Q: Are wind farms dangerous to the atmosphere?
A: Like all power sources, wind farms have some detrimental environmental impacts. However getting power from wind farms leads to dramatically decrease greenhouse fuel emissions than getting it from fossil fuels.
FULL QUESTION
I obtained this post on Fb at present. I do know it comprises plenty of claims [challenging the eco-friendliness of wind turbines] and I don’t know the place to begin when it comes to validating them (for myself). Are you able to assist out?
FULL ANSWER
A style of prolonged posts on social media claims to poke holes in measures designed to scale back greenhouse fuel emissions and mitigate local weather change. The posts throw out quite a few statistics with out citations, making it troublesome to shortly kind truth from fiction.
A reader just lately contacted us asking for assist evaluating one such post, which solid doubt on the eco-friendliness of wind power. The submit has been circulating on Fb since March 2021, racking up greater than 135,000 shares. Different versions of the post have additionally been spreading on social media.
Some statistics and statements within the submit are arguably correct, whereas others are deceptive or flat-out incorrect. However maybe extra vital is what the submit disregarded. It referenced the petroleum merchandise used whereas constructing, working, sustaining and decommissioning wind generators with out ever stating that over its complete life cycle, a wind turbine produces among the many lowest greenhouse fuel emissions of the main electrical energy sources within the U.S.
The submit additionally misleadingly mentioned that the land for wind farms “must be clear-cut land” and referenced the necessity to reduce down “all these timber.” However within the U.S., wind farms are largely located on land that’s already not forested, and that is more likely to stay the case as wind power expands.
The submit mentioned the landfill area wanted for decommissioned wind turbine blades with out offering the context that, at the same time as wind energy will increase, they are going to make up a small proportion of all waste, and with out mentioning efforts to recycle them. And it referenced hen deaths from wind farms with out placing them within the context of far larger threats to birds, akin to collisions with glass buildings and automobiles.
We consulted consultants on wind power to resolve the claims made within the submit, and to offer context on the challenges related to this supply of renewable power.
Wind Generators Generate Low Emissions Over Their Lifetimes
The foremost benefit of wind generators is that, considering their complete lifespan, they generate very low emissions in contrast with fossil fuels.
Researchers usually calculate greenhouse fuel emissions related to strategies of electrical energy era utilizing a way known as life cycle assessment. Within the case of wind power, this consists of emissions generated in the middle of “extraction and processing of supplies, fabrication of parts, transportation, set up, operations and upkeep … decommissioning, and disposal or recycling,” Aubryn Cooperman, an engineering analyst on the Nationwide Renewable Power Laboratory, instructed us through e mail.
“Every of those processes could have emissions related to the gear used, akin to vehicles, cranes, ships, and many others.,” she mentioned. “Petroleum-based fuels are used for many sorts of transportation and transportable gear, and the associated emissions are accounted for within the wind power lifecycle evaluation.”
Within the case of fossil fuels, a life cycle evaluation of greenhouse fuel emissions additionally includes emissions brought on by burning the gas, akin to coal or pure fuel.
A report from NREL reviewed research of life cycle greenhouse fuel emissions for varied sources of electrical energy. The median revealed estimates of emissions related to wind have been greater than 37 instances decrease than these from pure fuel and 77 instances decrease than these from coal.
Over their lifetimes, wind farms additionally are associated with little or no era of air pollution akin to particulate matter and ground-level ozone.
Regardless of this, the Fb post misleadingly implied that as a result of petroleum merchandise can be utilized in varied methods in constructing, working, sustaining and eradicating wind generators, which means that they don’t qualify as clear power.
First, the submit offered varied statistics on the lubricant oil in wind generators, utilized in various quantities relying on the turbine. To be clear, this oil is used to lubricate the transferring elements in wind generators and is distinct from fuels akin to gasoline which might be combusted and produce greenhouse fuel emissions.
“Now it’s important to calculate each metropolis throughout the nation, massive and small, to search out the grand whole of yearly oil consumption from ‘clear’ power,” the submit mentioned. “The place do you assume all that oil goes to come back from, the fricken oil fairies?”
The submit went on to explain the usage of petroleum merchandise by “the big gear wanted to construct these wind farms,” in addition to service, keep and take away them.
