New energy sources are necessary - why are so many people against wind farms?

Question

we have los of wind in this country so why not use it? perhaps those against wind farms would prefer a nuclear plant in their area?

Answer 1

It's selfish motives; wind farms require some development in the area, such as concreting, roads and so forth.  On the whole, people don't want their nice coastal view (that's where most of the farms are) spoiled by big propellers.

Those massive North Sea ones don't seem to be getting any criticism, dead migratory birds or no.

Cover every single rooftop with solar panels.  That's a good start.

Roger.

Answer 2

Wind farms kill and confuse birds, have to be shut down when it's too windy and do make the countryside look ugly. There are better green ways of making energy - and to be carbon neutral - nuclear power needs looked at properly. Other carbon neutral methods as yet really don't produce a lot of energy when you look at the use of power... but if we go down that route please can we have any plants built by the best design not the cheapest!

Answer 3

As usual, I am completely shocked by the serrious lack of real knowledge of wind farms.

My husband works on the commercial wind turbines.  The wind farm is in Idaho, in the high mountain desert area.

First off, the wind turbines actually CREATE wildlife habitat.  My husband was taking pictures of one of the moose that live under, near, and around the wind turbines just yesterday.  Yes moose live in the desert.  Yes the moose was going through the snow dirrectly under the turbines.  Moose are extremely shy members of the deer family.

Since people are restricted from wandering around and up to the turbines, the turbines actually create a wonderful, mostly human free zone the wildlife THRIVES in.

Blade on modern wind turbines spin much slower than the old ones.  The blades are very easily seen by birds.  The Autobon Society figures wind turbines kill 1.5 birds each, per YEAR.  My cat kills an average of three birds every morning, and six rodents.  How many birds die, flying into windows at your house?

I have watched varrious types of hawks (we have many hawk breeds here)  hunting the land under the wind turbines....zero problems, not one single hawk killed, nor dead owl every found under/near my husbands wind turbines.  We have endangered Peregrine Falcons hunting in and among the wind turbines...not a single dead Peregrine.  They are doing well however teaching their fleglings to hunt the rich, undisturbed hunting grounds around and near the turbines.  

Since hunters are not allowed to go hunting for doves, grouse, quail, ect around the turbines it has become a rich habitat supporting wild birds, which in turn support the endangered Peregrine Falcons.

I've watched Bald Eagles winging their way through the farm, zero problems navigating among the blades, and turbines.

I've watched the migrating swans flying over the wind farm.  The swans fly well above the height of the turbines, and some of the wind turbines at my husband's site are at the 7000 foot elivation mark.

The coyote, deer, mule deer, moose, red fox, endangered desert fox ect all have zero problems living in and among the turbines.  Indeed their numbers have increased.

The noise of the wind turbines at my husbands site is usually covered by the wind itself rustling the sagebrush, grass, and aspen trees.  

Wind tubines can make a REALLY loud noise, called 'foghorning."  That is almost exactly what the noise sounds like...a foghorn.  If/when a turbine makes that noise, the men climb the turbine, and apply grease.  That is what the noise is coming from, a lack of grease on certain parts that can cause the noise.  Of course the noise means the turbine is damaging itself, so it is not allowed to make that noise for long at all!

Cost.  Wind turbines cost about 1.5 million dollars each (installed).  They pay themselves back in 3-5 years, depending on the amount of wind a wind farm recieves.  Yes companies are taking advantage of tax BREAKS from the Government to get the wind farms installed and running.  However they are NOT being paid for by the Governement...NO SUBSIDIES (unlike nuclear energy).

Wind turbines are designed to have a life span of 20 years (they may last greatly longer).  At the end, when the wind turbine is torn down, nearly every single bit of the turbine is HIGHLY recyclable.  People actually come and bid on the right to cut them up, and haul away all that valuable scrap metal.

All of the grease and oil that is used on wind turbines is recycled.  It is pumped out, cleaned/filtered, and resold, as recycled oil.  Zero waste there.  They even reclaim the grease/oil from any rags used to mop up any spills.

