National Wind Watch comments on National Academies report on impacts of wind energy

Press release:

Rowe, Mass., May 9, 2007 -- On May 3, 2007, the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies of Science released its report on the "Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects". The report states:

Because the use of wind energy has some adverse impacts, the conclusion that a wind-energy installation has net environmental benefits requires the conclusion that all of its adverse effects are less than the adverse effects of the generation that it displaces.

Such official analysis is exactly what has been missing in the careless push for wind energy, according to National Wind Watch (NWW), a coalition of individuals and action groups fighting inappropriate wind energy development in the U.S. and around the world.

Although commending the recognition of negative impacts, which neighbors and many observers have long been attesting to, NWW notes the report includes nine references from the main American industry trade group, three from the British, and three from the Danish. These are not cited as examples of how the industry self-protectively spins information but rather as reliable information about impacts. That not only calls into question some of the report's assessment of the extent of adverse impacts, it also illustrates the hurdles that people who defend wildlife, the landscape, and their homes still have to overcome.

The usual line from wind promoters is that the problems that wind energy solves are much worse than any that wind energy itself causes, e.g., more birds would die if wind turbines were not built (because of climate change caused by fossil fuels). But the argument is stacked. Neither part of it has been rigorously examined -- neither the premise that wind energy on the grid brings significant benefits, nor the assumption that its negative impacts on the environment, communities, and individual lives are anything but minimal. Only citizens' groups such as those associated with National Wind Watch have dared to demand accountability in the heedless industry and government push to develop wind.

It is welcome that the NRC report, although it glosses over the many adverse impacts of industrial wind development, nonetheless recognizes the need for studying them. NWW hopes that this quasi-official report will start to turn around the studious dismissal of increasingly obvious and significant problems.

Examination of wind's claims of benefit also need a hard look. With more than a decade of experience in Denmark and Germany, it is absurd to still cite carbon reductions according to industry theory instead of actual experience. We need to know the documented effect of wind (a highly variable and intermittent nondispatchable energy source) on emissions on the grid.

The report unquestioningly repeats the sales claim that the average annual output from wind is 30% of its capacity, even though the reality is quite different. According to figures from the 2007 Annual Energy Outlook of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Information Agency (IEA), the output in 2005 was only 21% of capacity.

As to effects on wildlife, although it acknowledges that impacts are poorly studied the report repeats the cant that the slaughter of raptors at Altamont Pass in California is an aberration and mostly due to older turbines -- an obviously dubious claim. Deaths are mounting with every new facility. The first-year study (by a company-picked firm) of the 120-turbine "Maple Ridge" facility in northern New York estimated that 3,000 to 6,000 birds and bats were killed there last year.

The report also determines that the toll on bats is only a problem in the mid-Atlantic, which is the only place where it's been well documented. But just two days before the NRC report was released, Michael Daulton of the National Audubon Society testified before the U.S. House Natural Resources Wildlife Subcommittee that bats in Missouri are attracted to wind turbines. Merlin Tuttle, president of Bat Conservation International, has stated, "We're finding kills even [by] the most remote turbines out in the middle of prairies, where bats don't feed."

Donald Fry, director of the Pesticides and Birds Program, American Bird Conservancy, testified also on May 1, 2007, to the U.S. House Fisheries, Wildlife, and Oceans Subcommittee:

The wind energy industry has been constructing and operating wind projects for almost 25 years with little state and federal oversight. They have rejected as either too costly or unproven techniques recommended by [the National Wind Coordinating Committee] to reduce bird deaths. The wind industry ignores the expertise of state energy staff and the knowledgeable advice of Fish and Wildlife Service employees on ways to reduce or avoid bird and wildlife impacts. ... The mortality at wind farms is significant, because many of the species most impacted are already in decline, and all sources of mortality contribute to the continuing decline.

Finally, concerning human impacts the report is regrettably vague in both its findings and its recommendations. Wind turbines are giant industrial installations, and here again, just as with birds and bats, the assumption is backwards. Of course there are adverse impacts. As Wendy Todd, who lives 2,600 feet from the new wind energy facility on Mars Hill, Maine, testified to her state legislature on April 30, 2007: "Noise is the largest problem but shadow flicker and strobe effect are close behind. ... Some find that it makes them dizzy and disoriented; others find that it can cause headaches and nausea." Although this report is perhaps the first quasi-official study to acknowledge that fact, it still puts the burden of proof on the wrong people.

Before we destroy another landscape, natural habitat, community, or individual human life, governments at every level, conservation groups, and environmentalists need to seriously assess the claims made to promote and defend industrial wind energy development.

National Wind Watch information and contacts are available at www.wind-watch.org.

19 reviews of the research literature on wind farms and health

As of 24 May 2013 and today, pro–industrial wind sociologist Simon Chapman has provided his “summary of main conclusions reached in 19 reviews of the research literature on wind farms and health”, increased from its earlier edition of 17 reviews.

As noted previously, he transparently cherry-picks and misinterprets the actual findings of almost all of them. The previous note also discusses now 28 reviews, almost unanimously recognizing the need for more research into the adverse health effects of large wind turbines and the need for adequate setback distances between turbines and homes to avoid such health effects.

Key to Chapman’s misrepresentation on behalf of the wind industry is his characterization of “annoyance”. Chapman would have us understand “annoyance” as nothing more than a mild distraction. Hence, he blames the sufferers of ill health from wind turbines as bringing it on themselves for being annoyed and, not content to get over it, literally making themselves sick. He thus attempts to present a measurable physical disturbance with documented physical effects as mere political grandstanding (classic projection of his own, obviously).

In medicine, however, particularly in the field of public health, Chapman's own playground, “annoyance” means a significant degradation of quality of life. It is not used lightly. It means a real level of external stressors that can cause ill health. Thus, when a review concludes that wind turbines may cause annoyance, which can lead to health effects, that is a direct physical effect, not a product of self-victimization as Chapman insists (and for which he should probably be removed from his position at the University of Sydney School of Public Health).

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, human rights

Social taboo to question leaders

Allegra Stratton writes in today's Guardian (U.K.):

Opposition to wind farms should become as socially unacceptable as failing to wear a seatbelt, Ed Miliband, the climate change secretary, has said. Speaking at a screening in London of the climate change documentary The Age of Stupid, Miliband said the government needed to be stronger in facing down local opposition to wind farms. He said: “The government needs to be saying, ‘It is socially unacceptable to be against wind turbines in your area — like not wearing your seatbelt or driving past a zebra crossing’.”

We have always been at war against climate change.

The government's faith in the wind industry's sales brochures is bad enough. If they listened to people who have actually examined wind energy's record, they would not be in the hole they have dug for themselves. But like any sociopath, they blame the very people who are trying to save them, who, perhaps foolishly, have thought that an injection of reality into the debate is in the interest of all but in time have learned that the issue of wind power has and wants nothing to do with reality but only wishful thinking.

It is government's habit to let itself be bought and to persuade itself that it is serving the public good. And when the public doesn't buy it, it claims to be serving a "higher" good, such as spreading democracy (by squelching it at home!), otherwise saving the planet, or simply preventing something "even worse". Thus the government places itself amongst the angels and those who question it in the slimepits of hell. And democracy is dead. By the government's own definition, it is above dispute and no longer open to discussion with those who would tear down all that the government deems good and worthy, that is, the furthering of the interests of those who bought it.

Or, more simply, here's another idiot unable to defend his position with rational argument so instead using his political power to force it on people instead of letting democracy work. Who is harmed? The people (and the landscape and wildlife). Who benefits? One specific industry.

