I Never Understood Wind
“…We’ll have an economy based on wind. I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. I’ve studied it [sic] better than anybody I know. It’s [sic] very expensive. They’re made in China and Germany mostly, very few made here, almost none. But they’re manufactured — tremendous, if you’re into this, tremendous fumes, gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So [a] tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything — you talk about the “carbon footprint” — fumes are spewing into the air, right? Spewing. Whether it’s in China, Germany, it’s going into the air. It’s our air, their air, everything, right?
So they make these things, and then they put them up, and if you own a house within vision of some of these monsters, your house is worth 50 percent of the price. They’re noisy, they kill the birds. You want to see a bird graveyard? You just go, take a look, a bird graveyard? Go under a windmill some day. You’ll see more birds than you’ve ever seen ever in your life …”
President Trump, December 2019
Over the holidays, the president made some famous remarks about wind power. Some of what he said rang false to me as someone who’s written academic articles about wind energy and studied energy production. I am always frustrated when I see false information circulating, but I also understand how some assertions seem reasonable if you don’t know any better. With this being said, allow me to take this opportunity to share some (scientifically and expertly informed) information about wind energy. If you don’t “know windmills very much,” then hopefully this article will clear the air, pun very much intended. Today we’ll walk point by point through the now-famous transcript about wind turbines, and learn a little about the basic logistics of producing wind energy.
“I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. I’ve studied it [sic] better than anybody I know. It’s [sic] very expensive. They’re made in China and Germany mostly, very few made here, almost none.”
I have a hard time commenting on the bit about the expense, because I don’t understand exactly what he’s saying is expensive. Electricity production is a complex topic, and I’m not going to guess at what this is supposed to mean. As for the bit about wind turbines being produced in China and Germany, we have a little more to go off of! While it is true that China and Germany are among the world’s leaders in wind energy production, I found this statement to be misleading. The world’s largest wind turbine maker is currently Vestas - a Danish company. Among the other top 10 turbine producers are companies in Spain, India, and the United States, as well as Germany and China. In fact, the American company GE was the 4th biggest producer of wind turbines in the world in 2018! I would not call that “very few made here, almost none.” The fact that China and Germany are leaders in the wind energy sector is true, but it is certainly not the whole truth, nothing but the truth, sohelpmeGod. If you don’t know that an American company is the fourth leading turbine producer and that a Danish company is number one, then I would have to reject the statement that you know windmills very much and have studied the topic.
“But they’re manufactured — tremendous, if you’re into this, tremendous fumes, gases are spewing into the atmosphere.”
Without dwelling on the nonsensical grammar and meandering prose, I think this part is talking about the process of manufacturing turbines. Once again, we’ve waded into the very important topic of product lifecycles (as we’ve discussed here and here). Wind turbines are made of steel and this production occurs in big factories. And what do big steel factories tend to produce? Pollution. The production of turbines undeniably involves the emission of carbon and other pollutants, but it’s difficult to say exactly how much. Steel manufacturers tend to make more than one product in the same factory, so when you measure the emissions of the factory it’s impossible to say what came from the turbine production as opposed to the other products manufactured there. In addition to the steel production, turbines have to be shipped from the factory to the wind farm they’ll be set up on. I live in Texas, America’s top wind energy producing state, and I see windmill blades strapped to looong trucks all the time on the highway. The fossil fuels burned in this transportation process are another addition to the turbine’s lifecycle assessment. Once the wind turbines are set up and producing energy, they’re not emitting any GHGs, which is why they tend to get so much positive attention. But say that the current lifespan of a wind turbine is 20 years. What about the transportation of maintenance mechanics getting out to the turbine over 20 years? What fossil fuels are used in decommissioning the turbine? Where does all that steel go? How is it transported and dealt with? These are more lifecycle considerations that make the true amount of emissions from wind energy production more complicated. It’s estimated that each wind turbine in America produces 200 metric tons of CO2 over its lifecycle. These are probably the emissions that President Trump is referring to, and they’re admittedly not always talked about.
