REVIEW: ‘Windfall’

Green energy. Great idea, right? Wind and solar good; coal and oil bad.

But as is so often the case in the real world, it’s more complicated than that.

Laura Israel’s documentary “Windfall” takes a look at the small community of Meredith, N.Y., where bucolic hills are dotted with dairy cattle and organic farms. And then an Irish wind energy firm began to approach the residents about putting up wind turbines — 400 feet tall, with blades 100 feet long.

Soon, residents of Meredith were divided, and perhaps not in the way one might expect. Environmentalists were alarmed by the impact of noise and something called “shadow flicker,” which is when the blades’ shadow, constantly moving, is cast onto nearby roads and through the windows of houses. Putting up the huge turbines would require lots of heavy equipment on the narrow roads of Meredith, and high-voltage transmission lines would need to be installed to move the electricity generated by the turbines into the utility system grid. Is it worth it? The citizens of Meredith debated hotly for more than a year.

“Windfall” also looks at other areas of New York which permitted the wind farms. But you likely won’t come away from the film thinking you’d want a wind farm next door.