Virginia One of Just 13 States with Zero Installed Wind Power

Virginia has significant wind potential (0.00 / 0)

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by: Lowell @ Thu Jan 29, 2009 at 08:03:04 AM CST

Great graphic Miles (0.00 / 0)

Especially paired with Lowell's above.

And one of the great things about the Appalachian region is that the higher resolution mapping you use, the greater the wind potential you can see.

For instance, here is Coal River Mountain, WV in

a) Low Resolution

and b) High Resolution

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by: faithfull @ Thu Jan 29, 2009 at 09:55:05 AM CST

Slight modification ... (0.00 / 0)

Zero installed commercial/utility scale wind power. There are a (very) few home-owner/small business wind systems around the Commonwealth.

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by: A Siegel @ Thu Jan 29, 2009 at 11:41:10 AM CST

Grid Scale Wind Turbines in Virginia (0.00 / 0)

Land based, grid-scale wind installations in Virginia would come at a huge cost with little or no environmental benefit, while inflicting catastrophic damage to our mountains. Ridge lines have the wind, but they would be blasted to smithereens to build the wide roads required to bring in 110' blades, nacelle and stanchion sections, and to lay multi-acre sites with deep concrete pads. Hundreds of miles of ridge lines would be required to supply a relatively small amount of unreliable electricity, and only when the wind blows. Even if one thousand 400'+ wind monsters scarred our mountains, it is highly likely that NOT ONE fossil fuel plant will be closed, or would gear down one scintilla. If the wind farm  should economically fail, which they will do without public subsidy, the operators will evaporate, leaving a string of junk monuments, so we will have a reminder of this folly to look at for many years to come. Please, learn all the facts before thinking that wind farms are any kind of panacea. What they would be, however, is an unmitigated environmental tragedy.  

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by: Jim @ Mon Feb 02, 2009 at 20:26:59 PM CST