Wind energy is an environmental destruction machine, warns veteran center-left columnist.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and its communist block satellite countries in 1989, the West stood in awe, amazed by the environmental and economic wasteland left behind by the inefficient collective socialist system.
But since then, green radicals have taken over and it’s safe to say that the next generation, in about 2060, will also stand in amazement before a similar mass wreckage left behind by the “Green New Deal”.
The future generation will be asking: “What the hell were they thinking?”
“The ruthless way in which wind power is being pushed through in Germany is reminiscent of the brutal way in which the “concrete faction” wrecked many German cities in the post-war period. A wind madness inventory..,” comments Etscheit, calling Germany’s drive into wind energy “a run amok at the expense of people and nature.
Germany plans to add another 10,000 wind turbines in addition to its current 30,000, which means 2% of Germany’s land area will be completely destroyed and industrialized, according to Etscheit.
What follows are Etscheit’s 5 environmental reasons why Germany’s wind energy insanity is a major threat:
Landscape will be blighted by the addition of 10,000 wind turbines, with a height of up to 250 meters. The natural biotope surrounding these turbines will be irreversibly ruined.
Endangered bird, like the red kite, will lose their habitats. It’s estimated that an absolute collision rate of around 21 per year and wind turbine. “With 40,000 or more wind turbines planned in Germany, the million mark would soon be exceeded.”
Bats and insects severely decimated. “Wind turbines also pose a significant threat to the 25 or so species of bat found in Germany…”. …”Wind turbines also have a significant impact on flying insects, as a study published in 2017 by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Oberpfaffenhofen shows … an estimated five to six billion insects per day at all German wind turbines during the warm season (200 days from April to October).”
Hazard also for marine fauna. Wind turbines have a negative impact from pressure and sound waves on some animal species with an extremely sensitive sense of hearing. The industrialization of the oceans could displace native marine mammals. “If more and more offshore wind farms are built, this will have an enormous impact on the harbor porpoise populations in the North and Baltic Seas,” reads a statement from the Society for the Rescue of Dolphins.
Infrasound harming people. People near wind turbines often complain of “severe health complaints such as insomnia, dizziness, headaches, depression, tinnitus, hearing and vision problems and cardiac arrhythmia”, and experts warn this will increase dramatically, and turbine setback regulations in Germany are being watered down.
Etscheit argues for a moratorium on the construction of new turbines, but doesn’t see this happening in Germany, where officials are pressing on with the madness, “no matter the costs.”
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Georg Etscheit is an author and journalist based in Munich. He worked for the dpa agency for almost ten years, but since 2000 has preferred to write “freelance” on environmental issues as well as on business, gourmet food, opera and classical music for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, among others. He also writes for www.aufgegessen.info, the gastrosophical blog for free enjoyment that he co-founded, and a culinary column on Achgut.com.
Eagles, bats, whales, and multiple other species are suffering and dying from wind turbine blades, pilings, and cables – and more. Surely, they want to stop the slaughter. We do.
Chinese Uighurs, too, would likely love to vote in the November U.S. elections. Like many Congolese children, they, too, are suffering and dying to satisfy the egos and half-truths of the climate cabal. The children, of course, are way too young to vote.
Much has been written about the downsides of offshore and onshore wind turbines, from noise pollution to the major problem of disposing of used turbine blades. But nothing has shaken the determination of the Biden Administration – and the wind industry – to continue to subsidize and fast-track their permitting despite rising opposition.
One might ask why.
And yet, the answer must be obvious. The windbags have committed to wind at any price (they get others to pay) and cannot back away now without losing their investments in both wind and wind politics.
The chief federal proponent of offshore wind is the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), created in 2010 by Obama Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the physicist who won a Nobel Prize in 1997 for his research into the cooling and trapping of atoms with laser light.
One of Chu’s bright ideas is a “global glucose economy,” in which glucose and cellulose from tropical plants would be turned into biofuels and bioplastics. The theory is that glucose fuels would burn clean and produce few chemical byproducts, while glucose bioplastics would be eco-friendly – unlike today’s plastics, which end up in landfills.
Very little of the United States is amenable to growing “tropical plants,” hence such an economy would be built either via neocolonialist seizure of massive acreages or the repurposing of even more land now used for growing food for the world’s seven billion people. This land would likely be in sub-Saharan Africa, southeast Asia, and Central and South America (the Amazon?).
