View forever ruined from the Wheeler Peak Trail in Great Basin National Park. The industrial sprawl of the Spring Valley Wind Project from Pattern Energy as seen from the view from Great Basin National Park. The view to the west has been destroyed from multiple locations and elevations in Great Basin National Park. (photo by Dennis Ghiglieri)
TO VISIT BASIN & RANGE WATCH’S FACEBOOK PAGE, CLICK THE IMAGE.
TO READ THE AUG/SEPT Z CLICK HERE:
TO READ ALL ZBLOG POSTS CLICK HERE
11 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
The view is not ruined, just different. Think of what the view represents: homegrown, clean, renewable energy. I’m proud of White Pine County and Nevada for making this project a reality. I think it’s beautiful. If it were a polluting coal plant, a strip mine, or nuclear facility, then I’d feel different, but this change is good. It’s progress – a major step forward to a more sustainable future.
Josie…check out this link:
http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2012/04/23/faux-green-wind-power-project-well-on-its-way-below-great-basin-national-park/
AN EXCERPT: While wind turbines do kill birds, they are especially hard on the vital insect-eating bats. The bats do not get chopped up in the turbine blades. Instead the bats explode after they pass the turbine blades and move into the low pressure area behind them. It turns out the Spring Valley turbines lie right below the Rose Guano bat cave (see photo) which briefly harbors as many as 3-million migrating bats in the fall.
here’s another:
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/01/04/9952873-feds-propose-allowing-wind-farm-developer-to-kill-golden-eagles?lite
AN EXCERPT: The federal government is proposing to grant a first-of-its-kind permit that would allow the developer of a central Oregon wind-power project to legally kill golden eagles, a regulatory move being closely watched by conservationists.
The Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday released a draft environmental assessment that would allow West Butte Wind Power LLC to kill as many as three protected golden eagles over five years if the company fulfills its conservation commitments.
I agree with Josie – wind turbines are a majestic symbol of our nation’s energy independence. And the Spring Valley wind farm implemented an advanced radar system to protect birds and bats. In fact, wind farms can save birds, which is why the Audubon Society supports wind energy. The #1 detriment to birds is global warming and the drying up of wetlands (where migrating birds feed), which is exacerbated by burning CO2. So if you want to protect birds and keep your PC running — so you can continue to rant on the internet — I’d suggest getting on board with renewable energy.
Sure..so if Vegas needs the power, build these things in Vegas. NOT next to National Parks.
That’s depressing. I visited Great Basin Park a dozen years ago and should consider myself lucky. Of course, they also stick them on ridges so views from valleys are desecrated. They loom like robots wherever you put them. I am tired of mealy-mouthed “environmentalists” who call them “beautiful” and ignore what’s been lost. The former vastness and appealing loneliness of Nevada, once broken only by low-level structures and farms, is fading into history. They’re also trying to cover that state with solar arrays. Energy sprawl is out of control.
Josie wrote on August 21, 2012: “The view is not ruined, just different….I think it’s beautiful. If it were a polluting coal plant, a strip mine, or nuclear facility, then I’d feel different, but this change is good. It’s progress – a major step forward to a more sustainable future.”
That reads like the standard platitudes of the wind mob, including anti-nuclear (small footprint) rhetoric. Someone could easily say a mountaintop stripped for coal mining was merely “different” or a “beautiful” shade of gray. Why do YOU get to define what does or doesn’t qualify as industrial blight? And that wind “farm” had to be shut down for a time because it was knowingly built near bat habitat. I don’t think they ever fixed the root problem.
Any discussion of Big Wind must include FUTURE numbers, not just what’s seen today. There are already over 355,000 of them globally and some people want tenfold that number. How long with the “just different” ruse hold up as they metastasize? Honest environmentalism is rare now. You’d sold out to “green growth” and can’t admit it’s just a spinoff of dirty growth, built with the same fuels.
Mike wrote on August 22, 2012: “I agree with Josie – wind turbines are a majestic symbol of our nation’s energy independence.”
Independence? At what aesthetic cost? Anthropocentric forms of “majestic” need to stay inside cities. The Spring Valley project blighted one of the most remote big parks in America. Nature festooned with machines is just an industrial zone. You can only spin it positively to those who don’t care what’s been lost.
The number of turbines sought by green-growth zombies ranges up to 4 million, so if what we see today is “majestic,” be prepared for his royal majesty on steroids. Oceans will also become a maze of spikes and lights, in addition to all the floating trash. Nobody who really respects nature’s dwindling scenery can support these kludgy eyesores. Noise and wildlife-kills are the other big problems you people ignore or pose unworkable solutions for.
Common pro-wind-power arguments covered in detail:
https://falseprogress.home.blog/2016/08/29/windturbineslandscapes/
Continuing the Discussion