Wind Turbines II

I read Babble all the time but I have never bothered to actually comment before.

I think that the resistence to wind energy generation that I see here is disturbing.  It is the type of position that I would expect from the Tea Party and not one that I want the NDP to have anything to do with.

Electricity generation by wind is not perfect, it comes with some problems, but it is one of the best options we have for clean energy.  The whole discussion of the 'health impacts' is so unscientific and probably arises by the often repeated statement "There is no scientific evidence to show that wind energy has adverse effects on health".  Many misinformed people interpret this as if we just haven't looked hard enough or don't understand the health impacts.  Wind turbines blades are simple rotating pieces of metal.  There are no mysterious forces emanating from them.  Many countries have studied this.  The WHO has studied this and found wind to be one of the safest forms of electricity generation.  Some people think turbines are impacting their health, but other than noise, there is simply no plausible mechanism for this to occur.  If the turbines are far enough so that the noise is below a certian volume, the problem is solved.

Peter Tabuns of the Ontario NDP very niclely outlines the argument here (it is at the bottom, but you can search the page on the words "Before I go on to the main":

http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/house-proceedings/house_detail.do?Date=2010-0...

The alternatives are coal, oil, nuclear and other things which are much worse for health, for security, and most of all for the environment.  It is fair to criticize some specifics of the Samsung deal or other details of how we transition to clean energy but the health argument is just plain ridiculous.

I don't want to see progressives divided on this.  Let's unify around wind (and solar) because we need clean safe energy and we need it now!

I suspect that the "health issue" is a red herring and that the biggest objection is NIMBY (most people view large wind turbines in massive quantities in any landscape as being ugly).  People like to live on a waterfront to enjoy the natural view of the water, not to look at a fleet of wind turbines filling the horizon.  Same with rural areas (massive wind farms aren't exactly what most people would consider as being "pastoral").

But, if wind is going to provide a significant contribution to electricity production in North America, thousands of square miles will need to be devoted to industrial-sized wind farms.

Same with solar.

I think that the resistence to wind energy generation that I see here is disturbing.  It is the type of position that I would expect from the Tea Party and not one that I want the NDP to have anything to do with.

Jesus H. Christ I am sick to death of misinformed urbanites telling us in rural Ontario that we are a bunch of frikkin hicks if we don't live by the theory on wind energy alone (and other alternatatives) and actually go on our experience with them all around us. The system is corrupt. Totally and utterly corrupted. We are allowing all kinds of unprogressive things to happen to rural residents and communiites. This has nothing to do with my science vs your science on health issues, but around privitization, preditory exploitation of residents by these companies and the loss of any input whatsoever on how a community is shaped. Until you have bothered to actually find out what is happening in rural Ontario and get some facts behind your comments, you should problably stick to advocating for wind turbines on the Scarborough Bluffs and every few hundred metres along the Lake Ontario Shoreline. That way at least the power would be generated where it is going to be used.

It is not at all clear to me why you think I am uniformed on this issue just because I am an urbanite. I have been to rural wind farms in Ontario as well as Germany, Spain and The Netherlands.

I was mainly making my point in the context of the planned Lake Ontario offshore turbines, although I didn't actually state that, but the issues are not much different for other wind farms. Although YOU can easily say that it is not about health or my science or yours, that is the discusssion in the Ontario Legislature now and what the original string actually began with, which I was addressing, but I have not read all the comments.

What part of what is said is so offensive.  He is dismissing the health issue which you seem to agree with.  He is highlighting the health problems with coal and other fossil fuels and the increased cancer risks with nuclear.  Not very offensive to me.  He is also talking about how in other jurisdictions the landowners are more involved and perhaps we need to have more wind co-ops.  The Ontario Feed-In-Tarrif (FIT) program opens the door to this.

If you are so well-informed, what solutions to the accelarting greenhouse gas emissions of Canadians do you propose?  And let's be constructive here, don't treat me like I am the problem just because I live in a city.  I know most Canadians hate Torontonians, but this is based on misconceptions.  I don't own a car, my electricity is Bullfrog powered, I rarely eat meat, and use trains or buses instead of planes whenever possilble. On average, urban Canadians have much lower per capita carbon footprints that rural Canadians since rural Canadian drive so much.  That may be an inconvenient truth for you, but it is a fact.

I am glad that we both agree that the Lake Ontario offshore turbines are a good thing.

Please see Bookish Agrarian's dismissal of your health concerns above. You may also want to check out the WHO study.

Charter-Rights, the payback on wind changed with the feed in tariff program. I believe payback is around 12-16 years. Having said that solar seems to pay off faster, from what I've been reading.  Solar is less instrusive and much more portable than sinking turbines into the ground.

I can't see how anyone in Ontario would consider more wind turbines in rural Ontario a good idea as practical policy for generating renewable power.  Is Port Burwell being juiced up directly from even a single turbine, despite being surrounded by them?  Alymer?  St Thomas?  Port Rowan?  The people living on farms and small plots of land around the turbines? 

Are they off the grid when the wind is blowing, with Nanticoke's stacks puking out that much less energy?

