State's first wind farm planned in St. Mary Parish
 

FRANKLIN, La. (AP) - St. Mary Parish could be the site of the state's first commercial wind farm of energy-producing turbines under a plan by a Metairie company.
The Advocate reports Southern States Renewable Energy is proposing a $40 million project that, under the current plan, would bring eight 498-foot-tall wind turbines to an isolated patch of coastal land near the Port of West St. Mary.
Frank Fink, economic development director for St. Mary Parish, said the project offers the parish an opportunity to branch out from the conventional oil-and-gas projects.
Louisiana is generally not considered a prime area for wind-energy projects.
But the coast is an exception, and Bill Gallardo, with Southern State Renewable Energy, says the site in St. Mary Parish offers some of the best potential in the state.

There go our ducks and geese. The only legal way to kill (and exterminate again) our whooping cranes.

I've always wondered why we don't have wind energy near our coasts with all the wind we get off the gulf...

I'm not sure how or why wind turbines would affect the duck, geese, and whooping crane populations... /shrug

I spent about 1 1/2 years living in Wyoming... We never had a problem with ducks and geese there... They have a lot of wind turbines in Wyoming and Colorado and their hunting was pretty decent.

8 Turbines is not very much... up north they are spread out in huge groups of 50 or 100 or more

at 498 feet tall that would put it at around the height that the birds are flying. Combine this with blades that spin at around 100-150 mph and you have lots of dead birds.

FYI... http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_fast_d..._turbines_spin

I hope it kills all them stupid whooping cranes!

Hard to believe EIGHT wind turbine would be a problem for ducks or geese. Every duck or goose I saw has always avoided anything not natural. Now the chicken hawks and such birds that like to actually perch up high will try and land on them and may get clipped.

Just as big of a Boondoggle as Ethanol, Electric cars & Solar. WF's will never be efficient enough to exist without Goobment subsidies. Google wind farms and eagles to find out how many birds get killed evey year, might surprise ya. I smell a rat in this one, find out where or who is the contractor involved and that should give you your answer as to who's going to make the chedda.

Ducks, geese, whoopers, sparrows, seagulls, warblers, hawks, etc can avoid them during the day, but its at night when they get chopped up. Many species migrate at night and they usually don't have any obstacles to avoid. Cell towers kill the hell out of birds as well, even with the lights on them. Especially along the coast, the trans-Gulf migrants just made a hell of a flight across a large body of water only to get chopped up by a big fan:eek:

whats ironic is that there are so many oil platforms in view of where they are wanting to put these things:shaking:

I find it hard to believe that 8 turbines will produce enough electricity to light anything.

Wind farms are a joke. Not very efficient. As far as ducks and geese, i think they are smart enough to avoid the windmills. Half the time they aren't spinning anyway

Drive from here to north dakota, right up the heart of the flyway. Pretty sure the hundreds of windfarms between here and there haven't been a problem for migratory waterfowl

Did a little research on these things... Turns out they have a maximum wind speed for survivability... top wind speed for most is around 160mph... probably why there aren't many on the gulf coast... HURRICANES!!

thats what I was thinking... sounds like a better insurance scam then chance to make energy.

Found a cool article on bird deaths and wind turbines... you can read the whole thing here:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/env...kill-birds.htm

Here are a few quotes from the article:

The vast majority of research shows that wind turbines kill relatively few birds, at least compared with other man-made structures. The statistics are shocking if you consider just how many people are crying out against wind power for the birds' sake.

Collisions with wind turbines account for about one-tenth of a percent of all "unnatural" bird deaths in the United States each year.

The Altamont Pass wind farm kills far more birds than any other farm in the United States. The total at that single wind farm with 4,000 turbines is 4,700 fatalities; the total for all wind farms in the United States, with more than 25,000 turbines in operation at any given time, is 10,000 to 40,000 per year.

Up to 1 billion birds die each year by flying into windows.

There's a company with a bid out for 108 wind mill platforms to be installed in the Gulf.

ETA;


I'm going to have to call BS on this.

Local Lafayette Tree Hugger Harold Scheoffler (Cadillac) has (if he is still alive) been a proponent of Fart (WIND) energy for years. Problem is, none of these companies can raise enough money to get into the bidness because it's a looser on wall st. Boone Pickens has said that he lost his a$$ on wind energy and he used much of his own money.

I thought that number seemed pretty high too... apparently there are about 100 Billion birds at any one time on Planet Earth... so 1% doesn't seem that high...

Here is another article saying the number of window collisions is around 1 Billion per year: http://www.birdsandbuildings.org/faqs.html

If they are putting in wind farms and they didn't do it in Cameron they must be morons.

What amazes me is the fact that IF all this green technology worked, then businesses would have sprung up years ago to capitalize on the technology and not have to worry about the government helping. Dig deep and follow the money trail and you will see who benefits, its not you!

This green energy is one of the biggest scams the government has ever pulled off. And they have people driving smart cars thinking they are making a difference. All the carbon those smart cars save and ethanol and wind energy etc. that's all erased in about 5 minutes when one volcano burps. But it gives them that warm feeling inside that they are saving the earth because their government told them so. They can keep those 8 fans and give me 8 more deep water rigs in the gulf!

