So I went to a lecture on wind energy last night, done by a representative from Maryland's Blue Water Winds project. He showed us an interesting video about wind power, including people's opinions, technical information, and environmental effects.
Now one thing that stood out to me was the people's opinions. Now of course they had the people talking about how great it would be and how useful and environmentally friendly, as any campaigning project would. But what I thought was interesting, was that one of the construction managers from Denmark said. He noted that the US is worrying about problems that they were discussing 30 years ago.
It is understandable that we are taking another look at most of these issues, seeing as we are in a completely different part of the world and may face a whole new set of problems. I feel like people are ignoring many important issues, such as the general reduction of CO2 emissions which has been proven, and focusing on less drastic problems, such as temporary effects on the benthic sea life when the cable is laid down.
People also do not seem to realize that this is a potentially new industry for the US to take part in. With any new project, new jobs are created, but right now we do not have any of the equipment to build these wind parks on our own. If we opened the doors for outside companies to start facilities here, or even started one from scratch (though this would be significantly harder) it would make this budding industry much easier to realize, and more beneficial to our working class.
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Re: 30 years behind Denmark
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that Delaware, the first east coast state with a wind farm contract, struggled with public and political opinion before embracing bluewater. Now, according to our speaker, states are falling over themselves to write contracts.
There's probably some interesting sociology here.