Thanks to Megan for the information, and yes, Q, I will check that out.

And to Amos. A post to be studied in detail.

As to the large insulating panels that my friend Doug Johnson postulated, there are large areas of real estate that nobody uses for much of anything (much of the Sahara, yes, the Kalahari, many areas in the Middle East, parts of the American Southwest, areas in Australia, all over the place) and although they may have esthetic appeal to those passing through, to many people they are just wasteland. This matter would take a bit of debate.

I see this as being a bit similar to those who say that wind farms are an "eyesore." To me, and to a fair number of environmentally concerned people, wind farms are most pleasing to the eye. The Danes are rather proud of theirs and are a bit smug about the cheap and plentiful electricity they have. And I find the argument about wind turbines interfering with the path of migratory birds or the rotors smacking birds out of the sky in great hordes to be downright spurious. I've watched flights of Canada geese flying overhead in great V formations and their flight path is so far above the wind turbines that the whole argument becomes silly.

Migratory birds do make stops, usually in marshes and wetlands to rest and refuel. In fact, one of these is in the city of Seattle, north end, well inside the city limits: Green Lake. Great hordes of migrating geese stop there. The simple solution is, don't put wind turbines near marshes and wetlands. Easy enough not to do.

I'm sure the wind turbine rotors do occasionally smack a low-flying bird out of the sky, but in significant numbers? Highly doubtful!

In fact, I know someone who has a wind turbine in his back yard. He put it up himself. He had some tremendous battles with the FAA and the CAB because he is near the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, but it was determined that any airliner landing or taking off who was so low they might clip the tower was in very deep trouble already. Seattle City Light tried to get it taken down because, not only was it producing enough electricity to power everything in his house, his meter was running backward! He was putting power back into the system, and legally, they had to pay him. SCL went so far as to try to get his neighbors to complain about the "eyesore," but that backfired. They came and asked Randy a lot of questions about it, and several more towers have gone up in that neighborhood!

Nobody's noticed any piles of dead birds anywhere.

As to "GUEST, Ignoramus Indeed" (probably one of Goofball's multiple personalities), yes, the Bonneville Power Administration is a tax supported government agency, hence, "Socialistic," for those who are terrified by the word. But the power dams on the Columbia River (most of them, like Grand Coulee dam, built in the 1930s -'40s) are providing inexpensive hydroelectric power to the entire Pacific Northwest—and we are also selling lots of it to California!

By the way, a lot of coal-fired power plants were shut down when power from the dams came on line (!!)

[Woody Guthrie wrote a number of songs about the project: Roll on Columbia, The Great Grand Coulee Dam, a whole bunch of others. 'Course there are those who would complain that Woody Guthrie was a "socialist!"]

The fact is, there is one helluvalot of non-polluting, non-fossil fuel produced energy available out there in the real world. A little thought about the ways of harnessing and utilizing it without the motivation of "how much money can we make out of this!??" could turn this into a whole lot less polluted and much cleaner world.

Take another look at the air quality in Beijing: COUGH!! WHEEZE!! If we keep on with what we've been doing, we could be killing ourselves by simply breathing too!

Don Firth