Don't even get me started on the new diesels!!

I agree the technology is not there yet to make alternative energy financially viable without the government tax breaks which I do not agree with. The government is only wasting money by backing businesses with no shot of success.

I do however like seeing independent companies (not mooching off of the government) doing research to progress technology for renewable energy sources such as solar and hydro power. Not sold on the wind farms.

Our oil supply will run out in the not so distant future. It wont be in my lifetime and probably not in my kid's life, but there is a finite amount of hydrocarbons that can be produced. When the oil runs out I sure hope that we have figured out an alternative energy source.

With that being said, I believe that nuclear power is the energy of the future.

This would all be great if the hooligans in charge of those deep water rigs knew how to control the well in the given example. I'm all for drilling but I was told recently by a reliable source that the blowouts happen more regular that we see. And if that's the truths it only a matter of time before they blow another one up. O wait they just did. Recently. Be careful what u wish for man. We can only with stand a few more instances until there's another rule put in place from government to mms to offshore drilling and completions.

Geo thermal wells... Boom

Put the fans on top of the rigs ! Dead issue.

No regards for the countless numbers of birds and migratory waterfowl that will be sliced and diced by these pathetic feel good machines. I could just see it now: Oops! There goes another whooping crane. What? a bald eagle? No worry. Junk science gets a pass on killing protected species.

From USA Today:
For years, a huge wind farm in California's San Joaquin Valley was slaughtering thousands of birds, including golden eagles, red-tailed hawks and burrowing owls.
The raptors would get sliced up by the blades on the 5,400 turbines in Altamont Pass, or electrocuted by the wind farm's power lines.

From CS Monitor:
Oil companies are prosecuted when a bird drowns in a waste pit. But the Obama administration has never fined or prosecuted a wind-energy company for similar protected bird deaths. An estimated 573,000 birds are killed by US wind farms each year. A soaring golden eagle slams into a wind farm's spinning turbine and falls, mangled and lifeless, to the ground.
Killing these iconic birds is not just an irreplaceable loss for a vulnerable species. It's also a federal crime, a charge that the Obama administration has used to prosecute oil companies when birds drown in their waste pits, and power companies when birds are electrocuted by their power lines.
But the administration has never fined or prosecuted a wind-energy company, even those that flout the law repeatedly. Instead, the government is shielding the industry from liability and helping keep the scope of the deaths secret.

From the videos I have seen of wind turbines there is no threat to wildlife being sliced up. They spin very slow.

I work with a few textbook treehuggers and 'greenies', and at a conference in Nebraska last year there was truck after truck hauling these huge turbines out there. Every one of them was talking about how silly these things were. While we were there, the sandhill cranes were migrating through. Hundreds of thousands of sandhill cranes along the Platte River, and yes they do get chopped up.

Another counterpoint to that is this morning on KPEL radio, the host (who is uber duber conservative) made a good point and that is its not a bad thing to explore other means of energy production, no one will disagree with that. Seriously take a look at a map of our coast and look at these oil/gas pipelines and canals crisscrossing our marshes that have had hugely negative effects to the environment and what do we get for it? As much oil and gas that comes out of Louisiana, we should have the highest paid teachers, best schools, and best roads in the country, but thats obviously not the case.

I am all for oil and gas production for the record, offshore, inshore, fracking, whatever. just making some points

nuclear is definitely the way to go, but its just a scary word:eek:



1 billion birds dying from window strikes is believable, found many dead birds outside my parents house with big windows

They appear to be spinning slow, but I forget the terminal velocity at the tips of those blades, but it was really fast. Looked it up last year, see if I can find it


edit to add:

Tip speeds of 200 mph


Turbines used in for commercial production of electric power are usually three-bladed and pointed into the wind by computer-controlled motors. These have high tip speeds of over 320 km/h (200 mph), high efficiency, and low torque ripple, which contribute to good reliability. The blades are usually colored white for daytime visibility by aircraft and range in length from 20 to 40 metres (66 to 130 ft) or more. The tubular steel towers range from 60 to 90 metres (200 to 300 ft) tall. The blades rotate at 10 to 22 revolutions per minute. At 22 rotations per minute the tip speed exceeds 90 metres per second (300 ft/s)

maybe when you include windshields

there must have been 200 on the stretch along Rockefeller in March this year, those swallows were getting smoked:eek:

big turbine like these the blades do not spin fast. now with 160 mph wind I don t know I don't see them working like they project.

It's said that stray feral cats kill 1.4 billion birds per year as well.

Where on earth do they get these numbers?

I smoked a cow bird today with a 1 ton. It was hilarious.

LMAO!! I did that in high school with an 84 ram we were dying laughing

It was only at 45 mph! lol

How many hummingbirds get burned up from the flares at night offshore during their migration??????/ LOL They make good bait, from what i'm told!

And I'm gonna pee in my pants when the "BLACK BEAR" decides to climb one adn "GET CHOPPED UP" LMAO!