Proud to be an Alaskan... Not!
Those fucking assholes! Grrrr! You've got to read this in today's paper.
Basically Sen.'s Steven's and Young are moving to block an offshore East Coast renewable energy project - a wind farm. But the ADN gets it wrong IMHO about siting the reasons. Saying that they (senators) don't want their precious Cape Cod views ruined. And that might play into it; but their leaving out that it is not in Alaska's best economic interest (oil, Oil, OIL) to see a project like this become a high-profile success story. Even if the amount of power that it produces is only a pittance compared to fossil-fuel based generation. I could just see Young and Stevens' phones ringing. Their oil industry constituency calling to 'make this project go away - that's what we're paying you for'.
Sorry, but this is near and dear to my heart. We've had a change in board leadership this past year at Chugach who decided to quickly poo-poo on plans to build a Fire Island wind project. HELLO?? Chugach burns natural gas right out of the ground at Beluga (by Tyonek) for like 85% of it's power generation. And those fields are drying up! Maybe 10 years left to them. And the board wants to kill wind projects?? My thinking is that any major alt energy project like Cape Cod can help foster positive public support AND be a learning testbed to improve the technology. Higher efficiency turbines or blade designs can be learned from their mistakes. Plus lessons learned in environmental impact (in the case of windmills, think of migratory birds running into the moving rotors). But people on this planet have such large needs, just by virtue of our sheer numbers, that any form of electric power gen. will have impact. I'd be willing to bet that wind has less of one than say, coal or gas burning, or nuc-U-ler.
And here are two republican Alaskan senators getting in line to kill a major wind project. Sounds about right.
Basically Sen.'s Steven's and Young are moving to block an offshore East Coast renewable energy project - a wind farm. But the ADN gets it wrong IMHO about siting the reasons. Saying that they (senators) don't want their precious Cape Cod views ruined. And that might play into it; but their leaving out that it is not in Alaska's best economic interest (oil, Oil, OIL) to see a project like this become a high-profile success story. Even if the amount of power that it produces is only a pittance compared to fossil-fuel based generation. I could just see Young and Stevens' phones ringing. Their oil industry constituency calling to 'make this project go away - that's what we're paying you for'.
Sorry, but this is near and dear to my heart. We've had a change in board leadership this past year at Chugach who decided to quickly poo-poo on plans to build a Fire Island wind project. HELLO?? Chugach burns natural gas right out of the ground at Beluga (by Tyonek) for like 85% of it's power generation. And those fields are drying up! Maybe 10 years left to them. And the board wants to kill wind projects?? My thinking is that any major alt energy project like Cape Cod can help foster positive public support AND be a learning testbed to improve the technology. Higher efficiency turbines or blade designs can be learned from their mistakes. Plus lessons learned in environmental impact (in the case of windmills, think of migratory birds running into the moving rotors). But people on this planet have such large needs, just by virtue of our sheer numbers, that any form of electric power gen. will have impact. I'd be willing to bet that wind has less of one than say, coal or gas burning, or nuc-U-ler.
And here are two republican Alaskan senators getting in line to kill a major wind project. Sounds about right.
posted by Eyak Woman at 8:22 AM
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