And the argument that it is necessary to save the planet from climate change? Please. Wind turbines require a huge industrial base, destroy huge swaths of countryside and mountaintops, and require continuous thermal-powered backup. They add to the problem!

Well, that's politics. A politics that has lost not just its bearing but its legitimacy.

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

Eric Rosenbloom Distortions - LI Offshore Wind Initiative

Promoters of an industrial wind energy plant off the shore of Jones Beach, Long Island, New York, attempted some time ago to debunk a few of the findings in the early but still comprehensive and persuasive paper “A Problem With Wind Power”. Theirs was a weak effort indeed, but since it is still occasionally cited as definitive, this refutation from January 2009 deserves to be reposted. Answers follow each “distortion” and “truth” pair from the Wind Works 4 LI group.

‘The Distortion’
No power plants have been shutdown in other countries with wind turbines because wind is an intermittent resource.

‘The Truth’
Both Germany and Sweden have shut down nuclear reactors with the intent of supplying the loss of capacity with wind power (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8058171/)&(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4536203.stm)

Intent is very different from what actually happens. In fact, Germany has essentially halted their planned shutdowns of nuclear plants and will now extend their operations. Germany is planning 26 new coal plants, 8 of them on a fast track for 2010. Sweden has not in fact shut down any nuclear plant and is now planning to build new ones.

‘The Distortion’
If you build wind turbines you need backup generation

‘The Truth’
Electric grid systems can handle a certain percent of wind power without needing additional generation. The 140MW able to be produced by the wind park is within these parameters. The grid is already designed to compensate for loss-of-load contingencies when large power plant units suddenly become unavailable.

Because a system can handle contingencies doesn’t mean that’s the way it should be operated normally. Furthermore, as the system is already designed to handle dropouts of major suppliers, then it would have to be expanded to also be able to handle sudden drops in production from a wind energy plant. In other words, most of the time the system can indeed already deal with large fluctuations of wind production, but it then also has to still be able to handle the loss of a major supplier or two – so more excess capacity is needed to ensure reliability.

‘The Distortion’
Because other electric generators need to be running at lower efficiencies in ‘spinning reserve’ they will actually pollute more than the avoided emissions from the wind turbines

‘The Truth’
The fact is: electrical generating units are constantly varying their outputs, starting and stopping, as the demand for electricity rises and falls throughout the day. When not running or burning less fuel, they pollute less!

This “distortion” isn’t even in Rosenbloom’s paper. Nevertheless, the fact is that running thermal plants at a lower output than their ideal, running them in spinning reserve, ramping them up and down, and starting and stopping them – all of this increases carbon emissions per unit of electricity supplied. It is like stop-and-go city versus smooth highway driving. Wind – intermittent, highly variable, nondispatchable – on the system would increase all of these inefficient uses. Whether or not that inefficiency would cancel the theoretical savings of taking wind energy into the system is easily determined by records of fuel use. And so far, there is no such evidence of less fuel use per kilowatt-hour provided on any grid. In fact, coal use in the U.K. and the U.S. has increased in recent years relative to electricity use.

‘The Distortion’
Other countries are reducing their subsidies for wind power

‘The Truth’
This is what is supposed to happen with any industry as it reaches a sustainable point in any market. E.g. Spain began to reduce subsidies in 2002 and their wind generating capacity still grew 33% in the last two years. (in the USA fossil fuels still receive very large subsides despite overwhelming market penetration)

Development in Germany has slowed dramatically with a decline in subsidies, and development in the U.S. has gone up and down with the existence of the Production Tax Credit. Spain continues to fund its wind industry with future carbon credits sold to others. The fact is, the wind industry lobbies hard for subsidies and could not thrive without them. In the U.S., compared with 44 cents for coal, $1.59 for nuclear, and 25 cents for natural gas (the three main sources of electricity in the U.S.), wind received $23.37 per megawatt-hour of its electricity production in 2007, according to the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (click here). And that’s only federal (not state or local) financial (not legislative) intervention and ignores the 5-year double-declining-balance accelerated depreciation that is available to wind.

‘The Distortion’
The German Energy Agency report issued in February 2005 said increasing wind generation would raise costs by 3.7 times

‘The Truth’
Completely false. We encourage you to visit the agency’s website and read their report to see for yourself that Mr. Rosenbloom’s claim was uniformed (http://www.deutsche-energie-agentur.de). The true additional cost per household is 12 euro a year.

Obviously, this means that projected increases of electricity costs would be 3.7 times more with a large wind program than without. Dena’s page for the publication states that “[t]he expansion of wind energy will cost private households between 0.39 and 0.49 euro cents per kWh in 2015”. That’s up to 25 euros for 5,000 MWh. Table 8 in the English-language summary shows the different costs between expanding wind and not from 2007 to 2015 under three pricing scenarios: While the cost increase from 2007 to 2015 for private households (“nonprivileged consumers”) is 1.9-2.8 times more with wind, for industry (“privileged consumers”) it is 3.8 to 5 times more.

Rosenbloom’s paper also puts this economics issue in the context of several studies having concluded that the goal of CO₂ mitigation can be achieved much more cheaply by other means. The Long Island [N.Y.] Power Authority rejected the project in Long Island Sound for simple economic reasons.

The Distortion
The US Fish and Wildlife Service rejected the use of monopole towers as a means to mitigate bird deaths

The Truth
Completely False, the document Mr.Rosenbloom cites, actually promotes the use of monopoles to mitigate bird deaths. It appears he didn’t read his own citation. (http://www.fws.gov/habitatconservation/wind.pdf, pg.6 statement #1)

The FWS recommendation to use monopole towers (on page 3 of the document) is simply an acknowledgement that lattice towers provide roosts. It does not suggest that using a monopole tower makes it safe to operate a wind turbine in flyways and feeding and gathering areas. While the industry points to the tower design to absolve itself, the problem remains the giant blades, both directly and by the turbulence behind then, not to mention habitat fragmentation, degradation, and destruction.

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

Nine days and seven wind farms

Sue Sliwinski of Sardinia, N.Y., writes:

Over the past nine days and 3,000 miles and seven wind farms, Sandy Swanson and I took many still shots, reams of video, and copious notes and conducted numerous interviews. What's happening is an absolute crime. Every single impact that is denied by developers has been confirmed again and again in wind farm after wind farm. Lovely rural communities are being turned into industrial freak shows. In some places people have just accepted their fate and live with it, not understanding how empowered they actually are by their situations . . . meaning that all they'd have to do is get noisy enough and the developers would stop ignoring them. One told us she's learned how to go outside in her garden and block everything from her mind . . . so as not to be disturbed and frustrated. She said once, on a quiet day (the turbines weren't moving), she heard what sounded like gunshots. She had been blocking everything as she had taught herself to do and suddenly realized the gunshot noises were really coming from the nearest turbine . . . probably contracting as the sun went down.

Scott Srnka from Lincoln Township, Wisconsin, is enduring such awful atrocities, it's very hard to believe they're true. I've even steered clear from his information over the past three years for fear of being accused of using scare tactics. But the guy is rock solid, and anyone who meets him and actually goes to his beautiful farm and sees his beautiful family knows he's the real deal. His neighbors know he's honorable and credible and that his troubles are real . . . it's those of us who hear about his dilemma long distance that doubt the truthfulness when we hear about his deformed cows, his family's health problems, etc. due to severe stray voltage.

Most farmers experience some levels of stray voltage on their farms. But the extenuating circumstances on Scott's farm include a combination of surface rock, no substation for this particular wind farm, and the nearness of the turbines. He and one other dairy farm are being severely impacted, but the other one, right next door, won't admit it because they own the leases for about 10 or 15 of the turbines and don't want to jeopardize that easy money.

