Spinning a Green Yarn
Another Inconvenient Truth
—Commercial Wind Farms Are Impacting National Finances, the Environment, and Wildlife in a Non-green Way
By Dan Cecchini, Jr.
© 2011 by Dan Cecchini, Jr.
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Game Hawker
Publishing
GamerHawkerPublishing@gmail.com
This book is dedicated to my loving, encouraging, and patient wife Sue, for the years of time we have both spent in the outdoors with Sage Grouse and waiting for me during the many hundreds of hours it took to assemble this book.
Photo
by Petr Kratochvil. Public domain photo
Spinning a Green Yarn
Another Inconvenient Truth
—Commercial Wind Farms Are Impacting National Finances, the Environment, and Wildlife in a Non-green Way
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Table of Contents
Chapter
1
What Does Green Mean?
Do Commercial
Wind Farms Negatively Impact Climate Change?
“Green” to Meet
Political Goals
Wind Farm Installations
Chapter
2
The Cost of Wind Energy
Cost to
Wildlife
Taxpayer Subsidies
Chapter
3
Laws For Wind Farms—Are They Sufficient?
Chapter
4
The Charismatic Sage and Prairie Grouse
and Commercial Wind Farms
Game Changer
Chapter
5
Eagles, Hawks, and Falcons Getting Chopped
Up by Wind Farm Turbines
Chapter
6
Nature’s Amazing Beneficial Bats Take
Big Hit From Commercial Wind Farm Turbines
Fatal Impact of Wind
Turbines On Bats
Chapter
7
ESA—A Game Changer
Chapter
8
The Spanish and Danish Wind Energy
Industry—A Closer Look
Chapter
9
Habitat Fragmentation Problems
Chapter
10
Small Home Renewable Energy Systems vs.
Commercial Energy Farms
Location, Location, Location!!!
Size
Does Matter
Commercial Wind Farm Energy Output Hard to Optimize
Epilogue
Do
Something -- Make a Difference
What You Can Do To Make A
Difference
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Preface
The purpose of this book is to help average citizens have a better understanding of the full impact of commercial wind power to the environment. With their tall gleaming white towers and intimidating gleaming white blades, creating energy from out of thin air—what could be more wholesome for the environment, wildlife, humankind, and the planet?! When I first heard about green energy alternatives, I was studying biology as an undergraduate 35 years ago, and it was considered the same, true win-win deal for people and wildlife. This topic should be interesting to most people in the US today. Why? Because there is a strong push to sell green energy technology to the American public. The concept is a good one, but like all things which seem to be getting traction or have a good image, a lot of free riders are jumping on board. It’s not good enough for us to just parrot the phrase “I’m using a low carbon footprint source of power, therefore I’m a good and moral person.” That is the behavior of sheep, not thinking people. It is important to learn about the good and the bad points of new technology. From that point, we are in a position to make decisions as an informed society.
The reader, no matter what your personal views, needs to recognize that doing things green just to be green is only good for a fairly limited number of people. Green technology needs to make economic sense and not have an negative impact to be widely adopted. We are nowhere near that goal at this point, on either count. In America today, with giant financial deficits and rapid loss of intact ecosystems in the lower 48 states, wind power has a long way to go.
As someone who has had an intense interest in wildlife and the environment since I was a young boy, wind power was something I just had to get behind. My interest in wildlife was strong enough that biology was the obvious choice for my first college degree. Even before I had thoughts of going to college I turned into a self-taught naturalist as a kid. I spent many hours reading books and articles about animals, and wildlife in particular; I just couldn’t get enough. I learned the scientific names and genus of many different types of birds and mammals. Predators held a particular fascination to me. My focus was often on predators in any shape or form. From predatory whales to insectivorous shrews, and also included the big cats, reptiles, weasels, and particularly the birds of prey; they all captivated my imagination. I grew up in southern Michigan, just outside of Detroit, so truly wild places were not part of my daily living. I grew up with a father that was an avid angler and hunter, so I learned to hunt and fish at a young age. My uncles and some school friends were also avid outdoorsmen. Hunting and fishing provided a special opportunity to fulfill an internal drive to harvest wildlife for food, no different than native Americans or aboriginal people the world over. Even more important than harvesting food from the wild was the opportunity to spend as much time out in rural areas and observe wildlife first hand, as well as to be able absorb being in the “wild.” I loved catching a snake or turtle, then learning about its natural history. The woods and fields were exciting and alive specifically because of the exciting diversity of creatures, great and small that made their lives there. The same for brooks, streams, ponds, and lakes, without the wild things that lived there, no fascination was held there for me. The painted turtles and garter snakes gave those places character. Catching a glimpse of one, moments before it slipped off a rock into a pond provided endless thoughts about the hundreds of wild animals that were hidden among the leaves and branches of the countryside. Imagining the many and varied predatory animals that lurked there trying to outmaneuver and capture their prey (or die themselves) gave those places a sense of life and vitality. The entire environment and ecosystem was alive and vibrant. Then turning my gaze and thoughts to the pond itself, I would begin to imagine the same predator—prey, life-and-death struggle occurring. This time with the large mouth bass or northern pike stalking their prey of minnows or yellow perch. Truly, a case of the whole being much more than the simple sum of the parts. A largely intact ecosystem is a living thing itself. That is the why biologists always try to make the point to the public that simply saving a species by keeping it in captivity is not really success. The species are parts of the living ecosystem, not complete without being a member of the ecosystem itself. You can think of a species isolated from their environment the same as a football quarterback off the football field, out of the stadium. That quarterback no longer gives others any sense of what he is or what his potential is as part of the complete football team competing during a game.