I don't know. 

Anyway, the history of these turbines, and the companies involved, is so tangled that Ontario would need a royal commission to figure it out.  If the information was availible.

Does bad policy equal being a NIMBY-ist?  If so, sign me up. 

So, I'm at the WHO site, and I can't find a study about windmills or infrasound-- at least not under those specific headings.  Perhaps, Ken, you could direct this less than the sharpest knife in the drawer to where the study is.

Besides that, I don't recall anyone saying windmills cause nosebleeds on any of these threads.  I think when it came to "health concerns"  I was the only one wondering IF infrasound is coming off those turbines, and if so, can people, (all or some) actually be effected by them.

I bet there was a time way back when, when "progressives" thought that the jobs Reed Paper Inc was bringing to the Grassy Narrows area was important economic progress.

And that's the thing.   We seem to spend an inordinate amount of time cleaning up after the good progressive ideas of a generation ago.   

I tend to think asking questions and examining the fairness and utility of something as it's in the planning stage a hallmark of "progressiveness".

Siddown and shuddap is a hallmark of torydom.

There was a time I had both the skills and patience for searching stuff out.  All I learned, Webgear, is that you post a lot more often than I thought you did.       I thought I was being melodramatic mentioning nosebleeds.  I must have missed that post.

Tommy

I would find the thread for you however my internet connection is pretty bad. I think it is a common rural issue.

Like I keep saying, based on unrelated to windmills information that has stuck between the little holes in my sieve like brain, I think infra sound effects some people but not others.   It could have something to do with the shape of the skull bone behind the ear, for example, or some other physicality.   But, because a person can sense infra sound doesn't mean that it's a health concern, or need be a health concern.   Where it becomes a health concern, perhaps, is anxiety due to not understanding why they feel "wierd" around windmills, and having people call them crazy for feeling that way around windmills.

These things can easily be confirmed or dismissed by ordinary and not terribly expensive double blind tests.   Pro or con, I've never seen one sited.

Actually, my health was very nearly deeply effected by the windfarm between Copenhagen and Port Burwell.

Another driver, mesmerized by one close to the road, veered into my lane.   

I am actually surprised that this became a rural-urban debate (to some extent).  I don't speak for Toronto, but I can tell you, the city is not unified in support of wind and I really doubt that the consensus among rural NDPers is against large scale wind generation. If there are rural people who welcome it, it would be constructive to hear from them.

I was surprised, intially also.   Because I didn't really think about it.  I remember a few rural posters here not being terribly receptive to wind farms where they live, and my attitude was, "well, tough, you live where the wind is."   But they rightly pointed out that there's lots of on shore and off shore breeze in Toronto, just like along Lake Erie.

Add to that the fact that electricity is lost over transmission lines, so it's quite reasonable to wonder why electricity for the GTA is being generated in Melancthon township, and not along Lakeshore boulevard first.

Seriously, the lack of windfarms along the GTA coast is indeffensible.

Then you have "Progressive"  Mayor Miller "solving"  Toronto's garbage problem by making it someone else's problem.  Someone else in rural Ontario.

And, Ken, you wonder why there's an urban/rural divide over these issues?  I think Bookish Agrarian's head is going to explode just over the fact you are surprised.

I support moving forward with building big wind farms now and lots of them because the scale of the climate change problem (including its health impacts) is so serious. Moratoriums and other obstacles really just amount to more of the same - fossil fuels and nuclear.

Okay, so where abouts in Rosedale are we going to put the next half dozen windmills?

It is not at all clear to me why you think I am uniformed on this issue just because I am an urbanite. I have been to rural wind farms in Ontario as well as Germany, Spain and The Netherlands.

Actually Tommy, this is the kind of comment that makes my head want to explode. I hear a version of this all the time. I walked right under a wind turbine and there wasn't any noise at all, it all sounds like hooey to me is another version. Basic acoustic analysis shows that the quietest place around a turbine is right underneath it. Because of the shape, height and prevailing winds sound increases on an inverse angle from the turbine blades to the ground. So the loudest place might easily be a half a km away on any particular day. Sound works differently in rural areas that it does in urban ones. In rural areas because of the open spaces and especially through open hills and valleys. This is behind the experinece some might have had where they can hear people talking across a far field, but not hear the person on the other side of the house.   Sound travels, it bounces, it can be magnified by double paned windows, and it can all depend on the prevailing winds and even cloud cover.  So to say I visited a turbine and all was good is a pretty good sign the person doesn't really respect the people who live near these things 365 days a year, year in and year out through all kinds of conditions.

I am actually surprised that this became a rural-urban debate (to some extent).  I don't speak for Toronto, but I can tell you, the city is not unified in support of wind and I really doubt that the consensus among rural NDPers is against large scale wind generation.  AND I think that the resistence to wind energy generation that I see here is disturbing.  It is the type of position that I would expect from the Tea Party

What exactly would you expect when the legitimate concerns of rural people are dismissed as crank-like and they are expected, once again, to be the dumping grounds of urban problems. Or is comparing babblers and others who are concerned about some of the reality of these developments as tea baggers meant to be a term of endearment and a call for a group hug?

