self guided wind farm tours with google earth
Google Earth has collected "street view" imagery for a high percentage of America and Europe's rural areas and most of that work has been done very recently so street view can be used to explore many existing wind farms.
Below are some screen shots of a 250 turbine wind farm near Zeewolde, Netherlands. The wind farm is old enough that GE imagery shows the turbine pads. To explore the wind farm go to Layers in Google Earth and turn on "street view". Then go to Gallery and turn on Youtube. By enabling those you'll see icons when those are available. Another source of visual images can be here www.panoramia.com which you'll have access to if you open the panomania link for google earth by clicking and opening "photos in google earth KML" on the panomania home page.
I made a place mark file of the turbine locations so they are easier to find in Google Earth. http://www.thumbpower.net/kmz/zeewolde/Zeewolde%20Netherlands.kmz
If you do the above and navigate to the placemarks by doulbe cliking on the zeewolde folder in "my places" you should see this.
http://www.thumbpower.net/kmz/zeewolde/place%20mark%20overview.jpg
Here is a screen shot made with Street View imagery looking down a country road near Zeewolde at a line of turbines.
http://www.thumbpower.net/kmz/zeewolde/looking%20down%20a%20line%20...
Here is another shot of freshly planted trees along a road side that I think may teach what the Dutch may actually think about their wind farms. http://www.thumbpower.net/kmz/zeewolde/new%20planted%20trees.jpg If you explore more of the roads inside the wind farm via street view you'll see thousands and thousands of same-age trees planted. This Dutch farming area is postcard picturesque--correction, it used to be. It's obvious the trees were planted to address the visual blight of the turbines. If you have any doubt about that watch this video which I found as an icon in the google earth view near the windfarm. This video is one of the more compelling I've seen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUOMJStYjlY .
Here is a site that keeps a database of all the wind farms in the world. http://www.thewindpower.net/index_en.php If you go to the locations of the older wind farms it's more likelty the turbine pads will be visible in the google earth.aeriel view.
Sorry for the long post but this is a way to explore the world's wind farms. Google Earth Street view is also a way to explore places where wind farms have been proposed.
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Comment
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Comment by Joanne Moore on March 1, 2010 at 5:37pm
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THAT'S IT!!! And thanks for giving me a much needed laugh.
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Comment by Long Islander on March 1, 2010 at 4:58pm
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Joanne - do you mean Al Goreleone?
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Comment by Charlie on March 1, 2010 at 3:18pm
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Joanne, Europe signed the Kyoto treaty, america didn't. Europe has cap and trade, america doesn't. Windmills were state of the art technology throughout Europe (in the Middle Ages). America doesn't have that experience. Since there's no stomach in America for a tough solution we pretend by building windmills. This is bad foreign policy being done by victimizing americans.
I found another nightmare wind farm in the Netherlands that is NOT neat and tidy. It's what Americans should expect in many places. I made 3 screen shots with Google Earth "street view"
http://www.thumbpower.net/kmz/wind%20farm%20screen%20shots/Middenwe...
http://www.thumbpower.net/kmz/wind%20farm%20screen%20shots/middenwe...
http://www.thumbpower.net/kmz/wind%20farm%20screen%20shots/middenwe...
If you want to go there and see for yourself turn on street view and panimania. (I found both of these are available in the Layers menus. To get there click on this placemark.
http://www.thumbpower.net/kmz/wind%20farm%20screen%20shots/Middenwe...
I'm thinking about how to make an efficient system for a bunch of people to search for nightmare wind farms so screen shots and location information can be shared. There are many many awful wind farms and most people have seen none of them. Perhaps something can be done about that. I will correspond with Lisa at windaction and see if she will post these kind of images as they are found. I think nobody yet realizes that Google Earth may have all the images needed without visiting wind farms.
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Ha! Love it, Long Islander! The mob indeed. The Wind Mafia! Adept at extortion, lies and bribery.
But, I still want to know what group devised this scheme in the first place. Where did the idea come from? It involves nearly every nation so there must have been a big meet up of the Mafia dons from all corners of the globe. Or can we blame all this on Don Corleone, (aka Al Gore) ?
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Electricity is wonderful, but in some ways it is like heroin - and most of us are addicted. The wind power invasion of Maine is not dissimilar to new people muscling in on the heroin trade. They know that if they can carve themselves a piece of the market, they will have a steady stream of customers for life. But instead of the government arresting them for the crimes they commit in order to get and sell the electric heroin, the government pays them extra, the more they sell. And unlike others, instead of being labeled criminals, they are labeled planetary saviours.
If you were the mob why would you even bother with illegal businesses when this business is perfectly legal and encouraged by the government?
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Comment by Lisa Lindsay on March 1, 2010 at 10:34am
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Wow, thank you for posting these links .
Joanne, you are right. This is so hard. But what is the expression about the the most difficult choice is usually the right choice? At least, that is what I keep telling myself.
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I must say that I just spent a few moments in deep, deep despair. It almost got to me, the scope of the cartel we are up against is staggering. I wrote awhile back sort of tongue-in-cheek that we were being invaded but now I am in dead earnest - we are. What power, what collective body of men gave birth to such a horrendous scheme to enslave the people with these machines? Why no violent action against them? Are people so intimidated that they just roll over and allow the power of this invasion to swallow them up without a concerted effort to fight back? My God, I feel like I am in some 1950s sci-fi alien movie like War of the Worlds. I am depressed beyond words. There are no words. There are no words to describe my anger. I want to shout at the moon and stars and ask "What have we done to deserve this?"
But I must stay focused. This is Maine. We are better than this, more independent, better able to handle adversities, used to speaking out at town meeting time, proud of our Yankee heritage. We can show the world that there is one small spot on earth that stood up and beat these machines back, and the people who shove them down our throats. And, if we can do it it might give others hope. We must do it. But right now I feel so small. Sort of like David before he had to meet Goliath.
David won.
Maine as Third World Country:
CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power
Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.
Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT
******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********
(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/
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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law
Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future
"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."
https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/
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