As we’ve mentioned, emissions from petroleum product-powered gear related to wind farms are included in life cycle emissions calculations, and these point out that wind farms are far cleaner sources of power than fossil fuels.
“It’s additionally price noting that because the transportation sector decarbonizes, that can scale back emissions within the wind power lifecycle as properly,” Cooperman mentioned.
As for the lubricant oil utilized in wind generators, this oil does have to be modified infrequently, which may be challenging given the areas and peak of the generators. Nonetheless, it doesn’t essentially have to be modified yearly, opposite to what the submit mentioned.
“Oil change interval on wind generators has been prolonged over time and these days, it’s typical to do each 5 or 7 years,” Shawn Sheng, a senior analysis engineer at NREL, instructed us in an e mail. “Some analysis is being executed by extending this even additional to 10 years or longer, akin to fill-for-life (~20 years) oil.”
Emissions related to altering this oil are included in life cycle emissions calculations, Cooperman mentioned.
Many machines require lubricant oil, and the wind trade makes up solely a fraction of the marketplace for these merchandise. Moreover, lubricants only make up 1% of petroleum merchandise produced in U.S. refineries.
Put up Distorts Wind Farm Land Use Impacts
Subsequent, the Fb post listed varied statistics about wind farm land use, mixing considerably believable figures with estimates primarily based on dangerous math and deceptive statements about impacts on forests.
“And simply precisely how eco-friendly is wind power anyway?” the submit mentioned. “Every turbine requires a footprint of 1.5 acres, so a wind farm of 150 generators wants 225 acres…” This estimate is roughly believable if contemplating the direct footprint of a comparatively new, average-sized land-based wind turbine, however it doesn’t acknowledge the extensive variation in turbine dimension.
Grace Wu, who research land use and local weather change mitigation at UC Santa Barbara, instructed us through e mail that the science and engineering neighborhood wouldn’t calculate the area necessities of a wind farm per turbine, however quite per unit of power the wind farm can produce.
“The bigger the wind turbine the extra spacing it required, so to generalize throughout wind generators itself (treating the unit because the wind turbine) is inaccurate,” she mentioned. Wind generators can have one megawatt of capability to over 10 megawatts of capability, Wu defined. Offshore wind generators may be larger than 20 megawatts.
A Might 2024 U.S. Division of Agriculture report on utility-scale photo voltaic and wind installations in rural areas mentioned that the everyday direct footprint of a wind farm is approximately 0.74 acres per megawatt of capability. The direct footprint of a wind farm consists of “the comparatively small space on which service roads, turbine pads, and different infrastructure are constructed,” the report mentioned.
Wind turbine capability has been growing. The typical land-based wind turbine put in in 2022 can generate 3.2 megawatts of electrical energy, in keeping with a report from the U.S. Division of Power. Based mostly on this, the common land-based turbine put in in 2022 would have a direct footprint of greater than two acres.
Wind farms even have an oblique footprint, the USDA report explained, since wind generators want enough spacing between them to finest benefit from wind circulation. Nonetheless, the land between wind generators usually can nonetheless be used for different functions — usually for rising crops or as rangeland.
The submit’s math and logic went extra significantly awry because it mentioned the broader impacts of wind farm land use. “As a way to energy a metropolis the dimensions of NYC you’d want 57,000 acres; and who is aware of the astronomical quantity of land you would wish to energy your complete US,” the submit mentioned.
Right here, the submit did its personal inside math incorrectly. The submit beforehand had claimed it could take 3,800 generators to energy a metropolis the dimensions of New York, and three,800 multiplied by the submit’s estimated footprint of 1.5 acres per turbine is 5,700 acres, not 57,000 acres.
A spokesperson from the U.S. Power Info Administration instructed us through e mail that it “could be unimaginable” to precisely calculate the variety of generators wanted to energy a metropolis with out figuring out varied different components, together with the peak of the generators, wind velocity and era capability.
The USDA report discovered that in 2020, there have been 88,000 acres in rural areas of the U.S. within the direct footprint of wind farms. As of 2023, 10% of U.S. electrical energy got here from wind farms, in keeping with the EIA. For context, the U.S. has 897 million acres of farmland.
