February 25, 2015
Environment

Wind energy: Increasing deployment, rising environmental concerns

Tabassum-Abbasi; Premalatha, M.; Abbasi, Tasneem; and Abbasi, S.A.

Of all the renewable energy sources (RESs) ― except direct solar heat and light ― wind energy is believed to have the least adverse environmental impacts. It is also one of the RES which has become economically affordable much before several other RESs have. As a result, next to biomass (and excluding large hydro), wind energy is the RES being most extensively tapped by the world at present. Despite carrying the drawback of intermittency, wind energy has found favor due to its perceived twin virtues of relatively lesser production cost and environment-friendliness.

But with increasing use of turbines for harnessing wind energy, the adverse environmental impacts of this RES are increasingly coming to light. The present paper summarizes the current understanding of these impacts and assesses the challenges they are posing. One among the major hurdles has been the NIMBY (not in my backyard) syndrome due to which there is increasing emphasis on installing windfarms several kilometers offshore. But such moves have serious implications for marine life which is already under great stress due to impacts of overfishing, marine pollution, global warming, ozone hole and ocean acidification. Evidence is also emerging that the adverse impacts of wind power plants on wildlife, especially birds and bats, are likely to be much greater than is reflected in the hitherto reported figures of individuals killed per turbine. Likewise recent findings on the impact of noise and flicker generated by the wind turbines indicate that these can have traumatic impacts on individuals who have certain predispositions. But the greatest of emerging concerns is the likely impact of large wind farms on the weather, and possibly the climate. The prospects of wind energy are discussed in the backdrop of these and other rising environmental concerns.

Tabassum-Abbasi, M. Premalatha, Tasneem Abbasi, and S.A. Abbasi
Center for Pollution Control and Environmental Engineering, Pondicherry University, Puducherry, India

[1] doi: 10.1016/j.rser.2013.11.019: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2013.11.019

[2] Wind energy: Increasing deployment, rising environmental concerns: https://docs.wind-watch.org/Tabassum-Abbasi-et-al-wind-energy-concerns.pdf