BA

Just give up, I have said it before and I will say it again, you are a rural wingnut, youe vote/concerns mean nothing.

Head over to the Desboro Inn for a drink or two.

I haven't been to the Desbro Inn for years.  Is it still open?  My memory of it was being able to drink there before you were 19.  The attitude seemed to be if you could get there you were old enough to deserve a drink.  Fond memories.  Did you ever go to the old Hall across the road.  I loved the fact that the troughs were the same urinals in use when my Dad and Mom used to go to dances there when the were young and dating.

Hopefully I will be able to check this weekend. I had some wild nights there back in the mid 90s.

Your memory is correct. I use to have friends come down from Owen Sound to drink there. 

FM then you have never seen the contracts.  The only people making money are the companies.  Farmers have signed on for a lot of reasons, but one of them is a necessary quick infusion of some cash when it is in short supply.

And I have seen those news stories before.  All you have to do is take out the work renwable energy and insert the words hemp, switch grass, industrial hog barns, feed lots, host a transmission line, buy out your neighbours, borrow a bunch of money and put up another barn and buy more cattle, rabbits, pigeons..... the list is endless.

Have fun Webgear.  My Dad's family home farm was not that far from the Desboro Tavern.  I remember being able to go into the pub with him and meet people from his childhood in the 80s.  It was the closest I ever came to being in what I imagine a small town Irish Pub to be like.

FM

I would like to see more green projects however I feel like many others that rural concerns and issues are not being addressed.

Dams aren't much better than the others. More than humans need rivers.

Webgear, that just isn't supported. The contractors who get bits and pieces of the work that employ consutruction workers, electricians, and others are often rural. Rural communities are just as dependent on electricity as are cities. And rural communities suffer just as much from asthma, mercury contamination, and other ill effects of coal. Nanticoke, for example, is closer to rural than urban. The wind is more likely to carry the filth over south western Ontario as it is Toronto. This is a false dichotomy. 

For me, I aqgree with Peter Gorrie in this article: http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/627747

I am sure the Dundalk wind farms are not supported by rural communities, nor where people in this area hired to work on the projects.. This is what I am basing my experiences on.

This may be different in your community, and I glad they have had a chance to profit from these farms.

Those may be the choices but they come in a wide verity of different models. Just because I don't like the wind turbines going up in our communities doesn't mean I'm against wind. It means I don't like that particular design. Go back to the drawing board and design something that doesn't harm humans. If we're going to spend $7 billion I'm pretty sure the project can afford to do it right. 

I agree with that. Did you see the Fifth Estate show on the wind power "1 mile from downtown Toronto"? It was very convincing.

Imagine Toronto running electric cars powered by the lake winds. Oh, what a wonderfull world that would be!!

FM, is Port Burwell being powered directly by the 50 or so turbines surrounding it? 

I suspect many turbines are being built on land owned by more or less absentee landowners.  A small landowning farmer would have to think hard about giving up that much land. 

Were you talking about the Belmont solar farm in the previous thread?  I missed the mention.  The protest over that particular green energy project has nothing to do with people's health being directly affected by the installation.  Local farmers were concerned that prime farm land was being used, against the rules of the Green Energy Act.  The company doing the work apparently had a contract, or contracts, in place before the Act was issued and that allows them to build regardless of the Act.

The people most upset by the Belmont proposal are the locals who wanted to do smaller solar installations, as a business.  They suspect the Belmont operation will be given the "green" space on the grid.  At least that's what I was told.  I didn't have time to confirm the facts.  

Odd that a private US owned company has more rights than the municipality.  The Green Energy Act takes away the rights of municipal governments but the Act doesn't apply to a private company, at least in the Belmont case.

The Ontario government helped pay for the first wind turbines, and they were bought from foreign companies, and put up with US workers.  Erie Shores is\was a local management company, I believe, not owners of the machinery.  The tangle in the story is a mix of public money and private enterprise.  And we all know how honestly business and government interact when millions of dollar are floating around.

I would love to see more turbines in Toronto.  I don't really understand why they're not being built here.

Also: if people are worried about the look of them, or health effects, is it not possible to build them offshore right IN the lake?  You'd think there would be more wind there, and that the health effects would be minimized.  Not sure whether that would have an effect on currents and such, though.

These are questions from someone who knows next to nothing about this subject, so sorry if you've covered it - I just stumbled on this thread after a pm chat with BA last night.

I am wondering how much of the rural/urban conflict being referred to in this thread is the really the result of the arrogance of city dwellers, and how much is the result of what I consider the high density of population in the agriculturally useful areas of southern Ontario - to those of us who live "out West" the issue is probably not as important - from what I can gather from looking at maps of the areas being mentioned, if I were to go the same distance outside of the city limits here in Calgary, we would be in ranchlands... and multi-kilometer offsets from human habitations have been quite easy to achieve (indeed, when I think of the large windfarms to the southwest of Calgary, they are located on ridges just outside the whaleback (the nearest town of any size in the area being Pincher Creek). I guess the equivalent "small holdings" that are farmed in Southern Ontario don't really exist out here.