Scott is a young man and the farm was his father's and grandfather's before him, but after hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses to try to remedy the problems caused by the wind farm across the street, he's calling it quits and may be moved out by spring. His wife is pregnant with their third child and they are nervous wrecks, though they have gone through every imaginable test to ensure that the baby's been fine right along. He says with the equipment he's installed he knows when it's bad, and when it is they leave the home for a week, maybe two . . . however long it takes to get back to more tolerable levels. Scott says that under the current conditions, he's losing about a thousand dollars a day from what his farm should and would otherwise normally produce.

Bob Bittner [Illinois], a long-time and dedicated opponent who we recently haven't heard much from, was not at home when we visited his lovely farm house . . . also once his father's, now surrounded with 10 turbines within 4,000 ft of his home, with one only 1,300 ft away. His neighbors told Sandy and I that they believe he spent over $250,000 in court battles and ended up signing a deal with the developers that basically said he would quit interfering in exchange for not being sued for all the lost income the company incurred over the 3 or 4 years of legal wrangling he brought.

I left a note in his door, and when I got home there was an e-mail from him for the first time in a very long while saying that since the turbines went up, he and his wife, Sharon, for their peace of mind bought a cabin in the woods about seven miles away to escape the impacts . . . noise, lights shadows . . . . People everywhere are being driven from their homes.

In the Mendota Hills wind farm [Illinois], it's like the twilight zone. There is no life. Almost every home within the boundaries of the wind farm is kept to look as if someone lives there . . . but on close inspection it's clear that no one does. All the lawns are mowed perfectly . . . but most often no flowers are tended. Every house seems to have a chair or two outside in the front yards creating the appearance that people actually plunk their butts down in them to relax once in a while, but they're dirty and unused. Every window and door is closed, with drapes and shades drawn at eye level. There are cars and trucks with current licence plates parked outside of garages or with garage doors open so you can see them. We didn't check for cobwebs in the mailboxes, we wish we had, but they looked rusty and old. Even dogs were kept on leashes in many of the side yards . . . animals that are evidently being visited once a day to be given food and water. I know this all sounds crazy, but to prove it to ourselves, we went back after dark . . . thinking, well maybe everyone was just at work. But inside these houses, only one light burned, shining through greasy grimy windows in spots where curtains were left slightly open to reveal the condition of the glass, and revealing absolutely no movement whatsoever.

We heard about connectors that were not supposed to be used, but were indeed and have since blown holes -- small craters -- in roads and fields. The stories we've been told all echo each other. There are many children involved. Some, such as in Lincoln Township, have grown up knowing nothing but life with wind turbines. People have been bought off where they're fighting. A family's teenage daughter totaled her car in an accident with wind equipment on a foggy day and then had to fight to get reimbursed! Another says that her little kids are terrified by the noise and can't fall asleep when conditions are bad, such as on rainy nights. Their nearest turbine is 1,000 feet from the bedroom window. Another older woman says, through tears, that her town, where she was born and raised and where her family farm still exists, has been ruined.

Story after story after story . . . .

Lights, shadows, noise, TV and phone interruption, gawkers, accidents, lost views and plummeting property values, and more . . . all on tape, video, and still shots. We felt sick at the end of every day . . . like we had to get away and take a break from the twirling blades and the surreal atmosphere and our sadness for all these families.

It felt so good to get home and step out of the car into this beautiful environment that Sardinia still is and hopefully will stay for years to come. So . . . now we have to figure out how best to use all this information, and not let a smidgen go to waste, because all these families living in these inconceivable conditions deserve no less.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines

A problem with truth: Wind Works Long Island

Promoters of an industrial wind energy plant off the shore of Jones Beach, Long Island, New York, attempted some time ago to debunk a few of the findings of Eric Rosenbloom's paper "A Problem With Wind Power". It is a weak effort, but since it is occasionally cited as definitive, it requires refutation. Below is the entire piece, with answers inserted below each "distortion" and "truth" pair.

The Distortion
"No power plants have been shutdown in other countries with wind turbines because wind is an intermittent resource.

The Truth
Both Germany and Sweden have shut down nuclear reactors with the intent of supplying the loss of capacity with wind power (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8058171/)&(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4536203.stm)

Intent is very different from what actually happens. In fact, Germany has essentially halted their planned shutdowns of nuclear plants and will now extend their operations. Germany is planning 26 new coal plants, 8 of them on a fast track for 2010. Sweden has not in fact shut down any nuclear plant and is now planning to build new ones.

The Distortion
If you build wind turbines you need backup generation

The Truth
Electric grid systems can handle a certain percent of wind power without needing additional generation. The 140MW able to be produced by the wind park is within these parameters. The grid is already designed to compensate for loss-of-load contingencies when large power plant units suddenly become unavailable.

Because a system can handle contingencies doesn't mean that's the way it should be operated normally. Furthermore, as the system is already designed to handle dropouts of major suppliers, then it would have to be expanded to also be able to handle sudden drops in production from a wind energy plant. In other words, most of the time the system can indeed already deal with large fluctuations of wind production, but it then also has to still be able to handle the loss of a major supplier or two -- so more excess capacity is needed to ensure reliability.

The Distortion
Because other electric generators need to be running at lower efficiencies in ‘spinning reserve’ they will actually pollute more than the avoided emissions from the wind turbines

The Truth
The fact is: electrical generating units are constantly varying their outputs, starting and stopping, as the demand for electricity rises and falls throughout the day. When not running or burning less fuel, they pollute less!

This "distortion" isn't even in Rosenbloom's paper. Nevertheless, the fact is that running thermal plants at a lower output than their ideal, running them in spinning reserve, ramping them up and down, and starting and stopping them -- all of this increases carbon emissions per unit of electricity supplied. It is like stop-and-go city versus smooth highway driving. Wind -- intermittent, highly variable, nondispatchable -- on the system would increase all of these inefficient uses. Whether or not that inefficiency would cancel the theoretical savings of taking wind energy into the system is easily determined by records of fuel use. And so far, there is no such evidence of less fuel use per kilowatt-hour provided on any grid. In fact, coal use in the U.K. and the U.S. has increased in recent years relative to electricity use.

The Distortion
Other countries are reducing their subsidies for wind power

The Truth
This is what is supposed to happen with any industry as it reaches a sustainable point in any market. E.g. Spain began to reduce subsidies in 2002 and their wind generating capacity still grew 33% in the last two years. (in the USA fossil fuels still receive very large subsides despite overwhelming market penetration)

Development in Germany has slowed dramatically with a decline in subsidies, and development in the U.S. has gone up and down with the existence of the Production Tax Credit. Spain continues to fund its wind industry with future carbon credits sold to others. The fact is, the wind industry lobbies hard for subsidies and could not thrive without them. In the U.S., compared with 44 cents for coal, $1.59 for nuclear, and 25 cents for natural gas (the three main sources of electricity in the U.S.), wind received $23.37 per megawatt-hour of its electricity production in 2007, according to the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (click here). And that's only federal (not state or local) financial (not legislative) intervention and ignores the 5-year double-declining-balance accelerated depreciation that is available to wind.

The Distortion
The German Energy Agency report issued in February 2005 said increasing wind generation would raise costs by 3.7 times

The Truth
Completely false. We encourage you to visit the agency's website and read their report to see for yourself that Mr. Rosenbloom’s claim was uniformed [sic] (http://www.deutsche-energie-agentur.de). The true additional cost per household is 12 euro a year.

