To Orwell Today,

Well I can see that you've devoted a huge amt. of time to show us how horrid windmills are. Fair enough. So what is your proposed alternative? With all the research you produced on wind power you must have some other ideas that would produce electricity/energy for future generations. I would be interested to hear what they are.

-Torben

Greetings Torben,

Actually, I haven't devoted much time to researching Windmills. The articles I've posted on the site are pretty much it.

My knowledge of electricity is fairly limited as well but I did write down, and post on my fridge a few years ago, that:

1 megawatt = energy for 1,000 homes

and that the windmills they were planning to erect on Vancouver Island at that time would produce 50 megawatts which, using my formula means:

50 megawatts = energy for 50,000 homes

And in Canada, for the entire year of 2003, wind farms generated a mere 326 megawatts:

326 megawatts = energy for 326,000 homes

Even I, with my limited electricity knowledge, am able to figure out that windmills are therefore not a very efficient form of generating power. The harm they do to the environment, weather and living species (not just birds) far outweighs their worth.

On the other hand Canada and the USA have MORE than enough dams already built which are capable of supplying the electricity needs of the entire continent for generations to come.

Hydro electricity is FAR more efficient than Wind electricity.

In Gulliver's Travels, written almost 300 years ago, Jonathan Swift spoofs the choice of wind over water:

"...He desired me to observe a ruined Building upon the Side of a Mountain about three Miles distant, of which he gave me this Account. That he had a very convenient Mill within Half a Mile of his House, turned by a Current from a large River, and sufficient for his own Family as well as a great Number of his Tenants. That, about seven Years ago, a Club of those Projectors came to him with Proposals to destroy this Mill, and build another on the Side of that Mountain, on the long Ridge whereof a long Canal must be cut for a Repository of Water, to be conveyed up by Pipes and Engines to supply the Mill: Because the Wind and Air upon a Height agitated the Water, and thereby made it fitter for Motion: And because the Water descending down a Declivity would turn the Mill with half the Current of a River whose Course is more upon a Level. He said, that being then not very well with the Court, and pressed by many of his Friends, he complyed with the Proposal; and after employing an Hundred Men for two Years, the Work miscarryed, the Projectors went off, laying the Blame entirely upon him; railing at him ever since, and putting others upon the same Experiment, with equal Assurance of Success, as well as equal Disappointment...

And if Gulliver doesn't explain it clearly enough, recall the song HIGH HOPES whenever you want to picture the power behind a dam: