wind farms

LAS VEGAS -- Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said Monday that she believes hiring in the alternative-energy industry will pick up in the next 12 months, but it will take longer than that for so-called green jobs to become a bigger part of the U.S. job market.

Ms. Solis told he Associated Press on Monday that new government incentives will kick-start hiring in the fledgling industry as companies regain confidence.

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Blowback: Indiana's emerging wind farms whip up controversy

More and more critics say windmills aren't that green, aren't a great source of energy -- and can be harmful to people's health

By Jeff Swiatek

Posted: August 9, 2009

The 200- to 300-foot-long blades on industrial windmills look almost whimsical from afar.

They appear to turn slowly. People sometimes stop to take pictures. "They look cool," said Eric Burch, director of policy and outreach for the Indiana Office of Energy Development.

The tips of those giant blades, however, move at speeds approaching 160 mph, creating forces that send low-frequency vibrations through the ground. People three-quarters of a mile away sometimes say they can feel the vibrations in their chests.

Cases of nausea, headaches, insomnia and other ills have become common enough in states with wind farms that they've been given a name: "wind turbine syndrome."

That newfangled illness is just one of a growing list of health effects, inconveniences, risks and cost considerations that have resulted in a backlash against wind farms in other states, even as Indiana is in the midst of a rapid buildout of wind energy.......................

.........."Wind is neither clean nor green," he said. "It's like something from the Emerald City of Oz.

It's entirely political. Well-intentioned people are coming in and being ginned by promises of a better environment."

................At night, the sound seems louder and often wakes up his wife, despite her earplugs.

Bruce Buchanan is just getting used to living near four turbines built within several thousand feet of

his farmhouse in Benton County.

They went in service this spring

...............So far, he doesn't mind the growling noise. But one of Buchanan's neighbors who lives near a turbine

"is troubled by it because he doesn't like the sound at all. He said that to me more than once," Buchanan said.

http://www.indystar.com/article/20090809/BUSINESS/908090380/Blowback++Indiana+s+emerging+wind+farms+whip+up+controversy

Kliphnote:

I said this in the past, people will find something wrong with anything.

Wind and solar power are all good ideas but if you double what we have now,

it will only be 2% of our energy.

• Not to mention the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine.
• That is why you need battery storage.
• Than, how long do batteries last and who do you recycle them. Etc.

But I am thinking of my own wind and solar power.