(VT) Governor criticizes wind power ruling

[jpak]

http://www.sunjournal.com/index.php?t=3&storyid=224394

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - Gov. Jim Douglas on Thursday said he was "disappointed" with the Public Service Board's approval a day earlier of a 16-turbine wind power project planned for the northeastern Vermont town of Sheffield.

"I don't think industrializing our ridge lines is the right thing to do for the natural beauty of our state," the governor said at a news conference. "I don't think the modest amount of electricity that will be generated from wind turbines is worth the impairment of our ridge lines.

"But I also respect the law," and the quasi-judicial board's role under it in making determinations about utility projects, the governor said, though he added he expected the ruling might be appealed to the Vermont Supreme Court.

The governor's comments followed approval of the first utility-scale wind power project in Vermont in a decade, and also followed his own frequent comments in recent years taking a dim view of the size and scale of wind power projects along Vermont's mountaintops.

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[phantom power]

1. I'm sure it's nicer for him to have the Appalachian states industrializing their ridgelines.

With strip-mines.

[MaineYooper]

2. Nowadays it's mountaintop removal.

Strip mines are old hat - Mountaintop removal (literally blowing them up) is even cheaper and more destructive to the surroundings.

West Virginia will be a plains state soon, at the rate they're going...

There was a great editorial in one of the last couple of either NRDC or Sierra Club magazines that points out that we have previously put up with some loss in aesthetics for the name of progress (railroads, interstate highways, etc), and that if we seriously want to be able to power ourselves without fossil fuels and without nuclear, then essentially some people are going to have to just suck it up and deal with it.

[phantom power]

3. Reminds me of a post I wrote a couple years ago.

In the future, our energy is going to be very big, very visible and in our face. If we should be so lucky to have any energy at all.