I am aware of one case of a single wind generator being installed within the limits of an unicorporated village (Lundebreck) pretty much at the eastern end of the Crowsnest Pass, but though I have friends and relatives in the area I am cannot recall a single negative comment or complaint about it.

As for the practicality of placing them within villages, towns and cities, my only real concern would be the chance of catastrophic failure of the tower itself. There are areas within Calgary that I would consider quite appropriate for the installation of wind turbines (specifically the road/utility corridor at the north end of Blackfoot Trail [and I live in one of only two residential communities that abut this corridor, so IMBY, not NIMBY]). There is also potential to the north and west outside the city itself. That there are suitable areas within the city limits (elevated and exposed to the prevailing winds, primarily industrial or transport/utility) may be unique to Calgary, but heck, I am willing to run with it.

I am wondering if there are any posters from Atlantic Canada who can contribute to this particular topic. I went to the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CANWEA) website - and while it is a place where any criticism about the effects of living in close proximity of a wind turbine is going to be dismissed out of hand - I was quite surprised to see the figures for Atlantic Canada, especially PEI. To my understanding, most of PEI is made up of what I would consider small holdings (similar to parts of Southern Ontario), and given the (proportionate to population) high amount of installed capacity there, it would be interesting to get their perspective.

Another thing I would like to see brought into this thread is input from FN members. Going through the list of wind farms currently operating in Southern Alberta, I don't recognize any of them as being on reserve land of any of the five Treaty 7 First Nations, however, the majority of them are in relative proximity (25-50km) to the Peigan FN, and the other four nations have reserve lands in areas that would generally be considered well suited for generation. Is there interest in developing wind generation amongst the FNs? (And to clarify, I am not suggesting that development necessarily take place on reserve land, but is this the kind of thing that that they would be interested in participating in to develop a stronger economic base, that they would want to participate in co-developments as opposed to being essentially excluded from as was the case with the development of the oil and gas industries.)

It's been many year since I was in the Pincher Creek area, but aren't there turbines right outside of Pincher Creek the town?  Those were the first big ones I'd ever seen. 

Ah, memories of Castle Mountain mid-week freshies....

Oh.

Please.  

Let us know when you get down off your high horse so we can grovel at your wisdom.  Maybe, just maybe the dismissive, condescending attitude you displayed from the very begining had something to do with it?  Nay it has to be those uppity rural people that don't know enough to recognize their betters.

Ken, I wasn't trying to take sides... I was trying to get away from it. I was also, however, trying to point out that the southern Ontario situation was quite different from that elsewhere. To my view, lots of the rural in southern Ontario is pretty "cheek by jowl" -- to western eyes at least. I also think the points that have been raised about creating generation capacity along the shores of Lake Ontario are good ones - and would reduce the demands being placed on prime agricultural land (of course, what do I know about prime agricultural land... in my area, we have ranchland, and little bits suitable for canola and alfalfa (at best)). Given the history of Toronto's way of dealing with its waste problems, I would be quite willing to suggest rural suspicion of things been done "for the greater good" are not baseless.

Farmpunk: been years since I have been in Pincher Creek too... it is a detour off Highway 3 I have little reason to make. One of my coworkers is from there, though, and visits her family frequently. While she frequently raises concerns about sour gas leaks from the Shell fields, there has been no mention of anyone having problems with the wind turbines (actually more of a case of civic pride about them). I did find a map put out by the MD of Pincher showing the placement of installed and proposed windfarms in the area, there is no scale supplied on the map, but the distance between Pincher and Cowley is just over 15km. It looks like some of the proposed turbines will be right on the edge of town.

Our entire capitalist system of exploitation and industrial extraction harms humans. My point above, if you missed it, is that it is the choice humans have made.

I dunno, is Bruce directly powered by the nukes there? Is Nanticoke directly powered by the coal plant there? Capitalism is founded on the standardization and commodification of everything including energy. You farm corn, right? Why? Because it's cheap and it is one of the two primary inputs to almost all processed food. So why mass produce corn and feed it into a huge system? Economies of scale is the answer. McDonalds could not produce burgers as cheap as they are without economies of scale and low priced commodities. And the same economies of scale applies to energy. Do you think energy should be different from food?

Don't suspect. Go and investigate. It's not that far away. And what you will find is just as many farmers live on the land with the turbines as do landowners who lease. As well, the turbines don't use that much space and you know the solution to a little bit of lost space ... grow closer to the road, remove the buffer to the water, cut down the tree line, plow fence-row-to-fence-row.