With all this being said, wind energy is still considered a greener option than fossil fuel. No, it’s not perfect - but it is certainly better. The more resources that are put into researching and improving wind energy production, the more emissions we can cut out. The lifespan of turbines is getting longer, meaning that we have a longer period of zero emissions per turbine before they have to be decommissioned and replaced. Additionally, there’s tons of research into creating new materials, so the day may come when turbines are no longer produced in polluting steel factories. I’m not holding my breath for a miracle breakthrough, but I am supporting the men and women who take small steps toward improving green technology and building better and better options.
“You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe.”
Yep, this checks out.
“So [a] tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything — you talk about the ‘carbon footprint’ — fumes are spewing into the air, right? Spewing. Whether it’s in China, Germany, it’s going into the air. It’s our air, their air, everything, right?”
I don’t know how to respond to most of this statement even though I want to. The part about every country sharing air is again more complicated that the president wants it to seem, but I can at least get behind the sentiment that we all share one planet. This is a good point in our discussion to say that I do find the whole idea of attacking wind energy for its pollution to be totally bizarre. Even though we talked about the less than ideal aspects of wind turbines, this line of argument is like a nutritionist railing against canned fruit because it’s less nutritious than fresh fruit. Why are we talking about canned fruit as a dietary offender instead of the tens of aisles of ice cream, cookies, candy, chips, and processed snack food? I guess the canned stuff is technically less nutritious than fresh, but that line of argument couldn’t tell logic from its left boot.
“So they make these things, and then they put them up, and if you own a house within vision of some of these monsters, your house is worth 50 percent of the price.”
I can’t speak to the property value of homes near wind farms, but I don’t really think I need to anyway. Even though the physical footprint of each turbine is very small, utility scale wind farms take up huge swaths of dedicated land. Apart from maybe a ranch house, there usually aren’t lots of residences scattered around a wind farm. Wind turbines won’t be popping up in your neighborhood any time in the foreseeable future. Furthermore, Texas has a history of viewing agriculturally productive land as beautiful. Open land that was good for ranching was beautiful to a state that makes a living off our land. Now, the sight of wind turbines is beautiful to many ranchers who are “within vision” and are providing electricity to the country while providing income for their own families. Even disregarding the utilitarian perspective on beauty, I find wind farms aesthetically beautiful to drive through. Not everyone agrees that they’re nice to look at, but there will still be plenty of wide open spaces for the foreseeable future.
“They’re noisy, they kill the birds. You want to see a bird graveyard? You just go, take a look, a bird graveyard? Go under a windmill some day. You’ll see more birds than you’ve ever seen ever in your life …”
I honestly don’t know how much noise wind turbines make. What I do know is that I drive through a utility-scale wind farm on the highway every few weeks and I’ve never heard one. I think the fact that no one else I know has ever heard one either is promising, though anecdotal, evidence. For all I know they might be noisy when you’re standing right at the base on the pad site, but when will you ever be standing at the base of a wind turbine unless you’re the mechanic? Wind farms are not like petting zoos or community gardens that you get to just wander around, and like I said above, there’s roughly a 0% chance that a wind turbine is about to go up on your block.
*cracks knuckles*
Now let’s dive into the bird graveyard. This is the part of the quote that really caught my attention and compelled me to address the speech. First and foremost, wind turbines ARE NOT out there chopping up birds in their blades like the karate kid. When wind turbines do cause bird deaths, it’s virtually always because the bird collided with the turbine, not because it got minced by a spinning blade. Now that that misconception is out of the way, let’s get into the (bird)meat of the discussion.
Wind turbines kill fifteen times fewer birds per unit of energy they produce than traditional fossil fuel power plants. The peer-reviewed article “Contextualizing avian mortality: A preliminary appraisal of bird and bat fatalities from wind, fossil-fuel, and nuclear electricity” found this:
“The study estimates that wind farms and nuclear power stations are responsible each for between 0.3 and 0.4 fatalities per gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity while fossil-fueled power stations are responsible for about 5.2 fatalities per GWh… The estimate means that wind farms killed approximately seven thousand birds in the United States in 2006 but nuclear plants killed about 327,000 and fossil-fueled power plants 14.5 million.”