Wind turbines have a saftey zone around them.  They are not built so close to roads, houses, buildings, ect as to violate that saftey zone.  A wind turbine is NOT going to  "unlock in a gale cut loose and wiped out the passing bus load of boy scouts who just happened to be on the road at that time by the wind farm?"  That is why they have a saftey zone around them.  So if a blade does break and crash to the ground it is not hitting anything more than the ground, and the turbine it was attached to.

People are correct the wind turbines have to be shut down in major winds.  The speed of the winds at shut down varries with the brand of wind turbine.  Some shut down at 45mph.  The ones at my husbands site can run in winds up to 65mph.  They are made by G.E.  

Catigory one hurricanes wind speed starts at 64mph and goes up to 95mph.  At that wind speed you start getting damage to tree, shrubs, and unanchored mobile homes .  

http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides...

Gale warnings go out for boats in wind speeds of 39-54 mph.  

The turbines need to be shut down when the winds have become dangerous.  People like to make it sound like anything more than a gentle breeze sends them into shut-down, and this just is not so.

We just had a windstorm with 50mph winds.  I know of two houses near me that lost their roofs during that storm (most of the turbines kept running during that storm).

Wind turbines produce enough power to pay themselves back at 1.5 million, plus their operating costs in 3-5 years.  Please explain how they are producing so little power, and not financially viable?

Wind turbines prevent urban sprawl, and provide wildlife habitat.  Which is better to look at?  A wind farm producing power, and providing wildlife habitat, or a bunch  of houses, and subdivisions sucking up power, and providing NO wildlife habitat?

Wind turbines allow farmers to remain in buisness.  They can avoid the pressure to sell out to developers who want to build rows and rows of houses, and instead have the rent from the wind turbines, and still be allowed to farm the land under them.  They are a win-win situation for preserving more of our farm land which is being gobbled up at truely alarming rates.

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years

Answer 4

No you are missing the bigger point,  people would prefer not to have anything in their area. Would you want a noisy ugly wind turbine in your back garden, a power station or none of them? It does not neccesarily have to be a choice of one or another.

Wind farms are not all they are cracked up to be anyway. As someone said they are not friendly to wildlife. They are as I mentioned already ugly and noisy, they are expensive, high mainetnance and generally just a politically correct gesture. They are also fundamentally unreliable as they can only produce when the wind blows, so what do you do when it does not? I believe that no country that has installed large scale wind farms has taken a single conventional power station of line or reduced their output because they need to guarantee supply when the wind is not blowing. It would take a huge number of turbines to make any impact and as mentioned they are useless on a calm day or when the wind is coming from the wrong direction, or indeed when it is too strong. They can't go whizzing round in a force ten gale, they have to be locked.

Personally I would prefer carbon capture, clean burn technology and yes absolutely, nuclear. The argument of people having to have a wind turbine or a nuclear power station in their area is you trying to be dramatic. Nuclear plants can be built on the coast in remote areas well away from popluation. Invest the time and money into developing safe ways of handling the fuel instead of prancing about with these nonsense ideas. Don't even start on the what if accident thing - everything has a risk and nuclear technology is a d**n site safer than many, many others. After all what if the wind turbine did unlock in a gale cut loose and wiped out the passing bus load of boy scouts who just happened to be on the road at that time by the wind farm?

Answer 5

Because it causes visual pollution and they might think that they are to noisy

Answer 6

We live on an island which is totally off grid, provides all its own electricity via 2 areo generators & invertor systems to provide overnight electricity.

Trouble with windmills, is when you thick of them in groups of 30 to 100, they become more than an eyesore, building them in those amounts destorys natural habitats & the best area's to site these sizes of wind farms are commonly upon enviromentally sensative area's.

Its a touchy subject, you can either have natural beauty & wild life, or you can turn it into an eyesore.