That is why I am arguing that while I think some people's health are affected by turbine, I don't think the bulk of the opposition is really about health. Those same farmers have subdivision developments popping up all around them which doesn't engender the same level of opposition and the Green Energy Act encourages farmers, as per all the seminars, to develop their own energy sources and sell the surplus back to the grid. There is a company right now assessing almost 1,000 farm sites for solar and these are on farm projects. See for yourself: http://essexfreepress.ca/node/1486

You find that odd? Have you heard of Wal-Mart? We live in a culture that does not, that will not, protect local business, local food producers, local consumers, and local environments. The invisible "investor class" and their profit takes precedence over every other concern. I have been following local politics for years, but don't take my word for it. You can see this phenomenon in action almost any day of the week in almost any community.

<truce>

Look, people, if we can be frank for one moment. The sudden investment in renewable energies isn't really a choice at all. We are at a point in history of increasing energy scarcity. Energy will become more expensive and there will be more wars fought over it. Energy scarcity will bring with it higher input costs and higher food costs. The Ontario government is acting, like it or not, with forethought.  Electricity is the most important energy we generate. Our modern civilization is built on it and they will burn the last tree before they will let the grid fail. Do I support that? No. I just recognize it. The reality is we want what global industrial capitalism has delivered and we are fully prepared to pay the price of a diminished world that may or may not support the generations that follow.

</truce>

No need for a truce.  I didn't think there was a war going on.

I grow sweet corn.  My Dad\boss plants "field" corn. 

Our farm is not large.  Unless I did some serious research I would not accept a full size Port Burwell-esque turbine on this land (has to take up a half-acre, with guywires).  The same space would be better used, for the environment, by using it as pasture... or by installing solar.

We can't get beyond capitalism, as you suggest and with which I agree, when the environment meets up with the invisible hand. 

But this is "new" policy, new power generation for a new age, Green projects, and they're funded by the province via the feed in tariff, which I have read about quite a lot, and talked to a lot of people in the know, including some journalists and businesspeople and politicians who know a helluva lot more than I do about the true intricacies of the program.  A sixteen thousand dollar roof-top, or barn-top, solar installation is the least intrusive.  If the feed in tariff exists in ten years, I may start making money, my payback being at least that long.  My home will still not be directly powered by the sun.... the juice goes into the system, the grid tie-in.  Thanks, I'll keeping planting Dad's field corn in the meantime and use that sixteen grand in other ways.

Feed in tariff encourages business, not energy self-sufficiency. 

And that's if the grid doesn't already have enough green power flowing into it.  I believe there is a cap per area, or region.  And living near the turbines, I wonder how much green grid space is left for my barn-top solar panels. 

The only people I've spoke with who're big fans of the feed-in program are trying to sell me something.  And even then I spoke with a renewable power business owner who told me blankly that the program was not what it was made out to be. 

I've tried to steer clear of the turbines and health issue, simply because I don't know enough about that side of the green game.  I have spent a fair deal of time investigating the feed-in, Green Energy act, and the political-business side of things on the local level.  That's where I find trouble. 

I am for green power, used intelligently.  I am against having the public subsidize foreign companies, and not being progressive with energy policy.  That's why I got involved in this meandering thread to start with... because the Green Energy Act is greenwashing.  It didn't have to be so.

A lot of what you say about farmers, agriculture, and land policy has merits.  Neither BA, Life, or I blanket defend the current state of agriculture in SWOnt. 

Having said that, your points about farm land subdividing is especially aggravating, because in my experience it's the real estate and investment fuckers who buy land, rent the land to massive agribusinesses which grow corn followed by soybeans, in the hopes that small town municipalities will allow subdivisions.  My control over that process is about the same as my power to control the weather.  I suggest this phenom will only get worse as ag land prices increase, and the relatively well-off supply managed sectors buy up at a serious premium whatever land they can, using grossly inflated quota prices as a backstop\guarentee to keep the banking sector happy.

...and as the farm population ages and retires and there is no next generation, with the notable exception of a few amazing young farmers like you seem to be farmpunk, to take over or able to afford to buy the land the problems will get worse not better. 

We have a number of major issues facing us, especially in Ontario, (but elsewhere too) and they are all going to haunt the coming generation of rural and urban citizens becuase of the utter failure of this generation of political and most farm leaders. 

Just a quibble with your comments FM.  Many farmers do speak out about subdivisions and the rural residental strips (that are not much different) that buffer the roads in many areas leading out of urban areas.  But many of the farms that those things are built on are not owned by people, they are owned by investors and agri-business corportations.  The almighty dollar is what they care about.  And most of the family farmers were driven out of those areas long ago because they couldn't afford to be there.  So in some ways there are very few people left to fight back.

Farming is too expensive to get into in my view. I believe the average farm in Grey/Bruce likely cost around 400,000 for a few hundred acres. How is a younger person suppose to get into the business with prices like that.

I would like to farm yet at this time it nearly impossible.

BA please correct me if I am wrong.

It may sound like I am ranting, but my point is that if you are a progressive rural person then let's be allies here and end the divisions because we probably have more in common than you think!

And we'd all agree.  And, the facts indicate that rural Ontario has shouldered all the negatives, real or imagined, of wind turbines.  No one here, I don't think, has argued against wind turbines, Ken.  Only drawn question to their placement, and, as progressives might, question why we see the burden placed-- as usual-- on the backs of those who don't have priveleged influence.

