Talk:Environmental impact of wind power/Archive 6

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MEDRS sourcing

WP:MEDRS states

Primary sources should generally not be used for medical content. Many such sources represent unreliable information that has not been vetted in review articles, or present preliminary information that may not bear out when tested in clinical trials.

WP:MEDASSESS goes into detail

Knowing the quality of the evidence helps editors distinguish between minority and majority viewpoints, determine due weight, and identify information that will be accepted as evidence-based medicine. Not all papers in even reputable medical journals can be treated as equivalent. Studies can be categorized into a number of levels,[8] and in general, editors should rely upon high-quality evidence, such as systematic reviews, rather than lower-quality evidence, such as case reports, or non-evidence, such as anecdotes or conventional wisdom. The medical guidelines or position statements produced by nationally or internationally recognised expert bodies often contain an assessment of the evidence as part of the report.

The article had the following

A 2008 guest editorial in Environmental Health Perspectives published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the U.S. National Institutes of Health, stated: "Even seemingly clean sources of energy can have implications on human health. Wind energy will undoubtedly create noise, which increases stress, which in turn increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer."

The paper is on pubmedcentral. Note that two of the claims are substantiated with references (on photovoltaics and nuclear power) but the wind energy assertion does not cite any reputable source, making it merely a single editor's opinion, not an assessment of peer-reviewed evidence - there's no actual third party research, or independent analysis of clinical evidence.

Even seemingly clean sources of energy can have implications on human health. Wind energy will undoubtedly create noise, which increases stress, which in turn increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer. The manufacturing process for photovoltaic panels to produce solar energy results in occupational exposures to silica dust or cadium (Fthenakis et al. 2008). Increased reliance on nuclear fission carries known radiation risks during the generation of electricity and disposal of used fuel. Even hydroelectric energy affects human and environmental health, as noted in several recent articles about the Three Gorges Dam (e.g., Hwang et al. 2007).

This does not meet MEDRS and I'm happy to take any disagreements to RS/N or Wikiproject Medicine. -- Aronzak (talk) 11:32, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Note - the other issue is that the name of the journal and who publishes it doesn't matter - the journal's peer reviewers have assessed an assertion of anecdotal evidence - and should be described as an assertion - without the name of the group that publishes the journal (given they haven't assessed any actual data, and the opinion piece was a guest editorial). -- Aronzak (talk) 11:35, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

refs

Faulty data used in this article's graphics

I contacted the contributor who created this bar chart in the hopes that he would rectify it to better reflect the actual acknowledgment of massive errors by the author of the majority of the data points. In the event that the contributor who created this bar chart doesn't do anything as they're taking a break etc. I have decided I'd also put my msg to them here.

Basically the author, Sovacool, was made aware, and has since accepted, that the incident he used as data for nuclear, actually happened at a copper mine and thus had next to nothing to do with uranium mining. Thus making the paper he wrote that this data comes from, completely misleading with respect to nuclear power's impact on birds and therefore it should be listed as if not zero, close to zero, ~0, instead of the now known as faulty 0.33 & 0.416 figures.

Here he is stating as such. "… the study already tells you the numbers are very rough estimates that need to be improved. I even explicitly state this, as well, in the conclusion: ‘the rudimentary numbers presented here are intended to provoke further research and discussion,’ in the abstract ‘this paper should be respected as a preliminary assessment,’ and in the title of the study, which has the word ‘preliminary’ in it...you are correct that errors 1 and 2 are true..." Benjamin Sovacool, Benjamin Sovacool takes issue with Lorenzini’s criticism of his work, Atomic Insights website, 11 July 2013.

The preliminary Data, from the above table during 2013, 'Causes of avian mortality in the United States, annual', shown as a bar graph.

