I was just in this country. It is not well known, but scenic and wildlife rich public land.
Given the abundance of windy private lands, why don’t they build their wind farms there and make the landowner some money.
BLM to hold public meetings. Idaho Statesman.
Jarbidge Mountains from site of wind farm proposal. Photo June 16, 2008. Copyright Ralph Maughan
Related topic. At Montana’s Biggest Wind Farm, Bat Deaths Surprise Researchers. An ongoing study at Judith Gap suggests that birds may be in the clear, but bats are running into trouble. By Elizabeth L. Harrison. New West.
Comments
Not only does an area become dotted with huge towers and fiberglass blades the area becomes virtually closed forever from all public access, replaced with giant warning signs, huge fences, and security patrols protecting the company’s investment on our public land.
America does not need more power production, what America needs is to learn to conserve what we have, switch to fluorescent or LED lighting, unplug phantom devices sucking power, Use the air conditioner less ect ect….Of course no one stands to make money doing that so it wont be done.
One of the usually unnoticed side effects of huge centralized power facilities of whatever kind, is the loss of our liberties.
Big oil, big coal, and big wind are all hostile to living in a democracy.
For the security-minded, they are also much more vulnerable to military attack and/or terrorists.
Well,
Perhaps decentralized power sources should be considered. Remember the old, now broken down windmill things on many old farms in the midwest? I’d like to have a small unit on my property to handle the electricity needs on the place and get off the grid that seems to be sucking people’s energy out of them rather than delivering the “convenience” everyone was sold when Congress decided to force everyone onto the grid back in the depression era of the early-mid 1900’s. Puts power back into the individual’s control.
Concerning the bats…
Bats use sonar to determine the location of mass in their surroundings. It may be that this natural device functions as the electronic versions do, in a pulse-ray fashion meaning that it isn’t a constant sonar beam that is emitted as it may also require the same physical aparatus to receive the return beam ~ a time lag, if you will. Such a functioning would require intermittent beams transmitted and received. With rotating props, the actual location of the props would be incorrect by the time the bat receives the information therefore misguiding them through the sweep of the blades. Maybe. Obviously this requires outside the known parameters thinking.