This book will explore the meaning and use of the term “green” technology. It will also look at some significant species which have already been identified as being negatively impacted by commercial wind farms. We will also look to Europe where there are some serious problems associated with their commercial wind industries, but the American public has rarely been exposed to that side of the discussion up to this point. We move into a discussion of the significant difference between large commercial wind farms and individual home units or small-scale, low density commercial projects set-up in close proximity to where their power will be used. The book will wrap up with a discussion of how the reader can have a voice deciding the details of how wind power technology is developed going forward—as a society we are on the cusp of being able to do it right the first time if we are smart with our decisions of just how we implement wind energy technology.
The point of this book is to inform average members of the public at large about the good, the bad, and the ugly of the “green energy” wind industry. To reach that goal the book is written in layman’s terms rather than in scientific prose. It is rather short, to prompt people who might be just peripherally interested in the topic to sit down and read the information in this book quickly and easily. The concepts are presented so that this book can be read and understood by students who have not yet entered college. They will have to live with the decisions being made by adults today and they will be making the decisions for society soon.
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Introduction
During the 2008 US Presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama made it clear that science was going to be a center piece of the government’s decision making process if he were elected to office. Shortly after taking office, he reiterated that commitment to the people of the United States of America. Less than two months after the Presidential inauguration President Barak Obama issued an official memorandum whose subject was scientific integrity. In the memorandum the first sentences state “Science and the scientific process must inform and guide decisions of my Administration on a wide range of issues, including improvement of public health, protection of the environment, increased efficiency in the use of energy and other resources, mitigation of the threat of climate change, and protection of national security.” You will see that this statement sounds very similar to the rationale for the US congressional mandate to produce ethanol from American grown corn. There is a lot of the American flag, mom, and apple pie associated with these statements, but the details often don’t match the public rhetoric from politicians. In his presidential memorandum on scientific integrity President Obama continues with “The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions. Political officials should not suppress or alter scientific or technological findings and conclusions. … To the extent permitted by law, there should be transparency in the preparation, identification, and use of scientific and technological information in policymaking.” This concept of transparency is important to reflect upon when evaluating the huge subsidies given to large American corporations and the actions of the administration’s Department of Energy (DOE), the Treasury and the White House budget office (OMB) as reported in the Wall Street Journal in late 2010 and covered in more detail later in the book under Business Economics 101.
In the past, as Americans, we sometimes did things that created problems, but we often did it because we didn’t know better. Hydro-electric dams come to mind regarding an early “green” energy source. We have since learned a lot about the high negative environmental impact that large hydro-electric projects have had on American wildlife and habitat. We will look at some of these problems a little later. The $6 billion ethanol mess was pushed hard and fast by many American lawmakers. It produced the unintended consequences of elevated corn prices and taking wildlife habitat, in the form of idled prairie lands, back into service as agricultural fields. Also, as we all know now, the cost of water to produce the ethanol is huge! We have, also, learned that many of our household small engines and boat motors deteriorate when using gasoline that has the legal limit of ethanol in it. Yet ethanol was another quick “sustainable and green” fix for our dependence on fossil fuel sources of energy; hyped more than it was well thought through. In their article, “Ethanol’s Failed Promise” in The Washington Post, published on Earth Day in 2008, Lester and Lewis state “These "food-to-fuel" mandates were meant to move America toward energy independence and mitigate global climate change. But the evidence irrefutably demonstrates that this policy is not delivering on either goal. In fact, it is causing environmental harm and contributing to a growing global food crisis.” They make the point that the policies were created with the best of intentions. It was to help farmers, help national security, and protect the environment, but failed on all three counts. They conclude by saying “Congress took a big chance …that, unfortunately, has not worked out. Now, in the spirit of progress, let us learn the appropriate lessons from this setback, and let us act quickly to mitigate the damage and set upon a new course that holds greater promise for meeting the challenges ahead.” Big money was spent, but the outcomes didn’t match the hype. Other green technologies can have the same problems when rushed to market, subsidized with taxpayer funds, and big business works the system to collect the tax subsidies.
Things are different when we understand the negative consequences of societal actions and still pursue a dangerous or immoral position. That is why it is important to take a close look at all aspects of renewable energy technologies before we get too far into it. It is also important to understand that if doing “A” is good or acceptable, it doesn’t automatically lead to the conclusion that doing 100 times A is better. If that were the case, then if taking one aspirin for a headache is good, then taking a whole bottle of aspirin must be better!
The dream of clean, no impact, energy, is a wonderful one. Looking to science and engineering magic to develop the hype behind benefits of renewable energy is exciting and so very American. As worldwide leaders in science and engineering for the past 100 years, Americans have a deep belief in science. Renewables have been touted as a way to boost our economy with a whole new manufacturing industry, create green jobs that people can get with a quick stint at the local community college, and I support all of those goals wholeheartedly, but can it really be that simple and clean? Is it just a marketing sound byte? I continue to watch the president on TV talking about the promise of green energy for America. Then again, in just the last several weeks (early 2011) I have come across news reports that these industries are already being taken over by China. I saw an article that the Chinese are becoming dominant in the wind turbine manufacturing industry. I saw even more recently that a solar panel manufacturer in America’s Northeast is moving all of its manufacturing to China. Some American community colleges are beginning to realize that there are not unlimited green jobs in the wind or solar energy industry after a year long certificate program or even after a two year associates degree.
