I was listening to a radio talk program the other day and the guest was talking about solar energy, when he said, in passing,
*
“unlike wind power, which has surprisingly devastating consequences for the environment…”*
He didn’t say another word about wind power or explain how it’s bad for the environment, and the host didn’t ask him. I fail to see how wind power (I assume he means the wind turbines of the type they have in California) could be “devastating” to the environment, unless he’s talking about the land that needs to be cleared for those turbines to be built. Even then I’d still think it would be preferable to clearing land for a coal or other type of electrical plant.
So what’s the story here? Is wind power really “surprisingly devastating” to the earth?
I’ve no idea and the Wikipedia doesn’t seem to offer anything impressive either. Unless this is one of the two or three people who thinks that mankind should be living in caves gnawing bark, his contention seems unfounded.
The guy really really likes birds. But, AFAIK, that risk is pretty overblown and I’m pretty sure converting to wind power would be a net plus for the birdies (and fishies, etc.) Cite
The guy really really hates little blips on the horizon, or driving by windmills. To which I say: meh. Better than smog.
The guest was almost certainly talking about the killings of birds, especially raptors, as well as bats.
The guest probably hadn’t done a cost-benefit comparison of how badly the environment is impacted by other power sources. Few people against wind power do. “Surprisingly devastating?”
That’s not to say that there’s not a known problem, because there is, but there’s also a lot of research in the area to try to reduce deaths of wildlife. The BBC today just reported on a new radio-based system that might deter bats from flying into the turbine blades, for example. I think, based on talking over the issue with my wind experts at work a few weeks ago, that before too many years warning systems and deterrents will keep bird and bat deaths down to a very low level.
This anti-windfarm site has a list of environmental negatives associated with wind turbines.
I wouldn’t necessarily call any of them “surprising”, though. What they seem to boil down to is basically that wind turbines are large industrial installations, which have many of the same environmental impacts as other large built objects. Plus they occasionally hit birds. Plus they are at present more expensive to run than some fossil-fuel energy sources (although it could be argued that fossil-fuel use is more heavily subsidized by our infrastructure and political setup).
Unless you were somehow naive enough to nurture the illusion that wind turbines are made of magic invisible weightless fairy gossamer provided by the fairies at no cost, I can’t imagine why you would find any of these environmental downsides “surprising”.
There is a lot of debate as to whether or not wind turbines basically make ground up bird meat. My sources say “no,” especially WRT to large, modern turbines that are spaced further apart and on taller pylons (i.e., above flight patterns) but my main source is the Sierra Club (I’m not saying I think they’re wrong, just acknowledging the source). My Sierra mag from several months ago argues that bird deaths attributed to wind turbines is far less than the effect that domesticated felines have, though - part of the reason my kitties stay indoors.
Most of the invective against turbine farms IME tends to be aimed at the “but it’s an eyesore!” argument. I think they’re less of an eyesore than a coal plant, but what do I know? I like seeing the Tehachapi turbine farm on my morning jogs, though.
Yeah they kill too many raptors, which are already hard-pressed. But compared to other sources of energy windmills are pretty clean.
It’s possible that **lots **of windfarms could change weather pattern. :dubious:
You do realize you are proposing building mesh “tents” that would use literally acres of material and would most likely reduce the airflow over the turbines.
Also, there turbine blades are considerably flexible - they bend back a fair bit when operating at full capacity - a mesh cage to enclose them would have to be big enough to allow them the full range of flexibility. Also, it would make maintenance more difficult, would dramatically increase the cost, would make people consider them even more of an eyesore and would probably reduce their efficiency by attenuating the airflow.