Wind
Wind Energy
Rooftop Windmills
Our vision is to replace carbon-based energy and nuclear energy with renewable sources as quickly as possible in Canada. Sometimes this may involve big wind farms, but just as often it will involve smaller projects that generate energy for local use and contribute to the grid, without causing huge environmental impacts. We hope to see suitable small scale windmills on the rooftops of highrises and industrial buildings. Where there are large populations, smaller scale projects may be more appropriate. As we see in the reports below, when people give the wind a chance, the vast majority are not inconvenienced by it, nor does it cause health problems.
Look at the damage caused by a nuclear accident such as in Fukushima, Japan, or the environmental costs of mining the Tar Sands in Alberta or the coal mines in the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia (where they have taken off the tops of 240 mountains in the last five years). This scale of activity destroys whole ecosystems, wiping out the habitat of all the species who live there. In West Virginia they not only destroyed the mountain ecosystems, they dumped the refuse in the river valleys, clogging the water systems.
We have not begun to realize the terrible costs we will pay for the climate change that all of these projects will simply escalate.
What price are we willing to pay to turn on our lights and our computers, heat our homes, and run our cars? Surely we can put up with the minor inconveniences of windmills in preference to the terrible costs of carbon fuels and nuclear power.
The Ontario Sustainable Energy Association supports the development of wind and solar co-ops and other forms of renewable energy in Ontario. It’s goal is to move us towards a 100% renewable energy future.
Sierra Club Wind Report 2011 06 03