This book will provide an explanation of the often untold impacts of commercial wind farms on the environment, things often not discussed in the popular press. It will provide a brief summary of what is known about how large commercial wind farms are impacting wildlife in the most remote areas of North America today. It takes some arcane scientific academic information and lays it out in an understandable, easily comprehendible way. There is plenty of scientific evidence supporting this information at this time.
If you haven’t been hiding under a rock for the last five years, you already know that commercial wind farms are seen as one of cornerstones of creating a utopian energy strategy for the US. I regularly hear that if Americans want to protect wildlife and mankind we can do no better than to embrace large commercial wind farms and solar farms to get us away from our dependence on the dirty coal and oil energy industry. After all, what could be better than an energy source that has no smoke stacks involved in the energy it generates.
Environmentalist or private property rights advocate, which one are you? I am both and passionate about both. I have been totally captivated by animals and wildlife in particular, since I was a little kid. Any day that I can't spend outdoors enjoying watching or better yet, interacting with wildlife feels like a wasted day to me. The natural environment that supports a wide and fascinating biodiversity of life forms is awe-inspiring to me. Even things I may have seen a time or two before, even things I may have seen a thousand times over the decade still fascinate me. A flock of hundreds of robins landing in my juniper trees eating the berries, a garter snake stalking a frog in the garden, a red-tailed hawk riding a thermal off the heat of my rooftop on a summer day to a thousand feet in seconds, mallards flying over my yard, a flock of 50 sage grouse exploding at my feet from the short sage steppe in the dead of winter, all of these things and hundreds more give me an adrenaline rush and sense of awe like nothing else.
I believe in protecting our global environment. As an American, I believe in our capitalist system of private property ownership and freedom for individuals to profit from their property. At the same time, there are many precedents in society which prevent the unregulated use of private property if profit is the sole determinate of how property is planned to be used. A good example of limits on how private property can be used can be seen in local zoning laws. If someone lives in a residentially zoned area, they can’t just set up a commercial dump or landfill on their property, even though it would provide a service for members in that community. Unregulated landfills create a hazard to people, wildlife, and the environment. This hazard is often not immediate, but over time can become one of the biggest environmental hazards to local communities. Additionally, locating landfills on property without careful consideration of the how close the neighbors are from it can result in immediate esthetic problems for human neighbors. Yet we know that all communities require landfills, they create a vital service, can generate revenue, and have been around since the beginning of human history; however, we don’t approve them willy-nilly just because someone says they can create jobs and generate revenue. Interestingly, many people seem to have taken the approach with commercial wind farms that they create jobs, so must be good; plus, we have added many government subsidies, both state and federal, to encourage commercial wind farms, apparently and mostly because they have been labeled “green.” We are being conditioned to believe that a “green” label makes something good by definition. Wind turbines, of the appropriate size and placed in appropriate locations, could be an important part of green energy strategies. At the same time it is important for the public to understand that commercial mega wind farms are not by definition “green.” Size and placement of commercial wind farms can easily mean the difference between them being green and being a very “brown” energy technology.
Private property owners need to embrace solutions that will preserve critical habitat, not fight against protecting critical habitat for imperiled species. In the United States, the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973 and signed into law by President Richard Nixon in December of 1973. The ESA is intended to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a “consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation.” The Endangered Species Act takes into consideration the plant and animal species, not whether the land they are on is public or private. Unlike in Europe, in the US, wildlife and wild plants collectively belong to the public, not to private property owners; therefore, populations of species which are endangered receive federal protection, no matter who owns the property on which they live or inhabit. Once wild species are listed as Endangered under the Endangered Species Act in the United States, a whole series of things start to happen to try to assure that those potentially imperiled species don’t actually become extinct. One of the key things that happens that can affect private property landowners with endangered species on their properties is severe limitations on how that land can be developed or even used. If the use causes damage to the critical habitat or the species themselves then the use is typically denied or severely restricted by the federal government. This means that the best thing that private property owners with critical wildlife habitat for imperiled species can do is to advocate for whatever measures can be taken by both private individuals and by state and federal government agencies to keep all species healthy and robust, and therefore off the endangered species list.
This is an opportunity to look at the environmental, economic, and ethical questions facing us when we look at what kinds of big winds are coming out of the wind energy industry.
Photo
by Dan Cecchini, Jr.
Illustration showing the type of power transmission lines in sage grouse habitat which can be used to connect remote commercial wind turbine farms to the country’s electrical grid. These tall structures in wilderness areas create perches for sage grouse predators such as Golden Eagles to launch attacks on sage grouse. Studies show that sage grouse will avoid or abandon a very wide area where overhead transmission lines are installed in their breeding areas. Sage grouse seem to be genetically programmed to avoid area where tall structures or tree are part of the landscape. This type of corridor may also have a negative impact in creating habitat fragmentation for species such as prairie grouse and sage grouse.
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Chapter 1
What Does Green Mean?
