No clear sailing for wind power
In many venues wind power can be as controversial as nuclear power. In Scotland there's a big fight brewing over mlountaintop windmills to generate electricity. One charge: the tall towers holding the turbines uglify the once beautiful landscape. Critics accuse the Scottish government of not planning for the growing use of wind generators there.
A little to the south in Devon, England, a local governing body rejected a proposed wind farm. Reason: protect the local bats. Flying mammals, not cricket bats.
America: as the winds blows
On the American side of the Atlantic the wind industry's having its own problems. In Oilklahoma one utility has abandoned plans for a wind farm. When the company announced plans to put windmills over a wildlife refuge land even some of their own employees were disgusted. Talk about an ill wind.
The American fights over wind power will largely be on the coasts and in the Great Plains where the wind seems to be eternal. Up in North Dakota the federal government has gotten involved in the arguments over windmills for generating electricity. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service* says wind farms could endanger the already endangered Whooping Crane. Less than 300 of North America's rare white cranes exist. North Dakota's wind farm expansion would be located on the cranes' migration route, where they must take off and land.
Out in New England the little town of Ipswich, Mass. may become "Green" wich. They are proposing to build windmills there that would power the whole town and its four public schools. This week the town's school board will receive apublic presentation of the wind turbine plan for Ipswich.
* My cynics note: couldn't it be that all branches of the current U.S. government are shilling for Dick Cheney's favorite industry, oil? Don't want any competition from the wind generators? How about shutting down the turbines during migraton season? The cranes don't live in North Dakota, they're far too smart for that. They're just passing through.