On wind power, a cautionary tale blows in from New York
Renewable energy is so hot right now that Barack Obama met this week with oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens – who helped finance the “Swift Boat” campaign against the last 
Democratic nominee for president — to hear his ideas on wind.
Missouri, in many ways, is at the center of the movement, with a town in the northwest corner of the state, Rock Port, that has laid claim to being the first in the U.S. to run totally on wind.
The Rock Port windmills were installed by Tom Carnahan, founder of St. Louis-based Wind Capital Group and a member of the first family of Missouri Democrats.
A ballot item submitted to Tom’s sister, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, could eventually require 15 percent of all electricity in Missouri to come from renewable sources. (Backers filed a lawsuit last week disputing her ruling that the measure lacked the necessary signatures.)
While Rock Port has received glowing reviews in the national news – and from Gov. Matt Blunt — a different story has emerged in upstate New York, where the windmills have stirred resentment and suspicion.
On Sunday, CNN.com featured a story about a family divided by the turbines that stand like sentinels across the landscape, their constant whirling a bane to some, cash cow to others.
The New York Times, also on Sunday, wrote about how coziness between wind companies and local officials have sparked an investigation by the state’s attorney general, Andrew Cuomo.
From the Times’ story:
Lured by state subsidies and buoyed by high oil prices, the wind industry has arrived in force in upstate New York, promising to bring jobs, tax revenue and cutting-edge energy to the long-struggling region. But in town after town, some residents say, the companies have delivered something else: an epidemic of corruption and intimidation, as they rush to acquire enough land to make the wind farms a reality.
It’s a telling reminder that, as officials on both sides of the aisle push to relieve the nation’s energy crisis, it’s not always easy to tell which way the wind is going to blow.
I think land availability in update New York is completely different form that in Northwest Missouri. This may be why (thought still unexcusable) that some speculators and developers have used intimidation tactics.
One major technological break thru in the near future
is all it would take make these silly windmills a mute point.
Get the oil we need now where we can by drilling or oil shale.
American inguenity will over come any obstical given a little time & $$$.
Just to nit-pick:
Suzyjax - it would be in “upstate New York” not “update”
Old Sarge - while I appreciate conservatives making “mute points” because I then do not have to listen to them blather on, they also often make “moot points” which usually turn out to be of no significance.
Of course I trust honest American ingenuity to which the only obstacle is those afraid of change.
Just in a nit-picking mood.