Obviously, this means that projected increases of electricity costs would be 3.7 times more with a large wind program than without. Dena's page for the publication states that "[t]he expansion of wind energy will cost private households between 0.39 and 0.49 euro cents per kWh in 2015". That's up to 25 euros for 5,000 MWh. Table 8 in the English-language summary shows the different costs between expanding wind and not from 2007 to 2015 under three pricing scenarios: While the cost increase from 2007 to 2015 for private households ("nonprivileged consumers") is 1.9-2.8 times more with wind, for industry ("privileged consumers") it is 3.8 to 5 times more.

Rosenbloom's paper also puts this economics issue in the context of several studies having concluded that the goal of CO₂ mitigation can be achieved much more cheaply by other means. The Long Island [N.Y.] Power Authority rejected the project in Long Island Sound for simple economic reasons.

The Distortion
The US Fish and Wildlife Service rejected the use of monopole towers as a means to mitigate bird deaths

The Truth
Completely False, the document Mr.Rosenbloom cites, actually promotes the use of monopoles to mitigate bird deaths. It appears he didn’t read his own citation. (http://www.fws.gov/habitatconservation/wind.pdf, pg.6 statement #1)

The FWS recommendation to use monopole towers (on page 3 of the document) is simply an acknowledgement that lattice towers provide roosts. It does not suggest that using a monopole tower makes it safe to operate a wind turbine in flyways and feeding and gathering areas. While the industry points to the tower design to absolve itself, the problem remains the giant blades, both directly and by the turbulence behind then, not to mention habitat fragmentation, degradation, and destruction.

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

Charles Komanoff is not an environmentalist

Charles Komanoff is a valiant activist for changes from fossil fuel guzzling. And I agree with him that many of the opponents to the giant wind project in Nantucket Sound appear to be NIMBYs when they say they support wind power but not there where they live or vacation (though most opponents question the value of large-scale wind anywhere). But his desire to replace fossil and nuclear fuels, which together provide almost 95% of our energy, appears to have caused a blindness to wind power's shortcomings for achieving even a small part of that goal. By presenting himself as an energy expert, when in fact he is not an engineer but an economist, and studiously rejecting mitigating reports, he attempts to browbeat the doubters with a simple-minded formula that every kilowatt of power from wind means one less kilowatt from fossil or nuclear fuel. Though easy to say and believe, the tenet is not true.

If every bit of power generated by wind turbines does indeed go into the grid, the formula as stated is true, assuming there are not substantial renewable sources in the area (as in Vermont, which gets more than a third of its electricity from hydropower). In fact, if there is hydropower in an area, it is likely to be the first source to be switched off; relatively clean natural gas plants are the next choice. Base-load coal and nuclear plants, which can not as readily be switched on and off, are unlikely to be affected.

As wind-generated power feeds into the grid, therefore, power from other sources is indeed cut back. But the burning of fuel is not necessarily reduced -- thermal plants are simply switched from generation to standby. Their electricity output is reduced to maintain the grid's balance, but their fuel consumption continues.

Unlike a diesel-powered backup generator for the home, most thermal plants can not simply switch on and off; they take hours and even days to heat up or cool down. Even for those that can switch more quickly, they use more fuel in doing so. And because of the constant fluctuations of power from wind turbines, it is unwise to do so. A rise in the wind only means that a drop will follow, and so the standby source must be kept burning so it can switch back to generation mode at any moment.

Komanoff's vision of the ways things ought to be is threatened by environmentalists who haven't swallowed the sales spiel and instead have determined that industrial wind turbines on rural and especially wild sites bring negative impacts that far outweigh the elusive benefits. He spent almost two months repeatedly pestering an environmental leader in western Massachusetts for opposing giant wind turbines in the Berkshires. Though Komanoff contacted her through a mutual friend, she quickly saw that he was not at all interested in discussion and she rightly ignored his continuing prods. He took this turning of the cheek as a sign of defeat and posted the "exchange" on his website as a trophy of victory.

But if one does not deny the impacts nor the shortcomings of big wind on the grid, the only conclusion is that the benefits do not justify its industrialization of rural and wild areas. Komanoff and other pro-wind environmentalists are on the wrong side of this issue.

In a Dec. 2002 letter to anti–big wind environmentalist Bob Boyle, he asserts that the noise level at 2,000 feet from a large wind turbine is barely more than that in a remote forest and less than that by a remote pond. Besides ignoring the cumulative effect of a large collection of turbines, Komanoff appears to be ignorant of the difference between the pleasant sounds of nature and the intrusive sounds of giant machinery.

In a Jan. 2003 open letter to environmentalists on behalf of building 130 giant turbines in Nantucket Sound, he writes, "The value of the windmills goes beyond energy-share percentages to the plane of symbols and images. ... Seeing the beauty in windmills could be a turning point, making possible a wider appreciation of what are now, we should admit, a beleaguered minority's values: trust in energy efficiency, devotion to conservation, identification with the natural world." It is irrelevant (if not insane) to connect aesthetic admiration of industrial wind turbines with identification with nature. One can enjoy both, of course, but they certainly are not connected. And one certainly can not enjoy both at the same time. It is also illogical to assert that building more power generation plants, however "green" one believes them to be, encourages values of conservation. If anything, it provides a "green" light to continue using as much energy as ever.

In a May 2003 letter to environmentalist Alex Matthiessen, Komanoff presents a variation of his 1-to-1 tenet: "To stand in the way of eminently reasonable windpower projects like Cape Wind and Jones Beach is to encourage the continuing destruction of Earth's air, water and climate by fossil fuels. ... A decision to stop the Cape Wind and Jones Beach wind farms is a decision to keep polluting and poisoning."

That is true only if one accepts without question -- on faith, as it were -- that wind power can actually make a difference on the scale of its own environmental and social impact. Which, of course, Komanoff does believe. But where is the evidence from countries that have already installed substantial numbers of turbines that their fossil fuel use, their pollution and poisoning, has decreased because of wind power? The evidence is instead that substantial installation of wind power has had no positive effect at all.

In "Wind power must be visible," a June 6, 2003, opinion in the Providence Journal, Komanoff most admonishingly presents his thesis: "[E]very unit not produced because a wind project has been blocked means more carbon fuels burned, more carbon dioxide filling the earth's atmosphere, more ruinous climate change. ... And, sure as daylight, continued reliance on oil will not only contaminate the environment but also fuel the cycle of war and terrorism. ... Nor does it seem to matter to them that other precious -- albeit less prosperous -- places, from West Virginia mountaintops to Wyoming sandhills, are sacrificed daily to yield the very fuels that the wind farm would displace." An attractively dramatic alternative, but is there any evidence of wind projects reducing environmental ruin, let alone war and terrorism? Komanoff never presents any.

In "Wind power works," a Jan. 8, 2005, opinion in the Berkshire Eagle, he revives this Manichaean doctrine that wind power is the good whose turn it is to conquer the darkness of fossil fuels. In a direct attack on the environmental group Green Berkshires, he warns of their denial of this truth. Similarly in "Wind power's benefits outweigh risk to scenery," a September 2005 opinion in the Hill Country Observer, he writes, "Through dependence on fossil fuels, humankind has come to a point where a windmill-less Adirondack vista or Berkshire ridgeline is hitched to ruined climate and global violence. Conversely, admitting clean, quiet, graceful windmills into our Northeast landscapes could show the way out of this dependence and to the recovery and continuance of our world." Komanoff leaves no room for discussion here, no room for honestly assessing industrial wind's own negative impacts or examining the claimed benefits. There is only salvation or doom: Accept wind power development or die.

