Gone with the wind

Technology is wonderful. Someone dreams up an idea, and pretty soon it's a multibillion-dollar industry, generating wealth and jobs.

Take the locomotive, the automobile, the personal computer.

Take the nuclear-powered airplane, the personal rocket pack, the aircraft carrier built out of an iceberg.

Well, no, better not take those last three. Plenty was spent on their development, but they now rest on the scrap heap of history.

This is what people in the electricity generating industry mean when they refer to coal and gas and even nuclear-fueled power plants as "proven baseload power" sources, while warning that nicer-sounding alternatives including wind, solar and geothermal may well be worth exploring, but remain unlikely to meet more than 10 or 15 percent of our needs in the foreseeable future.

Take wind turbines. Please.

"Giant wind turbines at Altamont Pass, Calif., are illegally killing more than 1,000 birds of prey each year, according to a lawsuit filed January 12 by the Center for Biological Diversity," The Heartland Institute's Environment News reported in March 2004. "The suit demands an injunction halting operation of the turbines until and unless protective measures are taken and highlights increasing concerns regarding a power source long hailed as environmentally friendly by environmental activist groups.

" 'Altamont has become a death zone for eagles and other magnificent and imperiled birds of prey," said Jeff Miller, a spokesman for the Center for Biological Diversity. "Birds come into the pass to hunt and get chopped up by the blades."

Cape Wind, a proposed offshore wind farm in Massachusetts' Nantucket Sound, "has drawn strong protest from area residents," reports Wired magazine. "Audra Parker, assistant director of The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, which opposes the project, said the location lies along bird-migration paths, and the turbines could also prove dangerous to marine mammals. ..."

Meantime, the Center for Biological Diversity has successfully blocked a proposed wind farm in Southern California's Mojave Desert because it would have required building access roads in an area that is home to bighorn sheep.

But this week's report in The Kansas City Star surely takes the cake.

"Last year, 400-foot-tall wind turbines were erected near King City, some less than 2,000 feet from Charlie Porter's house on his small acreage. ...

"The towers are nearly 260 feet tall, and each of the three blades is 140 feet. When they turn, they emit a low, humming vibration."

Nina Pierpont, a New York pediatrician who has taught at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, has found a consistent cluster of symptoms associated with people living under wind turbines, including sleep problems, headaches that increase in severity, dizziness, nausea, exhaustion, anger and irritability. She calls it "wind turbine syndrome" and says it appears to be an emerging problem.

Mr. Porter said his family, including his 11-year-old daughter, has suffered from headaches and sleeplessness. "It's like somebody swinging a rope over your head," he said. "Some days, it's worse than other days. The only way you can get away from it is to drive into town."

Mr. Porter reports he's had the property up for sale for a year, but can't find a buyer.

Mr. Porter's complaints upset his brother-in-law, a Gentry County commissioner who helped bring the wind farm and new economy to the area, as well as others. According to a lawsuit filed in federal court by Mr. Porter, it was during the Christmas holidays that family emotions over the towers began splitting at the seams.

After receiving a threat from Commissioner Gary Carlson, Mr. Porter said, he drove out to meet Mr. Carlson and on the way called the sheriff to report a fight was about to happen.

About a half mile from his home, Mr. Porter met Mr. Carlson, Mr. Carlson's wife and a brother. Mr. Porter said he was thrown to the ground, hit and kicked.

Since then, the Gentry County Commission has hired an attorney.

Mr. Carlson said that the attorney had advised him not to talk about the fight or the lawsuit.

But the greedy energy companies are just "dragging their feet" on these unproven technologies.

They could be selling us power too cheap to meter if they'd just abandon coal and nuclear tomorrow. It'll all be smooth sailin'. Nothing could go wrong.

Right?