Environists keep promoting wind power as ‘cheap and environmentally-safe’, but it turns out that it is neither. That doesn’t stop proponents, however, who continue to push for ever-more taxpayer subsidies for it and other forms of ‘alternate’ energy.

Wind turbines have long been known to kill excessive amounts of birds. Now, according to Gretchen Randall (www.eco.freedom.org), 44 turbines on a West Virginia power project killed between 1,400 and 4,000 bats in 2004. A large number of bat carcasses have also been found at a Pennsylvania wind site.

Wind energy provides less than 1% of the country’s electricity, reported Randall, but since Congress reinstated the federal tax break for alternative energy sources, companies are anxious to build while the tax break is in effect. Environmental groups differ on whether companies should delay building, she added, or whether bats are expendable in achieving more wind power. So much for protecting species when an environmentalist’s goal is threatened.

And speaking of environmentalists, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry nixed a wind farm that could have been seen from their Nantucket Island vacation homes, reported Randall. Environmentalism only goes so far, it seems.

Many Problems, High Costs

In PERC Reports, “A Whirlwind of Troubles: Environmental, Operations, and Financial Problems” by Thomas Tanton notes that “Wind energy is environmentally harmful and costly to taxpayers. Furthermore, its expansion could adversely affect the nation’s electricity transmission system.” Tanton notes that wind energy is subsidized by the federal government to the tune of 50% to almost 100% per kilowatt of the cost of normal electricity production. Nevertheless, the U.S. Department of Energy has announced a goal of obtaining 5% of U.S. electricity from wind by 2020.

Other known problems with wind power include:

1. Wind generation is intermittent. Power is produced only when the wind blows between certain speeds. A drop in wind speed from 10 mph to 9 mph (10%) drops power generation by 30%. A doubling of wind speed from 10 mph to 20 mph increases generation by eight times. These spikes are large enough to trip breakers along major transmission lines (a system already in notoriously poor condition) and cause power outages.

Winds peak at night and in colder months, but electricity demand is highest on summer afternoons. Since wind-generated power is not stable enough to be a sole source of power, other generating stations must always remain online at normal capacity.

2. Wind turbines are extremely noisy.

3. Wind farms are not cheap to build.

a. It can take two to five times as long to site and build the transmission lines required to carry the power as it does to site and build new electricity generation capacity -- often ten years or more of expensive legal wrangling and permitting. Since wind farms are usually in remote locations, very long lines, often through ‘environmentally-sensitive areas’, are often required. Land must be cleared, the rights-of way must be maintained (with trees removed), and the need for this land increases the possibility that eminent domain will be used to take private lands.

b. A lot of land is required for turbines, and land costs will only rise over time. A single 555-megawatt gas-fired power plant in California generates more electricity than do all 13,000 of the state’s wind turbines. The gas-fired plant sits on 15 acres. The 300-foot-tall windmills impact over 100,000 acres.

c. Access roads must be constructed.

d. Many materials are required for transmission lines, turbines, blades, towers, computer systems and cabling, substations, and the base pads. The pad area alone uses up to 100,000 cubic feet of concrete, the production of which is a major source of carbon dioxide and other pollutants. Since wind farms, because of their intermittent generation qualities, cannot replace other generation facilities, these materials are used in addition to those in conventional generating facilities.  

Windmills do not allow any other

power plants to be taken out of service. 

Wind power increases costs to power consumers, power companies, and taxpayers. According to L.M. Schwartz, The Virginia Land Rights Coalition: “The Department of Energy (DOE) and other federal and state agencies have spent over $40 billion on “energy research and development” and subsidies, not including private R&D costs, yet virtually nothing has been ‘developed’ that is technologically, economically or environmentally sound. The subsidy of “green” energy... has distorted the operation of electrical power markets, increased electricity rates to consumer, increased taxes at all levels of government, diverted resources from industry-financed (private) research for more efficient and cleaner means of producing and distributing power, politicized energy production, and prevented or delayed bringing more base capacity on line to reliably meet present and projected increases in demand.” Yet, he observed, alternate power advocates keep pressing for more subsidies, arguing that ‘commercialization is just around the corner.’

Even if California had 320,000 windmills, the state could not get 100% of their power from windmills, Schwartz added. “Most of the time, the windmills would produce very little power, and, of course, when there’s no wind, there’s no power at all. At those time, other power sources have to be ready to produce 100% of the power requirements. In short, windmills do not allow any other power plants to be taken out of service, and contribute little, if anything, toward carbon emissions reductions.”

If environists were truly concerned about ‘clean energy’, they would support hydro and nuclear generation. So once again Resource Roundup must ask: what is their real agenda? In their (debatable) minds, it’s okay to kill birds and bats for wind power that: costs consumers and taxpayers more than traditional electricity; is less reliable than traditional electricity; uses large quantities of non-renewable resources formed at high pollution rates into power plants that cannot even replace traditional plants; mars hundreds of thousands of acres with large numbers of turbines; produces almost unbearable noise when many blades are turning; and, endangers the traditional transmission line system. Surely they can’t want us to have expensive, unreliable power? Could they?

(For more information, read “Wind -- Facts or blowing hot air?” by L.M. Schwartz at www.sovereignty.net/p/clim/wind-leo.htm.)