In my recent report on wind power, and specifically on wind power plants, I argue that the state legislature should pass a “Coast Law” to protect local communities from industrial wind turbines and wind power plants. Specifically, I state:

The legislature should make it a top priority to develop a ?Coast Law? that prohibits the construction of industrial wind turbines. Local communities should not be burdened with fighting proposed wind power plants that will harm their communities.

Apparently, for a local left-wing blog, my report isn’t free-market oriented, and doesn’t respect limited government and private property rights. Not that they expressed concern for these principles (nor did they counter any arguments made in the report). Here is why left-wingers probably aren’t the best source for understanding free-markets and individual rights:

This is how a wind power plant works:

A developer makes an arrangement with a monopoly utility company (such as Progress Energy) to provide wind power to the electricity grid.

The monopoly utility normally wouldn’t buy the wind power from the developer, but has been mandated to buy renewable energy through a recent law, Senate Bill 3.

Electricity consumers have to pay the extra costs for the power that the monopoly utility company has to buy against its will. Consumers in return receive unreliable electricity that has less value than other sources of electricity because of wind power’s limited use.

Wind power also has numerous other problems, but the public is still forced to buy the wind power. Problems include excessive land use, threats to wildlife, and potential harms to human health.

Coastal protection from wind power plants isn’t anti-free market or an excessive governmental intrusion when wind power plants wouldn’t exist in the first place if the free market were allowed to function without government mandates.

People generally should be able to do what they want with their property, but that changes when they want the public to be forced, by the government, to subsidize what they want to do on their own property.

My report doesn’t discuss private actors using residential wind turbines for personal use only. That issue is more complicated. It likely would be fine though in many instances.

A helpful rule of thumb: When monopolies and government mandates on consumers are involved in an industry, this is a good sign that it isn’t a free market.

Ironically, the left-wingers are the ones that aren’t sticking to their “principles.” They simply ignore:

Protecting Open Space: To generate 1,000 MW of electricity from wind power (the amount of electricity from a large baseload plant), it would require an incredible 150,000 acres, and that is conservative. A coal-fired power plant would require 1,700 acres for the same amount of electricity.

Protecting Wildlife: Here is what Dr. Fry of the American Bird Conservancy said in recent Congressional testimony regarding bird deaths due to future wind power growth:

At the current estimated mortality rate, the wind industry will be killing 900,000 to 1.8 million birds per year.

For anyone interested in learning more about the current state of research on wind power’s impact on wildlife, here is a GAO report and a Fish and Wildlife Service report.

BTW: Let me briefly address the argument that bird deaths from wind turbines should be put in context–this is from my report:

Wind proponents make absurd (and humorous) arguments that household cats kill more birds than wind turbines. This point would be relevant for an analysis of bird mortality. However, when trying to evaluate wind power, the proper comparison would be between wind power plants and other sources of electricity.

Also, the goal should be to try and avoid more bird deaths, not to justify them because birds are killed in other ways. For example, following the logic of wind proponents, it would be fine for a company to spill toxins in a lake even if it kills 100,000 fish because sharks kill millions of fish.

Protecting “Viewsheds”: They are concerned with what color a house is painted to protect ridgeline views but don’t care that 300 miles of massive industrial wind turbines would be needed to line the ridgeline in order to generate 1,000 MW (Based on NC Utilities Commission’s own renewable energy consultant’s report).

It would be nice if there actually could be reasonable discourse on wind power. However, when wind power zealots compare those who oppose wind power to terrorists, reasonable discourse is a pipe dream.

–Cross-posted on EnvironmentNC