Industrial Wind Turbines: Report from Ground Zero

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 24, 2022 No Comments

“Is there anyone, literally ANYONE, who lives near one of these turbines who has publicly shared that their living experience near a wind turbine is “great”? Or even NOT significantly, negatively impacted?”

Hundreds of wind and solar projects in the U.S. have been delayed or blocked by effective grassroots opposition, according to Robert Bryce. Real environmentalists, the keepers of rural life, have every reason to complain against the government-enabled intrusion into their quiet lives: noise, flicker light, land degradation, lowered property values.

MasterResource has previously reported on the growing anti-wind zoning ordinance movement against industrial wind; the “avian mortality’ problem; and the on-the-ground work by such environmentalists as Kevon Martis; and the negative health effects. Solar projects are also attracting serious local opposition.

Add Larissa Plagge of Environmentalists Against Wind Turbines to the list of determined opponents of industrial wind.…

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Bald Eagle ‘Takings’: Biden’s Interior Department Protects Big Wind

By Jim Wiegand -- March 2, 2022 1 Comment

“Where are the true environmentalists in this debate? Sierra Club …. Natural Resources Defense Council? The bird groups are even suing on aviation mortality issues.”

America’s green energy push has been going on for decades. It never sleeps. And it is both anti-environmental and corrupt.

I have been writing about industrial wind’s “avian mortality” problem in California for years (see here and here). Particular carnage has been documented by the California Energy Commission at Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area. It has gotten so bad that the National Audubon Society recently filed suit against a proposed 80 MW wind facility there.

With biased research and imaginary population estimates, Big Wind wants to increase its bald eagle “take” in America. The previous limit set in 2016 was 4,200 bald eagles annually; Biden’s Department of Interior proposes to almost quadruple this to 15,832.…

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National Audubon Society Sues Bay Area Wind Turbines (Altamont Pass–a 40-year problem)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 8, 2022 No Comments

Altamont Pass has been a black eye on the entire wind industry since its construction.” (National Audubon Society, below)

“… the need for renewable energy is not an excuse to … wipe out local populations of wildlife. Wind companies are making billions and can afford to ensure projects are responsibly sited and include adequate mitigations to reduce impacts to sensitive species.” (Ariana Rickard, Mount Diablo Audubon Society, below)

Altamont Pass again? Back in 1997, my Policy Analysis for the Cato Institute, “Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not ‘Green’,” included a section, “The ‘Avian Mortality’ Problem,” that focused on Altamont Pass, then the nation’s largest wind farm and a documented killing field for protected birds.

That 625-MW project was just a short car ride away from the San Francisco headquarters of the Natural Resources Defense Council.…

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Wind Turbines and Birds: Latest from the American Bird Conservancy

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- June 14, 2021 No Comments

“Which source of mortality kills more or less birds is somewhat irrelevant…. the threat posed by wind turbines grows with each facility constructed in a high-risk area for birds.”

– Joel Merriman, American Bird Conservancy

The “avian mortality problem” has long been an issue for industrial wind turbines, as chronicled over the years at MasterResource. Even fossil fuel critics, such as Paul Gipe (and Christopher Flavin) in Wind Energy Comes of Age (1995), have lamented the by-products of industrial wind. And who can forget the characterization used by the Los Angeles head of the Sierra Club in a 1989 hearing? “Cuisinarts of the Air’.

The problem persists. At the anti-wind site, Stop These Things, one author wrote this week: “Cars, cats and skyscrapers don’t kill Eagles – like the critically endangered Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle, but 60m wind turbine blades with their tips travelling at 350Kph routinely smash them out of existence.”…

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Trump’s Energy/Climate Policies in Review (Part II)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 13, 2021 1 Comment Continue Reading

Yesterday’s Eco-complaints; Today’s ‘Planet of the Humans’

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 15, 2020 No Comments Continue Reading

‘Democrats Run from Green New Deal, Fracking Bans’ (E&E News reports, you decide)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 21, 2020 1 Comment Continue Reading

LEEDCo on the Brink (freshwater wind’s eco-nightmare)

By Sherri Lange -- September 14, 2020 21 Comments Continue Reading

Renewable Energy: Second Thoughts (Moore/Gibbs documentary in the news)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 14, 2019 7 Comments Continue Reading

Energy & Environmental Newsletter: May 28, 2019

By -- May 28, 2019 2 Comments Continue Reading