Quote:
Originally Posted by PointSpecial
Well, that's about 1% of the population. Of the city. That doesn't account for the rest of the Chicagoland area. In a 2007 estimate, the Chicago Metropolitan Statistical Area (including Kenosha County in WI and Lake, Porter, Jasper, Newton Co's in IN) was about 9.5 million. 40k is less than one half of one percent of that amount... and that is based on population. That doesn't account for industry or commerce. I don't know about you, but I use up a heck of a lot more electricity at work than I do at home.
And again, I'm not against clear sources as a concept... but this implementation isn't worth the cost.
I think that initiatives like this (on this rather small scale, comparatively) are useful when they're innovative... the FIRST wind turbine, the FIRST fuel cell or hybrid car. Then, if other people want to cover the intermediate period between when something is fresh and new and when it becomes affordable, to be the trendy ones, I'm all for it. Let them work through using technology that isn't quite up to snuff and let them pay 10x what will be paid when it's more widely accepted and all the kinks are out. For example, I didn't get a plasma TV 10 years ago when they were $10k. ... to be true, I don't even have one now, but I would certainly be able to see myself getting one NOW than then.
And, like I said before, wind turbines are about $750k a pop. If Chicago (eventually) wants wind power, I won't necessarily be against it... but implement it in a way that will allow it to be the most useful (i.e. farther out in the lake, where it won't affect the aesthetics and where the wind blows even more than on the coast), and implement it AFTER supporting a plan such as the Picken's Plan, where $1 trillion will be spent on other wind initiatives. If the demand goes way up and the supply follows suit (with added technology along the way), after the initial push, wind energy will be more cost effective to build.
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whatever the percentage (even if it is just 1.3% of residential), it's a huge net impact on the environment for a city the size of Chicago. Although to be fair, the best thing the region can do to mitigate environmental problems is to knock out the coal burning plants in the city.
I understand your position, but putting these things further out to lake would be 1. more expensive and 2. even more intrusive on the environment. However, I do think how these things get implemented and where is an important issue. I agree with you that having them in front of the downtown area is a myopic position.
Also, the $750k per turbine isn't lost money. There is a return on these in the form of energy. Clean energy. And it's not like these machines are 1st or 2nd generation. They've been around for decades now.