OK I gotta get everyone's opinion

[WVCoalMiner]

Yes, I am a WV Coal Miner. I work UNDERGOUND so I DO NOT do mountaintop removal mining where the top of the mountain is taken off.
But I have a hard time understanding WHY the environmentalists see this option as preserving the beauty of the mountain.....

Here is a mountain that has been mined and in a few years grow trees and flora and look just fine albeit a little "shorter" or make a great place for a commercial/industrial site on what was once unbuildable land.


Now here is what they are wanting..........


I just cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would want to see these things plastered all over the place. You used to be able to walk up to the turbines and look at them but now they have a 6 foot fence with barbed wire around the top about 200 yards away and have NO TRESPASSING signs up because they do not want people to see all of the dead birds and bats that are being killed by the turbines as they migrate.

[candleman]

i dont know if its an issue of preserving the beauty.. its more about emissions.

the issue is that burning coal produces all sorts of things that go up into the atmosphere, and those nasties (Co2, NoX, SoX, etc etc) are contributors to Climate Change

wind farms are zero emissions..
(they burn stuff to make electricity) so therefore dont destroy the earth.. it just akes it a little ugly..... for a little while.

i work in power generation.. designing these beasts
(Gas and Coal fired stations)


a wind turbine can be takedown and nobody would ever know it was there.. after a coal fired station has been in operation... the after effects last a long long time in that area.

[WVCoalMiner]

are contributors to Climate Change

It's a natural phenomenon of the earth the climate has not changed a bit since I think it was 1998.

If it is about emissions then why are they leaving underground mines alone and telling Massey energy either mine it underground or don't mine it at all. The tree huggers out here could care less that it is being burned they just want to stop mountain top removal???????? Who knows??

[CaptainNH]

Wind farms always seem to cause dramas here in Aus due to the visual impact.

I have to say, I love the look of them on the horizon on a clear blue-skied day - I love the contrast between white, blue and green and the repetitive patterns that they inevitably bring.

As to their other impact on the environment - I wouldn't like to comment - I know nothing about that area.

[briandee]

We need more nuclear plants :> French, German, and the rest of the European countries have nuke power, why cant we ? Nuclear is cleaner and safer than any other energy.


Anyway, back to the point. I think windmills are really pretty when its ONE in the back of a farm house or something. Fifty on the top of the mountain ? yuck, who needs em.

[Rolling Stone]

You can go to So. Cal. and see 500 in one spot. And yet a cell tower is visual pollution. Go figuire.

[Ma Noob]

I live in a town that has a coal powered electricity producing station, it powers most of the state. While i recognise that there are heaps of jobs, its one of the major industries in the town. you have to wonder when you see the smog coming out of it what damage is it doing. Especially being a nurse like i am and seeing the large amount of cancers in the town. You cant help thinking sometimes that the two are linked. But again i know the social and job impact of closing a major station, the town that supplies our coal (open cut mine) would die if the mine closed.

However, i certainly dont think the windmills are ugly. There is a big row of them 100+ on the way to Adelaide, and they look beautiful. Its nice to see them spinning in the wind. At night the lights running down the hills look really nice. I think cause what they are doing is a beautiful thing as well, and alternative energy is something that has to be explored.

But being a coalminer, and directly affected by further introduction of alternative energy, i can certainly understand your resentment towards them.

[Woody]

Gee,

Don't get me started. I dislike Mobile Phone towers as much as the Wind farms that are springing up everywhere. I don't know about the bird strikes. Is it as bad as the destruction of kangaroos and wombats, not to mention the scavenging birds that litter out roads?

For thirty years as a Horticulturalist I've worked with mines, supplying products and consulting in areas of rehabilitation, erosion control etc, so as an environmental professional, I see the contamination of our ground water and the destruction of our productive farm lands as the biggest threat to our environment. Its unlikely that you will see visual polution from a modern coal fired power plant and the contribution to atmospheric polution is negligible, carbon dioxide represents just ZERO POINT THREE percent. Anthropogenic or man made greenhouse gas is just 2.33 percent of this ie 2.33 percent of .03% Thats .067 of all gasses in the atmosphere.

The climate changes every day, just ask the weather forcasters, but like King Canute, some think we can stop Nature from doing what it does. How arrogant of us.

Dont believe the climate chane evangelists.

Cheers,
John W

[Decran]

It's a shame that the wind turbines could not be made to look more pleasant, like windmills and maybe put the kinetic energy to more use than converting to electricity.

I see the Norwegians have got an alternative source, using salt water and fresh water which produce electric and absolutely no waste whatsoever, brilliant.

[DogHeadGod]

While I am unsure of their impact to flying wildlife, I must admit that I like to see the huge turbines on a hillside. I'd much rather be looking out my window onto the second picture than the first.