{"id":2930,"date":"2011-08-05T07:04:18","date_gmt":"2011-08-05T12:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/65.175.102.14\/?p=2930"},"modified":"2013-07-02T00:39:48","modified_gmt":"2013-07-02T05:39:48","slug":"the-most-expensive-way-to-not-make-a-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/?p=2930","title":{"rendered":"The most expensive way to NOT make a difference"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/broken_turbine_11153.jpg\" width=\"375\" height=\"500\" border=\"0\" \/><\/center>The wind farms popping up around North Dakota are the bane of the photographer. They spoil fantastic views of pristine landscapes, often sitting idle while they do so. I agree with much of Dennis Stillings says in <a href=\"http:\/\/dakotabeacon.com\/entry\/dennis_stillings_pinwheel_scars_on_the_prairie_skys\/\" target=\"_blank\">one of articles about these &#8220;Prairie Pinwheels&#8221;<\/a>. Many of his works published in the <a href=\"http:\/\/dakotabeacon.com\/category\/C48\/\" target=\"_blank\">Dakota Beacon Magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The machine pictured above, visible on the west side of Highway 83 as you approach Minot, has sat broken for many weeks. I think it&#8217;s a pretty good picture of the dependability of wind power. When there&#8217;s not enough wind, they don&#8217;t function. When there&#8217;s too much wind, they don&#8217;t function. When they do, they put the hippies in a quandary when they start killing birds in the name of being &#8220;Green\u2122.&#8221; Oh yeah&#8230;and they&#8217;re LOUD.<\/p>\n<p>I &#8220;re-appropriated&#8221; the title of this post from the folks at Envirogy, a website which has collected a number of studies dispelling the myth of wind power as a panacea. In fact, the opposite could be demonstrated to be true. Compiling studies from places such as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.windaction.org\/documents\/20052\" target=\"_blank\">windaction.org<\/a>, they are able to point out the flaws in the utopian view of impact-free windmills churning peacefully across the fruited plane, freeing us from the shackles of evil corporations. <a href=\"http:\/\/envirogy.ca\/2010\/04\/29\/wind-energy-the-most-expensive-way-to-not-make-a-difference\/\" target=\"_blank\">Take a look at this article and the studies linked therein.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/wind_turbine_13274.jpg\" width=\"333\" height=\"500\" border=\"0\" \/><\/center>When life gives you lemons, you of course make lemonade&#8230;but don&#8217;t dare let your little kids sell it, or the government will shut them down for not having a pile of required licenses and permits. In the case of the wind towers, however, there are occasionally some photographic opportunities. This is one of them. I spotted it several evenings ago when I happened to be in the right place at the right time, which for me is a large chunk of photography&#8217;s appeal. I had to maneuver a little bit to get to the right position, but things aligned themselves almost automatically.<\/p>\n<p>There you have it, the musings of someone who doesn&#8217;t drink the &#8220;renewable energy&#8221; Kool-Aid, some web links to provide a little weekend reading, and of course another windmill photo of sorts. Have a great weekend!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The wind farms popping up around North Dakota are the bane of the photographer. They spoil fantastic views of pristine landscapes, often sitting idle while they do so. I agree with much of Dennis Stillings says in one of articles &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/?p=2930\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energytechnology","category-expository"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2930"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2932,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2930\/revisions\/2932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}