The Miracle of Clean Energy from Commercial Wind Farms
Green technology, what does that term mean? If it decreases our dependency on fossil fuels that must be the right and moral thing to do and support—right? How can any American or person on earth argue otherwise? It’s about all that is good and healthy. If an energy technology doesn’t emit carbon during its operation then it must be what the world needs now. If an energy source doesn’t have much of a carbon footprint, but leads to the increased use of pesticides, is it still green? If an energy source doesn’t have much of a carbon footprint, but directly leads to the loss of biodiversity in the world, is it still green? We are hearing from a number of quarters that the more wind turbines, the better. There is a push to start installing commercial wind farms everywhere. How much more idyllic is the scene from Holland with a windmill spinning amongst fields of tulips, but the proposed wind turbines are like the traditional windmills on steroids. Wind turbines might have a place in the modern world to contribute to reducing carbon emissions, and there certainly is something to be said about the fascination with wind energy. However, maybe we need to pause and do a reality check to make sure that this isn’t just too good to be true. Proponents of commercial wind power, many with huge potential financial gains, seem to be giddy with pronouncing that the gleaming white turbines are pure as the driven snow.
In the interest of “doing something,” many people who care a great deal about the environment and the well-being of planet earth have started running around simply parroting the phrase “low carbon footprint”; their belief is that is the Holy Grail upon which the saving of the planet can occur. Now if your only criteria of saving the planet is really saving people, then there is some truth to that mantra. However, if what you believe in your soul is that you want a healthy ecosystem, with great species biodiversity, and intact ecosystems with truly wild places still in existence, then “low carbon footprint” all by itself is a completely inadequate measure. This is like saying that the criteria to a successful life is a high income. At first blush, on the surface, in a capitalistic society, that sounds like it may be a reasonable measure. However, it won’t take you long, as a thinking person, no matter how strong you believe in capitalism (I feel pretty strongly about it myself) to say “what about ….” For example, if a high income was all it takes to be successful then Bernie Madoff, of mega-financial ponzi schemes in modern America is successful, but in 2011, Madoff sits in a federal prison at the age of 72. How about drug dealers that pedal illegal crack, cocaine, and heroin on the streets to our children? After 20 years of this, and buying big homes and fast cars, they get arrested, convicted and end up in prison for 30 years. Again, doesn’t sound like the picture of success we have in our minds, even though financially they were quite successful. We could sit here all day and think of similar examples. I think it is safe to say that complex social challenges typically don’t have simple, single variable solutions or answers. As adults we need to look at the whole picture. We know that modern people like a quick fix, Americans are certainly no exception to that rule, but changing our energy infrastructure takes time. To just say “Oil Bad, Wind Good” is a form of magical thinking. We have to expect more of ourselves. We need to recognize that our next steps in national and even global energy technology and production for more than six billion people needs to be thought through carefully. No need to make the case that things are changing and we need to consider how to provide energy for billions of people, the world and the governments get it. It is up to us to make sure that the “next big thing” doesn’t create a new set of unanticipated consequences. Another set of conditions that precipitate new global ecological problems or even catastrophes.
Not spewing black soot into the air doesn’t automatically qualify a technology as “green.” To be truly “green”, a technology should not have a negative impact on the environment, flora and fauna included. As a society, we can’t use the simple test of whether or not an energy source has a low carbon footprint to give it an “A” as a green technology. Why do I say that, how can it be anything but “green” as a shamrock if there is zero carbon emissions from an energy source? Why does the discussion need to be broadened from the simple test of “No carbon foot print equals Green Energy”? Let’s take an example of a theoretical situation where the last stronghold of a rare species, let’s say Lowland Gorillas, lives in a single, isolated tropical forest in the Congo. Let’s call the valley King Kong Valley. Everything the last remaining wild lowland gorillas on earth need is in that environment and nowhere else on earth. A company, let’s call it NoGo, has struck a deal with the Congo government to put a dam at one end of the valley. The dam will have a hydroelectric plant built into it. The hydroelectric plant will have zero carbon emissions and will not burn any hydrocarbons during its operations. With a neutral carbon footprint the new NoGo hydroelectric dam will be touted around the world as a wonderful green initiative for the Congo nation. To help fund the dam, the company NoGo will work with an international bank for financing. So far so good. Just before the project begins someone asks the question, “How high will the water in the valley rise when the dam is built?” The answer comes back that the valley will fill to within 50 feet of the top of the valley. All of the gorillas will die out as a result of the hydroelectric dam. Once the new dam and hydroelectric plant is in place there will be no hydrocarbon emissions and there will be no gorillas left in the valley or in the world. The question that needs to be asked, “Is the hydroelectric plant built into the dam on that river in the bottom of the valley a “green” project or not”? If we simply use air quality as our gage, then the project is “green.” If we ask, “Is there a negative impact on a rare wildlife species, then the answer is the project is not “green.” Now to complicate the matter a bit for people who say they couldn’t care less about gorillas, what if the riparian habitat in the bottom of the valley is an area that has unique wild plant species. And what if those unique plant species might have important value to western medicine. Perhaps they could be used in the treatment of life threatening human diseases, such