I hope you have the greater professionalism and adherence to science to go about fixing this misleading mistake. As the alternative is that this faulty nonsense will no doubt snowball and it'll enter the public mind that data suggests that Nuclear electricity in the US kills more birds than wind turbines. Which is actually not the case at all! 178.167.180.38 (talk) 04:23, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Peatlands & Derrybrien

The Derrybrien landslide was NOT caused by wind turbines but by forestry and drought which damaged the ground structure. Water released during turbine installation into the damaged hillside may have provided a trigger but it was not the fundamental cause. We've been through all this before although the talk page discussion doesn't seem to have survived. Derrybrien was a highly unusual event which does not help us to understand any problems associated with turbines on peatlands.

In general, the potential damage caused to a peat bog by wind turbines (inc access roads) relates solely to the possibility of increasing water drainage out of the area with subsequent drying resulting in the loss of large amounts of peat. Excavations during construction work, eg for turbine foundations, affects a small percentage of the surface area and will not significantly reduce the total amount peat present. Noel darlow (talk) 07:16, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

In general, the [actual] damage caused to a peat bog by wind turbines (inc access roads) relates solely to the possibility of increasing water drainage out of the area with subsequent drying resulting in the loss of large amounts of peat.

Not quite, but I'm glad you at least acknowledge there is damage caused due to their construction, and that is largely what the sentence and references in the article now point to.

185.51.72.3 (talk) 09:06, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

The poorly worded fluff that was added, has been removed

Take this for example Pehnt et al. also found that the substitution effect by replacing coal and gas outweighs these emissions by approximately one order of magnitude.

All Pehnt is saying here is that wind power is at least 10 times less polluting than coal. That's rather obvious and doesn't require re-iteration, especially in these hard to decipher terms.

I'm dealing with a serious lack of proof-reading by the last editor User:Andol who left the section totally incomprehensible. With words like " nigher " instead of "higher" etc. being just the tip of the iceberg. However I will incorporate their above reference as that is a valued addition. 185.51.73.48 (talk) 22:10, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

All these noise complaints are "anecdotal," you say?

According to the wind industry and the pro-winders who delete all negative implications that aren't watered down with "yes, but" platitudes, ALL the people in the following articles are either lying or overstating their situations. The Wikipedia article refers to such complaints as merely "anecdotal." I can't believe the editors don't see their own bias. If you're going to write an article about the environmental impacts of wind power, at least emphasis the impacts and don't post a watered-down spiel.

Just a handful of articles are pasted below. Hundreds more exist, plus videos of hearings and so on. You can't sweep it all under the rug.

Oregon wind farms whip up noise, health concerns: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/03/oregon_wind_farms_whip_up_nois.html

Wind turbine noise concerns prompt investigation: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2009/08/03/wind-turbine-noise

Neighbors at odds over noise from wind turbines: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2008-11-03-windturbines_N.htm

Wind farm health risks claimed in $1.5M suit: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/wind-farm-health-risks-claimed-in-1-5m-suit-1.1044943

Brains ‘excited’ by wind turbines: study (by a sense of danger, not excited in a good way): http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/brains-excited-by-wind-turbines-study/news-story/3bd413985355fda90bcd3387ac99b6c8

Wind farm 'kills Taiwanese goats' (animals are probably harder hit than many people but can't complain): http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8060969.stm

Makara residents fuming over noisy wind farm: http://www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/makara-residents-fuming-over-noisy-wind-farm-2009080419#axzz48F8xidij

Before you delete this comment, email kj04170-windruse@yahoo.com and explain why you refuse to believe anything bad about these intrusive machines. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.232.166.24 (talk) 09:45, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Reliable sources

Rather than rely too much on media reports, it would be better to focus on the more recent and reliable scholarly literature by academics such as Simon Chapman (academic), Mark Diesendorf (UNSW), Mark Z. Jacobson (Stanford), and Graham Sinden (Oxford University).

A good example is Summary of main conclusions reached in 25 reviews of the research literature on wind farms and health. Compiled by Prof Simon Chapman, School of Public Health and Teresa Simonetti, Sydney University Medical School, 2015.

-- Johnfos (talk) 13:01, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

A very authoritative source is the NHMRC which has compiled many recent reports on Wind Farms and Human Health.