Such an economy might save the lives of whales, bats, and eagles – and it might not even require the massive subsidies that have “fueled” the wind and, solar and electric vehicle industries. One writer suggests that a combination of biological processes, computer-assisted design, and human intelligence (aided by artificial intelligence?) could trigger a revolution in manufacturing and construction.
Wind turbines, by contrast, are built with steel, concrete, and (well) today’s plastics. They also have a fairly short lifespan (far shorter than that of oil rigs), as do solar panels (which, as many recently learned, are subject to damage from hail and other forces of nature). Electric vehicle batteries are massive and today depend on intensive mining operations conducted by virtual slaves and actual children.
The BOEM itself is a twin offspring of the old Minerals Management Service, with the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) as its mirror image.
One might think that the BSEE, “America’s lead agency charged with advancing safety, environmental protection, and conserving natural resources related to energy development on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf,” would find objectionable the near-extinction of right whales and the deaths of many humpback whales.
One might think that the massive concrete foundations and the disturbance of the ocean floor all the way to the surface during construction would violate the principles of “environmental protection,” or at least of “conserving” the natural resources upon which fishermen, lobstermen, and other seafaring industries rely for their livelihoods and those who eat fish and seafood.
One might even think that the agency concerned with “safety” might even find that offshore giant turbines could pose safety issues for mariners and marine life as well.
But who’s kidding? Whales, fishermen, lobstermen, recreational boaters, and even oceangoing vessels do not have the deep (subsidized) pockets of those giant corporations investing in offshore wind. And the Biden Administration, via the misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022,” is prioritizing offshore wind leasing despite local and conservationist opposition.
The Biden commitment to giant wind is such that it granted a waiver on development fees for the 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind project offshore Massachusetts, the first in the U.S. to deliver electricity to the grid. According to uncovered internal documents, Vineyard would likely have not been completed had not the BOEM waived the fees intended to protect taxpayers.
The waiver means that Vineyard has 15 years after startup of operations to begin paying the development fee – sans 15 years of accrued interest. This is despite a federal statute that mandates developers pay these hefty fees (though not nearly as high as those for nuclear projects) prior to construction. The fees are designed to guarantee that the property is returned to its original state after a lessee departs its lease – for example, should Vineyard Wind prove unprofitable.
Does anyone remember the $600 million boondoggle that was Solyndra?
The Biden windbag juggernaut suffered a body blow in January when Equinor and BP announced the cancellation of a contract for the proposed Empire Wind 2 project. The companies and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority agreed on the termination of the project. Equinor and BP blamed inflation, interest rates, and supply chain disruptions for making the project no longer viable.
While the smaller Empire Wind 1, hailed as a success of “Bidenomics,” was approved last November, its own viability may be questionable given the demise of its big sister. The Danish energy company Ørsted had just weeks earlier canceled its Ocean Wind 1 and 2 twin projects, planned for offshore New Jersey, also because of “negative economic conditions,” specifically, inflation, interest rates, and supply chain disruptions.
Fancy that! Inflation Reduction Act projects being canceled because of inflation!
Despite these giant wind collapses, Dominion Energy is preparing to place and drive 178 monopiles into the Atlantic Ocean for a huge offshore wind facility offshore Virginia Beach while challenging a lawsuit filed on behalf of right whales to stop the habitat destruction.
The plaintiffs won a brief reprieve based on evidence that Dominion lacked authorization from the National Marine Fisheries Service to allow its dynamic positioning thrusters to exceed NOAA’s harassment threshold established under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Dominion had already been granted NMFS authorization to “harass” up to 80,000 marine animals while conducting pile driving and sonar surveys.
The chicanery was even worse in the Great Lakes, where the developer of the proposed Icebreaker wind project reportedly failed to present a reasonable proposal to protect wildlife or the quality of lake water from lubricating oils.
True environmental non-protection!
Another report says the oft-vaunted Swedish wind industry is facing a total financial collapse, with company losses from 19% to 90% of turnover “because the industry cannot produce electricity at a cost below the market price despite extensive subsidies.”
Yet the Biden Administration plows ahead, unfazed by economic realities.
Odd, is it not, that the same administration that has blocked multiple onshore mining permits, revoked oil and gas leases, and demanded protection for not-so-endangered species is so bent on wind energy projects that it is willing for the right whale to join the passenger pigeon in extinction?
With neither energy nor environmental protection as legitimate rationales, one has to wonder about the true motives for pushing offshore wind.
