Common Concerns About Wind Power Common Concerns About Wind Power (2Nd Edn)
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2nd edn, June 2017 Common concerns about wind power Common concerns about wind power (2nd edn) Written and researched by Iain Cox. Centre for Sustainable Energy, June 2017 Written and researched: 2015 The Centre for Sustainable Energy is a national charity committed to ending the misery of cold homes and fighting climate change. We share our knowledge and practical experience to empower people to change the way they think and act about energy. We are based in Bristol although most of our work has relevance and impact across the UK. Our clients and funders include national, regional and local government agencies, energy companies and charitable sources. PHOTOS: istock.com (cover/p4, p2, p94, p126), Shutterstock (p26, p32); pexels.com (p82), Jasja Dekker (p86), Changhua Coast Conservation Action (p104), Rachel Coxcoon (116) OFFICE 3 St Peter’s Court Bedminster Parade Bristol BS3 4AQ PHONE 0117 934 1400 EMAIL [email protected] WEB cse.org.uk TWITTER cse_bristol CHARITY 298740 COMPANY 2219673 FOUNDED 1979 Contents Introduction page 2 1 | Wind turbines and energy payback times page 5 2 | Materials consumption and life cycle impacts of wind power page 11 3 | Wind power costs and subsidies page 19 4 | Efficiency and capacity factors of wind turbines page 27 5 | Intermittency of wind turbines page 33 6 | Offshore wind turbines page 41 7 | Wind power and nuclear power page 47 8 | Public acceptance and community engagement page 59 9 | Wind turbines and property prices page 69 10 | Siting wind farms on ecologically sensitive land page 75 11 | What effect do wind turbines have on wildlife? page 79 12 | Wind turbines and safety page 95 13 | Shadow flicker and epilepsy risk page 101 14 | Wind turbines and noise page 105 15 | Infrasound, ‘wind turbine syndrome’ and other health concerns page 117 16 | Wind farms and radar page 127 Common concerns about wind power, June 2017 1 Introduction | 3 Introduction Welcome to the second edition of the Centre for Equally, keen proponents of wind power are often too Sustainable Energy’s Common Concerns about Wind quick to dismiss any problems raised, levelling the charge Power. The first edition (2011) is our most widely of ‘nimby’ at anyone who speaks out against planned accessed publication both in print and online. It’s developments. While not necessarily willfully dishonest, popularity reflects the need for a document that helps both sides of the debate can be accused of reporting the interested reader, faced with a mass of conflicting expediently to further their point of view. information, to weigh up the likely impacts of wind power in their locality. We hope this update continues to In this updated and extended publication, we hope that provide an independent guide to the issues, backed up pertinent research continues to be presented in a by hundreds of peer-reviewed papers and a dozens of manner that leads to informed discussion. As before, government studies. this edition of Common Concerns about Wind Power relies heavily on academic peer reviewed publications Every chapter from the first edition makes a and expert reports. Reading this is not intended to be reappearance, in many cases supplemented by new the end of an interested person’s research: rather, it evidence that allows us to give more detailed and should encourage further reading around the subject nuanced consideration to those issues. The second and the casting of a critical eye on the source of edition contains several new chapters covering topics information. Casual assertions that unambiguously state that were not being widely discussed when the first wind power is good or bad without any supporting edition was being prepared. evidence should be judged accordingly. As is demonstrated throughout this document, the reality is Of all renewable energy sources, wind power occupies a frequently more complicated than that. The agendas of unique place due to a combination of two attributes: vested interests too often mean these subtleties are lost technological preparedness (wind is still best placed of all and the subject descends into acrimonious debate. existing renewable energy technologies to contribute the electricity needs of the UK whilst simultaneously What this document aims to show is that, implemented reducing its carbon emissions), and the fact that it is as part of a progressive energy portfolio, wind power inherently site specific (making wind turbines strikingly can significantly reduce both the UK’s carbon footprint, visible additions to often previously undeveloped and its dependence on fuel sources that may become landscapes). The increasing presence of wind farms less secure in the future, or that present a costly and across the country means that communities everywhere unacceptably hazardous legacy for future generations. will continue needing to address the issues surrounding wind