One of the environmental costs of wind power… — 15 Comments
That’s a really interesting link. The part about change in ocean currents and oxygen levels in the seawater may be related to the reports of dead whales off our northeast coast. And I have driven through rural Illinois, with wind turbines as far as the eye can see. Is it the same in Iowa and Kansas? Kansas is, I think, at the center of the drought in the Midwest, and NOAA says it’s not going to get better this spring.
I think wind power is just another scam. Remember, they only produce on average 30% of their rated power. They are also a blight on a landscape and a hazard to the wildlife…that’s the real environmental cost.
However, I have a hard time believing that they cause such a serious disruption of weather patterns. Just a gut feeling now, but I’d have to do some power calculations to see if my physical intuition is correct.
I had been interested in energy for a long time because airplanes require fossil fuels, and the U.S. was having trouble producing enough until fracking was developed. Alternat energy sources seemed at the time to be a partial, smart solution to the problem of energy scarcity.
However, the impractical nature of wind and solar has become quite apparent over the years. They are intermittent sources that must be backed up. So far, no battery has been developed that can do that job. Which means that the must be backed up by hydropower, or fossil fueled power. That makes wind and solar more expensive to use than just hydro or fossil fueled power alone. And then, there’s the problem of disposal of the used-up panels, towers, blades, etc. A very formidable problem as well.
That they affect the weather around them is no surprise. Plowing and planting fields, paving roads, building big buildings, and many other human activities affect the local weather. Yes, we affect the weather, but not in the way or magnitude that the climate activists claim.
While I believe the entire climate change , wind power, solar power push is total bullshit, the notion that wind turbines can affect the climate other than very nearby their location is ludicrous.
Just like urban areas (e.g. Manhattan) can affect the micro-climate, no sane person can claim that massive amounts of concrete, steel and asphalt in a small area affects the climate a great distance removed from the city center.
As for whales dying as a result of windmills; are we to believe that the whales just swim head first into the pylons supporting the wind turbines, knock themselves out and drift lifeless onto NJ beaches.
Dead whales washing up on beaches have been occurring for hundreds of years. It’s ridiculous to think windmills have anything to do with this.
Fans are used on cold sensitive crops like oranges and grapes in places like Florida and California. They don’t really warm up the crops so much as they dry them off and keep condensation from settling which could turn to frost. Those fans are more numerous and closer to the grind (and significantly smaller.) Could wind turbines have a similar effect? I’m not sure they are sufficiently concentrated and close enough to the ground to have much effect. Plus, they aren’t actually “fans” — they only turn when there is wind, and the wind is probably already blowing condensation off of crops.
I’m wondering if someone is thinking that since they kind of, sort of, in a way, look like the fans in the vineyards and orange groves, they surely have a similar effect.
Well, physicsguy, the article and links did talk about effects where the turbines are. Yes, I doubt very much that they have systemic effects on weather patterns in the larger sense. But they do kill a lot of birds …
Doing seismic work for locations where to put the wind turbines may be interfering with the whales ability to navigate. That is what I heard, no idea if it is true.
JJ:
I did some of my early glider training in Tehachapi, and in fact flew my first solo there. A glider pilot is always looking for places to land if they are unable to maintain altitude (I’ve landed in a farmer’s field in Utah, a mine road in Nevada, and an empty field on the shore of Lake Tahoe), and looking at all those wind turbines surrounding the airfield in Tehachapi caused me no little concern.
I too have wondered about the effects of wind turbines on free-flowing air near the earth’s surface. I think there must be some effect, but probably not enough to drastically change the micro-climate surrounding it. At the same time, I don’t believe wind turbine operation offsets the cost of building, installing and operating it. And BTW — if you have never seen one that is burning, that will really catch your attention. I suppose it has to do with a bearing running dry or something like that, but the result is a large, wind-whipped fireball at the top of that tower. Memorable, and probably also adding to global warming.
IIRC the greens used to wax about how interconnected man’s effects on the environment are and chaos theroy and finish up (coup de grac – for huxley) with the butterfly effect.
For me they kill birds and bats, disturb fragile habitat, and rarely provide power when needed. But on the up side the enrich the corrupt politicians and Xi (thank you Democrats). They are a blight on the Earth.
For anyone on the Right to try to emphasize this is self-defeating. It will work every bit as well as saying “The Democrats are the real racists”.
