...On October19, 1941 at approximately 6:56 pm a spinning two blade wind turbine began producing power on a hilltop known as Grandpas Knob in the town of West Rutland Vermont. This turbine ran for approximately 3.5 years, suffering numerous malfunctions and shutdowns. The project was abandoned in the spring of 1945 after one of the apparatus’s eight ton blades snapped off and crashing to the ground. While impressions on a whole deemed this pioneering experiment in wind power production a failure, the mountain top itself was spared from any massive destruction from this small scale wind project. Now Sixty-seven years later, a new generation of wind power turbines is being considered at this very same site and the surrounding area. Although this newly proposed wind farm along six miles of ridgeline is estimated to produce 50 megawatts of electricity and provide enough power for 15,000 households, this project will result in the irreversible destruction of this mountain top ecosystem. The environmental costs greatly outweigh any financial benefits that this proposed project offers. Background In early 2007 a renewable energy company named Noble power, a company that specialized in wind turbine construction, met with local officials to float the idea of a wind park on the Pittsford ridgeline known as Grandpa’s Knob. Noble ran into financial problems as a result of the 2008 recession and was forced to close its Rutland office in January 2009.Another event happened in 2008 when Vermont...
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