“It’s high time that people’s safety – and truly devastating impacts on important bird and bat species – stopped taking a back seat to political agendas, crony corporatism, and folklore environmentalism.”
Georgia residents recently learned that a rare bat has stalled state highway improvements. The May 2012 sighting of an endangered Indiana brown bat in a northern Georgia tree has triggered federal regulations requiring that state road projects not “harm, kill or harass” bats.
Even the possibility of disturbing bats or their habitats would violate the act, the feds say. Therefore, $460 million in Georgia road projects have been delayed for up to eighteen months, so that “appropriate studies” can be conducted. The studies will cost $80,000 to $120,000 per project, bringing the total for all 104 road project analyses to $8–12 million, with delays adding millions more.…
Continue Reading“Fundamentally, what is to stop a FEB from supporting an energy rationing scheme, say a carbon tax or CO2 cap-and-trade program, to ‘save the climate’ or ‘level the playing field’ for wind, solar, and other beggar energies? Hofmeister might oppose such programs, but a FEB is ‘independent’ to do so. Anti-energy forces such as the “green lobby” and current Washington establishment will not surrender or retreat but likely become emboldened by centralized power in a federal energy board.”
John Hofmeister, formerly president of Houston-based Shell Oil (the U.S. side of Royal Dutch Shell), has been an active voice for energy policy reform. Upon retiring from Shell in 2008, he founded Citizens for Affordable Energy (CAE), an educational nonprofit advocating “sound U.S. energy security solutions for the nation, including a range of affordable energy supplies, efficiency improvements, essential infrastructure, sustainable environmental policies and public education on energy issues.”…
Continue ReadingRenewable energy wind turbines as electricity sources possess extreme environmental problems not found in their renewable energy rival–solar photovoltaic. These problems are due to rotation of 130-foot or more long, thirteen-ton turbine blades with tip speeds of 200 miles per hour.
“An unavoidable problem of wind turbines is killing flying creatures. The Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) produced a video “Eagle lawsuit ruffles wind industry feathers”. The video records a bird apparently being killed by a wind turbine. It appears the bird went back for a second look at the turbine and a blade struck the fatal blow. Possibly the bird thought the turbine was a bigger bird.”
A companion article published March 19, 2013, by CFACT is “Wind turbines kill up to 39 million birds a year” by wildlife expert Jim Wiegand.…
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