[at-l] RE: Windmills

[wdaniels@bestweb.net (Walt Daniels)]

>From what I have seen so far on this issue, I have not seen any mention of
one of the central issues. The situation may have changed since. The last
reports I saw was that one of the central missing pieces was a demand for
more power anywhere near Reddington. As we have seen time and time again, a
centralized power grid approach has many problems and generating the power
nearer to its point of use has many fewer problems. The principal effect of
building excess power or roads, etc. where there is no demand is to induce
sprawl. In that case of central Maine the result will be yuppify the area
and make it completely unaffordable for the locals who are happy (they tell
us) with their current life style even though many of us might consider it a
meager existence. You will force them out of the area as surely as taking
their property by eminent domain and no one is proposing that.

I do not fear the windmills as much as I fear the development it will bring
with it.

As for the nuclear arguments, they are mostly irrational fear of the
unknown. I live less than ten miles downwind from the Indian Point reactors
in NY and have absolutely no fear of them. Nuclear power is not an unknown
to me - my eduation is as a physicist. "creating radioactive uranium" is
nonsense. Uranium is naturally radioactive. The fission process does however
create numerous other radioactive byproducts and it is the disposal of these
byproducts that is the central problem of using nuclear energy. The
radioactivity released into the immediate environment of a nuclear plant is
much less than the radioactivity released in the smokestack of coal burning
plants - oil and gas are cleaner.