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An Interesting Study About Wind Farms
This Harvard Gazette article concludes that the environment impact of large-scale wind farms is not as benign as previously thought.
In two papers — published today in the journals Environmental Research Letters and Joule — Harvard University researchers find that the transition to wind or solar power in the U.S. would require five to 20 times more land than previously thought, and, if such large-scale wind farms were built, would warm average surface temperatures over the continental U.S. by 0.24 degrees Celsius.
“Wind beats coal by any environmental measure, but that doesn’t mean that its impacts are negligible,” said David Keith, the Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and senior author of the papers. “We must quickly transition away from fossil fuels to stop carbon emissions. In doing so, we must make choices between various low-carbon technologies, all of which have some social and environmental impacts.”
As usual, we rush into technology before fully knowing all the impacts. Sometimes, we can only find out all the impacts by embracing the technology and reacting to it (such as the texting while driving impact on auto accidents, and the subsequent bans).
Again, nuclear is the best option (IMHO), with small modular reactors (SMRs) being a much more economical way to keep costs low.
Published in General
I’m with you about nuclear, Stad. I need to do a search to see if somebody has done a study on solar farms along this same vein.
Interesting and informative. Thanks.
So if windfarms create local warming, maybe it would be good to install them in the marginal fruitgrowing regions of Michigan. Trouble is, the fruit growing regions are a bit hilly (by Michigan standards) and growers try to take advantage of microclimate differences, e.g. growing grapes on south-facing slopes. And hilly regions create turbulence that isn’t the best for windmill electricity generation.
I’ve been interested in energy issues ever since reading Daniel Yergin’s ‘The Prize’ in college (naturally on my own/not assigned). I have to drive a fair amount for work and made a point of stopping by one of these Bird Processors and even at about 50 yards away, I could feel the pressure change in my lungs. I understand this is really impacting bird and bat populations (aside from chopping them up).
Also, while driving by these farm where/when many of these windmills are idle, I can’t help but think of the capital investment that is just sitting idle – not only idle but requiring redundancy from traditional/proven sources of generation. I’m guessing (?) each of those windmills costs about 2-5 million each – all that capital, all that ‘return on investment’ all that oppourtunity cost (and return) wasted.
The amount of land needed for solar is small, but there are other considerations:
https://www.good.is/infographics/solar-power-all-of-america
The figure is roughly 12 million acres. Conventional power plants take up a signifcantly smaller footprint, but the pro-solar and wind people like to include the footprints of all the coal and uranium mines to mitigate the damage done by the comparison.
Nuclear has an uphill battle as some states are mandating a certain percentage of energy be generated by renewables. Put another way, they are picking winners and losers by locking out competition for said percentage.
I often bicycle past these wind farms, sometimes even closely enough to hear the windmills. I’ve never sensed the slightest pressure change. And though they do chop up some birds, I haven’t heard anyone make a serious claim that they are impacting bird and bat populations. Maybe there could be a problem for endangered species in some places; I’m not sure.
My objection to them is the subsidies — the corporate welfare. If they can operate without the subsidies and mandates, I’m all in favor. And if not, not.
We now do have a credible claim, based on actual measurements, that they cause local climate warming. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing can be debated.
And all those government subsidies.
The study doesn’t include effects on birds and bats, or low frequency vibrations which some think cause health problems.
And don’t be so humble about your opinion. You are Rico’s resident nuclear expert.
The problem with nuclear is the huge lead times necessary to build and the economics when they get built. Since you’re from the area, Carolina Power & Light built the Shearon-Harris reactor with a percentage of its output going to a group of municipal co-operatives. Those municipalities had higher energy costs (by a lot) than those around them and became a major factor in recruiting industry and businesses. CP&L could absorb the costs of the expensive nuclear power by offsetting it against cheaper coal-fired and natural gas-fired plants. There is no magic bullet.
The biggest subsidy of all is the grid connection mandate — requiring grid operators to take renewables and sideline dispatchable power. Solar and wind power cannot be compared to other power producers without including dispatch and energy storage — it’s apples and oranges. Green power advocates deliberately ignore this, as the cost of non-“green” power is cheaper than every known form of suitably-scaled storage technologies. In other words, without even examining the cost to build the “green” energy itself, the cost to build dispatchable storage for that energy source already costs way more than any non-“green” energy.
I’ve taken to using scare quotes on “green” energy because it is a total fraud. We have to continue building conventional capacity to cover for “green” energy on calm nights and all of the other times “green” energy doesn’t produce at its “capacity”. And that conventional power is expensive to keep on standby, and dramatically less efficient and more polluting when it isn’t allowed to produce it its own capacity. A big hidden cost of “green” energy is the huge efficiency losses and extra pollution mitigation in all of the standby generation.
“Green” energy is a farce and a fraud. They only reasonable use of these technologies is for remote locations off-grid.
All I can tell you is what I experienced. After I was reading about the bats, I stopped while driving South of Fond du Lac near the Horicon Marsh Wildlife Area. They were actually rotating (for a change) so I stopped car, got out and walked as close to it without hopping the barbed wire fence and I could feel the pressure change as the blades went round.
