Insightful analysis by an authority on wind energy and energy policy with extensive experience in the offshore wind sector.
Debunking Myths about Wind Energy
I don’t do a lot of wind energy flim flam debunking these days. I leave that to the next generation. However, I will take up my cudgel reluctantly when my friends throw something egregious in my face. And that happened recently from several different sources: one a FaceBook post, and another from a chain email that’s circulating.
“It’s bullshit,” said Paul Gipe, who has published five books on wind energy since 1995 and who has closely studied California’s wind farms. (Now the American Wind Energy Association does that.)
Gipe said there have never been 14,000 abandoned wind turbines in California, in the United States, in North America or anywhere in the world. But at one time, there were approximately 14,000 wind turbines in California, total. He says he is “the author of that number” and believes that it is the origin of the 14,000 figure used in the email chain.
Newly released assessments of nearly 1000 properties in the southern part of El Paso, located near a wind farm southeast of Calhan, found no decrease in property values since the wind farm’s installation – but rather a combined increase in value of $US65.3 million.
In early 2016 the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) installed a large wind turbine at their headquarters in central England. The 100-meter (330-foot) tall turbine was installed at the Society’s headquarters in Sandy midway between Milton Keynes and Cambridge.
The UK press has been full of stories implying that wind power is to blame for the National Grid having to call in expensive demand shedding measures recently to keep the lights on. What they will not tell you is how often wind power saves the UK consumer large amounts of money because the National Grid does not have to buy in expensive reserves of power. Also they do not tell you that wind power in fact has quite a substantial contribution to effective firm power station capacity.
The energy payback period for the two turbine models are found to be 5.2 and 6.4 months, respectively.
Vote Compass users overall say wind energy should be a significant source of Ontario’s electricity supply mix – but that view is not shared by respondents who identified as supporters of the Progressive Conservatives.
If we allow ourselves to be deceived by the fossil-fuel industry and their fabricated worries about birds, then we will be refusing to look the future squarely in the face. We must end our addiction to fossil fuels, and work to establish clean, renewable alternatives. . . The birds and bats will thank us.
As detailed below, the Government’s survey shows that the public is much more supportive of onshore wind – the technology they are determined to curb – compared to the technologies to which they want to give incentives, namely nuclear power and shale gas.
