Tag: wind turbines

Trump Admin Orders Halt to Offshore Wind Project Near New York

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said on April 16 that he had ordered a halt to the construction of a major wind project off the coast of New York “until further review.”

Burgum, posting to the social platform X on Wednesday, said he had consulted with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to direct the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to “halt all construction activities” on Equinor’s Empire Wind project. The Biden administration approved the project in 2023, with construction beginning last year.

The interior secretary accused the former administration of “rush[ing] through its approval without sufficient analysis.” He did not provide further details on potential faults identified.

“On day one, [President Donald Trump] called for comprehensive reviews of federal wind projects and wind leasing, and at Interior, we are doing our part to make sure these instructions are followed,” Burgum wrote in a follow-up post.

The Interior Department did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

Equinor, a Norway-based company, was supported by President Joe Biden in his efforts to expand renewable energy projects.

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Donald Trump Cancels Construction of One of America’s Largest Wind Farms

Donald Trump halted construction on what was set to be the largest wind farm in the U.S. on his first day in office.

The president stopped building work on over 100,000 acres of clean energy infrastructure at the Lava Ridge Wind Project in Idaho via an executive order on Tuesday.

Newsweek contacted the White House and developers Magic Valley Energy for more information on the order, the decision and the implications for those involved in the project via email. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) declined to comment when approached by Newsweek.

Why It Matters

The move is part of a series of day-one promises that Trump pledged to fulfill once he was sworn in.

In his inauguration speech, Trump said that the U.S. would “drill, baby, drill,” and expand oil and gas initiatives at the expense of renewable energy projects. This order, along with his removal of the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement, symbolizes Trump’s move towards traditional fuel sources.

What to Know

The Lava Ridge Wind Project would have been a 104,000-acre wind farm in Lava Ridge, Idaho, with over 271 turbines planned by developers Magic Valley Energy.

This would have made Lava Ridge the largest wind farm in the U.S. by area, beating out the 100,000-acre titleholder in Roscoe, Texas.

However, because of the project’s scale, it was met with skepticism by local campaigners, including Republican Idaho Senator Jim Risch. In 2023, Idaho lawmakers issued a statement with concerns over how the project was being managed by the BLM.

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The Real Costs of Solar and Wind Show How Insane the “Energy Transition” Is and Foretell the End of the Road for Net Zero

The Fraser Institute just reported some startling data regarding the real costs of electricity produced from solar and wind facilities, compared to other energy sources. Here are the money paragraphs (emphasis added):

Often, when proponents claim that wind and solar sources are cheaper than fossil fuels, they ignore [backup energy] costs. A recent study published in Energy, a peer-reviewed energy and engineering journal, found that—after accounting for backup, energy storage and associated indirect costs—solar power costs skyrocket from US$36 per megawatt hour (MWh) to as high as US$1,548 and wind generation costs increase from US$40 to up to US$504 per MWh.

Which is why when governments phase out fossil fuels to expand the role of renewable sources in the electricity grid, electricity become more expensive. In fact, a study by University of Chicago economists showed that between 1990 and 2015, U.S. states that mandated minimum renewable power sources experienced significant electricity price increases after accounting for backup infrastructure and other costs. Specifically, in those states electricity prices increased by an average of 11 per cent, costing consumers an additional $30 billion annually. The study also found that electricity prices grew more expensive over time, and by the twelfth year, electricity prices were 17 per cent higher (on average).

None of this is a surprise to anyone paying attention to the facts of what’s happened in Germany, for example, but the renewables industry and its promoters are fond of citing levelized costs analyses that don’t account for the myriad problems of intermittency when it comes to solar and wind. The two studies cited above do account for these costs and the results put an end to any suggestion green energy is affordable, let alone even close to competitive.

