What Was Once Hailed as First U.S. Offshore Wind Farm Is No More
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Edit: BTW, I go by wind farms all the time on my way through beautiful Cle Elum Washington and they do not spoil the view in the slightest.
They are not nearly as jarring as the ugly houses people are building in the upper Madison County in Montana where my family lives.
I don't know what this means. Are you referring to actions taken by other Kennedy family members? If so, why should the actions of one's relatives fall exactly in line with one's own legacy, lest their family be deemed hypocritical? That seems like an awfully high bar that presupposes the family is a single moral and ethical unit.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/201...
At least, that's how it looks to me as a complete outsider.
“Kennedy said later that walking away from that deal was one of the biggest mistakes of his life.”
“Over time, Kennedy realized his own plan couldn’t succeed. Opposition from the insurance companies was too great. So Kennedy dispatched his staffers to meet secretly with Nixon’s people to broker a compromise. Kennedy came close to backing Nixon’s plan, but turned away at the last minute, under pressure from the unions. Then Watergate hit and took Nixon down.”
Kennedy introduces a real reform bill; Nixon introduces a weak, "compromise" bill so the opponents of real reform (like the insurance companies) can use to oppose it while avoiding the wrath of the people who understand the status quo is terrible, by looking like they also want changes. Kennedy, defeated, judges whether accepting Nixon's bill - despite its intent - is still worth it, or whether the unions are right that it imposes too great of a cost on employees (25% of premiums). He makes a decision, then later he regrets it.
Not when that is how they amass their power. They pretend to be squeaky clean but JFK used to rape women in the oval office.
I visited the Wild Horse wind farm, and the turbines were on fairly nondescript terrain, if anything enhancing it. I think this is unlike, say, the Palouse area (a few hours east) or the Lake District in the UK, where farms are being erected on particularly beautiful countryside.
Of course it quickly becomes very subjective.
You wouldn't happen to be involved in the MSFT data center business?
Of course it's in the eye of the beholder.
I do work for Microsoft but I'm in an enterprise Hololens business based in Issaquah.
I dislike these families blocking this initiative, but talk to almost any American about how much more they pollute, contribute to global warming, deplete resources, and so on more than nearly anyone in the world (without being any happier) and you'll generally hear agreement.
Ask them to consider flying less or some similar change to their lifestyle and you'll hear similar opposition.
But as another user pointed out, they are a large family and assuming one speaks for all is unfair.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fracking-tillerson/ex...
Tillerson, former Republican heavyweight Dick Armey and other residents of a ranch-filled suburb of Bartonville north of Dallas filed suit in 2012 seeking to block construction of the 160-foot-tall (49-meter-tall) water tower, arguing it would be an eyesore.
The suit, filed in Denton County District Court, also noted that the tower could encourage the town of Bartonville to sell “water to oil and gas explorers for fracking shale formations leading to traffic with heavy trucks... creating a noise nuisance and traffic hazards.”
I think a lot of our energy "debate" is caught up in opinionated words... "renewable" instead of "low carbon", "electricity" instead of "energy". These words frame our thinking and dialog in a manner quite favorable to entrenched primary energy interests :/
I'm not sure how you don't understand this. /s
This argument holds for noise too: all the references I could find suggest wind turbines are far quieter than other forms of development. In my experience wind turbines aren't obtrusively loud at all. In my city we've installed a wind turbine at the top of a popular mountain and I can't remember ever distinctly hearing it, even within a couple of km[0]. The same cannot be said about highways or other development.
0. Grouse Mountain, overlooking Vancouver. I even think the wind turbine looks incredibly beautiful when you see it peaking up from the top of the mountain.
https://www.grousemountain.com/media/W1siZiIsIjIwMTcvMDEvMzA...
Edit: These are also the same people that claim to be progressives and for the POC(I'm liberal) in politics but when it comes to actually doing something that would have cleaner air, their first reaction is to NIMBY it. These are exactly what these people are. It's a definition.
That's nominal capacity, rate of generation appears to be 24 % of nominal; what can effectively be utilized is then below that.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_Kingd...
It is weather dependant but that number grows depending on the day
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navitus_Bay_wind_farm
I'm about 80% convinced that the MP behind it - Robert Syms, was in the pocket of somebody who saw a large wind farm threatening their investments in other forms of power generation. The idea that this was actually about the view is laughable.
On the other hand, the industry learned so long as the turbines are out of sight, they are out of the NYMBY's minds.
NIMBY - Not In My Back Yard
Being in politics is supposed to mean being a public servant.
Well okay, how much power do you think Senators give their servants? They probably don't think of their housekeepers/sitters/chefs/etc's opinions at all. If their dog-walker objects to the dog that they get, what's going to happen? The dog sure isn't going to change.
> "It's all for the good of the city, sir. Do you know where the word 'policeman' comes from? It means 'man of the city', sir. From the old word polis."