To begin with, the Left does not care about consistency, only about power.
As for the normies, saying wind is bad for the environment entails accepting Leftist framing that damaging the environment is a moral issue and not an economic issue; those who would make us eat bugs, drive electric cars, take away our straws and shopping bags, ban our gas stoves, are delighted when the Right tries to tell this to the normies. (If there’s no “good” way to make electricity then we should just not have it.)
As for the Right, huge swaths of it don’t believe global warming is real, and largely do care about consistency, and so for anyone in this camp to complain about wind and warming is just to make themselves look either confused or like they are arguing in bad faith. (Which they are if they complain out of one side of their mouths that global warming is made up and out of the other that wind power contributes to it.)
It’s worth being informed about the negative effects of wind generation on the environment. However, just about anything built has some kind of negative effect on the environment; just about everything humans do contributes in some degree to warming. You can’t just point and say “it warms”. The real argument for or against wind power is quantitative, not Aristotlean. Adults understand the concept of trade-offs and that nothing is without cost. Certainly coal and nuclear power plants impose environmental costs too, any form of power based on burning carbon and/or large amounts of concrete is going to put out a hell of a lot of carbon dioxide. To acknowledge this is not to be against coal or nuclear power, it’s to care about what’s true. It’s always about “what are we getting for these costs”?
For coal and nuclear there is a lot more negative effect on the environment than wind per kw-hr, but also there’s a lot more economic benefit. In addition wind generation is parasitic on hydroelectric power and natural gas; wind displaces hydro from the grid and results in increasing natural gas generation, (due to the need to balance the grid) and so wind generation can’t be considered in isolation to the degree a nuclear or coal plant can. I could write reams on why if electric power and carbon neutrality are what you want wind is a terrible way to get there, and will forbear.
” ….UK ‘to class nuclear as environmentally sustainable’
15 March 2023
The UK’s Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has announced that nuclear will “subject to consultation, be classed as environmentally sustainable in our green taxonomy ..”
Let’s see if I understand this; the MODERN technology (as opposed to ca. 1960s or 1970s technology) to produce electricity via nuclear energy has been around at least 10 to 20 years, but somehow it’s “definition,” its categorization has now changed; it’s now considered acceptable in the UK.
They must be pretty desperate (or perhaps, common sense is making a comeback) in the UK for this to occur.
But do not fret folks; if such a “re-definition” of nuclear powered generating facilities were attempted here in the USA, you can bet your house that the climatistas would develop new strategies / reasons to show us all why that would mean the end of planet earth; that a nuclear plant is akin to an atomic bomb just waiting to explode in your neighborhood.
In Germany, they are expanding the use of coal fired plants to provide electricity while shutting down about 3 of their nuclear plants; a bizarre way to save the earth.
Or maybe the entire climate-change ideology has nothing at all to do with saving planet earth.
Very nice visual communication of the complexities of managing a wind/solar-based grid vs a nuclear-based grid
Frederick said –
“any form of power based on burning carbon and/or large amounts of concrete is going to put out a hell of a lot of carbon dioxide”
True enough, but it’s putting it back where it started, into the atmosphere before plants selfishly sequestered it and put it underground.
I always remind the Greenies that carbon dioxide is plant food, and who would be against feeding plants?
To accept the left’s framing that normies are fascists or
….. snore …… snore ……
“The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
And whether pigs have wings …..
They are costly and unreliable. Is that too much to argue about installing more of them? No mention of subsidies for their use? Shocked.
F: “I did some of my early glider training in Tehachapi, and in fact flew my first solo there. A glider pilot is always looking for places to land if they are unable to maintain altitude (I’ve landed in a farmer’s field in Utah, a mine road in Nevada, and an empty field on the shore of Lake Tahoe), and looking at all those wind turbines surrounding the airfield in Tehachapi caused me no little concern.”
You’re a lucky man. I have over 23,000 hours of flight time, but only two of them were in a glider. I paid for a ride in a glider once. I loved it, but never had the spare cash to take it up as a hobby.
Tehachapi would be a good place for gliders. They do get a lot of wind and thermals. The eastside of the Sierras can be good for thermals. I think you mentioned you live in Cartson City. If so, I now know why.
