Three articles in Recharge (http://www.rechargenews.com/ ) on July 28, 2011 tell the story of America's dawdling entry into a growing 21st century industry: offshore wind turbines.
One article states that "offshore wind farms are 'presently the largest construction projects going on in Europe.'" Two companies, Dong of Denmark and Siemens of Germany, connected 101 offshore turbines "to Europe's grids in the first half of the year." As Germany turns away from nuclear power, its government will invest at a greater rate in offshore wind turbines.
A second article describes the efforts of two American senators to pass a bill that "would help provide the stability and visibility needed for investors to kick-start the US offshore sector." Because Congress has never passed any long-term legislation to nurture offshore wind turbines, investors will not risk their money in "this fledgling industry."
Thus, "there are currently no US offshore wind facilities." Zero.
Senator Tom Carper, Democrat of Delaware, and Senator Olympia Snowe, Republican of Maine, "were among a group of senators that last year called for long-term production tax credits for deepwater offshore wind, though the proposal came to nothing."
One proposed wind turbine project, off the Delaware coast, "would create 1,200 jobs during construction and 300 permanent operational posts over the next 20 years."
Minimal legislative support from Washington means limited investment, which means limited job growth. Meanwhile, the American economy remains stagnant, unable to pull itself out of the recession.
In a third article, the Spanish wind turbine company Gamesa states that the US market is "among those where demand is 'subdued or growing more slowly than expected, partly because of a lack of regulatory visibility.'" Gamesa will expand instead in India and Brazil.
The picture is crystal clear. The boys who control Washington do not want clean energy.
John Slade
Woodgate International
http://www.woodgateintl.com/
Friday, July 29, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
John Slade (very brave) emerging from the roof of a nacelle
Dr. Slade with his old workhorse Nikon (film!)
in the midst of 195 Vestas wind turbines.
Dr. Slade is wearing a harness with a two-meter chain (wrapped in yellow fabric) which is attached to the steel roof of the nacelle. That way, anyone who stumbles over the edge merely dangles, rather than plummets, and so eventually can be somehow rescued.
To get back to our theme: Engineers and Architects
Great challenges await you, and unprecedented opportunities,
As climate change, like an angry bear, slashes away with enormous claws all that we thought was normal.
We shall need Engineers, to tap the wind, to tap the sun, to tap the roving sea,
And Architects, to design better homes, better schools, and better cities, where Mother Nature is a part of the family.
Sam and Meg, Meg and Sam,
as the sun shines upon all of the Earth,
and as the wind blows over all of the Earth,
reach out, please, to the peoples of the Earth . . .
as you design and build an entirely new chapter in the book of human progress.
The sun, that blesses me with richest earthly finery,
Shines no warmer than my hopes upon thee.
John Slade
Woodgate International
Sam and Meg getting ready to snorkle in the lilypads
Snorkling is the best way
to meet the creatures that live in the lake.
Sam and Meg might see schools of golden shiners that catch the underwater sun.
They might see bluegills and perch, redbellied dace, and a painted turtle scuttling away.
They might see the rare freshwater sponge: long thin fingers reaching from a sunken branch, green in the sunshine, or white in the dark beneath a bog. Do you dare to shake hands with those white fingers?
They might see bullfrog tadpoles, six inches long, feasting on a carpet of algae.
They might see a crayfish, waving its warning claws at them from its lair of dead leaves on the bottom.
They might see a salamander, pale green with bright red spots, floating absolutely weightless two feet beneath the surface, until with a wag of its tail it zips off and vanishes.
Sam and Meg might see so many things, as they swim with a mask and snorkle through the lilypads.
Explorers in a red canoe
Meg and Sam have paddled to a floating bog.
Before disembarking, they search for the Bog Monster
Bogs are not usually a place which twelve-year-old girls would explore. Bogs are floating mossy sponges, squishy and prickly, with black muck holes scattered here and there, so you'd better watch where you step.