The reason for that is that the Feds won’t allow “off the shelf” reactors to be built, so everything has to be designed from scratch for the exact site that the utility wants to use, and then Homeland Security demands that it be able to withstand a World Trade Center type attack (fully-fueled 757 crashing right on top of the reactor), and then the environmental protesters get involved, by which point the utility’s put several billion dollars into something that’s now more or less never going to get built.
Trump could resolve 90% of that with a couple of Executive Orders.
Wondering if these could be sited at military bases without as many approval hurdles. They’d be well guarded, Naval Reactor Operators could operate in conjunction with local utility engineers, revenue could help offset military costs. Maybe even Indian Reservations (instead of Casinos)
On a recent NR cruise, Deroy Murdock gave a great presentation on renewable energy, and the impact on bird populations is worse than most people think:
https://www.audubon.org/news/will-wind-turbines-ever-be-safe-birds
The pro-wind people use the “there are larger sources of bird deaths” argument to defend their technology, it begs the question, “Why add even more deaths?”
Also annoying is the fact these wind farms are given a pass when it comes to killing endangered and protected species.
I’ve probably killed enough brain cells over the last few years to lose that moniker. Hehe . . .
FYI when I was a nuclear engineering consultant in the mid-80s, we were involved in helping the Shearon Harris plant get on line.
I read that article very quickly, and didn’t see any presentation of evidence that, except in the case of some rare and endangered migratory birds, they harm bird populations. I’m thinking of this in the same terms that the left views public health: It’s OK if lots of people die from unavailable treatments as long as the population as a whole is healthy enough to reproduce itself. And judging from the article, wind farms are not given a pass when it comes to killing endangered and protected species, although the regulation of those cases is perhaps not rigorous enough.
Mandates are also a problem with the way the ethanol industry works. Corporate welfare has some pretty staunch defenders.
W announced a plan to do just that in about 2004, but it went nowhere. I’m not exactly sure why. If enacted, it would sure make the BRAC process even more contentious!
You can probably find better studies instead of this one.
Try shooting a bald eagle sometime. (Hell, it’s illegal for you or me to even pick up an eagle feather that’s lying on the ground.) Wind farms get permits specifying how many bald eagles they’re allowed to kill each year.
The key to understanding why renewables are a pipe dream for large scale power production has to do with energy and power density. Nuclear, coal, and natural gas have higher energy and power densities than solar, wind, and hydroelectric.
The first chart compares various energy densities sans renewables:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density
The chart is a little busy, but you can see nuclear is right up there.
This Forbes article compares power densities between non-renewables and renewables using the footprints of the facilities:
https://www.forbes.com/2010/05/11/renewables-energy-oil-economy-opinions-contributors-robert-bryce.html#6766bc771403
Unless there are huge breakthroughs in battery technology, power will have to be produced at the rate it is consumed (load following). I saw a recent study somewhere (UK?) which suggested a solar-battery hybrid system for businesses and home use (such as Elon Musk’s Power Wall) is not economically viable. Lost the link . . .
Anyway, the bottom line is many in the general public have been sold on the idea of renewables (free energy), but like a “free to good home” kitten, there are costs and impacts which means it’s anything but.
The public have been sold a lie peddled by environmental scare mongers who hate civilization. The “renewables” crowd are just along for the hand-outs.
Most journalists, including most business journalists, understand energy…especially electricity..so poorly that they cannot write intelligently about it. Very few seem to grasp the difference between ‘kilowatts’ and ‘kilowatt hours’.
Another one is “knots per hour” when referring to the speed of ships or planes.
I love “at 5 o’clock AM in the morning”. And “in an hour’s time”. What else do “hours” measure?
Stad, looking forward to reading it this evening. I just finished a book on the shortcomings of alternative energy (not one I’d recommend) and the arguments against wind, even relative to solar, are compelling. Though I’d personally welcome a bit of global warming, I agree wholeheartedly about nuclear: there are a lot of interesting technologies being explored, and particularly the 4th generation stuff you mention.
Thanks for the link.
This is just another example of two leftist causes crashing into each other. I don’t know how they bleat about endangered species out of one side of their mouths while giving these wind farms actual quotas of bald and golden eagles they’re allowed to slaughter every year, not to mention the millions of other migrating birds. Kind of like defending Muslims out of multiculturalist motives while ignoring it when they tie gay men to chairs and throw them off roofs or set their wives on fire.
The bottom line (I use that phrase way too much) is we should investigate all forms of large-scale – and small scale – energy production.
However, leftist politics drives Democrat and spineless Republican politicians to action before all the facts are in (such as energy source mandates). This is one reason why I think the push for driverless cars is going way too fast. People are too focused on the utopian promises of this new technology to think about the negative consequences – of which there are many – to fully implement it before we fully understand what can go wrong . . .
It’s unfortunate that we’ve allowed them to rig the debate on every issue, not just this one, by framing their causes in emotionally appealing terms so that anyone who opposes them or even has a suggestion comes off as a heartless monster.
How? You’ve been sipping that same drink in your avatar as long as I’ve been on Ricochet.