Answer 7

In order for wind power to truly be effective, the mills need to be placed in areas of sustained winds, or regular winds strong enough to produce enough current to offset the cost of building and maintaining the mills.

Offshore farms tend to produce more as there's less topography to worry about (hills, mountains and cities) - and contrary to popular belief, they do not shred migrant birds.  The blades do not spin fast enough to be invisible to the naked eye (and seabirds have MUCH better vision than we do).  If at some point the blades WERE to spin faster than the naked eye (say like airplane propellers), then there are more important things to worry about than seabirds (which wouldn't be out in that wind anyway).

Offshore farms are opposed by coastal landowners for mainly aesthetic (read: don't 'spoil' my million dollar oceanview) reasons.  Most farms are far enough offshore that they would be a half inch to an inch tall on the horizon if viewed from shore.

Answer 8

the question is why are the same treehuggers that claim that we need to cut CO2 are the same people that block wind farms.

they yell about global warming yet block projects that help stop global warming.

this is one of the things that make me believe that global warming is a scam.

it is not about stopping global warming its about controlling people and taxing us.

Answer 9

Arguments I've heard are:

1) Noisy

2) Kill birds (based on reports from Germany)

3) Kill bats (attracted by the insects that are attracted by the lights)

4) Not a steady source of power

5) Eyesore

Answer 10

BECAUSE MANY OF THOSE FARM U WILL HAVE TO PAY WITH UR TAXES.

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Answer 11

You cannot replace the constant electricity produced by nuclear with wind power, because the wind is fickle. What happens when the wind stops blowing? - You need "base load" electricity to bridge the gap. So wind always needs back-up energy standing by - and the big snag is that when conventional power stations crank back a bit because there's a good strong breeze, they are more polluting than when they are running flat out!  They are really pointless ugly great things, polluting our hills.

Answer 12

wind farms shred passing migrant birds. very eco-friendly.

Answer 13

Here's what the RSPB (Britains largest environmental organisation, promoting birds and their habitats) has to say about birds and wind farms:

"The available evidence suggests that appropriately positioned wind farms do not pose a significant hazard for birds. However, evidence from the US and Spain confirms that poorly sited wind farms can cause severe problems for birds, through disturbance, habitat loss/damage or collision with turbines."

Well-sited wind farms can bring a significant contribution to our future energy needs.

I believe we should be looking at Combined Heat and Power  too - and reducing our energy needs through a more careful use of our (home and world) resources.

See Greenpeace's video below.

Answer 14

Where I grew up, most all farmers has a windmill for pumping water.  Guess what ?  Not once in my 49 years have I seen a chopped up bird.  They are just not that dumb to fly threw them.  Is there the probability that birds are killed by them ?  Yes, and a comet could fall on your head also.  Has any one here ever lived next to a power plant ?  Coal, nuke, natural gas, fuel oil or any other type of fossil fuel type ?  If you did, you would be out hugging a windmill.  If you think I'm wrong, well some luxury houses are available next to Chernobyl. Cheap.

Answer 15

Some people don't like change.

Some people don't want to face the realities of climate change and energy security.

Answer 16

Because the windmills look "funny" and everyone wants to have the martha stewart look to anything.  it's disgusting really!

Answer 17

Who knows why people are against wind farms! It drives me crazy, im from the southwest and all these silly rich country folk who are up their own Asses are complaining and protesting, because ohh dear its an eye sore.

Answer 18

Because wind farms provide so little power with such irregularity that they will never be a viable alternative. Add to that the very high set-up costs, and the fact that middle-class people don't want them near their houses, it's surprising we've got any at all.

Answer 19

I prefer nuclear wind farms.  Much more efficient with double the output.

Answer 20

The latest news is that they interfere with aviation radar and that they are seriously looking into the effects. When high winds prevail they have to be shut down as they had to recently in Scotland because they are likely to be damaged in high winds. Not fit for purpose in my view, so the whole idea should be scrapped and alternative methods of energy should be investigated.