> ...
> "You're a man interested in words, captain. I'd just invite you to consider something your predecessor never fully grasped."
> "Sir?"
> "Have you ever wondered where the word 'politician' comes from?" Said the Patrician.
These roles have a very specific purpose, and that purpose is service. They've veered sharply away from it, but that is still their job. Also, I think in real life the root is 'politia' or 'politika' or something, but the definition is similar.
And another word from that book: 'polite' apparently came from 'behavior befitting someone living in a city.' I guess social norms maybe became more important with the density?
These terms were thus all created in the first democracy we know of. However, that was then followed by millennia of monarchies. Modern democracies came into existence in an environment where monarchies were still the norm and it shows. I find it reminiscent of the fact that Christians celebrate Christmas which is supposedly a Christian holiday by following all kinds of pagan rituals like the entire Christmas tree thing.
politicians then use this wealth to divide the rest of the country to insure their continuance in power. they are loyal to their party before the people and it is that stranglehold that needs to be broken to bring accountability back.
disclaimer: I voted straight D in the last 4 elections
This uniparty allows fringes of either side some pet causes, but at the heart of it, both parties share the same values.
That's not all that bad either, it guarantees continuity and limited disruption --but we need to understand that's how it works and its consequent limitations.
The only non unipartarians the last 25 years have been Perot, perhaps Sanders and Trump. Prior to that JFK.
That's what the powerful tell the naive. Politics is about power and money.
The idea that powerful families are radically different because they support one side of politics or another is a great myth used to manipulate and control people. An average poor or middle class family has more in common with another such family on the other side of a political spectrum than with their respective party leaders.
Powerful families are chummy with other powerful people because power ends up being the most important status symbol, and ideology can hide behind it.
It's basically the reason that orthodox Republican economic policy can even exist. It's terribly debunked theory, but because the messengers are WSJ op-ed writers that went to fancy schools and wear bow ties to work, their view "couldn't possibly be just wrong".
There was some polls recently that showed that when asked about GOP tax plans, people refused to believe that the pollsters were even telling the truth on the facts, because it was so absurd. Of course there wouldn't be a tax break for private jet maintenance!
But politicians believe their friends, just like we all do. It's the base of "keep politics out of X".
Immigration, taxes, healthcare, these are all places where the final results would be massively different with a Democratic majority right now.
Perhaps in the 90s it was less different. But now there's such a clear difference.
Sure Democrats aren't asking for full blown socialism. But they're asking for stuff thats way different than what the GOP is pushing for.
And I say this as someone who would like to see global warming hurry up and wash eastern MA into the Atlantic ocean.
Also, it takes a special kind of stupid to think you can take on rich and very well connected people and win.
>Lawsuits piled up, delaying the project. Cape Wind missed a series of contractual milestones, prompting National Grid Plc and Northeast Utilities’ NSTAR unit to cancel power-purchase agreements in early 2015. At the time, analysts declared the project all but dead.
I forget, is that the one where people were supposed to pay more than the already sky-high electricity rates for Locally Grown(TM) Non GMO(TM) Green(TM) energy or was that a different one?
Maybe when located out in the ocean the sound would blend, but if on land I would not want one anywhere near where I live.
Anyway I heard they are making great strides with solar and even tidal power, I doubt those will keep you awake.
That really surprises me.
I've got a dozen turbines less than 10km away literally facing my windows (I can see them unless it's really foggy) and I never heard them, despite having real trouble sleeping when there's any sort of noise. The turbines are half a klick from a small town too, they'd have been burned down a long time ago if they could be heard from 10.
well maybe it was the terrain, it is a mountainous and maybe the shape caused come kind of reverb. I know I was warned by my camping neighbors about the sound and I thought "how bad can it be".
But it was a rough night with little sleep due to the sound.
The impact on views of wind turbines is minimal. Even if you don’t like ‘em, I’m sure you’ll acknowledge that some minor inconvenience is better than long-term environmental damage.
Also, wind turbines dont really do that much damage to bird populations: https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-scienc...
http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/new/us-windfarms-kill-...
My point was that the elites of Martha's Vineyard were able to kill the project, and at least part of that was based on what they look like. Windmills in the distant ocean view are much less impacting of views than ones prominently arrayed across ridge lines.
It appears there's one rule for little people and other for elites.
I grew up with them when they first started sprouting up in the UK. Decades ago now.
Do they really kill lots of birds? What articles have you read on this? Bird strikes were one of my concerns originally but I found the original claims to be unfounded.
I’m not sure why people focus on the estimated 100k to 1M birds and bats killed by windmills[1] when house cats kill 1-2 Billion[2]. Perhaps they have an agenda?
1: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-many-birds-do-... 2: http://www.businessinsider.com/cats-kill-billions-of-birds-a...