-- Johnfos (talk) 15:48, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

How many wind "farms" have actually been removed?

Yet another deception on this Wikipedia page:

"If wind farms are decommissioned, the landscape can be returned to its previous condition.[45]"

According to what historical evidence? Study the case of just two offending turbines in Falmouth, MA (https://www.google.com/search?q=removing+wind+turbines+Falmouth%2C+MA). Many locals want them removed but it hasn't happened yet. Imagine trying to remove a large installation of dozens or hundreds if just two take that much effort! Cement pads and mountaintop road cuts would likely remain indefinitely.

Also, you can't simultaneously have wind power and no wind turbines, so it's strange to suggest that they can disappear and still provide the "clean energy" ascribed to them. Typically, they are just replaced with bigger and bigger models, that, although spaced further apart, end up looming even larger.

Anyone with an honest answer to this is welcome to email kj04170-windruse@yahoo.com before this post gets deleted for violating the International Wind Industry Code of Silence.

Lead rewrite needed

Lead section needs to be rewritten to incorporate more positive aspects of wind farms, particularly offshore wind farms. As it is, the lead seems to assume that all wind farms are onshore, which is incorrect. Johnfos (talk) 21:45, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

 ==================================================================

Verification failed?

I removed the following text from the article:

However the addition of intermittent wind power to the electric grid results in increased reliance on other dispatchable energy sources, which due to costs are most frequently fossil fuels that get used as a backup for when the wind energy contribution drops due to weather factors. When these real-world penalties are included, an additional 20 to 80 g CO2-eq/kWh are added to the life-cycle emissions profile of wind power.

I checked the reference and nowhere does the reference refer to there being an additional 20 to 80g of CO2-eq/kWh; the reference says *up* to 80g, total, and when I see misrepresentations like that, sorry the material is gone. And the bit about However the addition of intermittent wind power to the electric grid results in increased reliance on other dispatchable energy sources is so grossly out of proportion to other sources, and didn't seem to be supported either.GliderMaven (talk) 16:41, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps you need to read it again? Keeping in mind that the word I'm using that was not in quotation marks, was indeed additional. A word that is synonymous with the reference paper's "adding". You do grasp this, right? As there is really no point in moving on, if you refuse to accept that. Secondly, I hope you are aware that as editors we are not supposed to copy and paste the exact words used in our sources, but to summarize them. However here is the pertinent quote for you.

Pehnt and colleagues (2008) conclude that the results of adding offshore wind power in Germany on the background power systems maintaining a level supply to the grid and providing enough reserve capacity amount to adding between 20 and 80 g CO2-eq/kWh to the life cycle GHG emissions profile of wind power

Please don't "seem" things in future as you're actually the one here misrepresenting what the source states. I'll assume good faith that this was an honest mistake on your part. None of your "sorry" apologies will be necessary.

I'm now going to revert your deletion.

Boundarylayer (talk) 17:01, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, no you won't. I'm still having big problems with this addition. The rest of the article does support your contention to a degree, but only in the case of Germany, there's no generalising this to other countries; nor does it put it into context, like the fact that's that's one tenth of conventional power sources. It reads like you're deliberately introducing bias.GliderMaven (talk) 17:07, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

You seem to be combative in your tone with "Sorry, no you won't". You are aware that you do not WP:OWN this wiki article, right?

Germany right now actually has a pretty "medium carbon" intensity dispatchable generation grid, so this adding penalty is not as large as it could otherwise be. However if you'd like to look for similar analyses done on a dispatchable grid that you feel is even more apt to generalising and being representive of the world, then by all means, we'd appreciate seeing what you find. I think there is a more extreme penalty from the Irish grid, if including that is more to your taste? I thought the German example is pretty generous, but I guess you're not happy with this.

Speaking of which, there is actually one important dimension to this penalty issue that I did not include in the initial sentence, that our discussion has alighted me to concisely get across to readers, once the offending sentence is re-inserted. Essentially, the added penalty grows in magnitude with further additions of wind power, up to an unstated point.