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That’s a really interesting link. The part about change in ocean currents and oxygen levels in the seawater may be related to the reports of dead whales off our northeast coast. And I have driven through rural Illinois, with wind turbines as far as the eye can see. Is it the same in Iowa and Kansas? Kansas is, I think, at the center of the drought in the Midwest, and NOAA says it’s not going to get better this spring.
I think wind power is just another scam. Remember, they only produce on average 30% of their rated power. They are also a blight on a landscape and a hazard to the wildlife…that’s the real environmental cost.
However, I have a hard time believing that they cause such a serious disruption of weather patterns. Just a gut feeling now, but I’d have to do some power calculations to see if my physical intuition is correct.
In 1987 I drove through Tehachapi Pass in California and saw the windmills there. At the time, I thought it was a wonderful idea.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tehachapi-wind-farm
I had been interested in energy for a long time because airplanes require fossil fuels, and the U.S. was having trouble producing enough until fracking was developed. Alternat energy sources seemed at the time to be a partial, smart solution to the problem of energy scarcity.
However, the impractical nature of wind and solar has become quite apparent over the years. They are intermittent sources that must be backed up. So far, no battery has been developed that can do that job. Which means that the must be backed up by hydropower, or fossil fueled power. That makes wind and solar more expensive to use than just hydro or fossil fueled power alone. And then, there’s the problem of disposal of the used-up panels, towers, blades, etc. A very formidable problem as well.
That they affect the weather around them is no surprise. Plowing and planting fields, paving roads, building big buildings, and many other human activities affect the local weather. Yes, we affect the weather, but not in the way or magnitude that the climate activists claim.
While I believe the entire climate change , wind power, solar power push is total bullshit, the notion that wind turbines can affect the climate other than very nearby their location is ludicrous.
Just like urban areas (e.g. Manhattan) can affect the micro-climate, no sane person can claim that massive amounts of concrete, steel and asphalt in a small area affects the climate a great distance removed from the city center.
As for whales dying as a result of windmills; are we to believe that the whales just swim head first into the pylons supporting the wind turbines, knock themselves out and drift lifeless onto NJ beaches.
Dead whales washing up on beaches have been occurring for hundreds of years. It’s ridiculous to think windmills have anything to do with this.
Fans are used on cold sensitive crops like oranges and grapes in places like Florida and California. They don’t really warm up the crops so much as they dry them off and keep condensation from settling which could turn to frost. Those fans are more numerous and closer to the grind (and significantly smaller.) Could wind turbines have a similar effect? I’m not sure they are sufficiently concentrated and close enough to the ground to have much effect. Plus, they aren’t actually “fans” — they only turn when there is wind, and the wind is probably already blowing condensation off of crops.
I’m wondering if someone is thinking that since they kind of, sort of, in a way, look like the fans in the vineyards and orange groves, they surely have a similar effect.
Well, physicsguy, the article and links did talk about effects where the turbines are. Yes, I doubt very much that they have systemic effects on weather patterns in the larger sense. But they do kill a lot of birds …
Doing seismic work for locations where to put the wind turbines may be interfering with the whales ability to navigate. That is what I heard, no idea if it is true.
JJ:
I did some of my early glider training in Tehachapi, and in fact flew my first solo there. A glider pilot is always looking for places to land if they are unable to maintain altitude (I’ve landed in a farmer’s field in Utah, a mine road in Nevada, and an empty field on the shore of Lake Tahoe), and looking at all those wind turbines surrounding the airfield in Tehachapi caused me no little concern.
I too have wondered about the effects of wind turbines on free-flowing air near the earth’s surface. I think there must be some effect, but probably not enough to drastically change the micro-climate surrounding it. At the same time, I don’t believe wind turbine operation offsets the cost of building, installing and operating it. And BTW — if you have never seen one that is burning, that will really catch your attention. I suppose it has to do with a bearing running dry or something like that, but the result is a large, wind-whipped fireball at the top of that tower. Memorable, and probably also adding to global warming.
IIRC the greens used to wax about how interconnected man’s effects on the environment are and chaos theroy and finish up (coup de grac – for huxley) with the butterfly effect.
For me they kill birds and bats, disturb fragile habitat, and rarely provide power when needed. But on the up side the enrich the corrupt politicians and Xi (thank you Democrats). They are a blight on the Earth.
For anyone on the Right to try to emphasize this is self-defeating. It will work every bit as well as saying “The Democrats are the real racists”.
