-- Smidgen
Lynchburg News & Advance
Editorial
Published: April 17, 2008
With a barrel of oil trading at more than $100, gasoline closing in on $4 a gallon and energy experts positing that production in the world’s oil fields has plateaued, you would think there would be a rush to new sources of power.
Think again.
Politics and that old “N(ot) I(n) M(y) B(ack) Y(ard)” syndrome are still alive and well in the United States. Average Americans are the ones who will be hurt.
Consider two examples, one seemingly benign, the other as contentious as it is commonsensical: wind turbine farms and the study of uranium mining here in Virginia.
First, the wind farms.
The Washington Post reported a few days ago that Gov. Martin O’Malley, D-Maryland, has banned commercial development of wind turbines on state-owned lands in the western part of the state, giving in to the demands of environmentalists who despaired the so-called destruction of scenic views.
“While we must continue to explore and make progress on creating a more sustainable and independent energy future for Maryland, we will not do so at the expense of the special land we hold in the public trust,” he told the Post, apparently with a perfectly straight face.
Wind farms have also generated more controversy than power in Virginia, too. Last year, environmentalists in Highland County tried to block a 20-turbine, $60 million project but failed when the State Corporation Commission approved the project in late December.
The NIMBY opponents trotted out a whole list of objections to the project, including fears that wildlife, caves, wetlands, scenic views and rare bats would be harmed by the giant turbines. And though the project’s gotten the state’s OK, it’s still a long way from reality; the environmental permitting process promises to be as long and contentious as the SCC’s.
Europe, however, is far ahead of the United States in its adoption of wind technology. According to General Electric, one of the world’s largest turbine manufacturers, there’s now a global shortage of turbines due to demand in Europe, hardly a haven of anti-environmentalism.
More problematic, though, is the question of uranium mining, a hot topic in Central and Southside Virginia and the halls of the state Capitol.
More than 25 years ago, the General Assembly imposed a moratorium on uranium mining in the state, following a mining proposal by a Pittsylvania County landowner whose farm sits atop one of the largest ore deposits in the country.
This year, state Sen. Frank W. Wagner, R-Virginia Beach, introduced legislation simply calling for the study of the issue by a national, blue-ribbon panel of scientists and industry experts.
You would have thought from opponents’ reactions that he’d advocated the torture of puppies and babies.
Though the state Senate approved the study, legislative NIMBYs in the House of Delegates shot it down.
Opponents of wind farms, uranium-mining studies, off-shore drilling, coal gasification plants and other innovative sources of energy simply are not living in the real world. Demand for all forms of energy is not going to decrease; it’s only going to rise.
Developing countries such as India and China are the engines of that demand now; upper tier Third World nations will fuel it in the years to come. Bottom line, it’s a matter of national security for the United States to diversify the sources of its power and to develop new sources of power as quickly as possible.
That’s the real world, and this country’s environmental purists had better start living it pretty soon.
7 comments:
I would suggest that all parties to this discussion are missing, perhaps, the best alternative to both oil and uranium.......namely, marine power, which is quite an awesome answer to the entire world's needs.
For more information, click on the link below:
http://sccchatham.blogspot.com/2008/04/alternatives-to-uranium-mining.html
Or, paste it into your address bar if it does not establish an immediate link!
Get hip, man! Uranium is so YESTERDAY that it is laughable when anyone is stupid enough to even suggest stoking up a reactor! Nuclear power is going the way of the dinosaur and the sooner the better! Where have you been?! Safe, alternative forms of energy are here to stay and hotter than ever: WIND-WATER-SOLAR is the new energy movement. I'm sorry that you're over-invested in uranium and defense issue stocks, but the rest of us aren't buying your sales pitch!
Is anyone else aware that the average wind speed in our part of Virginia is EIGHT mph. Do you have any idea how many windmills it would take to get enough power just to keep our lights on? Thousands. Or, for that matter, how many miles of power lines would have to be run for us to get marine power? Wind and marine power make sense for our coastal and western neighbors, but not for us, and it never will. Any other suggestions?
You obviously don't live in Pittsylvania County, because if you did, you'd know that we have more than enough wind up here to make turbines worthwhile (we will have our home and farm running on both wind and solar soon); add that with all the wind we get from the uranium nutters, and VA could power the entire US!! Seriously, though, your argument has long been proven false and it’s the only one you guys ever have to offer! Safe, renewable, (and affordable!) energy is here to stay, so you're going to have to join us greenies and tree huggers in the new century worldwide, kicking and screaming, whether you like it or not! China and India will figure it out eventually, before it's too late, I hope. The people of France are finally waking up, thank God. Much of Europe is way ahead of us, as they usually are, with great ideas. GET WITH IT, AMERICA!
As I understand the current electrical power system in this country, things are laid out in a huge inter-connected grid. If part of the grid is underproducing or out, it buys power from another part of the grid which is able to over-produce.
The massive blackout in NYC a few years ago was the result of an outage in Ohio. Power was rerouted along the grid to bypass the out connector until it could be repaired but the reroute was also able to restore power to NYC. Parts of the national grid buy and sell power to other parts all the time.
My guess is that if those areas which are able to harness wind, solar or marine power did so, it would lighten the load considerably in some parts of the grid so that the hydropower and fossil-fuels power could be re-routed to areas unable to harness wind, sun and waves efficiently. Adding wind, solar, and marine power would seriously decrease demand for hyrdo power and fossil-fuels overall.
Lysi, and also greenearth, thank you for your comments! You both are so right!
If we believe VUI-star's arguments to be correct, then the only communities to benefit from a nuclear power plant would be those immediately surrounding the plant itself! LOL!
Fortunately, as you have stated, Lysi, we do indeed have a nation-wide power grid where wind power producers and even marine power producers could easily connect once the electricity is produced by the alternative energy source.
It is only the one-sightedness of the uranium mining producers and like old-fashioned energy producers who keep us from moving on to safe, affordable, renewable energy. They are so much absorbed in the past that they cannot see the future directly in front of them!
Greenearth....
80% of France's electric power comes from nuclear power. Look it up. While you are looking things up, you may want to check that wind speed figure (and sunlight percentage, for that matter) before you convert to wind/solar power. I live in Danville, and our average wind speed per the usgs is EIGHT mph. I hope you are not planning on putting anything else on your farm but windmills and solar panels. Unless you like cold showers and reading by candlelight, in which case you should enjoy your new power source. I'm not saying it's not a good idea for some people, it's just not a good idea for this area, unless you have a fortune to spend on windmills and solar panels ( and a LOT of land to put them on ).
Virginia Rockstar
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