The submit’s suggestion that your complete U.S. could be solely powered by wind farms is unrealistic. In response to EIA projections for 2050, even in a high-uptake situation a minority of electrical energy within the U.S. could be generated by wind, with solar energy exhibiting a larger enhance. “There is no such thing as a situation we now have modeled by which there could be just one supply of electrical energy era in america,” the EIA spokesperson instructed us.
The submit additionally didn’t put the land use necessities of wind farms within the context of land use necessities of different strategies of producing electrical energy. A 2022 study revealed in PLOS One indicated that, when trying simply on the direct footprint, pure fuel and coal use extra land per unit of power generated than wind.
Nonetheless, “the reply differs considerably relying on whether or not or not one considers spacing between generators,” Wu mentioned. Wind is extra space-intensive than most different power sources when considering the complete space of wind farms.
The Fb submit misleadingly mentioned that the land utilized by wind farms would all have to be clear reduce. “Boy, reducing down all these timber is gonna piss off plenty of green-loving tree-huggers,” the submit mentioned.
Constructing wind farms does sometimes require timber to be reduce down. However Wu defined that within the U.S., wind farms are largely located on present agricultural land within the Midwest. “There are after all *some* circumstances of wind farms in forest land, however the overwhelming majority of wind capability has and will likely be sited within the ‘wind belt’ (midwest),” she mentioned.
In response to the USDA report, between 2012 and 2020 simply round 3% of newly constructed wind farms have been positioned on forest land.
Wind Turbine Blades Symbolize Small Proportion of All Waste
The Fb post additionally painted a deceptive image of what occurs to wind turbine blades on the finish of their life.
“They can’t economically be reused, refurbished, lowered, repurposed, or recycled so guess what..? It’s off to particular landfills they go,” the submit mentioned. “And guess what else..? They’re already operating out of those particular landfill areas for the blades which have already exceeded their usefulness.”
Claire Barlow, a sustainability and supplies engineer on the College of Cambridge, defined to us in an e mail that there are actual challenges related to the tip of lifetime of wind turbine blades. She mentioned that the “regular lifetime” of a wind turbine is 20 to 25 years, and that the blades presently being decommissioned typically come from a time when wind power was “beginning to take off in an enormous means” — significantly in Europe and China. Which means “the variety of end-of-life blades coming by means of will enhance vastly within the subsequent decade, and steadily after that.”
Placing them in landfills is the most cost effective method to get rid of wind turbine blades, Barlow mentioned. It’s least costly to easily bury the blades close to the wind farms they got here from, if there’s area. “‘Particular’ landfills sure, however not within the sense of that means harmful or troublesome,” she mentioned.
A Wind Energy End-of-Service Guide from the DOE defined that as of 2018, wind turbine blades despatched to landfills represented 0.017% of “mixed municipal strong waste and development and demolition waste” within the U.S. The report mentioned that by 2050 wind turbine blade waste would characterize lower than 0.15% of whole waste, in a calculation utilizing 2018 whole waste ranges.
Barlow went on to elucidate that in additional densely populated areas, akin to Northern Europe, there’s much less area to get rid of wind generators through landfills and it’s even banned in some areas. This implies there’s an incentive to search out alternate choices.
“There may be a substantial amount of work happening to find economically (and environmentally) enticing options for end-of-life blade materials, a few of that are already commercially profitable enterprises, and others which might be busy scaling up from prototypes to full-scale,” she mentioned.
Nearly all of wind turbine elements are readily recyclable, in accordance to the DOE information. “Blades are troublesome to recycle as a result of they’re produced from combined supplies which might’t simply be separated,” Barlow mentioned.
Essentially the most primary recycling methodology, she mentioned, “includes reducing up blades into small items (a number of cm, or smaller for some functions) and utilizing this materials as filler in materials used for highway or playground surfaces, the place it contributes helpful power.” There are corporations utilizing this strategy, though “this recycled materials isn’t high-value,” she mentioned.
The DOE information mentioned that this and different recycling approaches are “more and more being utilized in america,” though the vast majority of blades are nonetheless despatched to landfills and the variety of blades which might be recycled “is troublesome to find out.”
