e early discussions of an unnamed project are under way)
to talk to local groups or crystallize their objections for them. In Annapolis,
Md., and Charleston, W.Va., he uses state utility regulators' licensing
hearings to throw up roadblocks before wind projects. He is eager to argue with
industry officials in any venue, questioning their facts, assumptions and
"The rush is on now
because a lot of the places they've targeted have no zoning, and it's easy to
get in that kind of large-scale development," he said. "This part of
the country has really good energy prices. Developers are keying in on that."
Mr. Boone's quiver of
anti-wind arguments includes economic analyses, but his first line of attack is
biological: he contends that they are a threat to bats and potentially to
migratory birds and that they break up forest habitat.
Scores of raptors and other
birds were killed by the first generation of wind turbines set up at Altamont
Pass in Northern California. Since the Altamont Pass turbines were erected in
the early 1980's, turbine design has been altered, and most subsequent studies
have shown that birds tend to fly above the height of most turbines though some
experts say more studies are needed.
But the turbines south of
here in Thomas, W.Va., have been lethal to bats. More than 2,000 were killed in
2003 at the Mountaineer project, whose 44 turbines are owned by FPL Energy, a
big power company that is the wind industry's dominant player.
Industry officials agree
that the bat mortality measured at the Mountaineer site is unacceptable, and
they are studying the benefits of deterrent devices and the best ways to modify
turbine operations in bat-rich areas.
To Mr. Boone, wind energy
will never make a big enough difference to justify its impact in the region.
"You have to remember that these tax advantages are so huge," he
said, "that these developers are keen to latch onto all the mythology
whether it's global warming or something else."
Asked if he thought global
warming was a myth, he said: "No, I'm not calling it mythology." But
industry officials, he contended, will "take things out of context."
Mike Tidwell, the director
of Chesapeake Climate Action Network and one of Mr. Boone's
adversaries, bristles at the attack. "Wind industry guys are the
straightest-shooting people," Mr. Tidwell said. "Most got into it
because they had an environmental ethic."
But Mr. Boone has plenty of
allies, too. "He's the greatest naturalist I've even known," said
Betsy Johnson, chairwoman of the Maryland chapter of the Sierra Club. "Dan
has been very helpful in educating us with what problems there can be with an
energy source like wind."
The industry Mr. Boone
regards so suspiciously is on a roll. The total share of energy that wind farms
generated nationwide in 2004 was tiny about one-third of 1 percent, according
to the Energy Department. But by 2020, according to industry estimates, wind's
share of the county's energy portfolio could grow ten- or twentyfold.
For the environmental
movement, wind supporters say, the transition from the protection of place to
the protection of planet is bound to be wrenching.
conversations are spiritual," said David Hamilton, the Sierra Club's
national director of global warming and energy programs. "We've always
been a place-based organization, protecting places," but "protecting
our climate" is "just looking at it from a different angle and a
3) Instant Expert: Energy and Fuels
Pickrell, New Scientist, 26 May 2006, http://www.newscientist.com/popuparticle.ns?id=in158
cheap energy is a linchpin of modern industry and civilisation. Energy, mostly
from fossil fuels, allows us
to heat homes, and power factories and transportation systems. Worldwide every
day, we devour the energy
equivalent of about 200 million barrels of oil, but much of this energy comes
from coal, gas and nuclear fuel too.
Starting with coal, and then oil and
gas in the 1800s, we have plundered our fossil fuel riches to drive development. But
now, an energy crisis looms. New oil sources are dwindling,
and smothering greenhouse gases
th