To begin with, the Left does not care about consistency, only about power.
As for the normies, saying wind is bad for the environment entails accepting Leftist framing that damaging the environment is a moral issue and not an economic issue; those who would make us eat bugs, drive electric cars, take away our straws and shopping bags, ban our gas stoves, are delighted when the Right tries to tell this to the normies. (If there’s no “good” way to make electricity then we should just not have it.)
As for the Right, huge swaths of it don’t believe global warming is real, and largely do care about consistency, and so for anyone in this camp to complain about wind and warming is just to make themselves look either confused or like they are arguing in bad faith. (Which they are if they complain out of one side of their mouths that global warming is made up and out of the other that wind power contributes to it.)
It’s worth being informed about the negative effects of wind generation on the environment. However, just about anything built has some kind of negative effect on the environment; just about everything humans do contributes in some degree to warming. You can’t just point and say “it warms”. The real argument for or against wind power is quantitative, not Aristotlean. Adults understand the concept of trade-offs and that nothing is without cost. Certainly coal and nuclear power plants impose environmental costs too, any form of power based on burning carbon and/or large amounts of concrete is going to put out a hell of a lot of carbon dioxide. To acknowledge this is not to be against coal or nuclear power, it’s to care about what’s true. It’s always about “what are we getting for these costs”?
For coal and nuclear there is a lot more negative effect on the environment than wind per kw-hr, but also there’s a lot more economic benefit. In addition wind generation is parasitic on hydroelectric power and natural gas; wind displaces hydro from the grid and results in increasing natural gas generation, (due to the need to balance the grid) and so wind generation can’t be considered in isolation to the degree a nuclear or coal plant can. I could write reams on why if electric power and carbon neutrality are what you want wind is a terrible way to get there, and will forbear.
” ….UK ‘to class nuclear as environmentally sustainable’
15 March 2023
The UK’s Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has announced that nuclear will “subject to consultation, be classed as environmentally sustainable in our green taxonomy ..”
Let’s see if I understand this; the MODERN technology (as opposed to ca. 1960s or 1970s technology) to produce electricity via nuclear energy has been around at least 10 to 20 years, but somehow it’s “definition,” its categorization has now changed; it’s now considered acceptable in the UK.
They must be pretty desperate (or perhaps, common sense is making a comeback) in the UK for this to occur.
But do not fret folks; if such a “re-definition” of nuclear powered generating facilities were attempted here in the USA, you can bet your house that the climatistas would develop new strategies / reasons to show us all why that would mean the end of planet earth; that a nuclear plant is akin to an atomic bomb just waiting to explode in your neighborhood.
In Germany, they are expanding the use of coal fired plants to provide electricity while shutting down about 3 of their nuclear plants; a bizarre way to save the earth.
Or maybe the entire climate-change ideology has nothing at all to do with saving planet earth.
Very nice visual communication of the complexities of managing a wind/solar-based grid vs a nuclear-based grid
https://twitter.com/FissionPhil/status/1636944915254108160
Frederick said –
“any form of power based on burning carbon and/or large amounts of concrete is going to put out a hell of a lot of carbon dioxide”
True enough, but it’s putting it back where it started, into the atmosphere before plants selfishly sequestered it and put it underground.
I always remind the Greenies that carbon dioxide is plant food, and who would be against feeding plants?
To accept the left’s framing that normies are fascists or
….. snore …… snore ……
“The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
And whether pigs have wings …..
They are costly and unreliable. Is that too much to argue about installing more of them? No mention of subsidies for their use? Shocked.
F: “I did some of my early glider training in Tehachapi, and in fact flew my first solo there. A glider pilot is always looking for places to land if they are unable to maintain altitude (I’ve landed in a farmer’s field in Utah, a mine road in Nevada, and an empty field on the shore of Lake Tahoe), and looking at all those wind turbines surrounding the airfield in Tehachapi caused me no little concern.”
You’re a lucky man. I have over 23,000 hours of flight time, but only two of them were in a glider. I paid for a ride in a glider once. I loved it, but never had the spare cash to take it up as a hobby.
Tehachapi would be a good place for gliders. They do get a lot of wind and thermals. The eastside of the Sierras can be good for thermals. I think you mentioned you live in Cartson City. If so, I now know why.