Scott85
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This doesn’t make any sense to me. https://www.backcountryhunters.org/take_action#/112
Windmills coming to public land near you
- Thread starter Scott85
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D
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Admittedly I haven't read the full text of the bill, but yes I agree installing large scale solar, wind, or geothermal production facilities are just as damaging to wildlife habitat as any extractive energy production.
LuketheDog
Well-known member
It's an optical illusion, but you have to stare at them for at least 30 minutes straight to figure out what's really happening...
I dunno about any. hundreds to thousands of acres of wind mills I would tend to think has a much larger disturbance on the landscape than a horizontal well that, at the end of the day, including the battery, takes up maybe an acre, if even? sure it's still a disturbance, thousands of wells still disturbs many thousands of acres. but half the time you barely even know they're there.
I hate wind farms. Renewable energy is a great thing to strive for, but wind farms are a very ugly large scale degradation of the natural landscape if you ask me.
Nameless Range
Well-known member
Maybe someone can clarify for me, but I believe that wind energy has a real negative effect on some species, such as sage grouse.
noharleyyet
Well-known member
Tis an issue for the ages...
Scott85
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If its going to happen I would really like to see 80% of all profits to go to the Pittman Robertson fund.
JM77
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Not exactly what I would call "Conserving Priority Landscapes" or "Defending Our Public Lands Legacy"
D
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Our pad sites average 4 acres, you have to dig in the lines for water, gas, and liquids or your trucking them in/out. On a big pad with good wells that could mean trucks in and out every hour during the frack and peak flow rates.
Permian
California Wind farm
and fracking typically takes what? 24 hours? flowback and the incessant water trucking is not a permanent process either. windmills last what? hundreds of thousands of hours? indefinitely if you want them to? still requires a steady dose of vehicles for maintenance over time. further ironic the fact that oil is necessary to build wind farms. not to mention the rare earth elements, cement, etc etc
unfortunately, i tend to think through the lense of the DJ. where the disturbance is nearly always taking place in an area that is already far more disturbed.
regardless, I hate wind farms. I'd take a little oil pad over that any day. that's not a dig against "green" energy. it's just a dig against an *edit: what I consider to be a more* unsightly mess that is, arguably, not necessarily "better" for the environment.
unfortunately, i tend to think through the lense of the DJ. where the disturbance is nearly always taking place in an area that is already far more disturbed.
regardless, I hate wind farms. I'd take a little oil pad over that any day. that's not a dig against "green" energy. it's just a dig against an *edit: what I consider to be a more* unsightly mess that is, arguably, not necessarily "better" for the environment.
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Hilljackoutlaw
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Can I hang my treestand on a windmill?
Option number 2 looks better to me. I would much rather walk through that looking for a pronghorn, then some of the ugly looking stuff in the red desert. Of course we still need that.
RobG
Well-known member
This is the first I have heard of it. I’d like to see unbiased data on affects to big game and sage grouse before judging to harshly because they are ugly. I’d like to see wind turbines on some of that overgrazed state land around here.
Nameless Range
Well-known member
I am not an expert, but years ago I had to read and understand the Executive Order creating the Montana Sage Grouse Program. Windmills are prohibited in Core Sage Grouse Habitat under that order.
This was the first link under a quick google search.
http://insideenergy.org/2015/04/19/birds-vs-blades-wind-powers-threat-to-the-sage-grouse/
Government agencies like the Bureau of Land Managment, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the US Geological Survey agree that sage grouse naturally avoid tall structures out of fear they provide a perch for predators and the Chokecherry/Sierra Madre wind farm would be full of tall structures. Conservationists fear sage grouse would likely avoiding the entire 2,000 acre spread of wind towers. Add that to the hundreds of miles of gigantic transmission towers that would march down to Nevada.
Brian Rutledge of the Audubon Society’s Wyoming chapter believes wind power is the biggest energy threat to the sage grouse.
