Here is a question for those who say there is really no “downside” to producing energy with windmills: Why is a company that is planning a huge windmill farm in a rural part of Oregon offering residents of that area $5,000 checks in exchange for promising that they will not complain that the mammoth turbines create too much noise?
Some residents in the Ione, Ore., area have accepted the cash, which one suggested amounted to “hush money.”
But others are rejecting the money from New York-based Caithness Energy. They said the offer comes with pressure from the company and that the company representative trying to get them to sign the waivers “suggested they were not thinking of the greater good if they refused,” The New York Times reported.
Those are unusual complaints to hear out in Oregon, a liberal state where alternative energy such as wind power is heavily encouraged as a way to reduce the burning of fossil fuel that supposedly is causing disastrous “global warming.”
What some in Oregon seem to be waking up to is the fact that there is no “perfect” alternative to the use of more traditional energy forms, such as coal, oil and nuclear.
It is true that windmills do not produce certain undesirable emissions, but wind power is extremely expensive to produce and can be unreliable because the wind is not always predictable. What’s more, as residents of Oregon and other states are learning, huge windmill farms can mar the scenery and the quiet tranquility of their surroundings.
If they were truly quiet and unobtrusive, why would a company promoting them offer $5,000 checks to residents so they will not complain about the noise?
Traditional energy sources have their faults, but that does not make taxpayer-subsidized windmill farms a superior alternative.