Wind Ordinance Debate: The 1,000-foot Set-Back Standard (Are environmentalists underregulating themselves?)

By Tony Fleming -- January 23, 2012 18 Comments

Editor Note: Environmentalists like regulation except when it comes to ‘green’ energy. This post asks: what is the growing acceptance of  the thousand-foot voluntary ordinance based on?]

In Indiana and elsewhere, many counties are falling all over themselves to adopt the so-called “1,000-foot voluntary industry setback” between large wind turbines and residences.1 In some states, it has become part of “model” wind ordinances created by wind developers and energy agencies.

This buffer zone (who said these structures were environmental?) is starkly smaller than those mandated in several countries widely touted by industry proponents as wind “success” stories. In Denmark, for example, the setback is four times total turbine height (or about 2,000 feet for a large turbine), along with a built-in mechanism for compensating abutters for property-value losses.

Continue Reading

Wind Power Gets an Environmental Pass in New York State (Power NY Act's Article X vs. grassroot environmentalism)

By Sherri Lange -- August 12, 2011 5 Comments

Joke: ‘When is an environmentalist not an environmentalist? …. When it comes to windpower.’

[This press release from August 10th is reproduced in its entirety. A description of the sponsoring organizations follows.]

The North-American Platform Against Windpower (NA-PAW) objects to the passing of the “Power NY Act” on August 8th. Also known as “Article X”, this law reverses decades of democratic rights in New York State.

Municipalities no longer have the power to veto harmful projects targeting their constituencies. Albany bureaucrats will decide where energy and other industrial projects are to be built, and the people will have to bite the bullet.

Says Sherri Lange, NA-PAW’s CEO: “I believe New Yorkers won’t take it lying down. I have faith in the North American spirit: we won’t let politicians take away our freedoms.”…

Continue Reading

Ontario's Great Windpower Escape: A Setback Only

By Sherri Lange -- August 4, 2011 7 Comments

[Sherri Lange’s previous reports on the Ontario wind siting battles are “Wind’s Political Trouble in Ontario (Secretive Samsung deal, power rates at issue)’ from May 11 and Ontario Update: Offshore Wind Moratorium Decision Hangs Tough, Onshore BAU Targetedfrom April 8.]

In an Elvis-has-left-the-building-but-might-be-coming-back kind of moment, the Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) in Ontario announced to that the Kent Breeze turbine project could continue. The appellants failed in this instance to prove that there would be “serious” health effects posed by the project, ERT determined.

The Tribunal did leave the doors open for future challenges, however. And not all is lost: this project was the first ever public legal challenge based on health and safety concerns.

Expect victories in the future. On the heels of this pro-wind decision that despaired many around the world tuned into this legal challenge, came Carl Phillips’ release of an epidemiological study: there are very real and verifiable health consequences for living too near turbines.…

Continue Reading

Wind Energy: A Review of Human Health & Safety Concerns

By -- July 6, 2011 6 Comments

This is a more detailed examination of the wind energy situation in North Carolina that I previously outlined, which is part of an ongoing investigation of the state’s process of getting wind energy permits. All this came about as North Carolina’s first industrial wind project (Desert Wind) is now in the pipeline.

As a part of my research, I had a productive conversation with North Carolina’s Health Director. My question to him was: what state agency will be assuring that NC citizens are protected regarding health and safety matters resulting from this industrial development?

He agreed that there should be such an assessment, but concurred with other North Carolina agency people that I had already contacted: there currently is no provision in the state’s rules and regulations that requires a comprehensive human health assessment for such a project.…

Continue Reading

North Carolina Onshore Wind Development: Look Before You Leap (Part II)

By -- June 27, 2011 7 Comments Continue Reading

Windpower: Environmentalists vs. Environmentalists (NIMBYism, precautionary principle vs. industrial wind)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 8, 2011 6 Comments Continue Reading

Dear Sierra Club (Canada): I Resign Over Your Anti-Environmental Wind Support

By Jen Gilbert -- June 7, 2011 10 Comments Continue Reading

Wind Spin: Responding to the American Wind Energy Association

By -- April 11, 2011 4 Comments Continue Reading

Ontario Update: Offshore Wind Moratorium Decision Hangs Tough, Onshore BAU Targeted

By Sherri Lange -- April 8, 2011 10 Comments Continue Reading

Fighting the Windpower Industrial Complex: The Eric Bibler Letter (A Grassroots Environmentalist Speaks to Power)

By Kent Hawkins -- November 16, 2010 7 Comments Continue Reading