Some time ago we posted Getting Wiser with Wind, an effort to be fairly level-headed on the controversial wind technology issue. At the end of that post I solicited contributions from our readership on practical positive examples of wind technology in use. I made this request for the benefit of the greater community - in the hope that we can objectively measure the value of wind farms against the reasonably heavy array of those opposing them. If we are to get 'wiser with wind', and clean technologies in general, it's not a bad idea to converse on relative merits. Right?

Although we attracted several comments on the post itself, nobody has ventured any experience on wind farms. As such, and since our readership has grown considerably since that time, I thought I'd revisit this topic, and reiterate that request.

If you haven't read the article above, I'd encourage you to do so, but there are two main thoughts I hoped people would take from the article - points that I think everyone should at least be able to agree on:

1. Obviously, it's important that any clean technology we incorporate in a global cooling strategy does actually bring the net benefit we seek. The clock is ticking, and it's critical the energy we expend (from both our environmental resources, as well as our personal and national resources of time and money) is invested wisely, and in a timely fashion.
2. If we're not careful, in our semi-panic approach to climate change, we may incentivise actions from a profit motivation that subsequently overshadow, transcend - and defeat - their original purpose. In other words, we risk promoting even more energy-consuming and environmentally damaging industries as we try to patch our present problems, and, due to that aforementioned profit motivation, simultaneously witness the downplaying, or even ignoring, of the 'low-hanging fruit' of energy savings, efficiencies and lifestyle changes.

These same principles apply to other 'clean technologies' - from solar, wave farms, nuclear, and so on. With the possible exception of nuclear, however, wind farms seem to elicit the public ire like none other, and, whilst not seeking to attract unreasonable discourse, this makes wind a likely candidate, or vehicle, to bring the deepest consideration of these thoughts to the fore.

Today a small group of world leaders are struggling to find solutions to our looming energy crisis and to the apparent arrival of certain sooner-than-expected consequences of global warming. But, we know that amongst those leaders there is a known reluctance to actually encourage changes in the way we live. Both Tony Blair and George Bush, for example, have made it clear they're betting (with a true gung-ho gambling spirit) on inventors and scientists coming to the rescue (praised be the inventors!). With a great many vested industrial interests having chiseled away at any early idealism they may have formerly possessed, these politicians dare not broach the obvious link between consumerism and ecological meltdown. Although this link is undeniable, the concept of decreasing our carbon emissions by consuming less - by actually reducing our energy requirements - seems to be not only foreign to them, but regarded as political and economic suicide.

Within this framework of understanding, then, our covering the planet with solar panels, wind turbines and nuclear power stations becomes not only a necessity, but, in their eyes, a welcome and natural progression. Not only do we hope we'll generate sufficient energy for our growing energy demands, but in the act of doing so we create even more industries to further grow the economy. The economy-must-grow-at-any-costs mentality thus retains a stranglehold on our modern age, and the public still gets to feel good about making something of a contribution to our environmental woes.

Or do they?

Below are several clips from a presentation given in Ellis Country in Kansas. I place these here to prompt discussion (as opposed to controversy!). Although it would be good to hear people's thoughts on the issues raised in the presentation, I'd specifically like to do so in the framework of what I've said above. The clips below are dealing with issues surrounding wind farm establishment - but similar could be said about other forms of clean technology. I'd like to evoke feedback on the underlying philosophies that are at stake here - i.e. should we be increasing energy generation, or decreasing energy need? The energies of our world's leaders are exercised at the former, not the latter.

Location is the Problem

 

Noise Complaints

 

Health Implications

 

Turbine Accidents (hang in there on this one - despite a rough start, it's pretty interesting)

 

Effect on Property Values

 

Quality of Life

 

Communication Interference

 

Effects on Water

 

Wildlife Implications

 

Effects on Energy Crisis

 

Financial Costs

 

Community Liability

 

By the looks of the local newspaper's website, one could be easily forgiven for concluding the above dramas have more than just slightly interrupted their lives.

With wind farms and suchlike, we are, to one degree or another, endeavouring to continue our society as it is, merely patching it and moving on. Should we be satisfied with this approach only, or should we be seeking a social restructuring that incentivises sustainability and efficiencies over consumerism and economic growth? In other words, can we not consider building, or rebuilding, a society where our energy requirements decrease, rather than increase - where the erection of enormous wind farms becomes unnecessary - indeed, where they may begin to be seen as a very visible and profligate extension of our own excess?

At the moment some government and state bodies are subsidising clean technologies like wind. Indeed "most wind companies concede that if it weren’t for government support, they wouldn’t be in business" (NYTimes). What would happen were we to redirect that funding (and other subsidies to big industry) into preventative solutions - like household insulation, solar water heating schemes (including low-tech alternatives!), public awareness campaigns that seek to tame and redirect the power of the consumer to more productive goals - like promoting relocalisation (in its many and varied aspects), encouraging sustainable dietary habits, and supporting the enormous carbon-absorbing potential of sustainable farming practises, etc.

I would hope, and my confidence in the common-sense of humanity is being put to the test here, that people would like to see the absurdities of modern economics being corrected before we take the drastic steps of erecting nuclear power plants and wind farms, etc. Or, to be more blunt - how much energy does the average Joe have to subsidise and produce in order to support the mega-profits of a few? If a Worldwide Shift from Incandescents to Compact Fluorescents Could Close 270 Coal-Fired Power Plants, imagine what a concerted movement to relocalise could do to reduce energy demands (and to decrease regional vulnerability).

A growing number of souls are expressing a belief we've been grossly underestimating how hard it will be to replace the fossil fuels gifted to us from untold millennia of sedimentation and geological upheaval (a gift we've flagrantly squandered, by the way). And yet, "the economy must grow". If the economy "must" continue to grow, it's expedient we ask ourselves when it will end? What will we do when the world is covered in solar towers, when wind turbines stand on every ridge line, when wave farms circumnavigate all our coastlines, and when we've used every available space to grow crops to feed ourselves, the animals we eat, and our vehicles?

One possibility is just to tag along with the fantasists in government and industry who would have us believe that we can pursue our ideals of affluence, comfort, mobility, and leisure indefinitely. This curious faith is predicated on the notion that we will soon develop unlimited new sources of energy.... This is fantastical because the basic cause of the energy crisis is not scarcity; it is moral ignorance and weakness of character. We don’t know how to use energy, or what to use it for. And we cannot restrain ourselves. Our time is characterized as much by the abuse and waste of human energy as it is by the abuse and waste of fossil fuel energy. Nuclear power, if we are to believe its advocates, is presumably going to be well used by the same mentality that has egregiously devalued and misapplied man- and womanpower. If we had an unlimited supply of solar or wind power, we would use that destructively, too, for the same reason.

Perhaps all of those sources of energy are going to be developed. Perhaps all of them can sooner or later be developed without threatening our survival. But not all of them together can guarantee our survival, and they cannot define what is desirable. - Wendell Berry, The Agricultural Crisis, A Crisis of Culture. p. 16, 17

Forgive me, but I have to ask the question: is it possible that our cleantech controversies are merely a distraction from real and lasting solutions? In our economic short-sightedness, perhaps we cannot see the forest, or the trees?