We took this snap from the window of a moving car, so it’s not the greatest – but we were totally blown away by the sight of the wind farm currently under construction at Lake George. It’s going to look amazing.
We love it already.
- Comment
- Reblog
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
glass central canberra 
Maybe the windfarm will look great from 20kms away, which is where you took the photo, but please spare a thought for the 100 or so people living in the shadow of the wind farm, with 130m tall towers a small distance from their homes and suffering noise and shadow flicker 24/7. They get NO compensation for having their hitherto peaceful rural lives and amenity ruined. This is the hidden cost of wind farms. Would you like to put a photo on your website that gives your readers a more balanced picture? If so here’s a site you should look at:
http://betterplan.squarespace.com/
I love it too, and my sister’s crazy for it. We grew up around coal-fired power stations pumping water into the lake, which might have something to do with it.
Hey Arden
yes, I totally understand that a wind farm must be incredibly problematic (ghastly, even) in a built up area. And I’m guessing you’re entirely unfamiliar with Lake George – which is wonderfully ’empty’ and spiritually wild. There, on that great expanse, the wind farm is like a grand, poetic installation – a huge, functional Christo – and it takes your breath away. n(Ed)
I’m very familair with Lake George. While Lake George itself may be ’empty’ and spiritually wild, the land surrounding it on which the wind farm is built has been developed as a rural residential sub-division. Just drive up the Tarago Road or Taylor’s Creek road and you’ll see all the homes – now surrounded by wind towers. The farmer who sub-divided the land and sold it at full market price as ‘lifestyle blocks’ to people whose dream was to live in a peaceful rural environment. He later later plonked this dirty great wind farm right next to them. Go back through the Bungendore papers for the last couple of years and you’ll see the heart-felt letters from people who’ve had their dreams destroyed. Please do a little more research before you believe the wind industry spruikers and their mantra that ‘nobody lives there’. Plenty of people live there – go take a look for yourself – but the wind industry calls the people and thier shattered lifestyles ‘collateral damage’. Sorry to burst your bubble about the romance of wind-farms, but the reality is very far from romantic for the poor people forced to live unde them 24/7. Of course, if the wind-farm gives you a nice warm glow as you admire them from afar on your way to Sydney then I suppose it’s ok that a hundred or so people’s lives have been wrecked.
I endorse all of Arden’s comments. I too am a local of the area so I am very familiar with Lake George. I suppose that industrial wind turbines are amusing as you flit past in your car at 100km, but they are neither charming nor amazing when you have to live with these monsters. I am one of the people who bought land in the area many years ago and have now had my peace and quiet sold out from under me by the Osbournes (who own the land on which these turbines are being built). I don’t actually care how much money they are making from this, nothing will ever compensate me for the loss of amenity our family has suffered. These useless turbines haven’t even started yet and already the damage is done. There are scars dug into the ancient landscape for the kilometres of access road. Hundreds of cubic metres of cement at the base of each one. The planning restrictions on the site have recently been removed so we now have trucks going past our place 18 hours a day, seven days a week. When the turbines are eventually commissioned, they will be noisy 24 hours a day (when the wind blows) and will cast a flickering light across the landscape where 100s of people just like us are living. And for what? They will not make any contribution to reducing greenhouse emisssions. This is because baseload generators, namely fossil-fuel generators, will have to keep generating for the times when the unpredictable wind is not blowing, or blowing too hard, or it is too hot or too cold. Since we cannot command the wind to blow at the ideal speed, the intemittency of the wind resource puts undue stress on the network. The average output of a wind farm is about 10-15% of installed capacity, less in hot weather when they do not operate. Did you know that the only reason that wind farm is being built is because the NSW government has signed an agreement to buy the green credits to offset the emissions from the Desalination Plant in Sydney. In other words, our neighbourhood endures the blight of this industrial monstrosity so that a few people in Eastern Sydney get desalinated water. Do you still think it looks amazing? If so, then I am amazed. And Zoe, I grew up around coal-fired power stations too. I accepted them because they provided and still provide reliable electricity and employment. I happen to think that the curve on the wall of a cooling tower is elegant and amazing but there is no way I would ever wish one on somebody who is living in a quiet, rural neighbourhood because it would turn their environment into an industrial zone. It is unfair, unnecessary, and brutal…but by all means, you enjoy the view as you zoom past from a distance of many kilometres on your way to somewhere else.
Goodness me, I have just read the contribution by glasscentralcanberra who describes the landscape and these man-made structures as being poetic, akin to a “functional” Christo installation. Y’know, the landscape was poetic without these creaking industrial phallic symbols. Our landscape is not enhanced by gouging scars of access roads made by the earthmoving equipment, sub-stations and miles of power lines. Nor are our creeks improved by the pumping of groundwater for the onsite concrete batching plant.
As for them being functional, not even close.