as diabetes or cancer. The construction of the hydroelectric dam would wipe out these wild plant species. These are plant species that have not yet even been studied or even cataloged and described by western science. Now we are talking about wiping out significant and unique biological diversity in plant, as well as animal species from the face of the earth, forever. Is the question about greenness of the hydroelectric dam getting more cloudy and difficult to answer in a black and white way? Let’s add another complication to the question of greenness. Shouldn’t we consider the moral and ethical impact of an energy technology, even with no carbon emissions, if say it has a negative impact on endangered wildlife, such as the declining lowland gorilla populations? What about a hydroelectric dam that will flood a remote valley that may have as yet undiscovered unique plant species. What if there is an isolated, unique aboriginal tribe that has lived for millennia in the valley? What if the hydroelectric dam will wipe the culture of those people out when the reservoir is full? Is that hydroelectric dam “green”? Does the simple lack of carbon dioxide emissions translate into being beneficial or at worst, benign to the environment? The case would be hard to make in this instance. The same can be said to be true of other forms of “green” energy technologies. What this means is that energy sources are not either pure good or pure evil for the planet or humankind. All forms of energy generation can have good and bad aspects associated with them. Let’s take a look at the biggest nuclear reactor that every human on planet earth has intimate knowledge, our sun. Without our sun, life as we know if on the planet would not exist and neither would humans. At the same time, most of us realize that the sun can have many negative, dangerous, and even deadly impacts on humans. The warmth we enjoy and crave from the sun on bitter cold days in far northern or far southern reaches of the globe also kills people directly through heat stroke in hot climates. It also causes thousands of cases of deadly skin cancers annually in humans and other animals. We understand and accept the good and the bad with the sun. Nuclear power in well designed power plants has the opportunity to be a very green source of energy for Americans. While there can be dangers associated with nuclear power, each newly plant is designed and built to be safer than the last one. In numerous countries in Europe and Asia, they have learned to embrace the possibilities of nuclear power, just as we all embrace the positive warmth and energy from our sun.
Green Washing the American Public—the history of the term greenwashing is discussed by Jim Motavalli in his article in the online personal finance web site WalletPop. It was coined in 1986 by environmentalist Jay Westerveld, in an essay regarding the hotel industry's practice of placing green placards in each room, promoting reuse of guest-towels, ostensibly to "save the environment". Westerveld believed that the hotel’s real reason for the placards was primarily to save money and increase its profits by washing towels less. The goal wasn’t to save the planet or be eco-friendly. The term came from taking the common term whitewashing and applying it to corporations or institutions who whitewashed their profit motives with green claims to burnish their public images. We can see this happening today in the wind energy industry. It can also happen with public servants who might have their own agendas or business connections, but wrap them in a publicly popular concept, like “green” or “low carbon footprint.”
Just because an Energy Source is has a low “carbon footprint” when operating doesn't make it "green.” An object or product’s carbon footprint is a measure of the total carbon dioxide or the total greenhouse gases (GHG) produced or emitted. While the carbon foot print of a product or energy source is one measure of the eco-friendliness of that object, it can not be used as the sole measure of how environmentally sound that product or object is. An example of an action that can have a very low carbon footprint, but have very negative environmental consequences might be to use a pick and shovel to breach every beaver dam on a steep mountain stream in a mountain ecosystem. There would be no measurable carbon emitted during the manual labor to accomplish the task with manual tools. However, there would likely be a tremendous negative impact to the mountain ecosystem due to the draining of the expansive wetlands of beaver ponds created by the beaver dams. Beaver ponds become relatively quiet aquatic ecosystems that can support a very diverse wildlife ecosystem by creating a backwater in contrast to a small trickle of water from a steep stream. A narrow, steep mountain stream may hold very little larger wildlife, such as trout, ducks, wading birds, turtles, and beavers themselves. While a beaver pond often contains fish such as trout, breeding ducks, wading birds, turtles, beavers and a watering hole for larger mammals, such as deer, elk, and predatory mammals.
Wind turbines themselves are not good or bad and they may be able to provide a safe and green source of renewable energy for people, depending on the place and way they are used. If small individual turbines are installed in backyards and in downtown areas of cities they can probably provide a valuable way for individuals to get renewable green energy to save them money and help to cut carbon emissions. Some European countries, such as Germany are installing wind turbines in the windy corridors created by large, commercial buildings. The same kinds of positioning and installations can probably be used effectively in American cities such as the windy city, Chicago.
Wind Resistance—
Do Commercial Wind Farms Negatively Impact Climate Change?
This is the title of an article on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) web site from March 2010. An interesting article that has gotten no traction in the popular press, why is that? Let’s take a look at what the article has to say. Generally, the article is about analysis from MIT which suggests that mega-wind farms could be a negative to climate change! The most vocal proponents of wind power continually push it as a way to diminish the threat of global warming. Current estimates of the amount of electricity production from wind turbines is roughly 2 percent according to the American Wind Energy Association. The Department of Energy (DOE) in America has stated that wind turbines could account for up to 20% or one fifth of the U.S. electricity supply by 2030.