Persons are presently trying to develop higher processes for separating “doubtlessly precious fibres” out of the blades to allow them to be reused, Barlow mentioned. There are challenges, however “actual vital advances are being made,” she mentioned.
The blades additionally “can safely be disposed of in trendy well-controlled” waste-to-energy energy crops, she mentioned, though these are extra frequent in Northern Europe than the U.S. There may be additionally no less than one operation within the U.S., she mentioned, and others outdoors the nation which might be utilizing wind turbine blades as gas through the cement-making process.
Wind Turbine Impacts on Birds Want Context
Lastly, the Fb post introduced up hen deaths brought on by wind generators. This, once more, is an actual downside, however the claims within the submit are lacking context, together with that there are far larger causes of hen deaths.
“Oops, I virtually forgot in regards to the 500,000 birds which might be killed every year from wind turbine blade collisions; most of that are endangered hawks, falcons, owls, geese, geese, and eagles,” the submit mentioned. “Apparently smaller birds are extra agile and capable of dart and dodge out of the best way of the spinning blades, whereas the bigger hovering birds aren’t so fortunate. I’m positive the wildlife conservationist people are simply ecstatic about that. I’m so glad the wind power individuals are looking for the world.”
Estimates range for the full hen deaths from wind generators. A 2020 report primarily based on the American Wind Wildlife Info Middle database, which compiles knowledge from a number of research, concluded that the median estimate for mortality was 1.3 hen deaths per megawatt of wind capability per yr.
Provided that the total wind power capacity of the U.S. is greater than 150,000 megawatts, this could characterize round 200,000 hen deaths per yr. Different work, executed utilizing knowledge from 2012, estimated as much as greater than 500,000 hen deaths per yr — and hen deaths could be expected to have risen as considerably extra wind generators have been constructed.
The Fb submit doesn’t put wind turbine-related deaths within the context of different threats to birds. In response to median estimates compiled in 2017 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, hen deaths from wind turbine collisions are dwarfed by hen deaths from collisions with constructing glass, estimated to kill practically 600 million birds yearly, collisions with automobiles, estimated to kill greater than 200 million birds a yr, and encounters with cats, estimated to kill 2.4 billion birds a yr.
The submit’s declare that the majority hen deaths are amongst massive birds is wrong. In response to the AWWIC report, median estimates have been for 1.3 small hen deaths per megawatt of wind capability per yr, in contrast with 0.24 deaths for giant birds and 0.06 deaths for raptors.
Nonetheless, it’s true that researchers have explicit concerns about raptor deaths from wind turbine collisions, attributable to their comparatively small populations and reproductive life histories. Raptor deaths from wind generators could have an outsized impression on their inhabitants dimension.
A ultimate piece of context: Birds face major threats to their range and abundance from local weather change. By offering an alternate type of power with lowered greenhouse fuel emissions, wind generators could assist mitigate local weather change-related threats to birds.
Editor’s notice: SciCheck’s articles offering correct well being data and correcting well being misinformation are made attainable by a grant from the Robert Wooden Johnson Basis. The inspiration has no control over FactCheck.org’s editorial choices, and the views expressed in our articles don’t essentially replicate the views of the muse.
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Frank Fera. “Right now the average wind farm is about 150 turbines. Each wind turbine needs 80 gallons of oil as lubricant and we’re not talking about vegetable oil, this is a PAO synthetic oil based on crude… 12,000 gallons of it. …” Fb. 2 Mar 2021.
Carol Bebb McLaren. “This was shared to me by a friend in the USA. It was written by a Man named Frank Fera. …” Fb. 4 Jun 2024.
Love Europe, hate the EU. “Right now the average wind farm is about 150 turbines. Each wind turbine needs 80 gallons of oil as lubricant and we’re not talking about vegetable oil, this is a PAO synthetic oil based on crude… 12,000 gallons of it. …” Fb. 6 Jun 2024.
UK Maintain Britain United. “Right now the average wind farm is about 150 turbines. Each wind turbine needs 80 gallons of oil as lubricant and we’re not talking about vegetable oil, this is a PAO synthetic oil based on crude… 12,000 gallons of it. …” Fb. 6 Jun 2024.
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