Pehnt and colleagues (2008) reports that a moderate level of [grid] wind penetration (12%) would result in efficiency penalties of 3% to 8%, depending on the type of [backup] conventional power plant considered.

Secondly, if you look at the edit history of the article today, you'll find that coincidentally there is plain evidence, only a few hours old, that I actually included a pollution comparison to "lignite" coal, one of your "conventional power sources", as a means of reader perspective. With Gravituras(sp) then removing that. So the record shows that I am far from "deliberately introducting bias". The truth, as luck would have it, is that there is extremely recent evidence to the contrary. Yet, and I hate to seem as schoolyard as your charge is, but what evidence is there that it is not you are "deliberately introducing bias"? I'm pretty sure I'm covered today with the above, but are you? Now I'm not really charging you with this, I just hope you can just see that it really isn't courteous to assume bad faith as you have.

Boundarylayer (talk) 18:02, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

It's verification failed, and I have removed it, because the references only apply to Germany, whereas the text, as written in the article, in the lead, says it applies to the whole planet, that this is a given fact, without qualification. Reintroduce it only if you can find references that support the contention that this applies everywhere, or qualify it, to give Germany as an example.GliderMaven (talk) 22:08, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Is this an artifact of their nuclear shutdown? Guy (Help!) 23:05, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

No, it's not an artefact of Germany' nuclear shutdown. Wind power everywhere needs back-up power sources that can be switched on fast, as it's unreliable. The more installed wind power capacity, the more back-up is needed. A few countries like Denmark have access to enough (of Norway's) hydro to use that as back-up, but other places like the UK and Germany have to keep fossil power plants spinning, wasting fossil fuel and artificially decreasing the fossil plants load factor. A fair comparison of wind with other power sources includes these additional costs, financial and environmental, in any comparison. Nukes are no good as back-up because they run best at continuous outputs, not flipped on and off, and their high capital cost makes doing so too expensive. The EU commissioned from Price Waterhouse about 2 or 3 years ago an entirely bent study which ignored these factors. The study disputed by GM does take account of these factors. I would suggest that the UK & German situation is more typical of the worldwide elec. power industry than that of Denmark, and will remain so until some technology emerges which allows cheap storage of energy. Gravuritas (talk) 00:44, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

I am pleasantly motivated by the fact that other authors have contributed to this discussion, Guy, apart from Gravuritas' reply, you could've dismissed your own question by looking at the dates of the scientific papers, the year 2008 is staring you in the face, while it was 2011-2012 when Germany apparently-illegally ordered about half, that is not all, of its nuclear/fission-electric fleet to be shuttered-up. The grid CO2 increases from that dubious order, are unrelated to the wind-penetration CO2 penalty increases, that we are discussing, which Gravuritas does a good job of explaining.

In any case, here is an explicitly "worldly" peer-reviewed analysis GliderMaven, are you satisfied with this now?

Reduction of CO2 emissions due to wind energy - methods and issues in estimating operational emission reductions

As for Gravuritas' you seem to have a command of energy matters, that is really refreshing and while I agree with the main substance of your comment, you could've included some independent analysis that showed how "bent" the EU/political white-paper was, as I doubt we're all familiar with the Price Waterhouse thing, as you kind of lost me there. However, GliderMaven, from the start you have been claiming that this issue only applies to Germany, well I hate to have to reiterate the initial paper again, you can plainly see that they are including typical global energy mix factors.

Pehnt and colleagues (2008) reports that a moderate level of [grid] wind penetration (12%) would result in efficiency penalties of 3% to 8%, depending on the type of [backup] conventional power plant considered.

In saying this, again, I hope we are all in agreement that our article really should convey to readers that there is a small but increasingly significant pollution-penalty resulting from the addition of more-and-more wind turbines into a typical background electricity-grid. For example, here in Ireland the penalty was recently found to be far more significant than what we were initially expecting. Now of course it goes without saying that from a solely pollution standpoint, a grid of mostly wind+fossil gas is slightly superior to the alternative of depending entirely on our gas turbine stations alone, but the combination with wind is still not as environmentally appealing as first advertised, due to this downstream plant efficiency issue.