Everyone from financial investment companies to auto companies nowadays seems to have video clips of large commercial wind farms in their television commercials. The investment companies seem to want to capitalize on the investment potential of commercial wind power, with the idea of wrapping themselves in the uncontroversial excellence of wind power as our next energy source. At the same time car companies that have all electric cars seem to want to convey that their new vehicles will have a neutral impact on the environment by using commercial wind farm created energy. No more global warming to worry about if their cars are powered by electricity generated by commercial wind farms. Building contractors line up to get certified at $100,000 plus for high end commercial Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification, commonly known as LEED certification, which includes reserved parking spaces in the front of the building for electric vehicles, with an electric outlet to charge electric vehicles. A 2010 MIT press release about the analysis of commercial wind farms should serve to temper some of this euphoria about wind power. This is particularly true about the largest scale installations. An online paper, cited in the MIT press release, published in the February 22, 2010 issue of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, authored by Ron Prinn and Chien Wang, suggests that using wind turbines to meet just 10 percent of the global energy demand by the end of the century could cause temperatures to rise by almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.8 degrees) in the land regions where the wind turbines are installed. There are predictions that there would be smaller, but still increases, in areas beyond where the turbines are installed. The researchers assumed that to reach a 10 percent total energy production level it would mean the implementation of millions of wind turbines. These millions of wind turbines would require the implementation of mega wind farms on a massive scale. They would need to be implemented across massive areas of land. The researchers make the observation that the non-steady nature of wind energy production due to wind coming and going in an inconsistent fashion will require backup power systems. Those backup systems would most likely require using more traditional energy sources, such as power plants running on natural gas.
While the researchers do not come out against wind power, they do urge that their research be used as a guide to explore downsides of mega wind farms before society invests huge amounts of resources in constructing those massive wind farms.
The researchers used a climate model developed by the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research to perform their analysis of the atmosphere over a 60 year period. Their calculations observed that the overall surface air temperature over the regions dominated by large wind farms would increase by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (one degree Celsius). The authors attribute this temperature increase to the wind turbines reducing the speed of the wind over land. This wind reduction is greater on the downwind side of wind farms. This slowing of the wind speed reduces the horizontal transport process away from the earth’s surface and less heat moving into the cold upper reaches of the atmosphere. They used the analogy of a warm beach on a summer day if the wind disappears or drops, it would quickly get warmer.
The researchers modelling also believed there would be changes in large-scale precipitation. These precipitation changes are believed to be greatest at the mid-latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, which is where the U.S. is located. They predict these changes could exceed 10 percent in some areas. If those estimates are correct, it could significantly change the rain and snow patterns for large agricultural areas of the U.S.. As the American heartland is an important region for food production for the U.S. and the world, it would seem to this author that these changes could have dramatic, unpredictable impacts on overall food production.
Prinn and Wang made the point that the seasonal variations in wind over large areas of North America will mean unreliable wind production, requiring backup power generation, even if there is a massive high power transmission line infrastructure across the continents. Again, it would seem to this author that the billions spent on transmission lines and habitat degradation will not allow us to escape the use of another power source.
The MIT researchers say it is too early to tell if they are correct, but they caution that there may be something to the negative impact of massive commercial wind farms on temperature and regional precipitation patterns. Meanwhile some politicians seem to be in a headlong rush to show just how green they are by taking taxpayer monies and throwing it quickly at the companies such as General Electric. As a multinational conglomerate, General Electric had 2008 revenues of $183 Billion dollars. Yet they must find the commercial wind farm business does not pencil out as a business investment without massive taxpayer subsidies. Before even more taxpayer money is shovelled into G.E. it would behove us to find out if massive commercial wind farms are as benign, or even beneficial, as we have been lead to believe by our elected officials.
“Green” to Meet Political Goals—
Do Politicians Use The Words Green and Science in Decision Making or Only To Meet Political Goals?
Candidate Barack Obama pushed for using science and scientists to make decisions about the environment. Newly elected President Obama issued a press release on March 9, 2009 which directed the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to “develop a strategy for restoring scientific integrity to government decision-making.” President Obama outlined the goals of his new policy to “…ensure that in this new Administration, we base our public policies on the soundest science; … we will harness the power of science to achieve our goals—to preserve our environment …” I believe that President Obama was sincere in his words as a candidate for president of the United States. To give him the benefit of the doubt, we can assume that he is truly an urban person and simply doesn’t understand complex biological systems in nature. If he knew better,he would likely be making better choices when it comes to American wildlife. Some things, such as protecting polar bears due to climate change, can not be fixed by a simple US presidential rule, regulation, or advocacy. But protecting sage grouse and prairie grouse is something that the president can have a direct impact on. President Obama has shown a distinct fascination with and appreciation of President Theodore Roosevelt. Some of Teddy Roosevelt’s greatest accomplishments had to do with restoring and protecting America’s wildlife. Roosevelt was particularly fascinated with iconic species that were game animals and food sources for early Americans, such as bison, elk, and sage grouse. Now Mr. Obama has the opportunity to continue that legacy. During a television interview with Bill O’Riley before Super Bowl XVL, Mr. Obama said that as President of the United States, only the really hard things land on his desk, all of the easy things have already been dealt with at a lower level. This is an example of having to understand that using science to make decisions about protecting the earth is more than the simple carbon/no carbon choice. This is about understanding that that kind of thinking is good for sound bites and speaking to the average elementary student, but when it comes to public policy a much more mature thought process needs to occur. The subtleties and nuances of what makes an energy technology environmentally friendly or not is much harder than carbon/no carbon. It needs to consider the true environmental costs and impacts, which is much broader than carbon/no carbon.
