In another push to deal with soaring gas prices, President Bush on Monday will lift an executive ban on offshore drilling that his stood since his father was president. But the move, by itself, will do nothing unless Congress acts as well.
He should have done this weeks ago. Some Democrats are already wavering, and this will put pressure on the congressional leadership to give in. Drill, drill, drill. By the way, don't those rows and rows of windmills needed to generate wind power look at least as unsightly as oil derricks?
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The oil derricks are only there when they drill. They get replaced with oil pumps. I don't find any of the three particularly ugly, but the pumps stink.
There's a safety and maintenance problem with the windmills in that they have trouble dealing with blades breaking and exploding from the stress. Suzlon says 6% of their blades failed in the first half of 2008. Since turbines have multiple blades, that's a big percentage of their turbines that have failed.
They bought controlling interest in another windmill company, trying to get the technology that company had, but the courts won't let the companies merge or share technology, so Suzlon is in deep doo-doo.