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UK Pays Wind Farms $1.3 Billion To Shut Down When It’s Windy

Bloomberg reports UK Is Paying £1 Billion to Waste a Record Amount of Wind Power

Burgeoning capacity and blustery weather should have driven huge growth in output in 2024. But the grid can’t cope, forcing the operator to pay wind farms to turn off, a cost ultimately borne by consumers. It’s a situation that puts at risk plans to decarbonize the network by 2030 and makes it harder to cut bills.

Crucial to the net zero grid target is a massive build-out of renewable power, particularly from wind. Britain has boosted its offshore fleet by 50% in the past five years and is set to double it in the next five, Bloomberg data show.

But the grid hasn’t expanded at the same pace. As a result, the operator is increasingly paying wind farms, particularly those in Scotland, not to run. So far this year, the UK has spent more than £1 billion ($1.3 billion) in “congestion costs” to turn off plants that can’t deliver electricity because of grid constraints, and switch on others.

Last month for example, when Storm Bert swept across the UK, some of its newest and biggest wind parks were still. Scotland’s £3 billion Seagreen project, owned by SSE Plc and TotalEnergies SE, was shut off. SSE’s Viking development on the Shetland Islands was also closed.

Wind vs Gas

UK generators usually sell output in advance on the wholesale market. But those transactions don’t take into account the physical limitations of balancing supply and demand in real time. To keep the lights on, the operator steps in, paying some plants to turn off and others that are closer to demand centers to fire up.

Often, this means shutting off a far-flung wind farm and starting up a gas-fed plant that’s closer to a city.

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With all the detrimental effects of wind farms, how on Earth are they being approved?

I recently returned from Wales where once pristine green hills are now littered with (often stationary) giant wind turbines, in the name of saving the planet. On a farm near Llangollen, I met with a group of locals who are deeply concerned about the rampant escalation of these ugly, noisy, lethal and futile installations.

Farmer Tim Smith explained the issues to me in detail which I hope I’ve covered adequately below so that you too can grasp what is at stake, and see that wind turbines are yet another big lie to support the biggest lie of all – climate change.

For communities, it’s incredibly difficult to challenge decisions made by developers or government officials. Once more, in the case of this area of outstanding natural beauty, it seems that the Government has prioritised corporate interests over the health, wellbeing and livelihoods of ordinary people. With increasingly more wind farms planned for the area, the group expressed feeling angry, frustrated and powerless to defend themselves from these metal monsters.

“The system is set up to protect big business, not the little guy,” Tim said.

Climate Change or Climate Hoax?

There is growing scepticism about the climate change narrative that drives many renewable energy policies. Living in the UK, there is no doubt the weather is doing strange things – it’s been a miserably cloudy and cold year with hardly any sunshine whatsoever. But is this climate change or part of a climate hoax?

Devastating floods in Spain as well as the fires in Greece have raised questions about whether these events were genuinely natural or potentially orchestrated. This possibility only reinforces the need to critically examine policies that push for widespread wind farm developments, which are so obviously visual and noise pollutants. So why are they allowed?

Wind Energy as a ‘Solution’ to Climate Change

Wind energy is presented as a solution to “climate change,” yet its long-term effects on health, ecosystems and local communities are devastating and these effects are completely overlooked.

Tim, who has started a UK branch of the international Motvind advocacy group to raise awareness of the dangers of the wind energy agenda, explained that once turbines are installed there is no oversight at all. One of the group’s most pressing concerns is the health risks associated with wind farm noise, particularly the low-frequency infrasound emitted by turbines. This sound, often imperceptible to the human ear, can lead to a range of health issues, including sleep disturbances, chronic stress, and even motion-sickness-like symptoms. Some members of the group had experienced these symptoms. According to Tim, developers have refused to release the records of the infrasound data relevant to their local installations. In addition to infrasound, the turbines make audible sounds that also lead to increased stress, can drive people mad, or cause them to relocate.

The current regulations, such as the ETSU R97 guidelines, do not adequately address these risks. Although independent reports have been prepared by the Independent Noise Working Group to protect the public, these are simply ignored by the government and corporations alike. Thus, communities living near wind farms are left vulnerable to these health effects, with no sufficient protections in place.

