June 12, 2006

Wind power is foolish choice

To the editor, Berkshire (Mass.) Eagle [published June 14]:

Philip Knowles says that no one is proposing lining our hills with industrial wind turbines (letter, June 12). But then he says that wind can supply 10-20 percent of our electricity. The larger figure would require more than 220,000 1.5-megawatt turbines and 26,000 square miles. As demand continues to grow, it would require yet more. But since wind turbines generate at or above their average rate only a third of the time, and their output varies from minute to minute, it would not enable the reduction of other sources. Large-scale wind is a foolish and destructive path to follow.

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, Vermont