Tag Archives: wind farms

The Politics of Alternative Energy (3): The Need for Public Ownership of the Carbon “Idea”

(July 4, 2011) “If in the long run we are the makers of our own fate, in the short run we are the captives of the ideas we have created”. These words of economist and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek’s today resonate loudly in the carbon “idea” – that the West should fast-track a low-carbon economy no matter what the socio-economic cost. Continue reading

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Lawrence Solomon: Go fish — wind developers forced to shut down to protect salmon stocks

(May 19, 2011) Wind farms not only threaten the landscape, they also threaten marine life, as wind developers in Washington State just learned to their dismay. The Bonneville Power Authority, a major power utility in the Columbia River system, has ordered wind producers feeding unwanted power into its grid to shut down their operations to protect salmon stock. Continue reading

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Lawrence Solomon: Renewables now bigger than nuclear

(May 18, 2011) The world now has more renewable electricity capacity than nuclear capacity, according to a recent report from the Worldwatch Institute. According to its World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2010–2011, just four types of renewables — wind, small-scale hydro, solar, and biomass – accounted for 381 gigawatts (GW) of capacity at the end of 2010, edging past nuclear power’s 375 GW of capacity. Continue reading

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Lawrence Solomon: What Hudak failed to say

(May 11, 2011) In a much ballyhooed speech yesterday, would-be Ontario Premier Tim Hudak promised to kill the financing method that Premier Dalton McGuinty uses to build wind turbines. But Hudak doesn’t promise to kill wind turbines. He merely proposes some alternative financing method, not yet described, to bring Ontarians more wind turbines. Hudak’s wind turbines will also be uneconomic, just less so than McGuinty’s. Continue reading

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