Adverse impacts of wind energy
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. 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
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