The message of redemption continues with "In the wind," a Sept. 18, 2005, opinion in the Albany Times Union, in which he slithers under the mantle of environmentalist Dave Brower (deceeased) to claim that the construction of ten 425-ft-high turbines at an abandoned mine site in the Adirondacks would be an act of "restoring Earth." Most environmentalists might suggest that restoring the site would require returning it to wilderness, not simply changing the use from one industry to another. But Komanoff's brand of environmentalism, one he shares with many who once put nature first, is nothing without conquest: "Good" human use is better than no use at all, than mere wilderness. This is someone who doesn't know the difference between man-made machine noise and rustling leaves or lapping water. He is not an environmentalist.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism

How forest friendly is Karnataka's Wind Energy?

Ameen writes from Tumkur City, India (click the title of this post):

Among the areas where wind turbines have been erected in Karnataka are the hills and highlands of eastern parts of Chitradurga district and in western parts of Tumkur district. We saw these windmills first hand this month and I am sad to say that these windmills have had a very immediate negative impact in the forests where they have been setup.

1. Each such wind mill has a concrete base of at least 30 feet by 30 feet.
   
2. Each one of these has an individual road.
   
3. Hundreds of trees have been removed to accomodate these giant "fans".
   
4. The transportation of giant equipment requires huge trucks and causes enormous disturbance to the local flora and fauna.

This way almost every hill top of the 273 Sq. km. Mari Kanive state forest and other reserve forests along Tumkur-Chitradurga border has just been devastated. The building of these roads has also opened up the forests for tree looters and the situation according to a local forest watcher is "just out of control in Mari Kanive forests". These wind mills are atop the hills that extend for hundreds of kilometres north, up to Gadag district.

Due to their destructive nature, there already have been protests against the setting up of wind farms in the Western Ghats of Karnataka, namely Bababudan Giris (adjoining Bhadra Tiger Reserve) and Kudremukh National Park.

As a nature lover I have opposed hydro dams as being detrimental to forests. But, by witnessing the damage done by wind farms in Karnataka's forests, I doubt if wind energy in our country is really that green.

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

"Neighbours Warn of Din From Wind Turbines"

From the Nov. 16 Wellington, New Zealand, Dominion Post:

Manawatu residents say they are being "driven stupid" by noise from wind turbines, despite living twice as far away as those planned for Makara.

Two residents who live up to three kilometres from Te Apiti and Tararua wind farms spoke at the resource consent hearing for Meridian Energy's proposed Makara wind farm yesterday.

On the Makara Guardians group's last day of evidence, Wendy Brock described three consecutive days of relentless noise and throbbing from 18 turbines 2.5km from her Ashhurst home.

"You have this drone, you can't escape it. After three days the residents were just worn down, fed up."

Meridian's Project West Wind proposes 70 turbines, some within 1km of homes. The Makara turbines would also be 35 metres taller than Te Apiti's.

Mrs Brock said Meridian's consultation for Te Apiti did not prepare residents for the noise levels.

"The turbines make noise, lots of it."

... Meridian has already paid an undisclosed sum to move one Manawatu family who could not live in their house because of noise and vibrations.

Daniel Sproull's farm lies within sight of both wind farms. He said he feared for Makara residents if Meridian's 70 turbines were allowed.

"If these go ahead and your place is downwind, you're stuffed."

The turbines' sound at Te Apiti, 3km away, was like a truck rumbling past his house, though "it doesn't pass in seconds, it can rumble for hours".

The turbines were enough to "drive you stupid".

Several nights he was woken by turbine noise, thinking the clothes dryer had been left on overnight or road works were directly outside his property, he said.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines

Conservationist doublespeak

Deutsche Welle reports today that NABU (Naturschutzbund Deutschland) has given industrial wind parks a thumbs up. Although a recent worldwide study by NABU estimates that 60 birds and 50 bats per year collide with the average turbine, and that this particularly puts birds of prey and some bat species at risk, German wind facilities are claimed to be miraculously exempt from these problems.

Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin says NABU's findings refute the "horror story" that industrial wind turbines kill birds. Excuse me, Herr Trittin, but the evidence appears to do the opposite.

The NABU report is available in German as a 644-KB PDF file. It includes a 3-page summary in English, which points out, as has Paul Kerlinger at a recent American Wind Energy Association workshop, that habitat displacement, degradation, and fragmentation also are serious threats to birds. They also note, "Wind farms had significantly negative effects on local populations of geese, Wigeons, Golden Plovers and Lapwings." And, "There was no evidence that birds generally 'habituated' to wind farms in the years after their construction." And, "In Germany the relatively high numbers of killed White-tailed Eagles and Red Kites give reason for concern. Germany hosts about half of the world population of breeding Red Kites and has a particular responsibility for this species."

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, animal rights, birds, conservation

Douglas administration bans wind farms on state lands

WATERBURY -- The Douglas administration released a plan Thursday prohibiting the construction of most large-scale wind farms on state lands, but would allow smaller projects to move forward.

The policy was developed by the Agency of Natural Resources after a series of public meetings held earlier this year. A draft of the policy generated nearly 350 individual comments as well as a petition with several thousand signatures, agency officials said.

The policy -- Wind Energy and Other Renewable Energy Development on ANR Lands -- encourages small-scale wind and other renewable energy projects in appropriate locations on state-owned lands.

"Wind energy development on state-owned lands continues to be an issue of great interest to many Vermonters," said ANR Secretary Elizabeth "Wibs" McLain. "Vermonters are clearly concerned about Vermont’s energy situation and largely support an increased focus on developing new renewable energy sources. At the same time, they cherish their state lands and are divided over whether these lands would be appropriate sites for large-scale renewable energy projects."

McLain said the policy applies only to state-owned lands under ANR's jurisdiction and is not intended to be used to guide wind and other renewable energy development on private, federal, or municipal lands.

ANR's final policy defines the distinction between a large-scale renewable energy project and a small-scale project as follows: Large-scale renewable energy projects that disturb more than one acre of land and have a commercial purpose such as wind farms would not be permitted on any ANR lands under this policy. Development of small scale, net-metered wind and other renewable energy applications that disturb less than an acre of land would be encouraged at appropriate state-owned sites.

ANR's policy along with a report on public comment received by ANR is posted on the web at www.vermontwindpolicy.org.

The Governor's Commission on Wind Energy Policy, which studied how large-scale wind farm should be regulated, also released its final recommendations this week. However, the final report is not being released publicly until the governor’s staff reviews it, according to officials at the Department of Public Service. The full report should be released next week.

Canadian wind industry's cynical dismissal of health concerns

Deconstructing CanWEA Health “Research”

On October 6, 2008, the industry trade group Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) posted a press release titled “Scientists conclude that there is no evidence that wind turbines have an adverse impact on human health” in response to news coverage of Dr. Nina Pierpont's work describing and explaining "wind turbine syndrome", stating:

[T]he Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) has compiled a list of articles and publications on the subject from reputable sources in Europe and North America. ...

These findings clearly show that there is no peer-reviewed scientific evidence indicating that wind turbines have an adverse impact on human health.

In May, Wind Concerns Ontario reviewed the seven articles cited by CanWEA, asking the following questions:

• Do they support the claim in the title of CanWEA’s press release?
• Do they support the conclusion of CanWEA’s press release?
• Do they refute Dr. Pierpont’s research?

None of the articles “conclude that there is no evidence that wind turbines have an adverse impact on human health”.

None of the articles state that “there is no peer-reviewed scientific evidence indicating that wind turbines have an adverse impact on human health.”.

None of the articles review Pierpont’s research.

Only one article mentions Pierpont’s case studies, stating that “One cannot discount the information”.

Six of the articles identify wind turbine noise as a health concern which must be considered.