However, Meg and Sam are very brave. Should the Bog Monster grab their ankles and try to suck them down a black muck hole, they will . . . shriek!
Sam and Meg explore an Adirondack lake
Samantha and Megan, standing atop a rock in a lake,
make a heart to tell the lake, "We love you."
The rock is a round boulder which a glacier brought south from somewhere in Canada. When the glacial ice melted, about eleven thousand years ago, boulders and stones and pebbles were deposited on the rolling sandy land. This boulder is a favorite perch for explorers, geese, and mermaids.
Note the circles of lichen on the boulder. Lichen is made of two plants living together: a fungus and an alga. Their relationship is called symbiosis: they help each other to survive, and to flourish.
John Slade
Woodgate International
Chapter Six: Engineers and Architects
John Slade beside the generator in a wind turbine nacelle
Step aside, please, we're coming through.
We're the coming generation of engineers, getting ready to build the next generation of wind turbines.
We're the coming generation of architects, getting ready to design a new kind of city, with a new kind of schools, and a new way of getting around.
We're kids now. At least, you older folks who are dumping your mess in our laps probably look upon us as kids. We look upon you as Neanderthal II.
So step aside, please. We're coming through.
This time, we're going to do it differently. We're going to work with Mother Nature, not against her. We're going to work with the sun, and with the wind.
What are you going to work with? A leaky bucket of oil.
So we're out exploring. Mother Nature is our classroom now.
John Slade
Woodgate International
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Tap the Talent of Every Kid
St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
from Global Warming and War
Now the principal, energized, addressed the assembled students with a tone of urgency. "You see," he was sending them on a mission, "we want to tap the talent of every kid, because we have a big job to do. It's going to take American kids, and French kids, and Irish kids, and Egyptian kids, and Cuban kids . . . and Russian kids. It's going to take all of those kids working together, for the first time in human history, to solve the problems that threaten us all."
Now the principal, energized, addressed the assembled students with a tone of urgency. "You see," he was sending them on a mission, "we want to tap the talent of every kid, because we have a big job to do. It's going to take American kids, and French kids, and Irish kids, and Egyptian kids, and Cuban kids . . . and Russian kids. It's going to take all of those kids working together, for the first time in human history, to solve the problems that threaten us all."
His voice strengthened with conviction. "In fact, this is such a big job, that we don't have time anymore for war. We've got to build wind turbines, not smart bombs. We've got to make more progress during the next fifty years than the human race has ever managed before, or we are going to end up living on Job's dung heap."
They were watching him, their young faces alert, pensive.
He repeated, "We want to tap the talent of every kid."
He paused, then asked, "Any questions?"
Tony raised is hand.
"Tony?"
"Thank you, Mr. Shepherd."
"You're welcome."
John Slade
Woodgate International
My Brother's Keeper
St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
My Brother's Keeper
But who are my brothers?
I was born in Buffalo.
Are my brothers therefore only Buffalonians?
Do I bestow my benevolence upon my brethren
Across the entire Empire State?
Or am I an American, singing of brotherhood from sea to shining sea?
Is my brother the Palestinian who shared my college dormitory kitchen,
And broke bread with me?
Cain, your question remains unanswered.
I'll try again tomorrow.
from On a Starry Night
John Slade
Woodgate International
September Love
Bamako, Mali, West Africa
September Love
We never knew how much happiness could be gathered in a building.
We never knew how much love could be gathered in a building.
Those tall boxes of love might well have floated, like warm balloons,
Up into the sky toward heaven.
And those four planes so full of desperate love
Might well have journeyed even higher toward the source of love.
We lost the happiness, but we kept the love.
Undiminished, our love demands more than grief, more than memory.
Perhaps our love, put to use by hands still made of flesh, not ash,
Could build more than a monument,
Could lift more than only one nation toward a higher realm.
Perhaps our love could reach beyond the daily lives of those we lost,
To the daily lives of people who dream the same dreams,
But in a different language.
