Letter: Anti-windpower fears are completely overblown

Posted 3/1/23

Having spent most of my career on various industrial applications, I know a fair amount about power generation. I also live 200 feet from and frequently kayak on the Sakonnet River and, …

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Letter: Anti-windpower fears are completely overblown

Posted

Having spent most of my career on various industrial applications, I know a fair amount about power generation. I also live 200 feet from and frequently kayak on the Sakonnet River and, unfortunately, I know a fair amount about climate change and sea level rise.

So, I have been following the ongoing windpower discussions with some dismay and considerable bewilderment. We recently learned for example that some large percentage of the generated power mysteriously vanishes before ever getting to the grid. Really? No, not really. This is just another particularly absurd item in an endless stream of exaggeration, half truths, and outright lies too numerous to deal with here; although you can and should find an excellent and detailed rebuttal to virtually all of them at ECORI.ORG (just search for 'misleading information').

I am dismayed that some of my otherwise intelligent and well meaning neighbors seem to have fallen prey to this propaganda campaign. I am also bewildered as to why anyone would put this much effort into trying to undermine what is obviously a large net plus in our battle to save ourselves from an accelerating climate disaster.

Seriously, the cable running up the Sakonnet is nothing more than a giant extension cord a few inches in diameter. Once it is in place, nobody, including the fish, or the lobsters, or the whales, is going to be affected by it in any way.

Has anyone noticed those power poles and wires running the length of West Main road? The ones you live next to and drive past every day without a second thought? The ones on which you see thousands of starlings happily perched in the fall? The Sakonnet cable is exactly the same thing except it's underwater and a lot farther away from everyone.

And if anyone tries to tell you otherwise (or for that matter that windpower causes autism or hair loss or impotence) you can point this out with great confidence. As both an engineer and resident, my level of concern over this project is exactly zero. I for one am looking forward to having that cable run past my house.

Alpin Chisholm

Little Compton

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