Only one of the articles discusses noise in the assessment of adverse health effects related to various forms of electricity generation.

None of the articles study patients or reports of patients describing adverse health effects when exposed to wind turbines.

None of the articles consider recent research in addition to Pierpont's regarding health effects related to wind turbines.

The seven articles are:

1. Infrasound from wind turbines – fact, fiction or deception. Geoff Leventhall (noise and vibration consultant). Canadian Acoustics 2006;24(2):29-36.
2. Wind turbine facilities noise issues. Ramani Ramakrishnan (acoustician); prepared for Ministry of the Environment of Ontario. Aiolos report no. 4071/2180/AR155Rev3 (Dec 2007).
3. Wind turbine acoustic noise. Anthony Rogers (mechanical engineer), James Manwell (mechanical engineer), Sally Wright (mechanical engineer), Renewable Energy Research Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. June 2002, amended Jan. 2006.
4. Research into aerodynamic modulation of wind turbine noise. Andy Moorhouse (acoustician), Malcolm Hayes (acoustics student), Sabine von Hünerbein (acoustician), Ben Piper, Mags Adams (social scientist), University of Salford; prepared for Dept. for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform, contract no. NANR233. July 2007.
5. Electricity generation and health. Anil Markandya (economist), Paul Wilkinson. Lancet 2007 (Sep. 15);370(9591):979-990.
6. The health impact of wind turbines: a review of the current white, grey, and published literature. David Colby (MD), Acting Medical Officer of Health, Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit; prepared for Chatham-Kent Municipal Council. June 2008.
7. Energy, sustainable development and health (background document, Fourth Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health). Anil Markandya (economist) et al. (no MDs). June 3, 2004.

Also posted at Wind Concerns Ontario is an assessment of CanWEA's press release by Wayne Gulden of Amherst Island Wind Information. (Gulden also analyzed the Chatham-Kent review, as did Dr. Robert McMurtry.)

CanWEA has included a quote from each of these sources that appears to support their contention. As any reader will quickly discover, however, these quotes generally have little to do with the gist of the article. It quickly becomes obvious that CanWEA has “cherry-picked” the articles for the most supportive sentence, completely out of context.

Anyone can play this game, and as an example I could take The Doctors’ position and use quotes out of the very same 7 references to support it. Such a statement might look something like:

There are numerous reports of health issues caused by wind turbines and we want to have an epidemiological study to determine the facts. We have compiled a list of articles and publications on the subject from reputable sources in Europe and North America.

1. Leventhall. “Attention should be focused on the audio frequency fluctuating swish, which some people may well find to be very disturbing and stressful, depending on its level.”

2. Ramakrishnan. “However, additional concerns still need to be addressed in the next round of revisions to their assessment process. These revisions may need to be addressed after the results from future research provide scientifically consistent data for effects such as meteorology, human response and turbine noise source character.”

3. Rogers. “Community noise standards are important to ensure livable communities. Wind turbines must be held to comply with these regulations.”

4. Salford. “The results showed that 27 of the 133 windfarm sites operational across the UK at the time of the survey had attracted noise complaints at some point.”

5. Lancet. “In varying degrees these [renewable] sources share four main drawbacks: ... and environmental effects, aesthetic effects, or both, that might in part off set the broader environmental and health gains derived from lower air pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions.”

6. Colby. “Despite extensive searching of the current literature, limited information is available on health concerns relating to wind turbines.”

7. WHO. “[H]ealth effects from wind energy are negligible, however issues such as sleep disturbance, school absenteeism, eventually resulting from noise in vicinity, could not be evaluated.”

Why don’t they? Aside from the time constraints of not having their livelihoods supplied by the wind energy industry, they have a different set of priorities. CanWEA’s main interest, perhaps their only interest, is making money for their clients and themselves.

With that goal, the appearance of being truthful is far more important that actually being truthful. The Doctors, on the other hand, deal with real people having real health issues,and the real truth is the basis of how they deal. And the real truth being conveyed by these seven references – most of which are, as CanWEA says, respectable – has very little to do with health issues and epidemiological studies for people living in the shadow of wind turbines.

To use these otherwise useful references in this way is fundamentally dishonest, but it creates a “he said, she said” confusion that serves the interests of the industry.

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, human rights

Wind energy development for the challenged

In June, the New England Wind Forum, a "Wind Powering America Project" of the U.S. Department of Energy Wind and Water Power Program, interviewed a few people involved in wind energy development in the region about the challenges faced by the industry.

Patrick Quinlan, former associate director of the Wind Energy Center at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, describes the overarching issue as the collision of global benefits versus local impacts, a question of eschewing wind energy for its intrusive alteration of the landscape or accept it for the generalized societal benefits. Among the examples of this conflict from different state government departments to local governments to involved residents is this: "From opponents we hear concerns for birds and bats interactions, while we hear from proponents about the benefits of reduced mercury pollution and acidification of habitats."

While this sounds like a balanced approach seeking to reconcile global benefits and local impacts, one side relies on anproven premise: that there are in fact global, or even merely statewide, benefits to building giant wind turbines in as yet undisturbed landscapes. There is no argument that the impacts of such development are significant — not only to the landscape, but also to the animals, including humans, living in it. But the benefits at best remain theoretical. In reality, after decades of experience, the effects of such a diffuse, intermittent, and variable source of energy as wind on the larger pattern of energy use remain doubtful.

Treating wind as if it has a proven record of having something to offer necessarily leads to dishonest processes of reconciliation. The game is rigged from the start.

Sue Jones, president of Community Energy Partners and lead facilitator for the Maine Wind Working Group, is similarly trapped in a fantasy, as revealed by her statement, "Experience from Europe and elsewhere tells us that it will take 10-14 years of education and experience living with wind turbines before it becomes generally acceptable." In fact, the opposite is true. Regions with more experience of industrial wind know the problems, especially as the towers and facilities continue to metastasize. Denmark, for example, now has very strict rules that, along with fierce local opposition, have effectively ended onshore development.

It would seem that she is actually hoping to get as much wind erected as possible before, as in Denmark, it becomes truly impossible. Although she speaks about educating people, her plans rely on their general inexperience and keeping them ignorant.

Only Kenneth Payne, administrator of the State of Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources, approaches reality in dealing with wind energy development: "Right now the image of 'wind energy' is loaded with symbolic value. Call to mind the image of a wind turbine in an advertisement in a periodical — does that image speak to how people actually live in our region? The transition from symbolic value to practical value is critical." And it is the practical value that is still a matter of debate.

On the matter of impacts, Dave Lamont, director for regulated utility planning at the Vermont Department of Public Service, is candid:

Regarding "how" to deploy wind energy, impacts of siting are the most critical issues. These siting issues most often boil down to visual impacts, noise impacts, and habitat impacts. Because of their size and the fact that in New England wind resources are found mostly on ridgelines, turbines are generally located in visually prominent places. This creates aesthetic issues for those in the surrounding area. While there are some areas with exposures that allow the turbines to be only partially visible from most locations, many sites have strong visibility from many locations. There are limited mitigation measures available — painting the turbines a color that blends in or selecting a lighting system that is radar activated. These measures help but don't hide the turbines.

The second critical issue is noise impacts. This seems to be an evolving issue for which there is a shortage of good information. While the higher-pitched sounds are muffled by distance and the rustling of the wind, it seems that low pitch and frequency noises from the larger rotating parts are also present. There can be some mitigation with insulation, but is that sufficient?

