Photo/WES KELLER HUNDREDS OF AREA residents crowded the cafetorium at Shelburne’s Centre Dufferin District High School Wednesday night of last week to gain information on plans by Canadian Hydro Developers Inc. to proceed with the second phase Melancthon Wind Project. Hundreds of residents of all parts of Dufferin County crowded the cafetorium of Centre Dufferin District High School last week to hear about “green power” electrical generation on “wind farms.”

But in many ways the gathering appeared more like a social homecoming event than an information session. At one end of the room, the Timbits were disappearing faster than any wind that blows in Dufferin, and the coffee appeared to be flowing faster than the water that drives the generators at Niagara.

There were respectable numbers of people at every Canadian Hydro Developers Inc. display, but greater numbers congregated at the centre of the room, many of them catching up on old times.

None of that is to say there wasn’t any interest in the advent of a new industry for rural Dufferin. Some, like Irene Taylor of the Grand Valley area, said they felt more could have been accomplished by having a presentation plus a question period, or town hall meeting, rather than a traditional open house. Irene’s husband Tony said he had more questions than there appeared to be answers for.

Mrs. Taylor said she agrees with the principle of harnessing the wind, but wonders whether it wouldn’t make sense for municipalities to have ownership of the generators, so as to harvest the rewards for taxpayers. (An Internet search revealed no publicly owned wind generators.)

Bruce Horsley, a former deputy reeve of Amaranth, was critical of the media for what he viewed as inadequate coverage of the emerging industry. He described the emergence as “humungus.”

Remo Odorenko of Amaranth wasn’t certain that information about the wind industry is always accurate. He said he’d been told that the turbines are always installed a distance from residences but that a friend had traveled to Arizona and had seen an array of turbines with residential subdivisions practically underneath them.

An unidentified auditor said it wouldn’t matter how close the turbines were to houses. “They’re too high up to bother anyone,” he said. “Besides, if they ever fell off it wouldn’t be like a car wheel. They’d drop straight down.”

“Dropping down” might be the least of concerns expressed by opponents of what is fast becoming a major international industry. NIMBY (“not in my back yard”) enters the picture in scenic areas such as the Hockley Valley. People are known to object to the disruption of the scenery, to their fear of noise, and in at least one instance to the perceived danger to birds.

Although some view the giant turbines as a bane to tourism, others see them as a boon. According to various news reports, some travel agencies are including wind farms as points of interest on their tours.

In California, the Center for Biological Diversity is suing over what it claims to have been tens of thousands of deaths among protected species of birds that have collided with the turbines in Altamont Pass, near San Francisco. But proponents of wind generation say the Altamont installation is a site-specific problem. It is, they say, not only an excellent “wind resource area” but is heavily populated with birds of prey because of an abundance of ground squirrels. The defence points out that birds in “hot pursuit” of prey will bump into anything that comes in their way, be it a building or a tree.

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture views the industry as a secondary source of income for some farmers, but warns its members to consider all the implications of longterm leases.

Denmark, which generates 18 per cent of its electrical energy on wind farms, generally says there are virtually no causes of concern. That country has been relying on wind power since the early 1980s. In contrast to Denmark’s 18 per cent, the United Kingdom is at 0.6%, and the Canadian Wind Energy Association is aiming to have Canada’s production up to 5% by the year 2010.

Dufferin can be boastful. While the Melancthon II project will bring local production to 350 megawatts upon completion, Shell Oil proudly boasts of its 108-megawatt “wind farm” off the coast of Holland, and a Welsh company called Gwynt y Mor wants to go one better than Shell with a 200megawatt installation about 14 km off the coast of North Wales. A stronger ocean wind is cited as the main advantage of offshore installations.

General Electric, meantime, has jumped on the bandwagon by adding wind turbines to its manufacturing facility at Greenville, South Carolina, and has a second such facility at Pensacola, Fla., according to The State, a South Carolina newspaper.

A recent news items says that in the U.K., some homeowners have installed “wind gardens,” single small turbines, at a cost of about $17,500 plus a $5,000 government grant. The small turbines are expected to generate at least enough energy to heat the home in the winter and cool it in the summer. The homeowners expect to recover their investments within 10 years. An Australian company, Westwind, is producing small turbines — 3, 5, 10 and 20 kilowatts — and ABS Alaskan has a unit that combines wind, solar panels, battery bank and 2,400-watt (2.4 kw) generator for $18,500.

The downside to wind farms may be the unreliability of wind. But Vancouver based Encore Clean Energy Inc. is promoting “compressed air energy storage,” in which air is compressed in underground chambers to be used when the wind isn’t blowing. The turbines power the compressors in off-peak hours. There are two such installations worldwide, one in Germany and another in Alabama.