power. Changes to government planning policy in However, wind power is not appropriate everywhere and 2015 mean that onshore wind developments cannot can impact communities in different ways. We hope now proceed without a site first having been allocated in that, by publishing this research, communities a local or neighbourhood plan. This publication, themselves will engage constructively with the best therefore, should provide a comprehensive grounding in available evidence to judge if there is a place for wind the facts for local authorities and communities as they turbines in their own locality. To empower communities undertake the development of local policies with regards to make these decisions demands a more mature and to wind power and renewable energy in general. responsible approach from the media, the wind industry and pressure groups on both sides of the debate. And of course wind power continues to be a highly contentious and politically charged issue. This is not Rachel Coxcoon, helped by articles in the UK media that continue to Centre for Sustainable Energy, June 2016 repeat misstatements which are clearly contrary to the evidence and can easily be refuted, or by emotive language and the tendency to ‘cherry-pick’ evidence to present a one-sided view. Common concerns about wind power, June 2017 3 Chapter 1 Wind turbines and energy payback times Summary The harnessing of wind for the generation of electricity may rely on a renewable source of energy, but it must also prove to be sustainable. All systems for converting energy into usable forms have energy requirements themselves, where energy must be invested in the myriad activities necessary for extracting and shaping materials, transport of parts and fuel, building and maintaining power plants and associated infrastructure, and decommissioning or upgrading the site. In its very broadest sense, some even include the expenditure of capital and labour as part of the energy investment. The amount of energy involved in the manufacture, construction, operation and decommissioning of wind farms is often voiced as a concern over whether wind turbines should be used at all. Since the capture and generation of any usable form of energy requires energy to be invested, the question is really one of how effectively the generating plant returns energy back to its users (i.e. society) in relation to the energy invested. There are a number of ways of answering this question, but all these methods essentially seek to present information in a way that is useful in understanding how society can obtain sufficient surplus energy to make its investment worthwhile. In every case, the evidence shows that wind turbines perform well in this regard, often being the most effective of the renewable energy sources after hydropower, and in most situations being comparable or superior to conventional thermal electricity generation (i.e. fossil fuel and nuclear power). Overall, wind is relatively effective – for example, modern wind farms on average return 18 times the energy invested in them over their lifetime – but specific cases have returned lower values, and many very high estimates are born of optimistic projections for electrical output or fail to incorporate certain inputs that count as invested energy. Nonetheless, the modern, larger turbines (>1 MW) typically employed in wind farms today will ‘pay back’ the energy invested in less than a year, in some cases in less than six months. Over the remainder of its 20 to 25-year lifespan, the wind turbine will continue to return useful surplus energy in the form of electricity back to society. What is this based on? caused largely by rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The prodigious consumption of fossil fuels Since the Industrial Revolution, the phenomenal growth by humans has been the single largest contributing and development of global society has been a story of factor to rising levels of CO2 (a major greenhouse gas), vast surpluses of energy.1 These surpluses have been and this fact has also made the quest for alternative provided by fossil fuels, and the years since the end of sources of energy even more pressing.3 the second world war have seen explosive growth driven by a global economy underpinned by oil (in later years The current dependency of the world’s economy on oil accompanied by natural gas). As readily available and gas has prompted much debate about when these reserves of oil have been depleted since 1900, this glut resources might run out.2 This is not meant in the purely of available energy has steadily fallen, and the energy literal sense of there being no more oil in the ground, obtained through the extraction, refinement and delivery but instead seeks to asks when society must invest so of oil and gas fuels to where they can be used is now much energy into extracting and delivering oil that the less than half what it used to be only four decades ago, useful energy obtained is no longer worthwhile.