FAA takes the wind out of wind farms

[jpak]

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/nation/14751412.htm

CHICAGO - The federal government has stopped work on more than a dozen wind farms planned across the Midwest, saying research is needed on whether the giant turbines could interfere with military radar.

But backers of wind power say the action has little to do with national security. The real issue, they say, is a group of wealthy vacationers who think a proposed wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod would spoil the view at their summer homes.

Opponents of the Cape Wind project include several influential members of Congress. Critics say their latest attempt to thwart the planting of 130 turbines in Nantucket Sound has led to a moratorium on wind farms hundreds of miles away in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Federal officials refused to reveal how many stop-work orders have been sent out. But developers say at least 15 wind farm proposals in the Midwest have been shut down by the Federal Aviation Administration since the beginning of the year.

<and more shocking revelations>

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Why of course, the military is always the number one priority! We

wouldn't want an alternative energy source to interfer with the Greatest Military the World has ever known, now would we?

[ladjf]

2. Not being an attorney, it isn't clear to me how the FAA has the

authority to shut down an entire industry based on their premise that the system needs more study, especially when the phrase "more study" is code of stopping the project indefinitely.