Wind energy on the grid is not green

An associate has written to the Climate Trust's climatecounter.org, regarding their support of wind energy green tags from Bonneville Environmental Foundation:

"The electricity generated by the co-funded wind facility displaced electricity that otherwise would have been generated by burning fossil fuel at other power plants."

That may or may not be the case (if the amount of wind is a small enough percentage, the grid most likely just allows the line voltage to rise withing tolerable limits). Isn't the true measure, however, the amount of fuel burning that is reduced? The calculation of displacement has to account for: 1) the preference of hydro to balance wind; 2) switching thermal plants to standby, in which they still burn fuel to stay warmed up and ready to switch back to generation; 3) the extra fuel necessary for more frequent ramping or less efficient operation of those plants that are able to switch more quickly; and 4) the likelihood that the addition of wind energy is simply absorbed as a tolerable rise in line voltage.

These factors may explain why there is no evidence from anywhere in the world that wind energy on the grid actually reduces fossil fuel use or emissions, despite more than a decade of extensive experience, and casts serious doubt on wind's green credentials.

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism

A couple wind energy quotes from insiders

"We have three windmill parks in Norway, and we have pinpointed two countries to look for building more wind parks, that's the U.K. and Sweden. That's mainly because of the green certificate market they have there." --Ragnvald Nærø, executive vice president of communications, Statkraft (Sweden)

"The US Department of Energy said that you would need to cover four states with wind farms to supply America's energy needs." --Jim Dehlsen, chairman and CEO, Clipper (U.S.)

wind power, wind energy

Threat to fungi, worms, and insects from wind turbines

A Scottish news story yesterday publicized concerns being raised about the effect of industrial wind turbine noise and vibration might have on "our tiniest and rarest creatures". Click the title of this post for the article archived at National Wind Watch.

wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism, animal rights, vegetarianism

Disappearance of wildlife around wind turbines

At most wind energy projects, people have noticed a decline in wildlife, presumably because of the noise disturbance. Don Woods continues:

I have also noticed a steep decline of almost all other wildlife in this area. Deer and turkey populations have declined by about 80% since the turbine installation. I firmly believe they are having adverse health effects on the local citizens, myself included. There are many, many unknowns about the problems of wind farms that definitely need to be addressed by the proper authorities before it becomes impossible to stop them, if it isn't already! Specifically, the problems associated with low frequency vibrations. If the moth decline is due to wind turbines it is very serious. This could cause a total collapse of the ecosystem to include the whole food chain. It is definitely worthy of further study.


wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, Vermont

Disappearance of moths around wind turbines

Don Woods writes:

I live in the Appalachian mts. of West Virginia. My property borders the vast Monongehela natl. forest. Each year we delight in the hundreds of different moth species we observe here. For some unknown reason they seem to be on a serious decline over the past 5 years or so, to the point of near extinction this year. Last weekend after 4 hrs with the outside lights on not a single moth of any kind was seen! We do not know if the forest service has possibly been spraying for gypsy moth infestation and killed all moth species. Is that possible or might there be some other reason for their disappearance? Recently giant wind turbines have been erected in this area at about the same time the moths started to disappear.

wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism, animal rights,

Resistance Is Fertile

Your editor was interviewed on Matt Soltys's "Healing the Earth" program today, hosted by CFRU, University of Guelph, Ontario.

Click here for the MP3 recording (36 minutes, 25 MB).

wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism<, human rights, animal rights, Vermont, anarchism, ecoanarchism

Taste for Meat Marches On

Tim Flannery writes in the June 28 New York Review of Books:

Many readers will doubtless ask whether vegetarianism is better still. [Michael] Pollan [The Omnivore's Dilemma] tells us that even vegan lifestyles result in animal cruelty. Just think of the the thousands of field mice shredded by harvesters, the woodchucks crushed in their burrows by tractors, and the songbirds poisoned by pesticides when farmers grow the wheat for our bread. Pollan's message seems to be that to live we must kill, and the best we can do is both treat animals decently while they live and kill them humanely.

This is moral argument?!

Your ethical vegan practices ahimsa, or "do the least harm". Choosing organically grown food eliminates the harm from pesticides. Choosing food from small farmers reduces the harm done to animals in the fields. Growing one's own food reduces it yet more.

Michael Pollan, apparently with Tim Flannery's agreement, goes in the other direction. In recognizing that our sustenance does harm to the sustenance of other creatures, he justifies willful harm beyond unavoidable necessity.

His premise is that we must eat the corpses of other animals, and it is commendable that he would like to reduce the brutality of that practice. But that premise is invalid and based only on his unquestioned appetite.

The fact is, most of us do not need to eat the corpses of animals to survive. Many people live very well without eating flesh. So to continue eating flesh is a choice to kill unnecessarily. All the coddling of your "meal" while it is alive doesn't change the brutal fact of that choice. One can raise them and kill them less brutally, but the practice can never be called humane. The result of the feedlot is the same as that for the "happy" grass-grazing beef cow.

Flannery also reviews Bill McKibben's Deep Economy, in which we learn that McKibben is a corpse-eater, too. Has the pre-eminent voice about the dangers of global warming not heard that raising animals for food is responsible for more greenhouse gas effect than transport? Let alone the inexcusable pollution and waste of water, energy, land, and other resources.

How can anyone take these men seriously?

environment, environmentalism, animal rights, vegetarianism