Fighting the Giants

You might recall that in the story of Don Quixote, the beleaguered knight was forced to battle giants who were threatening all around.  He took out his trusty (but rusty) sword and went off to battle these giants, along with his trusted companion Sanchez.  

The giants turned out to be windmills.

Now it's my turn to battle the giants, but these giants are hurting others!  I'm talking about the giant wind turbines which are springing up all over the continent providing green power to the grid.  I heard a rumor that it would take 6500 wind turbines to replace one coal fired power plant.  If that is true we might see thousands of these things appear across Alberta.  Before we agree to have these built around here, I suggest that we all travel out to one of the existing wind farms and see these turbines in operation. 

The first thing you notice is the sound.  The "whomp-whomp-whomp" sound is quite loud and very permeating.  Would you like to live close to that?   Many municipalities in Eastern Canada have put guidelines of how far away from a residence these turbines can be built.  That distance ranges from one half a kilometer to five kilometres.

The second thing you'll notice is the dead birds and bats littering the site.  These critters appear to be disoriented by the sounds created by the huge rotors and collide with them.  It is estimated that thousands of bats and songbirds are killed each year by wind turbines.

I am going to be asking that Beiseker Village council create a bylaw prohibiting these large wind turbines within our village limits but I'm concerned about their possible location just outside the village in the county.

I don't know what guidelines the County has for wind turbine construction, but I'm going to find out!  Stay tuned.