Finally, habitat seems to be a critical issue for ridge-top wind projects. Higher elevations contain a more fragile ecosystem, where it is possible that access roads may traverse through bear habitat, and turbines may extend into migration routes. Due to the limited history of development in these high-elevation areas, much less is known about the impacts of construction here. This makes those in charge of managing this habitat more cautious about approving projects with such potential impacts.

But missing still is any questioning that these impacts can be balanced in analysis by meaningful benefits.

Dave Ljunquist, associate director of project development at the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, gets back to bashing objectors as solely emotional without experience or facts. He asserts that resistance is based on what people "have heard or what they are afraid might be the case", i.e., experience and facts. Promoters like himself, on the other hand, defy experience and facts to assert only meaningless numbers and personally denigrate those who raise well founded questions. Like Sue Jones, he also supports "public education programs to familiarize the general population with the realities of wind turbine projects", by which he means more aggressive public relations programs, since the realities of wind turbine projects are precisely what drive opposition.

wind power, wind energy, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, Vermont

Appalachian Voices supports blowing up N.C. mountains to ram in wind turbines

Appalachian Voices appears to be an admirable conservation group, but in their avid desire to eliminate air pollution, stop mountaintop removal coal mining, and restore Appalachian forests, they too readily embrace the false promises of large-scale wind power. In an April 23 entry on their blog, they defend themselves against the charge of supporting the destruction of the mountains to erect giant wind turbines:

To imply that wind farms cause the same environmental toll as mountaintop removal is illogical. Wind energy is a proven technology that works, and has a relatively light environmental impact. A study conducted by Appalachian State University showed that wind energy development on a small percentage of North Carolina ridges could produce enough clean energy for 195,000 homes, create 350 green jobs, and have a net economic impact of over one billion dollars.

The claim of illogic depends, of course, on the soundness of the asserted premise that "Wind energy is a proven technology that works".

That is precisely the issue: Wind energy is a mature technology, but it has yet to show meaningful benefit. This is underscored by the study they cite, which concludes that wind development could produce a certain amount of energy. What is needed, however, is a study showing that wind has produced a certain amount of energy, and — crucially — that the contribution reduced greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, coal mining, deforestation, or anything.

In fact, studies of existing wind on the grid show little, if any, beneficial effect. Therefore, although wind's roads and clearcutting may be seen as less than those of mountaintop removal for coal, those impacts are in addition to those of coal. Wind does not replace or even meaningfully reduce coal. There is very little, if any, benefit to justify wind's environmental impacts.

Appalachian Voices admits supporting the blowing up of mountains in western North Carolina to ram in wind turbines. Their defense fails, however, because it depends on a false premise.

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

Toronto Star attacks citizens, shills for industrial development

In an article in today's Toronto Star ("Noise protesters howling about windfarms"), Tyler Hamilton reports:

At the moment, however, there's no convincing evidence that wind turbines located a few hundred metres from a dwelling negatively effect health, [Energy and Infrastructure Minister George] Smitherman said. A 2008 epidemiological study and survey, financed by the European Union, generally supports that view.

Researchers from Holland's University of Groningen and Gothenburg University in Sweden conducted a mail-in survey of 725 rural Dutch residents living 17 metres to 2.1 kilometres from the nearest wind turbine.

The survey received 268 responses and, while most acknowledged hearing the "swishing" sound that wind turbines make, the vast majority – 92 per cent – said they were "satisfied" with their living environment.

That survey is available here. Only 26% of the nearby turbines were 1.5 MW or above, and 66% of them were smaller than 1 MW -- whereas the turbines being built now are typically 2-2.5 MW. Furthermore, only 9% of the respondents lived with an estimated noise level from the turbines of more than 45 dB, which is the maximum level recommended by the World Health Organization to ensure that the inside level is 30 dB as required for sleeping.

In other words, the survey does not in fact support the view that the turbines being built in Ontario should not be farther from people's homes.

Small wind energy expert Paul Gipe writes in the comments to the article:

There are 74,000 wind turbines in Europe, some 5,600 in Denmark alone. And contrary to many myths, the Danes, German, French, Spanish and others are continue to install thousands more every year.

Again, most of the turbines in Denmark are half the size of those being installed today. And it is a simple fact that Denmark has not added any new wind capacity since 2003. (See Danish Wind Energy Association.) Meanwhile the Spanish industry ministry just last week issued changes to limit the expansion of wind energy. Germany's wind still represents less than 10% of production, and France is just starting to push big wind. People are pushing back in all of these places: see the European Platform Against Windpower.

Finally, the reporter of the Star article, while readily questioning the direct testimony of dozens of individuals about the health effects of wind turbine noise, mentions without question "the positive environmental role that wind power plays in the battle against climate change and air pollution". Where is the data showing this? Where is this reporter's skepticism about that side of the story?

Wind industry advocates like to note, for example, that from 1990 to 2006, Germany's CO2 emissions decreased 13.7% (click here for the latest international data from the Energy Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy). Most of that, however, appears to be due to cleaning things up after the unification of east and west. From 1998, when industrial wind energy began to be installed in earnest, CO2 emissions decreased only 1.6%. Considering just Germany's extensive effort to insulate roofs, that figure doesn't suggest much benefit coming from big wind.

In part 2 of this article, published the next day, Hamilton writes about Denmark, "In some years, when CO2 emissions rise slightly, it has little to do with wind." Yet without embarrassment, he presents any drop in emissions as having everything to do with wind! In fact, Danish energy trade, and thus domestic CO2 emissions, varies dramatically year to year. In the same table cited in the preceding paragraph, we see that emissions decreased 16.3% from 2003 to 2005, although no new wind capacity was added in that period. From 2002 to 2003, the last year that wind capacity was added, emissions increased 16.2%.

Again, it is hardly courageous to avoid questioning those with power and to only attack those without.

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

Are Wind Turbines Hazardous to Your Health?

To the Editor, Seven Days:

In "Are Wind Turbines Hazardous to Your Health? Docs Disagree" (May 12), Andy Bromage reported that Dr. Robert McCunney wonders how wind turbines can be any worse than other industrial noises.

The mechanisms may be in dispute, but the very papers McCunney cited in his work for the American and Canadian Wind Energy trade groups emphasize that disturbance from wind turbines occurs at much lower noise levels than from other sources. The significance of the published European studies is not that adverse health impacts are low but, since the turbines are much smaller and farther from homes than those going up today, that the impacts are so high.

It should also be noted that wind turbine noise is especially intrusive at night, when other artificial noises usually take a break, particularly in the rural places targeted by industrial wind developers.

The article closed with a classic change of subject, describing an audience member asking about wind power impacts compared with those of coal, oil, and nuclear. Bromage editorialized McCunney's utterly meaningless response as "good": "None of us needs to be reminded of the health implications and environmental consequences of oil in light of the tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico right now."

Oil is used for only 1% of our electricity. Nuclear provides base load with which wind's intermittent and variable infeed is not a competitor. And the use of coal has not been reduced anywhere in the world because of wind on the grid, again because wind is intermittent, highly variable, and nondispatchable. Other sources have to stay on line, burning fuel on standby or ramping and switching and thus burning fuel less efficiently than they would without wind. Hydro, in fact, provides the best pairing for wind, thus not affecting fossil fuel use at all, one renewable simply displacing another.

None of us indeed needs to be reminded of the impacts of oil, coal, or nuclear. But many of us apparently need to be reminded that industrial wind has no effect on them and only adds negative effects of its own.

As an illustration of wind's limitations - both a poor source of energy and a disproportionate source of adverse impacts - Denmark has not installed any new on-shore capacity on shore since 2002. As wind production in Denmark (including one off-shore facility opened in 2003) more than doubled from 1998 to 2004, carbon dioxide emissions remained flat and remain so, unaffected by adding even a huge proportion of wind to the grid.