Boundarylayer (talk) 23:55, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

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de:Windkraftanlage#Infraschall (infranoise)

All modern Wind turbines have a Blade pitch ("Blattwinkelverstellung"). Decades ago, before that Blade pitch spread, the rotor blades were designed in a way (sry, I'm no native speaker) that they used the stall effect to shelter the wind turbine against 'running too fast' when it was stormy. This aerodynamic design (concept?) included infranoise.

(Afaik, every improvement of the Aerodynamics of the Rotor blade also reduces its noise production.)

Is there a native speaker who can bring this into wikistyle English + into the article ? thanks in advance, --Neun-x (talk) 04:33, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

"only 1.1 percent of the total wind farm area suffered surface disturbance"

It's clear that wind power advocates oversee this section and are deleting dissent, but this delusion is hard to ignore:

Quote from the Wikipedia page: "A study by the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory of US wind farms built between 2000 and 2009 found that, on average, only 1.1 percent of the total wind farm area suffered surface disturbance, and only 0.43 percent was permanently disturbed by wind power installations." (the focus is conveniently on "surface disturbance" when the vertical presence of giant machines is the real issue causing complaints)

That same angle gets repeated here: http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/our-energy-choices/renewable-energy/environmental-impacts-wind-power.html#.VyUeo7DUy51

Quote: "...However, wind turbines do not occupy all of this land; they must be spaced approximately 5 to 10 rotor diameters apart (a rotor diameter is the diameter of the wind turbine blades). Thus, the turbines themselves and the surrounding infrastructure (including roads and transmission lines) occupy a small portion of the total area of a wind facility." (implies that the only land affected is where the towers meet the ground and the widespread vertical presence of huge machines is trivial)

That line of thinking is directly contradicted by anti ANWR drilling activists who aren't self-deluded into thinking that access roads and total webbed acreage are trivial.

From https://wilderness.org/sites/default/files/legacy/2000-Acre-Hoax.pdf

Quote: "Oil corporations want you to think they are talking about one compact area of 2,000 acres. But, as with the North Slope oil fields west of the Arctic Refuge, development would sprawl over a very large area." (when those same acreage deceptions are used to rationalize wind turbines they're accepted as honest)

Anyone with an honest answer to this is welcome to email kj04170-windruse@yahoo.com before this post gets deleted for violating the International Wind Industry Code of Silence.

addendum: this was written 30 April 2016 by IP 98.232.166.24

Hello kj04170, this is only your personal opinion. See also Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines and Wikipedia:No original research. If you have a reputable source (i.e. saying that a modern wind turbine causes a tangible disturbance (i.e. infrasound or sth. else that can be quantified and measured) , you can try to bring this into the article or propose them here on this disku page. If you are a beginner I recommend the second. --Neun-x (talk) 04:50, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Pumped storage is not necessary for wind power

The article relies on this quote from a sourced paper written by a group of nuclear physicists: "Pump storage systems, needed for solar and wind energy, ...". The implication that wind energy needs a pump storage system such as pumped-storage hydroelectricity is sensational and the cited paper is being disputed within the field, per the cited source itself. I use the word 'sensational' because there are numerous sources documenting the existence of wind turbines that generate energy in the absence of a pump storage system. For example, the two first quoted sources in Wind power in Denmark document that in 2015 42.1% of Denmark's total electricity consumption came from wind turbines - and the flat country of Denmark has no pumped storage to speak of. New wind farms are being built all over the globe, typically without any mentioning of an associated pump storage system. As such I have removed the 'necessary' from the article. Lklundin (talk) 19:46, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't know whether any of Norway's hydroelectricity is pumped-storage, but you should be aware that Denmark uses a great deal of hydroelectricity from Norway, and also occasionally sells some (wind) power back at incredibly cheap prices. Denmark's power generation system would not work without the interconnectors to other countries.