We do agree on one thing though. The industrial complex takes my breath away too, in horror.
glasscentralcanberra, I am not sure what you are in more urgent need of – new spectacles or a bit of compassion for the people living nearby who endure this monstrosity and the inane comments of somebody who thinks their misery is all part of a Christo installation.
Oh please. I grew up surrounded by the Kent coalfields, a nuclear power station and an oil-fired power station.
(Turns on gushometer)
“Poetic and stupendous monuments – huge ferine Salvador Dalis, augustly celebrating man’s triumph over barbarianism. Like Artemis, pregnant cooling towers iconise nature’s fecundity. Majestic, saturnine slag-heaps spawn spires of sparkling jet in the otherwise Constable-esque landscape. Pit wheels silhouetted against the churning English Channel echo nature’s endless cycles of birth, death and beyond………………”
Oh, and they are pretty good at producing electricity too.
Yeah, okay, we get it already. Choice comeback, btw. Mea culpa. But what can we say? Bummer, dudes. Shit does happen, that’s for sure. Has the offending farmer long decamped? Or have you lynched him?
n(Ed)
Jeez, way to win hearts, people. Try persuading me with arguments BEFORE you dump the bucket of shit. You might find people are more interested then in what you have to say.
Zoe, you need to understand that one of the things we are fighting is the mindless apathy of people who say they like the look of wind turbines. These industrial machines are not a decoration. They are supposed to reduce our reliance upon fossil fuels and provide reliable electricity. They do neither. The industrial wind farm industry wants to narrow the discussion about wind turbines down to one of aethetics because if it ever came to a discussion about their effectiveness, they would be exposed as the fraudsters they are.
As for dumping a bucket of shit on you, how do you think it makes us feel when we see thoughtless comments like yours? Worse, when you reflect on what has been said here, it is still all about you, isn’t it? Your needs, your feelings and your desire to feel thrilled at the sight of wind turbines are really all that matter.
glasscentralcanberra, he is still there. The neighbourhood as a whole have more manners than him so there is no chance he will be lynched. A crap farmer who flogged the land but now portrays himself as an environmentalist as shafts the neighbourhood by turning it into an industrial park.
“…Worse, when you reflect on what has been said here, it is still all about you, isn’t it? Your needs, your feelings and your desire to feel thrilled at the sight of wind turbines are really all that matter.”
Jesus wept. You guys have got to chill out a bit. n(Ed)
On the contrary, Foehn – if that is your real name,
it’s all about you. You’ve popped into a blog about art and aesthetics to talk about something else, and anyone who disagrees with you is guilty of “mindless apathy”. The very existence of a conversation about what the turbines look like is evidence of “thoughtlessness” to you. Even if they’re a bunch of artists, who are trained to look at things.
I might have been persuaded by your arguments, but I’m not persuaded by personal abuse.
They are sublime. As in they inspire veneration or awe. Awe as in overwhelming wonder or dread. Other examples include massive thunderheads, a mushroom cloud, the Hoover Dam, a building collapsing, a shark’s gaping jaw, a space shuttle launch, a volcano, a land fill, anything in Dubai, a tornado approaching a tiny house, the QE2 at port, an avalanche…etc.
Finding such images awe-inspiring, so that just looking at them sends a shiver through you, in no way means that you the condone the actions portrayed, or that you are celebrating lives or livelihoods lost as a result.
If this is a foreign concept then perhaps a website dedicated to the visual arts isn’t for you. But think of it this way – if no one found the image of the wind turbines spectacular, then there would be no images created of them, and no one would ever know of your plight.
Exactomondo, Yolande.
Wot she sez… n(Ed)
Lake George is empty due to climate change. It may never fill again.
Tens of thousands of Pacific Islanders’ homes are threatened by rising sea levels.
Tens of millions of residents in delta regions around the world are similarly threatened.
Entire countries in Africa are under threat of starvation due to more frequent droughts.
When I see those windfarms driving around what used to be Lake George I’m overwhelmed by the scale of them. They’re beautifully monstrous. They’re a constant reminder of what we’ve done to the Earth. I also see a faint glimmer of hope that we can turn things around.
Well, maybe people who live in and near canberra, who have never seen industrialisation, coal fired power stations or nuclear power stations could ‘rebel’ against sustainable energy generation, but put simply, get real… wind turbines do not worry me, the ‘pollution’ is negligable (and yes I have been to your area and find the concern a load of hype!)… I want to buy a block right next to them…. lol
I’m a bit confused, after reading most comments. This seems to me that it has become an argument about whether we want to go green and do the right thing for future generations. My question is, are those people living under the turbines apposed to the green alternative or are they simply stating that they were cheated into something that wasn’t b’n’w. I don’t know what it would be like to have one in my backyard but I can imagine it could take a bit of getting use to. Don’t get me wrong I’m all for them but within reason. I think we should be focusing on the dirty tactics used at our expense. Do we have a tendency to be argumentative and opinionated? Do we focus our energies at the wrong source? Who is it we are really pissed with? Perhaps I’ve totally missed the point, enlighten me!