© vaxomatic


The Tazewell County Board of Supervisors voted in favor of a Ridgeline Protection Ordinance tonight that will probably prevent Dominion Power and BP from building a wind farm on East River Mountain, overlooking the city of Bluefield on the Virginia-West Virginia state line.

The wind farm issue has been around in the Virginia county for over a year now. The predictable forces have marshalled up against each other. On the one side property rights groups and business interests have pushed for the wind farm. On the other hand, environmental groups teamed up with home owners who fear their property values will drop because of the windmills.

I posted these comments to a local forum on why I was against this particular project:

• First, I don't think it will create many long term jobs. Ten to 15 long term jobs is about the same as getting a new Pizza Hut. That's not a huge economic impact.


• Second, I don't think the revenue will be that much. In other states the windmill industry has gone to the state capital and managed to get the law changed so that property tax on a windmill is greatly lower or eliminated. They haven't done that here yet, but they'll try. There is also reason to believe that surrounding home values will drop, and offset any gains in property tax revenue from the windmills.


• Third, I think windmills will soon be seen as an out of date approach to harvesting natural motion. I think harvesting ocean wave motion will eventually replace it.


• Fourth, there is some obvious environmental impact. Maybe if it weren't for my other concerns I'd be willing to consider tolerating that environment impact. Maybe.

I don't think of myself as a NIMBY person. IN any event, BP and Dominion are likely to head next door to Bland County. And if they're not well received there they'll move a little further down I-77 to Wythe County. Eventually, there'll probably be another Appalachian wind farm...

© Robert Thomson


NPR took a look this week at the dilemma many developed countries face over coal. It was a timely look because on February 1st many of the world's more developed countries will publish targets for limiting green house gas emissions.

Coal is the biggest single source of greenhouse gases. China and India are now huge consumers of coal, and their appetite is growing. "As long as economic development is a priority," says Morse, "I think climate takes a back seat, and in that situation, coal is going to win every time."

That's the conventional wisdom. But the deal made in Copenhagen may change all that. By Monday, as many as two dozen countries will have listed their emissions targets. China and the U.S. - the two biggest coal users - are leading the group. India is expected to join them, and so will South Africa - a major coal exporter.

I hadn't realized that part of China's interest in alternative energy is based on it's geography. China mines its coal in the southern and western regions of the country and then hauls it by train to be burned in the much more densely populated eastern part of the country. If China cold figure out how to generate significant amounts of wind or solar power near Beijing or Shanghai, it wouldn't have to haul coal from Xinjiang and Sichuan.

You can listen to the story at the NPR website. It's about four minutes long.

© Dominic's pics


I'm not a huge fan of TreeHugger. Interesting stuff... but a little too obsessed for me sometimes. But I like this piece from them on the on creating houses that are fossil fuel free.

I realized a while ago that change is difficult, not so much because of the price or the pain involved, but because of the vested interests involved.

Citing studies from the likes of Shell Oil and the German Economics Ministry, Leggett claims that contrary to what naysayers will tell you, it is perfectly possible to power the entire world with renewable energy technologies much sooner, and much cheaper, than most pundits would have you believe.

Okay, I'm a little skeptical. But it's interesting reading.

Why are you interested in alternative energy? Liberals are usually interested in alternative energy because they see renewable alternative as a way to reduce the use of carbon-emitting fossil fuels and combat climate change. Conservatives generally see alternative energy as part of a policy leading to energy independence; wind energy, biodiesel, and solar power could potentially free us from or reliance on foreign oil.

The motives for each group's interest in alternative energy tend to color that group's approach. Liberals think that climate change - and, thus, alternative energy - is an urgent issue. So damn the cost. Conservatives think that alternative energy only makes sense in an economic context. It has to be marketable and affordable to make sense.

Factor in America's system of opposition politics. Liberals place dealing with climate change fairly high on their political agenda. That puts alternative energy high on their agenda. Conservatives often remain unconvinced that climate change is a real scientific phenomenon. So alternative energy ranks lower on their agenda. And because our system of opposition politics runs on, well, opposition, sometimes conservatives seem (in my opinion) to be against alternative energy initiatives mostly because liberals are in favor it those initiatives.

So, we just had a huge cold snap in much of the Northern Hemisphere. So much for global warming? Watch the video and then you decide...

© johnnyalive


I attending a public hearing recently to comment on a proposed windfarm in my home county, Tazewell County, Va.

BP and Dominion Power proposed a windfarm for Tazewell County almost a year ago now. The project would put 400-foot wind turbines on East River Mountain, overlooking Bluefield on the Virginia-West Virginia state line. At the moment the city has one of the most beautiful (and populated) viewsheds in Appalachia. The site is not far from the Jefferson National Forest.

Not quite a hundred people signed up to speak. The public hearing was held during a snow storm, but that didn't seem to deter many people. Money and jobs were the primary issues in the debate. Eighty percent of the people who spoke either had a piece of land that they hoped BP and Dominion would put a windmill on or had a house in the general area of the project and feared that their quality of life would be somehow lowered by the wind project and that their property value would go down. A representative of Dominion spoke. A couple of people from out of state environmental groups spoke.

Dominion has aired radio ads touting the economic development impact of the project. I saw an article recently on a report about the jobs to be created by the wind energy in Nebraska. The report said wind energy would create 40,000 jobs in Nebraska over the next couple of decades - 4,000 of which would be permanent. The story was interesting because it was the first time I've seen the jobs figures spelled out that clearly. Ninety percent of wind jobs are temporary.

It's the same here. BP likes to make a big point of the fact that the project would create about 150 construction jobs - jobs that woldn't last a whole year. After a short employment boost and a shot in the local arm from construction spending, the long term economic impact for us (in terms of jobs) is about the same as someone coming in and opening a new fast food franchise. The county is in an uproar, and three or four years down the line it's like we got a new Pizza Hut: 10, maybe 15 jobs.

One reason BP is here is that the county has no zoning ordinance. The county's governing board will probably vote in the next few weeks on an ordinance that would protect ridges in the area from construction and put an end to the windfarm proposal here.