Rutledge believes humanity needs to transition to clean power sources to combat climate change. But, he would vote for oil and gas development on sage grouse habitat over wind energy, if he had a choice.
“Wind has several times the impact,” Rutledge said.
Again, I'm not an expert, because I feel like I may have seen some counter arguments to this along the way.
D
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@TOGIEGOAT
and fracking typically takes what? 24 hours? flowback and the incessant water trucking is not a permanent process either. windmills last what? hundreds of thousands of hours? indefinitely if you want them to? still requires a steady dose of vehicles for maintenance over time. further ironic the fact that oil is necessary to build wind farms. not to mention the rare earth elements, cement, etc etc
Depends on the basin i.e. depth and lateral length/number of stages, zipper frack (pad development ) versus a parent well. I would say 5-15 days for a complete frack is probably a reasonable range. The DJ is more developed if you opened up a new area in the powder you could have heavy truck traffic for a decade.
unfortunately, i tend to think through the lense of the DJ. where the disturbance is nearly always taking place in an area that is already far more disturbed.
This is actually my preference, we have lots of already disturbed places that we could be developing energy, why not focus on those landscapes rather than new areas. I think commingling wind with OG is a great idea, obviously you still have the same grid issues. I think you could strategically place them in urban areas... what about in free-way-right of ways, or in mouse traps, urban dead space.
Here is 12 acres of city owned land, really can't be used for anything else, within 1 mile of the heart of downtown Denver. Why not put in a wind or solar grid here? Unlike residential areas, urban downtown areas wont have near the duck curve, our building goes lights out at night.
I would bet you could find 5000+ similarly stranded acres in the metro area you could develop.
regardless, I hate wind farms. I'd take a little oil pad over that any day. that's not a dig against "green" energy. it's just a dig against an *edit: what I consider to be a more* unsightly mess that is, arguably, not necessarily "better" for the environment.
I disagree, I prefer windmills from an aesthetic perspective. To me they seem less industrial, just a personal preference.
and fracking typically takes what? 24 hours? flowback and the incessant water trucking is not a permanent process either. windmills last what? hundreds of thousands of hours? indefinitely if you want them to? still requires a steady dose of vehicles for maintenance over time. further ironic the fact that oil is necessary to build wind farms. not to mention the rare earth elements, cement, etc etc
Depends on the basin i.e. depth and lateral length/number of stages, zipper frack (pad development ) versus a parent well. I would say 5-15 days for a complete frack is probably a reasonable range. The DJ is more developed if you opened up a new area in the powder you could have heavy truck traffic for a decade.
unfortunately, i tend to think through the lense of the DJ. where the disturbance is nearly always taking place in an area that is already far more disturbed.
This is actually my preference, we have lots of already disturbed places that we could be developing energy, why not focus on those landscapes rather than new areas. I think commingling wind with OG is a great idea, obviously you still have the same grid issues. I think you could strategically place them in urban areas... what about in free-way-right of ways, or in mouse traps, urban dead space.
Here is 12 acres of city owned land, really can't be used for anything else, within 1 mile of the heart of downtown Denver. Why not put in a wind or solar grid here? Unlike residential areas, urban downtown areas wont have near the duck curve, our building goes lights out at night.
I would bet you could find 5000+ similarly stranded acres in the metro area you could develop.
regardless, I hate wind farms. I'd take a little oil pad over that any day. that's not a dig against "green" energy. it's just a dig against an *edit: what I consider to be a more* unsightly mess that is, arguably, not necessarily "better" for the environment.
I disagree, I prefer windmills from an aesthetic perspective. To me they seem less industrial, just a personal preference.
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EIS is contradictory to "pristine" bighorn habitat.
See Chapter 3.7
Losing_Sanity
Well-known member
They will do what they want for profit and it does not matter what the impact is. Big money rules. I hate seeing those flashing red lights destroying the view of the foothills from my porch. Especially when I know they are not saving me a dime because all the electricity is sent elsewhere.
