The Roanoke Slant

Roanoke Times, 5/28/05, Pg Va 7: Keep giant wind turbines from marring the Highlands. "Industrial wind development should be located in areas that are less sensitive, including federal lands of the West, where there are large expanses of high deserts and plains where the wind blows consistently, the environment will not be damaged, and very few people live."
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This article and the conflict behind it is typical of the difficult choices we must make to continue our dependency on electricity with our population growth of two million people per year.
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The issues with remote locations are that there are limited power transmission lines in those areas and folks "raise-Cain" when new lines are proposed. Just reflect on the 765KVA lines proposed from West-Va to our area through the federal forest. One would think that power for the people could go through the people's forest -- but -- NO. Go around, the long way, over private property! The cost of transmission is not only the construction and maintenance of the lines, but power is continuously lost during transmission for every mile traveled, forever.
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At Nantucket Sound, Ma., this same issue was fought in 2003. The environmental elitists, the Kennedy Clan, raised every issue possible to stop off-shore wind turbines including getting Walter Kronkite to make TV ads for them. However, Walter changed his position from "no" to "show-me" and then had the ads removed from the air.
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To download and view the Walter Kronkite PC (wmv) 10 MB video, click on the link. Turn-up your sound, requires high-speed internet service.
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http://www.roanokeslant.org/KronkiteWind.WMV
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Prior item:
http://roanokeslant.blogspot.com/2005/04/energy-challenge.html
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