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    Spinning a Green Yarn: Another Inconvenient Truth
    Spinning a Green Yarn: Another Inconvenient Truth
    Spinning a Green Yarn: Another Inconvenient Truth
    Ebook124 pages1 hour

    Spinning a Green Yarn: Another Inconvenient Truth

    By D Cecchini

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    About this ebook

    “Green” Energy from Commercial Wind Power--Really? What are you thinking when you hear “green energy”? Benign for the environment and wildlife around it right? With Commercial Wind Energy, that assumption may be wrong. This book will help you to have a better understanding of the full impact of commercial wind power on the environment. With their tall gleaming white towers and intimidating gleaming white blades, creating energy from out of thin air—what could be more wholesome for the environment, wildlife, humankind, and the planet?! When I first heard about green energy alternatives, I was studying biology as an undergraduate 35 years ago, and it was considered the same, true win-win deal for people and wildlife. This topic should be interesting to most people in the US today. Why? Because there is a strong push to sell green energy technology to the American public. The concept is a good one, but like all things that seem to be getting traction or have a good image, many free riders are jumping on board. It’s not good enough for us to just parrot the phrase “I’m using a low carbon footprint source of power, therefore I’m a good and moral person.” That is the behavior of sheep, not thinking people. It is important for you to learn about the many impacts of this technology when done on a large commercial scale in wild areas. Before we give a new technology a green light we need to have a transparent view of how that technology will impact our environment and our society.

    For energy to be "green" it should not have a negative environmental impact, particularly for sensitive species. In difficult economic times it should also have a broad positive economic impact. If is not done right there will be a few big economic winners, and millions of losers in this high stakes game.

    As someone who has had an intense interest in wildlife and the environment since I was a young boy, wind power was something I just had to get behind. Is it still the perfect alternative energy technology for America in the 21st Century? Dig into this book and learn more about commercial wind technology today and make up your own mind!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherD Cecchini
    Release dateJan 23, 2012
    ISBN9781465947864
    Spinning a Green Yarn: Another Inconvenient Truth
    Author

    D Cecchini

    Dan Cecchini, Jr. has had a fascination with nature and the natural environment since he was in elementary school. Writing about the impact of people and technology on wildlife and wild places to inform others is important to him. He has studied wildlife and ecosystems informally and formally all of his life. He earned a Bachelor's degree in Biology and a Master's degree in Basic Science. He has also had a lifelong interest in engineering and business and earned a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and an MBA in Operations Management. He has served as a leader in several conservation organizations. He currently is the US Representative to the International Association of Falconry and Conservation of Birds of Prey and also is the Secretary of the North American Grouse Partnership and served on their Board. He is also the past President, Vice President, and Journal Editor of the North American Falconers' Association. He has been a licensed Master Falconer since 1978 and has extensive experience with raptor husbandry and management.

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      Book preview

      Spinning a Green Yarn - D Cecchini

      Spinning a Green Yarn

      Another Inconvenient Truth

      —Commercial Wind Farms Are Impacting National Finances, the Environment, and Wildlife in a Non-green Way

      By Dan Cecchini, Jr.

      © 2011 by Dan Cecchini, Jr.

      Smashwords Edition

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Game Hawker Publishing

      GamerHawkerPublishing@gmail.com

      This book is dedicated to my loving, encouraging, and patient wife Sue, for the years of time we have both spent in the outdoors with Sage Grouse and waiting for me during the many hundreds of hours it took to assemble this book.

      Photo by Petr Kratochvil. Public domain photo

      Spinning a Green Yarn

      Another Inconvenient Truth

      —Commercial Wind Farms Are Impacting National Finances, the Environment, and Wildlife in a Non-green Way

      ****

      Table of Contents

      Preface

      Introduction

      Chapter 1

      What Does Green Mean?

      Do Commercial Wind Farms Negatively Impact Climate Change?

      Green to Meet Political Goals

      Wind Farm Installations

      Chapter 2

      The Cost of Wind Energy

      Cost to Wildlife

      Taxpayer Subsidies

      Chapter 3

      Laws For Wind Farms—Are They Sufficient?

      Chapter 4

      The Charismatic Sage and Prairie Grouse and Commercial Wind Farms

      Game Changer

      Chapter 5

      Eagles, Hawks, and Falcons Getting Chopped Up by Wind Farm Turbines

      Chapter 6

      Nature’s Amazing Beneficial Bats Take Big Hit From Commercial Wind Farm Turbines

      Fatal Impact of Wind Turbines On Bats

      Chapter 7

      ESA—A Game Changer

      Chapter 8

      The Spanish and Danish Wind Energy Industry—A Closer Look

      Chapter 9

      Habitat Fragmentation Problems

      Chapter 10

      Small Home Renewable Energy Systems vs. Commercial Energy Farms

      Location, Location, Location!!!

