Turbines only offer ‘crumbs’ of benefits, while damaging landscape

Editor:

We note several letters in support of industrial wind in Barre.

The lack of understanding of what these turbines will do for the community is quite alarming.

The writers cite financial advantages to the communities but fail to understand the enormous almost unthinkable profit taking that will take place. Imagine that each turbine, we hear, represents $6,000 (Six Thousand) in revenues from subsidies and generation. That number is per day. Do the math.

So please tell your readers not to sell out for crumbs. That is all a new school yard or community improvement ever is: crumbs.

The harm to the community will be immeasurable. The fact is that even with curtailment at night, many creatures, at unacceptable levels of impact, will be killed. It is inevitable. How many more bats can we afford to lose? Each bat consumes about 1,000 insects per hour. Imagine the benefit to agriculture. Bats are now known to experience the most impact, never mind White Nose Syndrome, from industrial wind turbines.

The fact is: there will be very few long-term permanent jobs. That is a fact. Spain, the UK and Italy, have lost net jobs due to the high cost of power. Ontario, Canada, has lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs in 8 years mainly due to the Green Energy Act, and again, the high cost of power.

Someone gets rich: it is not the community, the town, and the people. Guess who. And please ask your readers to remember that worldwide, electricity is only achieved at point two of one percent, net zero, from wind turbines. What a waste of landscape, habitat, fossil fuels, from which they derive, and what a chilling lack of human imagination.

We wish and pray that the Heritage Wind project, what a docile name, never sees the light of day.

Sherri Lange

Scarborough, Ontario

(Lange is CEO of North American Platform Against Wind Power and Executive Director of Canada, Great Lakes Wind Truth.)