The Roanoke Slant

Roanoke Times, 2/4/09, Pg Va 9: Commentary by Rick Webb of UVa: Wind power needs regulation.
Roanoke Times, 3/12/09, Pg 19: Commentary by Rick Webb of UVa (AGAIN) Wind project deserves no stimulus
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The highland wind-farm project has been in the Virginia regulatory swamp for 5 years. After all the smoke has settled the two issues the so called “environmentalists” are hung-on are the numbers of bats and birds that may fly into the blades. Apparently akin to the flock of geese that flew into the compressor-blades of the US Airways jet in the Hudson River.
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What are we doing about the hundreds of millions of birds that are killed each year by outside-house cats and other animals and birds of prey? What are we doing about the bats that die each year from rabies and now the tens of millions that are dying from “white nose syndrome”? Apparently Mother Nature has her own blades.
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Why are the Virginia wind turbines a monumental risk while less that 50 miles away in Tucker Mills, West Virginia their wind farms are producing megawatts of clean-green energy? Are our birds and bats less risk averse than theirs?
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Prior Roanoke Times opinion articles gloss over as trivial the restrictions that Virginia bureaucratic regulators have placed on the Highlands turbines. For perspective, suppose you apply for a home building permit and the building inspector tells you that “you can build the house, but, every week there will be an inspection and if more than two birds per week are killed by flying into your windows and glass doors, you will have to tear down the house”. Would anyone build under those conditions, and would any bank provide a mortgage on such a house?
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Apparently there are lots of green-power proponents who are all talk about how they’re going to replace fossil fuel in 10 years but then refuse to recognize that all power generation has adverse consequences and so they obstruct making the changes that are required. When you blow away their smokey wind, the bottom line is obstructionism as an end in itself and a commitment to the Jihad of no more power development of any kind no matter how green.
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Prior Items:
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http://roanokeslant.blogspot.com/2009/02/more-kaine-green-hypocrisy.html
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