Tag: wind turbines

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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Internal Docs Show Biden Admin Waived Taxpayer Safeguards to Boost Offshore Wind Project

The Biden administration quietly granted a request from an energy firm developing an offshore wind project off the coast of Massachusetts to waive development fees designed to safeguard taxpayers, according to internal documents reviewed by Fox News Digital.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) informed Vineyard Wind that it had waived a financial assurance for decommissioning costs fee in a June 15, 2021, letter obtained by watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT). Federal statute mandates that developers pay that fee prior to construction on their lease, a potentially hefty fee designed to guarantee federal property is returned to its original state after a lessee departs its lease.

“At the same time the Department of the Interior was looking at forcing greater and more expensive bonding requirements on holders of long-standing oil and gas leases, they were relaxing these requirements on the nation’s first utility-scale offshore wind energy producer, one that just coincidentally happened to be a client of their incoming #2,” PPT Director Michael Chamberlain told Fox News Digital.

“If you want to talk about bad optics, I don’t see how they could be any worse than right here,” he said. “For an administration touting itself as the most ethical in history, this represents yet another incident in which Secretary Haaland’s Interior appears to have a tough time living up to that standard.”

Chamberlain noted that former Deputy Interior Secretary Tommy Beadreau, the second-highest ranked official at the Department of the Interior (DOI) which houses BOEM, had, according to his 2021 financial disclosure form, previously represented Vineyard Wind on legal matters while serving as a partner at the firm Latham & Watkins.

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New documentary ‘proves’ building offshore wind farms does kill whales

The increase in whale, dolphin, and other cetacean deaths off the East Coast of the United States since 2016 is not due to the construction of large industrial wind turbines, U.S. government officials say.

Their scientists have done the research, they say, to prove that whatever is killing the whales is completely unrelated to the wind industry. 

But now, a new documentary, “Thrown To The Wind,” by director and producer Jonah Markowitz, which I executive produced, proves that the US government officials have been lying.

The film documents surprisingly loud, high-decibel sonar emitted by wind industry vessels when measured with state-of-the-art hydrophones. And it shows that the wind industry’s increased boat traffic is correlated directly with specific whale deaths

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Scotland cut down 14 million trees to make way for wind turbines

Scotland, site of the recent United Nations 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) climate summit, has cut down 14 million trees to make room for new wind power installations.

As reported in The Herald, the tree removal was for 21 wind turbine projects.

“The Scottish Government has moved to reassure that more trees have been planted, but it is unknown what proportion of these are mature plants that play a bigger role in turning carbon into oxygen.

“A Scottish conservation charity, which has planted almost two million trees across the Highlands, believes that both wind farms and trees are key to reducing carbon levels.”

The tree removal seems especially ironic given that world leaders supposedly agreed to end deforestation by 2030 at the recent COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.

The Herald further reports that: “A spokesman for Forestry and Land Scotland, said: ‘Renewable energy and forests are key to Scotland’s contribution to mitigating climate change and FLS is successfully managing both elements.

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Wind Turbine Blades Can’t Be Recycled, So They’re Piling Up in Landfills

A wind turbine’s blades can be longer than a Boeing 747 wing, so at the end of their lifespan they can’t just be hauled away. First, you need to saw through the lissome fiberglass using a diamond-encrusted industrial saw to create three pieces small enough to be strapped to a tractor-trailer.

The municipal landfill in Casper, Wyoming, is the final resting place of 870 blades whose days making renewable energy have come to end. The severed fragments look like bleached whale bones nestled against one another.

“That’s the end of it for this winter,” said waste technician Michael Bratvold, watching a bulldozer bury them forever in sand. “We’ll get the rest when the weather breaks this spring.”

Tens of thousands of aging blades are coming down from steel towers around the world and most have nowhere to go but landfills. In the U.S. alone, about 8,000 will be removed in each of the next four years. Europe, which has been dealing with the problem longer, has about 3,800 coming down annually through at least 2022, according to BloombergNEF. It’s going to get worse: Most were built more than a decade ago, when installations were less than a fifth of what they are now.

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