For the record, in Toronto terms I live in the "rural" municipality of London.   However, my rural friends actually see London as a "urban" area.   So, as an urbanite-- not a "progressive" one, but a lefty-- I've long held that we need to ally with each other:  Farmers and Factory workers, rural and urban.   We have a lot in common.   So, I listen to them.   And gall durn it, they can be right about some stuff.  Believe it or don't.

If prognostications on evironmental degradation are even half accurate, the old politics aren't going to allow us to adapt fast enough.  

If we keep on this slow track of brow beating our nieghbours into recycling their Tim Horton's cups, or waiting until the Stuperstore notices that you and your buddy and his wife and grandmother have stopped buying baked goods because they come in clamshell plastic, well, we're doomed.   We're going to watch the tundra fart out 100,000 years worth of methane, and we'll be up to our giblets in Halifaxian, Bostonian and Fredrictonian refugees.

An environmental movement that does not include vigorous power sharing, and regulation of business is just Green Washing.

Might as well throw another tire on the barby and have done with it. 

Rahim Jaffer is not an environmentalist. I think the argument could be made he is no progressive, either.

I was mentioning this discussion to my better half and I mentioned some think renewable energy is using rural communities to solve an urban problem. She answered farming is using rural communities to solve an urban problem. And then I and said, "yeah, farmers feed cities," citing the bumper sticker to which she said, "soon farmers will be feeding farmers." I think that goes to the inevitable failure of industrial agriculture.

The reason we focus on issues of energy is because we don't really, not yet, oppose the economic model, complete with power imbalances and lack of regulation inherent to it. Once we oppose the model, then how we provide energy for a new model becomes a question to be asked after the model has been defined.

Farmpunk:

That's true. But the first part of that goes to local governments failing to protect local interests and it goes to regulations that favor massive producers over smaller producers and pretty much outlaw over the kitchen table sales. It's fascinating, to me, that regulation in our free market economy, over the past generation, has been to protect the markets of the major players, to raise the cost of market entry to make it prohibitive, and to regulate out of existence, to the greatest extent possible, cottage industries. This is the legacy of successive Conservative and Liberal governments but people still buy into the myths and outright lies of "free market" capitalism. I think that argument is partly supported by the prohibitive cost of entering farming. It once was possible to operate a profitable farm on 50 acres. It will be again. I promise. :)

Just a correction, FP, industrial turbines do not use guy wires and they have a very small footprint. A farmer can plow right up to a few feet of them. The biggest loss is the access road which is determined by the placement and setback.

Right now solar is all the rage. There will be fewer, but likely much larger, wind farms.

Just had a look on google earth to the windmills put up in Kincardine. They do take up a fair chunk of land and cut up fields pretty bad.

If they ever put up these industrial units around here, I would be inclined to rip out the fence rows, make a few big fields, rent out the house on an acre lot to some golf fanatic, who can while away his/her time on the golfcourse next door, and look for a quiet place in the Pontiac, Quebec. And rent out the land to the industrial farmer down the road. What is the point of having a harmonious place with these four to seven hundred foot monsters looking down on you.

Why is it being "talked down to" when urbanites express disagreements with ruralites but it's not being "talked down to" when ruralites express disagreements with urbanites?

I've spent roughly half of my life living in (very) rural Minnesota and the other half in a large metropolitan area and my guess is that many ruralites have, for some reason, a significant sense of insecurity relative to urbanites.  It's really the best explanation I can think of for why many ruralites think they are being "talked down to" by urbanites when the same conversation, but in the opposite direction, is not viewed as being "talked down to" by urbanites.

My advice?  Stop playing the "being talked down to" card.

If the value of a particular acre of land is $14,000, would it make more sense for the owner to use the land for agricultural purposes or to sell it to someone who is willing to pay $14,000 for it?

If a person owned a section of land that is worth $14,000 per acre (or about $9 million for the section) and choose to spend years farming the land to make a living, then that's the person's choice.  A stupid choice, in my opinion, but it's their choice.  On the other hand, if the person decided to sell that land to someone actually willing to pay $9 million for it, I say: "Good for you."

I haven't seen any discussion of using transformers and storage batteries to best utilize power downloaded from windmills - surely these will become part of the equation?

The biggest argument I keep hearing on this thread in support of industrial wind turbines is that our questions and concerns are just delaying the progress of a wonderful cause. Today Conservative Minister John Baird accused opposition parties of creating a "culture war", instead of getting behind the "admirable goal" of the government's maternal health plan. He claimed it was "something Canadians can unite behind" (CBC). Both causes are admirable. Both have deficiencies when it comes to public health. Raising questions and concerns is not a form of delaying progress - rather questions and concerns are required to ensure the best plan possible is executed.  

You see, that is a cheap propaganda ploy aimed at demonizing windfarms and has nothing to do with legitimate concerns or questions. That is an incomplete construction site. A finished site looks nothing like that. Please don't bullshit me with cheap pandering about legitimate concerns when you post nonsense like that. The centre of the site, made of concrete, that is the footprint of the turbine.