Then could our enormous love from September
Encompass all the Earth,
And bring some measure of happiness
To children still seeking tomorrow.
from On a Starry Night
John Slade
Woodgate International
It's Your Turn Now
It's Your Turn Now
"But Mary treasured up all these things
And pondered them in her heart."
All right, Mary, you've pondered long enough.
For two thousand years, the boys have had every possible opportunity,
And they're still fighting their wars.
It's your turn now.
The men are still tossing pennies to the poor.
It's your turn now.
The men have cut down most of the olive trees,
And have poisoned most of the wells.
Now it's your turn.
We do not need another sacrificial victim.
We need mother teaching daughter.
For centuries, mothers have sent their sons off to war.
Now it's time for mothers to send their daughters off
To build a lasting peace.
I'm sorry, Mary, but
It's your turn . . . now.
from On a Starry Night
John Slade
Woodgate International
Chapter Five: Our Children
John and Sasha discover an old Russian windmill
Our Children
Our children, who live on Earth, sacred are your voices.
Your future come, in fruitfulness and peace,
As we have promised in your making.
Give us this day your daily laughter,
And forgive us our cruelty,
Even as we renounce our inheritance of hate.
Weave with your voices a song of understanding
Which every child upon this Earth may hear.
Weave with your hands a cloak of peace
Which every child upon this Earth may wear.
For you are the purity and the beauty and the strength,
God's most precious gift,
Which we must not squander.
Amen.
from On a Starry Night
John Slade
Woodgate International
Let Me Believe
Let Me Believe
Let me believe as does the apple tree,
So old in winter, so young in spring,
For it never doubts the Earth.
from On a Starry Night
John Slade
Woodgate International
www.woodgateintl.com
Let me believe as does the apple tree,
So old in winter, so young in spring,
For it never doubts the Earth.
from On a Starry Night
John Slade
Woodgate International
www.woodgateintl.com
"Fisker du?"
Fishing boat on fjord, near Bodo, Norway
"Fisker du?"
You ask me if I go fishing.
An ocean wraps around the Earth, so full of life
That we forget how long life waited
For the ocean to be ready.
Currents churned by the spinning planet;
Tides pulled by the circling moon;
An equatorial current warmed by the blazing sun:
These contingencies were required before the magic could begin.
Of course, three heavenly bodies (planet, moon, and sun)
Working in conjunction with a cloak of rare water
Were still far from enough.
An orb wrapped with water was less, far less,
Than an orb wrapped with life.
Somehow, the world went fishing,
And did better than any fisherman I've ever known.
from On a Starry Night
John Slade
Woodgate International
Funeral Veil
 |
| Sun over fjord, near Bodo, Norway |
Were Earth an increment closer to the sun,
No snow would there be, nor me.
Were Earth an increment further from the Golden One,
No rain would there be, nor me.
Wherefore then, in perfect and perpetual equilibrium,
Do we earthlings yearly conceal ourselves behind
A shroud ever darker,
Blocking with all manner of airborne muck
The gentle rays that would bless us, bless us, bless us unto eternity?
Shall we not allow the sun himself to bestow his spark
Unto our multitude of clamoring machines,
Before the Earth herself is forced to wear the veil
Of a mother mourning for her children?
from On a Starry Night
John Slade
Woodgate International
http://www.woodgateintl.com/
To Lave: To Wash Clean
Sognsvann, Oslo, Norway
To Lave: To Wash Clean
Water laves its way through the world,
Touching all life:
It courses up the vascular pipeline to the top of the tallest sequoia.
Water laces through the leaves of the rustling maple.
It drifts as perfumed mist from a freshly opened apple blossom.
Water oozes as a protoplasmic soup,
Cleansing and feeding and helping to propel the peripatetic amoeba.
And water races as a red river through a tiny tubular canal,
Cleansing and feeding and helping to propel the peripatetic thoughts
Wandering among the cells of your brain.
From capillary to continental river,
From thunderstorm to heartbeat,
Water laves its way through the world.
from On a Starry Night
John Slade
Woodgate International
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