Gravuritas (talk) 08:11, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Maybe http://energinet.dk/EN/El/Sider/Elsystemet-lige-nu.aspx ore other sites at http://energinet.dk deliver an answer to that question.

do you, Gravuritas, have figures to underpin your theory ? If the sold-back electricity is incredibly cheap, it would be an easy alternative to stop the windmills => no contribution margins on the one hand, no wear and tear on the other. --Neun-x (talk) 01:33, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

The need for an alternative to wind power when the wind ain't blowing is hardly a 'theory'- it's bleedin' obvious. http://www.dw.com/en/denmarks-wind-power-flowering-a-small-country-with-big-dreams-of-a-fossil-free-future/a-18398487

Gravuritas (talk) 09:02, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Literally, no more than any generator. No generator runs all the time; all of them need alternative sources.GliderMaven (talk) 14:48, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Your first sentence: wrong. Compare uptime of a gas power plant vs. a wind farm. Your second sentence: misleading and propagandistic. Compare uptime of gas power plant vs a wind farm.

Gravuritas (talk) 15:34, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

All generators need backup. Pumped storage is not *necessary* for wind power, any backup system works fine.GliderMaven (talk) 03:15, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Your first sentence: misleading, propagandistic, and now ignorant given that you've ignored the request to compare uptimes. Your second sentence- yes, but I'd already said that.

Gravuritas (talk) 08:41, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

The "Energy intensities, EROIs, and energy payback times of electricity generating power plants" paper by D. Weissbach et al has been rebutted in the literature. Pumped storage doesn't lose enough of the wind energy to significantly reduce the EROEI of wind power, and most of the energy anyway is not stored, it is used directly, and the energy needed to build pumped storage systems themselves is not particularly large (they have fast energy payback time).GliderMaven (talk) 10:27, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

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Who controls this article - the wind industry?

The first line of this article sets up a false premise by claiming the impacts are "relatively minor." It gives no context of how a major or minor impact is defined; carbon is all that matters now? Subjectively, one could claim that nothing really damages nature since "Man is part of nature," but that's anthropocentric bias.

The visual impact alone is bleak to environmentalists who haven't sold out to GreenTech interests. See: http://google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=wind+farm+mountains

Who could look at those photos, which represent under 1% of today's installed turbines w/many more planned, and claim that radical alterations of landscapes are pro-environment? One could also claim that oil rigs are beautiful.

Wind power is also dependent on fossil fuels and causes much of the same damage as logging and mining operations, with ugly towers left in place and no plans for reclamation. It's visually the worst thing ever put in the countryside where development was never expected. It's just too big and you can't use word-games to reduce that.

Another smug line in the article claims that only "bat enthusiasts" would be concerned about their mass slaughter via wind turbines, as if certain species are expendable. Night skies are increasingly tainted by eerie red lights, which aren't enough to keep bats safe.

Someone should balance this article by at least dropping the first sentence which many readers may dwell on. It's contradicted by other parts of the article, though the tone treats wind power as something we're compelled to pursue. Very smug.

Recommended reading: "Wind farms gone wild: Is the environmental damage justified?" http://www.swlg.org.uk/uploads/6/3/3/8/6338077/spwln_final_small.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.232.165.147 (talk) 04:26, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Comparison of bird mortality by other causes, especially cats.

