Wind Energy

Pro-Wind Energy ? And Proud Of It

If you were to measure the issue by bulk of material and sites on the internet alone, the anti-wind power groups come out on the heavy side. But quantity doesn’t equal quality. Dig deeper and read, not the rhetoric, but the facts.

I’ve been reading the scientific reports, the medical reports, the scientific literature reviews and found very little proof against wind turbines. Reading both sides of the argument and understanding the views is very important to me. I don’t see that manner of due diligence in the anti-wind arguments. They held a “symposium” in October 2010, but invited only those “experts” that supported their views. Where was the dialogue? They declared it was the “first symposium on the subject,” but acoustic and sound experts from around the world have been meeting annually at International Institute of Noise Control Engineering congresses since at least the 1970s to discuss their studies and findings on wind turbine and other industrial noise producers (www.i-ince.org). Anti-wind groups demand moratoriums on development. They shut people out of public meetings who disagree with them. They split communities with their unwillingness to compromise. I know the motives of the developers – they want to erect wind turbine projects. What are the motives of the anti-wind groups?

The health issue is just one of the many arguments they present (more on that in another blog). However, with the provincial election on the horizon, they have been gearing up for a rhetoric battle arguing the whole move to wind energy is a Liberal scam, a public relations ploy and the Conservatives are lining up behind them to help throw insults and accusations, with no energy platform of their own. I am not convinced. I live in the hinterlands of the Bruce Nuclear Power Development. I’ve worked there and I remember how the Conservatives almost destroyed the source of power that accounts for almost 50% of Ontario’s present generating capacity. So I decided to see for myself what shape our power system was in.

After reading about the demands currently facing our electricity supply system, I firmly believe that in this debate, we will only succeed as a province if we work together to bring renewable energy into the mainstream. I’m not denying there are issues to confront but communication and keeping all levels of business and government accountable is the only way to work through them. Important websites to dig into that explain Ontario’s electricity supply system are www.ieso.ca (the Independent Electricity Supply Operator) and www.oeb.gov.on.ca (Ontario Energy Board – check out both the consumer and industry sides of the site to get the big picture). If you go into the News section of Ontario Power Authority website www.powerauthority.on.ca), you can read the quarterly reports about what is going on at the nuclear and hydro-electric generation stations. After delving deeper than the name-calling and government conspiracies arguments proposed by anti-wind power, you will be much better informed about what successes and challenges face our energy system.

I believe that Ontario (and the world) is finally facing the fact that big change is needed in the way we live if we want to guarantee a place that is as comfortable and livable for our great-grandchildren as it is for us. Great change evokes great opposition, as is readily apparent in the anti-wind groups. But opposition for the sake of maintaining an ailing status quo is wrong.

www.harvestingwindsupport.com/blog/