Anyone can visit a site to see for themselves. This is just fear mongering. And that's what conservatives are good at.

And are tar sands incomplete construction sites too...

BA, thanks for the farming post.

Do you know of anyone selling 100 acres or so?

More off topic.

Sven, there aren't millions of viable acres availible in SWOnt, or Canada for that matter.  The cropland in Oxford county, Ontario, is extremely valuable for specific segments of the ag community.   

Remember that Ontario has a strong supply managed sector in dairy and "feather" industries and often these operations need to buy land in order to conform to nutrient management regs put down by the gov. 

In other words, a big dairy operation needs land to spread manure on, which in turn grows corn that is mixed and fed to the cattle.  Ditto for chickens.  These operations own a share of a rock solid market, and those shares are worth a LOT of money, so these operations can leverage the quota\stock to purchase land, because the banks know they will have something to take back\sell in case the farm fails.

This creates a big run on premium ag land in specific areas.  Ya know... the market sets the price and all that.  Especially when dairy and chicken operations expand by buying more quota, using land as collateral.

The distance between where FM and I live, and where BA, Life, and Webgear live isn't very far.  But in ag zone terms, there's a large gap.  Think Minnesota and Mississippi.

Your confusion about ag in Ontario is understandable.  Explaining supply management to Americans is difficult, since I don't think there's anything like it in the US.

And remember that Southern Ontario is really the breadbasket of Canada.  It's the most Southerly zone, most temperate, and has the strongest soil, with easy access to three Great Lakes and those watersheds.

Do you still wonder why the land is worth that much?

I'm not attacking your credibility. You're an anonymous poster, as I am, hence you have no credibility. I am attacking your tactics. And, in fact, you haven't answered any of my arguments. And you say that I haven't offered anything constructive but what I have offered is implicit in my arguments. We must change our lifestyle. Consume half as much energy and goods as we do now. Stop consuming fast foods and processed foods altogether. Live simpler lives. Walk more, drive less, and live close to where we work. Instill all of this into public policy and suddenly the demand for energy is reduced and the demand for turbines, coal, and other industrial energy sources, including the tar sands, is greatly reduced. Finally, restrict energy and resource trade only to nations with similar land use and energy policies. There you go. Now what?

Why? Peole Afraid they'll miss some celebrity gossip or latest reality TV pablum?  Yes, less energy means more time doing things. But in today's modern world where couples share household tasks that ought to be quality time together. And it certainly is not punishement. TV marketing, now that's punishment.

Actually, Sven, it would likely mean more of those things. Every single study will confirm that as we've embraced the consumer capitalist, transportation focused model, we in fact spend far less time with friends and family and tossing the ball with junior. This social phenonenom was best illustrated by Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone ( http://www.bowlingalone.com/ ). Subsequent studies have only supported Putnam's main thesis. Additional studies have shown that despite all the crap in our lives designed to eliminate interaction with our friends, neighbours, families, and children, we are less happy. And so we should be. The lie of globalism and consumer culture has robbed us of community, family, culture, family history, narratives, shared experience, neighbourhood, and so much more. We are inherently social creatures who help each other when in need, but in Western culture we've been inculcated from birth to only understand "me, me, me" and to sacrifice the very genetic traits that made humans a successful species. But separating us from our biological selves was critical, as illustrated by Linda McQuaig, for the success of modern capitalism.

So we actually believe that we have more time to spend with our families when every single credible study shows we in fact spend less time with our families. We actually believe we would not be happy without the chains of consumer slavery even every single study shows we are less happy. We actually believe we have more leisure time when in fact what we don't spend working we spend commuting and what we don't spend commuting we spend rushing from here to there and what we don't spend rushing around we spend vegetating in front of the television as passive receptors for marketing and political propaganda. 

What TV does to your children.

That is a testament to both the power of marketing and our own stupidity. Without so much as peep we made the migration from people, citizens, parents, workers, familes, and the complex, multidimensional creatures we are, to two dimensional, passive consumers. Meanwhile, knowing we're destroying our own life systems we say we can't stop because it would harm the economy that doesn't serve us and we would have to surrender the consumer trappings that leave us spiritually empty and socially impoverished.

All of those reasons, in a nutshell, is why we have industrial wind and why we can't live without it.

Or in the case of the Amish....

A good sturdy horse.....$3000

A pull behind plow.... $2000

A family that does not mind spending all day in the sun planting seeds, hand cultivating and watering...priceless....

Like any other occupation the big corporations (you know Massey Ferguson, International, CIL etc) have farmers believing they need all the big name equipment and high priced fertilizer to put in a crop and tend to livestock, when really the practice of farmer can still be as simple as what the Amish do - amazingly without power. Most Canadian farmers don't want to work that hard, again believing that they must make enough penny crops to pay the bills at the end of the year. Most have forgotten about self-sufficiency, and organic methods. Selling a bit on the side helps purchase what actually NEEDS to be bought.

