Friday, March 24, 2017
"Contemporary Connections: Wind Energy and Offshore Wind Farms
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/23/science/americas-first-offshore-wind-farm-may-power-up-a-new-industry.html?_r=0
Wind energy is an alternative energy source that can provide power to thousands of homes with minimal impact on the environment. Offshore wind farms are in place in many European countries to harness the strong winds off the coast and provide power to large cities most commonly places along the coastline. The United States first attempt at an offshore wind farm off Block Island, Rhode Island failed due to distance off the coast, cost and loss of support from political leaders. The project was planned to have 130 turbines with the potential to provide power to 17,000 homes. It costs around $30 million dollars to build, install and connect one turbine. These towering turbines require heavier, more expensive parts to avoid corrosion from ocean waters. Also very few company's have the propper equipment to transfer and install them off the coast. Although America is behind in offshore wind energy, by waiting for prices to drop as it becomes more and more popular in Europe as well as learning from their mistakes could put us in place for an offshore wind energy take off in the next decade or so.
Wind energy is a huge environmental movement today in which the US is trying to look into to using different things to use more wind power instead of burning fossil fuels. In the article we had read for class, they had mentioned that many individuals had fought for a dam in San Fransisco. "By the first decade of the twentieth century, in the single most famous episode in American conservation history, a national debate had exploded over whether the city of San Francisco should be permitted to augment its water supply by damming the Tuolumne River in Hetch Hetchy valley, well within the boundaries of Yosemite National Park. The dam was eventually built, but what today seems no less significant is that so many people fought to prevent its completion. Even as the fight was being lost, Hetch Hetchy became the baffle cry of an emerging movement to preserve wilderness." Today, we know about the dam and see the dam but don't ever think about what happened to have the dam built. Wind energy is very similar to this event in history. Many individuals know how useful and beneficial offshore wind farms can be to the US; however, there is still a fight for developing them. Throughout the article, one of the main themes is preservation of wilderness. I think not only in the article but with many individuals in the world today we seek to preserve the wilderness. Wilderness has always something we find joy and piece in and wind energy does not effect that. Wind energy is made to keep america beautiful. Wind energy is sustaining our fossil fuels and giving us an alternative way to get energy. I think there is a huge controversy on if wind energy is too ugly. One of the main themes in the article is how we see wilderness and how we connect to it and I think many individuals believe that wind farms will take away from the beauty of the wilderness and country.
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I've always thought the argument against Wind Turbines was especially ironic. One of the main complaints you hear is "Wind Energy is ugly!" and "I don't want those in my back yard!" The fact of the matter is, that if we don't switch to energy sources such as wind, you're not going to have a backyard. I don't understand why people would rather have someone frack down the block from them and destroy the entire foundation on which their neighborhood is built, than have a mildly out of place windmill a mile from their house. Preservation of the wilderness is actually going to require some destruction of the landscape's "natural beauty," because what really matters is the preservation of what is naturally there. We can add things, but we should really stop taking things away.
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