      Size Does Matter

      Commercial Wind Farm Energy Output Hard to Optimize

      Epilogue

      Do Something -- Make a Difference

      What You Can Do To Make A Difference

      References

      ****

      Preface

      The purpose of this book is to help average citizens have a better understanding of the full impact of commercial wind power to the environment. With their tall gleaming white towers and intimidating gleaming white blades, creating energy from out of thin air—what could be more wholesome for the environment, wildlife, humankind, and the planet?! When I first heard about green energy alternatives, I was studying biology as an undergraduate 35 years ago, and it was considered the same, true win-win deal for people and wildlife. This topic should be interesting to most people in the US today. Why? Because there is a strong push to sell green energy technology to the American public. The concept is a good one, but like all things which seem to be getting traction or have a good image, a lot of free riders are jumping on board. It’s not good enough for us to just parrot the phrase I’m using a low carbon footprint source of power, therefore I’m a good and moral person. That is the behavior of sheep, not thinking people. It is important to learn about the good and the bad points of new technology. From that point, we are in a position to make decisions as an informed society.

      The reader, no matter what your personal views, needs to recognize that doing things green just to be green is only good for a fairly limited number of people. Green technology needs to make economic sense and not have an negative impact to be widely adopted. We are nowhere near that goal at this point, on either count. In America today, with giant financial deficits and rapid loss of intact ecosystems in the lower 48 states, wind power has a long way to go.

      As someone who has had an intense interest in wildlife and the environment since I was a young boy, wind power was something I just had to get behind. My interest in wildlife was strong enough that biology was the obvious choice for my first college degree. Even before I had thoughts of going to college I turned into a self-taught naturalist as a kid. I spent many hours reading books and articles about animals, and wildlife in particular; I just couldn’t get enough. I learned the scientific names and genus of many different types of birds and mammals. Predators held a particular fascination to me. My focus was often on predators in any shape or form. From predatory whales to insectivorous shrews, and also included the big cats, reptiles, weasels, and particularly the birds of prey; they all captivated my imagination. I grew up in southern Michigan, just outside of Detroit, so truly wild places were not part of my daily living. I grew up with a father that was an avid angler and hunter, so I learned to hunt and fish at a young age. My uncles and some school friends were also avid outdoorsmen. Hunting and fishing provided a special opportunity to fulfill an internal drive to harvest wildlife for food, no different than native Americans or aboriginal people the world over. Even more important than harvesting food from the wild was the opportunity to spend as much time out in rural areas and observe wildlife first hand, as well as to be able absorb being in the wild. I loved catching a snake or turtle, then learning about its natural history. The woods and fields were exciting and alive specifically because of the exciting diversity of creatures, great and small that made their lives there. The same for brooks, streams, ponds, and lakes, without the wild things that lived there, no fascination was held there for me. The painted turtles and garter snakes gave those places character. Catching a glimpse of one, moments before it slipped off a rock into a pond provided endless thoughts about the hundreds of wild animals that were hidden among the leaves and branches of the countryside. Imagining the many and varied predatory animals that lurked there trying to outmaneuver and capture their prey (or die themselves) gave those places a sense of life and vitality. The entire environment and ecosystem was alive and vibrant. Then turning my gaze and thoughts to the pond itself, I would begin to imagine the same predator—prey, life-and-death struggle occurring. This time with the large mouth bass or northern pike stalking their prey of minnows or yellow perch. Truly, a case of the whole being much more than the simple sum of the parts. A largely intact ecosystem is a living thing itself. That is the why biologists always try to make the point to the public that simply saving a species by keeping it in captivity is not really success. The species are parts of the living ecosystem, not complete without being a member of the ecosystem itself. You can think of a species isolated from their environment the same as a football quarterback off the football field, out of the stadium. That quarterback no longer gives others any sense of what he is or what his potential is as part of the complete football team competing during a game.

      This book will explore the meaning and use of the term green technology. It will also look at some significant species which have already been identified as being negatively impacted by commercial wind farms. We will also look to Europe where there are some serious problems associated with their commercial wind industries, but the American public has rarely been exposed to that side of the discussion up to this point. We move into a discussion of the significant difference between large commercial wind farms and individual home units or small-scale, low density commercial projects set-up in close proximity to where their power will be used. The book will wrap up with a discussion of how the reader can have a voice deciding the details of how wind power technology is developed going forward—as a society we are on the cusp of being able to do it right the first time if we are smart with our decisions of just how we implement wind energy technology.

      The

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