I pointed this out nearly 50 years ago. I’m glad that others are finally getting around to it. Replacing U. S. use of fossil fuels with wind power would have serious environmental impact of its own, as James Taylor observes at RealClearEnergy:
Harvard University scientists who are concerned about global warming published in 2018 a study in which they examined the impact of a wind-turbine economy on America’s open spaces. According to the study, replacing conventional energy with wind turbines would require covering one-third of America’s lands with wind turbines.
No, that is not a misprint. According to the Harvard report, wind turbines would have to blanket fully one-third of America’s lands to replace conventional energy.
Moreover, the scientists found that a large-scale placement of wind turbines would increase U.S. temperatures, as the warming impact of turbines impeding air circulation would outweigh any cooling effect of lower carbon dioxide emissions.
Now, a fair counterclaim is that no one is proposing that we offset fossil fuels with windpower alone—generally, they’re talking about solar and wind. Solar power is no free lunch, either. Deploying it at the scale required fully to replace fossil fuels would have serious environmental impact, too. Not to mention the air, water, and soil pollution that would be produced by processing rare earth elements at the scale required. Putting that processing out of sight, say, in China does not change its ability to pollute.
My point here is not to be a “climate denier” but to point out that policy is hard. Anything deployed at scale is going to have environmental impact. I think the energy future is a diverse one with roles for solar, wind, nuclear, and fossil fuels.
But it’s possible and maybe likely that your last two sources could be legislated away causing an enormous misallocation of resources.
As I say, policy is hard. Sometimes straight lines are not the shortest path.
For people who ‘follow the science’ or ‘listen to the scientists’, science is indistinguishable from magic, and all science is sufficiently advanced .
“I think the energy future is a diverse one with roles for solar, wind, nuclear, and fossil fuels.“
Policy is only hard in this venue when reality is denied. If you continue to push inherently niche energy sources like wind and solar, and refuse to consider growth in nuclear, you will by default end up with fossil fuels. You can lead a horse to water…..
For true believers in MMGW, this is an artifact of boneheadedness, er, intransigence.
‘science is indistinguishable from magic, and all science is sufficiently advanced .’
I think you might be referring to Arthur C Clark’s quote ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ but I understand what you meant by yours.
‘to point out that policy is hard. Anything deployed at scale is going to have environmental impact.’
TANSTAAFL.
Dave, admit it, you want everybody and everything on Earth to die in horrible agony from climate change. Every human, every species down to and including all the anaerobic Archaea. Only by immediately rejoining the Paris Agreement and imposing the Green New Deal on America’s economy in full can we be possibly saved, and that possibility is barely distinguishable from zero. To object to this in the slightest means you are a heartless evil neo-Nazi who likes to pull the legs off crickets.
These f**kin idiots have developed an unfalsifiable religion and simultaneously reject reason and objective truth, thereby making all attempts to point out the fallacy of their positions impossible. They are the eco-Terminators who will never ever stop or admit error until they are running the world to suit themselves (and nobody else). They will turn Earth into a charnel house and call it Paradise.
The Cultural Revolution has returned and is upon us, and if it is not crushed mercilessly it will try to destroy everybody and everything we love. Imminent Climate Catastrophe is just one prong of the many-tined fork being used to uproot Western Civilization and throw it in the midden. Harris is stupid enough to think she can ride that tiger if she’s elected. She will soon enough find out that she’s today’s Lin Bao.
Lets do math. surely everyone here can do that, or at least pretend. Currently, er the article, wind provides 9% of our electricity. Lets round off to 10%. To supply 100% of our energy we need 10 times more turbines, which would cover 33% of our land. OK, then going backwards wind turbines now cover 3% of our land? I dont think so. Maybe they are only in the best place now and we need to increase them by a factor of 100? I would really like to see the math here.
Just for funnies lets look at some of the other claims. This piece says they kill millions of songbirds, but if you follow the links the study it original cites claims 500,000 birds a year are killed. How does that compare to other dangers for birds?
“Windmills kill anywhere from 234,000 to 328,000 birds a year, according to a study by federal scientists. … A USA Today review of the study noted that collisions with cell and radio towers cause an estimated 6.8 million deaths, while cats kill a staggering 1.4 billion to 3.7 billion birds a year.”
Other studies suggest lower bird kills from turbines but even if you take that higher estimate it is tiny compared to other sources.
So while I agree, I have always agreed that we should widely source our energy, and nuclear should be part of it if we can figure out how to make it work, you are clearly citing propaganda here and it is poorly done at that. They just assume that no one will ever go back and read their sources.
Steve
LOL
Doing cost benefit these days, steve? Covid lockdown costs vs benefit.
What a hypocrite.