• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 792 0

problems at Altamont. People thought the wind farms were an eyesore. The early wind farms, though, might not be a good indicator for the overall social acceptability of wind machines. In the early wind areas, all kinds of different turbines were put into place; there was no uniformity of design. Broken ones were left standing, junking up the place. Spare parts were left lying around. So the wind farms were not good neighbors, perhaps because many were not expected to be in business for very long.57 Concerns that the landscape had lost its scenic nature were equaled by problems with the human elements of the seemingly inefficient wind farms. Landscape researcher Richard Thayer wrote of the Altamont area,

When wind is blowing and most other turbines are spinning, large numbers of non-operating turbines apparently lead to public perceptions of technological or managerial incompetence or tax fraud. Inoperative turbines seemed to equal or exceed siting, design and scenic character in causing negative attitude formation among subjects.58

Overall, the bird kills, landscape transformations, and incompetence of the early wind farmers made getting later farms sited a nightmare for Kenetech, even though they were not the worst offenders on any of these items. They were, however, the face of the industry, so they bore the brunt of public concerns. Prospective real estate developers with their eyes on building exurban rural estates were loath to see their subdividable properties overshadowed by windmills, even though subsequent evidence suggests that wind turbines do not depress housing prices.59 As a result, projects proceeded more slowly than anticipated.

Hoping to get their turbines working and their projects in the ground, Kenetech limped through 1995 with their share price in the tank. The end came when Kenetech filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on May 29, 1996. A company that had ridden California’s tax incentives to the pinnacle of the industry, weathered their repeal, and developed the most expensive turbine in history, had been felled. Their old rival Zond bought their patents and research on the variable-speed rotor on the cheap and developed a very successful turbine based on the technology.60

The company’s failure speaks broadly to the issues of renewable energy technology. Most obvious is that breakthrough technologies are very difficult to develop. Although virtually all wind machines now use variable-speed rotors because they are a good idea, Kenetech tried to make too many changes too quickly in hopes of dramatically reducing the price of wind power. What they ended up with was a paper turbine that broke regularly under real conditions.

Danish wind turbines, by contrast, rarely tried to make major changes to their designs. They scaled up slowly and incorporated few new features.61 This was partially because the government mandated that they submit to reliability testing before they could receive domestic subsidies. However, the business culture of the United States contributed as well, said Fort Felker, who worked at Kenetech from 1994 to 1996 and who is now the director of the Wind Technology Center at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Felker said,

We felt that we had a huge technology head start and we had no interest in collaborating with anybody. I don’t know that the Danish model could have worked for the United States. The Danish environment had strong government support of the industry whereas in the US we didn’t. We were struggling to stay in business and make wind be successful in light of dirt cheap fossil fuels.62

Danish lawmakers actively pushed the businessmen who bankrolled their technologies to be familiar with how those technologies worked, and the government strove to create innovation networks that bound researchers, people working in the field, and corporate types as closely as possible.63

However, the gusty policy environment of the time, with incentives swaying to and fro, made it difficult for companies to count on anything but technology. American companies were constantly