Saturday 11 April 2009

CPRW's windy logic

And now its Janet DubĂ©'s turn to rail against wind farms in the Guardian is an assertion laden opinion piece with a fact deficit. She writes,
They [wind turbines] appear to have been successfully deployed in Denmark and in Germany - both countries where the electricity grid operates differently from our own.
but does not deign to tell us what these difference might be. It would be remarkable if the operations of power grids in different countries were identical, but we want to know if these differences are significant. Without details, this is empty rhetoric. She continues
The technology needed to capture wind energy is neither renewable nor sustainable.
This is to redefine both "renewable" and "sustainable". A veritable Humpty Dumpty argument. 
The promotion of such a system may even be dangerous, because we need to conserve energy and promote serious alternatives to the "energy-greedy" systems we've become dependent on.
No one promoting wind turbine doubts the need for energy efficiency. This is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for a substainable future. But dangerous? Only to Don Quixote disciples.

Are these arguments really the best CPRW can come up with? Why don't they just confess to being reactionary nimbys?