Angela Mapes Turner has an article in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette entitled “State Enters Debate Over Wind Energy.” The article refers to people and organizations in the state as opposed to state government. It seems that most action on wind regulation is taking place at the local level. My law partner was actively involved in developing Tippecanoe County’s, so I’m not going to get into any specifics about wind regulation in my area.
I think counties are going to be better off if they get ahead of this issue. The article says that Whitley County starting developing its ordinance only after wind development was getting started. This caused a problem because the ordinance under development had to be scrapped when it came to light that the plan commission’s President had signed a contract related to the lease of his land to wind developers. DeKalb County is apparently preparing land use regulations in advance of any specific interest in wind development.
It will be interesting to see the long term viability of wind energy. At the moment, it is very dependent on subsidies; but, then, our entire energy economy is lousy with subsidies. What would oil energy look like if U.S. foreign policy resolutely treated countries with oil the same as countries without? Or, if government never got involved in building roads? Let alone the direct subsidies for, among other things, exploration. In terms of good policy, I’m more enthusiastic about wind than, say, biofuels — using your top soil and food to power your cars just sounds like bad long term thinking.
But, Benton County gives me pause on wind energy. At first, those wind farms are pretty cool looking; but I’m not sure that I’d want to live next to them. Maybe it’s something you rapidly get used to; but they dominate the landscape. I imagine it’s disconcerting when the sun is shining through the blades and you get a movie projector flicker going.
The State government isn’t, so far as I know, taking an active role in regulating wind farm development; so local governments that want to strike a balance between the wind developers and the neighbors of landowners selling or leasing to those developers probably need to make an effort now rather than after the wind turbines all go up.
Seeing as how Obama’s EPA is putting coal plants out of business (latest to go is Stateline Generating in Hammond, which the EPA says is one of the dirtiest plants in the US), I think that the Benton County project is going to be extremely profitable in the near future.
Of course, you and I will be paying significantly more for power as a result. But don’t bitch, you can’t put a price on clean air.
And if Hammond, where Stateline is the biggest property tax payer, goes bankrupt, well, again, you can’t put a price on clean air.
It’s not the clean air we need to put a price on; it’s the dirty air. Clean air is the default; dirty air is what happens when the coal plant makes its product. We probably can put a price on the dirty air component of that product, but we’re not adequately doing so now.
If the manufacturing of the coal plant’s product causes a random citizen to get lung cancer (or whatever ailment you like), the price of the product should include the cost of paying for that citizen’s medical treatment and loss of life. If it doesn’t, then that citizen is subsidizing the rest of our electricity bills. Which, in addition to being bad policy, is contrary to libertarian principles that each individual is the owner of his or her body and that body should not be involuntarily harmed through the actions of another.
The problem with your view, Doug, is that you can’t possibly measure the direct health effects of coal power. Yeah, they have their public health statistical mumbo-jumbo, but that hardly has the weight of science that the public health folks say that it does.
So, I don’t disagree with the spirit of what you wrote (I agree, the cost of power should reflect the externalizes). Just as a practical matter, I don’t think that it can be done, it’s a knowledge problem.
And really, I have no problem with Stateline closing. It is 65 years old, it’s time. I just love to use it in a Alinsky-ite way to show how unions don’t give one shit about their own people. There are 120 union jobs that are going away because of that closing, and the unions aren’t doing one thing about it. Not to mention the unionized public employees in Hammond that are going to lose their jobs when that property tax revenue is lost.
Unions worship the power of Obama more than they care about their own membership.
BTW, Here is a good response to some criticisms of libertarianism.
I’d put one of those windmills in my backyard if I could. A cosmetic eyesore isn’t a medical condition.
I heard, and should probably research, that the health of farm animals
(and therefore people? — blood pressure, I thin it was) is affected by the constant “whomp, whomp” sound waves.
Mary, if there is that health risk, has anyone compared it to the health risk of living downwind of a coal plant?
All over the globe, scientists and engineers are stating that these INDUSTRIAL FACILITIES should not be placed even as close as 2 miles to people. The C-waited scale frequency level is the noise that the human ear DOES NOT hear and within a month of the time a new wind farm is ramped up people are having a huge problem sleeping. This in turn causes high blood pressure, migrains, ringing or tinitus in the ears and if anyone is remotely prone to seizures the shadow flickers will triple those effects from ailments such as epilepsy. I believe that wind power is an option but simple place them where they are not next to humans such as large vast areas in Texas, Oklahom, Kansas etc. Indiana, by the way, was not even in the top 20 windiest states. Also, technology does not exist yet with windmills as far as storage of electricity. You either use wind when its windy or not at all. When the industry states a single wind farm will give enough electricity to power 14,000 homes what they are NOT telling you is it is only enough electricity to light up a few lightbulbs, a toaster and run a water heater. Our family and neighbors all over this country are suffering from a mortagage meltdown and there is NO WAY that people who have no say in where these are placed and when the distance between your home and the turbine is only 1000 feet, then we have allowed these private corporations to steal your property value and investments.