Eric Rosenbloom
President, National Wind Watch (wind-watch.org)

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms

Less than one-fourth of projected fuel savings from wind on Falklands

It is a simple concept that if wind energy is pushed into the electrical grid, then electricity from another source must be reduced. Wind industry promoters ignore the many factors that complicate the concept and claim that wind-generated electricity equals an equivalent reduction of the displaced source's fuel use.

They ignore the fuel used if a source is simply switched to standby, extra fuel used in ramping up and down in response to wind, and extra fuel burned when a plant operates at lower efficiency because of wind.

They also ignore the significant line loss in transporting wind energy from the remote locations where sprawling facilities are possible. And they ignore the likelihood that in large grid systems, the unpredictable and highly variable wind production is small enough to be simply ignored -- tolerated as a slight rise in line voltage -- especially in the remote areas where wind energy facilities are typically sited -- and allowed to dissipate as heat.

Skeptics point to these factors to try to explain the utter lack of data showing actual reductions of other fuels due to wind on the grid.

But at last -- with no help from wind promoters -- I have found some evidence of fuel savings in a closed island system, where the effect of wind would be most clearly seen.

According to the 2007 issue 4 of Wind Blatt, the Enercon magazine for wind energy, three Enercon E-33/330 kW wind turbines were installed at Sand Bay on East Falkland (Islas Malvinas), where they were expected to provide 20% of the electricity and thus projected to reduce fuel use at the island's diesel-fired plant by 20%. The diesel plant was burning about 4,000,000 liters per year, or about 11,000 liters per day. It provided a maximum load of 3.2 MW in winter and a minimum load of 1.1 MW in summer, with a total annual production of 15,000 MWh (average load 1.7 MW).

In other cases, that's usually the last one reads about fuel savings, but in this case there is a brief follow-up report with actual data.

According to the Falklands government, the wind turbines were officially opened June 29, 2007. On Sept. 20, 2007, they noted that the Sand Bay wind turbines were saving 800-1,000 liters of diesel fuel per day. Wind energy was providing 23% of the electricity at night and 13% during the day (an average of 18%).

But 900 liters is only 8.2% of the previous annual daily fuel use of 11,000 liters. And it is only 4.3% of the daily winter fuel use.

From this admittedly scant information, it appears that although these fast-responding diesel generators may generate 18% less electricity because of wind, they burn only 4-8% less fuel.

Using the winter estimates (the Falklands are in the southern hemisphere), that's a savings of less than one-fourth the amount projected.

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

market scams, dead bats, and big business

Here are a few abstracts from Windpower Monthly's February issue.

China changes tack on wind market structure and drops fixed purchase prices for competitive tenders:  Companies which a short time ago were rushing to develop wind projects in China are now having second thoughts after the government announced last month it would not be introducing a premium wind power tariff, as widely expected. Instead, the market structure will be a competitive bidding process controlled by government. "The zeal for wind development in China is likely to cool down," says Zhu Junsheng of China Renewable Energy Industries Association.

Plans for Scandinavian green certificates market hit icy patch:  Europe's first cross-border market for trade of green power certificates is looking unlikely to go ahead at the start of next year as planned. All eyes have otherwise been on Norway and Sweden to demonstrate that the environmental value of renewable energy is a commodity that can be sold separately from the physical electricity. Green certificate trade, increasingly common in America, allows a country with poor wind resources to buy cheaper wind power from a distant windy neighbour. [This echos the arrangement of powerful nations enriching themselves with the resources of weak nations. --KM] But Norway is still wrangling over the details, while a Swedish fear is that as long as Norway can produce wind power more efficiently than Sweden, Swedish subsidies to renewables will end up in Norwegian pockets. ... [W]ind industry views remain mixed on whether these are teething problems or a more fundamental flaw in the concept of green certificate trade.

GE Financial Services aiming to be world's biggest wind power investor:  With last year's purchase of seven small German wind farms and the commissioning of a 50 MW project in California, GE Energy Financial Services (EFS) has joined the list of institutional investors aiming to build substantial portfolios of wind plant assets. Right now wind is a "sweet spot" for new energy investment, says the company's Tim Howell. This year EFS is forming a dedicated team to focus exclusively on renewables, chasing deals in Europe and the US. We interview the men with the ambitions -- and the billions of dollars -- to make EFS the largest, most profitable owner of wind assets in the world.

Investigating mystery bat deaths in Canadian wind farm:  A leading Canadian power producer is launching two bat research programs after site monitoring at a southern Alberta wind farm revealed hundreds of bat mortalities. About 90% of the bodies were found during the fall migration in August and September. The mortalities were largely silver-haired and hoary bats, neither of which is a species at risk [small comfort if you or your mate is one of the individuals killed --KM]. The company is funding research to track bat behaviour and hopes the findings can be used to identify potential issues at other sites.

Merger of American power giants seen as benefit to wind industry:  A pending merger between US electricity majors FPL Group and Constellation Energy will create a giant among giants and has likely wide-reaching implications for the future of wind power development across the country. "Constellation has flirted with the wind industry and as a combination they'll be the leading players in the market," says Randy Swisher of the American Wind Energy Association. "It's very, very interesting." FPL assures that its intention to add up to 1500 MW of wind power to its portfolio remains unchanged. "A market with larger players and larger control areas is more attractive to the wind industry," adds Swisher. [This, along with the GE story above, underscores that industrial wind power is not an alternative to but increasingly a symptom of the same big-energy control that got us into the mess we're in. --KM]

tags:  wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, ecoanarchism

New transmission lines needed to shunt wind around

From the Union for the Co-ordination of Transmission of Electricity Transmission Development Plan, 2008 (click title of this post):

The amount and location of wind generation capacity is important for transmission network development issues, because highly volatile power output (between maximal rated power and almost nil when wind conditions are unfavourable) is inherent to this generation process, with a typical associated load factor much lower than that of thermal units. In addition, regarding the location, new wind farms are usually located in areas with poor transmission networks, so new lines and infrastructure need to be planned in order to be able to evacuate this generation capacity. The consequence is that highly contrasted and variable power flows can be experienced on the transmission network, particularly if the wind farms are concentrated in neighbouring areas.

tags: wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism

More about extreme wind turbine noise

Farmers Weekly, 12 January 2007, p. 10, has an article about the Davies, a farming couple in Lincolnshire who have had to sleep away from their home 60 nights since September, because of the Deeping St Nicholas wind energy facility 3,000 feet from their home (see the excerpts from forum posts by "wiggyjane" posted yesterday). The article is accompanied by a sidebar:

The Wind Turbine Noise Working Group has been asked by the DTI [U.K. Department of Trade and Industry] to provide expert advice and guidance on issues surrounding what has become known as Amplitude Modulation of Aerodynamic Noise.

This is a low-frequency whooshing sound caused by the passage of air over turbine blades under certain atmospheric conditions. So far, little is known about the phenomenon or how it might be controlled.

Because amplitude modulation is difficult to predict, it is often not until a turbine is erected and fully working that the noise becomes evident. An acoustics expert, who asked not to be named, said that, although rare, it was becoming more common.

"The concern is that bigger, more modern turbines may be more prone to this problem," he told Farmers Weekly. ...

Because of the nature of sites required for wind farms, turbines are often in areas of low background noise which makes the noise of the blades all the more noticeable -- especially for rural residents used to peace and quiet.

Last month, noise worries contributed to the withdrawal of an application to build three turbines at Weston, Herfordshire. Noise has also been an issue for residents living near wind farms at Bears Down, North Cornwall and Askham, Cumbria.

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