Instead of trying to run a farm like a big corporation on a small budget, they should really be run like the family businesses of old. I know many successful family farms run this way and everyone helps out with planting, chores and clean-up. BUt if the family heart is no longer in it, then it is better to get out, rather than to soak oneself with debt, frustration and endless yearnings for "bigger and better".

That is one of the points.

During the Second World War "Victory Gardens" (backyard gardens) produced 80% of the poduce for the table. Today, supermarket fare produces about 90-110% of the table fare - and most of that is imported from poorer countries than Canada farmers.

Self-sufficency has been overwhelmed by the corporate mantra - globalization is better for all of us. It is THE big lie and like all corporate ventures it is designed to exploit the resources at their source, and rake in the obscene profits on delivery.

It's easy to phase people out of work - not so easy to phase them back into the job market. While coal needs to be phased out asap - equally there needs to be an employment strategy to place these people in skilled, high-paying secure jobs. Just saying we'll create a green economy is not good enough. What is needed is a direct transfer program of employees from one workspace to another.

Policy can no longer be viewed in silos - the impact of change must be measured across all sectors especially jobs and damage done to the local communities. Too many ghost towns are being created as is. When people leave all that infrastructure goes to waste and new infrastructure has to be built elsewhere where the influx is being had. 

By raising labour questions - will I again be accused of delaying environmental goals? Or will labour hold more weight compared to the health concerns of a few rural communities. 

Actually most of the Amish/Mennonite's in our area now use tractors (some with steel wheels) or have their field work done for them by their neighbours with tractors.  Many also have feed lots, large chicken enterprises, industrial sized pork barns, or massive conventional gardens.  It is simply not true that Amish/Mennonite equals organic.  Not by a long way. You are at least a generation behind when it comes to what the farm business part of their lives is like.  My favourite local thing to see, because it goes against so many sterotypes is the horse drawn sprayer a number of the local vegetable farmers use.  Because it is drawn by a horse it goes much slower than a tractor so they end up spraying the bejeezus out of stuff, but all kinds of people buy their 'naturally raised' vegetables.

What I listed was the basic equipment needed to run a farm, it is at the bottom end in terms of size with those prices.  Having a small tractor -which is what a 75-100 hp one is hardly makes you a corporate farmer.  You will need that equipment, or its equivalent, whether you are using hp or horse power to pull it.  A simple plough is not enough.  You need to break the land up after you plough regardless of the of plough or the technology used to pull it.  This is old technology - discs, cultivators, harrows, rollers.  The only difference is size and whether it has a place to sit on it.  If you have livestock in our climate you still need to put hay away.  So whether you use a haybine, or a mo/co it really doesn't matter- it costs money.  If you put in hay the 'old fashion' way you need a bigger, higher barn than if you are using round bales, or even small squares - so the cost is not all that different when you pencil it out.  Owning and operating a threshing machine - necessary for grain harvesting beyond a few hard scrabble acres - costs money too.   I know a number of Old Order Amish and Mennonite farm families through our farmers market and as neighbours.  Many of the young people have to take off farm jobs too because the cost to buy and stock a farm is getting out of reach for them too.

Methinks you are wearing some rose coloured glasses.

You like to lecture a lot, but you really don't listen much do you.  Even in 'rural' ridings in Ontario- which according to you seems to be everyone outside of downtown Toronto- real rural people are outnumbered greatly by the urban centres we are attached to.  And here's a shocker for you, if you did something like actually bothered to base your prejudices on something like data, it is those urban places in which the decison is made on who represents the riding.  There are very few ridings in Southern Ontario where even if the entire rural population voted for the local Marxist Leninist that riding wouldn't be represented by someone elese.  Do some homework before you start lecturing rural people.  Or even try listening to us- you might find we have some interesting and progressive things to say- even if they challenge your prejudices.

I just read an article in BusinessWeek about German wind farms generating too much power.  So much so that the owners of the juice\turbines are asking customers to keep their lights on, because otherwise they aren't making enough money.

And to Charter Rights.  The Amish and Mennonites around here really enjoy using gas powered lawn mowers, and gas powered generators to power equipment on their farms.  I'm sure there are divisions within the communities but I believe the main concept that ties them together is being against motor vehicles in all forms, including tractors.

The turn around on your point would be something like: why don't you walk everywhere or keep a horse yourself instead of using public transit and\or owning a vehicle.   

Where did Mike from Canmore say that he is pro-coal? It just said something about creating jobs for those that loose it because of the conversion from fossil fuel to sustainable fuel.

Maybe we should hang on to those coal fired power plants, it might not be to difficult to convert them to bio-mass fired power plants. The government could then support local landowners by buying sustainable bio-mass from them.  These power plants would then kick in when there is not enough wind and sun to power the province.

A lot of myths being promulgated about the costs and dangers, at least according to the CWEA. To some extent the same is true of nuclear, especially wrt radiation. Wind is hardly a novelty in Germany or Denmark. In any case, the cheapest source of energy is conservation, and there are zero net energy and passive houses, even in Canada. Of course there are plus and minuses with NZE houses.

http://www.canwea.ca/wind-energy/myths_e.php