A Free-Market Energy Blog

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

By Tony Fleming -- January 23, 2012

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

My One-Time, Tacit Support of Industrial Wind: A Confessional

By Walter Cudnohufsky -- January 20, 2012

[Ed. Note: This testimonial joins Michael Morgan’s last week  indicating a growing disconnect between Washington, D.C.-based BIG ENVIRONMENTALISM and in-the-pristine, grassroots, common-sense environmentalism. Mr. Cudnohufsky’s bio follows this post.]

On a regular basis, friends are surprised to learn of my recently voiced concerns about industrial wind. Enlightened, perceptive and thoughtful people, they share much of my concern for our earth and human communities.

They ask me, “Isn’t wind a good thing? What concerns you and why? Wind is a large renewable resource used for centuries! We are behind the rest of the world in the use of wind power! We need to address climate change. What is your solution?”

These friends have not incorporated wind energy investigation into their busy lives. With climate change, unemployment, a stagnant economy, health care legislation and a war all screaming for attention, there is to be expected a certain complacency and acceptance of industrial wind.

Continue Reading

Global Lukewarming: A Great Intellectual Year in 2011

By Chip Knappenberger -- January 19, 2012
“Mounting evidence [of lukewarming] begins to start to make you wonder whether there is some fundamental problem between climate models and reality.”
 
“To me, the most significant thing that the Climategate emails show is that the deck is stacked against the publication of research results that are critical of the established scientific consensus, and the skids are greased for papers that run in support…. Not a good situation for the advancement of science.”

“Lukewarmers” are those scientists (and others) who believe the balance of evidence is middling between “climate alarmists” (who tend to think that the global temperature rise will lie in, or even exceed, the upper half the IPCC’s 1.1°C–6.4°C range of projected temperature rise this century) and ultraskeptics, or “flatliners” (who tend to think that the addition of human-generated carbon dioxide has virtually no impact on global temperatures).…

Continue Reading

Killer Energy (Time to Apply Endangered Species, Wildlife Laws to Windpower?)

By -- January 18, 2012
Continue Reading

How Bad Science Becomes Common Knowledge: Two Case Studies (solar and climate change)

By Eric Dennis -- January 17, 2012
Continue Reading

Terrestrial Energy (Geothermal, Nuclear vs. Fossil Fuels and Renewables)

By William Tucker -- January 16, 2012
Continue Reading

Why I Turned Against 'Green' Windpower

By Michael Morgan -- January 13, 2012
Continue Reading

Energy Free-Market Megatrend: George Will Speaks

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 12, 2012
Continue Reading

‘Reconstructing Climate Policy: Beyond Kyoto’ (AEI: 2003) Revisited

By S. Fred Singer -- January 11, 2012
Continue Reading

On Sustainable Energy (Part II)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 10, 2012
Continue Reading