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Proof that wind and solar are disasters, and not the energy America really needs

Forget the “science is settled.” With energy policy, settling on the best energy sources is more important. 

Unfortunately, the debate over energy is dominated by agenda-driven outbursts and misleading statistics, from activists and governmental officials alike. That’s why we released a comprehensive report card that reviews every major energy source’s benefits (and limitations). 

We’re “grading the grid,” so lawmakers and regulators don’t enact policies that are doomed to fail.

Our analysis, the first of its kind, takes a holistic look at America’s eight most important energy sources: natural gas, wind, solar, nuclear, coal, petroleum, geothermal and hydroelectric. 

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Germany Begins Felling 120,000 Trees From ‘Fairy Tale’ Forest to Make Way for Wind Turbines

The windmills are spinning golden subsidies in the central German ‘fairy tale’ forest of Reinhardswald, but the payment is the partial destruction of the 1,000 year-old ancient wood itself. Work has started on the clearing of up to 120,000 trees in the forest, the setting for many of the Brothers Grimm mythical stories, to provide access for an initial 18 giant wind turbines around the Sababurg ‘Sleeping Beauty’ castle. Who is opposing this massive destruction of the ancient forest teeming with wildlife with trees over 200 years old? Certainly not the Green party, now in power at national and local level. In fact the project is being led by local Hesse Green Minister Priska Hinz who is reported to have said: “Wind energy makes a decisive contribution to the energy transition and the preservation of nature. It is the only way to preserve forests and important ecosystems.”

There is some local press interest in Germany about the destruction of part of the forest that covers a 200 square kilometre area. Nevertheless, the mainstream media generally keep well away from covering environmental destruction when the Greens are doing it in the claimed cause of saving the planet. The BBC did cover the story under the headline ‘Battle over wind turbines in the land of Sleeping Beauty‘, but that was in 2013 when plans for the industrial development were first announced. It seems that the state-reliant broadcaster is less interested now that the Big Bad Wolf has finally made a meal of Little Red Riding Hood.

Pierre Gosselin, who runs the German-based science site No Tricks Zone, has been covering the outrage felt in a number of German quarters at the plans to destroy some of the Reinhardswald forest in the interest of inferior green technology. He feels the affair shows what an inefficient and costly scam green energy is. “It’s not cost-free, it’s full of corrupt and unresponsive politicians who no longer care about democracy, and it certainly doesn’t make the environment better. It’s a nasty juggernaut of waste, fraud, corruption and ecological degradation – with dead birds, turbine vibration sickness, strobe dizziness and landscape pollution,” he adds.

The Guardian has been curiously silent over the clearing of woodland to build wind turbines in Hesse. In 2020 it was less reticent about reporting on the construction of a 3 km highway in another Hessian forest at Dannenroder. Thousands of climate activists gathered on the site north of Frankfurt, it reported. Dannenroder tree-felling would be a catastrophe, environmental campaigners are reported to have said. “Some parts of this forest are 250 years old,” noted Nicola Uhde of the German Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation (Bund), “and there is simply not much of this kind of woodland around anymore.” At the time, the Guardian noted the fate of Dannenroder was a “litmus test for the Green party” which governed the state as part of a coalition. It seems to have been remiss in not suggesting such a test with the Reinhardswald deforestation. But then it seems none of the usual climate activists have been protesting about the loss of trees and wildlife habitat on this occasion.

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Research Exposes Wind Projects Cause Approx. 70% of Animals to Become Displaced

Numerous issues have been identified with wind turbines installed on land as well as offshore – economic (see 1, 2, 3, 4), environmental (see 1, 2), health, and safety.  In regard to the environment, last month, a court in France ordered the dismantling of a wind farm because of its adverse impact on local birds.  More recently scientists concurred again that wind turbines have a negative effect on wildlife.

