MOTION.. Wind Turbines Kill Birds! Oh, yes. 7.5 birds a year are killed by each of the
outer blades of those big propellers that sometimes spin so fast that tweety
can’t see the danger. Come now. Why are we even talking about a thousand
year old technology? These turbines are
big, noisy, dangerous and require continuous maintenance. Plus you have to clear hundreds of miles to
erect the transmission lines to get the wind into the computer you are looking
at now. That’s bad. But life on this planet would not exist if
air did not move. The raw energy is
there. So why not capture it? A little side bar here
before I get to the answer on that one.
In BJ Gudmundsson’s movie about anti-coal activist Maria Gunnoe, "Look
What they’ve Done" one scene shows a CSX train going by, for what seems to be
forever, hauling coal. When a recent
wind farm project was introduced in West Virginia the Greenbrier Hotel financed
a local ad campaign to fight it. The
Greenbrier is owned by CSX, a major coal profiteer. We living creatures produce
our own energy. Have you ever seen an
electron microscope photo of a DNA strand?
I don’t know a darned thing about it, but it must be a pretty efficient
model for the building blocks of life.
Helical flumes. Put a DNA
sculpture on your office roof and unplug from the grid today. Take a look at the photo below.
Is this future tech? No.
It is in use today in the windy city, Chicago. The technologies for
producing energy without burning things are abundant. Did you know that the state of Florida, which recently banned any
new coal fired power plants, is working on harnessing motion by putting
underwater turbines into the Gulf Stream?
Their prediction is that the initial components will power over one
third of the entire state. New York is
starting to harness tides. The movement
is on to catch the energy in that which is already moving. For all those wind mill
opponents who are worried about view shed take a look at how awful this power system looks on top of this 96 unit apartment building: Though I jest, if it sounds like I am
picking on some of my friends for having a selectively situated eco-conscience,
I am. I too am against big blades
twirling atop sky high towers along the pristine ridges of Greenbrier County
West Virginia. But I honestly believe
we should catch the wind. The professor
who invented these dna turbines has my hat and heart. May he be so successful that someday he can buy the Massey Energy
company just to shut it down. If you
have the energy to fight something – fight coal. Embrace this. Not sure. But that looks like the Daley Center in the
background. Bil Becker, the inventor of
this beautiful work of technological art, is a person I would love to
meet. He invented this in 2003. In 2004, not knowing anything about his
work, I was on my deck having refreshments with an engineer from Denmark. I drew a near identical design and asked if
he could build it. Though we thought it
was important to try to develop world altering solutions, we both later forgot
about the idea. I am sure many others
thought about this concept, but Bil did it.
We should not let Professor Becker’s designs be overlooked. Contact him, buy one of these things, put it on your roof and then tell the electric
company to be ready to send you discount coupons because, while your office is
closed, and you are sleeping, you could be sending power to the grid. Who knows, you could be powering a nearby
pumped storage project. |