Like the voting down of solar energy a few years ago in Minnehaha county, once again, the Haters of alternative energy wins again in our region.
Take a deep breath while you can, the end is near.
The Wind Haters in Lincoln County Fake Science wins big time, 57/42
by l3wis
Posted in: Lincoln County, South Dakotans, Wind Energy
Refer it to a vote they said. Refer it they did in the style of a democracy. Just as with advertising sign, be careful what you ask for I guess.
I thought you said this was a cake walk ? What else do you know ?
Nobody visits Lincoln County because they’re always ‘Breaking Wind’. For them, methane is the future. Go through there fast and don’t light a match.
first off this wasnt a vote for no wind, or being hater of of alternative energy it was a vote for setbacks….
lets also not forget the $25k in expenses to Lincoln county for a special election
if you look at precinct results, it wasn’t even close for the precincts outside of lennox, tea, Harrisburg and SF. and of those they had pretty poor turnout some as low as %10. One precinct had 43 total votes!
The rest of the more rural precincts had much higher turnout as high %57 and much higher yes vote.
I bet if you polled the No votes that live in those metro areas they wouldn’t put one right next to their homes either
Also no one is keeping anyone from coming down to lincoln county and buying your own land and signing the waiver to put them on your land either.
I’m happily surprised that south side SF did not take the bait and stayed out of this fight.
Oh you fervent defenders and proclaimers of science and math! Look at the science and do the simple math — and I mean ALL the math. Wind energy is not a viable alternative for the generation of electricity. It is scientifically and mathematically impossible to build enough wind generation to make a difference. Note that I said “to make a difference” and not “replace all other forms of electrical generation.” Wind generation simply cannot produce enough electricity to have a meaningful effect. And that is not even opening the cans of worms to discuss the manufacture, transportation and construction involved with creating and maintaining a wind generation operation. The Jolly Green Giant doesn’t just shit out wind towers across the valley.
Nuclear fusion and fission is the best answer for long-term pollution free electricity. While that PROVEN technology is perfected we can use the UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE amount of natural gas that we have on the planet to provide the massive amounts of electricity required by the world and its inhabitants. Natural gas is CHEAP and improvements in efficiency and cleanliness continue to make it by far the best source for the generation of electricity.
Oh, and remember when I said do ALL the math? Here is the ONLY reason wind generating facilities are being built: $$$ that shrewd investors are taking advantage of in the form of subsidies.
Building wind generators is just another way the “progressives” and “free thinkers” and “intellectuals” can feel like they are changing the world and saving the planet. But, as always, it’s like pissing in the ocean. It might make you feel better, but it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.
20 years from now we will look at the skeletons of all these non-functioning, broken down wind towers and say “What the hell were we thinking?”
Yet somehow the entire country of Scotland is almost 100% powered by alternative energy (mostly wind). Funny how they figured out the science but the hayseeds in Lincoln county have not.
Lewis – that is a COMPLETELY made up and false statistic. No matter how you mangle the math. Try again.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=country+of+scotland+100%25+alternative+energy&spf=1500497716586
Did you actually read this article? You need to dig deeper grasshopper. On a finite and very small number of days the production of electricity from wind exceeded usage. Wind does not contribute anywhere near 100% of the small amount of electricity required to run the country. Without digging deeper into the numbers and doing some more serious math it is difficult to tell how much electrical production comes from wind but my bar napkin math says mid 30% at best. I suggest heading over to the Scottish government site and looking in depth at periods of time longer than “perfect storm” days where it was really windy and the demand for electricity was even lower than it normally is in Scotland.
http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Business/Energy
Scotland certainly leads the world in the production of electricity from wind, but that is at best a dubious honor. The demand for electricity in Scotland is low.
It’s sort of like being the tallest midget.
More nuclear power, huh? Well, you might want a setback for that one though…. Like the next county or state…. Probably a state with a mountain range in between the two states would work best, while we wait for the “PROVEN” to be “perfected”…. (But if it is proven, then hasn’t it already been perfected??)
Yes, proven but not perfected. I think that is pretty clear. Nuclear power has proven to be the most effective long-term source of energy. But it hasn’t been perfected. So until it is we use the abundant and cheap resource of natural gas to provide electricity and put the money being pissed away on wind, solar and other magic bullet unicorn fart ideas that will never be meaningfully viable into perfecting nuclear power.
Nailed it, Stiles !
Until we “perfect” it. Will a 2800 foot setback suffice? 😉
The real answer is fuel cell technology. With that technology, there are no tall windmills, no large solar panels, no transfer wires, and no nuclear fusion and its waste….
And in the meantime, I think that Haakon County residents especially would take a 1500 foot setback over involvement in nuclear energy any day……
How many of you have ever been affected by a nuclear plant? Our neighborhood on Long Island New York was town apart by the Shoreham Nuclear plant. A nuclear plant was dropped on the small bay where local sailboats were moored, right behind our house without any concern for the safety of the people. We would have had no ability to escape if there was a Three Mile Island or Chernobyl disaster.
I drove back to the neighborhood after the plant had been built. My car’s radar detector went crazy from all the microwave activity. Not very healthy.
The Three Mile Island plant was in the river across from where a family member was living just prior to the accident.
Having been in and around wind turbines for years, I would live next to one any day before allowing a fission plant to be built. As for fusion, it has never been made usable outside of questionable labs. “Research into fusion reactors began in the 1940s, but as of 2017, no design has produced positive net energy.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoreham_Nuclear_Power_Plant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident
Diablo Canyon Power Plant is scheduled to be closed due to poor siting on a fault line, where to put the waste and the expense per KWH. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant
So put your faith in known deadly technology so you can have your AC and lights running. I put my faith in technology still being perfected for human use since the wheel was invented.
The technology for the production of electricity from wind will NEVER be perfected. The math just does not work. Not only can we not build and erect enough wind towers to completely replace other sources of electrical generation we cannot even build and erect enough to make a meaningful difference in the overall picture. Again, back to the pissing in the ocean reference; you might feel better but it won’t make any difference.
I’m not saying build nuclear plants right now and in fact there hasn’t been a new one in the US for nearly 30 years. What I am saying is use the ABUNDANTLY available, clean and efficient source of natural gas. Proven reserves of NG will provide HUNDREDS OF YEARS of electrical generation. Take all of that $$$ that is being pissed away on wind, solar, wave, etc and put it into something that is proven but not perfected and that can realistically replace NG and coal. nuclear fusion and fission.
The one thing that is being left out of this discussion about alternative energy sources and the viability of nuclear power is the fact that we need to work towards not only clean and safe alternative sources, but also sources which are small “d” democratic.
The problem with wind and nuclear is that they do not remove the middle man from energy procurement, thus causing energy to cost more than it needs too. We need to work towards energy development which empowers the consumer like with decentralized solar units or fuel cell units, where the consumers are freed from middle man manipulation and pricing.
It is probably not realistic to have a windmill in every backyard, but I question if companies like Exxon/Mobil will ever own the Sun. And the greatest enemy of fuel cell development is the fact that the energy companies do not want to let that one out of the bag. Because once they do, it will just be the consumers and their small A/C size fuel cell units powering their homes and businesses with no wires which stretch back to power plants, which are of a nuclear plant or a wind farm, or even a centralized solar farm nature.
So our real commitment to alternative energy sources should not only include concerns of safety and viability, but also empowerment of the individual consumer in its struggle with corporate America, which unfortunately often chooses profit over good public policy.