Wind Turbine Advantages
Why don’t we turn interstate highways into windfarms?
Is it just me, or would this make a lot of sense?
The government already owns the land, and could give the right to install wind farms to companies for free (much like they did when building transcontinental railroads).
Why not just put up wind turbines in the medians of interstate highways? The land is already environmentally damaged from road construction, anyway. If we just put up one wind turbine every 264 feet (twenty per mile), there wouldn’t there be plenty of companies just lining up take advantage of this?
The environmental casualties of windfarms would be almost meaningless here: they can pollute a bit (just like the cars driving by them), they make noise (just like cars), they screw up the environment for birds (think of all the chemicals we’ll save from not having to clean so much bird poo off your windshield!), etc., etc., etc.
What would be the argument against this, and why aren’t we doing this already?
One drawback to windfarming is that they require vast amounts of space for each windmill. An average sized wind propeller takes 1 full acre of space to operate safely. There have been several failures of wind propeller systems that have been catastrophic. The propeller can fly right off of the pole if it sustains high enough winds. These become projectiles the size of a house. This is one reason you don’t see the towers spaced more closely together….adjacent towers can be destroyed from flying pieces of another unit. Check out this video of a catastrophic wind farm failure:
This would pose a serious threat to nearby motorists. I would guess this is why it is impractical for most freeway areas.
Renewable Energy Wind Energy – Advantages of Wind Turbines That Benefit You
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Climate change negotiations and first-mover advantages: the case of the wind turbine industry [An article from: Energy Policy] $10.95 This digital document is a journal article from Energy Policy, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.Description: Individual EU member countries, such as Denmark and Germany, may have a rational economic interest in creating comparative advantages for … |