Wind Farm Installations—
Importance of Location and Size of Wind Farm Installations
As Americans,we all need to be cautious as we look for solutions to climate change causes. In our rush to do the right thing,we need to be careful not to just do things to make ourselves feel good about having done something. When we put in place multi-billion dollar programs they are not easy to undo. Wind energy is one of those things that ALWAYS seems like the right thing to do for some people. In some cases wind power may be a good solution, in other cases it is not the right thing to do. The two most important things that can make wind power the wrong solution today are size and location.
The installation of hundreds of hydroelectric dams across the country at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century created quite an excitement. The small projects on small creeks and streams created local power. Each one also had limited environmental impact, again restricted to the local relatively small ecosystem. However, as the sizes of the projects increased in size, the environmental impact was greater and more widespread. As people began to see the finiteness of the wilderness and wildlife resources, some visionaries among us began to see the environmental problems being created by the “clean” hydroelectric dams being installed at every available opportunity. Wiping out local streamside riparian habitats, flooding small valleys, flooding woodlots upstream of the dam, these things began to have value as there were less of them. Initially, the reservoirs created behind the dams created new habitats that were fascinating to people. As time wore on, the areas behind the dams began to collect silt from the streams and creeks. The water temperature climbed in the backed up water, the water became shallower, and less desirable. Upstream annual migrations by fish, such as salmon, were blocked by hydroelectric dams, and original species in the area begin disappearing. With the old riparian streamside habitat gone and with the new reservoirs seen in a less positive light, people began to question the overall net value of the hydroelectric dams. We now see a strong movement to begin the removal of these dams to restore the watercourses back to their original life. Some will be able to return successfully, others will struggle to be able to return to their original habits with their accompanying species. We are now at the same point with wind turbines. As with hydroelectric dams, small wind turbines in people’s yards or on the property of individual businesses will have relatively limited environmental impact. Their connection to the electric grid will be minor, short, and simple. The same will not be true of massive mega wind farms built miles or even hundreds of miles from where they can connect to the electric grid. The losses of wildlife and wilderness may be enough to push species in our crowded world to the edge of extinction or beyond. As the Harvard educated Spanish American philosopher, George Santayana remarked, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" Let’s not forget our past so quickly.
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Chapter 2
The Cost of Wind Energy
Cost to Wildlife
The US Fish and Wildlife Service is a division of the US Department of Interior. The US Department of Interior is a Presidential Cabinet level position, with the Secretary of the Interior reporting directly to the President of the United States. Information published by US Fish and Wildlife personnel make the scientific case that large commercial wind turbines installed in inappropriate places can cause large-scale deaths of sensitive and beneficial species such as bats, raptors, and prairie and sage grouse. The deaths are caused by a variety of systems and structures associated with large commercial wind farms. The obvious concern that most people might guess will be dangerous and damaging to flying wildlife are the spinning blades themselves. While large white spinning windmill blades rotating on the horizon or in an advertisement seem bucolic, restive, and like the perfect green energy source, the fact is that the tips of the blades can be spinning at up to 200 miles per hour. Those speeding blades can act like a giant blender for large raptors such as eagles and hawks which fly around the commercial wind turbines and chop those birds of prey up. Biologists have found that even small species of American bats regularly get killed from the spinning turbines of commercial wind turbines.
Less than a century ago, hydro electric power was touted as a wonderful clean energy source, no carbon emissions, no smoke stacks, no particulates in the air—how can anyone argue with that as a great energy source? Some of modern mankind’s great engineering accomplishments in the 20th century have been associated with the construction of humongous dams in western America, such as the Hoover dam which was the worlds highest dam when it was constructed and has the ability to produce over 4 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually. But now we see that this engineering marvel is an environmental problem at many levels. In Oregon, dams on the Columbia River which provide hydro electric power have greatly contributed to massive declines in salmon populations and triggered a litany of lawsuits over the impact of dams on declining salmon fisheries.
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service, has concerns about the dangers of large wind turbines to sensitive American wildlife. Studies at one of the largest wind farms in the world, Altamont in California, shows that the larger the wind turbines the worse the outcomes for wildlife. At the same time, commercial wind farm backers keep pushing for larger and larger wind turbines to maximize the return on investment (ROI). Financial backers of commercial wind farms, as with any commercial investment in technology, are all about what kind of a financial multiple their initial investment will yield over time; the more money over the shorter amount of time translates into a good financial investment. While getting back a smaller amount of money over a longer amount of time translates into a less desirable investment from a purely financial point of view. Once we recognize that financial backers of commercial mega-wind farms are typically doing so to directly benefit their bank account and those of their group of investors, while at the same time wrapping a cloak of environmental righteousness around their motives (green washing), it can allow for a more rational discussion about societies decisions regarding commercial mega-wind farms. We have to remember that we, the people of the United States ultimately are responsible for the decisions being made regarding what technologies are allowed, which are rewarded, which are supported by tax incentives, which are further subsidized by forcing consumers to buy the power they generate, and finally, which ones are given the government and the White House’s halo status, of being pure and good beyond reproach—any attempt at a rational discussion is met with derision and accusations that the dissenter is just too ignorant of uninformed to understand what is best for them and the rest of the world.