Thank you very much for your interest in the English translation of my new book ‘Down Wind’. It mainly describes the Dutch situation, but there are multiple examples reflecting situations in the United States and throughout Europe. Some description follows.
“Large numbers of (sea) birds, bats and insects are already being killed by the spinning rotor blades. Horizon pollution, infrasound and drop-shadow are driving more and more people to despair, and there seems to be no end in sight.”
Down Wind: The impact of large-scale energy production using wind turbines
In the summer of 2023, it became evident that the wind power industry was facing serious challenges. Sweden’s Vattenfall was denied permission by its own government for a wind farm on Sweden’s west coast. Why? “Negative impacts on the environment.” Vattenfall also cancelled the construction of a new offshore wind farm on England’s North Sea coast due to ‘cost’.
The “energy transition” looks to a ten-fold increase in industrial wind turbines. Currently, there are an estimated 200,000 wind turbines worldwide. To eliminate fossil fuels by 2050, approximately 2,000,000 more wind turbines would need to be constructed.
Has the wind industry finally come to its senses and recognised that building, installing and operating wind turbines is very expensive? That the huge amounts of materials – steel, concrete and plastic – cannot be extracted or produced in an environmentally friendly way? Not to mention the disposal after 20 years of operation. In fact, rotor blades still cannot be recycled and therefore have to be landfilled or incinerated.
Wind turbines significantly impact our environment–negatively. Large numbers of (sea) birds, bats and insects are already being killed by the spinning rotor blades. Horizon pollution, infrasound and drop-shadow are driving more and more people to despair, and there seems to be no end in sight. Honest calculations also show that wind power is not only very expensive, but also that power cannot be guaranteed due to the variability of the wind.
Isn’t it high time to recognise that wind power is nothing more than wind trading, so we should reconsider its role as the sought-after solution?
Unlike windmills of up to about 20-30 meters in height, the new wind turbines are of a very different caliber. Modern wind turbines reach tip heights as high as 260 meters, making them more than prominent in the landscape. Whereas tourists used to come to admire the beautiful Dutch, balanced landscape with its classic windmills, the same tourists are not too keen on looking at a horizon with dozens, sometimes even hundreds, of modern wind turbines.
This book begins with a bit of primal Dutch history of the windmill and then quickly moves on to the development of the first wind turbines, machines designed purely to generate energy. In addition to the development and use of this technology, the why of the energy transition is discussed. This has primarily become a prelude to the rise of all kinds of financial markets, particularly around CO2.
To understand the background of the entire energy transition – of which the excessive increase in the construction of wind farms is an important part – I first inform you extensively about the policy pursued and its motivation. In this book, I pay close attention to the harmful effects on humans and nature caused by the construction, installation and use, and removal of wind turbines.
All these harmful effects, in addition to the dangers that occur during operation, are explained with practical examples. I deliberately do not use the widely misused word “sustainable” in this book. The reason why will automatically become clear as you read. Finally, using practical examples, I also discuss exactly what climate policy means for your wallet.—————–
A book about the impact of large-scale energy generation with wind turbines comes not a moment too soon. Since government plans for the energy transition will entail far-reaching changes for the landscape and society, it was about time to inform the public about the background of the energy transition, a transition that is primarily focused on wind energy in the Netherlands, both on land and at sea. The coverage of this, through our public broadcasters and mainstream newspapers, has become increasingly one-sided and incomplete over the past decades. Therefore, it is quite possible that after reading this book, you may look differently at the energy transition in general, and wind turbines in particular.
My advice is to continue your own research after reading the book, to look for subjects that have aroused your interest, but especially those subjects where you have doubts whether the information I have presented is correct or not. To help you do this, I have included several references at the end of each chapter. That list, given the enormity of the subject, is obviously not complete. However, with the search terms in this book, you can do an excellent job.
Hopefully, after reading this book, you will agree with me that it is of utmost importance that the information in this book be widely disseminated. After all, as plans for wind energy continue to be realized toward 2050, the damage to the environment – flora and fauna – will begin to increase exponentially. Sharing information about the negative aspects of this wind trade is crucial. Only together can we turn back from the dead-end road we have taken.
Even the greeniacs are starting to understand the damage to wildlife from wind turbines:
As wind power grows around the world, so does the threat turbines pose to wildlife. From simple fixes to high-tech solutions, researchers are finding ways to reduce the toll.
