Adverse impacts of wind energy: Difference between revisions
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==Aesthetics== | ==Aesthetics== | ||
Wind turbines meant to supply the grid are hundreds of feet in height, each with blades sweeping a vertical air space of 1.5 to 2 acres. Because they need to be well away from where people live and work, and because they need a lot of open space around them to adequately catch the wind and not interfere with each other’s wind, they are necessarily erected in formerly undeveloped places: typically farmland and mountain ridges. They inevitably dominate the landscape and destroy the special character of those places. | Wind turbines meant to supply the grid are hundreds of feet in height, each with blades sweeping a vertical air space of 1.5 to 2 acres (or even more).<ref>http://aweo.org/windmodels.html</ref> Because they need to be well away from where people live and work, and because they need a lot of open space around them to adequately catch the wind and not interfere with each other’s wind, they are necessarily erected in formerly undeveloped places: typically farmland and mountain ridges. They inevitably dominate the landscape and destroy the special character of those places. | ||
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:''See also:'' [https://www.wind-watch.org/documents/category/aesthetics/?titles=on Wind Watch documents concerning aesthetics] | :''See also:'' [https://www.wind-watch.org/documents/category/aesthetics/?titles=on Wind Watch documents concerning aesthetics] | ||
Revision as of 15:41, 26 August 2017
Besides a minuscule effect on fossil fuel emissions[1] and the high expense of extracting any meaningful energy from such a diffuse, intermittent, and variable source (particularly as other sources must still be maintained and built to balance the highly fluctuating wind infeed as well as to supply 100% backup for when the wind doesn't blow),[2] wind turbines have many other adverse impacts.
Aesthetics
Wind turbines meant to supply the grid are hundreds of feet in height, each with blades sweeping a vertical air space of 1.5 to 2 acres (or even more).[1] Because they need to be well away from where people live and work, and because they need a lot of open space around them to adequately catch the wind and not interfere with each other’s wind, they are necessarily erected in formerly undeveloped places: typically farmland and mountain ridges. They inevitably dominate the landscape and destroy the special character of those places.
Environment
Wide strong roads, clearance for transmission lines, electrical substations, huge buried foundations of concrete and steel rebar, staging around each turbine for maintenance as well as initial construction, hundreds of gallons of coolant and lubricating oil in each machine, the noise and direct physical toll of the turning blades ... wind energy facilities are sprawling industrial installations with obvious environmental impacts: destruction and fragmentation of habitat, alteration of groundwater and runoff, disturbance and deaths of animals ...
Noise
- See also: Wind Watch documents concerning noise
Health
- See: Health Effects of Noise from Large Wind Turbines
- See also: Wind Watch documents concerning health
Property values
Farming
Tourism
- See also: Wind Watch documents concerning tourism
Wildlife
- See also: Wind Watch documents concerning wildlife
Bats
- See also: Wind Watch documents tagged for bats
Birds
- See also: Wind Watch documents tagged for birds