Abbott and Hockey dislike the aesthetics of windfarms, describing them as “visually awful” and “making a lot of noise”. Funny, I think the same about motorways.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, of course.
But motorways certainly have problems with noise, with pollution causing health problems, and with the space they take up for what they do, and cause dispersed travel patterns rather than assisting the centralised dense city cores needed to grow economies based primarily on information workers and the “knowledge economy”. They also often cost more than the benefits they produce, and almost any mobility benefits for individuals are limited to those who can drive — and peak-hour congestion/time benefits are short-lived.
The PM wouldn’t see it this way of course, but then he has a blinkered view, an irrational dislike for alternatives such as public transport. (He does cycle, but only for sport, not for transport.)
Joe Hockey is calling for a mature debate about the budget. Fair enough.
Perhaps he and the PM could participate in a mature debate in other important areas, including power generation and transport — assessing the options on their economic and environmental merit, rather than subjective attributes such as aesthetics.
5 replies on “Visually awful, make a lot of noise”
Yep, noise is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak.
The reason given to me by Metro for not having public address speakers along the platforms of Brighton Beach station is that it creates too much noise for neighbouring houses. This is odd given that speeding trains are even louder.
So I guess if householders don’t like announcements about late trains, they don’t like the whiz of windmills.
The smell of truck fumes or coal generation is OK apparently!
Good article, Daniel
“The Shovel” has an fitting article on the stupidity of the Liberal Govenments attitude to Coal over renewable energy.
“Stringent Conditions Will Minimise Risk Of Unsightly Wind Turbines At New Open Cut Mine, Greg Hunt Says”
http://www.theshovel.com.au/2015/07/09/stringent-conditions-will-minimise-risk-of-unsightly-wind-turbines-at-new-open-cut-mine-greg-hunt-says/
Abbot is clearly a hippocrit. Opposing windfarms and supporting freeways at the same time.
At least solar pannels can never be claimed to be noisy.
If I had it in my power to do so, I would have my house roof fitted with solar pannels all over, and just cut myself off from the main grid. May be nice to have a very small wind turbine to supplement it??
I could have some lights, such as in the toilet, bathroom, kitchen and etc, which stay on 24/7 without feeling guilty.
Very good point. Roads are everywhere people are too. Windmills are in remote areas for the most part and can even placed in the ocean. A building in The Docklands has some neat looking spiral windmills on it’s roof.