While I find this page is in general more balanced than most pro-wind energy dismissals of bird mortality, I think the comparison to bird deaths caused by cats is largely inappropriate. This argument typically goes something like: sure wind turbines kill some birds, probably not that many but we don't really know and it's not really important, because your Felix and his ilk are responsible for 'billions' of bird deaths. First, the logical fallacy of dismissing a human-caused environmental impact by comparison to a more egregious human-caused impact -- the rational response would be because we are already killing so many birds by not controlling Felix, killing more (in a manner that does not change Felix's behavior) is ill-advised, as populations may fall below critical thresholds and react in non-linear ways to 'the straw that killed the camel's back', e.g. the passenger pigeon. This would be the analogous advice given by a health professional -- if an organ is already compromised, do not aggregate it further with relatively minor insults. But the far greater deception is in lumping raptors with the songbirds killed by cats. 'Birds' are a vastly diverse group, like mammals, and one can only imagine the incredulous response the shipping industry would generate if they dismissed the deaths of right-whales struck by cargo ships because, well, cats kill 'billions' of rodents. The coverage here is borderline in this regard. It would be fine to have a section about misrepresentation of bird deaths by the fossil industry and other enemies of wind power, but let's not fight lies with lies. Ridahoan (talk) 22:49, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree with your thinking. What edits do you suggest for a better coverage, with much less emphasis on cats? --Nigelj (talk) 08:17, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Heavily quoting Mr. Benjamin Sovacool who's by his own admission are very rough estimates purely to provoke discussion

The articles uses as sources [62]https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2012.01.074 which has very rough and heavily misleading figures

For example Mr Sovacool takes a single incident from an abandoned copper mine and draws the conclusion that “it is not uncommon for these pits to kill 300 birds per year” based on one event in a single year, then extrapolates and applies this across the board to the entire uranium mining industry throughout the world.

The following articles explains further what i mean:

https://atomicinsights.com/nukes-kill-more-birds-than-wind/ and https://atomicinsights.com/lorenzini-rebuts-sovacools-defense-of-nuclear-bird-kill-paper-as-weak/

I understand his article has been peer reviewed but should Wikipedia really be using sources that have huge error and justifying it by simply stating its "preliminary". Rk4000 (talk) 22:17, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Blight for Naught: Wind Turbines and the Rationalized Desecration of Nature

Anyone who insists industrial wind turbines are "clean and green" (or truly mitigating fossil fuels) is encouraged to read the results of this search: https://www.google.com/search?q=blight+for+naught

Such blatantly visible construction projects, bigger than anything else in rural areas, should not be allowed in the full context of environmental ethics. Even if wind turbines could magically replace fossil fuels (which they can't exist without) their ugliness and insidious noise should be enough to nix them on moral grounds.

Their only real purpose is to maintain unsustainable economies built on fossil fuels while occupying far more land (and ocean space) than ever before. How is that a "relatively minor" environmental impact? This Wikipedia article is controlled by authors who won't honestly criticize wind power. They list downsides but the first sentence erases them subjectively. The photos are pure propaganda, showing cows with a single distant turbine (industry favorite) and neglecting to show ruined mountaintops or 40,000 acres of spiked farmland. Such ruination will only grow as turbines multiply, so it's dishonest to portray their impacts as static, including how many birds and bats they'll kill.

http://google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=wind+turbines+mountains (no happy cows there)

Protecting nature's physical presence was once a primary goal of environmentalism and shouldn't be gone with the wind. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.190.118.93 (talk) 08:26, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Greater quantity of particulate matter pollution from wind

In comparison to the pollution produced by other energy sources, wind power emits a higher amount of particulate matter than that observed in other energy sources, such as natural gas.http://www.wind-energy-the-facts.org/en/environment/chapter-1-environmental-benefits/lca-in-wind-energy.html

RSBP conflict of interest?

As per the comment made here about the RSBP having a conflict of interest? http://barnardonwind.com/2013/02/15/how-significant-is-bird-and-bat-mortality-due-to-wind-turbines/ - "I am aware that organisations such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds strongly support wind power. I am also aware of the existence of, up until recently, RSPB Energy, a branch of this organisation dedicated to making money out of the sale of “ecological” electricity tariffs. Forgive me but, when I see conflicts of interest like this, I come over all cynical." -

As a side note, the article is much more neutral than it was before, as I read it ~2013. Well done to all!