The transition to renewable energy is central to our efforts to build a low-carbon future. But it is not without its own environmental downsides, as highlighted by a new review showing that the majority of birds and mammals studied to date are displaced from their habitats by wind-power developments.

Wildlife and wind turbines are an uncomfortable mix. Rotating turbine blades can make short work of anything unlucky enough to collide with them, but direct mortality is only part of the story. Having reviewed the available evidence from around the world, biologists in Finland have found that 63 per cent of bird species, 72 per cent of bats and 67 per cent of terrestrial mammals are displaced from areas where turbines are installed.

Some of the most pronounced effects were found among owls, cranes and reindeer, which were displaced an average of 5km from wind-power developments.

Anne Tolvanen of the Natural Resources Institute Finland, a co-author of the study published in the journal Biological Conservation, says that more data on more species is required if the impacts of new wind farms on the most vulnerable species are to be minimised. “The problem is that the research always comes a bit too late,” she says.

Some of the most pronounced effects were found among owls, cranes and reindeer, which were displaced an average of 5km from wind-power developments.

According to Will Cresswell, professor of biology at the University of St Andrews, who was not involved in the work, the paper “shows the profound effects” of wind-power developments on natural habitats. But he suggests that such impacts can be mitigated. “In short, put turbines in the right place,” he says. “Agricultural land – already compromised in terms of biodiversity and with high disturbance – is ideal, producing both energy and food from the same loss of natural habitat more or less.

“But then the real issue with onshore turbines presents itself, at least in the UK: ‘not in my back yard,’” adds Cresswell. “This is of course another classic disturbance/avoidance effect, but at least humans, being rational, can see the logic of ‘better in my back yard, than in the national park or nature reserve.’”

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Osage Nation’s Victorious War Cry After Judge Rules Wind Farm on Tribal Land Must Be Dismantled: ‘This Is Our Homeland’

The Osage Nation in Oklahoma won a great victory for American property rights last week after a judge ordered the dismantling of a renewable energy wind farm that was erected without permission on their tribal lands.

One of the main reasons the Native American council opposed the wind farm was to protect their mineral rights, not to mention their ability to control their own ancestral homeland.

But the battle has been raging in court for a decade already, as the Osage Nation and its Mineral Council worked to eliminate the facilitates of Osage Wind LLC, Enel Kansas LLC and Enel Green Power North America Inc.

The victory was total. U.S. Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves ruled in the case in Tulsa last week that the Osage Nation was awarded injunctive relief via “ejectment of the wind turbine farm for continuing trespass,” according to Tulsa World.

The judge ruled that the wind turbine facility constituted “mining” and required a lease from the Osage Nation’s Minerals Council, something the wind farm companies neglected to do when erecting their turbines.

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Federal Agency Says Offshore Wind Farm Will Likely “adversely affect” Whales and Other Marine Mammals

Opposition to offshore wind projects is increasing worldwide and not only because dead whales and other marine life keep washing up on beaches (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).  While some still don’t believe that whales and other marine life are being affected by offshore wind development, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently confirmed that they are – just not that badly.

The lone remaining offshore wind project in New Jersey with preliminary approval is likely to “adversely affect” whales and other marine mammals, but its construction, operation and eventual dismantling will not seriously harm or kill them, a federal scientific agency said.

In a biological opinion issued Monday night, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the Atlantic Shores project, to be built off the state’s southern coast, is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any species of endangered whales, sea turtles, or fish.

Nor is it anticipated to destroy or adversely modify any designated critical habitat, the agency said.

Jennifer Daniels, the company’s development director, called NOAA’s decision “the next step forward” for the project.

It’s “a testament to the five years and 40-plus environmental assessments completed to ensure we are delivering safe, reliable, renewable power in a way that prioritizes responsible ocean development,” Daniels wrote.

The ruling is nearly identical to one the agency issued in April for the now-canceled Ocean Wind I and II projects, which would have been built in the same general area.

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