Wind Energy & the Environment
Wind energy works, is increasingly cost-effective, has a net positive environmental impact, and is compatible with most existing land uses. The links below touch on the topic of wind’s environmental benefits and impacts.
38th Annual Windmill-Wildflower Hike Planned for Tehachapi 18 May 2024
By
Paul Gipe
Tehachapi Windmill-Wildflower Hike 2024 38th hike Paul Gipe and Georgette Theotig will lead a hike among the wind turbines on …
Yes, wind turbines kill birds. But fracking is much worse
By
Sammy Roth
It’s also why journalists should avoid treating bird deaths at wind farms as unforgivable sins, rather than as nasty side effects of renewable energy development that we should work hard to minimize but likely can’t avoid entirely. As part of his study, Katovich used the International Newsstream database to run a comparison. He found that in 2020, major U.S. news outlets published 173 stories about the effects of wind farms on birds — and just 46 stories on fracking impacts. I wrote last week that it’s time to see the world through climate-colored goggles. That’s true for the media as much as anyone.
A new wind farm in Kansas trailblazes with light-mitigating technology
By
Michelle Lewis
Sunflower Wind is the first in the state to feature an Aircraft Detection Lighting System (ADLS) that uses radar to scan for aircraft. When ADLS is installed on a wind farm, the nighttime lights on the turbines blink only when aircraft are detected, thus reducing light pollution for residents who live close enough to be able to see them. Approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is required to install ADLS, and the FAA reviews every turbine individually. The FAA requires that the ADLS activate and flash if an aircraft is at or below 1,000 feet above the tallest wind turbine and is approaching a three-nautical mile (3.45-mile) perimeter around the wind farm.
Instead of tilting at turbines we should see them for what they are: beautiful
By
External Source
But I would ask country dwellers still inclined to block them to see that they are in fact beautiful. They are prettier than power stations, less destructive than fracking, certainly lovelier than floods, fires, droughts and other effects of climate change. They enrich the nation with the help of its abundant wind, and make us less dependent on fossil-fuel despots. Wind turbines are in a long rural tradition of robust practical structures that also includes barns, mills, viaducts, canals and others that have become beloved and protected. On those same drives I was always happy to see an old windmill. It shouldn’t be too hard to love their modern equivalents.
Rishi Sunak ‘poised to revoke ban on onshore windfarms’
By
External Source
Ministers are preparing to introduce changes to planning rules that will allow councils to give the go-ahead to turbine proposals where there is broad public support, according to the Telegraph. The amendment to scrap the ban on new offshore wind was put forward by the former Cop26 president Alok Sharma and has since drawn support from a group of Tories including Liz Truss, who are “confident” that it will pass.
Great Lakes gets its first wind farm – but some fear environmental fallout
By
External Source
The Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation (Leedco) is planning to build Icebreaker, a demonstration wind farm generating 20 megawatts of electricity several miles off the shore of Cleveland. The project would initially be small, starting with six turbines, with construction expected to begin as soon as 2025 and electricity coming online two years later.
