Huge off-shore wind-power project sparks backlash - Fukushima

[Yo_Mama]

I thought this was a win-win when I heard about it, but I guess nothing makes everyone happy:
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20120318p2a00m0na003000c.html

The government-sponsored project to build a huge, floating wind-power installation in waters off Fukushima Prefecture has sparked a fierce backlash from local fishermen already hit hard by the ongoing crisis at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

[mbperrin]

1. Dumb statement of the day: "the safety of the floating windmills is uncertain."

The safety of a damned nuclear plant is completely certain. So if these few square miles are restricted for fishing, that only leaves 70% of the planet's surface to be fished, right? Yeah, I can see where he's worried.

[Yo_Mama]

2. What I was guessing

was that they wouldn't be able to trawl. As for the safety, it is probably safety at sea that concerns them.

The local fishing industry is near-shore so it does have some impact on these people. How much I don't know.

It surprised me when I read the article. It does sound as if the locals are cohesively up in arms.

[phantom power]

3. People sometimes forget that there is no impact-free energy

Also, they forget that the impacts of building energy infrastructure at real scale are never completely obvious until you start doing it.

The old 1950s claims about nuclear energy are often joked about, but the lesson to take away isn't that people were naive, it's that in the 50s, nobody had built a lot of nuclear.

60 years from now, everybody will know a lot more about the impacts of large-scale wind or solar.