and a wide range of spin-off health issues, such as…
- excessive tiredness * headache * stress, distress * migraines, hearing problems * tinnitus * ear pressure * unexplained bloody noses * dizziness * vertigo * nausea * vomiting * visual blurring * irritability * tachycardia * problems with concentration and memory * panic episodes associated with sensations of internal pulsations or quivering when awake or asleep * heart palpitations * anxiety * overall reduced quality of life.
(to be continued)
I don’t think these critics know what’s in the Paris Accord. They are jumping on a bandwagon of " Trump just killed the world" which couldn’t be further from the truth!