11/27/17 comment:

The Audubon Society is at least being more honest: http://www.audubon.org/news/will-wind-turbines-ever-be-safe-birds

Many mainstream environmental groups continue to push the GreenTech agenda that anything appearing to reduce carbon is acceptable collateral damage for the "greater good," even if it hasn't been proved to help much. They are big on gestures, and big gestures they are!

A good critique of the new Green hypocrisy can be heard at: https://xenetwork.org/xe/episodes/episode-46-recovering-environmentalists/

This article should be deleted. It is reprehensible "green" propaganda. John2o2o2o (talk) 12:56, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Temperature

"Whilst turbines installed in water would have a cooling effect, the net impact on global surface temperatures would be an increase of 0.15 °C (0.27 °F)." I'm not a native speaker, but I understand cited article very differently. --109.81.215.237 (talk) 23:41, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Logarithmic bar chart may confuse

The preliminary data, from the above table during 2013, 'Causes of avian mortality in the United States, annual', shown as a bar graph, inclusive of a high nuclear-fission bird mortality figure that the author later recognized was due to a major error on their part.

The bird mortality chart has a logarithmic scale which at first glance suggests that perhaps around 6 times more birds are killed by cats than turbines, when the number is around 1 million times.

I understand that using a linear scale would make smaller numbers practically invisible. Would it be a sufficient compromise to use something similar to the ppm diagram which can show ratios of 7 or 8 orders of magnitude?

• 
  Visualisation of the distribution (by volume) of water on Earth
• 
  Visualisation of time units from 1 second to 1 average year of the Gregorian calendar

Cheers,
cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 12:40, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Visualization of the data in the table with each small cube denoting 10 000 deaths

 Done P.S. Please include @Cmglee: in your reply so I'm aware of it. Thanks!

References

Wordy Section about Birds - Thoughts

I am conflicted. The following is how I feel about the section about birds killed by wind power:

Pros of keeping the section:

• Very explanatory and (amazingly) without fluff.
• Deleting it would mean loss of a good, no, great in-depth summary of bird loss due to wind turbines from the whole of the internet
• Explanations are backed by not just a little, but rather significant evidence (importantly including admission of study-related flaws) to counteract the now-popular myth (thanks to the former president) that wind turbines kill an unthinkable number of birds.
  • The former president's quote which fanned the myth's flames, if you are interested: "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 …" (src: Snopes)

Cons of keeping the section:

• Very verbose, tough to read through
• Makes scrolling through the article difficult, though not horrible

JimBob128 (talk) 07:30, 7 June 2022 (UTC)JB

Bird death rate table is unacceptable for Wikipedia standards

The impact on wildlife/birds section lists data in the table and a graphic, which is taken from the paper "The avian benefits of wind energy: A 2009 update". The article quotes on this data that "... the study already tells you the numbers are very rough estimates that need to be improved. I even explicitly state this, as well, in the conclusion: 'the rudimentary numbers presented here are intended to provoke further research and discussion,' in the abstract 'this paper should be respected as a preliminary assessment,' and in the title of the study, which has the word 'preliminary' in it...you are correct that errors 1 and 2 are true..." Benjamin Sovacool, Benjamin Sovacool takes issue with Lorenzini's criticism of his work, Atomic Insights website, 11 July 2013.

As the referenced discussion shows, the data in Sovacools paper is largely flawed, and confronted with this, the author admits that his numbers are very rough estimates. However, presented in a Wikipedia table and graph, this is conveyed as reliable and accurate facts to the reader. This is unacceptable by Wikipedia's quality standards. As the section on birds is already very comprehensive, it doesn't hinge on the Sovacool study and doesn't necessarily require his numbers. Therefore, I suggest to remove the "very rough estimates" from the section and focus on known facts instead. If the study indeed "provokes further research and discussion" as intended, we will soon have more reliable numbers that we can use for the article. In the mean time instead of making this a truth-finding chapter, let's stay with well-established numbers here. --Geek3 (talk) 11:10, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Geek3 I think it would be great if you could shorten the bird section Chidgk1 (talk) 16:33, 20 September 2022 (UTC)