Was That A Goat?

What do brush clearance in Southern California and electrical energy generation in Coastal New Jersey have in common? Well, other than appearing in this blog post together, they're also examples of controversial attempts by local government to "go green" -- that is, to promote ecologically responsible operating strategies. The amazing part, at least from where I'm sitting, is that either of these things is actually controversial. I suppose we should keep in mind that nothing is simple when it really is happening in your metaphorical back yard...

First, let's consider the New Jersey wind farm proposal. We've been hearing a lot about wind farms, or large wind-turbine arrays, since the T. Boone Pickens ads started running earlier this year. It's an appealing idea; harnessing the power of the wind to generate absolutely clean energy in a completely renewable manner. As wind turbines become more common the price for building one (and for the equipment that makes it work) is coming down, and the break even point is getting closer and closer. With the relatively high cost of fossil fuels, the idea of a power plant that you don't have to buy fuel for -- ever! -- is only going to become more and more popular as we go on. In fact, the same market forces will probably bring solar power plants online before much longer, as well...

So why is this controversial? In a word, NIMBY. Alright; technically that's an acronym that stands for Not In My Back Yard, and not really a word. But it's an accurate description of the reaction from the resort communities along the New Jersey coastline, all of which are convinced that they will lose tens of millions of dollars each year if there are a bunch of giant windmills anchored into the sea bed three miles offshore. The commercial fishing industry isn't happy about it, either, but it's mainly the resort operators who think the windmills will be an eyesore who are screaming...

I'm not sure that a bunch of tall, white wind turbine towers three miles away constitutes an eyesore, but then I rather enjoy watching windmills spin. In any case, there are conflicting reports of how much actual business would be lost because of the windmills, but most of the experts agree that it would be in the tens or hundreds of thousands, not the tens or hundreds of millions, and only for a few years until everybody concerned calmed down and forget that those white things on the horizon are windmills. The experts also agree that this would remove over 400,000 TONS of particulate from the air over New Jersey each year...

I know that Los Angeles would give it's (metaphorical) eye teeth for that kind of per capital smog reduction, so let's shift over to our other story of the week: the City of Los Angeles is employing a flock of about 100 goats to clear the brush off of Angel's Knob, a hill adjacent to the famous "Angel's Flight" tramway. This is saving the city about $4,000 over employing human workers with gasoline-powered weed whackers and chainsaws and such. It's also saving gasoline, noise, and air pollution, all of which my birth city already has quite enough of. So why is it controversial? Well, apparently the goats smell bad -- and this project is only creating work for a single goatherd for a few weeks, not for a dozen or so laborers for the rest of the year...

Some days, you just can't win, can you?