by Senator Lamar Alexander - In 1867, when the
naturalist John Muir first walked into the Cumberland Mountains, he
wrote, “The scenery is far grander than any I ever before beheld. …Such
an ocean of wooded, waving, swelling mountain beauty and grandeur is not
to be described.”
In January, Apex Clean
Energy announced that it would spoil that mountain beauty by building
twenty-three forty-five story wind turbines in Cumberland County.
I urge citizens in
Cumberland County—and all Tennesseans—to ask themselves ten questions
before allowing these massive wind turbines and new transmission lines
to destroy the beauty of our state.
I still can recall walking
into Grassy Cove in Cumberland County one spectacular spring day in
1978 during my campaign for governor. I had not seen a prettier
sight. Over the last few decades, pleasant weather and natural beauty
have attracted thousands of retirees from Tennessee and across America
to the Cumberland Plateau.
The proposed Crab Orchard
Wind Project would be built less than 10 miles from Cumberland Mountain
State Park, where for a half century Tennesseans and tourists have
camped, fished and canoed alongside herons and belted kingfishers around
Byrd Lake.
The proposed Crab Orchard
Wind Project would be built less than 10 miles from Cumberland Mountain
State Park, where for a half century Tennesseans and tourists have
camped, fished and canoed alongside herons and belted kingfishers around
Byrd Lake.
It will be fewer than five miles from Ozone Falls Scenic State
Natural Area, where the 110-foot water fall is so picturesque that it
was filmed as scenery in the movie “Jungle Book.”
Here are my ten questions:
- How big are these wind
turbines? Each one is over two times as tall as the skyboxes at the
University of Tennessee football stadium, three times as tall as Ozone
Falls and taller than the Statute of Liberty. The blades on each one
are as long as a football field. Their blinking lights can be seen for
twenty miles. These are not your grandma’s windmills.
- Will they disturb the
neighborhood? Here is what a New York Times review of the documentary
“Windfall,” said about New York residents debating such turbines:
“Turbines are huge…with blades weighing seven tons and spinning at 150
miles an hour. They can fall over or send parts flying; struck by
lightning, say, they can catch fire…and can generate a disorienting
strobe effect in sunlight. Giant flickering shadows can tarnish a
sunset’s glow on a landscape.”
- How much electricity can
the project produce? A puny amount, 71 megawatts. But, that’s only when
the wind is blowing, which in Tennessee is only 18.4 % of the time
according to the Energy Information Administration.
- Does TVA need this
electricity? No. Last year, TVA said there is “no immediate need for new
base load plants after Watts Bar Unit 2 comes online,” and just last
week TVA put up for sale its unfinished Bellefonte nuclear plant.
- Don’t we need wind
power’s carbon-free electricity to help with climate change? No.
Nuclear power is a more reliable option. Nuclear produces over 60% of
our country’s carbon free electricity which is available 92% of the
time. Wind produces 15% of our country’s carbon-free electricity, but
the wind often blows at night when electricity is not needed.
- How many wind turbines would it take to equal one nuclear reactor?
To equal the production of the new Watts Bar reactor, you would have to
run three rows of these turbines along I-40 from Memphis to
Knoxville—and don’t forget the transmission lines. Four reactors—each
occupying roughly one square mile—would equal the production of a row of
45-story wind turbines strung the entire length of the 2,178-mile
Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. Relying on wind power to
produce electricity when nuclear reactors are available is the energy
equivalent of going to war in sailboats when the nuclear navy is
available.
- Can you easily store large amounts of wind power and use it later when you need it? No.
- So even if you build wind turbines, do you still need nuclear, coal
or gas plants for the 80% of the time when the wind isn’t blowing in
Tennessee? Yes.
- Then, why would anyone want to build wind power that TVA doesn’t
need? Because billions of dollars of wasteful federal taxpayer
subsidies allow wind producers, in some markets, to give away wind power
and still make a profit.
- Who is going to guarantee that these giant wind turbines get taken
down when they wear out in 20 years and after the subsidies go away?
Good question.
Many communities where wind projects have been proposed have tried to
stop them before they go up because once the wind turbines and new
transmission lines are built, it is hard to take them down. For
example, watch the documentary “Windfall” that I mentioned earlier.
In October, the residents of Irasburg, Vermont, voted 274 to 9
against a plan to install a pair of 500-foot turbines on a ridgeline
visible from their neighborhoods.
In New York, three counties opposed 500 to 600 foot wind turbines
next to Lake Ontario. People in the town of Yates voted unanimously to
oppose the project in order to “preserve their rural landscape.”
In Kent County, Maryland,
the same company that is trying to put turbines in Cumberland County,
Apex Clean Energy, tried to put down 25 to 35 500-foot turbines a
quarter- to a half-mile apart across thousands of acres of farmland,
where the air serves as a route for migratory geese.
According to the Baltimore
Sun, Stephen S. Hershey Jr., a local state legislator, had introduced a
bill that would give county officials the right to veto any large-scale
wind project in their jurisdiction.
Hershey
said he put the bill in after learning that the turbines would be
nearly 500 feet tall and spread across an area of thousands of acres. He
called that a "massive" footprint "in a relatively rural and bucolic
area."
William
W. Pickrum, president of the board of county commissioners, wrote the
Senate committee that the project "will most certainly have a negative
effect" on farming, boating and tourism in the county and hurt property
values.
The
legislation had the support of local conservation groups and of
Washington College in Chestertown. The school's interim president, Jack
S. Griswold, warned in a letter to school staff and supporters that the
turbines would "despoil this scenic landscape."
What do you suppose John Muir would have written if his first view of
the Cumberland Mountains had been massive, unsightly wind turbines
instead of “waving, swelling mountain beauty?” What if he had seen
sprawling transmission lines instead of “forest-clad hills?”
As a United States senator
I have voted to save our mountaintops from destructive mining
techniques. I am just as eager to protect mountaintops from unsightly
windmills.
I have voted for federal
clean air legislation and supported TVA’s plan to build carbon-free
nuclear reactors, phase out its older, dirtier coal plants and put
pollution control equipment on the remaining coal plants. Already the
air is cleaner and our view of the mountains is better.
I hope that citizens of
Cumberland County—and all Tennesseans— will say a loud “no” to the
out-of-state wind producers who are encouraged by billions in wasteful
taxpayer subsidies to destroy our mountains.
Some say tourists will
come to see the giant turbines. Maybe once. But do you really think
tourists—or most Tennesseans—want to exchange a drive through the
natural beauty of the Cumberland Mountains for a drive along 23 towers
more than twice as tall as Neyland stadium whose flashing red lights can
be seen for 20 miles? If you do, just take another look at the
photograph of what has happened to Palm Springs, California.
If there is one thing
Tennesseans agree on, it is pride in the natural beauty of our state.
There are few places in our state more beautiful than Cumberland
County. We should not allow anyone to destroy the environment in the
name of saving it.