About twice a month, many of Australia’s wind farms receive an important visit from dogs and their handlers. The dogs are professionals and know exactly what they’re there for. Eagerly, they run along transects under the wind turbines, sniffing until they catch a scent, then lying down, sitting or freezing once they’ve located their targets: the carcasses of bats and birds that were killed by turbine collisions.
For nearly two decades, wind and wildlife ecologist Emma Bennett’s company, Elmoby Ecology, has been using canines to count the victims of wind turbines in southern Australia. The numbers are troubling. Each turbine yields four to six bird carcasses per year, part of an overall death toll from wind turbines that likely tops 10,000 annually for the whole of Australia (not including carcasses carried away by scavengers). Such deaths are in the hundreds of thousands in North America. Far worse are the numbers of dead bats: The dogs find between six and 20 of these per turbine annually, with tens of thousands believed to die each year in Australia. In North America, the number is close to a million.
Lucky survivor: Craig Webb with Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle rescued post turbine collision.
The wind industry has just been caught out lying about a technology that was meant to prevent Eagles being slaughtered by their turbine blades. Cars, cats and skyscrapers don’t kill Eagles, but 60-80 m wind turbine blades with their tips travelling at 350 Kph routinely smash them out of existence.
The rampant slaughter of millions of birds and bats – includes rare, endangered and majestic species, like America’s iconic bald and golden eagles, and Tasmania’s extremely rare wedge-tailed Eagle.
Faced with outrage from real environmentalists, to date, the default response from the wind industry is to lie like fury and – when the corpses can no longer be hidden and the lying fails – to issue court proceedings to literally bury those facts (see our post here).
However, a couple of years back its spin doctors began seeding the narrative with the claim that the industry had developed a new, whizbang technology – IdentiFlight – that would prevent so much as a feather from being ruffled, by shutting off turbines as eagles, hawks and kites etc approached them.
Well, surprise, surprise, it turns out that the IdentiFlight system is yet another cynical ploy by the wind industry to placate those concerned about the fate of our apex avian predators, by pretending to actually care about the critters it’s been killing, en masse, for decades now. Matthew Denholm has this report on how the wind industry’s latest enviro-spin effort has unravelled, with a mounting pile of rare and endangered wedge-tailed Eagle carcasses to prove it.
‘Cutting-edge’ Tasmanian wind farm still a wedge-tailed eagle killer The Australian Matthew Denholm 17 August 2023
A wind farm with so-called “industry-leading” bird avoidance technology has killed at least eight endangered Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagles, prompting calls for an urgent moratorium on new turbines in eagle zones.
Cattle Hill Wind Farm in Tasmania’s Central Highlands uses IdentiFlight camera technology – which it describes as a “cutting-edge avian detection system” – to stop the wind turbines when birds approach.
However, the system – which is spruiked by the industry and regulators as the foremost solution to wind turbine bird deaths – has failed to prevent the deaths of at least eight eagles in less than four years.
The Australian understands that figure – confirmed by Tasmania’s Environment Protection Authority – includes five eagle deaths in the past 12 months.
“We should be very concerned about this because what we’re looking at here is the start of a planned huge industry,” said eagle expert and wildlife biologist Nick Mooney.
“Everybody has ignored rule 101. That is, if you’re worried about eagles, don’t put wind farms where there’s lots of eagles, and the overseas (scientific) literature stresses that.”
He was aware of 61 wedge-tailed eagles and five white-bellied sea-eagles being found dead or incapacitated during periods of formal mortality monitoring at Tasmania’s existing wind farms.
This was likely the tip of an iceberg, with some wind farms no longer required to monitor for bird deaths and formal monitoring restricted to areas under turbines, missing birds that die further afield after being struck.
He was aware of another nine large-scale wind farms proposed for Tasmania, which was concerning given that cumulative impacts of multiple wind farms was still not factored into federal environmental approvals.
Cattle Hill Wind Farm confirmed the deaths. It said its modelling had predicted its turbines would kill 14 eagles after four years and this was allowed under its permit conditions.
Mr Mooney said the system’s shortcomings and any solution should be independently verified.
He said he believed several turbines at Cattle Hill may need to be shut down in the interim, and the massive industry expansion in eagle density areas put on hold until an effective bird avoidance system was developed.
The wedge-tailed eagle recovery plan was due to be updated in 2010, but a promised revamp was yet to materialise, despite the proliferation of wind farms since. The Australian
Kym Dixon with a not-so-lucky wedge-tailed Eagle, Waterloo SA.
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Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
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