Changing wilderness landscapes by changing the horizon miles away—will we compromise our purest respite from the stresses of modern life. True wilderness experiences and environments are important to people, even people that will never visit them. Just knowing that pure environment is there is enough for most people. People who have never seen a polar bear in the wild, a whale in the ocean, or a tiger in the wild want to know they are still there and living free. It is important to the human spirit. No matter how much material junk we collect in our modern life, we are inseparably connected through evolutionary forces to nature, wilderness, and the feeling of freedom that only remote, wilderness places can evoke in the human soul. Remote wilderness places don’t become more valuable when human development has changed them, but the exact opposite, they lose their spiritual value. As Chris Morgan, the biologist who created the PBS Nature film entitled Bears of the Last Frontier said, “Wilderness isn’t the wide open spaces, but the wild things that fill it.”
Recently, in late 2010, Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar issued a directive to come up with a plan for finding areas that have “wilderness characteristics”—such as being largely unaffected by human development. Secretary Salazar said this was necessary because unspoiled areas are becoming increasingly rare. The question that we need to ask from that directive is—are we just saving the land or do we want to save wildlife too? Unfortunately for sage grouse they don’t live in scenic canyons or on awe-inspiring mountain tops. Sage grouse need the protection of very large areas of sage steppe, which are relatively flat or gently rolling sage flats. Some have called the sage flats North America’s inland sea. It creates the same serenity that being on the watery ocean can.
We need to not let sage grouse or prairie grouse slip into the oblivion that consumed the dodo, the passenger pigeon, the Carolina parakeet, and the Heath Hen. Since the world lost those species for eternity we are much more well informed and smarter about ecosystems, wildlife and natural history today. We have obligations to our descendents. We can’t tell our children and grandchildren that we had a chance to save the fascinating sage grouse and prairie grouse, but turned our backs on the opportunity.
Theodore Roosevelt commented on his conservation record by saying, “… In addition to certain things were done of which the economic bearing was remote, but which bore directly on our welfare, because they add to the beauty of living and therefore to the joy of life.” This powerful statement is important. Teddy Roosevelt was our first environmentally active president. He believed in utilizing and harvesting natural resources, but he understood the importance of protecting beauty and uniqueness in the environment. He protected both the landscapes and the wildlife that live there. Sage and prairie grouse, with their spectacular breeding displays are certainly examples of unique animal species. There is no need to travel to the jungles of South America or sub-Saharan Africa to see some of the world’s most spectacular dancers in the animal kingdom—they are right here, right now in North America. We all need to make sure they are here for our posterity as part of our legacy to our children and future generations.
Taxpayer Subsidies—
Business Investment 101
For the vast majority of companies, particularly publicly traded companies, making a profit for the shareholders is the goal. In America’s capitalist society there is nothing wrong or unethical about companies seeking to make a profit. Most companies that look to make a profit also understand what makes them popular with the public. Right now advertising that a company is investing in “green” energy is good business. You can see “green” hype on TV, in magazine ads, online, and in product brochures. The companies range from car manufacturers to energy utilities to financial investment firms. Many ads and marketing efforts seen today include gleaming white commercial wind turbines gently rotating in the background of a beautiful, bucolic setting. It is important for stockholders and the general public to not just accept the “green” label in marketing and brand building without understanding its true impact on all aspects of the environment, not just lack of smokestacks. I was just reading in our local paper an article originally from the New York Time News Service about eco-jeans. The article stated that two years ago going green was red-hot in the fashion industry. The article went on to state the various brands of jeans made with at least some amount of organically grown cotton. Organically grown cotton is cotton that is grown without environmentally damaging chemicals. Apparently according to the Sustainable Cotton Project, 25 percent of the world’s pesticides and fertilizers are used on conventional cotton crops. The article goes on to say that today none of the major brands listed offering them two years ago are offering them today. The economics and quality were not working in the free market. Yet the article goes on to state that the companies are revisiting what is really eco-friendly when it comes to fabric. It quotes Michael Kobori, VP for social and environmental sustainability at Levi Strauss saying “We’re shooting for greater impact.” There is a focus on sustainable agriculture techniques, including reducing water use, economic, and labor issues, in addition to reducing chemical use in cotton agriculture. These larger, more encompassing changes occurred without government subsidies using tax payer money. Without tax subsidies and politicians creating sound bites for their campaigns, unsustainable “green” concepts die out and get replaced by new and potentially better ideas.
When smart companies invest their money, they calculate their perceived return on investment (ROI). The ROI is pretty much what it logically sounds like it is; the amount of financial return on money put into an investment. ROI is an important indicator of how much a company profits or loses from each of its investments. The higher the ROI, the better the investment is from a profitability point of view. If a company can invest $100 and make $150 back in sales, then it will have an ROI of 50%. However, the ROI calculation doesn’t need to take into consideration whether the money coming in is just from selling products and services or whether it comes from government subsidies. If the company above invests the same $100 and makes $150 back in sales, but also gets an additional $50 in government tax subsidies, then its total ROI will be 100% instead of the 50% ROI without the government subsidies. The stockholders of the company get a better ROI on their initial investment. If the additional $50 comes from tax subsidies, not from customers, who is paying for it? The answer is that taxpayers are footing that bill. When the federal or state governments subsidize energy technologies, they are literally taxing you and giving the money to the energy company. Are these types of tax subsidies a good idea? There are different lines of thought on this topic. Sometimes subsidies help to kick-start a promising new technology. Other times subsidies become a black hole and suck up money from tax payers, with the only winner being the stockholders or owners of the companies receiving the subsidies.
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