-you can download this study at https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v37y2009i6p2241-2248.html
Another scientific study of a wind farm in Spain concluded that each individual turbine killed 1.33 birds per year, which is one of the highest collision rates for wind farms in the entire world. That doesn’t sound like the manglers they’re made out to be. Now let’s look at a quote from the National Audubon Society: “Wind turbines kill an estimated 140,000 to 328,000 birds each year in North America, making it the most threatening form of green energy.” Sheesh, 328,000 birds sounds like a lot! And “threatening” definitely sounds bad. And National Wind Watch says “they kill more than a million bats and birds every year.” With no reference point, this sounds really concerning. But luckily for you, I found this handy chart from the journal Avian Conservation and Ecology to put things into perspective! (This chart uses Canadian data, but is equally illustrative for any country)
Now let’s look again at Audubon’s estimate. The high end says 328,000 birds per year across all of North America, not just Canada. That means wind turbines still cause fewer bird deaths than car collisions and domestic cats by a looong shot. This is a great illustration of people using facts that are correct to reach an incorrect conclusion. The incorrect conclusion in this case is that wind farms are devastating to bird populations and pose a serious threat to wildlife. It’s just wrong. Additionally, bird migration paths are well-studied and mapped, and wind farms have to conduct environmental impact studies before they can be built. Wind farms are not allowed to obstruct migratory pathways.
Another way to look at this problem is in terms of long-term habitat. Greenhouse gases, and in turn global temperature rise, pose a much larger threat to wildlife populations than collisions with turbines. Shrinking habitat has already caused the demise of some species, and thousands more are at risk. Another statistic from the National Audubon society says that hundreds of bird species in the US, including bald eagles, are at “serious risk” from climate change, and that some species will likely lose more than 95% of their current ranges. No one is advocating for bird deaths, but wind turbines are not first on the wanted list of bird killers, either.
As for bats, wind turbines do cause a little more of a problem. Downstream of a wind turbine, there’s a low pressure zone in the air. Bats are unable to detect this unexpected drop in pressure, and when they fly through it the vessels in their lungs explode. At the same time, bat migration is poorly understood so it’s hard to know where wind turbines pose a threat to them and what placements would be safer. More bats are killed per year as a result of wind turbines than birds, but scientists are working on solutions. This poses more of a problem than bird deaths, but keep in mind that climate change poses the largest threat to earth’s species, and habitat loss can harm more animals than wind farms many times over.
So here’s how my own quote about wind would look:
“I’d love to incorporate more renewables into our economy! I have a working understanding of wind power, after learning from experts who are more educated than I am. Windmills come from all over the world, and the United States has room to participate more widely in international collaboration. Fossil fuels contribute unfathomable amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere - an atmosphere that every human being and animal on earth shares. We only have one earth to live on, and every human being deserves to have a healthy planet. Whether you’re from China, or Germany, the United States, Indonesia, Chile, or Nigeria, we all need to work together to fight for our climate.
One starting place is wind power. If you’ve ever seen a wind turbine, you know how beautiful it can be to watch one twirl in the sky. They’re quiet, safer for animals than traditional power plants, emit zero carbon while they produce energy, and scientists are working every day to make even more improvements. Go under a windmill someday. You’ll be inspired to fight for even more green energy.”
- Me (Alessandra Papa), just now
So there you have it, Scouts. Join the conversation in the comments here, or head over to the Troop 7B facebook group, and share this article with the people you want to understand wind a little better.
Here are links to the sources I reference in this article:
Vestas-leads-break-away-group-big-four-turbine-makers
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wind-turbines-kill-bats/
https://phys.org/news/2017-06-farms-bird-slayers-theyre-behere.html
https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v37y2009i6p2241-2248.html
https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2018/09/09/wind-turbines-kill-birds-and-bats/
