Photos from the Georogia Mountain Wind Project

[gasman353]

Edited due to guest posting

[gasman353]

Edited due to guest posting

[kevin]

Solar panels on the new town hall is not a bad idea.  They could power the town hall and possibly put back into the grid.  Good idea Skippy!

[7F24]

Sorry Skippy....looks like United Technologies sold Clipper.    We do agree on something though, solar panels on the town office is a great idea.

[gasman353]

Edited due to guest posting

[dmgp1978]

Some have asked what benefit these have for us locals.  When it comes to energy production, we need to think more universally.  Yes, we want to reduce our dependance on foreign oil and that is one reason.  Cost to us as rate payers is another.  One I haven't seen mentioned here much is reducing our emissions.  Wind and solar are not always the most cost effective or unobtrusive sources.  However, we do need to do something about saving our planet.  These two sources are clean and hopefully help preserve our clean air that we really enjoy here in Vermont compared to many other states.  I do think we need to progress to meet our energy needs.  Many of our nuclear power plants are aging, oil production has its own set of issues, get it here, get it there, what about the environment, natural gas is clean emissions wise, but fracking can be an issue, coal as has been mentioned here has downsides.  I think one of the solutions is to diversify our energy sources.  Personally speaking I don't mind the looks very much.  I'm anxious to see them in operation.  We do need to not ravage every vista with turbines, coal mining etc., fields of solar panels which again makes the case for diversity.  I do wonder about the impact on folks who have homes in the area and hope that there are not ill effects on them.  That would not be an acceptable trade off.  Hopefully there have been studies on such.  Would also support buying any parts possible in the US.  Unfortunately I think the reality is that we just don't manufacture that much here any more.  My two cents for the day.

[mirjo]

It's my understanding (which isn't necessarily accurate info, btw) that turbines are noisy and create a flicker affect when it's sunny (similar to driving through a row of trees) I can imagine the combination to those nearby (a.k.a. NIMBYs) would be maddening. It's these kinds of things and base-load power sources that question whether it's been well thought out or if we're trying to jump on the (not-so) fast track to renewable energy sources because we've seriously lagged behind, due to the ease of oil?

Some years ago someone thought it was a good idea to put up a nuclear power plant--but no one thought about upgrades or maintaining it for the future...now it's aging with problems left & right, causing all kinds of issues for the state, because the legislature wants to shut it down, Entergy wants to keep it open, as do the 100s of  employees (with good reason). Nuclear power has many pros & cons on its own, but the basic correlation here is:

In +/- 20 years after the pristine vistas are ruined and what makes Vermont what it is, are we going to be left with a bunch of wearing, rusting eyesores that didn't deliver  as expected? There is no current answer to that, because no one knows how this source of power is going to work out over all and the bottom line is, we do need to do something.

A word regarding cost--no renewable source of energy is going to cost less than what we pay for oil & coal--especially not at first and likely not ever. I think we just need to adjust to the idea that those days are over and we will be paying  more from now on. It seems that's the way it will be. Another good reason for being more conservative with energy usage.