Wind turbines in Wyoming could help California's climate change fight

latimes.com

6 points·jseliger··4 comments

I've done several road trips through these areas and I'd like to push back on the idea that these projects are going to change the landscape forever. There is so much wide open space inhabited by basically no one that a wind farm or solar farm will barely be noticed, especially since the windy spots are usually isolated. No one wants to live where the wind blows hard all the time.

People don't understand the scale of the amount of space. For example, some people get all worked up about Bill Gates being the largest farm land owner in America. He owns about 270,000 acres, which if put together would be a square 20 miles to the side. That's a small state county.

But... California has sun. Why shouldn't they put solar panels on their land and roofs? Also, the turbines are indeed ugly. I live near some and they are much worse than the rolling, unmolested hills we have elsewhere.

Well, I would agree with a law that said you can't build wind farms next to populated areas where they might be noisy and an eyesore. My point is there are vast tracts of uninhabited and windy land in the West where a wind farm wouldn't bother anyone. Similar to how Europeans put them offshore, which they can do due the shallow offshore seafloor.

Panels on your roof are no more ugly than a composite shingle roof, meanwhile I actually do see windmills and they mare the landscape. Windmills will become NIMBY once enough people have tired of their novelty. They're NIMBY for me now. There may be vaste spaces, but they're not unloved wastelands. Whoever finds themselves there will have their view mared by windmills. It seems selfish when CA has the sun and roofspace to get the job done themselves.

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