Sunday, March 07, 2010
Editorial: Windmills come round again
Invenergy's proposal could be controversial, but it deserves a fair hearing.
From the RoundTable blog
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Wind energy is clean energy. The country needs more of it.
We're open to Chicago-based Invenergy's latest proposal to come into the Roanoke Valley with a plan to put 15 windmills on top of Poor Mountain.
Yes, along a ridgeline in prominent view as traffic along Interstate 81 comes and goes through the Roanoke Valley. As Roanoke County Supervisor Ed Elswick aptly suggests, Poor Mountain already makes a pretty poor showpiece for the region's mountain views. And the towering turbines of wind farms can be lovely man-made features on a natural landscape.
That doesn't mean we're ready to endorse Invenergy's project, though.
The more wind farms built, the better in terms of adding clean, renewable power to the nation's energy mix. Yet not every proposed site for a wind farm is right.
Invenergy gets high marks for taking a cautious approach, noting the permits required and promising to listen to people's concerns. For its part, the public should engage in discussions with an open mind.
Approval will depend largely on developers satisfying safety and environmental requirements and demonstrating the project will pose no threat to critical wildlife habitat -- but will provide the county healthy tax revenues.
With all of that, whether the public accepts it as good land use will be a matter of perception.
The beauty or folly of 443-foot windmills capping a mountain is an entirely subjective judgment that won't ever be settled to the satisfaction of all. Still, visual impact has to be treated seriously in a region that counts its landscapes as a major asset.
By itself, whether or not this small project moves forward will create barely a ripple in the wind energy industry. Compare its 15 windmills to the 240 to 400 offshore turbines that two green-energy companies propose to build off the Virginia Beach coast.
The future of green energy could be defined by the cumulative impact of thousands of small projects, though -- each with the potential to affect the future of small communities like our own.
